Coldwater Revival: A Novel (23 page)

Elo waited by the front door, his gaze drilling me with trial-lawyer eyes.

“Was he there—looking for you in the dark of night?”

“No. No, I’ll probably never see him again.”

“Maybe you will—maybe you won’t. The only thing you need to concern yourself with right now, little girl, is Caleb and Mama. You got that?”

“I was only trying to let my friend know I wouldn’t be coming back.” I hitched my shaky hands to my hips, my words flaying the air like a fisherman’s fillet knife. “And another thing, Elo—don’t you go talking down to me as if I were some snot-nosed young’un. As far as I can tell, you and I are on equal footing.”

To catch a glimpse of Elo’s smile, one had to be as sly as a fox and quicker than a cottontail. Though I was neither, I did catch sight of the merest twitch of his lips, right before his grin sped into the great beyond. That teensy spasm set loose a spurt of pure joy into my bones. Could it be I had passed muster in his eyes? I doubted any such possibility. As far as I could tell, only three people had made his list of respected individuals. Most likely Elo’s own name was at the top of the page, followed, of course, by the names of Mama and Papa.

Telling Granny good-bye proved most difficult. I determined not to cry in her presence, as I had grown weary of weeping, and even wearier of Granny witnessing it. I had done my crying the night before. But when the time came to walk down her treacherous steps, I clouded up again, making the descent doubly dangerous.

Love could creep up and blindside you, I realized. I turned and waved farewell to the crotchety old woman who had captured my admiration and affection. I knew she, too, would feel the hammer blow of loneliness once we parted. An image of Granny, sitting alone in the parlor, her needlework lying untouched in her lap while she trained her gaze on some faraway memory, struck a chord of melancholy in my heart. I missed her already. I decided that during the long bus ride to Brenham, I would concoct a scheme to get Granny to Coldwater for an extended visit. Even though she had declared her journeying days were gone and buried, the idea still heartened me a bit.

Elo carried my bag as we trolled the lengthy maze of blocks leading to Galveston’s wharf area. Buffeted by gusts of wintry wind, I found it difficult to place one foot in front of the other. Elo scuttled along with ease, though my suitcase had to be heavier than a well-fed ox. It bulged as never before: Granny’s overnight baking spree producing a buttermilk pound cake, two loaves of nut bread, and a huge canister of snickerdoodle cookies. Also in my luggage—three pairs of overalls that had mysteriously disappeared six weeks earlier. Their whereabouts became obvious in the morning light, when I discovered them washed, folded, and neatly pressed in between my packed clothing.

Papa must have thought a tornado struck when I bounded into his arms at the bus station in Brenham. Entangling him in a choke hold that had him siphoning air, I released erstwhile tears and pent-up fear into his welcoming bear hug. I felt a powerful tug to unite with the rest of my family in like manner, but home was still twenty miles away. I had to travel over hillocks and up steep slopes, then down a rough and snaking road before I could be with my family again. But—hadn’t I already been doing that, every hour of my life since the day of the tragedy?

Although deeper crevices etched Papa’s face than when I last saw him, an undiluted glow of happiness filtered through his eyes. Or so it seemed to me. Why did joy fill him now, when his youngest son abode in the death-grip of pneumonia? Did the luster in Papa’s eyes link itself to me—the daughter who had wrapped herself around his neck like a hangman’s noose? I tamped down such arrogant thoughts, knowing that boastful pride goeth before the fall. A bit of shame lingered on my conscience, as present circumstances rendered this a most inappropriate time for me to be basking in the effulgence of Papa’s love.

“Come on, little-bit,” Papa said, dropping his arm around my shoulder. “It’s past time you were back with your family. Home hasn’t been the same without you.”

Thirty

As Mr. Peavy’s Buick rolled over our drive, it pulverized caliche gravel into powder, and then sprayed the air with clouds of white dust. I peered over the dashboard, trying to catch a glimpse of my family. Then I spied them in the distance, biding time on the stubbled grass of our autumn lawn. Their faces were distinct now, The Ollys wearing wobbly smiles, while Nathan’s poker face masked a thousand unasked questions.

Whom did they expect to greet? I wondered. The waiflike girl who had reluctantly parted company with them weeks earlier? The young woman who could not feed her body for the bounty of guilt in her heart? She no longer existed. I buried her in the past, alongside my unspeakable shame. Moreover—no one was the wiser. Where once my heart labored with empty, hollow beats, it now thumped with freedom. The freedom that came when I decided to hide my guilt from the vision of my family. I harbored no thoughts of uprooting what I had sepulchered away from the world. Why should I—when what it required was my life?

I squared my shoulders and stepped from Mr. Peavy’s Buick, delighting in the genuineness of the smile broadening my face.

“Emma Grace, come here, child.”

Mama folded me to her chest, a deluge of tears welcoming me home. Her appearance set off warning bells in my head and triggered my heart to pump with fierce exertion. True to form, Elo had not overstated Mama’s dissipation. She wore the look of one who had strayed far from the healing light of hope.

