by Leanna Ellis
A small part of me collapsed when we left Elvis at the chapel. But now my lungs compress, my mind reels from Rae’s confession. Is she telling the truth? Maybe she made it all up … about Elvis … about my mother.
I’ve returned to Topsy-Turvyville.
I pause at the elevator. Before the doors open, Rae reaches my side. When we step onto the elevator, she stands across the small space, looking at me, her eyes wide and watchful. I stare down at the floor and realize we are alone.
“Where’d Ben and Ivy go?” I ask, my voice sounding strange to my own ears, as if my mouth is disconnected from my body.
“Ivy was hungry,” she says. “They went to get a bite to eat.”
I wonder when that conversation took place. Had they told me? Had I not heard? Or had they whispered it behind my back? I know how that happens. After Stu’s funeral I heard the whispers—
“How is she doing?”
“Has she eaten?”
“Think someone should stay the night with her?”
Then I’d simply walked on, not caring. But for some reason today, their whispering seems subversive and makes me angry. “Well,” I say, stepping off the elevator, “they could have asked if anyone else was hungry. I hope they won’t be long.” I stick the plastic key in the slot and push open the door. “I want to pack and hit the road.”
“They wanted to give us a few moments alone,” Rae says, her voice soft.
“Why would they do that?” I want to lash out at her, but it doesn’t make me feel better.
“Do you not want to discuss it?”
“No, I really don’t.” But I do. She knows it, and so do
I. But I can’t stop my waspish words any more than I can calm the anger pulsing through me. There’s an iciness inside me, penetrating my bones, frosting over my words.
She watches me for a long moment and blinks her eyes, assessing me. “As you wish.” She walks toward her room. I’ve acted foolishly, like a child. I just don’t want to agree with her. Which sounds a lot
like Ivy. “So,” I say and she stops, “why’d you lie to me about something like that?”
She turns slowly. Instantly, hot regret presses against my eyes.
“It wasn’t a lie, Claudia. I wouldn’t lie to you.”
She walks back toward me. She doesn’t seem rattled by my accusation or ruffled by my brusqueness. It’s as if she expects it, knows exactly what I will say in response to what she’s told me. Maybe she’s even said it to herself. I’m at a distinct disadvantage. I’m the one shaken to my very core.
“I spoke the truth,” she continues. “I gave you to my sister to raise. She was your mother. She raised you. I am not usurping her, trying to get you to call me Mom. I’m telling you this, not for selfish reasons.”
I open my mouth to ask her why, but the words can’t push past the lump gathering in my throat.
“Nor should it change the love you have for your mother. She wanted you. Very much. She made you who you are.”
My world tilts. Slowly, shakily, I sit on the edge of the couch, grasping its arm for support.
“She needed you, your mother did. She couldn’t have children anymore … after her miscarriage. It was, you might say, providence.”
The bald-face truth glares at me. I want to turn away from it, to hide, but it also draws me closer, like a child with a magnifying glass. I wonder if that’s why Mother never told me about her miscarriage, even after I suffered one myself, because it might have led to my discovering my real birth mother. Birth mother … Mother. My thoughts and memories fracture.
“Then why? Why tell me this at all?”
“Because Stuart asked me to.”
“Stu? He knew?” Another blow slams into my stomach. “When?”
“Toward the end, when he told me about Elvis.”
“Cozy. Any other little secrets you want to tell me now?”
“No.”
“Why didn’t Stu tell me?”
“I swore him to secrecy. As he did me with Elvis.”
“Why should I believe either of you. I mean, you believe in ghosts.” It was an irrational statement, but I couldn’t seem to think clearly or rationally.
“It’s your choice to believe or not. You must make that step yourself.”
“But why? Why not tell me six months ago? Or when Stu was alive? Or when you first came back from Oregon?”
“It wasn’t the time. In the end his will prevailed. That’s the other reason he wanted me on this trip.”
