The Journal
Carley Love Wells came upon the journal in an old, faded green Belk-Tyler shirt box. Taped to the front cover was a ripple-edged black and white snapshot.
Lifting the journal to eye-level, she got a bead on the photograph through dark-rimmed reading glasses.
Two figures sat on the brick stoop from a bygone era: a middle-aged woman with upswept hair with her arm around a teenaged girl with dark curls to her shoulders. They gazed out from the cloudy photo, the woman with a faint smile and up-lifted chin, the girl straight, sober, eyebrows furrowed. “Reba Love” was written in flowing dark ink above the woman and “June Marie Love” above the girl.
“Mama,” she whispered.
Her lips forming a trembling smile, Carley Love caressed the image with her fingertips. Next her gaze drifted downward into the shirt box. Sitting cross-legged on the floor, she sifted through the musty items: faded snapshots, two small, falling-apart albums of sepia-toned photographs of many unknown people, an ancient Bayer aspirin tin containing one powdery tablet, a dried-up Sheaffer fountain pen, discarded old buttons, and a collection of acrid vintage matchbooks.
She set the box aside, dabbed her eyes with a tissue, used the same to clean her glasses, and straightened her legs and wiggled her red-painted toes.
The call of a mourning dove brought her gaze upward toward the bedroom window. It was open. Beyond the screen, out in the stretch of yard, the bare pecan tree limbs formed dark silhouettes against the wash of fading turquoise sky.
Pushing to her feet with stiff motions and a soft groan, she padded barefoot across the room and opened wide the double doors. The faint pungent scent from the nearby creek and fall leaves wafted inside.
The spotted dog lying in the doorway to the hall gave a faint whine.
“Well, come on…here, girl.”
The dog rose to her feet, swished her silky tail, but did not cross the threshold.
Carley Love shook her head at the dog, then stepped gingerly onto the brick porch and across it to a rose bush at the edge. Golden late-afternoon light bathed the green leaves and the few blossoms of fall.
“Oh, Mama, bless my heart, here I am, talkin’ to myself and groanin’ when I move, headin’ into middle-age in your footsteps. I remember the rose bush, Mama. I dug it from Granny’s and I planted it here. Puffin’ and sweatin’…while you sat there in the lawn chair givin’ needless di-rection.”
She broke a blossom from the bush and put it to her nose, inhaling the sweetness. “I miss you, Mama.”
Returning to the bedroom, she stopped at the mirror above the dresser and tucked the rose behind her ear, a splotch of magenta against her pale hair.
A buzzing sound brought her turning toward the window, where a little green tree frog had appeared on the screen. The buzzing sounded again. Her gaze shifted to the nightstand. Three quick strides and she grabbed up the cell phone.
Jackson.
Reading the name in green letters on the screen, she melted down to the edge of the bed. The phone buzzed again before she answered.
“Hello.” Her voice came out raspy.
“Carle’Love?” Jackson’s deep voice came faintly. “Can you hear me?”
She cleared her throat, took up the watery glass of sweet tea from the nightstand, and sipped. “Yes. The connection is noisy, but I hear you.”
“You sounded far away.” When she said nothing to this, he continued, “I tried the house phone before. I’ve called three times.”
“I shut the ringer off on the house phone. I was gettin’ mostly robo calls.” She paused and stated, “But I’m right here, where I was when you left.”
The response to this comment was crackling static.
Then he said, “I’m awfully sorry about Memaw.”
She looked down at her painted toenails. “Thank you,” she said in a polite tone.
Static sounded again before his deep voice came slowly, “I told Royce today that I was comin’ to the funeral, but it occurred to me that maybe I should make sure it’s okay with you.”
Her response to this was to lift her eyes toward the ceiling and breathe deeply. Straightening her spine, she said, “Of course you should come. No matter about us, you will always be Royce’s daddy, and he’s lost his grandmother. And I know Mama would appreciate the respect.”
Then—“She loved you, Jackson. She loved you and would want you to be there.”
Again silence, before he said in a low voice, “I loved her, too.”
