On Grandma's Porch Page 8

  I woke up on Christmas morning feeling not excitement, but dread. I felt as if my Daddy would never look at me the same way again. I was sure I had disappointed him beyond forgiveness.

  Sometime during the night Mama and Grandma had come in and taken the doll. That morning she was dressed in a beautiful blue gingham dress with a blue satin sash at the waist. She had been cleaned and her red haired brushed and arranged with tiny blue silk flowers. She was more beautiful than she was the Christmas morning that I received her.

  By the time I was dressed Daddy was ready and waiting for me in the old truck. In the back was a large red wagon filled with colorfully wrapped Christmas packages, a large ham, several sacks of groceries and containers of cakes and pies and candy.

  I walked slowly to the truck with Mandy held in the crook of my arm, being careful not to wrinkle her new clothes. It was very cold that morning and there were flurries of snow falling on the windshield of the truck. Even that didn’t lift my spirits. Daddy said nothing on the short drive to the Vines house.

  When we got to the mailbox, he pulled over and stopped.

  “We’ll have to walk from here,” he said. “It sleeted during the night and the driveway is probably pretty bad. Can’t take a chance on getting stuck.”

  I got out of the truck, still carrying Mandy. Daddy got the wagon out of the back and handed me a couple of things to carry. Then we set off toward the house.

  The road was frozen almost solid, and as Daddy pulled the red wagon it rattled along noisily. Snow fell against my face and I put Mandy under my coat so she wouldn’t be wet when we arrived. The pine trees that lined the driveway were frozen and heavy with sleet. I could hear the hiss of snow falling and the quiet murmur of wind in the pines.

  Here I was dragging along, feeling sorry for myself, not even realizing that I had gotten my wish. Christmas day was a white one. But as we walked in the quiet, just the two of us, through the tunnel of snow-covered evergreens, I felt my heart begin to fill with such gladness. I wanted to laugh and dance. It was the most beautiful Christmas morning I could ever remember.

  I glanced at Daddy and he smiled at me, his look sweet and loving. Apologetic, even. My eyes filled with tears and suddenly my heart felt as if it would burst from my chest.

  As we approached the house we could see smoke coming from the chimney.

  “I’m glad to see Mr. Romines got the wood here,” Daddy said. I could hear the relief in his voice.

  I nodded and smiled at him.

  “You okay, squirt?” he asked.

  “Yep,” I said, trying not to cry. His goodness and his sweetness were almost my undoing.

  Mr. Vines opened the door and his look when he saw the wagon and our gifts was one of quiet joy. But there was pain in his eyes too. He’d rather have provided all this for his children himself. I knew that, even as young as I was.

  “You shouldn’t have done all this, Mr. Rogers,” he said.

  “It’s Christmas, man,” Daddy said. “Glad to do it. There have been times when we barely had enough to get by. This year we have plenty and I’m glad to be able to help.”

  I had never been so proud of my daddy. He was right. He was doing the right thing the way he always did. I’d known it all along. But still I’d selfishly wanted to keep the doll for myself. I was glad my parents hadn’t allowed me to do that. I never would have understood what a joyful gift they were giving me that Christmas morning.

  Mrs. Vines was in one of the beds I’d seen in the living room. In the other was the little girl called Baby.

  Mr. Vines summoned the other children and they came noisily to gather around the beds. Mrs. Vines’ eyes were bright and shiny as she watched Daddy hand out packages from the wagon. When it was empty he pulled the handle around toward Matthew, the oldest boy.

  “This is yours, son,” Daddy said.

  “Wow,” Matthew whispered. “Always wanted a wagon,” he said.

  Daddy stepped back and looked at me. I smiled at him and stepped to the bed where Baby lay quietly, taking everything in.

  Her breathing was loud in the half-empty room.

  I pulled the doll from under my coat and handed it to Baby. She reached out for it eagerly and hugged it to her chest as a huge grin spread across her face. Then she held the doll out for her mother to see.

