He did not answer but kissed my forehead and went to the phone and called the doctor.
On March 30, Easter Sunday, Da Nang, South Vietnam’s second largest city, fell to the North Vietnamese Army. On April 5, Adel called from Germany, sobbing. “The army’s sent Barry off on an intelligence-gathering mission. I’m all alone, Papa. I—I can’t stand it one more minute here without him. I want to come home, Papa. Please say I can come home.”
Twenty-one
April
“I really don’t like living overseas on an army base,” Adel told us. “Barry was going to take me to Paris in June, but then his orders came and he was gone. I couldn’t bear staying in Germany one more day without him.”
Papa had picked her up at the Atlanta airport and brought her home within days of her telephone call. She said that the flight had taken “forever” and that she was nauseated, so she slept almost round the clock. Now we were sitting at the dining table after supper. Even Mama had come downstairs to join us. I had not seen Adel in three months, and I’d expected more of a change in her appearance with her pregnancy, but I detected only the slightest swelling in her abdomen.
“Well, you’re home now and a sight for sore eyes,” Mama said.
“Do you know how long Barry will be gone?” Papa asked.
“He doesn’t know. He can’t even say exactly where he is other than ‘Southeast Asia’ because it’s an intelligence mission. I send my letters to him to a post office box in Washington, D.C., in care of the army, and they forward his mail to him. He was glad I was coming home. He wants me to be with my family.”
“Do you think you can stay until the baby comes?” Papa asked.
“Depends on the army. If Barry gets reassigned someplace where I can join him, then I’ll go. But if that happens, then I swear just as soon as the baby’s born and I can travel, I’ll come here.”
“Well, I am so happy you’re here right now. I can’t think of anything I’d rather have than my family surrounding me.” Mama’s smile lit up her face, making me realize just how much she’d missed Adel. More than I had missed her, I thought, then felt uncharitable. Adel had a way of absorbing attention like a sponge soaking up water, but so long as Mama was happy, then I would be happy too.
By the end of the week after Adel’s return, I had to admit that it was good that she’d come home. For starters, Mama wasn’t alone all day. When I came in from school, Adel was there to greet me. Plus, she always cooked supper, a skill that she’d improved mightily since being married. Dr. Keller took over as Adel’s prenatal doctor. He said that it brought him “full circle.” He had delivered Adel, and if he delivered her baby, then he could retire knowing that another generation had been set in place by his hands. I knew he came to give Mama pain shots, but this was generally while I was at school and Adel was with her. I hated seeing her in pain.
At school, J.T. ignored me, which pleased me greatly, but then Jason didn’t have much use for me either. If I saw him in the halls, he greeted me, but he didn’t go out of his way for me. So I was surprised when I looked up from my work in the backyard on a Saturday and saw him heading toward me. The day was bright and beautiful with sunshine, and it lit up his hair with golden highlights. I asked, “And to what do I owe this visit?” Once again, I did not look my best, but at least I hadn’t been working for hours, so I wasn’t perspiring like a dog.
“I brought your mother something from Carole. Your sister said you were out here digging in the dirt. Thought I’d check on you.”
“I enjoy gardening. Makes me feel good to help things grow.” I sounded defensive even as I took off the heavy gardening gloves and flexed my fingers.
He looked around at the blooming plants. “Pretty stuff,” he said, nodding toward the gazebo. Long, delicate clusters of lavender-colored wisteria flowers hung from vines growing on the railings and from the overhead trees.
“I can’t take credit for their beauty, only their location,” I said. “Mama and I planted those vines when I was about five. They bloom every year.”
He began to stroll around the yard and I followed, although I hated myself for doing so, because I wanted to be near him for as long as possible. He stopped at every bed in bloom. “What’s here?” he asked, gesturing.
“Purple rock cress, violets, Jacob’s ladder, columbine,” I said, using the common names of the flowers I’d watched regrow every spring of my life.
He moved to another bed where nothing was yet growing. “And here?”
“This is a bed that’s ‘becoming,’ ” I explained. “I’ve sown seeds and the flowers will be out later in the summer. Some will grow just because they grew here last year.”
