by Rhonda Riley
I nodded but did not open the screen door. Then the other man took a step closer. “I’m Dr. Crenshaw. I’m from Mercy Hospital, but I represent Duke University’s research hospital.” I opened the screen, put one foot out on the porch, but didn’t close the door behind me. He offered his hand, a thick, dry slab. “I understand that you took your husband out of the hospital yesterday without physician’s approval.”
“I did bring my husband home, yes.” I looked at the sheriff. He did not seem any more interested than his deputy had been earlier.
The doctor eyed me critically. “Mrs. Hope, your husband is a very sick man. He was ill before he came to the . . .”
“He was healthy and working horses before he went to the hospital.”
“I have X-rays I’d like to show you. There are multiple abnormalities. We scheduled the exploratory surgery for removal and biopsy. Your husband needs surgery badly.”
“I’ve heard about the X-rays, doctor. Something in his chest and something in his brain. The lobes are unusual.”
“That’s right, Mrs. Hope.” He smiled as if I were a well-trained dog. “But that’s not all. His blood work shows some abnormal cells. It could be a pathogen or a rare form of cancer. We need to test him further.”
I turned to the sheriff. “Have we broken a law?”
He pulled at his shirt and turned his blank face to me at the mention of law. “No, ma’am, none that I know of. But if your husband is sick, maybe you should bring him back to the hospital.”
The doctor pulled an X-ray out of the envelope and held it up. “You say your husband has no trouble breathing, Mrs. Hope. Well, that is miraculous. There is this region of the chest—” The X-ray showed a collarbone, rib cage, and a fainter, milky area vaguely shaped like a star in the center of his chest. A sudden desire surged through me. I wanted to touch that image. My hand shot out.
The doctor jerked the X-ray away. The sheriff shifted his weight.
I forced myself to look away from the pale, broad star to the doctor’s face and stepped back inside, putting my hand up near the screen-door latch.
“Whatever this lesion is, it may have something to do with his unusual blood cells. Mrs. Hope, if I came in and took a few more blood samples, then when you brought him back to the hospital, we would know more by the time you arrive. If this is a pathogen, it could be dangerous to you or your children.” Polite authority filled his voice as if he spoke to a stupid but obedient child.
“My husband is resting and should be left alone.”
“Mrs. Hope, you must bring your husband back to the hospital. The sample has been sent to the Centers for Disease Control. He may need to be quarantined. If I could just take a few more blood samples now . . .” He stepped closer to the door. I did not step back. I smelled the musk of my fear and felt it solid in my chest. Suddenly, I couldn’t remember what quarantine was.
“Sheriff, have I broken a law?”
A wrong move. The sheriff uncrossed his arms and took a step toward the door. “Ma’am, there is no law against leaving a hospital. But if, by refusing to return your husband to the hospital, you are endangering his life and possibly your children’s, then you could be held accountable should any of them suffer harm or die. Do you understand that?”
“Yes.” My face reddened. I slipped the latch down. My hand trembled and they heard the lock slide into place. “You can’t cut on him. You can’t take anything out. I won’t let you.” The doctor opened his mouth to interrupt but I kept on, lowering my voice to steady it. I didn’t trust myself to look at them. “I’ll have him there by noon tomorrow for your blood test, at Duke University Hospital. No sooner. You should go now.”
The doctor started again, his face redder, his voice rising, “Don’t be stupid! Your husband is very sick. You need to bring him in now. Today.”
But the sheriff turned and walked off the porch. Sputtering, the doctor followed. Halfway down the steps, he turned to glare back at me. “Your husband needs help. He needs surgery, Mrs. Hope. We can explain everything to you.”
“No, you can’t. He’s not like us, doctor. He’s not one of us. And he doesn’t need your help.” I had never said those words out loud before. My whole body shook.
After a long, puzzled squint, the doctor trudged off.
From the bedroom window, I watched as they got in the car. The doctor shook his head and said something about “goddamn hillbillies.”
