Holding on to Nothing

by Elizabeth Chiles Shelburne

  THE MINUTES UNTIL the rest of the band arrived dragged by. Jeptha lifted his head off his arms every few minutes to peek around for Lucy and then collapsed back into a heap. He knew he should get up, figured he should at least try to look semi-respectable and not like a drunken bump on a log passed out at his place of work, but he didn’t know when his head had ever felt so heavy, his limbs so bone-tired. He was even more miserable now than he had been when he walked in. He stared at the beers, wishing that a drink would help but knowing there was no cure for this ache in a bottle. Ask Lucy Kilgore to marry him? Lord knew he wanted to, but it’d be a cold day in hell before he’d ever man up and do that, and an even colder one before she’d say yes.

  He jerked as he felt a touch on his shoulder and looked up so quick he gave himself whiplash. It was Cody, shaking his head as he stared down at him.

  “Drunk before we even start our set?” Cody asked. “That’s a new low.”

  “I ain’t drunk. Just had a half a beer,” Jeptha said.

  “Sure? You look like shit.”

  “That’s just my face.”

  “What’s in that glass?”

  “A Coke.”

  “Serious? Shit, man. You all right?”

  “Just tired, that’s all. Tired of being me.”

  “Aw, Marla feels that way about me every day. You don’t see me drinking Coke ’cause of it. Come on, let’s go play,” Cody said. He pulled Jeptha’s arm until his feet had to hit the floor to keep him from falling like a Slinky to the ground.

  Jeptha took one last look around and shuffled to the stage. He hitched up his pants and clicked the locks on his mandolin case. Even seeing his mandolin didn’t give him the usual lift. He tuned it half-heartedly, staring idly about as he did. He missed Cody’s nod to start playing and had to hustle in twenty seconds late on the first song. No matter how hard he tried, he could not keep up. It was like all the music had left him, the rhythm gone. Three songs in, the band stopped playing under cover of needing to retune, but it was really so Cody could step over to Jeptha. He barely heard what Cody was saying—he stared at the ground, wishing he could stop this farce and go home now.

  Then he saw something behind Cody’s broad back. A hint of movement, female, carrying a tray of drinks. He put his arms on Cody’s shoulders and moved him bodily to the side. There was Lucy, staring at him with concern in her eyes. She had never been more beautiful—her hair piled up on her head, a few soft curls escaping down her neck and her face, slightly plumper than it had been a few months before all this began and lit from within as if by a fire. A crackle ran through him. He thought again of the fire at Avery’s and how Delnor described it as leaping from one bottle to the next until the entire bar was lit up like Christmas in July. She smiled at him, and that crackle burst into open flame.

  “You all right?” she asked.

  He nodded, not trusting his voice. He barely noticed as Cody edged out of the way.

  “Judy had me bring these up,” she said, handing him drinks for his bandmates. “Said this one is yours.” She sniffed it. “What is this? Coke? Now I am worried.”

  Jeptha swallowed hard against the lump in his throat. He tried to speak, but a froggy croak was all that came out. He swallowed again. “I’m okay. How are you?”

  “Feeling better.”

  “You was sick?”

  “Pregnant. Apparently it makes people throw up.”

  “I’m sorry.” Jeptha wasn’t sure what else to say.

  Lucy shrugged. “Price I have to pay, I guess. Besides, I’m feeling better. I’m more than two months, so maybe the worst is over.”

  “That’s good.”

  “Y’all want anything for later?”

  “Probably the same.”

  “Another Coke? You aren’t drinking?”

  “Ain’t been as appealing as usual. Besides, you can’t drink.”

  Lucy cocked her head and narrowed her eyes at him, surprised. The half-smile on her face made Jeptha want to grab her in a hug that would remove all the worries she was toting around. Instead, he asked, “Can I play you something?”

  Lucy thought for a moment and brightened. “Shady Grove? I remember you used to sing that at church.”

  “Shady Grove, then.” He moved to stand up and go back to the band, but she put her hand on his arm.

  “Thank you, Jeptha,” she said, and kissed him on the cheek.

