And then I was quiet some more, and so was everyone else.
Maybe they were praying too.
41. GIRD YOUR LOINS.
$94,267.00
On the west side of Nashville, Tennessee, I received a text from Chan. I got you something & dinner will be ready by 7:00. The problem with text messages was the lack of tone.
We hadn’t spoken since he’d hung up on me. I’d texted him. I’d left messages. Hell, I’d left money for a flight, and he hadn’t acknowledged me. And then, out of the blue, when I was nearly home, I received this text. He was either trying to make peace. Or . . . I didn’t know what else, but I had a hard time trusting my homecoming would be simple.
The sky was a shade of purple-pink that existed only between seven and eight p.m. Each mile brought us within reach of home. Fallow winter fields made a corridor along the highway as we left the interstate behind. I was so close to the steeple of home that I could feel the rumble of gravel beneath our tires before we turned onto Tobacco Road. I couldn’t stop chewing my lips. I couldn’t stop pushing Dolly to sixty-five.
“This is it,” I said.
Caroline and Rudy pressed their faces to the center glass and strained their eyes against the hazy gray dusk. The Hive’s entrance had a beautiful country formality. Long curving road. Cattle grates that rattled under tires. Land as far as the eye could see. There was a ramshackle produce stand to the right where I occasionally sold fruits and veggies, an enclosed information kiosk with brochures about the community to the left, and a ranch-style gate you had to get out and move. A carved sign hung from crossbeams:
THE HIVE COMMUNITY
established 1962.
It looked like something out of a Halloween movie if you weren’t used to it.
I explained the dynamic of families living here. In exchange for housing, they contributed to the community financially and creatively. On the grounds were a craft shop with the world’s largest checkerboard and one of Chan’s nativities, Gran’s paint studio, my grain bin, cattle, land . . . all the usual things.
Caroline was quick to remind me, “Those are not usual.”
“They are if you live here,” I said.
The place was handsome as hell, even in the semidarkness. They were wowed immediately, which was deeply satisfying. I don’t know what it was that made me want people to love where I came from, but I always did.
Becky smacked the dash with delight. “Also, there’s a baby-blue Mustang with my name on it.”
“You’re staying for dinner.” I wasn’t asking.
She glanced at Caroline, a peculiar expression on her face. “Yeah. Sure. Why not?”
We rolled past the chapel, past Gran’s, and parked Dolly in the lean-to barn. My parents would have heard us drive by; the screen door opened at the first crunch of gravel. They probably planned to greet us as if I were a soldier returning from war.
“Gird your loins,” I told the crew, and climbed from the truck.
“Will it be that bad?” Becky asked.
“Probably worse.”
We were a back-door family. Something about the front porch was undeniably off-putting and yet . . . there was my family plus Chan on the steps of the chapel, about to escort us through the double oak doors.
Wearily, we stretched and then lugged duffels from the camper. Chan stepped off the porch, crossed the lawn, and took my bag. “Welcome home, my prodigal love, I have killed the fatted calf for you and your friends.” He was not happy, but a stranger wouldn’t know. He also wasn’t unhappy. If I had to guess, he was scared. We embraced, and I held on longer than he did. After everything Caroline said this afternoon, hugging him felt like a luxury.
“This is Chan, everyone.” I gave quick indications, aware he didn’t need them.
Caroline stared hard at Chan’s boots and hat, like she’d never seen a Kentucky boy in real life, and said, “We’ve heard a lot about you.”
“I’m sure you have,” Chan said grimly.
There was a round of formal handshakes, fierce pumps, like they were drawing water from a well, and then my family descended, and we had to repeat the process. Dad, ever quiet, wandered to Dolly and popped the hood. Mom called him back. “Peter, dinner’s ready,” and he left the antique to its whines and coughs.
“She did fine today,” I told him, and as was his habit, he tucked me under his arm and pressed a kiss against my temple. That was his I missed you, I love you, and I’m glad you’re back safely.
“You need a hand?” Chan asked Rudy when he reached the porch steps.
