What To Keep
“I’m afraid—”
“You don’t remember me? I was hoping you would. No one likes to be forgotten. I’m Tildy, your uncle’s housekeeper. I met you a long time ago. Remember?”
“Oh…yes,” I say, because I do remember that my uncle had a housekeeper, but I don’t remember this woman specifically.
She smiles, nods. “My, it’s good to have you back. My friend Sara found out you were in town through her brother-in-law’s son who works for the attorney who’s taking care of Mr. Grey’s things. I hear he’s a very nice man. She called me right away, told me I’d better get over here and help you out.”
I mentally follow the trail. “Oh.”
“Honey, it’s so good to see you.”
“Thank you.” I finally offer my hand, but she brushes it away and her arms go around me. She feels smaller than she looks and smells like lemons or bleach, maybe a mixture of the two.
“Honey, it’s been so long.” She pats my back then lets go, steps back.
“It has.”
“And what? You’re twenty now?” She laughs, her head back, her hand over her heart.
“More like forty.”
“Thirty-five years? Seems like yesterday. It’s about time you came home. I’m so happy I get to tend you and Magnolia Hall. Why, I’ve been missing you both.”
“What?”
“Why, honey, you can’t take care of the house all by yourself. This place needs me, like you do. Everybody needs some help now and then.” Tildy claps her hands as a child would, and through the screen I see a cardinal dart from the tree and disappear.
I blink. “I’m leaving soon, selling the house.”
“I’ve taken care of all the owners of Magnolia Hall, I couldn’t stop with you.”
She turns, goes out to the porch and comes back with a shopping bag and places it in the corner by the refrigerator. “Brought some food. Didn’t think you would have time to go to the market. Isn’t it a beautiful summer morning? You’re going to love it here.”
“I’m only staying until I can list with a Realtor,” I say again.
Her head turns a little like a dog hearing a high-pitched whistle. “I grew up in this kitchen. Know Magnolia Hall like the back of my hand.”
I suddenly realize I’m tired. I didn’t sleep well last night, between thinking about the wall, wondering how the hell I’m going to get it repaired when I don’t have any money or space left on my credit cards. Then, about one in the morning, I started wondering where I’m going to find another dealing job when I get back to Vegas. After all that, sleeping wasn’t an option. Besides, the house is noisy with groans and cracks—probably more structural problems.
“Mr. Grey always talked about your daddy. He was crazy about his brother. It’s too bad he couldn’t come home much. And then when we lost him, why it was like losing Charlotte all over again.” Tildy smiles, nods.
Charlotte. My mother would sit on the couch, full glass in one hand, cigarette in the other. She always described how my father’s family had canonized Charlotte, his sister. Charlotte this, Charlotte that, only because she died so young.
“I’m sorry about your daddy. Didn’t see him much after Charlotte passed, but we still loved him. Mr. Grey always said his brother needed to come home. Now his daughter has. How’s your mama? I knew her, too. Not well, but when they moved back to Greensville for that brief time, she seemed so nice. Very pretty, like a movie star.”
“She passed away a couple of years ago,” I say, then add, “liver cancer.”
Tildy’s eyes widen. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t know.” She leans forward. “My goodness, you’re an orphan now.”
I blink. I’d never thought of myself like that. But she’s right, I am. “Yes, I guess so.”
“That’s why it’s good you’ve come home. This is where you belong. Everything’s going to be all right now.”
It would take a million bucks to make my life all right, but I don’t say this. “This isn’t my home.”
Tildy crosses the room, digs through her shopping bag, pulls out a cooked chicken wrapped in plastic. “Thought I’d make some chicken salad. That’s always good in the summer. Cool, refreshing. When I heard Magnolia Hall was yours I was so thankful. Mr. Grey wasn’t much for contacting people. I told him he ought to call you, but he always said he’d do it later. Then it was too late for later.”
She opens the fridge, clucks her tongue, finds the plug and sticks it in the electrical socket. A giant hum grinds through the room.
“Thank the good Lord the electricity is on. You get it turned on?”
I shake my head. “No, the lawyer must have.”
“Nice man to be worrying about all that.”
“He’s getting paid as soon as I sell the house.” I look around, laugh. I’m standing in a strange kitchen, talking to a woman I don’t know, about people who, after this, I will never see again, and I’m jobless.
