Otherwise Known as Possum Page 2

  It’s what I’d spent most of the night thinking about. If Daddy and I were going to keep our little family together, including a place for Momma, we needed to keep everything just like it was.

  Every change, even tiny ones like being woken early on a Sunday, could be trouble. I did not want one more freckle to fall off my knee for fifty years. At least.

  “We’re goin’ to church.”

  Church? Well! That’s just the kind of unexpected that you don’t mind when it finally gets here. “Why come, Daddy?” I’m partial to the singing and rainbow windows though not the wearing of shoes.

  Daddy put two whole biscuits into his mouth and held up his wait-a-minute finger.

  I used the time to try to recall where my funeral shoes were. Under the table, the toes of one foot tested the size of the other. Maybe my feet had grown. Maybe the wretched shoes wouldn’t fit. Or we wouldn’t be able to find them. Or, best yet, Daddy wouldn’t remember I had shoes at all.

  Luckily, I’d had a bath just last night, singing to Momma from the tin tub till the sky darkened and skeeters outnumbered lightning bugs, but that was coincidence. I no longer got to church regular. I used to go with GrandNam. She and I went near everywhere together, and her favorite was church.

  ’Course, now that Momma and Baby are in Heaven too, I reckon GrandNam can catch up with Momma all she likes plus get to know Baby, maybe take him to meet David in that green pasture with the still water.

  Daddy wiped his damp brow with one of the kerchiefs I washed for him weekly and finally answered my why come. “Let’s say we’re going to thank God for autumn and pray for cooler weather. Plus, you can thank Him that I haven’t found wherever you had Traveler put those shoes of yours.”

  I’m of no mind about people’s feet one way or another, but GrandNam made sure I had shoes in church. Though I reckon God knew what my toes looked like, and so did Preacher, as he saw ’em plenty when I helped Daddy build the choir risers.

  On that sweltery September Sunday, Daddy and me and my bare feet walked up the silent, hot, country road with no more words needed between us. I felt that we would present a united front to the Town Ladies in front of God and all, and they would see how things are. That he and I were doin’ just fine and didn’t need any more of their fixing.

  Yet I knew those biddies likely would keep flapping back, poking at Daddy. Crows are constant. He might eventually want to give in, just from weariness. So I’d take my cause to the pulpit, so to speak, and be sure every man, woman, and child I encountered in the holler knew I was already good for learning and in no need of schooling.

  Every critter path eventually leads to water, but for people, their ruts and roads seem to lead to salvation. Soon we were calling halloos to the neighbors’ neighbors, all headed toward their weekly reward.

  For plenty of folks, church, market days, and funerals is about the only times we see each other, but I knew not to look for Tully. He goes to his cousin’s every summer or whenever his daddy finds himself in trouble too deep, but Tully can’t ever get far enough to quit his place in me. When I had chicken spots, he did too, and we played cards for three days and itched each other’s scratches. Both of us ended up with a scar shaped like a carp on our left shoulders. Makes us battle brethren. I wished he was on duty with me now. It was like I was half myself, which should have felt half the sorrow, but that I seemed to have twofold.

  Not that Tully likely would’ve been along on any Sunday. His pa is like the prodigal son. Someday Mister Spencer will walk into church, and Preacher will call for the fatted calf. Till then, fall through spring, Tully works most Sundays at the distillery, which I might too if I wasn’t in God’s sight.

  The closer we got to church, the lousier the path got with the usual saints and sinners, what Momma called the blessed in their best, and the bless-ed rest.

  Taking in the social swirl, I hummed to be sure I’d be in fine voice, but a whistle slipped out when I spotted a cloud of dust rolling up the road, trailing a bundle of brown on two wheels.

  When the dust cleared, what got my attention next was the short wavy bob of brown hair under a brown felt hat. Most grown-up ladies I’ve ever seen wear their hair finger-curled or in a pug, like is natural. But I saw in a magazine that city girls and movie stars are getting boy haircuts, and I wanted one, thinking it’d be less bothersome than knots and tangles. What I truly wished for was a scalp-mowing like the Justice boys get every spring, summer, and fall. ’Course, if wishes were matches, you could set the world afire.

