When I Close My Eyes

by Elizabeth Musser

  “You can’t carry them, Josephine,” Marcia repeated often.

  But letting go of that voice, the one that told her to be perfect and that saving her family was her responsibility, was easier said than done.

  HENRY

  Talk about coincidence, well, this sure was one. My boy was gonna have his surgery at the same hospital where Miz Bourdillon laid in her coma. Libby said they told her it was one of the fifty best hospitals for heart stuff in the country, so I figured that was pretty good.

  The first time Jase had surgery he’d been way down in Georgia—emergency when we were visiting Libby’s folks. The other two times he was operated on in a hospital in a nearby town. But this time the surgeon said we’d go to Mission Hospital, and when Libby said that name I got to feeling queasy. I knew that hospital. I’d just been there.

  That was a good coincidence, right? Maybe I could keep an eye on Miz Bourdillon.

  Or maybe it was a bad coincidence. Maybe the cops would be keeping an eye on me.

  I had way too many thoughts in my head.

  ———

  Jase ordered the biggest steak on the menu at Bourbon’s Steak House, and that made Libby glow. Sometimes she did that—had this glow about her, like maybe an angel had just taken up residence inside her and the goodness was shining out. Or maybe it was her own goodness. And Jase had a little color in his face too.

  “Papa, Momma said we’re going to a big hospital and it has a pretty view from the windows of all the trees changing color. Won’t that be something, Papa? My kindergarten teacher last year told us all about the different leaves, and I’m gonna lay there in the bed after they fix my heart and look at the leaves and try to figure out which ones is oak and maple and pine and hickory.”

  He coughed, choking a little—that happened if he got to talking too much while he was eating, and Libby stopped glowing and said, “Take your time chewing, Jase.”

  I tried to distract her while Jase caught his breath, but no luck. Jase started wheezing, and then all the sudden we were rushing him out of that restaurant and by the time we got to the little ER in town, well, he was just about green.

  When they got him stabilized, the young doc on call met us out in the crowded waiting room where a baby was crying and a little boy with a broken arm was moaning and an old man was doubled over in some kind of excruciating pain. He said, “I’ve called your surgeon, Dr. Martin. He wants the ambulance to take your son on to Asheville. Now. He’ll meet you there and decide if surgery can wait until Friday.”

  Libby got in that ambulance, looking all rigid and terrified as she sat beside our boy. Then the doors closed and the driver pulled out into the road, the lights flashing red emergency and the siren screaming its warning.

  So there I was again, driving on that winding I-40 in the night, and all I could think was how Miz Bourdillon didn’t die and how Jase might be the one who died instead.

  And what kind of coincidence would that be?

  CHAPTER

  7

  TUESDAY

  PAIGE

  Aunt Kit insisted on staying with Momma that night, along with Daddy, of course, so Drake and Hannah and I went back to the house. Mrs. Swanson had turned on all the lights and set the mail in the kitchen—another three bags filled with letters—and placed on the counter four boxes of cakes and cookies from our favorite bakery, the French Broad Chocolate Lounge. She’d also left a note: Milton howling his head off so I’m taking him to sit with me. I’ll be up till nine. If you get in after that, just let him sleep over here.

  I headed to Mrs. Swanson’s at six thirty, passing the other houses spread out along the ridge, each with a wraparound porch that gave a stunning view of the mountains. I stopped in front of Drake’s former home, three houses down the street from ours, on the same side. It was lit up and a dozen pumpkins adorned the stone steps out front. Drake’s parents had not liked Halloween, so seeing the eerily smiling pumpkins, carved and candlelit, made me do a double take. Drake’s mother kept the house until Drake finished high school and then put it up for sale back in 2011. They’d had to beg, borrow, and steal to get a buyer, after the housing crisis of ’08. But now somebody had made it their cozy Halloween home.