I should have been here to help you, Mama.

As Mama and I entered Caleb’s room, she clasped my hand with firmness. I released myself and moved closer to the bed, my hands shaking as though I had stumbled upon Marley’s ghost.
I’m trying hard to believe, God. Please take the doubt from my heart.

In looks, the twins had favored me from birth, but never had Caleb resembled me more than he did now. That is—when I, too, had existed in a shriveled-up body with nary but a pinch of life left in me. Sickbed pallor had sucked all hint of color from Caleb’s usual ruddiness. ’Twas a sad sight to behold. I stroked his overlong curls that fell to shoulder length—but for a bit of shaved hair near his ear where a thatch of fuzz grew in like bristles on a bottlebrush. Grateful I was that the Turkish head bandage had gone missing. If only his scar would show the same courtesy. Like the stitches of my hurried-up sewing, it raggedly pursued Caleb’s hairline from forehead to ear.

Lying in the bed before me was the handsomest of lads. Shortsighted folk might concur the wound marred Caleb’s good looks—but only those who had never been accused of being overly bright. Still, it was a shame that the brand was permanent. Like the perennial weeds in Mama’s garden, it would stick around, reminding us of all we had lost. My family, you see, needed no such reminders.

I knelt by the bed and stroked Caleb’s arm, knowing again the wonder of his touch. More than I desired to hold him, I yearned to see a flame rekindled in his eyes—eyes heretofore perceptive and star-bright. I leaned over, my tears splattering his wee fingers as I brushed his scar with a whisper kiss.

Caleb’s body convulsed then, a coughing spasm shooting red-flecked spittle across my face and bodice. I leaped from the bed as though a coiled snake had bared its fangs at me. Mama moved in, covering his mouth with a cloth, wiping hawked-up matter from his chin. I huddled on the sidelines and listened to the sound of Caleb’s wheezing, the congestion in his lungs thickening by the moment.

“There, there, baby. You’re going to be all right, precious boy.” Mama’s voice hitched a bit as she cleaned Caleb’s face with a damp rag. Some of Mama’s words winged high, like chaff winnowed from the grain. Others slipped and fell, swallowed up in the tunnels and crevices of her throat.

It seemed that a fire-breathing dragon thrust its cornuted head into my chest, setting my lungs on fire. I thought I might suffocate from the fear that burned within me. My stomach heaved, threatening to spill over Mama and the bed. I slipped to my knees, my eyes smarting and my head throbbing, for I knew the rattle in Caleb’s chest meant that he and death walked but steps apart. And I could do nothing to prevent it—other than hold onto the thimbleful of faith from which I had promised never again to part.

“Give me the cloth, Mama.” I stood on unstable legs and tugged the sputum-filled rag from Mama’s hand. As I doused it in a pan of camphor oil and water, an urgency to pour my strength into Caleb saturated my thinking. “Let me take care of Caleb. I know what to do. Please, go rest for a while.” Mama turned a confused stare on me, as though I had ordered her to go into town and rob a bank. “The Ollys have already started supper, Mama. You have plenty of time for a nap.” I sped over my points of persuasion, watching her face as seeds took hold and sprouted. Nevertheless, the longer she mulled it over, the more her head wagged. Tempted by the offer—yes—but her need to care for Caleb proved the more overwhelming choice.

“I can’t leave him, sweetheart. Besides, you just got home. You’re every bit as tired as I am.”

I slipped my hand around her waist and lay my head on her shoulder. Without her realizing it, my crutch and I slowly led her to the doorway.

“See that bedroom down the hall?” As I pointed with my left hand, I reclaimed Mama’s icy fingers into the folds of my skirt. “The one with the open door? That’s your room. You’ve been sleeping in Caleb’s room so long you probably forgot where it was. Do us all a favor and get some rest, Mama. We need you to stay healthy.”

Mama smiled as she stepped from the room, but her smile bore such meagerness, one iota more would have cast it into nonexistence. I worried that she had already accepted Caleb’s fate as identical to Micah’s.

I pushed the chair from my footpath and knelt by his bed. As I talked to Caleb, I pretended his eyes were wide open, ears perked in readiness for his favorite story. I shared my seaside ventures with him and confided secrets about the cache buried in the sand. My words rolled on, despite a throat that gargled tears. I pictured Caleb’s face—saw it beam with surprise when I excavated trinkets I’d hidden from the world. I promised my little brother we would take a trip to the ocean. We’d build castles in the sand and frolic in the sea, our hands tightly clasped together as we jumped the highest waves in the world. Of course, we would have to watch out for dangerous jellyfish and stingrays. But, oh, the fun we would have. Afterward, we would play with the treasures in Micah’s tin and pretend our brother was there with us.

Micah’s freckled face flashed before me. Burying my head into bed coverings, I squeezed my sobs into cotton fabric, lest Caleb detect them through the foggy mist of his coma.

