Chapter 11: Will it work?

Todd stared at the ceiling fan above him.  The air was hot and the spinning fan furiously forced air throughout the room.  He kept watching the base as it spun around and around and around.  The sun was just beginning to creep through his bedroom window.  The marigolds in the pot hanging off of the window sill were standing at attention, heads raised taking in the light.

            He got up out of the bed slowly.  The wood floor creaked as he put his feet down.  He walked into the kitchen and pulled oatmeal out of the pantry.  He slowly warmed water and poured it into the bowl of oats.  Abby had left him coffee, so he poured a cup and added three teaspoons of sugar and a generous splash of milk.  He sat down at the table and looked down at his breakfast.

            The day lay before him and he wasn’t sure what to expect from it.  Aunt Mae would be there. She was the calm one.  She didn’t expect anything.  He, on the other hand, wasn’t so sure.  It was almost as if what could happen, set him into motion.

            He hurriedly ate his breakfast, then went back into the bedroom and changed into his jeans and a white polo.  He looked into the mirror, and adjusted the collar.  It was loose around his neck.  The heat throughout the day would undoubtedly increase and he didn’t want to feel cramped later.  He went into the bathroom and combed his hair and brushed his teeth.  He looked into the medicine cabinet and eyed the cork lather brush.  He smiled at it, as if sensing that it would bring him luck today.

            When he was done, he walked into his office and took four letters out of the stack.  They were carefully selected.  After reading through fifteen of them the night before, he picked out what he thought were the most moving.  Three were written by his grandfather and the other one by his grandmother.  He pulled them out of their envelopes and looked them over one last time.  He ran his finger along the dates and then over their signatures on the last pages.  He smiled to himself.

            He slid them carefully back into the envelopes and carried them out to the truck with him.  He laid them in the passenger seat and headed off toward Aunt Mae’s.

            Her house was brick.  The only brick one on the Grey Road.  It had black shutters and a white picket fence the graced the front of the house.  A gravel driveway ran up the right side of the house and turned into and around tobacco bulk barns behind it.  He parked his truck between the barns and the house and walked to the back door.  He knocked twice.

            Aunt Mae came to the door and welcomed him inside.  She saw the letters in his hand and shut her eyes as she turned away from him as they walked through the kitchen.

            “Do you think that those will really make a difference, Todd?”

            “I’m not sure,” he said quickly.  He smiled at her even though her back was towards him.

            She walked to the doorway leading towards the living room.  She put her hand along the door frame letting it slowly slide its way down.  “Do you really think that she will listen?”

            “Why wouldn’t she?”

            “Why would she?” she questioned back as she turned to face him, her eyes avoiding his.

            “Why would she? Don’t you think that she listens to everything that goes on around her?”  He looked down the hall towards the bedroom.  “She knows what is going on around her,” he eyes veered back towards Aunt Mae, “she just chooses not to participate.”

            “Maybe, Todd.  Maybe.”  She wasn’t so sure.  “But, if she hasn’t responded so far to those around her, then what in God’s name would she respond to now.”  She looked down again at the letters in his hand.  “I don’t know Todd.  I just don’t know.”

            “I don’t know either, Aunt Mae.  But who is it going to hurt, if I’m wrong?  If she doesn’t respond to me reading these toward her, what has she lost?  What have we lost?  She’ll still be here, just as always. But doesn’t it deserve just a chance?”

            She walked towards him and reached for both of his hands.  She looked down at them and squeezed them both tightly.  “Yes.”  She looked deeply into his eyes and could tell that he was excited.  She could feel it in his hands as well. They were sweaty.  Yet, she could see that he hadn’t stopped smiling since he walked into the house.  She slowly let go of his hands and then kissed him lightly on the cheek.  “Let’s go see her.”

            They walked down the hall, her leading.  When they got to MaMa’s room, she let Todd open the door.  He walked in first and laid the letter down on the bed stand.  He leaned over her, and kissed her lightly on the forehead.  She didn’t even wince.

            He reached for the chair against the wall and sat down quietly.  “How are you doing today, MaMa?” 

            She lay there motionless, unreactive.

            “Well, I’m doing pretty well, I guess,” he said.  “Abby’s teaching today, of course.  It being Tuesday and all, I guess that was a given.  I have a few appointments this afternoon, but I really wanted to come see you this morning before the day gets away from me.”  He fumbled with the letter in his lap. 

            “I try to come see you as much as I can, MaMa.  But you know, there’s times like right now when I’m just not sure about the things that I want to talk to you about.  I know that Aunt Gina and Aunt Rose have talked to you about things that they remember when they were little.  Like moving from the house at the back-of-the-field to the house now along the road.” 

