Ghost on Black Mountain

by Ann Hite

  “Let her go to college in peace, Annie, because she’s going no matter what.”

  “You don’t understand, Harold.”

  “I think there are lots of things about you, Annie, I don’t understand. But I do know my daughter. Maybe one day you will tell me what happened to you the spring before you came to live here in Darien.”

  “There’s nothing to tell, Howard. You always think there’s more to me.”

  Fifty-one

  By the time I left for college Maw Maw was failing fast. Mama had her hands full. I even started feeling guilty about leaving. “Do you want me to wait until winter quarter?”

  Mama was washing dishes and stopped with a plate in midair. “I don’t believe I’m going to say this, but I won’t be the reason you stay home. I won’t be the reason you didn’t go after your dream. I’ll be fine with Maw Maw.”

  I couldn’t open my mouth.

  “I would give my whole life up for you, Iona. You’re my heart. Do you understand?”

  But how could a spoiled precious only child understand anything about selfless love? “Sure, Mama.”

  She gave me a sideways look and went back to washing dishes.

  “I love you too.” I threw my arms around her.

  I left for college right before Labor Day. The first month I cried myself to sleep every night. One afternoon I called home collect. Mama answered, accepting the charges. “What’s wrong, Iona?”

  “Nothing, Mama. Can’t I just call?” My words were much sharper than I intended. I’d planned to tell her how much I loved her, Daddy, and Maw Maw; what a terrible mistake it was for me to go off to college; how the professors saw me as a little hick girl from Georgia.

  “Are you homesick?” Mama asked.

  Anger swelled inside because she saw through me, hundreds of miles away. “No. I just wanted to talk, but you have to turn it into a major deal.”

  “You know, Iona, if you called me to give you permission to quit college and come home, you called the wrong person.”

  “You’re the one who wants me home under your wing.”

  “I won’t tell you to quit.”

  “I don’t need your permission!”

  “No, Iona, you don’t. That is exactly my point.” Her breathing was heavy.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I won’t have you be thirty, married to some shrimper, with three kids, hating me for ruining your life! You’re not doing that to me, young lady.”

  “I’m hanging up now, Mama. I don’t know why I called you.”

  “Yes you do.”

  “Why then?”

  “You needed me to tell you to stay in school and quit whining.”

  “Good-bye, Mama.”

  “Good-bye, Iona.”

  She hung up first and I cried. It turned out Mama was on my side. I’d be home for Thanksgiving. That wasn’t so far off.

  * * *

  The first year of college whizzed by. Before I knew it, I was going home for the summer. Mama had made the decision to move Maw Maw to a nursing home in Savannah. Why would she send Maw Maw away? We were supposed to look after each other, right?

  Then one night just after I came home, I woke to find Maw Maw standing over my bed.

  “Nellie.”

  “It’s me, Maw Maw, Iona.”

  Her eyes were vacant. “I need to find Nellie. You know where she is, don’t you? I need to help her.”

  “Who’s Nellie?”

  She clamped her fingers around my wrist. “Help me find her before the bad thing happens.”

  “Come back to bed.” Mama stood in the door. “See, there’s not enough hands to keep her down at night. Twice she’s gone out to the marsh looking for Daddy.”

  “There you are, Nellie. You got to get this notion of marrying Hobbs out of your head, girl.” She touched Mama’s face.

  “I’m Annie, your daughter.”

  “I think I know my daughter when I see her. I’m not crazy.”

  “Okay.” Mama winked at me. “Go back to sleep, Iona. I’ll stay up with her.”

  I helped move my sweet little grandmother to a home in Savannah. That’s how I met Anthony.

  It was the end of June and so humid the air could be cut by a knife. Mama and Daddy were checking Maw Maw into the home, and I couldn’t bear to watch. The place was nice enough, with gardens and benches facing the river, but a prison couldn’t be hidden behind a bunch of flowers and smiles. The old people sat in their wheelchairs or hobbled along with their walkers. They smelled funny and reminded me that someday I’d be old. I noticed Anthony first. Had we been at school, he could have walked by without me seeing him. But that day I noticed him on the bench looking at a newspaper because he was the youngest person around, not counting me.

