Sadie's Mountain (25 page)

“But I’ve promised,” I whisper.

“Of course, baby,” he says, soothingly. “Then I should feed you and get you over there in the next hour or so.” I nod my head and lean up to kiss Momma lightly on the cheek. Her breathing is slower, too slow. I take her in. I memorize the way she looks, the way she feels—alive. I force her as she is now into the deepest part of my brain where the memory cannot leave me. So that I can pull it out when I need to when she’s not here anymore.

I slide off the bed and Dillon takes me in his arms. “It was beautiful to watch you sleep so peacefully. You needed that.”

“I’ve got to do this for her.”

“Baby, you don’t have to worry about the mountain right now.”

“But that’s all she’s asking for from me. I left her. This is the least I can do.”

“Okay, darlin’. Calm down. Whatever you need. I’m here for you.”

“I’m not really hungry,” I say, looking at the menu at Gino’s Restaurant, a chain restaurant I never thought I’d see again. It’s cozy in the booth, like a warm memory. I’d only been here once before. It was a new restaurant ten years ago. Back then, there were only a few names written on the walls. They let their customers write all over the place. Now everything’s covered in layers of customer graffiti.

“Do you like banana peppers?”

“I don’t know.”

“Well, their vegetarian pizza has them.”

“I can’t eat.” He purses his full lips and stands up, marches over to the counter and places our order. He’s so gorgeous standing there. 
He’s mad at me?
When he comes back my stomach starts to hurt. I can’t deal with him being angry with me in addition to everything else.

“Are you angry with me?” I ask, as he sets down our two drinks.

“I’m not. I just want you to eat.”

“Is that it?” I ask, taking a sip of the lemony drink.

“I’m worried about you.”

“Because of my Momma?”

“Yes. I mean, you’ve really surprised me. The way you’ve handled the break-in. How brave you’ve been with me. I’m confounded, really. But I’m worried about what will happen when your momma passes on.”

“I’m worried about that, too,” I say, looking into his eyes. His eye looks a bit better. “Normally, I just get numb when I’m overwhelmed. I avoid a lot of issues, triggers, that way. But since I’ve been here with you, I’m actually feeling things. I don’t think my coping mechanism will work this time and I’ll have to find a new way. It makes me nervous, too.”

“I’m going to be with you every step of the way.”

“I’m not going to push you away this time. Things have changed.”
Yeah, I scared Donnie away for a while.

“I know they have,” he says, his eyes twinkling under the chandelier lamp. He looks at me lovingly.

“My momma told me something the other day that’s been bothering me.”

“What?”

 “That she had miscarriages.”

“It’s a common problem here,” he says.

“Why?”

“The elevated levels of toxins in the water supply. West Virginia ranks second in coal production. We have higher rates of birth defects than the rest of the country. It’s very likely that the coal plant that was here did some damages to our water supply back in the forties and fifties.”

 “Where did you go to college?”

“The University of West Virginia.”

“Oh, I thought you went away.”

“They gave me a full scholarship all the way up to my Doctorate in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. Plus I wanted to stay close. In case you came back.”

“How were you so...?”

“Sure? I’ve always known, Sadie.”

“I just don’t think I’m worthy of all this.”

“I’m not worthy of you, baby. I let you get hurt. I couldn’t help you.”

“What happened to me is neither of our faults. Stop blaming yourself.”
There’s only one person to blame,
I think

He looks far off in thought, pained as if he’s reliving how he found me in the creek. I’m thinking about what he said about my Momma’s miscarriages. “Let me ask you about the water supply. So, does that mean my momma is sick because of the coal plant that was here?”

“It would be hard to prove, but I’d say it’s a likely cause,” he says, rubbing his bruised chin with his long thin fingers. I’m trying to make sense of that as the waiter brings our deep-dish pizza and sets it on the red and white checkered tablecloth. The scent of the bread and the sauce, the cheese and the veggies reminds my stomach that it’s empty. All day, I’ve only eaten a few carrots and potatoes from the chicken soup.

Dillon pulls on a piece of steaming pizza with cheese stretching out until it’s set on the white  plate and hands it to me. I take the first bite, even though it burns my tongue. It tastes so good, the crust flaky, the cheese salty, the veggies perfectly cooked, and the spices blooming in my mouth, that I don’t look up again until the whole piece is gone. When I do, he’s smiling, holding a nibbled piece of crust between his long fingers. 

“Do you want some more?”

“I’m really full.”

“Okay, baby. Let’s go then.”

“Can we write our names on the wall?” He smiles and picks up the white pen they leave just for that reason.

‘Dillon loves Sadie,’ he writes. “Are you ready to go?” he asks. I nod. “I don’t want to keep them waiting on you,” he says, smiling. We walk out, hand-in-hand, my tummy full, and my head swimming with all this new information. My momma is sick because of coal. She’s dying too soon because of coal. I’m on a mission. This won’t stop until a change happens. A shift. My ability to write and Dillon’s science background makes for a perfect match.

“Let’s do this,” I say, getting into the car.

