“Don’t ever underestimate your daddy’s fishing skills, boy,” she said, adjusting Ada’s fingers on the reel and pulling her arm back, showing her how to cast lightly into the water. “He was like magic on the water.”
“Still is,” he said. “I do okay too, you know.”
“Lotta talk on the Creek,” she said. “Got to prove yourself. Now, Ada, you feel a nibble, don’t go jerkin’ it out of the water like you got a marlin on, you just let him take it before you set, and just reel, don’t jerk. I don’t feel like gettin’ hooked when it comes flyin’ out of the water. This is easy fishin’, not deep-sea fishin’.”
While his grandmother was teaching Ada, Marshall chose a rod and got busy tying a weight and sorting through the small tacklebox, settling on a four-pound spinner rather than hooking a real worm. His grandmother watched him out the corner of her eye as she got Ada used to the motion of casting, and she smiled at his choice.
They fished for over two hours, quietly, only conversing when one of them caught a fish. Marshall was proud of Ada. She was excited when she caught a fish, but she didn’t squeal or act grossed out. Instead, she allowed him to show her how to remove the hook and hold the fish in the water for a moment before letting it go, catching on more quickly than he had when he was a novice.
Grandmother Tobias was the only one who kept her catch, and she twisted her lips whenever she watched them let one go that she thought might be good eating, but she didn’t say anything. Ada stopped after the first hour and just watched, and finally Marshall saw what he’d hoped to see the last time they went boating.
She did soften. She practically melted in the heat, and eventually her eyes drifted shut and she began to hum, a fine sheen of perspiration making her glow. Marshall didn’t recognize the tune she was humming, but within a moment Grandmother Tobias began to sing softly.
“—and we shall go a’down, and go a’down to the river, and he calls to us where they laid him down, and we go a’down, and go a’down to the river, and we raise our voice—”
Ada began to sing too, and he closed his eyes and thought that he might never have an opportunity to feel so perfect again, here on this water, with fish biting, swallowtail kites sailing overhead in the palest blue sky, the sun’s edges sharp, without the blur of even the wisp of a cloud, and women singing a hymn he’d never heard before yet felt his soul recognized.
But perfection eluded him, because he could not forget.
He could not forget about Meghan and his parents, about the jail cell, the pendejo, about anything. He tried to think of nothing but the pull at the tip of the pole and the heat on the top of his head, filtering down through his body and making him one with the creek, but it all stayed with him.
When Grandmother Tobias decided they had enough fish for dinner, she picked up a paddle and she and Marshall slowly wended their way back. The water level had dropped a bit, and they had to get out and wade twice, pulling the canoe along the mucky bottom of the creek, before they were able to pull the canoe up the bank they’d pushed off from.
Marshall shoved the canoe back into the brush alongside several others.
“Are all of these yours?” he asked.
“Nope, just a bunch of us keep ’em here. Most folks don’t know about this spot ’less they live here. Don’t even know about these trails we took to get here. Only the old Glade people know this land like this.”
Ada looked up from stowing the rods in the back of the truck. “I thought we were far away from the Everglades,” she said, shooting Marshall a look.
“Well, you’re not too far,” Grandmother Tobias replied. “But I’m talkin’ ’bout Belle Glade, honey, not the Everglades. Two different places, different fish, different folk. I imagine Calvin’ll be back before long. You don’t get this place out of your soul for long, just like you don’t ignore Jesus in your heart for too long, neither. Sooner or later, no matter how they lose their way, everybody comes back. You’re here and you didn’t even know it, if that doesn’t just show you. Some things are in the blood.”
She pulled the door of the Chevy open and climbed behind the wheel as Marshall and Ada scrambled to get in the cab, and they bounced back to her house under the blaze of the midday sun, their windows down, the heavy air blowing through.
As they pulled into the clearing and came to a dusty stop beside the house, the brush surrounding the carport began to shake, and Ada clutched his leg when a pack of dogs burst out of the dry scrub and surrounded the truck, baying and barking ferociously.