  “What do you think of Martin Luther King Jr.?”

  “Excuse me?” I was standing under a large oak tree, thinking he hadn’t noticed me.

  He looked up from the newspaper. “The civil rights movement. Don’t you keep up with current events?”

  “I’ve been a little busy with school and now my grandmother. I don’t have time to read about some people riding buses.”

  “Some people? Don’t you know what could happen to them? Don’t you care?”

  Irritation welled inside me. “Of course I care, but you know they’re bringing it on themselves. They know people are going to get upset. They know the bigots are going to come after them for stirring up trouble. Look what happened at Little Rock.”

  He shook his head. “These people can’t eat or sleep where they want. They can’t even use the bathrooms they want to. They have to fight a mob to attend a decent school. What if that was you? I bet you’d pay attention then.”

  My head was spinning. “I don’t need this.”

  “What would you say if I told you my father was a Negro? Would you keep talking to me?”

  His skin was white like mine and I absolutely didn’t like him. “You’re full of yourself.”

  “What if I told you that girls didn’t need to go to college? I think you should be home, married, and pregnant with your third child.”

  Blinding anger started in my toes and rushed up my body. “I’d tell you to go to hell. I have no intentions of marrying.”

  He laughed at me. “See, you can get involved.”

  I both liked and hated him. “I’m a musician. I play music. That’s how I plan on changing the world.”

  “I took you for an art major.” He smiled a big toothy grin. “I go to the art college. I paint. I paint big. Like wall size. My mother is a nurse here. We’re going to have lunch in a few minutes. Another lecture on finding a real future, like being a doctor.”

  “How about your father?”

  He gave me a stern look. “That part is true. He was black. He died in a car accident when I was five. Does he change us being friends?”

  “No.”

  “My name is Anthony.” He held out his hand. “What’s yours?”

  “Iona.”

  “You’re pretty.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Do you live in Savannah?”

  “No, Darien is home.”

  He nodded. “Are you coming back to visit your grandmother?”

  “Next week. I have to go back to school at the end of the summer.”

  He pulled a pencil from his shirt pocket and a scrap of paper from his pants. “Call me when you come back. I’ll meet you here. We can go have coffee.”

  “Okay.”

  “I’ll show you the city. Lots of good stuff.”

  Fifty-two

  I saw Anthony every week for the rest of the summer. On most visits while Mama sat with Maw Maw, I went off with Anthony, not feeling one bit bad. Mama was so consumed with guilt she made up for my lack of attention. She never asked me what I did with my time.

  Anthony took me down to River Street and then to the old cemetery. He rattled off the history of the city. One afternoon a terrible storm blew up while we were
reading the headstones. Anthony pulled me under a tree and kissed me for what seemed like forever. After that it was easier to imagine sleeping with him. Two weeks before I was to go back to school, he took me to his mother’s row house close to the river and made love to me in his bed up in the attic.

  When he dropped me back at the nursing home, Mama was waiting. “I was beginning to worry, Iona. What do you do with your time?” She searched my face as if she were looking at me for the first time.

  “I’m sorry.”

  She waited with her hands on her narrow hips.

  “I was having lunch and a good talk. The time got away from me. How is Maw Maw?”

  “The same. Iona, why don’t you invite your boy to supper next week, please.”

  Did I have a choice? “Okay.” I rolled my eyes at the back of her head.

  Anthony came to supper the night before I left for my second year at college. Behind us was a magical summer, a kind of limbo, where the world didn’t exist. In front of us was a question. What do we do now? And I was taking him home to meet my parents. How crazy was that?

  “Wow, Iona, you didn’t tell me you lived on the marsh.”

