Despite the fact that Granny B was a grown woman who could and did make her own choices, her mama had anointed her with the task of getting Granny B to see reason. Even though her grandma knew what was at stake—life or death—Evelyn knew she’d have to find the words to explain why she’d failed her task, and ultimately, Granny B.
Evelyn snapped on the radio, but just as abruptly she turned it off. Instead, she tuned in to her own regrets as the car pressed ever closer to her temporary home. The soft ca-chunk, ca-chunk, ca-chunk of the tires devouring the uneven asphalt vied with the cacophony of what-ifs and should-haves in her mind. Over the din she heard Granny B’s mournful voice: “I reached out for almost twenty years to a man. But that man, the one who came to me in my bed for almost twenty years, that man stole my childhood and much of my life. And what he didn’t take, I kept givin’ away till I had barely nuthin’ left. . . . I needed somebody then, Ev’lyn . . . Sho’, I was reachin’ out, but not for that man. Never for that man.”
Thing was, Evelyn had always felt within arm’s reach of Granny B, even during her four years away at Emory. She couldn’t think of a time when she wouldn’t willingly take a kick in the pants from her grandmother before she’d accept a word of advice from her own mother—not that she could avoid one or the other anyway. Tonight, she couldn’t seem to avoid anything Granny B had said. “Well, if you gon’ treat me with no respect, then I ain’t got no time for you. Get out. And don’t come back here. . . . Don’t never come back here again . . . Don’t come back here again . . . Don’t come back . . .”
Evelyn shook her head to clear the voice. Cars were passing her in droves.
Forgive, she herself had had the nerve to say. Forgive! What a hypocrite, you telling Granny B to forgive Henton, she accused herself.
But that’s different, another, bitter voice reasoned. Kevin betrayed you. You didn’t kick him out. He left you a long time ago for Samantha Jane. Evelyn closed her eyes to the voices, but she couldn’t silence them. He’s probably with her now. Why not? You don’t want him anymore.
The first voice cried weakly, But don’t you?
Honk! Ho-nnnk! Startled, Evelyn met the angry eyes of the driver in the Mini Cooper passing her in the left lane and realized she’d again slowed to a near crawl. Desperate, she pulled over into the breakdown lane to pull herself together.
Seven miles to Mount Laurel, the mileage marker announced. She had driven about thirteen miles from Granny B’s house. Yet, parked there in front of the highway sign, she felt thousands of miles from really reaching either her mama or grandma. And millions of miles from Kevin. Evelyn pondered turning the car to head . . . where?
She strained to see through tears streaming from her eyes, dripping from her cheeks, dampening her dress front. “God, I asked You for a sign that I was headed along the right path, but instead You sent me some pigheaded old woman who wouldn’t know a sign from You from a pot of tender greens. Now what?”
Evelyn’s head flopped against the leather headrest as the ache crept up from the back of her neck and wound over her cranium. But her eyes were open wide enough to see a car careen out of control and cross the median. She had a clear view of her “burning bush”—two tons of steel and plastic—heading straight for her car.
Chapter Eight
FOR THE SECOND TIME in less than twelve hours, Beatrice watched her granddaughter come to. But not on her kitchen floor. This time, Evelyn was stretched out on a rolling cot with lights glaring down in her face. From her spot in the corner of the frigid, sterile room, Beatrice’s eyes followed a groggy Evelyn as she conducted a self-inspection. Her bushy silver eyebrows furrowed as her granddaughter’s fingers found the bandage pasted squarely across the middle of her forehead.
“Ever’thang still in place?”
Evelyn cried out. Her wide eyes darted across the space to Granny B, sitting in a chair on the left side of the room.
She stood and walked over. She read Evelyn’s shock.
Evelyn tried to raise herself to a sitting position. “Wh-what h-happened? Wh-what are you doing here?”
“What am I doing here? Well, obviously, I’m here to see you. You need to be explainin’ whatchyou doin’ here.” She gripped her granddaughter’s left arm and hand and helped her sit upright on the bed. The girl’s hand shook slightly in her own. “Take it slow, gal.”
