Wrapped in Rain(21)
When she first came to work for Rex, Miss Ella tried to plant some color at the base of the gate, a few impatiens mixed with daylilies, thinking Rex would like it. But Rex didn't like it. He whacked them down with a closed umbrella, stomped them with his Johnston and Murphy heels, and poured diesel on the roots.
"But, Mr. Rex, don't you want people to feel welcome?"
He looked at her like she had lost her mind. "Woman! I'll let them know whether or not they're welcome. Not the blasted gate!" Needless to say, not too many strangers made a wrong turn.
When I was six, Rex appeared on a Tuesday morning, which was unusual, in a black Mercedes, which was not, and walked up the front steps with a suitcase in one hand and a dark-haired little boy in the other. Rex stayed just long enough to fill his glass twice and speak to Miss Ella. "This is Matthew ... Mason." Rex wrinkled his nose and gulped from the crystal, as if the admission was painful. Two more big gulps and he said, "Apparently, he's my son." He then drove toward the barn without uttering a single word in my direction.
Mutt's birth certificate said he had been born at Grady Hospital in Atlanta six months after me. His mother's name had been skillfully omitted but was listed as "Female, Age 29." Mutt had olive skin, suggesting she had been of foreign descent. Maybe Spain, Italy, or Mexico. And between all of Rex's "help"-house help, office help, yard help, and bedroom help-only Rex knew who she was and would ever know the truth.
Before he left, Rex checked on his horses and dogs and then drove down the driveway. I watched him through the window and, when the coast was clear, opened up my toy chest and held out a toy soldier and a wooden rubber-band gun. While we dug through the bottom of the toy closet, Miss Ella called us together.
"Tuck?" she said.
"Yes ma'am."
"Today is the day you learn to share."
"Yes ma'am." She grabbed my two-holster belt off the end of the bunk bed and sat on the floor next to the bed. "Matthew," she said, looking through her right eye like she was trying to size him up, "which hand do you color with?" Mutt looked down at his hands, turned them over, and then held up his left. "Good, that makes it easier." She pulled a pair of scissors out of her apron and cut the stitching that held the left holster to the belt. She grabbed a leather dress belt out of the closet, looped the belt through the holster, and snugged it around Mutt's waist. "There," she said. Mutt looked down, adjusted the belt, and then reached up and threw both arms around her neck. The first words I ever heard my brother say were "thank you." Miss Ella wrapped her two skinny arms around him and said, "You, young man, are welcome." Those arms might have been skinny, but they held a lot.
Somewhere about the time Matthew arrived-I can't quite remember-I was the subject of some pretty harsh ribbing at school. The teacher wanted us to stand up in front of the class and tell about our parents. I had never met my mom, and I really didn't know Rex or understand what he did or why, so I started talking about Miss Ella. The class picked up on the fact that I was talking about our "maid," and it was a couple of years before they let it die. That's really the first time I had any idea that life wasn't supposed to be what it was.
When I got home from school that day, I walked through the back screen door and dropped my books. Miss Ella saw my drooped shoulders and grabbed me by the hand. She walked me back onto the back porch where the sun was setting and casting an easy golden glow across the still-green hay. She knelt down, her white maid's shoes squeaking on Pine Sol'd floors, and she gently lifted my chin with her stubbly, callused fingers.
"Child," she whispered, "listen, and you listen close to what I say." A tear rolled down my cheek, and she brushed it with her dry and cracked thumb. "Don't you believe anybody but me."
I didn't want another sermon, so I looked away, but she jerked my head back with two fingers that smelled like peaches. "The devil is real. He's as real as water, and he's only got one thing in his sick little mind. He wants to rip your heart out, stomp on it, fill you full of venom and anger, and then pitch you into the wind like fish scales." Miss Ella was pretty good at painting pictures. "And you know what he's after?" I shook my head and started listening, because Miss Ella had a tear in her eye too. "He's after everything that's good in you. See, the Lawd ... He's the Alpha and Omega. Nothing gets past Him. Not the devil and not even Rex." I liked that, so I smiled wide. "The Lawd put me here to look out for you while you're growing up. The devil may have it for you, may be scheming until his horns are steaming, but he's going to have to get through me first."
The memory of the schoolyard was still pretty raw, but Miss Ella had soothed me. She made me a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, and we sat on the back porch, watching the horses feed across the back pasture. "Tucker," she said, with peanut butter wedged in the corner of her mouth, "if the devil wants to lay a hand on you, he's got to ask God's permission. He did it with job, he did it with Jesus, and he's got to do it with you. He's got to knock on the door and ask. It's been that way since he got himself kicked out of heaven."
My eyes narrowed and the question that had been on the tip of my tongue since I was old enough to think it almost came out of my mouth. She shook her head. "I know what you're thinking, but don't give it another second's thought. We're not always going to understand what God is doing or why." She placed the tip of her finger on my nose. "But one thing I know for sure. If the devil wants to touch one hair on your beautiful little head, he's got to ask permission. And you remember this-I talk to God all the time, and He told me He's not giving it."