“I’ll take him through the kitchen,” I said. The grass was relatively flat from here to there, and I sensed Rudy would not want strangers lifting his chair. I hoped the back door was wide enough.
Chan tipped the brim of his hat like he’d been dismissed from a saloon. He stayed with the group, and as Rudy and I parted toward the back, I overheard Mom ask, “Now, how did all y’all meet?”
I whirled on the spot, curious at this first hurdle.
Caroline pepped her voice to an annoying level. “I believe the answer we’re going with today is Disney World.”
“Well, that’s lovely,” Gran cooed. She had her blue eyes on me and then Chan. “Happiest place on earth, right, Chan?”
42. THAT’S WHAT WAS IN MY BAG.
$81,766.00
In our brief moment alone, Rudy took my hand and squeezed once. “They’re nice.”
“They are.”
Hospitality is important to them. Without being asked, they’ll set another place at the table, bring seconds, make sure visitors have enough quilts on the beds, explain there’s a night-light in the bathroom, and let them know they can run the shower at the same time as someone else in the house because they have great pressure and a continuous hot-water heater. (My dad’s really proud of his new hot-water heater.)
But I do not have parents who will support a return trip to New York City. Not for their baby.
“Your house is legit,” Rudy said.
“You should hear the organ.”
Rudy wore my red beanie, which was a gift from Gran the Christmas before last. She thought it would set off my hair and smooth my coloring. I tugged on the fabric. “My gran’ll probably recognize this.” Chan might recognize it too. His near-photographic memory would likely register that this wasn’t a red beanie, but my red beanie, which I told him I’d lost in the bombing. Not a lie. An elastic truth.
“I can take it off.”
I hesitated. It was already too late.
“No.”
“Can I ask you something?” We were in the mudroom—the door was plenty wide for his chair; everyone else was in formal dining room. His question would be private. I nodded that he could. “When you tossed me this cap before you left the bus, what did you say?”
“I don’t remember. I know that’s terrible. What did you think I said?”
He didn’t look wounded from lack of memory and that was a relief.
“Bandit,” he said, which was what I called him in Down Yonder. “What do you wish you’d said?” he asked.
“I like you a lot. Don’t die.”
“That’s basically the same as bandit, right?”
He removed the beanie. If I weren’t with Chan, I’d have kissed him right then. Instead, I leaned against the washer and watched him twist the red fabric. Rudy looked like a mannequin. He was perfectly dressed. The lime-green stickers on his chair matched a stripe in his shirt. His jeans—frayed and dark denim—hung to the edge of his sneakers, his sneakers rested against a single plate across the bottom frame of the chair. I remembered precisely how tall he had been in the Down Yonder bathroom. The top of my head met his clavicle. Now, we were precisely reversed. His height preserved by a long torso. He was staring at my chest, working that beanie like a baker kneading dough.
The past doesn’t exactly repeat itself. People said that it did. But to me, the past was wise. It knew how to repackage itself again and again, so each time felt ori
ginal and familiar. I’d been tempted by Rudy before and it hadn’t led me to a good place.
“They’re probably waiting,” he said, looking away.
“I’ll be right behind you.”
He left, and I turned on the mudroom sink. I soaped my hands, scrubbing hard, abusing them, buying time. My ring slipped off. I trapped the golden hearts against the drain. A millisecond slower and my engagement ring would be in the pipe. That ring. I didn’t know whether to solder it to the bone or give it back.
“Golden! Honey! We’re starving.”
“Coming, Mom.”
I slid the ring over my knuckle, dried my hands, and entered the kitchen.
Chan wasn’t kidding about the calf. Food to feed armies covered the table’s center. Mom had everyone holding hands in the dining room, because Gran insisted we pray as a group. Dad moved an end chair away from the table so Rudy would have a place.
Chan held the circle open for me. I left Rudy with Caroline, who was latched to Becky, and took my rightful place. His hand was warm as a fever and as familiar as my own. His thumb traced the bones in my fingers the way they always did. The prayer was short and everyone bumbled to his or her seat. We passed potatoes. Scooped hearty portions of mac and cheese. Raved about the homemade biscuits and beef shoulder. Another expensive meal. Chan and my family talked to us and around us.
