The Hummingbird House

by Donna Ball

  ~*~

  Annabelle owned a 1994 Lincoln Continental that she paid the teenage boy who mowed her lawn five dollars a week to drive around the block so that it wouldn’t “rust up.” Though the behemoth hailed from an era whose time would never come again and had no place in an age where stopping at the gas pump could max out your credit card, Megan had to admit it was the most comfortable vehicle she had ever driven. The trunk accommodated her grandmother’s three hard-sided suitcases and Megan’s overnight bag with enough room left over for a billiard table, and when Megan saw the backseat she joked that it was roomier than some motel rooms she had stayed in. Annabelle could stretch out her legs in the plush front seat and even nap if she wanted to, which she did for a couple of hours along the way.

  During one of these naps, Megan called her mother. To have done otherwise would have been negligent to say the least, criminal to say the most. Her mother screeched about kidnapping and irresponsibility and threatened to send the state patrol after Megan if she did not turn that car around this very minute. Megan just held the phone away from her ear and promised to call her mother when they stopped for the night.

  “Leave it to you to do something like this!” Her mother returned, near hysteria now. Her mother could approach hysteria at the drop of a hat. “You always were just like her, but this is the craziest thing you’ve ever done! You two deserve each other, do you hear me? You deserve each other!”

  “Yes, Mother, I know,” Megan replied, watching the road.

  “The woman has a rod in her hip! How are you expecting her to sit in a car all day?”

  “The car is very comfortable,” replied Megan. “In fact, it’s more comfortable than the couch in my family room.” She and Nick had always disagreed about that couch. He liked its big, deep seats. She thought it looked like a pickup truck and sat like one too.

  “Oh, no. Tell me you didn’t take that car of hers. It hasn’t been driven in years! What if you break down on the highway? In this heat? Are you insane?”

  “I have AAA.”

  “She just got out of the hospital! Do you have any idea how many medications she’s on? You made sure she brought her medications, didn’t you?”

  Megan shot a quick glance at her sleeping grandmother. She hadn’t thought of that. She hadn’t thought of any of it. Her hand tightened on the phone. “Mother, I’ve got this,” she said firmly.

  “Don’t take that tone with me! Let me talk to her. Let me talk to her right now.”

  Megan said, “I’m losing the signal, Mom. I’ll call you later. I love you.”

  She disconnected and turned off the phone, and when she glanced again at her grandmother, she saw Annabelle had one eye open, watching her. She winked at Megan, turned her head more comfortably on the plush seat back, and went to sleep again.

  But still, she worried that her mother might be right. Maybe this was the craziest thing she’d ever done. And she didn’t mean that in a good way.

  Annabelle was awake by the time they crossed the border into Arkansas and wanted to stop and have their picture taken at the welcome sign. Megan would have preferred to stop at the welcome center itself, which was safer, cooler, easier to park and only a mile or so ahead, but she knew better than to argue with her grandmother. This was a tradition. So she pulled the big boat off the road, turned on the hazard flashers, and positioned her grandmother in front of the sign with as much efficiency as possible. Of course Annabelle wanted Megan in the photo too, so with one arm around her grandmother’s shoulders and the other one stretched as far as it would go in front of them, she snapped the photo with her cell phone. The resulting picture showed two women squinting against the sun and the gasoline fumes, their hair blown wildly by passing traffic, with the welcome sign completely obscured.

  Megan wondered for the first time who had taken that photograph ninety years ago, and why he or she had not arranged his subjects so that the lettering on the sign was visible.

  Ten minutes later they pulled into the spacious, air-conditioned Arkansas Welcome Center. While waiting for her grandmother to return from the restroom—it always took her forever—Megan took out her phone and Googled the nearest motel with a sit-down restaurant. She found a Best Western forty miles away, which was perfect. It had a pool, too. They would have a nice meal, a good old-fashioned sleepover, and in the morning head for home, their adventure complete.

  Their last adventure.

