Ghost on Black Mountain

by Ann Hite

  As if we had summoned him, Harold slid through the door. “My girls.”

  “I’ve told Mama I’m going to meet with Lonnie’s parents.” She smiled at me. “I need this, Mama. I need to say I’m sorry.”

  “For what? You didn’t do anything.” I tucked my trembling hand under my legs.

  “I think it’s a fine idea, baby.” Life was so simple for people like Harold. They told the truth and reaped the benefits.

  “If you feel it will help you, Iona. You have to move forward. I’m sure this Lonnie wouldn’t have it any other way.”

  Harold squeezed my arm. “I’m going to call Mr. and Mrs. Allen.”

  I almost argued with him but I smiled instead. When he was gone, I scooted my chair closer to Iona. “I need to talk to you.”

  “I’m sorry, Mama.”

  “Stop saying that. We all have done things that hurt others. I’ve failed you in so many ways.”

  “No you haven’t. Mama, you tried to tell me that life can get away from you within a second. I didn’t listen. This happened because of my choices.”

  “Iona, we need to talk about choices.”

  Harold pushed through the door. He was still handsome, and he didn’t deserve my hidden life. “We’ll see them tonight, and as soon as you get out we’re going there. Mrs. Allen thought you might like to see Lonnie’s grave.”

  A horrible shadow passed over my baby’s face. “Did anyone ask Iona if she wanted to go to that place again?” I caught myself before “Black Mountain” slipped out. “Iona, do you remember that story I used to tell you before bed each night?”

  “That was the worst kind of story, so sad.” Harold frowned.

  “Where did you get the story, Mama?” She was opening the door for me to walk through and confess.

  “I’m not sure. I heard it told when I was young.”

  “Did Maw Maw tell you the story?”

  “I’m not sure if it’s that old. I don’t know. Maybe she did. Maybe she saw it in her tea leaves.” I laughed.

  “When I get out of here, I want to see Maw Maw. I want to ask her about the names.”

  For nineteen years I lived with the story in my heart, my fairy-tale ending. “I have to tell you something that I’ve kept from you.” My heart beat so loud I was sure both Harold and Iona could hear.

  “Your grandmother passed away.” Harold’s words smoothed out the crazy thought I had of telling the whole truth.

  Iona stared at her father and then at me.

  “She didn’t even know who she was on most days. A lot of the time she thought she was part of that silly story.” I lied, lied, lied.

  “Dead?” Iona’s voice broke.

  “She died on the morning of your accident. I tried to find you.” I made the words as easy as I could. “They say she passed away quietly. That’s the best way, or so they say.” I looked at her. “I’d like to make a little noise when I leave this world.”

  Iona smiled. “Me too, Mama. I’ll miss her. She kept so much of herself out of view.”

  “Your grandmother was a wise woman. I didn’t listen to her enough.”

  “I think I’m going to steal your mama for a while.” Harold put his hand on my arm.

  Iona smiled. “Okay. Go, Mama. I’ll be right here.”

  We walked to the cafeteria side by side. Passion was never in my vocabulary when it came to Harold. He was steady, safe. No, deep lust didn’t factor into our marriage.

  “Annie, is there anything you need to tell me?” Harold took a Snickers bar off the rack.

  “Not a thing.” I didn’t miss a beat.

  “After nineteen years of marriage, I think you can tell me about the past. I know there is something. And honestly I think it has something to do with that story you always told Iona.”

  I looked him dead in the eye. “Are you kidding? What would that have to do with anything? I’m tired, Harold. I’ve lost my mother and nearly lost my daughter. I’m sorry I’m not myself.” I fought the fear in my gut.

  He handed me an Almond Joy. “Okay. But you can tell me anything. You’re my girl, Annie. Nothing you ever did or will do could change that.”

  “That’s good to know.” But I knew he couldn’t possibly forgive what Nellie had done.

  Fifty-eight

  Some parts of a person never leave you. I heard his soft, steady voice in the hall. It was more of a tone than the actual words, more like a melody. My heart fluttered and a giggle sat in my chest. Iona sat propped against her pillow. Harold had gone to make phone calls home.