I had a little less than twenty-four hours. I wasted the first hour pacing the house. We had to leave, that much was clear. But where could we go? Adam made frequent trips to Kentucky and Tennessee for his work. I or one of the girls had gone with him a few times. Lots of people we could stay with there, but the police would look in that direction first, where he had the most connections. The mountains were an option. Adam knew them well and could vanish there on his own. But the six of us roughing it? And for how long? My cousin Pauline was still in Florida, my only relation living more than a hundred miles away. Adam and I hadn’t been back to her house since our honeymoon, and she hadn’t been to Clarion in a couple of years though we exchanged Christmas cards. Every spring, I sent her the kids’ school pictures. I trusted her. She didn’t live on the lake anymore. But her little town south of Gainesville—Micanopy—was easy to find on the road map.
Under the watchful eye of a bank teller, I withdrew most of our money from the savings account. I doubled Wallace’s salary, paid him three weeks in advance, and threw in fifty dollars for him to hire extra help. I made him swear that he would not tell any police or doctors that we’d left, but would call Joe if there was an emergency or anyone came looking for us and would contact Cole if anything happened to the horses. He agreed, but I saw the doubt in his face. There was no time, nothing I could say to convince him, but I knew he would do as he’d promised.
With the six of us in the car, we wouldn’t be able to take much more than clothes. I filled the back of the station wagon, throwing in the dirty clothes I had been sorting when the doctor showed up. I packed all the things I could think of that the girls might want—small things that might make them feel at home—favorite pictures, cups, books, pillows, my best skillet, the paint set we had given them for Christmas.
Half an hour before the girls would be home from school, I was as ready as I could be. I stopped, suddenly exhausted, and walked slowly through the house. All I knew of my strange husband, marriage, birth, and death had come to me within those walls and on that land. I listened as hard as I could, hoping for wisdom. But I heard only the urgency of adrenaline and my own conviction. What the doctors wanted to cut away was vital. Getting him safely away was the important thing; everything else had to wait.
I put on a fresh dress and set biscuits and milk out for the girls. It would be their last fresh, home-grown milk.
As soon as they strolled into the backyard, Rosie, Lil, and Sarah circled the loaded-up car. Gracie took one quick look and dashed up the porch steps. “Momma, is Daddy okay?”
“Yes, he’s sleeping. Bring your sisters in. We’re taking a trip. A little vacation!”
Lil and Sarah clapped and jumped up and down, chanting, “A vacation! A vacation!” Rosie went straight to Adam’s side. Gracie followed me back out to the car. “Why are we going anywhere now? Daddy’s hurt!” She was not a child anymore.
“Gracie, I know this seems sudden, but I want it to be a surprise for your daddy. A little trip will be good for all of us. My nerves are shot—first Jennie, then Momma, now this with your daddy. I need your help now.”
Her tears started at Jennie’s name, but she did not cry. I needed to keep her moving and not thinking. I sent her in to collect the food I’d packed while Wallace and I checked the ropes holding the boxes and luggage on top of the car.
I went inside for more boxes and found Gracie dialing the phone. I took the receiver from her. “I don’t want anyone else to know for now. You can call your friends after we get there.”
She looked at me in amazemen
t, then her face changed to confusion. “Momma, you’re scaring me.” Her chin quivered.
My own smile of reassurance felt like it would crack my face.
Rosie elbowed up beside us, one eyebrow pressed down in the consternation that would soon be sullen resistance if she thought she was being left out of anything.
I pulled them both out onto the porch and I held them by the shoulders. “Your daddy is a good man and he works very hard. But he hasn’t been himself lately, you both know that.” I took a deep breath. “Right now, we’ve got to make sure he doesn’t get kicked by any more horses. We need to help him and the best way to do that is to take him away for a little while.” The conviction in my voice surprised me. The truth of what I’d said calmed me.
