The Lost Saints of Tennessee (9 page)

“Will he be okay, do you think?” I ask.

She pauses for a second, her gaze fixed on her husband. “No, I don't suppose he will.”

Fourteen

1959

I told no one of the plan to attend UVA. In our junior year of high school Jackie and I had decided we would both go to the University of Tennessee. After four years in Knoxville, we'd get married and settle wherever we wanted. Atlanta, maybe. Or Washington, DC. But Mother was an expert at making a person doubt himself. She kept saying Virginia was the only
way to make something of myself. Virginia held opportu
nity.
When she said the word, she emphasized each ­syllable:
op-por-tu-ni-ty. And when this approach did not have the
desired effect, she'd say,
There's always the military for our Clayton boys, if you want to go off and get yourself killed while you see the world
.

The day before the homecoming game, Jackie and I walked out to the courtyard behind the school to have lunch away from the cafeteria crowd. The poplar trees lining the back of the school were deep yellow. Jackie's hand slipped easily into mine.

“I need to tell you something,” I said.

She seemed distracted and murmured something I couldn't hear.

“What?” I said.

“I need to tell you something, too.” A shaky sort of smile followed this statement. My Jackie is beautiful now, but back then there wasn't a girl for a hundred miles who looked as good as she did in a sweater and skirt—all rounded shoulders and soft breasts and ankles so small I could touch my thumb and forefinger around their circumference.

“Mother's cousin Georgia in Virginia said I could come and live with her and go to school at the university there. Thinks I'll get a scholarship, too.”

The words tumbled out in one breath. The tone was upbeat and a tad proud, as if this might inspire Jackie to respond likewise.

Her mouth formed the shape of a small
o
. She said nothing for as long as it took the blue jays to find the crumbs from our pimento cheese sandwiches. Next thing I knew she hurled herself at me, hitting me first on the shoulder, then the back, screaming the whole time about what a selfish bastard I was and how dare I leave her now, especially now, and that she hated me, just hated me.

I grabbed her by the wrists. “Calm down.”

“I won't. You don't really love me, do you? You've been planning this for a while now. Leaving. Me.”

Her breath came in short bursts. I loosened my grip, afraid I might be hurting her. The wind caught the paper bags from our lunch and they made a scritch-scratch sound as they scattered across the pavement.

“It's not like that, Jackie.”

She turned her back to me. I reached for her arm.

“Please. Look at me.”

She shook her head.

“Okay, then, I'll talk this way. My mother just told me about Virginia.” Of course this wasn't completely true. “I may not even get in. Who knows? It doesn't change us.”

When Jackie finally turned around, the look on her face scared me more than any words she could say. It was hopelessness, pure and simple.

Her news beat mine. She was pregnant, about two months along. We had begun making love the year before. And after we started, stopping didn't seem possible, though we tried. We both had plans. Jackie wanted to become a dress designer. I wanted to go to college and to visit places like New York and Mexico, to see what it was like to live where people crowded you on all sides in subways and trains and buildings rose up like steeples toward the sky. Springfield, Massachusetts, was also on the list because Carter wanted to check out the Basketball Hall of Fame.

Jackie hadn't been feeling well lately. Last week she'd gotten sick out our back door when Mother was frying a chicken. I remembered the searching look Mother gave me that night but hadn't paid it any mind. Now she would have Violet and me disgrace the family.

“There's a doctor in Memphis, Zeke. Rachel Blackson went to him last year to—” She couldn't finish the sentence. “You know.”

Still reeling, I didn't catch her meaning. “To what?”

The pained expression on her face told me. I had never felt so out of my depth. Of course everyone knows he can get a girl pregnant by having sex with her. But no one thinks it will actually happen. And we had been careful—most of the time.

“Is that what you want to do, Jackie? Go to this doctor in Memphis?”

“I don't know what I want.” She walked away from me, headed to the football field, her shoulders heaving. I caught up and turned her around, tilting her face up to me.

“We'll figure it out, okay? Just give me a little time.”

“We don't have a lot of time.”

“Maybe you and the baby can come live with me at Cousin Georgia's. She's got a big old mansion. What difference would you and a little baby make? They'd probably love it because they couldn't ever have kids.”

This stopped the sobs. She pulled a handkerchief from her pocket and blew her nose. “Maybe I could go to school there, too?”

“Must be a girl's school nearby. Has to be.”

