Stones in the Road (23 page)

“But you’re suggesting….”

“Yes,” Ginderbach admitted. “I’m suggesting that Wiley is telling the truth. Maybe we should just consider that for a while. Think about it. Let it simmer. See what comes of it.”

“But I
knew
Father Michael,” she said. “He would never….”

“How well did you know him, Mrs. Cantrell? Did you live with him? Were you the housekeeper? Were you around him a lot?”

“Well, no.”

“Did you have dinner with him?”

“Well….”

“Did you socialize with him? Did you see him at dinner parties and other events?”

Mama fell silent.

“I think I should go,” Tina said in a quiet voice.

“Don’t,” I said. “I didn’t mean to embarrass you.”

“You guys have got a lot on your plates right now,” she said.

“Don’t go,” I said. “You were going to help Father with his… thing.”

“Are you sure?”

“Of course I’m sure.”

“I don’t understand any of this,” Mama said, looking dazed. She wandered to the chair and sat down. “I just don’t understand.”

“Why don’t we do the anointing?” Father Ginderbach suggested. “Why don’t we take all of this to God in prayer? Mrs. Cantrell?”

“I know Wiley’s not lying, but….”

“It’s all right, Mrs. Cantrell,” Ginderbach said. “Why don’t we pray about it?”

“Perhaps I’ll just sit here,” she said in a soft voice. “Suddenly I’m not feeling so well.”

“T
HERE
IT
is,” Jackson said softly as he pulled into the driveway at Mama’s house the next morning after I’d been released from the hospital.

I stared at Mama’s house in stunned silence.

What a frikkin’ mess.

Mama helped me out of the Jeep, and I surveyed the scene, and it was not long before I burst into tears. Noah put his arm around my waist and hugged me, upset that I was upset, starting to cry himself because I was crying.

The crying was a bad idea, but I couldn’t help it. It made my face hurt. Sharp, stabbing pains flooded the back of my head. It was no one’s fault but my own, as I had insisted on coming to see Mama’s house.

“Easy,” Jackson said. “Breathe through your mouth.”

I opened my mouth and gulped down air, trying to get hold of myself. It helped to ease the pain somewhat, but damn.

I don’t know what I had expected, but surely not this. The house itself wasn’t that bad. The front was caved in, and most of the roof had been torn off and strewn about. Most likely it would have to be torn down. The yard was littered with boards, debris, bits of fluffy insulation, and most of the contents of Mama’s attic: old clothes, papers, books, pictures and photo albums, plates, Christmas decorations, the dreadful “life-sized” Easter Bunny she used to put in the yard at Easter time. All of it blown about and scattered on the yard. The big oak to the left of Mama’s house had been snapped off and now sat sideways. Much of the grass and all of Mama’s flowers and shrubs had been sucked up, giving the earth a scorched look. And there was a strange silence, as if all wildlife for a mile around had suddenly vanished. No bugs. No chiggers, mosquitoes, butterflies. No birds, rabbits, squirrels. Mama’s golden retriever, Bumblebee, was gone—no one knew what had become of her or where she might have landed after the tornado had taken her.

This was made worse by the clean morning air and the stunningly blue sky overhead. As if that sky hadn’t been filled with murderous intent and not so long ago.

It wasn’t this that made me cry, but rather the sight of so many people in Mama’s front yard helping to clean up. Friends, neighbors, acquaintances, a work crew from the county, and what seemed like just about every last soul from St. Francis, as well as a large contingent from First Baptist, where Bill and Shelly went.

“My poor house,” Mama said sadly. “I don’t know what I’m going to do.”

“It’ll be all right, Mrs. Cantrell,” Jackson said.

“It don’t look all right,” she complained. “Jesus, Mary, and the saints! I shouldn’t complain. The Hood’s house was completely destroyed. Thank God they weren’t home. Janice said they were at a church BBQ. And those poor Mendozas….”

She walked in the direction of the house, but I leaned against the Jeep, feeling weak.

When they caught sight of me, a steady stream of folks—most of whom would not have bothered to piss on me had I been on fire—came in my direction, offering their condolences, asking how I was, how Noah was, how Mama was holding up, commenting on my black eyes and the stitches across my forehead and my broken arm and ribs, asking me about facial fractures and how they were treated, telling me how much they admired and loved Papaw and what a good man he was, and how funny, and how patriotic, and how Southern, and how eccentric, and how sad it was, and how he must have loved me to have done what he did….

I didn’t understand some of this until Cousin Tina came flouncing over, dressed in a billowy yellow thing, wrists and ankles draped with bangles and bracelets, her hair wild and uncontrollable in the breeze. “The conquering hero returns!” she exclaimed, looking carefully at my face.

“Conquering hero?” I said, raising my eyebrows.

“Everybody knows what you did,” she said, as if this explained everything.

“Aside from almost dying, what was that?”

“You tried to save your papaw,” she said, giving me a funny look.

“Tried and failed, you mean.”

“Could you be more negative, Wiley Cantrell? Honest to Christmas! Anyway, I think your popularity level has gone up quite considerably. Maybe you’re not such an evil lousy shit after all. Maybe I’ll have to try to rescue some crotchety old bastard during the next tornado so they’ll start liking me too. Remember your Cookie Monster?”

“Cookie Wookie?” I said.

“Guess what we found?” she teased.

She led us off to the side of Mama’s house, where piles of stuff had been collected and organized. Cookie Wookie sat on a pile of toys, his plastic eyes seeming to look at me as I carefully picked him up and brushed dirt off his fur.

Who’s that, Daddy
? Noah said.

