Travelers Rest (15 page)

“Because Maggie’s dead. She died two years ago. I’ve seen plenty of strange things in my day, but far as I know, words of forgiveness have never fallen from the lips of someone who’s dead.”

21

N
either do the words
I’m sorry,
Jane thought. Those who were dead could never rise up and tell you they were sorry. If they
were
sorry, which she wasn’t sure her mother was.

It was Sunday morning, a quiet unhurried morning on Montford Avenue. Jane, still in her cotton robe, carried a cup of coffee into the den. She stopped at the stereo player and put in a CD of Brahms, then curled up in the overstuffed chair by the fireplace. Roscoe and Juniper followed, settling themselves on the floor at her feet.

Jane sipped the coffee, then put her head back against the cushioned chair and shut her eyes. Oh, how in making one solitary decision a person affected so many lives. Her mother, who decided not to live. Dr. Coleman, who decided not to heal. Maggie, who decided not to forgive.

Bad enough that a person had to bear the consequences of her own choices, but when the blow came from another, and when that person didn’t know or didn’t care . . .

———

“You’re going to have to find it in yourself to forgive your mamma,” Laney had said. Jane remembered that now. Almost six months had passed since Meredith Morrow’s funeral. In that time, Jane had turned thirteen, she had started eighth grade, and she had become alarmingly aware of her new role in Troy: She was the daughter of the town suicide. She saw the stares at school, noted the whispers, heard the rumors about how the Rayburn House was now haunted. A couple of boys claimed to have seen the ghost of a woman in an upstairs window. At the thought of it, even Jane shivered. She didn’t really believe in ghosts, but then again . . .

“Why should I forgive her, Laney?” she’d asked. They were sitting on the front porch on a warm Friday evening in late October, waiting for Laney’s husband to pick her up. Laney’s mother and father were visiting for the weekend, and the elder couple was taking the younger out to dinner.

“She left you in a world of hurt, child,” Laney said, “and it’ll kill you if you let it.”

Jane didn’t want to talk about that. She looked out over the yard at the last vestiges of Grandmother’s summer garden, at the trees tinged with autumn, at the lengthening shadows on the lawn. It was the kind of evening that had called her to dance pirouettes in the grass when she was a child. But those days were gone. “They say our house is haunted now,” she said.

“So I heard.” Laney swatted at a gnat circling her head. “No such thing as ghosts.”

Jane took a long sip of the sweet tea Laney had poured for her. Then she said, “But if there was, and if Mom came back, would she tell me she was sorry?”

Laney shook her head. “Child, if your mother came back, even as a ghost, she’d sit herself down on the couch and go on watching herself on television. Nothing would change.”

“Then why should I forgive her?” Jane asked again.

“Because that’s what the Lord Jesus did when He was up on the cross. His body was broken, and His life was slipping away, and still He said, ‘Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.’”

Another sip of tea gave her a moment to think. “You know, Laney, I’ve never understood why they killed Jesus.”

“It wasn’t a killing, Janie. It was a sacrifice. Only them that put Him on the cross didn’t know it. That’s why Jesus said they didn’t know what they were doing.”

“It was a sacrifice?”

“That’s right. The only one that ever mattered. The only one that ever made peace between us and God.”

Jane didn’t understand. She wasn’t sure she wanted to. She just wanted to be like all the other kids—kids whose mothers were alive and normal, volunteering for the PTA, and making suppers for their families at night.

“If Mom loved me,” Jane said, “she wouldn’t have done it.”

Laney turned toward her and fixed her gaze firmly on Jane. “Now listen, child, there’s one thing you’ve got to understand. What your mamma did had nothing to do with you. I believe she loved you, but she just didn’t know how to live. Some people are like that. They strive and they strive and they never can figure out how to live. That was your mamma. She just couldn’t find any peace.”

“But, Laney?”

“Yes, honey?”

“Could you ever leave Eugene and Sarah and Frankie?”

Laney smiled at the mention of her children. “Of course not,” she responded quietly. “I’d keep them all with me forever, if I could.”

“See then?”

“I know what you’re trying to say, honey, but it still doesn’t mean your mother didn’t love you. Someday you’ll know she did, and I hope someday you’ll forgive her.”

