Embrace Me

by Lisa Samson

  “Just finish up your makeup, Daisy, until Trician gets back.”

  Her lips pursed. Of course she thought her makeup was finished.

  She hurried off.

  The day had been horrible to begin with. This show had to be a hit. We had broken ground on the new building at church and we needed more money. Add to that one of the elder’s wives spent an hour in my office complaining we weren’t getting enough meat at Elysian.

  My father pressured me in his previous Sunday call. “Cast aside this little ministry venture you’ve got going, Drew, and come to DC and play with your guests for real. I’ve got just the position for you. You’d be a much better lobbyist than you are a preacher.”

  Working with my father every day? If there’s a better definition of hell, I’d like to hear it. Although I’m sure you have one, Father Brian.

  Unfortunately, he was right. I would have made a better lobbyist.

  Daisy came out of the women’s restroom looking like a clown.

  Thank heavens Charmaine Hopewell, Faith Street’s first guest, stood with me receiving instructions from the director.

  After a quick chat introducing the show, she’d sit along with our state’s US Senator, Jack Tyne, a devout Catholic crusading against abortion. Jack was the real deal. He saw people like my father and those radio personalities as caricatures, in it for the power, the money, and … the power.

  I knew this because it took me weeks to talk him into coming on the show, using every rationale I could drum up short of coming out and saying, “I’m nothing like Charles Parrish.”

  And you know what? Back then, I honestly didn’t think I was.

  Charmaine turned to Daisy. “Oh, honey! Look at you, you pretty thing! Now I know you’re used to making yourself up for stage, but TV is a little different. A little more subtle. Let me help you. Would you mind?”

  “Not a bit. I had made my—”

  “You’re a lifesaver, Mrs. Hopewell.” I turned my back on the women. Especially Daisy. I did feel a twinge of remorse. I’m not a sociopath.

  I look down on my wrist and check the time once more.

  The park’s deserted this time of year and the wind runnels through the gorge, shaving off microscopic bits of sandstone, carving up nature in bits and pieces. That’s what Hermy the Encyclopedia told me on the way down.

  Sitting at a nearby picnic table, I pull out my pack of smokes, light one, inhale. Ah yes, and press it into my arm. Nobody’s around but God and the birds anyway.

  This isn’t confessional, but I’m waiting to see my mother, Father Brian. If I write it down, maybe I’ll remember it more, remember her more. Maybe my stomach will settle down and I won’t feel the need to press cigarette after cigarette into my flesh.

  My last real block of memory comes from the summer of my twelfth year, a summer that crawled along in the sordid heat of Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Dad still lobbied for the tobacco industry, and I was shorter than everybody else in my class at The Duke School.

  Mom rarely entered Dad’s world. She carted me around to school, sports—consisting of fencing, golf, tennis, piano, and chess lessons. Monica always presented a hot, bordering on gourmet, supper for my father when he wasn’t taking someone out to dinner or off on some trip with an elected official. Only once or twice a week did Dad sit down at his own table. During such meals both my mother and I found ourselves as grilled as the steaks by the time we arose from our seats. Breathing with relief when he hid away in his den and we cleared the table, our eyes would meet and we never had to say what we were thinking. “It’s just you and me in this life. It doesn’t matter what he thinks as long as we have each other.”

  A week before Mom’s “car crash,” the thick summer seethed, the blacktop burned the soles of my feet, and breathing felt like an easy-listening version of swimming. Mom, from Louisiana stock, preferred the humid blanket of real-time weather to the artificial snap of air-conditioning. When Dad went away, she turned off the cool and we sweated out our days together. I never minded.

  We spent our afternoons at the pool, Mom with that golden brown, Southern woman glow that served as a backdrop for her gold jewelry and her yellow and white two-piece. She’d clip along in yellow high-heeled sandals with daisies on the straps, an oversized white shirt that belonged to her deceased father billowing behind her. I figured that because she was easily the prettiest woman at the pool, the other women steered clear.

  Now I’m not so sure. Maybe others saw crazy spiraling in her eyes that was invisible to my own. Maybe she was prophesying to them too.

