“Forever, if I have anything to say about it.” She spoke as if she thought she did have say.
“Well, here is the thing.” Mr. Winston threw his napkin on the table and got to his feet. “I am tired of bein’ treated like a da—dadgum baby. I may be old, but I am still a man, and I’ll eat my meat and eggs, thank you.”
As Mr. Winston spoke, he rolled half a dozen links of sausage onto his plate, took up Willie Lee’s plate and retrieved one of the eggs and secured a cinnamon roll from the pan, plopping it on top of everything. Then he took up the plate and left the room, at which time Papa Tate also threw down his napkin and got to his feet.
“I do a lot of things for you, Marilee, but I’m not eatin’ oatmeal. No, sir.”
He stalked out of the room, with Willie Lee’s mother following after him, saying, “Tate…I’ll put raisins in the oatmeal…and slivered almonds….”
Papa Tate responded, “If you add all that crap, I might as well eat eggs and cinnamon rolls.”
Their voices trailed off as the two went into Papa Tate’s study and the door closed.
A pleasant morning breeze came in the back screen door, bringing a faint scent of Rosalba’s cigarette smoke mixed with warming earth.
Willie Lee happily ate a cinnamon roll, breaking off pieces to share with Munro. He gave Munro a piece of sausage, too.
Gooood breakfast. Munro’s pink tongue licked his mouth.
Yes, it is.
His mother returned to the kitchen, and Munro lay down all the way under the table again. Although his mother did not even seem to remember him, or Willie Lee. Being what Corrine called preoccupied with matters of life and death, she went to the cabinet and got out her tin of powdered mocha and mixed herself a cup. His mother was a chocoholic. She said so herself, and this was not bad. It made her sweet, Papa Tate said.
Then, holding her mug in both hands, she turned, saw him there and said, “Honey, eat your sausage and egg, too.” She brought her mocha to the table. “You’re a growin’ boy. You don’t have to worry about things like cholesterol and fat and carbohydrates. You need all those things for growing.” Content to have patched up her instructions, she lapsed again into thought as she drank deeply from her mug.
Willie Lee ate part of the egg, but seeing that his mother was preoccupied, he reached for yet another cinnamon roll. She did not notice. He ate and continued to share with Munro, who kept putting his chin onto Willie Lee’s knee.
Just then Willie Lee noticed his mother gazing at him. He hoped she was not about to scold him for eating so many cinnamon rolls.
She said, “How is Winston, Willie Lee? He has looked so…Well, is he…?” She raised an eyebrow.
He licked his fingers. “He is o-ld and ti-red, but he will not have a heart at-tack to-day. He will not have a heart at-tack…” He thought. “For a while.”
“Well…that’s good. Thank you.” His mother relaxed slightly. Then, leaning forward and speaking in a low tone, “What about your Papa Tate? Is his heart okay?”
“Yes, it is.”
She breathed deeply and relaxed in her chair. “Well, that’s all we can ask, isn’t it?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
She tilted her head, gazing thoughtfully at him. He could practically see thoughts nesting in her hair, but then she seemed to really see him and asked with a little alarm, “How many cinnamon rolls have you had?”
“Two. Mun-ro ate one,” he lied. He used to not lie, but he was growing, as she said, and lying more.
“Well, honey, that’s enough.” She frowned at the remaining cinnamon rolls, looked at Willie Lee, then moved the pan of rolls and offered Willie Lee a banana, which he declined. He was feeling a little sick from all the cinnamon rolls. Or maybe from the lying.
Gabby came on her bicycle, all giggles and curly hair flying. Hopping off her bike, Gabby threw herself at Willie Lee and hugged his neck. That was always the first thing she did with him, or most anyone. Willie Lee liked the hug, and the sweet way Gabby smelled, and the way her hair was so curly and shiny. He also liked that she was small for her age, like he was, and not yet taller than him. Corrine said that since Gabby was small at her age, it was quite possible that she might always stay small.
One time Willie Lee had said to her, “I hope you stay smaller than me.”
Gabby had asked, “Why is that?”
And Willie Lee had said shyly, “Be-cause I am re-tard-ed and you are not, so-o I would like you to not be big-ger.”
And Gabby promptly, her hand to her hip, said, “You are not retarded—you are special. And now I don’t want to get bigger, either, so I will ask God to not let me get taller than you.” Her curls had bounced as she jutted her chin for emphasis.
