The sky was blue; not June’s endless blue, but with a tinge of late-summer gray, smudging out past the dark green shadow of steep, tree-covered hills rolling away like waves of a high sea. Elizabeth shifted her gaze from hills last seen a quarter-century ago through an uncomprehending film of tears; hills she had gladly never expected to see again then, and hadn’t wanted to see again now.
She’d had no choice, then. They had brought Mama back to the holler to sleep. Elizabeth frowned because the phrase—their phrase—had come to mind. Buried. Mama was back there to be buried. Pop had insisted, and in distant Chicago, Elizabeth found out too late to protest, to shout that Mama wouldn’t want to be brought back. Elizabeth bowed her head. Even if she had told Pop no, Mama would have sat up in her coffin and gently said that it would do no harm, such a small thing, and it would make Poppa happy.
Elizabeth exhaled, a now-or-never sigh, and smoothed her khaki slacks with a slim, tanned hand that was beginning to show signs of age. Reluctance curled up hot and tight in her stomach, weighting her legs so that she stood rooted by the side of the car she had rented in Charleston. She dropped her eyes to the ground as the bruisingly familiar scent of the trees, the rich earth, and the gentle tang of rock warmed by the sun swirled around her.
Surely they had heard the car. If she dawdled long, someone would come out onto the porch soon. Elizabeth stepped away from the car, her beige canvas shoes soundless in the sparse, weed-spiked gravel, and her steps down the narrow walk of old hand-cut field stones were muted.
A pair of rockers sat on the warped boards of the porch, their cushions ratty and faded to gray, as if the couple of baskets of rioting pansies sharing the porch had stolen all the color from them. A few weeds straggled thinly along the front of the porch, reaching toward the sunlight beckoning beyond the deep shade of the sweeping sugar maples guarding the old farmhouse from the lane.
Tiny shreds of old paint hung on the porch rails and eaves, waiting for a breeze to release them. Memories, like the felt-covered hammers of a fine piano, tapped insistently, bringing notes alive to which Elizabeth had closed her ears years ago. The scarred boards sagged under her feet as she went to the screen door. As though released by her touch on the knob, the sound of voices carried to her from inside.
“That must be Orrie a-comin’.” The voice belonged to Aunt Lizy, repeating a baseless nickname that Elizabeth hadn’t heard since she was a child. The tiny rush of warmth Elizabeth felt surprised her. The image of Aunt Lizy, an apron over her shapeless cotton print dress as she canned, came unbidden to Elizabeth’s mind; of Aunt Lizy humming—she had always been humming—her broad face red from the kitchen’s heat, a toddler and one barely grown beyond toddling playing happily on the dirty linoleum floor. “Orrie, why don’t you take Chub and Marlene outside to play,” she would ask with a smile.
The rush of warmth faded, replaced with a sudden stiffness at the voice of Elizabeth’s other aunt, Stella. “Thank the Lord! Poppa insisted I bring him up here by nine this mornin’, and we’ve been waitin’ ever since.”
The eldest daughter, Stella, had long ago become entrenched in her father’s household after her husband was killed and she was left with three young boys to raise. Aunt Stella disliked girls; mostly, Mama had said, because she had three boys, and no girls of her own. “Little split-tail!” The words, and the dismissive sniff that always accompanied them, floated clearly across the years to Elizabeth. And the sniffing and the snide remarks about all the extra work now that she and Mama were at the house had always grown more frequent, until Pop would suggest to Mama that maybe she ought to find someone else to stay with for a spell; just till Stella wasn’t quite so touchy.
Elizabeth consciously unballed her first, and blinked suddenly burning eyes. Mama, who would have walked through fire if her father had asked her, always packed up her child and moved on; up to Stoddard’s for a night a two, then further up the holler, up here to Aunt Lizy and Uncle John, who squeezed them into that old four-room farmhouse alongside themselves and their own ten children. A few months later, Mama would move them back to her father’s house, and the cycle started again.
With a ramrod spine, Elizabeth, swung the door open, and her taut nerves shivered at the door’s faint, squealing protest. Pop was poorly, failing fast, they had told her; he had asked about her, had wished that she come and visit. Refusal was easy, for several months. Pop, who had never stayed in touch, wanted her to visit? Pop, who time after time had stood by and let her and Mama be bullied by Aunt Stella? After all the times they’d been left to make supper from a handful of beans and moldy cornbread in that shack of a house they got rent-free because Mama cleaned the school-house?
Pop could have done better by them. He commanded respect around the county. Elizabeth had never understood why Aunt Stella’s boys got eggs for breakfast, but she didn’t; why Pop and his wife allowed Aunt Stella to run their home like it was hers, but she and Mama were made to feel like interlopers. Elizabeth would have liked to have hated them, but Mama had been devoted to her father, and her reproachful face and gentle voice had always risen in Elizabeth’s mind at even the fleeting thought of entertaining such feelings. Mama was devoted to her father. When the War came and Mama found work in the factories in Ohio, Elizabeth had been fiercely glad to leave the holler, and had turned her back without a second thought.
