“Is he coming back, Mama?”
“Shut up,” Verna says, and storms toward the house and straight to the bottle of brandy.
* * *
An hour later, Henry was pulling back onto the property, the minister sitting alongside him, Bible pressed against his chest, face stiff, and lips pinched so tightly that they appeared bone white.
Three other wagons followed, filled with wedding guests who did practically nothing to hide their irritation.
The groom came on horseback, his old tired face long and void of expression.
“We gonna have the wedding right here,” Henry said as he climbed down from the wagon.
Verna approached. She tried to give her best and brightest smile, but it came across crooked and uneven from the three glasses of brandy she’d consumed. “Welcome, welcome,” she slurred.
“Please go in, into the parlor. Let’s get out from under this wicked sun,” she said. “Mary, get these fine people something cool to drink.”
The guests murmured and moved toward the house.
“Well, this is all good and fine, Henry, but they ain’t gonna live here now, are they?” Verna seethed between clenched teeth as she linked her arm with Henry’s and followed the guests toward the house. “Either way, she gotta get in that damn wagon.”
“Yeah, well, by then she’ll be her husband’s problem.” Henry coughed. “Where is she anyway?”
“Knee deep in buttermilk, I suppose.”
Albuquerque, New Mexico
When we get back to the hotel I begin to feel bad about how I acted at breakfast, so while Sherry in the bathroom I pick up the book, read the words again. My lips begin to tremble and before I know it, I’m laughing so hard I think I’m going to wet myself.
I throw the book down on the bed and hold my sides to keep them from splitting. Sherry come out of the bathroom, her face confused. Then, not confused, she start laughing too and say, Oh, you think that was funny?
Sure ’nuff you got some ’magination, I say, and wipe at the tears.
___________________
Grin is all Buena Vista can do when he sees his wife wobbling along, belly low and blooming larger with every day. Grin is all he can do, because this baby won’t be sold away like the others he’d watched over even before their mothers pushed them out and into the world.
This here baby, he thinks, will call him Papa and stretch small fingers out to him. This one, he’ll walk and talk and run and play with.
“Won’t be long now,” Mary says when she catches him staring and smiling.
“I hope not.” Buena Vista laughs.
They have at least a dozen names: Perry, Vance . . . “I heard once that my father’s name was Mingo,” he tells her.
Lou smiles. “That’s an Indian name.”
“Sure ’nuff?” Buena Vista muses on this information. “So’s I got some Indian in me too, then?”
“Seems so.”
Buena strokes her hair. “If it’s a boy, we can call him Mingo, or maybe Yona after your pappy.”
“Maybe,” Lou says sadly, and looks out across the fields.
___________________
“You go on outside and wait!” Nellie shouts at him as she rushes past him with the tin bowl filled with steaming water. “This ain’t no place for a man to be.”
Buena looks down at his hands again and then at the feet that just won’t listen. He wants to leave, but Lou’s moaning and wailing keep him welded to the spot as the women move furiously around him.
Lanterns burning everywhere, the smell of the oil making him nauseated, and Lou, screaming now, and the men pushing open the door, beckoning him, “C’mon now, Buena, let them take care of it.”
Buena ignores them.
“Get him outta here!” Mary bellows when she turns to wring out a blood-soaked rag and catches sight of him standing and staring.
The door slams shut and Lou’s screams become muted.
An hour, two, five, and Buena remains.
“Gave us a hell of a time,” Nellie says, eyes weary, head rag askew. “You been here all this time?” In the darkness she almost bumps into him.
“Yes.” Buena’s voice is even.
Nellie considers him. “On your feet, all this time?”
“Yes,” Buena responds, looking over her shoulder.
“Humph,” she says, and pats him on his back as she moves past him. “Go on in, they waiting.”
Buena hesitates and his eyes find Nellie’s in the darkness.
She can feel his apprehension, even though the murky shadows mask his expression. “It’s yours, don’t you worry none,” she says, and reaches to lay a comforting hand on his shoulder. “Go on, now. Don’t you keep them girls of yours waiting.”
Buena’s feet listen now, but it seems to take him ages to get to the doorway. He slowly pushes the door open and sees Mary, slumped over and snoring in the chair beside the bed he built for Lou.
And there is his wife, propped up and smiling down into a bundle of squirming limbs.
Their eyes meet and Lou brings up her hand and weakly beckons him with her fingers. He moves as if on a cloud and is suddenly at her side, looking down into the most beautiful face he has ever seen in his life.
His heart galloped inside of his chest and then exploded and flooded his being with an emotion he’d never experienced. His legs threatened to buckle and he was suddenly lightheaded—everything in him seemed to be coming undone.
“This is what it’s all about, isn’t it, Lou?” he choked out beneath the flood of tears as he reached for his newborn daughter.
“Yes, yes,” Lou said, weeping with him.
Buena took the tiny baby and pressed her face against his cheek. He had thought he knew love. He thought that Lou was all the love he’d ever wanted, and then when he finally got her he thought that she would be all the love he would ever need.
But right then . . . he knew right then that this wasn’t the case at all. There was room left for more, so much more.
