Mt. Moriah's Wake

by Melissa Norton Carro

  I nodded. I had no idea but knew my affirmation would bring him some comfort.

  Then he looked up and cupped my chin in his hand.

  “You got a raw deal, Jo Jo. And maybe what Doro did wasn’t right. You’ve been suffering alone and no one could reach you in the place where you are.” He pulled a twig of hair from across my mouth. “I wasn’t there. But you know what? I’m thankful I wasn’t there. I’m glad there’s no memory of a gunshot ringing in my ears when I sleep.

  “But that doesn’t mean I don’t have memories too. That I’m not haunted.”

  Tuck continued, moving in closer, “You see, I lost three people that day. Not only Grace but my best friend.” His intensity now was that of a man throwing a life jacket to a drowning friend. Only I was too far away to reach.

  “I lost you that day as surely as if the bastard had shot you too. I’ve known it every day since you’ve been back—every time I saw you, every time I put my arm around you. Every smile you smile gives it away.”

  I was crying harder now. My arms hugging my knees, I rocked back and forth in Tuck’s arms, to his words.

  “I know that part of you died that day, Jo. I don’t understand it; I can’t understand what happened to you, but I know there’s part of you—a big part of you—that died with Grace.”

  Tuck pulled me more tightly against him, and I continued my steady rocking, as if the motion would still my heart, my brain, stifle my sobs. Stop everything.

  “That’s not the end of the story, though, Jo Jo.” That high school nickname. Who was that girl, that Jo Jo? Hadn’t she died here on the mountain? Hadn’t she disappeared?

  “The fact is that you’re the strongest person I know. Look at your life and what you’ve survived. You’re alive, and you get to go on living. And now someone is living inside you.”

  “I don’t want to live.” Mine was the small whine of a young child, rocking against my mother, my toes chafing the ends of footie pajamas.

  “Don’t say that. That’s not fair. That’s not fair to Grace.” Tuck clutched me more tightly, squeezing the sobs that shook my chest. “I don’t believe you want to die.” He paused. “You’re alive for a reason, Jo Jo. For some crazy, wonderful, unexplainable reason, you’re alive.” He drew my hair back from my face and kissed my forehead, my cheek. “And I’m glad you’re alive.”

  And then he said the words that perhaps I had been waiting years to hear, needing most to hear. Words that pulled me up, up, upwards, through guilt and confusion and self-pity. Toward the shallow water. The words that sucked me toward light and life.

  “You’re being alive doesn’t betray Grace. She would want you to live, Jo Jo.”

  I stopped rocking then and looked up at the man whom I left as a boy and who had miraculously aged into someone I did not know, but deeply respected. And loved.

  “I want you back, Jo Jo. I want my old friend back.” Tuck’s face was damp, whether from my own tears or his I didn’t know. “I don’t want to lose you too.”

  All at once I remembered something he had said.

  “Tuck, you said you lost three people. Grace and me and … yourself? You’re saying you lost yourself?”

  Tuck put the ring to his mouth and kissed it gently. We both knew whose face he was touching as his lips grazed the metal, shiny now from tears and rubbing.

  “No, Jo. There’s something else. Something else you don’t know.” He cleared his throat before continuing. Suddenly I knew what he was going to say, and I felt vomit rise in the back of my throat. The words that fell from his mouth were arrows piercing my skin.

  “She was going to tell you. Man, Grace was so excited about telling you that day.”

  “God, no, Tuck.”

  His tears flowed freely then, a release of the secret that had been locked between husband and wife. One living, the other dead.

  He nodded at me.

  “I lost my baby too.”

  32

  SUNRISE

  FOR HOURS TUCK AND I SAT still together on that hillside, drifting to sleep and then waking. The rain dissipated and the first rays of sun appeared. We didn’t talk, no longer cried. We simply sat, huddling against each other in the dampness, blocking out time and motion with our composite grief.

  It was me who finally broke the silence.

  “How were your boards?

  “Tough in spots. I guess we’ll know in a month.”

  I shivered, and Tuck drew me into his arms, so close we were almost one mass in the trembling light.

