Vinita Hampton Wright

by Dwelling Places (v5)

  “Have you heard something?”

  “No, thank the Lord.” She looks at Jodie, and for the first time her features register agony. She quickly reaches into her purse and brings out the envelope. Jodie takes it just as quickly and puts it in the large pocket of her sweater.

  Mack

  “I’m afraid that my family will always think of me as ill.” Mack has barely greeted George today. He meant to make small talk, something like, “Don’t you have a life of your own? I can’t believe you’re free to see me three days after Christmas.” But more and more, he is impatient with this room and these hours. At the same time, he likes George more all the time, wishing that he could know the man in another capacity. But how do you become friends with the person who’s been given the authority to dig around in your heart and soul? He keeps talking.

  “They don’t have any confidence in me, and I can’t say as I blame them.”

  “What makes you so sure of that?”

  “I fell apart. And I still take enough pills every day to kill a horse. Who knows how long they’ll work, or if I’ll take another dip like before?”

  George just looks at him. Mack spreads his hands across his knees. “In their minds, I’ll always be sick, ready to crack up.” He waits while the silence laps around them. “Jodie’s trying to trust me, because she’s obligated. But I’m afraid I’ve killed whatever respect she used to have. And the kids—I’ve lost all credibility with them. They don’t respect me—maybe they even fear me. They don’t really think I have a right to tell them anything now.”

  “So. Prove them wrong.” George has the expression today of someone who won’t take crap from anyone. Mack wonders how tired George is of listening to all of this crap.

  “How?”

  “I won’t pretend that you’re not at a great disadvantage. The truth is, often the person who struggles the most is the very one who must prove the most. No one can fight your battles, and yet you must fight them. Another dynamic that’s important to note,” he says, picking at some lint on his Levis, “is the way a family can sometimes appoint one person to be the problem, so to speak, even for matters that are not his doing. A family may have a designated ‘sick’ one, and as long as they can believe that the family’s problems revolve around the sick one, no one else has to take responsibility or initiative.”

  Mack considers this. “That doesn’t seem to fit. They’re all working hard. Except for a couple of things Jodie’s said when we’re in the middle of a fight, none of them have talked like I’m to blame. I just don’t think they can have much faith in me—because I’m…weak, or something.”

  “Oh, I’m not talking about outright blame. Given what you’ve told me about your family, I don’t perceive them as being malicious. But there can still be a perception that all the family problems would just go away if you got better. So that in itself puts loads of pressure on you.”

  “And I’m just supposed to prove them wrong.”

  George smiles for the first time today. “That’s all.”

  Mack laughs, not sure what to say next. George leans forward and shifts his weight in the chair. “It’s at this point that you reach down and use the strength you’re not even sure you have. You look at your situation and ask yourself what you might be doing that could help in some way, and you do that. Don’t make a production of it. Just take the initiative and act as if you’re worthy of respect. When they see that you respect yourself and trust yourself, they’ll begin to adjust.”

  They eye each other, as they often do when George says something that Mack doesn’t quite believe.

  “Mack, you’ve been demonstrating this sort of strength all along. You made the decision to move to the stone house, and you made choices about how to spend your time there. You took up a bit of photography, just because it seemed like the right thing to do. You took hold of the situation when Young Taylor landed at the sheriff’s. You decided it was time to move home. You’ve done all of this on your own, and you’ll keep doing stuff on your own. And the more you do, the more you’ll prove that you’re back. Even if your kids and wife don’t respect you or trust you, my guess is that they really want to. So give them reasons.”

  Mack sighs.

  “This is a glorious time, Mack. Life’s opening up again for you. The language you use, the things that concern you, the things you’re attempting—they’re all evidence of getting better.”

  “That’s hard for me to see.”

  “Well, that’s why I’m here.” George flashes a little satisfied smile.