“And what will the names of these ‘becoming’ flowers be?” He looked amused.
I couldn’t believe he was truly interested, but I told him anyway. “Snapdragons, baby’s breath, foxglove, forget-me-nots, love-in-a-mist.”
“Love-in-a-mist? That’s a funny name.” His smile spread into his eyes and I couldn’t tell if he was laughing at me. “Nigella,” I said coolly, using the Latin name. “Like that word better?”
“No. I like the unusual names better. What are some others?”
I knew plenty about the yard and began to feel more comfortable as we walked, for I was in my element. I pointed out the different beds and described what would eventually appear by full summer. By the time we’d made it to the far back corner, I was gushing out flower types and colors and spewing out their histories. “Now, this is one of my very, very favorites,” I told him. We were standing in front of an old iron gate propped against the wooden fence at the back of our property.
“A gate to nowhere?” Jason asked, giving me a curious look.
“It’s just decoration. Mama put this here after Grandmother died as a kind of living memorial. We planted it with morning-glory vines that grow up all over it and make it so pretty. I’m planning on putting in Polygonum orientale this year,” I said, using the formal name of a plant he could not possibly know.
“English, please.”
I smiled smugly. “It’s called kiss-me-over-the-garden-gate. They grow tall, up to six feet, and have the prettiest little pink flowers that droop in clusters. And besides, I think it’s really clever. You know, an iron garden gate with a flower named garden gate—get it?”
He grinned. “What did you call it?”
“Kiss-me-over-the-garden-gate.”
And suddenly, quickly, he kissed me full on the mouth.
I was so shocked, I about fell over. “What was that for?”
“I thought you’d given me an invitation.” His eyes sparkled with mischief.
I felt color creeping up my cheeks.
“Now, don’t tell me no one’s ever kissed you by the garden gate before.”
I stared at him. “You’re making fun of me.”
A look of confusion crossed his face, then another expression that reminded me of the look a person gets when catching on to something for the first time. He said, “No . . . I’m not.”
“You caught me by surprise,” I said defensively, for I didn’t want him to know how inexperienced I was. Thinking fast, I said, “A girl usually likes to be asked first. Otherwise, no telling how many fools will take to kissing her.” The longer he stood looking at me, the more hotly my cheeks burned. I wanted to run away, but my feet felt rooted to the ground.
“Fair enough.” Jason clasped his hands behind his back and leaned very close. “May I kiss you, Darcy?”
I knew that if I told him no, he wouldn’t. And in that moment, a feeling of undeniable feminine power came over me. I could make him do whatever I wanted. Except that I did want him to kiss me. More than anything. “Yes,” I said crisply. “You may.”
He raised my chin and gently, tenderly placed his lips on mine. As if they had a mind of their own, my arms lifted to wind around his neck. His arms slipped around me, hugged me tightly. The kiss deepened and I felt like a flower opening up after rain. I pressed mys
elf against his body. My blood sizzled and I heard a pounding in my ears that blotted out the rest of the world. The universe consisted of Jason’s mouth on mine and my body trembling and wanting more. Forever hardly seemed enough time to relish the feelings pouring through me.
Abruptly, he broke off, his breathing ragged. The air between us felt charged. He pressed his forehead to mine and whispered, “Wow.”
I couldn’t find my voice. My knees could barely support me. “Wow” hardly expressed what I was feeling.
He let go of me, stepped away. “You’d better go back to your house.”
I didn’t want to go back to the house. I wanted to throw myself into Jason’s arms and have him kiss me ten more times . . . a hundred more. I had never felt so wonderful as how I’d felt while he was holding me, kissing me. And now he was sending me off? Had I done something wrong? Disappointed him? Could he tell I was an amateur?
“I have garden work to finish,” I said quietly, not wanting him to know how much I wanted to kiss him again. My sense of feminine power had evaporated like a drop of water on a hot skillet.
He reached out as if to touch me, quickly changed his mind, turned and jogged toward the house, leaving me alone to wonder about what I’d done to make him go away.
