Porch Lights (5 page)

—Edgar Allan Poe, “The Gold-Bug”

Jackie

“C
harlie? Don’t—”

SLAM!

“—slam the car door.”

“Sorry, Mom. Wow, I feel like I’m still moving.”

We got out of the car. I put my hands behind my waist, arched my back in a stretch toward the sky, and yawned.

“There’s a name for that sensation, but I’m so tired I can’t think of it. It’s worse with boats. Wait! Sea legs. That’s it.” I unlocked and raised the back of my SUV and thought, Ugh. We could unload the car later. I wanted to say hello to my mother and have a look at the ocean.

“More like I-95 legs. Huh?” Charlie said.

“Yep. You’re right. Come on. Let’s go find Glam-ma.”

I heard a thwack, and I looked up toward the house. There she stood on the top step of the Salty Dog, positioned in the bright sunlight looking not like a middle-aged woman on the high end of that scale but like someone mythical who could sprout gossamer wings any second. My mother was still a beautiful woman, as pretty as she had ever been in my entire life. How she maintained her looks was another mystery. Just the sight of her, the house, the smells, and music of the ocean just beyond the dunes, I swear, it made me literally weak in the knees. I was twelve years old again, all my troubles thrown out somewhere into the future where I couldn’t see them yet or even know about them. I was home. And safe. At least for that moment.

What was it about this crazy little island? Why did it always feel so far away from the rest of the world? How did that work? Was there some invisible wall at the foot of the Ben Sawyer Bridge built from the magic bricks of a pied piper? But it was true enough that once we crossed that causeway and that funny little bridge, the whole world shifted and we sighed in a gush to be back on Sullivans Island. It happened every single time.

In the moments that followed, I was swept into my mother’s arms, fully appraised with a smile of deep love and relief. We had arrived safely, and she didn’t have to say any more novenas to protect us from that sleep-deprived maniac who would plow us down with his runaway eighteen-wheeler. A kiss was planted on top of my head. Then Charlie was eaten alive in one huge bite by my mother’s blue-gray eyes, brimming with tears of happiness. This visit was so horribly emotional for me. So many things had happened in such a short period. In addition to losing Jimmy, I was waiting for my discharge papers because reenlisting had become impossible. What was I going to do with myself? What about money? I had Jimmy’s benefits, but would that be enough in eight years to put Charlie through college? I had no idea.

I knew Charlie thought of this trip as a summer vacation because that was how I had framed it to him. But it was no vacation for me. I was exhausted. From life. From death. I wanted to collapse on the ground and weep, but I would do no such thing. I had made a vow to myself that once I arrived here there would be no more tears. Crying wouldn’t bring Jimmy McMullen back to us. Crying wouldn’t fix the problems of any of the women and children in Afghanistan. No, I could cry buckets of tears and they wouldn’t change a single thing.

We stepped into the house, and I could smell my childhood—the good parts. My mother had been cooking.

“Okra soup?” I asked.

“Yep,” she said. “And rice and corn bread. I made brownies for dessert. Y’all hungry?”

“I’m starving!” Charlie said.

“Boys are always starving,” I said, happy that he had an appetite. “Go wash your hands, sweetie.” I gave him a love swat on his backside, and he hurried from the room. “Can I do anything to help, Mom?”

“No, honey. Everything is ready. Come, let’s sit.”

“Do you have anything he can drink besides tea? Caffeine? Not good.”

“Diet Coke?”

“I’ll just give him iced water.”

“Humph. You grew up drinking iced tea. So did I.”

“Yeah, well, all the pediatricians say it’s bad for kids.”

“Whatever you say!”

Thank you, I thought. I washed my hands in the kitchen sink and dried them with a paper towel. I took my old seat at the table, the one where I’d sat for years, daydreaming about adventure while my mother complained about the most trivial details of her life and my father listened with the patience of a saint.

Daddy? How do you stand it? She’s never happy.

Don’t criticize your mother, Jackie. Remember the Fourth Commandment? Besides, she cooks like an angel.

Charlie returned, we said grace, and in minutes we were eating like starving animals. It was delicious. Call me a pain in the neck to mention this, but the corn bread had been baked in a pan that shaped the bread into ears of corn. For some reason it irritated me. Why in the world did she waste money on silly baking pans like that? Maybe I was wrung out from the long drive, but all I could think about was Afghani women trying to prepare a meal in an old dented pot on a piece of sheet metal over an open fire. It probably wasn’t fair to draw the comparison, but I couldn’t help it. Maybe my hard drive was overloaded.

