What I Came to Tell You (20 page)

“The Roundtrees are moving back to Mitchell County.”

“Because of the fire?” Grover asked, feeling the bottom drop out of his stomach.

“There’s more to it,” his father said.

Grover looked out the window.

“She’s put in for a weekend job at St. Joseph’s, which won’t come through till January. Until then she’ll commute from Roan to the hospital. When it does come through, she’ll work three twelve-hour shifts and rent a room close to the hospital and go home to Roan Mountain on her days off.”

“It’s because of what happened in the guest room,” Grover said, unable to keep the anger out of his voice.

His father stepped into Grover’s room and shut the door behind him. “How did you know about that?”

“I heard y’all,” Grover’s voice shook. “I didn’t mean to. It was hard not to hear.”

His father sat on Grover’s bed. “Irresponsible and selfish.”

“I
said
I didn’t mean to—”

“I’m talking about me,” he said. “I was selfish to let that happen.”

“But what does that have to do with them moving back?”

“She thinks that what happened to Emma Lee happened because she and I …” His father sighed. “And maybe it did.”

“It happened because Merlin knocked the candle over,” Grover said. The fire department had determined that the fire had started when the candle had fallen over. The part about Merlin was everybody’s best guess. The cat hadn’t been seen since the fire.

“Leila thinks it was a warning from God. She thinks He’s telling her she needs to move back to Roan Mountain.”

“She told me she thought Jesus was the one who helped me carry Emma Lee,” Grover said. “So does she think God almost burned us up so He could save us?”

“Religion is a big part of the Roundtrees’ lives.” His father sighed again. “I didn’t understand quite how big.”

“Who do you think helped me pull Emma Lee out of the house?” Grover asked. “It wasn’t Jesus.”

His father looked at him like he was debating whether to say something. “I don’t know,” he said, “but I do know that I’m sorry about what happened between me and Leila. When you get a little older, you might understand.”

“I know all about that!” Grover said impatiently. “We had sex ed last February. They put the boys in one room and the girls in the other, gave us pamphlets and asked if we had any questions. Mama filled me in on what wasn’t in the pamphlet since you were at a meeting in Raleigh.”

“I’m sorry I’ve been such a lousy father.”

“That’s okay,” Grover said.

“And I’m sorry about … the guest room. I know your mother hasn’t been gone that long.…”

“I don’t really care about that,” Grover snapped. “Not that it made me feel good that my father was in the guest bedroom with the neighbor.”

“You sound pretty mad to me,” his father said.

“That’s not what I’m mad about,” Grover said. “Not the main thing anyway.”

His father got a knowing look on his face. “You don’t want your buddy to move away. Listen, Clay can visit anytime. Maybe for a few weeks this summer.”

“It’s not
just
Clay,” Grover said under his breath.

“Ah,” his father said and that was all he said.

Grover rubbed his forehead and looked out the darkening window. “Can’t you tell them not to move away?”

“I did,” his father said. “She said she’d prayed about it a long time.”

“She really thinks what happened to Emma Lee was a message from God?”

“Leila believes it’s a sin for people to sleep together before they get married.”

“A sin?”

“And that God was punishing Leila for her sin,” his father said.

“Why would God take y’all’s mistake out on Emma Lee?”

“Leila figures that God knows the worst thing that could happen to a parent would be for something to happen to their child.” His father looked at him. “I would’ve never forgiven myself if something had happened to you when you went in after Emma Lee.”

“What kind of God would kill the child to teach the parent?” Grover asked.

Grover and his father sat on his bed for a while. Grover wondered why the Roundtrees, especially Emma Lee, had become so important to him. They’d only been here a couple of months. It wasn’t like he knew Emma Lee the way he’d known Sam—since they were little kids.

“They’re moving on Tuesday,” his father said.

“Why so soon?”

“She doesn’t want to impose on Jessie.”

“They could impose on us,” Grover said.

“Staying here would be about the last thing Leila would consider.”

“She blames you for the fire?”

“She blames the situation.”

“The situation?”

“Me and her. Such as it is, was.”

Grover didn’t say anything. His father was trusting him, confiding in him. Even though it felt very strange to hear about a woman other than his mother, he also thought maybe he was getting to know his father in a different way.

Mrs. Caswell led the class downtown. When they passed Reader’s Corner, Grover tapped on the window and waved at Byron. Several girls gathered around the window, looking at Tom, who
squinted up from his usual place among the books. They passed Videolife. Grover didn’t pause with the other kids to look at the big poster of
Fantastic Mr. Fox
.

Grover’d been the one to answer the phone the night Videolife had called to tell them
Fantastic Mr. Fox
was in. When he’d hung up, he said, “Mama, that was Videolife. They said
Fantastic—
” His mother had clamped her hand over his mouth and nodded in the direction of Sudie, who sat on the couch doing her homework. She had put her finger to her lips and waved him into the kitchen. “When you get home from school tomorrow,” she whispered, “could you ride your bike down to Videolife to pick it up? I want to surprise her.” Sudie had missed the movie when it had come to the theaters because she’d had the flu, and she was dying to see it.

