[Section opener]
Meg
Chapter 39
If it was up to me, I would jerk a knot in Lucille.
With only a week left till school, you figure a girl deserves a little fun with her cousins
before the end of summer. Well you figure wrong. As if it wasn’t enough that Lucille called
Marybeth and her mama fat, now the whole family knows Lucille kept Mrs. Heidelberg’s
adoption money and picked up a urchin for free.
It was Gloria’s mama started it. Yesterday at church, before Mrs. Heidelberg came over,
she overheard Mrs. Heidelberg upset, talking to Big Tom about what Tom and Lucille did, so
Gloria’s mama called Lucille up on the telephone last night and asked was it true. And did
Lucille say she was sorry for telling the family all those lies? Or for wrapping me and Tom up in
her scheme?
No. She told Gloria’s mama so what if it’s true, mind your own damn business, and
congratulations on winning the ugly contest.
So now the other mamas think it’d be best to keep the cousins away from me.
Marybeth is the only one I really care about seeing anyway, so this morning, I write her a
apology note since, unlike Lucille, I am a civilized human being.
Dear Marybeth,
I am sorry I lied to you about Memphis. Please forgive me. I was in a bind.
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Your best first cousin, Meg.
Short and simple is personally how I would want a apology note, like when you make a
prayer to God. I show it to Willy May and ask does it look all right.
Reckon it can’t hurt, she says and takes the letter to deliver it for me.
A few hours later, Willy May comes back with a letter. But I see it is the same one I
wrote, not even damn opened. I sho am sorry, Meg, Willy May says.
When Lucille comes in the kitchen, I ask could we at least go pick up those free toys they
set out in the yard. No point in letting them go to waste.
I wouldn’t touch their charity with a ten-foot pole, Lucille says. Well I would, but
evidently I don’t get a vote.
I figure the day could not get much worse until the black car pulls up. It is Big Mr.
Heidelberg this time. I have not seen him come over here ever. I stand back and let Lucille deal
with the man.
Big Tom, come in, come in, she says, all nervous. Can I get you a—
He stomps past her without speaking a word. So huge and shaking the whole house, Lord
I hear those bottles clinking in the china cabinet in the dining room. I hold my breath. He goes
directly into Tom’s office and shuts the door. Not a slam but it sends a message. Lucille and I
both lean in to listen. We cannot hear much.
. . . time for you to staht acting like a man, Son, he says, and I want yoah wohd that
foolish business is ovah, and Yoah mothah is woid sick—
I’m so sorry, Daddy, I promise. Nothing like that will ever happen again.
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There is some hemming and hawing and stomping about. Then Mr. Big Tom says, And
you need to luhn to control that damn wife a yoahs.
Ha. I am glad Lucille heard that. Though Lord help Big Tom if he ever tried to control
Mrs. Heidelberg.
When the doorknob turns, we both dart into the living room, pretend to be busy doing
something. He stomps out with nary a word and lets his own self out the front door.
That evening before supper, I see Tom standing in the kitchen. He is awful quiet, gazing
out the back windows like he is listening to something. Maybe it’s those wild dogs I hear in the
middle of the night, snarling and snapping in the woods. I am too scared to ask him if I really
hear them or if they’re just in my head. Sometimes it is better not to know things like that.
How you doing, Tom? I try and ask it like his mama does.
He smiles sort of sad and says he is alright, he is keeping his head above water. Don’t you
worry about me, Meg.
***
At least there is a bright side to all this. First of all, after some very serious and quiet arguing,
Tom and Lucille make what they call a peace treaty. What it comes down to is you got to treat
marriage like a war. Since selling Tom’s book is the only hope they got left for any money,
Lucille agrees to stay off the liquor drinks so Tom can keep working hard as he can. Well thank
you, Baby Jesus, because I have been a nervous wreck. It’d got to where I was getting the
indigestion at supper, worried a Heidelberg would walk in and see a bottle. Tom’s mama has not
been by since Sunday when she told them the jig was up.
Supper does run a hair quiet now, without anybody arguing. But who needs conversation
when you got a chicken potpie to enjoy?
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Willy May brought it, and Tom pops it in the oven to warm. How in the hell have I never
tasted such a thing before? It is a pie you toast up hot, with pieces of chicken and a creamy
business inside, and it is the bee’s knees. I learned that term on the car radio. I do see somebody
pulled a fast one and snuck some green peas into it, but they don’t get past me, I sort those to the
side. Lord, this thing tastes like a damn chicken dessert.
The second good thing is, while we are eating our potpie, Tom says, I know school starts
Monday. What do you say we try and go swimming every morning this week?
I say that would be just fine, sir!
Say around eight, then. Don’t be late, turkey, or I’ll have the lake all to myself.
The next morning, I got my suit and cap on by seven thirty. Me and Tom walk through
the quiet, piney woods. There is a little haze hanging over the lake water this early in the
morning. I doubt the cousins would come this time of day, so it’s just me and Tom. I slip in and
the lake water is warm as a bathtub. Tom practices me on my arm strokes and teaches me what
he calls technique.
Get a rhythm to it, Meg, that’s it, you’re doing swell, kiddo. When I am worn out, I lie on
the dock in the sun and he takes his swimming independent time. I watch him close as he swims
toward the middle. That is just my nature. As he swims farther out, I want to holler, That’s too
far, Tom. Come on back. Gets awful deep out in the middle. But Tom is a strong man long as
damn Lucille is not pulling him down.
On the walk home through the woods, I get the nerve up. Tom, do you ever hear wild
animals chasing something in the night?
Tom frowns at me. You heard the dogs? Like he is surprised. Like maybe he thought they
were in his own head too.
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I nod. It seems like I hear them on the worst nights, when I am having a rough time. Why
are there so many of them? It sounds to me like there are sheer packs running around at night.
I don’t think Tom wants to tell me, but he says, Those are slave dogs. They used to hunt
slaves that’d run off from their owners. They were bred for their bad temperament and their long
teeth. The only way you could stop them from eat—from killing the slave was to shoot the dog, so
they bred them by the thousands. After the war, they just turned them loose.
