ONCE A YEAR or so it happens. Usually on a Friday or Saturday night. That’s the night folks partake, Daddy would say when trying to explain. Don’t try to make sense of a person partaking. Mrs. Baine would usually walk because her truck never ran so well. She would holler from the drive for Mama to come on out. Mama would send Annie and Caroline to their bedroom and tell them to close the door and stay put until called to come out again.
When they were young, the girls would do as told. They would close the door and then the windows and sit side by side on the edge of Annie’s bed. Caroline would cry because even though they couldn’t make out who was saying what through the closed windows, they could make out the hollering and screaming and most certainly they could make out Daddy’s voice. He didn’t start out yelling, but by the end, by the time Sheriff Fulkerson pulled up the drive, loaded up Mrs. Baine, and drove her home, Daddy would be yelling. As they sat on the bed, Annie and Caroline would hold hands, their feet dangling, not quite touching the floor, and they’d not move until Mama tapped on the door and invited them to come on out again.
As the girls grew older, they still did as they were told, but Annie stopped closing the front window and if it was already closed, she would open it. Even when Caroline begged her not to, Annie would unhitch the latch and slide the window up at least a few inches because just as she had soaked up Aunt Juna being her real mother somewhere along the way, she had also soaked up that Mrs. Baine came to the house yelling and crying and carrying on because she wanted to see Annie. Not only was Aunt Juna Annie’s mama, Joseph Carl Baine was her daddy, and that’s largely the reason he took his last breath while hanging from the end of a rope.
“No more Baines in Hayden County, Mama,” Annie says. She is almost close enough to Grandma’s rocker to reach out and touch it. “No more. No more crossing the road or skipping church. Mrs. Baine won’t come no more and yell at you, Mama. No more Baines.”
“Enough,” Mama shouts. “Not another word about the Baines.”
And then Annie remembers.
“Stop that rocking, Grandma.”
Grandma looks at the hand doing the nudging. She looks at it like it’s someone else’s hand, and she doesn’t have the first idea what that hand is doing. Not sure why but certain she has to do something, anything, Annie drops down in the rocking chair, grabs the wooden armrests, one in each fist, and holds on tight.
“Oh, good Lord,” Grandma says. “I done it now.”
“Mother,” Mama says, “language.”
Annie keeps a good hold on the chair, digs her toes into the floor so there will be no more rocking, and looks back at Grandma. The expression on her face—mouth hanging open, pale-blue eyes stretched wide, chin drawn in much like a turtle might do—makes Annie wish she’d stopped that rocker sooner.
“Out,” Grandma says. “Out of that chair right this instant.”
Annie leaps to her feet. “Is it too late?” she says once she is outside of what she figures is striking distance.
She starts sidestepping, putting more and more distance between herself and that chair, and doesn’t stop until she bumps up against Daddy.
“Take it away,” Annie says, jumping behind Daddy.
“Yes,” Grandma says, her blue eyes darting from the chair to Daddy and back again. “Outside, quick as you can.”
“Mother,” Mama says, “stop your nonsense.”
“Take it away, John,” Grandma says, ignoring Mama. “Out on the porch’ll do. Maybe we caught it in time.”
Daddy scoops up Annie with one strong arm and drops her in the center of the living room. He believes in facing fears. When Caroline was afraid of swimming, Daddy rowed her into the middle of the lake and dropped her in the cold, dark water. Every time she got to crying hard enough that she coughed and choked, he yanked her up by the forearm, let her rest until she stopped spitting out water, and then let go. It was not a pleasing thing to watch, but Caroline is a strong swimmer now. It occurs to Annie as she lunges to the right in hopes of taking cover again that this is her deep, murky pond, and sure enough, Daddy wraps his two large hands around her shoulders and makes her face the rocking chair square on.
“Chair ain’t going nowhere,” he says. “I don’t know what’s got you two riled, but you stop all this damn foolishness.”
Mama exhales long and loud. There is nothing Mama hates more than language defiling her home. It’ll root itself, she always says. If one of us takes liberties, other forms of nastiness will follow and then what’ll we have?
“I’ll see to it,” Grandma says, grabbing the rocker by its wooden headrest and dragging it toward the door that leads onto the front porch. “It’s my doing, so I should set it right.”
“Enough,” Mama says. The tone of her voice stills everyone in the room.
Mama’s eyes have taken on a blurry look like she’s near to tears, and she doesn’t bother brushing away the strands of hair that hang in her face. Mama doesn’t think much of the know-how, but she must know enough, remember enough from all her years growing up with Aunt Juna, to know what that empty rocking chair means.