Grandmother Tobias inched the truck up and yelled at the dogs out the window. “Get on back, get back or I’ll get one of you, go on! Damn dogs!”
Marshall jumped when one leapt against the door just before she pulled into the carport, and Grandmother Tobias laughed. “They won’t hurt you,” she said. “They just want some fish. You think we’re gonna be able to eat all this? I’ll get them going while you get this one in the house,” she said, patting Ada’s arm. “I don’t want them jumping on her legs.”
She got out and whistled, pulling the dogs to her like a magnet, and Marshall twisted around to watch her pull the cooler to the end of the truck bed and start throwing fish over her shoulder. The dogs tumbled after the fish, snapping at each other, and Marshall and Ada got into the house without incident.
Inside the gloom of the front hall, Ada peered at him and said, “Oh, my God. That’s crazy.”
“She’s crazy,” Marshall agreed.
Ada turned serious. “No, no she’s not, Marshall, and don’t ever talk like that about her. She’s . . . touched. Not nutty touched, but she’s holy, she knows God.”
Marshall looked out the front window at the pack of dogs scrambling for the rest of the fish and shook his head. “You think?”
“She told me...” Ada trailed off, biting her lip.
“What? She told you what?”
“She said she knew we were coming. She knew we were in trouble, and God told her we were coming.”
He wanted to believe that, but the big woman in the carport with the crazy gray hair throwing raw fish at wild dogs, well, she just didn’t strike him as a visionary. Which was his fault, he knew. His own lack of faith, his own lack of courage.
“What else did she say?” he asked, taking her hand. She looked at him tenderly, tilting her head. If she’d looked twelve years old earlier, now she looked as though she contained the wisdom of age. She gently removed her hand from his.
“She said we weren’t to continue on our road together.”
“What? What are you talking about?”
She shrugged. “I’m just telling you what she said. She said you weren’t ready.”
“What the hell? Ready for what? Listen, Ada, our plan stands, doesn’t it? We needed a place to hole up for a couple days, get some rest, well, we got some. We’ll get out of here tomorrow, we’ll head to your people. Once we’re on the road, you can get in touch with them, make sure it’s safe. You said—”
“Shhh,” she cautioned him, holding her finger to her lips. “We’ll talk about it later.”
Grandmother Tobias huffed in from the porch, wiping sweat from her forehead and dragging the cooler in behind her. Marshall hurried to take it from her, noting that the color had drained from his grandmother’s face.
“Whew,” she said, sitting down at the table to catch her breath.
“Those dogs’ll be the death of me yet. I don’t get ’em fed, they’re like to eat me up one day.” She laughed and Ada joined her, but Marshall couldn’t muster a smile. He pulled the cooler into the kitchen and began stacking fish in the sink while Ada got a glass of water for his grandmother.
“We’ll fry those up later,” Grandmother Tobias said, watching Marshall. “Know how to clean ’em? Got newspapers in the utility room there.”
Marshall nodded. He knew how to clean fish. He remembered his father teaching him how to do it, how to hold the knife, hold the fish so he didn’t slice a piece of himself off, how to sl
ip the guts out with a minimum gross factor.
He got newspapers and started on the fish while Grandmother and Ada moved to the sofa and Grandmother began pulling out old, fabric-covered photo albums. They leaned their heads together over the albums, and he slowly worked himself into a snit, fairly vibrating with jealousy and self-pity.
He didn’t come here to clean fish. He came here to . . . what? The fish scales fell like glitter off the edge of the knife, and he remembered teaching Meghan to scale a fish the way his father had taught him, the way she’d been fascinated at the colors as light played against them. Tears—a surprise, he hadn’t even felt them come, they just sprang into his eyes the way his mouth watered when he smelled his mother’s barbeque sauce—blurred his vision. He stopped scraping; he’d be sure to cut a finger off if he couldn’t stop crying.
