by Tamar Myers
“Welcome,” she said. “It was nice of you to come.”
I was at a loss for words.
She stood carefully and extended her right hand. “I’m Leona Teschel,” she said.
I hesitated, and then reached for her hand, which was waving like a tendril in a gentle breeze. I wondered if she was drunk, or suffering from palsy.
“Hi, I’m Abigail Timberlake.” I hadn’t meant to divulge my name. At least not so early in my investigation.
When I spoke she adjusted her stance and her eyes raised to find mine. I realized with a start that Leona Teschel was blind.
“You a friend of Billy Ray’s?” she asked. A milky film covered her blue-gray eyes, but they seemed to be fixed on mine.
“Well, not exactly. I mean—”
“From North Carolina? South?”
A chill ran up my spine. “How did you know?”
“Your accent, child.”
For the first time I heard the faint dulcet sound of Carolina in her voice. In a reverse way she reminded me of a neighbor of Mama’s who moved to South Carolina from Chicago when she was thirteen. Most of the time Dorothy Mitchell sounds like a native of Rock Hill, but every now and then a strong “r” escapes her transplant lips.
Perhaps I should have been wary of establishing a stronger connection. Since I assumed Leona was Billy Ray’s mother, I should have offered her my condolences and left. I wasn’t expecting to share a private graveside moment with her. I was, in a nutshell, woefully unrehearsed.
“I’m originally from Rock Hill,” I heard myself say. “But I live in Charlotte now.”
She smiled broadly. “I’m from Gastonia. I’m sure you know where that is.”
I nodded foolishly. “Yes, ma’am.”
“And you came all the way up here for Billy Ray’s interment?” She said “interment” with the same care I would use in trying on a diamond tiara.
“Yes, ma’am.” Okay, so there wasn’t even a smidgen of truth to that. But I had very little experience lying to the disabled.
“Mind if I sit?” she asked.
I motioned that it was fine. One of the advantages to being vertically challenged is that I don’t feel like a towering idiot when others are sitting. Suddenly I remembered that she couldn’t see. “Please. Go ahead.”
She sat with a sigh. “I’m sorry I can’t offer you a chair. I only brought this one.”
“That’s all right, Mrs. Teschel. I can’t stay long anyway.” I slipped off my sandals and let the grass caress my feet. She wasn’t going to know the difference. “Excuse me, ma’am, but when exactly will the service be?”
“There won’t be no service,” she said quietly.
“I see.” Of course I didn’t.
“My son”—that was the first confirmation I had of their kinship—“didn’t want no funeral. And there weren’t any need for a burial. He was cremated, you know.”
Of course. That made sense. From what Greg described, there wasn’t enough of Billy Ray Teschel left to fill a lunch box. It was a miracle that his wallet survived.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“You’re the only one who showed up—and you came all the way from Carolina.”
“The only one?” I didn’t mean to sound so dramatic.
“A body doesn’t need company to distribute the ashes. There”—she pointed in the general direction of the red maple’s trunk—“is where I put him. All around the base of this tree. And I didn’t just scatter them ashes either. I interred them.”
I said nothing. In the distance a crow cawed.
“In here”—she leaned over and patted the valise—“I brought my gardening tools, you see. I dug little holes, and poured my Billy Ray’s cremains into them. Then I covered them. The wind ain’t going to blow my Billy Ray around no more.”
I glanced at the base of the tree. Sure enough, the grass had been disturbed in spots, but it would have been reasonable to guess that a squirrel had been busy burying nuts.
“You picked a lovely place,” I said. “This is a beautiful tree.”
“My Artie planted it—Billy’s daddy. This is the Teschel family plot. Once there were lots of Teschels hereabouts.”
I looked around. Indeed, the Teschel name seemed to be everywhere.
“But now there is only me,” she said with a little laugh, “and I ain’t even a Teschel by blood.”
“Blood isn’t everything,” I said.