Slave dogs.
I skitter close to Tom and take his hand. Can they get us? Walking through these woods,
Tom?
No, no, don’t worry. No dogs will come after you with me around.
I guess that is about the best you can ask for in life. To find the person who will keep the
dogs from getting you.
After three days in a row of swimming, I am laying on the living room floor after supper,
reading my McGuffey Reader. Some of it is too young for my reading level, but that is just the
price you pay when you’re in the Exceptional Learner Group.
Tom is sitting on the green sofa with Lucille. She’s hardly said ten words to me all week.
Do you really think so, Tom? she asks him. When he says he does, she says how that
would be so nice, to get away awhile and see some friends, go to some decent stores. Course I
look up at that.
I hope I am not a old woman still jerking alert every damn time somebody mentions
going to the store.
New York sure would be nice in the fall, Tom says. I could deliver the manuscript to Bill
in person, see what he thinks about it.
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What will you do with me? If you go to New York, I ask.
Lucille gives me that eyebrow of hers for talking when you are not spoke to.
You’ll come with us, turkey, Tom says, smiling. Did you think we would leave you here
by yourself?
I don’t begin to answer that.
After a while, Tom says plan on a afternoon swim tomorrow since he wants to work late
tonight. I lay in bed thinking about New York City in the fall. Wouldn’t that be something? For
two years the most I saw was the wrong side of a door and scary faces up on a ceiling. And soon
I could be taking in the city lights, maybe shaking my behind on the avenue. I fall asleep and
dream about all that spectacular.
***
Have you seen my book, Meg? The one by Fitzgerald?
I am in my room waiting for our afternoon swim.
Lucille took it, I tell him. Probably the only intelligent thing I have seen her do around
here is read that book, but I have no qualms tattling on her.
Thanks. I’ll be ready to go in a few minutes.
He goes in their room to get ready. Since I am suited up already, I go back to organizing
my school materials at my table. Only one weekend left and I will officially be in the sixth grade.
I already asked Willy May to please find out what time Mr. Oney will pick me up Monday
morning. Only thing I am nervous about is seeing those cousins, now that Lucille has ruined my
reputation as a respectable orphan. But mostly I am itching to go sit in a school room again.
Tom walks out telling Lucille he will need his book back tonight. He does not sound very
happy about it either.
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***
It is dusk by the time we get back from the lake. I am plumb worn out, in a good way. When I
come down from changing, Tom is in the kitchen, wearing a funny pink apron over his clothes. It
frills around the shoulders and has a flower pattern to it.
I see you looking at me, turkey, he says, opening the oven. It’s the only apron we had. He
smiles and lifts a roast beef out and sets it on the stovetop to cool.
Lucille comes into the dining room wearing a white nightgown to her feet. She looks near
like a ghost to me. There is some makeup on her face, but it looks strange and white. Her red
lipstick is crooked along the top. She looks shocked, like she has seen something.
Tom meets her in the dining room. You not feeling well tonight, darling? he asks.
I’m—I don’t know what I am, Tom, she says.
He sets his palm on the side of her cheek and she looks up at him. It is about the sweetest
thing I have seen her do.
But then Tom draws back, frowning. Lucille. We had an agreement. He follows her to the
china cabinet which she is opening with the damn key. Look, I understand if you need a drink
now and then—
Well, this is now, she says, with a rude little flip on the end.
And what about this afternoon?
That was then.
Well nobody thought to tell me she was taking damn liquor this afternoon. I am almost
glad I didn’t know that.
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Tom says he is going to fix her a plate of food, that she needs to eat. Lucille mutters
she’ll be making another martini. She gets a new bottle out and picks at the red wax, picking and
flicking it onto the wooden breakfront. I scramble to clean it up, that is all we need, after
everything, for Mrs. Heidelberg to find this out now.
Lucille uncorks the thing, and it makes a pop sound. Bring me a pitcher of ice and two
glasses, Meg. She snaps her fingers at me like I am her servant.
I go fetch Her Highness what she wants. It’s bound to be too late for Mr. Oney to be
driving at this hour anyway.
When Tom sees me on the stool hacking ice in the sink, he says, You don’t need to be
doing that, Meg.
It is all right, Tom, believe me, I have dealt with worse. He still takes the ice pick away
from me.
I take two glasses out to the table. Since Tom does not drink, I sure hope that second one
isn’t for me. I set them both at Lucille’s place. I guess she plans to drink them damn two at a
time.
Tom sets out three plates of roast beef with rice and gravy and some extra ambrosia salad
for Lucille. Lucille moves one of those glasses in front of Tom’s place.
Stop it, Lucille, you know I don’t want that, Tom says and moves the glass back over.
She pours some in his glass anyway and pushes it back over to him. Like she is the devil
temptress with the apple and he is the Eve. It smells like so much rat poison to me.
What’s gotten into you tonight? Tom murmurs and sets his napkin in his lap. Now I made
you a plate, and you need to eat something.. He said it sterner than I have heard him speak to her
before.
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Lucille waves at her plate, says, I can’t eat that, and lights a cigarette instead. Woman
would rather eat a cigarette than food. Then she pulls out Tom’s favorite blue Fitzgerald book
from who knows where and sets it on the table between them.
Thank you, I’ve been looking for that, Tom says. He moves it closer to him and pats it
twice like Mrs. Heidelberg does my head. Lord, I don’t want to even think about her.
I read your book while y’all were at the lake.
We both look up. Tom’s fork is midair. What? he says.
She closes her eyes like she is concentrating very hard now. I went in your office. And
read your book, Tom.
Tom sets his fork down. That’s not fair, darling. You should’ve asked me--
I couldn’t help it. After everything, Tom. I am sort of mad she got to read it first.
Tom looks like he doesn’t know whether to smile or frown. He settles on both. Well? Are
you going to tell me what you thought about it?
