Garden of Angels (15 page)

Twenty-three

I stayed home from school during the last ten days in April. My mother was dying, and I could not leave her side. Between injections of pain medications, which Dr. Keller administered every six hours, she slept. I was told that morphine was a powerful narcotic. Adel asked if it was all right to give the shots so frequently, if Mama might not get addicted, and Dr. Keller said, “I know of doctors who think that way, but not me. I believe that pain should be managed, controlled. There’s no call for a patient to be in pain if we can prevent it.”

No one had to tell me that bone cancer was painful. I knew the truth whenever the morphine started wearing off and my mother cried out in agony.

Mama stopped eating, and before my eyes seemed to grow smaller in her bed, as if shrinking and drying up like a husk fixing to blow away with the next spring breeze. We moved her bed against the window, where she could look out on her gardens as she slipped in and out of consciousness. I cut flowers and arranged bouquets of pale lilies, branches of pink and white dogwood, vibrant purple irises and yellow gladiolas in vases around the room in the hope that the glorious blossoms would cheer her if she woke. Papa set up the cot on the other side of their room, where he slept, so as not to disturb her.

Friends from church and her garden club called every day. Adel took the calls usually, because I found it hard to be civil to people who called to get updates, like you would a flight that’s running behind schedule. I talked with Becky Sue, but not for long spells. I had no interest in stupid school gossip. She ended up crying during our conversations anyway, and I was doing enough crying on my own.

The only people outside of family we allowed to visit Mama were Carole and Pastor Jim. Mama had asked early on for him to come and read the Psalms to her, so he came each day in the late afternoon, opened his Bible and read from the hymns of King David. I had no way of knowing if she heard him, although Dr. Keller told us that hearing was the last of the five senses to go. “I’m sure she’s comforted,” he’d say.

Adel had not heard from Barry, and she was worried about him. Our whole family was worried. We kept our TV sets turned on from sign-on until sign-off, just in case there were any breaking news bulletins. One by one, the cities of South Vietnam fell like dominoes as the North Vietnamese Army pressed toward Saigon, where the last bastion of America stood, the United States Embassy, with the personnel who worked there and defended it. Caring for Mama’s needs kept our hands busy, but my mind was in constant turmoil. Sometimes I heard Adel crying when she thought she was alone.

On April 29, newscasters broke into the regular programming to announce the pullout of all U.S. personnel from Saigon. The Communist army was advancing swiftly and the southern government was collapsing. Vietnam is exactly twelve hours ahead of Georgia on the clock, so we started receiving pictures and news footage of the April 30 pullout. The next morning, Dr. Keller alerted us that Mama’s breathing patterns had changed. My heart felt icy cold when he said it, because he looked us in the eyes and added, “The end is near.”

We remained in Mama’s room with her all that day—me, Adel and Papa. Dr. Keller hung around the house, told us to call him in if we needed him. When Pastor Jim arrived, Papa asked him to please read the Twenty-third Psalm, “. . . and keep reading it,” because it was Mama’s favorite. His soft, resonant voice offered up the words that were so familiar to us. “ ‘The Lord is my Shepherd; I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures, He leadeth me beside still waters. He restoreth my soul. . . .’ ”

Outside, a fine spring rain was falling—rain laced through with sunlight, a rare phenomenon. On the far side of the room, the television played the evening news. The sound was muted, but the images shone in black-and-white newsreel relief. On the screen, I watched frantic people running through burning streets and throwing their bodies at the locked iron gates of the U.S. Embassy, where armed marines stood and blocked entry into the hallowed grounds.

“ ‘He guideth me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil . . . ,’ ” Pastor Jim read.

I saw helicopters, their blades whipping up debris as they lifted off from rooftops, people clinging frantically to the open doorways, all desperate to climb aboard, to escape the coming horror of enemy takeover.

“ ‘. . . for Thou art with me. Thy rod and Thy staff, they comfort me. . . .’ ”

The camera’s eye blinked and the picture changed to one of tanks that rolled in advance of scores of foot soldiers. The battalions looked like ants swarming toward the perimeters of the chaotic city—ants, wild and ferocious and mad with purpose.

