by Marsha Moyer
I looked at him; I saw. I took him in—not husband or lover, but this fellow traveler, this countryman. I folded open the real-estate contract to the first of many little flags that read sign here, and asked him for a pen.
The next afternoon I was picking my way through the bleachers toward Geneva at Little League when, a few rows down, Corinne Jackson twisted around and hollered after me, "Hey, Lucy! Hear you're fixing to get a new neighbor across the road!"
I turned to look at her, along with the other couple of dozen parents in the stands. She jerked her chin toward the outfield, where Ash stood behind third base. I watched Jude race across the field toward him in his Hatch Brothers shirt and cap and throw himself at Ash, who scooped our son into his arms, swinging him to and fro. Even from that distance, I could hear their wild, whooping laughter.
I gave Corinne a tight little smile and slid onto the bench alongside my sister-in-law. She offered me a tall paper cup, and I took a sip: lemonade.
"I'll never get over the way news travels in this town," I said. "It's like the plague."
"Well, I'm a little pissed off about it, to tell you the truth," Geneva said. "Why didn't you call me? How come I had to hear about it from Ash?"
"Ash told you?"
"Honey, Ash is telling everybody. Starting with Bill Larson at the Pack & Post, when he went in to FedEx the papers to the real-estate lady in Nashville. Then, the story is, he went over to the cafe. Couldn't wait to share the big news."
"He might as well have called the AP wire service," I said.
"But you cosigned the papers, right?" Out on the field, the coaches were putting the players through warm-ups. Hatch Brothers were playing Acme Hardware of Mount Pleasant, and Mount Pleasant didn't stand a chance.
"Yeah. I did."
"And you did it of your own free will? He didn't hypnotize you or drug you or anything?"
"Just with a plate of Willie B.'s pork ribs."
She laughed. "That's pretty powerful stuff."
"I guess I just—I think I understand where he's coming from, at least part of it. It's not that different from when I came back from Tennessee. I just wanted to be home."
"It is different, though," she said. "Because you were leaving him. And he's coming back to you." I glanced over at her. "Coming back to where you are, at least. Setting himself up right across the road. You don't make anything of that?"
"I haven't quite figured out how I feel about it. All I know is I'll have some money, once the sale of the house goes through.
Who knows, maybe I'll take off again, go live in France or Morocco or someplace."
"Let's face it, Lucy," Geneva said as we watched our kids take their positions in the outfield, Jude at third base, Lily scaling the pitcher's mound, tugging at the bill of her cap. "You're just like me and you always will be. A red-dirt girl."
As the first batter stepped up to the plate, I thought of the two of us, old and gray, rocking on the porch together. "How are you feeling? About Tuesday, I mean."
"I just have the strangest feeling," she said. We watched Lily wind up to pitch. Strike one. "What if all of a sudden Bailey decides to go find himself some sweet young thing, start himself a brand-new family?"
"Lord, Geneva! What a thing to say."
"Well, why not? Men do it all the time."
"Some men, maybe. Not Bailey Hatch."
She didn't say anything, and I wondered if something was going on between them that I didn't know about, when a beat-up station wagon pulled up to the fence. Together we watched as the door swung open and Heather Starbird unfolded herself from the driver's seat, all legs and wild black hair. I felt a chill at the sight of her sauntering toward the visitors' stands, like the rumors about her practicing voodoo in her shabby little duplex might be true. I thought of what Ash had said to me the afternoon before, at the edge of the pond where his house would stand, when I'd asked him if he was building the place for him and Jude, and he'd answered that it would be for whoever his family might turn out to be. I was a fool, I realized, watching Heather take a seat by herself at the end of the bleachers, crossing one leg over the other and rummaging in her fringed suede bag for her cigarettes. The world was never the kind of place I seemed to think it was, was always throwing me curves. I
wondered if it was too late to call the real-estate agent in Nashville, to say I'd changed my mind. Who was to say that Bailey wouldn't run off tomorrow and find himself a twenty-year-old, start hatching babies like rabbits? What kind of person smoked at a Little League game?
