Mama laughed. It sounded like little bells ringing. I felt all warm and peaceful, hearing her laugh again. “Well, Lydia, look at it this way,” she said. “She managed to get the dog out of her neighborhood.”
I laughed, too. “Aunt Ethel Mae could talk anybody into anything,” I said.
“That’s for sure and certain,” Mama agreed. “That poor neighbor didn’t have no chance against your aunt.” Mama patted Ears on the head. He looked at her and wagged his tail. Then Mama patted my hand. “You know, Lydia, your aunt and uncle love you very much. I’m sure they miss having you with them.”
I stopped sewing and looked down at the ground. “Mama, why can’t I tell nobody that Uncle William is my birth father?”
Mama sighed—not a I-can’t-believe-you-said-that sigh, but like she let go of a real heavy burden.
She lifted the quilt offen her lap and laid it in the
basket next to her. “Lydia, I been waiting for you to bring it up. William said he told you. I wanted our talk about this to be when you was ready.”
Mama looked at my face. I finally turned to look at her. She had tears in her eyes. “I be so sorry we kept the truth from you, Lydia. Your gran and William and me—we never wanted you to find out the way you did.”
“Why didn’t you tell me, Mama?”
“It was such a hard thing to explain, Lydia. You seemed too young to be able to grasp things about war and death when you first asked about being borned. Your gran said she told you about coming out of me real easy. I was upset with her, Lydia. I figured it would make the truth harder for you to accept later on. I told her so, but she said, ‘Land sakes, Sarah, what on earth did you expect me to say when that little thing asked such a question?’ ”
I grinned a little. I could hear Gran saying that. The me-missing-her part sure was a whole lot bigger than the me-being-mad-at-her part. “Why didn’t you tell me when I got older?” I asked.
“I don’t know, Lydia. The timing never seemed right, and it was important that you not tell. Then BJ got so sick. I kept thinking in that prison cell that I wished I would have told you afore I got tooken away.”
I looked down at the ground again. “Mama, did you love BJ more than me? You birthed him.” Tears pushed out of my eyes, and I wiped them away with my hand.
Mama stood up. “Come here to me,” she said. I laid my quilting down. She real gentle pulled me up by the
arm and sat down again, tugging me toward her. “Sit on my lap, Lydia.”
“No, Mama. I’m too big for that. I might hurt you.”
“Just this once, Lydia. Sit on my lap. I’m a lot stronger than I look.” She winked at me and patted her lap.
I sat down as soft as I could. She wrapped her arms around me, and I wrapped my arms around her. She held me like I weren’t much more than a baby.
“I dreamed of this day, Lydia, the whole time I was in that there prison—the day I could hold you in my arms again, my daughter,” Mama whispered to me.
Ears laid his head on my lap and pushed Mama’s hand with his nose to get some loving, too. We couldn’t help but laugh at him.
We sat that way for a time, the three of us, and then Mama said, “Your daddy wasn’t drinking back when William asked us to take you. We didn’t just take you to help William out. We was thrilled to have us a baby girl in our home. You don’t know how often I watched you sleep at night and thanked God for giving me such a precious gift. I couldn’t love you or BJ one more than the other. I always loved both of you as much as my heart can love.”
And I believed her on account of feeling how powerful her love for me was in the way she held me. She kissed me on the forehead.
I could have stayed on her lap forever, but I figured I must be getting heavy. I got up and sat back down in my rocking chair. Ears plopped down beside me to take a nap. Mama and me both picked up our quilting again and
commenced to sew. “Why can’t I tell no one, Mama?” I asked.
“There’s something I never told you about your aunt Ethel Mae,” Mama said. “You’re getting on to be a woman, now. I think you deserve to know the truth about everthing.”
I couldn’t imagine what I didn’t know about Aunt Ethel Mae. I had me about all the truth I thought I could handle. But I asked anyways. “What’s that, Mama?”
“Your aunt wanted real bad to have young’uns of her own. William thought he was ready to start his own family, too. Your aunt was with child twice, but she couldn’t carry the baby either time. After she lost the second baby, the doctor said he didn’t have no choice but to take out her woman’s parts.”
“Oh, Mama, that’s terrible!”
