The Improper Life Of Bezellia Grove Part 9

How wonderful life is while you're in the world."

But I never looked back.

My grades revealed my summer affair better that any diary could have-a C in French conversation and an A+ in creative writing, even though my exam book was not filled with the answers to Mitch.e.l.l Franklin's inane questions about Plath and Poe. But it was full all the same. It read very simply, "Mitch.e.l.l Franklin is an a.s.s. Mitch.e.l.l Franklin is an a.s.s. Mitch.e.l.l Franklin is an a.s.s." Three hundred and fifty-three times, until every line, every page of my blue book was filled. Mitch.e.l.l Franklin left Hollins at the end of the summer session and never returned my exam.

I desperately wanted to talk to Samuel, now more than ever. I wanted to tell him that I loved him and needed him to come home, that I had done a stupid thing while I was trying to forget how much it hurt without him here. But he was too far away to hear me, fighting in some mosquito-infested jungle while I was drinking too much wine and having too much s.e.x. Maybe Samuel didn't need to hear this. Maybe I just needed to pay for my transgressions. So I went home. Mother was right after all. There was too much temptation and evil in the world.

chapter eleven.

Nathaniel opened the back door of the Cadillac, and I stepped into my mother's arms. She pulled me close, drawing my face into her neck. Her skin felt soft and warm but had a familiar and unsettling scent, a smell I hadn't been able to identify as a little girl but had learned in time was an unsavory blend of Chanel No. 5 and stale Tanqueray. I pushed myself back from my mother's embrace. Her eyes looked a little dull and distant, but she smiled and kissed me on the cheek. Surely, I thought to myself, I had made a mistake.

Adelaide and Maizelle, who had been patiently waiting on the front steps, rushed toward me. Maizelle's tummy jiggled up and down as she tried to keep pace with my little sister. They both flung their arms around me and cradled my body between theirs as they had the morning after my father died, neither one of them willing to let go. Maizelle said I had grown a full foot taller since Christmas, maybe more. I laughed and reminded her that I hadn't grown an inch since my senior year in high school and that maybe she was shrinking instead. She swatted my bottom and said she was going to stand me against the doorframe in the kitchen, where she had monitored my growth since I was a baby barely able to stand on my own two feet.

Now that I was here, everything about Grove Hill seemed new and fresh, as if I was seeing it for the first time-the marble columns, the pink impatiens that highlighted the flower beds along the side of the house, the sweeping front lawn. A part of me felt oddly homesick for something that was right in front of me. And yet another part of me dreaded being here.

Nathaniel was keeping pace right behind me. He started whistling an old hymn, one about surrendering everything to Jesus. He used to sing this to me on my way to school in the morning, and now I wondered if he was humming that old familiar tune just to calm me down. Mother quickly turned her head and with one scathing glance told him to hush. Maizelle's body stiffened, and I could see Nathaniel patting her arm as if to remind her that Mrs. Grove's reprimand would never keep his heart from singing. And true as that may have been, the voice in my head telling me to run was all but shouting now.

As soon as we stepped into the house, Nathaniel headed directly up the stairs, carrying my bags in both hands. He hollered that he'd bring the trunk up in a minute if he didn't break his back carrying the load he had with him. Then he laughed and disappeared above the landing. Mother covered her ears, as if to say that Nathaniel's voice was too loud and too rude.

Nathaniel had not said one word about Samuel on the ride home from the bus station. I had kept my mouth shut, not wanting him to see how much I missed his son, still not sure if he would understand that dull, persistent throbbing in my heart that had never gone away. But for the first time in my life, I thought Nathaniel looked different, and not just because what little hair was left on his head had turned completely white. No, it was more than that. His eyes seemed weary and his shoulders were hunched forward, and I understood that Samuel's absence had turned my friend into an old man.

Maizelle hurriedly shuffled back to the kitchen to finish up the evening meal. She said she had made all of my favorites, including a fresh pound cake that was cooling on top of the stove. She hoped I had packed a healthy appet.i.te along with all those dirty clothes she imagined needed was.h.i.+ng.

Mother immediately shooed me toward the stairs. She insisted that I unpack my bags before doing anything else. Dirty clothes must not sit in those suitcases, she said, or we'd never get the smell out of that new set of luggage. She told me to unpack my bags at least three more times, each time as if she had forgotten the one before. She tugged on Adelaide's hand and pulled her toward me.

