The Darkest Child Read online

  “You don’t know what she’s like, Miss Pearl, ”Tarabelle said. “I tried to tell you a long time ago, but you wouldn’t listen to me.”

  “Nah, now, don’t you tell me I don’t know what she like. I knew her before any of y’all was born. She was thirteen, and her mama had done threw her out the house. Rosie swore she wouldn’t never put none of her babies out wit’ nowhere for ’em to go, and she never did. Now, I know y’all might think it’s wrong what she done to little Edna here, but Rosie knew what was best, and she knew what she was doing. She just didn’t know how to do it right.How could she know when she ain’t never had nobody to teach her nothing? Edna is Frank’s child, and he shoulda been taking care of her from the day she was born.All y’all got a daddy that ain’t never done nothing for you, and y’all walking ’round here blaming Rosie that’s done the best she knew how. How come y’all ain’t blaming them daddies?”

  “Who is my daddy, Miss Pearl?”Tara asked.“Tell me who he is. I wanna hate him, but I don’t know who he is.”

  “You listen to me, Tarabelle!” Miss Pearl said firmly. “You ain’t got no need to hate nobody.You a grown woman. And you know why you grown? It’s ’cause Rosie done all she could to get you there. Do you hear what I’m saying to you?”

  “Yes, ma’am, ”Tara mumbled, then clutched the bodice of her dress with both hands and pulled until the dress began to rip. I understood that she was trying to release the confusion from her chest when actually it was in her head. I felt it in my chest, too, that Miss Pearl was so right and yet so very wrong.

  “We gotta go, Miss Pearl,” Mushy said, beckoning for Tarabelle first, then the rest of us.

  Gripping Edna’s hand as though she feared we might try to kidnap our sister, Miss Pearl followed us out to the porch. “Y’all pray for Rosie,” she told us.

  Mushy stopped abruptly and whirled around to face Miss Pearl. “Pray?” she asked angrily. “You want us to pray for yo’ precious Rosie? We ain’t gon’ do it, and you ain’t gon’ make us feel bad ’bout nothing.Tara got a right to know who her daddy is, and if you know, you oughta tell her. I love you, Miss Pearl, and I respect you, but don’t you say nothing else to us today. Just let us get in this car and go on ’bout our business. I mean it! Don’t you say another damn word to us.”

  Five of my mother’s nine living children rode away from the Garrisons’ house in silence. No one expressed what they were feeling, but I thought we were all angry and also maybe a little guilty for being ungrateful.We had memories, however, that would help us to get over these feelings.We knew things that Miss Pearl would never know. And I knew things that I hoped the others would never find out.

  fifty - nine

  Echo Road lay parallel to the railroad tracks. Each time a train passed by, the house would vibrate and the noise of the locomotive would drown out all other sounds in the universe. It was a sharp contrast to the silence of Penyon Road, but it was wonderful. Laura and I shared a bedroom and a bed.We had electricity, indoor plumbing, and a stationary bathtub. Laura had other children to play with, though she seldom did. Sometimes she would walk around to Martha Jean’s house, or stay outside alone until dark.

  The drawback to our living arrangements was our proximity to the stores in town. Laura would sneak across the tracks to steal whatever she could conveniently get her hands on, usually things that could have been bought for less than a quarter. One day she stole Velman’s watch from Martha Jean’s living room. Unbeknownst to the Coopers, I returned the watch and tucked it between the cushions of the couch.

  Richard Mackey worked at the Pakersfield carpet mill along with Mr. Frank. He provided well for Mushy, and she made sure we did not want for anything, so I was bewildered by Laura’s constant need to steal. My fairytales were not working; finally, I had to tell her outright that it was wrong for her to steal.

  “Mama didn’t think it was wrong,” she responded.

  “But it is, Laura. If you get caught, you can go to jail.Tell me you won’t do it again.”

  “Okay, if you say so,” she said with a smirk that made me want to strike her.

  I was losing Laura; I didn’t know how to reach her. In the few short weeks since our move to the flats, she had taken on a personality that completely baffled me. She was meek one day, defiant the next. She wouldn’t study. She was failing third grade, and no Quinn had ever repeated a grade, not even Tarabelle.

