December

The Keeper of Hours

Chapter 31: December

By the second week of December the book had moved to the bedside table.

Yvonne had moved it on a Tuesday without announcing the move. She had come in that morning to bring her mother a small cup of warm water, and she had found her mother on the edge of the bed trying to stand up to walk down the hall to Eldridge's chair, and her mother's face had been doing the small quiet thing her face did now when the walking was more than the body could carry, and Yvonne had said, gently, Mama, let me bring the book in here today, and her mother had nodded and had lain back down, and Yvonne had brought the three books — the prayer book, the new composition book, the small green book — to the side table by the bed, and they had stayed there.

Tiana had come at four, as she had been coming. She had not, on seeing the books in the bedroom, said anything. She had pulled the small armchair from the corner of the room to the side of the bed, and she had sat in it, and she had read the morning with her hand on her grandmother's hand on the quilt.

Mama Tate had listened with her eyes closed.

The listening had been good.

The listening had been, for a month now, the only part of the morning Mama Tate was able to contribute, and the listening was — Tiana had told Yvonne in the kitchen after that first bedside reading — better than Mama Tate would have told them. Mama Tate was still present. Mama Tate was still praying, in the small interior way, in her bones. The names still lifted. The work was still being done. The body was being left behind by the work, gently, the way a coat is left behind by a body walking out of a room.

On Saturday, December nineteenth, Naomi came over with Sheryl for the afternoon.

Sheryl had called Yvonne on Thursday to ask if it would be a good day or if they should reschedule. Yvonne had asked Rosa, who had been at the house that morning for her Thursday visit. Rosa had said: Saturday will be fine. She is awake more in the afternoons. Bring the little girl from two to four. Do not push past four. She will fade around four.

Yvonne had told Sheryl.

They came at two-oh-four.

Naomi was five now. She had turned five — no, Mama Tate thought, correcting herself in the moment her great-granddaughter appeared in the bedroom doorway with a small wrapped package in her hand; Naomi had not turned five yet; Naomi would turn five in February; Mama Tate had been losing the small math of ages, and she had been losing it for a week, and she did not, today, correct herself outwardly. She had decided — with Yvonne, in a quiet conversation three days ago — that she would let the small ages slide. Nobody was graded.

Naomi was four, in the doorway, in a dark green Christmas dress.

"Great-Grandma."

"Naomi."

"I brought you a present."

"Bring it, baby."

Naomi came to the bedside. She handed Mama Tate a small flat package wrapped in paper Sheryl had helped her select at the drugstore yesterday. The paper had small white snowflakes on a red background. The package was wrapped with, Mama Tate suspected, five more pieces of tape than any adult wrapper would have used.

"You open it, Great-Grandma."

"I will, baby."

She opened it. Her hands were slower than they had been. Naomi waited patiently, the small slow waiting of a four-year-old who had been told in the car on the way over that Great-Grandma's hands were tired and she would have to wait.

The paper came off.

Inside was a small drawing.

The drawing was crayon on white construction paper. It showed a house with a pecan tree beside it. In front of the house, three figures — a tall woman, a small girl, and between them, a medium-sized figure Mama Tate took to be a man. At the bottom, in careful four-year-old print:

The house on Park. Me and Daddy and Great-Grandma. By Naomi Hightower. Age 4.

Mama Tate looked at the drawing.

She did not, for a moment, speak.

She held it in her hands. The hands had been shaking, more and more the last two weeks. They did not, tonight, shake. She held the drawing still. She looked at the tall woman — her, she realized, at some slightly younger age than she currently was; Naomi had drawn her with her hair black — and at the small girl in the middle and at the medium-sized figure who was Marcus.

"Naomi."

"Yes, Great-Grandma."

"This is the three of us."

"Yes. That is Daddy. That is you. That is me. The pecan tree has two pecans on it because I could not fit more."

"Yes, baby."

"Do you like it?"

Mama Tate did not, at first, speak.

She lifted her hand from the drawing to her cheek. She touched her cheek. She was crying in the small slow way she had been crying in December, the tears coming without her inviting them and without her being able to stop them, the body releasing small steady drops the way a faucet drips when the washer is shot.

"I love it, Naomi."

"Yvonne is going to put it on the dresser."

"Yes. She will."

"So you can see it from the bed."

"Yes, baby. I will see it from the bed."

Yvonne, at the door, had her hand over her face. Sheryl, behind her, had her hand on Yvonne's back.

Naomi sat on the edge of the bed for forty-five minutes.

She did not, after the drawing, need to say anything important. She talked about small things. She told Mama Tate about her preschool Christmas concert, which was on Monday. She told her she had a line to say — We bring good tidings of great joy — which she had been practicing with Sheryl every night. She offered, at Mama Tate's gentle request, to rehearse the line, and she did, in the small solemn voice of a four-year-old carrying a speaking part.