"Surely you two sisters would enjoy spending the afternoon together, catching up and all. Adelaide, I bet you have so much to tell Bezellia about your first year in high school." But Adelaide only stared at the floor, desperately trying to ignore our mother. I realized at that very moment that while I had been away at school, my little sister had grown into a teenage girl who was determined to spend the afternoon exactly as she had planned.

"I wanted to finish something for Bezellia," she finally mumbled.

"Sweetie, you're going to wear those fingers out. Now go on," Mother insisted. "All you've been talking about for months is Bezellia coming home. Now here she is."

"Adelaide, what are you making?" I asked, and I pointed to the knitting needles clutched in her right hand. "I didn't know you could knit."

"She knows how to knit, all right. She's been knitting all day," Mother quipped, now sounding impatient and desperate for her daughters to leave her alone. "Adelaide, I want you to put those needles down and give your fingers a rest and help Bezellia with her unpacking. You hear me?" And she pushed my sister's body closer to the stairs.

Adelaide just rolled her eyes. And when she knew Mother wasn't looking, she glanced at me and smiled real big and motioned that she would see me later. Then she ran up the stairs, two at a time, and I could tell by the sound of her footsteps on the floor above that my sister had pa.s.sed my room and gone into her own. Her door slammed shut, and Mother shook her head in frustration and promptly turned her attention to me.

"Okay, then, you start unpacking. At least one of you is going to mind me. Maizelle will need to get started on that laundry before going to bed if she's ever going to get it all done. I'll be out in the garden. I want to put together an arrangement for the table before we sit down to eat. My roses are particularly stunning this year, if I may say so myself."

"Mother," I said as I reached for the handrail, a habit I had developed since my father's accident, more out of concern for Maizelle's anxious disposition than for my personal safety. "Do you think Maizelle and Nathaniel could eat at the table with us tonight? I mean, since it is my first night home and all?"

Mother tucked her chin against her chest and moaned. Obviously I should have known better than to ask such a presumptuous question, even if it was my first night home.

"Don't put me in that position, Bezellia. You know I can't allow that."

"Why not? They're practically family."

"Why are you asking me this now? Tonight? I have enough on my mind already. I don't need to be dealing with this. And what you need to remember," Mother said, her voice rapidly becoming more cutting and bitter, "is that we all love Maizelle and Nathaniel, but they are not our family and they never will be. Now go on and get those clothes unpacked."

I didn't dare tell Mother that Sarah Stanton Miller, Gloria Steinem, and Dorothy Pitman, the feminist triumvirate who would argue that even G.o.d was female, would be appalled to know that our black help had never once been invited to share an evening meal with the family they had served for most of a lifetime. And truthfully, I wasn't really sure if it was a moral sensibility that was guiding my desire right now or just a need to be with the people I loved. I had hoped that in the months since Father's death and her own rebirth, Mother might have become a bit more accepting of the two people who had never left her side. But apparently history and hatred were proving much more powerful than years of faithful service and recent Christian conversion.

I climbed the stairs two at a time, just like Adelaide had done, just like I used to do when I was little and wanted to run from my mother after she had spent the day playing bridge at the club. Now I was afraid she was hiding in the garden, pulling weeds and cutting flowers and drinking gin disguised in a gla.s.s of Maizelle's homemade lemonade. I fell on my bed and stared up at the ceiling, at the fine lines that had carved their way into the plaster, spreading out in different directions like a spider's intricately woven web. It was as if the sadness filling the rooms of this old house was so thick and heavy it was splitting the walls apart right in front of me. I wondered if the Bezellias before me had watched this web grow as carefully as I had.

Everything else about my room was perfect. My bed was crisply made. The pillowcases were freshly starched. My collection of German teddy bears was neatly lined up on the window seat. The silver-framed photograph of Mother and Father holding me on my first birthday, even the jewelry box made out of Popsicle sticks and the pincus.h.i.+on I had needlepointed years ago were all perfectly placed about my room, another shrine, it seemed, to another lost daughter.

