Chapter 18 Hendrix
CHAPTER 18
HENDRIX
G irl, I know that’s right,” Aunt Geneva says, her voice booming all over the house.
Is there a certain age when talking on speaker phone is the default? Because every call my mother and Aunt Geneva take seems to require them to use speaker so the whole house is subjected to both sides of their conversation.
“Goodness gracious!” her friend cackles loudly from the other end. “I might have to run around the church on that one.”
“God is good,” Aunt Geneva says.
“All the time,” her friend replies.
“And all the time,” Aunt Geneva says.
“God is good,” they finish together.
Though I’m not in church regularly anymore, it’s a call-and-response script so familiar and somehow comforting, that I’m smiling as I review my schedule for the day on my iPad.
“All right, Hen,” Aunt Geneva says, walking into the kitchen wearing leggings and a long T-shirt declaring Virginia Beach Is for Lovers . “I’m gonna head out to the store. Pick up some fish for dinner. You sure you’ll be all right till I come back?”
“Aunt G, she’s my mother,” I say. “We’ll be fine long enough for you to run to the store.”
“Yeah, but a lot has changed. Make sure the locks are done up while you’re on your calls. You know the code. Even with the doors locked, just to be safe, don’t leave your keys out. Once the code wasn’t set and she got out. Tried to drive. Got all the way to South Carolina.”
“When? You didn’t tell me that.” I hear the accusation in my own voice and regret it immediately.
“Hendrix, now listen. I know you gotta be in Atlanta and your mama refuses to leave this house, so this is where we are for now.” Aunt Geneva bends one of those looks on me that, when I was a kid, seemed to see down to my very soul. Still does. “But I can’t waste time and energy I need to deal with all this making sure you know everything all the time.”
“I know. I’m sorry. It’s just hard not being here.”
“And it’s hard being here. Baby, it’s just hard.”
This constant state of vigilance is a lot for my aunt, and not for the first time, I wonder how sustainable this setup is, how long before we have to change things. Change is rarely easy. Now for Mama, it can be her worst nightmare, which also makes it mine.
“It’s gon’ be all right, though, Hen. God got us,” Aunt Geneva says with the ease of someone whose faith stands strong like the Rock of Gibraltar. She rifles through her purse. “You seen my keys?”
“I saw ’em on the bathroom sink,” Mama says from the kitchen doorway. “You going somewhere?”
How long has she been standing there and what did she hear?
“Just to make grocery,” Aunt Geneva says evenly, as if we weren’t just discussing Mama before she appeared. “I’ll be back. You need anything?”
“Salt-and-vinegar potato chips,” Mama replies and takes a seat at the kitchen table beside me.
“Now you know that ain’t good for you,” Aunt Geneva says. “How about some rice cakes?”
“Soon I won’t even know who I am,” Mama snaps with a rare flash of bitterness. “At least let me eat these potato chips while I still remember that I like them.”
It’s quiet in the small kitchen, save the whir of the refrigerator motor. My aunt seems at a loss for words, and I certainly don’t know what to say to that.
“I’mma pick up some of that kiwi you like,” Aunt Geneva replies after a few seconds. “Lemme go grab these keys so I can come back and make dinner.”
She exits the kitchen, leaving Mama and me alone. I arrived last night and in some ways, it feels like we don’t know each other well anymore. Of course, so much is changing for her and for me, too, but it seems more fundamental than that. Like we’re strangers who’ve been told we’re to act like family. We’ve never had trouble finding things to talk and laugh about, but this new reality is proving even more complex than I’d anticipated.
I peer through the kitchen window to the badly neglected garden, which used to be Mama’s pride and joy. Maybe getting back out there would give her something to focus on.
“What do you say we get out in the garden, Mama?” I turn to her with a smile. “Plant some of your favorite flowers. That might be fun.”
“Sounds like work,” Mama grumbles. “And it’s hot. Like I want to get out in the fucking garden in July and work on some damn flowers.”
Shock ripples over me. My mother never curses. I’ve never held back who I really am. I told her I lost my virginity in tenth grade and have not looked back. She knows that I pretty much only attend church when I come home for Christmas. Out of respect, I’ve never, as she would put it, “laid up with some man” in her house, and I check my expletives at the door. So to hear those words from her completely throws me off.