  Mostly I can’t be bothered one way or t’other about hair any more than about shoes and feet. Momma used to fix mine; Daddy tried but once. “Hangman’s noose, Possum,” he swore. Took him forever to fix those “braids” and an entire summer twilight to unfix.

  When I finally tore my stare from the new lady’s hair, I fixed on her brown skirt and shirtwaist; even her eyes blinked brown at the world. My eyes are brown too, like Daddy’s, melted chocolate. Hers, though, look like cedar, not the bark but the inside, at once warm and splintery.

  Brown Lady parked her bicycle and put right her hat, smiling at the Crows flocked and fanning in the slim river of shade near the church steps. ’Course, Momma is the prettiest lady I’ve ever seen, including in picture shows, because those ladies don’t have the wild roses of Momma’s cheeks or the smell of the lavender sachets she sewed and planted around our house.

  Still, this lady looked … well, not painted like those movie stars but not dried up and dusty like the ladies around here neither. I felt I knew what Preacher meant by scales falling from my eyes. She seemed young and fresh-looking despite the dust along the hem of her skirt.

  As Brown Lady stepped forward, the Crows folded in close, almost as if they thought the steps were a nest that needed protecting.

  I wanted to get closer. Any stranger is news, and any news is bound to blow something interesting with it. Truth, we don’t get many strangers at our Church of Good Endeavor and Intention. And this one didn’t look like any I’d seen. Surely a lady who looked so soft like that couldn’t be so dangerous?

  Miss Nagy stepped forward the way I figured a missionary might face a pygmy. With righteousness in the heart, nothing in your face can give away what you might be feeling to see something so fearsome and strange.

  Though the biddy’s face was stern as cracked earth, at her words the Brown Lady lit up like the Fourth of July. I imagined Miss Nagy didn’t know what to make of the stranger’s damp forehead and perfect white teeth, much less the sight of her bicycle or her ankles.

  The old biddy pointed in the direction of the road, by where Daddy stood. Probably telling the young biddy to leave, right away making me want to invite her in. Isn’t that what Jesus would want? I at least wanted to get close enough so I could give Tully a full report. He’d be sorry to miss the sight of this passerby, even if she weren’t a customer for his pappy’s still.

  At that precise moment thinking about her, as I sidled close enough to use the ears God gave me, the Brown Lady turned my way. She was sure-enough pretty and didn’t look like a menace—yet when her smile fell to Daddy and he half nodded back, it made me feel hot and funny.

  As Daddy caught up to me, he seemed about to speak. Instead of letting him, I grabbed him by one sleeve and pulled him toward the church steps.

  Inside, the smells of soap and clean sweat and lilac water rose to greet us. Though Mrs. Preacher played the upright as folks drifted in, the flutter and sigh of ladies’ fans were louder.

  I took Daddy’s hand and let him lead me to our regular pew near the David window—my favorite. Seeing the little shepherd boy and feeling Daddy’s hand in mine, I felt for a moment like I belonged in a place—a feeling I didn’t even know about till I lost it when Momma died.

  I did not see whether the Brown Lady sat or even came in, because Daddy made me stop twisting around to look. “Who do you think she is, Daddy? What do you think she wants?”

  I figured that if she dared to come insi
de and she was a she-devil, the piano music would thunder, giving us all fair warning. To bide my time, I studied David’s stained glass lamb and loosed up my tongue for hymn singing.

  GrandNam said singing is a kind of prayer. Personally, I’d think during church is when God is busiest and doesn’t need to hear any more requests, so mostly we talk under Momma’s pecan tree. Still, when the organ wheezed itself awake for “Joyfully Reunited,” I made sure everybody I know in Heaven could hear. What proper lyrics don’t land on my tongue in time I fill in with my own:

  When autumn’s chill puts trees to sleep,

  When winds are cold and snow lies deep,

  Our father’s love will keep us warm,

  Our spirit strong and safe from ha-a-a-rm.

  I wasn’t the only one with a mouthful, because when the music ended, someone kept singing. It was only a few extra notes, but it was no intentional solo by one of Preacher’s kids. And mine wasn’t the only head turning to find the source.

