by Jeff High
“I can’t believe you just said that, Mary Jo. Are you still in that twelve-step program for personality disorders?”
“Cuuuuute.”
“Hey, I’m just trying to be helpful here . . . Maybe make you something close to a likable person.”
“Don’t you worry, Doctor. I’ve got a little black book full of gentlemen who like me just fine. You know, I was a magazine cover girl once.” As she spoke she pulled down the sides of her white nurse’s uniform, tugging at the hips, immodestly stretching the material tightly over her and standing with shoulders back and chest out, trying her best to accentuate the curves of her otherwise pencil-straight figure.
“I don’t think the cover of a seed catalog counts, Mary Jo.”
“Oh, aren’t you just the cleverest?” Her words were acidic, but there was a grin pressing up beneath them.
Nancy interrupted. “Dr. Bradford, we’ve had a late walk-in. It’s Sarah Akins with Sam. She came by to get his six-month shots and checkup.”
“Sure.” I walked to the front reception area, which was empty except for the young mother and her baby. I smiled grandly.
“Hi, Sarah. How’s my boy Sam been doing?” I reached for the grinning baby. “Wow, he seems twice as big.” I talked playfully with the child, alternating my teasing with questions for Sarah. She looked healthier, stronger, prettier. I asked Nancy to grab Sam’s chart and we headed to the exam room. Sarah talked nonstop. I noticed that she was more smartly dressed. Her hair was now fashionably cut and her general appearance was happier. “You feel awfully solid, little fellow, and leaner,” I told Sam. “Now, promise not to barf on me like you did last time, huh?”
Sarah laughed lightly. “Oh my gosh. I was hoping you had forgotten about that.”
I grinned and bounced Sam as we walked down the hall. He was perfectly content and sucking his thumb, which I noticed was bent backward distally, as if it was made of rubber.
“I think he’s grown half a foot,” I remarked. “He must be nearly twenty-six inches.”
“I can’t keep him in clothes. He’s really shot up these last few months.” In the exam room Mary Jo was waiting with Sam’s chart. I spent half an hour examining him and asking Sarah general questions about her health as well. I was pleased to see that both mother and child were doing fine. Once I had completed my assessment of Sam, Mary Jo left the room to gather the things for his next round of scheduled shots. It gave me an opportunity to speak confidentially.
“Sarah, you’re looking really well. You seem better off, more content.”
She smiled and nodded. “Yeah, I’ve had some good fortune come my way.”
I nodded and shrugged lightly. “Look, I don’t want to pry, but I’m guessing perhaps his father has been helping out more? At least financially?”
At first Sarah was reluctant to respond. But then she offered a weak smile and spoke carefully, protecting her words. “Some things have happened and he’s come into a little money. Anyway, he’s been able to help me and Sam out a lot more. So, yeah, we’re doing better.”
It was clear she didn’t want to offer more, so I let the topic drop. But there was something else I wanted to ask her.
“I know it’s been a few months, but didn’t I see you the day of Knox McAnders’s funeral? You were sitting in a car outside the funeral home.”
A subtle but noticeable alarm spread across her face. She seemed slightly flustered, darting her eyes to the side. “Yeah, well, I was there to see someone, but it didn’t work out. It was nothing.”
Mary Jo returned with the vaccinations just as Sarah had finished speaking. I focused again on Sam and the matter was dropped. His shots invoked another round of bloodcurdling screams, but this time I let his mother soothe him back to happiness. It was a good way to finish the week.
On the way home at day’s end I stopped and picked up some beer to have with my pizza. Once home, I threw on some jeans and carefully lit the oven. As I took out the pizza, I realized I really didn’t want to eat alone. So I fed Rhett, found a container to keep the pizza hot, grabbed the beer, and hopped in the Corolla. I was headed up into the hills.
I found John Harris sitting in one of the Adirondack chairs reading the paper. The October afternoon was still warm and sunset was yet an hour or so away. I noticed a glass and a half-empty bottle of Scotch on the small table between the chairs. John looked up as I approached.
