Carmen Speaks

            I was so excited I hardly knew what to do, so I did what I knew how. I finished cutting the onions, sprinkled the steaks with water, and put down the skillet lid. I sat at the kitchen table and put my fingers on either side of my temples, probing for the thoughts that had held me captive for so long. I felt nothing. No troublesome faith. Nothing to defend. I was free. I shook my head from side to side, like you do when you’re coming out of water. Nope, nothing in my head but me. The weight was gone and I was free, free as Adam and Eve before Adam looked the other way and blamed Eve; then I realized I didn’t have to believe that story, either. The Bible had been my base, but it had been a false one, and I’d rebuild on something solid this time around. I started laughing. The voice was gone and the awful fear with it. 

            Something else was missing—guilt. The guilt that had plagued me all my life, the guilt that comes from failing to live up to someone else’s standards, which in my case meant your grandmother’s. From now on, I’d do as I pleased. The realization was slow in coming, but when it came, I swallowed it whole.

            I don’t know if you remember that night, but we had a great time. I’d burnt the meat, but we ate it anyway, and the onions that Rush couldn’t eat, I let the three of you throw against the wall. (The strands stuck, but your grandmother scraped them off the next morning, muttering, “What in the Sam Hill happened in here?”) Then, we walked to the Dairy Queen and ordered banana splits. I could only eat the cherry and a couple of spoonfuls of whipped cream, so Rush ate mine and his. 

            It didn’t matter. Though I’d avoided food for months, the thought of eating no longer repulsed me. I’d get my appetite back soon. We walked home and saw Mrs. Sanders sitting on her front porch, and she called out, “Carmen, I never thought I’d see you smile again. That’s exactly what I’ve been praying for.”

            After the three of you were in bed, I sat on the couch and probed inside my head. The voice was gone, but the space it had occupied had left a hollowness that, after the first rush of freedom, felt lonely.  I didn’t take that as a sign of discouragement. I didn’t believe in signs now. I decided to sleep it out and took three Sominex that night, and in the morning was groggy. Your grandmother, after a temporary defeat, had established herself as head of our house again, which didn’t bother me because, being hollow, I didn’t care about anything. I tore her list of improvements off the refrigerator door. She’d make another list, but it would wait. Sylvia Hudgins phoned, asking me to rejoin the Junior Woman’s Club as a personal favor, and I refused, which, according to Tina Hollis, sent her into a conniption fit because they were planning the front of the town hall now, and I was the best hole digger. Andrea Veach continued to play at Glorious Life Pentecostal, which made Pearl strut like rooster and your grandmother fuss like a wet hen.

            I still sent you kids because I knew it was only a routine, but when your grandmother started in about my lack of attendance, which always led back to Andrea at the piano, I’d shrug and say, “I hear she’s doing a fine job.”

            “Hear is right,” she’d retort, “because it’s for sure you don’t go.”

            I don’t know how many variations we had on this argument. There were plenty, but I always managed to shrug them off. Nothing bothered me now except the hollow spot. A silence was building; soon, it would be as loud as the voice. I filled it with plans in the daytime and Sominex at night. 

            My lawyers finally reached a settlement with C&O Railroad and Tri-State Trucking. They’d taken a hefty percentage, but there was plenty left for me and you three, more money than I’d dreamed possible in a lifetime. I got a huge lump sum, and after that I was to receive monthly checks as part of a structured settlement until I died. You three received lump sums and settlements until you were twenty- one. 

            Once that first check came in, I deposited it in the bank, all but a thousand dollars, which I stuffed in Rush’s marble bag before I put it in the lime green beach tote that your grandmother bought at a yard sale and insisted was a summer handbag. I’d quit fighting her and now carried it.  A thousand dollars was more than enough to cover my tuition, but I also wanted to buy clothes. I was determined to start college in the fall and had even phoned the admissions office and received the applications in the mail. I hadn’t filled them out but had hidden them in a place where I knew your grandmother wouldn’t snoop—under a stack of sweaters in the old armoire.

            Lorraine, this still puzzles me. That armoire was the only good piece of furniture we owned; your grandmother gave it to Samy and me as soon as we set up housekeeping, even before we bought the cheap kitchen table and chairs from Murdock’s Department Store. It was lovely, made of curly maple, and Samy and I thought she’d made a big sacrifice by giving us a fine antique, and that it was her way of showing she’d accepted our early marriage. But I was to learn, in bits and pieces, that she just didn’t like it.

            I once asked where it had come from, and she was vague. No, she hadn’t forgotten, she just didn’t want me to know. Later, when I was feeling hollow, I pressed her, just as she’d always pressed me. Finally, she said, “My mother gave it to me.” When I asked her what her mother’s name was (your grandmother never talked about her family), she got flustered and snapped, “No, it wasn’t Momma. It was my sister. I mean my step-sister. She give it to me.” 

            Give it to me.

            Your grandmother used country expressions all the time. Everyone in Harshbarger Mills did. Knee high to a grasshopper, twinkle in your daddy’s eye. I’d even heard her say worthless as teats on a bull, but I’d never heard incorrect grammar before. 

©Joan Heck Spilman. All rights reserved.