Beauty and the Mustache (35 page)

“
I’m so sorry, Momma. I
should have been down here.”

She shook her head, her
voice barely above a whisper. “No, baby. I just woke up. Don’t do
that.”

“
Don’t do
what?”

“
I know that look.” She
paused and inhaled. I could tell that she did this with effort; she
then said, “You’re feeling guilt about things you can’t control.
Never feel guilt for things beyond your influence.”

I gave her a brave smile
as I smoothed her hair. “All right. I won’t do that anymore if you
promise to eat a slice of pie. Drew made your lemon
meringue.”

Her eyes closed as though
she couldn’t keep them open, but her mouth curved slightly at my
words. “That sounds great, baby. It’s a deal. You go get me a
piece.”

I set the ice chips down on the table and
turned to leave, but then stopped when I heard her say, “Ash,
wait.”

I walked back to her.
“What’s up? Do you want something else with it?”

“
No, baby. I just wanted
to tell you I love you.”

“
Oh.” I nodded, gave her a
little smile, leaned forward, and kissed her forehead. “I love you
too, Momma, to the stars and beyond.”

She gave me her little smile again, her eyes
still closed. “Just like always.”

I squeezed her hand and
whispered, “Okay, I’ll be right back with the pie.” Then I turned
to the door and made my way to the kitchen.

When I opened the fridge,
I found that only two pieces of pie remained. That irritated me.
First of all, I hadn’t had a piece of pie yet, and the pie was my
idea. Secondly, those charlatans I called brothers knew that the
pie was meant for Momma.

I scooped a slice out and placed it on a
plate, then decided to hide the rest of the pie in the back of the
fridge so she could have a second piece later.

Pleased with my efforts to
conceal the last slice, I grabbed a fork and the pie, walked back
to the den, and crossed to her bed.

“
Momma, I have your pie,”
I whispered. “I haven’t tried it yet, so I don’t know if it’s as
good as yours, but it sure is pretty.”

She didn’t
move.

I watched her for a
minute, wondering if I should wake her, then noticed that the
machines weren’t beeping.

I didn’t come to the
realization all at once.

Rather, I stared at the
flat line on the small monitor for several seconds…maybe even a
minute before I recognized what it meant. When I did, the world
went silent.

There is a stillness that
accompanies the death of a loved one. Everything becomes quieter,
but it’s not just sound that is dimmed. Movement, action,
perception, emotion—everything is distant and removed.

Maybe the stillness was
because I’d been so busy leading up to this moment. After waking up
from the shock of her diagnosis and facing reality, I’d thrown all
of myself into her care and the care of my family.

But now—reality being the
flat line on the monitor—she was gone. The subjects and tasks that
had filled my waking hours for more than a month went with her. The
pie in my hand was meaningless, and the world felt like a strange
and foreign place.

I was at the bottom of a
lake. I was drifting. I felt like I could hold my breath for years.
And I was beyond the reach of all the things that mattered before,
but suddenly seem so trivial in the face of death.

“
You know what charm is: a
way of getting the answer yes without having asked any clear
question.”

―
Albert
Camus,
The Fall

We all did
a lot of staring that day.

The point that struck me
as most interesting about our collective staring was the objects at
which people stared.

Jethro stared out the
window. Billy stared at the fireplace. Cletus stared at the front
door. Beau stared at the kitchen table. Duane stared at the
refrigerator. Roscoe stared at Momma’s sewing desk.

I sat in my recliner and
stared at the spot where the hospital bed had been.

I kept looking for and
trying to assign symbolism to everything: the den’s emptiness and
bigness; a sudden rainstorm that started right after they took her
away; the book
The Neverending
Story
that Drew had been reading to her the
night before.

Drew kept us all moving.

He made us breakfast and
told us to eat. He made us sandwiches and told us to eat. He made
pheasant soup with biscuits and told us to eat. He saw to it that
everyone showered and dressed. He turned on the TV in the living
room and streamed all the
Pink
Panther
movies, one right after the
other.

After dinner, we were all
in the kitchen helping with the dishes, and I had the
thought,
Someone should go check on
Momma.

And that’s when I started
to cry.

Jethro was nearest. He
wrapped one of his big arms around my shoulders and pulled me to
his chest. I cried on his flannel shirt as he shushed me and held
me close. My mind was a jumbled mess, so I didn’t protest—or even
think to protest—when I was picked up off my feet and carried out
of the kitchen to the family room.

I didn’t notice that it
was Drew who carried me out of the kitchen until sometime later
when he said, “Sugar, you are not allowed to wash this
shirt.”

I peered up at him, surprised to find myself
in the living room, on his lap, his arms around me, his hand in my
hair.

“
Why?” I said, two hot,
fat tears rolling down my face.

“
Because you haven’t given
me back any of the others, and I’m running out of
T-shirts.”

I considered his words
then laughed and buried my face in his neck. “Quit being stupid.
You’ll get them back.”

“
When will I get them
back? Do you want me to walk around the mountains
shirtless?”

This was a comment that
might have elicited a completely different reaction twenty-four
hours ago; but as it was, Drew was providing me with humor and
comfort, and that was what I needed. I didn’t need anything beyond
that.

“
Have you called your
friends yet today?” he asked, surprising me.

I gathered a deep breath,
held it in my lungs, and responded on an exhale. “No.”

“
You should. It’ll help.
They likely miss you.” He set his chin on my head and—as though the
thought had just occurred to him—added softly to himself, “You’ll
be leaving soon....”

I sat motionless and let
those words wash over me. He was right of course. I would be
leaving soon, most likely once the funeral was over. It shouldn’t
have felt like a shock, but it did.