The threadbare carpet over the old linoleum muffled her footsteps as Elizabeth entered the front room, and the heavy ticking of the ancient mantle clock continued, unchallenged. Aunt Lizy, rounder and shorter than Elizabeth remembered, came out of the kitchen, tucking loose strands of blond hair gone gray behind her ear, a blossom of flour on one wrinkled cheek. The dress and the smile were unchanged. “Orrie!” she said warmly, and gave Elizabeth a hug. “I’m so glad you could come.”
From the corner of her eye, Elizabeth could see her Aunt Stella perched in a faded chair, her navy dress clinging stiffly to a big-bosomed figure that had always been lumpish. Elizabeth’s palms grew moist, and her lips tightened. Stiffly, she gave Aunt Stella a cursory hug, her stomach rolling at the feeling she was back at her mother’s funeral.
Elizabeth scooted her eyes away, and let them fall on a small, shriveled man seated on the sagging sofa. His black slacks were sharply creased, and he wore a white shirt, just like always. Elizabeth moved to hug him, and said, “Hello, Poppa, how’ve you been?” He was frail beneath her hands; he seemed so small. Was he truly the man who had been the benign Caesar of his household? The man worshiped by his daughters, the giant in her world, the object of years of resentment? She looked into dark eyes gone hazy with age.
“I’m glad you came, Orrie,” he said earnestly. “You look like your mother.” As Elizabeth suppressed a stab of irritated discomfort, he shifted a veined hand and invited, “Come and set.”
And she did, despite the sudden impulse to turn and escape back outside, where the ghosts were truly ephemeral, and not living specters. She sat next to him and answered his questions about her life, while Aunt Lizy returned to her kitchen domain, and Aunt Stella sat like a navy blue crow.
Elizabeth prattled on, driven to avoid any awkward silence, to fulfill her duty, until finally she wound to a halt, like an old toy. “I really should be going,” she said, the words coming too quickly and too bright. “It’s an hour and a half back to Charleston.”
Pop murmured something Elizabeth didn’t quite catch.
She smiled and took Pop’s hand. “It’s been nice visiting with you, Pop. It’s been such a long time.” Polite words properly spoken, and her eyes widened when she realized that neither the words nor the smile had taken much of an effort. She could see the pleasure in his expression, could almost feel her mother’s approval at such a simple gesture. Elizabeth’s forehead puckered slightly as she found she had no words left, nothing to continue spinning the thin and fragile thread binding her to these people, who were nearly the only ones left with a living connection to her mother.
From the chair, Aunt Stella, who hadn’t spoken a word beyond her greeting, said brusquely, “You’ve come all this way—you may as well set and eat.” She was as stiffly upright as always, her dark eyes direct and unwavering as they focused on Elizabeth. They were pre-emptory words from days gone by, and anger shivered up Elizabeth’s spine. She rose, looking at Pop rather than Aunt Stella, and gave him tight, apologetic smile.
“I really don’t think—“ she began.
“It wouldn’t be right if we sent you off without supper,” Pop insisted, patting her hand like a child’s, leaving his hand gently on hers.
Elizabeth’s eyes swung to the ancient clock on the mantle as it chimed, and then back at the old man next to her as the chime faded to silence and inexorable ticking again filled the room. Elizabeth sighed. “Sure, Poppa, I can stay awhile.”
The Bridge
The night brushed over her like warm, dark velvet, carrying the thick scent of wet pavement. There were no streetlights here, just the discreet lights of the restaurant glowing sallow behind them. The gaudy neon from places farther down the street was hushed to wavering splashes of color poured out onto the wet asphalt. Lana tipped her head back to look at the stars tossed carelessly across the sweep of dark sky, where they clung, pale and indistinct.
A sudden swirl of breeze caused the skirt of her red silk dress to brush teasingly against his legs. She slid a glance toward the man who walked beside her. She saw him in faded jeans rather than the dark slacks, and in a rocker tee shirt rather than the silk button-down with the power tie. It was part of an image pasted in her mind like a cracked photo in an old album, a frozen moment of the wind blowing his hair into his face as he gave her a crooked, sideways grin and watched her climb the three steps to her front door. Her mother had always watched from the window, not aware that the twitch of the old checked curtains betrayed her.
He wasn’t looking at her, but he still matched his steps to hers, which sounded slow and slightly flat against the still-damp pavement as they walked toward where their car was parked on the other side of the old cement bridge spanning the narrow river. As they neared the bridge, the angry surge of water against the footers washed away the sound of her steps. Protected by the by the steep banks from the light, the river looked molten black glass and foam, hissing and growling as it slid on past.
As if she were a child still, Lana paused at the crest of the bridge. The cracked pavement and faded yellow stripes could have been the same ones she had seen then, or maybe from later on; from when she and her friends had stood countless nights at the old, chipped cement rail, popping gum and gossiping about school and friends and boys.
Jeff stood a couple of paces away, his back braced against the rail, hands in his pockets. “You’re awful quiet,” she said, and the sound of her voice surprised her, for she hadn’t meant to give voice to the thought.
