Free Tender Graces by Kathryn Magendie

the table are still there. Nobody bothered to cover them up. Things like that have a way of becoming a part of the room until a change happens to make things stand out like red against black. Empty against full. Alive against dead.
    Before I left Louisiana, I called my brothers to tell them about Momma. Micah didn’t answer, so I left a message. I remembered how he said he’d never return to the holler, so I didn’t expect him to come.
    Andy said, “The bookstore’s hopping crazy.”
    “I know you’re busy, Andy, but I want to have a memorial. Won’t you come?”
    “I can’t see how.”
    “I understand.”
    “You sure?”
    “Yes.” I rubbed my eyes. “I’ve called Adin, but will you call Dad?”
    “I’ll make the calls.” I heard my brother’s breathing. Then, “You’ll be okay, Seestor?”
    “Yeah. Don’t worry. I’m fine. It’s just . . . I have to do this.”
    “I know you do.”
    We then disconnected our lines.
    There’s a feeling as if someone is in the room with me, and the hairs on the back of my neck stand up, but nothing happens and the feeling is gone. Ghosts. When I opened the door, I must have let someone in. I decide it doesn’t matter. They can’t hurt me anymore than they did, and they can’t love me anymore either.
    The kettle is whistling like crazy, so I cut off the fire, and unscrew the lid to the instant Maxwell House. Momma took lots of cream and two teaspoons of sugar. I stir in the sugar, a heaping teaspoon of Maxwell House, and—there’s no cream. I sip the sweet-bitter.
    I settle down at the table and think about the mornings I drank coffee with my daughter. We faced each other, just as my momma and I once did, eyes watching over the rim of our cups. I had searched my momma for answers to her mysteries. My daughter and I searched each other for resemblances we knew would never be there. I smile thinking about my only child. My adopted daughter. Momma never met her but I wonder if they’d have liked each other. Without thinking about it until I do it, I hold my womb, the empty place that remained empty no matter how much I screamed at the unfairness. Adin filled my life in the way that stranded children do, with desperation and then with acceptance and then with love. I know about it. I do.
    Through the open window, wind slips in to tickle strands of hair against my face. I have to rub the itchiness out of my eyes with thinking on the moments so hard, the taste of it on my tongue. The smell in my nose. The steam from the cup rising up like a tiny ghost.
    “Oh, Momma!” I call out. But she’s not talking. That’s how she is, back and forth with her moods. Taking deep breaths of the cool air stops the crying from taking over—the joy cry for my daughter and the sad cry for my momma’s daughter.
    The cup is empty, so I prepare another to take with me back to my room. Coffee, cup, sugar, hope, ghosts. But, no cream, no Momma.
    In the living room, I put down the coffee and open the windows to let the air come in and the ghosts go out, if they’ve a mind to. I smell earth, evergreen, moon vapors. I can’t see them, but I know ancient things are out there, and the mountain laurel, the wolf, bear, the sleeping cardinal and grosbeak, all the hidden and the found.
    The brown couch still has the indent where Momma liked to sit at the right side. The big pointed star clock is stuck on five o’clock. A magazine with prissing models is open on the coffee table. The orange radio is still on the end table.  I fiddle with the knobs, and staticy whispers waft from the speaker. It only plays ghost music now. But I remember the dancing and singing Momma did to that old thing. Even when it was forced out of Momma’s sad lips, she liked a good song. Moon mood music is what I need to block out the quiet, or is it to block out the whispers that break up the dead’s quiet? I bet Momma has a radio that works in her room, but I change my mind. Instead, I take my coffee and listen