  I came to Mrs. Swanson’s house and climbed the long stone stairway. The Swansons had been the first to move into the elite subdivision nestled on Bearmeadow Mountain when it was developed in the late eighties. They had moved their brood—four children and goodness knows how many cats and dogs—to this mountain paradise, which nonetheless was accessible to Asheville’s best schools. Her husband passed away a few years back, and all the kids were grown, married, and had kids of their own, so Mrs. Swanson managed her mountain home alone. She turned seventy last year, but according to her youngest daughter had more energy than all four of her children and their spouses and kids combined. I believed it. Though small in size, her strength of character matched the mountains around us. When I was a kid, if she ever glared at me, shaking her head, her permed white hair looking like a starched cloud, blue eyes blazing holy wrath, well, I paid attention.

  I knocked on the door, and when Mrs. Swanson opened it our Milton greeted me with a woof and planted his paws on my sweat shirt. I grabbed his collar before he could take off down the street for home.

  “Come on in, dearie.” Mrs. Swanson ushered me into the hallway as I practically lifted Milton up to keep him inside. “Now calm down! For heaven’s sake!” she addressed the dog crossly, and he gave a little groan and sank to the ground. “How is she doing, Paige dear? Any change?”

  “Not much. Her score has only gone up a little.” At her blank stare, I clarified. “They rate her reactions, brain function, and other stuff. She’s twitched her fingers and flickered her eyes, which means she is no longer considered to be in a completely vegetative state.”

  “Whatever that means. She’s only half a vegetable? Good grief! Well, I suppose that’s good to hear. I left the cakes on the counter and put a few more casseroles in the fridge, and made a list of everyone who came by or called.”

  “You’re a saint.”

  She scrunched up her brow so that her white eyebrows almost touched in the center and said, “We’re all saints, Paige, every single believer.” Mrs. Swanson attended my parents’ church and had a very literal way of interpreting the Bible.

  “Yes, of course. But you’re getting extra jewels in your crown this week.” I thought she’d like my biblical reference. I winked at her, and she lifted her eyebrows and gave a fake-pious smile.

  “I hope you’ve kept some food for yourself,” I added. “We’ll never be able to eat it all.”

  “I wouldn’t dream of it. You’ve got guests coming and going all the time.” She lowered her voice. “Saw Josy’s sister came. Finally.”

  I did not want to go near that remark. Mrs. Swanson detested Aunt Kit—how was that for Christian charity? Mainly because she thought Aunt Kit was a renegade who “didn’t deserve to have poor Josy for a sister”—and our neighbor almost worshipped Momma. Of course she wouldn’t call it that.

  She took a breath and continued, “That red-haired policewoman’s been poking through all the mail, yesterday and today. Always flashes her badge at me and never smiles. Just sticks her big chest out and makes her way into your house. Very irritating.”

  “She’s just doing her job.”

  “Well, I’ll bet you anything that woman considers it part of her job to go through the fridge and eat whatever she darn well pleases!”

  I laughed. “Well, if that’s the case, she doesn’t leave any evidence.”

  Mrs. Swanson wasn’t impressed with my joke.

  “Thanks for everything, Mrs. Swanson. And the nurses said that soon Momma can have visitors besides family. So I hope you can come by in a day or two.”

  Her face lit up. She reached down and rubbed her wrinkled hand into Milton’s sandy coat and said, “Well, I would appreciate that very much.”

  “And I know she is hearing what we say.
I just know it. So you be sure and tell her happy things when you come.”

  ———

  Hannah fixed the three of us a feast from all the food the friends from church and school and Daddy’s work had left, and Drake started a fire, and we sat in the den with Milton eyeing us pitifully. Occasionally I’d toss him a piece of meat, completely against the house rules, but it seemed to me like almost all the rules had already been broken. The den—we called it the family room—had a cathedral ceiling and a stone fireplace that took your breath away. On either side was a huge picture window with an amazing view of the mountains in the distance. We used to have the youth group from church over in the fall and winter when Hannah was in high school. We’d roast marshmallows and snuggle under fleece blankets, the girls giggling about their latest crush and the boys talking about some video game until the youth pastor made a joke and got us back to talking about boys and video games and God. Somehow Bull—that’s what we called him—always tied in real life with religion. I used to love those youth weekends at our house.

