Beyond Molasses Creek

by Nicole Seitz

  I went back to Molasses Creek, but only to see Mama. She had lost her luster, her joy. But I didn’t really grieve over that. I was in a dark, dark place, far from enlightenment. She doted on me constantly to the point of obsession. But Daddy, for some reason, got the brunt of it. Daddy had aged a good ten years in the months he’d been with me in Nepal. Mama insisted on feeding him to fatten him up on home-cooked meals, but I noticed he wouldn’t eat his rice anymore, even when we had pot roast and gravy. He’d just shove it off to the side of the plate. Mama looked worried about him, but I knew why he did it. He’d eaten too much rice in Nepal.

  I left home after a few months. I applied for a position as a stewardess on another airline, Worldways, and started over again. I tried to reset time and forget Robert and Constance had ever happened to me. It didn’t work and was especially hard when I was having to be so nice to everybody. There wasn’t a nice, happy bone in my body anymore and I wasn’t fooling anyone. I was reprimanded a few times, came close to letting loose on a passenger or two, but I flew. I flew and flew and hardly took any time off. I racked up those miles as fast as I possibly could, passing the time in the air, in another city every day. I was based out of Atlanta again, but worked hard to avoid running into people I once knew. People who knew the old me.

  I did see Robert again. I saw him in an Atlanta concourse and ducked, but it was too late.

  “Ally!” he called to me. I turned and there he was, handsome, dressed in his uniform, same stripes, same everything. As if nothing at all had changed in his world. “How in the world are you?” He was so nice, so friendly, so blissfully unaware of what had been going on in my life. I’d never sent him any news of Constance’s birth. In fact, after he asked me to marry him and left Mama and Daddy’s house that day, he’d given up easily. Never called. Acted just the way I knew he would.

  “You look great,” he said. “Are you working? Worldways . . .” He read my name tag.

  “Yep, Worldways. More international flights.”

  “Great. That’s great. You look great.” He rubbed his hands. “The last time I saw you, you—”

  “I lost the baby,” I said. It just came out, and I wasn’t lying a bit.

  “Oh. Oh, I’m sorry,” he said. His face looked genuinely pained. I imagined he liked the idea of knowing there was a child out there who shared his genes, that he was satisfied just knowing he’d helped bring a child into the world. That was good enough for him. But for me, knowing there was a child still out there, somewhere, was mind-numbing-crazing obliterating. It drove me to distraction. Part of me thought it would be easier if she had died. Can you imagine a mother thinking that? But at least I would have been able to grieve something definite. The fact that she could still be out there, that someday I could pass my child and not even know it, made me study people hard. Every family, every child I saw who was about her age as she turned one and two and three and four and ten and twenty and thirty . . . Well, the not knowing was the hardest part.

  The not knowing still is the hardest part. But at this stage, not knowing is better than the alternative, I think.

  I take the notes Daddy painstakingly tacked up on the ceiling for me and call Kat to follow me into the bedroom. I lie down on my side and turn the lamp on. Flipping through the notes one by one, I trace the letters with my eyes. Daddy’s hand was here. He wrote this. He was right here. I find the one he wrote about Constance. The one that says for me to rest now, that she’s up there in heaven with him, that I don’t have to search the world over for her anymore, and I smile. Really I do, because I know what Daddy was trying to do. I’m his child, and he was trying hard to protect me, but he failed, just like I did. He failed and I failed and I’m grateful he doesn’t have to deal with the abysmal loss anymore. Now it’s only me here. Me and Kat.

  I set the notes on the nightstand and turn out the lamp. Kat snuggles down on my feet, and I lie there in the dark thinking of Vesey. His daughter is with him, spending the night in the hospital. I said my hellos and then left them to talk things over, and now they’re talking, teary-eyed, grim. I am hoping she can talk some sense into him. If we can just get him on his feet, then I’ll stay on his behind about his medication. I will. And I won’t let him ride out to his stand anymore. It’s just too much for him. Never should have been doing it in the first place.

  Yes, maybe they can talk some sense into him, although it sounds as if Daddy wasn’t even able to do that. Of course, Daddy never could talk any sense into me either. Maybe Vesey and I are more alike than I ever suspected.

