What I Came to Tell You (22 page)

“The Roan is a very big mountain,” Jessie said.

“Clay said they live exactly eight miles from his school,” Sudie said.

“Where’s Bakersville Elementary?” Grover asked.

Their father drove a little bit farther through town.

“There.” Sudie pointed to a low brick building on the side of a hill.

His father pushed the odometer. They drove through Bakersville and started up Roan Mountain. Neat cabins and well-kept trailers were set back from the road. The higher they drove, the fewer houses they saw and the more they passed through dark sections of evergreen trees—spruce and fir and hemlock—shading patches of snow. Grover couldn’t help thinking that if he lived up here there’d be no shortage of limbs to weave. In the shadowed sides of the mountain, icicles clung to the rocks.

As the road steepened, the car’s engine whined, also the wind picked up and the Christmas tree shifted on the roof. “Maybe this wasn’t such a great idea,” their father said. He pulled off to the side of the road and Jessie got out, tugging on the twine and checking the knots.

“That boy must’ve been an Eagle Scout,” Jessie said, getting back in the car. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen such sturdy knots.”

The car climbed on up the mountain, the engine whining louder.

“Clay said Roan Mountain is the second-highest mountain east of the Mississippi,” Sudie said.

“The vegetation is similar to Canada’s,” Jessie said, looking at the plants and trees along the roadside. Just as the odometer read eight miles, a dirt road appeared.

“Turn down there,” Sudie said.

“You sure?” their father asked.

They bumped along the dirt road for about a quarter of a mile, their father’s eyes going to the roof of the car. Finally they pulled in front of a small cabin with smoke curling out of its chimney. The cabin sat on the edge of a big meadow with wisps of clouds and a few stunted pine and spruce trees that looked like the bonsai trees Grover’d seen on a class trip to the North Carolina Arboretum.

“This is it,” Sudie said.

“How do you know?” their father asked.

“I don’t see their van,” Grover said. All they saw was a green rusted Subaru parked in a shed around the side of the house. This cabin looked too small to hold Leila and Emma Lee and Clay too.

“We better turn around,” their father said. “Some old boy might shoot us for trespassing.” His father had started backing out when a golden retriever and a black lab tore around from the back of the house, barking fiercely, and circling the car.

“No, wait!” Sudie said. “Those are their grandmother’s dogs Clay told me about. Benjamin and Midnight.” Sudie started to get out.

“Hold on,” their father said. “Those dogs look like they mean business.”

Before he could stop her, Sudie was out of the car and calling to the dogs.

“Sudie,” their father said, jumping out of the car.

The dogs came up wagging their whole hind ends. Sudie bent down, petting them. They licked her face. “They’re sweethearts,” Sudie said as Grover and Jessie got out too.

As Grover petted the dogs, he realized how much colder it was up here. The air was lighter up here and richer somehow. Occasionally there’d be a break in the clouds. They could see that the cabin was perched on the side of the mountain. They could see valleys and waves of mountains in the distance.

“Leave those folks alone.” A woman stood in the cabin doorway, talking to the dogs. She was dark and tall and had long black hair like Emma Lee except hers was pulled back in braids. She wore a flannel shirt, blue jeans and hiking boots. Grover didn’t remember Emma Lee mentioning an aunt.

“Mrs. Sparks?” their father said.

“Yes?” she said.

This was Emma Lee’s grandmother? Whenever Emma Lee or Clay had talked about their fierce mountain grandma, Grover’d pictured some toothless hag who walked around with a shotgun over her shoulder and a wad of tobacco bulging in her cheek. This woman was the youngest, prettiest grandmother Grover’d ever met. She could’ve been Leila’s older sister.

“We’re the Johnstons,” their father said.

“You live across from my daughter,” she said, walking down to them.

“And I’m Jessie,” he said, stepping up and shaking her hand.

“I know,” Mrs. Sparks said.

“I’m sorry for descending on you like this,” their father said. “We just happened to be up this way.”

“Just happened to be in the middle of nowhere?” Mrs. Sparks didn’t smile. She did smile when she saw the tree tied on their car. The tree covered up the whole roof of the car. Some limbs had come loose and hung down the sides. A Christmas tree on wheels.

“We went to Mr. Gudger’s tree farm,” Sudie said. “It’s where we always go.”

