The Lost Saints of Tennessee

by Amy Franklin-Willis

  She closes her eyes, murmuring. “I’m glad I get to meet your daughter, though I’m not sure she’s going to feel the same way about me. She’ll think I’m trying to replace her mother. How was it seeing Jackie again? My ex-husband and I didn’t have kids, so I never have to see the bastard again. I don’t mean that I never wanted kids—I’m just glad he and I never had any. But it must be important for you and Jackie to stay civil, right?”

  “It’s complicated.” I want to ask more about her ex.

  Elle’s eyes fly open. “Complicated?”

  “A lot of history there, and then, like you said, the girls.”

  Elle jerks herself out of the chair and is inside the house before I can get up. Through the screen door, she says, “Leave.”

  “Why? What’s wrong?”

  She faces me with arms folded across her chest. “When a man says his relationship with his ex-wife is ‘complicated,’ that means he’s sleeping with her. Am I right?”

  Elle and I are just getting started. The honest answer won’t be helpful.

  I sigh.

  “Look, some things happened when I was back there, and, yes, we did spend one night together. One. But it’s over. We were saying good-bye to each other. I was all caught up in the funeral and Honora and leaving Clayton for good. It will never happen again. Okay? Knowing I was coming back to Bailey, to you, has been the only thing keeping me going.”

  The front door slams shut.

  October passes into November. In the mornings, a fine fog hangs over the hills out my bedroom window. During the second week of my return to Lacey Farms, Georgia, Oz, and I are having breakfast in the kitchen. It’s a Saturday and Honora is still upstairs, happy to sleep until noon. Georgia attempts the crossword puzzle in the Daily Progress in between bites of grits and bacon. She keeps pushing the reading glasses up on her nose and sucks on her teeth when she can’t figure out a word. The sports page absorbs Osborne, whose right arm is still encased in a sling from the car accident.

  I clear my throat. Georgia looks up from the paper.

  “I’d like to accept.”

  Georgia puts down her pencil. “Accept what exactly, Ezekiel?” She glances at Oz, who is still deep in the NFL scores. “Oz! Listen up, honey. This is important.”

  Oz swivels his head in his wife’s direction. “What?” he says. “What is it?”

  Tucker lurches over from his spot in front of the stove to drape himself over my feet.

  “You two took me in so I could go to school at UVA, and all these years later you’ve taken me in again.”

  Georgia holds up a hand. “You make it sound like you were an orphan on the street. We opened our home to you because you’re our family, Ezekiel.”

  “Hush,” Oz says. “Can’t you see the boy’s got something to say?”

  “Being here on the farm is—” The words won’t come.

  I try again. “Being here makes me remember how I felt when I stayed the first time. You two make me feel like things might still work out. If I can be of use to you, if I can help Lacey Farms in any way, I can’t think of any other place in the world I want to be.”

  I lean back in the chair and realize my hands are shaking. The dog licks the toe of my boot.

  Georgia opens her mouth and this time Oz holds up a hand. “Son, we’re honored to have you here.”

  He returns to his newspaper, and after Georgia gives my hand a squeeze, she returns to hers.

  Tucker looks up at me but doesn’t move. And even though my breakfast is finished, I, too, am content to stay put.

  Forty-One

  1985

  Farm 101 begins. Can’t manage something you don’t know a thing about, Osborne says. He has become animated again almost overnight, anxious to get out of the house and show me all I need to know. Before I forget, he says.

  Still recuperating from the broken collarbone, he begins each day by calling me into his office to learn something, like how to keep the pests away from the peach orchard or where to buy good fencing materials. There are moments when he stops in midsentence, uncertain which word comes next. He will slam his fist on the desk, trying to force the word out. Most of the time I can help him remember it. When I can’t, he gives me a look filled with enough fear and helplessness to collapse a person’s heart.

  We decide the apple orchard will be replanted, and we spend a week traveling to different apple farms to figure out which varieties to put in. So far, we’ve decided on the Golden Pearmains, one of Georgia’s favorites, along with Ginger Golds, Bishop Pippins, Carolina Red Junes, Staymans, and Maiden Blushes.

