I shake my head. “I don’t upset easily,” I say. I take a bite of an Oreo cookie and know that what I have just said is untrue. What I mean is that I don’t often show outward signs of being upset. What happened yesterday horrified me, both at the time and later. I could not eat more than a few bites of my supper last night, a supper much delayed by the disruption, and when I went to bed I replayed the incident over and over. I imagined how the firing of a gun would sound inside Patrick’s kitchen. I imagined Rachel lying in her own blood on the floor. I imagined Prince turning the gun on Patrick, on me, on himself. So many possibilities to alter the outcome. There is no guarantee against terror in the afternoon, even in one’s own home.
But the gun didn’t fire. The moment is past, and I sit here alive watching Rachel pick up the tray and turn to leave. I stare hard at the colorful hot air balloon across the back of her sweatshirt and wonder if she ever wishes she could climb inside one and be carried to another life in another part of the world. I watch her plod to the door and into the kitchen. I hear her at the sink scraping and rinsing my dirty supper dishes.
I think of Patrick’s lunge toward her after she collapsed to the floor, of his falling down on his knees beside her, of his anxious cries. “Rachel! Rachel! Are you okay? Did he hurt you?” All this as Prince escaped through the front door.
“Yes, yes, I’m fine,” she said. Patrick held her elbow as she got to her feet, and for the first time since coming here to live, I saw the two of them embrace. It was not a mere courtesy on Rachel’s part that she allowed him to pull her close. Indeed, she opened her arms wide and leaned into him. I could not look away. Perhaps some would find it humorous—so slight a man supporting so large a woman—but I did not. He stood straight and firm, and she clung to him as if he were a rock and she a shipwrecked soul.
Two police officers came to the house later to question us and to retrieve the gun. They pulled the stove away from the wall, and one of them picked up the gun and put it into a plastic bag. “Why, look, here’s all our leftovers, Rachel,” Patrick said, peering behind the stove. “There’s some dried peas and rice and a couple of macaroni noodles.” To which Rachel said sadly, “Oh dear, I need to vacuum all that out.” It was Patrick, though, who got the vacuum cleaner out of the closet and told her to sit down while he cleaned it up.
Wheel of Fortune is on while I eat my dessert. The category is Fictional Character, and the puzzle shows but one letter.—T—————. A young woman with spiked hair guesses the letter L and then buys a vowel. She chooses O, which turns out to be a wise choice, for now the name of the fictional character is obvious. O T——L L O. She spins again, however, and goes bankrupt, leaving the next contestant, a man wearing a bow tie, to solve the puzzle. See where your greed got you, I want to tell the young woman.
Like Othello, Prince is a jealous boy. I have heard Teri tell Rachel that he is quick to pick fights with other boys, black and white, whom he accuses of flirting with Mindy. He has demanded that Mindy not encourage them, but he always suspects that she does. Since her parents withdrew her from school, he has prowled Edison Street to see if other boys are at her house. He has called on the telephone at all hours just to see if the line was busy. If it was, he was sure she was talking to another boy. And his jealousy extends to her parents, for exerting their will over his, for keeping her within their sight while denying him access. And when his jealousy turned to fury, he came to take Mindy by force, certain that she would do his bidding.
But for now he is in jail awaiting a trial. Unfortunately for him but fortunately for us, Prince turned eighteen a month ago. He will be tried as an adult.
Questions beg to be answered, age-old questions for which there are no answers. Why is a woman attracted to a jealous man? How could a girl like Mindy claim to love a boy like Prince? Perhaps the answers are all too simple. Perhaps they are the same answers as for other questions: How does a woman permit herself to marry an evil man? How could Sophia Langham think she loved Eliot Hess? Love is a problem with no solution. Most often I think of it as a myth, an impossible story that many people believe.
Before his arrest, Prince Cook was a high-scoring basketball player at Greenville High School. A woman may be drawn to a man with celebrity status, even in such a small arena as a local high school. Or the English Department of a small college. Perhaps it was a flattering thing for Mindy at first when Prince was consumed with possessing her. Perhaps she didn’t know how dangerous such an obsession could become, how quickly it could turn deadly, how “trifles light as air” could be interpreted by the jealous one as solid proof of faithlessness.