This kissing of Jason was not something I could keep from Becky Sue. No, not this world-shaking event. That afternoon I invited myself to her house, and when we were alone in her room, I dropped my bomb. I said, “Jason kissed me.”
Her eyes went round as saucers. “Really? When? Where? Tell me about it!”
I told her the good parts, not the parts where I’d been mooning over him for months, or how he’d all but run away when he was finished kissing me. I set out my story plain and simple. He came for a visit. We walked around the yard discussing flowers. We stood in the far back, out of sight of the house, and the next thing I knew we were kissing. End of story.
“And you liked it?” Becky asked.
I grinned. “I liked it a lot.”
“Didn’t I tell you so?”
She didn’t sound nearly as smug as I thought she would. After all, I’d dismissed her notions of heart-thumping romance for years, and now I was saying such a thing was possible. “It doesn’t pain me one bit to admit you were absolutely correct.”
She flopped back on her bed dramatically. “By the way, I hate you.”
“But why?”
She bounced up. “Because I was going to tell you that Russell had kissed me and that it was awful.”
“How awful?”
“He kisses like a fish—wet and sloppy.” She sucked in her cheeks and moved her lips like a guppy in a fishbowl.
I started laughing.
“I was pinning all my hopes on Russell, and come to find out he kisses so poorly that I don’t ever want him to kiss me again. If I wanted to get licked, I’d get me a dog!” She made a face. “Are you laughing at me?”
“Wouldn’t think of it,” I told her between giggles.
She bopped me with a bed pillow, and the next thing I knew we were rolling on the bed, squealing and popping each other with pillows.
When we stopped to catch our breath, she leaned close to my face. “So tell me about kissing Jason. What was it like? And don’t you leave out one detail!”
I thought of how best to describe it. “It was like being on fire, but not getting burned up. It was like floating on water and feeling soft as velvet on my insides. It was like being free and flying . . . and . . . and it was . . . wonderful!” I ran out of words.
“Lucky you,” Becky said wistfully. “Is he your boyfriend now?”
She stopped me cold with that one and my good humor evaporated. I rolled so that my back was to her and she couldn’t see the pain I was feeling in my heart. “Course not. It was just a kiss, Becky Sue. It was just for fun. And it didn’t really mean a thing. Not to either of us.”
Twenty-two
Now that Barry was somewhere in Southeast Asia, Adel and I followed the news from that area on television and in the newspapers religiously. In Vietnam, the North Vietnamese Army had become an unstoppable juggernaut. In Cambodia, adjacent to Vietnam, the Khmer Rouge captured the capital city of Phnom Penh, and stories of terrible atrocities were being reported. “I sure hope the army didn’t send him there,” Adel would say after the evening news, concern etched in her pretty face.
Here at home, our nation was weary of the war and eager to be free of it and the black mark it had left on our reputation as defenders of democracy. At least that was what the editorials in the papers were saying. It just made Adel angry because she saw the war from a different perspective, that of a soldier’s wife, where the war was justifiable. I couldn’t blame her. As I wrote my report to go with my chart, I wondered, Why have so many died for a cause that has lost its virtue?
In the waning days of April, it was also becoming obvious that my mother was losing her personal war with cancer. We never said it aloud to one another, but nevertheless, it was true, even to my eyes. The rows of pill bottles went largely untouched as she stopped taking the medications that left her too weak to stand, too sick to care. Managing the pain of her bone cancer became our family’s focus. There were no more “good and bad days.” Only bad ones. Coming home from school and seeing Dr. Keller’s car in our driveway was commonplace for me.
Then one day I came home to Adel crying in the kitchen and near hysterics. I dropped my books and they scattered across the floor. Fear knotted like a vise around my heart. “What happened? Mama didn’t—Mama isn’t—” I couldn’t get the word out.
Adel kept twisting her hands together. “No, no,” she cried, for she knew what I was asking. “She’s just in terrible pain, and Dr. Keller can’t come.”
“What do you mean he can’t come?”
