The Unraveling of Mercy Louis (15 page)

Back at the house, Illa bangs through the front door; she's on the hunt. It's late, past nine o'clock, which means Mama's already in bed. Illa doesn't care; if she could wake the whole neighborhood, she would. She's spent years of her life looking after a woman who should have been looking after
her
. And now Mama has gone and mucked up Illa's chance to ever befriend Mercy. Come September, the year will start, unfolding in blocks of hours and days and weeks, and it will be lonely as any other year, except that when it ends in May, that will be it. There'll be no more basketball, no more team, no more Lennox and his stories and beer, no more darkroom. After graduation, it's going to be Illa and Mama together in the house on Galvez Street until one of them dies.

Bursting into the bedroom, Illa switches on the overhead light. It shines ruthlessly on her mother, who groans from where she's curled beneath the comforter.

“You're a freak, you know that?” Illa says, the consonance of
freak
satisfying in her mouth. She sees Mama shift toward the sound of her voice, but she doesn't come out from beneath the covers, as if Illa is a nightmare that will dematerialize if Mama keeps her eyes shut tight enough.

“Do you know what it's like to be ashamed of your mother every hour of every waking day?” Illa shouts, panting with exertion.

Slowly, Mama's head turtles out from her cave. “Illa—”

“No, no, shut up,” Illa says, pacing in front of the door. “I'm sick of listening to your excuses. Other people lost things that day, Mama, and you don't see them just
giving up,
just throwing in the fucking towel! Christ, Lennox's dad is actually
going to die
in six months, and he's in a
rage
because of it, because he's not ready to go.”

“Illa, what's got into you?”

“The letters, Mama, Mercy's letters.”

Mama struggles to sit up, squinting against the harsh light. Her wide-necked nightgown has slipped down one shoulder, revealing a slab of pale flesh.

“How do you know about those letters?”

“It'd be so easy if I just let you keep playing your sick little games, whatever they're about.”

“So you read them?”

“I opened one and figured out pretty fast it wasn't meant for you, so I found the rest of them and gave them to their goddamned owner!”

“Illa, you weren't—”

“No,
you
weren't supposed to go reading Mercy's mail, but you
did,
and now everything's fucked.”

“I was supposed to hold the letters until Mercy came to get them, Charmaine asked me to.”

“But you
read
them.” She waits for Mama to deny it, hoping her mother hasn't been pathetic enough to pore over a teenage girl's letters, but Mama keeps silent, her eyes fixed on the floor, chest laboring with each wheezy breath. Then Illa says what she has long thought but never been cruel enough to utter aloud: “Everyone thinks I'm a weirdo because of you. I never had a chance at a regular life, you made shit sure a that!”

Mama flinches as if Illa has chucked acid on her, and Illa feels a twinge of regret. But there's no turning back from the truth; it lies between them in the room, continuing to do damage, like one of those bullets designed to mangle flesh on its journey to the bone.

AFTER THE FIGHT
with Mercy at Park Terrace, Illa reads the other letters. She knows she's a hypocrite but that's not enough to stop her, because when she reads Charmaine's letters, she feels ushered into Mercy's inner circle. After reading them over several times, Illa understands why Mercy wants to pretend they don't exist. Charmaine's need for her daughter rips through the page.

In the weeks that follow, two more of Charmaine's letters arrive. Both times Illa reads them as soon as she closes the bedroom door behind her. A few times Illa finds herself choked with emotion over the hurt that belongs to this woman. Though she wants to be angry with Charmaine for abandoning Mercy, Illa feels a conservative but unmistakable sympathy taking root. Charmaine doesn't dodge blame or make excuses for her behavior, nor does she disguise her reason for writing. Illa admires anyone with the guts to ask for something she doesn't deserve. That kind of audacity is grounded in desire so deep a person stops caring about means or odds, shame or embarrassment. It makes Illa sad to know that Charmaine's letters will go unread by Mercy; she commits them to memory so they won't be wasted. One of them contains a cryptic warning that raises the hair on Illa's neck:

           
Mercy, I hope you'll hear this: if you ever feel unsafe at home, go find someone you trust. Just please, get out of there.

Illa wants to find Mercy and ask if everything is okay, but she knows that she is the last person Mercy wants to see. Evelia seemed wacky, with her visions and her wild eyes, but was she dangerous? What exactly happened to Charmaine in that stilt house at the edge of the bayou?

C
HARMAINE IS A
weed that grows back no matter how many times I take it out at the roots. She must've seen my one letter as encouragement; it was foolish of me to send it.

Poor Illa, wisp of a thing, bringing those letters to the park like she was doing me a favor. I terrorized her, even scared myself a little bit.
Nobody likes an angry woman
. And Travis Salter standing right there, close enough to hear everything.

I continue to train and play every day, hoping I can make myself tired enough that I don't have the energy to think about Charmaine. Now in addition to basketball, I also think of Travis. This new pressure at the chest. At church we're taught to be careful not to fall in love with a man until we're ready for marriage, so we can give our whole heart to our husband.
Every time you love and lose, you give away another piece of your heart,
Pastor Parris says.
Do you want to stand before your husband on your wedding day with nothing but an empty shell where your heart should be?

