“I wasn’t thinking about side trips.”
“What were you thinking about?”
“Not having you to talk to.”
“I’m a phone call away.”
“I know. But it won’t be the same.”
“Honey, you’re goal-oriented. You like to set a plan and follow it through. Think how fulfilled you’ll be when you invent new challenges. A long time ago I went to a fortune-teller, and she told me that when you have a dream come true, you must then redream. You must not stay in the past. Because all of life changes anyway, and if you try to hang on to happiness or success or even the people in your life, you will be unhappy. You have to set new goals. Look where you started. And look where you are. Aren’t you amazed?”
Pearl thinks about this. “Not really. When you start out with nothing, anything you achieve is a surprise.”
“Look at the move to Boston in the same way. You’re starting over again, except this time you have nothing to prove, you’re already a success.”
Pearl smiles gratefully. When I give her advice, I’m never heavy-handed or preachy, I speak from my heart and she understands. Maybe it’s easier to mother a girl who is not your own, to give advice freely when you don’t feel personally responsible for her every choice. If only I could be this way with Etta.
Pearl tells me that she and India will fly to Boston in the morning and join Taye, who has begun his residency at the hospital. Their furniture and other belongings will follow in the moving van by the weekend. As Pearl lists what is left to do, there is a knock at the door. “They’re early,” Pearl says as she goes to answer it. I stop stacking dishes, and when I look up, I’m instantly glad I’m not holding anything breakable when I see who stopped to visit.
“Dad?” Pearl says in a whisper.
“Yep, it’s me.”
I haven’t seen Albert Grimes since the Trail Theatre burned. After he was taken to the hospital and discharged, he seemed to want contact with Pearl, so she invited him to her wedding. I’d hoped that Pearl’s wedding was a new start for them, but evidently it was not. Pearl hasn’t spoken of him in years, and I sensed it was a painful topic for her, so I never asked. Albert looks much better than he did back then (I think he has new teeth). He has a close-cropped haircut, and he’s wearing a neatly pressed khaki uniform. The tag on the shirt says GUARD.
“How are you, Pearl?” he asks.
“We’re moving.”
“I heard.”
“You’re working?” she says kindly.
“Yeah. Up to the Wise County prison. And I murried me a nice girl out of Pound. She was an Isover. I don’t know if you know you any Isovers, but they’re good people.”
“I think I’ve heard the name. Congratulations.” Pearl looks away and says softly, “You have a granddaughter. Her name is India. If you’d like to see her, she’s over at Mama’s.”
“I’ll do that directly.”
“We’re leaving in the morning.”
“I know all about.”
“How’d you hear about it?”
“Funny thing. One of the guards is moving, and you’re sharing the truck with him. So I asked about when the truck was comin’ down here and figgered I’d catch you.”
“I’m glad you came.”
I realize that Pearl and Albert have been standing in the doorway the whole time, and say, “Should I throw on some tea or coffee or something?” They look at me. “Albert, I’m Ave Maria.”
“I remember you,” he says nicely.
“You look great,” I tell him sincerely.
“Well, a good woman will do that to ye.” Albert and Pearl stand in silence for another moment until Albert fumbles into his pocket. “Pearl, I want to thank ye fer looking out fer me fer so long when I had a hard time. This here is a check. I kept track of what you give me, and I want to pay you back.”
“That’s not necessary, Dad.” Pearl’s voice falters.
“No, no, you take it. My wife and I agreed you ought to have it. It’s yorn. You got a girl to raise, and you may need this. Please.” Albert gives Pearl the envelope, and she takes it. “I know it was hard fer ye, to take care of me. I know that I must’ve been a disappointment to ye in some ways, but I hope this lets you know that I believe in paying back and puttin’ back. I’m just happy that I got me a job and can pay off my debt to ye.”
Pearl wipes her eyes with the dishcloth she’s holding, then reaches up and embraces her father for a very long time.
“I always knew you were a good man, Daddy.”
