Stars to Lead Me Home: Love and Marriage (A Novel)

by Peggy Webb

  “Ethel’s getting married,” Granny says. Nobody tells her the news is old, that everybody in the neighborhood has known for weeks and that furthermore she’s already told it twice. When you love somebody this is one of the ways you honor them: you allow them to keep their dignity.

  “When I heard it,” Granny adds, “I said to her, on your wedding night just close your eyes and think of England.”

  “Law me,” Aunt Elizabeth says, “I hope he’s a good man.”

  “He is. He makes her laugh.”

  I have a sudden urge to race to the phone, call both my daughters and ask, does your young man make you laugh? Instead, Halbert takes off his hat, as well as his nose, and I offer him a drink.

  o0o

  I won’t let Halbert turn on the lights.

  “I want to see you, Maggie.”

  “No. Please.”

  He’s standing beside the bed in his shorts and undershirt, his body dimly lit by the glow of streetlights coming through the Venetian blinds and I’m thinking that his legs are not skinny like Dick’s and I’ve never made love with another man in my life except my husband, and I’m going to make a total fool of myself.

  In fact, I already have. In the kitchen while we were eating dinner. Halbert said the stuffed chicken was the best meal he’d ever had and I burst out crying. Right there at the kitchen table.

  “Maggie, what’s wrong?”

  I lied and told him nothing because I had some vague notion that if I tried to build my new life on the rubble of the old, the rot would eat away at the foundations and everything would collapse around me and I’d be right back where I started.

  Halbert pulled off a length of paper towel and dried my tears then held my nose while I honked, and I knew, right then we’d end up in my bedroom, perhaps after dessert and coffee. As it turned out, we didn’t even make it through dessert. We were hungrier for each other than for peach cobbler.

  And so here I am, a prisoner in my own bedroom, held hostage by desire, terrified to undress in front of this man I’ve known for only twenty-four hours. Every bit of the bravado and determination I’d felt when I made my late night march to the garbage can in the alley has vanished. I am Maggie Hudson, fraud, fully exposed.

  “We don’t have to do this if you don’t want to,” Halbert says.

  My body is tied into knots and so is my tongue. How can it be that the reality of a thing is so much less than the dream?

  Halbert’s waiting for an answer.

  There are entire magazines dedicated to advising teenagers how to handle their first kiss, their first date. The racks in grocery stores are filled with slick women’s magazines extolling the virtues of games for keeping a marriage alive. Shelves in bookstores groan with the weight of books listing rules for catching and holding a man, books describing men as wolves and urging women to be some other animal. I don’t remember what. Panthers or goats or she-bears. Anything but mice.

  I know because I’ve read the magazines and books cover to cover since I left Dick, searching for help anywhere I can find it.

  But not a single magazine tells you what to do when you’re naked, fully dressed. Not a single book describes what it’s like to live so long with a cruel man that his abuse defines you.

  I am in my own apartment. I know this because the receipts for rent are in the top left-hand drawer of my desk. I am in my own room watching a wedge of moon slip through a crack in the Venetian blinds. I am standing beside my own bed feeling the warm sweat that slides between my breasts and listening to the tick of my clock that has Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman on its face.

  I am Maggie Hudson, scarred and scared, with Dick’s voice echoing in my head.

  Halbert chaffs my cold hands. “I’ve never met anyone like you. I think I’m falling in love, Maggie.”

  There, I think. There now.

  It’s what I want to hear, what I need to hear. The one thing that validates everything I’m about to do.

  I lie on the bed, close my eyes and think of England while Halbert takes off my shoes.

  o0o

  I wouldn’t let Halbert spend the night. So here I am, wrapped in my fuzzy robe, burrowed among pillows on the end of my sofa spending a late night with Mr. Fixit.

  Hello again, night owls, he says in that rich baritone, and I wonder if he matches his voice, intelligent and compassionate, warm and sexy with a hint of humor. I lean back, letting that deep trustworthy voice wash over me and picturing him as broad enough to lean on but well-toned enough to swing a hammer all day without ever tiring. Of course, he could be balding and overweight, just an average guy with a young-at-heart voice and a desire to help.

