“She’s sort of scary, ain’t she?” Jeptha asked, as he drove up the hill.
Lucy laughed the heartiest laugh Jeptha had ever heard from her, the kind that makes a person ugly unless you love them. He laughed too, until both of them were going so hard that they were nearly crying. They kept on for ten whole minutes, until finally only random giggles emerged. Lucy wiped her eyes and giggled once more.
“Oh, God,” she said. “I don’t know why that was so funny, but it was.”
“Glad you thought so. I was terrified. I’m still sweating.”
Lucy glanced at him and giggled again. “I know. She can be sort of scary. I’m sorry—we were fighting earlier. She means well, but she can’t help herself sometimes. I think she’s worried about me. We’ve been a unit, just her and me, for a long time.”
“How long have you lived with her?” Jeptha asked.
“Seven years. Since …”
“Since … your parents.”
“Yeah.”
“I’m sorry about that. About them, I mean.”
“Thanks.”
“I remember that. When I was a kid. Seeing you at church after.”
“It wasn’t a good time.”
“You always seemed okay to me. Like you’d be okay no matter what.”
“I’ve gotten good at putting on a face.”
“They found the guy who did it, right?” What he most remembered about that time was the sheriff showing up at his house in the middle of the night, rousing his dad out of bed, and wanting to talk to him about where he’d been thirty minutes earlier. He’d been home, which his mom said too, but her word meant nothing to a cop who knew well the kind of lies an abused woman will tell. The only thing that convinced the sheriff was his dad’s car, broken down once again. Only when both the sheriff and his deputy couldn’t start it did they believe his dad had had nothing to do with the crash. He wanted to make sure Lucy knew it wasn’t his dad that had done it.
“They did. An hour later, they pulled over a guy rocketing down 11W. His truck was all scratched up on the side, same color paint as my parents’ car. He was so drunk that when they asked him if he’d been involved in an accident earlier, he said, ‘It wasn’t me, Officer. It was my pig.’”
“That’s a sorry man that’d say it was a pig.”
“Who knows? Maybe it was. They found a pot-bellied pig in the front seat. Rick Mullins told me a few years later that he could have sworn the pig was drunk too, the way it smelled, but he’d be damned if he knew how you tested a pig for sobriety.”
“No, I can’t imagine how you’d pull that off,” Jeptha said, shaking his head.
“Anyway, LouEllen took me in after that. I’ve been there ever since.”
“She family?”
“No. Not blood anyway. She was my mom’s best friend from childhood.”
“Was your mom like that?”
Lucy’s eyebrows went way up. He’d always loved how expressive her face was, and he saw now it was because of her eyebrows. They were like delicate worms, arching and dancing and wiggling off the line of her forehead. “Like LouEllen? Oh God, no. LouEllen is a power unto herself. She’s big, and warm, and full-throttled. My mom was quiet. Reserved. Cold, even.”
“Cold as a mom?”
“Sometimes,” she said. Jeptha waited to see if she’d say more. “I remember my mom used to hang up the phone sometimes with LouEllen and say, ‘She’s like a steamroller coming at you.’”
“She about run over me tonight.”
“Just about,” Lucy said, grinning at him. “She’s a lot. But she’s got a good heart. And everything she does is so full of love and worry. My mom loved me, I know that. But it was never like LouEllen’s love. But now I don’t know what to do.”
“What do you mean?”
“You saw that baby’s room, and she wants to come to the doctor’s appointments. It’s like she thinks this is her baby. And I need her, don’t get me wrong. But I want to do all that stuff, you know?”
Jeptha nodded. He hadn’t even known that was an option, coming to doctor’s appointments, but he felt a pang of desire to be there himself.
“Besides, I think she is partly doing all this because she’s worried I’m going to make a mistake.”
“What kind of mistake—oh,” Jeptha said. He heard Cody’s and Bobby’s disbelief echoing in his ears and felt the ring box scratch through his shirt. “It’s me, right? I’m the mistake?”
She nodded, her eyes on the floor.
“Do you think that too?”
