As Good as True Read online

Marina blinked away tears and turned her attention to me. “You’re going to need stitches, Mother.” Her warm hand cradled mine.

  “I’ll have it looked at when we go to the hospital for you.” It felt good being so close to her, even though she refused to see her father for what he was. I would bend to her will if she would forgive me.

  She tightly wound gauze around my hand and it went numb. She released me and screwed the medicine dropper back onto the bottle. My fingers pulsed in time with my heart.

  “Hold it high.” She held her hand in the air to demonstrate.

  I cradled my arm like a baby and rested the hand on my shoulder.

  Eli was agitated. “Doesn’t the injustice of a man being threatened over his job bother you?” He did not stammer. He stood straight.

  Calmly, she said, “No.”

  “I’m going to Washington’s house,” he said. “He won’t be alone if they come again.”

  I said, “I don’t want you to go. It’s not safe.”

  Marina stared at Eli and her jaw pulsed. “Why must you worry us over this, with Daddy’s funeral?”

  “Father McMurray’s going too,” he said.

  “You’re putting yourself in danger,” I said.

  “It’s my calling,” he snapped at me. He looked like Elias with his anger ticking up. He turned to Marina. “You should be ashamed of what he did. We should right the sins of our father.”

  Marina touched her belly. “You’re making things worse for that man and for us.” She bit her lip, it seemed to keep from saying more. I could tell she did not want to be involved any deeper.

  “What our father did was wrong!” Eli yelled. He had never raised his voice to her or me.

  “I’m not so sure about that,” Marina said. Her expression was hard, but she did not flinch at Eli’s show of temper. “The best thing to do is to let things settle and see where they lie.”

  “Mama did the right thing.” Eli’s voice broke. I had never seen him so passionate.

  “Maybe Daddy did the right thing. Maybe that man will take the warning and move on and leave us alone.” She sounded adamant. “I’m not sure what any of this Negro business matters when our father is dead.”

  “You don’t recognize the horror of this?”

  “I cannot fix that man’s life. I cannot right the wrongs of the world.” She stood with much effort and packed up the bandages. “I won’t talk about it anymore. Tomorrow is the visitation and the Rosary.” With much exertion, she stormed out of the kitchen.

  Eli stared at me with dark eyes and shook his head. I wanted to tell him not to go to Mr. Washington’s that night, but that would have been wrong.

  When Marina returned, her emotions seemed settled. She reached for some plates and cut the pie Eli had brought.

  Eli stared at the wall as the percolator steamed. He reached for three cups. His skin was flushed and his expression was tangled like the brambles by the river.

  “Eli dropped off some things at your house,” Marina said. “The big coffee urn from church, the plates, and cups.” She placed a plate in front of me. She gave a weary smile and took in a deep, shuddering breath. “Come on, Eli. Eat something. We have a lot to do before tomorrow.”

  Eli poured the coffee and placed a cup before Marina.

  Marina held the cup between her palms.

  My chest felt hollow. Here was one child struggling to do right and another lost in appearances. I had given birth to them, raised them, watched them, and yet I did not understand either of them. By the way they traded looks, they did not understand each other either. Marina was not very religious. She would skip Mass any chance she got. She pitied Eli. She thought it was simpleminded to devote his life to the Church. Eli looked at her and saw everything he hated—ambition, status, materialism. He thought she turned a blind eye to problems he saw with clarity. I could tell he wanted to make her see.

  I blamed Marina’s shortcomings on her father, but I had done the same as her, plowed through what was expected of me. The only difference between us, I had ducked my head down while she held hers high without apology.

  “I’m bringing over my silver and the large servers in the morning.” Marina took a bite of the pie.

  Eli rolled his eyes. “She has thought of everything,” he said, “except what it means to be Christian or human.”

  Marina shot him a look. “Give it a rest, Pope Eli.” She took another bite of the pie and said, “Mother, you need to go home and get yourself ready. There will be a houseful tomorrow.”

