by Lynne Hugo
“I get the feeling that’s what you want me to do for some reason, Gary. But I can’t imagine why.”
Gary hesitated. I could tell I’d caught him. I just didn’t know in what.
“. . . Just surprised you don’t need the money for corn, is all. Can’t see throwing it away planting crazy stuff.”
“Nice of you to be concerned, son, but I’m just fine. You don’t need to worry about my money. Or my mind.”
“I do worry, Mom. I’m trying to take care of you. And my church. You’re all I have now.” His eyes watered with emotion and I felt guilty, as I often do with him. “By the way,” he went on, “one of the members said he passed you putting flowers by the crosses up on the highway.”
“Actually, I planted them. I didn’t like how the flowers would die so quick when I’d leave them there, so I had this brilliant idea. I put a border of rocks in front of the crosses and made a garden. That way when they mow the berm they have to go around the flowers or they’ll break the blade.” I couldn’t stop myself from babbling. “It’s Lou Anson does that mowing anyway, and he’s a sweetheart. I asked him if it was okay. He said nothing’s supposed to be allowed there, but go right ahead. Of course he knew Harold, and anything for Harold and his grandson. Said the spot was sacred. That was his word, too.”
You might have guessed it was Gary who put the crosses there. They make me sad. I like my circle of round, smooth rocks, which I painted white and where I wrote words to my man and my boy that would be hidden where the cheeks of the stones kiss. I like them and the living brightness of the flowers inside the border: a riot of apricot, blue, lavender, and yellow pansies, planted in the dirt from the farm where Harold and I brought Cody every week. Cody so loved the farm, like his grandpa. Now I bring two little baggies more dirt every Friday by myself. As soon as the pansies get leggy and tired of heat, I will dig them up and put in every color of dahlias, those sturdy survivors. And whatever other flower I think of that will rise up and bloom a silent song of grief and joy and unspeakable memories.
“Do I know Lou?” was all Gary said, his voice serrated with suspicion. I should have paid attention to that.
“Sure, you remember Lou. Lives over behind the quarry. Big, outgoing guy, little bit hard of hearing. Used to be on a submarine, well, that was back during Vietnam, you wouldn’t have known the family then, you weren’t born, but that’s when I first knew Bernice. When you were growing up he was on the fire department.” I was glad to be off the subject of the land, just the biggest of the subjects I did not want to discuss with my son, which included everything except, right then, Lou and the weather. Or possibly the best way to make meat loaf. We hadn’t disagreed about Grandma’s meat loaf recipe yet.
I went on for another minute feeding him tidbits about Lou and Bernice and their gorgeous daughter, Christina, until it backfired. “Oh wait,” he interrupted. “Didn’t they send her away to that school for—”
“I don’t remember that. Just how great Lou always was to your dad. There’s a thing between Vietnam vets, but they just liked each other anyway.”
“She was like a genius, and they sent her to that fancy college out east.”
I pretended to search my memory for words like merit scholarship and Princeton and shrugged. “Knowing Lou and Bernice, such down-to-earth people, I doubt that.” I didn’t want Gary’s animosity toward smart, successful people like Christina to have him take an attitude toward Lou. I especially didn’t want Gary out there “checking” when Lou was mowing, taking any close looks at how those crosses had been pounded deep into the ground, until they appeared a sort of trellis for the living flowers rising all around and from that sacred ground. It had been either that or get them out of there completely, and this was my version of being respectful.
I was suddenly tired and out of material. It’s a sad thing when you have nothing to say to your son and it’s your own fault. I’d steered him away from what I was doing with my fields—for the time being. Now I had to distract him from his crosses and my flowers.
I knew I wasn’t looking at him and made myself do it. I have always sniffed out Gary’s dissembling, disliking the sneaky side of him that I thought had no genetic basis. But there we sat in that merciless light, me hiding my own secrets behind my eyes when I met his.