He cradled his daughter in his arms and realized that as full of love as he thought he was, this little one suddenly let it be known that he had been missing out and, clutching her to him like he did, something in him told him he could never be without it again.
“We gonna take your name back, Lou,” he croaked. “We gonna take your name back and give it to her.”
Lou nodded in agreement.
Buena looked into the baby’s face and whispered, “Your name is Nayeli.”
Amarillo, Texas
We pulled out of New Mexico at noon, hit Amarillo, Texas ’round five. Sherry say, We’ll stop for some gas. You hungry, Dumpling?
No, I say, and am surprised.
Sherry laugh, point to my stomach, and say, Them pancakes still laying on your gut; you better watch it.
I look down, poke my belly with my finger, then use that same finger and point at her stomach and say, You better start doing the same.
Sherry kind of blushes. Just bloated, I guess, she say, and pull at her T-shirt.
I guess, I say.
I’m going to go to the bathroom. You need to go?
Nah, I’ll just sit here and watch the attendant pump the gas.
As soon as she come back, the phone start to ring, she look at it, toss it back down, and start the ignition.
Madeline? I ask.
Who else?
Ain’t you gonna answer it? Something could be wrong.
Other than her being crazy?
We laugh together, and it sound like sweet music, like instruments meant to be played together. She hear it too, and she look surprised.
Let me answer it, I say when the ringing start up again.
Go ahead, but I don’t want to talk to her.
I pick up, say hello, hear Madeline screeching on the other end. I can’t get a word in, try over and over again, my head beginning to hurt. Finally, I push the phone back to Sherry, and she shake her head at it and whisper, I told you I didn’t want t
o talk to her.
But I don’t move the phone. I keep it in her face until she take it.
Sherry take a breath and say, Hello. Fine. Yes. No. And then her voice tightens and her face kind of turns to stone. I did not, she starts, and grabs hold of her hair and tugs real hard. I just look. No I didn’t, she sings in that voice that reminds me of when she was small and still ate meat.
She twirls her index finger by her temple and then pretends to strangle herself. Her eyes roll up into her head and her tongue dangles out of the corner of her mouth, then she say real loud, Okay, Madeline, bye!
What she accusing you of this time? I ask.
She said that I knew all along that I was going to take this cross-country trip and had I given her notice, she could have sent her husband and the kids on the plane and she could have come along too—to bond.
Bond?
Yes.
Is that what we’re doing? I laugh.
Sherry laughs too.
Route 40
Sherry say we got to make up some time, should have been on the road straight after breakfast instead of right at lunchtime. So we pick up some food and eat in the car while she do eighty down the highway.
She handle this SUV like a man, I think. Sherry a driver like her daddy. Madeline can’t do more than fifteen minutes before she start complaining about the people on the road, the way her legs feel, how tired she is, just everything!
The more I think about it, the better I feel about Madeline not coming. She would have just whined and complained the whole time and Sherry might have killed her.
The sun starting to dip, starting to change from yellow to orange right before my eyes. The road feel like a rocking chair. I try to keep my eyes open but can’t, see the first signs of night slipping across the sky. My eyes flutter and I fall asleep.
* * *
I dream I’m on a rowboat, stretched out on my back, my eyes in love with the sky above me. I hear Lou’s voice calling to me, I feel the water lapping over the side of the boat, it falls on my face, my arms, and I laugh ’cause I don’t even feel afraid being out in that big blue sea all by myself.
I sit up and stare over the side of the boat, and there are a million fish swimming alongside it, a million fish in all the colors of the rainbow! Jesus mercy! What a sight!
One fish jump in, then another and another, until I’m up to my knees in squirming fish. I still ain’t scared, trying my best to toss them out as fast as they jump in, but they too quick for me and too heavy for the boat and the boat begins to tilt . . .
My eyes fly open and I pop right up in the seat.
What happen?
The car is half on the road and half off, dirt settling around us, and Sherry’s eyes wide, both hands gripping the steering wheel, knuckles white.
My heart beating in my chest. What happen? I say again.
She can’t even speak, just keep gripping the steering wheel tighter and shaking her head in disbelief.
The night is heavy; can’t see nothing beyond the reach of the headlights.
You doze off?
Sherry don’t respond.
See something in the road?
Sherry just stare and then she throw the car in park, jump out, and puke.
After she done, she climb back in her seat, wipe her mouth with the back of her hand, wipe the tears from her eyes, and clear her throat like she going to make a speech, but don’t say nothing.
You okay?
She nod her head yes.
We can sleep right here, you know, I say. Just pull a little more off the road.
Her eyes fill up with water again.
It’s okay, we all right, just a little shook up, I say, and pat her hand.
Her flesh feel good beneath mine; feel strange, though. I don’t know when last I touched my middle child. I stop patting and start rubbing. Stop rubbing and just let my hand rest on hers. She don’t push it off; I guess it feel good to both of us.
No, no, we can’t stay here. I’m okay. We’re just a few miles away from a motel.
You sure, now? I say.
She nods her head and jerk the SUV back onto the highway.
