Big Cherry Holler (12 page)

“I went up to Big Cherry Holler and walked around the lake.”

Before we got married, we spent a lot of time up on Big Cherry Lake. We’d lie on the bank, or Jack would row me around in a canoe. That’s the place where we really talked, shared everything we’d been through with each other. It was a magical place for us, totally private, just clean blue water as far as the eye could see, surrounded by a clean wall of regal pine trees.

“We haven’t been up there together in a long time, Jack.”

“Years.”

“Maybe we should go sometime.”

“Maybe.”

Jack’s one-word answers are typical. But typical isn’t going to work tonight. We’re in bad shape, and we have to talk about it.

“You know, I don’t mean to hurt you. Somehow I always end up doing the wrong thing. I just want you to know that I don’t set out to do that.”

“I know,” he says quietly, leaning against the window.

“I just don’t know how to talk to you. Maybe I never did.” Why am I using words like “never”?

“No. We got along good in the beginning.”

A wave of panic goes through me. This sounds like the windup on one of those “I’m leaving you” speeches. “In the beginning” usually leads to “We’re at the end of our road.”

“Why do you stay?” I might as well ask him, since we’re finally speaking seriously to each other.

“I love you, Ave Maria.”

“You do?”

“Of course I love you.”

My eyes meet his and I know that I still love him too. But loving him isn’t really helping us make a marriage. Loving Joe didn’t keep
him alive; loving my mother didn’t prevent her from getting cancer and dying; and loving Jack MacChesney isn’t going to help us stay together. What will?

“Jack?” He looks at me, and I must say, I love that look. He gives of himself completely when he listens. (I don’t think I do that.) “I guess I thought when we got married, since I had gone for so long without love in my life, that everything would be perfect. That because I had waited, time had made this perfect bubble, and you and I would climb in and float till we were old and died in each other’s arms.”

“Come on.” Jack smiles and shakes his head.

“No, really. I did. I thought since I had been sad for so long, let’s say for the first half of my life, that once I opened my heart, it would be beautiful and wonderful and … easy. So maybe what we have here is my unmet expectations biting us on the ass.”

“What made you think it was going to be easy?”

“I believed the hard part was finding love.”

“You didn’t find me; you decided you deserved it.”

“Do you think?” I sit up.

“Yeah.”

“What about you?”

“I knew what we were in for.”

“Am I that bad?”

“No, you’re not bad. Not at all. You just don’t think of me first.”

I want to disagree with him, but I know he’s right.

“You’re not happy, Ave.”

“I am. Sometimes.”

“When was the last time you were truly happy? Be honest.”

“January fifteenth, 1983. You made chili. It was snowing. Remember? You and me and Etta and Joe baked a chocolate cake. We drew a snowman in the icing. And we played Go Fish. And we laughed all night.”

Jack sits quietly for a while; I can see he remembers Chili Night, and for a moment I cannot imagine that we won’t work out our problems
and be happy again. I am about to tell him this when he interrupts my thoughts. “He’s gone, honey. But you and me and Etta. We’re still here.”

“I know.”

“We matter.”

Jack says this simply, and I know it’s true. But it just makes me feel like a bigger failure. My mother was surely the center of my life and our family life, and here in my little family, I have let everybody down. I have a husband who feels rejected and a daughter who can’t really be happy because she can’t be herself and her brother too. She cannot fill that void. But she tries. Maybe that’s what we’ve become, the three of us. We’re trying to fill the space left by Joe and none of us are successful, and the harder we try, the bigger the void becomes.

“Ave?”

“Yeah?”

“You’re not going to sleep in this room again, are you?”

For a second, I want to tell Jack about The Dream, but I can’t. Instead, I tell him, “No. I want to be with you.” I take his hand and lead him down the stairs. Sometimes, even when I’m failing, I do the right thing.

I
va Lou and I sit on the old stone bench outside the Slemp Library, eating lunch. We’re bundled up; it’s an overcast late November day, but we need the fresh air. Besides, we have the entire winter to cram into Iva Lou’s tiny office for our weekly get-togethers. The bench is a low, wide half-moon of blue slate resting on ornate concrete pedestals. It faces an old fountain, a series of jagged fieldstone steps stacked delicately up a low hill. At the top, brass cardinals hold a pitcher from which water cascades down rocks covered in green velvet moss. When it reaches the bottom, the water flows into a small triangular pool filled with pennies. It’s a romantic place, hidden by poplar trees. At night it’s a make-out spot for teenagers. Young lovers have thrown their pennies in the pool (lots of them), hoping their luck will last.