Mindy is not of an age or disposition to endure advice from an old woman. Could I have substituted Othello for Julius Caesar in her literature book, I would have. Then I could say to her, “Beware of a jealous lover. See here, observe what happened to Desdemona in the end, all for the trifle of a handkerchief.” For a jealous man is never satisfied. He will put out the light altogether before he will allow it to shine for another.
And yet a man may seek the light of many women at the same time. A jealous man may demand all from many women, yet not give himself fully to any one of them. There are birds like this, driven by competition to father many broods, to fly from nest to nest, lord to a feathered harem. There are other men who take long solitary flights, who give nothing but their names to the women devoted to serve them.
When Rachel returns for my dessert dishes some time later, I am once again sitting in my recliner. The only light is from the television. The Beverly Hillbillies is in progress, but I am not following the plot. The words that Jethro and Elly May exchange mean nothing to me. Having never cared for the program, I usually mute the volume or change the channel, but tonight I want noise to fill up the silence. Rachel picks up the bowl and saucer and wipes the round table with a wet cloth.
“I used to like that program when it first came on,” she says to me. It occurs to me that perhaps she wants noise tonight, also.
“You may sit down and watch it with me,” I say. But I speak too soon, realizing in her hesitation that she has no desire to watch television reruns with an old woman. To cover up the awkwardness, I say the first thing that comes to my mind. “Did you know he died not too long ago, the man who did this?”
“Who?” Rachel asks. She takes a step toward me, the dishcloth in one hand, the dishes in the other. “The man who did what?”
“The man who created the program. This one, The Beverly Hillbillies. He even wrote the theme song.”
Rachel cocks her head and says, “How do you know these things, Aunt Sophie? Was that in Time magazine, too?”
I nod, for I read it only days ago: “DIED. PAUL HENNING, 93, creator of the long-running 1960s sitcom The Beverly Hillbillies (and its spin-off, Petticoat Junction); in Burbank, California.”
“Maybe I can watch it with you some other night,” she says. “I’m going to finish up in the kitchen, then take a hot bath and go to bed early. I feel like I can sleep tonight.”
It must be that I fall asleep myself after she leaves, for the next thing I hear is Patrick’s key jiggling the lock of the kitchen door. I see him pass by my doorway, then hear his footsteps recede down the hallway as he goes to check on Rachel.
Chapter 25
That Makes These Odds All Even
Though the eastern phoebe often nests on cliff ledges, it sometimes chooses more domestic settings such as porch or shed eaves for its home. An early springtime arrival, the phoebe frequently returns to the same nesting site from year to year, boldly announcing itself by name: fee-bee, fee-bee, fee-bee!
Three times before today I have awakened in my recliner at Patrick’s house and wondered where I was. Each time the answer has come, but the question was disturbing. What if I were to awake one day and have no answer?
One can do nothing to prepare for the quick causes of death such as those of my father and sisters, or of Tillie Flower and Tillie Fowler. But I watch myself for signs of the slow cre
eping diseases of the mind such as Alzheimer’s or dementia. Or the silent onset of certain cancers. Or the mysterious complexity of disorders my mother suffered in her last days. Here is another example of the Principle of Variety for Patrick to exclaim over. Oh, the infinite variety of ways to die!
But for today I have awakened in my recliner, and I know where I am. I have read of birds that return spring after spring to build new nests in the same old places. I suppose someone has tagged these birds to determine that they are the same birds returning and not simply the same species. How much of life is composed of routine, both man and beast coming back time and again to the same pursuits in the same haunts. Here I perch in my recliner in Patrick’s house on Edison Street in Greenville, Mississippi. Soph-ie, Soph-ie, Soph-ie!
