(2008) Down Where My Love Lives (29 page)

I was starting to heal. A lot of the nicks and cuts were closing up, and the soreness was mostly gone. I guess people are like that. We scar, but in the end, we heal.

Amos didn't know it, but I had borrowed his Ford Expedition. I had my truck, along with Amos's squad car, towed to Jake's Jalopy Auto Center, one of those places where you can get most anything done. He'll fix your car, or better yet, sell you another if he can't. Consequently, he sells a lot of cars. I finished my coffee, slipped on my running shoes, and figured it was time to go get Amos. He'd probably had just about enough of that hospital.

I crossed the dirt road and pulled into Amos's drive, grabbed a duffel from his bedroom, packed him some clothes, and turned on a few lights to make it look welcoming. I would have cleaned up, but unlike the bachelor across the street, Amos kept a pretty tidy house.

The hospital was relatively quiet when I arrived. Maggs was asleep, as was Amanda, and the baby was sucking the nipple off a bottle held by Mrs. Lovett. The doctor, standing at the nurses' station, looked up from a clipboard and waited.

I waved. "Evening, Doc."

"You here for him?" he asked, pointing to Amos's room.

I nodded.

He considered that for a moment, then whispered something to a nurse. Looking back at me, he said, "Drive slowly. He'll be sore for a few days."

Amos was waking up when I walked into his room. I sat down and propped my feet up on his bed. "How's the head?" I asked.

"What happened to your boots?"

"They ended up on the emergency-room floor. A nurse cut them off me when we came in." I looked back toward the nurses' station. "So, what does the doc say?"

Amos shifted under the sheets. "He says I'm lucky to have been wearing my seat belt and even luckier the air bag inflated when it did. A couple more days in here, a week or so at home, and I should be up and about."

I threw his duffel on the bed, and his clothes spilled out.

"I was hoping you'd bring that," he said.

Amos stood gingerly, gained his balance, and said, "Man, this room is spinning." He leaned on me, I helped him dress, and we walked out of his room.

Amos looked at me. "I want to see Amanda before we go."

We exited the elevator onto the recovery floor where they brought people from ICU. Amanda was horizontal, but her head was propped up, and her eyes met ours when we walked into the dim room, empty except for thirty or forty flower arrangements.

"Hey." Amos sat down and gently took her hand.

"How you feeling?" Amanda whispered. "They say your head really put a dent in the steering wheel."

"Yeah, that's what happens when you have a hard head." Amos held his rib cage and tried not to laugh. "I'm okay," he said, "but I'm still taking a few days' vacation."

"You've earned it."

"What do they say about you, baby?" Amos asked.

"Well, I broke a few ribs, cracked my pelvis, suffered a concussion, and lost a lot, if not most, of my blood, but I'll mend. I'll probably spend a few weeks in here. The folks in Daddy's church and my classmates who gave blood have been just great. I don't think I can breast-feed, but we'll see." She smiled and looked out into the hall. "If I can get him away from Momma for two seconds, I might give it a try."

Amanda turned to me, careful not to move too quickly. "Hey, Professor."

"Hey there. How's your boy?"

"He's been here most of the day. Momma just took him down the hall to give him a bottle and walk him around a bit. She thinks he doesn't like being cooped up in this room." Amanda laughed. "I keep telling her that it's a lot bigger than where he's been the last nine months."

"You given him a name?" I asked.

"Yup," Amanda said, proudly raising her chin. "His name is John Amos Dylan Lovett. We're not sure yet what we're going to call him, but Daddy's already calling him `Little Dylan.' Momma said that's all Daddy could talk about this morning in church. `Little Dylan this,' and `Little Dylan that."'

Amos and I looked at each other and then back at Amanda.

"Are you sure you want to name a child that? I mean, he's liable to get in a good bit of trouble with a name like that." I paused and nodded. "I did."

Amos chipped in, "Still do."

Amanda pointed at the bedside table. "See for yourself. Even says it on his papers."

"Sure enough," Amos said, smiling. He read the photocopy and then handed it to me.

"Professor." Amanda looked up at me. "I asked Miss Maggie, and she didn't seem to mind. I hope it's okay with you."

I nodded and smirked. "It's okay with me. You name that boy anything you want."

Amos squeezed Amanda's hand. "Amanda, honey, I've got to get home, get in my own bed, stop the world from spinning, and get some sleep. I'll check in on you in a day or so. Soon as the world settles down."

Amos and I walked through the door and toward the exit. "That is one tough girl, Amos."

He nodded. "Woman. Tough woman. And I hope that kid never gets in trouble in school. 'Cause he'll have one heck of a time spelling his name on the chalkboard."

We walked out into the parking lot, and Amos noticed his Expedition. "Nice truck," he said.

"Yeah, well, the current owner is laid up and won't need it for a few days."

"How bad is yours?"

`Jake said I burned up the engine. When I get time, I'll go down and talk with him."

I dropped Amos off under a full, clear moon that cast long, beautiful shadows over the trees and his house. I went home wrapped in a warm, peaceful cloud of relief and reflection. So much had happened, I needed to kick back and absorb for a while. I sipped Maxwell House on the front porch, and Blue lay on the floor next to me, listening to the rocker. About midnight, I grabbed my coat and walked out into the cornfield.

Walking through the rows, I held out my hand and tapped each dry stalk as if I were numbering the posts on a picket fence. Papa would have plowed it under by now. After ten minutes, Blue and I walked out the other side, wandered down the side of the pasture, and paused underneath the big overhanging oak, where I sat down quietly with my son. His grave was covered with acorns and snaking wisteria, so I lifted a vine, brushed off the acorns with the palm of my hand, and blew the dirt off the tombstone.

