I was crying about something that day, I don’t remember what. It was past 90 degrees, a sweltering summer afternoon. A shadow cast darkness across my right foot. The sudden shade caused a momentary cooling, so I looked up to see what had caused it. A strange girl stood on the sidewalk in front of the A-frame house I grew up in. A yellow haired goddess. When she spoke, I felt a rush of love.
“Hey girl,” she said. “Would you like to play?”
“Do I wanna play?” I answered, suddenly numb with fright. I’d never had a playmate before. Most folks’ kids steered clear of me. Mama’s garden club friends didn’t bring their spawn to visit with me while they played canasta under the billowing tent in the backyard. The nearest child my age was a bed-ridden boy who smelled funny and coughed constantly. Mama made me go over there once, but after I screamed as loud as I could and pulled his hair, she didn’t make me go back. There was no one else.
“Are you simple or something?” the girl asked.
“Simple?”
“Oh, never mind.” She turned her back and started away toward the river, skipping every third step. She wore a white dress with a pink ribbon tied in the back in a big bow—the kind I’d only ever wear on Easter, to go to church with Mama. Even from behind, she was perfect.
“Wait!”
My voice rang as true and strong as it ever had, deep as a church bell. She stopped, dead in her tracks, and turned to me slowly. Her eyes were wide, bluer than Mama’s china teapot. Then she smiled.
“Well. Who knew you’d sound like that? I’m Carol Ann. It’s nice to meet you.”
She strode to me, her hand raised. I’d never shaken hands with a girl my age before. It struck me as awfully romantic. She grasped my hand in hers.
“How do,” I mumbled.
“Now, is that any way to greet your dearest friend?” Her voice had a lilt to it, southern definitely, but something foreign too. She squeezed my hand a little harder, her little fingers pinching mine.
“That hurts. Stop it.” I tried to shake loose, but she was like a barnacle I’d seen on a Tappy’s boat once. Tappy took care of the rest of the yard for us. He wasn’t allowed to touch the flowerbeds, but someone had to mow and weed and prune. Mama could grow grass like nobody’s business too.
“Not until you do it right. My God, am I going to have to teach you manners as well as how to bathe?”
She wrinkled her nose at me and I realized how sweet she smelled. Just like Mama’s flowers. I was lost. I looked her straight in those china blue eyes, my dull brown irises meeting hers. I cleared my throat, but I didn’t smile.
“It’s nice to meet you as well.”
She dropped my hand then and laughed, a tinkling, musical sound like wind chimes on a breezy afternoon. She had me enthralled in a moment.
“Let’s go skip rocks in the river.”
“I’m not allowed. Mama says—”
“Oh, you’re one of those.” She dragged the last word out, gave it an extra syllable and emphasis.
“One of what?” My hackles rose. Two minutes and we were having our first fight. It should have been a warning. Instead it made my blood boil.
She smiled coyly. “A Mama’s girl.”
Back then, I thought it was an insult. I reached out to smack her one good, but she pranced away, closer to the river with each skip.
“Mama’s girl, Mama’s girl.” She sing-songed and danced and I followed, my chin set, incensed. Before I knew it, we were in front on the river, a whole block away from Mama’s house. I wasn’t allowed to go to the river. A boy drowned the summer past, no one I really knew, but all the grown-ups decided it wasn’t safe for us to play down there. This girl was new, she wouldn’t know any better. But if I told her that we couldn’t be here, she’d start that ridiculous chant again. I didn’t want to be a Mama’s Girl anymore.
We skipped rocks until dinnertime. Mama skinned my hide that night. She’d called and called for me to come to dinner, had Tappy look for me. Carol Ann and I were too busy to hear. We skipped rocks, whistled through pieces of grass turned sideways between our thumbs, and dug for worms. I showed her how to bait a line and she’d nearly fainted dead away when I put a warm, wriggling worm in her hand. Tappy found us right after sunset, took me home screaming over his shoulder. The joy I felt wouldn’t be suffused by Mama’s switch. Never again. I had a friend, and her name was Carol Ann.
It was the first of many concessions to her whims.
***
“My Goodness, Lily, can’t you try to look happy? You’re all sweet and clean, and we’ll have some ice cream after, if you’re good. Alright?”
“Yes, ma’am,” I mumbled, sullen.
Mama had me spit shined and polished for a funeral service at church. I didn’t want to go. I wanted to run off to the river with Carol Ann, skip rocks, have a spitting contest, something. Anything but go to church, sit in those hard pews and listen to Preacher yell at the old folks who couldn’t sing loud enough because their voices were caked with age and rot.
I didn’t think that was fair to them. I remember my Granny vaguely, who smelled like our attic and had a long hair poking out of her chin. She’d scoop me in her arms and sing to me, her voice soft like the other old folks. I liked that, liked to hear them whisper the words. It made the hymns seem dangerous in a way. Like the old folks knew the dead would reach out of their very graves and grab their hands, pull them down into the earth with them if they sang loud enough to wake them.
Mama wasn’t hearing no for an answer today. We walked the quarter mile to the Southern Baptist, greeted our brothers and sisters, sat in the hard pews and celebrated the death of Mrs. O’Leary. Preacher made sure we knew that we were sinners, and I felt that vague guilt that I was alive and Mrs. O’Leary was dead, though it was supposed to be glorious to have passed to the better side.
We finished up and put Mrs. O’Leary in the ground. I tried hard to hold my breath in the graveyard so no spirits could inhabit me, but the graveside service took so long I had to breathe. I took small sips of air through my nose, felt my vision blacken. Mama pinched my upper arm so hard I gasped.
I gave up trying to hold my breath. All the ghosts had been waiting, watching, patiently hovering, anticipating the moment when I took in a full breath of air. They’re inside me now; they inhabited my soul, tumultuous and gray. I tried to fight them, until I couldn’t find any more reason to.
I begged to be allowed to go home, to be with Carol Ann, but Mama kept a firm grip on my arm while I cried. Folks thought I was grieving for Mrs. O’Leary. I was grieving for myself.
Mama decided homemade ice cream was just as good as the Dairy Dip, after all.
***
One day a massive storm came through. The trunks of the trees were black with wet, the leaves in green bas-relief to the long boned branches. Storms frightened me—the ferocity of the winds, the booming thunder felt like it was tearing apart my very skin, shattering my soul. Carol Ann and I had taken refuge in my room. She rubbed my stomach, trying to calm me, crooning under her breath. Nothing was working. I was shaking and sweaty, low moans escaping my lips every once in a while. Carol Ann was at a loss. She stood, leaving me on the floor, and went to the window.