The Governor's Lady (40 page)

“Thank you for not carting me off to the hospital.”

“Nolan says you’re okay here. For now.”

“I don’t want to die in a room with fluorescent lights.”

“Mother …”

Mickey raised a hand. “We’ve got to talk about it, Cooper. The string is just about played out.” She paused. “Do you want to know how I feel about that?”

“Yes.”

“I’m a little spooked—not about passing on, but what comes after,
being called to account. It’s probably too late to do anything about the ruckuses I’ve caused. I’ve never put much stock in the notion of deathbed salvation. I suspect the Lord might stop me at the gates and say, ‘Whoa, not so fast, there.’ I guess me and the Lord will have to work all that out. Get the sin report, take my medicine. Maybe a few eons on kitchen duty.”

“That would be a switch,” Cooper said. “I can’t remember ever seeing you in a kitchen.”

“I wouldn’t know a dishwasher from a doily.”

A knock at the door. Mrs. Dinkins poked her head in. “Lunch is ready.”

“How long has she been here?” Mickey asked when she was gone.

“Eight years,” Cooper said. “First day of Pickett’s first term.”

“When we were here, there was a steady stream of help.” Mickey paused, wrinkled her nose. “They said I was a bitch to work for.” Cooper didn’t respond. Mickey tilted her head, gave a sideways look. “Sometimes, a little bitchiness is helpful. It’s an art form. But I have a habit of taking it too far. Like with you.”

“I never thought of you as being
bitchy
with me, Mother. I just didn’t think you were paying attention. You weren’t there, and I missed you.”

“You blame politics.”

“In part.”

“Well, don’t. Blame me.”

“Maybe you didn’t have a good example. You’ve never talked about your own parents.”

“I’m not going to use that as an excuse, but no, I didn’t learn much there. Or maybe I learned the wrong things.”

Cooper waited as Mickey gathered her breath.

“I may not have much luck getting my transgressions past the Lord, but I’m trying to clean up some of the mess before I leave. And I’d like to do it at home.”

“Home?”

“The Big House.”

“Good Lord. Mother, there’s no way—”

“I’ve talked to Dr. Cutter, and he’s talked to Fate Wilmer. It can be done.”

Cooper shook her head vigorously. “You’re all nuts.”

“And I want you to go, too. I need you there. I need
us
there.”

Cooper slumped in the chair and closed her eyes.
Things keep piling up
.

Mickey waited a long while before she said, “If you can’t manage it, I understand. But don’t think about it right now. Go tend to your business. Save the world, or at least try not to screw it up.”

She called Nolan. “Did you tell Mother she could go home?”

“I didn’t tell her she could
do
anything. She asked me if it was possible, and I said yes. There’s nothing we can do for her here that we can’t do there—around-the-clock nursing, Internet monitoring, so forth. We can keep her comfortable and make the end as easy as possible.”

“You know she wants me to move up there, too.”

“She didn’t tell me that.”

“Well, she does.”

“Look,” he said gently, “I doctor people, not institutions, so I’m way out of my league here. But I’ll throw in my two cents anyway. You’re the boss. You can do anything you want, and let the rest of the bunch get used to it. But whatever you decide, it’s Cooper the woman who will have to live with it, not Cooper the governor. So listen to your heart.”

She sat quietly, alone, trying to listen, sort things out. She thought about the Big House with its towering columns and sheltering oaks, the stretch of its land, the pond waiting, both peaceful in its stillness and alive with possibility, back beyond the pasture. And the ghosts—Cleve, Jesse, her childhood. Even now, as always, they had a powerful hold on her soul, on who she had become.

She was still, listening, and what she began to hear was so faint she didn’t recognize it at first. Then it became clear: the crunch of gravel under tires, Jesse, the car, the ride. She smiled at the memory of it, giving no thought to what came after the ride. Jesse would have been past sixty now, no doubt much changed from the teenager who went off to war, no doubt changed by war itself—middle-aged with a career and family, growing soft around the edges. She liked to think they would have been great good friends. But in some ways, he had always been with her, a calm, thoughtful, benevolent ghost, a good haunting. So it was with Cleve. She pictured him now at the rear of the fishing boat, the easy slap of water against the sides, nature’s sounds, a look of intense pleasure as he sat watching the red float bobbing on the surface of Fate Wilmer’s pond, turning every so often to look at her, smiling. A gracious ghost—but pain there, too, at the thought of things unfinished for both of them.

Jesse and Cleve were ghosts she had dealt with for a long time. And now, soon, there would be another. She could push that one away, face the music later. But if she wrestled with it now, she might make peace with it, and in doing so help settle affairs with the others. Mickey, she realized, was the key to so much more.

She listened to her heart a moment longer, and then she decided.

She waited until morning. Mickey was still sleeping. Estelle was
dozing in a chair, but her eyes popped open when the door opened. “I’ll be right outside if you need me,” she said.

Cooper reached for Mickey’s hand, held it lightly, massaged the fingers, watched the uneven, labored rise and fall of her breath, studied the ravages of time on her face, the shadows of who she had been, what she had seen and done. After a while, she turned to leave, but Mickey whispered, “Don’t go.”

“I’ve got some arrangements to make. We’re taking a trip.”

“When?”

“As soon as I can get the show on the road. A few details to take care of, then we’ll be off.”

“Limousine service?”

“The best,” Cooper said.

“I always did like to ride in style,” Mickey whispered.

Pickett called. “I heard,” he said.

“She wants to go home. I’m taking her, for both our sakes.”

“I understand. It’s the right thing. Not long?”

“No.”

“I’m sorry,” he said, and she could tell he genuinely meant it. “I owe her a great deal. Is there anything I can do?”

“No.” She started to end the call but then remembered. “Pickett, what’s going on with Plato?”

Silence. Then: “He resigned.”

“Why, for goodness’ sake?”

More silence. “I think he can’t handle the grind. It’s brutal at this level. Plato’s had some health problems. He needs to take care of himself.”

That might be true
, she thought. Heart bypass surgery a few years
before, the stress of working for Pickett.

“What are you going to do without him?”

“I have new people. They handle things.”

“The new people … Anybody to help you keep your head straight?”

“I hope so.”

“Me, too.”

“Are you okay?”

“Yes,” she said, “I’m fine. Doing what needs to be done.”

“Call me. Let me know.”

“I will.”

“One other thing. That real-estate deal. I know you’re busy, but—”

“I’m taking care of it,” she said.

Mickey had never been close to her grandchildren, had never spent much time with them. That was partly Cooper’s doing—another way of keeping Mickey out of her life—but it had something to do with Mickey, too. In the infrequent times she was around Allison and Carter, she was both awkward and intimidating. She had no feel for being a grandmother. No surprise there. And so it had been easy to keep distance. But now, they needed to know.

She tried Allison. Voice mail. She left a message: “Call me. I need to talk to you about Grandmother.”

She reached Carter. “Where are you?”

“South Carolina.”

“I’m taking Mother to the Big House. She doesn’t have much time.”

“I’m coming home,” he said.

“Carter, honey, there’s nothing you can do here.”

“I can be with you.”

“I’m okay. Stay there, do your job. We’ll talk every day.”

“Have you talked to Allison?”

“No.” She sighed. “I tried, but she won’t answer.”

“I’ll call her.”