“You couldn’t tell that to a Teschel.” Tears escaped from the sightless eyes and began slowly tracing their way down and over the ponderous cheeks.
I brushed a cloud of gnats away from my face. “Mrs. Teschel, how did you get here? I mean to the cemetery. There isn’t any car. Did someone drop you off?”
“I took me a taxi.”
I was both saddened and intrigued. “Hernia has a taxi service?”
She shook her head. “I called the one in Bedford.”
“How were you going to get home?”
She tilted her chin, temporarily disrupting the flow of tears. “Walk. I can do it if it’s just one way.”
“How about if I give you a ride back?”
She turned her head away. The tears had begun to flow faster.
“That would be mighty nice, Miss Timberlake. Thank you.”
“You’re quite welcome.”
“And then maybe you can stay for tea,” she said.
I rolled my eyes. It was practically an involuntary action. I certainly meant no disrespect. Besides, she couldn’t see me, remember?
“That would be lovely,” I said. Once again I proved that I can get myself into an infinite number of jams.
Mrs. Leona Teschel lived on Eighth Street in a two-bedroom home with white aluminum siding and one scraggly Japanese yew planted by the front door. A six-inch stump was evidence that there had once been a pair. In the side yard, which needed cutting badly, four concrete blocks supported the body of a 1962 Chevy Bel Air. The once blue car—now predominantly rust-colored—had no doors, and since Mrs. Teschel had no garage, the former vehicle made a handy, if somewhat crowded, storage shed. I couldn’t help noticing several mops, a rake, a reel push-mower, and a badly dented barbecue. Clearly this was not Hernia’s high-rent district.
My hostess put her folding chair and tools in what remained of the back seat, and then, carrying the empty bag, led me up the cracked driveway, along a narrow sidewalk in even worse condition, and to the front door. She seemed to know exactly where to put her feet.
“Watch the top step,” she said. “It’s broke.”
“Thank you.”
“And be careful not to lean on the railing. It’s loose.”
We got inside without incident.
Mrs. Teschel set the valise down beside the door. “Please sit there,” she said, pointing directly to a walnut rocking chair with a worn needlepoint seat. Then she gestured at the window. “I keep them curtains closed, because it’s cooler this way.”
I sat. There was only one other seat in the combination living-dining room, a dinette chair with an aluminum frame and brown plastic seat and backrest. The latter sported a long diagonal gash through which the padding had begun to work its way loose.
“I’ll have a jar of sweet tea made in a jiffy,” she said. “Just like in Carolina.”
We drank lukewarm sweet tea from Mason jars. In the background I could hear the refrigerator humming, so I assumed Mrs. Teschel had electricity. Did she prefer to drink her tea warm, or had she forgotten to make ice cubes? Nobody I knew in South or North Carolina drank their sweet tea at room temperature.
“Tell me about your son,” I said. I am not an expert at comforting bereaved persons, but I understand that most are actually eager to talk about the departed ones. I know this sounds like self-serving rationalization, but my intentions were good for a change.
“Billy Ray”—her voice trailed—“do you mind if we talk about me?”
“Not at all, dear.” I took a sip of tea.
&
nbsp; “You see, because what happened to Billy Ray was all my fault.”
“The accident?” I asked incredulously.
“Yes, in way. But that was at the end. I want to—no, I need to—start right at the beginning. Can you set for a while?”
I glanced at my watch. The hands were barely visible in the dim light. The auction would undoubtedly last for several more hours. The only one to suffer would be Dmitri.
“You go right on ahead,” I said. “I have all the time in the world.”
13
Leona Rose Grady came into the world with wide-open eyes that never saw the light of day. She was the first of eleven children born to Patrick Grady, a textile mill worker in Gastonia, North Carolina, and his wife Rose, an inveterate breeder. The ten subsequent children—all boys—were all healthy.