“But I don’t understand. Why would he want so desperately to tell me that you … ?” I can’t force the words out. “And about Elvis?”
“I don’t know about Elvis. But he believed you had a right to know who your birth mother was. That’s debatable. Mostly he knew you’d feel alone after he was gone. He wanted you to know you aren’t alone.”
Questions crowd my head, clog my heart with emotion. I don’t know where to begin, where to stop.
“So you want me suddenly to call you Mother?” I hear the contempt in my own voice.
“No,” she says simply. “That’s not my wish. Beverly was your mother. Always will be. She rocked you, held you, took you to the doctor, cared for you every day that I could not be there with you. I told you because I want you to see the possibilities. There are other relationships than those you’ve known, those you cling to. I expect nothing from you, Claudia. Maybe you’ll reject me. I’m fine if that’s what happens. I’ve lived estranged from those I loved most. I can continue …” Her shoulder lifts in a slight shrug, making her charm bracelet jangle.
“You asked me once what these charms were for.” She fingers a pointed ballet shoe. “I added one for all the things I didn’t get to experience with you, for the milestones in your life. It was my way of staying connected to you.”
Tears are usually salty, but these are bitter and tighten my throat. I think back to the times I thought Aunt Rae didn’t care about us, didn’t think about us. And all the time she was wishing she could be a part of my life.
It feels as if I’ve been told the last answer to a crossword puzzle. The answer is a word I’d never heard of, one I can’t comprehend, could never have considered. Yet it fits the spaces perfectly.
“I tell you all of this because it’s the truth, the truth I’ve always lived with. It’s why I had to go away. Why I lived so long far away from you.”
“How could you … how could you … give away your baby?” I hear the pause in my own voice, the inability to say “give me away.” But that’s the real question. And yet there are more, many more.
“It wasn’t easy, and yet I’m sorry to say it was. I was afraid—afraid of you, afraid I would fail you. It broke my heart to be near you and to hear you call another ‘Mother.’”
She faces the window. Her long silvery gray hair flows down her back. It’s naturally curly, like my own. Where she lets hers loose to be wild and free, enjoying its wantonness, I keep mine short, tamed, which, as Mother always pointed out, is more practical. Am I really more like the eccentric, extravagant aunt whom I never knew, than I am the woman who raised me? Or was I some hybrid combination that would take me a lifetime to sort out?
Rae turns her head to meet my curious, hurting gaze. “I tell you, Claudia, because it is time. I tell you because you cling to the past, to your memories. Memories are fine. But they are not all of life. You must reach out. There’s more out in the world for you. I hope, with this news, you realize that.
“I know what I’ve done. I know why I gave you to my sister to raise. Painful as it was, I don’t regret it. It was the right thing to do. It gave you a good, healthy, stable life. It helped heal my sister.
“But I hope you’ll see the possibilities in others now, reach out to others in friendship and love. Your mother’s dead. Stu is, too. You, Claudia, are not. You must go on with your life and enjoy it to its fullest.”
I turn away from her then. The tears start to flow. But I swat them away with the back o
f my hand. Anger swells and explodes inside me. “Did Mother ask you not to tell me?”
“No.” No bitterness coats her voice. “It was her right, though. Your father, however, did ask. He asked to protect Beverly, to keep her from being hurt, to protect your family. And I respected that wish. But now they’re gone. The truth needs to be told, if only for you to understand, for you to see the possibilities of your life. I’ll go if that’s your wish.”
I want to tell her to get out of my life. She hasn’t helped me. She’s confused me. Angered me. Destroyed my memories. But I can’t. The constraints my mother taught me now benefit Rae. “I don’t know what I want anymore.”
“One day you will.” She reaches out and touches my hair, running her fingers over the curls. “So much alike,” she whispers, “yet so different.”
“Who is my father?” I ask, looking at her again, this time not hiding the tears. My voice cracks, revealing the gaping hole in my heart.
