by Jack Riggs
“I want you to pour that out,” I say. “You're too young to drink coffee.”
“Daddy said I could,” Kelly says, her voice raised, sassy now, like she can do this to me because of what I've done to her. “So if you want to call him about it, let's do it. If not, then I'm drinking the coffee.”
“Cassie, why not—” Before Clay can finish his thought, I cut him off. “Don't Cassie me, Clay Taylor. She knows what she's doing.”
“And I know what you're doing,” Kelly snaps back like a smartass, “and that's a million times worse than me drinking a cup of coffee.”
When she raises the mug up to her face, something just snaps inside of me. I don't know what it is, or where it comes from, but I look on the table, see the keys to the car, and without even realizing what I'm doing, I grab them in my fist and throw them at her. The angle is bad, and I regret it before the keys are even out of my hand. They hit her forehead. The force of the throw, the surprise of such an attack, pushes her back against the door frame. The coffee cup drops, shattering on the floor.
For a moment we stand in silence, Kelly in shock, her mouth opened, tears forming in her eyes. And then she screams, “I can't believe you did that, goddammit.”
Clay turns around to the sink. “Jesus,” he says.
I follow Kelly into the living room heartbroken over what I have just done. “Come here,” I say. “Don't walk away like that.”
“Leave me alone.” Kelly pushes through the screen door, the frame popping against the side of the house, rousing dogs down the block. She takes the front porch steps in one leap, heads out into the road walking like she knows where she's going. We're both barefoot on a gravel road. I'm scared as hell and I want to tell her I'm sorry, that she can just go on back to the beach and live with Peck, drink all the coffee she wants, but I don't. Kelly is crying and holding her head and I'm afraid I might have really hurt her, so I walk faster, almost run as I catch up and then get out in front, stopping her from going any farther. “Hey” I say, “hey baby, I'm sorry. I'm really sorry.” I try to hold her but she pulls away.
“You hit me with your keys,” she says, her forehead red, a small welt where the keys struck, but no blood drawn.
“That was a stupid thing for me to do.” I hold her at arm's length. “Let me look at it.”
“No, get away,” she says, turning, trying to get loose, but I won't let her go.
“Kelly, listen to me. Listen to me, baby.” I pull her in, hug her tight, let her cry on my shoulder, her limp body heaving against me.
“Honey, I didn't mean to do that,” I tell her. “I don't know where that came from, but it won't ever come back, I promise.”
“You tried to kill me,” she says.
“No I didn't.”
“You could have put my eye out or worse.”
“I wanted you to listen to me, that's all. I didn't mean to throw the keys at you. I didn't mean to throw anything at you. I'm sorry, baby.”
“I want to go home,” Kelly cries. “I want to go back to our house and the beach. I don't want to be here. I don't want you to be here.”
“I know, baby. I know. But we have to go see Meemaw, remember? We need to go see Meemaw and you need to go to Cullowhee for your camp. After that, we can see how you feel. If you want to go home, you can.”
This seems to help, Kelly's body no longer heavy. “I want to talk to Daddy,” she says into my shoulder.
“We can call him later today,” I say, though I don't want to do that. I need more distance between us before I hear his voice again. I don't know what might happen if we talk. I don't feel that I'm strong enough yet to stay here, to not go back like all the other times before.
“I want to get out of here,” she says. “I don't want to stay at Clay's one more minute.”
“You two seemed to be having a nice time before I came in,” I say.
“It wasn't that nice.”
“Look, we can go,” I say, “but we have to go back there and get our things. And we need to get out of this street, baby.” I look around, see a few faces in windows, and think this isn't the way Clay needs to start a new job.
Kelly looks up and is immediately embarrassed. “Where are we?” she asks.
“Down the street,” I say. “If I hadn't stopped you, we'd probably be in the middle of Walhalla by now and then what would people say?”
Kelly says, “Oh my lord,” and then turns, holding on to me as a shield as we walk back to the house arm in arm.
