A Place to Call Home (34 page)

“That’s not going to happen. I won’t let it.”

“Listen to me.” Josh leaned forward. Speaking softly, in a voice pared down to a hard monotone, he said, “When I was on duty one night in Saigon I saw a lovesick bar girl pour alcohol over her head and strike a match. It happened so fast I couldn’t stop her. She burned like a goddamned Christmas tree. Ten seconds, maybe, and what was left of her face didn’t even look
human
. Was it my fault? Hell, no. If I’d sat around for years asking myself what I could have done differently, I’d have ended up contemplating a bottle of booze and a box of matches myself.”

I stumbled off the treadmill and took several queasy breaths. My oldest brother had revealed more about himself
in that story than I’d ever understood about him before. “We all come home from our wars with scars we can’t forget,” I said softly. “Is that why you blame Amanda for being born? You lost a wife and got a daughter in return, and you can’t forgive the trade? Is that why you sleep with a woman who reminds you of Vietnam but you won’t let her be part of our family? What are you ashamed of?”

His head jerked up. “There’s a lot you don’t know about me, sis,” he said softly. He fumbled with his tie, got to his feet, and walked out.

Another woman just told me I was a lost cause. She said she catches me looking through her as if she’s not there. I like her, and I’m sorry we had to end with her feeling that way. But she’s right. Part of me isn’t finished. Isn’t there. I know it makes no sense to believe I’d be different with you. I know none of this makes any sense after all these years
.

We won’t have a future until the past is torn apart and settled between me and the family, Claire. Until you and I look at each other and decide how many people we’re willing to hurt. I’m always hiding something. I listen to other people talk about the way they grew up, about their folks and all their good times, and I know I’m blank except for the time I spent with you and your family. It’s as if you helped me just invent myself one day. Like a Frankenstein. I’m made up of pieces that other people gave me
.

I won’t get close to other people because I don’t want to tell them about myself. I killed my own old man. That’s not the kind of thing you tell other people. I’m always separate
.

I want something good to remember, Claire. Something I can hold on to, something that erases what happened. If you see me someday, maybe all you’ll remember will be the bad part—what’s broken
.

I want you to talk to that kid I used to be and tell him it’s okay to come home. That you still love him
.

And I want you to tell my boy he can be proud of me
.

A
manda was furious with me. The next afternoon we collided in the front hall. “I’m not speaking to you,” she said. I wheezed from the impact. She looked at me with absolute despair. “Why won’t you go see Mr. Sullivan?”

“Sweetie, you don’t understand. We have to get to know each other again, very slowly and carefully so that—”

“Grandpa and Nana told me. They told me they sent him away a long time ago, and it hurt your feelings, and it hurt his feelings, too, and they’re sorry about it, and they’re doin’ their best to make it all right. But you gotta help.”

“I’m trying to help, sweetie. But when you’re older you’ll understand that grown men and women have to be very responsible about their friendship. They have to move slowly. They need to be very honest with each other and they need to agree on a few rules about their—”

Her eyes filled with tears. “You sound like Papa. He thinks about makin’ rules and laws so much, he forgets I’m even around.”

“Your papa’s just busy. He loves you so much.”

“No, he doesn’t. He won’t say so, so he must not love me. He won’t get married again and gimme any brothers and sisters because he doesn’t even like me. Just
like
you must not love Mr. Sullivan ’cause you don’t even care enough to
tell him.
”

“Sweetie, I love Mr. Sullivan in a certain way. But sometimes even when you love somebody you don’t really know what to say to that person. You almost wish they’d stay away until you do know what to say.”

“You kissed him! On the
mouth
. Right after he came home! You kissed him and he kissed you back for a
long
time!”

“People kiss for a lot of reasons—”

“I told him about you.” She glared at me victoriously. “I was at the Pick N’ Save with Aunt Luanne yesterday, and he was there buying a newspaper, and everybody was staring at him, but I went up to him, and I said, ‘My Aunt Claire is pretty, isn’t she?’ And he said, ‘She’s the prettiest, smartest, strongest woman I’ve ever seen.’ And so I said, ’Well, if you don’t come to visit her, you’re not ever gonna see her ’cause she won’t even go to town.’ And he said, ‘I bet I can make her go to town.’ ”

“You are so much like your papa. You’re a little politician. When you get to be president I’ll come stay in the Lincoln bedroom and I’ll steal the pillowcases.”

“I
told
him all you told me about him! How you said he was wonderful, and you never forgot him, and how sad you looked when I said I was sure he’d jump back for you!” She flailed both hands in the air. “And I told him you’ve still got his shamrock necklace in your jewelry box!”

I shut my eyes. “And I get to steal Lincoln’s sheets, too,” I said.

Alvin Tobbler, Mr. Tobbler’s grandson, Tula’s brother, ex-Dallas Cowboys linebacker, my distant, dark-side cousin, and Cousin Vince’s successor as sheriff, came to see me. Tall and barrel-chested in his crisp uniform, he sat on the veranda with me.

“I went out to say hello to Roan. Shook his hand. Gave him a welcome-home gift. Sister put it together. Fried pies. Jelly. Apple cookies. You know. Samples of the whole inventory. She’s always looking for new customers.”

“Thank you.”

