The Woods at Barlow Bend (2 page)

Part 1: Rumors and Wildflowers

Chapter
1

August 8,
1933

Frisco City,
Alabama

“I poured it out in the yard.
If you want the whiskey so bad, go out back and lap it up like a dog.” Momma stared right into John’s eyes as she said this. Momma wasn’t a teetotaler by any means, but she didn’t like how drunk Uncle John got during these family get-togethers, so she took matters into her own hands. Rather, she took Uncle John’s whiskey into her own hands, and watered the azaleas.

It was the night of my
thirteenth birthday. The house was full with friends and family, ready for music and dancing. Meg, my younger sister, played the piano while Momma. Daddy, and the others danced in the living room, but Uncle John became too handsy when drunk. Daddy got irritated when Uncle John got handsy.

“Nothin’s gonna ruin your party, Hattie.”
Momma, as usual, fixed the situation to her liking.

Momma
stared at Uncle John’s heavy eyelids and scruffy complexion for a moment, probably wondering for the millionth time why her older sister, Audrey, married such a worthless man. Not even really a man, but a pitiful being ready to beg for scraps.

Momma
knew how proud Uncle John was of his whiskey. “A family secret passed down from my papa,” Uncle John would proudly announce, as if we all hadn’t heard that statement over a hundred times.

P
ouring out the whiskey was a little mean, but I think Momma enjoyed angering Uncle John, and I loved her fearlessness.

“Audrey was pretty before John.
She could have done much better for herself,” Momma told me earlier that day when we were making the cake for my party. I loved being in the kitchen with Momma. Even if it was to help make my own birthday cake, an afternoon alone with Momma was a gift. Each story she told was like a secret shared just between us. And Momma had plenty of stories about Uncle John, his whiskey, and the way he treated Aunt Audrey. Momma also thought that a real man would at least attempt to argue with her when insulted or tricked. When John’s only argument manifested as incoherent and pathetic huffing and puffing, she couldn’t help but laugh.

Uncle
John stormed out the back door of the kitchen with Aunt Audrey chasing behind him.

“Jesus, Addie, why do have to be so hateful?” Audrey squeaked
at Momma as the screen door slapped the frame. “John, Honey, come back to the party!”

I wondered for a second how these two completely dif
ferent women could be sisters. Aunt Audrey’s face was weathered and splotchy, probably from long hours spent in the fields trying to salvage the meager profit Uncle John had promised during the spring planting. Momma, on the other hand, had a perfect porcelain complexion that would glow a beautiful bronze in the summer, but always returned to a smooth, soft cream by mid-fall. I had also never seen my mother chase after Daddy when he stormed out of a room.

“Hattie,
Honey,” Momma said as she turned toward me, “Promise me you’ll never waste your time on a man like that.”

“I promise, Momma
,” I said.

“That’s my girl.” Momma kissed my forehead, shook her shiny, wavy
hair, trimmed smartly just above her shoulders, and turned to walk down the hallway into the living room with a pitcher of sweet tea and glasses balanced on her favorite serving tray. Daddy stopped her in the doorway and shook his head. He didn’t care for John Howard too much either, but he did like the man’s liquor. It was the smoothest in the county. Momma knew Daddy would be disappointed, but she also knew how to be forgiven: tilted chin, coy laugh, piercing blue eyes staring straight into his.

Addie and Hubbard
Andrews were each better looking than the other. Who could say whose blue eyes were more powerful: Daddy’s clear, ice blue, or Momma’s nearly cobalt, like beach glass washed on the shore, smooth and shiny? I was witness to Momma’s subtle, yet mesmerizing ways of winning on several occasions. She knew exactly how to be forgiven for every impulsive action.

“Sorry, Hub, but John
’s barely tolerable sober, much less lit up like the Fourth of July.”

