A Parchment of Leaves (16 page)

“His granddaddy hid out during the Removal. Seen a lot of his people forced out. I guess them tales kept getting handed down to Daddy and he didn't want his children to be in danger of that happening again. He wanted us to fit in.”

“I had a friend down in Tennessee that would sometimes speak to me in Cherokee, just because I liked to hear it,” Aidia said in a dreamy way, like she was drifting off in thought. “She didn't talk like that much, though. I couldn't understand why. It's so pretty to hear, like music.”

“When Daddy was little, teachers would wash his mouth out with soap for speaking Cherokee,” I said.

Aidia shook her head. “Things like that make me mad as fire,” she said. “Oh, it burns me up!”

“Well, I could tell you all about my people,” Esme said. I realized that Aidia and I had been leaving everybody else out of the conversation. This was Esme's way to join back in. “My papa used to tell me about Ireland.”

Aidia acted as if she hadn't even heard Esme. She put her hand into Aaron's and intertwined their fingers. “My past is forgot now,
though—because I have a new family, and I already feel a part of you all.”

“It's hard, moving off from your people,” I said. I stood up and started in on taking everybody's plates.

“Every girl's got to do that sometime,” Esme said. She tore a biscuit in half and put two big pats of butter on it, then filled her mouth.

“Cherokee women usually stay with their family. That's one thing I was taught,” I said. “That's why it was that much harder for me.”

“Well, I didn't care a bit to leave,” Aidia said. “My mama's been dead nigh on eight year and my daddy wasn't worth a dime. Laid drunk all the time. Only thing I'll miss is my cousins.”

I raked the food off the plates and didn't let my eyes meet anyone else's. Aidia had a lot to learn. Esme and her boys did not make such personal announcements, and their silence made this fact clear, enough so that Aidia hushed, even though she seemed to have more to say.

“Hey, Little Bit,” Aaron said, poking Birdie in the ribs. “Let's go look at the stars.”

“No, Aaron, it's too cold out,” Esme said. She looked tired as she set and sipped her coffee. Birdie begged and pulled on my dress tail.

“Winter's night is when the stars are the brightest,” Aaron said. “Come on, Mommy, get you a quilt and let's go out and look.”

Esme laughed at Aaron. I could see the joy in her face, and it made me glad. She had not been happy since Aaron left, and now she was whole again. He run into the bedroom and brought out a quilt to drape around her shoulders, then wrapped Birdie up until only her face showed. He was still like a little child at heart. “Let's go, baby.”

When they had gone, Aidia jumped up from the table and stood so close to me that her breath was hot on my ear. I moved back a little but tried not to make her aware of it. She looped her arm through mine, which was awkward, since I was bent over, wiping the table off with a soapy rag.

“I know we're going to be friends,” Aidia said. “Always had a mess of brothers, and I've wanted a sister for so long.”

I could see then that Aidia was just like Aaron: she thought that she was on a great adventure now. Little did she know that this adventure would mean working from daylight to dark, popping out two or three children, and listening to Aaron's constant dreams. I didn't know what kind of life Aidia had left behind in East Tennessee, but it seemed to me that the girl had got married only to leave. For a moment I wanted to ask Aidia if she truly loved Aaron but, thinking better of it, did not.

A
hint of spring arrived no more than a week after Aaron did, as if he had brought it on his coattails from the east. One morning I went out onto the porch, and the sky was white and free of tarnish. Birdcall filled the mountainside like music had been let loose on the world. All up the ridge, the trees were tinted red by the buds that were beginning to get fat. It was only March, but spring would come early that year. I breathed in the scent of morning and felt like I was taking in the aroma of an old memory, like the smell of Saul's skin or Mama's coffee. Spring
was
a distant memory, for the year before had been the longest of my life.