"When I get my money," I said to Geneva, "how about you and me take a trip somewhere? Florida, maybe, or Vegas. Just us girls."
She nodded as Heather sucked on her cigarette and exhaled, following the smoke with her eyes as it drifted skyward. It was a warm afternoon, the sky dotted with fluffy white clouds. The smells of corn dogs and popcorn drifted up from the concession stand. The third batter up for Mount Pleasant hit a ground ball to right field and took off for first base, while the Hatch Brothers outfielders went scampering. Parents on both benches rose to their feet, shouting. Heather Starbird took out another cigarette and lit it off the first one.
Meanwhile, I could see it plain, see my son being raised by a black-haired witch-woman with an ex-boyfriend about to be paroled any day. I could see them all sitting out on the deck of Ash's new house, watching the cranes fly in low over the water while steaks charred on the grill and Hank Williams poured from the speakers and empty liquor bottles and syringes and cigarette butts piled up around them. Jude would flunk out of middle school, shave his head, start piercing and tattooing himself in painful secret places, start cooking meth in the basement from a recipe he got off the Internet, or from Heather's ex. The sheriff would let him walk on the first couple of DUIs, but she'd get wise to him finally, and he'd take off in his daddy's pickup and run. They'd find the truck smashed up in a ditch somewhere, empty, and no one would ever see my son again, not till his face turned up on a flyer years later at the post office, or on America's Most Wanted.
The game lasted an hour, during which Heather chainsmoked and crossed and recrossed her legs and played with the fringe on her bag and never once gave any sign of interest in what was going on out on the field. When the game ended— Hatch Brothers 6, Acme Hardware 1, practically a rout—Ash shook hands with my brothers, gave Jude a hug, then trotted across the field to where Heather stood waiting. She slid behind the wheel of her station wagon and Ash got into the passenger seat, and they drove away.
From that moment forward, I pledged to myself, I would never let Heather Starbird's name pass my lips, not to Ash or in any other conversation. I'd been holding my head up in Mooney, Texas, for more than half my life while folks talked behind my back; it would take a lot more than a girl with long legs and black hair and a station wagon full of cleaning supplies to make me buckle under. I knew, even if Heather Starbird didn't, what kind of stuff I was made of. Let her see what she thought she could get away with; let them make their bets down at Burton's cafe. A hundred years from now, there'd be a bronze statue of me right alongside Jefferson Davis at the courthouse. I'd outlast them all.
chapter fifteen
ow long has it been, again?" Bailey asked.
"About two minutes since you asked me the last time."
We'd been in the surgery waiting room at County General since 6:00 a.m. The fluorescent lighting wasn't helping either our complexions or our dispositions, nor were the Styrofoam cups of coffee we clutched.
"Dr. C. said it would take three hours, tops."
"It's been three hours and twelve minutes. I'm sure everything's fine. He'll be out anytime now."
I patted my brother's knee. Beads of sweat pooled at his temples, and he twisted his Hatch Brothers Contracting cap in his hands.
He got up and started to pace, dodging lamps and end tables like they were pedestrians on a city sidewalk. "Why don't you go outside for a few minutes, get some air?" I said. He shot me a look like I'd suggested he buy an ai
rplane ticket and fly to California.
I picked up a magazine and flipped through photo spreads of stars posing with award statuettes they'd won six or seven years earlier, their hair and outfits hopelessly dated. I'd probably already looked at the same magazine a dozen times that morning, but it kept my mind from going down the dark alleys where it really wanted to go. All I could think about was all the Sunday mornings I'd skipped church, all the times my mama had told me she'd pray for my damnable soul. I hadn't eaten breakfast, and my stomach was growling.
At 11:10—four hours and ten minutes after the start of Geneva's surgery—Dr. Crawford came through the door of the waiting room, pushing eyeglasses onto his nose with a forefinger.
"Sorry," the doctor said, "sorry, sorry. Never tell the family you'll be out in a jiff. I know better than that. Y'all must be just about out of your minds."