  “Yes, I see,” Mrs. Vines said. “What a pretty doll. She looks just like you, Baby.”

  Baby smiled.

  “Her name is Mandy,” I said, pointing to the doll.

  “Mandy,” Baby said. I think it was the first time I ever heard her speak.

  “That’s good, Baby,” I said laughing with her.

  “Mandy,” she said again, pointing to the doll. “Mandy,” she said, pointing to her own chest.

  All of us laughed. She was just so cute.

  “No, your name is Baby,” I said. “The doll is Mandy.”

  Mrs. Vines reached over and took her daughter’s tiny hand.

  “We can call her Mandy if she wants us to,” she said. “I guess it’s time she had a real name anyway—don’t you think so, Daddy?”

  “I guess so,” Mr. Vines said, his voice a little hoarse with emotion. He stepped to his little girl’s bedside. “You want to be called Mandy?” he asked.

  “Mandy,” she said, nodding.

  Mr. Vines looked at his wife and smiled and so just like that, Baby had a name.

  “We need to get home, Millie,” Daddy said. “Before the weather gets any worse.”

  The Vines children gathered around us, their eyes bright as they held their new toys. Mr. Vines placed more wood on the fire in the fireplace and the little red-haired girl snuggled in the bed with her doll tightly against her.

  As we said goodbye, I looked back and thought the old house seemed warm and alive for the first time since the family had moved in. I had never felt such peace and happiness in my life. It was that feeling of knowing that everything was right. That I had done something right and made someone happy.

  That Christmas morning my Dad taught me what it really means when you say it is ‘more blessed to give than to receive,’ reluctant though I was at first to accept that lesson.

  By the time we got back to the truck, I was freezing. I snuggled next to Daddy for the short ride home.

  We hurried into our warm, cozy house, and I’d never been more thankful for my home and family. Under the tree was a new doll for me, one with shining black hair and a beautiful bonnet with a fluffy black feather on it. There was also a red-metal cash register. When you pushed the keys it rang and the money drawer opened to reveal several shiny new quarters.

  “Let’s eat breakfast,” Mama said after we’d opened all our gifts.

  I was hungry; the house was filled with the delicious aroma of Christmas dinner, which would be ready later.

  “Sit down,” Grandma said to me when we went into the dining room. I thought there was an odd look on her face.

  I sat at my place while Grandma placed a buttered biscuit on my plate. Then Mama came in from the kitchen carrying an iron skillet. When she ladled chocolate gravy on my plate I must have looked shocked because they all laughed.

  “Well, try it,” Mama said. “See if it’s as good as Mrs. Vines’ chocolate gravy.”

  “I wasn’t sure I remembered how to make it,” Grandma added.

  I took a bite and closed my eyes.

  “It’s even better,” I said.

  They all laughed again and Daddy came around to hug me.

  “You did a good thing this morning, Millie. We’re all proud of you. I’m sorry if I hurt your feelings, but I knew that when you gave away something you loved, you would understand what Christmas is all about.”

  He was absolutely right. But I felt a little guilty accepting the compliment after the po
uty fit I’d had about the doll. Even though I couldn’t express it I was proud of myself too.

  That was the best Christmas I remember from my childhood. It was the year I learned the true meaning of that most holy day and I hope I never forget it.

  The little girl, Mandy, did make it through the New Year. Mrs. Vines had the baby—a healthy little girl. Mr. Vines’ arm healed and he worked part time at a sawmill until the family recovered from their rocky year. One day in early spring, just after school was out, their wagon pulled up in our yard, loaded with furniture and kids. They had come to say goodbye and to settle up with Grandma before going back to the White Oak Mountains where they could be near their families.

  I never knew what happened to Mandy, and that probably was a good thing. I always imagined her alive and well somewhere and as happy as she was that Christmas morning when she snuggled in the bed with her new doll with red hair.

  Remembering The 1960s

  Dressing up to go shopping, which was always downtown

  Wearing white gloves

  Wearing girdles because there were no pantyhose

  Helping your grandfather slop the hogs

  Watching your grandmother wring the neck of the chicken you later found fried on your plate

  Attending a church in the country and discovering the communion “wine” was actually wine, not grape juice!

