Homefires (30 page)

Finality set in. And with it, a permeating indifference to living. The degree of apathy changed hourly. The
enormity
of loss rose sharply by the moment. One moment, I was amused at something silly Toby said, the next, dissolving into sobs.

I thought again of the irony: just when folks think you got it all together and leave you alone, reality sets in. Even Kirk had his church duties and the kids, school. I couldn’t yet face returning to classes at Coastal. A refrain ran over and over in my head:
Nobody needs me.

Krissie always needed me
. More pain. Will it never end?

“Neecy, look at me,” Kirk’s finger gently guided my chin around and I opened my eyes. “Don’t forget where I was when God rescued me. He can do the same for Roxie. For Moose. For anybody, in fact. But you know that.” He gently brushed my hair from my forehead. “This is not like you.”

It wasn’t. I sighed and shook his finger loose. “I know,” my voice was dull, flat. “Tell Moose we’ll go.”

The next night, Saturday, we drove into Charleston to dine at Bessinger’s.

“Man,” Moose crowed, “this barbecue’s great, doncha think, Roxie?”

The redhead slid her agog suitor a seductive, amber appraisal.

“Yeah,” she droned lazily. “Marvelous, Moose. Just marve-lous.” Her appraisal skipped me and lit on Kirk, who seemed too busy cutting his chicken to notice.

“Where are you from originally?” I asked her politely, trying not to gape at her low-cut, clingy sweater and abundant cleavage set above a wasp waistline and softly rounded hips fastened to Rockettes-long legs.

She tore her gaze loose from Kirk and focused on me as though I’d just walked in. “Oh – all over. My daddy, he was in the Army, ya know?” Then she tore into her food like she hadn’t eaten in days, saying little for the remainder of the meal.

Kirk and Moose reminisced and for the first time in days, I felt myself lifted from the dark here and now and transported back to
when.
The guys reminisced about a ruckus during our Senior Prom, when Kirk had sailed to a drunken Moose’s aid, after Moose had gotten into a fight outside the school with trespassing Grey High rivals. My pal Callie had seen the whole thing, jumping and screaming obscenities at the interlopers till she nearly got herself arrested, along with Moose, the five rivals, Kirk and Hugh Nighthawk. That was the only thorn Kirk sustained in an otherwise honorable fight, during which he was ambushed and held down by two of the rivals while another beat him senseless – Nighthawk had rushed in and in Cal’s words, “Beat the crap outta all of’em.”

“Remember ol’ Nighthawk jumpin’ in that night you got beat up on and – ”

“No.” Kirk grinned and tried to change the subject. “I don’t remember.”

“Fortunately,” I inserted, “the thing was over by the time the police arrived and everybody had scattered.”

“It was really ol’ Hugh Nighthawk who done saved your tail,” Moose insisted, then guffawed,
knowing
Kirk hated
Nighthawk’s guts after the half-Cherokee Indian had put the make on me. I
still
believe, all these years later, that if he’d had his rathers, Kirk would rather have served time than be saved by Nighthawk.

That may seem ungrateful to some and perhaps it is but that’s Kirk and on his priority list, except when dealing with family, nobility doesn’t rank all that high.

“C’mon, Kirk,” Moose prodded good-naturedly, “’fess up.”

Kirk laughed, but I saw the fire flicker in his eyes as he glanced my way. “On second thought, I
do
remember Nighthawk jumping in. Poor guy,” Kirk shook his head. “That boy’s face looked like a swelled up prune next day.”

“Almost as bad as yours,” Moose reminded him.

I laughed and it sounded foreign – Kirk glanced at me and I thought of all the times he would have gotten angry at me laughing at his expense. Tonight, he didn’t.

So do I,
breathed that presence I felt at all times now. Not ever in-my-face. But
there.
I existed on two planes. On the one level, I remained raw and torn, frustrated and deprived, clawing my way through each moment, while higher, on the spiritual rung, a strange compelling peace enveloped me. Amid all this was an ‘okay’ to deal with the human aspects of my psyche, permission to seek answers that would give my troubled mind solace. This presence carried me, like a swaddled babe at times, spanning the black abyss of hopelessness, nursing me through nights when defenses took flight and I awakened on a sob and curled into a fetal knot, weeping my devastation.

“Neecy, I don’t know how you put up with this guy,” Moose teased, “he was always tighter’n a drill sergeant. Now he’s a preacher, he’s
really
on a high horse.”

Again, laughter spilled from me and I marveled that it was in me.

“Now, Moose,” Kirk leaned forward on his elbows and grew serious. “You know you need to be in church.” Then he grinned that crooked grin of his, a rare one that disarmed even the most cynical personalities. “Can’t be running with a heathen, now can we, Neecy?” He laid his arm across the back of
my chair and winked at me. I rustled up a passable nod, my fleeting response to humor having evaporated.

My emotions remained jumbled. Perhaps I would survive, I thought while staring dully at Moose. Didn’t time heal all wounds?

I picked up my iced tea and made a pretense of sipping. But did I truly want to go on? One moment apathy swooped as a listless black crow perched on my shoulder, filtering into my spirit a
don’t care
that pinned me to sofa, lounge, chair or bed, staring at life with unseeing eyes until Kirk nudged me to do something with him. The next, it came as a raging black bull with red eyes and smoking nostrils, that pawed the earth and insisted that I
must
die. Go join Krissie. Then, Toby or Heather would tug at my sleeve and pull me back
.

I was needed, though briefly and sporadically.
Need
: the catalyst that tethered me to earth.

