I refused to cry. I fought it. I fought it harder.
And then I cried.
Carlee had never seen me cry until that moment, and I cried for a long time while she held me with her soft cheek pressed to my stubble. I cried because Ant died on me in his Chevy and the world would forever be a darker place without him. I cried because my dreams died the same night, and because I didn't want to be the broken guy who used to be River Blue. I cried for all the time it took for Carlee and me to grow into each other, and finally, I cried because I knew that she truly loved me just as I was.
I don't know how she managed to lean over me in such an awkward manner for as long as she did, but she would not let me go until I was better. After drying my face with tissues, she lightly kissed my lips, and soon our kisses were anything but light, and far from platonic, as our tongues furiously explored with a passion that was impossible to satisfy.
We were still kissing twenty minutes later when Nurse Broome, a tall stick of a woman with no chin and the flat nose of a boxer, came in to check my vitals. I had only seen her twice. The nurses rotated and changed so much that I never knew any of them well except for Jean Simmons, who was the youngest and prettiest of them all. I really liked the way Jean did her job, and I never gave her a hard time as I did the other nurses. What I didn't realize until much later was that my nurses changed more often because I was occasionally uncooperative and even hostile. I was probably one of those short straw patients.
Nurse Broome's tone and body language warned me that she didn't like me. I got the message that she intended to do her job and would not tolerate the same crap from me that I gave the other nurses. She stood tall, her back straight as a board, while she checked my blood pressure, pulse, and temperature. When she noted the information on my chart, I wondered exactly how high those numbers were right after she interrupted Carlee and me.
After that night, there was a good chance that anyone walking into my room at the hospital or the rehab center would find Carlee and me kissing. After all, she was my girlfriend, and it was a great way to pass the time. It even helped with my pain.
Nurse Marcia Medlock, my friend from pediatrics, often stopped by to see me at the end of her shift. She got along well with Carlee and was very happy for us. She agreed with me that Carlee was good medicine.
***
In Tolley House, I looked around my room and decided that I was finished packing for my move to Deer Lake Farm the following morning. With my back and leg aching, I stretched out on my bed to rest.
Since the accident, almost everything required more effort, and I tired easily. Sitting or standing in one place for more than fifteen minutes was not routine anymore. Riding in a car was difficult for me since it applied more pressure to my lumbar spine, which sent pain similar to an electrical shock shooting from my hip down my left leg. Even the relatively short drive to Papa's farm was uncomfortable.
Tyler Thomas, my thirteen-year-old roommate, brought two glasses of sweet iced tea into the room and offered me one. I used the tea to help swallow two pain pills from my fob, and at the same time, I knew that I was accepting his apology for invading my privacy earlier in the day.
Tyler was always considerate and did anything he could to help me. He had a severe case of hero worship for me when I was QB1 for the Hawks, and my accident did little to change his feelings. From the moment we became roommates on the day rehab released me, he acted as if I were still important, and since I needed all of the help I could get, I did nothing to discourage him.
"We're okay now?" Tyler's shaggy blond hair almost covered his eyes. Jenny was going to trim it for him that evening.
"Yeah, Tyler. I'm just tired. This heat sucks and the packing wore me down."
"Is there anything I can help you with? I mean I know I can carry your stuff down to your car in the morning when you're ready, but is there anything I can do now?"
"I'm good. Are you sure that you're finished with your packing? Isn't your uncle supposed to pick you up by lunch tomorrow?" Tyler and I were the only set of roommates that I could ever remember leaving the house on the same day.
His expression soured. "Yeah, I'm done. I'll be ready, if I don't run away first."
It was ironic that Tyler became my roommate because he was the same boy Papa asked me to help during our discussion at the barn party the night of the accident. Tyler's story was similar to other foster kids I had known in that he lost both parents before going to live with a grandparent in poor health. In Tyler's case, he was eleven years old when his father died in Afghanistan, and six months older when his mother died from an overdose of depression medication. The boy lived with his paternal grandfather, a close friend of Papa's, until the old man died of a heart attack while I was still in the rehab center. His grandfather's farm was the same one that nestled up close to the bottom of Henry's Hill.
It was unusual for a kid who hadn't been in legal trouble to live at Tolley House, but Miss Martin made an exception for two reasons. Tyler would only be there a short time, and Miss Martin and Papa knew how much the boy liked me and thought it might help both of us for him to room with me.
After his grandfather died, social services took weeks to locate his uncle. The man lived out of state, but he was moving back to Harper Springs, and Tyler was not happy about the idea of living with him. The uncle, his mother's brother, was the black sheep of the family and Tyler's only living adult relative. Tyler's mother had told him that her brother was a deadbeat who couldn't keep a job. He was often in trouble with the law and treated his wife and kids poorly. Tyler thought that his uncle was only interested in being his guardian so that he could control the money the boy's parents and grandfather left him. His grandfather intended to appoint Papa as Tyler's guardian, but he died before he made it legal.
"Tyler, why don't you see how it goes, and if he mistreats you or does any funny stuff with your grandpa's money, call Miss Martin and Papa," I advised. "Miss Martin is a good caseworker, and since Papa was friends with your grandpa, I'm sure he would do what he could for you."
