by Leanna Ellis
I awaken crying.
I lie in the darkness, listening to the hum of the air conditioner and the snuffled breathing of Ivy as tears run down the sides of my face into my hair. I remember the hope, confidence, and joy of knowing a baby was growing inside me. Does this young girl feel that now? Or is she naive about the changes, the great responsibility? Or overwhelmed and frightened? Despite the burping and the bloating as my body began to change, accommodating a new life, I was delirious.
Stu acted more like a opossum out for its nightly stroll along a Texas highway, seeing the light bursts of a car and freezing, eyes locked on the headlights of change. Would he be a good daddy? He’d asked, “What about our lives? How can we pay for college? What if the baby’s a girl? Then we’ll have to pay for a wedding, too.”
“Yes,” I told him. “Our life is going to change. For the better.”
After all, we’d seen Ben in action as a father, changing diapers, rushing home from work, rarely working late, buying baby paraphernalia and formula by the truckload. Then watched him as a single father, shouldering the burden of parenthood alone, taking Ivy’s temperature, burping, consoling, loving his little girl. We’d marveled at his abilities, seen his joy and sorrow, all made richer and deeper by the sheer existence of his daughter. Were we ready for that roller coaster?
I was. But I was never sure about Stu. Oh, I figured by the time the baby arrived, he’d come around. After all, we’d planned the pregnancy. We’d read books on when to conceive, how to prepare, how to conceive a boy or a girl.
Stu always joked he wanted to name his son Elvis. At least, I’d hoped he was joking. He’d finally said, “Let’s call the baby Elvis … or Priscilla, whichever is appropriate when we find out if it’s a boy or a girl.”
“But everyone will think—”
“Exactly.” He winked and grinned. “Then we’ll surprise them with the real name when he or she arrives.”
Relief had washed through me. “And what is that real name going to be?”
“Elvis.” He laughed. “Kidding. Only kidding.”
Remembering the hope swelling within me when the baby began to grow, I could never have given up my baby voluntarily. It amazed me that Rae survived that. Not in a condemning way but in awe of her strength. Knowing my own weakness, I can’t suggest that Ivy give up hers. After learning about her mother, I have no idea what she will do.
* * *
THE HOTEL ROOM seems as quiet as Elvis’s grave site when I venture out of Ivy’s room. With everyone else still sleeping, I pace along the end of the bed in my own room. My limbs are stiff and sore, my neck aching from sleeping in the chair all night. I look at the ads in the yellow pages left on the bedside table. The sky outside my window remains dark with heavy clouds. I can’t get the image of my mother and the sleeping baby out of my mind. I can’t escape the memory of Ivy’s weeping.
I thought I’d mourned our baby. The miscarriage happened years ago. I’d had other things to mourn since then. But maybe Ivy’s pregnancy, maybe the drama of learning about her mother, exhumed the pain within my own soul.
“Why?” I whisper. “Why?”
I realize I’m asking this of God. It’s not the first time I’ve asked that question. Still there’s no reply. No answer.
With my insides unsettled, my mind restless, I finally venture out into the joining area. Ben’s awake, sitting at the table. At first I think he’s talking to Elvis, who is still but ever alert and watchful. Then I realize Ben has his cell phone to his ear. I laugh at my own foolishness, and he turns.
“How’s Ivy?” he asks as he clicks off his phone.
“I think she’ll be okay, but it’s going to take time. Was that about work?”
“I’m trying to figure out how much of a donation I can make to Faithland … as a thank-you for all they did for Ivy.”
I remember the sign in front of the chapel saying their services were free but they accepted donations. “I’m sure anything you could give would be appreciated.” Then an idea occurs to me. “Why don’t we hook up your nonprofit with theirs in an effort to help families in need in the Memphis area.”
“It’s a thought. When we get back to Dallas, let’s work on it. I’ll put you in charge.” He pushes against his knees and stands. “Now, I’m starving.”
“I could probably eat. How long will the others sleep?”
