by Tommy Hays
“Helped you?” His father dried him with a towel.
“Somebody helped me drag Emma Lee out, but I couldn’t see them in all the smoke.”
“You need to get some sleep.” His father led him back to his room, where Clay was already asleep again, and helped him into bed. His father sat on the edge of his bed for a while, watching him. “I’m sorry, honey,” his father said after a while, then he leaned over and kissed his forehead. “I should’ve been there.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
A MESSAGE FROM GOD
“Class, a little later this morning we’ll walk to the Wolfe house,” said Mrs. Caswell. “Let’s review what we’ve learned this week. When was Wolfe born?”
“Oh, oh!” Ashley’s hand shot up. She waved desperately like a survivor in a life raft, trying to get the attention of a high-flying airplane.
“Grover,” Mrs. Caswell said.
“October 3, 1900,” Grover said, knowing the date as well as his own birthday. Ever since Emma Lee had left, Mrs. Caswell had called on him more. He couldn’t get used to the empty desk at his back. Whenever he went off in his head during class, he expected Emma Lee to poke him in the shoulder and whisper in that Mitchell County accent of hers, “Earth to Grover. Earth to Grover.”
Emma Lee had returned from the hospital the day after the fire. She’d been okay except that she was exhausted, had a mean headache and her throat still hurt. She’d slept the whole first day she got back. The Roundtrees were staying at Jessie’s. Most of the fire damage to his rental house had been to the front room, but the smoke and water damage made it impossible to live there. Jessie had insisted they stay with him until he could get the house repaired.
The same day Emma Lee returned from the hospital, Leila had come over to Grover’s house. Grover’d answered the door, and the first thing Leila did was hug him a long time. She smelled of hospital. When she let him go, she wiped her eyes and said, “Thank you.” Her face was pale and drawn. She had big circles under her eyes. He wondered if she’d slept at all since the fire. “We’ll never forget what you did,” she said.
The way she’d said it unsettled him. What Mrs. Caswell called the past tense had crept in there, as if Leila was already looking back at him from someplace else.
“I had help pulling her out of the house,” Grover said.
Leila nodded. “Your daddy told me about that.” She smiled knowingly.
“You know who it was?” he asked.
“The Lord Jesus was watching out for you and my Emma Lee.” She kissed his cheek. “Come visit Emma Lee tomorrow.”
That evening their father and Leila had gone for a long walk. Grover watched through the front window as they walked away up the street toward Riverside. When they came back half an hour later, they didn’t look happy. They hugged in the middle of the street, reminding him of airport hugs.
Grover hurried back to his room, sat down at his desk and opened his sketchbook, looking at his latest drawings. He started sketching on a new idea for a weaving and was so caught up in it that he was surprised when his father knocked on the open door to his room.
“The Roundtrees are moving back to Mitchell County.”
“Because of the fire?” Grover asked, feeling the bottom drop out of his stomach.
“There’s more to it,” his father said.
Grover looked out the window.
“She’s put in for a weekend job at St. Joseph’s, which won’t come through till January. Until then she’ll commute from Roan to the hospital. When it does come through, she’ll work three twelve-hour shifts and rent a room close to the hospital and go home to Roan Mountain on her days off.”
“It’s because of what happened in the guest room,” Grover said, unable to keep the anger out of his voice.
His father stepped into Grover’s room and shut the door behind him. “How did you know about that?”
“I heard y’all,” Grover’s voice shook. “I didn’t mean to. It was hard not to hear.”
His father sat on Grover’s bed. “Irresponsible and selfish.”
“I said I didn’t mean to—”
“I’m talking about me,” he said. “I was selfish to let that happen.”
“But what does that have to do with them moving back?”
“She thinks that what happened to Emma Lee happened because she and I …” His father sighed. “And maybe it did.”
“It happened because Merlin knocked the candle over,” Grover said. The fire department had determined that the fire had started when the candle had fallen over. The part about Merlin was everybody’s best guess. The cat hadn’t been seen since the fire.