  “You’re welcome,” he whispered as she walked away, his nose full of the scent of her, all bar soap, sun, sweat, and an earthiness he couldn’t name. Jeptha stayed there, crouched down and swaying slightly, until Cody tapped him on the shoulder.

  “I think you promised her a song. Want to sing it for her before the sun comes up?”

  AT THE END of the night, Jeptha made his way over to Lucy. She was behind the counter, wiping off the abuses of a night’s worth of beer, liquor, and mixers. More curls had tumbled down the back of her neck, and her cheeks were flushed from hustling around the bar all night.

  “Do you need a ride?” he asked.

  “I got my car. Thanks, though. Looks like Cody might want one,” she said, nodding behind Jeptha. He turned to see his friend staring at them, an empty glass in his hand, miming drinking it. Cody smiled so big his eyes closed and waved when he saw them looking at him—the man was six sheets to the wind.

  “You sure?”

  “I gotta close up and get home. I’m worn out.”

  “Another time?”

  “Yeah,” she said, moving down to wipe the rest of the counter. “I’ll see you later.”

  Jeptha began to make his way to Cody. Ten feet away, he caught Judy’s eye. She had her arms crossed again, looking at him like a bouncer about to kick him out for bad behavior. He closed his eyes for a minute, took a deep breath, and walked back to Lucy. He paused in front of her, wanting to make sure the words came out right.

  “Do you want to do something tomorrow? We could maybe try the Fold again?” He spat the words in such a rush that he saw her have to work through them to make out what he’d said.

  “You sure you want to go back down that road?” she asked.

  “I’ll be there. Early even.”

  “Jeptha …”

  “I’ll sit there all night to make sure.”

  Lucy eyed him, silently.

  He pulled his keys out. “All right, I’m going. I’ll be at your house when you get home. All night. All day. ’Til six.”

  “You better not. LouEllen’s liable to call Rick Mullins on you. They were high school sweethearts, and she says he still loves her.” Lucy smiled.

  “Might be worth it,” Jeptha said.

  “Being shot or in jail is no way to prove yourself,” Lucy said. “All right. Six o’clock tomorrow. My house.”

  “I’ll be there.”

  “You better.”

  8

  LUCY WOKE UP CONFUSED. Chirping birds had woken her instead of the nausea that usually had her sprinting for the toilet. She waited for her stomach to roil and her toes to twitch and writhe in a fight against the queasiness. When five minutes passed with nothing, she cautiously stretched. Still nothing. The only thing she felt was hungry. It was the most glorious morning she had had since finding out she was pregnant.

  All right, baby. We may get along yet, she thought.

  Thinking of the baby made her think of Jeptha. Watching him sing “Shady Grove” last night had made her shiver—he sang it with a burning intensity, his soul pure and shining up there on stage. She thought of the way his voice cracked when he talked to her, like he was a fourteen-year-old boy asking a girl out for the first time. He looked at her sometimes like she was the sun to his earth, her presence responsible for all the basic biology of existence. It both exhilarated and terrified her. She recalled his hands putting the crib together, the focused and deliberate way he threaded each tiny washer onto the screws. She thought of his long, thin fingers methodically turning each screw with the Allen wrench, tightening them until they would
n’t go anymore, then backing each one off a quarter turn. She remembered the way he had held the two sides together before the screws went in, one hand palming the gap and his knee holding them up. She flushed there in bed, thinking of his fingers spread wide around her waist as she straddled him in his car.

  But then she remembered him that night at the Fold—drunk, late, and knocking over that little boy as he tried to chase her down the stairs. Her stomach turned with embarrassment at having kissed him on the cheek last night. Why had she done that? She knew how he felt about her. Then she’d gone and said yes to another date. She wanted things to return to how they’d been when he had fucked up their date. That Jeptha was easy to deal with, more black and white. She could just hate him and get on with it. This Jeptha—the one bringing cribs and diapers, and singing her songs, and promising to show up early for dates—he was much more complicated.

  Lucy emerged from her room to the smell of eggs and toast, and for the first time in weeks, the smell didn’t send her running to the bathroom. She forgot about Jeptha, hunger dominating her brain.

