Hot Fudge Sundae Blues

by Bev Marshall

  I pulled my hand out of Papaw’s grip and ran back down the hall. The scent of antiseptic and bleached tile floors wafted around me as I ran for the big glass double doors. Outside I skirted an ambulance and headed for the one pine tree beside the parking lot, where I knelt on the hard needles scattered beneath it.“Please God, let her live. Don’t take her from me.You’ve got Daddy and Grandma; leave her for me. If you never answer another of my prayers and will answer just this one, that will be enough.” Hot tears rained down my face and I could no longer speak aloud. Silently, I kept on praying. “Please please please please.”

  Chapter 10

  GOD TOOK HIS TIME ANSWERING MY PRAYER. MAMA LAY IN A coma for eight days, and Dr. Martin said he didn’t know if she’d come out of it or not. Papaw and I hardly left the hospital during those times. Night and day, we sat beside her bed where she lay with a bandaged head.Tubes and machines burbled and whined continuously, blocking out the sound of her shallow breath. I watched her chest; those magnificent breasts, rising and falling ever so slightly, didn’t matter anymore. Nothing mattered at all, not eating, sleeping, changing clothes. Even praying became so routine and mechanical, I wondered if I should bother.

  On the third day Wallace showed up. Papaw had gone home to feed the animals and I was sitting in the brown fake leather chair beside the window. I think I had dozed off as I remember jerking my head up when Wallace said her name. “Frieda. Frieda? Can you hear me? It’s Wallace.”

  “She can’t hear you,” I said. “She’s in a coma.”

  Wallace hadn’t seen me; he jumped a little when I spoke. “Layla Jay. How are you?”

  “I wasn’t in the car. I’m fine,” I said. Wallace looked like shit. The white shirt he preached in was wrinkled and there was a brown oval stain over his heart. His black pants hung on him, and his hair was matted down on his head and damp. As he walked over to my chair, I glanced out the window thinking it must have rained.

  “I just found out,” he said. “I was in Biloxi for a revival. What happened?”

  I wasn’t going to tell him that Mama was drunk, that I had heard the nurses gossiping that all sorts of outrageous behavior occurred in the cabin where she went that night. “She was in a terrible wreck,” I said.

  Wallace pulled over the only other chair in the room and sat beside me. “I heard that. And I heard about the party at the cabin. She must have been really drunk to hit an oncoming car.Was anyone else hurt?”

  I shook my head. “No. She hit a big moving van, not a car, and the driver in the cab didn’t have a scratch on him.”

  Wallace looked over at Mama lying still as ever. “Is she going to make it?”

  “Don’t know yet. Dr. Martin says she could come out of it at any time, or ...” I shrugged.

  Wallace’s eyes filled with tears. “Let’s pray together,” he said.

  My first thought was to tell him I could pray by myself just fine, thank you, but then I remembered Grandma saying that there is strength in numbers, and the more prayers lifted up, the better chance of God listening. I followed Wallace to Mama’s bedside and folded my hands next to his.

  WHILE MAMA WAS IN THE HOSPITAL, I stayed at Papaw’s. Miss Louise moved into Mama’s old room to keep me company during the hours Papaw was gone. I came to like Miss Louise even more than I had the night we played poker. She worked in pediatrics on the seven to three shift and tried to cheer me up with stories about the cute things some of the kids said. I didn’t care about those kids, but I tried to smile at her stories so she wouldn’t tell Papaw how miserable I was. He had enough to worry about. On his way to Mama’s room on the third floor one night, he got in the elevator with an unlit cigar in his mouth, and when he leaned forward as the doors closed, somehow his cigar got stuck between them. Instead of letting it go, he clamped his teeth down on the cigar, fell into the metal door and broke off one of his false front teeth plus an incisor. No one could figure out exactly how all this happened, but Papaw swore that he was telling the truth. Miss Louise said it happened because he wasn’t getting enough sleep and made him come home earlier each night.“You don’t know how long Frieda will be there. Have to save your strength for the coming days,” she told him.