I was yanked out of these
thoughts when the front doorknob rattled followed by a sharp,
insistent knock.

Drew craned his head
around toward the kitchen; when none of my brothers appeared, he
set me down on the couch. “Just a sec,” he said. “Let me see who
this is.”

I grabbed a throw pillow
and hugged it to my chest. I noticed that a box of tissue had
magically appeared on the coffee table, so I snagged a few and
wiped my eyes, feeling the futility of the action. These were only
the first tears.

“
Who the hell are you? And
where is my wife?”

I froze in terror. Like a
lightning bolt splitting a tree, the man’s words and aggressive
tone sliced through the fog of my grief like nothing else
could.

“
Darrell,” Drew said in a
laconic drawl. He blocked the door with his body and added,
“Bethany died this morning. You’re too late.”

“
Get out of my way. This
is my house.”

I jumped from the sofa and ran to the
kitchen. Knowing my father, strength in numbers was necessary.

“
Guys, he’s here,” I loud
whispered to the room. My face must’ve showed my panic because they
all stiffened for a half second then were spurred into action. My
brothers moved like the devil himself had arrived, and the only way
to keep him out was to stand him down at the door.

I waited a half minute,
inhaling and exhaling until I felt my courage buoy, and then I
followed them out. The sound of rising voices and tempers made me
flinch, and I saw that Roscoe was standing in the doorway. The rest
of them were outside in the front yard.

I walked up to Roscoe and
placed my hand on his back. He glanced down at me, his face
strained, his jaw set; but his eyes softened when they met mine,
and he wrapped an arm around my shoulders, tucking me close to his
side. We watched the scene unfold from the house.

Darrell Winston was some
distance from the porch, maybe five feet, and Jethro and Billy were
standing in front of him. Jethro had his arms crossed, but Billy
had taken an aggressive stance, his fists balled, and his feet
braced apart like he was ready to throw a punch.

“
Son, this is my house.”
Darrell was speaking to Jethro, and his tone was entirely
reasonable. “Why you going to keep a man from his
house?”

“
Darrell….”

“
I’m your daddy. You will
address me as such.”

Jethro’s Adam’s apple
moved as he took a hard swallow, and his eyes were heavy-lidded
with aggravation. “I’m trying to explain things to you. Momma died
this morning. You’re not welcome at the funeral, and you’re not
welcome here. This ain’t your house.”

“
Son, this is the house I
made my family in with your momma. This house belongs to me and all
you kids; we need to come together and support each
other.”

Billy rolled his eyes. I
got the sense he was purposefully trying to bait him. “You’re
delusional,” he said. “We haven’t ever been your kids. You’re a
sperm donor, and your services haven’t been needed for a long
time.”

Surprisingly, my father
didn’t take the bait. “Where’s your sister? Where’s my baby
girl?”

“
I don’t think it’s right
you calling her that,” Cletus said, rubbing his chin thoughtfully.
“She hates you and she’s like, twenty-six. It just feels
wrong.”

“
Ashley.” My father called
my name, obviously not yet noticing that I was watching the whole
ugly scene. Again, I froze. His voice was demanding, and so many
terrible childhood memories burst to the surface. “Girl, you come
down here.”

“
We told you to leave, old
man. This place ain’t yours. It wasn’t Momma’s neither when she
died. She sold it.” Beau said this standing on the stairs of the
porch just in front of me with Duane at his shoulder.

“
Sold it?” Darrell shot an
angry glance at Beau, and I felt the moment that he realized I was
there, the second his eyes settled on mine. “Ashley, girl, look at
you.” He placed a hand over his chest like the sight of me made his
heart hurt. “You’re beautiful.”

I stared at him from my
place next to Roscoe, drawing from my little brother’s
strength.

“
Your daddy needs to speak
to you, Baby.”

“
Don’t you speak to her.”
Drew stepped forward, though he’d been quiet up to this
point.

My father ignored him,
kept his voice calm. A beseeching smile—such a pretty
smile—tempered his features as he said, “Come here, baby girl. I
can see that you’ve been crying. I know your momma loved you best.
Come to your daddy so I can make it better.”

I saw so much of myself in
him, in his gently spoken words, his eyes and smile, how he moved,
how he sounded when he was trying to appear sincere. It made my
stomach turn.

“
Jethro, you make him
leave, or I’m going to arrest him.” Drew’s threat was quietly
spoken, but it felt like a gunshot in the thick, tense dwindling
light.

“
How are you going to
manage that?” Darrell turned his smile on Drew, but now it was more
like a smirk. “This is my house, son. This is my
family.”

“
This is not your family,
and don’t call me son.” Drew’s words were eerily stoic and
emotionless.

“
Darrell,” Cletus drawled,
sounding oddly at ease. I thought for a moment that Cletus was
going to put his hand on my father’s shoulder, but instead he
gestured toward Drew. “This here is a federal officer, and you’re
on his land. You see, he purchased this house some time ago. Now,
according to Tennessee law, even if he weren’t an officer, he could
shoot you dead right now—if he felt threatened.”

“
That’s right,” Beau put
in, “and we’d all be witnesses.”

“
That’s right,” Duane
echoed his twin. “That’s seven witnesses.”

I saw a brief shadow of
confusion and apprehension fall over my father’s handsome features.
He glared at Cletus—he never liked Cletus—then his eyes cut to
Drew’s.

“
Those are lies. Bethany
couldn’t have sold this house, not without me knowing.” His
attention moved back to me as though I were the family litmus test
of truth. He didn’t seem to like what he saw, because his eyes grew
large then narrowed. He lifted a finger and pointed at Drew but his
eyes never left mine. “Is this your man?”