Cavedweller

by Dorothy Allison

  “Yeah.” Cissy waited, but Dede said nothing more. The guard shifted again.

  “He’s going to be all right,” Cissy said again, and saw Dede nod as she brought the cigarette to her lips. There was that slight trembling along her fingers, and a glitter in her eyes, but Cissy could see the stubbornness taking hold now.

  “Yeah, sure. Damn son of a bitch. He better be all right.” Dede pressed the heels of her palms to her eyes once, hard, and turned in her seat to glare at the woman guard. “He better be.”

  “I gave Dede’s address as the trailer park and listed Amanda as the person to contact after you.” Emmet handed Delia a little paper cup of water and sat down in the office chair in front of her. She blinked up at him blankly. “Thing is, Delia, there’s been a reporter here already.”

  Delia swallowed two aspirin and shook her head. “What did he want? Where’s my girl?”

  “What do they always want?” Emmet ignored the second question. His voice shook with anger. “They want a story, a scandal. Girl shoots lover, lover gets hauled off to hospital yelling ‘Don’t hurt her, she didn’t mean it.’ That’s their favorite kind of story. Redneck girls and foolish boys, reporters eat that stuff up.”

  “I don’t care about that. I want to see my girl.”

  “Delia, you should care. This blows up into a big story, it could be trouble.” Emmet clasped his hands together. He leaned in close to Delia. “You’ve done so good with those girls,” he said softly.

  “Good!” Delia’s reaction was raw and bitter.

  “Yes, good.” Emmet nodded emphatically. “You’ve had them to yourself all these years. You’ve shown them how much you love them. Reporters been turning up here ever since you come back, wanting to make you into a story, but M.T. and me and the people who care about you been keeping them away from you. Giving you that time.”

  “You can’t handle people like that.” Delia was looking.at Emmet skeptically.

  “Oh yes you can. If people help, you can. And Delia, you got a lot of people here willing to take a reporter in hand, buy him a drink or drink the ones he buys, talk to him for hours, and never tell him nothing. And you’ve been pretty boring, the way they look at it. Haven’t killed anybody or gone crazy or done much of anything. This could change all that. It’s just too good a story.”

  “You can’t stop them,” Delia said.

  “No,” Emmet agreed. “You been in the National Enquirer once or twice, and you get mentioned fairly often in Rolling Stone, specially since they put out that Mud Dog CD, but that was that old boy fell in love with M.T., and he never said where you lived.” He paused for a beat, then said, “You been safe, Delia.”

  “I an’t felt safe.”

  “Well, honey, you never would, would you?” Emmet’s smile was gentle. “You an’t the type.”

  “Oh, for God’s sake!” Delia stood up and walked over to the office door. “Emmet, I just want to see her. You bring her to me.” She turned around and looked at him accusingly. “I don’t care about nothing else. Bring me my girl.”

  “All right, all right.” Emmet rose slowly from his chair. “I’m telling you what I think you need to know. I care about you, Delia Byrd. You know that. I’d eat dirt for you, and you know that too.”

  “I don’t want you to eat dirt. I want you to bring me my girl. Bring her up to me in this office.” Delia’s gaze was level. “And don’t you bring her in handcuffs. You know she an’t going to hurt nobody.”

  Delia had thought it would be easier if she and Dede could sit together like two normal people, like mother and daughter, but when Emmet brought Dede in, it barely mattered that her hands were free, that the office had typewriters and chairs instead of bars and a guard. From the moment he opened the door, Delia’s heart began to pound like a train engine.

  Dede looked terrible. She had refused to wash up or even to comb her hair, and she kept her hands clenched together as if she were still wearing the cuffs Delia had been so afraid to see. “Mama,” she said, and saw the expression that crossed Delia’s face then. “Delia,” she added quickly, but it was too late.

  Dede went to Delia’s arms. “I’m sorry,” she said.

  Delia hugged her girl fiercely, pulling Dede’s whole length in close. “It’s going to be all right.” She stroked Dede’s hair.

  “Nolan? Cissy told me he was all right.” Dede started to say more, but Delia stopped her.

  “He’s fine. He will be, anyway. He’ll be here as soon as he can make that doctor let him go.”

