Twang

by Julie L. Cannon

  “Sure. When are you and Bobby Lee coming home?”

  “There’s a few things to handle here, so I’d say not until late. I talked to the preacher, and it’ll be a few days until we can get things together for her funeral. I can carry you back to Brentwood tonight after you help me pick out something for Aunt Gomer to be buried in. Will you help me with that, hon?”

  “Of course.” I was pretty sure Tonilynn was unaware of the severity of the flooding, and I didn’t want to tell her because a big part of me wanted to deny it was actually happening. Earlier I’d caught snippets of television footage of Brentwood. The Little Harpeth River was almost white water rapids at the Brentwood Country Club, and the golf course was a lake. Also, it looked like Manley Lane was flooded and the road surface of Holly Tree Gap Road was buckled from floodwaters. I heard a reporter say Granny White Pike was literally under water.

  “Tonilynn? I’d like to stay up here on Cagle Mountain tonight.”

  “You sure? What about that cat of yours?”

  I heard the teasing mixed with the gratitude in Tonilynn’s voice. “I’m sure.”

  “Thanks, hon. You’ll be a big comfort. I better go see about Bobby Lee. Now, watch out, I imagine they’ll start showing up any minute with food. Help yourself to whatever your heart desires.”

  Erastus went berserk at the sound of Bobby Lee’s wheelchair on the ramp. Zigzagging around the den, he went straight to Bobby Lee’s knees to whimper with delight the instant the door opened. For a while I watched their reunion, then Tonilynn putting her handbag away in the pantry, peeking up underneath tinfoil and Tupperware lids, wedging some dishes into the already overflowing refrigerator. She looked decidedly unglamorous—flat lifeless hair, dark smudges of mascara underneath her eyes, clothes wrinkled and weary. I stood wordlessly in front of the pantry, feeling useless in the face of such grief. What could I do to make things better?

  “Hey, Jennifer.” Bobby Lee wheeled over to me in his wrinkled Allman Brothers T-shirt, his hair in a tangled ponytail, one of Aunt Gomer’s pale blue bedroom slippers perched on his thighs. “How are you?”

  “Okay,” I said, feeling tears starting in my eyes. “I’m sorry about Aunt Gomer.”

  “Yeah. I still can’t hardly believe it. I’m gonna put on one of her albums.”

  I understood. Without Aunt Gomer, the house seemed empty, too quiet.

  I went into the guest room, lay down on the featherbed, and listened to the Louvin Brothers singing. I must’ve fallen asleep because the next time I was aware of anything, the quilt was spread over me and it was pitch dark. The luminous numerals on the digital clock read 4:22 a.m. A faint aroma of coffee drifted to my nostrils.

  Tonilynn was in the kitchen hunched over a shoebox full of photographs. I saw she’d laid several out on the table: a feathery-edged sepia-toned portrait of a baby in an old-fashion buggy, one from a 1960s Christmas if you went by the clothes, what looked to be a young Tonilynn, ten or so, holding a basket full of kittens with Aunt Gomer standing behind her, four women with matching bee-hive hairdos posing behind a banner that read “Bake Sale,” one of Aunt Gomer in 1980 with her brand-new Ford. Tonilynn looked up at me, her face haggard. “The funeral director asked me to gather up some pictures of Aunt Gomer. He wants to put them up on a screen at the front of her funeral, rolling like a movie! Ain’t that crazy?”

  “Well . . . maybe it’s so people can remember when she was in a younger, happier time of her life.”

  Tonilynn shrugged. “He asked me to bring them with the clothes we want her buried in. I’m thinking she’ll look best in her magenta pantsuit and that cream-colored polyester blouse with the bow at the neck.”

  I poured myself a cup of coffee and sat down across from Tonilynn. “I think she’d rather be in her gardening getup—the straw hat and that threadbare chambray shirt and those ancient men’s khaki’s she held up with a rope.”

  A laugh flew out of Tonilynn. “Let’s do that! Oh, Jennifer, wouldn’t she be proud of all this food in her honor?”

  “She would.”

