Porch Lights (20 page)

It wasn’t long before Jackie straggled in with her arm around Charlie’s shoulders.

“Jeez! What smells so good?” Charlie asked.

“Please don’t say “jeez,” Charlie. It sounds like you’re taking the Lord’s name in vain,” I said and looked at Jackie for backup.

“Everything smells good, and Glam is right,” Jackie said, inspecting all the pans. “Mom, if this doesn’t stop we’re going to gain fifty pounds!”

“Portion control! It’s all about moderation,” I said. “Charlie? Do you know how to use a blender?”

“Sure,” he said.

“Say, ‘Yes, ma’am,’ Charlie baby.”

“Yes, ma’am!” Charlie said, like a good parrot.

“Well, let’s get those chunks of watermelon liquefied! Here, I’ll show you!”

“Don’t have to, Mom. He used to make frozen margaritas for us all the time,” Jackie said.

“What?”
I was horrified!

“Mom! I’m kidding! I’m kidding!”

“That’s not funny, missy! Don’t you make me go cut a switch! You’re not too big for me to turn over my knee, you know.”

“I’d like to take a picture of that!” Charlie said. “I make milk shakes in the blender all the time.”

“Aha!” I said.

We had a good chuckle, and the mood in the room was just right.

“Well, I lost my walking buddy for today,” I said, putting plates in front of Jackie and Charlie. “Deb had to take Vernon into the ER again.”

“Blood pressure?” Jackie said. “This looks delicious, Mom.”

“Thanks. No. Not this time. He’s got chest pain,” I said, sliding a piece of soggy bread into the skillet for myself.

“This
is
delicious, Glam,” Charlie said, inserting a man-sized forkful into his mouth.

“Hmmm. Chest pain’s not something to mess around with,” Jackie said.

“Maybe someone else wants to comb the beach with me this morning?”

“I would, but I have to be downtown by eleven. I’m meeting the head of Human Resources at the VA. I think they want me to help with shifts. You know, a lot of nurses are trying to have one last vacation before the summer is over. It’s good money.”

“Well, I think that’s a wonderful idea!” I said and finally sat down with them. “Better than working for nothing, not that I don’t believe in volunteer work, because I certainly do.”

“Mom always says that if you pulled all the people out of my school that volunteer it would fall apart.”

“It probably would,” Jackie said.

“Well, I’m doing my talk on Poe at the library gratis,” I said.

“Did you and Deb finally settle on a date?” Jackie said.

“Halloween weekend,” I said.

“Well, we’ll have to check the calendar, because Mr. Charles over here has to start fifth grade on the twenty-second. At some point we have to go home. That’s awful soon to come back if we’re coming for Thanksgiving too.”

“Not going,” Charlie said very quietly.

“Yes, you are, Son.”

Hmmm, I thought, what am I missing here?

“Charlie, why don’t you and I walk the beach together this morning?”

“Well, okay, but we’d have to go soon because I’m meeting the kids from Greenville to go skateboarding in the parking lot at Fort Moultrie.”

“Skateboarding?”

“Yeah, you didn’t see it? Guster bought me this awesome skateboard!”

I got up and took their plates, rinsing them for the dishwasher. “Aren’t those things dangerous?”

“Mom? When you see Charlie on his skateboard—wearing his helmet, I might add—you’ll see that he owns the road.”

“Really? Well, then, I can’t wait! Drink your juice, darlin’.”

“It’s weird,” Charlie said.

“Well, then, don’t drink it,” I said. “It’s just juice.”

“Sorry, Glam.”

“It’s better with tequila in it anyway,” Jackie said and started to laugh. I gave her the hairy eyeball, and she laughed even harder. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me this morning.”

“I think your sense of humor is back in town,” I said, “and it’s been gone too long. Charlie, go get Stella and Stanley, and I’ll be done here by the time you get back.”