Beatrice could feel Evelyn watching her every move. Does this crazy chile think I done somethin’ to her? Her mouth twitched as she propped a pillow behind Evelyn’s head and back. “You gon’ be all right, gal. Why don’t you lay back on this pillow and get yo’self together. You gon’ be all right. From what the police can tell, you was parked ’side the road and some fool car slammed right into you.” She inclined her head toward Evelyn. “It don’t make much sense to me, why you woulda been parked along that highway, but that’s what they say happened.” Granny B studied Evelyn.
“I was driving home . . . and I pulled beside the road because . . . I felt a bad headache coming on . . . so I decided to pull off to the side . . . right at the turnoff. . . . I sat there for a few minutes . . . then I thought . . . if I could just close my eyes for a moment and lean back on the headrest, I would feel better and I could drive on to Mama’s.”
Granny B craned her head toward Evelyn as the words tumbled over each other, gaining momentum as the memory of the entire morning’s events rushed back. She watched her let down her guard and relax in tiny increments—first the small of her back, then the middle, her shoulders, and finally her head against the pillow.
“So how you feelin’? Anythang hurt? Do I need to get one of them doctors or nurses in here?”
Evelyn slowly moved her arms and wriggled each of her fingers. She shifted her right leg, then her left, rotated her ankles, and curled her toes.
Granny B commented dryly, “In case you wonderin’, yo’ baby is fine.”
“The baby.”
Has she not even wondered how this accident affected it . . . her . . . him? “Yes, ‘the baby.’ You ain’t even thought ’bout that baby, have you? I watched you. You gave mo’ ’tention to that little toe longer than you gave to whatchyou carryin’ round in that belly of yours. You ever gon’ ask about it?”
“I haven’t . . . I mean, did you . . . ?”
Granny B knew the answer to the question Evelyn couldn’t speak. “No, I ain’t told nobody. It’s still that secret you been workin’ so hard to hide.” She paused. “It ain’t none of my business to tell, though I’m sho yo’ mama wouldn’t agree with that.”
Evelyn closed her eyes and expelled a whoosh of air.
“Well, ’course you never said you was pregnant, but I knew better.” Granny B folded back the sheet and tucked it a bit under Evelyn’s armpits. “So when yo’ mama and I got here, I made sure to tell them doctors ’bout you being pregnant so they wouldn’t do nuthin’ they shouldn’t be doin’.”
“Mama’s here? Why were you together? Where is she now?”
Seeing her eyes water and the obvious pain she was in, Granny B stopped judging, at least long enough to put Evelyn’s whirring mind to rest. “’Lis’beth called me up to find out what had happened to you, why it was takin’ you so long to get home. ’Fo’ I could explain that you was long gone, somebody called her on her phone. Turned out it was the hospital, sayin’ you was here. I guess they got the number from ’Lis’beth’s car. I got Ruby and Lerenzo to bring me over, but they can pick me up now I see you fine.”
Evelyn’s shoulders relaxed. “So where’s Mama now?”
“It’s not my whereabouts you should worry about.” The woman in question pranced into the room before Granny B could answer. “You should be more concerned about you. What were you thinking, parking along that road like that?” Lis strode briskly over to the cot and started smoothing down her daughter’s hair.
Gruffly Granny B instructed, “’Lis’beth, stop messin’ over the girl. You prob’ly makin’ her head hurt with all that rubbin’.”
; Lis threw her a this-is-my-daughter-and-I’ll-do-what-I-want-to glare. Continuing to finger-comb her daughter’s curly strands, she demanded, “Explain yourself, Evelyn. You could have been killed! Not to say anything about the fact that that crazy driver demolished my car!” She pursed her lips and added under her breath, “My new car, at that.”
Evelyn brushed away her mama’s hand. “Do you mind if we continue this particular discussion later when I’m not lying on my deathbed?”
“I wouldn’t exactly call this your winding sheet.” Lis perched on the end of the cot.
Granny B stepped back, silently witnessing the tableau created by the two who never could abide much of each other. Lis fussed over and at her daughter while Evelyn stiff-armed her mother, flicking away her hands and answering her in one-word sentences. Neither looked satisfied; both seemed frustrated. That chile wish ’Lis’beth would disappear in a puff of smoke . . . and take me with her.
