Clover Page 2

  Miss Katie is waving a big white handkerchief. They didn’t tell Sara Kate that Miss Katie was left behind with the food just in case some stranger might come by, hungry and in need of a place to rest awhile. Just by chance it might be the departed soul. They only told Sara Kate it was an old custom, handed down through many generations. They did tell her, though, that the reason the hands on all clocks in the house had been stopped at 6:45 P.M. was because that was when Gaten died. People coming in only had to ask if it was morning or evening.

  The only time Sara Kate said anything about the funeral arrangements was when they wanted to bring Gaten’s body home and have the wake there. They said he should spend his last night on earth at home. “Oh no, oh no,” Sara Kate whispered. “I don’t think I can handle that.” She did let them bring him by the house in the hearse the day of the funeral.

  Sara Kate is sitting next to my daddy’s only brother, Uncle Jim Ed. Her eyes are closed. She is twisting her new wedding band on her finger. Sara Kate is not old, but she is making the sounds with her mouth that old people make when they are beside themselves and don’t know which-a-way to turn. Quiet, dry-lipped, smacking sounds. Lips slowly opening and closing, smack, smack. Just like Miss Katie.

  A group of small barefoot children stand on the side of the blazing hot, hard-surfaced road. So thin, they look like stick figures. Big wide eyes pop out from faces like big white cotton balls on a blackboard. They turn and walk backwards, waving their sticklike arms until the long line of cars are out of sight. I wave back.

  Sara Kate is standing alone before Gaten’s casket. Her husband. My father. The funeral crowd has been held back. She has her own private time. Just a little stretch of time to be alone with Gaten. Small silent moments to say goodbye to someone already lost to her forever. All eyes are upon her. She is a white woman, a stranger to Round Hill.

  Sara Kate is looking down at Gaten. Gaten’s necktie is crooked. His necktie was always crooked. There was that strange connection between them that I could never understand. At least twice that I can remember, there had been a quick look from Sara Kate, and Gaten would give her a slight smile and straighten his necktie. And then smile a smile for her alone. Now Sara Kate looked at Gaten, but Gaten did not straighten his necktie.

  I guess that strange and curious connection between them is gone forever.

  As far as looks go, Gaten had a look for me, too. There was a certain look between us, but it sure was not the same kind of look he and Sara Kate had. For me, Gaten’s look did almost everything. Most of the time he didn’t have to question or punish me. His look did it all.

  There was one look my daddy gave me that I don’t think I’ll ever forget as long as I live. It happened the day my teacher, Miss Wilson, marched me down to his office. All the years I’d gone to Gaten’s school, I’d never been in any kind of trouble, much less something bad enough to be sent to the principal’s office. Gaten had enough trouble at school without me adding to it.

  I think my teacher hated to take me a whole lot worse than I hated to go. “Bringing Clover here, sir, was my very last resort.” My daddy took off his eyeglasses. “Please don’t apologize, Miss Wilson. Clover is my daughter, but she is also one of your students. I would have been disappointed in you as a teacher if you had treated her differently because of me. I’ll keep Clover here with me for the rest of the day.”

  After Miss Wilson left I inched up to Gaten’s desk. “I’m sorry, Daddy,” I said. “I didn’t mean to cause trouble. Honestly I didn’t.”

  Gaten sucked in his breath. I could tell he hated for me to call him daddy at school. Calling him daddy caused a change in his feelings toward me. It showed. A two-year-old could see that. Besides, when a daddy is all you have left, you end up with double love. At least that’s the way it was until Miss Sara Kate came along.

  Anyway, as I was saying, Gaten looked away from me. “Get a pencil and paper, Clover, and write down everything you want to tell me that happened in your classroom this afternoon.” Then my daddy looked at me. It was such a disappointed look, I could barely keep from crying.

  “Maybe you’d rather tell me, Clover,” he said. I studied the floor, swaying from side to side, shifting my feet one over the other. “No sir,” I said. I never raised my head. No computer for me today, I can see. So I balanced my notebook on my knees and wrote. Gaten said, “Write everything you want to tell me that happened.”