  Tonilynn looked thoughtfully at the counter. “Whenever Aunt Gomer heard somebody’d died, she was the first one there with a fresh-from-the-oven cake. I’m amazed when I think of all the cooking, serving, cleaning, gardening, and putting-by she used to do.” She paused, and got a faraway look. “Aunt Gomer stayed right by Bobby Lee’s side for months after his wreck. Fixed him breakfast, lunch, and a big supper every day. Refilled his tea, fetched the remote for him. She lived to serve folks!

  “Remember after her first stroke, when I had to feed her? I thought she was just ornery and stubborn and didn’t want to accept help? But now I think it was that she couldn’t get up and do for folks! She wanted nothing more than to hop up out of that bed, get home, and take care of me and Bobby Lee!”

  Tears ran down Tonilynn’s cheeks. “She spent her lifeblood caring for others. For me! And I wasn’t easy. I don’t deserve all that woman’s done for me. Know what, Jennifer?”

  “What?”

  “I had issues with certain stories in the Bible, some stuff that bothered me? Well, Aunt Gomer’s stroke gave me a whole new perspective.”

  There were a lot of things I had issues with, but at last I asked, “What?”

  “Remember that woman Jesus healed in the gospel? She had a fever, and Jesus touched her? Well, she hardly got herself a breath before jumping right up from her sickbed and serving. I always thought that was awful, sexist. I mean, here the poor woman’s been at death’s door, and then she hops right up and starts serving the menfolk! I thought she deserved a little R&R. Let the men serve themselves for a change!

  “But I bet she was like Aunt Gomer. She was absolutely thrilled to death to serve, to be able to fix a nice plate of loaves and fishes.” Tonilynn’s jaw shook with her fervency. “See?”

  “Um . . . sure.”

  Tonilynn smiled. “Oh, hon, I appreciate you saying that, but you don’t really.” I started to argue, but she held up her hand. “It’s okay. We all have things that are difficult to wrap our minds around.”

  I was thinking, Yeah, like letting Bobby Lee go to live his own life?

  Tonilynn looked at me hard. “Before she passed, I told Aunt Gomer who Bobby Lee’s father is.”

  I knew what a huge thing that was for Tonilynn, but immediately I discounted it by telling myself that Aunt Gomer had been mentally out of it.

  Leave it to Tonilynn. “It was before her first stroke, when she was still mostly in her right mind. It computed with her, Jennifer. It really did. I know because we had several conversations about it.”

  “Okay.”

  “I showed her the tattoo. For once, she didn’t give me her sermon about desecrating the temple of the Holy Spirit. She just started bawling about a memorial garden her friend Viola got her to plant at the church in Robert’s honor.”

  “What?”

  “Might help if I told you Robert was the son of her best friend, Viola Gooch, the pastor’s wife. Robert died in a motorcycle wreck when Bobby Lee was an infant. He never told nobody he was a father.”

  “Is that why you didn’t tell her who Bobby Lee’s father was?”

  “Well, partly. A baby out of wedlock was a huge scandal, and I didn’t want to crush Reverend and Mrs. Gooch any more on top of burying their son. Just didn’t seem necessary. But there were other reasons. I realized I still loved Robert, and Bobby Lee was like my secret, a way to hold Robert to my heart.”

  I was quiet a while, pondering the odd thought that it had been a motorcycle wreck that claimed Robert’s life and another that had disabled his son. I stood unsteadily, squinted at my watch, which said five a.m., glanced toward the window. No moon, no stars were visible. Only low, dark clouds. “Mind if I turn on the news?”

  “Go ahead, hon.”

  It was like a slap in the face to hear the National Weather Service meteorologist saying, “Weekend storms dumped more than thirteen inches of rain in two days. Dark brown waters are pour
ing over the banks of Nashville’s swollen Cumberland River, spilling into historic downtown where businesses are being shut down and authorities have closed off streets. In residential areas, the catastrophic flooding has ruined homes, and families are being evacuated. Four bodies have been discovered dead in their homes, two in cars on the standstill lane of the interstate and four outdoors. Stay tuned for—”

  Tonilynn pressed her hand to her mouth. From behind it came a piercing wail like someone had stabbed her. I stopped breathing, felt like I was spinning away in weightless space. I ran out the back door and down the steps, not caring about the sloppy mud sucking at my feet or the bushes slapping my arms.

