Beginning with Cannonballs

by Jill McCroskey Coupe

  “Baltimore. Can you come get me?” She had so very much to tell him. Years’ worth of hugs to collect.

  “There’s a curfew here,” Jeremiah said. “No one can go anywhere tonight.”

  “Tomorrow, then?”

  Tomorrow.

  Sophie Makes a List

  Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 1970

  ON THIS STEAMY AUGUST NIGHT, Sophie kept getting up to check on her grandson. Peter Jeremy—everyone called him PJ—was almost two years old now. He was sleeping like an angel. His gran, however, lay in bed with her eyes wide open.

  No one else was home. Jeremiah was still at work, and Hanna and Del were up in Canada for the summer.

  Checking on PJ reminded Sophie of getting up, again and again, to tend to two girl babies in a different crib. Nearly thirty years ago that was—the saddest, loneliest time in her life.

  There had been a woman on TV recently—very cheerful, bouncing around, gushing about her own bright ideas. “On nights you can’t sleep,” she’d said, “try making a list of all that’s going right in your life. Concentrate on the positives. Think about what you’ve accomplished.”

  The woman had sounded so proud of herself for thinking this up, so excited about telling it to all the folks watching her program. But Sophie could remember her mother saying pretty much the same thing—not about getting to sleep, just about life in general. “Sophia Lucille,” she’d liked to scold, “you better count your blessings.”

  After padding down the hall again to check on PJ, who hadn’t moved since the last time, Sophie thought, Oh what the hell. Lying on her side of the bed, fanning herself with a magazine she’d brought home from work for exactly that purpose, she tried to concentrate on the positives.

  She began to count her blessings.

  The hospital where she worked was air-conditioned.

  She had friends there.

  She had just gotten a promotion and was now a supervisor, with a tiny little office where she made up the schedules for the housekeeping staff. She still had to clean bathrooms and mop floors with the rest of them, but she was paid a little more for it.

  She got a free physical every year. For a fifty-year-old black woman, she was holding up pretty well. Sometimes her heart raced for no reason, but that hospital doctor never noticed, and she sure didn’t tell him.

  But wait. These things weren’t blessings. Loved ones were blessings.

  She started over.

  She had a beautiful, healthy grandson. PJ had bright eyes and a sweet little smile that said, This is our secret, Gran. Don’t tell anyone else.

  She had two intelligent, healthy children, Jeremiah and Hanna.

  Pierre was still in Haiti, where he belonged. Yes, he was PJ’s father, but he was all wrong for Hanna. Sophie knew this the minute she laid eyes on him.

  She and Del had stayed married. She wasn’t sure why and tried not to think about all that anymore.

  Del was healthy enough, even though he smoked too much and drank too much and probably did drugs when he was on the road, which was where he’d been since May. He and Hanna and a guitarist named Solomon were making good money up in Canada. The O’Shades, they called themselves, from the first two letters of their names: So, Ha, De. They were three shades—black (Del), white (Solomon), and somewhere in between (Hanna)—singing for all the draft dodgers up there who were craving some downhome American music.

  Hanna could sing like an angel. She was the star of the O’Shades. Everybody said so. Del had a good voice, too, but his real talent was playing the piano. Hanna was better at guitar.

  This fall, Hanna would be going down to Howard University to finish her degree. She couldn’t get her scholarship back, the one she gave up when Pierre dragged her off to Haiti, but she’d have something called financial aid.

  Finally, Del was treating Hanna like she was his daughter. It took him long enough. Men never like to admit being wrong. In high school, her senior year, someone gave Hanna an old guitar, and she wanted Del to teach her to play it. Guitar wasn’t his instrument, so he asked his friend Solomon to teach her. Solomon ended up teaching them both, and then Del got his own guitar, and before long he and Hanna were playing duets. Father-daughter duets—anyone could see that.

  Until Del and Hanna left for Canada, the whole family was living under the same roof. The roof, in North Philly, needed replacing, but the landlord said he had more important things to do.

  The only other time they were all together (minus PJ, of course) was back in 1958, in Knoxville. Del had been released from jail, and they were waiting for Jeremiah to finish high school. Good thing Jeremiah joined the army then, because at first there wasn’t room for him in Philadelphia.

