by Ron Rash
“I can use Mom’s car.”
“Good. I’d rather Grandfather not know I’m home in the middle of the week.”
Bill and I got to Panther Creek first that evening. We sat down by the pool and waited.
“Where in the hell is she, Eugene?” Bill asked. “I’ve got a zoology test in the morning.”
“I’m here,” Ligeia said, stepping out of the woods, her shoes in her hands. She wore long jeans and a loose-fitting T-shirt with DISNEYLAND on the front.
“What is this about?” Bill asked tersely. “If it’s drugs, you can forget it.”
Ligeia looked at me.
“You didn’t tell him?”
“Tell me what?” Bill said.
“That I’m pregnant.”
Hearing the word aloud made everything, including the creek itself, seem to halt for a few moments. I’d feel a similar sensation the night of the wreck, the same time-distorting suspension between the car leaving the asphalt and the tree rushing straight into my headlights. Then, once again, I heard the creek, and slowly, like a carousel starting up, time resumed its normal pace.
“That’s not possible,” Bill said. “We were careful.”
“Evidently not careful enough,” Ligeia said.
“Look,” Bill stammered, “if your period’s a few days late that doesn’t mean—”
“It’s not a few days. I haven’t had a period since mid-June.”
“It could be something else.”
I had seen this same hardness in her eyes before, but only for moments at a time. Now it locked into place like a dead bolt’s click.
“Should I go see your grandfather to be certain?” Ligeia said. “We could all three go.”
“No,” Bill said quickly. “Just give me a minute to think.”
He jerked his right shoulder, as if to throw off something that clung to him, then stared at the ground.
“Have you told anybody about this?” he asked, not looking up.
“No,” Ligeia said.
“Good,” Bill said. “Don’t, okay?”
“All right,” Ligeia said. “But I’m not dealing with this alone.”
“I’m not asking you to. But a late period can happen for other reasons,” Bill said, looking at me. “We were careful every time, right, Eugene?”
“Yes,” I lied.
“One never burst or leaked, or anything like that?”
“No.”
“Then everything’s okay,” Bill said, as if giving a medical diagnosis, “because nothing like that happened with me either.”
“They don’t always work,” Ligeia said, raising a hand and splaying her fingers. “Maybe a fingernail pricked one, or something happened when it was made.”
“I doubt that,” Bill said. “Maybe . . .”
Then he hesitated.
“Maybe what?” she asked.
“Maybe,” Bill said, “it was someone else.”
For a few moments Ligeia look puzzled. Then she understood.
“How in God’s name could there be?” she asked, her voice rising. “The only places I’d been was here or church. You damn well know it’s true. I’m pregnant and I need money to do something about it. I need it now.”
“Okay, okay,” Bill said, raising a hand. “I’m just trying to get things clear. You can go to the Asheville Women’s Clinic. They can do a pregnancy test. That way we’ll know for certain.”
“I don’t need a damn pregnancy test. Just give me the money to take care of it.”
Something shifted in Bill’s eyes.
“No,” he said, and there was no compromise in his voice. “Not until we’re certain.”
The wind gave a last sigh and grew still, the only sound now the gurgle of water.
“How am I going to get there,” Ligeia asked, “especially if this is supposed to be such a secret?”
“I will take you if Bill can’t,” I offered.
“No,” my brother said. “You can take the bus. The clinic is downtown, next to the courthouse.”
“When?” Ligeia asked. “I can’t just wait around, you know.”
“In the morning,” Bill said. “Once you get to school, walk down to the bus station instead. You can get back before school lets out. That way your uncle and aunt won’t know.”
“I’ll need money for the ticket and the doctor,” she said, “and for the test too.”
Bill checked his billfold and took out two twenties and a ten. All I had was a five-dollar bill.
“How do I know this is enough?” she asked, taking the bills.
“I’ve got more at home,” Bill said. “I’ll get you at least a hundred. It shouldn’t be nearly that much though.”
“Worried I might not bring back your change?” Ligeia challenged.