“Maybe later when it’s cooler, Betty,” Aunt Geneva says, watching us with one shoulder propped against the doorjamb.
“Fat bitch,” Mama snarls at her sister, her eyes lit with sudden fury. “I told you to leave me alone.”
“All right, now,” Aunt Geneva says, folding steel into her soft words. “We talked about this. You not gon’ cuss at me.”
“I’ll cuss at you if I want to.” Mama stands abruptly and walks over to her sister, flicking her head to the side. “You blocking the door. Get out my way.”
Aunt Geneva blinks rapidly and gulps, sure signs that she’s on the verge of losing the tenuous hold on her temper. After a few seconds, though, she steps aside and allows Mama to leave the kitchen.
“What was that?” I ask when Mama’s bedroom door snicks closed behind her. “Mama never—”
“You know folks with Alzheimer’s can experience personality changes and mood swings,” Aunt Geneva says. “It’s not all the time, but it is sometimes. Your mama would never…”
She looks up at me, and the fatigue and the sadness lay a thin patina over the acceptance I’ve seen in her ever since she learned of her younger sister’s diagnosis. I walk over to her. I’m not sure if she takes me into her arms or I take her into mine, but our quiet sorrow wraps around us. Holds us both. There is a slow onslaught of terrible things ahead for us, for Mama. And on the good days, the days when she’s lucid and barely changed, it’s easy to forget. This condition metes out tragedy in small doses.
“You know your mama,” Aunt Geneva finally finishes tremulously. “Hold on to that no matter how she seems or what happens. We know her and we love her. She loves us.”
She glances at her watch. “It’s three o’clock now. She can get a little agitated in the afternoons sometimes.”
“Sundowning?” I ask, pulling from the things I’ve been reading. I’ve always wanted to know what my mother is experiencing, but there’s been an increased urgency to understand ever since I found out Aunt Geneva needs me to be here while she recovers from surgery.
“I guess.” Aunt Geneva adjusts the purse strap on her shoulder. “It gets worse in the middle and later stages, but yeah.”
“Is Mama in the middle?” I ask softly.
“She’s here right now.” Aunt Geneva’s steady eyes don’t waver even though her response is not as certain as I had hoped. “That’s all I know.”
The low rumble of Aunt Geneva’s Ford Explorer is just fading when the calendar alert on my phone jangles.
“Darn it. I forgot about this appointment.”
Before my meeting with Nelly and Kashawn begins, I tiptoe upstairs and creak Mama’s bedroom door open to check on her. She’s fallen asleep with the pillow clutched to her chest on what used to be Daddy’s side of the bed. Grief floods my heart for a moment, but I stave off that wave of loss. I can’t afford it right now—not with Mama so fragile and Aunt Geneva about to have major surgery. I’m the one who needs to hold it all together. I cannot afford to fall apart.
Back in the kitchen, I pull the iPad from the bag at my feet and set it up on the table. Kashawn and Nelly are already on-screen when I log on.
“Ladies,” I greet them with a genuine smile. Seeing their faces improves my mood. “What’s up with you?”
“I’m on baby duty,” Nelly says, sighing and holding her trusty fan up to her face. “Beth went for a walk. I keep forgetting to thank you for those flowers, by the way, Hen. She loved them.”
“Oh I’m glad,” I say. “And how are things for you, Shawn?”
“Honey, slammed.” Kashawn shoots a harried look at the camera. “I only have about five minutes to spare. I’m in court tomorrow and not as prepared as I need to be.”
Nelly is the only one of us who works full-time with Aspire. Kashawn is one of Atlanta’s best lawyers at a top law firm. We all have important things that require our attention, but we’ve nurtured Aspire because it means so much to each of us.
“The only thing I want to know is what time do we leave for Colorado in Maverick Bell’s private plane?” Nelly asks, her face not giving away any of the humor that surely must lurk beneath the statement.
“You really want to go?” I ask weakly. I shouldn’t be surprised, but I was kind of hoping they’d change their minds and turn Maverick’s offer down.
“For one,” Kashawn says, “it’s exactly the kind of real-life example that will help us decide if we want to add a cannabis company to our portfolio.”
