Vinita Hampton Wright

by Dwelling Places (v5)

  From a mile away she can see home. The two-story house, lined up with its barns and sheds and silos, looks smudgy against the early evening. Except for six large shade trees in the yard, the buildings sit alone on the horizon. Behind and above the farm, the clouds have separated into purple-gray streaks.

  She doesn’t notice until she is at the neighbor’s mailbox that a man is standing there at the end of the driveway. He looks ready to walk right in front of her. She lets out a little shriek, slams on the brake, skids in the gravel, and nearly goes down several yards from the man. She catches herself with one leg, rights the bike, and stands in the middle of the road, feeling wobbly.

  “Hey—you okay?” The man hurries up to her, one hand out. She sees now who it is: Mitchell Jaylee, who lives in the house that goes with the mailbox.

  “Yeah, I just didn’t see you.”

  “Sorry—didn’t mean to scare you. You were coming along at quite a clip.” He looks her over. “You come all the way from town?”

  Not really, because the church is just outside the city limits. Kenzie looks at Mitchell’s features, wondering how much to tell. His face is shadowy in the overcast sky of early evening, but his features are soft with concern.

  “I ride to town all the time. But I started back too late today.”

  “Sure you’re okay?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You look sort of pale.”

  “I’m okay. I should probably get on home.”

  He backs away and smiles. “Take care now.”

  She ignores how much her legs are shaking and rides away from Mitchell. She can feel him watching her as she slides down the road away from him. That’s kind of nice, someone watching over her. She almost turns to see if he’s still standing there. She pictures his kind face, those eyes that seemed to connect with her in a split second. It was as if God arranged for her to find protection on her way.

  She stops the bike about a quarter-mile from the house and stares hard to see which cars are in the drive: Grandma’s and the family pickup. The Dodge, which her brother has been driving, is not there. Ed and Lacy’s car is not there, which means that Dad isn’t home yet. Jesus, make tonight go all right. Help me say the right things to Dad.

  Tonight they will be a family again. Kenzie hopes in two directions at once. She wants Dad here with them. She wants Mom to not be so stressed. She isn’t sure she can have both things at the same time, in the same house.

  During the past two weeks, home has been calmer in some ways than it was when Dad was here. A lot of tension has left Mom’s face, but that doesn’t mean she’s happy. Not having to worry so much about Dad has been good for her. She hasn’t seemed as angry. She’s repainted the downstairs bathroom and rearranged the outdoor potted plants in the spare bedroom, where they will catch the best light during the winter.

  When Kenzie opens the kitchen door, heat and the aromas of ham and pecan pie surround her. Mom is coming in from the dining room. “Hey, can you finish setting the table?” She looks happy and scared. She’s wearing brown corduroys that match her hair and eyes, and a fluffy sort of tan turtleneck. Now that her hair is growing longer, nearly to her shoulders, she’s begun to pull it back with combs. Kenzie’s happy to see Mom looking dressed up, ready for something special. “I took the plates in already. Get the silverware and glasses.” Mom turns to the sink and picks up the vegetable peeler.

  “Okay.” Kenzie brushes by and pats her on the shoulder. Mom doesn’t know this, but each time Kenzie pats her like this, she says a prayer for her. It’s usually short, like, Jesus, bless Mom, but she tries to do it a few times every day.

  “Where’s your brother?”

  “Don’t know.”

  Mom rips the skin off a carrot and says in a low voice, “Well, he’ll be here or he won’t, I guess.”

  “He’ll be here. He just likes to make everybody wonder. It’s part of being dramatic or something.” Kenzie finishes with the silverware and glasses and goes upstairs to change. There’s a little time left, so she writes in her journal for a few minutes. Thinking about Young Taylor has brought on the urge to do that.

  Dear Jesus,

  Last night was so awful. I tried to say the right things, but it fell apart anyway. Mom and Young Taylor and I were eating supper together, and Mom said that Dad would get to come home tonight, and she and Grandma were going to cook a nice meal to welcome him, and she wanted us to both be home early. She’d talked to Dad that afternoon, and he couldn’t wait to see us.