  In the winter Momma and Daddy and Hannah and Drake and I would all cuddle on the oversized couch and watch it snow outside—which quite honestly was better than going to the movies. Momma would say we were “experiencing joy in the exquisite simplicity of beholding creation.” That’s how she put it. Momma believed that God was always preaching sermons to us through nature and that anybody with an ounce of sense could see it, all planned out and everything.

  So Hannah and Drake and I sat on the leather couch—we’d pulled it smack-dab in front of the fireplace as we’d done on a hundred other occasions—and it felt just right and at the same time not right at all, because how in the world could we keep enjoying this room without Momma lighting all the candles on the mantle and then slipping around the corner into the kitchen, where she’d be humming an old Baptist hymn and baking us something sugary and chocolate?

  Milton rested his head on Drake’s knees, then wiggled over to Hannah, who knew just how to rub his tummy until he almost moaned with pleasure. We laughed a little at that, but the conversation lagged.

  “When are you going back to school, Bourdy?”

  “The teachers are chill—they know I need to be with Momma. No big deal.”

  “Really?” Drake looked unconvinced.

  “I’m serious. You think I can concentrate on AP French and physics and precalc with Momma lying in a coma? And I’m not going to spend my day in school when I can be hanging out with you and Hannie.”

  Drake shrugged, then said, “What about your soccer games?”

  “I’ve only missed one so far. Coach has been great. She said she knows I’ll make it up in effort.”

  Drake grinned. “No doubt about that. And Hannah, when do you go back?”

  “My return ticket is for this weekend.” She looked over at me. “And Daddy insists that Paige go back to school when I go back to France.”

  I honestly could not remember a time when the three of us were at a loss for words, but probably a whole minute passed in silence, the only sounds the crackling of the logs in the fireplace and Milton’s deep breathing as he slept at Hannah’s feet.

  Finally Drake broke the silence. “Can we talk about it? I really need to talk about it all, but I won’t if it’s too upsetting.”

  “No, I mean, yes.” Hannah pulled her hair back into a ponytail, then let it fall again to her shoulders. “Yes. Me too. Paige, tell us every single thing that has happened in the past weeks and months. Not just those fan letters. But anything else, anything. . . .” She sighed. “Anything else about Momma.”

  Finally, I thought. I started out cautiously. “Well, nothing that made me suspicious. No one was prowling about. The new novel got pretty good reviews—not stellar, but pretty good. And from what I could tell, it was selling okay—”

  “I’m not asking about the book, Paige!” Hannah sounded annoyed. “I want to know how Momma and Daddy were doing. Had there been any problems?”

  When Hannah pronounced the word problems, the three of us knew what she meant.

  I shrugged. “No, they were fine.” But my voice sounded off, even to me. Momma and Daddy were never just fine. Their relationship could never be defined by a one-syllable word of mediocrity. “Momma got upset about those letters, but otherwise she kept to the routine and wrote all day and took Milton for two walks same as always, morning and evening. And sometimes she and Daddy would sit out on the porch before dinner, and after dinner if the night was clear they’d go out and look at the stars.” Far from the city lights, we could see thousands of stars on clear, dark nights.

  “She was doing some kind of research for the next novel, and occasionally she’d ask me to look up something. She knew I was busy, reading about different colleges and with soccer and debate club. And she had the youth group over once last month—you know how she likes that—and I even went. Things seemed normal.” Another word that did not in any way apply to Momma.

  “But what about Daddy? How was he?”

  “Worried,” I blurted out without thinking. “No, not worried. Preoccupied.” There, I’d admitted it.

  “About what?” This from Drake.

  “No idea. It didn’t seem like a big deal, but you know he’s never missed one of my soccer games before, and he forgot, he forgot, twice, in September.”

  “Your dad forgot about a soccer game?” Drake sounded incredulous.

  “That’s what he claimed, but when he said it, Momma looked like she might cry.”

  “Did Momma attend your games?”

