One Pale Summer

By Debra Phillips

Embark on a captivating tale of bravery and friendship for readers of all ages, where perceptions are challenged and secrets unravel. Within this enchanting story, cautionary tales encircle an eccentric elderly lady, Isabelle Ickleberry, warning others to avoid her grumpy demeanor.

However,

• Language: English
• Publisher: Brother Mockingbird
• Release date: Nov 2, 2023
• ISBN: 9781960226082

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DEBRA PHILLIPS

BROTHER MOCKINGBIRD

Copyright ©2023 by Debra Phillips

All rights reserved

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

Library of Congress Control Number: 2023941020

Cover Design by: Purple Penguin Designs

No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any

form or by any means without written permission from

the publisher.

For information please contact:

Brother Mockingbird, LLC

www.brothermockingbird.org

ISBN: 978-1-960226-06-8 Paperback

ISBN: 978-1-960226-08-2 -EBook

This book is dedicated to my mom,

Daisy Mae Davis. May your rest be

in his arms.

Chapter One

June 2010

In a perfect world, wisdom is born on the tongues of mothers. Not all mothers, but the smart ones. My mother seemed to always have the answers to life. Not always the right one, but her own twisted version of life. I can still remember her once saying that life is like a ship. It ultimately, sails us to destinies.

Mama was always saying weird stuff like that. Words that meant a lot of nothing to my sister and me. Funny how certain things stick in our memory like chewed gum pressed hard beneath a table. Still, her words had a way of speaking volumes. I will never forget how it all came to be as if it were only last month.

We were not the best of families, but did our best. My father, a man whose name was only a vague memory in my mind even then, had been missing since my sister’s birth. Here for the taking of pleasure and creation of life, and then quietly slipping away from us like darkness slips away from day. All I remembered was his name, and the sour taste it made in my mouth. Cyrus. The hue of his complexion, the color of his hair, the tone of his voice, it all escapes me. Even now, his eyes are the eyes of a stranger that stalk my dreams.

At the time of my father’s departure, I was almost three and my sister Mina was just beginning to grow in the pink garden of my mother’s womb. And Mama, sweet in her own way, a bright light made dim by dark choices, knew many things except how to continue to be a good mother in a time of adversity. Trying for as long as she could, freedom ate away at resistance until it found and penetrated her soft core. She could stay no longer for us, nor with us. Not when freedom called.

Even now it’s hard to be certain of everything in life with things being as they may, but this I know for sure, that it all came about during the scorching heat of June. The exact year sometimes escapes me, but in counting back the years it can still be summoned. June and hot. So hot it had to be a day when the Devil ruled the sun, which left our nights filled with fragments of hope.

It was also the summer of the water, when I was all of eight and sometimes, according to my mother, going on twenty. My sister, Mina, was four but still behaving like she was two. Our mother, Clarice, stole away into our tiny, claustrophobic bedroom. She was quiet as a thief in the June night as she roused us from the clutch of sleep to tell us of her plans to run off and become a whore. Of course, we had no idea of what a whore was, but the man she sought to run from flung the word into our existence where it decided to stay.

Not too loud, Evee, Mama hushed me. You have to keep your voice low.

Mama, what’s wrong? I could barely see her thin, stiff finger to her lip, but mostly I felt it. Her touch was light on my shoulder, and she smelled sweet of rose water. Before she could even spill out her plans, I could almost feel them rising before seeping into me.

We don’t wanna wake ‘im, she said in that faint moonlight in the room where a summer breeze fluttered the thin curtains. Words that will remain with me until the grave. The sweet and sincerity of it. I’m sorry. I can’t do this anymore. Not with him.

Fuzzy as my thoughts were, I tried hard to come up with the subject of her despair. ‘Him’ was the man who’d taken us in. ‘Him’ was the man who owned our spirit. Him went by the name of Curtis, and because we weren’t grown nor was he our biological father, it was Mr. Curtis to us.

Mama? I whispered back, unsure if I was truly awake or seeing her in the sleep valleys of my mind. Dreams can sometimes be tricky. What’s wrong? Mina stirred next to me and sat up. I could feel her small hands trying to rub the sleep from her eyes.

