Heart of the Country (14 page)

Dad’s face lit up. “So you’re doing cake?”

“No. Sorry. Can’t even make the boxed kind. But,” I said, “I did learn to make chocolate chip cookies from scratch from my sister-in-law.”

“Hmm.”

“Hmm? Too good for chocolate chip cookies?”

“Hmm, I didn’t know you had a sister-in-law.”

His expression broke my heart. I shook my head, didn’t look at him. “I’m sorry, Dad.”

“What’s her name?”

“Candace.”

“Candace. From New York?”

“
All
New York. Nice, but very proper. Very social. Has a hard time dressing down.”

“You looked very nice today, by the way.”

“Thanks.”

“So that means Luke has a brother or a sister?”

“Brother. But . . . they’re not close. They used to be. But they had a falling-out.”

“Maybe they’ll reconcile.”

“Doubtful. There’s too much history. Bad blood.”

“When you got your blood running in each other’s veins, there’s not enough history in the world to keep you from one another.” He rolled up his window an inch or two, though he was driving so slowly there was hardly a breeze anyway. “You ever gonna call him?”

“Luke knows where I am, has my number. If he wants to find me, he can.”

“That’s fine as long as you’re okay with the idea that he might not.”

I couldn’t even fathom it, to tell you the truth.

“Luke and I are great at the fairy tale. It’s the real-life part that we have trouble with.” For whatever reason, that teared me up. But I was kind of a basket case anyway. I knew what I knew. That his possible indictment wasn’t the first time we’d lost our grip on reality. If it hadn’t been this, it probably would’ve been something else.

“Don’t worry. That’s the truth for just about everybody.”

I glanced at him. “I have a hard time believing that about you and Mom.”

“Well, she died, didn’t she?”

I nodded, taken aback by Dad’s bluntness. The man was a master at beating around the bush and then planting a whole new one. “Yeah. She died.” I balled my fist up, put it against the window, and propped my cheek there. “I should’ve brought him here. I’m sorry.”

“You never have to be sorry with me, baby. I just want you to be proud of who you are.”

“I’m proud of you.” When Dad squirmed, I let him off the hook. “Anyway, I just wanted to do that for Olivia. Make something for dinner.”

“Then that’s the right reason to do it,” he said. “And no, I have nothing against chocolate chip cookies as long as they’re not made with fake sugar or applesauce or something horrible like that.”

“I’ll give you one right out of the oven,” I said.

Dad grinned all the way home. He looked tired, so I let him rest and took a stroll out to the stables. Silver’s ears twitched as I brushed him. And before I knew it, I’d saddled him up and was riding west, unaffected by the brisk fall breeze.

Dad had told me he was thinking of entering Silver into the fair next month. Thought the two of us could work to get him ready, bring him to the fair together. I wanted to resist this in a way, falling back into the old times, the way things were. Because even though I wasn’t there, a huge part of my heart was still planted in New York. And there was so much I had to come to terms with. Eventually Luke and I were going to have to talk, at the very least to resign ourselves to the idea of divorce. Eventually I was going to have to return to New York.

But eventually was as far away as I wanted it to be. So I lost myself in this country. Among the corn and the emerald tracks of soybeans. Below a sky so thick with blueness that the clouds looked like the white sands of the Caribbean.

This once was my storybook land. Fields of wildflowers. Deer leaping and bounding over oceans of green, waving grass. I lay over Silver, my cheek nestled against his mane, my fingers combing over his muscular body.

I wanted to stay here. Right here. This was perfect peace. Here I swam in the waters of tranquility.

But it ended with the distant wail of sirens that grew louder with every slow breath. I heard the same sirens the
day my mother died. And had heard them in my head for years afterward.

They weren’t in my head today. An ambulance raced past me, pulling with it the grass and the dust.

And my heart.

33

“D
ADDY!
D
ADDY
, hold on! God, please . . . Wake up
 
—”

Hardy knelt beside me. The girls stood nearby, huddling next to one another. Crying. “Girls, can you wait outside for the ambulance and tell them where to go when they get here?”

Nell nodded, guiding her sister out.

“He’s still breathing,” Hardy said.

