by William Poe
“I’m not upset, Simon. I understand. Let me know how she looks after you see her.”
“I will.”
Ending the conversation, Simon knew that Connie would say a prayer, while a quiet but persistent desire would hum in the recesses of his mind: to stem the emotional tide through the numbing grace of cocaine. Simon recalled the trust he had once placed in Sun Myung Moon’s vision of building the kingdom of heaven on earth. Sacrifices, deaths, hardship—all of it fit into the plan for a new world, the idea of a glorious future making life worthwhile. Connie’s faith in an afterlife and Simon’s conviction of the possibility of an earthly paradise mitigated loss and gave hope that pain could be endured for the sake of the future. Those who followed Jesus must have faced an indescribable sense of sadness and loss at his death; consumed with such grief, they must have denied he had died all. Their grief had transmuted loss into visions of a resurrected Christ, loss transforming their denial into grief so profound it spread through humanity and survived two millennia, recreating the visionary Jesus with each new convert. Simon could see Vivian at that very moment sitting in the parlor reading one of her romance novels, as real as if she were flesh made manifest.
“This place needs a lot of work,” Simon noted, distracting himself with consideration of the mundane world. “I should get estimates on the cost of restoring this place.”
Thad stood at the window as a murder of crows swooped at a desperate Ferdinand, who stomped and jabbed his horns, trying to keep the pellet-robbing thieves away from his food trough. “The mansion is in worse shape than you realize,” Thad pointed out, running his finger near the cracked edge of a glass pane.
“If only it were possible to tap into the fortune that’s been put in trust to maintain the place. But no one has wanted to try to gather all the signatures it would require for the bank to release the money. The money has been earning interest for generations, all the way back to JT Powell, the man hanged from the oak tree. I’d have to track down every descendant and get them to agree that the mansion should be restored.”
“You never told me about a trust fund!”
“Lenny’s brother tried to piece together the legalities when he was young—at least that’s what Lenny once told me. But he gave up, saying it would take a lifetime to track everyone down, sort of like the ending of Bleak House—nothing would be left after all the squabbling. Lenny wasn’t interested in the money because he thought he could do the work himself, but then his heart gave out.”
Simon wondered if he and Thad remained in Sibley whether he could find the dispersed relatives by searching message boards and newsgroups, technology coming into greater use with each passing day.
“I’d hate for all these pictures to get damaged by a leak or something,” Thad said as they went upstairs.
“There’s an attic above those planks.” Simon pointed at the hallway ceiling. “I haven’t looked up there since I was thirteen. I remember seeing stacked crates and barrels filled with packing straw. Ernie and I found such a barrel in the basement and discovered items that had once belonged to Aunt Opal. Maybe the effigy of JT that used to swing from the oak tree on Halloween is up there. I looked high and low in the basement, but the only things we found were Aunt Opal’s books, a box of scents, and a corn-husk doll like the ones slave children made.”
“I remember,” Thad said, rolling his eyes as he recalled Simon talking about the discoveries made with Ernie.
Thad stood in front of Wesley’s portrait. “This is such a spooky image. You should get a good thirty-five-millimeter camera and take pictures of them all.”
“Too expensive to do it right.”
“Maybe so.”
“On the other hand, a photography student at the university might take on documenting them as a semester project.”
“I really caused trouble going to work for Howard, didn’t I?” Thad said. “I hope your professors let you catch up on what you missed.”
“I’m as much to blame for not just moving to LA with you. Anyway, right now I need to rest before going to see Vivian.”
“Our bed!” Thad swooned as he entered the bedroom and got under the covers.
“What was it like, Thad? Really like,” Simon asked, snuggling close as he got in bed.
Thad’s heart pounded at the question. “Scary as hell. I was terrified that Irene would put me in one of the bondage videos she directed. Felipe told me that young guys from Serbia came to Barcelona to appear in them, and if the films didn’t sell, no one heard from the Serbians again.”
“You mean…”
“Taken out to sea and pushed overboard from Emilio’s yacht, according to Felipe.”
“Why not just send them home?”