“No, I’m just making sure you’ll have enough. Eugene can give you the money at school in the morning. Then you can get on the bus.”
“All right,” Ligeia said, taking the bills from our hands. “But if I am pregnant, it will cost a lot more than a hundred.”
“I know,” Bill said, running the fingers of his right hand through his hair. He kept the hand on his neck and turned to me.
“If it comes to that, I’ll get you the money.”
“I’ll pay half,” I added.
“I’ll pay it,” Bill said sharply. “But none of us talks about this to anyone.”
I met Ligeia in the parking lot the next morning, two more twenties and two fives clutched in my hand. Angie Wellback was talking to her. It didn’t look like a happy conversation. Ligeia motioned for me to stay where I was. When Angie joined a group of girls nearby, Ligeia, hardly acknowledging me, came and took the bills from my hand.
TWO DAYS LATER after homeroom, she motioned me under the stairwell to avoid the rush of students.
“I called and got the results,” she said. “I am pregnant, but the doctor told me since I wanted an abortion; she could arrange it, claim it was to save the mother’s life. She got me an appointment at a clinic in Charlotte. She said they wouldn’t hassle me.”
“When?” I asked.
“Tomorrow afternoon at four thirty,” Ligeia said. “I’ll need money for a hotel and a bus ticket to Charlotte and then to Miami, because I’m headed there as soon as the doc in Charlotte says it’s okay. I’ll need fifteen hundred dollars. Tell Bill to bring it to the creek at nine tomorrow.”
“How will you get to the bus station?”
“Bill can take me to the station in Sylva, unless he’s scared someone will see him drop me off. If he is, we drive me to Asheville and I’ll get the bus there.”
“You won’t be coming back?”
“Are you kidding?” she said incredulously. “Once I’m out of this place, it’s forever.”
“You told me you’d stay until October.”
“No, I’m out of here,” she answered as the tardy bell rang, “and don’t look so sad. You knew I’d be leaving soon.”
“I know.”
“Be happy I’ll be back where I belong.”
“Yeah,” I mumbled.
A last classroom door slammed shut and the hall lapsed into silence. Ligeia set her backpack on the floor, placed her hands around her neck, and took off the love beads I’d given her.
“Here,” she said. “Something to remember me by.”
I put the beads in my shirt pocket, then took a pencil and note card out of my backpack, wrote my address and phone number, and handed the paper to her.
“You’ll write or call me when you get there, won’t you?” I asked. “That way I’ll know where you are.”
“Sure,” Ligeia said, stuffing the paper in her back pocket, “but it takes time to find a place and get settled, so it will probably be a while.”
“Okay,” I answered and paused. “You and I know this was my fault, not Bill’s. I was the one that didn’t wear the condom.”
“No, we don’t know that,” she said, meeting my eyes. “I was certain it would be safe that day. It wa
s safe. That’s the truth, Eugene.” She nodded at the empty hallway. “We’d better get to class.”
“I really might come to Miami to live.”
“Good,” Ligeia said. “Look for a swanky bar or some white sand and you’ll probably find me. Wouldn’t that be a blast? And don’t forget you promised to put your mermaid in a book.”
“I won’t forget,” I said.
“And with a real cool name no one else would have,” she added, “and blue eyes and no freckles, right?”
“Okay.”
Ligeia gave my hand a soft pat.
“You had your own little summer of love, right?”
“I guess so,” I said.
When she left, I went into the boy’s bathroom, afraid that I might start crying. I told myself to be relieved, that the “trouble” that had sent me into such a panic was taken care of. I looked in the mirror. No tears. I took a deep breath and went on to class. I wanted to tell her one more thing, but it was too late.
“This will wipe out my checking account,” Bill sighed later that afternoon.
“I want to pay half,” I said. “I mean it.”
“And what will you tell the old man so he’ll co-sign?” Bill said. “‘Hey, Grandfather, Bill and I got this girl pregnant and we need money to pay for an abortion.’ Yeah, that would go over real well, Eugene.”