This will be the last time. I promise.

The last time what? My question made no sense. I knew what she meant.

Shh, not too loud. Evee, listen to me. You listen good now.

Yes, ma’am. At first, I thought it was him, Mr. Curtis having another one of his fitful spells when nothing she could do or say could ever be right. Those had been the times I hated the evilness in balled up fist and thrown-out voices. Hated the ugliness of broken things and name calling, but this time the mood didn’t feel the same.

Even her voice was different, low but urgent like a running motor left for too long. I hate doing this. Honest I do, but I have no choice, Evee. I swear, I don’t have another choice.

Mama, why? What’s wrong? My nostrils were filled with all that was her. I could smell the scent upon her as strong as smoke stirring in the night air, the scent of roses and a burning unhappiness, thick and choking. Her restlessness was a scent from the past. Something I should be used to. Again, she was leaving us.

I need you to be strong for me, Evee. I know I can count on you.

I could feel her holding back more words. Sleep suddenly released its grip on me. Wide awake I asked, Mama, what about us? I knew I had no business questioning her intention, but there was no helping myself. She had a right to leave as much as I had a right to know why. Clarice, can we go with you? I knew she hated that name, but I wanted to know.

I need to relocate to find something better. Her voice was low and rushed. I have to leave here tonight. You’re too young to understand, but maybe one day....

Where are we going? I needed to know more than I wanted.

Not we, Evee. Just me for now.

Mama, no. More words lodged in my throat, thick and choking.

Evee. I have to. She spoke in barely a whisper. Jerky and jaunty words racing from perfectly thin, pale lips; something about dancing on a stage; something about a better grade of men for a better grade of life, and something about a far-away place called Vegas. Vegas, she called it. A place, then, of course, I was too young to know about.

It’s not working out and I’m dying inside if I stay. She wiped at her eyes.

And then there was talk about money. A place she tried to explain, where men paid more money for the attention of females who could pass for a beautiful white woman. Whether it was to have a better man or more money, I could not decipher. I wanted to ask about the mention of ‘passing’ but it didn’t seem like the right time.

He was a mistake, Evee. A big mistake. I can’t stand him another day. I never should have trusted….

Her words stopped, but I knew that her mind was set. He was the same as ‘him’, Mr. Curtis. Her words had my heart racing in my chest. Their candy-coated madness spun like a top in my head. I wanted to reach up and bring her words closer to my lips and taste their meaning. The few words I did manage to grasp and hold on to held little if any comprehension. Leave us?

I’ll always love you and your sister. You know that, right?

But Mama… She stopped my words with a pressed a finger to my lips.

Evee, listen to me. You have to believe me. It won’t be long. I promise, she added in one quick whisper, a sniffle followed. Then I can send for you and Mina, and we’ll be together again. Just like a real family.

Mommy, where’re you going? Mina clutched Mr. Whimple to her soft chest and whined like the baby she always was. Her thick hair was rubber-banded off into two black puffs on her head that resembled dark, puffy ears in the room’s dim light. I wanna go with you. Mommy, please can I go?

You have to keep your voice down. We don’t wanna wake him. Again, a stiff finger pressed to perfect lips. No baby, you can’t go. Not right now, was her reply. Her breath smelled of the peppermints she always kept in her purse. I have to make money and find a place for us to live first.

We could go with you, I tried to offer, hoping the urgency in my voice would be convincing, but her escape plan was made. I know now that words can’t change stone.

No, sweetie. I can’t put you and Mina through what happened last time. I can’t do it.

Last time, we had lived in an abandoned school bus with no heat or running water to help wash away our shame. Summer had been as miserable as winter then, but the nice pink policeman that showed up to inform us to vacate the bus had been a small blessing by paying for a rented room for three days.

Last time, we had eaten the tossed-out food left by the full bellies of patrons from a local restaurant, waiting for closing time and the day’s darkness to keep from being noticed. Last time had landed us in a shelter full of weird people with odd rituals and strange smells where some of our belongings had been stolen while we slept.

Never again, she had sworn. But for love, I would have gladly followed my mother to the top of a snow-capped mountain and eaten pure air and lived off snow. I loved her that much.

