A Place Called Wiregrass (31 page)

T
he first installment of Bozo’s child support went to Gerald. I still owed him for Cher’s hospital bill. Anytime the thought crossed my mind that Gerald had been good to me, the image of the woman at the cafe floated across my mind and I’d go right back to claiming he was like all the rest.

I was pulling the tinfoil off the Jiffy Pop popcorn when the phone rang. “Girls, y’all hush up,” I said to Laurel and Cher. The pair had stretched out in front of the TV on the pallet I created out of blankets.

“How come you didn’t let me know you was back?” Gerald asked.

“Oh, hey. Well, I been busy. You know taking care of old women and stuff like that,” I said, hoping he’d connect his conversation with Marcie. The conversation when he said I was too busy for him to fool with.

“Yeah,” he said.

I rolled my eyes at his lack of recall. I moved behind the kitchen pantry, hoping Cher couldn’t hear me. The screaming from the scary movie on TV made his words hard to catch.

“I got your check in the mail. Now, no need to be in an all-fire hurry to pay me.”

The sooner I’m done with you the better.
“Well I wanted to go ahead and get it to you. It’ll just have to be month to month.”

“Listen, I ain’t dunning you.” His sigh was long on the other end of the phone. “Um, how’s Cher getting along?”

“Doing real good. Listen, uh, she’s got a friend over here. I was just fixing them popcorn so…”

“Okay, yeah. I’ll let you go then. But, now, I won’t see you at church tomorrow.”

I breathed a sigh of relief. Fearing I’d have to see Gerald all shoulder to shoulder in church with his new Hot Mama, I had planned to skip. “Oh?”

“Marcie and Chase are moving to Montgomery. Lots happened since you been gone. Chase done got promoted to shift manager at the Firestone plant up there.”

Too bad Marcie didn’t get to spend more time shopping with your new Sweet Thing
. “Well, this popcorn’s a-burning.”

I peeled the tinfoil off the bag of popcorn and felt the steam sting my face.
It’s for the best,
I kept reminding myself. He needs the woman with gold necklaces and fancy perfumes, not the caretaker of the young and old.

While Cher showered the next morning, I put my regular weekend call in to Miss Claudia. “You ’bout ready to go to church with us?” I asked and took a sip of coffee.

“No, y’all go on without me.” Her words were muffled, and her voice deeper than normal.

I sat up on the edge of the slick vinyl dinette chair. “What’s the matter?”

“Not a thing. I just got a little temperature is all. Tell your sweet little pastor I played hooky.” She tried to laugh, but the sound turned into a cough fit.

“I want Richard to make you some hot tea. Have him put plenty of honey in it for that cough.”

“Yes, Dr. Erma Lee.”

“You know that’s right,” I said.

My attempt to be light-hearted grew into a heavy burden. By Monday, when I took Miss Claudia in for her blood
transfusion, the cough was more frequent and the fever lingered.

“I don’t like the sound of her lungs,” her oncologist said in the waiting room. “I want a chest X-ray.”

Waiting in the doctor’s office lobby, I watched the small purple-striped fish swim in the aquarium without a care in the world.
We’re having chicken-fried steak for dinner,
I kept telling myself. Miss Claudia loved it better than anything else I cooked. If I could just get back there and tell her my menu plans, she’d pull out of this. But the pictures I’d seen on Cher’s Internet of leukemia cells congregating in the bloodstream kept flashing through my mind.

“For precautions, I’m admitting her,” the oncologist said and rubbed his chin. “We’ll get her on IV antibiotics and knock out this pneumonia.”

When I finally saw Miss Claudia, she was already next door at the hospital, perched up on a gurney. My rubber-soled work shoes squeaked louder the faster I walked on the tiled floor. Each step made her face look grayer. The lipstick, which was bright red hours before, was worn to a faded smudge.

“Sweetheart, do you know where you are?” a big-butted nurse with orangey-red hair shaved over the ears kept asking Miss Claudia. Her words grew louder each step I made.

“You’re in a hospital, sweetheart,” the nurse yelled. Her words were robotic, and each vowel very exact.

By the time I reached the end of the gurney, I was jogging. The nurse leaned over Miss Claudia. Her patronizing questions made me want to land my black shoe square in the crack of her wide tail. “She ain’t deaf, sweetheart,” I said.

The nurse curled her upper lip, slung the steel pad on the gurney hook, and walked to the registration desk.

Beads of sweat decorated Miss Claudia’s upper lip, and her hair was matted. Her fingers kept a steady crease at the edges
of the white sheet. The appearance was every bit the elderly patient the nurse assumed she was.

