Lies We Bury(13)

My lips purse. “Well, thanks for allowing me to drop in on you like this. Can I help in the garden? It’s probably the least I can do, after you trucked around the painting all this time.”

“I could use some slave labor,” she quips. “Thanks.”

In a modest backyard overflowing with plants, Jenessa proudly presents the tomato vines she’s grown along the perimeter and the flowers sprouting beside them. Nora’s green thumb, all the way. From beside the porch, she produces a tray of iris bulbs and shows me where they should be planted.

“How’s Nora doing?” I ask.

Jenessa pauses beside a bird-of-paradise flower. “Good. She’s taken a back seat at the floral shop and is traveling more. Seeing more of the state lately.”

“Do you spend a lot of time together?”

Jenessa hands me a trowel, and I use it to form a shallow pit in the moist earth. The first bulb I grab feels damp in my palm.

“Enough.”

I nod, needing no further explanation. After years of alcoholism and prescription-drug abuse, it sounds like Nora’s finally found balance—at least outwardly.

We finish depositing the last bulb. Jenessa walks me back through the house to the front door.

“You want to grab a late lunch at Patriot Brewery?” I ask. “Their sandwiches are supposed to be stacked. Extra fries.”

She brushes hair from her forehead—“Sure”—and says she’ll meet me there. Although she advised against pursuing the note any further, I can’t see the harm in checking out another brewery while I’m in the area. I lean into her shoulder and get a lungful of her fruity shampoo scent. She pulls away, holding me at arm’s length. Her grip on my shoulders is firm.

“Don’t want to get lipstick on you,” she says.

“No.” The tension between us has always been there. But she’s family. I recognize myself in the quick way she strikes out, then recoils—burrows—back inside herself to safety. Seeing her now, I have to wonder what drove me to remain so aloof for so long from the only people who could possibly love and understand me.

As I turn to leave, I pass a bowl of bananas, apples, and nectarines within reach on an end table, but I tuck my elbows in and refrain from pocketing any.





Six





THEN


Mama Rosemary pats Sweet Lily’s head again. Stroking her hair like she would a little doll in her lap. Just like always. Never mind that I’ve been practicing my alphabet all morning while Mama Rosemary said she needed time to think. I taught a new song to Sweet Lily, too, but all Mama Rosemary cared about was whether Twin had memorized the speech she gave her for articulation practice. I huff in my corner, now that it’s finally free of Twin and I’m able to sit. She left a Mars Bar wrapper on the ground, saved from her birthday back in April. Caramel sticks to the baseboards like yucky snot.

Sweet Lily starts to hum the theme song from SpongeBob. She twists her little neck side to side on each word. SpongeBob-Square-Pants!

“Sweet Lil, do you want to come sit with me? We can play patty-cake.” I move over to make room, but not much is needed for the littlest of us. “Lil?” I pat the ground.

She raises blue eyes as big as marbles to me. I think she’s going to say yes when her favorite toy—a fire truck—erupts in a long siren.

“Wanna play with me, Sweet Lily?” Twin stands up and makes the truck vroom vroom around the room all giggly. Sweet Lily’s face breaks into a smile and she slides off Mama Rosemary’s lap.

“Girls, will you please? Your sister is not a plaything. You can share her attention. Lily, you don’t have to play with either of them if you don’t want.” Mama Rosemary sighs.

Sweet Lily hesitates between me and Twin, then points to the fire truck in Twin’s hand. “Truck.” She joins Twin in the bed room that someone dug out way way back and the mattress creaks as they jump on the bed.

Mama Rosemary places her hand on my shoulder. Her hair almost touches the ceiling and the paper we looped together to form a chain dangles from the pipes and hits her head. “Sweetheart, why don’t you help me choose what we should bring with us?”

A tear falls from my eye and piddles on the frayed rug. Like Courage the Cowardly Dog piddles on the rug in his house. Sadness pokes up beneath my T-shirt and I start to hiccup a cry. Mama Rosemary rubs my back until I get it all out. I sniffle then rub my nose with my sleeve.

“All better?” she asks.

“Mm-hmm.”

She takes me over behind the cupboard where she pulls out a plastic bag. She dumps it on the rug. I recognize one shirt for each of us, one pants for each of us, our toothbrushes and the last box of crackers that Mama Rosemary made us stop eating.

“Can we have more now?” I point to the crackers. Round buttery and crispy circles. I suck on them until they dissolve in my mouth. Yum.

Mama Rosemary shakes her head. “Not yet, honey. We’re going to need these, depending on how this evening goes. Come help me make more rug.” She points to the small table that fits only three of us at a time and rips off a strip from an old sheet. Stains cover one side left over from when Sweet Lily was born and which Mama Rosemary always hated. Said it reminded her of bad times, and Mama Bethel leaving for heaven. I never understood that because Sweet Lily being born was a good time but I wasn’t allowed nearby. I was only four.