Seeing Red (24 page)

“I can’t leave until I find Freedom Church,” I said, as much to myself as to her.

Mama did a double take and spun her ring again. “What do you mean?”

“Daddy was looking for it.”

She swallowed and nodded but didn’t look at me.

“I want to find it for Miss Georgia. I
have
to find it for Miss Georgia.”

Mama put her hands on Old Man Porter’s desk, leaned over it, and let her head drop down. I held my breath, knowing that she could see the sign I wrote,
ON PAIN OF DEATH THIS DESK HAS TO BE MOVED!
staring her in the face.

But she didn’t seem to see anything. Her eyes were glazed over.

“It’s Porter’s Shop Road, Mama. Our name is here. What kind of place would it be if Mr Dunlop was the one representing it? We owe it to this place. We owe it to Daddy.”

Finally she nodded, sniffing. “Well, Mr Harrison said it’s harder to find a buyer in the fall and winter, so nothing’s going to happen right away.” She gave me a little smile. “Let’s try to make the best of the time while we have it.”

She hugged me, and I’d forgotten what that felt like. She wiped her eyes again, and it was hard to be too mad at her. I even gave her a hug back.

That night, Mama had me pick out my favourite ice cream from the store – mint chocolate chip, of course – along with Hershey’s syrup and even sprinkles, so we could make sundaes for dessert. J whined so much that it wasn’t Rocky Road, and how come I got to pick the flavour, that Mama told him he had to wash the ice-cream bowls. When he moaned about that, she added in the supper dishes.

“You should’ve kept your mouth shut,” I told him.

Mama put her hand on her forehead and sighed, waiting for us to start fighting, I guess.

When I picked up a towel and said, “I’ll dry,” she about fell out of her chair.

Doing dishes together wasn’t bad. We had sword fights with the peanut butter and jelly knives and used the Melmac plastic plates as shields when the fighting got too tough. We played Clint Eastwood and the bad guy because J loved saying, “Do you feel lucky, punk?” over and over, and flicking water at me until Mama told us to stop dripping soapy water all over the kitchen floor. Then we had a towel race to mop up the mess, scuffing along the linoleum, until Mama came in and said we’d done enough and it was J’s bedtime.

J immediately whined about it, but I got a smile out of him when I said, “Come on, punk, don’t you feel lucky?” By the time I’d chased him around the house a few times and gave him a piggyback ride to his bedroom, he was having an all-out laugh attack.

Mama smiled. “Thank you, Red. Would you like to watch this new TV show with me?”

Mama had never asked me to watch a TV show with her before, and I thought it was going to be some sissy show but it turned out to be the complete opposite.

It was called
M*A*S*H
, which stands for Mobile Army Surgical Hospital, about a bunch of U.S. Army doctors and nurses who live in tents near the fighting during the Korean War and patch up all the wounded guys. It was a serious idea, but mostly the show was real funny.

In the opening credits there was this scene where all the nurses are running over to the helicopter to get the wounded guy out. Mama said to the TV, “That’s what I like to see, women doing something constructive with their lives.” It sounded funny, her talking to the TV like that, but it was also good to see some life come back into her eyes.

The next day, I went up to Miss Georgia’s with Daddy’s shoebox full of photos me and Mama had looked at after we watched
M*A*S*H
. They were all black-and-white instant pictures from Daddy’s Polaroid Swinger. He took so many photos because they spat right out of the camera as soon as you took them and you didn’t have to wait. Mama said we should own stock in the company, seeing as how Daddy spent so much money on their film.

I knelt down next to Miss Georgia’s glider on the front porch as we went through the pictures. She chuckled at the photo of me when I was five, sitting in the front seat of her Rambler, pretending like I was driving. “You always did like cars.”

We both laughed at the photo of J naked in his crib. That kid had always had too much energy. When he was a baby he used to wriggle clear out of his diaper.

