Chapter Ten
I mumbled all the way down the stairs that Sunday morning, shot a dirty look toward the kitchen clock hanging on the wall, and poured myself a bowl of junk cereal for breakfast. Even as a child I hated daylight saving time. Changing the clocks in the spring and then switching back in the fall always seemed stupid to me—but then, Aunt Gracie might have instigated that in me since she complained every time we had to make an adjustment.
She always said that someday she was moving to Arizona, where they stayed on God’s time. For at least two weeks, my whole world was always turned upside down. The clock would say that it was noon, but my stomach would declare that it wouldn’t be hungry for another hour. My eyes would pop wide open an hour before the alarm went off, and no amount of beating my pillow would help me fall back to sleep. That first day always dragged like a snail making its way through molasses in zero-degree weather. Just when I would get adjusted to the new norm, winter would come along and we would get that hour back—of course, I didn’t want it by then, but who asked me?
I could almost hear Aunt Gracie fussing at me. I give you a house and enough money to choke a horse, and what do you do? Complain over one little hour. Pull up your big-girl under britches and suck it up.
“Hey, I got this attitude from you,” I protested.
But Aunt Gracie was right: one little hour shouldn’t spoil my Sunday morning. I had just taken the last bite of my chocolate-flavored cereal when the phone rang. I hurried up and swallowed before I grabbed the receiver. “Hello?”
“Mornin’, Lila,” Jasper said. “I won’t be going to church this morning.”
“Are you feeling all right?” I asked. “You aren’t feeling sick, are you? I’ve never known you to miss church.”
“This time change turns everything upside down for me. Always has, and me and Gracie decided a few years ago—after you left to go to college—that we wouldn’t go to church the morning after we fiddle with the clocks. So twice a year ...” He paused and coughed. “That was just springtime allergies. Don’t go thinkin’ I’m about to kick the bucket.”
“Can I bring you anything?” I asked. “Do you have medicine?”
“I don’t need pills. Never have been much for all the medicine doctors dole out. The side effects seem worse than what they’re tryin’ to cure, if you ask me. My granny brewed up lemon tea with honey for me during this time of year. I’ve had a cup this morning, and I’ve got the beans and corn bread you brought me last night, so I’m well fixed for the day. Me and Sassy are just going to stay inside and rest up. We’ll be fine when we get used to this time change. Always took me and Gracie at least a week to get adjusted.”
“If you get to feeling worse, will you call me?” I asked.
“You know I will.” Jasper’s chuckle was followed by another raspy cough. “You said I had to live until fall so we can celebrate my birthday.”
“That’s right,” I agreed. “Want me to bring you a bottle of Aunt Gracie’s whiskey?”
“No, darlin’, I’ve got my own brand. I’ll put a shot in my hot lemon tea this morning. The whiskey will knock out this little old cough real soon,” Jasper said. “See you later this evening or tomorrow. Bye, now.”
The click as he hung up told me he had called from his landline. I shook my fist at the ceiling. “And there you were, telling me not to grumble about the time change when you missed church because of it. Just for that, I’m going to clean out your closet this morning.”
I was marching up the steps like a woman on a mission when the ringtone on my cell told me my mother was calling. I stopped midway, sat down, and stretched my long legs out four steps below me. “Hello, Mama.”
“Who are you mad at?” she asked.
“What makes you think I’m mad at anyone?”
“I can always tell by your tone if you are angry, happy, or bored. Today, you are angry.”
“I hate the time change,” I declared.
Mama giggled. “Me too. But we’ll get over it in a week or two. It’s not fatal. What are you doing this morning since Jasper isn’t going to church?”
“So you know about the time change rule?”
“Of course I do,” Mama said. “Gracie said that the good Lord would understand because He wasn’t the one that sanctioned moving the clocks back and forth like that.”
“I agree with both of them,” I said. “How about you? Are you going to church this morning?”
“No, I’m not,” she said. “And I agree with them, too. By next weekend I’ll be in tune with the change, and I’ll be able to think about the sermon. Today, I might fall asleep and snore at the wrong time. I’m not even putting on shoes today. So, like I asked, what are you doing this morning?”
I looked down at my own bare feet and felt a bit liberated to not have to wear shoes, either. “Today, I’m cleaning out Aunt Gracie’s closet. Want to come help me?” I could almost feel her shiver at the idea.
