A Place Called Wiregrass (32 page)

But when we pulled up to the faded white house, there was no sign of anybody. Just two horses and a scattered group of cows grazing in the field next to the home.

“Now, gal, you better shut them eyes,” Gerald said.

“All right already. They’re shut,” Cher said, both hands covering her eyes.

The excitement was contagious. I looked around trying to figure out what Cher’s surprise was. Gerald got out of the truck and walked to the side of the house.

“What’s he doing?” Cher asked.

“I have no idea,” I said and chuckled.

Gerald approached the front of the truck leading a black horse with a white blaze down the front of its head.

My gasp made Cher lean forward, her eyes still closed. “Grandma, I’m about to wet my pants.”

We got out of the truck, and I led Cher by the arm.

A game-show host couldn’t have been more enthused. “Open them eyes,” Gerald yelled.

Cher opened her eyes and bent forward, and her mouth fell open.

“An old boy owed me money for putting a new engine in his truck. He couldn’t come up with the money so we bartered on this mare. You reckon you’d care for her if I was to give her to you?”

Cher’s hand trembled when she covered her mouth. She put her arms around Gerald, and he smiled that crooked way he had.

I winked at him and fought the urge to go up and squeeze him myself.

“Now, I’ll board her for you, but you’re gonna have to clean the stall and feed her.”

“Gerald, I’ll do anything, I swear,” Cher said and pushed hair from her eyes.

Gerald led the way to the place he called his sanity. Cher rode behind us, seated on the horse in one of Donnie’s saddles.

“Cher, now your Grandma’s the only one who’s seen this place,” Gerald said when we reached the open field. He put his arm on my shoulder, and my eyes closed at the touch. I didn’t have to be Andra or some fancy psychologist to know I needed the feel of his wide hand that day. The united feeling of warmth and being wanted were discovered in the grease-spotted cuticles of his thick fingers. If our relationship never grew beyond that touch, I knew I could count him as a close friend.

We stood at the edge of the brook and watched Cher ride in circles around the meadow. “Remember to keep your toes
pointed up and your hiney down,” Gerald cupped his hands and yelled. I studied the way he squatted down on the ground and put a blade of grass in the corner of his mouth. Miss Claudia was right about him. He was the salt of the earth.

While Cher guided the horse through the brook, Gerald addressed it head-on. “I know things been rough on you. But…well I don’t know. You mad at me?”

I looked down and pulled my big toe up against the plastic flip-flop. “No, don’t be silly.”

He scratched the gray stubble on his chin and looked back at Cher.

“You and that woman still dating?”

He cocked his head towards me and smiled. “You know about that?”

“I saw y’all.”

“I only went out with her a couple of times. Marcie kept after me until I did. I don’t know, she’s nice enough. Just too high cotton for my tastes.” Gerald walked to the edge of the brook and instructed Cher to tighten her reins.

While Cher and Gerald worked the reins, I looked around the lush green meadow and listened to creek water splash the rocks. The light breeze and its steady currents helped me understand why this place gave Gerald peace of mind during his hard times.

The blanket of trees and their limbs that bent down to almost touch the grass hugged me that afternoon. I didn’t need a nap to dream about Miss Claudia. I sat on the stump of an ancient oak and wondered if she was standing in a similar place in heaven. I pictured her running wide open through an even greener meadow and throwing that silver cane farther than any javelin gold medalist. The cane would sail across the clear blue distance, and she would lift her head high, shouting eternal
Hallelujahs.

E
verything has a season. Lots of change came with the passing of that summer. Because of Cher’s new horse, me and Gerald saw each other three afternoons a week and most Saturdays. We’d take turns buying Cokes from the drink machine at his shop and watch Cher practice in the meadow he no longer needed to keep private.

Cher started the ninth grade by joining the high-school band. I always said it was on account of Miss Claudia taking up time with her on the piano. The car-wash money she earned even paid for the clarinet.

Soon Cher started playing in the small Sunday morning orchestra at church. Although some of the older church members still complain to Lee that it’s sacrilegious to have drums in the church house, I like the addition. Each Sunday, when the service ends and the congregation joins hands to sing “The Family of God,” I stand tall on my tiptoes. Watching Cher’s cheeks sink in as blasts of praise rise from the black instrument makes me feel even taller.

Suzette continued to keep writing us letters. A couple of times I have written her back without Cher’s joint signature. I got to hand it to Suzette. She’s trying. She’s done so good with her schoolwork that her letters got me to thinking. And the day Cher began high school, I forced myself to go down to the vocational center and sign up for night classes. The re
tired math teacher who leads the class, Mrs. Hutchinson, calls the program General Equivalency Diploma classes. Patricia said she can get me a raise at the cafeteria the minute I get that certificate. But who’s to say, maybe I’ll make a nurse yet.

Cher wants us to see Suzette during Thanksgiving. I won’t say I’m not scared of being disappointed that Suzette really hasn’t changed as much as I hoped. Or that the sight of Suzette behind the glassed prison visiting room won’t rattle me. But either way, I now have the real strength to handle it.

And I’m satisfied that two months ago Miss Claudia did a somersault in heaven when the doors to the Claudia Tyler Rescue Home opened at the old Piggly Wiggly. Richard laid the law down to Patricia. He demanded that the money earned from selling Miss Claudia’s home be used to buy and refurbish the abandoned grocery store. I think the only reason Patricia held out from making a final decision for two days was because she didn’t come up with the idea herself. After the sale, Richard moved out of the garage apartment and used part of his inheritance to buy a small brick house six blocks from Elm Drive.

