Hatteras Girl (Heart of Carolina Book #3) (7 page)

Sometimes Minnie wears guilt and remorse like heavy jewelry. Today the necklace called Mama is causing her neck to turn blue. I want to take it off her neck, rub her shoulders, and tell her that things will get better.

We drop off Zane at Uncle Ropey and Aunt Beatrice Lou’s. Zane perks up when my aunt says she’s going to take him to the library in her yellow truck.

“We’ll pick out books about trucks,” she says in the same magical tone she uses when reading
The Little Engine That Could
during the library’s story hour.

With a smile, Zane rushes to give his mother a good-bye hug.

The spring day is breezy, the clouds are like cotton puffballs, and I’m feeling content as we drive toward the home in Nags Head. I replay my discussion with Davis in my head. He likes John Wayne movies and old homes. He has a twenty-foot runabout boat that is brand-new, just purchased last month. He plays golf with the mayor of Hatteras once a month, and his hero is Manex Jethro, a musician who lived in poverty in Columbus until he made his big break as a songwriter and performer just nine years ago. I’ve never heard of Mr. Jethro, but Davis spoke like this guitarist reached for the sky and, due to his strong tenor voice and a heap of hard work, obtained his dream.

When we are a few miles from the nursing home, Minnie interrupts my thoughts. “Zane is acting a little better at being away from me these days.”

I wonder if I’ve ever sat through an entire John Wayne movie. To Minnie, I say, “Maybe Zane’s growing up.”

We cross over the Oregon Inlet Bridge that takes us from the island to Nags Head, the water sparkling like a jewelry store beneath us. I love living in this area. I would not want to live anywhere else. The ocean and sky never seem to stop, giving you a feeling that there is always more to see, and more to experience.

But once we pull into the parking lot of the nursing home, my stomach starts to feel like a boulder has lodged itself between my small and large intestine. I fake a smile when Minnie looks at me as we make our way to the front entrance of the brick building with black shutters.

When we enter through the wide glass doors of the building, the smell of boiled potatoes, turnip greens, Pine-Sol, and L. J. greet us.

L. J. wears a perfume that’s sweet, like Minnie and I wore in high school for school dances. She’s one of the members of All That Glitters Is Gold, my aunt Sheerly’s senior citizens’ band. Often she and the others give little concerts at the home, but today she’s volunteering by helping the staff.

When the white-haired gentleman in a wheelchair complains she’s pushing too fast, she says, “Now, Handsome, you are just too young to be complaining like an old man.” She bends to pick up a handkerchief that a small wrinkled woman mobilized by a walker has dropped.

The woman takes the handkerchief and tucks it into a large pocket in the front of her gingham dress. “Thank you,” she says to L. J. She then looks at me and mumbles, “Thank you.”

“Irvy’s by the piano,” L. J. says to us before maneuvering the man around a corner. “I think she knew you’d be here. She’s in good spirits today.”

Sure enough, a thin woman in turquoise slippers and a matching robe sits in her wheelchair by the baby grand piano. Her right hand moves from the blue crocheted blanket on her lap to her mouth when she sees Minnie and me approach. Her mouth is open, droopy on the left side. A light moan releases from her throat.

Minnie hugs her mother, runs fingers down her sparse gray hair, and kisses her cheek.

From an abandoned card table, I pull over two folding chairs. I place a chair on either side of the wheelchair, and we sit down, Minnie on the right and me on the left.

Minnie says that within minutes of getting to the nursing home she can tell whether her mother is having a talkative or a silent day. She claims she can tell just by looking in Irvy’s eyes. Regardless of whether Irvy wants to converse or just grip the edge of her blanket with her good hand, she rarely makes sense to me. Ever since her stroke four years ago, I haven’t been able to understand her speech.

One and a half million dollars,
I think to myself.
Can a person like me get a loan for that much money?

Minnie’s bracelets clink against each other as she reaches for Irvy’s right hand. “Mama, how are you?”

Irvy’s mouth moves in slow motion. “The farm is in Cary.”

“Yes,” Minnie tells her and quickly smiles. “Mama, do you want to go outside for a while?”

Irvy looks past her; her right eye twitches. “The farm is in Cary.”

This is one of Irvy’s favorite lines. There’s another one she repeats whenever she’s driven from the home across the inlet bridge to Sheerly’s for Sunday dinner. Irvy never says a word until Uncle Ropey crosses the bridge and then, always at the same spot, just as the tires of his car hit the road again, she blurts out from the backseat, “I heard that they got married on a pontoon boat.”