  Then Young Taylor has to ask if Dad would be taking medicine, and Mom says yes, for a while. And all I say is, that’s normal for somebody who’s been depressed. And Young Taylor gets snotty about it, asking how would I know, and I told him that Denise Lowell’s mom went to the hospital for depression, and she was on medicine afterwards. Young Taylor’s sitting there with his head down, so we can’t see his eyes behind his bangs. He’s dyed his hair this really dark black, which looks lame, but Mom doesn’t say anything about it. Young Taylor acts like he knows everything and the rest of us are stupid, and I shouldn’t let it get to me but it does.

  Then Mom says that the doctors think Dad’s well enough to come home, but we can’t expect everything to just go back to normal right away. She’s not looking at me or Young Taylor—it’s like she doesn’t want us to argue with her.

  And then Young Taylor says, “I hope we’re not going back to normal.” Does he say things like that just to hurt Mom? I wished Mom would get after him for talking like that, but she doesn’t say anything. Young Taylor just sits there, not looking at us. He’s wearing black boots with silver studs all over them. And tight black jeans and a black shirt with a black velvet vest. Who’s he trying to impress? Does he know how ridiculous he looks hanging out at school by the bus barn with Lydia and Kyle, their little Goth trio trying to look too cool for the universe? Kids are saying that Lydia does it with every old divorced guy in town, and Kyle is so weird that even the teachers laugh at him behind his back. But Dale and Eric graduated last year, so maybe Young Taylor figures that Lydia and Kyle are better than nothing now that his real friends aren’t in school anymore.

  He’s my brother, and in a way I feel sorry for him, and I pray for him every day, Lord, even though he’s so irritating and tries to upset me. He seems lonely, but he’d never admit that. And he’s become too good for normal people, and he acts like he knows he’s handsome, which he is when he’s not made up to look like a vampire or something. But it’s the dark and dangerous kind of handsome that junior and senior girls go crazy for, at least when they’re not around school, where talking to Young Taylor would kill their popularity.

  I don’t know why I’m writing all of this, Jesus, but who else can I tell it to? My friends are tired of me complaining about my brother, and they think he’s kind of cute and I should just chill. But I’m afraid for his soul. The kind of music he listens to, and the way he talks—it’s so far from what you want for him.

  Anyway, help me act like a Christian toward him. And somehow make him behave when Dad gets home tonight.

  Love and praise,

  Kenzie

  Before leaving her room, Kenzie studies her butt in the mirror. It seems to be getting wider, but she can’t be sure. She returns downstairs to get Mom’s input. Tonight needs to be perfect. She wants to be beautiful and happy for Dad. For everybody, Jesus included.

  Mack

  He never noticed before how many people around here drive Toyotas. While waiting for Ed to pick him up, he counts four Toyotas in twenty minutes. All several years old, bought used, no doubt. Tercels and Corollas from the late eighties appear at the rise in the road and slide down the hill and past the large, uneventful yard, making meek small-engine noises, tickety-tickety sounds that can barely be heard above the insects screeching in the tall grasses across the road.

  It has seemed odd to Mack that a mental hospital would have a front porch. This facility, somehow connected to the mental health services out of Ottumwa,
has moved into a large, refurbished farmhouse inn, and the porch bothers Mack for how peaceful it appears. As if aunts and uncles and grandparents and children would waddle out there after Sunday dinner and find their favorite spots and let the feast digest at leisure as they share gossip. People don’t sit in this place in congenial chatter and silences. They don’t daydream or lap up the breeze while gathering energy for the next task. If they sit quietly, they are usually drugged and empty-faced. They wander to remote posts within the confines of the sprawling house and pass the time either absently or desperately.

  Mack now sits on the outdoor furniture, unconfined, waiting for his ride. He decides that the porch remains for just such an occasion. His time is up, his small light blue Samsonite latched and at his knee. The porch is his entryway back to home. He dares to rock a bit in the large wicker chair, and he allows himself to breathe in the balm of the bright, harvesttime winds and to feel just a little bit hopeful.

