The Color of Family (22 page)

“Agnes, are you serious?” Antonia said with an incredulous, stammering laugh. “Clayton Cannon is a concert pianist. A public figure. Do you have any idea just how easy it is to find out that information? Sometimes it's as easy as just looking in the paper.”

And Agnes, unaware that someone was heading toward her, completely oblivious to her daughter-in-law and grandchildren walking across the dining room, whipped herself around and pointed an accusing finger at Antonia and screamed in a whisper, “Stalker! You are a stalker, that's what you are!”

“I'm no stalker, Agnes, but if I were, it wouldn't matter, because the Bible says ‘Be thy brother's keeper, and keep his children from deception,'” Antonia said with all the confidence of what she believed.

“The Bible may say that, Antonia, but you don't have no right to stalk my son. You're a stalker. Stalker! Stalker!”

But Antonia's attention was not on Agnes's ranting that was wrapped tightly, Antonia presumed, in fear. She was awed by the miracle of what stood before her. “Hello,” was all she could say to the woman and two children.

“Mother Cannon?” Susan Cannon said. “Is everything all right?” She looked suspiciously at Antonia, then at Agnes, then back at Antonia who was regarding the twins with an exacting interest, and this made Susan cinch her forehead even tighter.

Agnes collected all the parts of herself that she had splattered all over the room when she exploded and said, “Oh yes, honey. Everything's just fine. I'm just having lunch here with an old friend of mine from New Orleans, Antonia Jackson. Antonia, this is my daughter-in-law, Susan, and my grandsons, Noah and Luke.”

“It's a pleasure to meet you all,” Antonia said meekly. The weakness in her fluttering heart, the sense of scarcely being able to believe she was near enough to touch Emeril's grandsons, had taken her voice nearly completely from her. There he was, Emeril times two as a boy. Everything was duplicated, even the one dimple in the right cheek—that dimple told her that fate simply wouldn't create such an uncanny coincidence. But even with the uniqueness of the dimple, it was the eyes that told her all she'd ever need to know. Those boys had Emeril's eyes, which meant they had her eyes too. And she wondered if they could see it; if they could look into her eyes and see that they were the same as their own. And so she blinked slowly, half involuntarily and half as a beacon to bring home lost souls in the dark night of secrets.

“The pleasure's all mine, I'm sure,” Susan finally said once she'd finished staring at Antonia, who was still staring at the boys. “Boys, did you say hello to Mrs. Jackson?”

“Hello, ma'am,” the boys said in unison.

“Hello, darlings,” Antonia said softly.

Then Susan went closer to her mother-in-law, took hold of her hand and said, “Mother Cannon, why would you have lunch down here? I mean, it's lovely and all, but why didn't you just have your friend over to the house? I would have fixed you all a lovely lunch.”

“Well, I wanted some atmosphere. You understand, don't you?”

“I guess. Well, anyway, the doorman is the one who told me
where you were, otherwise I'd likely to never find you. You didn't leave a note, or anything.”

“So why were you looking for me?” Agnes asked with her voice just barely on the edge of impatience.

“I wanted to see if you might be available this evening to stay with the boys. Clayton and I were invited to a dinner party tonight at the home of the president of Peabody, but since Clayton's in Milan I didn't think I would have to go without him. Turns out he wants me to go anyway. Says it'll be good to get to know the president of Peabody just in case his career goes south and he needs a teaching job. Can you imagine? The man's at the top of his career and he's trying to line up a safety net.”

“I think that's pretty smart,” Antonia said, adding her unsolicited opinion.

Susan regarded her with questioning eyes and said, “I suppose it is.” Then she turned to her mother-in-law and asked, “So anyway, can you stay with them?”

“Oh, of course I can. Even if I had plans I'd cancel them for these two sugars,” she said as she went to the boys and squeezed them to either side of herself.

“All right then, we'll see you upstairs. I suppose you won't be long, will you?” and she looked at Antonia as if she'd find the answer with her. “I need to run to a store and pick up some pantyhose.”

“No, we're almost through here, aren't we, Antonia?”

“Yes, we are,” Antonia said without a trace of the disquiet she was certain she'd feel at the end of a luncheon with Agnes Cannon. Instead, she felt fortified, lifted up in integrity with the fact of life that would inextricably tether her to Agnes forever. And the only twinge of sadness she felt was that Susan had no idea that those boys' great-aunt was sitting right there, willing and ready to watch them at any hour. So she let that thought go, and said to Susan, “You have beautiful boys. Love them well.”