Uncle Ropey has heard this so many times, he is always ready with an answer. This varies from, “Well, it was about time” to “Really now? I would rather get married on a canoe.”

“Mama, you look nice,” Minnie says.

Irvy’s lips find each other after a couple attempts, and something resembling a smile forms across her face.

When Minnie talks with one of the nurses, Irvy and I are alone.

I shift in my seat, feeling like Zane must when he gets a haircut at Sheerly’s salon. Desperately, I try to see the face of the woman I knew as a child, the one who entertained us with Frank Sinatra songs on her piano. After our visits at the Bailey House, we’d walk to Minnie’s cottage on the ocean side of the town. From the front yard, we’d hear Irvy playing and singing at the piano. Quietly, we’d slip inside the front door, trying not to rattle the doorknob that had a tendency to sound like BBs rolling inside a tin can. Sometimes a student would be seated on the bench beside Irvy; sometimes Irvy sat alone with new sheet music. She frequented the music shop in Manteo and particularly liked to buy selections from movie soundtracks.
Casablanca
and
The King and I
were two of her favorites.

“Hair done at Sheerly’s,” Irvy tells me as a pool of saliva runs down her chin.

I nod. I want to wipe her chin, but I don’t have a tissue or anything with me.

“Sheerly does my hair.” Talking is labor for her.

My eyes focus on a bruise on her wrist, purple lined with avocado green. It looks like a butterfly, one wing shorter than the other.

Minnie is back now, taking her seat.

I let my hands relax.

“Take me to Sheerly’s,” Irvy demands.

“She’s coming here, Mama.” Minnie finds a tissue in her purse— she keeps a pack in there for these occasions—and gently clears away the wetness from her mother’s face. “She doesn’t want you to travel. She’ll fix your hair here.”

A long pause, and I’m aware of movement around me. A silverhaired woman in a cotton duster is looking under my chair for her glasses. “I lost them, Annabelle.” Her thin, spotty face is inches from mine. She lets out a breath, and my senses are saturated with antiseptic mouthwash. “Annabelle, do you see them?”

I have been called many things in my life but never by this name. Bending down, I glance under my chair. “Nope.”

The woman looks at Minnie and then gestures toward Irvy. “Has anyone seen my glasses?”

An attendant in medical-green scrubs searches with her. “Are you sure, Miss Williams, that you were by the piano when you misplaced them?” he asks as his hands slide over the bench.

I feel like I do when Zane is looking for his stuffed squirrel—wanting to hurry and find the critter so I can be released from the frustration of its being lost.

The attendant ushers Miss Williams away from us, telling her that the missing glasses might be in her room.

“I want to get out of here.” Irvy’s right arm starts to sway with short, jerky movements.

Minnie uses her soothing voice. With fingers stroking her mother’s arm, she says, “You like it here, Mama. You like the liver and onions.”

“Yes, I do.”

“Then you need to stay.”

Irvy’s eyes shut, she groans, and then, “Are they for lunch today?”

“Yes, liver and onions.”

Her mouth continues to move, more saliva along her chin.

Minnie wipes it with the tissue.

Irvy asks, “With banana puddin’?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Yella banana puddin’. ”

“Yes.”

After a measurable pause, Irvy says, “Not the brown kind.”

“You mean applesauce.”

“No, I want puddin’!”

“Yes, yes, I know.”

She twists in her wheelchair. “I . . . I . . . I . . .” Her fluffy slippers have come off her feet.

“There, now,” says Minnie.

Soon Minnie’s mom is asleep, her wrinkled mouth open like a banana slice.

The attendant named Dicey covers Irvy’s limbs with a faded pink quilt and then fits Irvy’s feet back into her slippers and snuggles them into the constraints of the wheelchair’s footholds.

Minnie tells Dicey that she guesses she won’t be feeding Mama today. Once, she woke her mother from a nap, and Irvy was so disoriented that Minnie vowed never to do that again. Dicey smiles and says, “We’ll take good care of Miss Irvy. Don’t you worry your head, now.”

When Minnie and I open the glass door to exit the home, the sunshine greets us with a blast of stifling heat. Normally, I’d feel bothered by the sudden humidity, especially after being in a building that was cool—but not now. I want to run, just to prove that I am agile enough to be free from the home’s gray walls and brown doors, a place congested with geriatric confinement. I flex my arms a few times and in the reflection of a parked Cadillac check my hair. Still black, coarse. There is no graying or balding. I take my brush from my purse, enjoying the way the bristles run down my strands, making my hair full of life. Being almost thirty isn’t bad at all today.