  Mushy took more interest in me than she did in Laura, and when I tried to discuss Laura’s behavior with her, she said, “Let her be a little girl, Tan. She ain’t never had no freedom being stuck out there wit’ Mama. She’ll outgrow all them things you think is wrong wit’ her. Just give her some time.”

  Time was something I could give to Laura—and patience—I could be patient with her. After all, I was not without fault.There were times when I would walk around in a daze, so deep in daydreams that I was unaware of my surroundings. I would be Martha Jean—happily married to Velman with two precious little girls in a home I could call my very own. My daydreams were not always pleasant, though. Sometimes I would see myself as my mother, locked away in an insane asylum, unable to think or speak, trying to regain my voice, trying to break free.

  In reality, our time on Echo Road was an endless celebration of life. Richard and Mushy seemed to love everything and everyone, and at any given moment, friends, food, music, and booze could fill their house in a party that lasted for hours. Harvey and Carol Sue would stop by on the weekends, and sometimes Wallace and Tarabelle would come over.

  There were other nights when Richard’s wife, Brenda, would come to Echo Road. She would stand in front of the house and shout for Richard to come out to her. Often her shouts were drowned out by a passing train or the music from inside, but we always knew she was there. One night when there was no music or trains passing, Brenda threw rocks at the house while she cussed Richard and Mushy loud enough to get the attention of everyone on the street.

  After controlling her temper for as long as she could, Mushy angrily faced Richard. “Go on wit’ yo’ wife,” she said. “I ain’t gon’ fight her for you, Richard. I already done proved I can beat her, so it don’t make no sense for me to go out there and do it again.You go on wit’ her and stay wit’ her till you decide what you wanna do.”

  “I wanna be wit’ you, Mushy,” Richard said. “That’s why I’m here.”

  “Well, then get rid of her!”

  “How? Tell me how to get rid of her, Mushy,” he pleaded, and his face was puckered as though he might cry.

  “I don’t know, Richard. She’s yo’ goddamn wife. Go get her ass from in front of my house! Take her home, and stay there wit’ her ’til y’all work things out.”

  Reluctantly, handsome, slow-talking, big-footed Richard Mackey, the good provider, went out to face his wife. He didn’t take anything with him, and I assumed he would get rid of her and come back in to Mushy, but after a while I saw him walk off down the street beside Brenda.

  “Mushy, what are you gonna do?” I asked.

  “About what?”

  “About Richard. He’s gone.”

  Mushy laughed.“So what?” she asked.“That’s one silly-ass man if I ever saw one.Tell the truth, Tan. Ain’t he?”

  “He’s the one with a job,” I explained.“We can’t buy food or pay the rent.”

  “Tan, if it’s one thing I learned from my mama, it’s how to pay the rent,” Mushy said, and winked at me. “I don’t know why you worrying ’bout it anyway. Richard’ll come crawling back by tomorrow.We’ll be okay.”

  Less than two hours later, Richard returned, begging Mushy to forgive him. I lay on the bed beside Laura, and once again fell into my habit of judging people. Richard Mackey was a pitiful excuse for a man. He was like so many other men in Pakersfield who were unfaithful when things were good, and who fled when things were bad. In my opinion, Velman Cooper was the only decent man in Triacy County. I truly believed that.

  It was May 11, 1961—a month before I woul
d have a well-earned diploma in my hands—when we received two visits from the Pakersfield police. They had picked Laura up that morning for stealing key chains from the five-and-dime. They brought her home, gave her a stern warning, and released her to Mushy. Mushy’s reaction was to ball a fist and knock Laura to the floor. While Laura sobbed in sorrow over being caught, if not in remorse, I resorted to fairytales again. I bit my tongue to keep from saying, I told you so, and I spoke of a paradise from the past.

  Later in the day, while Laura was outside playing, hiding, or doing whatever she did when she was alone, another policeman arrived.

  “What she steal this time?” Mushy asked wearily.

  “I’m here about Rozelle Quinn,” the policeman said from the other side of the screen door. “We thought you folks ought to know that she’ll be home on Monday.”

  “Uh-uh.” Mushy shook her head.“Home where?” she asked.

  “We’re bringing her here.You are her daughter, aren’t you?”

