The Vigil (27 page)

Mama reached into her purse and retrieved the letters she'd found in Mawmaw's trunk. “We found these letters.”

Mawmaw eyes widened. One brow shot up while the other remained in place giving her face an asymmetrical cartoonish look. As realization settled, she hung her head for a moment. When she looked back at Mama, a proud determination filled her eyes. She reached for her board. She wiped away her previous message with the sleeve of her blouse and wrote frantically.
I did what I had to.

Mama nodded. “We know you did. Mama. I'm not faulting you for that. I've talked with Carlton.”

Again, Mawmaw's eyes widened, and she exhaled loudly. “Whaa?” She attempted to speak but frustration overtook. She wiped the board and wrote:
He's here?

“Yes. Once I read these letters.” She lifted the letters from her lap. “I had to know if Carlton was my father.”

Mawmaw scrambled to erase her message and add a new one.
Harold was your father.

“Mama, Papa was a good father to me, and I'm not denying that. We did DNA testing, and I got the results this afternoon. Carlton is my biological father, and I have a right to know him.”

Mawmaw's eyes misted. When she tried to speak, guttural incoherent sounds escaped her lips. I slid off the couch and sat on the floor next to her chair. I reached for her limp hand and pressed it against my cheek.

Mama nodded in my direction.

My cue. “Mawmaw, Carlton has a mental illness—the same as Mama. The stress from the war brought out the worst in him, and you suffered his loss of control. There's not been a day that's gone by he hasn't regretted what happened.”

Mawmaw looked down at me, and when she did, tears spilled from her eyes onto her cheeks. “I loved...” She searched for her next word. “...him.”

“I know you loved him. I read the letters. He loved you, too. Very much. He still does.”

She closed her eyes and more tears trickled out the corners, running along the valley of wrinkles.

Now came the part I dreaded. I inhaled deeply. “Mawmaw, Carlton is dying. And he can't forgive himself for what happened. It would mean a lot to him if you would visit him.” I paused. Held my breath and watched her face.

She opened her eyes and stared directly at me. Her red-rimmed eyes, now devoid of tears, took on a sharpness that seared right through me.

I let out the breath I'd been holding and inhaled again to prepare for her response.

“Nooo.” She retrieved her weak hand with her strong one and slipped it out of my grasp and then wheeled herself backward out of the library. She stared at Mama. “No, no, no, no.” She repeated the word over and over as she turned into the hallway. Those emotion-filled words echoed through the halls as she wheeled toward her room.

Mama stood, but Anthony reached for her hand. “Let her be. We've just dropped a bomb on her. She needs time to process this. Remember, her brain has been damaged. It doesn't work like it did before. Give her time.”

A blade of guilt slashed, causing my stomach to sting as though it had been sliced open with a scalpel. While I expected her to be reluctant, I didn't expect the adamant refusal. Remorse washed through me. What had we done to her?

After a moment, Anthony stood next to me and extended his hand. I reached for it and allowed him to help me up.

I glanced toward Mama and met her caring gaze. “She'll change her mind, Cheryl. She will.” Mama's confidence surprised me. While I admired her positive attitude, I couldn't agree with her.

“I'm afraid if she doesn't change her mind soon, it will be too late.”

Mama placed her arm around my shoulder. “I know, honey. There's nothing I'd like to do more than drag her to him, but it's not the right thing to do. We let her know. Now it's up to her.”

Lord, guide her.

I struggled with an overwhelming need to intervene again.

Lord, guide me
.

“I'll check on her and meet you in the parking lot,” Anthony said.

“Shouldn't we at least tell her good night?” Mama asked.

“I think it would be best if we let this rest for tonight. I'll tell her you'll see her tomorrow.”

Mama sighed. “I'll see you at the car.”

As Mama and I walked out into the hot August night, a sonata from cicadas serenaded and sparks of light from fireflies twinkled in the empty field next to the parking lot.

“Cheryl.” Mama laced her arm through mine. “I'm glad you came back to live here. I've missed you.”

