Swan Place (11 page)

“This must be Savannah,” Aunt Bett said.

“Aunt Bett, this is Savannah, and Savannah, this is our Aunt Bett.” And I was surprised as could be when Savannah smiled a big smile and did a little curtsy! That just charmed Aunt Bett to no end, and she laughed out loud.

“Where do you come from?” Aunt Bett asked.

“I’m Aunt Mee’s grandbaby,” Savannah answered easily. “I’m staying with her while my mama’s folks get things all straightened out about who all’s going to take care of me.”

“Well,” Aunt Bett said with a little frown. “Come on, you two, and help me unload these things, but be careful now—don’t you be dropping these good, clean clothes on the ground.”

“Yes’m,” we answered right together. And we carefully carried armloads of fresh-smelling, ironed clothes inside. Aunt Bett herself carried the Sunday dresses for Molly and me that were all starched and on hangers.

When we got into the bedroom, Aunt Bett said to Savannah, “Honey, I sure am thirsty. Would you mind getting me a little glass of water?”

“Yes’m!” Savannah chirped. Then she frowned. “I mean, no ma’am. I don’t mind.” And she scampered off to the kitchen.

Aunt Bett turned to me and whispered, “Does Roy-Ellis know there’s a
 . . .
black
child coming over here while he’s gone?”

“Yes’m.”

“Well, what did he say?”

I thought for a moment. “He said she’s a timid little thing,” I reported.

Aunt Bett worried her bottom lip between her teeth. “Well, don’t you let her go snooping into things,” she whispered.

“She’s a good girl, Aunt Bett,” I whispered back. And then I added, “Her mama raised her right.” Aunt Bett cast a curious glance at me and opened her mouth to say something, but right then, Savannah came back into the bedroom, carrying Aunt Bett’s glass of water so carefully and with her eyes locked on it intently, so it wouldn’t get spilled. When she gave it to Aunt Bett, she smiled again.

“Well, I thank you, Savannah,” Aunt Bett said, glancing at me. Then she drank the water right down and handed the glass back. Savannah studied the glass as if it’s being empty was a very mysterious thing.

“You’re welcome,” she said, and Aunt Bett looked at Savannah’s face for a long moment before she said, “Well, you certainly do have good manners, I can say that much.”

Savannah grinned. “Yes’m!” she yelped. “My mama sure raised me right!”

Aunt Bett and I didn’t look at each other.

After Aunt Bett left, Savannah helped me put all those nice clothes away in the drawers. Aunt Bett had hung all the hanging clothes right away, but there was underwear and socks and T-shirts for Molly and Little Ellis to put into the drawers, and Savannah helped me until every single piece was where it belonged. Then she opened the closet door and looked longingly at all the Sunday dresses Aunt Bett had fixed up for Molly and me.

“I wish I had me so many nice dresses,” Savannah whispered, almost as if she didn’t want me to hear her.

“I’d let you borrow some, but Aunt Bett has to have them back, and if any of them got torn or anything like that, I’d be in big trouble!”

“Well, Grandmama’s making me some new dresses anyway,” Savannah said. “Just not this many. And besides, I’ll probably be going to live with somebody else in Mama’s family pretty soon.” I felt my heart lunge in my chest.

“You’re going away?” My voice must have held all the heartache I was feeling, because how could I not have this beautiful friend in my life forever?

“I know,” Savannah said simply. “I don’t want to go, but Grandmama says she’s too old to take care of me all the time, so some of Mama’s other kin folks have to help out.”

I reached out and hugged Savannah then. She felt small and thin in my arms and a little stiff too, as if maybe she wasn’t used to getting hugged. When I let her go, I saw that she had tears in her eyes.

So it seemed like I turned into Aunt Bett in a flash. “Well, we just have to get through this the best we can,” I announced, and Savannah brightened at the confident sound my voice made. It even comforted me as well, and made me be able to pretend that everything would be all right. And I never said a thing to Savannah, but I remembered that promise I’d made to myself not to love anybody again, and knew that I’d broken it. Even though I meant to keep it. So my heart was hurting again, and I had no one to blame for it except myself.

When Roy-Ellis came home
from work—sending Savannah in her usual flight out the back door—he went right into the bedroom, and while I was getting ready to serve his supper, I heard the shower start up. Then he came into the kitchen wearing jeans, his cowboy shirt and boots, and carrying his cowboy hat. He glanced at me a little anxiously, I thought, and started in on his canned spaghetti in a hurry. Then he downed the last of his coffee, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and stood up.