He used the back of his hand to wipe his eyes and started back on his task, half-listening to Grandmother Tobias talk about his father and his uncle Randy and the trouble they got up to as boys. He’d never been much trouble himself, not the way she was talking about, anyway. He’d never taken the car at thirteen the way she was telling Ada his father had, never been arrested . . . Well, that was no longer the case, was it?
He had come here to escape, to get Ada somewhere safe. But it didn’t seem so safe to him here now. Grandmother seemed more interested in Ada than in him. She looked at him as if he were missing something vital.
He looked over his shoulder at the two women on the sofa, their heads bent close, their voices low. Ada was nodding, her dark hair blurring through his still-watering vision. He wiped again with the back of his wrist, the knife slipping past his nose.
Before he knew it, Ada was beside him, looking down at the fish guts distastefully. He sniffed, trying to hide it by clattering the knife in the sink, but she turned to him and looked up into his eyes.
“You have such a rich, interesting history,” she said, reaching up to wipe a scale away from beneath his eye. “You really should learn more about it.”
“Yeah, well, I’m in here cleaning fish, aren’t I?” he muttered, picking up the knife again. “She doesn’t seem to want to tell me.”
Ada glanced over at Grandmother Tobias, who was still flipping through photo albums. “She just doesn’t think you’re ready to hear.”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean? I’m not ready? I’m tired of . . .”
She searched his face. “What?”
He shook his head and hefted a fish in his hand, the weight of it satisfying, the size of it perfect in his hand. “I don’t know,” he finally said.
Thirteen
I JUMPED when the phone rang in the still kitchen. The caller ID showed Tessa Barker’s name, the lawyer Mingus had referred me to. I cast a quick glance out the window before I picked it up to make sure Rhoades and Hernandez’s car was out of sight.
Her voice was tight, devoid of any accent, and I couldn’t tell how old she was. I could hear heels tapping, and she sounded almost out of breath as she identified herself.
“Charles Mingus suggested I give you a call,” I started, hoping that perhaps he’d already filled her in. But all she said was “Uh huh,” the heels still tapping quickly.
“I—My son is in trouble, and he’s representing him. But my husband and I are being questioned by the police, and I wanted to speak with a lawyer about what I should do.”
“What kind of trouble?”
“He and his girlfriend are both charged with several things, including aggravated child abuse with extenuating circumstances and resisting arrest.”
“Where’s the victim?”
The victim? I thought that perhaps Tessa Barker and Hernandez would get along just fine. “The victim is my daughter. It was an accident. And she’s in the hospital, in a coma.”
“And you need me why?”
The heel tapping stopped and I heard a thump, followed by the jangle of car keys. “Because the police continue to question me and my husband, and I don’t know what’s best for us, or for Marshall, and I thought I should talk to someone.”
“I’m really not sure what I can do for you,” she said, and a car door slammed, a motor turned over. “Why did Charlie send you my way?”
“I don’t know,” I said in exasperation. “You’re obviously too busy to talk to me.”
“Look, I just got out of a trial I worked my ass off on for the last five months. And my client ruined everything. So forgive me for my impatience, but I’d like to go pick up my kid and go home and pour a massive scotch, and as you’ve not been charged with a crime, I don’t see how I can help you.”
I sat back down in my chair and sighed. “I just wanted a consultation, some advice,” I said. “That’s all.”
“Did they beat her? Your daughter?”
“What? No, I told you, it was an accident. Well, not quite an accident. They gave her a cookie with some peanut butter in it. She’s allergic.”
“Oh.” There was a silence. “Oh. Okay. When can I see you?”
“What?”
“I’ll meet you? When is good for you?”
“Why the sudden change?” I asked, mystified.
“I imagine Charlie sent you to me because of my son, Owen. He’s allergic.”
“Oh,” I said. “To what?”
“Everything,” she said flatly.
