Knee-Deep in Wonder (26 page)

“I can't start from scratch cause it's my whole life.”

“Mama, nobody's asking you to start over.”

“Ain't you? You the one that wants me to run off to Stamps.”

“Mama, I just want you to get in my car. You don't have to go the funeral, you could stay at Uncle Ed's house and wait for us all to get back. I just want you to get in my car,” Helene said, her tone now begging.

“Are you trying to get me out of my own house? This house is me. How could you tell me to get out of my own house?” Taking a step away from the stove, Queen Ester pushed her finger in her daughter's face. Helene knew her mother couldn't see her. She was either Chess, leaning back in a kitchen chair with broken shoes and an open shirt, or she was Liberty, wearing a red-ribboned dress that couldn't hold all that spilled out of it.

“Wait a minute, Mama, I know this is your house. We could just take a walk or a drive or something, that's all. That's all.”

Queen Ester didn't look at Helene; instead, she pointed at the wall as if it were not a papered surface with blue and yellow flowers.

“Mama, what are you looking at? Mama?”

Queen Ester turned her head away from the wall and looked beyond her daughter. Helene thought, This isn't real, she's not even moving; it's like she's trapped in a painting, with the stove, the sink, and blue chipped cabinets as the frame. I'm dreaming because she's standing in front of me, mid-stride, with her arm pointing in my direction.

“This wall, that wall right over there, that's my life. All these walls, they my life. You don't understand that. You acting like you do, but you don't.” The words—
this wall, that wall, you do, you don't
—seemed to come not from her mouth but from around her, from under her housedress, from the sink, the stove. She did not drop her finger as Helene had hoped—yes, the daughter still hoped—instead, her four other fingers uncurled, so now she held out a full hand in accusation. Then, running, Queen Ester dashed over to the wall, touching it, and Helene swore (and ten years later she would swear again, looking into her husband's unbelieving face while they lay together in bed) she saw the wall touch her mother back. Like a handshake (and later she would use those very words), just like a handshake. How do you do? the wall said. And her mother replied, as cordial as she would reply to the mailman, “Oh, just fine, and you?” Just like that, as if her mother and the house were old friends who'd run into each other at the grocery store. But she did see it, just as she saw it now: the house with a mind of its own held her mother's hand fiercely, and her mother held it back. Then quickly, so quickly Helene did not quite see the movement, her mother began walking back and forth from one wall to another, driving herself mad.

Helene was frightened, frightened of this house that could grab hold of what it wanted and frightened of this woman. A wild thing had thrown its mad self inside her mother, so maybe what she felt before wasn't hope at all but fear, waiting, finding its place between the makings of dinner. Old legs with mad blood ran back and forth from wall to wall. Queen Ester's mouth moved all the while, but the only words Helene could hear were
my, my, my,
and in helpless return her heart beat
me, me, me.

Up and out of the chair before Queen Ester finished a turn, Helene took off down the short hall that led to the door and the stairs. She stood in the hall, choosing between now and memory, the door or the stairs. Helene took the stairs; at the top, knowledge waited for her to embrace it. “One, two, three, four,” she murmured, feeling as if she had done this before, except now she knew exactly where she was going. Queen Ester stood at the bottom of the stairs and called her name, but Helene didn't turn around; she would not stop. Running up the stairs, she wondered what had gotten her there. Maybe I'm not here; maybe I'm standing on the porch waving goodbye; maybe I'm driving my car back to Stamps and just remembering what I wanted to do.

There wasn't a sound behind her, not the swish of a dress or the thump of Queen Ester's feet: nothing. Then her mother spoke, in a voice light and fragile, out of place, as different as a change of coats. “Down to eat, child.”

Helene was tempted to turn around and scream
What?
Queen Ester called her name again. “Helene. Baby girl.” She thought she must be imagining this, since there was nothing on the stairs except her and the call of her name and a phrase that seemed plucked out of a book. But Helene wouldn't look back because she'd have to see her mother's face and know that Queen Ester wasn't her mother at all but some woman with splayed hands and a mouthful of wild teeth.