  I didn’t go back to school. I told Papaw there was no point because I couldn’t think of anything but Mama, and I’d just be a body with no brain sitting at a desk. I knew that the azalea bushes were all in bloom, a riot of purple, pink, and white lace-edged flowers. I knew a thunder-storm blew down the visitor sign in the hospital parking lot. I knew someone came into the emergency room with a gunshot wound. I knew these things, but I couldn’t interpret any of it because nothing mattered except the rise and fall of Mama’s chest. The nurses were kind to me; they brought me Ingenue magazines, a deck of cards, offered the leftover chocolate pudding patients didn’t want. But I would sit in the chair too numb to read or play a game or even enjoy the sweet dessert. I stopped crying and felt worse. I dreaded seeing Grandma because I believed if she came to us, she would take Mama away, and every day I shook with fear when my eyes would grow heavy and the objects in the room would blur.That’s when I thought she might appear, in that in-between time when my brain began to switch from reality to an unconscious state. But Grandma stayed away, and I kept my vigil, remembering the promise I had made to God, hoping he had heard my prayers.

  I wasn’t at the hospital when Mama came out of the coma. Papaw was there though, and he cried so hard trying to tell me that her first words were “Layla Jay okay?” that Miss Louise had to finish his sentence. We were standing in the hall just outside the room, and I rushed right in to see her. I guess I was expecting her to be just like she was when she left the house on the night of the accident, but this woman was nothing like my mother. She was weak and I could hardly hear her when she said, “Don’t worrrr. I kay.”

  Mama had lost eight days of her life. She hadn’t known we visited her every day, that Miss Louise and Cybil, Brother Thompson, and so many others from Pisgah Methodist and a few ladies from Salloum’s had come, too. None of her boyfriends came, except Mervin, and he cried so loudly and carried on so much about it being his fault that we had to ask him not to come back. Luckily for Mama, Darryl Thomas had been the officer on the scene, and he was going to leave out a few details in his report, like the fact that Mama was drunk as a skunk. All of these things I told her that first day after she came back to us. But when I paused and looked up, I saw that her eyes had closed sometime during my long-winded chattering. I realized I had talked so long because I was trying to keep her awake, scared that she might slip back into the coma and that the next time she wouldn’t come back.

  But she came back to us after every nap, and each time she was a little more aware, a tiny bit stronger. Her legs weren’t working right though, and her speech was slurred. Temporary brain damage, most likely, Dr. Martin said. She would need therapy and a lot of care for a long time. She had other injuries to deal with as well. They’d removed her gallbladder and patched up a perforation in her spleen, but she would live and that was what mattered.

  I wasn’t sure if it mattered to Mama. When she was finally well enough to understand her condition, she said she wished she had died. She couldn’t face being an invalid, dependent on others to take care of her. It wasn’t fair to ask her to live in a wheelchair; she was a dancer. And she was in a lot of pain.

  Papaw tried to reassure her that she’d walk again. “You’re going to have to summon up something you’ve never had, something called patience, Frieda.You’ll heal, but it’s going to take time.” He smiled across the bed to where Miss Louise and I stood. “Louise has offered to help out.When you’re well enough to go home, she’ll be your nurse, help us take care of you.”

  Mama fingered the bandage on her head. “Who is ‘us’?”

  “Me and Layla Jay.Y’all will have to move in with me until you’re well enough to take care of yourself.”

 
Mama shook her head “no” for so long that Louise grabbed her cheeks and held her still.“I wan my bed,” Mama said.“Go home? Pease?”

  Papaw patted her hand and kissed her forehead. “We’ll see.You rest now. Not good for healing to get yourself all upset.”

  “That’s right,” Louise said. “Happy patients get well a lot faster than unhappy ones.”

  I didn’t think Mama would ever turn into a happy patient, but I smiled like I thought she could be one, too.

  Since I had missed nearly two weeks of school counting the day I’d skipped, Papaw said he’d drive me to school the next day. I didn’t mind going back to school now that Mama was out of danger. Anything was better than sitting in the hospital day after day. Of course, I’d probably see June, but now I didn’t care if I did. Everything between us had been settled during the first days Mama was in the hospital.

