Gray kittens everywhere, little open mouths covering tiny faces, crying for help that does not come. Suffocating darkness enclosing burning hot August sun. Running, flinging aside white screen doors, searching empty houses. Blue Easter eggs growing eyes, cracking, crying. Jesus hanging on a chocolate cross, blowing bubbles through a yellow straw. April water burying Blew. Blew waving just before going under for the last time. Great big teeth smiling, falling, scattering among pieces of ice. Screaming, hopping, disappearing on ice too thin to hold him.
“Katie, wake up, wake up.” I hear a gentle, sweet voice calling my name.
A brown rubber boot. A rosary. A black-robed priest. Coffin dropping, disappearing, down, down, far from my reach. Gray closed eyes, gray sky, gray face grazed by ice. Black veils. Purple light shining through stained glass Catholic windows. Barbed wire necklace, ripping flesh. Standing, swaying on shore too far to reach. Sharp, chunky ice. Mud everywhere.
In the distance, as if miles and miles away, as if in heaven or some other far away place I’ve never heard of, I hear the clear whisper of Mama’s voice. “Wake up,” she says again. “It’s just a bad dream,” but I can’t get away from the nightmare. I want her to hold me and help me, but she seems so remote I can’t reach her. I can feel her presence, but not her touch, her warmth. Her voice surrounds me like heavy velvet, like a rich, soft fabric that’s warm and inviting me to curl up in the safety and security of its folds.
Blew surfacing, slapping wheels on church floor, cart wheeling Blew to altar. Bach’s Requiem Mass. Suckers growing hands, clapping, cheering, opening wide mouths, receiving Blew. Red nails pulling from the hands of Christ, scratching your face, my face. Running, I outrun you running past me, heading for the thick woods behind our barn and the river behind the woods. River silently gathering strength, pulling you, leaving me alone as they lower the lid and you’re gone. Gray newborns crying until silenced by the quick thrust of Papa’s thumb to their throats, silencing them just like the river silenced you.
“Mama, help me. Mama.”
“Wake up, Katie. Wake up, honey. I’m right here. You’re okay, you’re safe.”
You did it on purpose, didn’t you? You wanted to go, to see what’s on the other side.
“Mama, Blew. Come back.”
To see if God is real or make-believe like we figured. Coward. ’Fraidy cat. I hate you, I hate you, I hate you, but now that you’re gone,
“Katie, wake up. You must wake up.”
what will I do without you?
Mama’s voice surrounds me, penetrating my ears, my body, wrapping around my soul like cotton candy. Now I feel the warmth of her arms as she holds me against her chest. “It’s okay, Honey,” she says. “It was only a dream.” Her voice is soft as yellow butter spreading across a piece of warm bread. Her voice is calm as the seas must have calmed when Jesus ordered them to be still. I breathe in her beauty, her strength, her love. As she cradles me in her arms, I sink deep into her bosom.
I love her so much it hurts. She’s the most beautiful person I know. She’s tall and thin and strong. Her hair is the color of chestnuts. Her complexion the color of a soft, pink rose. Her eyes the color of new leaves on a maple tree. She smells the way the earth smells after a gentle spring rain. She smells like the first winter snowflakes falling to the ground. She smells the way I imagine heaven must smell, sweet like a Cadbury Caramello candy bar.
“When I was young,” Mama says, “I used to get bad dreams. I remember one in particular about our bull chasing me until I flew into the haymow where he couldn’t reach me. I used to have that dream all the time. Then one night, I dreamed the bull sprouted wings, too, and chased me into the mow. I awoke just as he was ready to tear me apart with his sharp horns. I was terrified, but there was no one to comfort me. I’m here for you, Katie. I’ll always be here for you.”
“Do you still have that dream?” I ask, snuggling closer to her.
“No, dear, that dream went away when I married your Papa.” Her voice is soft as a cotton ball, gentle as a calm Lake Superior wave lapping the sandy shore at sunset. With the tenderness of releasing a new born baby, Mama releases her hold on me, lightly touches my face, swirls her fingertips around the freckles dotting my nose and cheeks. She holds my brown braids, then lets them fall, and cups my face in her hands. My aqua eyes stare into her green ones. I want to tell her how much I still need her, but I don’t say anything because that’s the way it is in our family. We don’t tell each other anything of any importance—we talk about the weather or the price of cattle or getting the hay in before rain comes or how much it will cost for new school clothes—but we never, never talk about what’s in our hearts maybe because if we ever told each other how we feel, really feel, we wouldn’t be able to face each other ever again and that would be worse than keeping quiet. Maybe all families are like ours. I don’t know.