  —Martha Crockett, Y’all Come

  Listening For Daddy

  by Debra Leigh Smith

  “People generally see what they look for and hear what they listen for.”

  —Harper Lee

  Daddy died on a bright, crystalline October morning about the time he should have been having his second cup of coffee. He should have been making his rounds at the big electronics plant north of Atlanta, where he was a supervisor. Someone else sipped his share of coffee that morning.

  Someone else checked the plant’s security cameras, and joked with the secretaries.

  Life went on, as he had always assured us that it would, and if he felt the least bit perturbed at the way the steady flow of energy swirled into the eddy he had claimed in our midst, he never mentioned it. I know, since I listened hard every time he whispered in my ear.

  I talked to him that morning after I got the news. We carried on conversations I told myself couldn’t be real. We talked again that afternoon, and that night, and the next day at the funeral home, and on the day of his burial. After the funeral, at the suburban Atlanta farm house Daddy and Mama had shared for all of the thirty years of their marriage, Daddy and I watched Uncle Luther settle into Daddy’s rocking chair with a plate of potato salad and fried chicken on his wide lap. The house was full of people, but Uncle Luther filled the whole porch all by himself.

  Uncle Luther’s special suit, the one he had worn at the other funerals the family had had that year—it had been a boom year for dying—was damp across the immense bottom of his polyester pants, and it left sweat marks on the wooden slats every time he stood up. Not that he stood up often.

  Good lord, Daddy whispered distinctly. I’ll have to re-glue the supports.

  “No, mother will have to do that, now,” I told him.

  Daddy could no longer be held responsible for the flotsam and jetsam of life. We would have to muddle along on our own.

  “You need to eat somethin’,” Uncle Luther admonished me, as the rocking chair creaked on the concrete porch where my sister and I had grown up bouncing on a rocking horse Daddy had made in his shop. “Your Daddy wouldn’t want nobody to go hungry.”

  I just want old Luther to get his fat butt out of my rocker, Daddy whispered.

  I turned away, hiding a smile. Maybe I was losing my mind. There I was, a grown woman, a marketing executive for a cell phone company. I wore expensive dress-suits and drove a Beamer. My home was worth a small fortune; it overlooked the Chattahoochee River. My purse contained a cell phone, a Blackberry, and an iPod. I was a success. A modern Southern gal. A wireless wonder. I shouldn’t be talking to ghosts.

  I walked inside the big, friendly, whitewashed house and went over to my husband. He looked handsome and somber by a window done in some funky blue drapes Mama had bought at Wal-Mart. I’m not cheap, she liked to say. I’m just rather save my money for eBay. Mama played the on-line auctions with the zeal of a mule trader at a livestock barn. She bought and sold an endless stream of Hummel figurines. They filled the living room bookcases. When we sat in that room, it felt like a stadium full of tiny porcelain people were watching us.

  Tim hugged me and kissed my forehead. “Your mother asked me to run over to the minister’s house and give him a check and a pecan pie.”

  “How much money?”

  “One hundred dollars.” He frowned. “Are you sure this is the way things are supposed to be handled? It seems odd to tip the minister and give him pie.”

  “When I was growing up, Grandpa killed two hens for the minister who preached Grandma’s funeral. At least Mama didn’t ask you to execute any livestock.”

  He sighed, once again a Yankee on the outside looking in. “I’ll be back.”

  I watched him nod to Uncle Luther and stride off the porch, down a fieldstone walkway bordered with red-tinged nandinas, to our Beamer. He was so . . . alive.

  Suddenly I thought, Tim is going to die some day, and so

  am I.

  I had lost my childhood faith in immortality.

