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LAWANDA
- The University Press of Kentucky
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LAWANDA: I have to tell you I was shook up about Garland. Pm not sure what I was scared of except that he might not let me get away from First Bus. I was mad at him too. Why did he have to spoil things? At the same time, somehow I hurt for Garland. He wasn't like I thought, strong and sealed off in himself. No, he was suffering and I didn't know why. I couldn't ask him. I was scared to go up there again. For days I kept turning this over. I could just stay away, but I missed his company. I could tell Mom and Dad, but that would be the end of that. Who could I talk to? Finally I settled on Mamaw. I didn't see her again till right before Thanksgiving, when she came over to take my cousin Trula to the dentist and I put it to her. "Mamaw, let's take a walk." "On this road? The coal trucks'll run us down." "No, up the hill behind the house. I want to show you something, see what you think it is." That pleased her. Mamaw is our plant namer. Halfway up the path, she asked, "This thing a tree or a herb?" "Neither one." 50 LAWANDA "What's on your mind, Lawanda? You're looking peaked." "It's a long story. Let's go on up to the laurel rock and sit down." We did. Mamaw has this amazing way of sitting with a big hand turned palm up on each knee. She looks like she's waiting for something from heaven. Probably is. "I'm listening," she said. And the story coiled so tight in me unrolled like a lock of hair. Mamaw's face didn't change. Once or twice she put a hand up to shade her eyes. Then when I was finished, she said, "You been praying about this?" I shook my head. "Then I reckon it must be him." "What?" "Doing the praying." "Garland? He wouldn't ever—" "Hush, Lawanda. First off, you've just proved you don't know this feller. And second, praying don't have to mean getting on your knees." "What does it mean then?" "Prayer is whatever you do in the direction of God." "Mamaw . . . " This wasn't helping a bit. "You know how a plant you set in a window will grow toward the sun?" "Yes ma'am." "That's prayer." I studied on that a minute. And on Mamaw, fierce and soft, sitting on the rock slab, her blue housedress faded as the sky. "When it came right down to it," she went on, "your friend turned toward the light." "Came down to what? I thought he'd be glad for me." "Amos Garland is an old, old man." "Amos? He said his name was Garland, first and last." "Well, it's Amos." 51 [44.203.235.24] Project MUSE (2024-03-28 11:33 GMT) WITH A HAMMER FOR MY HEART "And he's not much older than you, is he?" "I'm not talking about years, Lawanda. I'm talking about how much a person has been worn away." She took off her glasses, blew on each lens, then cleaned them on her dress tail. "I never really knew Amos, but I was friends with his sister Chloe. She kept store at Redbird when I was a newmarried woman. Lord a mercy, Chloe was pretty. Men would come plumb across Pine Mountain just to look at her. Then they'd feel foolish and buy a sack of nails or a little box of peppermint sticks." Mamaw stopped to collect her thoughts, and a cardinal called down the ridge. Who's here} Who's here} "Ain't that pretty? Who's here? Who's here?" she called back. Then she was quiet. "Mamaw?" "What, Junie?" "It's Lawanda. Mamaw, are you getting cold?" "I reckon I am. This rock's found my rheumatiz." "Let's climb up a ways farther and walk the ridge in the sun." Helping her up, I felt ashamed that I'd been troubling over Garland while my grandmother sat listening, stiff with cold. "Amos was in the war," Mamaw began when we were up in a little clearing. " 'In heavy fighting.' That's all he wrote to Chloe. His wife said he was wounded, decorated, and sent right back to the front. I don't recall which ocean he crossed...