Signs and Wonders

The year that I was ten, the world was predicted to blow to bits. That summer outlines of crosses mysteriously appeared in Pentecostal church windows, and one Sunday night Frances, the only babysitter my mama had ever left me with, disappeared. Little Willie, the child who lived with Frances, came for Daddy after midnight, scared and crying because Frances hadn’t come home from fishing that afternoon. Mama got me out of bed, and she and Daddy and Willie and I got in the Scout and drove through the woods and fields looking for Frances and calling her name. Willie showed Daddy Frances’ favorite fishing spot and Daddy drove right down to the river calling her, his voice echoing back from the Georgia side of the Chattahoochee. From the back window of the Scout, I could see the reflection of the moon on the river. It seemed to be going crazy on the ripples, and even though the Scout was standing still, we seemed to be moving with the moon as it floated down the river toward daylight. Willie started crying when we didn’t find Frances, and I wanted to cry, too, but I remembered Jackie Kennedy saying to John Jr., “Kennedys don’t cry,” when the President was shot and, even though Mama had no use for the Kennedys, I admired them, so I held back tears and put my hand on Willie in an effort to absorb some of his sadness.

The next morning Daddy and the sheriff’s deputies found Frances’ dress neatly folded on an embankment above the river, her shoes placed side by side next to the dress. I could tell by the look on Daddy’s face that it was not a good sign. That afternoon her drowned body was dragged up from the Chattahoochee by her slip strap.

There was lots of talk around Daddy’s store as the word traveled that Frances was dead. Some folks said Frances must have fallen into the river. Others believed that a jealous woman had worked roots against her, and still others said somebody had put a powder in her shoes that made her go crazy. I thought about Frances singing to me as I fought sleep at night. I thought about Mama’s hand-painted enamel tray that I ruined making peanut butter cookies one afternoon. I put the tray in the oven, using it as a cookie sheet, and caused the enamel to buckle. The tray was ruined and the cookies were, too, but Frances defended me, told Mama it was an accident and not to make me feel worse about it. The stories of her being crazy didn’t sound a thing like the Frances I had known, not the one who rocked me to sleep and sang hymns to me even after I was big enough that my feet nearly touched the floor when I sat in her lap.

All of her relatives who had moved away came home for the funeral. Mama and I dressed up and attended. It was hot in the church, but pretty cardboard fans with pictures of Jesus in the Garden stirred up the sweet smells of cologne and dusting powder. When the preacher started his sermon from behind the pulpit, for the first time in my churchgoing history, I listened. His voice was electrifying. His words and rhythm were poetry -- nothing like the monotone sermons I had heard growing up a mainstream protestant. Listening to the Reverend was like listening to something older even than music. I was mesmerized. Mama and I were considered “visitors” at the funeral and were treated like guests of honor. We were invited to lead the line of friends and relatives who filed by the casket to pay respects. I had never seen a dead person before, and held tightly to Mama’s hand as I said goodbye to Frances in her best Sunday dress.

That night as I started off to sleep to the lull of the attic fan, I thought about people saying Frances might have been crazy. I remembered the sheriff from Phenix City asking Daddy if we put something in the water in lower Russell County that caused so much craziness to go on all the time. I wondered who decided what got called “crazy” and what got called “sane.”

One night before the summer was over, Daddy and Mama and Roy and Janie took Lynne, Mitch, and me to see the crosses that had appeared in the church windows. The adults tried to find a logical explanation for their appearance while the children reveled in the wonder of it all. A few weeks later, Willie was sent away to live in Atlanta with relatives he didn’t even know. School was about to start. Summer was nearly over.

The moon turned blood red and disappeared one night in late August, but the world didn’t end that summer or the next. It just kept turning. Now forty years have passed during which I have witnessed a lot of wonder and a number of miracles, too; but none has edified me more than something Daddy showed me when I visited home recently. Little Willie, now, of course, a grown man, had sent Daddy a tape of him preaching the gospel. Willie has become a preacher up in Atlanta, as full of poetry and electricity and charisma as the Reverend who preached Frances’ funeral so many years ago. I feel honored to have been there that night four decades back to share his sadness as we rode through the fields in the back of the Scout watching the moon watching us.

Copyright 2009, Marian Carcache