“I could take a class a semester and maybe your cousin could watch the baby?” she said.

It could work. With the sound of the second lunch bell ringing around us and the sidewalk filling with students, we latched on to the plan. Somehow, the future we dreamed about in the backseat of Tommy Jackson's Buick only a month before might still be possible.

“Jacklynn's pregnant.” Not able to look my parents in the eye, I stared at the bare wood floor, scraping the toe of my shoe in the light coat of dust.

The air in the living room went still. Daisy and Rosie could be heard in the kitchen fighting over whose turn it was to do the dishes. Carter had a cold and was lying down in the bedroom.

“Say it again,” Mother said.

I looked up. Her hands cradled her face, as if in shock. To repeat the words seemed too awful.

“Do it,” she said.

This time I spoke softly, so only she could hear me. She covered her mouth and tore out of the room, leaving my father and me alone.

“Goddamn it to hell, son.”

He lit a Marlboro, hesitated, then gave me one. I tried not to cough as the smoke drifted into my lungs. The raw, burning sensation spread through my chest, a distraction at least from the look in my father's eyes.

The sounds of Mother's crying carried in from the
porch. Daddy cursed and slammed the front door.

“Crying's not going to do anybody good, now is it?”

“No, sir.”

His broad shoulders curved forward, making him look older and worn down.

He smashed the cigarette into a metal ashtray. “You'll do right by her, of course.”

I nodded, though not sure exactly what he meant. I figured marry her, which I wanted to do anyway. Seemed like I had always wanted her to be Jacklynn Cooper.

“I'd marry her in a heartbeat, Daddy. I would.”

He grunted. “You will. How far along?”

“Two months.”

“Go on to bed now. I'll talk to your mother.”

He didn't have to say it twice. I headed off to the back bedroom as quick as Uncle Leroy used to grab a shotgun on the first day of squirrel hunting season. The only people who knew Jackie and I had been fooling around were Tommy Jackson and his girlfriend, Mary Alice. We would all go park by the lake. Tommy and Mary Alice walked in the woods for a bit while Jackie and I stayed in the car; then we'd do the same for them. Making love to Jackie, even in the backseat with cracked leather pressing into us, felt like the closest thing to touching God I could imagine. When I was inside her, and she put her arms around my neck and whispered my name, there wasn't a person alive who could have told me what we were doing was bad.

Fifteen

1985

By one o'clock, Osborne and Cousin Georgia leave to spend
the night with Joe Cummins's widow. Georgia kisses me on the cheek as they walk out, saying she's put dinner on a plate in the
fridge, just warm it up in the oven, and keep the radio on.

“This might be a bad storm. You and the dog sit tight. The horses are in the barn so they'll be okay. Flashlights and candles are in the top of the hall closet in case we lose power. I'll call you later to check in.”

A loud crash of thunder reinforces her words as their car eases down the driveway. Tucker decides the bathtub is the safest place and manages somehow to get in without my help.

The echo of the doorbell sets off Tucker's barking. The afternoon has faded into twilight without my noticing. The storm is in full force—buckets of rain thrash at the windows, and lightning tears across the dark sky every ten minutes, followed by a boom of thunder. Through the curtains of the front-room window I glimpse a person dressed in jeans and a hooded green raincoat at the door. The dog barks as if Grant is advancing on Shiloh.

“Shut up, dog.” If he's that worried about it, he can get out of the damned tub and stand guard.

Caution makes me call out, “Who is it?” The wind takes most of the response, but I catch the word “neighbor” and ease the door open.

The stranger rushes in, kicking the door shut with a muddy boot.

“God, it's awful out there. I'm Elle Chambers. I live on the farm across the road. Georgia called and asked me to check on you. So, here I am.”

She is tall, with a nose a little too big for her face, and dark, curly hair that clings to her head like a tight cap. She looks to be in her early thirties. A large knapsack appears from her back and she reaches into it. What could be so important that it needs toting in the middle of a storm?

Three glass jars emerge. Their contents glow an amber color tinged with pink.

“Applesauce,” she explains. “Made it fresh today. I heard about Joe Cummins keeling over. Mr. Lacey loves homemade applesauce.”

She hands over each jar, placing them in my arms. They hold a lingering warmth and the scent of cinnamon.

“You'll want to put those in the fridge.”

“Right.”