She takes a sip of her drink, and like she is so tired she can barely talk, she looks at him
and says, Do you know what you’ve done, Tom? Her voice goes higher. You plagiarized it.
Fitzgerald’s story. Even the names are almost the same.
I don’t move. I’m not sure what that word means, but her hand holding the glass is
shaking.
But that’s—those are just placeholders. It’s not the same story at all, Tom says.
She reaches over and takes the book back that Tom patted and she slowly opens it to
where there is a folded piece of paper inside. She unfolds the paper and reads it out loud. An
educational exorbitance that in her youth was only for the daughters of the exceptionally
wealthy—showed the delicacy of her features.
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Then she sets the paper down which I guess is Tom’s writing, and she reads from the blue
Fitzgerald book: An educational extravagance that in her youth was only for the daughters of the
exceptionally wealthy—showed the exquisite delicacy of her features.
Tom looks puzzled but I see what she means now. Alright, well, maybe that’s—I’ll cut
that line, Tom says. My story’s very different than his.
How, Tom?
It—just is, it’s an entirely different tone of voice.
She takes another long sip of her drink. When she claps it down hard on the table, it
splashes. Looking at her plate of food, she says, A young man goes to Princeton and his mother
dies, so he moves to New York where he works in an advertising agency, he falls in love with a
younger woman, but she breaks it off to marry a richer man, so he— She presses her red lips
together. What does he do next in your story, Tom?
He— Tom stops. Goes on a drinking binge, he says. By his wide-open face, that must be
what happens next in the Fitzgerald book too.
It’s plagiarism, Tom! Lucille says, straining her face at him. Her muscles are so tense, I
can see the bones in her neck. Except when it’s not. When the lines are good, they’re stolen, and
when they’re not, it’s just—
I’ll go through and cut anything that’s too similar, it’s a process you don’t understand,
darling. Novel writing is subjective and your one opinion does not make a majority.
Lucille’s one eyebrow rises. Her noseholes go wider. I was him, I would move back some
inches. Even though you viewed me as Bill Davenport’s air-headed pretty little secretary. She
smiles, imitating Bill Daveport’s air-headed pretty little secretary, I spent a good portion of my
job reading manuscripts. Hundreds of them, Tom, maybe thousands, to decide what was worth
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his time or not. And believe me, quite a few tried to sound like him. She points to the blue book.
Bill even had a name for those, the Phony Fitzgeralds he called them, but never did I see one
that ripped him off so blatantly, but that’s not even the real problem here—
But—alright, I know it needs work. This is only an early draft. Tom picks up the blue
book and starts thumbing through it. Look, here Rosalind throws the ring away. My character—
He stops and swallows. Rose—I’ll change that name—would never do that. Did you read the
whole thing, Lucille? If you did, you’d see it’s–
No. Because I couldn’t get through it. She widens her eyes, she cannot believe he would
ask this.
Because it’s too similar? he asks, then quieter, Or because you didn’t . . .
Because it’s amateurish! The writing is terrible, Tom! Nobody is going to publish this
drivel!
Tom draws back like she slapped him. He hears her now. But I want her to shut up, and
be nice to him and didn’t she hear him say, writing is a process she cannot understand?
You wrote that Rose is—she picks up the piece of paper—pathetically and blondly
gorgeous, with a mind like a precarious diamond? What’s that horseshit even supposed to mean,
Tom?
Tom shakes his head. He does not know either what that is supposed to mean
It’s unreadable, Tom. There’s no sense going any further. Everything you’ve written
reads like some tired cliché . . . and even if it didn’t, why would anybody read it—She presses
her hand on top of her hair like a crazy person would do—when a genius has already written it
perfectly? I cannot believe you—She squeezes her eyes shut. You did this to me again, Tom.
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For a few seconds, nobody says nothing. I don’t even want to eat this roast beef anymore.
Tom just stares at her, like she is a stranger to him. She sets both her elbows on the table, like she
is tired. Way she is holding that cigarette so near her head, she is apt to set that big red hair curl
on fire. Well I wish she would! Light herself up like a damn cigarette!
Meg, did Tom ever tell you what he used to do in New York City? she says. As an
occupation, I mean.
God, Lucille, we don’t need to get into all—
I’m speaking to Meg. Meg, did Tom ever mention that to you?
I look at Tom. This feels like a trick. There is something awful coming off her, a sick
green-yellow color.
The answer is nothing, Meg. He did nothing. Do you know why? Because Tom. Fails.
Everything.
Lucille, what are you doing—
Real estate, automobile sales, stockbroker—
Stop it, Lucille.
Art dealing, wine importer—boy, that was a mess. What about when you decided you
wanted to be a cotton farmer, remember that, Tom? The only thing this godforsaken state is good
for, and you couldn’t even do that? She takes off a black heeled shoe and holds it up. I bet if I
planted this shoe out there in the yard, I could grow myself a goddamn Bergdorf Goodman shoe
department!
I give her my meanest-eye stare—she knows Tom is not strong like her, he is a very
sensitive man. Tom tries to snatch the shoe from her, but she jerks it away. You’re drunk, Lucille,
and you need to go to bed, he says.
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She snorts loud. And you’re one to talk! Then there’s Yale. Can’t forget about that one,
can we? She looks at me and bats her eyelashes, smiling terrible like some crazy clown. Meg, did
you know our Tom failed out of college after only two semesters?
You did? I did not mean to ask that, it just came out. We have talked about Yale and how
much he loved it. Tom looks away, and I am so sorry I said that. I don’t care, I say to her. I don’t
even know how many whatever those things are there is in college!
A lot more than two, she says and laughs dry. And Tom failed right out. Lucille
Heidelberg, married to a regular world-class failure. She takes an angry long pull on her
cigarette. Tears are running down her face now. I want to tell Tom he is not a world-class failure.
I want to hug him and tell him that. A long snaky ash from her nasty cigarette drops onto her
fruit ambrosia. I hope she eats that and it makes her sick.