“Henry Gudger passed this summer,” Mrs. Sparks said, “but Irene’ll keep the farm running. That grandson of hers is a hard worker.” It hadn’t occurred to Grover that the Gudgers might actually know the Roundtrees.

She turned to Grover. “You’re the boy who saved my granddaughter’s life.”

Grover looked at the ground. “I just happened to be there.”

“Just happened to pull my granddaughter from a burning house. Just happened to drive a good fifteen miles out of the way. You Johnstons are big on just happening.” Mrs. Sparks looked at their father. “Leila and them have gone over to Elizabethton to visit a sick cousin. Not sure when they’ll be back.”

“Elizabethton?” Grover asked.

“That’s in Tennessee,” Jessie said.

“We’re only a mile from the Tennessee border,” Mrs. Sparks said. “Roan straddles both states.”

Grover felt his heart sink, and from the look on their father’s face, Grover guessed his heart had sunk too.

“Come in and have some tea.”

“No, thanks,” their father said, “but please tell them we came by.”

“You went nearly an hour out of your way,” she said. “The least you can do is let me give you some tea.”

“We better get on down the mountain,” their father said. “No telling how long it might take us with that tree.” He sounded defeated.

“They’ll be sorry they missed you,” Mrs. Sparks said.

They started back to the car.

“Could I see your weavings?” Grover asked Mrs. Sparks, who was halfway up her walk.

“Why, sure,” she said.

“Maybe another time,” their father said to Grover.

“When?” Grover asked. “When will we ever be up here again?”

“Maybe this spring?” their father said.

“We’ll never come back here,” Grover said, “and you know it!” Grover was surprised at his anger.

“I’d like to see her weavings too,” Sudie said.

“Me too,” Jessie said.

Their father sighed. “We should only stay a few minutes.”

The front room was toasty from the woodstove that roared in one corner.

“I’ll put the kettle on,” Mrs. Sparks said.

“Don’t bother,” their father said.

“It’s no bother,” she said, disappearing into the kitchen.

Bookshelves sagging with books crowded the walls. Emma Lee had said her grandmother drove the county bookmobile. Woven mountain scenes occupied wall space that wasn’t taken up by bookshelves, like the weavings Grover’d seen in the Roundtrees’ house. Mountain scenes: sheep grazing in a meadow; a man holding the reins of a mule plowing his field; a dark-haired girl, who looked a lot like Emma Lee, milking a cow; two boys, one who looked like Clay, fishing in a stream. Woven scenes hung everywhere. They looked like paintings from a distance, but the closer you got to them, the more you saw the individual strands.

Their father was more interested in her books. “She’s got a first edition of
Look Homeward, Angel
. And another one of
You Can’t Go Home Again
.”

“You run the Wolfe house,” said Mrs. Sparks, coming in from the kitchen.

“He’s the
executive
director,” Sudie said.

A gust of wind whistled down the chimney, making a fluttering noise in the stove.

“Where’s this one?” Jessie pointed to a weaving of a little cemetery overlooking a long view of the valley below and the mountains beyond.

“I can take you to see it after we have tea.”

“Do we have time?” Jessie glanced toward their father.

“Sure.” Their father didn’t look up from what he said was a rare biography of Wolfe.

The house seemed bigger inside but even so, it would be cramped for four people. There was this front room, and then as far as Grover could tell, there were three small bedrooms, and the kitchen in the back. One bedroom had bunk beds. He saw a couple of soccer balls and piles of books. Clay and Emma Lee must’ve shared this room. There was a bedroom that must’ve been Leila’s and another that must’ve been Mrs. Sparks’s. Next to this cabin, Jessie’s rental house was a mansion.

“Emma Lee tells me you’re quite the artist,” Mrs. Sparks said.

“I just mess around,” Grover said.

“Emma Lee says she’s never seen anything like your tapestries,” she said. “You and I both know she doesn’t say anything she doesn’t mean.” Mrs. Sparks sat him at the big loom that was halfway done with what looked like a scene of a garden. She showed him how to slide the shuttlecock through and how to push on the pedal that pushed the yarn into place. It made a satisfying clicking sound.

“How do you know what the scene is?” he asked. “Do you draw it first?”

“I’ve been doing it so long I work from the pictures in my head.”