            He looked slowly over to the door where Aunt Mae was standing.  She smiled softly at him and quietly closed the door.  Now the two of them were alone.

            Usually he would notice the air in the room and think to himself that it was too cool.  Or that he would notice that her window was open just a little bit too much and too much light was entering room.  But today he could only pay attention to his grandmother.

            “I decided to bring you a letter today.”  He opened the envelope and laid it in the edge of her bed.  “I found it on top of the old china cabinet.  I figure that you must have left it up there.  It was bound together with maybe thirty to forty other ones.”  He watched her face as he talked.  “I read this one last night.”

 

            He unfolded the letter and began reading slowly.

Chapter 10: MaMa and Mae

Todd lay across the hanging swing, a glass of sweet tea next to him.  The sun was slowly falling, the once blue sky, now orange, the clouds now purple.  The westerly wind blew the smell of the tobacco barns away from him. 

            He thought of his grandmother.  She used to sit out here and watch the lightning bugs as they flashed around the maples and long leaf pines.  He looked across the porch at her rocker.  He had recently painted the old relic.  The base was worn smooth from years of use.  The seat cushion had been removed and never replaced.  There used to be two other chairs next to it, but they had to thrown away because they were too weathered to be repaired.  It sat there, alone.  Just as she used to just after PaPa left her.

            She couldn’t bear to sleep there by herself, but she would spend the majority of her day around the house.  Often, she used to mow the yard or prune the bushes.  She would do her housework and sometimes eat lunch by herself in the small kitchen.  Most afternoons she would relax and walk out to the porch and sit there and watch the sun go down.  He wondered what she thought of as she sat out there every night. 

            He could imagine conversations that she had in her mind with her own mother.  She lived only a short ways from John and Mary.  MaMa would go over there almost nightly to make sure that she took her bath and made it to bed.  She had grown blind in her eighties, but she did things almost entirely on her own.  Still, MaMa just wanted to make sure.  They would talk about the events of the day, or what the preacher talked about at the prayer meeting that night.  Often, they would talk about the children and what they were doing. After sitting in front of the old TV for a while, Annie listening, MaMa watching, it would be time for bed.  Before she would say goodnight, Annie would always softly say, “Praise Jesus” and smile her beautiful smile.  MaMa would put her mother’s hand in her own and wait for her to drift off to sleep. 

            He could imagine her praying a lot.  She was very spiritual, like her own mother.  The day began with a prayer and ended with a prayer.  He knew what she prayed about most of the time: her girls.  They were all grown and had families of their own, but she knew the tribulations through which they went daily.  She knew the incessant bickering between their own children.  She knew of their daily schedules and the mad scramble to get everyone where they needed to be every night.  But most of all, especially right after PaPa left them, she could feel their awkward pain.  She prayed so intently that often, she would break down and whimper to herself in the warm summer evenings out on that porch.   

            Now she was living with her sister-in-law, Mae, who had lost her own husband years before in a farming accident.  Her eyes, like her mother’s, had quickly failed her.  At first it was just that she couldn’t cook for herself anymore, so nearby relatives would come by and cook for her, or bring her a meal.  But slowly, she was finding herself lost in her own house in the middle of the day, the dark shadows around her mixing too closely together.  She would become scared, and flail about with her arms, searching for the phone.  Quickly, she would become frustrated after she reached someone and blame a chair for being misplaced or a door left open, which normally would have been closed.         Her mind was leaving her, and she couldn’t sense it.  When she wouldn’t call during the day to see when lunch would be brought to her, Mae would call her and discover that she had yet to get out of the bed.  She couldn’t remember where she had put things the night before and it would frighten her because she thought that someone had moved them.  Mae decided to move her in to her own house.  Although she was a few years older, Mae could at least keep watch over MaMa and see that she was all right.  In the past year, though, MaMa wouldn’t get out of bed.  She would keep her eyes closed most of the day.  She would rarely talk and fain sleeping when someone walked into her room.  It was as if she was shutting out the world.  Mae would often say that she heard MaMa mumbling to herself in the middle of the night. 

            He turned, and sat up in the swing.  He reached for the tea and slowly took in a sip, swirling it around his mouth before swallowing.  The crickets chirped around him.  He looked up at the worn white beams above his head and followed them to the columns and down to the base of the porch.  

            Would she remember the letters that they gave each other over the years?  Would she remember the voice that had gone to bed with her nightly for forty years?  Or would she shut him out as she had everyone else?