  Sinking onto the floor inside the ancient barn, rainwater ran off my face, trickled down my body. I patted myself stem to stern. My heart was still going, air still moving in and out of my lungs, blood coursing through veins, flesh and bone connected.

  But my soul was crushed. I could not stir a single hopeful thought. Everything I’d had, thought I’d had, was changed. I tried to picture my Cumberland, but all I could see were the muddy, raging torrents from the television screen. Massive, sweeping devastation.

  It wasn’t cold, but it was damp and I wrapped my arms around my knees and let the tears flow down my face and neck. I cried so hard and long it just sucked the starch right out of me. I fell over and lay like a dry husk, barely breathing.

  After a spell, lying there in my weakened state, snippets of Tonilynn’s sermons began. Jennifer, where do you run in times of trouble? In your hour of need, who or what is your refuge? Jesus Christ is the fountain of living waters, and I’m telling you, for us believers, Jesus is the hope that anchors our souls. What’s amazing is we can cling to him through whatever trials we’re facing. As long as there’s a God like him, no situation’s hopeless. He understands our hurts, and he’ll bring us through them, make us stronger. Before I was born again, I used to—

  I made a fist and beat the floor. Lifting my face to the rafters, I shouted “You think you’re so great, and look, you can’t even keep one measly river between its banks! Some Holy Force you are! And while we’re at it, you let my father steal my innocence! He trampled my tender little heart, so shame on you! Now you’ve ruined my whole entire life, and I hope you’re happy!”

  I collapsed again and lay there in the damp—for hours it seemed, until I heard someone approaching. I opened my eyes to see Bobby Lee inside the barn. “You okay, Jennifer?” he asked, squinting. He was wearing Aunt Gomer’s straw gardening hat. At first I thought he’d done it to make me laugh, but then I heard the grief in his voice, and I knew how hard all this was for him.

  I sat up. “I’m okay.”

  “Do you need anything?”

  “No. How’d you know where I was?”

  “Mama said she thought you’d be out here. She said to ask you to come back inside to dry off and get some food.”

  I shook my head.

  He peered into my swollen face with his beautiful eyes, and gently asked, “Want to talk?”

  “No.” Though I’d thought it impossible for my body to produce any more tears, I began to cry.

  “Hey, hey. What’s all this?” Bobby Lee reached for my hands.

  “I . . . I never thought something like . . . like a flood could happen in Nashville! Feels like there are no safe places anymore.” A tear fell off my chin onto his forearm. He kissed it away and tingles ran up and down my spine. It was odd to feel grief mixed with such tender longing.

  “I know. They’re calling it ‘the single largest disaster to hit Tennessee since the Civil War.’ This is one of those times I really miss my legs.”

  “Oh.”

  “Downtown’s so bad President Obama declared it a disaster area. Aid organizations are rushing in, and all these different local groups are stepping up too. Nashvillians are joining work crews all over Davidson County, using boats and jet skis to pluck stranded residents from their flooded homes. There’s still a bunch needs to be done—mucking out rooms, tearing down ruined drywall, cleaning up debris. What’s worrying me is a lot of folks are ignorant about electrical lines. They’ll go sloshing through murky water without a thought.”

  While I was nursing my own hurts, this man was thinking about how he could help other people! I promised myself that when I got home I’d do something big for flood relief. It had to be better than focusing on myself. I was growing so tired of myself. Tired of listening to my own thoughts, of eating and drinking and walking through this world with just myself. “You’re an inspiration,” I told Bobby Lee.

  “Talk about an inspiration.” He pulled my hands to his mouth, kissed each fingertip. “I’ve loved you from the first moment I saw you.” I looked into Bobby Lee’s soulful eyes, eyes he got from his mother, and I felt the strength of his love like a soft blanket draped over me. My heart started galloping a mile a minute and I so wanted to wrap my arms around him. But something inside me wouldn’t let me. I was unable to find any words either.

  Bobby Lee felt my fear because he pulled me up onto his lap, cradling me in those strong arms until the world faded away. It was the most natural thing in this world, and I had no reflex to pull away when he whispered, “It’s okay. You don’t have to answer. But it breaks my heart to see you crying like this, and I’m gonna hold you long as you need me to.”

