Hello, Goodbye Again

By Suzette Francis

Francis tells the breathtaking story of what happens after a Voodoo Ladys prediction comes true and biracial Sadie Winter is left behind by her white country singing mother, Annie, and forced to live with her intolerant, hard-driving grandmother on a mountain in Tennessee. Through the narrative of this audaciously curious girl, light is shed on the bigotry of this small, southern town, as well as the history of hypocrisy and secrets within her own family. But as what was meant to be temporary becomes long-term and the years go by and a girl approaches womanhood, will the Voodoo Ladys other predictions also come true? What might another upheaval do to Sadies life?

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Oct 31, 2011
• ISBN: 9781467037617

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© 2011 Suzette Francis. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

First published by AuthorHouse 10/26/2011

ISBN: 978-1-4670-3761-7 (e)

ISBN: 978-1-4670-3762-4 (sc)

Printed in the United States of America

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models,

and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

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Also by Suzette Francis:

Rules for a Pretty Woman

Special thanks to Colin Phillips, Laura Ford, and Alex Stinson who edited this work.

To my mother who threatened often but never left.

Home

1

It was an unseasonably warm day in the winter of 1979, when I was barely tall enough to reach my mother’s elbow, that she had the notion to pay a voodoo lady twenty dollars to read her future. We were in a small back room with a window that opened onto a street in the French Quarter where people walked by and a trumpet or two played off somewhere in the distance. Sad and happy tunes drifted past old doors and littered sidewalks and a man ambled up a narrow side street, stopping now and then like he needed to ask for directions, except he wasn’t asking how to get somewhere. You could tell by the way people hurried past him when his hands came out of his pockets. You could tell he was dirty and broke. Annie said we were one paycheck from broke but she would starve before she’d ever beg anybody for anything.

"You’ve been on the rowid for a while now, the voodoo lady said in a Creole accent, while examining the lines of Annie’s palm, pointing with her charcoal painted fingernail. Mmmmm….You sing with a group? How long you been with them?"

About eight years.

Mmmmm…. As the voodoo lady spoke of seeing adventure and true love, her shockingly green eyes darted from my mother to me and I was mesmerized by how much she seemed to know about us.

You’re never in one spot long enough. Like a boat wit no anchor. Gone wit de next wind, am I right?

Annie nodded.

"And I see here you’ve been seekin’ fame and richesse."

It would be nice. Annie’s right foot tapped nervously beneath the cloth covered table. I glanced outside again. This city was like no other place I had ever been: old brick buildings and people gazing down from balconies with wrought-iron railings, and along one narrow street after another there were sweet and sour smells spilling out of the old doors. But there was also filth, even a small dead animal or two, and people who stank underneath it, like a bad taste after a delicious meal.

The voodoo lady smelled like sleep on a leather seat with the bus windows open overnight. Her silver hair was braided into a coiled crown as if she were an African queen I saw once in a National Geographic magazine, only her face was wet from an un-queenly amount of perspiration, as was Annie’s and most of the people in the immediate vicinity. I heard a woman passing by exclaim that she was bathing in this humidity.

I watched the voodoo lady closely as she held onto Annie’s pale hand. Her skin appeared even darker next to my white mother’s. The voodoo priestess was not much darker than me. She drew up her face as if she saw something that she couldn’t speak about. Then she looked at me, pulled her thick, pink lips in and said, You sure you want to know everything?

Annie’s foot stopped. Her forehead wrinkled and she looked to me before saying, If it’s not too bad. I mean, my little girl, I don’t want anything to frighten her.

I was tempted to say that I wasn’t afraid, I wanted to know everything, but the voodoo lady released Annie’s hand and took up what she called tarot cards. My eyes followed her hands as they shuffled and cut and placed five cards evenly down in front of us. Looking over each card, the voodoo lady said, "I sees a twistin’ rowid ahead of you."

Where? I asked. But she didn’t give me an answer. She pointed to a picture of a falling tower and told us there’d be an unexpected upheaval.

