Porch Lights (17 page)

“I know. You’re right.”

“You know, it occurred to me this morning that you’re probably used to a pretty rigorous exercise regime in the army and all. I mean, you’re all muscle!”

“Yes. We worked out every day. It was good for stress.”

“Aha! You see? That’s what you need!” She reached in the pocket of her apron and pulled out a newspaper clipping. “Here, look at this. I cut this out from the
Moultrie News
for you. Kickboxing classes! You can go kick the, pardon my expression,
crap
out of something, and that’s bound to make you feel better, don’t you think?”

I hated to admit it, but I had been so foul-tempered since my arrival that it was becoming clear, even to me, that I needed some outlet for my anxiety. And to burn off those biscuits. Kickboxing might just be the ticket.

“I’ll check it out.”

“Good! Now tell me about your visit with your father.”

“Well, it was good, you know? We hung out and talked, trying to figure out my future. For now he thinks I should go over to the VA hospital and volunteer. I think it’s a brilliant idea. I can’t just sit around like this all the time.” I looked at my mother’s face and wondered for a moment why she looked so stung. Then I remembered that she was the one who had suggested it in the first place. “Just as you suggested a few days ago.”

The sting on her face dissolved into satisfaction. “Well, it’s nice to see that he and I still agree on something!”

“Yeah. Anyway, I’m going to take a ride over there today and see what’s going on. Do you want to go with me?”

“Oh, thanks, sweetheart, but I have so many things to do today. So tell me, what’s his house like?”

“Dad’s? You haven’t been there?” Mom cocked her head to one side and looked at me. “No. Huh?”

“Hardly.”

“Well, it’s a new house, not particularly pretty, pretty drab in fact. And it’s filled with blah furniture and a big-screen television. There’s a nice front porch with a swing and a couple of rockers. But you can tell it’s really just a man cave. There are no rugs or pretty towels. It’s very basic. You wouldn’t like it.”

“Humph. I’m sure I wouldn’t. But you had a good visit with him, I hope?”

“Yeah. It was really good.”

“What did y’all talk about besides volunteering?”

“We talked about Charlie.”

“I see. Well, that’s good. I haven’t told you this, but I have some news. I’m pretty excited about it.”

“What?”

“Tomorrow I have an appointment with a woman named Margaret Donaldson downtown. She was all over
Southern Living
last month.”

“Why?”

“Because she’s going to bring my appearance into the twenty-first century. She’s a makeover professional.”

“Why in the world do you want a makeover? You look fine!”

“How would you like to look
just
fine
? That sounds like someone wearing sensible cardigans and orthopedic shoes. God, Jackie, I’m only fifty-eight. I’m not dead yet, you know.”

“Mom, maybe I didn’t say this correctly. I mean, I wouldn’t change a thing about the way you look because you are so pretty for any age. I’m the one who probably needs a makeover.”

“Maybe. I mean that in the nicest way, honey. You’re a beautiful girl. And I know it’s beach casual and all that, but you know, looks are important.”

“To who? God, Mom! You know I’m not looking to attract anyone!”

There I went again. I was on the express train to Crazy Town again.

“Take a deep breath, Jackie. I only meant that a pretty nurse would certainly cheer a wounded veteran faster than one who didn’t give a hoot about how she looked. Happiness produces endorphins. You should know that. And you’re a beautiful young woman who might have fun with it. That’s all. Now, where’s Charlie? It’s way past time to go get the dogs.”

“He’s already off down the beach with them.”

“He is?”

“Yeah. I decided he’s old enough to do this on his own. And there’s something I haven’t told you.”

“What’s that?”

“Daddy’s coming down tomorrow to make ice cream with Charlie.”

“He is? Well, that’s very nice. And I shall not be at home to receive him, shall I? Kindly ask him to stay out of my bedroom and my medicine cabinet, will you? He can use the guest powder room if nature calls.”

She turned on her heel and left the room. Once again, I couldn’t really blame her. And I wondered for the fiftieth time what it would really be like if they got back together again. He really was an old salt, and she really was a glamour puss. But didn’t Hemingway, who was an authentic old salt if ever there was one, marry all those glamorous women? And weren’t they gorgeous in the blazing heat of Key West? I’d seen plenty of pictures of him with his wives in enormous straw hats and beautiful gauzy outfits and Katharine Hepburn–style high-waist trousers with pleats and cuffs and pockets. It could work.
They
could work. What could I do to make them see that their love wasn’t dead?