“I was hopin’ you did.”
I’m mostly in the kitchen, but I can see that Albert Grimes has tears in his eyes too. I hear Spec’s voice inside my head: “People do the best they can.” And here’s proof that they really do.
CHAPTER TEN
“Ma you know I want UVA. It’s where I want to go.” It is the fall of Etta’s senior year, and she already has a plan in place. We spent the past year visiting every college in Virginia from William & Mary to Hollins, collecting applications, postcards, and sweatshirts, so that Etta would keep an open mind. But she’s been set on UVA since she completed her internship at Thompson & Litton. I think she even has her dorm picked out.
When Etta was born, like every mother, I made a lot of plans for her. I made lists of my favorite books to share with her, most of which she has read (she’s in the middle of Pride and Prejudice, next up The House of Mirth). I wanted her to see the world and have a fine education. I still hope she’ll consider my alma mater, Saint Mary’s College up in South Bend, Indiana.
“I know you’re set on Charlottesville. But can’t we just take a ride up to South Bend so you can see the place?”
“Okay. But don’t get your hopes up,” she tells me.
Jack begs off from the trip I’ve planned for Etta’s fall break (smart man). I think the flat farm fields and never-ending countryside of Indiana, and its midnight-blue night sky with stars so low they dangle like crystals on a chandelier, might woo her to change her mind. It’s a football weekend at Notre Dame, which adds to the excitement. Maybe when she sees the girls in their wool pea coats and Fighting Irish baseball caps, she will reconsider.
As we drive onto the campus, Etta is impressed by the lane, anchored on either side by hundred-year-old oak trees, so high they meet over the center of the road, forming an orange canopy over our heads. The buildings, so beautifully set beside a lake with an island at its center (the ducks are out, how picturesque), create a scene that far exceeds the beauty of the photographs in the brochure. Etta laughs when she sees an old Packard, painted white with silver fins and stuffed with nuns in black and white habits, whiz by. “They look like a tin of Aunt Fleeta’s iced brownies,” she observes.
Etta’s never seen a nun in a habit. Catholics are rare in Southwest Virginia. The only nuns she knows are at Saint Agnes Hospital in Norton, and their habits are more like the traditional nurses uniform, not the long flowing robes of the order of Saint Joseph. Our priests down home are worker priests, missionaries really, so they rarely wear their collars. Etta is amazed by the first Catholic place she’s ever been. The statues of saints tucked in alcoves, the angel statuaries in the gardens, and the heavy cross in Le Mans hallway are all new to her. I’m not sure she relates to it all.
Etta has a meeting with the admissions committee, who, I can see by the looks on their faces, would love to have her. Etta tells them that she is grateful for their time, but she remains noncommittal, saying that she wants to check out the art department in Moreau Hall. A B.F.A. would be the closest match to the architecture studies Etta has in mind, and she wants to see what the facilities are like. As we tour, I remember taking photography classes, and when we enter the Little Theatre, I remember the plays I saw when I went here.
“Isn’t this gorgeous?” I ask Etta as we walk across the empty stage of the Little Theatre.
“It’s really nice.” Etta looks at me with that Don’t press it expression, so I don’t. Why am I selling this so hard? Don�
�t I know that if she picks where she goes, she will make it work? Doesn’t the University of Virginia have the best architecture school in the state? What’s the matter with me—haven’t I learned to pick my battles?
The ride back home goes quickly, and soon we find ourselves in the blue hills of Kentucky near the border of Virginia. Etta has been quiet most of the way back (she slept a lot), and I notice that by the time we stop for food, her mood has visibly lifted.
“You’re in a better mood,” I say, handing her the ketchup for her hamburger.
“We’re almost home.”
“And that makes you happy.” I don’t pose this as a question.
“Yeah.” Etta has a swirl of sarcasm in her voice.
“You didn’t like Saint Mary’s, did you?”
“It was nice.”