What’s an upheaval? I spoke louder but she still didn’t answer me. She told Annie that she saw doubt and failure. She saw certain men Annie needed to avoid. Annie needed to get control of her life, C’est votre vie…c’est votre vie…c’est votre vie, the voodoo lady repeated while tapping the card with an upside down woman. But the main thing is this; you’ve got to go home. You know what I mean by home?

Annie shook her head, saying, I can’t go back there.

The voodoo lady didn’t argue. She said, If you don’t remember not’n else I tell you today, remember that the world is always even. The gain of one thing leads to the loss of something else.

That’s all? I looked over the cards again, studied the look in the voodoo lady’s eyes. There’s nothing better than that?

I can only tell you what I see, she said.

But you didn’t tell us what we came to hear, I said.

She smiled while putting away the cards. What is it that you need to know little girl?

You didn’t tell us when Annie’s gonna make it big. You didn’t say where we’re gonna live. And you didn’t tell us how to find my father either.

Child, only God can tell you that.

After we left, Annie said, I’m surprised by how bad she was. She came highly recommended.

She didn’t even answer my questions, I said.

No, she didn’t. It proves you can’t always trust what just anybody tells you. I just hate that I wasted my money.

As we walked along a sidewalk past shops and bars with open doors, the smell of liquor and old rotting wood wafting out, Annie laughed. She said, I didn’t need to pay somebody to tell me something that’s never going to happen, now did I?

No. I grabbed her hand and as we walked back to the bus, she warned me not to mention to the others in her band about her palm reading or the tarot cards or anything the voodoo lady had said.

A woman without secrets is a woman not worth knowing, she said.

Later that evening, she strummed a soft, lazy tune on her guitar while making up lyrics on the spot for a song she called The Lady Who Knew Voodoo. She didn’t tell the others what inspired it; picked up the tempo for the chorus and raised the volume of her voice to sing—She saw the road to where I’d never go….Get on back home and I said no. She chose an upside-down girl in a downside-up world….Cause the lady who knew voodoo was wrong….

It seemed a long time that we were in New Orleans. The band was to perform during Mardi Gras but it was canceled because the police went on strike. They found another gig, four nights a week. Kip, the band leader said it was better than nothing.

We were lucky to get it, he said after Earl, the drummer, complained about the pay. We were all sitting in the dining area when Annie agreed with Earl.

There’s a band making twice as much just down the road, she said.

How the hell do you know that? Kip stood with his arms folded over his chest and frowned, saying, If you’ve got something better let’s have it.

That’s your job.

Then shut the hell up, he said. Your job is to sing, not to backtalk me.

Annie grabbed my hand and hurried toward the back of the bus. We all had our own sleeping compartment, which I shared with her. I didn’t take up much room. I slid beneath the covers and she kissed me on my forehead. She said, Don’t let anything Kip says upset you understand?

Why’s he so mad at you?

He’s not, she said. He didn’t get his nap today.

While they performed, I remained behind. The bus was parked on the street with the windows open. I lay awake listening to trumpets and guitars and an old man singing the blues or other bands performing rock ‘n roll or country. I made a game of figuring out which song belonged to our band, Revelry. That night, I fell asleep to a slow sad tune that my mother sang. I repeated this the following night and the night after that. Several nights passed with me falling to sleep while listening to Annie.

Early one morning, before we’d had a chance to sit down to breakfast, a fight broke out between Annie and Kip. The tall, thin bandleader had red shaggy dog hair that covered his forehead. His mustache covered his thin lips that accused Annie of losing them money. He said she sang off-key and drank too much. She shot back with, You’ve got a tin ear and need to stay out of my business. Stop trying to control me!

Somebody’s got to, he said. They faced each other in the tiny kitchenette over sizzling bacon, percolating coffee, and the smell of burnt toast. Annie turned the bacon over and folded her arms, the fork still in her hand.

I don’t need a damn thing from you, she said.

You’d be in the gutter if it hadn’t been for me.