“There’s you and Thomas,” Miss Georgia said quietly, picking up a photo I hadn’t seen when I was going through the box with Mama the night before.

Thomas and I were standing bare-chested in front of the fort we’d made out of car parts. Our arms were stuck up in the air like
V
s for victory, Thomas’s right hand holding up my left. And we were smiling fit to bust. I sure didn’t feel like smiling now.

I heard a sniffle and thought for a second it might’ve come out of me before I saw the tears in Miss Georgia’s eyes. She’d picked up a photo of Daddy standing there smiling into the camera, one arm around Mama and the other around Miss Georgia.

“You can have that one if you want, to remember him by,” I said. I didn’t think Mama would mind too much. She had a lot of other pictures of Daddy.

She sniffed a few times. “Oh, Lordy, I’ll always remember him.” She handed the photo back to me. “You keep it so you have somethin’ to remember
me
by.”

“Oh, Lordy, I’ll always remember you,” I said, and that got her laughing again.

After we went through all the photos, I asked to take a photo of her.

“Why you want a picture of a wrinkled-up old lady?”

“I don’t,” I said, “I want a picture of you.”

“Oh, you is your daddy’s son, all right! You goin’ to be a charmer, you are. Still, you got a picture of me right there.”

I told her it was for my Foxfire project, and she said she didn’t want to get in the way of my education, so she smiled for the camera. I also took photos of her house, which she was okay with, but when I opened the freezer, she stopped me.

“What in the world are you doin’?”

“Taking a picture of mint chocolate chip ice cream.”

“Why you want to take a photo of a carton of ice cream?”

“It’s history, too,” I said. “It’s to remember my favourite ice cream when I’m old.”

She laughed. “Red, I don’t think you’ll ever outgrow that.”

I figured she was probably right, but she still gave me a bowl of ice cream.

When I got home, Beau came out on the front steps of the What-U-Want, one hand tugging his hair and the other one beckoning to me.

I walked up the steps and followed him inside. “What is it, Beau?”

“Rosie was in here a little while ago. She…she bought a lighter.”

I walked over to the display of Zippo lighters on the counter by the cash register and put the camera and box of photos down next to them.

“She said it was a present for Darrell.”

I shrugged. “Okay.”

Beau shook his head. “Darrell’s in juvie. I asked the sheriff and he said those boys aren’t allowed so much as a matchstick, never mind lighters, so why would she buy one, Red?”

I started to get kind of a creepy feeling. Who was it for? Why would she lie to Beau? That wasn’t like Rosie. I picked up a lighter and started flicking it.

The way Beau looked at me all upset wasn’t helping. “I don’t know, Beau. I’m sure there’s some good reason.”

He tugged at his hair. “Well, I think she’s spending too much time with Darrell’s old friends. I’m walking home by way of Kenny’s from now on. I want to be sure she’s okay.”

I stopped flicking the lighter but kept staring at where the flame had been, thinking about Rosie, until J ran in the shop.

“What’d you do wrong at school this time, Red?”

I snorted. “Nothing.”

He gave me a big grin. “Then how come your teacher keeps calling?”

I froze. “What?”

“Uh-huh, seems like she calls every day and Mama talks with her a real long time, too.”

I tried to think of what Miss Miller could be complaining about. I was doing my work. I was paying attention. I ran to the house and Mama was just hanging the phone up on the kitchen wall, and frowning. “Red? That was Miss Miller.”

“I didn’t do anything wrong!”

Mama looked confused. “I-I’m sure you didn’t.”

“Well, why’s she calling?”

“Oh, we just chat. About a lot of things…life.”

“Life? But she’s a teacher.”

Mama broke into a smile. “Yes, Red. She’s a teacher. She’s also a person. A very interesting person.” Mama leaned against the kitchen wall and her face got serious again. She opened her mouth to speak a few times before any words actually came out. “She thinks women can do anything. She seems to think I can do more than I thought. I guess I still think of myself as a wife and mother. But maybe I should be branching out.” Mama looked at me. “What do you think of her? As a teacher, I mean?”