She looked him in the eyes. “I’m sitting here, aren’t I?”
“True.”
Jeptha stared straight ahead, his jaw clenched. Here he was getting ready to ask her to marry him, and she still regarded him as a mistake she’d made one drunken night. He couldn’t even blame her. He’d knocked her up and fucked up the first date. It wasn’t like he was starting from such a great place.
He wished he had the words to convince her that he was worth the risk, that she could hold on to him. But he didn’t. Besides, he wasn’t sure it was even true. He knew that when he was with her, he wanted to be worth it. But could he be a man she could count on? He’d never been before.
His throat tightened up as he looked at the mountains around him. The sun was setting off to his left, lighting up the fawn-colored hay and the barns, especially the unpainted ones, with a rose-gold hue, as if God himself had painted the scene. Jeptha had driven up here in exactly this light before, when he brought his mother up to watch him play at Carter’s the first (and only) time. His dad scoffed at the whole thing when Jeptha asked his mom if she’d come, but his mom, for once in her life, shushed him and said she’d love to go. Said she was sorry Meemaw wasn’t here to see it. The day of the show, Jeptha had found a new shirt laid out in his bed—the sky-blue plaid that matched his eyes with mother-of-pearl buttons. It was his one good shirt, the one he was wearing tonight for his date with Lucy, and had worn on their first failed date. He looked down at the buttons, thinking of his mother picking it out for him all those years ago. She’d been so proud of him, smiling the whole time she watched him play. He’d been playing backup, nothing special, but she’d acted like he had hung the moon. He knew that his mother loved him, in her way, but he’d never felt like he was anything special in her eyes until that moment.
After the show, she’d wisped her way over to him, the cancer they didn’t yet know about already stealing away all the solid parts of her. She’d hugged him tight around his middle, her tiny arms strong for their size. He couldn’t remember the last time she’d hugged him. She leaned back and put her hands on his face.
“God gave you a gift, Jeptha. Now, He mixed it up with all kinds of sin too, but He put that gift in there. Don’t you forget it, neither. It’s something special.”
It was a moment that Jeptha would never forget. Looking over at Lucy, he saw how the light played off her nose and lit her face with the same warm glow as the rest of the valley. His love came jumbled up with all kinds of sin, and only he could say which was going to win out. It was up to him. In that moment, he knew what he wanted: to be something special for her, to be the kind of man she and the baby needed.
Jeptha stopped the car on the side of the road. They were a few hundred feet away from the parking lot for the Fold, but he didn’t think he could make it any longer.
“Would you mind if we parked a little closer?” Lucy asked. He didn’t say anything, just came around to her side of the car and helped her out. He guided her over the biggest ankle-twisters and down to the fence. His heart was beating so loud he was surprised cars weren’t stopping to wonder at the sound.
“What are we doing here, Jeptha?” Lucy asked.
He bit his lip. He could barely speak, he was so full of love for her and determination to be the man his mom had seen that night.
“Jeptha?”
He took a deep breath and dove in.
“I know this ain’t the way it’s suppo
sed to go,” he said, fishing the ring box out of his pocket and holding it out to her. He ignored her gasp. “And I, um, I know who I am. I know you and LouEllen and Cody and Bobby and well, everybody else in this town, think I’m the kind of mistake a girl should run away from as fast as she can. And I can’t give you nothing like what LouEllen did with that baby room. Hell, my trailer don’t have but one bedroom, so I can’t even give you a baby room. But I do love you. And have for half my life. And I want to be the man that you and that baby need. That’s got to count for something. And I was hoping that you might, well, learn to love me too. Or at least be willing to be my wife.”
The sound of the cicadas swelled suddenly around them in the cool night air, so loud they left a faint vibration in Jeptha’s chest, exactly in rhythm with his heart. Say yes. Say yes. Say yes. He could hear his hopes in their tempo. Then, with one last full-throated drone, they stopped. A hushed quiet descended as Jeptha waited. The silence went on and on and on.
“No,” Lucy said.
Jeptha’s heart broke. His throat parched.