Subtle, m.u.f.fled noises drifted up from the kitchen. I could hear them, faintly, but they were there-the same soothing sounds that had always reminded me I was never alone here. I left my suitcases untouched right where Nathaniel had put them at the foot of my bed and wandered back downstairs, following the familiar smells of corn bread and cake and fresh green beans simmering in bacon fat. Maizelle had the kitchen windows open wide and a fan running on high. She was standing at the stove stirring a pan of creamed corn. A light blue dish towel was thrown across her shoulder, and every so often she would lift it to her forehead and wipe her brow. Nathaniel was sitting at the table peeling potatoes, helping with the hash brown ca.s.serole just like he always did.

"Lookie here. If it's not the big college girl come to pay us a visit, Maizelle," Nathaniel said and laughed, never taking his eyes off the sharp knife in his hand. "We thought maybe you had gotten too big for the likes of us."

"Never," I said and sat down at the table in an old wooden chair with one leg shorter than the others so it left you rocking back and forth whether you wanted to or not. Nathaniel had promised to fix this chair years ago, but I told him not to. I never had to sit still in this chair. And right here, in this chair, in this kitchen, was my favorite place to be in the whole wide world. If Mother dared to ask where all I had been, I would tell her that I didn't need to travel the world to know that there was no better place on earth than here with Nathaniel and Maizelle.

Then out of nowhere, still staring intently at the potato and knife in his hands, Nathaniel started talking about his son. It was almost as if he had a tightly held confession to make, and I was certainly ready to listen. He admitted that every day that pa.s.sed without a Marine in uniform showing up at his front door was a good one. He prayed without ceasing that Samuel would come home safe and in one piece. And best he could tell, his son should be out of that G.o.dforsaken place in little less than a year if Uncle Sam didn't go and change his mind. If he had to go back, Nathaniel sighed, it might very well kill his mama.

"I just thought you'd want to know that, Miss Bezellia," he said, and then Nathaniel lowered his head and went back to peeling his potatoes.

"Thank you," I replied rather weakly and leaned across the table and kissed him lightly on the cheek. Maizelle just kept shaking her head, as if she wanted us both to know that Samuel's leaving had broken her heart too. Every once in a while she stopped to rub her hands together. I think it made her nervous imagining Samuel tiptoeing through some jungle in the dead of night. But she said her arthritis was only getting worse and even rolling out the biscuits was getting to be a ch.o.r.e.

Although she was real sorry about the circ.u.mstances, she sure was glad that my mother had seen fit to move her upstairs. She just didn't think her body could handle the chill that never left that old bas.e.m.e.nt room of hers. Adelaide, in her opinion, was doing much better. She was growing out of her affliction, just like Maizelle knew she would. She wasn't sure my mother had noticed yet. I walked over to the counter and took the rolling pin from Maizelle's hands. She wiped her eye with the corner of her ap.r.o.n.

"What's gotten into us?" Nathaniel laughed real gently. "Bezellia comes home from school and we're all sitting here crying like a bunch of newborn babies." Then he winked at me. "You know, Maizelle, we're not the only ones crying. I heard those babies of Adelaide's bawling up a storm in the attic the other afternoon. Don't you ever hear 'em?"

"Shut your mouth right now. That ain't funny. And don't you say one word about those dolls, Nathaniel Stephenson," Maizelle popped. "They're nothing but evil, pure evil," and then she spit in the sink and threw some salt over her shoulder.

"Maizelle, Lord, quit throwing that salt all over my kitchen floor. How many times do I have to tell you that now?" Mother quipped, startling all of us with her sudden entrance. She was wearing her garden gloves and a wide-brimmed hat to protect her face from the sun, but it completely hid her eyes. She asked where Adelaide was, and Maizelle explained with her hands that she had no idea. Mother's lips tightened, and then she told Maizelle to pour her another gla.s.s of lemonade and suggested that I go and check on my little sister instead of playing with the biscuit dough.

"Mother! I'm hardly playing here," I said, surprised and embarra.s.sed that she would insinuate I was wasting my time helping Maizelle with the dinner. But she just waved her garden gloves in my face and said she'd be out back if anybody needed her.

"Don't mind her, Bezellia," Maizelle said in an unexpected and understanding tone. "Who would've thought she'd have it in her to last this long? Ever since your daddy died, she's had a lot to take care of all by herself, not to mention your little sister. Lord, your mama frets over that girl.