Inside, Clay is in the kitchen cleaning up the mess, waiting. His face shows hurt, but in all honesty, I don't care. I tell him I'm sorry; his acceptance of my apology is tepid at best. He stays out of it, cleans up the breakfast dishes while Kelly and I shower and dress. Nobody says anything, and by early afternoon when we are ready to go, the tension inside Clay's house is strung so tight that I'm happy to be leaving. From the car, I tell him good luck with his first day. He waits, seems vexed when I offer nothing more. Finally he asks, “You coming back?”
I key the ignition, the engine turning over and over like a broken record. “Yes,” I say, though I know it sounds like I don't mean it.
The Bel Air coughs to life. Kelly looks over at me. “You're not coming back here, are you?”
I shush her, pump the accelerator to wake the engine up good, black smoke pouring out from the tailpipe. “If I come back, it'll be while you're in camp,” I say. “I won't make you come here again.”
“I don't want you here, Momma. I don't want you staying at Clay's anymore.”
“You'll be fine,” I say, trying to play it all down. And then the war is back on, Kelly's body balled up into a tight little fist, her feet on the dashboard, her face staring out into the afternoon as I roll my eyes at Clay, a hopeless situation with this girl.
“I'll be here” is all he says. He turns his back on both of us and walks inside, the screen door slapping against the house.
It's not the way I want to leave, but we go anyway, find our way out of Walhalla and onto the road headed toward Cashiers. The curves tighten, the slant of the highway pitching upward, the Bel Air working hard to make the climb. I welcome a lull in our war when it comes, Kelly leaning against a locked door, a pillow beneath her head, her breathing heavy when she falls asleep. The sun is warm on my arm. Where shade still covers the road, the asphalt is damp.
Just over the border the car snakes past the small hamlets and crossroad towns of Jack's Branch and Bull Pen, signs that we are close. Whiteside Cove is a small gathering of houses at the end of a mountain road outside Cashiers. It spreads out below Whiteside Mountain, a sheer rock face that my father used to say was the oldest piece of rock in the world. He would take long walks through the property until he could feel Whiteside towering over him, and there he would pray each day.
When I was a child, I read about Moses saving the Israelites and how he went up onto Mount Sinai to be given the Ten Commandments. I remember thinking of my father like that when he would leave us on his walks early in the morning before the cove awakened. I'd watch him disappear into the quiet veil of fog that blanketed the world, and I would believe that he was going to talk to God directly, that he would bring back the message written in stone for his congregation. When he returned, it was always empty- handed, yet there was something about him that made me believe he had seen God. Because of this image I held of my father, I tried to please him, so that God would be pleased with me.
In the end, when his faith and that of his congregation was tested by my pregnancy, there was nothing I could do or say that would get him to let me come back. For the longest time I believed God had disowned me. Peck didn't help since he was not raised in a church. Only with time have I come to feel my father was wrong, that God has looked after me and is now giving me a second chance.
When I turn off the highway, the asphalt narrows, becomes gravel. The trees drop down into a thick canopy. The change of speed and surface makes Kelly stir, and she lifts herself up, her eyes struggli
ng to open, strands of hair glued to her face and mouth. “Are we here?” she asks, her voice high and childish.
“Almost,” I say.
Along the road, I see earthmovers, blue and orange ribbons marking off the land, No Trespassing signs where once there was nothing but woods and rocks and mountain streams to explore. My heart sinks at the sight. Momma had told me it was bad, but this is more than I ever imagined. Someone is cutting up the earth, reshaping it into fairways and acre lots, subdivisions with silly names like Cherokee Sunset, Beaver Run, and White Water Ridge Estates. It is only toward the end of this road that familiarity returns and I can see the remainder of the cove as it was when I lived here.
We take a final curve breaking into sunlight. In front of us is a tired house of worn wood and peeling paint, two stories with a rusting tin roof. It's the old parsonage, the house that my father was given title to shortly before he died. He was securing something for Momma. It was as if he knew he would not be here long enough to protect her, and so he gave her this house and the land he walked every day to live on forever.
She is outside when we drive up. A low- slung porch like a gardener's hat holds flower baskets bobbing along its edges. Even at this late- afternoon hour, Momma is there in her nightgown and robe watering. When she sees the Bel Air, I sense panic, the way she pulls her robe close to her neck until she finally recognizes us.
