Portion of Heart

Copyright © 2009 by Nell Abbott.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

This book was printed in the United States of America.

Earlier versions of the following stories appeared in the publications indicated:

Overlappings, Dekalb Literary Arts Journal 3, no. 3 (spring 1969); "Let Me Explain about Aunt Lily, Dekalb Literary Arts Journal 9, no. 1 (1975); Sully, Davidson Miscellany 17, no. 2 (fall 1981); Portion of Heart, Georgia Journal 5, no. 1 (Jan. 1984); How Far a Body Can Go, Chattahoochee Review 5, no. 1 (fall 1984); Watercolors, Georgia Journal 5, no. 5 (Aug.-Sep. 1985); Professor Peterbaugh’s Big Christmas (originally published as Big Christmas Tree), Sunshine 63, no. 12 (Dec. 1986); Sidney Lanier’s Piano, Georgia Journal 7, no. 3 (spring 1987); Glory of Days, Georgia Journal 7, no. 5 (fall 1987); The Scar, Byline, no. 104 (Sep. 1988); Shall I Wait for You? Georgia Journal 11, no. 4 (winter 1991); The Earrings, Savannah Literary Journal, no. 3 (1996); Christmas on Church Street, Marietta Daily Journal (n.d.); Miss Glo’s Christmas Concert, Marietta Daily Journal (n.d.); Looking for Angels, Georgia Journal 12, no.4 (winter 1992). The Bogan quote is from A Poet’s Alphabet: Reflections on the Literary Art and Vocation, edited by Robert Phelps and Ruth Limmer (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1970), 420.

To order additional copies of this book, contact:

Xlibris Corporation

1-888-795-4274

www.Xlibris.com

Orders@Xlibris.com

59723

Contents

Acknowledgments

Portion of Heart

Overlappings

Let Me Explain about Aunt Lily

Sully

The Earrings

Portion of Heart

How Far a Body Can Go

Watercolors

Sidney Lanier’s Piano

Glory of Days

The Scar

The Boxes

Rose Fields

Remembering Greene Gates

Christmas Stories

Professor Peterbaugh’s Big Christmas

Christmas on Church Street

Shall I Wait for You?

Miss Glo’s Christmas Concert

Looking For Angels

Dedication

To our children, who, after all, are my best stories

In a time lacking in truth and certainty and filled with anguish and despair, no woman should be shamefaced in attempting to give back to the world, through her work, a portion of its lost heart.

—Louise Bogan

Acknowledgments

Many thanks to my son, Dr. Joe Abbott, editor, for his dedication, patience, and expertise in fashioning a wayward manuscript into the proper form for a presentable book, and to my husband, Joe, for his encouragement always and his long-suffering with me these many years as I have tried to become a writer.

Portion of Heart

Overlappings

I pulled my gaze from the street to study Hinton, The Good Son Who Stayed. Long, thin as a rail, he hunched over the steering wheel to keep his head from brushing the top of the car. One of those hula dolls on a string jiggled from his mirror.

I said, Things haven’t changed much.

His mouth drew down. Oh, we may not have the big, shiny cars or the skyscrapers, but we still got our ol’-fashioned virtues. And he lifted a gray-dusted eyebrow at me.

Good Lord, how like Pa! I could almost hear that paternal voice thunder: Any female over twenty-five that ain’t married is livin’ in sin! So I was ten years over, and… yes, there was Barry. I touched the scarf at my throat.

How’s Mama holding up?

Between the stores vacant lots glittered with sunlight-tipped grass.

She’s strange. No tears. But then I guess you wouldn’t expect tears from Mama. Still, mighty strange. He sucked air through his nostrils, hawking and lowering his window to spit. You’ll see.

And he swung the car left so sharply my head bumped the glass. Even had I been blind, I’d have recognized, from the rhythm of my bounces, the ruts of our drive. And Pa had promised her he’d pave it. So many times.

Hinton braked the car, and I climbed out, squinting across it through the live oak branches that spilled shadow over yard, sidewalk, and street. Hinton followed my gaze.

Gonna paint the house first off with some of the money. Pa may have made us live poor, but he didn’t die poor. And he winked as he reached into the back for my suitcase. Didn’t leave you nothin’, though. Reckon you know he never forgave you for leaving.

Correction, I thought. Escaping. And I followed him across hard-packed ground and around a back corner of the house where bricks from the foundation had tumbled across the path. Then the steps, sagging as I remembered them, but not nearly so high.

Only a few hours ago I’d been wishing Barry could come with me! Oh, Darling, I’m so thankful you didn’t. I must’ve been crazy for wishing you’d even offer.

