The Silents

11

CHAPTER 11 Ace0 RD I N G TO Mama, Uncle Eddie was paying ..n.Papa a decent wage, but Papa still scrunched papers at night. If he was worried about his finances, he didn't tell Zadie when he came to visit. He just nodded his headfine -and Zadie left satisfied. And when I took an occasional stroll with Papa, he would point to the unemployed men milling about and tell me how lucky he was. But my own worries filled the summer of my twelfth year. I seemed unable to do anything right for my mother. If I sat on the marble steps with Timmy, she turned crabby. She'd pretend to get the mail more often than the mail was supposed to come. Stockings rolled down to her ankles, she'd come downstairs in her housedress, amble past us, and fiddle with the mailbox as if expecting something important. One day the July heat prompted me to pull my dress above my knees so the marble could cool my behind. Spotting this, she hummed and pinched her lips, gave Timmy a withering look, then opened her mouth wide so I'd get her words. "I think it's time you came upstairs." "It's too hot upstairs," I said. "Then sit on the back porch. I'll make lemonade." A fat handkerchiefwas wrapped around her neck to soak up the sweat. She fanned herselfwith another and bored holes through me with her eyes. "Okay, okay, I'll come upstairs." "With Hannah and Shirley," she said. "Do you see Shirley and Hannah here? Are you blind or something ?" "Don't get smart. Where are they?" "At the library." "Then you should be at the library." "I've already read three books." "Read more." Then she went back upstairs. I didn't move. Most of the time when she got antsy like that she was worried about something. The only way I'd know was to eavesdrop on my parents' nighttime kitchen talks. But there were no nighttime finger fights. Obviously, this was Mama's own agitation, the kind that put her in a mood where she just stared offinto space or escaped into her books. She read under the living room window where it was the hottest but where the light was good. When Papa teased her about wearing her eyes out, she waved an angry handkerchief at him. Then she wrapped it around her neck and read some more. One night after reading about the wonders of the Panama Canal, she coyly suggested to Papa as they played gin rummy that perhaps they could go there someday. Papa replied with his hands, "Dreamer." Then she started in about my going to college, reminding Papa that his brother Jake had promised to pay my tuition ifwe didn't have the money when the time came. He gave her a look that said, "I told you he would, and he will, so stop nagging me about it." "Pretty soon you'll have to remind him." He looked at me and turned to Mama, laughing. "She's still a child!" "That's what you think," she said. She passed her hands over her breasts. I knew she was telling him about the bumps on my chest, and I blushed with indignation. It was the first I'd heard about Mama's desire to send me to college. I hardly remembered Uncle Jake. All I knew was that he was a big shot in the Republican party, and one day he'd get Papa a cushy job. I hardly knew any of Papa's family because they 85 seldom came to visit. Once in a while, Uncle Jake and another of Papa's brothers would come to the house. They were spitting images of Papa, down to the bald spots on their heads. Mama would serve them cold cuts and potato salad and make small talk. Then they would invite Papa to a day at the track. Mama would put on a polite smile as they left the house, then turn purple with rage as soon as they left the vestibule. On those nights, when Papa returned, there would be a lot ofchair pushing in the kitchen. So ifshe wasn't crazy about Uncle Jake, why was she nagging Papa to ask him for money? I still hadn't mastered the classics and believed I never would. College was too...