I was thinking of hitching up my horse and riding over to Redbud when I heard Serena's car making its way up the rough holler road. The Model T strained to climb through the mudholes and gullies that the season's snows had cut into the dirt. The motor whined and groaned, gears scratched against one another. I didn't know of any other women who drove cars, but Serena set there with her arm propped on the door as if there was nothing to it. A cigarette hung
from her lips the way a man might smoke. She turned off the car but didn't get out. The car took a long time dying with a great block of smoke that belched out onto the air like gunshot.

“Hidy!” Serena said, smiling. She was always happy, now that Whistle-Dick had gone. She hadn't heard from him, and seemed glad of it. She kept her arm on the window and sucked on the cigarette. She talked without taking it from her mouth. “What are you waiting on, girl?”

“What in the world are you talking about?” I said, and walked across the yard. A short breeze passed down the holler and kicked at the hem of my skirt.

“I told you as soon as it got pretty weather, I'd drive you over to Redbud and look at your daddy for you,” she said. “Belle took Luke to town with her, and I'm lonesome.”

“We'll take the horse. It'll get us there quick as this old thing.”

“Don't talk bad about her, now,” Serena said, and patted the side of the car. “Damn it, I don't never get to drive this thing. I'm sick of horses. Go get Birdie and let's go over there. It's perfect for a car ride today.”

By the time I had got Birdie fixed up and ready to go, I come out onto the porch to find Aidia leaned against the car, talking to Serena.

“Look what a day, baby,” I told Birdie while I put a cap on her head. “It's springtime out.”

“I love the springtime,” Birdie said, sounding very old. She looked up at the sky, and her eyes widened, as if she was amazed at its lack of grayness. I wondered if little children had long memories at all. Could Birdie even remember springtime? She was only four. “What do I have to wear this old cap for?”

“They's still winter in the air,” I said. I took no chances on Birdie getting sick, as I knowed that such pretty days led many a child to take the croup.

Down by the car, Aidia let out a high laugh. She leaned on the hood, watching Serena crank the engine. She was probably not as
shocked by Serena's rough language and straight talk as I had been on first meeting her. Aidia was from a much bigger town than Black Banks, and I could tell that she had seen more of the world than I ever would. It was obvious by the way she leaned on the car, by the confidence in her walk. There was a way she had in doing every little thing that made me feel like she had studied other people to learn how to look like a big shot—the way she shook her curls about her face and cast her eyes down in the right parts of conversations. She had never even met Serena before, and they were talking like old friends.

“Well, I guess you all've introduced yourselves,” I said as I climbed into the car.

Serena blew out twin streams of smoke from her nose and kissed Birdie on top of her head.

“I'm so glad to meet somebody else. A friend of Vine's is a friend of mine. I love her to death,” Aidia said to Serena, as if I wasn't setting right there.

“She's a good one,” Serena said, and winked at me.

“Hey, where you all going?” Aidia said. I could only see half of her face through the window, and it struck me that Aidia had on lipstick. I would never have even dreamed of wearing lipstick, much less getting up in the morning and putting it on for no reason whatsoever. I couldn't get over the way she talked, either. I had never used the word
hey
before in my life, but Aidia said that all the time.

“Over to see my daddy,” I said. “Serena's a midwife, and I want her to look at him for me. She could be a doctor if she took the notion.”

“Oh, Lord, could I go with you all?” Aidia asked. “I can't stand to set in that house with Esme on such a fine day.”

“Why, yeah,” I said, but I didn't really want her to go. I would have enough on my mind once we got to Redbud, and I didn't take to having to entertain someone once we got there. Still, I knowed what it was like to set in that old house all day long, and I couldn't
blame her for wanting to get away for a while. “You ought to go tell Esme, though. And ask her if she wants to come.”

Aidia run up the hill to Esme's like a child who has to go on every trip to the candy store. Serena turned her head very slowly and looked me in the eye for a long moment before I finally asked her what was the matter.

“Lord have mercy, Vine,” Serena said, smoothing her bangs back out of her eyes. “You never told me how much she favored you.”

I looked up to where Aidia was running back down the hill. She had gotten her purse and held it tight in one hand as she watched the ground in front of her.

“Do you think she does?”