What a weakling I was. So much to do, yet here I wallowed on the floor, blubbering like a baby. Caleb’s frailness demanded my stamina, my endurance—not a bucket of cold tears doused upon his tiny flame of life.

The room darkened as though in condolence with Caleb’s grave condition. I lit the lantern on the bedside table and returned to his side. Mama delivered a tray of food soon thereafter, but I hungered for little other than Caleb’s recovery. It was for that I prayed:
Return Caleb to us, Lord—healthy and exactly the way you created him. As demanding as the day you made him, Lord.

Did God hear my prayers? I believed he did. Would he grant my heart’s desire? Time, alone, would give me the answer.

For three days I lived in Caleb’s room, forcing Mama and The Ollys out the doorway when they attempted to relieve me. My illness had separated Caleb from me far too long. I’d not willingly relinquish my post by his side.

I wouldn’t look at Doctor Landers. His shaggy Abe Lincoln face, with its abysmal heap of wrinkles, seemed the personification of hopelessness. When he entered Caleb’s room, I skittered out the door like a startled lizard and kept my distance for the duration of the visit. I gleaned more from his worried look than his words could ever express. Caleb was going to die. ’Twas just a matter of time. My faith wanted to take off like a wild Canadian goose in search of warmer climes, but I grabbed onto its scrawny neck and held fast. As I spooned broth between Caleb’s chapped lips, washed his shrunken body, and changed soiled pajamas and bed linens, the doctor’s gloomy countenance loomed over me like a great gray vulture, circling my scrap of faith, waiting to pick it to pieces.

Then came the moment we prayed would never arrive. Caleb’s mild fever took off like a racehorse, combining itself with severe bouts of chills and shakes. The setback called for more than one set of hands. While the fever raged, Mama and I worked together, giving alcohol rubs, urging crushed aspirin into his mouth, ladling broth down his throat—around hacking spells that had weakened in volume, but not in expectoration.

I crumpled to a chair and lay my head against the backrest. “Is he going to make it, Mama?” Words trickled from my mouth like a drought-stricken spring, conversation requiring more energy than I could dredge up.

Mama turned glassy eyes in my direction, seeking eye contact through her haze of tears. She gazed as though she had forgotten my name or thought me a stranger. On the other hand, maybe her fixation focused on my unkempt condition. I was an eyesore no doubt, having gone days without changing my clothes, or running a brush through my hair. Most likely, I had sleepers in my eyes, cobwebs in my hair, and mold growing on my teeth. I brushed loose strands from my face and ran palms down my crumpled skirt, as though a vanishing cream would ooze from my fingers and dissolve the wrinkles.

Mama endeavored to compose herself. She raised fingertips to quivering lips, but since both fingers and lips were atremble, ’twas a hopeless task. She sank to the bedside chair, burying her face in her hands. Her mumble of words proved barely intelligible.

“Yes—he’s going to make it, Emma Grace.” She swung her gaze toward Caleb’s bed, her head shaking as though a neck-hinge had snapped loose. The palsy continued, causing me to regret asking such a stupid question. No one—but the Creator himself—knew whether Caleb would live or die.

We lay beneath a mountain of quilts, Caleb and I—his emaciation wrapped in my arms as I sang to him. Though he burned like an unconsumed fire, he quaked as though he was freezing to death. I knew he couldn’t hear me, but still I hummed his favorite songs. While perspiration poured through my pores and drenched the bed linens, Caleb slept. Through blazing fevers, and chills that clacked his teeth together—Caleb slept.

I cried away most of the night, but between the bawling and the dozing, I bartered with God for Caleb’s healing. I had to find a way to convince him to spare my brother’s life. He could take me in his place, I reasoned. It was true that I now desired life more than ever before, but not more than I wanted Caleb to live. How could my family bear the loss of another son?

Relinquishment came sometime during my chaotic pleas to God. It came, not with glare or fanfare, but with the quietness and peace of a stilled heart that no longer fought God’s sovereignty. To this day, I cannot fathom what prompted me to surrender to God’s will in the matter of my little brother.

Mama relieved me around midnight, compelling me from the room though I argued to stay. I washed up a bit in the bathroom. As much as I dared without waking the entire household. Cleaned teeth, brushed hair, scrubbed skin—but beyond the surface—sunken eyes ringed with sadness, and a face that had forgotten how to smile.

I assumed my rightful station beside Caleb sometime after first light, relieved that he had held his own throughout the long night. He fought a bitter enemy. How did one wage war against an adversary like pneumonia?

The day passed and then another, Caleb’s constitution skinnying-up like the waning crescent before a new moon. Odd—how grief and hopelessness tried to bury their claws into my hide during those worrisome hours. I felt the jabbing and the stabbing as unsheathed talons slashed away at my trust. Nevertheless they drew no blood, for my newfound relationship with God had cast a cloak of protection over me: as impenetrable as young David’s when he went up against the Philistine giant. I was like David in one way: Neither of us wore a shield—save the shield of faith.