Old Lovegood Girls

by Gail Godwin

  She reopened her Bible, and the others followed. “Sister Simone read us the King James version: ‘Know my heart, try me and know my thoughts and see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.’ The New Revised Standard Version is almost the same except it has ‘test me’ instead of ‘try me.’ The Revised English Bible leaves out the heart part altogether. It just says ‘examine me and know my mind; test me, and understand my anxious thoughts, watch lest I follow any path that grieves you, lead me in the everlasting way.’ The New American Bible, which is the one the Catholics use, says ‘Probe me, God, know my heart; try me, know my concerns, see if my way is crooked, then lead me in the ancient ways.’ Whereas the New Jerusalem Bible says ‘God, examine me and know my heart, test me and know my concerns, make sure that I am not on the way to ruin and guide me on the road to eternity.’

  “And those are just four recent translations in modern English from Pastor Ford’s study! When you think of all the other ones, from Hebrew then into Greek, and on down, it gives you an idea what the Tower of Babel must have sounded like. No wonder people are always fighting other people over something, even when they are speaking the same language. One single changed word can convey a whole different meaning. ‘Test’ is not ‘try,’ or “examine.’ And changing heart into mind, that’s a big change.”

  “That’s right,” the group agreed.

  “I want this psalm read at my funeral, the King James one, because it’s the prettiest …”

  “Mm-hm.”

  “And I want Hymn 702, ‘Lord, Thou hast searched me,’ to go with it, though I expect some other organist besides myself will have to play it.”

  Inclusive laughter.

  Merry quashed the upsurge of guilt she always felt when remaining silent. She had never been brave when it came to speaking up in a group. Like the day in Dr. Worley’s class, when everyone was interrupting everyone else to get in their two cents about that magazine story’s provoking last line: “But there was one thing Queenie missed.”

  “Well, I don’t mind going next.” It was Lavonne Blake, funeral director and mother of Rachel, who would be entering Lovegood College in the fall.

  Lavonne was their loveliest and best-dressed member. You looked at her, cool and tall in her stylish apparel, and imagined her in the plastic apron she wore while embalming a body laid out on a steel table. Lavonne had been a junior at Chapel Hill, in the premed program, when her father died, and she had to quit and come home to run Blake’s Funeral Home. “Just like me,” Merry had told her, already sensing they were going to be friends. “Though I only made it through one semester of my college life.”

  Lavonne said, “Verses seventeen and eighteen touch on a question that has bothered me for years. Here, I’ll read the passage again. ‘How precious also are thy thoughts unto me, O God! How great is the sum of them! If I should count them, they are more in number than the sand: when I awake, I am still with thee.’

  “Now here is my question. How do we know it is God thinking those thoughts inside us? How can we be sure it’s not something else thinking those thoughts? I’d love to hear your thoughts on this because I’ve worn myself ragged studying on it.”

  A courteous pause, either because no one wished to be first or because each member was mulling over her reply.

  Sister Simone murmured something that sounded like scripture.

  “Sister Simone?”

  “Well, verse thirteen, ‘For Thou hast possessed my reins,’ tells us who’s in charge here. And the person speaking knows God is in charge because their relationship has been going on for a long time.”

  “Mm-hm.”

  “And the person also understands that God knows he’s not perfect. But they have been together since the womb. And if you keep company with someone that long, well, their ways are going to rub off on you.”

  “Mm-hm.”

  “So I believe this person has fallen into step with God’s way of thinking, not all of the time, because he’s imperfect, but because he’s slipped into the rhythm of God’s thoughts.”

  “Mm-hmm.”

  “It’s like recognizing a tune we’ve heard over and over. Whenever we hear that tune, the words just sing themselves out of us by themselves.”

  “That is really wise, Sister Simone,” Lavonne said. “I would never in a million years have thought of that.”

  “Wise, I don’t know. But the person’s got to be in step with his maker before he can recognize his maker’s thoughts.”

