A Long Time Gone

by Karen White

  “Come back to see me, Vivi.”

  I leaned down and kissed her forehead and forced a smile, even though she couldn’t see it. “I will.”

  “And don’t forget to brings me some food.”

  “Promise,” I said, gathering up my purse and car keys and letting myself out of the room.

  I took my time driving home, stopping first at the Ellis plantation, now a total ruin and barely accessible from the road, then past the old Heathman mansion, converted since I’d been gone to a bed-and-breakfast. Then I returned to the old house Adelaide had loved and where she’d borne her daughter.

  As I climbed the stairs inside, I paused by the watermark that showed how high the water rose during the time of the flood, running my fingers over the plaster as if it could conjure ghosts. Then I went up to my room, where I placed another call to Chloe that went directly to voice mail. I lay awake, staring at the drooping butterflies on my wallpaper until I fell into a deep sleep, where I dreamed I lay on the ground beneath the cypress, the limbs so thick with crows that I couldn’t see the sky.

  Chapter 47

  Vivien Walker Moise

  INDIAN MOUND, MISSISSIPPI

  JULY 2013

  I spent most of my time in the weeks after my visit with Mathilda in the garden with my mother. Tommy had gone ahead and cut up the old tree and had already fixed my gate and rebuilt the fence. He was now repairing his roof, and promising me that with the wood that was left over, he’d start rebuilding Bootsie’s old greenhouse and the garden beds for the larger vegetables that took more space and had longer growing times—melons, pumpkins, squash, and sweet potatoes. And I had plans to plant tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, and definitely sweet corn. I had an almost physical craving to be growing something, to be useful. To help fill the emptiness left by Chloe.

  Carol Lynne would help me sometimes, pulling weeds or trimming dead leaves, but most of the time she’d sit in one of the green chairs and watch me with a look of anticipation, as if I needed somebody else to remind me that it was time for the second act.

  I’d taken over for Cora, and helped my mother get up in the morning and dress so that we could have breakfast together at nine. Tommy and I had even managed to get her to see a doctor, who’d prescribed some pills that might help her memory, and might slow down the loss of what she still had. It was the best medicine could offer right now, and I finally accepted that she really would never get better. I remembered the resentment I’d had of her and her illness when I’d first returned. The shame burned, but it also made me determined to make it up to her. To make sure we both were here in the moment, appreciating what we had. What we’d always had but had been too busy looking elsewhere to realize.

  Our roles had been reversed, and I was now the mother, and she my child. I reasoned it gave me purpose, and when people began to assume I was staying to take care of her, I let them believe it. It was so much easier than explaining that I had no place else to go.

  Sheriff Adams had visited Mathilda to hear her story, and when she was finished he’d declared that he could close the case. The final results from the crime lab had come in, letting us know that Adelaide had been five feet, seven inches, about one hundred and thirty pounds, and one foot was slightly larger than the other. No cause of death could be determined, but we no longer needed the bones to tell us how she’d died. I’d felt numb when the sheriff called to tell me, feeling no closure or sense of accomplishment. But it had inspired me to purchase a cypress sapling, bringing it home strapped into the trunk of my Jaguar.

  I left voice messages for Chloe every day, having perfected the two-minute message so I could finish before being beeped off. I gave her a travelogue of sorts, telling her what was going on in her plot of the garden, and what Cotton was up to—including how I’d cried when he had to get his shots, and how funny he looked with the cone of shame on his head when I’d had him neutered. More important, I let her know that he had no microchip and nobody had responded to any of the flyers I’d put up everywhere. I told her about Carol Lynne, and how sometimes she’d remember random things, like how mosquitoes liked me but not Tommy, and how when I was four I’d gone trick-or-treating as Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz.

  I didn’t know if she ever listened to my messages, but I kept calling, having nothing but hope to go on. According to the restraining order, I wasn’t supposed to. But if Mark decided to take me to court, I could always mention that he’d allowed Chloe to stay with me for more than a month while he was on his honeymoon.

  The dog had become my shadow, and I welcomed his company. Cora had cut back on her hours, since I was there now to see to my mother’s needs, and when Tommy wasn’t working, he was spending time with Carrie Holmes.

  The flowerpots were now all filled with flowers—flowers I’d purchased at a nursery with a muttered apology to Bootsie and a promise that I’d grow my own next year—and I’d decided it was time to start making some of the repairs to the house that had remained undone since Bootsie’s death. The house needed repainting, and it would remain yellow. I couldn’t imagine it any other color. The gutters needed cleaning, and a few windowsills needed replacing. And the leak in Chloe’s ceiling needed fixing. I was almost afraid to stop moving, to stop doing, knowing that if I did I’d start thinking about how Chloe was still gone.

  Every evening Cotton would lie down on the front porch until the sun set, his gaze focused on the front drive just in case Chloe reappeared. After a while, I started to join him out there, too, leaving my mother inside in front of one of the TV shows that she seemed to enjoy. Even though I tried to look at everything except the front drive, that was where my eyes always seemed to be fixed when the night finally stole the last light of day.

