Blood Kin (21 page)

The mass of growing things inside the ruins had expanded an unlikely amount, branches and vines shooting out of every break in its shell, and the tree of heaven at its center had multiplied in size, outwards and vertically, and it was a branch of that tree now supporting the tin roof panel from behind. Michael didn’t see any signs of kudzu in the ruins, but he didn’t have time for a closer look.

Random sections of wooden wall drifted slowly into view, ensnared in vine and branch and pushed by what... wind? He couldn’t imagine what else might have caused it.

The erased words had reappeared on these pieces, as discoloration or mold replacing the paint.
these signs
on one piece.
devils
on another.
tongues
.
serpeants
, that misspelling forever preserved.
shall recover.

At the end of their lane where it met a larger but unpaved road of gravel and dust Michael smelled acrid smoke, with something green in it, like beans in a pot left on a stove to burn. The stench made his stomach turn. In the next field over men with kerchiefs over their mouths were setting fire to a massive wall of vine. The various ends of this vine wriggled above their heads as the vegetable pulp swelled, shrank, and collapsed. He turned onto the road and drove away toward the main highway and town, frustrated that he could go only so fast on the loose gravel.

Something about the road looked different. After a mile or so he realized it was much darker in the road bed than he remembered, more shaded. He leaned forward and peered through the top edge of the windshield. Long streamers of kudzu vine knitted the row of trees that ran alongside the road, with occasional screens of the vine dropping down and disappearing within the fields full of tall grass on the other side. A county road crew was busily chopping on the vine where it had attempted to cross the road. Other workers in the adjacent field were setting fire to it in sections. An old man in a tattered baseball cap and an orange vest waved him down, sliding off his cap as he approached.

“If yer going to town you’d best keep right at that branch up ahead. They gots things pretty tore up the other side. Kudzu rooted right there in the middle of the road. I never seen the like.”

“I didn’t think burning would do any good. I thought you had to dig out the crowns,” Michael said.

“Knows your kudzu I see. Well, that’s exactly right, but diggin up the crowns takes time, and we aint got enough. This crap’s everwhere. Gots to keep the roads open first.”

Michael did as he was told and eventually reached a cracked, but fully paved road where he could pick up speed. Every now and then he twisted around and checked on his grandmother. She still dozed, her breathing shallow but steady.

The road took them through the old part of Morrison. Most of the dilapidated buildings had been torn down. Levitt’s Store was now supposedly an “antique emporium” but Michael had never seen any cars parked in front of it, and it was too far from the relocated downtown to catch any tourist trade. A couple of other buildings had been turned into barns; a couple of others had been partially demolished. A small house still had a board with
Miss Perkins’ Dresses & Notions
etched into it and nailed up under the eaves, but Michael had heard it had been many things since Miss Perkins’ day and now it appeared someone was living there. There were curtains in the windows and a child’s swing set in the side yard.

A steep incline took them down off the hill and into a flat area where a relatively new metal sign proclaimed “Welcome To Morrison, Virginia. Please enjoy your stay.” But there were no motels in Morrison so he couldn’t imagine where these visitors were supposed to stay.

At least here there were a few signs of modern life: a grocery and drug store, post office, and gas station with a mini-mart attached. Back from the road a scattering of new houses with tiny lawns filled the area before the hills became steep again.

A little past the gas station a nice shaded lane lead him to the regional hospital with a park and picnic tables across the road. It all appeared peaceful and only lightly used. He pulled in front of the emergency room door and ran inside for help.

After an hour or so a Middle Eastern doctor with a heavy accent came out and explained they were going to admit her for a few days. It was probably just dehydration and they’d be better able to control her fluid intake if she stayed there. “And given her age. Does she have a regular physician?” he asked.

Michael was embarrassed to admit, “I dont know.”

“Has she had any difficulty sleeping?”

“Excuse me?” The man’s accent was so heavy Michael had some trouble understanding him.

“Has she slept?”

She’d been telling him her stories daily for several weeks. Neither one of them had gotten much sleep. “No,” he replied. “At least not well.”

While his grandmother napped Michael walked out to the park across the street and sat at one of the picnic tables. The grass was neatly trimmed, the trees perfectly, almost unnaturally, shaped. No one else was in the park. In the distance, above the treetops, was the raised dirt and rock embankment of the interstate by-pass, now thick with some more civilized vine than kudzu. He couldn’t see the cars, but he could hear the susurration as they descended into the lengthy elevated stretch crossing several low valleys where the highway entered eastern Tennessee. He looked down at his hands. When had they scarred up like that? It must have been the day they’d taken the vine down from around the house.

He wondered if there was someone he should call about Grandma, but there really wasn’t anyone left to call, was there? His parents were gone, and most of those Gibsons from her generation as far as he knew. Perhaps those people had had children who still survived, but it seemed doubtful any of them would even know who Sadie Gibson was. If any of them had that mysterious Gibson feeling — a small family within the family — then they wouldn’t need to be told. They’d already know.

It was such a terribly sad thing, though, not having anyone to tell, not only for her, but for himself as well. He couldn’t call Allison, and he’d burned so many bridges with his self-centered behavior, he had no one else to tell about the things that had been happening in his life. He was in a sense as unreachable as his mother had been the last few years of her life.

The one time he’d visited her he’d still been in college, and when he’d first driven up to Southwest Virginia State Hospital in Marion it had struck him how like a school it looked, like a small college or boarding school. “Reality School,” he’d thought, a little embarrassed by his own flippancy. They’d brought him along with the other visitors into a large room with floor to ceiling windows. The walls were a pale green — they probably called it ‘sea mist’ or something like that. He supposed it was meant to be relaxing. He didn’t imagine the walls ever looked completely clean in that color. And it made him think of drowning in a public swimming pool.