In the Grady family tasks were divided strictly along gender lines. From as far back as she could remember little Leona was expected to help her mother with household chores and care for her little brothers. Leona’s blindness was never an issue, certainly never an excuse. By the time she was five, Leona could change diapers (cloth diapers with sharp pins) as well as her mother. By her seventh birthday, Leona could heat up milk without burning herself.
Although Rose Grady excelled at having babies at fourteen-month intervals, she suffered from frequent bouts of severe depression. Three weeks after her eleventh child was born, Rose drove to nearby Crowder’s Mountain State Park and threw herself off the Pinnacle. An autopsy revealed that baby number twelve was on its way.
Rose’s mother was already dead, so on the day of Rose’s funeral, Mawmaw Grady moved in to lend a helping hand. Unfortunately Mawmaw was a heavy drinker who spent the better part of each day sitting with her hands folded in her lap, sleeping off a drunk. Little Rose, who had never been to school, spent her days cleaning up after her grandmother, changing and feeding the little ones, and cooking her father’s supper. At night, more often than not, she lay awake listening to her father and his mother fighting. Church was the only thing she looked forward to. At Pentecostal Holiness Church being blind didn’t matter. The music and the spirited preachers made life bearable.
Leona managed to care for her siblings, Mawmaw, and her father, who was well on his way to becoming an alcoholic himself, for three more years. On Christmas Eve, when she was fifteen, Leona met Artie Teschel at church. Leona didn’t realize at the time that Artie, a native Pennsylvanian who was in town on a construction project, was twenty-eight years her senior. Not that it would have mattered.
Artie began calling on Leona, and although Mawmaw managed to put a stop to his visits, the two found time to be alone. By Valentine’s Day Leona was pregnant. The couple believed themselves to be deeply in love, and on one of his sober days Leona’s father agreed to sign his consent to their marriage. After leaving the justice of the peace, the two climbed into Artie’s brand-new 1962 Chevy Bel Air, and headed north to Pennsylvania. They never looked back.
“You’ve never been home since?” I asked incredulously.
“This is my home. After I married Artie my family wouldn’t have nothin’ to do with me. Not my Mawmaw, not my Daddy, not one of my brothers. No, ma’am, this is my home. This is the house me and Artie moved into. This was his Mama’s house. ’Course it didn’t look this good then. Had wood sides. Artie and me saved a long time for them aluminum sides.”
“They’re very nice.”
She nodded. “Artie’s Mama was alive when we first moved in. That woman hated me from the get go. ‘The only thing worse than white trash, is blind white trash,’ she said. After that she wouldn’t even speak to me.”
“That’s awful!”
Mrs. Teschel leaned forward and I was concerned that the dinette chair would tip over. “I don’t mind telling you, the day that woman died was the second happiest day of my life. First was leaving Gastonia, of course.”
“You poor dear.”
She sat back. “Don’t you be feeling sorry for me, child. I’ve had me a good life. I had my Artie. That man was pure heaven.”
“And you had Billy Ray.”
She frowned. “Yes. I ’spose that was really the happiest day of my life—the day Billy Ray was born. He was a piece of Artie that no mama-in-law, no matter how mean, could take away. But…” Her voice trailed off,
“Yes?”
“Well, things don’t always work out now, do they? The Good Lord gave me Billy Ray, but I kind of just let him slip through my fingers.”
“What do you mean?”
“There’s evil in this world, you know. It’s all around us. Yes, ma’am, the devil and his angels are hard at work.”
She paused, and I couldn’t help swiveling my neck, hoping to catch a glimpse of the old boy himself.
That woman had the sixth sense. “’Course we can’t see it, child. There’s no use looking with your eyes. Anyway, my little boy fell into bad company—” her voice broke and I waited for her to continue. “It was my fault, you see. If I’da been a better mama, he wouldn’t be out to Woodlawn now, poked in all them bitty holes around that tree.”
