Three Rivers
Page 23
“I’m sorry,” Geneva said.
“I’ll let her know.”
“Not her.”
Melody’s mother had never apologized to her for anything, and she wasn’t apologizing now. She was in her head, hallucinating from the drugs. “I killed her. I didn’t know what else to do. I was so young, just like you are now. I couldn’t see any other way. She wanted to go. You’d have done the same.”
“What are you talking about, Mama?”
“We were trapped,” she said. “I set her free. I saved myself. You don’t know what it’s like to be stuck. I did the best I could, you know. I always did the best I could.”
When her mother was better and no longer on heavy painkillers, Melody planned to tell her that she knew exactly what it felt like to be stuck. There was no point trying to get through to her now, though. “I’ll be back soon,” she said.
“I did the only thing I knew to do,” her mother said. “I did the best I could.”
* * *
Melody made one more stop before leaving the hospital. Chris’s face was swathed in bandages. The doctors broke his nose again to reset it, but it would always be crooked. The bruising around his eyes had softened, and the black was fading into spectacular shades of mottled green and yellow. His head, where the doctors had drilled in and removed fluid from his brain, was shaved and stark on the white pillow.
“They said I can go home tomorrow,” Chris said. “I don’t really have a home.” She knew what he meant. He didn’t have anywhere that felt like home.
“Your parents will be glad to see you. I’m sure they’re worried sick.”
“My mother organized a prayer chain with the women at church. Someone is praying for me around the clock. They all took half-hour increments. Dad said she posted a schedule on the refrigerator.”
Melody laughed. “She wants to do something. It’s what she knows.”
Chris grimaced. “I can’t feel God anymore. I used to pray and know that he was there, listening. Now, it’s just empty.”
“Maybe that’s what God is,” she said. “Just emptiness that we fill up with whatever we need.”
“That’s depressing.”
“Well, I haven’t really got it figured out. I could be wrong.”
“I feel like a fraud,” Chris said. “I don’t know what I’m supposed to do now.”
“No one has to do anything in this world,” Melody said, parroting George Walter. The strange man who had picked her up on the side of the road had been right about so many things. “Everything in life is a choice.”
“If that’s true, you should choose to keep singing. There’s nothing phony about your voice.”
“I’ll see you tomorrow,” Melody said. “I’ll stop by and say good-bye before they release you.”
Melody drove for more than five hours, navigating the cheap rental car through numerous detours. She bounced across old, rutted roads marked only by numbers or not marked at all. Mud caked the tires, and dust settled over the car until it became a clay-colored insect crawling across the land. She taught Liam songs to pass the time, taught him how to sing in rounds, how to do simple harmonies. He had a clear, sweet alto. By the time she pulled into the gravel drive in front of Pisa’s small wooden house, she knew she would miss Liam terribly.
There was not much storm damage here, just scattered tree limbs and shingles blown off the roof. Pisa stepped onto the front porch, and Liam sprinted to her. Melody recognized her from the childhood visit. She hadn’t changed.
“You are Geneva’s lost songbird,” Pisa said.
“Not lost,” Melody said. “Found.”
“I see that.” Pisa gestured for her to come inside the house, but Melody stayed put.
“Let me fix you something to eat.”
“I have a long drive back to Memphis. The roads are still tricky, and I’d like to get the worst of it behind me while I have some light.”
“Wait a moment. I have something for you.” Pisa ducked into the house. Liam followed, and Melody wondered if she’d get a chance to say good-bye. Pisa emerged with a small wooden box. “There are some things in here for you and some for your mother.” She pried open the lid, and Melody smelled the strong scent of cedar. Pisa pulled out a transparent fabric pouch that smelled of camphor and overripe plums. “Give this to your mother. Tell her to hold it against her chest and say these words.” She plucked out a folded piece of paper. “It will speed her healing.” She handed Melody a bit of whitewashed fossil or bone suspended on a frayed bit of red thread. “This is for you.”
Melody took the trinket from Pisa, turned it over in her hands. It was about the size of a silver dollar, ovoid with jagged edges and the imprint of something organic pressed into its surface, an insect or the veins of a plant. The thread left red streaks across her palm where she touched it.
“I can’t take this.”
“It’s yours,” Pisa said. “I’ve been saving it for you.”
Melody tried to press the trinket back on Pisa, but the woman refused to take hold of it. “I don’t believe in this stuff. I’m not my mother.”
“You certainly are not,” Pisa said. “You certainly are not your mother. Your mother was not her mother. Your mother is not you.”
Melody wondered what Pisa would make of George Walter and what George Walter would think of Pisa. They seemed so sure of themselves, but they couldn’t both be correct.
“You are not your mother, but you are not so different from her as you believe,” Pisa said. “When you have your own daughter, you’ll understand how much you share with your mother.”
“I’m not even sure I’ll have children.” Melody pressed the object toward Pisa.
“Keep it,” Pisa insisted. “You don’t have to believe in something for it to be true.”
Melody closed her hand around the object. She liked the way it felt in her palm, cool and substantial and sturdy.