You know what the worst part is, for you, Tom? she says and then quieter, You told your
mother and father how proud they’ll be when you get your big advance check.
Tom looks like all his air is gone from his body. All his joy gone. She has sucked it out of
him. His face looks like it has slipped to the side. It is strange. That is all I know to describe it.
I watch the cigarette ash sink into Lucille’s ambrosia, turning it gray. Tom says, I think
you should go on upstairs now, Meg.
Yes sir. I leave my plate of unate food and go like I’m told. After a while, I hear feet and
Tom’s office door shut.
***
It takes me a long time to fall asleep in the first place and then I get woke up by a noise. It is not
those dogs, no, I think it is a door downstairs. It is still dark out and my windup clock says it is
five in the morning. I lay there awhile, but now that I am awake, I get to thinking. And I have got
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something important to tell Tom. I go sit at my table and prepare it on paper.
And it is, in my opinion, Lucille is not somebody he ought to trust if his book is bad or
not. Just because she was Bill’s secretary at Scribner’s does not make her a expert, especially
when you consider she was probably drunk when she read it. And while I will not say who I
heard it from, I happen to know for a fact that some liquor turns lazy, some it turns crude, but
every one of them it turns stupid. Plumb rots a personality.
Though in Lucille’s case, she is awful even when she is not drinking. I will not say that,
she is his wife. But that is my opinion.
Then I will tell Tom he should give me the book to read. Even if it is not eleven-year-old
material, I know quality when I see it.
When I look out in the hall, their bedroom light is on and the door is open, but they are
not in there. I slip downstairs in the dark, and I can see Tom’s office door is cracked open. I
creep over and peek through, and Lordamighty, in the dim light I see papers flung all over that
room. Some torn or wadded up, some stepped on, one has a cigarette put out on it, and I go in
and start gathering them all up. When I turn around, I realize Lucille is in here too, laid out on
Tom’s sofa. Still in her white nightgown. I don’t know where in the hell Tom has gone off to.
Lucille, you need to get up and go upstairs now, I tell her. Because this is serious. That is
all I need, Willy May showing up here in a hour or two and seeing her like this! Laid out drunk
beside a half-empty bottle and a glass of it on the coffee table, not even a drink coaster placed
under it. That mess will leave a ring for good.
When she does not move, I poke her white arm with a finger and say it with authority this
time: Lucille, get up. You cannot be sleeping in here like this!
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Real slow she lifts her head. The black crayon around her eyes has run down her face.
Her hair is a flat red mess, red lipstick smeared from her mouth corner to her ear. She gets
herself up to a sitting position, then to her feet, swaying and blinking around. She looks certified
crazy, anybody would say so. And what does she have the gall to say to me?
Didn’t I tell you not to wake me up?
I am sorry, Lucille, but Willy May will be here soon, so you need to get upstairs. Now
where has Tom gone to? Tell me now. I have not spoke to her with so much sass ever. I expect a
argument.
But she jerks her thumb over to the window. Before she weaves out of there, I hand her
the bottle and that glass. I don’t know where they keep the key to the cabinet, so she can just take
it upstairs with her. Then I peer through the office window into the dark, cradling my hands
around my face. A sliver of pink sun has already come up, and in the side yard I spot Tom. There
is just enough light to make out one of Lucille’s bottles hanging from his hand.
Oh Tom, Tom! You know better than to fool with that!
I shut the office door and run out the front and look for him. He is strolling off in the
direction of the damn woods. His hair is stuck up funny in the back and half his shirttail is
hanging out his pants. This is not like Tom at all, he likes a neat appearance. I watch him take a
long swig from that bottle.
When I catch up with him, I say, Tom, that is enough. You need to come inside with me
now and go to bed.
He turns and smiles and says, Meg. How are you? It’s good to see you, like we are at a
damn party on the avenue.
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Good to see you too, Tom. Now come with me before the maid or your mama shows up
here and sees you like this.
He puts his hand on my shoulder and says it like he means it, I’m so proud of you, Meg. I
hope you know that. I’m so proud of you.
I am proud of you too, Tom, but it is time to get in the house. It takes me a while of
tugging and begging and steering but I finally get him turned in that direction. He lets me lead
him by the elbow back to the house, and I help him up the front porch steps and inside. I tell him
like I did Lucille, Just tote that bottle on up there with you, thataway. I walk careful behind him
up the stairs. It feels somewhere between helping a toddler and a old lady. Down the hall I aim
him to his bedroom, where Lucille is already fast asleep. Tom climbs up in the high four-poster
bed and lays down, shoes and all. Something dribbles out his pockets, Lord if he didn’t stuff
them with dirt and sticks and leaves. I tell him we did not need that mess brought in the house
but I will have to deal with it later. Long as I got them both in here in bed. I stuff both their
bottles and Lucille’s glass in his side drawer.
Tom sits up. He isn’t wearing his glasses, and I can see his freckles. He looks like a boy
again.
I’m sorry, Meg. I know I’m a sorry excuse for a father.
You are not a sorry excuse, Tom. We all have a bad day. That is just a part of life.
Thank you. For taking care of us, Meg.
You’re welcome, Tom. Lucille might get stupider and meaner, but Tom just gets sweeter.
I bet Mrs. Heidelberg would be glad to know that if I could ever damn tell her.
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Willy May is due anytime now. Anytime. Lord knows what these two left sitting out.
Their whole room smells like a damn liquor factory; I nearbout feel drunk breathing it myself. I
am afraid the smell will leak out under the door.
Tom sits up again like he has something important to say. Meg. Meg? he says.
Yes, Tom.
Tomorrow we’ll go swimming, alright, Meg?
I smile at him. Sweet, dear Tom. Yes sir. Tomorrow we’ll go swimming.
When Willy May comes in around seven, I got the place under control. Dishes done,
countertops wiped down in case she brings in the bloodhounds. I gathered up all the pages in
Tom’s office and shut the door again.