“Stay with me until I fall asleep, but leave the light on,” I ask, and Mama pulls back the covers and crawls in next to me. She puts her arms around me, and we’re like two matching spoons. I feel safe and secure, like nothing in the world can hurt me or take away the people I love most.
“I’m afraid of God,” I hear my voice say in a quiet, even tone. “I’m afraid because I hate Him, and I know if I die with the sin of hate on my soul I’ll go to hell.” I start to cry. “I don’t want to hate Him, but He let me down so bad I don’t know what else to do.” I choke out the words. Mama’s grip tightens around me. Her voice is even softer than before, soft as a smooth stone that’s been rubbed and rubbed until all its sharpness has vanished.
“I understand,” she says.
“How can you?” I ask. “You’re always talking to God as if He were standing right next to you.”
“Do you want to know something, Katie?” Mama asks and her voice is different, stronger. It’s a voice I haven’t heard before. I stop whimpering and listen. “I know how you feel,” she says. “Sometimes I hate God too. Sometimes I hate Him so much I want to scream and scream until my voice stops. I hate Him because he rarely answers my prayers the way I want. That’s why I pray all the time. I keep hoping He’ll hear me.”
I had no idea Mama had her troubles with God, too. It never dawned on me she could understand how I feel. I can’t believe my ears. “What do you pray for?” I ask.
“I pray to die,” she says. “I ask God to take me.” She says the words as simply and as matter-of-factly as if she were telling me to bring in an arm load of wood.
A feeling of horror overcomes me. I don’t know what to say. I’m twelve years old and the dearest person in my world has just told me she prays to die. What am I supposed to do? In an instant I know I’m the one who has to be strong. I know I’ll never be able to share my troubles with Mama or tell her how much I hurt inside because she’s hurting too. She has no more idea how to help me than I do.
“Don’t say that, Mama,” I plead. I turn, touch her face, and feel warm tears on her cheeks. Her voice is once again as soft as a new flannel blanket, soft as the down on a little chick. “Go to sleep,” she says. “Forget what I said. I didn’t mean it. God is good. He understands, and I don’t believe in hell.” I touch her hair.
“Do you love me?” I ask.
“Yes, Katie, you and MayBeth are my reasons for living.”
“What about Papa?” Mama is silent for what seems like a long time but is probably only a few seconds. “Yes, I love your Papa,” she finally says. “Now go to sleep.” I look at her eyes as tears blur them. “It’s okay,” I say. “I’ll be okay.”
Mama stays for a long time, then she kisses my forehead and tells me to go back to sleep. Before she slips through the curtains that act as my bedroom door, I open my eyes and watch her watching me. I see her body outlined through her nightgown. Her hips curve into her nightgown as it clings to her long legs, making them look even longer. Her short hair is neatly tucked behind her small ears. She’s a beautiful woman, and I’m proud she’s my Mama. She smiles at me then pulls the string to the overhead light. Soft moonlight replaces the bright glow from the light bulb. I hear her walk back to Papa. Come back I want to call, but I don’t. Instead, I put the pillow over my head and cry—not sissy tears, but great big quiet ones that make my stomach hurt and my throat ache. I cry because I couldn’t save my cousin, Blew, and when I think about the future, the years stretch before me like a long rubber band that just keeps stretching and stretching with no end in sight. All rolled into one, I’ve become characters from my favorite books. I’m Faulkner’s moronic Jason, and stupid innocent Sutpen, and Eula Varner Snopes. I see myself alone for the rest of my life, just like Faulkner’s Quentin must have. I wish I hadn’t watched Blew die. I wish I had jumped in the river and went down with him. It would have saved me a lot of trouble, and now I’d be sleeping in the graveyard next to him instead of in my bed where nightmares come to me every time I close my eyes.
I take a deep breath and shudder. I see Blew. He’s all around me like mist coming off the river on a foggy morning, but like a vapor, I can’t touch him. He surrounds my bed, and his face is the one I remember—wavy yellow hair falling over his forehead, brown eyes—a little crossed, but beautiful just the same—coaxing me into doing something I didn’t want to do, nostrils large enough to sail a ship through, straight white teeth grinning as he tells me a tall tale. Blew was a liar, I knew that, but it didn’t matter. He had to make up a pretend life because he couldn’t stand the one he was given. Cousin Sally was young when she had Blew and wouldn’t tell who fathered him, so he didn’t know who he was. She left when he was an infant. She didn’t want him.
