1
Cass didn’t remember when it
started. She did remember quietly examining her bruises while Ruth watched
“The year is 1972!” he said.
Ruth pulled a slick thumb out of her
mouth and leaned toward the set. “Nineteen-seven-toooo!” she squealed. Cass scratched her sister’s back. As long
as he doesn’t try messing with Ruth, she thought. He just better not mess with
her, or I’ll get him. I’ll get him when
I’m big and he’s old. I guess they don’t
supposed to with kids like Ruth. Only regular ones. Ruth looked at Cass and smiled.
Ruth was nine but Mama told Cass
that she was going to be three years old for life. That Ruth had been born with a brain like
Cass’s but the snot hadn’t been knocked out of her throat hard enough and she
had turned blue and had been a blue baby.
By the time the nurse at the hospital had come in and noticed her, she
had gone so long without breathing that it had killed some of her brain. Cass’s
earliest memory was of Ruth hanging onto her shirt as Cass tried to lift
herself to walk. Every time she tried to get up, Ruth pulled onto her and
dragged her back down.
“Mah...” Cass hollered.
Mama had
come into the room and knelt next to her.
“Honey, Ruth wants to learn to walk, too.” Since then, Cass taught Ruth
everything she learned. She would act
silly and Ruth would burst into laughter.
She would tell stories and Ruth would clap her hands. Evelyn had gotten
pregnant at thirty-three, right around the time she was convinced she would
never be able to have any children. It seemed she had been trying to get
pregnant forever and when she finally decided she was sterile and quit trying,
it had happened.
Although Evelyn tried to teach Ruth
to read, she couldn’t comprehend the notion of letters forming together to make
words. She didn’t know her numbers either, despite Evelyn’s attempts in going
over and over them with her. The only information she seemed able to memorize
and keep was singing bits of You Are My
Sunshine. Ruth had her first seizure when she was seven and Cass was five.
They had been right in the middle of playing cowboy when Ruth fell to the
ground, clenching the little plastic revolver, and shook and shook until Cass
screamed and scampered to find Evelyn.
The two of them rushed into the bedroom to see Ruth, glassy-eyed and
bleeding from where she had bitten the tip of her tongue off. An ambulance had come and whisked her away
with the piece of tongue wrapped in a baggie.
The doctors took Evelyn aside after
reattaching the tongue and explained that they would have to increase Ruth’s
levels of medication to help ward off more seizures. Cass tugged Evelyn’s pants
leg with all her might saying, “What Mama? Is Ruth all right? Will Ruth live?
Will her tongue still taste? How will she eat? Will she come home with
us?”
Evelyn had leaned close and grasped
Cass’s shoulders and said that Ruth was an angel on earth because she would
never learn to hate or hurt...that she was pure good.
“Listen!” she remembered Evelyn
saying, fingers softly pressing her shoulders, “you must always help
Ruthie...help her survive the world. I’m not always gonna be here. After you’re grown and I’m gone she’s going
to need somebody.” Cass promised she would protect her sister from everything
and would bite a chunk out of any person who tried to hurt her. She had been thinking of Daddy when she said
it. As far as she knew, he had never tried anything on Ruth, but she lived in a
constant state of terror that one day he would go for her instead of Cass when
creeping into their room. She stayed ready to call him over or to attack
him—clawing and biting—if he happened to head for her bed. He must never, never touch Ruth.
The next evening, after cornbread and fried onions had been passed around the small table, Evelyn announced that Daddy would be home soon. Cass stabbed the mealy cornbread with her fork and cluttered the onions around it so it would look partially eaten. She could not eat. The weeks with Wiley gone had given her time to heal and now she would have more bruises.
“Dadda’s mean,” Ruth said,
chewing. She rapped her fork on the
table and swung her legs back and forth from her chair. “Dadda’s a MEAN man.”
Evelyn touched Ruth’s arm. “Daddy’s not mean,” she said. “He’s a good man with a lot of problems he
can’t help.”
“He’s MEAN!” Ruth protested
absently.
Evelyn shook her head and looked at
Cass. “Where is she getting this? She
doesn’t just come up with this stuff...she’s repeating something she
heard. Did you tell her Daddy was mean?”
Cass had told Ruth a long time ago
that Daddy was mean and that Ruth should scream loudly if he ever scared her at
night or anywhere else—there wasn’t any place in the world where she wouldn’t
be able to hear her and couldn’t save her if she hollered.
“I maybe said something...but I said
it for you, Mama because he is
mean. He’s mean to you.”
Evelyn
smiled tightly. “I know it must seem that way to you, but he’s trying. It’s the drinking that does it.” She
sighed. “Look, if it isn’t different
soon, I’ll do something. But I can’t
give up on my husband without giving him a few more chances. When I said I’d marry him I may have been
seventeen, but I took those vows seriously.
Ran away from Mama and Daddy and dropped out of high school just for
him. He’s the only husband I have...and
I can’t drag my kids away from their daddy.
He loves us.”
Two nights later, Cass and Ruth were
sitting on the floor of the family room playing with washcloths they had turned
into puppets. Cass taught Ruth how to
use rubber bands to hold the cloths over their hands. Evelyn sat on the couch rubbing Wiley’s
back. Wiley hunched over drinking a beer
and watched the news.
“Damned politicians,” he said,
“taking every goddam dime they can. Just look at ’em...”
Cass reached for a faded blue
washcloth that lay by Evelyn’s feet. Wiley looked at her. “See, Cass?” he said.
“Look at those crooked politicians. If you ever bring one of those pansies
home, I’ll wear you out, do you hear me?” Evelyn slapped Wiley’s shoulder
lightly. “Wiley, Cass is seven years
old. Who would she bring home?”
He snorted. “Look, kids are doin’ it a lot sooner than
they used to be. Why Cass here will
probably get a boyfriend as soon as school starts,” he laughed. “Girls don’t
give a rap these days.”
Evelyn stood. “Well, I guess I’m raising her better than
that!”
His eyes narrowed as he stood to
meet her glare. “Oh, just you alone, is
that it? Lemme tell you something,
Ev...you don’t do a goddam thing all day while I slave away for this family. I
mean, what do you do around here all day?”