“Hang on. Help is coming,” I whispered to Daddy, my lips near his ear. Outside, the sirens were getting closer and closer.

Even as I held Daddy, I wondered where in the world Faith was. Her car was out front. Had she taken that old
horse for a ride? She had no business riding him around. He could barely stand up.

Voices. And then the EMTs were hurrying through the front door. I stood and stepped back, allowing them in. “Please, please help him.”

Hardy rushed to my side and put his strong arm around me. I leaned into his chest and he covered my cheek with his hand. “This can’t be happening.”

“It’s going to be okay,” he said. “It’s going to be okay.”

“Dad?”
Faith’s shrill voice came from the back of the house. Hurried footsteps; then she appeared in the living room. Tears. I hated her tears. “What happened?” she asked nobody in particular.

I stomped over to her. “What have you done?”

“Me?”

“I would’ve never left him! Never! That’s why I came over, because everybody that knows Daddy at all knows he never passes up a chance to fish. He didn’t look right. Didn’t you notice that? Or were you too busy talking to Lee about all your drama?”

It should’ve felt awful coming out, but it didn’t. I could finally breathe, for the first time since I found Daddy unconscious on the floor.

He’d hit his head, and it was bleeding down the side of his face. Faith stared at him as the EMTs worked at getting him on the gurney. She held a hand to her mouth. It was shaking. I glanced at Hardy, who looked like he regretted witnessing everything that I’d just said.

“We need to get him to the hospital,” the dark-haired EMT said. He turned to Faith, who stood closest to him. “I need a list of any medications he’s on.”

Faith shook her head, looked at me. I stepped forward. “I’ve already got that in my purse. I also have his doctor’s phone number.”

They wheeled him outside. Dad wasn’t moving at all.

“I’ll ride in the ambulance,” I told Hardy as I followed, grabbing my purse on the way out. “Can you get the girls to Rebecca’s house?” My voice cracked and quivered.

“He’s going to be okay,” Hardy said, helping me into the ambulance.

Faith was coming out of the house, still crying. She stood and stared at me, wordless, motionless.

I took in a deep breath. Steadied myself. “Get to the hospital as fast as you can. Go ahead and grab his medications. They’re on his sink in the bathroom.”

“Okay.” She nodded frantically. “What else?”

“Grab his billfold. It’ll be on the kitchen counter. Has his insurance card.”

“Okay.”

“Faith,” I said, and her searching eyes stayed still, looked deeply into mine. “It’s going to be okay.”

The doors shut and I sat on the small bench across from Daddy as the EMT took his vital signs.

“How long to get there?”

“Fifteen minutes,” the EMT said. “He’s stable. That’s a good sign.”

“Daddy, I’m here. Right here,” I said, taking his hand. But I couldn’t say anything more without getting choked up, so I sat there like a pathetic lump on a log, staring out the back of the ambulance, wondering if they could drive faster.

I never said this to anyone, but I always wondered about Momma, being by herself in the ambulance. I wondered if she was scared. I wondered why nobody at the scene thought to ride with her.

I sat there, holding Daddy’s hand but picturing Momma. I squeezed my eyes shut because I didn’t want to think about it anymore.

I still carried my favorite photo of her in my purse. She was standing in the fields, holding her sun hat, in a bright-yellow dress. So bright it almost hurt your eyes to look at it. That’s how I wanted to remember her.

Faith, she’d always been the one to wonder more about the accident. But I didn’t want to know. It wasn’t how Momma wanted us to remember her. I didn’t want to remember Daddy like this either. He was such a tall, strong man. But strapped to the gurney, he looked weak and helpless.

After Momma’s funeral, Daddy hardly spoke, for weeks it seemed like. I knew he needed to grieve, but Faith needed more from him. I could tell that even then she was starting to pull away from him, from this family. Chasing dreams on greener grass. Guess she found that green grass is overrated.

“He’s coming to,” the EMT said.

I knelt down in the cramped space. “Daddy? Can you hear me?”

He mumbled something. I stroked the white bandage on the top of his head. “You took quite a fall. You may be looking at some stitches.”

“I’m sorry . . .”

“Don’t say that. This isn’t your fault.”

“Where’s Faith?”

