Authors: Lisa Howorth
Charles poured himself a little more Maker’s. “What’s wrong? I mean, besides the obvious. You look miserable,” he asked.
“Oh, I’m not,” she said, straightening up and smiling. “Just so tired. The funeral was nice, actually, super country, with great music. And things went all right in Richmond. There was a little weirdness with Mama. Of course. I’m too wasted to go through all the details tonight. They’ve found the right guy, a totally different guy, and they just have to prove it somehow, which won’t be easy since they—get this—
lost the evidence
, and they’ve got to bring him to trial or at least keep him in jail by civil commitment, whatever that is, or he could be free again this summer. That’s why they’re in such a hurry.”
“Jesus! I don’t get that—how could they
lose
the evidence?”
“Oh, it’s
way
worse than that,” she said. “I’ll show you this detective’s report tomorrow. It’s so fucked up, you couldn’t even make it up. But it’s going to be . . . over. We
think.
”
“God, I hope so. What a mess. Do you want a nightcap? Maker’s?”
“Okay,” she said. “What about Wiggs? How did that end up going?”
“He was fine,” Charles said. “After he got back to Memphis and settled down a little, and figured out that his nose wasn’t broken. I’m going up to pull the prints, and we’ll probably do the show in May.” He poured a finger of whiskey into her wine glass and raised his.
“Chaz! That’s great!” She leaned up and clanked glasses with him. Whew, she thought. At least she hadn’t screwed that up.
They sat silently for a minute. Mary Byrd heard water rushing in the pipes upstairs. One of the children flushing. She wanted badly to see them. They didn’t know she was back, or they would have come downstairs, or maybe they didn’t want to hear whatever she had to tell them about her trip. Or maybe they were miffed that she’d gone off to Wallett.
She finished off the last of her omelet. She could have eaten another one, she’d been so hungry. “Did you go to Rod’s funeral?” she asked.
“Of course I did. They somehow got all their people down here from Gary and Chicago by Monday, in spite of the storm, and they went on and buried him.”
“Was it okay? Did Evagreen and L. Q. go?”
“L. Q. and Ken were there, kind of in the back, but not Evagreen. I guess it was as okay as it could be, under the circumstances. But I did get to speak to Ken, and he’s got someone great to represent Angie.”
“Who?” she asked. “The Mongoose?” The Mongoose was a scary and highly successful criminal lawyer in town.
“Nope,” Charles laughed. “Ruby Wharton.”
“Who’s that?”
“She’s an African-American lawyer in Memphis, married to AC Wharton, the hotshot attorney up there. They’re both famous for civil rights cases, and Ruby has done some women’s stuff, like she wrote one of the first laws about domestic abuse. It’s kind of a brilliant move on Ken’s part.”
“How will they do it?” Mary Byrd asked. “Self-defense?”
“I guess.” said Charles. “But I don’t know.”
“Wow! That’s great. What about Evagreen and L. Q? They must feel so much better about it. What about Desia?”
“How
good
can they feel about it, really? I think Desia is coming to live with the Kimbros and Evagreen and L. Q., ’til it all gets figured out. Call Evagreen tomorrow.” Charles extended his hands on the table before him, slapping both palms down, a signal that it was time for the conversation to be over. He took his plate to the sink.
“I told Ken a little about why you had to go to Richmond, in case they were wondering why you hadn’t been by with food or something.” He yawned and stretched. “I’m going to bed.”
“Tell Eliza and William I’ll be up in a minute,” she called to his retreating back, already in the next room. He didn’t answer. In the morning she would make some bread and pimiento cheese for each family. Pimiento cheese sandwiches could sustain people in a crisis. Under stress, when you weren’t able to eat rich, gloppy pies and cakes and casseroles or big, heavy slabs of ham, you could always eat a nice, neat, square pimiento cheese sandwich on homemade yeast bread. Of course, Liddie had taught her this. And she’d take something for poor little Desia—a toy or some books or something.
Charles reappeared in the door. “This was in the mail slot this afternoon.” He handed her a plain white envelope with
ms. mary byrd
printed on the front in Evagreen’s old-school handwriting. The envelope was lumpy with more than just paper. What on earth, she wondered. “Here’s the rest of the mail, and a phone message Eliza took today.” He tossed a stack on the table.
