Monday In Bedford

Today I went home again. I parked at the bottom of the hill, and Augie and I walked up across the yard. It was cool, and leaves fell around us from the trees. Mother’s Subaru was parked in front the garage, the red paint contrasting the garage’s grey door. I looked up at the house. The attic window was hanging open, the sun catching on the crack in the left pane. I felt the old sensation of dread creeping up on me, and I shuddered.

Funny how memory can be so easily invoked, even those memories we work hard to forget. In the days before, the open window was a sign that I dreaded. It meant momma was drinking, or drunk, or that her friends were over. My sister and I would go into the upstairs hall and wait. My mother would show up after a few moments, a jug of water, and sandwiches and pull down the folding stairs. On school days, we only spent a few hours in the attic. It was Sundays I dreaded. On Saturdays we could climb out the window onto the roof, and then drop onto the side yard. I could track down Heather or Jules and spend the day with them.

On Sundays, my mother locked the window. My father would leave in the morning after church and go hang out with his friends. Most Sundays, we were in the attic till dark. We would dig a book out of the boxes, or look through magazines or photo albums. Sometimes, we’d play cards or one of the old board games. Early on I had pulled a crib mattress into one corner and placed layers of fabric over it. On Sundays, we’d tried to sleep as much as we could. When I was really young, I’d pray.

Augie’s laughter pulls me out of my reverie. She’s watching kittens in a pile of leaves. Sometimes I wonder at how innocent she is, how she seems to laugh and smile so easily. It’s so easy to see Sybil in her. The way she tilts her head, the way she laughs, even in the ways she wrinkles her nose. I know she really picks these things up from me, though I remember Sybil that way too. Its David I can’t find in her. Even when I look hard, I don’t see any of him. I wonder if that thought makes me happy or sad.

My mother is watching us through the kitchen window. I wonder what she sees. I hesitate to knock, waiting for her to open the door. When she doesn’t, I call Augie over and step up on the porch. I wish my father was here. The curtains move, and I hear the phone ring. I wait. I wish things were different. I wish Sybil was here. I knock, and there’s nothing for a moment. Then the door opens.

“Uhmm, what do you want?” My mother’s speech is slurred.

“I brought Augie to see you.” My voice is high pitched, I sound nervous.
“Hi grandma.” Augie says, smiling like an angel. “I like your kitties.”

“So, “she says, looking down at Augie. “Doesn’t it bother you that you don’t have a daddy anymore?”

“Daddy’s in heaven.” The smile has vanished. This visit was a bad idea.

“Heaven?” My mother laughs. “Kid, you’re father couldn’t bribe his way into heaven even with the skin of the snake that tempted Eve.”

“Mother, please.” I’m trying not to shout.

“It was nice seeing the kid, but I’m busy.” She turns and slams the door. Augie’s looking up at me.


“It’s okay Moonbeam.” I pick her up. “You forget all about grandma, she’s just old and miserable.” I carry her down the hill. I’m not coming back here.

I take Augie to see old aunt Grace. She’s 90, and senile, and Augie loves her. She tells Augie about the ghost of the black cat, and how it moves her glasses and gets into her sewing bag. I’m only half listening, my mind turning over images of my mother.

“Angel?” Aunt Grace calls me by her pet name.

“Yeah?” I have to smile when I look over. She’s wrapped a silvery fringed scarf around Augie’s waist and put a row of white beads around her head. Augie has kicked off her shoes and she’s dancing around the room singing Jesus Loves Me.

“She’s just like you.” Aunt Grace says. “Good voice, good sense of rhythm, It runs in the family” Aunt Grace laughs. “Strong like you too, you get that from me.”

“She looks like Sybil.” I wonder if Aunt Grace remembers that Augie is Sybil’s child.

“True, but you’re raising her, you’re her mother really.” She looks at me. “Doing a good job from what I see.”

“Thanks Aunt.” I can’t say anything else.

“You’ll always be my angel. I can still see you when you was four, singing Jesus Loves the Little Children in front of the whole church. You knew all the words, and your grandma and I were so proud.” She sits back in her chair. “You remember that, and you forget about that monster of a mother God gave you.”

“I will, Aunt.” I watch Augie.

“I used to tell your grandma that she shoulda done something about your mother. Frances, I’d say, that woman is gonna kill one of them girls. I never understood why she didn’t do something. I must have spoke to your mother a dozen times, and she’d say she had to punish you girls. She said she was driving the devil out.”

“She was crazy when she drank.” It’s all I can say.

“She didn’t need the drink to be crazy. How many times did she run Sybil out of the house by beating her with that leather strap?” Aunt Grace shook her head.

“She used to cut me, with that old straight razor. She’d make these cuts on my lower back. She said it was good for me.” I look back at Augie. She’s perched in a chair, gazing in the china cabinet at a dish painted with hummingbirds. “David was always threatening to tell the school counselor.”

“He loved you, that boy.” She looks over at Augie. “You want the dish; you take it with, little one.”

On the drive back to Heather’s, I feel subdued. I feel as if I’ve been crying out for others and forgetting myself. Augie is in the backseat, holding the painted dish, singing Jesus Loves Me. I can’t help but smile. She finishes the song as we turn into the drive.

“Momma M?” She said quietly.

“Yes Moonbeam?” I slip the car in to park.

“Will you sing with me?” She asks.

For a moment, I’m just thinking about it. She’s looking at me, waiting. Then I smile and half turn in the seat. I stare at her, this sunshiny little girl who is so much my sister’s and also so much mine. In her eyes, finally, I see the resemblance between her and David. For a moment, I’m thinking about him. Then, I’m thinking of Sunday mornings, with him and me and my sister in the last pew trying to stay awake through the service so we could sing at the end. Then, I’m singing, before I can even really think about it.

“Jesus loves the little children, all the children of the world.”