Leroy interrupted her. Cleared his throat and asked Kitt what was her mother’s prognosis? And Hortense held her breath as she watched Leroy’s face go transparent while he listened to Kitt’s words. Hoped that nobody else could see it as plainly as she could see it, his concern for his wife’s sister, his daughter’s aunt, mingling with that unmistakable weak-eyed, slack-jawed, nose-opened look of a man with his passions revived. She was bursting with irritation as she watched him allowing his emotions to seep all over his face like that. Told him then that he looked absolutely ghastly, that that flight had taken everything out of him, that he should leave now and get some rest, that she would stay in the hospital room with Kitt for the night. “Go on now, Leroy, go. Take Verdi Mae on home and let her and Rowe put you up for the night. We stay with the Reverend and Mrs. Bright tomorrow night anyhow to go to their early service with them Sunday morning, so you go, y’all get some rest now. Verdi Mae, you come on by and relieve me in the morning. But right now go, go on, just go.”
Twenty
Rowe didn’t know for how long he’d even been standing at the bedroom window when he saw Verdi get out of the passenger side of the black Taurus. Knew only that after he’d left in a rage and tried to find them at the University Hospital, and then went to Kitt’s where no one was home, and rode around Kelly Drive twice to allow the river and the sight of the lit boathouses to calm him down, and then realized that she was probably at Misericordia but got there and the guard called up to the waiting room but it was empty, and he’d come to his senses and come back home and finally tired himself out putting the house back together, he’d ended up at this window. He’d relived his entire life with Verdi standing at this window, especially the past six weeks. His twenty-twenty hindsight allowed him now to pinpoint with precision each time she’d been out with Johnson, each lie she’d told, even what she’d been wearing, the smell of her perfume.
He’d gone from calling her low-down dirty-bitch whore, to my baby Verdi, why did you pounce on my heart like this, to cursing her again as he stood at this window. He’d cried, cried out, kicked the window seat, tore his shirt when he punched repeatedly at the air. And now his heart was pounding at the thought that Johnson actually had the balls to drop her off in front of her house like this. Wished that he kept a gun in the house, but then he saw the door on the driver’s side open, saw Leroy getting out of the car. He hadn’t figured on Leroy. Probably the only person she could walk through the door with right now and avoid an encounter with his wrath was Leroy, and here he was. He cursed her luck. That’s all it could be, luck. She certainly wasn’t that calculating to come home this time of morning with one of the people he most respected. He was sure Verdi didn’t even know that he, Rowe, knew Johnson was back in town, wondered if she’d even thought that far ahead to him finding out.
He was down the stairs with the door opened by the time Verdi and her father were on the porch. He took Leroy’s bag, expressing surprise but delight to see him as Verdi went right in with the description of what had happened to her aunt, and what was wrong with the phone, she’d been trying to reach him all night, he must have been worried sick about her.
He said that yes, yes he was, he’d even tried to reach her at Kitt’s house, was actually relieved when he hadn’t gotten an answer there, couldn’t have tolerated it if even they hadn’t known where she was. Then he expressed concern for Posie and Kitt, asked Verdi what did she want to do, did she want to go back to the hospital, he’d take her if she wanted to go.
Verdi said that she was so tired, that she could barely stand up, that her stomach was upset, even felt like she was going to be sick right there, and Rowe just stared at her with a mix of hurt and disdain and longing and Verdi’s breath caught in her chest because she couldn’t read the look.
Leroy cleared his throat then, said that he just wanted to fall into a bed, maybe preceded by a corner of that good brandy Rowe drank if Rowe was amenable to joining him. And Rowe excused himself over his lack of manners, went to pour himself and Leroy a drink while Verdi showed her father where he’d sleep.
Verdi had already taken a steaming shower by the time Rowe came up into the bedroom, had rid herself of Johnson’s scent, felt less guilty when she was clean. Was so grateful to her father for holding Rowe downstairs like that, when she’d remarked on the way over from the hospital how exhausted she was, that Rowe would have an hour’s worth of questions about what happened, where was she when she found out, her father had cut her off. Said, screw him. You don’t owe him any explanations, your aunt almost died tonight, period. That fact preempts any questions he might have. So she had already decided that she wasn’t even entertaining questions tonight, was in her pajama bottoms and was just buttoning the top when he walked across the expansive room.