  Megan felt her throat tighten, and she squeezed her eyes tightly shut for a moment, blotting out the bustle and echoes of the busy rest stop, and almost, but not quite, managing to blot out the memory she had of this woman she had so loved all her life lying so still and frail on the hospital bed. When she opened her eyes again her grandmother was coming toward her, moving purposefully with the aid of her silver-tipped cane, a collection of colorful brochures in her hand. Megan was seized by a sudden intense urge to gather the woman up, usher her to the car, and drive her straight home.

  Her mother was right. This was crazy.

  “We mustn’t miss the Little Rock Science Museum,” Annabelle said as she reached her. “It says here they have a meteorite that’s over thirty-six million years old. Frankly, I wonder how they can be certain how old it is—after all, it came from outer space, what possible frame of reference can they use?—but I’ve never seen a meteorite up close and I think it would be worth a stop.” She glanced at the phone in Megan’s hand. “Are you making reservations? Be sure to pick some place with a sit-down restaurant. “

  Megan drew a breath to say something about having no intention of going to Little Rock, about turning around and driving straight home now that they’d had their little jaunt, but instead she heard herself saying, “I haven’t ever seen a meteorite either.”

  “Well, don’t let yourself get to be ninety-seven before you do.” Annabelle tapped her lightly on the arm with the brochures. “Do you know what I saw over there by the brochure stand? One of those fancy cappuccino machines. Why don’t you get us a couple? I’ll go find a table out of the sun.”

  When Megan came out of the building with two of the vending-machine cappuccinos, her grandmother was sitting at one of the concrete picnic tables overlooking the grassy dog walk area, several brochures open on the table before her. She wore a pair of reading glasses to study it, but replaced them with her oversized Marilyn Monroe sunglasses when Megan slid onto the pebbly concrete bench across from her.

  “Thank you, sweetheart. I remember when you were lucky to find a water fountain at one of these places, and a big treat might be a Coca-Cola chest.” She removed the lid from her drink, careful not to disturb the skim of froth that floated on top. “I’ll tell you the truth, everyone says Coke lost its flavor when they changed the formula, but that wasn’t it. It was the glass bottles. That and the big red ice chests they used to sell them in.”

  Megan said, “Gram …”

  Her grandmother said, “Your mother is a bully. I don’t think she means to be but she is. It’s probably my fault.” She sipped the hot coffee. “I’m a bit of a bully myself.”

  Megan had to smile at that. “You probably don’t mean to be.”

  “I most certainly do.” Her tone was indignant, but her expression was hard to read behind the sunglasses. “How else can I get my way? I hope if I’ve taught you nothing else, it’s that you have to fight for what you want.”

  Megan sipped her coffee and said nothing.

  “She means well, I suppose,” Annabelle went on, “but I worry about who she’s going to have to push around when I’m gone. Don’t let it be you.”

  Megan looked at her grandmother. “She’s worried about you. And she has a right to be.”

  “She most certainly does not,” replied Annabelle with an adamancy that surprised Megan. “I’m ninety-seven years old and if I drop dead before I finish this sentence, I’ve already lived longer and better than the good Lord ever promised. When she’s a hundred years old, she can do whatever she damn well pleases, but un
til then she needs to worry about the things she can do something about and stay out of her elders’ business.” Annabelle hesitated for a moment, and added, “God bless her meddling soul.”

  Megan smothered a laugh. She sipped her coffee and looked at Annabelle tenderly. “You know you’re my favorite grandmother, don’t you?”

  Annabelle inclined her head. “Naturally.”

  Megan said, “And you also know a woman who just got out of the hospital two days ago should be at home in bed watching game shows and sipping tea, not cruising all over eastern Texas and western Arkansas in this heat.”

  Annabelle returned her attention to one of the brochures. “Did you know that this part of the country was mostly settled by Confederate soldiers who refused to take the loyalty oath when the North won the Civil War? They were branded outlaws and forced to flee west.”