  It was near sunset on a weeknight toward the end of the month when we heard the sound of an engine. I knew it wasn’t Tommy—he was driving Carrie and her kids to a Little League baseball tournament in Memphis. Cotton’s ears perked up as I sat forward in my rocking chair, knowing it couldn’t be Chloe but unable to stop myself. I put my hand on Cotton’s collar, then stood and waited until I recognized the white pickup.

  “You change your phone number or something?” Tripp asked as he exited his truck.

  “No. Why?”

  “Because I keep calling and you never call me back.”

  “You haven’t left me any messages.”

  He didn’t respond as he climbed up onto the porch and scratched the dog behind his ears.

  “You didn’t,” I repeated.

  “I know. I didn’t think I needed to.”

  He sat down without being invited.

  “How’ve you been?”

  I sat back down in my chair. “Great.”

  He looked at me with a raised eyebrow.

  “I am.”

  “I didn’t disagree.”

  I sighed, not wanting to have this conversation with him. Because it would lead to dark places where I didn’t want to go, to thoughts of the quick fixes that offered me oblivion every time I felt the hurt of Chloe’s absence, or when my mother forgot to put on her shoes.

  “I enjoyed your article in the newspaper last Sunday. About the blues singer Robert Johnson. Most people don’t remember him anymore. Good to know there’re a couple of biographies we can check out when the library opens.”

  “That’s the point. I’m supposed to be getting people excited about the new library opening with my articles. The editor says that it’s so popular he might make it into a permanent thing. Which is good, I guess, because the more I work organizing the archives, the more interesting things I’m finding.”

  “Can’t you take a compliment?”

  I blinked at him, trying to remember what it was he’d said that could have been a compliment, and then bit my lip as I realized that I barely knew what one was anymore. “Thank you,” I said. “If that’s what you wanted to tell me, you could have just
called.”

  “But you wouldn’t have answered, so we’d be back at square one. If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were avoiding me. But then I thought, ‘Why would Vivi be avoiding me?’ I can’t imagine. Unless she’s afraid I’m going to ask her questions she doesn’t want to answer. Kind of like it’s always been between us.”

  I moved to stand but he put his hand on my arm. “Don’t worry. I really just came over to give you this. I cleaned it up so you can wear it if you want.” He reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out a long chain with a little ring dangling from the end. “I thought you might want this back, now that you have the matching one.”

  I raised my eyebrow in question.

  “I went to visit Mathilda and she told me. I wish I’d been there with you. I’m sorry—I knew it would be a sad story, but I didn’t quite expect that.”

  I held out my palm and the ring touched my hand first, like an anchor, the chain pooling on top of it. “Thanks.” I reached around to the back of my neck and unhooked the chain where I’d been wearing the other half of the ring. While Tripp watched, I matched them up so that we could read them together for the first time. I love you forever. I slid the ring from my small chain and put it on the bigger chain before hanging it around my neck as if it had always belonged there.

  Tripp slid back in his chair as if preparing to stay a while. “Jessica from Butler’s Funeral Home called to let me know they’d be handling the arrangements and to have the crime lab send them the remains. You could have called me directly, you know.”

  “I guess. I’ve been . . . busy.”

  He pushed back and forth on his rocker, silent as always.

  “I have been,” I said, wishing my voice didn’t sound so defensive. “I’ve signed up for a couple of classes at the junior college. Thinking maybe I’d like to be a landscape architect. Might as well have something to do while I’m here taking care of Mama.”

  I fell silent, and the two of us seemed to be waiting each other out. My hands gripped the arms of the chair, my knuckles whitening as I listened to the soft creaking of the chairs and the sounds of the cicadas saying good night.

  Tripp finally spoke. “Have you talked to Chloe?”

  I stood. “I have to go in now. Thanks for stopping by. . . .”

  Tripp stood, too, and took my arm. “Vivi, stop trying to run every time you feel uncomfortable.”

  “I’m not running. See? I’m here.”

  “I see. And I’m glad to know you’re staying here to take care of your mama, and I’m glad you’ve found some peace with her. God knows you both deserve it. And you’re doing your gardening and you’re writing your articles and you’re taking classes—and that’s all great. But are you happy?”

  For once I had no answer, and I reversed our roles, standing there without saying a word.

  “Do you remember what I told you?”

  “Please, Tripp, just go.”

  “You can run all over this earth and never find what you want until you know what it is you’re looking for.”

  I turned, and the dog didn’t turn with me. He stayed next to Tripp, as if picking sides. As if I could take one more loss.

  “Tommy gave me your mother’s diary to read—said it would help me understand you a bit better.”

  I frowned at him, promising myself I’d have words with my brother later, but Tripp didn’t look apologetic.

  “That and what I’ve learned about your family ever since that tree fell down tells me one thing for sure: You didn’t come from a line of quitters. They made lots of mistakes, but they always came back. And they fought hard to come back. Look at your own mother, Vivi. How many times did she fail to stay clean? And she kept trying until she could. And even Bootsie. She was beaten so badly that she had to go away for six years and find her way back for her daughter. It’s never been about their leaving. It’s all about the fight in them that brought them back. That’s who you are. That’s your people, Vivi.”

