Everybody Needs To Remember

By Colleen D. Scott

Connie knows her mom has problems and having such a peculiar mother is stifling in her small coastal Alabama town. The local gossips say that her mom’s mental illness was the reason her dad divorced her. He moved away when Connie was only seven years old, but Connie doesn’t need help from him or anybody else. She knows how to hold ev

• Language: English
• Publisher: NKD Ventures
• Release date: Jun 23, 2018
• ISBN: 9781947832046

Book preview

Chapter One

I NEEDED TO REMEMBER what it felt like. It was important to remember, but I forgot. And in forgetting, I turned my back on what was important. There are so many reasons people struggle in silence. And this, among so many other things, I should have remembered.

When I was five years old, we went to my grandmother’s small farm for the weekend. The town, where she lived and my dad grew up, died a slow and agonizing death. Field after field, once filled with vibrant peanut plants, collapsed into dust with time and neglect. The empty fields, dotted with homes, rusty tractors and tin roofed sheds, were separated from one another by rows of ancient pecan trees.

The town reminded me of the old country western songs on my dad’s car radio. Scratchy voices told stories of loss, disappointment, loneliness and heartache. As we drove through the one stop town, filled with boarded store-front windows, my dad waived at the occasional passersby. It felt like coming home, but to a home that made you feel sad and angry. Like in many of the old songs, the small town also had a train. The old Frisco rail cars followed a track running parallel to the county road, which doubled as Main Street. A mournful whistle announced the train’s approach every afternoon. But the train no longer stopped. The town, like those old scratchy songs, made me wish for just one more chance.

My dad and I went often to help my Meemaw, since tending a small farm had grown too difficult for her to manage alone after my grandfather passed away. She asked me one morning to carry a large box of empty mason jars out to her tin shed in her chicken yard. She saved her empty jars in anticipation of summer. She looked forward to the time when the berries would return, and she could line her kitchen shelves with brightly colored jars of jams and preserves once again.

Eager to please, and proud to have earned such an important assignment, I hefted the box into my arms and pushed open the screen door with my bottom. That first step down was a doozy, and the oversized box shifted dangerously in my arms. A few jars clinked harmlessly against one another and remained in the box. Others fell onto the hard packed red clay with a harmless soft thud. But far too many hit the concrete steps and shattered at my bare feet.

The loud explosion summoned Meemaw to the darkened screen. In her sweet, high-pitched voice, she asked, You alright, baby?

Struggling to right the box, I said, Yes, ma’am. I’m sorry. Some of ‘em fell and broke.

Well, that’s alright, sugar. I’ll get the broom. Although her face was masked by the rusted screen, I knew Meemaw wasn’t upset.

But then my father swung open the door and barked, What the hell happened here, Connie?

I was helpin’ Meemaw, like you said. But I dropped a couple of the jars and they broke, I told him, nodding at the broken glass scattered across the steps.

Why didn’t you just ask for help?! He snapped before quickly disappearing into the cool darkness.

As the screen door popped closed behind him, I mumbled, ’Cause I thought I could do it by myself. I knew he was disappointed that I couldn’t handle the job I’d been given.

I realize now that I’d been asked to carry far too heavy a burden for my age. But I wanted to prove that I could do it. And I was too embarrassed to admit that I needed help. And I hated it when people asked that question. Why do people forget what it feels like to need help but not want to ask? I’ve often wondered. But, then again, I eventually forgot, too. Maybe, if I had remembered, things would have turned out differently. And then maybe, if only I had remembered, my world wouldn’t have turned upside down.

My childhood wouldn’t have existed without my best friend, Tara. With her, I could be a regular kid. We lived near each other, played together, and attended the same small church and private school. Closer than sisters, we meant everything to each other. I can still picture her running across the school playground to meet me, her long blonde hair, tied back in colorful ribbons, swinging. Her black uniform shoes and long white knee-socks were brown with schoolyard dust. When she reaches me she stops, rests her hands on her knees, and tries to catch her breath. Her bright blue eyes dance with mischief. Her broad smile warms my heart.

Tara was a cutup, always laughing and joking. She made the dullest activities fun. She talked too loud, told tall tales and she was smart. She loved to sit in the front of the class, eagerly raising her hand and correctly answering every question.

Tara and I always joined the boys at recess to play their raucous games. While the other girls sat giggling in their carefully pressed uniform skirts, tediously braiding one another’s hair, Tara and I ran with the boys. We threw balls, jumped and chased the boys across the playground. Since we didn’t squeal, cry or tattle to the teacher, we fit in better with the boys. The other girls turned up their noses at us in disgust. But the teachers didn’t seem to mind. Other than the occasional cluck of the tongue or casual swat on the behind as we ran into the classroom, they never voiced an objection.

Tara couldn’t run fast, climb quickly, or jump high, and was often tagged it. But she was a fierce competitor. Her strength and steady aim gave her a clear advantage. And she relished the opportunity to be the aggressor. Many times one of the boys had to choke back his tears and rub at a bright red mark on his cheek after she’d expertly nailed him with the large red recess ball.

