Chasing Lilacs

by Carla Stewart

  “Well, why don’t you do something about it?”

  “Like what?”

  “Beats me. You should do something though. Get out of this funk you’re stuck in. Why don’t you ask Slim? He’s tight with your dad. Maybe he can give you some pointers. Look how he helped me patch things up with Norm.”

  “Norm is not Aunt Vadine. But there is something I’ve been wanting to ask him. You want to go over there?” Maybe with Cly backing me up I could find out if Mrs. Gray ever dated anyone. Is that what older people call it? And given half a chance, I would look in Slim’s Bible.

  We found Slim on his porch, banging the dust off his work gloves against his knee.

  “Hey, kids, look at that sun, will ya? The almanac said April would start out sunny. Why it’s plumb near eighty-five degrees today. Perfect day for getting the garden ready.”

  “Want some help?” Cly asked.

  “Never turn down an offer like that,” Slim said.

  We helped him get a three-tined soil tiller, a hoe, and a rake from the garage. Soon the smell of the freshly turned ground filled our noses—the earthy humus tickling the backs of our throats. I waited for the right minute to ask Slim how Mrs. Gray was doing, and if she’d been over to see him lately.

  “You can almost taste those ’maters, can’t you?” Slim leaned against the wooden handle of the tiller. Beads of perspiration broke out on his forehead, and his breath caught.

  “You okay, Slim?” Cly asked.

  “Ain’t no work worth doing but what comes from a little sweat.” His face, though, had paled to the color of a cinder block, and he blew out his breath through pinched lips.

  “Come on over to the porch,” I said. “Let’s take a break.”

  When he didn’t argue, a queasy feeling came in my stomach. Like the day I’d found Lady Aster. Pushing it from my mind, I helped Cly sit Slim down on the porch, and I went in the house to get him a drink of water. Call Daddy. He’ll know what to do.

  I dialed our number, and when Aunt Vadine picked up, I told her I needed to talk to Daddy.

  “He’s asleep. You know he worked an extra shift last night.”

  “Slim’s not feeling well. Get Daddy up and tell him to come over here. Right now.” The authority in my voice scared me, and when I hung up, I went to get the water. My hand shook so much, half the water sloshed out when I carried it to the porch.

  “Do you need to lay down?” A little color had come back in Slim’s face. Just a pale blue ribbon remained around his cracked lips.

  Cly sat beside him, worried, I could tell.

  “I’ll be fine. You two are as fussy as that girl o’ mine.” He sipped the water and winced, a breath of air escaping his lips.

  “Are Norm and Eva home?” I asked Cly.

  He shook his head. “Gone to town.”

  Perspiration shone on Slim’s face and neck as he unbuttoned the top button of his shirt.

  Hurry up, Daddy.

  It seemed an eternity, but in a few minutes, Daddy pulled up in the Chevy, still buttoning his shirt, the tail flapping. He hadn’t even bothered to tie his work boots. Thank goodness Aunt Vadine knew I meant business.

  “Joe, these kids are fussing over me like old wet hens.” Slim’s voice trembled ever so slightly.

  “What happened?”

  Before Slim answered, he pulled his hand up to his chest and let out an “Uuugh.”

  “Quick, help me get him in the backseat. I hope one of you two scamps can drive. I’m sitting with Slim.” Daddy opened the car door.

  Cly crawled into the driver’s seat and took off.

  “Don’t worry ’bout no speed limits, son,” Daddy said. “We need to get Slim to the hospital. Looks like he’s having a heart attack.”

  Slim didn’t argue, but rested his head against the back of the seat. I watched the speedometer climb to sixty, then seventy, then I closed my eyes. God, get us there safely. A couple miles outside of Mandeville, Slim opened his eyes, looked sideways at Daddy, and started to say something.

  “Don’t talk. We’re just about there.”

  “Have to. Call my girls. Gotta tell ’em good-bye.”

  “I’ll call Olivia right away,” Daddy promised.

  “Alice, too. Call her.”

  “Alice? Do you have her number?”

  “You know it. Alice Johnson. She’s my daughter too.” Tears streamed from his eyes like water trickling down the face of an old mountain.