  An enthusiastic chorus of “Amen!”

  Merry was gauging whether it was time to put out the food the members had brought when she realized they were all looking toward her. She was the only one who hadn’t spoken a word. She felt her face and neck heating up as they took on their predictable color. (“Boy, are you ever a cinch to read, Merry Grape. Your face is as red as a fire engine.”)

  “I don’t have anything very substantial to add, but I do want to say that our meeting today has only intensified something I have felt ever since you welcomed me to your Bible group five years ago this month. I remember when we were studying Ecclesiastes, and I had never heard that verse that begins ‘Two are better than one,’ and then it goes on to explain why. If one falls, the other will lift him up, and if an enemy prevails against him, there’ll be two to withstand the enemy.

  “That verse has meant a great deal to me. Tabitha said today’s psalm always reminds her of her moral life, and she went to the trouble of searching out those other translations for us. And then Lavonne said verses seventeen and eighteen of today’s psalm asks something that has bothered her for years: How do we know when it’s God’s thoughts we are hearing? And Sister Simone got us all a little further when she said what she did about having to be in step and a familiar tune bringing back the words to it.

  “Which I guess is my roundabout way of saying that the Ezekiel Bible group has shown me that I may be alone, but I am not by myself.”

  Chapter One

  A little girl opened the door. “Who are you?”

  “My name is Mr. Blue.”

  “What do you want?”

  “I’ve come to see your father.”

  “My father can’t see anyone. He is sick.”

  “Yes, I know. Here, I have this letter from him. See? That’s his signature. And the line just above says …”

  “I can read. I know what it says.”

  “Of course you can. I only wanted …”

  The little girl sighed. “I will have to go and see. I am closing the door now. You stay out there.”

  He turns his back to the closed door and looks out at the fields.

  It is midsummer, and the sun is just setting. A breeze ruffles the leaves. Acres of ripening leaves as far as the eye could see. (“If you are all you say,” the father had written, “you had better come quickly.”)

  The little girl’s face. Closed like a door. You stay out there.

  What was she, six? Eight? He had little knowledge of children.

  Soon, with another sigh, she would invite him in. Because she had to. Time would pass. They would see what he could do. The little girl would learn to respect him. She would have to. Fear him a little, but respect all the necessary things he could do. She would grow in stature and in pride. But the day might come when that imperious face would open, and, perhaps with another sigh, she would stand aside and allow him to enter.

  —Mr. Blue, a novel by Feron Hood, illustrations by Joachim Maglia. Knole, 1982.

  32

  The Ezekiel Bible study group, as per their tradition, had cleaned up the hostess’s kitchen and set the dishwasher going before they left, and Merry had another hour and a half to get through before driving over to Laurel Grove to see her husband. The best time to visit was after the residents had finished their supper and were gathered in the leisure room to watch television; some others in the earlier stages of forgetfulness preferred to play cards. Television had never taken hold of Mr. Jack; he had been too
busy managing Jellicoe Enterprises and, having worked with his family in the fields since he was a child, had never been taught any card games.

  This she had learned about living alone. You fared best when you knew what you wanted to do next. Presently she returned to the west porch, equipped with notebook and pen, a pack of cigarettes, and Feron’s troubling second novel, Mr. Blue.

  She had been flattered into writing another historical article for the state magazine. (“I am in awe of ‘The Slave Who Discovered Bright Leaf.’ It was one of the most substantial and readable pieces this magazine has ever published. Could I tempt you into doing another in-depth treatment of the unfiltered cigarette throughout the history of our country’s smoking? Lots of our readers still smoke, you know.”) The new editor had actually offered her one thousand dollars and a lifetime subscription to the magazine. Her notebook was already stocked with more material than she could use: little-known facts and lore about a subject she had never given much thought to, even back in the bygone days when Jellicoe Enterprises was being admired and envied all over the state for the desirable “toasted” leaves they grew.

