division of the University of Virginia in Wise. Iva Lou was allowed to check out these books because she knows the powers that be at the university library. (They’ve shared Sanka.)
She shoves a book under my nose and shows me a panoramic photograph. “Look, here’s Bergamo. It’s about the size of Big Stone Gap.”
I study the panorama of Mama’s hometown. There is a fountain with dancing angels in the middle of the square. Buggies led by donkeys cart people around. There are cobblestone streets. Fig trees. Small stone houses. Children. I picture my mother there as a girl. It seems to fit.
Theodore and Iva Lou leave around midnight. I clean up the dishes and walk through the first floor, turning out the lights. Then I do something I haven’t done since my mother died. I go into her room.
My mother’s room is simple. There is a double bed with a white cotton coverlet; over the bed hangs a small wooden crucifix. A straight-backed chair and a bureau stand against the wall opposite the window. Her sewing machine is tucked in a small alcove next to the window. The closet is small, its contents neat. I sit on the edge of her bed and look around the room as though I’ve never been inside of it before. I used to lie in here with her when she was dying. I took my rightful place next to her, as I was all she had. When I was little and I got sick, I would come and get her, but she never took me into her bed with my father. She would always come to my room on the second floor and lie with me there. She used to tell me that she didn’t want to disturb him, but now I know she could not disturb him. He knew I wasn’t his, and though he could have lovingly claimed me, he did not, and she kept me quiet. That was their understanding. And it was an understanding that lasted both of their lifetimes.
My mother was an avid reader, too. Occasionally, she bought books, but usually she just checked them off the Bookmobile as I did. She loved books about romance. Books that took place in faraway places and times. Stories with costumes. When Mama designed the costumes for the Drama, she studied the period, drew the sketches and everything. She had less theatrical tasks too. Mama has made every cheerleader uniform since anyone can remember. She made elaborate square-dancing skirts. And prom dresses, of course. When a customer wanted fancy, my mother would say in her Italian accent, “Simple is better. Simple. Simple.” Sometimes she succeeded, but often I would hear her clucking as she sewed sequins and lace onto dresses that didn’t need the fanfare. Many times when folks dropped off their clothes for altering or mending she would convince a lady to line a cloth coat in red satin or a skirt in silk. “No one will see it, but you will know it’s there and it will feel wonderful,” she’d say. My mother knew the finer things, but she didn’t have a life that could celebrate them. I pick up a book off the nightstand. Glamorous Gene Tierney is on the cover. It’s a book about costumes from the movies of the Golden Age in Hollywood.
Mama always took me to the movies over at the Trail Theater, right next to Zackie’s. I didn’t know it at the time, but Jim Roy Honeycutt, who owned the place, showed movies that were ten, fifteen years old. I never bothered to ask my mother why the people on the screen were wearing funny hats and hairdos; I just accepted it. It wasn’t until years later that I found out Mr. Honeycutt saved a lot of money renting old prints. That’s how I fell in love with the leading men of the 1930s and ’40s: Clark Gable, William Powell, Spencer Tracy, Robert Taylor, and especially Joel McCrea. Mama loved the actresses, costumed by the great designers Edith Head, Adrian, and Travis Banton. I remember their names because Mama always pointed them out to me on the screen. We would see the same movies over and over again so Mama could study the clothes. Later she would discuss them with me in great detail. The
She shoves a book under my nose and shows me a panoramic photograph. “Look, here’s Bergamo. It’s about the size of Big Stone Gap.”
I study the panorama of Mama’s hometown. There is a fountain with dancing angels in the middle of the square. Buggies led by donkeys cart people around. There are cobblestone streets. Fig trees. Small stone houses. Children. I picture my mother there as a girl. It seems to fit.
Theodore and Iva Lou leave around midnight. I clean up the dishes and walk through the first floor, turning out the lights. Then I do something I haven’t done since my mother died. I go into her room.
My mother’s room is simple. There is a double bed with a white cotton coverlet; over the bed hangs a small wooden crucifix. A straight-backed chair and a bureau stand against the wall opposite the window. Her sewing machine is tucked in a small alcove next to the window. The closet is small, its contents neat. I sit on the edge of her bed and look around the room as though I’ve never been inside of it before. I used to lie in here with her when she was dying. I took my rightful place next to her, as I was all she had. When I was little and I got sick, I would come and get her, but she never took me into her bed with my father. She would always come to my room on the second floor and lie with me there. She used to tell me that she didn’t want to disturb him, but now I know she could not disturb him. He knew I wasn’t his, and though he could have lovingly claimed me, he did not, and she kept me quiet. That was their understanding. And it was an understanding that lasted both of their lifetimes.
My mother was an avid reader, too. Occasionally, she bought books, but usually she just checked them off the Bookmobile as I did. She loved books about romance. Books that took place in faraway places and times. Stories with costumes. When Mama designed the costumes for the Drama, she studied the period, drew the sketches and everything. She had less theatrical tasks too. Mama has made every cheerleader uniform since anyone can remember. She made elaborate square-dancing skirts. And prom dresses, of course. When a customer wanted fancy, my mother would say in her Italian accent, “Simple is better. Simple. Simple.” Sometimes she succeeded, but often I would hear her clucking as she sewed sequins and lace onto dresses that didn’t need the fanfare. Many times when folks dropped off their clothes for altering or mending she would convince a lady to line a cloth coat in red satin or a skirt in silk. “No one will see it, but you will know it’s there and it will feel wonderful,” she’d say. My mother knew the finer things, but she didn’t have a life that could celebrate them. I pick up a book off the nightstand. Glamorous Gene Tierney is on the cover. It’s a book about costumes from the movies of the Golden Age in Hollywood.
Mama always took me to the movies over at the Trail Theater, right next to Zackie’s. I didn’t know it at the time, but Jim Roy Honeycutt, who owned the place, showed movies that were ten, fifteen years old. I never bothered to ask my mother why the people on the screen were wearing funny hats and hairdos; I just accepted it. It wasn’t until years later that I found out Mr. Honeycutt saved a lot of money renting old prints. That’s how I fell in love with the leading men of the 1930s and ’40s: Clark Gable, William Powell, Spencer Tracy, Robert Taylor, and especially Joel McCrea. Mama loved the actresses, costumed by the great designers Edith Head, Adrian, and Travis Banton. I remember their names because Mama always pointed them out to me on the screen. We would see the same movies over and over again so Mama could study the clothes. Later she would discuss them with me in great detail. The
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