Looking for Salvation at the Dairy Queen (18 page)

I wanted to scream at Eddie. I wanted to tell him that I hated him and I hated that mountain. But more than anything else, I wanted to tell him that right now I hated my mama and I hated my daddy. I hated the way they both left me here. But nothing came out of my mouth. All I saw was a redheaded boy who had never gotten much more from me than an off-handed thank-you. I held on tight to my Dilly Bar and climbed on top of the picnic table, turning my back to Eddie Franklin and the blinking Dairy Queen sign that now seemed like it was there only to taunt me.

My fingers were so cold and stiff that I put the white paper bag between my teeth and grabbed the stick with one hand and pulled the ice cream out, revealing the most beautiful Dilly Bar I had ever seen. The curlicue was perfectly shaped and positioned right in the middle of the bar. The chocolate was smooth and seamless, and the ice cream was just hard enough so I didn't have to wait for it to soften before my first bite. I ate the chocolate shell first and then let the ice cream melt on my tongue until it was so soft and creamy that it slid right down my throat.

Eddie was right about one thing. That was for sure. I had spent an awful lot of time on this table plotting and scheming my way out of here. But he didn't understand. He didn't understand that the day my mama died, I just wanted to go with her, and every day after that. Now she was back, Daddy was gone, and a baby was on the way. And somehow I felt more alone today than I ever had before.

Taylor's Ridge was hidden behind a wall of falling snow and gray, heavy clouds. I looked down at what was left of my Dilly Bar and wondered if Eddie Franklin looked up at that lonely mountain. Did he ever find himself sitting up here on this picnic table, eating his very own Dilly Bar with the snow swirling about his head? I guess I already knew the answer.

I figured Eddie Franklin must have been a lot like my own great-granddaddy, who walked over that ridge to come and do the Lord's work. William Floyd never doubted where he was meant to be, and I don't think Eddie has, either. And yet that's all I've ever done, doubt where I'm meant to be. My body began shivering and shaking, but I wasn't cold anymore. I felt warm, wet tears streaming down my face, stinging my cheeks as they fell. With the very last bite of my Dilly Bar melting in my mouth, I became more convinced that my life was about to change in a way that I had not come close to imagining. And I had a strange, call it prophetic, feeling that I was heading into a storm of biblical proportions.

I stepped down from the picnic table and, throwing my ice cream wrapper in the trash, I looked back at Eddie Franklin. He was washing down the soft-serve ice cream machine, smiling as he stood behind the counter, moving his wet rag across the stainless steel.

CHAPTER TWELVE

The Prodigal Daughter Claims the Promised Land

M
ama was sitting on the front porch by the time I got home. The house was lit up like a Christmas tree and I could hear Gloria Jean and Miss Mabie laughing inside the kitchen. They were probably sitting around the table, sipping the day's last cup of coffee, reminiscing about boys they had loved back in Birmingham. But Mama, wrapped snugly in a crocheted blanket, was sitting alone, swaying back and forth in one of the old aluminum gliders that Daddy had bought years ago at the Dollar General Store.

“How's that chair feel?” I asked her.

“Great,” she said, obviously relieved I had spoken first.

“That was Daddy's favorite place to sit,” I told her, knowing good and well that the wooden rocker was the only chair on this porch he ever sat in. I just wasn't sure how to talk to her about my daddy.

“Catherine Grace,” Mama said with an urgent tone that told me she had been waiting a long time to say what was on her mind. “I have dreamed about this moment since the day I left Ringgold. I've practiced what I wanted to say to you for, well, at least a million times. But now that I'm here looking at you, I'm just not sure how to say it all.”

I needed her to try. After all this time, I needed her to try. So I just stood there, waiting a little bit longer.

“You know, when I was your age, you were already one year old. I was so young, Catherine, maybe too young, too young to be a good mother. There were all these places I dreamed of going, places far away from Willachoochee and Ringgold. And there were all these things I dreamed of doing, and your daddy, God rest his soul, wouldn't hear of any of it. He said I took a vow before God to be a wife and mother and there was no going back on my word. I couldn't have it both ways, he said. But as soon as I made that vow, I started praying, begging the good Lord not to hold a sixteen-year-old girl to a promise like that.

