Dig, page 25
“And those. Whatever they are.” Loretta points to tulips.
“They’re tulips,” her mother says.
“Really?”
“You don’t know what tulips look like?” Loretta shrugs it off like it’s no big deal, but her mother starts to form tears in her eyes. “You should know what tulips look like at your age.”
“Who cares? Let’s get back.”
Loretta helps her mother figure out how much money to give the creepy flower guy. He tries to flirt one more time, but Loretta puts her hand out like the choreographer taught her. “Save it for the next lady, okay, buddy?”
CanIHelpYou?’s Name Is Katie
You think that’s a nice little preppy name, right?
Katie doesn’t sound like the name of your dealer, but it is. I only care that you pay me in exact change now that I don’t have access to a cash register.
I’ve upped my prices to make it easier for you.
* * *
I was hating Easter until Malcolm showed up. We always got along, even though our parents don’t. I always felt bad for him because his mom died so young. Okay, sometimes I felt envious. But his mom was probably cool, and mine owns a souvenir slave bell. I’m sure you can understand.
Anyway, now his dad is dying, too. After a bit of small talk, I don’t know what to say, so I say stupid shit because it’s all I got.
“What are you going to do? You know. I mean. Where will you live?”
Malcolm gives me a look like he’s fifty. He probably is fifty in his head. I’m just an idiot. “I thought I was gonna move down to Jamaica, but I’m not old enough and it’s probably a stupid idea.”
“That’d be some pretty big culture shock,” I say. “I’d feel like a phony down there, you know?”
“Yeah. I have friends and stuff but I’m still a white kid from here.”
“Can’t get away from it,” I say. “Best I can do is get away from my mother.”
“You okay?” Malcolm says.
“Rough week. Lost my job and my best friend,” I say. “Well, kinda. He didn’t die or anything.”
“You mean Ian? What happened?” Malcolm was at my roller-skating party.
“Long story. Like I said, the best I can do is get away from my mother.” I say this but my brain is still scheming to figure out what I could have done differently. I want to talk to Malcolm about it, but nothing either of us says will change the way the world works. Malcolm looks so sad. “So I guess when it happens you’re going to live with Marla and Gottfried,” I say.
“Do you have any idea what it’s like to live with them?”
I shake my head. “I can’t imagine.”
He shakes his head and looks out into the forest. “So what’s with Loretta? How’d she get here?”
I say, “Missy and Loretta were in the hospital and the cops arrested You-know-who. Then they moved in here.”
“You-know-who used to beat them up, right? That’s what my dad says. We don’t talk about it much.”
“Nearly killed her this time. He’s gone now. Jumped bail.”
“Shit. He’s a psycho,” Malcolm says.
“Yeah.”
“Our family is so fucked up,” he says. “So many missing pieces.”
My mom has talked to me about her youngest sister a few times. Usually as a cautionary tale. Whenever I seemed too interested in boys, she’d tell me that she’d do the same thing her mother did if I got pregnant. Kick me out. Leave me to suffer. The usual Biblical shit. “I know, right?” I say. “I can’t wait to get out of here.”
“Thing is,” he says, “we can run around the planet a hundred times and we’re still who we are.”
Malcolm is definitely fifty.
The Shoveler: Shoveler’s Surprise
After breakfast, Mom tells me to take a shower and put on some nice clothes.
“Why?”
“We’re taking another drive,” she says.
“I have to take a shower?”
“You have time. No big deal.”
I never ask her why she hid the last egg in Mike’s brother’s sister-in-law’s sinkhole. I think she thought it was funny, but she doesn’t realize it’s not funny at all.
* * *
Mom wants to take my car, and I tell her that if we’re taking my car, I’m driving.
“That’s fine.”
“Where are we going?”
“I’ll give you directions as you go. Don’t worry.”
Ten minutes later, we’re on the highway and Mom tells me to take the exit, so I do and I say, “Why’d you hide the egg in the sinkhole?”
“I don’t know,” she says. “It’s something you’ll never forget. I wanted you to remember this day, I guess.”
I nod.
“Up here on the right there’s a weird store. Take the left there.”
I’m on a familiar road and I don’t understand until I look around and realize this is the road to Marla and Gottfried’s house.
She’s taking me to Marla and Gottfried’s to embarrass me because I didn’t tell her who they were. Shit. It’s Easter. She knows they do a big party on Easter. Shit. This is like my seventh-grade talent show. She said, “I didn’t know you had talent for anything,” and I asked her not to come and she promised and then she came. And she sat in the front row.
I choked. Was supposed to be a comedy act but I just kept saying the lines and staring at her and when she didn’t smile or laugh, then no one else did, either.
* * *
“Where’re we going?” I ask.
“To a party,” she says. “Take this next left.”
“Who lives here? And why didn’t you tell me?”
“Old business,” she says.
Marla and Gottfried’s house is about a mile from here. Next left. If she tells me to go left I’m going to pull the car over. Or something.
“Take this next left. Watch out. It sneaks up on you.”
“. . .”
