Anne Elizabeth Taft
“How’s that?” she asked the clouds, the tree limbs, everything she could see as she lifted her eyes to the sky. But there was no answer. There never was. Tyson Barnes wanted answers, or maybe he just wanted to make a name for himself, searching till he found a cause he could take up and jumping on it when he received Cordell Lewis’s sister’s impassioned letters begging for help for her brother. He’d found something the media would run with, drawing attention to himself and his career. But in doing so, he had brought attention to Annie at a particularly unwelcome time. She just wanted to get married, to get on with her future to stop being “that poor murdered woman’s daughter.” She’d spent her life trying to show everyone that she is more than that—and yet it always comes back to it.
She stamped her foot like the three-year-old she used to be, clenched her fists by her sides. “I just wish I could remember,” she said aloud. “If I could remember, then maybe none of this would’ve happened. Was I right when I said it was Uncle Cord? Or is he right when he says I was just confused? Did someone else come to the tent that night? Did I sleep through it all? I just wish you could answer me. I wish you could tell me if I’m doing the right thing in writing this letter. And if I’m not, I hope you’ll forgive me.”
If someone happened by, it would look like she was talking to herself. But that didn’t stop her. It never had. Some people might not understand her returning to this place when she misses her mom, but the place where her mother was killed is also the last place she was ever with her. Sweetness and sadness always seem to come as a pair. So she goes back to this place when she needs to be near her mom, which has been a lot lately. People are mad at her for disappearing yesterday, but she can’t explain her urgent need to go to this place, to feel connected to her however she can. They think they understand all she’s facing, but they don’t. They don’t know what it feels like to go visit the place where your mother was murdered and call that “being close to her.”
She checks her watch. It’s time to go get Miss Minnie. Annie looks at the notice at the top of her laptop screen: MESSAGE SENT. There is no undo button, no take backs. She’s done what she promised the attorney she would do. She hopes she’s done the right thing.
With the air-conditioning in the car on full blast, they are set to go. Miss Minnie is strapped into the passenger seat beside her, still clutching the old handkerchief Annie brought with her, the one that was her mother’s. Miss Minnie has been worrying the faded scrap of fabric with her gnarled fingers since Annie handed it to her, but Annie doesn’t try to stop her. She is fearful of setting Minnie off. And if that handkerchief is helping to calm her, then let her worry it to shreds. The truth is the old scrap of fabric means nothing to her. She has given it to Minnie to fix just to placate Faye, who seems to need Annie to carry it in her wedding. It’s funny the sentimentalities that a wedding brings out. Annie has been having her own sentimental thoughts lately. Kenny’s face comes to mind, but she blinks until it fades away. No time for that now.
Annie gives her passenger the side-eye, watching her arthritic movements, doubtful that the old woman can truly make lace with those fingers of hers. But Clary says she can, so it must be true. Miss Minnie’s face is turned toward the window, glaring at it like a sullen child. It’s clear that, while she is tolerating Annie’s presence as Clary’s substitute, she is not happy about it.
“Well now, Miss Minnie,” Annie says in the brightest voice she can muster, “where shall we go on our afternoon drive?”
Miss Minnie turns and stares at Annie with her cloudy eyes. Clary says that Minnie needs cataract surgery, but at her age, they’re more fearful of what the surgery could set off than what she’s not able to see. Now Annie wonders what the old woman can make out as she takes her in. The car is silent as Minnie scrutinizes her driver.
“What’d you say your name is, honey?” Minnie croaks, surprising Annie. She has not spoken till now.
“It’s Annie. Annie Taft,” she says. Minnie says nothing in response, just keeps watching her warily, as though she doesn’t quite believe her.
“I’m Clary’s cousin,” Annie explains.
Still nothing from Minnie.
Annie tries again. “You know Faye? Who does your hair?” Reflexively, Annie tugs on her own hair. She has let it grow long for the wedding, but she plans to cut it right after. She doesn’t like her hair so heavy on her neck in the summer. It’s like wearing a permanent scarf in this heat. She’s warned Scott, who loves her hair long, that a haircut is on the horizon. Scott has expectations.
