Waking Ghosts

By Carla Jean Cranfill

When Lovey Batistes Mama brings her home to a small Louisiana town filled with people who hate them and a Grandmother she never knew she had, she begins to slowly unravel family secrets that she, her beloved Mama and her new Maw Maw can never escape, which makes her wonder if you ever really can come home again.

Eleven year old Lovey Batiste comes face to face with a past she never knew she had. Even worse, she has no idea that she will be paying the price for the mistakes the women in her family have made. When her Mama realizes that they can no longer live on their own, Lovey is plucked from the only city shes ever known into the lives of the people of small town Franklin City, Louisiana with only her mother to lean on and no father to fight her battles. In getting to know herself and a Maw Maw who seems to hate her she learns the secrets that her Mama has kept from her for her entire life. Her journey takes her down a dark road paved with violence, promiscuity and self-loathing. Can she come to terms with the burden her family name has put upon her or will she fall prey to the future the women in the Batiste family seem doomed to carry?

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: May 21, 2010
• ISBN: 9781449090210

Carla Jean Cranfill

Carla Jean Cranfill lives in her hometown in Southwest Louisiana with her husband Donny Cranfill and their two sons Jesse and Colten.

Book preview

This book is dedicated to my sisters, Elizabeth Doucet and Codrey Hardesty. I know that they are watching over me and cheering me on. I love you, girls. Thank you both for helping me understand my strength and character.

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty One

Chapter Twenty Two

Chapter Twenty Three

Chapter Twenty Four

Chapter Twenty Five

Chapter Twenty Six

Chapter Twenty Seven

Chapter Twenty Eight

Chapter Twenty Nine

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty One

Chapter Thirty Two

Chapter Thirty Three

Chapter Thirty Four

Chapter Thirty Five

Acknowledgments

Chapter One

It seems like every small town has that one house that every kid is afraid of. You know the one, the grass is overgrown and vines are trailing up the porch and rooting into the faded wood siding. A couple of the windows have tape covering the cracks where teenagers have thrown rocks on a dare. That one house the entire town tries to walk by sorta in a sprint, you know, with their knees locked and their butt-cheeks so tight they ought to squeak. Well, in Franklin City that particular house belongs to my Maw Maw, and I guess since we happen to live with her, my Mama and me, it belongs to us too. You can’t imagine what that does for a girl’s popularity level in a small town with a very small school. Well let me tell you, it sure doesn’t help. It’s hard enough to be the new girl, but try being the new girl and having a Maw Maw the entire town thinks is a Voodoo Queen. Apparently, that’s the death penalty in Louisiana. I swear someday one of those Catholic women are gonna poke an eye out starin’ and gossipin’ while trying to make the sign of the cross on their way past our house on Sunday morning. We all know what they’re saying, That poor Lily, crawling back here with her tail between her legs and draggin’ that fatherless child of hers to follow in her footsteps.

I hear ‘em. Whispering and repeating stories that ain’t even true. If they took the time to get to know Mama, they’d see that she’s nothing like they think. They think she’s the devil come to steal her a husband. Ha! Mama wouldn’t even have to try to steal a man from any of these holier-than-thou-couldn’t-tell-a-pecker-from-a-pencil women. If she were that kind of woman. They’re lucky she’s not.

I’ve had that talk with Mama about the importance of a girl’s reputation. She doesn’t want me to be as ill informed (as she says) as she was about boys. Truth is, if any of these women had half a brain, they’d put two and two together – or nine months and eleven years and realize that my Mama already had one of those women’s husbands. Of course he wasn’t anyone’s husband then, he was a nineteen year old grocery sacker. Mama said she’d tell me who he is when she’s good and ready.

I have my suspicions. I look at the girls at school and try to figure out if they look like me or if I look like them. She wouldn’t be my age of course – my sister that is – but all of the grades go to my school. We only have the one campus. I said Franklin City is a small town.

Anyway, a girl with no friends has to pass the time

somehow. I carry a small notepad with me. I keep a list of all the girls with dark brown hair and green eyes like me. I figure I musta got my color from my Father. Mama, she’s a redhead with freckles peppered across her nose and the tenderest looking eyes I’ve ever seen. You can see her soul through those brown sugar eyes and if anyone would bother to look, they would see what I see. She’s not what people here say she is. She’s no tramp! I made the mistake of asking her what that was once. I thought she was gonna wash my mouth out with soap.

Where did you hear that word, Lovey Batiste? she shook me in rhythm to the words hear-that-word.

I started crying so hard I couldn’t say anything. Every time I opened my mouth, the only thing that came out was a spit bubble. She stared real hard at me and said, A tramp is a woman who carries on with a man who she’s not married to and I don’t ever want to hear that word part your lips again,

I haven’t said it out loud since and we haven’t talked about it again.

