The Colored Garden  © Copyright 1999

By O. H. Bennett. All rights reserved. 

The owners of the copyright of this work would like you to print the first chapter for your personal reading enjoyment. We do not relinquish any of our rights to this work.

No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from Oscar H. Bennett except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and review.

In the middle of Kentucky farmland where a cornfield of withered brown stalks meets the grass of a cow pasture there is a tiny huddle of stones. They are surrounded by a knee-high picket fence and canopied by two old oaks just outside the weathered pickets, though one oak has not borne leaves for a few seasons and stands only out of stubbornness. The stones still stand too—straight, most of them—enduring the sculpting of rain and the whittling of wind. Here is a formation of good and loyal soldiers stiffly awaiting inspection. Here are ancient, spindly teeth, much gnashed, jutting up from green gums. Here is a quiet orchard of red-brown rock and chalky stone, whose messages of remembrance are only faintly visible.

Beneath the markers are the sleepers, neither fitful nor troubled. Most were strangers in life, but now have become a close and enduring family. They are connected and settled through decades of repose. They belong to that growing thing of the land that is black earth and searching roots and crawling life. They are part of the very land they once toiled upon for these are the souls of slaves and the souls of sons of slaves. They were buried at a time when the gates of heaven kept separate and unequal entrances. And there are more here than the stones will testify to; they were laid to rest without markers or their wooden crosses have long ago rotted away. But even those souls whose names are not etched anywhere on this earth have an unmistakable presence in this small corner of a cornfield. On summer days, years ago, I could see them, the vibrant, palpable spirits of long ago ancestors.

Today, I see them again, black skin made blacker by the sun, full Negro lips pressed together, wearing worn, ill-fitting clothes. They make little note of me, except to say, isn't that the boy who many times came visiting with Ruth? So, perhaps my presence has served to heighten their anticipation for the one who has guarded them and tended them for decades. The whites of their eyes betray their anxiousness and they press near the fence to gaze down the narrow, dirt trail. They listen for the soft steps of their sister, Ruth Standard.

Something in me wants to avoid this confrontation; this is not a new feeling, but the desire to resist it is certainly new. The strong wind at my back prods me forward, goading me to leave, but when I step out onto the trail that leads gradually uphill to the barn, I stop and hold my ground even as my heart quickens. I resolve to wait with those whom I know best, stealing courage from them. My family won't think to look for me here after all this time. This isn't where I'm supposed to be. Kenneth Willis has made a career of that: being someplace else.

My suit and my tie would testify that I made an effort. I always try. On high school graduation day eight years ago, I tried to come here. I stood in cap and gown, proud of my accomplishment, though I numbered near the very bottom of the class of '82. There was no one to cheer me on, except the new Mustang my father the Colonel had promised me, the carrot he had dangled at my nose for four years. An IG inspection had kept him away, he said. I honestly did not mind at all, relieved not to feel the pressure of his disappointed expectations.

By the time I arrived home from the auditorium, I had concocted an unexpected plan: I would leave. No good-byes, no questions, just go. I would drive up to Kentucky to see my grandmother Ruth. I packed haphazardly, leaving many things behind. I gave no thought to informing the Colonel. By that, I mean, I didn't even think of it. I paused only in the living room, in front of his little two-stool bar, behind which he kept decanters and flasks of all sizes. But my release from school and the mechanical power of my new car had me feeling free and strong. I bypassed the row of bottles.

I hit the open highway feeling giddy with freedom. No more Colonel, no more teachers and counselors. I had a little graduation money for gas and food, and no one who knew me had any idea of my whereabouts. At first, I saw nothing but the road and its white painted dashes that fired like bullets at the front of my car. My radio rocked anthems to my freedom and my left hand tapped the beat on the car's side. I left the windows down so I could feel and hear the rush.