My own father—my beloved father—died of a massive heart attack when I was in college. “The widow maker,” the doctor pronounced sagely with a sad shake of his head. I mourned him as a daughter should. But he wasn’t even my father. Yet he raised me as if he were, as if I was his own. In this moment I love him more. And the love I’ve always known for my mother swells inside. She never hinted, never indicated I was anything but her daughter. They loved me. I know that without a single doubt.
When Rae doesn’t readily answer, cold fear slides down my spine. I think of Graceland, the house, the gaudiness, the Elvis bust sitting in the pew at Faithland Chapel. “Oh, no. Is Elvis my father?”
“I don’t know, Claudia. The name of your biological father is one thing I can’t give you. But I don’t think it was Elvis. There are tests these days …” Shame pinches the corners of Rae’s eyes. She says she doesn’t regret, but I wonder if that’s true.
Sure, medical tests can determine the truth easily enough—and create headlines and nightmares. I could never pursue that.
“It was a crazy time, the sixties. We were coming into our own as women. We were learning everything our mothers hadn’t taught us, maybe because they hadn’t known themselves about sex, joy, power, freedom. And so it was wild and irresponsible.”
Then a thought strikes me. “Could Howie …” I can’t finish the question.
“No. I’m no prude, but no. Not with Howie. Even I had standards.”
I breathe a sigh of relief, but it still doesn’t relieve the pressure in my chest. “Do you remember that story you told me as a child, the one about Topsy-Turvyville?”
“Yes.”
“I think I’ve just moved in.”
“I knew, one day, you might.” Sorrow fills her eyes and deepens the lines around her mouth. “I’m sorry.”
I believe her. I’m not sure why, but I do. “When you said I needed faith … what did you mean?”
“Faith is being sure of what we hope for—”
“—and certain of what we do not see.”
“It doesn’t matter if I’m your mother,” Rae says, “or if Beverly birthed you herself. I don’t care if you came from Mars. What matters is that you’re loved.”
My throat closes as tears course down my face. Rae wraps her arms around me, and I hold on tight.
“I gave you up because I loved you and wanted what was best. Beverly mothered you for the same reasons. But God loves you, too. Even when you can’t seem to muster the faith to believe in him, he never gives up on you. He still believes in you.”
She holds me while the bitterness and anger flow out of me.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Way Down
I sit beside the window looking out at the late afternoon shadows falling over Graceland, though it’s a stretch to think I can see even the gates from here. Rae has gone to lie down, but I know she’s giving me space to take in and absorb all she’s told me. I don’t know where Ben and Ivy are, but I’m grateful for the silence, the time alone.
Rest seems impossible. My brain feels like an engine trying to catch and not fully able to engage. Images and snippets of conversations zip around so fast in my mind that I can’t lock onto anything for any length of time. I feel the empty place in my heart pulse and throb. I wonder if it’s like a tomb locking away memories, sealing me from any more hurt, or if it’s a doorway welcoming something new into my life.
For minutes or hours, I’m not sure which, I remain seated on the couch. I stare at nothing but the blank spot Elvis occupied. I miss him, which seems absurd. Maybe it’s only Stu I miss. I don’t sense any answers. There’s only silence still. Yet something has changed. Maybe it’s me. Most certainly it’s my heart.
I don’t hear God’s voice. I don’t hear trumpets or angels wings. There’s no miraculous sign flashing in front of me. Yet I feel peace. It’s not something I can explain. It’s just there like a warm blanket tucked about my feet.
I’ve questioned and berated myself for not having enough faith, not believing enough to save Stu. Yet maybe I was wrong. I am certain of what I don’t see. And for the first time in a long, long while, I’m hopeful.
* * *
TIPTOEING INTO THE room, Ivy belches, which gives her away. I turn from the window.
“How ya doin’?” she asks.
I shrug, then nod. “Okay.”
“You had kind of a shock today.” She walks the rest of the way into the darkening room and touches her stomach. “I know how that feels.”
