Epigraph:
"If we don't save our mothers' stories, who will?"
Jim Bodeen, With My Hands Full (Con Mis Mano Llenas)
Enlarged font!
A Three-Turtle Summer
by Janelle Meraz Hooper
1. A Sister in Trouble
Fort Sill, Oklahoma, July, 1949
It was too hot to play cards, especially if someone were keeping score, and Grace’s sister, Vera, was.
“Ay,
carumba! You can’t stand to go two hours without beating someone at something, can you?” Grace
Tyler playfully pouted.
Vera ignored her little sister, and began shuffling cards as she gleefully announced in a loud voice so Grace could
hear her, “Senoras, the game is canasta, and we’re going to play according to Hoyle.”
Pauline, the middle sister, laughed and pointed at her mother, a notorious and frequent card-cheater.
Everyone was hot, but in her long-sleeved shirt and long skirt, Grace was sweltering. Sweat beaded up on her forehead and neck and she kept stretching her legs out because the backs of her
knees stuck to her skirt.
“Gracie, for God’s
sake, go put some shorts on,” Vera said.
Grace ignored her sister, pulled her shirt away from her perspiring
chest and asked, “Anyone want more iced tea before Vera whips the pants off of us?”
Momma and Pauline both nodded and Grace poured
sweet tea over fresh ice cubes while Vera got a tablet and pencil out of her purse.
The room was almost silent as each woman arranged
her hand. Only Momma barely tapped her foot and softly sang a song from her childhood under her breath:
“The
fair senorita with the rose in her hair …
worked
in the cantina but she didn’t care …
played
cards with the men and took all their loot … awh-ha!
went
to the store and bought brand new boots … ”
“Awh-Haaa!” Grace’s five-year-old daughter Glory
joined in.
Unconsciously, the other two women started to hum along while they
looked at their hand. About the second “Awh-Haaa!” Vera abruptly stopped humming and looked at her sisters with
a raised eyebrow. Something was fishy; Momma was much too happy. Barely containing their amusement, they watched as
she cheerfully arranged her cards.
Finally, unable to suppress her laughter any longer, Vera jumped
up, snatched the cards out of her mother’s hands, and fanned them face-up across the table. “Ay, ay, ay!”
She cried out, “Momma, tell me, how can you have a meld and eleven cards in your hand when we’ve just gotten
started?” The fun escalated as Vera rushed around the table and ran her hands all around her mother and the chair she
sat on to feel for extra cards.
“Stand up!” Grace and her sisters said as they pulled
their mother to her feet. They shook her blue calico dress and screamed with laughter as extra cards fell from every fold.
“Glory,” Vera told her young niece, “crawl under
the table and get those cards for your Auntie Vera, okay?” Grace moved her feet to the side so that Glory could crawl
around on the floor. Her childish giggles danced around the women’s feet as she scrambled for the extra cards that dropped
from her grandmother’s dress.
“Momma,” Vera laughed, “you’re a born cheater.
How did you know we were going to play cards today?” she asked.
“I played with Lilia yesterday. The cards were still in my
purse. Besides, I’m not the only one in this family who’s been caught with a few too many cards,” Gregoria
said in her defense.
“Yes, but you’re the family matriarch. We expect better
of you than we do our good-for-nothing brothers,” Pauline said.
“Huh! Matriarch, my foot. You girls never listen to a word
I say,” their mother grumbled.
“Maybe that’s because we can’t trust you,”
Vera said.
As another card dropped from Gregoria’s dress and slid across
the slick linoleum floor, Vera added, “We’ll strip you down to your rosary before we ever play cards with you
again, Momma.”
“Yeah,” Pauline, chimed in, “the next time you’ll
play in nothing but your lace step-ins and a bra made from two tortillas.”
“Well, at least I’ll be the coolest one at the table,”
Momma chirped.
Vera reached across the table to gather all the cards and reshuffle
them. “We’re going to start all over, and we’ll watch you every minute.”
Grace felt a sharp pain in her stomach when she looked up and saw
her husband’s scowling face through the screen door. Why was he home so early? She didn’t have to look at him
again to know his normally handsome, blond features smoldered with disgust.
Dwayne hated for Grace to have her family over. There would be trouble once they left, since the room was heavy with
the smell of pinto beans and tortillas. It was bad enough when they visited; it irked Dwayne even more when her dark-skinned
family stayed for meals.