  My head felt like my brains were pressing against my eyeballs. Alice Johnson? The one who called Slim a murderer? The facts started popping into my consciousness—Slim’s Bible, his two daughters, a dead wife. Before I could sort it out, Cly pulled into the hospital parking lot and stopped the car at the red emergency room sign.

  “Sis, run in and get someone to bring a wheelchair.”

  Nurses in starched white, with cowbird-looking hats perched on their heads, whisked the wheelchair into a curtained cubicle. Slim let out a moan when they hoisted him onto a stretcher. A soft hissing came from a green cylinder tank, connecting a long clear tube to a mask one of the nurses held over Slim’s face.

  “You kids need to get out of the way,” the other nurse barked at Cly and me. “There’s chairs in the lobby.” She pointed down a long hallway.

  We walked down the hall, which smelled of bedpans and iodine and rubbing alcohol, and found the lobby. Stiff, wooden folding chairs, the kind we had at the community hall, lined two walls with a low metal table between them stacked with Western Horseman and Field and Stream magazines. Cly and I sat down and stared at each other.

  “Did you know about Alice Johnson?” Cly finally asked.

  “No, but…” I told him the stories Tuwana had told me and what had happened the day Mr. Johnson caught fire in the explosion. Piece by piece, we put it together, and I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. One thing I did know. Heart attacks could be fatal, and my heart prayed Slim would survive to tell his daughters, both of them, that he loved them. He just had to.

  [ THIRTY-SEVEN ]

  DADDY AND MRS. GRAY came into the waiting room carrying cups of coffee. My fingers curled into fists, and I swallowed hard, waiting for them to tell us about Slim.

  Mrs. Gray smiled and sat on the edge of a wooden chair. “He’s stable right now.” Her hair, pulled back into a ponytail, sagged in loose waves around her neck and shoulders.

  The breath I’d been holding swooshed out.

  “And?” Cly’s question filled the empty waiting room.

  “Doc Pinkerton says he’s had a mild heart attack. The next forty-eight hours are critical. A second one could be fatal….” She worked the cup around and around in her fingers.

  Daddy stood beside me, legs apart, one arm crossed to prop up the other, which held his cup. He took slow sips as Mrs. Gray talked.

  She looked at Cly and me. “Have you seen Alice yet?”

  We shook our heads. Thinking of Mrs. Johnson and Mrs. Gray as sisters hadn’t had time to gel in my head.

  “She was with the girls in Amarillo when your dad got in touch. The nurses here had the number of the hospital in Amarillo.” She looked at Daddy. “How did she seem?”

  “Couldn’t say, really. Upset, I know that. Tried to tell me I had the wrong number at first. I told her to get over here and see her pappy. Didn’t know yet if he’d pull through or not. Seems she mighta been crying, something about Benny Ray, but she said she’d try.”

  “Let’s hope she comes to her senses.”

  Daddy stepped outside to smoke, leaving us sitting in our rigid seats, staring at the toes of our shoes. A commotion started at the other end of the hall, jerking us all to attention.

  “I want him transferred to Amarillo as soon as possible.” Alice Johnson’s voice bounced off the tiled walls of the hospital. She and Doc Pinkerton walked side by side, the Johnson girls trailing behind like loose apron strings.

  The doctor didn’t speak until they reached the lobby. By then Tuwana had seen Cly and me and
ran over to us, her bottom lip quivering.

  “Hello, Alice.” Mrs. Gray stood up.

  Alice straightened her shoulders, her lips as straight as a pencil across her face. “Olivia. It’s come down to this, has it?”

  “Now, Alice, please think of Slim.”

  “I am trying, forevermore. You don’t just waltz in after twenty years and act as if…” Alice looked around at all of us in the blue haze of the hospital lobby. Cornered, like a wild animal.

  I felt sorry for her.

  Mrs. Gray held out her arms and Mrs. Johnson took a step, then two, and they embraced like cardboard paper dolls.

  “You’ve not seen him yet?” Mrs. Gray asked.

  Tuwana’s mom shook her head. “I don’t know if I can.”

  “We’ll go together. That would be the best medicine for Slim.”

  “Doc, I still want him transferred to Amarillo.” Mrs. Johnson pursed her lips, determination in her look.

  “We’ll see. Right now he’s too critical for an ambulance ride. He’s got fluid in the lungs from that pneumonia a while back. Could go into congestive failure. Let’s see how he does tonight.”

