Child of the Mountains (19 page)

Uh-oh. I figured I knowed what was a-coming.

“I got a call at the office from the hospital. They said they thought you should know what happened. Nurse Chapel stopped by BJ’s ward early this morning to check on the kids. All of them were still asleep. When she got to BJ’s bed, she thought for sure she saw something moving under the covers down at the foot of the bed, below BJ’s feet. She pulled off the covers, and apparently screamed bloody murder, ‘Snake! Snake! Snake!’

“All the staff in the hallway come running into the ward. The kids all woke up screaming because her screaming scared them. BJ started shouting, ‘Don’t hurt Germy! Don’t hurt Germy!’ Nurse Chapel ran out of the room long before the janitor came in to get the snake. BJ held Germy under his pajama top, still yelling at everyone not to hurt the snake. He started crying and coughing. An administrator came in and said they would let BJ take the snake off the property and turn it loose, to get him settled down.”

We all laughed so hard we was a-crying by that time. I
thought BJ should be right proud that he kept Germy for three days afore Nurse Chapel found him.

BJ told me all about it when he comed home from the hospital. He said Nurse Chapel could of won herself a trophy at a clogging competition when she saw Germy, the way she danced around, barely letting her feet touch the floor.

BJ got to ride in a little cart with the janitor to turn Germy loose. Him and the janitor got to be good friends, talking about the snake the janitor had when he was a boy. He also knowed all about motors and told BJ how the cart worked. They found a great home for Germy with lots of tall grass, a little pond, and good-tasting Ohio mice for dinner. BJ said it was a good thing, because Germy was probably getting mighty hungry. Germy didn’t like that mystery meat any better than them kids did.

The best thing, BJ told me, was that Nurse Chapel got herself transferred to another hospital that just had adults for patients. He never had to see her again.

After saying good-bye to Ears, I kept thinking about BJ and his snake as I walked to Uncle William’s house. All at once I heard laughing and figured out that the noise comed from me. It surprised me. I ain’t heard myself laugh like that for a long time.

But I sure caught it good from Aunt Ethel Mae when I walked in the door.

“Lydia, you should have been here over half an hour ago. Have you been out playing with that smelly dog again
and me here with a sick headache worrying about you? You might get rabies from that mutt. And who knows where his mouth has been. Dogs wipe theirselves with their tongues, you know.…”

On and on she went. Ain’t no one going to make you change your mind about a kindred spirit, though. I walked over to her whilst she still jabbered away about poor old Ears and kissed her on the cheek. She hushed up and got all wide-eyed and slack-jawed. Then she reached her hand up and touched where I had kissed her.

I smiled at her and walked to my room. I could feel her eyes a-following me all the way.

T
HURSDAY
, F
EBRUARY 4, 1954

I never understood what folks meant when I heard them say, “No good deed goes unpunished.” But I think I understand now. Today I tried to do a good deed and my whole life won’t never be the same again.

Aunt Ethel Mae always keeps everthing neat and clean where people can see—and that’s most of this little house. But she also has herself what she likes to call junk drawers. They’s full of most everthing you can think of. Them drawers sure be hard to open. You have to poke your fingers inside and scoot stuff around to pull them out. And then when you try to close them, stuff spills out on the floor and you have to scoot everthing around again and shove hard to finally get them junk drawers shut.

When I got home from school today, Aunt Ethel Mae had one of them bad headaches. She was in bed with a cold washcloth on her head. “Lydia,” she called to me real feeble-like from her bedroom, “I been sick all day and couldn’t pull myself out of bed to do the ironing. Do you think you could be a good girl and help me out with it?”

I had me a bunch of homework and was glad she couldn’t see me roll my eyes. I just said sure, put my books on my bed, and commenced to sorting the laundry basket after I put a stew on the stove for supper. I ironed the shirts, trousers, dresses, and blouses first to get them hard clothes out of the way. Then I ironed the skirts and hung all the clothes in the bedrooms. I saved the cotton napkins and Sunday tablecloth for last. When they was pressed and folded, I went to put them away in the little buffet that’s under the window in the living room.