  Somehow Osborne and my daughter have become an unlikely pair. They go on a walk every night after dinner. Georgia and I are both pleased. When I asked Honora about it, she told me he was an old guy losing bits and pieces of himself each day and that was a feeling she could understand.

  The week before Thanksgiving Jackie calls. Louisa misses Honora and me and wants to spend Thanksgiving break in Virginia. Honora’s told her about the horses here and Lou wants to learn to ride. Jackie’s voice sounds tight and I ask if she is okay. She snaps that it’s none of my business. Really. I offer to meet them halfway, but she says the long car ride will do them good. Instant red flag. Long car rides with Louisa are generally only good for headaches, stomachaches, and fighting.

  “Will you be staying, too?” I ask, trying to sound neutral on the subject.

  “Maybe. I haven’t worked it out yet with Curtis. I’d like to, though.”

  In the end, it doesn’t matter. I will have my girls with me for Thanksgiving, the first time since the divorce. Working a double shift at the plant was my normal holiday routine. I figured the extra money would do me good and wanted to avoid spending the day missing them, drinking too much, and feeling sorry for myself.

  When I ask Cousin Georgia if Louisa and possibly Jackie can stay at the house, she declares that she will never forgive me if they stay anywhere else. She launches into a campaign of preparations—airing out bedrooms, buying new sheets, and stocking the cupboards with Louisa’s favorite foods.

  Phone calls to Elle are not returned. Georgia finds me sanding a barn door that won’t slide properly and tells me she will be inviting Elle for Thanksgiving dinner. This leaves me speechless. The last people I want sitting down to Thanksgiving dinner right now are my ex-wife and the woman who looks to be my former girlfriend. Is Georgia losing her mind, too?

  “I’m not sure that’s a good idea, Georgia.”

  “Ezekiel, I love you, but you can’t tell me who to invite to my house for Thanksgiving.” She looks at me for a moment before inquiring where things stand between her neighbor and me.

  “Kind of a standoff, I guess.”

  Georgia purses her lips, making me feel two years old. “Tread lightly, please. That woman went through an awful marriage and an awful divorce and deserves nothing but good things. You hear?”

  “Tell me about the ex-husband.”

  “Elle hasn’t told you about him?” she asks.

  I shake my head.

  “Have you heard of Wallace Industries?”

  “Nope.”

  “They grow every food known to man, and even a few new breeds they’ve cooked up with genetic engineering. Number two manufacturer of farm equipment in the country. Number three grocery store chain in the South. Oz always said old man Wallace would be printing his own Wallace dollars before we knew it.”

  It takes abandoning the door project and consuming a pot of coffee back at the house, but eventually Georgia tells it all. Elle married Clayton Wallace III after meeting him at the University of Virginia. At the time, he was called Virginia’s most eligible bachelor. They moved to California to start up West Coast operations for Wallace Industries. Elle never told Cousin Georgia all of the details, but from what she gathered from
the local papers, who were happy to reveal the gritty divorce particulars, Clay, as he was called, was a mean son of a bitch who fooled around on Elle just like his father and his father’s father did to their wives.

  The next day, Cousin Georgia informs me that Elle will be joining us for Thanksgiving.

  Visions of Jackie, Elle, and the girls seated at the same table make me wonder what kind of holiday lies ahead.

  The night before Jackie and Louisa arrive, Cousin Georgia makes me drag the tallest Christmas tree in the state of Virginia into the front living room. It takes Jimmy and me an hour of cursing under our breath to get the tree upright in its stand while Osborne and Cousin Georgia direct us: “A little to the left gentleman. Oh, no, that’s much too far to the left; let’s try it again.”

  Jackie calls from the Smokies the next afternoon and says they’ve hit traffic and will be in late. When they are thirty minutes away, she calls again. This sends Osborne into overdrive. He keeps yelling things at Georgia—is the living room cleaned up, where’s Louisa sleeping, where’s Jackie sleeping? At the front picture window, he places a dining room chair right in the middle and takes up a post, squinting out at the darkness every time the glimmer of a headlight beams in the farm’s direction.