I tell Willy May, Lucille and Tom are not feeling good today. They must’ve picked up a
head cold of some kind. They said for you to go on back before you catch it. I hope this will keep
Mrs. Heidelberg away too. We have not seen her all week.
They both feeling sick?
That’s right. Both of them. Tom said to tell you to go on back to the big house, we will be
fine.
***
When Willy May goes on, I do some pacing around. Checking did I miss this, that or the other.
Once I am satisfied, I sit down with my new arithmetic book, might as well try and get ahead.
It is hard to pay attention when you got a problem to solve across the hall bigger than
which is a integer.
I tell myself, it was only the one night, Meg.
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And everybody needs a drink now and then. Even President Roosevelt said so in the
newspaper.
I have half convinced myself when, wouldn’t you know, the black car pulls up.
I put a petticoat on quick and run downstairs. She is knocking on the door like to beat the
band. I locked it in case something like this came up. You cannot be too careful when it comes to
a concerned mother.
I open the door and right off she says, Why was the door locked, Meg? Willy May said
Tom and Lucille aren’t feeling well?
Yes, ma’am, that’s right. They are upstairs resting.
She takes a step forward, but I stay in the doorway. I don’t know if you can stop a woman
like her from coming in a house.
Mrs. Heidelberg, believe me, you do not want to go up there. Those two are sneezing and
hacking things up in their throat. I would hate for you to catch it. At your elderly age, a cold
turns to flu, a flu to even worse, and then where does that leave us? That could be the last cold
you ever get.
She looks a little put off by that elderly part. How sick are they?
Not . . . very. I overdid it, made it sound like they are on a damn deathbed. It’s just that
Tom doesn’t want you to catch it.
But I’m his mother. I don’t care if I catch it.
My heart feels like it’s beating down its door now. Course she has to be dressed all in red
again today, a color hard to argue with. I decide to pull out the big guns. I did not want it to come
to this.
Mrs. Heidelberg . . . the truth is, Tom said he doesn’t want to see you.
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Her mouth falls open. Lines of red lipstick have leaked into the little cracks around her
mouth. Because . . . he’s sick? I shake my head and try and look ashamed. I . . . see, she says.
Well I. I’ll call on the telephone then. And check on them later.
That’s a good idea. You call on the telephone. I take her arm and steer her out onto the
front porch.
Her lip trembles. Meg, how is Tom faring? After everything last weekend?
I cannot lie to her, not about this. His heart is broken, Mrs. Heidelberg.
She swallows and her eyes fill with tears. I look off past her at old Mr. Oney waiting by
the car. He looks so sad. I wish I knew how to help him.
I do too, she whispers. Oh how I do, and she reaches out and takes my hand. Please keep
a close watch on him for me, would you, Meg? You’ll let me know if it gets any worse?
I swallow a knot in my throat, thinking how Tom was like a little boy I was helping up
the stairs this morning. Yes, ma’am, I will let you know.
***
While Tom and Lucille sleep the rest of the morning, I slip into Tom’s office. I try and read
some pages, but without page numbers, they don’t make much sense. I can see why Tom likes to
work in this room, though. It is calming, with three curved windows looking out on the front
yard. Tom’s chair swivels around in a full squeaky circle. I do that a few times. Push a key on
the typewriter. The lever pops against the wheel and I jump. I feel like a criminal being in here
snooping and touching his things . . . and what is this . . .
Pushed under a bookshelf thing, I spot something yellow. I pull it out and it is a Deluxe
Box of Twenty-Two Color Crayons with a color wheel on the back, and there is even a coloring
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book under there with it! These must have been left over from when that mean Gloria’s family
lived here. I take them in the living room where I got a good view of the front door and the stairs.
The coloring book is titled Fun with Nursery Rhymes! and all the pictures have black
outlines around them to keep you in control. Baby pictures like Little Bo-Peep, cow jumping the
moon, a Jack be nimble, that type thing. I don’t know how old Gloria’s little sister is, but I do
know she was not a very good colorer. Looks to me like she scratched the first crayon she could
grab across every page without even trying to stay inside the lines, just going crazy back-and-
forth frantic with no set plan. Pink trees, lime skies, purple cats. Oh it eats me alive, looking at it.
So I try and fix some of her handiwork. First I draw a thicker black line around the Bo-Peep to
cover the scribbles and make her not look to where she has her finger in a socket. It reminds me
of Birdie, how she fixed up the office. I never thought of it before now, but she did that for me.
She knew she was going home soon, but she did it so I wouldn’t have to sit in nastiness. I bet
Birdie’d be a fine colorer.
After my outlining, I look for the color that makes more sense over the wrong ones.
Problem is, the most important colors are missing from the box, your basic red, blue, yellow.
That is too bad. I color the sun English Vermilion and the grass Turquoise Blue and even if it
looks interesting, it is still a couple shades from the truth.
After a while of fixing her coloring, I start to feel a little better. Now we can get back to
how things were. Tom will sleep it off like Lucille does, and we can start fresh at being a family.
***
Around noon, Tom comes downstairs, still wearing the blue shirt from yesterday. It is sort of
tucked into his pants, and his hair is all wrong. When he sees me, he looks down at himself and
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shakes his head. Like he is surprised his ownself it has come to this. I think he has forgot exactly
what he came down here for.
Tom, I think it would be important to—
I try again, the way I rehearsed it. Tom, I think it would be important to get the second
opinion on your book. If you will just get the pages in order and let me read it, I could tell you
what I think since I have heard the second opinion is very important in life.
I know I messed that up. Tom smiles, but it is sad. He does not seem back to his regular
self yet. That’s very sweet of you to offer, Meg. I’d like to think that over. Are you . . . will you be
alright on your own? I don’t think I’m up for swimming today.