  Three days after Mama’s accident, June and her mother had shown up in Mama’s room with a potted plant.While Papaw visited with June’s mother, June and I went down to the snack bar for a Coke and a pack of Nabs.That’s where she cried and said that Henry Quitman had told her about ratting her out as the person who started all the rumors about me and Mervin. Now she wanted me to believe how sorry she was for making up all those lies. I wasn’t going to forgive her that easily, so I pushed my chair back and stood up. “I’ll never understand how you could say those things knowing how much it would hurt me. Everyone believed you, not me.”

  June grabbed my wrist.“Please give me a chance to explain,” she said.

  An intern or resident—I couldn’t tell the difference—walked in and put his dime in the machine for a Coke. “Hi girls,” he said. “Got a patient in here?”

  “My mother,” I said.

  He lifted the Coke from the box, stuck the cap in the opener, and popped it off. “Well, hope she goes home soon.This place isn’t much fun to be stuck in.”

  When he left, I sat back down. “Okay, I’ll listen, June, but I want to get back up to Mama’s room soon.”

  June bit her lip and her hesitation made me wonder if she was going to make up another lie, but then her eyes filled up, and she sobbed and shook her bubble hairdo until I thought the curl would fall out. “Go on,” I finally said, and although I was enjoying her misery, I didn’t think it could compare to mine.

  When she finally got her breath, she said,“Dear Zeus, help me!” She rubbed her eyes and sat up straight in her chair. “Well, okay. Here’s how this all got started. I was talking to Glory, Sue, Lyn, all of the cheerleaders after practice, and Lyn said something about you.” Her breath hitched again.

  “What’d she say?”

  “She said she couldn’t believe Jehu had taken you to that dance, that no other boys liked you, that you’d probably never get another date.” June tightened her mouth the way she did every time she talked about Mr. Robinson our algebra teacher, who she thinks is a communist.“So I said, ‘That’s not true. I know for a fact that older men like Layla Jay.’ They wanted to know how I knew and so I told them about how you danced and drank beer with Mervin.” She looked over at me and lifted her palms. “You did say that, Layla Jay.”

  “I know what I said, but I didn’t say we went all the way. I never even kissed him. He’s Mama’s boyfriend, not mine.”

  June looked over at the Coke machine. Her voice was fainter now. “I know. But after I told them that, they got real interested in me. I mean they were hanging on my every word for a change, and I’m not as popular as they are. I mean, I don’t get invited to a lot of their spend-the-night parties, and I guess I was enjoying all the attention and so when they all screamed and asked what happened next, well, I had to think of something fast, and before I knew it, I heard myself saying you and he, well, you know.”

  I stared hard at June. It was like I had never known her, like we had never been best friends, swapping Photoplay magazines, rolling each other’s hair, telling our dreams to each other and promising we’d never tell anyone else our secrets.We’d done all that, and yet June had told this awful lie. Our friendship had meant less to her than being popular with these snotty girls. I stood up. “So you did this terrible thing to me just so you’d be the center of attention with the cheerleaders? That’s rich,” I said.“And that’s the best reason I’ll ever have for ending a friendship. I’ll see you around, June. Well, not if I see you first.” Before she could reply, I jumped up and ran out into the hall.When I got back up to Mama’s room, I told June’s mother that June was waiting for her in the snack bar downstairs. I wanted her far away, out of the hospital and out of my life.

  I dreaded seeing June at school, but she was absent. I overheard Lyn telling some girls that June had the flu, and I hoped she had the stomach flu and was in for a lot of vomiting before she got over it. All of my teachers asked about Mama, trying to be kind, and they tried to be subtle when they asked questions about what exactly had happened that night. Only Miss Schultz didn’t quiz me. She put her arm around me and said she had prayed nightly to the Virgin Mary to lay her healing hands on Mama. I mumbled my thanks although Grandma had told me it was wrong to pray to the saints and not to God. I knew she meant well, and truth be told, I’d prayed to Grandma and Daddy and Papaw’s neighbor, Mr. Thompson, who had died of TB when I was ten.