Healing seemed to be the central theme of my life. I was thinking about Charlie and me and how broken we felt, but what we felt was nothing compared to the devastation suffered by the veterans at the VA hospital. I spent a few hours there going around with the nurses and administration staff, and they had more jobs for me than I could have ever imagined. I could work in the pharmacy or registration or any number of places. What I really wanted to do was practice nursing because that was what I was trained to do. I filled out applications, and they said they would call me in a day or two. I had no doubt that they would because they seemed overwhelmed. But I didn’t feel overwhelmed because after Afghanistan it would take something pretty riotous to rattle me in any hospital setting.

The next morning arrived, Mom said her good-byes, Charlie took off with the dogs, and I cleaned up the kitchen.

“Good luck!” I said and gave her a smooch on her cheek.

“I can’t wait to hear what Ms. Donaldson has in store for me.”

“Well, for the record, I think you’re nuts, but hey, if it makes you happy? I say go for it!”

“Aren’t you even curious what it would be like to have someone make you look ten years younger?”

“No. Because that would make me twenty-five.”

“Well, tell your father I said hello or kiss it or something.”

“I’ll think of something to say.”

“Okay, then. I’ll see you when she’s all done with me!”

My instincts told me that she sort of wished she was going to stay home because it was one way she could spend a day with him without taking responsibility for him being there. Daddy was coming at my invitation, and I knew he was pretty nervous about it too. I didn’t know when the last time was that he had been in the house, but I imagined it had to have been years. Mom and Dad were not mortal enemies by any definition. She simply held him at arm’s length and he deferred to her wishes. It was all right with me when older people who had been married for decades got to the point where they simply wanted different things. Pursue them, for heaven’s sake. But did they have to live in separate houses? Couldn’t they figure out a way to live together, even if it was only as friends?

And what if Mom came home while he was still here? We would have a colossally awkward situation. Hopefully she’d call first.

I heard the screen door close on the front porch and went out to remind Charlie to put fresh water in the dog’s dishes. It was not even ten o’clock and already eighty-five degrees. Needless to say, it was humid enough to swim from one room to another. He was in the hammock with an e-reader.

“Where’d you get that?” I asked.

“Dr. Steve. He said I should use it to read ‘The Gold-Bug’ because it has a dictionary in it and some of the words are words I never heard of.”

“Like what?”

“Huguenot? Coppice? Manumitted? Do you know what they mean?”

“Well, we have Huguenots in Charleston whose families came over three hundred years ago. They were French Protestants, and I think they followed Calvin’s teachings.”

“Who the heck is Calvin?”

“Why don’t you Google him and see? You can use my laptop.”

“Yeah, maybe later. But look at this.” Charlie put the cursor over the word
coppice
and a definition popped up.
Thicket
. “What’s a thicket?”

“It means a densely wooded area, the kind you’d have to hack through with a machete.”

“Wow. Cool.”

“Yeah, cool. Listen, your grandfather is going to be here soon, so I hope you’ve got your room picked up and that the bathroom can pass inspection. And be careful with that thing. They break if you drop them.”

“No worries, Mom. It’s all good.”

“Okay, then, I’m going to go make iced tea for Guster and me. I’ll bet we drink it all.”

“Probably. I’ll just be right here,” he said. “I’m going to make a map.”

“That would be a good exercise for the old bean. What kind of map?”

“To find hidden treasure!”

“Well, of course! Why else?”

I went inside, put a large saucepan filled with water on the stove to boil, took four tea bags from the pantry closet, pulled off their labels, and tied the strings together. I wasn’t thrilled that Steve had taken another oh-so-cavalier step into Charlie’s life by allowing him to use his e-reader. For one thing, they were expensive, and if Charlie dropped it, I’d have to replace it. And I wasn’t too happy that he was reading Poe. I knew “The Gold-Bug” was benign enough, but if he liked it, he’d surely move on to the more grotesque stories by Poe.

