Things Too Huge to Fix by Saying Sorry

by Susan Vaught

  “Are you dressed?” Mom yelled from her bathroom down the hall.

  I jumped at the sound of her voice and quickly put down the page, neatened it up, and tucked it back inside Grandma’s envelope. Then I slipped the whole thing into my pack. In a big hurry, I pulled on my green Creative Arts Camp T-shirt. Vanilla and coconut filled my nose, Mom’s getting-ready-for-work smells. They fought off the attack of alcohol and cotton from Grandma’s room, where the hospice nurse was finishing Grandma’s morning bath. I usually helped with the bath, but I had gotten up late.

  “Danielle Marie Beans,” Mom called again. “Quit daydreaming and answer me.”

  I glanced at my clock: 7:03. I didn’t have to be at the Creative Arts classroom until eight, and the campus was only a five-minute drive during summer session. From August to May, about forty or fifty thousand people lived in Oxford, Mississippi. By the middle of June, like now, twenty thousand college students bugged out for the vacation months, and traffic jams went poof like some fairy touched a wand to the roads.

  “I’m ready,” I told Mom. Then I checked the full-length mirror in my bedroom to be sure I wasn’t lying. Yep. Jeans fastened, shirt on, tennis shoes tied. Hair—oh. Hair. Where was my comb? I spotted it on my beside table, grabbed it, and ran it through the flat part of my hair as best I could. It wouldn’t matter. My hair always stuck out in every direction, but I tried to make sure I didn’t have any obvious rat’s nests. I didn’t want Mom doing the job.

  “I have to be at Shoemaker Hall by eight,” Mom said. “Monday morning anatomy lab waits for no one—not even the teacher. Give your grandmother a kiss and let’s hit the front door in five minutes.”

  “But we have plenty of time,” I said. “Dad might be right that you need to let that class go. Two jobs is making you all stressed out.”

  The sound of my father clearing his throat and mumbling something to my mother echoed against the house’s old wooden walls.

  “Give your grandmother a kiss, Dani,” Mom said like she was talking through her teeth. It sounded funny when she did that.

  I worked on my hair for a few minutes, trying not to think about the envelope I had crammed in my pack to take to camp, or secrets or ghosts or Dad’s health or Mom getting so cranky for the whole two weeks I’d been out of school, or whether or not Indri would be in a brown mood or a yellow mood today. Finally, I gave up on my hair and pulled it into a ponytail. Then I went to Grandma Beans’s room and knocked on the door.

  “We’re finished,” the morning nurse told me. I couldn’t remember the nurse’s name, but I knew it would be on her yellow Sunlight Hospice badge. As I pushed the bedroom door open, I squinted at the badge.

  Cindy.

  “Thanks, Cindy,” I said, slipping inside quiet-like, in case Grandma was having a bad morning. But she seemed to be lying in the bed, peaceful and quiet despite the bath. I eased over to the edge of her white, cotton-smelling sheets, gave her a kiss, and waited for her to breathe. Then I touched her hand—warm—and took her pulse.

  Everything seemed okay.

  “Eww,” Grandma mumbled, and I thought she might be trying for Oops, but her eyes were closed, so I didn’t say anything.

  Cindy patted my shoulder. “It’s fine to answer her. She’s agitated off and on, but I can give her some medicine if it gets too bad.”

  I glanced up at Cindy, who looked friendly enough with her nurse’s coat on and her short blond hair and her big thick glasses.

  “It’s better that she doesn’t have the medicine,” I told her. “It just makes her more confused.”

  “Eww,” Grandma said. “Key.”

  Her eyelids moved up, and she stared out, seemingly at nothing. A second later, she started crying, and I wanted to kick myself for bothering her.

  “Key,” she whispered. I glanced around to see where Cindy was. Good. All the way across the room.

  “What do you need me to do with the key?” I asked her very quietly, rubbing the back of her knuckles. “What does it unlock?”

  She didn’t answer.

  “She probably doesn’t understand much of what you’re saying, sweetie,” Cindy said from somewhere else in the room. I tried not to be mad, because Grandma might think I was mad at her. I just ignored the nurse and stayed where I was, holding Grandma’s hand to my face.

