In a lifetime, many and great sadnesses pass. Some sadnesses-like the death of a parent-go right through the center of us, and somewhere in the depths of our being, change us. In such moments, we see farther than knowledge reaches and begin to feel, without being able to explain why, that something new has entered into us, and we endure the sadness and wait, seeing through the stillness into the something new, which no one knows, and we become calm. Our sorrow does not change but becomes transformed into a heightened awareness of life's meanings. And at such times, we seem to see forever, feeling ourselves a part of some mysterious whole. The fragmented pieces of ourselves come together, and we recognize ourselves as without beginning, end, the dead breathing through us, expanding in us the legacy that they have left of themselves. And in those moments, sibling rivalries diminish, and we recognize in each other the inextricable bloodline, the destiny of a generation playing itself out in us. Perhaps it was this that allowed me to see my family differently after Mama's death, to begin to understand just what some of their emotions were, how in ways my getting away from home and succeeding in finishing college must have looked from their viewpoint.
Angie paused under an oak, leaned back into its trunk, chewed and squinted into the green, dripping foliage. Twice a week or so, she would come here hunting squirrels. She chewed and spit tobacco juice at the gnarled roots, studying how the water squeezed up through the moss and into her heavy shoes. A falling acorn just a few feet from her caused her to scrutinize the shadowed gloom even more carefully. There he was. Carefully, she sighted, fired; a swishing and thud followed the sharp piercing ping of the twenty-two. Walking over, she kicked the squirrel over, examined where the bullet had hit. A black, bloodless hole showed just behind the short front legs, legs that ordinarily would be holding an acorn to busy jaws. She had already bagged three today, so she was content now to unload the rifle and head home.
Something about being here in the woods alone brought her a great deal of satisfaction. She was aware that her pants legs were damp almost to the knees; "didn't matter none out here in t' woods how she looked no how." Good thing, too, for lately she had picked up a lot around the waist, and this made her uncomfortable in anything but jeans. Angie had taken a lot of riding from her mama about how she wore a man's clothes, but she knew her mama wouldn't be there any more to bother her head about it, and she thought, "Pore Mama, laying down in that grave." It still didn't set just right with Angie that her mama was gone-but life being what it was, she just picked up and kept going. Nobody could see down in her heart how much she hurt. Fact was, she had given a lot of thought to her own life since her mama had died, and one thing she had concluded, "Ain't nobody gonna tell me how t' live no more." Angie was tired, sick to death of other people's opinions. Nobody had understood what she and Reba had been through, didn't seem to care-just because they lived in another state, their mama and daddy didn't seem to count. It was Angie and Reba who had done as much as they could when it came to seeing to their mama's needs after she had the strokes. They'd go up everyday and wash up the dishes and sweep the floors. Even their mama and daddy sometimes seemed ungrateful and would yell at their kids for being in dresser drawers or turning the well on. The kids couldn't even break an old cold drink bottle outside without being yelled at. So life had gone on-day after tiring day. They would come up, wash their mama's hair, give her a sponge bath, massage her bad arm, and empty chamber pots. The worst part, Angie thought, "was not havin' a life o' my own. I couldn't go t' work. Som'body had t' be with Mama." So Angie and Reba had done without themselves in order to care for their mama, and it seemed to them that the rest of the family just buzzed in and out now and then, stayed a few days, then left. Angie thought it had probably been one of God's blessings that her mama had not lingered any longer or had to go to a rest home somewhere. Still, her death did not set just right.
It was a good thing that Angie couldn't see at that moment too far into the future. She would repeat the same pattern with her daddy years later. Nobody wanted him to go to a nursing home, and he didn't want to go either. That meant someone had to look after him, and Angie was the closest. She'd go up four and five times a day, help him dress, empty his chamber pot, make his bed. She had to check his blood pressure, marking it down in a chart, keeping on top of how low it was. Daddy didn't get around much, mainly just getting out of bed and over to the couch; he'd sit there most of the day. On nicer days, he used his walker to get to the front porch. There, he'd sit without moving or talking much. His eyes swept across the clearing, watching the nesting birds, the humming birds feeding. His mind, though, took him every day and night on long journeys into past times and people. They all lived there and kept him company.
The family had seemed close enough at the hospital and at the funeral, but a friction was there, just beneath the surface for those who knew what to look for. Angie's big rub had been with me. I'd come back and forth a lot when Mama would have one of her strokes. I knew this about myself better than Angie imagined. To her, though, there was nothing to show that I had run away from home. Everybody, including Mama, had pretended that part of the past was gone, and what aggravated Angie the most was that her mama and daddy even seemed to favor me in some ways. Mama and Daddy would always be talking to Angie and Reba about me, telling them I had done this, that, or something else. Angie would think, "Wouldn't ever'body that run 'way from home or gotta chance t' go to college. Not ever'body had money like Laura." So to Angie, my buzzing in every now and then seemed easy. "Guess she soothes her conscience thataway." Still, it did stick in Angie's craw a little bit that Laura always looked a little better dressed and talked a little better than anyone else. It had been that way at the funeral, too. Laura had come in what looked like a nice, new dress, and Angie and Reba had just worn what they had. Laura offered to buy them a dress, but Angie had thought then, "Nothin' doing. We don't need 'er money. Let 'er keep it."
