TheBanyanTree: Sidda's Novel -- 2

[Terri W.]

I have tried, I admit, to avoid writing this next part, because it  
isn't so pleasant to think about or remember too well.  I can't help  
but think that it will be equally unpleasant for anyone to read,  
should anyone want to.  But maybe I'm probably wrong.  It's an  
interesting enough story, and people tend to like to hear about  
misfortunes, as long as they happen to others.  (See "Bless her  
heart" in preceding pages.)

Today is threatening rain.  The sky is like mottled pewter overhead.   
I've heard thunder all morning, but it's never come closer than far  
away.  A reasonable kind of late October day in central Texas.

"My sorrow, when she's here with me
Thinks these dark days of autumn rain
Are beautiful as days can be.
She loves the bare and withered tree.
She walks the sodden pasture lane."

My November Guest
Robert Frost
____________________

I have sat here for almost an hour since writing the above  
paragraphs.  I wish I knew why this is all so frightening to me.   
Sometimes I feel I have every reason to be afraid of every single  
thing in this world.  But as to this: am I afraid someone will read  
it?  Afraid no one will?  Afraid everyone will and not a human soul  
will care?

I have now fetched a small candle to set next to me.  When I lit it,  
I was no longer alone.  It is good company.

"Tell your story" is what he said.  I take a breath.  And here goes:


When I was eleven years old, I lived in this same house in the  
countryside outside of Friendship with my mother, my father, and my  
beautiful sister, Louisa May.  Louisa May was only six, but already  
an exceptionally pretty little girl, with her dark hair and rosebud  
lips.  She didn't yet know how pretty was.  Which made her a lot  
easier to live with than she is now.

My daddy, James Goodner, was a farmer andrancher.  His crops were  
peanuts, pumpkins, and watermelons.  We also kept a few cows, and an  
old horse, Dobbin (really, that was his name), and we had a couple of  
goats for a while.  I had a pet baby goat I named Pansy, who I  
discovered frozen to death out in the pasture one Easter morning.   
She had always been tiny and frail.  I loved her for that, and I  
cried till I was sick when she died.

I was always a shy child.  At least, that's what others said about  
me.  I was the sort of child that grownups talked about when I was  
right there in front of them.  I don't know why they do that.  It's  
very rude.  I was a bookworm from the time I could read, and became a  
favorite of Nannie Ray Baker, the librarian lady, very early on.   
When the library acquired a bookmobile (which was really a lot of  
citizens getting together to buy Nannie Ray Baker a vehicle of her  
own), she would let me ride around with her, delivering books and  
setting up displays at Piggly Wiggly and the Catholic Youth Center.

My dad and I were drawn together by our similar personalities.  Now I  
suspect we weren't very much alike at all, but he was taciturn and I  
was quiet, so folks thought we were two of a kind.  He did not care  
for company, most days, did not talk a lot, worked hard, and when he  
felt blue or like he'd let someone down, he worked even harder.  Mama  
fell for him, I guess, because "opposites attract."  And he was  
certainly one of the best catches in the county.  I think he could  
never really believe his good fortune in claiming Maggie for his  
wife.  He thought he was destined to be one of the Bachelor Farmers  
that these lands are full of.  These are men who are married to the  
land.  They work hard all day, talk only to men at the feed store and  
coffee shop.  When they come in from working in the field, they are  
too tired to go out to find a mate.  Besides, all they know is  
farming and ranching, anyway, so what would they say to a girl?  I  
can name off at least a dozen of these men right now.  John Paul  
Bartee, Norman Kaiser, Scott Keller, Jimmy Newcomb, Sammy Jo Blakely,  
Dennis Rohan, Marcus Schmidt, Johnny Pressly, Billy Ray Petit, Deuce  
Peters, Davey Martinson... how many is that?  One more.  I'll think  
of him.  Just give me a minute.