  The two women—Slim’s daughters—went off toward Slim’s room, arm in arm.

  Words spewed from Tuwana like the Hoover Dam had burst, telling us how she had figured out Slim was her grandfather when she read the marriages and births page in the front of his Bible. Slim and Dottie had two girls: Alice and Olivia. Something just clicked when Tuwana saw Alice’s date of birth. And she recalled she had an Aunt Olivia, who her mother had told her moved off and didn’t keep in touch.

  Tuwana had kept it all to herself until my dad called the hospital in Amarillo. Now I understood why she’d been so weird the last few weeks. Tuwana, who never held anything in, must have felt like a volcano ready to blow. I felt as sorry for her as I did for Alice.

  Tuwana sniffled. “I confessed to Mama on the ride here I knew all about her big secret. I asked her how she could just live her life in a big, fat lie. She was too upset to lecture me and started bawling so hard she had to pull off the road. She said she never meant to hurt anyone, that her grandmother did say all those things about Slim killing his wife and not being worth a hill of beans. Mother just kept on believing it even when Daddy moved her here to the very same place where Slim lived and Slim turned out to be a perfectly respectable citizen. She quit speaking to her sister when Olivia made up with Slim. I’m not sure, but I think that’s why she hated living at Graham Camp. Too many lies and secrets.”

  Tuwana threw her hand over her mouth. “Slim is my grandfather! And not once have I ever called him Grandpa or Gramps or Big Poppa. Now he’s going to die.” Tears rolled down her cheeks. Her whole body started shaking and sobs poured out.

  I put my arms around her and muttered something about Slim getting better. He could have been having another heart attack and dying at that very minute, but I had to say something for her sake. I gulped in big breaths to keep from shaking. Slim could die.

  Then Mrs. Johnson and Mrs. Gray came back down the hall, sniffling and wiping their eyes with tissues. And smiling. My heart swelled with happiness for Slim, that he got to see his daughters. Both of them.

  “I forgot to tell you all the good news.” Mrs. Johnson looked at all of us. “Benny Ray will be home week after next. He’s still got weeks and weeks of therapy, but it will be so nice to have all of us together again. At home in Graham Camp.”

  The way she said it sounded like she was talking about heaven.

  At church the next day, we found out Slim had another heart attack around midnight. Weakness and the danger of further damage meant he had to stay in Mandeville, so Doc consulted by phone with a heart specialist in Amarillo. I wanted to go back to the hospital on Sunday afternoon, but the hospital didn’t allow visitors under fourteen, so Daddy went in my place. That day and the next and the next. Slim needed complete bed rest and oxygen to recover and would be in the hospital for at least two weeks.

  The week after Slim’s heart attack, Daddy told Aunt Vadine and me that Fritz Brady took over Slim’s job of driving the truck for the maintenance crew—“the gang hands” Daddy called them. “Slim won’t be back at work for a while. He has night sweats, and Olivia worries about leaving him by himself all night. I’m off the next couple of days, so I’m going to sit up with him. Give Olivia a chance to get some rest.”

  My skin got an electric feel to it at his talking about Mrs. Gray. “So you see Mrs. Gray when you visit Slim?”

  “She seldom leaves the hospital. She’s mentioned you…. Says she misses you working on the school newspaper. I thought that was why you wanted a typewriter.”

  “It is.” I glanced at Aunt Vadine, who had suddenly become engrossed in the pork and beans on her plate. “Did she happen to mention why I’m not working on the paper anymore?”

  “No, can’t say as she did. Is everything all right?”

  “I would still be on the paper, but Aunt Vadine had Mr. Howard take me off.” A ripple went through me. All this time I’d been worried about talking to Daddy, and now I blurted it out like an idiot. I glanced at Aunt Vadine.

  She jumped up and grabbed the tea pitcher. “Here, Joe, let me refill your glass.” Her hands shook as she poured the tea. “Anything else I can get for you?”

  “No. Just curious though. I didn’t know you knew Sammie’s principal. When did this all happen?”

  Aunt Vadine didn’t answer, so I did. “Right before Christmas, but I didn’t learn about it until after the holidays. Mr. Howard told me Aunt Vadine didn’t appreciate what I wrote in the school paper about Mama. Tell him, Aunt Vadine, what you said to Mr. Howard.”