It was time to step in. “Your son was killed in a car accident, dear. You were not responsible for that.”
“Yes, ma’am, I was. Billy Ray was up to something no good the day he died, you can count on that. Now the Good Lord has seen fit to send him to his judgment, and leave me with a broken heart.”
I felt terrible. Half of me wanted to give her a hug—although I was sure she would rebuff me—the other half wanted to reach down her throat and pull out the truth about Billy Ray.
“I’m sorry,” I said, trying desperately to walk that fine line between pity and sympathy. “What do you think your son was up to the day he died?”
She shrugged. “But it weren’t anything good. He went wild after his daddy died. You see, our boy was only ten when it happened—well, that was my fault too, on account of I married a man so much older than myself. My little boy—”
“But your husband was still a young man when he passed,” I interjected. “If you don’t mind telling me, how did he die?”
She shook her head. “Heart attack. All them Teschels have weak hearts. You see, child, if I hadn’ta been born blind, I coulda married a younger man. Then Billy Ray coulda had his daddy longer.”
“Yes, but then you wouldn’t have had your Artie.”
“My Artie! First my Artie, now my Billy.”
“Are you all alone, Mrs. Teschel? I mean, do you have anyone else up here? Some of your husband’s relatives? Surely they’re not all like his mother.”
“Ha!” She literally spat on the floor. I was stunned.
I sipped my tea slowly. “Friends?” I asked at last.
“There’s my church. They’re all the friends and family I need.”
“That’s wonderful, dear.” I wasn’t sure I believed her, but I wanted to. Frankly, I was feeling guilty for having intruded on her life. I had no proof that Billy Ray had ever done me any wrong, but alive or dead, he was a source of intense pain for his mother.
“You a churchgoer?” she asked.
“Christmas and Easter. Weddings and funerals. That kind of thing.”
“You ought to go more.”
I agreed. “Which church do you belong to?” I asked pleasantly. On my way back to Bedford I would drive by her church and give her surrogate family a piece of my mind. What kind of friends and family were they to leave her alone on the day she buried her son? Why was not at least the minister at the cemetery, if only to give her comfort? And why were there no casseroles waiting on the step for her return?
“The First and Only True Church of the One and Only Living God of the Tabernacle of Supreme Holiness and Healing and Keeper of the Consecrated Righteousness of the Eternal Flame of Jehovah.” She said it in one breath.
“Excuse me?”
“That’s the name of my church. It’s up by the turnpike, before you get to Bedford. You ought to go.”
I promised to think
about it, if I was still in the area by Sunday. Then, with guilt nagging at the nucleus of every cell, I bade my farewell.
Sam Yoder of Yoder’s Corner Market was the first Hernian to get a piece of my mind. He didn’t belong to the church with thirty-three words in its name, but that was beside the point.
“You should be ashamed of yourself,” I said, waggling my finger.
He looked genuinely surprised. “I beg your pardon?”
“I was in here earlier this afternoon asking about the Teschel family.”
He gave me a once-over which, in my case, doesn’t usually take long. “So you were. What about it?”
“What about it?” I nearly shrieked. “You said the funeral procession had just passed your store. You neglected to say that you were making fun of a little old blind lady.”
Sam blinked, but it was going to take a hammer and chisel to open those lips.
I put my hands on my hips. It doesn’t make me look any taller, but I feel that it gives me extra presence.
“Well?”
I was right. Sam just ignored me, and went about his tasks as a grocer as if I wasn’t there. Finally, after he had waited on three customers and set up a display of Blue Lake French-style green beans, he turned to me with a sigh.
“How old are you, miss?”
“That is none of your damn business, sir.”
“Well, I’d say you’re about my age. Maybe a few years younger. At any rate, you’re old enough to know that there are at least two sides to every story.”
“What’s your point?”
“Leona Teschel tell you hers?”
“She is not responsible for her son’s actions. She is certainly not responsible for Billy Ray’s death.”