The day passed smoothly, despite its less than organized beginnings. In spite of herself, Corabeth began to relax as she saw the camels and gorillas and otters through six-year-old eyes. Beth greeted every exhibit with equal curiosity, from the free roaming peacocks who nibbled popcorn tossed by visitors to the lumbering old mama elephant, splashing her calves with water. Everything was, “Look, Mama,” and “Gram, look at this!”
The two adults were worn out by the time they carried the sleeping child into the house, just after dusk. Corabeth went to the kitchen to make some tea as her daughter brought Beth into the bedroom to set her down.
“Aimee, where is your tea?”
“In the canister above the fridge.”
Corabeth reached up, standing on her toes, to retrieve an exotically decorated tin. A deep mauve, it was laced with gold gilt in an Eastern design. Corabeth opened the tin and sniffed. Grimacing, she pulled away from the canister.
“Did you find it?”
“Aimee, what on Earth is this? I asked for tea.”
Her daughter took the canister from her hand and looked into it. “It’s tea, Mama.”
“It doesn’t smell like tea.”
“It’s a blend of Japanese oolong and toasted brown rice. It’s really good.” At her mother’s look of disdain, Aimee sighed. “Do you want me to buy some Lipton in the morning?” Corabeth said nothing. “Come on, Mama. We’re both tired. Can’t you just--”
“What? Stop being the Wicked Witch?”
Aimee let out a hard breath, put the lid back on the canister, and put the canister back on the refrigerator. “I’m going take a bath.” She walked out of the kitchen with her mother silently following behind. “Mama, what?”
Corabeth looked away, obviously distressed, but stubbornly refusing to talk.
“What is wrong? You’ve been snippy all day.” It was an understatement. The two had been getting on each other’s nerves from the moment Corabeth arrived on the train from Jefferson County.
“Aimee....” The older woman turned to face her daughter straight on, hands folded tightly across her chest. “Are you taking drugs?”
“What?” Aimee started laughing, then stopped when she realized her mother was serious. “Where did you get an idea like that?”
Corabeth sat gingerly on the clean but slightly-dilapidated couch. “Your father and I have been so worried about you, Aimee. We want you to come home.”
“So you accuse me of being a drug-user?” Aimee collapsed into the easy chair. “Really persuasive, Mother.” If anything, Corabeth looked even more uncomfortable. “Mama, I am not on drugs. I don’t even use aspirin. The strongest thing you’ll find in this house is a tube of ointment left over from Beth’s diaper rash days. Are you satisfied?”
“Aimee,” she leaned forward, taking her daughter’s hand in hers. “You’ve changed so very much. I don’t feel...I don’t know you anymore. You’ve developed all these...strange ideas.”
“Like what?”
“Well,” Corabeth looked around the room and pointed to a small porcelain statue on the desk. “Like that. Where on Earth did you find that?”
“It’s Kwan Yin, Mama. The Eastern goddess of loving-kindness. One of Jeff’s coworkers gave it to us.”
“Eastern goddesses, brown rice tea--” Corabeth shook her head. “Do you know what Beth told me yesterday? She told me you don’t go to church. Is that true?”
It was Aimee’s turn to look uncomfortable. “We...well, we think it’s best not to force our religious upbringing on Beth.”
“Force your religious upbringing on her? Aimee, how is the child ever going to learn if she doesn’t go to church?”
“We teach her about a lot of different religions. For instance, one of her school mates is Jewish. Her family invited us to the older sister’s bat mitzvah. Beth loved the singing and chanting in Hebrew. She’s been to a cathedral, met a Buddhist nun, and, yes, she’s been to a Baptist church.” Aimee looked at her mother, trying desperately to feel empathy rather than defensiveness. “Mama, this isn’t Walton’s Mountain. Beth has an opportunity to learn about an entire world of cultures here, and Jeff and I are trying to show her as much as possible.”
“I don’t think it’s wise to expose a child to so many different ideas. You’ll only confuse her.”
“Oh, Mother, you are such a hypocrite.” Aimee bit her lip, wishing she could take the words back as soon as they hit the air. “I’m sorry, Mama. We’re both too tired to be having this conversation.”
Corabeth wore an expression of steely self-control. “No, I think we need to have this conversation right now. So, just exactly how did your hippie friends convince you that I’m a hypocrite?”
“My friends are not hippies, and we really need to stop now.”
“Why? So that you can brew some fancy Japanese tea and laugh at how provincial your mother is?” Corabeth’s temper bubbled just beneath the surface. “I may not know about the goddess of loving-goodness, or have friends who have bat mitzvahs. But I’m not stupid, and I know when I’m being patronized.”