  I didn’t want to tell him nothing that really happened. How do you tell your daddy you showed off so you wouldn’t have to take a test? A test you knew in your heart that you could never get a passing grade on.

  When they started this thing of testing in the schools, I sure hate it that I made such a high score on that old IQ test. Made everybody think I’m so-oo smart. But I know I’m not. I’ve always been good in math. My grandpa taught me figures and stuff before he taught me to read. He said, “The most important thing a person needs to know is how to hold on to their money.” There’s no way for me not to be good in spelling. My uncle Jim Ed’s wife, Aunt Everleen, has had my head buried in a dictionary since I was in the third grade. She wants me to make it to that Washington, D.C., spelling bee so bad she can taste it.

  And poor old Gaten, he still thinks I’m a genius because he believes I learned to drive a tractor just by him telling me what to do. To this day he still doesn’t know Grandpa taught me to drive a tractor as soon as I turned eight. He made me promise not to tell my daddy until I was older. My grandpa died that same year.

  I just sort of guessed at most of the other stuff on the test. Like, I figured “ruth” would mean the opposite of “cruelty” since Grandpa said she was a good woman from the Bible. Gaten said most people knew “ruthless,” but never even thought of “ruth” as a word. I didn’t tell him I never did, either.

  All of this was really Gaten’s fault. Looks like he should have known in the first place I couldn’t have learned to drive a tractor that quick, just because he told me what to do.

  I was playing at the edge of our backyard when I heard a moaning sound. At first I thought it was the old stray hound having another litter of pups. And I sure didn’t want to see that. Not again. Then I heard a weak cry for help and raced to the tractor shed. There was Gaten. His leg was pinned between the tractor wheel and spray machine. He had been hooking up the machine to spray peaches when the tractor probably slipped out of gear and rolled back.

  Gaten’s voice was getting weak. He was bleeding like a butchered hog. “Get Jim Ed,” he whispered.

  I started to cry. “Uncle Jim Ed went to get a load of fertilizer.”

  I grabbed my daddy to try and pull him out, but he made me stop. “This tractor has got to be moved,” he groaned and closed his eyes.

  “I can do it, Gaten,” I cried. “I can, I can. Please let me.”

  “You can’t even reach the clutch, Clover.”

  “I can if I stand up.”

  “You don’t know how to change gears.”

  “Yes, I do,” I almost said, but said instead, “I will if you tell me how to do it.”

  Gaten thought I was some kind of genius when I pulled that tractor off him.

  Grandpa said that once I’ve learned something I’m like an old cooter, it’s hard for me to turn it loose. I guess he thought comparing me to an old green turtle was a compliment. But what’s got me worried now is, there’s bound to be all new stuff in this new test. Stuff I’ve never heard of in my entire life. Just because I’m good at spelling and know the meaning of a whole bunch of words in the dictionary is not enough. Everything you need to know is not in there.

  I tap my foot on the carpeted floor, like I’m bouncing a ball. Thump, thump. Gaten looks up. “Did you finish your report, Clover?” I shake my head, no. “Don’t shake your head, Clover, say yes or no, Mr. . . .” Gaten breaks off. He never, ever made me call him mister. I giggle out loud.

  There is no way I could tell Gaten why I was brought to his office. So I wrote and wrote.

  I
can’t get away with stuff like I can when I’m waiting in Gaten’s office to go home after school. I ride the school bus in the morning. Gaten has to leave before Aunt Everleen has time to fix my hair. I’m the only girl in the fifth grade who doesn’t fix her own hair. Gaten says it looks too bushy when I do it.

  Once I almost got away with sharpening a whole stack of pencils to a nub on his new electric pencil sharpener. Gaten didn’t fuss or nothing. Just said, “I think you’ve sharpened enough pencils, Clover, do your homework.” I do believe Gaten will be telling me to do my homework for the rest of my life. Then there was the time he told me to wear a dress on picture-taking day, and I slipped and wore my rust corduroy skirt. It was bad twisted but still pretty. When Gaten saw it, all he said was, “Straighten your skirt, Clover.”

  But this time it was different. My daddy was really upset with me. He didn’t say much, but I could tell.