  “Oh, sure, she and Milton were there. But Daddy not being there freaked me out a little. I mean, seems like he could have come up with a better excuse than that he forgot. He never forgets anything.”

  Drake got up and put another log on the fire, and Hannah took our empty plates back to the kitchen—Milton had licked them clean—and when she came back, I could tell she was fighting back tears.

  “Sorry, Hannie.”

  “No, we asked. We needed to hear.” She sat back down on the couch with me in the middle.

  “It’s just . . .” I cleared my throat. Why was I sweating to pronounce the next words in front of my two most favorite people in the world? “It’s just that somehow, the way he was acting reminded me of The Awful Year.”

  Hannah and Drake glanced at each other with something like dread in their eyes. I shouldn’t have pronounced those words. Not yet. Then they each put an arm around me, so that we were sandwiched close together, just like all those other times, and I got up my nerve and asked, “Hannah, what do you remember most about The Awful Year?”

  “I remember that you cried every night for a month when Drake’s parents split up, and I remember Daddy taking us out on the porch and telling us about Grandmom dying, and I remember how devastated Momma was at the funeral. And then Granddad died a few months later. And Aunt Kit was drunk at Granddad’s funeral, and I think that just was the final straw to break Momma’s heart. And Daddy sent her away to La Grande Motte for a few months, just to rest.”

  I nodded. Occasionally Momma went to our grandparents’ place alone. To write. But after her parents’ deaths, she went simply to recover.

  Then I reached for Hannah’s hand and held on tight and whispered, “And what do you remember about Daddy during that time?”

  But Hannah pulled her hand away, stood up, and started pacing in front of the fireplace. Drake took my hand in both of his. I begged Hannah with my eyes, but she shook her head and kept pacing. “I can’t remember anything about Daddy. I can’t let myself remember anything.”

  JOSEPHINE

  1980 . . . Mount St. Helens had just erupted the week before, and if her classmates weren’t talking about that, or stressing about end-of-the-year exams, they were raving over the new Star Wars film. But Josephine could not engage in any small talk. She’d never been good at it, but now her mind was completely preoccupied with him.

  The first thing she had noticed were his eyes. His kind
eyes. Josephine read eyes easily, quickly, almost immediately. Then she always asked herself: Do the eyes show hope and goodness? Do they show faith and love? How she longed for the eyes of those she cared about to shine with these qualities. But in Father’s eyes she read aloof disapproval and underneath that, a level of pure fear that someday soon his persona would crumble. Mother’s eyes held disappointment and a fierce pride. And Kit’s—oh, dear, defiant Kit. Not even rehab had changed her eyes.

  But Patrick’s eyes were a warm brown shade of kindness. The only other eyes she’d known that held such kindness were Terence’s. It still broke her heart to think of her old friend. He had passed away the year before, and how she missed him.

  She’d met Patrick for the first time at the end of a long Saturday with a bunch of rowdy kids. Every week she tutored a few junior high girls with the Christian parachurch group she belonged to on campus. And once a month all the tutors from several different colleges got together to play sports and feed about a hundred of these children.

  She had her hands thrust in red, sudsy water, washing a big metal pan, scrubbing the stubborn bits of burnt lasagna that were still clinging to the sides. Dozens of other pots and pans were stacked all around her.

  “Need some help?” he’d asked.

  “No, I’m fine,” she’d said without even looking up.

  “You sure are,” he had replied in a teasing way, and that’s when she spun around expecting to see another flirtatious jock, but instead, all she saw were his eyes. Then his face—which was not bad to look at either. She’d softened.

  “You haven’t slowed down all day.”

  She shrugged. “This is one of my favorite days of the month.”

  “Really?”

  “I enjoy getting off campus, forcing myself to stop studying for a while.”

  “That’s why you come, to stop studying?”

  She laughed. “I come because I love the kids—they’re so real. Sometimes my life at school seems so small.” She blushed. Why was she admitting deep thoughts—well, deeper than Star Wars and exams—to a stranger? “Do you go to Belleview? I haven’t seen you before.”