We won’t be apart for long. She heaved another heavy sigh. Have I ever lied to you before? Well, have I?

No, I sobbed back with my heart breaking into tiny pieces.

You have to trust me. I’ll come back for you and Mina, or I will send for you. I will. I’m sorry I have to do it this way. It’s either leave him, kill him, or curl up and die.

Chapter Two

Leave a man, kill a man, or curl up and die. That’s what she’d said. I didn’t fully understand my mother’s madness but nodded anyway.

No, Mina whined, I’ma get dressed and go with you.

No, Mina.

Of course, I knew the truth. Mina’s selfish plot was for her not to be left, not us.

Remember how hard it was the last time? It would be cruel to put you two through it again. Mama patted the place over her heart. My heart…my heart can’t take this anymore. She sniffled behind her words, her body trembling. I don’t know what else to do.

I knew Mina was too young to know better, but her whining, normally something I’d grown accustomed to, like dust angels in the air, irritated me just the same. It conjured up bad thoughts to form in uncharted places inside my head.

Where? I heard myself ask, but somehow it didn’t even feel right. It didn’t feel like my mouth asking.

To a better place, was all our mother could say in a hushed voice so low, I found myself wondering if her words were even meant for us. Once this is over with, everything will be fine with us.

In the still darkness I felt something inside me stir, then rise up to form itself into a tight ball in the pit of my stomach. It squeezed itself so hard inside of me that it felt like I would cease breathing. My eyes became a dam holding back a flood. I imagined somewhere a bus, a plane or somebody’s car with the motor hot and idling with impatience sat in waiting. Who could it be this time? Somebody else’s Uncle Dimas? Perhaps some other girl’s unhappy father looking for a temporary escape.

I reached out and felt my mother’s silken face, mad and glad in my realization the almost white beauty that was hers could never be solely ours. My mother’s face in the moonlight felt like a fresh marshmallow, pliable, sweet, and soft. I forced myself to understand her beauty, as I knew it then, was a gift given without selfishness. A gift meant to be shared like sweet, gooey caramel in a child’s warm mouth.

But…but what about Mr. Curtis? I asked quietly. I held my breath in wait of her answer. My inquiry had to be of some annoyance, but I had to know. Her departure didn’t feel like such a good thing. Mr. Curtis was the man I had thought would be our stepfather. The man who could not embrace the paleness of my Mother’s skin for clawing to her essence. The same man whose overbearing love could not hold my mother’s attention and affection the way a strong kettle holds water. It didn’t feel right to be left behind in the hands of a man who wasn’t our biological father. Mr. Curtis was a man who showed us as much love as a carrot shows a cucumber.

What about him? she asked, her tone dull as paint, as if my question had been absurd like a slap to her ears.

For this I had no answer. I hunched my shoulders, lowered my eyes. I…never mind.

The darkness had eyes as well. I could sense she was dressed to the hilt. I could hear her nimble fingers, perfect red nails, restless, playing nervously with the hem of her prettiest dress Mr. Curtis bought for her last birthday. She was wearing her too-tight chintz dress, the red one that made the olive green of her eyes dance. Red patent leather pumps on dainty, run-away feet. And her flawless milk-cream skin, though unnecessary, had to be made up to a tee.

He’ll take care of you. At least for a while. But remember, once I get myself settled, you know, with some real money and a place to live, I will send for you and Mina.

But where you going, Mama? It was Mina again, with that one-eyed stuffed teddy bear, Mr. Whimple, at her side.

I wanted to scream ‘Would somebody please tell the child! Away, Mina! She’s going away to a place where there’s no us.’ All I needed to know was if Mr. Curtis would be mad.

I didn’t feel sleepy anymore as I angled up and laid my heavy head along her small bosom. I could hear the rhythm of her heart, guilty beats racing along with run-away thoughts.

What about Mr. Curtis? Won’t Mr. Curtis be mad?

My mother never answered me that night, and yet, there was still so much to be said. Questions lingered on our tongues. With each departure she became blemished. More like the blind leading the blind. I didn’t know everything at that age, but I felt certain that perfect mothers did not leave their daughters with men they no longer cared for. And Curtis. How would we handle Mr. Curtis?