“Dove, honey—I just can’t sit home every single night. I ain’t cut out for it. So do you mind if I go out? I mean, you won’t be scared or nothing, will you?”

“I was never scared when you and Mama went out,” I said, and I kind of stumbled over the words, because just for a moment, I halfway expected Mama to come out of the bedroom, all dressed up and ready to go with him. “Besides,” I went on, “I’m older than I was then. So it’s okay.” Too, I thought about how I could see the porch light on Aunt Mee’s house, and that was a comfort, for some reason.

“Good!” he said, grinning in a way I hadn’t seen him do in a long time. So I knew he was heading out for Across the Line.

“Who’re you going with?” I asked, and my own words were a complete surprise to me.

“Nobody,” he said too quickly. “Just nobody
 . . .
somebody
 . . .
alone.”

And before I could say another word, he was gone, and only the good smell of his cologne remained. The house seemed so strangely quiet all at once, and when I was bathing Molly and Little Ellis and getting them into bed, it was like the silence was so loud, I could almost hear it. I read for a while, and when I got sleepy, I made sure the door was locked and the porch light was on before I went to bed. Real late, I heard Roy-Ellis come home. He tripped on that same front step, but he didn’t say a word, and the next morning, Aunt Bett came by for us children and we all went to church. She didn’t ask about Roy-Ellis, and I didn’t volunteer anything. She wouldn’t like knowing that Roy-Ellis had started in to honky-tonking again, but I didn’t mind it one little bit. Roy-Ellis worked so hard all the time, coming home and swallowing down whatever I had fixed for supper, then going right to bed. And too, he’d been awfully good to Mama when she started getting sick. And he was a good provider for us, and me and Molly not even his own children. But there was one thing I thought about: What if Roy-Ellis met somebody he wanted to marry! I mean, Roy-Ellis was a fine-looking man, and he was still pretty young. When Mama died, I always figured he’d spend the rest of his life taking care of us. But maybe that wouldn’t happen. Even my own mama found somebody else after my daddy left us. And if that happened with Roy-Ellis, what on earth would become of me and Molly and Little Ellis?

I wanted to talk to Savannah about it, but I couldn’t. Because maybe it would have hurt her feelings. She was without a mother or a father, and had to be shifted back and forth among her relatives. If Roy-Ellis found somebody else to love, maybe he wouldn’t want us anymore, and we didn’t have a big family to be shifted around to. We just had Aunt Bett.

“Good. Now listen to me a little minute—just don’t say anything to Bett about this. It will be our secret—yours and mine. Okay?”

“Okay, Roy-Ellis.”

“So I’ll see you all tomorrow evening, okay?”

“Okay.”

“Go to church with Bett, but don’t say anything. You know how she worries over nothing.”

“Okay.”

I hung up the phone and went back to bed.

Darling?

Uh-oh!

The next morning,
we were ready when Aunt Bett came for us, and she didn’t even notice that Roy-Ellis’s truck was gone. Church was good, with lots of singing and a sermon that didn’t last too long. When Aunt Bett dropped us back at home, she noticed about the truck.

“Where’s Roy-Ellis?” she asked.

“Maybe they called him in for an extra shift,” I suggested, trying hard not to lie. Because a promise is a promise.

“Well, goodness knows, you all need the extra money. You call me if you need me,” she commanded.

“Yes’m. Thanks.”

“And be sure to take off your church clothes right away and hang them up.”

“Yes’m.”

After I got us all changed and hung up the good clothes, I made tuna sandwiches and sliced tomatoes for our lunch, and then I read four picture books to Little Ellis and Molly before I put them down for their naps. While they were resting, I sat in the porch swing, reading
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
again. But once in a while, I’d put the book down and look out across the dry-grass field on the other side of our road, with not another soul in sight, and I’d wonder what it felt like to live in a real city and have all those people around and things going on all the time. Darlene said something like that to me one time. She said, “This is such a dead little town. I sure do wish I could go someplace exciting!”

Aunt Bett had overheard her and she said, “It’s just your age, Darlene. It will pass. Why, when I was your age, I wanted to run away and join the circus.” Two of Aunt Bett’s youngest children went running by, laughing and whooping. “But look at me now,” Aunt Bett laughed. “I’m living right in the middle of my own circus all the time!” She laughed at her own joke, and Darlene and I smiled. But we glanced at each other, because we knew that kind of heart-hungry longing wasn’t a joke at all.