Under the Mercy Trees (22 page)

She leaned against the hood and smiled.

Raby took a picture and cocked the camera for the next one. “Act like you're in a showroom trying to sell that thing.”

She tilted her hip and batted her eyes at him.

He took another picture. “Climb on top of the hood there.”

“I might dent it. The buyer wouldn't be happy.”

“You couldn't dent that thing if you tried. They knew how to make cars back then.”

She climbed gingerly onto the hood. Raby was right. The metal was solid under her. She lay back on her elbows. “How's this?”

Raby took the picture. “I guess that's enough.” He turned his back to her to check the camera. She lay a hand on the Sunliner's warm hood. “Good-bye, car,” she said softly. She slid off onto the ground.

Raby turned around and grinned at her, slipping the camera into his pocket. “Let's get something to eat.”

They drove into Howling Rock and found a parking place right in front of a diner called Babe's Café.

“This okay with you?” Raby said.

“It's fine.” It was the type of primitive establishment Raby favored. They stepped through a screen door. The diner was packed, a good sign, the only seats two high stools at the lunch counter. They climbed up. Babe's had no menu. Customers were supposed to know what to order. The drink choices were lined up in their cans and bottles on a high shelf. Paper towel rolls served as napkins. Three beautiful cakes sat incongruously on the counter, a reward if they had room afterward.

A waitress, in her fifties with a beehive hairdo and red lacquered nails, slapped her palms down on the counter in front of them. “What can I get you folks?”

“Are you Babe?” Raby said.

She gave him an appreciating look. “For you I am.” It was nothing new for women to admire Raby.

“Hot dog plate and sweet tea, then, Babe,” Raby said.

The woman raised a mercilessly plucked eyebrow at Liza.

“BLT?” Liza hazarded.

“We're out of L and T.”

“Grilled cheese, then.”

“That we got.”

“And a Sundrop, please.”

The waitress whipped behind her to grab a cold Sundrop out of the cooler case and poured Raby a big iced tea in a Styrofoam cup, yelling their order into the kitchen. Liza looked around for restrooms and saw none. When the waitress swung around with their drinks Liza asked her where the ladies' room was.

“Outside. Down the stairs. In the basement.”

Raby winked at her. “If you aren't back in five minutes I'll come hunting for you.”

“I'll look after him for you, hon,” the waitress said.

Liza draped her coat over her bar stool, went outside and down the narrow brick staircase between the diner and the next building. A tiny hand-lettered sign with an arrow said Toilet. She stepped up two cinder block stairs into the building's basement. The toilet door didn't close all the way, and when she hooked it there was an inch gap. She pulled her pants down and peed with record speed. The low ceiling squeaked as people walked around in the diner above. She heard the low rumble of Raby's laughter and the waitress's muffled cackle.

When she got back upstairs Raby slid off his stool. “My turn. How was it?”

“You might as well pee in the yard. I don't think they'll mind.”

He left and Liza situated herself on the stool. The waitress came out from the kitchen and set food down in front of her. Cheese dripped beautifully out of Liza's sandwich. Onion rings and fries spilled off Raby's plate. The waitress picked up the spilled ones with her scarlet talons and piled them lovingly back on. “We gave him extra. The girls in the kitchen just can't get over him. Your man is a prize, hon.”

“Thank you,” Liza said.

Raby came back and they ate their lunch, then split a piece of chocolate cake. Raby left a big tip for the waitress, who blew him a kiss from across the room as they left. They walked down the town's main street, window-shopping, going into a store here and there when they felt like it. In a gallery where oil paintings shared space with jewelry and other accessories, Raby bought her a scarf.

“It's blue, like your car. Something to remember it by.” He hung it around her neck. The silk was so soft she could hardly feel it on her skin.

Back at home late that afternoon, she watched from the living room window again as Raby handled the sale of the Sunliner. He stood relaxed, patient while the excited buyer checked out the car.

“Mommy!” Sandra called from her room down the hall. “Alissa isn't sharing!”

“Just a minute,” Liza said.