“See, you’re happy. My, Mr. Grey loved people to be happy at Magnolia Hall. And he loved this house like she was one of his relatives. So he’d want you to have her. You know he would.”
“I don’t know that. He hadn’t seen me in thirty-five years.”
“Honey, you’re family. That’s all that matters.”
Tildy walks to the large stack of paper plates I left on the counter last night, turns back and raises an eyebrow. “These paper things are for picnics, not dining in the house.”
“I picked up Chinese last night,” I say, but for a moment I feel like a kid who just made a mud pie on the kitchen floor.
Tildy lifts her brow again. “That’s no excuse. There’s beautiful china and silver for meals, especially supper. Mr. Grey would expect you to use the right dishes. They’re yours now.”
“I didn’t want to dirty the…” I stop, wonder why the hell I’m explaining myself.
“The blue-and-white morning dishes are what you should use when it’s not fancy.” She points to the cabinet in front of her. “They’re stronger than they look. You need to use the china, child. Why let it go to waste?”
“China! There are only two plates, from what I could see. Unless there’s more somewhere else.”
Last night I went through the cabinets and drawers. I found the kitchen immaculate but almost empty, like the rest of the house. An old set of pots and pans in the space by the stove, and dishes, two of each piece, were stacked neatly in the cabinet next to the sink.
“Quality, not quantity, is important. The best dishes are in the dining room.” Tildy raises her arms a little, as if she’s announcing this information to a crowd.
“I looked in there. There are only two plates.”
“Your next meal, you should eat off the china, honey. We use the blue-and-white before five. The Minton for dinner and supper, the Adams for holidays.”
“Mrs. Butler, I’m fine. When I’m home I use paper all the time. Really, I’m from Las Vegas, we’re very informal out there.”
My apartment has crappy garage-sale furniture, plastic forks I stole from the casino coffee shop—and now I wish I had taken more—paper napkins and cheap orange plastic plates I bought at Sam’s Club.
“My name’s Tildy, really Matilda is my given, but everyone calls me Tildy. You can do the same, honey.”
She turns as if I haven’t said a word and reseals the paper plates then crosses the kitchen and puts them on a shelf in the pantry and comes back smiling.
“You are just gonna love Magnolia Hall. I’ll help you. Talk in town is the county might be taking the house for back taxes if they couldn’t find any family to come home.
“Back taxes?”
“Oh, they’re paid up. I was thinking last night if you don’t have a lot of cash we can go to garage sales and pick up a few things, maybe paint. Everything’s better when you take care of—”
“Tildy, I’m going back to Las Vegas just as soon as I can. And now I have to worry about back taxes.”
She stares at me for a moment like I’ve turned a cold hose on her, but then she shakes her head.
“Honey, that back-tax thing was just a rumor. In case they didn’t find you. I know Mr. Grey paid them up. And you’ll change your mind about leaving. We’ll do some of the fixing up. New curtains in here would be nice. I saw some daisy curtains with scalloped edges at The Big K over off Market Street. They’d look real fine at that window—not too expensive, either.”
I rub my tongue against the back of my teeth and wonder what I should say, wonder if she’s got a screw loose. But before I can think of anything, she starts up again.
“Mr. Grey didn’t know how to add the feminine touches around here. Now you and I can make the changes we need to. Might take some time, but we’ll get it all done. Some people don’t realize that a little bit every day makes a world of difference, makes a person feel at home. Soon you got a whole big pile of good in front of you.”
“I can’t stay. I’m going home.”
“Magnolia Hall is your family home. Now you have to take care of her. You don’t give back a gift. A gift is a gift!”
“He didn’t give me the house! It’s mine because I’m the only one left!”
“It’s all the same. You are the rightful owner.”
“I’m selling the house just as soon as I can. You wouldn’t want to buy it, would you?”
“Goodness, no. I don’t have that kind of money after I put my child through school. You gonna sell it as soon as you can?”
“The wall upstairs didn’t pass the county inspection.”
“I knew it wouldn’t. Mr. Grey was sick the last few years. We didn’t have much time for fixing. I took care of him till his dying day. Then Jeff Hollis, fine young police officer, came out and locked up the place. That was the very first time after Miss Charlotte and Mr. James built her nobody lived here. Mr. Grey used to talk about the first Miss Charlotte all the time.”