“Yes, it’s right sad. Your aunt said she felt all dried up and useless after that. I think that might be why she’s so sickly all the time with them bad headaches and all. She turned that sad inside on herself. Them women parts is real important to how you feel about yourself and the world, Lydia.”
“Will her sad ever go away, Mama?”
“No more than our sad about Gran and BJ. But I been noticing that she ain’t complaining as much about headaches lately.”
“I have, too, Mama.”
“I think you might have helped her find out that she still has room for joy, even with the sad.”
“Like Gran used to tell us?”
“Just exactly like Gran used to tell us. ‘We can’t let our sad rob us of our joy.’ ”
“Iffen she’s doing better, why can’t we tell her?”
“William and me was afeared that she might want to try to take you as her daughter, Lydia,” Mama said. “She wanted kids real bad, and she’s so fond of you. And you know how she is when she wants something.”
My chest got tight. “No, Mama. I want to stay with you.”
“William and me think that’s best, too, Lydia. Him and me talked about this a lot since I got home. We wanted you to talk to me and ask your questions first, and we knowed that you would ask when you was ready to hear. Now that you and me talked, William and me will tell Ethel Mae the truth. No more family secrets. It ain’t fair for you to have to hide, Lydia. Secrets cause shame, and I never ever want you to feel shame.”
I know my eyes was real wide. “But, Mama,” I said. “I don’t want to have to live with Uncle William and Aunt Ethel Mae. I love them for what they done for me when you was gone. They’s always going to be special to me. But I want to live with you.”
“William and me will work it out, Lydia. We are all family, and we’ll find a way. I have your adoption papers. We know it’s best for you to stay with me, and I think your aunt will come to understand that, too.”
I sure hoped she was right. Iffen we wasn’t going to have no more family secrets, I figured I best tell her my
secret. “Mama,” I said without looking up from my sewing, “I went to the cemetery to see where Helen was buried.”
She didn’t say nothing for a minute. “Good, Lydia,” she finally said. “I’m glad you done that. You two are joined by birth. How was it for you?”
“I skipped school to go. I told Mr. Hinkle I was sick. I lied, Mama.”
Mama nodded. She didn’t look mad at all. “After we tell Ethel Mae, you can explain to Mr. Hinkle. I’m sure he’ll understand.”
Then I nodded. After all me and Mr. Hinkle been through together, I figured he understood me as good as most anybody. “I took Ears with me,” I told Mama. “It was pretty there. And peaceful. I talked to Helen the best I could. But I called her Helen. You’re my mama.” Mama smiled at me and patted my hand. I wanted to tell her something else. “On her headstone, there was a verse.
My spirit frees, and I am one with God
. I don’t recollect that from the Bible.”
“It’s from one of her poems. Helen was a wonderful woman, Lydia. You could feel how much she loved people and life in what she wrote. And she had this great laugh—real hearty. Not something you would expect to come out of such a tiny woman. We didn’t get together with William and Helen too much, but her and me was becoming good friends. I miss her.”
“Does Uncle William still have her poems and stories?”
“You’ll have to ask him, Lydia. I don’t know.”
“Do you think she can see me from Heaven, Mama?”
“I think her and BJ and Gran probably talk about how proud they be of you all the time, Lydia. And I’m sure Helen tells them that she believes you was the best thing she ever done with her life.”
We sat quiet for a spell as we rocked and sewed, rocked and sewed. Then I thought of something else I wanted to talk to her about.
“Mama,” I said, “I been thinking some about what Mr. Hinkle told me one time about having a dream for my future. I think me and Anne of Green Gables sure do have us a lot in common.”
“Why is that, Lydia?” Mama asked.
“I want to be a teacher someday, too—a real good one like Anne and Mr. Hinkle and Mrs. Nowling.”
“That sounds like a mighty fine dream, Lydia. Sheila told me her family didn’t have no money to help her, but she worked hard to put herself through college. Iffen she done it, I believe you can, too.”
“I will, Mama. I just know it. You know that letter I got from Janine the other day? She said she wants to be a teacher, too. I finally found me a person friend who’s a kindred spirit like Anne Shirley had. Maybe me and Janine can go to college together. It sure would be fun iffen we could be roommates.”
“Maybe by the time you both are old enough, it will be possible to go to college together. I think things be changing in this country. And some of them changes be real good.”