I needed to put the napkins and tablecloth in the bottom drawer, but the top drawer stuck out some with stuff pouring out of it like paper molasses. Try as I might, I couldn’t get the stuff shoved back in to close the drawer. So I decided to pull it out and set it on the floor. I figured I could get rid of any trash and try to sort the rest of it so I wouldn’t have to keep fighting it any time I needed to put things away. I thought I might as well take out the bottom drawer and sort it, too.

When I pulled out the bottom drawer, I saw a envelope taped to the back of the buffet. The envelope and the tape was yellow, like they been hanging there with no one seeing them for years. I started to reach for the envelope,
but then I pulled my hand back. I thought of Gran saying, “Curiosity killed the cat.” But I knowed that Hessie lived after being curious about most everthing. Besides, I figured no one would ever know. I was as drawed to that envelope as Eve was to the apple.

I reached my hand out again. I wish I had recollected the story we heard tell of in Mr. Hinkle’s class when we studied mythology. We read about a lady named Pandora. She opened a box that changed everthing in the world, and not in a good way. As soon as I gently rubbed my finger behind that tape to loosen it, I had commenced to open Pandora’s box.

The envelope wasn’t sealed. The flap was tucked instead, so I figured it was safe to look at what was inside. Then I could stick the envelope to the buffet again when I finished. I pulled out the paper and set the envelope on the floor aside me.

The paper was folded in thirds. Nothing was wrote on the back. When I unfolded it, a picture of a woman fell out. I glanced at it and laid it aside. Then I read what was wrote on the paper, and my heart stopped. The whole world stopped. It was a birth certificate from the State of West Virginia. And there was my name. Well, almost my name. And my birth date. But not my mother’s and father’s names.

The name on the birth certificate said
Lydia Jane Garton
—not
Lydia Jane Hawkins
. The birth date:
March 15, 1942
. Father’s name:
William Stanley Garton
—my uncle’s name and Gran’s last name. Mother’s name:
Helen
Jane Garton
. I didn’t know who that woman could be. It sure ain’t Aunt Ethel Mae. And it sure ain’t my mama.

I picked up the picture again. It didn’t have no name or date on it. The woman smiled at me from the picture—a nice smile. She was pretty in a gentle way. I couldn’t tell the color of her hair or eyes on account of the picture being black-and-white, but they looked dark. Her hair hung down in long curls around her shoulders. And I saw she had freckles—soft little spots that seemed to make her beauty real special, not like the beauty other folks have.

No one else in the family has freckles but me. Tears runned down my face. Was my mama not my mama? What could this mean?

I heard a car parking in front of the house and knowed it was my uncle.

I stuffed the birth certificate and picture back in the envelope. I tried to stick the envelope to the back of the buffet, but the tape wouldn’t stick no more. I smoothed out the stuff in the drawers the best I could and shoved them in the buffet. Then I slid the envelope behind the elastic in my skirt and hid it under my blouse, just as I heard my uncle opening the back door. I stepped into the kitchen, picked up the spoon, and stirred the stew as he stepped into the kitchen.

“William, is that you, sweetheart?” Aunt Ethel Mae called even more feeble than she did to me. “Come give me a kiss after you clean up, dear.” Uncle William rolled his eyes just like I had. He took off his work boots and dropped them on the mat at the door. He took off his
dirty socks and put them in his pants pocket. Then he dropped his lunch bucket and thermos on the kitchen table, trudged to the bathroom to take a quick shower to get rid of the coal dust, trudged into the bedroom to give Aunt Ethel Mae her kiss, and listened to her complain about her headache—or at least pretended to listen.

I breathed a sigh of relief and started spooning the stew into three bowls. The warm salty smell of stew makes me hungry most times, but not tonight. My stomach was too balled up. I poured milk and coffee, cut some bread, got out the butter and jam, and set the table for Uncle William and me. I dished up some peaches for dessert. Then I made up a tray for Aunt Ethel Mae and took it to her.

