Stones in the Road (30 page)

“You don’t get to decide what I do and don’t do. Who the hell do you think you are?”

“I’m your big brother. Hate me all you want, but don’t do this to Mama and your son.”

I fell silent.

“Well?” he prompted.

“I’m not going with you.”

“Yes, you are.”

“No, I’m not, and you can’t make me.”

It was like we were kids again.

“I wouldn’t be too sure about that,” he said, advancing on me. He had a murderous look in his eyes as he grabbed my good arm.

“Leave me alone!” I muttered.

“Stop it with your bullcrap, you fucking idiot!”

“Don’t touch me!”

He yanked on my arm, intending to drag me to his truck, but I jerked away. As I did so, I felt a sharp, angry pain shoot through my ribs and chest.

“Oh, Jesus,” I muttered, doubling over. I limped back to my car, leaned against it, wincing from the pain and squeezing back tears.

“You ready to stop dicking around?” he asked.

“Fuck you, Billy.”

“Why don’t you want to go with me?”

“That would make you happy, wouldn’t it?”

“I don’t understand, bro.”

“You’re right about me, Billy. Everything I do is shit.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Maybe you should just take Noah. Maybe it’s true—maybe I’m a shit parent and he’d be better off with you. At least he’d have a dad who scratched his balls and slapped his bitch up once in a while like a real man.”

“Wiley, what the hell? I’m sorry about your little boyfriend, but we can talk about this at home.”

“This has nothing to do with my little boyfriend!”

“What the hell is it, then?”

But I did not know how to explain.

I
SAT
on the bed in Bill’s guest bedroom and looked down at Noah. He was asleep, dressed in Eli’s pajamas, looking small and vulnerable.

“You need anything?” Mama asked. She was dressed in a nightgown and a bathrobe and looked like she was a hundred years old. Her voice was full of something I couldn’t quite grasp. Anger? Despair? Exhaustion?

I struggled to get my shirt off. Mama grabbed hold of it, pulled it up and over my shoulders. The twisting of my arms as I lifted them made my chest seize up with fresh agony.

“You gon’ take a shower?”

I nodded.

“You take your pills?”

I nodded again.

“Why don’t you take tomorrow off,” she suggested.

“I’ve already missed too many days, Mama,” I said.

“You look like hell.”

“I feel like hell.”

“You hungry?”

“No.”

“You’ll feel better if you eat.”

“I’m not hungry.”

She put a hand to her throat, looking at me with cautious but tired eyes. “You need help taking a shower?” she asked.

“You’d have to look at my penis.”

“Why does every conversation have to involve your little penis? Must you always wave it in our faces?”

“No, Mama. I’m sorry.”

“I don’t understand, Wiley. Can’t you give it a rest?”

“It’s the only thing about me that anyone notices.”

“I’m sure I don’t know what you mean. But never mind. Every time you open your mouth these days, I have no idea what you’re talking about, and frankly, I don’t think I even care. I asked you if you needed help. If you do, I’ll help you. Or I’ll ask Billy to help you. But I’m not going to stand here and play your games with you.”

“I’m sorry, Mama.”

She bustled off to run the bath, well and truly irritated.

“W
ILEY
,” M
R
.
Owen said the next day after he’d waddled over to my checkout stand, “I’ve got a word of the day for you:
crap
. It’s how you look, Wiley. Like crap. You look depressed. You look like something I threw up once when I went to Maui and ate some bad seafood. You’re scaring my customers. Why don’t you go home?”

“I need the hours, Mr. Owen.”

“I understand, but I think you might be pushing yourself a bit too hard. We’re not Nazis, you know, and if you need some time….”

“I need the hours.”

“Suit yourself. I’m drawing up the schedule for next week. If you want me to go easy….”

“I need the hours. Please.”

“Our customers like to see a smiling face.”

“I know they do, sir.”

“
Crap
, Wiley. Word of the day. Put a smile on it. A smile today makes the
crap
go away.”

“Yes, sir.”

He waddled off.

Toward the end of my shift, Jackson Ledbetter’s parents appeared in my line, each with an armful of items from the deli.