  “I hurt him. Oh God, I could have killed him! I didn’t want to kill him.” Dede was shaking in Delia’s arms.

  “No, no. I know, baby. It’s all right. Nolan is going to be fine. Don’t think about the rest of it, you just think about that. Nolan is going to be just fine, and you’re going to help take care of him. It will be all right, honey. I promise you. It will be all right.”

  “I can’t take care of him!” Dede looked horrified. “I shot him. I can’t take care of him.”

  Delia hugged Dede again and then held her at arm’s length. “Yes, you shot him. That’s why you will take care of him. You said you didn’t mean to do it. Are you telling me you don’t love him?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t know. Seems to me Nolan should keep his distance. Hell, seems to me everybody should. I an’t no sane person. I’m crazy.”

  “You an’t crazy. Maybe you went crazy for a minute. And maybe it would all make sense if you understood what was happening inside you.” Delia’s voice was a hoarse whisper, her face lined and intent. She took Dede’s hand in her own. “Listen to me. You been all torn up since Granddaddy Byrd died. I could see it, everybody could. We just didn’t know what to do. Closer you and Nolan got, the more messed up you got. What I think, honey, is you don’t know how to love Nolan. What I think is that the idea of him loving you scared you so bad you did go crazy, the kind of crazy that fights for its life the only way it knows how.”

  Dede dropped her head and shook it from side to side wearily. Delia leaned in to her and caught her chin. “When did you ever see anybody in love and happy, huh? You grew up on Clint and all that craziness. And you grew up on me, didn’t you? You got every reason to be scared of love.” Her eyes held Dede’s.

  “I don’t know,” Dede moaned. “I think I love Nolan, but it makes me feel like my heart is breaking to think about him. And every sweet thing he says to me, I start thinking he don’t mean it. Then I saw him with Sheila, and I knew it was a trick all along.” She shuddered. “Oh Lord, I thought he was just another boy wanted to wear my heart like a badge. The gun was in the car under the seat, that one that I got after Billy Tucker scared me. I don’t even remember going out for it. Seemed like I was watching him kiss her and then I was shooting. I said, ‘You want to marry me, huh?’ and he shouted, and I shot him.”

  “Nolan wants to get married?” Delia stroked Dede’s shoulder like someone trying to gentle an animal. “You never said nothing about that.”

  “I couldn’t. It was like Nolan was some stranger I never knew at all. Felt like I had to get away from him, but then I couldn’t go a minute without him. Started carrying that gun in the car, because I couldn’t stand the way I was feeling. Thought that I’d be better off dead. Oh God, I don’t know what all I was thinking, but I didn’t want to kill Nolan.”

  “Shush. Shush.” Delia pulled Dede into her arms again and stroked her hair steadily. “Just let it out,” she whispered. “Just cry. We’ll fix it, honey. It’s going to be all right. You’re going to be all right.”

  Delia could have been talking about the weather; Dede would not have known the difference. What she heard was the reassuring voice, what she felt was the cool balm of mama love. Nolan was not hurt, her mama had promised. It was going to be all right. Dede fell into Delia’s arms and let go. For the first time in weeks, Dede let go of her fear.

  Twice Emmet came to the door and heard the sobbing and stepped back again. Once, he heard Dede say clearly, “I d
idn’t mean to hurt him.” Thank God, Emmet told himself. If she saw what she had done, it might be all right in time. Only ones who couldn’t be helped were the ones who never admitted what they had done.

  Holding Dede, Delia was thinking the same thing. She remembered how she had sobbed in Randall’s arms so long ago, that endless first year of tearing pain over having abandoned her girls. “It’s all right,” Randall told her over and over, and she let herself believe him. Not until he died did she finally see that there had been other choices besides running and drinking herself into oblivion. I can help her, she thought as she soothed Dede. I can show her how to get through this.

  After a long while Dede fell silent, her cheek pressed to Delia’s blouse. “Baby,” Delia said, “Nolan’s going to get you out of here.”

  Dede raised her head, unbelieving. “He can’t do that,” she said.