I tried to smile. “She’s coming. She wasn’t there when you fell.”

“Sir, do you remember how you fell?” the EMT asked.

“No. I don’t remember anything.”

“He wasn’t feeling well,” I inserted, “after church. Wanted to lie down.”

“Take a nap,” Dad countered. “Not unusual on a Sunday.”

“Except when he turns down an opportunity to fish.”

“I was just tired,” Dad said, looking away.

“Have you been tired a lot lately?” the EMT asked.

I looked at Dad. He hesitated, and that hesitation said it all.

“A little.”

“It’s just been a tough week or so. Some family things. Probably drained him.”

The EMT took new vital signs and I watched as the hospital came into view. They pulled into the small circular drive and the rear doors opened. I hopped out, but when I looked back, he was convulsing.

“Daddy? What’s happening?”

“Seizure,” the EMT said, gently shoving me to the side as he backed the gurney out of the ambulance. Dad’s whole
body was shaking and I only saw the whites of his eyes. His hands were bent inward toward his stomach.

They wheeled him through the sliding-glass doors and I ran after them. A large metal door opened but a nurse stopped me. “We’ll update you as soon as we can.”

“But I’m his daughter.”

The nurse left and I stood there alone, my purse hanging off my arm. My breath kept catching in my throat. I backed away from the door, looked toward the waiting room. Babies’ hot-tempered screams rattled my nerves. Coughing. Sneezing. A swarm of unhappy sick people.

This was where we stood when Momma came.

I rushed outside, gulping air, crying out, clinging to my own arms because there was nothing else to cling to. A haze of cigarette smoke lingered by the door. I hurried past it and to the small mound of grass on the other side of the ambulance.

I collapsed, but my knees never hit the ground. Instead, I was caught up by two strong arms, underneath my own. When I opened my eyes, there she was, her face close to mine, her eyes shining with tears.

“Faith . . .”

She stood me up and embraced me. “Come here.”

34

“C
OME ON,”
I said, grabbing Olivia’s hand.

“But
 
—”

“Come on!”
I dragged her through the doors and into the waiting area. The nurse was busy taking the temperature of an uncooperative toddler. “Let’s go,” I whispered.

I punched the large button that opened the metal door and went through, walking at a brisk pace. Behind me, I heard Olivia following, whispering questions I ignored and comments I didn’t even want to hear.

Once in, the doctors and nurses all seemed too busy or complacent to notice us. I walked from one ER room to the next, looking for Daddy.

Then I heard Lee’s voice. “What have we got?”

“Found unconscious by his daughter. Had a seizure upon arrival.”

Another voice, this time a male’s: “Blood pressure and pulse are through the roof.”

“What are the
 
—?” Lee’s words were cut short by something.

Olivia and I stood at the opening of the room, where a crowd of people flocked around Daddy. I could see Lee clearly through a parting of heads. His expression said it all. He recognized the patient.

“Do you know him?” a nurse asked.

Then I heard Dad’s voice and it brought a crashing wave of relief. “Yeah, he knows me. He probably wishes he didn’t.”

A few chuckled. Lee smiled, but I saw concern in the deep wrinkles of his forehead.

“Daddy!” Olivia rushed in. A nurse grabbed her, but Lee okayed it with a gesture. He found me standing on the sidelines. He didn’t smile, but his eyes were intense with defiance and resolve.

“Okay, let’s get to work,” Lee said. “Alice, get the CT guys ready upstairs. We need a look in there ASAP.”

“Daddy, we’re here for you. Faith’s here too.” Olivia hovered over him.

“Calvin, we’re going to take great care of you,” Lee said, his voice scrubbed of emotion. Professionalism was kicking in, and that’s where I needed him to be.

“We’re ready for him upstairs,” Alice said.

“All right, let’s get him up there,” Lee said. I stepped aside as they rolled him out. Lee glanced at me, but not long enough for me to read his expression.

In mere seconds, Olivia and I were left alone. Two chairs sat against the wall of the small room and we dropped into them simultaneously. For a long time we didn’t say anything, just listened to the noises around us. I wondered where Lee was. I wondered what Olivia was thinking.

