Home Another Way (11 page)
“Not really, no. Unless you consider “Chopsticks” playing.”
She smiled ruefully. “I suppose the old girl will keep mute a while longer.”
I pulled a couple of books from a plastic grocery bag, a mystery and a legal thriller I had taken from my father’s extensive library, and asked Zuriel which she preferred. “Growing up, I had only two books to read. The Bible and Webster’s dictionary,” she said. “So you choose. I can listen to anything, any number of times.”
Flipping to the beginning page of the John Grisham, I began to read. For an hour, it was just my voice and the squeak of the old woman’s rocker moving back and forth, back and forth. I could have stayed all afternoon in Zuriel’s halcyon presence, but she said, “I think I’ll have a nap now.”
I helped her into the bed and folded the coverlet under her hoary chin. “I’ll see you next week,” I said.
On Wednesday, I forced myself out of the cabin before noon, and drove first to Ben and Rabbit’s home with groceries. I banged on the door without answer, so I left the food and finished the visits, collecting my first magazine payment from Hiram Dennison.
I tossed the rumpled
Field & Stream
behind the seat of the truck.
Thursday. Thanksgiving. I dreaded the dinner with Memory, sitting there with her turnip-headed son gurgling while she stuffed herself with hills of gravy-soaked turkey. I considered, briefly, bringing some sort of dessert or side dish, but found only instant rice and spaghetti in the cabinets, and a half loaf of fuzzy green bread.
Memory greeted me in a yellow sweat suit and an apron, once white, but now a Rorschach test of lard splatters and colored purees. “Just in time,” she said. “Meat’s just about set.”
Pots and bowls cluttered the small kitchen counter, buffet-style. “Hope you don’t mind eating in the den,” Memory said, handing me a plate. “I always eat with my boy. Go ’head and help yourself.”
There were sweet potatoes just the way I liked them, heavy with butter and molasses, and mixed vegetables suspended in some dome-shaped gelatinous blob. I took a sliver of that, and a heaping spoonful of homemade cranberry sauce. The bird wasn’t a real turkey but a boneless pressed breast of white and dark meat. I grabbed two hot yeast rolls and went into the den, where TV trays stood beside Robert’s bed.
Memory’s plate had no more food on it than my own. She covered it loosely with a napkin and pulled up Robert’s shirt, where a little tube stuck out of his stomach. She filled a huge syringe with canned formula, and said, “Well, we better give back thanks before we eat. Lord, oh Lord, we thank you for this, the meal you saw fit to bless us with today. Thank you that Sarah came to be here with us, and that me and Robert is spending another year together here on earth. Keep us all warm as the winter comes in. In the name of our precious Savior, our Lord Jesus, amen.”
I sat. Memory said, “You start eating. I just gonna get Robert’s dinner started here.” She put the syringe in the tube, pressing some of the creamy liquid right into his belly. And she spoke to him, telling him that she burned the bottom of the rolls, that she finished another rag rug, this one a swirl of purples and greens, a gift for Willa McClure. She talked to me, too—small talk about snow and Thanksgivings past and how to make a gelled veggie casserole.
“You don’t say much,” she said.
I finished the last of my meal, craving more, but not ready to admit I enjoyed it. “I really don’t have much to say.”
She made a sound, “Hmpf,” like a bicycle tire spitting out a quick burst of air. “I bet you find it boring ’round here, after that big city and all. Bet you think all us ’round here is dim and dumb. Maybe that’s so, but I ain’t gonna swap it for any of your fancy living. ’Specially if it turned me into the likes of you—all crabby and waspish and whatnot.”
“Oh, yeah? That means a lot, coming from you.”
“Rude, rude. If my mama were alive, she’d wallop you one upside the head, being fresh and all.”
“Well, that’s my problem right there. I didn’t have a mother to instill proper manners in me.”
“Go ’head, blame your sourpuss attitude on that rotten childhood of yours.”
“What do you know of it?”