Sometimes I think guiltily of Coach, the stipend she pays to Maw Maw to make sure I stay sharp over the summer.
True champions aren't well rounded,
she says.
They have a single-minded focus on their goals, and that makes them the best.
I should stop this nonsense with Travis today, I know better. And yet a part of me wonders, what if this is my only chance for love on this earth, in this lifetime?
Love
, the word strange and delicious on my tongue.

We see each other almost every day, except for the afternoons he works at the auto shop downtown. He can't call the house because of Maw Maw, so we make plans every night at Park Terrace, after I'm finished playing. He continues to woo me with sweets, his mother's bread pudding thick with raisins and swimming in bourbon sauce, carrot cake with cream cheese frosting made by his sister, pecan sandy cookies, sweet potato pie from the Boxcar, chocolates from the drugstore; we try to guess the filling before biting into them gleefully, kissing each other with chocolate-cherry mouths, and I think of the Song of Solomon,
Your lips drop sweetness as the honeycomb, my bride; milk and honey are under your tongue.
I'm the happiest I've ever been; I didn't know a person could feel like this outside of church, dreamy and complete.

Over our days together, I begin to discover the secret things in him, like how much he loves words—so much that he's got a whole wall filled with them in his bedroom at home, which he shows me one sticky afternoon, the heat like a third person between us, bullying. As he walks me through his house, we wipe away sweat with the heels of our hands, blink it out of our eyes. It's a nice old house, roomy and full of light, the pine floors knotted and uneven but gleaming with wax, the furniture and curtains in shades of green and yellow and cream. There are sturdy bookcases, a series of framed charcoal drawings of life unfolding in a foreign village, a colorful woven tapestry encased behind glass. An antique map of Texas beckons from over the fireplace, which is filled with half-melted burgundy candles. On the coffee table are more books in teetering stacks, some cracked open at the spine. Out a large picture window, I can see an old oak with low-hanging branches, hummingbird feeders hanging like Christmas ornaments. A tall man—perhaps even taller than Travis—is mowing the lawn, a broad straw hat flopping with each step. I recognize him as Travis's father. He spies us through the window and waves.

Except for the homey untidiness, the house could be from a catalog. I guess you never know what you want until you see it, because yearning clutches at my heart now—it's so different from the stilt house, where I keep quiet as I can so I don't disturb Maw Maw. He's got two younger sisters, one gangly girl I've seen around school from time to time, striking for her height and white-blond hair, and one still at the middle school. They have names like money, Alexandra and Sophia.

Travis's bedroom is dark, done up in boy colors—hunter green, navy, maroon—and filled with the faded smell of his cologne. When he shows me the wall where he's carved or pasted song lyrics and funny bits of conversations he's heard, he's proud but also embarrassed. “No one ever comes in here,” he says by way of excuse; it makes me feel privileged. There are some snippets of poems and lines from books, and it creates a mishmash that makes his room seem cozy and smart, like it's having an artsy conversation with itself. On the wall, Allen Ginsberg, Hunter S. Thompson, Jean-Paul Sartre, Bob Dylan, and Trent Reznor have pride of place. Even the lamp talks, its shade plastered with newspaper headlines he's cut up to say things like
Nuns with guns
and
Planet Earth resigns in disgust
.

“Nice lamp,” I say. It
is
nice, simply because it belongs to him, but he thinks I'm joking and says, “Yeah, about that . . . remnant of the eighth-grade me . . .” I can tell by his expression that he's rethinking the idea to bring me here, glancing around nervously at this space that represents his private self, just to make sure it won't embarrass him more.

“No, really, it's great,” I say, quick to try to reassure him, thinking,
Everything about you is great,
but knowing I can't come out and say that.

“As you can see, I'm a card-carrying member of the Sensitive Boy Club.”

“Your secret's safe with me,” I say, edging close to him so he puts an arm around me. I nuzzle in to his chest and wrap my arms around his narrow hips, let him stroke my hair and kiss the crown of my head until I start to get drowsy. I imagine us standing here like trees entangled on a riverbank until days turn into weeks, then months, legs intertwining like roots, arms like branches. Water, air, sun, and touch, that's all we'd need to live.

When we leave his room, his mom is just getting home from the store. She peeks at us over the edges of the brown paper sacks balancing on her hips. “Howdy,” she says, brushing a strand of honey-colored hair back from her forehead. She's wearing scarlet linen pants and a tunic heavy with dozens of tiny clouded mirrors that reflect light onto the ceiling and walls like a disco ball. From her ears swing filigreed silver earrings. “I'm Sylvie.” She puts out her hand, which is pale and china-delicate, laden with chunky rings. I take it in mine, conscious of the calluses spread over my palms from the weight machines. The words
hippy-dippy
float up to me from the part of my brain that stores random facts about people in our town. Yes, of course, this is
Sylvie,
the
hippy-dippy
artist type who spends all day in her garage making pots out of coils of clay that she stains in outrageous colors, then sells at the Beaumont farmers market. The one who
refuses to marry her children's father even though it means those kids will grow up bastards . . . That
Sylvie. The
crazy pot lady.
I've heard people gossip about her but never connected her to Travis because she doesn't have the same last name. Instantly, I sense that she is a woman who takes herself seriously, even if the town doesn't. She's older, too, maybe halfway between Maw Maw and Charmaine.

