The Lost Saints of Tennessee (18 page)

Can you believe it? I've got two more finals, and now I feel like I can survive them knowing I'll see you in only a week. I went to the train station this morning before my history final and got the ticket. I'll be home on December 21. The train gets into Corinth at five minutes after seven o'clock that night. Will you meet me in Corinth, Jackie? Please?

Got my bio final tomorrow, so I've got to study now, but I love you so much and will see you in two weeks. Fourteen days.

Love,

Zeke

PS: Don't tell my family about me coming home, will you? I want it to be a big surprise.

Thirty

1985

“Death does funny things to people, Ezekiel.”

Georgia sets her purse on the kitchen table, looking up as Osborne walks upstairs. They attended Joe Cummins's funeral this morning. I offered to go but she told me not to be silly. Why attend a funeral for someone you don't know?

“Most people walk around thinking it will never happen to them—they'll never die, no one they love will ever die, things will stay just as they are forever. And then when it happens, and it always happens, people are shocked.”

I lower the heat on the stove's burner and flip over a sandwich. She peers into the pan.

“Smells good.”

“Let me fix you one. It's my specialty.”

My father taught me how to make fried ham-and-cheese sandwiches the summer Mother spent three days in Memphis with Aunt Charlotte. Mother cooked a whole ham and left it in the fridge for us. Ham for breakfast, ham for lunch, ham for dinner. When she came home, Carter ran up to her and said,
Momma, I don't want to eat ham ever again
.

“Eliza is beside herself.” Cousin Georgia selects a bottle from the pill-filled lazy Susan in the middle of the table and holds out a tablet. “Take this. It's vitamin C. I feel like I'm getting a cold. Don't want you to get it.”

“I'm not much of a vitamin taker.”

She waits until I pop the sour thing into my mouth. Only then does she turn back to the sandwich and milk I set before her.

“This is good, Ezekiel. Did you put Miracle Whip on before you fried it?” She takes another bite and chews appreciatively. “Eliza keeps asking me why. Why would God take her Joe home now, when they were just beginning to enjoy life?”

Noise comes from the second floor, the sound of furniture being dragged. Georgia rolls her eyes. “Oz is moving the chair over to the window so he can see the lake. He'll sit there for the next four hours looking at the damn lake.”

I finish frying my sandwich and take a seat. Osborne hollers from upstairs for a cup of coffee. Cousin Georgia slides out her chair but I motion for her to stay put. I put the kettle on and search for the Folgers jar in the cabinet.

“Left-hand side,” she says. “Osborne said his good-byes to Joe at the funeral home yesterday. He came out of the viewing room sobbing like a baby. I was afraid he might collapse. I've never understood the point of talking to the dead shell of a person. Joe's spirit is with God now. If we want to talk to him, we should be praying.”

“Does Osborne like it strong or weak?”

“Weak. Two sugars and a splash of milk. Just like his father.”

Georgia feeds Tucker a crust of bread underneath the table. When I ask her to stop because he'll turn into a scraps beggar, she says the dog is old enough to do whatever he wants.

“You know what makes Joe's death hard? It's that Os
borne and I both know we've reached the age where this is
only the beginning. Our friends will begin to die off in ones, twos, and threes. And, of course, Osborne's own illness . . .”

She joins me at the sink, still chewing on the sandwich,
and we stand side by side looking out the window. Stray
branches still lie here and there on the rear lawn. Both our gazes are drawn to the empty rectangle of land directly in front of us. The orchard. Georgia sighs. I notice the faint tinge of a yellow bruise on her temple.

“What's this?” I gently touch the bruise and she flinches.

The kettle lets out a high-pitched whistle.

“Last week I reminded Oz to take his blood-pressure medicine and he refused.” She moves to the stove and takes the kettle off the burner. “We got into an argument. And he hit me.”

She prepares Osborne's coffee, stirring in the sugar
slowly. “Don't worry. It's normal.”

“Normal?”

“It's the disease. I've started going to a support group at the hospital. And when this happened, they said it's one of the symptoms. Bursts of violence. Oz didn't mean it.”

The coffee spoon clatters against the stainless-steel sink where Georgia tosses it.

“Show me pictures of those beautiful girls of yours. I haven't seen any since they were babies.”

I want to ask if she feels safe but am not sure what to say. She puts her hand to my face.

“Ezekiel, having you here makes me feel like I might get through this.”

Her expression reveals a grief already beginning for the husband she knows.

“Enough of this,” she says, pressing her fingertips to the inside corner of her eyes. “Show me your girls.”