“I’m sure you do.” Honesty has always been solid footing between us. “How are you feeling?”
“Not as pukey as I was.”
I offer a sympathetic smile. I know those days will come and go. “How far along are you?”
“Three months, I think. Myrtle helped me figure it out with dates and stuff. Dad wants me to go to the doctor when we get back to Dallas.”
“That’s a good idea.”
“It’ll make it seem more real. But there’s not a doctor for you to go to, is there?”
I laugh. “Maybe a psychiatrist. Think I’m going crazy?”
“You’ll be okay. You’re strong.”
“Stronger with good friends.”
A blush creeps up Ivy’s features, and a dozen emotions dance across her face.
“You’re wise for such a young woman.”
Ivy laughs this time. “Dumb enough to get myself in this situation.”
“But for the grace of God, go I.” That’s what Stu must have felt when he looked at Elvis. It wasn’t pride. It was gratitude and humility. And a big helping of grace on top of it all.
“Do you believe in God?” Ivy asks.
I consider the question for a long moment. A week ago, even a year ago, I would have probably answered differently. Is it easier to believe in good times than in bad? I don’t know the answer. Maybe for the first time I am reaching toward God where before I would have reached for a human security blanket like my mother or Stu.
Finally, I answer, “Yes, I do.”
“Dad does, but I don’t know how—what with all he went through with my mom.”
“Maybe it was the rope he clung to that got him through. I think my husband Stu believed when I had doubts.”
Ivy sits on the arm of the couch. “I don’t understand how all this could have happened to me. Myrtle and Guy say God loves me. But if he does, then why would he let my life get like this?”
“I don’t know the answers. But I do know it’s okay to ask them. Keep asking.”
“Well, I know it’s my fault I’m pregnant.”
“Yours and some boy’s. Remember it takes two to tango.”
“I know.” She blushes. “But why did my mom … ?” Her mouth twists. “How come you get two moms and I don’t get any?”
I go to her and wrap my arms around her. “I don’t know.” I soothe my hand over her soft hair. “I think it all comes down to choices. Your mom made a choice. So did mine. And you and I had to live with the consequences.”
She p
resses against me. For a long moment we simply hug. Then she looks up at me, tears streaking her face. “But what about Stu?” As a toddler Ivy use to call him Tutu, which we all thought funny. I forget that others mourn him, too, when I’m caught in the grip of grief myself. “Why’d he have to die?”
I shake my head. I don’t have the answers. Maybe I never will. Life doesn’t come in neat little packages with ribbons and bows. Answers can’t always be found in song lyrics. Life is messy and incomplete and awkward and difficult. “I don’t know. I just know we have to keep believing.”
The questions lie between us. Unanswerable. Yet there is a fragrance of hope like a soft, alluring scent drifting through the room.
Slowly Ivy pulls away from me, stands, and straightens her clothes. There’s a damp spot on my blouse from her tears. “My dad wants to talk to you. That okay?”
“Sure.” I turn back toward the window.
* * *
THE SKYLINE IS turning orange as Ben enters the room. “Some weekend, huh?” he says.
I laugh, not expecting that. “I guess we’ve both had a few shocks.”
“Enough to last a lifetime.” He sits on the couch. “We’ve both been through a lot. You’ve seen me face my wife leaving. I’ve watched you deal with Stu’s death. Both shocks. But we handled it. And we’ll deal with the new ones.”
Tears once more clog my throat. He’s right. He makes sense.
“We’ve always controlled things, you and I,” he says. “We’ve controlled our emotions. We’ve controlled our environments. I tried to keep everything as calm as possible for Ivy, as stable as it could be with only one parent. And you kept things sane for Stu in the end. But I guess life isn’t controllable.”
“No. You’re right. So what are we going to do about all this?”
“It’s not so horrible, you know,” he says, his voice craggy. “Hey, I’m going to be a grandpa. Can you believe that?”