  Those of us who did look saw Brown Lady holding that last clear note, eyes closed and chin raised. Only when she appeared good and sure that that final prayer was all the way out of her mouth did the stranger open her eyes and close her lips. That she seemed to take no more notice of the looks or whispers than I might made me smile.

  Who is she?

  By the time Preacher Andrews gave one of his less fiery sermons about how the Good Samaritan today would vote for Mister Roosevelt, and Mrs. Andrews read a six-page letter from a Texas couple we sponsored on their mission of mercy to Darkest Africa, and Susie and Diane Andrews led a three-hymn prayer session intended to persuade God to break the blessed heat wave by mentioning “river” or “water” or “streams” or “washing” about 837 times, I had to crisscross out of church with my knees together and hightail it to a place I could relieve myself.

  Next I followed a row of ants carrying leaves ten thousand times bigger than their heads. I decided to help them out by putting a whole pileful right outside their hill; it’s what Christian neighbors do. Hopefully, they did not have to labor so long and hard on their Sabbath once they discovered the miracle of the leaves. Maybe they would make a parable about it.

  By the time I’d wandered back toward the church, it appeared most everyone had gone on to the social hall for Philco time. With batteries expensive and hard to come by, anybody with a radio has a day to turn theirs on for whoever cares to listen, and naturally on Sunday it’s God’s turn, by way of Preacher. Most folks bring picnics and stay right through Chase and Sanborn Hour.

  I made my way toward Daddy, who was talking with Big Mac and his dad, Little Mac, knowing they’d be talking something good: fishing or hunting, crops or job prospects. Turned out to be election talk. The Macs are about the only folks left in these parts who don’t think “Hoover” is a cuss word.

  While I waited, I used my toes to make a row of rocks, two deep, across the dirt path, nosing them into order with my big toe while mostly looking up at the trees and whistling snippets of hymns.

  I know God sees every sparrow, but I had not anticipated He would notice my little wall of Jericho until Brown Lady’s front bicycle tire tumbled it. I barely had a chance to laugh before she wobbled right into Daddy, who saved her.

  Tully’s pa, who knows a lot about women cuz he doesn’t have a wife, says some women act weak and helpless so a fella will feel the need to protect them. I think that’s disgusting. Nobody was less weak or helpless than Momma, and I ought to know, because I turned out just like her. Everybody ought to take care of themselves, is what I think, and not live off someone else, like ticks on deer.

  She climbed off the bicycle after Daddy grabbed hold of the handlebars, and he said something to her and looked my way. She smiled but did not look at me. That alone seemed curious enough for me to investigate.

  I watched the Macs tip their hats at the lady and then scurry past me, headed in the other direction as quick as I’ve ever seen them move, like the Brown Lady had a medicine they didn’t want to swallow. This made me even more curious.

  “Rather warm, isn’t?” She fanned herself with the gloves she carried.

  “No more’n we might expect”—Daddy twirled his hat in his hands—“this time of year.”

  She used the gloves to shield her eyes and looked up at the cloudless sky. “I hope rain will bring some relief. I’m sure the crops and such could benefit as well.”

  Couldn’t this stranger tell Daddy was no farmer?

  “Rain brings its share o’ troubles.”

  She switched the gloves from one hand to the other. “Yes, of course, it does. Too much of a good thing can become a bad thing, can’t it? That would be true of most things.”

  “I wouldn’t know about most things, miss. Just wood. Don’t guess you can have too much wood.” With each word, Daddy seemed to be backing away from the Brown Lady even though his feet weren’t moving.

  I felt my eyes rolling in my head. I’ve seen one season chase the last while grown men talk weather, weather, and more weather. This seemed to be more of the same, to my great disappointment.

  Then I glanced toward the Crows, and the way their heads bobbed, sharp and stern, made me think. I’ve learned a lot more about rabbit hunting by minding the fox than by watchin’ the rabbit. And right then that nosy Miss Nagy and the Crows were eyein’ that Lone Ranger lady, hungry as foxes.

  I sidled thataway. “City-slick, I’d say. Hope she don’t intend to fill our children’s heads with poems and communism.”