His face angled away from her, he replied, “I’ve got stuff on my mind from work.” A car horn sounded in the distance, short and impatient.
Lana felt stifled by the silence that dropped over them. She watched him in the darkness, trying to see someone she knew, instead of this man here with her. He brought his hand out of his pocket slightly, just enough to reveal his wrist, and the faint metal glint of his watch.
She said suddenly, “Something interesting came in the mail today,” and realized she sounded like some woman paid to expound the virtues of a household cleaner, or a brand of paper towels.
“Oh yeah?” Jeff questioned without real interest.
She studied his profile, which was just a pale etching in the darkness. “It was several pages worth of printed-out emails,” she continued.
He was looking at her now, paying attention at last.
All evening she had waited for him to see her, to hear her. Now that he was, inside of her it was like a bubble had burst; an iridescent, shining bubble broken, and all the brightness was flowing out of her. In a flat tone, she asked, “Care to tell me about Debra?”
They stood, marionettes whose master had dozed off, until Jeff made a jerky, helpless gesture. “We sent each other emails.”
Lana couldn’t see his eyes, they were just dark hollows, but she could feel them focused beyond her.
“ It was just something to liven the day, like…like a computer game. Just a meaningless game.” He spoke as though she had been impossibly demanding by asking him.
Lana tilted her head. Heat and cold; she hadn’t thought they could be in the same place at the same time, but they were both rushing inside, filling the void that the light had left, burning and freezing her all at once. And darkness, except for her; like a spotlight shining into her eyes, casting everything else into shadow. “I’ve read them, Jeff. This was no hands-off cyberspace fantasy. You’ve spent a weekend with her—at least one.”
“It was just a game,” he repeated, his voice echoing hollowly in her head. “It didn’t mean anything. She doesn’t mean anything.”
A game? Lana smiled suddenly and thought her face would crack. Again, her thoughts took voice on their own. “A game? My move, then.” She stepped in front of him, brought her arms up to brace her palms against his chest, and shoved with all her strength.
He was tall enough that, when he hit the rail, he lost his balance and began falling over it. Jeff grabbed wildly for Lana, but she threw her arms wide to avoid his flailing hands and stepped back. She watched as, eyes wide and mouth open, he made a frantic attempt to grab the rail as he went over. He caught it for a brief moment, but then lost his grip.
Lana didn’t see him hit the water, but she heard the splash. Probably quite a shock, she thought, for despite the warm evening, it was only spring, and the water was still very cold. She could feel numbness pouring over her as though she were the one bobbing and tumbling below. Lana knew when he surfaced because she could hear him calling for her, his voice strident with disbelief. She pictured him like the autumn leaves she used to toss in the water, spinning and turning as they were carried away.
Lana held out her left hand and stared for a moment at the gold band on her finger. She carefully removed it. The ring looked huge, cradled in her palm, but it was weightless. Out of the darkness, Jeff’s voice had quit pleading and was sounding panicked as he shouted for help, but the sound faded into the background as Lana held her hand over the rail and turned it so that the ring skittered from her palm. It vanished without even a splash. She shook back the hair that had drifted into her face, and walked absently across the bridge toward her car. The sound of Jeff’s voice was growing fainter, more faint than it would be from her simply walking away. The current was carrying him downstream. He had never been a good swimmer. By the time she reached her car two blocks away from the bridge, she couldn’t hear him anymore. She slid into the seat and rested for a moment in the darkness.
The shrill ring of a telephone caused Lana to start. She blinked, and wondered how long she had been sitting there. Long enough for a rim of red at the horizon to throw the heavy black clouds into relief for one brief, dramatic moment before night fell. Her eyes dropped to the sheets of creased and crumpled paper in her hands as the phone rang again, and then her glance flickered toward the clock. Lana took a deep breath and forced herself to her feet so that she could walk across the room to pick up the phone, cutting it off in mid-jangle.
“Hello?”
“Lana. It’s me.” Jeff’s voice, and somehow she had known it would be. He continued, “Look, I’m running late. I have a couple things I have to wrap up here, and I don’t know how long it’ll take. Maybe we should put off going out for dinner until tomorrow night.”
Lana paused, her unseeing eyes on the papers still clutched in her hand.
“Lana?”
She blinked. “Sure. I’ll change the reservations. Call me if you’re going to be too awful late, okay? I don’t want to worry about you.”
“Yeah, no problem,” he answered quickly. “I have to go. See you later.”
The receiver clicked even as she answered, “Bye.” Lana put the phone back in the handset before going into the kitchen. She tossed the papers in the trash, not sparing a glance for the looping, feminine handwriting that shouted her name on the face of the envelope. She sighed heavily, though it was just as well that dinner was postponed; she wasn’t hungry, anyway.
Lana went into her bathroom, turned the water on in the tub, and poured in a generous amount of bath salts. A warm cloud of lavender arose. As the tub filled, she went to her closet, hunting through the clothing hanging in a tight, orderly array until she came to a red silk dress. She pulled it free, frowning as she checked it for wrinkles, and then hung it at the end of the rod. “There,” she said, “all ready for tomorrow night.”
