Day 2

Father is gone, and now Momma too. Phillip down the street says that it makes me an orphan, an orphan at eight years old. Father died so long ago, he is a blur to me. At least I remember Momma; little two year-old Robbie will never know the woman who had us.

All of our things have been moved from Momma’s house. My dolls, my toy chest, Phillip’s fire truck. Now they are all in this one little room at Nona’s. Everything that belonged to Momma or Father has been sold or moved into Grandfather and Nona’s house. Or gone far away, into my other grandparents’ house.

I miss Momma.

Nona tells us not to be afraid. That everything will be alright. That we are home now.

I opened my eyes at the smell of bacon. Light streamed in the window with the straight, soft light of morning. I hadn’t been aware that sleep had come, and I found with surprise that I had managed to unconsciously curl up under the sheet.

I heard the sound of voices down the hall. The intensity seemed to pick up, reaching a crescendo and then fall. I listened to the pattern repeat a few times. Finally, I started walking down the hall, following the sound of talking. I went past Uncle Paul’s closed door, and saw that the next one was open. I found Uncle Paul standing at Nona’s bedside, his back to the door. He did not see me standing there.

Uncle Paul was a lanky man, with dark black hair circling the rim of his head where balding hadn’t set in. His big forehead, serious brown eyes, and sharp nose didn’t prevent him from looking constantly cheerful. There was a reason his nickname was “Happy.” Uncle Paul bent over Nona, and his tenderness reminded me of a mother bird looking over its young.

“Momma,” he whispered gently, “did you see? I got it. The bug’s gone now.”

Nona squeezed his hand, saying, “Thank you, dear.”

I began to feel as though I was intruding on a personal moment, and I was about to turn around, when Uncle Paul must have sensed me behind him. He wheeled around.

“Oh, Gennie, you’re up. Wonderful. I’ll be right back.”

I moved to Nona’s bedside, sitting down in a wicker chair. Her wrinkled face lit up at the sight of me, and she grasped both my hands. Nona was clad in a crisp white cotton nightgown, with a crocheted green blanket pulled up to her waist. Her bright blue eyes were set off by the dramatic shock of white hair on her head.

I looked over Nona’s head out the open window, and the sky was a deep azure. The yellowish grass in the yard below was clearly moist from an evening rainstorm. But the morning air was still clear and hadn’t yet acquired the heaviness that comes with hazy summer days.

“Oh, how I’ve missed you, my girl. It’s been too long that you’ve been away. Your brother comes for visits when he can, with his classes, but you’ve been gone for so long, now.” She wasn’t remonstrating, I knew, just speaking with the full heart of a woman who has nothing to hide. Her eyes caressed my face, and she seemed to be trying to reconcile the 25 year-old woman before her with the young girl she had once tended.

“How is John? “ Nona asked, peering into my eyes.

“Okay,” I murmured as I got up, and, feeling the need to avoid the depth of her gaze, walked toward the window. When I turned back, Nona was staring upward, her face taut with anxiety. She looked strange and unfamiliar now, as her narrowed eyes darted across the ceiling.

“What are you staring at, Nona?” I asked.

“It’s that bug on the ceiling. It won’t go away. Would you please kill it?” I looked toward the ceiling, but I saw nothing there. I felt powerless, unable to do even this small thing for her. Perhaps it was a vision problem, perhaps it was a trick of the mind. But there was no bug. I recalled her conversation with Uncle Paul moments earlier, and I saw then that I was losing her.

I felt instant relief to see Uncle Paul arrive again at her bedside.

Uncle Paul and I went downstairs to the kitchen. The yellow tiles around the room were as bright as I remembered from childhood. Mrs. Fisher had spread out a breakfast feast for us: there were eggs, bacon, pancakes in large heaps, sausages, and glasses of orange juice. After getting us settled in, Mrs. Fisher disappeared up the stairs, and Uncle Paul and I ate in thick silence. I surprised myself with my hunger, and I ate with my face towards the plate, allowing me to scoop the food in quickly. A few times, I looked up and saw my uncle watching me. Eventually, he put down his orange juice glass with an air of finality, and said,

“I’m glad you’ve come back, and I know your Nona is too. This will always be your home, no matter what.”

Uncle Paul looked me over, and he seemed to be waiting for me to say something. I knew he wanted an explanation, answers of some kind. But I couldn’t give him any of those yet. He smiled at me. He was always smiling, and I couldn’t help smiling back. We sat there smiling silently for a few moments. I realized how much I had missed Uncle Paul.

The big grandfather clock in the living room struck seven, and Uncle Paul pushed himself up from the table. “I’ve got to be getting to the plant now,” he told me.

The plant was the local aircraft manufacturer, where Uncle Paul had worked for the past fifteen years. Once he had installed parts, but by then, he was a supervisor, a position he would have preferred not to have. He couldn’t stand firing people.

“Little Rob will be over sometime today. He didn’t tell us you were coming this week.”

“He didn’t know.”

“Well, I’m sure he’ll be as glad at the surprise as we were. It’s been too long.” Uncle Paul grabbed his summer work jacket off the coat rack, turned for one last goodbye smile, and headed out the door.

The door slammed shut, and the old house shook and sighed in protest. I stretched my legs out luxuriously under the kitchen table, and enjoyed the peaceful stillness of the new day. Mornings had gotten easier since the sickness had subsided. After I finished my breakfast, I cleared the plates from the table. Listlessly, I moved from the kitchen into the adjoining living room. There was no door, only a change in paint colors to mark the shift from eating space to company room. The house also had a formal dining room, but I could not remember the last time it had been used.

I circled the living room, my eyes grazing over the photographs and decorations that littered the walls. I came upon the photograph of my mother which hung over the old brick mantlepiece. In August, the fireplace below seemed a dull echo of the warmth and intimacy it conveyed during winters past. I lingered over my mother’s image. She stood in front of a car, bundled in a thick coat, with a beret askew on her head. Her long black hair was pinned up, but wisps of it escaped defiantly from out of the beret. Her brown eyes stared straight into the camera, as though daring the viewer to be the first to look away. I saw her face, and in it, I saw my own. She must have been around my age when this was taken, I thought.

I wandered toward the over-sized, gilded antique mirror that resided in the nook by the stairs. I stared then at my own image. I traced in air the outline of my straight nose, my dark brown almond shaped eyes, and I ran my fingers through the thick length of my own black hair. I could see my mother’s photograph, a tiny blur, in the reflection of the mirror. She had been gone for so long, and yet as I stood, I could see her living, breathing, through me. We seemed likenesses of one another, divided by the hard wall of death and time.