She closed her eyes and swallowed. “Jackson…Mama told me that you visited her. When I was at work. I’m glad you could do that.” The words came hard and with an echo of offering.
He said, “Yeah, well…I’ll see you tomorrow then. And…Care’lina—are you okay?”
“I’m okay as best I can be, Jackson. Goodbye.”
She clicked off the call, drew back her hand to throw the phone at the wall, but tossed it instead atop the ivory chenille bedspread. She took a deep breath and sat gazing downward.
She blinked, looked at the memorabilia scattered on the floor, then lowered herself once more into the midst of it all. Slipping on her reading glasses, she hauled the worn shirt box onto her lap. From it, she chose three photographs and set them aside atop a growing pile.
Again taking up the journal, she peered closely at the photo taped to the front cover. Her eyes grew soft. She then examined the entire journal, turned it over, saw a Goodwill sticker and smiled. With a tentative motion, as if expecting something unlikely to pop out, she opened the cover and stared at the page with its few sentences written in pencil.
If all is not lost…where is it?
You know you are getting old when you watch an event on the History Channel and can say that you were there.
If you want long friendships, develop a short memory.
She chuckled, even as tears welled up. She turned the page. There, written in flowing cursive with a black ball-point ink pen that skipped, was:
My name is June Marie Love Murray Crocker. I was born in Pasquotank County, in eastern North Carolina. For the better part of my first sixteen years, my mother, Reba Love Downie Murray, and I lived with my grandmother Myrtle Love Downie, who came from Quakers and changed over to Christian Scientist in her later years. At the age of six, I had appendicitis and Grandmother refused to call in a doctor but prayed over me and called it good. My mother snuck me out a window to get me to the hospital, a move that saved my life. Those were my people.
Carley Love turned the page. The next was empty.
Frowning, she fanned the pages. They were blank. Inside the back cover, she discovered a pocket. She ran her fingers into it. It was empty.
“Oh, good grief, Mama, is this all?”
Gripping the journal, she pushed to her feet. The rose tumbled from behind her ear and hit the floor in a scattering of sweet magenta petals.
“Well,” she said, “that’s about the size of my life”
She stalked from the room, bare feet padding hard on the oak floor. The dog followed at her heels down the hallway to the master bedroom where thin sunlight fell through opened French doors. The dog curled on its cushion in the corner and Carley Love sat at the small desk, pulled the chain on the lamp, opened the journal, and took up a pen. She reread her mother’s words, turned the page, smoothed it, and began to write…
* * *
Monday, October 16, 2006
3:30 p.m.
Well, those were my people, too. June Marie Love was my mother, and she died the past Wednesday. Her funeral is tomorrow. And my ex-husband is coming.
The thought that pops into my head⏤not trying to be funny⏤is that both my mother and my marriage are now burnt to ashes.
I can see Mama, hear her laughing over that. She had such a delightful laugh. And a unique sense of humor. Oddball was the term Mama used, and she was absurdly proud of it. She cultivated it.
Oh, Mama I miss you.
And Mama I am so much like you. I’ve seen that in me more and more. I used to hate it, but now I’m glad about a lot of it. I sure am glad I’ve inherited the same unfailing humorous bent. It gets you through, doesn’t it?
Now here I sit, laughing and crying at the same time, talking to Mama and God and who knows on these pages.
I tell you, making up a memory board for Mama is proving harder than I had imagined it would be. Every time I open a drawer of the old oak dresser, memories of all the people and places of my blood come to me in the scents of the home place: damp one-hundred-year-old wood, pressed roses, and the scent of Granny Reba Love—Chanel No.5 and Camel cigarettes that she smoked like a chimney all day long. That smell seems heavy in Mama’s room. No doubt Granny Reba came to escort Mama up to heaven. Mama died in her own bed. I am so glad.
Of course now Freckles will not come into the room. She sees or feels what I cannot—Mama just beyond the veil, as they say.
So many things we cannot see in this earthly life. We walk by faith, not by sight, bound for Glory, as Mama used to sing. She is there now, and I’ve been moved up to the next in line.