  I took a bite. It was coconut, thick and sweet, but I could not enjoy it. My chest constricted as if Elias was sitting on top of me again, crushing the breath out of me.

  I watched them eat. Both were tired and worried. I wanted to go back to the day after Elias beat me for the first time and I took them to Papa’s. That night, I lay between them in my childhood bed. I stared at the cracked plaster and listened to my father snore across the hall. The night train rumbled over the bridge, and when it was gone, I could hear the night birds, the loons and the owls shouting over each other. I felt grateful that my children were close and quiet and still and lovely. Their hot breath brushed over my arms and I marveled how they could sleep through the noise. I had a strange sense of peace and I wanted it to last forever. Maybe because I was in my mother’s house, maybe because I felt free of Elias, but mostly it just felt so good to be close to them. I was their mother, and thanked God and my luck that I’d had the strength to stand up for myself and leave him.

  But I loved Elias and I was hopeful he would come to his senses and miss us. Those little creatures beside me were so beautiful, so mesmerizing. I knew he would feel the weight of our absence and want us back. He loved the children, and because we had made them together, maybe he could see me in them and come to love me too.

  “Mama,” Marina said. “I’m craving your bread. After the funeral, I want you to make me a loaf a day.”

  I smiled and nodded. I wanted to go home and bake for her then, but I had no energy.

  Eli’s eyes met mine. I thought this could be the last time the three of us sat together in peace, for what I had done and what I had failed to do. My stomach turned. I told myself it was the rich pie on an empty stomach. It was the long night and a longer day.

  My heart pounded in my chest. “I want to tell you something.” Now, before Nelly tried to make a case against me, was my chance to show her the marks her father had left. I was willing to tell Marina he’d hurt me because I had invited Mr. Washington in. If she knew that, and with Eli there to bolster me, Marina might have empathy for me.

  “Oh, no more talk,” she said firmly. That girl of mine was the eye of the storm, calm when everything else went to pieces. She was the child who could change the course of an evening with a tinkling song on the piano, not once giving away what she knew. Her silver fork clinked against the china plate. “That was so good.”

  I gathered their dishes. I would let her have her way for the time being. Knowing her, she probably guessed what I was hiding—the bruises, the fact that Mr. Washington had been in our house, her grandmother’s accusations that I killed Elias. Marina would never want to hear it pass from my lips. Maybe she thought, if everyone stayed silent, the problems would go away and she could be relieved of scandal. She could defend herself against the truth by ignoring it. She must have known her father hurt me, because she had played interference in the past, but she had never condemned him or spoken of what she knew. I began to wash the plates.

  “Don’t get your bandage wet,” Eli said. He took my place. “I’ll do that.” I watched his hands move in circles over the plates. I had gathered food, cooked for them, filled the house with the good odors. They would eat, and then I would wash it all away, the dishes, the crumbs, the grease, the smell. I had stayed for them and raised myself out of bed every morning, put one foot in front of the other, done my duty, but still, they did not know how much of myself I had sacrificed for them. I felt I was drowning in the circ
umstances. Eli would go to Mounds and put himself in danger. Marina would have her baby, Nelly and Ivie would spew their accusations, and I would be cast out or worse. I would sully Marina and her new family.

  “Have you had any more pains?” I asked Marina.

  “No,” she said. Her fingertips kneaded her thighs as if she could stop the swelling.

  “Why don’t you lie down and rest?” I asked. “I’ll stay here with you.”

  She stared across the kitchen at Eli’s back as he finished drying the plates.

  Eli paid us no attention. His mind no doubt turned on how to help the postman and what to do for me, now that his father was dead and his family wanted to put the blame on me.

  Marina looked at the clock, then at me. “I want you to go.” Papa had said those same words earlier. Her deep voice was firm.

  “I want to stay with you.” I dreaded driving to the house where her father had died, afraid of the quiet waiting there for me, afraid of the memory of the night before with his scratching around and calling my name. If Nelly was correct that his soul was caught in the house, I wanted never to set foot through the door again.