“Afternoon, Doc. I thought that might be you when I heard a car in the driveway. What you got there?”
“Pizza and beer, but looks like you already have your beverage of choice.”
John returned to his paper. “That I do. Thanks for the pizza offer, but I had a sandwich earlier. Here—knock yourself out.” John cleared a space on the small table.
“So, what’s the latest in the Watervalley news?” I opened a beer and grabbed a slice. John sat silently, studying the paper.
“Here’s something newsworthy. ‘City Council to Discuss Banning of Beer Sales on Sundays.’ If you want a one-sentence example of small-town Southern stupidity, you won’t find a better one than that. What’s to keep them from buying more beer on Saturday? While they’re at it, why don’t they ban gluttony at Sunday lunch?”
I chewed on my pizza and offered no response. Then I asked, “How are the apples doing? I don’t guess I’ve seen the orchard since you almost shot me a few months ago.”
John folded the paper and looked over at me. He smiled, grabbed his glass of Scotch, and took a long sip.
“All in. Put the last bushel away in the storage cellar last week.”
“What are you going to do with all of them?”
“Beats me. I never wanted the damn things anyway. The whole apple orchard was Molly’s idea. But I can’t very well just let it go to seed.”
“All Molly’s idea? Yeah, sure, I believe that.”
“No, seriously. She loved apples—apple pie, apple cider, applesauce. She made a big fuss about it. Anyway, I’ll probably just give them away.”
“That sounds rather virtuous of you.”
“Doesn’t it, though.”
“Careful, John. You don’t want to lose your standing as a total crank.”
“I know, I know, the thought scares me too. But family rituals are stained in, not painted on.”
“What do you mean?”
“Ah, it’s the South, sport. At least the one I grew up in—an older and, in many ways, a richer South. Old habits die hard. You don’t let something good go to waste. My folks knew some tough years, but my dad was always helping people out. He was a postman. Seemed to know who was going through a hard time. We always had a big garden and he usually ended giving half the produce away.”
“Why don’t you let people just come pick their own?”
John looked over at me. “That means they would have to be on my property.”
“Oh, sorry. I forgot that visitors aren’t allowed into the Harris Fortress—or ‘Summerplace,’ as it were. By the way, where did that name come from?”
“Molly’s idea. When we lived in Watervalley years ago, we would come to this spot in the summer and bring picnics. It’s always cooler up here in the hills. There’s always a breeze. It’s a geothermal thing. I think the springs and brooks that flow down to the lake form conduits for air to flow back up.”
John stared out over the valley. The evening wind began rolling in, carrying with it a faint and wispy chill. A large white moon appeared in the twilight sky above the rim of the far hills. He brought his Scotch glass to his mouth and emptied it, wincing a little as the swallow went down. His voice was beginning to slur a little. His manner and delivery took on a philosophic air.
“Yeah, sport.” He paused. “Now I have a whole orchard of apples and I damn near shot you just for walking through it. I’ll tell you something, Luke. Marriage isn’t just a word; it’s a sentence.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning, well, it’s a curious thing, that’s all. The things you do because t
he people who loved you wanted it that way.”
I mumbled under my breath. “Yeah, I know. Why else would I be here?”
“How’s that?”
“Oh, nothing. It’s just that my father loved being a doctor in a small town. He had choices. But that’s the one he made, and he loved every day of it.”
“Is that what he wanted you to do?”
“He never made it a demand, although he mentioned it. I think he was happy and wanted the same for me. It was more my aunt who insisted on it. She loved her life in Buckhead, but she loved my dad and somehow she understood why he wanted to be a small-town doctor.”
“So you’re in this little hick town because it’s what your aunt wanted. That’s all noble, but seems like a lot of misery just to keep some dead relatives happy.”
“It’s more complicated than that.”
“Complicated how?”
“Because these people, these ‘dead relatives’ as you call them, they loved me. Including my aunt no less than my parents. She believed this was something I should do. So I’m doing it.”