  It sounded like, “I wrote it down,” what Grandma said next. I couldn’t make it out. Then, “Take the key, Oops.”

  “Everything’s fine, Ms. Beans,” the nurse chirped. I knew she was trying to say helpful, nice things, like the nurses from hospice usually did. Some of them knew Grandma pretty well, but this one didn’t. Not her fault. She was new.

  “Something’s bugging her,” I said. “She’s been crying off and on for almost two weeks.”

  “That can happen,” said way-too-helpful Cindy. “Lots of times, near the end, folks have things they need to work out.”

  “You been doing this long?” I asked the nurse. “This hospice thing?”

  Cindy beamed at me. “About six months now.”

  “Yeah, well, I’m only twelve, but Grandma’s been living here and dying of Alzheimer’s for four years, so I know all that stuff you’re saying. It’s in the pamphlets. You don’t have to repeat it.”

  “Dani.” Mom’s voice came from the bedroom doorway, sharp enough to make me twitch. “That wasn’t very polite.”

  When I looked at her, I could tell she was past ready to leave. Her makeup seemed perfect, her hair had been pulled into a bun, and her black skirt and white blouse were spotless and creased in the right places. Her expression looked a little pressed and creased too.

  “Sorry I was rude,” I said to Cindy, my hands fiddling with my hair to smooth it. To Mom I said, “Grandma’s upset and trying to talk again.”

  Mom took a breath in slowly, then let it out. “I’ll let your father know. I’m going to be late to teach my class. Work’s being patient enough, letting me come in at noon to do it—I can’t push my luck any more than that.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” I moved away from Grandma’s bed and followed Mom immediately, which seemed to be the right thing to do, except Mom still looked seriously annoyed—and I had to ride with her in the car to Ole Miss.

  * * *

  “You understand why I’m working two jobs right now, don’t you, Dani?” Mom’s hand scooted back and forth on top of the steering wheel, even though she kept her eyes straight forward. She bit at her bottom lip and waited.

  “Grandma needs a lot of extra supplies insurance doesn’t cover,” I said, remembering how she and Dad explained it. I took a deep breath, enjoying the closer scent of Mom’s coconut and vanilla. When she came home, she’d smell like formaldehyde. “Dad’s doing his best selling produce from his gardening and cutting our grocery bill to help with expenses, and after three wars and three decades in the Army, he’s earned his retirement.”

  He’s earned his retirement.

  Mom said those last words with me. It was what we told everybody about Dad living on his army retirement and not having a paying job, because that’s what he wanted us to say. He didn’t like talking about the fact that he didn’t sleep well, and sometimes he just couldn’t stand to be around anybody but us. His plants and his dirt made him feel better when the wars bothered him, so Mom wanted him to garden as much as he needed to, and so did I. Besides, somebody had to look after Grandma in between the hospice nurse visits. Dad was kind of a reverse babysitter now.

  I stared out my window, watching University Avenue whiz past, house by house. Some were old like ours, with columns and steep roofs and spindly railed balconies off upstairs doors. Other houses seemed way too new, crammed on top of bits of grass like somebody barely fit the foundations to the yards. Oxford had turned into a weird mix of really old stuff and really new stuff, since a lot of people decided to come live here. Dad told me that when all the newcomers started building houses, nobody thought about protecting historic homes and buildings that didn’t get burned down wh
en a Civil War general’s soldiers got drunk and torched the town square in the 1800s.

  Houses gave way to trees and more trees, and then sidewalks, and then we passed by the brick gate that said University of Mississippi and 1848. Not long after that, we passed two people that made me go stiff in my seat. Just a boy my age, dressed in jeans and a navy T-shirt, and an old lady like Grandma. She was wearing jeans too, and an obnoxious black and yellow striped shirt, along with a fedora that didn’t match anything at all. She leaned on the boy’s arm, and used a cane too. Aw, how cute. That’s what poor unsuspecting fools would think if they saw the two of them walking, and they didn’t know.

  They would be so wrong.

  Mom cleared her throat, and I jumped. I realized her eyes were darting back and forth to the rearview, and she squinted. “Was that Avadelle Richardson and Mackinnon?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” I said, only my voice cracked on the ma’am, and my face flushed hot.