But the Miss Claudia I know is nothing but typical,
I kept assuring myself. “Don’t you worry about a thing. The doctor’s putting you in the hospital for precautions. You just rest now.”

The days Miss Claudia spent in the hospital were an emotional roller coaster. Each time I pressed the number eight on the elevator panel, I held my breath. The box lifted me upward, and I prepared myself for another turn in her condition. One day Miss Claudia’s fever was down and the doctors seemed pleased, and by afternoon the fever would spike again.

When I got off the elevator with a tuna sandwich for Patricia, I spotted her at the end of the hall talking with the tall, young, pointy-eared doctor.

I quietly placed the bag down on the vinyl bench in front of the big windows. At times like these, I wanted to be invisible.
As much as I worship the air Miss Claudia breathes, she is still Patricia’s blood mother,
I reminded myself.

“I want some answers. You do know my husband is Doctor Tom Murray, the oral surgeon. So you’re not dealing with your typical laypeople here.”

The young doctor put his hands in the white pockets of his lab coat. “Yes, ma’am,” he said and sighed. “And we’re doing all we can. Her white blood cell count is through the roof. And while I’m waiting for the tests…”

Patricia closed her eyes and showed the doctor the big white teeth. “I’m so sick and tired of you and your tests. Now just tell me what you think.”

“Like I was saying. The normal cells are depleted in her bone marrow. The leukemia cells are just taking over. It’s part of the phase known as the…”

“Blasts,” I said, staring at the doctor’s silver necklace.

The doctor and Patricia turned to look at me. I could feel my neck getting hot.

The young man looked back at Patricia. “It’s called the blast phase because the leukemia cells are taking over.”

Patricia shook her head and complained about his lack of experience and how she would transport Miss Claudia to the University of Alabama for better care.

Her clipped words echoed down the hall. I stared out the window at the peaceful pond below. The people reminded me of toy dolls, running and walking around the asphalt trail. Thanks to the departure of an afternoon thunderstorm, they were carelessly enjoying a break from the August humidity. I wanted to beat on the window and make them stop. To make Patricia shut up. To make them all understand that the enemy I kept praying would lose its way was taking over. The blasts first scouted on Cher’s Internet had made their way over the fortress and into the promised land.

I stood outside Miss Claudia’s door, watching Richard. He was at the end of the hall, sitting with his legs crossed on the padded bench, the exact spot where Patricia told him to wait. Patricia decided that if Richard was in the room when the news was given, Miss Claudia would be so concerned about Richard’s nerves, she’d miss the details.

So while the oncologist told Miss Claudia about the enemy’s advancement, Richard and me held positions in the hallway. I leaned against the brown door and pictured the scenes I heard inside the room. The doctor’s words were technical and without emotion. He described the journey the blast cells were taking, depositing their tumor bombs along Miss Claudia’s bones.

“I see,” Miss Claudia said in a voice deepened with congestion.

“Mama, they can put those high-powered antibiotics in you and make you better. Then we can worry about this other mess,” Patricia said.

The silence in the room made me bite my thumbnail. I fought off the angry thoughts.
If she would’ve only tried treatment
.

“No,” I barely heard Miss Claudia say. “I understand.”

“Now, Mama. Use your noggin. Just a few more days and you might get rid of this pneumonia.”

“And I might not. But one thing’s for sure. I won’t stay here being poked and prodded all the time,” Miss Claudia said. “I expect it’s time for me to go on home.”

The beady eyes were on me tighter than a radar gun. Miss Trellis was standing at the cluster of trailer-park mailboxes, staring at me with her hands on the wide yellow housedress. When I put the last grocery bag filled with our clothes into the car, I finally lifted my hand and waved. Miss Trellis shook her head and wobbled back into the white block office.

“Where in tarnation are you running off to now?” she asked when I stopped to pay my rent.

“We’re just taking a little vacation.” I refused to let her know that we were staying at Miss Claudia’s. Refused to let her get into the final details of Miss Claudia’s business.

“Now, don’t you go blaming me if somebody comes in here and breaks in your place. They libel to with the lights off.”

The small TV on top of her counter was tuned to a shopping show. The announcer kept repeating there were only fifty more Scarlet O’Hara dolls left for sale. I handed her my check and smiled.

“I’m sure it’ll be just fine.” I visualized her negative comments bouncing off the shield of armor I mentally put on before entering her kingdom.