“She’s good.”

Mama twisted her lips. “I hope you’re being respectful to her.”

“I am. She…she treats us sort of like we’re, I don’t know, grown-ups, I guess. Sort of like what we think actually matters. Not like we’re just dumb kids.”

“Well, I’m glad. I like her ideas.”

“You do?” I figured Mama to be more like the preacher’s wife because Mama was always trying to do the right thing. You had to dress up for church because that was respectful. You had to help the poor and sick and elderly because that was kind. I figured she’d think kids should just shut up and do what they’re supposed to, not think for themselves.

“Why does that surprise you, Red?”

“Well, because, you’re always trying to get us to do the right thing.”

“That’s exactly what I’m always trying to do.” She smiled like I’d just made her point for her, but I wasn’t sure I really got it.

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

Emergency!

I was still looking for the altar of Freedom Church on the part of the Dunlop property near Miss Georgia’s, only now I was being a lot more careful and constantly looking over my shoulder. I spent Saturday morning prowling around, crouched low now that most of the leaves had fallen and it was easier to be spotted. I sure wished Mr Dunlop were the churchgoing kind.

It was a real sunny day, but it was cold and I finally realized what was missing. I should’ve been smelling the smoke coming from Miss Georgia’s chimney. That was her only heat. I decided to stop by and see how she was doing.

“Hey, Miss Georgia!” I called as I got close because I was starting to worry. I ran up the steps to her porch. “Miss Georgia?” I didn’t hear anything, so I pushed her door open. She never locked it. “Miss Georgia?” When my eyes adjusted to the darkness from the bright sunshine outside, I looked over at the fireplace, still wondering why it wasn’t going, and saw the lump on the floor.

Miss Georgia! I froze for a moment before scrambling over and kneeling down next to her. Her eyes popped open.

“Miss Georgia! I thought you were—” I stopped myself because I didn’t want to say
dead
. “Dying.” I don’t know why I thought that sounded any better.

She smiled a slow, painful smile. “Just dyin’ to see a friendly face.”

“What happened?”

“My leg just done cracked and fell down under me. Couldn’t drag these old bones over to that fool phone to call me an ambulance.”

“I’ll do it!” I ran to the phone and called 911.

When I hung up, her eyes were closed, but she was breathing. And she still clutched on to her cane with one hand.

“The ambulance is on its way,” I told her.

She didn’t answer, but I saw a slight smile on her face. I pulled the quilt off her bed and placed it on top of her, because it was so cold, and then I put the afghan throw from her sofa on top of that. Then I figured she still might be cold and I pulled another blanket off her bed and added that to the pile.

“You tryin’ to bury me alive?” she said, her eyes closed and her voice thin, but there was still that hint of a smile.

I paced next to her, wondering if that ambulance was coming by way of California until it finally got there.

The two ambulance guys went to work on Miss Georgia right away, putting needles in her and an oxygen mask over her mouth. She’d gone limp and she looked worse than when I’d found her.

“Is she all right?”

“Out of the way, please, son,” one of them said as they hurried her stretcher into the ambulance.

“We’re taking her to the county hospital,” the other guy said as he shut the door and drove off, siren going and light flashing.

I felt goosebumps crawling up my legs all the way to my scalp. I stood by myself on the front porch. I’d never been standing on her porch like that, alone, with her house empty. It was a bad feeling. For the first time I looked around and saw how run-down the place was. Everywhere you looked – porch, screens, shutters – things needed fixing. And I decided to do something about it.

I ran all the way back home and told Beau and Mama about Miss Georgia. Beau stood there tugging his hair with both hands while Mama called Miss Georgia’s son. She gave him the information about the hospital, asking him if she should go be there with Miss Georgia. He told her he was on his way and not to worry.