Willie Lee had thought this over for some time. He had asked God to make him be like other boys, and that had not happened. He kept watching Gabby, thinking that she would grow up and leave him behind, as all his other friends had done. But so far she had not only not gone away, she had not grown taller than him. He had discussed this matter with Mr. Winston, and Mr. Winston said some prayers were answered as expected, and some were answered in a different way, but always just right. When Willie Lee confided that he had prayed to be made smart like other boys, Mr. Winston had said, “Son, we need you just the way you are. You don’t see me tryin’ to be like anybody else, do you?”
This was true and clear. Papa Tate was always saying that Mr. Winston was not like anybody else.
“And if you were smart like other boys,” said Mr. Winston, “your intellect would only get in the way of your wider knowledge.”
Mr. Winston often spoke of Willie Lee’s wider knowledge, something that Willie Lee was not quite clear on.
“And Gabby gal might not like you as much, would she?” continued Mr. Winston. “Do you really think she could like you any more than she does?”
“Well…I guess not.”
“There you go…. And who would be here to be my friend and help me like you do? Or take care of Munro, and give Munro somebody to take care of? And what about your mother and Corrine? And all those pets and birds and rabbits you keep savin’? Nope, buddy, we all need and love you just like you are. God has special work for you. Be proud…stand up straight. There you go…work on bein’ proud. I think you gained an inch right there.”
Willie Lee and Gabby were petting the new three-week-old kittens that lived with their mother under the back steps when Mr. Winston and Papa Tate came out the back door.
All of a sudden Willie Lee remembered that it was time for Mr. Winston’s Home Folks show. Since Mr. Winston had started the midmorning radio program, Willie Lee had accompanied him on the days that he did not have school or managed to skip out. Right that moment, Munro padded away toward the car, where Papa Tate was already getting into the driver’s seat.
Willie Lee looked from Gabby to Mr. Winston.
“You have fun with Gabby this time, buddy,” said Mr. Winston, casting him a wink. “You can come with me next time.”
The old man’s eyes rested on Willie Lee’s for several seconds.
Willie Lee said, “Yes, sir.”
Gabby looked up from the kitten in her arms and noticed Willie Lee gazing after Mr. Winston as the older man made his way to the car. “Do you want to go with him?” Gabby’s eyes were deep blue. “It’s okay. I can go with you…or just wait here. I don’t mind.”
“No. I am with you today.”
Munro returned and sat, letting the kittens pull at his fur, while Papa Tate and Mr. Winston drove away.
Willie Lee, still standing, saw Mr. Winston put a hand out the window in a wave. He waved back.
It was the first time that he could remember that he chose something other than accompanying Mr. Winston.
After the kittens, they played with Corrine’s mare in the corral; the horse did everything Willie Lee told her to do. Sometimes he spoke to her, and other times he simply thought the instruction. She would look at him, blink her large dark eyes and wi
llingly do whatever he wanted. She let Willie Lee and Gabby climb all over her, and finally she lay down in the scattered hay, with Willie Lee and Gabby lying against her warm, gurgling belly, and Munro lying against Willie Lee. Gabby said the mare smelled like “hay and sunshine.” All four of them drowsed.
Then Corrine came out on her way to work in the drugstore and paid them each five dollars to clean the mare’s stall. Willie Lee liked that he was strong and could push the wheel-barrow full of manure and bring back the bags of sawdust. He liked to see the muscles on his arms bulge.
He noticed, too, although he did not say anything, that Gabby was getting a girl figure, like Corrine.
Afterward, Willie Lee asked his mother if he and Gabby could go to the drugstore for a sundae. He showed her the money he had made. His mother said okay. “But now be careful and watch both ways for cars…and don’t talk to strangers,” she added in her worried way of loving, which he knew was a little elevated because of Mr. Berry’s heart attack.
He and Gabby and Munro headed for Main Street along the sidewalk. The scent of summer heat and dust came up off the concrete, where trees did not shade it. There was a big oak tree in front of the Ellsworths’ house whose large knobby roots grew into the sidewalk and cracked it. The city had one time come out to cut down the tree, but Mrs. Ellsworth had tied herself to the tree to save it. Gabby talked about this as she and Willie Lee walked around the tree on the rough roots. Willie Lee leaned against the tree, listening to the trunk that did not so much speak as smile.