  I close my eyes and picture Vesey in the hospital bed, looking all pale, which, for him, is saying something. And not anything good. Tomorrow I’m going to walk that bridge for Vesey. I’m going to finally walk right over the thing, over the water, over to the other side—a vigil for him to get well. And then I’m gonna tell him how nice it was and how he needs to get well so he can come walk it with me. That at this stage in my life, after just losing Daddy, I simply cannot bear, will not bear to lose my oldest friend.

  FORTY-SEVEN

  Getting Ready

  Kathmandu, Nepal

  Sunila

  THE SECRETARY TO MR. ASSAI KINDLY BROUGHT US DAL bhat, but I cannot eat. I sip my tea and watch as Mr. Assai works at his computer. His food sits untouched on his desk. Mr. Assai stares at the computer screen, then taps the keys and furrows his brow. His chair swivels and he goes to search through a file cabinet the color of rain. His fingers walk along the papers and he pulls something out. He goes back to the computer and taps some more keys and waits. Then types some more.

  I sip my tea and cradle Amaa’s package. I think of Mr. Assai. He seems to be a very good man. He is awaiting my instruction as to when to open the package. I sit here and cradle it as one would hold a baby. Gently I rock it back and forth and I close my eyes. I am in that café in Thamel. I am sitting there with my baby beside me and in an instant, she is gone.

  The paper crinkles and I stop rocking. I can feel my mother. She is out there, the woman who suffered this. I should open the package. “I’m ready,” I say. “I’m ready now.” I look to him for approval or instruction. He simply stares at me and reveres the package as one might an offering to Ganesha.

  “Very well,” he says after a long silence. “When you are ready. If you would rather me do it—”

  “No. It is for me to do.” I look down at the twine and remember Amaa’s gnarled, rocky hands as she gave it to me. “This, I must do.”

  Mount Pleasant

  Ally

  “Vesey, honey, you can’t do this by yourself, you know. Somebody’s gonna have to keep an eye on you.”

  “No nurse. No nurse, and that’s final.” Vesey tries to push himself up in the bed and fights hard not to show he’s in pain.

  “Then one of us will do it. I’ll stay with you, Daddy.”

  “Ally, help me here. I’ve already told you girls, it’s all fine and dandy if you want to come and visit, but I been living on my own in that house since Beulah gone and by ’mighty, that’s the way it’s gonna be till I see her again.”

  My heavens. How he loved his wife. I have to catch my breath.

  “Daddy’s gotten more stubborn over the years,” Deidre says to me.

  I smile at Vesey’s oldest daughter. She’s thirty-eight, the same age my daughter would have been. It is because of this child, right here, that I left this place and took my baby into harm’s way. But looking at her now, I guess it’s useless to hold it against her. I don’t hold it against her that she looks just like Beulah either. That the face I’m looking into now is the same face Vesey’s loved all his life. It’s as if Beulah’s eyes are staring right at me and I understand. It’s not me. It never was me. It was Beulah all along. Vesey loved Beulah Washington. He still does. He found true love while I was only dreaming of it. But she’s not here anymore. She’s gone. And he’s here with me.

  Deidre, this grown-up child, this swollen-eyed girl, looks to me and says, “Miss Ally,
Daddy’s being pigheaded . . .” She stops and wipes a tear from her eye. Vesey is directly behind her on the bed, eyes closed. She whispers now. “I don’t know what to do anymore. I don’t know what to do except to give him back to Jesus. I got to put all this in his hands.”

  She clutches a cross hanging from her neck and looks at me to be sure I’m with her. I am.

  “But I’d feel a whole lot better if I knew you were keeping an eye on him like your daddy did. Maybe come by every now and again when you can.”

  “Deidre, don’t give it another thought. You know I will be there for him. I will. He’s . . . very special to me.”

  Deidre takes my hand, and with eyes filled, she squeezes it. Then she leans into me, lifts up on her toes, and whispers into my ear, “I know. You two go way on back.”

