Golden State: A Novel

by Richmond, Michelle

  The Monmouth Plantation, which remained in the Quitman family for nearly a century, is now a luxury bed-and-breakfast with twenty-six acres of lushly maintained grounds. I know, because Tom and I have been there. Years ago, he insisted on taking a driving tour of the Southeast. He wanted to see where I’d come from—not just the town but the region. Plus, he wanted to taste grits and butter beans and fried okra in the land that had made them famous. So we flew down to New Orleans, rented a car, and made our way up I-59, through Slidell and Picayune, Poplarville and Hattiesburg. We spent two nights with my mother and Heather in Laurel before setting off through the driving rain for Natchez.

  We arrived at Monmouth just as the thunderclouds were clearing. We stayed in the main house, which is said to have been saved from the torches of the Union troops by two of Quitman’s daughters. It is an essential element of the southern belle mythology: grand old plantation homes salvaged from Union savagery by acts of female bravery, while the loyal slaves looked on in admiration at their proud and fearless mistresses. During the time of our stay, the owners were renovating the old slave quarters—windowless two-story brick buildings built on the edge of a mosquito-infested pond. Each year I receive a newsletter about goings-on at the former plantation. The most recent one included photos of the old slave quarters, now called Garden Cottages, frilled up with antique dressers, goose down comforters, and gleaming hardwood floors.

  “It’s all been scrubbed clean,” Tom remarked that night in bed. “Like it never happened.”

  “We southerners are good at that,” I said. “Erasing the past, sweeping everything under the rug for outsiders, while obsessing over it in private.”

  I, too, had wiped the slate of my own history clean. No one in my current life could look at me and know I’d gone whole weeks as a kid eating sandwiches of Wonder bread and ketchup, or that I’d had a second cousin, an angry sheriff’s deputy with a stunning resemblance to Elvis, who’d served seven years at the Mississippi State Penitentiary for beating a black teenager to within an inch of his life. An important part of creating a new identity was gradually erasing the old one. You plant new stories like seeds, water them, tend them, until they take root.

  History is made not of facts set in stone but of the stories we tell. As a child in Mississippi, I read textbooks that referred to the War for Southern Independence. In my teachers’ telling, the heroes of that war were Robert E. Lee, Jefferson Davis, and Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson. Of Abraham Lincoln, we learned only that he was a brilliant but misguided man who sought to force his own views on an unwilling people by way of violence.

  A few decades from now, how will the rest of the country construe this moment in history? Will California be remembered as a sovereign state exercising its constitutional right of secession? Or as a rogue and foolish populace bent on destroying the union? What stories will have to be erased to make way for our new narrative?

  Our state history—a mere 160 years old, almost laughable in its brevity—is no match for the long history of this land. We keep building and renaming, erecting our buildings and batteries, our signposts and flags, clearing paths and reimagining the landscape: new trees to replace the old ones, new plants to fight off the never-ending erosion.

  It would be tempting to say that we’ve been stupid all along, that we just keep making the same old mistakes disguised as new ones. One might argue we don’t deserve what we’ve been given, and that the moment the planet burns or freezes or hurtles into some black hole is the moment we’ve been driving toward since the first man crawled out of a cave. But I’m reluctant to ascribe this endless pattern of starting over to human folly or mere hubris. There is more to it than that. We are always looking to do better. The fact that we fail, again and again, the fact that so many of our efforts are deeply misguided, does nothing to diminish the significance of the impulse itself. It is human to start over. It is human to begin again.

  Will California secede? Nothing seems outlandish anymore. I think of Tom peeing side by side with Václav Havel. I think of the orange Avanti. I think of the Prague Spring, which tried and failed to overcome communism in the Czech Republic. Twenty-one years later, Berliners brought down the wall. Twelve years after that, horrifyingly, the Twin Towers fell. Nearly another decade passed before the Arab Spring erupted. History seems slow until you’re in the middle of it, watching the world come apart at the seams, restitch itself country by country, continent by continent, until the map you once took for granted no longer applies.

  50

  12:33 p.m.

  My legs burn. My foot feels like a dead weight holding me back. I finally reach the top of the hill, sweat pouring down my neck, heart pounding. Ethan’s old school stands in front of me. Past the school is the hotel. To the right is Lincoln Park, its slender patch of forest separating the VA from the Legion of Honor.

  A quick movement to the right catches my eye. It’s a coyote, silver and slim, standing no more than five yards from me. He’s so still, so alert, it sends a shiver up my spine.

  Cautiously, I take a step. The coyote stands there, watching me. I make my way across the asphalt, past the empty schoolyard. The school is closed today, out of “an abundance of caution,” according to the memo that went out to VA staff last week. A row of Big Wheels is lined up against the playground fence. In front of the school, the children have planted a garden. Vegetables are growing there, each seedling labeled with a little wooden stake: HIROMI—BEANS, NIRAJ—CARROTS, KAI—ARTICHOKES.

  Cautiously, I proceed toward the hotel. Suddenly, a figure emerges from behind a parked police car. My heart skips a beat.

  “Get down,” he commands.

