“Made change for a quarter.” Spec sighs.
I reach for water on the nightstand and try to help Spec with the straw, but he takes it from me and sips at it himself.
“It’s a funny thing. I’m lying here on my way to God knows where, and all I can think about is John Wayne. All my life I modeled myself after the Duke.”
Spec was forever quoting John Wayne’s lines from the movies, and encouraged Jim Roy Honeycutt, the owner of the Trail Theatre, to have at least one Duke Film Festival a year.
“Yep,” he goes on, “when I was a youngin, it was Stagecoach. And then when I got to be a man, it was The Searchers.”
“And now?”
“True Grit, I guess.”
“You know I love you, Spec.”
“I know.” He exhales slowly. “I was thinkin’ of your Joe and how I was his godfather.”
I remember the day we baptized Joe. He looked like a tiny doll in big Spec’s arms. Spec held him so gently, Joe didn’t even wake up when the priest splashed water on him.
“My mamaw would’ve shot me if she knew I was in the Cath-lick church.”
“You did it for me.”
Spec nods. “ ’Bout broke my heart when that boy died.”
“I know.”
“It wasn’t right. Now, me? I’m old. I seen a lot. I lived. But I never did understand why the Lord took him.”
“I never will either. I keep looking for the answer.”
“You ought to stop,” Spec says plainly.
“I know.”
“I want to ask you to do something for me.”
“Sure.”
“Don’t be so hard on Etta. She’s country. You know, like us. She’s got her own mind. You’ll see in time that that’s a good thing. Now, my youngins, they ain’t gonna do too well with me gone. I set it up all wrong.”
“How?”
“I didn’t cut ’em loose. I hung on to ’em. Now, they’s followers, all except for Clay, so it’s partly their nature. But it’s mostly how I raised ’em.”
“You were a wonderful father.” I want to say more to my friend, to tell him what he has meant to me, but I don’t want to cry (Spec hates weeping and wailing).
Spec looks off in the middle distance and cocks one eyebrow. “I done tried my best. God knows I ain’t perfect.” I’m sure Spec is referring to his long friendship with Twyla Johnson, and I wait for him to say something about her, but he does not. Instead, he reaches back and tries to adjust the pillow. I help him. “Now I’m gonna sleep.” Spec closes his eyes. I slip the oxygen mask back on his face and check the levels on the machine. His mighty chest heaves in deep breaths. The nurse comes over to check on him.
“You should get the family,” she says to me quietly.
I go into the waiting area, where Spec’s children are gathered around their mother. They look up at me. I cannot speak, but they see why I came for them and rush into the ICU to gather about their father. The boys help their mother onto the bed, where she lies next to her husband with her arms around him. It is only minutes until Spec takes his last breath. The heart monitor hums a low whistle that tells us he has died. Spec Broadwater, the Mighty Oak, is gone.
Spec’s funeral is not to be a simple Baptist affair with a service and a burial at Glencoe Cemetery. It is going to be a full-out, all-county memorial festival. Rescue Squads from Wise, Lee, Dickenson, and Scott have gathered (in uniform) to parade down Wood Avenue to the church, led by the town fire truck and brought up in the rear by the National Guard. Iva Lou insisted that the Bookmobile be in the parade as well, even though Spec said he never finished a hardback book in his life. Some folks are calling it a volunteer-military funeral, but for me, it is an appropriate send-off for a man who devoted much of his life, including his spare time, to serving others. Leola told me that Spec would be buried in his Rescue Squad windbreaker, a dress shirt and pants, and the tie we brought him from Italy. That made me very happy.
Nellie Goodloe organized the luncheon following the funeral. Fleeta has stayed up for two nights baking three coconut cakes, three chocolate sheet cakes, and pies from pecan to shoofly (Spec’s favorite). Pearl opened the Mutual’s kitchen for the prep. Jack made five trays of his lasagna, I bought out every head of lettuce at the Piggly Wiggly, and Hope Meade made so many rolls, she had to borrow our pickup to transport them.