Earlier, in Dwayne’s high twangy voice, Grace had mimicked what he’d said the last time they’d been
over for Sunday dinner. “Gawd almighty!” he’d ranted, “A Texan breakin’ biscuits with tacos!
What will folks be thinkin’?” The women had laughed at Grace’s impression of Dwayne. The man himself seldom
made them smile.
The minute Grace’s family looked up and
saw the sorry Texan, their laughter died, and they quickly packed up their cards, crochet cotton, magazines, and snacks that
helped to pass the time on a hot afternoon. One by one, they lined up to leave through the backdoor.
Grace said a quick goodbye to her mother and sisters and moved
away from the narrow doorway as the women filed past Dwayne. She feared these close encounters as much as she would dynamite
that was too close to a match. All she could count on was that her mother would
deliberately say something sweet to him Always gracious, she wasn’t one
to pick a fight.
“Poor thing, you look absolutely beat,” Gregoria Ramirez
said to Dwayne. The cranky man didn’t see her wink at Grace. “We’re going to get out of here so you can
take a nap before dinner.”
Grace’s mother’s words were kind and conciliatory,
but Gregoria didn’t walk around Dwayne to rush out the door. Instead, she stood her ground and looked him straight in
the eyes until she intimidated him into stepping out of her way.
When Grace’s mother stepped onto the porch she leisurely
adjusted the plastic tortoise shell combs that held her long, dark hair in a bun. Then she fished her heavy clip earrings
that matched her outfit out of her dress pocket and put them back on her ears. Grace grinned when she saw her mother nonchalantly
slip another extra card that was also in her pocket into her purse before she stepped onto the sidewalk.
She held her breath as Pauline passed by the loathsome soldier.
She never knew what her sisters might say, and Pauline could have the sharpest tongue of all. This time, however, all she
did was caution, “Dwayne, this heat’s too much for you, it’s over a hundred today, you’d better take
it easy.” The sound of her high heels click-click-clicked on the shiny kitchen floor and made Dwayne cringe. Raised on a cattle ranch where his father’s booze
bottles almost outnumbered the cattle, Dwayne didn’t know what to think of Pauline’s high-heeled shoes and frilly
clothes. He just knew he didn’t like them. For her part, Pauline never considered making any changes to accommodate
the manipulative soldier her sister had married.
Dwayne clinched his jaw and refused to let himself look down at
Pauline’s high heels as she passed him, but she knew that he knew that she wore them. Always playful, she did a quickstep
on her way to the door.
The ruffles on her short, colorful, full skirt moved to the music
her heels made as she walked. Before she passed Dwayne, she adjusted the elastic around the top of her peasant style blouse
to make sure her bosom wasn’t exposed. It was a subtle movement; only Grace noticed it.
Pauline lingered in the doorway as she said goodbye to Grace, then
glided out, onto the porch, and tossed her long, wavy, black hair. The movement jangled her large, golden earrings as she
crossed the threshold. “Adios, Muchacho!” she called to Dwayne, as she gave him a backward wave. Grace’s
eyes flew to Dwayne to see if he noticed that her middle finger stayed up longer than the others. He didn’t. He was
already looking at Vera.
“You look like hell,” Vera said as she passed a sweaty
and wrinkled Dwayne, “and you could use a shower. Phew!” she added as she marched out the door. Grace saw her
mother give Vera a sharp look when she stepped onto the porch, but her oldest daughter just shrugged her chubby shoulders,
as if to say it was the best she could do. This cowboy had used up all of his good graces with her.
Grace wasn’t surprised that Dwayne had remained quiet while
her family left. She imagined that he had plenty to say; he just didn’t dare say it. Not with these women, who
weren’t as meek as she was. She couldn’t tell which one he feared the most: the mother, quiet but cunning; Vera,
outspoken, tough, and fearless; or Pauline, who could cut a man to ribbons with her tongue and flirt with him at the same
time.
As Vera reached the sidewalk at the bottom of the porch stairs,
Pauline broke into a sprint ahead of her across the yard to Vera’s car and jumped into the backseat, still giggling.
Pauline had given her first gringo salute when she held up her finger to Dwayne, and she was tickled with herself.
Even her mother’s look of disapproval couldn’t dampen her glee.
When Gregoria opened the car door on the passenger side to get
into the front, Pauline buried her face between her legs in her ruffled skirt, to muffle her laughter. Vera opened the door
on the driver’s side and stopped outside the car to light a Kool and let some of the hot air out before she got in.