“The last time you ran out for an entire month.” She leaned over the brown-paneled counter and pointed her fat finger at me. “Next time you best leave a light on. I’m telling you I don’t want no trouble with break-ins.”

I continued to smile and put my wallet back into my pocketbook.

“And by the way, I ain’t talked to you since that old house of Claudia’s got flushed down the toilet. They’s lots of us glad that place never got off the ground. The only people I heard tell of who wanted it were the nig…”

She stopped speaking when I walked behind the counter. Boxes stamped with QVC and Family Shopping Network logos were stacked around the wooden stool she sat on. Her mouth gaped open, and I wondered if she expected me to slap her the way my flesh wanted to.

I placed my hands on the sides of her shoulders and forced a big grin. “I love you, you know that?”

Before I walked out the door, I smiled as big as my mouth would stretch. Her own mouth pulled to the side like she had suffered a stroke from my forced kindness. Love might be free, I thought, but sometimes there was a price for delivering it.

C
her and Patricia settled into the upstairs bedrooms and, since Miss Claudia was in a hospital bed, I stayed in her bedroom. It was only fitting. A good companion ought to stay with her assignment.

“Now, remember we’re not blood kin. Just don’t get in the way,” I warned Cher. She nodded and pulled underwear out of the grocery bag.

Patricia was more help than I thought she would be. She helped cook and even made up her own bed. Richard only appeared for his meals. Each morning whenever I filled his plate with scrambled eggs and asked if he wanted to look in on his mother, he’d say, “I’ll see her in a minute.”

To some degree, I understood Richard’s reluctance. Frailty did not become Miss Claudia. The chalk white face and the flat hair propped against pillows would make anyone think she was wearing a costume. Her hazel eyes, once sparkling with plans and compliments, rested in her skull like two marbles dulled from too many games in the sand.

“Inside that dresser drawer yonder,” Miss Claudia mumbled and barely lifted her hand in the direction of the armoire, “you’ll find what you need when this is over.”

I ignored her and continued to tuck the sides of the blanket into the hospital bed. I hated that bed. The cold steel siding was an eyesore in her fancy bedroom.

“You hear me now?”

All I could do was nod.

Hospice sent over a sweet young nurse that was Miss Claudia’s kind of people. “We want her as comfortable as possible. This should all be done on her terms,” the nurse with the light brown skin told me. She also said it was our job to ensure Miss Claudia’s stay at home was not complicated. There were no prying plugs and wires. And I told the nurse that a catheter wasn’t needed.

The enemy may have taken her appearance, but even blasts of leukemia couldn’t squash her spirit. It became a running joke whenever Patricia and I would lift her to use the bedpan. Miss Claudia would moan and gasp, “Maybe you girls will get me potty-trained yet.”

Patricia and Cher were at the grocery store when I heard Miss Claudia ring the bronze bell Patricia had placed by the hospital bed. Richard never looked up from the plate of roast beef.

“I just can’t hold it any longer,” she whispered. The frown on her face always indicated a need for the bedpan. I tried to lift under the armpits; at least there was some flesh there. But each time she’d gasp when my fingers slipped over her bony shoulder.

Richard ate faster when he saw me standing in the kitchen doorway. “Can you help me lift your mama? Her kidneys need to act.”

“I just…Can’t we wait until Patricia gets back?” he asked, scooping kernels of corn onto his spoon.

Before I could think, I snatched the plate, and kernels of corn fell to the floor. “Now I’ve about had it with you. She’s your mama, and God knows she’s waited on you more times than she should’ve. The least you can do is pick her up so she can pee.”

After I showed Richard how to lift Miss Claudia, he not only picked her up that day but every time Miss Claudia
needed him. Whenever I tried to lift the sides of the sheets to change them, Miss Claudia would say, “Just let Richard.”

Keeping track of the medicine was another task Richard learned. I administered the shots for pain into the IV tube that the hospice nurse secured in Miss Claudia’s vein. But Richard worked with the nurse on the dose and time allowed between injections. He even color-coordinated the dosing schedules on three-by-five cards.

“Umm,” Miss Claudia would moan when the pain hit her. I learned how to prime the needle and inject the painkiller into her system in less than a minute. After the medicine had time to take effect and her face muscles softened, the first words out of her mouth were always the same. “You’d make a fine nurse.”

When I walked into the kitchen, Patricia was holding an empty vial of painkiller.

“Erma Lee, it was too soon for Mama’s shot,” she said.

I felt my eyes widen and looked at the empty vial she was holding between her fingers. “What? Well, she said she was needing it, and Richard said…”

“Oh, me.” Patricia threw her hands up in the air. “You’re relying on him to remind you when Mama needs a shot?”

