Mt. Moriah's Wake

by Melissa Norton Carro

  I smiled at Tuck. “Looks like you’ve been drafted into breakfast.”

  “Well I’ve probably consumed a thousand breakfasts here at the Inn. Highlights of my life actually.” Tuck pulled me in for another hug. “I really wanted to be here yesterday, you know.”

  I had scanned the crowd at the visitation, then again at the church. I wondered where he was. Of all the people I had talked with, Tuck’s was the face I longed to see the most, the one I most needed to see. “I know.” I pressed my forefingers into the corner of my eyes to stop the tears pooling there. “But you’re here now, and I’m so glad to see you.”

  Over breakfast Tuck updated me on his life. He had just finished law school and was studying for the bar. He was married to a tall willowy brunette named Debra.

  “She has big bosoms, Jo,” Doro had told me on the phone. “Unnaturally big if you ask me.”

  Debra and Tuck had an eight month old son, Andy, and lived in Birmingham where Tuck had just graduated from Samford Law School.

  “I imagine we’ll stay in Birmingham,” Tuck said in answer to Maddy’s question. “Debra’s family is from there and with a baby, it makes a big difference to be near families. We came to Mt. Moriah two weeks ago to spend a month with my parents.

  “They’re a little jealous that Debra’s parents get to see Andy all the time, and I need to be studying for the bar exam, so this is a good place to do it.

  “Not much else to do in Mt. Moriah, you know?”

  Maddy snickered. “No, I reckon next to the big city there aren’t many distractions on the mountain.”

  “Well not ‘til now, anyway.” Tuck clasped my hand. “I might have to take some breaks to spend time with my old friend here. How long are you going to be here, Jo?”

  “That’s the question of the hour,” Maddy said, pouring us all a second cup of coffee.

  “I guess you have to get back to work, right? And your husband? Tom?”

  I had not seen Tuck since the day of Grace’s funeral. We had exchanged no letters, no phone calls. Doro told me Tuck asked for my number in Chicago, but I asked her not to give it. I ceased communication with him, like everyone else on Mt. Moriah. I was surprised, then, to hear how much he knew about my life.

  “Doro kept me filled in. She and Maddy came to our wedding, and I would call her every month or so,” Tuck explained. “Seems she was lonely without you, or …”

  “Or Grace.”

  Tuck cleared his throat, and a pall of sadness crossed his face. “Yeah. You know, Doro had all of us running around the Inn for years and then no one.”

  Morning stretched into lunchtime, and when Doro’s grandfather clock struck one o’clock, Tuck rose to his feet. “I need to get back. It’s Andy’s nap time, and I usually put him down.” He continued, voice softer, almost apologetic. “Debra’s a little nervous when it comes to the mothering thing.

  “But speaking of Debra, she wanted me to invite you to dinner. Saturday night?”

  “I, I guess.” I looked at Maddy questioningly.

  “All we have on the docket is to meet with the lawyer. You know Saturday will be sermon writing time for me.”

  “Then I’d love to.” It was a boldface lie: I had no desire to meet buxom Debra. Time alone with my old friend Tuck was what I wanted. “Can I bring something?”

  “No, but don’t bring too much of an appetite, either,” Tuck warned. “I love my wife, but she’s not a cook like Doro. And my parents are out of town for the weekend, so my mom can’t bail us out.”

  “Sounds like an adventure.”

  “I’ll look forward to it, Jo. I hope we can spend some time together while you’re here—before you have to head back to work.”

  A quick hug and Tuck was gone.

  Maddy had already started washing the dishes. “I’m gonna need to go work on my sermon a bit, Jo.” He paused. “Do you need to check in with your office?” My office. Chicago. Tom. The look on Tuck’s face when he spoke Grace’s name.

  Tears that I had suppressed for a week threatened to come.

  “What is it, little thing?”

  “I don’t know, Maddy, just emotional I guess,” I lied.

  How could I tell him what was going on in Chicago. With my marriage, my life.

  And so I didn’t.

  “What time is our appointment at the lawyer’s, Maddy?” I wiped my eyes with the dishtowel.

  Maddy drew me to him and gave me the kind of hug that was part pastor and part gardener. Part father and part friend.

