There it was, that special smile he dealt out more often these last few days than I’d seen in the whole time I’d cared for him. I leaned over and kissed Mama’s cheek. “How goes it?”
“Quite well. We’re reading the letters from Lady S,” she said.
I glanced toward Carlton.
His smile faded just a bit, and if I hadn’t been watching him closely, I’d have missed it.
“Feelin’...all right...today,” he said.
“Really?”
He nodded but a shift in his gaze told me otherwise. His breathing came in short raspy gulps and seemed more erratic than normal.
He held Mama’s hand and reached for mine. “My...girls.”
The gesture warmed my heart, but a pang of guilt bridled the edges. What would Mawmaw think about our betrayal? For it wasn’t anything but a betrayal. She had not wanted Carlton in her life, Mama’s, or mine. And while she struggled in a rehab hospital a mere fifty miles away, here we were comforting the very person who had caused her a lifetime of pain. I battled the demon tossing me back and forth with what and how to feel about this unusual circumstance. Lord, show me what You want me to see from this.
With my left hand, I patted his bony, wrinkled hand clenched to my right. “Carlton, let me review your chart and see what medication you may need. I’m glad you’re enjoying your time with Mama.”
“I am.” He turned toward her. “She’s...so...kind.”
I glanced toward Mama. Her cheeks blossomed into a rosy shade of pink and her eyes twinkled. “I’m just glad I can be here with you.” She tucked a loose corner of his blanket. I absorbed the scene and etched it in my mind. Mama in the role of caregiver again, but this time, she reveled in it. Flourished from it.
On my way to the kitchen, I placed my hand on her shoulder. “Can you help me in the kitchen for a second?”
“Sure.” She arranged the letters on the nightstand and followed me down the hall. “What’s wrong?” she whispered.
I refrained from answering until we were away from Carlton’s hearing.
Once there, I turned toward her. “How long have you been here?”
“Since seven.”
“So you haven’t gone to see Mawmaw this morning?”
“No.” She pursed her lips. “I can’t see her right now. And besides I like getting to know my father.”
I sighed. “You’re having a hard time holding your anger, aren’t you?”
She slumped into the red vinyl chair at the kitchen table. “Yes.”
I sat next to her. “Mama, you have to decide how you’re going to deal with this. But you will have to deal with it. Avoiding her is not the answer. Remember, you told me about this all being in God’s hands.”
She exhaled, long and low. “I know.” Mama lowered her head and traced the curly-cue patterns on the Formica tabletop. “Cheryl, I feel cheated, and I’m having a hard time overcoming that I’ve missed out on knowing my father. I can’t help but blame Mama for it.”
“You haven’t read the last letter have you?”
She lifted her gaze. “No. Why?”
“Because I think it will help you understand. Wait here.” Standing next to her, I placed my hand on her shoulder and silently prayed. Lord, work in her heart.
I entered Carlton’s room to find him asleep. Relieved that I didn’t have to explain my actions, I retrieved the last of Mawmaw’s letters and brought it to Mama. “Here. Read this now.”
While she read the letter, I scanned Carlton’s chart and noticed he hadn’t received as much pain medication last night as he had on previous nights. Darcy had written a note that he’d denied pain and refused the medication.
I suspected he knew Mama was coming today and wanted to be coherent and awake for her.
Darcy had prepared the syringe, knowing he would need it. I slipped it into my pocket and turned toward Mama.
“He raped her?” Her incredulous tone carried throughout the stark kitchen.
I nodded. “Mama, remember his mental illness and the fact he’d just returned from the front lines.” I lifted my finger. “Wait, here. I’ll give him this medication, and I’ll be right back.”
Upon my return to the bedroom, I found Carlton awake wincing in pain as he tried to move in his bed. I helped him get comfortable and lowered the head of the bed. “I’ve got something for the pain.”
“Where’s...Viv?”
“She’s in the kitchen and will have to leave soon.”
“Will...she...come...back later?”
“She’ll probably come back tomorrow. For now, you need to rest.”
