Southern Gothic, Chapter 1 (cont'd)

ii

Henrietta took a side street back to Highway 80, turning right on the four-lane blacktop. She steered her massive Chevrolet down this public face of Deufreres, Alabama -- a couple of small motels with weedy swimming pools, a restaurant or three. The hollowed-out husk of a Wal-Mart gathered dust beside the town's only grocery store.

And then the fairgrounds to the right, choked with tall grass. A rusted, abandoned Tilt-A-Whirl gave home to all manner of vermin. She still remembered spinning around that very machine with Edmund, back home from the war, laughing and restless to get her alone. She had savored his heat then, filling her with the joy that was every woman's right. All gone now. All over.

At the intersection of 80 and Robertson she stopped and waited for green. In the rear-view mirror, she could just make out the bus pulling out onto the main road, heading away. No doubt the bus company could save money by skipping Deufreres -- who would want to come here? Who was left that would leave?

But Horace Arnett had his vanities. It pleased him to keep the buses running, and so they did. Free chicken dinners for the drivers and passengers, and probably a little more passed hands between him and the bus company. His problem.

Damn his problems.

The signal let her turn left, off the public face and away from the heart of the town. She pushed the accelerator down, because Robertson Road had miles to go through Alabama woods before reaching the incorporated speed trap named Robertson. She, however, had only two miles along this road, and home was close by. The road was long and straight. A trailer here or a home there were blurs in her window, and soon enough Bumiller Way approached. She slowed and took the left, a red dirt road that went all the way to 43. But her house was just here, just to the right.

She pulled into the driveway and stopped the car behind the house, under a roof Munnie had built for it. The Chevrolet started ticking as it cooled. Slowly she gathered her things and got out. She touched the gnarled, wooden beast that guarded her back door, and went inside.

She dropped off her burdens at the kitchen table. One umbrella, one purse, two boxed chicken dinners. Nothing wrong with Eula's chicken, not at all, and Henrietta would know it if there was. But before dinner, there was a wayward girl to call.

She went through the living room, not bothering to glance out the beautiful picture window Munnie had put in for her to see the front yard. Down the hall, into their bedroom -- her bedroom -- and open the address book on the dresser. Into the front bedroom, where Lucybelle squawked her hello. "Tu, tu, tu," said Henrietta, and Lucybelle tu-tu-tued back in her voice. She sat down at the phone, and the voice of her dead husband came from the parrot, answering the phone in his gruff way.

"Munnie Bumiller. Who's this?"

Lucybelle could have continued with a muttering that resembled whatever Munnie might have said next, but Henrietta snapped violently. The parrot stopped in mid-call, rocked on her perch, and shook out its feathers. She rrrocked a call of supplication to the old woman, who was busy dragging numbers out of her black phone. It wasn't a pattern she recognized, but she was getting old herself. Too many numbers these days, although the ends seemed the same sometimes. Click-click-click-click-click.

The old woman and the old bird sat in silence. Then:

"Hello, Miriam?"

"Could you put her on the phone? MIRIAM SNOW."

Silence. Lucybelle tugged at her itchy talons.

"Where are you?"

"I know you are there. Why are you not here? I need you here. The deity knows I ask for little enough from you. What? Well, damn those tests. Not even a word from you. A test before family?"

"I called this very number and left you word. I wired you the money for the ticket."

Lucybelle watched her with dismay as she sagged into her chair. Miriam's voice muttered and twittered over the phone.

"I don't know if I can hold out."

"I dare not. I dare not. I need you here."

And then Lucybelle screeched out as Henrietta twisted the phone against her chest. Her bosom heaved. She came to herself and lifted the receiver.

"You're right, you're right, of course. Too much money spent now to throw it away. You're right, my girl."

"No, it will have to wait, won't it? You get here when you can."

"No, I will manage. I have so far."

"You're kind. Yes, when you get here."

"All right. It is as it is. Can't do nothing more."

"All right."

Henrietta set down the receiver. Her eyes looked over the small room. Munnie's mother had died here, and it had become her sewing room. Munnie had fallen right there, next to the shelf full of cloth and scraps. Some of the baskets had been pulled down, scattered around.

But he'd made it to his feet and gotten to the bedroom to breathe his last on their wedding bed. A man shall leave his mother and cleave unto his wife. That was Munnie, just enough of a Christian at the end to mock her.

He deserved better in death that what he was getting. Miriam or no, this foolishness had to end tonight. "Tonight," she said to Lucybelle, who let loose a low growl and anxiously bobbed her head.