She waved a final goodbye to Grace just before she slid behind the wheel and started the old blue Cadillac.
Grace’s heart ached when she saw Vera’s car move out
of the parking lot. To avoid raising dust in the neighborhood, Vera drove so slowly that Grace thought about grabbing Glory
and making a run for the car. But if she left now, it could make Dwayne mad enough to file custody papers for their daughter.
She could leave her marriage anytime. The trick would be leaving with Glory.
Grace was convinced that the courts often awarded custody of mixed
blood children to white fathers because their perception was that the children would be more educated and better off economically.
It was much like the theory that Indian children would be better off if they were forcefully separated from their Indian culture
and raised away from home in white schools.
*
Vera headed the old Cadillac for the highway and blew her cigarette
smoke out the window as Gregoria halfheartedly said, “Vera, you must show respect to the men in the family, the way
we did to Poppa.”
“When he acts like Poppa did, I’ll show respect,”
Vera answered. “Did you see how mad he was? He just can’t stand to see us have a good time. I’d like to
see our baby sister dump that pain-in-the-ass sourpuss. He’ll never treat her right.”
“Look where they’re living, on the far edge of the
post, in old converted Army barracks. It’s worse than Dogpatch out there,” Pauline joined in.
“Yeah, it breaks my heart to see Grace married to that awful
slouch. Momma, how did Poppa ever allow that?” Vera asked her mother.
“Ayyy, Vera, by the time Gracie met Dwayne, Poppa
was already sick. He couldn’t stop Dwayne, and you girls were off with your new husbands,” Momma groaned. “Dwayne
made your Poppa so miserable. Juan worked so hard to fit in here, and Dwayne did everything he could to make him feel like
he didn’t belong. He always refused to believe your father had a college degree in engineering from the University of Mexico. He treated him like he
was nothing but a cotton-picker. Your poppa only picked cotton during The Depression,
when he needed to put food on the table.” Momma dabbed at her eyes.
The women listened intently, and nodded their heads in sympathy,
as if they’d never heard the stories before.
“Yeah, I remember that gun he used to carry for rattlesnakes
in the fields,” Pauline jumped in. “Poppa was a perfect shot. BAM! Those snakes were dead as sticks.”
“Pauline, you don’t really believe that?” Vera
laughed as she looked at her sister in the rearview mirror. “Poppa couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn with
that old gun. It was loaded with snake shot. He couldn’t miss because the pellets sprayed everywhere. That’s why
he always told us to stand way back.”
“Really?” Pauline asked. “I thought it was so
we wouldn’t get snake blood all over us.”
Just before they dropped Pauline off at her tiny garage apartment,
Vera asked, “Sis, do you and Boyd want to come over and listen to my new records tonight? I’ve got all the new
ones, even Nat King Cole.”
“Naw, Boyd is off somewhere, he may not even get home for
dinner,” her eyes avoided Vera’s, that stared suspiciously at her in the rear view mirror.
“Come without him. Benny is going to show us how to samba.
You can come as you are, no one else will be there. I want to learn a new dance before Rudolf takes me to the officers’
club Saturday night.” Pauline was obviously uneasy, but with Momma in the car, Vera couldn’t dig any deeper. Besides,
if her sister were having trouble with Boyd, she’d handle it. Pauline was tough.
Grace was the sister Vera was worried about. Her little sister
was in over her head and too stubborn to admit it. Momma’s favorite, Grace had been kept so close to home that she’d
never had any experience with men when she was growing up. At the time, Dwayne must have looked good to her naive sister.
Anyone else with more savvy would have thrown him head first into a deep creek and never looked back.
“Maybe. Will Grace come?” Pauline sulked, as she sank
further into the backseat, her mind still on Grace’s cranky husband.
“I asked her and she said she’d ask Dwayne,”
Vera answered. “But you know Dwayne doesn’t like us or our music, and he has never been a dancer. He doesn’t
even two-step to that country music he loves to torture us with.”
*
Her mother and sisters gone, Grace braced herself for the latest
tirade from Dwayne as she started dinner. She didn’t have to wait long. Dwayne stood behind Grace and ranted at her
as she breaded perch with a combination of flour and cornmeal. When she moved back and forth from the countertop by the sink
to the stove, he followed her so she wouldn’t miss a word.
