Maybe it was more displaced anger, but she couldn’t help but think that Reverend Peterson’s counsel was something she was better off without. His track record was pretty bad, she thought. She had followed his directions for years and had ended up believing that, in a woman, self-respect was the same thing as the sin of pride. And his advice to shut up and pray while her husband made a fool of her by screwing everything in sight had helped to keep Richmond a spoiled boy instead of the man he might have grown up to be. Okay, it might have been a stretch to blame Reverend Peterson for that, but she wasn’t in the mood to play fair.
Fair or not, thinking clearly or not, hell-bound or not, Clarice turned around and walked back to her piano. She sat down and, to the beat of the insistent rapping on the door, began to play Brahms’s rapturous B Minor Intermezzo. As she played, she felt the stress of the day begin to fade away. Clarice thought, God and I are communicating just fine.
Chapter 30
After months of good test results, my medicine stopped working. So my doctor started me on a different regimen. The first treatment with the new medication made me far sicker than I’d been on the worst days with the old formula. And when I stopped feeling sick, I started feeling weak.
My bosses had been real nice about adjusting my work schedule to accommodate my chemo, but with this new treatment kicking my ass the way it was, I had to ask for a leave of absence. They—the principal of the school and the food services coordinator from the school board—were very understanding and told me I could take as much time as I needed before coming back. But I could tell by the looks on their faces that they weren’t expecting me to return.
One morning, just after James left for work, I had a bad spell—feverish and achy all over. I was glad it hadn’t happened when he was still there. It was next to impossible to get James out the door if he thought I was in trouble. If I didn’t look okay to him, he’d dig in his heels and declare that he wasn’t about to leave me alone. Then he’d sit staring at me like an orphaned puppy until I convinced him that I felt better.
Of course, James didn’t need to worry about me being alone. The kids called daily to check up on me and kept me talking for hours. Rudy called a couple of times a week. Barbara Jean and Clarice were in and out all the time. And Mama drifted in every day to keep me company. She was there that morning when I shuffled out of the bathroom with a cool towel on my head.
“You’ve lost weight,” Mama said.
I looked down and saw that my nightgown was roomy now where it used to bind me. I was able to grab a handful of cloth at my waist and twist it in a half circle before the material was tight against my stomach.
“Isn’t this something, all the time I wasted wishing I was able to take some weight off, and all it took to do the job was the teensiest little touch of cancer. Looks like I’ll get the last laugh on Clarice for making fun of me holding on to those old, out-of-style clothes in the attic that nobody ever thought I’d fit into again. I’m gonna wow ’em at the hospice in my parachute pants and Nehru jacket.” I laughed, but Mama didn’t.
I waved two of my cats away from their resting places on the living room couch. Then I lay down, pulled a quilt over myself, and adjusted the couch pillows to support my head. The cats reclaimed their spots near my feet as soon as I settled in. Mama sat on the floor beside me with her legs crossed, Indian-style.
After lying there in silence for a while, I said, “I guess this is when I’m supposed to start praying for a miracle.”
Mama shrugged. “You know, I don’t think I much believe in miracles. I think there’s just what’s supposed to happen and what’s not, and then goin’ along with it or standin’ in its way.”
I said, “Hmm, I’ll have to think about that. I like the idea of a good miracle every now and then.”
She shrugged again and, after a few seconds, said, “I’ve got to say your James has been more wonderful than I imagined he could be through this whole thing. Not that I ever thought bad of him. I just didn’t know he’d be this good.”
“I’m not surprised at all. James is being exactly who I knew he’d be. I’m lucky.”
“We’re both lucky, you and me. I got your daddy and you and Rudy. You got James and those sweet kids.”
“And the Supremes,” I added.
Mama nodded. “That’s what you’ll think about when you pass, you know. How good your man was, how you loved your children. How your friends made you laugh till you cried. That’s what flows through your mind when the time comes. Not the bad things.