  “Here it is, my life.” We stood on the porch watching the grass rustle in the wind. Mama’s haunting spirit was always a presence in my mind when I was home.

  Anthony handed me a bottle of wine. “I brought it for dinner. I hope that’s okay.”

  “It’ll have to be okay. It’s a gift.” I smiled. “I forgot to tell you my father is a minister, but the good thing is we’re Episcopalian. We don’t mind a little nip now and then.” I giggled.

  “Jees, that’s a big thing to forget.” He laughed, but I knew he was nervous.

  “It’s not my dad you have to watch. My mother is the person who will pick you apart.”

  Did I hear him dragging his feet as we walked into the house?

  Mama appeared like an apparition from nowhere. “Well, is this your friend?” She looked at me with a sly expression. “You’re everything Iona said.” She held out her hand.

  Anthony took it. “I’m so glad to finally meet you, ma’am.”

  “You know Iona is our pride and joy.” Mama looked at me. “And how did you two meet again?” The question hung around the three of us.

  “My mother is a nurse at the home where Iona’s grandmother stays.” Anthony looked directly into Mama’s eyes.

  “And here I was thinking Iona was wasting her summer away. It’s nice to know she was entertained.” Mama ran her fingers through her short blond curls. “What’s your last name, Anthony?”

  “Taylor, ma’am.”

  She nodded. “Now we can proceed.”

  “He brought wine for supper.” I held out the bottle.

  Mama’s eyes literally twinkled. “What would the congregation say?” A giggle escaped her. She took the bottle. “Your father can pretend it’s communion wine.” She winked.

  “Would you like some help in the kitchen?” Anthony offered.

  Mama shot a look at him. “Are you kidding? Can you cut vegetables?”

  “Yes ma’am. I’m good in the kitchen. Mama taught me to fend for myself.”

  “Oh young man, I do believe you are winning me over.” She turned a dazzling smile on me. “Take him to walk on the marsh. Dinner will be ready soon.”

  And that’s how Mama fell head over heels in love with Anthony.

  We walked hand in hand. “I don’t think I can stand you to go back to school, Iona. What if you forget me?”

  “I have to go back. Music is my life.”

  “I know.” He smiled.

  The wind blew as the tide moved into the marsh grass. An egret stood not far from us. “I’ll be back for the holidays.”

  “You’ll find someone else up there in North Carolina.”

  “No one like you.” I touched his cheek. “Come on.” I pulled him along.

  “Where are we going?”

  “It’s a surprise.”

  When we stood in front of Daddy’s church, Anthony looked at me. “So you’re going to marry me. That’s it.”

  I pushed at him. “You silly. No.”

  “Tell my broken heart why you brought me here.”

  I pulled him into the church. “Have a seat.”

  He sat down in the front pew while I sat at the piano. The music flowed through me as I thought of us making love. In that moment, I could have married him and tossed school out the window. We were complete. Maybe in the long run that would have been best. But he listened. I played.

  The next morning Mama smiled as I came into the kitchen. She was taking me to the bus station. Daddy had some kind of church meeting.

  “He’s a good boy,” she sang from the stove. Her apron was a spotless white.

  “Well, did you think he wouldn’t be? Jees, Mama.”

  “Do you want to stop and tell Maw Maw bye before I drop you?”

  “Sure.”

  Maw Maw sat in a chair near the window. I placed my hand on her shoulder. “I have to go back to school.”

  She looked at me.

  “I’m going to check with the nurse about her medicine. I’ll be right back.” Mama’s heels clicked down the quiet hall.

  “I told you not to marry that boy, Nellie.” Maw Maw looked at me.

  “It’s me, Iona, Maw Maw.”

  “He was bad. I knew he was bad. That Hobbs was the meanest man to ever come off Black Mountain.”

  The old ghost story had entered her mind and she thought it was real. Poor thing. “That’s just a silly story. Remember Mama told me that one all the time.”

  She grabbed my wrist. “He tried to kill her. Do you understand? She didn’t have a choice for what she did. Do you understand me?” Her eyes were wild and crazy.