“I’m outta here!” Charlie said in a burst of energy, and he was gone. “Thanks for breakfast, Glam. The French toast was awesome!”

“What would the young ones do if they couldn’t say
awesome
and
sweet
?” Jackie asked. “Although, I gotta say, the French toast actually
was
awesome. Here, give me that towel. I’ll dry.”

Within the hour, Jackie was on her way to the city, the new darlings of the house, Stanley and Stella, having had their run, were curled up on my porch having their morning nap, and I was walking down the beach with Charlie, heading toward the lighthouse.

“It’s probably a good thing that I left the dogs at home,” Charlie said. “They’re so wild you’d have a hard time controlling even one of them.”

“I’m sure you’re right. The ocean looks angry today,” I said. “Do you know why?”

“Too many fish in there?”

“No, because there’s a tropical disturbance down by the Dominican Republic and it makes the water churn. Be sure that you and your friends stay out of the water today.”

“Even the gully?”

“No, you can swim in the gully at low tide, but don’t put your toes in the ocean. You might get caught in a rip tide and get carried out to sea. It’s a stupid way to die.”

“Okay. What’s a smart way to die?”

“At one hundred and twenty-five years old in your sleep with no pain. And with your hair and makeup done by Hailey from Allure.”

“Oh, Glam, you’re so silly.”

“Glam is clever, not silly. An important distinction. So what’s going on with you, young man?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, this morning at the breakfast table, I heard you mumble something about staying here.”

He dug his big toe into the cool sand and, looking very forlorn, drew a circle. “I wish I could.”

“I know. I wish you could too. But you can’t because you have to go back to school.”

“I hate New York.”

“You do? Why?”

“Because terrible things happen there. All Mom does is mope around the house, and it’s too sad. I don’t want to be sad, and I don’t want her to be sad either.”

“I don’t want y’all to be sad either.” Oh, Lord, I thought my heart was going to break.

“All we do is think about Dad and cry.”

“Oh, Charlie!”

“And I hate my school too.”

“Why, baby?”

“Because nobody cares about anybody.”

“Oh, sweetheart, even you know that can’t be entirely true.”

“No. It
is
true. People are jealous of every little thing and the big kids push around the little kids. And the teachers are a joke. They don’t do anything about it.”

“Oh, my darling boy. Don’t you think that the schools here have their fair share of bullies and negligent teachers? Of course they do!”

“Maybe. Is that supposed to make me feel better?”

“Yes. And you know what? If you were here every day, maybe it wouldn’t be so special to you? Why don’t we get a calendar and let’s count the weekends until Thanksgiving and Christmas and Easter and let’s figure out how we’re going to get you back here for a good long stretch in the summer. I have lots of points on my credit card that I can use for airline tickets so you don’t have to take that insufferable drive.”

“If you say so. That’s better than nothing.”

“It’s a heck of a lot better than nothing! Now, let’s cheer up, all right?”

We reached the rocks near the lighthouse and turned to go back. The eastern skies were forbidding and dark. There was a storm coming, but it would probably just be some rain and enough wind to bring in the hanging baskets and take the cushions off the porch chairs. I wasn’t particularly concerned with this squall. It didn’t even have a name. When they named the storms and said they were a category 4, that was when I checked my battery supplies and went to the store for water. Other than that, most people in the Lowcountry kept an eye on the weather reports but went on about their business and didn’t panic.

