Mammoth Secrets (29 page)

His words echoed in her mind as she ran a thumb over his calloused hand.

“God gave us this place to remind us how beautiful life could be, to remember where we came from, how little we really need to survive, and how much we all need each other.”

“I need you, P-papaw.” She wiped her tear-damp cheek with her shoulder. “I'm no good at being alone. How many times've you told me that?”

A nurse padded by in the hall without pausing.

“Can you hear me?” Eden leaned in close, whispered, chills floating over her arms. “Do you even know I'm here?”

What was a man so bent on meeting his Maker doing clinging to this world? She dared, for the first time, to ask the question that haunted her for months. What if the Alzheimer's robbed that peace that passes understanding from Papaw, along with everything else? A spear of worry pierced her heart. Her mouth had gone dry as she knit her fingers through her grandfather's, pressed her forehead to his flesh.

Lord, if you're listening, he loves you. He just might not remember...

She blinked up at Papaw's rattling breath. Still nothing.

Her throat clutched and she rubbed it. So hard to watch the man who'd been strong enough to lift timbers, build barns, set fences, and wrangle cattle one step from six feet under. Eden's shoulders did a shimmy-shake with the notion. Her fingers brushed that golden cross so often buried in Marty's ring. Papaw gave it to her the day they'd full dunked her and Lilah in the spring. Full of the spirit, dripping, all of ten years old, and loving every minute of it.

A knock at the door. She glanced up, startled to see Luke's tall blond form leaning against the frame.

“Hey.” Eden backhanded the corners of her leaky eyes. “Wondered where you'd gone off to.”

“Busy night.” He rubbed his jaw. “Just came in on a stork run and wanted to check on that accident victim.”

“Prayer chain's been texting about it all day. The girl with Andy?” Eden's curiosity got the better of her. “They know who she is yet?”

“Someone recognized her from the carnival. It's Maya Randall, the carnival owner's daughter. Nurses called him. He laid into Andy right good. Not a pretty picture from what I hear.”

Her mind spun. She'd seen the sassy looking teen, and the way the town boys watched her walk. Teenagers did what the teenagers will do.

“Here we all thought Charla and Andy were one step from the altar.”

Luke's silence spoke volumes. At last, he cleared his throat. “They're kids, Eden. Not that it does that poor girl any good. It wasn't anyone's fault. A big rig came around the curve too fast...you know the story.” He shook his head. “Folks said they hadn't seen an accident that bad since your mama's.”

“Sweet Jesus...” Eden closed her eyes, saying a quick prayer for that poor girl. “She's what, all of sixteen?”

“About that. What a mess.”

“Is she gonna be alright?” Eden's heart raced as she grabbed out her cellphone, quick texted the prayer chain into action. “We need to call. We need to pray for her. Maya?” She squeezed her eyes shut, heart surging with her fervent prayer.
Lord, save Maya.

Luke shrugged. “She's in surgery. They're taking her spleen. I don't know much else.” He shifted his weight, one foot, then the other, seemingly undecided about whether to go or stay. “Everything else all right?”

“I took Nana home hours ago, and the nurses just come and go.” She sniffed. “Can you tell me what's going on?”

Papaw stirred, muttered under his breath.

“I've asked some questions.” Luke stepped into the room, looking like a skittish colt rather than a uniformed paramedic. “Not many answers to be had. Even if he does wake from this, he'll be—well...”

Papaw's frail arm lifted, pointed to the ceiling tiles, and fell back to his side, limp.

“But, he does that.” She pointed at Papaw's restless slumber. “He tries to talk. He reaches.”

“It's reflexes, from what I know.”

“They've got all that danged stuff all over him. What if he wants to tell me something...”

“Even if he did, it wouldn't make any sense.” Luke wiped a hand over his face, and then met her gaze. “They've told your grandmother. She's coming back in the morning. They've called in hospice. To let nature run its course.”

“Wh-what?” Eden choked, mouth desert-dry.

Luke hitched his belt, fiddled with the knobs on his walkie.

“Don't people just die? Like in the movies?” Eden pushed out of the chair, anger surging at her breast, pointing at her grandfather. “What kind of a way to go is this?”