T
hen, Momma made the move that made Daddy forget the whiskey. Momma gently, but intentionally brushed her body against his as she passed him through the kitchen door. Her hair brushed his chin and she dragged her fingertips along his waist. Daddy stared at her, fixated by her every move as she exited the kitchen and disappeared into the parlor without spilling a drop of tea. The room always seemed a little darker after she left.

Chapter 2

Octo
ber 1933

Frisco City,
Alabama

I heard them as they stepped on the front porch.
The front door swung open so hard that it hit the wall and bounced back. Momma and Daddy had gone to an adult social at the Methodist Church that night and were home earlier than I thought they would be. I had just crawled into my bed when I heard Momma’s voice on the porch. Meg, of course, was already fast asleep and engaged in her heavy, rhythmic breathing. They were fighting again.

“It’s bad enough
that I have to hear the hens whisper about you, but to watch you! And right next to me! You’d think you would’ve finally learned a little self-control after what you did, but no!” The hurt caused by whatever Daddy had done echoed in every word Momma spoke.

“Addie,
Honey, I…” Daddy tried to explain that he was just being friendly, but Momma kept at him.

“
They’re never going to stop!” Momma was in the mood for a good fight and determined to have one. “Do you know what they say about you? About me?”

“And there it is!
” Daddy raised his voice loud enough to silence Momma. “You’re not worried about what I’m off doin’ or not doin’. You’re not worried about what I did. You’re only worried about precious Addie Izora Andrews and how you look to all of them! Well, to hell with them and with you!”

The door slammed again, and
then silence. I knew Daddy had left. Momma would stand her ground and stake her claim on a room, a piece of land, or an argument until it was reduced to ashes, but Daddy would retreat. He couldn’t stand being next to Momma when she was in one of her moods. The flashes of heat coming off her could suck the oxygen right out of a room and force Daddy to search for fresh air so he could breathe, or at least seek cover until she grew bored with arguing, which was usually the only reason one of their arguments came to an end. That summer and fall, the arguments came more frequently than in years past.

According to Momma, I ca
me from very strong-minded and strong-willed stock. Momma claimed that as soon as she and Daddy first laid eyes on each other, the battle for control began. I think that was probably what attracted the two to each other to begin with: the need to rule their own small piece of the world. Neither of them wanted to rule over someone weak. The weak offered no challenge, and, therefore, no reward. Momma and Daddy met at the First Methodist Church in Luverne, Alabama, 90 miles east of our home in Frisco City. Both claimed to have picked each other and that once his or her mind was made up, the other had no choice but to go along with the match. Of course, I always privately believed Momma’s version of the story more than Daddy’s.

Momma claimed
that for weeks every Sunday morning, she would stand in the choir box and look out onto the humble congregation, heads bowed in prayer. Every head was bowed except one. Throughout the service, Daddy would stare at her with his delicious blue eyes, and then linger by the door afterward. Enjoying the game of chicken far too much to end it so soon, Momma would walk coolly past him and down the street with her sisters in tow, not even giving Daddy quick glance.

Momma’s four sisters
; the Lowman Girls as they were known across the county, would beg her to speak to the dashing Andrews boy; youngest of the eight children born to General Jackson Andrews. General Andrews owned of a large plantation on the north side of Luverne and seemed to have his hands in all county business: from farming, to politics, to which moonshiners were allowed to prosper in Crenshaw County. The Lowman Girls considered an Andrews boy a great catch.

Momma would smile and
tell her sisters, “Maybe next week,” secretly knowing that Daddy would be back in the middle pew the next week, and their game would continue until she was sure he was completely hooked. After a few weeks of the game, Momma finally paused on the steps and spoke to Daddy. She accepted an invitation to accompany him to a dance the following weekend. Two short months after their first conversation on the front steps of the modest wooden chapel, the two stood there together again as husband and wife.