12
“NOT YET,” WAS WHAT Lucy had meant to say on that night three months ago when Jeptha asked her to marry him. But no had come out first. Her heart felt like it would fly up and out of her chest, like one of those sparrows from Walmart blindingly in search of the sun. Jeptha’s lips were a tight, bloodless line, his eyes drooped down like he’d had a stroke, and his tan skin was gray. There had never been a sadder man in all of human history. Staring at his face, she was shocked to realize that the answer wasn’t a flat no, even if that’s what had come out of her mouth. In the silence that followed that one devastating word, a whispery flutter bumped within her belly like she was a fish bowl and the occupant inside had flitted a tiny fin against the side of her. It was the first nudge of the baby inside her, her first physical sense that the thing that had started all this trouble might actually be worth it.
“Not yet,” she’d told Jeptha then, grabbing his hand and pulling him up. “My answer isn’t no. It’s just not yes. Not yet, anyway. Everything is different. The baby. Me. You are different than I expected. I don’t know yet.”
And she’d kept on not knowing, even as they’d spent more and more time together. She’d called him the next day, to talk, and hung up the phone smiling after twenty minutes. He’d brought her to dinner at Cody and Marla’s a few nights later, and she’d spent the whole night laughing. Cody and Jeptha together were like a comedy show—she just had to lean back and let the act wash over her. Since then, they’d done something every couple days. LouEllen never let her forget how much she hated it, but with every kick of the baby, Lucy’s resolve strengthened. This was Jeptha’s son, she reminded herself. Why shouldn’t she know him? Why shouldn’t she give them a chance to be a family of some sort?
LOUELLEN POKED HER head in through Lucy’s half-open door early on Thanksgiving Day.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
“Getting ready. Deanna asked if I’d come over and help out some before everyone got there.”
“Got where?”
“The Taylors’ place,” Lucy said. “For Thanksgiving.”
“I thought you were joking about that. I was about to get the turkey going.”
“Haha,” Lucy said, thinking LouEllen was the one who was joking. But when she looked up, she saw LouEllen’s face was deadly serious.
“I told you, LouEllen. We’re doing Thanksgiving with Jeptha’s family.”
“We?”
“Me and Jeptha. And you. You’re invited. I told you that.”
“You’re really going there? What about me? We’ve done Thanksgiving together every year of your life.”
“And we can this year too. I thought you were coming. I need the support. Lord knows, Deanna hasn’t gotten any nicer ’cause I’ve gotten bigger,” Lucy said, trying for a joke to lighten the mood. Besides, Lucy really did want somebody else there with her, someone besides Marla, who had turned out to be a sweet and funny woman, prone to painfully accurate under-her-breath imitations, mostly of her husband. But if Deanna was around, she turned into something else entirely—that same scared, cowed girl that Lucy remembered from when they were kids.
“No. I don’t think I will. And I don’t think you should either,” LouEllen said.
“I’m sure you don’t, LouEllen, but I am going. And I wish you’d come with me.”
“That’s the way of it then, huh?”
“The way of what?” Lucy asked.
“The way this is all gonna go between us going forward,” LouEllen said, pulling herself upright and taking a deep breath in. Her nostrils flared with purpose.
“If you mean me making my own decisions—yeah, that’s the way of it,” Lucy said, facing LouEllen head on. “That doesn’t have to be a bad thing, you know.”
“I wouldn’t care about you making your own decisions if you’d make the right ones.”
Lucy laughed, even though nothing was funny. “The right ones according to you, though. No one else’s opinion really counts.”
“I am right on this one, Lucy. He is going to break you. Your heart, your spirit, something. You don’t take a chance on a Taylor. Like it says in Jeremiah, a leopard can’t change its spots.”
Lucy shook her head in amazement at LouEllen. If it wasn’t her life, it would have been funny. LouEllen was as much leopard as Jeptha. She was quick to judge, a rash decision-maker, and could hold a grudge for a lifetime. There would be no changing her mind. Lucy went to the kitchen and picked up her purse and the pecan pie she’d made last night.