  When I gave Gaten my written report, there was a trace of a smile on his face when he read it. There was real laughter in his eyes. But it was gone when he looked at me. His mouth tightened. “A bald eagle flying through an open window to attack a snake curled in a striking position behind Miss Wilson’s desk?” Gaten’s voice was strong. “Come now, Clover, are you trying to tell me this happened in the classroom?”

  “Shucks no, Gaten,” I said. “That’s what I was thinking about when Miss Wilson asked me to read my history report.”

  The school janitor opened Gaten’s office door and jumped backwards, “Excuse, excuse me, sir,” he says over and over. “I didn’t aim to come in with you in here.”

  Gaten glanced at his watch and stood up. “It’s getting late, Mr. Jackson, we’ll get out of your way.”

  I made a grin at Gaten’s back. Hot dog, Aunt Everleen will have our dinner on the stove, all warm and everything. Gaten will read while I stand on the little stool he made for me and fix his plate. If he kept on making me write everything I’ve ever learned in my whole life, I wouldn’t have time to fix his ole plate.

  The janitor was so glad Gaten called him mister. He grinned and squinted his pink eyes. Mr. Jackson is an albino. He stood tall and straight and grinned over that “mister” bit. Gaten was old enough to be his father.

  People are still filing past my daddy’s coffin. Sara Kate is wedged between me and Uncle Jim Ed, squeezed in between us on the crowded bench like vanilla cream between dark chocolate cookies. My daddy is dead. Stretched out in a fancy coffin right before my very eyes. And all I can think of is an Oreo cookie. An Oreo cookie.

  My stepmother’s body is as straight as a cornstalk. She is not crying. We sit side by side as stiff as painted leaves on a painted tree. Uncle Jim Ed puts his hand on her arm. But me and my stepmother don’t touch. I can count on the fingers of one hand how many times I’ve laid eyes on Sara Kate. She’s been my stepmother for almost four days and all I know for sure about her is, she’s not a Mexican. I can spot a Mexican a mile away. Every summer if there’s a big peach crop the migrant workers flood Round Hill. We have peaches, but not enough to need the Mexicans.

  Chase Porter brings them in all the time. He couldn’t get all those peaches picked without them. He’s one of the biggest peach growers in South Carolina. Chase is at the funeral. He looks sad because he is sad. He has known my daddy all his life. Like Gaten he was born and raised in Round Hill.

  I pick at a thorn in my finger until it starts to bleed. I watch a drop of blood threaten to fall. I turn my finger into a paint brush. The blood makes a round dot on my white dress. I keep adding to it until it almost becomes a flower. A daisy. The way I’m messing up my white dress, I might as well have held the baby with the stinky diaper. At first there had been just one little drop of blood that a bleeding finger could not leave alone. My dress is a mess. Sara Kate reaches for my hand. I put it behind my back.

  In a way the funeral was kind of like a play. Everyone had a part. A part they played right on time, like it had been rehearsed over and over until it was down pat.

  An usher leads me to my daddy’s coffin. I’m supposed to cover my daddy’s face with the white satin quilted blanket. He is dead. Yet he still looks some kind of fine in that fancy casket. But my arms are pasted to my sides. My knees glued together. There is no way I can pull that thing over Gaten’s face. They lead me away. My feet slide across the floor like it’s a sheet of ice. It’s a sad, sad thing to have a ten-year-old do.

  A young woman takes a picture of Gaten in the coffin. I don’t think Sara Kate liked that much, either. Her face shows her feelings straight out.

  The men in black suits move quickly and quietly about the casket. They close the casket. Lock the brass handles into place. It’s time for the funeral to start. The Ninetieth Psalm is read. I guess my daddy is like the green grass only he was cut down before he could wither and fade. A young student sings. When a boy sings, he sings so much sadder than a girl. Everybody from the county sheriff on down is crying. Everybody but Sara Kate and me.

  The women in white dresses that have stood waiting in line take the flowers off Gaten’s casket and follow as he is carried away. At the graveyard they finish their part in the play. The curtain has been dropped. It’s the end.

  Sara Kate places a single rose on Gaten’s coffin. Gaten had been put away real fine.