“Rae’s up,” he says. “She’s getting dressed.” He looks toward his daughter’s closed door. “I can wake Ivy. She needs to eat, too.”
But before he can, the bathroom door clicks, then the shower spray swooshes.
“Thanks,” Ben says, “for helping her.”
“I didn’t do anything—”
“Yes, you did.”
A warmth spreads through my limbs. It feels good to be useful. “She’s going to be fine.”
* * *
THIRTY MINUTES LATER we take the elevator down to the lobby, only to learn that breakfast in the Jungle Room ended twenty minutes earlier. So we pile into the Cadillac and go in search of a café. Ivy wants an omelet and pancakes. Ben is determined to get it for her. She seems somber this morning, quiet but rested. Mostly hungry, which is a good sign.
When we’re settled in a large round booth, we study the menu. Ben pulls the Elvis spectacles out of his shirt pocket. I hide a laugh.
“What are you doing?” Ivy asks.
Ben looks up. “Reading the menu.”
“But where did you get those?” His daughter’s nose wrinkles with disgust.
“Oh these?” He tugs off the glasses, then puts them back on and grins. “Great, aren’t they?”
“Uh, no.” She shrinks down in her seat.
After a few moments we greedily order coffee and fresh-squeezed grapefruit juice, bacon and sausages, pancakes and hash browns, along with omelets and eggs over easy, scrambled, and fried. We eat like we haven’t eaten in days.
Rae quietly gives Ivy tips on eating during pregnancy. “Avoid grease. Eat healthy, wholesome foods—grains, fiber, lots of vegetables and fruits.”
“That means no French fries,” Ben says, sliding a piece of bacon in his mouth.
“Yogurt,” Rae adds. “It will aid your sluggish digestive tract.”
Ivy wrinkles her nose, then slaps another pat of butter on her pancakes. “Whatever.”
“Eat a little bit, several times a day,” Rae continues as if her advice is being absorbed with relish. “Having something in you will settle your stomach.”
Silverware clinks against the plain white plates. The attentive waitress brings more coffee, then a basket of hot-out-of-the-oven biscuits.
Eventually Ivy’s the first to surrender. “I’m stuffed.”
We laugh. Not that her comment’s funny, but it provides relief for all of us. Our manic eating slows, and we nibble on bits of biscuit, a last swipe of pancake through thick syrup, broken pieces of bacon.
“What are the plans today?” Ben asks.
“Maybe we should do something just for fun,” Rae suggests.
“A movie?” Ivy asks.
“I thought we’d head home,” I say, more than ready to abandon this journey that has been too difficult already.
Everyone stares at me for a minute as if I’ve spoken treason. Then the excuses shoot out of them, overlapping one another.
“But,” Ben said, “what about—?”
“It’s not possible,” Rae imposes.
“No,” Ivy says, “we can’t go yet. What about Elvis?”
Why did it always come back to him?
“Stuart asked you to return it,” Rae says.
“I think it was his final joke on me,” I return.
“No, it wasn’t,” Ben argues.
“How am I ever going to find where Elvis belongs? It’s crazy. You all should have stopped me back in Dallas. It’s insane.”
“I know,” Ivy says.
“See! Even Ivy can see the absurdity of it.”
“No,” she says, leaning fo
rward, “I know.”
“Know what?” Rae asks.
“I know where Elvis belongs.”
“You do?” Ben asks. “Where?”
“The chapel. Faithland.”
“That pedestal did look the right size,” I say, “but that’s no proof. And I am not about to go back and ask Myrtle and Guy if they’re missing,” I lower my voice to a whisper, “a big head of Elvis.”
“Yes, but I know.” Ivy sets her napkin beside her plate. “Myrtle already told me.”
“She told you she was looking for a bust of Elvis?” I ask, my heart beginning to pound.
“She told me the story of how the bust disappeared.”
That bit of news causes my eyebrows to lift in question, or doubt, or both. But I lean forward, elbow on the table.
“What did she say?” Rae asks.
Ivy gives a secretive smile, as if she has us all right where she wants us. “It was on the tenth anniversary of Elvis’s death. The city was crammed with Elvis fans, right?”