A car slid up to the curb. It was Miss Belinda, who gave them a ride to the drugstore. She also gave them free sundaes. Miss Belinda was being nicer to him than she ever had. She kept giving him a secret wink, too. There was a question in her eyes. Willie Lee did his best to think reassurance to her, and she seemed to relax.
He and Gabby sat at the counter and ate their ice cream, while they got to watch Corrine wait on people, and Miss Belinda tell everyone who came in and asked her about Mr. Berry that he might be in for open-heart surgery. Gabby talked to everyone, too, almost like a grown-up, while Willie Lee, sitting on the very end stool, did not say anything, as usual. No one took any notice of him, either, as if he was not there at all, which was also usual. But he could hear their thoughts, just the same.
The women were worried about their own husbands having heart attacks. Some said this, others did not.
Willie Lee watched Miz Inez move from foot to foot as she talked about Mr. Berry’s heart attack and said that she really hoped he did not smoke cigarettes. Miz Inez never could be still. She had dark birds flying in and out of her hair. Only Willie Lee could see them, of course, although he noticed that Miss Belinda seemed to look up over Miz Inez’s head a couple of times with a puzzled frown. Before she left, Miz Inez bought a packet of aspirin for her terrible headache.
The men who came in and asked about Mr. Berry would nod at what Belinda said, then take their orders and leave with fast steps.
Jaydee Mayhall sat on a counter stool and kept looking in the mirror and smoothing his hair, while Miss Belinda made him a latte and they talked about Mr. Berry. Jaydee Mayhall said maybe he would go see Mr. Berry that evening, but Willie Lee knew that he was thinking of excuses not to go.
Miss Fayrene came in, with her latest heartthrob, as Willie Lee’s mother called him. Andy was his name. Miss Fayrene was a happy-sad woman, but Willie Lee thought her nice, and she was the only one to say hello directly to him. She asked Miss Belinda about Mr. Berry, then turned and went to the card rack. Right away Mr. Oran appeared to help her pick out a card. Mr. Oran was also a happy-sad person, and he stood so close to Miss Fayrene that it seemed like they were happy-sad together.
Miss Fayrene’s latest heartthrob, Andy, sat on a stool beside Gabby and talked to her for a minute. His eyes kept moving all around, though, as if on lookout. Once they shifted to Willie Lee for a long minute.
Miss Fayrene filled out her card for Mr. Berry and added it to the stack of others—Willie Lee had counted nine—that lay on the counter, where people kept leaving them for Miss Belinda to deliver.
Miss Belinda said she would have to thank Mr. Berry for giving her a good trade in get-well cards.
“I ought to charge for delivery service,” she said.
Shade came over the side yard in the late afternoon, and Willie Lee and Gabby went there and lay down in the grass, with the tops of their heads touching. The sky was very blue above, and the grass cool and fragrant beneath them. Papa Tate had mowed just the previous day. Willie Lee’s mother sometimes said that Papa Tate loved the yard almost more than he loved her. He was always fertilizing it and mowing it.
“It’s a guy thing,” Corrine had told Willie Lee. “Guys like to fertilize and kill weeds and mow.”
“Will e-ven I do that when I grow up?” Willie Lee had asked his cousin, with some hope that maybe he could grow up to do one normal thing like other boys.
“Oh, yeah, I imagine so. I don’t think you can escape it. It seems to start at about the age of thirty, from what I can tell,” Corrine had replied very seriously.
Willie Lee was lying there thinking of this, when Gabby said in a dreamy voice, “The sky is bluer than blue.”
“Why?” asked Willie Lee.
“Well…because of the sun. The sun is a powerful source of light, and it is lighting up the whole sky…and it scatters the atoms, and sends all the other colors— Oh, look!”
Willie Lee had already seen. It was two angels who came around the big cedar tree and headed across the yard, chattering about which direction they needed to take first. Both looked over and waved at Gabby and Willie Lee, who sat up and waved back.
The angels disappeared, and Gabby turned her eyes on Willie Lee. They were sad. “Willie Lee…I don’t see them very often anymore. Do you?”
“Yes.” He felt a little bad to tell her this, but he did not lie to Gabby.
He watched her rest her chin on her knee and thought how Gabby was the only one who had ever seen angels with him. He had known for some time that he was still seeing them but Gabby did not so much anymore. He did also tell his mother, but his mother had never seen the angels, and she told him, “Willie Lee, don’t go tellin’ people about those things—seein’ angels and how you can hear people think and make animals better. Just don’t do it.”