Anyway, because of Mama, Daddy did not end up among these men, and he  
was deeply grateful.  He still didn't know how to talk to her, and he  
was still married to his land, but there always seemed to be a kind  
of understanding, like a strong invisible current, between them.   
They loved each other.

I was eleven, and desperately craved attention from my daddy.  I  
wanted him to notice me and smile at me and encourage my entrance  
into womanhood and enjoy my company and laugh at my jokes.  I wanted  
his acceptance and approval and love.

Mickey Hagan.  There.  That's twelve.  He's over in Lavaca County,  
but he'll do for a list.

On a day much like today, only in January, I went out to do some  
plowing with Daddy.  He had a new tractor, a very large metal  
creature which frightened and worried Mama, but he had said that  
tractors are like hoses and ladders and extension cords -- you should  
get them a size larger than you think you'll ever need.  So he had a  
big tractor, and, in a pyrotechnical display of poor judgement, took  
it out on a soggy day into a muddy field.  With his eleven-year-old  
daughter sitting on his lap.

I truly wanted to be with him, but I found most farm work  
uninspiring, so I was reading a book when it happened.  The plow,  
they say,  caught on a renegade root of an ancient live oak tree, and  
toppled the tractor over.  It landed on Daddy, who had pushed me high  
into the air -- as if he were trying to jettison me  out of the whole  
situation.  I hit the trunk of that same tree, the right side of my  
head did, and I slid down in an unconscious  crumpled heap at the  
foot of it.

Daddy was killed.

When I came to, I had the worst headache of my life.  It was raining  
a little, and cold, and getting dark.  I stumbled to the overturned  
tractor, which had dug its way even deeper into the mud before it  
finally ran out of gas.  I had to circle it to find Daddy, but as  
soon as I saw him, I knew he was dead.  He had no color at all in his  
face.  I think I screamed, but I may just be adding that part.

I ran back to the house.  I remember how warm and glowing it looked  
in the dark rain.  So safe and welcoming.  And I was about to deliver  
news that would change all our lives for ever.  I thought about  
running away, then.  I didn't want to have to tell anyone this  
terrible news.  I didn't want it to be so.  I was afraid they would  
hate me for saying it.  And I didn't blame them.

As it turned out, I didn't tell them.  I couldn't.  I opened my mouth  
and no words at all came out.  Mama was so upset, she shook me HARD,  
and spoke very sharply to me, I remember that.  I felt a sort of  
protective caul float down and cover me, and her distress didn't  
bother me like it should have.  None of it bothered me like it should  
have.  I observed the ambulance from the hospital and the sheriff and  
the funeral home folks and all the concerned people of Friendship,  
Texas, as if through a scrim.  Nothing they said touched me.  Dr.  
Tarin made no impression.  I felt no urge to speak up or make sounds  
or respond to his questions.  I no longer spoke at all.

At first, they thought it was shock and trauma that took my voice  
away.  They were hopeful that, in time, I would get over it.  I was a  
sensitive child, after all, and I'd seen something horrible.  Dr.  
Tarin told Mama that he'd heard of things like this, people becoming  
mute after upsets.  He told a fascinating story about a man he'd read  
about who lost his memory, his whole identity, in fact, after being  
shot in a convenience store holdup.

As time went on, though, it became clear that my voice was not coming  
back.  Dr. Tarin told Mama that the bruise on my head must have come  
from a violent blow that struck and destroyed the language part of my  
brain, as with some stroke patients.  He called it "aphasia," which  
gave Mama something to hold on to.  A name for the thing.  She seemed  
to settle down with that in her pocket.   She was now a pretty  
country widow, with one eleven=year-old mute child, an aphasia  
victim, and another beautiful six-year-old daughter, who made a room  
light up when she came in.

I suppose there are experts and authorities in the world who could  
have tackled this thing, but they don't live in Friendship, Texas.   
And Mama had no idea how to approach such a project.  She had other  
things to decide and take care of -- what to do with the farm, how to  
live without money, pressing things like that.

Besides, I had always been a quiet child, anyway.  So I made no fuss.