Swan Place (38 page)
Authors: Augusta Trobaugh
Tags: #Fiction, #General, #Sagas, #African American
“Not right now,” Crystal said, and without another word, she got up and went back upstairs. I came into the kitchen to see if I could help.
“Dove, get the bassinette for me, and we’ll keep Mary Elizabeth right here in this good, warm kitchen with us.” But as Buzzard spoke, her eyes were on the staircase, and there was a deep frown between her eyes. When I went to get the bassinette, Molly and Little Ellis were getting awake, so I put out their clothes for them to get into while I took the bassinette back into the kitchen. Buzzard was on the phone.
“Yessir, that’ll be fine,” she was saying. “Around about four this afternoon. Yes. Thank you.”
“What’s happening around about four?” I asked.
“Miz Swan’s doctor is going to make a house call. Check on Crystal for us.”
“Is she really sick? Did having the baby make her sick?”
Just as I asked, Buzzard put Mary Elizabeth into the bassinette, and when I looked at the sweet little baby, I thought it would be a real shame if her coming into the world had made her mama sick. She was so beautiful.
“I don’t know,” Buzzard said. “But her not eating and not really paying much attention to the baby is something we need to see about.”
That afternoon, Miz Swan’s doctor made his house call. He was a very tall, slender man with white hair and a tiny little beard that wasn’t like most beards at all. This one sat right on the point of his chin and nowhere else. Buzzard took him upstairs, and they were gone for a long time. Mary Elizabeth woke up and I changed her diaper and warmed a bottle of milk for her. But I guess I wasn’t quick enough to suit her, because she really got in a few long, loud yelps before it was ready. Just as I was feeding her, Buzzard and the doctor came back downstairs.
“Seems as if this one is healthy,” the doctor said. “But as long as I’m here, let me check her over.” I started trying to pull the nipple out of her mouth, but it was hard to get it away from her. When I finally did, she went into a flurry of crying and jerking. The doctor smiled and took her out of my arms.
“Would you put a towel or blanket on the table for me?” he asked Buzzard. We had a dryer full of clean blankets that were still warm, and Buzzard folded one and put it on the table so the doctor could give Mary Elizabeth a quick examination. But she never hushed crying the whole time he gently felt her stomach and looked in her ears. He had a little light he shined into her open mouth so he could see her throat, and then he felt around her belly button.
“Baby’s fine,” he said in a voice loud enough to rise above her crying. “Better give her back that bottle.” He wrapped her in the blanket and handed her back to me.
“Make sure Crystal keeps taking those prenatal vitamins, and if her appetite doesn’t come back soon, call my office and make an appointment. Right now, I’d say it’s just a bad case of baby blues. But let me know if anything changes,” he said to Buzzard.
“What are baby blues?” I asked when Buzzard came back from seeing the doctor to the door.
“Some women just get real sad right after they’ve had a baby,” Buzzard said. “Don’t know why.”
“Will she get over it?”
“I think so.” But there was a worried sound in Buzzard’s voice that sent shivers down my spine.
“Well, let’s get us some supper ready,” Buzzard said. “And make me remember to write you a note for school tomorrow. You can ride the bus, since Crystal won’t be going in to work yet.”
“Can you manage everything without me?” I asked, and as soon as I heard the words, I knew that I wanted her to say “No. No, Dove, I can’t manage without you.”
“We’ll be okay,” she said instead.
So the next morning,
I started walking down the long driveway and saw the school bus go by, going in the direction of Sharon’s house. When I reached the road, I waited on the opposite side from the mailbox for the bus to come back. And that school day felt like it would never end. Most of the time, all I could do was wonder what was happening at home. Was Mary Elizabeth taking her bottle? Were Molly and Little Ellis behaving themselves? Was Crystal going to be able to eat a little bite of her dinner?
That afternoon, I ran the whole length of the driveway and when I got in the door, I could smell something delicious cooking in the kitchen. Buzzard was at the stove, lifting a lid and looking into a boiling pot. Molly and Little Ellis were polishing silver at the kitchen table, and Mary Elizabeth was asleep in her bassinette. It was such a peaceful scene, and it gladdened my heart.