  “They’re here,” Iona whispered.

  I nodded. The small tap on the door made me jump anyway. “Come in.” I tried to sound calm.

  Rose had her hair pulled back and her face was bare, open, a plate-glass window into her heart. Jack stood tall, holding her together with one hand placed on her shoulder.

  “I hope this isn’t too much trouble.”

  “It’s no bother, Mr. Allen.” Iona’s face crumpled and tears sprang in her eyes.

  Rose moved to my daughter’s side. “We know it was a horrible accident. Deer come out of nowhere. There’s a lot on Black Mountain.”

  Jack looked straight at me.

  “I should have made him wait,” Iona whispered.

  “We all know Lonnie didn’t wait when he wanted something. You did the best you could.” Jack smiled at Iona.

  A wild look passed through Rose’s eyes. “But if you had made him wait …”

  Jack squeezed her shoulder. “We’ve been through this. There was nothing different to be done.”

  “Why did you leave, Iona?” Rose’s voice broke.

  I tried not to imagine her young and in Hobbs’s arms. No wonder he wanted her instead of me. She was beautiful.

  Iona took a breath and wiped at her tears. “He was leaving whether I went or not. I drove because, well, he had been drinking.”

  “He was having such a good time at the party. Why did he want to leave?” Rose took one of Iona’s hands in hers.

  Iona looked at me and I nodded as if I had a clue to what she was about to say.

  “He saw his real father in the barn.”

  “Hobbs. He saw Hobbs?” Rose cut a look at me. Did she see who I was?

  My chest tightened. Why couldn’t Harold be there at that very moment? Here stood Rose and me, the women in Hobbs Pritchard’s life, standing in the same room together. I looked at Iona and then I looked at Jack. He stared back with our story written in his expression. He married Rose and took in her son. Harold pushed open the door and for a minute the two men blended together and became one. I looked away and studied my daughter’s face. She was solid, whole, my star to navigate by.

  “I should have come to find you.” Iona was beating herself up.

  Nellie emerged from her grave and her hate for this woman who stepped into her marriage pushed her into the open. Hate for Jack because he married Rose and didn’t help her that night swirled in my brain. Hate for Lonnie for walking into my daughter’s life made me ball my fingers into fists. Hate for myself, for Annie, who pushed me toward the bed. I hadn’t saved my precious daughter. All Nellie’s actions led to this moment.

  I hugged Iona to me. “You did what you had to do, Iona. Sometimes you’re backed up against the wall and have to make the right choice.” Everyone was watching me. “You couldn’t let him drive in his condition,” I added. “You are a good person.”

  I looked at Jack and his wife. “Please go. Leave my family alone.”

  “No.” Iona pulled away. “Don’t leave.” She held her hands, her beautiful marred hands, out to Rose again. “I’m sorry. I loved him.”

  Rose moved to Iona and sobbed.

  “You can come see Lonnie’s grave when you get out of here,” Jack said.

  “She doesn’t need to go back there.” I clasped my hands together to keep them from shaking.

  “We talked about her going, Annie. It will be fine.” Harold stood beside me.

  “He’s i
n the church cemetery, buried beside Hobbs.” Jack stared at me.

  They had found Hobbs’s head. A shiver ran down my backbone.

  Two days later Iona was ready to leave the hospital. “I think we have to talk to her,” Harold said.

  I thought of the baby, which the doctor and I had never spoken of again. “About what?”

  “About her hands. About her music.”

  “We have time.” My head spun. “I think I’ll skip going to this grave. I’ll stay here and wait. I just can’t go.”

  “Annie, you can’t let Iona go without you. She’s closer to you.”

  I wanted to laugh in his face. “Are you kidding?”

  He looked shocked. “You really don’t understand how hard she struggles to please you?”

  I held up my hand. “I can’t take one of your sermons. I just can’t. Why do you have to be so darn perfect?” We stood outside on the sidewalk.