  I couldn’t cry over that obvious fact; the pain went beyond that. I stood numbly in the tiny, Hummel-lined living room, looking at the flowered sofa with its cat-scratch scars. I looked at the Wal-Mart fake-damask drapes and the hook rugs and the chintz material on the easy chairs. I had no idea why nothing looked the same, but I was struck with an overwhelming feeling that a filter had been taken off the world and I was experiencing it like a blind woman just given sight.

  Suddenly Daddy’s voice was there again, no place special, running through my mind smoothly and distinctly, as if it had been beamed in from his TV remote, which lay atop the satellite guide he had consulted faithfully during every football season.

  It’s all right, he whispered gruffly. Look after your mother. Sit in my chair. Keep the faith.

  The words popped into my mind in short bursts like that, firm and comforting, the drawl on cue, the little catch between sentences not to be mistaken for the voice of anyone else. Daddy had one of those deep, hound-dog-eared Southern voices, slicked back with enough Atlanta sophistication to keep the vowels glued tight. When I was little, I teased him and said he sounded like Foghorn Leghorn, the cartoon rooster.

  Ah say, do tell? he boomed.

  I went to his recliner and touched it reverently. I tried to remember all I’d ever read about grief syndromes. Did other people hear voices? My third cousin, Veda Jane, from Blue Ridge, who did hard drugs at the University of Georgia and has never been the same since, claims John Lennon talks to her. Imagine that.

  “Daddy?” I ventured out loud. “Are you really there? Is one of the Beatles with you?”

  I’m nearby. I’ll be here for a little while, if you need me.

  I sat down limply in his chair. “Need you? Of course I need you. My future children will never know their grandfather. You and I had just gotten to be friends. I’d finally grown up. I finally understood all the lessons you were trying to teach me. Don’t go away now. Come back. Come back.”

  Silence. That was the only time I crossed the perimeter of dignity and realistic hope, and I regretted it immediately. Daddy would never come back, not to his garden, not to his chickens or his new four-doored pickup truck with the CD player, or even to the sewer pipe he’d left unmended in the back yard three days ago, before the heart attack.

  I’ll always be here, he finally answered. Always. In the muscadine grapes every fall and the first jonquils every spring. In the way
you smile and in your sister’s blue eyes.

  And then his voice faded away, as if someone had changed the frequency, and I was left with a lot of buzzing mental gibberish.

  “People are beginning to leave,” my sister said from the doorway. Gwen dragged herself to the couch and sat down. “Thank God.” She looked down at the tops of her slender, high-heeled alligator boots. My sister is a scrappy little redhead who works as a publicist for several obscure country-western bands. Bands with names like The Booty Wranglers and Cowboyz. “I keep expecting to see Daddy come in the door,” she added. “Remember when we were little and . . . “

  “Don’t say that. Please don’t. Not yet. I don’t want to put Daddy in the category of, ‘Remember when.’”

  Gwen picked a piece of fuzz on her embroidered denim skirt. “I feel like I’m about ten years old. I don’t feel twenty-eight. Do you feel thirty?”

  “I feel . . . grown. We can’t pretend to be anybody’s little girls after our daddy dies. We’re on your own. Our parents are a psychological firewall that stands between us and death—you know, when they’re gone we become the next generation in line. I understand what that really means, now.”

  Gwen looked perturbed by the thumbnail philosophy, and I gazed at her sadly for a moment. I left the living room and wandered into the little pink bedroom she and I had shared as kids. In the closet I unpacked Black Beauty, Grimm’s Fairy Tales, Charlotte’s Web, A Child’s Book of Verse.

  Dusty memories floated off the book jackets into the stale closet air. Dad throwing a softball. Dad holding a frightened horse while the vet squirted medication on its thrush-infected foot. Dad coming home from the office, white-shirted and official, his string tie the only clue that he secretly imagined himself to be John Wayne.

  Dad grinning over the summer-Saturday ritual of grilled steaks, his balding head still sweaty from his Saturday labors. He smelled of new-cut lawn and tractor grease and Borax industrial strength hand soap. “Little Injuns get little steaks.” He said that almost every Saturday of every summer of our youth. And every Saturday, we giggled.