The Pirate Queen (26 page)

“I remember when Daddy was comatose,” said Emerald. “I kept talking over him until Mother made me quit. She thought it was annoying him. But if it snaps them out of it, then what does it matter?”

“Bender told me a million times that his father died in his sleep. He said the Warren men are blessed to live until they just go to sleep. I always thought Bender would go like his daddy,” said Saphora.

“There’s no way to know. I wonder if I’ll go like Mother’s mom and sisters. They all had accidents. That sounds like a curse when you think about it.”

“The Horn women all died of cancer, Emerald,” said Saphora.

“Grandma got up in the middle of the night, fell, and cracked her ribs,” said Emerald.

“But that was a complication. She was dying of cancer.” She doubled the bags, making stronger tea. “I hear a car in the driveway.”

Emerald picked up the pace, knitting faster.

“I’ll get the door then,” said Saphora. Daisy was already waiting on the doorstep by the time Saphora got there. “Mother, here you
are. You should have let me pick you up.” She hugged her mother, even though Daisy was not a hugger.

“I never thought the ocean would look so brown. Hello, lovie,” said Daisy.

“That’s the Neuse,” said Saphora. “It does empty out into the ocean though.”

“Oh, the Neuse! I knew that.”

Emerald sat with her back to them, knitting on the sofa.

“Emerald, are you helping your sister?” asked Daisy.

“I’m making Saphora a wall hanging.” Emerald got up and awkwardly hugged her mother. She started to look into her eyes about the same time Daisy looked past her.

As much as Saphora had wished for Emerald to leave, she was now glad, for she filled up the silence with her endless supply of words. Daisy was, at her core, as reticent as Saphora. Saphora imagined the two of them running out of things to say after the first hour of catching up.

“Bender’s bought you a beautiful house on the water,” said Daisy.

“Two,” said Emerald.

“I’ve seen the Lake Norman place, Emerald. I was with Saphora when she decided to buy it.” Daisy left the den and joined Saphora in the kitchen. “Do you have any broccoli, Saphora? At my age I’m putting it in everything now.”

Saphora opened the refrigerator and checked inside the crisper. “There’s no broccoli. I can pick some up later today though.”

“Don’t trouble yourself. I can do it. Emerald,” she said as if she was irritated, as if her daughter’s knitting was in the way of more important things, “why don’t you make the drinks?” Next she inspected inside Saphora’s refrigerator herself. She checked for fresh lemons and
asked if she had a jar of lemon curds. Saphora had not seen lemon curd in the pantry since the
Southern Living
shoot. Daisy said, “How about I do the shopping for us?”

By nightfall, Daisy marshaled Saphora out of the kitchen. “I’ll take care of dinner. You get some rest,” she told Saphora.

Emerald moved her knitting out onto the deck. Saphora joined her outside, saying she wanted to watch the sun go down. Emerald said, “Mother takes over my place too when she comes over. Although I haven’t seen her in years. She thinks my house is too small for stay-over guests.”

“I’m glad to give up kitchen duties,” said Saphora. She was feeling out of energy, running back and forth between the house and Duke. “She’s not so bad.”

“First you’ll think that. Then it goes to her head. You’ll see.”

“I’ll admit I get put out with her too,” said Saphora. But the day before she was beginning to feel put out with Emerald. She tried to imagine herself knocking about in the house all by herself. “Do you like living alone, Emerald? Is the quiet deafening?”

“I keep the tube on, you know, hospital shows and the like.”

“But what do you do with your time? You can do anything you want, right?”

“My son’s never been a good decision maker. It seems I’m always bailing him out.” She started a long story about her son and his tendency to move from job to job.

Saphora decided that Emerald never really understood what Saphora meant when she asked her a question. She had heard it said that it was easier to live through someone else than to become complete yourself. But in trying to do that—live for herself—she had gotten a whole houseful of people who needed her attention. Emerald had been given the opportunity to become whoever she could be,
and yet all she did was enable her son. Saphora felt bad for continuously judging her sister. Maybe she explained herself so poorly that Emerald only heard part of what was said. “Emerald, I’m just curious is all. I’m not talking about your son. I’m asking what you do with your life now. What is the meaning of life for you?”

“He’s really needy, Saphora. He is my life.”

“But if you keep getting him out of his problems, then he’ll never learn to do things on his own,” said Saphora. “Are you saying that you don’t have a purpose if your son doesn’t need you to fix his life?”

Emerald put down her knitting. “Are you getting mad at me again?”

“I’m not. But don’t you wonder if there’s something more for us than bailing out our kids?”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“Look at Mother. She’s going to set the table, put out the food. Then she’ll pout because no one lifted a hand to help. Of course, we could try to help and she’d run us out.”

“She’s not going to change,” said Emerald.

“That is what I’m trying to say.” She finally had it in her mind how to say it to Emerald. “I don’t want my life to stay like this. I’m afraid of turning into her.”

“Is that what you meant? You don’t have to worry. You’re not going to turn into her.”

“You don’t know. I might.”

“Saphora, this is the way women talk when they’re under stress. You wouldn’t be talking like this if you and Bender were back in Lake Norman living life as normal.”