Jane settled the empty glass on the wicker table beside her chair. “Everybody looks at me funny now. Even Claire and Hayley, my very best friends. It’s kind of like there’s something strange about me now, or like I’m bad luck or something.”

“What do your friends say to you?”

“Nothing. I mean, it’s not that they say anything bad, it’s just . . . things are different. It’s as though when I’m with them it isn’t me they’re seeing, it’s Mom. Mom and what she did.”

“Well, people are funny about death, Janie, especially when a person brings it on herself. In a way, the town is still in shock. You got to give people time. They’ll come around and things will get back to normal.”

“I don’t know. I wish . . .” Jane’s voice trailed off.

“What, honey?” Laney asked. “What do you wish?”

“I wish I had a family just like yours.”

Another small smile. “That’s nice of you to say, Janie.”

“Really. I mean it. Mr. Jackson’s so nice to you, and you have three good kids.”

“I guess I am blessed, aren’t I? But you know what? Someday you
can
have a family just like mine. Only instead of being the daughter, you’ll be the mother. You can have three good kids too, or as many as you want, and you can let them know you love them.”

“I’d never leave them.”

“I know that, honey. You’ll be a good mother.”

Jane nodded. That was her dream. She was going to make sure it came true. Her children would know beyond doubt that she loved them. She would be there for them every moment, listening, caring, helping. She would be everything to them that her own mother had never been to her. And perhaps most important, she would never tell them they were destined to be nobodies. Never would she cut them that deeply.

She looked over at Laney. “So where are you going to have dinner tonight?”

“Clapper said he made reservations at the Carriage House.”

Jane smiled, as she always did when she heard Mr. Jackson’s name. He’d been christened Roderick, but everyone had always called him Clapper. To Jane, it sounded like such a happy name. “That’s the fanciest place in town.”

“That’s right, and my folks are paying.” Laney laughed as she looked out over the quiet street. “You know, I think Daddy’s going to spend the whole evening trying to talk Clapper into moving back down to Greenville.”

“I thought you all were from Travelers Rest.”

Laney nodded. “That’s where I grew up, mostly. Eventually the folks moved to Greenville, though, because it was a better place for Daddy to make a living.”

“So now he wants you to move back down there, to be close to them?”

“Yeah. Clapper’s from down that way too, you know. It’d be nice to be back with family, though there’s a lot about Troy I’ll miss if we do go.” She paused and looked out over the street again. “I wonder what’s keeping them, anyway.”

“Maybe your baby-sitter was late.”

“Clapper was supposed to drop the kids off at Rachel’s for the night.”

“Your sister-in-law?”

“Yes. She’s keeping them till tomorrow so we can visit with Mamma and Daddy tonight.”

Even as she spoke, a dark brown Chevy Impala turned onto Rayburn Avenue and pulled into the circular drive. Clapper, at the wheel, put the car in park but left the motor running. He opened the driver’s side door, stepped out, and called over the roof, “Come on, baby, we’ve got six o’clock reservations, and it’s pushing six now.”

“I know, Clapper. But don’t blame me,” Laney hollered back. “I’ve been sitting out here waiting on you for the past fifteen minutes.”

The front passenger window slid down, and an elderly gentleman with a friendly smile leaned forward. “You can blame your mother, Laney. She couldn’t decide on which dress to wear. The usual dilemma, you know.”

He winked and nodded his head toward the woman sitting in the back seat. Small and dignified, she wore a dark blue dress and a matching hat. Around her neck was a triple string of pearls. Her dark wavy hair was pulled over her ears and into a knot at the nape of her neck. She curled her deep red lips into a sheepish smile and shrugged. Then she lifted a hand to Laney and waved.

“Oh, Mamma.” Laney feigned a sigh. “You know you look good in anything.” She turned to her husband then. “Clapper, haven’t you got a hello for Jane here?”

Clapper Jackson seemed to notice her for the first time. “Beg your pardon, Jane,” he said. “How you doing?”

Jane waved at him, too shy to respond in words. Laney stood and kissed Jane’s forehead, then ran around the car to sit beside her mother.

———

Jane remembered how she felt when they pulled away. She felt hopeful. As though maybe someday she really could be a part of a family like that.

Now here she was, all these years later, with a cup of coffee turned cold in her hand, a stereo that had gone silent, and a dream that had been knocked off course when a sniper caught Seth in the crosshairs of his weapon and made the split-second decision to pull the trigger.