I can’t say anything. I can’t pull the car over, either. I take the left.
“You’re being mysterious,” I finally manage to say. “First, you hide an Easter egg in a sinkhole. Now, we’re going somewhere weird. You’re freaking me out.”
“Sorry,” she says. “Don’t worry. No matter what happens today, I’ll be more freaked out than you are. Keep that in mind.”
Marla’s Pineapple Stuffing
Everybody loves Marla’s pineapple stuffing . . . except for Marla. She makes it anyway because that’s what she does. She is the original CanIHelpYou? She is the original Malcolm. She is the original Ringmistress. She is the original Freak.
When you water a potato plant, the liquid seeps into the soil. Helps the spud grow underground. The leaves may love seeing the sun, but the tubers need the dark. They seem so different—so unrelated—but when the blight hits and the whole plant goes, then you know everything was related.
Marla’s been thinking about blight. She’s been thinking about her bad luck. She’s baked her bad luck into the pineapple stuffing and she’s about to feed it to three generations of her family. She doesn’t want to. She didn’t mean to. She can’t stop thinking about things she doesn’t have.
Marla Hemmings has shoes for every occasion and always polished clean. Fourteen jackets. Dresses she’s never had the opportunity to wear because Gottfried doesn’t take her anywhere. She has investment accounts worth millions. The BMW. The best food processor on the market. But Easter, as much as she pitches it as her favorite holiday, is the one day she dreads every year because she has to see these people she made—people who don’t really love her. Or people she doesn’t really love. She can’t figure out which came first.
It’s only one o’clock. Time for the egg hunt. But Missy hasn’t come back with Loretta yet. Marla isn’t quite sure where they went or why, but she’s sure Missy will foul up her schedule.
The ham will be ready in an hour. The potatoes—three kinds—will be ready at the same time. She has her microwave bags ready with peas and green beans. Her hands are shaking. She’s made this dinner fifty times before, but she’s nervous.
Marla Hemmings has her secret.
Like all secrets, it feels bigger than it is.
Like all secrets, it breeds shame.
* * *
In 1962, Marla needed three units of blood. She was in Arkansas because her dad was helping to set up a factory there. She was twelve. She’d been hit by a car and her mother rushed her to the hospital. Ruptured spleen. She’d be fine after surgery. No problem. All the staff were nice—Marla remembers the tapioca pudding they gave her once she came out of recovery.
She didn’t know the secret until she was twenty years old. Fourth of July picnic, beer was flowing. Stories were flowing. Her mother was chattering away, enjoying her spotlight.
“I never told Marla this one,” she said. “That time in Arkansas when she had to go to the hospital? Show ’em your scar, Marla!” Marla showed them her side. “So they were out of blood,” her mother said. “Did you know they used to separate it down there? Fools. They’d only give white people white blood and they’d give black people black blood. That doesn’t sound right even now when I say it, does it?” She laughed. Marla’s aunts and uncles laughed. “Well, either way, they had her blood type, but the nurse told me they couldn’t use it because it was what they called negroid blood. I said, ‘Hell yes you can use it!’ and lucky for me and Marla it was a Yankee nurse.”
Marla’s aunts and uncles had a mixed reaction to this. Marla could feel it. Some of them felt uncomfortable with her automatically. Some of them hugged her and said things like “We were so worried when we heard what happened!” or “So glad you pulled through!” Marla couldn’t meet eyes with any of them. Especially her mother. Then her uncle Bill said, “So does this mean you’re gonna sit on your ass and collect welfare now?” She went inside and threw up in her mother’s kitchen sink.
This is her mother’s pineapple stuffing recipe. Uncle Bill loved it. Uncle Bill still made comments to her every time he saw her. Called her half blood. She tried to talk to her mother about it—asked, “Why didn’t you tell me this in private?” Her mother just told her to relax. “Bill’s just kidding.”
Every picnic from then on, Marla avoided. Moved away. Married Gottfried. Had her five perfect babies. More secrets. The doctor prescribed pills. And more pills. That’s just how they did things then.
Truth is, Easter is the only holiday that doesn’t make her want to throw up. Except this year.
* * *
Marla takes off her apron so she’ll look good in the pictures Gottfried takes on his phone camera. She goes to the bathroom and checks herself in the mirror. She hears Missy and Loretta come in the back door and meets them. Missy’s arms are full of hyacinths and tulips, but Marla doesn’t have time for flowers.
She walks into the living room with three plastic grocery bags and says, “We’re all here! Kids, get ready! Your pop-pop and I hid twenty eggs for each of you!”
The only one who looks the least bit excited about this is Loretta, who’s wearing that awful red-sequined thing again.
THE FREAK IS LURKING IN THE TREES!
The Freak watches as three teenagers scour the property for plastic neon Easter eggs. There’s a pink one at her feet, and she picks it up and opens it. A Hershey’s mini chocolate bar. Not her favorite, but she eats it anyway.
