“I’ll forgive you anything, except lying to me about that,” Olivia said, her voice low and steady. Then she leaned forward. “Tell me. Please.”
A long silence stretched out before Mrs. Place answered. “Yes. Your poor
mother took her own life.”
“In the pantry of our kitchen?”
“Yes.”
Olivia had not doubted what Mourning told her. She just had to hear it again.
She asked, “Where was I?”
“There was no school that day. The teacher was sick or some such and it was
Mrs. Hardaway’s afternoon off. You three children had gone out to play in the snow, thank the Lord. Your father found her when he came home for his dinner.
It was him took her down. All by himself. He sat next to her crying for a long
while. Then he carried her up to her bed before he went to get Doc Gaylin.
Locked the house up, so you children wouldn’t be able to get in before he was
back.”
“So our mother didn’t care a whit about us,” Olivia said, feeling as if she might vomit all the gluey pie she had eaten. “That one of us could have come in
and found her. And what about her husband? Why didn’t she think about how
awful it would be for him? She didn’t care about any of us.”
“Honey, when your mamma got in one of her states she didn’t think at all –
not about anything. Something just warn’t right with her. Never was. I know you
don’t want to hear it, but that’s the truth. One day she’d be strolling down to the
river with her easel and watercolors, happy as a lark, prettiest smile on her face you ever saw. The next she’d crawl into bed and refuse to get up for days.
Sometimes weeks. Wouldn’t eat a thing. Doc Gaylin said she warn’t sick. Not in
her body. Some folks are like that, poor souls, and ain’t a thing can be done for
them. You just try to remember the way she was on her good days. She was so
charming then. So full of energy. Wasn’t a sweeter woman in the whole world.
Seemed to love everyone.”
“Do my brothers know?”
“I don’t know. Your father asked Doc Gaylin to keep it quiet, say it was the
influenza what took her. Warshed the body himself and had a closed casket, but
there was always talk.”
“I never knew. Not until Mourning Free told me, while we were out in
Michigan. My father didn’t go home alone that day. Mourning was with him,
carrying something from the store for him. Mourning watched him take her
down and helped him carry her upstairs.”
“Seborn never told me that,” Mrs. Place said softly. “I guess he had his
reasons. Might have just forgot. You know how it is with Mourning Free – he’s
around all the time, but the way he keeps his peace, it’s easy to forget he’s there.”
Neither of the women spoke for a long while.
Then Olivia asked, “How could you do that? With a married man? A man
with a wife who wasn’t well?”
Mrs. Place studied her hands and then looked Olivia straight in the face. “I know you won’t want to believe it, but there ain’t no doubt in my mind – Nola
