The phone clicks off.
Eleven
1985
The twisting branches of live oaks arc across both sides of the Lacey Farms entry road, offering shelter as I steer the truck to the house. When I lived here twenty-five years ago, life offered a thousand possible destinations. Good destinations. Now, when it comes to possibilities, I tend to think of what can go wrong instead of what can go right. Maybe that’s part of getting older, like going gray. I smooth my hair in the rearview mirror, and though a touch of salt sprouts on the top, the rest remains the light brown of my youth. This gives me hope.
The main house rises in the distance, a testament to solid antebellum glory. Five chimney towers stretch toward the sky. The first time I saw the house I didn’t even know what Greek Revival was. But I knew a mansion when I saw one. Knew I’d be happy if they let me sleep on the porch.
A weed-filled front lawn and a sagging split-rail fence that looks like it hasn’t been whitewashed in two decades frame the house. Its shutters have faded from a glossy black to a peeling gray. Tucker perks up on the seat. He puts his paws up on the dash and looks out the window. Cousin Georgia and Osborne make their way down the front steps as we pull into the circular driveway. Osborne looks frail, the skin papery over his bones. Cousin Georgia is rounder in the middle and her now-all-white hair is piled on top of her head. But her eyes smile at me with the warmth I remember.
She flies over to the truck, opening the door. As soon as my feet touch the pavement, she pulls me in, engulfing me in the smells of lemon verbena and the morning’s breakfast biscuits. Osborne stands next to her and gives a formal handshake, though his left hand reaches out, a small tremor evident, to clasp my shoulder.
“Welcome back, welcome back!” Georgia says, “I told Oz it’s been so long since we’ve seen you. Lord, we must look ancient! But look at you. Still so good-looking with those blue eyes and dimples.”
She catches sight of my suitcase in the back of the truck.
“You can leave it,” I say.
Georgia tosses her husband a look. He keeps his mouth clamped shut. The secret code of their marriage is indecipherable. Could my appearance have sparked an argument?
“You’re welcome to stay here as long as you like, Ezekiel,” Georgia says. “Your room is still your room. I hoped you’d return to it someday.”
Quiet drops down. This is my moment to say, Yes, I need it.
Cousin Georgia stares down at her hands, the fingers interlaced together. They are such small hands. Suitable for kneading biscuit dough, doing needlepoint, and perfect for picking the hard-to-reach apples from the trees in the orchard. It strikes me that she is waiting for me to say I will stop here for a while. For some reason, it will make her happy.
“I believe I’d like to stay. Thank you,” I say.
Osborne grabs the suitcase out of the truck with surprising ease and marches up the front porch. Tucker casts a wary glance at the house, unsure of his welcome in this new place.
“The dog can come, too, of course,” she says.
“For God’s sake, Georgia,” Osborne grumbles.
The dog hobbles out of the truck by himself and nearly jogs his way up the stairs.
After settling my things in the old room on the second floor, Georgia suggests that Osborne and I take a walk around the lake. “Trying to get rid of us,” Osborne whispers. “You caught her without having a meal prepared and it’s killing her.” Georgia presses a glass filled with sweet tea into my hand on our way out.
Osborne and I walk to the lake nestled on the lower half of the property. The cloudy, late-morning sky melts into a dull gray against the deep green of the Blue Ridge foothills. A light breeze carries the scent of ripening apples.
“You’re not getting to see the farm in the prettiest light,” Osborne says. “Now, if you’d come at sunrise this morning . . .” He lets out a low whistle. “Never more beautiful than after a thunderstorm. The whole front of the house glowed with that morning sun. The light is starting to change now. Getting that fall slant to it. More to my liking. ”
He walks in long, fluid strides for one who looks so frail. Along the curving path, a magnificent magnolia tree towers over a line of crape myrtles capped in brilliant reds, pinks, and purples. Osborne points to the garnet-colored foliage on the flowering dogwoods as further proof of fall’s arrival. The lake comes into view, rimmed on the east by a stand of weeping willows and on the west by loblolly pines stretching to the sky, their clean scent filling the air. We stop at the water’s edge. The silver flash of a trout dances beneath the water. The sense of having been in this same spot before with Osborne tugs at me.
“Brought you here first thing when you showed up on our doorstep twenty-five years ago. How old were you then? Seventeen? Georgia told me you liked to fish, so this seemed like the right place to show you straightaway. Make you feel at home.”
When I saw it for the first time all those years ago, I marveled at my good fortune—to have a lake stocked with rainbow trout and the familiar bluegill only steps away from the place I would call home. Who could believe it? I wrote to Carter, telling him to have Mother bring him for a visit as soon as possible—we would fish by moonlight, by sunrise, whenever we wanted. Only later did I find out Mother never gave him that first letter or any of the ones that followed.
Osborne bends down next to the water, floats a hand along the top. “One of my favorite places around here. Good thinking spot. None of those damned apples or peaches staring at me with all of their problems.”
“I was happy then.” It surprises me to hear the words out loud.
“And now?” The question is asked with Osborne’s back to me; the tone pleasant, curious.