“What’re you cooking?” I asked, drawn to the stove by the delicious smell.
“My grandmama’s chicken and dumplings,” Buzzard said proudly. “I figured that if there was anything in this world that would chirk up Crystal’s appetite, this is it.”
Sure enough, at suppertime, Crystal came downstairs and ate with us. Well, she didn’t eat much, but she sat with us. When Mary Elizabeth started squeaking for her bottle, Crystal seemed not to even hear her. Buzzard watched Crystal closely, and I started to get up and tend to the baby. But Buzzard stopped me. “You sit down, Dove,” she said in a low voice. “That’s Crystal’s baby, and she ought to be the one to tend to her.” To Crystal she said, “Don’t you hear your baby fussing over there? Aren’t you going to tend to her?”
Crystal looked up a little surprised and heaved a deep sigh. “Yes,” she said.
But we had to help her after all, because she didn’t know how to put on a diaper, and she also didn’t know where we kept the pot for warming the bottle. And when we got her all set to feed the baby, she didn’t even know to hold the bottle at an angle. We showed her all these things, and at last, she was feeding the baby, who stared at her with great, round eyes. We were all quiet. Buzzard was nodding her head very slowly up and down. And I guess I’m the only one that saw a tear slide down Crystal’s face and drip off her chin.
That night, I woke up hearing the wind howling outside and something that sounded like sand being thrown against the windows of Buzzard’s room. We were all still sleeping downstairs so Crystal could get plenty of rest. When I got out of bed and went toward the window, I could see that Buzzard wasn’t in the bed at all. I pulled back the curtains and saw that sleet and rain were coming down hard and fast, already coating the branches of trees outside. But where was Buzzard?
When I got out into the hallway, I could see that the kitchen light was on, and I followed the spill of yellow light until I came into the kitchen and saw Buzzard sitting in the rocking chair, rocking Mary Elizabeth.
“Is something wrong?” I asked, because there was something or other in the slope of Buzzard’s shoulders that I hadn’t seen before. Buzzard sighed and lifted her chin, but she didn’t say anything. I went around and stood in front of her, studying her face.
“Something
is
wrong,” I said. “And I think I know what it is—Miz Swan is coming home.”
“Miz Swan
. . .
?” Buzzard seemed confused. “No. That’s not it.”
“What is it, then?” I urged her, because whatever was wrong, I had to start thinking how to get it right again. I had to!
“Dove, there’s no easy way to tell you this,” she started out, and I held my breath.
“Crystal’s gone.”
“Gone? She
died?
”
“No! She didn’t die. She left.”
“Left for where? And in this kind of weather?”
Buzzard pointed to the kitchen table, where there was a folded piece of paper with my name on it.
“What’s this?”
“Crystal was sitting here at the kitchen table, writing this letter to you, when Mary Elizabeth started fussing and I came in here to get her bottles.”
I got the note and unfolded it, but my hands were shaking so hard, I could hardly read it
:
Dear Dove,
I’m so sorry. I tried. I really tried. I just can’t do this. Everybody will be better off if I go away. I tried to do right, but I got myself into more than I know how to handle. Please forgive me. I wish you all the best and I will love you forever.
—Love, Crystal
P.S. Please take good care of my baby.
Buzzard stood up and deposited a sleeping Mary Elizabeth into the bassinette. She came and sat down at the kitchen table, and I sat down across from her. We sat there for a long, long time. My head was whirling with all kinds of thoughts: How was I going to be able to take care of Molly and Little Ellis and Mary Elizabeth? Should we go home to Aunt Bett? Should we stay until Miz. Swan came back? Should I ask Buzzard to let us stay until we knew better that Molly wouldn’t get taken away from us? And when we went back home, how would I find the money to rent us a place to stay? We couldn’t ask Aunt Bett to take us in! What was going to become of us?