"Yeah, maybe Papa could help. I'll try living with my uncle, but if he's like my parents said, I'm running."
"Well, at least your uncle is coming back here to live instead of making you move."
"He's not doing that for me," said Tyler. "He was moving here anyway. Probably running from bill collectors or the cops."
The kid sounded pitiful and I changed the subject. "Hey, I'm sorry for yelling at you earlier, but you shouldn't nose around in other people's stuff."
"I'm sorry, River. I wouldn't ever tell anyone your personal stuff, and I already knew about everything but the nametag. There were some kind of reports, but I didn't read them."
With the exception of Ant, Tyler was the only one who had seen the "nametag" since I was a little boy. Some people may have seen the blue baby blanket in a plastic bag along with the photo album, but not the nametag, which I protected in a plastic sleeve in the back of the album. The forms that Tyler saw were copies of police and hospital reports concerning me when I was a baby. They were recent additions that I obtained with Hal and Jenny's help after my eighteenth birthday in December. There was also a bag of "get well" cards and the floral cards from the flower arrangements people sent to my hospital room after the accident. Jenny advised me that I should use the floral cards to write "thank you" notes but so far, I had not.
I offered Tyler a seat next to me on the side of my bed, which the younger boy gratefully accepted as a sign that I had forgiven him. It was unusual for me to share anything private, and I was almost as surprised as Tyler was, when I began to explain what he had found while snooping through my things.
"Tyler, I believe that my mother wrote the nametag you found. That and the little blue blanket is all that I have of her. I'm what they call a 'foundling' and that means that my mother abandoned me."
"I'm sorry, River. That has to suck."
"It gets to me sometimes," I admitted. "All my life, I have wondered
why she didn't want me. Sometimes I try to believe that she had a good reason to think I would be better off with someone else. I look at her handwriting on the note and try to figure out what kind of person she was. Once, I found an article on handwriting analysis and studied the note for days trying to understand more about her."
"She didn't write much to go on," offered Tyler. "All it said was, 'My name is River Blue.'"
"Yeah, that's what it said, but if I ever had a birth certificate before she left me, I doubt the name on it was River Blue. It wouldn't make sense for her to use my real name since it would help the police find her. I'm not sure why she even put the tag on me."
"Where did she leave you?"
"In the hospital here in town. In the pediatrics waiting room of all places. Someone used a pay phone to call the pediatrics nurses' station and told them that there was an abandoned baby boy in the waiting area. When a nurse went out to check, she found me wrapped in that blue blanket with the tag on it. The nurse still works there, and I met her for the first time when I had my appendix operation a few years ago."
My little roommate shook his head as if it were hard to believe. "And the cops couldn't find out who left you there? Were you born in that hospital? If you were, they should have figured out who was missing a baby."
"I may have been born in a hospital but not that one and not one in our area. I was three days old when my mother left me, and the authorities accounted for every boy born in that hospital in the right timeframe. The police checked every hospital in the surrounding counties and sent out inquiries over the state. They came up with nothing that would help."
"It must drive you nuts wondering who your parents are and why they gave you up," said Tyler.
"I would like to know. I feel incomplete not knowing who my parents are. It's like I can never truly know who I am without knowing who they are."
"I'm not sure I understand, River."
"For example, maybe my dad was a great athlete, and I inherited his genes, so I was good at football. Maybe my mother has a health problem that I might inherit. I always feel strange that I can't answer a doctor's questions about my family history."
"Okay, I see. Are you mad at your parents?"
"I have experienced every emotion there is, Tyler."
"I have an idea why your mother put a name on your blanket."
"Okay. What's your idea?"
"I bet your mother wanted a way to keep up with you, and counted on people using the name she left. She might have just wanted to know if you were okay, or she could have wanted a way to find you in case things changed, and she could claim you."
At first, I couldn't speak. Why had I never thought of the importance of my mother giving the hospital a name for me? It was surely not my real name, so why would she bother giving it unless it was a way to keep an eye on me. She gave me a name because she did care about me. I shocked Tyler by hugging him around his shoulders, and I instantly winced at the pain the sudden move caused my back.
"Be careful, River." Tyler beamed. He was clearly happy for the attention, and it occurred to me that sometimes I wasn't very nice to the younger boy.
"Thanks, Tyler. I don't know why I never thought of it, but it makes sense and gives me some ideas. Another thing, I'm sorry that I don't always treat you right. Sometimes I act like an ass."
Tyler grinned. "You almost always act like an ass, but you're not so bad inside."
"Thanks, I think. Since it's our last night here, would you like to go out for pizza?"
"Heck, yeah. That would be awesome."
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Waking up early with a stiff, painful back had become normal for me, and it was no different the morning I left Tolley House where I had lived for more than five years. Hal and Jenny Mackey, along with the boys who were awake, ate breakfast with me and wished me luck. If not for Tyler, there would have been no emotional display from anyone, since the others were used to seeing people float in and out of their lives. Because Tyler was new to the system, he had not yet experienced the pain of losing a close friendship in a state home.