I went for miles on that high, over the hills of northern Georgia. Somewhere along the stretch of a two-way road, I began to notice the countryside: dilapidated, weather-beaten barns, a rusting cultivator in the middle of a field, rows and rows of crops. All of this made me think of the Standard farm, and the first summer I lived there; without being conscious of it, I eased off the gas, the white bullets on the pavement elongating and coming at me more slowly. I realized I didn't want to go where I was headed, and I didn't want to turn back either. My car drifted to a stop, coughed and died in the middle of the highway. I couldn't have sat there for more than a few seconds, but I'm not certain. I stared at the speedometer, but I thought of Mama, and Julie, and Gramma Ruth and her garden. I saw the car coming from the opposite direction, yet thought nothing of it. The blast from the semi-trailer's horn behind me woke me up. He was charging up on me fast and the oncoming car prevented him from going around. I remember seeing the truck’s great, chrome grillwork, and have made myself believe I saw the shocked expression on the tractor driver's face when he realized the car in front of him wasn't moving. I turned and started my car, heard the hiss and growl of air brakes and the truck's tread biting at the pavement. The horn blared right at the back of my head. I stomped on the gas pedal and pulled off the road just as the gusting wind of the passing trailer shook my car and slapped at my face. The driver still laid into his horn and its loud anger only faded with distance.

I fought to get control of my heart, and stayed for a long time on the shoulder of the road. When I finally continued my trip to the Standard farm that day I was much more sober, and I did not feel so much free as just alone. I made it to the farm that day, but not to here. Not to the cemetery. I make up for that day now.

The first day I came here was in late May or early June fifteen years ago. I met Mrs. Ruth Standard, my eccentric grandmother. I was an unhappy nine-year-old who'd just left his father in Germany and flown across the Atlantic, then bussed across half of the United States.

"It's up to you to look after the women, Kenny," my father had charged me at the airport. He picked me up, stood me on a waiting room chair so that we were almost eye to eye. "That's why I'm giving you a field promotion to Sergeant."

"Yes, sir. Thank you, Major."

"Oh, no, Daddy, he was hard enough to live with when he thought he was a corporal," Julie said.

"At ease," I told her. My father moved to hug me, but I gave him a trembling salute, wanting to cry but wanting to be a good soldier too. The Major came to attention smartly and returned my salute.

He hugged Julie, who began to cry immediately. Then he hugged my mother as Julie and I watched. Even at that age, I could tell from the hug alone—it wasn't tight enough, it wasn't long enough—that something was wrong. I knew life was changing for me, but not how or why. The flight over the ocean that I had convinced myself to look forward to was a bore. I had argued with Julie for a window seat only to see an unbroken floor of white clouds. The bus trip from the East Coast to the hills of Kentucky proved to be little better. Still, I hardly slept during the two-day journey. I was worried; the way little boys worry, becoming confused and ill tempered. Frequent glances at my mother's face told me nothing. I wasn't afraid to ask her what was going on, but I was afraid of the answer. I stayed quiet, kept my forehead pressed against the Greyhound's cool window, and watched the cow barns and billboards fall away.

Mama had a real hug for the big man who greeted us at the bus station. "This is your grandfather, kids."

"I know," Julie said and the old man kissed her on the cheek.

Timidly, I shook his hand. He had long fingers and dirty nails.

I climbed in the back of Grandpa Standard's pick-up with the luggage and finally enjoyed a part of the trip. With warm wind blowing the smells of farms, wet fields and livestock into my face, the truck turned down one narrow road after another until we crossed an open field along a gravel trail and pulled into the Standards’ farmyard. Chickens scattered in front of the truck and a dirty-nosed collie crawled from underneath the porch of the Standards’ big house.

Julie jumped from the cab of the truck. "This is where you grew up, Mama?"

"The very place," Mama answered, following Julie out of the truck. She looked around for a long while and the man who was my grandfather smiled watching her. "The very place," she repeated. "Dad, where's Mom?"