In the months we’ve been here, there is only one girl who even acts like she wants to be friends with me. Her name’s Jessa. She always tries to include me in everything at school. She lets me sit next to her at lunch even though the other girls very clearly don’t want me there. She’s the prettiest girl in school and everyone wants to be around her. And she wants to be around me. Me! Lovey Batiste, the new girl, the girl with the scariest Maw Maw in town. The plain girl, the nobody.

I wish I could see myself the way Mama sees me. It’s not easy being Plain Jane when your Mama’s as gorgeous as mine is, but Mama always told me that I’m gorgeous too. She always told me that we have each other no matter what.

Back in Tennessee, we didn’t have much, but we always made the best of it. We would go for walks in the park or when the car was running we would go to the drive-in movie. I like the funny ones. Mama likes the ones that make you cry. I cried at most of them without even knowing why except that Mama was crying, so I should too.

We had girl’s night out every Friday, but we didn’t really go anywhere, we would just have popcorn and cokes until we thought we would pop. We played Mama’s music really loud while we danced around our tiny one bedroom apartment. Mama let me eat ice cream out of the carton while she put braids in my hair.

She always had a crazy story about work. She told me a clown broke free from the circus and stopped in at the grocery store for oranges and he juggled them all the way to the check-out line. Everyone crowded around and watched him put on a show of his own using anything he could find in the store. He played marbles with grapes and challenged customers to beat him in a game of kick the can. I figured out she was making these stories up for my amusement when I was seven and she told me an astronaut came in the store for a moon pie, but I played along anyway cause I loved to watch her chestnut eyes sparkle while she was spinning a tale. It was a nightly event in the Batiste house to hear, Mama, tell me a story. I would take one of her made up stories over a movie any old time. After a while, she started letting me add to her stories. That was the best time of my life. And now there’s Maw Maw.

Mama says Maw Maw is scared of sweaters. She says that’s why she hasn’t left the house in twenty years. Mama called it something… it was a big fancy doctor word… angoraphobia, that’s it! I don’t know how she could be scared of a silly old sweater though, seeing as we barely even have winter in Louisiana. Mama says most times we can wear shorts at Christmas here.

She does leave the house though, Maw Maw that is. I heard her once in the middle of the night. I snuck down to the stairwell to see what she was doing. She loaded small boxes in her car and came back about thirty minutes later without them. I still haven’t figured out what was in those boxes and I don’t dare ask her about it. If she knew I was spying on her she might curse me or something. And I don’t ever want to find out what or something is!

Mama says I’m a lot like Maw Maw. I wouldn’t know. I know I’m not scared of a stupid sweater, but the dark is a whole other issue. I don’t know what it is about nighttime. For some reason when the sun goes down I shift into overdrive.

I don’t sleep much. My brain is always on go. And when I do sleep, most of the time I wake up in the night with my heart pounding out of my chest and all these thoughts of gloom and doom rattling around in my head. I swear sometimes it’s like my brain won’t shut off long enough for me to think straight. I’ve been to the doctor. He looked right at Mama and said, Miss Batiste, your daughter is a child, her imagination is just very active. I didn’t like him. He talked to me like I was two years old or something. You know that tone people get when they talk to people who aren’t so smart. His eyebrows just got higher and higher with every word.

Now Lovey, he says in his best Mr. Rogers voice, tell Dr. Harris what’s bothering you.

Well Dr. Harris, I say imitating him, Lovey doesn’t like it when people talk to her like she just stepped off the short bus.

I swear I couldn’t sit for two days after that. Mama yelled at me the whole way home and whipped me the whole way to my room. I don’t know what came over me that day. When my butt finally quit stinging, I could laugh about it. The look on that Doc’s face was worth every lick, not to mention the fact that I’ve never seen my Mama like that. I can’t help but smile when I picture her pulling her arm back with all her might, she’s not much bigger than me. We must have been a sight. Here I am, leaning over with my hands around my ankles, my butt is in the air kinda over to the side cause I can’t help myself, I gotta watch. Mama’s got a perfect tennis pose, her feet slightly parted and planted firm. She pulls her racket back (her hand), and she’s got her eye on the ball (my butt), then SMACK. Three more. Then all the way to my room, she’s gripping my arm in her hand and she’s smacking me on the butt all the while fussing through clenched teeth, I don’t know what’s got into you. Maybe the sting on your butt will remind you not to speak to adults like that. The spanking finally stopped in front of my door and I notice that Mama’s crying. I’m getting the whipping of my life and she’s crying? When I turned around to look at her, my heart just broke. I burst out crying. I’m looking at my sweet Mama and she’s so small and so pretty and she just looks so… broken. What happened? I know it has to be more than my smart mouth and red rear. I don’t even know what to do. She’s crying so hard her shoulders shudder then she put her pretty face wet with tears in her hands. She’s saying something, but her voice quivers and her cries are muffled. I’m standing there looking at my broken Mama and I’m crying too and saying, What’s wrong Mama? I’m so sorry… please don’t cry, Mama. Did I make you cry?

