Home - Carol Arnold

Sometimes when I think of home I make up a picture in my mind. I don’t have Delores anymore, but a real mother who wears an apron with flour all over it. She bakes chocolate chip cookies every day, or maybe peanut butter. She greets me and Kiki at the door when we come home and says “Oh my girls are home. How happy I am.” She gives each of us a big fat kiss on the warm spots on our heads, the spot where the sun hits. On Sundays, we lie on the lawn together and braid each other’s hair. We play Hearts and she let’s us win. She says “Oh, my girls are so smart I just don’t know what to do with them.” She makes matching dresses for us, three of them, lemon drop color, seer-sucker with white rick-rack. We go to the grocery store together. We hold hands, and all the ladies smile. The grocery man gives us tootsie pops. He says, “you girls sure take after your Mother, prettiest lady I ever seen.”

I cry sometimes thinking about home, the way I want it to be. I cry under my sheets with the lights out. One night Alma came to bed and said, “Spidee, are you crying?” I said, no. She said “yes you are, I heard you, what you crying about.” I said “nothing, there’s nothing in the world to cry about.” She said “Well, let’s say a prayer anyway,” and I had to get outta bed and kneel and say Our Father with her. It was okay, but I know no God is coming down to give me a mother like I want. No God can do that.

Closest I have to home now is Horace. After he saw me that day, standing in the sinner line getting his beans, he tries to get real friendly. He says, “Yeah, you’re Spider, that girl I gave the ride home to.” I say, “you might think I am but I’m not, I’m a different Spider.” He says, “there’s not more than one Spider in the world and she’s you. Yeah, we had a good old time that night, didn’t we.”

I didn’t say anything cause I know he’s right about that. I did have a good old time that night, but now that I’m a lot older, and have my period and all, I know I should have never taken my clothes off with him, that I was “a stupid kid,” like Delores used to say when I spilled catsup on my blouse or something. So I just pretend it never happened.

He comes back a few days later and hangs around. I’m sweeping up the front steps of the church and there he is. He’s not driving the T-Bird anymore, he’s walking. I say, “where’s that old T-Bird?” and he says “Police took it.” I don’t want to know any more so don’t ask him.

He starts hanging around when Preacher Omar is there, talking to him. I hear them one morning when I’m up on the roof by the cross and flame. The sound just drifts up and I can hear everything they say.

“Yes, Preacher, I have a lot of experience with kids, used to be a teacher, first grade.”

“What happened?” Preacher Omar says. “How come you not teaching anymore?”

“School closed down. Hard times. I’m trying to get back on my feet, had a few set backs.” As if Preacher Omar didn’t know this. All the sinners that come around have a few set backs.

“Yeah, I was thinking, Preacher, maybe you need a little help with the Sunday school now and then. I’m good with Bible stories. Love ‘em myself.”

“Well, we are a little short handed right now. Alma and Spidee have their hands full with the lunches and hymns. Just got Miss Ogle volunteering for me with the Sunday school, and she’s pretty old. Can’t always keep up with those kids.”

“Why don’t I come around this Sunday and help out Mrs. Ogle. I’ll do whatever needs doing. Just let me know, I’ll do it.”

I squint my eyes when I hear all this and look up at that flame goin through the cross. Sometimes that flame looks like its stabbing that cross, like it’s just piercing that old cross’ heart. Sometimes I feel like I’m that too, like my heart is piercing into two pieces and I don’t know what to do with either one.