by Anne Lovett
Still, Mimi was Mimi and didn’t let her off the hook.
Look at you, she told her. You look like a tramp. She was referring to shiny black satin toreador pants and a low-cut lace blouse.
Nobody in Miami was complaining, Ava said.
You’re in the country now, Mimi said. She bustled around with her walking stick, poking at the clothes in the suitcase. She made me take them to be cleaned. She made an appointment for Ava with her hairdresser. And then she let herself be kind. You’re going to the doctor, she said. You’re going to be the same Ava that he left behind. And no booze.
I can’t do this, Ava said.
Be there for Duke when he comes home. That’s all I ask, I said.
Why are you doing this? she asked again.
I confessed to her then how I’d been writing to him all this time, pretending I’d been her. I didn’t explain how the writing had changed me, giving me some of her strength, some of her determination. I was going to give some of her own back, if I could.
My God, said Ava, as I handed her the packets of letters now, all tied up with ribbons, three years’ worth of letters, twice a week, letters, one hundred and four letters per year, three hundred letters for Ava to read.
She sat there and untied one of the ribbons. I could swear she took out the first one with a shaky hand, from emotion or lack of booze I wasn’t sure. She read it all the way through. Then she put it back and took out another. She read that one all the way through, then put it back. She carefully re-tied the little bundle with ribbon. She leaned back in her chair and lit a cigarette. She was thinking.
No doctor, she finally said.
I had a pan of butterbeans in my lap. Mimi had her priorities. You know you’re sick, I said, and ran my thumbnail along the edge of a bean.
Mimi’s already gone to a lot of expense for me. I just need rest and I’ll be fine.
The doctor will tell you to stop drinking, is that it?
She cut her eyes at me. Maybe I don’t want to.
You’ll die, I said.
Maybe I want to die, she said.
Wash your mouth out with soap, Ava.
I don’t think I can face my loving husband without some fortification. I looked over at her, and sure enough, there was the ghost of a smile.
Are you kidding or not kidding?
That’s for me to know and you to find out. She rose and strode back into the house on those long legs, leaving the basket of letters, and then she came back and got them. I never saw them again.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
We never did get her to go to the doctor, but we got her looking good.
The day before Duke was to arrive home, we took Ava and her things out to the farm. She had insisted on keeping the Miami dresses, but Mimi had bought her a couple of pairs of jeans and some striped shirts. You’ll need these, she said.
Ava greeted Iris as if she’d been away only a week. She walked around the house, looking in all the rooms, and checked out back to see if her Caddy was there, and was pleased to see it alongside one of the trucks in the shed Cyrus had built.
I can unpack, if you like, Mis’ Ava, Iris told her.
All right, she said, but I’m not staying here alone tonight.
You won’t be alone, Iris told her. Me and Cyrus stay to the bungalow.
Mimi and I would stay too. The guest rooms had been finished.
There are ghosts here, said Ava. She had been three weeks without a drink and her nerves were on edge, so I didn’t blame her. She hugged herself. I might go back to Miami, she said. My rent is paid till the end of the month.
You will do no such thing, Mimi said. I will arrange to have your things there sold.
Not yet, Ava said. Not yet.
The next day we were all ready an hour before Duke was to arrive. Ava wore black slacks, spike heels, and a low-cut red rayon blouse. She took a deep breath and went to her room and walked over to her dressing table, now empty of all her jars and bottles. She fingered the empty porcelain dish on her dressing table.
My rubies, she said. Where are my rubies? She walked over to the Chinese jewelry box and opened each silk-lined drawer. She turned to me, a flash of anger in her eyes. All my jewelry is gone, she said. Did you—
Your jewelry’s in the safe deposit box in town, I said. Mis’ Norma thought it ought to stay there until you settle in. But I kept the rubies. If you never came back. I reached into my pocket and pulled out a silk pouch. I handed it to her.
She gave me a long, hard look. Then she shook them out and wordlessly fixed them to her ears. She threw the rhinestones she’d been wearing into the trash.
Mimi and I waited in the living room for Duke’s arrival, reminding me of the time we had all waited for Duke to come home from the war. I tried to keep still and not let Mimi see now nervous I was to see him. Would he be like the old Duke, or would we be meeting a stranger? Had the doctors managed to take his nightmares away? And would he remember what had happened that horrible night?
Back then, I had been holding my joy to welcome him home, sitting on the front steps with the waving daffodils. Now, I was holding my breath. Different songs were playing on the radio, and this time there were no daffodils, but waving broomsedge. It was Indian summer: a warm spell in October, the late crops in, and a light fragrant breeze wafting sweetness our way. Outside, the horses frisked in their paddock, and the new colt, a bay, had grown up to be a beauty called Ranger. Cyrus had trained him well.
