Graceland

by Lynne Hugo

  The soft side of Claire is the one Ellie generally sees, though Claire certainly doesn’t laugh as much as she used to, nor spend a lot of time on girlish things, probably because she has nephritis in her feet bothering her now. It used to be Claire who would sit and listen to old Elvis concerts on tape with Ellie, and compare him unfavorably to other stars, but now she’s immersed in books and spends a lot of time writing. Once, while Claire showered, Ellie flipped open the notebook Claire keeps with her, all the time it seems. Kevin, my love, was on the top line beneath May 20, which was five days after the accident that had killed Brian. Claire’s steady, unadorned script covered page after page. Ellie thought her heart would break, though she only got as far as June 2, when the bathroom door opened abruptly and Claire appeared with a turban-style towel on her head. Ellie thought she had reacted quickly enough, sliding the notebook to her side and shifting her torso to hide it while she pretended to adjust the two throw pillows on the couch. Claire did not appear to notice, but after that, the notebook disappeared.

  You won’t believe my aunt Ellie, Claire had written. She went to the hospital by herself to get the dialysis review, and even though it’s obvious that she can hardly bear it, and it’s really unnecessary, she stays with me when I do an exchange. Four times a day and again at night—it’s like having an umbilical cord all over again. I hate it. I just want my old, normal life and your old, normal life back.

  “You’re damn right I can hardly stand it,” Ellie had whispered, but then she allowed herself a little secret smile.

  Ellie understands Claire writing to Kevin all too well. She’s written to Elvis so many times, inking pages with her frustrations, angers, fears and longings. But she never thought he would wake from the dead and answer her—that’s the difference between Ellie and Claire. Claire still has hope.

  Ellie hasn’t written anything in a while. There just hasn’t been time. Claire had noticed—not the absence of Ellie’s notebook, of course, nobody even knew about that—but she’d mentioned something else in the notebook of letters to Kevin: She’s actually not mentioning Elvis in every other sentence.

  At first, when Ellie read that she felt guilty. She hadn’t meant to be unfaithful in her remembering of Elvis. Finally, she had shrugged. She was doing the best she could, and Elvis was the kind of man who would understand that. Even if there had been time, Ellie’s book to Elvis is still stuffed between the mattress and the box spring back at Mama and Daddy’s house. Strange how little they’ve called her, even since the phone’s been turned on here, compliments, again, of Wayne. Two days ago, Mama said they’d had Kraft Macaroni and Cheese for supper and she’d opened canned peaches for desert.

  “Charles doesn’t like peaches,” Ellie objected.

  “I told him they were big grapes and he scarfed them right down,” Mama answered with an edge of pride that cut Ellie.

  “I guess I can come tomorrow in the afternoon after I help Claire with her exchange, that’s what it’s called when she does her dialysis,” Ellie countered on the phone. “It’ll be late, though—it’s pretty complicated.”

  “No need. We got plenty groceries in the house. Daddy took me. You take care of yourself…and Claire.”

  Ellie turned the conversation over and over like a rare rock in her mind’s eye, searching out its clues to the history of how her world had formed, how and where it would end.

  Once, a bird had been trapped in the one-car garage at the house and had batted itself frantically against the walls. Ellie had taken an upturned broom to try to encourage it toward the open door. The bird, a sparrow, she thought, plain and brown, had gone everywhere but out. Ellie feels like that same bird is inside her, banging itself against the walls of her body, reminding her that she has no idea of what she’s doing when she gets into these conversations with Claire about college.

  “I told you. I’m going,” Claire says. “How about I make us chicken fajitas tonight? Low potassium, no salt. Salt’s not good for you, either, you know.”

  “Dr. Douglas said probably not first quarter, anyway, you know, till we know everything’s working okay.”

  “College is on semesters, not quarters. You’re thinking of high school. See, that makes a big difference, because it’s the whole first half.” How can Ellie argue with that?

  “Dr. Douglas said that you could stay here and take classes at the NKU branch.”