  “3:30. Thought maybe you could buy me an early dinner afterwards with your fancy pants salary.”

  “No fancy salary here, sorry to disappoint you. But I could probably afford the Lunch Box.”

  “Well that suits just fine.” Maddy looked over his glasses into my eyes. “Sure you’re okay?”

  “Fine, Maddy.” I lied again. Knowing that he knew it was a lie and also knowing that he wouldn’t press me.

  The law offices of Barkham and Wright were one block off Woodbury Avenue, the main thoroughfare in Mt. Moriah. We parallel parked and walked the brick sidewalks hand in hand. Maddy waved at everyone he saw, whether he knew them or not. The customers in Bruno’s Barber Shop glanced our way when Bruno waved back. Few were there for haircuts; most were there to shoot the breeze and escape home or work for a few minutes or a few hours. A Japanese American, Bruno moved to Mt. Moriah in the 1950s with his parents. He adopted the name Bruno to try to appear more American and in ironic deference to his petite, wiry frame. In the early ’60s, when Bruno bought the barber shop from Leonard Fulstein, some Mt. Moriah residents were wary of Bruno’s olive skin and slanted eyes.

  “A Jew barber like Leonard makes sense. But has everyone forgotten Pearl Harbor?” Ellard Jasper carried a plug of tobacco in his lip and one of hatred in his heart. But before long Ellard’s rants were overshadowed by Bruno’s weekly raffles of free haircuts and the lilting violin concertos he played on the steps of his shop when the weather was nice and business was slow.

  “Well, you’d never get anything free from a Jew,” Ellard spit. “But I still don’t trust that little Jap.”

  Over thirty years had come and gone (during which time Ellard served time for dog fighting), and there was little memory of Bruno ever being anything but a mainstay in the community. In downtown Mt. Moriah, minutes fell languidly into hours, and there was a sense of comfort in the knowledge that the shops opened at 10:00 a.m. and the gas lamps went on nine hours later. Downtown was a place where the mountain residents went to pump gas, buy bread, mail letters, get their feverish child a strep test. A place where you were guaranteed to run into at least ten people you knew. And come away from each errand with a sense that all is as it should be.

  Barkham & Wright was tucked away behind a mahogany panel door and up a flight of steps. We were greeted by June Carter. “Not Cash, just Carter!” she smiled at us, smacking her gum ferociously. “Just have a seat and I’ll get Mr. Barkham.”

  John Barkham was younger than I thought, and after a few minutes of exchanging pleasantries, I realized he was a son of the senior Barkham. Just as I was mentally calculating his age, he beat me to the punch.

  “Class of 1993 at Woodbury High?” he asked.

  “Yes. You too? I’m sorry, I’m terrible with names … and faces.” I took his outreached hand. On his desk was a picture of a vaguely familiar blonde. Had I had gone to school with her too?

  “It’s okay. Better to be non-memorable than so memorable that you land in prison!” John was annoyingly cheerful, like the Brighton clad blonde in the wedding photo.

  “We were in junior English together. At least until I dropped out of AP. You were some kind of writer.” John pulled his cuffs, first one, then another, from under his coat sleeves and adjusted the JC Penney tie on his chest. “You’re in Chicago now?”

  “Yes, I’m—” What was I doing in Chicago? Not writing the Great American Novel. Drowning my sorrows in Smirnoff and silently cussing the non-adventure
s of Jillsandra—“writing for an ad agency.”

  “Wow, impressive. Big city’s not for me, but I think it’s awfully cool for someone who loves that kind of thing.” John looked at Maddy. “Truth is, I need to be able to get in my truck on Friday afternoon and be at the cabin by eight. Guess I’m just a country boy.”

  Country boy did a thorough job explaining Doro’s will. The Inn was three years away from being paid off, but Doro’s life insurance covered that. Still held in trust for me—until age thirty—was my parents’ life insurance. And so it seemed that I went from being a struggling copy manager in one of the most expensive cities in the US to a young woman of means.

  “But what about the Inn?” I said, when the will had been read.

  “Well, JoAnna, as it says, Ms. Wilson was very clear that the Inn was to go to you.”

  “But I don’t, I don’t want it.” I thought I sensed a wince from Maddy, but I continued anyway. “I don’t want to live here.”

