Heartbreak Town

by Marsha Moyer

  I opened the screen door and let myself into the front hall, where I stood for a minute at the living room threshold. The couch and two wing chairs had been pushed back, and Ash was lying in the middle of the rug with a can of Mountain Dew propped on his stomach, the two kids leaping and pogoing in a ring around him, waving their arms and hollering over the blare of the music. They threw up their arms and shimmied, then spun in circles and collapsed, scrambled up and started dancing again. Funky little shack! Funky little shack! they screamed. It looked like some kind of bizarre cult ritual, a ceremony to appease a mad and irrational god. We'd been dancing to "Love Shack" since before he could walk, Jude and me, since I'd had to stand him on his chubby baby feet and swing his little hands. I tried not to let memory rankle me, but I admit I wasn't having much luck.

  "Mama!" Jude shouted, spying me at last, and he and Lily ran to me, their faces lit from inside, a sight that never failed to smooth over any stray potholes in my soul. I knelt and pulled them to me, relishing the feel of their small, solid bodies against mine. Their hearts beat wildly; Jude smelled like puppy sweat and Lily like cookie dough.

  "We're doing the Love Shack, Mama!" Jude said. "Lily and Daddy and me!"

  Ash sat up and switched off the stereo. He smiled at me and hoisted his soda can.

  "Well, you guys had better get a move on if you want to come to Golden Years with me. The Easter party, remember?"

  "We had an Easter party already, Aunt Lucy," Lily said. "At school."

  I ran my hand over the silky black bowl of her hair. There was something rare and luminous about Lily, a gleam she gave off that was partly her own and partly because of how long we'd waited for her. I never could look at her without thinking about how Geneva and Bailey must have felt walking into the orphanage in Changzhou and seeing their daughter for the first time, knowing that of all the babies in that room, that country, the world, this was the one who was meant for them—like she'd just been waiting for the Hatches to show up and take her home to Texas, where she'd always belonged.

  "Was it a good party?" I asked.

  Lily bit her lip. "The cupcakes were funny."

  "Yummy?" I said hopefully, feeling my stomach sink.

  "They were gross. They were pink."

  "7 thought they were yummy," Jude said. "Yummy, yummy, yummy!" He ran over and took a swig of his daddy's soda.

  "Well, I'm pretty sure the party at Golden Years will be better," I said. "We'll have singing, and ice cream and cake. And Audrey will be there. You're crazy about Audrey."

  Lily eyed me dubiously, like I was some sleazy door-to-door salesman trying to bilk her out of her last dollar. "What kind of cake?"

  "I don't know for sure, but I'm betting probably chocolate." She cocked her head thoughtfully, like a little bird. "I could sure use you, Lily Belle. I need you to help me pass out the flowers."

  Dove came up the hall, wiping her hands on a dish towel. "I thought I heard somebody."

  "It's a miracle you can hear anything," I said. "Your neighbors are probably getting ready to turn you in for a public nuisance."

  "Naw, we'll just invite 'em to the party."

  Ash stood up and crushed his empty can in his hand. "You wanna go check those mudbugs of yours?" Dove said. "It's prob'ly time to switch the water."

  "Sure." Squeezing past us into the hall, he grabbed my hand and did a little jitterbug step. Then he turned me loose and walked off toward the kitchen.

  "The crawfish are here?" My hand felt hot where he'd gripped it.

  Dove shrugged. "Seemed easier to fix 'em at my place, see-ing's how I've got the cooker and all. Anyhow, I thought you might not feel like goin' home this evenin' to a houseful a folks whoopin' it up, after the kind a day you had."

  I felt a rush of gratefulness so strong it made me dizzy. I looked at my watch; there was still half a workday and a party for a bunch of senior citizens to fit in. "Come on, kids, we've got to head out," I said.

  They ran ahead of me into the garden. Dove and I followed slowly to the door.

  "Did they eat lunch?"

  "Grilled cheese. Jude had two."

  "Who all's coming to this wingding?" I asked.

  "Just us. Your brothers and their wives and kids. I reckon I'll call your mama, even if she won't show, it bein' Good Friday. And I thought I'd ask Rowena. She's practically kin."

  "Have you talked to Geneva?" I was surprised I hadn't heard from my sister-in-law. She, of all people, I would've expected to drop everything when she heard Ash was in town.