“You know my own mama, your grandmamma, didn't understand me wanting to be a singer. She never had much money or much patience for my foolish way of thinking, and she figured your daddy was making me respectable or something.

“And your daddy did promise me something better than I knew, it just wasn't what I wanted . . . or it wasn't what I thought I wanted. A lot of mistakes were made along the way.”

“Did Daddy hurt you? Was he unkind to you?” I asked, not certain I was ready to hear the answer.

“No. No. Get that thought out of your head. We just wanted different things, and he couldn't accept me not wanting his life completely. You have to know this, Catherine Grace, I never told your daddy I was leaving. It just happened. I was standing in the river, watching the leaves float away on the surface of the water, and something deep inside told me to run.”

Somehow that revelation felt like a little blessing amid all the confusion. Just knowing Daddy hadn't helped mama with her drowning felt like a gift.

“Sometimes, Catherine Grace, you spend your life looking for the one thing you had all along,” she said softly, a single tear rolling down her cheek. “I am just so sorry, more than you will ever know.” Her body was shaking underneath her blanket, and I walked in front of her and got down on my knees. I took her hands into mine and I looked her in the face so I could see square into her eyes.

“Did you love me? I mean when you left, did you truly love me?”

She quit shaking and I leaned in even closer. Mama didn't flinch. She sat quiet and still as I moved my face directly in front of hers. I stared deep into her eyes, and for a minute, I knew I was looking right into her soul. Those beautiful brown eyes, every detail of which I had memorized in my sleep, were full of sadness. My mama's heart was broken too. It had been broken for a long time. I could see it for myself.

“I love you, too,” I said, holding my mama's hands tightly in mine.

As I held my mama's hands, all I could think about was my daddy. He used to love to tell me the story of the lost sheep. He told me so many times I knew it by heart. Sitting here with my mama, I could hear him telling me again.

You see, there was a man who had a hundred sheep, but one of them wanders off. He loved all his sheep, and he left the other ninety-nine grazing on a hillside just to go looking for that one that couldn't find his way back home. When he finally finds it, he is happier about this one little lost sheep than he is about the other ninety-nine still grazing on the hillside.

Somehow I always figured Daddy was trying to tell me that I was that little lost sheep, trying to find my way back home. Maybe I am. But I think my mama was that little lost sheep, too. I knew she was back, I could see her plain as day. But I wasn't sure she had yet found her way home.

All the sadness I had been storing up wasn't all going to blow away tonight as easily as the wind blowing through my hair. But my heart wasn't hurting as much as it had the night before, and I had a feeling it wasn't going to hurt as much tomorrow night, either.

Mama and I sat on the porch for hours. She wanted to know everything about me, from my favorite color to my date for the senior prom. I told her about my shopping trip to Loveman's with Gloria Jean and about my pink dress. She smiled and cried at the same time, happy for my joy and sad that she had missed the journey. I told her about Hank and how we broke up and that he was dating Ruthie Morgan now. I told her that I missed him and had ever since that night back in June. We talked till my eyes and head began to hurt, neither one of us noticing that it was beginning to snow again and the ground in front of us was turning white.

But I couldn't leave. I wanted to know what Mama had been doing for the last twelve years. I wanted to drink it in slowly, savoring everything she said. She sang in a few bars in Nashville but never made it to the Opry. Mostly she waited tables at a restaurant near Music Row, serving Cobb salads and club sandwiches to fresh-faced music executives half her age. On the weekends, she sang at the Heritage Funeral Home. She said it was good money, and the grief-stricken weren't prone to complain about her performance.

Turns out the birthday cards I had gotten from my aunt in Willacoochee every year had come from her. At first she mailed them to an old friend who in turn would mail them to Martha Ann and me. Then about eight years ago, she moved back to Willacoochee to take care of her dying mama. She said they had never really gotten along, and, unfortunately, nothing changed much at the end. Anyway, she's lived there ever since, waiting tables, the only thing, she says, she knows how to do.

I wasn't sure if I was ever going to be able to accept or understand what my mama had done. But I guess I was coming to think like Martha Ann, I was just grateful to have a mama, good or bad.