I dig out last year's school pictures from my wallet. ­Louisa's shy smile is covered in braces, a recent development since Curtis could pay the $2,500 to put them there. She hovers somewhere between child and young girl. Honora's hair is dyed dark black, with one side cut longer than the other, and dark lipstick covers her mouth. The dark hair makes her wide blue eyes stand out even more. She could be a budding vampire.

“They're darling,” Georgia says. “Honora must be the spunky one.”

“You could say that.”

“I've always loved your daughters' names. Such beautiful old names.”

Jackie and I had argued for hours about Honora's name when she was born. I hadn't liked it. Said it sounded too fancy and people wouldn't say it right. Her whole life she would have to tell people,
No, it's Ahn-or-ah not Hahn-or-ah.

Osborne yells down the stairs again for coffee.

When I take the coffee up to his room, Oz is sitting in the leather chair next to the bed.
Anglers Monthly
magazine lies open in his lap
.

“Just set it on the table there.”

“Need anything else?” I ask.

“Make Georgia lie down, will you? She was up all night with Eliza and only worries about me. I'll be fine.”

He closes the magazine, running a hand along the front cover, which features a sixty-something guy in a boat reeling in a large-mouth bass. Standing over Osborne's shoulder, I can see shiny pink patches of his scalp where the hair has thinned.

“Every time a new issue came in the mail, Joe and I called each other. We talked about the new lures or planned a fishing trip to one of the places in the magazine. We both knew we'd never actually go there but it didn't matter. It was more fun to talk about going than going could ever have been.”

He stares down at his hands as if they don't belong to him. It is hard to tell if he wants to be alone or if it's better to stay. The gentle step of Cousin Georgia on the stairs echoes in the hallway. When she enters the room, she goes straight to her husband, kneeling next to him and taking his hands in her own. Oz looks down at her and his mouth lifts.

I step out of the room, closing the door as quietly as possible. Their devotion is almost painful to watch. In the beginning, my own marriage seemed similarly destined. We felt so much love for each other. And then, we didn't. Jackie says I withdrew from her and the girls when Carter died.

But things between us were changing even before then. Jackie herself became distant. I would ask her what was wrong and she would shake her head and say, “Don't borrow trouble, Zeke.” After hearing this answer a few times, I asked what the hell did that mean? She started to cry. Never being able to stand tears, I gathered her in my arms and made love to her, trying to bridge whatever trouble lay in her heart. A month later Carter died, throwing marital concerns far from my mind.

Five more years passed before she asked for the divorce. We fought a lot. Jackie said she should've listened to her mother when she said she'd spend the rest of her life in Clayton if she married me. When I said I thought she liked living where we grew up, Jackie screamed that there had to be something more, there just had to be. I guess Curtis Baxter was something more. He's got more stuff, that's for sure. Jackie will get a brand-new car every year, whatever she wants off Curtis's Ford lot. Ford trucks have been my chosen vehicle my whole life, but when this one gives out, I'm switching to a Chevy. No way am I putting money in Curtis's pocket.

Despite the divorce, I'm pretty sure Jackie still loves me. It's just different now—all twisted and knotted up. The four times we made love after the divorce it was like two strangers meeting up in a hotel room instead of two people who'd been sleeping together since they were sixteen.

The image of Elle Chambers lifting her face to the sun replays itself in my mind. I am intrigued enough to want to learn her quirks and the feel of her body, not necessarily in that order. Tomorrow I will ask Cousin Georgia about her. For now, Georgia and Osborne have their own talking to do.

Daisy calls after dinner. My sisters have called me more in the past month than in the past year. She is in the middle of cooking dinner for her three boys and her husband. The sound of balls hitting the floor and meat frying in the background comes through the phone.

“Vi found out about Leroy being on the way to go screw Momma when the drunk bastard killed Cassie, and she asked Momma about it and Momma just keeled over. Right there on the front porch. Had to get stitches on her head from hitting the door handle as she went down. That along with the lung cancer has done Momma in.”

The oldest boy, Sean, yells in the background and Daisy tells him to shut up; she is on the phone. No one has talked about Leroy Cooper in a long time.

“How did Vi find out about Leroy?”

A pause.

“Dais? Who told her?”

“I did. All right? It was me. She was going on and on about how horrible it was that Momma got lung cancer at such a young age and how she'd never done anything,
really,
to deserve this, and I couldn't take it, Zeke.”

“God, Daisy.” I drop my head in my hands. Why couldn't she keep her mouth shut? “Vi didn't need to hear that. That's history. It's done.”

