Amy Greene - Bloodroot

“He’s all right,” my grandmother said flatly. “He’s always carrying on like that.” The dog stood up and barked at me, showing its teeth. “Hush, Peanut,” the old woman said, and kicked at his flank with her bare foot. I could see dirt caked under her toenails. The dog skittered away and curled up again out of reach.

I sipped the bitter coffee and studied them in the murky light. They didn’t seem related. Imogene’s face was soft and pretty. I liked the veined backs of her hands. “Mother, isn’t she beautiful?” Imogene asked. The old woman didn’t answer. “What have you been doing with yourself, Myra? You were just a baby when I last saw you.”

“I got married and moved down here with my husband, John Odom.”

“Is he any kin to Frankie Odom,” the old woman asked, “has a hardware store?”

“Yes, that’s John’s father,” I said. I was growing impatient. I wasn’t there to talk about myself. “I have some questions, I guess. About Kenny and Clio.”

“We’ll tell you anything we can,” Imogene said, smiling over her coffee. “Won’t we, Mother?” The old woman just went on blinking at me.

I thought hard but all my questions had suddenly evaporated. My mind was blank. They stared at me across the table. I felt my cheeks burning as I groped for something to say. Imogene looked concerned. Then her face brightened.

“Would you like to see some pictures?”

“Yes,” I said, exhaling at last.

“Mother, where are those albums?”

“Under the bed,” the old woman said. She grunted and rose to take a pack of sugar wafers from a bread box on the counter. She stood at the sink eating them as Imogene went for the albums. She looked at me, soggy crumbs falling down her goiter. I was sickened that she had given birth to my father and known my mother as a daughter-in-law. Imogene brought the albums to the table and removed one from the top of the stack. She wiped dust off its cover and turned the pages slowly, a parade of unfamiliar faces in grainy black and white. Then she stopped. “Here. This is Kenny and me,” she said. Two children stood on a porch with solemn expressions. It was hard to tell how far apart in age they were, but I guessed he was at least six years younger than her. I wanted to feel something. This was my father. But as the pages turned and I watched the progress of his growth from a boy into a young man, I realized I was waiting to see my mother’s face. We flipped through the second album and still no sign. It was like she, and I, had been erased from the history of these people. Granny had pictures of my mother but they were all taken on the mountain. I needed pictures of her there in that house, living a life I didn’t know or understand. Imogene must have seen my disappointment.

“Don’t you have any pictures of Clio around here, Mother?” she asked.

The old woman bit into another sugar wafer. “That girl never set still long enough to make a picture,” she said, spraying crumbs.

“Good Lord, Mother,” Imogene said, brows knitting together. “Do you have to talk so hateful all the time? Myra’s going to think we’re awful.” She turned to me and smiled. “I know I’ve got some at my house. Would you like to come home with me and take a look? I might could tell you some stories, too.”

“I don’t know,” I said, thinking of John for the first time since I got out of the taxi. “I told the cabdriver to be back at the pool hall by three.”

“I don’t live far,” Imogene said. “I can have you back before then.”

In the car she told me things about my mother that I’d never heard before. The time she let me taste ice cream on her finger and how I suckled with such a funny look on my face. The time she brought me in from the car bundled up and when she opened the blanket inside the warm house everyone saw that she had carried me across the yard upside down. But something bothered me about the way Imogene kept her eyes straight ahead as she spoke, the way she laughed nervously. I grew afraid that it was all lies, or at least only part of the story. We pulled up to her house, a nicely landscaped brick duplex. She lived in one side and kept tenants in the other. Getting out of the car, I realized how close we were to the Odom house. I ducked my head as we crossed the yard. Inside, the windows were hung with trailing plants and curios lined a white mantel. The room was clean but packed with antique furniture. There were mirrors and picture frames propped against one wall and old books stacked against another. “Don’t mind my mess,” Imogene said. “I’m opening myself a little shop next door, when the remodeling is done.” I glanced toward the window, hearing the hammering outside. She followed my eyes and said, “That’s my friend fixing the roof. I’ve been buying things along as I see them. I’ve loved old things since I was a little girl. It’s scary to try something new like this, but I always wanted my own store.” She seemed harried and scattered, talking perhaps to hide her embarrassment. We both knew she was keeping something from me. “You can have a seat, honey,” she said. “I’ll get my albums.”

I went to the brocade loveseat, lace doilies draped on its arms. I felt outside myself, in this unfamiliar place with this strange woman who was my aunt. When she came back, we spent a long time looking at the pictures. One of my mother holding me, not smiling. One of her surrounded by other people, a cigarette between her fingers. She smoked. I never knew. These are the things people forget to tell you. When all the pages were turned, we sat in silence. I supposed it was time to go but I wasn’t ready. I couldn’t stop thinking of Imogene’s nervous stories in the car, the troubling sense of being lied to. She waited expectantly, probably for me to say that I should be going, so I said it. “I ought to be getting back.” But I didn’t get up. My body resisted and when she was getting her purse I couldn’t keep quiet any longer. I blurted, “What were they really like?”

She turned to me, startled. “Hmm?”

“All I hear are the good stories. I want to hear all of the stories. Good and bad.”

Imogene put down her purse and keys. She came to sit beside me again. She put her hand on my knee. “Oh, honey,” she said.

“I want to know,” I said.

She grew quiet, looking down, biting her lip.

She looked back up. “But what good would it do? What does it matter now?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “Please tell me.”

“You’re sure.”

“Yes.”

“All right. I’ll do the best I can.”

She began at the beginning. “I’ve always been different than them,” she said. “I hated growing up in that filthy house. You couldn’t go barefoot unless you wanted black feet. He tracked it in on his boots. We call him Uncle but he’s not. I figure he’s my grandfather. Grandmother moved in with her sister Lucille, who was married to Uncle. About a year later, Mother was born. I don’t know if Uncle raped Grandmother or if she slept with him. Are you sure you want to hear all this?” I nodded and she went on. “Uncle never was any good. I believe that’s part of why Kenny turned out how he did. It was in the blood. Now Grandmother and Lucille are gone and Uncle’s still kicking.

“We moved in with Grandmother and Lucille and Uncle after Kenny was born. Mother was a bastard, and Kenny and I grew up fatherless, too. But I do remember my father. The three of us lived for a while in a room over a storefront. He had a strong, nasty smell and whiskers. Straggly hair and no teeth, tattoos all over his arms. One of them was a dagger. I don’t know what happened to him. He wasn’t Kenny’s father.

“I was eight when Kenny was born. I doted on my brother, toting him around everywhere and letting him pitch tantrums. But he had the finest blond hair and the sweetest blue eyes, just like yours. He was the cutest little boy, until he got spoiled and hateful. He wouldn’t do his schoolwork and Mother didn’t care. I was the only one that ever tried to encourage him, but what was the use? She let him drop out in the eighth grade. He laid around for the rest of his life after that, except to go out drinking on the weekends. He’d take a job here and there, but he ended up quitting every one of them.