In the Shadow of Alabama

by Judy Reene Singer

  “Thanks,” I say, but I am a bit annoyed that the stupid rope paddock was put up without anyone consulting me. “But I really want him turned out with the other geldings.”

  “I know,” she replies, “but no one wants the responsibility of watching over him.”

  “Malachi can sit near the intercom,” I say. “He can beep the house if there’s a problem.”

  “He sleeps too much. Naps most of the day. You know, I’ll miss Malachi after he leaves,” she says wistfully, “but he is getting so forgetful. He kept leaving the gates open while you were away. The horses were always getting out. And lots of times, I had to double-check the water buckets. He never remembered to give them water. I am always reminding him of things.”

  This takes me by surprise. Malachi was a stickler for details like that.

  There is a white picket fenced–in area by the garage that was going to be a vegetable garden for “proper vegetables,” as Malachi called them. He wanted to plant tomatoes and corn and peas and raise a few chickens for eggs. He had even started to build a henhouse. Now it all lies fallow.

  “My sister, Minnie, is coming for me soon,” Malachi says. “I spoke to her last night. I don’t want to start a garden I can’t finish.”

  Now Lisbon is staring over ropes at the rest of the horses, whinnying to them and now and then, pushing against the barrier with his face. Oddly enough, they are all whinnying back. It’s a separation call. If only Malachi could hear the one from my heart.

  * * *

  “What is your emotional goal?” my therapist had asked me once.

  “My what?” I blinked at her words. Were we supposed to have emotional goals along with academic goals, financial, weight? I laughed at the idea. But she was waiting for me to answer, pen poised over paper, forever taking notes, a perennial secretary to the psyche.

  I wasn’t crazy about her office décor, and many times, when I was supposed to be sitting there and doing what she liked to call “emotional work,” I was really doing emotional decorating, redoing her place in my head. Get rid of the sculpted dark green carpet already, I would mentally scold her, so outdated! And put down a nice oriental floral. Okay, maybe you can leave the walls their monotone school-hall green, but take down those white plastic Venetian blinds and hang some kind of print window treatment. Maybe toile. I like toile. I would run my fingers along the brown leather couch that I was sitting on, with the tan denim throw pillows, and think, maybe a hunting scene, a toile hunting scene, since we always seem to be hunting for answers, but then that might clash with—

  “I see this is a difficult question for you,” she would prod gently. “That you are struggling. Close your eyes and lean back and think of what you would like to achieve. Close your eyes and go to your happy place and describe it to me.”

  My “happy place”? Could anything be more trite? Well, it wouldn’t have been her office. I closed my eyes and all I could see were those ugly tan denim pillows that were supposed to look like envelopes with big brown buttons to fasten the flap part, and I thought, okay, maybe keep the brown leather sofa, but please, toile pillows. At least, toile pillows.

  “Rachel?” She wasn’t going to let it rest. Okay, what kind of place could possibly make me happy? A room filled with sweet whispers and loving arms to hold you like you’ve fallen into a mound of hay? A bare room with my old upright piano standing against a wall? A barn full of horses on a bright morning, turning their faces to me when I walk in? I couldn’t answer her. Where she saw possibilities for emotional advancement, I would always see enclosures, walls.

  “Do the work, Rachel,” she would chide. “What is your goal? And where do you want it to bring you?”

  It was exasperating. I looked at her smiling at me, full of eager, goal-fulfilling joy, when I finally came up with the perfect answer. “My goal is to drop forty pounds by next Tuesday.”

  The light went out in her eyes and she shook her head. “You need to find out,” she said. “You need to stop fighting yourself. Not for me. For you.”

  It was my last session, ever.

  * * *

  David carries my mother’s suitcases up to the spare bedroom before we realize that there is no way we are going to be able to carry my mother up there. The bedroom is on the second floor, along with the full bathrooms. We make some rapid provisions and rearrange the den for my mother. She can have the sofa for tonight, but being able to bathe is going to be another problem.

