Mary Schramski - What To Keep

“I looked in there. There are only two plates.”

“Your next meal, you should eat off the china, honey. We use the blue-and-white before five. The Minton for dinner and supper, the Adams for holidays.”

“Mrs. Butler, I’m fine. When I’m home I use paper all the time. Really, I’m from Las Vegas, we’re very informal out there.”

My apartment has crappy garage-sale furniture, plastic forks I stole from the casino coffee shop—and now I wish I had taken more—paper napkins and cheap orange plastic plates I bought at Sam’s Club.

“My name’s Tildy, really Matilda is my given, but everyone calls me Tildy. You can do the same, honey.”

She turns as if I haven’t said a word and reseals the paper plates then crosses the kitchen and puts them on a shelf in the pantry and comes back smiling.

“You are just gonna love Magnolia Hall. I’ll help you. Talk in town is the county might be taking the house for back taxes if they couldn’t find any family to come home.

“Back taxes?”

“Oh, they’re paid up. I was thinking last night if you don’t have a lot of cash we can go to garage sales and pick up a few things, maybe paint. Everything’s better when you take care of—”

“Tildy, I’m going back to Las Vegas just as soon as I can. And now I have to worry about back taxes.”

She stares at me for a moment like I’ve turned a cold hose on her, but then she shakes her head.

“Honey, that back-tax thing was just a rumor. In case they didn’t find you. I know Mr. Grey paid them up. And you’ll change your mind about leaving. We’ll do some of the fixing up. New curtains in here would be nice. I saw some daisy curtains with scalloped edges at The Big K over off Market Street. They’d look real fine at that window—not too expensive, either.”

I rub my tongue against the back of my teeth and wonder what I should say, wonder if she’s got a screw loose. But before I can think of anything, she starts up again.

“Mr. Grey didn’t know how to add the feminine touches around here. Now you and I can make the changes we need to. Might take some time, but we’ll get it all done. Some people don’t realize that a little bit every day makes a world of difference, makes a person feel at home. Soon you got a whole big pile of good in front of you.”

“I can’t stay. I’m going home.”

“Magnolia Hall is your family home. Now you have to take care of her. You don’t give back a gift. A gift is a gift!”

“He didn’t give me the house! It’s mine because I’m the only one left!”

“It’s all the same. You are the rightful owner.”

“I’m selling the house just as soon as I can. You wouldn’t want to buy it, would you?”

“Goodness, no. I don’t have that kind of money after I put my child through school. You gonna sell it as soon as you can?”

“The wall upstairs didn’t pass the county inspection.”

“I knew it wouldn’t. Mr. Grey was sick the last few years. We didn’t have much time for fixing. I took care of him till his dying day. Then Jeff Hollis, fine young police officer, came out and locked up the place. That was the very first time after Miss Charlotte and Mr. James built her nobody lived here. Mr. Grey used to talk about the first Miss Charlotte all the time.”

“My father’s sister?”

“No, he talked about her, too, but I’m talking about your great-great-great, oh, you know a long time ago, her husband, James Alexander built this house in 1860. Your daddy’s sister was named after her.”

“Oh.” I look around and think about how much I don’t know about this family.

“Now you’re here. Too bad you didn’t get back before your uncle died.”

“I didn’t know he was sick.”

“That’s right. I told him to call you. Your daddy would have told you, though, if he was still here.”

“I didn’t have any contact with my father, either.” I say, and cross my arms.

“My land, your daddy was such a nice man.”

“I wouldn’t know about—”

“I remember years ago, when he came home for three weeks in the spring. Told me you’d moved to Nevada with your mama. He seemed so sad. I’ve never been there. Actually I’ve never been out of the state.”

“Maybe you should travel,” I say, but I’m thinking of my father and wondering why he never wanted to share me with his family.

“Are you married?” Tildy glances at my left hand.

“Not anymore.”

“Oh, child. I’m sorry.”

I realize Tildy is the first person to say this to me. People in Las Vegas expect divorce—don’t think anything about a marriage dissolving into lies and crap.

“It was for the better. I couldn’t afford the man’s bad habits.”

Tildy touches my hand for a moment. Her skin is cooler than I expect. “Honey, everything is going to be okay. You just wait and see.”

Magnolia Hall

Greensville, NC

June 2000

I’m staring at Grey Alexander’s picture. Weird, I know, but after I spent a half hour trying to convince Tildy I can’t let her work here because I have no money to pay her and there’s really not much for her to do, I came into the library, picked up the picture I found yesterday. Maybe I was trying to center myself or some damned thing.

The centering thing isn’t working. I honestly thought Tildy would agree when I explained there was nothing that needed cleaning. But when she said she couldn’t possibly leave me all alone in this house, I knew I wasn’t making any headway. Then she told me she could dust the baseboards, mop floors, wipe out the cupboards, cook and, with a big smile on her face, she announced she wanted to keep me company!

I’m still wondering what “keeping me company” means to her. However she brought coffee, cream, sugar with her. She made a pot and the first sip was heaven.

Finally, I gave up trying to convince her to go home. She was blabbing on about family and my father, how he grew up here and she was so fond of him. Maybe that’s why I wandered into the library and picked up Grey’s picture.

“Your head hurting you?”

I look toward the door, and Tildy’s voice. “No, I’m fine.”

“Your forehead’s all wrinkled up like you have a headache.”

“I didn’t sleep well last night.”

“Mr. Grey never had trouble sleeping. Something bothering you?”

“Not much.” I laugh. “I’m only in a strange house, in a strange town. And I have no idea how I’m going to get the wall upstairs repaired so I can sell this place and get back to my life.”

“It’s gotta be more than that.”

“Isn’t that enough? Think if you had to go out to Vegas, didn’t know any one.”

“What you got there?”

“It’s a picture of Grey. I found it yesterday.” I stare at it. “He looks like my father—at least what I remember.”

“Yes, they do resemble each other. But they were different. Mr. Grey, why, he loved this house and the idea of family. He was a real Southerner.”

“And my father?” A wave of regret washes over me. I don’t want to know any more. My father left me years ago and I don’t know anything about him.

“As I recall, he always wanted to go away, travel. He joined the air force when Mr. Grey begged him not to. Mr. Grey even found a way to get him out of what he signed. Then he met your mama on leave in California. When your daddy came back with you and your mama, he just seemed restless, like he needed to get away again. And your mama was a mess. She didn’t like it here. Said she was homesick, missed the ocean. So off you all went.”

My mother was full of contradictions. Although she claimed to love the ocean, she never went back after she and my father split. She kept huge, full boxes that had been opened and closed too many times. Every Thanksgiving she would rustle through them, show me sparkling dresses, memory after memory. She’d hold up a blue velvet and sigh, then explain how pretty she looked when she wore it. I stopped asking questions because she’d never answer any.