Generous! She had never received a grade lower than an A- in English! How had she missed the instructions? Right now they seemed perfectly clear. But she’d had the idea and then she had been up so late working on the play for the Thespians, and then Kit had come home drunk again and needed to talk. So Josephine had to write it in only a few hours, and she hadn’t really read the directions again.
And now she had failed. A C+ was failure. Her parents would certainly see it that way.
“If you would prefer, I will let you do a rewrite. You can get it to me by the end of the week. Would you like that?”
She could barely meet Mrs. Nixon’s eyes. She felt like a child of six! What was the matter with her?
“Yes, yes, of course. I would like that very much. Thank you, Mrs. Nixon.” She stood and left the classroom with a smile pasted on her lips, but what she heard in her mind was Failure!
———
Mr. Butler handed the essays back to the class. When he got to Josephine’s desk, he was smiling broadly. He handed her the essay and across the top in his characteristic red felt-tip pen scrawl was marked: A+ Excellent work, Josephine!
She felt her cheeks grow hot and could barely make eye contact with her young history teacher.
“I love how you incorporated history into your story. A courier for President Lincoln.” Then he winked and added, “I guess you aren’t going to be a Confederate dame, are you?”
Josephine tried to smile and stammered, “Maybe not. . . .”
He patted her shoulder. “I’m just kidding. But seriously, you have a gift.”
That’s what they all said. A gift. A gift. A gift.
For Josephine, the attention of her teachers scared her and excited her. She wrote what she was given. Perhaps it was a gift. All she knew was simply this: She could not not write. But once in a while she wondered if being “gifted” was a curse. Sometimes she didn’t want to have a gift; she’d rather have a date. She wanted a boy to call her on the phone, take her to see a movie. She didn’t want to be different; she wanted to be like everyone else. Like Kit.
MONDAY
HENRY
I shut off the alarm twice, and finally Libby had to shake me awake. “It’s those meds,” I grumbled, stumbling out of bed, playing the part so she wouldn’t start guessing. “My eyelids are so heavy I might have to pry ’em open with a toothpick.”
I got dressed and went into the kitchen and had myself the omelet Libby had made, with some cut-up fruit and a bagel. She made sure that Jase and me ate a hearty, healthy breakfast—that’s how she described it. Real good cook. She also had a fine mind, and she’d finished high school. I dreamed of sending her on to college one day. For now she had a pretty decent office job as an assistant to a bigwig businessman.
I got to work early—seven thirty—and my boss, Mr. Dan, gave me the once-over and said, “Glad to have you back, Hughes. Got a lot of work today.”
“Yessir. I’m in. Have to leave at three thirty, but I’ll work through lunch and put in extra hours tomorrow.”
“It’s your boy again?” He knew about Jase, because I’d had to miss work a couple times when Libby couldn’t get off and Jase needed to be hauled to the ER.
“Seeing the surgeon today,” I said.
“All right then.” He made like he was leaving, then turned around. “But I have to be able to depend on you, Hughes. You do good work, but I can’t have you in three days and out two. You understand what I’m saying? I’ve got the big man breathing down my neck.”
“Yessir.” I understood. Understood loud and clear.
———
They’d pricked and poked Jase for over an hour, and now he sat bare chested, with a nurse in some sterile, chilly room while the surgeon told us the news from the leather chair in his office.
“I don’t like what I see.” He made his hands into a tower, bringing his fingers together. “His heart rate is getting more erratic. I’m sorry. We’ve got to move the surgery up.” He pulled up a schedule on his computer. “We need to get him in this Friday.”
He must’ve seen how hard Libby was clutching my hand, because he added, “Don’t worry, Mrs. Hughes. This surgery has an excellent chance for success. But we can’t wait. He’s got to be strong enough for the operation.”
He talked on for a while. Libby kept grasping my hand real tight and sniffing and jotting down notes in that little spiral notebook where she recorded every single thing any doctor had ever said about Jase. I tried to listen, tried to concentrate, but all I kept hearing were the words Four days before the second payment. No loose ends, no loose ends. . . .