There was a passage in
Little Women
when Laurie, the young man whose love for Jo has gone unrequited for so long, goes away after Jo turns down his marriage proposal and then falls in love with Jo's sister Amy. He comes back and tells Jo he'll never stop loving her, but that the love is altered. “Amy and you changed places in my heart, that's all.” Those words always bothered Liza. She didn't see how it could be true, that you could love someone so passionately and then trade them out, like an interchangeable part. That afternoon, with late spring sun touching Raby's hair and glinting off the convertible, she understood. In that moment she made the decision that she would turn her mind, would assign to Raby all the romance with which she had endowed Martin for so long, would from that day on look at Raby with the eyes of the town women whose gazes followed him whenever he and Liza were out together.

“A prize. Your man is a prize.”

Liza was over Martin Owenby. Almost.

30

Bertie

Another meeting. Bertie almost begged off and told James to go without her, but she couldn't do that to him. The sheriff needed to tell them what he'd found in Leon's medical records. This time Hodge offered his house, since he and Martin would already be there. Bertie was glad they weren't meeting at Eugenia's again, but she still didn't want to go. There was no way around it. She and James were going to have to tell the family about Bobby and Cherise's deed. Cherise was still on bed rest, recovering from her cesarean, but soon she'd be up and around and lying again. Bertie dreaded the righteous look on Eugenia's face.

James drove without speaking, clenching and unclenching his jaw. It started to sprinkle. Raindrops beaded on the windshield, their shadows growing huge on Bertie's lap when other cars passed with their brights on. James turned on the wipers and the spots disappeared. Bertie wished she could just as easily wipe away her fears about what Bobby might have done to Leon. “James?” Her voice quavered. “Do you think Bobby had anything to do with it?” All her doubts were in the question. She had to ask it.

“No.” He sounded so sure Bertie felt better right away. “But you know he's lying about that deed, and he ain't smart enough to get away with it.” He ran his fingers through his thinning hair. “Stupid,” he said. “Just stupid.”

At Hodge's house, Hodge opened the door before they could knock. Martin and Eugenia stood in the living room behind him. The sheriff wasn't there yet. Eugenia hadn't brought Zeb.

“Is Ivy coming?” James said.

The others all looked at each other. “It didn't cross my mind to call her,” Hodge said.

“She doesn't really understand things anyway,” Eugenia said.

“You know they just put up a nice headstone for Shane. Martin and I went. It was real nice,” Hodge said.

Martin looked uncomfortable.

Hodge was used to dealing with Owenby family awkwardness. He changed the subject. “Bertie, you look awfully young to be a grandmother.” He clapped James on the back. “Can we start calling y'all Papaw and Mamaw?”

“Not unless your name is Haylee,” James said.

Bertie got out the picture of Haylee they'd taken at the hospital right after she was born. Her hair stuck out, and her face was all squinched up because of the big light the photographer shone in her eyes, but she still looked beautiful. Bertie passed it around. Everybody said Haylee was cute, even Eugenia. “She's got the red hair, from Daddy's side of the family.” Eugenia handed the photo back to Bertie. “None of us had it, but they say Missouri was a redhead, our great-grandmother.”

“Granny Alma's mother,” James said.

Martin pretended to shudder. “Granny Alma. That was a scary woman.”

“Do you remember her? You weren't but about four when she died,” Eugenia said.

“I remember a dark presence in the corner and her bellowing and pointing a long bony finger at me.” Martin pointed his own finger at Eugenia, crooking it like an old lady's.

Eugenia batted his hand away. “She'd had a stroke by then and couldn't talk.”

“Just as well,” James said. “She never had anything nice to say. She told Mama I had shifty eyes and couldn't be trusted. I wasn't but six at the time. What six-year-old can't you trust?”

Feet stomped on the mat outside. Sheriff Metcalf let himself in, knocking as he entered. He looked tired. Bertie appreciated the special attention he was giving the Owenbys, out of friendship to Hodge. The sheriff shook hands all around and settled in the middle of the couch, where he could open up his briefcase and spread papers on Hodge's coffee table. Hodge was the only one willing to sit down next to him on the couch. The rest took seats farther away. James touched his hearing aid, adjusting it so he wouldn't miss anything.

“We've got Leon's medical records, one set from the hospital and another from the neurologist he saw after that.” The sheriff slipped a pair of little reading glasses out of his front pocket and put them on. “He admitted himself to the emergency room back in July, saying his face was tingling and it felt like his tongue wouldn't move. They did a CT scan and found what they called ‘ministrokes.' It says here, ‘transient ischemic attack.' ” Even the sheriff tripped up over the medical words. “He saw the neurologist three times after that. He told the doctor he was having spells more and more often.”