Patricia never saw Richard behind the porch screen door.

“Well, he can’t even keep straight how many Tylenol he takes, let alone lethal medication. Erma Lee, really. Do you know what this could do to Mama?” Air spewed from her mouth, and her eyes rolled upward. “I’ll just have to call the doctor and…”

Richard walked in and snatched the empty vial. “We’ve given this every four hours for the past three days now.” He pulled a yellow index card from his shirt pocket. “Last shot was at eight oh-seven this morning,” he read and looked at his watch. “It’s twelve thirty-four. Past time for the shot.”

Patricia wrinkled her brow and watched him walk down the hall to Miss Claudia’s bedroom.

The day Missoura visited, Miss Claudia’s breath was shallow, and it was hard for her to talk. When I brought a straw for Miss Claudia’s diluted iced tea, Missoura leaned over the hospital bed railing and held her hand. I lifted Miss Claudia’s back slightly, and Missoura tipped the straw towards her mouth.

“Drink yourself some tea now,” Missoura said. “You always say it’s the house wine at your place.”

Missoura took the damp washcloth from the bed rail and blotted Miss Claudia’s chapped lips.

“I’m teaching Cher piano,” Miss Claudia mumbled between gasps.

“Well, I be.”

“Like you taught me. Remember?”

“Seem like about a hundred years ago.” Missoura caressed the side of Miss Claudia’s face.

The steady tick from the grandfather clock filled the room. Missoura kept stroking her cheek and smiling at the woman she’d help mold. Tears surrounded the coal-colored dots of her eyes, but she never looked away.

“We need a fresh washcloth.” I snatched the cloth from the bed rail and ran down the steps to the washroom. In the dampness of the basement, I leaned against the washing machine, muzzled my mouth with the cloth that had brushed Miss Claudia’s lips, and allowed myself to cry.

The smell of bacon drifted throughout the first-floor rooms. I put a third plate on the kitchen table, only to pick it up again. For a second, I forgot Cher had spent the night with Laurel.

“Mama said she wants to try a bite of bacon.” Richard’s words mingled with laughter.

“What?” I laughed too and opened my mouth, believing a miracle had taken place.

“She sure did. I asked her how she was feeling this morning, and that’s what she said.” Richard clapped his hands and sat down at the table.

“Well, I better get that gal a slice of bacon,” I said and finished filling Richard’s plate with grits. “Patricia’s getting dressed. She said for you to go on and eat.”

Placing the bacon on a plate, I walked by the staircase and heard Patricia slam the bathroom cabinet.
Plugging in those rollers, getting ready to make that hair big
. The grandfather clock chimed eight when I walked into Miss Claudia’s dark bedroom.

She was sleeping with her head turned to the side, her mouth slightly open. I placed the plate of bacon next to her red Bible.

“I hear somebody’s hungry for some bacon.” The heavy burgundy drapes were hard to pull back, and my eyes squinted when sunshine filled the room.

Miss Claudia’s face looked more pasty in the rays of light. “I said I made you some…” I touched her hand. “Miss Claudia?” My hand lightly shook the pink chiffon–covered shoulder.

A cough upstairs from Patricia and the tapping of Richard’s fork against his plate. Those were the only sounds I heard. The sounds of ordinary activity. I stood as still as possible by the bed rail, balancing her hand in my palm. The selfish side of me kept looking at her chest, ordering it to rise up with life.

Now, you know she’s better off,
I kept repeating to myself.
You knew this would happen.
But my mind couldn’t stop my shoulders
from shaking or the sob that grew within my chest. I leaned down and kissed her forehead. The wrinkled skin was still warm. My tears landed and then rolled down the side of her face.
Why hadn’t I kissed her before now?

I covered my mouth and tried to muffle the sounds of loss. My loss. Not Richard’s or Patricia’s, but mine and mine alone. She was my mother too, but in a different sense. The mother that, as a girl, I had long given up ever knowing. And even while standing there in the stillness of the room with tears flowing, I somehow had the good sense to take in the room like a snapshot, knowing that my life would never be the same.

When I turned my head away from the hospital bed, I saw the armoire. The list was tucked inside the top drawer just as she promised.
Call hospice and Blakely’s Funeral Home. Have them dress me in my lavender suit. Have Erma Lee, Cher, and Missoura sit with the family.

