The Dry Grass of August(36)

We treaded water, side by side. “This is a great vacation.” Mama shook her head, her wet hair sending out brilliant drops.

I let the waves rock me up and down. “Mama, I asked Sarah why she was moping and she said Daddy could tell me.”

Mama’s eyes narrowed. “What are you talking about?” She grabbed my shoulder. “June?”

“Ow.” I pulled away.

Stell and Sarah came over the dunes, carrying beach chairs. Mama waved to them. She said, “That is the silliest thing I ever heard. Let’s go in and play with the kids.” She called out, “Hey, girls!”





I went to the cabana to use the bathroom and saw Mary at the clothesline, struggling with a wet sheet. I grabbed one end of it, and together we pinned it to the line, where it flapped in the wind. Uncle Taylor, like Mama, insisted on sun-dried sheets. “Your mama still down to the beach?”

I nodded.

“She enjoying herself.”

“I guess.” I rubbed my feet in the St. Augustine grass Uncle Taylor was so proud of, thicker and pricklier than our lawn at home. We hung another sheet and I asked Mary, “Are you going to call your preacher tonight to be sure Leesum got there okay?”

She fastened a pillowcase with a clothespin. “I gave Reverend Perkins your uncle’s number. He’ll call if Leesum hasn’t showed up. Any reason you think he won’t?”

“No.” I turned to go to the cabana.

“You probably not gone see that boy again.”

“I know.”





After supper I wound up lying on the floor in the den with Puddin and Davie, listening to Jack Benny, while Stell and Sarah went for a walk on the beach.

What was Leesum doing—did he listen to Jack Benny?

When Puddin and Davie went to bed, I walked down to the beach. I loved having it there, morning, noon, and night, a place where I could go and imagine things being different than they were. I followed the sound of the gulf, looking at the stars, and almost fell over my sister and my cousin sitting in the light of the half-moon.

The three of us sat in the sand, looking out over the water to lights that blinked far away, a ship on the horizon.

“I got to tell y’all something,” Sarah said. “I don’t know where to start.”

“At the beginning,” I said.

“I don’t know the beginning.” Her voice got quiet. I had to strain to hear her over the waves. “Mother had an affair with Uncle Bill.”

Waves pounded the beach, sending misty spray into the night air. I dug my hands in the sand.

“But—” Stell’s voice cracked.

“It happened,” Sarah said.

I felt lost and sure.

“That’s why Daddy got a lawyer and divorced Mama. Why I have to stay with him and can’t see her.”

“Ever?”

“Never. Uncle Bill came to Pensacola and took Mama to a motor court. Somebody told Daddy.” She pulled the rubber band from her ponytail. Her glossy black hair, so like her mother’s, fell around her shoulders. “It started after Davie was born. Daddy thinks I don’t know.”

I looked out at the waves crashing on the beach, not wanting to see the shadowy certainty on Sarah’s moonlit face.

Stell said, “Mama and Daddy have been mad at each other for a long time, but I never thought—” Her voice stopped, her words snatched away by the wind.

I asked, “How’d you find out?”

“I overheard something when I was supposed to be asleep.”

“Maybe they met at the motel just to . . .” I couldn’t think of anything.

Stell said, “I don’t know why Mama stays with him.”

The wind lifted my bangs off my forehead. “You stayed with Carter when he cheated on you.”

Stell gasped. “He never cheated on me.”

“He took another girl to a party. Y’all fought about it.”

“We’re not going steady. We can date other people.”

“You never do.”

“You’re being so mean.” I thought Stell might start crying.

“If you’re not going steady, why do you wear his cross?”

“It’s not his!” Stell cried out. “It’s mine. He gave it to me.”

The surf pounded, the breakers intense in the moonlight. I hated my family, all of them. Davie, who got attention because he was a boy. Puddin, who made me crazy, running off all the time. Daddy for beating me, Mama for letting him. Stell for . . . I had no reason to hate Stell. “I’m sorry.” I reached for her.

She stood, taking Sarah’s hand and pulling her up. “You should be.”

“Do you forgive me?” I scrambled to my feet.

“I’ll think about it.”

She’d get over it; she always did. This wasn’t the first time I’d been mean.

Stell said, “Daddy and Aunt Lily.”





CHAPTER 15

Two weeks before Christmas of 1953, Meemaw’s doctor called Daddy and said that somebody needed to come to Kentucky to take care of her. Daddy told Mama what the doctor said. “She’s got arthritis, high blood pressure, and dropsy.”

I imagined Meemaw strewing things behind her.