I tried to straighten my back when the slump made a dull pain settle at the base of my spine. The room felt like it would start spinning at any given second if she didn’t explain what great tragedy was driving her away from us not once, not twice, but again.

Evee, everything will be okay, she said quietly. I need you to look after your sister.

I can try.

You make sure she eats right and bathes, and her teeth. Make sure she remembers to brush every night.

I will, Mama, I sighed, knowing I’d done this before.

Even in the semi-darkness I could feel her toying with her restless hands. Guilt and nervousness taking its toll. You’ll forgive me one day.

How long?… I lurched forward to grab her, to hold her tight and pull her closer against me. Perhaps if she could hear my own heart racing like a train she’d change her mind about leaving.

No more questions. Again, a finger to perfect lips.

There was no more time to ask her anything else. A soft kiss planted along each cheek, a rustle of stiff and new paper. Mama reached for my hand and pressed a small box into my palm. Mama…please...

Now Evee, she whispered back. This is all I have to give right now. I’m counting on you. Look out for Mina while I’m away. And no matter what anyone tells you, your mother loves the both of you very, very much.

Softly at first, Mina began to cry. ..but I don’t wanna stay here.

Hush now. I had to wait for nighttime. Didn’t want you waking up to find me missing and not know what happened.

Mama, please. Tears sprang to my eyes she would never see. The tightness in my stomach she would never feel. Her words trembled back to me.

You’re a smart girl. You’ll be okay. You’ll see. Go back to sleep for now. And Evee, please don’t hate me.

But we… Before more words could reach her ears, she pulled away. I heard her sniffle again, felt her stand up straight to collect herself like the proud and regal lady she was before slipping out the room as quiet as she’d come.

The small box fell to the floor barely making a sound. It was just like that.

I closed my eyes tight to keep the room from spinning. Maybe when I opened my eyes it would all be a bad dream. No more me to leave behind, but then there was Mina to think about. There was always Mina.

I can’t recall who held who. Mina leaned into me sobbing. Her soft whimpering stayed within the room. I leaned into her holding my feelings in, refusing to cry hard. Not this time. I wouldn’t cry anymore. Couldn’t. What good would tears do?

Don’t cry, Mina, I heard myself say. I’ll take care of you. Alone, but together, we huddled close like soft clay, warm and moldable. Somehow, as if suspended in the small room by the moonlight, we held each other up.

Chapter Three

That old adage is wrong. The one about hell knowing no fury like a woman scorned. It’s not a scorned woman who wreaks the most havoc on the stage of life. It’s a scorned man.

A scorned man is a tornado gathering strength in the distance. A scorned man is a dark cloud hovering with its fill of threat in a weepy sky.

Mr. Curtis’s ranting and raving woke us around eight or nine that morning. Pitiful sounds, loud and unyielding, echoed through the modest dwelling. Sounds that put me in mind of too-young puppies missing their mother. His ‘how could she do this!’ words rose and gathered strength in the house and pushed against stubborn walls that held no answer before moving to seep like fog beneath our closed bedroom door.

What kind of woman does this?!

The two-bedroom rented house seem to creak and rumble with a familiar anger. Windows shook and rattled with slammed doors and threats of shattering; egg-shell white walls stood tall but creaked weakly as if they could collapse and fall down around our heads at any given second. That man we had known all of thirteen months, my mother’s man, Mr. Curtis, was beside himself with rage.

A common whore! That’s all she wants! Trifling! Cunning and sneaky! No better than a common street tramp! A no-good mother!

Those were the loud and angry words that found our ears. It was the first time I had heard that word, whore. His last remark, a no-good mother cut to my core. I wanted to open our bedroom door and shout out something to him, Mr. Curtis. I wanted to tell him he had no right to say such things.

Evee, I’m scared. He don’t like us no more.

It’s okay, Mina. He won’t hurt us. All words I didn’t believe.

Our mother had never loved him. This much I felt certain of. A man who rarely smiled or said kind words to her children. A man who shouted and yelled his daily discontent like the gospel that needed to be spread. I understood why she had to leave him, but leaving us behind wouldn’t register.

It’s desperation, not love that drives a woman away from her children. I had heard my mother say this once to a friend of hers.