“Ma, this is Mercy Louis,” Travis says, placing fingertips at my elbow in a shy attempt at gallantry.

“It is, isn't it?” she says, putting her bags down on the kitchen table. She smiles at me, and I see where he gets it; it's as if she's swallowed a lightbulb. I like her instantly, something in the toothy openness of the smile. Then, unexpectedly, she draws me in to a hug; she smells of lavender and the sun, her skin warm against mine. When she pulls back, she holds me at arm's length. “I read all about you in the papers. Good God, but you're pretty.”

“Mom,” Travis protests.

“What? I'm an artist,” she says. “I can't help it, I like beauty.”

“You make
pots,
” he says.

“My pots are beautiful,” she says, aping injury.

“They really are,” I volunteer.

“I'll make you one,” she says cheerfully as she starts putting away the groceries. On the kitchen island, she forms little pyramids of tomatoes, yellow peppers, green apples. “You'll have to come to my studio to sit for it, though.”

“It's a
pot,
not a portrait,” Travis says. He looks horrified by the idea of me spending time alone with his mother.

“But for Mercy's pot to truly be
Mercy's pot,
I have to at least talk to the girl a little, get to know who she is and what she's about. I can't make a pot out of thin air.” She turns to me for support. “So will you? Sit for me sometime?” The sun coming through the kitchen window catches the gold flecks in her green eyes, making them glitter.

“Absolutely.”

“Fine, Mercy can sit for her pot,” Travis says with a shake of the head, bugging his eyes at his mom in a playful way that tells me they only pretend to goad each other, that there is huge affection between them.

“Wonderful,” sings Sylvie as she moves around the kitchen putting things away. My first reaction is one of happiness—it's fun to be part of this—but then I feel a swarm of jealousy. How good it must feel to be
known
. Sometimes it feels like the girl who lives at home with Maw Maw is a different person from the real me.

“We're gonna go now, before Mercy decides she likes you more than me,” Travis says.

“Impossible, my son,” Sylvie says. “You're the most eminently likable person I know.”

“Thanks for the endorsement, Mom.” Flustered, he runs a hand through his hair. “We're going to leave now and maybe never come back.”

“It's a wild world out there,” she says, washing an apple and biting into it.

“Sounds good to me,” he says.

“Life on the road is a lot less glamorous than it sounds, Mercy, don't let him talk you into anything. I lived in the back of a converted van in Mexico for about six months—”

“Aaaaand we're out,” says Travis, shepherding me toward the door. “Later!” he says with finality.

“Fare thee well,” Sylvie says.

“Nice to meet you, Mrs. . . . ,” I say, hesitating because I can't remember her last name—only that it's different from Travis's.

“Leger, But just call me Sylvie.”

“Bye, Sylvie,” I say, embarrassed. She's strange and fascinating, this woman with the gobs of silver jewelry and her own last name.

“Your mom's cool,” I say to Travis as we climb back into his truck.

“She actually is,” he says. “I'm glad you got to meet her, even if it means I can now hold what remains of my dignity in a commemorative shot glass.”

As we drive away, the noon sun seepy as the yolk of an egg, I flash-forward, fantasizing about time after school spent around that kitchen island, talking to Sylvie, feeling her happiness rub off on me. Out the window, the heat plays tricks with the air so it shimmers like an oil slick. I think how much like houses people are—there's our curb appeal, what the whole world can see of us, and then there are the hidden chambers behind the facade, rooms and rooms inside us where we store up all the things that are too private or tender or shameful or mysterious to share with anyone. Today Travis has shown me into one of his interior rooms, given me a part of his secret self. He loves words so much he's made a wall of them; he loves his mother. I realize how excited I am to learn more about this boy and his family. This must be one of the biggest gifts of love, the process of discovery, finding worlds upon worlds inside the other person, his soul a hall of mirrors stretching inward forever.

But now I have another reason to be wary of Travis. I know he'll want to venture into the dusty back rooms of me, where the furniture is covered in white sheets, where no one's been for years. “Hey, drop me here, will you?” I say.

“Isn't it a little far? The heat . . .”

“Don't worry about me.”

“Suit yourself.”

I give him my best smile.

“Damn. I just want to—”

“Don't take the Lord's name.”

“Only word for your kind of gorgeous.”

“Blasphemer and flatterer, huh? Two kinds of trouble.”

“What, me?”

“See you soon.”

“Not soon enough.”

I roll my eyes, slam the door, pretend to be huffy as I walk in the direction of the stilt house. When I'm sure he's turned the corner and can no longer see me, I double back and head toward Galvez Street. Outside Illa's house, an overgrown white oleander offers me cover. I wonder if more letters have arrived and why Charmaine sent them care of the Starks. I stand there until sweat has soaked every bit of my clothes and I can no longer smell the medicinal scent of the oleander leaves. After a while, I turn back toward the stilt house.