Do not worry about me, Tom. I will be fine. He is already easing toward the kitchen. I
follow him. I got everything cleaned up before Willy May got here this morning and I stacked the
pages on your desk and I stuck those bottles in your side drawer and your mama—maybe I
shouldn’t mention her, but—she came by here this morning so I told her you and Lucille were
sick and not to . . . come in or . . . He is toting Lucille’s pitcher of ice and a glass to his office. I
trail after him to his doorway. But she will be calling. On the telephone . . . He has taken a fresh
bottle out of his closet and set it all on his desk.
Thank you, Meg, he says. I’ll see you a little later, alright?
Yes sir.
He closes the door.
See. I didn’t think that was a option. I thought this was one big exception to the rule. Not
even Lucille start on the liquor alcohol this early. She said day drinking will make a lady fat.
When Lucille finally does come down, she says, He’s still on a bender, huh?
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I got no idea what a bender is, but I could wring her neck. Way she set that glass at
Tom’s place, calling him a world-class failure, what did she expect him to do, ask for a hot tea?
Go to bed early?
You better believe there is some sass in my voice when I tell her about my day. She came
by here, you know. Mrs. Heidelberg did. I lied and told her y’all had head colds and not to come
in and get it!
Good job, Meg, she says. I should’ve tried that a long time ago.
I don’t thank her for that. And I am usually a sucker for somebody telling me I did a good
job.
I wouldn’t lose too much sleep over this, she says. Believe me, I’ve been through it
before. He’ll drink a few days and then sleep it off and everything will go back to like it was. And
even if his mother finds out, what’s she going to do, cut us off the deposits? She laughs at that
like she is funny.
She decides to make her own damn self a martini. I tell her don’t bother hunting for the
pitcher, he already has it in there.
What I am now is just plain scared. Tom’s mama is already woid sick, and if she finds out
I am lying, not just about Lucille’s drinking but now about Tom’s too, she will take me back to
that Orphan in a snap. But if I tattle on them, then Lucille will do the returning. I don’t see how
ole Nutmeg can win at this confusing game anymore.
When the telephone rings, Lucille comes down and answers it. I listen to her tell Mrs.
Heidelberg they still got head colds, it’s best for them not to see anybody for a while. Telephone
in one hand, a damn martini in the other.
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Supper for me is ham slices and sweet potatoes I eat right from the cold dish. Maybe
Lucille is right. Tom will drink himself silly and in a day or two he will wake up and be regular.
***
Late in the night I wake up again—Lord, is she going at him or was that me screaming? But no,
that is Tom’s voice. And it is not screaming at all. I think . . . I think he is singing. It sounds like
he is singing out in the damn yard. I am so tired waking up two nights in a row, my bones don’t
operate good a minute, but when I go look out the window, there he is, singing loud and
searching the ground. He spots something he likes the look of and snatches it up like it is a nickel
on the street, examining whether he might should keep it. Maybe he is hunting for Indian
arrowheads, he likes to look for those. Whatever it is, he smiles and puts it in his pocket.
I pull up my window.
I greet you with a song in my heart. I behold your adorable face . . .
Just a song at the start. But it soon is a hymn to your grace.
When the music swells . . .
I didn’t know Tom was a good singer, but it is loud and strong. It carries up and off
through the yard and down the long drive for the house. I remember the song from when I was
little living in my mama’s house. Rolling up the blue rug to dance to the song slow . . .
He bends down and picks something else up, but throws it back down. He takes a drink
off a bottle and goes back to singing.
Tom, I yell down at him. What are you doing out there? You need to go to bed!
He stops and looks around and up at me. Then waves and smiles like I am a old friend
from Yale College. He still has the same damn dirty blue shirt on.
Meg, I’m sorry I woke you up. You go back to bed, alright?
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I can’t, Tom. Your singing probably woke people up in Memphis!
He grins at this. Alright, turkey. If I stop singing, you promise you’ll go back to bed?
But I want him to go to bed too. Tom, please come inside and get some rest so we can go
swimming tomorrow? Please?
He stops smiling and stares up at me. Dirt and things sifting through his fingers. I’m so
proud of you, Meg, he calls, like he didn’t hear what I asked. I’m so proud. I think you’re just
spectacular, Meg. Now you go back to bed, alright?
Yes sir.
Good night, Meg.
Good night, Tom.
***
I shoot up in bed. Willy May will be coming in—Lord, what time is it? It is already six thirty in
the morning! Tom’s bedroom door is all the way open, and I run downstairs. Lights are on all
over the house and . . . everything looks pretty good. Just like I left it last night. Tom’s office
door is shut, there’s not even a bit of that red wax anywhere, and then I remember the yard. The
way Tom was singing drunk, he’s apt to’ve left a bottle on the ground.
I open the back door in the kitchen. The sun is just starting to come up, turning
everything pink.
I’ve hardly got the door shut behind me when I see Lucille. Lord help us, first Tom out
here and now her too? She is dressed in her long white nightgown like a sane lady would wear to
bed, not some drunk lunatic running out the woods. When she gets closer, I see rips in the skirt
part and long scratches on her ankles. If she is not drunk, well she is damn something.
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Lucille, where have you been? You are going to get us in trouble! I don’t know where I
get the gall, but I have had it with her!
She stops and puts her hands on her knees, huffing.
At the lake, she says. She was not down there for swimming, I know that. She would
rather chew her arm off than rinse out her hairstyle.
Go get in bed with Tom before Willy May gets here. You’re a filthy mess, I say. There are
leaves in her hair and she has wild animal eyes.
Lucille is trying to get some air in. After every gasp, she gets a few words out.
Tom’s not in bed, he . . .
. . . tied bags to his arms and legs . . .
. . . filled his pockets with rocks and he . . .
What are you talking about? I don’t know if I ask it, but I do think it.
Tom took the boat into the middle of the lake and jumped in.
I stare at her. All I can think to say to her is, It gets awful deep in the middle.
Lucille has run past me inside, and now she is bawling into the telephone—
Get somebody out there, she cries, he’s out there—
No! she says. I saw him, he’s in the lake, he’s drowning!
I hear a wind in my ears. The person on the telephone doesn’t believe her.