“Why would you want to do that, honey?” he always asks, truly puzzled. “It’s so pretty long.”
She always points at his short hair. “Easy for you to say,” she counters.
“Glynnis does my hair,” Minnie argues, touching her thinning white hair, which is cut in that style that old women wear, the kind that is washed and set and sprayed to death, then worn for a week at a time. Annie has never understood how this works. She could never style her hair just once for a whole week. Though it sounds kind of nice. Easy. Annie spends too much time on her hair. She blames this on being raised by a hairstylist.
Annie knows that Glynnis does not do Minnie’s hair, but she does not argue. She just shifts the car into reverse and carefully begins backing down the drive. She’s been sternly instructed by Clary: “You ask Minnie where she wants to go, but no matter what she says in response, you take her on the same route.” Annie has committed the route to memory after Clary made her repeat it back to her about 452 times this morning:
Take Peppertown Road till it dead-ends into Mill Pond Drive, then follow Mill Pond all the way around (past the entrance to Eden Hill State Park but not the one Annie usually uses) until you come to Fire Alley, which Annie learned from Clary this morning was once the actual alley that ran behind the fire station in town, until the county moved the fire station to its current location. Now Fire Alley goes past a couple of churches and the town ballfields before it circles around till you’re back on Peppertown.
“You just go in a big, long circle through the countryside,” Clary instructed this morning. “It’s easy.”
“Sounds like it,” Annie assured her. But now, with Miss Minnie sitting expectantly beside her, she’s not feeling so confident. Not about the drive itself—she’s lived here all her life; she knows these roads by heart—but about the unpredictable dementia patient beside her. She wonders if Clary felt this way at first, if she ever does still. She anticipates the worst that could happen: Minnie freaks out and thrashes around until she causes an accident. She becomes violently ill. She throws herself out of the moving car.
Annie reaches for the controls on her left and presses the button to make sure the doors are all safely locked. She recalls Clary’s words: “At some point, she’ll start telling you a story. It’s always the same story. I’ve heard it so much I can say it with her. But it passes the time and seems to settle her. So just let her tell it. If she stops talking, sometimes I’ll ask a question to keep her going. She kind of snaps back to attention, remembers she has an audience that way. She likes when you act interested.”
Annie decides to try that. “Clary said you like to tell stories?” she says to the back of Miss Minnie’s head. The old woman is gaping at the scenery like she hasn’t seen it a thousand times, like she’s being driven through the countryside of a totally new, enthralling place. They could be in England or the African plains, not boring old Ludlow. Annie wishes she could see Ludlow through new eyes. She wonders if she will feel that way when she returns, if Ludlow will become something entirely new to her, if someday she will actually miss this place.
She listens to the sound of the tires on the pavement and the hum of the engine for a while, lulled by the monotony. Clary hasn’t prepared her for a scenario in which Minnie says nothing. She seemed certain that Minnie would talk. Annie is a bit taken aback that Minnie is giving her the silent treatment when she regularly regales Cla
ry. An old competitiveness rises up in her. Annie will not come in second to her cousin. So she tries again.
Annie prompts her passenger. “Clary says you like taking this way because it reminds you of a special day?”
Annie glances over to see Minnie’s shoulders stiffen in response, but still she says nothing. “Okay, maybe we’ll just listen to some music, then?” Annie says brightly. She turns on the radio, and rap music blares from the speakers. Minnie whips her head around faster than Annie would’ve thought possible. She looks startled and panicked.
“Sorry! Sorry!” Annie says, and quickly punches the button for the all-news channel she forces herself to listen to each morning so she will know something about the state of the world. Scott likes her to be informed, as he calls it. Annie sort of feels that the less she knows about the state of the world, the better. But it helps with their conversations when she can contribute with some degree of knowledgeability. So she listens dutifully and, later, says thoughtful things. It makes Scott happy, and she wants to make Scott happy. She does. Kenny’s face flashes in her mind again, and she ignores it again.