With the note in hand, I rang the bronze bell as hard as I could. Richard was the first person at the doorway. He clutched both sides of the door frame, and his mouth slowly dropped. Hugging him tightly, I whispered, “She was proud of you for taking care of her.” Then I made my way towards the living-room phone.

Patricia skipped two stairs at a time, barefoot and wild-eyed. A brown age mark decorated her plain face, and a drip of water fell from wet hair. She paused to look at me and bit her bottom lip.

After I hung up the phone, I realized my last task for Miss Claudia was over. I stood at the doorway of her room feeling the confusion of the moment and looking for a way to make myself useful. A glass half full of watered-down tea needed to be put in the dishwasher. The bell needed to be returned to its proper spot. Patricia and Richard hovered over her, locked in each other’s grasp. Richard’s cries only sounded louder be
cause Patricia’s face was buried in his chest. Their sobs grew softer with each step I made to the light of day. I walked to the side porch and sat in the wicker swing overlooking Miss Claudia’s flower garden. The swing creaked when I turned my head away from the dots of pink and yellow and towards the empty black asphalt of Elm Drive.

The side porch was the same place I retreated to after Miss Claudia’s funeral. While Patricia sat in the living room squalling and being fanned by three of her friends from the Cotillion Society, I sat on the swing dressed in my old faithful black-and-white dress, fanning away the stifling heat with the funeral program.

Cher was quiet and sat next to me with her legs crossed. During the service she softly cried and scooted close to me. Her body nestled against the soft spot under my arm. The only time I felt like bawling my eyes out was when the choir sang “How Great Thou Art.” The image of Miss Claudia smiling and playing that one-two-three tempo flooded my mind. But I just bit my tongue and squeezed Cher’s shoulder tighter.

Patricia made Miss Claudia go back one last time to the church that let her down. “We can’t hurt everybody’s feelings,” Patricia said when Richard voiced opposition to having the services at First Methodist.

“Gerald was at the funeral,” Cher said.

“You saw him?”

“He was in the back. Sat next to Brownie. I saw them when we walked in.”

Lee, his wife Sonya, and Brownie all spoke to me at the cemetery. But I never saw Gerald.

The screen door opened, and the chatter of the guests drifted to the porch. Richard closed the door and loosened
his tie. I tried to picture him dressed in the same uniform twenty years ago, a hotshot lawyer. Try as I might, the image never materialized.

“All that chatter is wearing on my nerves.” Richard held up Miss Claudia’s red Bible. “Mama wanted you to have this.”

I clutched the Bible with the torn corner and smiled. “Are you sure Patricia’s okay with me having this?”

He looked inside the kitchen window and fanned his hands. “She’s too busy with her sinking spells to pay any attention.”

“You know I’ll cherish it.”

Richard slowly made his way down the concrete steps and walked towards the garage apartment. His suit pants hung loose in the seat, and the navy material gathered at the belt loops. “Mama loved you, Erma Lee. And so do we.”

All my energy was drained from changing out of my good dress. I wanted to rest and dream about Miss Claudia. To pretend in sleep that she was still needing a ride to the beauty shop and offering me a dose of encouraging words along the way. There would be plenty of time to move on. But today I wanted to be selfish and mourn my loss.

I had just laid down when Cher knocked at my bedroom door. “We’ve got company,” she said.

I pictured Brownie at the door with a pot of chicken and rice for our supper. “Tell them I’m taking a nap.”

“You need this,” she persisted and opened the bedroom door. “Now, come on and get up.”

I sighed, got up, and slipped on my flip-flops. “Girl, I swear…”

Cher opened the front door, and Gerald stood on the steps holding a dozen red roses. “I knew you’d be feeling all low today, so I had the lady down at the flower shop fix these up.”

I took a step backwards and grabbed my chest. In all of my forty-eight years, I had never seen so many flowers in such a big vase. Once, after I had threatened to leave Bozo, he sent me six roses.

The wide vase required Cher to use both hands when she placed the flowers on the counter. Red petals filled the kitchen.

“I know I should have said something at the cemetery.” Gerald tucked his thumb inside his belt loop and looked across the street. “I just ain’t good at such as that.”

Every fiber of my being wanted to leap and wrap my arms around him. Words from the phone conversation with Marcie about other women seemed tiny and remote. “Gerald, you shouldn’t have done that now,” I said.

“Y’all got time to run out to the house? It won’t take but a minute,” he said and pointed at Cher.

Riding up the bumpy driveway to Gerald’s home, I was prepared to see the woman that was with him at the restaurant now standing on the front porch. He probably told her that he felt sorry for us and had to do something to clear his conscience.