  She wasn’t there with me but in the story. “Settle down, Maw Maw. It’s me, Iona.”

  “He beat her so bad. I told Nellie that he would do something bad, but she wouldn’t listen to me. Stay away from Hobbs Pritchard. You understand?”

  “Yes ma’am. I understand.”

  Her grip relaxed. “You were always my good girl, Iona. Your mama worked hard not to let you get hurt like she did.”

  “How did she get hurt?” I swallowed hard.

  “Well, you know already. She’s been telling you the story for years.”

  “Mama, Iona is leaving for school today. She’s come to say good-bye.” Mama stood in the door.

  Maw Maw looked at her hands as if she were a bad child.

  The crazy thing was I got the feeling I now knew something about Mama’s secret. But I couldn’t. A crazy ghost story told to a child to keep her thoughts in the right direction. Come on. My feeling didn’t make sense.

  Mama kissed and hugged me at the bus station. The overhead fans spun slowly, clicking away the minutes I had left.

  “She’s getting worse, Iona. Don’t let it upset you. You go learn your music.”

  “Yes ma’am,” I answered like a small child.

  Fifty-three

  The first time I saw Lonnie, he wore this sultry smile that wiped Anthony from my mind. He sat on the handrail outside the math building and the current he generated reached out and grabbed me. Like so many boys of the time, he wore his hair in an Everly Brothers–style haircut. But something was different about this boy. Maybe it was the fact he wore no socks with some old leather sandals. Or maybe it was the way he raised his eyebrow slightly when he caught me looking.

  I rushed through the big double doors, my cheeks burning. The heat off his beautiful cornflower-blue eyes burnt holes in my back. It was quite possible I would have forgotten him had I never seen him again, but later that evening, when I went to the music room to practice, my life opened like a rare rose in late fall.

  I was lost in my music; I became aware of a new presence slowly, like a fog, a mountain fog, denser than normal, drifting in from the west. Lonnie sat in one of the chairs. It would be many years before I realized he played me like the fine-tuned guitar
he always wore on his back. When I looked into his eyes, I stopped playing and went to stand in front of him. Magic unfolded. I never gave it a second thought when I followed him to his car. This was a few years before the age of love, peace, and drugs, but I found all three in him. He took me on long hikes into the mountains, where I itched to capture nature in my music.

  We made love on a blanket spread over a large flat rock that jutted over a fast-moving creek. The hard surface was alive with the warmth of the sun. Lonnie told me the Cherokees believed rocks could guide a person in the right direction. Anthony slid fluidly from my life.

  Lonnie could always be found driving his convertible with the top down. He taught me to smoke something he called marijuana from a cigarette he rolled. This involved inhaling the smoke deep into my chest and holding it for as long as I could. Lonnie was a free spirit, a composer of music, lyrics that wove long intricate stories into haunting melodies. He was way ahead of his time. I had fallen in love.

  On one of our drives into the mountains, I asked him where he grew up, thinking it would be someplace like New York City or L.A.

  “A hick town.” He smiled at me. “I want you to write the music for some of my new lyrics.”

  I ran my fingers through his hair. “A hick town.”

  “Where did you come from?”

  “The coast of Georgia.”

  “Damn, I didn’t even think Georgia had a coast,” he hooted.

  “It does and I grew up there. It is one of the most beautiful places in the world.”

  Lonnie looked over at me. “I wish I could like where my home is. I mean, I’m famous there and all. My real dad was murdered.”

  “That’s horrible.”

  “Someone cut off his head.”

  I choked on the smoke I pulled into my lungs.

  “Really. I mean it.”

  Laughter was building in my mind.

  “I found his skull in the old hollow tree out by our house. I was just a little boy, but I knew.”

  I noticed the car was drifting onto the shoulder of the road.

  He grinned. “We’re too out of it to talk bout this now. But it’s something I think about every day.”