Carrying Mason (4 page)

I
stood in the living room trying to listen in on their conversation. But that didn’t last long. Daddy shooed me out so fast my head spun. Instead of going upstairs to meet the usual wrath of Delores, I headed outside to sit on the porch swing.

The sun was finally starting to set, which meant the temperature would be dropping even though the humidity would stick around like a mean sister. And I mean stick. It was like being wrapped in a smothering blanket all summer long. The only relief we got on days like those was from swimming down at Indian Head Rock or sometimes from the hose when Daddy said it was all right. Mason and me spent lots of hours at Indian Head, jumping feet first from the old rock and floating on the creek.

Once in a while Ruby Day would come with us. She liked to wade out just to her knees and splash the water at us. She laughed and laughed like it was the best trick ever. Maybe I’d take Ruby Day to the creek.

“You really gonna go live with Ruby Day?” It was Jasper. He’d snuck into my peripheral vision while I wasn’t looking. “Don’t you like us anymore?”

“It ain’t like that.”

He sat on the porch step. “Then how come?”

“Because Ruby Day needs me. There ain’t no one else.”

That was when Mama appeared at the screen and called me back inside. I tried to read her face when I passed by her on my way to the living room, but I couldn’t. Mama could keep a secret like nobody’s business. I sat in the rocking chair on account of I figured rocking could keep me busy while my parents said their piece.

“You’re only thirteen, Luna. Too young for so much responsibility,” Mama said.

“But Mama, you were just seventeen when you and Daddy got married, and Clara Greely down the road is fixin’ to marry that boy, Hugh, come September as soon as he starts in the mines.”

“That’s different.”

“But she’s just sixteen. Her daddy said it was for the best on account of they can’t afford to feed all the mouths they got.”

That was when Daddy spied Jasper hiding behind the sofa.

“You come out of there,” Daddy called.

Mama shooed Jasper away. “Go on now, boy, find something else to do. This ain’t your beeswax.”

“Don’t go, Luna,” Jasper said.

“I’ll just be down the street. I’ll see you all the time.”

“You heard your mother, Jasper. Now git!”

Mama patted my knee. “What about your dreams, Luna? What about going to college and becoming a teacher?”

“I can still go,” I said. “I’ll just go close. I can drive back and forth every day.” I turned to Daddy. “Daddy, you and me can get Mason’s old jalopy running good enough.”

“I don’t know, Luna.” Mama shook her head.

“Please, Mama. You’ll see. I’ll become a teacher and make enough money to care for myself and Ruby Day, even though she gets money from her job at the grocers and …”

I stopped talking because right then I didn’t really know where she got her money. Mama’s brow wrinkled. “Come to think of it, she just has that little job bagging groceries, and that can’t pay enough.”

“Yeah, but she works harder than anyone I ever seen down there, Mama. She’s a right good bagger and Mason told me she never broke an egg or a jar or—”

Daddy finally piped up. “Look. It’s all fine and
dandy that you still want to go to college, but how can you be so sure Ruby Day even wants you to come live with her?”

I hadn’t thought of that. “I guess I don’t know for sure, Daddy. But … but I can’t imagine one reason why she’d say no. She’s got to be mighty lonely in that house.”

Daddy walked to the stairs and stood with his hand on the stair rail and one foot on the first step. “I can’t be giving you much money, Luna. Maybe a little here and there, but you’ll be on your own if you do this.”

“She can come home for meals sometimes—” Mama patted my knee again and pulled me close. “I suppose I can bring you some plates on occasion—you know, fried chicken and fish.”

My chest swelled like it was all of a sudden filled with the air it had been missing since Mason died. I took such a deep breath I got dizzy for a second. “You mean it, Mama? I can go?”

“Pack your things.”

Mama swiped at tears in her eyes. “I love you, Luna.”

I touched her cheek. “I love you too, Mama. You’ll see. I’ll be fine, just fine, and I’ll become a teacher. A great one. You’ll see.”

“Okay. I know you will.”

When I walked into my room, I saw Delores wearing a white slip and sitting at her table primping.

“What are you getting all dolled up for?” I asked.

“None of your beeswax, pig nose.”

“I bet I know. You’re running out to meet Carl Yeager.”

She turned suddenly and threw her brush at me, barely missing my left ear. “I am not, and besides, even if I was, what’s it to you?”

“Ain’t nothing to me, especially now.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

I opened my two drawers and pulled out all my clothes, dumping them on my bed. “Seen that old suitcase April and June were playing with?”