“ ‘Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies, Thou anointest my head with oil, my cup runneth over. . . .’ ”

In the room where my mother lay, another enemy, as old as time, was approaching. We were powerless, defenseless, and could not stop it. We held on to Mama’s hands in an effort to link her with our world of the living. Mama’s labored breathing sounded like tearing paper, the ragged edges fluttering and tattered beyond repair. The rhythm of her breath was ever changing—long, then short . . . fast, then slow. I watched her chest move up and down. The breathing had become hard work for her. So hard. Too hard.

“ ‘. . . Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me, all the days of my life. . . .’ ”

On the TV screen, another empty chopper set down on embassy soil and people scrambled into the open cavern of its side. It filled quickly and soldiers crossed their bayonets over the doorway to stop the piling on of more people. Hands reached upward in desperate supplication as the chopper wobbled and lifted under the weight. I saw a woman toss a bundle upward into the arms of another reaching down. The bundle wiggled and a baby emerged. The woman below held up outstretched arms, but the chopper was crammed full and it left without her. I could see that her baby was safe, but she remained behind, terror etched in her face, her mouth open, screaming.

The chopper rose, creating a windstorm that flattened those left behind. The chopper circled the embassy compound, then headed off into a cloudless sky toward freedom. I remembered Kyle’s words about choppers at the siege of Khe Sanh,
the choppers rise up like great dark
angels
, and then I understood that the dark angels had also come for my mother’s soul. That death would be a release. That it was selfish of me to ask her to remain. I silently gave her permission to leave this place of pain and suffering. I told her she was free to go and leave her cancer-riddled body behind. The great dark angels would take her up, up into the gardens of paradise.

My vision blurred with tears. I saw her face as through a mist. I felt her fingers loosen their grip as she let go of life and her soul spilled over into eternity, where she would dwell in the House of the Lord,

Forever.

Twenty-four

May–August

My world turned gray after my mother died. In my eyes, the gardens lost their color, and my life its focus. On the day we buried Mama, I hardly saw the crowds of people, but Adel told me that most of Conners turned out to pay their respects. I had released her to that cloud of dark angels, represented so dramatically in my mind by the rescue choppers in Vietnam on that last day in April, and so I honestly believed that the funeral was extraneous and redundant, done for the sake of the living and not the dead.

In mid-May, the church held its annual mother-daughter banquet, and Carole said she’d be proud to escort me and Adel to an event neither of us had ever missed. My sister and I had better sense and saved ourselves terrible pain. We said thank you for the offer, and we stayed home.

Adel finally heard from Barry, but his letters left her unsatisfied. He said nothing about his duties ending or if he was in harm’s way. He told her about the weather and a few stories about bad food, and of how much he missed her, but no real information. Her letters took time getting to him, because he didn’t know about Mama’s death until almost the end of May, and by the time his heartfelt sorrow returned to Adel, it was the middle of June.

As Adel’s pregnancy advanced, we pored over baby books together just so we could get a picture in our minds of what it might look like at four, five and six months. She let me feel it move and I teased her with, “Goodness, I think it’s going to kick its way out.”

“I hope Barry can be with me when it comes,” she often told me. “I don’t want to have this baby all alone.”

Eventually, the school year ended. I passed with high grades, despite my absences. Mr. Kessler gave me an A+ on my war chart project for government class, but I knew it was Barry’s loan of Kyle’s war journal that put me over the top. Before turning it in, I wrote in the final American casualty count for Vietnam—58, 195, the last two deaths happening on April 30, 1975. I also added, “Over 150,000 were seriously wounded, and a thousand are still missing in action.”

In June right after school ended, Jason came to the house to see me. I had not been alone with him since the day he had kissed me. And although so much had happened in my life since then, I had not forgotten one moment of it. I was happy to see him, pleased that he’d made a special trip. He asked to go out into the yard, and once we were sitting on the bench overlooking the pond, he said, “I’m sorry about your mother.”

“Thank you,” I said, still feeling the sting of her death each time it was mentioned. He looked as if something else was on his mind, so I asked, “Is there anything else?”

“I’ve come to tell you goodbye.”

He had my full attention. “Where are you going?”