  “God, that smells amazing,” she said to LouEllen as she walked into the kitchen.

  “You’re up!” LouEllen said, turning around from the stove.

  “Did you put my name in the pot?” Lucy said, peeking at the mound of scrambled eggs studded with half-melted chunks of cheese in the skillet.

  “I hope so—I can’t eat all this,” LouEllen said. “Sit down. Get some coffee.”

  Lucy sipped a cup of coffee and then, when it went down easily, took larger sips. She was exhausted with relief at being free of unrelenting nausea—even if it came back later today, she wouldn’t mind. It was a treat to have an hour without it now.

  “You look like you’re feeling better,” LouEllen said, setting a plate in front of her.

  “I do,” Lucy said between bites. “I hope it lasts.”

  “You’re ten weeks and two days, right?”

  She stopped chewing, surprised by LouEllen’s precision. Lucy had to do the math every time.

  “I’d say you’re almost in the clear. The first tri is the worst, and you’re about out of that now.”

  Lucy stared at her. “How do you know that?”

  “I’ve been doing some reading,” LouEllen said, her cheeks flushing slightly. “Don’t you have your ultrasound soon?”

  “A few more weeks yet—August fifteenth.”

  “I’ve been wanting to ask, can I come?” LouEllen asked haltingly.

  Lucy had pictured herself in the room—and there was even a daydream she’d had a time or two of Jeptha being there. She’d never imagined LouEllen. But maybe it wouldn’t be so bad—in case something was wrong. Plus, LouEllen had been beside her at so many points in her life. This was a small thing. Why should she deny the woman who had taken her in—cared for her as if she were her own—something she so clearly wanted?

  “Sure,” Lucy said, forcing a brightness into her voice.

  “Your mama would have wanted to see it, I bet,” LouEllen said.

  “You think?” Lucy asked.

  Seven years later, her memories of them had faded to specific moments—a special look from her dad, like she was the most amazing thing he’d ever seen, and fights about nothing that she’d had with her mom on her way to and from school that she could now see were fought from love. Death had made them seem more perfect in Lucy’s head—she knew there had been plenty of fights, mostly over money and some over her. Her dad had worked hard as a manager at the chemical plant in Kingsport, but it was a far cry from the glamour of living in town that her mom had craved. She’d once told Lucy of the vision she’d had for her life—marrying a doctor, living in Kingsport or maybe even Knoxville, buying and decorating a house in one of those neighborhoods where everything was a beige-brick variation upon a two-story, large-foyer theme. Instead, she’d found herself settled down with Lucy’s dad, who had gone to college—unlike most people her mom knew, herself included—but was happy to work hard as a middle manager and come home to his family. His ambitions had never been enough for Alice, Lucy’s mom. It was Alice who had dreamed of Lucy leaving this town, of getting out and doing something else. It had always been her mother’s dream, unrealized and now forever so. Lucy wasn’t so sure that her mom would have wanted to be at the ultrasound. She thought that the woman she had known might have seen it as a black-and-white proof of Lucy’s failure to live up to either of their dreams.

  “I do,” LouEllen said. “I know she wanted you to get out of here, move to Knoxville, or hell, even Kingsport. But she’d have been excited by a baby. A little sad for you, maybe, but excited to have a grandkid.”

  “As excited as you are?” Lucy asked. She had spied a book about being a good grandparent on LouEllen’s nightstand.

  “Well, she was never one to get as excited as I get about things, probably for the better.”

  Lucy smiled at LouEllen and reached for another piece of toast.

  “Speaking of, do you have any ideas what you want to do with that back room for the baby?” LouEllen asked.

  “God, I don’t know. I have a crib. What else do I need?”

  “A changing pad, a diaper bin, more diapers, wipes, a comfy chair, a rug, some paint, books, bottles …”

  “Stop, please,” Lucy said, burying her head in her arms. “I’m already overwhelmed with everything. I don’t need to figure all that out today.”

  “I can help, if you want.”

  “No, I can do it. I just don’t want to deal with it now.”

  “What if I just get a few things?”

