Lesley Kagen - Tomorrow River

Mama and my twin and I are sitting on the banks of the Maury River, cooling our heels, eating our cones, and watching the water float by. I am certain that Mama is about to say something about tomorrow being a river ready to carry us to our fondest dreams because it seems like something she would say at a time like this, but after being still for the longest while, she tells us in a voice that sounds like it’s about to break into many pieces, “Emily Dickinson wrote, ‘The past is not a package one can lay away,’ but… we’re going to do our best to do just that, aren’t we, peas?”

Woody nods in agreement, but I don’t. I think to myself-that Emily Dickinson. She is always right on the money.

We’ve been settled in our new house for almost three weeks.

The gray Victorian is sort of run-down and does not show a lot of promise of picking itself up. It reminds me a lot of something you’d find over at What Goes Around Comes Around. There are no glorious woods of birch and ash and no creek with stepping stones. No wide veranda with a welcoming porch swing that invites you to while away an afternoon. No barn. In the backyard, there’s a dilapidated doghouse. Ivory uses it to store his bones, but is happier snoring on the other side of Woody at bedtime.

It didn’t take us anytime at all to get set up. We had nothing to unpack. Everything we owned was destroyed in the fire. Even my binoculars. We have done some shopping. Mama bought us books and clothes and a new hi-fi. She really missed her show tunes in the hospital, but she no longer sings along. She told Woody and me, “As soon as I rebuild my strength, we’ll fix up the house. And I’m going to get that job at the library that I was thinking about getting before…”

She trails off like that a lot. I can hear her muffled crying through the thin walls some nights, but when I crawl in bed with her, she pretends to be asleep. So I just hold her hand and tell her, “Hushacat.” Sometimes I see Mama floating about in the garden from our bedroom window or perched stiffly on the new reading bench, staring off into the distance to the twin peaks of House Mountain. I’m thinking that once she gets her library job she’ll perk up some. We don’t need the money she’ll make because she has her inheritance, but she tells me she wants to work, which is proof that she’s not bouncing back as fast as I hoped she would.

Woody, Granny Beezy, and I went over to Slidell’s this afternoon to pick up a few odds and ends for the get-together we’re having tonight. That was kind of sad because farewells always are. Vera Ledbetter and her parrot, Sunny Boy, are preparing to fly the coop. Vera wants to go back to her old job entertaining the sailors in Norfolk. She told Woody and me over a couple of brown cows, “Thank you for wantin’ me to stay and be part of your lives, but ya know, I got my own people that I’ve been missin’. Me and Sunny’ll come back for visits. You girls take care good care of your mama, ya hear?” And then she gave us a french fry-smelling hug and some free licorice. As Woody and I were walking out the drugstore door, I heard her tell Beezy, “I tried to walk the straight and narrow, but there’s a lot less nastiness in my previous line of work. More customer appreciation and less wear on my feet, too.”

Since their cottage also burned down in “The Lilyfield Blaze,” Mr. Cole and Louise are staying with Vera until she leaves, and then they’ll take over the lease on the house. They are still our help even if they don’t live with us anymore. As a way of thanking Lou for taking such good care of her girls while she was gone, Mama told me last week when she was braiding my hair, “I’m going to help Louise start up her own business. The women in Mudtown don’t have a beauty salon of their own. I think it’s about time they do.”

I am for that whole hog because Lou really does do good braids and, of course, I will never forget how she saved us by running to the sheriff that night and telling him to go rescue me and Woody. She was mighty brave to risk that. Sometimes just one courageous act is enough for you to change your opinion about somebody, don’t you think? Out of the goodness of my heart, I did not tell Mama how Lou was carrying on with Blackie in the meadow after midnight or how hellaciously mean she was to Woody and me once she’d taken up with him. You know why? Because now I got something to hold over her if she gets it into her mind to quit acting like her former Louisiana self and reverts back to her unrelenting personality self. (Like I mentioned earlier, it is always nice to have an ace up your sleeve.)

Mr. Cole offered to build Woody and me a new fort in the backyard of the new house. I thought about that long and hard, and so did Woody. We ended up telling him, “No, thank you, but we reserve the right to change our mind.” The fort came to mean so many things to us and I think we need time to sort out the good from the bad and see which one wins.

I went up to Lilyfield and the fort tree a few days ago all by myself and kicked around the rubble to see if there was anything left I could save. I found a piece of the family picnic picture that had been taken in more carefree days in the field of lilies. All that love. Gone. And just for a second, looking down at the bit of photo, I hated Papa for making that the truth. I also found the rusty coffee can altar and Saint Jude, too. I’m going to clean that statue off and give him to Woody on our birthday next month, which is very unselfish of me because she will get so above herself on that lost-causes topic.

“Evenin’, Shen. Woody,” Sam says, coming through the garden gate. My sister is sitting on the nearby glider, working on a drawing, Ivory’s snout in her lap. I have seen Mama and Sam holding hands, stealing glances at each other when they don’t think anybody’s watching, but I’m still not sure if that’s in a friendly family way or not. I do know that she never takes off the Speranza watch he gave her. We still go to the library every Tuesday afternoon, and they still talk about Shakespeare, but I think they’re working their way alphabetical through the stacks because now they love to discuss Mark Twain a little bit more.

Woody smiles and nods at him. I look up and say, “Hey.” He looks fancier than usual and is not smelling like gas.

Sam sits down next to me and asks, “What are you writing?”

“Just putting the finishin’ touches on my diary.”

Mama takes Woody and me to Charlottesville every week to a special kind of doctor who does not stick you with needles or take your temperature. He’s got a comfortable office with beanbag chairs and he helps you talk about what’s ailing you. Not your body, but your heart and head. Dr. Ellis Wilson, Ph.D., was the one who suggested I start writing about my feelings and just about whatever else comes up in my life. I thought that was a good idea. I mean, if Woody and me are going to move to New York City someday so she can be the next Toulouse-Lautrec and I can be the next Harper Lee, I better start practicing.

I ask Sam, “You wanna hear some of what I wrote?”

“Can’t imagine anything I’d enjoy more,” he says, because that’s the kind of encouraging man he is.

I read, “‘Dear Diary, Big day today for so many different reasons. Remmy Hawkins got put in the detention center just like I thought he would. And his grandfather, Mayor Jeb Hawkins, got kicked out of office. I don’t know why, but I’ll ask Granny Beezy tomorrow, she will have heard the gossip by then. She told me this morning when Woody and I were over at her house watching E. J. mow the lawn, that she heard Muffy Mitchell tell June Harding that Miss Abigail Hawkins is dating a man who sells saddles and bridles in Farmville.’”