I was the stranger at our table. Lonely among my dearest.
I wished I were back in the dingy linoleum kitchen in Orlando. Talking and laughing with Victor and Jane over beer. Or even, God forbid, at Shoney’s eating strawberry pie. Caroline tilted and mouthed, “Dude, this is your electric razor.” And then pantomimed buzzing my hair.
That did it.
I busted up a nothing conversation about Chan’s biology homework with an announcement. “We weren’t at Disney World.”
“Epcot?” Dad asked.
“No.”
“Camping?”
“We never camped,” I said.
Chandler squeezed my leg under the table. “Don’t do this,” he pleaded. Or what? Rudy and Caroline clearly wished to escape, but I gave them a You’re staying nod. Becky pumped her fist and mouthed the first words of “Eye of the Tiger,” which was tops on our Becky and Go Go playlist.
I blurted out the truth. “Rudy and Caroline are the other two survivors of Bus Twenty-One.”
“Oh,” said my father.
“Oh,” said my mother.
Gran ate another spoonful of potatoes; the show was just getting good. Chandler gripped his steak knife tighter.
“But Chan said—”
“Mom, Chan lied because we’re fighting.”
Chan butted in. “I lied to keep you from getting in trouble.”
“You lied because you’re unhappy with our relationship and don’t want anyone to know.”
“Golden, you’re the one always going on about talking, but I don’t see you talking. I see you demanding that I talk, that I be ‘vulnerable,’ and I gotta tell you, I’m not looking forward to you sliding off the back end of that high horse you’re riding.”
I snapped. “Don’t make this about me. You stopped answering your phone. You lied to my parents. You told me to find someone else to talk to. You pushed me away. Since”—and then out popped the truth—“New York.”
“That’s what you think?”
“Maybe this is a conversation you and Chan should have,” Mom whispered delicately, “in private.”
“No, Mother! Chan’s the one who invited you into our relationship with a public display of commitment. At this very table.” I flat-palmed my place setting and water shook in all the glasses. “So we can have a civil, truthful conversation that I’ve been trying to have for months.”
Chan gestured with his hand. “Go for it.”
My eyes were like a minute hand touching each number on the clock as I leveled my gaze around the table. “The bombing isn’t a secret. You are sitting at a table with the only four survivors of Bus Twenty-One. Let’s stop talking around what happened.”
“Honey. I don’t think we need to revisit painful topics.”
Revisit? Who was she kidding? “You never ever asked me how we survived.”
Silence.
I smacked my palms against the table again. “Ask me how, Mom.”
“That’s enough,” my father said from the head of the table.
“Dad, you realize we lived through something that made the president of the United States fly a flag at half-staff? That there are memorial funds and hashtags and senators who ran for office on the political gasoline of my grief? Our grief. This is a real thing. You can’t unhappen it by ignoring the details. So unless you go deaf or I go mute in the next ten seconds, I’m talking.”
“Okay. Okay.” Mom steadied her wineglass. “Tell us how, baby.”
I began. “The bomber was very upset with his girlfriend. He wanted to punish her for cheating on him. Publicly humiliate and terrify her. He strapped a vest to himself and then a vest to the guy she’d cheated with and forced her to confess her indiscretions. Except, she was in shock and couldn’t speak. To help with her failing tongue, this guy, this selfish asshole, Simon Westwood, made Chan and me stand.”
I was in the memory now. I didn’t care if they heard me; I cared if I heard me.
“The bomber said, ‘LOOK AT THIS COUPLE. THEY DON’T CHEAT ON EACH OTHER. DO YOU?’”
I screamed at them the way Simon screamed at us. Chan slipped down the chair, his shoulders folding together in an uncomfortable u. He’d said Go for it without realizing how going for it would feel. Caroline laid her face on the table and swaddled her head with her arms.