As we walked out to the pickup I knew I was clenching my jaw, grinding my teeth, all the things Libby noticed I did when life started caving in.
“You were a rock star, sweetie,” Libby said to Jase, making her voice all light and airy, like she did every time she tried to pretend things was going fine.
“I like that doctor, Mommy,” Jase said, big green eyes staring up from under his chestnut mane. He glanced my way and gave his sheepish smile. “Do you like him, Papa?”
“I like him fine,” I said, but my voice sounded gruff, and just as Jase was reaching for my hand he dropped it down to his side and looked away.
I tried again. “He’s a real fine doctor, Jase, and we’re mighty grateful to have him. He said he’s gonna make your heart just right. This time it’ll be put back together so well you won’t ever have to go to no hospital again.”
Libby looked over Jase’s head and shook hers, flashed me a frown.
“Leastways not for a long time,” I added. I held the door open as Jase climbed into the pickup, then Libby.
“That’ll be great, Papa. That’ll be corn-puddin’ great.” And he grinned, then snuggled onto my shoulder and closed his eyes while I drove us on toward home.
Libby just stared ahead, turning that little spiral notebook over in her hands while I was turning the rest of my life over and over in my mind. No hurry, no hurry! Hurry!
“I’ve gotta be gone again. Leavin’ soon as I get you both home. Twenty-four hours is all. I promise.”
She nodded, twisting the spiral, wiping a few tears, biting her lip.
We stopped by Jase’s favorite fast food place on the way home and bought dinner. Once I got them inside the trailer, I flipped on the TV and sure enough, the scrolling headline under the main story said Miz Bourdillon was still in a coma. Then they went on to something about a college football game.
I stood in front of the TV, eating my hamburger, letting the ketchup and mayonnaise leak down onto my chin and forgetting to wipe my mouth. I kept hoping that Miz Bourdillon would just die. But she wasn’t dead yet, and so I had to go and see what I could do.
“Be careful,” Libby called after me.
Jase came to the screen door and said, “See you tomorrow, Papa?”
“Tomorrow, son.”
PAIGE
Daddy spent the night sitting next to Momma, and then Hannah and I sat with her all Monday morning while Daddy drove back to the house to get a little rest. I guess if you had to be at a hospital, this was a pretty good one, because every room had an amazing mountain view. Not that Momma could see it, but Hannah and Daddy and I could. Somehow the endless chain of mountains that kept changing its clothes from variegated green to bold primary colors, well, it felt like hope.
Momma’s sister arrived at the hospital on Monday afternoon, having driven up from Atlanta. She grabbed me in her exuberant way, wrapping her tanned and wrinkled arms around me. “Oh, Paige. It’s the worst. I tried to get here over the weekend but . . .”
I loved Aunt Kit, in spite of her excuses and missed appointments, in spite of the way Momma always seemed a little disappointed with their visits, in spite of the way Aunt Kit always seemed a little too enthusiastic. She smelled of expensive perfume, and she had on designer jeans and a matching silk blouse and jacket in autumn golds and gingers that set off her perfectly highlighted blond hair. She’d been
a model for some of the biggest agencies, and she still looked pretty hot, even at almost sixty—when she was sober.
“So glad you’re here, Aunt Kit. Perfect timing. I’ll take you in to see her now. Remember, she may be able to hear and understand what is said around her, so talk to her, never about her. Sit with her and talk to her. And be sure to note even the faintest movement. Hannah and I will be back in about two hours.”
I led Aunt Kit into Momma’s room, and as soon as she saw Momma, she gave a sob, covered her mouth, and whispered, “JoJo, JoJo. It can’t be.” Then she collapsed in the chair by Momma’s bed, took her sister’s hand, and started to talk.
JOSEPHINE
1973 . . . “You’re only fifteen, Kitty!” Mother was screaming, her high-pitched voice rising over the sound of the washing machine. “You will not go out with a boy who is nineteen. I absolutely forbid it!”