  “Uh-uh,” Mushy repeated.“Y’all can’t bring her here.Ain’t y’all suppose to take her to jail or something?”

  “Is she better?” I asked.

  The policeman glanced at me. “All I know is that they’re sending her home,” he said, before disappearing from the screen.

  “What the hell am I supposed to do now?” Mushy asked as she slumped down on the couch next to Richard. “Tan, call Harvey and them.Tell ’em to come on over here so they can decide what to do wit’ Mama, ’cause she ain’t staying here wit’ me and Richard.”

  “Now, baby, she is yo’ mama,” Richard began. “We can make room.We can . . .”

  “Be quiet, Richard,” Mushy whispered.“You just don’t understand.”

  I made the calls, then went out to the kitchen to fry chicken and make potato salad and lemonade. Miss Pearl had always said that people couldn’t make rational decisions on an empty stomach, and we had some serious decisions to make.

  They came:Tarabelle, Wallace, Harvey with Carol Sue, Martha Jean with Velman and the babies.We ate, and tossed responsibility out with the chicken bones.We were unwilling to sacrifice much for the woman who had given us life.

  “I don’t even know why y’all called me, ”Tarabelle said. “Y’all know I stay wit’ Miss Shirley, and she ain’t gon’ let Mama stay in her house.”

  “I went through a lot to get Martha Jean away from Miss Rosie, ”Velman reminded us. “I didn’t go through all that just so I can take Miss Rosie in and start all that mess again.We can’t do it.”

  Finally, Harvey weighed in. “Carol Sue ’bout to have a baby. I don’t know what happened to Judy, but I know I don’t never wanna come home from work to find our baby dead in no ditch. We can fit a small bed in here in that room wit’Tangy Mae and Laura. I’ll buy the bed tomorrow.”

  Wallace spoke up.“I been seeing after Mr.Grodin. He’s sick, and he needs somebody to help him, but if I gotta make a choice between him and Mama, I’ll go wit’ Mama. I’ll move back out to the house and look after her.”

  “I’ll move back, too,” I said.“I don’t want to take Laura back out there, but I’ll go.”

  “You gon’ quit school, little sister?” Velman asked. “You this close to graduating, and you gon’ quit? Wallace gotta go to work, and somebody gotta be there with Miss Rosie.”

  “Tangy Mae, you ain’t gon’ quit school,” Harvey said.“And anyway, when’s the last time any of y’all been out there and looked at that house. It’s a mess, and we ain’t been paying no rent on it. Mr. Poppy might not even let Mama move back in there. I say we get a small bed and put it in that room wit’Tangy Mae and Laura.”

  Mushy had not touched her food, nor had she spoken a single word. After the others had departed with the assumption that Mama would move in with us on Echo Road, Mushy rested her head on Richard’s shoulder, and said. “I knew this shit was gon’ happen. How long I gotta pay for being born first in this damn family?”

  sixty

  They had cut her hair at the hospital, and it was growing back with specks of gray amidst reddish-brown—a motley mane. Her skin was ashen, her eyes were dull, and her face had the lifeless expression Tarabelle had once worn. She could walk—thank God—but when she opened her mouth to speak, it was not to us, but to herself.

  She would sit in the kitchen staring into space for hours, then fall asleep on the chair. Not once had she slept on the bed that Harvey had bought for her.We spoke to her in high and low tones, but we never knew exactly what to say.We bathed, clothed, and fed her, because she would do nothing for herself.Almost immediately upon her arrival, Angus Betts appeared at our door to question her about the death of Chad Lowe, but he could get no information from her.

  Often Mushy would pull a chair up beside Mama and pour them both a drink of corn whiskey or whatever else she happened to have in the house. But Mama would not hold a glass and Mushy would have to pour the drink into her mouth.

  Once I heard Mushy say, “You done spent yo’whole hateful life calling Martha Jean dumb.Who the dumb one now? You can’t even wash yo’ own ol’ nasty behind. I don’t know why they didn’t keep you in that hospital.”

  Mushy tried to pour more of the whiskey down Mama’s throat, but Mama gagged and coughed until finally I said, “Stop, Mushy. Don’t make her drink that stuff.”