  “What would Debra say if she saw us sitting this way?”

  “Who do you think sent me up here?”

  “Really?”

  “She called me. She was on an emergency run to the store to get diapers. She passed you and said you were driving fast and looked distraught.

  “Debra said she thought you needed me.”

  Without thinking, I spoke the truth. “What a woman.”

  Tuck smiled. “I know how to pick ‘em, don’t I?” He squeezed my hand and kissed it. “Do you like Debra, Jo?”

  Liking Debra meant turning my back on my past, on what Tuck and I were, on what we might be. It meant turning my back on the union that had made Grace happier than anything else.

  “It’s hard for a woman like me to like a woman with big boobs like those,” I said.

  That impish high school grin was back. “Those girls are pretty great, I can’t lie.”

  “I do like Debra.” I traced the lifelines on Tuck’s palm. “Somehow it’s easier, now that I know about you and Grace.”

  Tuck looked puzzled. “Easier?”

  “I guess I wanted you to love Grace as much as I did. And now I know you did.

  “I know now just what you’ve lost.”

  Leaning back, Tuck stretched out his long legs before speaking.

  “I shut down when Grace died. I didn’t think I could love anyone else. I had, for a brief time, a wife and child.” His voice broke on the last word. “Nothing could replace that.”

  He looked at me, waiting intently for him to continue.

  “And Debra doesn’t replace Grace. She can’t. Neither can Andy. But Debra was my friend and loved me when I was unlovable, when I couldn’t love back.

  “One day she and I had been out for pizza. We were just friends. Great conversations, a little laughter. Someone to pass the time with, ya know?” I nodded; I did know. “Anyway, I drove Deb home and before she got out of the car she reached over and kissed me on the cheek. And it was so sweet. I liked it.

  “The next time I saw her I thought maybe I could kiss her just once, hold her hand. Maybe I could like her just a little more. And before long, you know what?”

  I shook my head.

  “Before long, I was able to love Deb. One day at a time. A little bit at first, then more deeply. So slowly. It was like learning to walk again.

  “It was falling in love with Debra that restored my faith.”

  I winced at the word. “My faith could use some restoring.”

  Tuck frowned at me. “I probably felt that way too for a while. But one weekend, Deb came home with me. We were having a picnic in the meadow behind the cemetery. There we were, not a hundred yards from where Grace was buried, and the sun was out and I didn’t think of Grace at all.

  “I almost started crying when I realized that not once had I thought of Grace. And in that setting! How could I forget? How could I have been so caught up with another person?”

  My mind flashed to those Saturdays in Tom’s house: dry walling, steaming wallpaper, music drifting over us and bits of conversations happening in comfortable stops and starts. I thought of our picnics at Loyola, of the quick kisses in the elevator at S&H. Deep down inside, that’s exactly how I had felt: How dare I be happy?

  Tuck continued to talk slowly, deliberately.

  “Once I realized that, I made a lame excuse and took Debra home. Then I went back to the cemetery—oh it was eight at night or so—and I sat with Grace, by her gra
ve all night. I didn’t sleep, barely blinked. My guilt kept me awake.

  “And then the sun rose and I thought, this is it. This is the way the rest of my life will go—talking to a grave and remembering not to forget her.

  “So here I am, on this insane morning when I’ve had no sleep and all of a sudden I hear this thud nearby. The wind had knocked this cute little nest down, and there was the mother robin. I swear she shook her feathers like, ‘What the crap!’ and then here comes a big maple leaf, plop! Smack dab on top of the nest, covering it like a bedspread.

  “That robin walked up to that leaf like, ‘What the hell happened here?’ and it was all just so comical.”

  He paused, noting my countenance.

  “Okay, clearly you had to be there. I’d had no sleep, remember? But here’s the point. I had seen this cute, funny thing—it made me laugh out loud—and I wanted to tell someone. And guess who I thought of?”

  Silence from me. I knew.

  “I had this strong, powerful urge to see Deb, and I felt no remorse about getting up from Grace’s grave and driving straight back to Deb. I loved Grace, and she loved me. Debra loved me, and I was loving her. I realized then that our hearts aren’t so easily destroyed—that they’re stronger than we know.”

