The Lost Saints of Tennessee (21 page)

Thirty-Five

1985

By three o'clock in the afternoon, the plane lifts off from Charlottesville headed for Memphis. Cousin Georgia makes all the arrangements, even books a rental car at the Memphis airport so I can drive to the Tolliver hospital. She says not to worry about Tucker or the truck. They will be waiting for me when I get back.

Get back. This does not have to be a repeat performance of leaving and not returning for twenty-five years. The dog is there. Barring everything else, I will have to come back for the dog.

Before the plane takes off, I call Daisy at home and tell
her I'm on the way. The surgery is scheduled for ten o'clock tomorrow morning. The chances of survival are good; the chances of dying are good, too. Mother had looked so tired the day I left Clayton. And I ignored it. Ignored her.

It's after seven before I am on the road in a white Ford Escort. Darkness has fallen, making it difficult to follow the road signs. Outside Memphis, Highway 64 beckons. The wind picks up, swaying the treetops and requiring two hands on the steering wheel.

In Somerville, Dairy Queen provides a burger to go. A Memphis country radio station keeps me company, the voices of Willie, Merle, and Reba filling the empty space in the car. The station starts breaking up when the highway heads south eleven miles outside of Tolliver.

Only a handful of cars, mainly the nightshift workers, occupy the hospital parking lot. The last time I was here was to watch Louisa be born. Jackie's pregnancy was much easier the second time, and labor took four hours from start to finish. We'd been eating lunch over at the Country Kitchen in Mabry when her water broke. By dinnertime, we had another daughter. The maternity ward is on the second floor. Several windows glow with light. Babies are probably being born right this second. Moses Washington always says people love the beginning parts of life; it's the middle and end parts that end up being more work than we bargain for.

The strong antiseptic smell of the place hits me as soon as the automatic entrance doors close shut. It is hard to imagine anyone getting well in a place that smells this bad. At the information desk an older woman with hair somewhere between lilac and orange is packing up a crossword-puzzle magazine into a purse shaped like a dog. A round button on the lapel of her sweater reads “Ask me! I care about Tolliver Hospital.”

“Excuse me. I'm looking for Lillian Parker's room.”

She glares at me over reading glasses before consulting papers on the desk. “Third floor. Room three ten. Visiting hours end in half an hour.”

I thank her and stand by the elevator, waiting for it to come down. When the
up
arrow lights and the doors open, Rosie steps out. She throws herself at me, hanging on tight like she always does. Her hair is cut short and spiky, like the “Hit Me with Your Best Shot” singer. Of the five of us, Rosie got the looks. Mother called her “my little ugly duckling” when she was little and all legs and huge brown eyes.
Wait and see,
Mother would say,
she'll be a swan soon enough.
By the time she was fifteen, every boy for two counties was knocking on our door.

“You look good, Rosie.”

She hits my shoulder. “Do not. Drove down from Nashville today and I look like hell. At least I got some work done on the way listening to band tapes. I've listened to enough bad music for a year. Might've been one good one in the bunch. Maybe. How's Virginia?”

I can feel her peering at me. We haven't seen each other since Pigeon Forge. Someday I will tell her about the final-exit attempt. But not now.

“You're staying with Cousin Georgia out there?”

I nod. “Where are you headed? Mother all right?”

“I need some air. You just missed Violet and Daisy. They went home for the night.”

“And Mother?”

Rosie pulls a cigarette from the pocket of her jeans. “Go find out for yourself. I'll be on the walking track. Come see me afterward. And you should probably call Daisy and Vi to let them know you made it.”

The elevator dings open again. Above the front desk, the clock reads 8:35. The pay phones are next to the bathrooms, both of which have yellow “closed for cleaning” cones blocking the doorway. The janitor and I are the only ones around. I step over a mop bucket and call Vi's house first. She's not home yet but Louis takes the message.

Daisy answers on the first ring. “Thank God,” she says, “I've been praying all day you'd make it.”

The fact that she admits to praying says how bad things must be. Daisy thinks praying is for folks who don't have the guts to take matters into their own hands.

“Have you seen Mother?”

“Headed up there now.”

“Good. You and Rosie stay at my house, okay? Violet will want you over at hers, but you all don't need to be driving any more tonight. I've got to get Dave's dinner going here before he heads in for the late shift. Then I'll be over to the hospital to pick you up.”

Noise comes from the front entrance. A very pregnant woman and a man barrel through the doors. The woman clutches her belly and stops walking for a moment, taking deep breaths. The man puts his hand on her back, speaking to her softly. We all get into the elevator together. Between the first and second floor the man asks if she's okay five times.