“Leila thinks it was a warning from God. She thinks He’s telling her she needs to move back to Roan Mountain.”
“She told me she thought Jesus was the one who helped me carry Emma Lee,” Grover said. “So does she think God almost burned us up so He could save us?”
“Religion is a big part of the Roundtrees’ lives.” His father sighed again. “I didn’t understand quite how big.”
“Who do you think helped me pull Emma Lee out of the house?” Grover asked. “It wasn’t Jesus.”
His father looked at him like he was debating whether to say something. “I don’t know,” he said, “but I do know that I’m sorry about what happened between me and Leila. When you get a little older, you might understand.”
“I know all about that!” Grover said impatiently. “We had sex ed last February. They put the boys in one room and the girls in the other, gave us pamphlets and asked if we had any questions. Mama filled me in on what wasn’t in the pamphlet since you were at a meeting in Raleigh.”
“I’m sorry I’ve been such a lousy father.”
“That’s okay,” Grover said.
“And I’m sorry about … the guest room. I know your mother hasn’t been gone that long.…”
“I don’t really care about that,” Grover snapped. “Not that it made me feel good that my father was in the guest bedroom with the neighbor.”
“You sound pretty mad to me,” his father said.
“That’s not what I’m mad about,” Grover said. “Not the main thing anyway.”
His father got a knowing look on his face. “You don’t want your buddy to move away. Listen, Clay can visit anytime. Maybe for a few weeks this summer.”
“It’s not just Clay,” Grover said under his breath.
“Ah,” his father said and that was all he said.
Grover rubbed his forehead and looked out the darkening window. “Can’t you tell them not to move away?”
“I did,” his father said. “She said she’d prayed about it a long time.”
“She really thinks what happened to Emma Lee was a message from God?”
“Leila believes it’s a sin for people to sleep together before they get married.”
“A sin?”
“And that God was punishing Leila for her sin,” his father said.
“Why would God take y’all’s mistake out on Emma Lee?”
“Leila figures that God knows the worst thing that could happen to a parent would be for something to happen to their child.” His father looked at him. “I would’ve never forgiven myself if something had happened to you when you went in after Emma Lee.”
“What kind of God would kill the child to teach the parent?” Grover asked.
Grover and his father sat on his bed for a while. Grover wondered why the Roundtrees, especially Emma Lee, had become so important to him. They’d only been here a couple of months. It wasn’t like he knew Emma Lee the way he’d known Sam—since they were little kids.
“They’re moving on Tuesday,” his father said.
“Why so soon?”
“She doesn’t want to impose on Jessie.”
“They could impose on us,” Grover said.
“Staying here would be about the last thing Leila would consider.”
“She blames you for the fire?”
“She blam
es the situation.”
“The situation?”
“Me and her. Such as it is, was.”
Grover didn’t say anything. His father was trusting him, confiding in him. Even though it felt very strange to hear about a woman other than his mother, he also thought maybe he was getting to know his father in a different way.
Mrs. Caswell led the class downtown. When they passed Reader’s Corner, Grover tapped on the window and waved at Byron. Several girls gathered around the window, looking at Tom, who squinted up from his usual place among the books. They passed Videolife. Grover didn’t pause with the other kids to look at the big poster of Fantastic Mr. Fox.
Grover’d been the one to answer the phone the night Videolife had called to tell them Fantastic Mr. Fox was in. When he’d hung up, he said, “Mama, that was Videolife. They said Fantastic—” His mother had clamped her hand over his mouth and nodded in the direction of Sudie, who sat on the couch doing her homework. She had put her finger to her lips and waved him into the kitchen. “When you get home from school tomorrow,” she whispered, “could you ride your bike down to Videolife to pick it up? I want to surprise her.” Sudie had missed the movie when it had come to the theaters because she’d had the flu, and she was dying to see it.