  He reaches down to feel the handle of the suitcase—from the luggage set he and Jodie received from his parents as a wedding present. They’ve used the complete set only once in nineteen years. When the kids were little, they visited Jodie’s mom down in Galveston. That was a year after Jodie’s dad passed and her mom sold the house in Oskaloosa and went to live close to her son. Jodie’s brother has a small place near the ocean, and for weeks prior to the trip the kids jabbered like blue jays about everything they would do there. Young Taylor was ten then, and he packed his own suitcase—this very suitcase—and left out underwear. That was a decent year, Mack and Jodie together long enough that the new had worn off as well as their harsh edges. The children were so eager to dive into happiness as well as the salty sea.

  Ed is suddenly in the drive. Mack wonders if he has blanked for a few minutes. They have him on all kinds of pills, and he often feels that his head is floating, just slightly detached from the rest of him. It annoys the hell out of him.

  “Hey.” Ed strides up and onto the porch. They shake hands.

  “Thanks for doing this,” says Mack.

  “We’ll pick up Lacy on our way to your place. This all you got?”

  “Yeah. Thanks for doing this.”

  “No problem.”

  Mack puts his suitcase in the backseat and climbs into the front. Ed shifts quickly into reverse, and the car slips back onto the road. It is smooth, dark asphalt, just redone. From his bare window on the second floor, Mack watched the county crew do the finishing touches. Now he rolls down the car window and welcomes the cool wind that whips at his face as they pick up speed.

  The ride feels light, easy, something people do every day.

  Ed glances at Mack, looking happy. “Good to be takin’ you home, buddy.”

  “Glad to be going.”

  “I think Jodie and your mom have been cooking all day.”

  Mack smiles. Food is love. “Oh, can we stop by the pharmacy?”

  “Sure. The one here or home?”

  “Home. They called it in already. They still want me on some of this stuff.”

  “Well, better follow your orders.”

  “Yeah.”

  It is a fairly long drive, across another county, to get back home. Mack notices with new clarity how the soft hills roll into one another, folding between them gatherings of trees and small streams that glitter shyly through the canary grass. The two men punctuate the time with comments about how the corn and beans look. Mack doesn’t deal with his own crops anymore, but conversations like this one spin out of some automatic track inside him. He and Ed grew up a mile from each other and have maintained a running commentary about their surroundings for thirty-some years.

  There’s a line at the pharmacy window. Mack finally gets to the front, only to learn that the prescriptions aren’t ready yet. It will be a wait, and he considers coming back later to pick them up, but Ed is patiently trying on reading glasses from a nearby rack.

  Mack stares down the aisle. The back of his mind seems to stir from sleep, and he remembers all the things Jodie might have him pick up if she knew he was here. He wonders if the store still has that florist stand near the camera section. He should take Jodie flowers. His mother too. Pick up gifts for the kids. He walks around the corner and finds the flowers. He picks up three small bouquets. He’s halfway back to the pharmacy window when he remembers that he has no cash. He has no idea how much money is in the account; he hasn’t accessed it in about three weeks. Suddenly his head gets crowded. He returns the flowers quickly, hoping Ed hasn’t seen him. Then he sits down on one of the chairs in the waiting area, his heart racing, and stares at a display of multivitamins guaranteed to restore prostate health.

  In fifteen minutes, they are in the car and headed for Ed’s place. A mile from the house, Mack begins formulating how to get through the conversation that will start once Ed’s wife is in the car. Lacy is a sweetheart, probably unable to cause real harm to anybody. It should be easy to talk, to pass the few minutes it will take to arrive at the farmhouse. Still, there is something pulling at Mack’s breath. He tries to think. To calm himself, he opens the white paper bag and looks over the medications, pretending to check the names and dosages. Four squat, plastic pill bottles tumble into his lap. They rattle, and Mack senses Ed gazing at the road with effort.