“Okay,” Moose turkey necked and nodded vigorously. “Me and Roxie’ll see ya’ll in church tomorrow, won’t we, sug?”

And though Roxie rolled her eyes and half-heartedly agreed, I couldn’t help but be lifted by our pal’s exuberance. Again, my mouth pulled into a genuine smile and despite its heaviness, my heart lifted just a bit at the possibility of two changed lives.

It was a beginning.

“Hello?” I wondered who would be calling at five a.m., though Kirk and I had already awoken and wept together.

“Neecy? This is Callie.”

“Lord help us – Callie? Is it really you?”

“Last time I looked. Naw – this isn’t the time to joke. Listen, Neecy – I didn’t know about Krissie till Mama called me. I was out of town when she tried to let me know.”

“Oh, Callie – ” My words choked off. Her voice, so dear and familiar, melted away any constraint I’d acquired in the wee early hours.

“I’m so sorry I wasn’t with you, Neecy—Oh,
God
.” She began to wail and cry and I was amazed at the depth of her caring, again struck with the sense of a change in her and for long
moments, we mourned together. “I-I’m not doing this good, am I?” she croaked.

“Yes, you are, Callie,” I snuffled, “the best.” Then, “I wish you’d been here with me, too. But I understand.”

“There’s something else, Neecy. Lots of things have changed in my life – your letter started it, remember? But it took this thing with Krissie to push me to where I needed to be. And – I need to ask a favor of you.”

“Anything.”

“Can I come stay with you a few days? I’ve got to get outta here.”

“My door is already open.”

She arrived barely six hours later, announcing that she’d already been packed when she called. “I’m not going to impose on you and Kirk at a time like this,” she insisted while hugging me. “I’m going to get a place – ”

“Don’t be silly,” I reared back to gaze at her. “Of course, you’ll stay here.”

“Tonight,” Callie insisted, shucking off her red wool coat. “Tomorrow, I’ll go apartment hunting.”

“Apartment – are you planning to move here?” I asked, my heart almost doing a leap.
Almost.

“If it’s where God wants me,” she said matter-of-factly, looking me straight in the eye.

God?
A word that had never,
ever,
in my experience, appeared in Callie’s vocabulary?

“I got saved recently. But don’t look too close,” she huffed a laugh. “I’m still under construction.”

“Oh, Cal,” I grabbed her and held on for dear life, laughing and crying all at once.

“I know, I
know,”
Callie quipped and snuffled, squeezing me. “Who’d have ever thunk it?”

“Where’s – Jim?” I asked, uncertain.

“Jack. Number four is now history. After him, I decided I don’t need a man.” Her words were firm but surprisingly gentle. “I’m not bitter, Neecy,” she shrugged. “Brought most of it on myself. Not to excuse his cruelty, mind you. But once I got my life on track, he really turned mean. I prayed about it and then, filed for divorce.”

“How does he feel now? I mean – ”

“Aw,” she waved it away with her well-manicured hand, “he’s okay about the divorce. After the initial shock, he sorta – got spooked by the change in me. Know what I mean? Jack – well, he likes to party and drink and have never-ending fun and laughs. He didn’t figure on losing his party girl.” She crossed her eyes and lolled her tongue out the side of her mouth.

I laughed and then she laughed and it felt good. I took her by the arm and led her to Heather’s room, where she would sleep. Knowing intuitively that being bunked in Krissie’s old room might bother Callie, Heather had thoughtfully volunteered to sleep there.

“Let’s eat supper and then, you can tell me all about it.”

“How would you like a job in the church?” Kirk asked Callie between bites of a chicken casserole Donna Huntly had dropped by. We’d located Callie a small, inexpensive apartment in downtown Solomon, near the park, the day after she arrived. Now, a day later, she needed a livelihood.

“You serious?” she paused, fork midair, then put it down.

“The church secretary, Tillie Dawson, is on maternity leave and I hear from reliable sources that she’s not planning to return. Betsy is grumbling about having to fill-in for her. So, I need somebody desperately.” He shrugged and raised his brow. I still marveled at his change of heart toward my old pal. But the spiritual Kirk had a pastor’s heart and anybody who tried at all in those days, he was there to help

Callie’s mouth worked but no sound came forth for a long moment. Then, she cleared her throat and I saw the moistness in her chocolate eyes. “Thank you, Kirk.”

“You didn’t even ask how much it pays,” Kirk reminded her, grinning.

“Don’t matter. God will provide.” Hers were not maudlin’ words but an affirmation.

During our long conversations since her arrival, Callie had told of praying for guidance, desperate to escape Jack Farentino’s sadistic grasp. She didn’t feel she could go home and burden her mom, who had her own battles with an increasingly alcoholic husband. “I’d be jumping from one frying pan into another,” she said flatly. “Anyway, Mama can handle her
own woes better than she can mine. She’s one hundred per cent maternal. I can’t unload on her. I’m letting her down easy, saying Jack and I are just separated, to see how we feel about each other. I haven’t told her the whole story. Probably won’t, either.”

“Anyway,” she continued, “I was praying about where to go and Mama called. She told me about Krissie and immediately, my heart was drawn this way. I packed my clothes, then called you, Neecy, and as soon as I heard your voice, I
knew.”

Callie had been right. I needed her. She needed me. And the church.

I marveled daily at how love, pure and simple, kept me –
us
– going in this minute by minute trek.

Toby jumped up from the table and sprinted to the back door, then, remembering, turned and muttered, “s’cuse me,” and banged out the door. I arose and peered through the window at him climbing on his bike to disappear toward the white path. During the past days, Toby’s face still gave no indication that he felt the enormity of what had happened.