He nodded, and I slipped the medication into the IV line.
“How is he?” Mama asked when I returned to the kitchen.
“Tired and hurting. I gave him something for pain. He should be able to rest now. He asked if you were coming back to see him.”
“Of course, I’m coming. But I do need to talk to Mama.” She held the letter out in front of her and waved it gently up and down. “So many secrets. So much unnecessary pain. I wonder if my diagnosis would have taken so long had we known about this family history.”
Her words struck me. I found it interesting Mama would think about all that happened to our family as a result of an undiagnosed illness.
I shrugged my shoulders. “It’s hard to say, maybe. But who knows.”
“Cheryl, I know how Carlton feels. I know the regret for doing something so horrible that the remorse eats you alive. And all the time you’re doing it, you know it’s wrong, but are powerless to stop yourself.”
Had Mama’s crawling into herself and allowing everyone around her to help her been her way of dealing with the remorse? Seemed strange to me. I never saw anything resembling regret from her. As my mind sifted through the drawers of memories I had locked many years ago, I remembered moments where Mama tried to reconcile her actions. Small gestures where she tried to help me. All of which I had considered methods of manipulation.
While Mama understood how Carlton felt, I could sympathize with how Mawmaw felt. Regardless of why the pain is inflicted, it’s hard to ignore the scars it wields.
My scars were finally softening but still remained, and I suspected I held on to them like a badge of honor. A bit of the stubbornness I recognized in Mama and Carlton. Maybe facing myself could be the worse demon of all to conquer.
Letting go of the entitlement of pity for having been wronged would be a good place to start. While I’d forgiven, I still had a long way to go. Lord, help my unbelief.
Mama stood and gathered her purse. “I’m going to see Mama. I think she’s doing well enough that I can let her know we know the truth.”
“Do you think that’s a good idea? Can you do this without letting the anger erupt?”
She lifted the letter. “She didn’t know about his illness. She just thought he was a bad person she needed to protect me from. Knowing that eases the pain and the anger.”
“Would you like us to go with you?”
“Honey, I’d love for you and Anthony to be there, but it’s not something you have to do. I can do this alone. I think Mawmaw would feel more comfortable if you and Anthony were there. How about y’all meet me at the rehab center after you get off work?”
“Sure. I’ll call Anthony. He’ll come.”
With that, she nodded, pecked a kiss on my cheek, and was out the door.
Mama never ceased to astonish me. She could switch from being so independent to dependent in an instance. And my problem had been thinking she was one or the other.
I returned to check on Carlton whose loud rhythmic rasps told me he was sound asleep. As I watched him, I recognized the personality similarities between him and my mother. I’d been perfectly fine accepting those character flaws in Carlton, so why had I not been able to accept them in Mama?
****
Beau sat across from me at the diner, steam rising from the hot cup of coffee on the table before him. It had been almost five weeks since Annie’s d
eath. He and Steven had left town for a couple of weeks after the funeral. I’d agreed to meet him for a quick cup after work before I headed to the hospital to see Mawmaw.
“So how’s your grandma?” He stirred the steaming liquid.
“She’s getting better. They’ve transferred her to a rehab hospital and she’s able to push her wheelchair. She is doing standing transfers on her good leg. Her speech improvement has been really slow. She can say a few words, but conversations are impossible. The good thing is, she can write. It’s hard to read because it’s with her left hand, but it’s how we communicate.”
“Well, at least she can write. That has to alleviate some of her frustration.”
“Some. She can’t write or figure out the words as fast as she wants to convey them. Mostly all she writes is, ‘I want to go home.’” I smiled. “That’s how I know Mawmaw is still in there.”
He laughed. “Yep, that would be Clarice.”
“How are you and Steven doing?”
“We’re doing fine. Thank you for coming to the funeral. I know we didn’t get a chance to talk much, but you being there meant a lot to Steven and me. The flowers were beautiful. I know Annie would have loved them. Roses were her favorite.”
I smiled. “I know.”