“I don’t know if I was smilin’ or not when you found me dead in my garden, but I should’ve been. At the end, I was thinkin’ about you and your grandmama and how she’d put you in those horrible dresses she made that you loved so much. And I thought about how good it felt to kiss your daddy.
“I don’t recall hittin’ the ground after throwin’ the rock at that squirrel. I just remember havin’ those sweet thoughts and then seein’ your daddy standin’ over me, stretchin’ out his hand to help me up. When I got to my feet, my garden was more beautiful than ever—no damn tulip-bulb-eatin’ squirrels in the afterlife. Wilbur and me hadn’t walked more than five feet before we ran into your aunt Marjorie. She was doin’ one-arm pushups and lookin’ more like a man than ever. Her mustache had filled in real nice and she’d taken to waxin’ it and twistin’ it at its tips. Looked good on her. My big brother was there, too, all decked out in his army uniform, wearing all those shiny medals the government mailed home to us after the war. And the first person to say hello to me was Thelma McIntyre. She handed me a big fat doobie and said, ‘Hey, Dora. Take a hit off this. And don’t bogart it the way you always do.’ It was lovely.”
I hoped Mama was right. There had been so many beautiful days with James and the children and the Supremes, so many days I wanted to carry with me when I crossed over into whatever came next. And if I could shed the bad times like a dry, ill-fitting skin, that would be nice, too.
I always feel guilty when I think back to my worst day ever because others lost so much more than I did. Still, that day is there in my memory as the worst. And I believe, no matter what happens to me from here on out, that day will forever have its hooks in my mind.
Barbara Jean had just set out coffee for Clarice and me in her kitchen when the doorbell rang. It was the first weekend of May 1977 and the three of us were planning a birthday party for my Jimmy. All of our children had their parties at Barbara Jean’s. Clarice and I had both moved away from Leaning Tree and into new developments with small lawns by then. So letting the kids loose in Barbara Jean’s spacious yard, with its topiaries and flowering trees everywhere, was like setting them free in an enchanted forest.
Clarice’s children were at home with Richmond. My three were at Mama and Daddy’s house being bribed into good behavior with candy bars and potato chips. Barbara Jean’s Adam was at Mama and Daddy’s, too—at least that’s what we thought. He’d left about half an hour earlier for the fifteen-minute walk to Mama’s house. This was a period of time when no one thought twice about a child of seven or eight walking a familiar path alone in Plainview. It was the last day of that era.
Lester answered the doorbell and I was surprised to hear James’s voice. In that big house the kitchen was half a block away from the front door, so I couldn’t make out exactly what they were saying. I don’t know if it was the tone of James’s voice or Lester’s that drew the three of us into the foyer to see what was going on, but I knew something terrible had happened the second I saw James’s face.
The first thing I thought was that it was one of our kids, or maybe Mama or Daddy. Then Lester, who’d had his back to us, turned around. Right away, I knew. So did Barbara Jean.
Lester’s skin had gone gray and I could see him wavering on his feet like he was standing in the center of a whirlpool. James, who was wearing his Indiana State Police uniform, stood in the doorway with another trooper, a big white guy with a smooth red face who kept his eyes focused on the f
loor in front of him. James reached out and held on to Lester’s shoulder to keep him upright.
Barbara Jean said, “Lester?” Tears began to fall from Lester’s eyes as he stood supported by James. Barbara Jean turned to James and asked, “What’s happened to Adam?”
It was Lester who answered her: “He’s dead, Barbie. Our boy is dead.”
And then Barbara Jean screamed. She screamed like she was trying to cover up every other sound in the world. I had never heard anything like that, and I hope to God I never will again. She started to stumble backwards, her feet losing traction and her arms flailing like she was suddenly standing on ice. The white cop stepped forward to keep her from falling, but I had her already. We fell back together against the wall and then slid down to that elegant parquet floor. She stopped screaming and started making a low, pained moan while I squeezed her against my body and Clarice knelt beside us stroking Barbara Jean’s hair.