"Is she okay?" Bailey blurted out.
"Yes, sir. I'll tell you, though, it was complicated. As much scar tissue as I think I've ever seen. It's a wonder she held out so long to get this thing taken care of. She must've been in so much pain…"
"But she's all right now? Everything turned out fine?" I sank back against the arm of the chair, letting the magazine drop onto the table.
"We might have to keep her a day or two longer than we thought, while she heals up. But after that, she'll be as good as new. Better, probably."
Bailey covered his face with his hands. The room seemed to fill up with our expelled breath, our answered prayers.
"I need to see her." Bailey's voice was thick, his eyes swimming.
"She's still asleep, Son," Dr. C. said. "Out like a light."
"I don't care. I just need to see her."
The doctor looked at him a minute, then put an arm around his shoulders. "Okay, my man," he said. "Right this way. But only for a minute, now. After we get her upstairs, you can stay as long as you want. Both of you."
"Call Dove," Bailey said to me over his shoulder as they left the room.
I sat quietly for a minute or so after they'd gone, straightening the stack of magazines with my hands. I didn't care if I never saw another copy of People or Field and Stream as long as I lived. Thank you, I recited silently, thank you, thank you. I won't forget about this, I promise. I went to the pay phone in the hall and called Dove and told her everything was all right, and then I went to the cafeteria and ordered a cheeseburger.
Geneva stayed at County General for five days, during which Bailey and I shuttled back and forth between my house and theirs, our jobs and the kids' school and Dove's and the hospital, an endless round of swing shifts and work, meals on the fly and housekeeping left undone. When those five days were over, things would ease up. At least that's what I kept telling myself as I rushed from one place to the next, trying to get flowers ordered and accounts balanced, kids driven from school to Dove's to Little League practice, food on the table, to keep two households from spinning out of control. I'd fall into bed worn to a nub, out the minute my head hit the pillow, then wake up a couple of hours later, wired with a nameless, faceless dread. I'd make myself a cup of Sleepytime tea and sip it at the kitchen table. Outside, Ash's trailer might be dark, or lit up like a Christmas tree. Some nights I had to talk myself out of walking down the hall, making my way brave and barefooted across the backyard to knock on his door. What if Heather was there? What if she wasn't? What did I want from him, anyway? My mind went round and round until it finally reached its limits, wrung itself out, and I could haul myself back to bed to grab a few hours' sleep before the drill started over again.
Later I wondered how I could have been so delusional. In my fantasies, Geneva strode out of the hospital her old self, full of pep and snappy repartee, when in fact she was rolled out in a wheelchair, sore and groggy from pain and medication. The truth was, once home, she needed looking after, too, something that until then we'd had trained nurses to handle for us.
Things, already pointed downhill, started to snowball. Though Bailey was fully capable of getting Lily off to school in the mornings, she played him like a piano, dawdling around until the last possible minute, demanding elaborate breakfasts and wardrobe items that existed either at the bottom of the laundry basket or that she'd seen on some child at school or on TV. She wanted to stay home with her mama, to lie in bed and be waited on hand and foot and watch soap operas and reruns of Bewitched and Gilligan's Island. That week she got two yellow squares for tardiness, the first of her kindergarten career.
In the late mornings, Dove came over to help Geneva, to fix her something to eat, get her dressed, sit and keep her company. At two she'd drive home again to be there when the school bus dropped off Jude and Lily. The first day, she tried keeping them at Bailey and Geneva's house, but things got out of hand so quickly that she reverted to the original plan, which meant that Geneva was on her own until Bailey or I could get away from work. We were all rearranging our schedules constantly, dropping things half-done to run off and take care of somebody or something else—Geneva's lunch, doctors' appointments, the kids' after-school activities. Some days I was at Faye's for only two or three hours, tops, and would end up coming back in the evenings to take care of paperwork. It got to the point that I dreaded the sound of a ringing phone, and a full night's sleep became a memory.