  She sat straight in her chair. She breathed in deeply, her face full and flushed. She touched her belly. “No, Mother.” Her voice had an edge to it. “Michael doesn’t need to see you like this.”

  It was clear that Marina did not like seeing me so tousled and wild, but part of me wanted her to recognize the awful situation I was in. The kitchen light dimmed. More dark clouds had rolled in. I felt helpless against Marina and her wishes.

  “Another storm.” I looked at Eli. “Will you stay here with her until Michael comes home?”

  He nodded.

  “Will you call me if you go into labor?” I was afraid the baby would come and they would leave me out.

  “Yes.” She looked around her kitchen, taking inventory of what to bring to my house. Probably trying to get her mind off me and the scandal surrounding us. “You will have a houseful tomorrow and then the funeral the next day. Go home and roll your hair. Get a nice long bath. I’ll call Mitsy’s shop to gather a few summer suits for you.”

  Her directions frustrated me, as though all would be well if I looked pretty and neat. But I had to be patient. “I don’t need a suit. My closet is full.”

  “You need to cover your arms.” She spoke as if I had no propriety and didn’t know that women covered their arms in church. There would be gloves, a hat, a sheer black veil. She knew nothing of the marks her father had left.

  “I’ve been going to Mass longer than you’ve been alive.” I looked to Eli, but he was lost in thought and staring out the window. “Will you be careful tonight?” I touched his arm.

  He nodded. The kitchen lights flickered.

  “You know, storms bring babies,” I said to her.

  She ignored me. “Tomorrow the partners and the mayor will pay their respects.”

  “You and the baby are more important than what I wear or who comes tomorrow or the next day.” I could have said, Your father would want you to take care of yourself and the baby. If I had invoked him, she would have listened and taken it easy, but for my own selfish reasons I did not want her thinking of him. “My mother came here with nothing and built a business with her sisters. No husbands, no connections except her own parents.” My skin burned. “I can help you. You don’t need those people and all their trappings.”

  “Don’t lecture me.” Her voice was calm, disengaged. She stared at her swollen fingers. She looked tired and her emotion was spent. “Time to go before it storms again.” Slowly, carefully, like a circus elephant trying to balance on a stool, she stood. She took my arm and led me through the hallway. The storm clouds hung low in the sky and the stained-glass windows were dark as night. Marina’s grand house felt like a cave.

  “I wish you would let me stay.” I felt close to begging. If I stayed, I would find the way to tell her, prepare her for what was coming, but nothing could prepare Marina for Nelly’s accusations. My chest tightened as if Elias were squeezing my heart.

  Eli walked close. “Stay until Michael gets here,” I said.

  “Don’t worry,” he said—did he mean not to worry about her, about himself, about Orlando Washington? This young man was not a boy. He was a man protecting everything he cared about.

  Soon, I stood by my car on Maple Street and looked back at my grown children. The shade of the grand porch fell across their faces. The dark shadow of clouds hung over us. I could have been looking at myself and Elias twenty-three years ago. Eli cut the figure of his father, and Marina’s silhouette was the same as mine the night I gave birth to her.

  That night, Elias had driven me to the hospital. I lay sprawled across the back seat because I could not sit upright. My bowels felt like they were being ripped out. I thought I would die, like my mother, and he knew my fear. He tried to comfort me. He was so kind to me that night. His hand reached over the seat and stroked my hot arm. “Almost there. The doctors will keep you safe.” He drove carefully over bumps. “Close your eyes,” he said. “Think of blue skies.”

  My daughter was ignorant of the changes that would consume her, not only the pain of childbirth, but also the uncertainty of being a mother. I wished I could change something, anything, to make this point in time different. Marina stared past me. She was counting silver forks and china plates in her head. I wanted to cry out to Marina like a wailing woman and see if she felt any connection to me, her mother, banged up, a few steps below in a stained dress and stockingless. She turned and wobbled into the house past Eli. He waved goodbye and shut the door.