“Hell, yes,” Serena said. “It's a sight how much you all look alike. Surely to God that ain't why he's got her.”

“She's just dark skinned is all. Her people are Melungeons. You one of them people that think all dark-skinned people favor.”

Serena tapped the gas pedal twice. “If you say so.”

S
ERENA DROVE AROUND
the curves of Buffalo Mountain so fast that I sank my nails into the seat cushion. When we would meet the steepest, most winding part of the mountain, Serena mashed down the gas that much harder.

“You better slow down,” I said. Used to be I would have enjoyed this, but I had a baby to be concerned about. “We'll roll right off the side of this mountain. Looks like a big drop-off to me.”

“I thought you said my old car wouldn't run fast,” Serena said, and laughed.

Aidia rode in the rear seat of the car but spent the whole trip with her arms folded on the back of the front seat, talking to me and Serena. Birdie had begged to climb into the back with Aidia, and I had let her because Aidia always managed to keep her entertained, but now Birdie sat staring out the window at the trees passing by. Aidia was deep in conversation with Serena—a conversation that seemed to fly right past my ears. I didn't pay a lick of attention to
what they were saying, but I knowed it was met with a lot of nodding on Serena's part and a constant stream of high giggles from Aidia.

I found that I could look right at Birdie from the mirror attached to my side of the car. I loved to watch her when she was being still like this, when she was being so quiet. I liked to wonder what she was thinking about. Did children ponder the future, and measure the amount of happiness in their lives? Birdie looked out at the passing mountains as if she had never seen such sights. She barely took the time to blink. The rushing wind kicked through Serena's window, and the air slid up Birdie's forehead and knocked her bangs around. I felt myself smiling at the sight of my own little girl, acting so big as she sat back there. But all at once I felt a sense of grief that I could not put my finger on. I could not stand the thought of Birdie sitting there alone, being ignored by Aidia as she jabbered and tried to impress Serena. I felt like hiking my leg over the seat and climbing right into the back, where I could put my arm about Birdie's shoulders and comment on things as they passed.

“Ain't that right, Vine?” Serena said with a little punch to my arm.

“What?”

“I said, you've got to train a man to the way you want him,” Serena said with a wild smile. “Ain't that right?”

I kept my eyes on Birdie for a moment longer, then turned my head to Aidia. “That's why Serena's man left her,” I said, and Aidia let herself collapse against the backseat as if this was the funniest thing she had ever heard. As she fell back, the wind caught her in a funny way that caused her skirt to fly way up, showing bruised knees and a flash of white panties. She wasn't even wearing a slip.

“I'm telling the truth, though,” Serena said when Aidia had settled her arms across the back of the seat again. “I never did let Whistle-Dick raise his hand to me. He did one time, and I took a skillet and knocked his brains out.”

Aidia did not laugh at this. Her big eyes growed bigger. “You never!” she gasped.

“I sure as hell did,” Serena said. She cranked up her window real
fast and nudged the can of tobacco across the seat with the tips of her fingers. “Roll me one, will you, Vine?”

“What are you'uns talking about, anyway?” I asked, and pulled a rolling paper from the dispenser. “Has Aaron offered to whup you?”

“He raised his hand to me,” Aidia said. She laid the side of her heart-shaped face on one arm. “Drawed his fist back on me—you know. But he ain't never hit me yet.”

I didn't look up from rolling the cigarette. It was clear to me by the quaver in Aidia's voice that he had done just that.

“Well, don't let it get started. I growed up in that,” Serena said, and looked over to see if I was finished yet. “Seen my mommy's brains beat out every day of her life. Women take too much.”

Aidia's mouth tightened up, like she had just eaten something sour, or vile. “I won't take it,” Aidia said.

For a long minute, nobody said anything else. “Well, let's not talk about things like that,” I said. “Look at this pretty day.” I put more happiness into my voice than I really felt, but I sure didn't want to talk about Aaron and Aidia's marriage. The less I knowed about that, the better off I would be. “Won't you sing something, Serena?”

“I don't want to hurt Aidia's ears,” Serena said.