“Thanks, but no thanks,” she said. “Annie is coming over this afternoon to talk about our new project.”
I stood up. “Do I need to be there?”
“Not really, but you are welcome if you get bored or weary from cleaning Gracie’s closet. We’re going to organize recipes into folders.”
I went on up the stairs to the landing, slightly amused that Mama said what she did to keep me moving toward the job at hand. She and I both knew I was procrastinating so I wouldn’t have to admit that Aunt Gracie was really gone. “I’ll keep that in mind. Have fun.”
“You, too,” she said and ended the call.
When I looked into Aunt Gracie’s bedroom and saw the stack of red underpants on the same color bedspread, I almost closed the door. What was in her room had been private for almost a century. What right did I have to go through any of her things?
I gave you that right in my will. Her voice in my head sent chills down my backbone. Evidently, she intended for me to dive into her past.
“I’ve got to do it, and I’ve got all day with nothing else to do,” I said out loud and looked up at the ceiling. “If you’ve got anything else to say to me, just spit it out.”
Her voice didn’t pop into my head, so apparently she had finished fussing at me. That told me there wouldn’t be a single piece of paper or another journal hidden anywhere that would have a clue to the big secret. Aunt Gracie had put everything to rights before she passed away, and she didn’t care if I found the diary or riffled through her closet and drawers.
I crossed the room, opened the closet doors, and took the first dress off the hanger. I laid it out on the bed to take to a women’s shelter and stared at it for a full two minutes. Today’s women lived in jeans and T-shirts. No one would want a 1940s dress with a tiny waistline, buttons all the way up the front, shoulder pads, and a pristine white collar. One that fit a woman who was only a couple of inches over five feet, or maybe a little taller if she wore heels.
I had never seen Aunt Gracie in that dress—but then, she would have worn it years and years before I was born. A memory played at the corners of my mind, but I couldn’t place the picture. Maybe I’d seen something similar in a magazine. Then boom! The memory took form, and there it was. A lady in a play at the university materialized.
“That’s it!” I snapped my fingers.
The Drama Department had put on a play my senior year. I couldn’t remember the title, but it had been based on a book, and the main character wore a dress exactly like the one lying on the bed. I was sure the school would love to have all these old dresses for their costume collection and made a mental note to ask them for a mailing address that week.
Still thinking about that, I went back to the closet and noticed I had missed a note pinned to the bottom of the hanger. This is the dress I wore to my high school graduation. Davis and Jasper both told me I was beautiful that evening. I’ll never be as pretty as my mama, but they made me feel like I might be someday. Daddy was too busy to attend, and Mama didn’t come back for the event, but I had my two best friends, and that was all I wanted.
The next outfit was a straight pink skirt and matching jacket. This time a note was pinned to the jacket lapel. Gracie had done a lot of preparation before she died. I wore this on my first day at the dress shop. I was so nervous, but Phyllis said that I had a natural knack for selling clothing. Davis and Jasper have gone off to basic training. I promised that I would write them every day, and as soon as they sent me an address, I would send all the letters I had written up to that time. I will miss them horribly. Maybe working at the shop will help pass the days. Daddy and I seldom speak to each other anymore—his fault, not mine. Mama remarried last month and moved to Boston. I hope she’s happy in her new world, but I’m glad she is gone.
I arranged the notes on the bed and wept when I reached a black dress with a matching coat. I wore this to Davis’s memorial service. Jasper is still off somewhere fighting in the war, so I stood by myself by the flag-draped casket and cried for what might have been if circumstances had been different. His mother and I didn’t speak to each other, but we did exchange a look through all the tears we shed that morning. We both loved him so much. My precious Davis won’t be coming back to me. My heart was broken before. Now it’s shattered and can never be put back together.
The next outfit was that bright red pantsuit. The note pinned to the lapel of the jacket made me giggle. This was the last thing I brought home from the shop before I sold it. Red has always stood for independence to me. I’m not sure that Sarah’s mother ever knew anything but submission to her husband, and she would have never been brazen enough to wear red—or pants, either, for that matter. She was furious with me for taking Sarah in, but then, I was just as angry with her for not supporting her only daughter.
I was surprised to find a pink dress in her closet, even if it was the hottest shade I had ever seen. A couple of sizes larger than the ones I’d found before, it had tiny white polka dots and a pleated skirt. I carefully removed it from the hanger and unpinned the note from the lace collar. This is what I wore on the day Sarah went into labor. I wanted the baby to be a girl, and I got my wish. I wanted Sarah to go to college the semester after the baby came, but she wouldn’t. She told me she hated school and was happy being a mother. Each woman should have the opportunity to choose her destiny. I chose mine, so I didn’t argue.