The breeze filtered through the leaves above, bounced off the river, and swirled around my collar and back through the corn. It was gentle, cold, and quiet. And that was good.

ON DECEMBER 30, THE WEATHER WAS BITTERLY cold and overcast as I walked down the drive to check the mail. It had been unusually cold in Digger this year, but this was getting ridiculous. Amos had borrowed his Expedition from me and driven to town to get some groceries. Since the accident, a bunch of women from his church had cooked him casseroles, pies, meatloaf, roasts, and more pies, but he had eaten all that already, and Amos wasn't one to let himself go hungry. I decided to spend the morning by myself, but when Amos got back with his truck I'd drive in and check on Maggs.

The chill wind whipped around my boxer shorts, dropping the temperature from real cold to even colder and persuading me to move quickly. I was standing by my mailbox, freezing and stuffing mail under my arms, when a Chevrolet Lumina with the words Mike's Courier Service on the side screeched to a halt behind me. I dropped the mail and turned to see who had just scared three years off my life. A sixteen-year-old kid, with more zits than cream could cure, hopped out.

"You Dylan Styles?" He was holding an envelope and waving it in my direction.

"I'm Dylan," I said, jogging in place and wondering if the hole in my boxers was open.

"You're hard to find. I been driving around these dang boondocks for an hour and a half. How do you live out here? This is Egypt." He shook his head and threw the envelope at me. Without another word he hopped back into the car, gunned the engine, spun the tires, fishtailed, and disappeared.

I jogged back to the house, dropped the mail on the floor, and took the letter over to the sofa by the fireplace to open it. It was printed on watermarked paper, embossed at the top, and signed by my boss at the college, Mr. Winter.

December 27

DearDr Styles,

Your teaching performance and student evaluations are exemplary. As a result, the DJC Board and I are pleased to offer you a one-year contract extension for this coming school year. We would be delighted to have you join our staff on a more permanent basis. If you so desire, please sign the attached, keep a copy for yourself, and return the other to me at your earliest convenience. I am available at any time if you wish to call.

Happy New Year.

Sincerely,

William T. Winter

Chair, English Department

Digger Junior College

I scratched my head and looked down at Blue, who was studying me and pointing his nose toward the wind.

"Well, I'll be." I pointed to the letter. "Looks like I might get to teach after all. Go figure."

Blue hopped up on the sofa, put his head in my lap, and rolled over, sticking his stomach in the air. I leaned back, propped my sockless feet on the coffee table, and thought how much I liked the sight of my drum perched atop the mantel. I thought Maggie would like it too.

BY MIDAFTERNOON, AMOS HADN'T SHOWED, SO I thumbed a ride to town with the contract in my pocket. I wanted to show it to Maggie. I stood in the cold for forty-five minutes before anyone passed me, but an hour later, the second car stopped. The driver was a young guy making his way to a party. He was eighteen and driving a 1979 Pontiac Trans Am. The same thing Burt Reynolds drove in Smoke), and the Bandit, although my new friend had made a few alterations to the engine.

"Yup," he said, stroking the gearshift, "this one here's got the small block fo'hundr'd. So I bored it, stroked it, polished it, threw in some angle plug heads, a solid lift cam, couple of eight-sixties, and then I run the exhaust out through some three-inch headers and a couple of glass-packs. She's loud, but she'll dang near fly. I figure I'm pushing a little over fo'hundr'd hos'pow'r. On top of that, I took the rear end out of a seventy-two 'Vette and locked her down pretty tight. Lowered my gears to around fo'eleven."

I could barely hear him, but I believed him. He hit the accelerator and pinned me so hard against the seat that we were going eighty before I could lift my head up. It was the loudest, fastest car I had ever ridden in. He could burn rubber in all four gears, and he was all too happy to show me. The dashboard was a cockpit of gauges, switches, and flashing lights. I don't know how he saw the road over the thing sticking out of the hood.

We drove the remaining twelve miles to town in about seven minutes. We were going so fast at one point that when I opened my eyes, the dotted yellow line in the middle of the road looked solid. I tried to thank him when he dropped me off, but he couldn't hear me over the exhaust. He said he was on his way to the gas station, so I gave him the three dollars I had been saving to buy my dinner. I would have given him more, but the only other thing in my pocket was the next year's contract, and I didn't know how that could help him.

Maggs was serenely beautiful when I walked in. I married above myself. Lord, that is one good-looking woman. I sat down next to the bed and held her hand in mine. A familiar feel. Her fingers had been more active since Christmas. I even think she squeezed me once, but it was hard to tell. Maybe it was only more of that involuntary spinal activity that the doctor told me not to get too excited over.

I squeezed her hand anyway. Every time I sat down in that chair, I squeezed her hand three times. That meant "I love you." Maggs knew that. Throughout our dating and married life, three squeezes of any kind always meant "I love you." And the person getting squeezed squeezed back either two or four times. Two squeezes meant "Me too" and four, "I love you too."

When I squeezed her hand that day, Maggs squeezed me once. No, it wasn't two, three, or four squeezes, but it was a squeeze. And don't tell me that was some spinal reaction. That was a soul thing. I told her about the contract, and her eyeballs began rolling back and forth behind her eyelids, and her breathing picked up. I sat there laughing. Laughing at the thought of a college hiring me to teach on a regular basis.