Regulations had closed mines and left families without support. Few could find work. Two hours to a good job was near impossible. He knew because he kept tabs and Dora Lee railed at him about his highfalutin lifestyle while she starved on the dole. Thirty-two miles was a long way to travel for a loaf of bread, but not too far to exchange her welfare draw for cases of Pepsi she could trade on the black market for OxyContin. A soda-pop currency.
His vision of Appalachia, he knew, was tainted by a childhood with Dora Lee.
Already missing the soothing company in Honey Ridge, Hayden tugged his blue University of Kentucky ball cap low and sipped the thermos of coffee he’d filled at the one convenience store fifteen miles back.
People here were careful of their friends and deeply suspicious of strangers. He made a point to blend in by thickening his accent, and to remind himself of who he really was, he donned grubby jeans and an old T-shirt topped by plaid flannel. He knew how to blend. He did, after all, belong here.
A hot, hollow sickness had settled in his gut the moment he’d crossed the line from Tennessee into Kentucky. Homesickness, yearning and pure dread.
The Riley gathering, coupled with a guilt he shouldn’t have to feel and the latest phone call from Dora Lee, had sent him, quite literally, running for the hills.
He could not start something with Carrie that he’d never be able to finish.
He was a fraud. She was an open book.
At least twice a year, Dora Lee wore him down, guilted him enough that he made the trip deep into the impoverished hills and thick woods of the so-called white ghetto. UPS didn’t even deliver this far back in the woods. He knew because he’d tried.
He didn’t kid himself about his reasons for being here this time. He was running scared, something he’d stopped doing long ago. He’d run here because of Carrie, to escape temptation and to remind himself once again of all the reasons he couldn’t fall in love with Carrie Riley.
She’d invited him in. She’d offered him her heart. Her beautiful, tender heart.
His pulse thumped with a hard, dreadful beat as he rounded the final curve and turned off onto the last stretch of dirt and grass leading to his childhood home, a trailer house exhausted by time and worn down by weather and neglect. Up on blocks and sagging in the middle, the wretched dwelling looked better than its surroundings.
Dora Lee never favored cleaning. Trash went out the front door. Or the back. Or sometimes stayed where it fell.
He swallowed a thick, nasty taste. He’d paid two teenagers to clean this up last summer. Dora Lee had been furious, hounding him to give her the money instead.
Maybe he should have. It would have done about as much good.
The weight of who he was pressed down, as heavy as the hills and as black as the heart of a coal mine. This house did that to him. No matter what his book bio said, he was still the dirty little boy from Appalachia, the boy whose mother would rather see him hungry and cold than to do without her cigarettes or pills.
Just once he wished he could dwell on his father instead of her.
He parked the rental on a patch of overgrown grass, hoping he wouldn’t ruin a tire and be trapped here. Thirty miles down the mountain to the nearest service station was a long hike.
As he exited the car, shoulders stooped and steps heavy, the fresh, clean mountain air drenched in the morning’s foggy mist wrapped around him.
Drawing it in as if for strength, Hayden maneuvered past a discarded electric heater, a rusted water bucket that made him flinch, a broken plastic chair.
Propped against the gray siding, a filthy mattress bore a large blackened center, an indication that Dora Lee or one of her friends had fallen asleep again with a cigarette. God only knew why she hadn’t burned herself to death by now.
How do I help someone who doesn’t want to be helped?
He tapped at the door, splintered by time and impatience, before scraping it open an inch. “Dora Lee.”
No answer.
“Dora Lee. Are you home?”
The smell wafted out and insulted the mountain air. Stale smoke and food and the earthy odor of humanity.
The sound of movement and then a curse before she yanked the door fully open. For a long moment, she only stared.
Dora Lee must have been pretty once with her baby-blue eyes and golden hair, now as unkempt as the interior of her house. Living on cigarettes and painkillers, she was too thin, her skin sallow and eyes hollow. A purple splotch stained the front of the blue belted robe he’d sent her last Christmas.
She put her weight on one hip, lip curled in distaste. “What are you doing here?”
Hayden always swore he wouldn’t let her hurt him. She always did.
Like a child caught doing wrong, he shifted from boot to boot. “You called me—remember?”
The phone call had come at a propitious moment as he’d driven away from Carrie’s house. Dora Lee had threatened to kill herself, and this time he’d grabbed the excuse to leave Honey Ridge and get his thoughts together.
She didn’t look the least bit suicidal. She never did. Not once in the half-dozen times he’d rushed like a wild man to be sure she was all right.
Why couldn’t he let her do it?
But he knew. He couldn’t live with any more guilt.
“Oh, yeah. I forgot.” She sucked a long drag of her cigarette and blew a thread of gray smoke at him. Her hands shook. “’Bout time you showed up.”
She turned away, robe dragging open as she shuffled to the sofa and knocked away a pile of clothes.
Without invitation, he followed her inside, sick that his mother lived this way and he could do nothing to help her. Nothing except feed her addiction.