  “That’s where my mother goes,” Claire answers flatly, then, after a pause, continues in her unassailable way, as if Ellie has spoken, which she hasn’t. “That’s not the point. I’m going to Louisville. I wonder when I’ll hear about my dorm assignment.”

  “But…”

  “Look,” Claire says, sweetly, swiveling to pick something off the kitchenette counter so that her back is momentarily to Ellie. “Did you see this catalog that came from Penney’s? I saw a dress in here that would look so good on you. Have you ordered from the catalog before, or do you usually go to the downtown store?”

  Ellie remembers Lydie telling her how Claire had loved Wessel, an old, well-endowed private college, the third school she’d looked at. It was beautiful, Lydie said, with old, brick buildings connected by winding paths beneath canopies of high branches. The students were friendly, the academic standards top-notch and yes, she could get certified to teach French if she decided to go in that direction, although they strongly encouraged their students to go straight on to graduate school. “We’ll see…if you get enough financial aid…” Lydie said she’d told Claire, and Claire had set out to get it.

  And had. Just the way Claire had declared that hell and high water could both come, while Dr. Douglas stood on her head and spit wooden nickels; it wasn’t going to stop her from graduating with her class. “And I did, didn’t I?” she’d reminded Ellie during one of these go-rounds a couple of days ago.

  “Well, yes, but that’s…” Ellie picks at loose skin around her thumb. It comes loose with a little snap and she drops it onto the rough tweedy blue sofa. Presley, curled by her side, flicks an ear. A prick of blood appears, and Ellie quickly wipes it off. It reappears immediately, over and over.

  “You see? I know what I can do. Peritoneal dialysis is no big deal. Please don’t worry, Eleanor, I’ll be fine.” Claire had taken to dropping the aunt during these discussions, and calling her Eleanor. Ellie had to admit it: the girl was good. But Ellie is getting better. She knows she can keep Claire in one place during her dialysis, so every day or two she braces herself and brings it up. Not that she is making any headway, but she’s trying to introduce the notion of Claire not going away without specific mention of the images of a kidney transplant in her own head: glass and steel and small blinking lights, masked doctors, the flash of a scalpel, blood. More than enough to leave Ellie quite light-headed.

  “I’m so tired tonight,” Claire says. She pours herself a small glass of orange juice from the refrigerator. “Do you mind if I turn in early?” She raises her voice over the television. Ellie is watching the CBS Sunday Night Movie, something about a woman sleeping with her best friend’s son, based on a true story. Ellie could tell a true story if she wanted to.

  “Of course not. Are you feeling okay? Did you count that juice into your allotment?” Ellie’s voice squeaks a little. The dialysis nurse had told her to watch for fatigue, nausea, poor appetite, swelling feet and ankles, the flush of fever or rising blood pressure, any flu-like symptoms, which could mean peritonitis. Ellie thinks rising blood pressure might squeeze the soul right out of the body when it gets too tight in there and the thought scares her. Elvis had had high blood pressure.

  “Here’s the pencil, here’s the paper,” Claire says lightly, gesturing to the running total of her daily liquid intake.

  Ellie sleeps lightly, listens for Claire among the too-close neighbor night noises, and she does hear her when she vomits, as quiet as Claire tries to be. This after Claire hardly touched her own fajita. No matter what Claire says, Ellie is going to call Dr. Douglas in the morning.
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  CHAPTER 32

  I never did catch so much as a glimpse of Claire after the ceremony. John and I slipped into the crowd of families pushing after the seniors. I could see them bunched together looking like a flock of penguins headed for the lobby, some waving their hats and craning their necks, or even walking backward, trying to spot someone. Of course, the families were calling their names and trying to see over the throng, a grand, joyous melee. I turned into the hall that led away from the lobby, past empty classrooms to another exit. John walked beside me but we kept more than two arm lengths between us.

  Night had overtaken the school and parking lot. John and I didn’t say anything, but he stayed nearby as I headed for my car, and I assumed he was seeing me to it safely. When I reached it, though, he said, “Please let me take you home. I don’t think you should be alone right now, and I know I don’t care to be.”

