Chasing Lilacs (22 page)

When I unlatched Lady Aster’s box, I stood back since she always came out like a streak of lightning, heading straight for
the bird bath, splashing water every which way announcing this was her kingdom. She didn’t swoop. Didn’t come out at all.
Nothing. I peered inside and saw her huddled in the far corner, a heap of blue and yellow feathers. Dull black eyes, like
a pair of peppercorns, stared back.

A familiar knot formed in my throat. I couldn’t even tell if she was breathing.

Just like Mama.

I ran through the workroom into the kitchen. “Help! There’s something wrong with Lady Aster.”

Goldie dropped the pan in her hands, and a crash of metal echoed from the walls. She hurried past me. I followed and pointed
to the open cage, hoping to see Lady Aster swoosh out and peck at us, like the joke was on us, but she didn’t. No cheeping.
No flying out. Goldie reached deep inside and lifted the bird in her thick fingers, cradling her in the palm of her hand as
she cooed, “What is it, baby? You can tell Goldie.” The confetti-sized yellow beak opened, but no peep. Then the downy head
went limp in Goldie’s hand, Lady Aster’s bead-like eyes opened in a frozen stare.

Goldie carried Lady Aster, her fragile treasure, into the front room and dropped to the couch like a sack of potatoes.

“Goldie, what is it?” George came from the bedroom, buttoning his shirt. “Your arm—you’ve burned it. Quick, Sammie, get the
butter from the icebox.”

I ran to the kitchen, found a stick of butter, and brought it back. Goldie waved me away, still cradling Lady Aster against
her blueberry-stained apron.

George lowered himself beside Goldie, wiping a tear from her cheek with his fingers. An ugly blister as wide as a Curad bandage
had risen on her right wrist. I handed George the butter and remembered the mess in the kitchen.

Gas flames, blue and orange tongues, licked up from an empty burner, and a Dutch oven lay on its side on the countertop. Potatoes
tumbled from the pot, into the sink, on the floor. I switched off the burner and started picking up the scattered potatoes.
That’s when I heard Daddy and Aunt Vadine arrive.

Aunt Vadine marched right into the kitchen, carrying a dish in her hands.

“Samantha.” Extra syllable on the
Sa-ma-an-tha
. “I thought
you’d come to help Goldie, and instead you’ve made the most horrendous mess. Where do you want the pea salad?”

Gravy bubbled on the stove, and I’d ground a potato into mush on the floor. Whiffs of Aunt Vadine’s Evening in Paris cologne
and roast turkey swirled around in the tiny kitchen. I gritted my teeth and took the bowl from her hand just as a green and
yellow parakeet flew past my face, flapping and screeching.

Oh no!
I’d left the door to the aviary open.

I slipped on the smashed potato and leapt across the dining space to secure the door before a whole swarm came through. Aunt
Vadine flailed her arms around her head when the poor thing tried to land in her hair.

“I’ve been attacked! Get that nasty thing away from me.” She stumbled into the front room as Daddy and George came to see
what had caused all the excitement.

I looked around the kitchen, and for some reason the whole thing struck me as hilarious. Potatoes every which way. A parakeet—Charlie,
I thought it was—on the loose, and Aunt Vadine, who came in without a clue about Lady Aster. It wasn’t Aunt Vadine’s fault,
but every time I thought of her fighting off her attacker, I let out another giggle.

Pull yourself together, Sammie
.

I cleaned the mess up and made one last check to see that everything was okay before I went to the front room and sat with
Goldie, who was still holding the clump of feathers.

Her eyes, bleary and red, stared at a spot on the floor just past the tips of her lace-up black shoes, the same ones she wore
every day of her life. Putting my head on Goldie’s shoulder, I told her how sorry I was and ran a finger over the lifeless
blue and yellow feathers.

Aunt Vadine sat in an armchair wearing one of her starchy Sunday dresses and her face made up with cranberry rouge. She looked
out of place, empty without a wad of crochet in her lap. Once she said, “Shouldn’t someone see about the turkey?” But no
one did.

After Daddy and George returned the runaway parakeet to the aviary, they went outside to get some air. Every once in a while,
a puff of smoke drifted by the open curtains.

A while later they came in, George carrying a small cardboard box. He lifted Lady Aster from Goldie’s cupped hands and laid
her on a soft nest of cotton wadding.