He hit the switch on the wall to turn off the ceiling lamp and the room went dim, illuminated only by the miniature touch lamp on the nightstand next to where Verdi stood. Verdi still couldn’t read his face as he walked toward her, and she’d become used to doing that the past six weeks, picking apart his face for signs that he knew. But there was something in the air now that was different from all the other times she’d come home after being with Johnson, the air was heavy and close to her skin and now Rowe’s steps were deliberate and his breaths were sharp as he got right up on her.
“You know you worried the shit out of me, I saw your gym sneakers in the closet and I wondered why did you lie to me about where you were going?”
She didn’t say anything. Just backed up until the heels of her bare feet were pressing against the woodwork, tried again to pick up his face in this dim light, but now his face was too close as he leaned in and mashed his lips against hers and tried to open her mouth with his tongue.
“Rowe, what are you doing?” She squirmed and tried to push him away, relieved though that he hadn’t hit her, even though he’d never hit her, she told herself now, and her father was right in the house, he certainly wouldn’t put his hands to her with her father here.
He had her face in his hands. “What’s wrong, you don’t like my kisses anymore?” he asked as he drew his tongue along her forehead.
“Rowe, please, I’m exhausted, and Daddy’s here.”
“Daddy’s all the way on the first floor on the other side of the house, Verdi Mae, we could be setting off fireworks and he wouldn’t hear a thing.”
She felt the air in the room tighten around her then, as if the air were a snake that had been circling her all the while and she just now realized that she was wrapped under the rough and smooth scales of its cold-blooded skin. Rowe never called her Verdi Mae, felt the added Mae drained all the sophistication from her name, would even grunt when he heard other people address her so. He knew. She was certain. She felt the air leaving her lungs at the thought. Finally it had to come to this. In retrospect she was surprised that it had taken so long, that she’d had six whole weeks snuggled temporarily in the hollow of Johnson’s life where the original print of her frame still was. Had deferred all thoughts of this moment that she knew was imminent once she and Johnson touched palms in Kitt’s living room.
Rowe was nibbling at her neck, unbuttoning her pajama top, had her breasts in his hands, fondling them so gently, barely touching them, and it was the barely touching that made her want to cry for Rowe, she’d really not wanted to hurt him, and now she did cry pressed up against this wall, her bare heels pulling splinters from the woodwork.
“Rowe, Rowe—”
“Shh,” he whispered into her chest, “I’m trying to create a mood here, Verdi Mae, I want to be able to fuck you as well as Johnson fucks you.”
“Oh my God, Rowe—”
He had her breasts in his hands, kissed one then the other. “Is this what he does to get you stirred up, huh? Does he kiss your breasts like this, huh?”
“I’m sorry—so sor—”
“No need to be sorry, Verdi, really. Just tell me what he does, it’s got to be magnificent to make you run around on me,
huh?”
He had his face buried in her chest, and she could feel moisture leaking down her chest, thought at first that he stabbed her and it was her blood, realized then that he was crying in her chest. “Rowe, I didn’t mean for—”
“Does he bite you, huh? Pinch your fat ass, huh? I just want to make you feel as good as he does. Does he still shoot you up, huh? Does he pop your vein, get you flying high? How’s that feel, bet that’s even more supreme than when he’s ramming you. Is that like heaven, huh, Verdi? Is that what you want? You want heaven? Take off your bottoms we can do it right now, we’ll just follow those dark lines on the insides of your thighs, I got it all here for you. I copped. Isn’t that what you druggies call it, copping. I went out to find you, when I couldn’t find you I copped for you instead.” He leaned one hand against the wall just above her head, reached down into the nightstand drawer with his other hand, pulled out a plastic bag. “Right here, the substance and the works, all I had to do was stick my finger out of the car window, hand them a twenty-dollar bill.” He held the plastic bag over the top of the miniature touch lamp. “See, see. I just wanted you to be the best person you could be, and now I see that this is all you really are. I’ll help you be that too, that’s how much I love you, Verdi. So much, too much, this is too much fucking love.”
