Free Yankee Doodle Dixie by Lisa Patton Page B

tells me. “I ain’t takin’ no money to help you move, or to take care of your little girls. You ain’t got no mama; no daddy, neither. Who else is gonna help you? Alice and them have their own hands full. They’ve got their own children. They can help you sometimes, but ole Kissie is here for you all the time.”
    That leaves me no choice but to go out and buy her groceries. Or sneak and pay her light bill. Or ask to take her car when we go out and fill it up when she’s buying her toiletries in Walgreens. The truth is, if she charged for it, her loyalty and support would bankrupt me and there’s no currency besides love to repay all that she’s done.
    Kissie’s not spent much time in Germantown and as we drive down Poplar Avenue she’s taking in the sights. Every once in a while she’ll make a comment. “I catered a party one time down that street there,” or “that’s the nursery where your daddy bought that dogwood tree that stayed in our front yard on East Chickasaw Parkway.” I love to take her driving, it reminds me of when I was a little girl and Daddy would take us all out for a Sunday drive, which always included a trip to our family plot at the cemetery. He and Mama would be in the front seat and Grandmama, Kissie, and I would be in the back. Looking back on it now, it makes me wonder when Kissie ever got a weekend off.
    When we pull up in the driveway on Glendale Cove, Kissie oohs and ahhs. That’s until she gets inside. My new rental house is nice but it’s certainly not clean. At the last second before leaving her house, Kissie remembered her Hoover. That’s after we had already put her broom, mop, toilet wand, and all kinds of cleaning supplies in my car. If it weren’t for Kissie, I’d have no idea how to cook, clean, or remove any sort of stain out of a blouse. She’s the one who taught me that hot water sets a stain—a fact that got me through college at Ole Miss and then through two messy toddlers.
    With a deadline fast approaching, we get right to work—starting first with the foyer, and then moving deeper into the home. After we clean the bathrooms, I head on in to the kitchen to start lining the cabinets with shelf paper. Kissie’s in the front living room vacuuming when she spots the big eighteen-wheeler out the front window. “Movin’ van is here, baby,” she hollers, after turning off the motor.
    “ Just in the nick of time,” I say, under my breath, dashing out the front door to meet the two men in the driveway. I direct the movers while Kissie finishes lining the kitchen cabinets. “You need to get your kitchen done first,” she says. “Your little girls need three meals a day.” Each time she gets another box marked “Kitchen” Kissie has it unpacked in minutes.
    Once the movers finally set down the last piece of furniture, right at four hours later, I write them out a check and shut the door. Kissie and I collapse on two of the wooden chairs at my breakfast room table.
    “How ’bout a Coke?” I ask her, knowing that the first thing she stocked in the fridge was two six-packs of the little green-bottled Cokes. “Let’s rest a second before we make lunch.”
    “That sounds delicious, baby.” She slightly pushes her chair away from the table.
    I clutch her arm. “I’ll get it. Don’t you move a muscle.” I’m halfway to the fridge when I remember bottles have caps. “Oops, we don’t have an opener.”
    “Oh yes we do. I unpacked it already.” She points behind her. No one in the entire world can set up a kitchen like Kristine King. She’s got an innate method of organizing each kitchen tool in relation to the stove, the sink, or the fridge. “Church key in that drawer right there beside the box. Second one down.” She shortens “icebox” to “box.” After finding it right where she said it would be, I reach into the fridge and take out two ice-cold beverages. I set one down on the table in front of her. “Here you go.”
    “Thank you.