By that evening in October of 1933,
Momma and Daddy had played their game of chicken, trying to find out who was in control of whom, for fourteen years. Lying still in my bed, I held my breath so I could hear Momma. Whenever they fought, I waited to hear if she would cry afterward. If she did cry, I never heard her. What I did hear, was Momma’s pacing, fast and hard on the wooden floor, and then a kitchen cupboard creak, a glass on the counter, the thud of a thick, glass bottle. I could tell Momma was still fuming because all of her movements sounded more deliberate and animated than usual. I decided to stay in my bed. Momma was a force when angry, and I didn’t want to get caught in her path or end up a casualty in tonight’s match. Sleep would give way to a calmer morning for both of them.

As I lay
in bed, my heart pounding too hard to fall asleep, I fantasized about my future life. I hoped to marry a simple man, a local shopkeeper or a man who worked for the town, not one who traveled all over selling his wares and who owned a hotel in the next county that required him to be away for several nights at a time.

“I go there to check o
n the hotel, Addie. That’s all!” Daddy’s constant explanation rang in my ears.

In the stillness, I
heard Marion Harris singing
I’m Just Wild About Harry
. The tune bounced from the radio set in Mrs. Williams’s front parlor across the street, and through my open window, “He’s sweet just like chocolate candy and just like honey from a bee. Oh, I’m just wild about Harry and he’s just wild about me.”

I swore right then that I would marry someone like Harry from that song, someone that’s sweet like chocolate and wild about only me.
And I would be wild about him. We would live quietly without worrying about who’s winning or losing the game of chicken that I would refuse to play.

The next morning
, I woke to the smell of coffee and my mother’s lilting, sparkling laughter. She was teasing Daddy about sleeping in the barn like a dog, too scared of his “tiny, little ol’ wife” to come back inside. Luckily for Daddy, October was still a warm month in Alabama. Not all the nights he spent in the barn were too comfortable. At least, when I heard the front door slam night after night, I always assumed he went to the barn.

But on that morning, I had no idea what was ahead of me.
On that morning, I was just a teenager who wanted her parents to stop fighting. I softly padded down the hallway and to the kitchen as Momma and Daddy continued to flirt and tease each other.

“Wicked woman, I should have drowned you la
st summer when I had the chance,” I heard Daddy say as Momma howled with laughter, and I paused in the hallway.

Daddy had taught
all us kids to swim over the years, but Momma was content to float on her empty Karo Syrup cans, one neatly tucked under each arm.

“If the Good Lord intended me to swim like a fish, he’d have given me gills!”
she would playfully snap at Daddy as she gracefully floated on her cans. Daddy would beg her to at least try to swim, tickling her until she threw her arms around him for support when her cans floated away. When Momma and Daddy were good, they were fantastic.

*****

“Hubbard, you worship every hair on my pretty little head.” Momma playfully lunged at Daddy who was leaning against the kitchen sink.

Maybe to prove how much str
onger he was than her, Daddy picked Momma up and spun her around as if he was holding a small child. He kissed her neck, and she laughed even louder. He held her there for a moment longer. Her feet dangled nearly a foot off the floor, and her blue eyes danced with his.

As I watched my parents from the doorway of the tiny kitchen, the song from the night
before came back to me.
Addie’s just wild about Hubbard, and he’s just wild about her.

Chapter 3

January 3
1, 1934

Frisco City,
Alabama

I
rose early that morning. I always woke up early on the weekends. I didn’t understand sleeping late when there was so much that could be done. The possibilities were endless on the weekends, especially with Momma. All week long at school, I would daydream about how I would spend my two glorious days. With Addie Andrews at the helm, I never knew where I might end up.

Often, Momma
would sweep me, the oldest, and Meg, second in line, off on a day trip. She never planned where we would end up; she would just rush us to the car and off we would go, Meg in the backseat, and me, next to Momma up front.