He laid his palms on her shoulders. She wanted to pound at him. Scream and cry. Instead, she allowed him to anchor her in this storm.

Warmth radiated at his touch, from shoulders to her core, where she'd been so frozen. Eden leaned her full weight against him and let him prop her up. Her rock. Guilt surged through her with an oily wave at all she'd done to him, all she'd said. How could Luke have possibly forgiven her? How could he still want her?

His hands slid around to her back, holding her close, her tether, lest she float off into the blackness of despair. “Eden, it's his time.” His words broke the spell.

She shoved at him. “N-no. Don't you say it.”

“Someone has to.” He clung tight, his words floating through her hair, soothing through her tears. “Your Papaw's lived. He's loved. He knows where he's going. Isn't that enough in this life?”

“What's gonna happen?” She looked up through a wave of tears, her breath hiccupping, grief surged, rocked her shoulders. “What happens next?”

Luke just shook his head, but made no move to step away.

Together, they watched the machines and prayed.

 

 

 

 

41

 

Jake pulled into Milton's Gas ‘n' Go off the state route into town. Milton, he supposed, was the man whose boots stuck out from under an old seventies station wagon, spouting “dag-nabbits” and “cotton-pickin-foreign-cars!” Jake cleared his throat, bringing the mechanic to pause.

“Kin I help ya?” The man rolled the low cart out from under the car. A greasy orange shirt with straining buttons covered the mechanic's paunch-belly.

Tucking hands into back pockets, Jake quick explained his reason for being there. As he spoke, Milton's face ran the gamut of emotions. He and Lilah were on to something.

“Yeah, I still deliver out there, got lotta folks at Taylor's place.” Milton stood with an
oomph
of breath. “No gas, you know, not on that rocky top. Danged hard to get to in the winter time. That's why he comes out this-away. Picks up tanks hisself.”

“Who?” Jake attempted to spy over Milton's stooped shoulder as the man smeared greasy fingers across yellow bills of sale.

“That carnival feller. The one who does the glass figures. Here it is.” He rattled the fingerprint covered page for emphasis. “Sam Guthrie.”

 

~*~

 

Lilah tromped up the hill having left the box of kittens safely under Dr. Underson's watchful care. The tabby had yowled at her, as if she were its mama. It tugged her soul to walk back out of that swinging door, even as the vet tech cooed over the warm, wiggly bodies. She wasn't any good with living things. The last thing that tiny life needed was her to watch over it.

Still, she wondered. Maybe she would find a place of her own, somewhere within throwing distance of Eden's house. They needed space before they killed one another. Another sign of God's cosmic sense of humor, she supposed: The need to be near the ones who've known you forever and the undeniable notion that you'll be driven slowly mad the longer you stay together. She trudged to her driveway with a glance to the chapel. Jake's beat up old truck was tucked neatly in its carport.

Pastor Jake Gibb.

Or was it Jacob Gibson? As if that even mattered anymore. No sad stories. He was the man who'd stolen her heart. The first one who'd ever done the job proper. All it took was a touch here, a look there, and a handful of kisses that shot her over the moon. Guilt doused her joy. Should she be so happy when Papaw was dying? When Eden had been laid so low by her pitiful mistakes?

Love is all that matters...

The still voice spoke to her. Cured her of the mire she'd dragged with her for so long.

Love.

She loved Jake. Hand hesitating over the mailbox lid, she glanced back over her shoulder toward Jake's place. At that moment, she couldn't wait to tell him.

A hollow sound emanated from the pastor's apartment. Was that Jake singing? She paused to listen. His living room windows flung wide, the shower water rushing, she could hear his baritone rough-belting out an off-key Third Day song.

Yep. She'd fallen for a pastor who sang in the shower. A furious blush heated as she spun back toward Eden's bungalow. Laugh bubbling out, even as the rich tones of his gravelly voice melted her soul. So far removed was Jake from her ex. Night and day. She slow-strolled down Eden's walkway, between the fragrant geraniums and begonias, she headed to the front porch. A hand-painted sign requested shoes be left at the door. Her sister made a nice little life for herself here, quaint, country, in the shadow of their grandparent's home.