He lifted his beer can as if to take a sip of it, but threw the
remainder of it in Evelyn’s face instead. “Nothing, that’s what.” he spat.
1
The fighting could be gauged, even
by Cass. She never knew how she could
tell, she just could. A comment from one parent to the other; a comment she
didn’t even understand, would cause her heart to pulse and her eyes to water.
It wasn’t the comment so much as the sound of her daddy’s voice that told her
it was coming. Cass had stayed frozen while they yelled because she was scared
they’d notice if she tried to dart away. Ruth was so close that beer had landed
in her hair. Cass grabbed her arm and dragged her down to their bedroom before
Ruth could see the worst of what they both knew was coming.
Cass blinked back tears as she heard
Wiley’s fists thud against her mother’s flesh from down the hall. Evelyn usually tried to take the blows
silently, so they would not know she was being hit but Cass could hear him
grunt as Evelyn boldly threw weak slaps and hair pullings. She fought until Cass knew she had hurt
him. He hollered, “Ow! You bitch!” and then Evelyn broke the silence
by screaming, over and over again. Ruth stared off—listening—and rocked back
and forth maniacally. Cass grabbed a
pillow and started punching it. She
could not let Ruth get upset. What if
she had another seizure?
“Ow!” Cass said, crossing her eyes
and sticking her tongue out. Please work, she thought. C’mon,
Ruth...laugh. Come on and laugh.
Ruth looked at Cass and the rocking slowed, her body loosened and a loud
guffaw broke from her lips. Cass kept
her eyes crossed until the house was silent and then put a finger over her lips
to tell Ruth to be quiet. They stared,
wide-eyed, at each other until they heard the front screen door slam and
Wiley’s truck start. That meant it was
over. They crept into the hallway and to the den, where Evelyn never was. She always beat them into her bathroom. Cass heard water running when she pressed her
ear to the door.
“Mama?” she called.
“Yes, baby...” Evelyn said. Cass knocked on the door. “Can I come in?”
The water shut off and Evelyn
sighed. “I’m in the bathroom right now, sweetheart...why don’t you go get a
cookie and play in your room. I’ll be there in just a minute. I—I’m shaving my legs.”
Cass did as she was told and sat on
the bed with Ruth, slowly eating her cookie.
Ruth’s cookie never stayed all the way in her mouth. Ever since Evelyn had found out she was retarded,
Ruth had been put on drugs to keep the seizures from getting her. Cass remembered the doctor saying that the
doses of drugs Ruth took were so strong it would kill a normal person who
wasn’t used to them.
Cass had watched Ruth’s body react
to the drugs over the years. Some of
them caused facial deformity: her gums had grown over her upper teeth, leaving
her one ghoulish canine against all of her bottom teeth. Cass had asked Evelyn why she didn’t make
Ruth get it taken out because it looked like a vampire, but she had said no,
that Ruth wouldn’t be able to chew any regular food at all if she did
that. Evelyn hugged Ruth to her and
poked a finger into her ticklish side, making her burst into a loud laugh.
“See,” she said, “how can this precious little girl look like a dirty old
vampire? I’ll bet she’s the only one in the world with one like it.” She looked at Ruth. “Aren’t you lucky!” she said.
Cass smiled as her mother’s arm
curled her into the embrace, too. “But Mama,” she had said, burying her face
into Evelyn’s cotton shirt, “I just don’t want anyone staring at her or making
fun of her.”
Evelyn shrugged. “Well, they’re always gonna, honey and that’s
a fact.” Cass twirled the small gold band her mother wore on her left
hand. “But Mama, don’t you remember when
we ate at the hamburger place and we overheard some people saying they couldn’t
eat while Ruth was in the room and she made them sick just because she drooled
a tiny bit?”
Evelyn’s jaw twitched. “Yes, I remember that,” she said. “Ruth is better than them because she will
never know what it means to be hateful.
I always wondered what it’d be like if she wasn’t retarded, but I never
regretted that she is...God gave me my very own angel. I sometimes feel that maybe He made a mistake
because I know I have never done anything to deserve such a pure miracle.”
Cass smiled. “Yes, Mama...me too,
Mama.”
Ruth sat
with her hands cupped over her mouth, giggling, before letting out a big
squeal.
“I’m a PURE
MIRACLE!” she shrieked.
2
The days Cass liked best were the
days her father was working. He was a
trucker for Ben’s Fertilizer and was gone for weeks at a time. Cass relished these times—she and Ruth helped
pick peaches with Evelyn from the small, gnarled peach tree that thrived in the
backyard through the steamy temperatures
Evelyn’s hair was blond and fine,
but she kept it in a shag and it looked washed out and frizzled on the
ends. She said that Ruth got her hair
from her Aunt Margaret, whose hair was as thick as a tree trunk and whom they
had nicknamed “pumpkin.” Evelyn
sometimes called Ruth pumpkin “just for tradition,” she said.
On Saturday mornings, Cass and Ruth
were permitted to go with Evelyn to various garage sales in the neighborhood
where they could each choose one new toy.
Evelyn had just finished paying for a faded blue bear for Ruth (who was
already picking the stuffing out of it) and a book for Cass when they came
across a dog.
Cass was singing her part of Home on the Range when they saw it. A small black dog wobbled among a group of
boys. It whined as one of the boys said
“watch this!” and kicked it. It curled
into itself, defenseless. Ruth started to wail and Evelyn said, “Cass! Calm her!” in a voice that scared Cass. She
wrenched her hand free from Cass’, calling back, “...and stay where you
are!” Cass put an arm around Ruth’s
shoulder. “Look, Ruth. Mama’s gonna save
that little doggie for us. Maybe it’ll
come home with us!” The girls watched as
Evelyn ran right into the heart of the group and grabbed two of the boys by
their hair. She knocked their heads together
and yelled, “What is the matter with you?”
She ran in a circle, attacking all
of them at once until they left, laughing and spitting, down the street. She
knelt to pick up the whimpering animal, which growled and snapped at her
arm. Evelyn cried out and held the dog’s
mouth closed. It struggled and was
silent. She picked it with one arm and slung it over her shoulder, lips
clenched from the force it took to hold its mouth together. Tears streamed down
her face as she made her way back to the girls.