I’m greeted by so many Christians inside the Episcopal church on Taylor Road. Luckily, we didn’t have to come to my Daddy’s old church, Ansted Baptist. Its red carpet and sun-like circular window above the platform would remind me of the guilt I had all my life when I did something wrong.

“We’re so glad you came,” says Reverend Morris. “Please, have a seat, you two.” The group has made a chair-circle and have drawings and charts up on a board in the meeting room. They really look like they know their stuff.

“We’re expectin’ the EPA to grant the permit to the coal company most likely on Monday or Tuesday of next week,” he says to the circle.

“So soon?” says another man, grey haired and with a calming voice.

“Yes, Bob. But we’re real lucky to have Miss Sadie Sparks here this evening ‘cause she has an idea for an action we would be able ta use against ‘em when they do grant the permit.”

“Yes. Thank you for inviting me. I’m not sure if you all know, but my momma is on her death bed and all she’s asking of me is to save Gauley Mountain.”

“I’m sorry, Sadie. I didn’t know,” Reverend Morris says. “We’ll be praying for her. I’ll have her put on the prayer chain this evenin’.”

“Thank you,” I say, swallowing hard. “I really need to get back to her, but my idea is to do the Hands Across the Sand idea except call it Hands Across the Mountain. In this case, we will go up to the blast site and grasp hands in unity. The coal company will not be able to detonate without hurting one of us, so they won’t do it. It will cause the media to take notice. I’ll write a press release, send it to all of my media contacts, and post it on my blog, too. We will end up getting a lot of people to support our cause publicly. Hopefully, we’ll get some of the major networks. My hope is that this movement will be enough opposition that they will decide to withdraw on their own.”

“Do you think it will work?” says a woman introduced to me as Nina.

“As long as we have enough people to go up in shifts over an extended period of time, then yes.”

“Would people actually get hurt up there?” asks a woman with a light grey bubble cut.

“No, hopefully not. They won’t be able to detonate with us up there,” I say.

“We have to organize this but I’m sure we’ll have enough people,” Reverend Morris says.

“I think this is an excellent idea,” Dillon says, taking my hand in his.
Live wires!
It makes me blush. “My only concern,” he says, “is that the coal company will block us from being able to go up the road.”

“In that case, we’d have to go on foot or on horseback. If that does happen, we should be ready for Plan B,” I say.

Nina is writing and the others, including Reverend Morris, are nodding and discussing enthusiastically.

I look at Dillon and he knows I’m anxious to leave. “We’d really better get going,” he says, standing up and I follow.

“Thank you so much for coming out this evening, Sadie. I really think this is going to work,” Reverend Morris says.

“It has to,” I say, shaking his hand. It has to.

As Dillon’s tires pummel the rocks up to Momma’s house, there are no less than eight cars parked along the drive.

“Dillon?” I question.

“Sadie, if there’d been a change, Missy would have called. That’s Pastor Cole’s car,” Dillon says, pointing to a silver Pontiac.

“Who?”

“He took over the church when your Daddy passed on.”

“Okay,” I say, nodding to make it right in my head. I’ve got to go in and speak to the people I know from the past. The people who know what happened to me. The people whose judgment I’ve been running from for years. I have no choice but to deal with this, with them. I hold onto the door handle with a shaky hand.

“I’m right here, darlin’,” Dillon says, in the dark.

“This is a private matter. I don’t want them here.”

“It might be what your momma wants, okay? Can you do this for her?”

“For her,” I say, to make sense of it. It’s been all about me for so long. I haven’t had to think about others until now.

“Are you ready?” I nod as he kisses the top of my hand. I open the car door and that’s when I hear them. They’ve always been so showy in their praying, especially when speaking in tongues, the language they believe speaks right to God. Their prayers echo around rebounding in waves off the leaves of the trees. It makes my head ache and my chest burn with anxiety.

This is not about me. This is for Momma
, I think as we open the door and face death, face their response to it. They are calling to God with their songs, with their foreign sounding made-up words. Dillon holds my hand as we go up the stairs. I’ve got to say goodbye to my momma.

Chapter Twenty—A Fiery Peace

As we walk into the house, the prayers become even louder, momentarily stunning me. Then I see Elise and little Joe tucked under some covers on the couch, and a tall stocky man standing in the kitchen. He’s drinking some water when he sees us and walks into the living room.

“Dillon, long time, no see,” he says, with his arm reaching out to shake Dillon’s hand.

“Dale, it’s great to see you,” he responds as his arm shakes up and down.

“Who’s this pretty lady?” he asks, looking at me.

“This is your sister-in-law, Sadie.”

“Sadie,” he says. “It’s nice to meet you. I’m Dale, Missy’s husband.”

I reach my shaky hand out to meet his. I look him in the eye, briefly and he looks concerned. “Hi, Dale.”

“I’m sorry ‘bout your momma,” he says, bowing his head a bit and looking down. The sounds coming from the stairs are rushed and heavy; the foreign words are bouncing around like a ball thrown too hard in a square room. My stomach is churning around and around. I regret eating that pizza, even though it was so good.