  In Knoxville, Sophie was colored. In Philly, she was either black or African American. It was different in Philly, but not that different. She was still described by the color of her skin.

  Del wasn’t convicted of murder. He had a good lawyer in Knoxville, a white man, Charles Madison.

  While Sophie and Hanna were living at the Madisons’ house, Del did a wonderful job of raising Jeremiah. He was a good father to his son.

  Here in Philly, she and Jeremiah were finally getting to know each other. He was putting himself through Temple University and wanted to teach high school math and coach football. The way things were going, Jeremiah would be the first in the family to graduate from college. Hanna, who went right from high school to Howard University, was supposed to have been the one.

  As the person in charge of the housekeeping schedule, Sophie could give herself day shifts only. This summer, Jeremiah was waiting tables at night, so he could take care of little PJ during the day. It was all working out. Life was good.

  Hanna seemed to be over Pierre. Not to the point where she could say to her Mama, you were right, but that was okay. A mother tries to protect her children. Hanna knew that now. Randy Barker was dead, had been since 1956, killed with a tire iron in his horse barn outside Knoxville. (The opposite of a loved one, but still part of this story.)

  A woman who has been raped never forgets. What she does is put one foot in front of the other and try to get to the other side of it. What she does is have the baby who may or may not be her husband’s and love and protect that little girl the best way she knows how.

  Those years working for the Madisons in Knoxville had been so lonely. No one to talk to. Here in Philadelphia, Sophie had plenty of friends. Still, she had never told anyone, except for Del and that police officer. And then the Knoxville News Sentinel let the whole town know, with photos of Del and that horrible man on the front page.

  Stop this right now. Positives only.

  Hanna and Jeremiah were both majoring in math. Two kids good at math when about all their parents could do was add and subtract.

  Amazingly, Gail Madison and Hanna were still friends. Gail was the one who did most of the keeping in touch, but then, Gail wouldn’t bother if Hanna didn’t let her. Gail lived in Baltimore and, right after PJ was born, brought a bunch of baby clothes up to Philly, beautifully wrapped in blue paper.

  Gail was pregnant, due in February. If she had a boy, maybe PJ would be friends with him.

  Bessie Madison would soon be a grandmother.

  Did Miss Bessie belong on this list? Too much adding and subtracting needed to figure that one out. Instead, Sophie closed her eyes.

  Auld Lang Syne

  Shenandoah National Park, Virginia, 1979

  DROOPING TREE BRANCHES, FUZZY with new snow, hung motionless. No birds chirped; no squirrels chattered.

  To Gail, the silence felt eerie, slightly ominous. Behind her, PJ had both of her daughters by the hand.

  They were a party of seven this holiday weekend—four adults and three children in two cabins. Today, New Year’s Day, they’d split up for the afternoon. Nick and Mel, Hanna’s husband, were sitting bleary-eyed in front of the TV in the main lodge. Hanna was in her cabin, composing a modern-day version of “Auld Lang Syne.” Or so she’d said. Gail s
uspected Hanna was too hungover for a hike in the snow.

  The weekend in Virginia’s Shenandoah National Park had been Gail’s idea, an opportunity for the two old friends to spend some time together. Instead, making one excuse after another, Hanna had pretty much kept to herself.

  When they’d arrived at Skyland on Saturday, there had been snow on the ground. Knowing this ahead of time, they’d packed accordingly, planning to leave this morning, Monday, and return to their respective homes in time for work and school tomorrow. But last night, Mother Nature had celebrated the New Year with a fluffy blanket of fresh snow. No one was going anywhere today, unless on foot. Skyline Drive, the only way into or out of the park, was closed.

  They’d partied in the pine-paneled sitting room of Gail and Nick’s cabin, so that Sandy and Allison, who were seven and five, could go to bed before midnight. Mel and Hanna supplied the champagne, as well as a game of Scrabble, and Gail provided hors d’oeuvres—cheese and crackers, grapes, mixed nuts.

