"He didn't know what he was doing by then, I'm sure," Brenda said. "The disease made him crazy. Just forget all of it. It didn't happen," she said.
Didn't happen? How could I ever convince myself of that? How could she?
I didn't think I would fall asleep when we both lay down to take a short nap. but I did. Emotional exhaustion was harder and greater than physical. I decided. Brenda actually had to wake me to get ready to go to dinner. Mama had woken and called our room. but I didn't hear the phone ring. She had already located what the motel manager described as a good Italian restaurant nearby.
"Italian food is your father's favorite food. actually," Mama told us on the way there.
It was strange to hear her talk about him as if we didn't really know him. Of course, we knew that was his favorite food.
Also, it was almost as if she were expecting he would meet us at the restaurant. He would have waken from his coma, gazed around, and thought. What am I doing here? He would have gotten dressed, found out where we were going, and gotten there ahead of us. I dreamed he was sitting at the table. smiling.
"I'm sorry, gang," he would begin. "I put you through all this unnecessarily. Let's just have a great dinner and all go home. okay?"
Oh, how okay that would be.
Maybe Mama was dreaming a similar sort of dream. In her mind, he would be up and ready when we visited him again. She was in what I would call a faux happy mood. She had a cocktail before dinner and talked incessantly, remembering happy times she had with Daddy. She talked about their courting days, their dates, their vacations before we were born. Recalling these joyful events invigorated her. Every memory was another brick in the wall to keep the tragedy and the horror about to befall us away for a while longer.
Unfortunately, that wasn't much of a while. Mama had called the facility and spoken with Ms. Luther. She gave her the phone number at the motel, and two hours or so after we had settled in for the night, the phone rang in Mama's room. Brenda told me she could hear it ring through the walls and woke up as well and could hear Mama's wail.
I was in a very deep sleep, burying myself in it as someone would bury herself in a few warm blankets. I didn't wake up until I heard sobbing and turned, wiped my eyes, and looked at Mama and Brenda holding on to each other. I dropped my head to the pillow and cried myself.
"At least we got here to see him," Mama said through her tears. "He waited for us. I know he did."
Even Brenda looked as if she believed that was what had happened.
In the morning, we headed back home. Daddy, in his careful preparations to lessen the impact of his death upon us, had made all the arrangements for his funeral and burial. We literally had nothing to do but dress and attend the church service and the
internment,
Uncle Palaver had been calling us and reached us the day after we returned. Mama said he didn't seem all that surprised about what Daddy had done. He said he, too, had felt there was something unreal about it when he first learned of Daddy's leaving us but soon realized it was all true, terribly true. Now that he knew the whole story, he saw it as just another kind of sleight of hand. It would take him too long to drive back, so he flew back on a small commuter airline and was there at our side throughout. I wondered why he didn't bring Destiny, but Brenda thought he had decided it just wasn't the right time to make new acquaintances.
"She would be too uncomfortable. I know I would be,' Brenda said. Of course. I agreed.
I was sure that people, friends and some distant relatives who came, all thought it strange that we cried little at the services. The truth was, we had already cried out our tears. That was why we were so still and vacant-eyed at the funeral. I knew people wouldn't understand. They all thought we were still angry about his running off. perhaps. I could see it in their faces when they offered their condolences. They disapproved, and that disapproval diminished their sympathy. Daddy never thought of that either, I realized.
In one sense, he certainly did make things easier. The transition to life without him had already taken place. After Uncle Palaver left to resume his touring with Destiny, both Brenda and I returned to school as quickly as we could. Teachers and friends offered sympathy. but Brenda barely acknowledged it. If anyone thought she walked about with a chip on her shoulder before, they were convinced that chip had grown now. The anger that festered inside her continued to emerge in her athletics. She was far more aggressive on the courts and always looked like a bomb about to explode.
Mama again talked about returning to work but never made a real effort to do so. She was shrinking inside, and she lost more weight. When I voiced my worry, she told me it was expected after the loss of a loved one and not to worry. She would get on her feet soon. Why didn't I have the same reaction? Why didn't I lose weight? I think I ate more out of depression and sadness and gained more weight.
I moaned and groaned about myself as if I were talking about someone else.
"You'll change," Mama assured me. "Soon."
There was that word again, that word built on a foundation of promises: soon. It had been following me all my life. In the next weeks and months. little_ if anything. changed. however. I went to a party but felt I was being invited out of sympathy and not desire. Even the girls who were not very popular avoided me. In the food chain. I guess I was the lowest of the low, and their disdain for me helped them feel a little better about themselves. If any boy looked at me. I quickly looked away, afraid that all I would see in his eyes would be either disgust or pity. Here I was nearly sixteen. and I hadn't as much as held hands with a boy, much less kissed any.
That summer. Brenda decided to take two of her senior year's required courses in an advanced study program the school had created. Her grades were just high enough for her to qualify. It made her eligible for early graduation. There were college scouts and representatives vigorously inquiring about her now, and before the high school year had ended, she had received two offers of full scholarships. If she completed her summer courses successfully, she would receive her diploma in mid- Augu
st and be able to leave and go to college in time to play for the girls. basketball teams. It was only a matter of deciding which one she wanted to attend.
The very thought of Brenda's leaving home so quickly depressed me. How hollow and empty the house would become without her, even though she spent so much time outside. During the Summer, she also gave me more attention.
"You have to get hold of yourself. April," she said, finally echoing Daddy's warnings, the ones he made during his Mr. Hyde days. "Daddy wasn't all wrong about that. It is unhealthy for you to carry so much weight. You're acing to start running and exercising with me," she commanded.
I was afraid I would look too foolish, but she was more tolerant and patient with me than ever. I had the sense she had decided she owed this to Daddy, more than she owed it to me. One day, she even ransacked our kitchen pantry, emptying it of what she called high-calorie, low-value foods. She got Mania to stop making rich desserts after dinner, and she constantly cross- examined me about what I had eaten while she was away at school.
Before the summer had ended. I had gone a good ten pounds below my weight since Daddy had died. Brenda had me take tennis lessons, made me carry her golf clubs when she played golf with two of her teammates at a country club one of them belongs to, and nightly put me through a series of stretching exercises. We did some yoga together as well.
For the first time ever. I felt more like her sister. I think that motivated me more than my own desire to look better and feel better. It was important to please Brenda, to keep her interested in me, believing her efforts with me were worthwhile. With her going off to college. I wondered if I would just slip back into my couch potato rut and regain all I had lost.