“I tried to stop her,” Buzzard mumbled. “I did everything a body could do to try and stop her. I said that if she walked out on her own child, she didn’t even deserve to be called a human being! What a hurtful thing to say to somebody!”
“You had to try,” I offered, with most of my mind still wondering what on earth was going to happen to us.
Then we sat again for a long time, in the warm kitchen with all that sleet slapping against the windows and all the children safe and warm. How would I be able to
keep
them safe and warm?
Buzzard’s voice came through all the fog in my head. “I’m sorry, Dove,” she finally said. “I hated for you to know this.”
But I was all caught up in imagining that Molly and Little Ellis and Mary Elizabeth and I were out in all that sleet and freezing rain, walking along a long, lonely road with nothing to eat or no place to go. I could really feel my feet going numb and hear Molly whimpering. And in that terrible imagining, I looked down at Mary Elizabeth and saw that she was blue and still. All of a sudden, something in me exploded.
“How could she?” I didn’t even know that’s what I was going to say. “How could she?” I repeated, and I started feeling like maybe I was a volcano and something terrible and red and evil was rumbling through me and getting ready to come flying out.
“It isn’t fair!” I fairly yelled. “It isn’t fair!”
“I know you’re hurt, and I don’t blame you one little bit,” Buzzard said. “But Molly and Little Ellis don’t know about this, and we don’t want to upset them.”
“Upset
them
?” I tried to lower my voice. “What about
me
? Somebody just tell me that! How could Crystal go off and leave Mary Elizabeth for me to raise? How could she do that to me?” I was very close to the most furious tears anybody could ever imagine.
“Maybe because she knows how strong you are,” Buzzard answered. And that completely surprised me.
“Me? Strong?” I yelped.
“Well, sure!” Buzzard was frowning at me. “Maybe Crystal knows you better than you know yourself!”
“I don’t want to be strong,” I confessed, feeling as if all my bones had dissolved or something.
“Like it or not, you are strong,” Buzzard said. “Strongest girl I ever knew.”
“I said I don’t want to be strong,” I repeated.
“Okay then,” Buzzard suggested. “Why don’t you do like Crystal? Just run off and leave it all!”
What?
Incredibly, Buzzard laughed. “I sure do wish you could see your face!”
What?
“No, you won’t do that. Couldn’t do that if your life depended upon it. Just isn’t in you. Listen to me—and hear what I’m telling you—things don’t just happen to us. We
choose
them.”
“Choose them?” Why, that was the most ridiculous thing I ever heard of in my whole life. “Did I
choose
for Crystal to run off and leave us like this?” I was angry again. Angrier than I’d ever been in my whole life. Oh, how I wished I’d learned some of those Old Testament curses so they could spew out of my mouth and melt the whole world!
“No, of course not,” Buzzard said. “But just now, I gave you your chance to run off, just like Crystal did, and you didn’t choose to do it. So that means you
do
choose to stay and do whatever has to be done. You will
always
choose that.”
Buzzard studied me for a long minute, while I let her words soak in.
“But what’s going to happen to us?” I asked finally. Asked
myself
, really, because if there was any solving to be done, I was the one who would do it. Who
could
do it.
“Well! It’s time, I reckon!” Buzzard said in a loud voice. I jumped a little.
“What?” I asked. But Buzzard just got up without a word and went into the parlor. Then, just as fast, she came back into the kitchen, carrying the big Bible, and plunked it right down on the table in front of me. When she sat down again, I felt my heart go hard as a rock. What was this all about? Hadn’t I had enough surprises already to last me the rest of my whole life? And now Buzzard was getting ready to do something solemn to me! Another surprise!
“Do you know how to keep a secret?” she asked.
“Why?” I asked, and it was a real nasty-sounding, sarcastic word that just fell out of my mouth before I even knew it was there.
“Because I need to tell you all something, and it has to stay a secret. Do you understand?”
“I think you’ve told me enough for one day,” I shot back at her, and she looked startled.
“Well, you’re hurting real bad, so I won’t take offense at that,” she said, but her voice bristled anyway. “So I’ll ask it again: Do you know how to keep a secret?”