  “You should have thought of this before I came here,” my mother snaps. “Sandra would have thought everything through.”

  “You’re absolutely right,” I say.

  “She’s a good daughter.”

  “You’re right again,” I say. In the meantime, Sandra is in Phoenix packing up all my mother’s antiques and moving them to Georgia.

  “She can use the den until Malachi leaves,” David suggests. He sees a soon-to-be empty cottage that would make a perfect home for my mother, and I reluctantly agree, though I see her moving in there as the final curtain between Malachi and me.

  * * *

  “I want to sue all those doctors who killed your father,” my mother announces the next morning over breakfast. David drops his English muffin.

  “Martin died of heart failure,” he says.

  “Rachel should have protected him.” She is actually sounding indignant. “All he needed was a pacemaker. It would have saved his life. Somebody should have told us.” My head is swimming from the contradictions. I look at David, and he is just buttering the rest of his muffin, staring at his knife. I can imagine him thinking this isn’t officially his family, and how lucky for him it isn’t.

  “Do you remember us telling you that he should get a pacemaker?” I remind her. “For months we begged him.”

  “Don’t you remember?” She shakes her white hair fiercely. “They did give him one. They called us at the restaurant? They gave him one and then he died. So much for their advice.”

  “It was too late by then,” I try to explain. “They gave him one when it was already too late.”

  “Why did they give him one if they thought it was too late?” She folds her arms, then adds triumphantly, “Those doctors just like to experiment.”

  All I see is my mother’s anger, but David immediately sees my mother’s guilt. “It isn’t your fault,” he says gently. “You couldn’t have helped him. He didn’t want to be helped. You tried, but he didn’t want to be helped. You have to agree that sometimes he could be very difficult.”

  My mother’s voice is filled with relief. “That’s right,” she says. “He was difficult.” Her expression fights back from confusion and she stares down at the table.

  I look at David with appreciation. He always knows what to say. He has always known what to say. I am ashamed of how little I give him for it. My mother takes a sip of her coffee and agrees again with David. “You couldn’t tell that man anything at all.”

  We are looking into a mirror, my mother and me, and we are seeing two different sides of the same picture. She sees the distortion, like the glass in a fun house, wavy and indirect and deformed. And I see a straightforward medical decision that she made too late.

  * * *

  I am standing by the paddocks under a dark sky. The night is falling, dropping across the farm like an arm, encircling us all. The windows in Malachi’s cottage are lit; pale yellow squares glow within its dark frame. His bag is still outside his front door, waiting.

  * * *

  My mother is in the guest room. David helped her go upstairs in slow, slow, wavering, wobbling steps. We made her promise to wait in her bedroom until we can help her downstairs tomorrow morning.

  I peek in on her later. She is sitting on the bed and staring at my father’s picture.

  “Why don’t you get some sleep, Mom?” I tell her.

  “I can’t sleep without your father,” she replies.

  “I thought you said that you couldn’t sleep with him.”

  “I couldn�
�t,” she agrees. “He used to scream during the night from the nightmares. I used to sit by him and tell him it was okay. I always made it okay for him, and then I sat in the gold recliner until I fell asleep.”

  Her face is filled with grief and longing, and I go to her side and give her a hug. She is certain we all failed her. And perhaps we did. Perhaps I should have gone to Phoenix sooner, even before Sandra thought of it, even before my father died, and wrested the medical decisions from them, like Malachi’s sister, instead of waiting for disaster. Perhaps I should have been a better daughter. She will always think I failed her.

  I will always think I failed everybody.

  Chapter 38

  “We need to talk,” David whispers into my back. We are in bed, and I am rolled onto my side away from him. I suddenly awake and sit up.

  “What do you want to tell me?” I ask with dread.

  He doesn’t answer me at first, just draws in a long breath. “You know, you can’t hurt your father through me. You can only hurt me. Is that what you’re trying to do?”

  “Oh God, of course not!” I jump out of bed and stand next to it in quivering outrage. “Why didn’t you invite me to Mexico? I would have gone! Because you wanted to bring someone else!”