As Grover’s class neared the Wolfe house, he thought how his father’s mood had improved, the reason being the same reason that Grover’s class was headed to the Old Kentucky Home. In spite of all his father’s doubts, it looked like A Thomas Wolfe Christmas might work. Little Bit had hand-delivered pamphlets to all the schools and sent press releases to the newspapers and the radio stations and the TV stations. Schools from as far away as Charlotte and Raleigh shipped busloads to visit the house. In the couple of weeks since Thanksgiving, the house had already had more visitors than the rest of the year combined, and school and church groups had made reservations all the way up to Christmas. County commissioners were beginning to back off plans to downsize the staff, and Delbert Lunsford had been silent at the latest commissioners’ meetings.
As his class crossed over the bridge into town, Grover paused and watched a tractor trailer of Christmas trees rumble beneath. Probably from Mitchell County. He’d gone over to talk to Emma Lee at Jessie’s on Saturday after she’d come back from the hospital. Grover’d walked into the den, which was warm from the big fire Jessie had going in the fireplace. He found Emma Lee curled up in a big stuffed chair, asleep, a copy of Jane Eyre open on her lap. Her hair fell across the back of the couch, a long black shiny sheet. Grover started to tiptoe out.
“Don’t go.” She stretched and yawned.
“I didn’t mean to wake you,” Grover said.
She sat up, patting the chair beside her and he sat. “The doctor says I can go back to school tomorrow.”
Grover nodded, feeling unable to look her in the eye all of a sudden.
“They tell me I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for you,” she said.
“I had help,” Grover said.
“Mama told me.”
“It wasn’t Jesus,” Grover said.
“Who do you think it was?”
“I don’t know, but whoever it was has a firm grip.” Grover went over to the fire, poking at it with the iron poker, sending sparks up the chimney.
“What is it, Grover? You look serious.”
“You know the other night when you said ‘Thank you for everything’?” He sighed. “The way you said it felt like you were saying good-bye. And it made me wonder.”
“Wonder what?” she said, sitting up on the edge of her chair.
He looked toward the fire crackling in the fireplace. “If maybe that candle didn’t fall by itself. If someone might’ve helped it fall.”
“Someone did,” she said. “Merlin.”
Grover rubbed his forehead. “You said the only chance you had of seeing your father was up in Heaven and I was wondering if maybe you decided to …”
“Are you kidding?” she asked. “Daddy’d give me down the road if I showed up in Heaven having done something as bone-headed as burn myself up.”
Feeling a wave of relief, Grover sat back in the chair.
“Besides,” she said, “I promised I’d go with you to the Christmas Waltz.” Then her face fell. “Except I guess that can’t happen now.”
“Do you want to move back?” he asked.
“I miss Nanna, but to tell you the truth, I was getting used to it here. I like Asheville. I like Claxton. I like Mrs. Caswell. I like Mira and all the kids at school. It’s even getting so I don’t mind Ashley and them.” She paused. “And I like Jessie and your daddy and Sudie and …” She looked at him, her eyes shining.
“My father says your mother thinks the fire was a warning.”
“Us moving back doesn’t have a thing in the world to do with God,” Emma Lee said. “Mama’s afraid of how much she likes your daddy. She’s afraid something might happen between them.”
Something already has, Grover thought.
“It’s been hard for Mama to get over Daddy,” Emma Lee said.
“But he was mean to her,” Grover said.
“He was hateful to her in the end. He didn’t mean to be hateful. The war did that to him. Still, if somebody slaps you around long enough, it’s hard to work up a lot of sympathy for him. I think him being the way he was at the end made it hard for her to get over him. She loved him but she hated him too. So when he died, she couldn’t just flat-out miss him. The more you miss somebody, the quicker you get over them.”
They looked toward the fire. Grover thought about his mother, about how he hadn’t visited her grave lately. How his mind had been on other things. Was it because he’d missed her so much when she first died that he didn’t think about her quite as much? Maybe a person could only do so much missing.