  Jodie

  They’re in the parking lot of the little motel, in Jodie’s truck. She thinks that she’ll be stronger somehow if she’s not sitting in Terry’s car. Of course, she also thought she could do this without crying, but here she is, her eyes and nose leaking while she wipes them with some leftover napkins from Taco Bell.

  “I just think this is a decision you don’t have to make right now.” Terry rests his back against the passenger door, one leg tucked up on the seat. He is fairly calm and a little angry.

  “Well,” Jodie tries for a deeper breath, “I think we hurried into something.”

  “Seemed right on time to me.”

  “Of course. You’re not the one with a family.”

  “Jodie, you needed this. You were about to disappear, just go away and never come back.” His tone softens. “Do you really think you can go back to all of that, and it’ll just be okay? Doesn’t work that way. Once love dies, it’s gone.”

  “And you’re the expert because it already died on you once. You were married, what, two years?”

  “I had the sense to get out before we did too much damage.”

  “And I’m the stupid one because I’ve stayed? You know, for a lot of years it worked just fine. You—” She jams a fist to her mouth, trying to let the words out in some controllable way. “You think that you understand my whole life because we’ve been…screwing around for a couple of months.”

  “No, I don’t.”

  She shakes her head. “Some people can live two lives at once. But I’m—” Another tear slips down. “I’m so, so tired, and I can’t do this anymore.”

  “Change always hurts, Jodie.”

  She thinks it’s happening now, the flaws beginning to show. The bliss has just lifted its wings and is setting off for someone else’s backyard. Change always hurts. How profoundly unremarkable. The expression on his face is sincere.

  “Some hurt we bring on ourselves,” she says.

  He faces the front windshield, unfolding his leg and turning from her. “You’ve done exactly what you wanted to do.”

  “Yes.”

  “So just tell me what you’re going to do now.” The anger is altogether present now.

  “I want—I’m going—to go home. And not see you anymore.”

  He opens the car door and gets out. Doesn’t even shut the door but walks the step or two to his car, gets in, and drives off. Doesn’t look at her. No good-bye, or sorry, or thank-you.

  No matter what she does or who she’s with, when she finally speaks her piece, the anger follows.

  She doesn’t cry for long. But she drives slowly all the way home. The land is barren, the muddy fields trickling rain, and bits of remaining cornstalks making the place seem devastated as if by war.

  This is one of those rare times when she longs for her mother the way a child just wants to be snuggled on a warm lap. Of course they talked over the holidays, and they have always talked easily enough. But years and distance have taught Jodie to handle most dilemmas without any parental guidance. And she is afraid to speak anything aloud about this mess she’s made. It was possible with Rita because Rita took command of the situation; but for Jodie to tell her own mother would require strength she cannot muster. She’s pretty sure Mom would be understanding. She might even insist that Jodie come down to Galveston for a visit, to get away and find some perspective. But right now, this confrontation with Terry has already taken too much o
ut of her. She looks ahead to the next several days and chooses one afternoon and makes an appointment with herself to make the call. In case the fallout is really bad, Mom will need some warning at least.

  Mack

  New Year’s Day starts with a bang. Mack was looking forward to sleeping in now that Marty, Joe, and the kids have left and life has settled down, but he awakes to the furious voices of his wife and son. He puts on his robe and hurries downstairs. Jodie is standing in the middle of the family room, quaking with rage. Her attention is aimed at Young Taylor, who sits on the couch. As usual, his every item of clothing is black. In addition, his fingernails and lips are black. His eyelids are blacked clear to the eyebrows. The rest of his face is death-white.

  “It is New Year’s Day, and I will not have you sitting around the house looking like this!”

  “You don’t have to look at me.”

  “What, I just ignore you? Like that’s possible.”

  “Yes, just ignore me. There are lots of rooms in this house. When I’m finished watching this movie, I’ll go upstairs and you won’t have to look at me the whole rest of the day!”

  “Hey!” Mack’s voice cracks across the room, and they both look at him where he stands halfway down the stairs. “Watch your tone.”

