The Wisdom of Hair (30 page)

We sent Sara
Jane and Jimmy off about six thirty in a shower of birdseed. They were so pretty, they looked like a picture as they got into that limousine and waved at everybody. The driver took them to the Marriott by the airport in Charlotte, where they spent their first night and then flew to Mexico the next morning for the honeymoon.

I didn’t know that a Baptist wedding ceremony lasts all of twenty minutes, thirty minutes tops. A dry reception lasts a couple of hours and then folks start going home, so the social hall was empty and the wedding party was getting their things together to leave.

Mr. and Mrs. Farquhar were in the kitchen helping the caterer pack up all of the leftovers for them to take home and put in the freezer. They were just putting the top to the wedding cake in
a precious little freezer box that had silver doves on top when I walked into the room.

“Thank you for the dress and everything.” I kissed them both. “It was a beautiful wedding.”

“It was,” Mr. Farquhar said, as he hugged me. “You’re my daughter, you know. And yours will be just as grand.”

Every time the Farquhars talked about me being family I felt like they said those nice things because they were nice people. But that day, when Mr. Farquhar called me his daughter and talked about my wedding, for the very first time, I felt it was really true.

On the way home, Mrs. Farquhar told me that I would be able to feel the baby move soon. She said that it would feel like the flutter of butterfly wings, and that if I wasn’t paying attention, I’d miss the very first movement. I told her I’d try real hard, and hoped to myself that it wasn’t that night, because I was so tired when we got home, I just put my nightgown on and was dead to the world by nine o’clock.

I dreamed bits and pieces on and off all night, and then what seemed like a long dream about home. Daddy Heyward came walking out to the little shed out back where I used to hide out from the world. He walked on legs that didn’t have any idea how to walk without weaving and stopped right in front of me. At first, I was afraid because he just stood there staring at me for the longest time, and then I realized that he had come out of the stupor he’d been in for the past twenty-odd years because he had something important to say.

“Did you ever want something powerful bad?” His hands were shaking and his words quivered, not knowing how to sound
coming out sober. “I want—I want a boat, just a little boat. I used to fish when I was a boy, and, I don’t know, I just wanted to tell you that if you ever want anything powerful bad, it’s okay.”

He was so pale, and his shakes were worse than when he walked out of the mist and into my dream. Then I saw him go into the house and get his little tin pint that Mama thought made him look so sophisticated and start down the road toward the creek.

I decided I’d better go check on him because Daddy Heyward never left the house to drink. When I got there, I saw the men dragging the creek for his body, scratching their heads trying to figure out the how and why of Heyward’s death. Somehow I knew the reason was much simpler than they were making it out to be. Heyward just wanted to see what it was like to have his heart’s desire, that’s all. Nothing more. Nothing less.

I stood on the creek bank and was aware of a tiny flutter in my belly. It was so slight that when I awoke, I lay there in the darkness, wondering if it was just part of the dream, and then I felt it again.

I got out of bed, put my robe on, and went into the den where Mrs. Farquhar was knitting and Mr. Farquhar was asleep in the recliner.

“I felt the baby move.”

She put her knitting down and hugged me for the longest time. As we walked toward the kitchen, she told me how much she loved me, and that she couldn’t wait to be a grandma. We sat down at the table and drank warm milk together, and I listened as she told me about the first time Sara Jane moved inside her.

“Sometimes it can be scary to have a baby inside you, to be responsible for another life, but it’s also quite a wonder.”

She let out a little sigh and watched the last bit of milk swirl around in her glass. “You know, it’s funny how I missed that kicking for the longest time,” she said. She didn’t really look up, and the way she said it was the way someone might talk about something sweet that doesn’t last.

“Sometimes I still miss that feeling. Even now.”

Being pregnant means
sometimes all those extra hormones get together for a pity party over the silliest things, like breaking a nail or not being able to find your shoes. As I stood there in the doorway of the kitchen, watching Mrs. Farquhar making breakfast, the smell of bacon frying and the sight of homemade biscuits just out of the oven made my eyes sting and well up. By the time she touched the top of the bread to see if it was done and set the pan down on a little brass trivet, my face was awash with tears.

I know she didn’t see me standing there in the doorway of the kitchen, watching her, as she began to fuss over a pie she was making for Sunday dinner, but somehow she knew I was there. “Good morning.” She tasted a dab of the fluffy chocolate filling, then took one look at me and nearly dropped the bowl. “What’s wrong, darling?” She set the bowl down and wiped her hands on the dish towel before she put her hand across my forehead. “You look feverish.”

“I want to go home.”

I don’t know why I needed to. I knew I wouldn’t stay. But something inside me said I had to go there.

“I was wondering if I could borrow Sara Jane’s car,” I said trying to get hold of myself.

“I’ll go with you,” she said, and before I could say another word, she covered the unbaked pie with tinfoil and put it in the refrigerator.

“You don’t have to go. It takes about six hours to get there, and I’m not going to stay long. I have my first day of work tomorrow.”

“Well, I sure will worry about you on the road by yourself, but if you have to go alone, I understand.”

“Do you think Mr. Farquhar can get by without a big Sunday dinner?”

“Jerry’ll get along just fine. Now you go on and eat some breakfast while I get dressed, and we’ll be on our way.”

