He went to the passenger door to get in, and said, “You
drive.”
Flabbergasted, I said, “What? Why?”
“Just do as I say.”
I tossed the keys onto the seat on his side, and said, “No.”
He picked them up, and said, “What is wrong with you,
Jessie?”
“Nothing, except I ain’t wanting to drive this car.”
“Why not?”
I didn’t answer.
He said, “Why you got to be so stubborn about every-
thing? Why can’t you do as I ask for once without being hard to get along with? It ain’t no better time than now for you to learn, considering.”
“I got my reasons.”
“You don’t know everything there is to know.”
“Maybe that’s because you won’t tell me.”
“Fine. You want me to tell you about your mama, then get
in the car.”
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His sudden agreement stunned me. This time when he
tossed the keys back to me, I caught them. I wondered if he’d seen my hands shaking and, if he had, could he guess why.
This time, it had nothing to do with my eating habits, but
pure excitement and fear, one equivalent to the other, won-
dering what he’d say. I got in the driver’s seat. I didn’t know where we were going, and it didn’t matter. He was going to
tell me about my mama, and that was all I cared about.
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Chapter 19
I’d always known Sally Sue was a beast of a car. Riding in her was one thing, but behind the wheel the power beneath the
hood became evident. We bumped down the drive until we
were out on the road, where I lapsed into driving like Mrs.
Brewer, intimidated by the vehicle. The usual puny beating
of my heart, generally reminiscent of a finger lightly tapping, changed to something more like a big fist pounding against
the wall of my chest. My stomach galloped along too, both
dueling for my attention.
Daddy, oblivious of the internal commotion caused by his
words, said, “You’ll get used to the feel of her quick enough.
Head on over to Lore Mountain Road.”
I gripped the steering wheel tight, and ran my tongue across dried lips. I was only going about twenty-five miles per hour, but Daddy said nothing. After a few miles, I gave it more gas, and you’d have thought I’d mashed it to the floorboard as the car surged forward.
Out of nowhere, he said, “Your mama drove this car.”
He spoke like we were in an ordinary conversation, like
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he’d been talking about her every day, while I tried to grapple with that small tidbit of knowledge.
“She did?”
He stared straight ahead, his voice quiet. “She drove it
better’n me.”
“What do you mean?”
“She ran our liquor. Got so good couldn’t hardly nobody
in Wilkes County beat her when it come to hauling. Not any
revenuer, and definitely not a Murry.”
I’d been so intent on what he said, I’d unwittingly pressed
on the gas more, and my speed rose to fifty. I let off some, while I digested she’d sat right where I was, Daddy maybe riding shotgun alongside her. I tried to imagine it, and couldn’t.
But I didn’t want to hear she was a part of what I’d turned
against out of respect for her. I didn’t want to hear she’d done the very thing I’d decided was evil and caused most of our
problems, what I’d fought against, at least to the best of my ability. It rubbed me all kinds of wrong, and my anger soared with this new information. I was in denial.
I said, “I don’t believe you.”
“It don’t surprise me none. It’s why I ain’t ever told you, but I’ve always wondered would you hate it as much if you knew
your mama not only hauled liquor, she made it too.”
The sun slid behind the line of trees along the road and the evening air grew cooler, but what he’d said disturbed me to
the point I went hot all at once, and had to swipe my fore-
had slipped through on occasion, maybe it was true.
Down the mountain we went, and when we came to Lore
Mountain Road, Daddy said, “Turn here.”
I did as he asked, still silent, still stewing.
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He said, “What’s your speed?”
Without waiting for me to answer, he leaned over to check
the speedometer.
“Get her up to forty at least.”
I pressed the accelerator and the car responded, a forward
sensation that reminded me of riding waves at the ocean. We’d only ever been once, sometime after Mama died. Daddy woke
me early one morning, told me to get in the car, put Merritt beside me on the front seat, along with a pile of blankets, and then drove for hours. I slept off and on, and when I woke in the early afternoon, we were in this strange place with no
trees, only tall golden grasses that waved in the breeze on a light brown sandy hill.
