Keeper of Keys (2 page)

"Do I?" was her response and she offered nothing else and I never asked again.

"…this child that's coming need to have a special name, I said. A name that will make people stand up and take notice of him or her. Something that rings out, like the bells of St. Patrick's Cathedral."

"Your daddy, well he had a plain name too and little imagination."

She would laugh then, a hearty Alice laugh that made men smile and women wonder.

"Well, he said, let's call her Bell. Can you believe that? Bell is just as old and plain as Alice! Men have no right at all naming babies, none at all."

She would laugh again and ask me if I wanted bangs. I always did.

"Well I picked up a book one day. Someone had left it out in the hall on the ledge near the mailboxes. It was battered old book with a picture of a beautiful green mountain and the prettiest blue water I had ever seen in my life. It was a picture of Hawaii!"

She would get excited then and have to put down the straightening comb, because her hands would shake at that part and I already had two tiny brown marks on the back of my neck from the times she told the story, got excited and forgot herself.

"Hawaii. Well I'd never really thought much about traveling, you know planes and all. Money and things. But I took the book because I thought I might like to paint that picture of the green mountain and blue water.

And when I picked it up you just started moving around in my belly like one of them hula dancers. You know the ones with the grass skirts and the flowers around their necks?

Well I said, Alice, there must be something special about this book 'cause this baby is acting like it wants to get here now!"

I always got excited during that part of the story. I had to turn around and face her, because even though Alice smiled all of the time, she did more than smiled when she told this story, she glowed.

"Well I didn't even get a chance to set up my paints and things, you were just going to town inside of me and all I could do is sit down and wait for you to calm down.

So I did and while I was waiting, I started flipping through the book and reading about all of those beautiful Islands - more than 300 hundred of them! Black sand, white sand. Volcanoes, coconuts, pineapples! Oh, all sorts of wonderful things.

And then I read a story about a volcano that erupted back in the 1800's and spewed lava all over an island that wasn't no bigger than Queens. But this island was special because it held the original keys to the palace of the first king of Hawaii."

Her voice dropped an octave or two, building the drama.

"The volcano erupted to everyone's surprise because they all thought it was just a mountain. Just a plain 'ole mountain!

It happened so quickly that no one was able to get into the temple to save the kings keys.

Amazingly, everyone on the island got away unharmed. Not one person was hurt or killed. Not one. It was just amazing."

And mama was amazed, I could tell by the way her eyes widened.

"The natives believed that the volcano got mad because no one recognized it as a volcano and so to teach them a lesson, it erupted and took away the only thing that made their island special; the kings keys."

My eyes would be just as wide as her's by then, not because it was a mystical tale, but because my favorite part was coming up.

"So the natives named the volcano Kai…"

"…Keeper of keys!" I would shout out and finish the story for her.

"Yes, Kai keeper of keys." Alice would say and then cover me in kisses.

Chapter Three

But that wasn't the memory that moved me off of the railroad tracks. It was the memory of the last time I saw her alive. The last time our hands touched, the kiss she planted on my cheek and the pink lips she left there, the way she waved good-bye and the soft folds her white skirt made when the summer wind blew around us.
"Here," She said and stuffed a dollar bill in my hand.

"Oh she don't need no money Alice," My grandmother had fussed. I was going to Georgia to spend the summer with my grandparents. I was ten years old.

"It's a special dollar Kai," Alice said ignoring her mother's huffing. "You get to Sandersville and you buy whatever you like sweetie." Alice said and pulled me to her again. It was going to be hard for her, for both of us. We had never been apart, not like that.

"Okay mom."

I was so excited, it was my first time on a plane. I had a seat by the window, my Pan Am wings pinned securely to my chest and my special dollar clutched tightly in my hand. My stomach dropped when the plane tilted its nose to the heavens and I think I squealed like a mouse, but my eyes never left the window or the blue and white sky we sailed through.
"It looks like the sky in mommy's pictures," I told my grandfather, who was sitting beside me. "And the one she painted on the ceiling and the pipes!" 
Alice was close to thirty and had never been high above the world and swallowed by the sky, but she'd gotten it just right. The piercing cobalt sky that lay beneath the powder blue closest to the sun. The clouds that resembled the thin smoke that slithered from Eve's long cigarettes, others that were fat and round like the cotton balls my mother cleaned off her eye makeup with. Alice had gotten it all perfect with out going any higher than the observation deck of the Empire State building.
When I finally remembered my special dollar, the plane was touching the runway and the sound of applause blocked out the flight attendants welcoming words. I unrolled the bill, which was wilted and damp and saw that Alice had written something across George Washington's face.
I love you always, 
Mom
Alice's lettering was bold and spherical, like the bubbles that sometimes escaped from the Ivory Soap I washed my body with. I expected that one day her writing would carry her notes up, up, up and away, never to return.

"You broke your what -" I heard my grandmother say a week into my stay. "Well how did you do that?" She said putting her free hand on her hip and shaking her head in dismay.

"What?" I whispered. "What did she break? The cake plate? My record player?" Alice wasn't plain or boring, she was however, clumsy. 
My grandmother covered the receiver with her hand and whispered back, "Her arm."

I wasn't completely surprised, I knew she'd eventually get around to breaking something on her body sooner or later.

"Well how did you do that Alice?" My grandmother had a smirk on her face and was tapping her foot impatiently.

"She won't be able to paint with one hand." I sang.

Once again my grandmother covered the receiver, "She'll paint with her teeth if she has too." We both giggled.

