Bodark Creek - 17. Chapter 17

Daddy died a little over a year after Frances, in July 1928. It was almost four months after his seventy-second birthday. He didn’t have an easy death like Mama’s or a slow one like Aunt Evie’s. He mostly fell apart. He worked at the mill until he really wasn’t much good there, and once he stopped, even though he’d been wishing for that to happen, he didn’t know what else to do. Some days, he went to the mill just to talk with his friends during lunch. Other days, he walked around town.

“It’s amazing how far he can get,” I heard Walter tell Charley. “I’ll be out at the edge of town, and there’s Daddy, walking into the cemetery.”

“What’s he do there?” I asked.

“I’d think he just goes to see everyone,” Walter said. “So many people he knew are gone.”

Though Daddy still had a lot of friends who were alive. He could go into any store and start a conversation. With anyone.

He talked a little less to us, and I wasn’t sure why. “I think we remind him of too many things,” Rosalind said.

“Well, he sure can talk with his friends,” Charley pointed out. “I go into the cigar store, when he doesn’t know I’m there. And I hear his voice, just going and going.”

“Talking about what?” I asked.

Charley laughed. “Oh... nothing. He and his friends talk about politics. Or complain about the newspapers. Or argue over things they really don’t understand. Then Daddy comes home, and you’ve seen what he’s like after supper. He just sits.”

But he was good with his grandchildren. Though as soon as they started disagreeing with him, he’d lose interest. Once evening, he told me, “I can’t believe it. Little Jessie just kicked me.” Jessica was Walter’s second daughter, then around six. “We were walking along the creek,” Daddy said, “and she wanted to go to the candy store. I told her it was too far to walk, and too hot a day, and she just kicked me in the shin.”

I laughed, but I said I’d tell Walter.

“No, don’t go and cause trouble. She’s only a little girl. But I tell you, if I’d ever kicked my granddaddy, I wouldn’t be here to talk about it today.”

“It might’ve been more than that,” Rosalind said when I repeated the story. “Daddy might’ve been telling Jessie about a bird, or a tree, or something else she didn’t care to hear about. You know how he goes on.”

I did. We all joked about Daddy’s stories. He had mill stories. And Mama stories. And Emilie stories. And stories about growing up on the farm. He had about six favorites of each, and we’d hear them again and again. When we first noticed, we’d say, “Daddy, you’ve already told us this,” or “Yes, we’ve heard that before.” But after a while, it was easier just to listen. And it was better than him not talking at all.

“He likes the Ford,” Sonny told me. “I don’t think he’ll ever admit it, and I doubt he’ll ever ask. But I think he’d also like me to teach him how to drive.”

“Why don’t you?” I said. “There doesn’t seem much to it,”

“I’m kind of afraid, really. Even second-hand, we put a lot more into that machine than we ever should have. And I’d hate to lose it.”

Daddy also liked going to the pictures, especially when they started to talk. In fact, he liked all the new inventions. “The one thing I’m going to miss,” he told me, “is how many more things are coming. When I think of everything we didn’t have when I was born...”

“You’ll be around for a good long time,” I said. And everyone agreed. We might even have believed it. There were people in church much older than Daddy. Then one Sunday afternoon, he said, “I’m just going to lie down for a while. Don’t forget to wake me for supper.”

“Sure,” Charley told him. He was playing checkers with Gordon and probably not even listening. But those were the last words we heard Daddy say. When Walter went to wake him – we were all having supper together – he couldn’t.

“I’m afraid Daddy’s gone,” he told me in the kitchen. “He won’t wake up.”

“I’ll go for the doctor,” Sonny said. “It’s better than making a call.”

“You can go,” Walter said. “But it’s not going to matter.”

We buried Daddy with Mama and Virginia and Aunt Evie. There was no thought of taking him to Hattiesburg, though Emilie and half their children were buried there. But Sonny, Dougie, and Walter were here, along with Rosalind, Charley, and me. And Charley had never lived anywhere else.

After Daddy died, the house was empty most of the day. Before, I could always know there’d be coffee on the stove when I got home. After, I’d have to restart the fire before Rosalind and I could begin supper.

“We should just eat with Sonny,” Charley said. “There’s no point cooking for three.”

“It’s not really different from four,” Rosalind said.

“At least, when Dougie and Gordon were here, there were six.”

But Dougie had gotten married again. He’d waited a year after Virginia died then had started looking around.

“I tell you, that year was the hardest of my life,” I heard him tell my brothers. “I was used to having things.”

“I’m amazed you and Virginia didn’t have more kids,” Walter joked.

“Yeah, well, bless her soul, but she was almost past that. But this time, I tell you, I’m marrying younger.”

His new wife, Leona, was almost the same age as Rosalind, though she already had two children. Her first husband had been a bad choice. Leona met Dougie at the mill, and they got married right before Daddy died.

“You don’t think that’s what killed him?” Dougie kidded. “I mean, it’s not like she’s sixteen.”

“I’ll bet we have another niece within a year,” Walter told Charley. “Maybe not even that long.”

But it was exactly eleven months. In most ways, Dougie followed the rules.

Daddy sometimes didn’t, though he always tried to make us believe he had. We learned differently from his stories. Charley also wasn’t following expectations. He’d turned into something of a reader.

“I can understand women liking books,” Sonny told him one afternoon. “But I’ve never had much use for them myself.”

“You like manuals,” Charley said.

“They teach me things.”

“Well, books teach me. And they take me places. Give me ideas.”

“Too many ideas are no good for a boy,” Dougie joked.

“Maybe,” Charley allowed.

“And they’ll just be wasted in the mill.”

Charley said nothing to that, at least not to our brothers. “Do you really like the mill?” he asked me later.

“It’s not so bad,” I admitted. “It’s not very exciting, compared to school. Still, it’s nice earning money.”

“Why don’t you do something else?”

“Like what, for example?”

I’d been lucky. As soon as I finished high school, they’d been hiring at the mill. Rosalind had already moved from the kindergarten, because that didn’t pay as much, and we were both being trained to weave. She liked it, but I found myself thinking of other things. I didn’t read as much as Charley. And we didn’t like the same books. But I did get ideas.

“What would Daddy want us to do?” Charley asked. “And Mama?”

“Get married,” I said. “Have children. Wouldn’t you like that?”

“I’d like the having babies part.”

“Charley!” I shouted. He was always trying to embarrass me.

“And I’ll have a family in time,” he went on. “But I need something to tell them about first.”

When Daddy died, Rosalind and I were both working at the mill, so it was a surprise when the managers said we had to give up our house. “Two young women can’t live alone,” they told us.

“We’re not alone,” Rosalind said. “We have Charley.”

“Your brother’s only sixteen. He can’t take care of you.”

“We don’t need taking care of,” I insisted. “We’re doing fine on our own.”

“And don’t let Charley hear he can’t protect us,” Rosalind added. “He’ll only go fight someone.”

Charley wasn’t really a fighter. But when there was something he didn’t like, he let everyone know it. Mostly, he liked to have fun. And he loved girls. He was as popular as Walter had been, though Charley had lighter hair, an even faster smile, and his jokes were really funny. If he’d been two years older, the mill would have given him a job and let us keep the house.

But legal age was twenty-one, and I was only twenty. And even though Rosalind was twenty-four, we had to make plans to leave. I said I’d move in with Sonny, and Charley was set to go to Walter. Then Rosalind got married.