She plopped down, glared at him. “Did you bring me anything?”
No fond hello. No hugs and kisses. No inquiries into his health or his life. Nothing to indicate he was anything other than a stranger.
Once in his life he wanted her to ask about him. He wondered if she still thought he taught high school English.
Yet some perverse and broken part of him needed to please her. “I stopped at the store for groceries.”
Cigarette at her side, hand on the couch, she cocked her head, irritated. Smoke curled up from between her fingers and trailed across her face. “I’m out of medicine and you bring food? Stupid.”
“Where did you get the cigarettes?”
She hissed through her teeth, though the sound was more of a whistle because of the broken incisor, a parting gift from a long-forgotten boyfriend. Her eyes narrowed in pure hatred.
“Not that it’s any of your business, but a friend left them. I got friends, you know, even if you think you’re too good to look after the only person in the world who’d put up with you.”
Hayden winced. Even though the stab was unfair, it still cut. He hated that she still had that power over him. That’s why he stayed away.
“I’ll get the groceries.” He trotted out to the car for the bags.
When he returned, Dora Lee remained on the couch, the half-smoked cigarette trembling at her lips. She looked as seedy as any back-alley character he’d ever created.
She glared at him, mouth curled in contemplation, the stare that had meant hell to pay when he was a boy.
Darkness closed in, and he remembered in flashes. He felt himself shriveling to nothing, to a small, frightened, lonely nothing. He could hear her voice cursing him over and over again. The reasons varied. He’d eaten the last piece of bread. He spent too much time with his nose in a book. He was underfoot. He snuck off too much.
Why had she hated him?
Someday he’d get the courage to ask.
He turned away from her accusing eyes and began to unload the groceries. Her cupboards, as he’d suspected, were essentially bare.
>
“You hungry?” he asked with false cheer as he slid cans of soup and premade pasta onto a shelf. “I stopped for Chinese. You like Chinese.”
She got up and came to the cluttered table, where he’d scooted aside half-empty coffee cups and overflowing ashtrays.
“What else did you bring?” Like a greedy child, she dug through the bags. When she saw the twelve-pack of soda, she emitted a little sound of glee.
He shouldn’t have bought the mountain currency, and yet for that split second before guilt set in, Hayden was happy to have pleased his mother.
He set out the foam box of Chinese and moved to the microwave, dragging guilt and hopelessness with him.
“No electric,” she said. “Give it here. I don’t care if it’s cold.”
She sat with a heavy sigh as if she weighed a ton and took the carryout tray. He watched her open the lid and begin to eat, fingers almost too shaky to find her mouth.
“I paid your power bill for six months, Dora Lee. Why is there no electricity?”
“Don’t know. They shut me off.” She shrugged but didn’t meet his eyes. Had she somehow talked someone into refunding her money? Correction—his money.
“Dora Lee, you have to stop doing this. Let me—” He clamped his lips shut. He hadn’t come to fight with her. He didn’t know why he kept trying. The definition of insanity was doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. He must be insane, because the stupid little boy still held out some foolish hope that his mama would welcome him the way Carrie’s mother had welcomed her.
God, why did he put himself through this?
“If you’re up to it after you finish eating, we’ll drive into town and do some shopping. Would you like that?”
“Don’t know if I can without my medication.” She held up a hand. “I’m awful shaky. My whole body hurts. Please, Hayden, you got to be a good son and help me out.”
He didn’t answer, and the silence festered like a staph wound.
Lost, uncertain, worthless—feelings he’d run from for more than twenty years—Hayden began to pick up the trash and organize the kitchen. “Is the water on?”
“Water takes electricity.” She smirked at him, the meanness back in her glare. His silence had angered her. “What are you, an idiot? Or too uppity these days with your fancy English-teacher job to remember how it is up here with the poor folks.”
He raised a hand, weary. “Dora Lee, don’t.”
“Don’t, don’t, he says.” She mocked him, lo mein quivering on the plastic fork in front of her mouth. “How many times did I hear that? When I kept a roof over your head after your daddy died and left me in such a mess.” She growled. “Sniveling little suck.”
Hayden grabbed a plastic bucket from the clutter and left the house. If he was lucky, she’d calm down while he was gone. He would, too.
He knew where he was going, though he hadn’t been there in a long time. He made a point never to go there. He even avoided looking in that direction.
Fifty yards down the inclined backyard, he glimpsed the well. His pulse kicked up, and he couldn’t get his breath.
Not from the walk. From panic.
“I should have let you drown.”
He veered sharply to the left and trotted down the hillside, through trees and scrubs to the skinny creek below the house. The water might not be as pure here, but it didn’t cost him more than he wanted to pay.
Dora Lee was leeching his soul.
He dipped the bucket a few times to clean out the grime before filling it to the rim.
Back at the house, Dora Lee had dressed and smoothed her hair into a ponytail, the Chinese left open and half-eaten.
“I’m ready,” she said. “Let’s go.”
Somewhere between the lo mein and the water bucket, she’d changed her mind about a trip to town, as unpredictably predictable as ever.