  But first, light up a Lucky (her last pack had been Camels, the next would be Pall Malls) and then inhale as best she could and try to note the distinctions of each unfiltered brand still available in the marketplace.

  Merry hadn’t read Proust but knew the story about his “madeleine moment,” when, upon biting into a little sponge cake, he was flooded with involuntary memories. She had never smoked until now, Daddy had forbidden it to the family, though he occasionally lit up a pipe or a Cuban cigar. But now every time she applied her match to the processed leaf-bits (“toasted, not sun-dried!”), she found herself immersed in recollections: Ritchie singing all the verses of “Smoke! Smoke! Smoke! (That Cigarette)”; the smell of roasted corn, the tastes of caramels, nuts, and toast; her disobedient mother disappearing to “sneak a cig” in hidden spots and always keeping a pack of Clove gum on her person.

  Question: Hadn’t Daddy smelled it despite the Clove gum? Had they fought over it? Had Mama smoked more during those depressed months when she slept in a room by herself?

  Merry paged through her notebook, gloating over her extravagance of facts and lore. Fact: because the unfiltered cigarette used higher-quality tobacco, the smoker got his fix quicker. Lore: When did Lucky Strikes become “Luckies”? During World War II, soldiers would open a new pack and “flip” one cigarette over. That was to be the last cigarette smoked from the pack. If you survived the war long enough to smoke it, you were Lucky. (She wasn’t going to use that one, because how would you know the cigarette was “flipped” if it didn’t have a filter tip?)

  After she got past the coughing fits, she continued to be repelled by nasty aftertaste in her mouth. How long did it take to become a “nicotine fiend,” as the old song called it?

  It astonished her that she had never thought about it from the “nicotine fiend’s” side. Jellicoe bright leaf had been a source of family pride as well as income. When the antitobacco movement got going in the late sixties, she remembered worrying with Mr. Jack how they could make a living without their star crop. When she came across gruesome articles telling the stories of particular “fiends” who were dying horrible deaths, she read them with a shudder and then would think, “I’m glad Daddy isn’t around to read this.” Now, with the aftertaste sticking to her tongue, she imagined a person who grew to accept the unpleasantness as part of the “quick fix.” Did this mean she was on the way to abandon the unfiltered cigarettes article as she had abandoned Stephen Slade?

  Merry put away the notebook and assigned herself to begin Mr. Blue again. On the very first page, she knew that even as a child she would never have been so rude to a stranger at the front door. I was just not like that. If anything, I overdid my friendliness to put the other person at his ease.

  Then she had a further thought: this unnamed girl who grew up to become Mrs. Blue was some unquiet combination of herself and Feron. Merry could perfectly well picture an eight-year-old Feron demanding of the stranger at the door: Who are you and what do you want?

  33

  Identified simply by its name on a small slate plaque affixed to the entrance gate, Laurel Grove could have been a private home. You ascended a winding drive flanked by fifty-year-old laurels, ablaze in pinks and whites in spring, a shiny wall of lush green before and after, leading up to the former house whose classical facade had been preserved to grace the semicircular new building with wings on either side.

  An artfully arranged cluster of seasonal flowers always greeted you at the entrance of the skylit reception room. “Smell their fragrance,” Mr. Jack had instructed Merry, stopping beside the vase. “I have loved them all my life. Damn it, why can’t I remember their name?”

  Jack had been living at Laurel Grove for two years. Feron’s Cousin Thad had recommended it. “It’s pricey, but what with the sale of all that acreage you can afford it. Lou and I discovered it when we were looking for the right place for her mother.”

  “Did she go there?” Merry had asked.

  “Unfortunately she passed away while she was still on the waiting list. But she was excited at the prospect of all its amenities.”