“Nothing. Nothing at all. ’Cept you ain’t the only one ever had a bad run of it.” Panting, she hefted herself around the bed, cleaned Robert’s feeding tube and tucked his striped shirt into his pants. “Maybe you’d like to swap places with me, or Robert, or maybe Beth Watson—see how that tastes.”
I crossed my arms over my chest and slid down a bit in the chair. Memory tucked a crocheted afghan around her son, lumbered into the kitchen, and returned with a wedge of chocolate cake dusted with confectioner’s sugar. She slid the plate onto my tray. “Now, we don’t have any moping here on a day of thanks.”
I poked the dessert with my fork. “Aren’t you having any?”
She shook her head. “Nope, all full up here.” As my nose twitched with disbelief, she added, “Don’t look at me like that. I’m fat for sure, but that don’t make me a pig.”
It was the moistest cake I’d ever had, rich and sticky. I pressed the last crumbs into the back of my fork and stuck them in my mouth before dumping my dirty dishes into the sink. Memory handed me several foil-wrapped plates and an index card with a recipe scrawled on it—
Hot Water Cake.
I offered my halfhearted appreciation for the meal and went home. Memory probably finished the rest of the cake as soon as I left.
The building was packed; young children wove between their mothers’ legs, ran up the center aisle, and spilled around the rows of metal folding chairs. Men with camouflage baseball caps and toothpicks stuck in the corner of their mouths whacked each other on the backs as they bragged about the twelve-pointers they bagged that season, and the wives lamented their hunting-widow status.
I searched the crowd for Beth. A few people stopped me to wish me well—Shelley Portabella, Tom Hardy, some women in fuchsia coats whose names I couldn’t remember. I locked myself in the restroom, quickly tuned my violin and played a few scales to loosen my fingers. Then I left my instrument with the others in the corner next to the piano.
I’d spent the last month as a creature of habit. Woke around eleven in the morning. Took a shower until the hot water ran out. Dried my hair and visited two or three of Doc’s patients. I went to Ben and Rabbit’s shack on Mondays; she still hadn’t unlocked the door to me, but the bag of food was gone each week, so I figured they were alive and eating. On Tuesdays I sat with Zuriel for at least an hour, usually longer. Sometimes I read, and sometimes I just listened to her tales of mountain life.
I still sat with Robert on Sundays. When she returned from church, I ate lunch with Memory, too, sandwiches or “leftover pie”—all the week’s uneaten food baked into a crust, which Memory would decorate with little lopsided hearts molded from the dough scraps. We’d always end up arguing about something, but the next week she’d greet me at the door with a muffle-jawed grin, and never mentioned the insults I’d hurled at her Sunday prior, or that I’d stormed out without clearing my plate.
And three days a week I practiced for the pageant with Beth.
Beth. I liked her. It shocked me to realize that one night when, after rehearsal, she popped a movie in the VCR she had smuggled over from the inn, and we watched some dumb horror flick, throwing popcorn at the television in disgust and laughing until our cheeks hurt. In fact, Beth laughed often, and about everything.
I’d never really had any close girl friends. Not that Beth and I were close—we didn’t paint each other’s toenails or share secrets, or anything. But I’d found myself looking forward to the evenings I knew she’d be coming.
I stepped on the hem of my skirt, lurching forward, arms flailing, then I peeked around to see if anyone noticed my gaffe. I wore borrowed clothes, having nothing of my own appropriate for a recital. Beth had come one evening with a selection of long, black skirts—I didn’t ask her where she got them, afraid to know. But one of the skirts fit well and had some style to it, with tiny buttons running down the back, and an airy crinoline underneath for a bit of poof. My blouse, however, was a horror. I had planned to wear a black cashmere sweater, but Maggie insisted she had the perfect shirt to lend me—a gold polyester thing printed with ferocious crimson poinsettias. And I wore it, if only because I felt I owed her for letting me use her washing machine as often as I needed.
I spotted Jack across the room. He talked easily with several people. Patty Saltzman stood too close to him, her sleek hair draped over his shoulder. She touched his arm, said something. Everyone laughed. I wanted to kick her in the mouth.
