Love Mercy (32 page)

“You can make sure you eat three good meals a day. You can take a nap whenever you can. Drink a glass of milk. Take vitamins.”

“I can do all that,” she whispered.

“How far along are you?”

“I don’t know. Maybe two months?”

“You should see a doctor. Do you need money? I can send some money.”

Then Patsy started to cry.

“Oh, honey,” Love said, wishing she could transport herself through the phone wires. “I didn’t mean to make you cry.”

“It’s not that,” she said through her sobs. “It’s just that’s the nicest thing someone’s said to me in weeks.”

“Do you have someone you can go to besides your mama who can help you find a doctor?”

“Yes. My friend Liz’s mom is pretty cool. She said she’d help me. I’ve known her since I was fourteen. She’s a psychologist. She goes to our church.”

“Then don’t be afraid to accept her help. I’ll send you a check today, and we’ll keep in touch. This will all work out, even with your mama. She’ll come around eventually.”

“No,” Patsy said, her voice taking on a hard edge. “She won’t ever forgive me. I ruined her plans.”

Love almost said, yes, she will, but then realized she’d be stating something that she didn’t know to be true. Maybe Karla never would forgive Patsy. Love didn’t have any idea. But she did know one thing for sure. “She’ll always love you, Patsy. She might not be able to show it, and it might not be in the way that you’ll always need, but she’ll always love you. And she loves that baby inside you. You’ll see once she or he is born.”

“Maybe,” she said, not convinced. Someone in the background spoke to her, though Love couldn’t understand the words.“I gotta go, Grandma. Liz has a dentist appointment. Thanks for listening. Can we, like, talk again?”

“Absolutely. I’ll tell Rett you called. And take Liz’s mom up on her offer. Call me if you need to talk. Do you have my number?”

Patsy took it and promised she’d call. Love took down the friend’s address and said she’d mail her a check. “Take care of yourself, Patsy.”

“Yes, ma’am. Thank you.”

“Well,” Love said to Ace after putting Rett’s cell phone back on the table. “Maybe I handled that halfway all right. What do you think?” She stood there for a moment, wondering what she should do while she was waiting for Rett to come back.

She remembered the digital camera in her denim jacket. She got it out and downloaded the photos from Big Barn on a disc, then printed out the pictures of the colorful Morse code writing. For not the first time, she thanked the Internet fairies for Google. Within minutes she had a site that gave her more information about Morse code than she’d need in a lifetime. For one thing, she had no idea there were Morse codes for other languages. She printed off the traditional one and took it over to her easy chair along with the photos of what she and Mel assumed was written by August. Even though he didn’t remember doing it, it made sense that it was him, since he’d been a signalman in the navy.

Like a preschool child printing her first alphabet, Love slowly interpreted the message.

“Oh, August,” she whispered when she was finished, her eyes soft with tears. “Oh, my dear Pops.”

TWENTY-FOUR

W
hile Dale and Rett drove up Pacific Coast Highway, she pretended that they were together, maybe even married. Maybe on their honeymoon. She knew it was a total fantasy, but she couldn’t help herself. She stared out the passenger window at the paper-bag-colored hills dotted with patches of bright Kelly green and imagined their perfect life together.

It lasted for about three minutes. Then she remembered that when Dale left, her life would be like the brown parts of those hills. Her grandma said the hills were way greener in the early spring, after the winter and spring rains came. They are so green, Love had said, that it is hard imagining them being any other color. Her grandma said it somehow surprised and amazed her every year. Rett wondered if she’d be here long enough to see what they looked like.

She glanced over at Dale’s profile, then past him to the Pacific Ocean, a shiny, glossy blue that made her head hurt, it was so pretty. For this little while, she told herself, she could pretend. This would be all she’d have for the rest of her life, this one moment of pretending that he chose her. She knew she should be mad. He was a jerk and a phony and made her feel totally humiliated. Still, she was glad to be with him. As pathetic as that was, she was glad.

“Where do you want to go?” he asked, glancing at her, giving her that cocky smile that made her stomach lurch like she would throw up if the car turned too fast.

“I don’t know. Just drive.”

