Elaine Hussey - The Oleander Sisters

“Why not? We always camp out in Sweet Mama’s backyard.”

“It’s too hot to camp out.”

“It’s never too hot for a six-year-old. Besides, it’ll be fun. We can pitch the tent by the new hedge so we can smell the roses.”

“Not the rose hedge!”

“Good grief, Sis. What’s the matter with you?”

Sis just clamped her mouth shut and refused to say another word, which was fine with Emily. She had too much on her mind to continue this silly argument with her sister. If she didn’t hurry back to that growing café crowd, there was no telling what kind of mess Sweet Mama would make. She seemed to be having one of her good days, thank goodness, because Beulah had stayed home again to be with Jim, who seemed to be going backward instead of forward.

Still, something had to be done to help Sweet Mama, but Emily didn’t know what. After the wedding she’d ask Sis. But not until her sister got in a better mood.

“I’ve got to get back in there,” Emily said. “You didn’t forget that we’re looking at dresses for the wedding this afternoon, did you?”

Sis rolled her eyes and looked as if she’d been asked to stand before a firing squad. But Emily refused to be daunted, even when her sister glanced at the clock again as if it had suddenly become her enemy.

“How could I forget, Emily?”

“Good, then. We’ll leave at two.”

Emily could hardly contain her excitement. They’d drop Andy off to stay with Beulah, and then Emily could enter that sacred territory she’d fantasized about ever since she met Mark Jones—the bridal shop.

As she stepped back through the office door, she drew the sound of laughter and lazy chatter around her like a beloved shawl. But the Amen cobblers gave off such a scent of sorrow she wanted to weep.

Quickly she skirted around them, wishing it was already two o’clock.

* * *

The clock on the wall had become Sweet Mama’s enemy. Every loud ticktock meant she was roaring closer to the edge of a looming precipice. Sis was saying, “Sweet Mama, are you sure you can lock up?” and she didn’t have the faintest idea what this fierce granddaughter of hers wanted her to put under lock and key.

“Of course,” she said. “Go on and have fun. But don’t pick out a blue dress for me. If you do, I won’t wear it.”

She’d been wearing blue on the four worst days of her life—the day in 1920 that jackass came home drunk and all hell broke loose, the day horrible Ethel Williams sank her claws into Sweet Mama’s son Steve and dragged him to the altar, the Christmas her son Bill and his wife, Margaret, had died in a car crash and the day one year later when she’d stood in the doorway of her café and faced down the KKK with her double-barreled shotgun.

She was standing now in the café on a hot July day in 1969, waving cheerfully at her two departing granddaughters and her great-grandson, but she had the eerie sense of standing smack-dab in the middle of a brisk winter day in the forties with the double barrels of her shotgun pointed at a ragtag group of cowards. She could almost hear their voices, almost see the white hoods.

Through the echo of time, she heard the bell over the café door ringing. Sweet Mama came back to herself in time to see her granddaughters departing. Now, what was it they’d told her to do?

She sifted through a mind that felt like a sieve. Her memories were leaking through the holes so fast sometimes Sweet Mama felt as if she’d wake up one morning and see her past scattered around her on the floor.

Something kept nagging at her, something she ought to remember. Suddenly, it came to her, and she hurried to the kitchen to get the notepad she kept in her voluminous purse.

Sinking into a cane-bottomed chair that Beulah used when she was peeling potatoes, Sweet Mama thumbed through the pages. One was titled “Customers.” Tom and James Wilson were there along with Opal Clemson, the music teacher and Burt Larson, the mailman—every one of them described right down to the roots of their hair.

Sweet Mama found herself shaking again, an old woman with a rapidly fading memory depending on a notebook to keep her straight and wondering how much longer she’d be able to hang on to her secret and fool her granddaughters.

Beulah was another story. Nobody could fool her. When Sweet Mama had first started forgetting things she’d said, Beulah, my mind’s going and you’ve got to help me.

Beulah didn’t ask any questions. That was her way. She just folded Sweet Mama in one of her wide hugs and whispered, I ain’t about to let Mr. Steve and that uppity Miss Ethel put you in a nursing home.

That’s when the Remembering Book had been born. The only trouble was, she often couldn’t get to it in time to bail herself out of public embarrassments. More and more, she had to throw up smoke screens or pretend she was just kidding.

The clock in the café chimed three, and Sweet Mama knew she was already an hour late leaving. If she didn’t get a move on, she wouldn’t make it home before Sis and Emily got back from their shopping trip. Emily would worry and Sis was liable to call for a search party.

She scanned through her book till she found a page titled “Locking Up.” It told how to turn the open sign to Closed, how to find the key to the café on a peg in the pantry, and how to put it in the top zippered pocket of her purse after she’d gone out and locked the front door behind her.

Sweet Mama read the entry twice before she got up enough courage to execute it. Then she gathered her hat and her purse and stood awhile, trying to think if she was forgetting something.

Finally, she ended up at the front door where the key seemed to have outgrown the lock. It took her five minutes to discover she was holding it upside down.

By the time she got to her Buick, she had sweat patches under her arms and a bead of perspiration lining her upper lip. Thank God the key she put in the ignition caused the car to roar to life. Sweet Mama drove out of the parking lot as smooth as if it were 1921 and she was driving her Tin Lizzie, heading to her brand-new bakery with Beulah at her side.

With the windows down, the Gulf breeze got under the brim of her black straw hat, making her feel twenty-seven again and ready to show the Jazz Age that a young divorcée with two little boys could start a business the same as a man, only ten times better if it’s a bakery.

She started to sing, but was shocked at the thin, reedy voice she heard. She and Beulah used to ride along in that Tin Lizzie, singing in harmony as good as the Boswell Sisters, Sweet Mama belting out the alto and Beulah adding her soaring soprano.

Determined not to be depressed on such a beautiful day, Sweet Mama glanced toward the beach. Terns called from sandy knolls and seagulls wheeled over the Gulf and everything was exactly where it ought to be. Sweet Mama didn’t know why Sis worried so much about her driving. She’d lived in Biloxi all her life and knew it from one side to the other.

The usual souvenir shops lined the highway, eventually giving way to a row of waterfront houses. Her own pink Victorian house would be coming up any minute now.

The bridge loomed in front of her, and she eased off the accelerator. Sweet Mama didn’t believe in crossing bridges at full speed. It was a sure way to cause an accident. As much as she enjoyed looking out over the water, she kept her eyes straight ahead till she was over the bridge and cruising down the highway where long-legged storks lifted toward the tops of cypress trees sprouting out of the shallows.

Always a lover of nature, she admired the sight while the Buick hummed along the highway.

Was that the sun already sinking over the water? Where was her street? Where was her house?