  “That explains a lot,” murmured Megan.

  “My mother was a huge aficionado of the Civil War. She was always taking me to tour the important sites … Manassas, Bull Run, Gettysburg. She thought it was romantic. I suppose it is, in a way. Just imagine. Perfectly respectable young men, land owners, classically educated, accustomed to all the finer things in life, suddenly turned into outlaws by their own government. Running for their lives with nothing but a gun and a horse. My goodness, it certainly makes you think, doesn’t it?”

  “Gram,” said Megan patiently, “we were talking about you.”

  “We still are.” She looked up and smiled. “The outlaw.”

  Megan said, “And you’re expecting me to be your partner in crime.”

  Annabelle reached across the table and took her hand. “You always were.”

  And that was when Megan realized that was not entirely true. They had always started out as partners, with Megan’s enthusiasm for the adventure as high as her grandmother’s. But when the moment actually came, Megan’s courage inevitably failed. She had been terrified of snakes and malaria in Africa, and had changed their reservations three times. She froze on the zip line platform and Annabelle had been forced to push her off. It was supposed to be the two of them who’d gone skydiving, but Megan had backed out at the last minute. She always intended to follow through, she always wanted to follow through, and when she started out, all filled with excitement and revved up by her grandmother’s enthusiasm, she was the kind of person who could follow through. But in the end another part of her always took over.

  The part that had become an accountant instead of a pastry chef.

  Megan said quietly, “Why do you keep taking me on these adventures?”

  And even though she couldn’t see her eyes behind the dark glasses, her grandmother was thoughtful long enough that Megan knew she understood why she asked.

  “Because,” Annabelle replied, “one of these days you’re going to know why. And when you do, you won’t have to ask anymore.”

  Riddles. As a child Megan had loved them. As an adult, not so much.

  She said, a little gruffly, “Don’t you die on me.”

  “I shall try very hard not to.”

  “I’m serious.”

  “So am I.” Annabelle began folding the brochures. “Now let’s get on the road, shall we? We can finish our coffees in the car.”

  Megan reached to gather up some of the brochures and then paused, looking at her grandmother curiously. “The battle of Bull Run,” she said. “That was in Virginia, wasn’t it?”

  “Of course. Everything worth mentioning happened in Virginia. Just ask any Virginian.”

  “What I mean is—isn’t it a park? A national park?”

  Her grandmother tilted her head thoughtfully. “No dear, I believe you’re thinking of Manassas National Battlefield Park. Lovely place. Monuments, restored building, beautiful parkland.”

  “Right, that’s it,” Megan said. “Do you think—you said your mother liked to tour Civil War sites. Is it possible that the sign the picture was taken in front of was for that? Manassas?”

  “No,” her grandmother replied slowly, “there are no mountains in Manassas. But it was very likely taken on the way to one of those battlegrounds. “

  “So all we have to do is to find a likely route between the town you lived in as a child and the most popular Civil War sites.”

  Her grandmother lifted her dark glasses to look at Megan and there was a delighted sparkle in her faded blue eyes. “And the best way to do that,” she said, “is to go back where it all started.” She grinned and flung a wiry arm around her granddaughter’s shoulder. “Set a course for Virginia, my girl. We’re going home.”

  Which was where, of course, her grandmother had intended to go all along.

  ~*~

  Josh had learned early on that nobody but weirdoes offered a ride to a young man walking beside a highway, so he didn’t even try hitchhiking. He’d been able to afford a ticket on a bus that was going in the right direction once or twice, but most of the time the most reliable form of transportation was his own two feet. Those feet were getting pretty beaten up, especially since the shoes had started to go, and sometimes the blisters bled through two pairs of socks. He was starting to limp a little. But for the most part he didn’t mind walking. It made him feel as though he was doing something.