Her words sliced through the old scars that blocked out warmth and kept my heart rigid. My heart was free to move and flow in caring directions I'd resisted before. “Mama, I'm glad I moved back, too. It's been nice getting to know you.” It really had.

She squeezed my arm. “I believe Mawmaw will come around. I'm praying for both she and Carlton to have the blessing of forgiveness from each other.”

“The blessing of forgiveness. That's a good way to say it.” And as I headed to my car, I realized Mama and I had given each other the blessing of forgiveness. Peace cradled me like gentle hands. More than ever, I wanted the same peace for Carlton and Mawmaw. I lifted my eyes to the starry night.
Lord, bring them together. Let her forgive him. Let him forgive himself.

 

****

 

“G'mornin'.” Carlton sat in the recliner next to his bed and greeted me as I walked into his room.

“Well, good morning to you, too. Look at you sitting up. Darcy tells me you had a decent night last night.”

He nodded. “Did.”

I sat on the side of his bed next to the recliner and patted his hand. “Glad to hear it. You needed a good night.”

“Yep. No bad dreams.”

“Good. Mama sends her love and says she'll come by this afternoon to see you.”

His lips spread and his dreary eyes sparkled for an instance. “I like that.”

“I knew you would.”

He rubbed my hand with his other hand. “I like you.”

I smiled with my lips. I smiled with my soul. “I like you, too.”

The desire to discuss Mawmaw burned like acid in my throat. I couldn't tell him she refused to see him, but the need to reassure him he was forgiven burned just as strong.
Lord, if I should tell him, command my words.

“Carlton, did you know I was Clarice's granddaughter?”

“Nope. But...” He took several deep breaths. “...you reminded...me of her.”

“Is that why you let me read the letters?”

He nodded. “I had her again…when you did.”

So that had been his motivation. It was as though she were reading those letters to him. A sigh from deep within escaped, capturing Carlton's attention. He rubbed the top of my hand with his thumb. “You OK?”

“Yes.” I thought of Beau's description of a love-stealing monster, and my heart filled with sorrow. So much loss and a flourishing love that never had a chance to blossom into what it could have been. The desire to discuss Mawmaw with Carlton dissolved with each stroke of his thumb on my hand. Gratitude filled my heart and tears stung my eyes. I had, at least, been a comfort to him for those few moments.

Why had things turned out the way they did?

My thoughts drifted back to the grandfather I knew all my life. He had been a grounding force in our family. Mawmaw had been his world, and he had looked out for Mama as though she had been his daughter. Maybe, we needed to be part of his life as much as he had needed to be part of ours. Instead of asking why things had not gone a different way, I began to see things had gone the way they had for many reasons. Some of which I would never know, but for some, I couldn't contain the mushrooming gratitude building in my heart.

Mawmaw had felt safe. Pawpaw had showered us with unconditional love. We had been blessed despite all the bad we'd experienced.

I knew being here today was no accident. Carlton and I were meant to cross paths. Plain and simple. But it had to be now. Not before, when we weren't ready to understand or accept the truth. I'd been given the awesome privilege of being a friend to Beau and Steven when they needed one most. I'd been blessed.
Thank You, Lord.
Thank You, for Your perfect timing.

During my reflections, the gentle stroking of Carlton's thumb ceased. He had fallen asleep. I tilted the chair back, tucked his blanket around his shoulders and knees, and planted a tender kiss on his forehead. “Rest, Grandpa. Rest.”

After lunch I helped Carlton return to bed. His fatigue returned, and his breathing grew more difficult than in the morning. When Mama arrived, he had been napping for about an hour.

“How is he?” she asked as she entered the kitchen bearing bags of groceries.

“He's struggling.”

Her gaze darted toward me. Fear flashed and lit the blue in her eyes. “Is it...?

“The doctors say he may have a month at the most. But they also said the same thing last month. So I don't know. And really, only God knows.”

“Cheryl, would it be all right for me to see him?”

“Oh sure. He's had a good nap this morning. I'm sure he would love a visit from you.”

