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Full Circles 1950 When Mama was alive, they did embroidery as if their lives depended on it. They wanted so much to measure up to her dreams to learn how to be a good wife to the right man. And if anybody knew how to do that, Mama did. After all, she married Daddy. Rose even cross-stitched some of those little pictures you hang over a baby's crib with their name and date of birth. She figured that she could fill in the details once she had children. She made five of them. Mama was so proud! She didn't know then that she'd only have two. Roberta laughed at her for planning her family so far in advance. But then, Roberta married Jack and went to live in Washington, DC. Rose married Sam and stayed in Raysville. All the 'Home sweet home's and 'Bless this house's on the wall couldn't make her life with Sam what her mother had dreamed for her, but of course she was never as pretty or as smart as Roberta. Her charm, Mama had told her, and mostly she agreed, lay in her quietness, her way of remaining calm even when those around her weren't. While she didn't really love Sam the way she always dreamed she might, he was a good man and she felt genuine affection for him. He was a good man, whatever Mama might say. And she was a good wife to him and mother to Joyce and Thomas. Mama was dead, but Joyce was alive, and Rose made double sure Joyce learned how to cook and clean and embroider, and keep her temper, and all the things that Mama had taught her. Even in her plain, thin face, she had her Aunt Roberta's eyes. Maybe she would turn out pretty after all. 1969 When Joyce found out, through her friend Dodie, who was a horrible gossip, that Joe sometimes went out with prostitutes, she didn't believe it at first. She thought that Dodie was just jealous. But one night when she was very angry at him for coming home drunk and waking up Elizabeth and baby Louise, she did something that Joyce didn't do too often at that point in her life. She flat out asked him. To her surprise, he shrugged and said simply, "Yes. So what of it?" Joyce would have been less upset if he had at least looked a little bit ashamed, but as she was gradually finding out, Joe wasn't ashamed of much. She buried her face in her pillow and sobbed quietly, unable to answer or even look at him. "Are you jealous?" Joe asked, a note of incredulity in his slurred speech. "How could you be jealous of some slut? You're the one with the ring!" "But Joe..." she said, raising her tearstained face to look at him, knowing that even if she understood what she was feeling, she couldn't put it into words. Partly, she felt betrayed, but mostly, she was upset with herself for making so many excuses for him and not listening to all the warning bells that had dared to intrude on her romantic fantasies. Joe shrugged again, a pained expression on his face. Pained was better, she thought. Maybe he felt some remorse. "Well, you know how it is, baby; a man's gotta..." Joe didn't finish his sentence either, but merely kept pacing the room in what she thought of as his rooster strut. How apt, she thought. 'A man's gotta...be king of the dungheap. Rooster to the henhouse. Sow his wild oats.' She could think of a few ways to finish the sentence, but didn't dare say any of them. All Joe needed was a good job, she thought. If he could just find a good job and stick with it, he would surely change his ways. At least that is what she kept telling herself. 1983 Elizabeth sulked in her bedroom as elsewhere in the house they bustled with activity. She knew she had cut her wrists in the wrong direction and not really deep enough, but what else was she to do? How could she possibly tell her mother she was pregnant? But now they all knew. Her mother, Miss prim and proper, was so disappointed in her. She could hear her mother and grandmother arguing again in the kitchen. She sighed and pulled her mop of matted red curls back from her face, pressing her ear to the wall. "Just you leave that child alone, Joyce! She's been through enough," Rose said. "But Mama, after all the things I tried to teach her can you believe not a one of them stuck? What on earth am I going to do with her? She won't listen to anything I say," Joyce answered, pacing the floor and wringing her hands nervously. Rose, as always, was calm while everyone else fretted. She laid a hand on Joyce's shoulder in passing, but Joyce just kept pacing. "Just take her to get the abortion," Rose said gently, almost pleading. Joyce exploded and turned suddenly to face her mother. "But women are supposed to want babies! Bad enough she had to get pregnant her senior year of high school, but can't she at least tell us who the father is? He really ought to marry her!" "Think, Joyce," Rose answered, a note of exasperation in her usually placid voice. "You of all people should know that unhappy marriages aren't worth it." "Don't you start about Joe now!," Joyce retorted. That's long over and done with. Don't you dare say that I told you so!" "Have I ever said 'I told you so?'" Rose asked, slightly hurt. "I wanted you and Tom so much. I would have liked to have more children, but after what I went through with Tom..." Rose sighed heavily, then continued. "I know how much you wanted Elizabeth and Louise, even when Joe didn't. But this is different with Elizabeth. She doesn't want a baby. It isn't right for her now. Joyce, the girl tried to kill herself. Is that what you want for her?" Joyce began to cry, unable to face her mother. a"But you raised me right. I tried so hard, Mama, honestly I tried. But with Joe gone and me working so much... I guess I wasn't there for her like you were for me. I just got tired, Mama. And now look at the mess I have made..." "Joyce...," Rose said softly, "I raised you to be a good wife and mother the only way I knew how." "Well, I failed!" Joyce snapped, sobbing even harder. "Don't rub it in!" "No, Joyce, I am trying to say I'm sorry. Will you listen to me?" Joyce looked up, about to say something else, but the look on her mother's face silenced her. "Joyce, I raised you the way my own mother raised me. But our family was different and times had changed. I didn't know just how different things would be for you and I'm sorry. It's not your fault. But please don't make the same mistake with Elizabeth. Let her be independent. Just look at her -- that is what she needs, why she has been struggling so hard. Let her have the abortion. I will take her myself." Elizabeth, listening through her bedroom wall, could hardly believe her ears. Her own grandmother, the epitome of soft-spoken, traditional, well-bred Southern womanhood, was coming to the defense of her non-conformist, loud-mouthed and decidedly unladylike granddaughter. She loved her grandmother so much at that moment and felt a bit ashamed for all the times she had misjudged the old woman as an outdated relic of a time long past. She knew that everything would be ok.
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[Snarl! of the month] [I Don't Care What You Think] |