  The navy T-shirt was probably the one with the glow-in-the-dark skull on it. He liked to wear it when he played his electric guitar at school band club. Music meant everything to Mac, or so he’d told me. But he also used to say I was his friend. Who knew if anything Worm Dung said was the truth?

  Mom only missed two beats before she said, “No boy is worth all this grief, Dani, especially not at your age.”

  My face got even hotter as I closed my eyes. We swept around University Circle and plunged into the flickering shade of the big oaks and magnolias. I knew where we were from the dark-light, dark-light, dancing off my eyelids.

  “Worm Dung isn’t a boy,” I muttered. “I mean, like a boyfriend. It’s just—I thought he was my friend. Almost a best friend.” I gestured at the car window. “Best friends are supposed to be like you and Ms. Wilson, or me and Indri. Best friends aren’t supposed to turn into people who never speak to each other again, like Grandma and Avadelle. Stupid feud. I mean, did you see any reporters following Avadelle and Worm Dung around? It was just one article—and it’s not even our circus or our monkeys, right?”

  “I see,” Mom said, but I didn’t think she did. Her tone made me worry she was going to launch into another lecture about age-appropriate relationships with the opposite sex.

  Thank goodness she didn’t. I wanted to keep my eyes clamped tight, but it was making me carsick, so I watched as Mom turned again, this time to move past Ole Miss’s signature building, the Lyceum, with its six white columns gleaming in the morning sunlight. She angled us down the road toward Bondurant Hall, then said, “You think Avadelle might be on her way to talk to Creative Arts Camp?”

  “What? No! I mean—” My pulse leaped like I’d seen a zombie. Oh, no, no, no. That would be horrible. Like, the worst thing ever in my summer camp life, if you didn’t count when I was eight and fell asleep with honey on my fingers at Sardis Lake Swimming Week and woke up covered in fire ants. “Um, I hope not.”

  “Well, Night on Fire was an amazing book. Can’t deny her talent.”

  I grabbed the handle over my head with my right hand and held on like I might get sucked into a black hole. “She throws whiskey bottles at squirrels and people, Mom. Awards or not, I don’t think anybody’s going to invite her to speak at a camp with kids.”

  “Dani. Stay civil. Remember, not our—”

  “Circus, yeah, I know. Thank gosh her daughter is a lot nicer, and not responsible for creating Mackinnon.”

  Worm Dung was the spawn of Avadelle’s youngest child, her son, one of the town’s doctors. I couldn’t blame Naomi Manchester, Avadelle’s daughter, one of the booksellers who worked for Square Books, for his existence. The car slowed to a stop in the parking lot next to Bondurant Hall, and Mom waited for me to give her a kiss. I did, then grabbed the backpack with Grandma’s papers in it and got out of the car. Mom started to put the car in gear, then stopped and kept looking at me. “I always hoped Avadelle and Ruth might patch things up before your grandmother passed. It’s hard to think about best friends never speaking to each other again.”

  My hand froze on the edge of the door, and my mind danced across Grandma’s tear-streaked face.

  I wrote it down . . .

  Grandma and Avadelle had been good friends, maybe best friends, just like Indri and me (not thinking about Worm Dung, not not not). Then they stopped speaking. That’s what everyone said about the Magnolia Feud—and all anyone knew, even Dad. He told me Avadelle and Grandma had dinner on Wednesday evenings at six o’clock, every week when he was a younger kid. Then, a month or so after Avadelle’s first novel came out, the dinners stopped. Something about that world-famous book seemed to have punched their friendship dead in the nose. Journalists had been analyzing the book for decades, trying to guess what secrets were hidden in those pages, what started an argument so bad it never ended.

  Grandma wouldn’t talk about it, and Dad said he didn’t have the guts to ask Avadelle anything about anything, then or now. Thirty years in the military, three wars, and Dad was more scared of that old woman than bullets or drill sergeants.

  I wrote it down. Grandma might have been talking about her spat with Avadelle, right? About whatever happened between them to cause the feud.

  I kept the smile on my face so Mom wouldn’t worry, and knew, finally, that even if my grandmother wasn’t really gone, I should read the rest of what she wrote to me, to help her pass in peace.