“It’s a piece of bone from the sternum of a white dog. The imprint is from the feather of a hawk. It will guide you and bring clarity.”
Melody slipped the bone into her pocket.
“Your mother is a strong woman. She makes her own way. She doesn’t always listen as closely as she should. Not to me and not to herself.”
And certainly not to me, Melody thought. “I should get back to her,” she told Pisa. “And to Bobby.”
“Your grandmother was weak. Not like you. Not like your mother.”
Melody rubbed her thumb across the cool bone in her pocket. The sun dipped toward the horizon. She should get back on the road before nightfall, but she didn’t move. “I never knew my grandmother. Mama never talked about her much. I know she died young.”
“Your mother was afraid to turn out like her mother. She took matters into her own hands. It was reckless, but it wasn’t wrong.”
“What are you saying?”
“Ask your mother. I think she’ll tell you now. The point is, she didn’t become her mother. Neither will you.”
The conversation raised more questions than it answered, and Melody wanted to probe deeper, but Liam ran onto the porch and threw himself against Melody’s legs. She stumbled as the force of his body wrapped around her knees. “Come back,” Liam said. “When Daddy gets here, you come back.”
“I will,” she promised. She stroked his silky red hair. “I will come right back here and see you. We’ll sing some more songs together.”
“I know we will,” Liam said. “That’s why I’m not sad.”
“I really should go,” she said to Pisa.
Pisa gripped Melody’s shoulders and peered into her eyes. “You don’t have to believe in me,” she said. “But you should believe in something.”
“I’ll try,” Melody said. “But the stuff most people believe in seems like a bunch of voodoo to me. No offense.”
Pisa smiled like a woman who’d never been offended. “Take care of your mother. Be kind to her. You are stronger than she is. You will do better than she did. Your
daughter will do better than you. That is the way the world works.” Pisa gave Melody’s shoulders one last, hard squeeze before letting go. “Come back to see me. Bring your mother.”
Melody made no promises. She climbed back into the dirt-crusted car and drove. The journey was lonely and quiet without Liam. She focused on the world outside the car, took in the wreckage of the storm. A group of men in an old Chevy turned off the road ahead of her and parked in front of a small house. Melody slowed to watch. The house seemed not worth saving, a shack even in better times, but the men unloaded lumber and tools and a case of beer. The roof had been lifted right off the house, and the front porch was mostly gone. The frame listed to the east. The men consulted, retrieved tools, and set to work. One of them glanced up at Melody. She’d stopped the car in the middle of the road. She waved and drove on. All across the Delta, people were beginning the hard work of rebuilding. What else could they do?
She pulled Pisa’s gift from her pocket and looped the string around her neck. The bone fell heavy and grew warm against her chest. It seemed to pulse with life. Light faded from the sky. Something streaked across the road in front of her, something wild and large and gray. A coyote. The beast turned its head and locked eyes with Melody as it bounded and disappeared into a grove of pine trees. She recognized Obi’s gaze. He would be home soon, and she would return, just as she’d promised Liam.
The sun dipped; the sky turned gray and pink. The ravaged fields on either side of the road began to twinkle and blink with light. She put her hand on the bone at her chest, took comfort in its warmth and weight. The fireflies led her north toward Mama and Bobby and her future, whatever that might be. Pisa had said she was stronger than her mother. Melody felt strong. She felt strong and calm and fearless. There was no telling what would happen next. She had so many choices to make.
She sang as she drove into the night. Her voice filled the car, floated out into the darkness, and joined the chorus of crickets, bullfrogs, old dogs, and the howl of a wild coyote.
About the Author
Tiffany Quay Tyson grew up in Jackson, Mississippi, and attended Delta State University. Her short fiction has been published in The Tulane Review and Peaks & Valleys: A Southern Journal. She lives in Denver, where she has served on the board of directors for Lighthouse Writers Workshop, and occasionally leads workshops for the Lighthouse Young Writers Program. You can sign up for email updates here.
Thank you for buying this
St. Martin’s Press ebook.
To receive special offers, bonus content,
and info on new releases and other great reads,
sign up for our newsletters.
Or visit us online at
us.macmillan.com/newslettersignup
For email updates on the author, click here.
Contents
Title Page
Copyright Notice
Dedication
Acknowledgments
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
About the Author
Copyright
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
THOMAS DUNNE BOOKS.
An imprint of St. Martin’s Press.
THREE RIVERS. Copyright © 2015 by Tiffany Quay Tyson. All rights reserved. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.
www.thomasdunnebooks.com
www.stmartins.com
Cover designed by Kerri Resnick
Cover photograph © David DuChemin / Design Pies / Getty Images
eBooks may be purchased for business or promotional use. For information on bulk purchases, please contact Macmillan Corporate and Premium Sales Department by writing to MacmillanSpecialMarkets@macmillan.com.
The Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.
ISBN 978-1-250-06326-7 (hardcover)
ISBN 978-1-4668-6836-6 (e-book)
e-ISBN 9781466868366
First Edition: July 2015