This journal is surely a surprise. I cannot imagine my mother entertaining the smidgen of an idea to keep a journal. She flat out wouldn't write letters, and the etiquette of a thank-you note escaped her completely. It is further surprising that this journal is beautifully bound, genuine leather covered, and embossed with the word Journal, I guess in case you tended to forget what it was. There is a Goodwill Store sticker on the back. Mama loved her thrift store shopping. She would come home with armloads of novels and things like a cock-eyed lamp or plastic wall plaque with a funny saying.
I remember Mama telling me that story about Granny Reba Love taking her out the window. I was about ten years old when I first heard that story and thought it all so heroic on Granny Reba's part. Now I wonder at it. Why in the world didn't Granny Reba just bring Mama down the stairs and out the door? I remember Big Granny as a wisp of a brittle woman. Granny Reba could have pushed her like a feather.
I suspect Granny Reba loved the drama of sneaking out the window. That’s one thing about we Love women—we are all drama queens. And funny as all get-out.
I do wish I had asked my mother more about the incident. But you can never talk about everything. When you are young, you aren't interested and later time, responsibility, and emotion cause constant distraction. Besides, sometimes Mama and I didn't want to talk to each other, we didn't want to hear what the other had to say because so much of it was about disappointment.
Even so, I know my mother loved me beyond all reason. I was the miracle ‘late’ child of Mama’s middle-age. Mama had wanted to name me after Granny Reba Love, but Daddy wouldn't have it. He and Granny did not get on.
Anyway, here I am, Carolina Love. Love is a family name. Mama's name, as above, is June Marie Love, two middle names, which irritated her all her life, because invariably she got called June Marie, and she didn't like that. I think it is beautiful.
I am so very glad to be remembering all this on these pages. Maybe Mama didn’t need to write much, but I think I do. Maybe I’m making up for her not writing, which is the silliest thing in the world. Maybe it’s just that when a woman loses her mother, she loses a big part of who she is, or was. Processing is the modern psychological term.
I know I’m processing a lot of guilt about not carrying Mama up home to be buried alongside Granny Reba in the cemetery with a host of other Love women—and where there’s not a single soul who knew her anymore—and choosing cremation here. And I am having a small service. It’s the last thing I can do to honor my mother.
Pastor Conroy is going to speak, and once I started planning a funeral, people started saying they were coming—Ronni, of course, and a number of people from the church, and my boss Miss Lila and the girls from the office. And then Sully said he and Brenda will make the trip down from Charlotte.
And now Jackson is coming.
I don’t know what to say to it.
I am still mad at him. This evening his calling me Care’lina like he does sometimes—the only one to every call me by my given name—tore clear through me because I remembered about him coming to see Mama but not me.
It is upsetting to still be mad. I want to be over it. Anger hurts so horribly. The anger of man does not serve the purpose of God, as is said. I well know mad does not get a person anything but worn out. It is fruitless and painful and generally so undignified all the way around.
But there it is, like chewing gum swallowed and stuck in my throat.
Anyway, I did okay speaking to him. I did not say or sound like I wanted to hit him upside the head with a shovel. I am well trained. Mama always said that when one could not be polite, then be very polite.
I almost said that I wanted him to come tomorrow, but thank goodness stopped myself. I do want him to come, but I don't want to want him to come.
But, okay, on this page that no one will ever read I can admit that I am glad he is coming. It is necessary, maybe like the lancing of a boil that hurts horribly but brings about good healing.
And certainly Jackson was an enormous part of my mother’s life. The plain fact is that when Jackson married me, he got Mama in the bargain. The people who think they can run away and get married and leave their family behind are fooling themselves. No matter how far from home we go, we bring with us all of our family heritage and culture. Our family is borne in our blood and in memory and habit and responsibility.
Well, I have not slept but a few hours a night in weeks, and it shows. My eyes are like two burnt holes in a blanket. Making myself up tomorrow will require a big effort. When a woman is going to see her ex-husband, she wants to look so good that he will be sorry to have lost her.
