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The
Writing Life
"Cousin
Mary"
by Sandy Tritt
What is the
truth? And is the truth always more honest than fabrication? More noble?
I don’t know.
It makes my head hurt. But here I sit at the Crystal Cafe, waiting for
my sisters. Stuffed inside my purse is the truth. The real truth. And I
have just a few minutes to decide whether or not to reveal it.
I am Sadie, the
quiet one in the family, the one who listens and watches and writes. In
fact, I was the first one to notice Mary, although I’m sure Bobbi Jo
will try to claim she was. I was also the first one to realize that
Mary could be our Mary, and the first one who said so. Of course, Bobbi
Jo called me the very next day after I said it and screamed,
“Red-headed Mary is our cousin! I just know it. We’ve gotta get down to
the courthouse and check it out!”
I just rolled
my eyes. I learned a long time ago that trying to set Bobbi Jo straight
on anything is a waste of good words. Once she makes up her mind about
the way things happened, there’s no convincing her of the truth.
And there I am
using that word again. The Truth. It’s only 7:55, so I should have ten
more minutes before my niece Terri drops her kids off at the grade
school and my sister Shirley drops her mid-life surprise off at
preschool, and Bobbi Jo’s migraine medicine kicks in and she remembers
to pick up Mother.
We’ve been
meeting down here every Wednesday since me and Shirley moved back to
town within weeks of each other in 1993. It’s no wonder we know all the
regulars.
And Mary is as
regular as they come. She arrives at exactly 8:30, her lipstick
perfect, her orange hair rolled and brushed, her crimson nail polish
unchipped. Like us, she has a near-perfect complexion that makes it
hard to believe she’s pushing seventy. But she must be. She’s already
confessed that she retired more than ten years ago.
Mother had her
seventy-fifth birthday right here at the Crystal in August.
Everyone thought she was sixty-something. Of course, when Bobbi Jo
turns fifty in February, they’ll not believe that either.
Anyway, back to
Mary. The first time I noticed her, Bobbi Jo was telling us about her
and Shirley getting kicked out of Walmart. Seems like they
price-checked one time too many. But Bobbi Jo has a knack for telling a
story, and we were making more than just a little noise laughing at her
animation. Of course, I snort when I laugh, which makes everyone laugh
even harder, and I figured we very well could be the first people to
ever get kicked out of the Crystal.
And then I saw
Mary. She sat at the next table, alone, watching us with a smile. She
didn’t say anything; she just sat there.
The next week,
Shirley told us about finding a cocaine addict in the dumpster while
she was dumpster digging. Now, Shirley isn’t homeless. In fact, she
lives on one of the nicest streets in town and drives a Mercedes (so
what if it’s ten years old, it still has that neat little hood
ornament), but she’s about as tight as my high school leather pants and
digs through trash to find UPC’s to turn in for rebates. And she can
spin a tale, too. So, as I snorted and covered my mouth and
snorted louder, I again saw Mary watching us.
Only this time,
she stood. She walked over to our table and said, “I think it’s so
wonderful to see a family get together like this.”
Bobbi Jo said
something nasty, but she didn’t say it loud enough for anyone to hear.
“Be good, Mom,”
Terri said. Terri is kind of quiet, too, at least at breakfast. I hear
she causes quite a racket at the VFW on Bingo night, but she usually
doesn’t say much in the mornings.
“Family is
important,” Mary said.
“Yeah,” I said.
“We gotta hang out together. No one else would put up with us.”
“Family is
important,” Mary repeated, and I knew right then that she was a retired
school teacher. She had that carriage to her, you know, that way of
holding herself that speaks of authority and that says you shouldn’t
argue with her.
So I didn’t.
But you know
Bobbi Jo. She always has to get the last word in. “That’s why we eat
dinner at the county jail,” she said. “So we can be with the rest of
our family.”
Mary,
thankfully, ignored her. “You are very lucky to have a family.” She
smiled again, then turned and paid her bill.
After that, we
started inviting her to sit with us. It just felt like she belonged,
know what I mean? And even though Bobbi Jo tried to make us all sound
like scoundrels and misfits, Mary saw through it. She treated us with
dignity.
Week by week,
bit by bit, she told us about her life. She’d been adopted when she was
five and raised by a very nice but proper family in the next town.
She’d always wanted to be part of a large family, but she was the only
child. Money, though, was never a problem, so she took dance lessons
and piano lessons and voice lessons, and after she went to college as
her daddy insisted, she took a side trip to New York. Ended up on
Broadway, holding leads in several musicals. It wasn’t until 1958 that
she returned to West Virginia. That was the year her daddy had a heart
attack, and she came home to be with him.