Aimee took a deep breath, trying to control her temper. At her mother’s imperious expression, her resolve failed. “Give me a break. You’ve been here two days, and you’ve criticized everything I do--the way I dress Bethie, the food I eat, everything. You came here expecting a disaster, and it kills you to think that I might just be doing okay on my own.”
“What kills me, young lady, is the fact that you’re raising my granddaughter to be a godless wild child.”
“You leave Beth out of this. You never raised a child from birth, so please don’t presume to criticize how I’m raising her.”
“Do you want your child to become some hooligan, some hippie with no sense of decent values and morals?”
“I would rather my child be a hippie than come out like you.”
A long silence hovered above the room as Corabeth let that sink in. Finally, after several long breaths, she stood and headed for the guest room.
“What are you doing?” Aimee asked, following her in.
“I’m leaving. I’ll pack my bag and be on the first train back to Virginia.”
“Oh, please. You’re not leaving. You’re just trying to lay a guilt trip on me.”
“Call it what you will, Aimee, but I am leaving.” She pulled the trunk out of the closet and tossed it on the bed. She had to fuss with the latch, which was stiff with age. When it finally opened, the top flew backwards onto the mattress with a plop.
Aimee sat on the bed, opposite the trunk, and watched as her mother began to throw dress after dress into the trunk. As usual, she’d brought way too much clothes. Aimee took a deep, calming breath, wondering how she was going to straighten this out without compromising her own hard-earned principles. “Mama, we’re both very tired. We both said some things that...well, maybe we should get a good night’s sleep and talk about this in the morning.”
“I won’t be here in the morning,” came the terse reply. A navy blue dress emphasized her point as it hit the bottom of the trunk.
“Look, can’t we talk about this?”
Corabeth let out an exasperated sigh. “You know, I may just be a country storekeeper’s wife who never got any further in life than Jefferson County. I may be a complete embarrassment to you and your cosmopolitan friends. But I don’t feel I have been that terrible a mother to you that you could say such a thing to me.”
Aimee felt a pang of guilt, made even sharper by the knowledge that this time Corabeth wasn’t even trying. She was hurt, and it showed in every fiber of her being. Aimee put her hand on her mother’s arm. “Mama, sit down.” Corabeth shook the hand away. “Please, I want to explain what I said.”
Her mother gave her a sharp glare. “What you said was quite self-explanatory, thank you.”
“Mama, please!” When the older woman finally, reluctantly, sat on the bed as far away from her as possible, Aimee continued in a gentler tone. “All my life, I’ve been listening to you talk about all the things you could have been. A dancer, a writer, a stage actress. So much of your life you’ve lived in fear, Mama. I don’t blame you; you’re a product of your circumstance. But I don’t want that for Beth. I don’t want her to make decisions based on fear, or lack of opportunities. I don’t want her to look back at her life and think, ‘I could have--’”
She eased closer to her mother, putting an arm around her waist. “I remember when you and Daddy first came to get me at the orphanage. I looked at you and thought you could have been a movie star. You were so poised, so elegant. I wanted to be just like you. It wasn’t until I got older that I realized how much you had missed, how many opportunities had passed you by. You found a way to overcome those missed opportunities, and I truly believe you made a good life for yourself and Daddy. But, Mama, don’t you see? All the things you could have been, given the proper encouragement and opportunity--these are the things I want for Beth. I can’t raise her the way you raised me; I can’t raise her the way your mother raised you. It’s a new world, and she’s going to have to be a new kind of person to succeed in this world.”
Corabeth said nothing. She looked down at Aimee’s feet, clad in woven sandals, toenails polished a dark brown-red. “Those shoes can’t possibly have proper arch support, dear.”
Aimee laughed. “You’re a work of art, Mama.”
Corabeth gave her a small smile and a gentle squeeze. “I want all those things for Beth, too. I want her to have the best she can have. Is it so wrong for your father and I to want to help out?”
“You are helping, Mama. Just by being here, but I--” Aimee paused, looking for words. “I was going to say I needed your support for the way I’m raising my daughter. But that’s not true. I don’t need your support.” She looked straight into her mother’s eyes. “I want your support.”
“It’s a new world out there, isn’t it?” Corabeth whispered. She drew her daughter into a tight embrace and whispered, “I love you.”
The clock next to her bed read just after one in the morning when Corabeth heard the door open. She cracked open her eyes, adjusting to the darkness. A small set of padded feet scuffed across the floor and two wide eyes peered over the side of her bed. “Gram?”