Mama Tate said, quietly, when Naomi had finished: "Baby, that was well said."

"Thank you, Great-Grandma."

"You say it just like that on Monday."

"I will."

"Yvonne, baby. The phone."

Yvonne came over. She held her phone up.

Mama Tate said: "I want a recording. Naomi, say it one more time. Yvonne is going to record you. I want to hear you say it when you are not in my room. I want to be able to hear you say it in the week after you go. I want to play it back when I cannot have you over."

"Yes, Great-Grandma."

Yvonne started the recording. Naomi said the line. She said it the same solemn way.

Yvonne saved the recording. She would, later that night, set it as Mama Tate's alarm clock — a small technical grace Yvonne had not known she would know how to do until she did it — and for the last sixteen days of her mother's life, Mama Tate would wake, when she woke at any hour, to the small voice of a four-year-old saying We bring good tidings of great joy.

The voice would be, she would think in the small quiet moments of each waking, the right one.

The Hightowers left at four.

Sheryl had hugged Mama Tate — carefully, the way people hugged her now, because she had lost another ten pounds in November and the bones had been closer to the surface all month. Reggie had kissed her hand. Naomi had climbed onto the bed for one last hug and had held on longer than any of the adults expected, her small arms around Mama Tate's neck for a full minute, and Mama Tate had held her and had not, at first, wanted to let her go, and had let her go when Naomi had, at the clear internal four-year-old signal that the hug was over, released.

They had gone.

Mama Tate had slept for two hours.

At six-thirty Yvonne brought soup. Tiana had come over. Carl was in the front room. Marcus was on FaceTime from Atlanta. They had been planning Christmas for two weeks in low steady conversations, and they had arrived at a shape:

Christmas Eve would be the four of them in the house — Mama Tate, Yvonne, Tiana, Carl — plus Marcus, who would fly in on the twenty-third. Christmas morning would be a small breakfast. Naomi and the Hightowers would come at eleven for a brief visit — no more than an hour. Nobody else would come. There would be no gathering. Mama Tate had said she wanted quiet. Yvonne had held the line on quiet with all the callers who had wanted to come. Pamela, in Atlanta, had been gracious. Curtis had understood. Dr. Akinyele would come on the twenty-seventh, briefly, for a Rosa-coordinated check. Rosa herself would come on Christmas Eve afternoon for an hour.

Yvonne went over the plan again for her mother now, soup spoon in hand.

"Mama. You good with the plan?"

"I am, baby. Quiet is what I want."

"Naomi at eleven."

"An hour, no more. Then she goes home."

"Yes, Mama. We already told Sheryl."

"And Marcus flies in the twenty-third."

"Yes, Mama."

"And what was the other thing."

"Rosa on Christmas Eve in the afternoon. Tobi on the twenty-seventh."

"Yes. Good."

She ate three spoonfuls of soup. She set the spoon down.

"Yvonne."

"Yes, Mama."

"I want to talk about a thing tonight that I have been putting off."

"Yes, Mama."

"Tiana, come in. Carl too. Marcus, stay on the phone."

They gathered. Tiana sat in the small armchair by the bed. Carl stood at the foot. Yvonne sat on the bed. Marcus, on Yvonne's phone propped on the dresser, was visible in the small rectangle.

"Babies. I want to talk about my funeral."

Nobody, at first, spoke.

"I have been putting this off. I should not have. I have known since October. I have been protecting you all. You are big enough. You are old enough. We need to talk about it once. I will not bring it up again. We will have it said, and then we will not have it hanging over us for the next — whatever is the next."

"Yes, Mama," said Yvonne.

"The file is in the dresser. Bottom drawer. The manila folder labeled Services. Yvonne, you have seen it. The instructions are there. I want to go over them out loud one time so that you all know, and so that Marcus hears, and so that Tiana hears, and so that Carl hears, and so that we do not have to open the folder in a hurry."

She had them, over the next twenty minutes, read through the folder together. The pastor was Pastor Honeycutt. The hymns were four — Blessed Assurance, Great Is Thy Faithfulness, His Eye Is on the Sparrow, and I'll Fly Away. The choir had been asked in October. The casket had been chosen in 2009 from the funeral home on Lamar and had been paid for since 2011. The plot was next to Eldridge at Elmwood. The testimony for the Mothers' Board was to be given by Sister Doris Akers, who had been asked last month and had accepted. The family eulogy was to be given by Yvonne — Mama Tate had decided this a year ago — with Tiana reading the Twenty-third Psalm before the eulogy. Marcus was asked to lead the congregation in the Lord's Prayer. Carl was asked to walk his mother-in-law up the aisle during the family seating. Naomi, if she wanted to, could sit in the first pew with her grandparents.

Nobody was to wear black if they did not want to. Mama Tate had requested, explicitly, that the family wear navy or gray or white. She wanted a Resurrection morning feel, not a funeral feel. Her wedding ring was to stay on her hand. Eldridge's wedding ring was in the dresser and was to go on her right hand the morning of the service. The small gold cross she had been wearing since 1971 was to stay on her.