I remember thinking how strange it was to hear my mother call other people Dad and Mom.

Grandpa Standard scowled. "She'd be running full throttle out the house by now if she were there so you know where that leaves. Dang woman does it to aggravate me. Julie, run behind the barn, pick up a dirt trail and follow it on out to your Grandma. Fetch her back."

"Okay, Grandpa. Come on, Kenny." And then Julie said sweetly to the dog, "You can come too. What's his name, Grandpa?"

"Don't have no name. Fool dog just trotted in here a couple of weeks ago and made himself at home."

Julie and I raced to the barn calling the dirty-nosed dog and he followed after us. We found the trail down the hill from the barn. It ran between a field of corn, with stalks as tall as I, and a fence overgrown with vines and blackberry bushes. But the berries were small and green.

"Julie, are we going to live here?" I asked her. She said nothing and kept running.

When we came to a clearing where the rows of corn and the shaggy, green fence both turned away from the trail, only the dog kept running, bounding over a low, white fence and into a graveyard. Julie and I came to a complete stop. An old woman kneeled near one of the headstones, and I could hear the snip snip of fast-moving clippers. The dog ran in between and around the stones then stopped to smell one with concentrated interest.

"Zeke, don't you dare." The woman threw something at the dog who took off running toward us. Her gaze followed him out of the cemetery and right to Julie and me. "Lord sake," she said, beckoning us. She pushed herself to her feet with the help of the nearby stone. "Well, come on. You can move faster than I can."

Julie stepped forward and I followed. "This is spooky weird," I whispered.

She hugged Julie and after a moment Julie hugged her back. Then the old woman, who was only old to the eyes of a nine-year-old, ran her fingers through Julie's hair. "Such nice hair," she said. "You get that from our side of the family." Then she turned her attention on me.

Grandma Standard was an older version of my mother, though smaller. Her hair was dark, though on each side of her head, strands of white-gray were tucked behind the ears. "This is my Kenneth?" She smiled with the little wrinkles around her eyes. "You were a baby last time I saw you. Now you’re a—"

"A sergeant!" I told her.

Julie rolled her eyes. "Daddy promoted him."

"I see." She laughed. "Well, Sarge, will you give your Grandma a hug?"

I shook my head quickly.

"Kenny!" Julie scolded.

"That's all right, Julie. The Sarge here and I are strangers. After he gets to know me he might want to give me a hug. And after I get to know him, I might not want one." Julie and Grandma Standard laughed. And even though I was the butt of her joke, I laughed too. I stopped when I remembered where I was.

"Are you in mourning, Gramma?" Julie asked. "You're not wearing black. Grandpa sent us to fetch you."

"Dogs fetch sticks," she said. "That's about all the fetching that gets done around here." She picked up her basket of tools. "And there's no mourning done in this cemetery. This is a garden of good souls at rest."

Flowers decorated the sides of most of the headstones and along the fence in orderly files as bright and rhythmic, with their heads bobbing in the wind, as a uniformed band. The grass grew low, green, and even. Some graves were outlined with rocks painted white. Many of the markers were uncut stone pointing at various angles at the sky. The true headstones were thin, chalky and rough edged, and their inscriptions were faint and fading. Two small crosses mingled in with the pack of stones and one small monument, newer and more ornate than the rest by far, had a stone baby with wings perched atop it. I read the stone nearest me.

"When the roll is called up yonder."

"Kenny, don't stand on the grave. The ghost will haunt you!" Julie said.

I jumped quickly to the side and apologized to the stone.

"Hattie wouldn't mind, Sarge." Grandma Standard told me. "Young boy like you, she'd put right in her lap and sing you a song."

Julie and I looked at each other, but said nothing.

"Come on, children, I want to see my little girl now." Grandma led us from her garden of resting souls.

"You have a little girl, Gramma?" Julie asked.

"Your mother. Your mother is my little girl."

Julie and I giggled.

