Animal Dreams
Page 101
"So, honey, what I'm calling you for is [Rip...] I've been itching to get into that house and clean. I know he hasn't been up to it, and I don't mean any offense, Lord knows I think the world of Doc, but I expect he needs somebody to get up there and clean. And I was thinking now'd be a good time but I didn't feel right about just going in. I've had the key all this time, ever since I used to keep you girls. He never did want the key back." She paused. "But I thought I better call and see what you said."
The key was more or less a symbolic matter. He didn't lock his front door. Nobody in Grace did. "I think the cleaning's a good idea. But I also think he'd be mad." I hesitated, uncertain of my loyalties. Outside my window I could see John Tucker in the courtyard with a tape measure. He appeared to be measuring the hundred-year-old beams that supported the roof of the back porch. I knew what it was about-the Historic Register. I had a brainstorm.
"Uda, let me go up there with you. I've got to go through the attic and dig up some old documents on the house and the land for the historic preserve thing. I've been meaning to do it, and you could help me. We could tell him you were helping me look through stuff, and that we just got carried away and beat the rugs and mopped the bathroom while we were at it. If he even notices."
Uda undertook the conspiracy with the relish of a criminal. I agreed to meet her at Doc Homer's in half an hour.
The attic was pleasantly chilly and smelled of pine. Decades of summer heat had forced droplets of resin out of the rough floorboards, which in cooler weather hardened to little amber marbles that scattered in all directions as we shifted trunks and cardboard boxes. The afternoon is fixed in my memory with the sharp smell of resin and that particular amber rattle, like the sound of ball bearings rolling around in a box. It's surprising how much of memory is built around things unnoticed at the time.
I was amazed by what we found. Doc Homer's disease had manifested itself mostly downstairs; up here, our past was untouched by chaos. Stacked boxes of Hallie's and my old clothes, school papers, photo albums, and all kinds of other detritus stood in neat rows, labeled chronologically and by content. I felt overwhelmed by so much material evidence of our family's past. I couldn't think why he'd kept it. He was so practical. What conceivable use did he foresee for a box marked "ALICE, MATERNITY," for example? But you don't ask questions of an attic. Museums are their own justification.
"Look," I said to Uda, tipping up a cardboard box so she could see inside: some thirty pairs of black orthopedic shoes stacked from small to large, toes up, neat as eggs in a crate. There was a little more variety than I'd remembered. Two pairs were rather dapper little saddle oxfords, black and maroon. Another year-I vaguely did remember this-we'd been allowed to order them in charcoal suede.
Uda had a full-front apron over her old trousers and a print blouse, and she looked prepared for anything. Her lavender hoop earrings matched her wedgies, and she'd tied a red handkerchief over her hair. I was tempted to ask what she'd been ripping up this morning. She bent over beside me and picked out one of the smallest shoes, cradling it like an orphaned bird. "Law, he was so careful about you girls and your feet. I remember thinking, Oh, mercy, when those girls get big enough to want heels there's going to be the Devil to pay."
I laughed. "He wasn't just careful. He was obsessed."
Uda looked down at me. "He just wanted awful bad for you kids to be good girls," she said. "It's hard for a man by himself, honey. You don't know how hard. He worried himself to death. A lot of people, you know, would just let their kids run ever which way."
She stopped, cocking her head a little, staring at the shoe in her hand. "One year for Christmas I gave the two of you little cowboy outfits, with guns, and you just loved them, but he had to take away the guns. He didn't want you killing, even pretend. I felt awful that I'd done that, once I thought about it. He was right."
As she talked, I remembered the whole story: the cowboy outfits and the guns. Hallie and I had tried to claim moral high ground, saying he was taking away what belonged to us. He stood in front of the window, his thin face turned to the light, speaking to the world outside: "I will not have the neighbors arming my children like mercenaries." I'd looked up "mercenaries" in the dictionary, later, and felt ashamed. I explained the ethics of armament to Hallie.
"How long did you take care of us?" I asked Uda.
"Oh, I expect close to ten years all in all. Till you was about fourteen and Hallie was eleven. You remember that. You'd come up after school and we'd play Old Maid or you'd play swinging statues out in the yard. We had us a time. And I'd come up here at night when he had to go tend a baby or something. Sometimes of an evening you'd run off with the Domingos kids without telling me where you'd gone to." She laughed. "I liked to skinned you alive a couple of times. You girls was a couple of live potatoes. She was bad and you was worse."
