A Sad Soul Can Kill You (12 page)

Homer roamed through the empty rooms of his house holding his cell phone to his ear. Franny was on the other end updating him about her condition. He didn't really care, but he listened anyway.

“They tell me I had a heart attack,” Franny said, “but I'm stable now.”

Homer sighed heavily and rolled his eyes.

“I was on a medical floor,” she continued, “and then they shipped me right on back to where I was before all this happened; the same room and everything.”

Homer remained silent. He knew what she was leading up to, and his mind fluctuated between whether he should let her stay with him when she asked.

“I'm being discharged today.” Her statement lingered in the air like unsettled particles of dust. Homer stopped pacing the floor.

Franny didn't want to ask him again, but it was too cold to sleep in her car. Her only other option was to stay in a shelter, but that would have to be her last option. She put aside her pride once more.

“I know you said you didn't have the room,” she said slowly, “but it would only be for two months. I'm still on that waiting list.”

Even though Homer believed Franny had forfeited her relationship with him by reason of default, he changed his mind and decided to let her stay with him.

“Well,” he said slowly, “since Sandra's not here . . .”

“Oh? Is she on vacation?” Franny asked.

“No,” Homer said quickly. “She left.”

“Is she coming back?” Franny asked quietly.

“I don't think so,” he said coldly.

“I'm sorry to hear that, Homer.”

“So you said two months, right?” he asked, ignoring her condolences.

“Two months,” she reassured him.

He hesitated before answering. “All right,” he said slowly.

“Thank you,” Franny said, appreciative of what she thought was her son's change of heart.

But Homer's decision had nothing to do with his heart. He had his own agenda, and this time, things were going to go his way. Once he brought his mother home, he was going to make her admit to the real reason why she'd abandoned him. He wasn't going to allow her to leave him again with unanswered questions.

“What time are you being discharged?”

“They tell me I'll be able to leave anytime between one and two o'clock,” she said.

“I'll be there around one thirty.”

“Okay,” Franny said but Homer had already hung up the phone.

 

 

Several hours later, Homer pulled his car into one of the patient pickup spots in front of the hospital. He turned on his flashers and got out of the car. It had been two years since he'd last seen his mother. He walked through the sliding doors and stopped at the information desk. A young woman who appeared to be in her early twenties addressed him. “Can I help you?” she said.

Homer stared at her. Her youthful voice and vibrant appearance distracted him.

“Can I help you?” she asked again.

He blinked. “What room is my mother in?”

The receptionist looked at Homer as if he were crazy. “Who is your mother?”

“Oh, I'm sorry,” Homer chuckled. “Francis Woodard.”

The receptionist looked at the computer as she moved the mouse slightly on the pad before clicking it several times. “Room 523,” she said without smiling.

As Homer rode the elevator up to the fifth floor, he wondered how it would feel to see his mother again.

He walked down the long corridor and found the door to room 523 ajar. He entered without knocking, and saw Franny sitting on the side of the bed listening to the nurse finalize her discharge instructions.

She had aged considerably since he'd last seen her, and she was almost unrecognizable to him. Her hair was now completely gray and stopped just at the base of her neck. The passing of time had altered his perception of how she would look, and her short and frail appearance was completely opposite of the image he'd had in his mind.

Franny saw him enter the room and tried to smile, but the hostile look in his eyes stopped her. She returned her focus to the nurse who continued going over the discharge instructions with her.

Homer fixed his eyes on the nurse's back and tilted his head to the side. There was something familiar about her stance and the sound of her voice.

“Do you have any questions, Ms. Woodard?” the nurse asked.

“No, ma'am, I don't,” Franny said softly. She looked past her shoulder and pointed to Homer. “My son's here now to pick me up.”

The nurse turned to say hello. Her mouth opened, but the words came to a halt somewhere between her vocal cords and her tongue.

Homer struggled to greet her. “Hel-lo, Tia.”

Tia regained her composure. “Hello,” she said stiffly.

“Oh, you two know each other?” Franny asked.

“No,” Homer said quickly. He pointed to her name tag. “Her name's right there.”

“Oh,” Franny let out a weak laugh, “that's right. I forgot about that.”

“Are you ready?” Homer asked impatiently. “I have my flashers on.”

Tia looked at Franny. “I'll send an assistant in to take you downstairs.” She glanced at Homer as she walked past him. “I'm all done here,” she said as she left the room.

Homer pulled the zipper of his coat up as far as it would go as he dropped the garbage bag into the bin behind his house. He stopped to look at a squirrel that seemed to have made his home in his backyard. February was almost over, but there were still icy mixtures of snow that randomly covered the grass and created shiny borders along the edges of the walkway.