  "She's been doin' that continuin' education course all week out at County," Dove reminded me. "I called her up and left a message, though. I figger we should be hearin' from her any second."

  "What about Bailey?"

  "Your brother had a few choice words to say about Ash and his crawfish. But this bein' a holy day, I don't think I should repeat 'em."

  "He'll be here, though, right?"

  "Oh, I don't think either one of the boy's'd miss it."

  "Maybe we ought to go ahead and call the sheriff now. Tell them to have somebody on call, just in case."

  She smiled and squeezed my arm. "You go on and take care of your party," she said. "Let me worry about tonight."

  I know old folks'homes have a bad rap—dumping grounds for human flotsam, hotbeds of ugliness and abuse—but, not to paint too starry a picture here, I have to say Golden Years was different. It's true it wasn't the most glamorous place; the corridors were papered with gaudy murals and smelled of boiled greens and Lysol. But the staff was kind and cheerful, and you could feel their good-heartedness when you walked in the door, doing its best to lift up the old souls inside and succeeding as often as not. My sister-in-law Geneva had worked there for five years before she went back to her job at the ob-gyn clinic, and she hardly ever found it depressing. Sad, sometimes, and hard; folks were old, after all, got sick and died. But you could do worse than to end up at Golden Years, where beautiful girls with elaborate, towering hairdos and names like Shontalle and LaToya would dole out your pills, wheel you in to dinner, listen to you reminisce about the day you met your first love, bring you a blanket for your feet. I used to think they were just going through the motions, those girls, but then it dawned on me that there was no incentive, no bonus for good behavior beyond a minimum-wage paycheck. They were just nice girls, doing what they knew was right.

  The cake turned out to be white with yellow frosting and clusters of gooey sugar roses clumped in the corners, but I put Lily and Jude to work right away so they wouldn't notice, carrying around the corsages to the residents who sat around the edges of the rec room in their best dress-up attire. Many of them were in wheelchairs, but a couple were still proudly, if conditionally, mobile; one, Miss Grace Wick, wore a bicycle helmet to roam the halls, thanks to a tendency to fall without warning and bump her head.

  Jude threw himself into the task with his usual verve, but Lily was more reserved, doling out her flowers guardedly, like communion wafers. In spite of the old van's balkiness, Audrey had arrived well ahead of me; the room was fragrant with the scent of lilies, and the clusters of balloons floating near the ceiling did their best to add a festive air.

  The administrator of Golden Years, Penny Jeanrette, came zipping in in her Pepto-Bismol-pink skirt and peplum jacket, clapping her hands, and she and I and some of the aides got busy pinning corsages onto the ladies' blouses and boutonnieres on the shirt collars of the handful of men. Mr. Henry Tabor, a retired preacher, stood up and recited a long, rambling prayer. Then we all sang a couple of hymns, "Blessed Redeemer" and "Were You There When They Crucified My Lord." It always gave me a chill to hear the airy old voices raised in song, to try to picture myself or someone I loved in one of those chairs, wearing a corsage and stumbling over the words to the old hymns. I came to Golden Years because it was my job, but partly, too, I believed I was performing a kind of voodoo, making an offering against what might someday come to be.

  The aides and I cut the cake and started t
o hand the pieces around. Jude was over by the aquarium, making faces at the goldfish, but in a quick scan of the room, I couldn't spot Lily.

  "Jude, where's Lily?" He ignored me, his cheeks puffing in and out. I grabbed his arm. "Listen to me. It's important. Where is your cousin?"

  "Ow!" he cried. "I don't know! You're hurting me!"

  "Have you seen Lily?" I asked Audrey. She was helping a frail little gentleman make a bib of his napkin, and shook her head. I asked a couple of aides, but none of them knew anything, either.

  I reminded myself to breathe and not panic. It had only been a couple of minutes, I was sure, since she'd been here; she couldn't have gotten far. She was only six years old; it wasn't like she could lift someone's keys and hijack a car. And Golden Years was off the beaten path, on a wooded tract well above the highway. Those were the pluses. The minuses were she was only six years old, and Golden Years was off the beaten path, on a wooded tract above the highway.