“I may be forty-three years old,”
she said. “but I’ll be...oh, the poor thing! Let’s go home.” The little dog
looked at the girls the entire way to the house and Cass watched the beady rage
slowly drain from its eyes. Ruth jumped up and down squealing, “Doggie! Dog-g-eee!”
Cass couldn’t help clapping her
hands, too. “Oh Mama, can we keep it? Is
it ours? Can we name it Jack? I’ve
always wanted to have a dog so I could call it Jack!” Evelyn frowned. “But the dog’s a girl, honey.”
“I don’t care! I’ve always wanted a
dog named Jack—I read a story about a dog named Jack and it was just the nicest
dog!”
Evelyn looked at Ruth. “Well, what do you think, Ruth?” Ruth
squeezed her bear to her chest. “Jack, Mah!”
Evelyn shrugged and then
giggled. “Well, okay.” She carried the
dog into the house and told them to stay still while she bathed the blood off
of it. Cass watched quietly as the dog
opened its eyes and whimpered.
“Watch her for me,” Evelyn said,
leaving the bathroom and heading for the kitchen. When she returned, she had
two hotdogs wrapped in a paper towel.
“Oh Mama, let me feed her,” Cass
begged. Ruth reached forward and put her
hand over Cass’s and they fed Jack that way.
“Mama,” Cass gasped, putting a hand over her mouth. “What about Sammy? Won’t he get jealous?” Sammy was a little
silver miniature schnauzer that lived in the backyard. The family had gotten Sammy before Ruth had
been born. He liked all the attention on himself, getting jealous even when
Cass played with Ruth.
“Sure he will, but only for a short
while. He’ll get used to having Jack
around in time.” They let Sammy meet Jack after she had eaten the hotdogs and
had begun wagging her tail a little.
Sammy scampered in and sniffed at her, circling around like a little
matador around a bull. He barked and
Jack rolled over onto her back with her stomach exposed. Ruth shrieked with delight. “He’s doin’ a twick!” she shouted. “Jack’s a TWICK DOGGIE!”
“Why is she doin’ that, Mama?” Cass
asked. Evelyn shook her head. “I guess
that’s her way of saying, ‘let’s be friends.’” Sammy seemed to be satisfied
with Jack’s reaction and pranced into the kitchen to scrounge for bits of food
from the floor. Evelyn followed Sammy into the kitchen and got a bowl for Jack.
“Dogs need their own bowls so they won’t fight over the food when we feed
them.” she explained. “I guess it’s okay
if they share a water bowl...I don’t think dogs fight over water too much.”
The girls soon found that Sammy was
much quicker than Jack at getting the food that they put out for them. They watched as Sammy choked his food down
without even chewing it and immediately knocked Jack’s head out of her dish and
ate everything in it, too.
“Mama!” Cass cried. “Jack’s gonna starve! Sammy keeps getting into the food and eating
it all up from her!” Evelyn peeped into
the kitchen. “You’re right,” she said,
watching Jack look helplessly at them while Sammy ate. “We’d better separate
them at suppertime so Jack won’t have to hurry to eat. I don’t know what all those boys did to her,
but Jack’s head seems to be hurt on the inside, and I don’t think she can think
or move as fast as Sammy can.”
“We don’t care,” said Ruth slowly.
Evelyn hugged her. “No, we don’t.”
1
The June sky was wavy with
heat. The sun streaked a pineapple
liquid, turning the girls’ skin golden.
Cass had learned to ride a bicycle the summer before and was able to
ride without using her hands this summer.
The old bike had sat in the garage for years because Ruth was not able
to ride it. She rode a tattered plastic
Big Wheel with pink flames on either side and lavender tassels on the handles.
Evelyn had found them together at a garage sale when Cass was four years old
and only paid three dollars for them both.
Cass knew to live her summer well
and try to memorize it because in the fall, school would start and she would be
in the third grade. She liked school, but hated the idea of leaving Ruth and
Evelyn at home all day. She remembered
how much she missed them when she started the first grade. Wiley had been around more than usual that
summer and it had been miserable. He
picked on her, it seemed, every day.
Two weeks
before school was to start, she had been looking forward to watching Alice in Wonderland on television so she
could draw a picture of Alice with the Cheshire Cat. She and Ruth had tied ribbons in their hair
to look like headbands and Evelyn had bought them some carrots to munch on
during the scenes featuring the White Rabbit.
She had crayons and a pad of paper to draw on in front of her while she
listened to the movie. Right about the
time Alice was falling down the rabbit hole, Wiley flicked the television off
and said, “You need to learn to spell your name, Cass.” Cass looked at her paper, where she had only
had time to outline Alice’s hair and draw one blue eye. Wiley leaned over her and ripped the paper
off of the pad. “You don’t need to watch
some old cartoon when you can’t even spell your own name,” he slurred, pointing
his finger at Cass. “So spell it.”
She slowly drew a big “C,” but
wasn’t sure which way to turn the lowercased “a.” She tried to write it over and over again,
but kept getting mixed up. She kept
thinking about all of the things Alice was experiencing while she bungled her
name up and glanced at Ruth. Poor Ruth
sat sucking two of her fingers and staring silently at her father. Cass wrote the letters over and over again as
Wiley stood over her with his lips curled and his nostrils expelling an air of
stale beer.
“No, that ain’t it!” he said.
“No! Turn those s’s around...there,
that’s better.”
Cass worked until she could scrawl
both “Cass” and “Cass Sawyer” on the notepad.
Wiley nodded. “Looks real good,
girl,” he said. He had then flicked the
television back on in time for her to see Alice waking from her dream in
Wonderland.
Cass gripped the handlebars of the
bicycle and looked to see if Ruth was still ambling along on the Big Wheel. She
had forgotten all about her! Yet Ruth
huffed diligently behind her—hair matted to her forehead and cheeks
flushed. They circled back to the
driveway and Cass practiced her turns. It was her eighth birthday and she had
been humming Happy Birthday to herself all morning while riding with
Ruth. Evelyn had kissed her and given her a notepad with a set of map pencils
to color with and three new books. Then she’d told them to go out and play
while she made Cass’ birthday cake. “Go
ride for an hour or so while I get everything ready,” she said, her eyes
twinkling. “I have a few surprises for you.”