“We miss the visits to the nursing home. At least there, we could talk to her, brush her hair, touch her. Now there’s nothing but a cold headstone. Regardless of how everyone else in my family pays homage to graves, I can’t talk to a marble slab. Neither can Steven. When I asked if he wanted to go to the cemetery, he politely refused. Guess we would both rather remember her when she lived. Sorry, I know that was a long answer.”
“No, don’t apologize. I agree. I’d rather remember my loved ones by the kind of people they were and not the kind of coffin or tombstone they had.” I thought of Elray and the time I’d spent at his graveside. I wished I’d had good things to remember him by. “That’s how I’d want to be remembered.”
He nodded and took a sip. “Did you ever solve your romantic couple mystery?”
I lowered my cup and debated on whether or not I should share our family’s secret. At one time, I had trusted Beau with my life, but so much had changed. I hesitated.
He arched one brow. The left one. At one time, that move would send me into peals of laughter. Mostly, because I’d tried to mimic him and never could.
I took a deep breath and in a flash, decided I would tell him. He would keep this secret if I asked him to and maybe he could offer some well-needed advice.
The family secret of a lifetime took all of ten minutes to share with Beau. Ten minutes. I marveled at the insignificance in time to relay a secret that had brought about all the hurt and deceit that encompassed a lifetime and had shaped the lives of those affected in irreversible ways. As I reflected on the time, a part of me wondered, had Mawmaw been honest years ago about her past would Mama’s disease have been diagnosed sooner? Would my feelings about leaving Bijou Bayou been different and could the man sitting across from me be my husband?
“Wow.” Beau leaned back onto the diner seat. “That’s a pretty wild revelation. How did you find this out?”
I told him about the letters and all that had transpired.
“How can you be sure he’s your Mama’s daddy?”
“We’re waiting on the results of the DNA testing. We should get those today. We’re fairly certain he’s my grandfather.”
Beau shook his head. “That’s so hard to believe. All this time...”
“Yeah, can you believe it? I guess the thing that blows me away more than anything, is I thought I really knew Mawmaw. Now I question if I really knew her at all. How could she have kept such an enormous secret all these years?” My coffee had cooled, and I let the lukewarm liquid flow down my throat.
Beau leaned back onto the red vinyl seat. “Yeah, that’s pretty heavy duty. But think about it, Cheryl. Can you imagine the burden she carried with keeping that secret? She must have thought Carlton a real threat to her and Vivian. She had to believe she was protecting Viv and keeping the secret was the lesser burden than subjecting Viv to someone she thought dangerous. That had to be difficult for her. Especially in the fifties. Times were a lot different back then.”
Bonnie, our waitress strolled by and filled our cups with fresh coffee. Steam trails once again drifted from our cups. Beau was right. Things were quite different then.
“I see what you mean about her thinking he was a threat. But it breaks my heart because they really loved each other so much. Those letters were so poignant and honest.”
“Sometimes there are monsters that steal love. Carlton’s illness did that.”
Had Annie’s accident been the monster that stole his love? As I stared into those milk-chocolate eyes, I knew that Beau and Annie were meant to be. He and I would have never had the kind of love he’d had with Annie. I needed to leave town to be the person I am now and that meant leaving Beau. I would have never appreciated him like I knew Annie did. Beau needed a wife who could do that. The revelation brought freedom. The last bit of freedom my heart needed.
“Maybe it’s not too late for reconciliation,” he said.
It took a moment to realize he meant between Mawmaw and Carlton. “Maybe. Mawmaw doesn’t know that we know. Mama was going to tell her that first week, but Aunt Melanie talked her out of it. I’m glad she did. I’m not sure Mawmaw’s recovery would be going as well. Speaking of Mawmaw”—I glanced at my watch—”I need to get to the hospital. Tonight Mama is going to tell her the truth. Oh, and for now, can you keep this between us?”
“Sure. No problem.”
I left enough money on the table to cover our tab and skittered out before Beau had a chance to slip the bills back into my purse. When I glanced toward him from the door, he shook his index finger at me. His brilliant smile warmed my heart and spurred me on.