It’s C-o-o-k-i-e W-o-o-k-i-e
, I replied, holding the Cookie Monster in the crook of my arm so I could sign. Trying to sign with a cast on one’s arm was challenging.
I used to play with him all the time. Even took him to school. The kids made fun of me, but I didn’t care.

He looks sad
, Noah said.
Can I have him? He might get scared sitting out here by himself.

Of course
.

I handed the Cookie Monster to Noah, who hugged him to his chest as if to comfort him.

The sight of it made me cry again.

“It’s all right,” Jackson said encouragingly.

“I can’t stop crying,” I admitted. Every little thing set me off.

“A little post-traumatic stress,” he said. “It will pass.”

“John-John said he thinks your papaw may have saved your life,” Tina said. “You tried to save him. He tried to save you.”

“John-John” was John McNutt, the county fire chief and a childhood friend, whose team had responded first to the scene. In school we had always called him John-John Nutt Butt, which seemed really unkind now as I stood there and looked at the wreckage of Mama’s house.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“He said it looked like Papaw threw himself on top of you.”

“I was carrying him,” I pointed out. “I was trying to get to the shelter, but something hit me in the living room, and that’s all I remember.”

“Exactly,” Tina said.

“Exactly what?”

“They didn’t find you in the living room. They found you in the side doorway.”

“But that’s impossible.”

“Well, that’s where they found you, and your papaw was laying on top of you, like he was trying to protect you from all the debris flying around.”

I looked at the side doorway to Mama’s house. The door was twisted on its hinges and standing open, surrounded by boards and insulation and other stuff that fallen from the roof over the porch. It was a good thirty feet from the middle of Mama’s living room to that door. I had no recollection of lying there among those boards.

“I had to carry Papaw out of his room,” I pointed out.

“He must have dragged you to the doorway,” Jackson said. “We had to clear away a bunch of boards to get to you, and I could see right away that your grandfather had suffered a lot of trauma to his head.”

“But that’s impossible!”

“People do a lot of amazing things in an emergency situation,” Jackson said softly.

There was nowhere to sit down, so I eased myself onto the ground, feeling suddenly that I couldn’t stand, that my legs wouldn’t support me.

“Are you okay?” Tina asked.

I rubbed at my face with my good hand.

Noah crouched down, peering at me intently.

“Your papaw loved you,” Tina said. “He was a crazy old man, but he really, really loved you. You and Billy both. You were the world to him.”

“I know,” I said miserably.

I glanced again at the doorway. It seemed impossible that only a few days ago we had been sitting down to dinner at Mama’s house. Now the sun was shining, the air was warm and pleasant, and the sky perfectly, blessedly blue, as if nothing had happened at all. It struck me as outrageous and somehow unfair.

“Poor Papaw,” I said.

N
OAH
WOKE
me at just after three.

Papa said to get up
, he signed.
It’s getting late
.

I wiped sleep from my eyes. Noah was already dressed for the visitation. His hair was slicked back from his forehead. His pants and shirt were neatly pressed in a way that only Jackson Ledbetter could manage or even want.

Are you okay, Daddy
?

I nodded.

Are you sure?

Of course
, I signed.

He regarded me with distrustful blue eyes, and I saw, with astonishment, a bit of acne on his forehead.

I was scared
, he admitted.

Scared of what?

The tornado….

It’s okay now.

You went away.

No, I didn’t.

Yes, you did. You went away, but Jesus told you it wasn’t time yet, so you came back. That’s what Father G said. Why did you go away
?

I wasn’t sure how to answer this.

I didn’t mean to go away
, I said, trying to choose a safe course.

Mama went away
, he said.

Don’t worry about it, sweetie
, I offered.

Please don’t go away
, he signed earnestly.

I won’t.

You promise?

I promise.

If you go away
…. He stopped signing, lowered his eyes, bit at his lip.
Papa said I could live with him
, he ventured at last, raising his eyes again to look at me.

Of course you can. He’s your papa.

No. I mean, if you go away… I can live with him. That’s what he said.

I’m not going to go away.

But what if you do?

I’m not going to.

But what if you do?

You got the boo boos
?

He nodded miserably.

You’ve got to let the boo boos out or you’ll feel bad
, I reminded him.

Papa said not to bother you with my boo boos.

You’re not bothering me, sweetie.

I’m always bothering you. That’s what K said.

That’s not true. You don’t bother me at all.

K said you don’t like it when I have the boo boos
.

The possibility of throttling Keke was never far from my mind.

I sat slowly, swinging my legs over the edge of the bed. Noah watched with wide eyes, as if he expected me to “go away” right then and there.

I’m fine, sweetie
, I signed.

I could see he wanted to scoot a little closer, to touch me, to check in, to make sure I was all right and still there and not going anywhere, but he restrained himself. I reached over and patted his knee, my ribs complaining with small, sharp pains.

Are you okay
? I signed.

He shrugged.

I love you
, I signed.

He said nothing.

I got stiffly to my feet and went to the bathroom. He followed at a careful distance, watching me with doleful eyes.

I have to pee
, I said.

He shrugged.

He had shifted into one of his silent moods.

I took a pee with my back turned to him.

I have to take a shower and get ready
, I signed after I’d finished.

He shrugged again, indifferent.

Maybe you should go help J
? I suggested.

He shook his head. He was not going anywhere, never did in these moods, merely stood and watched, as if to reassure himself that I wouldn’t magically disappear, his eyes full of a fearfulness I couldn’t understand.

I’m fine
, I said again.
Why don’t you go play while I take a shower
?

He lowered his head and stared at the floor, his feet unmoving.