“Beth, honey, what are you doing up?”
“There’s a monster in my room. Can I get in with you?” The child scurried under the covers next to her grandmother, who made room for her in the bed.
“What kind of monster, Bethie?” Corabeth stifled a gasped as the child elbowed her in the stomach, trying to get situated.
“A purple one,” came the muffled reply. Beth insinuated herself into Corabeth’s arms, curled up like a rag doll against her. “With green teeth and yellow hair.”
“Oh, my. That sounds very frightening.”
“Can I sleep here with you? Just in case the monster comes back?”
Corabeth smiled to herself. “Just this once, sweetheart.”
They lay there in silence for a long time before Beth whispered, “Gram, are you going back to Virginia tomorrow?” At her grandmother’s astonished gasp, the child explained, “I heard you and Mama fighting. Please don’t go, Gram. I like having you here. I like how you talk and the words you say, and you smell pretty.”
“Oh, darling, I’m not going home yet. Your mother and I just had a disagreement. We talked it out, and I’m going to stay a little while longer.” She hugged Beth reassuringly. “You and I will have a lot of fun before I go, and maybe someday, you can come visit your Grandpa and me in Jefferson County. Would you like that?”
“Do they have bears in Jefferson County?”
Corabeth laughed softly. “Certainly not in my house.”
The storm had passed by the time Aimee and Corabeth finished their coffee. “Don’t you see, Mama? You learned, little by little, to open your mind. Looking back on it now, a lot of what you said was sensible, and I would have been sensible to listen to you. But you let me make my own mistakes. You let me grow up, something your own parents never let you do.”
Corabeth nodded. “It hurt to hear those things from my own daughter.” She looked at the ten year old guide sitting before her. At one moment, she seemed both innocent and ageless, child and woman simultaneously.
“But you listened, and you learned. You could have just walked out that very night--there had been many times in your life when you would have. Your pride would have forced you out of my life and Beth’s life, possibly forever. But you didn’t walk out. You stayed. And because of that, you were there for Beth when she needed you most.” Aimee grinned lopsidedly at her mother. “Are you up for another memory?”
***
One evening, when the air began getting cooler and the days shorter, the store keeper went up the mountain to hunt. Being old and having difficulty with his sight, he accidentally shot a cat, thinking it to be a rabbit or squirrel. A burst of smoke appeared where the dead cat fell, and a horrible crone screamed in outrage.
“What have you done?” she shrieked. “For this, you will die.”
“Please,” cried the store keeper. “I am an old man. If I die, who will look after my wife? I beg of you, forgive me.”
Surprised by the store keeper’s modesty, his deference, his concern for his wife, the hag whispered, “I’ll tell you what, old man. If someone comes to claim you, I might be persuaded to let you go. But if night falls three times before then, I will take your life.” With that, she cast a spell on him, causing a blue light to swirl so quickly around him that he fell into a mysterious slumber. He stood there, shotgun in hand, a human statue waiting to be admired.
“Now,” said the witch. “We shall see.”
Corabeth walked down the lane to see Mr. Godsey straightening the red, white, and blue banner in the front of the store. Bicentennial fever had hit the entire country, and Ike Godsey was no exception. “Rhinestone Cowboy” was playing on the small transistor radio he’d set on the porch near the bottom of the ladder, and Ike was happily singing along with Glenn Campbell when he noticed her. “Hi, honey. Is the banner still crooked?”
Dressed in her second-best dress, Corabeth looked the proper Southern matriarch. She’d just gotten back from the memorial site where the Walton’s Mountain 4th of July picnic was being set up. Her hair, now completely silver, was swept up in an elaborate coif and held in place with an antique silver barrette. “Mr. Godsey, I hardly think it’s appropriate for a man of your age to be climbing ladders.”
Ike scowled. “Aw, Corabeth. I’ve been climbing ladders all my life, and I’m not about to stop now.”
She scowled, but knew it was futile to argue with him when he got...macho. “Where is Beth?”
“Inside.” Her husband began to descend the ladder, as quickly as age and caution would allow. “She’s been in Aimee’s room all day.”
“I can’t imagine why she’d be inside on such a beautiful day.” Corabeth opened the door to the store, which was closed for the July 4th holiday. “Bethie! Why don’t you come out and join us, dear?”
There was no answer.
She tried again. “Beth, we’re going to the picnic in a little while. I saw Jason Walton, and he said Patsy is going to be there.”