The announcer drones on, and driver and passenger let him do the talking for a while. Annie thinks that perhaps they will just finish the ride this way. It won’t be Minnie’s usual afternoon ride, but it will be good enough. Of course Annie will have to tell Clary that things didn’t go as planned, and then hear Clary go on and on about messing up Minnie’s routine, but that is none of her concern. At this point she just wants to be done with this boring obligation. She doesn’t know why she told Clary she would do this. This is above and beyond the call of duty. No good deed goes unpunished and all that. Clary better find that damn bird of hers.
“And now for the local news,” the announcer says. “The top story today is the predicted release of Cordell Lewis, who will await a new trial as a free man, thanks to the efforts of local attorney Tyson Barnes. Lewis has spent twenty-three years in prison for the murder of Lydia Taft, a Ludlow resident who was found murdered after her young daughter was discovered wandering in Eden Hill State Park. That daughter is—” Annie scrambles to turn off the radio just as they pass the entrance to Eden Hill State Park.
When the radio snaps off, she feels Minnie turn from the window to look at her, but Annie keeps her eyes on the road. She wonders if the old woman is looking at her because she abruptly turned off the radio, or if she realizes they are passing the place the announcer just mentioned, or if she is putting together that the reason she turned off the radio is because they were about to start talking about her. She imagines it is not the latter. Minnie has dementia. She couldn’t possibly put that together in her addled mind. It’s more likely Minnie was just enjoying the dull drone of the announcer’s voice and didn’t want the radio turned off.
Annie glances over at Minnie, who is back to worrying the handkerchief as she, too, stares out the windshield in front of them. They are both looking in the same direction for the first time since they got in the car. Annie waits for her own breathing to return to normal. That news story has rattled her. With Cordell Lewis getting out of prison, she will have to stop listening to the news, no matter what Scott says. She doesn’t need to hear people talk about her on the radio. She just wants to get married and get out of this town, leave all this behind her.
They ride another mile in silence before she takes a deep breath and tries one last time to salvage the car ride, just so she can tell Clary things went as planned. She prompts Minnie again. “Clary said you like to talk about a baseball game? And your husband?” She glances over at Minnie to see if she’s heard.
Minnie turns and glares at Annie, her head moving on her neck like a ventriloquist’s dummy. “My husband is no business of yours, young lady,” she spits out. Her cloudy eyes have gone from aged to hard. “You stay away from him. Do you hear?”
Annie’s breath is caught in her throat as Miss Minnie continues to stare at her without really seeing her. Minnie’s back is pressed against the passenger side door. Her lips move as though she is speaking, but no sound comes from her mouth. Annie wonders what words she is not saying.
She’s just an old woman, Annie coaches herself. Don’t be ridiculous. Minnie is no one to be afraid of. Take charge of the situation before she gets riled up.
In an effort to calm her passenger, Annie simply says, “It’s okay, Minnie. It’s Annie, Annie Taft? Clary’s cousin?” Ridiculously, she realizes she is pointing at herself and lowers her finger. “Do you know who I am?” she asks, hoping that Minnie’s confusion will clear, and she can get her home and tucked in to the couch with the History channel on TV and her bland dinner on her lap, just as Clary instructed. Annie has to hand it to Clary—if this is normal Minnie behavior, she earns every bit of whatever Glynnis pays her.
Miss Minnie narrows her eyes at Annie and clutches the handkerchief to her chest, keeping it away from Annie like a child might. “I know very well who you are,” Minnie says. But Annie can see that the old woman isn’t looking at her so much as through her. She wonders how she can know who she is if she isn’t seeing her at all.
