Chapter 27 #3
I wish so bad I could tell Marybeth who I was before coming here.
How I used to sit at a old desk and dream of something very much like right now.
I didn’t see a lake exact, but I saw somebody who would hold my hand like she did when Gloria was mean.
And somebody like Tom keeping my head from going under the water.
But instead, we get to pointing and laughing at a short, wide-shaped cloud that looks a little like our grandmama. Just two regular ole first cousins living regular. Nobody needs to remind me to count my blessings, I could count to a hundred for what I have done in just the last two hours.
Up on the hill, her mama hollers, It’s time to go, honey. Marybeth runs up there, and I go to the end of the dock to meet Tom.
The next morning, I watch from my bedroom window as a black motorcar pulls up.
Mr. Oney, who usually totes Willy May here in his truck wearing overalls, gets out the front seat wearing a dark suit.
The gray on the sides of his hair and that flat cap make him look very distinguishable.
When he opens the back door, Tom’s mama gets out.
I scramble to get some clothes on. Lord, we all might be in trouble.
Somebody in my head reminds me to put a petticoat on under the dress or you’ll see me clean through.
I decide that if she asks me anything about my history, I will just make some facts up.
Swap out Oxford for Memphis, Miss Garnett for Mrs. Tann, and lookathere, we got us a respectable orphan from the Tennessee Children’s Home Society.
I stand on the middle stair and watch Tom bring her in. She is wearing a loose pink dress with a flowy pink thing around her neck. All that hair stacked high and stiff and black as night. She is not a tall woman, but she fills a room.
Tom looks surprised himself. Well, what a surprise, Mama. Is everything alright?
Everything’s fine, Son. You hadn’t been to the house to see us all week.
Tom says something about how he’s been very busy working. I come down a few more stairs. If there are going to be questions asked, I’d like to get the ball rolling.
There she is, she says. I hope you’re settling in alright, Meg?
Yes ma’am. I am settling in just fine here, Mrs. Heidelberg.
Good, that’s good to hear. She gives me a proper up-down. Two years and seven View Days, you know when somebody is checking the goods. Looks like you’re starting to fill out a little.
I tell her, Yes ma’am, thank you, and then I let her know, I eat enough here to feed two or three orphans from Memphis, Tennessee.
Tom gives me a look.
What she really wants to know is where Lucille has gone off to. Willy May said it looked like she was going out of town?
Tom rubs his neck and says, Lucille had to drive up to Memphis for the night.
Mrs. Heidelberg says, Hm.
To see about a sick friend of hers there, Tom adds, still rubbing.
She says, Ahh. Somebody sick sits better with her, though I cannot say if she believes it a hundred percent. I might need to give Tom one of my lying lessons after this.
Let’s visit a minute and have a little of this cake, she says.
And that is when I see there is a cake plate involved here.
Tom carries it over to the dining room table.
It is under a glass cover, but I can see thick white icing and strawberries stuck around the rim.
Well I am near dancing a jig. We do not get us a lot of desserts around here. Lucille says they make a lady fat.
Tom says, Just for a few minutes, Mama, and then I need to get back to work. Meg, could you—
Yes sir, I say. I do a allow me and pull the chair out for her next to Tom.
Then I go in the kitchen and collect me the proper plates and utensils and clean cloth napkins.
When I set her place, I say, Cake fork, fruit fork, so she knows I am house-trained.
Then I sit across from them like regular.
When Tom gives me my piece, I distribute my strawberries in jelly evenly on the top so I get one in every bite.
They talk, I eat. This strawberry cake is fluffy and the white icing has a delicious little sugar crunch to it and I am already wondering will she leave it behind for us or take the leftovers home.
My ears perk up when she asks does he plan on coming to church on Sunday. I could do without the church part, but maybe I could see Marybeth there.
Mama, you know how I feel about all that, Tom says. The indoctrination of people that doesn’t allow for questioning is just another means of oppression—
Alright, Son, alright, and she waves her hand. We don’t need to get into all that. Then she levels her eyes on him. How are you doing, Tom? Really doing?
I’m fine, Mama.
You’ll tell me? If you’re not doing alright?
I will. You and Daddy don’t need to worry.