His mother had taken one look at him and ran into the corner whimpering, unwilling to come out. He never found out who she thought he actually was.

A statue of a miner was a few feet away near one of the park’s many picnic tables. The plaque underneath was inscribed “To All the Ones Who Died.” The nearby mines had been closed down decades ago. He wondered who around here besides his grandma still possessed first-hand knowledge of those times.

Hobbling his way was an almond-skinned guy with a wide jaw. He had a stick with a nail in one end he’d been using to pick up trash and drop into the black plastic bag in his other hand. When he was right up next to him Michael looked into his wet, dreamy eyes.

“I think I recognize you,” he told the man.

The elderly fellow nodded. “I’m Mickey-Gene. So pleased to meet you. I’d been hoping to sometime. But I couldn’t get up the nerve. Is she there in the hospital?”

They went into Sadie’s room together. She was sitting up, looking all too bright and all too eager. “I waited,” she said. “I got lots more to tell I reckon.”

Chapter Twelve

H
ER GRANDDADDY’S FUNERAL
took place on a Sunday afternoon. The sky was unusually blue that day, the few clouds hiding enough of the sun to keep things pleasant. Some of his people made the long journey from Wythe County way out on the other side of Walker’s Mountain. A sister and some Simpson cousins, and a few of the cousins’ little children and grandchildren who never even met her granddaddy and had no idea how to act at a funeral. They were a conservative, tight-laced bunch, and Sadie had never met any of them. Her momma hadn’t seen them since she was a little girl, but she invited them to stay in Granddaddy’s house. They told her that would be convenient, since they needed to go through Granddaddy’s things. That made Sadie furious, but Momma told her, “that’s just the way things are done, girl. It’s the depression, or so they tell me, and the only way some folks can get ahead is taking whatever they can get offen their dead relations.”

“But you’re his daughter!”

“Ah Sadie, I wasn’t much of one. He didn’t want me marryin your pa, and he was right I’m sorry to say, but I always held it agin him. He tried to make up, but I wouldn’t let him. Hold on to the ones what love you cause none of us’ll be here forever. I dont deserve none of my daddy’s things — they can have it all, if you ask me. Now, if you want something special, speak up now — I’ll make sure you get it.” The only thing on Granddaddy’s farm Sadie ever cared about was Granddaddy, so she didn’t even bother to answer.

Momma held up pretty well then fell apart at the funeral. Aunt Lilly might have been a help to her but she never showed up. Aunt Lilly didn’t show up to a lot of things if Uncle Jesse was having a bad drinking spell. Sadie was shocked that her daddy came — even more shocked that he dressed up for it and even held Momma’s hand when she was crying especially hard. But Sadie couldn’t watch for long, afraid she’d start crying too, and the one thing she wasn’t going to do was cry in front of that bunch. But she couldn’t just leave her grandpa’s funeral either, out of respect for him, so she just walked away from the bunch of them, and went out there among the headstones to think.

She didn’t know how long this little patch up on the mountain had been a cemetery, but most of the dead people she knew were buried there. Folks said it was because of the beautiful view, like the dead would care, being in the ground and all. But people liked to have a picnic on Grave Decoration Day, and this was a plum spot for a picnic.

The headstones were all made out of limestone, which was everywhere in the hollow, used for foundations and wells and paths and such. Sharp ridges of the pale gray stone traced the hillsides like the exposed spines of giant skeletons, and from a distance this cemetery, too, looked like nothing more than a field full of rocks. She stopped to read a few, but the lettering on most of the old ones was practically worn off, the wind and the rain wiping them down to a collection of shallow bumps and soft grooves. She guessed folks didn’t have much choice about what kind of rock to use but it seemed a shame to have gone to all that trouble to mark your last place in the world and all anybody would ever know was that there was a bunch of unknown bones under their feet.

Some of those older stones had a circular piece at the top with a star or a flower inside, and a few of the fancy ones had a carving of a vine or a rose bush growing out of a big heart. She didn’t know what kind of vine that was, but reckoned it wasn’t kudzu.

“You aint shopping for a stone are you?”

She looked up. Granny Grace was sitting on a stump a few feet away, grinning at her. “What are you doing here?” Sadie asked.

“Why howdy to you, too. Same as you, here to pay my respects to your grandpa. Cept I’m over here cause I’d make your family none too happy if I was over yonder. Come to think of it, why aint
you
over yonder?”

“Dont like them people much, most of them. Wouldn’t want their like to see me cry.”

“I unnerstand, child. More than you might think. You gots to wear a brave face in this world, that’s for sure. You can always take it off at home, cept I guess not everbody can even do that.” She held a hand up to shade her eyes and peered across the cemetery to where the graveside service was still going on. “Who’s that sayin the words? It aint the preacher of course.”

“Reverend Billings from just over the Tennessee line. I guess he knew Granddaddy in the old days.”

“Well, least the preacher didn’t try to horn in. I guess that’s why them gray womens aint around.”

“You see them too?”

“Yep, you and me. And maybe the Grans, cept they’d never say. Anybody else round here with the sight I dont knowed them.”

“Who are they?”

“Dont know past theys dead women, and dead not too long I figure. And they belong to the preacher somehow.”

Sadie hugged herself. “They keep lookin at me.”

Granny Grace frowned. “Well now, I see them, but they dont look at me, so I reckon they got some kind of message for you, or they need somethin from you.”

“But what?”