Good Hope Road

by Lisa Wingate

  “Well, you’re too drunk to be drivin’ any truck with any dozer trailer on the back,” I snapped, giving him another shake as he tried to close his eyes again. I glanced over my shoulder to where Dr. Albright was in the corner talking to some folks about the pictures. “Doctor!” I hollered, getting the feeling that any moment Shad Bell was going to topple like a ruined silo. “Doctor! Someone’s hurt over here.”

  Shad shook his arm, trying to break my hold on him. “I don’t need no doctor.”

  “Yes, you do,” I barked at him. “Stand still. Doctor!”

  Dr. Albright started over from the other side of the room. Seeing the blood, he got in a hurry.

  “I don’t need no doctor!” Shad hollered, breaking my hold on his arm and staggering backward. June gave Shad a push in the rear end, sending him back to me.

  “Be still!” I said, grabbing his arm again.

  “I don’t need no doctor!” he wailed, like a kid about to get a shot. “I gotta go get the truck outa the ditch … and the dozer.”

  “You ain’t in no shape to drive no dozer!”

  “I can drive my dozer if I want. I’m gonna help folks clean up.” He tried again to get shed of me, but I hung on like a hound on a coon.

  “Let me go!” he bellowed.

  “I ain’t lettin’ go!”

  “I’m gonna go help folks.”

  “You ain’t in shape to help nobody.”

  The doctor hurried up beside me and grabbed Shad’s arm, moving him toward an empty cot with strength that was surprising, considering that Shad was a big boy. “Calm down, son,” he said, sounding much nicer than I did. “Sit down and let’s have a look.”

  Shad struggled to get away as Dr. Albright tried to put him onto the bed. Pushing the doctor off his feet, Shad stumbled three steps, whirled around twice like a dizzy ballet dancer, and fell smack on the floor.

  I stood there lookin’ at him as the doctor climbed back to his feet. “Well, that was darned stupid,” I said to Shad as he lay looking up at me, his eyes fluttering, on the verge of going under. “Now you’re stuck on the floor.”

  He reached up a hand like he was gonna get up, then let it fall, groaned, and lay there, helpless. Something about him all of a sudden reminded me of a little boy needin’ his mama. I walked over and got a pillow while the doc started examining that cut.

  “Here you go, you idiot,” I said, slipping the pillow under his head. “Lordy, Shad, haven’t you got a lick of sense in your whole body?”

  He groaned, and his eyes fluttered back in his head as the doctor spread the wound apart to look at it.

  “Just be still, son,” the doctor said. “All you need is a few stitches, and twelve hours or so to sleep it off.”

  Shad blinked hard, focusing his gaze on me. “I gotta get the dozer and help folks,” he choked out, his voice almost gone.

  “You can’t help nobody right now,” I whispered, stroking his dark hair away from the wound and the blood, trying to keep him calm while the doctor went for his medical kit. “Just go on and go to sleep.”

  “Can you …” I had to lean close to hear Shad’s voice. His eyes were closed and he was drifting off. “Can you tell Jenilee I come here … to help …”

  He fell away, and I stayed there for a minute as the doc came back and cleaned the wound, then stitched it up. I looked at Shad and felt sorry for the mixed-up boy that he was.

  I didn’t imagine he’d learn anything from this experience, or that he’d ever learn. His mama and daddy had him late in life after tryin’ for years to get a baby, and they’d pretty well spoiled him rotten.

  Whatever’s going on between him and Jenilee Lane, I told myself, you’re gonna find a way to put a stop to it, Eudora. This critter is the last thing she needs to be mixed up with. You’re a pretty stubborn old woman, and most of the time you can find a way to get done what needs doing.

  The doctor shook his head as he bandaged the wound. “Is this Jenilee Lane’s husband?” he asked.

  “Oh, Lordy, no!” I choked on the thought. “Don’t even say such a thing. This here is just about the worst example of a young fella in the whole county.”

  “I see.”

  I opened my mouth to ask why he had such a powerful interest in Jenilee. Then I realized someone was over my shoulder. I looked up and saw Nolan Nelson, the school principal, leaning over me to get a look at Shad.