  “You have to go whether you’re angry with me or not.” He took a step forward and then turned around. “Annie, do you know Mr. Allen?”

  “What?”

  “It’s just that he looks at you like he knows you from somewhere.”

  “Harold, I’m so exhausted.” Real tears filled my eyes.

  He came to me with a hug. “I’m sorry. I know you’ve had it hard. But you have to come with Iona.”

  I nodded, having dodged telling him a bold-faced lie. “I almost lost her.”

  “We almost lost her, Annie.” He released me and we went into the hospital.

  Iona wore new clothes I had bought at a little shop Mama always visited downtown. “I love this color blue, Mama.”

  I smiled. “I’m glad.” The dress was shorter than I would have liked but it was all the rage.

  “I know you don’t want to go to Black Mountain.” Her arms were cold and she hugged herself. November in North Carolina was different than home.

  “I don’t think I’ll ever love anyone else like I loved Lonnie.”

  “You know, Iona, I know you don’t think I understand. You will love someone again, but in a way you’re right. You will never love anyone like you did him.”

  She hugged me.

  “Look, Iona, we have to talk.”

  She looked at me funny. “What?”

  “I know something that even your father doesn’t know. He was gone when the doctor came to tell us. I haven’t said anything because I wanted to wait until you were strong enough to take the news. Then when I saw you were, I just didn’t.” The words tumbled from me. “First—your father knows this—the doctors say you may never play professionally.”

  “I figured that out, but I think I’ll prove them wrong. I’m like you.”

  “We have to think about this part before we tell your father. It could ruin him.”

  How unfair was that? I knew this wasn’t about him.

  “What’s wrong?” Iona frowned.

  “You’re going to have a baby.”

  Outside the hospital window, people were going for lunch. Life was moving.

  “I know you’re thinking it’s some kind of gift from God, but you’re wrong. You can’t bring a baby into this world from that relationship. You said yourself Lonnie wasn’t stable. What if his problems are passed on to this child?” I had to make her understand.

  “What do you mean, Mama?” Her voice was quiet and calm.

  “Think about it, Iona. Your father loves you. He’d never tell you to do something about this baby. But the truth is he’ll be ruined. You know it. He’s a minister. He’s an example. He’ll lose his whole life.”

  What kind of mother was I?

  “Are you suggesting I get rid of this baby? That’s illegal. Plus I can’t kill this baby or anything else. No. I killed Lonnie. No.”

  I killed your real father.“Iona! You did not kill him. You know that. This is not a baby yet. It’s too small. We can find someone who will do the procedure. Women have it done. I bet Atlanta has someone. Shoot, we’ll go to New York if we have to. What about school? What about fighting and making yourself play?”

  Iona stepped away from me. “Now you care about my music? Make up your mind.” Years of her anger came at me. “I could give it up for adoption.”

  “Do you want that? Bring it into the world to give it away?”

  “Who knows if I’ll play professionally.” She looked at her hands.

  “Iona, since when have you listened to reason?”

  She half smiled.

  “Think about it. We have to do something quick. We won’t tell your father. He’s a man and will never understand. It’s so easy for them to pass judgment.”

  “Daddy wouldn’t judge me.”

  I rushed ahead. “Oh no, but why worry him? Why make him choose? We can do this on our own.”

  She was pale but calm. “I want to go see Lonnie’s grave.”

  “Okay.”

  “You are going, aren’t you, Mama?”

  My daughter stood before me alive when she should have been dead. All my choices brought me to this place, whether good or bad. I had to move forward. “Of course I’m going.”

  Fifty-nine

  Harold crept up the mountain road in our station wagon, nothing like my first ride in a rattletrap of a truck. I caught myself imagining Hobbs as a forty-five-year-old man driving us up the mountain. The destruction would have been so much worse had he lived that long. But Hobbs was all I ever wanted that warm fall day in 1938.

  “It’s a pretty place.” Leave it to Harold to be so positive.

  The Connor cabin looked older but solid. The yard was empty. All the boys would be grown now. What happened to Maynard? Did he have a good life? What about his mother?

