Home to Big Stone Gap (21 page)

“And now she found you.”

“Thank God. I remember when you and Fleeta came over to the hospital after I got my double mastectomy. You came in the room, and you were upset because I was crying. I guess y’all thought, Well, it finally dawned on ole Iva Lou that she could be takin’ a dirt nap with this cancer. But I wasn’t crying about dying, or losing my party horns, or even the pain of it, which was substantial—I paid for every sin I ever committed with the pain of that surgery, I promise you that. I wasn’t crying about me. No, I was crying because I thought if I did die then, I’d never meet my daughter. But I felt that it was Lovely’s place to find me. If I went searching for her, she may not have wanted that. So I had a dilemma.”

“What did you do?”

“I let it set. I trusted that if it was going to happen, it would. I didn’t force it.” Iva Lou reaches out and pats my hand. “The same way with you. I wasn’t going to bother you.”

“I wish you would have.”

“I wasn’t ready,” replies my dearest friend.

“I guess I wasn’t either,” I say truthfully.

Iva Lou and I eat our lunch and talk about general things—books, local news, Lyle’s back problem, and Jack’s heart. We’re both a little wary, and why wouldn’t we be, after this patch of winter between us? But we’re still who we are. We catch up as though years have passed, even though it’s been only a few months.

I’ve learned so much from Iva Lou in our long friendship, but I never thought that she’d be the person to teach me forgiveness. I have a hard time forgiving myself. Once again, she shows me how by her example. I hope we are blessed with the gift of time so I can return the favor.

How did she do it? How did she let go of her daughter and trust that one day Lovely would find her? Iva Lou loved her only child so much that she gave her the best life she could without expecting anything in return. I can’t say I’ve ever done that. I certainly did not do that with my children. The expectation was always that I knew best for them, and by God, they were going to listen, because my love was the stamp of approval. How ridiculous that seems in light of everything I’ve learned from Iva Lou. No wonder I was angry with her; I was angry with myself. I wasn’t judging her, I was judging me. I hold everyone I love so closely, it’s a miracle they can breathe. I’ve held on to the memory of my son so doggedly, it’s a wonder that I made it through the second half of my life. I clung to Etta with such force, I’m lucky she didn’t leave for Italy sooner.

Iva Lou knew her love for her daughter was true and that there were no expectations. She didn’t want a thing from Lovely. Iva Lou trusted in the purity of that mother love so deeply, she knew Lovely would find her someday. I was always afraid my love wasn’t strong enough to bind my children to me. I had to grip them tightly in every way and never let go. That was not good for them or for me. Even death itself did not loosen the bond I had with Joe. Up until a few weeks ago, I was still looking for him, half expecting him to return, as though his death had been a terrible mistake, a mix-up that could be rectified by the strength of my own will. I held my dying son in my arms, and even that wasn’t enough. The proof of my love was in my forever longing. Love would not change, grow, or end. I made this child, and by God, he was not going to leave me.

When I got on the plane to go to Etta’s wedding last fall, I planned to talk her out of getting married and into my way of thinking. I was going to bring her to her senses, so she would cancel the wedding and come home, go to college, and follow my plan for her. Luckily, when I saw her in Schilpario, I knew that she wasn’t pulling a stunt or manufacturing an act of defiance to break from me; rather, she was following the path of her heart. She really loves Stefano, and I knew it when she was a girl. I dismissed that as a schoolgirl crush because I didn’t want it to be true. No daughter of mine was going to marry young and live in a foreign country with an ocean between us. How wrong I was to judge my daughter. Thank God I didn’t ruin her wedding day with my own agenda. The truth is, my heart wasn’t open to my own child. But now it is. This is the great miracle of my long winter. I am beginning to let go, and as I do, just like Iva Lou, I trust that peace will come.

Huff Rock

M
y husband rolls over and wakes me with a kiss. “Good morning.”

“Did I oversleep?”

“No, it’s early. But I know you wanted to spend some time with your dad before we drive everybody over to the airport.”

I sit up in bed. I look out the window to where the sun glows pink at sunrise. “I haven’t slept like that in forever.”

“I’m glad you made up with Iva Lou. Now the tossing and turning is over.”

“Was it that bad?”

My husband nods.

“Never underestimate the healing power of a clean slate,” I say. It’s true that I feel rested for the first time in months.

“It was only a matter of time.” Jack leans back on the pillow. “Maybe life can get back to normal.”

“Normal? Don’t you know who you’re married to?”

Jack, Theodore, and I wave to Papa and Giacomina as they board the commuter for Charlotte, where they can catch a connecting flight to Newark and then home to Italy. I don’t cry. I really feel that I’m learning not to hold on so tightly to those I love. It makes the good-bye temporary.