You better believe my eyes don’t close again until I’m laid out flat on my back in a bed.
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
The Westin Hotel.
A man in uniform greets us when we pull up. He young, good-looking, smiling. I nudge Sherry in her side, say, He a looker, ain’t he?
Sherry look at him, shrug her shoulders, hand him the key to the SUV.He give her a ticket, then snap his fingers and another nice young man come a-runnin’. He say, Evenin’, ladies. Welcome. And then he remove our bags.
How long are you going to be with us? he asks, looking at me.
Well, I ain’t the one running things, so I tilt my head toward Sherry.
Just one night, she say, and I let out a sigh so heavy Sherry spin around and look at me. What? she say
My legs swelling, they old like me, you forgot?
Sherry look down at my legs.
I say, Can’t we stay here a spell? More than overnight, maybe?
Sherry a woman always wanna be on time. I guess she pride herself in never having kept someone waiting. She look at me and then down at her wristwatch and then up at the sky.
Well, she say, and bite down on her lip, I guess we can spend two nights here, but make sure this the place you wanna stay, because this ain’t gonna happen a second time.
The man say, Wonderful! Glad to have you and your sister with us!
I blush and say, She my daughter!
Sherry just roll her eyes.
A pulled-pork sandwich for me, salad and salmon for Sherry, and then we both out like lights. No fountain, chanting, or meditating—just sleep!
* * *
I stop myself from singing out, “Ooooooklaaaaaaahoma!” in the morning when I wake up.
Glad to be alive for one, happy that I’m sleeping on something called a featherbed, thrilled that we in a part of Oklahoma City called Bricktown that beat like my heart.
I ease out of my bed and move to the window, which is really a terrace. I slide the door open and step outside and inhale the Oklahoma air. It’s fresh, sharp, and wet. There’s a canal right off the street; I ain’t never in my life seen such a thing. Taxis that run on water! Have you ever?
Sherry say it remind her of Venice.
I say, Where’s that?
Italy.
You been there?
Yes.
I feel bad that I can’t remember everywhere she’s been. She don’t say nothing ’bout me not remembering, but I think inside she saying what she said before: I was hearing but not listening.
* * *
Folks seem nice. They speak to you when you walk down the streets. Say “Evenin’” and “Noon” and all. Reminds me of Sandersville somewhat,’cept the square bigger than the one I remember, and of course we ain’t never had none of the fancy shops they got here. No outdoor cafés and such. Maybe they got ’em now, but not when I was living there.
Sherry and I stroll the streets, pop in and out of shops. I buy the grandkids some T-shirts, a magnet for Madeline’s fridge, a baseball cap for Sonny Boy.
Let’s stop at this café, she say. Rest our feet, take a load off and have some iced tea, something to eat?
Sure, I say, and plop down in the chair
This nice. Small round wrought-iron tables. Little vase with white flowers. Market umbrellas to keep the sun off, cool breeze coming off the canal. Nice.
A young woman comes toward us.
She smiling, give us two menus, set a pitcher of water down, asks if we need something to drink besides water while we look at the menu.
I say I’d like some sweet tea. Me too, Sherry say, but without the sweet.
The woman just look at her and then say, Pardon me?
Just iced tea, no sugar. Just a wedge of lime, if you have it.
Lemon’ll do you? the woman say.
Sure, Sh
erry say, and pull her shades down from her head and over her eyes.
What about your organic tea? I say, and snicker.
Sherry cock one eyebrow. Well, just this once won’t hurt, she say.
* * *
I’m sippin’ away when the phone call come. Sherry pull out her cell-u-lar and smile down at the numbers,
Who’s that? I ask.
The smile gone as quick as it came.
Wrong number, she say, and drop the phone into her backpack.
You ain’t gonna answer it?
She don’t even shake her head no, just look out across the square at the people who walk by.
Madeline call next.
It’s to the point that Sherry don’t even say hello, she just hit the Answer button and pass the phone to me.
It’s not that she don’t want to talk to you, I say, but she busy right now . . .
Oh, we just fine. Making a lot of headway, seen a lot of things. We here in Oklahoma now, sitting out having some sweet tea, looking at the canal.
Uh-huh, canal, like the one they got in Venice . . .
What I know ’bout Venice? A few things. I laugh and wink at Sherry.
How the kids? Your husband? Have you heard from Sonny Boy? No? Oh, me neither . . .
No, I ain’t worried about what he doing. He a grown man, why you always trying to mother everybody in the world? You got three kids of your own to mother, I say, and then suddenly the conversation is over.
She’ll call back before our food is even cooked, I tell Sherry.
Sherry nod, lean back in her chair, and then lean forward again and say, Tell me some more.
Two months. Just as Lou was getting the baby to take her nipple without a fuss.
Just as she was getting used to saying her name and not crying behind the memories it evoked. Nayeli.
Comfortable with Nayeli sleeping between Buena and herself. Liking the feel of squirming fingers in her mouth, the taste of them, sweet like muskmelon. Getting used to that new laugh Buena had—a soft chuckle, like an old man.
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