  Oh God.

  What if I had to face down the Wicked Witch of Ole Miss? What if I found out something I needed to talk about with her? And Worm Dung . . . never mind.

  “Have a good day, Mom.” There. That sounded all cheerful, right?

  Mom grinned. “You and Indri don’t get up to too much mischief, okay?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “And promise you’ll walk straight home if I run late?”

  “Promise,” I said, figuring a swing by the Grove to feed squirrels and a trip to grab ice cream would still be sort of straight home, with a few small detours thrown in. “I have my phone.” I tapped my pocket. “I’ll call you or Ms. Wilson if there’s trouble.”

  I burst through the front doors of Bondurant Hall. Indri had seen me coming. She was standing just outside of class, her brown eyes wide and her mouth open.

  “Did you see a ghost?” she asked immediately, clutching her Stephen King book to her chest. Stephen King wasn’t exactly considered “appropriate reading” for our age group, but Creative Arts parents had to sign a waiver that short of X-rated material, we could read anything we chose. Indri and I loved ghost stories and not-totally-gross horror, and science fiction and fantasy, too. Ghosts the most, though. Bonus that we had been assigned to read some for this week.

  “No,” I said. Then, “Yes.” Then, “Kind of? Worm Dung and Avadelle were walking down University Avenue. Mom thinks Avadelle might be coming here to talk to our camp.”

  Indri’s eyes got even wider. I had seen pictures of the lemurs Indri’s mom had named her for, and right now, with her long black hair swept back and her black and white shirt and black jeans, and that shocked expression on her face, Indri really looked like one of those lemurs. If I told her that, she’d beat me in the head with her Stephen King book, so I kept my mouth shut.

  She eased the book down from her chest and came over to me. In a low voice, she said, “We staying, or we bolting?”

  Best. Friend. Ever.

  I slid my fingers up and down the strap of my backpack. “Staying for now,” I said. “But keep the bolting option open.”

  “Roger that,” she told me. Military-speak. That, plus the black motif of her clothing, let me know that her dad was weighing heavy on her mind today. I would have asked her about it, but Indri didn’t like to talk about her dad. My backpack seemed to pull at my shoulder, reminding me of what lay hidden inside, and the fact that we might have to talk about Avadelle Richardson and her stupid, moronic grandson, for my grandmother’s sake.

  “Inside, ladies,” called Ms. Yarbrough, the Creative Arts Camp director, li
ke she could sense the escape plans zipping through my brain. She was only five feet tall, but her voice gave her a few extra inches of authority. When I didn’t move, Indri laced her arm through mine, and I leaned in to her, holding my breath.

  “Campus ghost stories,” Ms. Yarbrough called out as she clapped her tiny hands together. “Gather round, gather round! We have a guest speaker, and she’s in my office, getting ready now.”

  I sagged against Indri, and she sagged right back against me.

  Safe.

  Whoever the speaker was, it wasn’t Avadelle. Avadelle Richardson wouldn’t be caught dead talking about anything paranormal. I could breathe again. And—ghost stories!

  “Let’s go,” I said to Indri, but she had already started for the classroom door, pulling me along with her.

  5

  THINGS TOO HUGE AND AWFUL TO FIX BY SAYING I’M SORRY

  * * *

  Excerpt from Night on Fire (1969), by Avadelle Richardson, page 111

  Funny how fast years can go. One minute I was ten and fighting with Mama about school, and the next, it was 1960, and I was thirty-one years old and widowed and back in Oxford with a boy of my own, taking care of Mama and still listening to Aunt Jessie’s loud mouth.

  “That’s about the whitest White girl I ever did see,” Aunt Jessie told me as she stuffed papers into envelopes at the Mt. Zion Church office. She nodded her big head toward a straw-haired kid hanging with the registration trainers.

  “Hush your mouth.” I gave her plump elbow a pinch. “That child came down here to do the right thing.”

  Aunt Jessie grunted. “She came down here to die. She just don’t know it yet.” She wiggled her fingers at all the students from up North, who had crowded into the front of the sanctuary. “None of them really understands Mississippi, or what they gettin’ into, CiCi. It bothers my conscience.”