“‘DO YOU?’” I screamed. Every word of Simon’s etched in my brain. “‘HONEY, THEY’RE GOING TO SHOW YOU HOW IT’S DONE. WHAT’S YOUR NAME?’ I told him my name. Chan told him his. Simon yelled again, his hand crashing into my back each time he finished a sentence. ‘GOLDEN, CHANDLER! LOOK LOVINGLY INTO EACH OTHER’S EYES AND SAY, ‘I’LL NEVER EVER SCREW ANYONE ELSE. I’LL LOVE ONLY YOU FOREVER.’”
My mother covered her hand with her mouth.
My father’s eyes never blinked.
Chan trembled in the chair beside me.
“We said the magic words. And the bomber said, ‘GET OFF THE BUS. YOUR MONOGAMY HAS SAVED YOU.’ We didn’t move. I was frozen. ‘GET OFF MY BUS,’ he yelled. He blew Bus Twenty-one when I had one foot on the sidewalk.” Gran gave me a nod from across the table. “Go on,” she mouthed. “He made us believe we were leaving everyone there. And for what? We didn’t deserve to live any more than anyone else deserved to die.”
My father had tears in his eyes. He did not typically cry.
“You hate me for making us leave,” Chan said quietly.
“I’ve never hated you. Not for an instant. I hate living with this . . . whatever it is . . . every day. And I think you do too. I don’t understand why you won’t. . . . Part of you never got off that bus, Chan. You’re stuck. We’re stuck. That’s why I’m going back to New York. I have to move on from that moment in June, and I think the only way to do it is to get back on Bus Twenty-One.”
“Honey.”
“The only way to do it is to be honest with yourself,” Chan said.
“I am being honest. You should try it.” I locked eyes with Rudy. “Mom. Dad. We’re getting on Carter Stockton’s reconstruction of Bus Twenty-One and it’s going to be abysmal, but it is necessary.”
Dad reared back, hands clutched in prayer, and looked helplessly at my mother. Mom was sputtering, unable to manage a full sentence.
“Mr. Jennings,” Rudy said, “a medic on the scene that day, the same one who called you about Golden, got permission from the city to build an exhibit from the rubble. The exhibit opens on Sunday. That’s what she’s talking about.”
Mom applied her You’re being ridiculous stance. Hands on hips, head cocked to the side, patronizing tone. “Now, Go—”
I cut her off. “We’re going. Tomorrow mor
ning! All the families are coming. Everyone who lost someone. They’re attending to honor their kids. And so are some of the people who’ve followed the video series. They’ve raised eighty-one thousand dollars so far”—I watched Chan for a response, but he was blank—“to help with college. That’s how much strangers believe we can move on. Look it up. Accelerant Orange. It’s . . . astounding. I can’t believe people are pulling for us like that, but they are. Is it too much to ask my family to do the same?”
“I donated,” Gran said. “I’m pulling.”
I smiled triumphantly at Gran. At my new friends. Mom was slack-jawed.
“And when we’re done, Gran, I’m taking the best picture of Ellis Island you’ve ever seen.”
A question came from Chan. “And if I don’t go?” He stretched his hand to mine and touched the diamonds on my ring finger.
I shrugged. “You didn’t want to go the first time. I’ll try to get over it.”
“That’s still what you think? That I didn’t want to go?”
“It sure seemed that way.”
“Things aren’t always as they seem.”
“Chan, I don’t want to fight anymore. Just tell me. Why did you give me this ring? Because you love me? Because you don’t want to lose me? Because Simon screwed with your head about us?”
“Golden Jennings, ask me why I was irate about my bags in New York.”
This was a futile question. I’d known the reason since we were eleven years old. Chandler Clayton was shit at handling changes.
“Ask me.”
I gave in. “Fine. Fine. Why were you irate about your bags in New York?”
“Because . . .” Chan tapped the ring and then worked it over my knuckle and off my finger. Holding it out for everyone to see, he swallowed hard. “This ring is a replica of the one in the photo of Grandpapa John. Gran helped me with a drawing and I had a jeweler make it. I had all the clothes replicated too. That’s what was in my bag. I was trying to give you the best Ellis Island shot with your Kodak.”
43. YOU HAVE THIS MUCH BAGGAGE, YOU SHOULD STAY PUT.
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