I heard Lester asking, “Where?” I heard James answer, “North end of Wall Road.”
Lester protested that it had to be a mistake. Like all the black children in town, Adam had been warned. He’d been told, time and time again, that bad people drove on that part of Wall Road. It couldn’t be Adam.
But James shook his head. “There’s no mistake. It’s him, Lester. It’s him.”
Lester stood up straight and knocked James’s hand from his shoulder. “I have to go see,” he said. Then he started for the door.
The white trooper tried to stop him. “Mr. Maxberry, you really shouldn’t. This isn’t something you want to see.” But James pulled a windbreaker from the coat tree near the door—it had started to sprinkle outside—and handed it to Lester, saying, “I’ll take you.” The men left while the three of us huddled on the floor.
By the time Lester and James came back, Barbara Jean was in her bedroom, lying with her knees drawn up to her chest. We lay beside her in the bed, me clutching her hand and Clarice praying, while Barbara Jean gasped out Adam’s name over and over like he’d hear her wherever he was and come on home. When she heard the sound of the front door opening, Barbara Jean hopped out of bed and ran downstairs, chasing after the one last bit of hope that it had all been a mistake and she’d discover pretty little Adam standing in the front hallway waiting for her.
We found James and Lester in the library. James stood by the fireplace watching his old friend and former boss pace the room and strike his head with his balled fists. Lester’s face wasn’t gray anymore; his light brown skin was purple with anger.
Lester said, “You know he did it. You know he killed my boy.”
James tried to calm him. “Lester, please just take a breath and sit down. They’re over at his place right now. I promise we’ll get to the bottom of it. I’m telling you, it’s not like it used to be.”
Lester snorted. “There’s nothing to get to the bottom of. You know he did it. If you cops won’t do something, I swear to God I’ll take care of it myself.”
James said quietly, “Lester, please don’t let anybody but us hear you say that.”
Lester turned to Barbara Jean, his voice almost unrecognizable in his grief and fury. “Desmond Carlson murdered our Adam. He hit him with his truck on Wall Road. Hit him so hard our baby got tossed against a tree.” Lester started hitting himself in the forehead again as he croaked out his words. “His neck snapped, Barbie. That fuckin’ redneck piece of shit broke our baby’s neck.”
Barbara Jean let out a grunt and doubled over like she’d been punched in the stomach. Then she ran from the room. She was up the stairs and back in her bedroom before Clarice or I could get our feet moving. We went up after her when we heard the screaming start again.
Later that night in bed, James and I stared at the ceiling while he explained to me what had happened to Adam. James said Adam had been on his way to Mama’s house when he was hit. He was eight years old and knew that he was supposed to go the long way from his house to get to Grandma Dora’s, but Adam was an adventurous boy. The temptation of taking the shortcut had, apparently, been too great. And the risk of punishment hadn’t stopped him. James said, “I guess we haven’t done a good enough job of making them afraid.”
James said Lester was right about it being Desmond Carlson. There were tracks in the muddy road that led directly from the place where Adam was hit to the unnamed street that wound through the woods and led to a neighborhood of only five houses, one of them Carlson’s place. Desmond, who had been falling-down drunk when the police got to his house, claimed his truck had been stolen the day before and he hadn’t gotten around to reporting it. The truck was nowhere to be found and Desmond’s girlfriend was backing up his story. Even after the police had located the truck later that evening, hidden in the woods less than a mile from his house, its grille streaked with blood, he’d stuck to his tale that he didn’t know a thing about what had happened to little Adam.
Desmond had probably been playing the same game of chicken he had been playing with blacks along Wall Road for years. This time he’d just gotten too close. Or maybe Desmond had simply been so drunk he couldn’t keep his truck in a straight line and it was just horrible luck all the way around. After all, Adam was so fair-skinned that most people seeing him would think he was a tanned white child. The why of it didn’t matter. The result was the same.