"I can’t stand your ass, asshole."

"You’re nothing but a dressed up drunk, slut," Kip said.

Annie slapped his face so hard that his cheeks turned red. I was afraid that he might hit her back. The others stepped in to separate them, and for the rest of the day, they didn’t speak to each other. Somehow they managed to pull themselves together and perform later that evening. They ignored each other for several days. Eventually enough time passed for them to let go of their anger. Early one morning, when they thought I was asleep, I got up to go to the bathroom and spotted them kissing.

Then one night, midway through a performance, Annie’s greatest fear came true. It thundered and rained and I had to close the windows. I couldn’t hear a thing outside. I didn’t hear the band stop and what came after, the meeting in the back room, yelling and accusations. Annie returned to the bus suddenly. She was wet and angry. She said that the band had voted. She was fired. After hurrying to pack our things, Annie said that what happened was the definition of an unexpected upheaval. She didn’t know where we were going to live or what to do.

2

Annie used most of her change in a phone booth making call after call after call. She had vainly tried to convince one friend after another to allow us to stay for a while. She looked at me and said, I guess I’ve burned all my bridges. There’s only one place we can go.

I didn’t know how many bridges had been burned. It might have been the year before when we had to leave a nice, warm house after Miss Cindy caught her husband with Annie in the backseat of his truck; and before that, Miss Kate’s friendship was lost when Annie promised to watch her baby one night, but instead, went out for a few drinks, leaving the babysitting to me, age seven.

Dammit all! Annie had used her last dime. A trucker walking by asked if she was all right and she covered her face in her hands.

It ain’t the end of the world, he said.

Yes it is, she said. He removed a clump of wet hair from her face and told her that she was too pretty to cry. Before I knew it, she had managed to hitch us a ride with him. Annie’s shoulders slumped as we headed towards the truck. She looked like she hadn’t a friend in the world. That’s what she used to say about me whenever I pouted. We started to run when the rain fell harder, everything we owned in two suitcases. Before climbing aboard, she said, I’m so sorry baby. You deserve so much better than me. I’ll make it up to you, I swear. Please don’t be scared about us going home.

I was more afraid of the big wheels and loud engine. The trucker said he would drive us overnight to Tennessee. We flew down the interstate, the wipers swishing noisily as I sat back between the driver and Annie. She wrapped an arm around me and her warmth made my eyes grow heavy as I watched the small circle of the headlights flow over the road. Annie and the trucker talked about boring stuff like their lives and what they wanted to do. I remembered the voodoo lady and how one thing she said had already come true.

Annie had to go back to the place where she was born and raised. I wondered about the upheaval, the tarot card with the falling tower, how could something as simple as that have such power? Annie turned the radio to hear Anne Murray sing Broken Hearted Me. She kissed my forehead as she hummed along, and I drifted off to sleep.

When I woke up the next morning, the sun was out, and we were riding over a bridge. Mountains were all around us, the city expanding before us as we moved along a two-lane road. Annie said that Chattanooga was a Cherokee word that meant mountains looking at each other. The trucker grunted like he didn’t believe her. Kip used to say that Annie had a way with words, but later on he said that she stretched the truth, and not too long ago, he said she wouldn’t know the truth if it smacked her.

You’ve made good time, Annie said to the trucker after we passed through two more towns. He told her that he wasn’t supposed to exit his route.

I could lose my job, he said.

Annie reached across me to stroke his arm. She said, I’m so grateful that you’ve brought me this far. She gasped and said she wasn’t ready for this. I can’t believe I’m back here.

He turned off the highway and started up a narrow, winding road.

You’ll be fine, he said like he had a good reason to know. We went up and up and up until we reached the top of the mountain where fog covered everything like steam after a hot shower.

The trucker shifted gears. The screech and grind of the truck’s underbelly caused me to sit up. I strained to see houses that sat back from the road and the brick buildings near the only stoplight. We went on and on until Annie told him to turn down a dirt road. The truck rattled as if every little thing in it shook like a bucket of nails rolling down a hill. Annie held onto the door so tight that around her thumb and fingers turned white.