Overlapping lives are so messy. How often you’ve told me that! We must keep our life with each other clean and clear. And yet how often I weaken. It’s the beauty of city life, darling. Everyone is so completely themselves. None of the tangle of relationships you have in small towns. How did you stand it? Think how you fought to be free of it!

I put up the railin’, musta been two years ago. Hinton motioned to the rough board where my gloved hand rested. "She just would take the garbage out."

Got tired of stumbling over it, I bet, tired of waiting for you or Pa to offer…

In the kitchen window to our left plywood replaced the lower right pane, and a bulb dangling from the room’s ceiling glowed through the remaining panes, lighting grease streaks.

Hinton pushed at the screen door and yelled, Ma! Ma-y Julia’s here!

Mary Julia. I’d forgotten how they always have time for double names. Once Pa caught me and Hinton in the ligustrum hedge. Ma-ry Jul-ya! He never even looked at Hinton. A thing like that, even though you were only five and curious, was all the girl’s fault. Started with Eve. And in the locked room, to the rhythm of his whipping, he chanted, Ma-ry Jul-ya, Ma-ry Jul-ya, while Mama screamed and pounded on the door.

Sometimes to the rhythm of our lovemaking, Barry used both names. Strange, one man makes words a curse, and another makes them a prayer.

Then Mama stood in the kitchen door, a small, gray ruffled bird of a woman. I’d prepared myself for aging, but she seemed the same. Squares of light from the yard blanked her glasses, so I couldn’t see those marvelous snapping blue eyes. She had learned over the years to close her lips on snapping words, but she couldn’t control those eyes.

And now, because she’d caught me to her and let me press my cheek to her hair, she jerked back angrily.

Ain’t you the one, now, fifteen years and no word, and your Pa has to die to get you home!

Fifteen years. Suddenly they dissolved into a silvery afternoon when rain gurgled down the gutter outside my bedroom window. Mama folded the last of the dresses she’d made me and closed the suitcase.

Come with me, Mama. You know Pa’ll beat you… Hinton won’t try to stop him no more. I can’t leave you…

’Course you can. Go find some brightness. When you’re rich, send for me. I can live on that.

Then Hinton in the door. Where’s she going?

Spend the weekend with a girl she met at business school. How coolly she lied. Run on now, Mary Julia. You’ll miss your train.

Oh, Mama! With the suitcase I had run from the house. At the station I saw the suitcase had faded, red like blood, on my coat.

So long ago…

Now Hinton hawked and leaned out the screen door to spit.

Better get on down to the lumberyard. Mr. Madison’s comin’ and Louise’s there alone. Ain’t no man safe alone with Louise. A wink at me. Be back in time for the funeral, Ma. Oh, an’ Ma’y Julia, if you ain’t too high and mighty, you might clean them front rooms. Folks’ll be comin’ by afterward, you know.

Our arms at each other’s waists, Mama and I watched him jounce down the steps. Like one of those wooden men on a string. Pa had brought one home once, and I’d cried for it while Hinton squeezed the sticks and made the man jump or turn somersaults. He laughed and squeezed and squeezed and batted my hands away, and Pa laughed…

Mama patted my waist. Let’s have some coffee.

‘Strange,’ Hinton had said. Yet how naturally she went to the stove, licked a finger and put it to the side of the pot. How many thousands of times had I seen her do that? Testing the coffee or testing the iron.

She came to the table now, our cups smoking in her hands, making tiny tongues of mist on her glasses.

Well, I’m ready, Mary Julia. To go to the city with you. She pushed a cup toward me, and I’d pulled off my gloves to reach for it. Instead I clutched at them in my lap.

I like the way you look, she went on. Like there’s no such thing as housework. She touched my scarf. Real silk.

I hesitated, then jerked it from the throat of my suit.

Here, you have it.

She drew back, pressing the scarf to her cheek. I remember a dinner gown I made for Judge Craven’s wife… It had this feel. This is what life should be for women. Soft, rich. Not scraping, scraping to your bones. She smiled. In the city I’ll make you dresses, and hats… yes, hats…

Mama, working girls don’t wear hats anymore.

Look at them, Barry laughed as we strolled down Petersen Street holding hands. Oh, the tender wonder of Barry’s hand! The-Hat-for-Shopping. Badge of the small-town housewife! He smiled. Your hair is like a thrasher’s wing, Jule, free, waiting for the breeze. His fingers pushed a wisp behind my ear and trailed slowly down my jaw . . .

I almost gasped with desire even remembering.

In the city? Don’t wear hats? Mama stared. What kind of doin’s is that? Well, for church then.

Mama…

He left everything to Hinton. She stared at her hands twisting on the table. Seeming suddenly to realize they were hers, she jerked them to her lap. Oh, Hinton is to look after me, but… he’s just his pa come back! Her eyes glittered, and I recalled Hinton’s word, ‘Strange.’ I’m still the servant here. Then she smiled. But I won’t be, not for long, will I? Hope, was that it? Hinton had never seen hope in her before.