"First she had her writing in that journal, then she plunked her down in the garden, thinking if she kept her hands busy in the dirt her head would calm a bit. But it was no time at all and Adelaide starting making them mud pies again. 'Cept these didn't look quite like the ones she used to make, looked more like b.a.l.l.s really. Not sure what that girl was thinking. But you can imagine your mama put an end to that real fast. Now she's got her knitting. And you know Adelaide, once she puts her mind to something, you can't barely get her to stop to eat. But it does seem your sister is doing so much better. Always knew she was gonna be just fine. Like I've always said, some babies just need more time than others to get comfortable with this world."

"That sister of yours sure has been knitting up a storm," Nathaniel added with a fresh lilt in his voice. "She's done taken to that knitting like a fish to water. Surprised she hasn't figured out a way to knit a fis.h.i.+ng pole, come to think of it."

"You ain't funny, old man," Maizelle scolded and then laughed a bit herself. "It might not be perfect. But at least we ain't seen that Baby Stella lurking about the house for a long, long time now. Lord, that doll scares the living daylights out of me. I would have done burned her in the incinerator years ago and then thrown them ashes in the creek. That's right, washed every last trace of that doll right out of here."

Maizelle stood in front of the stove twitching from side to side. "See. Lookie here. See the s.h.i.+vers running up and down my spine. That's just from thinking about that crazy doll."

"To tell the truth," Nathaniel added, "your sister's knitting is really nice. Your mama's given dozens and dozens of baby blankets to the home for unwed mothers. There's probably not an illegitimate child in this town that's not wearing a pair of your sister's little knitted booties."

"But what about Mother? Does she ever see any of her old friends, even for lunch now and again?" I asked, the smell of my mother's embrace still lingering in my head. I looked at Nathaniel and then at Maizelle, but neither one of them looked at me.

"To tell the truth, Miss Bezellia, your mama hardly leaves Grove Hill 'cept to go to church or to Castner Knott to buy some more yarn," Maizelle finally admitted. "Lord, I never thought a person could get too much religion, but I'm afraid that's about what has happened to your mama. I think she's done gotten it into her head, or that Reverend Foster's done put it there, that your sister's peculiarities are some kind of punishment for a sin she done committed long ago. Not sure what he's preaching, but it sure don't seem like there's too much talk of forgiveness.

"Never have liked that man," Maizelle declared and cast a stern look in my direction. "He still comes around here all the time, says he's checking on your mama, but I think he's doing nothing but looking for her checkbook. He sh.o.r.e don't act like a certified man of G.o.d to me, more like a beggar than a preacher."

"What are you talking about, Maizelle? What sin is Mother paying for? Father's accident?"

"Lord, child, I don't know. I've said way too much already. Nathaniel, how's them potatoes coming?" Maizelle wanted me to know what was on her heart. She wanted me to know everything, but she turned and faced the stove, carefully stirring her creamed corn and waiting for Nathaniel to tell me what she couldn't say.

Nathaniel put the potato he was holding back in the bowl and carefully set the knife down on the table. He looked at Maizelle, and then he looked at me. He cleared his throat and sat forward in his chair. He spoke very carefully, as if he had been rehearsing this speech for some time now. And once he started talking, I was sure that he had.

"Your mama's been thinking it might be best for Adelaide to go to school somewhere else. Away from home. Reverend Foster believes it would be the best thing for the both of them. He thinks your mama needs an opportunity to fully devote her time and talent to the Lord's work. Never known a preacher not to think of raising a child as the Lord's work. Anyway, there's some Baptist school up in Kentucky that's supposed to be real good for all these Christian teens with problems that their own parents can't seem to handle. It's on a lake. You know how your mama feels about you girls being on the water."

"Oh, Lord, Nathaniel, you wasn't supposed to say nothing about that," Maizelle scolded, obviously relieved that it had been said, that it had all been said.

My skin instantly turned warm and then red-hot. "I don't believe that. Mother wouldn't do that. She knows how Adelaide feels being away from home. That doesn't make any sense at all."

"It's probably nothing more than talk, Miss Bezellia," Nathaniel said. "But I do think you need to know that Reverend Foster's been putting all sorts of ideas in your mama's head, and some of them seem to be costing her a whole lot of money."