“Can I have more?” Charlie asked.

“You can have as much as you’d like!” she said and got up to refill his bowl.

“Sit, Mom. He can help himself, right, Son?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“So how was your trip?” she asked. “Y’all must be ready to fall over!”

“Pretty much. It was long, but you know it’s a straight shot down 95, so it’s more of an endurance contest than anything else. And I’ve got a GPS, so I couldn’t get lost if I wanted to,” I said, hoping I sounded congenial and not like I felt.

“What’s a GPS?” she asked.

“Global positioning system,” Charlie said. “All you do is punch in the address where you want to go and it tells you how to get there. Would you pass the corn bread, please?”

“Just like that?” Mom remarked, smiling at Charlie’s manners and passing the basket to him.

“Yep.”

“Yes, ma’am,” I said, correcting him.

“Yes, ma’am,” he said. “Just like that. I can show you if you want to see.”

“Absolutely!”

“Charlie’s my copilot,” I explained.

“My word,” Mom said. “You’re growing up so fast!”

“You can even switch it to a man’s voice if you want to,” Charlie said and stuffed his third ear of corn bread into his mouth.

“You mean to tell me that this global thing talks to you?” She looked at me for verification.

“Well, it wouldn’t be safe to use it if it didn’t. I mean, the earlier versions would just make a
bing
sound when it was time to turn right or left. But basically reading the screen is just as dangerous as texting while driving.”

“Texting?” she asked.

Charlie and I looked at each other and laughed. “Oh, Glam-ma! We’ve got to bring you into the twenty-first century!”

It did me so much good to hear Charlie laugh again. Maybe coming here wasn’t such a bad idea after all.

“I guess I don’t get off this island often enough,” she said, looking wistful.

“I’m not sure all this technology is so wonderful.” I reached over and patted the back of her hand. “Lunch was wonderful, Mom. It was just what we needed.”

“Well, good. I’m glad y’all enjoyed it. Now, who wants a brownie?”

“I guess I could eat a brownie,” Charlie said with so much seriousness that we all laughed again.

“And then you’ll help me unload the car?” I said.

“Better make that two brownies,” he said. “I need to build up my strength.”

Mom washed dishes while Charlie and I pushed and pulled our suitcases up the back steps and into the house.

“Same rooms as last year!” she called out to us as we passed by her.

“Okay!” we called back.

I dropped my things right inside my door and went to Charlie’s room to help him get unpacked. Naturally, Mom had accessorized our rooms to a fare-thee-well, Charlie’s especially. It was like a visit from Santa on a smaller scale. She had promised not to spoil him. Didn’t she remember that?

“Look at this comforter,” he said in a whisper. “Does she think I’m still, like, five or something?”

“She means well, Son,” I said. “You know she went to a great deal of trouble.”

“Yeah, I know. Look at this whole stack of books and all this other stuff. And this bathing suit? Wow. Is this how guys dress down here?”

“I guess.”

He opened the yo-yo and let it unroll. “What’s this thing supposed to do?”

“I’ll show you later.”

“I should’ve brought my skateboard. I forget how flat the island is.”

I perked up at that. Maybe he was coming around a little if he wanted his skateboard.

“Well, I could call Aunt Maureen and ask her to send it. But it would probably cost the same to put it in a box and ship it as it would to buy a new one. I don’t know. We’ll see.”

“I could do the research on my laptop.”

I took that as a good sign too, and a tiny smile crept across my face as I put a stack of T-shirts into a drawer.

“Okay. Get the facts and then we’ll make a decision.” Jimmy always said any problem you could solve with money wasn’t really a problem. That was true, but only if you had endless resources.

“Okay,” he answered.

I turned to see him lying on the bed in the kennel of idiotic, grinning puppies, flipping through the pages of a comic book.

“Wait,” I said, “let’s see if I’ve got this right.”

“What?”

“Please. Don’t say ‘What?,’ say ‘Yes, ma’am?’ ”

“Yes, ma’am? What?”

“You’re going to lie there reading a comic book about pirates while I do all the unpacking?”