Gary had gotten the longitude and latitude of where Cody’s body was found from the police report. That’s where he put the cross. Harold stepped out in front of that Dwayne County Waste Recycling truck right from Cody’s cross. That’s how he knew, or thought he did, where to find a portal to Cody. Sometimes I wonder what he would have done if Gary hadn’t made it so easy for him. So damned easy.
I manufactured a smile and spread it across my face. “It’s time I got outside and let the girls out in the yard. They hate being in the run when they can be loose. Need to get them fresh water, too. Want to come?” I knew he wouldn’t.
“There’s nothing wrong with chickens staying in a chicken coop.” He shook his head. “No, I’ve got to get back to the church. Speaking of which, I was going to mow the grass but Al said he could spare the kid he hired for his own place for a couple hours, so I went ahead and gave him twenty bucks. Make sure he remembers I already paid. But the mower might need gas, sorry about that. And Mom, really, I’m counting on you to be sensible about that field. Leave it empty, it’s what God wants, so do it, okay.” It wasn’t a question and I didn’t answer partly because Gary stood up abruptly, leaned over, kissed my cheek, and headed to the front door. He didn’t alter his path to avoid Marvelle, dozing in a swath of sun spilled from the kitchen linoleum over onto the living room carpet. His shoe grazed her back and she startled up, frightened that she’d been fooled enough to sleep while he was there.
* * *
“Gary imagines he’s looking out for you, don’t you think? It was nice of him to pay to have the grass mowed. We both know he loves you,” CarolSue said during our phone time late afternoon.
I added more bourbon to my tea and shrugged for Beth’s benefit as I tossed her a grape. Amy beat her to it, though. They are often not kind to one another no matter how I scold. Then I shook my head, knowing CarolSue would wait for me to find words.
“I know you’re right. He’s doing the best he can. He does love me. And I love him. But look at my family. How often has love made things work out all right? Hell, how often has it even averted disaster?”
“Oh honey. I can’t argue with you there. It does take more than love, doesn’t it?”
23
Gary stayed away for a while after that visit. I should have been suspicious about what that meant, especially because I took CarolSue’s advice and stopped answering the daily prayer calls. Normally, that would bring Gary out to check up on me. I had prepared to tell him that sweet as the attention is, I’d tripped a couple of times running to answer the phone, and it was lucky I hadn’t broken my hip—such a common injury for the elderly—so it would be best if the group’s prayers for me were silent. I thought he might buy that. Of course I should have pondered why I hadn’t needed this excellent story.
But it was only Al who showed up, to start the planting early Saturday morning. I handed him the same plan again.
“You sure about this?” Al said, squinting at it, although the sun was thin where we stood between the house and the barn. Al liked to get an early start, and I’d met him outside with a thermos of coffee and a new copy of the drawing. He held the paper as if it might detonate.
“Let me know if you need me to order any more seed,” I said. “And when you take a break, there’s some of those cinnamon rolls you like so well in the kitchen. I got them at the Stop N’Shop.” There was a time when I baked cinnamon rolls for the men myself, and it did fill the whole house with such a sweet fragrance that lasted until almost noon, but with Harold and Cody gone, I’ve no heart for it even though the ones from the store aren’t much to speak of and I’m sure Al knows it. He’ll eat them, though. “I’ll wait five minutes before I
let the girls out of the coop.” This last was a reference to his threats to run over any hens that got in his path; for some reason of his own, Al hates chickens.
“Make it ten,” Al said, folding the plan and stuffing it in his shirt pocket. “Kid’s in the barn getting out the mower now. He’s catchin’ on.” He took the thermos, turned, and strode across the weedy gravel. His feet were thudding in a way that definitely wasn’t happy, but they kept going. I watched to see that they did, noticing how his jeans were frayed around the heels of his boots. I waited to be sure until I saw the plow heading out of the barn and then I went inside and took a deep breath, poured myself some coffee, and smiled.
* * *
I knew how quickly early May would slide toward summer even though for the most part it was staying lovely and cool. I wasn’t going to sit around and congratulate myself, even though I’d done CarolSue’s job and come up with The Plan, which, believe me, I pointed out to her. She did add one decent idea, even if she did back into it, and it returned me to the library for more research.