When the water began to boil, I pulled the pot off the burner and dropped in the tea bags, thinking that ten minutes ought to do it. I heard a car door slam and went out to the back porch to see who was there. It was Dad. Dad with his curly salt-and-pepper hair and muscular arms and little paunch. He wasn’t a large man, only five foot nine, maybe, but he was adorable in his Hawaiian shirt and tortoiseshell Ray-Bans and Top-Siders. He was carrying an old wooden ice cream churn under one arm and two bags of groceries with his other hand.

“Hey! Wait! Can I help you with that?”

“Yeah, take a bag and give your old man a smooch!”

I planted a noisy kiss on his cheek and took both bags. Gosh, he smelled good, I thought, and it was in that moment that I realized he was considerably better groomed than he had been yesterday. Just seeing him brought a smile to my face. He stopped at the bottom of the steps.

“Is
she
here?”

“No, the coast is clear, and I think she’s going to be gone most of the day.”

“Humph.” He almost seemed disappointed. “Well, it’s probably best. Where’s Charlie?”

“In the hammock, that’s where he pretty much lives now. That is, when he’s not chasing after our neighbor’s dogs or building sand castles with some kids in a rental house down the road.”

As soon as we got inside the house, I called out for Charlie and he came running. “Guster!” He threw his arms around Dad’s waist, and Dad hugged him back.

“Well, would you look at you? You’ve got a regulation Lowcountry boy suntan! How about that?”

“Yeah, I’ve been going to the beach every day, and I got a job, you know. Did Mom tell you?”

“Yes! Yes, she did. Are those puppies on the porch?”

“Yep! Come on! I’ll show you!” He grabbed Dad’s hand and hurried him out of the room. “I have so much to tell you! Did you bring the ice cream machine?”

“You know I did! It’s a genuine White Mountain ice cream freezer that’s made by hand. It makes the finest ice cream in the entire world! And I brought all the things we need to make some first-class blueberry ice cream.” Dad turned back to me. “I’ll be on the porch.”

“I gathered as much. You boys go have fun.”

And the afternoon passed like this: Charlie talking nonstop about his job and the RiverDogs through lunch of egg salad sandwiches and Charlie chattering away like a magpie about Poe and “The Gold-Bug” and hidden treasure while they turned the crank on the ice cream freezer and Charlie bending Dad’s ear over sand dune formation and jellyfish while they gobbled up all the ice cream until, from the heat of the afternoon and the energy it took for him to remain focused, Dad fell asleep in his chair.

“I think he’s snoozing,” Charlie said to me in a whisper.

“Let’s let him rest, baby. Why don’t you take the dogs out?”

“Okay.”

I looked over at my dad. He was four years older than Mom, so that made him sixty-two. Sixty-two wasn’t old by any measure, but I’d noticed yesterday that he seemed to be slowing down a little. I couldn’t remember him falling asleep like that in the past. It must have been the heat. But what if he got sick? Who was going to take care of him? Would Mom? If he
was
sick, would he even tell her? I was in no shape to be thinking about his mortality or anybody else’s for that matter.

After about twenty minutes, Dad sat up straight and said, “Oh, my! I was fast asleep!”

“That’s okay. It’s hot as hell anyway. Want another glass of tea?”

“Sure. Where’s Charlie?”

“He just took the dogs out. He’ll be right back.”

I went to get his drink, and when I returned I found Dad standing up and looking out over the dunes. The afternoon sun glistened and sparkled on the water, and pelicans and seagulls were everywhere, flying, squawking, and swooping through the sky.

“I’ve always loved this view,” he said, and there was a certain wistfulness in his voice.

“Me too.”

“Don’t let Charlie go in the ocean tomorrow.”

“Why not?”

“There’s a hurricane coming our way. Not much of one, but they can cause rip tides.”

“Got it. I’ll watch the news too.”

Charlie returned in the next few minutes and brought the dogs up onto the porch, where he unhooked them from their leashes. Stanley and Stella had a few slurps of water and then settled down in their spots.

Dad said, “Charlie? I’m getting old, you know.”

Charlie said, “What do you mean? You’re not old!”

“Well, I’m old enough to forget that I bought you a special gift that’s in the back of my SUV. You want to go get it?”

“What did you do, Dad?”

“Oh, it’s just a little something I think he needs. That’s all.”