  I did a wild sprint through the building, cursing under my breath, winding up finally outside in the courtyard, where I found her standing small and defiant-looking at the base of a crape myrtle tree.

  "Lily!" I resisted the urge to run and scoop her up, to feel her heart beating against my chest like wings. It's hard to explain what a private little person she was, what formidable limits she possessed. My son was the owner of big, messy emotions that he gave vent to freely, like an opera singer. Lily was less excitable; she held things close to the vest. I didn't know if it was her history that made her this way—she was not quite two when Bailey and Geneva adopted her—or if it was just her nature. But I'd learned that the usual reactions, fury and hysterics, didn't work with her. Jude and I would have shouted awhile and then fallen into each other's arms and sobbed like a couple of divas, but I knew I was better off keeping my cool with Lily.

  "What are you doing out here, baby?" I asked as my heartbeat gradually returned to normal. "You're missing the party."

  "There's a cat," she said, and pointed. I looked up. Sure enough, a ragged-eared red and white torn blinked at us from a limb about ten feet up.

  "That's Rusty." He was one of five or six cats who had the run of the grounds and building; it wasn't unusual to see them skulking down the hallways or curled up in a linen closet. "He lives here."

  "Why? Does somebody make him?"

  "Well, no. I guess he likes it."

  She shivered, even though it was a mild and sunny April day. "Can we go home now? I'm scared."

  "Of what?"

  "The people in the chairs."

  I tried to think what to say. I hated lying to kids, mine or anyone else's. Lily's fear was deep and instinctive, and it seemed to me that it needed to be honored.

  "They won't hurt you, Lily. They're just old, that's all."

  "I don't like it. Their hands are cold and they want to put me in the stove and eat me. Just like the witch in the story!"

  "Oh, Lily. Nobody's going to eat you! That's just a fairy tale."

  "You said the cake was chocolate. You said it, but it's not!"

  "I'm sorry. I was wrong. Let's find Jude and go back to Aunt Dove's, okay? I bet she's got some chocolate for you, a Hershey bar or some brownies."

  I stepped forward and held out my arms, and to my surprise she let me pick her up, even though she was almost too big for that. She lay her satiny head on my shoulder. "I'm tired," she said. "I've had a long day." And for a minute I forgot about Ash, the way he was always pulling at me, even from afar, and the old folks inside, like soldiers marching into battle, raising their voices against their fear. I forgot about everything but Lily's hot breath in my ear, her weight in my arms, her sugar-cookie smell. It seemed to me that life at its best was a series of lucky accidents, a random spin of the wheel. Here were Lily and me, two strangers from opposite sides of the world thrown together by fate or happenstance, hanging on to the wheel, and to each other, for dear life.

  chapter four

  We locked up the shop at five on the nose, and Peggy followed me in her Pontiac over to Aunt Dove's.

  The street and driveway were crowded; I counted my brothers' and sister-in-laws' trucks in addition to Ash's, Dove's friend Rowena's Chrysler LeBaron, and a couple of vehicles

  I didn't recognize. There was no law-enforcement cruiser or TV

  news van, at least not yet. The night was young.

  Because Dove's showpiece was her front-yard garden, it was easy to forget sometimes that the rear of the house was a jewel of its own kind. The backyard was narrow but deep, shaded by elms and live oaks and bordered with trumpet creeper and honeysuckle and waxleaf ligustrum. It was always five degrees cooler there than anywhere else in town and smelled like heaven, especially now, in early spring, when all the bulbs and shrubs were in bloom.

  But today the usual feeling of peaceful sanctuary had vanished, annihilated by the sheer mass and volume of Hatches. In spite of the fact that most of us lived within ten miles of one another, we were hardly ever all in the same place at the same time, and when we did have occasion to come together, I tended to be shocked by how many of us there were and how much noise we were capable of generating.

  It always took me a beat or two to recognize my nieces and nephews, my older brother Kit's kids. Ranging in age from twelve to sixteen, they changed height and weight and hairstyle and color as easily, it seemed, as they changed their clothes. The twins, the babies, were as tall as their mama, but whereas Connie was plump and soft as bread dough, her daughters had the lanky, affected look of fashion models. They stood huddled with their brothers in a corner of the yard, fooling with a portable stereo; every now and then a guitar lick or a thudding bass beat blared out, then vanished in a fuzz of static. My brothers were near the back fence pitching horseshoes, and Connie, Dove, and Rowena sat in lawn chairs with their chins tipped back to catch the sun. Over on the patio, Ash watched over the propane cooker with the help of his assistant and number one fan, Geneva, who'd evidently managed to swing by home on her way from her continuing-ed course at the hospital and get done up for Ash's welcome-home party in Jordache jeans, a body-hugging pink T-shirt, and three-inch open-toed heels.