He backed up from her, tossed the bag on the bed. Then just stood there looking at her, watching her face turn horrified as she peered through the dimness to make out the bag. A piece of him wanted for her to salivate over it, to yield to nonrestraint and tear open the bag and go into a frenzy and shoot herself up. He’d bought it just to shock her, to insult her, but a piece of him really wanted her strung out again, dependent, a piece of him was ready to save her all over again. Now he was horrified as he acknowledged that piece of him, what ugliness, this wasn’t love that would drag him to this length, this was some perversion, some mutation, something in the water that had caused his desires to be reborn with two heads, flippers for hands, a missing soul. That he wanted, needed for her to do that bag right now was more than he could stand about himself. He choked back a sob. Held his hands up as if in surrender. “Too much love, Verdi. Too much. Too much.” He backed away, backing out of the room. Watching her put her hand to her horrified mouth to catch the vomit gurgling from her mouth, she was sliding down the wall as he left, as if he were taking his strength with him, draining it right through the pores of her skin, she slid down the wall until she was stooping against the fringes of the hand-knotted rug, she sat, then folded herself in a heap on the floor. He was leaving her as he’d found her, curled up in a ball inhaling her puke, the way he should have left her the first time, should have forced her to find her own strength, she was young then, resourceful, smart, she could have made a way for herself. But what about his strength, that’s when he was most strong, when he felt most alive, engaged, when his own life had heightened meaning: when he was saving her. He realized that now too as he kept on walking, walked right on out of the bedroom, down the steps, out the front door.
It felt to Verdi as if the whole world shook in the instant when he closed the door on the house, their house, where he’d kept her so cocooned the past twenty years, so warm, so caged, but with lamb’s wool covering the barbwires so that all she felt was softness. She curled herself up tighter in a ball, she was dizzy and warm, and weak, and so very tired. The knotted rug fringes pressed against her thighs and the smell of her vomit came and went with her breaths and she was too overwrought to lift herself up, to drag herself into bed, too emotionally exhausted, destitute, with her world spinning out of control right before her eyes. So she pressed her eyes shut, fell asleep like that, the vomit going from sour to sweet as she drifted off, dreaming about the contents of that plastic bag.
The phone ringing in Verdi’s ear hadn’t nudged her awake, nor had the sunlight smacking her in her face, but finally her father’s voice did coming from the other side of her bedroom door. “Verdi, Verdi,” he called, and mixed in with light taps against the door.
“Mnh, Daddy, just a minute, Daddy, I’m just on my way into the shower.” She jumped up, looked at her hands, smelled the putrid remnants of what had been her stomach’s contents. “Give me five minutes, Daddy.” She tried to control the shaking in her voice, tried not to start crying all over again.
“Just tell me where you keep your coffee filters,” he said through the door. “And call down to the hospital and ask for the fourth-floor lounge, Kitt and your mother are waiting to hear from you. Report on Posie is much better this morning.”
She didn’t answer him at first. Couldn’t. She was looking at that plastic bag, picked it up, traced the outline of the needle glistening in the sunlight.
“Verdi? The filters?”
She jumped then, almost screamed. Pushed the bag back into the nightstand drawer. “Far right cabinet. Thank God about Aunt Posie. Make a big pot, Daddy. I’ll be right down.” She tore off the vomit-stained pajamas and went into her bathroom and let the water run hot, though she should have let it run cool, because now she was burning-up mad, how dare that fucking Rowe wave that dope in front of her face like that. How dare he.
Leroy had already poured Verdi’s coffee, had sliced up strawberries, toasted raison-cinnamon bread, had set two place mats on the center island. Verdi kissed his cheek. Said you such a good daddy. Then she started to cry.
