Read Don't Call Me Mother for Free Online Page B

can’t breathe for a moment. I don’t understand who she is or how she seems to know me. Her blonde hair is a curly mass around her head; her round cheeks blush with rouge or excitement—I don’t know which. “Ahh, lovey, look how you’ve grown. You weren’t no bigger’n a grasshopper the last time I laid eyes on you.”
    “You remember Aunt Helen, don’t you?” Gram beams at me. A ruddy-faced man with thick white hair bounces down the steps. “Great balls of sheet iron,” he says, clamping a hand on my shoulder, his blue eyes spark-ling. He asks me to hold out my hand, where he places a beautiful red rose. I cup the rose in my hand and inhale its delicious scent. The adults start to chatter, Aunt Helen in her drawling Southern accent. Gram’s more relaxed and happy than I’ve ever seen her. We clatter into the house, and the smells of fresh coffee and homemade bread just out of the oven enfold us in cozy comfort.
    The house is a delight—a damask tablecloth on the dining room table, a pink rose in a silver vase, lace curtains being sucked against the screen by a gentle breeze. The back yard is like a painting, with roses in all colors—red, pink, yellow, and white—shimmering in the light. I gaze at the photographs in the bookcase: Aunt Helen when she was younger with a smooth face, Uncle Maj in his military uniform. I look at Aunt Helen, then back at the photo, comparing. She sees this and says, “Land sakes, girl, don’t be looking like that at me. We’re all older now, but the Duchess here,” she gestures toward Gram, “looks the same as she always did.”
    “Duchess,” Gram whispers, settling herself with cigarettes and ashtray at the dining room table. I can see that she loves that name. I have never heard her called that, so I ask what it means.
    Uncle Maj leans back against the chair and tamps down his pipe. “The Duchess—oh yes, oh yes. She was the Duchess from the first time we met her. At the hotel in San Antone she breezed in looking like a million dollars, dressed to the nines with ostrich boa, silk dresses, velvet shoes.”
    “Like a movie star. You shoulda seen her,” Aunt Helen huffs admiringly.
    “No one could hold a candle to Frances,” says Maj, puffing his pipe.
    “Frances? Who’s Frances?” I ask.
    Gram grins, gray smoke swirling above her head. “Frances is my middle name. Lulu Frances Hurlbut is my whole name. My second husband’s name was Hurlbut, but he died.”
    So much happened before I was born. “What was your name when you were young like me?”
    “I was born Lulu Frances Garrett. I married your grandfather Blaine, your mother’s father, and became Lulu Hawkins. When I moved to Chicago in the twenties, I preferred the name Frances. Lulu sounds so… well, so old-fashioned.”
    Aunt Helen arches an eyebrow and says, “That’s what your mama calls you—Lulu.”
    “Don’t call me that!” Gram says. She seems upset all of a sudden. “I’m Frances to you. To everyone.” Gram sashays to the window, carrying her cigarette aloft as if she’s posing for a picture.
    Helen continues the story. “She glided like a movie star through the dining room at the hotel. It was wartime. Maj was stationed there, a major. Soldiers were everywhere and, oh, a handsome lot they were. Always lookin’ at Frances. She was a looker, no doubt about it. What with her silks and satins, that cigarette holder, she looked like Greta Garbo.”
    Gram comes back to the table. We eat the hot bread, and they sip coffee with cream. Gram spoons coffee into my milk, so I can taste it. I keep looking at her, seeing her in a new way. It never occurred to me before that my grandmother had lived a long time before I was born, that she had her own history. I can’t wait to know more about her, and about my mother.
     
    Aunt Helen’s house is sunny and open to the air. The sound of children playing and the who-whoing of doves filters through the rooms. I wander off from the adults to explore