Chapter Four #2
My eyes stop on a stack of moving boxes against one wall.
My fingers tingle. My mouth goes dry. Three boxes are separated from the others, in the back corner.
I move toward them on shaky legs. On the side of each, in Petunia’s or Pearl’s loopy cursive, is a name: Krystal Lynn.
My stomach drops as I drag one of the boxes to the middle of the room and stare at it.
I test its weight. Then I test the others.
I can get them all down the stairs and into my car without a problem.
But do I really want to haul them back with me?
Then what? Now that I’m looking at them, I’m not sure that’s the best idea.
Dragging my past around doesn’t need to become a habit.
What I need to do is throw them out. Be done with them for good.
I could take them and toss them in a small-town dumpster on my way home.
But first, I want to make sure what I’m looking for is here.
The packing tape has come loose on the box in front of me, peeling up on both sides, and that’s all the invitation I need.
In a matter of a second, I’m kneeling beside the box and ripping the tape off.
I pull back the top flaps and sit back on my knees.
Inside are old clothes and books and odd pieces of jewelry.
I exhale. My shoulders relax. This isn’t the box.
I extract an old children’s book and my heart flutters.
P. D. Eastman’s Are You My Mother? Mabry’s favorite.
I fish out a dry-rotted and faded yellow dress from the box, which pulls me back to when Mama got it in her head that Mabry could win Star Search, and the first step would be entering Mabry in kiddie beauty pageants so she could get used to being on stage.
Mabry was terrified. I was appalled. But Mama went down to the Goodwill and bought what could have been the ugliest, yellowest thing I ever saw, then went to town on her sewing machine.
She said by the time she was done, every little girl in northwest Louisiana would be jealous.
Mama was on a peak. There was no touching her.
Mabry, looking like Big Bird from Sesame Street, entered the Little Miss Cornbread beauty contest and came in dead last. Every girl, even the one with the lazy eye, won something.
Not Mabry. She stood on the stage in that hideous dress, her giant ears, her little freckles standing out against her pink cheeks, and her brown doe eyes watering.
Mama came unglued. How dare those judges judge her daughter.
Who did they think they were? She proceeded to cause such a scene that she was escorted from the convention center and told no child of hers would be entered into another pageant in the state of Louisiana, ever.
At home, Mama grabbed the sewing machine and, with incredible strength, hurled it through the front window, where it crashed onto a row of shrubs.
She then snatched a bottle of vodka from the freezer, climbed into bed, and stayed there for days.
On the fourth day, she called Mabry to her side and hauled her into the bed next to her, clutching my little sister even harder than the bottle of vodka.
On the fifth day, I decided Mabry needed a safe word.
I dig past the dress until I see something that really gets my heart pumping.
Mabry’s sketchbook. I wedge it from the box and open its worn cover.
Mabry’s sketches look even more spectacular than I remember.
She may have been grades behind in school and misspelled everything she wrote and wrote everything she misspelled backward, but the girl could draw.
Her attention to detail was eerie. The first few portraits are of me.
One of Travis and me, sitting by the bayou.
One of the bridge. Then one of Mama and a man I don’t recognize, in what looks like a restaurant booth.
I wonder if this is a real moment or one Mabry made up.
Then I see one of old Mr. Billy Taylor and his wife, Ermine.
Again, it looks like a moment Mabry watched.
They are sitting, staring at one another at a table.
Maybe Mabry watched them too. Although she was rarely anywhere without me.
And I don’t remember seeing her at Taylor’s with her sketchbook when I worked there.
But Mabry had a sneaky side. A few times, I remember the Aunts calling Taylor’s to tell me Mabry had snuck away, and could I go find her.
Usually she was hiding on their property under a bed, behind the oaks, hiding from Mama.
But maybe sometimes she snuck away, and we didn’t know, taking her sketchbook and capturing moments.
From the looks of it, moments with a woman and a man.
My heart clenches. Mabry knew even less of our father than I did.