“There's something else.” Mama lowered her lashes and avoided eye contact. “Would it be OK if I sat with him this afternoon, that is, if it's OK with Carlton, while you visit Mawmaw? She's asking for you.”

“Do you think she's ready to change her mind?”

Mama shrugged her shoulders. “I don't know. She wouldn't talk to me about it. Clammed up tighter than Norene Nesbitt's spandex shorts.”

I shook my head and laughed as I envisioned Norene Nesbitt, Mama's friend from high school and her neon green spandex shorts. Some things, no matter how absurd, were a comfort. “I'll check with Carlton.”

 

****

 

I tapped on the doorframe to Mawmaw's room. Her single bed was pushed against the far wall under her window. I gazed around the sparse room. Despite Mama's insistence, Mawmaw had refused her attempts at decorating the room to make it homey. She didn't plan to stay here long.

I walked across the room to where she sat in her wheelchair next to the bed reading the letters from Carlton. “Hello, Mawmaw.” I bent down and kissed her cheek and then sat on her bed. “How are you?”

She nodded. “OK.”

“I see you're reading the letters Carlton sent you.”

She nodded again and looked up to meet my gaze. Her shining eyes told me this trip down memory lane was a painful one. She slid the dry erase board onto her lap and scribbled,
He was so kind before the war
.
She wiped the words away after I'd read them and then added more.
I miss
that
Carlton.

 

 

 

 

Trente

 

“I'm sure you do, Mawmaw.” I gingerly touched her knee. “I believe I have met
that
Carlton.”

The intensity of her glare pierced me. “How?”

I told her how he had asked me to read the letters to him because I reminded him of her. I shared how emotional he had become while the letters were read and that he'd told me how much he had loved his Lady S.

“Lady...S.” She smiled the crooked smile of a stroke victim, but on her it was endearing. Intriguing. The name seemed to put her in a different place and time very similar to how Carlton became when I'd read her letters to him.

“Yes. He still thinks of you as his Lady S. Care to share what that means?”

She wiped the board with her sleeve and then wrote
He called me his Lady Sheri.
She wiped the board.
He meant the French Chéri.
She wiped again.
I didn't have the heart to tell him it started with a C not S.
She pouted and looked years younger.

I smiled. “Mawmaw, he's never forgiven himself. Have you thought anymore about coming to see him?”

She wiped her board clean and held her fuchsia pen above the surface. She paused as though she had a change of heart. After a long exhale she wrote,
I have. Can't in this wheelchair.

I pressed my bottom lip between my teeth. How could I stress the importance of her coming as soon as possible? Carlton may not have the time she needed.

“I understand, but you know it won't matter to Carlton. He would love to see you. You do remember, he has lung cancer and may not be around much longer?”

She nodded. And lifted the board with the same words as before.

“Sure. Should I tell him?”

“No.”

“If he knew you were coming to see him, he'd be very excited.”

“Noo tellin'.”

I sighed. At least she'd agreed to see him. I'd expected another adamant refusal.
Thank You, Lord.
I'd learn to appreciate the small daily blessings.

“Very well. I won't say a word to Carlton. Can I tell Mama?”

She nodded and scribbled.
But she can't tell either.

“I'll make that clear. How's your therapy coming?”

“Good.”

I picked up the stack of letters and laid them on my lap. “You know, Mawmaw, what happened between you and Carlton was horrible. I hate that your love was torn apart by that awful act. As hard as it's been, I'm beginning to see how God takes the horrible and molds something good from it. He's molding me, us. I know all of this has been hard for you.” I patted her hand.

Her eyes bored into mine and softened before she nodded. She scribbled on her board.
I loved him. Now love God more. I have you.

My grateful heart swelled as I bent toward her and kissed her cheek. “I love you so much.”

She smiled—a lopsided smile that warmed the whole room.

I lifted the letters. “Would you like me to read these to you?”

Her eyes met mine and crinkled at the corners when she smiled again. “Yes.”