“So I guess other animals are going to like this pretty well, too,” she’d said. “You planning an entire banquet service?”
She was just being her version of funny, but I did start thinking. By the time Al cut the slant along the woods’ edge in uneven curves, shaking his head the whole time, I’d found a seed mix of native prairie grasses: big bluestem and little bluestem, Indian grass, Canada wild rye, side-oats grama. The area I was letting go into high grass could be more than a weed jungle; it could be cover and food for other wildlife, too. And I hadn’t known that the old prairie had bloomed purple with asters, pink coreopsis, wild indigo, but those seeds were part of the mix, and the botany book said they would attract butterflies.
“There’s even milkweed, black-eyed Susans, and yellow coneflower,” I rattled on to CarolSue. “You should see the pictures.”
“How much time are you spending out in the sun?” she said.
“I’m wearing that stuff. Sunscreen.”
“Seriously? Because I was wondering if you maybe had a touch of sunstroke.”
“Oh stop it. Of course Al is bitching about sowing the clover. So I’ll do it myself if I have to. Can’t plant the winter stuff until August, so there’s no hurry with that. I wish you could see the deer. The fawns still have their spots.”
I refreshed my teacup with some of the good stuff. It was five thirty and I hadn’t thought about supper yet. The girls had been snacking on grapes and oatmeal, which they’ve come to enjoy over chicken feed. I’d needed to come in and put my feet up before tending to watering them and feeding Marvelle.
“What’s happening with Gary?”
“Dunno. How’s Charlie looking today?”
“Tired and peaked. I think he might be depressed, but maybe he’s just worn out from the treatments.” My sister sounded tired out herself.
“I know you’re exhausted. We don’t have to talk about The Plan right now, y’know. I’ll tell you if there are any developments. Did you finish Jane Eyre?”
“Not yet. Don’t tell me anything about what’s going on in that attic. My eyes get too tired to read for very long and there’s nothing but reruns on TV. I’ve seen all my shows already. The Plan is the best distraction I have. Unless Charlie breaks down and gets rid of HBO. I want Showtime.”
“Gets rid of B.O.? What are you saying? Is the radiation affecting how he smells?”
“Oh Lord, Louisa. I want him to discontinue Home. Box. Office. On the cable television and subscribe to Showtime instead. They show different movies. We pay extra and it’s hooked—”
“Okay, Miss High-and-Mighty Technology. Some of us don’t—”
“I know. I’m sorry. Never mind. What’s going on with Harassment By Prayer?”
“I stopped answering like you said, and I have my story ready, but he hasn’t shown up for days. Hasn’t sent Gus, either.”
“That makes me very nervous,” she said.
But I was enjoying my Plan For Revenge too much to pay attention to my sister. I should have.
Gary did show up again, of course. He brought me a giant loaf of white bread and a plastic stamp that would imprint an image of Jesus into an individual slice. I almost fainted when he showed me.
“Are you serious?” I shouldn’t have said that, of course.
“Mom, I don’t think you’re trying to understand. Think about it for a minute, the meaning of daily bread, how we take things for granted, until maybe we don’t have them. It’s to remind us to give thanks for what we do have. You of all people—”
I could not have this conversation. Not with my son. Not as long as my memory of Cody and Harold was intact, for sure. “Well, thank you for the bread, son. The thing is, the doctor told me that I’m kind of borderline with my blood sugar, you know how older people are, and not to eat any white food.”
“What? You never told me that. White food? What does that mean?”
“Oh, you know. It’s stuff that’s high in carbohydrates. I didn’t want to worry you.”
How I can make things up. It’s wonderful what you learn listening to National Public Radio. I might even have borderline blood sugar for all I know, so it hardly counts as a lie.
“Well, I’ll bring you another kind of bread next time I come. Un-white bread. Like brown bread, I mean. You know. Wheat. But you always used to serve white so I thought . . . But, Mom, you need to tell me these things. I should go to your next doctor appointment so I know what’s going on.” He was sweet and earnest and I thought, CarolSue is right that he’s trying to take care of me.