Eden never once asked her for rent, or grocery money, or anything else for that matter. She'd merely taken in her wayward twin, tucked her under her stable wing, and asked nothing at all. Neither, for that matter, had Nana. Almost as if everyone in the whole blasted town expected her to come back with her tail between her legs.

Just the mere hint of judgment for her wrong choices, through the telling of her personal drama with the prayer chain. Gossipers. That's all they were.

Her cell chirped in her pocket, and Lilah palmed it, spying Eden's prayer partners' names on the quick-sent list. Lilah's heart seized. Papaw?

Pray healing for Maya Randall. Accident. In surgery.
Eden's text read. Her prayer chain, activated.

Guilt surged. “Oh, no…”

Texts and prayers blooped back.

One after another, Eden's friends and prayer warriors chimed in, lifting up the stranger in words and prayers. No one asked for more information, just charged in, prayers blazing.

Healing!

God's grace to all who love her.

“We're in heaven…heaven…woah…” Jake's voice crooned with the radio, gravelly, on key from across the street.

She didn't want anyone going to heaven today. Not right now…

Lilah sank to her knees there amid the waxy, red begonias, felt their damp petals, pollen stained like blood. His creation. Just like she was. Just like Maya.

Lord, save Maya.
Lilah prayed. She added it to the reply text, for good measure, pressing send.

Responses back came fast, charging with encouragement.

Welcome back, Lilah! Rita

Missed ya sister. <3 Eden

And so many more…she scrolled through the continuous stream of replies. So, this was Eden's prayer chain she'd railed against? Some sort of crazy extended family. The church elders, the few remaining families she'd known since birth, the fellow storeowners who knew their plight. Not an invasion of privacy, or gossip, but honest, sincere hopes that the power of their prayer would be magnified by sharing. Now, the sweet incense of their prayers lifted up for Maya. For Papaw. For Nana. For all of them.

A wash of remorse swept head to toe. What must they have prayed while she made the biggest mistake of her young life? Hand to ponytail holder, she shook her hair free and sat on the Astroturf front steps, unlacing her tennis shoes and calling Eden for the scoop on Maya. This time, they prayed together over the phone.

“Jake should know. Maybe he can offer comfort to her father.” Eden said.

“Right. Not sure Randall is the kind who wants a pastor's assistance.” Lilah sighed, but she hurried across the street to paste a note on Jake's door, anyway. Maybe he would try and offer support to the carnival master after all.

He'd moved on to a secular song. Just like a preacher, only seeing the best in people. She'd seen enough of the other side to know the world wasn't as rosy as all that. Whether blind or hopeful, with Eden's insistence, she'd stay away from the hospital until morning. She intended on doing some checking of her own. Lilah slipped out the slim yellow pages, letting her fingers do the walking all the way to Propane. A phone call to Milton's Gas ‘n' Go couldn't hurt.

After all, his wife already was praising Jesus by text that Lilah was back in the fold.

 

 

 

 

42

 

Randall flexed his raw knuckles as he walked past the roar of the Mammoth waterfall. Measured steps along that shoulder-wide bridge toward town. The still, languid lake on his left was at odds with the endless, cascading curtain of water on his right just like the cool, practiced expression he wore concealed the rage within. Each crunch of concrete under his shoes brought him closer to his destiny. Maya made her choice, but he'd allowed this to happen. Let the preacher and his lady talk him into opening a door that should have stayed shut. Sealed. He'd made his bed. Time to lie in it.

Mist churned from below, dampening his face, mingling with tears that now obscured his vision. His shadow chased him as he went, lengthened from the last light of day.

The fickle sun dipped below the tree line, like raging fire.

Fool. After years of being in charge, of calling the crowds, hawking the midway, he'd at last been the biggest mark of all.

They'd sat in his trailer, laid out the plan, and all he could think was the fools would come, spend their money, take home their trinkets, and leave their paychecks. Instead, all they'd done was destroy his life. Destroyed everything that mattered.