What the hell is going on here? I can hear you two wailing from the attic. Maw Maw came down the attic stairs. Mama didn’t move from her spot. She would have looked like a statue if her shoulders weren’t shaking. Good God Lily, what happened now? Maw Maw sounded like she had seen this all before, like it was nothing new to see Lily Batiste, the bravest woman I know, turn into a blubbering mess.

This can’t be good. In my eleven and three quarters of a year, I have never seen my Mama cry like this. Hell, the way I see it, she’s due for a breakdown. I can remember many times Mama held me while I cried. She wiped away my tears when I fell off my bike, she held me and let me cry when my best friend Julie Baldwin told me that her Mom said she needed to get some friends more like her. She sang "You Are My Sunshine" to me when I woke up in the night with tears on my face.

Now it’s my turn, with Maw Maw looking at both of us like we’re hopeless, I fell into her. I almost knocked her over as I threw my arms around her and sang softly as best I could with a lump forming in my throat.

When Mama went to get in the tub to shake off her nerves, I brought her a cup of tea that Maw Maw made for her. It didn’t look like the tea Mama used to make back in Tennessee. It was pale green and smelled like lemons. Mama held the delicate china under her nose and took a deep breath. She closed her eyes and took a sip. All of the worry on her face seemed to melt away.

Lemon Balm from your Maw Maw’s herb garden. It’s been a long time since I had Ma’s tea. I remember when I was a little girl, we would gather the herbs from the sunroom. Ma would give me a flat wicker basket and a pair of pruning shears. She would ask me which herb I was clipping and what it could be used for. Like this, she nodded toward the tea cup with her head, it’s really good for calming nerves. Her voice was so smooth and her accent thick at times. Not at all like Cajuns are portrayed on television. She sounds very educated even though she never got out of the habit of calling people ‘cher’. Course I never realized it was only a word that people in Louisiana use. I’d never actually heard anyone in Tennessee besides Mama say it before, but then I’d never heard a lot of things.

My Mama, she’s a strong lady. When Mrs. Baker back home told her it wasn’t proper for her to be working in the market (a respectable establishment) seeing as she had a daughter and no husband, well, my Mama told her a thing or two.

For one thing, Mrs. Baker, she said, I wouldn’t be so proud of being married if I knew my husband has his hands on more than just Sally Newman’s melons. Matter of fact, Mrs. Baker, my rear end should have a sign that says ‘Please don’t squeeze the produce’! Mama turned her nose up and walked right outta there with her head held high. We laughed all the way home. My friend Gwen back home said that Mrs. Baker hit Mr. Baker with a newspaper all the way back to the storeroom and the whole market could hear her screaming at him. Man, we shoulda stayed for that show.

Gwen back home thought it was so neat that my Mama

wasn’t the type of woman who needed a boyfriend. She said maybe if her Mama were more like mine, she wouldn’t drink so much and maybe she wouldn’t stick around when her boyfriend hits on her. Hell, any of her boyfriends. She said maybe if her Mama were more like mine, her Mama would love her more. Mama told her she had enough room in her heart to share if she needed someone. That made me so proud cause she meant it. Mama cried when we left Tennessee. Cried for Gwen. Cried for all the bruises Gwen got when she fell down the stairs or crashed her bike. And for all the bruises Gwen will get in the future without Mama to protect her. She called Children’s Services on Gwen’s Mama once. They didn’t do a damn thing. Mama was so mad she coulda spit nails.

Hell, I know Gwen always finds trouble, Mama would say, but she’s welcome in my house anytime.

I’m sorry Lovey, for breaking down in the hall like that. I haven’t been in this town for so long. I think I forgot how hard it was for me to grow up here. I guess you’ve noticed that I’m not going to win any awards for most liked. Things happened to me here that I’m not ready to share with you yet, Love. I don’t think you’re ready either, she studied my face for a sign of intelligent life, I learned how hard the world is early on, cher, most of it the hard way. I don’t want you to learn the lessons that I learned, Lovey. You deserve to be a kid. I swear sometimes I don’t know if that brain of yours is a blessing or a curse.

I’m old enough Mama. I know a lot of stuff. You know, Gwen back home let Earl Scotts put his hand under her shirt.

I don’t think I want to know what Gwen back home did. It’s not her fault though, a girl is bound to get into trouble when she’s left alone as much as that one is. I hope you can come to me if you have any questions about grown up things. I don’t think you should believe everything Gwen back home told you.