Gary ended up taking the bread (which I would have eaten) and leaving the stamp, because I’d lost the heart to persist and claim that I didn’t eat bread at all anymore. I have to help him not to fail again.
Then he called and asked what size shoes I wore. I said I didn’t need shoes, but he was relentless so I told him size 7, so I could give myself a point for telling the truth. A week later, he showed up with a fancy pair of new gardening shoes, saying he’d noticed that the ones I was wearing last time he’d been to visit were old and beat-up. “Where’d you get these?” I asked him. “They look waterproof.”
“The Internet,” he said. “They just started selling them on one of my favorite sites. They are waterproof. Try them on.”
I did. “They fit. This was really thoughtful of you.” I walked around the kitchen in them. It was midafternoon, and my feet had started to hurt. They always do by then. I get tired when I’ve worked since morning. “They feel very comfortable.” It was true. “Thank you, son. These are wonderful.” I hugged him then, and meant it.
He also brought whole wheat bread, the kind like cardboard, which I don’t much like. The wheat bread made me realize that I wasn’t going to get any more strawberry cheese danish from Diana Dee’s, which was tantamount to having shot myself in the foot with the new shoe on it. And he pointed out that the stamp would work nicely on this type of bread. But Gary also brought some lovely fresh strawberries, which were in season, and I did truly appreciate the shoes. I told CarolSue I thought Gary and I might be turning a corner.
“Pretty soon you’ll be able to have a yard sale of tacky religious artifacts, too,” she teased.
“I’m running out of closets to stash the stuff in. You should see me run around trying to find it all to put it out when I know he’s coming. But I think I’ve figured out how to . . . I don’t know. Deal with Gary better. I’m trying.”
Of course, later I would realize Gary thought the same thing about me. And later I would realize how I’d slowly let my guard down over the summer. And here’s the kicker: I didn’t even see it for weeks. I don’t generally look behind me when I walk. Not until it rained one night and the ground was very moist when I was up early and went to the empty field to see if the clover Al planted had started to come up. When I was going back to the house, almost retracing my steps, something looked funny about my footprints and I stopped to look at them. Then
I turned and looked at them sideways. My left foot was imprinting the word Jesus into the soil; my right foot was putting down Loves You.
Now really, Louisa, you might be saying. Seriously. What’s so bad about that? There’s not a thing wrong with what he believes and he’s just trying to be a good son. It doesn’t seem like you appreciate him the way you should.
I can see how you’d say that. CarolSue says it all the time.
Get yourself some tea with a big splash of bourbon and I’ll tell you the rest of the story. But be patient; there are some things you need to hear first. You know, I have to tell a story in my own way.
24
Brandon
It was harder than he’d thought, working for the farmer, but at least it hadn’t gotten unbearably hot yet and he didn’t hate the physical work once he got over being so stiff he felt like he was made of wood. Dud made a number of obscene jokes about stiffness that Brandon did not find amusing and he didn’t want to think about what it would be like in August, but he was surprised to find he sort of liked being outside. He hadn’t been able to find anything that involved working at a computer, which was what he was interested in doing. Not much of that in rural Indiana for a high school kid, his mother laughed when he told her that’s what he wanted. She’d called Crazy Connie then because she was the Future Farmers of America Secretary of the Year or something and naturally had a list of area farmers who were looking to hire part-time and summer help. Of course, they all wanted FFA kids with some skill or another. One of them didn’t specify that, the one who paid a buck an hour less and was in the next town over, not exactly close. Mr. Pelley said he’d taken on too much contract work and needed someone to pitch in around his own place and to give him a hand generally.
His mother said, “If he offers you the job, I think you should take it, honey. It’s more than minimum wage, which is what you’ll get someplace else, and he wants somebody part-time now, and full-time this summer. I bet he’d use you through harvest, too. I mean, he knows you’re in school, he contacted FFA.”