Thad shivered. “Less trouble just to dispose of them, I suppose. That’s what Felipe thought, anyway, and he was the closest to Emilio, sleeping in his bed and all. He worried that when he got older, that’s what would happen to him.”
“I love you so much, Thad. Whatever we have to do, wherever we have to go to be together, that’s what I want.”
“Please don’t ask me any more questions about what happened. I did what I had to do. I didn’t want to end up like those Serbian boys.”
“This moment is all that matters.”
Thad wept as Simon held him close.
The next morning, Thad having gone downstairs to make breakfast, Simon listened to the wind as it brushed the wisteria branches against the window, tapping as if crows were pecking on the glass. From downstairs, the aroma of sizzling bacon nearly levitated Simon out of bed toward the kitchen.
“How soon until breakfast, Thad?” Simon called from the top of the stairs.
Thad stood at the bottom of the stairs, holding a spatula and wearing one of Vivian’s frilly aprons. “Give me twenty minutes. I have a soufflé in the oven.”
“Using those eggs from the farm down the road?”
“The small brown ones. Connie must have stocked the refrigerator before we arrived. She even left bacon wrapped in butcher paper from Sibley Grocery.”
Simon telephoned Connie from the hallway phone to thank her and to let her know he hadn’t yet visited Vivian, that he and Thad had slept all the previous day and night.
“That wasn’t me,” Connie said about the groceries. “Cheryl mentioned restocking when I told her you’d be returning with Thad.”
Simon again felt pangs of regret that he had not been at home to see Cheryl and his younger niece, Victoria, grow up, remembering how joyously they’d greeted him on his infrequent visits over the years.
“Brace yourself before you see Vivian,” Connie cautioned. “She probably won’t recognize you. She’s likely to be unresponsive.”
“Thanks for preparing me, Connie.”
After the call, Simon lit the gas-powered wall stove in the upstairs bathroom, waiting until the air was heated before taking a shower. Though the efficient stove quickly warmed the air, the black and white floor tiles felt like ice against Simon’s feet. He laid out a towel to serve as a rug before stepping into the footed tub and pulling the white plastic curtain along the aluminum rod.
Refreshed from his long, luxurious shower, Simon joined Thad in the kitchen for the soufflé, crisp bacon, and coffee. “Do you want to go with me to see Vivian?” Simon asked.
“I’ll stay and clean the house. There’s so much dust everywhere!”
Thad’s expression told Simon the housework wasn’t the issue, that seeing Vivian would be hard for him as well—better to stay busy.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Each time Simon visited Bobwhite Convalescent Center, he remembered trips from home on his bicycle to visit Mandy, memories ripe with the odor of unlaundered bedsheets, unemptied bedpans, soiled diapers thrown into hampers, and the pitiful pleas of residents unsure of their surroundings or their very identities. He recalled the nickname given to the place by Sibley residents: death’s waiting room. Stricter laws and better enforcement had improved Bobwhite’s reputation; it now claimed
, euphemistically avoiding the word death, that the facility offered end-of-life care.
Visitors gained entry by pushing a red button beside a sliding glass door. Exiting was made more difficult by requiring a numeric code long enough that most residents would have trouble remembering it. One of the many volunteers, recruited by the Baptist charity that operated the facility, escorted Simon along a narrow hallway, past nurses on their rounds and others whose job it was to lift men and women from their beds onto mobile contraptions so they could be taken to a shower stall and held aloft in a swing-like harness. One of the nurses, a woman who looked familiar but whose name Simon could not recall, took him to see Vivian in a semiprivate room located in a wing for those needing extra care and attention. Simon knew what to expect, having experienced Mandy’s last days as well as Lenny’s final hours, but prior experience failed to buffer the impact. Whatever had constituted the mother Simon knew, only an emaciated shell remained, barely resembling the vibrant woman who’d defended Simon at the family reunion in Magnolia, who’d told him about Lenny’s sad childhood, who’d helped him understand that Lenny’s bitterness arose from the sacrifices made for family, and who’d made Simon feel loved, made him know that he deserved love. If only Simon had told Vivian about the man who had corrupted his sense of self-worth instead of ushering him unmolested to the absolution of baptism.