“Seems to me if she loved you so much, she would have left some money to pay your debts.”
“She did.”
“She did?”
“Yeah, a pretty sizable estate. But it doesn’t come into play until I’m thirty-five. That’s still a few years away.”
“So this was her way of forcing you to follow in your father’s footsteps.”
“She didn’t force me. I could have done something different, waited it out. But the voices of those in our past—they may not be with us, but we still hear them. At least I do. So it’s like you said. It’s just the things you do because the people you loved wanted it that way.”
John sat silently, brooding over what I had said. Twilight was passing. Small twinkling lights began to appear in the expanse of dark blue sky. John grabbed the Scotch bottle and poured his glass full.
“Hell, Doc, now you’re depressing me. Think I’ll drink myself happy.” He let out a chortle.
“By all means. But don’t use me as an excuse to pickle your liver. I’m not sure I could stand the guilt.”
John took a heavy swallow and grimaced. “Ah, too late. The damage is already done. Afraid you’re going to have to put that in your basket of burdens also.”
“Not to burst your bubble, John, but I’ll be sleeping fine tonight.”
We laughed and talked into the darkness. I drank another beer and John continued to drink heavily of Scotch. After another hour, his slurred speech and nodding head made it clear he was fading.
“John, come on. Let’s get you back to the house. Time for me to go get some shut-eye.”
John stood up stiffly. He began to take a step but tilted immediately. I grabbed him.
“Sailor, your ship’s rocking a little to starboard. Let’s get you back to dry land.”
Despite John’s mild protest, I helped him up the back steps and into the living room. We walked to the couch, where he collapsed in an outstretched heap. I grabbed a blanket off a nearby chair and arranged it over him. Just that quickly, he was in a deep sleep. I turned off the lights and walked to the kitchen. As I reached for the last switch, I once again saw the picture of John and Molly on the kitchen counter.
I froze, unable to stop staring at the old photo. And it hit me that Molly Harris was the picture-perfect image of Madeline Chambers. My mind was racing. I turned off the last light, locked the door behind me, and walked to the Corolla. Somewhere in the fog of old conversations I remembered that Connie had told me that Molly Harris had had a twin.
It struck me like a shot of adrenaline. “Oh, good grief!” How had I not figured this out sooner? And John had never mentioned it, even though I had asked him about Christine.
I recalled the obscure answer he had given me at the mention of her name some weeks back. I had attributed it to his intoxication. But now I realized that this was yet another hidden chapter in John’s backstory, a topic of discussion he had chosen to avoid. The next time we talked, I was determined I would press him on the matter.
Little did I know that the tide of events would delay that conversation for some time to come.
CHAPTER 23
Fields, Farms, and Families
The brilliant October days ended. The last richly colored autumn leaves fell from the trees and carpeted the ground, and as the days passed the leaves were gathered away from the yards of Fleming Street. November came. Cooler days of overcast skies, gray landscapes, and expanding darkness passed one by one. Early presentiments of winter could be felt in the bite of morning frost. In the distant fields the rich, loamy earth stood raw and bare, save for the random stubs of cornstalks. Orderly lines of large, rounded hay bales had been stacked neatly along the farmyard fencerows. The farmhouses of Watervalley were quietly gathering in, preparing for the long nights of winter.
Conversely, the downtown was taking on a new vibrancy. Shopkeepers began to set out Thanksgiving merchandise, quickly followed by Christmas decorations. Ed Caswell manned the fire department bucket truck as the municipal workers hung Christmas banners at downtown intersections and strung lights around the courthouse.
Rhett and I had fallen into a comfortable daily routine. He ate his breakfast and slept all day while I went to work. When I got home, he ate his dinner and then slept some more—that is, when he wasn’t constantly following me around the house or methodically dropping a tennis ball at my feet, imploring me to take him out to the backyard. He never failed to meet me at the door with tail wagging and a look of admiration on his face. He had become the perfect companion: accommodating, uncomplicated, and always in agreement with all of my opinions.
