The Cemetery
I’m sorry I don’t remember you. Mama says you died before I was out of the cradle.
Yesterday, I found our neighbor bad sick, and Aunt Freddie took things in hand. Today, David Crutcher told us she tended his daddy with cool cloths all night, and fed him liquids from a spoon. I reckon you’d be right proud of your daughter’s caring nature.
Virginia Lee Kent
It rains all morning, and Grandpa sits in our kitchen while Mama and I do lessons. He sits on as Mama cooks dinner and I do number problems at the table. I feel his eyes on me and forget to carry a seven.
I start again as he says, “When we go ta Gettysburg, might be ya kin pin up your hair like your ma’s.”
It isn’t a first-time thought for me, and I’m powerful pleased he’s mindful I’m grown. But it’s not the kind of notion Mama shares. I need to choose my next words careful-like.
“What do you think, Mama?” I run my hand down the thick, brown lumps of my braids, and pull them to the back of my head. “How old were you when you gave up your braids?”
Mama always twists her loose hair around itself behind her head. Twisting my hair like that would look a sight better than braids on the grown woman who fills out my bodice these days.
“I reckon fourteen is old enough,” Mama says, eyeing me as if I just shed my childhood the way a snake sheds its skin.
* * *
Sun breaks through clouds and burns away Friday morning’s fog. After two rainy days, the air smells washed. Rebecca’s Branch is brim-full, its water rushing past the house as though it’s trying to get home before dark. It splashes down the hillside to meet up with waters from Skitter Falls.
Mama wants to make use of the sunshine and do a washing. I dip water from the branch and fill the tubs. We suds and rinse drawers, chemises, and union suits. Because of Mama’s condition, I crank the handle on the wringer while she feeds wet clothes between its rolls. The sheets are stubborn about going through the wringer, and might be I grunt a bit to help them along.
“I can take a turn,” Mama offers.
“No need.” I hope my face isn’t as flushed as it feels. I don’t let on how my arms ache.
David Crutcher comes by, the interruption giving me a chance to work feeling back into my fingers.
“Pa’s through the worst,” he tells us. “But Miss Freddie says she’s goin’ do the cookin’ and take care of the young’uns til he’s fit as hickory. I don’t need took care of, but her vittles sure is tasty.”
“Tell her we miss her, but we’ll get by,” Mama says. “Ginnie Lee can be right helpful when she gets a mind to.”
I crinkle my nose and make a face Mama doesn’t see. David does and grins before he turns to head up the hill. I go back to cranking that wringer handle.
When our underwear is on the clothesline dancing in the breeze, and the sheets are flapping themselves dry, Mama gives me an hour free of lessons and chores. “Come June, I’ll have to manage without your help,” she says.
I slip away before her tired eyes can make me regretful about leaving. I find Grandpa in the cemetery, shoring up gravestones. Spring rains wash earth from around the stones and threaten to leave them wobbly. Grandpa pushes a wheelbarrow of dirt up the hill and goes from stone to stone, building up, filling in, and tamping down.
He lingers at Granny Kent’s grave. As I get near, I hear him speak. “I kin purt near hear your tongue-lashin’, sayin’ it ain’t fair. She’s considerable young, but it’s got ta be took care of. Providence brung this chance my way. Might be no other. It’s my bounden duty. Fer the family. Fer our land. She’ll understand someday. Might be you kin understand, too.” His voice seems to plead with his dead wife.
The thought lights into my head that I’m eavesdropping on something private being said by a husband to his wife. Even with one of them departed, it’s not proper. Grandpa hasn’t noticed me yet, so I slip down to where the oldest ancestors are buried.
Our family cemetery sits on a round-topped hill overlooking our house. Most graves lie on the hill’s north slope, but the three oldest lie south, where an old oak tree stands guard. Two large stones and a smaller, flat one.
Out of earshot of Grandpa, I can’t disremember what I heard. What isn’t fair? And who is going to understand something someday? I hanker to ask, but my Gettysburg trip depends on staying in everybody’s good graces, even if I have to bite my tongue to do it.