“I could pay you back a little at a time.”
“No, I’m the one who will take care of this,” Bill said. “The old man is right about one thing. You make bad choices and you pay for them. I did something stupid. So it’s my responsibility, not yours.”
“Because you’re the big brother and you’re supposed to look after the little brother, even when he doesn’t want you to,” I said. “Is that it?”
“Yes,” Bill said, meeting my eyes, “and I will.”
“I want to go with you tomorrow.”
“No, you’ll need to be at school,” Bill said. “If you aren’t and Grandfather finds out, he’ll make you tell him where you’ve been. You know he wouldn’t let up until you did.”
I didn’t answer but knew he was right.
“Ligeia said the procedure is tomorrow afternoon?” Bill asked. “That seems quick, but I suppose if the doctor says it has to be done right away, they make the accommodations. You’re certain of that, tomorrow afternoon, not next Saturday?”
“Yes, damn it,” I snapped. “Can’t you believe I can do something right?”
“You haven’t shown that lately,” Bill said coldly, checking his watch. “I need to walk on up to the bank before they close.”
The next evening Bill took Ligeia to the Asheville bus station. So that was it. Summer was over, and on the surface, Bill and I and the town appeared unchanged.
Ligeia’s aunt and uncle filed a missing person’s report, but she’d taken a packed suitcase with her so it was assumed she’d run away, probably to Florida, but as the sheriff had noted, what good was an out-of-state search when she’d be a legal adult in another month. It wasn’t until Thanksgiving that I tried to talk to Bill about her. He’d placed a hand on my shoulder, then pressed so hard I winced.
“She got on a bus and that’s it,” he said, still gripping my shoulder. “Never ask me about her again. Never.”
At Christmas break, I ran into Bennie Mosely at the Shell station. I asked if his parents had heard from Ligeia.
“No, and that’s fine by me,” Bennie said. “Mom and Dad took her in and she left without a word of thanks. They even blame themselves for her running off, even though they were as good to her as could be. I hope I never see her again.”
“What about her parents?” I’d asked. “Have they heard from her?”
“No,” Bennie said, “and they’re probably just as glad to be shed of her as everyone else. Aunt Ruth said that if she shows up in Daytona she’ll not take her in. Aunt Ruth says she’s eighteen, and for the rest of her life she’s on her own.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
It is after six when Bill comes in. He’s clearly exhausted and doesn’t speak as we go to his office. He sags back in his leather armchair and closes his eyes. I study the face of a man who’s spent his afternoon cutting and probing the body of a child. For the best of reasons, of course, and yet . . .
“Another surgeon is going to join us in a minute,” my brother says as his eyes open.
“Why?”
“Because you need to hear what he has to say.”
“Not unless he was with you and Ligeia at Panther Creek that morning,” I answer, “and if he comes in here with some bullshit that drugs caused her to cut her own throat, I’m going straight to Robbie Loudermilk.”
“He’s not going to do that,” Bill says.
When a knocking comes at the front door, I shake my head.
“Tell him to go away,” I say. “All we need to talk about is what happened, all of it.”
Bill gets up and returns with a large, red-faced man. Florid. That’s the best word to describe him. He’s large, but a broad-shouldered large, perhaps a linebacker in high school, even college, though the hand he offers is soft. I guess him to be in his late fifties.
“Carl Bassinger,” he says and sits down beside me. “I understand that you’re skeptical about your brother’s abilities as a neurosurgeon.”
“I never said that.”
“Oh?” Bassinger says, turning to Bill.
“Let’s just say that my brother needs to know that what I do saves lives, or makes a life worth living,” Bill says. “He needs to know how well I do my job.”