  Dove and Connie hoisted plastic tumblers and waved at Peggy and me.

  "Y'all look like you should be on a beach somewhere," I said.

  "Oh, right," Connie said. "All that's missing are the water, the sand, the ocean breeze…"

  "Drag up a chair and join us, you two," Dove said. "We're drinkin' Mind Erasers."

  "Good Lord—what's that?" I asked, pulling over a couple of chairs. I waved to Geneva on the patio, but she was laughing at something Ash was saying and didn't see me.

  "Vodka, Kahlua, and Sprite," Connie said. "Guaranteed to cure what ails you."

  "Or at least make you forget about it for the duration," Rowena added.

  "I think I better hang on to my mind," I said. "It might come in handy later."

  "I'll have one," Peggy piped up. "What?" she said as I gave her a look. "You're not my mama or my boss, either one."

  "Maybe not. But you better not be calling in at nine tomorrow, telling me you've got the flu."

  "Tomorrow's Saturday," she reminded me. "I'm off the clock. For that matter, so're you."

  "Come on, Lucy," Connie said. "One little drink. It's the weekend, and anyway it's a party."

  I shook my head, and she got up to make Peggy's drink. With one ear I listened to the four of them chatter as I watched Ash and Geneva on the patio, the easy way he moved from the cooler to the cooker and back, his movements smooth and economical, with a rhythm remembered from his carpentry days. Geneva bobbed and weaved around him like a moth around a flame. Just like that, it seemed, after years in exile, he'd reclaimed his notch on the Hatch family tree.

  "Earth to Lucy."

  I looked up as Connie handed me a can of Sprite. "Here you go. A virgin Mind Eraser."

  "For your virgin mind," Peggy said. Everybody laughed but me. "Oh, come on," she said. "Where's your sense of humo
r?"

  "Y'all need to go easy on Lucy," Connie said, reclaiming her chair. "This has got to be the weirdest scene imaginable, don't you think? Having to hang out and act normal with somebody you used to be married to? And with your family around! So you can't yell at him or cry or freak out or any of the things you're secretly dying to do."

  Thanks, but it's not that bad, I said. Anyway, I shouldn't have to remind y'all, but we're still married."

  Dove reached over to pat my leg. The five of us had unconsciously arranged our chairs in a semicircle facing the patio, claiming front-row seats for the floor show.

  "Ash looks good, don't you think?" Connie said.

  "He looks like the 'before' guy on the commercial for— what's that stuff called? That men's hair color," Rowena said.

  "Those ads have got it backward, if you ask me. The guys always look sexier with the gray in their hair than they do without it."

  "Sexier than we do, that's for sure."

  "The crow's-feet look better on them, too."

  "Yeah. How come we get wrinkles and they get character?"

  "Not to mention cellulite."

  We all gazed down self-consciously. I tugged the hem of my skirt over my knees.

  "Still. I like the—whatever it is—the grizzled look," Connie said, nodding in Ash's direction.

  "I think it's called the broke-out-of-rehab-and-took-off-without-my-shaving-kit look," I said. Everybody got quiet and looked at me. "Denny called this morning and said the hospital told her he checked out. No, wait, that's not right—that makes it sound like he was released, and he wasn't. He left. Halfway through the program."

  "Well, honey, maybe he'd had all the rehab he needed," Connie said. "You know there are just some people who don't take to that stuff. They do better on their own. With, you know, Jesus or willpower or whatever."

  "Yeah, and there are plenty of people who just keep right on drinking."

  "Is he drinking?" Peggy asked. "You know this for a fact?"

  "All he's said is that it's under control. Meanwhile, here he is, back in town, feeding y'all crawfish, making you ooh and aah over how good he looks and feeling all sorry for him because I walked out on him." I jiggled my soda can. "And look at Geneva. How many Mind Erasers has she had?"