  Charleston

  Vesey

  I am lying in this hospital bed, watching my daughter with my oldest friend. They are alive and here and I should worry about what will happen to them after I’m gone. I can feel it coming, closer and closer, but I ain’t afraid. I’ve never worried about dying and going to heaven. How could I worry about meeting Jesus face-to-face? How could I worry about seeing Beulah again and Mama and Daddy, my son, my little baby brother? It’s the ones left lingering here that I should be worried about, but for some strange reason, in this moment I’m not. I can feel it down deep in my spirit, the words surround me, fill me to overflowing, Everything’s gonna be all right. Yes, it is. I’m at peace.

  I close my eyes and I am on the porch again with Doc Green. He is ailing and needs the fresh air. I come to him most every day for how many years, I can’t count. We rock in chairs and talk about the weather. We talk about the vegetables growing. And we talk about Miss Ally.

  “Vesey,” he says to me one day. “We’ve known each other for a long time.”

  “That’s right,” I say.

  “And in all that time you’ve been looking after me, making sure this old man is okay.”

  “You done good for me too, Doc. It go both ways.”

  “You’re a good neighbor. You’re like a son to me, Vesey.” The chairs stop rocking. “I want you to know that—that if I ever had a son, I would want him to be just like you.”

  I don’t know what to say. I right near choke up. If only my mama could hear this.

  “She has feelings for you, you know. My daughter. Ally cares for you. She always has.”

  “I thank you, Doc. I always cared for her too.”

  He looks at me then and sits up straight. He turns and leans close to me. “You and I both know . . . she has deep feelings for you.” I look down and fiddle with my hands. “And, son, I know you well enough. I know you only had eyes for Beulah. Am I right? ’Cause if I’m not right, tell me now. I need to know the truth.”

  “Oh, Doc Green.” I shake my head and turn away. I bite my lip. “Miss Ally . . . Miss Ally, I cain’t explain what she is to me. I don’t have the words for it.” I firm my shoulders and look back at him. “But it’s always been Beulah. And it always will be. I never meant to hurt your daughter. I just don’t return—”

  “I know. A father knows these things.” Doc Green sits back in his chair and watches the water crawl. “I just wish I could see her happy, is all. She’s been through so much, Vesey. So much. Always running, always searching and finding nothing. Listen, I have a favor to ask.”

  “Anythin’,” I say. “You know that. Anythin’.”

  “After I’m gone, she’ll come back for a while. I need you to see to it she stays. I know it deep in my soul, my daughter will never be happy until she can stay in one place and stop running.”

  We’re quiet.

  “Do you hear me?” says Doc Green.

  “I hear you, sir.”

  “So you’ll do it?”

  I take a deep breath and imagine the grief Miss Ally will suffer when her father passes on. I think of my own grief. I look at him and open my mouth. “I’ll do my best, sir. I promise. I’ll do what I can.”

  I open my eyes and see her now. Ally is in the right place. She’s home now, and I’ll stay here as long as it takes for her. I’ll stay here until she’s ready.

  And then I’ll go.

  Kathmandu, Nepal

  Sunila

  “Should I go?” asks Mr. Assai. “Would you rather be alone when you open it?”

  “No. Of course not. Please stay.”

  Carefully, I pull the twine off the edges of the package. It is soft and not in a box. The paper next. I turn it over and find the opening, slip my hand in, and peel the paper slowly. What I find is a small white hat, yellowed from age, and a dress with rainbow colors, much like my umbrella. I feel the softness in my fingers and tears spring to my eyes. They rush down to the cloth as I pull it to my nose, inhaling myself, the person I was thirty-eight years ago. Not who I have become but the one I was when I entered the world, as intended. I imagine my mother’s smell in this cloth and my tears combine with it to form an intoxicating odor. My head swims. I close my eyes and see a river flowing. A single river that reaches all the way around the world and back again. I am in that river. I open my eyes and see Mr. Assai. His eyes are filled. He is smiling and nodding.

  “We will find her now,” he says. “I cannot believe it. We have what we need.”