Not only do I know where I am, but I also know what day it is. It is Monday, the day after Easter Sunday. The sky is bright above the treetops. I look at the bird feeder and see it swinging as if lately vacated by a squirrel or a large bird. I find it interesting that certain birds in plentiful numbers in the yard never come to the feeder by my window. Crows and starlings, for example, or doves, robins, blue jays. Perhaps there is a sense of pride in some birds that resists the idea of a handout.
I look at the television screen and ascertain that it is late morning. The sound is muted, but I see Samantha twitch her nose at her refrigerator and stove. Instantly a fully cooked meal appears on the countertop, ready to serve in china bowls and covered platters. She moves to the dining room and twitches her nose to set the table, then returns to the kitchen and begins carrying the dishes of food to the dining room. I wonder why she doesn’t twitch her nose again to save herself the extra steps, but I suppose, like anything else, such a gimmick must be used sparingly lest it wear out too soon.
Earlier this morning I saw Ricky and Fred laughing at Lucy and Ethel, who were dressed in funny costumes, but I have slept through MacGyver and Love Boat. I feel as if I have returned from a long journey, though I know I haven’t left my apartment.
And then I suddenly remember what woke me. My daytime dreams are often more vivid than my nighttime ones.
I turn and look toward the bookcase against the wall behind me, for I have just dreamed that someone broke into my apartment and vandalized the books, ripping them apart and scrawling curse words on the covers, strewing them over the floor and nailing loose pages of the Bible at crooked angles on the overturned bookcases. In my dream I grappled with the vandal, a figure in a dark cloak, and when I reached out my hand to pull the pages from the nails, I heard a loud voice in my ear: “Woman, why weepest thou? Whom seekest thou?”
But the bookcase is upright, the books and magazines in order on the shelves. The only voice is Rachel’s in the kitchen. The door is partly open. I rise, stand a minute to gain my balance, and then walk slowly toward it. I see that Rachel is on the telephone. She is wearing her brown bathrobe. “I’ve got my finger on it,” she says. Her broad back is bent over, her head nearly in her lap. And then I see that she is reading from a book. I know what book it is.
“‘For my thoughts are not your thoughts,’” she reads, “‘neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord.’”
She pauses as if listening. “I know, I know,” she says. “I can’t explain it. I wish I could. I’ve been praying so hard. I was—” She breaks off, then begins reading again, slowly. “‘For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts. For as the rain cometh down, and the snow from heaven . . . ’” She labors through the words, with many pauses, and it strikes me that she is crying. Rachel can cry and still speak intelligibly. “And here’s something else,” she says. “I just saw this other verse a little further down. It says you’ll ‘be led forth with peace.’ That’s what it says, Teri. And if you’re led forth, that means somebody’s got you by the hand. He knows your sorrow, Teri. He’ll give you comfort.” She pauses again. “I know how bad it hurts, Teri. I know.” Her voice breaks. “But God is faithful. I know that, too.”
And so I am witness to another crisis from this same doorway, another breakdown in the machinery of life. What I have known was coming is here. A vandal has been busy overturning the lives of our neighbors across the street. This is no dream. And this person Rachel has been reading about—the one who claims that his ways and thoughts are higher than ours—has been standing by, watching it all. Now, according to Rachel, he offers to lead them forth with peace.
Perhaps he can be seen in the role of a tour guide after a hurricane or other natural disaster. He takes the dazed victims by the hand and conducts them through the ruins of their home. See, he says to Steve and Teri, here is the wreckage of your daughter Mindy, whose boyfriend wields a deadly gun at innocent people, who is in jail for now but may someday get out and threaten you again. See the girl, once so beautiful, whose mind is now closed to you, who claims that she wants to die, who says words like “I hate you” to those who would lay down their lives for hers.
And see, he says now, moving to another room, here is your other daughter, Veronica, whose mind and body have been wasted from birth, who can do nothing for herself, who can speak no words whatsoever to those who brought her into the world. See her golden hair, her delicate fair skin. See her vacant eyes, her lolling tongue, her convulsions. Now you see her, now you don’t.