But Tara was not just my loyal, fun-loving friend, she was my protector. Quick to punch a kid in the arm, she fiercely defended me from any teasing or schoolyard altercations. And, she confidently welcomed anyone to target her.

Once in second grade one of the meanest of the boys, named Charles, called Tara Miss Piggy. He laughed and taunted her all through recess with the list of similarities. But Tara just howled with laughter and playfully chased him across the schoolyard. Stumbling behind him, she laughingly yelled, Well then, why don’t ya get over here, Kermit, and let me give you some sugar?!

Every day after school, and in the early mornings on weekends and during the summer, Tara and I met at my mailbox. We lived in a small, quiet town in southern Alabama, along the eastern shore of the bay. The bungalows, cabins and mansions alike, all as varying in age and appearance as the families they housed, lay along crushed-shell roads running parallel to the shore, and nestled under huge southern oaks draped with Spanish moss.

Tara’s house sat proudly atop a bluff overlooking the bay. It was a three story fortress made of red bricks and white columns that sat near the road. All who passed could view its splendor. Rose bushes lined a long brick walkway, but no one ever cut the flowers and put them in vases. Unused rocking chairs lined the expansive front porch. French doors and wrought-iron balconies sat empty along the upper floors, overlooking the bay and the city beyond. A wide back deck led to a wide lawn, a hand-raked beach, and an empty boat house with an unused dock made from smooth, varnished boards.

My home, just four driveways down the road, was obscured by Live Oaks. A long winding driveway lined with monkey grass led to the fishing cabin my grandfather built in the 1920s. Potted ferns grew and flourished on the sagging front porch. The floors creaked with years of use and sloped toward the kitchen. My mom used the back porch, long ago screened in as a sleeping porch, as her art studio. A short dock of grey, warped boards jutted out from a small strip of beach.

Tara and I rarely spent time inside either of our houses. Both held things we preferred to avoid. And since parents at that time believed in letting children play outside even until after dark, it didn’t seem odd. So every day we went fishing or swimming in the bay. We explored the woods, built forts, played at the point, and wandered the streets of town searching for something to do.

• • •

I’m going and I’m not gonna ask for permission, Tara told me one hot afternoon the summer after we finished the seventh grade. The two of us sat on the curb of Section Street eating ice cream cones.

Well, I wanna go, too. But I’m gonna have to tell my mom, I told her between licks of my strawberry cone.

Oh, come on! she groaned. They said it’s gonna happen tonight for sure. What if she won’t let you go?

Oh, I can go. I just gotta tell her, that’s all. I shrugged, thinking, she won’t care. But she’s up all hours of the night, so I have to tell her. She’ll find out anyway.

"Fine. But I’m not askin’ and this time I’m goin’, with or without you," she snapped. But I knew that she wouldn’t go without me.

Not afraid of gettin’ caught? I asked, openly admiring her courage. I knew what getting caught might mean to her.

Nah. I won’t get caught. Besides, Missy sneaks out all the time. She sounded confident, but chewed her bottom lip.

Tara’s older sister, Missy, was going to be a senior in high school in the fall. According to Tara, she frequently snuck out of the house at night so she could go on dates and to parties with her friends. I regularly overheard ladies from church whispering about how bad they thought Missy was. Once, I even heard a lady said, Bless her heart, what do you expect? That child’s been let loose to run wild!

So, a few hours later, as I was setting the table for supper, I told my mom about our plans. Hey mom? I’m going to the point tonight with Tara. Jubilee’s ‘posed to happen …

Really? Jubilee’s tonight? I’d love to go! She giggled nervously. I think it’s been years since I’ve seen a Jubilee. We could take a picnic basket! And then she gazed wistfully out the window at the tea colored water, steeping darker in the dusk.

Inwardly I groaned. It had not been my intention to include my mom in our plans. I tried to back track. "Well, we don’t know for sure it’ll be tonight. I mean, they never really know. If you want, I could go down there and see if it’s really gonna happen first. But when a glimmer of hurt appeared in her eyes, I acquiesced with a sigh. But yeah. If you really wanna come, a picnic sounds great." And with the flash of a grateful smile, my mom resumed chatting about what to pack.

I was old enough by then to know my mom wasn’t what anyone considered normal. She didn’t do things like the other moms. I don’t think she even tried. In fact, sometimes it felt like she was trying to be weird, and sometimes that made me angry. Even the meals she cooked were weird. And it wasn’t like it was difficult to cook normal stuff. Whenever she got sick and I had to cook, I knew to follow the recipes printed on the back of the soup can.

Why can’t she just do that? It’s not hard! Who would cook this? I thought grumpily, piling my plate with Spam, green beans, baked beans and jelly beans. But she just laughed at the faces I made. With a playful wag of her finger, she pretended to scold me. She said, Now Connie, make sure you eat alla your beans t’night!