Delphine Moses made us meatball heroes. Iva Lou peels the tin foil down the sides of the long bun like a banana.

“Aren’t you gonna eat?” Iva Lou asks me as she takes a bite.

“I’m not hungry.”

“What’s the matter?”

“Jack and me.”

“What happened?”

“He’s mad at me because I took on managing the Pharmacy without asking him.”

“Why didn’t you ask him?” Iva Lou takes a swig of Coke.

Iva Lou asks me this so matter-of-factly, you’d think I’d have an equally easy, off-the-cuff answer. But I don’t.

“You know, men got to feel in charge. Even if they’re not. You got to let them think they are.”

“Iva Lou, I’m too old for those games.”

“Well, I hate to tell you, but the games go on until you’re in the grave. I never met a man who didn’t think he was the center of the universe.”

“Do you think Jack Mac is tired of me?”

“Nope. It sounds like he’s mad at you.”

“Good.”

“No. That’s actually worse. When men get mad, they don’t sit with it, they do something. They act out. You know. They go out looking for … I don’t know. Diversions.”

“Other women?”

Iva Lou nods. “And I know that for sure because once upon a time, I was the best diversion in Wise County. Now I’m just another old murried woman who’s kept her shape.” She sits up and breathes deeply, pinching in her small waist.

“Do I need to be worried about other women?” I lean back on the bench casually, yet my spine is so rigid, it’s as though there is a steel pipe in place of the bone.

“If you’re a woman, you always need to be worried about that. You got a good-looking husband. And there are women out there who look for, well, they’re looking for company.”

“I’m not going to follow him around.”

“You shouldn’t! No, you have to act like nothing’s wrong and gently move things back in a positive direction. You have to
act
like you
have a good marriage, and then, as time goes on, if you act like it’s good, it becomes good.”

“How do you do that?” I want to know.

Iva Lou continues, “In little ways. Make him comfortable. Kiss him when you pass him while he’s watching TV. Even if he don’t kiss you back, mind you.”

“Okay. I can do that.”

“How’s the sex?”

“God, Iva Lou.”

“Are you having sex?”

“Sometimes.”

“Regular?”

“Not as regular as it used to be.”

“Well, girl, get on it. Make it
your
idea. That’ll keep you two connected until he comes around.”

“You’re serious?”

“Hell, yes. A man would rather saw off his arm as live without sex. We women, well, we’re camels. We can go months and months without, though I don’t recommend it. We like to think about sex, and sometimes thinkin’ about it’s enough. Why do you think women get married to men in prison and not vice versa? We’re fine just having a man sayin’ he loves us, even if he’s locked up with a life sentence. We don’t need him home in the flesh tellin’ us. A man is different; he needs a woman to be there, present, takin’ care of him.” Iva Lou looks at me, her left eyebrow rising up to make her point. “And I mean takin’
care
of him.”

“Does everything come down to sex?”

“Yes.” Iva Lou sets her hero down on the bench. “A man looks at sex like a health issue. If
it’s
workin’, then
he’s
workin’. You got it?” I nod. “Drop by the church. They’re still fixin’ the Fellowship Hall kitchen, right? Surprise ole Jack Mac. Bring him a slice of pie or a thermos of coffee. And look good doin’ it. Be sweet. Understand?” I
nod again, but part of me resents hearing this. Why do I have to do all the work?

A squirrel, his brown coat the color of the bare ground below, shimmies down the thick trunk of the poplar tree behind Iva Lou. He stops and chatters, snapping his neck, looking all around. Then the branches rustle from above, and down the trunk, like a gumball swirling down a chute, comes another squirrel. The first squirrel waits for the second to join him. When she gets within an inch of his tail, he runs away. This reminds me of something Otto told me so many years ago. He said, “Ave, you gots to decide three things in life: what you’re running from and what you’re running to, and why.” What Otto didn’t tell me and should have: no fair running in place.

Fleeta leans against the new fountain at Mutual’s. “Here I stand at the gates of hell.”

“How many times do I have to tell you, you don’t have to work in here.”