No, he didn’t wander off—no, he didn’t have a fever! HE WAS DRUNK AND JUMPED
IN THE MIDDLE OF THE LAKE!
Lucille drops the phone and the bang makes me jump. Out the front door she goes, and I
run after her, I don’t want to get left. She starts her car, so I pull open the back door and get in
with her. When she drives, she leans up close, gripping the wheel, and after two turns she slams
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the car to a stop at the top of the hill that’s next to the lake. I hear rumbling behind us. There are
trucks, and a colored man and a colored boy my age get out of one. The boy is running.
Lucille points out to the middle of the lake, hollering at them. All I can hear is that wind
in my head. The empty boat is floating close to the edge, and the colored boy wades out and
pulls it in, long pants and all. Big Mr. Heidelberg and Tom’s brother are here too now, and
Lucille screams through the wind for them to goddamn hurry. The brother and the colored boy
row out to where it is awful deep and they jump over the side of the boat and me and Lucille
watch as they both go under. I am holding Lucille’s hand tight. Her nails dig into my skin.
One pops up for breath, goes down again. Another pops up, goes down again. I don’t
know how long a man can live under the water.
Lucille sinks down into the wet grass and pulls me down with her. I see Mrs. Heidelberg
standing by her husband, bent over like she is trying to breathe. She gives me and Lucille one
long look like we were in this together.
It is a long time that goes by before the colored boy pops up and hollers, I found him!
He’s out in the middle where it’s awful deep, too deep if you are just learning to swim, or
if you stuffed your pockets and tied bags of rocks to your feet and arms.
It takes many men to drag him up to shore.
At least that is what I heard. I did not see that part in person, they made me and Lucille
and Mrs. Heidelberg leave when they pulled him up. Oh but I see it all just fine in my head.
Tom still singing while he goes down.
Chapter 40
When I try and picture the last few days, I see the pages that cousin crayoned in the coloring 707
book. Where she took the first color she could grab and ran it furious across the paper. No matter
that it did not match how the world ought to look.
Some folks came by the house. The ones I knew were Marybeth’s and Gloria’s mamas.
Lucille stood in the doorway in a daze until they worked their way into the house. Nobody called
her white trash, and she did not tell Marybeth’s mama she could stand to skip a meal or Gloria’s
that she won a ugly contest. It takes a man dying to make some folks behave. Instead, those
Christian mamas got Lucille upstairs and finally changed out of that old white nightgown and a
bathtub run. They know how to run things. Talking about Jesus and what Lucille needed now
was the Lord Jesus Christ to help her and Tom’s mama and daddy get through this.
The doctor’s worried about Isabelle. Big Tom’s worried too, Marybeth’s mama said.
Lucille, let us take Meg home with us for a while until you feel a little better—
No! Lucille cried. I want Meg to stay here with me! I don’t want to be alone. She sounded
scared to death, so the ladies backed off. I tried to be relieved that she didn’t plan on returning
me right away, but the thought of staying here without Tom made me want to set my head down
on something and cry.
Which I have not done. It is strange. But how I wish I could. Maybe because I pushed the
crying for that other one down so hard, it will never come unstuck again. I just feel cold and
shaking all over.
Gloria’s mama said she would send her girl over to tidy up the kitchen and make sure we
had plenty to eat. That Willy May wouldn’t hardly leave Tom’s mama’s bedside. When their
maid came in that afternoon, she hardly said two words and has not said much more since. She
wiped down the kitchen, set out some soups with rice, stews, things soft on the throat.
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So soon after, I couldn’t seem to make my mouth speak much anyway. It made me think
of the Orphan and how sometimes it would shut a girl up. For weeks sometimes without saying a
word. All this noise inside us and we cannot make a damn sound.
Whenever Lucille saw me, she would close her eyes, like maybe I would disappear if she
kept them shut long enough. Mostly she just stayed up in bed.
When she didn’t come out a whole afternoon, I tried sliding a note under her door. It said,
Hello.
I did not get a note back.
After a while I put another one under there that said, How are you? I am fine. In case she
had forgot I was here, I did another that says, This is Meg.
When there was still nothing, I started to worry she was in there planning something. I
just hoped it does not involve rocks. That was all I needed was them both dead. That’d be a fast
ticket back to the Orphan.
Finally, Lucille came downstairs to answer the telephone. I stood there listening and
learned there would be a funeral in a couple days’ time. Small, just for close family. Without her
face made up, Lucille looked old but also like a girl. Her hair laid flat and stringy. I still didn’t
like her, but I did wonder how long since she had eaten something.
When Lucille put the talker down and was just sitting there staring, I asked, Where did
they put Tom?
Um. They’ve got him laid out at the big house until the funeral, she said, and then,
Course they had to take him to his damn mama’s.
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Did Lucille want them to bring him here? Lay Tom out dead on the vegetable sofa? I sort
of wished they had, it sounded better than to think of him in that big cold living room, Mrs.
Heidelberg crying over his body.
Will we get to see him again? I asked.
I don’t know, I don’t know, I just want to be alone.
She went back upstairs while I was thinking, We might be all we got left and you want to
be alone? But she closed her door, leaving me standing at the bottom of the stairs.
***
The day before the funeral, Willy May comes in with some food. She hugs my head to her and
asks, How you doing, Meg?
How do you even answer something like that? That a terrible wind is blowing in my ears?
That I hear dogs snarling and snapping at something nightly?
Is Mrs. Heidelberg— I’m too afraid to ask what I really want to know.
Willy May shakes her head. She in a bad way, Meg, laid up in bed sick. I got to tend to
her all day now.
I know Mrs. Heidelberg blames me for what happened, and I don’t blame her. I blame
myself too.
If only I had told her about the drinking. Tom might still be alive.
She has brought us covered dishes she calls casseroles, which is what you eat when you
can’t think straight. The meat and the vegetable and gravy and cheese all throwed into the one
dish to keep it simple. She shows me how to light the oven carefully and tells me to make sure I
eat something. Sort of as a side note she sighs and says, And Miz Lucille.