“We’re gonna miss this one, Goldie. Your favorite.” When he started toward the door he whispered, “And mine.”

I snuggled closer to Goldie, my head resting on her bosom, its softness swallowing me. When she slipped her arm around me,
the smell of her deodorant and kitcheny odors made me want to cry. Instead I closed my eyes and pretended it was Mama who
held me.

Aunt Vadine let out a long sigh and refolded her hands in her lap. “Maybe we should go on home, Joe.”

Daddy hooked his thumbs in his pockets and said, “Goldie makes the best blueberry cobbler this side o’ the moon. I’m sticking
around to get a taste.”

At the mention of the cobbler, Goldie jumped into action and whisked herself back into the kitchen, me on her heels. In no
time we had Thanksgiving dinner. And Daddy was right—the blueberry cobbler was worth the wait.

The next day I wrote the avian section of my term paper, poring over the books Goldie had lent me. Together she and I decided
Lady Aster must have had a respiratory infection, which meant the aviary had to be scrubbed from top to bottom.

“Work is good for the soul,” Goldie said, as she and I talked and laughed our way through scouring everything from top to
bottom with soapy water laced with Clorox. We talked about Lady Aster and chanted back and forth to the other parakeets,
cracker
,
cookie
,
pretty
,
trying to improve their vocabularies. By the end of the day, a fat yellow and lime green female with a long tail had risen
to the top of the pecking order. Kiwi, Goldie called her. The feisty bird strutted about, saying, “Cuckoo, Kiwi.” Goldie’s
face beamed, tiny parakeet-feet wrinkles fanning out from her eyes.

After church on Sunday, Daddy split the minute we cleared the dinner table. I went to my room to change clothes, and just
as I was pulling on my jeans, the phone rang. Two long jangles. Through the crack in my bedroom door, I heard Aunt Vadine’s
crisp “Tucker residence.”

Then a short pause.

“Bobby, I’ve told you not to bother calling.”

I stood up and moved closer to the door, cracking it open a sliver. Who was Bobby?

I could hear her heavy breathing. “Fine, thanks for asking.”

A long silence, while I guessed she listened.

“The answer is still no. My home is here now, and I don’t need your affection, mind you.”

She snorted after the next remark, then covered the phone with her hand, muffling her response. All I heard was, “… tell that
sorry loser what he can do with his offer. What a pathetic worm.” She slammed the receiver down.

Curious, I squared my shoulders and marched into the front room.

“I thought I heard the phone. Was it for me?”

Aunt Vadine looked up, a surprised look on her face. She half-smiled, her eyebrows arching up.

“Some salesman. I swear you’d think people wouldn’t call on the Lord’s day of rest.” She rolled her eyes and popped her Juicy
Fruit.

“Hmmm. I thought I heard you say Bobby something.”

“Samantha, your imagination is surpassed only by your impertinence. Eavesdropping on phone conversations is another example
of the lack of training your mother supplied you with. Just this morning in church, I prayed for the wisdom to provide you
with godly instruction and admonition.”

“I know what I heard.” I looked into her yellow-speckled eyes. “Is Bobby a friend of yours? Someone who misses you back in
Midland? It sounded like you turned down a job offer.”

She drew up her shoulders and inhaled through her nose, like a bull getting ready to charge. Instead of pawing at the ground
and coming at me, she spun around and went into the bathroom.
Slam. Click
. She locked the door.

What was that all about? Aunt Vadine had a boyfriend? It sounded gross even to me. Even so, a little flicker of hope went
through me. Maybe she would go back to Bobby and leave us alone.

A
UNT VADINE DIDN’T MENTION
her mysterious telephone conversation to Daddy. I thought about bringing it up, but if I did, it might make her more determined
than ever to stay at Graham Camp. I felt like my life was in limbo. I hardly ever cried or got furious about Mama anymore.
Mostly I had these visions of her in hell, thanks to Aunt Vadine. Every time I thought about it, the hair on my arms stood
up.

Brother Henry would know about things like that, so one Sunday after church I asked to talk to him. Privately. He took me
into his tiny office and closed the door.

“What’s on your mind today, Sammie?”

I decided to get right to the point. “Do you think Mama went to hell because she killed herself?”