“I am not okay,” she says through gritted teeth as they get off.

“Good luck!” I call. He gives me a nod before the doors close.

On the third floor, TVs hum out from open doors. Two small children sit on a bed with an older woman in one of the rooms. The girl sees me pass by and offers a wave. The door to room 310 is shut. No sound can be heard from inside. Maybe she's sleeping. I'm still trying to grasp that she has a life-­threatening illness. Both she and Daddy were healthy their whole lives. I don't even remember my father being sick. Mother caught the occasional cold but not him. He was under the hood of his truck when the heart attack hit. Landed facedown in the engine he'd been trying to fix for the better part of a decade. Carter seemed to get sick a lot—bronchitis, ear and sinus infections. Stuck in bed, he'd want me to stay and dote on him.
Zeke, come on over and tell me a story, will you? Go on out and get me some ice cream, Brother, I'm feeling poorly.

A nurse who looks younger than Honora asks if I need help.

“I'm here to see my mother.”

“You must be Ezekiel. She's been talking about you today. Your brother, too. What's his name? Carson?”

“Carter.”

“That's it. You go on in. I believe she's just resting.” She returns to writing on a patient chart.

The metal door handle gives way with a solid click. The ceiling-mounted TV casts the only light in the room, bathing it in a flickering blueness. The volume is turned off. Mother rests in bed with her head turned toward the wall. She stirs at the sound of my footsteps.

It has only been a month since I last saw her but she is transformed. The extra weight gained over the years since Daddy's death has been shed, leaving only the angular lines of her body. The skin around her cheeks and mouth is slack. But mostly it is her eyes. There is a filmy softness in them I don't recall seeing before. When our eyes meet, I realize it is not softness but resignation.

“You came.”

She motions to the one chair in the room. “Tired? Virginia is a long way away, isn't it?”

The TV above flashes images of two guys in Easter egg–colored jackets chasing crooks in Miami. We both watch for a moment, transfixed.

“You'd look good in a turquoise jacket, Ezekiel. Match the color of your eyes. My eyes, you know. You and me have the same eyes.”

She looks down at the bed, smoothing the sheets with her hands. “I need to say a few things, son. And I know you're not much for listening to me, but this is probably the last time you'll have to, okay?”

“It's not going to be the last time, Mother.”

The comment makes her laugh—a brittle, nervous
sound. “And how do you know? If anyone knows, it's me.
I've got a feeling about this surgery tomorrow and it's the
kind of feeling I've never had before, so I'm taking it as the Lord letting me know I need to get ready.” She glances
at the TV. “Those boys are too pretty for their own good.
Where's the thing to turn it off? I can't concentrate with them staring at me.”

The remote control is buried beneath the covers. The effort of digging it out leaves her breathless, and she lies back on the pillows.

“Turn it off. Please.”

The remote control also has a button for a light. She squints as the fluorescent bulb sputters to life behind the bed. What if she's right? What if tonight is the last time I will see her? It is an impossible thought.

“How's our Honora?” Her eyes don't meet mine; she runs a hand along the top of the bed's rails. “Have you seen her yet?”

I fold my arms across my chest, an itchy feeling crawling across my skin. “I'll see her tomorrow.”

“Good thing. It's her first love, son. She doesn't know up from down. The whole thing takes you by surprise. The force of it. You remember, don't you?”

The notion of my eldest being in love
has never occurred to me. Not really. She's never had a boyfriend before. How did you go from hating boys to being in love with one?

“She told you she was in love with this boy?”

Mother looks at me with something approaching pity. “Honey, she's over-the-moon in love. Now, I told her not do anything crazy, okay? She's a smart girl. I don't think she'll get in trouble like I did. Like your sister did. Like Jackie.” She shakes her head, remembering. “Even if Honora does, things are different now. A girl has options we didn't have all those years ago. Not that I would've changed anything. Except maybe being older than fifteen.”

My expression must have changed to one of complete shock, because she holds up a hand. “Now, wait a minute. Before you go thinking this and that, the last time I spoke to Honora they hadn't gone beyond heavy petting.”

If this is supposed to make me feel better, it doesn't. I turn
away from the bed and walk to the window, trying to gather myself to finish this conversation when what I want to do is
tear out of the room and find my daughter. The wind parts the clouds, exposing a round, almost full moon. Is Honora with the boy right now, looking at the moon from the backseat of his car?

“Now I've gone and made you worried. I'm sorry. Come here.” Mother pats the bed. “Where I can see you. There. That's better.”

She reaches a hand out shyly and puts it to my face, curving her fingers along the jawline.

“Thank you.”

“For what?”