“So this is where you work, Willis,” Mr. Ledbetter said grandly, laying cold cuts and exotic cheeses on my conveyor belt.

“How are you?” Mrs. Ledbetter asked. Without waiting for an answer, she added, “I’ve been curious to see Food World. I’ve heard so much about it. Rather a nice grocery store, if I don’t say so. Loved that deli section! We should have come here much sooner. All those cheeses! And that sushi bar you have over there—I adore sushi! That’s the Japanese for you. In such a gosh darn hurry, they can’t wait for things to die before they eat them. I could have sworn that sushi was still squirming! I take it you’re not a big fan?”

“Makes me want to throw up a little,” I admitted.

“Moved out, did you?” she said, adding a hunk of salami, Kettle Chips, and some organic peanuts to the mix. Mr. Ledbetter unburdened himself of hummus, organic bananas, and a six-pack of Guinness and offered me a pinched smile.

“You really must come see us,” Mrs. Ledbetter said. “When does your shift end?”

“At three,” I said.

“Oh, it’s almost as though we planned it! Do come by the hotel. Tell me you will.”

“I don’t feel well.”

“I know you don’t, honey. You look like a lady of the evening who’s been rode hard and put up wet. Someone used that expression yesterday—I about died!
Rode hard and put up wet
! Oh, I do so love the way y’all talk down here. So colorful. Say you’ll come, Wiley. I want to talk to you. See? I’ll even use your real name.”

“I’m really tired. Mrs. L.”

“We have a nice breakfast room in our suite. You can sit down. Dinner will be served. Voila! Have yourself a Guinness, and let Mama Ledbetter have a word.”

“I’m really not in the mood.”

“I’m not a lady who takes no for an answer. Food will be prepared, Guinness will be cold, and secrets will unfold. Besides, we need a ride back to the hotel. At least do that much for us. Do you take American Express?”

“You can swipe it through the machine there.”

“How you holding up, Wiley?” Mr. Ledbetter asked.

“It’s going to take more than your son to kill me off, apparently.”

“Excellent!” he exclaimed. “We’ll wait for you just outside.”

“I’m afraid my car isn’t—”

“I’m sure your car will be perfectly adequate.”

They collected their purchases and ambled off.

I’d swear to God they were the oddest people I ever knew, but I ain’t big on swearing to God, so I’ll just say it takes all sorts and leave it at that.

T
HE
CONVERSATION
moved rather woodenly from one topic to the next: the weather, the content of our daily newspaper (“thin,” Mr. Ledbetter opined), their recent visit to the Tupelo Automobile Museum, their visit to the hardware store down the block where Elvis bought his first guitar, their frustration at the hotel’s spotty Internet service. Not a word was said concerning Jackson Ledbetter, the DHS, crippled women in wheelchairs, rehab, peeing in a cup.

It couldn’t last, of course.

“Why did you leave?” Mrs. Ledbetter asked, worrying her vape pen and staring at me with bright, curious eyes.

“You
did
read my book?” I asked.

“I certainly did.”

“Then you have to ask?”

“It’s hard to tell with you sometimes, Wiley. You
do
love to exaggerate.”

“I wasn’t exaggerating when I said I didn’t want a fucking drug addict in my life.”

“Good for you.”

“And too bad about the broken heart, eh?”

“Don’t be so melodramatic. What Jackie needs is someone like you to stick to your guns.”

“Not sure I care what Jackie needs,” I admitted.

“Of course you care. You’re in love.”

“Right now, I’m in hate.”

“You can’t hate what you don’t love,” Mr. Ledbetter pointed out.

“But you can hate someone until you stop loving them,” I countered.

“The more you hate them, the more you’re saying you love them. It’s a very standard psychological dynamic. I see it in my patients all the time.”

“Let’s not psychoanalyze,” Mrs. Ledbetter said. “Let’s talk about fixing this problem.”

“Is that why you asked me to come here?” I asked.

“Of course it is,” she said grandly. “I gave you an opening to fix your problem, but now you’ve gone and made everything worse by running off. Really quite unexpected, but you are a rather unusual person.”