Aunt Rene and Uncle Johnny raised him. When Blew did or said something that was the opposite way a Greene would act, they said it was the bastard blood coming out of him, and Uncle Johnny would beat Blew. He’d take him to the barn and whip him with his belt. Blew told me his butt was harder than Star’s leather harness. When he was little, he would cry, but after awhile, he got used to the beatings. He told me he sometimes did things on purpose just to get his grandpa mad. Uncle Johnny’s a religious nut—he quotes the Bible all the time—and once Blew learned the word hypocrite that’s what he called him. Uncle Johnny thought he could beat the devil out of Blew, but nobody could do that. You can’t beat something out of someone that’s not in them in the first place, just like marrying Ellen Coldfield couldn’t make a gentleman out of Sutpen because he was born bad or out of step with his generation and wouldn’t fit in anywhere. It wasn’t his fault. People can’t stop being who they are any more than a cow can stop being a cow or a bird a bird.
I feel myself nodding off again. I drift in and out of dreams—I see purple grapes all over the ground. People are picking them from the vines Uncle Johnny planted along the barbed wire fence in the field where he used to pasture his Jerseys. I see the apple orchard behind the barn. Pink apple blossoms drift to the ground on the wings of a warm breeze. I hear crows call as they fly low to the ground, looking for supper. I see strands of a scarlet and blue sky framing the setting sun. I’m in Blew’s kitchen now—I see the honey stained cupboards, the cracked china pitcher that holds kitchen utensils. I smell smoke from the wood stove. I see the box full of neatly chopped white birch waiting for the fire, the white farmhouse table with the stained yellow oilcloth covering its wooden plank top, the yellow granite pails that hold the drinking water, the washstand where Blew scrubs his face every morning. I see clay pots of green ivy circling the kitchen windows. I see closed windows with clean yellow curtains hanging stiffly from their rods, like soldiers in a line.
I feel myself shaking awake, but I’m not crying so Mama doesn’t come running. I can’t stop thinking about Blew and how he died. We had walked down the road to the river to fish for suckers. Everybody told us not to go because the river was too high and it was dangerous, but we didn’t listen. Blew was acting silly like he always does. He said he had magical powers and had taught himself to fly by jumping off the barn roof and flapping his elbows like a Rhode Island Red rooster. He said he could fly anywhere. I pointed to a big piece of ice floating by and told him to prove it by flying there and back again. Before I knew it, he had jumped on the ice. It drifted farther down the river. I yelled at him to come back, but he only laughed and waved. The current was swift, the chunk broke apart, and he went under.
I didn’t know what to do. I screamed at him to swim to shore, but he didn’t. He just kept moving away from me. I was running along the bank, but there was so much water and snow and big pieces of ice and heavy brush, I couldn’t help him. He yelled at me ‘tell Grandpa I’m getting born again and I’m on my way to heaven where there ain’t no belts and there ain’t no hypocrites.’ I watched as the current pulled him farther from me. Then I realized he wasn’t trying to get out—he was floating face up while his clothes filled with water. His Davy Crockett cap drifted upside-down ahead of him. He disappeared beneath the ice, popped up once, and then he was gone. The next time I saw him was at the funeral parlor.
I smell fresh white bread as Aunt Rene lifts it from the oven. I see her slicing thick chunks for Blew and me. He dips his knife into the butter bowl, scoops some out, slathers it across the heel of the hot bread. We watch it melt into the crust. Then I leave the kitchen and float through the rooms, through the upstairs, touching Blew’s old iron bed, his Circus Boy books, his slingshot. I see Utah, his ancient mongrel dog, waiting patiently on Blew’s bed for his master’s return.
I feel a cool hand on my forehead, soothing, stroking, kind. My hand? Blew’s? God’s? Mama’s? Whoever you are, you do love me, don’t you? You really, truly love me, and I love you, too, forever and ever. I feel the tension leave my body, replaced by a peaceful, loving spirit. Whoever is beside me loves me, forgives my sins real or imagined. A blanket of peace enfolds me.From far, far away I hear a voice as sweet as honey, as soft as a kitten, as gentle as a warm summer breeze. I feel strong arms surround me. “I’m here, Katie,” Mama whispers. I lean into her. A picture of the Pieta drifts through my brain.
Michelangelo’s Pieta