Hayden placed the bucket on the counter and followed his mother to the car, driving her the many miles into the community with a handful of businesses, a post office and the school where Mr. Franks had changed his life.
On the way, he tried to make small talk but gave up when Dora Lee stared out the side window, knee bouncing in drug-addicted need, and didn’t respond.
“I’ll stop at city hall and pay your utility bill, Dora Lee, with the understanding that no one refunds the money for any reason.”
She glared mutiny, aware that he knew exactly what she’d done.
“Drop me at Packard’s. I want to try on some new shoes.” She lifted a foot. “These won’t last the winter.”
Pleased at her interest in anything except painkillers, he did as she asked, pulling diagonally to the curb outside the town’s only clothing and general merchandise store.
Dora Lee exited the car but leaned back in.
“Well?” She stuck out her hand. “I cain’t buy shoes on my good looks.” She laughed, an ugly sound. “Not like I used to.”
Hayden hesitated before handing her a wad of bills. “I’ll be back in a few minutes.”
“No hurry. I might try on some jeans.” She slammed the door and stepped up on the curb.
He was gone less than fifteen minutes, returning with the assurance that her power would stay on throughout the winter. No one seemed to know who had refunded her money. No surprise there nor was he surprised that no one remembered him. Kids from back in the hollers flew below the radar.
Pulling his cap lower, he walked into Packard’s in search of his mother. She was nowhere to be seen. He waited another ten minutes, thinking she might be in the dressing room, but when she didn’t appear, he knew with certainty he’d fallen for one of her tricks.
She was right. He was stupid.
Molars tight, he stalked to the car and called her government-issued cell phone over and over again. She didn’t answer. No big surprise.
He sat there like the dummy he was for two hours, waiting for her to return. Dinnertime came. Roaming around town drew attention he didn’t want, but hunger drove him to the convenience store, where he filled his car with gas and his belly with deli chicken. Still no Dora Lee.
He tried her cell again, groaning in frustration when she didn’t pick up.
When the sun slid behind the mountain, the peach sky reminding him of Peach Orchard Inn and Carrie, he accepted that his mother had taken his money and abandoned him.
Feeling as worthless and empty as a defunct coal mine, he found a motel and gave it up for the night. In his last waking thought, he wondered if the ghosts of Josie and Thad had followed him to Kentucky.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
A millstone and the human heart are driven ever round...
—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
1867
JOSIE WAS MAD enough to chew nails. The audacity of Jim Swartz to pull such a stunt. Why, she’d never expected such subterfuge from him. The very idea that he’d been one of Tom’s dearest friends scalded her. Tom would not have approved of such shenanigans.
Or would he? Would he expect her to defend a friend even if he was wrong? Especially against a Federal and a black man?
While Thad and Abram, both grim faced, discussed the incident and put into place a plan to avoid such confrontations in the future, she went inside for the corncobs. Most for the hogs but some for her sister. Patience made corncob dolls for the church benevolence baskets.
The mill was stifling hot today. She gathered the cobs into a sack and then set about to tidy the downstairs.
When her brother, Edgar, was alive, the mill had served as a local gathering place where farmers chewed tobacco and whittled and shared the news of the day and later of the war. After Charlotte and then Will took over, locals stayed only as long as necessary to drop off their grain. Townsfolk would utilize their services, b
ut they had never embraced the Yankee captain and his British bride.
Josie missed those happier days, missed her brother and the way life had once been.
Now the cane-bottom chairs and a scarred wooden bench lined one wall, empty. The spittoon gathered dust.
She took the broom from the corner and swept the open space. Abram came in. She didn’t know where Thaddeus had gotten off to.
“Miss Josie.”
She stopped sweeping to look at the man. He held his flat-brimmed hat tight against his chest. A gray kitten had followed him and wound around his ankles.
“I’m obliged for what you done out there.”
“Right is right, Abram.” Though many would not have done the same, and others would criticize her if they knew.
Not that she cared one whit what any of them thought.
“Yes, ma’am. God bless you, ma’am.”
Well. She’d never been blessed by a slave before. Former slave.
Not knowing what to say to such a thing, she went back to sweeping, and Abram went back to his work. There were still cogs to grease and gudgeons to oil before he left for the night.
When she finished sweeping, she put away the odds and ends of a day’s work—hand scoops and discarded bags, bits of leather, a punch and an awl. She discovered Thad’s white apron tossed to one side and hung it on a peg.
Hot and sweaty but satisfied that she’d done her part as a Portland, she took the water bucket and headed out to the creek.
She filled the pail in preparation for tomorrow and set it in the shade while she removed her hat and shoes and dipped her feet in the cooling stream. How long had it been since she had indulged this way? Perhaps before the war.
Sitting on a rock, legs extended, she tipped her head back and closed her eyes. The hush and hum of insects mingled with the ripple of water. The building groaned above her, settling for the night.
She should go on home before darkness fell. Go home and help with supper.
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