  “Where did he say the cemetery was?”

  “Up toward the top. In the sharp curve, you’ll see the church first. It’s to the side.”

  Harold looked at me. “Mr. Allen told you all that?”

  “He must have.” I looked out the window as we passed Aunt Ida’s house. A child’s bike sat in the drive. If Harold only knew; this was my nightmare come to life.

  “I don’t remember him saying anything about a sharp curve.”

  “He must have.” I was so good at a lot of things now. I could work my way around the lie with great skill. In the side mirror, I caught the reflection of Hobbs and then realized it was only Iona.

  A mailbox marked the drive to our old house. Imagine, a mail route. I tucked my hands under my legs. The ax was over my head, heavy. Some mornings I woke to the dead weight in my arm muscles. Not many people walked away from murder. And I sure didn’t. I had been imprisoned for nineteen years inside my head.

  The church was so much smaller than I remembered. There was a real paved parking lot. I wondered if that boring pastor still preached. Harold parked in one of the spaces, and Iona lugged a big pot of mums from the car.

  I fought the urge to show them the way to the family plot, but it didn’t take Iona long to find Lonnie’s grave. It was the only fresh grave in the place.

  She dropped to her knees and dug a hole with her fingers. “No white flowers for you, Lonnie,” she whispered.

  I stood close to her while Harold stood at a gravestone next to us.

  “Annie, isn’t that the name of the man in that silly story you told Iona every night?” He knew. Somehow he knew enough to begin questioning me.

  I shrugged. “I guess so. But it’s just a name.”

  “An unusual name.”

  An older woman stood down the hill behind Harold. I would have known her anywhere. “I’m going to walk over here and give you some time, Iona.”

  Harold watched me walk by him before he spoke. “Annie, someday I want you to tell me the whole story about what happened. Will you do that before I die?”

  “Darling, you’re not going to die for a long time. I’ll have lots of stories by then.”

  He frowned and went to stand by Iona.

  Mrs. Connor stood in her family plot. I cast a shadow over the grave o
f her husband. “I always wondered if you’d come back to this old mountain, Nellie.”

  Tears blurred my vision. “I haven’t heard my real name in someone’s mouth in a long, long time. Even Mama couldn’t use it. My name is Annie now.”

  She turned to look at me. “You’re a good soul. That’s never changed. I can feel it.”

  “I don’t much feel like a good soul these days.” I looked over the top of her head at Iona.

  “Look at you. You’re town folk now. You even talk fancy.”

  I smiled. “How’s Maynard?”

  “Smart as a whistle. Lives over in Knoxville with his family. Oshie is a doctor.”

  “Wow.”

  She smiled. “Yes ma’am. I raised good boys.”

  “How about Shelly?”

  Mrs. Connor nodded. “She had a few rough patches but she’s still around here now and then. You ought to hear her story yourself. She made good use of that money.”

  “I can’t this time.” I nodded at Iona. “That’s my girl.”

  “She looks like you, Nellie. Was she hooked up with that Lonnie?”

  I nodded.

  “Lord, Nellie, you know he was Hobbs’s son?”

  “I found out when he died.”

  “Good thing she wasn’t Hobbs’s girl cause …” She looked at me. “Oh my. What a mess.”

  “Yes, it’s a mess. It’s a fine mess.”

  “I seen his ghost the other night, standing in the road where the car skidded off.”

  “Does this mountain ever lose any of its spirits?”

  “I reckon the troubled ones just hang on here. They’re welcome to stay. It’s one of those places.”

  “I wonder if I’ll come back here and wander over this mountain when I die.”

  Mrs. Connor laughed. “It’ll all depend on what you get off your chest, Nellie. Don’t no one care about that business with Hobbs but you and him. But you’re the one holding the story so close; protecting it has caused you a lot of pain.”

  Iona walked in my direction.

  “But I couldn’t tell her.” I pointed my chin at Iona.

  “Tell it all now before it’s too late.”

  Sixty