  “Living with you is lonely,” he says, not denying my accusation.

  “Luckily you fixed all that.” My voice is filled with sarcasm, which is how I get angry.

  “Did you ever feel anything for me?” he asks.

  I can’t answer. I want to, but the first thing I think of is that I can’t allow myself to become that vulnerable, especially now. The second is, Foolish, foolish, foolish girl, how many chances will I be given?

  “I want to tell you about Caroline,” he says, his words falling quietly in the dark room. I vaguely remember her name, Caroline M. Erikson, LLD, vivacious brunette, pixie-cut hair, serious curves, junior partner.

  “You had an affair with her in Puerto Vallarta,” I say. He doesn’t answer right away, though I am waiting for him to say no, to exclaim that I got it all wrong.

  “Your grandmother called to congratulate me on getting engaged,” I say, my voice freezing over each word. “I guess you gave that ring to her. Should I be shopping for a wedding gift yet?”

  “We’re not engaged.” He says nothing more, just quietly gets out of bed. We are each standing next to the bed.

  “When were you going to tell me?” I am trying to keep my voice from shaking. “Or are you waiting for her to pick you up at the front door in her wedding gown?” My breath is banging against my lungs. He is just standing and listening. I close my eyes and allow myself to breathe, slower, quieter. You can’t catch a horse by running after it and screaming. I keep my voice calm. “I would like to know at least what you wanted to tell me.” He sits back down on the edge of the bed. There are long minutes of silence.

  “It was a trip with a few partners from the firm,” he finally says to the night. “Half business, half working vacation. Things are going good at the firm, and I guess Pete Stanton wanted to celebrate a little. I didn’t bring Caroline; she was invited just like I was.” He pauses and takes a wavering breath and I wonder if he’s crying. I can’t see him for the dark. “I wanted to ask you to come, but you were so preoccupied, your father and then going back and forth to Boston.”

  “You still could have asked me.”

  “I suppose,” he says.

  I wait for him to finish, but he is just sitting there.

  “So?”

  “My grandmother sent me the ring,” he adds. “It was for you. But then I thought, What’s the point?”

  “The point?”

  “You take such pride in saying no.” I could hear his sigh across the dark room. “Things lead to—things. I slept with her. I was lonely.”

  My heart freezes the next beat, skips it entirely, then lurches forward in a sickening jump.

  “I wanted to give the ring to you,” he chokes out.

  “Please leave.” I am acidly polite.

  He gets up and crosses the room to find his pants and shirt, which are neatly draped over a chair, his shoes nearby, as though he had been planning this escape all along. “Maybe we can talk,” he says. “Really talk.”

  “What for? You need my advice on—what?—dating tips?” My words come out like knives, and I am breathing deeply to keep myself under control. Inside my head, a little voice claims how right I was all along.

  “I don’t want to fight about this,” he says. “I will call you in a few days.”

  I keep my voice casual. “Oh, let’s not make promises we can’t keep.”

  He heads downstairs, two steps at a time. I want to cry. Where are my tears? My chance is gone. It hadn’t been my fault, I think in a bitterly triumphant voice that exonerates my behavior. I hadn’t been able to love him because somehow I knew, somehow I had always known, sooner or later, he was going to hurt me.

  * * *

  My mother had just finished breakfast, oatmeal, fresh-squeezed orange juice, buttered toast, and sour complaints, before she retreated to the living room to sulk in front of the TV. I bring in a second cup of coffee for her. She loves good coffee. I am sick over last night.

  “Sandra would have found me a civilized place to live,” she starts.

  “Actually, Sandra thought it was a good idea for you to come here,” I say, forcing myself to be patient when I want to scream. I can barely concentrate on her words; all my thoughts left with David. “But I’m glad to have you.” It’s a lie; maybe she senses it, maybe not, but she doesn’t answer me. And then I ask her, “Mom, I was wondering, remember my old piano? Why did you give it away?”