She never went
back. She put her teaching degree to work and taught grammar school for
the next thirty years. She married twice, but never had children. And
now that her parents—and both husbands—were dead, she was alone.
The week it hit
me was the week we went to lunch instead of breakfast. We sat at the
corner table at Bob Evans, being obnoxious and noisy, giving fake
lottery tickets to our waiter and carrying on.
And then Bobbi
Jo, the one who always keeps things loud, got quiet. She looked at
Mother and said, “I want to find Little Mary.”
Everyone shut
up and watched Mother.
Mother thought
about it, then nodded. “It’s time.”
We all knew the
story about Little Mary. Mother’s oldest sister had Little Mary out of
wedlock at the age of fifteen. In 1931. But that wasn’t the worst of
it. Little Mary wasn’t entirely white. I gotta give Aunt Molly credit
for keeping her as long as she did. It couldn’t have been easy for her.
But finally, she gave in to pressure and gave Little Mary up for
adoption.
But Aunt Molly
has been dead now for ten years and Bobbi Jo thought if we were ever to
find our lost cousin, we’d better do it soon.
Mother agreed.
Bobbi Jo wrote down all the details as Mother recited the dates and the
names and everything she could remember.
And that’s when
it hit me. Mary. Little Mary. The age was right. And Mary did resemble
us, all of us, especially Aunt Molly—the same wrinkle-free skin and the
same blue/green eyes and the same broad nose. And scariest of all, the
same sense of humor. Most people thought we were deranged; she sought
us out and thought we were funny.
“You know,” I
said, “maybe Mary is Little Mary.”
“Mary who?”
Bobbi Jo asked, feeling up the waiter and making him drop a whole tray
of ice waters.
“Red-headed
Mary.” I waited until the commotion died down and said, “She looks like
us.”
Mother shook
her head. “Little Mary had black in her.”
“You said her
father was very light-skinned,” Shirley said.
Mother shook
her head again. “It couldn’t be.”
“You told us
little Mary loved to dance and sing,” Shirley insisted. “And red-headed
Mary performed on Broadway.”
Mother’s brow
folded and her lip quivered and we all know it really could be.
That next week at breakfast, we all eyed Mary. And it all checked out.
She was short and stocky, she had curly hair, she even laughed as Bobbi
Jo crawled on her knees to propose to an Elvis-look-alike. And again,
she told us how much we needed to appreciate having a family, how nice
it was to have someone to enjoy the holidays with, to have someone who
is always there, no matter what.
“Maybe you’ll
find out you have a family, too,” Bobbi Jo said, and we all gave her
the evil eye.
Mary just
smiled.
And so, here I sit, with the official proof in my purse. Bobbi Jo
couldn’t get down to the courthouse and Shirley had to drive her
mother-in-law to Columbus, so I got stuck with the job. Of course, they
all called me last night and begged me to tell them what I found out,
but I refused. And then I made static with aluminum foil and pulled the
plug on the phone and locked all my doors. I even made my kids crawl
through the doggie-door this morning, knowing Bobbi Jo could be lurking
anywhere. For someone who’s going to be fifty next month, her knees are
in pretty good shape.
But do I show
them the document? Is the truth really important?
We’ve already
invited Mary to Bobbi Jo’s big 5-0 breakfast. We found photographs of
Aunt Molly to give her. We even went ahead and added her name to our
annual gift exchange drawing, which we do in January so we have all
year to hunt for bargains.
So does it
matter if she is related to us by blood or not? Does it matter that the
real Little Mary died eight years ago?
I don’t have to
look up. I can tell by the commotion that Bobbi Jo is here, bringing
Shirley, Terri and Mother with her.
“Well?” they
demand, circling me.
I shrug. “I
couldn’t find out a thing,” I lie. “There’s no documentation on Little
Mary at all.”
Everyone sits
down, suddenly quiet. Deciding what to order for breakfast becomes
difficult. No one talks; not even Bobbi Jo can think of any good
stories to tell.
Finally, at
8:30, the door opens and Mary enters. She walks to our table and hangs
her hat, just like she belongs here.
“You better sit
down, Mary,” Bobbi Jo says, “Cause do we ever have a story to tell you
today.” She gets out the photos of Aunt Molly and baby Mary.
And then I know
the truth. The real truth.
And the real
truth isn’t found in legal documents at the courthouse and the real
truth isn’t found in blood tests. The real truth is something that
happens in your heart.
Welcome to the
family, Mary.
©
1997. Sandy Tritt. Published in Mountain
Echoes (2004); in Mountain
Voices (2006)
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