The Freak notes that the parents of these teenagers are all sitting inside the house. Marla Hemmings is standing on the back deck. Gottfried is running around taking pictures with his smartphone. The teenagers stick together and help one another find the eggs. Twenty each. The boy’s eggs are blue. The taller girl’s eggs are yellow. The skinny girl in the red dress got pink. The Freak feels bad for eating her chocolate, but she puts the now-empty egg into her pocket.
“You all should split up and make it a race!” Gottfried says.
The teens ignore him.
* * *
The Freak is missing, but really she’s not. The parents inside the house would tell you that this is what made their family a broken mess, but it isn’t. The Freak knows this family was a broken mess before she ever went missing.
“You guys don’t know how to have any fun!” Gottfried yells into the woods. “The whole idea is to be the first one who finds all the eggs! Not to help each other!”
The teens ignore him.
The Shoveler’s Mother Is Hyperventilating
Mom is taking a lot of deep breaths. I’ve decided that whatever’s going on here is going to happen whether I want it to or not.
I’m guessing that I’m about to meet my father.
I’m guessing that this is going to be ugly.
I’m guessing that Mike’s 100% WHITE POWER tattoo isn’t the worst thing in the world because Mom never hyperventilated about that. But she is now.
“Do you want me to stop?” I ask. “You can catch your breath or whatever.”
“You know where we’re going, right?”
“Not really.”
“You never figured it out?” she asks.
“My father,” I say. “You moved back here so I could meet my father.”
“Um,” Mom says.
“I’m scared to meet him,” I say. “What if he doesn’t care or, like, hates me or something?”
“Pull over.”
I pull over. Mom faces me.
“You’re not going to meet your father,” Mom says. “We can talk about it later if you want but right now isn’t about your father. Okay? I know it must be a drag to not know. I’m sorry we haven’t talked before now. I know it must be hard.”
“You really don’t know,” I say.
“I’m taking you to dinner,” she says. “That’s all.”
“Where?”
“It’s just up the road. Old friends of mine. Something like that.”
“Then why were you hyperventilating?”
“Just drive up here and take the right onto that little road with the newer houses.”
“The cul-de-sac?”
“Yeah.”
I sigh. It’s Marla and Gottfried’s cul-de-sac. “This isn’t funny.”
“I never said it was.”
“Please don’t embarrass me. I’ll give you more of what I earned painting. Whatever it is, I’ll give it to you.”
“What are you even talking about?” Mom says. “I don’t want your money! How could I embarrass you?” She starts breathing deeply. “I mean, more than shoplifting and the shit I’ve already done?” She points to the house. “Go up that driveway. Park. And get ready to meet your grandparents.”
I get up the driveway. I say, “Marla and Gottfried are my grandparents?”
Mom looks more confused than I am.
When I park, I see Malcolm walking around with the girl from the park and another girl. They’re all holding grocery bags. Gottfried is following them and smiling. Until he sees my car.
Until he sees that it’s not just me in the car.
Gottfried’s Robins Give Good Advice
Gottfried can’t figure out why the painter kid is at the house. He searches his memory to find the invitation to Easter, but he can’t find it. Shit. If I invited the kid and didn’t tell Marla, she’ll kill me.
Then a woman gets out of the car. Probably the kid’s mother.
She says, “Hi, Dad!”
The painter kid is still in the car. He’s doing something on his phone. Malcolm comes over to say hi, and the kids all gather up around the car while Gottfried stares at the woman.
“Dad? You okay?” she asks.
“Amber?” Gottfried is struck by a giant emotion. He can’t name it. He can’t even feel it, it’s so big. The robins appear, dying in slow motion, and Gottfried hears one of them talk to him. The robin says, “Hug her, for fuck’s sake.”
Gottfried is thankful for the robins.
He hugs Amber and then holds her at arm’s length to inspect how she’s grown.
“Holy shit, kid. You grew into a knockout.”
“Probably not appropriate, Dad.”
“Who cares? It’s the truth,” he says. “How long has it been? And how do you know the painter?”
“The painter is my son. Your grandson. His name is David.”
“David!” Gottfried says, finger pointing to the sky as if that was where the name had been hiding all along.
“And It’s been about sixteen years since I saw you,” she says.
“You’d just graduated high school,” Gottfried says.
“Yeah. Almost right, Dad.”
Gottfried stands there and can’t move. The painter kid gets out of his car, and Amber—his lost Amber—walks toward the front door of the house. Gottfried follows. “Come in. Come in. Your mother’s gonna be so happy to see you.”
“Ya think?” Amber says.
“What?”
“She’s the one who kicked me out,” she says.
“Water under the bridge,” Gottfried says.
Amber rolls her eyes. “For you, maybe.”
Jake & Bill are forensically evident
Jake and Bill are in Jake’s bedroom. The whole house smells like a ham dinner. Bill says, “You can’t just tell them everything.” He looks genuinely scared, and it pleases Jake to see it.
Jake hasn’t had any whiskey in two weeks. Got the shakes the first night but he’s fine now. Bill doesn’t scare him anymore. Jake’s fucks have definitely shifted.
