Chapter Twenty-Nine - Lisa
Three weeks later there came a day I went out to Goliad and found Brandon and Marcus both gone for some reason. I found myself all alone for the first time in a while, and, not surprisingly, missing Cody more than usual.
It was only an impulse, but I decided for some reason to go talk to Miss Josie again. I couldn’t have said exactly why; a melancholy, self-torturing wish to hear a little bit about how he was doing, maybe, or a wistful desire to be near some of his things and the places he loved. It made me feel closer to him, if only for a little while. Goes to show how well I was doing apart from him, doesn’t it?
I hadn’t been back to the main house ever since I gave her the serum, mostly because I was afraid it would seem awkward at best and probably hurtful, too. But now; well, I decided I didn’t really care about all that anymore. If it turned out to be awkward and painful then so be it. I’d been through worse things lately.
So I circled back around, and as I drove through the main arch I couldn’t help remembering the first time I ever set foot on that place, with Cody fixing the fence in his sweaty white t-shirt under the hot summer sun. I knew the very spot where he’d been standing, and if I closed my eyes I could almost imagine he was right there, close enough to touch. I could see the dark stubble on his chin, the nails he’d been holding in his mouth to leave his hands free, even the sawdust on his jeans. But most of all the light in his eyes when he saw me and smiled. It was all there in memory, even though it seemed like centuries ago.
I needed to quit thinking like that or I’d be an emotional wreck before I ever even set foot on the porch.
The place was quiet, and when I parked the car under the pecan tree in the circle drive and headed up the steps, I wondered if maybe nobody was home. I had no particular plan in mind, and found myself wondering what in the world I’d say to Miss Josie even if she was there.
She was, though, and when she opened the door it turned out I didn’t have to think of anything to say, because she smiled warmly and beat me to it.
“Lisa! Come on in here, girl. How have you been?” she asked, stepping aside and inviting me in. I hesitated for a second, unsure, but then decided it would have been stupid to back out at that point. Talking to Miss Josie was exactly what I’d come for, after all. I stepped inside the foyer, and she shut the door behind us.
“Come on back to the kitchen and let’s have some coffee; what do you say?” she said.
“I’d love some,” I said automatically, following her to the kitchen. She started fixing the drinks while I sat down at the table, and all the while she kept talking.
“So tell me, what have you been up to? Haven’t seen you since. . . oh, it’s been weeks now, hasn’t it?” she asked.
“I’ve been fine. Just working, mostly. How’s Cody?” I asked. I’d meant to be a little more discreet and indirect than that, but somehow I couldn’t help myself.
“Well, pretty good, I guess. He said it’s dark almost all the time now, so he mostly holes up in his room and watches TV when he’s off work. He said the food is pretty good but he misses Goliad something fierce. He asked about you the other day,” she said, and my heart skipped a beat at that news.
“He did?” I asked, trying not to let it show how much that idea thrilled me and terrified me at the same time.
“He did. He asked if I’d heard from you lately, but of course at that time I hadn’t,” she said, coming back to the table with a cup of coffee for both of us.
“Did you tell him about the serum?” I asked.
“No. I thought it was best to wait till he gets home,” she said.
“I really miss him,” I admitted, and then wished I hadn’t said it. It threatened to unleash more tears, and I didn’t want that. Miss Josie looked at me sympathetically, and I couldn’t help wondering what was going through her mind at that moment. I was afraid to guess.
I noticed for the first time that she still wore a wedding band even after all these years, and since talking about Cody was unbearable right then, I snatched at the chance to change the subject.
“Could you tell me some more about Blake?” I asked, nodding my head at the ring.
“Well, there’s not much to tell, really. We knew each other forever, of course. We both grew up here in Avinger, him at Goliad and me down the road a little way. He gave me my first kiss when we were in kindergarten, I’m told. I don’t even remember it, honestly, but my mother told me the story so many times it almost seems like a memory. Then we got together officially when we were in seventh grade, as soon as our parents would let us have anything even resembling a date. Nobody thought it would amount to anything; just puppy love, they thought. And I’m sure they were right. But sometimes puppy love grows into something more as the years go by. It did for us. He always had a silly side; I remember he kissed me for probably thirty minutes one time, right by the highway down there on the corner where everybody in town could see us and honk when they went by. He just laughed, and since he did, why shouldn’t I? But it was always his heart that I loved the most, the way he loved God and tried to do what he could to make the world a better place. He was special. Oh, I know everybody always says that, but Blake really was. We got married the day after we graduated high school, and nobody thought that would last, either. But here I am, almost twenty-three years later, still just as much in love as I ever was. And if Blake were still here, I know he would be, too. People ask me sometimes why I don’t go out after all this time, but how could I ever be satisfied with steel after I’ve once held gold? I’m spoiled forever,” she said, with a little laugh.
“That’s an awesome story,” I said.
“I never used to think it was anything unusual, but maybe so,” Miss Josie agreed.
We sat there and talked for at least an hour, and I wondered to myself why I’d put off visiting for so long. It was exactly what I needed. . . red meat and strong drink after all those weeks of nothing.
“Do you think it’d be all right if we went down to the bunk house for a little while?” I asked presently. I was calm enough by then that I thought I could hold things together. Cody’s things weren’t Cody, but they were as close as I could get at the moment, and that was better than nothing. Miss Josie must have understood, because she didn’t start asking me all kinds of questions about why.
“I don’t think Cody would mind if we took a sneak peek,” she agreed, and together we crossed the pasture and the woods to the bunk house.