“The fish you caught look good, Dwayne,” Grace chatted
as she tried to soften his anger. It was an honest compliment. Dwayne had a lot of faults, but he was one heck of a fisherman.
The day before, he’d gone fishing on the way home from work and had caught a whole stringer full of perch before it
started to get dark. They didn’t eat them that night because Grace already had dinner on the table when he got home.
Dwayne was only briefly pleased at the compliment. Soon he was back to running down Grace’s family as she peeled potatoes
to fry in one of her big wrought iron skillets.
“Why the hell can’t you keep your family out of here?”
Dwayne yelled as he jerked his fatigue hat off his head and threw it across the room. “What if I’d brought one
of the officers from the battalion home? Do you think one of them would want to see a bunch of women sittin’
around playin’ cards and gibberin’ in Spanish the minute he walked through the door?”
“I’m sorry, Dwayne, I never thought you’d be
home so early.” Grace’s lower lip quivered, and her words tumbled out on top of each other like potatoes that
rolled out of an overturned sack. “But we weren’t speaking Spanish, Dwayne, we weren’t!” Grace hustled
around the kitchen to get Dwayne a goblet of iced tea.
She desperately wanted
to go to Vera’s. Not only would it be fun but it would also keep Dwayne away from her for the evening. She knew she
didn’t dare ask to go until he was in a better mood.
Grace held her breath as he looked around the kitchen and gave
the air an arrogant sniff before he sipped his tea.
“It’s a good thing you pepper-bellies just eat beans.
Otherwise, I’d be in the poor house,” he sneered as he lit a Camel.
Grace knew it wasn’t just the food. Dwayne even resented
her mother and sisters when they brought the food with them. He never hid the fact that he felt her family wasn’t worth
his time. Only Rudolf, Vera’s husband, who was an Army colonel, ever got more than a few grunts from him.
“I’m sorry, Dwayne. It’s just that they were
here all day, and we got so hungry, and Glory had to eat something. I just warmed up some leftover beans and Momma made a
few tortillas. It was nothing fancy.”
“It’s a dog-eat-dog world, Grace.” Dwayne lit
another cigarette from what was left of the last one. “And we’re not rich. We’ve got to spend our time and
money on the people who can do us some good.” Dwayne finished his iced tea and left the glass on the table. A puddle
of condensation formed at its base and crept like a bleeding wound across the old table with the red, marbleized plastic top.
The pattern of the moisture disturbed Grace and she hurried to wipe it up.
Grace gave up. “Okay. Vera invited us over tonight. Everyone
will be there. Benny’s going to show Vera how to samba, and I haven’t seen him for awhile. But, if you don’t
want to go, I’ll call and say we’re staying home.”
“We were invited to Vera’s? Is Rudolf going to be there?”
When Grace nodded yes, she noticed his interest perked up. “Call them,” he urged, “tell them we’ll
be over as soon as we eat. In this man’s Army, it could come in real handy to be on good terms with a colonel.”
On his way down the hall to change out of his uniform, he said
loudly over his shoulder so Grace could hear, “And I’ve got a business idea to talk over with your mother.”
Grace, who was at the stove serving the fish and fried potatoes on plates, rolled her eyes. Just what made him think her
mother would be interested in one of his screwy business plans?
“Call her,” Dwayne shouted again from the bathroom.
Grace went to the bathroom and stood outside the door. “There’s
no need to call her. She said to come if we could,” Grace explained. “I think she’s just serving drinks
and that cocktail cereal-mix she makes up in the oven. It’ll be an early night since everyone has to work tomorrow.”
As soon as they ate, Grace ran to get herself and Glory ready to go before something happened to change Dwayne’s
mind.
*
Even though she hurried, when the Tylers pulled into Vera’s driveway, everyone else was already there. Her brother Benny
was in the large living room of the old house with Vera, demonstrating his latest dance step. Vera, who’d always been
a quick study, followed right along.
“Gracie,” Benny called to Grace, “come dance
with me. Vera’s already got it.”
“Is this the samba?” Grace asked, bubbling over with
excitement.
On his way to Grace, Benny grabbed Glory and twirled her around
the living room before she ran to play with her cousin Carlos, Pauline’s son. Carlos was underneath Vera’s large
dining room table busily building a skyscraper out of dominos and cards.
“Glory, you’ll be a great little dancer someday,”
Benny called after his niece, “just stick with your Uncle Ben.”