The day the United Way lady asked me about volunteering, I waited a week before calling her back. Not because I didn’t want to. I just never felt like I had my own life together, let alone was able to help somebody else. But I knew Miss Claudia would’ve been put out with me for giving in to those fears. So two evenings a week, when I help out at the shelter, I drive by Miss Claudia’s old home. A young couple with a small blond-haired girl live there now. Sometimes I see them after supper, sitting on the porch swing. Driving slowly by the brick home with white columns, I shake my head and remember how intimidated I was of the fancy place that turned out to be the best school I ever entered.

Missoura was hunched over when she met me at the door. “I ’bout decided I’m too old for this volunteering business,” she said with a hand propped on her hip. “I’ve done signed one girl in and washed a load of towels.”

“Y’all been busy.”

“Sheriff’s office called, and they bringing one more from the emergency room this evening. Bless her heart. They say she got a little baby and a four-year-old.” Missoura looked down and opened the tinted glass door. “Lord have mercy. I’ll see you day after tomorrow.”

I folded the towels in the lobby. The early newscast played on the corner TV, next to the portrait of Miss Claudia.

The first time I saw the painting was the day the shelter opened. I joined Wiregrass’s finest at the ribbon-cutting ceremony. Most the people I had met before at Miss Claudia’s home didn’t remember me. I had on the pink linen suit that Patricia gave me when we cleaned out Miss Claudia’s closets.
This is not a handout,
I told myself the morning I put the suit on. Fastening the jacket’s pearl buttons, I decided it was a gift, a part of Miss Claudia. The safety pins that secured the skirt scratched against my waist. But I didn’t pay it any mind. I loved wearing the suit that day and slyly tilted my head down to the shoulder, where her signature summer-dew scent lingered.

Almost bumping into the reporter interviewing Prune Face, I overheard her official comments. “The minute I learned about this place I jumped right in,” she said with clasped hands. “As Christians we must help the needy.” Fearing I might gouge my elbow into her skinny chest, I moved towards the painting.

I got tickled thinking what Miss Claudia would say of her portrait. The artist showed an elegant Miss Claudia wearing a white and navy hat, her head slightly turned. I could just pic
ture her looking up at the painting and saying, “Good gracious alive. Why did they go ugly up the place with this old thing?”

The shrill security buzzer made me jump. I released the switch and allowed a female deputy, a young woman carrying a baby, and a little brown-haired boy into the lobby.

“Evening.” I tried to look upbeat and smile real big, just like the United Way lady taught us during volunteer training.

The twenty-something was wide-eyed and kept her hand on the head of the young boy. Her auburn hair was parted in the middle and layered down the sides. Black wiry stitches decorated the side of her cheek. One eye was green, and the other lined with red blood vessels and a purple bruise.

“You want to come over here and play while we sign Mama in?” I asked the little boy. He was dressed in a black wrestling shirt and looked up at his mother. She motioned with her chin, and he followed me to the plastic container filled with toys.

The deputy left before I finished explaining the policy to the new resident. My eyes drifted to the baby dressed in disposable diapers. “We left the house so fast, I didn’t have time.” She rolled her good eye towards the half-naked baby.

“I know. Don’t worry about nothing,” I said and waved my hand in the air. “We got clothes for y’all and everything.”

Thuds from toys landing on the floor echoed while I completed the necessary paperwork. The girl balanced the baby in one arm and tried to scribble her signature. Each time she tried, the hand twitched wildly and only chicken scratch appeared. She sighed and put the pen to her forehead.

“Here. Let’s try this.” I placed my hand on hers and steadied the pen. With each stroke, her hand vibrated under my palm.

I led them down the dormitory hallway and handed over fresh towels and clothes. She opened her mouth, but nothing
came out. I smiled and lightly rubbed her elbow. “Y’all sleep tight. Everything’s fine now.”

Turning off the lobby TV, I pick up toys scattered about the room. While I glance up at the painting of Miss Claudia, I clutch a miniature tractor-trailer and gaze into her eyes.

Nights like these, when the shelter grows still and the residents are tucked in bed, I stare at the painting and carry on a mental conversation with Miss Claudia. I update her on lives changed at the rescue home, Cher’s horse riding and band practice, the new people in my night classes, and something funny Gerald might’ve said. But mostly I tell her how I long to hear her words of wisdom and to sit for a spell at the kitchen table on Elm Drive. And as crazy as it sounds, during those times I feel like she’s gone away just for a little while.

Placing the tractor-trailer into the toy box, I watch the hazel eyes follow me. Those eyes, even on canvas, look right through my heart. The same heart that feels parched from the empty place she left in my life. And just then, from the brightest corner of my mind, I hear her drawl,
Why keep love in your heart when you can give it away for free?

To my editor, Renée Sedliar, thank you for your wisdom and humor. I also value the tremendous support that I have received from the sales and marketing teams at HarperCollins and HarperSanFrancisco. To my friend and agent, Laurie Liss, thank you for your persistence and dedication.

I am grateful for the wisdom, guidance, and enthusiasm of Chris Ferebee, Jeff Dunn, Debbie Justus Collins, and Susan Downs. My gratitude also goes to Mary Ellen Wells and Hospice of Wake County and to Dr. Bert Losken for keeping the writing within the lines. And to Tim McLaurin, thank you for motivating me to move forward with four simple words—“You’re a good writer.”