“I’ll do what I want!” Kit cursed her mother, threw her velvety blond hair over her shoulder, and stormed out of the room.
Josephine followed her sister down the stairway and out into the thick summer air. Kit wrapped her arms around her little sister and cried. “They don’t understand anything at all. He’s a cool guy.”
“They just care about you, Kit. They’re afraid.”
Kit made a disgusted, mocking face. “All they care about is keeping up appearances. They don’t want me to spoil their perfect reputation. As if the whole town doesn’t whisper about Daddy behind our backs.”
Josephine felt her stomach cramping. “Kit, please.”
“You’re the perfect child. Keep being perfect, Sis.”
“I don’t want to be perfect. I want to be like you. I want to be popular and beautiful like you.”
Kit put her hands on her hips, her tied-dyed shirt pulled tight across her chest. “JoJo, you just be yourself. Don’t be like me. I’m not such a great example to follow these days.”
But she was smiling.
———
1974 . . . “I’m sorry you’re leaving,” Josephine said, looking Chet Conrad straight in his clear gray eyes.
The boy shrugged, his skinny shoulders slumped forward. “Just wanted to let you know.”
She tried to swallow the lump in her throat. What could she say, anyway? Everyone in her class talked about Chet in whispers and gossip. He’s a little off in the head. They either felt sorry for him or teased him unmercifully.
Josephine didn’t exactly feel sorry for him. Sometimes she wanted to say, “Chet, I know. I know it gets confusing inside your mind. Me too.” She never told him that, but they used to sit together at recess, and he had the most interesting things to say. Maybe part of his brain didn’t work so well, but he made her laugh, and he had another part of his brain that worked darn-near perfectly.
The next day the gossip increased. He’s not coming back to school. His parents sent him someplace else—to rest, they said. But we know where he’s going. Straight to the crazy farm.
Josephine blinked hard to keep the tears from leaking out of her eyes.
That night she took out the journal she kept tucked in the back of her desk, hidden from Kit and her parents. Not that they cared, not that they ever would look. Still, what she wrote there might disturb them, and she didn’t want that. Now she pulled out the little bright green spiral book and flipped to a clean page.
God, something is wrong with me. I can’t tell you what it is, but I just wish someone would come along and plug up this empty space in my brain. If I could plug it up, then I’m sure I wouldn’t fall through that hole into the scary, dark parts of my mind. I’m positive I’d be like my other friends.
And even though I pray every night for you to plug it up, you never do. And that makes me afraid.
She got out her Bible then, opened it to the Psalms—her favorite part—and searched for the verse that her teacher had read in Sunday school a few weeks ago. “When I am afraid, I will put my trust in You. In God, whose word I praise, In God I have put my trust; I shall not be afraid. What can mere man do to me?” She blinked back tears and wrote down that beautiful verse in her journal. But then she added:
What if I can never plug the hole up? What if it gets bigger? I know what would happen. Then I’d be just like Chet.
———
1975 . . . “Terence, if I interviewed you for the school paper, would you answer my questions? I’d change your name and everything.”
“What kind of questions?”
“Like how it feels to be the only black person at a fancy party and to have to treat everyone as better than yourself and hear all their derogatory comments about race and stuff.”
Terence laughed. “Miss Josy, if you ever wrote something like that and put it in the paper, half the black folks in town would be fired, I guarantee it. We don’t need no trouble like that.”
“I know. But it just isn’t fair.”
“You listen to me, Miss Josy. I’ve known you for all your fifteen years of life. You’ve got a real good heart. You let the good Lord keep your heart pure and don’t you worry none about me. One day He’ll show you what to write. But for now, you just leave that alone. And Miss Josy, I like my job just fine. I’m mighty happy to have it.”
———
Kit had gotten herself into trouble again—drugs, boys. Her parents no longer thought it a great advantage for Kit to be gorgeous. The same day they got Kit out of jail, Josephine received word that her short story had won first prize in the county competition and would be sent on to the regionals and then perhaps to the nationals.