22

D
id you send that blind guy in here to talk with me?” Seth’s voice was quiet and without rancor. He sounded more curious than anything.

Still, Jane frowned at the question. “Blind guy?”

Jewel Ballantine answered. “You know, dear, the nice young man who’s a lawyer. He said he’s met you.”

“Oh, yeah. Jon-Paul. He was here?” Jane asked.

“He came in yesterday afternoon,” Seth said, “not long after you left.”

Jane shook her head and shrugged. “Well, I didn’t send him. What did he want?”

“I wouldn’t say he wanted anything,” Jewel said, “other than just to say hello.”

“He seemed to know some of the other men on the floor,” Sid added. “Maybe he just stops up here to visit once in a while.”

“Oh. Well, he has a sister who’s a nurse on one of the other floors,” Jane said. “And he’s dating one of the nurses. I can’t remember their names, but anyway, he comes sometimes to have lunch with them, and when he does, he plays the piano down in the atrium. He’s really good.”

“I remember hearing someone playing the piano down there once,” Jewel said. “Maybe that was him. Do you remember that, Sid?”

Sid shrugged.

“Probably lots of people play that piano, Jewel,” Jane said. “It’s there for whoever feels like playing.”

“Don’t get any ideas, Mom,” Seth said.

Jewel waved a hand. “Don’t worry. I won’t embarrass you, son.”

“You know,” Sid said, “your mother’s a good piano player. Think of all the years she’s played in church. She’s always sounded good to me.”

“That’s because you’re tone deaf, Dad.”

“Seth!” Jane scolded. “What a thing to say!”

Seth winked at his mother. “Mom knows I’m just giving her a hard time. Listen, speaking of church, did you get to the service in the chapel this morning?”

“Oh my, yes,” Jewel said. “It was a very nice service. The pastor could use a haircut, though—”

“Ah, Jewel,” Sid interjected, “you always think everybody needs a haircut—”

“But he was a nice young man,” Jewel said, ignoring her husband, “and he gave a good sermon. Had a good turnout too. The chapel was full.”

“Listen, son,” Sid said, “half the people there were in wheelchairs, so it’s really not an excuse to stay away. Maybe next week you’ll come with us?”

“Yeah, maybe.” Seth nodded. He turned his head toward the door and frowned. “Hey, Jane, is that Truman out there?”

Jane listened a moment. “I don’t know. Do you want me to see?”

“Yeah. And if he’s out there, tell him to come here for a minute.”

Jane stepped to the door and looked out. Truman was in the hall talking with a nurse. He lifted a hand when he saw Jane. In another moment the nurse nodded and left. “Hello, Jane,” Truman said. “What’s up?”

“Do you have a minute?”

“Sure.” He moved down the hall toward Seth’s room.

“Seth wants to see you.”

Truman raised his eyebrows, and Jane shrugged in response. One after the other, they stepped into Seth’s room.

“Hey, Doc Rockaway,” Seth greeted him from the bed. “I want you to meet the folks. Mom, Dad, this is the doctor I was telling you about, the one who knew what to do when I had that episode last Thursday.”

Sid rose from his seat and extended a hand. “We’re grateful to you, Doctor. I’m Sid Ballantine, Seth’s father. And this is my wife, Jewel.”

Truman shook hands with each one. “Very nice to meet you both.”

“Thank God, you were here, Dr. Rockaway,” Jewel said. “I hate to think . . .” Her words trailed off as she looked at Seth and back to Truman.

“He’s the best doctor in the hospital,” Seth said, “and he doesn’t even get paid for what he does.”

Truman laughed. “Well, I’m glad you think so highly of me, Seth, but I don’t do much. I just kind of keep my eye on things, help out as I can.”

“I wouldn’t call saving Seth’s life nothing much, Doctor,” Sid said.

“Yes, I wish we could bring you along when we take Seth home,” Jewel added. “I’d feel a whole lot less nervous with someone like you around.”

Truman waved a hand and gave a reassuring nod. “Don’t worry, Mrs. Ballantine. You’ll be fine. The hospital will educate you in everything you need to know for having Seth at home.”

The four of them, all still standing, lingered for an awkward moment by Seth’s bed. Finally Sid broke the silence by saying, “I hear you saw action in Korea.”