Sadie's Mountain (10 page)

It’s as if I’m experiencing saying goodbye to him with all my senses since I was numb back when it really happened. It hurts and my scalp prickles. I feel hot but I’m shaking. I miss him but he’s right here in my arms. It doesn’t feel like it in my heart because it’s throbbing.

After a time, my breathing starts to calm, no doubt by pacing mine to his, and I can put my legs down again. I keep the side of my face on his shoulder and take in his scent. I’ve missed this. It’s like a scent created by God just for me and me alone.

He’s still rubbing his hand up and down my back, his nose is in my hair.
Live wires
stroking my back is how it feels. We fit together like the two halves of one of those thin, cliché, half-heart pendants—still do. Everything feels right for the first time in, well, a very long time—a lifetime ago. But I’m embarrassed at the position I’ve put myself in. That’s the only reason I want to get up.

Slowly, I move away from him, looking down so as not to catch his eyes. As I stand up he grasps my hands lightly, like he doesn’t want to break contact with me.

“Do friends hug like that?” I ask, jokingly.

“These two do,” he answers. He looks so serious as he sits there in the chair. “I guess my song had the opposite effect on you than what I’d predicted,” he says, assessing my face to see if I’m okay. He speaks so differently now—so grown up.

“What was that called?”

“Down by the Sally Gardens
. It’s actually an old poem written by William Butler Yeats.”

“Oh, it was life altering,” I should have said it was
nice
but the words just tumble out of my mouth.

“Sadie!” Missy calls from inside the house.

“Yes! We’re outside,” I call.

Missy appears in the doorway. “Oh! Dillon. Back again so soon,” she teases.

“I’m having a hard time staying away,” he admits, looking up at me and letting go of my hands, which actually makes me sad. I need to make contact again. It hurts not to, so I rub the top of his hand with the edge of my pinky and he turns his hand over letting just the tips of our fingers touch. I don’t look at him. I just feel.

“I smelled the coffee,” Missy says, her voice jerking me into the now. I open my eyes, “Figured someone had to help this one here with making it.” She looks lovingly at me.

“I think I could’a done it,” I pout, and take my hand away from his.

“How about some breakfast,” Missy says, slapping her knee. “I’ll make us some flap jacks, sausage, eggs, you name it.”

“Yes, please, minus the sausage for me,” I say, looking at Dillon to see if he wants to stay.

“I’d love to,” he answers my unstated question. 

Chapter Eight—Sadie’s Mountain

While Missy works in the kitchen and Dillon sits at the table with my two brothers and the babies, I fetch the tea and the paste I’ve made and creak up the stairs to momma’s room. Her room smells like that medicine again. She’s laying there so still, her breaths light like she’s holding onto life from a thin thread.

Missy must have just been in here tending to her because the bags hanging from the metal pole look full and the ones on the bed look empty. I guess I should learn how to help with that.

I pull up the chair that is nestled in the corner of the room and open the Mason jar with the mixture I created this morning. Seeing Momma like this pricks a nice-sized scratch in my soul.

I just want to remember her young and feisty. She almost transforms back to her beautiful self as my stinging eyes fill with tears again. I wish she never had to get sick. Her skin looks very thin, almost see through. Her closed eyes remind me of delicate prunes covered in wet paper. I scoop out some goldenseal, pick up her weightless limb and begin to rub her hand and arm with it. Her skin wrinkles and slides around over her hollow bones. That’s what wakes her.

“Sadie,” she says, like there are marbles in her throat.

“Yes, Momma.”

“You got me some yella root?”

“I found three good ones,” I say, and smile a painful smile. One that cracks my façade.

“It feels better already, honey,” she says, as she smiles dimly. Then she reaches her broken bird arm and points to the oil painting that hangs above her high boy dresser. “See that, Sadie.  I painted that.  Bet’cha didn’t know that all these years.”

“No, I didn’t. I remember it though—from when I was little.”

I get up and walk over to take a better look. My memory hadn’t done this justice. It is Gauley Mountain. That’s easy to tell. It’s an impressionist painting kind of like one you would see from Degas’ protégé, Mary Cassatt, if she’d found her way to our homestead. Women painters always seem to capture life in a different perspective, don’t they? It’s as if women see it for what it really is rather than what it should be.