Reverend Foster was older than my mother but not by much. And even though I had learned he was nothing but evil, he spoke with the authority of a parent or a respected teacher, and my mother had willingly deferred to his opinion from their very first meeting, just a day or so before my father's funeral. But now the thought of Reverend Foster anywhere near Adelaide made me furious. I did not trust his advice or his intentions, and I certainly didn't hear much of anything else Nathaniel had to say, because I was already out the back door, looking for my mother.

She was in her garden as she had promised, bent at the waist, all but her hat hidden from view by a soft ribbon of purple and pink hydrangea flowers. A cloud of tireless gnats quietly danced above her head. She raised her gloved hand and swatted them away. I marched toward her, shaking the ground beneath me with every step. Slowly, she stood up straight, a pair of metal clippers clutched in one hand and a bouquet of perfect hydrangeas squeezed too tightly in the other.

"Mother, are you sending Adelaide away to school?" I asked, not bothering to preface my question with polite or pointless prattle.

"Lord, that woman couldn't keep her mouth locked tight if those lips of hers were glued shut," Mother said, as much to herself as to me, shaking her head with obvious irritation.

"It wasn't Maizelle who told me," I interrupted, no longer tolerant of my mother's unkind words. "And that's not the point. You can't do that to Adelaide. She needs to be here, at home, at Grove Hill."

"Bezellia dear, you really are not one to talk about what Adelaide needs or doesn't need," Mother snapped and then turned to clip another hydrangea. "You have not been here, or do I need to remind you of that?" she asked, refusing to take her eyes off her flowers.

"I'm here right now. None of your friends are here, Mother. But I am. And I do know that you can't dump Adelaide at some school just so you can hide her from everybody in town. She's not weird. She's not sick. She's not damaged. She's just a little different. She's just not like you. And there's nothing wrong with that."

"First of all, I am not dumping anyone anywhere," Mother shouted. Then she took several steps toward me, stopping quickly to smile and regain her composure. "I think you'd best watch your mouth," she resumed, speaking with a slow and yet strained precision, the way she sounded after the afternoon's first gin and tonic. "Besides, you know nothing about this school. Reverend Foster says that everyone there is a born-again Christian and that it may be Adelaide's only chance for salvation." And then Mother paused for a moment. "It's by a lake, you know, and being by the water should be very good for her, Sister."

Sister. Sister. I'd heard it a thousand times before today, always said with a certain amount of meanness attached, never with love or even a playful sense of affection. I had never corrected her, never demanded an apology, and surely never admitted that I hated the very sound of it. But now, in that garden, among all those beautiful flowers, it was as if she had taken a match and lit a full keg of dynamite. Years of anger and disappointment came blowing right out of my mouth in one deadly explosion.

"My name is Bezellia, d.a.m.n it! Do you hear me, Bezellia. B-E-Z-E-L-L-I-A!" I was screaming so loudly my mother took two steps back, afraid, I imagine, that the force of my words might knock her right down. But I just kept firing.

"Being by the water has nothing to do with this, and you know it! That's exactly what you told us when we were little. And if you remember, Adelaide cried and begged you to let her stay home. But that didn't matter to you then, so I guess there's no reason to think it's going to matter to you now." My mother began to step backward, hoping, I guess, to take refuge among her flowers. But I pressed on.

"You just wanted to go about your very important business. Remember, Mother, playing cards with your friends and getting so drunk Nathaniel would have to carry you home? So don't start acting like you're doing the loving thing here by sending Adelaide away where no one will see her knitting or making mud pies or anything else that embarra.s.ses you. And I don't know what this Reverend Foster is telling you, Mother, but you need to start listening to those of us who still love you-who haven't abandoned you or who don't just want your money. Whatever soul you've got left, apparently he'd sell to the devil himself."

And by the time I was done, I was standing directly in front of my mother, digging my shoes into the soft, warm dirt. She raised the metal scissors toward my face and gripped the flowers, now surely suffocating in her grasp, even harder. "That's enough, Bezellia. Just watch your mouth," Mother shrieked, drenching us both with her anger and hate. And for once my name sounded so ugly that I wished she hadn't said it at all. "Do you have any idea what I've been through? Do you have any idea how long it's taken me to get Adelaide to the point she's at now? Do you? Do you?" Mother rambled on, her voice sounding more and more shrill with every syllable she spit into that garden.

"What point is that, Mother? Tell me, what point is that? Holed up in the house knitting baby booties?"