It wasn’t that I didn’t appreciate how special my mom was, because I did. I just knew that others didn’t share that appreciation. My mom was what the people in town politely called different, and impolitely called crazy. But they just didn’t understand her, that’s all. She was always sweet, kind and generous to everyone. She never tried to put on airs. She had the earnest, fragile beauty of a small bird. And like a small wren, her beauty was easy to overlook.

My mom was an only child raised by a doctor and his wife. They lived in an antebellum mansion on a tree lined street in the city on the other side of the bay. Carefully bred to exhibit southern grace and manners, her family was considered part of good society. A gilded frame in our living room held a photograph of her at her debutante ball. At eighteen, she was dressed in a white beaded evening dress, wearing a silver crown and long white gloves, smiling shyly at the camera. Only the tilt of her chin and downcast eyes betrayed her unease.

Her dad passed away right before I was born, and her mom a decade later. Her inheritance provided us with our home and plenty of money to live on. Imaginative and unpredictable, my mom was a lot of fun to be around - most of the time. But since her fluttering hands needed more than just taking care of me to keep her busy, she created things. She could transform the most ordinary ingredients into the most extraordinarily beautiful things.

She earned extra money by baking cakes, petit fours and other special treats for the ladies in town. Although she was rarely invited as a guest, no birthday, backyard wedding, bridge club or women’s league meeting was considered complete without her baked goods. When she wasn’t baking, she made other things. Her studio was strewn with plant hangers and wind chimes woven from ropes of hemp, beads and pieces of wood and metal. Tea towels, pillow cases and cushions embroidered with brightly-colored thread lay folded in stacks in the corners. Quilts stitched together in complicated patterns from bags of discarded clothing lay across the backs of the chairs. She painted sunsets, sunrises, flocks of birds, lonely pelicans and the ever-changing colors of the bay onto canvases, flour sacks, glass bottles, large shells and pieces of driftwood. Every couple of months, we’d clean out her studio. She’d don her wide-brimmed sun hat and we’d sell her creations at a local crafts fair.

Our home was her safe haven, and like a bird, she closely guarded her nest. She limited who was allowed in and how often she dared venture out. Other than delivering her sweets, the occasional crafts fair and her weekly trips to the grocery store and church, she avoided leaving home. Outings required equal amounts of preparation and recovery. Sometimes a full-day’s outing could be followed by several days of recuperation.

So I had good reason to worry, when she told me that she wanted to go to Jubilee. But later, when I heard her humming as she packed the picnic basket, I shook off my worries. And so I joined Tara, who stood in the dark, waiting for me at my mailbox.

The symphony of summer surrounded us, as Tara and I walked down the dark county road. Under the thick branches of twisting oaks, insects buzzed, crickets chirped and frogs screamed for attention. The full moon hung from a cloudless sky, lighting our way so brightly that we didn’t need our flashlights.

Tara broke the spell with a deep sigh, so I asked her, Trouble getting’ out t’night?

Nope. You? She spoke in a clipped tone.

Nah. But mom said she’s gonna come too, I told her.

Tara eyed me in surprise, but thankfully didn’t say anything. Tara understood how things were for me. She avoided asking difficult questions that I didn’t want to answer.

When we rounded the bend Tara shouted, Wow! Would ya looky there? See Connie! I told you it’d be tonight! Skipping and gesturing proudly at the park below us, she dragged me by the arm down the hill. A crowd of almost a hundred people, quite large for our little town, gathered in the park at the point. Trucks lined the small parking lot. Men bunched in conversations. Kids ran and played along the shore and the wharf.

We hurried down the knoll to the shore, all the while saying things like, Hey, isn’t that Gary over there? and Looks like the Tillmans are here, too!

Charles greeted us saying, Well, looky who’s here! It’s Miss Piggy and her best friend, Constipation!

Oh, shut up, Charles, Tara told him and laughed.

I winced at the familiar taunt. I hated my full name, Constance and insisted on being called Connie. But once, when we had a substitute teacher, she read my full name during roll call. Ever since, Charles called me Constipation.

What’re y’all doin’ here? Another kid named Darrell asked as he raced over to us across the lawn.

Same as you, you little creep! Tara smirked, rising to her full height in challenge.

Nervously, he pushed at Tara’s arm and quickly ran away, yelling over his shoulder, "We’re playin’ freeze tag and you’re it!"

An hour later, breathless and dripping with sweat, a commotion brought our game to a halt. It’s starting! someone yelled. The men scrambled into the cabs of their pickups.

It was an hour or so before dawn. By that point, the wind had picked up, changed direction and turned cooler. Waves lapped high against the pilings of the wharf and stretched high on the shoreline. The men backed their trucks up onto the sand, the truck-beds facing the water’s edge. Boys ran and jumped into the beds or grabbed scoop nets and buckets. Tara and I darted down the wharf and joined