When I sat down at the table to eat supper with Uncle William, the envelope rubbed against me, making me itch. I worried that Uncle William might notice it bulging under my blouse and maybe worried just a little that he
wouldn’t
see it. But he brought the
Daily Mail
to the table with him. Uncle William read that newspaper the whole time he was eating and didn’t even look at me once. When he finished eating, he grunted, “Good stew, Lydia,” got up from the table, turned on the radio in the living room, sprawled hisself out on the couch, let out a big belch, fell asleep, and commenced to snoring.

I went to pick up the tray from Aunt Ethel Mae. “Come here and sit on the bed,” she whimpered like a pup. “Tell me about your day, Lydia.” I sat down with the envelope making my blouse stick out like it wanted to be noticed. But Aunt Ethel Mae didn’t see nary a thing.

I knowed how this would go. It’s like Aunt Ethel Mae is always trying to find her way in one of them houses of mirrors they have at fairs. No matter where she looks, she only sees herself. “School was fine,” I said, not looking her in the eye.

“I recollect when I was your age …,” she said, looking out the little window. And then on and on and on she talked.

When she finally stopped to take a breath, I said, “Well, I guess I best finish the dishes and get to my homework.” I figured she had got her talking out of her system. She let me leave.

Uncle William sat on the couch crocheting a red, white, and blue afghan. I ain’t sure what he done with them afghans now that Mama is in prison. Maybe he took them to work and gived them away. I feel right certain that he wouldn’t tell them miners he be the one that crocheted them. I also reckon that any of them miners that made fun of Uncle William would hurt pretty bad for a few days. Maybe Aunt Ethel Mae gived them to her church. Iffen she did, I bet she bragged that she made them. I sure wasn’t going to ask him about it.

I stood by the couch and watched him wiggle them big needles back and forth for a couple of minutes, but he never looked up. Part of me wanted to talk to him about what I found. But the biggest part was too afeared.

As I cleaned up the kitchen, I wished I could wash away that birth certificate just as easy as I washed the dirt offen them dishes.

I kept a-trying to sort it all out while my hands was busy with the dishes. Iffen that birth certificate is real, this is the way I worked it out. Mama and Daddy is my aunt and uncle. BJ is my cousin and not my brother. Gran and Gramps was still my grandparents when they was alive. Uncle William is my real daddy and Aunt Ethel Mae is my stepmother. That last one was a real scary thought. And what happened to my real mama?

I felt as empty as the jam jar I washed out. All that I knowed about myself was gone. My tears added to the dishwater. I understood then about how Aunt Ethel Mae felt with her sick headaches. I opened the cabinet and got out the bottle of aspirins. I wondered what would happen iffen I took all of them. But I took out one little pill and swallowed it with a glass of water.

Gran always told me I whizzed out of Mama like a pellet from a shotgun—real easy. Mama told me when I came to be, I was her only star in a dark, dark sky. I recollect them telling me that as clear as iffen it happened today. Why did they lie to me? I felt this anger come up inside me like hot, red lava from one of them volcanoes that Mr. Hinkle showed us a filmstrip about. I wanted to let it spew out over everone.

I had to know. Somebody had to tell me the truth. As afeared as the thought made me, I knowed that one person had to be Uncle William. When I fixed Uncle William’s lunch for tomorrow, I filled his thermos with coffee and the bottom container of his heavy metal lunch bucket with water. I wrapped two tuna fish salad sandwiches in
wax paper and tucked them and a apple in the middle container. I wrapped a piece of blackberry pie for the top container. I also folded the envelope with the birth certificate in half, making sure I didn’t fold the picture. I wrapped it in wax paper and put it underneath the pie. Aunt Ethel Mae once told me coal miners always eat dessert first in case something bad happens to them. I wanted to make sure Uncle William seen that there envelope afore he had one bite to eat.