“Oh I do,” she said with the pride of a mother. “They're beautiful in every way. Such blessings. Say good-bye, Noah and Luke.”

“Good-bye, ma'am,” they both said.

Then Noah said, “It was nice meeting you.” And he watched Antonia with a half-smile and studying eyes that couldn't seem to
let her loose as his mother gently shooed him and his brother along.

“I'll see you later, Mother Cannon,” Susan said.

“Bye Grandmama,” the boys said together as they moved farther across the dining room.

“Bye babies,” Agnes said. Then she turned her attention back to her plate, taking large bites of food as if they were a day and a half from Armageddon and all earthly pleasures had to be consumed. She looked up only to say, “We should finish up since I have to get to the boys.”

And so Antonia ate toward the finish without any thought of those pralines in cream waiting for her in spite of their devilish temptation. She just needed to be gone from Agnes and downtown altogether, even though she'd only gotten a mere sliver of what she'd come to get. That little bit was enough, though, and even if nobody else believes it, Antonia knew in her heart that she had just laid eyes on Emeril's grandsons. Agnes can call me fou-fou, she can call me evil, she can call me angry, Antonia thought with a sly smile that let the edge of her lips barely curl. None of it mattered, because she knew that her tenacity, in the name of Emeril's honor, is what was putting the fear of the devil into Agnes, the one living in the morass of mendacity.

E
llen was stretched out on the sofa, staring at her musings as they pranced across the ceiling. She wanted so badly to close her eyes and drift off into the pillowy part of her mind where nothing could reach and torment her. But after the dash to the hospital with the fear of losing her baby pumping every ounce of blood through her body, the threat of doom would simply not leave. Her eyes had been stretched wide since three in the morning, and she looked at the clock to find that it had been a solid twelve hours now. Every time it seemed that some curtain of rest was about to descend and take over, the tape of mischief that had been playing all day long in her mind would loop around to its three
A.M
. beginning and play all over again.

So before it could start again, she reached over to the coffee table and grabbed the
Parents
magazine she had picked up at the hospital newsstand days ago when she was feeling particularly warm with daydreams of motherhood. But lo and behold, there it was, right there on the cover of the magazine. It was as bold as day and something she hadn't noticed till now:
PROTECTING YOUR CHILD FROM DANGER
. And so it started her up again, thinking about those two killer men who'd escaped from jail as they were being transferred to Lewisburg. She could barely think about anything else after she heard her brother first report it on the news nearly a week before. Yes, she thought about them during the day, and as chilling as the thought of two maniac convicts on the loose
was to think about in the crisp light of an afternoon, there was something about the three
A.M
. hour that opened her eyes from a stone sleep, making her certain they had shimmied up the side of her house and were climbing through the bathroom window as she lay there stilled with fear. And she couldn't let go of the possibility now any more than she could at three in the morning that maybe they'd scalp her and Rick just as they'd scalped their other victims, leaving their bloodied pads of hair at the front door, a gruesome calling card for which they'd become known.

Not even Rick lying next to her offered up any solace for her disturbed heart, she remembered, because watching him lie there with the peace of sleep in every part of his form, she thought about dying, as she thought about it now on the flip side of night—and so there'd be no hope for their forever. Ellen sat up and looked across the room at the picture of her and Rick as an hours-old married couple, she beaming with joy unparalleled and he looking at his new bride with the warmest love that even now, some eight years later, still made her misty. Mostly because she thought about her vows that were supposed to be forever, but it seemed to her now, as she thought about forever, that it could only be realized if they were both to die together. If she died first, maybe in childbirth, or some freakish accident, or suddenly in her sleep the way death can sometimes flash, she'd only be promising him her forever. He'd have to live the rest of his forever alone. Alone with a baby and a mortgage, collecting a writer's fickle wages. What if his books stop selling? What if he finds himself at the bottom of the bestseller list, or worse, off the list altogether? What in the world will he do?

But before she had a chance to come up with solutions to her imagined scenario, the doorbell rang. So she got to her feet and went as slowly as she could stand to go—since she was supposed to be taking things easy—to the door. Once she got up the three steps that sank the living room into a grand valley, she went through the double-wide portal into the hallway, and just before she opened the door, she looked through one of the narrow panes of glass framing the doorway to find her mother. That's right, she thought as she swung the door open, she did say she'd stop by.

“Ma, come on in. I almost forgot you said you were coming by.”