Queen Ester spoke again, this time almost in Helene's ear. “Helene, where are you going?” She stood only a couple of steps away, her arm wrapped around the banister as if to hold her steady, her upturned face not full of rage as Helene thought—hoped? feared? The two things were the same if you squinted your eyes.

“Where do you think I'm going, Mama?” she yelled.

“I don't know, girl.” I don't know either, Helene thought, not a clue. Why upstairs? Why not the living room? Where am I going? Don't play dumb; you know where you want to go: his room. Just to see if there's an impression left of him in the bed or a scent in one of his shirts.

“What's in Chess's room, Mama?”

Her mother's face shifted from an expression of questioning to determination. “I'm asking you now, Helene, don't go to that room.”

“Why not? What's in there?”

Her mother's arm grabbed at the back of Helene's dress, pulling her down. “That ain't none of your business, Helene. You come down from here.”

“What's in the room, Mama?” Helene tried to twist out of her mother's grasp.

“Why, Helene? Dinner downstairs.” Helene's dress still in her hands, Queen Ester yanked it downward, as if she wanted Helene to sit. “Don't make me ask you twice, girl.”

“Dinner's done, Mama.”

Helene didn't push her, she just turned all the way around, the dress tightening, so it felt as if she had it on backwards. “Let go, Mama,” she said, placing her hands on Queen Ester's shoulders. And Queen Ester did. The grip on her dress unfastened and Helene tottered back a few steps. Her mother smiled, not a full smile but a closed-lipped grin that rose higher on the left side of her face.

“All right, all right. Gone on, then.” Her hands went up as if she had surrendered or wanted Helene to see her palms. She wore a resolute face, the sort of face you have when you need to wring a cloth or pluck the meat from a chicken neck. “You want to go, so gone on.”

“I am, Mama.” Helene reached the doorknob, gleaming with sweat from previous hands or furniture polish. She twisted it and heard the soft click; in the hush of the hallway, Queen Ester heard it too. The door opened with a cry, as the refrigerator had downstairs. Expecting a dark sour must, Helene held her breath, but there was no need to, for despite its disarray the room smelled of dry clean wood and soap. Small tables were overturned in corners; a bar counter ran the length of half the wall, and on top were fourteen blue-colored glasses filled with liquid. Four pairs of brown khaki pants were draped over empty chairs, along with two white shirts and a blue bottle-necked dress. A small stove sat on the floor. With the curtains pulled back, the room was flooded with light. Through the three large west-facing windows, the falling sun cloaked everything in orange and purple. Helene took it all in, this room that looked and smelled as if it waited for an ice cream social.

Why the chase up the stairs? To have a peek at a room Queen Ester wouldn't let her see—and why, because of the mess it contained? There was no bed where Helene could find the faint outline of Chess, no dresser where she could touch a comb or mirror. It's just a storage room, just a stupid storage room. She fought back the rising disappointment. The room wasn't messy at all, as she had first thought, but had a disturbing order all its own: the furniture seemed overturned with care; the four pairs of pants lapped over each other, shirts and dress, were cleaned and ironed; the liquid (gin? tea?) in the glasses was measured. Helene turned around, an apology ready on her lips.

Queen Ester was waging battle over whether to explain the room's centerpiece. “Listen, you…” She let the words linger, wracked with indecision. Should she say what had come to mind? Mama let him suckle her like a calf on her teat. Stepped tween you and me even when it meant killing her own self. And him. Chess had his fingers in my mouth searching for shame. It ain't right that I got to be the only one to bear witness. Ma'am and Chess, they got to stay above ground and be witness right along with me.