Daddy parked the car on the side of the road, and we walked
down a rough wooden walkway, across another small sandy
rise to face an endless expanse of blue-green water, with an edge of white foam that came toward us, then retreated. There was a different smell to the air. Instead of fertile, pungent soil, and comfortable dry breezes scented with the pine, cedar, and wildflowers I was accustomed to, there was a different sultry odor, one that was seaweed-scented, briny with an overlying
fishy odor carried on warm, moist wind. I could hear a flock of birds overhead, calling to one another in a high-pitched
cry, all of them white with varying colors of gray and black on their wings. They swooped and sometimes rode the wind,
suspended against a blue sky before settling on the strip of sand.
Daddy waved an arm at the water, and said, “It’s the Atlan-
tic Ocean. Wanna swim in it?”
I shook my head yes, and we’d spent the rest of the day do-
ing just that, him tossing Merritt up and down in the waves, and showing me how to ride them. Although we’d never
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the swells of water came and went. We left once the sun rested on the edge of the water, turning the sea orange as if a fire burned just beneath the surface. It was a real good memory.
I came to a bend in the road and automatically slowed
down, but Daddy said, “You’re paying too much attention
to the curve right in front of you. Look beyond the hood; let your brain and reflexes tell you how to go in and out of those turns.”
I tried what he said on the next curve. The car responded
and the tires didn’t even squeal. My fear of having a wreck
dwindled as I maneuvered the next one, and the next, smoother each time. He didn’t say anything more about Mama, and I
was too intent on driving, making sure I didn’t make a mistake while realizing aft
er all this time the one thing he thought to tell me first was how she’d made and hauled liquor. What
I had wanted him to say I didn’t know, but it wasn’t that.
Maybe he could’ve told me how they met. Maybe he could’ve
told me how much she loved me and Merritt. There was a lot
he could’ve said, anything other than what he’d chosen.
At the end of Lore Mountain Road it came to a T, and he
said, “Turn around and let’s go back. It’s getting on dark.”
I found a wide enough area on the side to do a three-point
turn without too much problem, and went back the way we
came.
We were almost back at the house when I finally said,
“Why would she want to do that, of all things?”
“She did it all her life. Her family, they had their reasons.”
“I sure can’t see no good reason.”
I’d made my own sacrifices is the way I saw it. I’d done
what I was told even though I hated it. I’d fought against it at every opportunity, yet here I was finding out she’d been as involved in shine making as much as him.
He said, “Like I said, you don’t know all there is to know.”
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He was quiet after that, and a few minutes later I pulled
into the drive, and drove up the hill to the shed.
I put the car in Park, and when I pulled on the door handle, he said, “Wait.”
He shifted on the seat and reached into his back pocket
for his wallet. Tucked behind his license he took out what I thought was only a creased piece of paper, and instead it was a black-and-white photograph. He held it out to me. The damage from carrying it the way he had for years and years made it difficult to make out the woman’s features clearly. With the interior light on, I brought it closer to my face in order to study it.
She’d paused in a pocket of light, captured by a heavenly
sunbeam. She leaned against a car, the very car we sat in,
newer, but one and the same. She held a cigarette in an el-
egant manner, one hand gripping an elbow, the other by her
face, fingertips hovering near a high cheekbone. Her light-
colored hair caught by a breeze had lifted about her face to frame it, and she smiled big at whoever took the picture. By her feet were clay jugs. Lots and lots of clay jugs. She had a booted foot propped on one with a look I could only describe as pride.
He said, “That there’s your mama. I took that picture right
before she was set to haul that big load down to Charlotte.”
I locked in on the image, searching for some expression
caught in that millisecond in time that would tell me who
she’d been, what she thought, where life had marked her. He
got out, then bent down to speak through the passenger win-
dow.
He said, “She really was the best of the best. I loved her.”
I stared at the picture, dumbfounded by him sharing it, and
telling me he’d loved her. I’d never understood his silence
about her. Behind him hung a honey-colored moon balanced
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on the dark points of the treetops as if tacked in place. The more he said, the more trapped I felt by the differences between me and her. When I didn’t respond he offered some-
thing that didn’t have to do with moonshining.
His voice dropped into a lower tone, and he said, “Your
mama? She didn’t have a mean bone in her body. She never
raised her voice or had a cross word for nobody. She had
friends up and down this mountain and beyond. She thought
before she spoke, and it earned her a lot of respect. Even that son of a bitch, Leland Murry, respected her. He showed it
once, after she died.”
What did he do? Tip his hat at the car carrying her casket?
It didn’t matter. What mattered was everything else Daddy
said, and how it was like he’d used her as a weapon against
me, pointing out her disposition and how she navigated her
world different from me.