"Okay, well when will you get the cast off? Tests? Why?" My grandmother's voice changed with each question and her posture, usually as straight as a soldiers, slumped.

"What?" She said and sat down in the winged back chair next to the small mahogany table that held the phone.

"Oh, I see. No, no I'm not worried," She said and waved her hand to the air. "Not at all." She reinforced her statement, even though nothing but worry crossed her face.

She caught the look that covered my face; the look that said: What's wrong with mommy?

Her voice picked up again, like the French horns that come in suddenly during a symphony. She stood up again, smiled and began asking about Eve and how did the summer students like Hughes and Hurston.

Her questions made me feel better. I was ten years old and still able to fool myself about certain things.

"Okay baby, well here she is. Call me as soon as you know anything. Hold on."

My grandmother handed me the phone. Her hand was shaking and it seemed the smile she offered me, pained her instead of giving her joy.

She was out of the room and calling to my grandfather before I could even say hello.

"Hal!"

Her tone was too high and the urgency in her voice set their poodle Casey to yelping and running in circles.

Chapter Four

I asked about her arm and she told me that she had broken it while moving my dresser.

"Why were you moving my dresser?" I asked, not considering the fact that her arm should not have simply snapped in two from moving a piece of furniture.

"Well to sweep the candy wrappers from behind it, silly!" Her response was jovial but I knew her smile was missing and somehow I knew that the small tubes of paint had not been opened since I boarded the plane.

"Oh," I laughed along with her and popped another Jolly Rancher into my mouth.

"I guess you spent the dollar I gave you," Alice asked after telling me how much she loved me.

"Uh-huh."

"Candy?"

"Yep!"

"Oh." Her response was low and still. I felt something slip from me, but I didn't understand what that was at the time, I would understand weeks later when they lowered my mother's coffin down into the ground.

"Well I'll call you again in a few days, okay?"

"Okay."

"Love you."

"Love you too."

A week later my grandmother was getting on a plane to New York.

"Well you're not there and she needs someone to help her unscrew the paint caps and cook and clean and wash the clothes…"

My grandmother was trying hard not to cry as she rambled off all of the reasons she had to go and be with her daughter, my mother.

"Well then why can't I just go back home then?" I asked, baffled at why my grandmother was so upset, wondering if she disliked planes that much. She had complained, twisted and turned in her seat and called out to the lord more than once during the hour and half plane ride. "Lord knows I hate planes!" She hissed in my grandfather's ear when the plane started down the runway.

"Viola you cutting my circulation off woman!" My grandfather had reprimanded her and after thirty minutes, finally snatched his wrist from her grip.

"Well honey..uhm - well this is your summer vacation. No need in you being stuck in some hot apartment when you could be here with your cousins Precious and Poor Boy." Grandma said in a voice that was filled with distraction.

She stopped talking for a while and just stared at the clothes she'd thrown in her suitcase. It was as if her mind had stopped working for a moment and then just as suddenly, she began talking and packing again.

"I'll be back after your mamma gets back on her feet." She said and threw a worried look at my grandfather who had not moved from his rocking chair since my mother had called earlier that morning.

"I thought it was her arm that was broken?" I said as I pulled the nylons she'd just thrown into the suitcase and wrapped them around my neck like a scarf.

"It's just a figure of speech dear." She was flipping through the closet now, pulling out summer dresses and then putting them back in. Pushing the clothes hangers up and down the metal rod, but never finding what she was searching for until my grandfather finally cleared his throat.

Grandma turned to look at him and I saw the tears. She turned her eyes on me and screamed.

"Kai oh my God child what are you trying to do to yourself!"

She rushed over and began unraveling the nylons from my neck. The tears flowed freely now. "Are you trying to kill yourself, are you!"

The nylons tossed aside, my grandmother turned on me, gripped my shoulders and shook me with all of her strength. In my eyes, the whole room shook.

"Viola!" My grandfather pulled her off of me. "Viola," he called her name again, softer the second time.

She blinked at him and the rage went out of her eyes.

"Oh, oh." She threw her hands up to her face and began to sob. "My girl, my baby girl." She wailed and I went to her and hugged her from behind. "It's okay grandma. I'm sorry. I was just playing. I'm not dead." I said because naturally, I thought she was talking about me.

Two weeks later my grandfather and I were in the car on our way to the airport. I sat between Precious and Poor Boy, watching the green and brown of the country fly by outside the window.

Their mother, Beck, drove the whole way without saying a word. That was unusual for her, she was what grandma called, a chattering chatterbox. My grandfather never stopped scratching his beard and never looked up from his hands that lay folded in his lap.

I didn't realize how much I'd missed home until the taxi pulled up in front of my building. It was the beginning of August, the fire hydrants were on and my friends and a few new faces were dancing and screaming beneath the rushing water.

My grandmother swung open the heavy metal door and greeted me with a look so broken I hesitated before I stepped into the apartment.

There were boxes everywhere. Boxes piled up so high that they hid the broad leaves of the Banyan trees.

Chapter Five

"Where's mom?" I asked my grandmother as I dashed towards my mother's bedroom where I found more of the same. "Where is she!" I demanded in a voice I would never have used on any adult.

"In the hospital." My grandmother must have practiced her response because it came out even and solid.

Eve was at her bedside. Her eyes were red and swollen from tears and lack of sleep. There were books of poetry around her feet an eight track on the windowsill and a bunch of dandelions in a plastic cup on the table next to my mother's bed.