“It wasn’t normal, Emerald. I’d never go back to how things used to be.”

“You are such a goof! I’d give my eyeteeth to have your life.”

“Bender’s not an easy man to live with. I was just a fixture in his well-ordered world.” She was taking a chance, spilling her guts to flighty Emerald.

“He loves you. He told me.”

“When did he tell you?”

“The night before he went into the hospital. He’s in love with you, Saphora. You mean everything to him.”

“Bender said that?”

“I wouldn’t make it up.”

Emerald would make it up though. If she thought she could make Saphora happier with a twist of her words, she would do it. Words meant nothing to her, true or not. They were just words. Emerald would take something as small as a nod of approval from Bender and stretch it into whatever she thought would improve what was said. It was her way of feeling included.

“You missed a stitch, Emerald. Look, there’s a gap in your row.”

She held up her knitting. There was the hole. “Oh, what’s the use?” Emerald laid it aside.

Gwennie called at bedtime to tell Saphora that she was finally making headway for the sake of her client. Saphora told her Luke had asked her to the town dance. “I turned him down. It wouldn’t be right.”

But Gwennie already knew. “You should go, Mama. Daddy would like to know you’re not holed up brooding over him.”

“I don’t know.”

“Go. It makes me feel less guilty because I can’t be there.”

“Should I?”

“Yes, go.”

“How many times has Luke called?” asked Saphora.

“Once. But we’ve texted back and forth every day.”

She hoped Gwennie was really coming back on Friday.

Saphora helped her mother settle into the guest room where Eddie and Tobias had pitched a sheet tent as they spied on Luke digging in the backyard. The house took on a different music with them gone and Mother pacing up and down the hallway and brushing her teeth as she made a to-do list for the next day.

In spite of Mother’s finicky habits, she had gone to bed and left the kitchen light on. Saphora went down the stairs and across the den. She was reaching for the kitchen light switch when she noticed the library door left open. She had not invited her mother into the room. But she knew she had a love of reading and would help herself to a book or two. She turned on the library light as she walked in. She found the room just as it had been the morning Bender had gotten dressed for church. There were his medical journals in a stack on the nightstand. He had left a magnifying glass out on the desk. But the middle drawer of the desk was ajar. She was about to close it when she opened it instead. She had never remembered Bender as one to keep a journal. But there, bound in green leather, was a journal. She pulled it out to examine it. It was slightly worn at the corners. That was a surprise.

She settled into the upholstered chair next to the desk where Bender had read before bed the few weeks they had stayed in the house. She held it closed next to her, her mind exploring their shared past.

She opened it to the first page, half expecting to find a story about one of his lovers. But it was a passage about Turner.

The staircase creaked. Mother was coming downstairs, probably for her nightly glass of baking soda and water. Saphora closed the journal although she wanted to finish reading it. She grabbed a book from Bender’s nightstand and put it on top of the journal to carry it out. She shut off the light and met her mother in the kitchen.

“Saphora. I thought I saw a light on downstairs. Oh, you’re reading.”

Saphora said, “Might as well use the library.”

“A Bible,” she said.

Saphora looked down at the book she had grabbed off Bender’s nightstand. She managed to not look surprised that she had picked up a Bible. “Oh, this. Pastor Mims gave it to Bender, I guess. Never know when you might need a little help from above, Mama.”

“Sure, sure. Well, good night then.”

“I’ll see you at breakfast and then we’ll head for Duke,” said Saphora.

She got herself back upstairs. She locked her door and climbed straight into bed. The room was a pale blue in the glow of nothing
but her reading lamp, like the night was all around her. She laid the Bible beside her and it fell open. Out slid a bookmark, meaning that Bender must have marked it. Or else Mims had done it for him. Ministers were sneaky like that, leaving things around for people to find, like those annoying people who leave little tracts on the sinks in public bathrooms. She did not know how many she had dropped into the trash can out of sheer willfulness.

A scripture was underlined in green, though, as if Bender had found something he liked and then grabbed the only pen he could find—a marker left behind by one of his grandsons. Saphora read it out of curiosity but also partly comfort. Just imagining Bender propped up in bed marking up a Bible comforted her. He was a man who had kept distance between himself and anyone who might try to look somehow beyond Bender the plastic surgeon. It was like finding an unlocked door.

He had marked a place in the book of Psalms:

It was a mystery the way he had marked it. There were lines beneath it and then an arrow pointing toward the bottom of the page. Saphora held the page under the reading lamp to make out his notations. He wrote:

And then in bold lettering,
Ask Mims!

Saphora turned page after page and found more markings and notations. Bender had been reading it, apparently for hours on end. When he would find himself at the end of his own human reasoning, again he would write,
Ask Mims!

Saphora put the Bible beside her pocketbook and turned out the light. She lay in the dark listening to nothing at all. Even Luke was not digging. The river creatures had fallen quiet as if the earth were taking a big pause. As if waiting for her to notice that all these years, in spite of her occasional prayers, she’d neglected a part of herself—a connection to God. Maybe the soul needed to be tended the same as the mind or the body. Or else what was real crowded out what could be. Those matters seemed real to Mims. And while facing cancer, real to Bender. She must admit, cancer does make the heart look above earth for answers.