“You should have called,” she scolds. “I didn't know when you were coming and here I am all a mess. You should have called.”
I hug her, feel her soft damp skin against my arms. She seems smaller, her body more frail than when we came for our visit last year. Then it was a real visit, Kelly excited to spend the few weeks with her grandmother, and me happy to be away from the marsh and what had become of my life. Now I am here with intentions of staying, cut loose and on my own for the first time in fifteen years. “We should have called,” I say, “but something came up. Besides, we're only a couple of weeks early.”
Momma holds me out in front of her, intuition taking hold. “Is there something wrong?”
“No Momma, nothing's wrong,” I lie. “Kelly has a wonderful opportunity to attend a softball camp up in Cullowhee at the state college, so I thought we'd surprise you.”
I look at Kelly, wink like what I am telling Meemaw is just a little white lie, but it's bigger than that and she knows it. I don't want to say anything about leaving Peck just yet. Momma worries more since my father's gone. When he passed, the way he passed—his body discovered one Sunday afternoon at the foot of Whiteside Mountain—seemed to ruin her spirit. When I came home for the funeral there was less life in her eyes. Some of it seems to have returned, but Momma is a step slower now, my father's death having taken part of her with it and then refused to give it back. She seems frail.
“I'm going to let Kelly visit with you for a little while,” I tell her, “and then we'll go up to Cullowhee. I have to get her there by six this evening. Her camp starts tomorrow morning. She's really amazing, Momma. You'll have to go up there with me and watch her play”
Before we can get inside, a neighbor of Momma's drives up. John Boyd Carter honks his horn, stops behind the Bel Air, waves, and says, “Hey Mavis.” His large body squeezes through the car door. He's wearing Red Camels and work boots, a white short-sleeve shirt with sweat stains, his tie loose at the collar. He stands stiffly like he's finding his bearings, eyeballing us—a nosy neighbor. “Looks like you got company,” he says. He grins at Momma, steps up onto the porch, and leans over to give her a kiss on the cheek.
I'm friendly watching this, but I don't like John Boyd. The history between us soured years ago. Momma smiles. “How are you, John Boyd?”
“Fine, Mavis, just fine,” he says before looking at me. “Cassie? Is that you?”
I nod to let him know he's right. “Hey, John Boyd,” I say.
“I thought that was you,” he crows. “Goodness it's been a while.” He reaches over to hug me, his body smelling of cigarettes and cedar, the sweet fragrance evidence of summer's clothes just beginning to come out of storage.
“You know my daughter, Kelly,” I say.
“Yes I do, but I don't remember her all grown up like this. How are you, Kelly?”
She smiles, but then turns away, ignoring us.
“We're a bit tired from the drive,” I say, apologizing for her behavior. “Seems like it takes me longer every year to drive in.”
“You're down on the coast, is that right?” John Boyd asks like he doesn't know.
“That's right,” I say, “Murrells Inlet and Garden City Beach.”
“Well, that's a distance all right,” he says. John Boyd sits down on the rail of Momma's porch like he might stay awhile. The flowerpots above drip water onto his shirt, though he seems not to notice or care. “I saw you drive in, and well, we don't see many cars driving down this way anymore. I just wanted to make sure Mavis was all right. Are you all right, Mavis?” He smiles saying this, winks at me like he's enjoying his joke.
“I would have been if I'd known they were coming,” Momma says.
I look over and explain, “We're here early. Kelly's going up to the college for two weeks, a softball camp that starts tomorrow.”
He nods. “Well I'm sure she'll enjoy that. They're really growing up there from what I hear.” He looks at Kelly, smiles in a way that bothers me, like he's waiting for more information, wanting to know more. “You'll be here then,” John Boyd asks, “for the two weeks?”
“Yes, and then some,” I lie, knowing that Clay will be expecting me to stay with him in Walhalla. Kelly's sitting on the side rail, her eyes out toward land I used to roam as a child. She knows I'm lying and I can only hope she'll keep her mouth shut.