A door slams shut. “Dave's home, Zeke. I've got to finish dinner. Call me later, okay?”

The insistent pull of Clayton grabs at me, trying to get its claws in me. But I'm only just beginning at Lacey Farms again.

My sisters and my mother are going to do whatever craziness comes next whether I'm around or not. That's clear. I'm not going anywhere.

I'm not.

Thirty-One

December 1960

The wind blew hard through the Corinth station platform and I turned up the collar of my new corduroy jacket, a gift from Cousin Georgia. During the fifteen-hour trip from Charlottesville, I had envisioned the scene of my homecoming over and over again—how I'd step off the train and Jackie would run into my arms, the soft feel of her body against my own. On this cold night four days before Christmas, a station filled with strangers looked out at me. Hoping Jackie was only running late, I bought a cup of coffee and sat on a bench near the front entrance, where she'd be sure to see me. Fifteen minutes passed. Then thirty. When the hands of the black clock in the waiting area read seven thirty, I knew she wasn't coming.

There was nothing to do except call home. My father said he'd be right over. I asked him not to tell Mother where he was going so some surprise could still be pulled off. This part I had imagined, as well. The conquering son returns home from college—smarter, more debonair, and laden with gifts. Thanks to Georgia's and Osborne's generosity, I had a suitcase full of presents. The one I most wanted to give was the new basketball for Carter. Each member of the UVA team had signed it.

Something made me call Jackie's house, just to see if she was home. She answered on the first ring.

“Jackie?”

“Is that you, Zeke?”

Why would she be home if she knew I was coming to the train station?

“You didn't come.”

“What do you mean? Where are you?”

If Jackie was pretending to be surprised about my arrival, she was doing a good job. I had, in fact, never received a letter from her, not the whole time I was away. Doubt crept into my mind. She was seeing someone else now. Of course.

“Where
are
you, Zeke? Are you home?”

“Why didn't you write back?”
The call for the eight o'clock train to Memphis came over
the loudspeaker. “Say that again, please,” I asked. “I couldn't
hear.”

She let out a long breath. “Ezekiel, I haven't heard anything from you since you left. No letters. Nothing.”

“Not one letter?”

“Why would I lie about that?” An angry tone crept into her voice. “Did you get any letters from me?”

“No.”

“Of course you didn't. I would've written you right back. I don't know what happened. It's probably got something to do with my mother. She's still pretty mad at you over the baby and everything. She gets the mail every afternoon when I'm at work.”

Her mother would later deny meddling. But when she died unexpectedly in 1980, Jackie found the letters. Mrs. Cha
tham had kept them hidden in a shoe box buried in a back
bedroom closet for more than twenty years.

My father's easy lope crossed the station's front entrance.
The amount of gray in his hair now surpassed the amount of
dark brown. He was not a tall man, but he carried himself tall, straight backed. I caught his eye with a wave.

“Listen, my dad's here. I don't understand what's happened. Will you be home tomorrow morning?”

“I figured you'd be coming home, what with everything that's happened. But part of me wished you wouldn't, too. Call me at the shop tomorrow. I'll be there ten to six.”

Before I could ask her what she meant, she hung up. An arm clasped my shoulder from behind.

“Son.” There was real comfort in the word. At least this made sense.

He shook my hand and said I looked good, real good—taller and smarter. I laughed. More tired, maybe, I said. We walked out together, my shoulders now several inches past his.

“University life agrees with you?” The old Ford took several starts before it finally caught.

“It's different. Real different. But I like it.”

He ruffled the hair spilling over my shirt collar. There had been no time for the barber shop before coming home.

“We'll have to get this cut tomorrow morning, won't we?” The idea seemed to please him. “You hungry?”

I nodded. Georgia had packed fried chicken and rolls and a piece of pie but I'd eaten it all long before the train rolled into Corinth.

“We'll stop at Calloway's on the outside of town. Bet those Virginians can't make decent barbecue.”

“They can make the best ham in the world, though,” I said.

The dark streets of Corinth passed by on the way to High
way 45. My breath formed small circles against the window. The heat in the truck didn't work, probably never worked.

“First snow fell on the Blue Ridge right before I left,” I said. “The mountains look pretty dusted up in white. When's the last time it snowed in Clayton?”

He tapped his fingers on the steering wheel. “Must have been about ten years ago when that ice storm hit Memphis and shut the whole city down for a week. We didn't get the ice but we got the snow. You and your brother about killed yourselves sledding down Big Hill on your mother's baking sheets.”