“It’s traditional and old and grand and well respected. I wouldn’t call it nice.”
“Ma. I don’t want to go to Saint Mary’s.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s not for me. I knew you were gonna do this. I knew you wouldn’t make it a fun trip, you’d make it about getting what you want.”
“I’ve already gone to college. I don’t want anything except the best education for you.”
“No, you want me to do what you did.”
“You’d love those girls once you got there.”
“No, you’d love those girls once I got there. I didn’t see one person like me.”
“What are you talking about? You’re smart and you have a great personality. You’d fit right in.”
“I don’t want to fit in there.”
“You really want UVA.”
“You make it sound like a mail-correspondence college. It’s the state university of Virginia, founded by Thomas Jefferson. It’s not some dump.”
“No, I know it’s a great school.”
“Then why don’t you want me to go there?”
“I don’t not want you to go there.”
“You’ve never once said, ‘Great choice, Etta.’ Most of the kids in my class don’t even go to college. Why can’t I decide what’s right for me? If you don’t get your way, you act like the world’s gonna end. You’re so spoiled.”
“Spoiled? Me?” The last thing I consider myself to be is spoiled.
“You’re an only child, and you’ve gotten your way forever.”
“You’re an only child,” I retort.
“No. I had a brother.” Etta takes a sip of her Coke. I can see that if we weren’t in a truck stop in Kentucky, she’d get up and leave. But she is trapped, and so am I. “You forget that I lost someone too.”
“I’m sorry.” I try not to cry, wiping my eyes with the napkin.
“And don’t do that either. Apologize all the time. You can’t say whatever you want to me and push your agenda with heaps of guilt and then apologize for it like you didn’t mean it. You do mean it. It’s your way or nothing.”
“That’s not true.”
“It is true. You think you know best for everybody! You think you’re above people. You even think your family is better than Dad’s.”
“I do not. I loved Mrs. Mac very much.”
“As a friend. She died before she was family to you.”
“What does that mean?”
“You could deliver her medicine and hang out with her, but that’s not being family. You never get attached to people, Ma. Don’t you notice that?”
“I have dear friends in Big Stone Gap. Aunt Iva Lou! Aunt Fleeta! What about Spec?”
“Ma, I’m a mountain girl. I’m a MacChesney. Look at me. I have brown hair and green eyes and freckles. I’m built like Dad. I like mechanical things and astronomy. I couldn’t sew a button on my coat or work in a pharmacy. I’d be claustrophobic. I like soup beans and corn bread and divinity candy. I like mountain boys who talk like me. I like my girlfriends who live in the hollers and have babies when they’re young enough to chase them around. I love the country, the back roads, the Powell River when it floods, and the fact that you don’t need much money to survive in Big Stone Gap. I’m one of them, and I will be until the day I die. And whether I live there after college or not, I’m gonna carry all that inside me all my life. That’s who I am.”
I can’t say a word. I hear her, and I know she believes what she says. I guess I was hoping that it wasn’t true. I wanted more for her. I wanted her to love the world outside these mountains as much as the world within them.
“I guess when you were born, I thought I’d have a daughter just like me. And that was wrong. You are who you are, and you have a right to be that person.”
“Thank you.” Etta sounds relieved.
“I didn’t want you to be like me because I thought I was better than everybody else. I wanted you to be like me because I was very much like my mother, and I found great comfort in my relationship with her. I’m letting go of hoping that you and I could be like my mother and me. It just wasn’t our fate, I guess.”
“Is this really what you’re sad about, Ma?” Etta looks at me. “Is it really about me? Or is it about Joe?”
“I don’t understand.”
“All my life I just wanted you to be happy like you were before Joe died. You used to laugh more, and it seemed like you weren’t scared of anything. I know I was little, but I remember that everything changed. I don’t know what it’s like to be a mother, I can’t even guess, but it doesn’t do you any good, or me, to be scared for me all the time. You can’t protect me by putting me in a school in Indiana any more than you can lock me in an attic. If something were to happen to me, it would be because it was supposed to happen, and there is nothing you could do to stop it.”