  The cabin’s bedroom contained two double beds. PJ, who was ten, insisted on going to bed when the girls did, so Gail put him in the bed she and Nick were sharing for the weekend. When she returned to the Scrabble game, Mel, who’d been one of Hanna’s math professors at Howard, was suggesting triple points for words pertaining to Christmas and the new year.

  “What about Kwanzaa?” Hanna asked, pouring herself another glass of champagne.

  Nick, who wasn’t the least bit Jewish, wanted to include Hanukkah.

  “But we’d need the appropriate dictionaries,” Gail pointed out. “Otherwise, we’ll argue.”

  “Party pooper,” Hanna said, but Nick and Mel agreed. Christmas and New Year’s only.

  It wasn’t long before Hanna thought she’d scored big with Vixen, and Mel, who was keeping score, objected. The two of them started squabbling about the names of Santa’s reindeer, a battle Mel finally won by reminding his wife that proper nouns weren’t allowed in Scrabble anyway.

  Gail used the ruckus as an excuse to check on the children, who were still in their assigned beds. The girls’ eyes were closed, but PJ’s glared back at her.

  As a toddler, he’d been cute and endearing, a happy child with a sweet smile. His father, too, might have been adorable at that age. If so, then Pierre had undergone a drastic change.

  Yes, Hanna had warned her, that night in DC. Still, Gail had found Pierre so hostile and sullen as to be downright scary.

  Trouble with a capital T was Nick’s assessment of PJ, after Gail told him about the incident, summer before last, at Hanna and Mel’s lakeside townhouse in Reston, Virginia. While gleefully shouting, “Sink or swim,” PJ had pushed Sandy off the dock. Many of Lake Anne’s residents owned small sailboats, but, for health reasons, swimming was discouraged.

  Before Gail could jump in, Sandy surfaced, sputtering. Gail took one of her hands, Hanna the other, and they pulled Sandy out, clothes soaked, one sandal lost forever.

  “Don’t do that again,” Hanna told her grinning son, and he didn’t. He also didn’t stop grinning.

  “I think PJ has a crush on Sandy,” Hanna confided later that day.

  Not gonna happen, Gail vowed to herself.

  And now here she was, keeping an eye on PJ and the girls again, this time on the Appalachian Trail, which ran right through Skyland. Fourteen hours into 1979, theirs were the only footprints.

  But soon there were hoofprints. Two deer, most likely, swerving along the trail like drunken skiers. A doe and her fawn?

  “Nature’s calling,” PJ cried out, shattering the silence. He’d let go of the girls’ hands and was unzipping his fly.

  “Go behind those bushes there,” Gail said.

  PJ stayed where he was. A yellow hole appeared in the snow, near Allison’s boots, then a wobbly arc, as PJ, aiming his weapon, turned toward Sandy.

  Allison stood wide-eyed, her mouth agape. Sandy was giggling into her mittens.

  “That wasn’t nice,” Gail snapped. “Going to the bathroom is something people do in private. Zip up now.”

  PJ zipped. “There’s no bathroom out here. I didn’t know I had to go till I did. It happens sometimes.”

  “Don’t let it happen again,” Gail said.

  “But what if I have to poop?”

  “Then you do it behind some bushes. In private. Understood?”

  PJ rolled his eyes.

  “Let’s walk in single file now,” Gail said. “PJ, you can bring up the rear.”

  PJ arched his back, elevating his behind. The girls snickered.

  Gail put a finger to her lips. “Shh. I mean it. Single file, now. Let’s all listen to this beautiful silence.”

  But PJ had ruined it, broken the spell. Why couldn’t he have stayed back to watch football with his stepfather? Why couldn’t Hanna have come along instead? Males watching the bowl games, females hiking in a Christmas-card wonderland. That would’ve been the perfect start to the new year.

  Nick had enjoyed the week he and Gail had spent here as newlyweds, but he’d been reluctant to come this weekend, would have preferred staying in Baltimore to ring in another year. Part of the problem, Gail suspected, was that Mel, a university professor, was what Nick had aspired to be. Instead, Nick was selling real estate.

  Gail felt for her husband but wished he hadn’t been so stubborn. He’d become obsessed with reports from Russia of a relationship between EEG slow waves and ESP. Sensory perception was of course a legitimate field of inquiry in neuropsychology, but extrasensory perception most definitely was not. His advisor told him to find another research topic.