Two days ago, the day before Easter Sunday, Steve and Teri woke during the night to find Veronica in the grip of a seizure with no beginning and no end. She stopped breathing, and they rushed her to the hospital, where she began breathing again but only faintly and irregularly. A doctor told them that her heart was worn out. Over Resurrection Day Steve and Teri stood at her bedside hoping and praying—yes, Patrick and Rachel had convinced them by now of the efficacy of prayer—that she would stabilize and open her eyes, that a miracle would happen and they would be able to take her home again.
But from Rachel’s words on the telephone, it is clear to me that they will not bring her home again. And once more I am flooded with the wonder of a love that finds its joy in ceaseless giving with no earthly hope of receiving, that is overcome with grief when the hours of thankless toil, the daily reminders of empty dreams are suddenly over.
I retreat to my recliner and turn on the sound of the television. I do not want to hear Rachel, a mother bereft of her own children, reading from the Bible to another mother whose heart is broken. My own selfishness appalls me, for here is what fills my own heart. Not sympathy for Teri and Rachel, whose journeys through motherhood have been freighted with such sorrow, but sympathy for myself. Better a journey with a sad ending than no journey at all.
Yesterday, on Easter Sunday, Patrick and Rachel did not go to church. They left early in the morning to spend the day at the hospital with Steve and Teri. I believe they knew that Veronica wouldn’t come home. Rachel left bread on the kitchen counter and ham salad in the refrigerator for my lunch. They were gone until late afternoon. “Go lie down,” I heard Patrick say to Rachel when they returned. “I’ll get together something for us to eat.” He came to my door, asked if I had been okay, apologized for lunch. I said nothing, only nodded. There was nothing to say. Perhaps Patrick thought I was upset over lunch, for he apologized again, saying they hated to make me fend for myself and hoped it wouldn’t be necessary again.
It was too much trouble to speak of the insult I felt. Evidently Patrick thinks I do not understand that certain things, such as death and neighborly love, change the meaning of necessary. Making a ham salad sandwich for Veronica’s sake, and for Steve and Teri’s, was no hardship, but I did not bother to say this to Patrick.
After that I heard him in the kitchen clattering about for some time, and when he came back to my door, he had a request. “Aunt Sophie, I’m sorry to put you out again, but would you mind coming to the kitchen table to eat tonight? I’m not as good at this as Rachel, and it would help if I could serve it all at once.” It was the first time I could remember Patrick’s ad
mitting inferiority in any area.
He had found a box of pizza mix in the cupboard, so this was our supper. A Chef Boyardee pepperoni pizza, baked on a rectangular cookie sheet instead of a round pizza pan. Rachel came to the table in her bathrobe. “I hope you like pizza, Aunt Sophie,” she said, something Patrick had not thought to ask, of course.
I nodded. The truth was I liked pizza very much. As a younger woman, I could eat a large one by myself, often did so. Patrick had made one for the three of us. The pizza was sitting in the pan in the center of the table, with three plates and forks arranged around it. Patrick had not thought to set out napkins. Or beverages.
He prayed a long, fervent prayer in which he begged for God’s “tender mercies to be poured out on our dear friends and their helpless little girl.” He also said this: “And if it be your will to take her up into your presence, to make her whole and well, to serve as one of your choicest angels for all eternity, may it please us to accept this as from your good and wise hand.” Evidently Patrick believes in a God who is pleased to create damaged goods only to perfect them later, after their pathetic days on earth are done. Such easy thinking conveniently settles the problem of deformed children. There’s nothing like a little trouble on earth to make the idea of eternal bliss more glorious.
After the prayer Patrick said, “Uh-oh,” then snapped his fingers and went to the refrigerator. He brought back three cans of 7-Up and set one beside each plate. Then he snapped his fingers again and brought back napkins. These are the kinds of cartoon gestures one might expect to see from a man like Patrick: snapping his fingers, raising one finger and saying, “Ah-ha,” hitting his forehead with the heel of his hand. He would not approve of Samantha’s nose twitching. No doubt he would consider Bewitched a wicked program making light of sorcery, dabbling in the occult.
Winter Birds Page 25