  “Looks like he didn’t come out of the tornado too well,” he said, looking more concerned than Shad deserved.

  “He ain’t hurt from the tornado,” I said, standing up. “He’s drunker than a skunk, and he run his truck into the ditch pullin’ the bulldozer trailer. Whacked himself in the head in the process.”

  Nolan grimaced. “Well, he’s going to have a double headache when he wakes up and his daddy hears about that. His daddy will be hotter than popcorn in a fire. Maybe Shad will learn something.”

  I laughed out the side of my mouth. “Not likely, I’d say. He come here looking for Jenilee Lane. You know anything about that?” I figured if anyone would know what was going on, it would be the principal. Nolan was like a daddy to the young people in town. He practically worked miracles with those kids, but even he hadn’t been able to do anything with Shad Bell.

  “Well, can’t say I know anything about Jenilee and Shad,” Nolan answered, “other than that they used to date before Shad’s daddy sent him off to Montana a couple of years ago.”

  “I think there’s something going on between them, and that would be a bad thing for Jenilee. She don’t need to hook up with a lowbrow like this one.”

  Nolan squinted, looking concerned, but I could tell he wanted to be careful of what he said to me. “Well, I wouldn’t jump to too many conclusions. Jenilee’s a smart girl.”

  “Smart girls been known to get with ignorant men.” I crossed my arms over my chest and let him know I wasn’t backing down. “Happens all the time. It don’t need to happen with her.”

  He raised a brow at me, I imagine because he was surprised to hear me asking after Jenilee. I’m sure he remembered I’d been to the school a time or two complaining about that big brother of hers and how he hot-rodded up and down my road and run over my chickens.

  “You sure are taking an interest in Jenilee.” He smiled a little at me, like he’d caught me in a joke.

  “Well, you know she pulled me out of my cellar and saved my life, and Lacy’s too,” I told him.

  Nolan nodded. “That doesn’t surprise me. Jenilee’s had to be a pretty tough cookie, given her home situation and the way her father is.”

  I nodded, feeling a heaviness inside me. It was guilt. “I feel pretty bad, thinkin’ about that now,” I admitted. “We folks in this town are usually pretty good, Christian people, but we all pretty well sat by and let that man treat Maggie and the kids any way he pleased. Instead of steppin’ in to give them some help, we all just turned our heads and pretended like we couldn’t see it.” I looked Nolan hard in the eye, because I knew he done the same thing. He tried a couple of times talking to Jenilee’s daddy, but when things got ugly, he backed off like the rest of us. “It ain’t a right thing to do, to let something like that go on, a man treatin’ his wife and kids so bad, cuttin’ them off from everyone and everything.”

  I think that’s why God stuck me and Lacy in the cellar, and the only person around to pull us out was little Jenilee Lane. He wanted to show me I done a wrong thing by turning my head all these years.

  Nolan nodded, bracing his hands on his hips and looking down at his shoes, his shoulders bent forward. He looked whipped. “I know you’re right, Eudora. These days we’ve got so many that come from dysfunctional families. It’s sad to say it, but kids like Jenilee and her brothers just kind of fall through the cracks. If they’re passing school and they don’t show up with bruises, they get left alone. It isn’t right, but that’s the way it happens.”

  “Well, that is just a terrible shame.” I felt sad and angry and helpless all at once.r />
  “Yes, it is. Jenilee’s probably one of the smartest students we’ve had, but she’s never had any encouragement at home. She’s had to live with a mother who was dealing with depression and then terminal cancer, and a father who came home from Vietnam with mental problems and probably a drug and alcohol addiction. I really always hoped she’d leave Poetry and go on with her education.”

  “She needs to do somethin’,” I said. “Somethin’ better than get together with that lowbrow on the floor. That ain’t no kind of future.”

  All of a sudden, I realized Dr. Albright was standing there with us, listening to every word we said.