Ike put a hand on her shoulder. “It’s no use, Corabeth. I tried three times to get her to come outside, but she’s not budging.” He shook his head. “I don’t know who that teenager is, but it sure as heck isn’t our grand-daughter.”
“She’s thirteen, Mr. Godsey. You know what thirteen-year-old girls are like. “ She frowned as Ike began to take down the ladder. “No, don’t do that. You can have one of James Robert’s men move that tomorrow.”
“I’m not gonna have Jim Bob’s mechanics come running every time I need something done around here. I’m not an old man, Corabeth.”
“Of course you are, Mr. Godsey.” Corabeth said as she headed into the store.
“Well, you don’t have to treat me like one,” her husband muttered, leaning the ladder against the porch and following behind her. “Boy, it’s sure gonna be a scorcher today.”
“I’ll need you to get the ice chest out of the storage shed. I’m making petit fours for the picnic and will need something to transport them.”
Ike rolled his eyes. “Corabeth, why can’t you just make sandwiches like everybody else?”
“Petit fours are...” Corabeth let it slide. “Never mind. Just get me the ice chest, please.” Walking into the kitchen, she called out, “Beth, do you want to help me prepare for the picnic?”
Still no response. Corabeth sighed. Aimee’s daughter had been with them since just after school let out, and it had been the same thing day after day. She came out for meals--mostly--and locked herself in her room for the rest of the time. She was sullen and non-communicative. Patsy Walton, Jason’s 12-year-old daughter, had made several attempts to befriend her, but Beth would have nothing to do with her.
Corabeth felt a pang of sympathy for her granddaughter. Beth had been raised in Washington, DC, a huge city with lots of things for young people to do. And she’d been unceremoniously dumped on her grandparents for the summer in what could quite possibly be the most boring place on Earth. Corabeth knew first-hand how bored one could become on Walton’s Mountain. She tied an apron around her waist and walked over to Aimee’s room. Knocking on the door, she said, “Bethie. May I come in?”
“Yeah.”
Unceremonious, at best, Corabeth thought. She opened the door to find Beth digging through the closet. “Gram, do you know where my trunk is?”
“I thought you put it in your closet.”
“I did,” came the muffled response. “I had it under my sleeping bag. Don’t ask me why I brought that thing, but Mama made me. Anyway, my trunk’s not there.”
Beth came out of the closet, dressed in a pale green Ocean Pacific t-shirt and a pair of denim shorts Corabeth found just a little too short. Her chocolate-colored hair was shoulder-length, layered and perpetually messy. Corabeth had to resist the urge to grab her cutting shears every time she saw it.
“Is there something specific you needed, dear?”
“I had my tapes in there.”
“Maybe your grandfather put it somewhere. Mr. Godsey!”
Ike poked his head into the room. “I was just going to get that ice chest for you.”
“Do you know what happened to Beth’s trunk?”
“Sure. I moved it out into the storage shed yesterday, so she’d have more room. I thought she might want to have Jason’s little girl come by for a sleep--”
Beth’s face turned pale. “The storage shed? Are you crazy? My tapes’ll melt in five minutes out there.” She bolted past the older couple, who followed her as quickly as they could into the shed. Opening the lid of the trunk, she knelt down to survey the damage. “They’re ruined!” She pulled out an eight-track tape, holding it up in front of her grandparents. “They’re ruined!”
Ike turned a helpless look to his wife, then said, “I’m so sorry, Beth. I didn’t know you had anything in the trunk.”
“We’ll go to Charlottesville tomorrow and replace them,” Corabeth offered.
“Tomorrow’s Sunday,” Beth said bitterly. “The stores are all closed. Besides, they wouldn’t have half of these tapes out here in the Twilight Zone.” She slammed the lid of the trunk and dragged it back into the house without another word.
Ike and Corabeth stood in the July heat for a long moment, unsure what to do.
“Honey, I swear, I didn’t know she had tapes in there. I thought it was shoes or something knocking around.”
“It’s okay, Mr. Godsey. I’ll talk to her once she’s calmed down. Why don’t you go on to the picnic without me? I’ll stay with Beth.”
“But, Corabeth--”
“Just say I had a migraine and thought it best to stay out of the heat.” At his look of confused dismay, Corabeth felt a sudden wave of pity for him. He’d never known how to handle these situations with an adult woman, much less with an adolescent girl. “It’ll be fine, Ike. I promise.” She kissed him softly on the cheek. “Let’s go inside and throw a few sandwiches together. You can’t arrive empty-handed.”