Finally, one afternoon toward the end of the week, Ash dropped by the shop. I hadn't washed my hair in three days, and it was pulled back with a rubber band into a makeshift ponytail. I'd spilled coffee on my shirt while I was rinsing out the pot. If I'd put on lipstick that morning, it was surely chewed off by now.
But I didn't much care; I was preoccupied, as usual lately, with how I could manage to be in two places at once. Geneva had a checkup in less than half an hour, and Bailey was supposed to drive her, but he'd called to say he was stuck at a job site in the next county. Dove had her hands full with the kids, and I didn't see how I could get away; Audrey had just left on a round of deliveries, and Peggy was down in Marshall for the day, visiting a cousin who'd had an emergency appendectomy. At the sight of Ash standing in my showroom, sunburned and grinning, my first instinct was to rush around the counter and slug him.
Instead, what I did was even worse. My lip started to quiver, and tears pooled in my eyes.
"Hey," he said, laying his hands over mine on the countertop, "hey, hey." I tried to take back my hands, but he got hold of my wrists and pinned them. "What's going on? You look like hell."
"Thanks. I really needed to hear that."
"Here." Reaching into his back pocket, he produced a faded red print bandanna. "Go ahead. You can't make it any worse than it already is, if that's what you're worried about."
He was right. I dabbed my eyes and blew my nose. I tried to return it, but Ash pushed it back.
"Keep it," he said. "Now, you want to tell me what's going on?"
I filled him in on the craziness of the past ten days, about Bailey and Dove and me running ourselves ragged, about the bind I was in just then, with nobody to drive Geneva to the doctor, nobody to keep an eye on the shop if I did.
"Well, hell's bells, Lucy," Ash said when I'd finished blowing my nose again. "Why didn't you say something?"
"To who? We're already doing all we can, and it's just—it's never enough."
"To me, that's who. It's not like you don't know where to find me."
I don't know where to find you, I wanted to say. I hardly know anything at all about you anymore.
"I don't think I'd be too good at running a flower shop," he said, "but I can drive Gen to the doctor if you want. Or—hang on, I've got a better idea. How about if I run over and pick up the kids, so Dove can take her?"
"What'll you do with the kids?"
"What do you think? I'm gonna set them out on the side of the road, let them hitchhike to Little Rock? I'll take them out to my place. They'll be fine." I didn't say anything right away, and suddenly his eyes narrowed and he gave me a faint, ugly smile. "You want me to take a Breathalyzer test first? Is th
at it?"
"Just go get them, please."
He touched his fingers to his forehead. "I live to serve," he said, and before I had a chance to say something smart, he left, his white truck roaring away from the curb.
I stood clutching his bandanna in my fist, temples pounding, relief replaced by a black wall of anger, at Ash, at myself. Why should I be grateful to him for doing what he should have been doing all along? Did he or did he not consider himself part of this family? Not for the first time, I considered the fact that having Ash living right across the road might end up being more harm than help to Jude. Maybe no daddy at all was, in fact, better than one who behaved like a chameleon, changing color to disappear whenever it suited him, for his own comfort and protection.
There were times, as Bailey was fond of saying, when you had to let go of a thing and take it on faith. I might not know till Jude was grown if I'd done the right thing, might not know till I found myself knocking at Saint Peter's pearly gates. Might never know at all, and was damning my eternal soul to hell or worse, to Purgatory. Not that I believed in any or all of those things, except maybe at those times when I found myself staring wide-eyed at the ceiling at three o'clock in the morning, or in hospital waiting rooms, but they did make me think of Father Laughlin down at St. Jude's in Jefferson. I felt like talking to him right then, though I couldn't have said exactly what about or why. What could a Catholic priest—even one like Punch Laughlin, with his running shorts and his gardening shears—do for a half-assed Baptist like me? Still, I longed for the tranquil courtyard at St. Jude's, the sun on the top of my head, the air sweet with the smell of old roses. If I closed my eyes and let myself, I could almost go there in my mind, and as I did, feeling the real world fall away, I felt a stillness so pure and unexpected, I almost forgot to breathe.