The nurse addressed Simon as he stood at the door of Vivian’s room. “We’ve met before,” she said.
“Jennifer Calumet, right?” The woman’s voice had shaken loose old memories that caused her name to pop into Simon’s mind.
“I didn’t think you’d remember me. It’s Mrs. Hinkson now.”
“We went to Sibley High School together. I remember. You were a year behind me.”
“Seems like such a long time ago, doesn’t it?”
“It was a long time ago.” Simon smiled. “Over twenty years.” He didn’t want to press the issue of memories. His former classmate’s brother, Benjamin Calumet, had gone into a coma after receiving a concussion during the season’s championship football game, and her aunt had succumbed to flames during a fire at the store where she’d worked as a bookkeeper.
“I’ve never held that article against you, you know,” Mrs. Hinkson said, referring to an essay Simon had written for the school paper, arguing that the administration should care as much about academic achievement as it did about success in sports, pointing out that the school had won three consecutive championships and that therefore it was time, as the headline suggested, to start “Letting Others Win,” to move away from sports and begin paying to attention to the humanities and sciences.
“I was young and idealistic,” Simon said, averting his eyes from Mrs. Hinkson’s.
Lenny and Vivian had endured weeks of phone calls after the school allowed publication of Simon’s column, parents and classmates accusing them of Communist sympathies for raising a son to think it was acceptable to just give up—their interpretation of the headline, having never bothered to read the actual article. Simon remembered Lenny railing at one caller, “That boy don’t listen to nothing I tell him.”
Simon had stopped himself from saying to Lenny, “Like the time you told me that if a boy or girl wasn’t white, I wasn’t to play with them?”
“The school newspaper published your column before Ben’s injury,” Mrs. Hinkson pointed out. “If the coach had understood what you were trying to say…Ben is the reason I went into convalescent care. I was lucky to get this job so I can be near him. I read to Ben every night when I get off work. People wake up from these things all the time, you know.”
Simon placed his hand on Mrs. Hinkson’s shoulder in a gesture of sympathy before walking toward Vivian’s bed and putting his arm through the railing to take her hand, almost recoiling at the touch of her skeletal fingers and the feel of her skin, as dry as waxed paper. “There’s no chance she’ll improve, is there?”
Mrs. Hinkson fluffed Vivian’s pillow, set her head at a more comfortable angle, and pressed another pillow between the railing and the mattress for added security, noting that Vivian sometimes slipped to the floor. She checked the oxygen tubes helping Vivian breathe and jotted down readings from a blood pressure and pulse monitor. “Poor dear hasn’t taken a drop of fluid in three days.” Mrs. Hinkson looked at Simon with penetrating eyes. “Are you sure you want us to continue this way? Not even an IV?”
“I understand the consequences of the do-not-resuscitate order,” Simon responded. “I hate seeing her this way, but my sister and I talked to Vivian many times about her wishes. She never wanted to be kept alive artificially.” He put his hand on Vivian’s forehead.
“We try to make her comfortable,” Mrs. Hinkson said. “She’s had a fever today, but the antibiotic suppository we administered is bringing it down a bit.”
“Connie told me she doesn’t have long. Do we know?”
“Her diaper has been dry, which tells us that her kidneys are shutting down. I’d be surprised if she lasted more than two or three days.”
“Thanks for being honest about it. I’ll be here as much as I can. Vivian shouldn’t die alone.”
“Mrs. Powell was so nice to everyone down at Sibley Grocery. Everyone liked her.”
“Vivian enjoyed people.”
“I know this isn’t easy. I am on call if you need me, and the rest of the staff is ready to help. Oh, and I’m sure you know, but Lordy, Mrs. Powell told us every chance she got that if she has a funeral, the casket must be closed. Poor dear, she had the worst fear of people looking at her body. I hope you don’t mind me saying so. It’s just that it mattered so much to her. I’m sure she told you the same thing.”
“She made it very clear to Connie and me.”