In her charge
for the winding country roads, Momma often forgot to pack us a lunch. We would be 30 miles away from home, in the middle of nowhere, and suddenly, Momma would remember that she didn’t bring food. Luckily, in Alabama, blackberries and honeysuckles were delightful summer treats. Pecans littered the ground in the fall and scuppernong grapes, although they were a bit sour and made my jaw all tingly, would do in a pinch.

I
had made the sweetest batch of blackberry jelly from picking blackberries in one of the forests we explored that last summer with Momma. That morning, I grabbed one of the two jars left from the batch out of the pantry, along with flour, sugar, salt, and buttermilk from the icebox. Momma and Daddy left way before dawn to hopefully nab one more wild turkey and, God forbid, some nasty little squirrels before season’s end, and wouldn’t be back until lunch. Therefore, breakfast duties were left to me. I didn’t mind. I relished the few moments of peace and quiet in our little kitchen. I just hoped that Albert, the baby of the family, and Billy, number three, didn’t end up with the sticky mess all over themselves, the table, and the floor. Albert, especially, had a way of wearing rather than eating the food set in front of him when he was away from Momma’s watchful gaze.

Of course
, my hopes for a peaceful, civilized breakfast were dashed soon after the boys came to the table. Meg tried her best to keep Albert focused on actually eating breakfast, but he preferred to mush my beautiful biscuits and jelly between his fingers until he formed a grayish purple paste. Billy at least, ate most of his biscuit, but a considerable amount of crumbs littered the floor around him and blackberry jelly was smeared on his chair, his pajamas, and in his hair, causing it to matte on the side. He would never have acted that way if Momma was at the table.

“Enough.”
I efficiently and effectively declared breakfast over and bath time to begin. Meg, thankfully, took Billy and Albert to the bathroom where she stripped them down, put both of them in the shower at the same time, and turned the water on their heads. Judging from Billy’s and Albert’s loud yelping, the water must have been ice-cold. I couldn’t help but laugh as I pictured Meg trying to wrestle the jelly and crumbs out of the two boys’ hair. She probably ended up splashing more water on herself than the boys.

“
Meg, they don’t have to look perfect, just rinse ‘em off!” I yelled toward the bathroom.

Momma and Daddy
had left instructions for the four of us to head down Bowden Street to Aunt Matt’s once we were up, fed, and dressed. I loved spending time with Aunt Matt, a kind, colored woman with a big, soft body and thick, strong arms that used to spin me around when I was little. She was so strong that she could make you feel like you were flying through the air, but completely safe in her mighty grip. Of course, by 1934, I was too old for all that.

Over the weeks leading up to that January, Aunt Matt had
been teaching me how to make all my favorites: fried chicken and okra; pot roast with thick, dark brown gravy; and fried catfish caught by her equally jovial husband, Henry. Henry had promised to take the boys fishing that day after he finished the morning shift at the railroad station, so they would be out of my hair and out of my way. I figured Henry would love the leftover biscuits, and hopefully, Aunt Matt would be pleased with how far her pupil had progressed with biscuits. What had started out as hard, flat little bricks and were now flaky and tender. I wrapped the leftovers in a clean kitchen towel to take with us down to their house.

I
glanced at the kitchen clock and was stunned at how fast the morning had passed.

“
Meg, hurry up with the boys! We need to get over to Aunt Matt’s!”

I
wanted Aunt Matt to help me prepare a hearty lunch for Momma and Daddy to enjoy and now, I only had a couple of hours to complete the task. I quickly wiped down the table and Albert and Billy’s chairs, swept up the crumbs, and was on my hands and knees with a soapy rag trying to get the blackberry jelly off the floor, when I heard a car door shut and footsteps on the porch.

“
Meg, I think Momma and Daddy are home!” I yelled, not sure why they were home so early.

I
had just thrown the wet rag in the sink when Daddy and Aunt Matt walked into the kitchen. Usually, he came barreling into a room, announcing his presence, as if his heavy footsteps weren’t warning enough. Today, however, he barely made a sound.