Don’t worry. I won’t let ‘im hurt you. I patted at Mina’s back, holding my secret like it was the last one I would ever have. I, too, was scared. Don’t worry. We’ll be okay. I heard myself saying the words but couldn’t feel their meaning.

Mister Curtis is mad at us too, huh?

Yeah, I think so. I nodded my head not knowing what else to say.

Maybe. There was more than enough noise coming, but no smells of cooking food found its way to our bedroom that morning. No breakfast celebration of scrambled eggs, grits pooling with butter and cane sugar. No bacon, banana-nut pancakes or fresh squeezed orange juice. Missing like the sweet from sugar was our mother’s gentle humming that usually sweetened our mornings and the rattle of pots and pans by loving hands.

I felt trapped in a bad dream. I wanted to believe beyond our door we would find Mama standing in the orange and white kitchen smiling and stirring brown sugar or honey into our hot oatmeal or buttering toasted bread.

I remember laying back down in our bed, quietly gazing up and out of the open curtains at the coming and going of a family of brown sparrows who nested in the Chinaberry tree outside our bedroom window. The energetic sparrows seemed so blessed with a happy contentment, so rambunctious and full of life. After all, I allowed myself to think, happy mama birds had a reason to chirp so loud. There were baby birds to see about, and a nest to be kept. There was mothering to be done.

The early June sun was high and promising that morning. Already I could tell it was going to be another beautiful but blazing hot day. Had it been the unpredictable Texas summers that had driven her away? My mother had always complained you couldn’t trust from one summer day to the next in Texas. Mildly humid one day, bake-you-in-your-skin the next, Mama used to say. And don’t get me started on the mosquitos.

From the view of our bedroom window, I could feel the soft, moist heat of morning bluffing the day, attempting to penetrate the house. On the inside, between those walls, I felt cold as ice. A deep, penetrating numbness had set in reminding me my life had changed. Our lives. Not only did I have to see about myself from then on, but once again, I was in charge of Mina.

From another room in the house, Mr. Curtis was still gaining momentum. With his own storm brewing outside our room, he was still beside himself with fury. Had he seen the discontent crouched somewhere in my mother’s eyes long before her departure? I pondered. Had she left him a Dear Curtis note? Perhaps a few words thought out and then scribbled hapless across paper as bland as her feelings for him had been. Once she got settled, would she send for him, too?

By mid-morning our stomachs growled for food. If there was any food in the house, I was too afraid to go to that man and ask for some. The thought of sending Mina popped in my head, but she wouldn’t have done it no how. There had been times when Mr. Curtis looked at Mina too long and made her cry. Mina had always been the sensitive one.

Mr. Curtis was still at it. His rage filled the house with a craziness as he kicked and flung things across the room, and when he grew tired from that, he punched walls and tore curtains down from the very rods they hung as he called our mother a slew of ugly names. Some of the names, the sounds more degrading than the words, I knew to be dirty. Some, like Greek words I’d never heard before. But from the tone of his voice, I knew they had to mean something bad.

My heart was beating hard as I kept expecting the worse, that if Mr. Curtis didn’t calm down soon he might run out to the garage and return with a can of gasoline and matches to bring the whole house down to ashes with us still in it.

I don’t wanna live here no more, Mina whined.

I don’t either, but be quiet so I can hear him.

Mina and me climbed from the lumpy bed we shared and tiptoed to the hollow, wooden door and peeked out all sneaky, like tiny fugitives hiding out from the law.

Go see, Mina. Go see what he’s doing now. I picked up the small box Mama had given me and opened it to find a folded twenty-dollar bill, two cookie recipes, two packs of Moonflower seeds, and a golden locket. The locket had been a Christmas present from Mr. Curtis last year, a present she had seemed fond of. It felt odd she had left such a possession behind with me. I opened the locket to find a tiny picture of my mother inside it. I studied the packs of flower seeds. Because Mama loved to garden, she was always buying Moonflower or Morning Glory seeds to plant.

Once or twice Mama had shown me how soaking Moonflower seeds overnight made them swell up to look like small dinosaur eggs. Her planted seeds would poke up through the moist earth, but never lasted long. Still, it made no