“Do you think there’s enough food, Nellie?”
“I sure hope so. Ole Spec had a bigger turnout than Eisenhower.”
Etta is fanning the napkins on the buffet when she calls to me to look out the window.
“What is it?” I ask her.
“Bless their hearts,” Nellie says aloud.
Emerging from their cars (there must be a dozen of them) are women opening their trunks and pulling out cooked hams in baking pans, roasted turkey, large pans of casseroles, even a case of champagne (they must be Episcopalians, not Baptists).
“Tennessee license plates, Ma,” Etta comments.
We open the doors to let the ladies in. A tall spindly woman, around sixty, leads the group.
“We’re from Johnson City. And we heard about Mr. Broadwater, and we wanted to do something, so we hope you have some use for this food.”
“Thank you kindly.” Nellie accepts a large platter.
“I better go get a couple more folding tables,” Jack says, motioning to Otto and Worley, who are setting up the seating area.
“You’re from Tennessee?” I ask the tall woman.
“Yes ma’am.”
“How do you know Spec?”
“We had a fire at our rec center about eight years ago. And he came and helped put it out. Then, later, when we were rebuilding, he showed up to help with the construction. We don’t know a finer person, and when we heard he passed, we just had to do something.” The other ladies nod in agreement.
“He’d be very grateful to you.”
“Well, we’re very grateful to him.”
I don’t hear much of what is said at Spec’s funeral. My mind is off in the past, when I was single and young and rode shotgun with Spec all over Wise County, working with him on the Rescue Squad. I learned so much from him. I learned to not panic, to keep my emotions in check, to not jump to the worst-case scenario in a crisis. He was always level and clear in times of tragedy. And he never went to a funeral, not even my son’s, didn’t believe in them. He had some kin way back who were Cherokee, and they had a philosophy about death. You don’t dwell on it, you bury your dead, and you walk away from that grave never to return. Now, that’s a hard concept for someone raised Catholic, like me, who every Sunday visits her mother’s grave with fresh flowers. And it’s hard for the Protestants, who hold somber picnics at the cemetery on Memorial Day. But to Spec, the Indian way made sense. “Life is about the living,” he’d say.
Jack, Etta, and I are exhausted as we make the turn up to our house. By the time the last of the Rescue Squad workers left and we put the Baptist Church Fellowship Hall back the way we found it, it was late afternoon.
I’m proud of my daughter. She helped her dad set up, and served and stayed for cleanup. Her friend Tara tagged along and served punch. Etta loved Spec; he’s one of the first people she remembers from her childhood. He spent many early mornings here having coffee and telling us the local gossip while she was having cereal in her pajamas.
“Ma, whose car is that?” Etta points to a chartreuse four-door with a black cloth roof parked in front of our house.
“I have no idea.”
As we pull in, I get out of the truck and go to the mysterious car.
“May I help you?” I look into the car. There is a woman alone, probably in her early sixties, as the slight lines on her forehead indicate. Her car has the scent of polished leather and Youth Dew perfume. She wears a pale, shiny lipstick but is not smiling.
“You don’t know me.”
“I can’t say that I do, ma’am.”
“I’m Twyla Johnson.”
I hope I
didn’t gasp when I heard the name, but the truth is, I’ve always wanted to meet her. Really, I know very little about Twyla Johnson. She works at the Farmers and Miners Bank in Pennington Gap and she had a relationship with Spec. After his bypass, I thought Spec would leave his wife to be with her, but he never did. And since then, the only mention of her has been Fleeta’s joking references.
“Please, come in,” I tell her.
I introduce her to Jack and Etta. Jack has heard tell of her but gives no indication when he repeats her name aloud and shakes her hand. Etta has no idea who she is.
“Would you like a cup of coffee?” I ask Twyla as I turn on the lights.