  John rubbed his hands through his hair, and I thought of Tom. What would he say? What would he think? Was he even a factor?

  “If you don’t want to keep the Inn, I suggest you meet with a realtor relatively soon. A parcel of land that size, depending on the condition of the house, may take a while to find a buyer.”

  I turned to Maddy. “Maddy, don’t you want the Inn? You could keep running it or have guests there, or, or something.”

  “Little thing, I think you mistake me for someone not pushing eighty.” Maddy squeezed my hand. “The Inn was Doro’s dream, not mine.”

  The meeting lasted a little over an hour. Doro, it seems, had been a careful planner. She left, in the capable hands of Barkham and Wright, complete details on her affairs, even instructions on thawing her cantankerous deep freeze in the basement.

  As we prepared to leave, John took my hand.

  “As for myself, I do wish you’d stay, JoAnna. Or at least keep the Inn. This little town is growing older—no offense, Mr. Blair—and it would be nice to see more of our generation back here.

  “You might be surprised at what a nice place to live it is.”

  We walked from the office to the Lunch Box, and although I had eaten numerous times there over the years, I was instantly transported to my eight-year-old self, to that Saturday with Doro and Maddy and the elephant ears and Doro’s dreams.

  “You understand, don’t you?” I asked, stabbing my open-faced roast beef sandwich as Maddy launched greedily into his BLT. “Mt. Moriah is just not my life anymore.”

  Maddy was quiet for a minute. “It’s not just your life to consider, Jo. I know that. There’s Tom to consider too. But for whatever was in that crazy head of hers, Doro felt very strongly that you keep the Inn.

  “She had big plans for it, you know.”

  Maddy told me how he came upon Doro in her pajamas early one Saturday morning, sitting at the kitchen table, drawing on a legal pad, a cup of tepid Earl Grey before her. She wanted to convert the massive side porch into a bakery. The porch was rarely used, but was visible from the road below. She thought it might appeal to people who would like to stroll around the grounds and take away a baked good. With fewer overnight guests, Doro saw this as a way to keep the Inn viable.

  “And who would do the baking? Had Doro thought of that?”

  “Of course, she had, little thing. That was the genius of it.” Maddy paused dramatically. “Who makes the best chocolate chess tarts in the world?”

  Indeed I knew.

  The summer before senior year in high school, I was totally immersed in our class yearbook. I was editor-in-chief, with an emphasis on chief. When it came to fundraising, I had little interest in other people’s ideas: I was so sure my idea of a bake sale was the best. Parents were less than enthusiastic. By the end of high school, so many of those mothers had baked their way through elementary, middle, and high school and were ready to retire.

  “Goodness, get the kids to bake themselves!” Doro scoffed.

  And I did, which yielded us baggies of cookies, brownies, and Rice Krispies treats. The bake sale was to be held July 4, when Doro always hosted a patriotic concert on the lawn. Sweaty toddlers with red, white, and blue pinwheels chased each other, weaving in and out on the lawn of picnic blankets. Couples took turns using each other’s stomachs as pillows, sprawled under the vast sky peeking above the hundred year old oaks. Maddy churned homemade ice cream, and two men from church manned the grill. Hamburger and hotdog plates were five dollars each, with the proceeds benefitting First Methodist’s mission work.

  “Set up your bake sale on the side porch, and I bet you’ll make a killing,” Doro said.

  I recruited Grace and Tuck to help me. They had little interest in the yearbook, but lately had become inseparable, spending time together as I sat in my room, flipping through college catalogs and yearbook page proofs. We were still a trio, yet I felt myself separating.

  “Good news, Jo Jo,” Grace said as she bounded up the steps early that afternoon. “My mom has made eight dozen chocolate chess tarts for you. She stayed up all night.”

  Genia’s baked goods were legendary.

  “Awesome! Where are they?”

  “They are in the trunk of Doro’s car.” She dropped Doro’s keys on the table. “Thanks for letting me borrow your car, Doro. Let me get my arms free, and I’ll go get them.”

  “Oh I’ll go,” I said. “That’s so great.”

