Memphis: A Novel(15)
I heard my parents before I saw them, heard the unmistakable alto of my daddy.
“Say, you just had to wear that dress. You looked like a goddamned fool tonight.”
My mama’s bitter laugh. “I’m a bad mother, right? Might as well be a bad wife. Get off of me!”
My parents barreled across the kitchen toward the open refrigerator as one chaotic force, a swirl of sequins and Marine Corps dress blues. Daddy still wore his blue jacket, the ribbons on his jacket gleaming in the kitchen light. Mama’s back hit the edge of the refrigerator door hard, and I saw a frightened look in her eyes as she twisted like a cyclone from the pain of it. Mama threw herself onto the island to stop herself from falling. And Daddy was her shadow throughout, in a boxer’s stance, bouncing on his toes, waiting to strike. I held my breath, hands balled into fists, as if I were his opponent in the ring. I had heard my parents fight before. A light sleeper, I often woke to the sound of them shouting. My father cursing, my mother crying. But I had never before seen my father hit my mother. I did not think that kind of chaos was possible. The truth shocked me, but I couldn’t deny it. There it was in front of me: My father was capable of dark, terrifying things. He had hit her. Maybe he had before. The casual way he followed her, the boxer’s stance. Maybe that’s why my muscles were tensed: I was ready to hurtle down the rest of the stairs and throw myself in front of my mother.
But Mama was a force. She ran around the kitchen island in her gold sequins, creating distance between them in a matter of seconds. With the quick reflexes of a rabid animal, she picked up a plastic Heinz mustard bottle that was among the disarray on the floor and squirted the bottle’s contents straight into my father’s face from across the island.
The yellow spray reminded me, ridiculously, of the arc of a jump rope at its height. It slid down Daddy’s perfect uniform, the cheap yellow seeming to make no sense on his formal blues. For a moment, I thought of a parallel world where parents finished a glamorous evening eating messy late-night hamburgers, playful and teasing.
“Have your whore wear black and white!” my mom screamed.
Daddy stumbled backward into the open fridge, yelling like a wounded animal as he swiped at his eyes. More noise than Mama made when she hit the refrigerator door, I thought distantly.
Mama paused, put down the bottle, and just as quick, ran to my father and asked, “Are you okay, baby?”
Daddy flung out his arm.
Whether Daddy aimed purposeful or not, whether he struck in fear or in anger, the fact remained that his fist met my mama’s worried left eye with a right hook that sent her flying. Mama fell in slow motion, her sequined dress looking like a thousand fireflies twinkling in a summer southern field.
Daddy walked over to the heap on the floor that was Mama. Where he found a dishrag, I didn’t know. In the chaos of the kitchen, everything happened so fast. He bent down over her, and I thought, with a rush of fear, that there might be blood he needed to wipe up. But then I saw: Daddy used it to wipe his own face. He was squatting now, hovering over Mama.
“You let that boy do that to Joan,” he said. “Like I said: Worse than having no mother at all.” And he walked over her. Walked out the kitchen into the unlit hallway that led to our den. There were yellow stains dripping down his shoulders. As I watched him go, his back looked like the back of a stranger.
I crouched, frozen, in my hiding place. I don’t know how she did it, but after a minute, I saw Mama crawling on her belly like I had seen Marines do in training. Crawled until she reached the wall where we had our telephone. An arm shot up and fumbled for the cord. Failed. Faltered. Attempted again. I strained with her, willing the phone to fall into her hand. The third time, she got it. She was able to turn herself so that she lay half upright, half sprawled out on the kitchen floor. Her left eye was swelling up, but her right eye was what scared me. There was a fear and desperation there I’d never seen in anyone, especially not my mama. I couldn’t see what numbers she was pressing into the phone, but I knew it couldn’t be 911 because she went past three digits.
“August?” I heard Mama say. Then she started to sob.
CHAPTER 7
Miriam
1995
It took some effort, but finally Miriam managed to grab the bottle of Pappy Van Winkle off a high shelf in the kitchen. The kitchen mirrored the parlor in that it also had a high-beamed, conical alcove. But where the parlor was dark, the kitchen was bright and cream. Wood-paneled walls painted the color of buttermilk. Her father had hand-painted purple lilacs, clusters of purple lavender, and hummingbirds on the walls, too. Miriam remembered there were dates hidden in discreet black cursive among the flowers: January 1, 1863; December 7, 1941; August 14, 1945. And eye-level and hidden within a bouquet: June 6, 1943, her parents’ wedding day.
Miriam’s father had built the kitchen to resemble the intimacy of an old Italian restaurant. There was a huge butcher-block counter that took up an entire length of one wall. Pots and pans of all shapes and sizes hung from the high ceiling. The north wall was built with brick, and there, he had put the stove and the near-walk-in butcher’s fridge. Instead of a traditional kitchen table, he had built a breakfast nook complete with a U-shaped booth. A curved bench around the table held green, tufted-velvet cushions that Miriam remembered felt like sitting on air.
Miriam walked to the booth, where her sister sat on an emerald cushion, chain-smoking Kools. Miriam said nothing. She knew her sister well. An arched eyebrow or an upturned corner of the mouth was evidence enough of her judgment. But it was well past midnight. All the children asleep. What was the real harm?