“What’s that man’s name, the man she ran off with?” Aunt Mae Louise asked. “I didn’t pay any attention to what your daddy told me. You know?”
“Speak up, Phoebe. This is not the time for any silly tantrums. Your aunt asked you something.”
“Sammy Bitters,” I said. It didn’t sound like me talking. My voice was so deep.
“Name fits the situation,” she told Uncle Buster. “Bitter.”
He nodded.
“Go on, Phoebe. Get some rest,” he said. “We’ll take care of things. We’ll take care of you and what has to be done.”
Aunt Mae Louise looked up at him sharply. I could almost feel the new realization sinking into them both like a rock in soft mud: with my mother tramping about and not caring about me and my daddy dead and gone to the lap of God, they were all I had now. Like it or not, fate had more than just delivered me to their doorstep. It had put me smack into the middle of their lives. They couldn’t send me back.
Aunt Mae Louise nodded.
“The Lord tests us,” she said, more to herself than to Uncle Buster and me. “He gives us burdens to make us stronger and stronger.”
First, I was a distraction, an annoyance, a responsibility my mama didn’t want and finally denied, and now I had graduated to being a burden, but not just an ordinary burden, oh no. I was a blessed burden, a gift from God. The way she made it sound, I should be grateful. Think of all the young women my age who weren’t a burden, who had a family that loved and cared for them, who were good students and behaved and said their prayers without being reminded to do so. Of what use were they for the struggle to reach the pearly gates Aunt Mae Louise saw parting for her celestial entrance? If there were no poor, there would be no charity, and how would my aunt get herself blessed?
I turned and walked back to my bedroom. When I got there, I closed the door and then I pressed my back to the wall and slid down slowly to the floor, where I sat next
to my suitcase. I wanted to cry for Daddy, but I couldn’t. None of this seemed real to me. Surely, Uncle Buster and Aunt Mae Louise would be coming to my door any moment to tell me that was all just meant to put the fear of God into me and make me behave.
“Now go to sleep and count your lucky stars that it isn’t so,” she would say.
Right? The little voice inside me, a voice I hadn’t heard since I was no more than Jake’s age, was asking.
Whether they felt sorry for me or what, I don’t know, but a while later, there was a gentle knock on my door. I didn’t open it or call out, but Uncle Buster opened it and peered in, confused at first when he didn’t see me.
“What?” I asked him, looking up.
“What are you doing on the floor? Why is your suitcase out?” he asked quickly.
“I was going to leave,” I said.
“No, no, no. You can’t leave now, Phoebe. You’re just confused and in shock,” he told me. He didn’t understand that I meant I was going to leave before the phone call. “Everything will be fine. You just get some sleep. I came by to see if you needed anything.”
I stared up at him, and he looked uncomfortable.
“You should go to bed, Phoebe. It’s going to be hard for the next few days. Go on. Get some sleep,” he advised, and backed out, closing the door.
I lowered my head again and soon, I was feeling so tired I had to get up and go to bed. I was afraid of sleep, afraid of those shadows. They were closing in around me, encouraged by the news of Daddy’s accident. Now there was definitely no one to come to help me chase them off. They would sink into my brain and make a home for themselves, swimming to the top of my thoughts whenever they pleased. Shout and scream, run and hide, I could do whatever I wanted and it would make no difference, not to them.
I kept my eyes slightly open as sleep crawled over me, slithering around my legs, my waist, and my breasts until it could tighten like a vise and close me in darkness. The shadows kept coming. I could almost hear them swishing over the walls and over the floor.
“Daddy!” I moaned, and then I closed my eyes completely and saw him again, rushing away, leaving me behind forever. It did no good to run after him. My nightmare diminished into a blob of darkness, and I woke with a start. For endless hours, I drifted fitfully on the rim of sleep, never finding the peaceful oblivion I desperately sought.
A cloud of silence came over my aunt and uncle the next morning. They kept Jake and Barbara Ann from making much noise and got them both off to their respective schools. When they spoke to each other in front of me, they practically whispered. Uncle Buster said he had to drive to where they had taken Daddy and make an identification. He never asked if I wanted to go along.
“I spoke with the police last night, and they are trying to locate your mama,” he said. “Your aunt Mae Louise and I are making arrangements for your daddy’s final resting place. We’ll have a nice service for him here. My father will conduct it for us.”
I listened to everything he said, but I didn’t say anything.
“You better eat something,” Aunt Mae Louise told me. “This isn’t the time to get sick yourself.”
I looked up at her. She almost sounded like she cared, but on second thought, I imagined her concern was that I might add some unnecessary complication. While Uncle Buster went to see about Daddy, Aunt Mae Louise left to talk to her father-in-law and make the arrangements for the funeral. She didn’t ask me to go along, either.
Not more than an hour after she left, the phone rang. I wasn’t going to answer it, but it rang so long, I finally decided it might be Uncle Buster.