“Let’s spit on a car.” Sam had come up beside Grover on the overpass as their class walked toward the Wolfe house. Sam checked to see that Mrs. Caswell wasn’t looking, leaned over the rail and spit. The white drop flew through the air and hit a windshield. “Bull’s-eye.” Grover didn’t smile.
“You have to get over her,” Sam said.
“You don’t get over that kind of thing real quick,” Grover snapped.
“I’m not talking about that,” Sam said.
“Gentlemen!” Mrs. Caswell called and they hurried to catch up.
“Emma Lee isn’t the only fish in the sea,” Sam said. “What about asking Mira to the Christmas Waltz?”
“I’m not asking anybody else to go anywhere,” Grover said as his class wound through the parking lot of the Wolfe house. There must’ve been twenty school buses—from Winston-Salem, Charlotte, Raleigh, Chattanooga, Knoxville, Greenville, Columbia and even Charleston. Grover saw a cat disappear around the corner of the Wolfe house that looked a lot like Merlin and was about to go after it, when Matthew came walking from the other direction. There was something different about him but Grover wasn’t sure what. Matthew’s glasses. He was wearing wire-rims instead of the heavy black-framed glasses he always wore. Otherwise, he looked the same. Same green Army coat, same backpack, same distracted look in his eyes. He didn’t seem to notice Grover among the long line of students.
“Welcome!” Grover’s father stood at the top of the steps, wearing, of all things, a Santa hat. “Welcome to A Thomas Wolfe Christmas!” his father said, waving Grover’s class in. The house was crawling with schoolchildren. Orderly, well-behaved lines of them. Little Bit wouldn’t have it any other way. His father had said at supper last night that the attendance numbers were so high that it would probably support funding for the next year.
Toward the end of the tour, when his father had taken Grover’s class down to the kitchen to the woodstove where Julia Wolfe had made meals for her boarders, he told them something Grover had never heard before. His father said Wolfe had been hated by some of the people of Asheville for the way he’d depicted them in Look Homeward, Angel. But when it became a best seller, some of the townspeople he ha
dn’t written about were upset for not being included.
“Wolfe couldn’t win for losing,” his father said, looking more animated than Grover had seen him in a long time. It occurred to Grover that the Wolfe house was probably as important to his father as the Bamboo Forest was to him.
At the end of the tour, Grover’s class ended up back in the main room of the house, where Little Bit and her staff served cider and cookies. Grover had never seen the house so packed. Crowds made him lonely.
Grover went off by himself and read the exhibits, taking his time, and paying attention to Wolfe’s life in a way he never had before. Emma Lee would’ve approved. Just a few days after the fire, he and Sudie had come home from school to find a U-Haul driven by Leila’s long-haired brother, and the Roundtrees’ old van driven by Leila, pulling out of their driveway. After they were out of sight, Grover couldn’t stand to do anything but go over to the Bamboo Forest, clear away what was left of the snow from the tapestry and work alone until the sun set. And having forgotten his flashlights, he worked on into the dark, like a blind man, weaving things together by nothing but feel.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
UP INTO THE MOUNTAINS
The tires squealed around the sharp curves as their father whipped the car back and forth up Highway 19. With every mile they drove, the road grew windier and the mountainsides inched closer. Grover was sure he could roll down his window and touch the striations in the rock. The road opened up to empty fields and pastures with cows that stood on hills in a way that made them look like two legs were shorter than the others.
It was Saturday morning and their father had announced that they were going to get a Christmas tree. Sudie and Grover had assumed, with their mother no longer alive, that they’d buy their tree at the Asheville Farmers Market. They’d been surprised that they’d stopped to pick up Jessie just to drive over to the Farmers Market. They’d been even more surprised when their father aimed the car north, up Interstate 26 toward Mitchell County.
Grover and Sudie had been excited when they realized where their father was taking them. But the farther they drove, the quieter everyone had gotten. Until, at one point, Grover looked over and saw Sudie wasn’t smiling anymore. Up front their father and Jessie had stopped talking. Maybe this trip wasn’t such a good idea.