Hope Springs

by Lynne Hinton

  “You need me to go with you?” the nurse asked.

  Nadine felt in her pocket to see if she had any money. She had four dollar bills. She spun around to speak to the nurse and noticed Grandma sitting in a nearby corner, looking ready and eager for church. The young patient lifted her chin and faced ahead. “No, I think I’ll be just fine.” And she walked out of the unit, following her pastor, not at all sure of where she was headed.

  VOLUME 1, NUMBER 7

  Hope Springs Community Garden Club Newsletter

  BEA’S BOTANICAL BITS

  What to Do About the Weeds

  Crabgrass, pigweed, clover, prickly vine—something is always growing in your garden that you didn’t plant.

  Mulching is the best preventive measure for weeds. But even layers of old leaves and grass clippings won’t be enough to stop all of those ghastly intruders.

  Hard work, ladies, nothing to do but hard work.

  You can decide to let them grow alongside your lovely flowers or vegetables, taking up their precious air and space, or you can take action. Kill the mothers.

  Be the happy hoer. Work out your frustrations on the roots and stems and brash leafy bodies of those unwanted garden guests, and discover a harmless way to deal with the troubles of your soul.

  Ain’t nothing like a pile of weeds yanked up from your flower bed to make you feel like a woman.

  7

  Jessie poured herself a cup of coffee and sat down at the dining room table. Louise was going to drive them both over to Beatrice’s, where they were having a sort of celebration of friendship before the event of Margaret’s surgery. She was taking a minute to gather her thoughts before she got ready to go. She was ahead of schedule because she’d left the mill early. But she had discovered that in the last few days, since the news about Margaret, it took her a little extra time to prepare herself whenever she was going to see her friend.

  At first she only thought she was anxious or sad about Margaret’s news, that the shock of a cancer diagnosis in somebody her own age, one of her closest friends, had been the reason for her emotions. That what she was feeling was a natural and predictable response to hearing bad news about somebody you love. But then she realized that how she felt had more to do with what she knew about the disease and how it was that she found out.

  Jessie had been the primary caregiver for her mother and an aunt on her father’s side, both of whom had died from breast cancer. She understood how the tumor, once it has been discovered, could have been there for months or years, already splitting off from itself and aligning with other cells alongside it and even those in other places. She had seen how the tumor could duplicate and divide and move around into lymph nodes and fatty tissue and blood vessels and organs. She knew cancer was tricky and mean and could lull a person into thinking she was healthy and disease free, only to show up again in a new body part, with a new symptom, and a fresh approach to suffering.

  Jessie ached with what she knew, the too-much information clawing at her, keeping her awake at nights and restless and distracted in the day. Her thoughts and dreams were fretted with the memories of her mother’s last days and the way cancer inched into her body and into their lives and stole away everything they had of health and peace.

  She struggled with telling her friend to start being in control now, to go ahead and have both breasts removed in the first surgery and to sign up for any experimental treatment, any aggressive chemotherapy or radiation that was available to her. To go ahead and have her family members checked for bone-marrow compatibility, since that process can often be arduous and painstakingly long. To start the fight now and to do anything and everything that was suggested by anybody in the medical community.

  Jessie went through old files and folders and pulled out brochures and books and handouts and articles that had anything to do with the disease. She had, at least from during the time of her mother’s illness, the latest statistics about survival rates and treatment options, names and phone numbers of experts in the field. And she gathered all these things to give to Margaret for her to examine. There were things Jessie knew she should share with her friend.

  Then she moved from this kind of assertive thinking to the idea of just telling her not to do anything about the cancer. To sell her house, her car, her land, and do whatever she wanted—travel, spend money, visit family, just save what it would cost her for the medical and insurance company melee and not waste her time and energy, but rather simply live life any way she desired in the time she had left. That what Jessie really thought was that it didn’t matter how aggressive a woman was, the disease was a death sentence and should just be accepted and lived with.

  Jessie’s mother had gone back and forth through five surgeries, drug therapy that left her insides ravaged and loose, radiation treatments that burned the back of her throat and the lining of her stomach, daily visits with a doctor who could never remember her name and who asked for payment up front, and excruciating pain from having lived too long. She died, of course, four years after the initial hopeful diagnosis.

  “Her condition was farther advanced than we first thought,” one of the doctors had said after she was shriveled and destroyed from the cancer and the cure.

  The specialists acted as if the fight her mother had fought was honorable and to be commended.

  “She was a courageous woman,” a nurse had said.

  “You should find comfort in knowing that everybody did everything that they could for her,” another added.

  But Jessie had not been comforted by this. It did not help her sleep at night, and it was not a reason to celebrate her mother’s memory. Her mother had died sick and disappointed because all along she thought she was going to be healed.

  Aunt Mary had fared no better, receiving only minimal care from the oncologist and the hospital since she was old and poor and black. In her situation, they would not even discuss possibilities for treatment. They had not even offered her chemotherapy or radiation. They just cut off her breasts and sent her home to die.