"Grandpa said that dog didn't have a name," I said pointing to the dog that ran a little way in front of us and turned every now and then to make sure we were following.

"Everybody, everything's got a name. That collie came around about a month ago. Asked if I'd name him Zeke, so I did."

I looked at this woman who was my grandmother, and I wondered if she believed that or if she just expected me to believe it.

"Gramma, do you know anyone buried in that graveyard?" Julie asked.

"I know everyone buried there," she said.

I believe I became an observer of people right then, specializing in grown-ups. I discovered that what I could see—like my parents’ hug at the airport—would always tell me more than what people were willing to say. I would try to figure out why people acted the way they did. My mother and hers, Gramma and her little girl, stood behind the barn, facing each other, not four feet apart, and just looked at each other, as if they were afraid to get close. But then I realized they were just savoring the moment, like when you eat a slice of pie real slow. Finally, they hugged and began to cry as women do from time to time; the tears weren't sad ones or happy ones, but a bit of both.

Everyone asked me how I liked my room, so I knew we were going to be there awhile. I became moody and wanted to be left alone.

"Let's let Sarge look around on his own," Gramma said. Seemingly, she noticed my mood before Mama had. "Come on, Julie, let's go look at where you're going to stay."

My room seemed huge to me then; actually, it was quite small and cozy. The room was on the top floor of the big house and had a sloping ceiling and two dormer windows. A big, round rug with multi-colored, concentric circles covered nearly the entire floor, leaving only bare wood corners. A double bed with a book shelf headboard covered the length of one wall, opposite an old, nicked bureau with claw feet, and under one of the windows sat a chest with a padded lid doubling as a bench. I had decided; that was my spot. Many purple evenings were spent sitting at that window watching the hills and the fields, lost in the thoughts and wonder of youth. That evening I sat there for the first time with the window open just enough to let a cool breeze slip in. In the front yard, Zeke rolled on his back, grumbling. The corn plants waved their leaves in mass with the wind and even from the window the gently rustling rows could be heard. The stalks were not yet tall enough to hide the cemetery. The stones were white and glowing. Mystery lurked there, and my boy's mind preferred to attribute the glow of the headstones to less prosaic causes, to unknown, supernatural forces rather than the last rays of a setting sun.

The eeriness of the graveyard added to my lost, rootless feeling; I felt like the uncomfortable guest of strangers. This was not my bedroom. Mine was across the pastures that lie beyond the cornfield and across an ocean. My Dad would not come in here tonight for "routine bed inspection" before ordering light discipline. I felt I had abandoned him. The Major was alone and that wasn't right. I had made a terrible mistake. Julie should be with Mama, but I should've stayed with the Major. And then I thought, he was waiting for me to volunteer to stay behind and I didn't. I had disappointed him.

"Zeke," I heard from outside. Grandma Standard stood in front of the house with a pan of water. The dog came running. He began lapping up the water with a vigorous sloshing sound even before she'd finished setting down the pan. "Getting in mischief is thirsty work," she said to the collie. "How do you like the boy?" she asked as if an answer would be forthcoming. Zeke did stop his drinking momentarily and look at her. "Hope you two get along, if not you're back on the highway where I found you." She turned to go back inside and I ducked from the window so she wouldn't spot me.

Of course, I liked Zeke; I liked almost everything about the farm, and Grandpa Standard and Gramma. I felt guilty about liking it and resisted the feeling. The Major wouldn't want me to give in so easily. That night I climbed into the biggest bed I'd ever had to myself, tossed and turned a little while, then fell asleep.

*

In the days that followed, we fell into the routine of the Standards. The day started before the sun rose and the smell of baking biscuits even floated up the two cases of stairs to my bedroom. Grandpa Standard assigned a few chores to me such as feeding Zeke and the chickens, collecting the eggs with Julie, keeping the tool shed orderly, and helping him fix all kinds of things.