“Guess not, huh?”

“You got it. Come on, young man. Gimme a hand here.”

We finished up in short order, creating some rhyme and reason to where we put his clothes and rechargers and gadgets. I went to my room to unpack my things and called back to him over my shoulder, “Don’t forget to thank your grandmother for all the loot.”

“No worries,” he called back.

I pulled up the Venetian blinds and let the full force of the breeze rush in. My old room, like my mother’s room, faced the ocean. I stood there for a moment to take in the view. It was simply astounding to have the entire Atlantic Ocean right in front of my face not five hundred yards away. It was so vast. The only thing that separated us from the water was a front lawn, choking under the proliferation of dollar weeds, and a string of sand dunes. All across the white mounds of sand, honey-colored tall grasses grew in clumps, sprouting here and there. They moved like hula skirts swaying in the air. Beyond that, seagulls squawked their crazy birdsong, swooping down across the rippling water that glistened in the sun like broken glass. And in the far distance, a container ship riding low in the water under the weight of its goods slowly made its way across the horizon toward Charleston harbor. Enormous clouds that looked like thick cotton candy rolled by. It was a magnificent scene, and it reinforced the reasons why my mother had always lived here. Anyone would be hard pressed to find a place more beautiful. Or peaceful. This could be very good for me and for my boy. Yes. Very good indeed.

I lifted my heavy suitcase and was about to swing it around and throw it up on the bed when I saw the quilt. I staggered a little, not quite believing my eyes. It was on
my
bed. That old quilt was one of my mother’s greatest treasures, besides some dishes and a couple pieces of Waterford crystal. When I was a kid if I touched it without permission I got screamed at so loudly that I was sure the whole island heard. And now it was on
my
bed? What did that mean? And her antique lace pillowcases were on the bed too. Was she giving them to me? Or was she just trying to make me feel better? Then I saw the books and the water bottle and tote bag with the visor and all the other things she’d put in the room for me. I stopped and thought about her generosity. I wouldn’t be caught dead in a pink visor and I wasn’t particularly a fan of her choice of reading material, but she couldn’t have known that. She was just trying to protect my eyes from the glare of the blasting sun and give me something to occupy my time. It was nice of her, as were all the things she had bought for Charlie. But it was also a little overwhelming. I didn’t want to be in her debt. I didn’t want to be in anyone’s debt. And a lifetime of experience in dealing with her had taught me how she operated.

If I seemed gloomy, she would say, “Well, what else on this blessed earth can I do to make you happy? What do you expect from me?” And then I would seem like the Ungrateful Child and probably say, “Well, what do you want from me?” Then she would tell me that I had to snap out of it for Charlie’s sake and I would say I was doing my best but I missed my husband. Then she would stare at me wondering why I had married a fireman in the first place, and I would be infuriated. You see, there’s a big part of my mother’s lofty opinion of her social position that I think she stole from Lady Astor. She had no reason to think she was some highfalutin socialite, but she did. And I had no apologies to make about living a middle-class life without pretension. We were polar opposites when it came to those things, and that’s all there was to that.

I turned around to see Charlie standing in my doorway. “What’s up, baby?”

“My stomach hurts,” he said.

“Ate too much?” I asked.

“Yeah. I hate okra.”

“I used to, but now I can eat anything. You should see some of the stuff I had to eat in Tikrit. It looked like dog food. Or maybe it
was
dog.”

Charlie gagged. “Gross. Maybe I’ll just go lie down for a little while.”

“Good idea. Try and get a nap.”

“Yeah, maybe. Okay.”

I thought, Great, now my son is an emotional eater. He stuffed himself at lunch just to please my mother. She was an awfully good cook; I mean, she was a much better cook than I’d ever be.

I put the quilt on the chair and began to unpack. I didn’t need to be a great cook. It seemed to me that people who cooked like mad just made work for themselves.

I looked at the sorry clothes I had thrown into my suitcase. Mostly I had brought shorts and T-shirts, bathing suits, and a couple of things I could wear to church or out to dinner if we felt like going somewhere else to eat. I figured that if we didn’t have something we really needed we could buy it. It wasn’t like Sullivans Island was deep in the jungle or something. Downtown Charleston was only minutes away, and Mount Pleasant was loaded with stores.