Photo by Howard Pritchartt, Jr. Tommye Lu Foresman, 60 years old.
My father's third wife was Tommye Lu Foresman from Alligator, Mississippi. Yes, there really is an Alligator, Mississippi up in the Delta. My father and Tommye Lu had an ⏤ let's say, interesting ⏤ relationship. It was all love/hate and drama. They both enjoyed a good argument.
And Daddy was enchanted not only by pretty women, but especially pretty women who sang and played the piano. Lots of fights accompanied by lots of music.
They would have these huge fights that echoed off the walls of the huge house they inhabited in the country. Once, when I brought my baby girl home to visit, they were having a particularly lively argument. They sounded like dinosaurs fighting, and the house shook with fear.
"Oh, shut up, you sonofabitch!"
Once Daddy said she got mad at one of her sons and called him a sonofabitch. He would remember and fall into helpless gales of laughter.
I had begun to think bitch and jackass were terms of endearment.
When you grow up in these environments, you don't realize how unusual it is. You think all parents are like that. But on a trip home and seeing my daughter's little chin quivering, I demanded:
"If you two don't stop shouting, I'm taking Annet and staying someplace else. It's scaring her."
They were well behaved the rest of the day.
Daddy told me that once their friend Martha Curry had been out visiting. As often happened Daddy and T Lu got into it. Finally, Martha said, "Look. I've got to go." I'm sure she just wanted out of there.
"No! No," screamed TLu. "You can't leave me here with him. He'll kill me!"
"No, he won't," said the all-suffering Martha."
T-Lu had met Martha the day she was supposed to marry Daddy and ⏤ in true T-Lu style ⏤ had forgotten to make a hair appointment. She came running into the salon in her wedding dress, begging the stylist to do her hair. Martha offered her her own appointment and they were fast friends after that. Daddy and TLu hosted a wedding at their house for her daughter's wedding.
(Back to the fight)
"Well, then listen," said Tommye Lu, "...if you haven't heard from me in two hours, call the sheriff."
Martha dutifully promised she would do so and drove home where it was quiet.
A few minutes later, the fight is over and forgotten about. They BOTH did that. You'd think they'd never speak to you again and five minutes later, it's over.
"We were having champagne out here on the front porch," said Daddy, the corner of his lip slightly curled.
"All of a sudden we hear this, 'WOOP! WOOP! WOOP!, and red and blue lights flashing."
'Oh, my God! I forgot to call Martha!" Tommye Lu exclaimed. And there was the sheriff, waving and laughing at the nicest domestic violence call he'd ever received.
Sometimes their fights would get so bad, they'd each go to a lawyer and have divorce papers written up, ready to use them at a moment's notice. They kept them in separate bank boxes. Daddy went so far as to buy Tommye Lu a house downtown in the garden district. He called it "Her Pouting House." They could fight and she could go stay at her pouting house for a week or two.
Tommye Lu liked to talk while she prattled about the house. But my father really enjoyed his solitude. He also had his own little hideaway. Just a few feet into the woods, Daddy put a small metal shed. He brought a cot into the room. He had a window-unit air conditioner for summer and a space heater for the winter. He covered the windows with cardboard so she couldn't see the lights at night.
See, Daddy knew that Tommye Lu was scared to death of snakes and would never, ever, not even once, step into those woods. So even though it was but a few feet from the house, she never knew about it. He would lie on the cot, read the newspapers, listen to a portable radio, pass wind and open a can of sardines and eat an onion. Or a can of Spam. Eddie Albert had nothing on Howard Pritchartt for the joys of farming.
Then one day I got a call from Daddy, saying he'd been on the tractor all day and his lower leg was swollen and hurting. So he went to see Dr. Tillman the next day who told him it was a blood clot and he had to be admitted and stay perfectly still. He would send him up to Jackson by ambulance the next day.
The night before they were to leave, Daddy said he was lying in bed.
"Tommye Lu had been upset all day because she'd dropped a mirror and it broke. She believes that stuff and had been upset all day."
Tommye Lu had just stepped out of the shower and was walking toward Daddy when she suddenly stumbled and grabbed her head.
"Baby? You all right?"
"I'm really dizzhzhhhy," and one side of her face went limp. She'd always had high blood pressure, and they both knew what had happened. He rushed down to her side where she lay, naked and afraid. She looked up at him and pulled his face down to hers and gave him a long, hard kiss.
"She was just lying there, naked. She looked so beautiful, but we both knew this was bad."
Despite the divorce papers, the fights, the disappointments and the joys, the fun, the laughter, the good times and the bad, there was still so much love.
"Where the hell is the ambulance?" he cried.
It had been 45 minutes. He called again. They said they were having trouble finding it. This was before Garmin, iphones and google maps. Finally, an hour and a half later, they arrived and had her flown to the hospital in Jackson and admitted in ICU.
Meanwhile, Daddy had his own blood clot and was riding by ambulance to the same hospital. He was on one floor; she was on another.
"They won't let me go see her," he said, pulling at my arm. I'd just flown in from Los Angeles. I'll go up and check on her and I'll be back."
This went on for several days. My stepbrothers, Tom and Ed Foresman, were by her side the whole time. But after a few days, they told us she was beyond help. I had to leave Daddy in the hospital. I can't remember why now but I had to get back for something.
A couple of weeks later, Daddy was up and walking, and Tommye Lu passed quietly away. I remember it was in October. 1995, perhaps?
I'd never seen real grief before that day. It shocked me. I'd been there when his parents, his friends, would pass away. But I'd never seen his shoulders so slumped, his face so downcast. He was shattered in every way.
"I never understood it before," he said. "I understand it now."
He would read the names in the funeral register, over and over noting who hadn't come, hadn't called. To him, friendship was sacred. I don't think he ever forgave them. At least it gave him someone to be angry at.
One night he was going through pictures. "I remember this day," he said "It was cold outside. We'd had an ice storm.
I woke up and looked outside. She was out there holding King Cat (her Siamese) and was wearing a fur coat. God, you know that was the only thing she had on? Nothing else. The sad, faraway look in his eyes spoke of a morning spent doing intimate, unspeakable things, a fire burning in the fireplace while the trees snap and drop branches and fall all around the forest, and thinking that life is just perfect. And it was. For awhile.