I'm uneasy with all of this, wishing John Boyd wasn't the first person we saw as soon as we arrived. He was a deacon in the church when I became pregnant with Kelly. He kept my father in the pulpit, but told him he would have to make an example out of me. “Cast out the weed,” he'd said. He's changed over the years since the church closed its doors, but looking at him, I feel he could do it all again.
“Well, I hope you stay as long as you can, Cassie. I know how much Mavis would appreciate that.”
I thank him for stopping by to check on Momma, and he asks if I might see him later to talk about what's happening to this end of the cove. “No one usually comes out here unless it's some real-estate agent or construction company trying to get at the land. I didn't recognize your car, so thought I ought to drop by, just in case. I try to keep my eye out, you know, be a good neighbor and all.”
“And I appreciate that, John Boyd,” says Momma. She looks at me, her face suddenly pulled with worry. “They want this land for some private country club or something like that.”
“Momma, you should have called,” I say. “I didn't know.”
“Well, it's nothing to worry about. We're not selling.” There's defiance in her voice, a hint of the old fire Momma had in her when I was growing up.
“It would just be good to talk,” John Boyd says. “Now that you're here, I think it might be a good time, that's all it is.”
I promise him to find some time, and, oddly, that seems to end his visit. He's off the porch with barely a good- bye, his car quickly disappearing past the end of the drive.
“Why didn't you tell us they were trying to get your property?” I ask.
“Because they won't get it,” Momma says. Kelly and I follow her through the screen door, the smell of Sunday dinner cooking on the stove, filling the house. I marvel at that, how even when there's no one to cook for, Momma still does it, a part of her life so deeply learned that she'll continue doing it until the day she dies. “John Boyd's got the most to sell,” she says, walking into the kitchen. She bends over, opens the oven to check on her casserole, chicken broccoli, enough for us to eat off all week. “But with my land, we hold a large block. They can't do anything about it, so he keeps an eye out for me. John Boyd's a good man.” She pulls t
he casserole from the oven with dishtowels to protect her hands, sets it down on the stove top and turns to look at us both. “Now,” she says, “go wash up and we'll have dinner.”
I don't tell her of my distrust of John Boyd—I'm not sure she would listen to me. Loyalty here in the mountains is nearly as deep as blood. My father turned against me in favor of John Boyd, so my suspicions of this man will never fade. You don't do something like that unless there's a debt to be paid. You don't give up family the way my father gave me up.
I won't upset Momma with my concerns now. There will be plenty of time for that. Instead, we eat Sunday dinner, chicken-broccoli casserole, field potatoes, and fresh green beans from the garden. We take our sweet tea outside in the backyard, sit in low-slung Adirondack chairs under a small grove of oak trees, and visit quietly for a while before Kelly has to leave for Cullowhee. I watch a deer move along the edge of the woods to graze. Kelly is out in tall grass halfheartedly looking for June bugs. When she was younger, Momma would help her hunt them down, June bugs as big as bottle caps. We would tie strings to their legs and Kelly would squeal as she flew them through the air, silvery green bodies flashing past her head, winking each time they came around through the sun.
She's out there by herself now acting all hurt and sullen. Momma notices, but she leaves it alone, doesn't ask about her standoffishness. Beyond the tree line, Whiteside Mountain rises straight up like a giant wave cresting, nearly two thousand feet above the lowest point in the cove. I can't imagine a life in which I would never come here again, never set foot in this house or look out into the backyard and see Whiteside Mountain—this land that I grew up on no longer here as it is right now.
Momma is quiet in her chair. She works on a bowl of green beans she's picked from her garden, her head down, fingers quickly snapping and stringing each. “You need to let me know what's wrong,” she says without raising her head. “We'll talk when you're ready.”
Her intuition is unsettling, but I don't let on that I'm worried she has found me out. I'm not ready to tell her anything more than she already knows. Kelly and I are here for our summer visit, that's enough for right now. “There's nothing to say,” I assure her. But she's not buying my bluff. I can see it in her hands, the beans taking the brunt of her impatience. Still she remains quiet. Momma will wait for me to come around. She always has.