I sat on the footstool at the side of the claw foot tub. I hope someday I look like Mama. She’s pretty even with puffy eyes and no make-up. I couldn’t help but stare at her body and wonder if my own was ever going to look like that. Some of the girls at school have already started wearing bras. I’ve stripped down to my undies and scrutinized every part of my body and it sure doesn’t look like Mama’s. She’s one of those women who stop traffic. She doesn’t know it, but she makes hearts pound wherever she goes. How can someone be so beautiful and not even have a clue what kind of power that holds? Catching my eye, Mama said, You are going to be a young woman before I know it, Lovey.

When might this be? I look like a boy from the neck down. Not a curve in sight.

You have time for curves, cher. You should be enjoying this time in your life. No worries.

No worries, enjoy this time? Who does she think she’s kidding? How am I supposed to enjoy this time when it’s the worst time of my life? My Father is somewhere in this town, this crap town, where girls look like women and boys only look at the girls who look like women. I have no friends, no fun, I don’t belong anywhere. The only interaction I have with other kids is at school with Jessa. Even my own Maw Maw treats me like an outsider. She has barely said two words to me since we got here. She stares at me a lot though. I see her looking, but pretend I don’t.

Chapter Two

I call her Maw Maw. Well, I would if she ever spoke to me. Right now it’s just yes ma’am, no ma’am.

Yes ma’am, I know I’m in your way. No ma’am, I don’t have anything better to do than bug you.

I think she’s the scariest person I ever met. I can tell she’s not happy that I’m here either, and that’s an understatement, the understatement of the year actually. She hates me, I’m sure of it, but what I’m not sure of is… what did I ever do to her? Up until a week before we moved here, I didn’t even know I had a Maw Maw. Maybe she’s mad cause I never wrote or called her. Maybe she’s just mad cause I exist. Maybe that’s why Mama moved away all by herself with a baby on the way.

Maw Maw didn’t want her to have a baby at eighteen years old. Maw Maw must of hated my Daddy. Why else would Mama not marry someone she loved enough to make a baby with? Hell, I’m the one who should be mad. Now that I think about it, it’s probably all Maw Maw’s fault I don’t have a Daddy.

Just like every morning I sit at the breakfast nook in the kitchen on the side that looks into the plate glass window of her sunroom. I’m careful only to sneak peeks at her when she’s not looking. Will she ever invite me in? I’ve been playing with my oatmeal for thirty minutes only taking a bite when she looks over at me. Hasn’t she ever been a curious kid? I know better than to ask her questions. I tried that one time and one time only.

Is that tea your making, I asked watching her as she carefully measured out some dry leaves into a ceramic tea pot."

No. That’s it, that’s all she gives me.

Well… what is it?

Medicine, she mumbles between scoops.

What’s it for?

Dammit girl, she yelled as she slammed the measuring spoon onto the counter. I’m trying to count. Don’t you have something better to do than bug me?

I backed away from the counter just in case she decided to swat me a good one, No ma’am. There’s just… nothing to do here.

"Well, I am not here for your amusement, she said as she bent her back to meet me face to face. With much sarcasm she added, You could always go play in the street." She stared without blinking until I ran from the room with tears burning my face.

After five more minutes of waiting, my oatmeal had scabbed over and was on its way to becoming concrete, so I figured I could wait here forever and she would never ask me in.

Whatcha doing? Mama asked as she walked up behind me and kissed me on the top of the head.

Just finished with my oatmeal, I quickly got up and scraped what was left into the garbage disposal and plopped my bowl into the dishwater.

I’m surprised it hasn’t turned into glue by now.

Oh… it was way passed glue.

She smiled that smile I love so much. The one that says I know what you’re going through and everything is okay because we have each other.

Got any plans for today?

Oh yeah, I smiled with playful sarcasm, me and all of my non-existent friends are gonna head over to the park for a while and play.

Well, that’s too bad, she played back, I thought I would go over to Miller’s Malt Shop for ice-cream and then go for a movie. You know, a drive in like we used to back home. Guess I’ll have to go alone.

Well… I could always reschedule. I’m sure Buffy, Muffy, and Polly would understand. They know how lonely you’ve been since we got here.

Mama glanced from me to Maw Maw and back to me again, putting two and two together and guessing that I’ve been sitting here the whole time waiting for Maw Maw to make her move, "Tell ya what, why don’t you go let your Maw Maw know what we’re doing today and maybe she’ll come with us.

You want me to go… in there?

She raised an eyebrow and said, Umm, yes. Don’t you think it’s time you got to know her a little?

I don’t think she wants to know me, Mama. She just grunts at me and tells me to get out of her way. I put a finger into the sink water and made swirlies with the bubbles while I pouted.

Well cher, she brushed my hair behind my ear, "she’s just used to being here by herself that’s all. She’ll warm up.

It was my turn to raise an eyebrow.

She will. Trust me, she will love you once she gets to know you. Go on, she spun me by the shoulders and pointed me toward the sunroom, the worst she can do is say no, right?

"Yeah right. The worst she could do is twist my head off and show