  A group of men in dirty coveralls and dirty shovels walked toward the grave with long smooth steps like the gliding wings of buzzards flying down to feast on the dead.

  If there was a hungry stranger who stopped while we were away, he didn’t eat nothing. There is still food piled up everywhere. And he didn’t move or take anything either. My teddy bears are in the same place. Their eyes still have the same fixed blank stares. The snow-filled paperweight is still on Gaten’s desk, right beside his new solar calculator. I shake the paperweight. A heavy snowfall twirls around, then gently settles down on a tiny village. Soon all is quiet and peaceful. The tiny snow-covered village is asleep. Not a picture is missing from the crowded piano top. Not a single piece of carnival glass moved.

  Even outside everything is the same. Nothing has been changed. A soft breeze gently sways the hammock sometimes. But mostly the hammock is still. Still and empty, like it’s waiting.

  If there was a stranger there, one thing is for sure. He did not disturb or take away the heavy sadness in the house. Every bit of that was left behind, right in place.

  The house is soon filled with people from top to bottom. The kitchen is filled with women fixing plates. Someone brings Sara Kate a plate. She moves the food around with a fork but she doesn’t eat a bite. I can understand that. I can’t eat anything, either.

  A mother pulls her little four-year-old boy in the middle of the room to sing. He’s going to sing, just to take our minds off so much sadness, she says. He sings “America the Beautiful.” He keeps his head to one side, his eyes on the floor. He sings pretty good, but how can anyone think someone would want to hear that song when their daddy is dead? But the little boy in the blue suit and red-checkered bowtie sways like he is in a swing, and sings and sings. In the end he hides his face behind his hand. He is not too shy to eat, though.

  I was so sure Sara Kate was going to leave Round Hill and go back wherever she came from. I started packing my clothes to move out. I wasn’t sure who I was going to live with. I only knew I was not staying in that house by myself.

  I’m going to learn someday that whenever my uncle Jim Ed and his sister gather in a little cluster with Sara Kate, they’re bound to be talking about me. Yes, it is me they’re talking about. Sometimes Aunt Ruby Helen’s voice really gets loud. She is looking cross-eyed at Sara Kate. “It will be best for my dead brother’s child to be with me,” she says. “I am her daddy’s only sister. Actually, the only family the poor child has.” Uncle Jim Ed is not about to let his sister get away with that. “Clover still has me,” he says quietly. “I’m family, and she’s used to us.”

  His sister’s voice is loud again. This is the first time she’s been able to even tal
k. She lost her voice as soon as she got off the plane. She’s been crying ever since. Tears streaming down her face like rain. Her mouth was crying, but there were no crying sounds. Her brother’s death took away her voice, just like death took away his life. Just sucked it up.

  “You have a child, Jim Ed, a son. I have no one. Besides, Clover needs a mother.” Like a child, Ruby Helen is pleading with her brother.

  I guess she would make a pretty good mother. I got me a Cabbage Patch doll from her, way before anybody else in Round Hill got one. I guess Maryland is not the worst place in the world to live. If I go there I bet I’ll start walking like Ruby Helen. I know she copied making short, swishing steps from Jackée on the TV program “227.”

  One wants me to stay, one wants me to leave. I guess they will have to do like the old wise king Grandpa told me about. Just cut me in half.

  A tight-lipped Sara Kate says, “I promised Clover’s father I would take care of his daughter.” In her own quiet way, Sara Kate sure said the right thing to settle that. Nobody around here messes with a dying man’s wishes.

  Ruby Helen looks at the corner cupboard Grandpa built with all of Grandmother’s carnival glass. “My grandmother won every single piece of that glass at the county fair shooting down ducks. It is very, very valuable,” she said coldly to Sara Kate.

  I can see Jim Ed is embarrassed. “I’m sure Sara Kate will see that nothing is broken,” he tells his sister. I’m thinking first, that was some kind of a cold thing to say to Sara Kate and second, I’d thought all along it had been my grandmother, Ruby Helen’s mother, who did all that straight shooting.

  2

  It shouldn’t have surprised me that Sara Kate and I would end up together, because she was a surprise for me from the start. She sure wasn’t a purple bicycle.