  “They’ve got a pill for everything these days.” Mack gives a sniff meant to sound like a chuckle.

  “Good thing.” Ed blinks behind his sunglasses. “Think of all the folks who used to just do without, just kept feelin’ bad.”

  “Yeah, you’ve got a point.” Mack turns the labels toward him, one by one: lithium, clonazepam, effexor. “It’s not a permanent thing. After a while, they wean you off of it.”

  “Sure.”

  Ed’s farm is coming into view. Mack thinks of his own house, and how full it is this moment with the people who have been without him for days, who have endured seeing him admitted and then at times have been kept from him. He thinks of all the conversations he will need to have in the days to come, all the forms of making up to people, of getting better and doing well. The pull on his breath tightens and reaches clear down to his heart. Then the bottles in his hands blur and his chest fills with weakness. The hold on his throat loosens for a second, and he hears the air rushing into him.

  The wind on his neck gets calm suddenly. Ed is slowing the car. “You all right, Mack?”

  Mack wipes his eyes. “If I’d ever thought I’d have to get my peace of mind from—” He can’t finish. He holds up the medications.

  Ed is saying something that Mack can’t quite hear. The car is stopped, rumbling in place beneath them. Finally, Ed’s sounds separate into words. “It’s just what you need for now. It’s like taking something for an infection, you know? When the infection’s over, you don’t have to take the medicine anymore.” He clamps a hand on Mack’s knee. Mack looks at it and remembers a younger hand throwing him a football, the glare of lights and the chatter of the high school crowd surrounding them. He remembers Ed’s hands maneuvering wrenches around stubborn tractor parts and steadying the cows on their way up the chute. He thinks of Ed’s grin the day he stood up in the church as best man, of Ed cradling one baby after another, as both of them brought children into the world. Mack had a brother, who is dead now. But in a lot of ways, Ed is closer than a brother. If Mack can’t trust the kindness in this hand, he can’t trust anything at all.

  “I know. I’ll be okay.” Mack sniffs and breathes deeply, in and out, trying to turn the action into some form of comfort. Ed puts the car back into drive and his hand back on the steering wheel. They say no more, and then they pick up Lacy, and she carries the conversation over the remaining distance to Mack’s home.

  Jodie

  For all of her life, evening has brought Jodie a few short moments of pure relief. She has always lived in the country, and many days there is a point at which the sun leaves, its pale train of light remaining in a perfectly still sky. A person has to stop at such a time and be quiet an
d realize that most of what was going to get done today has either gotten done or will wait for tomorrow. There are always tasks to do at night, in the house or under lights in an outbuilding. But the true energy of the day has subsided, and anyone who lives day after day with crops and creatures learns to sleep when nature sleeps and to get rest as regularly as possible, because once the sun is up the work comes back, and will always come back.

  This evening she feels the need to wait for that still time, to go out in the yard and allow the smooth horizon to calm her. She knows that the sun will disappear around the time they are having dessert. She hardly ever puts on a big dinner, and when she does it’s usually the noon meal after church or a weekend birthday dinner. But today isn’t Sunday and it’s nobody’s birthday. Mack is due home any time now, and dinner is a half-hour from being on the table. Mom isn’t here yet—could that mean that her car didn’t start after all? But Rita would have called if that were the case. She was over here earlier in the day, to drop off heat-and-serve dinner rolls. Jodie has checked to be sure they are fresh. Rita would give the clothes off her back, but she’s a scavenger when it comes to groceries. That’s how she manages to feed half the town on a fixed income. But Jodie wants fresh rolls for this meal, nothing even day-old.

  The radio is on and tuned to a local station that provides, in equal doses, the weather report, the farm report, local news, and gospel music. This evening there’s the rebroadcast of some church service featuring music by a husband-and-wife team, Mavis and Danny Trotter. As Jodie arranges raw vegetables on a tray, Mavis and Danny fill the room with a hymn, and Jodie sings automatically.