The Last Ballad(16)

You may remember that your mother and father often took you to the zoo when you were a little boy, but you may not remember that I would go along with you when I visited, especially after you lost your mother and Otis was working and could not take you. But sometimes your father would come with you and me. During those trips to the zoo, Otis was the same as he always was. Quiet, withdrawn, especially after he lost your mother. My little brother did not change very much during his lifetime. Perhaps none of us change very much.

Edwin, it was remarkable for me to hear that panther cry out there in the dark tonight. So many things came back to me.

I always listened closely to how you spoke when you were a little boy. Would you have your mother’s soft, low-country drawl, or would you have your father’s twang? At the zoo, what were you, two, maybe three years old, you’d point to the panther and say “line” just like your father said it, just like I would’ve said it if I weren’t thinking so hard about speaking and acting “properly,” something that you were expected to become back in the 1930s if you were a young woman who attended a normal school in order to make a life as a teacher. But you were just a boy and you were not interested in speaking “properly,” nor should you have been, and you would point to the panther and say “Line! Line!” and your mother would laugh and say, “Yes, baby, ‘lie-yun,’” extending the word to two full syllables when you were able to get the job done in only one. This is not to say that your mother did not have a beautiful voice. She was a gorgeous woman, inside and out. You can’t say that about very many women who are as striking as your mother was. Secretly, though, I was happy that you spoke like your father, that you spoke like me when I am able to forget myself.

Tonight, after we heard the panther roar, you told me that you felt bad for it. You said you were afraid it roared at night because it was lonely in that cage all by itself. And then you said something about the sadness of even an animal spending Christmas alone. Forgive me, Edwin, I’m being sensitive, I know I am, but there was something in the way you said it, the way you looked at me or did not look at me, that embarrassed me, that made me feel that perhaps you thought that about me and that was why you invited me down to spend Christmas with you and Sarah and Owen. And I wondered if, every time I call you on the telephone, you hear my voice and mistake it for the cry of loneliness.

Don’t worry about me, Edwin. I’m not lonely. I have more friends here in Coventry Village than I’ve ever had in my life, and there’s a lot to do that keeps me busy.

So don’t worry about me, and certainly don’t feel bad for me like you feel bad for that poor panther down at the zoo. I’m not lonely. Besides, if I were lonely I would not roar. I would sit very quietly so that no one would know I was alone.

I suppose it was serendipitous (if I’m using and spelling that word correctly) that you asked me what you did. You asked me to tell you something about your father, something about my own mother and my father. I promised you that I’d think about it, and I can tell you that although only a few hours have passed, I have been thinking about it ever since.

You have told me before that you did not know your father well, that you knew your mother much better, although you lost her when you were eight and Otis passed only ten years ago. I’ve often wondered how well I knew Otis. Like you, I’ve often wondered how well I knew my own father in the short time I did know him. I only knew my mother for a short time as well, and sometimes I wonder how well I knew her even though every day of my life was spent with her right up until the day she was murdered. I’m assuming you do not know much if anything about her death. We have never spoken of it, and I don’t know what Otis told you about her. He did not talk about her. None of us did.

We experienced some amount of shame for being Ella May’s children. It was not shame that we felt naturally or that she had caused us to feel. Other people put this shame upon us, but it was shame nonetheless. It made us quiet. It kept us from asking too many questions about Mother, about her life, about how and why she died. It kept us from talking about her, even to one another. I don’t know the extent of what Otis told your mother or anyone else for that matter. But you asked me, and I think you should know. You have a family of your own now, and Owen will not be five forever. One day he may ask you the questions you asked me tonight. I want you to have answers for him. I can’t give you all the answers, but I can give you some of them. Your grandmother Ella May, my mother, was murdered during a strike at a mill in Gastonia in 1929. No one knows who did it or why, although I have long suspected that at the time everyone knew who did it and there were many reasons why.

Have you ever read any books by the North Carolina writer Thomas Wolfe? He was born in Asheville in 1900, the same year my mother, your grandmother, was born just over the mountains in Tennessee. I never knew Mr. Wolfe, but I knew his mother for a short time when I was younger. Perhaps I’ll tell you about her someday. His oldest brother Fred used to live there in Greenville, but exactly where I don’t know. Maybe it was Spartanburg. I don’t remember. I ask you about Thomas Wolfe because his most famous book is called Look Homeward, Angel. There is a line in the novel that asks, “Which of us is not forever a stranger and alone?” I’ve thought about that question a lot since the first time I read the novel, which was many, many years ago. I especially think about it when the past is on my mind, when I am trying to remember things about my life that I think I’ve forgotten but secretly fear I never knew. Being unable to remember parts of your own life can make you feel like a stranger, and I figure that strangers are alone more often than not.