  Tuck leaned forward and put his hands on my cheeks. “We are stronger than we know. And I believe that we’re made to love again.”

  He wiped away traces of dried tears, smoothed down my wild hair and kissed my forehead. “Those curls of yours,” he smiled.

  “Think of it, Jo Jo. I was as unlovable and shut down as anyone can be, and yet Debra broke through. Doesn’t that tell you that someone is watching over us, helping us survive the unsurvivable and love the unlovable?”

  I thought then of Tom, of the remote, godless me who brought a host of demons into every embrace, every conversation. I thought of the secret I could not share—chose not to share with him. I thought of the nights he woke me from nightmares, holding me when I could not voice my fears. Just holding me and expecting nothing more.

  “I think I’ve been unlovable. I know it. I’ve pushed Tom away.” There. I had said it out loud.

  Tuck was quiet for a minute, then, “Is he really pushed away? Or is he there waiting for you?” Another pause. “Maybe he’s like Debra, refusing to be pushed away. She did all the loving for both of us for a while. Maybe Tom’s doing that now.”

  I’m right here. I could hear Tom’s voice. I got you. And then, I have to walk away.

  “You’ve heard my story. What brought you and Tom together anyway?”

  “Well, we sort of lived in sin for a while, unknowingly.”

  Tuck’s eyebrows went up, and I told him our story—tales of the hotel room, of Candace, work at the agency, the house we never seemed to stop renovating. As I talked I realized I was telling stories of the best friend I had known since Grace. In a sense, Tom had filled Grace’s void, filling my days with conversation, with laughter, with insight. Is that why I married him?

  “No.”

  I startled at Tuck’s response to my thoughts and then realized I had spoken aloud.

  “You asked if it sounded like you had married a replacement friend, and I said no. It sounds to me like you married someone you could spend the rest of your life with.” Tuck recrossed his legs and played with the gold band. All night he had been doing this, on one finger, off and onto another. Over and over.

  “Do you ever wonder if Debra is who you’re meant to be with forever? That there will never be anyone else?”

  I knew my question was treading into dangerous waters.

  “Anyone else like a writer who’s moved on to the big city?”

  I blushed.

  “Tuck, did you want to kiss me the other night on your deck?”

  Tuck’s face told me he was being absolutely truthful.

  “Yes. I did. And I don’t feel guilty about that. There will probably be other women I’ll want to kiss.” His hand clutched his heart theatrically. “Miss Connie with the sagging knee-his, now she makes me warm all over.”

  He noticed his joke fell on deaf ears. “So did you want to kiss me?”

  I nodded. “I think at that moment I thought I could go back to our old life—that I could be with someone who knows all about me.”

  Grow up, Maddy had said.

  “Tom doesn’t know all about you?”

  “He knows me, yes. But he doesn’t know everything … well, he doesn’t know the whole story about Grace’s murder, about my …” I paused. “I guess I left here with the idea that I could be someone new.”

  “Sometimes new is not better. It’s just new.” We both smiled. Tuck was quoting a line Doro said constantly as we urged her to replace her old car, to replace the Kitchen Aid mixer circa 1960.

  “It’s hard to build a future without all the story, Jo Jo. I think at some point you’re going to have to let Tom in. If you want a future, that is.”

  My expression voiced what I could not articulate: the fear, the confusion.

  “You can’t continue to lead two lives, Jo Jo. They have to collide. Tom has to know all of you—the good as well as the, well the unthinkable. He’s your husband, and he loves you.”

  “How do you know he does?” I whispered.

  “Because he’d be crazy not to. Because you’re lovable. Because you’re you.

  Because I love you.”

  My tears started again, tears of sorrow and fatigue. My heart sighed with the knowledge that Tuck spoke the truth. My old friend telling me the truth. And now softly asking the question that I had been burying for months.

  “Do you love Tom back, Jo Jo?”

  A warm stream running down my dirty cheeks, my answer was barely audible.

  “I don’t know, Tuck. I love—I love being with him. I love who he is, what he does. I respect him. But there’s part of me that feels I’m hovering above us when we’re together—that I’m playing at love, at marriage … like I’m not really there.”

