Apron Strings (2 page)

I lingered in the kitchen after we’d finished breakfast. My mother left to run errands. Ethel went upstairs to make beds. I tiptoed to the bottom of the stairs and listened. When my mother was away from the house, Ethel would start belting it out.
“Leaning, leaning, on the everlasting arms,”
thundered down the steps. That morning Ethel was in full voice.

I crept back into the kitchen to the back door. I clicked open the beaded, silver catch of the purse and peered inside. There was a single dollar bill folded over three times and a black change purse that had long lost its luster. A gold ball clip was missing from the latch, but the hinge still held. Inside the change purse were a few pennies, a couple of nickels, and another carefully folded square dollar bill. I replaced the change purse, and then pushed aside a wadded up tissue and two scraps of paper covered with Ethel’s distinctive cursive to get a better look.

Reaching into a little zippered pocket on the side, I found a small glass bottle half full of what looked like water. I unscrewed the cap and smelled it. Phew, was that some awful stuff! I screwed the cap back on and zipped it into the pouch. There were no candy bars to be found, but at the very bottom of the purse was a thin turquoise box labeled “Ex-Lax” in red letters. Inside were tiny, precise rectangles that smelled and looked like chocolate. They didn’t taste as sweet or as chocolaty as I had hoped, but because of the clandestine nature of my search, I was in no position to be choosey. I ate only two or three; not because I was worried I might be depriving Ethel of her treats, but because I thought such a small theft might pass unnoticed. Later, Ethel found me in the bathroom hunched over with stomach cramps.

“Honey don’ ya’ll know ya’ll shouldna be goin’ into other peoples’ thangs wit’out askin’?” she asked with a chuckle.

“My stomach hurts. I think I’m dying,” I groaned.

“Ya ain’t dyin’. Ya just ate somethin’ you shouldna, and Lord now you a mess. C’mon, let’s gitcha cleaned up.” I guess she’d taken inventory of her purse and knew why I was in such distress. Mercifully, she didn’t tell on me to my mother.

Anything my mother deemed valuable she kept under lock and key. Not jewelry, furs, or money, mind you, but food and drink; mostly
sweets and liquor. Getting caught taking something that my mother would lock away was a mistake you only made once.

A month or so after the Ex-Lax incident, I was playing dolls with Helen when the doorbell rang. Ethel answered the door. A Girl Scout dropped off six boxes of chocolate mint cookies, my personal favorite. Ethel put them on the shelf in the pantry. When my mother got home, she would lock them in her “cabinet.” Helen and I decided with the impeccable logic of a four- and a seven-year-old that if we took an entire box, no one would miss it. My mother not only missed the box, she asked everyone in the house where it was. We answered her query with puzzled looks, not anticipating that the empty Girl Scout cookie box under the bed in our shared room would convict us.

“What kind of children have I raised?” my mother shrieked. She loomed over us with a wooden, boar bristle brush in her hand, her eyes cruel and hooded. “I’ll teach you to steal and lie to me about it.” She grabbed Helen by the armpit. Holding her up off the floor, my mother swatted my terrified sister as if the force would knock the larceny right out of her dishonest little heart.

Helen wailed, “Mama, please don’t hit me.” Her light curls plastered to her tear-stained face.

I scrambled to the safety of our closet. My mother followed, grabbing my hair and yanking me out into the bedroom. Twice the brush stung my thigh, creating angry red welts. “I’ll teach you to run away from me, you little brat. Were those your cookies?”

“No…I don’t know…” I howled as I thrashed about, scrambling to the back of the closet. She lunged at me again.

“Don’t hit me! Please don’t hit me!” I shrieked. I held my hands up to protect my head and to keep my hair from being pulled again. Helen, discarded like a worn sock, cowered in a corner, wedged in tightly for protection from my mother’s fury. Then, like ash in the wind, our mother was gone; leaving both of us gasping and weeping.

One spring evening, after what seemed like a very long winter for the Mackey household, Gordy, Helen, and I were playing outside. Ethel
stood on the back porch and hollered, “Come on in, now, chil’run. I need to get ya’ll cleaned up ‘fore yo’ momma get home. Come on, now!”

Gordy and Helen went right in. Since I had just learned to skip rope, I decided to test my growing agility by continuing to play.

“Salleeee, git on in he’ah,” Ethel bellowed. Ethel’s temper had a fuse longer than my mother’s, but she kept a switch behind the kitchen door that could make you dance..

“I’m coming. Hold your horses,” I said as I skipped rope to where Ethel stood. The next thing I knew, she was bearing down on me with her switch at the ready. I dropped the rope and started to run. She chased me around the rose garden and through the back gate.

