SE Hinton owns the Outsiders. Here I am monkeying around in her backyard again. "Tulsa Queen" is a song by Emmylou Harris.
Tulsa Queen
She's come a long way, got a longer way to go...
One-
My mother's sister Karen took me to the doctor with her on the day she was told she had six months to live. She must have suspected already that the news was going to be bad. She didn't tell my mother there was another appointment or that the test results were back, just asked could mom to call me in sick to school that day to help her with some errands.
I sat next to her- unaware of what was coming- as the doctor explained to her the rate at which the cancer was spreading and that there was nothing more that could be done. He told her six months. As it turned out, she- and my uncle as well- had three.
She didn't tell my mother, her husband or their sons either, but she started preparing me for everything that day. After the appointment, she drove us to Broken Arrow to a diner where I'd never been before, and laid a big yellow envelope out in front of me.
The first thing she said to me since leaving the doctor's office was: "Do you know how to balance a checkbook?"
"Can't they operate, Aunt Karen? Can't they cut it out or something?"
She shushed me.
"It's too late for that, honey. It's a blessing at all that I have a little time. I'd like to spend some time with you so you'll be ready."
That's the way things were in 1964. The men made the money and decided how it was spent, but there was usually a woman behind the curtain doing the books. My aunt knew every dime that came and went from her house- right down to the pocket change that my Uncle Darrel spent on a couple of beers every Friday night. She worried over our finances and cheated herself out of the allowance he gave her for extras. There was never any extra. My aunt- just like my mom- spent her fun money on new shoes for us kids and bread.
She was a kind woman, but there was something cold about the way she handled the business of turning over the reins to me. As a kid- I was nineteen at the time- I understood this to mean that she didn't entirely have the faith that I could do it. Her two oldest boys knew how to raise some hell, but it was me she and my mother always called the wild child. I was no more feral than Darry and Soda were, but there was a different standard of behavior for girls.
"Yes, ma'am," I said. "I know how to balance a checkbook. They showed us in Home Ec."
We ordered lunch, and she went down her list of all the things I knew or needed to know: the name of the bank she used, how much was left on the mortgage, the names of secretaries at the utilities companies- the people to talk to first when a bill as going to be late. Then she started into what needed to be done with the boys. She began with Darry.
"Aunt Karen, he's in college. He's been on his own for a year. As long as he keeps his scholarship and if he doesn't…what am I supposed to do?"
"He's lonely there. If he thinks any of this is weighing on the family, he'll come home. I want you to make sure that doesn't happen. I write to him once a week. I want you to keep doing that. Tell him things are going well, even if you have to lie."
I raised my eyebrows and she avoided looking back at me.
"Don't, Lettie," she said. "He has the best chance of any of them. I won't have anything getting in the way of that."
"He has the best chance because I don't get a chance…" I started, but I stopped. I was arguing with a dying woman. It didn't seem right to be fighting with her.
I did, though. I fought with her plenty all through the fall and the winter- right up until she and my Uncle Darrel died together on New Year's Eve.
I waited until a week after the funeral to introduce the existence of Aunt Karen's yellow envelope and the news of her already-impending death to my cousin Darry. When I told him she had cancer- that she'd had it for a year and that she would have been gone in another three months- he told me not to tell his brothers. I told him it was a "female" thing, and waited in case he wanted to know more. He didn't.
On the subject of the envelope, he was as dubious about my being given such a responsibility as I had been when Aunt Karen took me to the diner.
He said, "Well, it doesn't matter. They're both gone, and I'm sure not going back to Stillwater now. You may as well turn it over to me."
"She put everything in my name and your dad's. We were both supposed to sign all the checks."
"What the hell for? And why you?"
He didn't mean it to sound so harsh. In our extended family, my history and my mom's history leading up to me were common knowledge. It only made sense that he didn't trust me. I wasn't so sure why my Aunt Karen did.
I gave him the most obvious answer: "You didn't think she was going to turn it over to mom, did you? There sure ain't any social workers pounding on her door wanting her to take custody of the boys. She meant for you to be away at school. It don't matter to me anyway. I don't get anything out of it. I'll sign a bunch of blank checks for you, and you can do whatever you want."
"No, no," he was shaking his head- still in disbelief, I imagine. "We'll do what she said. She had a plan. It didn't come down quite as she expected, but when she planned things out- they always worked for the best. We'll do it her way."
…Because we sure as hell weren't going to do it my mom's way. It wasn't even worth mentioning, although it was implied. It had been nearly twenty years since anyone had trusted my mom with anything.