Jack saw me and waved but didn’t approach. I gave a little wave back. We’d rarely seen each other since that night we danced. I wasn’t avoiding him, really. I just didn’t go where I knew he was—no diner breakfasts, no town events, no afternoon Sunday suppers at the inn. I’d run into him twice at the variety store while grabbing groceries, and once at Doc’s office. I’d been there giving Doc a weekly report on his patients, and Jack was playing taxi for one of his congregants.
I jostled through the crowd, finding Maggie at the front, pinning angel wings on a chubby preschooler. She told me Beth was changing in the office. I went in without knocking.
Beth stood in the center of the room, wearing nothing but her underwear. She froze—we both did—then spun and dropped her dress over her head, but not before I saw her fire-gnawed body.
The scars dripped down her face and neck, over her left shoulder and to her wrist. They swept across her chest—no breasts, just pearlized skin pulled taut over her rib cage, stomach, and right hip, trailing down her leg to the knee. A thick rope of tissue bulged in her armpit, and I understood why she couldn’t lift her arm above her head. On her back and thighs, I saw tidy, symmetrical patches where skin had been removed for grafts.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“It’s okay, really.” She turned to me with a smile. “Toss me those pantyhose, will you? Thanks,” she said, straightening her blackwatch-plaid dress, a simple A-line with a scoop neck. She took a deep, wavering breath. “I’m nervous.”
So was I. I hadn’t performed in years.
A light knock came on the door, and Jack poked in his head. “Five minutes, you two.”
“You can come in. We’re done making ourselves beautiful,” Beth said.
“Nice tie,” I said to him. It was tree-shaped and flashed with tiny Christmas lights.
“A gift from my dear mother. She bought it at the same place she found that lovely blouse you’re wearing.” He laughed. “Otherwise, you look very nice.”
“I feel like I have an orange poodle nailed to the back of my head,” I said, touching the ringlets I’d spent two hours creating with Maggie’s twenty-year-old curling iron.
“No, I like it,” Jack said.
“Hey. What about me?” Beth asked, twirling for effect.
“Hmm. I think something’s missing. Here, try this.” He pulled a strand of champagne-colored pearls from his jacket pocket, fastened them around her neck. “They were your Christmas gift, but I think you need them now.”
“Jack, they’re perfect,” Beth said. She threw her arms around him. “I love you.”
“You too, kiddo. Now don’t start crying. You’ll mess your makeup.” He ran his thumbs gently under her eyes. “And don’t expect anything else tomorrow. I can’t stretch my meager salary that far.”
Jack ushered us into the public area. Kids sat on their parents’ laps, people shared chairs and leaned against the walls. Beth and I made our way to the back of the room, where seats were reserved for the performers. Suddenly, she stopped. Her shoulders stiffened, and I heard her whisper, “Please, Lord, help me.”
I came alongside her, touched her elbow. “What’s wrong?” I asked, following her gaze to the man who approached us.
It was the sloe-eyed gas station attendant.
“G-good luck t-t-tonight, Beth,” he said.
“Thanks.”
They stood there, him shuffling his feet, her twisting her new pearls in her fingers. Finally, I stuck out my hand. “Sarah Graham. And you are?”
“I’m sorry, Sarah,” Beth said, shoving her hair behind her ears with trembling hands. “This is . . . this is Dominic Draven.”
“Pleasure,” he mumbled, and then brushed by us, a fog of motor oil trailing behind.
Beth hurried to her seat. I squeezed next to her. “What’s wrong?”
“That was Danielle’s brother. Danielle, my best friend, who . . .” Her voice contorted with the memory. “He hates me.”
“Beth, no.”
“Yes, yes. He hates me because I’m still alive, and his sister is dead.”
“Calm down. You won’t be able to sing with your nose all stuffed up.”
She shook her head, quick, little tremors. “I can’t do this.”
“Yes, you can.”
“No. I’m going to throw up.”
The lights dimmed. From the corner of my eye, I watched Jack on the platform, adjusting the microphone. He tapped it once, twice.
I grabbed Beth by the shoulders. “Look at me. I didn’t practice for a month so you could let some dumb grease monkey scare you off the stage.”
“That’s not very nice.”