  “Oh yes.” Delia nodded calmly. “He can. He will. If things were different, you could go home with me, but it’s going to take a little time to get this sorted out. But soon, I think, you need to see Nolan. You need to know he’s going to be all right.”

  “I don’t think I can talk to him.” Dede’s voice was small.

  “You can. I know you can.” Delia hugged her girl again. “Listen, honey, Rosemary will be here by tomorrow, and if you want, you can go stay with her for a while.” Delia paused for a moment. “But I’m telling you now, I don’t think that’s what you should choose. I think, if you had been talking to Nolan, none of this would have happened. Talk to him now, baby.”

  “I don’t know.” Dede pulled away, wiping her face on her sleeves. “I don’t think I can.”

  Delia groped for her bag and got out a pack of cigarettes. “Here,” she said, and lit one for her girl.

  “You smoking again?” Dede looked surprised.

  “No, I bought ’em for you. Thought you might have gone through that carton already.” Dede tried a smile.

  Dede sat down in Emmet’s chair and drew hungrily on the cigarette. Delia sat beside her and watched her smoke. Delia simply waited while Dede smoked and looked around the room. “We don’t never talk, do we?” Dede said when the cigarette was almost gone.

  Delia shook her head. “We an’t the type,” she said.

  Dede took another cigarette out of the pack. “I’ve been thinking about you a lot,” she said. “About you and Clint.” Delia waited.

  “What I never understood is how it all happened in the first place.” Dede lit a match and watched it burn down. “How you fell in love with him. You must have known what he was like.”

  All right, Delia told herself. Talk to her. She took a breath. “I should have known, but I didn’t. I had been so alone for so long. When I met Clint, I thought he was hurt like I was. I thought he knew everything I knew. I thought he could heal my heart and I could heal his, but Clint wasn’t Nolan, baby. Clint was nothing like Nolan at all.”

  “I know that.” Dede sat back down again beside Delia.

  “No, I don’t think you do. What did I ever teach you but how dangerous love is?” Delia dropped her eyes. “I never wanted to talk to you about all that, didn’t want to say hard things about your daddy, but not talking about him, I never got to tell you the other part. How much we loved each other. How much pleasure we took in you and Amanda. How it was for a while, loving him and trusting him. Everything in Clint that was broken and mean cannot erase what was good. I wouldn’t have had you if there hadn’t been so much good in him. He gave you back to me, you know. As torn up and sick as he was, he did what he could. He gave you back to me.”

  “He nearly killed you.” Dede’s voice was soft and clear. “I saw how he was with Grandma Windsor, even with his daddy. How he was with us. He didn’t know anything about love. When I thought about how it must have been with you and him, looked to me like the both of you were crazy.”

  “Oh, honey.” Delia’s mouth twisted. “That’s what I mean. That’s all you ever saw—the mother who left you, and Clint when his worst parts had hidden his best. But I loved him once, and he loved me, and who we were then was the best thing about us.”

  “You never said anything about loving Clint before.”

  “I had a long time to learn to hate him. When I came back here, it was the only thing I felt, but I’ve had almost as long to unlearn it.” Delia touched a finger to the arch of Dede’s cheekbone. Her daughter had lost substance in the last few days. Dede’s skin looked as if it were ready to split. Delia reached for the pack of cigarettes but stopped herself.

  “I used to tell Rosemary that marrying Clint was two parts the moon, one part loneliness, and the last part the dirty-blond hair that curled over the collar of his shirt. I loved the way his hair felt when I put my hand on his neck. So soft it always smelled of hay and sunshine.” She blushed. Dede watched the rose spread slowly up Delia’s cheeks. “And he had that smile, that lazy smile that promised me I would never be bored or lonely again. It lit him up.” Delia stared at the tiny office window as if it were the past. “But if you want to know a man’s heart, look at his mama. Look into her eyes, not his. That will show you what to expect. Look at Nadine. She truly loved Nolan’s daddy, and she was good to him. I should have looked at Grandma Windsor, but I was so hungry for Clint’s smile, I couldn’t see his mama when she put her face close to mine and told me right out she hated me, body and soul.” Delia’s hand crept toward the cigarettes again. “Hating like that, hating what her son loved. I should have looked closer at them all, but I guess that’s how it works, how most families get started—a needy woman and a smiling man, or the other way around. A little charm and a lot of hunger, that’s how most of us begin.”