So they’d been riding up and down
the sidewalk, Cass making big lazy circles in the street every now and then.
Cass knew the party would be small—there were only about three other kids in
the neighborhood and they were all scared of Ruth, so the idea of having any
friends over was out of the question. Cass didn’t care too much, she told
herself—anyone who was scared of her sister was stupid idiot.
“Cass, gotta stop,” panted Ruth.
“Water.” Cass hopped off the bike and knocked the kickstand down. She turned on the water hose and gave Ruth a
drink from it. Ruth lapped it like a
dog. “See, I’m Jack!” she said.
“Nice doggie,” Cass answered,
patting Ruth’s head. “Just don’t tinkle
on the fire hydrant.”
Ruth frowned. “What’s a fire hyde?” Cass shrugged. “I don’t
know, I just heard a man say that to his dog on T.V. once.”
They turned the hose off and Cass
figured it had been an hour, so they started up the porch. When Cass walked in the front door, Evelyn
and the neighbors, Miss Betty and Miss Kay, popped out from behind the couch.”
Happy Birthday!”
Ruth jumped up and down. “How old am I, how old am I?” she
shouted.
Evelyn hugged her. “It’s your sister’s birthday, Ruth...did you
forget? Yours is in August.”
Cass
laughed and walked over to the breakfast table, where a pink cake sat with a
picture of Alice and the Cheshire Cat on it. Evelyn had worked hard to draw
them with tubes of icing. Miss Betty sat in one of the chairs at the breakfast
table, and Miss Kay sat in another.
Evelyn put her head on Cass’s shoulder.
“Well,” she asked, “what do you think?”
“I love it, Mama! I love the Cheshire Cat.” Evelyn beamed at
Miss Betty and Miss Kay. “Your neighbors
brought you some sweet tea and some animal crackers. Now, wasn’t that nice of them?”
“Thank you,” Cass said
dutifully. The sweet tea Miss Betty and
Miss Kay were so proud of was truly a product of Texas. It was disgusting and so sicky sweet Cass
always gagged trying to choke it down. Miss Kay poured each of them a huge
glass of it and Cass thanked them. Miss
Kay and Miss Betty were nice ladies and she didn’t want to hurt their feelings
“Well,” Miss Betty said finally,
smoothing Cass’s hair, “it’s your birthday honey, so you can have as much of it
as you want.”
“Thank you, Miss Betty...Miss
Kay. Can we eat the cake, Mama?”
“Yes, but let me put some candles on
it for you to blow out first,” Evelyn said.
She stuck eight candles carefully
into the flesh of the cake and lit them.
Ruth ran to the edge of the table to help blow them out, but Evelyn
picked her up in the nick of time and held her in her arms. “Ruth tends to spit
on the candles while blowing them out,” she explained to the ladies.
Miss Betty made a face. “Oh dear!”
she smiled. Miss Kay frowned. “Well...what exactly do y’all do when it’s Ruth’s
birthday?”
“I guess she gets her own cake,”
Miss Betty said.
“Kind of,”
Evelyn laughed. “We just cut her off a
big hunk of it, put it on a plate, and stick all of the candles in it. She blows them out from there.”
“Good thinkin’,” they chimed. They
sang Happy Birthday to Cass made her
make a wish. Oh God, she thought. Please don’t let Daddy come home. Let him get killed in a car accident or
something. Please God...
“Cass,” Evelyn said, “blow those
candles out before they drip all over the cake, baby.”
After everyone had eaten—the clamor
of stacked dishes dried—and Miss Betty and Miss Kay had gone home, Evelyn
grabbed in a bear hug. “Now for the real surprise,” she said, “we’re going to
the Packey-Sac to play...”
“Owner’s
daughter!” Ruth and Cass shouted together. They loved it when Evelyn let them
play Owner’s Daughter. That meant she could saunter through the store and pick
anything she wanted in it. Any flavor Slurpie-Boy, any comic book, any candy
bar...all she had to do was make her selections and it was hers. It was their
favorite game.
“Mama!” she exclaimed, “I want to wear your
wig there! Can I wear that wig? So me and Ruth can both have red hair?”
Evelyn sighed. “You and that wig. I rue the day I dressed as
Rita Hayworth for Halloween. I guess you can, if you’re careful.” Cass ran into
Evelyn’s bedroom and snatched the old red wig from under her mother’s
brassieres and adjusted it so that the bangs fell down over one eye. She put on a straw hat and one of her
mother’s mini-skirts and walked back into the kitchen. Evelyn burst into laughter. “I don’t know what you’re trying to show off
in my skirt...it comes down to your shins, you know!”
Ruth’s mouth dropped and she
shrieked. “Cass!” They walked the two
blocks to the Packey-Sac and left sucking on Hershey bars. Evelyn’s wig was
sticky from a grape Slurpie-Dog that had two straws, so Ruth could drink, also.
When they turned onto their street, Cass’s heart thudded when she saw the black
truck parked in the drive.
“Daddy!” Ruth said, pointing to the
truck. Evelyn put a hand to her hair and straightened her shoulders. She looked
at Cass and gasped.
“Good God, hand me that,” she said,
snatching the wig off Cass’s head. “He’d
kill me if he knew I’d let you leave the house in that thing. Oh, I look a mess!” She gathered the wig
inside the straw hat and then put it on her own head, which made it looked tall
and funny. They walked in the door to
hear him shouting their names. Bursting
into the front hallway, he shouted, “Evie, we’re moving,” before picking Ruth
up and swinging her around. “We’re
moving, baby,” he said, “we’re going to Florida!”
3
Cass held Ruth’s hand as they walked
through the new house at 143 Papaya Street in Spyglass, Florida. Evelyn hadn’t wanted to go at first, but
Wiley looked so happy and explained he would get an extra hundred dollars a
month if he moved, that she couldn’t refuse.
Not that he would have taken no for an answer.
Their house sat right on the beach
and had a large picture window made with the kind of antiquated wavy glass that
distorted everything outside of it.