“My father’s sister?”
“No, he talked about her, too, but I’m talking about your great-great-great, oh, you know a long time ago, her husband, James Alexander built this house in 1860. Your daddy’s sister was named after her.”
“Oh.” I look around and think about how much I don’t know about this family.
“Now you’re here. Too bad you didn’t get back before your uncle died.”
“I didn’t know he was sick.”
“That’s right. I told him to call you. Your daddy would have told you, though, if he was still here.”
“I didn’t have any contact with my father, either.” I say, and cross my arms.
“My land, your daddy was such a nice man.”
“I wouldn’t know about—”
“I remember years ago, when he came home for three weeks in the spring. Told me you’d moved to Nevada with your mama. He seemed so sad. I’ve never been there. Actually I’ve never been out of the state.”
“Maybe you should travel,” I say, but I’m thinking of my father and wondering why he never wanted to share me with his family.
“Are you married?” Tildy glances at my left hand.
“Not anymore.”
“Oh, child. I’m sorry.”
I realize Tildy is the first person to say this to me. People in Las Vegas expect divorce—don’t think anything about a marriage dissolving into lies and crap.
“It was for the better. I couldn’t afford the man’s bad habits.”
Tildy touches my hand for a moment. Her skin is cooler than I expect. “Honey, everything is going to be okay. You just wait and see.”
CHAPTER 4
Magnolia Hall
Greensville, NC
June 2000
I’m staring at Grey Alexander’s picture. Weird, I know, but after I spent a half hour trying to convince Tildy I can’t let her work here because I have no money to pay her and there’s really not much for her to do, I came into the library, picked up the picture I found yesterday. Maybe I was trying to center myself or some damned thing.
The centering thing isn’t working. I honestly thought Tildy would agree when I explained there was nothing that needed cleaning. But when she said she couldn’t possibly leave me all alone in this house, I knew I wasn’t making any headway. Then she told me she could dust the baseboards, mop floors, wipe out the cupboards, cook and, with a big smile on her face, she announced she wanted to keep me company!
I’m still wondering what “keeping me company” means to her. However she brought coffee, cream, sugar with her. She made a pot and the first sip was heaven.
Finally, I gave up trying to convince her to go home. She was blabbing on about family and my father, how he grew up here and she was so fond of him. Maybe that’s why I wandered into the library and picked up Grey’s picture.
“Your head hurting you?”
I look toward the door, and Tildy’s voice. “No, I’m fine.”
“Your forehead’s all wrinkled up like you have a headache.”
“I didn’t sleep well last night.”
“Mr. Grey never had trouble sleeping. Something bothering you?”
“Not much.” I laugh. “I’m only in a strange house, in a strange town. And I have no idea how I’m going to get the wall upstairs repaired so I can sell this place and get back to my life.”
“It’s gotta be more than that.”
“Isn’t that enough? Think if you had to go out to Vegas, didn’t know any one.”
“What you got there?”
“It’s a picture of Grey. I found it yesterday.” I stare at it. “He looks like my father—at least what I remember.”
“Yes, they do resemble each other. But they were different. Mr. Grey, why, he loved this house and the idea of family. He was a real Southerner.”
“And my father?” A wave of regret washes over me. I don’t want to know any more. My father left me years ago and I don’t know anything about him.
“As I recall, he always wanted to go away, travel. He joined the air force when Mr. Grey begged him not to. Mr. Grey even found a way to get him out of what he signed. Then he met your mama on leave in California. When your daddy came back with you and your mama, he just seemed restless, like he needed to get away again. And your mama was a mess. She didn’t like it here. Said she was homesick, missed the ocean. So off you all went.”
My mother was full of contradictions. Although she claimed to love the ocean, she never went back after she and my father split. She kept huge, full boxes that had been opened and closed too many times. Every Thanksgiving she would rustle through them, show me sparkling dresses, memory after memory. She’d hold up a blue velvet and sigh, then explain how pretty she looked when she wore it. I stopped asking questions because she’d never answer any.