A glossy black stone catches a glint of sun and I pick it up, the rock’s weight barely registering. With a practiced flick of the wrist, I skip it across the water—watch it bounce once, twice, three times before disappearing beneath the surface.
“Happy probably doesn’t cover it.”
• • •
We leave the lake and trace the perimeter of the main house. Osborne’s father had the place measured when I was here last, after the Bailey Historical Society told him that the Lacey home missed being the biggest house in the county by ten square feet. After the remeasurement, an additional twenty-five square feet were found. Osborne points out the work done and not done. Three years ago they almost lost the whole thing to termites.
“’Course that gave our Georgia something to go on about since she’d been telling me for years to get it checked for termites. Half the county came out to see the tent go up over the house. You should’ve seen it.”
The southern half of the house, where Osborne’s parents used to live, is closed off now. “They wouldn’t let us touch a crack on the wall over there for ten years, so there’s no telling what needs to be done. And I’m too old to do it.” He shakes his head. “Can’t hardly keep up with the orchards anymore, much less the house.”
A small disk of chewing tobacco appears from his back pocket and he places a pinch between his cheek and gum.
“What just happened didn’t. Okay?”
“Fine by me,” I say.
No need for a wife to know everything. Most things, yes. Jacklynn and I were friends with a couple who had taken an “honesty oath” after almost breaking up over the husband’s longing for blondes in short skirts. The poor guy couldn’t take a crap without reporting back to the wife what color it was.
The sky darkens and a light rain begins to fall. We wander back up the front stairs into the shaded coolness of the front sitting room. Ceiling fans push the air through, forcing out the morning’s humidity. Osborne motions for me to sit on the couch and lowers himself into a faded recliner.
“Feel that? The air is heavy, like it’s too tired or full to move. Those poor folks in North
Carolina are getting hammered by another hurricane. Thought we’d miss all of it but maybe not. Maybe not.”
He begins to cough, a little at first, and then more until it’s not clear whether he’s getting any air in. I get up, unsure what to do. He waves me back down. Georgia appears, like magic, with a glass of water.
“It’s the emphysema,” she says, shaking her head. “Do you smoke, Ezekiel?”
I nod.
“It’s an awful habit. A deadly one. Osborne quit last year on doctor’s orders. On my orders. Does your mother still smoke? She started so young. We must have only been eleven.”
Mother was puffing away on a Lucky Strike the morning I left. Nothing could get her to stop smoking. Even now with the lung cancer diagnosis. She’d say life was too short not to have a cigarette now and then. And a drink. Mother is not a drunk. Even I won’t call her that. But she needs a “glass of tea” or two or three a day like some people need coffee or television.
After dinner, tired sets in so bad Cousin Georgia sends me up to bed with a slice of my favorite hummingbird cake. Wasn’t that lucky? she said. I came across the recipe yesterday and decided to make it. You just never know. Tucker and I stand together at the bottom of the stairs, looking up. An awful lot of stairs separate us from our bed. The dog looks hopefully in my direction.
“Can’t do it, buddy. Got my hands full and I’m too tired tonight to carry you up there. Come on. We’ll go together.”
And so we do. One slow step at a time. The muscles in my back protest, cramped from the long drive.
A nagging thought pushes at me through the exhaustion. Jackie. I should call and check in. Mother, too. After Tucker collapses on the rug next to the bed, I pull the phone off the night table and dial, asking the operator to reverse the charges so Curtis will pay for the call.
“Does it feel strange to be back?” Jackie asks.
This is a good question. I lie back on the bed, the phone cradled against my ear. “Strange isn’t the right word.”
“Well?”
Through the tiredness, a welcome sense of relief hovers. As if coming here may have been the right choice. The best choice.
“It feels something like home.”
“Clayton is your home, Zeke.”
I change the subject to our daughters. This produces a long sigh from Jackie. Honora has dyed her hair again. A ghoulish shade of black this time. And there’s a boy. A senior. A senior?
“He’s asked her to the homecoming dance. Sophomore girls hardly ever get asked to homecoming. And he’s a cutie, let me tell you.”
“What’s his name?”
“He’s a new kid. Moved to Mabry this year with his mother after his parents divorced.”
“I thought we agreed she wouldn’t date until she’s sixteen. She’s not sixteen.”
“She’s almost sixteen, Zeke. It’s just a dance, anyway. And you’re not around to tell her no, so I said yes. You want to tell her no, come back and tell her. When, by the way, were you planning on coming home?”
“Listen, I’ve got to go to bed.”
The phone is silent for a moment, misleading me into thinking she’s sympathizing with how tired I must be.
“It’s always about you, isn’t it? Zeke’s tired. Better go to bed. Zeke’s having a midlife crisis. Better run away from home. Why don’t you buy a convertible, too? And take up with a big-breasted twenty-year-old while you’re out there?”
She pauses, gathering steam.
“And there’s something you should know about your mother. I ran into Daisy yesterday and she told me—”
“Jackie, I know about the lung cancer. Rosie told me. I’m really tired.”
The line goes dead.
I run a hand over my face. Jesus. Convertible? Midlife crisis? Is that what this is? Do I want to take up with a big-breasted twenty-something?