The key was more or less a symbolic matter. He didn't lock his front door. Nobody in Grace did. "I think the cleaning's a good idea. But I also think he'd be mad." I hesitated, uncertain of my loyalties. Outside my window I could see John Tucker in the courtyard with a tape measure. He appeared to be measuring the hundred-year-old beams that supported the roof of the back porch. I knew what it was about-the Historic Register. I had a brainstorm.
"Uda, let me go up there with you. I've got to go through the attic and dig up some old documents on the house and the land for the historic preserve thing. I've been meaning to do it, and you could help me. We could tell him you were helping me look through stuff, and that we just got carried away and beat the rugs and mopped the bathroom while we were at it. If he even notices."
Uda undertook the conspiracy with the relish of a criminal. I agreed to meet her at Doc Homer's in half an hour.
The attic was pleasantly chilly and smelled of pine. Decades of summer heat had forced droplets of resin out of the rough floorboards, which in cooler weather hardened to little amber marbles that scattered in all directions as we shifted trunks and cardboard boxes. The afternoon is fixed in my memory with the sharp smell of resin and that particular amber rattle, like the sound of ball bearings rolling around in a box. It's surprising how much of memory is built around things unnoticed at the time.
I was amazed by what we found. Doc Homer's disease had manifested itself mostly downstairs; up here, our past was untouched by chaos. Stacked boxes of Hallie's and my old clothes, school papers, photo albums, and all kinds of other detritus stood in neat rows, labeled chronologically and by content. I felt overwhelmed by so much material evidence of our family's past. I couldn't think why he'd kept it. He was so practical. What conceivable use did he foresee for a box marked "ALICE, MATERNITY," for example? But you don't ask questions of an attic. Museums are their own justification.
"Look," I said to Uda, tipping up a cardboard box so she could see inside: some thirty pairs of black orthopedic shoes stacked from small to large, toes up, neat as eggs in a crate. There was a little more variety than I'd remembered. Two pairs were rather dapper little saddle oxfords, black and maroon. Another year-I vaguely did remember this-we'd been allowed to order them in charcoal suede.
Uda had a full-front apron over her old trousers and a print blouse, and she looked prepared for anything. Her lavender hoop earrings matched her wedgies, and she'd tied a red handkerchief over her hair. I was tempted to ask what she'd been ripping up this morning. She bent over beside me and picked out one of the smallest shoes, cradling it like an orphaned bird. "Law, he was so careful about you girls and your feet. I remember thinking, Oh, mercy, when those girls get big enough to want heels there's going to be the Devil to pay."
I laughed. "He wasn't just careful. He was obsessed."
Uda looked down at me. "He just wanted awful bad for you kids to be good girls," she said. "It's hard for a man by himself, honey. You don't know how hard. He worried himself to death. A lot of people, you know, would just let their kids run ever which way."
She stopped, cocking her head a little, staring at the shoe in her hand. "One year for Christmas I gave the two of you little cowboy outfits, with guns, and you just loved them, but he had to take away the guns. He didn't want you killing, even pretend. I felt awful that I'd done that, once I thought about it. He was right."
As she talked, I remembered the whole story: the cowboy outfits and the guns. Hallie and I had tried to claim moral high ground, saying he was taking away what belonged to us. He stood in front of the window, his thin face turned to the light, speaking to the world outside: "I will not have the neighbors arming my children like mercenaries." I'd looked up "mercenaries" in the dictionary, later, and felt ashamed. I explained the ethics of armament to Hallie.
"How long did you take care of us?" I asked Uda.
"Oh, I expect close to ten years all in all. Till you was about fourteen and Hallie was eleven. You remember that. You'd come up after school and we'd play Old Maid or you'd play swinging statues out in the yard. We had us a time. And I'd come up here at night when he had to go tend a baby or something. Sometimes of an evening you'd run off with the Domingos kids without telling me where you'd gone to." She laughed. "I liked to skinned you alive a couple of times. You girls was a couple of live potatoes. She was bad and you was worse."