He kicked at a section of semifrozen gravel and discovered a handful of stones buried underneath the icy blanket. He picked up the rocks and tossed them back and forth in his hands as he thought about the way Tia had treated him—not just at the hospital but the last time he'd talked to her on the phone, the same night Sandra had left him several weeks ago.

He'd been trying to reach her ever since their last telephone conversation when she'd abruptly hung up on him, and she hadn't returned any of his calls. He pulled out his phone and dialed her number again. It rang several times before transferring over to the automated voice instructing him to leave a message at the sound of the beep.

“Hi, Tia,” Homer said in a deep sultry voice. “Call me when you get this message. I'd like to see you.”

He disconnected the call and shoved his phone back into his pocket. The wind was blowing furiously as he took a few steps toward the squirrel. Homer remembered when he'd met Tia at the grocery store that day in January. The meeting had not been accidental. He'd been curious about his neighbor and her daughter for months. He liked the youthfulness both of them displayed, and he had been watching them come and go on a regular basis. It had been a Saturday afternoon, and Homer had been looking at Tia's house from his basement window when he saw her garage door go up.

The urge to follow her had hit him instantly, and he remembered running upstairs, grabbing his coat and car keys and getting into his car. He'd followed her from a distance, and when she'd pulled into the parking lot of a large supermarket just a few miles down the road, Homer had pulled in too.

He'd been careful to keep some distance between the two of them, and he'd parked his car several rows down from the row she'd parked in. Then he'd sat in his car and waited until Tia had entered the grocery store.

She hadn't been easy to find. The store had been crowded with shoppers buying groceries to replenish their kitchen cabinets and pantry shelves. Homer had roamed up and down each aisle, placing random items in his shopping cart until he'd turned the corner and spotted her. She was standing over a bushel of apples in the produce section, and he'd gathered his composure and pushed his shopping cart in her direction.

He remembered the startled look on Tia's face when he'd introduced himself. He hadn't meant to startle her; he'd just wanted to get to know her and he'd wanted her to know him too. He'd wanted her to know that he gave a good massage . . . before she had a chance to notice his limp.

Once he'd told her about his special skill, it was
her
curiosity that had piqued. And that had been exactly what he'd hoped would happen. Homer had meant what he'd said when he'd told Tia that if she needed anything, he was her man. She'd taken him up on his offer once. Now she was ignoring him.

The squirrel took a few steps back just as Homer threw one of the rocks in its direction. It scurried to the right, barely saving the end of its unkempt tail from the impact.

Homer sighed. He felt like he would never escape his unlovable fate. The wind died down, and the next two rocks Homer threw at the squirrel produced a game of dodge ball. Then, he made a fake lunge toward the squirrel, and it stood up on its hind legs, looking at him with fanatical eyes.

Just then, he heard the hinges on the back door creak. He glanced over his shoulder. “Go back in the house, Franny,” he said sternly.

He heard the back door creak again as the squirrel stretched its neck up high as if a newfound sense of courage and dignity had been instilled into its blood.

Egged on by a feeling of hopelessness, Homer threw the fourth rock, and it caught the squirrel on the left side of its chest. The squirrel dropped back to the ground and rested on all four limbs.

Homer took a few steps forward, but the squirrel did not run away. It just kept its distance, watching him. He pulled a small red apple out of his coat pocket and stretched out his hand toward the squirrel.

“Here, squirrelly, squirrel,” he whispered, “come and get your apple.”

The squirrel inched forward, hesitated, and then moved a few feet closer. Homer's other hand held the last and biggest rock. He raised his hand with the rock in it over his head. He was trying to figure out the distance and precise amount of force it would take to put this creature out of its misery. The squirrel continued to inch closer to the hand that held the apple, then suddenly darted in the opposite direction.

Smart squirrel, Homer thought as he limped back to the house. He stopped just before opening the back door, and wondered how big the rocks would have to be for a person.

It had only been one day since Franny had moved into Homer's house. She knew it would take time for her feelings of awkwardness to decrease. But she hoped the dark vibe she encountered when she first walked through the foyer of his home would not remain. It threatened to suffocate her, and many times she felt as though she could not breathe properly. Then there was the incident with the squirrel that had created a dreadful feeling within her.

Even though she'd closed the back door after Homer instructed her to, Franny had continued to watch him from the kitchen window. It had been disheartening to see him throw rocks at the squirrel; that had been cruel enough. But when the last rock he'd thrown had actually hit the squirrel, Franny let out a small moan as if she, herself, had been hit.

When she saw him lift his hand with the rock in it over his head, she'd turned away from the window. Surely, he wasn't trying to kill the squirrel! She covered her mouth with her hand.
Why would Homer do such a thing?