  FORTY-EIGHT

  The Bridge

  Mount Pleasant

  Ally

  I NEED TO KEEP GOING. I WILL NOT EVEN GIVE THIS SILLY hip another thought. It’s barely a mosquito nipping at me. Look at these people on this bridge. I mean, they run, some of them, they try their hardest, they walk in packs, arms swinging, young people, old people, black and white people, everyone in between. This is a bridge of humanity, this new Ravenel Bridge, a godsend to the area. It bridges the banks of Mount Pleasant, the All-American City, and the Charleston peninsula, the Holy City.

  I push on higher and higher. I will get there, I will. Nothing can stop me now. Can people see him on my face? Can they see Vesey oozing out of my pores? I feel my heart pumping hard, poor little thing. Keep going, you sweet heart. Keep pumping. I’m sorry I haven’t treated you well. I’m so sorry I’ve neglected you. I’m so thankful for you. So sad Vesey’s is wearing out. What a gift I have. Why haven’t I ever thought of this little pumping organ before now?

  I’m on a pilgrimage. I’m almost there. Almost there. The first tower is coming up. I can get to it, I can. I pump and I pump and I slow down and catch my breath then pump my arms again. Every step I’m taking is a step my daddy used to take. He’d walk to this first tower. This bridge was his friend. I am close to Daddy up here with the wind whipping my hair all around and the cars and traffic whooshing by me, with the people nodding hello with heavy breaths. I am connected on this bridge. I see myself from behind, from above, from in front of me. I see my little self on this bridge in this one little place in the world, and I see it’s where I should be right now. In this moment, I am finally living in the moment. I am not trying to be somewhere else, someone else; I am here. Like one of those maps you see in the shopping malls, I am here. And I like it.

  My legs are taking on a life of their own. They are carrying me, dear things, up and over. I love you, little legs, even though you aren’t so little anymore and I’ve never been especially nice to you. I love you, no matter what you look like now. You are pulling me, carrying this old gal across the river.

  It reminds me of something. Yes, my recurring dream about the elephant and the great white bird. Am I beginning to understand it now? I’ll need to think on that later, but I think it has something to do with me. I am so connected to the water, to the river, to all the rivers in the world. Is the elephant finally crossing over?

  I reach the first tower and join a couple with a baby carriage. They worked hard to get this carriage up here. Look at them, young, happy, their whole lives ahead of them. I look out over the harbor to Patriots Point and the peninsula. I am walking toward the Holy City, toward oodles of steeples and life on the
other side.

  My hip is aching, but I refuse to care. I will push through the pain and carry on. I have the strength of my daddy inside me, the love of a friend pulling me on. I look down into the water and see a tiny boat. A man on the boat looks up and waves to me. He can actually see me all the way up here. I am connected with humanity like I felt when I was standing on the Ganges, when I saw the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem, when I threw a shell into the water on the beach of Normandy. I have seen the world and the world has seen me, and now I find myself here, aching, older, filled with grief and loss and strangely with hope for the first time in my life, strangely with hope. Hope for what, I haven’t any idea, but there it is, plain and simple, like the nose on my face.

  I look up and see the white birds flying over me. Stop and sit awhile, but they keep on flying. They don’t need to land on my back to push this elephant to the other side. I am walking willingly for the first time in my life. I am taking these steps because I take them for Vesey. He can’t die on me now. He can’t, and he won’t. With each step he’s getting better and better. I know it. Better and better. Better and better. I say it over and over until I can see the end in sight. I’m almost there. Holy City, here I come.

  My feet plod heavily down the side of the bridge, and I know I have finished my miniature marathon. The feeling is hard to explain. Beyond amazing. As high as the clouds. We agreed—Margaret and Graison and I—that they would wait for me across East Bay Street, so I don’t have to do it all over again and walk back. Not sure I could do that. When they see me, they get out of the car and clap for me. I bow, obliging, a sweaty, tired curtsy.

  “You did it, girl,” says Margaret. “You really did it. I’m proud of you.”

  “Next time you’re coming with me,” I holler.

  I cross the street and hop into the back of the car. I listen to my breathing and feel the blood coursing through my veins. I swig from my water bottle and rest triumphantly, panting. I am sixty years old with a bum hip, and I conquered that bridge. Yes, Vesey’s gonna be just fine. I feel it.