  Sherry, their amiable guide, a nurse, gave them the tour. Jack would have a suite with a visiting room of his own. Everything was even better than they had anticipated: no skimpiness or jarring taste or bad lighting. The common rooms were skylit, with a large TV screen, magazine racks, and card tables. The residents could have TVs in their rooms as well. There was an on-site barber and stylist, a fitness center, and an indoor pool. A masseuse and acupuncturist were on call. Out of sight, at the rear of the semicircular building, were the medical facilities, including a lab and a dental office. But Jack couldn’t stop brooding over the lost name of the flowers in the vase.

  “Okay, I give up,” he finally told Merry. “What were they?”

  “They were peonies.”

  “You see, I have these holes in my brain,” Jack confided almost gallantly to Sherry.

  “Well, Mr. Rakestraw, everyone does. Some more than others, but you’ve come to the right place.” The nurse carried herself with the easy buoyance of someone who appreciated herself and knew others did, too. Merry saw Jack taking her in: something unexpectedly nice that had just materialized in a hallway of Laurel Grove. She felt a bittersweet pang as the realization came to her that he was still a desirable man.

  Each visit to Laurel Grove Merry approached with a bizarre mixture of first-date excitement and an increasing measure of terror. She never knew who was going to be in Jack’s place. People had prepared her for the day when he wouldn’t know who she was. And that day had come and gone, and come and gone again. It was like being on a roller-coaster ride next to a partner who kept shapeshifting into someone else. The two of them now met in a place where one minute she was unrecognizable to him, and the next minute he was the one presenting an alien personality to her.

  Yet the deeply embedded characteristics of the old Jack hung on: his pride, his restlessness, his solemn courtesy, his mistrust of strangers until they proved their mettle, and his single-hearted devotion to her, long before she had given it a name. The mistrust remained, also the courtesy, but absent like a great gaping hole was his single-hearted devotion to “Miss Meredith.”

  This evening she was late because she had forgotten that Laurel Grove switched supper to five o’clock during the daylight savings months so the day staff could have time to garden or relax outdoors when they got home. The residents were already deep into their card playing or watching TV. There was a new resident absorbed in some crewel embroidery, a woman to whom time (and money) had been kind. Merry tried not to “compare” residents, but the differences were visible. Why were some humped and others upright? Why did some hands but not others bear liver spots—she had a crop of them herself—and some faces but not others get stamped with those unsightly dark splotches? Mr. Jack had had a splotch above his left eye
brow for years, but when they went for their semiannual visits to the dermatologist to be checked for suspicious new growths, the doctor always offered to remove it, but Jack said as long as it didn’t bother Merry, he’d wait till it bothered him.

  “Oh, isn’t Sherry here today?”

  “Sherry leaves at five. You’re later than normal, Mrs. Rakestraw. By the way, we haven’t met. I’m Doreen.”

  “How do you do, Doreen. Please call me Merry. How is he?”

  “We’ve been in a bit of a mood today. At least since I came on. He’s never happy when Sherry leaves. But she has a life, too.”

  “Did the laundry room straighten out the mistaken clothes he was wearing last week?”

  “I’m afraid I don’t know about that. But if it makes you feel any better, they don’t really notice the difference. But Sherry did leave instructions about him needing some shoes he can slip into, like loafers.”

  “My husband has never worn loafers in his life.”

  “Yes, well, you see, he needs some that don’t have to be laced up. He’s forgotten how to do it, so somebody else has to do it for him.”

  Standing with his back to her in front of the window of his private visiting room, he wasn’t that much changed from the old Jack. He had come to Laurel Grove fairly soon after his disintegration became apparent to others besides Merry. His hair, no longer flattened by a baseball cap, floated in wisps above his head. The Laurel Grove barber shaved rather than trimmed the back of his neck. He had lost all of his muscle and bulk. Some people gained, others lost, Sherry had said. (“Mr. Rakestraw eats what’s on his plate, as long as we remember to serve him small portions. However, so far, there’s been no need for supplemental drinks. He’s restless when he has to sit down or remain in one place for long, and he’s not exactly the sociable type, but he’s always polite and considerate with the other residents.”