  Our first caller is Sondra...

  She sounds young and she’s close to tears over a broken stoneware pitcher that once belonged to her grandmother. Mr. Fixit knows how to patch it so you’d never know it was broken. He’s gentle with her, reassuring, and before Sondra hangs up she’s laughing.

  I grab the phone and punch in numbers before I can change my mind.

  Hello, Maggie. What can I do for you?

  Everything. I sit there speechless. Sifting through my mental list.

  Maggie, are you there?

  “Oh, hello. I’m here.” His laughter includes me, as if we’re sitting across the table sharing a glass of wine and an inside joke. “I want to build a gazebo.”

  That’s a big project, Maggie. You must be a pretty good carpenter.

  “No. I don’t even have a toolbox.”

  Let’s start there, Maggie.

  “That seems like a very good place to start.”

  I grab pencil and paper then begin writing as the mellow voice of Mr. Fixit tells me in perfect layman’s terms everything a single woman needs in her toolbox.

  If I could, I’d hug him. I’d invite him for a chicken dinner then sit back and just listen to his amazing voice.

  CHAPTER SIX

  School is back in session, and I can hardly wait to see Lillian and Jean. When the bell rings for lunch, I race toward the teacher’s lounge, arriving seconds before Jean. We hear Lillian coming, that wheezing sort of pant that makes me want to grab a guardian angel of two and say, Do something, quick!

  I also want to break my promise to her and pray for a donor heart. I’m flawed and easily swayed and not very brave, and I’m certainly not the kind of staunch person who has a hot line to the Almighty. But I want to be on my knees for Lillian. I want to beg and cajole and whine and make outrageous bargains until God gets so fed up with me He sends her a heart just to shut me up.

  Of course, I know it doesn’t work that way. Still…

  “Oh, God, Maggie. She’s getting worse.”

  “Don’t let her hear you say that, Jean.”

  “How long can she go without a donor heart? Has Carl said?”

  “I haven’t asked and I don’t intend to. Wipe that frown off your face. We’ve got to remain positive for her.” I grab Jean, drag her toward the table where I’d put a plate of chocolate cream cheese brownies this morning, and then hand her a knife. “Start cutting.”

  Thankfully, she does. By the time Lillian arrives, we’re both wearing wide fake smiles.

  “Is that chocolate?” Lillian makes a beeline for the table, dips her finger in the icing. “Hmmm. Yummy. Are these yours, Maggie?”

  “Yes. We’re celebrating. Dessert before lunch.” I can do the dramatic pause as well as Jean. “Guess who sent yellow roses!”

  Lillian lifts her hands in her best school teacher’s manner. Looking at her you’d never know that underneath that prim and angelic exterior beats the failing heart of a bawdy stand-up comic.

  “Attention, everybody. Now one, two, three. All together.”

  “HALBERT!” We yell in unison, then collapse on the sofa, arms around each other, laughing.

  “Maggie, I’m so happy for you,” Jean says.

  “I feel vindicated.” Lillian can never stay in the same spot for more than two minutes, and is up prowling the sma
ll room.

  “What do you mean, vindicated? It was as much my idea as yours.” Jean dips a finger into the chocolate icing on the brownies before covering the plate with tinfoil and setting it back on the table beside the FAX machine.

  “Yes, but he’s my cousin. What if something had gone wrong? What if he’d turned out to be another Dick?”

  Jean guffaws, then the three of us crack up again.

  “What do you have planned with him, Maggie?”

  “Is that a nosey question, Jean, or are you inviting me somewhere?” I say.

  “She’s being nosey. What are you and Halbert doing next, Maggie, besides the obvious?”

  “We’re going on a picnic ... on the farm.”

  Through our grandparents and parents are long gone, their farm on the outskirts of Jackson still stands, the house rented by a cousin who also plows and plants the land. The beauty of having it all in the family is that Jean and I have unlimited access to the farm. Though it’s still winter and usually cold, even in Mississippi, January can sometimes remind you of spring.