  “I’d rather not talk to her at all. She started it. I was just sitting here not bothering anybody.”

  “You’re bothering me by looking like a corpse,” Jodie throws in.

  “Like I said, you don’t have to look at me.”

  Mack has reached the bottom of the stairs. He is trying to calculate exactly how to approach both people. Once Jodie’s eyes reach this level of snap, she has run out of patience. Young Taylor, on the other hand, is a master of perseverance and will wear out both of them if allowed to keep on in this vein.

  “Jodie, why don’t you let us talk.” He hopes she’ll take his cue and make her exit.

  “I’d rather talk to Dad anyway.”

  Jodie throws up her hands. “Fine. Because I don’t have anything left to say to this child. The two of you just go for a really long walk or something, because I’ve had it.” She walks past Mack and into the kitchen. Young Taylor stares at the television screen, remote resting near his leg. Mack walks over, picks up the remote, and turns off the set. He ignores the colossal sigh this elicits from his son.

  “We’ve both got the day off,” Mack says. “It’s been a while since we had a talk.”

  “That’s not my fault. You’re always busy or going somewhere else.”

  This surprises him. “You never act like you’re interested in talking to me. I can’t read your mind.”

  Young Taylor remains mute.

  “Anything in particular you want to talk about?” Mack sits carefully on the couch, a foot or two from Young Taylor.

  “Maybe.” The boy looks straight ahead.

  Mack sees an opportunity and decides to take the risk. “If you want a conversation with me, you’ll have to wipe that mess off your face.”

  Young Taylor just stares at him. If it weren’t such an unhappy situation, he would be comical, like a clown who has run out of the usual bright colors.

  “I mean it,” says Mack. “I want to look at somebody who at least resembles my kid.”

  Young Taylor gets up and heads down the hall. Mack follows him into the bathroom just off the family room, the one his son has claimed for his own. Young Taylor opens the cabinet and takes out a jar of cold cream.

  “Does your grandma know you’ve got her cold cream?”

  Young Taylor sets down the jar and glances at Mack, his eyes widening a bit and stretching the seams of black that surround them. “It’s not hers.”

  Mack takes the jar and screws off the lid. A scent strikes him, and suddenly he is a child at his mother’s dressing table. It seems impossible that his son and his mother can be linked by such an ordinary thing.

  Mack puts down the jar. Young Taylor leans back against the sink, his arms folded.

  “So take it off,” says Mack.

  “You do it.”

  “Why should I take off your makeup?”

  “You’re the one who wants it off.”

  Young Taylor hasn’t budged. He doesn’t look particularly rebellious, just very patient.

  Mack picks up the jar. “All right, I will.”

  He scoops a bit of the cold cream with two fingers and swipes it onto Young Taylor’s cheek. He rubs it in.

  “How much does it take?”

  “About that much, only all over.”

  Mack puts more small swipes on the boy’s chin, nose, and forehead.

  “There’s something I can’t stop thinking about,” says Young Taylor.

  “Yeah?”

  “How is it that Grandpa would turn the tractor that short on a slope?”

  Mack’s heart makes a skip, but he keeps his voice steady. “It happens.”

  “But nobody knew that field better than Grandpa, right?”

  “Why would you be thinking about that? You were only six.”

  “But I’ve heard you and Grandma talk about him turning the tractor too sharp. I’ve looked at that spot, and it doesn’t make sense.”

  Mack stops swabbing the boy’s face. “What do you mean?”

  “It’s almost like it was on purpose.”

  Mack is caught in midswipe. He is standing too close to Young Taylor to avoid his son’s gaze. With both hands, he smooths the cold cream evenly over the kid’s face. The black around his lips and eyes begins to smear. Young Taylor keeps talking.

  “I mean, it makes more sense than him dumping it over by accident in a place where even Kenzie would know better than to turn like that.”