  I remembered Mathilda saying the same thing, and for a moment I thought maybe that was where he’d heard it. Or maybe I was just the only one stupid enough not to have figured it out.

  He moved down the steps, Cotton following him with his eyes as if he wanted to go with him. I grabbed the dog’s collar just in case.

  “Call me if you need me. You’ve got the number. But I don’t think I’m going to be calling you anymore. You’ve got to figure out what you want, and nobody else can tell you what that is.”

  I just stared after him until his truck disappeared. It felt like I’d already spent a lifetime standing here on this porch or in the drive looking back, watching people disappear from my life.

  The touch of my mother’s hand on my shoulder startled me. She was looking at the fading puff of dust from Tripp’s departing truck. “I miss her.”

  Chloe. “I miss her, too.”

  “Is she coming back?”

  I shook my head. “No. I don’t think so.”

  “Why not?”

  I tried to think of something to say that was close enough to the truth. “Because she’s very far away.”

  “Then why don’t you go get her?”

  I met my mother’s eyes, prepared to argue with her logic. To tell her that it wasn’t that easy. But Tripp’s words hounded me, battered at my brain and made it impossible for me to open my mouth with any argument at all. About the one true thing. About who my people were and all they’d given me. About being happy. And suddenly it was as if that window where I’d only been seeing a sliver of light had been thrown open, the whole world suddenly shimmering with possibilities.

  I looked at my mother again, seeing for the first time the girl she’d once been, the woman who’d failed so many times but hadn’t quit. The mother who’d waited so long for me to stop chasing my own ghosts and come home. I hugged her tightly. “Thank you, Mama. Thank you so much.”

  “You’re welcome, Vivi.” She pulled back, her eyes searching mine. “For what?”

  “For teaching me more than I ever realized.”

  She touched my cheek, and for a moment I thought she recognized me, who I was right then, and she smiled at me. Her real smile, the one I remembered. “I love you, Vivi.”

  “I love you, too, Mama.”

  And then the look was gone and she was just smiling at me. I grabbed her hand and led her inside, while behind us the red ball of sun melted into the rich alluvial soil of the Mississippi Delta.

  AUGUST 2013

  I struggled up to Tripp’s front door, juggling a flowerpot full of sunflowers and a peanut-butter pie. I was trying to figure out how to ring the doorbell with my elbow when the door opened and Tripp stood there with wet hair dripping and wearing only a towel knotted at his trim waist. I tried to avert my eyes, but they seemed to be working independently of my brain.

  “Sorry to have caught you at a bad time. I can just leave these here on the steps and call you later. . . .”

  He was already taking the pot out of my hands and moving into the foyer, giving me an eyeful of his nicely muscled back.

  He set the pot down on a hall table that held a photo of him holding his trumpet and wearing his high school marching band uniform. “Not a bad time at all—I went for a longer run, so I’m just playing the rest of the morning by ear. But when I heard a car door and saw you from the bathroom window, I figured it had to be a fire or something. Seeing as how I haven’t heard from you in a while.”

  I blushed. “Nope, sorry. No emergency. And I promise I won’t make you any later. I just wanted to bring by some peace offerings.”

  He took the pie and raised his eyebrows. “Is this what I think it is?”

  “Bootsie’s peanut-butter pie. I’ve been making them by the dozens, trying to get it just right. I’m thinking about selling them to start a little nest egg. Maybe start selling my services as an unoffi
cial landscape architect, too—at least until I can make it official.” I glanced over my shoulder at the wasteland of grass in his front yard. “I’d recommend that you become my first client.”

  He didn’t ask me why, and I couldn’t roll my eyes, because he was looking too good standing there in his towel holding my pie.

  “I just wanted you to know—I’m going to California to talk with Mark. He won’t answer my phone calls, so I made an appointment for a consultation at his office. I used Claire’s name—I hope she doesn’t mind.” I gave him a feeble smile. “I figured he could throw me out, but I’m hoping he’ll be so surprised he’ll at least listen to me. I’m going to ask him if he would trade in my alimony for joint custody of Chloe. And if he doesn’t go for that, I’ll come back with another offer—I just haven’t gotten that far. I’m banking on Chloe making his life miserable for the last month, in addition to his wife being pregnant. Tiffany didn’t strike me as the type who’d be happy with what pregnancy does to a woman’s body, so I’m thinking that right about now the whole household is coming unglued at the seams. I’m thinking she might be who I target for my next visit.”

  He was smiling. “Come on back so I can put this in the fridge and we can talk some more.”

  I wanted to suggest he go throw a pair of jeans on first, but he’d already disappeared into the kitchen.

  He was closing the refrigerator door when I walked in. “Can I get you some coffee?”

  “Um, sure. Just one, though. I’m trying to wean myself to just a couple of cups a day.”

  He raised his eyebrows but didn’t say anything as he pulled two mugs from the cabinet.

  “It could be a long battle with Mark, and I need to be as mentally and physically fit as I can so he can’t bludgeon what little inner strength I’ve managed to restore. It could take a while, but all I’ve got is time. Just knowing that I’m trying helps me get out of bed each day.”