Ava prowled the house, unable to sit still, looking into cupboards and closets. Iris, flouring chicken for frying, had cooked all day the day before, butterbeans and corn and slaw. I helped her make a lemon cheese cake, stirring the mouth-watering lemon filling on the stove until it got just right, creamy and translucent. Cyrus was out back with the horses, and Elzuma, wad of snuff under her lip, sat in the kitchen stripping turnip greens for supper.
The breeze outside died down, and it felt like the world was holding its breath. I glanced out the front window where I had spent so many nights looking out at the pines. The trees were taller now, the lower limbs higher from the ground, so you could see more of the road. And now a car was coming up the drive.
When it pulled into the circle and stopped, my heart jumped and I looked over at Mimi.
Ava slipped into the room from wherever she had been.
The door finally opened and Duke stepped out from the passenger side. His father emerged from the driver’s side, and Duke, leaning on his cane, opened the back door for his mother.
He then turned, straightened, and looked toward the house. His face had become more lined and his eyes more deep and thoughtful. I crossed my hands over my heart and pressed, as if that could force it to slow down.
Ava stood stock-still at the window, watching Duke heft his bag and walk up the steps. This time, she didn’t run out to greet him, didn’t throw herself into his arms. She seemed unable to move, one manicured hand resting on the back of the white sofa she’d chosen a lifetime ago.
How can you be so calm? I asked her. He was so thin. His hair had turned entirely gray. A lump rose in my throat.
I’m not calm, she said. I’m numb.
Numb?
You did this for me, she whispered. I still don’t know why.
Since she couldn’t move, I went to the door and threw it open, standing back, so he would see her first. The look on his face when he saw her was like the sky lighting up, the brilliant gold of the early dawn.
She ran to him, then, they wrapped their arms around each other, and then he held her back, looking at her for a long time, the way he had done after the war.
Welcome home, soldier, Ava finally said.
Duke brightened when he finally saw me, and hugged me next, and I swear he looked at me as though we shared a secret.
Mr. D.B. Radford and Mis’ Norma came in and stayed about an hour. Mis’ Norma sat and watched the two of them as if calculating how things were going to be. We served coffee and tea and sweet rolls
and talked about how the town was changing and about the farm and what Duke was going to plant next spring. And then the Radfords said they couldn’t stay for lunch, they had to go.
I walked outside with them. Norma Radford looked at me. I still don’t know if this was the right thing to do, Mae Lee, she said.
It was right, I said. Did you see his face?
I would never tell her of the condition I’d found Ava in, or the apartment in Miami she could still escape to, or the life she had lived, or not lived, there.
Mis’ Norma looked back at the house. They’ll need a lot of support, she said. They are both damaged.
Yes, ma’am, I said, wondering how much she really knew.
Ava and Duke stepped out to the porch then to wave them off.
Mimi and I stayed for lunch because they insisted, and Iris had planned on it, and afterwards Mimi and I decided we had to let them be alone at last, and the last thing I remember of that day was the both of them as Mimi and I were driving away, their arms around each other’s’ waists, waving good-bye as the sunlight glinted off the rubies.
Ava stayed with Duke, her restlessness gone. She looked after Duke pretty well, given her tiredness, which we all put down to her years of heavy drinking. She didn’t mind when he went off riding on Nimrod. Both of them were growing older, and she had regained her love of life and fun, as much as she was able. She made the sun shine for him, and for all of us.
She avoided doctors for three years, until one day in 1957, not long after my twenty-second birthday, she felt too sick to get out of bed. The flu, she thought. Iris could bring her soup and she’d be better in no time. Duke wasn’t having it. He told her if she didn’t go this time, he’d drive her there in the truck and carry her in himself.
The flu turned out to be cancer.
She went into the brand-new hospital in town—the small hospital where Momma had died had been torn down to make room for an office complex—and there in the room with its pale pink walls Ava lay hooked up to tubes and monitors while the doctors did what they could.
She hated it and begged to go home.
Duke sat by her bed and held her hand, talking about old times, their happy times. I hoped that sometime, in Miami, so far from all her dreams, with men she had latched onto out of desperation and spite, she had cried and repented of what she had done, and she wanted to come back to be with Duke, who really loved her, and maybe she had drawn deep from that love, that love that never had left him, love enough for two. And maybe she drew from the love our momma and daddy had given us, deep down, before the devil got into her, filling her with so much wanting, with so much anger that it drowned out the real beauty in her, the beauty inside.
But all Duke’s prayers, all his caring, couldn’t save her. She died after a month in the hospital, protected by morphine oblivion. As much as I’d hated her earlier, I missed her now. It was like a radiant star had disappeared from our skies. I regretted I hadn’t spent more time getting to know her in these last years. Now I had only Mimi and Duke in my family, and I was worried about how Duke would take her death.