Through that window, Cass could look out and see the lagoon, which
swirled in filmy turquoise and faded into the ocean. The first thing unpacked
were the swimsuits, which Evelyn thought to shove into her purse at the last
minute so the children could go swimming immediately. Cass and Ruth raced to the water and splashed
around, with Jack and Sammy at their heels.
Cass bent down and stuck her tongue into the water. It was so clear she wanted to drink it, but
it tasted funny.
“Mama, why is this water
weird-tastin’ when it looks like regular water?”
Evelyn smiled. “Because it has salt
in it, baby. It’s not like the swimming pool water y’all are used to. Don’t
drink it.” Evelyn hugged the girls
close. “Ruth, you stay with me and we’ll
watch Cass swim.” Even at eight years old, Cass was an excellent swimmer.
Evelyn had insisted they learn one summer when the Y.M.C.A. was offering lessons
and Cass could hold her breath under water without having to pinch her nose and
could dive and do back handsprings. She swam around and tried treading without
splashing so she could see the sea floor.
“A starfish!” she screamed.
She stretched her leg out and spread
her toes, trying to pick it up with them.
“I can’t reach it, Mama, and it’s right below my toe! Come out here and
get it. Your legs are longer...get me that starfish.”
Evelyn laughed. “That starfish is
way under water. It’s just so clear it
seems like it’s closer.” Cass dove under and felt around for the sea floor for
it with her eyes shut tight. It was
true; she had to swim deep before she finally touched sand and sprigs of
seaweed. She surfaced, wiped her eyes,
and looked again. She had never seen water so glassy and blue before. She wanted to touch everything through
it.
She and Ruth went into the ocean
every day and Cass taught Ruth how to float on her back. They made castles and
buried each other, until Evelyn caught them and made them stop. The sand was so warm Cass could sprawl over
it, allowing the scalding nectarine of sun drink her in. It shined every day and consumed them,
bathing them in light and warmth.
One Saturday, when they had been in
the house about two weeks, Evelyn decided to take the girls for a walk down the
beach with an old bag of bread. The
seagulls caught the stale pieces they threw into the air and swarmed around
them greedily, wanting more. As they
neared the big hotel, Ruth stopped and pointed. “What’s that?” she cried.
Evelyn tried to shield her eyes with
her hands, which blinked quartz in the sun. “ I don’t know...let’s go
see.” They walked over to see a small
line of funny little boats with glass bottoms.
People rode around the lagoon in them. “Oh, please, pretty-please,” Cass
and Ruth begged.
“Well...okay,” said Evelyn. The
boats were smooth and completely transparent. They seemed to magnify the water.
Drifting around the edge of the lagoon, Cass and Ruth looked through the glass
bottom, a tang of brine in their nostrils, and saw blooming clouds of cotton
candy floating.
“Oooh,” Ruth murmured. She leaned over in the boat and tried to
touch one, but Evelyn grabbed her hand.
“No, pumpkin,” Evelyn said, “those
are jellyfish. They will sting you with
those strings flailing around them. Those are poisonous antennae,” she added
carefully. Cass sat back and watched the menacing beauties circle. She looked at Ruth and smiled. How safe she felt in this strange world! Even with the ominous creatures swimming
calmly below the boat, they seemed too beautiful to be able to hurt anybody.
Nothing could hurt her here.
They spent every day on the beach
over the next month. Ruth’s already red hair turned to carrot from the sun and
people on the beach who saw her smiled and some even asked to touch it. Cass laughed every time it happened.
“Ooh, little girl...can I touch your
hair?” Cass crooned. Ruth stuck her lip out and slapped her hand away
playfully. “Stop, or I tellin’!” She giggled and Cass grabbed her hand and they
ran back into the open arms of the lagoon. Wiley was gone most of the time, but
whenever he came home he always seemed to be smiling and almost jovial. He and Evelyn seemed to get along better
while in the new house. Maybe it’s the
money, Cass thought. But last night
they had gotten into a big fight over him not wanting to eat tuna salad—that
tuna salad was nasty tasting with beer—and he had thrown his plate against the
kitchen wall. Cass had come into the room after she heard Wiley leave in the
truck, to find her mother on her knees cleaning their supper off of the floor.
“It’s okay,” she said, spitting a piece of
loose hair from her mouth. “He’s going
through a tough time getting used to his new position at work. It’ll get better...it’s already been better since
we moved here, I think.”
Cass
nodded. All she knew was her father was
scary-looking with his crew-cut and his thick, ropey neck and beefy shoulders
and arms. His eyes were a crystal
blue—so light Cass sometimes wondered if she could see through them the way she
could the ocean floor, but she never dared look. She never attempted eye contact at all
because what if he interpreted that as an invitation to bother her? Or saw it as defiance and put her in her
place? Cass didn’t look at Wiley even
when he spoke to her; instead, she concentrated on a little mole that sat on
the side of his neck. She spoke to the
little mole when speaking was required of her, and kept her eyes rigidly on it
as he answered or yelled at her, depending on his mood. Never make
eye contact unless you want trouble.
1
The hand was so large it closed over
both Cass’s mouth and nose. She struggled, trying to breathe and groped for the
figure in the darkness. She saw the familiar silhouette and moaned in terror.
She had lain awake that night hoping he would be too drunk to bother her, but
he crept into her room anyway. Normally, Cass rolled herself into a ball and
wrapped her arms around her stuffed hippo, praying. But it never protected her from him. She dreaded seeing the slant of light when
the door creaked open and bit the hippo to keep from screaming in fear. Evelyn was asleep by the time he made his way
into Cass’s room. She always tried to
feign unconsciousness when she heard the door, taking long, deep breaths—thinking
perhaps he would leave her alone if she pretended to be asleep. But he never
did.
When it
first started, she almost told Evelyn what her father had been doing, but
decided not to after she had accidentally walked in one Saturday afternoon to
see him doing the same thing to Mama. After that, she figured that it was
something all daddies did but that nobody talked about out of good
manners...kind of like using the bathroom.