But we just sat. I was dizzy with emotion and worry. We were offered water by the man who came to mop the floor. I guess we both looked pathetic and parched. We declined.

Then Olivia moved her purse from her shoulder to her lap. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean those things back at the house. I was just scared.”

“It’s okay if you did mean them. It’s true. I haven’t been around. I didn’t see the signs.”

Olivia held a tear against her eye. “It’s just that Daddy doesn’t ever stop. He’s slowing down, sure. But . . .” She tore at the tissue she’d fished from her purse. “That day, Faith, I knew.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I felt something was wrong. The day of Momma’s accident. I couldn’t voice it. I didn’t know what it was. But something didn’t feel right inside of me.” Tears streamed down her face so fast there was no use trying to catch them with her tissue. “And for the rest of my life, I’ve been listening for that to come back. I’ve been afraid that it would. I tried to prepare myself because I didn’t want to ever be caught off
guard again. And so I’ve spent most of my life listening to my gut, and maybe that’s why I’ve missed so much of my life.”

I pulled her close and she laid her head on my shoulder, sobbing into my sleeve. “Shhhh, it’s okay. It’s okay . . .”

“Daddy can’t die. He just can’t.”

I squeezed her shoulder, but I couldn’t stop thinking about Lee’s eyes. I’d seen fear there. I didn’t know why. But I knew we soon would.

“You know,” I said softly, “Momma always said love was risky. But it’s worth it.”

“But what if you have to say good-bye?”

I thought of Dad. I thought of Luke. I thought of the day I left this place. The good-byes seemed endless. The thought of saying good-bye permanently to Luke felt like death itself.

“I guess I never said bye to Momma,” Olivia said, sitting up. She pulled out a picture from her purse. I couldn’t see it as she held it to her chest. “I took care of Daddy and I married Hardy and I had the girls and life just went on.”

“That’s how Momma would’ve wanted it, Olivia. She wanted us to go live a full life.”

“My heart aches every day for her.”

“Mine too.”

Olivia withdrew the picture from her chest and showed it to me. “You remember this?”

I took it from her and looked it over. Of course I remembered it. Dad had taken the picture. Mom was wearing her favorite yellow sundress and white lacy sandals. She looked gorgeous.

“That’s it,” I breathed, the thought slamming me right through my heart.

“What?” Olivia asked.

I looked at Olivia, crying myself now, shaking my head at how I could’ve missed it. “That awful painting I bought when Luke and I were . . . It was big and . . . yellow.” I stared at the picture. “That’s what drew me to it. This photograph. Mom wearing her yellow dress. I didn’t know it at the time, but that’s why I fell in love with it. It made me feel closer to her.”

“Every year that passes, she feels farther away from me,” Olivia said. “Sometimes I can’t hear her voice anymore. Or remember how she smelled.”

“I know.”

“And I promised myself I would never forget her.”

“You’re not forgetting her, Liv,” I said, putting my hand on her shoulder. “I see her when I watch you with Nell and Vic. You’re an amazing mother, the way Momma was amazing. You have this grace. This sixth-sense kind of way about you. You just know what to do. You make it seem easy and effortless. You take care of your family the way Momma took care of us. That’s how you are keeping her memory alive.”

“And you sing just like her.”

“So she’s in us. Every day, right?”

Olivia nodded. She sat up a little. “I don’t know much about Luke, Sis. But I bet he’s worth fighting for.”

Her remark took me by surprise. “Why?”

“Because he’s deep in your heart.”

“He lied to me. A big lie. Lies.”

“I know. But I’ve found the very best things in life are worth the hardest fights. You know Nell caused me thirty-six hours of labor? Sweating like a pig. My back aching. She just wouldn’t come easy. And Vic, well, she was perfect on the birthing side of things. Then she learned to talk and things went south. Stubborn. Moody. Opinionated. Guess she’s got a lot of our dad in her.”

I laughed. “They’re so adorable. Both of them.”

“Do you believe God brought you and Luke together?”

I thought for a moment, taking deep breaths and trying to clear my mind so I could really answer that question. “I think I do. I thought it was hopeless that I could ever find someone like that. He was real, Liv. Unconventional. Courageous. Never swayed by popular opinion. He loved his family but loved me more and made a tremendous sacrifice by marrying me. He still kind of pays for it to this day.”