Kenny
She calls because she knows his girlfriend is out of town and she can. This is what Annie does. This is what Annie has always done, always coming back to that one magical night in high school when Clary and Faye went to Virginia for a family funeral and left Annie at home. She’d called him then, too, afraid to spend the night alone. He’d lied to his mother and slept over at Annie’s. Their whole relationship had changed that night. At least, as far as he’s concerned it did. He can never quite gauge whether Annie was as affected by that night as he was, and he’s never been brave enough to ask. Then, and now, he is a fish on her line, and she can reel him in or cast him out, whichever she feels like doing.
He debates not answering at all, giving her a taste of what’s to come when she marries the other guy and they can’t talk anymore. But then he thinks of the mere weeks they have left before that happens and answers before the call can roll over to voice mail.
“Can I come over?” she asks, breathless.
He rolls his eyes heavenward, searches the ceiling for an answer to this dilemma that has plagued him since middle school: What to do about Annie?
“Are you there?” she asks.
He suppresses a sigh. “Yes.” He glances down at his phone. “It’s kind of late to be coming over here,” he says. This is an excuse, and they both know it.
“Please.” She doesn’t bother to keep the whine out of her voice.
He wants to say, Where’s your fiancé? Why can’t you go to him? But he knows that if she’s calling him, then chances are Scott is out of town. Scott goes out of town often, which is how Annie has continued to hang on to Kenny. Her traveling fiancé plus his traveling girlfriend equals a relationship kept hidden far longer than it should’ve been. But they’ve promised: once she’s married, that’s the end. This makes him far sadder than it should, considering how long he’s had to get used to the idea. Annie has been engaged for a year. He thinks of the night she showed up with The Ring on her finger, acting as if it were nothing when it was everything.
“Were you going to tell me or just let me figure it out for myself?” he’d asked her.
She’d covered The Ring with her other hand and looked guilty. “I didn’t know which was better,” she’d said.
“Come on over,” he says now, and sighs loudly, as if he’s not happy about this.
“Thank you,” she says. And he can hear it in her voice, how relieved she is. He worries about her sometimes, when he’s feeling selfless. He worries about what she’ll do without him to run to. This loss will primarily be his—he doesn’t kid himself about that—but it will be hers, too. She will miss him, but he doesn’t think she’s fully grasped that yet.
Eight minutes later, she knocks, and he tugs open the door to his apartment, one of four in a small building in the heart of town. He tried to get her to move in when the downstairs unit became availab
le a while back, but she refused. He didn’t understand why until she got engaged. Why move out of Faye’s when she was just going to move in with Scott. The point is, he thinks, to never live alone.
Annie looks right and left—you never know who’s watching in this town—and darts inside.
“You got here fast,” he remarks.
“I drive fast when I’m upset,” she says. “I need a hug.” She throws her arms around him, and he stiffens. He is determined to keep her at arm’s length, where she belongs. But Annie has a way of getting past his boundaries.
“What are you upset about?” He steps backward, out of her embrace.
Annie launches into a story about the old lady Clary drives: how she drove her today to help Clary and the woman looked at her strangely and it creeped her out. But of course this is not what Annie is really upset about. There’s always what Kenny has come to think of as “the preamble” to their heart-to-hearts. The initial story is always the launching-off point, the part she feels safer telling. After that, she gets to what’s really bothering her. Kenny just has to wait it out.
“Also,” she says, getting his attention. The word also indicates that she’s about to get to why she’s really there. “I did something I probably shouldn’t have.”
He shakes his head slowly, wishing he had a twenty-dollar bill for every time he’s heard Annie say that exact sentence. “What’d you do that you shouldn’t have?” he says, trying to sound noncommittal, bored even. This is the game they play. She pretends she has no one else in the world but him, and he pretends not to care.
“I sent a letter to Cordell Lewis’s lawyer. In support of his release.”
Her words remind him that Annie is still capable of surprising him. And this fills him with stupid hope. “Everyone told you not to do that.”
She folds her arms and cocks her head. “Except you,” she reminds him.
“You didn’t really ask me my opinion.”
Only Ever Her Page 5