As Grover’s class neared the Wolfe house, he thought how his father’s mood had improved, the reason being the same reason that Grover’s class was headed to the Old Kentucky Home. In spite of all his father’s doubts, it looked like
A Thomas Wolfe Christmas
might work. Little Bit had hand-delivered pamphlets to all the schools and sent press releases to the newspapers and the radio stations and the TV stations. Schools from as far away as Charlotte and Raleigh shipped busloads to visit the house. In the couple of weeks since Thanksgiving, the house had already had more visitors than the rest of the year combined, and school and church groups had made reservations all the way up to Christmas. County commissioners were beginning to back off plans to downsize the staff, and Delbert Lunsford had been silent at the latest commissioners’ meetings.

As his class crossed over the bridge into town, Grover paused and watched a tractor trailer of Christmas trees rumble beneath. Probably from Mitchell County. He’d gone over to talk to Emma Lee at Jessie’s on Saturday after she’d come back from the hospital. Grover’d walked into the den, which was warm from the big fire Jessie had going in the fireplace. He found Emma Lee curled up in a big stuffed chair, asleep, a copy of
Jane Eyre
open on her lap. Her hair fell across the back of the couch, a long black shiny sheet. Grover started to tiptoe out.

“Don’t go.” She stretched and yawned.

“I didn’t mean to wake you,” Grover said.

She sat up, patting the chair beside her and he sat. “The doctor says I can go back to school tomorrow.”

Grover nodded, feeling unable to look her in the eye all of a sudden.

“They tell me I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for you,” she said.

“I had help,” Grover said.

“Mama told me.”

“It wasn’t Jesus,” Grover said.

“Who do you think it was?”

“I don’t know, but whoever it was has a firm grip.” Grover went over to the fire, poking at it with the iron poker, sending sparks up the chimney.

“What is it, Grover? You look serious.”

“You know the other night when you said ‘Thank you for everything’?” He sighed. “The way you said it felt like you were saying good-bye. And it made me wonder.”

“Wonder what?” she said, sitting up on the edge of her chair.

He looked toward the fire crackling in the fireplace. “If maybe that candle didn’t fall by itself. If
someone
might’ve helped it fall.”

“Someone did,” she said. “Merlin.”

Grover rubbed his forehead. “You said the only chance you had of seeing your father was up in Heaven and I was wondering if maybe you decided to …”

“Are you kidding?” she asked. “Daddy’d give me down the road if I showed up in Heaven having done something as bone-headed as burn myself up.”

Feeling a wave of relief, Grover sat back in the chair.

“Besides,” she said, “I promised I’d go with you to the Christmas Waltz.” Then her face fell. “Except I guess that can’t happen now.”

“Do
you
want to move back?” he asked.

“I miss Nanna, but to tell you the truth, I was getting used to it here. I like Asheville. I like Claxton. I like Mrs. Caswell. I like Mira and all the kids at school. It’s even getting so I don’t mind Ashley and them.” She paused. “And I like Jessie and your daddy and Sudie and …” She looked at him, her eyes shining.

“My father says your mother thinks the fire was a warning.”

“Us moving back doesn’t have a thing in the world to do with God,” Emma Lee said. “Mama’s afraid of how much she likes your daddy. She’s afraid something might happen between them.”

Something already has
, Grover thought.

“It’s been hard for Mama to get over Daddy,” Emma Lee said.

“But he was mean to her,” Grover said.

“He was hateful to her in the end. He didn’t mean to be hateful. The war did that to him. Still, if somebody slaps you around long enough, it’s hard to work up a lot of sympathy for him. I think him being the way he was at the end made it hard for her to get over him. She loved him but she hated him too. So when he died, she couldn’t just flat-out miss him. The more you miss somebody, the quicker you get over them.”

They looked toward the fire. Grover thought about his mother, about how he hadn’t visited her grave lately. How his mind had been on other things. Was it because he’d missed her so much when she first died that he didn’t think about her quite as much? Maybe a person could only do so much missing.

“Let’s spit on a car.” Sam had come up beside Grover on the overpass as their class walked toward the Wolfe house. Sam checked to see that Mrs. Caswell wasn’t looking, leaned over the rail and spit. The white drop flew through the air and hit a windshield. “Bull’s-eye.” Grover didn’t smile.

“You have to get over her,” Sam said.

“You don’t get over that kind of thing real quick,” Grover snapped.

“I’m not talking about
that
,” Sam said.

“Gentlemen!” Mrs. Caswell called and they hurried to catch up.

“Emma Lee isn’t the only fish in the sea,” Sam said. “What about asking Mira to the Christmas Waltz?”

“I’m not asking anybody else to go anywhere,” Grover said as his class wound through the parking lot of the Wolfe house. There must’ve been twenty school buses—from Winston-Salem, Charlotte, Raleigh, Chattanooga, Knoxville, Greenville, Columbia and even Charleston. Grover saw a cat disappear around the corner of the Wolfe house that looked a lot like Merlin and was about to go after it, when Matthew came walking from the other direction. There was something different about him but Grover wasn’t sure what. Matthew’s glasses. He was wearing wire-rims instead of the heavy black-framed glasses he always wore. Otherwise, he looked the same. Same green Army coat, same backpack, same distracted look in his eyes. He didn’t seem to notice Grover among the long line of students.

“Welcome!” Grover’s father stood at the top of the steps, wearing, of all things, a Santa hat. “Welcome to
A Thomas Wolfe Christmas
!” his father said, waving Grover’s class in. The house was crawling with schoolchildren. Orderly, well-behaved lines of them. Little Bit wouldn’t have it any other way. His father had said at supper last night that the attendance numbers were so high that it would probably support funding for the next year.