Mom moves her finger to photos of various tables and knickknacks. “And these too.”
“I think I saw those in the pink bedroom.” The day started out well and is getting better. We have a great time laughing at a black-and-white of Mom standing on the front porch and sticking her tongue out at the person behind the camera.
“I was five. Momma wanted me to tap-dance like Shirley Temple.”
Decked out in crinoline and curls, Mom looked like an escapee from the Good Ship Lollipop. “I guess you didn’t feel like dancing.”
Mom shakes her head. “I didn’t like being called Shirley.”
Amazing that a sixty-nine-year-old memory is still embedded in her brain.
She turns a page in the album. “I want this.” Her attention has landed on a silver tea service on a sideboard in the dining room. “It’s on the third floor with all of Great-grandmere’s silver.”
“Third floor?”
I recognize the look pulling her brows together. “Up there.” She points at the ceiling. “You know.”
Yes, I know. The old me would have employed my best distraction techniques. The new me closes my eyes and whispers, “The attic.”
“Find me this and this here and I have to have that.”
I listen to her rattle off just about everything she sees. The old me would have plotted an escape by pretending to make an urgent phone call. Or maybe I’d have brought up Earl and his Craftmatic. The old me would have suspected Mom of torturing me on purpose. The new, extra-patient me says, “I’m happy to get anything you want.”
What I thought would take a few hours in the hot attic drags on until it becomes part of Mom’s daily routine. I haul family treasures to the parlor for her inspection, and she looks through photo albums and orders more.
The attic is hot and musty, and I open all the dormer windows to let the slightly cooler air from the Mississippi blow through. Each time I leave for the day, I make sure to close them tight in a futile attempt to keep flying insects from taking up permanent residency. I hire a local exterminator to spray the entire house, inside and out. However, I have no doubt that the tough Southern bugs and spiders will rise again.
There are close to two hundred years of history in the attic, documented mostly by fragile newspaper articles, yellowed letters, and several family Bibles inscribed with births and deaths of members of the Sutton family. I am intrigued by them, but I remain emotionally detached from the people who lived, worked, and died here.
The huge space is almost as packed as Simon led me to believe it’d be when he was here several weeks ago. Trunks of every shape and size are heaped on top of one another, filled with everything from clothes and portraits to records for the Victrola phonograph in the front parlor. Different eras of furniture are stacked in high piles. Some pieces just need to be cleaned, reupholstered, and stuffed with foam rather than horsehair and moss. Some furniture made of wicker and rattan is beyond repair. An exceptionally creepy baby carriage leans to one side and has big holes in the bottom. It’s a fire hazard and needs to be hauled out and thrown away, but I am not about to risk Mother finding out that I’ve tossed away family treasures and getting anxious and angry.
The attic is so eerily quiet that the slightest sound, like a floor creak or raindrops on a dormer window, makes me jump. If I were a woman with a weak bladder, I might be in danger of an accident—especially if the baby carriage rolls toward me for no reason.
I know. I’m starting to sound like Lindsey, but I still don’t believe in spooky stuff. If I’m wrong, the spirits of Suttons past had better behave themselves or I’ll call the ghost busters. The electricians and plumbers I’ve hired are starting tomorrow; what are a few more people underfoot?
Mom wants Great-grandmother’s silver tea service, and I find it in one of two camelback steamer trunks, which look like they’ve sailed the seas one too many times. Both overflow with close to two centuries’ worth of Sutton silver, and Mom wants to see every piece. It takes me several days to carry it down one armload at a time and polish it until it shines like new. Well, as new as a tray from 1850 can look.
“One more thing I just have to have,” Mom says as we sit on her bed watching Chuck Woolery and waiting for Lindsey to bring Mom’s nighttime meds.
“I’m happy to get anything for you,” I say, imagining that she wants to add her mother’s china doll to her daily list of must-have treasures.
11
March 28
Mini vacation at Gator’s.
GRITS,” SHE’D said. “I’d kill for grits.?
?? If Mom hadn’t been so insistent that she was going to “die” if she didn’t have grits for breakfast, I could’ve just included them in the next Rouses’ delivery. If Lindsey had her driver’s license, she could’ve run to the grocery store instead of me.
A shopping basket hangs from my elbow as I walk up and down the aisles of the closest grocery store I could find using the Cadillac’s GPS. I got lost twice on the way to Gator’s Grocery, and I blame it on the dimly lit vanity mirror. If the Escalade had better lighting, I wouldn’t have blown past intersections while refreshing my makeup. The guidance system sounded just as judgmental as the last time I drove, but at least the world’s worst back-seat driver is at home, probably snoring like a hibernating bear.
It’s Saturday night, and the store is busy with shoppers like me, grabbing last-minute items before it closes at ten. Unlike me, they know where to find what they need and don’t get sidetracked looking at bottles of hot sauce with names like Trappey’s, Bayou Butt Burner, and Slap Ya Mama.
Papa Bob used to pour Crystal Extra Hot on everything, and I drop a bottle in my basket. I look at local food staples like pecan brown rice, gumbo and jambalaya mix, and turducken stuffing—who knew? After fifteen minutes of being distracted, I finally find a box of instant grits in the breakfast aisle and drop it in my basket. Mom won’t have to kill for grits now. Mission accomplished, but I don’t head to the front of the store. Instead, I stop to smell coconut sugar scrub in one aisle and plumeria candles in another. In the produce section, I lift a fresh pineapple to my nose and pretend I’m in Hawaii on a mini vacation. I can almost hear “Aloha ’Oe” and feel sand between my toes.
Laughter draws my gaze from the spiky green crown. I know that deep laugh, and across rows of potatoes and onions, I recognize the back of Simon’s head. Two women laugh along with him, animated and chatty, playing with their blond hair. I’m Lulu the Love Guru; I know body language and recognize their subconscious wrangling for his attention. Not that I blame them. There aren’t many men who look as fine as he does in butt-hugging Levi’s, but I would advise the blondes to follow Lulu’s three-month rule if they want more than a one-night rodeo.