They get to watching each other. I figure she is asking about what Marybeth told me about all the trouble they got in up in New York, so I am waiting too, when all a sudden the damn telephone rings.
Why does the thing only ring when you are sitting at the dinner table?
Tom goes to deal with it since I am not allowed to. Lucille told me a person has to weigh a certain number of pounds to touch it or it’ll shock the hair off my head.
Mrs. Heidelberg watches me across the table. So, Meg. What have you been doing since you’ve been here? She asks it like there is only one right answer to this test.
I try and think of what a old woman like her would want to hear.
Especially since Lucille threatens to return me like bottles to the milkman and something tells me this woman is the one who actually makes the decisions.
But also because I want Mrs. Heidelberg to like me, I am not sure why.
Maybe because she is Tom’s mama, and she loves him so much.
It is a harder question to answer than you would expect.
Well. I have been reading and bathing and generally behaving myself around the house.
She waits. Her eyes are near black and they don’t look at me, they look in me.
Like she is looking for the truth. So I tell her what is truest to me and say, To be honest, I have never been in a house as nice as this one, Mrs. Heidelberg, with the towels and the toothbrush and all this food that doesn’t run out.
I get a ache in my chest. I know I am lucky to be here and I count my blessings every day.
She nods, studying me. I suspect you’ve seen things in this world a lot of people here haven’t, Meg, she says. We both get quiet a minute and then Tom hangs the telephone up and he walks back in.
That was Lucille. She has to stay in Memphis a couple more days to tend to her sick friend.
Oh, what a pity, Mrs. Heidelberg says, but I don’t think she means it.
When it is time to go, Tom gets a big hug and I’m proud of you, Son. I get a nice pat on the head.
With Lucille gone, the whole house feels lighter, even when it starts to rain.
I entertain myself with my clothes and shoes or I look at books in the library.
I have already grown tired of those Tinkertoys.
I sit on the vegetable sofa and read Huckleberry Finn a lot.
It is quiet in the house with no toddlers whining or volunteer ladies blowing past so they will not attach.
Only Tom clacking on a machine and the slow rain on the roof.
Sometimes I think about Birdie and wonder what she is doing.
Or else I think about Lucille and Tom telling Mrs. Heidelberg how I was special circumstances when they adopted me because I am so special.
I know it’s not exactly a true story. But Ava taught me a long time ago a person has a choice in what she can believe: She won’t come get you because she don’t want you or she can’t come get you because she’s dead.
Those are choices a person has got to make daily.
I don’t see the harm in pretending for a few minutes every now and then.
When Tom comes to check on me, I say, Since it’s raining and we can’t go swimming, could I go to Marybeth’s house and play?
I can tell I have put him in the position. He adjusts his glasses. We better wait for Lucille to get home.
Talking to her will go nowhere fast.
Then he looks out at the rain and smiles and says, You’re probably right though, it doesn’t make sense to get wet in the rain before jumping in the lake, does it?
I look at him. And I run and get my suit on. We run through the drizzle, swim a little while, and run on back. The things we do here, Lord, I never would’ve imagined. And then it is time to eat again.
You’d think all we do here is fix a plate.
For meals, we decide the kitchen table works just as well as the dining room.
There is no rule here. Afterward, we take turns doing the washing and drying.
Here is what I learned when it is your turn to wash: Sometimes you wash the spoon, sometimes the spoon washes you, so be sure and put a apron on.
Mrs. Heidelberg stops by to see us again the next few mornings.
Not at the crack of dawn but at what is called a reasonable hour, which means ten.
I get dressed quick and Tom gives me a look, like we are in some kind of cahoots together.
When she waltzes into the place, her eyes move all around like she is spying on us. I try and imitate it later.
Once I see her nosing in the kitchen cabinets when Tom is not looking. Lucille might have her say, but this lady is the real boss. She is a no-nonsense type, like Miss Mildred, only rich and wearing a brassiere.
One of those days she comes, she brings us some pralines. They melt on the tongue, all that sugar! I always tell her something I am grateful for here. Such as, This food here is nothing like Mrs. Tann’s. Your maids know how to COOK. Counting blessings is important to a certain kind of woman.