How she was what I wasn’t.
I said, “Why are you telling me now? After all this time?
After all them times I asked?”
He hesitated; then he said, “It ain’t easy for me talking
about her, for one. And second, I seen something happening
to you. I realize you ain’t had nobody to talk to all these years.
Daughters need their mamas. I’ve always been too busy to
worry it was anything more than you being how you been all
your born years, but I’m thinking maybe it’s more than that.”
“How I’ve been?”
“Tetchy, funny about eating, moody most days, never
smile, strange habits going on, and such.”
I compared her image to my school and driver’s license
photos. Mama’s eyes twinkled, whereas mine appeared dull;
she looked happy, and I generally looked pissed off. Uncle
Virgil had rightly given me the name sourpuss, if I wanted
to be truthful. What I learned so far about her made me de-
fensive and grumpy, and now Daddy was thinking too much
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about my quirks and behaviors. I wanted him to get mad,
wanted his attention directed away from why I was the way I
was. I didn’t want him trying to figure me out.
I said, “I bet she wouldn’t have tried to outrun them like
you did that night. She wouldn’t have had to prove nothing.”
That did it. He started to walk away; then he stopped.
He faced me and said, “There’s a lot you don’t know, Jessie.”
I said, “Well, you’re sure right about that.”
He didn’t respond. He strode down the hill, and stopped
briefly by Uncle Virgil again, who made no move at all to
indicate he knew Daddy was there. Daddy shook his head
and went inside. The moon had been released by the treetops
and was well on its way toward the crest of Shine Mountain.
I considered what he’d said about Mama, yet I had trouble
with his vision of this mild-mannered woman who appeared
easygoing, content, and filled with happiness. All I had was that one image of her running as fire embraced her upper half.
Her falling and how she’d called out Daddy’s name. The way
I’d imagined her didn’t match with what Daddy said, or with
the person in the photo. After a while I walked down the hill kicking at the ground here and there.
When I got close to Uncle Virgil, he startled me when he
said, “There’s a reason he won’t talk about it.”
I stopped. “Because he’s guilty, that’s why.”
“That ain’t it.”
The aroma of shine came off him strong like and the fact
he could talk at all was miraculous.
“Then why?” I challenged him. “I remember some of it,
you know. She was near a still. She got burned alive. Don’t
you think I ought to know the truth?”
His eyes glittered in the dark, and he took a good healthy
swig again before he replied.
His answer was my second astonishing revelation of the
day: “Yeah.”
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I moved a step closer and he shook his head, waved an arm
to stop me.
“I done told you long time ago, it’s ’tween you and your
daddy. He’ll get round to it one of these days. Maybe. Don’t count on it. Can’t count on nothing from nobody. That’s the
most important thing I can tell you.”
I left him mumbling to himself. Trudging downhill, I
thought about Mama being a moonshiner and a bootlegger. It
made my gut burn, and my head hurt. I rubbed at my scalp,
and when I brought my hand down, it was like I’d run it
through a cobweb. I wiggled my fingers, releasing strands
to the wind. I reached up and finger combed my hair, and
more came out. I didn’t know why this was happening, but
I clapped my hands to get rid of the hair before I went inside and found Merritt and Aunt Juanita eating. She’d managed
to fry ham, and boil some potatoes with butter. Oral was sitting at the table, but eyed the ham and potatoes with a sickly expression.
She pointed to the pot and pan on the stove and said,
“There’s some left. You’re looking right puny; better eat.”
I got a plate, plucked a piece of ham out of the frying pan, scooped potatoes out of the pot, and sat down. I tried to catch Merritt’s eye. He was using his left hand to eat, and I had all good ideas he wasn’t ever going to want to use the hook arm.
Aunt Juanita pushed her plate away, and lit up a cigarette.
She blew a stream of smoke toward the ceiling, then said,
“Where’d you and your daddy get off to?”
“Just riding.”
She leaned forward, about to say something more when
Daddy came into the kitchen from his room. His frown was
so deep his brows met, giving him a hawklike appearance. He
waved a handful of money in the air, looking at each of us.
“Anybody want to tell me where this five hundred bucks
come from?”
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Aunt Juanita shoved her chair back, and took her plate to
the sink.
She tossed out a nonchalant, “How should I know?”
He said, “I found this money in my night table. Somebody
knows how it got there.”