  “Too far gone,” a doctor said, like she was a drifting boat pushed away from the dock.

  “Well, it’s probably for the best,” a nurse whispered, like death was her aunt’s only possible blessing.

  Jessie had never experienced such betrayal and disappointment, frustration and suffering as she did under the auspices of health care. She was still angry about things that were said, careless things that medical personnel passed out like their words might not be heard or counted. She was still mad about what they put her mother through, without learning what she wanted or how much pain it would cause. She tried to find ways to let her bitterness be taken from her; and she thought most of it was gone until she ran into it, harsh and unexpected, after she heard about Margaret. She remembered the things she had prayed to forget, and it tortured her to think that her friend could be facing the same fate.

  She knew in the rational part of her mind that there were those who lived long, healthy lives after a diagnosis of breast cancer; her sister-in-law needed only surgery and had been discharged from her six-month examinations three years ago. She had co-workers who returned to their positions without any special needs, acquaintances who said cancer was the best thing that happened to them because it bolstered their hidden passion, forcing them to make changes in their lives that they had wanted for years but that, only after the diagnosis, had they taken the necessary action to see through.

  All of these success stories she recalled and had set out for Margaret and herself to see, like cards on a table, these stories and the reminder that Margaret was white, which even if people didn’t want to believe it, meant a higher survival rate than for black folks. These were the things she had numbered off for her friend, counted them like they were evidences of the undisputed truth. These were the stories she told, not the others about her mother and Aunt Mary, not the other history.

  But it was as if the mention of cancer cast her back to her mother’s bedside, frenzi
ed and threadbare. And she could not seem to pull herself away from the shadows of a time when nothing good had prospered. Hard but true, Jessie had no hope to offer her friend.

  Even though she did not speak of them, would not tell of them, it was the surrender in her mother’s hollow eyes, her frayed, ragged voice when she begged for the cool side of the pillow for her hot face, the way she breathed, frantic and flung, like a fish struggling to get back in the water, these were things that pressed against her mind when she thought about the cruel disease. And she did not know how to yank out or silence these thoughts, as they grew in secret places within her.

  James Senior drove up and his wife didn’t even hear him come in through the back door. He was whistling as he hung his jacket on the nail beside the washer and pulled off his boots, muddy from his walk through the fields with his son.

  James Senior spent most of his days outside now; and the pace and the work pleased him. It was different from how he lived in Washington. There, even though he tried to garden or be out in his yard, the wind was always sharp, and the noise from the city drowned out his desire to dig or cut or grow.

  He enjoyed his time with his oldest child, was proud of his love for the earth, a love that had passed from father to son for more generations than he could remember. He liked the long days and the restful nights. And he had almost forgotten how much he loved to watch the change of the seasons as they manifested themselves in the passing of time on the land.

  He delighted in the seed of early spring, so tiny and fragile, as it lifted itself into the plush ripe height of golden summer, the spread of life so quick and full. The older man relished the season of the present moment when the soil was still warm and held promise of yield but the air was crisp and cool, the segment of time when the sun arched across the earth and sky, melting the green leaves into minature worlds of color. James Senior would close his eyes and smile when he remembered the way the leftover husks of corn fell into a silent earth, turning themselves into the food for next year’s crop. He loved the frozen days and the silver glint of winter when everything stood still, barren and obedient, galvanized in an icy wait.

  All of life was balanced in the nature of farming for the man come home; and James Senior and Junior walked or rode tractors across the rows of tobacco and soybeans, corn and strawberries, like the ground and the plants and the produce and the light and the rain and the green and the blue were theirs. Only and all theirs. And this life of seasons and cycles, death and resurrection, hope and promise, this was the only life of Hope Springs, North Carolina, that the two men, father and son, thought made it worthwhile to stay in the place they called home. It was so captivating, so possessive and possessing that James Junior never left it and James Senior, though he kept wanting to leave, could never seem to forget it.

  He pulled off his socks and shook them. And when he leaned over, his hand balancing himself against the dryer, he cocked his head to the right and noticed something different about the small foyer. It seemed that the corner next to the shelves of old rags and detergents, the area just by the kitchen door, was empty. Clean and uncluttered, it appeared as if a new position had been made; and it struck him that it was as if something had been taken from its place. Something that once had filled it or lined it or swallowed it was missing.

  Then, as he tried to remember what had been there before, what had rested there against the adjoining walls, he recalled the Saturday that he and Jessie had moved everything around. They left the wide open space as it was, deciding that this would be a convenient and easy place to stack the cardboard boxes that they began collecting and would use for packing their things for the move.

  He considered at first that maybe she had taken them to the bedroom, that his wife, eager to get on with their lives in Oakland, had started packing without him. He thought that maybe she had left her job early and was planning to surprise him with how much she’d been able to accomplish in preparing for their departure. But when he turned to throw his socks on top of his boots, he noticed to his left that the boxes were broken down, the cardboard now lying flat in sheets, tied up with string and stacked on the bin that was used for recycling. He walked over and ran his finger down the sides of sixteen, maybe twenty, cartons. And as he walked out into the kitchen, he began to realize that what his wife had done was more than just make a decision about when or how to pack.