I thought on that for a while. “Miss Parker said when
you win your civil trial that you’ll have more money than you ever had,” I said. “Are we going to be rich?”
Mama winked at me. “We always been rich, Lydia. We just ain’t had much money. I don’t know what to do about that yet. It don’t seem right to sue a children’s hospital. Miss Parker says we need to make sure they stop treating people like they treated us, and sometimes the only way to do that is by a lawsuit. She said maybe we could get a settlement. I don’t know, Lydia. I’ll have to keep studying on it.”
We rocked and sewed, rocked and sewed some more. Then I said, “Mama, there’s something I been pondering about for a long time.”
Mama threaded herself up a needle. “What’s that, Lydia?”
“How come you and Gran and BJ was always so strong going through all that bad stuff, and I was so weak?”
Mama looked up at me, her eyes all wide. She stopped rocking and put her hand on my arm. “Oh, Lydia,” she said. “Do you really believe that?”
“Yes, Mama. I was always a-crying and a-feeling like I was going to fall to pieces.”
Mama smiled and patted my arm. “Here is a Gran test for you, Lydia. What’s the shortest verse in the Bible?”
“ ‘
Jesus wept
,’ ” I said without even thinking. Then I smiled.
“I done my share of crying and falling to pieces, too, Lydia, especially in that jail, thinking about what you must be going through without me.”
“You did, Mama?”
“Um-hum.” She went back to rocking and sewing. “But I come to think that being strong ain’t about being tough or holding things all bottled up inside when you have real bad times. It’s just about leaning on Jesus and the folks He puts around you and putting one foot in front of the other until you cross over into some better days. You done that just fine, Lydia.”
I studied on them words for a spell. “But, Mama, what about when I was so weak and afeared that I couldn’t speak up for you at that first trial?” Some tears flooded up my eyes.
Mama tied a knot in her row and bit off the thread. “Lydia, I was never so proud of you as I was at that moment.”
“But why, Mama?”
“I figured out you thought it was wrong to swear on the Bible. And I said to myself, Lydia is always going to do what she believes is right, no matter what. And then I didn’t feel so afeared for you anymore. I knowed you would always be a strong voice in this world.”
We listened to the thoughts inside us for a while. Then Mama broke the silence. “It’s a little chilly out here, don’t you think?” she said. She put her needle down and pulled her sweater around her. Then she balled up her right hand in a fist and rested it on the arm of the rocking chair. She rubbed her thumb over her fingers to get them warm.
I laid my hand over hers. “Paper covers rock,” I said.
Mama grinned at me and I grinned back.
I am a child of the mountains. West Virginia has been home to ancestors on both sides of my family since the late seventeen hundreds. My father’s family, originally named Schenck, emigrated to the United States from Switzerland, Germany, and England. Some of my mother’s family also came from England, but others came from France and Italy. My great-great-grandmother on my mother’s side was Cherokee, and like Lydia, “I’m right proud of that.”
Ancestors from both families eventually settled in the section of Virginia that became West Virginia during the Civil War. I have distant relatives who fought on both sides of the war that pitted brother against brother. Most Virginians who lived west of the Appalachian Mountains aligned with the Union, and delegates to the Wheeling Convention in what became known as West Virginia Independence Hall voted
to secede from Virginia. President Abraham Lincoln signed a proclamation that granted West Virginia statehood on June 20, 1863.
Some of the Schencks were Mennonites fleeing religious persecution in Europe. After one of my father’s ancestors was excommunicated in the United States for marrying outside the Mennonite community, he became Baptist, a faith he passed to many of his descendants. The deep faith treasured by many Appalachians, myself included, probably stems from ancestors who were willing to sacrifice everything for their beliefs.
My father’s family lived on Paradise Hill in Putnam County and later moved to Kanawha County. Many of my mother’s ancestors settled in Jackson and Mason counties, and some eventually took flatboats to Kanawha County, where my parents met and I was born. I grew up in Charleston, the urban capital of West Virginia, but I loved to visit relatives in the country.
People in Putnam County like to say, “You have to go through Confidence and Liberty before you get to Paradise,” using those three towns as a metaphor for life. Although Confidence was never a coal camp, I chose it to symbolize Lydia’s need to find confidence in her faith and her sense of self before she could return to Paradise.