“Letting me touch you. It's been a long time.”

In the first year after Carter was attacked, her touch filled me with rage. Any attempt to hug or kiss was rebuffed. Eventually the anger faded from all-consuming to an afterthought, but avoiding her became a habit.

“Son, I love you. I need you to hear that. Do you? I'm sorry for all that's gone wrong between us, Ezekiel. I've loved you every day of your life, loved you more than I probably should, I know. But you are right here.” She pointed to her heart. “Right here always. I was never happier than the night you and your brother were born. You were gifts from God.”

Regret mixed with the small embers of anger, glowing still, surfaces inside of me. I try to look away, but she brings up both hands to hold my face.

“Can you forgive me? Can you? Please?”

The metallic clanging sound of a cart being rolled down the hallway comes through the door, accompanied by a loud laugh from the nurse's station. A phone jangles in the next room. I think of the couple from the elevator. Is the baby born yet?

“It's all right, Mother. It's all going to be okay.”

Her hands drop to her lap. “Don't bullshit me, Ezekiel Cooper. I am too old and too near dead. Forgive me or don't. Whatever you say, mean it.”

Talking is not easy; her breath comes in short, raspy bits.

“I'm sorry, too,” I say.

A knock comes at the door. Visiting hours are over.

Mother's gaze exposes more raw love than anyone else has ever offered me. I remember seeing that same look when Carter and I were six. We were sitting on stools at a pharmacy in Memphis eating the best burgers of our lives. It had been a reward for enduring the doctor's appointment where they performed tests on Carter and told Mother he would never learn to read and never be able to take care of himself. Ketchup slid off a French fry and spilled onto my new shirt. I looked up at Mother, waiting for her inevitable scolding. Instead, she leaned over and wiped the ketchup away with a napkin.
What am I going to do with you? Come here and give me a messy hug and see if I don't forgive you right quick.
I put my arms around her, and my brother threw his arms around me, and we were all hanging on to each other.

The hospital gown swallows her small body. When I wrap my arms around her, she feels like nothing.

Thirty-Six

1985

The wind outside is bracing and cool after the hospital's stale,
heated air. I swallow big gulps of it. Rosie waves me over to the exercise track adjacent to the parking lot. With headphones clamped over her ears, my sister walks faster than some people run.

She cups her hands around her mouth like a megaphone. “Get over here. I'll race you.”

Carter, Rosie, and I used to race from our mailbox to old man Cartwright's house a quarter of a mile down Five Hills Road. She beat us nearly every time. And the few times when she knew she was going to lose, she'd do her best to knock over Carter or me before we reached the finish line.

“I'm too old to race. The body's gone.” I pat the small hill of beer belly to prove it. My paunch is smaller than usual, most likely a result of my average weekly beer consumption having dropped to almost zero at Lacey Farms.

“Oh, please. You're barely over forty. And that makes me almost forty. If I can do it, so can you.”

She catches sight of my footwear and stops walking, pointing at the boots. “And what are those?”

“I've been learning to ride out at Cousin Georgia's.”

“Horses?”

I nod. The subject of Elle Chambers is too new to discuss. “Who would put an exercise track next to a hospital? Don't they know there's a bunch of sick people in there who would give anything to get out and go for a walk?”

We fall into an easy pace. She links her arm through mine. It's almost as if we are twelve and eight again, walking to the dairy bar for a quart of milk for dinner.

“She thinks she's going to die, you know,” Rosie says.

“Mother thinks a lot of things.”

The night wind gusts and we increase our pace to stay warm. Gold- and rust-colored leaves from the oak trees lining the track scatter across it, crackling beneath our shoes.

“The whole drive down I kept saying out loud, ‘my mother has cancer, my mother has cancer.' Trying to make it seem real. When Vi called and told me Mother had to have surgery tomorrow I didn't feel anything. Nothing. Do you think that's strange?”

She pauses, blowing air into her hands. They are Mother's hands—long, delicate fingers, the wrists narrow and finely boned. We head for a wood bench near the track. Rosie asks for my help in turning the bench so that it faces the trees and not the hospital.

I pull out a pack of Marlboros from my shirt pocket, offering Rosie one. The wind blows out the match twice. When we get the cigarettes lit, we both lean back and take long drags before letting the smoke out in one long breath.

“Do you think Daddy still loved Momma?” she asks. “Even at the end?”

“He loved her more than anything else in the world. Anything. Made him do crazy things.”

“Such as?” Rosie takes one more drag before throwing the cigarette on the ground, mashing it out with the toe of her shoe.

“Now that was a waste of a perfectly good cigarette. Why smoke if you're only going to take two hits?”