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I ask her what about school, it started a few days ago. She says, All the cousins be sitting
out this week. I am glad to hear that. Least it won’t be just me trying to catch up.
Before she leaves, she gives me a good long hug. It is the first good one I have had since
Tom died. It all finally comes rushing out, the tears and the ache. The wind stops blowing quite
so terrible. She rubs my back and even though I don’t even know Willy May’s last name, I ask,
Can I come home with you?
No, baby, I got to look after Miz Isabelle now. Everbody got they hands full. And like it is
a damn shame, Last I heard, Miz Lucille want you to stay on here with her.
***
I don’t get to go to Tom’s funeral. At first I figure it is because Mrs. Heidelberg can’t stand the
sight of me. But Willy May tells me it is on account of Tom killed himself that they don’t let the
younger folks go.
I would liked to’ve gone. I think Tom would have wanted me there. Instead I watch from
my window as Mr. Oney totes Lucille off in a black dress, shoes and hat to match. You got to
give it to Lucille, even in funeral times, she’s got style.
They are supposed to bury him at the little church over by town. I almost hate to think of
the look Mrs. Heidelberg will give Lucille at the funeral.
So far, I have been by myself in a house only twice, once when she left for good and now
for Tom’s funeral. It gives me a bad case of nerves to think what else could happen. I lie on the
floor in the library and look up funeral in the F encyclopedia. Least let me see what all I am
missing.
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It says at the Heidelberg kind of service, which is Christian, they will pray for Tom’s soul
and stick him in a wood box and bury him in the earth until he is ashes to ashes, dust to dust.
That is not really that much to do by comparison.
In a place called Mongolia, they chop you up and let the vultures carry you off.
The Sulawesi folks bury you, then dig you up to check on you every couple years.
A lot of places just burn you up to nothing left.
I stop and wonder what Tom’s body must’ve looked like coming out of the water that
day, sagging with all those rocks. I worry his glasses are still at the bottom of the lake. Those
were important to him. He always took them off careful and set them aside before swimming, but
do you do that before you jump in for good?
In a place called Philippine they would dress Tom up in a fancy striped suit and prop him
up next to the front door. Give him a plate of food to snack on and stick a cigarette in his mouth.
They had a photograph for the example.
After a while I wished I had not looked at that photograph so long. Once you see one like
that, it will be hard to unsee it when it’s time to go to sleep.
When Lucille comes home from the funeral, she stomps into the house and goes straight
to the kitchen. I ask her were people praying for Tom’s soul. She is shaking all over, holding
herself up at the sink.
This family treats me like I am nothing more than dirt under their damn feet. I was his
wife, for Christ’s sake. She takes a hunk of ice from the icebox and starts hacking at it like she
wants to kill it. Who does she think she is—the damn queen of England? Somebody had to set her
straight. So I said it. I told her, You killed Tom, you kept him a child and a fool . . . She goes to
the china cabinet and takes out a bottle, still talking, pours the whole thing into a pitcher. And do
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you know what she did before God and everybody? She ripped the earrings right off my ears,
saying they were family heirlooms and I wasn’t good enough to wear them!
That must’ve been like a damn ride at the fair, getting those off Lucille. It is almost too
awful to imagine.
She takes the pitcher and a glass and pushes past me, goes upstairs to her room. I hear the
bedroom door slam. The casserole is in the icebox. I stare at it, but I am not hungry. Instead, I go
upstairs, fill the bathtub, and listen to the echoey sound the water makes in the room. Then I slip
under the water and hold my breath and I think about Tom.
If I had gotten to go the funeral, I would have snuck him his favorite Fitzgerald book.
Slipped it in under the lid of the coffin and told him one last time, Sleep well, Tom.
***
A few mornings later, Lucille gets on the telephone. She asks to be connected to such-and-so law
firm, located in New York City. After fifteen minutes or so, the thing rings back. I stay nearby to
listen. I got nothing better to do but also in case it has anything to do with me
I can’t hear everything that is said inside the black talker, but what I gather is this: When
somebody dies, a man gives you money that goes by the name of Will, but you got to be in good
with Will to actually get the money, unless Tom did some planning.
After Lucille hangs up, she picks the telephone up again and says, Connect me to the
Heidelbergs at number fourteen please. Lucille tells Mr. Heidelberg she would like to come
speak to them tomorrow.
The next morning Lucille gets all dressed up and fixes her hair with the big red curl on
the side. She hollers for me to come button her up the back. It has been so long since I have been
spoke to, I am glad to be of use.
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I’ll be back, she says.
When? I ask. That is a habit of mine. But also a reasonable thing to ask a woman who has
barely looked you in the eye coming up on a week.
I’m going over to the big house to talk to Isabelle and Big Tom. She takes a deep breath.
Wish me luck.
Good luck. I say, because she is going to need it.
Not a hour later, she slams the front door so hard the pictures on the wall rattle. Seems
like nobody ever has anything good to say when they walk in this house anymore. She is nearly
in tears again. She jerks her gloves off and slaps them down on the table.
Well now I know exactly what this damn family thinks of me.
Did she really have doubts about that?
Tom didn’t leave a will. Nothing’s in our name, not a house, not a car—all he left me
with are some clothes and a goddamn typewriter! Her tears start streaming down as I follow her
into Tom’s office where she flings open his top desk drawer. She rummages around in there. I
said, Well what do you expect us to live on? Me and my young daughter?
It is kind of awful to hear it put in those words. But I keep my mouth shut.
They said they need some time until they can “better assess the situation.” What the hell
does that mean? She slams the drawer closed, flings open the next one and starts going through it
too. So I guess it’s just you and me, Meg, she says, while they take their time making a decision
about our lives. You and me under their thumb without so much as a damn dime.
Least that thumb is attached to somebody rich is my opinion. When she has gone through
all Tom’s drawers, the closet, the bookshelf and is sure there is nothing of value, she goes to the
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