  Communism? Communing with who? I wondered. But poems, I like those. They’re like Bible verses but with more music to the words. I spotted a ladybug stumble and tumble while trying to climb a little mound of loose dirt.

  “Far as I know, she has not so much as lifted a ruler, not even to that willful Whitman boy.”

  To who? To who?

  “Heard she’s real smart. Got her own technique for keepin’ them in line.”

  “Ruler never did no harm.”

  The ladybug fell to the bottom of its hill again.

  Won’t hurt to get closer. I nudged the ladybug back up her hill. If I accidentally heard something more, well, so much the better.

  I heard those old Crows call Brown Lady a lot of things, some of which I didn’t understand. One I did know was “New Yorker.”

  Was she a Yankee? If so, she was my first. That would explain, I supposed, her looks and ways and the Crows’ suspicions. I studied her closer. For sure it was not normal or regular for a grown-up lady to ride a bike to church. And there was the simple fact that she was here before us at all.

  “I’m sure I don’t like the way she’s standing so—” Had she ever ridden in a fast car? Did she know any loose women? Had she ever seen an elephant?

  “Maybe they do things different up north. Though you have to wonder—”

  Her Sunday best didn’t look faded or worn nor did it resemble any of the simple dresses someone like Momma or GrandNam might have worn to church.

  “ ’Course, that Roosevelt woman is to blame. Mannish, if you ask me, and—”

  I snuck another look at her face. Maybe her nose looked a bit citified, once I thought about it. I looked toward the ladybug again just in time to see her fly off.

  “I heard the schools up north teach that socialist Mister Kipling! To children!”

  Danged if I knew what half of it meant. I felt dizzy with wondering about the strangeness I could see and even more about the strangeness I could not see because it looked like regular people. Then again, you don’t always know you’ve found a good fishing hole till you spend the day fishing it.

  “Poor Noralee barely cold, but that’s a man. Like a starling and a shiny spoon—”

  Hearing Momma’s name seemed to break the spell this stranger had cast on me, and I forgot the bicycles and elephants as I tried to decide whether they were saying Momma was the starling. Or was it Daddy? Or this Yankee?

  “—and his poor daughter still running wild in the woods
—”

  Suddenly, Brown Lady clapped, and her smile could have melted bacon fat.

  Just as suddenly, the Crow Ladies seemed to notice me and each other. With knowing looks, they dispersed to whatever craggy old swamps they’d no doubt flown out of.

  I was surprised to see Daddy also smiling, something beautiful I had not seen near enough of since Momma died. I did not at that moment wonder what this Yankee person had said. I only knew it wasn’t right for him to be giving away a smile that should’ve been for Momma.

  Daddy motioned to me, and with some considerable effort, I at last made it the ten long paces to where they stood.

  The lady in brown held out to me a slim hand gloved in soft tan leather and said, “How do you do, LizBetty? I’m your new teacher.”

  I tried not to let her voice, which was soft and brown like that shirtwaist, into my ears. At that moment, I realized she was nothing but a gussied-up crow.

  “My name is Possum.”

  My voice, to my own ears, didn’t sound so much harsh as brave. When the Brown Lady held out her hand to me, it flinched, which made me feel even braver, brave enough to bury my own hands deep into my own pockets.

  “Possum!” Daddy chided.

  My toes took on a fascinating quality I had not before been aware of.

  The Brown Lady at last withdrew her hand, yet it didn’t feel like I’d gained the advantage. Perhaps it was better to ignore her altogether. Ignore her words, which surely announced Daddy’s betrayal.

  “Daddy, we should be getting on home. Trav’ll be worried.”

  He looked stopped up, but he turned to her, not me. “Like I said to you before, miss, her ma was the only one called her LizBetty. Mostly we call her Possum.”

  It was on account of GrandNam that everyone called me Possum. When she died, I got our bed to myself. Except for summer of course, when we sleep outside. But our bed was too small without her in it, and every morning, I’d wake curled on the floor. Daddy took to calling me Possum. Momma said “Possum” was no kind of name. She always said LizBetty, which is my given name. She picked it herself.