The Letters

Let's go in here and talk," she said, guiding my shoulder toward her bedroom. Granny Bill closed the door and sat on the small stool that fronted her oversized maple dresser. She fidgeted with her hand mirror and comb while I looked around, not knowing whether to sit or stand. I settled on the sunny spot on the floor, across from her bed. The three-paneled mirror on the dresser reflected her softness from every side.

"They's some things we have to talk about that ain't easy to talk about. Do you understand?" She bent down to look me in the eye.

I shrugged, "I guess so."

I could tell this was going to be a very grown-up conversation, something of a challenge for this eleven-year-old.

"Now, your daddy's a good man, Janet. Sometimes he don't act like it, but he means well, you understand?"

I nodded, agreeing with her, even though from an early age, I was aware of a strangeness in my parents. They weren't like my friends' parents, with my mother disappearing every so often and my dad somehow persuading or coercing her back to the family. We'd adjust, she'd rearrange the all the furniture I'd placed, and then be off again.

This time, as soon as my dad left West Virginia for Tampa to work for a friend of his, mom left in a flash with her cousin Pauline, headed for West Palm Beach and what they considered the good life—working as waitresses in a steakhouse. Nobody needing her or telling her what to do. She left my younger brother Danny and me behind with Granny, with strict instructions not to say a word to Dad about her whereabouts. She had a lot of rules: "Because I said so," was a favorite. Then there was: "When I tell you to keep your mouth shut, you keep your mouth shut." I was trying to remember how long she'd been gone when Granny pulled at my shirt.

"Are you listening to me, girl? He's a good man, but his coming in and taking you and Danny out of school today… well…that wasn't right," she hesitated.

In the silence, I waited, studying a filmy rainbow on the wall and following it to its source, the late afternoon light bouncing off the metal strip of her pine handkerchief box and spreading across the big pink roses on the wall. Today, the room smelled of Pond's cold cream and my own sweat.

Earlier today, my classroom had the smell of sweet lilac. I sat there, with the other sixth graders, trying to pay attention to the geography lesson about North and South America, but I was daydreaming and inhaling the lilacs blooming outside the half-open window. "There ain't nothing sweeter than lilacs and peonies," Granny would say, "except you!"

North and South America got dropped like a bag of dirt when my father walked into the classroom. His sudden appearance startled me, as he stood at the edge of a row of wooden desks, looking down each one until he found me.

"Janet, get your books and come with me."

Mrs. Mercer tried to say something, but he cut her off, "She won't be back."

My surprise was stung with fear and excitement at seeing him after so many months.

"Somebody must be bad sick, for him to be here," I thought to myself and hurriedly pulled the books and papers out of my desk, carefully folding my book report down the middle the way Mrs. Mercer liked. I was already disappointed that I might not hear her tell the class how much she enjoyed my carefully worded report.

She looked at me questioningly as I handed it to her. My best friend Phyllis mouthed "I'll see you later," and I nodded, not knowing what to expect.

My brother Danny was waiting in the hallway, trying to balance his books, his Superman lunch box and his baseball bat in his thin ten-year-old...