Angie ducked her head against a swarm of gnats, unaware of angrily slapping them out of her way. Normally, she would have tolerated the small nuisances of the woods, considering herself the intruder. Now, she looked at a spider web catching the feeble, early morning sun rays without marveling at its intricacy and iridescence. The water in her shoes was beginning to bother her, and she just wanted to get back home and into some dry clothes.
Coming into the clearing for the house, she saw it now as she thought Laura must see it-squatting in the middle of a field, small, its yard carefully kept. She and Ernest had scraped by to do what they could over the years. They'd built a porch where they'd sit into the evening and swing. They even had running water in the house, although they didn't use it much for fear they would run the well dry. Concrete deer and ducks flanked flowerbeds; wooden birds perched on the white board fence. Angie was proud of her home-and didn't care how it might look to others.
She unslung and hung the squirrels from a nail on the porch post-up high so the dogs wouldn't get at them. The screen creaked as she opened it, hinges in need of oil. A wood door opened into the living room. She dropped on the black vinyl couch and started tugging at her shoes, muddying her hands so that she would have to wash them.
"Git any?" Ernest asked, stuffing his shirt into his pants as he came from the bedroom.
"Four," she replied.
"Then what's got'ch lookin' so down'n't' mouth f'r? Git dripped on or somp'in?" "Don't s'ppose y' got any water f'r coffee, do you?"
"Jest got up, woman. Ain't had no time. Don't git t' sleep late ever' day like som'body else I know."
"So that's what y' think, is it? Well, I'm here t' tell y' it ain't no picnic stayin' home ever' day. Hav' t' git up, git t' kids off t' school, go up t' Daddy's, clean thar, then come back and try t' git on top o' this place. I don't git paid like you, but I work jest t' same."
"Hey, don't go and git yo'reself all riled up. I ain't sayin' y' don't do all them things. What in tarnation's t' matter wit' y' anyhow? This here's Sat'rday. C' mon in t' kitchen. Let's git some breakfast goin' and fill up t' grouchies."
With hot coffee burning down her throat, Angie felt better. She looked at the country yellowed eggs sizzling in her mama's black iron skillet, the smell of lard flaring her nostrils, and thought, "No city person ev'r eat like this." Then she remembered the squirrels and thought how she'd have to hide them, cut them up, then boil them for dinner. There was always something to do. It wore on a person after a while. And this was what Laura didn't understand when she came back home with those highfalutin' airs and those milk-white hands. Still, Angie thought, "don't reckon I envy 'er none-long as she don't go pushing 'er ways down my throat." Angie half-chewed the egg and swallowed-feeling the hurt of it going down that day and into the next.
Angie and I were much closer than either of us realized; we had, after all, shared womb time. Mama lived and breathed in both of us. Angie didn't want to leave the hills; they were part of her. She and Ernest almost escaped only once, when he was in the Army. Angie went with him to Germany. They decided to come back. Ernest buried his mother and father, keeping his feelings wrapped up inside himself and his work. Angie took to riding her four wheeler all over the mountain; the last time I spent time with Daddy, Angie insisted I ride with her. The mountain sported trails all over it, and it no longer seemed as big or as vast as I remembered it. Angie took me across fields and down to the ruins of Uncle Quint's house. I had already been there the day before with my brother, on foot; the family seemed determined to help me with my own reckonings with the past.
Bumping along on the four wheeler, I realized nothing had changed and everything had changed. The gravel road winding up one side of the mountain and down the other was now paved. Daddy had a propone heater in the house instead of the fire place that was there when we were children. Uncle Quint's house, or the ruins that remained, I was shocked to realize was small, incredibly small, two rooms. Mama and Daddy had lived in that house for a while when they were first married. One of my brothers was born there. Now, the house was empty; grass grew up through the porch planks, rotting and broken through in places. The house where Gramma and Grampa had lived had been burned; I couldn't even make it out through the weeds and brush. Its high porch had no railings, and when we played on it in the evenings, Mama and Daddy kept at us to stay away from the edges.
What held Angie and me together was blood. When she stopped the four wheeler to rest, I felt her pain. She held up her right arm, flexing it to relieve the throbbing. She reminded me of Mama in her last days. Mama'd sat on the couch holding her right arm and whimpering; it hurt her all the time. The doctors couldn't give her anything that would make the pain abate. It just had to be endured. Like Angie, Mama had worked hours in the shirt factory, struggling to meet production rates set every higher. The work was repetitive and boring, but it had to be done. The family had to have money. Angie felt Mama's pain and the ravages of time upon her own body. We sat quietly, not saying anything, both of us listening to the rustling grass, the slight breeze whispering in the trees, the slow and methodic insect drone. We were together again, as we'd always been and would always be, in the place of our birth and death. The womb held us securely, warmly&ldots; but we were both of us afraid&ldots; Angie started the four wheeler. Flushed, a bird flew noiselessly from us a short distance then plunged to the ground and hid.