Elizabeth Crane: The History of Great Things

Your father doesn’t know that Effie’s great-grandmother was colored (Effie herself doesn’t know this yet), because if he did, she would for sure not be sleeping in a room with you and your sister, would not be over at the house at all. You know this because of that time you invited your friend Ginny over to play dolls and didn’t think to mention the color of her skin. In retrospect, you should have thought to mention it, since Daddy had more than a time or twenty or thirty made his views on the subject clear. You’ve heard him come home from work grumbling about how ever since that pinko Truman’s been in office the world’s gone to heck in a handbasket. Robinson in the majors, and now they’re voting in the House? Malarkey. It’ll be years before you add any of this up, you don’t know who Robinson is or whose house he’s talking about, you just know to steer clear when he gets on a tear like that. Still, when Ginny comes over and your father comes home from work and you ask if Ginny can stay for dinner all he says is No , but you haven’t ever seen him look like that before, like there isn’t a more horrible thing in the world to him than Ginny being there for even another minute, and you’re fairly sure Ginny knows that too, even though her being a little girl is maybe the only reason he doesn’t say anything more before he goes and gets your mother. Grandma quietly (though visibly ashamed — she’s a good Christian woman who isn’t in the habit of sending people away, colored or not) helps Ginny gather her things to go home.

After, Ginny and you are forbidden even to speak at school, so you ask questions: Why not? Why not? What did she do? (You almost ask How will you know if Ginny and I speak at school, but that’s likely to result in a swat on the bottom, plus you’re sure he will somehow know if you and Ginny speak at school, you never forgot him telling you that newspapermen have eyes and ears everywhere .) Your father tells you he’s disappointed that you don’t already know, which is disappointing to you. Those people should stay with their own, Lois , he says, which is a punch to your little gut, Those people —what this means about what Ginny did wrong, and what you did wrong by bringing her over — and you make a plan in your mind to be friends with Ginny when you grow up.

— Okay, you’re pretty good at this.

— Thanks, Mom.

— I mean, that might be made up, but it could have happened. Maybe it did happen.

— Well, but it’s important that everyone understands this isn’t what actually happened, only what could have happened.

— That’s what I said, Betsy. It could have happened. I said “could.” In this case, it’s fairly close to what actually did happen .

— Yes, but that’s not what I want. I want it to be only things that could have happened but didn’t. I want the characters and their relationships to be real, but not the exact circumstances. Only similar, believable circumstances.

— But wait, why does it matter what the reader thinks about it?

— Because it’s the whole premise of the story. We’re sitting here having this conversation because there was so much about the other’s private lives that neither of us really knew. You know what I mean: I wasn’t alive when you were a girl. I might know a story or two you told me about your childhood, but a lot of times it was just like, “Daddy wouldn’t let me have my black friends over.” So this way I can make that a more fully realized story, filling in details I couldn’t have known. We can even make up whole scenes based on nothing more than scraps of information. I know where you were married. You know where I went to college.

— Sure, I get that. I’m just saying it could be true. I still don’t see why it matters how people read it.

— I don’t know, Mom. Because it just does.

— That sounds like a Lois answer.

— I am your kid. I’m never unclear about that.

The Christmas when you’re seven, after much discussion, your mother and father decide it’s time to bring home a puppy, a West Highland white terrier. This is, without a doubt, the greatest thing that has ever happened in the history of great things. Marjorie is less sure, because when Daddy brings him out, he hands you the puppy first, so in this moment Marjorie has never been more sure that you are the favorite, whether or not that’s true. The puppy is supremely cute, a wiggly little sausage of white fuzz — but this moment is altogether different for Marjorie from the one you’re having. You’re slow to pick up on anything beyond the puppy licking your face, in spite of the fact that Marjorie is whining that she wants her turn, and Mother quickly takes the puppy from you to hand it to Marjorie, who gives you the raspberry. Let’s name him Whitey! you say, your father says That sounds like a good one . Marjorie rolls her eyes. Yeah, that took a lot of brainpower, how ever did you come up with that? she says, to which you say, Because he’s white! as though that isn’t the very reason for Marjorie’s little barb, which has gone right over your head. Tell them the rules, Mother , your father says, sitting back down in his chair. He lights a cigarette and rubs the eczema from his arms, an unconscious habit that your mother cannot break him of and which has left a fine white dust that no amount of daily vacuuming can fully remove from the deep recesses of the chair. You will later say you felt you knew that dust better than you ever knew him. I swear , Mother says, one day this chair will be made entirely of your father , an image you can’t quite make sense of. He’s got one of those nubby beanbag ashtrays that sits on the arm of the chair (which beanbag has its own weather system of dust), and a pocket on the side for his Reader’s Digest s, his primary occupation when he’s not at work or the lodge. Mother explains all the work that goes into having a dog: feeding, walks, grooming; she will supervise, but this is to be your responsibility. And if you don’t keep it up, sayonara, Whitey! your father says. Neither of you kids has ever heard the word “sayonara” before, but you get the gist. And because you are good kids, you both care for the puppy well, walking and feeding him on schedule, though ultimately you and the puppy become so inseparable that Marjorie gives up trying and you happily take on her Whitey chores just so you can say he’s your dog. At one point you make the case for letting him sleep in your bed, to which Daddy laughs in your face . Lois already hogs the bed as it is! Marjorie says. Do not! Do so! We’ll both stay on my side, I promise! No dogs in the bed , Daddy says. That’s that. I win , Marjorie says. You give her a big wet raspberry close to her face, she gives you a shove. Daddy! Marjorie shoved me!

Now you’re eight, Marjorie’s eleven. Whitey is overall a great dog but has gotten into the habit of barking incessantly when no one is home and then again for another hour or two after you get home from school. The neighbors all around have complained and you have tried various things with no success: alarm clocks, stuffed toys, putting him in a crate in the basement; all seem only to make him bark more.

One afternoon you come home from school and there is no barking and there is no Whitey greeting you at the door. Whitey! Here, Whitey! Nothing. Marjorie, where’s Whitey? you call upstairs. How should I know? He’s your dog , she yells down. Mother emerges from her sewing room to tell you not to worry, she put Whitey out in the yard to chase a squirrel. Phew! you say and head for the back door. Whitey! you call, but he doesn’t come running, and you don’t hear him and you don’t see him and you’re not worried yet because he has a long staked chain for when he’s outside and sometimes he sleeps in a cubbyhole under the back porch, which is exactly where you find him, but which is weird, because he usually wakes up when he hears you call him. Hey, Whitey , you say, and something moves in your stomach you’ve never felt before, it isn’t nausea, it isn’t butterflies, it’s a new and terrible moving, and you bend down and reach out to Whitey and he is as still as the ground beneath him, and you start to shake, and you say, Whitey , even though you already know, you’ve never seen anything more dead than a smushed spider before but you know Whitey’s gone, and you burst into tears, calling Mommy! Whitey! Mommy! Mommy! Though you always call your father Daddy, you almost never call your mother Mommy. She comes running outside, sees you crying, Whitey! you say again, she looks under the porch at Whitey and back at you, takes you into her chest, you’re heaving now, Shh, child, it must have been Whitey’s time to go to heaven. Marjorie comes outside and asks what the crybaby’s crying about this time, sees Whitey under the porch, goes a bit white; Marjorie’s tougher than you but it’s still a lot for a kid to take, her cute dog dead under the porch. Marjorie says nothing, just sits down. You look at Marjorie with suspicion. She’s not upset. You’ve read a half-dozen Nancy Drew books. The quiet ones are always the suspects.