“My father threw back his head and laughed. That was when I knew this definitely wasn’t going to be like I’d imagined. My heart was pounding, so I tried to calm myself by taking deep breaths. ‘Mr. Anglin is a good man,’ I said. ‘A nice Christian man, and I’m not going to waste my life. I’m going to do like he says and go to Nashville and be somebody!’
“For a drunk, my father was on his feet quick. ‘A kid like you don’t know nothin’ about wasting life. Don’t know nothin’ about nothin’ and I’m gonna tell you something, there ain’t a thing wrong with fixing cars, or hauling logs, or toting scrap metal for a living! Who do you s’pose it is that feeds your ungrateful mouth? Tell me that, Jen.’
“I thought I could slide past him and run to the woods. I didn’t think he could say anything worse than what he already had.”
Jennifer turned so pale I thought she might pass out.
“Take yourself a nice, deep breath, hon,” I said to her real soft. “Everything’s all right. You’re with people who love you now.”
“Yes, we love you,” said Tonilynn and Bobby Lee at the same time.
At last Jennifer cleared her throat. “He stepped toward me with this crazy sort of smile and said, ‘I’m gonna give you some real wisdom, some fatherly advice. You don’t need to be singing or worrying about making money. You don’t need to worry about working on nothing but a big chest and pleasing the men. Then you’ll get everything else in life you want. Females got it easy, ’cause when I see me a fine piece with a rack like Dolly’s, I ain’t got no problem whatsoever emptying my pockets out for her, buying her anything her little heart desires.’
“I started shaking. Felt like bending over and vomiting my guts out. ‘You make me sick,’ I said. It was only a whisper, but he heard me.
“ ‘What’d you say?’ My father’s eyes were wide and scary as he moved toward me, trying to unbuckle his belt. ‘You need to learn some respect for your elders! Ain’t a thing wrong with a man enjoying the finer things in this life! Girl wants jewelry, a big house, fancy clothes, vacations, in exchange for what she can give me, why not? You ain’t gonna turn into a killjoy like your saintly mother, are you?’
“He was too drunk to unfasten his belt, but it didn’t matter. The things he’d said were a million times worse than a whipping. The air went out of me and I couldn’t run. But I kept my head down so he wouldn’t see me crying.”
I have to say you really could have heard a pin drop for a spell up there on Cagle Mountain. I’d never heard such a story in my life, and I didn’t feel too much Christian love in my heart for that man.
“What happened then?” This was Bobby Lee, with his face like he’d seen a ghost.
“That night I lay down in my pallet on the screen porch, and I put my radio up next to my ear, and I tried and tried to return to living high on my dream. I even pretended I was Mr. Anglin’s daughter, but I could not conjure up a single picture of me in Nashville. The sun was coming up before I finally fell asleep, and when I did crawl out of bed, I knew one thing. I wasn’t going back to high school.”
Jennifer squeezed Erastus so tight, his eyes bulged, but he didn’t complain. “And that,” she said, “unfortunately, was the real inspiration for ‘Daddy, Don’t Come Home.’ ”
“Heavens,” I said after a long quiet moment. “Sometimes I wonder how the Good Lord lets certain folks live the way they do. Did Mr. Angel drive you to Nashville with your music demos?”
“No. Actually, um . . . what happened is . . . I . . . um . . . I . . .” That poor child’s words got all clotted in her throat like spoiled buttermilk. I hopped to my feet to pat her back and help them out, but it was to no avail.
“Eat your heart out, Big D,” I said in a bright voice. “You’re always crowing about your ‘exclusive, never-before-heard stories behind the songs,’ but us folks up here on Cagle Mountain, we’ve got the story behind the story behind the song. And now, I believe it’s time to celebrate with some good home cooking.”
We gathered at the table, I asked the Lord’s blessing and passed around my perfectly browned biscuits. Jennifer helped herself to a biscuit and some butterbeans and said, “Thank you for fixing such a nice supper and inviting me, Aunt Gomer.”
“It’s my pleasure,” I said. “Won’t be long until we get our first ripe tomato out of the garden, and that’s the day I’m waiting for. You’ll have to come eat tomatoes fresh off the vine with us. I’ve made many a meal on tomatoes and biscuits. I believe I could eat tomatoes every single day of my life and never get tired of them. What’s your favorite food?”