  She sat back down on the edge of her chair. “You know, Samantha, I was worried about you. Losing your mother was such a tragedy and dwelling on it like you have just can’t be healthy.” She patted Daddy on the arm. “I want to be here for the two of you. I know you have a lot with work and all. I just wanted to ease the everyday strain of raising a child, Joe. I merely mentioned to Mr. Howard how concerned I was about Sammie. I didn’t mean any harm, you know that.” She leaned back and took a bite of her buttered bread.

  Concerned? No harm? My face got hot.

  Daddy asked for the salt shaker. “You do have a point; I can see that. Even though I still miss Rita something fierce, we have to move on. Just yesterday Slim said, ‘You can’t relive the past; just make the most of today.’ ’Tain’t easy, but there’s wisdom in that. He ought to know.”

  I wanted to scream. I might have if I hadn’t been shaking so hard. He had missed the point completely. “It’s not that, Daddy. What I wanted you to know is Aunt Vadine had me kicked off the newspaper even though Mrs. Gray and everyone else thought my article about Mama was fine.”

  “Mr. Howard didn’t think it was fine.” Aunt Vadine’s nostrils flared.

  Daddy swiped a napkin across his mouth. “Guess it don’t matter one way or the other right now. Olivia’s not planning to go back to school until Slim gets out of the hospital. I don’t suppose there’ll be a school paper with her gone.”

  “At least talk to Mrs. Gray. She said she wanted to talk to you about it. Then when Slim gets better, maybe I can go back to work on the paper. That’s practically my favorite part of school. Working with Mrs. Gray. She’s one of the nicest people I know. Don’t you think so too?”

  Daddy nodded. “Spunky thing too. I’ve been giving her a hard time about those sticks she pokes in that topknot of hers. Don’t hurt to give her a laugh now and then.”

  My heart skipped a beat. He was interested in Mrs. Gray. I could just tell. I could also tell Aunt Vadine got really still, and when I looked at her, her eyes had narrowed. The gold flecks in them shone like fiery darts.

  She blinked and said to Daddy, “You know, I like what you said about moving on. I’ve been thinking about having a few of my things sent here from Midland. I have some nice antique pieces that would be right at home here.”

  He frown
ed. “I don’t know….”

  “I could get a friend of mine to put them on a Mistletoe truck.”

  “Your boyfriend, Bobby?” It just popped out.

  Aunt Vadine’s head jerked toward me. “Samantha, he’s not my boyfriend. He’s an acquaintance from work.”

  “Bobby who? What are you two talking about?”

  “Her friend Bobby called here. I think he offered her a job.”

  “You know your daughter has quite the imagination. Also the tendency to eavesdrop. Bobby called me a while back, just filling me in on the news back home. Samantha thought… well, I don’t know what she thought. At any rate, I could have him send a few pieces of furniture over. Nothing fancy, but…”

  The swallow of milk I’d just taken went down the wrong way when I started shaking my head. No! No furniture. If Daddy let that happen, it would be impossible to get rid of Aunt Vadine. I coughed and milk sprayed all over my plate.

  “You okay, Sis?”

  Phlegm stuck in my throat. Aunt Vadine reached over and whacked me on the back. Not a pat. Whack! Like she meant business. And not the kind to help my cough. My eyes teared up, and I cleared my throat. “I’m okay….”

  “All right then. If no one objects, I think I’ll give Bobby a call.”

  Daddy shrugged and rose from the table. “I need to get into Mandeville and check on Slim. Y’all don’t wait up.”

  “Daddy, wait. About Mrs. Gray. And Slim. Could you check and see if I could visit him in the hospital?”

  “He’s been asking to see you and Cly. I’ll see what I can do. Might be the best medicine for him right now.” When he gave me a peck on the cheek, I caught the scent of Old Spice. Then he put on his good hat—the one he wore to church—and left.

  [ THIRTY-EIGHT ]

  SLIM LOOKED BONY AND PALE against the white hospital sheets when Daddy took Cly and me to visit him on Saturday. The road-map lines in his face had deepened, and his eyes had sunk under his bushy eyebrows. The only parts of him not shrunk were his feet and ankles, which angled out from the bottom of the sheets. The skin puffed and looked transparent like if you stuck a pin in it, it would pop.