But the only puff either was rewarded with was a whiff of Dolce & Gabbana’s Light Blue as Lis lifted and straightened the starchy white hospital linen crumpled around Evelyn. “Don’t worry; you’re not in danger of taking your last breath. Doctors say you can go home in the morning. They just want to make sure you don’t experience complications.” Lis searched the room. “In fact, I should get one of those doctors in here so they can check your eyes with that light or take your pulse or do whatever it is they need to do to give you a clean bill of health.”
She turned to Beatrice. “Mama, did you let anybody know she was awake?”
Granny B shook her head curtly. Who do I look like?
“I’ll see if I can find somebody who can help us out.” Lis halted at the door. “But you’re going to have to tell me why you were parked beside the road. You couldn’t have made it another ten miles to the house before taking a nap?”
After the doors whispered closed behind her, Evelyn retreated to the pillows to accept whatever thin comfort they could provide. “Thank you for not telling her about the baby. That’s one discussion I’m not ready for.”
“Don’t be thankin’ me. That’s between you and yo’ mama, and I ain’t in it. But you better tell her—”
“Better tell me what?” Lis emerged suddenly through the doors. Medical personnel squished behind her in loafered feet.
“Uh . . .”
“She needs to tell you the truth,” Granny B cut in. “Ain’t no need layin’ up here hidin’ nuthin’. Not when there’s folks here to help.”
Lis parked herself at the end of the bed as medical staff examined their patient efficiently and thoroughly. “I hope you have sense enough to tell the doctors if something is hurting you, Evelyn.”
“Of course I do. I’m fine. Just a headache—and I had that before the accident. That’s why I pulled over, to rest my head a bit.”
Granny B grunted and ignored Evelyn’s look. She let her granddaughter continue her awkward dance along that thin line between fact and fiction. Her face an impassive mask that belied her turbulent thoughts, she watched Evelyn turn this way and that, according to the doctor’s directions. She tsk-tsked silently at the sense of their final decision to skip the overnight observation but concluded that these folks were grown. It ain’t none of my business. These here doctors and their practice of medicine. Hmmph. These folks can’t even heal my big toe, let alone this disease I’m totin’ around. I don’t blame that girl for bein’ ready to leave. I could do a heap better takin’ care of her.
Evelyn signed the release papers and checked out the tag on the nearest white coat. “Is it Dr. LaSalle?”
The doctor looked up at her from her clipboard.
“May I talk to you a minute?”
When Granny B heard Evelyn clear her throat, she leaned over to Lis. “Let’s give Ev’lyn a minute to get herself together.” She picked up her daughter’s purse.
“What?” Lis seemed intent on helping Evelyn inhale and exhale, coaching her through each breath, if need be. Her eyes and ears were pinned to her. It took Beatrice’s formidable resolve to overcome her protests and steer her from the room and close the door.
Once they stood on the other side of the double doors, Lis unleashed her frustrations. “Mama, what in the world! Why’d you pull me out like that?”
“’Lis’beth, you need to give that chile some privacy. She can get dressed on her own.”
“You think so? I thought she could drive on her own, too, but look where we are.”
“Blame that other driver. You need to give her some room to breathe. Y’all like two banty roosters fightin’ for control over the same henhouse.”
“Nobody’s fighting, Mama.”
“But you ’bout to.”
“You know I don’t like hospitals. You remember the last time I was in one like this—”
“Yes, I remember. And I also remember that gal was here with you. That was a hard road for you and her both. It was yo’ husband, but that was her daddy.” She pointed to a young man in blue scrubs chatting it up with a nurse at the central station. “Why don’t you find somebody to help us get her to the car. Ain’t that boy free right there?”
Lis glared at her mama, but Beatrice didn’t back down, so Lis stalked over to the orderly. Beatrice watched her daughter use her considerable Southern charm on him, and just as he pushed over a wheelchair, the doors to Evelyn’s room swooshed open. The doctor and nurse breezed through with barely a nod at either of them. Before the doors could swing to, Granny B and Lis pushed through, followed by the orderly she’d pressed into service.