 The colors are vivacious—greens and reds, yellows too. And the strokes, carefree—like they don’t care if anyone understands what they’re supposed to mean when they’re all together.

“It’s beautiful, Momma,” I say, in earnest.

“That’s Sadie Mountain,” she says, breathy.

“That’s what you call the painting?” I ask.

“Yes, I painted that,” her pause is long between breathes, “when I was carrying you,” she says, as she strokes her stomach, her eyes far off like she’s reliving the feeling of me being in there.

“Where were you when you painted it?”

“I’d lean up ‘gainst the rock. The one that looks like a woman’s face,” she says, trying to catch her breath. “My momma would come take care’a Missy so I could paint.”

“You don’t have to talk Momma,” I say, trying to get her comfortable again.

“No, I want ta tell ya.”

“Okay.”

“Doc Morris said I needed ta take it easy. All the miscarriages I done had, painting kept me calm. Helped me keep you with me,” she says, as a wide smile takes over her sunken face. I had no idea why there was such a big age gap between me and Missy, and then me and the boys. This makes perfect sense. Momma had miscarriages and now she has uterine cancer.

“We can’t let ‘em do it, Sadie.”

“Do what, Momma?”

“Blow up our mountain.”

“Oh, yes, Momma. Dillon told me about that. I’m going to the meeting tonight at the school.”

“You have to stop ‘em.”

“Of course. Of course, Don’t worry about that. I’ll do everything I can. Rest now, Momma.”

“My mouth hurts,” she says, after she takes a big, raspy breath.

“I brought you the tea,” I say as I bring the cup to her lips. She takes some into her mouth and swishes. I give her another cup to spit in.

“I love you, little bean,” she says. “Thank you for comin’ back here. I know it’s hard fer ya.” A little tear wells up in her eye. I want to look away as it falls down her cheek.

“I love you, Momma. Nothing can keep me away from you now,” I reassure her, as I stroke her hand.

“I wish things were diff’rent,” she tries.

“It’s fine. I’m glad I came. Rest now, Momma.” She nods and closes her eyes in one swoop, and I rub her face gently in the same way she used to rub mine. I start at her forehead and sweep lightly across, down over her nose, over each cheek, and back around the same way several more times. She sighs peacefully in her sleep.

“Sadie,” a voice says from the door. It’s Seth when I turn around.

“Hi, Seth,” I say, trying to sound like a nice person.

“Missy says it’s breakfast time.”

“Okay, thank you.”

“What ‘er you doing there?”

“I was just trying to soothe her. Help her sleep. I gave her some yellow root.” He looks at me like I’m an alien from Planet Mean. I smile again and he frowns.
Ugg.
This kid really hates me.

“I had to go, Seth,” I say before I realize I’m thinking it.

“I didn’t care.”

“I’m sorry I left you behind. I’ve been a crappy sister.”

“Yeah, you have,” he says, shocked that I’m being honest. He steps into the room and lightly starts tapping the footboard of the old metal bed with his sock-covered toe.

“I used to chase cars ‘cause that’s the way I remember you leaving. I thought you would be in one of ‘em.”

“How old were you?”

“‘Bout four. Nobody could take me no where or I’d run off.” The image of him, so little, just barely a child, chasing after cars because he thought he could find me. It hurts.

“I’m so sorry,” I say as I reach out to rub his shoulder. “I had to get away. I was going crazy here,” I explain.

“I know what happened,” he says. “Missy told me.”
Oh, that’s a bit embarrassing
.

“If it’s all the same to you, I’d rather not talk about it. It’s real hard for me to...”

“Naw, it’s cool,” he says.

I look him in the eye and he does look like a big version of the little boy who stole my thunder when he was a baby. I was so used to getting all the attention. For ten years I was the baby and then he came home from the hospital. It’s one of my most vivid memories. The key feeling that always comes to me is that of envy. It’s the first time I’d ever felt really and truly jealous.

“Yours was the first diaper I ever changed,” I say, as I pretend to elbow him in the rib. “Believe me. I wished it was my last.” He pretends to be wounded and winces.

“Pretty good right elbow you got there, Sparks,” he says, a grin finally pulling up the corners of his mouth, making his eyes sparkle.

“Let’s eat,” I say and we creak down the stairs and make our way to the breakfast table. Dillon is watching me the whole time. I start to feel like I’m growing a horn out of my head or something.