  “Piano?” She looks at me, confused, then tilts her head to sift back through time. “I think your father sold it to pay for a lawyer.”

  “A lawyer?” I ask.

  “Oh, you know,” she says vaguely. “He was trying to sue the army to get his medal.”

  “I loved that piano,” I tell her, and suddenly fully realize how much I really did love that piano. “I loved it.” Was suing for a medal for creating a bunch of sacks twenty-three years earlier worth taking the music out of their daughter’s life? “I loved playing that piano.”

  She walks over to the window and presses her finger against a pane of glass. I am waiting for her to tell me something more, so that I can understand things. So I can understand why my father took the music from me, but she only runs her finger across the windowsill and says, “There’s an ant on your windowsill. Maybe you should pick up ant spray when you go out today.”

  * * *

  Lisbon is in his new paddock, pacing back and forth and nickering to the other horses. I bring him some extra hay and look at him with different eyes. I am trying to see past the symbols, past the assumptions. Trying to see past a cowardly horse who won’t fight off bullies to a gentle horse that just wants to live in peace; past a man who hatefully sold the one thing I loved, a man so desperate for recognition that it ate like a worm through his soul; and another man—David—who had probably never been mine to love.

  * * *

  Malachi is drowsing in the sun in the lawn chair I had gotten him. It is tilted back; there is a cup of fig tea on a hay bale that he is using as a table.

  “Hey,” he says, then coughs hard.

  “I don’t think you can travel with your sister until you’re better,” I say to him.

  “Heard a car and peeked out my window. Saw David leave,” he says through a series of bubbly coughs.

  “He is interested in another woman,” I say, irony ringing in my voice. “I could have tied him up with all the ropes I wanted, but he would have untied them in the end.”

  He starts to answer me but is racked with another series of wet, ominous coughs.

  “I want to ride Lisbon today. He needs to get away.” Actually, I need to get away. I need to concentrate on something equine. “But I’m going to take you to urgent care first.”

  “I won’t say no,” he wheez
es. I call for an appointment right in front of him. They will see him later that afternoon.

  I make my way to the house and stand on the back porch watching Lisbon eat his hay, and then I get my car keys and my purse, to buy some groceries, a can of bug spray, and maybe, just maybe, after I drop Malachi home from urgent care, I’ll stop at the music store at the mall and look at pianos.

  * * *

  The urgent care doctor checks Malachi thoroughly and takes an X-ray of his lung. There is an outline, a gray cloud, a storm cloud hovering on the horizon of his lung. The doctor thinks it could be pneumonia and gives him antibiotics. I gasp at the sight. I don’t know what cancer looks like, but this looks like a good bet.

  “I ain’t been feeling quite right,” Malachi tells him.

  “We’ll do some tests,” the doctor reassures him. “You need a CAT scan. We’ll get to the bottom of it.”

  “He plans on traveling,” I tell the doctor. “His sister is supposed to be coming for him.”

  The doctor raises his eyebrows. “Where does your sister live?”

  Malachi drops his head and doesn’t answer him. I don’t understand why. I try to cue him. “Mississippi?”

  “It’s far,” he says. I raise my eyebrows at the doctor as Malachi pulls on his sweater and makes his way through the door. “The elderly can get forgetful,” the doctor says to me in confidence as I follow him out.

  * * *

  When I get home, there are four messages on my phone. One from Willie, one from Sandra, another one from Sandra, and a third one from Sandra. The phone rings a few minutes later, and I pick it right up, expecting David, but it’s Sandra.

  “Mom called me. She wants me to rescue her,” she informs me.

  “From what?”

  “She’s not happy,” Sandra carefully replies. “Couldn’t you have tried a little harder to get along?”

  “I thought we were getting along.”

  “She’s unhappy.”

  “She’s impossible,” I retort. “She says the oatmeal’s better in Phoenix. I can’t please her.”

  “Make her eggs next time,” Sandra suggests. “Or let her make her own meals. She’s always been a complainer, but you could find things to make her happy. I mean, it was your suggestion that she come to New York.”