“Yeah, they filled it with doll stuff and April said it got lost in the creek. They were using it for a boat.”

“Shoot! I need that.” I looked around. “I’ll just use cardboard boxes then.”

“Where you—” She stopped and stared at me. This time face-to-face, not face-to-mirror. “You mean Mama and Daddy are lettin’ you move in with Ruby Day?”

“Yep. I’m goin’ right now, so it looks like you’ll be getting those extra drawers.”

Delores pretty much leaped off her chair. “No foolin’? You’re really going?”

“Yes. Mama said to pack my things.”

Delores sat back down with a thud. “I don’t believe it. How come you wanna go live with a retard, anyway?”

“I told you not to call her that.” I dumped a box full of doll heads and toy trucks onto the floor. “This’ll do.”

“But that’s what she is. How come you wanna live with her?”

“Because she doesn’t have anyone else.” I watched Delores watch me in the mirror, and for a second I thought I saw a tiny hint of compassion cross her brow.

“You’ll be sorry.” Delores finished her makeup or whatever she was doing and pulled on a light pink seersucker dress. Then she checked out the view in the mirror. “Don’t wait up,” she said with a wave of her hand. “Oh, guess you won’t be here when I get home.”

“Nope. I’ll be at Ruby Day’s if you need me.”

“Need you? Why would I ever need you when I got Carl?”

That’s what worried me. But I never told her that. Delores was the type that went against things she was told just for the sake of doing it—and usually without a thought to the consequences. Mama said she was like a whirling dervish going every which way without a thought to what was in the path.

I finished gathering everything I thought I would need. “It’ll be better now,” I said, standing at the door looking in.

Mama and Daddy were sitting in the living room when I came down with my box. Mama was sewing a pair of Jasper’s pants and hardly looked at me. Daddy, on the other hand, looked at me long and hard.

“You sure about this?” he asked.

“I am, Daddy. Fact is I don’t think I’ve ever been surer about anything in my whole life.”

“Whole life, geeze,” Mama said, “hardly call thirteen years a whole life.”

Daddy took a step closer to me. “I’m still gonna keep my eye on you. If your schoolwork gets in trouble—”

“It won’t, Daddy. You’ll see.”

I dropped my box near the door. “It’s gonna be all right, Mama, I promise. I’ll come visit nearly every day and you can come see me whenever you want. I’m just down the road, you know. Not like I’m moving to China. And I’ll see you at church every Sunday.”

Mama stuffed Jasper’s pants between the arm of the chair and her thigh. She heaved a big sigh and then stood. “I’ll see ya tomorrow, Luna.” Then she smiled, a brave smile, but I could see the concern she had twitching at the corners of her mouth. “Give Luna a ride, Justus,” she said. “Don’t want the neighbors seeing her walking down the road carrying her belongings like that. They’ll think she run away.”

The twins and Jasper were on the porch. They didn’t say much to me except good-bye. April hardly even looked my way, but June wrapped her arms around my legs. “Bye, Luna Fish.”

Jasper folded his arms against his chest and took a stand on the steps. “Don’t know why you wanna live there and not here.”

I tousled his hair. He flinched. “You can come see me any time, and I’ll come over all the time.” Next I hugged Polly good and tight. She whimpered like she knew I was leaving. “I’ll still be around, girl, don’t you worry.” She licked my face. “Keep an eye on Jasper— don’t let him float away in the creek.”

“Come on, Luna,” Daddy said. “Let’s get a move on.”

I turned back and saw Mama standing at the screen. She raised her hand and made a tiny wave. I couldn’t wave on account I was still holding the box in both arms. So I nodded and smiled. “I love you, Mama. This is gonna be fine.”

“You can always change your mind, Luna. Ain’t no rule against it.”

R
uby Day stood on the other side of the screen door and looked at me like she was staring down the barrel of a shotgun. Then she collected herself. “Luna, how come you came back? Forget somethin’?”

“No, Ruby Day, I come to stay with you. I’m going to take care of you now—forever. See, I got all my belongings in this box.”

She backed off a step. “What? How come … I mean …” She stopped stammering and stared at me some more. “You can’t do that, Luna. You got your own people.”

“But you need help, and … and besides, I promised Mason.”

She pressed her nose against the screen. “Mason?”

“He made me promise a long time ago that if anything ever … well you know, if it happened that I
would care for you. So here I am.” I swallowed. The lie got caught in my throat, but I forced it out. I’d ask God’s forgiveness later on.

