Unto These Hills (5 page)

The more Nana scolded me — for scolded me she did, such was her exasperation and helplessness — the more my grief swelled and split and distended again. For some reason, Nana didn’t go get her mammoth switch she kept on the closet shelf for emergencies like this.

“I m-miss Mama!” I finally hiccuped only to burst into fresh wails.

“Can’t understand
why,
” Francine snorted angrily, springing from the couch and stalking to the front door, where she pivoted to face me. “Hey! Ol’ Ruby just hopped in Doc Brock’s car and rode off into the sunset.” She laughed, a brittle, harsh eruption. “Had to do it with somebody
famous
. Had to do it
big.
Does that
surprise me
?
Nah.
Can’t see why you’re actin’ like somebody’s up and
died.”

“That’s enough, young lady.” Nana appeared in the kitchen doorway. Her staid, faded sky-blue gaze homed in on Francine, raking her half-clothed frame with displeasure. “ Don’t you
ever
talk about ‘er that way. I don’t like what she done, neither. But she’s still your mama and I won’t have you speaking ill of ‘er. Y’hear?”

Francine tipped back her head to view Nana through narrowed eyes. “Yeh, Nana, I hear,” she drawled. “You speak ill of her every day. So does everybody else who knows ‘er. And you expect
us
to keep quiet about her runnin’ off and leavin’ us?
Huh
. “

Nana looked like she wanted to slap Francine but her voice was low. “She’s still your mama.”

Francine’s eyes slitted and she took a step forward. “
I
know it. And
you
know it. But does
she
? Huh? Tell me that.”

With that final shot, she aimed like a bullet for the front door.

I figured she would slip under the house, which sat high upon the hilly terrain, where she kept an extra pack of Camels — supplied by Tack Turner, the snobby, son-of-a-boss-man rat — and would curl up on the dirt and suck nicotine till her eyes emptied and she grew still as death.

“Francine!” The door’s loud
slam
swallowed Nana’s reprimand as Francine disappeared down the front steps.

Nana snapped off the radio and went into the kitchen, leaving me doubled up, squalling like a three-month-old, with only my little brother and sister to weather the emotional mayhem with me.

Nana’s presence, in the kitchen doorway, swam in my peripheral vision but by now I knew that, though she loved Mama, she’d not be my ally. Mama was God-only-knew where, leaving Nana with a gaggle of grandkids to raise.

That
unwanted
feeling lay like a comatose elephant upon me tonight.

I struggled to sit up straight, tried to focus my red, swollen eyes. I snuffled, an automatic hiccuppy sound.

“Are you through?” Nana hissed, stuffing her handkerchief into her apron pocket. “Never seen such goings-on in all my life. Y’should be over all that by now.”

“B-but, Nana — I
miss
her so.” I wanted desperately to make her understand but tears suddenly puddled again and the fact that it enraged Nana did nothing to ward off the torrential downpour that had Sheila and Timmy both wailing.

Aunt Tina burst through the front door, Alvin trailing behind. And I knew he’d ran like a greyhound to sic his mama on me. What irony, I thought fuzzily, that he
could
manage to move faster’n a turtle.

“Are you going to
shut up that snivelin’?
” Aunt Tina’s voice hurt my ears. Her tall, lanky form was all angles and strength as she reached for me. Then she was hauling me to my feet, her long-taloned fingers gripping my blouse with such force I felt two buttons pop.

“Do you know what happens to folks who pitch conniption fits and make little kids cry? Huh?” She was nose to nose with me, her pale eyes blazing like blow torches in the night.

I didn’t answer, couldn’t. I was weeping afresh. In that moment I hated my nonstop tears over which I had no control. That infuriated her more. “Well, I’ll tell you what happens to such trouble makers,” she hissed. “They get throwed in the river. C’mon Talley,” she motioned to her pug-faced husband, who hovered in the doorway. “Help me and we’ll take her down to the river and make a believer outta her.”

…They get throwed in the river….

Pure
panic
seized me because, at that time, I feared those icy, dark,
bottomless
waters more than anything in the world. At night. I couldn’t forget Ruthie Bond’s near fatal experience.

Tonight, it was that — the terror — that drew a noose around the wails, snuffing them like sand on embers. I simply froze with fear.

“That’s more like it.” Aunt Tina loosed me, squared her shoulders, and took her brood and left.

When the door slammed behind them, Timmy and Sheila let out fresh howls.