“I’m on call tonight so I’ll give the short version, Mr. Matney,” Bassinger says. “I’ve been working at my profession for three decades and at four hospitals and your brother is the best neurosurgeon I’ve ever worked with. He’s brilliant and he keeps up with the literature, even contributes to it, but that isn’t what makes your brother truly special. Bill can do two things most of us can’t. The first is that he can stay completely focused for hours. He doesn’t start thinking about his golf game or some nurse’s ass or his kid’s soccer match. But what sets him apart most is the hand-eye coordination. That’s something a surgeon can’t learn; you’re just born with it. Probably why he was a good baseball player,” Bassinger adds, nodding at the photo of Bill in his uniform. “Same kind of thing. When you see Bill’s surgery, his signature might as well be on it, because no one else’s work is that clean.”
Bassinger turns to Bill.
“What, eighteen years we’ve been together?”
“About that,” Bill answers.
“Here’s the thing laymen, or siblings, don’t know, Mr. Matney,” Bassinger says, giving me a wry smile, “and it’s probably better that you don’t. At every hospital there’s usually one surgeon so ham-fisted you wouldn’t want them cutting off a hangnail, much less poking around your spinal cord. And they don’t care if they lock you in a wheelchair or not. They really don’t, unless it results in a lawsuit. Then they care. As for the rest of us, we’re competent and conscientious, but there’s always one alpha surgeon. The nurses and anesthesiologists know who it is. Hell, the orderlies who wipe up the blood know. Bill’s good enough to go anywhere, Mayo, Hopkins, but you mountain boys can’t seem to leave home.”
“Okay,” I say. “I get that he’s good.”
“Good,” Bassinger says. “Shit, I’m good. I’ve personally seen a dozen situations where paralysis or death were inevitable had Bill not done the cutting. Some surgeons wouldn’t have dared make the attempt. Every surgeon makes mistakes, but Bill makes fewer. What your brother took on today, probably a fifty percent chance one of us would have botched it, but because he did it, that girl will walk again. You were damn lucky that when the orthopedist operated on your daughter—the one Bill got to fly back early from her vacation—he was in there with her. He made sure she did that surgery exactly right. Here’s the thing. I’ve got three kids and five grandchildren. If one of them were rolled in with a spinal injury, I wouldn’t do
it. The scalpel would be in your brother’s hand.”
“How many good years do you think I have left?” Bill asks Bassinger.
“You’re sixty-seven now, right?”
“Yes.”
“Two or three more years for sure,” Bassinger answers. “You’ll be losing some coordination and vision, but the experience will balance that out for a while yet. When it doesn’t, knowing you, you’ll switch to pre-op and post-op care.”
Bassinger nods at the picture of Bill and the Red Cross workers.
“I haven’t mentioned how many people he’s helped overseas. I don’t know of a surgeon in this state who’s gone on more foreign trips. You go every other September, right, Bill?”
“Yes,” my brother answers.
“How many have you been on total, Bill?”
“Sixteen.”
“Sixteen,” Bassinger says, shaking his head. “I’ve been on two. Most surgeons go once and then for a week, if they ever go at all.”
Bassinger checks his watch.
“Anything else you need confirmed, Mr. Matney?”
“Not from you,” I answer.
“Okay then,” Bassinger says, and stands.
“Thanks, Carl,” Bill says.
“No problem,” Bassinger answers. “You’ve had a hell of a long day, Bill. You ought to be home having a drink.”
“Soon, I hope,” Bill says, and they go out front together. They talk briefly, then the front door shuts.
“What does that have to do with anything?” I ask when Bill returns.
“Perspective on what occurred forty-six years ago at Panther Creek, and what has happened since, and can continue to happen.”
“Something that occurred,” I say. “That’s a nice euphemism for a seventeen-year-old being murdered and then put in a hole and forgotten. God, Bill, you murdered her. You cut her throat.”
“No, I didn’t, but I bear responsibility.”
“What in the hell does that mean? You killed her or you didn’t. What happened, Bill, the truth. This time I’m not leaving.”
“And you’ll go to Loudermilk if I don’t tell you?”
“Yes,” I say, trying to sound more certain than I am.
“And if I tell you?”
“I can’t know that until you do.”