“I’m going, LouEllen. I wish you’d come with me. I’ll miss you.”
“Doesn’t seem much like it. Your parents would be so disappointed right now.”
Lucy turned back to look at LouEllen, tears flooding her eyes. It was as if one foundation was crumbling beneath her while another one was being built beside it. Standing there, with the baby depending on her, she wasn’t a hundred percent sure which was the most stable, but she’d be damned if she’d go down with the one that was falling apart.
“Well, good thing they aren’t here then,” Lucy said, and slammed the front door behind her.
“LOUELLEN COULDN’T MAKE it?” Jeptha asked, looking behind Lucy, as if LouEllen, either in spirit or in bulk, could ever have hidden behind someone.
“No,” Lucy said, staring down at the wood floor of the porch. “Said she wasn’t feeling good.”
“You mean she hates me and doesn’t want to look at my face? That kind of not feeling good?”
“That’s the one,” Lucy said, laughing.
“Hope it’s not contagious,” Jeptha said, opening up the door.
“Believe me, if it was, I’d have caught it by now.”
“Well, come on in. Deanna’s already yelling at anybody in ear shot, so you may as well come get yours.”
Lucy made a face at Jeptha. “Do I have to?”
“She knows you’re here now. It’ll be worse if you wait. Besides, I think she mostly needs some help. If you don’t mind.”
“Why aren’t you helping?”
“I ain’t getting stuck in the kitchen,” Jeptha said. Lucy cocked her eyebrow up at him. He rushed on, “Not that there’s anything wrong with the kitchen, or a man can’t be in there. Just I, Jeptha Taylor, ain’t no good in there.”
Lucy rolled her eyes and thrust the pie toward him. “Carry this, will you? I’ll go help.”
Jeptha smiled and kissed her on the cheek.
DEANNA BEHAVED ALMOST like a human being the entire day. Even Marla seemed surprised. Lucy felt sorry for her—she looked like a dog who got beat every day who couldn’t understand why today’s beating hadn’t arrived. She cowered every time Deanna opened her mouth, but gradually relaxed as each sentence passed without any comments on her.
When Lucy got up to clear the table, Jeptha quickly stood to help.
“What are you doing?” Deanna asked Jeptha, poison in her voice.
&nbs
p; “Helping.”
“Well, that’s a first.”
Lucy walked to the kitchen, but not before she saw Jeptha narrow his eyes at his sister and whisper, “Shut up.”
“Sorry,” Jeptha said when he came in behind her.
“For what? It’s been fun.”
“Deanna.”
“She’s been pretty good so far. For her,” Lucy said as she scraped off the plates.
“For her,” Jeptha agreed, taking the plates she handed him and stacking them in the sink.
“Poor Marla. She looks like a beat dog.”
“She’s probably feeling pretty good about today actually,” Jeptha said, as he stacked the last plate on top. “Deanna won’t make it through the whole day, though. She always loses it at some point.”
Lucy grabbed the pie she’d made. “Think it’s time to bring these out?” she asked Jeptha, nodding at the pie that Marla had brought. “Maybe some sugar will keep Deanna sweet?”
“It ain’t never worked before, but sure, let’s give it a shot,” he said and followed her back into the dining room with the other pie.
“Well, Lucy, I don’t know what you did to my brother to get him to be so sweet today, but it sure is nice,” Deanna said.
“Stop it, Deanna,” Jeptha whispered.
“Jeptha, given the size of that belly, I’m pretty sure you’ve already made your impression on Lucy.”
No one spoke for a moment.
“Actually, Jeptha’s always been pretty sweet to me,” Lucy said. “Must be ’cause I’ve been pretty nice to him.”
“Nice is one way of putting it,” Deanna said, her eyes narrowed.
Lucy shook her head, feeling her heart rate pick up a bit. “Deanna, if you’re trying to make a point about how me and Jeptha had sex and that’s how I got pregnant, I think you can come right out and say it. I think even Bobby over there is acquainted with the concept. And I know you are.”
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