I took a slow sip of the hot coffee. A car with gutted muffler roared past.

Will I? Mama’s bright gaze moved over my face.

Barry, my mother is coming to live with me.

Oh, Jule! Not one of those small-town overlappings!

"She won’t interfere. But she and I will need a larger place, and you could lease mine for our times . . ."

"Actually, Jule, we’ve just put braces on our youngest, and Barry Junior starts college next fall . . ."

Overlappings.

"An added expense . . ."

I couldn’t live not seeing you, Barry.

"Oh, I’m sure you’ll work something out with your mother . . . just till then I’ve a friend whose place we can use occasionally. It won’t be as often, but just for a while."

You don’t want me. For a moment I thought I’d spoken, then realized Mama had. I couldn’t bear what I saw happening to her face.

Oh, Mama, you know that isn’t so! I crossed my arms, my nails digging into the flesh. The room felt so chilly. It’s just… I’ll have to find a larger place. That may take a while. Then I’ll come back for you.

She wet her lips. I don’t need much room.

You don’t understand. It’s policy. I have a single unit. Only one person allowed.

Her eyes and shoulders fell. You won’t come back.

Mama! I bumped my thigh rounding the table to catch her head against my waist. Barry—you must understand! Of course I’ll come back!

She looked up steadily, then closed those marvelous snapping eyes and drew a breath so deep she shuddered. Alright. Palms pushing at thighs she rose. Your old room is ready… where we pinned up so many hems, where we packed that rainy day…

Bending for my suitcase, I felt those eyes. Carefully I arranged my face to smile at her.

I remember… everything. Don’t worry.

That day and the next passed in a haze. Then we were at the back door again. And it was raining.

You must come back, Mary Julia. I’ll need you to help me decide what to keep and what to get rid of… what I’ll need when I come live with you…

Yes, Mama. I’ll be back.

Hinton waited in the car. And I lifted the suitcase, the fine leather suitcase that could not possibly fade on my coat.

Sure you won’t ride to the station with us?

No. I’ll see you soon. Her eyes hid behind the squares of gray light on her glasses. With my free arm I hugged her then and touched the scarf she wore.

I’ll bring you another. What color… ?

Go on, Mary Julia. Hinton doesn’t like to wait. He’ll be in a bad mood. And you’ll miss your train.

My kiss landed on her nose; then, under the newspaper she’d given me because Hinton had left their umbrella at the lumberyard, I ran across the glistening yard, under the oak and along beside the ruts, which were swift miniature rivers.

In the car I put the paper on the floor and straightened to wave past Hinton’s profile. So like Pa’s. Yes, my God, how like Pa he was. I looked away at the gray, guttering street.

Oh, Barry, you must understand! Surely you have a mother? I have to come back for her . . . if you could see Hinton . . . if you’d known Pa . . . we’ll find a place, you and I, one you can afford. I couldn’t live if I lost you. But I owe her . . . the way you owe things to your children. Oh, please, Barry, understand, I couldn’t live without . . .

From the tail of my eye, I glimpsed the scarf waving, a flicker of color on the frightened, rain-beaded face reflected in the car window. A weak, cruel face like Pa’s. Hinton’s? No, dear God, no, no. It was my own.

Let Me Explain about Aunt Lily

They think I’m so wonderfully kind, bringing her here now that she’s old and crippled with arthritis. Oh, I saw the relief in their faces. After all, they have families. And what could be more just than that the old-maid niece should care for the old-maid aunt?

I’m not being kind, I assured them one and all, and one and all they squeezed my hand the tighter, their uneasy eyes filling so that they must turn and hurry away.

Only Aunt Lily looked askance as I ushered her into the tight little room overlooking a gas tank and high back steps at the house next door.

Those look like my steps, she sniffed.

Yes. I waited for her eyes to find mine. I wanted her to remember, to understand. She must remember…

I’ve remembered that afternoon too many times to count over the last twenty-or-so years, how March sun had edged everything with a glow and how the lilac by the garage had stitched the air with scent. Mr. Dawn’s shoes were black mirrors with grass curling around them, and Aunt Lily was trying to smile. After all, she had a reputation for kindness. Or rather, Christianity. Hadn’t she saved me from the orphans’ home? And didn’t she sing every Sunday in the Methodist choir? Like an angel, Mr. Dawn would declare, patting her hand. He liked to spread sunshine, maybe because he was the undertaker. I guess he made Aunt Lily feel good, but he certainly dampened my enthusiasm for heaven.

She touched her hair, crinkled like corrugated tin, and the color of rust (even though that color did pour from a bottle labeled Titian).