“Verdi,” he said as he pulled out a counter stool and helped her to sit, and handed her a napkin, and patted her back as she blew her nose. “I heard him leave. I didn’t hear him come back in. I don’t know the specifics, and I’m not your mother so I won’t try to pry them out of you. All I have to say is shit on him. He was too old for you back then; he’s too old for you now; you never were the broken-legged sparrow he made you out to be. Shit on him.”
They left for the hospital then and Verdi’s father took the long way around. Asked her if she minded riding down to Ninth Street so that he could take Kitt a bag of fresh sweet peaches, filled the ride with stories of Verdi’s childhood, choosing scenes that highlighted her strengths, her intelligence, her independence, a gifted preacher after all, he was adept at fashioning stories to soothe a broken heart. Verdi laughed and cried and was mesmerized when her father pretended to be lost as they maneuvered through North Philly and he told the story of a man who had to choose between two roads, one a slick superhighway, sure to get the man to his destination with unparalleled swiftness, with nary a pothole, and unchanging scenes from tollgate to toll; and another road, undeveloped, bumpy, craggy, sure to cause flats, transmission problems because of the topography, but what topography, the streams, the one-lane wooden bridges, the woods, the beautiful woods, Verdi, that blaze in the fall, and open up to expansive meadows and lakes that freeze over and shimmer in December, and explode with the chatter of migratory birds come spring, and the destination is not assured on this road, but what a journey, a tenuous, remarkable, dangerous, sweet, sweet journey. By the time he was finished and they pulled up into the curve of the hospital parking lot, Verdi was certain he was talking about Johnson and Rowe, except that she looked at his face as she reached around to retrieve the peaches from the back, knew then he was talking about himself.
“But, Daddy, sometimes a man should take that highway, especially if it means that his swift destination will allow him to do service for hundreds and hundreds of broken-down hearts.”
He clamped his mouth then and forced a smile, said, “Tell your mother I’ll be back for her in a while.”
Twenty-one
Verdi left Kitt and her mother keeping their vigil over Posie’s bed and went to retrieve her slice-of-sunshine Sage from the Whittackers, Kitt’s down-the-street neighbor. Verdi was keeping Sage with her for the night. Glad. Forced her to compartmentalize, to pack her sorrows in a separate case than the one she’d use for Sage. Forced her to become more other-directed, to think about what she’d feed her, the books she’d need, the videos, barrettes, socks, sneakers. A dress in case th
ey’d go to church the next morning, undershirts because it wasn’t June yet, bananas for her cereal, cold cream for her knees, post earrings, Mr. Snuffleuglious doll. Construction paper, children’s scissors, barrel-shaped Crayola crayons. Was all organized, back to the efficient self that was a school principal: the one who lined the children up, hung the star papers on the bulletin board, hid behind a pretended toughness when her vice principal crossed her path.
And now she was finished gathering all that Sage would need for the night, was about to leave Kitt’s house, to go down the street and be uplifted by the sight of Sage’s smile. But there was the telephone sitting on the end table almost to the door. And the sorrow-filled case started leaking, threatening to soil Sage’s anklet socks. And Verdi sighed, and picked up the phone and dialed Johnson’s number yet again, like she had before she’d left her house, and the hospital, and like then, the phone just rang and rang until the sterile voice came on and said this call is being answered by Autotech.
Sage fidgeted the entire bus ride down. Acted three instead of eight. Tried to stick her hand outside of the window, stand up in the seat, run through the aisle, tore a page from the picture book Verdi had opened on her lap. Verdi had to turn a stern face on Sage, something she’d never had to do, and even that didn’t settle her down. By the time they walked in through Verdi’s door, and Verdi set the bags on the floor and picked up the cordless phone from the foyer table and plopped on the steps to hear who called—Rowe called, said he had driven all night, was halfway to the Mississippi Delta to the spot where he was born, that he was brokenhearted but not blameless, that he’d be gone about a week, would call when he returned to civilly dissolve the holdings they shared—and Sage came at her, hair pulled from her barrettes and standing all on top of her head, eyebrows scrunched, mouth pursed looking like a real badass child, and Verdi took her by the shoulders, pressed her fingers into her forearms. “Settle down,” she said, “just settle yourself down.”
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