“Hello, my baby,” Antonia said as she pushed the door closed
with one arm and put the other around Ellen's vanished waist. They walked together back to the living room where she helped Ellen down the three steps and back to the sofa. “Are those steps too much for you, baby?”

“No, Ma. There're only three of them.”

“I guess that's true,” Antonia said as she took off her coat, tossed it to the other end of the sofa, then settled herself down next to Ellen. “Honey, are you sleeping? Did you get any sleep when you got home from the hospital last night—or should I say this morning?”

“Ma, I may have slept about an hour, that's all. I know I must look like hell.”

“You look beautiful. Any woman with a baby in her belly can't help but look beautiful.”

“I agree, Mrs. Jackson,” Rick said as he stood in the doorway that led down the hall to his office. “Did you get any sleep, honey?” he asked as he descended the stairs and started across the room, only to be diverted by the blazeless fireplace. “Let me build you a fire.”

“I'm not sure if I slept,” Ellen said as she watched Rick build a fire. And something simmered warmly in a very visceral part of her that sent tears to well, first, it seemed, in her heart, then in her eyes. A gesture so small, yet so overblown with his love, she thought, and she was so touched that all she could say was, “Thank you, honey.”

Antonia took her daughter's hand and gave it a squeeze. “Why are you crying, Ellen?”

Should I tell her? Ellen wondered. Certainly, as a woman who'd carried two children, she would understand gratuitous weepiness because, after all, it was one of those enigmatic sacrifices of pregnancy. So she said, “I've just been weepy a lot. I guess it's from not getting any sleep.”

“Oh, well most likely you did sleep,” Antonia said. “Maybe it was shallow, but it was sleep, nonetheless, and that's better than no sleep at all.”

Ellen glanced over at Rick who had not gotten the fire going yet. So she pressed her eyes into him as if the pressure would make him get it started faster. Just barely minutes after sentimental tears fell for the gesture, she now questioned just why this fire
was so all-important, especially since she was anxious to talk to her mother about matters that her husband did not need to hear. “Rick, honey, can you leave the fire alone for a minute and get me something to eat?”

He looked over his shoulder and said, “I've just about got it going now, Ellen. Can I get it in a minute?”

“I'd really like it now, Rick,” she said plainly with just a hint of contrition for sending him from the room on a wild-food chase.

So he stood from where he stooped, swiped his hands together, then said, “All right, sweetie. So what do you want?”

“Maybe some pasta with olive oil and a little grated cheese.”

“Okay. Antonia, can I get you anything?”

“Oh, nothing to eat, thank you. I just came from a big lunch so I'm not hungry. You can bring me something warm to drink, though, like some tea.”

“Tea,” he said pointing two fingers at Antonia. “And pasta with olive oil and cheese. I'll be right back.”

Ellen waited until she knew for certain Rick was in the kitchen before she turned to her mother and said, “Thanks for asking for the tea. That'll keep him in there for a while.”

“Well, I had the feeling that's what you wanted. What's going on? Why'd you want him out of the room?”

Ellen slumped against the high arm of the sofa and softly wept. Then, wiping her tears with the hem of her bathrobe said, “Ma, I've been having some awful thoughts lately. Scary thoughts. Thoughts about death and murderers and just plain horrible things that no one about to have a baby should be thinking about. And I worry if I'm going to be able to keep this baby safe from all those awful things that I can't stop thinking about.” She sat up and wiped the rest of her tears with the back of her hand. Then, with as much composure as she could muster for the moment, she turned to her mother and added, “And I keep thinking about those men who escaped from jail last week. You know, those men who broke into those people's houses, then robbed them, killed them, and scalped them?”

“Oh, my stars, Ellen. Why in the world do you want to think about those animals?”

“I don't want to think about them, Ma. I just can't help myself.”

“Well, you've got to now. You don't want to be thinking about anything so terrible,” Antonia said as her face screwed itself up into a scowl. Then, as if she'd figured out the right thing that would put Ellen at ease, she brightened her face with a near smile and continued, “But to tell you the truth, you've always been this way. When you were young, like about the fifth or sixth grade, it got to where your father and I had to stop watching the news altogether because if somebody was murdered, you were certain the killer was on their way to North Avenue in search of you. I don't know where you got that stuff.”