Another cardboard box was filled with picture albums. Her fingertips touched the images and she’d say how she wished I looked like her. She never talked about my father, and if I asked, she’d stare at me with those soft blue eyes and shake her head, then mention a time before she married, when her life had hope. She’d hold up her yellowing souvenirs, make up pretty lies, then drop them back in their hiding places.
“Your daddy was different. Mr. Grey loved memories, loved his history.” Tildy’s words bring me back. “I remember how your mama and daddy used to sit out on the porch, right out there—” her hand kind of flutters toward the front of the house “—and talk about going home. California certainly wasn’t your daddy’s home. But he seemed to love your mama so much. I guess that’s why he went back.”
Love.
The idea of my parents loving each other is so foreign to me. When she spoke of my father or his family her voice was always brittle. Yet, I hold one image so clear. It was before they divorced. Right before my father was due to come back from a trip my mother would shower, comb her hair and spray Emerada perfume in a halo around her, then sit on the couch and look out the window, as if she couldn’t wait to see him. She always told me it wouldn’t be long until his plane landed and he drove up the driveway. Then months later, she packed our bags, climbed into the blue Oldsmobile and drove all night to Las Vegas, not saying a word, just the glow from the dashboard on her Grace Kelly cheekbones, her tight jaw like a cup, holding all her anger.
I look at Tildy. “I don’t really care about my father.”
A tiny gasp escapes from her. “Sure you do! He’s your family. And Mr. Grey loved family, loved this house, his things because they reminded him of family.”
I shake my head. “Right! Then why is the house practically empty?” I fan his photograph at her.
Tildy takes the picture, as if to protect it. “That’s a real long story. We’ll get to that.”
“There’s nothing personal of his…” I stop. Why am I saying all this? I don’t care.
“I cleaned up when he died. I knew you wouldn’t want to see his hairbrush, maybe find dandruff in it, his toilet items. He was a very private man. He would have wanted it that way. I wanted you to know the nice things about him, know how orderly he was.”
“Orderly! He didn’t even make a will.”
“He thought about living, not dying. Even when your daddy died and we took his ashes to the Greensville family plot, your uncle said your daddy was living in the trees, the grass, the wind. Right after he said those words, an airplane cut a path over us. Not one of those big jets but a little tiny thing, looked like it was just big enough for one person. We all looked up, even the preacher. Mr. Grey said it was a sign from God that James Alexander, your daddy who’d been a pilot all his adult life, was right there with us, and real close to the sky that was so blue.”
I try not to laugh but can’t help myself. Tildy’s big brown eyes widen.
“I’m sorry, that’s just so…silly.”
“It’s the truth.”
“I didn’t mean it didn’t happen. It was probably a coincidence.”
She steps back just a little, looks at me. “I thought you’d like that story.”
I feel like a shit for saying anything. “I did, really. It’s just a lot to take in.”
Her hand touches my shoulder then it’s gone.
“I know.”
“This is the first time I’ve heard anything about my father’s funeral.” I shake my head. “What the hell difference does it make? I don’t even care, really. I was young.”
“Yes, you do. Anybody would.”
“How many people attended?”
“Oh, honey, not many. Mr. Grey and Sara and Sara Lee, they’re old friends of the family. My Alexandria attended, made me proud. The preacher knew your daddy when he was a little boy, and he read that poem about flying. I only remember a few words—‘Oh, I have slipped the surly bonds of earth and’…my land, I can’t recall the rest. But it was beautiful.”
I close my eyes and remember the poem my father used to recite when he drove me to kindergarten. I look at Tildy, “‘Oh, I have slipped the surly bonds of earth and danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings.’”
“That’s it. I thought it was appropriate.”
I wonder what it would have been like, standing in a graveyard, watching what was left of my father go into the ground and hearing that poem read by someone else.
“Your daddy would have wanted you there.”
“Maybe not.” My voice sounds so small. I think about my mother telling me, weeks after my father’s death, that he had died. I was fifteen, sitting on the couch by the window, painting my fingernails with Pink Puff Maybelline Fast-Drying Nail Polish. She walked into the living room, stood in front of me, her arms crossed.
“Don’t get that on the couch.”
“I won’t.”
“Your father—” she took a long breath “—died.”
