Tomorrow River

Chapter Nine

You know how I’m beginning to feel?

Like a piece of saltwater taffy getting pulled this way and that. Stretched to my absolute limit.

If my mother was here, I could whine to her-“Tell me what to do next. I’m so mixed up.”

But she’s not here. Even if she was, my asking for help wouldn’t do me a bit of good. I can hear in my head her certain reply. “Shenny, I can’t tell you how to solve problems. You need to find your own answers. It’s important that you grow up to be a strong woman,” she’d say like she was imparting some kind of sacred knowledge. “An independent thinker doesn’t rely on others.”

I’d shout back at her, “And to thine own self be true, right? You sound like one of your record albums. A broken one.” I’d be spitting mad. “Ya know what I think? ‘The lady doth protest too much!’” because really, she was being such a hypocrite. Papa always tells her and the rest of us what to do. After one of our spats, I’d storm off, spend the rest of the day fuming up in the fort about what a bad mother she was and how pathetic people from the North are. And Shakespeare-he was an idiot, too. I’d thumb my nose at the pecan fudge she’d bring out, sneer at the heart she’d scratched on top. I’d wait for my father’s car to wind up the drive after a day at the courthouse, scramble down the fort steps and leap into his arms, so relieved to get whatever problem I was having out of my head into his much wiser one.

But counting on Papa to provide me with a solution to my confusion is no longer possible. His socks don’t even match.

What to do? What to do? A quote Mama made me learn by heart, one that she thought might help me when I was troubled about this thing or that comes swooping into my mind:

To be, or not to be: that is the question:

Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer

The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,

Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,

And by opposing end them?

That’s right. I can’t just sit around and get shot in the heart by outrageous fortune. I need to dive in head-first.

I’ll start off by getting another scarf of Mama’s to soothe Woody.

I also have to fulfill my promise to our good friend Sam Moody. He’s been asking me if I found a note since the night Mama vanished. I thought he was wondering if Papa had received a ransom note. Sam has a lot of big city police experience. If he had been in charge of finding her instead of imbecilic Sheriff Nash, I bet former Detective Moody would’ve been asking everybody the day after Mama disappeared: Did you notice anybody at the carnival lurking around with a blindfold and a gunny sack? Did you see anybody suspicious drag Miz Carmody off into the bushes?

Her being absconded with seemed so right that I gathered up my courage and went straight to Papa, asked him, “Sir? Did you by any chance happen to receive a ransom note?”

I took his swooning as a no.

Sam got a little teary when I reported that back to him. He told me, “I wasn’t talking about a ransom note, Shenny. Keep looking.”

There’s only one place where I might find all three things. The scarf for Woody, Sam’s note, and something that would mean the world to all of us. A hint to Mama’s present location. There might be something in her diary.

Only here’s what Mr. Shakespeare called “the rub.” I have been forbidden to enter their bedroom under any circumstances.

So which of my thine selves am I supposed to be true to exactly? Shen, the good sister? Shen, the loyal friend? Or Shen, the obedient daughter?

If my mother was here, what would she tell me to do? She wouldn’t. She would probably quote Shakespeare again. Yes.

To sleep, perchance to dream.

Well, that seems clear enough.

I don’t know where His Honor is right this minute, but I’m fairly certain he’s not in here. I’d hear him snoring or yelling out in his sleep if he was. I rap my knuckles against the sturdy oak door. Once. Twice. “Sir?” Cracking it open an inch, I barely say, “Your Honor?”

I haven’t been in here in the longest time.

Except for a shard of sunshine cutting through the wine velvet curtains, I can’t see real good, but well enough to tell that their four-poster bed is empty. Socks and shirts are spread across the wood floor and there’s a smell of crusty food and, just for a second, Chanel No. 5.

Oh, Mama.

You know how you come across something? Like a ticket stub from a movie you really liked or a four-leaf clover that you pressed between wax paper so you would be able to feel lucky any old time you wanted to? But to your surprise, when you dig them up, instead of making you have a happy memory, those parcels from the past get you filled to the brim with so much wanting for something that you might never have again. That’s how I’m feeling, just like that.

Our mother placed the family pictures on the wall across from their bed so she could look at them before she fell asleep and have sweet dreams. This past New Year’s Day, I caught my father stuffing them all into a cardboard box like he’d made a resolution to do away with them, like his family was a bad habit. Right here next to the window is where Woody and my favorite portrait used to be. The one we’ve got in the fort now. I asked him, “Do you mind? Could we just keep that one?” Papa handed it to me and said, “Salt in the wound,” and went right back to his packing. I thought it would work like a splint on Woody’s and my broken heart, but Papa was right. Whenever I look at the picture of us in the lily field, it burns so bad right below my wishbone.

I run my finger over the frames’ smudged outlines. Shots of Woody and me looking like baby bookends in Mama’s arms once hung here. There was another of us attending the first day of school in matching white blouses and navy skirts. I especially loved the shot of my sister and me wading in the creek with Boppa Joe and Gran Jean. Mama’s mother and father passed away in a boating accident a few years back on the chilly waters of Lake Michigan up in Wisconsin. That’s why she steers clear of boats unless it’s too risky to get where she is going any other way.

Woody and I weren’t allowed and Papa was involved in a trial, so our mother had to travel to her old home and to make the funeral arrangements all by herself. When she returned, my sister and I noticed that she was different. Of course, she was thinner from grief, but what she’d lost in weight, she appeared to have gained in spirit. Mama became so recklessly outspoken after her parents’ deaths. Grampa Gus always says, “Money talks,” and my mother had inherited a bundle in her parents’ will, so maybe that had something to do with her newfound mouthiness, I don’t know.