Glory turned and giggled before she joined Carlos.
Grace wasn’t surprised to see that Rudolf and Vera’s
two boys hadn’t stuck around. Her nephews were already in high school and seldom hung around for their mother’s
impromptu dance parties. They often teased their mother and Grace by going out the door while they sang, “It must
be jelly ‘cause jam don’t shake like that,” lyrics they’d heard on one of their mother’s
records.
The whole family—even Dwayne—laughed as Benny playfully
grabbed Grace and dipped her all the way to the floor before they even started to dance. Used to her brother’s antics,
she followed the movement gracefully and came up ready to copy Benny step for step, with her eyes on her brother’s feet.
Rudolf sat in a corner of the living room in a big easy chair,
reading the paper. When the dancers stopped to change records, his twinkling eyes peeked over the paper and he called out
encouragement to Vera. Rudolf was never an enthusiastic dancer, but he liked his wife to look good on the dance floor. Vera
told Grace she could always count on Rudolf to dance the night away—as long as they played nothing but waltzes. A popular
dancer, Vera was never short of partners at the officers’ club, so she was content to let Rudolf sit and visit with
their friends whenever they went out for the night.
With barely a nod to the other members of the family, Dwayne headed
for Rudolf. He was too dense to notice that the colonel pulled his paper up over his face when he saw his brother-in-law coming
his way. Before Dwayne could sit down on a couch across from the colonel, he had to move a pile of fabric and carpet swatches
that Vera was using in her latest redecorating project.
“Jesussss-Christ,” Dwayne said as he looked for a place
to lay the pile of samples. “You oughta kick Vera’s butt for spendin’ so much of your money.”
Rudolf put down his paper and gave him a stony stare. Dwayne could
barely hear him with the music blaring, so Rudolf was sure no one else heard him say, “What my wife and I do with our
money is our business, Dwayne.” He didn’t say anymore before he picked up his paper and began to read again.
That put Dwayne’s tail between his legs and he didn’t
know what to do next. How could Rudolf not be mad as hell about the money Vera spent? He wasn’t prepared for such a
rebuff. He should have shut up, but Dwayne blundered on, like a cannon that rolled downhill and picked up speed as its metal
wheels banged over the rocks.
“Well, if it were me, I wouldn’t have no use for a
woman who spent my money and did nothing but play bridge all day.” Rudolf made no reply as he gave Dwayne another icy
stare and went to make himself a fresh drink. He didn’t bother to offer his brother-in-law one. Dwayne didn’t
even notice the slight; he was dumbfounded that his last statement hadn’t turned Rudolf around and made him see things
his way. It was all so clear to him. Couldn’t Rudolf see Vera would drain his bank account dry?
Rudolf never came back, and instead disappeared without a word
into his bedroom. Left alone with his gangly legs jutting out from the low couch, Dwayne finally made an awkward move to the
other side of the room to talk to Pauline. He looked down at the high heels she wore. Well, if Rudolf wouldn’t listen
to him, at least he could straighten Pauline out.
“Pauline,” Dwayne said as he pointed to her feet, “the
only other women I’ve seen wear shoes like that were whores. You’d better stop buying those things. People will
start to talk.”
“Oh, tell me, Dwayne, have you seen a lot of whores? Where?”
she asked as she rolled her eyes at her mother. Dwayne was the only man who made her husband Boyd—although he was absent—look
good to her. In Spanish, she said something to her mother about Vera and snakes. He was pretty sure Pauline was telling her
mother that Vera had said he was a rattlesnake. Dwayne didn’t understand the rest, but he’d heard the Spanish
word for snake—serpiente—often on post. Momma nodded, and pretended to talk about Glory in Spanish, but
Dwayne wasn’t fooled. He knew they were putting him down again.
Dwayne was beside himself, but he didn’t want to go home
until he’d accomplished his main mission: to get money from Grace’s mother for his ranch. Grace was still dancing
with Benny. Vera and Pauline had joined them, so Dwayne rushed to the kitchen and poured two cups of coffee. It should be
easy to get the old lady to do things his way. She didn’t even know how to read English. For sure, she’d
do what he told her.
“Momma, I’ve been thinkin’,” Dwayne said
to his mother-in-law as he handed her a cup of coffee. “Why on earth are you still living in that big ole house by yourself?
You should sell that thing and move into an apartment.”
“Why, what would I do with myself in an apartment?”