  “Has somebody said something to you about this?”

  “No. It’s what they don’t say.”

  Now Young Taylor’s face is an ever-changing greasy-gray cloud. Out of the cloud, his lips move. “And the insurance money helped us keep the farm, a while longer anyway.”

  Mack can’t come up with an immediate answer. He feels responsible for this conversation. He somehow released the topic for fresh review when he spoke to Mom days ago. “It’s not as simple as that. He wasn’t losing the farm.”

  “But he was losing a lot of money.”

  “Along with most other people about that time.”

  “So what do you think?” The boy’s voice echoes off the tile of the bathroom.

  Mack reaches for a tissue and sees his hand shaking. “I think your grandpa was too tired to be in the field that evening. Sometimes you make mistakes when you’re fatigued and not thinking straight. Grandpa was a hard worker, not the type to just give up.”

  “What about Uncle Alex?”

  He winces at his brother’s name. The memory of Alex’s death is bad enough, but what Mack thinks of now is how hard Young Taylor took it. He’d been old enough to feel grief in full—he used to follow Alex around like a puppy.

  “Your uncle drank himself to death. It was bound to happen sometime, but he probably didn’t plan to go that particular day. If he had, he’d have used his hunting rifle.”

  “See, you’ve thought about this too.”

  He wipes grease off the fine-boned face, avoiding those dark eyes. “Yes, I have, and I think that Alex tried to be something he was never cut out to be.” He lets their gazes meet briefly. “It’s real important to know what you love and what you’re good at. You have to figure it out and then live accordingly.”

  “What do you love?”

  Mack stops rubbing off makeup and steps back for a moment. “I love my family. And I love this place.” He throws away the tissue, gets another, and begins clearing away the white around Young Taylor’s nose and lips. The death-pale skin of his son’s face is turning a natural pink.

  “Even though you don’t farm anymore?”

  “I’ve got a job I’m good at. That’s enough.”

  “So you think you can stay now?”

  “Yes.”

  “Somet
imes I wish I could die for a little while to go see Grandpa and Uncle Alex.”

  Mack makes himself concentrate on the black residue under the boy’s eyes. “I don’t think it works that way.”

  “I’m pretty sure it doesn’t. I almost died last summer.” Young Taylor waits for Mack to meet his eyes again. “When Bobby and Dale and I went camping. We got really drunk out in the rowboat—”

  Mack bites his lip and watches the tissue sweep away grime in a neat line.

  “—and I fell out. It was pitch dark, and the guys didn’t have a flashlight and couldn’t find me. I seemed to be down there forever.”

  “Last summer?” Mack asks, hardly a whisper.

  “Yeah. And then I started taking in water, and I tried to find the surface but couldn’t. I couldn’t see my own air bubbles. I thought, This is a stupid way to go.”

  Young Taylor pauses. So does Mack, the greasy tissue still in his hand.

  “And then I had this feeling that I was going someplace else and that everything would be okay. I knew that in just another minute I’d see people on the other side. But all of a sudden somebody grabbed me real hard and pulled me straight up out of the water. I thought it had to be one of the guys, but it felt like somebody a lot stronger. When I hit the surface, I could hear Bobby and Dale screaming my name—they were at least ten yards away. I tried to see who pulled me up, but nobody was there.”

  Mack feels a jolt of adrenaline, and tiny pinpricks along his arms and neck.

  “We agreed not to tell anybody—you know, what was the point? It would have just scared everybody after the fact. And…I didn’t even tell the guys about being pulled up like that. You’re the only person who knows that part.”

  It is now that Mack sees Young Taylor’s entire face, clean. He stands back and stares. He doesn’t know what he expected to find. Seething rebellion, or resentment? But all that’s here is his boy, looking new and a bit pink.

  “Why did you tell me this, son?”

  “I thought you needed to know. Death is just another country.”

  Mack is still staring in amazement at this beautiful child.