Gloria Jean tapped on the front door and then opened it just enough to show her face. I waited for her to say something, but she was unexpectedly quiet. I think she was “drinking us in” as she'd say. I think she was drinking every last drop. Finally, she spoke.

“Ladies, I hate to call this evening to an end, but it's getting late and this cold air is not good for your complexions. And I know both of you want to look your best at the funeral tomorrow. The whole damn town's going to turn out for this one,” Gloria Jean declared, as if we might actually be surprised by this announcement.

“Not every day the preacher's dead wife shows up at her husband's service, now is it?” laughed Gloria Jean, obviously looking forward to the day's events. I thought I might need to remind her that this was going to be a funeral not a wedding.

“Gloria Jean,” my mama said, standing up and turning toward her friend, “I always knew you were the dearest person in this town, but Catherine Grace has been telling me, well, I need to thank you.”

“Lord, for what?”

“For loving my girls.”

“Oh Lord, Lena Mae, you are going to get me crying, and I sure don't want red, puffy eyes at that church tomorrow. Roberta Huckstep will be there and God only knows I have to look better than that old bat. Right, Catherine Grace?”

“That's right,” I said, looking up at Gloria Jean. I could see her face in the light shining through the kitchen window. She wasn't wearing one lick of makeup. I don't think I had ever seen Gloria Jean without any makeup except that time she had her face covered with a bluish looking mud. But tonight, with her face bare, she looked absolutely beautiful.

The snow was falling harder and even the trees were turning white. Everything looked pure and peaceful. Suddenly I had that familiar, desperate urging to be with my sister. I got up and hugged Mama and Gloria Jean and then stepped into the warmth of the only home I had ever known. “Hey, would you do me a favor, Gloria Jean?” I asked, turning back to face her. “Tell Brother Bowden to get in touch with the minister in LaFayette first thing in the morning. He's welcome to come to the service, but I'll be delivering my daddy's eulogy.” Then, with that said, I shut the door, leaving Mama and Gloria Jean staring blankly at each other, unsure of what to think.

Martha Ann was already asleep in my bed, having offered her own to Flora. I crawled in next to her and began stroking her hair. She turned her face toward me and asked what time it was.

“A little after midnight, I think.”

“Lord, Catherine Grace, where have you been all day? I was getting kind of worried about you.”

“It was a long way home, but I'm here.” It had been six months since I left Ringgold, and yet the day I stepped on that Greyhound bus seemed like a lifetime ago. It surely had been a long way home, but it felt good being here, lying next to my little sister

“You know, Martha Ann, I'm not so sure a person can run away from home.”

“What? Am I dreaming? You are Catherine Grace Cline, aren't you?” Martha Ann couldn't help but wonder.

“All I'm saying is that you can run away from a town or a house, but I'm not so sure you can run away from your home.”

Martha Ann practically fell out of the bed. She sat straight up and turned on the light. She said she had to see my face to make sure I wasn't just joking with her. She wanted to know what had gotten me talking like that. I told her I wasn't really sure. Daddy would have said it was the Holy Spirit, but I think it might have been Eddie Franklin. Either way, all I knew was that I had spent my life begging the Lord to hear me out, to let me know He was out there somewhere, actually caring about what happened to Catherine Grace Cline. Turns out, I think He was talking to me all along, I just never bothered to listen to what He had to say.

“It's a funny thing, Martha Ann,” I said, “how much time we spend planning our lives. We so convince ourselves of what we want to do, that sometimes we don't see what we're meant to do. Maybe Daddy was right, maybe I was meant to be here after all.”

“What are you meant to do here, Catherine? Grow tomatoes?” she asked. “You'll never be happy doing that.”

I wasn't exactly sure of everything, I told her. But it would come to me in time. I did feel certain of that.

As we snuggled in my bed, I could see the snow had stopped falling. The moon behind Taylor's Ridge was full and bright and the reflection of the moonlight off the snow made the sky so bright it was almost like day. For the first time, Taylor's Ridge was a comforting sight, like the earth's strong arm holding you close. I apologized to Martha Ann, thinking maybe I had forced my dream on her. Maybe I'd forced her to eat too many Dilly Bars.