  “Shut up!” Mushy yelled at me. “I told you before you came here not to turn yo’ nose up at nothing I do. If I get her drunk enough, maybe she’ll go to bed. How we suppose to rest at night when she sitting up here like something dead.Who knows what the hell she might do.Tan, you able to go in there and sleep like it ain’t nothing, but I ain’t had no sleep in days, and I’m tired.”

  Mushy didn’t think Mama could hear her, but I thought she did. I watched Mama, and noticed that sometimes her hands twitched, or her clouded eyes would clear long enough to watch Laura’s movements in a room. She fixed on Laura with the demeanor of a cat ready to swoop up its prey, but never for long, and Laura never seemed to notice.

  On Saturdays and some days after school, I would take my mother’s hand and walk her out to Penyon Road, trying to spark some remembrance, trying to restore some life into her dull eyes.

  One day when I had walked her through the woods beyond the old house and through the house itself, she raised a hand to my chin and tilted my head skyward. “Sam,” she said, and her face broke into an open, loving smile.“Sam.”

  “Hey, Mama,” I said in that fleeting moment before she was lost to me again.

  When I told the others about it, Tarabelle asked, “You think she ever gon’ be right again?”

  “It’s possible,” I answered.“She remembered Sam.”

  “I wanna take her out there the next time, Tan, ”Tarabelle said. “Maybe she’ll remember me. She’s my mama, too. I’m gon’ fix us a picnic lunch and take her out there one day next week.”

  My life continued, not much altered by Mama’s return. I went to school and church, then came home and tried to give Mushy a rest. Mushy’s life had changed drastically. Her friends no longer crowded the living room for impromptu parties. She was angry with the world and mean to everybody in it. Sometimes poor Richard would be forced to go and spend a couple of nights with his wife until it was safe for him to return home. Under the influence of booze, Mushy was managing to get a few hours sleep each night, but it was never enough.

  She woke up one morning and yanked me out of sleep and out of bed in the same motion.“Mama’s gone!” she shouted.“She ain’t nowhere in this damn house.We gotta go find her.”

  We went door to door, and woke up nearly everybody in the flats, but nobody had seen our mother. Mushy finally decided to take the car and search all over town, starting with the house on Penyon Road. I was to stay in the flats with Laura in the unlikely event Mama returned there.

  We gave the house, the front and back yards, a final search before Mushy hurried out to the car. She had just turned the key in the ignition when a black-and-white police car turned onto Ech
o Road and stopped behind her. The policeman who got out and opened the rear door for Mama, told us that he had spotted her pacing the ground below the platform of the train depot.

  “At first I thought it was somebody waiting for the next train,” he said, “but the next train is not due for another two hours.When I saw who it was, I brought her on home.”

  “I don’t live here,” Mama protested.

  The policeman ignored her. “Y’all need to keep a better watch on her,” he scolded. “Another time of day, and she could’ve been run over by a train.”

  Mama was barefoot and still wearing the nightgown I had dressed her in before going to bed myself. She struggled as we tried to help her inside the house, and Mushy roughly shoved her forward.

  “I don’t live here!” Mama shouted.“I wanna go home.”

  When we had her inside, Mushy collared her, wrenching her gown around her with such force that they nearly bumped heads. “Look here, Mama,” she hissed, “I ain’t gon’ be hunting all over town for you, and you ain’t gon’ be embarrassing me by leaving outta here half naked.This is where you live.You don’t like it, and I don’t like it, but that’s the way it is. So sit yo’ ass down somewhere and stay put!”

  “Mushy, don’t . . .” I started.

  Mushy released Mama and turned on me.“Tan, you gon’ graduate next week, and I’m happy for you.You’ll be the first one of us to get that piece of paper, and when you get it in yo’ hands, I want you to get the hell out my house. I don’t want you back here turning up yo’ nose up at nothing I do.” She fanned one hand as though shooing me away. “I just want you outta here.You can take Mama, take Laura, take Richard, too.All y’all just get the hell away from me.”

  In the silence following Mushy’s outburst, we heard the trickle of urine dripping to the floor as Mama wet herself and everything within a six-inch radius. “Oh-oh,” she said in a child-like singsong.“ Oh-oh.”