Grandpa ate breakfast alone and was out and about before we'd get to the table. He ate quickly, not wasting the time to talk, following each bite of food with a gulp of black coffee. It was only when I awoke earlier than usual that I'd catch him at the breakfast table. Every chore had urgency for him. He moved from one to the next just like he moved from the eggs to the grits, quickly. Grandpa, Charles Standard, wearing his tee shirts riddled with holes that Gramma could not get him to throw away, was a serious, almost humorless man. But now and then, he had a joke or just a wink of the eye at the right time that always seemed funnier than it really was because of its rarity.

I soon noticed that Grandpa and Gramma did not chat. I mean they didn't have conversations like Mama and Dad used to have. Grandpa would inform Gramma the fuel pump on the tractor needed replacing, and she'd warn him the TV called for rain by late afternoon. That was usually the extent of it, at least that I heard. This would be a big, quiet house, I thought, if not for Mama, Julie, and me.

A grass-and-dirt-stained apron hung at the back of the kitchen door. When it came off its hook, everyone knew where Gramma was going. Grandpa Standard would roll his eyes on those occasions when he was around to see her reach for it. "Can't harvest rock," he'd say, "It's just a waste of time."

Gramma didn't seem to notice. She'd tie her apron on, humming softly to herself all the while, then head for the tool shed leaving Grandpa to present his case to whoever was in hearing distance. "There she goes, off to talk to people who been dead a hunnert years. S'pose to let them rest in peace. But that woman won't let nothing rest. Nothing."

Dad called after we'd been there a week. Mama spoke to him first, but only for a short time. I got angry. Julie talked next and she made it seem like everything was going just great. I got angry with her too. When my turn came, I was afraid, and Julie had to push the receiver into my hands. I knew the Major would be disappointed in me. This was my chance to volunteer to return home, but everyone was around. I knew Mama would not let me go back.

Dad's voice, tiny in my hands, called for me.

"Speak, honey," Mama urged. "This is long distance."

I placed the receiver to my ear. "Yes, Sir."

"How's my sergeant?" the Major asked. "Give me a full report."

"I'm sorry, Daddy." The words spurted out, I dropped the phone and ran from the house, ignoring Mama's calls.

My sister came hunting for me, zealously, no doubt sent by my mother. I hid beneath an old sawhorse covered with plastic tarp in the barn. Julie called, "Kenny, you'd better get back in the house; Mama is ticked off. You're going to get it this time."

I would not surrender. From my vantage point, I saw her stamp her foot. "I hope she wallops you good," she said over and over before giving up the search.

The barn smelled of moldy hay and fresh hay, animals, and old wood. I crept out and sat outside, my back against the peeling red barn and hidden from the house. I don't remember how long I sat there drawing in the dirt with my finger and hoping the Major wasn't mad at me and that Mama wasn't too mad at me.

"Who taught you to waste time like this?" Gramma stood over me. She wore her green stained apron and carried her tray of tools, which she set down next to me. "Make yourself useful," she said and started down the hill toward the cemetery. I followed several feet behind her, wondering when she would mention the phone call, and not wanting to return to that spooky graveyard.

The stones waited, casting small shadows on the graves. Bees were humming, dancing from flower to flower, from pink to purple, shopping. "Hello," Gramma Ruth said entering her garden, and I wondered if she spoke to the bees, or the flowers, or the stones. "Come along, bring my things." This she said to me.

I had seen a movie once where a long line of black, shiny cars with yellow headlights burning came rolling into a cemetery. The cars stopped and the people stepped out, all in black, all blank faced and quiet. They fell silently into procession behind the pallbearers who carried a casket as black and as shiny as the cars. The coffin was lowered while the gathering, crowded on the very edge of the open grave, watched its descent. The undertaker began to shovel in dirt that thudded and scattered across the casket top, marring its shiny, perfect surface. The mourners remained even as the casket was completely covered. Suddenly, the fresh dirt erupted; a clawing hand shot up, grabbing a black hem. The mourner was dragged protesting into the grave.