“I told you not to interfere,” Mr. Ledbetter said.

“Somebody had to do something,” she countered.

“They would have worked it out in their own time and in their own way.”

“Or your son might have been arrested, or worse, he might kill someone. If he’s ever going to straighten up and fly right, it’s going to be now.”

“And why is that?” I asked.

“Because he has something worth fighting for, dear. He has you and Noah. It’s the first time my Jackie has really committed himself to something. He even asked you to get married! But of course, he has to sabotage himself. He wouldn’t be Jackie otherwise. So now we just need to get him over this hump.”

“I’m afraid I’m not interested.”

“Of course you are. You’re just not ready to admit it.”

“I’m
really
not interested.”

“Hear me out, Wiley. There are options. That’s the message. I’ve done some research on outpatient rehab programs. There will be frequent drug tests to make sure he’s clean and stays clean. There will be a monitoring and a follow-up process. If he participates in such a program, the DHS will cool their heels.”

“How do you know that?”

“I asked the woman doing the investigation. An outpatient program would allow him to stay in the home and continue working. No one need be the wiser. My point is, there are options, Wiley. All I ask is that you consider it.”

Talking about Jackson was killing my mood.

“I really need to go,” I said. “Thank you for lunch. I’m sorry all of this happened.”

“Nonsense,” Mrs. Ledbetter exclaimed. “I’m sure it will all work out. You’re staying with your brother and his wife?”

“For the moment.”

“My poor Jackie is devastated.”

“Good.”

“I agree with you, Wiley. Let the bastard stew in his own pharmaceutical juices for a while. But don’t shut the door completely. Not just yet. Because that would just completely crush him, and that was never my intention. You’ve made him so happy. You know that, don’t you? You and Noah—that’s all he ever talks about. You mean everything to him. And if you love him—and I know you do, despite what you say—then you’ll leave the door open.”

“I need to go,” I said again.

“H
EAVENLY
F
ATHER
,”
Bill said as we held hands around the dinner table that night, “we thank you for these gifts and all your many other gifts and your kindnesses to us. We thank you for this wonderful day, for the good weather that farmers need and that we enjoy. We thank you that we’re all safe and in good health. We thank you for the joy of having Mama and Wiley and Noah in our home. We ask you to bless them and keep them and help them in their time of need. We ask you to help us to be a blessing to all those people in our lives who need it. We know all things are in your hands, Father. Please keep us all safe. We ask this in Jesus’s name. Amen.”

“Amen,” we added.

“And we pray that Mary understands that just because she’s seventeen doesn’t mean she can stay out all hours of the night,” Shelly added.

“Mama!” Mary exclaimed.

“Your curfew is ten o’clock, young lady. Don’t you ‘Mama!’ me.”

“I told you I was going to be late.”

“If you can’t abide by your curfew, you can just stay home,” Shelly said easily.

Mary rolled her eyes in typical teenage fashion. I offered her a look to suggest that I felt her pain.

“You kids are a handful!” Mama said, glancing at Mary, Josh, Eli, and Noah.

“I’m going to Bible Camp,” Eli announced proudly. “Ain’t I, Mama?”

“Yes, you certainly are,” she said.

“You’ll have fun with all the rest of the babies,” Josh added. Was that a moustache on his lip?

“How old are you now?” I asked.

“Fourteen!” he said petulantly, like he couldn’t believe I had the nerve to not remember.

“You’re not going to Bible Camp?”

“No! Please!”

“You watch your mouth, mister,” Bill said in warning. “I thought you were going on that trip with the youth group.”

“Camping,” Josh said, rolling his eyes. “In Alabama! For six nights and seven days! Daddy, you’ve got to be kidding if you think I’m going on a trip like that with all those booger-breath buttholes.”

“You and your mouth!” Shelly exclaimed.

“So, Uncle Wiley, why did you leave your boyfriend?” Mary asked in what she perhaps thought was a conversational tone of voice.

“Mary!” Shelly exclaimed.

“I’m just asking!”

“It’s none of your business! Have you no manners at all?”

“Don’t pester your elders,” Bill said airily.

Mary expelled a long breath of frustrated air.