Ellen stared straight across the room in front of her as a chill tingled its way through her. At that moment, with her mother taking her all the way back to the beginning of her fears, she knew that she had never felt safe. From somewhere in clear air this came to her, the memory of always feeling like a small piece of thread that could irreparably be unraveled to an obliterated, unidentifiable bit of nothingness with the wrong word, or the wrong act, or the will of one man, and then she'd be gone forever. Dispensable. And before she could even begin the struggle within of whether or not to tell her mother, she'd already begun to blurt out, albeit with a quiet flatness, “I've never felt safe.”

Antonia looked at her from the corners of her eyes, and asked, “What do you mean, you've never felt safe?”

“I mean what I said, Ma. I've never felt safe because I've always thought that someone could come and take me away. Or make me go away. That somehow death would come to me by the will of someone else, not by God, not even by my own choice to take my life. But it would be evil and ugly and torturous in every conceivable way. I can't remember when I wasn't afraid of this, Ma, and now I have to figure out a way to make this baby know that he—” Then she turned to face her mother and matter-of-factly noted, “Oh, by the way, the baby's a boy.” And without letting her mother emote in any way, she continued, “I've got to figure out how to make him feel safe in a world in which I've never felt safe myself. No easy task, Ma.”

Antonia's face had fallen as she stared at Ellen for several long seconds before taking her in her arms and saying, “I just don't know what to say, Ellen. You've always been so together, and so fearless. It never seemed to me that you were afraid of anything. I
mean, just look at you. You're incredible. You're my incredible, marvelous daughter who can do anything. Why, I was just thinking earlier today about how you just went after everything you ever wanted. Do you know how fearless you have to be to do that?”

And if Ellen could have made that moment solid matter, and tucked it away for whenever she needed reminding, she would have. She would take it out whenever she needed to remember that her mother could have, in times like this, moments of complete and total lucidity; and be the soft place she needed to cushion her fall. But then it would only be counterbalanced, she thought, by the likes of that yellow cat, Tippy the Fourth, which had absolutely no bloodline back to the first Tippy, except in her mother's abstracted mind. Then there were all the other oddities, like the way she actually seemed to believe in the authenticity of her bogus Bible quotes, and the way she moved furniture around in secrecy. But now here my mother sits, Ellen thought with a sideways smile, the paragon of a mother's solidness as if her wacky ways were the figment of everyone else's active imagination given to exaggeration. So she smiled softly, just for the warmth of her mother's faith in her, and said, “Well, that's nice, Ma, but they're just accomplishments. Anybody can accomplish anything. You just have to want it badly enough. It doesn't take any particular bravery to become a doctor.”

“Yes, that's true. You do have to want it badly enough, but first you have to be fearless enough to want. Cowards don't want, Ellen. They sit back and make excuses as to why they can't get what they want. Not you. You just went after it. You just
go
after it. And that makes you brave in my book.”

Ellen sighed, and shook her head with the frustration of being unable to really make things clear—to her mother and to herself. It didn't seem to make much sense to her to continue down a road not even she could navigate. A road that had only been brought into her consciousness by the rush of hormones. So she knew she had to put it all away for another day's pondering when she asked her mother, “Ma, when Uncle Emeril died, what was it like for grandma? How did she take it?”

“Oh, honey, why in the world do you want to talk about that now? You don't need to think about a mother mourning her child when you yourself are about to have a baby.”

“Okay, fine,” Ellen said dismissively. She didn't need her mother's protection as much as she needed to hear of the primitiveness of a mother's grief; because it would have to be raw, like a blistering, festering sore that all the salves on earth or balms in Gilead could never seem to heal. “It's just that you've never talked about how grandma took his death. It was always pretty clear to me how it hurt you, but what about her? I never knew her, I know, but I still want to know.”

Antonia twisted her mouth into a tiny feline-like bow of a smile, as if she were trying to keep herself silent. And as if edginess couldn't keep her still, she shifted where she sat then recounted, “Well, she never got over it. It was as if she cracked in half the day Emeril died and nothing could put her back together again. She was like that till the day she died. And we couldn't ever say his name in the house. It was just like Emeril never even lived. Sometimes, I would think I was going out of my mind, having my heart break every minute of the day when I was remembering and grieving with everything in me for somebody who seemed to have never been born, so I would have to look at that picture of us as babies to remind myself that he had lived and had been born right along with me. So that's why when Daddy died and she acted like it didn't even matter to her, there was nothing else I could do but marry your father, or else I would have had to stay up in that house and go the rest of the way crazy with Momma. When she died, she hadn't been in her right mind for years, not remembering anything and forgetting people. Everybody said she was senile, but Momma was too young to have been senile. I think she just died from her grief.”