Inside Minnie’s car, I fasten my seat belt. As she backs the Intrepid out of the driveway, I recite my verb tenses. Leave, leaving, left. Go, going, gone. The home makes Zane afraid of germs. I just like to make sure my brain still works. I roll down the window and fill my lungs with pine mulch that is being spread around a nearby hotel’s grounds, the scent of turnip greens and boiled potatoes far behind.

“That wasn’t too bad, now was it?” Minnie heads south on Route 12.

“No.” Sorry, Mom, but I will not tell the whole truth right now.

As we continue toward the inlet bridge, I try to ignore the fact that she’s following a pickup much too closely. My palms begin to sweat. Before I can say a word, the truck stops, Minnie’s foot slams the brake, and we both lurch forward.

I gasp.

The truck makes a left turn; Minnie accelerates. “Why people can’t use their turn signals is beyond me.”

I find my breath as we pass a twenty-five-miles-per-hour speed limit sign.

Moments later, I see a tear making its way down my friend’s cheek.

“Minnie, she is so lucky to have you.” I let my words come out like a lullaby for a toddler who needs assurance that the world is safe.

She stares at a battered Buick with a Kentucky license plate in front of us. “Will you play the flute?”

We are now on the bridge, and I can see beaches dotted with people and lined with an array of billowy umbrellas and colorful chairs. Closer to us are clusters of fishermen with rods waiting for the perfect catch of the day.

“The flute?”

“At her funeral.”

I almost say that she should not think this way, that her mother is not going to die, that she’ll be giving piano lessons again in no time. But that’s not the truth, either.

“Yes,” I say and feel tears bite the backs of my eyes.

“ ‘Jesus Loves Me’ would be good.”

That’s one of the first songs Irvy taught Minnie on the piano.

I find my voice. “I can do that.”

“Thanks.” She sniffs twice, then, “No backing out.”

10

My dad started me on making lists,
informing me that life goes smoother when you can read what you need to do.

Today’s to-do list has the words
buy flowers
on the top. I know just the kind I want to buy for Minnie. She’s always been fond of pink roses; there were vases of them at her wedding, and they were in her bridal bouquet.

Last night when I got up to go to the bathroom, wishing I hadn’t drunk three glasses of iced tea at dinner, I heard muffled weeping from Minnie’s bedroom. I paused at her door to listen. I considered knocking to see what was wrong, but the noise soon decreased. My desire to go back to a warm bed overruled.

This morning I woke with two thoughts on my mind. The first was that my article about Davis and his realty business is due on Selena’s desk by five today. The second was the reason Minnie was crying last night. Today is an anniversary that no one wants to have on his or her calendar. A year ago Lawrence died when an angry sea capsized his fishing boat.

When Minnie leaves for her shift at Over the Edge, she lets me know that this afternoon she’ll be at Sheerly’s. This is a job I got for my friend when she confided in me about her need for another part-time job in order to pay her part of the rent. Minnie isn’t licensed to cut hair, but she sweeps it up with the broom, makes hair appointments, collects payments, and orders hair care products. She says Sheerly is easy to work for and always sings or hums. “And the things I learn about everybody there,” she says in a hushed voice. “Sheerly’s clients love to share . . . a lot of stuff.” My guess is that being at Sheerly’s is like reality TV—much too revealing and always predictable.

After a lunch of ham sandwiches and chips, it’s evident that Zane and I need to get out of the duplex. Zane is irritated about something; I can tell by the way he bangs his trucks together. The large yellow Tonka continues to collide with the smaller one as Zane shouts, “Crash, boom, you are dead!” He spells dead, only he leaves out a letter and repeats, “You are d-a-d. Dead.”

The day is sunny with little humidity, a good one to run some errands. Minnie has remembered to leave his car seat for me. I take the boy with me to drop off an article at the
Lighthouse Views
office. When we get inside the office, Selena isn’t in. Bert tells me that she went to talk to the owner of some new health club. Cassidy says she’s lost two pounds and fourteen ounces since Monday. I congratulate her and then tell Zane, who has made his way into the men’s room, to hurry. He calls from inside the restroom, “I’ll only be a minute.”