We made plans for her to visit the hospital the next day, and I hung up the phone, drained. I checked the clock. I had been gone for too long, and I remembered my awareness days ago that there would continue to be firsts. This was the first time I’d been gone for this long, but I needed a few minutes to pull myself together.
I checked the refrigerator and found a bottle of wine we’d kept in there for last-minute guests. It had to be at least a year old. I pulled it out, opened it, poured a glass, and took an exploratory sniff. It seemed fine. Taking a sip worked out well, and I walked upstairs to Meghan’s room and sat down on her lower bunk, on her pretty, peony sheets.
She’d called them “pee-ony” sheets when she’d first spotted them in the store and fallen in love with the bold reds and oranges of the overblown petals. They didn’t smell like her yet, and despite their journey through the washer and dryer, they still smelled new. I huddled against the back post and sipped my wine while I tried to pretend that she was here, that Marshall was just away at college, and that my biggest concern was finding some common ground in my marriage again.
I had looked forward to Marshall graduating and Meghan going off to college. I had thought that Cal and I would have time to fall in love again, as though it had just been put on hold for a little while, but was still there, waiting for us to pick it back up and nourish it back to health. I had counted on it, taken it for granted.
I thought we had time.
I took a deep breath, gulped the rest of the wine, and climbed out of my daughter’s bed. It was time to get back to the hospital. To my daughter’s new bed, and my new marriage. I had been right all along. New was dangerous. And very, very sad. And I would never let it sneak up on me again.
I tried to decide what I should tell Cal as I drove back to the hospital, and came up with two choices: tell him everything, or tell him nothing at all, and there were valid arguments for both sides. By the time I arrived, I still hadn’t decided.
The nurse was showing Cal how to work the controls on the side of Meghan’s bed. It took me a moment to figure out what was different. Her respirator. Meghan was off the respirator and it was sitting in the corner, its tubes and cords hanging limply, its digital display dead. Meghan’s throat was wrapped in brilliant white gauze.
My hand flew to my chest and everything, everything, evaporated: my concern over Marshall, the crazy doctor who put it all in motion, the problems within my marriage, all gone, and I could not help the cry that escaped me.
Cal and the nurse turned in surprise and he caught me as I rushed to the side of her bed, the smile on his face as unguarded as my own feelings had been.
<
br /> I ran my hand along her forehead and the side of her face, but she was nonresponsive. I stroked her again, whispered, “Baby?”
“No, Chloe, no, they just, the doctor said she could come off the respirator, they’re confident she’s strong enough. There’s no . . . there’s no other change.”
I wanted to wail out loud. It was my fault, the hope that had expanded so quickly inside of me, it was my fault. The doctor had told us about the respirator, that it would be coming out, that there was a chance of infection if they left it in and that as soon as she healed enough they would take her off of it.
He had told us, but who thinks rationally about those things, who considers each step until it happens? The people who think rationally about it are the people who have been living with it for long enough that the fog has cleared, the people who have had enough firsts under their belts to think long-term, the people who finally accept that they might live with this situation for years.
I was not ready to be that person.
I would never be ready to be that person.
The nurse bustled around, pulling the sheets taut, keeping her eyes down. I realized I’d had another first, hard on the heels of the last one; they were coming faster now. For the first time, I did not care what the nurse thought of me. What, after all, did they have to judge me against? Other parents? How many marriages did they watch crumble? How many mothers and fathers did they see slowly lose their grip on their sanity?
And so another first; I cried in front of the nurse.
She left the room and I slid out from under Cal’s hand.
“It doesn’t mean anything,” he said, as if he meant to comfort me. At the look I gave him he tried to elaborate. “It doesn’t change her prognosis.”
“And what is her prognosis, Cal?” I asked. “Nobody can tell us that. Why do you think you know? All I get is a bunch of ‘we don’t knows’ and ‘we’re still learning’ and ‘when she’s ready.’ So are you hearing something I’m not? Are you privy to information I don’t have?”
Matters of Faith Page 16