  After we came home, showered, and changed into fresh shorts and shirts, she’d assemble a meal of corn on the cob, sliced cucumbers, and some cold chicken, or maybe a tomato stuffed with tuna salad. We’d sit at the glass-topped table on the screen porch and we’d talk. I could always talk to my mother and she listened to my opinions, sometimes letting what I thought color her own. It wasn’t always the other way around with Mom.

  How did my father become such an influence on me? Why does it happen? Why does the aloof parent become the prize, when the attentive one, the deserving one, is taken for granted? Not that I had the chance to take my mother for granted. Maybe never having the opportunity to turn my back on her was a blessing. Maybe Dad was right.

  But perhaps I wouldn’t have turned my back on her at all.

  Perhaps I would have ended up just like her. Okay, not crazy in Kentucky, but devoted to the Lord. What does true, all-out devotion really feel like?

  Do you even know, Father Brian?

  After we cleared and cleaned the dishes, we’d walk down to the pond in our development where she’d spread a blanket and we’d sit until the fireflies came out, or we’d swing in the hammock with our books. Mom loved Clyde Edgerton and T.R. Pearson, Lee Smith and Flannery O’Connor. At twelve, I’d gone through all the Newberry Award winners she thought worthy and was already onto Orwell, Steinbeck, and Hemingway. For fun, I read James Clavell and James Michener. Sometimes we stayed on the screen porch and played hearts or spades.

  I’m waiting at the car now, eating a very stale honey bun from the center’s vending machine. Hermy finally returns. “What an experience. You can see the whole world from up there.”

  “Where?”

  “Top of Natural Bridge, then on Lover’s Leap.”

  Lover’s Leap. Where was that when I needed it?

  “I’ll have to head up there.” I tuck a trail and campsite brochure into my rucksack. “Lots of places to pitch a tent in this area.”

  “Sure. Ready?” He reaches for the door handle.

  I slip inside the car. “Gotta be.”

  “Turn left up there on Route 715.”

  I steer the car accordingly. Only two more miles.

  I back down to about twenty miles per hour. “Beautiful scenery.”

  Hermy doesn’t say anything. Bare, smoke-brown trees, the leaf-carpeted arboreal floor, blue sky. Nothing like the cliffs we just passed at fifty-five. But now it’s close and it’s real. Monica’s almost around the corner. Will she be surprised? Something tells me no. She’ll feel that I’m on the way.

  “I sure hope she doesn’t mind our just showing up like this,” Hermy says. “If she’s anything like you say, this could be interesting.” We ride by a small brick church, a closed-up flea market. “Hopefully there’s a library in Beattyville or Campton.”

  “As if you don’t already know.”

  He grins.

  At least it’ll get my statistical friend out of the house during the day.

  “Take a right at that Deer Creek sign and then you’ll take the next left after that. You know, she could really be crazy, like your dad says.”

  “Yeah.”

  “We could find a sanitarium at this address, or maybe some nurse is taking care of her, giving her antipsychotic shots, or tying her down when she goes—”

  “Okay, Hermy! Man!”

  “Sorry.”

  It’s easy to see why someone would
settle down out here for some peace of mind. We’ve only passed a few cars since getting off the highway. The branches move in the breeze. I’d guess it’s about fifty degrees.

  I take a left at the next road. Wooden planks set in stone advertise Deer Creek in gold letters. Nice. But even in what I’m guessing is some sort of exile, my mother would be well cared for. My father’s pride wouldn’t let her weather any sort of physical storm. Maybe he even loved her once. I don’t know.

  Stopping the car by the sign, I reach into my pocket for my cigarettes. “Sorry, Herm. Gotta have one.” I get out.

  He joins me. “No prob. Don’t blame you.” He holds out his hand and I offer the pack, jostling it upwards to exhume a smoke.

  “So, I’m not sure what to expect.” I drag on the cigarette a moment later, feeling the nicotine seep into my body. Oh, man, how the cells remember.