  It’s a policeman, impossibly young. He can’t be more than twenty-three. His face is red, and in his shaking hands he holds a gun, pointed toward the ground.

  “Down!” he repeats.

  I crouch down beside him, feeling fire in my ankle. “What’s going on? What’s wrong?”

  “We’ve got a situation.”

  “What?”

  “A gunman.”

  Shit. My first thought is, This can’t be real. It must be some sort of emergency drill. But I look at his face and see panic; with a sinking feeling, I realize it is real.

  “My sister’s in there right now.” I point to the hotel. “She’s going to give birth any minute. I have to get to her.”

  He shakes his head. “Trying to cross that parking lot would be suicide.”

  “Where’s the gunman?”

  “He’s holed up in there.” He nods toward the main hospital building.

  On the second floor, a window is open. The breeze lifts the blue curtains up and outward.

  “Where are all the police?”

  “You’re lookin’ at ’em. I called for backup, but there’s a lot of shit going down all over the city.”

  “Do you know who it is?”

  “Some crazy vet apparently came by looking for a doctor. When he couldn’t find her, he went batshit.”

  My mouth goes dry. “Which doctor?”

  “Walton maybe?” He shakes his head.

  “Walker?”

  “Yeah, that’s it.”

  In that instant, I know who it is.

  “Has he been in the hotel?”

  The policeman nods. “He brought a lady out at gunpoint—”

  Oh, no. Not Heather. Please don’t let it be Heather. I struggle to my feet.

  “It’s not safe,” he warns.

  But he must realize I don’t have a choice, because he lets me go. I arrange my crutches and begin walking, as fast as I can go. Swing, step, swing, step. The hotel is only fifty yards away, but the distance feels vast. I glance up at the windows of the hospital. Nothing but the fluttering blue curtains.

  Seconds pass. Swing, step, swing, step.

  I move faster, but it feels as though I’m pushing my way through mud. I’m just ten yards from the hotel now. Five.

  I’m standing at the door. I try the knob, but it won’t open
.

  I’m so very close. I put my shoulder against the door and push, putting my whole body behind the effort. The door gives beneath my weight, and I fall. There is the sound of a gunshot. As my shoulder hits the floor, a terrifying question sears itself into my brain: Is this how it ends?

  51

  Two weeks ago, Heather showed up at my place at four A.M. “Get up,” she said. “Get dressed. We’re taking a road trip.”

  “You can’t,” I said. “You’re about to burst.”

  “I’m fine. I need a change of scenery.”

  “Where are we going?”

  “It’s a surprise.”

  “I can’t just pick up and leave in the middle of the night.”

  “You have the day off.”

  “Still.”

  It had been a very long time since I’d taken a day off from work, even longer since I’d taken a spur-of-the-moment trip, but she was right; there was nothing in the world to keep me from doing it now. If my sister could be spontaneous while carrying around forty extra pounds, just weeks from giving birth to a married man’s child, then surely I could manage a road trip to an unknown destination.

  “Do I need anything special?” I asked, climbing out of bed. “A swimsuit? Hiking shoes?”

  She gestured toward her enormous belly. “A swimsuit? Honestly?”

  “Okay, no swimsuit. What, then?”

  “Dress for comfort. I’ll go put together a snack for the road. You have twenty minutes.”

  “What’s the big hurry?”

  “If we leave soon, we can get there right on time.”

  “Get where? On time for what?”

  “It’s a surprise.”

  I quickly showered and dressed. In the kitchen, Heather was rummaging through the cabinets. “Do you seriously not have a cookie anywhere in this house?”

  “Lorna Doones are always above the stove.”

  “Now you’re talking.” She found the brand-new box and ripped open the cellophane. “God, this takes me back. That is the best smell, ever. Someone should bottle it. Eau de Lorna Doone.”

  Minutes later, we were on the road. Heather was too big to fit comfortably behind the wheel, so she rode shotgun and gave directions.

  “Just get on 101 and keep going,” she said.

  “Petaluma?” I guessed. “Healdsburg?”

  “You’ll know when we get there.”

  Golden Gate Bridge was wrapped in a blanket of white, the massive orange towers hovering over the bay. To our right, the island of Alcatraz floated in the fog, ghostlike. We drove past the houseboats of Marin, and the hills of Tiburon, dotted with multimillion-dollar homes. Past San Quentin, through the brown hills of San Rafael. Heather kept me company for a while, telling funny stories about her long-ago stint in Nashville, with her boyfriend’s failed band. An hour into the drive, she drifted off to sleep, and I turned on the radio. I’d forgotten how much I loved driving in the dark, with few other cars on the road, just the eighteen-wheelers rumbling by with their mysterious payloads. I’d forgotten the thrill of flipping stations, looking for an unfamiliar signal. It was strange how many country stations and evangelists one could discover in the middle of the night.

  At dawn, I reached over and shook Heather gently. “Hey, wake up. How will I know when we get there?”

  “Where are we?” she asked groggily.

  “Cloverdale.”

  “I have to pee.”

  I pulled over at a McDonald’s, where we bought coffee and sausage biscuits. After Heather scarfed hers down, she dusted the crumbs off her lap and announced, “We’ve got a ways to go. Wake me up in an hour.”