  The minutes passed, and I had this thought about how I wouldn’t mind staying right there forever. Then, just when I was realizing the strange sensation of aching lips, Bobby Lee bent forward and kissed me so hard on them that every single thing inside of me melted.

  14

  Two days later Tonilynn drove me home to Brentwood; we watched the sun shining down on the slick roadsides of Williamson County the way you watch a dog that’s bitten you in the past. Luckily, Harmony Hill was untouched by the flood, but it felt emptier than ever, like there was something critical missing, the way it feels when you wake from a dream and only pieces of it are still floating in your mind.

  A long day passed and at dusk I wandered outside like a stunned sleepwalker through the sticky heat. I thought about Bobby Lee as I strolled by the fountain, as I sat on the bench at the fishpond, and as I dragged myself back into the house close to midnight. In my mind’s eye he was a firm island, safety in the midst of choppy seas. I liked how he was so calm, so sure of who he was.

  His whispered words of love were my soundtrack, my background music of hope for a future filled with fishing trips, long talks in the moonlight, nights of peace and security strung together over the years like pearls on a necklace. I craved those tingles that the gentle-firm feel of Bobby Lee’s lips on mine sent through me. I’d never felt anything like that before, had once thought it was just a figure-of-speech when people said kisses sent electrical currents through them.

  Didn’t Bobby Lee make me come alive? Yet I still hadn’t uttered words of love to him in return. I still wasn’t quite sure how to have the intimacy I was pining for—this thing that made my soul ache I wanted it so!

  Sleep would not come, and I turned on the bedside lamp to play around with some song ideas, but nothing would flow the way it used to, needed to. No melodies, no lyrics begged for expression. It seemed my gift had totally dried up. But, I didn’t feel unhappy. I kept telling myself it was better this way, and that I would pour my whole self into learning how to be a regular person.

  Right in the midst of this realization, a beautiful, evil hope charged through me: perhaps the CMA Festival wouldn’t happen! From news coverage I’d seen of Riverfront Park and LP Field, the two main venues for shows during the festival, there was no way in this world they would be operational in time for June tenth. The park was a wasteland and the stadium looked like a swimming pool.

  If anything good could come out of this flood, would it not be the cancellation of the CMA Festival? If I could contemplate anything redeeming at all, it was to be released from my final commitment to perform! I could feel this vision of the new me burning its way into my soul, crowd
ing out the wounded diva wearing her heart on her sleeve, and it seemed the flood was like this natural delineation, this liquid line cutting between what was and what would be.

  The new Jennifer Clodfelter would not have to dredge up torment and sadness for songwriting. She would never bolt awake at night, alone and shaking at the arrival of a memory.

  I’d missed a couple of Sundays at Panera, and two days later when Mike called to say, “How about Panera at ten?” I smiled and said that sounded downright heavenly because not only was I feeling withdrawal pangs from my cinnamon crunch bagels I was also ready to get out of that cavernous, too-quiet house.

  The next thing I knew, we were in the Great Room, sunk down in chairs across from each other beneath the lofty ceiling, enshrouded with the familiar scent of coffee brewing and fresh bread baking. A little chitchat and half a cup of coffee later, Mike leaned back in his chair, laced his fingers across his belly, and said, “Guess what? The CMA is saying they’re going to donate all the proceeds from this year’s festival to charity. Half to music education in the Metro public schools, and the other half to help victims of the flood. I mean, we’re talking 100 percent here! This is even more of a lure, can’t fail in getting folks to come out to the festival and help our great city rebuild.”

  I didn’t know what to say. One hand began twisting a strand of hair at the base of my neck around and around the index finger, and the other reached up to pull my faded ball cap down past my eyebrows.

  “Something to celebrate, huh?” Mike raised his cup in a toast. “Kind of bittersweet, I got to admit, but hey, it’s incredible to see the CMA’s outpouring of love and generosity. I’m not surprised, though, because I believe country music stars, and country music fans, have got the biggest hearts in this world.” He looked directly into my eyes for a long moment, and when I still didn’t respond, he prompted, “Isn’t that great, Jenny? The way we’re leading the efforts to help rebuild our beautiful city? That we’re helping hurting folks recover from this disaster?”