  Hermy shakes his head. “A nice woman like that going crazy all of a sudden and at that party too. I mean, I looked it up; crazy can happen quick. But that doesn’t make it any less sad, if you know what I mean.”

  “Yeah, I know what you mean. I don’t trust a word my dad says. I mean, yeah, she ruined it for that candidate, but … I don’t know, Hermy. Was she certifiably crazy? I don’t know.”

  Finishing up the smoke, I grind the butt with my heel then throw it into the tall winter grass. I bend forward at the waist to give my head an extra helping of blood, straighten up, and stretch my back. “Let’s hit it.”

  The cabin is what I would expect of the woman who made me Coke floats and wore straw hats while reading or gardening in the sunshine. White chinking visible between the squared logs, the structure clings to a ledge. The strata of wind-carved sandstone across the great crevice soaks up the rays of the setting sun, somehow throwing back a golden arc over a mist lying low in the gorge.

  Hermy whistles between his teeth.

  Low-slung light illumines tree trunks digging their gnarled roots to the sides of the cliffs. The conifers rustle in the wind driving down from the mountains, and I feel the urgent swelling of a million lives being lived right under my gaze.

  “Nice little place,” Hermy says.

  “Uh-huh.” I get out of the car. Decking angles from the front around to face the gorge. On either side of a front door holding an intricate window of beveled glasswork, flowerpots of all sizes sit empty. If she’s still the same, they’ll be cascading with plants by June.

  “She still loves flowers, I guess.”

  The door swings open and she stands there in white pants and a sweater as blue as the sky. “Your father was right. You came right here.”

  I nod.

  “Come in, Drew. And bring your friend.”

  What could such a reunion be? She let me go. I thought her dead. We found each other, and quickly once again the wheels begin to turn. But Hermy’s here. From what I remember, Monica wouldn’t get slobbery and emotional in front of a stranger.

  We follow her into the cabin, mellow log walls covered with beautiful wall hangings still emitting a pine scent. I smell stew too.

  I tower over her.

  Monica is small. I never knew. I just never knew.

  She turns to Hermy. “Excuse us, will you? Help yourself to some stew. You all must be hungry.”

  My mother puts her arm through mine and leads me down the hall into a sunroom overlooking the cliffs. She shuts the door, leaving Hermy to his meal.

  “I’m sorry and I love you.”

  I shake my head slightly.

  “I’ve been wanting to say those words for years, Drew. You must know. I love you and I’m sorry. I love you.”

  She draws me to her. Finally. And leads me to the sofa. We sit and she takes me into her mother arms, and she is sane, and she is good. And I don’t know how this all fits together, but for now, I’ll rest.

  TWELVE

  VALENTINE: 2009

  No matter what I say, I can’t convince Blaze to turn up the heat. I plead with her when she walks in the door from work.

  “Look, I’ll pay an extra fifty bucks a week, even.”

  “No way! Miller Renault down the street, same basic floor plan as our house, put his up to seventy and the bill was almost seven hundred dollars.”

  “How much are you paying with it at sixty?”

  “Almost four hundred a month.”

  “Oh.”

  “Is Dahlia still reading those books to Lella?” Blaze puts the kettle on.

  Thing is, the contraband heater is pretty much out of my reach because Dahlia—who rented a roll-away bed from ABC Rentals—is staying in with Lella, reading romance novels aloud, rolling her mouth around the smutty parts like pieces of cinnamon candy. After one session, I beat it out of there.

  “Yeah, poor Lell. She’s so innocent. I don’t know what Dahlia’s thinking.”

  “Lella can take care of herself. Want a cup of tea?”

  “Thanks. Did you see the latest makeover she did on Lell?”

  “No. Was it bad?”

  “Awful. I think it should go on the list of deadly sins or something.”

  “You can’t help but like her, though.”

  “I know. I wish I didn’t.”

  Sitting at the kitchen table the next day, a draft from beneath the door tearing at the fabric of my slippers as if they were tissue paper, I shell some fresh peas Blaze bought at the IGA. Across from me, Rick shreds a brick of Monterey Jack for the scalloped potatoes destined to accompany the ham, resting beneath a glaze of brown sugar, dried mustard, and a dollop of Blaze’s raspberry jam and warming in the oven.