Charles retreated. Mary Byrd put her plate on the floor and watched Iggy pad over. The dogs followed the cat hesitantly and Mary Byrd said sharply, “No, Iggy. Go on.” Iggy reluctantly backed off and the dogs moved in, clearing the eggy plate in seconds.
She looked at the note from Eliza, written in sorority-girl handwriting: Is dotted with circles, each letter cheerfully bulbous.
mom, a kind of annoying lady in richmond wants you to call her asap
.
The number, of course, was Linda Fyce’s. Mary Byrd snapped her wrist, index finger pointing at the message, and said, “Bitch, I will call you
if
and
when
I feel like it.” She carefully slipped the note in the silverware drawer, hoping she’d remember where she put it. She might have some things to say.
Flipping through the few pieces of mail that had accumulated while she was gone—a surprising amount, given the storm—Mary Byrd pulled out a stout manila envelope postmarked Clarksdale.
Inside was a photograph that she recognized as Evagreen and L .Q.’s house, and a note written in an almost illegible, fountain-pen scrawl:
My dear Mary Byrd,
Please accept this gift as an apology for my, shall we say, unfortunate behavior on a recent evening. Like M. Popeye, “I yam what I yam,” don’t you know. Looking forward to seeing you and Charles again soon, and to the show in early summer.
Grazie mille,
Edward Freeman Wiggsby
Amazing. The photo was, of course, stunning. The Bons’ small house glowed softly in a violet night sky. The porch light illuminated the huge tangle of early-blooming Carolina jessamine climbing up and over the little portico, the vines a dazzlement of canary-yellow blossoms. How had she not noticed them that unhappy night? She couldn’t wait to show it to Charles. And Eliza, who
might
be impressed enough to cut Wiggs a little slack. She’d give the photo to Evagreen and L. Q., or maybe to Ken, to remind him of home. Or to Angie, if she wasn’t going to be coming back. Ugh. She didn’t want to think of it. Maybe the photo wouldn’t make any of them too sad. And what was this envelope from Evagreen?
She opened the envelope carefully and removed some folded tissue paper. Wrapped inside was a handful of little tan globes. Unfolding the enclosed note, she read:
I am praying for you and your family. These from our chinaberry tree. You plant them in your yard NOW, where they will get Sun, to honor your Little Brother. Who is now an angel in Heaven. Ms. Evagreen Bon.
She piled the chinaberries on the windowsill with the other tiny things. Picking up a pad of stick-it notes, she wrote
parking reserved for stevie’s dump truck
and stuck the note beneath them, wondering how long it would be before Stith sent the truck.
Mary Byrd wanted her bed. As tired as she was, she thought she’d better check in with Mann first; he’d be worried. And curious, but that could wait. It was late, past his usual early bedtime, but she went to the phone. E-A-T C-H-I-X. It rang a couple of times and Mann picked up, saying groggily, “Hey, it’s really late.”
“I know. I’m sorry,” she said. “But I know you were worried sick about me.”
“Uh-huh,” he said. She heard the inhale of a big yawn. “You okay? How was it?”
“Creepy, but fine. I’ll tell you tomorrow. I’m just checking in.”
“How’s your family?” Mann said.
“Everyone’s pretty okay. At least for now. And Ernest’s funeral was . . . weird. Did the storm mess up your house at all?”
“Just a tree on the deck. No big deal. I had some hot chicken stuck in Texas, though.”
“Did Foote get back okay?”
“Yeah, he’s back. Oh—he said to tell you that he and Frank Booth are ‘at your service.’ What’s that about?” Another yawn.
“Oh, god! Mann, he is so crazy! I mean, the trip was fine, but he says some insane stuff. He’s kind of a homophobe, among other things.”
“Yeah?” Mann said. “So who isn’t? A lot of the junk he says, he’s just showing out.”
“Maybe. It doesn’t bother you?”
“He’s a good driver. He’s a nice guy around me. Nicer than Wiggs, your well-educated, sophisticated friend. Anyway, I doubt Foote really cares about gays much one way or the other, but he does care about his paycheck.”