“Depends on if I’m at home or on tour. Usually I have cereal or a PowerBar if I’m at home.”
Tonilynn started talking about some restaurant they liked to eat at that made soup bowls out of bread, and I got to wondering how in heaven’s name it could hold soup without leaking.
“I don’t know what I’d do without my fried bologna sandwiches,” Bobby Lee said. “That and a Pepsi to wash it down.”
Jennifer smiled. “I’ve got to have black coffee the instant I get out of bed.”
“Well, I’m addicted to Diet Cokes.” Tonilynn laughed and hefted up the big Pyrex casserole dish and helped herself to the first corner. “Mercy me, this is heavy,” she said, grunting as she passed it to Bobby Lee.
I ate my beets and recalled a time when I was a little girl, no older than ten, when Mama fixed beets for supper and I was so hungry I must’ve eaten a gallon of them. That next morning when I went out to the outhouse to do my business, I thought I was bleeding internally, and I just knew for sure and certain I was fixing to meet my Maker. I decided there were some sins on my heavenly account I needed to confess, and I went running back to the house. I told my sister about cutting up her paper dolls, and my cousin, Delphine, about stealing an orange from her Christmas stocking, and my great-grandmother about switching out her vanilla ice cream with mashed potatoes, and finally I felt like my soul was clean, and I lay down to die. Mama knew something was up, and when I told her I’d made out a list of who was to get what of my earthly possessions, she put two and two together and explained to me about how beets can color your movement like nothing else. Well, I just about never lived that down, and after I got older, it was funny to me too. However, I decided it wasn’t a good story to tell at the supper table.
Nobody said anything for a while. Forks and knives were clinking on the plates, and it was real satisfying. I looked across the table at Jennifer, and I thought she looked fairly happy and that made me happy. I was trying to think up something interesting to say, as the hostess, when Tonilynn hopped up like she’d seen a snake. She was jumping on her tiptoes, and she grabbed Jennifer’s wrist and started shouting, “Don’t! Stop! Put that down!”
I followed Tonilynn’s line of vision to the end of Jennifer’s fork, where inches from her mouth was hovering a bite of my delicious casserole. I was what you call dumbstruck as Tonilynn continued, saying, “I swear it’s got tiny little faces! It’s got tiny little faces!” Bobby Lee and Jennifer sat there like statues, and I’ll be honest, it flashed through my mind that Tonilynn was crazy, or maybe possessed. I’d never allowed swearing at my table.
“Tell me that’s not the body of a worm curled around those fork tines!” she said. “Tell me those aren’t eyes!”
My heart was racing a mile a minute as I peered down into my casserole. I bent over closer. “That’s not eyes! That’s parsley on the end of a macaroni noodle! The recipe calls for parsley.”
“Is too eyes,” Tonilynn said, and then her chest started heaving and she was holding her stomach like she was fixing to vomit. Then so help me, Bobby Lee and Jennifer started heaving, too, and it wasn’t long until Tonilynn was bent over the kitchen sink spilling her supper and Bobby Lee had upchucked onto his plate and little Jennifer onto the floor by her feet. Then everybody was up, swishing out their mouths with tea and spitting into the sink.
I could tell everyone believed Tonilynn’s story. She was rifli
ng like a madwoman through the trashcan underneath the sink and then through a pile of empty Glad containers in the sink, waving a fairly big rectangular one, saying to Bobby Lee, “Ain’t this what you put your worms in to freeze them?” and he was bug-eyed, nodding. It was like a scene from a horror show. Several minutes passed with no one talking, and the only creature that seemed happy was Erastus as he was enjoying licking the floor clean.
I sat there feeling pretty mad. Thinking if someone had fixed me supper out of the goodness of their heart, and I’d seen a hair or something in the food, or I just didn’t like the way something tasted, I definitely wouldn’t mention it. I would just quietly spit it into a napkin or slide it to the edge of my plate. That’s just good manners, and I thought I’d instilled good manners into Tonilynn. I don’t have no use for rudeness. Finally, Jennifer sat down, never said a word, and Bobby Lee kept saying, “Wow, man. Wow,” and shaking his head. I knew I had to say something. I didn’t care if she was forty-eight years old.