  He stood next to the stove, saw the pot of hot coffee, got himself a cup from the dish rack, poured his drink, and went into the dining room and sat down next to Jessie.

  She smiled at him as if to reassure him and patted him on the leg.

  “You get the corn plowed up?” She took a sip of her coffee.

  “Tractor broke and J. went to the store for a part.”

  Jessie nodded, but James could tell she wasn’t really interested.

  “You leave work early?” He wondered how she could have broken down and folded all that cardboard in only an hour.

  “Yeah. I finished with the payroll about two and then the computer went down. Mr. Dixon told me to just go ahead and leave since there wasn’t anything else I could do.”

  James brought the cup to his lips and blew across the coffee. He wasn’t sure how he was going to ask her about the boxes. He knew they were honest with each other, always had been, even when the news was harmful. But for whatever reason, it troubled him to think she had made up her mind not to go with him, and he could not bring himself to ask the obvious.

  As if she knew what he was thinking, Jessie answered. “We can’t leave for California this fall.” She sat up and waited for him to respond.

  It relaxed him to hear her say we, and it was enough of an encouraging statement that he went ahead and asked her why.

  “Margaret’s got cancer.” She had not told him before now. She hadn’t known why. He had asked her what was wrong the night the women met at the house, but she had kept the information from him, thinking that maybe if she didn’t tell anyone, she would wake up and it would have only been a dream. Since he had been busy with their son’s farming and she had been working extra hours, it just hadn’t come up when they had been together. She had not meant to keep silent about the news, it just hadn’t seemed real enough to discuss.

  “Is it bad?” he asked, remembering the stories he had heard about his mother-in-law and the conditions of others he knew.

  Jessie shrugged. “Don’t know,” she answered. “Her surgery’s tomorrow.”

  James nodded. He wanted to ask why a friend’s medical situation would affect their plans to leave the state and didn’t Margaret have sisters to take care of her; but he knew better. He was careful with sharing his thoughts about Jessie’s friendships, delicate around any mention of the way she had managed her life all those years that he had been gone.

  Truthful as they were with each other, he understood that his return to Hope Springs and into her house was unexpected and unnecessary. She had let him stay when he came back, without a hard eye or an undercoat of bitterness. But he saw how she was without him and recognized how she demonstrated a certain peace she had acquired regarding a choice not to depend upon what he brought to share. Since she had made herself into her own woman without him, without even the thought of him, the people in her life that she did care for and rely upon were not open for discussion or available for him to criticize. They both knew this, and he had commented on it only once.

  He took her hand in his. “I’m sorry. Margaret’s a good woman.”

  Jessie leaned into her husband, wondering how it might feel again one day to trust him fully, how it would be not to reach across the bed to see if he was still there. She wondered how it might be one day not to check the dresser drawers, the garage, the bathroom cabinet, just to make sure that he hadn’t changed his mind, gathered up his things, and left again.

  She had never stopped loving him or wishing that he might find his way home. For years, she wouldn’t change anything in the house, in their room, in the closets, because sh
e kept thinking that if he came back, it would need to be familiar, need to be the same as it had been when they were first together. She thought that if she kept space in the drawers and on the shelves, in her heart, that he would be drawn back to his life and the promises he had made and find the places once again where he fit.

  Jessie believed he cared for her and would return. So when he did, there were still empty spots for him to fill. It had been a natural and easy homecoming. It had been a simple transition because they still loved each other.

  But even love like that, clean and tidy love that survives wanderlust and middle age, love that doesn’t play games or make believe it’s something it isn’t, even that love is tight around the edges and bears a protective coating, just making sure the heart won’t swell to bursting.

  When he asked her to go with him to Oakland, she knew that his first consideration had been to go by himself. She knew that maybe he hadn’t stayed with the idea long, hadn’t fought with it or agonized over it, had not really dealt with the consequences or possibilities; but that he had surely had it and that he had let it float about in his mind like a feather, softly tickling the thoughts and ideas she did not understand. She realized that he could have gone on his own, without her. And the fact that he didn’t touched her, weakened her barrier of distrust. It was a gesture of companionship, and it pleased her that he had wanted to leave with her.

  She was ready too. She loved this place that birthed her, reared her up, this farm that bore the prints and the bones of her great-grandparents. She loved the nearness of family and the casual unrestricted hours she got to watch her grandchildren grow. She was comfortable in her church and at her job, in her home, with her friends, and the way she had figured out a life for herself.

  She had been happy before James came back, quiet, at peace, and happy. She had carved out a nice existence for herself that was full and satisfying. But Jessie was restless too. And even though he returned and moved right back into what he had left and she had closed herself around him, the restlessness was still there; and the thoughts of leaving town excited her in a way she hadn’t been in a very long time.