I did have my friend, Starrett Conable. He came to Ava’s funeral and hugged me, and we stood together by the mossy gravesite where she would be buried in the Radfords’ plot. He held my hand.
Afterwards, we lagged behind the others walking back to the car. There’s something I want to ask you, he said.
I stopped and looked up at him, so tall and lanky, with the same freckles and light brown sun-bleached hair. He brushed back my hair and touched my scar. You’ve really forgiven me? It’s hard for me to forgive myself, he said. I only opened my trap because I couldn’t stand thinking of you and that guy. Hell, Mae Lee. You know how I’ve always felt about you. Do you think . . . maybe . . .
I felt my face becoming warm and tingly. Hush, Starrett. Not now.
We walked on and were passing behind the mausoleum, out of sight of the others. He leaned down and kissed me.
And I threw my arms around him and kissed him back.
Duke had a relapse after she died. Or so I heard from Elzuma, because a few months after the funeral I was finishing up my schooling and looking after Mimi, who had fallen and broken her hip. I knew she would never be the same again, for her mind was going too. I had to stay with her and look after her, after all she had done for me. I was doing my practice teaching at the same time and writing to Starrett. He had just graduated from Tech and had found a job.
I couldn’t let Mimi down, after all she’d done for me when I had had no place else to go. And Starrett did come from Atlanta to spend time with me.
It was Starrett who told me to go see Duke, and I was glad I did, because he only lived a year longer after Ava died. Some said it was a heart attack, but I knew it was a broken heart. When I went one Indian summer day to see him at Sweetbay, I had written Duke that I was coming, but he’d never answered. Lindy had gone over and told Elzuma of our plans to visit, so I went to Lindy’s house first.
She saddled two horses for us and we took the back roads, past abandoned cemeteries and rolling fields and plum bushes. She told me he didn’t see many people. She’d heard that he thought Ava still lived there and talked to her out loud. We rode for a long time, with me wondering if I really wanted to go.
We finally turned our horses toward Sweetbay when the sun was going down, the October moon was rising, and the air was getting chill. Smoke drifted over from somewhere. And there we saw him, Duke, rocking on the front porch and smoking. Cyrus was sitting on the steps, and Iris was sitting beside him wearing a flowered skirt.
Two brown children were running and chasing under the pines, lobbing magnolia pods at each other. Elzuma sat, elbows on a table, and smoked an Indian pipe. I looked again to see what she was doing.
One by one, she laid out cards.
As we watched, another horse ambled up behind us. I turned, and there he was, Starrett Conable, meeting us like he’d said he would. Have you told Lindy our news? he called.
I shook my head.
What news? she wanted to know.
Just wait, I said. I was saving this for everybody.
We rode our horses up into the yard and tied them to the hitching post that still stood there. There were happy hugs all the way around, and then the three of us stood in front of Duke.
How are you? I asked.
Fine, punkin. His golden eyes searched my face. It’s good to see you looking so pretty. By now the scar had faded to a thin line, and I never thought about it anymore. Why don’t you go in and see Mis’ Ava?
My mouth opened. I looked over at Starrett, at Lindy, my heart in my throat. I glanced over at Elzuma and she shook her head ever so slightly. Later, Duke, I said. I’ve got something to tell you. Starrett and I are getting married. We’re going to move to Atlanta where he works at Lockheed and there’s a nursing home for Mimi.
Well, I’ll be damned, he said. That’ll make Mis’ Ava mighty happy. I’ve got something to give you, punkin. It’ll make a fine wedding present.
He went inside, motioning for us to stay on the porch. He came out a few minutes later. Hold out your hands and close your eyes, he said, just the way he’d said it the day he put the bunny rabbit into my hands.
When I opened my hands, I looked at him, unable to speak. Mis’ Ava wants you to have them, he said.
I stared at the red fire in my hand. I didn’t want them. Not now. Duke stood there, waiting for my happiness, my joy. I smiled at him through tears, kissed his cheek, and thanked him. I slipped them into my pocket.
You children are going to stay for supper, said Elzuma, looking intently at us. Cyrus cooked some of his barbecue, and we got plenty.
Yes, do stay, said Iris. I made a pound cake.
Suits me, said Starrett, grinning broadly.
Me, too, said Lindy.
The wheel of fortune turns continuously, Duke told me. The first shall be last and the last shall be first. We like to talk about love being forever, and maybe on some level,
love is. But the form of love changes as the wheel goes on.
The sun went down that October evening in a blaze, splashing blues and oranges through the Spanish moss of Sweetbay, while we sat on the front porch with Duke, plates on our laps, talking of times past, the way everybody talks of times past, as a time when the world was fine and beautiful and a great mystery to be lived.