  The wind spit hot out of the sky. I was afraid I had walked the last time down her stone path. Afraid she would choose her grandmother over me. If my father could believe I killed Elias, surely Marina would believe the same. Who but she had witnessed more clearly the bitterness between us?

  The wind sounded like a stiff new broom on the sidewalk. The keys rattled in my hand, the engine rumbled, and the hot air blew in the car windows. I drove home, one half block east and a few blocks south toward the river under an angry sky.

  Sophie and Lila

  In the gloom beneath the pecan tree, Sophie bounced like a firefly. She had not changed out of the pink leotard from earlier that day. The mockingbird perched on a low branch, and as Sophie ran with her arms stretched out, cawing like a crow, the bird swooped down at her. She squealed, unbothered by the bird’s charge, and ran another loop around the tree.

  Lila’s truck was parked close to the house. Lila emerged from the shadow of the porch and stood at the top step. “We’ve been waiting on you.” She’d changed out of the proper dress into a worn western shirt and blue jeans rolled at the ankles.

  “Have you been here long?” I retrieved my purse and the money from the trunk and tucked the canvas bank bag so she could not see it.

  “No.” Lila ambled down the stairs and opened the door to her truck. She craned her neck to see what I was doing.

  I shut the trunk and held my purse close to my heart.

  Lightning flashed in the sky and then the dark clouds rumbled with thunder. The wind blew hot, like tornado weather, and the cedar trees along the property lines bent in the heavy wind.

  “I brought food.” Her arms laden with dishes, she shut the truck door with a kick.

  A white rose wreath hung on the screen door. Marina would have ordered it.

  Sophie bounded across the grass and hurled herself into my legs. Up close, I saw the trails of dirt on her leotard from a day of playing. She no longer wore the ballet slippers from earlier, but had changed into black patent tap shoes with wide ribbon laces. Her face pressed against the crusty bloodstain on my skirt. She released me quickly. “Your skirt is sticky.”

  “I had an accident.” I showed her my bandaged hand. She looked puzzled, not connecting the bandage with the soiled skirt. She thought I had an accident of a five-year-old sort.

  Lila’s brow creased. “What happened?”


  “A piece of glass happened.” I felt calm in Lila’s presence, like every worry had its place and I could keep going and things would right themselves. Gus must have felt that, her horses too. She had no pretense, no worry about what people thought, and she steered straight in the line she wanted to go.

  A hot gust of air whipped through the pecan tree. The wind felt good and cleansing after the day, but then a large branch crashed six feet from us and Sophie jumped against me.

  “Let’s get inside.” I tucked the bulging purse under one arm and picked Sophie up. She was heavy and I was weak from the long day, dizzy from the lack of food. I put her down on the top stair and rain fell like bullets from the sky. Hail bounced onto the ground and pinged against the cars. I fumbled with the key, but the door was not locked. I held the screen and door open for Lila. The rich smell of fried kibbe and cabbage rolls came from the pans in her arms and mingled with the perfume of the roses on the wreath, more than two dozen. Marina had spared no expense.

  I laid the screen door gently to rest and hooked the latch. Sophie clung to my leg.

  Lila headed for the kitchen. The swinging door flapped in her wake.

  The closed windows trapped air thick with Pine-Sol and furniture polish. Louise had been heavy handed in her cleaning. With Sophie clutching to me, I opened the windows and the cool, wet air flooded the house. The rain, thick and gray, pounded the hydrangeas. Limbs and leaves littered the yard. I turned on the dining-room light. The table was crowded with glass plates, coffee cups, and saucers, and the enormous electric coffee urn from the church hall. I placed my purse amidst Marina’s preparations.

  The living room had been turned into a chapel. My furniture lined the walls to make room for three rows of folding chairs facing the limestone fireplace. An empty space awaited his casket. On the mantel, Nelly had propped a large framed photograph of him as a young man, standing with his arms crossed, a head of dark hair, and his cheeks tinted pink. Nelly loved her son with a vengeance. She loved him as I loved my children, but she burdened us with the depth of her love. It went as deep as misery.