  “We must seem like fools to you, Zeke,” Georgia says. “Making such a fuss. But we’re so pleased to have you and your family here for the holiday.”

  She goes back in the kitchen to warm up dinner, in case anyone is hungry, and makes a fresh pan of corn bread.

  “They’re here! They’re here! Right now!” Osborne yells out. From the kitchen, I hear him scramble out of the chair and throw open the front door.

  “It was almost better having him in his room, wasn’t it?” Cousin Georgia says.

  I feel as excited as Osborne, though, and head to the front door. Jackie appears in the doorway.

  “Get your crazy uncle away from the car.”

  She’s never even met Georgia or Osborne. Jackie marches past, saying she’s needed a bathroom for miles. Georgia tells her where the powder room is, ignoring my ex-wife’s lack of manners. By the time I make it to the car, Louisa has stepped out of it. Osborne is grabbing suitcases from the back.

  “Let me do that, Osborne.”

  “I got it,” he says.

  Lou unfolds out of the car. I pull her in for a long hug, inhaling the scents of strawberry shampoo and grape bubble gum. Honora offers the glimmer of a smile when she catches sight of her baby sister. My youngest is like one of the yearlings in Elle’s stables, all legs and pretty as hell.

  Osborne and Honora play tour guide, walking Louisa and Jackie around the house. Looking at Oz right then, no one would guess he was losing his mind. He looks like a man who’d been waiting a long time to share a holiday with young people.

  Thanksgiving day dawns foggy and drizzly. Tucker stirs at the foot of the bed when he hears Georgia creep down the stairs to put the turkey in the oven. I can’t go back to sleep, so I get up. The girls’ room is down the hall and I can’t help myself from peeking in on them. Louisa sleeps sprawled across the bed, legs tangled in the blankets, mouth open wide. As she has grown older, she’s begun to look more like her uncle Carter. She has the same sort of shy smile he did. Honora rests on her side with hands held beneath her chin, a tattered purple elephant from baby­hood tucked in the crook of her arm. Despite the dyed black hair that hides the same golden brown color as her mother’s, Honora looks mainly like a younger version of Jackie. But she’s got my dimples—all three of them, one in each cheek and one in the chin. They are so beautiful, these girls. I linger in the doorway.

  Tucker wanders past me into their room, though I try to call him back. He gives each girl a quick lick across her face before I can drag him out.

  Dinner is set for three o’clock today, though Georgia tells me Elle is planning to come around two. Last night Georgia casually mentioned to the girls and Jackie that Elle would be joining us for Thanksgiving. She referred to Elle as “our dear neighbor and the woman who’s been teaching Ezekiel to ride.” I kept my head down, not trusting myself to look at anyone. I hadn’t mentioned Elle’s name to Honora yet, since I didn’t want to say, This is the woman who taught me to ride and is teaching me about love again but isn’t speaking to me currently.

  Louisa had wanted to know more about the riding lessons. She made me promise she could take a lesson with Elle while she was here. I didn’t say that I doubted Elle would want to oblige me anything at the moment.

  Jackie joins Georgia and me in the kitchen, the smell of roasting turkey already filling the room.

  I pass her a cup of coffee.

  There are dark shadows beneath Jackie’s eyes, as if she didn’t sleep well.

  A strong yeasty odor emerges from the mixing bowl each time Georgia punches the bread dough down. She is showered and dressed in a blouse and skirt beneath an apron with a turkey appliquéd on the front.

  “Ezekiel, why don’t you take Jackie on a walk around the farm? Show her the lake and the horses.”

  When I look at Jackie, she shrugs. This could mean hell no, I don’t want to go, or I don’t care. I ask Georgia if we can help her cook.

  “I’m a one-chef kind of woman, you two. The only help I need is having room to move in the kitchen. So go on.”

  The outside temperature has warmed up to the high fifties. The forecasters got the snow prediction wrong. Oz had said we might take the old sled in the barn out for a run this weekend but it will have to wait. Maybe Christmas. The thought of having Lou and Honora here, snow blanketing the farm, is a good one.

  Jackie walks with her hands in the pockets of her jacket. We set off toward the lake. The oaks are bare above us.