At her insistence, I ate Thanksgiving dinner at Nancy Orman’s house along with her family, all three million of them. She and her husband, Carl, had a small farm a few miles out from town, and for them Thanksgiving was a massive affair, unlike the Thanksgivings I had known growing up.
In her own innovative way, my aunt Grace had always made a big deal out of Thanksgiving. By the time I was sixteen it had dwindled down to just the two of us, with my parents gone and the last of my grandparents having passed away. Turkey was always in the mix, but otherwise dinner was anything but traditional. Each year preparation of the turkey coincided with the cuisine of whatever country currently held her fascination. One year it was turkey Italian style—shredded mozzarella and ground turkey made into meatballs. The next year, after Grace had taken a trip to China, we had kung pao turkey with a rather strange white rice dressing, as if white rice were not a dish of its own. Subsequent years included an Irish stew with turkey instead of mutton, accompanied by dressing made with soda bread. Perhaps the most memorable was the year she delved into Moroccan cooking, with turkey kebabs and harira soup.
The kitchen was the place where my statuesque aunt threw off her usual reserve and transformed into something of a giddy schoolgirl, full of creative whimsy. She had the incredible knack for making odd combinations of dishes come together in dinners of perfect harmony. She was delighted to bring a note of the international to an American holiday. I often wondered if these dinners were her antidote, a compensation for our small number during a holiday typically marked by large family gatherings.
More than the incredible meals, my fondest Thanksgiving memories were of Aunt Grace’s buoyancy and laughter and drama during the daylong preparations. The house would be flooded with random shouts of angst followed by the occasional rendering of the Hallelujah Chorus in Grace’s not so pitch-perfect voice. She would playfully nag at me to come help, and then, after I had clumsily executed some of her instructions, she would laugh and throw food at me and banish me from the kitchen, only to seek me out again twenty minutes later. She made the day a party, spirited hours in which we delighted in each other’s company, allowing us to ignore the reality that those we loved were no longer with us.
In the years since her passing, I had invariably received invitations to join friends at Than
ksgiving dinner. No doubt, I seemed something of a sad case, but inwardly I never felt that way. The years had conditioned me. I wasn’t opposed to the idea of engaging a surrogate family for the holiday and certainly wasn’t hardened emotionally against it. I had simply grown content with defining myself as a loner for such occasions if not for life in general. Still, I accepted Nancy’s offer graciously and was determined to be open-minded and enjoy the gathering.
Nancy and Carl both came from large families and the Thanksgiving meal served as something of a reunion. All told, more than seventy people came together. I had to park in a nearby pasture and could have wandered in uninvited without anyone being the wiser.
They had ingeniously cleared out the concrete hallway of the large barn behind the house and aligned a long row of card tables covered with a collection of pristine white sheets to serve as tablecloths. Carl had provided every necessity, including portable heaters, ample electrical plugs to keep the food warm, and small signs above the side tables identifying the location for vegetables, meats, and desserts. And despite the large number of people, everyone pitched in to help out with the tasks at hand. It was an efficient choreography of serving, preparing children’s plates, and then assembling at the long table amid a hubbub of riotous laughter and celebration.
The Ormans were a loud and garrulous group. The men were generally heavyset, with broad faces and broad smiles; they loved to chide and tease and slap you on the back during the thick of the conversation. They all seemed bred to an instinctive generosity and hospitality, and among them I was treated as nothing short of a celebrity. But despite their kindness, I was at a loss to contribute when the conversation turned to farm implements or extending the number of days for bow hunting of deer, topics that brought out impassioned viewpoints from men and women alike.
After the meal, most of the men retreated to Carl’s large bonus room, where a football game was playing on his big-screen TV. I obediently followed the pack and sat in a folding chair toward the back of the room. Within thirty minutes I realized I was one of only a few men in the room still conscious. The majority had dozed off into a low symphony of wheezing and snorting catnaps.