Mary returned from the kitchen and based on her swagger, Johnnie gathered that her mother had recovered from her moment of weakness and was back to herself. Johnnie accepted a Coke.
“Do you remember, just, maybe to jog my memory, some of the ‘happenings?’” That was just as good a term as any, and she badly wanted to stay away from religious references.
Mary looked into the air above them with distant eyes, in the manner of someone trying to see the past. And it started.
“There were so many….but I could probably remember them all if I tried hard enough. There were families in just about every place we lived where a very sick person got well after you’d somehow ended up alone with them. There’s one I really remember because I knew her…she was your babysitter in Ohio who was considered retarded in school, but I knew she acted just fine…she just had trouble reading. She swears she was looking at a story book with you one night and you took the book but kept your hands on hers, and she said that suddenly the words on the pages made sense…she said you were awake, but had quit talking…of course, you were asleep by the time I got home. I paid her extra to keep her mouth shut. She did… but she brought me her report card later. All of her grades had improved very quickly. She could see and read fine after that time with you. That was a long time ago, but I’m sure now that she had been dialectic…isn’t that what they call it?” Mary stopped.
“Dyslexic, Mom.”
“Yeah, whatever. Let’s see, when you were just a little one, you climbed into the lap of a Santa Claus and everyone thought you were scared to death because you grabbed his clothes and wouldn’t talk…but I knew from your face it was the other thing. I knew from HIS face too… after you slid out of his lap, I was tryin’ to get you outta there and he made other kids wait in line as he chased me down to ask me what you were…that he had been legally blind, Johnnie, and could only see with his Coke bottle glasses….and after you got hold of him, he couldn’t see with his glasses anymore. You took them off his face and he could see good for the first time in his life…. Alright, then, there was the Mexican child in Kentucky, he had sugar diabetes and his family about had a fit when he came home with a big bar of chocolate after playing with you. But when they came to the house the next day, you were still out of it, you know, sleeping, and they said they wanted to know what you gave him because the candy hadn’t made him sick. They came back a few weeks later and said their doctor wanted to see you. Well, that’s when we left there… Then there was….” Johnnie was completely unprepared for the litany of events which flowed from her mother’s memory…and the accent was “killin’ huh.”
Mary would say, from time to time, that she was sure she was leaving some out, but there were just so many.
She had just finished the story of a lovely Chinese family in Illinois, the father was dying of cancer, when Johnnie had heard enough. More than enough, actually. And they weren’t even up to her eighth year. Thinking of Colonel Sanders, she really wanted to know if Mary had any stories of people dying around her, rather than being saved by her, but wasn’t sure she was up to the answer…or answers right now.
“Mom…thank you. I think. But I still can’t remember any of it, except for the waking up stuff, and you and James would be packing like crazy. I remember never being able to say goodbye to anyone…I hated Dad for it. Honestly, sometimes I was mad at you. But I never understood why James never spoke up.”
Oh my God, poor James! Just saying his name had made her stomach catch a wave.
“My God, Mom! What about James? You were willing to uproot him on my account every time things got a little hairy?”
“Hey,” Mary responded pointing an unlit cigarette Johnnie’s way, “It comes with the territory. I knew it was outta my hands…you ever hear anything about the lives and times of Jesus’ brothers? I was willing to move him because I didn’t want him to have to live in your shadow…”
She stopped to pick a piece of tobacco from between her front teeth. Flicking it, she quickly directed the index finger of that hand toward her daughter. “And before you play the blame game another round, just look at him now!”
Point taken. Johnnie had never been as aware of James’ success as she had been during the last twenty-four hours.
“Well, at least you had James legitimately…maybe that’s why he’s the one with the big bucks.”
She looked up, alarmed, when her humorous comment was met with silence. Shooting her daughter a searing look, Mary hurriedly lit her next cigarette with the end of the last, which had been burning in the ashtray. Johnnie took in her mother’s incredibly indignant and self-righteous stare.
“Oh come ON, Mom! I don’t buy it. No offense, but look at you… You haven’t exactly been a Virgin Mary…” She didn’t know whether to laugh or scream.
“Watch your mouth, Missy!” The woman primly gathered herself up, “I was a young single mother when I met your father. Your brother’s father was my first and only before that, and all I had time to DO was work and take care of him. Your dad swears to this day the only reason he married me was because he couldn’t get me in the sack first. Which was true.”
Her last statement, more of a declaration, was followed by a pious direct gaze. Her next remark was accompanied by a starkly raised right eyebrow.
“You were born six and a half months after we were married; we did not have relations till after the vows. Of course.”
“Assuming that’s true, then I was premature.”
“It is true, of course. Your father is certain that I stepped out on him before our nuptials because he was sure he’d never have fathered a mentally ill child. If he only knew…”
Mary shook her head in sad irony. Johnnie looked at her in silence, caught up in the very strange moment, then suddenly shook her head violently,
“Oh, for God’s sake, Mom!”
“Exactly.” Her mother responded with a prim, righteous look that completely defied the Harpo Marx hair, drawn-on eyebrows and well-smoked skin.
