After that, Wilma Jean stopped answering stupid questions. She figured that would teach ’em. Instead they all assumed she’d lost her hearing along with her marbles. Once she’d reputedly gone deaf, the revelations never stopped coming. Her children didn’t think twice about bickering over their inheritance while she was sitting in the same room, trying to enjoy a bowl of butter pecan and catch up onMindhunter. One night all six of them showed up in a pack and took an unsanctioned tour of the house, divvying up her possessions among them. There was a vicious fight over the antique wardrobe where Wilma Jean’s church dresses were hanging. Later, she listened in while they argued about which broker in town could get the best price for the house.Hergoddamned house. The one she’d bought at auction after she’d bankrupted the rich bastard who’d called her daddy trash. The one that had hosted all three wakes for her husbands. The one that had kept the rain off her head for forty years and had borne witness to her heartbreaks and triumphs.
Wilma Jean knew she should have said something, but she didn’t. Somewhere along the way, she’d lost the will to fight.
After the tour, the children began showing up every night to sit watch, worried their siblings might abscond with the butt-ugly china that Wilma Jean’s second mother-in-law had pawned off on her—or shove a pearl necklace down their pants. With all of them crowded into her living room, Wilma Jean was reminded of a video one of the great-grandbabies had shared with her. Filmed in the murky darkness at the bottom of the ocean, it showed hundreds of writhing white creatures feasting on the carcass of a massive whale. The existential horror of the video had haunted Wilma Jean for years. She couldn’t have imagined a less dignified fate. Now she marveled at how limited her imagination had once been.
She told the children they were just being paranoid about things getting snatched. Their family had more than its share of morons, but she hadn’t raised any goddamned thieves. The very next morning, Wilma Jean spotted a dark patch on the wall where a frame had been hanging for nearly forty years. Missing was a portrait of Wilma Jean that her second husband had commissioned from a young Alabama artist who’d gone on to great fame and fortune. The night of the tour, two of the children had come to fisticuffs over who deserved it. Neither of them had any intention of passing the portrait down to their offspring. To them, the painting was nothing more than money on the wall. Now one of her heirs had snuck inside during the night and made off with Wilma Jean’s most prized possession. She called upon the piece of her soul that the artist had captured to curse all whose eyes ever gazed upon it. When that didn’t prove satisfying, Wilma Jean called her attorney in Atlanta and secretly changed her will. She wanted every damn cent she had to go straight to saving the whales.
And yet, even after all that, Wilma Jean didn’t have the heart to banish her family entirely. Problem was, it got lonely when no one else was around. Wilma Jean had no friends left to visit. Her three spouses were just ghosts she’d encounter in the rooms they’d once favored. From time to time, she’d try talking to Malcolm, the love of her life. But she never could get his voicequite right and the conversations always felt sad and one-sided. The truth was, he’d abandoned her, along with everyone else she’d picked to be in her life. One at a time, they’d all dropped dead. The only folks she had left were the ones fate had given her. Wilma Jean loved her six children, she really did. But she often wondered what in God’s name she’d done to deserve them.
Three months before Wilma Jean turned eighty-five, she woke up in the middle of the night covered in sweat and filled with dread. For decades her family had gathered at the house on her birthday. And every year, Wilma Jean would bake herself a glorious seven-tier cake. It was meant to be fun. No one was ever obliged to come. On an average year, she handed out cake to two dozen guests. This year she hadn’t even sent out an invite and the RSVPs were already rolling in. She had six children, twenty-four grandchildren, and forty great-grandbabies. It was looking like every last one of them would be paying their respects. Add spouses and that meant upward of one hundred people showing up at her door in May—each and every one determined to brownnose their way into her will.
Come May, Wilma Jean had decided to cancel the whole affair. She was sick to death of her family. It seemed like there wasn’t a single one of them who hadn’t shown their ass at some point over the previous months. Then her grandson’s wife, Britney, rolled up in the drive at nine o’clock on a Thursday and perp-walked their teenage daughter up Wilma Jean’s front steps and through the front door. Britney looked angry and flustered, but the girl appeared perfectly composed. It wasn’t easy to keep track of forty great-grandbabies who never stopped growing, but Wilma Jean recognized this one straightaway. Bella’s face was always showing up in the local paper. It was a particularly attractive face, with a perky nose, long lashes, and perfectly rouged cheeks. Head of the cheerleading squad and prom queen, Bella was small-town royalty. Wilma Jean immediately suspected a plot. The girl was there for her money.
“Hey, Meemaw!” Britney yelled across the room. “I’d come in and say hi,but I’m in a rush. You mind if Bella stays here with you while I head to the hairdresser? She’s been suspended from school, and her daddy doesn’t want her home by herself.”
The girl rolled her eyes. “Grandma can hear you. You don’t have to shout,” she said.
Wilma Jean did a double take and Bella winked at her. She wished the girl would tell Britney she hated being called Meemaw as well.
“Come again, missy?” Britney turned on her daughter. “I’d mind your manners, if I was you. You’re in trouble enough already.”
Wilma Jean fixed her gaze on Bella.What’d you do, princess?She hadn’t been in the mood for company, but now she was dying to know.
“Fine,” she said. “Bella can stay.”
Britney pressed her palms together and thanked the Lord. Wilma Jean didn’t blame her. Those grays really did need a touch-up. “I appreciate it, Meemaw. By the way, your birthday’s just round the corner. You up for making your famous cake again this year?” The smile on her face froze while she waited. “Meemaw?”
Wilma Jean’s mind was already occupied with far more interesting thoughts. Bella didn’t strike her as a junkie or a brawler. Probably hadn’t thrown a punch in her life. Petty theft, Wilma Jean figured. She’d prosecuted a few sticky-fingered beauty queens back in the day.
“Meemaw?”
“What?” Wilma Jean snapped.
“I was just gonna say, if you’re not up for making your birthday cake, just give me the recipe and I’ll be happy to bake it.”
Wilma Jean had stolen the recipe off the back of a box of Betty Crocker cake mix back in 1972, but everyone in the family was convinced she was a culinary genius. “No,” she said. “I’m baking the damn cake like I always do.”
Britney was in too big a rush to argue. “Alright then! Well, y’all watch out for each other today. Bella, I’m warning you. You better be on your best behavior.”
The door slammed and Wilma Jean and her great-granddaughter were suddenly alone. Most of the other great-grandchildren were timid in Wilma Jean’s presence. They’d read all the fairy tales about old ladies who poisoned apples and gnawed on little-kid bones. Wilma Jean wondered if the tales had been invented by old ladies who’d already raised their own damn children and just wanted to live the rest of their lives in peace. But this girl wasn’t intimidated.
“So I was right. You can hear,” she said, coming closer. She held a thick book against her chest.
“How’d you know?” Wilma Jean asked.
The girl shrugged. “Just a hunch. I wish I could ignore our family, too.”
“Ipretendto be deaf, Bella. I still have to hear them.”
“At least they don’t expect a response.” The girl plopped down in a plush chair across from the sofa. “By the way, I’m thinking of changing my name to Lilith.”
Wilma Jean lifted an eyebrow. “Is that right?”
“It’s fine if you want to stick with Bella. The preacher told Mama that Lilith’s a demon and I might be a Satanist. She’s convinced I have 666 tattooed somewhere on my body.”
“That’s ridiculous,” Wilma Jean scoffed. “Maybe your mother should do her own research instead of swallowing everything she’s told.”
“I offered to let her read my book,” the girl said. “There’s a whole section on Lilith, but Mama told me she didn’t have time.”