“He left a comfortable, easy world so he could be with you. Maybe that’s your anchor.”

“Anchor?”

“The thing by which everything else is attached. You gotta start somewhere and work your way back. So start there.”

The sound of footsteps caused us to look up. Lee rounded the corner into the room, carrying X-rays and a heaviness with him. He turned on the screen and secured the X-rays so we could see them. He took a moment, looking at both of us, letting his doctor’s veil down a bit. His gentle smile was
perhaps meant to calm us, but I could do nothing but wait, holding my breath and my sister’s hand.

Olivia looked stoic. Her back was straight as a board. “How’s he doing? What’s going on?”

“We’re getting him a room upstairs for observation. I’d like to keep him overnight.”

“For?” I asked.

“Okay,” Lee said, rubbing his hands together. “At this point, the test results indicate he has a high-grade astrocytoma.”

Olivia and I just stared at him.

“It’s a form of malignant brain tumor.”

I felt Olivia’s hand go limp in mine. Lee stayed on the other side of the room, gazed at the X-rays, then at us. “Here’s the deal. I’m almost certain that’s what I’m seeing on the CT scan. See? Here. And at a different angle, here. Now, I’m just an ER doctor, so we’re going to need to verify this with a neurosurgeon, but . . .” He sighed, looking at each of us. “It’s pretty textbook.”

I wasn’t sure what shock was, but all I knew was that I didn’t feel like I was in my own body.

Lee pointed to the CT scan again. “You can see here in the discolored area the tumor, and the jagged, uneven edges of the mass are classic
 
—”

“I’ve heard enough. I get it,” I said.

But Olivia pulled her hand out of mine. “I want to hear it. Tell me everything.”

I stood, walked to the door, but couldn’t get myself to
go out. Lee’s voice faded in and out of the thick dread that silenced nearly everything else around me.

“The edging is the telltale indicator of malignancy . . . I’d like to refer him to a neuro-oncologist in Wilmington . . . Michael Whalen . . . he specializes in brain cancers . . . we can get Calvin in tomorrow. . . .”

If I stood there any longer, I was going to vomit.

Outside, I was cold. Or numb. I wasn’t sure. My fingers were clutched into fists and my fists were balled in my armpits. I stood there in the wind and didn’t cry. Just stood there.

Below the darkening sky, I felt laid bare by God. Filleted by His hand. My soul screamed to be let from its cage, but there was no way out. It was forced to stay and see and hear and experience the worst life had to offer. The agony was inescapable. Even as I tried to run from it, I could only stand and let it consume me.

I’m not sure how much time passed. I didn’t even remember the bench on which I found myself sitting now.

Then a hand.

I looked up and was surprised to see Lee. He was in his scrubs, rings of sweat around his armpits and his neck. “Hi. May I?”

I scooted over.

“I’m very sorry about your dad,” he said.

“Thanks.”

“They’ve made tremendous advances in cancer treatment over the
 
—”

“Save it,” I sighed. “I don’t want to hear the pep talk.”

“It’s not a pep talk. It’s the truth.”

“The truth.” I let that word hang in the air for a moment. Then I said, “You know, Lee, I wonder if things had been different, if . . . you know.”

“Yeah. I know.”

“I mean, we seem to be kindred spirits. There’s an easiness here. But there’s that thing between us. That heavy, horrible thing.”

Lee looked down, stared at his Reeboks.

“We’re good at ignoring things.”

“Maybe.”

“But how do we get past that thing?”

Lee leaned back, looking up at the sky as he rested his elbows on the top of the bench. “Why do we need to?”

“Maybe I need to. For me.”

“Maybe you do.” He said it knowingly.

I also leaned back, tried to rest my tense muscles, tried to breathe. There was no going back if it started. Once I asked for the truth, I was going to get it. And I knew from experience that truth could be as painful as lies. But what I’d learned was that the truth never caged you.

As darkness settled, so did my soul. I looked at Lee. “Okay.”

He stared at me. “You’re sure?”

No. I wasn’t sure. But as Momma said, love is risky. And maybe, just maybe, this was an act of love.