Too damn tired. My boots fall to the floor with a clatter and I can’t be bothered to take off anything else. The old house emits creaking sounds like it, too, is yawning before settling down to bed. The gentle noise of Georgia and Osborne in conversation sifts under the door.
The events of the past few days feel overwhelming. Honora and Louisa believe I have abandoned them. Again. Doug Mitchell’s fired me. Probably already hired another guy. Mother is fighting cancer.
Coming to Lacey Farms feels like the best and worst decision. Barring the overdose route, there was no place else to go. A sleeping Tucker begins to whimper as one of his forelegs jerks. Must be chasing the barn cats he glimpsed in the yard.
Mother answers after the second ring. She sounds out of breath.
“It’s me. You okay? You don’t sound good,” I say.
Her voice is muffled for a moment, and I know she is settling herself on the gossip bench that holds the phone in the dining room.
“I’m fine, Ezekiel. Don’t worry. I was out in the porch swing when the phone rang, so I hurried in here. I knew it was you. So you’re at Georgia’s?”
“Yes.”
A pause. I should say something about the cancer. Something supportive and nice.
“How’s Georgia look? Old yet? Must be nice for you to be back there.”
“Georgia looks pretty good. Osborne seems a lot older. They kept my room just like it was before.”
There is no need to say before what.
She sighs. “Doesn’t surprise me. You’re the closest thing they’ve got to a kid of their own.”
Through the phone I can hear her still trying to catch her breath.
“Listen, I should let you go,” I say.
“No.” She clears her throat. “I’m okay, son. I’m fine.”
This is one of the longest phone conversations we have ever had and she wants to prolong it. But the feel of the soft bed beneath me is too tempting.
“You should get some rest. I’m pretty worn out, too, so I’ll say good night.”
“Oh.”
She wants me to keep talking but I can’t. Not tonight.
“Good night, Mother.”
“’Night, Ezekiel.” Her voice is low. “I love you.”
Twelve
1959
Georgia Parker Lacey and my mother, Lillian Parker Cooper, grew up over in Alabama together. Their families lived only a few feet apart on the land Granddaddy Parker owned in Colbert County. Of the ten acres, he parceled out all but a half acre to relatives. Mother liked having cousins to chase through the tall rows of cotton, but there never seemed to be quite enough food or space in the small houses built out of tar paper and Alabama pine.
When she was ten, Mother’s family moved the one hundred miles to Clayton. She and Cousin Georgia stayed in touch through letters and saw each other at the annual Parker family picnic. Georgia stayed on in Alabama, running the house and taking care of her mother when she took sick with cancer, until one day she met Osborne Lacey in the general store at Montgomery Landing. Osborne was passing through on his way back home to Virginia, where his family owned more land than anybody else except the state.
Cousin Georgia’s letter to Mother after meeting Osborne was extra long. She described how he invited her out to his truck to try a Lacey Farms peach, “the best darned peaches in the South.” Cousin Georgia thought Osborne must be full of himself, but there was something gentle in his eyes she liked, so she followed him outside.
“We grow these on our farm back home,” he said, pulling a perfectly round peach from a sack on the front seat. “Apples, too.”
Georgia bit into the peach and a rush of juice spilled down her chin. Osborne pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket and reached over to wipe the juice.
“I’ll do it myself, thank you,” Georgia said, taking the handkerchief. “The peaches are real sweet. You’re right about that.”
He gave her the sack to take home. In return, he asked for her name and address and wrote to her every day for three months until he proposed, by letter, and she accepted, by letter.
Mother went to the wedding in Virginia and swore she’d never go back again. I suspect she was jealous of Georgia and her new role as daughter-in-law of the well-off Laceys, far from Mother’s situation as the wife of a failed farmer. For the next decade, Mother only heard about Georgia through news from the Alabama Parkers.
When my tenth-grade history teacher told Mother I was smart enough to get a scholarship to college, she recalled that a fine institution of higher education, the University of Virginia, lay only a few miles from Lacey Farms. During the three years that would pass before my high school graduation, Mother and Georgia exchanged weekly letters. Georgia was not the type to hold a grudge and was glad to be in touch with our family again. Mother never said much about their letters other than an occasional comment to Daddy like How nice it must be to have a washing machine, Carter, or What I wouldn’t give to go on vacation. She did not reveal the grand plan she and Georgia had constructed on my behalf until the fall of my senior year.
I arrived home after a bad basketball practice. Coach Tyler had yelled, He shoots, he misses, he shoots, he misses, every time I got near the basket. The only thing on my mind was eating dinner and going to bed. Instead, Mother sat me down on the front porch swing and stood over me, waving a letter in my face like it was the starting flag for the Indy 500.
The source of the letter was obvious from the fineness of the paper. It was so thin the evening shadows danced through the words.
“Cousin Georgia will feed and house you during the four years it will take you to graduate from UVA. The farm’s only fifteen miles from Charlottesville. They even have an old car you can use to drive back and forth to school. What do you think of that?”
Her face was transformed, its usual strained or annoyed or tired expression replaced with a look of pure elation. It was the most excited I had seen her.
The Lost Saints of Tennessee Page 7