“That’s it,” Nana snarled and herded the two up the stairs and off to bed. I heard their wailing slowly subside.

Within minutes, Daniel knocked at the front door and I was on the porch, in his arms. He quietly led me to the swing suspended from porch’s ceiling. And I cast Francine a grateful, howbeit teary look as she sashayed past us into the house, casting me a blatant
you owe me one
expression over her shoulder.

“Well whaddaya know?” I said hoarsely. “Francine brought you to my
rescue?”

But Daniel didn’t laugh. He watched me intently, care oozing from him like warm honey. By now, I was so numb I thought I’d never again feel anything beyond the great chasm of screaming emptiness inside me. But his caring unleashed yet more of my belated grief to spill forth in a healing gush.

With Daniel’s strong arm squeezing me, the knot in my chest looped tighter. Suddenly, new pain lanced me. And Mama’s specter rose before me in living technicolor, the winsome, loving side of her. “
Oh Mama — didn’t I do enough?”
Words spilled from me like a discharged slot machine.
“ I tried by helping with Sheila and Timmy and not whining when you were gone most every night —”
I pressed my hands to my mouth to stem the sob that heaved and swirled and thrashed about in my chest.

“Sunny…” Daniel leaned to peer into my face. “Please —
don’t.
It wasn’t
anything you did or didn’t do.”

“D-Daniel…I feel so alone,” I whispered, closing my eyes and sagging.

“Hey,” Daniel’s finger guided my chin until I looked him squarely in the eyes. “
I’m
here. I’ll always be here. And I want you to know how proud I am of you. You’re good and strong and wonderful. Pure goodness is what you are.”

“
Ahh, Daniel,” I whispered. I reached up to touch his cheek. “You’ve been here, too, just where I am. You understand.”

He slowly nodded.

“C’mon,” he pulled me to my feet, “let’s walk.” I dashed inside and grabbed my coat from the little coat closet and we headed out.

We short-cut through the alley and set out up North Main toward the village outskirts. Street lights polished the sidewalks and dwellings a golden cast.

After long minutes of silence, Daniel spoke without preamble. “I hate Ruby for what she’s done to you, just like I hate Mona,” he said matter-of-factly, with little apparent emotion on his angular, hawk -like face. Daniel tightly banked his feelings. I suspect that’s how he survived all he did.

“Don’t hate ‘em, Daniel,” I pleaded hoarsely, not even fully understanding why. “ I certainly don’t like my own mama, but I don’t
hate
‘er. Truth is, I don’t know exactly what I feel for her anymore. But
hate
is such an intense word.”

“Yeh,” he drawled and thrust callused hands deeply into his jacket pockets as we walked to the village park, our oasis whose carpet of grass in coming months would alter from winter buff to summer emerald.

“We’ve got two real prize
Mama mias,”
he drawled, then snorted. “At least you know who your daddy is. I never will.” He looked at me, his lips a thin line, his eyes cold. “’Cause
Mona
don’t. Now, ain’t that just dandy?” His voice dripped sarcasm. He laughed then. Not a pretty sound, Daniel’s riled laughter. More like a bark that erupted from deep in his gut while his mouth curled in scorn.

I watched him exhale chilly vapor into donuts, pulling my own nearly outgrown, thin coat more tightly around me. “You hardly ever mention your mama. Why?”

He shrugged and his features emptied. “I don’t really think about Mona much
.
Y’know?”

“Do you still love her at all?”

Another shrug, more elaborate. A decisive, “No. She killed that when she tossed me to the foster care system — after promising me she’d never do it again. Mostly, I’m mad at ‘er. Can’t count on ‘er.” He looked at me then, his magnificent turquoise eyes aglitter with pain. “Y’know?”

I nodded. “Oh, yeh I do. To survive, one does what one has to do to gouge out that ol’ throbbin’ stinger. Anger’s easier to handle than hurt.” Yes, I understood. Daniel and I resonated together with like-wounds.

“Y’know what?” he said, abruptly changing direction.

“What?”

He pulled me to my feet and swept his hand out in a wide arc. “Some day, which is not so far off now, you’ll have your house, right here in the middle of this land.” He paused and swallowed hard and I thought I saw mist in his eyes. “ It’ll be awesome. And we’ll live happily ever after.”

I laughed, then snuffled. “Oh, Daniel. You’re something else.”

He slung his arm around me as we began to make our way home. “I am, ain’t I?”

I poked him playfully in the ribs and we laughed uproariously as our feet connected with sidewalk.