Vingt-Neuf
I walked into the lobby of the newly built rehabilitation facility near Lafayette. The ten acres in the country had been donated, and an endowment had paid for the state of the art building.
Mama and Anthony planned to meet me here at seven, and I was a few minutes early. On my way to Mawmaw’s room, I spied her wheeling her chair down the hallway toward me, her right leg and arm doing all the work. The hospital had provided a one-arm drive chair, and it gave her some degree of freedom—not nearly enough for Mawmaw.
When we met, I bent over and kissed her cheek. “Hello. Have you seen Mama and Anthony?”
She shook her head.
“I’m sure they’ll be here soon.”
She lifted the small dry erase board tucked between the side of her chair and her thigh. She scribbled with a fuchsia colored pen on its white surface and then held it for me to see. What’s up?
“We’ll fill you in when they get here. Have you had dinner yet?”
She nodded. “Yeeesss.”
Her verbal answer brought a snippet of joy. Something I needed. “Good. Let’s go to the library. We can sit there and wait for them.”
“OooK.” She wheeled her chair around, and when I reached to push her, she shook her head. “Noo.”
“Very well. You’re right. You need to do this yourself.”
I walked while she wheeled next to me toward the elegantly decorated library. In the middle of the room, a set of leather couches flanked a mahogany coffee table. I slid into one end of the couch on the right and Mawmaw parked her wheelchair next to me.
After a few minutes, Mama’s singsong voice flittered down the hallway as she addressed Mrs. Nelson, another resident who’d suffered a stroke at the same time as Mawmaw.
I glanced at Mawmaw. She lifted her eyes in a rolling motion and, for a moment, reminded me of myself as a teenager when I’d run to complain to her about some unfair punishment Mama had inflicted upon me. A smile settled on my lips and in my heart. She still had her sense of humor.
Mama and Anthony walked in. Mama caressed Mawmaw’s shoulder and pecked a kiss on h
er check. “Mama, how are you?”
Mawmaw nodded.
Mama kissed me, too.
Anthony knelt in front of the wheelchair and wrapped his arms around Mawmaw’s petite shoulders. “Hello, Honey Bunches, what’s new? You been shakin’ up this place?”
Mawmaw’s laughter filled the room. Anthony could work magic. From the time he was a kid, he could elicit a deep belly laugh from her. She kissed his cheek and then ran her fingers through his disheveled hair.
Anthony managed to pull off a just-out-of-bed look. Surprisingly, he wore it well. He leaned over and kissed the top of my head. “Hey, Te.”
I squeezed his hand. “Hey, bro. How’s Angelle?”
“Very well. She’s coming to town this weekend. Maybe we can get together for dinner.”
“I’d like that.”
Mama sat on the opposite couch at the end closest to Mawmaw.
Anthony sat at her side.
Mama took a deep breath and began. “Mama, there’s something that we’ve discovered that we need to discuss with you.”
Mawmaw nodded. Her lips pouted and brows attempted to meet, but with her affected facial muscles only one brow moved inward while the other remained still.
Mama reached into her purse and retrieved the letters she’d found in Mawmaw’s trunk. “We found these letters.”
Mawmaw eyes widened. One brow shot up while the other remained in place giving her face an asymmetrical cartoonish look. As realization settled, she hung her head for a moment. When she looked back at Mama, a proud determination filled her eyes. She reached for her board. She wiped away her previous message with the sleeve of her blouse and wrote frantically. I did what I had to.
Mama nodded. “We know you did. Mama. I’m not faulting you for that. I’ve talked with Carlton.”
Again, Mawmaw’s eyes widened, and she exhaled loudly. “Whaa?” She attempted to speak but frustration overtook. She wiped the board and wrote: He’s here?
“Yes. Once I read these letters.” She lifted the letters from her lap. “I had to know if Carlton was my father.”
Mawmaw scrambled to erase her message and add a new one. Harold was your father.
The Vigil Page 20