  I put in a CD that Tom had made for me years ago and listened to old favorites—Luna, the Jayhawks, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds. We passed the sign for Hopland. I had to admit the countryside was pretty here; for the first time, I understood why Tom loved it.

  When the clock struck seven-thirty, I turned the music up, and Heather jolted awake.

  “We’re just outside of Rio Dell,” I reported.

  “Jesus, how fast are you going?”

  After that, she didn’t fall back asleep, so I knew we must be getting close. We’d just passed the first exit for Fields Landing when she said, “It’s the next one.”

  I swung onto the exit, taking the ramp too fast.

  “Good Lord, you’ll kill us before we get there,” she said, clutching the door handle.

  “Eureka? What are we doing in Eureka?”

  She pulled a piece of paper out of her purse and started reading off the directions. To our left was the Pacific Ocean, draped in fog. To our right, the little shops and houses of the town. While Eureka was colder and bleaker than San Francisco, the coastline looked similar: rugged beaches dotted with ice plant, steep cliffs plunging toward the ocean. We drove past a laundromat and a taqueria, a karate studio with a broken front window, and then we were in a residential area, not very nice, chain-link fences and flat one-story houses fashioned of red brick. The houses gradually got better—not fancy, by any means, but nice enough, two-story stucco affairs with well-maintained lawns and newly paved streets. We were in a development, one of those dime-a-dozen tracts that had sprung up like crazy in the boom years, now featuring foreclosure signs on every block. After a few minutes the houses thinned out a bit. We passed a park, a small community center, a row of churches. “Here,” she said. “Pull in right here.”

  We were in front of a school.

  “What are we doing?” I asked, suddenly feeling uneasy. “Just wait.”

  She glanced at her watch. “Give it ten minutes. All mysteries will be revealed.”

  I fiddled with the dial, growing more and more anxious. Finally, a bell rang, doors were flung open, and dozens of children spilled onto the playground.

  “What are we doing?”

  “We’re spying,” she said.

  “On whom?” My first thought was that it had something to do with her baby. “Are you about to reveal that the father is really nothing more scandalous than a middle school teacher?”

  “This isn’t about me, Jules.”

  “Then what?”

  “Don’t get mad.”

  I understood, then, why we were here, and who I should be looking for. I felt dizzy.

  “How did you—”

  I couldn’t finish. My breath quickened. I was elated and terrified at the same time, not knowing what I would find. The one thing I knew for certain was that I was utterly unprepared for this, for whatever might happen next.

  I looked around. Dozens of kids, barely distinguishable from one another, running around like wild. But then a dark-haired child in a red T-shirt caught my eye. His back was to me. The child began flapping his arms. It lasted only seconds. As abruptly as he’d begun, he stopped, dropping his arms by his sides. And I knew instantly, in that gesture, that it was Ethan.

  I don’t know what I said, if I said anything. I only know that I ached for him. I wanted to see his face, to hold him. I willed him to turn around, but his back remained to me. I pulled the door handle, because all I could think of at that moment was running to him.

  “Wait,” Heather said.

  She was right. I couldn’t very well rush up to him on the playground. I’d scare him. It had been so long since the caseworker had pulled him out of my arms in the family services office in San Francisco; Allison had been his mother for twice as long as I had. He probably wouldn’t even know who I was. He was so close, I couldn’t believe it.

  Ethan stood for several seconds, half a minute maybe, on the edge of the playground, watching the other children. He seemed so isolated, so alone, it was heartbreaking. A cluster of teachers stood by the swings, talking among themselves. Why didn’t any of them come to help him, to usher him into the group?

  Then Ethan raised one arm into the air and shouted, “Over here!”

  “He sounds different …” My voice caught in my throat.

  A group of boys looked up from the game they were playing
and ran over to him. Finally, for a moment, he turned so that I could see him in profile—his sweet face. “Oh, God,” I breathed. “It really is him.”

  The children gathered around, and he began talking animatedly. I couldn’t hear what he was saying, but I imagined he was explaining to them some new game he was making up, right there on the spot. When he was very little, he was always coming up with games, complete with his own complex system of rules and rewards. He gestured this way and that, and the boys paid close attention. Finally, from his pocket, Ethan pulled out a small bouncy ball. He tossed it into the air, and the boys scrambled for it. I was overcome with happiness.

  “Look at that,” Heather said. “He’s the ringleader.” She reached over and put her hand on mine. “Jules?”

  My face was wet. “It’s really him.”

  I got out of the car and went toward the fence; it felt as though a magnet were pulling me. I wanted to be closer. I stood there watching him play, hearing his sweet, wonderful voice rise up from the din of the playground. His beautiful curls had been cut short—I ached to touch his hair, remembering how he’d loved to run his fingers through it, a way of soothing himself to sleep. His face had changed, too. It was thinner. His whole body was leaner. He was all boy now, no traces remained of the baby he’d been when he first came into my life. He was strong and athletic, and he moved with confidence. He was smiling, laughing, shouting orders.

  “Oh, my God,” I murmured, laughing. “He’s bossy.” Of course, he’d been bossy even when he was little. Why would that have changed?