After Tyler loaded my bags into the trunk of my car, he stood beside me, nervously twisting his shirttail in his hands. The summer morning was already warm and humid enough that I could see strands of his hair matted to his forehead and perspiration dampening the peach fuzz on his upper lip.
"It's time for me to leave, little man." I was ready to say goodbye, but Tyler wasn't ready for me to go. He kept his head down and watched his busy hands as he spoke.
"Okay," muttered Tyler. "River? Do you think you can call me sometimes or come by my uncle's house to see me? We could hang out together like in the park. Throw the ball or something. I mean it's not like we'll be far away from each other."
His uncle had rented a small run-down house in the old part of town supposedly until he could find something better. He was to have completed his move from out of state the prior day so that he would be ready for Tyler.
"You'll see me at the football camp next week, and if you get me the number for your uncle's house, maybe we can talk on the phone sometimes. I might stop by to see you when I'm in town for an appointment, but I can't make any promises."
Tyler's head hung low. "I'm not even sure if my uncle will let me go to the camp, but even if I do, I still want to be friends after that. I still want to do some things together sometimes. Please?"
"We'll see. Tyler, you need to toughen up because things change, and you can't count on anyone but you. Take care of yourself and don't waste your time missing me."
Tyler lips trembled as he fought back his tears. "I hope you get better one day, River."
"The medicine helps me deal with it. I'll be okay."
My little roommate found my eyes with his own tearful ones. "I wasn't talking about that. After Grandpa died, I felt so alone that I wished I had died with him, but when I heard that I was going to be your roommate, it was like God gave me something to help. I dreamed of being like you. You were my idol and being your friend is all I've had, and now you're telling me our friendship never meant shit to you."
"Tyler, that's not what I meant. I've had a lot on my mind, and you're too young to understand."
"Seriously?" Tyler stepped closer, almost bumping me with his chest. His eyes were fierce. His voice loud. "I'm too young to understand that it hurts to lose someone you love? That your life has totally changed, and you don't know what's going to happen to you? My dad died in a bullshit war, and then it killed my mom, just like she was there. Then my grandpa died and left me to a jerk that don't even know me. You're not the only one who ever lost his dreams, and you're not the only one who was ever scared and pissed off."
"I'm sorry, Tyler."
"River, I don't know everything, but I know I don't want to be a selfish prick who ditches a friend when he's done using him."
Tyler turned and walked away towards the house. His words stung. I thought of all the chores and fetching he had done for me. I called after him. "Take care, Tyler."
Tyler turned back towards me. "Like you really give a shit." He paused and then added, "I still hope you get better."
"Tyler! Call me with your uncle's number," I yelled. He ignored me and disappeared into the house. I felt guilty, but I rationalized that it was probably for the best. He would be going to a new school where he would make new and better friends his own age.
I opened my car door, eased behind the wheel of my old Honda, and stared at the house that held so many memories for me. Since the day I came home from rehab, all I wanted to do was get away from it. I never told Tyler, but every day I spent in that house without Ant felt wrong.
When I drove away, I didn't know that I had stepped foot on Tolley House property for the last time.
***
Papa and Manny insisted that Deer Lake Farm be my new home. They gave me a choice of a room in Papa's house or the small guest bedroom in Manny's apartment, which was upstairs over the first of Papa's two barns. I decide
d that since I would be a farm employee that it made sense for me to share the apartment with Manny, who would make a perfect housemate for me. He worked hard, minded his own business, and yet would be there for me if I needed help. Like Manny, I would take my meals in the main house with Papa.
Before I drove to the farm, I had two stops to make, beginning with the cemetery.
At Faith Memorial Gardens, I used my cane, but my left leg still throbbed by the time I walked uphill in the heat and humidity to Ant's grave. At only ten o'clock in the morning, my tee shirt and cargo shorts clung to me, and I thought of the torturous August football camps Ant and I had attended. I wished that we could spend just one more day together, even if we were running our butts off in the heat. I wished I could see Ant grinning as he joked about how much he loved the brutal two-a-day football practices.
Manny told me that Papa had refused to allow the state to give Ant Jefferson a cheap funeral with burial in the section of the cemetery reserved for indigent people like foster kids and homeless drunks. Instead, Papa paid for a first class service and had Ant buried in one of the Long family's plots purchased by Papa's grandfather. At the same time that Manny told me about Ant's funeral, he informed me that Papa had picked out his own final resting place under a large oak tree at Deer Lake. When Manny described it to me, I knew exactly where it was. It didn't surprise me that Papa wanted to be buried at Deer Lake rather than the cemetery.
Had I sat on the grass next to Ant's headstone, rising from the ground would have been difficult, so I stood as I spoke to my friend.
"Hey, Ant. I'm not sure if you can hear me, but I'm going to talk anyway. Sorry I haven't visited. It's not a good excuse, but for a long time, it was too hard.'
"School's done. I never went back to class, but Principal Wilson sent my work with Carlee and Max. They helped me study, and a couple of teachers came to the rehab center to test me. Somehow, I managed to graduate. Carlee told me that the school made a memorial to you in the athletics showcase. They put up a nice picture of you with all your stats and school records as a wide receiver.'
My Name Is River Blue Page 33