“And for two,” Nelly says, peeking out from behind her menopause fan, “building a relationship with a man of Maverick’s means is never a bad idea.”
“You’re right, of course.” I swallow the last of my reservations and realize it’s useless trying to dissuade them from this trip.
“Good,” Kashawn says. “Now, I better get. I’ll be on the lookout for details.”
“Same,” Nelly says. A baby crying in the background has her rolling her eyes. “Dammit. I thought she’d stay asleep till Beth got home. Looks like I’m up. Peace, y’all.”
“See you later,” I say and sign off.
In the quiet house, there’s nowhere to hide from the truth of my pounding heart, from the undiluted anticipation of seeing Maverick again on this trip. It’s a secret thumping behind my ribs and running through my veins. As much as I told myself I hoped my partners didn’t want to go… I knew deep down that I did.
Me: Hey. Just letting you know Kashawn and Nelly want to see the cannabis farm in Colorado.
Maverick: And you? Do you not want to see? You don’t want to come?
Me: Of course I do. Should we let Bolt and Skipper coordinate just so we can see them claw their way through the phones to hate fuck?
Maverick: Ha! Yeah, that works. You good? I think you said you were going home to visit?
Before I can respond, a shuffling sound in the living room distracts me. I leave the phone on the kitchen table to check. Mama stands at the window and holds back the curtain with one hand. Her brows are drawn together and lines bracket the tightness of her mouth.
“Mama, you okay?” I step farther into the room and walk over.
“I’m just worried.” She turns distressed eyes toward me and bites her thumbnail. “Your daddy’s still not home.”
No, please God no. I don’t want Mama to have to live this again. I don’t want to have to.
“Mama, I—”
“He should be home by now,” she insists, turning back to the window and pulling the curtain away to show sunshine and the tranquil front yard. “It’s been hours since he left.”
“No, it’s been…” I am lost and helpless, but brace myself for the tornado I have to walk headlong into. “Mama, Daddy’s gone. Remember?”
“Gone?” Confusion creeps into her gaze. “I know he’s gone, Hen. He went to get my ice cream. Butter pecan. I told him he didn’t have to, but you know how he gets.” A smile briefly softens and curves the tight line of her lips. “Always wanting to give me stuff. The desires of your heart, Bee, he always says. That’s what I live for. He try to act all hard, but he’s a softie. A romantic.”
Something cracks inside me. Not a new pain, but an old one that time was just starting to heal. The pain of losing my father and watching my mother grieve the love of a lifetime. Is there a crueler fate than being trapped in a reality where you lose the love of your life over and over again?
“Mama, Daddy’s gone,” I repeat, firming my voice. “Remember he… he passed away.”
She stares at me blankly for a few seconds before letting loose a humorless laugh.
“Girl, you better hush.” She turns back to the window, shaking her head. “That’s not funny. Don’t even joke like that, Hen.”
“I’m not joking, Mama. Daddy was in an accident,” I say haltingly, swallowing the hot lump crowding my throat. “H-he didn’t make it.”
The curtain drops from her limp fingers, and she turns to face me, searching my expression for proof.
“No!” The shrill sound of her grief makes me jump and startles a heavy stampede of heartbeats in my chest. “He can’t… don’t say that. Don’t you say that.”
“Mama, I’m so sorry.” I take a step toward her, arms extended, but she jerks away to face the window again.
“That can’t be right.” She snatches the curtain back, exposing the street with not even a pedestrian in sight. “I just… I just saw him. Just spoke to…”
She looks back at me, confusion pinching her features and she clutches the curtain in a balled fist.
“We just spoke,” she shouts, a note of hysteria entering her voice. “He said he’s bringing home the ice cream. The ice cream. He just went to get me some ice cream!”
I close my eyes against the fresh rush of pain. He did go get ice cream, but he never made it home. A drunk driver ran a light and the ice cream was a melted mess in the front seat by the time the paramedics pulled Daddy out. As far as I know, Mama’s never eaten butter pecan ice cream again.
“He’ll be back.” She shakes her head, an adamant denial, a begging insistence. “He’s coming home. He’s coming home. He’s coming home.”