When I return, Elle is sitting on the couch with her legs tucked up beneath her, boots left by the front door. She has found the battery-operated radio and tuned it to the local station, setting it on the coffee table.

“There's a tornado watch out. You need to keep this thing on. My horses are about to go crazy, so I've got a bad feeling about tonight.”

She gestures at a photo on one of the side tables. “I would have known you were Zeke even if Mrs. Lacey hadn't told me. You look just as you did then, give or take a few wrinkles.”

The silver frame holds a picture of me, Cousin Georgia, and Osborne out in the orchard, each one of us holding up an apple. Osborne's father had taken the photo, telling us to look damn proud of those apples, the best damned apples in the state of Virginia.

“Mrs. Lacey is thrilled you're here. How long are you planning on staying?”

Her red T-shirt is snug, and the soft outline of her breasts distracts me, as do her hands—the fingers are long and tapered, elegant, the nails short and unpainted. The ring finger is bare. She catches me staring and the corners of her mouth curve upward.

“Staying long?”

“To tell you the truth, I'm not sure.”

“You won't find a prettier place to stay, that's for sure. Do you know what Thomas Jefferson said about those hills out there?” She points out the window, where, at the moment, nothing but rivulets of water can be seen. “He said they are the ‘Eden of the United States.' I've lived at my farm for four years. Never want to move anywhere else again.”

She exudes confidence bordering on arrogance, an unfamiliar trait in a woman for me. It has been a long time since I made simple conversation with a woman not related to me. Too long. I sit, hands in lap, struck dumb.

“Do you like to ride?” she asks.

“Depends on what.”

“Horses. What else is there?”

“Don't know how.”

“Big guy like you, doesn't know how to ride a little old horse?”

She is teasing, knocking me off balance so I don't know whether to tease back or walk over to the couch and put my hands in her hair and kiss her until morning.

Curiosity gets the better of Tucker and he wanders in to check out the enemy. He determines zero threat and comes near for a pat. Elle obliges, stroking his fur in such a pleasing way that he takes up residence on her foot.

“Starved for affection. Poor animal.”

I bristle. “Yes, poor thing.”

She stands up and heads for the door. “I'll meet you at nine o'clock tomorrow morning at the stables here. By noon tomorrow—”

Neither of us has noticed how the rain has suddenly stopped outside and the wind can't be heard. Silence surrounds us except for an insistent beeping coming from the radio. Elle stops and turns up the volume. An F3 tornado has touched down three miles west of Bailey. All surrounding towns are to take shelter immediately.

“Where's the storm cellar, Zeke?” Her teasing manner is gone, replaced by a sense of calm urgency. Clayton has never seen a tornado. Our part of the world suffers severe thunderstorms and an occasional ice storm.

“I don't remember.” I head for the back door, convinced it must be within a few feet of the house. Her hand reaches out for my arm, pulling me back. The strength of the pull surprises me.

“We don't have time.”

It occurs to me that I might, at last, have found a place where life feels promising again only to face certain death by a funnel cloud the size of Rhode Island. A sound somewhere between a laugh and strangulation escapes my lips.

“Jesus.” She mumbles something under her breath.
“Thank God I put the horses in the barn. They should be all right. What about the Laceys' horses? Do you know if they're in the barn?”

I want to say,
Who gives a shit about the horses—What about us?
“Yes, we put them in the barn earlier.”

Elle scoops up the radio and races into the middle of the first-floor hallway, throwing open closet doors along the way. The doors slam against the smooth surface of the wall and I wonder if they will leave marks, if I will be here in the morning to check, if Georgia and Osborne will mind if they do. A closet meets with her approval and she begins throwing boxes out of it.

“Find a flashlight. Two if you can.”

The flashlights are in the top of the hall closet, just as Georgia said they were, and I pray the batteries are not the same ones from my last visit to Lacey Farms. In an attempt to appear in control of the situation, I question Elle's choice of closet and suggest alternate ones.

“Shut up, Zeke. Help me so we can make room for the three of us.”

In five minutes, we manage to empty all of the closet's contents into the hallway, clearing a four-foot-by-four-foot space. Tucker goes in first, tail tucked between his legs and eyes wild. An escalating whining noise enters the house from outside, disturbing the previous stillness. The lights flicker once, twice, go black. A look passes between Elle and me.

“It's coming,” she says.

We sit facing each other in the closet. Elle shuts the door and darkness closes around us.