I drove for what seemed like forever and only stopped twice so I could use the bathroom. We passed through Simpsonville and went by my old high school. The town was the same. As we drove by Mrs. Cunningham’s apartment, I noticed she’d left her Christmas lights on. Little twinkly white ones laced around her balcony railing winked at us.

I stayed on the highway that went straight through the middle of town until we got to the place on the mountain where the road narrowed. A dirt road cut off to the right and straight up to my place. I had a funny feeling in the pit of my stomach and I’m sure it wasn’t the baby. Mrs. Farquhar didn’t say much, didn’t ask any questions. I guess she knew how hard the trip was for me. The whole way there, she never did anything more for me than smile from
time to time, to remind me how strong she was and how willing she was to share her strength with me. I know if she hadn’t come along that day, I probably would’ve turned around long before the Simpsonville city limits and gone straight back to Davenport.

I let the car roll slowly over the rough spots in the dirt road. I knew the way so well, I could have closed my eyes and driven us straight to the front door. I could see the old place through the bare trees. It made me feel weak and small. As I drove into the yard, the house looked cold and lonely. I put the car in park and sat there for a minute. Mrs. Farquhar reached out and touched my hand.

I couldn’t get out immediately and was almost satisfied just to see the old place and head home to Davenport. But then there was a part of me that opened the car door just enough to hear it unlatch, and I felt that cold, damp mountain air seeping into the car. I don’t know what I was waiting for; maybe I half expected Nana or Mama to come out and throw their hands up like they were glad to see me. Maybe I waited, thinking I’d come to my senses and leave, but whatever had drawn me to that place continued to tug at me like the invisible thread that draws all children home.

Mrs. Farquhar got out to stretch her legs a bit. It was cold, real cold. She hugged herself and walked over to look at the old stone well with her breath trailing behind her. I placed my feet on that rocky ground, inching my way toward the house until I felt the creak of the front porch boards under my feet. I closed my eyes, listening to their strange music, wondering why I never noticed it before.

I touched the key that dangled on a shoestring from around my
neck. When I was little, Nana had put the key on the string for me to play with. I wore it for years but never had to use it. I remember wearing that old string because it reminded me that I had a place where I belonged, and then taking it off when I moved to Davenport because I didn’t think I needed it anymore.

The door was unlocked. I looked at Mrs. Farquhar, who had joined me on the steps.

“Honey, it’s unlocked.”

“I know.”

“Maybe we should go into town and call the sheriff.”

“It’s okay. Folks up here don’t lock their doors.”

I pushed the door open and looked around. All the kitchen cabinet doors were open and the food was gone. There was a can of spoiled pork and beans on the kitchen table and some dirty dishes in the sink.

“My Lord, Zora, who was here?”

“Hobos, maybe somebody hiking or fishing the creek.”

I remembered hearing the neighbors talk about coming home and finding hikers on their front porch. We weren’t far off the Blue Ridge Railway Trail, and from time to time those folks would show up, especially in the early spring if there’d been a late snow.

“Don’t worry, there’s nobody here.”

We walked into the room that was the kitchen and living room. I threw the pork and beans in the trash can and raked the bread crumbs off the table with an old rag. I could tell raccoons had been there by the droppings everywhere, but even they had passed on the spoiled beans. Whoever had been there hadn’t left much of anything for the animals except a bag of potatoes in the bin that
had long spaghetti-like eyes snaking about them. I stood there looking at the mess and shook my head before opening the door just off the living room.

“This was Mama’s room.” The bed was stripped, and there didn’t seem to be anything left that was hers. I saw a little yellow top sticking out from under the skirt of her dressing table. It was an old bottle of Johnson’s baby shampoo that had fallen back there. I picked it up and looked at the label that had faded to a pinkish color. It was sad but kind of funny that all Mama left me was an eighty-nine-cent bottle of baby shampoo.

Nana’s room was right across the hall from Mama’s. Somebody had taken her bedding. Her old settee was still there, but it looked like the raccoons had messed it up. If we’d brought Jimmy’s truck, I’d have taken it back to Davenport and made a nice cover for it.

Her yarn was strewn about over the floor and looked a mess. We rolled some of the thread that wasn’t soiled back onto cards and put it in her sewing basket. It was just a little pink wicker basket she had bought at some store for next to nothing. There was a fuzzy black poodle appliquéd on the lid with three little rhinestones on her collar. I remember fingering those things and pretending they were real while Nana crocheted.

“Let’s take this home,” Mrs. Farquhar said as she put the top on the basket. I guess she could see how precious it was to me. “I bet there are two or three sacks full of yarn, Zora. You could make some baby things if you want.”

I smiled to myself and thought about Nana trying to teach me how to crochet and how worthless my fingers were. Whenever she put her arms around me and guided my hands, I could always pull the thread through just right. But as soon as she turned loose of
me, I’d mess up. She never fussed at me, just ripped out the row I’d messed up, and showed me how to start over.

There was a picture facedown on a shelf of Nana and my granddaddy. I put it in one of the paper sacks, along with all of my school pictures she had in little tin frames. The Bible she kept in her bedside table was gone. It was an old King James Version she kept important papers in. I suspected Uncle Heath and Aunt Fannie took it, and that was fine with me.