  Rubbing my forehead with the pads of my fingers, I tried to ignore him and think about how I was going to do something about Jenilee. No matter what idea I thought of, it seemed like there were a hundred other problems I couldn’t find a cure for. She was so far from any kind of decent life.

  Lord, please send a miracle, I prayed. We need you to send a miracle; that’s all there is to it. This problem is bigger than I can fix on my own. You gotta send something to change it all.

  Beside me, the old letters rustled in the breeze.

  I looked at the new one Jenilee had hung there. It matched the other two, the paper old and yellowed, the handwriting the same neat cursive as the very first letter Jenilee had found. It was the wife’s handwriting, this time written not to her husband, but to her daughter. I leaned close so I could read the words.

  My Dearest Daughter,

  I know that the time will come in your life when all will seem hopeless. I do not know if I will be there when your darkest hour comes upon you.

  If I am not, this is the advice I would have given you.

  I would have told you about those painful days I sat near this very cradle in this attic room, pleading for a miracle to save the infant son we had so long yearned for. I would have talked about the days after, when I closed myself away, angry with God, angry with everyone. If I were telling you the story, I would knock lightly on the wall to describe for you the knock at the door, just a faint, uncertain sound as I sat here alone, blinded by my own tears.

  I would have told you that I hadn’t the strength to answer, hadn’t the strength to care who was knocking. I would say that I still do not know what powers drew me to rise from my mourning chair, descend the stairs, and answer the door. I would tell you there was a miracle on the other side. You were on the other side, just a babe in the arms of a mother who could not keep you.

  There is so much more to your story, my dear one, but that is not what I wish to tell you here.

  Today, I wish to give you this simple advice.

  Do not pray for miracles. Only God can know what miracles He will send.

  Pray for the strength to open the door when the knock comes. The sound is ever so soft. Listen well.

  Mama

  CHAPTER 16

  JENILEE

  Drew started making plans for how to handle things at the hospital before we were even halfway there. “When we get there, you go on in to see Daddy,” he’d said to me. “Nate’s supposed to go have his cast checked; then we’ll come up to ICU and I’ll take him in to see Daddy.” I wondered why he wanted to be the one to go with Nate. Was it just because he would be better able to help Nate maneuver through the maze of doors and elevators at the hospital?

  “All right.” Did Drew dread going into Daddy’s room alone, just as I did? Or was he afraid I would be too emotional and might upset Nate?

  In the backseat, Nate stared out the window, not seeming to hear our conversation.

  “Nate, Drew’s going to take you down to have your cast checked, then bring you up to ICU,” I reiterated in a louder voice. “Is that all right?”

  “I guess,” Nate muttered, cutting a quick glare toward Drew’s back, then turning his gaze out the window again.

  I rubbed my eyebrows, disappointment prickling in my throat. Their time together this morning hadn’t smoothed the waters. Nate still looked at Drew with all the bitterness that had been building over the past eight years.

  “Be careful on your crutches,” I said. “You’re still pretty unsteady. If you need help, ask Drew, all right?” I thought of the way Nate had insisted on dragging himself into the backseat of the pickup without help, even though the cast was heavy. Nate was in pain and covered with perspiration by the time he got in. “If you hurt your leg, you’ll be back in the hospital again.”

  Nate didn’t answer.

  “You know that, right?” I pushed. “The doctor said you have to be really careful these first few days.”

  “I know,” he conceded finally. “I’ll be careful.”

  The conversation ended there. We drove the rest of the way to the hospital in silence. None of us spoke as we entered the lobby and parted ways.

  Nate was feeling better when he came back from the visit with his doctor and we met up in the ICU waiting room. His smile lifted my spirits as he told me the doctor said he was amazed by his progress. Nate’s smile faded when he asked me, “How’s Daddy?”

  I paused, not sure what to say. Daddy had looked worse when I went in, ghostly pale, his face sunken at the cheeks and temples, the bones jutting out, skeletonlike. He hadn’t responded when I talked to him or touched his hand. I hadn’t stayed long. Unable to bear the deathlike specter, I had gone back to the waiting room long before Drew and Nate arrived.