  That’s one of the things I love about the Deep South, the unexpectedness of the weather. That’s also one of the reasons I resent my apartment. In spite of the safe cocoon feeling of it, I still have to go out the door, into the hallway, down two long flights of marble stairs, through the heavy glass double doors of the building and into the street to discover the day’s weather.

  Or I could listen to the radio or try to remember what the weatherman said on the six o’clock news on television. But I hear weather reports with half a mind, the other half being occupied with more exciting things such as the next chapter on the book I’m secretly writing or the pink stargazer lilies I’ll plant in my yard if I ever have another house.

  I love the surprise of bulbs.

  I’m thinking of flowers as I tell Jean and Lillian exactly what I plan to do with Halbert on the picnic. Seeing how Lillian’s eyes sparkle, knowing that this could be the last chance I get to share my life with her, I don’t leave out a thing, even the good parts.

  o0o

  My apartment is only thirty miles from the farm, and we park Halbert’s car behind a copse of pine and cedar trees in case Dick’s spies are watching. I’m wearing jeans and boots and a heavy coat, with a wool scarf wrapped around my neck, but even so the tip of my nose is red from the cold.

  Halbert kisses my chilled nose, then holds a small camera up and snaps us with our heads together, flashing smiles that contain yellow roses and promises and soft murmurings in the early morning when the sun paints the windowsill pink.

  He pockets the camera. “Show me your favorite spot, Maggie.”

  “Here.” I press my cheek against his chest. “Or maybe here.” I press my nose into the hollow at the base of his throat, then laughing lead him deeper into the woods to a mossy bank that slopes toward a small stream.

  “Here,” I say.

  Dry leaves crackle under our feet as we make our way to a fallen log. Then we enjoy our picnic lunch and listen to the silence.

  A hawk hitchhikes on a downdraft, wing-spread blocking the sun. In the pasture at the top of the rise, five Holstein cows huddle together for warmth, chewing their cuds. They look as if they’ve come together to gossip.

  “This is a beautiful place, Maggie.”

  I’m glad Halbert thinks so. I couldn’t love a man who didn’t love the farm. I dig beneath the leaves till I find the soil. My hand closes around the rich dark earth, and I tell Halbert the history of the farm, beginning with my first ancestor who came to Mississippi via Great Britain, New Hampshire, Ohio and Kentucky, and ending with my father, who took over the farm after my grandparents died.

  “He loved this land as much as he loved his family. Once he told me, ‘You can never own the land. You’re only a caretaker for the next generation.’”

  I lift a handful of earth to my nose and breath deeply, inhaling not merely the soil but the determination of generations of my family who farmed the land and the blood and sweat they spilled there.

  I open my fist and the earth trickles back through the leaves.

  “Daddy used to say, ‘The land is like a song. Some people claim it, but wise people sing it. Sing the land, Maggie.’” I stand up and brush off the seat of my pants. “I sing this land, Halbert.”

  He is silent as we trek back to the car, so quiet I wonder if my confession made him understand me better or if it made him think I’m crazy. What do I really know about this man, anyhow?

  As I climb into the front seat, I glance across the road at the cemetery. My daddy is there now, buried underneath the earth he loved so well, his grave marked by a black stone. African marble. The only one like it in the cemetery.

  I used to come here when things got too bad at home. I’d tell Dick I was going for a drive, then I would sit on the low-hanging, thick curving branch of the ancient oak tree facing the cemetery and stare at the black stone until I could feel my daddy’s unconditional love seep into my bones.

  I’m thinking about my solitary pilgrimages as Halbert turns off the dirt road onto the highway, and I pull off my gloves and hold my hands toward the heater.

  When my cell phone rings, Halbert says, “Don’t answer that.”

  But there’s something urgent in the way the phone vibrates, something momentous in the muffled ring tone, something that kicks off my sixth sense as I fumble around in my purse, finally spotting the hot pink cover I bought because I was always misplacing a phone with a black cover.

  “Hello,” I say, breathless, and Halbert mumbles, “Just kidding.”

  I motion him to be quiet, a gesture that screams school teacher, but who cares? It’s Lillian on the phone, and I can’t tell whether she’s laughing or crying.