You can let us off here, she said.

The truck slowed to a crawl before stopping. Annie opened the cab door and climbed down. She reached for me and it seemed so far to go that I hesitated before leaping into her arms. Annie almost lost her footing before helping me off to the side.

She climbed back up to get our things behind the seats.

That your kid? he said like a question he didn’t expect her to answer. I couldn’t hear what she said to this stranger, but as he drove away and we waved goodbye, watching his truck get swallowed up by the fog, I had a feeling of foreboding that I would only come to interpret many years later in a courtroom. For this is a story built upon coincidences that are not coincidences and endings that are not endings.

On the day that we arrived on Foggy Mountain, we were at the beginning of things. The white two-story clapboard house was to be our home. Annie knocked on the front door and we waited. I strained to see through veils of wavering mists. There was an early spring chill in the air. I wondered about the neighbors I couldn’t see. Annie had a sister who had a daughter about my age. There were schools in walking distance, or so she said. Annie knocked louder and I tried not to shiver as heavy footsteps marched down a flight of stairs from inside the house.

The door opened and my heart raced at the sight of the older woman standing there.

Hey Mama, Annie said.

Well it must be snowing in hell this morning. The old woman looked from Annie to me.

Say hello to your grandmother, Sadie.

Hello Grandma.

Come on in before you let out all my heat. My grandmother was pale and thin with piercing blue eyes and tight, thin lips that didn’t return my greeting. Her hair was chopped off at her neck with streaks of gray, reminding me of an eagle I saw once at the zoo. There was something very cold and unwelcoming about her and the dark rooms of this house. She asked Annie how long she planned to stay.

Not long, Annie said, rubbing her hands together.

The old woman sighed and said, You might as well put away your things.

I followed Annie upstairs to what would be my bedroom. I sat on the big white covered bed. I went over to the window and looked outside. The fog made it hard to see beyond a picket fence. Annie took the room across the hall. There were trophies on her dresser and first place ribbons stuck to a corkboard on her wall. She said, I haven’t ridden a horse since before you were born. Mama hasn’t changed a thing. Nothing’s changed in this house.

As we headed downstairs to get something to eat, I said, I’ve never had a room of my own before.

Oh baby one of these days you’ll have a room much better than that.

My grandmother fed us steaming bowls of oatmeal. When I took a spoonful, she said, Haven’t you learned to bless your food before you eat?

We don’t say the grace Mama, Annie said.

Well, we say it heah, the old woman said. She closed her eyes and bowed her head. Annie shrugged. We both bowed our heads as the old woman thanked her heavenly father for the food. After she said, Amen, we ate. The taste was good. But when Annie finished and went outside to have a smoke, my grandmother said, You can call me Mrs. Winter. But don’t you ever call me grandma again.

Her frozen face told me something else. I wasn’t like her. I wasn’t supposed to be sitting at her table. She grabbed the empty bowls and took them to the sink. She came back for the cups. Our eyes met and I didn’t reach for a last sip of warm milk. I didn’t ask for anything more. As she stood over the sink washing dishes, I tried to remember what the voodoo lady had said about home, why Annie needed to come back here.

3

The neighbor’s peacock yelled at the sun. That’s what Annie said Old George did every morning. He squawked louder than he had the day before and the day before that. I tried to wake Annie, pinched her cheek hard, but she moaned and turned her head. She had kicked the covers off the bed, her eyes closed and mouth half open with the sound of steam coming out. She hadn’t changed out of her street clothes and her breath smelled bad. It turned my stomach. I left her bedroom and went downstairs where I listened to Mrs. Winter moving around in the kitchen. There was the sound of her heavy footsteps, tinkling pots and running water. She mostly cooked in there, boiled water or skinned dead animals. I walked softly step by step by step to the front door.