  “Study EEG waves,” Gail had pleaded. “Do what you want to do within the department’s parameters.” But Nick refused. As it turned out, he was very good at selling houses. They’d just bought a new house themselves, from the guest room of which Nick was continuing his research. Gail would be awakened, in the wee hours, by a husband convinced she wanted to have sex. How did he know? From as far away as the other side of the house, his slow waves had read her slow waves.

  It began to snow, and Gail turned around. Sandy had her tongue extended, catching flakes. “More snow,” Allison chirped, her cheeks red as cherries.

  “Shh,” PJ said. “Sandy and I are listening to the big nothing.”

  Gail wanted to swat him one. Did she dare tell him to turn around and go back? Follow their footprints in reverse, all the way to the lodge, and watch football with the menfolk? Mel had asked PJ to join them. He was trying with the boy. Even Nick had said, “My money’s on Alabama. Come on, PJ, watch the game with us.”

  But here he was, making a nuisance of himself, as usual.

  The snow, a brief flurry, soon stopped. The two-toed hoofprints seemed fresher now, closer. Would it be possible for four humans to close in on two deer so quietly that the animals wouldn’t turn their white tails and run? Gail wanted to get close enough to look those deer in the eye. Brown eyes, surely, with gold flecks.

  But what was this? Curving out from the woods to their left was another set of tracks. Pawprints, not hooves. Feline paws, Gail was almost sure of it.

  For years, the southern Appalachians had been rife with rumors of mountain lions, despite (or perhaps because of) scientific claims that they’d been hunted to extinction. The lack of natural predators was supposed to explain the large deer population these days.

  Was this a real live mountain lion, hot on the trail of a two-course meal? Tasty venison, with tender fawn for dessert.

  Panthers, they were called in mountainous East Tennessee. Painters, in hillbilly-speak.

  Gail quickened her pace. That panther would be wasting no time, hard on the scent.

  Then she came to her senses.

  She longed to see the deer, yes. She’d even like to see a wild panther, for the once-in-a-lifetime thrill of it. But she did not want to come upon carnage. Blood in the snow, beseeching brown eyes. The Christmas card from hell.

  “Time to go back,” she said. “PJ, can you be our leader? We’ll
follow you.”

  With a shrug, the boy turned around.

  Gail took one last look at the panther tracks. She hoped the beast would kill the deer first, before beginning to gnaw on them.

  “I knew it was you. Mel and PJ wouldn’t have knocked.” Hanna yawned. “Did you lose the kids?”

  “I woke you up,” Gail said.

  “No, I never got to sleep. Come on in.”

  Gail stamped the snow off her boots and stepped inside. “The kids are up at the lodge.” She unzipped her jacket and hung it on a hook by the door. “There’s a fire in that enormous fireplace. I may have kept them out in the cold too long.”

  Hanna motioned toward one of the sturdy pine rocking chairs, and Gail sat down. A shiny black guitar case was propped against the coffee table.

  Gingerly, Hanna lowered herself into the other chair. She massaged her forehead. “Why does champagne give you such a splitting headache?”

  “Don’t know.” Gail never touched the stuff.

  Would she and Hanna ever sit together like this in rocking chairs, as old ladies? Would the friendship last that long? Nowadays, they were both working moms, Gail a social worker in Baltimore and Hanna a computer programmer for NASA in DC. Too busy with their jobs and their families to have much time for each other, despite living only about an hour apart.

  “There’s something I need to tell you,” Gail began.

  “Let me guess,” Hanna said. “PJ peed in the snow.”

  “With my little girls watching.”

  Again Hanna yawned. “Surely they’ve seen pee before.”

  “Don’t you think you should talk to him?”

  “About what?”

  “Hanna! If PJ goes around waving his dick in front of young girls, he’s likely to end up in big trouble.”

  “Waving his dick? He’s ten. It’s not big enough to wave.”

  “Showing it, then.” Exposing himself.

  “All he did was pee, right? He thought he was among friends.”

  “He was.” The girls seemed to like him. “But still.”