Gregoria asked. “I’d have no garden. Besides, I’m happy where I am; all of my memories of Juan are there
in that house. It’s the only home we ever had that was ours.”
“Momma, you’d better think about it, you’re gettin’
old, and one of these days you’re gonna fall in that house and there won’t be anyone there to help you. Besides,
you could get a ton of money for that old place. Property values are going through the roof around here.”
“Dwayne,” said Momma, puzzled by Dwayne’s forcefulness,
“I don’t need money. I live simply and I have everything I want.”
“Well,” Dwayne pushed on, “you should be thinkin’
of Glory. She’s gonna have to go to college someday, ya’ know, and if you took the money from the house and invested
it in my cattle ranch, you’d have a nice little nest egg for her when she needs it.” Dwayne thought it was a pretty
convincing argument; everyone knew that she adored Glory.
“Oh, so you want me to sell my house and give you
the money?” Dwayne saw the beginning of a smile at the corners of Gregoria’s lips. “My coffee needs more
sugar. Would you get me some?” She handed her cup to Dwayne who was glad to have an excuse to escape to the kitchen.
He needed to think. The old lady wasn’t convinced. What should he say next?
When Dwayne could think of nothing else to say,
he couldn’t control the anger he felt. He had to get out of that house before he started to beat the shit out of everyone.
In fact, if the two men hadn’t been there, things could have gotten real ugly.
What makes these women so damned uppity? he wondered. When
he was growing up on the ranch, his mother never dressed up, wore high heels, and spent all kinds of money to decorate her
house like these women did. His dad would have beat the livin’ tar out of her and told her to go feed the cows. He always
told Dwayne that women who didn’t do what their husbands told them were whores, and should be treated like whores. Clean
and simple. No ifs, ands, or buts.
With no warning, Dwayne came back to the living room and shouted,
“Grace! Time to go home. Get Glory and let’s get started. Gotta work tomorrow.” He walked over to the phonograph
and put a long scratch in the spinning record as he took the needle off to stop the music.
Startled, Grace gathered up Glory and raced out the door, while Dwayne pushed them from behind. As they got to their
car, they heard the music start up again, louder than before; he was sure it was Pauline who turned the music up as a final
taunt to him.
*
In the car, Grace listened to Dwayne’s opinions of her family
all the way home. He’d worked himself into a real good lather as he went on and on about what whores her sisters were.
Grace was afraid to take her eyes off of the tall, blond soldier. At any moment, she thought, he might hit her.
Dwayne held off his anger until they were in their quarters. Then
his rage flew out of control. While he yelled, he pulled Grace into the hallway, where she was trapped in a space just wide
enough for one person to pass. First, an arm flew out from his body and he backhanded Grace across the face and sent her spinning
into the opposite wall. When she bounced off the sheetrock, he was there to catch her. He twisted her arm behind her back
and jerked it up each time he spoke.
“Damn little whore. You’re just like your sisters,
you’re all nothing but whores.” He pulled up on her arm again so hard that Grace cried out, but he didn’t
loosen his grip.
“And look at your skin. It’s as black as a colored’s.
What do you do, bake in the sun while I’m at work?”
He pulled up on Grace’s arm a third time. “I don’t
know why I even bother with you. You’re more useless than a tit on a bullet.”
Grace crumbled in the hallway. “Stop. Please stop. You’re
hurting me,” she begged.
“Damn little pepper-belly,” he raged, “I’ll
show you how a real man treats whores.”
“I’m not a whore, Dwayne, and you know it,” Grace
cried as she shielded her face.
“Don’t you talk back to me, don’t you dare
talk back to me. I hear what the men in town say about you and your sisters.”
Grace had heard it all before. Felt it all before. Belittling her made Dwayne feel important.
Made
him feel more like a man.
Made him feel like sex.
When he pulled her into the
bedroom, Grace’s battered mind scurried away like a prairie mouse under sagebrush. Only the faint smell of Dwayne’s
Camel cigarettes and unwashed underarm odor managed to creep underneath the mental barriers she put up to survive.
Grace didn’t bother to ask anymore what the men had said;
she’d heard it all before. In past fights, she had asked which men said bad things about her and her sisters, but Dwayne
would never give her a name. She finally figured out that there were no “other men,” just the mean and crazy ramblings
of a Texan who looked for any excuse to use his fists and feel superior. Now, she didn’t even listen to the words; she
only tried to protect herself as much as she could.