After they drank their mugs of hot tea, Mrs. Sparks took them, with the dogs running ahead, along a worn path that led into woods, a dim, dripping forest of evergreens. With its ferns and moss, much of it encased in ice, and with its little animal paths running all through it, the place reminded Grover of enchanted woods where gnomes or hobbits might live. The forest held little
clouds that they passed through. Sometimes they even lost sight of each other. After a few minutes they came into a large open area and on the far side, between clouds floating by, they saw the cemetery, the wet headstones gleaming. Grover remembered Clay saying that he’d looked after it. They walked among the headstones. They came to one whiter than the others.

“That’s their daddy,” Mrs. Sparks said, coming up beside Grover. “He was a good father and a good husband.” She paused. “Before the war.” She showed them older headstones that included her husband’s, Emma Lee’s grandfather. “I’ll be buried here too one day. You can’t beat the view.”

When they got back to the cabin, their father said they should leave.

“They’ll be so sorry they missed you,” Mrs. Sparks said.

“We wish they’d move back,” Sudie said.

“Sudie,” their father said.

Mrs. Sparks put her arm around Sudie. “I like a girl who speaks her mind.” Then she said, “To tell you the truth, I wish they’d move back too. Don’t get me wrong, I love them to death, but we’re in the middle of nowhere up here.” She looked at their father and Jessie. “The kids feel isolated. They both like Claxton. They love living in Asheville. Honestly, I was starting to enjoy having my house back. I’d lived alone for fifteen years before they moved in, and I’ve never gotten used to having so much family underfoot.”

“Tell them to move back,” Sudie said.

“I tried,” she said, “but their mama was shook up by Emma Lee nearly dying in that fire. She thinks it was a message from God.”

“And you don’t?” Jessie asked.

“I think she’s afraid,” Mrs. Sparks said.

“Afraid of God?” Sudie asked.

“Afraid of being happy again,” she said, not looking at their father.

There was an awkward moment, when nobody said anything.

“We better get going,” their father said.

“One second,” she said. “Grover, come with me.”

He looked at his father, who motioned him to follow her. “Jessie and I will be checking the Christmas tree,” his father said.

Mrs. Sparks led him back into the front room and disappeared into the kitchen. In a minute she came out with a long cylindrical package wrapped in brown paper and tied with twine. “A small token for
just happening
to crawl on your hands and knees into a burning house and
just happening
to carry my sweet Emma Lee to safety.”

“Thank you,” he said, making sure to look her in the eye.

“Your mama must’ve been one remarkable woman to have such a boy as you.” Her eyes seemed to glisten. He was halfway down the path when she called to him from the door. “Grover?”

“Yes, ma’am?”

“The world needs our art whether it knows it or not!”

He ran to the car and climbed in. As they pulled away, they waved at Mrs. Sparks standing in the doorway. The dogs chased their car down the dirt road. As their father started down the mountain, Grover looked at the wrapped package, turning it over and over.

“Well, don’t just sit there,” Sudie said. “Open the thing!”

Grover carefully untied the twine. One of her weavings. He unrolled it across the backseat and into Sudie’s lap. The weaving that Jessie had pointed out—of the cemetery and the mountains beyond.

“Oh, Grover,” Sudie said, gently stroking the fabric. “She gave you the best one.”

When they got home, Jessie cut off a few inches of the tree with his chain saw so it would stand in their living room. He helped them get it up in the stand, then said he had to go home and check on Tippy.

Their father put on the lights like he always had, with Sudie checking the strands for any bulbs that needed replacing. When their father brought down the big box of ornaments from the attic, Sudie’s face darkened and her eyes got all shiny. Grover knew what she was thinking. Their mother had always been in charge of putting on the ornaments. Sudie was reaching to hang a gingerbread man ornament on a limb, when her shoulders slumped and her face crumbled. Their father was busy replacing a bulb. Grover nudged him.

“Sweetheart.” Their father sat Sudie beside him on the couch.

“It’s not the same, Daddy,” Sudie said, rubbing her red eyes with the heels of her hands. “It’s just not the same.”

“I know,” their father said.

Grover agreed with Sudie. It wasn’t the same. Hadn’t been the same since that April afternoon. If only they’d somehow
known what was coming, they might’ve paid closer attention to the time they had left with their mother.