“I just thought you’d like to know. He visited Mr. Leroy the other day.”

After Alvin came home from the big leagues, his knees ruined, his fortune made, his wild oats sown, he’d married Mae Brandy Walker, the first black cheerleader in the history of Dunderry High School football, his old sweetie. That Mae Brandy had put up with his absence, outwaiting the groupie women he’d dated, had been a story of considerable local victory. The Walker pride ran deep in perfecting the finest pit barbecue ever set on a restaurant table, and her father, Mr. Leroy, had run Mr. Leroy’s Pit Barbecue Eats on the town square until he retired and sold the building to Aunt Jane.

“What did he want with your daddy-in-law?”

“Mr. Leroy used to make sure Roan got fed,” Alvin explained gruffly. “You know, back when Roan was little, before your folks took him in. Well.”

I leaned toward Alvin, stunned. He nodded. “Roanie’d
slip up to the restaurant’s back porch and steal leftovers from the tables. Mr. Leroy started leaving sandwiches for him. Never said anything. Just left ’em out.” Alvin studied my face. “You didn’t know that, did you?”

“No.”

“Roan came over to Mr. Leroy’s house the other day. Told the old man he intends to take him out to dinner at the best restaurant in Atlanta.” Alvin smiled somberly. “That’s the kind of man Roan Sullivan is. He doesn’t forget anybody who was good to him. We don’t forget either. You know, my granddaddy thought the world of Roan, too.”

I was quiet, remembering Boss Tobbler and his strict kindnesses, how he and my grandfather had shared the instinct for humanity that is bred in old men who’ve survived war and intolerance. Alvin gazed into space, then said quietly, “One of my uncles, over in Alabama, he marched with Dr. King in the sixties. Got chewed by police dogs, hosed down by cops. Things weren’t ever like that around here, but they weren’t so good either.”

“Alvin, I know. Nobody talked about it openly, but we all knew.”

“The worst game I ever played, though, we were in Pittsburgh—”

“When you tore up your knee the last time?”

“Yeah. I was laying there on the field, feeling like somebody had jabbed hot pokers in my leg, but all I could hear was about a thousand Pittsburgh fans chantin’, ‘First and ten, hit him again.’ ”

“Al, I’m so sorry.”

“Damn Yankees.” He chuckled, then flattened his brows and stared at me. “That was when I knew I was going home. That Dunderry was still home. I told Roan why I came back, and I told him how it’s changed. No place is perfect, but some are special.”

“What did he say?”

“He said he couldn’t afford to be sentimental.”

“That’s all? He didn’t explain what he meant?”

“I don’t think he does much explaining to anybody, Claire. I think the man’s got some secrets.”

A chill ran up my spine. “I hope you’re wrong. I’m afraid you’re not.”

Alvin slid his Stetson back on his head, eyed me with a frown, and sighed one of his thick-chested, worldly, all-encompassing sighs. “You work on him. And keep working on yourself, too.” He thumped his knee. “Legs heal. And about that woman—that girl you—”

“Terri. Terri Caulfield. I can’t let her be anonymous. I’ll spend the rest of my life reminding people about her somehow or other.”

“You do that. I refer women to the shelters over in Gainesville all the time, Claire. They’ve got one thing in common. They think nobody cares. That they’re in it alone. Well, you cared, and they know about you. They’ve got some of your articles on the bulletin boards. They don’t think you did anything wrong. They think what happened to her would have come sooner or later, no matter what you did.”

“Thank you for telling me.”

“Family takes care of its own.”

“Hey, maybe we should go on
Oprah
,” I said, broaching the subject that always simmered beneath the surface with Tobblers and Maloneys. “You and me. Tula. Be a helluva show.”

He rose to his feet. He tipped his hat to me. “I’m not going on TV and admit Tobblers have some lily-white third cousins once removed.” He paused. “Especially a little lily-white woman cousin who’s wastin’ time sitting out here on her skinny
veranda
instead of takin’ care of her
business
, if you know who I mean.”

He left. I sat on the veranda, pushing at morning glories with my fingertips, watching them close against the heat.

• • •

Roads around Dunderry weren’t named frivolously. They pointed travelers to the oldest family properties, to geographic wonders, to practical needs and whimsical desires. Road names not only told where a person was headed but
why
.

“A little to the left,” I said. The sun beat down on me. I sat on the tailgate of a yellow county maintenance truck parked beside Roan’s elegant new gate. I was shaded by a wide straw sunhat and dark glasses. I sucked on a blade of grass. My father, who sat beside me, shook his head. “Left’s the side you wear your watch on, Nat.”

Nat squinted at us as he nudged the tall metal signpost in place. “Oh.” Oliver Kehoe, a young cousin of mine who was fresh out of college with a degree in civil engineering, hummed as he poured concrete into a hole around the post’s base. My father scowled at the padlocked gate a few yards behind us. “I’m going to
assume
,” he said grimly, “that Roan put that gate up to keep nosy no-accounts from trespassing. Not the rest of us.”

Oliver and Nat finished. They stood back. I looked up at the slender green sign that now stood at the entrance to Ten Jumps. “Thank you,” I said to Daddy, who filched a cigar from his pocket and dismissed the project with a soft grunt. “Just his due. It’s good to be the county commissioner. Get things done.”