“We’re so proud of you, JoJo,” her mother said.
But Josephine heard the unspoken words. Keep performing. Be perfect. We need you to be perfect. Please.
———
Fred O., the youth pastor at her church, encouraged all of the kids in the youth group to memorize a Scripture verse. Josephine chose the one she had written in her journal after Chet left school. She liked that verse.
One day she got up her courage to talk to Fred O. about the hole in her head. Only she didn’t call it a hole. She just said that sometimes she felt sad. He listened as if he really cared.
“Josephine, I’m no expert on much, but I know one thing. When I start feeling overwhelmed or angry or discouraged, I try to read what God has to say about it in the Bible. And I keep a list of Bible verses that talk about whatever is bothering me. Sometimes I even memorize those verses.”
He showed her how to use a concordance to look up key words in her Bible. She found lots of verses about fear and worry and sadness. From that day on, she kept a list of Bible verses in her journal. When the voices got loud, when the hole seemed to grow wider, she would turn to those verses and say them out loud like a prayer.
“Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.”
“When I am afraid, I will put my trust in You. In God, whose word I praise, In God I have put my trust; I shall not be afraid.”
“The Lord lifts the fallen and those bent beneath their loads.”
And to her great relief, the noise in her mind lessened and eventually stopped altogether.
PAIGE
After leaving Aunt Kit with Momma on Monday afternoon, Daddy, Hannah, and I rode the elevator down to the ground floor of the hospital. Detective Blaylock wanted to ask us a few more questions and had arranged to talk to us in a little office off the back of the hospital gift shop.
“Thought that would be more convenient than meeting at the police station,” he said, but I didn’t want to answer any more questions at all, no matter where they were asked.
On the way to the gift shop I asked Daddy, “Is Momma worth a lot of money? I mean, does she have a big life insurance policy on her? Are the police going to come after you and ask all kinds of overly personal questions? Will you be a suspect?”
“You’ve got almost as big an imagination as your mother.” He almost smiled. “I suppose they cou
ld dream up about any scenario they wanted, sugar. But don’t worry about it. Your mother is going to wake up and be fine.”
Did Daddy really believe that? As we arrived at the gift shop, and he followed the detective into the back, I realized that he hadn’t answered my question at all.
Hannah and I absent-mindedly browsed through what was a very upscale shop, with designer handbags, a bunch of kids’ toys, and a section in honor of National Breast Cancer Awareness Month. There were jewelry displays and flower arrangements and many faith-based presents. Halloween candies sat in a bright orange bowl by the cash register. When I saw a bright pink balloon with It’s a Girl! written on it I got a pinching in my chest. How I wished I were at the hospital for the happy occasion of a baby’s birth instead of watching my mother barely holding on to life.
When Daddy came out of the office with the detective, he acted even stranger than he’d seemed the past two days. Uneasy, rubbing his eyes again and again—that habit only manifested itself when he knew he had a good chance of losing a client.
He stood beside me and the balloons while Hannah went into the office. “How’d it go?” I asked him.
Daddy shrugged. “Went fine, Paige.”
“Well, I want a lawyer before they question me. You never know what kind of crazy things they’ll invent about our family.”
Daddy looked at me, exasperated. “Paige, just answer his questions, honey. Please don’t be belligerent. I can’t imagine you have a whole lot to hide.” He tried to force a smile but it didn’t work, and so we stood there in silence.
Finally Hannah came back. “No big deal,” she said.
I went into the office, as neat and organized as the gift shop, and Detective Blaylock closed the door behind us. He had apparently moved a ceramic pumpkin filled with bite-sized candy from the desk to the floor, and now his notebook and a few files sat on the desktop. He sat down in the chair behind the desk and motioned for me to have a seat in the only other chair in the room. A few beautifully wrapped gifts sat by the door, no doubt waiting to be delivered to patients.
“Coffee?”
I shook my head.
When I Close My Eyes Page 6