  “What? What did you say? Lillian, I can’t hear you. I’m on the road. Bad reception.”

  “CALL JEAN.” She’s shouting now, and even Halbert can hear her. “I’VE GOT A DONOR HEART!”

  I’m laughing and crying, primed to say, “I’ll be there,” but the call is disconnected and Halbert’s saying, “If you need to go, I understand.” As if I’d even consider spending the evening with him while surgeons slice out Lillian’s heart.

  “Of course, I’m going.” I see his knuckles tighten on the wheel and alarm bells go off. Belatedly I remember to say, “Thank you for understanding.”

  But does he, really? And how much do I care?

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Jean insisted on driving because she’s older, and I let her. But as we careen toward Birmingham at the speed of light I’m certain my future is filled with broken bones if not a stint in jail.

  “Pull over and let me drive a while.” I try to disguise my panic.

  “I’m doing fine. Besides, we’re almost there.” This is spoken through gritted teeth as Jean roars up too close to the backend of a Peterbilt rig then rams on the brakes just before we vanish underneath.

  “Pull over, or I’m going to wet my pants.”

  “All right. But if we don’t get there to see Lillian before she gets her heart, I’m blaming you.”

  Jean will, too, but not for long. That’s the way she is, mostly bark but hardly ever a bite. Still, her comment starts an avalanche of worry about Lillian.

  After a quick pit stop inside a BP service station, we make the transition and I race toward University of Alabama Medical Center in Birmingham, where one of the best cardiothoracic surgeons in the world is on standby to give Lillian the second chapter she would never have without the sacrifice of a courageous and generous family.

  We arrive in one piece, more or less, just in time to see a helicopter land on the hospital’s helipad and three people in scrubs emerge carrying a small red container.

  “I’ll bet that’s Lillian’s new heart.” Jean clutches my sleeve, thunderstruck, and I’m not much better off.

  “You don’t know that,” I tell her, but I think she’s right.

  Shortly after Lillian told us she was on the waiting list f
or a donor heart, I read everything I could find on the internet about heart transplants. They used to actually carry hearts around in picnic coolers, but methods of transport are now much more sophisticated. I think what we’re seeing is some sort of high tech container which keeps the heart beating longer.

  “This is just awful.” Jean’s rooted to the spot, as shaken as I’ve ever seen her. “I can’t bear to think of somebody cutting out Lillian’s heart.”

  “Don’t think about that part, Jean. Think about Lillian getting her health back. Now, buck up. You don’t want her to see you this way.”

  I drag her forward, but we get lost in the endless corridors of the hospital. Twice. Jean loses her gloves and I lose my patience.

  Finally I call Carl for directions and we arrive on the cardiac floor. I pause outside the elevator and draw a deep breath. I’m sweating as if I’ve run a marathon, and Jean’s red hair is sticking out all over like a Brillo pad. Somewhere down that long, antiseptic-smelling hall, Lillian is waiting for us. I reach down to pat Jean’s hair in place.

  “We’ve got to pull it together,” I tell her, and she scrambles in her purse for lipstick.

  “I’m together. You’re the one who looks in need of resuscitation.”

  “Thank you very much.” Sarcasm and I are not good friends. We’re not even nodding acquaintances. I could never master that dubious art.

  Jean makes a face at me, then grabs my hand and hauls me toward Lillian’s room. “Stick with me, kiddo, and you’ll be all right.”

  Carl is waiting for us outside the door.

  “Are we in time?” This from Jean, who is panting as if she’s run every step from Jackson. I worry about her. She keeps promising to quit smoking, but every time I see her light up, I think about her poor blackened lungs, and imagine how she’d hate being in a wheelchair with an oxygen tube up her nose.

  “She’s waiting for you. I’m going to grab a cup of coffee and give you some time alone with her. I know she’ll want that.”

  This man is a saint. I wonder if there are any more in the world like him, and I’m beginning to suspect that Halbert doesn’t even come close. Carl heads down the hall while Jean and I ease into the room, expecting I-don’t-know-what, but certainly not Lillian sitting up in bed, fresh-faced and glowing. She makes her hospital gown look like a Stella McCartney design.