“Don’t say that.”
“It’s true. It wasn’t your fault, Mom. You didn’t do anything wrong, and Joe died anyway.”
She’s right. I look at my daughter, and I don’t see a little girl anymore, and I don’t see a teenager. I see a whole person who thinks deeply about things and searches for answers. I set out on this journey of motherhood with a plan in place. I knew exactly how I was going to handle every challenge and what my rules were. What I did not consider was what kind of a child I would get. And I have to say that, even though I was hoping for something different, I was very lucky to have Etta for my daughter. She is far more intuitive than I ever was, and certainly more honest about her feelings.
“I’m happy you want to go to UVA, really I am.”
“Are you sure?”
“Totally sure.”
Etta smiles. “Thank you, Ma.”
And those are the most important words my daughter can say to me. Mothers who try hard (I lead the pack) need to know that once in a great while, they do something right.
Jack and I sailed through the milestones of Etta’s senior year of high school, including the spring musical (Etta was set designer for Carousel), the prom (she went solo with a group of girlfriends), and graduation (Jack cried, I didn’t). Papa has sent Etta a round-trip ticket to Italy for her graduation present. We took her to the airport yesterday; it’s her last fling before she starts college.
Theodore has been awarded an honorary degree by the University of Tennessee. I convince him and Max to drive down a couple of days early to stop in Big Stone Gap on their way to Knoxville. Theodore wants to show Max “Where the Big Orange Reigns Supreme” and, of course, Big Stone Gap.
There are many people who want to see Theodore, so I’ve parked him at Mutual’s during lunch to have one central location for folks to stop by and say hello.
“I don’t know what you were talking about. The food here is interesting,” Max chides Theodore.
“I lived here eleven years, and I couldn’t get past the first bite of soup beans and corn bread.”
“That’s your problem. I think they’re delicious.” Max goes back into the kitchen for seconds.
“So much for my cosmopolitan boyfriend,” Theodore tells me. “Do you think the folks wonder who Max is?”
&nbs
p; “Are you asking me if they think you’re a couple?”
“Yeah.”
“I think that everyone here is so old now that if they might have cared at some point, they don’t anymore. Gay, straight, or tuckered out entirely, I think they just want everybody to be happy.”
Theodore throws his head back and laughs. “I think you’re right!”
One of the things I missed the most after Theodore left was spelunking into the caves of these old hills. I couldn’t find anyone else who had the passion for it. I took Jack once, and he said he’d rather be in a coal mine. Another time, I took Etta, and she was busy measuring the walls for potential collapse instead of examining the lichen and stone formations. So I’m thrilled when Theodore agrees to go to Cudjo’s Caverns with me while Jack gets a lesson from Max on how to make profiteroles.
Everything is as we remembered it: the low ceiling entrance, the unwieldy footbridge, and the underground stream. “Isn’t it weird nothing has changed?” I ask Theodore.
“This isn’t like Disney World. They don’t upgrade. It’s whatever nature does. It took hundreds of years to get this way, and it will take hundreds more to change it.”
“If I tell you something, will you laugh?”
“Never.”
“I’m getting early empty-nest trauma. Every time I think of Etta leaving for good, I can’t breathe. What’s wrong with me?”
“You’re like everybody else. You want to hang on to what you know. It’s going to be strange not to have your schedule arranged around Etta. Work won’t matter in the same way because you won’t be doing it for your family, you’ll be working for you. So you have to rejigger the whole picture. And it’s scary to start all over again at our age. Who really does? No one. And you know why? Because it’s too hard.”
“Thanks. Now I feel worse.”
Theodore laughs. “It’s true. Sorry.”
“That does not explain my physical ailments, like palpitations.”
“Are you going through the Change?” Theodore asks bluntly.
“What?”
“You know, the Change. When your eggs take a vote and decide to close down the factory.”
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