“How’s your momma?” he asks. There’s sadness in his tone. I just put my head down.
How is my momma?
Well, she just told me things about her I never knew. She told me about the vibrant oil painting being called Sadie’s Mountain, that she painted it at our
real
kiss rock, about miscarriages, and she asked me to save the mountain.

“She wants me to help save Gauley Mountain,” I reply. All the mouths open at the breakfast table at the same time. They look at me like I’ve got fire coming out of my ears.

“Oh, no she didn’t!” Missy says.

“Yes, she did,” I say, hurt.

“You can’t be comin’ over here buttin’ into this, Sadie! This is a big huge fight you just shouldn’t be getting’ in the middle of.”

I say nothing as I fork a pancake on my plate and slather real butter all over it. I look at Dillon. He, wisely, keeps quiet.

“These sure do look tasty,” I say, trying to change the subject.

“Get some eggs, too, Sadie. You’re too skinny as it is. Get another flapjack, too.”

“I can’t eat that much,” I whine. Some things never change. No matter that we’ve been apart, we easily fall right back into the roles we played. I was the baby and she was the wanna-be mother. Being five years older than me, she always thought I was her baby. But I’m going to that meeting tonight. There’s probably nothing I can do about it but I’ll go and try. That’s all anyone can do.

Dillon watches me during the whole meal. Our eyes meet now and then and we exchange smiles. He doesn’t say much except to correct a sport statistic he claims Jake got wrong and to compliment the chef for her superb meal. I say next to nothing but I notice that Seth isn’t looking at me like he hates me anymore. That’s something—to say the least.

I help Missy clear the table and walk Dillon to the door.

“Are you kicking me out?” he asks with a big grin on his face.

“You’re the one who walked over to the door after looking around like you had to go,” I say.

“Can I take you somewhere today, Sadie?”

“Where?”

“It’s a surprise.”

I lean in and whisper, “To the town hall meeting about Gauley Mountain?”

“Yes,” he says. “But before that, I had another idea.”

“I’m game,” I say, feeling every bit as feisty as I sound.
This is not like me at all.

“I’ve got to go to work for a bit. But I can come get you in about two hours,” he says, enthusiastically.

“What should I wear? Wait, this isn’t a date, is it?”

“Not if you don’t want it to be.”
I guess he’s not going to tell me
. “Wear what you’ve got on,” he says, looking down at my faded jean shorts for a bit longer than is really needed to assess my attire. I feel like covering up behind a screen. I realize I don’t have a scarf on over my scars. But he hasn’t looked at me weird even once. No one here has, actually. I rub my throat and look at him with a new outlook.

“Two hours then,” I say.

“Two hours,” he says, as he walks down the porch steps. Two hours suddenly seems like a hundred years. This is just not normal to want to be with him every second of every minute. I yawn.
Maybe I should take a nap
.

Down the driveway, he’s parked a white Toyota Prius Hybrid. I grin at him behind his back. So, he’s an eco-guy; The TOMS and the Prius. I admit to myself right then that I want to get to know him again. We could be friends—like old times. Yeah, he scares me, but all guys do.

Maybe his brother won’t even find out we’re talking. I should find out if he’ll be at that meeting for some reason. He’s probably some coal-loving enthusiast just waiting to blow up the mountain—violate a beautiful, innocent, life force to take what he needs from it and leave it broken and empty. This feels very personal all of a sudden. Sudden wrath powers through my bloodstream at a rapid pace.
Not the mountain, too.

Chapter Nine—Chemical Affinity

“You didn’t have to change,” Dillon says, as I greet him at the front door.

“Well, I didn’t want to go on a ‘friendly-outing’,” I say putting quotation marks in the air, “wearing those ancient jeans.”

“You look...perfect,” he says. I blush under his gaze.

“Thank you,” I say, as I smooth my hands over my beige silk summer dress just above the knee and straighten my teal silk scarf. I push up the sleeves of the beige cardigan and watch his gaze move down to the teal espadrilles on my feet. I’ve got a beaded purse over one shoulder to hold my iPhone and some lip-gloss.

 Instead of taking a nap, I’d brushed and curled my hair so I could wear it down. I purse my lip-glossed lips and bat my eyelashes. The way I’m feeling, I don’t think I needed that pink blush.