Collectively we nod. Not something a teenager who hadn’t even known who Elvis was before coming to Memphis would comprehend. So I figure Myrtle told her that much.
“That’s the night the bust disappeared.”
I look at Ben to see if the information lines up with what Stu told him, if that had also been the right time for their college football game. He nods his affirmation.
“You mean, stolen,” I correct. After all, we know the bust didn’t vanish into thin air. It’s sitting in our hotel suite. It was in my attic for twenty years. I have a sinking feeling Stu’s guilty conscience weighed on him near the end of his life. Never before would I have believed my husband was a thief, but considering his obsession with Elvis, I suppose anything could have happened. Especially in his younger, wilder days.
“Stolen by Elvis,” Ivy says.
“Oh, please.” I roll my eyes in disbelief, then smile at how Ivy has rubbed off on me. “Not another conspiracy theory. Was he abducted by aliens? Or is he living in the Caribbean under an assumed name?”
“No!” she protests. “I swear. It’s true! More than one person saw Elvis that night. Plain as day. But not Elvis … you know, alive. This was a ghost. Myrtle saw him. She was coming back to the chapel after a candlelight vigil.”
“Uh-huh.” Disbelief saturates my tone. But I notice Ben and Rae remain silent, listening … maybe even believing what my father would have called “hogwash.”
“It’s true, I’m telling you!”
“They knew Elvis, too,” Rae says, her voice husky. “Guy and Myrtle knew him. She’d recognize him.”
“Okay, okay. It’s true.” But I don’t necessarily believe it. Under my breath, I whisper, “What was Myrtle smoking that night?”
“She was not high or hallucinating,” Ivy defends her friend.
“Okay, let’s just pretend this is all true. If Elvis is floating around Memphis, then why would he care about some bust? Wouldn’t he be more concerned about his daughter marrying Michael Jackson? Wouldn’t that have been a good time to step forward and say, ‘Here I am! I’m stopping this wedding!’”
Ben laughs. With his arms crossed over his chest, he looks as skeptical as I feel.
But no one offers an explanation, which to me is proof they’re all loony tunes for even contemplating the possibility of a ghost. Ivy’s young, gullible. Rae’s nodding her head. She’s not young. Far beyond gullible. So what’s her excuse for believing? Is she eccentric enough to believe in aliens or ghosts?
“Stu saw him, too,” Ben reminds me, making me wonder whose side he’s on.
I glare at him. “Oh, sure, how could I forget that?” Has everyone lost their minds but me? “So why would Elvis stop Stu on some lonely back road and ask him to help steal the bust?”
“Even ghosts have their reasons,” Rae says quietly.
I toss my napkin beside my plate. “You know what I think? I think some people are desperate enough to believe Elvis is alive, well … around in some form or fashion, only because they need it somehow to validate their own existence. After all, Elvis had it all—looks, talent galore, money, fame. Yet he died. You can’t accept that. But I can. I know how someone can be struck down in the prime of life for no reason other than life sucks sometimes. People die. We all die. Even Elvis!”
“Is that why it’s so easy for you not to believe?” Rae asks.
“This obsession with Elvis has to stop. Stu wanted to be cool like Elvis. He must have wanted to believe Elvis was alive—”
“That’s not true,” Ben says.
“What?”
“Stu didn’t want to be cool like Elvis.”
“How do you know?”
“Because we talked about Elvis. Many times.”
I’m struck dumb for a moment. Something else my husband didn’t talk to me about. I feel a dull ache in my heart. Did he not trust me? I swallow back the bitter tears. “Then why?”
“Stu identified with Elvis.”
“What?” We weren’t rich. Stu couldn’t even sing a note. “How?”
“Elvis personified all of our struggles with right and wrong. Elvis had a love for gospel music and all his beliefs about God. Yet he had this wild, rock ’n’ roll side that he couldn’t tame.”
Rae nods. “You’re right. He did. Except that Elvis’s struggle was always splashed across tabloids and newspaper headlines.”