The next day, Cass examined herself,
as she did after each episode. She was bruised and scratched and her thighs
ached. She knew she couldn’t wear a
swimsuit or else Evelyn would see the marks. She would have to pretend she was
sick and hope her mother wouldn’t give her a hard time about it. But not too sick or else Mama would worry and
ask questions and Cass might slip up and confuse her explanation. She lay in
the tub until Ruth banged on the door to go to the bathroom. She pulled on a pair of sweatpants and
checked her arms to see if she could get away with wearing a T-shirt. She didn’t see any bruises so she put on her
favorite Kermit the Frog shirt and went downstairs.
She forced herself to eat a bowl of
cereal and lay on the couch to read her tattered Little House on the Prairie book.
She adored Laura Ingalls more than anyone else in the world and wished
her family could be more like the Ingalls.
She even tried to call him “Pa” once, but he just wrinkled his nose at
her and said, “What did you call me?”
Evelyn walked into the den and flicked the
light on. “I’ve been looking for you,”
she said. “Don’t you want to go swimming
today?”
Cass shrugged. “I think I’ll just sit here and read awhile.”
“Well, okay.” Cass waited for the Question.
“You sick today, baby?”
There it was. Always asked and always answered in the voice
she had reserved for such occasions. “Not really, Mama. My tummy’s just a
little upset. I think I’ll read.”
It was the same empty conversation, the same
old question and anticipatory answer.
The same slight frown on Evelyn’s face as she walked over and put a hand
on Cass’ forehead. The same shrug when Cass didn’t feel hot.
1
A week later, Cass could wear her
swimsuit again with no traces of bruises and was back in the water. It had been hell warding off suspicion from
Evelyn but she had done it without too much hassle. She had finished the Little House book and had gotten some library books on seashells in
which to immerse herself until the bruises faded.
The papery shells along the beach
were bountiful and beautiful and Cass started taking little baggies with her to
collect them. She dug for them in
shallow water; keeping only the flawless ones and throwing the others back to
make more sand when their little bodies broke into a million pieces from being
battered by waves.
All this she explained to Ruth, whom
Cass had put in charge of holding the tools that seashell-hunting
required. The proper tools included a
fork Cass had stolen from her mother’s drawer to dig shells with, a dingy
washcloth with which to clean them and a tight little jar of toothpicks she had
lifted from the big hotel down the beach one day to clean the tough pieces of
sand jammed in the shells. Within a month, she had thirty perfect, shining
shells lined up on the windowsill of her bedroom that Ruth knew never to touch
when Cass wasn’t around. They spent the
afternoon buffing the shells with the washcloth and picking them pristine with
the toothpicks—Ruth handing Cass the tools when she requested them.
Evelyn walked in one day and almost
caught Cass with the fugitive fork, but Ruth sat on it, smiling until Evelyn
left. Cass laughed and laughed while
Ruth wrinkled her nose, saying, “Owie!
That huht! Owie, that huht!”
Evelyn had been amazed at how
beautiful the shells were. “When you
start school again, you can get even more library books telling you the names
of all these shells.” Cass nodded. “When does school start?”
Evelyn counted on her fingers. “In ten days it’ll be August and school
starts on the fifth—that’s Monday, I think.
So, that’s a day over two weeks.” Cass looked at the little shells, some
of which she hadn’t been able to find information. “I’m gonna tell all of you your names in two
weeks,” she told them.
1
The night before school started,
Evelyn washed Cass’s hair and braided it in two pigtails so the water wouldn’t
drip down her back all evening. Ruth
demanded her hair be washed and braided too, so Evelyn scrubbed her head and
set them in pigtails. They sucked on Popsicles and Evelyn told Cass all about
her memories of the third grade. Cass loved hearing stories about when Mama had
been a girl.
“It was all pretty much the same thing as
second grade, but we had this weird lunch monitor—Miss Lewis—who made us eat
our lunches in a pattern. We had to take two mouthfuls followed with a swallow
of milk. I still catch myself eating that way sometimes, isn’t that silly? As if that old Miss Lewis going to come
turtling into my kitchen with her long neck and say, ‘No, Evelyn!’” She pulled her nose up with her finger and
arched her back. Shrilling her voice,
she repeated, “Oh no, dah-ling...you really eat as if you have no
hometraining! Again—like THIS!” The girls laughed and Ruth clapped her hands
and bounced up and down. “Again,
Mah! Again!” Evelyn picked up and
imaginary fork and took a bite out of the air and began chewing. “Oh, dah-ling, really—”
The door opened and Wiley walked
into the house. He had a small package
of chocolate candy for Evelyn, which he slid over her shoulder and onto her
lap. “Here,” he said gruffly. “You miss me?”
“Yes,” Evelyn said. “I did, honey...thank you so much!” She turned and stroked his face in her
hands. Cass and Ruth got up and went
outside to play house in the front yard until Evelyn called them in for supper.
1
Wiley
sneaked into the room at 2:48 a.m. Cass
knew this because her Mickey Mouse digital clock blinked the time on the
nightstand. He didn’t need to cover her
mouth anymore because she never attempted to scream anymore. She didn’t want to awaken Ruth and he knew
it. “Please, Daddy,” she whispered so
softly she could barely hear herself. “I
have to go to school in the morning...”
“Shut up,” he hissed.
When Cass awoke, Ruth was staring at
her from about an inch away, wringing the bed sheets in her pudgy fingers
eagerly. “Mah said wake up! School!” Cass rose quickly. She didn’t want Ruth to see her. “I’m
up. Go help Mama make breakfast while I
put my dress on.”
Ruth flew out of the room and into
the kitchen while Cass quietly locked herself in the bathroom. It
wasn’t as bad as other times, she told herself. She could still walk okay, instead of having
to stay in bed pretending to be sick until she healed up better.
Evelyn had splurged and bought Cass
three new dresses and a jumpsuit for school.
Cass put on the plaid dress with the Winnie-the-Poo on the collar
because it looked the friendliest. There
were no buttons or zippers so she could pull it over her head and be done with
it. She checked her legs in the mirror
but didn’t see any marks on them that she might have to explain.
She walked into the kitchen and
Evelyn laughed. “Well, look at you! How
could you have messed up your hair so badly by just sleeping on it? It looks like you slept slap on top of your
head.” Cass’s heart skipped a beat. She hoped Evelyn wouldn’t notice that her
braids were messed up, but couldn’t see how bad they were from the back.