Ruby Day pushed open the screen, and I squeezed in past her. “It’s gonna be fine, Ruby Day. We’ll have a good time together.” I dropped the box on the floor.

She flopped onto the sofa and shook a little. “You ask your mama and daddy ‘bout this?”

“They said it was a fine idea.”

Ruby Day made her way to the mantle and touched Mason’s picture. “But … but I … I don’t need no help. I’ll be okay.”

“No, Ruby Day, I want to help, and I already told you, I promised Mason.”

“Ain’t no truth in that and you know it, Luna. You just feelin’ sorry for me. For the dumb retard down the block.”

“Now, that ain’t true. Even if I didn’t actually promise Mason I’m … I’m making the promise now.” I snatched Mason’s picture from her trembling hands. “I’m here now, Mason. And I promise to take care of your mama.”

Ruby Day flopped on the couch again and held her head in her hands with her elbows resting on her knees. “I … I wish I didn’t need no help. Wish I weren’t so … feebleminded.”

I sat next to her. “It’s just the way God made you, and maybe you aren’t like everybody else around here,
but that doesn’t make you stupid or well, like you’re a mistake. But you do need help. And that’s why I’m here.”

Ruby Day swiped at tears and sniffled. “Okay, Luna.”

Ruby Day’s house only had two bedrooms, so I had to settle myself into Mason’s room. Everything looked exactly the way it always did. A bed stood in the center of the room with a blue blanket on it. There was a tall dresser against the wall with Mason’s record player on top. A small table near the head of the bed held a lamp that still had a shade painted with nursery rhymes on it. Ruby Day hadn’t touched or moved a thing. I started to cry when I saw the stack of record albums on the floor.

I found some clean sheets in the hallway linen closet, and then I picked up dirty clothes off the floor. I opened a window and turned on the fan to let the musty boy smell out.

It wasn’t hard to settle into a routine after that first day. I never realized how much I had learned from Mama about taking care of a house. Ruby Day went to work
at the grocery store every morning like clockwork. She dressed, ate, and walked out the door at exactly the same time to catch the bus straight to Haskell’s Grocery Store. It was almost like watching a ballet. And she returned every day at exactly 4:07 unless the bus was late. Whenever that happened it always made her nervous, and she’d walk in the front door all atwitter and apologetic like it was her fault that the bus driver had to help Mrs. Rooper coax her kitty cat, Mavis, out of the dogwood tree.

One time I went along with her in the morning. I wanted to see the exact route the bus took and to let Mr. Haskell know that I would be living with Ruby Day now.

“Morning, Ruby Day,” said the bus driver.

“Morning, Cal,” Ruby Day said.

I followed her to a seat about halfway down the aisle.

“There she is,” I heard a woman say in a voice that wasn’t quite low enough. “That dreadful retarded woman. You know, the one whose son got killed. It was a right shame, but I’m amazed they still let her work and all like she was a regular person.”

I sat next to Ruby Day, but not before I managed to glare at the women.

“They shouldn’t talk about you like that,” I said.

Ruby Day looked out the window. “Ah, it don’t bother me. Not so much anymore.”

“But it still isn’t nice. Women like that should know better.”

The bus lurched and came to a stop at the next corner. The two women got up and walked past us. They stopped near the driver and dropped coins into the coin collector. One of the women looked back at us and Ruby Day smiled wide at her. “I hope you have a nice day.”

I was surprised when the woman smiled back.

“It’s like I always told Mason,” Ruby Day said. “Being kind can make a mean person shine.”

The bus stopped right out front of Haskell’s Grocery Store. All in all it was about a ten-minute ride from home. Ruby Day dropped a token into the coin machine like it was a solemn event.

“You have a good day at work, Ruby Day,” Cal said. “I’ll be back to get you at four o’clock.”

“Thank you,” Ruby Day said.

Haskell’s Grocery sat square in the middle of the block on Hill Street between Betty Lou’s Beauty Parlor and Snipes Drug Store. I followed Ruby Day inside and watched her hang up her coat in a back room that smelled from a mixture of provolone cheese and coffee beans. She took a long card with her name on it from a rack on the wall near a funny-looking clock.

“This here is the time clock,” she said. “I have to punch in every day and punch out every day. It’s how Mr. Haskell keeps track of how many hours I worked.”

Just then a woman wearing a white apron and hair piled on top of her head like a beehive walked into the room. “Ruby Day,” she said. “Mr. Haskell needs you to clean up the mess in aisle three—four pickle jars busted.”

“Okay, I’ll do that, Lavinia,” Ruby Day said.