After dinner, Franny began washing the dishes. Homer had not allowed her to cook but had delegated her to cleaning up the kitchen instead. She put away the leftovers from a meal that she and Homer had eaten in separate rooms; he'd eaten his meal in the living room in front of the television set, she'd eaten hers in the kitchen.

She stood scrubbing the last metal pan as she entertained herself with thoughts of paradise,
her
paradise, which she imagined to be an environment that was faultless and unsullied . . . nothing like the unforgiving atmosphere she now found herself living in. She dried the pan and put it away, then went into the dimly lit living room to watch television.

She sat down on the leather sectional, then got back up. “Homer,” she said walking over to the closed blinds, “why do you keep it so dark in here?”

“Don't open them,” he said sternly. “The light hurts my eyes. Besides, when you let the light in, it reflects off the TV, and I can't see the picture clearly.”

Franny walked over to the small Tiffany lamp sitting on the end table next to the sectional. She bent down slightly and pulled the chain. A small amount of light mingled with the semidarkness. She sat down and sighed as she began watching a man on the television screen.

He was sitting behind a desk with a small stack of papers in front of him and a computer situated behind the papers. “How far would you like to go?” he asked the woman on the other side of the desk.

The woman shrugged her shoulders and said, “At least 2,000 miles or so.”

“That's not far enough,” Franny mumbled as she began thumbing through the pages of an outdated
Seventeen
magazine. “She should go farther.”

“You mean like you did?” Homer asked.

Franny stiffened.

“I waited,” he said.

She turned toward him. “I tried to explain to you years ago, Homer,” she said. “But you wouldn't or couldn't hear me.”

“I can hear you now,” he said. “Try again.”

“Can you?” She looked at him with tired eyes.

“Try again,” he repeated.

Franny removed her glasses. “I was seventeen, Homer,” she said. “I was young and, of course, very naïve.” Even though Franny hoped she would be able to make amends between herself and her estranged son, she was discouraged by the possibility that it would not happen if he continued to remind her of her mistake every day for the next two months.

“I thought my mother could take care of you much better than I could,” she continued. “She had the experience and she wanted you.”

“So you left me with her and ran off to another city, right?” he said harshly.

“I didn't just leave you, Homer,” she said rubbing the bridge of her nose. “I left you with family, with someone who loved you.”

“You think that makes a difference?”

She looked at him. “Actually, I do,” she said. “It was better than leaving you with a stranger.”

“Why'd you have to leave me at all?” His voice was hard and cold.

“Your grandmother was going to take me to court if I didn't make her your legal guardian. That showed me how much she wanted you, so I signed the papers. I'm sorry, Homer.”

“If you would have been there for me, she wouldn't have had to go that far.”

Franny looked at him with sad eyes. “Is that what she told you?”

“It doesn't matter,” he said lowering his head.

“Homer. I've asked God to forgive me, and He has. Now, I'm asking you to forgive me.”

Homer remained silent.

“What do you know about Jesus, Homer?”

He jerked his head up and stared at her from across the room. “Really?” he said. “You're asking me what I know about Jesus?” A look of bewilderment spread across his face. “What does that have to do with anything?”

“It has a lot to do with everything,” Franny said. “Now, and when you die.”

“I already know about God,” he said returning his eyes to the television set.

“But I didn't ask you that,” she said gently. “I asked you what you knew about Jesus.”

Homer crossed his leg and wiggled his deformed left foot.

Franny's eyes traveled to the deformity that was hidden by the cotton socks Homer had on.

He stopped wiggling his foot. “I know a little something about Jesus,” he said. “And the part I know is that He didn't abandon anybody. But that's cool.” He uncrossed his leg. “Everything's cool.”

“No, Homer, it's not cool,” Franny said. “It's never been cool. And I understand why you're angry.” She wanted to move closer to him, to hug him or even touch him which she had not done in two years. Instead, she remained seated. “Homer,” she said gently, “I can never apologize enough for leaving you. I'm sorry, and I'd like to have a relationship with you for whatever length of time I have left on this earth.”

He looked at her and a stab of guilt pierced his conscience. He snickered in an effort to convince himself that her sparkless eyes were due to her old age and not his unpleasant demeanor directed toward her. She was just getting what she deserved. It was karma.

“You want a relationship now?” he said. “After fifty-one years? It's kind of late, don't you think?”

“Yes,” she agreed, “it's kind of late. But it doesn't have to be
too
late. I'm willing to try if you are. It might be the death of me. But I'm going to try if it's the last thing I do.”

He stared at her hard. “Can a leopard change its spots?”

She stared back at him. “Well,” she said slowly, “since God made the leopard, anything is possible.”