Evelyn shook her head as she
unthreaded Cass’s hair and began rebraiding it. She snapped the rubber bands
back on when she finished. “There,” she said. “Good as new.” she said. They
walked the four blocks to the school with Ruth and Cass holding each of
Evelyn’s hands.
“Will you be waiting for me when
it’s over?” Cass asked.
“Of course,” Evelyn replied. “We both will.”
They stopped in front of the school
and Cass could see children running—light as snipped paper dolls—all over the
playground: sliding down slides, muddying up brand-new school shoes and jumping
rope. Some of the bigger kids stood talking in tight little huddles—the boys to
one side and girls to the other.
Cass kissed her mother goodbye,
hugged Ruth and tried not to cry on her way up the stairs. This school looked different from the one in
Texas. The one in Texas had been stucco and
this one was red brick. But she thought
about the library and all the books it might have on seashells and forgot her
tears. She found room #3-D and walked in.
She was the first student to enter the room. A lady stood with her back to the desks,
writing on the blackboard.
“Hi,” Cass tentatively called. The lady turned around, still holding the
chalk. She had a strawberry-blond
ponytail and big hazel eyes. She smiled
at Cass.
“Hello,”
she said, crisply. “And who might you
be?”
Cass blushed. “Cass Sawyer.”
“Well, you’re a little early, Cass
Sawyer. Don’t you want to go outside and
play until it’s time to come in?” Cass chewed her lip and felt
uncomfortable. She didn’t want to
play. She wanted to find the books.
“Where is the library?”
The teacher cocked her head to one
side. “You want to go to the library?”
“Yes,” Cass said softly. “My mama told me about a library with books
on seashells—a book I could take home with me.
I need to get it before somebody beats me to it.”
The lady laughed. “I assure you nobody will get your book
today. You’ll probably be the only
student all day to check one out, as a matter of fact.” She plopped down in one of the little chairs
and held one out for Cass.
“I’m Miss Reilly,” she said
extending her hand. Cass had never
shaken hands with anybody in her life, but she took Miss Reilly’s and shook
it.
You know,” Miss Reilly said,
crossing her arms, “most kids don’t like to read very much. It’s a shame, really. I used to adore reading as a child. So much that my parents would threaten to
‘take my book away’ if I got into trouble!”
Cass giggled. “I like Little House books.”
“Me, too,” Miss Reilly exclaimed.
“How I wished my family could have been exactly like Laura’s! I even remember
begging my father to shoot a bear so I could holler for the drumstick the way
Mary did.”
“I even named our new dog Jack like Laura’s
dog and it’s a girl,” Cass giggled.
Miss Reilly threw her head back and
laughed. “Well, now that is something,” she exclaimed. “You know, maybe one day
the class could have pioneer day or something, where we could read about life
in the Big Woods and make johnny-cakes and horehound candy. It could be a bit like a one-room schoolhouse
in here, if we pretended.”
“Really?” Cass asked. It was neat the way Miss Reilly talked to her
the way she might have talked to another grown-up. “W-why don’t kids like to
read?” she asked, hoping to keep the conversation going.
“Oh, gee...” Miss Reilly said,
looking off and shaking her head. “You
know, I could never repeat this, but my philosophy is that it’s because
teachers make kids read books just because the books have famous
titles…although many of them are actually really boring.” She squinted at Cass. “You’ll see what I mean when you get into
high school.” She stood up and turned back to the board, continuing to talk as
she wrote. Cass didn’t know what to do
so she just sat there.
“If I taught high school,” Miss
Reilly began, “we’d read C.S. Lewis’ The Chronicles
of Narnia or William Alexander Percy’s Lanterns
on the Levee. We’d read Alice Walker, Flannery O’Connor, and Carson
McCullers...breathtaking things like that.
Stories that are always interesting. We’d never read, say, Thomas
Hardy’s Tess of the D’Urbervilles
because his boring writing style ruins the otherwise, lovely story. I do
believe it’s important to study the writing styles of different eras, but I
don’t think teachers should make kids read Julius
Caesar for a month…although I did quite enjoy Moliere and Emile Zola—” she
stopped and turned to face Cass.
“Sorry!” she said, laughing. “I know you probably haven’t understand
anything I’ve said at all, I am the worst on the planet about forgetting myself
when I get started on books. I should
really do better.” She shook her head
and closed her eyes. “Think,
Pamela,” she said to herself.
Cass smiled. “I like you.”
Miss Reilly put her hands onto the
back of the chair and locked her arms.
“Well, I like you too. After lunch I’ll show you where the library
is. But you should probably scoot outside
now, darling, or else I’ll never get the board finished.” Cass scooted outside,
feeling as if she had swallowed a smile.
How wonderful, how wonderful
school was going to be!
1
When
the bell rang, the children filed in screaming and throwing little wads of
paper at one another. Cass raced through them and slid into the desk closest to
Miss Reilly’s. Thank goodness nobody
else had premeditated aspirations of sitting close to the teacher. Cass wanted her all to herself. She took her pencil and lined it perfectly on
her desk and sat with her back straight and her notebook opened. The bell rang
once more and Miss Reilly clapped her hands.
“Everybody
HUSH!” she shouted in a voice so loud Cass shook. The class was immediately silent. She seemed to stare at each singular person
before speaking. “Listen,” she began.
“Before that bell rings, you’re on your own time and can talk if you
wish...but after it has rung, you’re on my time and forfeit all speaking rights
unless I call on you.”
She paced the room. “We aren’t going to have any of those rules
on the bulletin board that nobody pays any attention to because, well, nobody
pays any attention to them. We’re going
to hash it all out right now and nobody will be allowed to forget.”
Everybody sat and stared at the
young woman who looked like a flower but whose voice was like swallowing a
bottle-rocket. Usually, the first day of
school afforded them loud mouths and broken rules, but not in Miss Reilly’s
class.
“If you want to speak, you must
raise your hand. If I see you talking to
another person, it will upset me because you’re disturbing the class. If you don’t understand something, ask me.
I’m here to help you.” Then she smiled.
“Now that that’s taken care of,” she sang, “welcome to the third
grade! I am Miss Reilly.”