“Mama laid up in that bed and died all day long, Helene, and Mable and Other was there, trying to get me to do a funeral real quick, like the quicker I get her in the ground, the quicker I forget about her, my own mama, the woman who spilt me out in the river. Did you know that? I was born in a river. Mama told me that, and I forgot clean about it till both of us was standing here. But I told Mable, didn't I just get over burying the dead. Can't Mama stay in her own bed for a while, fore we scoop her in the dirt? And Mable say, ‘Ester, it gone get to stinking soon.' I told her, standing right there over my dead mama, ‘What “it,” Mable? What “it” you talking about? Cause I know you ain't talking about Mama like she a old chair we's got to throw out.' And Mable looked real shame then, cause she was thinking on throwing out her best friend like she was trash. So she say, ‘It just ain't right to let a dead woman lay in the bed she done died in; it ain't religious.' ‘You think I don't know that?' I told her. ‘She ain't gone lay in this bed forever; I just needs to rest. I don't want the kind of funeral we gives Chess. That what's ain't religious.' Then she say, ‘You ain't said that at first, Ester. The way you was talking before, I thought—' but I cut her off fore she got to say what she was thinking, and I say to her, ‘Girl, what you thinking? You crazy? You think I let my dead mama lay up in the bed she died in forever? I ain't crazy!' So then Mable start crying, and Other, he don't say nothing; his eyes just roll up in the back of his head. I walked them both to the door, and fore I even got the door closed good, I just start laughing, cause Mable thought I was gone let Mama lay up dead in that bed forever.”

“What year was that, Mama?” Helene asked, suspicious of the soliloquy. Queen Ester's account of her mother's death had moved beyond harmless telling, the repeating of stories that gave Helene time to find memories to match them. She wanted to know the date, if for nothing else than to figure out how old she was the moment her grandmother died.

Queen Ester didn't answer her question. Instead, she walked over to a long high table, yanking it until the edge touched her chest. “Come over here.”

Helene crept close and peered over her mother's shoulder.

“See?” Queen Ester pointed to a sturdy-looking wish-boned stick sitting on a dust-covered stool. On the floor, covered in an elaborate cobweb, were a pair of brogans.

“What?” Helene asked.

Queen Ester turned to her daughter, noticing Helene's look, calm but confused. “The flesh that works the hardest is the last to go—the skin on the knees and elbows, the thick white part on the back of the heel—sometime theys don't go at all, and the skin turn to jerky on the bone. Mama died on me, and by the time I seen Mable and them out and got back upstairs, Mama done got cold and hard. Rigor mortis, that's what the doctors call it, set up in Mama face first, then spread down to the chest like a summer cold. I was scared then, cause how I'm gone get Mama where she need to go when she a piece of wood? But I wait it out, and by the time I see her in the morning, she folded right up in my hands. Chess, he stayed in the water for a day and a half, so he was kind of puffed up when we fished him out. That why he ain't got no skin left; ain't no fault of mine.

“I got a truck from Banky and took Chess right out the ground. I was strong then. He was heavy and soft in my arms like dirt. He might have been a little thing, but he had some weight on him, let me tell you. Took me all day and half a night to get him just in the house. Carrying both them was like holding a baby. Like you. When you was little, and I had you for them first couple of days, I held on to you all the time and you'd get heavy on me, like a watermelon growing a pound a minute, then I had to put you down.

“Lord know I sure didn't want to. You never cried when you was in my hands. You cried something fierce when Mama had you, but when you was with me you was like a baby.

“Chess was hard, cause I had to get him up those stairs. I dragged him the first half of the way, and in the end I dragged him the rest of the way, but I sure tried a lot of different things in the middle. I take a rest; when I can't do no more, I put two buckets full of rocks up by him, so he stay still while I go get some tea or lay down on the couch.

“You gotta see I couldn't just up and have Mama and Chess under the ground with a cross on top of them. I know for sure that Mama wouldn't stand for that stuff. That's what I didn't bother telling Mable and Other. They don't know Mama. One time Mama got mad at me cause I threw a sheet on top of her for play. How you think she be if she got six feet of dirt on top of her? And far as Chess go, Mama didn't never let him leave, she keep him in the house, cause she know that the only way he gone learn something. He need somebody over him, telling him what to do. Why he get to leave the house just cause he dead? What being dead got to do with anything?”

Helene had staggered away in horror during her mother's rambling account, it coming clear to her, slowly, that where she saw a stick, brogans, and flapping khakis, her mother saw bodies: Liberty and Chess, not in the ground, not buried but right here.