  “You were crazy to marry him,” Dede said, but Delia went on as if she hadn’t heard.

  “We got married at Holiness Redeemer, you know. That Reverend Call was the sourest preacher ever passed the plate at Sunday services. Clint wanted me to wear this lace veil his mama wore when she got married. I’d planned to make my own dress and I wasn’t too keen on anything that belonged to his mama, and when I held that veil up to the light, I saw how badly it was made. It was just about the saddest piece of nothing, but Clint thought it was old and special.” She sighed. “So I said I’d wear it. That should have warned me I was making a mistake, how quick I gave in on something I felt so bad about. There could have been signs and wonders everywhere, there could have been burning bushes all around me speaking in tongues, screaming ‘Don’t do it,’ and I would never have known.”

  Dede’s eyes were fastened on Delia. “I used to watch you when you were taking care of him, when he was dying. Amanda and me both watched how you fed him and bathed him and took such good care of him. It didn’t make any sense. Sometimes I would see you in there after he got his shot and he went all empty. You would stand there and look at him with this strange expression on your face. I used to wonder what you were thinking. Do you remember?”

  Delia closed her eyes, then opened them again. “Sometimes I hated him so much I didn’t think about him at all. I’d think about you or Amanda, make plans or wander in my head. Sometimes I’d think about the way his mouth pulled up on one side, the smell of his neck, the way his hands came down on my shoulders.” Delia lifted her own hands and looked at them as if they held something precious.

  “It felt like when Clint drew breath my diaphragm moved. When his skin flushed, mine burned. If he put his tongue on my skin, I swear I tasted salt. Lord, and the way he used to kiss my neck and put his hands up under my blouse. Every time he did that, I’d come all over hot and stupid. Oh, baby, more has been ruined by hot and stupid than people ever want to admit.”

  Dede struck another match and lit her cigarette. “Yeah,” she said. “That’s what scares me.”

  Delia looked hard at her daughter. “I wasn’t like you, Dede. I was nothing like you,” she said firmly.

  “You loved him,” Dede said. She held the unlit cigarette in her hand and kept her eyes down. She could not look at Del
ia.

  “I loved who I thought he was, maybe who he was trying to be.” Delia stopped. When she resumed, her voice was softer, as if she could not say what she had to say too loudly. “It could have all been different, but he was his daddy’s boy, his mama’s vengeance. I never knew him or myself until it was too late. And when I ran, I was running for my life.”

  Delia’s eyes dropped as if the memory were too painful to look at again. Dede never took her eyes off Delia’s. Tenderly Delia reached over and laid her hand against Dede’s cheek. “You don’t hardly know yourself, girl, till you find yourself doing things you never imagined.” She drew her hand back and sat up straight.

  “You’ve got your Grandma Windsor’s strength, Dede, you just got to use it right. I used to look at her sometimes and tremble at what I saw. She’d been beaten down so many years, she was like a lump of dough kneaded into a rock shape. I think she wanted me to hunker down like she had, to prove she had done right with her life.”

  “She was so hard. Amanda got that from her, all that hard; pushed-down stuff,” Dede said angrily.

  “I don’t know. I think maybe it runs in all of us.” Delia gave a little grin when Dede looked surprised. “Well, if we weren’t so strong, how would we survive? Grandma Windsor was strong enough to get through what she had to. You’ll see. You live long enough, you’ll see.”

  Dede shrugged. “I see enough already.”

  “Dede, listen to me. Things happen and we change. We grow up. We get hurt. We become other people. I was a different woman when I fell in love with your father. That’s what I’m trying to tell you.”

  “People change,” Dede whispered.

  Delia nodded. “Yes, they do.”

  Dede’s mouth was open, her face earnest. Delia felt a wave of shame go through her, but she pushed it away.

  “All we ever heard was how evil you were,” Dede said, “how you ran off and left us for no reason. But I could see the reason. People said you went after Randall Pritchard for the money, that you left to get famous and rich and you didn’t want to have to raise Clint Windsor’s children. I knew it wasn’t that simple.”