  “Guess who called the house the other night?” she says.

  “No idea.”

  “That jerk kid, Brian. When I figured out it was him, I called him every name under the sun, Zeke, I did. It felt so good. I don’t know why the guy didn’t hang up, but he didn’t, not until I was finished.”

  “Why would he call?”

  “Who cares? I’m glad Honora’s here.”

  We make a lazy loop around the lake. The loblolly pines damaged in the tornado have been taken out, leaving the depressing sight of empty land surrounding the shore. Jackie bends down to pick up a stray twig.

  “Georgia and Osborne have offered me the farm, Jackie.”

  The twig snaps in her hands. It is dropped back on the ground.

  “I’ve accepted. They’ve made me the heir of their estate.”

  “Things seem to be working out for you just fine, don’t they?” Jackie says.

  She turns away and heads back to the house.

  Georgia flutters around trying to get us all to sit down for dinner. Food covers the length of the table—green beans and ham casserole, corn soufflé, yams with brown sugar, mashed potatoes, corn-bread stuffing, ambrosia, rolls. Oz sits at one end dressed in a plaid button-down shirt, his hair still wet from a shower. Several bits of tissue decorate his face from shaving cuts. The arm sling for his collarbone is missing, an act of rebellion sure to provoke Georgia.

  A knock on the front door announces the last guest. Elle apologizes for being late, saying one of her horses is sick. The only seat left at the table is the one to my left. Elle reluctantly takes it. Jackie sits across from us, and I feel her eyes on Elle, assessing. Honora appears to be doing the same thing. Only Louisa seems genuinely pleased by her appearance.

  “You’re the horse woman Cousin Georgia told us about!” she says. “Will you give me a lesson while I’m here?”

  Elle laughs. “You must be Louisa. I’ll give you two lessons if you work hard like your dad.”

  My ear is attuned to the unexpected warmth in Elle’s voice. Maybe she’s not as mad as she was. Jackie shifts her gaze to me. I attempt to keep my ex
pression neutral. Switzerland.

  With Tucker following behind her, Georgia places the turkey in front of Osborne’s plate before taking the seat opposite his. Osborne asks us to bow our heads. “Lord, thank you for this bountiful food and for the good woman who prepared it lovingly for us. Georgia and I are thankful this year for those gathered around this table. Jackie. Honora. Louisa. Ezekiel. Elle. Tucker. We are blessed to share this meal together. Amen.”

  When I open my eyes, Honora and Lou are both smiling. This is the first Thanksgiving since the divorce when all four of us have been together.

  Osborne stands up. He hovers above the turkey, looking at it for a moment before glancing around the table as if searching for a clue of what to do next. His hands clench at his sides. I glance uneasily at Georgia. A minute ticks by. Elle shifts in her seat.

  Honora, who is seated to Oz’s left, stands up. She hands him the carving knife and fork. “Here you go, Oz,” she says, like nothing is wrong.

  “Why, thank you, Honora.”

  And everything is fine.

  After dessert Georgia puts Elle and me on dish duty. Elle fills the sink with soap and water while I gather all the dishes. We are alone in the kitchen, standing side by side as I wash and she dries, neither of us saying a word. Our hands bump occasionally when I give her a clean dish.

  “I forgive you.”

  Elle’s voice makes me almost drop a china cup. She does not look in my direction.

  “But if you ever do it again, I’m gone. And I’ll know if you do. Understand?”

  I want to face her but instead keep my body forward, though I sneak a sideways glance. She looks vulnerable and hurt and I know I have caused it. Somehow a soap bubble has landed on top of her head and I lean in to blow it off.

  “Not so fast. I asked you a question.” The bubble pops silently on one of her curls.

  “I apologize for hurting you and I promise never to do it again. And I understand the consequences if I screw up. But I won’t.” My voice is low but clear.

  “Good,” she says.

  By midnight the marathon Scrabble game has finished, sending Elle home and all the adults to bed. Oz takes a large piece of hummingbird cake and a cup of coffee with him, which, my cousin says, as they ascend the stairs, will keep him up all night. My daughters stay up watching Footloose on the VCR in the living room.