A Long Time Gone by Karen White

Author:Karen White
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Group US
Published: 2014-05-22T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 26

Vivien Walker Moise

INDIAN MOUND, MISSISSIPPI

MAY 2013

My mother sat at the kitchen table with Cora, dressed like Jackie Kennedy and sipping coffee with white-gloved hands. I sighed inwardly. She was coming with Chloe and me to start organizing and sorting the historical archives from where they’d been stored in the basement of City Hall in preparation for the move to the new library building. I paused on the threshold a moment before anybody noticed me, watching my mother behave as if she were a regular person having her morning coffee—a regular person who remembered that her favorite color was red, and that her daughter wasn’t in high school anymore, and that she’d spent most of her motherhood with a suitcase in her hand and an old yellow house and two children at her back.

I’d borrowed Tommy’s computer to look up ways to help people with dementia and Alzheimer’s, and had read in one study that looking at old photographs was good therapy, if not a cure. When Carrie told me that there were boxes full of old photographs in the archives inherited from the newspaper when it had downsized to smaller offices, I took it as a sign.

“Good morning,” I said, grabbing a banana from the fruit bowl and heading for the coffeemaker. I was about to ask where Chloe was when she burst into the room. She’d reverted to the hair hanging in front of her face and her black T-shirt and jeans.

She flopped herself in a chair across from my mother and next to Cora, then glowered up at me through her heavy fringe of hair. “I’m ready.”

Cora put on what I could only describe as a “teacher face” and turned toward the adolescent. “You know, Chloe, I’d be happy to stay here with you and go through the history textbook section on manifest destiny and the acquisition of Texas. Or you can go help Vivien with the archives today. It’s completely up to you.”

Chloe rolled her eyes. “Whatever.”

I cleared my throat.

“Yes, ma’am.” She didn’t mumble it, but looked up at the ceiling.

I pulled another banana from the bunch and placed it in front of Chloe. “Have some breakfast. It’s the most important meal of the day.”

She sighed heavily, as if I’d just asked her to dig a well, but took the fruit and began to peel it with surgical precision. I wondered if she got that from her father.

“How’s Mathilda?” I asked Cora.

“She’s fine, thank you. Fit as a fiddle. I can only hope that I’ve inherited those good longevity genes.”

“Good to hear it. Please tell her hello from me. I’m going to try to stop by again soon. We didn’t get to finish our conversation, and the last couple of times I dropped by I was told she was too tired or feeling poorly.”

Cora looked at me oddly. “Are you sure you were all talking about the same Mathilda? Because my grandmother hasn’t felt poorly a day in her life.”

“That’s what I thought, too. No matter. Just please tell her that I’ll try again soon.

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