As Grace was pulled back to the bedroom, she saw Glory run for
her closet; she carried a plate of leftover perch from the table. Grace had been so anxious to go to her sister’s that
she’d forgotten to put it in the refrigerator.
“Glory,” she screamed, but Dwayne pulled her back when
she tried to run to their daughter. “Dwayne, let me go. Glory has the fish. Dwayne, please, she’ll choke on the
bones.”
Dwayne didn’t even look Glory’s way as he threw Grace
on the bed and started to unbuckle his pants.
It broke Grace’s heart to know that their daughter had begun
to hide in her closet as soon as she started to walk; she began to take food into the closet with her as soon as she could
reach the plates on the table.
Tonight, Glory ate leftover bony perch while she hid on top of
a pile of her father’s duffel bags in her dark closet. But other nights, Grace had found her in the middle of the night
curled around a plate of fried chicken, or cold biscuits—whatever she could grab before she ran for her closet bunker.
When Dwayne’s anger and lust finally exhausted him, he began
to cool off. Just before he went to sleep, he told Grace, “I love you Grace; I’ll try to never hit you again.”
He said the same thing every time.
Every time,
it was a lie.
And, every time, she talked herself into believing him. What made
her think he’d ever change?
In the middle of the night, Grace dragged her aching body into
her daughter’s room, moved the sleeping Glory from the closet, and put her in her Army-issue metal bed. She shivered
even though the heat was over a hundred degrees as she crawled back into bed next to Dwayne. She could have slept with Glory
on her bed, but it was too small for an adult to be comfortable, and Grace was already hurting. There was no place else to
go except the couch in the living room, and the one time she’d slept there, Dwayne got angry all over again. It just
wasn’t worth it.
Once, the morning after a bad night, Glory asked Grace if her daddy
would come after her next, and cried, “What’ll I do, Mommy? What’ll
I do?” Grace looked at her panicked little face and promised her that her father would never hit her, but Glory wasn’t
convinced. Finally, Grace promised to protect her if her father ever did come after her, but deep inside, she didn’t
know how. She couldn’t even protect herself.
*
The next morning, Dwayne was gone before Grace put on the coffee.
She sat down in the morning sun that seeped through the worn window shades and began to sew. As her machine clicked over pins
and fabric at a comforting, soothing pace, she began to pull herself together. Not much longer, she told herself. Not much
longer. At times, she winced as her sore ribs accidentally rubbed against the edge of the table.
Grace didn’t hear
Glory come into the room, so she was startled when an excited voice right next to her shouted, “Mom, what are you makin’
today?”
With great effort, Grace turned and lifted her daughter onto her
lap. Her ribs were throbbing, so she gave her a careful but affectionate hug. While they cuddled, she pulled out the clips
that held Glory’s blond hair in dog-ears. Grace ran her fingers through hair that was sticky with a combination of tears
and fried fish from the night before.
“We have to wash your hair today. Might as well wait until
you come in for your nap, okay?” She quickly pulled Glory’s hair back into a low ponytail. Without a shampoo,
there wasn’t much else she could do with it.
“Okay,” Glory quickly agreed because she was anxious
to go outside and play,.
Grace marveled at this creation with light skin, green eyes, and
brownish-blond hair that she’d given birth to. Her own skin and hair were dark. How could a child of hers look so little
like her, even with Dwayne as the father? Other children from similar marriages were a lot darker, although Dwayne was
exceptionally light—he almost looked like an albino. The only other explanation was the Spanish blood on her mother’s
side of the family. She knew that many of them had light hair and blue eyes.
Strangers assumed Glory was Dwayne’s from another marriage,
and Grace always smiled and said she didn’t blame them. But, deep inside, she resented it. Glory was hers, even if everything
about her, from her blond hair to her long legs, looked like Dwayne.
“Hon, are you hungry?” Grace gingerly rocked Glory
on her lap to avoid bumping her sore ribs.
“No, what are you makin’?” Glory asked as she
looked at Grace’s machine on the kitchen table.
“Well,
I thought my girl could use some cooler play clothes. It’s starting to get hot.”
“For me? Can I see? Oh, boy, can I have pockets?”
“You
want pockets?” Grace laughed at Glory’s excitement.
“Yes.
Pockets and lace.”
“Where
shall I put the lace?”