  Rick slides the creamy block down the box grater. “So, this Dahlia. You like her?”

  “Who wouldn’t, you know?”

  “Seems like a straight-up lady to me.”

  “Me too.”

  Rick stops the cheese. “How much longer is she going to be here?”

  “Why?”

  “Straight up or not, she just makes me uncomfortable the way she dotes on Lella. She treats her like a baby or something. It’s just kinda weird.”

  “She’ll only be here a little while longer.”

  “Lella’s probably sick of her by now.”

  “If she is, she’s not letting on.”

  Rick moves the cheese again. “Well, maybe now’s as good a time as any to let her go, Valentine. You’re going to have to someday, right?”

  I stand, reach over to the coffeemaker on the counter, and turn off the burner. “I don’t know who it is that almost empties the pot, leaving just enough to burn to tar, but they should be shot.”

  “Hey, it wasn’t me. And don’t avoid the question, Val. You have a way of doing that.”

  “Why do I have to let her go? I’ve been helping Lella for over three years now. We’ve wintered here four times and we’ll be back next year after another successful season on the road. I’m picking out house plans for us once this all goes away. This someday you’re talking about, I just don’t buy.”

  He holds up both hands. “Sorry, Val.”

  “And why are you always apologizing?”

  “Because I’m always getting under your skin, that’s why.”

  I sit back down and pick up another pea pod. “Well, I should be the sorry one. There’s been just too much upheaval this winter. This Augustine guy and his weird Laundromat monastery, Charmaine Hopewell coming over all the time—”

  “You don’t like her either?”

  “I love her! She just makes me face things about my life I’d rather not think about, that’s all. Kinda like you, if I think about it.”

  I push the bag of potatoes, Yukon gold, the best as far as I’m concerned, in his direction and ask if he’ll scrub them. Of course he will. He’s Rick, a really nice, really stretchy guy who deserves to have a crush on someone other than me.

  After sliding the potatoes, swimming in cheese and cream, into the oven, I hear Lella’s voice call down from her room. “Valentine!”

  I practically wound myself tripping
up the steps, I run so fast.

  “Yeah, Lell?”

  “Aunt Dahlia went over to the square to get us some Sunday morning donuts.”

  Lella’s hair is teased around her head and I imagine beady eyes opening up, a tail whipping forward, and the whole affair jumping off her head to return to its native woodland setting.

  She frowns. “It’s awful, isn’t it?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Oh, well. Aunt Dahlia makes up for it in so many other ways, doesn’t she?”

  I just nod and say, “Ham, peas, and scalloped potatoes for dinner after Blaze gets home from the Laundromat.”

  It sounds pathetic, this little offering of meat with nitrates, peas from who knows where, and potatoes that grew to maturity in common dirt.

  “Can you take me to the bathroom, Valentine? I wouldn’t ask, but—”

  “Sure, I will. Just because Aunt Dahlia’s here doesn’t mean I don’t want to help.”

  “You still do? Really? I thought you’d be glad for the break.”

  In response, I lift her into my arms.

  Lella thanks me over and over again, more profusely than ever before. Because plainly, it must not really be my job anymore.

  I settle her back onto her bed.

  She sighs. “I don’t know, Valentine. Is this the life we want for good?”

  “Oh, Lella, it’s the only life I have.”

  Heading back to my room, I look up at the icon I bought on the Internet.

  “And I was so happy that night on the lake,” I tell John, or at least who I think is John because he’s right next to Jesus and doesn’t look evil like the other guy, who must be Judas, right? “But this Aunt Dahlia business is driving me crazy.”

  I’d hung the picture over my CD player. I push the button only to hear Frank Sinatra croon my song.

  Bartholomew would approve.

  Yesterday Bindy and Mindy left, having been hired by a bigger show. We had a going-away cake. After they were driven away. Ha! Ha!