She says she only smokes when she's anxious, and she can never do it around her singers because they all worry about it ruining their vocal cords. Never mind that half of them are closet chain-smokers. The management isn't supposed to do it in their presence.

“Made anybody a star lately?”

“You heard of Bradley Jason?”

“He's got that song out about the little boy who dies, right?”

“It's about his brother. Died when he was six. Brad was nine. Damn good song.”

She says she heard him singing in a dive bar in Austin when she was at a conference. Knew he could be big. Signed him the next week.

“Pretty good at your job, aren't you?”

She shrugs. Sometimes I think she feels funny back home, like she doesn't want the extra attention just because she has the kind of job most people dream about. Mother used to pump her for details when she came home for Christmas, ignoring the grandchildren, the ham, just wanting to hear about Nashville.

“You really think Daddy still loved her? Even after that whole mess with Uncle Leroy?”

I look sideways at her.

“Come on, Zeke. Daisy told me years ago. Said the two of you found Momma and Leroy kissing out behind the church on Violet's wedding day.”

“Daisy shouldn't have told you that.”

“Why not? So I'd think better of Mother? I don't blame her for having an affair. She should have picked somebody besides her husband's brother is all.”

“You don't have a problem with adultery?”

“Nope. Not when you've got five kids and your husband's gone three weeks out of four. We drove Mother crazy.”

“That was her job, Rosie. Taking care of us.
All
of us.”

She unfolds her legs and hops up, cursing the cold.
“Should have brought my down jacket.” Pointing a finger at me, she says, “You've never forgiven her for Carter.”

How good it would feel to let it all out, rid myself of the betrayal and hate I have harbored for Mother. They cling to my insides, with no place to go. I knock Rosie's finger away with more force than I intend.

“How does a person forgive a thing like that? Maybe you can forgive the affair. But putting one of your own children into a mental hospital when he was perfectly well enough to live at home? Can you even imagine doing that?”

She doesn't answer, and this tells me all I need to know. I take off back to the hospital. Rosie's footsteps pound behind me. She is breathing hard.

“Wait a minute.”

I walk faster.

“Wait the hell up, Zeke!”

She catches my arm, forcing me to turn around. “I didn't mean it like that. I don't think what she did to Carter was right. I hope I would make a better choice if I were in the same situation.”

“You hope?”

She jams her hands in her jeans pockets. “Look, none of us knows what we'd do. We may think we do. But the truth is, we don't know until we get there.”

“Maybe
you
don't know.”

I light another cigarette, leaving the pack almost empty. I should've stayed in Virginia. Elle will be getting ready for bed now. Is she thinking about me?

Rosie keeps talking. “She wasn't going to leave him in State to rot, you know. She needed a break. She was going to get him out after Christmas.”

“Who says?”

“She did, Zeke. She told me. If you'd ever talked to her about it, she might have told you, too. What did she say to you tonight? She told me she was sorry about not loving me enough when I was little. Said she was so damn tired by the time I came around. She's saying good-bye to us, you know, Zeke. She's getting ready.”

The truth of this silences us both. Honora will take it the hardest if Mother dies. Mother taught her to bake and to cook, had her over every Sunday since she was tiny. She would never say she favored Honora more than Louisa or any of the other grandkids, but I knew. Could see it on her face when she asked after Honora or watched her open a Christmas present, intently watching my daughter's face. When she would call our house, she always asked to speak to Honora. Jackie saw it, too.
We have two daughters, Zeke. Two. Your mother only sees one.

“Did she ask you to forgive her?”

Rosie's voice draws me back. I nod.

“And? What did you say?”

The easy answer is clear. The words are on the tip of my tongue.

“You couldn't do it, could you?”

“I told her I was sorry, too.”

“For what, Zeke? For hating her all these years? For blaming her for Carter's death? For being a loser stuck in his hometown at a shit job? Jesus fucking Christ. I can't even look at you right now.”

She stomps off to her car, a sleek convertible, and slams the door shut.

“Screw you!” I yell, my voice bouncing off the trees and across the deserted parking lot.

Mother's words about Honora press at the back of my mind. It takes ten minutes to drive to Curtis and Jackie's house, which sits in the middle of a cul-de-sac in Mabry's only new home development. My ex-wife and her then-boyfriend bought it a year ago. At the time, Louisa told me how fun it was to pick out the carpet and paint colors for her room—the first she would not have to share with Honora.

No one in my family had ever owned a brand-new
home. What was it like to be the first person to inhabit a place? To have pristine walls and floors without scuff marks? Never mind the five bedrooms and six bathrooms.