“Oh dear. That is a common notion nowadays.” Brother Henry pointed to a folding chair for me to sit down. “One of the Ten
Commandments is
thou shalt not kill
, and suicide is a form of killing.”

My heart raced, afraid of what he might say next.

“But the other side of the coin is we live under grace, and by rights, any one of us could break one of the Ten Commandments
and get hit by a train, and no one would condemn that person to hell.”

“Mama definitely believed in grace. I have her New Testament….” I took it out of my purse and shoved it across to him.
“She got it when she accepted Jesus and was baptized in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Right here it shows
the date.” I pointed to the first page.

“I never doubted your mother’s faith. Although some would disagree, I believe God Almighty would not cast one of his own into
hell purely based on a single act. If so, then God’s grace would only extend to those who are perfect, and heaven knows, none
of us are that. I believe the Bible is clear that nothing can separate God from his followers.” He thumbed through Mama’s
New Testament. “Here it is. Romans 8:38 and 39.” He read it to me.

I liked the part about how neither life nor death could separate us from God’s love.

Brother Henry handed me the New Testament, his eyes kind and sad. “How do you feel about that?”

I shrugged. “Okay, I guess.” I gnawed on a hangnail.

“You don’t sound okay.”

“She shouldn’t have left Daddy and me. If she loved me, she wouldn’t have.”

“You feel like she didn’t love you?”

“How would you feel?” My face got hot.

“Like you, I suppose. Remember, Sammie, your mother had an illness, and I’m willing to wager she would have preferred to stay
here and be your mother. Some things only God knows. That’s his job. Our job is to trust him.”

“Trust him to make Aunt Vadine my mother? Ha! No thanks.”

“That’s not what I meant at all. Trust him to heal your heart. The pain may never go away, but someday you will be able to
laugh and feel joy again. Trust him.”

Before I left, Brother Henry said a short prayer and told me his door was always open.

Later that week, during our seventh-hour newspaper class, Mrs. Gray asked if I’d thought of a topic for a Christmas essay
for the
Cougar Chronicle.
“I’ve decided to call it ‘Christmas in Heaven.’ It will be from the viewpoint of my mother and what it’s like to be with
Jesus and the angels.”

“Very creative.” She stood close enough that I could smell her Ivory fresh soap. My fingers itched to reach over and touch
the fuzzy lavender sweater she wore, to tuck the sprig of hair that tumbled from her topknot back into place. Instead I held
my breath as she addressed the others. “Okay, group, think this is a good idea?”

Everyone nodded, although Nelda thought we should still include the legend of Father Christmas for the grade-schoolers who
got copies of the paper. We agreed to do both, and Mrs. Gray moved to the front of the room to check off each article she’d
printed on the blackboard. I couldn’t help staring at her left hand as she wrote. No wedding ring. Where was Mr. Gray?

The Montgomery Ward Christmas catalog had a dreamy sweater almost like Mrs. Gray’s. Soft, with a monogrammed initial in cursive
on the left shoulder. Page three. I loved its mint green color and showed it to Aunt Vadine one afternoon.

“Mama always had me make a list for Christmas. Three things. Here’s something I would like.” I showed her the sweater.

She sniffed and called it faddish. I went ahead and left it on my list as number two. For number one, I put a typewriter.
Ever since I saw the notice on the school bulletin board selling their old machines for ten dollars, I’d wanted one. Number
three: a gold compact like Tuwana bought in Amarillo. I propped the list beside the coffeepot so Daddy would see it. Maybe
he wouldn’t think the sweater too faddish.

A few days before Christmas vacation, Mr. Borden, the science teacher, let us play charades. While Roseanne Swanson acted
out a movie, I daydreamed, looking out the window, and saw Aunt Vadine march up the sidewalk through the front door of the
school. My heart skipped a beat.
She’s come to see about the used typewriter.
Roseanne finished her turn, and I watched out the window while the boys groaned about playing a sissy game. By the end of
the class, Aunt Vadine hadn’t come out, but in my heart I knew I’d be getting the number one thing on my list.

The next day I went to Slim’s. I’d plotted with him to help me get a backgammon game for Daddy, and the order from the “Monkey
Ward” catalog would be sent to his house. Waiting for the mail, we pulled out Slim’s game and played for a while.

“What’re you doing for Christmas?” I asked.