“Exactly,” Ben says. “Our struggles, Stu’s struggles, are usually on a smaller scale and more internal.”
“Some hidden.” Rae straightens the charms on her bracelet.
“Like my mother’s,” Ivy says.
“Yes,” Ben agrees.
“Others not so hidden.” Rae lays what looks like a diploma charm flat against the underside of her wrist. Then she looks at me. “It’s your struggle between belief and disbelief.”
Unable to answer, I shove back from the table, my chair legs screeching, and stand on suddenly shaky legs. My heart pounds. With as much dignity as I can muster, fighting tears all the way, I walk out of the restaurant and wait for the rest of the group in the car.
* * *
WITH EVERYONE’S STOMACH full, we ride silently back to the hotel. The car idles at the curb, a rough-andtumble shaking, making everything in the car jiggle. When I pull up to the front entrance of the hotel, Rae gets out with me. Ben slides behind the wheel and drives off with Ivy. They’ve been requested to appear at the police station to unfile their missing person’s report. I imagine Ivy has a few explanations to make.
Together we waddle to the suite. I need space, some time to process Ben’s revelations and Rae’s accusation. But I stop in the doorway, suddenly thirsty. I pour myself a glass of water, sip it, then thunk it on top of the television. I can’t seem to settle into one place, so I pace the floor in front of Elvis.
“Sit down, Claudia. There’s nothing to do but wait.” Rae flips open a magazine, Nightlight in Memphis.
“You think she’ll be all right?” I move to the window and look out over the parking lot at the footbridge that leads to Elvis’s planes and an assortment of museums and souvenir shops.
“Of course. Ivy’s strong. Resilient.”
I nod, embarrassed to say I wasn’t even thinking about Ivy. Why can’t I believe like Stu, like Ben? Is my disbelief what kept others from talking to me, confiding in me? Questions surround me, and no ready answers surface.
It’s actually easier to focus on Ivy. What will she decide to do about her baby? Will Ben pressure Ivy to give the baby up for adoption? I think about Rae and the decisions she had to make as a young woman. “You’re strong, too.”
Rae shrugs. “Maybe now. But not always.”
“How so?”
“You face what you have to. Do the best you can. Just as you’ve done.”
“I suppose.”
“As you did with Stu’s death.”
I scoff. “I didn’t handle it gracefully.”
“Grace has little to do with dea
th. I don’t believe there is a right or wrong way to handle such things.” Rae crosses her legs, making her skirt ripple outward. She kicks her leg forward and back, a slow, rhythmic motion. “I haven’t always handled situations with aplomb.”
“We all make mistakes.”
“I didn’t say they were mistakes necessarily.” Rae jerks her chin. “But I ran from tough situations.”
“I can’t see you running from anything. You seem so strong, so confident, like you’ve always believed.”
“Belief isn’t natural or a guarantee. It’s a choice.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean you have to choose to believe. Even when nothing makes sense. It’s easy to turn away. It’s easy to give up. It’s not always easy to make the choice to believe.”
“But maybe it’s belief in a fantasy. Or something false. What if it’s folly to believe?”
“It depends on what that belief is then.”
I sigh. “What about God?”
“Do you believe God is folly?”
“Don’t make fun of me.”
“I’m not.” Rae closes the magazine and lays it on the coffee table. “I’m asking what you think, what you feel in your heart.”
“I thought I did. I went to church as a kid. Mom made me. I did all the things our church said to do, you know? I prayed the prayer. I was baptized. But I don’t know anymore.”
“That’s honest, and that’s a start. Just remember, Claudia, running isn’t necessarily a sign of weakness. That’s Hollywood’s take on it. Intelligence and wisdom—that’s what I used. It was probably misinterpreted as fear though.”
“What did you run from?”
“Motherhood.”
“I imagine giving up your baby was very difficult.”
“It was the right thing to do. That has brought me comfort over the years. But it was the hardest thing I’ve ever done. And if Ivy must … or does, then it will change her forever. You’ll be there for her and help her through it.”