They frowned, nodding. I didn’t have them yet, but I was uncertain how much I needed to say. I didn’t want to tell them where we were going, but I had to say more if I wanted their cooperation. “The doctors who saw your daddy want me to take him back to the hospital. They’ve come here twice already, looking for him. I don’t know if they can take him away and do things to him without his consent. But we can’t afford to wait here to find out.” Both of them stared in alarm. Rosie shook her head. I drew them closer. “I know he doesn’t need to be in a hospital, girls. He just needs a little rest and a little time away from all of this. This isn’t going to be just a vacation. It’s something we must do. Now. You shouldn’t tell anyone what I just told you—even Lil and Sarah. I don’t want to upset them. You understand? Can I count on you?”
They both nodded. They were with me.
“We’re on the lam,” Rosie announced.
Gracie laughed nervously and tried to blink her tears away.
“Yes, that’s one way to look at it,” I admitted. Then I lightened my voice. “But we’re not criminals and your daddy will be fine. We’re helping him. We’re on the lam from everything that’s happened to all of us in the last year. We all could use a little vacation, don’t you think? I know I need one. I’ll take you to a beautiful little lake where your daddy and I went swimming a long time ago when I was pregnant with you.” I pointed to Gracie.
She nodded again, solemnly, and wiped at her cheek.
“Okay then, girls, let’s get the food ready for the road.”
Rosie gave me a sharp, salutary nod.
Sarah opened the back door and popped her head out. “Y’all stop talking! Let’s go! Let’s get Daddy and go on vacation!” Behind her, Lil twirled through the kitchen. Then the two of them bolted away and down the hall.
Within an hour, we were ready. Gracie, Lil, and Sarah settled into the front seat while Rosie and I walked Adam out to the car. Groggy but cooperative, he carried most of his own weight and leaned on us for balance.
We waved to Wallace, then pulled away, I and three girls squeezed into the front seat to give Adam and Rosie as much room as possible in the back. With his head in her lap, he fell asleep again before we passed the city limits sign.
Clarion was its normal self, unchanged as it receded behind us. No one would miss us until tomorrow, when the girls didn’t show at school and I failed to bring Adam back to the hospital. Still, I expected to see the police behind us, or the shiny black car. I resisted the urge to speed.
We would be taking the old highways, not the new interstate. Florida was at least a twelve-hour drive away. Every nerve in my body seemed to vibrate. I didn’t know if I could last that long. We had been on the road for only a couple of hours when darkness fell. We passed around the sandwiches and jars of tea and kept going. Eating seemed to break the quiet. Even Adam woke up. I saw only part of his face in the rearview mirror. He looked okay, just sleepy.
“Where’re we going?” he asked.
“A little recuperation getaway. A second honeymoon.”
“Second honeymoon? Pauline’s?”
I nodded. “We’ll lie low for at least a few days first. See how things go, then visit her?”
“Good idea.” He tipped his head forward so the girls could reach it. They giggled as they ran their hands over the brown stubble. He drank some water and ate half of Rosie’s sandwich—his first food since the accident. Then he lay back down.
Gracie turned and asked, “Is he going back to sleep?”
“Uh-huh,” Rosie replied and began to sing “Hush Little Baby.” Sarah sang to him next. Then Lil took her turn singing her favorite song to him. We were silent a moment, then Gracie began her lullaby, “Amazing Grace,” and I joined her. I pushed on past the first verse on my own. By the time I came to the final verse, Sarah, Lil, and Rosie were asleep.
In the darkness beyond the yellow pool of our headlights, the ghostly shape of that X-ray kept appearing, unchanged by the miles we passed and the subtle shifts I sensed in the landscape around us. What, I wondered, did our daughters have of him? What had I silenced and what lay nestled under their breastbones? I reached over and patted Gracie’s arm.
Her face looked older, somber in the light of the dashboard. “Is Daddy going to be okay?”
Anxiety thickened in my throat. I was less certain than I wanted to be. I nodded, unable to lie out loud. I wanted to, needed to offer her something true. “Our honeymoon was the first trip we ever took with just the two of us. Our only trip to Florida. It’ll be good for him to go back. The change will help him.”