“There was an accident. One of the farm-workers got caught in a combine and Doc’s working hard to save the man’s arm. His nurse says he’ll come as soon as he can, but Mama needs him now!”
I took the stairs two at a time and rushed into Mama’s room. She lay on the bed, moaning, begging for help. Her skin was pale as white chalk. I dropped at the side of the bed, took her hand. “Mama? It’s Darcy. Would you like a cold cloth?”
She didn’t answer. She couldn’t. Pain racked her body and she writhed on the bed. The sheets were twisted and soaked with sweat and vomit.
Adel appeared next to me. I jumped up and grabbed her by the shoulders. Fury consumed me. How could she have allowed our mother to lie there in filth? “What have you done for her? What about her pain pills?”
“She can’t keep anything down.” Adel’s eyes were wild with fear. “Don’t you think I’ve been trying? She throws everything up as soon as it hits her stomach. I even crushed a pill in water, but she couldn’t keep it down either.”
My brain went numb. How could this be happening? “Call the doctor again.”
“I just hung up. He can’t come now, Darcy. He’ll come as soon as he can.”
“But Mama needs him now!”
“He can’t come now, Darcy!”
We were shouting at each other.
“Papa—” I said.
“You know he’s out of town.”
I had forgotten that Papa was at a one-day banking seminar in Atlanta. There was nothing he could have done for Mama anyway.
Mama moaned, cried out to Jesus to help her, began heaving. Adel grabbed a bowl, knelt beside the bed and held the bowl under Mama’s mouth. “It’s okay, Mama. We’re right here, Mama. We won’t leave you, Mama.” She used a soothing voice as one might talk to a child.
“Let me die! Let me die!” Mama sobbed.
In that instant, I knew what had to be done. I said to Adel, “I can help her. Wait. I’ll be right back.”
I ran down the hall, bolted down the stairs. In the kitchen, I jerked open the refrigerator door and starting tossing aside cans and containers, all the while pleading, “Let it be here. Please let it be here.” I dragged out the container th
at held the syringe full of morphine and ran back upstairs.
Adel’s eyes widened as I advanced to the bed, the needle in my hand. “What are you doing?” She grabbed my arm.
“I’m helping Mama. Doc Keller made this up and left it here. He showed me how to use it.” I had fudged on the truth of the second part, but desperation had made me brave. I saw instantly that Adel believed me because she wanted to believe me.
“All right,” she said, standing aside. “What can I do?”
I said a quick prayer, because if anyone needed help from God at that moment, it was me. “Just hold her steady. I don’t want to hurt her.”
Mama sobbed and whimpered. Adel took our mother’s arm and I bathed the skin with a splash of rubbing alcohol. The sharp odor stung the air. In the fatty tissue, Dr. Keller had explained. Mama looked to be skin and bones, but I pinched up her skin, aimed the tip of the needle toward the back of the arm, where the flesh appeared to be the meatiest. The needle sank quickly. I pushed the plunger steadily, but not too fast, while Adel restrained Mama and talked to her. In amazement, I saw that although my heart was racing and my breathing was shallow, my hands were steady as a rock.
Once the syringe was empty, I extracted the needle and capped it. Adel cradled Mama, rocked her back and forth. Mama’s moaning and wild thrashing slowed as the morphine did its job. When she was at rest, Adel laid her back onto the pillow and wiped her face with a damp washcloth.
Adel and I looked into each other’s eyes, measuring, evaluating, as if seeing one another in a whole new light. Finally Adel said, “She’ll sleep now.”
“Yes,” I said. My legs felt wobbly and I rested my hand on the wall for support.
“I’m going to change her sheets. I know how to do it with her in the bed. Why don’t you go sit on the porch and wait for Dr. Keller?”
I did. I sat on the porch steps, letting the warm sun soak the coldness out of me. My heart had stopped pounding, but my cheeks were wet with tears. How much suffering could one person take?
I didn’t know how much time passed, but eventually Dr. Keller’s car swung into our driveway. I met him on the lawn and told him what I’d done. He nodded, went inside and up the stairs. I waited in the hallway. When he came out, he said, “Your mother’s resting peacefully.”
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