  His face, illuminated faintly by one street lamp, looked youthful, much the way I remembered him eighteen years ago. He’d gotten his hair cut, and dressed in a dark suit and red patterned tie, like a proud parent. I didn’t know if Wayne had bothered to wear a coat and tie. It was always I who told him when an occasion required it. Not all of the fathers had, but the ones who hadn’t stood out. Claire and I had bought her graduation dress and shoes almost a month before the accident, and I was glad of it. I knew she had what she needed. Wayne must have taken them out of her closet when he took the supplies out of the basement.

  “All right,” was all I said to John, and handed him the keys to my Ford. When he got in the driver’s seat, he let the seat back all the way and changed the rearview mirror. Then he reached out and changed the side mirror, too. The details that fit me all switched around to accommodate him. Wayne used to do that, too, and never put anything back, like the way he’d leave cherry pits on the end table in the living room and I’d find them, sticky and wizened, the next day. In the mornings, now, the end tables are clean when I go out to turn the coffeepot on, and I pull my nightgown off over my head on my way back toward the bathroom. I can walk through my house wearing nothing but my bare breasts, an old pair of Claire’s bikini underpants with frayed elastic and a certain…well, freedom.

  After we’d traveled a block or two, I startled. “What about your car?”

  “We’ll come back and pick it up later,” he said. “I’m parked out on the street, anyway.”

  I’d assumed that by “take you home,” John had meant my home, but I realized shortly that we were heading the wrong way. “We can go to my place,” he said. “I put a bottle of champagne in the refrigerator, hoping we could…”

  “That was nice of you,” I said. “I appreciate…”

  “Listen, Lydie. I think I have some idea of what you put into being a mother to Anna Claire. It kills me that you’re being cheated out of celebrating with her. It’s so unfair…”

  Maybe it was just that I couldn’t bear to talk about what I was missing. “I imagine you’ve got some feelings yourself, tonight,” I said.

  “Yeah. I do. But I’ve got what I deserve.” His voice grated over his throat.

  I looked over at him then, his eyes glittery. I touched his shoulder, and when he reached out his hand, I held it. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’ve no right to this. None at all. I want to help you, that’s the point, not me.”

  “Thanks,” I said, all I could manage, and except for a brief word here or there, we rode in silence the rest of the way.

  I’d not been to John’s before: a condo, large-roomed and airy, with big windows and creamy walls. Traditional furniture in neutral colors. A brick fireplace with a carved wooden mantel, something like Maddie’s, and prints—mainly landscapes—hung low over tables with small sculptures carefully placed. A potted Norfolk pine and a tall ficus tree are spotlit from the floor; a reading lamp is adjusted to the side of a leather recliner by the one wall of floor-to-ceiling bookshelves; the living room says sink into me and rest.

  John took off his suit jacket and loosened his tie. “Take your shoes off, Lydie, get comfortable,” he said, gesturing toward the sofa. “I’ll get the champagne.” I heard him in the kitchen, opening the refrigerator, then opening cabinet doors. A moment later, he emerged with a towel and green bottle. “Moet,” he said. “Good stuff.” The cork popped perfectly into the towel and he set the bottle down in front of me. He’s done this many times before, I thought, but dismissed it, too tired to fuss inside myself. So what? He’s had his life to deal with, I’ve had mine.

  He disappeared into the kitchen again and came back with two crystal champagne flutes, a plate of shrimp and a little dish of cocktail sauce, and a plate of cheese and crackers on a tray. When he put the tray down, I saw that he’d also bought little party napkins with mortarboards, balloons and Congratulations on them. They matched the invitations I’d bought for Claire’s graduation party, though, of course, John couldn’t have known that.

  John brought two white tapered candles in sterling candlesticks from the dining-room table and put them on either side of the bottle of champagne. “Busy, busy, busy,” he teased, pretending to wipe sweat off his forehead with one of the napkins. “Just one more thing, then I’ll join you.” He disappeared into the kitchen again and I heard the refrigerator door open and close. He came back with a vase of pink roses surrounded by greenery and baby’s breath. “These are for you, to thank you.”

  He poured two glasses of champagne and handed one to me. “A toast,” he said. “To Anna Claire and her mother.”