The prayer book would go in the casket with her. The composition book, the new one, would stay with Tiana. The small green book would stay with Tiana too — the full inheritance. The small framed photograph of Mama Funmi would go on Tiana's dresser. The small framed photograph of Daphne Crenshaw would stay in the prayer book, in its pocket inside the front cover.

The repast would be in the basement at Mt. Calvary. The auxiliary had, at Mama Tate's request last month, already agreed. The caterer was the same one who had handled Mother Wells's in June. The menu was already approved. Patrice would fly in from Houston with Camille and Ruth. Stephen would fly in from Detroit. The Hightowers would come. Sister Doris would speak as she was the Mothers' Board representative. Pamela would read a psalm. There would be no open mic; Mama Tate had been firm. The service was not to run long.

Yvonne read through the last item carefully.

"Mama."

"Yes, baby."

"You put in here that you want a brief notice to be mailed to Tamika Wells in Oakland. Not a phone call. Not a visit. A letter."

"Yes."

"The letter is already drafted."

"It is. I wrote it in October. Pamela has a copy. Curtis has a copy. You have a copy. The letter says only that I have gone, that the keeping continues through Tiana, that her name is still in the book, and that nothing is asked of her. No response is expected. No reply is required. The letter is her receipt."

"Yes, Mama."

"Mail it the day after I go. Not the day of. The day after."

"Yes, Mama."

"And one more thing, babies."

"Yes, Mama."

"When the notice of death goes in the paper — Yvonne, you know the notice you filed last year in the folder in the drawer — I want the notice to include a line I did not, in 2009 when we first drafted it, know to include. I want the notice to include the line The Lord kept her, and she kept what He gave her. That line, in those words. You add it before you call the paper."

"Yes, Mama."

"Good. That is all. Close the folder. We have done the work. We are not going to open it again."

The room was quiet for a moment.

Marcus, on the phone, said: "Mama Tate. Thank you for walking us through it."

"You are welcome, son."

"I love you, Mama."

"I love you, Marcus."

Tiana, beside her, had her hand on her grandmother's hand.

"Grandma."

"Yes, Tiana."

"I am going to be all right."

"I know you are, baby."

"I wanted you to hear me say it."

"I hear you."

Yvonne was crying quietly.

Carl stood at the foot of the bed with his hands folded in front of him.

"Mama."

"Yes, Carl."

"I will walk you up the aisle."

"I know you will, son."

"I will do it slow."

"I know you will."

"And Mama —"

"Yes, Carl."

"Thank you for letting me be the man at the door."

She could not, for a moment, speak.

"Carl Brooks. You were the right man at the right door for forty-four years. The Lord picked you. He did not miss. You have done it well. You will do this last part well too. You are going to be all right, son. Yvonne will need you. You are going to be there. You know how to be there. You have known how since you walked into this kitchen in 1996."

"Yes, Mama."

They said good night at nine.

Marcus said his goodbyes on the phone. He would see them on the twenty-third. Tiana went home to her own apartment. Carl stayed on the couch in the front room the way Carl had been sleeping on the couch some nights now. Yvonne slept in the spare room across the hall with the door open.

Mama Tate, in the bed, lay for a while looking at the small drawing Naomi had made, which Yvonne had propped on the dresser where Mama Tate could see it from the bed.

She looked at the three figures — her, Marcus, Naomi — in front of the small crayon pecan tree.

She closed her eyes.

Lord. You have given me — in these final weeks — more than any keeper has the right to ask for. You have given me the small drawing on my dresser. You have given me the recording on the phone. You have given me the family. You have given me the book. I am grateful. I am tired. I am grateful and tired at the same time, and I am old enough to hold both. I am Yours. The going, which is close, is Yours. The book, which has moved to my bedside, is Yours. The long evening, which has been moving toward the dark for seven months, is Yours. You have been kind. Kinder than I deserved. Kinder than I knew to ask for.

She paused.

Thank You, Lord.

She slept.

In the small brick house on Park Avenue, the long evening moved, in the middle of December, toward its final hour. The pecan tree was bare. The porch was empty. The small light over the sink burned quietly. The household, in its new shape, held the woman at its center the way a hand holds the small last flame of a candle before the flame finishes its burning.

The candle had not finished.

It was still burning.

It was, somewhere in the deep December night, quietly bright.

The Lord was the Lord.

The keeping continued.

Mama Tate, in her bed, slept with the small drawing of a pecan tree in view, and the small recording of a four-year-old's voice in a phone on the dresser, and her daughter's breathing across the hall, and her son-in-law's quieter breathing from the couch in the front room, and the cloud of witnesses — larger every month, fuller every month, richer every month — watching around the house.

The Christmas was four nights away.

She was still here.