“Daddy, y’all are back early,” I said, rushing to return the broom and
dustpan to the pantry. “Aunt Matt, you didn’t have to walk all the way down here. I was gonna walk the kids over myself.”

Aunt Matt
usually greeted me with a big hug and an almost lyrical, “How ya doin’, pretty girl?” but she was silent and had tears in her eyes.

“Where’s Momma?” I
asked.

Daddy
sat at the kitchen table, a large, sturdy piece made of solid pine that he had built himself.

From the doorway of the pantry
, I saw Daddy’s face, tired and pink from the cold. His tanned, youthful complexion had turned dull and grey; making his prominent cheekbones cut harsh angles under his eyes. I noticed stains all over his shirt, pants, and hands.

“So, did you get a big one?
Is Momma out admiring her prize?” I walked to the sink and peered out the window just above it to catch a glimpse of Momma with her latest kill, but only saw the black car.

I
hoped that they would come home with a turkey rather than squirrels, which, in my opinion, were tough and gamey no matter what you did with them. No amount of Momma’s artistry or Aunt Matt’s expertise in the kitchen could improve the little creatures. For a moment, Daddy and Aunt Matt both stared at me soundlessly.

The look in Daddy’s eyes scared me.
I had never heard him so quiet or seen him look so distant. I took a seat and looked at Aunt Matt who was seated in my usual place, and reaching for my hand. Squeezed in hers, my hand looked so small and pale wrapped up in hers: big, and dark, like soft, wrinkled leather. I wanted to say something to break the tension, but my gut instinct made me freeze. The look on Daddy’s face was too intense. Aunt Matt was breathing harder than usual and she kept looking from me to the table.

Daddy
spoke softly, “Sweetie, your momma had an accident.” I stared at the dark stains all over Daddy’s clothes.

I
had always considered myself to be quite capable in a crisis, so I immediately sprang to action. “Let me tell Meg. She can stay here with Albert and Billy, and we’ll go to the doctor’s. Momma must be hungry, so I’ll bring her the biscuits I made earlier. Aunt Matt, you’ll be so proud. They’re fluffy and tender, just like you taught me. I was going to give them to Henry, but he’ll understand, won’t he?”

I
waited for Aunt Matt to return my smile, but she reached for my hand again and muttered a “Dear Jesus,” toward the ceiling. Why was she crying? That wasn’t like her.

“Hattie,
Sweetie, sit down,” Daddy said, more to the table than to me, “Your momma and I went over to Clarke County near Walker Springs. We crossed the river at Barlow Bend, and were walking into the woods. She heard some squirrels in the vines of a big tree and was tryin’ to scare them around for me to shoot. She was creeping around that tree when…Sweetie, her gun went off. She didn’t suffer. It was real quick.” To this day, I don’t know why he didn’t look me in the eye.

As I sat on the hard seat, stunned and not quite comprehending what I just he
ard, Aunt Matt tried to comfort me, “Now, Baby.”

Why did she
call me “baby”? She hadn’t called me that in years. What happened to ‘pretty girl?’

Aunt Matt
started again, “Now, Baby, your daddy’s gonna need your help with Meg and them boys. Me and Henry gonna do everything we can. Oh, Baby, I am just so sorry, just so sorry.”

Aunt Matt
calling me baby made me angry. I was no longer a baby. I wasn’t even a child. My childhood ended as soon as that shot was fired, and I knew it. The thought of Momma being gone rushed over me. Every inch of my body began to cramp, and my chest got so tight, I struggled to breathe. I rushed out the back door to the car, and stared at the brown stains on the floorboards.

“Where is she?” I yelled as I looked in the car.
There was a small pack with two guns, but Momma wasn’t there. Tears burned my eyes, and the cold air stung my lungs.

Aunt Matt grabbed my hand and pulled me toward the house, “Come on,
Baby, come back inside. You gonna catch your death out here.”

That’s when
the frost began to sting the bottoms of my feet and I started to shake.