“We’ll get him, though,” James said. But he didn’t sound too certain to me.
James was quiet for a while. Then he said, “Adam was lying on his side against a tree. I thought Lester was going to die when he saw him. He made this terrible sound like he couldn’t breathe out, just in. Then he dropped down beside Adam and grabbed ahold of him and just rocked back and forth in the dirt and mud with him.”
“Oh, James,” I said, reaching out to touch my husband’s arm.
“When I finally got him onto his feet, he just stood there wheezing and staring down at Adam. Then he said, ‘Where’s his shoes?’ Over and over, he kept asking where Adam’s shoes were. He wouldn’t leave or let them take Adam away until we found the shoes.
“We poked around, looking in the weeds and underbrush for what seemed like forever, and the whole time Lester’s wailing louder and louder, ‘Where’s his shoes?’
“It was the coroner’s assistant who finally found them. They were twenty feet away at the side of the road, little white sneakers, just sitting there side by side, like they’d been polished and set out for him by his mama. Lord, Odette, I’ve seen some bad things since I’ve had this job, but as long as I live I don’t believe I’ll ever forget watching Lester put those shoes on that poor dead baby’s feet.”
James mumbled, “His face was okay. The back of his head was bashed in and his neck was broken. So was one leg and probably an arm. But his face was okay, so they’ll be able to have an open casket if they want to. That’s something, I guess.”
James and I rolled over toward each other in the bed and we pressed our foreheads together. We both shook with tears of grief over Adam and sorrow for our friends. And we cried with guilty relief that this thing, the monster that all parents fear most, had swiped near to us with its sharp and merciless claws, but had not carried off one of our own babies.
Neither of us got any sleep on the night of that worst day. Both James and I were up and on our feet at least once every hour, prying open the doors of our children’s bedrooms to watch them as they slept safe in their beds.
Chapter 31
The second round of chemo with the new drugs gave me an even fiercer ass-whupping than the first round. To make matters worse, in May the great love of my life deserted me. It wasn’t James. It was food that left me. I woke up one morning with a sour taste in my mouth that wouldn’t be scrubbed away with a toothbrush or rinsed out with mouthwash. Worse than that, nearly everything I ate tasted like tin. And what didn’t taste like tin, I couldn’t keep down.
Mama and Mrs. Roosevelt greeted me when I came into the kitchen. That morning’s breakfast was a cup of watered-down coffee—my st
omach wouldn’t take full-strength anymore—and a small bowl of oatmeal that I couldn’t persuade myself to eat.
For the first time in my life, my doctor was concerned that I was losing too much weight too quickly. I wasn’t skinny by any stretch of the imagination, but I had lost several more pounds in a short period of time and I didn’t see any way I was going to slow down the weight loss. Food and I just weren’t getting along.
When I gave up on my oatmeal and rose from my chair at the kitchen table to toss the remainder away, Mama said, “You know what you need? You need some herb.”
“What?” I asked.
“Herb. Marijuana, ganja, buda, Tijuana tea, pot, bud, skunkweed, giggleweed, wacky tobacky, kif, reefer.”
“Stop showing off. I know what you’re talking about.”
“Whatever you wanna call it, that’s what you need,” Mama said. “It’ll fix that appetite of yours right up.”
I didn’t want to admit it, but I’d been thinking the same thing for a few weeks. I’d been on the computer researching it when James wasn’t around, and I’d been thinking maybe medical marijuana might be the thing to get me back on track. Unfortunately, I didn’t live in a state where I could get it legally.
I said, “You may be right, Mama, but it’s not like I can go to the drugstore and order some. And please don’t tell me to go over to the campus and hang around at the frat houses. We both know where that leads.”
“Scaredy-cat. I thought you weren’t supposed to be afraid of nothin’,” Mama teased.
I wasn’t going to be baited that easily. “I mean it, Mama. James has had enough to deal with lately. I’m not about to get arrested and add to it.”
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