  Lucy nodded, happy to be able to scratch a few items off her list. She guessed this was what a mom did—helped out with things you were too overwhelmed to take on yourself. She’d scrolled through a few websites at night before bed, enough to know that she didn’t want anything to do with those pale yellow or pale green “gender neutral” themes she saw floating around. She wanted something bright and cheerful—maybe a happy bright yellow or a calm turquoise. Nothing that featured pastel, soft-faced animals gallivanting around the room like members of a demented animal kingdom. She liked the lion on the onesie she’d bought, roaring proudly into the world. She wanted something that would let this baby know the future was bright, not prescribed—something that said this baby’s origins were better than the back seat in which he’d been conceived.

  It was a lot to ask of a baby room.

  “Okay then! So, what’s on your agenda for today?” LouEllen asked.

  “I’m at Walmart today. And tonight …” Lucy trailed off. She hadn’t meant to say anything about Jeptha.

  “Ooh, something fun?”

  “Just the Fold.”

  “Want company?”

  “I … I have some,” Lucy said, still not looking LouEllen in the eye.

  “You are going with Jeptha, aren’t you?” LouEllen said. Her voice was considerably less warm than it had been a minute before.

  “He asked. Last night.”

  “And you said yes.”

  “It’s just the Fold.”

  LouEllen stared at Lucy. Her lips were pursed and her face furrowed in anger. After a minute, Lucy saw the lines relax, replaced by a look of renewed purpose.

  “Did I ever tell you I dated his dad for a little bit?” LouEllen said.

  “Jeptha’s dad?”

  “Yeah, for a month or two. My parents were horrified—the grandfather had been involved in every break-in this side of Hawkins County. But I was sure he was different. Sure I could make him more than any of his family had been. And I did—right up until he showed up drunk for the first dinner with my family and crashed his car through our mailbox.”

  “You never told me that,” Lucy said. “But I don’t think I am going to make Jeptha better. I’m not asking that.”

  “Sure you are. Every woman in every relationship is asking for that. Don’t fool yourself.”

  “We aren’t in a relationship. And you weren’t pregnant with hi
s kid,” Lucy said, getting up to pour more coffee in her cup.

  “You keep saying that like you’re alone—like you don’t have a place to live and a person to help.”

  “It’s not that, LouEllen. It’s just …” Lucy stopped. How could she explain to the woman who was the closest thing she had to family that she didn’t feel like she had any family? “I’ve spent the last seven years wanting to have a family—and I know I have you. And God, I am grateful for that. But how can I deny my kid the same thing I’ve been wanting for so long? How can I keep him away from his father? All because Jeptha was late for a date and might be like the rest of his family? It doesn’t seem fair.”

  “There ain’t a lot of fair going around the world, as far as I can tell,” LouEllen said. But she reached out and patted Lucy’s hand. “I don’t want you to feel like he has to be it.”

  “He’s not. It’s the Fold, LouEllen. I’m not falling in love. I’m not getting married. I’m not leaving you,” Lucy said, finishing her cup and setting it down in the sink. “Except I am, because I have to go to work.” She kissed the top of LouEllen’s feathery white head, which smelled of powder and dandruff shampoo. “Thank you for the eggs. I’ll see you later today.”

  A FEW HOURS later, Lucy was in such a groove that she had scanned four bags of cheese puffs before she looked up to say hello to the customer on the other side. She half-expected to see an Oompa-Loompa, but it was Delnor Gilliam, his face turned up in an oddly warm smile that she’d never seen before. His teeth were black and jack-o-lanterned, but his clothes were pressed, and his beard was clean. He was a committed alcoholic, but mostly a functional one.

  “Well, Delnor Gilliam. Am I at Judy’s right now?” Lucy asked.

  Glancing around him, he said seriously, “Don’t look much like it. And, it ain’t got a lick of booze. That was my first clue.”

  “You’re smarter than you look, aren’t you?” Lucy said, laughing.

  “Don’t tell nobody.”

  “Not a soul.”

  He unloaded two more bags of cheese puffs, three two-liters of Sunkist, and a cantaloupe.

  “Got kind of an orange theme going, huh?” Lucy asked, waving her hand at the items on the belt.