“Home . . . back to Chicago.”

I kept my eyes on the pond. I wasn’t sure I could look him in the face without him knowing how much his words had rocked me. “What’s Carole think?”

“She’s not in favor of it, but I’m eighteen now and I can do what I want.”

“You had a birthday?”

“May thirtieth,” he said. “I finished school, like I promised, so now there’s no reason for me to stay here.”

I looked at him then, because his words stung me. “You’re not going to go through the graduation ceremony?”

“The school can mail me my diploma.”

“Don’t you think Carole would like to see you walk?”

He shrugged. “Doesn’t matter. I’m going. I’m riding my cycle back.”

“It’s a long way to Chicago,” I said, surprised by such an idea. “What about your stuff . . . you know, personal things?”

“Carole and Jim will ship what I can’t fit on the back of the machine.”

The surface of the pond was disturbed by an insect, and I watched the water travel in concentric circles before hitting the rushes. The circles spread out in ripples that didn’t touch and I realized that that was what would become of my relationship with Jason. Once he left, we wouldn’t touch again.

“I guess this is really goodbye then,” I said, feeling weepy. I quashed the desire to cry.

“It is.” He stood, moved in front of me, but I stayed seated on the bench. “Don’t let Rucker hassle you next year.”

I shrugged. “He seems to have lost interest in giving me a hard time. I guess even J.T. loses interest.” I said what I did because that was the way I felt toward Jason—he’d lost interest in me. And why shouldn’t he? I was years younger and pretty boring for a boy like him.

“You’re the only one I’m telling goodbye personally,” he added.

“Is that supposed to make me special?”

“You are special.”

I glanced up to make certain he wasn’t patronizing me. “I don’t feel special.”

He took my hands into his and pulled me up so that we were facing each other. Heat from the summer day had made his hair damp, and long strands of it lay across his forehead. I wanted so much to reach up and touch it. I didn’t. He said, “I never told you this before, but I promised Carole two things last fall. I told her I’d finish school. And I told her I wouldn’t put any moves on you.”

“But why would you promise her that?”

“Because she asked me to stay clear of you. She said, ‘Darcy Quinlin is off-limits.’ She told me that I wasn’t to hustle you or date you or go after you in any way.”

“Why?” I could hardly believe what he was telling me.

“She said that your family means the world to her and she didn’t want me doing anything that might hurt you or upset your parents. I fudged on my promise to her that afternoon in your garden. That’s why I left so fast. I wanted a whole lot more, Darcy, but I knew I had to keep my promise.”

“B-but why would she even ask such a thing from you? It doesn’t make sense.” I was growing angry because Carole had meddled and she’d had no right to do that.

Jason grinned, lifted my chin with his forefinger. “It makes perfect sense. I told you once that I wasn’t a nice guy. That’s the truth. And you’re a nice girl. And that’s the truth.”

“So I’m too nice to mess around with?” I was getting angrier.

He studied my face, then said, “Why would you let any guy ‘mess around’ with you? You’re worth more than that.”

His question caught me off guard and I felt my cheeks growing warmer. “I—I didn’t mean—”

“I know what you meant,” he said. “But hear this. If we had started something, I couldn’t have stopped. I wouldn’t have wanted to stop. You know what I’m saying?”

Of course I did. And the thought of it made my face hot, and I knew I was blushing full-tilt. Without pausing to think about it, I threw my arms around his neck and kissed him hard. His arms swept around me and pressed me closer. All the emotions that had held me captive for the past months—grief, longing, frustration, anger, fear—boiled up inside me. An explosion of desire shot through my body like a flash fire. I felt his hands moving on me, and everywhere he touched begged for more.

Just as suddenly, I pushed him away. I took in great gulps of air. “Goodbye!” I cried. I ran for the house like a panicked rabbit. I ran because if I’d stayed, no promise in the world would have protected either of us from what would have happened next.

My mother always said that bad things happen in threes. For me, I counted the death of my mother, followed by the loss of Jason, as two. I waited expectantly for the third. It came in late August, when the army notified Adel that, “while on a routine mission,” Barry had stepped on a land mine and blown off his left leg.