“On the seat, like Linda Joy has. Her mom gots her these
panties with ruffles all over the seat so when she bends over all you see is ruffles, ruffles, ruffles. I love ruffles.”
Glory bounced off Grace’s lap and danced around the kitchen floor, as she bent over and patted her bottom with both
hands.
“What
else do you want?”
“Could I have a turtle?”
“A tortuga? Where did you get that idea?”
“Linda Joy has a turtle. She calls it Fluffy. She’s
teaching it to talk.”
“I’ll have to think about that. Are you sure
you’re not hungry?”
“No. Sew, Mommy.”
Grace smiled to herself as she put the tiny pieces of material
together. Glory was so small she could make her a whole outfit from the odds and ends leftover from the sewing she did for
her relatives and friends. That was how, even on a very limited budget, Grace had filled Glory’s closet with lacy dresses,
colorful play clothes, and even a rabbit fur coat. The coat, made from a couple of old rabbit stoles that her older sister
picked up at a church bazaar, looked “Damn dandy,” Vera had said.
“When will it be finished?” Glory wanted to know
as she pulled herself up over the edge of the table to get a better look at her new outfit.
“Before
you know it, if you eat some breakfast and go outside and play.”
“Okay.”
She stood on tiptoes to see what was on the counter, “Can I have that tortilla?”
“Yes.
Why don’t you put some oleo on it?”
“If
I eat it all, then can I go outside?”
Yes,” said Grace. She watched Glory sit down on the cool
floor with the flour tortilla and a small glass of red Kool-Aid; their food budget didn’t allow for extras like juice.
Although, somehow, when Dwayne went to the commissary, he always found enough change for his favorites: coffee, tea,
and cocoa for chocolate cakes and homemade fudge. Grace made the fudge from a recipe on the back of the cocoa can and topped
it with wild pecans, so it wasn’t expensive to make.
Mostly Dwayne spent every penny he could scrounge to build up his
mother’s shabby cattle ranch in Texas, even if it
meant they had to cut down on food items that Glory needed, like milk and eggs.
When Glory started to eat her tortilla, Grace
went back to sewing. As she eased the material under the presser foot, she felt a wave of anger wash over her. What kind of
a breakfast was that for a little girl? Shoot! She and all her brothers and sisters ate better than that during The Great
Depression, Poppa saw to it.
Grace muttered, “If Poppa could feed
all of us, why can’t this good-for-nothing-son-of-a-gun feed one little girl?” She glanced down at her daughter.
“And how can Dwayne think he’s such a big shot when he has money to buy food for a bunch of dumb cows, but none
for his only child, who doesn’t even have milk or orange juice?” She mumbled over her sewing machine.
The machine answered with click-click. Click-click.
Since Grace didn’t drive, she’d have to ask her sisters
to pick up a few groceries for her with some of the sewing money she hid from Dwayne at her mother’s. They weren’t
expecting any company that Dwayne would want to impress, so she knew he wouldn’t bring any extra food home.
Sometimes, in frustration, Grace would complain that Dwayne spent
too much on his ranch, but she was always fearful that she would go too far and make him angry. Besides, she told herself,
any day now he’d be sent on another overseas assignment. Whole units of soldiers shipped out everyday from Fort Sill on post-war assignments to occupy Japan. Most would be gone two to three years.
Her plan was to wait until he left, then divorce
him. Once he was out of town, it would be easier to keep custody of Glory, so why risk getting beaten again? Any day. Any
day now, Grace told herself as she rested her forehead on the cool metal of her old Singer sewing machine and tried to
steady her breath.
Daily, Grace held onto the dream of her and Glory in a little house
in which the two of them lived happily alone. She would start a sewing business; Glory would play in the backyard by a flower
garden. Her heart skipped a beat whenever she dared to think she might even have a car. It wouldn’t have to be new,
just something to take her to the grocery store. On the way, she pictured, she’d stop by her mother’s for coffee.
Someday, she promised herself. Someday. All she had to do was be smart enough to keep Glory, and get out of
her marriage alive.
While she held on from day to day, Dwayne strutted his six-foot,
two-inch frame around the small Army quarters and acted as if he held all the cards. His favorite threat was to tell her,
“I’ll take Glory away from you if you ever try to leave me. All the judges are white,” he liked to say,
“and they’ll do whatever I tell them to do.”
From the stories about the judges that she heard in town, Grace didn’t doubt it for a minute.