She looked back at the hills. They reminded her of something she’d seen on television once. A songwriter—she couldn’t remember who—told the interviewer that there was a story in everything, a reason to write a song, that you just had to discover what it was. It was kind of like what her grandma had said, that Rett should look at this situation as an experience, pain she had to go through to really understand life. That helped a little and also made her see the hills going past her window in a different way. She tried to study them with a more open mind, not trying to imagine perfect green hills, but appreciate them for what they were right this moment. As she did, she realized they weren’t just a plain brown but a complex palate of browns and golds and tans. If she stared long enough, shapes appeared: lazy-looking lions and the shadowed faces of old men, their crevices deep and mysterious with age, the deep green oak trees looking like eyes and mouths. These were, she realized in that moment, the same hills and oak trees that her father saw growing up. What had he thought as he watched them change with the seasons? Did he miss them when he moved to Tennessee? Did they come to him in his dreams like parts of him—his eyes, a word or two, the feel of his hands—sometimes haunted hers? That elusive scent of him, his voice saying her name, like the bridge of a song she barely remembered. She wanted to ask Love more about Tommy. But she was afraid. Maybe her grandma would start crying, and Rett didn’t know if she could stand that.

These hills were the same ones the pioneers saw hundreds of years ago and the Indians before them and before the Indians, who knew? They’d been through so much, these hills, these old, gnarled oak trees, these jagged rocks. She tried to imagine that—eternity—time before she existed and time after she was gone. Where did a person go when they died? She knew about heaven and hell, what she was taught, but sometimes it didn’t seem real to her. Was her father in heaven? Where was heaven, anyway? Her head was starting to hurt with the complexity of it all.

“Looks like you’re trying to solve the problems of the world over there,” Dale said, chuckling.

She looked at him, amazed at first by his insight, then a little annoyed. He was joking, of course. She wondered what he’d do if she told him, Why, yes, that’s actually what I was trying to do.

She narrowed her eyes. “Why did you tell me you loved me when you were sleeping with my sister?”

Her blunt question caught him by surprise. The car swerved to the middle of the road, hitting the divide bumps, jarring her teeth.

“Man, where did
that
come from?” He pulled the car back to their lane, the road smooth again. “I’m glad no one was coming at us from the other side when you threw that bomb at me.”

She studied the side of his face, its unshaven cheeks, his shadowed eyes, full of impossible promises. She knew what those cheeks felt like against her own soft skin, the taste of him, smoky and sweet and full of mysteries she wanted to experience. Then Patsy’s face seeped into the picture, a ghost lover, his real lover. As always, Patsy knew so much more than Rett, even in this. Rett wondered for the first time if, maybe, she couldn’t have done a lot better choosing her first love. Yeah, right, a little voice inside her cracked. Like a person can choose.

“What in the heck,” she said, trying to make her voice hard, “did you think we were going to talk about on this drive? The weather? Your mama’s corn bread recipe? Your freakin’ upcoming tour of a lifetime?”

He frowned and gripped the steering wheel with both hands: ten o’clock and two o’clock, she remembered from her driving lessons in high school. She could see the tension in his flexing fingers. “I assumed we’d talk about how you were going to give me back my banjo. Then, well, say good-bye and stuff. That’s what I thought we’d talk about.” He glanced over at her, giving her a tentative smile. “Look, we had some nice times. You gotta admit that. We had some laughs.”

He abruptly pulled over to the side of the road, coasting to a stop. He unbuckled his seat belt, turned to her and took her face in his hands. He looked deep into her eyes, that lazy half smile on his face. She tried to pull away, but he held tight, his warm hands enticing her, pulling her back into that place that both intrigued and frightened her.

“Rett,” he said, his voice low. “You know I never meant to hurt you. You are so special.” He bent his head close, and she knew if she had an ounce of pride, she’d stop him right now. But she couldn’t. She had to taste him one more time. His lips grazed hers, a soft kiss full of promise, fake promise she knew, but she could pretend for a few seconds. He pulled her closer and kissed her again, deeply, his thumbs caressing her cheeks, his tongue tasting like butter, his scent enveloping her in a musky, leathery cloud of longing.