We were almost back to my house when Charlie announced that he was stopping off at his friends’ house. He wanted to be sure they were all up for the day and said he would be home shortly to pick up his skateboard. I knew he’d be safe, so I said all right and blew him a kiss. Then I burst into tears. He had no idea how desperately I wanted him and Jackie to stay, while I was so glad to see that he was beginning to focus on his own life again and I knew that the time they had spent here had been instrumental in both of them thinking about their lives going forward. And I knew that when they left I would be inconsolable. Absolutely inconsolable. But I couldn’t let either one of them see how I felt. If Jackie ever decided to move home, I wanted it to be her decision, not the result of me pushing her into something she’d blame me for later. I also realized how quickly I had become used to them being there. Each day had purpose, and I went from minute to minute, meal to meal, thinking how rejuvenated I felt to have the job of seeing about them. I hardly ever wept except in the movies, but now my tears were coming and coming, the unsummoned and unwelcome little shits. I hated to think what I must have looked like. Who cared anyway? No one. Realizing that no one cared about my tears, I cried all the more. Thank God the beach was relatively empty. I would have hated being caught looking like a doddering old fool.

When I walked over my beach steps, I could see someone on my porch. Who was it? Deb? No. As I got a little closer I could see it was Buster. Great. Old shirt. No makeup. Red nose running like an open faucet, and surely my eyes were bloodshot like hell. Great. Then I thought, Screw it. I don’t care what he thinks anyway.

I sniffed hard, wiped my eyes, climbed the steps, opened the screen door, and went inside. He was at the far end of the porch playing with the dogs, scratching them behind their ears. He stood.

“Don’t get up,” I said.

“What the hell’s the matter with you? You been crying? You never cry!”

“Allergies. It’s pollen from the sea oats. I get this from time to time.” I took off my sneakers and reopened the door, knocked the sand out of them, and left them on the top step under the overhang.

“What the hell did you do to your hair? You cut it!”

“Well, aren’t you observant?”

“I thought you knew I liked it better long!”

“It’s my hair. Not yours. So, don’t concern yourself with it. And speaking of hell? Just what the hell are you doing here?” Stella and Stanley got up and came over to me and licked my legs. Then they took another lick and another lick . . . “Stop licking me, you crazy animals!”

“I brought a hurricane preparation kit.”

Nothing short of a nuclear disaster could make the dogs stop licking my legs. I kept trying to push them away, but it was in vain. They were snacking on my new body lotion.

“That’s nice. For what? I think that over the past decade I’ve been able to hold the Salty Dog together in one piece.”

“I always loved that name.”

“I don’t.”

“I know. Anyway, Arlene’s up to a category three. That’s her name. Arlene.”

“Great. Every Arlene I ever knew was a raging psychopath.”

“Humph. Where’s my grandson?”

“He’s out there somewhere in the streets of Sodom and Gomorrah with his friends from Greenville, and then the plan is to risk life and limb on that fool skateboard you bought him. Stop it, you silly dogs.”

Buster smirked at me and pointed to the dogs. “Don’t worry about Charlie on the skateboard. He could give lessons. Whaddya have on your legs? Bacon?”

“
Excuse me!
I’m going inside!”

“I’d wash my legs if I were you!” he called out to my back.

“Oh, stuff it, you old trout!” I hollered to him.

“And you’re an old crab!” he yelled back to me. And he was laughing.

Chapter 11

“I thought so!—I knew it!—hurrah!” vociferated Legrand. . . .

“Come! We must go back,” said the latter, “the game’s not up yet;” and he again led the way to the tulip-tree.

—Edgar Allan Poe, “The Gold-Bug”

Jackie

I
came home from the VA hospital wrinkled, sweaty, and with a part-time job. They needed help, and I guess I secretly wanted to see what it would be like to work there if I ever came back to Charleston. So I told them I’d work Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday from seven
A.M.
to seven at night. It was just for a couple of weeks, and I knew I’d learn something. You always learned something in a new job—a new treatment or therapy or about new medicines. As much as I loved visiting with my mother, I was beginning to get the itch for some diversion. And I missed nursing. Once it’s in your blood it’s hard to resist the call to duty. And I was aching to be with veterans. If nothing else, we would understand each other.

I came into the house through the kitchen, and no one was there. So I went from room to room until I found Dad and Charlie on the porch. They were at the trestle table, leaning over a hurricane-tracking chart. There was a pile of colored highlighters and other things scattered around.