Gabby lifted her chin. “Willie Lee, I am goin’ to stay with you forever. We are goin’ to get married when we grow up, and you can see the angels for me, and I will take care of you.”
“Okay,” he said happily. “And I will cut the grass.”
CHAPTER 14
Heart Attack
MORNING SICKNESS.
Upon first opening her eyes, it came sudden, hard and fast, causing her to jump out of bed.
Belinda had not really considered her morning sickness as a great problem. She had been too caught up with the dreadful possibilities of miscarriage, high blood pressure, diabetes, birth defects. Now that she thought of it, she could not recall one thing on all the Internet pages of doom and gloom for pregnant women over thirty-five addressing the possibility of dying from morning sickness. And she was pretty certain she had just thrown up her stomach.
Tying her robe around her, she walked barefoot and very slowly, so as not to jar either her belly or her head, into the kitchen to find, hopefully, some ginger ale. Absently, she switched on the radio.
“…GET UP, YOU SLEE-PY-HEAD. GET UP AND GET YOUR BOD-Y FED!”
“Oh, Winston, I’m tryin’.”
There was no ginger ale.
Reba McEntire sang out from the radio about being a survivor.
Not being too certain in that moment that she would survive, Belinda switched off the radio. She made a cup of weak tea and sat sipping it while wondering at all she had heard about morning sickness fading. Hers was getting worse. She had actually lost five pounds in recent weeks.
Hearing Lyle drive up, she put a bright smile on her face.
“Hi, sugar. You
’re home a little early.”
“Yeah, Giff said he’d take over. He’s got insomnia.” He put his gun atop the refrigerator and loosened his shirt. “What are you doin’ up, beautiful?” He bent to give her a quick kiss.
“Oh, I’m goin’ to pick up Emma, take her to the hospital.”
“I guess she’s anxious to get there early.”
“Well, I didn’t want to rush.”
“Uh-huh. You want some breakfast?” He pulled broccoli and an apple from the refrigerator.
“No…I’m not hungry.”
She sipped her tea and watched Lyle’s back. She needed to tell him. She needed to face what might happen and get it over with.
“Lyle, sugar, could we talk?”
“Sure, honey. Uh…just a minute for me to finish up here.”
The blender whirred. Belinda watched Lyle’s back, saw him reach for the bag of ground flaxseeds. The blender’s whirring went higher. Then it shut off. Lyle got a glass and poured his concoction into it.
Belinda found herself looking at a glass of bile-colored liquid.
“Okay, honey…” He lifted the glass and turned toward her.
“Oh! I don’t want to forget my earrings,” was the first thing she could think to say as she hopped to her feet and hurried away to the bathroom.
A little later Lyle knocked on the door. “Honey, I’m gonna hit the bed. Did you want to tell me whatever it was first?”
“No, sugar, I’ll tell you later. It’s not important right this minute.”
Emma was normally a quiet, retiring sort of person. She was one to think a lot. There had been times when she and Belinda would drive somewhere, and Emma would not say more than three sentences in an hour.
Today Emma talked the entire thirty-minute drive to the hospital.
“Charles and Joella are comin’ over. That’s John Cole’s oldest brother and his wife…oh, that’s right, you’ve met them. I think that is the kindest thing for them to come. They have the store and all, you know. His other brother, Lloyd, may come, but his sister, Peggy, is gonna handle the store. Peggy and John Cole never have been close. I told Joella they did not need to come. There isn’t anything that they can do, but Joella insisted. I may be sorry…but it is still nice of her. The doctor showed us yesterday how the operation— It was after you left that second time, really late in the evenin’. I sure hope the doctor got home and got a good night’s sleep. Did I tell you they moved John Cole into a room on the heart floor? They all call John Cole a young man. His daddy isn’t up to comin’. He’s in a wheelchair now, did I tell you that? Joella said when they take Pop away from the house these days, he sometimes gets all confused about where he is. John Cole and I were supposed to go over there in two weeks. I have not called Mama. I don’t want to interrupt her vacation. There isn’t anything she can do. I wish I had brought a bottle of water…had it right out on the counter. I can get one at the hospital…. Maybe I should call Mama, and she could be prayin’.”
Little Town, Great Big Life Page 15
