Mary Schramski - What To Keep

Tildy gasps then covers her mouth.

“My mother was an alcoholic. I came to grips with that a long time ago.”

Tildy hands me the picture, and I look at it again, feeling like a ship without an anchor.

“There’s more of your father in you than your mother,” she says.

“Well, he was pretty much an SOB, too.”

“You’ll find out different. Maybe we shouldn’t be talking about this right now. Have you had anything to eat this morning? All that caffeine and no nourishment can make you say things you don’t mean. Just like my daughter. Goodness alive, doesn’t anyone take care of themselves anymore?”

I lay the picture on the bookshelf. Her hand brushes my elbow and before I can take another breath, the woman guides me to the kitchen.

“It’s been a month of Sundays since I had somebody to cook for, take care of. Feels good.”

She goes to the kitchen sink and looks out the window. Recognition flashes through my mind. I watched her in this room, years ago, right before we left for California, right before our lives came unglued.

“I’m gonna cook you something real Southern, something so sumptuous your little mouth is going to water—”

“You don’t have to cook for me.”

Tildy shifts, rests her hands on her lush hips. “I have cooked for everyone in this house. You aren’t going to be any different. No arguing. What did you say you did in Las Vegas?”

“I’m a blackjack dealer.”

“Well, my, my. You don’t look like a blackjack dealer. If you wore glasses, maybe a librarian. They have libraries in Las Vegas?”

I laugh. Everyone from the outside thinks Las Vegas isn’t a real town. “Sure.”

“So why didn’t you become a librarian or a teacher?”

“I don’t know.”

“Mr. Grey, he loved books and the room he kept them in. So did your daddy.”

“It’s not much of a library.”

Tildy’s smile slips away, which makes me feel bad.

“I mean, it’s a nice room, and all, but there’s only a few books.”

“It was a wonderful library long time ago. Every shelf full with all the classics, real comfortable chairs and a sofa that was covered in a beautiful green brocade—don’t you remember?”

“No. What happened to all of it?”

“After he got sick, doctors took a lot of the money. He’d let his insurance lapse. The state helped him a little with social security. But to get all the benefits he would have had to give up Magnolia Hall and he wouldn’t. So he gave things away.”

“Gave them away…how would that help?”

“That’s what we called it.”

“What? Why?”

“The last Saturday of each month, Mr. Grey had me take something up to an antique store in Mocksville so people around here wouldn’t find out.”

“So he sold them?”

“We like to think of it as giving them away. The man had his pride. After a while, the owner came down here with a truck, every third Saturday of the month. It was so sad to see bits of Mr. Grey’s life slipping out that door, like ham on a cutter—one thin piece after another. I don’t think he died of the cancer. Giving up all his family possessions was what really killed him.”

“Maybe he would have been smarter to sell the house, buy a nice condo, go on vacation. Not worry about this place, his memories.”

Tildy looks around like she’s not listening. “It’s a better day with you here. Don’t you worry, this house is gonna be just fine. It always survives.”

She’s serious. “As soon as I get the bedroom wall fixed, I’m going to list with—”

“I told Mr. Grey he shouldn’t put off fixing that wall. Said he’d do it when he had time. Then he didn’t have no more time, no more money.”

“Do you know anyone who might repair the wall?”

“I can check around, but, honey, Magnolia Hall’s never been sold. Any of your mama’s family out there in Nevada? Or a boyfriend that might help you?”

“No and no.” I make check marks in the air with my right index finger.

“Then that’s not much of a home to go back to.”

“But it’s where I live, work. I can’t deal blackjack here.”

“You have a house here. You could do something else.”

It seems like years since I stood at my apartment window and looked over the parking lot, read the pink slip from the Golden Nugget.

“What did your mother think of your husband?”

I look at Tildy. She’s smiling. It’s amazing how her mind slips from one subject to another. Maybe she does have a screw loose.

“Ex-husband. And she died before I met him.”

I met Bill one night with some people from work. We went to the Paris Hotel to eat at the buffet. The Paris is supposed to make visitors feel like they’re in France. Bill was dealing blackjack. The man had great hands, a great body. As he was shuffling the cards, he looked at me, winked. Twenty minutes later on his break, he walked around the table and started talking, and that was the end of my life as I knew it. Before Bill, I paid the rent, the gas, the lights; after, my overdrawn checkbook tells the story.

We went out the next night and Bill told me he was dealing blackjack until he could get his computer company started. Claimed he had a degree in computer science. Right!

Three months later we were married. He charged things on my credit cards, didn’t pay one goddamned bill, then split with everything I owned.

“What do you think she would have thought of your husband?” Tildy asks, smiles again.

“Who?”

“Your mama.”

“She probably wouldn’t.” I look around the kitchen. “My mother didn’t have much use for husbands.”

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