Curtis's shiny F150 XL Supercab with its chrome wheel rims sits in the driveway next to Jackie's brand-new Thunderbird. I park at the curb and turn off the engine. So far, I have managed never to set foot in the house. The girls always know when I'm coming over and a single horn blast summons them outside. Through the front picture window I glimpse Curtis. He must have seen the unfamiliar car and walks to the front door, throwing it open. The outdoor light mounted above the driveway clicks on, lighting up the interior of my car like daybreak.

Fuck.

“Is that you, Ezekiel?” Curtis stands in the walkway.
He wears pressed chinos and an oxford shirt, his blond hair parted on the side and slicked back.

I climb out of the car, telling myself not to punch him just because he is sleeping with Jackie and providing for my children. It would feel so good, though. Quick uppercut. Nice and clean. Rattle the old boy a little.

“Hey, Curtis. I dropped by to see the girls. Are they still up?”

“Sure, sure. Come on in.” He waves me in the front door with a smile. “Let me get Jackie for you.”

Before I can stop him and say,
Please, just the girls,
he is
gone, disappearing down the front hallway that looks as big as our old house. The house smells of cookies baking and I wonder if it's real or just some fancy upgrade option they chose—“have your house smell like chocolate chip cookies with the superscent ventilation system even when you're too busy to bake.”

I take a seat in the living room. The new house must have come with new furniture, too. Five years younger than Jackie or me, Curtis has made more money at his Ford dealerships than my father made his entire life. This also feels like a good reason to hit him.

The slap of bare feet against the hallway's wood floor comes toward me.

“Dad!”

My youngest throws herself at me. I grab her up—pink nightgown and all—and hang on with all I've got. She tucks her head beneath my chin.

“I missed you,” Lou says softly.

“Me, too.”

Recalling how close I came to never seeing her again makes me hold her tighter. Pigeon Forge feels like a thousand years ago now. How did I imagine leaving behind this little creature with her spindly arms and legs?

She looks up at me with the large brown eyes that make it nearly impossible to deny her anything. I gently set her back on the ground.

“Something's wrong with Honora,” she says, grabbing hold of my hand.

My heart catches. “What do you mean, sweetheart?”

“Yesterday she stopped talking. To anybody.” She
shrugs. “I mean, she doesn't really talk to me much anyway but she's not even talking to Mom. Or the boyfriend.”

When she says
boyfriend,
she makes quotation marks in the air.

Jackie walks into the room and gives me a brief hug. The physical contact is suprising—hugs are not something she doles out to me on a regular basis anymore—but then I realize it must be sympathy inspired.

“Did you see Lillian?” she asks. “The girls and I stopped by yesterday.”

Lou tugs on my hand. “Will MeeMee be okay?”

MeeMee is the name Honora came up with when she was a toddler and couldn't manage “MeeMaw.” The name stuck, and Mother said she never minded since it sounded French.

Jackie and I share a look above our daughter's head.

“I hope so,” I say.

“Hang on a second, Dad. I want to show you something.” Louisa disappears out of the room.

Jackie pulls me into the farthest corner, where we sit on a couch covered in what appears to be Holstein cowhide. “I'm going to talk fast because Lou will be right back. Just listen, okay? It's Honora. She's been in the kitchen for two days baking cookies. Only stopping to pee and sleep for a couple of hours. It's crazy. I think it has to do with the boyfriend.”

“Did you ask her?”

“Zeke, do you think I'm an idiot? She won't speak to me. She's not talking to anyone. She communicates by writing shopping lists of ingredients for me so she can keep baking. She's having some kind of breakdown here and I need your help.”

I run my hands down my face. What does Jackie want me to do?

“Mother thinks Honora is in love with this guy,” I say. “What do you think?”

She nods.

“Can't we get through one crisis at a time? Is that too much to ask?”

“Have you always whined this much, Zeke? Because I have a hard time believing I put up with it.”

I'm too tired to fight. Louisa returns holding something behind her back.

“Ta-da!” she says, revealing a trophy that looks half as big as she is.

Jackie and I can't help but smile at our daughter's glowing face and the size of her prize.

“I won ‘most-improved player' on the soccer team this year. Remember how last year I kept missing my shots and forgetting who I was supposed to be defending against? Not this year. I wish you could've seen me play, Dad.” Her expression dims. “I kicked butt.”

“She did, Zeke. I went hoarse at the games screaming for her.” Curtis makes this helpful comment from the hallway, where he appears to be eavesdropping. “And Jackie—” He clears his throat. “Honora is throwing flour in the kitchen. Not that it's a problem.” He smiles that car-salesman, everything's-great smile. “Just wanted to give you an update.