I shook my head. “What?” he asked quietly.

“I’ve been such a whine-y tonight. Nana would love to switch me good for being such a coward. Bad as I need your courage, Daniel, I can’t get used to leaning too hard on
anybody
.” I hooked my arm around his waist. “You’ve got your own burdens to carry. You don’t need mine, too.”

I made another decision in that moment. “I’ve shed my last tears over Mama.”

“Good,” Daniel said quietly and squeezed my shoulder.

That was a promise I kept for many, many years to come.

~~~~~

Doretha was not what Emaline and I could ever label “pretty.”

Yet we would forevermore agree she was the loveliest person we knew. Countering Francine’s cynicism was Doretha’s guilelessness. At times, our friend’s deep-set, hazel gaze seemed eons old, reflecting an elusive, inexpressible sadness.

The fact that she’d already dropped out of school seemed not at all strange to us. In some mystifying way, she seemed above ordinary schooling.

She’d steadfastly declared her surname
Hicks.
“I don’t
ever
want to be called Stone.” Her estimation of ol’ Tom was right down there with everyone else’s. “I don’t remember my own Daddy. He died when I was three.”

Today, Doretha used her mama’s best china dessert plates to serve the chocolate offering we bore. Bertha Stone, her mother, welcomed us warmly, belying her formidable appearance. Bigger in stature than her daughter, her only biological child, Bertha, or
Berthie
, the mill hill pronunciation, was a handsome woman with a long swan neck and porcelain skin that needed no cold cream.

She was as assertive and driven as Doretha was timorous and hesitant. I discovered Berthie to be as diligent and organized in housekeeping as an ant colony while Doretha day-dreamed and went about life as though she lived in a cave of disposables.

Yet underlying all that I sensed a mutual, deep love.

“Here,” Doretha addressed me in her soft little voice, “let me pour you some tea. Or would you rather have cold milk?” She relished the hostess role. I had to remind myself that we weren’t playing house.

“Tea.”

Daniel strolled in, eyes so hungry to sight me one would never know he’d seen me only an hour ago over at Emaline’s. “Hey!” He plopped down across from me and turned on his slow smile that started deep in his eyes like a tiny ember and grew until it filled his ocean-green, beautiful irises. And in that heartbeat,
déjà vu
submerged me in memories from six months earlier….

That day, as Emaline and I visited, bearing cookies for the occasion, Doretha dashed out of the kitchen and moments later returned with a tall, lanky boy in tow and announced proudly, “This is Daniel.”

First thing I noticed about Daniel was his piercing turquoise eyes, the shade of which I’d never before seen, like sea-tide overlaid with translucent blue. Coupled with his midnight black hair, they stunned me.

Emaline seemed not affected, however, because she never missed a beat. “Hey, Daniel. Nice t’ meet you.”

He nodded, flushing ever so slightly as he lifted his strong, cleft chin in boldness. Defiance, maybe, but of what, I couldn’t fathom. If his aim was to impress, he sure as heck succeeded. There was about him an almost savage elegance. A subterranean wildness simmered behind his unrefined composure.

Sort of like a young Sir Laurence Olivier, as Heathcliffe in Wuthering Heights.

Then, his attention slid to me. Our gazes locked.

Something profound clicked inside me when I gazed into his proud countenance because beneath it I glimpsed an incredible vulnerability. “Hey, Daniel,” I said softly.

“This is Sunny,” said Doretha, as though showing off a treasure. “Ain’t that a purdy name? Come on and sit down. We’re having some chocolate chip cookies the girls brought
over. And they baked ‘em themselves.” She nibbled a bite and closed her eyes ecstatically. “Mmmm. They’re so go-o-o-d. Ain’t that sweet of ’em?”

Brave-hearted Renie, Emaline’s mama, had turned us loose in her kitchen. Emaline and I had trashed the kitchen doing the doughy clumps, then painstakingly cleaned it up as they baked into slightly scorched but edible cookies. All this in order to dazzle Doretha, just to hear her oohs and ahhs. She never let us down.

“Yeh,” Daniel muttered, nodding, his turquoise eyes holding mine, even as he moved across from me and took a seat. His threadbare cotton shirt and jeans were clean and pressed. His well-shaped hands were scruffy and callused, the short nails slightly stained underneath. I could tell he’d tried to clean them. His fingers curled under, as though hiding from my probing gaze. I quickly averted my eyes and continued to nibble.