There was what she had worn when I graduated from kindergarten and right next to it was the one she had worn when I finished high school. The next one I remembered well because I had a picture of her standing beside me when I graduated from college. I flipped through the rest of the clothing, looking for notes, but there were no more.
“I should have known you’d leave notes for me—but why pinned to just part of your clothing?” I whispered.
To help you remember, was all I got from the voice that often popped into my head.
Who would have thought I would find Gracie’s life story in her closet? I carefully arranged all the notes into chronological order and carried them to my office. Mama had given me a small picture album with a beach scene on the front for Christmas and said that someday she was going to go there. When I asked her if she was going to swim in the ocean, she shook her head and said, “I want to smell the salt air, let the warm sand drift through my hands, and listen to the waves splash against the shore.”
I found the album in my desk drawer and carefully slid each note into a protective sleeve.
Mama used to say that my mind reminded her of a hamster on a wheel. One minute, I was talking about one thing, and before I could finish a sentence, I would jump course and ask a question about something totally different from what we’d been discussing. My gaze went from the album and then over to the closet shelf where I stored my office supplies.
“Good Lord!” I gasped. “I’ve already forgotten what those outfits look like, and I haven’t even started going through the other boxes.”
I laid the album on my desk and hurried back to Gracie’s bedroom. There might be something on the shelf in her closet that would continue the story of who Aunt Gracie was before I knew her. I stopped in my tracks when I looked at the clothing piled up on the bed and forgot all about taking down the boxes on the closet shelf or going through the stuff on the closet floor.
I slid my phone from the hip pocket of my jeans and snapped a photograph of each outfit that had had a note attached to it. Then I went back to my office and printed them all in the right size to go behind the notes in the album. It took the better part of an hour to get them arranged, and I ripped a tiny tear in the note about the red pantsuit. Tears rolled down my cheeks as I carefully taped it back together. These little pieces of paper were like an autobiography, and not one of them should be destroyed.
I could not give all her things away to be used as costumes. No, ma’am! I had to keep these milestone markers. Someday, when I had children, the stories I would tell them about the wonderful woman who helped raise me would keep her memory alive. I went back to my room, tossed my winter coats and jackets out of a plastic storage container and onto the bed. I didn’t take time to hang them up but carried the empty box over to Gracie’s room, picked up the first dress, folded it neatly, and laid it in the container.
Just when I’d finished with the last item, the phone rang with a generic ringtone—it couldn’t be my mother or Jasper. I answered cautiously on the fourth ring. “Hello?”
“Is this Delilah Matthews?”
“Who’s asking?” Saying yes could mean the beginning of identity theft.
“It’s Derrick,” he chuckled. “Don’t you recognize my sexy voice?”
I rolled my eyes toward the ceiling. “No, I didn’t. I’m sorry.” Of all the people breathing the air on this earth, he was the last person I wanted to talk to. I was furious with him for jerking me out of Aunt Gracie’s past and into the present.
“That’s all right, darlin’. We can remedy that, starting with dinner tonight. I’ll pick you up at seven, and we’ll come back here to the ranch for grilled steaks. How do you like yours cooked?”
“I have already made other plans for tonight, Derrick,” I said through clenched teeth. I was starting to get why Gina had reacted the way she did.
“So, you are seeing someone else?” he asked.
“That is none of your business. Just know that I don’t want to spend time with you.”
Mama said that a person could catch more flies with honey than vinegar, but I wasn’t interested in catching bugs of any kind.
He laughed softly. “Your loss, darlin’, but I intend to change your mind.”
“Don’t waste your time,” I snapped.
“I like a woman with a little spirit,” he said.
“And for the last time, my property is not for sale,” I told him.
“Well, if it ever is, I’ve got first dibs on it,” he said. “I’ll top any other offer you might get.”
“Goodbye, Derrick,” I said as I ended the call.
I fumed as I picked up the last outfit—the red pantsuit—and folded it. Red for independence is what Aunt Gracie had written. I’d always heard that red-haired women should wear greens or the jewel tones of autumn, but I was buying something red the next time I went shopping.