Ruby Day and I walked to the pickle mess. It smelled pretty strong, but Ruby Day wasted no time cleaning the mess up and mopping the floor.

“No wonder you don’t want to clean anything at home,” I said.

Ruby Day laughed. “It’s my job, Luna.”

Then I saw Mr. Haskell strutting down the aisle. The look on his face told me he had something serious on his mind.

“Where’s Lavinia?” he asked.

“Break room,” Ruby Day said. “She told me to clean up the pickle jars.”

He shook his head and twisted up his mouth. Then he said, “I told her to do it. Ruby Day, you get to the register when you finish and start bagging.”

There was already a line six women deep at the register. Ruby Day introduced me to Flossie, a sweet-looking woman with curly brown hair and bright blue eyes.

“It’s so nice to meet you,” she said. “Will you be working here?”

Ruby Day laughed. “No, Flossie, Luna has school.”

The next thing we saw was Lavinia running out of the break room.

“I wonder what happened,” I said.

Mr. Haskell followed Lavinia. “I had to fire her. This was the last straw.”

“Oh, I … I’m sorry,” Ruby Day said. “I didn’t mean to get Lavinia in trouble.”

Mr. Haskell put his hand on Ruby Day’s shoulder. “Not your fault.”

“That’s right,” Flossie said. “You didn’t do anything to get that woman canned.”

There was a long enough pause in the conversation for me to jump in and tell Mr. Haskell what I came to tell him.

“Well, that’s fine, Luna,” he said. “I’m glad to know Ruby Day will be in good hands.”

I stayed another couple of minutes. “I better get going, Ruby Day. I’ll see you at home.”

All in all I was glad I went to work with Ruby Day that morning. It helped me see how much people like Mr. Haskell cared about her and how some people treated her. It made me sort of upset to know that not everyone treated Ruby Day so nice.

I went to visit Mama most days and that was fine. I was there so much it was almost like I never left. Delores liked having extra drawers, at least according
to April and June, but I hardly ever saw her. Delores was always running out to meet her friends.

“But I’m doing real good, Mama. Ruby Day is easy to be with most of the time, except when she gets to rattling so about subjects.”

“Like what,” Mama asked.

“Her flowers for one. And now that it’s nearing the end of August, most of them are dying off and that makes her sad.”

Mama and me sat on the porch during most of my visits, and as the days passed, it started to feel more and more like I was visiting and Mama started to have less patience with sitting on the porch. She’d say things like, “I got a lot of mending to do, Luna.” Or, “It’s ‘bout time I peeled some potatoes for supper.”

My little brother and sisters were getting ready to go back to school, but they hung around me like I was some visiting princess when I came by, and I will admit that I liked the feeling. Daddy, when I saw him—which wasn’t too often—didn’t seem to have much to say.

Life went on like that until the middle of September. Ruby Day worked each and every shift and spent the rest of her time watching TV or getting her garden ready for winter.

The worst part during that time was school. I started the eighth grade on schedule, but it was like walking into a foreign country. All the eyes in Mrs. Grady’s
class stared at me like I might have had squirrels on my head. One day that nasty Francine Whitaker even whispered to Wilma Burns. She didn’t think I heard her, but I have good hearing. I heard her say, “Did you know Luna went to live with that feebleminded woman? That’s what my mama calls her. They’re like best friends now and that makes Luna feebleminded too. Only a moron would do what she’s doin’.”

I gave her such a glare that if it was a hand it would have knocked her off the chair. Not on account of her saying I was a retard, but on account of how she saw Ruby Day.

That afternoon I went to Mama and asked her about it. She was sitting on the porch with Polly as usual, shucking the last of the summer corn. “Luna,” she said in that take-charge tone she had, “what do you think you should do about the girls at school?”

“I don’t know. I can’t keep people from talking, ‘specially people who don’t understand.”

Mama kept right on shucking while I sat and thought about my problem. I scratched Polly behind the ears and every so often she whined or whimpered like she understood.

“You know,” I said after a while. “Maybe I can help them understand.”

“How so?”

“Maybe I can ask Mrs. Grady to let me talk to the
whole class and explain why I went to live with Ruby Day. You know? That might help.”

Mama grew a grin as wide as an ear of corn. “That might work, Sweetheart. That might just work.”

It was right after Mama said those words that I felt my back straighten. “Thank you, Mama, thank you. I’m going to do that tomorrow.”

Mama shooed me off the porch with four ears of corn, instructions on how to boil it, and a kiss on the nose. “I am proud of you,” she said.