“Come on, let’s grab lunch before my flight,” says Theodore.

“Let’s go to the Cracker Barrel,” Jack suggests.

“Good idea.” Theodore gives Jack a pat on the back. “I want to get my cholesterol nice and elevated before I return to New York.”

“Then order the chicken-fried steak.”

“I’m an addict!” Theodore shrieks. “If they took a picture of my arteries right now, they’d look like concrete pipes filled with goo. I ate Fleeta’s cooking every chance I got. I know for a fact that between the ham biscuits, the gravy, the dumplings, and that banana pudding, I consumed a tub of lard.”

The hostess at the Cracker Barrel who leads us to our table is a long-legged, lanky Southern girl around sixty. Her blond hair is swept up into a fountain with clips, and her nail tips have tiny diamond accents. Her cinch belt seems to cut off her circulation, but she’s going for sexy even though she’s bordering on matron. She doesn’t wear a wedding ring. Iva Lou always said that a woman who works in a restaurant is most likely to find a husband, regardless of her age. “Men like to eat,” Iva Lou said. “Forget the fancy clothes and perfume, and just feed ’em.”

I take Jack’s hand as he reads the menu. Every chance I get, I touch him. I read an article that said a man’s blood pressure decreases when his wife holds his hand.

“Okay, here’s the file from the Stonemans in Aberdeen.” Theodore gives me an envelope. “Here’s their e-mail, address, and phone. I sent them your information. It looks like a pretty simple exchange. They have a cat named Charles, so they won’t mind watching after Shoo.”

“Good.”

“They live right outside the city of Aberdeen. You can use their car, and they’ll need the use of one of yours. There’s only one tricky thing.”

“What’s that?”

“They have a garden. It’s a serious garden. They grow their own vegetables. Spring is when they do a lot of prep work on the garden, and since they won’t be there…”

“I’ll take care of it,” Jack promises. “I’d love to. I haven’t had a garden for years—it’ll be fun.”

“And what else are you going to do over there?” jokes Theodore.

Jack beams. “Are you kidding? I’ve got a list!”

It makes me happy to see Jack looking forward to something. I haven’t seen this kind of pep in him since he coached Etta’s ninth-grade basketball team. You would have thought he was John Wooden, the way he strategized their plays.

He’s methodical about planning for his absence. He made sure that Mousey and the boys have enough help with their construction company. Tyler Hutchinson said he’d hold Jack’s consultant position open until our return. Eddie Carleton is going to cover for me at the Pharmacy, so except for a learning curve about Aberdeen and Scottish history, we are good to go when springtime comes. It’s the power of something to look forward to: it changes the colors of the world from drab to gorgeous.

Jack and I are having a little trouble adjusting to the quiet after our full house at Christmas, but with Scotland to look forward to, we don’t give our post-holiday blues much thought.

After putting the last of the ornament boxes back in the attic, Jack is off with Tyler Hutchinson up to Huff Rock. I put on my coat and boots and hat and head for the woods. I promised Jack I’d take the pink lights off his bridge, and I’m finally getting around to it. It’s the last remaining sign in Cracker’s Neck Holler that Christmas was here.

My feet crunch on the frozen ground as I make my way into the woods. The bright sun fills the forest with streamers of golden light. The gulley that will become a stream, come spring, looks like a black velvet ribbon following the curves of the hill and disappearing into the trees.

I’m lost in thought when I hear the sound of footsteps. I turn to look, but I don’t see anyone behind me. I can see our field from this point in the path, but our stone house is almost gone from view. I continue toward the bridge. I’ve taken two steps when I hear a voice in the woods to my left.

“Hey, Mrs. Mac.”

I turn. “Randy! You’re back.” I must be too happy to see him, because he smiles but takes a step back, as if to say, “Whoa, lady. Calm down.”

“I needed a sample of pokeberries. And you’ve got ’em in your woods.”

“Go right ahead.”

Randy kneels down and pulls a pokeberry root out of the ground.

“No berries this time of year. Sorry,” I tell him.

“Not a problem. The berries are poisonous. We use them to make red ink.”

“Really?”

“The roots are what’s most valuable, though. You dry them and make tea out of them. Some swear it cures arthritis. We got a grant to do a study,” Randy says proudly.

“There’s gold in these mountains.”

“Of a type. They’re loaded with medicinal herbs. You know: wild greens. Woolly lamb’s ear. Catnip. Dandelion. That sort of thing. These mountains have been called a Native American medicine chest, and it’s not too far from the truth.”

“I studied about it in school, though not much and not for long, because pharmacology is really about synthetic drugs now.”