Gramma asked, "What's holding you up?"

I moved forward maybe an inch. "Graveyards are spooky," I said.

"Says who?" She looked at me, smiling. "Are you scared? You weren't afraid the other day, when you first got here. Come see my irises." She held out her hand.

I looked from her hand to the graves. There were no signs of eruptions. "Not 'fraid of nothing," I told her and walked into the cemetery.

She took the tray from me and went right to work. "You should have seen my azaleas, bright as peacocks. Everybody loved them. But you'll be here for the marigolds and the zinnias. They show off. I'm going to plant some around Hattie May's marker. She'll like that, Sarge. Do you want to help?"

"No." I stood over a grave without a marker, but outlined in white painted rocks all about the same size and same oval shape. End to end they formed a neat rectangle in the far end of the cemetery.

"I notice you don't do much that you don't want to do. Mighty strange for a soldier who's supposed to follow orders." She spoke as she worked, sitting on the ground near the stone. "I'll take this grass up and start it over in a brown spot near the fence." Again I wasn't sure to whom she spoke. "Sarge, why didn't you talk to your Daddy? What are you sorry about anyway?"

There. I knew she'd ask and she did. But what business was it of hers? At least she didn't press. I shrugged my shoulders, but, not sure she'd noticed, said, "I don't know."

Gramma pulled herself up, again with the help of the headstone. She stood next to me, then bent down to adjust one of the white rocks. I couldn't see a difference between how it was before and how it was after she quit moving it.

"This is the Chief's grave," she said answering a question moments before I asked it. "I can't pronounce his real name, but all the other slaves just called him Chief. You knew this was a cemetery for slaves didn't you, Sarge? Our place and the Hendersons’ and the Tates’ and most of the MacEacherns’ used to be one big plantation. Grew tobacco mostly. The simple folk resting here are the ones who did all the work. Hattie and Nettie, Anna and Mark Littlejohn, and Cakes and Tillie, and her sister Twilda. Lot more. Chief isn't alone in this plot. Course, Chief didn't work much. But it wasn't from laziness, it was pride. He was a war chief of the Wolof and labor was beneath his dignity, you see."

I hadn't thought about dead people being lazy or proud or slaves or anything except the bogeys of movies and ghost stories. But Gramma knew their names and what they were like.

"Poor Chief," Gramma said, and she picked a bright purple and white flower and laid it in the middle of the Wolof's grave. "Most of the other slave men didn't like him because he wouldn't do his fair share of the work. The women took care of him though, saved some greens for him. Chief spent the last three years of his life manacled hand to foot." Gramma looked at me and smiled. "I need some water for my marigolds. Would you fill the pail in the tool shed and bring it to me?"

"Tell me more about the slaves, Gramma. Is being a war chief like being a major?"

"More like a general. Bring the water and we'll see about more stories."

Half the water had sloshed out onto the hard dirt of the trail by the time I returned.

"Tell me about the Wolof general," I said.

Gramma took the pail from me. "It's your turn to do some talking now, Sarge. Why didn't you want to speak to your daddy?" This time she waited for an answer.

So I told her how he was probably mad at me because I didn't volunteer to stay behind, and now he was probably double mad because I didn't talk to him. She listened to me as I talked to the ground, looking up at her only now and again to see how I was being received. "I think I'd better go back home to Munich," I finished.

"Well, I see your point, Sarge," she said and began watering the plants. She moved from grave to grave, rationing the water to the flowers that adorned them. "I confess," she was saying, "that I hadn't really thought of your situation quite that way, but you do have a point. Could be he's powerful mad at you."

I began to fidget.

"But one question comes to mind, Sarge. Why in heaven's name did he promote you? Julie said you got a promotion. How do you figure that?"

I hadn't. "He wanted me to stay," I asserted.

"What did he say when he promoted you?"