  Indeed, the gooey tarts would have been great had I gone then to get them, had I not told Grace I would do it. Had either of us actually gone to retrieve them from the car parked in the ninety-five-degree sun. Had four hours not passed before either of us realized the tarts were not displayed on the table. By the time we rescued them, the tarts had turned to chocolate rivers and the trunk of Doro’s car to a fudge factory.

  It was Doro who saved the day when Genia arrived to see no tarts on display.

  “Genia, you wouldn’t believe the good fortune!” Doro shot me and Grace a look that prohibited us from speaking. “Someone bought them all up.”

  Straightening a bit, Genia smiled, flushed with pride that her delicacies had been a hit.

  “Now, girls, come help me in the kitchen.”

  Out of range of Genia’s ears, Doro waggled her finger at us. “I did not lie. I am purchasing that god-awful mess for two hundred dollars. In exchange you, will clean my car and give me an honest day’s work this weekend for no charge.”

  Doro’s will stayed on my mind. Maddy and I spent the next two days idling around the Inn in silence. Maddy had his own built-in barometer for assessing what people were feeling, what they needed. He knew what I needed was quiet. Perhaps he thought I would talk when I was ready.

  I had been in Mt. Moriah less than a week and although I couldn’t see myself staying here, I also couldn’t imagine returning to Chicago. I helped Maddy with the tasks he gave me—sorting through Doro’s papers, cleaning out the refrigerator—but when he was out or otherwise engaged, I’d sneak out to the lush magnolia on the front lawn. Hunching over, I slipped under its mighty limbs, my bottom on the cool leafy carpet and my back up against the trunk for support. How many afternoons of my childhood I had whiled away in just such a position, the magnolia umbrella eclipsing the sun—my nose stuck in a book or scribbling my stories filled with characters so alive to me I could hear their voices. Characters who, unlike Jillsandra, had birthdays and feelings and whole lifetimes that I knew as intimately as I knew my own.

  How I missed the feeling of writing so fluidly that the words formed effortlessly on the pages. How I missed the feeling of escape that came with an afternoon spent writing, being called to dinner by Doro and having to remind myself of who and where I was.

  I missed having something to say.

  As much time as I spent with Grace, the magnolia was mine alone—a chapel constructed solely for me and my thoughts. It was an old friend that beckoned me alone, that shielded me from myself.

  But not from my thoughts.

&nb
sp; Tom had called again, twice. Both times he talked to Maddy. It had been weeks since I had seen my husband, and I missed him. I wanted nothing more than to lean into his arms, to have him stroke my hair. But I also knew there was something keeping me from Tom, from surrendering to love that seemed so easy for him: words unsaid and secrets unshared. I had a decision to make, several decisions, and I knew that there, under my magnolia canopy, knees drawn up to my chin, arms tightly wrapped around my calves, eyes closed, barely breathing, I could be the only way that life was bearable.

  Invisible.

  I fell asleep, tucked up like a little ball, and was awoken by a familiar footstep. Maddy, one hand on his chest, pulled back a limb to peer at me.

  “Thought I’d find you here.” Maddy rubbed his chest, and his face was one of concern.

  “Why are you rubbing your chest?”

  “Oh, I think I pulled a muscle, probably hauling a box.” Maddy slid his head in between limbs and peered up, seeing the brilliant green awning from my vantage point. “Nice spot. I’d climb in there and sit with you for a spell, but I doubt I’d be able to get up.”

  “This was my favorite place when I was a child.”

  “I remember.”

  Maddy looked up through the foliage and then back at me. “One of my favorite quotes goes, ‘Someone is sitting in the shade today, because someone planted a tree a long time ago.’”

  I batted away a mosquito. “Let me guess: Paul to the church at Corinth.”

  Maddy scowled. “You are Biblically illiterate. It was Warren Buffett actually.”

  Smiling, I pushed back a branch to see him better. “It feels so … safe in here.”

  “And nowhere else?”

  Tears pooled in the corners of my eyes. “I don’t know, Maddy. I just, I don’t know where I belong.” I straightened my legs, and made my way out to where Maddy was standing. So tall, he, like the magnolia, blocked the sun. He, like the ancient tree, was a safe refuge.

  I peered up into those eyes, aquamarine and warm as gentle ocean waves. “I’ve made a mess of things, Maddy. I think I’ve made a real mess of things.”