I left the bedroom with the container and padded barefoot down the hall toward the door with the steps leading up to the attic—the place where spiders and other bugs lived. Aunt Gracie had an exterminator come every few months and take care of all things creepy and crawly. He always started up there in that dark place and worked his way down to the basement.
Please let him have been here recently, I prayed silently as I climbed up. But if there was an eight-legged critter, it must have been hiding in a far corner, because I didn’t even see a web anywhere. The whole area was covered with dust, but there weren’t any little mouse tracks on the top of the old steamer trunks or the little rocking horse in the corner. Evidently, the exterminator was still doing a good job.
“I should have at least put on a pair of flip-flops or socks,” I muttered. “I’m going to have to wash my feet when I leave here, or I’ll track dust everywhere I go.”
I had always been more than a little bit terrified of the place, and I’d only gone up there one time during my great Ditto ghost-hunting days. That morning, I’d found a spider the size of a saucer—if I’m lyin’, I’m flyin’, and my feet ain’t left the ground—sitting on the little wooden horse. I took it as an omen that the evil thing was protecting the ghosts that lived in the attic, or else it was scaring them away. Either way, it could have the whole place to itself—at least until the man came with the spray gun that would send him to wherever dead bugs go when they are poisoned, stomped, or hit with a flyswatter or shoe.
I set the container beside the dollhouse that Aunt Gracie would bring to the dining room and let me play with when I was a little girl. It was a replica of this house, right down to the wallpaper and the tiny furniture—all but the attic, which was totally empty.
“My mama had that made for my birthday when I was six,” Aunt Gracie had told me with a smile. “I loved the times when she would sit on the floor and play with me.”
“Why don’t she live here anymore?” I remembered asking.
“That’s a long story for another day,” she had said. Then she’d sat down beside me, and we played for at least an hour.
I picked up the little sofa, which must have looked like the one that had been in the house in the thirties. Had Gracie giggled when she’d looked at the furniture in the living room during those days and then back at her own little house? Or did she want to rip off the blue velvet upholstery and replace it with red? I had put the tiny piece back in its place and turned to walk away when I stubbed my toe on the edge of an old steamer trunk. I sat down with such force that dust boiled up all around me. I sneezed three times in a row and pulled an old tissue from my pocket. I’d already used it a couple of times to wipe tears from my eyes, but it came in handy once more.
“What is the matter with me?” I groaned. “Weeping at notes, stumbling around like I’m tipsy on tequila shots ... Are the ghosts in this house turning me into a blubbering fool?”
I slapped the trunk with an open hand, and more dust flew around me. When I stopped coughing, I noticed a small handwritten sign taped to the top of the trunk: K EEP OUT! T HIS BELONGS TO M ARY G RACE E VANS .
The handwriting was in block letters and was definitely that of a child. The hinges creaked when I opened the chest. The guilt for prying into something that definitely said to keep out didn’t keep me from peeking inside. As I picked up a yellowed piece of paper and then another, I wondered if Gracie’s mama had stuck things to the fridge with magnets. Maybe that was too low class for them to have even considered. From what Jasper had told me and what I’d pieced together from things I’d learned, her parents were bougie.
But then, on the other hand, her mother had taken the time to play with her when she was a little girl. Maybe when Aunt Gracie had gotten too old to have her work put on the refrigerator, her mama stored all those things in the small trunk and put it in the attic. I could picture a little girl with dark brown braids finding it in the attic and writing that little note—maybe for the exterminator, so he wouldn’t open it up and ruin everything with the spray.
From her report cards, it was apparent that she was a brilliant student—all As on every one, not a single B. She could have easily gone to college with those grades. I made a mental note to ask Jasper why she hadn’t furthered her education. Had she wanted to be a teacher or maybe even a doctor? Why hadn’t I ever asked her to tell me more about her life while she was still with us?
My phone rang and startled me so badly that I dropped one of her report cards on the floor. I slipped the phone out of my back pocket and said, “Hello, Mama.”
“Do you think you could come over here ... like right now?” she asked.
I picked up the card, blew the dust off, and gently laid it back in the trunk. “Sure, but what’s the hurry?”
Her voice caught. “We just need to talk.”
“Then I’ll be over in half an hour. I’m up here in the dusty attic right now, and I need to take a quick shower.” Worry replaced any guilt that had washed over me when I’d opened the small trunk.
“That will be fine,” Mama said, and the screen went dark.