Suzan-Lori Parks - Getting Mother’s Body

I think you should consider resurrecting Willa Mae but of course the final decision is up to you. Again, they will begin plowing the first of the month. I hope that, because of the plowing up of the gravesite and my improved finances, that this won’t be the end of our letter writing. I enjoy getting letters, especially from you all cause June uses such pretty words.

Very Truly Yours,

Candy and Even Napoleon

I get through reading the letter and, for a minute, nobody says nothing. Billy’s standing there with her new dress held up and wanting us all to look.

“You was gonna shoot your mother?” Billy asks Dill.

“I never said nothing about shooting no one,” Dill says.

Roosevelt and me are both looking at the letter. “Construction company’s gonna go to work starting the first of the month and pave over her land and make a supermarket,” Roosevelt says, repeating what I just read.

“We all heard the news,” Dill says. “Nobody here’s deaf.”

I look to Billy, to see what she thinks. She’s holding her dress up against herself with one hand and passing the other hand slow down over the fabric, like she’s ironing out the wrinkles even though there ain’t none.

“If we ever was thinking we should go get Willa Mae’s body, we better go and get her now,” I says. I make sure I say “body” and not “treasure.”

“She’s buried clear in LaJunta,” Dill says.

“I know where LaJunta is,” I says.

“It ain’t like she’s over in Fort Worth,” Dill says. “LaJunta, Arizona, ain’t no walking distance, now.” Dill enjoys reminding us we don’t got nothing but the eleven-bus, our own two feet, to get us around and she got that new-looking truck. The eleven-bus would, in my case, be the number one bus. Two feet make what looks like an eleven. One foot makes a one. When Dill came back from burying Willa Mae I went and got a map so I could see where LaJunta was.

“I know good and well where LaJunta is,” I says.

“It’s far,” Dill says.

“We can’t let Willa Mae get buried underneath some supermarket,” I says.

“Arizona’s near California,” Roosevelt says, helping. “It may not be close like Forth Worth but LaJunta ain’t the moon neither.”

Dill stretches out her long legs, pushes her hat back on her head, then folds her arms across her front. “You start walking today you might get there by next year,” Miss He-She-It says.

“I’ma put up my dress before it gets dirty,” Billy says. She goes inside holding it up so it won’t touch the floor, then places it gingerly back inside the box and slides the box underneath the counter with the rest of her things. When she comes back outside, she still got her new shoes on. They’re too white to look at.

“What color are those shoes, girl?” Roosevelt asks squinting.

“White,” Billy says.

“They so white they make my eyes hurt,” Roosevelt says. Billy styles the shoes some, walking to and fro on the porch, holding her hand on her hip like she finally done joined the ranks of the Happenings. She sits up on the porch rail and swings her legs.

“Roosevelt’s right,” I says. “LaJunta ain’t on the moon.”

Dill stands up like she is ready to head home. “Traveling’s high. It was high six years ago and it’s more high now.”

“We can pull some money together, can’t we, Teddy?” I ask. I wait for him to tell me yes but he don’t. He takes snuff and, standing, offers Dill some. Dill shakes her head and steps down a step. With Dill on the low step and Teddy on the porch they’re standing eye to eye.

I want to stand up too, to make my point, but instead just plant the tip of my crutch on the porch, holding it upright with one hand, letting it help me speak the same way standing up would. “It’s wrong to let Willa Mae’s grave get paved over. Being in the ground is bad enough, now she gotta have a Piggly Wiggly or who knows what with all them people walking around and they shopping carts rolling around on top of her. It ain’t fair is all I’m saying.” I stomp my crutch, giving myself some emphasis.

“June’s got a point,” Teddy says.

Dill turns away from us to look at Billy. “You getting married Friday?” she asks her.

“That’s right,” Billy says.

“Maybe you and Snipes would like to go to LaJunta for yr honeymoon,” Dill says.

“I ain’t asking Snipes to go way the hell out there,” Billy says.

“Watch your mouth,” Roosevelt says.

“Willa Mae’s getting paved over don’t bother me none,” Billy says.

“If you was my own child I’d slap your mouth for talking like that,” I says.

“I ain’t yr child,” Billy says.

“I thank God you ain’t,” I says.

“Why you got to be so ugly?” Teddy asks her.

“I ain’t being ugly,” Billy says, “I’m just saying, if they gonna put a supermarket on top of her, I ain’t wasting my honeymoon running out there trying to stop them.”

Dill opens her mouth, running her tongue over the teeth she got left. “I guess that settles it,” she says.

Me and Teddy thought, if we loved Billy the way our mothers and fathers had loved us, if we put food on the table for her and clothes on her back and took care of her when she was sick and told her to go to school and helped her as we could with her homework, that she would be ours. All ours. But she wasn’t never ours no matter what we said or did. I was the first one who noticed she was pregnant. I looked at her one day. It was May. I asked her if her monthly was regular and she told me her monthly weren’t none of my business. She had quit her job in March and had quit school the year before and then had the nerve to say her monthly weren’t my business. Just as well she ain’t my child, I guess.

Billy straightens both her legs out in front of her and points her feet, then she turns and looks me straight in the eye. “You sitting here talking about the body, but you only really interested in the treasure,” she says.

“I’m talking about your own mother,” I says.

Billy keeps on, not even listening to me. “I always said there weren’t never no real treasure buried there nohow. It was all just a story she made up. I told you the truth of it but you stuck on believing the story,” she says.

“Dill buried your mother with her jewels. The pearl necklace and the diamond ring,” Roosevelt says.

“That stuff weren’t no real jewels. They was fakes, wasn’t they, Dill?” Billy asks.

“I ain’t no expert on the subject,” Dill says. “I just put it in the ground like she asked me to, I ain’t no expert on its value.”

“Hell, they was fakes, I’m telling you,” Billy says.

“I said watch your mouth,” Teddy says.

Billy closes her mouth and shuts her eyes. If she weren’t pregnant she’d let loose of that porch rail she’s balancing on and cover her ears with her hands. I seen her do it plenty of times. Like all Billy’s got to say is cusses and she got to close up every place so the cusses won’t come out. Me and Roosevelt and Dill look away. We hear Billy take a breath, but none of us look at her.

“This is Willa Mae Beede we talking about,” Billy says. Then she gets down from the railing and goes inside. After a minute I can hear her rattling that tin money box she got.

“You two don’t like the body getting paved over but Billy’s made her peace with it,” Dill says.

Billy comes to stand in the doorway. She’s got a single pearl earring in her hand. It was Willa Mae’s. “This is a jewel she had and it’s a fake. She tolt me so when she gived it to me.” She goes back inside. When she comes back out, the earring’s put away and she has some money in her hand. Not much. “I could use help with my bus fare to Texhoma,” she says.