“Ethel, stop!” I shouted. “I didn’t mean anything.”

My favorite climbing tree was by the kitchen door—one of two hemlocks that stood like sentinels on either side of the driveway. Gordy and I had each claimed a tree as our own. We’d climb up the trees and call back and forth like crows for hours. I climbed my tree as fast as I could.

Ethel circled the trunk, her chest heaving for breath. She glared up at me. From a branch just out of her reach, I tried to reason with Ethel. She was having none of it.

“You better get down off that tree
righ’
now,” she said.

“Ethel, I was coming,” I pleaded. But I wasn’t making any headway. Ethel circled the tree for a good ten minutes, puffing and muttering; whipping her switch in the air.

“Yo’ momma gon’ have my hide if dinner ain’t on the table on time. If you don’ get down here right now I’m gon’ come up there after ya.”

I knew that was impossible, but I climbed a little higher just to be safe; higher than I had ever climbed. I wedged myself into a crook of the tree. Finally, Ethel went into the house. I heard her calling my brother.

“Gordy, climb up dat tree ‘n brang yo’ sister down,” she said.

Gordy appeared at the base of the tree and started climbing. With Ethel in the house, it seemed safe to descend. I turned my body to shimmy down, but my foot was caught. I couldn’t turn around or look down. I couldn’t quite reach a branch below me with my free foot. I was stuck. A cold wind picked up pulling strands of hair from my long
braids, sending hair into my eyes and mouth along with bits of bark from the tree trunk. As I was too afraid to let go of the tree to wipe my hair out of my eyes, I crouched in the crook of the tree, choking back tears.

Gordy could tell I was frightened. He didn’t say one smart alecky thing to me as he scampered up the tree as easily as any squirrel. He tried gently to guide my free foot to the lower branch. I felt for purchase, but my foot wouldn’t reach. Gordy’s exhortation, “You’re almost there!” only infuriated me.

I kicked at his hand in frustration. “Leave me alone!” I wailed. Our hound, Lance, came over to inspect the situation. Red eyebrows knitted together on his black face. He gave a look of keen interest to the goings-on above. He barked and brayed as if making suggestions then sat and watched. Ethel came back outside, thankfully, without her switch. Evidently she had abandoned all hope of having dinner ready on time. She looked worried. I continued to wallow in self-pity.

“I can’t get her down. Her foot’s stuck. She’s not helping, either,” Gordy called down to her. He leaned his weight into the tree, and then looped one leg around a branch trying to reach my trapped foot.

“Would you quit?” he asked. “I can’t get you down if you’re gonna be kicking. You’re almost there.”

“Gordy, stay right there wit’ ‘er ‘til I get somebody to help,” Ethel yelled.

“Ethel, I wasn’t talkin’ back, I promise,” I cried. That wasn’t exactly true, I knew, but I was desperate. I began to imagine I would have to stay up that tree forever. Then it occurred to me that I might not be alone. Who else might be sharing my perch? I peered around, looking for a bird or varmint nest. Gordy said you could always tell if a rat lived in a tree because a squirrel would have nothing to do with that tree. I racked my brain trying to remember if I had ever seen a squirrel here. I didn’t think I had. It was too early in the spring for snakes, or was it? Last summer Gordy and I had watched a snake scoot right up the trunk of a tree slick as anything.

“Please, get me down,” I pleaded. “Please.”

“Oh, don’ cha worry, darlin’. Ol’ Ethel’ll git’cha down.”

Ethel comforted me as best she could while the sun set in glorious orange hues all around me. The clouds were tinged with brilliant streaks
of pink and purple, as beautiful as the shimmery colors of butterfly wings. But I was terrified of the dark night that was to come.

Gordy patted my leg. “It’s gonna be OK,” he said. “You wanna try one more time?”

“No, I can’t. I’m scared,” I wailed.

“OK. I’ll just sit here then. Don’t worry,” Gordy said. Ethel shook her head and put her hands on her hips. Lance flopped down at the base of the tree with a groan and soon began to snore. Darkness fell.

We heard my mother’s car coming up the drive; the headlights made eerie shadows on Gordy’s face. “She’ll be able to get you outta this tree,” he said and started to laugh.

“What’s so funny?” I asked.

“She’s gonna have to climb up here to get you. Do you think she knows how’ta climb a tree?”

Did she?
I wondered.
What if she couldn’t? What would happen to me, then?
There was no telling when Daddy would get home. I moaned. “Gordy, have you ever seen a squirrel in this tree?”