“Yeah, but synthetics are modeled on the real thing. You need the original to copy it in a lab.” Randy seals the bagful of poke root. “I’m almost done with the project at Berea. I’m going to miss this mountain. Did you know if you went into these woods and kept walking west that it’s thirty miles of pure mountain forest?”

“I knew it was miles and miles.”

“It’s never been surveyed properly, though.”

“How do you know?”

“I’ve had to spend a good bit of time making maps. There weren’t any.”

“If you grew up around here…”

“Yeah. But I didn’t. I came into this cold.”

“Have you had lunch?”

“No, ma’am.”

“Why don’t you come to the house and I’ll fix you some? I’m expecting Jack later. I’d like you to tell him some of the things you’ve learned about this forest.” I have an agenda, obviously.

“I’d like to, ma’am. But I have a lot of work to do yet.”

“Everybody needs to eat lunch.”

He smiles. “I guess that’s true.”

“I just have to take the lights off my husband’s footbridge over the creek.”

“I saw that. Did he make it himself?”

“Yep. Anything my husband makes has to last a minimum of a hundred years. That’s his motto and his goal.”

“Ain’t many around like him anymore.”

“Not many,” I agree.

Randy follows me to the bridge. I don’t feel wary with him: after years of trusting my gut and relying on the Ancient Art of Chinese Face-Reading, I can see that Randy is a thoughtful person and a kind one (the curve of his lips tells me that). It’s selfish, I know, but having him with me, it’s as though Joe is here; if Joe had lived, he’d be this age. I’m desperate to know, or just to have a window into, what that might have been like.

I gently pull the lights off the railing of the bridge, rolling them around my hand and under my elbow, as Jack taught me (I learned how to wrap cable that way when I helped him with the Kiwanis Christmas-tree sale one year). On our way back to the house, Randy stops to record some moss he finds at the base of the old Scotch broom trees near the fence line. He takes out his notebook, jots down a few descriptions, then photographs the moss. His notebook is almost full. He closes it.

“How did you end up at Berea College?” I ask.

He shrugs. “It’s free.”

“For everybody who attends, right? Not just scholarship students?”

“Yep. My dad didn’t want to pay for college, and I didn’t want to go ROTC. Most of my friends did that. But I’m not the military type—I’m not real good at following orders.”

“Neither am I.”

Shoo the Cat meets us at the screen door on the sunporch. He eyes Randy up and down and then decides he’s okay. Old Shoo rubs up against his calf, and Randy picks him up. “I didn’t know you had a cat.”

“He hides on holidays. He’s not a fan of crowds.”

“He’s an old one.” Randy pets him gently.

“Twenty-two. I can’t believe it.”

“I heard of a cat living until twenty-eight once.”

“No way!”

“Yes, ma’am. If they’re happy, they last almost forever.”

“Like people.”

Randy laughs. “I guess some.”

I pull a tray of lasagna out of the refrigerator and put it in the oven. I set the table for three, and I offer Randy a drink, which he accepts. I pour glasses of iced tea for both of us.

“Tell me about your family,” I say.

“My mom died when I was five years old.”

“Oh, no. That’s terrible.”

“My dad remarried—a nice woman. Her name is Cynthia, and she had three kids of her own.”

“Do you get along with them?”

Randy shrugs. “I’m so much older than they are. Really, it’s not about me liking them, it’s about staying out of their way.”

“I understand.” I take a sip of tea. “How did your mom die?”

“She died in a car accident. I was in the car at the time.”

“Do you remember it?”

“Sometimes I think I do. But I’m not sure. There was a picture of the car in the newspaper; it was crumpled like a beer can. The headline said, ‘Boy Survives.’ I always resented that. It should have said, ‘Mother Dies.’”

“How old was your mom?”

“She was born in 1944.”

“Like me!”

“Wow. She’d be your age now, then.”

“How old are you?”

“Eighteen.”

“My son would have been eighteen on his next birthday.”

We look away from each other, almost afraid of the similarities.

“What happened to him? Your son?” he asks.

“He died of cancer. Leukemia.”

“How old was he?”

“Only four years old.”

“Wow, that’s so sad.”

“Last September,” I tell him, “when I saw you in the woods, I thought you might be him.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. I guess it’s because on some level, I like to pretend it was all a mistake. I can imagine that somehow, somewhere, my son survived and he’s finding his way back home.”

“Were you with him when he died?”

I nod.

“Then you know he really did die.”

“Yes. My little fantasy doesn’t make any sense. But to tell you the truth, none of it has ever made any sense to me. I still wake up and can’t believe he’s gone. So I guess I imagine things to cope. I even thought you might be an angel, coming to take someone away again.”