“I’m exhausted. Go back to bed. Call me tomorrow.”
“Sweet dreams,” Mann said.
“Yeah. I hope. Luvyabye.”
Heading upstairs to her children, as she passed the bookshelf where they kept assorted reference books—the French dictionary,
The Readers’ Encyclopedia,
the pill identification book. She pulled out
Mississippi Trees.
Evagreen’s gesture touched her deeply, and she loved the old-fashioned dooryard trees. Chinaberry flowers smelled like her mother’s favorite perfume, Fracas—rich and wonderful, but almost overpowering. People didn’t seem to grow chinaberries much anymore. She knew she’d better read up on how to plant and grow them properly, or else.
Mary Byrd knocked softly at Eliza’s door and opened it. Eliza was already asleep in her poofy cocoon, the mosquito net drawn around the bed, or she was pretending to be asleep, because just a few minutes earlier Mary Byrd had heard her laughing. She had the greatest ha-ha-ha laugh but they didn’t hear it often these days; of course she had been on the phone with one of her friends. Mary Byrd decided to leave her daughter be; she didn’t have the energy for any skirmishes. They could talk the next day.
Passing the bathroom, she saw Irene lapping at the little puddles left in the tub; probably they’d forgotten to melt some ice for the kitties while she was gone, and Irene and Iggy hated drinking dog water. Who wouldn’t. Irene looked so cool and colorful. She loved how calico cats were sort of pieces of different cats patched together—a black-and-white tuxedo cat leg here, a marmalade tabby leg there. She went in to pet Irene and saw that she had what the children called “rainforest butt”: leaves and twigs were tangled in the long fur around her fluffy ass. Mary Byrd tried to pull the junk off, but Irene was having none of it and jumped out of the tub and ran off. “Suit yourself, skanky-butt,” she sighed.
The toilet seat was down, but there were no dribbles on it, so the flush she had heard from downstairs had most likely been Eliza. They really had to talk; she knew Eliza wanted to know, and should know, really, what had happened in Richmond, but couldn’t bring herself to act interested enough to ask, and would just pump William for information in the morning. William, his father’s son, would reduce all the details Mary Byrd gave him to not much more than “yes” or “no” or “I don’t remember; ask Mom,” which would make Eliza crazy. Maybe there’d be some one-on-one time after drama, while her daughter was captive in the car and before she picked up William from soccer. She knew Eliza would also want to know why she’d gone to “that guy’s” funeral. It was a good question that Mary Byrd would give half an answer to, if she could think of something.
William’s door was wide open and he was looking at a book by the beam of his bedside light, an old railroad engineer’s lamp that Mary Byrd had found rummaging around in a junk shop.
“Hey!” She walked over and sat on the bed and kissed him.
“Hey.”
“How is everything?” she asked. “How was the ice storm? I bet you guys did some great sledding.”
He kept looking at his book. “It was pretty cool. At first we could sled, but then all the trees and branches fell down and it was scary. Mom,” he added, “you don’t smell that great.”
“Oh, I’m sorry. Dad just made me a garlic omelet. I’ll try not to breathe.” She pulled the sheet over her mouth. “Dad said y’all were like pioneers, with all the electricity and water off.”
“Yeah. But then it got boring with no TV and only peanut butter and soup and hot dogs. We had to eat the hot dogs on hamburger buns. And then Dad made us help pile up all the branches.” Taking notice of
Mississippi Trees
in her hand,
he asked, “What’s that book?”
“It’s that book about trees; you know, the one we used for your leaf identification project last fall,” she said. “Evagreen gave me some seeds and I was going to read about how to plant them.”
“I hate that book. It’s boring,” he said.
“Okay, Contrary. You don’t have to
hate
something just because it doesn’t interest you.”
“What’s ‘contrary’ mean?” he asked.
“You know, like Eliza acts: cranky. Or like how Evagreen sometimes acts. It’s not exactly that they’re
mean
, they’re just
against
a lot of things. Like Evagreen likes things to be her way. She thinks she knows the best way to do things, and she’s
contrary
if you don’t agree.”