I looked down and thought, who? When I glanced up, she was gone. I could hear her in the kitchen, filling a glass with ice, then vodka and orange juice. I swallowed hard, told myself I needed to cry but couldn’t. I felt dead inside. It was as if Peter Jennings had announced one of the cast from a black-and-white sitcom had passed away. I knew the character—but not really.
“Sad things happen in life,” Tildy says.
“Did anyone cry?” I imagine myself crying, the wind blowing through my hair, the early May sun practically blinding me as I look up, watch the airplane cut the blue sky.
“I did. Your daddy was nice when we were children. My mama always went on about how Mr. James picked up his clothes and was neat as a pin in the bathroom.”
That day my mother told me about my father’s death, I got off the couch, heard my mother place the vodka bottle back on the top shelf above the silky green ironstone dishes. I walked into the kitchen, my hands in my pockets, nail polish sticking to my soft blue cotton shorts. I needed her to say something to me.
She was leaning against the white counter, the small of her back pressing against it. The glass rim rested against her red lipsticked lower lip, her eyes dull—flat.
“What should I do?” I asked.
“Nothing. Not one goddamned thing. He never came around, and the funeral is over anyway.”
“Mr. Grey didn’t believe in death,” Tildy says, breaking into my memory. “I don’t think he ever accepted Mr. James or Miss Charlotte’s death.” She studies my uncle’s picture. “This was taken a few years back when Mr. Grey used to go out. That was the night of the Sons of the American Revolution annual dinner.”
“Sons of the American Revolution? They still have groups like that?”
“Yes. Mr. Grey, he was big into his groups. Liked to carry on the family name. When he got cancer his life was just sliced away, little by little. Every step was a big shock to him and I think up to the very end, he believed it wasn’t happening—like maybe it was a bad dream. Magnolia Hall held him tight, but then she had to let him go.”
Tildy takes my hand and pats it. “Don’t worry. I knew him all my life. He would have wanted you to have this house. You’re family. It’s like giving it to your daddy—no, more like giving it to his sister, Charlotte. You have to trust in what has happened.”
My mind is swimming with all the memories, stories. “What I need is a drink.”
“Can I get you some iced tea?”
I laugh, realize my chest aches. “I was thinking about something stronger.”
“There’s no liquor in the house.”
“Maybe that’s why my mother was crying.” I laugh again, I guess to combat the uneasiness I feel.
Tildy gasps then covers her mouth.
“My mother was an alcoholic. I came to grips with that a long time ago.”
Tildy hands me the picture, and I look at it again, feeling like a ship without an anchor.
“There’s more of your father in you than your mother,” she says.
“Well, he was pretty much an SOB, too.”
“You’ll find out different. Maybe we shouldn’t be talking about this right now. Have you had anything to eat this morning? All that caffeine and no nourishment can make you say things you don’t mean. Just like my daughter. Goodness alive, doesn’t anyone take care of themselves anymore?”
I lay the picture on the bookshelf. Her hand brushes my elbow and before I can take another breath, the woman guides me to the kitchen.
“It’s been a month of Sundays since I had somebody to cook for, take care of. Feels good.”
She goes to the kitchen sink and looks out the window. Recognition flashes through my mind. I watched her in this room, years ago, right before we left for California, right before our lives came unglued.
“I’m gonna cook you something real Southern, something so sumptuous your little mouth is going to water—”
“You don’t have to cook for me.”
Tildy shifts, rests her hands on her lush hips. “I have cooked for everyone in this house. You aren’t going to be any different. No arguing. What did you say you did in Las Vegas?”
“I’m a blackjack dealer.”
“Well, my, my. You don’t look like a blackjack dealer. If you wore glasses, maybe a librarian. They have libraries in Las Vegas?”
I laugh. Everyone from the outside thinks Las Vegas isn’t a real town. “Sure.”
“So why didn’t you become a librarian or a teacher?”
“I don’t know.”
“Mr. Grey, he loved books and the room he kept them in. So did your daddy.”
“It’s not much of a library.”
Tildy’s smile slips away, which makes me feel bad.
“I mean, it’s a nice room, and all, but there’s only a few books.”
“It was a wonderful library long time ago. Every shelf full with all the classics, real comfortable chairs and a sofa that was covered in a beautiful green brocade—don’t you remember?”