  Tuck was quiet and still, eyes closed. He sat that way for a full minute or two before speaking.

  “I think you’re not really there. There’s a big part of you that’s still here, on this mountain. Blaming yourself. Not loving yourself.”

  He opened his eyes and looked at me, wiping my cheeks with his fingertips, ever so gently, lamb’s wool against my burning skin.

  “You have to decide whether to stay here—to keep this girl on the mountain—or bring her back with you to Tom. And only one of those options will keep Tom in your life.” Tuck rolled the ring over each knuckle in succession, a mesmerizing glimmer before my eyes. “Can you imagine Tom not being in your life? Not knowing him when you’re seventy? Not ever knowing what he became, what he did? I couldn’t imagine not knowing Debra, and so I had to leave Grace behind.

  “I had to move on.”

  With Tuck’s words, pictures of Tom came to mind—bending over his light board, slinging his Nikon over his shoulder before boarding a canoe, watching baseball with a beer and a can of peanut butter, smoothing down unruly gray tendons above his ear.

  I could not imagine Tom not being in my future. Not smelling his musky scent or feeling his arms around me. Not waking up to those dimples.

  I looked squarely at Tuck. Perhaps the love danced from my eyes.

  “You have to take the girl down from the mountain, Jo Jo. You have to let her meet her husband.” Tuck leaned over and kissed me then, full on the lips. It was a warm, long kiss. Neither sexual nor platonic, it was rather a kiss of closure, of redemption. A kiss that said so much that needed to be said. That told me it was the kiss of my past but not my future.

  “Now neither of us has to wonder or wish,” Tuck said. “Tom’s a lucky man, and he’s going to love the woman who comes home to him.”

  I clasped my arms around Tuck’s neck and, as I did, imagined it was Tom whom I was embracing. Imagined his hair against my nose, his hands rubbing my shoulder blades.

  “I do love him,”
I whispered into the shirt of the man whom I didn’t love. At least not in the way I loved Tom. Tuck held a piece of my heart, but not the part that made me want to arise from the ground and continue to live. That man was far away, and I needed to get back to him. Get him back to me.

  We pulled apart from our embrace and minutes later frantic footsteps overtook us. Debra was panting.

  “Thank goodness I found you.” Debra’s eyes shifted from Tuck’s to mine. “Maddy called looking for you, JoAnna. He dropped the phone, and I called 911. He’s had a heart attack.”

  33

  SIGNS OF LIFE

  TUCK AND DEBRA FOLLOWED ME back to the Inn and pulled up next to me, one car on each side. Debra leaned out the car window. “I checked with the hospital. Maddy’s in surgery. It will be a few hours.”

  “We’ll wait for you to change clothes,” Tuck said. “We’ll ride together.”

  But I shook my head. There was something I needed to do first, and I needed to do it alone.

  “I’ll meet you at the hospital.” And then, seeing the concern on their faces, “I’m okay. I’ll be right there.”

  Inside the April bedroom I stepped out of the mud-caked jeans still drenched around the hem. I pulled on a dry pair and an old Georgia sweatshirt from the drawer. As it fell down around my neck, I caught a whiff of one of Doro’s cachets. Lilac. I hated it as a teenager. Now it only made me want to cry.

  I drew my hair up into a ponytail and, tugging on shoes as I went, hobbled downstairs to Doro’s Dell computer. A few seconds later I was connected.

  My hands sat poised over the keyboard. I waited to hear that familiar voice: “You’ve got mail.” But there was no noise except the hard knocking of my heart. I glanced at the clock. It had been over an hour since Debra first got the call. Maddy would be coming out of surgery in three more hours. An emergency bypass. I rolled the words around on my tongue. Stupid terminology: There was no way to bypass a heart like Maddy’s.

  The cursor clicked at me, impatient. I took a deep breath and began to type. My fingers flew faster and faster across the keyboard, tripping over themselves. If I could just get the words out, I wouldn’t have to see them again. Words I could never say out loud looked almost elegant on the cyber page.