"I think you better shut your mouth. You don't know what you're talking about. Being away at college has certainly given you a healthy dose of att.i.tude. But listen to me, Sister, it has been d.a.m.n difficult since the tragic event. You wouldn't understand. You haven't been here. But since I'm the one left to deal with this mess, I will be the one making the decisions about what is best for this family."

"Lord, Mother, you can't even say it. There was no tragic event. There was an accident. And if it wasn't an accident, well, h.e.l.l, the Lord's going to forgive you for that too. Father didn't treat you right. We all know that. Everybody in Nashville knows that. And his death, however it happened, maybe it's the best thing that ever happened to you. What do you think, Mother?"

My mother could barely catch her breath, and her body seemed to waver in the afternoon sun.

"I can tell you this for sure," I said, now speaking in a more hushed tone, "it took Father dying to get that bottle out of your hands for the first time in years. And you're right, I don't know what's going on now. I don't know if you're drinking again or if your head is just so messed up on G.o.d you can't think straight. Which is it, Mother? Huh? Which is it?"

"Shut up! Shut up, Bezellia! Just get out of here. You hear me? Take those d.a.m.n suitcases of yours and get out of my house!" Mother cried, tears now streaming down her cheeks. She wiped her eyes with her gloves, smearing fresh dirt across both sides of her face.

"I am not leaving, Mother. Neither is Adelaide. And if Father were here, he would never let you send her away."

"Your father isn't here, d.a.m.n it!" Mother screamed. "He was never here. He was either at that d.a.m.n hospital or with another woman. But he was never here! He was a spineless, spoiled man. The most cowardly thing he ever did was fall down those stairs and leave me with four children to raise-two little white babies and two little colored ones."

Mother's hat was lying on the ground now. Her left foot was pressed against the brim, smas.h.i.+ng it deep into the dirt. Nathaniel, Maizelle, and Adelaide were standing on the steps by the back door, absorbing everything that had been said. They looked confused, disappointed, maybe even scared. And I imagined there were times when I had looked just like they did.

"Maybe he was all those things, Mother," I said. "Maybe he was born that way. Maybe you made him that way. But one thing I do know for sure"-and my voice began to weaken-"is that you're no better." Then I turned away and walked into the house, leaving my poor mother standing motionless in the garden, the flowers clutched so tightly in her hand that the stems had broken in half.

Later that evening, Nathaniel carried a tray to Mother's room while Adelaide and I sat at the dining room table by ourselves, just like we had so many times when we were children. I asked Maizelle and Nathaniel if they wanted to join us, but they said they preferred to eat their meal in the kitchen. In front of me sat a silver vase full of hydrangeas, all of them drooping toward the table.

chapter twelve.

Adelaide and I sat on the front porch for a while after dinner, staring at the sky and eating pieces of Maizelle's pound cake. It was so moist it melted in my mouth, and I knew without asking that Maizelle had added an extra stick of b.u.t.ter, something she did for real special occasions.

My sister started talking and only stopped to put another bite of cake in her mouth. She never said a word about what had been said in the garden. Instead she chattered on and on about school and about her new friend Lucy, the only girl in her cla.s.s who wasn't afraid to talk to her. Lucy had even invited her to spend the night a couple of weeks ago, but Mother wouldn't let her go for fear she might embarra.s.s herself. Adelaide knew she was a little different from the other girls, but that was okay. Maizelle had told her that was what made her special. Besides, she liked to be alone-it didn't scare her like it did most people. And Lucy understood that.

"I know Mother's always trying to fix me," Adelaide said softly. "But I'm not broken."

I reached for my sister's hand and told her I already knew that. She sighed, releasing a full and steady breath, seemingly relieved that somebody finally believed her.

"Adelaide, come on," I said and stood up, motioning for my sister to follow me.

"Where are we going?"

"Not far."

"How far?"

"You know a friend of mine told me once that if you weren't willing to walk to something, then it just wasn't worth seeing. I promise this is worth it. Now come on. Trust me."

I ran a few feet ahead of my sister, drawing in the evening's remaining heat with every stride. Adelaide followed, obviously giddy to be out of the house without Mother watching over her. We stepped through the gra.s.s and clover, easily finding our way across the familiar field behind our house. Even from a distance, I could see the moonlight dancing off the water in the creek and the weeping willow gently swaying in the breeze.