“I would love it,” she says graciously. Shoo the Cat makes a beeline for Twyla and sniffs her patent-leather high heels. She wears a trim navy blue suit with a crisp white blouse. She has twisted a floral scarf around her neck and anchored it with a gold brooch in the shape of a bird. Her handbag matches her shoes, and there is not a smudge on its shiny surface.
“Mama, I’m gonna go to bed. I’m beat,” Etta says.
“Go ahead, hon. You were a big help today.”
I show Twyla to the kitchen as Jack goes outside to unload his truck. “What a beautiful old house,” she says.
“My husband’s family homestead.”
“All hand-done stone- and woodwork.”
“You could never match this craftsmanship today.” Do I think Twyla Johnson is here to talk about construction?
As I make the coffee, Twyla makes herself at home at our kitchen table, neatly placing her purse in the chair and unwrapping the scarf from her neck.
“You know about me, don’t you?”
“Yes ma’am, I do.”
“Spec often spoke of you. I know it must seem odd that I know lots about you but you never met me.”
“It is a little strange,” I tell her, placing a dish of cookies before her.
“I loved Spec very much.”
“You must be so sad.”
“I am,” she says, her eyes filling with tears. I give her the Kleenex box from the phone table. “There was no place for me today. I wanted to be there. I even got there early and went into the church, but when I saw people driving up and getting out of their cars to come inside, I went back to my car. I didn’t want to cause any trouble.”
“Did you see the parade?”
“I did. I had no idea that he was so well known.”
“Everybody knew Spec Broadwater. Do you mind if I ask you something?”
She takes a tissue and wipes her eyes. “Go right ahead.”
“Why so many years with Spec when you couldn’t marry him? You seem like the marrying kind.”
“Well, there was only Spec for me. And he was already taken.”
Under normal circumstances, I would never ask personal questions of someone I just met. But Twyla needs to talk about Spec, I can see that. She loved him too, and she has no one to turn to in her grief. “How did you meet him? Did the bank catch fire?”
Twyla laughs. “No, no, nothing that grand. He had an account at our bank, an old account that was left to him by his parents. And every once in a while, he’d make a deposit and we’d chitchat. He’d comment about my hair or my clothes, but all of it seemed to have a double meaning.”
“Spec was a flirt.”
“But he meant his flirting, it wasn’t silly. He was a real man. A man’s man. He made me feel safe, maybe because he was so tall and sturdy. I remember the second time I met him, this was twenty-three years ago. I was operating the drive-through window at the bank, and we were very busy. I said good morning into the microphone and didn’t look up, and pressed the button for the automatic drawer. Well, was I stunned when the drawer flipped open and inside, instead of a deposit envelope, the thing was stuffed with field daisies. I mean stuffed!” She laughs. “So I looked up, and there in the car was Spec. I asked him what I was supposed to do with the flowers, and he said, ‘Put ’em in water.’ I went to lunch with him that day, and it was the start of our friendship.”
“Were you married?”
“I never was.”
“It must have been hard for you on holidays.” Could I possibly say anything more lame?
“It was. And really, except for our lunches, we couldn’t see too much of each other because of his work. He called me a lot, though.”
I think of Iva Lou, who told me one of the sure signs that a married man is having an affair is that he frequents phone booths.
“Did you get to see him at the hospital?”
She shakes her head sadly. “I didn’t get there. I got a phone call telling me that he was in bad shape.”
“Who called you?”
“Fleeta Mullins.”
“Fleeta? Do you know her?”
“I never met her. Do you know her?”
“She works with me. She has for years.”
“She was very curt. But she said that Spec would want me to know.”
I don’t know what to say. Fleeta called Twyla? How could that be? Fleeta is so principled about fooling around.
“I’m not proud of being the other woman.”
“I can tell that you’re a very good person. Spec was a deep person, even though he never said much. I’m sure he wasn’t happy about the situation either.”
“He had his family. I knew they came first.”
I want to ask Twyla why she settled for third place, after Spec’s family and his work. How could lunch once a week with the man you love be enough? But this woman is in pain, and I put aside my own judgments (and, for Godsakes, my own experience in these matters) and ask her a simple question instead. “Would you do it all over again?”