At least I can remember what he looked like.
I flip to the next page and see a sketch of another couple.
A little girl I don’t recognize, holding the hand of a boy I don’t recognize.
The girl has a single finger over her lips.
Something about the girl looks familiar, a tickle of a memory I can’t quite place.
The next drawing is a parakeet. Ralph, one of Mabry’s pretend pets.
Some kids had pretend friends. Mabry had pretend pets.
I liked Ralph. Mabry always had her finger out, cooing at him.
I wrestle the next box to the middle of the room and open it, bracing for what could be inside and, again, releasing a long breath when its contents are still a mix of clothes and jewelry.
Nothing looks special to me. I dig through the pile of outdated clothes: crop tops, cutoffs, plastic bangles.
Krystal Lynn’s summer uniform. A black cowboy hat is crammed in with the other items and stands out against the faded neon colors.
I put it on my head, and it falls almost to my eyes.
Mama did have a cowgirl phase, but I always remember her hat being red.
I drop the hat back into the clothes and focus on the third box.
That’s the one. I feel lightheaded and touch my fingers to the carpet to ground myself.
Open it.
I yank the tape from the box and peel back the cardboard flaps. My breath catches in my throat. This is what I came for. A messy pile of black VHS tapes sits inside. Old dinosaurs. Most recordings of Mama’s soap operas. Bile rises in my throat. Most.
I hear Mama’s voice from when I visited her two evenings ago to tell her I’d changed my mind; I would be going to Broken Bayou after all.
She looked at me suspiciously from the firm sofa in the overly warm TV room of the Texas Rose Rehabilitation Center, a place filled with functional handrails, lovely gold-framed landscapes, and plenty of guilt.
“I want you to have your things,” I said.
“Sure you do.” Her wrinkled lips formed a smile around the clear tubes leading from her nostrils to a small oxygen tank resting on the sofa in a cloth bag.
An empty wheelchair sitting on her opposite side.
An oversize white robe meant for someone twice my mother’s size covered her frail body, and a bird’s nest of gray hair covered her head.
Krystal Lynn Watters was always reckless and unpredictable and constantly in need of a hairbrush.
That certainly hadn’t changed in that place.
If anything, it was amplified . . . even with all the meds.
She looked as fragile and empty as the cicada shells my sister and I collected off pine trees when we were kids.
She shifted and tapped a rhythm on the side of her leg.
Mama’s press-on nails provided the soundtrack for my youth.
She was always tapping them on something: the steering wheel, her teeth, a can of Fresca.
I learned the timing in those clicks like a master thief learns how to tumble a lock.
Her long acrylics were replaced by paper-thin ghosts of what they used to be, but their telling rhythm remained.
And two days ago, it told me to be on guard.
I’m reaching for the first tape when I hear the doorbell downstairs ring. I freeze. Wait. It rings again, this time like someone has their finger pressed on it and won’t let go.
I race to the bottom of the stairs and fully expect to see the lawyer, LaSalle, on the other side of the door.
Instead, I see a police officer wearing a navy polo shirt with a badge sewn on, khaki cargo pants, and mirrored sunglasses.
Tall, with cropped hair, and built like a baseball player.
His weapon is fastened onto a nylon rig belt around his waist.
He looks me up and down, and then I remember what I’m wearing. I tug at the hem of my short silky robe and straighten my shoulders.
“Can I help you?”
The officer studies me with a serious expression. “Yes, ma’am. Are you Dr. Willa Watters?”
“Yes.”
He pauses. “You’re under arrest.”
I stare at him, barefoot and gawking. “Excuse me?” I think of my car, sitting in front of what should be an empty house. Somebody must have called the police. But under arrest?
“I’m not trespassing. I swear. I have a letter—”
The officer laughs. “Willa, I’m just kidding.” He removes his sunglasses. “It’s me. Travis Arceneaux.” The dimple pops out next to his crooked smile.