“That’s the pretty lake you said you’re taking us to?”
“Yes.”
She gave me a sly sideways glance. “Your honeymoon? And the place you swam when you were pregnant with me?”
“Oh, shit! Another thing you need to keep under your hat!”
She smiled at me, her first since we’d been on the road, and opened her mouth to speak.
I interrupted, “We didn’t have to get married. Once we were engaged . . . We loved each other so much we couldn’t wait.”
Gracie laughed. “Oh, Momma!”
“Our secret?”
“Of course.”
That accidental, inadvertent truth delighted me, lightening the hours of driving.
Gracie was still awake at about midnight when I pulled over at a motel. I checked in as Addie Nell Hardin and dished out more than we normally spent on a week’s groceries for a room with two double beds and an extra roll-away bed.
Adam slept beside me, having awakened enough to put his arms around me. Sarah slept in the little bed at our feet. The three other girls were safe in the next bed. My back ached from the hours of sitting cramped behind the wheel. Exhausted, I fell asleep listening to the five of them breathing. We were in Georgia, just outside of Jessup. I slept fitfully, dreaming of men in white coats armed with blue pens, who came to take Adam.
Eight
Renewal
Our first morning after leaving Clarion, I woke and dressed in the unfamiliar shadows of the motel room while my family snored around me. Adam slept on his side, one arm across Sarah, who had joined us in the middle of the night. In the dim light, the bandages on his chest and head shone against his skin.
Outside, the freshness of oncoming spring and the familiarity of moist red clay mingled with the unfamiliar odors of highway fumes. Trucks hissed by on Highway 301 in the predawn darkness. We could have been anywhere. I imagined the doctor’s pink hands removing someone else’s internal organs in a hospital far away from us. I unlocked the car and took out the clothes we would need for that day, then went inside to wake my family.
We ate breakfast in a small local restaurant. Adam wolfed down an enormous omelet and grazed off my plate.
“What kind of eggs are these?” he asked the girls, starting the game.
“Fried eggs!” Sarah volunteered.
Gracie shrugged, but grinned. “Good eggs?”
Rosie said, “Good fried eggs from a Geooorgia hen!”
Lil rolled her eyes at the blandness of her sisters’ answers. They finally won Adam’s approval with good fried eggs from a Georgia hen for a hungry, horse-whacked, napping Daddy. Rosie beat the rhythm on her pl
ate with her fork. Lil and Sarah lapsed into a church-worthy giggling fit. Adam finished the toast and sopped up the last morsel on every plate. The waitress appeared very happy to bring the check.
It was eight thirty in the morning.
The girls raced to the car, laughing and arguing about who would get which seat. I watched Adam as we strolled across the narrow parking lot. My eyes went obsessively to his bald head and the bright bandage. I thought I could still see some trace of blue lines.
He stopped and pressed his finger to my chin, lowering my gaze to his eyes. “I’m going to be okay,” he said and squeezed my hand.
Rosie leaned out of the front-seat window. “Momma, Daddy, it’s getting hot in here!”
As I drove away from the restaurant, my fears nattered at me. I was sure I’d done the right thing for Adam. But everything else was uncertain. What had seemed like a reasonable, inevitable decision the day before, now, in the morning light, seemed crazy. I turned my mind to the task at hand: keeping Adam safe, the girls distracted, and all of us moving until we could decide what to do next.
We’d driven through northern Georgia at night. Now, as the morning sun glared off the cars of people on their way to work and shopping, I realized how flat the land had become. The soil changed from familiar iron-red to alien shades of gray and black. The road relaxed into distant, straight horizons. Palm trees dotted the landscape. Small towns interrupted stretches of dense forests that crowded the highway and open fields. I had made the same journey with Adam sixteen years before, but nothing looked familiar.
When we crossed the state line, the girls exploded into cheers. “We’re in Florida! We’re in Florida!”
Adam startled from his post-breakfast doze, rubbed his head, and squinted at the brilliant sunlight. “This was a good idea, Ev.” He winked at me.