She tugs the curtains harder with every syllable that tumbles from her lips until the fabric falls, baring the windows, the naked panes ushering in the glare of sunlight and summer. Nothing like the cold winter night when Daddy died.
“Why would you say that?” Mama sobs, falling to her knees and banging her fist against the window pane. “Why would you lie? He’s coming home. He has to… he has to come home.”
Her shoulders shake beneath her housecoat. Tears run unchecked down her cheeks. I wasn’t home when Mama found out Daddy died, but I know it must have been this spectacle of shock and sorrow that her heart recalls in detail. That her soul is bleeding out on the carpet the same way it did that night. This is not a loss scabbed over. It is fresh and open and violent. Memory is often imperfect, a menagerie of omissions and reshaped recollections, but I know Mama remembers the night she lost my father with vivid, wrenching accuracy.
I watch helplessly as she stretches out on the carpet, heaving sobs shaking her body. Her voice goes hoarse from screaming disbelief.
“What is going on?” Aunt Geneva asks, rushing from the kitchen, two plastic bags still bundled in her arms. “Betty, I hear you all the way outside.”
“I didn’t know what to do,” I say, and realize for the first time that my own cheeks are wet. And I’m not sure if the tears are for Mama finding out again that her husband has died, or if they’re for me facing the reality of never seeing my father again by a twist of fate and the carelessness of a stranger.
Aunt Geneva sets the grocery bags down on the floor and approaches Mama with a sure step.
“Now, Betty,” she says, crouching down beside her, balancing on the balls of her feet. “You’ll make yourself sick. You need to stop all this hollering.”
“But she said that…” Mama points at me like I’m a stranger. “She said that John was dead.”
“It’s okay. Everything’s okay,” Aunt Geneva soothes her. “Let’s go to your room and lie down.”
“You’ll lay down with me?” Mama asks, her voice hushing even as her eyes remain wild and searching.
“I will. Just like old times,” Aunt Geneva promises, pulling Mama to stand. “Remember what Grammy used to say when it was storming?”
“She said it’s coming up a cloud .” Mama chuckles, sniffing. “And when it was raining, but the sun was still shining, she’d say the devil’s beating his wife .”
Aunt Geneva loops her arm through Mama’s, subtly directing their shuffling steps down the hall. “And remember they made us turn out all the lights when it was storming? And unplug everything?”
“And we had to just wait till the storm passed over. And it was dark.” Mama looks to Aunt Geneva for confirmation. “Wasn’t it?”
“It was dark, so we played bid whist with candles,” Aunt Geneva says.
Mama drops her head to Aunt Geneva’s shoulder. “You cheated.”
“Me?” Aunt Geneva squeaks. “Daddy cheated. You know he always cheated at cards.”
“He did.” Mama’s chuckle drifts down the stairs. “Ma would say, Now, Mo .”
“ You know better than that ,” the two sisters finish in unison, laughing in harmony.
It’s quiet for a few seconds, and my ears strain to catch more of their conversation. Finally my mother’s voice comes softer, barely audible.
“Sissy, I’m gon’ be all right?” Her words float on the air as uncertain as a feather tossed in a tornado. My heart, still trembling and fragile from watching my mother relive my father’s death, from reliving it myself, shatters. Hot tears burn my eyes and I have to cover my mouth to catch a sob. It’s not fair. None of it is fair, and my rage and my sorrow run together down my face.
“Betty, I’m right here with you, and you’ll be all right,” Aunt Geneva says, and I don’t understand how her voice doesn’t shake with tears.
A few minutes later, Aunt Geneva comes back downstairs to find me still standing by the window.
“I forgot,” I whisper. “The doctor said don’t argue, don’t contradict. Redirect to calm her down, but I just… froze and forgot it all when she said Daddy was still alive.”
“It happens,” Aunt Geneva says, bending to retrieve the grocery bags from the floor. “We not gonna get everything right and we won’t remember everything. You’ll remember next time.”
Next time?
I don’t want there to be a next time. Not another time when Mama relives Daddy’s death in a cruel trick her brain plays on her heart. There will be a next time, though, and with the advice from the doctors and from Aunt Geneva still ringing in my head, I promise myself next time I’ll be better prepared.