The moment I stepped inside his room, I felt enveloped in memory.
I could tell no one had been in there for a while, but there was still a faint scent of that knock-off Old Spice he liked. He still had the same quilt on the bed, and everything else was pretty much the same, too.
I noticed he’d left his boots standing beside the dresser, and his horsehair belt was still hung up on a nail right above them. The golden letter C on his buckle looked dull and forlorn, abandoned by its owner. His body might be in Alaska, but his heart was still in Texas. I could see that just from looking at everything he’d left behind.
Above his bed was the painting I made of that sunrise scene at Mount Nebo, and right there in the middle of his knickknack shelf, in a red cedar frame, was a picture of me.
Well, a picture of both of us, anyway. I recognized it immediately; it was one of the snapshots Miss Josie had taken when I came over for supper that first night. We were leaning against the pecan tree in the center of the circle drive, with his arm around my shoulder. He had one knee bent, with his boot planted flat against the tree behind us. We were both smiling, and I was overcome with emotion again. Miss Josie was watching me.
“Why don’t you take that with you, sweetie? I can always have another one printed, next time I make it to town. The frame, too; I know where he got it,” she suggested.
“You don’t think he’d mind?” I asked.
“No, I don’t think so,
” she promised.
“Thanks,” I said simply, resisting the urge to hug the picture close to my chest.
“Don’t mention it,” she said.
We headed back up to the big house not long after that, and I lingered for a while longer, not wanting to go home.
“Now, Lisa, I want you to come back and see me as much as you want to. No need to call ahead or anything; just poke your head in the door and give me a yell whenever you come to see your brother. I’m almost always here, unless I’m outside somewhere,” she told me, right before I left.
“I’ll do that,” I agreed, liking the idea.
“Good,” she said.
I put the picture of me and Cody beside my bed when I got home, subjecting myself to withering scorn from Jenny as soon as she saw it. For once I guess it was hard to blame her, since supposedly I was still going out with Marcus. I don’t know what she thought, honestly. All I know is that for a while she wasted no opportunity to mock me about it, calling me a cheap dime-store floozie and telling me I was no better than Sheila Jackson or any of those other girls I used to think were so trashy, and on, and on, and unendingly on. I couldn’t explain what was really going on without blowing my cover, but I refused to take down Cody’s picture even if it hare-lipped every cow in Texas. All I could do was try to ignore her for a while, but after a few days it really started to tick me off.
We had some harsh words. I told her she was jealous because she wanted him herself and couldn’t have him, to which she said it didn’t look like I had him either, and things deteriorated from there. She ended up storming off to her room and slamming the door hard enough to rattle the windows, while I tried to suppress an overpowering urge to choke her to death with my bare hands as soon as she showed her face again.
It never actually came to blows, but we barely spoke to each other for days after that, and the atmosphere in the house was so icy you could have made popsicles by leaving them out on the coffee table when both of us were in the room.
Sometimes I wish life didn’t have to be so complicated.
Brandon must have been thinking about what I said about Cody, because next time I talked to him he had an idea for me.
“Why don’t you ask for a dream to show you what to do?” he finally said one day.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“I mean I can see you’re chewed to pieces inside, like a pit bull got ahold of your heart and tore it up like a cheap rug. You’ve been that way for weeks. So why don’t you pray about it? Lots of people have dreams and visions, you know, not just Cody,” he pointed out. Comparing my heart to a cheap rug wasn’t the most flattering statement he could have made, but at least it was brutally honest.
“Well, yeah, I guess they do,” I admitted. I hadn’t thought about it much, honestly, but I couldn’t deny that what Bran said was true. But he wasn’t finished yet.
“Did I ever tell you how I started reading dreams?” he asked.
“No, I don’t think so,” I said.
“A long time ago, when I was four years old, I died for a while,” he said calmly.
“Really?” I asked, not sure what to think about such a statement.
“Yeah, really. No breathing, no heartbeat, cold as ice, for almost two hours,” he said.
“So, what, did you fall through some ice or something like that?” I asked. Everybody has heard of little kids surviving cold-water drownings and such, so that wouldn’t have been so shocking.
“No, I had pneumonia. They knew I was dead; they already took me to the morgue and everything. I don’t remember very much about it, honestly, but from what I heard later my brother and his wife prayed over me and I came back to life. The only thing I remember for sure is that God told me I had a job to do, and He sent me back. Ever since then, I’ve been able to see what dreams mean, if I ask Him,” he said.
It was the first time Bran had ever confided that story in me, and I guess I was still a little speechless.
“Well, I’m glad you’re still alive,” I said.
“Yeah, me too. But I’m telling you that for a reason. I can’t tell you what dreams mean because there’s anything special about me. It’s only because I ask. Sometimes you have to ask for things or you won’t get them. So maybe if you ask, you might get,” he said.
There was some truth in that, too, so I went home and prayed hard that night. But just because you ask doesn’t always mean you get what you want, and certainly not always right away. That was one of those times for me. All my prayers were to no avail, it seemed. No dreams came, and there was nothing but the quiet night to lie wakeful and sad in.
Sometimes it’s easy to feel paralyzed when there’s absolutely nothing you can think of to do. So I did my work and thought and prayed constantly that somehow, some way, I could have Cody back, no matter what I had to do. I prayed till I thought my mind was exhausted. I believe if it had gone on much longer, the stress would have turned me gray-headed.
But sometimes prayers get answered in ways you don’t expect, and that’s the way this one turned out.
Many Waters Page 33