“Oh, baby, I’ve missed this,” he said, murmuring against her lips.

Her spine stiffened. He didn’t say
her
.
This.
He missed this. Not her.
This.
She shoved him away. “Stop it.”

Not appearing surprised or angry, he laughed, rebuckled his seat belt and turned the ignition. They didn’t speak for the next few minutes. He whistled softly under his breath while she inwardly screamed at herself: Stupid, stupid, stupid girl.

Up ahead she saw a parking lot filled with cars, a scenic outlook. “Pull over.” Better to be where there were other people so she wouldn’t be tempted again. Besides, she needed some air.

He flipped his left turn blinker and pulled into the gravel parking lot. There were about twenty or so cars parked facing the ocean. People stood in front of a fence looking out at the deep green and blue Pacific.

“What’re they looking at?” he asked.

She jumped out of the car without answering and walked over to the fence. Down below on the wet sand, right on the edge of the ocean, were hundreds of what looked like silvery walruses.

“Our newest pup is over there,” an old man in a blue jacket said to her, pointing at what looked like a smaller walrus. He handed her a pink sheet of paper. “Probably weighs sixty pounds or so.”

“What are they?” she asked.

“Elephant seals,” he said, pointing to his jacket. The patch above his heart read Friends of the Elephant Seal.

“Bizarre,” Dale said, walking up to them.

“Not at all, young man,” the old man said. “They’re really quite amazing. The adult males swim all the way to Alaska and back during the year. Like to see you try that.” He winked at Rett, then walked over to another car pulling up filled with young kids. “Follow the walkway to get a better view,” he called over his shoulder. “But stay on this side of the fence. Don’t throw anything at them. And no feeding them.”

“Yes, sir,” Dale muttered under his breath. “Hey, this is kinda lame. Plus they smell. Want to go find someplace to eat?”

“No,” Rett said. “I want to see the elephant seals.” She started walking along the path that ran along the fence. She didn’t look back to see if he followed. He ran up beside her, grabbing at her hand. She jerked away. “Let’s go all the way to the end of the walkway.” He grumbled under his breath but followed her.

The elephant seals’ skin looked silvery in the sunlight, though as Rett looked closer, she could make out an amazing number of shades: gray, blue, white and brown. They reminded Rett of the hills she’d just seen. The seals lay next to each other in long lines, like girls sunbathing at a public pool. Other groups appeared to have been tossed there, like bait-fish in a tank. Some lay alone, basking in the weak winter sunlight. The best were the babies, whose eyes looked like shiny black jewels. She wished she could see closer and envied the people carrying cameras with telephoto lenses. One baby was all alone, down near the edge of the water, and she wondered which of the barrel-shaped seals was its mother. She leaned as far as she could over the fence, trying to see better.

“Here,” an older woman said next to her. She held out a pair of huge black binoculars. “You can see more detail with these.” The woman wore tan cargo pants and a faded navy sweatshirt.

“Thanks,” Rett said. She put them up to her eyes. An involuntary “Oh” escaped from her lips. The little seal seemed to be staring straight at Rett, the mysteries of the ocean smoldering in its black eyes.

“Yes, it is quite astounding,” the woman said. “Your first time here?”

Rett gripped the binoculars. “They’re beautiful.”

“Yes, they are. I’ve come all times of the year, and they are always different. Did you get a brochure?”

Rett nodded, lowering the binoculars to look at the woman.

“They can weigh up to five thousand pounds, and each male has his own territory, where he has thirty to forty females.”

“Sounds like a good deal to me,” Dale said, grinning.

Rett turned to frown at him. His face flushed. She turned back to the woman, who was brushing back her kinky gray hair. “They seem so peaceful,” Rett said.

“Right now they are,” the woman said, gesturing over at a bunch lying in a row as neat as canned sardines. “They started arriving in November and, boy, did they put on a rough-and-ready show. They bellowed and fought like a bunch of adolescent boys.” She glanced over at Dale and raised her eyebrows. “The females start arriving in December. You’re seeing the first of them. The babies are just now starting to be born, and we’ll see pups until early February. I’ve been lucky enough to witness one giving birth.”