  We finished the bottle over the next two hours. John asked questions about Claire. I fed him answers like fresh green grapes, pulling them off the stem one at a time and raising them to his open mouth. Her Girl Scout cooking badge with the crêpes suzette masterpiece. Falling off the balance beam in gymnastics, and how she’d played “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” over and over on the violin until I thought my last brain cell would commit suicide when she was in the fourth grade. How she’d started her periods in December of the year she was twelve, exactly like me. Her first boyfriend, the one in serious need of a personality; her second boyfriend, the one from Zit City; and, now, Kevin. “When I taught her to drive,” I said, “it was so funny, she refused to back up.” He laughed with me, long and deliciously, the way parents share moments.

  Then I told him more about when she had the first infection, how we’d thought she was just in a bedwetting phase from bad dreams, and the damage that had been done to the big kidney by the time we knew what was wrong. “I felt like the little wheel was turning all the time, but the mouse was dead. You know? I was so afraid all the time that I shut out everything but Claire. I couldn’t get out of the crisis mode. I felt like an enormous elephant had just stepped out of thin air and onto us—then, later, the elephant disappeared back into the air, and I couldn’t get up from being flattened. Finally, I sort of forced myself back to life—that’s when I started taking classes at NKU, to distract myself as much as anything else. I was…hovering, you know, couldn’t let her out of my sight. I just got better at hiding it, I guess.”

  “I have something I have to tell you,” he said, looking away, across the room. “The elephant didn’t step out of thin air. My father had it, and so did one of his sisters. There is a family history. When Dr. Douglas told you I wasn’t a match…look, that wasn’t the whole truth. I have it, too, the one undersized kidney, I mean. It’s a hereditary trait. From my father’s side. He had it. I should have told you back then, though I can’t say I really thought of it, honestly—but, there’s no excuse, I should have told you when you first called me about being tested. Gutless. See, no one’s had anything happen to the good kidney, no one’s had to be on dialysis, or needed a transplant, let alone died.” John finally looked at me. “I don’t think I realized the full implications of having it, though we always knew it could be serious. There’s no excuse, I don’t claim one. When you called, I just couldn’t… I’m sorry, Lydie. So sorry. I should have told you.”

  I was sure tha
t I was missing a piece. Maybe he was telling me that there was another source. “What about the boys?”

  “Both the boys have it, Mark the worst. Nathan’s little kidney does function moderately, but Mark’s not so much. We’ve been so…lucky. Their good kidneys haven’t been stressed, no infection, no injury, it’s been…okay.”

  “So you knew you couldn’t donate, and you let me get my hopes up…you let me believe? You didn’t tell me this could happen when you knew I was pregnant? Maybe I could have done something, maybe there was a way not to have her good kidney have to work so hard. You knew? You got Dr. Douglas to lie to me?” I was shouting at him by the end, incredulous and outraged, some taut wire in the center of my body vibrating unbearably.

  “She didn’t lie. She just told you I wasn’t a match. I wouldn’t give her permission to disclose information, she would have had to have my written consent. I did go see her, when you thought I was being tested, I mean. I wanted to give Claire my kidney and go on dialysis myself. I’d wait for the cadaver donor.”

  That slowed me down. That, and that I could see his shame. Maybe I’d had too much to drink, or maybe I’ve just become so tired of feelings I couldn’t hold on to any of them anymore. Maybe I needed someone as base and alone as me. Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who have trespassed against us. I used to pray it. I’d like to give myself that fine an intent. John is not a strong man. Surely I’d known that for long enough. The truth is, though, it was my old weakness that rose in me, my need. I touched his cheek, then nudged his face up and around until he looked me in the eye. In the semidarkness, I couldn’t tell the pupil of his eye from the iris, they looked that black. “It might not have changed anything for me to know,” I lied.

  Tears, for the second time that night, came to his eyes. I leaned toward him, next to me on the couch in this room of soft shadows, and opened my arms. He moved toward me and at first I was holding him, then he was holding me; the weight of us shifted back and forth between our bodies and then combined until we were holding each other equally.