  After Papaw picked me up from school, we drove over to the hospital. Mama was sitting up eating green Jell-O from the spoon Wallace held out. He smiled at us. “Look at our girl. Eating something at last.”

  Papaw and I stood with our backs to the door in shock. How had this happened? How could Mama allow Wallace to even be in the room, much less feed her? I had assumed Wallace hadn’t returned after that one visit, and I hadn’t dared tell Mama or even Papaw about his being in the room and our praying together. Now I wondered if he’d been slipping in to see her all along.

  I walked over to kiss Mama’s cheek and noticed a new bunch of flowers in a plastic vase beside the bed. “Hi, Mama, I see someone brought you some daisies.”

  “Wallace remembered they’re my favorite,” Mama said, except it sounded like she said, “Wallurce remember tday my fave right.”

  “That’s right, Frieda,” he said.Then looking over at Papaw, who was still at the door, he waved to him. “She’s had a good day. I’ve been here since noon, and she’s just getting better by the minute.”

  “Bullshit,” Papaw said and walked out.

  “Paaaaop,” Mama said. “Go get im,Wallurce.”

  Wallace handed me the Jell-O and spoon. “Here, you get her to eat some more. I’ll go see what’s what with your grandfather.”

  After he left I put the spoon and Jell-O on the tray beside the bed. “Mama, what’s up with Wallace? How come you’re letting him stay?”

  Mama smiled. I interpreted her slurred sentences as she spoke.“Layla Jay, he’s the reason I’m alive, well, not him exactly, but his faith is the reason. God saved me for him. He told me.”

  It hadn’t taken too much effort to figure out what the words she said were, but I didn’t have a clue as to what they meant. “What? What are you saying? I don’t understand.”

  “Roll the bed down, honey. I’m tired. Need to lie flat a while.Then I’ll explain.”

  I turned the crank until she was lying flat and then sat down in the straight chair beside her. “Okay, so what’d Wallace say?”

  Mama rolled her head on her pillow toward me and, in her new way of talking, began her story.“Take my hand, sweetheart. It was when I was in the coma. Late one night Wallace came in and my blood pressure was dropping.The nurse told him I might not make it through the night.”

  “No one said that to me and Papaw. At least not to me,” I said.

  “Well, no need to because when Wallace heard that, he said he knelt beside my bed and laid his hand on my heart and began praying to God to let me live. He promised Him that he would dedicate his life to Him, doing whatever
He commanded. He begged God to give me to him as a helpmate, a kind of sidekick I guess, so that he wouldn’t stray with other women, and then he just kept on praying and praying. He prayed so long, he lost his voice, and he couldn’t feel his body at all. Wallace thinks God took him out of his body and held him in His arms. He said he could feel His love, and he knew then that I would live. When he opened his eyes, the nurse came in and said my pressure had risen, that I was out of danger, and Wallace wept with joy.”

  I was dumbfounded. Speechless. What was I to say to this?

  Mama was worn out from talking so long, and now I saw that tears were streaming down her cheeks. I wiped them away with my thumb. “So you think Wallace’s prayers are the reason you’re alive?”

  She smiled. “Of course, that’s the reason, and that’s why Wallace is going to take us home and we won’t have to go to Pop’s after all.”

  Chapter 11

  PAPAW WOULD NEVER HAVE ACCEPTED WALLACE’S RETURN TO our lives except that Mama begged him to give her new/old husband a chance. Not wanting to upset her after all she’d been through, Papaw told me it was best to let her have her way for now. “When she’s stronger, she’ll come to her senses,” he assured me. “You can stick it out with him until then.”

  We were in his truck with my suitcase in the back and my train case on my lap driving back to Fourth Street, where we’d be meeting Wallace, who was bringing Mama home from the hospital. I said I supposed I could stick it out, but I didn’t for a minute believe God had chosen Mama for Wallace’s sidekick, and I couldn’t believe Mama’s newfound faith was going to last very long. But then hadn’t I faked salvation myself ? What did I know? I knew I still didn’t trust Wallace, and I knew that I was going to be miserable living with him again. “Okay, I’ll keep my lip zipped,” I said to Papaw, “but I wish I could have stayed with you.”