I woke up that morning, rubbed the sleep from my eyes and shuffled into the living room. I blinked hard, staring at the hospital bed. My mom lay unmoving in the dining room, at the edge of the living room. Her stillness frightened me. She lay on her back, eyes closed, my grandma on the other side of the bed, straightening the sheet and talking softly to her. The white cast under her shoulders peeked out from the sheet. I drifted towards her, unsure what to do. My grandma glanced up and said, “look who came in last night. Say good mornin’ to your mama.” My eyes flitted between the cast and her face. My mom opened her eyes, turned her head towards me, mustered a slight smile and a faint, “hi honey.” “Hi mom,” I replied, fear gripping my insides. My grandma jumped in with, “your mama’s gonna be alright, but you all can’t be running all over the house, bumping into the bed or climbing up on it to talk to her. She’s got a cast on her body cause she broke her back.” I nodded, eyes unblinking. Her soft brown eyes connected with mine. My grandma rattled on, “And you gotta go down the hallway to get to the kitchen now. Can’t go through the dining room no more.” I heard a noise behind me and turned to see my sisters behind me. My little sister ran forward, yelling, “mommie!” but my arm instinctively shot out to stop her. My older sister arrived at the bed and picked my little sister up. They murmured hellos to my mom, and my mom looked from one of us to the other and managed a croaky “hi girls.” My little sister started to cry, and my older sister patted her back, saying “it’s gonna be okay.” My mom reached out her hand and my little sister grabbed it. Grandma continued, “your mama’s okay but is gonna need a lot of rest so you can’t bother her too much. Now, I made some biscuits so go around the other way and have some breakfast.” My sisters and I stood still for a second and reluctantly but obediently turned around. It was June, 1970 and our vacation had just turned into a summer stay. I was 10 years old.
The last time I had seen my mom, she was standing upright by the side of our car, hand on her back, the rain pelting her. My parents, my sisters Sandy, age 12, and Carla, age 7, and I, were driving to my grandparents house, from Virginia to the mountains of North Caroline for a week of summer vacation. As we traveled along the Blue Ridge parkway, the rain pounded our blue station wagon. My dad complained to my mom “I can’t hardly see the road.” A minute later, he followed that comment with “can you look for the next exit?” My sisters and I, wedged together in the back seat, got real quiet, all of us staring out the front window, watching the wipers whip back and forth. My dad’s hands clenched the steering wheel, full on focused on the road while my mom studied the map, telling my dad when the next exit was coming. We exited the highway onto a two lane road in the mountains. Not long on the road, we rounded a curve and the brakes didn’t hold. My dad yelled “watch out” then off the road we went, slamming into a massive tree. My older sister flew into the front windshield, as did my mom, while my dad jerked forward, his ribs smashing the steering wheel. My younger sister and I were unhurt. The front of the car smoked, a tree-shaped dent shaping the hood. My parents pulled us out of the car, the rain pummeling all of us. My mom hugged my sister who was sobbing and had a gash on her head. My parents eventually put us three kids in the back of the station wagon. My mom stood by us, rain dripping down her face, her hand on her back, assuring us everything was okay. My dad trudged to the edge of the isolated road. Eventually he flagged down a car and told them to call an ambulance. When the ambulance got there, they rushed my mom and sister into the vehicle, and off they went. I stared after the ambulance confused and scared. My mom had been fine, standing, comforting us, and then was whisked away. My dad, my little sister and I got a ride into the town and to the hospital.
That’s how we ended up in the mountains of North Carolina for the summer, at my grandparents. My sisters and I stayed on their small farm with my mom in her bed and my dad, with broken ribs, back home in Virginia working. The nearest town stretched 10 miles of curvy roads away from us. The days stretched from one to the other with little interruption. My grandfather left each day for his logging job. My grandmother’s focus was on my mom, washing her, feeding her, turning her, as well as her usual chores of cleaning and cooking and canning. We had cousins nearby who would visit. Often, we all got shooed outside by my grandmother. We’d wander down to the bridge and throw rocks in the water, play in the creek, race each other around the house or sometimes get a game of wiffle ball going. All the grownups that came to visit my mom, and boy a lot of folks came to visit her, they all talked about the heat, how they couldn’t remember it ever being so hot. When those aunts, uncles, older cousins or old friends of my mom’s visited, we had two choices: stay and listen to them talk about the heat or people we didn’t know, or head outside. So there we would go, the sun shimmering around us, the cacophony of insects buzzing as background. Inside wasn’t much better anyway. The old window unit air conditioner didn’t cool the house much; mostly it just blew hot air around the house.
Not that she wasn’t nice to us, but my grandma worked hard that summer, caring for my mom, watching us, taking care of the house and garden. Her busyness hummed off of her. Sometimes, I hated to ask her to do one more thing, even if I didn’t have any clean clothes. I would go in when she was in the kitchen and say, “hey grandma, could you clean some of my clothes for me when you get a chance?” If I caught her right she’d say, “sure honey, bring them to me.” If I caught her in the middle of too much, she would blow the wisps of hair away and say, “just can’t do it right now, I don’t reckon. I’ll get to it directly.” When my boy cousins came over, they would pester my grandma for snacks or pepsi-cola. I’d just leave the room when I saw them going into the kitchen. Mostly, my grandma took all of the work but sometimes she would snap. That was the best time to be outside, even as hot as it might be.
One day I ran down from the chicken coop towards the house, tripping as I came down the uneven broken cement front steps leading to the house. I fell forward, catching myself with the palms of my hands but the rough rock scraped my knees and hands. I gritted my teeth, trying not to cry but tears came to my eyes anyway. I opened the screen door and came over to my mom, holding up my bleeding palms. She was awake and uttered an “oh no Mimi.” reaching out her arm towards me. I kept trying not to cry but the tears dripped down as I looked at her, wanting the comfort of a hug but knowing that was impossible. She said, “come over, let me look.” I started closer to her, my hands outstretched. Suddenly my grandma appeared from the kitchen, saying, “come around to the kitchen and I’ll clean you up.” My mom and I stared at each other for a long moment, pain in both of our faces, and then I turned and walked into the kitchen to the sound of the pressure cooker humming and the smell of dill perfuming the air.
The evenings felt easier. My grandpa, almost always calm, would put me or my little sister in his lap, tell us a joke or a story. My grandma would take the lower half of a spoon, dip it into her snuff jar, and put that on the inside of her bottom lip. I often would watch, fascinated, by this evening ritual. She would then sit on the sofa with her spit can next to her on the floor and talk and spit, talk and spit. If my mom was awake, one of us stood next to her, touching her arm, telling her about our day. My grandparents had an old TV, with the antennas on the top. They only got one channel, and that was fuzzy unless you could move the antennae and get it just right. On Saturday afternoons, my grandpa watched “wrassling,” pounding his hand on the chair arm, yelling at the TV. This was the only time all summer I ever heard him yell. Most evenings, though, the TV stayed off.
My sisters and I looked forward to Saturdays. On Saturdays, my grandpa would load us up in his old Chevy and drive us the 10 miles to town. He would go to the bank and then give us each 25 cents to go to the store. This store had all these bins of penny candy. We would each get a small brown bag and pick out the candy we wanted, one piece at a time. Our choices included pixie sticks, tootsie rolls, bazooka gum, smarties, jaw breakers, sixlets, sugar daddies, bit o’ honeys, and fireballs. That candy had to last us a whole week, so we were careful about what we got. And we would not share it with our cousins. It was our special time with our grandpa and was the only thing that summer that broke the sameness of each day. We savored each piece of candy.