            He hated the thought of reading more of their letters.  It wasn’t his to read.

            But...

            But, what would they mean to MaMa.  Would she react any differently to the letters?  They were, after all, hers.  She had saved them.  The ones he knew of at least, were still next to her old Bible.  How long had it been since she had read them?  She hadn’t even seen them in a few years. 

            He stood up and walked into the front door and into the living room.  The picnic ham that was cooking in the oven filled the air of the house with the sweet smell of brown sugar. 

            He reached on top of the china cabinet and pulled down the old stack of envelopes.  His fingers trembled as he removed the rubber band that bound them together.  It wasn’t the fear of opening that made him tremble, but rather, the anticipation.  He didn’t really hate the thought of reading them.  What he hated was the thought of invading the privacy of a relationship that he had so revered since he was little. At the same time, though, he wanted to know what they said to each other.  He wanted to hear their arguments.  He wanted to hear their apologies. He wanted to just listen to them again.

            The top letter was slightly whiter than the others.  Its edges just a little less worn.  His heart beat quickly in his chest.  He didn’t know what to expect it to say.  There was no date on the outside.  Just a white face.  Walking slowly over to the dining room table, he turned the letter over and pulled it out. 

My dearest John,

            I miss you dearly.  I miss walking out into the yard at night and you talking about how the corn is growing better than it did last year and me only half pretending to listen.  I miss sitting in the swing on the porch and you cuddling me in your arms.  I miss all of the things that I took for granted when you were here.

            It’s been a little over two years since you left me.  It seems strange to say that you left me then.  I hate saying that.  I know that you didn’t want to leave us but it was the only way for you.  There are so many things that I just don’t understand.  You knew that I was there for you why didn’t you come to me?  Did you not think that I was strong enough to carry the weight of the both of us?  I could have John.  I could and would have done anything to keep you here with me. 

            Sometimes at night, I lie in bed and make believe that I’m talking to you.  Perhaps it really is you coming to me.  Some nights I hear you asking if I’m doing okay and how the girls are doing.  I know that you know, but I tell you just because you know it makes me feel like you are here.   Some nights I just lie in bed and talk to you about any old thing. 

            But last night was different.  You asked me if I could see you.  I answered, as you know, in my heart.  You’re always in my heart.  You asked me what I saw when I dreamed and I said you.  I woke up and realized that I can see you whenever I want but I wonder about how you feel.  Does He let you dream? Are you allowed to do that in Heaven?   When you close your eyes, and you drift off to the feelings that you thought were hidden, what do you see. 

            I felt myself this morning wondering one thing.  When you closed your eyes before you left me, did you see me?

                                                                        I will always love you,

                                                                        Mary

            He put the letter down on the table. 

Chapter 9: Anger

“That day has never left me.  It’s something I’ll never escape.” He looked back down at the uneven wood floor.  He rose out of his chair and slowly walked to the hearth.  His fingers ran down along the edges of the black plastic rimmed spectacles next to candle.  He picked them up and held them towards the ceiling and them brought them back down and wiped the smudges from the lens.  “Every damn day I think about it.”

            It was a moist summer evening and the crickets were chirping their ritual, uneven song.  The light breeze through the open adjacent window carried in the sweet smell of curing tobacco.  The old man in front of Todd was standing there silently, his hand over his mouth.

            “Todd, I just don’t know what to tell you.  We all knew that John was sick.”  He shook his head slowly.  “His tendencies, you know, the way he used to do things, just didn’t seem right.”

            “Like what?”

            The old man moved his hand from his mouth to his temples, rubbing them slowly.  “The way he talked.”  He thought silently to himself for a few seconds.  “He never really had a whole lot to say, you know.  But just before the accident, it was almost as if he was forgetting things that we had just talked about a day or two before.  I mean, we’d talk about the irrigation pipes on Tuesday and then on Thursday he’d have forgotten what we were talking about doing.  Almost like he had something else on his mind.”

            “Humph.”

            “What?”

            “Someone told me that he didn’t get the farm truck inspected on time.  That’s something that he never ever forgot to do.” Todd looked out the window.  The bug zapper hanging from the neighbor’s post in the back yard was glowing blue.  “I’d imagine, by that time, he’d made up his mind.”

            The old man sat back down in his velvet covered chair.  He still massaged his temples slowly.  “It’s such an awful question to ponder Todd.”  He put his hand back down on the arm of the chair and stared intently at Todd.

            Still staring out the window, Todd could feel the old man’s eyes looking at him.

            “What torments you so, son?  Why is it so important to you that you figure this whole thing out?”