I remembered. Carter and I nearly ran smack into a station wagon. Turned out it was Tommy Jackson's mom. She nearly had a heart attack watching the two of us slide closer and closer to the front bumper. When she swerved to miss us, the car ended up skidding into the ditch. We tried to keep our faces straight while we pushed out the car, Mrs. Jackson yelling the whole time what fools we were.

At the restaurant we both ordered pulled-pork sandwiches, French fries, and RC Colas. We sat on the side with
mostly white customers. Run by a black family, Calloway's was the only restaurant for three counties where whites and blacks got served at the same counter. Business was always hopping because everybody knew James Calloway made the best barbeque. Rumor had it that even some of the Klan patronized the place.

I was halfway through my sandwich when my father said there were things we needed to talk about. Questions tumbled through my mind—Was someone sick? Mother? Did he need me to come home and work to earn money for the family?

“It's your brother. He won't be waiting for you at home
tonight.” The bright light of the restaurant exposed dark
circles beneath his eyes. He picked up the sandwich, then put it down
without taking a bite, fingering the red and white checked
paper lining the basket. My throat went dry.

“He's living at the state hospital in Tolliver now. The Smith brothers attacked your brother one Saturday when he and Rosie were over seeing a movie at the Downtown. They beat him up pretty bad and ended up hurting Carter's brain even more.”

He stopped, looked down at his hands, the fingers tightly clasped. “He's not the same, Zeke. Won't hardly talk to anybody. His face didn't heal quite right, so he looks different, too.”

Chairs scraped the sawdust-covered floor as they were pulled away from the tables. Voices rose and fell around us. Potatoes sizzled in the deep fryer. My stomach churned. I gripped the sides of the table, trying to hold on, trying not to let my father's words sink in.

“When?” It was the only word I could breathe out.

“About a week after you left for Virginia.”

I counted off the months. Four. My brother lying in a hospital for four months.

“Why didn't somebody tell me?”

He fell silent. It took a minute but one by one the pieces fell into place in my brain. Mother. She knew that if they told me, I would come back, leaving UVA. And Dad went along with it, as he had with many things over the years. He did not fight for my brother. For me.

He reached for my hand across the table. I wrenched it away. “Do you have any idea what you've done? Why isn't he home, Dad? Why isn't Carter home where he belongs?”

My entire life I had been impressed by this man's
strength—physical and otherwise. I'd seen him lift the front end of the truck off the ground with his bare hands. When he realized there was no promise in raising cotton, he sold every piece of farm equipment he had and worked for free to learn pipe fitting, despite loving the feel of being outside under the sun, hands in the earth. I recalled seeing him cry only once before, the morning after his brother put a shotgun to his head. Now, he covered his face with his hands.

The mistake had been trusting Mother to know best. He assumed she understood what was better for their children. In the end, that she birthed us and did most of the raising complicated her own judgment.

“I love Carter. You've got to know that,” he said.

I pushed away from the table, knocking my glass to the floor. The dark liquid disappeared into the sawdust.

“Take me to the hospital.”

The brother I knew was nowhere to be found in that hospital room. At least twenty-five pounds had been shed from his large frame. A scar eight inches long ran down his face. The right eye was swollen half-shut and its iris was clouded over. A sling cradled his left arm. I lowered myself onto the bed, careful not to jostle him.

“Who's there?” he said, waking up. When our eyes met, he turned his face away, his expression going still.

“Get out.”

“Carter, I'm sorry. I didn't—”

“Get out.” His voice grew louder. “Nurse. Nurse!” The words echoed out into the hallway.

A woman appeared at the door. “Now, Carter, what's going on?” She put her hands on her wide hips.

I backed away from the bed. My brother kept his face turned away.

“Tell him to get out.”

There had been many times during childhood when my brother got mad at me. His temper could flare unexpectedly over little things like a lost marble or a questionable foul during a basketball game. The longest he had stayed mad was two weeks, after my scheme to put a radio antenna on the top of the roof went bad and nearly killed him when the chimney toppled off. It took a promise of as many MoonPies as he could eat and playing basketball whenever he asked to make him happy again. Standing in the corner of the room, a deep ache washed through me.

The nurse assessed me. “Who might this be? A nice visitor come to see you?”

“Get him out.”

The words sounded garbled, as if his mouth had been damaged, as well. The nurse shrugged and suggested I leave.

Outside the room, she put a hand on my arm. “He's just starting to have better days. I wouldn't push him.”

“I'm his brother.”

Her hand dropped away.

“Boy, where have you been?”