Tomorrow River by Lesley Kagen Page A

interest in the stars, but my twin? It’s hard to believe she slid out of Mama only two minutes and ten seconds before me. She’s more so now, but Woody has always s eemed unearthly. Like only moments ago, she arrived from a far-off place where harp music fills the air, and for breakfast, lunch, and dinner they serve angel food cake and drink nectar out of ruby-encrusted chalices.
    She lies down so gently beside me, I have to check to make sure that she actually has. “Don’t do that. You’re givin’ me the creeps,” I say, trying to pry her arms apart. She’s firmly X’d them across her chest and lowered her lids. With Mama’s dusting powder covering her from top to toe, she looks exactly like one of the corpses over at Last Tidings funeral parlor that’s waiting for somebody to tip the casket closed so they can be on their way. “Look, Woody,” I say, getting strict with her. “I know you’re hurtin’ so bad that you wish you were, but you’re in fact—not dead. Remember how I felt the same way when I got so melancholy? You got to shake this off. Pull yourself up by your bootstraps.” I’m trying to hold my breath so I don’t smell Mama’s Chantilly powder. “I didn’t make much progress today, but I’ll find her, just you wait and see. It’d help a lot if you’d quit runnin’ off.”
    I know it seems like I don’t miss my mother as much as she does, but I do. It’s just that Woody is counting on me to rescue our damsel in distress, so I cannot wear my feelings on my sleeve the way she does. I got to stay strong, armored up, but I want you to know, there is no way to describe how much I pine for our mother. The way she presses her cool full lips down to soak the fever off my forehead. Her cheeks as smooth as the underbelly of leaves and how her honey hair . . . aw, shoot.
    I guess this is as good a time as any to come clean with you.
    It was Easter Sunday.
    The last we had together.
    Shortly after we got home from Mass, the entire Carmody family sat down at the dining room table to a lunch of burnt ham, soggy green bean casserole, and partially cooked biscuits.
    Grampa dug right in, but after chewing for a bit, he spit it all back out onto his plate.
    “This the kind of swill Yankees eat? No wonder you’re skinny as a pot handle, Wally.”
    Uncle Blackie set the plastic vomit he keeps in his pocket up on the table and made some retching sounds.
    Gramma mumbled a prayer in Latin, but it was too late even for the Almighty to intercede. Grampa Gus had already ripped the napkin off from around his neck, threw it down on his plate, and said, “I’m headin’ to The Southern Inn to see if they got anything left. Hell, even their garbage would be better than this slop. Y’all comin’?”
    Grampa and Uncle Blackie stormed out the front door, but on her way out, Gramma Ruth Love took the time to say politely to her daughter-in-law, who she really loves despite her failings, “The cranberries were nicely done, Evelyn.”
    Papa went fuchsia in the face about his wife not being a good cook after they slammed the door behind them. I completely understood that. I mean, it’s a woman’s job to keep house and cook meals, and Mama would be the first to admit that she really wasn’t A-1 at neither.
    Papa broke the ponderous silence when he said, “You may clear the table now, Mother.” That’s what he called her: Mother. No matter how many times she corrected him by saying, “Please don’t call me that. My name is Eve.”
    Woody carried the dishes into the kitchen and Mama and her got busy washing up. Papa and I stayed at the table and talked planetary business, but I could hear my sister in the kitchen saying over the running water and scraping, “I thought it was a real good dinner. The ham, especially. I like it crunchy like that,” and other nice compliments about the gummy biscuits.
    When the last dish was dry, my mother came back out red-eyed and told Papa, “I’m sorry, Walt. I tried.”