Outside, the chill slipped past my neck. I zipped my jacket up to my chin and walked toward the dirt road that was bumpy with mud puddles. In the two weeks I had been here, I wasn’t allowed to leave the house. It rained for most of it. I was tired of being cooped up.

Suddenly, the sun came out and the fog lifted like ghosts on their way up to heaven. I saw the meat truck puttering down the road. It came last week when Mrs. Winter bought a roast from a man she called Mr. Willie. I walked along the side of the road and waited for him to stop in front of the house. When he got out and went around to the back, I was surprised by how dark he was. He wasn’t tall either. He was what Annie called broad across the front and he had bowlegs. Mr. Willie drew up his face in surprise when he saw me. He said, Where’d you come from lil’ girl?

I ran and grabbed hold of a big oak tree. My nose pressed hard against the bark as Mr. Willie went about his business. He climbed up the back of his truck and opened the big white freezer. He moved frozen bags and boxes with his dark, wide hands. He wore a black hat with a small red feather and I wondered what kind of bird that feather came from—a cardinal? Cardinals are for wishes, Annie said. I noticed an ugly scar on the back of Mr. Willie’s neck that slid like a snake under his collar. He stepped down like an old man and walked with a limp to the front of his truck, reached in through the window and honked his bugle-like horn twice. While he waited, I wondered about this Mr. Shroud, the white lettering on the big black truck, Shroud Natural Meats. Annie told me about this black man who sold meat on Foggy Mountain once a week. He knew everything about these white people up here but they didn’t know a thing about him. She said, Knowing what kind of man you’re dealing with will save you years of heartache.

I didn’t know anything about heartache, except that Annie had collected plenty of it over the years. Heartache meant sopping wet tears; it meant nights whining about how some man had wronged you, whoever he happened to be, and it meant singing the blues instead of country. Me, I hardly ever cried. Annie said that it meant I was either born stubborn or had a strong constitution.

Mr. Willie honked his horn again and I had an urge to stop him from leaving. I didn’t want him to go without selling Mrs. Winter some meat. Dead animals with fur, I didn’t have much stomach for—another squirrel or rabbit shot to death, which the old woman did quite often. When he sat inside of his truck and started the engine, I left my hiding place and hurried over yelling, She’s coming…She’s coming!

Mr. Willie cut off the engine and got out, slowly making his way toward the back where I met him. He drew up his brows and removed his hat. Thick lines went across his forehead to his baldness. He asked where I’d come from. His voice sounded out of the end of a tunnel, especially when he said, I thought I seen you ‘round here last week. Was that you?

His dark, round eyes squinted at me and he said I was the first one he’d ever seen on this mountain. He asked, Who you belong to Red Bone?

My name’s not Red Bone, Baldie, I said.

He put his hat back on and smiled when he said, What’s yo name? Who’s lil’ honey brown sassy little gal are you?

I ran up to the house and hid. I was too scared to tell about my place in the Winter family. If I had been able, I might have said, Mr. Willie, I’m my mother’s child and she was the last one in the Winter family born rebellious. And I might have explained it the way Annie had explained it to me, by telling how rebelliousness started with my great, great, great grandfather, Lukas Winter, who refused to fight for the Confederates because he didn’t see the point in risking his life to make plantation owners richer.

Annie had said that after Lukas Winter was shot while escaping Mossy Creek, his wounds healed on this land and after the war, he found enough gold out west to buy three hundred acres. When he died, the farm passed to his son, and when that son died, it passed to my grandfather. Maybe I could have told Mr. Willie that it was because my grandfather had no sons that he left everything he owned to my grandmother and Annie who wasn’t married when she had me. Maybe I could have stood there a while longer and told Mr. Willie everything, but I wasn’t supposed to be outside talking to anybody. Mrs. Winter wouldn’t have allowed it.

Mr. Willie honked his horn again and I hunkered down to watch him between the slats of the porch rail. This time the front door opened, Mrs. Winter hurried out to his truck. Mr. Willie smiled wider with his teeth showing as they swapped good mornings and began to dicker back and forth over the prices for chicken