  All his life he’d had a plan. He’d planned to get into Harvard, master computer science, spend ten or fifteen years perfecting artificial intelligence, retire on the income from his companies by the time he was thirty. Travel the world. Get married. Have a couple of kids who looked just like their mother and who would run to him squealing “Daddy! Daddy!” whenever they saw him. They would spend summer vacations at the beach and winter vacations at a snow-covered ski lodge. He would teach them everything he knew. They would adore him. He would never, ever leave them or let them down.

  Sometimes plans didn’t work out. But that didn’t mean he could stop making them. He’d spent the past fourteen months on a new plan: Get to Leda, get his girl out of there, get a job, any job, get an apartment, rebuild his life. It didn’t matter where, or how. What mattered was that they would be together, they would be safe, and from there he could make another plan.

  But how was he supposed to get to Leda if he didn’t know where she was? What if she wasn’t in Kansas City anymore? What if …

  His mother used to say that “what if” was like a horse without a bridle; it could run forever if you gave it its head. Josh bit down on it, focused on his feet plowing through the dust and stubble at the side of the road, and when he looked up, what he saw made him stumble to a stop. He had to blink several times just to make sure he wasn’t imagining it. A couple of cars whizzed by, blowing his hair back from his scalp in their hot exhaust. He squeezed his eyes shut, and looked again. It was still there. A battered tan and white Winnebago was pulled off onto the shoulder a couple of hundred feet ahead, and a gnome-like little man in plaid shorts was bending under the open hood.

  Josh started walking toward him. There really wasn’t much choice.

  Artie looked up with a big smile when Josh was close enough to cast a shadow, just as though he had been expecting him. “She just died on me,” Artie explained, wiping the wrench in his hand on a greasy blue towel. “Just puttered to a stop like a tired old cow. When I tried to get her started again, there was barely a click. I’ve got plenty of gas,” he added helpfully, offering Josh the wrench.

  Josh ignored the tool, which was of the wrong size and type for a job like this, and dragged his gaze from the sweaty, beaming face of the man he’d had no expectation of ever seeing again to the disabled vehicle in front of him. With a growing sense of helpless inevitability, he moved forward and bent to look under the hood.

  He had never seen an engine this old, but there had never been a mechanical device that was foreign to him. He quickly traced down the hose that had been jarred loose by the last pothole Artie had hit, reconnected it and tightened the clamp, then checked the battery. He glanced at Artie. “You got any soda?”

  “Sure thi
ng.” Artie beamed at him. “Coke, Pepsi, Mountain Dew … What’s your preference?”

  Josh said, “Coke.” And he turned quickly back to the road-weary mechanisms under the hood because looking at Artie standing here on the side of an Idaho road several hundred miles away from where he had left him made Josh feel as though he had somehow tumbled through the Looking Glass. And maybe he had.

  In another moment Artie returned with two cold cans of Coke. He handed one to Josh and popped the other one open for himself. “Hot work,” he said, sipping from the can.

  Josh opened his can and poured the contents over the battery connectors, watching the coffee-colored liquid eat away at the corrosive buildup there. Artie regarded him in amazement. “Well, will you look at that?”

  Josh said, “Try to start it.”

  Artie hurried into the cab and turned the key. After a couple of minutes of grinding, the engine caught and chugged and settled into a more-or-less normal rhythm. Artie left the engine running and stepped down from the cab, grinning. “Purring like a kitten,” he exclaimed, raising his voice to be heard over the sound of the sputtering and clanking motor. “Where did you learn that?”

  Josh closed the hood and wiped his oily hands on the towel Artie offered him. He met the other man’s eyes evenly. “Prison,” he replied.

  Artie showed absolutely no surprise. “Is that a fact? Well, lucky for me you did. Come on in, get out of the heat. Have yourself something to drink, now that you gave up your Coke to this thirsty beast.” He slapped the side of the van and chuckled at his own joke, squinting in the sun.

  Josh said, “I was going to steal your money. All of it.”

  Artie stopped chuckling.

  “I found your bank bag the night you picked me up. I was going to take off with it as soon as you stopped.”