I remembered back to the airport, my salute, Julie crying, strangers with bags looking on as they hurried by, the Major's face. "He said that I should look after the women," I said and realized at the same time.

Gramma smiled. "Hard to do from Munich if they're just outside Louisville."

I hugged her.

"Now you want a hug," she said, and hugged me back. "Tell you what you do. Write a nice letter to your daddy. Tell him about everything, and that you're going to carry out his orders."

I nodded, very much relieved and eager to start my letter.

"Well, go on," Gramma said. "I'll be along in a little while."

I took off toward the big house leaving Gramma, not alone, but with Hattie, who sang songs to little boys, and Chief, the proud Wolof, and the rest.

*

They were arguing in whispers, Gramma and Mama. I could hear them, but not their words. Whispers are shadows of real words and demand more attention than a shout, especially to a young boy. To my mind, whispers had to be the truth because that's when people said things they didn't want you to hear. I had been heading downstairs when I heard the harsh, hushed voices coming from Mama's room at the end of the hall on the second floor. I immediately got down on all fours and crept like an ungainly spider, butt thrust in the air, toward the partially opened door. I had made up my mind to pretend I was searching for a dropped marble should they step out quickly and catch me spying. I even fished a marble out of my pocket and sent it rolling ahead of me. Thing is, it kept rolling.

"I don't think happiness is foolishness," were the first words I heard plainly; they were Mama's.

"Keep your voice down," Gramma said. "It's just that the children have been through enough changes. Poor things."

The marble bounced up over the flat doorsill and rolled like a herald of Caesar into the room.

I could see them now, part of my face and one eye peeking in the opening. Both were around the bed holding clothes. Gramma was folding. Mama was balling them up. And the marble was still rolling.

"Then why are you helping me pack if you're dead set against this, Mom? I can do it myself."

The marble came to a rest between Mama's feet. I couldn't see her face, but Gramma's face looked sad or maybe tired. She said, "I know you can, Connie. You can do everything by yourself, always have." She took a breath. "I'm just saying if I were you, I'd wait and see how Stephen feels."

Mama stepped toward her bureau, leaving my field of vision. Her shoe grazed the cats-eye, sending it toward Gramma. "Quit telling me what you would do, Mom," my Mama was saying and it wasn't a whisper at all now. "Can't you see I'm trying my damndest not to do what you would do!"

Gramma looked shocked. Her eyes opened, and her mouth, but she said nothing. I saw her bend over. I felt sorry for her and wondered why Mama would say a mean thing like that to Gramma. The room was quiet after that. Gramma finished folding a sweater and laid it gently on the bed. The line of her mouth was set tight now and she nodded. She moved out of my sight and before I could figure out where she headed, then the door opened wide and she looked down at me.

"Have you seen my marble?" I managed.

"It'll work out, Mom," my Mama said. Neither of them seemed to care I was there.

Gramma nodded again, but didn't turn around to face Mama. She held my marble above me then dropped it into my hand. "Laying on the floor is a good way for big-eared boys to get stepped on, Sarge." She spoke without her usual smile and went down to the kitchen.

I was ready for Mama's "conference" by the time she called it that evening. I'd warned Julie that Mama was leaving, that I'd seen her packing, and we would be staying on the farm. Mama told us Daddy and she had decided it wasn't good for the family to be traipsing all over the mid-east and Europe. She said they thought it would be better for us to go to American schools and start establishing long-term friendships. She said she was going into Louisville to look for work, and the Major would join us once his tour of duty ended. I didn't believe her. I did not look into her eyes or listen to the rest of what she had to say. Julie believed her, believed it all. I thought, tomorrow I'll go exploring with Zeke or maybe go with Gramma to her garden.

The next day Grandpa took Mama into town and Julie went along for the ride. I stayed behind with Gramma, so Mama gave me a goodbye hug on the porch. I gave her one too, much like the one she'd given the Major at the airport.