Johnnie felt as if she’d just been squeezed through a wringer and knew she’d heard about all she could take. She had promised, per her quid pro quo comment, that she’d exchange information with her mother and decided to take control of the situation. Maybe she could give information…and get information. That should decrease the remaining length, and pain, of this conversation.
“Mom. Lookit. I was in an accident when this started. She pointed to the now healed spot over her eyebrow. “I got whacked in the head. You said the other stuff ended with an accident…a fall?” There…she’d given a bit, maybe she could get a bit…
“Nice of you or the Air Force to let me know you were in an accident…” That was the guilt curve ball to which Johnnie and James had become accustomed. The best way to hit it out of the park, they both knew, was to feed the ego…
“I’m so sorry, Mom…you’re right. You’re my mother and someone definitely should have let you know. I would have, but I was, well, out of it, you might say – or actually you did say that’s what happened to me after these things happen…”
Mary had a self-satisfied and knowing look on her face. Nothing like being right and having been the first to introduce information; Mary, among other things, was an information broker.
“Yes they should have, and if this is going where I think it is, I know why you couldn’t call.” She took a long drag off the butt and sat a little straighter now that she was an acknowledged expert.
“So that’s how it started again. That’s kind of how it ended the first time. I guess you maybe don’t remember falling when the chain on the porch swing broke…in Texas…that was Seguin. You went off the edge of the porch and hit your head on a cinder block. There was no blood, but there was also no more funny business-- or holy business…or whatever. Forgive me.” She completed a quick cursory crossing with a concerned glance up to the ceiling, apparently questioning the propriety of the term “funny business” when referencing divine events.
Johnnie
did remember having tumbled off their porch. And only now did she realize they hadn’t moved any more after that, although James had already left; she had graduated high school in Seguin and her mother immediately moved back to New York. Johnnie had joined the Air Force at about the same time.
Having made the sudden connection, she considered grabbing Mary’s massive solid glass ashtray…it looked to be about five pounds, even without the pound of ashes and butts. Maybe if she bashed it into her own forehead right now, it would all end…
Mary, with the air of control and grace, asked, “So. Then? Remember…it’s your turn…what was it? Squid pro—whatever. What happened and did those government experts figure it all out?” Mary leaned forward, just imagining the world of the military intertwined with the works of God. She was intrigued now.
Johnnie had zero desire to go through it all again, and it was only a small amount of guilt in the name of fairness that drove her to share abbreviated versions of the various events that followed the accident. She wanted to use this opportunity to ask the last question, and she couldn’t do that without telling her mother in brief terms, of her concerns regarding Colonel Sanders.
“…so there he was in the newspaper. He had died… in the cemetery, and of course, I don’t remember any of it.”
Other than frustration, this was the first genuine emotion she’d shown her mother. She had to wait a few seconds to keep from losing her voice as the tears threatened. Mary, exhibiting that rare but dead-on maternal instinct, did not prod and she looked at her daughter with great compassion. It was obvious she had something to say, but in her most remarkable time of restraint, she held back.
Johnnie was touched and grateful; she chose not to condescend to her mother by diminishing the impact of her exchange with – and loss of – Roger Sanders.
“Mom, I felt such a connection with him; it felt like we’d known each other forever. I respected him very much, but sensed so much frustration and pain. How could I have not known he needed something…what if I left him there dead?”
In her emotion, she’d completely lost track of the fact she had intended to use this opportunity to see if this sort of thing had happened when she was little. But it didn’t matter; she didn’t have to ask.
Mary, now more the mother than the abrasive old bird, had put out her cigarette and crossed the room. Sitting next to her daughter, but not looking at her, she put her hand over Johnnie’s.
“My Girl, you must know that sometimes you save them by sending them on. That’s when they get what they need. That’s part of the job. It happens. It happened.”
The words, the tone, the touch…and the smell of her mother--smoke and Este Lauder, turned the strong young woman into a child again. The child who utterly depended on the mother who had risked everything to move them from the scary man…at least that was the belief she’d had back then and the feeling she had now. The two moved together and the mother silently, painfully, held her sobbing daughter.
Maybe James didn’t owe Johnnie anything, after all.
Margie had gotten up with a mind to do business. Byron knew her grief still loomed because he could feel it; but he also knew his wife, the realist, had already begun to accept Marg Senior’s death. He could almost feel her belief that the passing was a blessing for the dear woman, considering the guaranteed unsavory future for the advanced Alzheimer’s patient. Without the two having discussed it, he knew Marg believed that any other attitude was nothing but selfish and that she had lost the mother she knew months, if not years, before. He knew she had grieved the loss of that woman even as she continued to care for what remained of her. He also knew that Margie’s best coping mechanisms were couched in organization and activity; she needed to stay busy managing her late mother’s service, cremation and personal affairs; and through this, she would begin to heal.
He knew these things partly because they had been married for over forty years, but also because their bond was a natural thing from the beginning – the marital union simply celebrated it. Fred and Ginger, George and Gracie, liver and onions; none were a more perfect set than Byron and Margie.