I heard the thunk of a car door and Ethel anxiously telling my mother what happened. Gordy scampered down to the ground. Before I could get any more worked up, I saw my mother gingerly climbing the tree. She reached the lower branch.

“Put your foot here,” she cooed. Her voice enveloped me like a soft blanket, comforting and warm. She patted the branch. “Put your foot here,” she said. “I’ve got you. I’m not going to let you fall.” Her calm, sure words, and the way she stroked my leg reassuringly either shocked or soothed me into complying. I had never before heard that calmness in her voice. It was magical. I still can’t piece together
what
or
why
, just that it
was
. Daddy drove up just as my mother and I were inching our way down the tree.

“What’s all this?” he asked.

Gordy, practically delirious with excitement, explained the situation. I heard Ethel and Helen talking inside the house. Then Ethel, ever the brooding hen, peered down from the kitchen porch while she made a great show of putting out a bowl for Lance who was already up and on
his way to his dinner. She wiped her hands on her apron before disappearing back into the kitchen.

Just then our closest next door neighbor’s porch light flashed on. Mr. Dabney lurched out, the screen door banged behind him. He stood swaying slightly in the harsh light in a stained sleeveless undershirt and dirty trousers with barely contained wisps of hair, and fat sticking out wherever there was a gap in his clothing. He held a beer can in one hand and stabbed the air in the direction of our kitchen with the other.

“I saw that nigger of yers chase that child up the tree and she weren’t gonna let’er down. If you hadn’t come home when ya did I was ‘bout ready to call the cops on her,” he spewed. There was a flash of white behind him. I thought at first that was it was Miz Dabney until I heard what he said. “These nigger lovers think they’re too good for us. We’ll show’em won’t we boy?” I saw a much younger man in a white T-shirt take a swig from his beer and laugh—a real low, mean laugh. Mr. Dabney sorta laughed too, then turned his head back to us and tried to focus. As he stood there pointing and swaying, closing one eye then the other, he looked more comical to me than threatening, though his young friend’s laugh chilled me to the bone.

“Thank you for your concern. Everyone is just fine. We’ll take care of it,” Daddy said. There was steel in his voice. He turned, scooped me from the bottom branch, wrapped his arm around my mother, and gave her a squeeze.

“Well,” he said to my mother, “aren’t you the heroine of the hour!” A broad beam replaced the concern that Mr. Dabney’s words had produced on my mother’s face. I wiped my eyes, suddenly pleased with my little escapade, and held my father tight. I burrowed my face into his neck, savored his earthy scent, and gently rocked against his chest as he and my mother walked hand in hand up the stairs and into our house.

“Dabney’s an ignorant fool,” my father whispered to her. He put me down and pointed me toward the kitchen with a pat on my behind. “Don’t pay any attention to him.”

Chapter 2

O
n my Easter vacation from school I trailed along after Ethel as she worked: I sprawled in piles of sheets as she pulled them from the beds, or pushed a dust rag around in imitation of her. Ethel, ever practical, shoved dirty clothes into a pair of pants or a buttoned-up shirt rather than haul around a heavy laundry basket from room to room.

“Lemme help,” I pleaded as she stuffed Daddy’s pajama bottoms, making them look like an overfed scarecrow.

When the pajamas looked as if they would split a seam, she put the bundle on the floor. “Roll it to the stairs an’ giv’er a’push,” she directed.

I watched the pajamas tumble down the stairs. “Look, Ethel, Gordy’s drawers spilled out in the front hall,” I said with a laugh.

“Go’n down an’ pick ‘em up now, ‘fore somebody gets home. Ya can push it down to the basement stairs, too, big as ya is,” she said. “I’m goin’ up to the attic to put away these winter clothes and get out yo’ spring thangs. Ya c’mon up when ya get done, hear?”

“Oh goody!” I cried. I loved this ritual of going through my old clothes, rediscovering dresses I’d forgotten, and noting how much I’d grown since the year before. I called up to Ethel, “Wait for me!” I tore down the stairs, picking up bits of laundry along the way. Restuffing by myself wasn’t as much fun as working upstairs with Ethel, but I was happy to help her do anything. Grunting and groaning, I heaved the pajama bottoms, now ballooned to twice my size, to the basement door. I switched the basement light on as soon as I opened the door—you never could tell who or what might be lurking down there in the dark. With one last push, I stuffed the laundry through the small door and
down the stairs. Just as I was about to turn out the light, I noticed broken glass and a rock on the basement floor. I quickly flicked the light switch off and slammed the door shut, sliding the bolt to lock it. I ran upstairs to the attic, listening for the safety of Ethel’s tuneless humming.