“First off, Tonilynn, even if it is worms in there, and I said if, which I do not believe it is, it’s been blessed, and blessed food is food that’s good for the body. Says so in the Bible. Furthermore, I saw on PBS, or maybe it was a National Geographic show, there are some societies what eat rats and grubs, and if rats and grubs are good enough for them, and let me tell you, they sure looked healthy to me, then I don’t see what the fuss is. Thirdly, it is rude to complain about something somebody has fixed for you. It’s bad manners to point out anybody’s shortcomings.”
Tonilynn was sitting there twisting her gold bracelet around on her wrist. Jennifer’s eyes were cast down and Bobby Lee was texting away on his cell phone. When no apology was forthcoming, I looked directly into Tonilynn’s eyes and said, “Don’t you think there’s something you need to say to me?”
She reached across the table to pat my hand. “Please forgive me, Aunt Gomer. I didn’t go to insult your cooking or hurt your feelings. Jennifer’s a vegetarian, as you know, and I didn’t want her to offend her own conscience.”
Well, I must say I felt right good about that explanation, though I cannot for the life of me understand why a person would want to be a vegetarian. And then, what about Tonilynn and Bobby Lee’s excuse? But the Bible says to forgive and forget, so I said, “Bobby Lee, put that casserole dish down for Erastus, and I’ll go perk us a pot of coffee.”
While I was waiting on the coffee, I shook the Pecan Sandies out onto a nice plate and carried them to the table. Then I felt like a waitress at the Waffle House, serving mugs of coffee and cream and sugar on my silver tray. I was worried that the mood was broken, but we all sat around the table laughing and visiting until after eight and polished off that whole bag of cookies.
11
I awoke from a heavy sleep to find myself lying on a lumpy mattress in a fetal position. A full moon was shining through the window at my feet. For a while I lay motionless, trying to remember where I was and how I’d come to be there. Gradually, I realized I was on Cagle Mountain. It wasn’t so bad until I recalled what had happened the night before, and just the fleeting thought of that flung me into a state of shock. Eating the worms (I’d consumed half my serving of casserole before Tonilynn alerted us) was a picnic compared to purposefully revisiting the genesis of “Daddy, Don’t Come Home.”
I thought I’d been a mess after my conversation with Mike at Panera. But this was like jumping from the frying pan into the fire. How in the world had I let my guard down far enough for the fullness of that memory to get out? What was it about these people that made me spill stuff? Did I really know them? Could I trust them with my baggage? When it came down to it, could I trust anyone with my baggage?
I blinked in the murky dark and rubbed the crust of drool off my cheek with that awful memory dancing around in my head, particularly nauseating when I considered what an idiot I’d been that next day—the years of anguish my foolhardy reaction had spawned. My heart hammered so I could hardly get a breath.
I wrapped my arms around myself until I was calm enough to swallow. Thank goodness the music had not called me home to other events lurking in my past. I would sooner die first. I lay there awhile, until I could ignore my full bladder no more, so I wrenched myself out of bed and crept down the cool plank floor of the dark hallway. I shut the door to the bathroom as quietly as possible, tugged the string to turn on the lightbulb overhead, used the toilet, then closed the lid before flushing and stood at the lavatory until it had finished making noise. I decided I’d tiptoe back down the hallway and crawl into bed, wrap myself in the quilt and wait until the sun was up to go find Tonilynn. I’d ask her to take me home. I knew already what I needed for my peace, my sanity. I needed the Cumberland River.
I jumped when I stepped out of the bathroom, and Aunt Gomer grabbed my arm. “Morning, honey child,” she said. “I heard you up, and I figured you were chomping at the bit. I’ll perk us some coffee to carry outside.”
Dazed, I followed her to the kitchen. In the sink, I saw the big glass Pyrex casserole dish from last night’s supper, upside down and sparkling clean.
“Reckon you’re excited about watching God’s morning show.” Aunt Gomer ladeled coffee into a percolator.