Twyla thinks for a moment as she stirs her coffee. “No, I don’t think I would.”
“Really?”
“You give up everything when you give up the privilege of saying good-bye.”
I make an excuse that my coffee needs a warm-up, but my eyes are stinging with tears. “When Spec survived his bypass, he came down to see me afterwards,” Twyla continues. “We felt so lucky that he had dodged death. And I had it in my mind that I was going to break it off that day, but when I saw him, I couldn’t do it. So here we are.” Twyla reaches for her purse and pulls out a small square of tissue paper. “He said when he died, he wanted you to have this. When he came back from Florida, he went to the doctor, who told him that he had more scar tissue than heart left. Spec took this as a sign that he may not have a lot of time, so he began to settle things.”
“He never said anything to me.”
“Spec was too proud to admit any weakness. That’s the one thing he saved for me. He could talk to me when he was afraid.” She gives me the tiny package, and I hold it for a few moments, not wanting to open it; knowing that if I do, Spec really is gone.
“It belonged to his mother,” Twyla tells me.
I carefully unfold the paper and pull out a fine gold chain with a fairy stone dangling from it. A fairy stone is a small brown wooden cross, delicate, squat, and square. Every girl in our mountains gets one at some point in her life as a gift, from either her parents, a friend, or a beau. There is a story behind how these fairy stones came to be. We are told that there is a valley in the neighboring Cumberland Gap where there is a grove of dogwood trees, and on Good Friday hundreds of years ago, the birds in the trees wept, and when their tears hit the ground, they changed into fairy stones. And until the end of time, the birds will cry every Good Friday until their sorrow is released on Judgment Day. This is an old Scottish myth brought here by the immigrants, but it has never died.
“I never had a fairy stone.”
“Now you do,” Twyla says softly and smiles.
I shake Twyla’s hands as she goes. She promises to be careful driving home, and we make murky plans for lunch sometime down the road. I know as I watch her back down the road that I will never see her again. We met when we had to, and our business is done. She took a big risk in coming here. I’m sure Spec shar
ed my troubles with her and that she knows how I feel about fooling around. But I guess that now I understand, specifically because of Twyla, how these things happen. It’s not like she planned this; how could she know that it was where the road would lead? As I turn out the lights and lock the doors, I feel unsure and full of questions. I am at a point where I need answers, and there is only one man who can provide them.
Jack is lying on the bed watching TV when I come up. He quickly turns it off. “What was that all about?”
“That’s the famous Twyla Johnson.”
“I figured that when she introduced herself.”
“She gave me this fairy stone that belonged to Spec’s mother.” I lean in and show Jack Mac the necklace around my neck.
“She is an attractive lady.”
“Spec liked beautiful women. It’s so sad, though. There was no place for her today.” As I undress, I think of her perfect suit and shoes and bag, and how there was a time when a woman never left her house without shoes that matched her bag, an appropriate hat, and gloves. Twyla Johnson is one of those women who live in a bygone era and refuse to give up the artifice. Maybe that stubborn nature kept her in a relationship with Spec. “She loved him very much, she told me.”
“Complicated, isn’t it,” Jack says.
“Well, we went through it.” I sit on the bed and look at Jack, who turns the color of the red throw pillow propped behind his head.
“We did,” he admits.
“Yes, we did.”
“Uh-oh,” he says flatly. This makes me laugh.
“I always told you that I didn’t want to know the nature of your relationship with Karen Bell.”
“It’s so far in the past.”
“It seems like a lifetime ago.”
“It does. And it is. We’re happy now, and that’s what matters.”
“I learned something tonight that left me peaceful about all this stuff.”
“What’s that?”
“Spec and Twyla were friends. Outside of the romance part, which I’m sure was there, there was a friendship. A kinship. Spec wasn’t a big communicator, and I’m glad that there was someone he could unload on who would listen. She was a sounding board, someone he could talk to. Isn’t that the most important thing?”
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