Beatrice took in Evelyn dressed in her bloodstained dress. “So, gal, you ready to go?”
Evelyn nodded at her grandmother. “As I can be. How are we getting home?”
Lis laughed and coughed simultaneously. “Well, unfortunately, not in my new Infiniti. It’s practically totaled. As a matter of fact, it’s a miracle you made it out of the accident with just some bumps and bruises and a scrape or two. The other driver suffered several broken bones and had to be admitted.”
“Serve him right, since he the cause of all this trouble,” Granny B harrumphed under her breath. She pulled Lis out of the way while the orderly helped Evelyn into the chair and arranged her feet.
“Then how are we getting home?”
“The same way I got here. You forget about Jackson’s car?” Lis thumped her daughter softly on the head and settled Evelyn’s purse in her lap.
Wincing, Evelyn managed a small “Oh—”
“The hoopty,” Lis and Evelyn said in unison. The “hoopty” was Jackson’s pride and joy, a 1985 Chevy Impala that had been around the blocks a few times—quite literally. Lis raised a carefully plucked eyebrow at Evelyn’s unspoken complaint. “Remember, Jackson took your car this morning because you’d blocked him in.”
Granny B retreated to silent partner status as Evelyn’s eyes skittered from hers to Lis’s, then to the brown-speckled tile floor.
“I’ll take you home and get you settled,” Lis explained. “Then I’ll see Mama home.”
“I’m gon’ call Ruby to come back here,” Granny B declared. She stopped beside the courtesy phones at the right side of the automatic doors leading outside. One hand held her worn leather bag.
“Don’t be silly, Mama. I’ve got two people to take care of now. So come on. Let’s not keep this nice young man waiting.” She threw the hospital attendant a radiant smile, which he sheepishly returned. “Now, come on, Mama.”
Granny B bristled at the command but didn’t ask what two people Lis had in mind. “Well, Ev’lyn, at least you came out in one piece.”
The attendant wheeled Evelyn out to the hospital’s nearly deserted parking lot. Only the distant moon hovering in the early evening sky greeted them. They easily picked out Jackson’s tangerine four-door sedan with rims and profile tires. Granny B opened the back passenger door. “You might wont to stretch out in the backseat, put yo’ feet up on the ride home.”
“Thanks.” Evelyn gave her mama the bag hold
ing her release papers and jewelry. She climbed into the backseat and stretched out.
Beatrice took the bag from Lis. She could tell by her granddaughter’s closed eyes that she had no intention of uttering a word during the trip. And neither did she.
——————
Evelyn expected that her semiconscious state during the smooth ride would prevent further interrogation about just why she was parked along the road so close to home. But she didn’t expect to wake up parked in front of Granny B’s house. She straightened abruptly. Pain stabbed her right behind her eyes. “Mama, I thought you were dropping me off at home first?”
“No, not exactly.” She turned from her daughter to stare pointedly at Granny B.
Evelyn sensed something afoot. “What do you mean ‘not exactly’?” She took in Granny B’s firm jaw and her mama’s determined expression. “What’s going on? Why are we stopped here?”
Lis looked straight ahead. “We discussed it and decided it was best that you stay in Spring Hope for the next few days. The doctors want you to have complete bed rest, and I won’t be able to take off work to take care of you—”
“I don’t need you to take care of me, Mama. I’ll be fine at your house. All I need is food, something to drink, and a remote control. Not that I don’t appreciate your offer, Granny B.” Sarcasm peeked out from behind Evelyn’s words like the delicate lace edges on a doily. “But I can get along just fine. Really. I can manage.”
Lis readjusted herself in her seat to turn around. “It’s not up for discussion, Evelyn. You heard what the doctor said. You have a concussion, and you’re going to be stiff and sore for quite a while. The stairs at home would wear you out, and I won’t be there to help you get to the bathroom or check in on you during the day.”
Evelyn hoped Granny B would offer a word or two in her defense. In her own defense. God knew she didn’t want someone underfoot, least of all someone she considered public enemy number one. Granny B, however, sat there. So Evelyn sat up straighter in her seat and tried to look the picture of health—bandaged, bruised, bleeding, and all.
A Long Time Comin' Page 8