The class was silent and everyone
did his work quietly. Miss Reilly had
not forgotten to take Cass by the library at lunch and she was taught how to
use the card catalogs in order to find the books she wanted.
“I don’t expect you to understand
immediately,” Miss Reilly said when they got to the little drawers full of
cards and book titles. “Sometimes it
takes awhile...”
Cass stood straight up. “It’ll be easy because I like to read, Miss
Reilly! I once read a Reader’s Digest cover
to cover in a doctor’s office.” Miss Reilly raised her eyebrows. “Wow! Well, let’s see if you can find the
book on seashells and you can read a little of it to me.”
Cass’s heart beat frantically as she
searched for the word “seashell” in the drawer of cards. She desperately didn’t want to disappoint
Miss Reilly. She found the card—one of
many—and read the call number.
“594-Science and Nature,” she said, looking at Miss Reilly.
“Good!” She helped Cass locate the
book. Cass slowly opened the first page and read, “The quest for seashells has
made man wander the ocean for many years...some say that shells are Man’s link
to himself through a series of fossils...”
Cass read three pages before Miss
Reilly stopped her. “Well, my gracious,” she said, smiling. “You ARE a little reading thing, aren’t
you? Man’s ‘link to himself through a
series of fossils?’” She took the book from Cass and led her to the front of
the library. “Here,” she said, “I’ll
show you how to check it out so you can take it home this afternoon.”
1
When the hands of the clock reached
three, Cass dashed to the front of the school and searched for her mother.
“Cass,” Evelyn called, waving, “over here!” Cass flung herself around her
mother’s waist.
“I loved it!” she said. “I got three books to
put in my new book bag!” She balanced the bag on her knee and began fumbling
around in it. “I got a reading book, a math book, a science book and a library
book on seashells!”
“Well, you’d better crack that math
book because that’s four, not three, Cass,” Evelyn said laughing.
“And we got to play for a while, and
will every day if we’re good...and we got to have a snack.”
Ruth, who stood holding her teddy
bear to her lavender jumpsuit, poked her lip out slowly and it began to
tremble. “I wanna snack,” she said. “School, Mah!
I want school!”
Evelyn hugged her. “But you get to stay home with me!”
“Yeah,” Cass quickly added. She stuck her lip out as far as it would
go. “I don’t even get to see Mama all
day and you do...waaahhh!” she cried, throwing her head back.
Ruth giggled. “Ha!” she said. “Ha, ha, ha! Me and Mah getta stay home all
day!” Cass held the book on seashells in her arms. “I’m gonna find out all about my shells the
second we get home!”
4
Cass broke into a sprint as they
rounded their corner. She flew up the
front steps and burst through the screen door, racing into her room with Ruth
tripping along behind her, trying to keep up. “Mah, make her wait!” she
hollered.
But Cass could not be slowed; she
took one shell off of her shelf, sprawled on the bed and began flipping through
the book of photographs, looking for its match.
“Here it is!” she cried, scrambling for paper and a pencil. “The Torre’s Volute,” she wrote, wondering
how on earth it was really pronounced, “with its exquisite salmon-hued gloss
peppered with small red dots, is a masterpiece of nature.” What
did it mean? Cass had carefully
written them in her big block handwriting but didn’t know what “exquisite” or
“salmon-hued” meant. She sighed and walked into Evelyn’s room for the small
dictionary that sat next to her pile of crossword-puzzle magazines. She had
watched Evelyn use it to help her solve them and sometimes let Cass find the
words for her.
She grabbed it, flopped back onto
the bed and looked up each word she did not understand. Then she wrote the definitions next to the
description of the shell and practiced pronouncing them. By that time, Evelyn was calling her for
supper and she could hear Ruth banging the forks around the table, singing.
She looked at the long line of
shells that seemed to be waiting to know their names. Maybe I’ll do one a day since the words are so hard, she thought. That will give me time to learn all the
stuff. She picked up the Torre’s
Volute and placed it carefully back on the window ledge. “Good night, Torre’s Volute,” she whispered.
She pulled off her school shoes and
walked into the kitchen for supper.
Evelyn had made macaroni-and-cheese out of the box, which was Cass’s
favorite. “You’ve been in there all afternoon, girl! I tried to keep Ruth with me so you could
read a little bit.”
“Thanks, Mama.”
Evelyn
smiled at the pan of elbow noodles she stirred.
“Cass, I was thinking...with Daddy gone so long and you in school, Ruth
and I are getting a little restless. I
thought maybe I would start working during the day. I’ve been thinking about cleaning houses and
taking Ruth with me while you’re at school.
I can make up to fifty dollars a day cleaning and then you girls can
have Slurpie-Boys whenever you like!
Plus, I’ll have some money to put away for a rainy day. We could go to
the movies on Saturdays or go to a restaurant, maybe...”
Evelyn drained the noodles and
stirred in the orange cheese-powder. Cass wrinkled her nose. “Rainy days aren’t expensive, are they?”
Evelyn laughed. “Oh, Cass, that’s
just something people say!” Cass smiled, but was still confused. Evelyn’s smile faded. “The only thing is...we could never, ever
tell Daddy I had a job or else he’d get mad at me and we don’t want Daddy to
get mad, do we?”
No,
they shook their heads, they did not. “Well, that’s settled then. I’ll probably always beat you home,
anyways.” She winked at Cass and handed
her a plate. “So, which book have you been reading all afternoon in your room?”
Cass chewed her mouthful of
macaroni. “My shell book. But, the words are long...I had to use your
dictionary.”
“Like what words?” Cass
swallowed. “E-exquisite and
salmon-hued. Did you know that you’re
not supposed to use the ‘l’ in salmon? I
mean, it’s right there in the middle of the word, but the dictionary says to
say sah-mon.”
“That’s right.”
Cass sat up
in her chair. “I’m gonna do one shell a
day to give me time to learn the hard names.
The one I did today is called the Torre’s Volute.”
Evelyn looked at Cass with shining
eyes. “You know,” she began, “you can have that dictionary if you want it. It can be your own shell dictionary. I can get another.”
“Really?” Cass said. “Thank you, Mama!”
“I want one, too!” Ruth said. They looked at Ruth, who had been silently shoveling macaroni into her mouth. It was all over her chin and in her hair. <