  Behind Nate, Drew’s gaze caught mine, searching for hidden meanings as I replied, “The nurse said he’s about the same today.” How much more should I tell him? I didn’t want Nate to go in unprepared for how bad Daddy looked. “He looks pale today, but I guess that’s normal after so much surgery.”

  Drew’s eyes flickered with worry as he turned to take Nate to Daddy’s room. I held Drew’s gaze for a moment and shook my head, so that he at least might be prepared.

  They left, and I stared into the bright afternoon outside, wishing I could feel the warmth of the sunshine, smell the summer air, experience something that wasn’t sterilized and artificial. I tried not to think about Daddy in his cubicle of wires, machines, and stark white walls. Closing my eyes, I pictured the clouds floating by and tried to be somewhere else.

  My mind snapped back to reality when I heard Nate come in the door on his crutches. He made his way carelessly across the room and sat heavily beside me on the couch. Dropping the crutches, he sagged forward, exhausted, his head in his hands.

  I reached over and rubbed his shoulder. “You shouldn’t have come,” I said. “You should have stayed home and rested your leg. We could have waited until tomorrow to have your cast checked.”

  “It’s not my leg,” he muttered. “I just wish Daddy would of woke up. I wanted to be here when he woke up. I wanted to tell him I was sorry.”

  “Nate, you don’t have anything to be sorry for.” I leaned over so I could see his face. “You have to get past feeling like this is your fault.”

  Drew walked in the door and sat down on the other side of Nate.

  Nate didn’t seem to notice. He hunched over further, lacing his fingers behind his head, looking defeated. “I can’t help how I feel about it. When I look at him in the bed like that …” He shook his head, his hands gripped so tightly the knuckles were turning white. “I just want him to wake up. I want to tell him he was right. I should of gotten out of there and gone for help.”

  Drew laid his hand on Nate’s shoulder, his fingers touching mine. His voice was steady, comforting. “Nate, the doctor said it was a miracle you got out of that car and made it up the embankment at all. He said even if you’d done it sooner, Daddy’s injuries would still be what they are.”

  Nate shook his head. “Daddy said—”

  “Daddy doesn’t always say the nicest things,” Drew interrupted. “You know that, Nate. We’ve all got to face the fact that we may not ever get what we want from Daddy. We’ve got to face the fact that he might not wake up at all.”

  Nate jerked away from us, heaving himself to his
feet and grabbing his crutches. “Don’t you say that!” he hollered. “Don’t you say that about Daddy.”

  I stood up, reaching for Nate, afraid he would fall. “You heard the doctors, Nate. They said it could go either way. They said we have to be prepared, in case—”

  “Stop it!” He turned away and started unsteadily toward the door on his crutches.

  “Nate, wait!” I hurried after him as he hobbled into the hall. “Stop! You’re going to hurt your leg!”

  Drew caught up to us as Nate hit the elevator button and the doors opened.

  “Nate, take it easy,” he said.

  Nate shrugged his hand away and barreled into the elevator. The two of us followed.

  “Nate, please settle down,” I pleaded.

  Drew tried again. “I wasn’t trying to get you upset, Nate. I just want you to be ready, if—”

  “Shut up!” Nate spat. “Just shut up.” He jerked away, falling against the wall.

  Drew raised his hands palms-out, afraid to get close to Nate again. “Nate, you’re just worn out. It’s time to go home.”

  “I’m not going home with you!” Nate screamed, stumbling as he tried to get his crutches under himself before the elevator reached the ground floor. “Darla’s coming to get me. I’m going to her house so I can be close by when Daddy wakes up.”

  Drew’s voice rose to match the volume of Nate’s. “What are you talking about, Nate? Darla’s not here, and Darla’s not gonna be here!” He threw his hands in the air, his face red and drawn with anger.

  Nate’s crutch slipped on the tile and he fell against the wall again. “She’s coming. I called her house and left a message on her machine while I was in the doctor’s office by myself. I’m gonna stay here and wait for her to get me.”

  “You are not!” Drew roared. “I’m sick of hearing you talk about Darla!”