            “Because if I don’t understand why he did it, then I won’t understand the rest of him.”

            “The rest of him?”

            “Yes sir, the rest.”

            “What’s that supposed to mean?”

            Todd looked over at  Mr. Clemmet and met his stare directly.  “It means that I can’t understand why he would do it, when he had everything so wonderful around him?”

            “Wonderful?  What the hell are you talking about, son?”

            “He had MaMa and Gina and Dorothy around all the time.  They comforted him when he was sick.  How could he just leave them?”

            “Son, they couldn’t save him.”  He leaned forward towards Todd, and laid his glasses on the table between them.  “What?  Did you expect him to tell them what was going on in his head?  He was too hard-headed for that.”

            “But why did he do it when he did it?”

            “Does it matter?”

            “Yes!” He sprung from his chair.  “Why did he do it with MaMa and Gina right there in the yard?  What the hell was he thinking?  They were the ones who took care of him!  How could he do it right in front of them?”

            Clemmet reached for Todd’s arm.  “They never saw him do it.”  He grabbed him by the wrist. “They heard the gunsh...”

            “Gunshot?  No kidding?  Did he think of what they would have to deal with after he blew his damn brain out?” Todd erupted.  “What did he think was going to happen after that?  That some freakin’ angel was going to swoop down and carry his bloody body away?  Can you imagine...” his voice started to crack, “can you imagine having to see Maggie like that Mr. Clemmet?”

            The old man stared coldly at Todd.  “I can’t imagine a lot of things son, but I will be damned if you’ll ever...”

            “You don’t understand Mr. Clemmet.  You don’t understand.  I wanted so desperately to be just like him.  I didn’t want to be no farmer, but I wanted to work like him, to look like him, to smell like him.  Everything.”  He reached for the old man’s hand with his other arm and put his hand on top of one grabbing his right forearm. “He was everything that I wanted to be.”

            Clemmet leaned in towards Todd.  “How he ended his life, is not how he lived his life.”

            “But it’s the one thing that I remember most vividly,” Todd said, tears now forming in his eyes. 

            “You were too young to remember much else.”   He thought to himself.  “Let’s walk outside.”  The two of them walked out of the little den of the house and out onto the front porch.  Mr. Clemmet turned off the light and the two of them leaned against the railing that stretched along the front of the house.  They stood there silently for a few minutes.

            Their skin, moist from the humid air, almost stood on end when the breeze slowly passed over it.  Todd looked out from the porch and over the field across the road.  Three, no, four deer slowly moved seemingly side to side, searching for husks of corn among the young green stalks just barely four feet tall. 

            “I remember the summer before,” said Todd. 

            “What do you remember?”

            “That I wanted to work with him.”  He exhaled a small laugh. 

            “Did you?”

            “Part of the time.  Mostly at the beginning of the summer.”

            “What were you doing with him?” 

            “The racks.” 

            “The racks?”

            “Yeah,” said Todd, “you know, the racks that go in the curing barns.  We would take them from the trailer on the harvester and bring them back to the barn.  As we would put racks in the barn, the guys on the harvester would fill up another trailer.   I think we had to do seven and a half trailers a day.”  He thought for a second.  “I think.”

            “How did you like it?”

            “Well, it sure as hell beat having to work on the harvester.”  He wiped the remnants of the tears from his cheek.  “They used to make me work on the top of the harvester taking tobacco out of the tray, just so I wouldn’t mess anything else up.  I was too young to do anything else.”

            The deer in the field slowly started to fade from their line of sight. 

            “I thought John used to drive the harvester.”

            “The years that I worked there before that, he did.  But for some reason, he didn’t that summer.”  He looked down to the railing that they were leaning on and rubbed his right hand smoothly along its surface.  “There was something different about him that summer.  There was something about those three months that I spent working with him everyday that I don’t know how to explain.”

            “Some things don’t have explanations.”                                

            Todd looked back out across the field.  His eyes darted quickly from side to side desperately searching for the deer that had just slipped away.  “I don’t know Mr. Clemmet.”

            The old man turned and looked silently out into the cornfield.  After a few minutes, he turned around and reached for their iced teas.  He handed Todd his drink and sipped softly at his own.  He looked at Todd’s profile and could see John’s rugged jaw and subtle cheekbones.  Todd could pass as his son.  “Perhaps, Todd, he just wanted to spend time with his grandson.”

            Todd spotted a single doe peek its head out of the corn.  He watched her as she bent down slowly to nibble at a fallen husk.  Todd looked over at Mr. Clemmet and mustered a small smile.  “Perhaps he just wanted to be with me.”