There never were any pictures hanging on the bedroom wall of Grampa, his arm thrown around the youngest of his sons, the both of them beaming with pride. It’s the job of a camera to capture truth for one second in time, and the truth is-Grampa is not proud of Papa. He got rheumatic fever when he was a child and that’s why he’s stunted and not rough and tough like his father and his brother. Grampa calls him “the runt.” He makes fun of his job at every opportunity. Gus Carmody thinks being a judge comes in handy in certain situations, but that it’s not a very manly way to make a living. “What kind of man wears a robe to work?” he razzes.

There were pictures from Mama and Papa’s wedding day on the wall. Our mother in Gramma’s high-necked gossamer dress holding a white ribboned bouquet. Our father looking natty in a long-tailed tuxedo and top hat. They looked like Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire. In the old days, when something with a beat came on the radio, Mama and Papa would jut their hips and move smoothly into one another. Or sometimes watching a movie together late at night, they nuzzled close on the sofa, the light of the television bouncing off their sweetheart faces. And on Saturdays, they’d go into town for a date to have dinner and when they’d come home, I’d hear their bubbly laughter out on the porch.

I’ve given this a lot of thought. Tried to pinpoint when their happy-ever-after story came to The End. I don’t think it was just one thing that made everything start to go bad. It was a thing here and a thing there, and over time, the same explosiveness that’s inside Grampa Gus sprang free from some place deep within Papa to spew all over Mama. Once it was loose, he couldn’t seem to cap it off. I held Mama responsible for him changing. She was the one causing the problems. I begged her to stop being so defiant, shook a finger in her face, and told her, “All you got to do to make things right again is remember your wedding vows. You got to love His Honor and, most importantly, obey him.”

This is her dresser.

Down here in the bottom drawer is where she keeps her scarves. I’ve got to replace the one Papa ripped up last night. My sister needs that chiffon. She balls it up in her fist and holds it up to her nose and sucks her thumb. It makes her night go faster, having that little bit of Mama in hand.

Long as I’m here, I also want to look again for my mother’s white blouse with the red yarn trim and… Lord, what’s wrong with me? I’m not going to find anything of hers in here. Papa donated all her clothes to the secondhand shop because he couldn’t bear having them around to remind him of what he’s lost. I saw Mama’s short-cut emerald jacket at Mass last week and was halfway out of the pew before I realized that it was Beebee Mathison wearing it like it belonged to her. That’s all right. After I bring Mama home, we’ll go buy her some new things in the fancy stores of Richmond or Washington, D.C. Oh, Papa would love that! He insists on picking out all her clothes. Wouldn’t think of letting his wife shop for herself.

Right under this Oriental carpet of blue and gold swirls is where Woody and I helped Mama hollow out a secret spot she called “my stronghold.” We worked all afternoon prying up the boards when Papa was at the courthouse. It seemed so important to her to have a private place. She told me when we were all through, “We must keep this a secret. Your father would be disappointed, you understand, Shen?”

I sort of did. I always pretended that I could make out Centaurus when I couldn’t so I wouldn’t let Papa down.

I’ve had a hundred excuses for not looking for Mama’s diary before now. It’s just that… fine, I’ve been too chicken-hearted to read the pouring-out of her innermost feelings. Too scared to see her lacy handwriting spell out something that I would be better off not knowing. Something that would take away all my hope.

I get down on my knees and fold back the carpet. Lift up that notched board with shaking fingers. I’m trying hard to scold my scared into behaving, but it won’t stop back-talking me.

Do not go looking for trouble, Shen, it’s saying. You already have more than your fair share.

I desperately want to answer, Of course, you’re right. What was I thinking? Then I could run downstairs and make Woody and me some pimento cheese sandwiches and head out to the fort. I could practice my card tricks.

There you go, the voice inside my head is saying. Now you’ve got on your thinking cap.

“Hush!” I say out loud because I can’t listen to it the way I have in the past. I know from vast experience that fear talks a lot louder than courage. I need to listen to that other voice inside me, that faint one that’s struggling to be heard. You were born under the constellation Leo. You need to be brave hearted. A lion.

When I think about how my mama was the last one to touch this place, I go so weak that I almost stop, but I don’t. The light may be dim, but I can see right off that the stronghold is empty. Sam’s note is not here. And neither is Mama’s diary, which really hurts. I feel like I opened a gift that I’ve been waiting a year to receive and there’s nothing inside the box. Where is it? Could Papa have found it? The thought of him… no, I’m being silly. He’d have no reason to go looking for something that he didn’t even know existed. If he had found the diary by accident he would know that his wife had been visiting with Sam and how Woody and I helped them and… no, Papa doesn’t have it. There would have been punishments. My mother must’ve moved it. Hid it somewhere else and didn’t tell me. I bet she told Woody, who is such a Mama’s girl.

I get up off my knees, toe the rug straight. I’m feeling miserable. I bet Sam will, too, when I tell him that I looked in the last best place for his note and found nothing, not even dust. And poor Woody. How will she ever fall asleep without Mama’s scarf?

“What do you think you’re doing?” another voice accuses.

I almost shout out, “I’m just tryin’ to find my mother before my family falls apart worse than it already has. Can’t you just leave me be?”

But I’m not imagining the voice this time. I can smell horse sweat and Maker’s Mark.

I look up to see Papa scowling at me in the mirror above Mama’s dresser. He couldn’t get much realer.