Gail Godwin - Flora

The uncles in Alabama had thought Lisbeth and Harry had started a baby and had to get married fast. But when I didn’t come along until a full year and a month later they had to find another reason they hadn’t been invited to the wedding.

It was a short courtship for my parents because from the very first evening, when they were playing cards, Lisbeth had felt she was part of our family. It was understandable, Nonie said. Lisbeth had lost her mother when she was eight, and the nearest thing she’d had to a female to care for her after that was the Negro woman who lived with the uncles.

“Well, I lost my mother when I was three ,” I would remind Nonie.

“Yes, darling, but after that you had me .”

“I think Lisbeth returned my love first,” Nonie would muse. “You know how your father often strikes new acquaintances as somewhat acerbic. I was the one who brought her out, made her feel at home. She liked me, she liked my style, and she liked the way we lived. Why, that first evening, she said she’d bring her poker chips next time she came—and then blushed to high heaven because she had invited herself back—it just showed how comfortable she already felt with us. We settled into our weekly threesome—I want you to know I became an excellent blackjack player—and it wasn’t long before Harry looked across the card table and realized this was the woman he’d been waiting for all along.”

I had been considering telling Flora how my father had caught polio when he ran away with Willow Fanning, but she had preempted my story with this information about my parents’ marriage, which I now had to find a place for.

That night I went to bed in my old room. The garage voice had said I should move on Tuesday, when Mrs. Jones came to clean. I was to tell her what “the dream” had said and that she should make up Nonie’s room because I would be moving into it permanently. She was a great respecter of the supernatural, Mrs. Jones was. Her little dead daughter had spoken to her at the cemetery. “Momma, you don’t need to take the bus out here anymore, I’m not under this stone, I am at home with you.” The spirit of her uncle Al had begged Mrs. Jones’s forgiveness for wrongs he had done her as a child. “Say you forgive me, sweetheart,” he had said, “then open that window and let my spirit fly free.” Mrs. Jones had said aloud to him in her kitchen: “If you say so, I forgive you, Uncle Al, but you were always kind to me.” Then she had opened the window, and felt a great whoosh of air, and the next morning there was a big crow on the branch outside fixing her with its yellow eye. Mrs. Jones threw bread crusts out to it for several days, remembering how Uncle Al always brought her treats, and then one morning it made a strange triple caw that sounded exactly like “Bye, sweetheart,” looked her straight in the eye, and flew off for good.

Tonight and tomorrow would be my last nights in this room of my childhood, and the room seemed to feel this because it wasn’t being unfriendly anymore. Its wistful sadness was like that of a friend who knows you’ve outgrown the friendship and need to move on.

After breakfast Monday morning Flora checked over our list for Grove Market.

“Would you like to call it in, Helen?”

“Not really.”

I wished I’d said yes as soon as she began speaking to the person on the other end, who could not have been grouchy Mr. Crump because he would never have put up with such dalliance. Why couldn’t she just coolly read off the list, with pauses to let the other person write things down?

“What, no fresh corn? We would have corn by now in Alabama. But then we planted our garden very early down there: corn, okra, spinach, peas, runner beans. I guess you wouldn’t have any okra this early either. No, I thought not. Too bad, we’ll have to do with canned corn, then. And does your meat market have something called chipped beef? Oh, in jars. How big are the jars? Maybe two jars then. And remember now, this all goes on Mr. Anstruther’s tab, he’s away doing important war work over in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. We’re going to be ordering whenever we need something, is that all right? He doesn’t want my little cousin to go into public places because of this polio outbreak. Oh, and two quarts of milk for my cousin, she’s still growing—wait, let me see if she wants anything else. Helen, can you think of anything else?”

I had gone beyond embarrassment. “Maybe some candy.”

“What kind?”

“Clark bars.”

“How many?”

“Five,” I risked.

“Five Clark bars,” Flora relayed without batting an eye. “And can you tell us approximately when your delivery person will be coming? Not that we expect to be going anywhere! And you ought to know our driveway is a tiny bit rough.”

Our big event of the morning was the walk down our tiny-bit-rough driveway to fetch the mail. Flora had two letters, I had nothing. She kissed the handwritten envelope (“Dear Juliet, at least somebody loves me!”) but ripped open the typewritten one first, scanned the contents, and began to cry.

“What?” I said.

“I expected it. But still—”

“What?”

“They said no, and it was my first choice.” Bravely she replaced the letter in its envelope and scrubbed her eyes with her fists like a child. “They say it’s because I don’t drive. The thing is, someone offered to drive me to that interview, but it would have been in a truck and I thought I’d make a better impression if I arrived alone on the bus. It was this darling little school in the middle of a field. Fifteen sixth graders. I could have handled it real well.”

“But you had three interviews, so you still have two more chances.”

“I wonder if I had told a lie about the driving—I could have learned to drive later. But this was probably their way of letting me off nicely. If I had said I could drive they would have had to have come up with some other excuse for not wanting me.”

“You have to start thinking better of yourself, Flora.”

“That’s exactly what Mrs. Anstruther said in her letters.”

“Well, it’s true. Others judge you at your own estimation.”

“Her exact words! You’re so lucky to have had her, Helen. I’m such a mess. Not like your mother. Nobody had to tell Lisbeth to think better of herself. Maybe you have to be born with it. Were you born with it? I don’t know. But, being her daughter, your chances are better than mine.”

“Who cares whether you were born with it?” I asked. Yet Flora had set misgivings buzzing in my head. “You have to at least act like you have it.”

“That’s just what your grandmother would have said!” crowed Flora, almost knocking me down with a hug.

Father McFall telephoned to report that Brian was “holding his own” in the hospital and that he had conveyed my message. Annoyingly he kept skirting around my questions about Brian’s condition. “But I’m still hoping to drop by and visit with you and your cousin this week.” He offered it like a consolation prize for not telling me anything I wanted to know.

“My father said we can’t have any visitors. He said we can’t even go to church.” I was glad to be able to punish Father McFall in this small way.

The phone again. This time it was Annie Rickets, my favorite acid-tongued little friend. “Can you talk?”

“Sort of.”

“Is she around?”

“Upstairs in her room.”

“The dear old Willing Fanny room.”

“Oh, Annie, I’ve missed you.”

“You’re going to miss me a lot more.”

“What do you mean?”

“Just joking. How is it going with her?”

“Okay, I guess.”