Mrs. Hinkson went about her duties. Simon pulled up a chair and sat close to Vivian’s bed. He spoke aloud, sure that she heard his words, even if she couldn’t respond.
“Your son is here,” Simon began. “I love you.”
Vivian’s temples felt hot from her fever. Simon caressed her forehead and stroked her hair. Against his palm, he rubbed the cranial bumps that had made Vivian self-conscious when she went to the beauty parlor, always worried that the beautician would embarrass her by commenting on them.
“These are wisdom bumps,” Simon said. “Remember how I told you? Just like Moses. Remember the picture I showed you, the one of Michelangelo’s sculpture? Remember the bumps?” Vivian had recoiled the time he’d opened the book to show her the sculpture, Simon not yet having realized how much they embarrassed her. “It wasn’t fair of me to join that religious group the way I did,” he continued. “I didn’t mean to hurt you. I never wanted to embarrass you.”
Simon clasped Vivian’s hand. In seeming response, her eyes partially opened. “You were the best mother a son could want.” Her eyes closed again. “Wherever you are,” Simon whispered, his lips close to Vivian’s ear, “I hope you find comfort.”
It was the closest thing to a prayer Simon could offer for the woman who had raised him, a woman who believed in a god and an afterlife. Simon felt grateful for the moment of intimacy, soon interrupted.
Connie and Derek, with Cheryl holding Victoria by the hand, filed noisily into the room, accompanied by Thad, whom they had picked up at the mansion on the way.
“Uncle Simon, you’re looking good,” Cheryl remarked as Victoria hugged him.
“Between international flights and cross-country driving, I hardly know what day it is. I must have bags under my eyes.”
Connie, never one to be left out of a conversation, asked, “When were you flying internationally? I thought you went to Los Angeles for business.”
“The dealings led to a quick trip to Italy. I didn’t have a chance to mention it before.”
“Well,” Connie harrumphed, registering displeasure that she had not been told the whole story, “it’s good you completed your affairs so you can be here for Vivian.”
Derek went to Vivian’s bedside and lifted he
r hand, holding it as Simon had done, praying in a manner foreign to Simon. “Lord, grant your daughter peace. In Jesus’s name.” Derek shut his eyes and continued his prayer in silence.
“Connie, don’t think badly of me, but I’m going back to the mansion.” Simon didn’t explain that he wanted to hold onto the feeling of closeness he had shared with Vivian.
Thad took Simon’s hand in a gesture of understanding.
“You all better come over here,” Derek whispered as he placed Vivian’s hand by her side.
Simon rushed toward the bed. Vivian’s eyes were half-open, glazed in the same way Lenny’s had been when he collapsed from heart failure before paramedics arrived at the mansion and revived him. Simon couldn’t help thinking that Vivian had chosen that moment while everyone was in the room. Simon’s tether to the earth was broken.
Cheryl broke into tears, seeking comfort in Thad’s friendly embrace. Simon placed his arm around Connie’s waist to provide support. Victoria wept. Derek touched Vivian on the forehead, praying as Connie came to stand beside him. She clasped Simon’s hand, and he took Thad’s. Cheryl and Victoria completed the circle. Personal beliefs about God and the afterlife made no difference at that moment. Love for Vivian bound them as a family.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
Shortly after Lenny died, Vivian had had a local attorney draw up a will making clear her wishes for the disposition of property and stating unequivocally that she wanted to be buried in the family plot at Holy Oak Cemetery in Magnolia. (When Vivian had had Simon read the will at the time, he’d suspected that Vivian wanted to spend eternity far away from Lenny.) The will underscored Vivian’s demand that she be in a closed casket during her funeral.
“I want to be with you,” Thad said when Simon told him where the service would be held, “but do you think I should go to Magnolia? I remember what you told me about the last time you went there.”
“I’m more worried about Derek than you. He can’t resist an argument if he hears someone make a religious comment that isn’t precisely what he believes. Vivian once made a remark about the way her Southern Baptist church viewed the will of God, and Derek went into a tirade about free will. Vivian was taught a strict idea of predestination when she was growing up. Lenny didn’t have time for any of it, satisfied with his notion of once saved, always saved.”