“Oh, well, sure.” I’d forgotten about seeing irises in the sunrise. I stood there a while, listening to the coffee gurgle and belch, a rooster crowing right outside the house. It was five forty-five by the oven clock.
“Nobody up but us chickens.” Aunt Gomer teehee’d as she poured two cups of dark steaming brew. “Come on,” she said, putting one into my hand, “let’s make sure we get front-row seats.”
I followed her out onto the gray porch, where she sat down in a rocker and patted the one beside her. “I’m so tickled we can share this together.” She took a noisy slurp of her coffee and began to rock gently, back and forth, her chin lifted as she looked out expectantly toward the horizon. “I sure do enjoy experiencing the world before it wakes up, don’t you?” she asked. “Everything all fresh and clean and new. It just makes a person feel like so much is possible.”
“Yes ma’am,” I said, but all I really felt was impatient. I could hardly wait for the sunrise to be over and done with so I could get home.
“On that rise yonder is my iris bed.” Aunt Gomer pointed somewhere in the pearly half-light of the moon. “They love full sun. My grandmother grew all kinds of what she use to call ‘bearded irises.’ When I was up at her house, I would go stand over them just looking for their beards. Only thing I ever saw that resembled a beard was this little dark patch of bristly stuff in the middle of the bloom.” She laughed. “Granny loved the white irises called Immortality the best. Said they reminded her of spring and new life. She used to make the loveliest arrangements for her church with the Immortality.
“My favorites are the Mary Franceses and the Savannah Sunsets. Savannah Sunsets are bright orange and the Mary Franceses are lilac, and they are absolutely beautiful when you plant them beside each other.”
I just sipped my coffee and rocked, listening to the excited chatter of birds in some nearby trees.
“Sleep all right?” Aunt Gomer looked over. “You’re mighty quiet. You must not be used to sleeping on a feather bed.”
“It was fine. Guess I’m just not used to being up this early.”
“Well, hon, you’ll be glad you gave up a little shut-eye for this. I’ve seen thousands of sunrises in my life, and I never get tired of ’em. Every one is different. Words can’t hardly do them justice. I lose myself in the whole production.”
“Really?” I said after a bit because it seemed as if she were waiting for my response.
“Mm-hm.” She took a deep, satisfied breath. “My Mama used to say it’s darkest right before the dawn, and I do believe she was right.”
I feigned a smile. How much longer would it be until the sun did its thing and I could excuse myself?
Aunt Gomer’s old voice took on a dreamlike quality. “One summer I put some foxglove in the
back of my hardy border, and Canterbury Bells right in front of them. That following June, they bloomed, and it was the loveliest combination you ever saw. Bloomed two whole weeks. I’d lose track of time just sitting out here looking at them. I ever tell you about how one year I planted blue larkspurs next to orange zinnias? Every soul who came up here was beside themselves at the beauty.”
We rocked in tandem a while, and just as I was entertaining thoughts about how maybe this was some crazy-old-woman thing to do, the sun peeked over the horizon. Golden rays broke through misty clouds and splashed onto the earth. I was so surprised at the heartbreaking wash of pinks and yellows spilling over the swell of Cagle Mountain, I stopped breathing. A glorious blur of pomegranate and lemon against robin’s egg blue and cottony white, the light on the yard radiant, throwing long velvety shadows.
Aunt Gomer rocked back, an “ohhhhh” cascading out of her mouth, tears spilling down her wrinkled cheeks as the tender, rosy light of new day began to spread.
Then we were witnessing the glorious colors of the Mary Franceses and the Savannah Sunsets as the sun moved up to shine behind them. I gazed out, lost in reverie, biting back my own tears. I knew what Aunt Gomer meant by losing herself.
All of a sudden, the front door swung open and out bounded Erastus, making a huge racket. He bounced down the steps and scurried through the yard, smelling here and there, racing around and around the clumps of flowers, stopping to lift his leg on a stump for what seemed like forever. I didn’t even hear Bobby Lee roll up beside me.
“Morning, Jennifer,” he said, and I jumped, turning to look at him. His hair was wild, and he was wearing a Led Zeppelin T-shirt, gray sweat pants, and no shoes.
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