“We’ll see. This is just like when I was told I wouldn’t have to handle stock reorders. Now I’m the only one who handles stock reorders.”

“It came out nice, didn’t it?” I ask Fleeta as I spin on one of the fountain stools. Pearl found antique etched mirrors, which she framed in white and hung behind the fountain. She copied the marbleized green linoleum countertops from the original pictures. Gaslight wall sconces with brass accents throw a soft golden light on the pale green booths with white Formica tabletops.

“Yeah, it come out good. But I don’t know how it did, with Pearl’s attention everywhere else in Wise County but here.”

“Do you have a problem with expansion?”

“I ain’t talkin’ about that. Pearl’s in loo-ve.” Fleeta rolls her eyes when she says “love.” “You know ’im too. The Indian doctor up at Saint Agnes. Bakagese. Good-lookin’ sucker. He’s as dark as mahogany, honey. Black.”

“He was Joe’s doctor.”

Fleeta thinks for a moment. “Right. Right. I bet they met up your place. He’s dark. But tain’t nothin’ wrong with it. Pearl’s Melungeon herself, so she’s mixed. So in a way, they match. Though lots of Melungeons don’t like me saying they’re mixed.”

“I thought you were Melungeon.”

“Part.”

“There’s nothing wrong with you,” I point out.

“No, there ain’t.”

“His color doesn’t matter.”

“You say ’at, ’course you’re Eye-talian. And Eye-talians are the great mixers of the world. Ain’t no country that ain’t been in yorn. And everybody knows It-lee is nothin’ more than a rowboat away from Africa.”

“You know your geography. Maybe they ought to put you on
Club Quiz
next time we send a team out.” I hand Fleeta a note regarding a prescription. “I can’t read your writing.”

“It was a call-in prescription. For a delivery. To … Alice Lambert.”

“Oh.”

“I know.” Fleeta clucks. “She oughtn’t buy her pills from here, after all the trouble she caused you.” Fleeta’s right. Alice Lambert is Fred Mulligan’s sister. When I found out that he wasn’t really my father, she claimed I was a bastard and therefore not entitled to his estate; she even tried to take me to court. That was nearly ten years ago, and I haven’t seen her since.

“When you’re sick, you probably don’t care where the pills come from.”

“What kind of pills does she need?”

“They’re for nerves.”

“Uh-huh. I’d say she has nerve tryin’ to trade in here.”

Otto comes in with his tool chest. “Hey, Otto. Can you make a delivery over to Alice Lambert’s?”

“I don’t see why not. But I need to hook up the stove back ’ere. Do you think Jack Mac could help me?”

“I’ll ask him.” Good. Just what I needed: an excuse to pop in on my husband. Iva Lou would definitely approve.

The parking spots outside the Methodist Church are filled, so I double-park behind Jack’s truck, filled with plywood sheets. I check my lipstick, which I’ve eaten off, and reapply it. I run a comb through my hair and fluff it. I look pretty good today, I think as I climb out of the Jeep.

The tension has eased between Jack and me, and I see this truce time as an opportunity to bring us together again. There have been small signs that he’s trying too. He took my hand helping me up the attic stairs to get the Christmas ornaments. He hugged and kissed me when I made ravioli from scratch. And he rubbed my neck when I was working on the bills after Etta went to sleep last night.

The door to the church basement is propped open with a barrel trash can full of shards of old Sheetrock. I should’ve brought Jack something to eat, I’m thinking as I go down the familiar steps; Iva Lou would give me a demerit for not planning ahead. I hear laughter and note that the new yellow paint they chose for the stairwell really brightens up the place.

“Hello?”

“In here,” my husband’s familiar voice says.

I walk carefully into the hall; the floor has been removed, and new Sheetrock is being applied to the walls. Jack is measuring a large flat of wood on two horses as Mousey hammers a corner of Sheetrock to the wall.

“Hi!” I say brightly, with a big smile.

“Hi, honey,” Jack answers warmly.

“I love the yellow. It’s pretty. This room is really coming along,” I tell them, surveying the changes. And then, as if in a dream, I see a
woman emerge from the hallway that leads up the back stairs to the sacristy. It’s that woman. That tanned woman from the Halloween Carnival!

“Honey, this is Karen Bell from Coeburn. This is my wife, Ave Maria,” Jack says to her matter-of-factly.