He was still troubled that he’d missed just how far his wife had overextended herself, particularly during their recent and longest separation. She seemed more forgiving of his oversight, but that was her way. It was not his way to be an absentee or insensitive partner, but he had apparently slipped. And because it wasn’t like her to complain or to depend on others, the recent months had been a recipe for disaster. And he took full responsibility for the distance which apparently spanned more than the miles that had separated them. He couldn’t have saved Marg Senior, but he could have eased his wife’s burden if he’d been more present and attentive. She deserved better.
He listened from his spot in the study as his wife received a number of guests who had dropped by to offer condolences. He was not in the least surprised to hear that during the majority of the visits, she assumed the role of the comforter, although she was the only surviving family member. He smiled; as odd as these interactions may have seemed to an outsider, he knew they were mutually beneficial to all concerned.
He sat at his mother-in- law’s long abandoned desk, his bulging satchel perched like a small dog on the surface. He stared at the bag; it was his Pandora’s Box. The undeniable attraction to the contents and to his pursuit of Johnnie Carter was strong. Interfering with those feelings was the sharp and twisting pierce of double edged guilt. One side cut into the knowledge that it was his obsession with finding this woman which had distracted him from Margie. The other side severed the only justification for his neglectful behavior from the truth. The justification—or rationalization -- was that he’d secretly hoped this woman could help Marg Senior. But the painful truths were, he was too late for that chance now. And in his thorough, however brief, examination of this young woman and her miraculous acts, he’d come to understand that she did not seek nor will her power; she would have likely been unwilling and probably unable to help Marg anyway.
He was further shamed by his growing realization that, even now, he was drawn to continue his investigation and chase of Johnnie Carter even though he was no longer sure what drove him or what he hoped to accomplish.
He had no idea what the future held for him and Marg, but he knew in that exact moment she was not present…and that right now, he was no different from a six year old who was inches from the cookie jar. No one would know…she would never know. So he reached and opened it; no one would know if he had just one…
But, like an unsupervised child faced with a canister of Oreos, one cookie was simply not a possibility. He filled his hands, then filled his mind…
“Is that her?”
Margie’s voice invaded his concentration. He jerked his head up from its hovering position over the stacks of notes, security clearance forms, and the subject of Margie’s question, Sergeant Carter’s official photo. The expression he turned toward his wife must have been that of the guilty child, face smeared in forbidden chocolate and cream, because Marg took one look at him and laughed, in spite of herself.
His response also answered her question; although she felt his guilt was unjustified, she could feel it. They hadn’t discussed this, but she knew his heart as well as he knew hers.
She placed her hand over his as it nervously swooped through his sprouting hair.
“Byron, it’s hardly a sin for you to look at your work.” She released his hand, allowing it to finish the predictable trip to the back of his head, then placed her palms on his shoulders as she leaned in, examining the photo more closely.
Her face was next to his now and as his eyes shot from hers to the photo on the desk, he had the odd sensation triggered when one’s separate worlds collide.
Margie had not been part of this, nor had it been a significant part of their life together. She was aware of his interest and his thoughts of the mysterious child over the years, but it had been little more than an occasional topic of conversation i
n the old days. More recently, as its prominence in his life had grown, she had been preoccupied with caring for Marg Senior.
Now she was in “the space.” All of the fruits of his labor were scattered in front of him and when Marg hovered in, he actually had a physical sensation as the two factions met. It was not unpleasant, it was just…new. Equally as new to him was the notion in her first observation.
“My goodness…she looks more like Jodie Foster in uniform than an angel.”
Margie’s even tone told him she was not mocking him or minimizing his beliefs. Rather, she had poked her head through the door to his other world and, as always, called it as she saw it.
He salvaged his composure and focused on the image; he realized she was right. Johnnie Carter looked like the actress, which, weirdly enough, made her even more real to him.
He reached and squeezed one of his wife’s hands, reminding himself to stay grounded and not go off on a tangent about the whole “savior” case while Margie was still in the woods with her mother’s death.
“Yep, it’s her.” He gestured to the documents and notes. “There’s a lot more now, Margie. It’s grown pretty fast, and honestly, I don’t know where it’s going.”
He forced himself to reel in his rapidly beating heart as the subject-related adrenaline arose. He moved his face to touch Margie’s and they both looked at the picture. He said, “But it can wait. I’ll tell you all about it whenever you’re ready, but we take care of ‘here’ first.”
He meant what he said and was prepared to put his project on hold as long as necessary to tend to the home fires. He could not control the growing conviction that his early and recent exposure to the world of Johnnie Carter was driven by something unrelated to his personal desires. He privately doubted if he would be allowed to just drop it…but no force could stop him from honoring his first and most vital commitment, the one to his wife. Especially now.
As she moved her face into the crook of his neck, he felt such a surge of love, backed with the absolute certainty that his priorities were on track. This was right.
The Unlikely Savior (The Unlikely Savior Trilogy) Page 25