“Does it really say ‘spells'?” said Martin.

“I think the doctor was quoting Leon. They sent him for an MRI in August. He refused to take any medicine.” The sheriff flipped through the rest of the papers in his hand. “That's about it.”

“Why in the world didn't he tell us?” Eugenia said.

The sheriff shrugged. “He may not have wanted to worry you.”

Hodge cleared his throat. “If he was sick, that would explain something.” They all stared at him. He looked guilty.

“I guess I should have mentioned it before, but it didn't seem connected, and I know Leon wouldn't have wanted me to talk about it. Lately he would come hunt me down when he was in town, to ask me questions. About repentance, good works, setting things right. I think he was making a turn toward the Lord.”

Eugenia's hands flew up to her mouth. “Oh, Hodge, thank goodness. I've been so worried that he wasn't saved.”

“Leon? Interested in church?” Martin said.

“I can't say I'd got him to church yet, but maybe he thought God was trying to tell him something with those strokes, rapping him on the wrist to get his attention, so to speak,” Hodge said.

“The strokes explain why he didn't want to drive anymore,” the sheriff said.

“Do you think he could have had one of those transient attack things and wandered off somewhere, gotten disoriented?” Hodge said.

“It's possible. We just don't know,” the sheriff said.

“Well, that has to be it, doesn't it?” Bertie said. She wanted that to be it. Leon's medical records gave an explanation for Leon's disappearance that didn't involve her son.

“What puzzles me is why we haven't found him yet,” the sheriff said. “If he was sick, he couldn't have wandered far. We've searched that entire property.” He knocked the papers on the coffee table to straighten them and put them back in his briefcase. “Anyway, we'll hold on to these. They might be important.”

“Do you have any other new information, sheriff?” Eugenia said.

“No. I was going to ask y'all the same thing.”

James cleared his throat. He looked at Bertie and she nodded. “There's something me and Bertie thought we better tell you about. We don't think it has to do with Leon's disappearance, but we might as well get it out in the open.”

Everybody stared at him, waiting.

“Last week, before Cherise had the baby, she and Bobby came over to the house with what they said was a deed from Leon to them.” James looked down at his hands, then back up. “I can't say for sure it was a fake. I don't think I saw Leon's signature more than a time or two in my life, so I can't compare. But I think it was a fake. We're telling all of you in case Bobby tries to take it any further. I hope he won't.” He shook his head. “He's a liar, but I don't think he hurt Leon.”

Bertie could feel James's shame. She moved closer to him and touched his slumped shoulders.

Eugenia said, “Well!” The look of satisfaction on her face made Bertie feel just sick.

“So Bobby could have killed Leon in order to get his property,” Eugenia said. It was the first time anybody had said the word “kill.” James stiffened.

“Now, Eugenia,” Hodge said.

“Actually, it wasn't Leon's farm,” the sheriff said. “I had a deputy check the property records. The title is recorded in the names of Rory and Nell Owenby. Nobody ever probated your daddy's estate.”

“We didn't know he had an estate.” Eugenia was wide-eyed. “Pop didn't own anything to parse out.”

“He had that land. Did he have a will?” the sheriff said.

“Of course not.”

“We all assumed it went to Leon as the oldest son,” James said. “I never really thought about it, to tell you the truth. Nobody but Leon wanted to live up there.”

“Primogenitive inheritance. They never should have abolished it,” Martin said.

Eugenia turned on him. “Martin, you're the educated one, why didn't you ever ask about it?” She hit him on the arm.

Martin didn't answer, but Bertie could have answered for him. Martin didn't care who owned that property. He had never planned to come back here and probably even now didn't consider himself here for long.

“How does it work?” Eugenia asked the sheriff.

“Well, I think all you siblings get an equal share,” the sheriff said, sounding not particularly interested in that part of it.

“What have we got to do to make it official, that we all own it together?” Eugenia was certainly interested.

Hodge said, “One of you will need to go down to the probate office at the courthouse and get sworn in as the administrator of your daddy's estate.”

“What does an administrator have to do?” Eugenia said.

“I think inventory his personal property,” Hodge said.

“Zero,” said Eugenia.

“Put a notice in the paper and pay off his debts if he had any, though it's been so long you're probably off the hook.”

“Pop was never beholden to anybody,” Eugenia said.

“I guess once you do the paperwork, you get a new deed in all of y'all's names. Which one of you wants to do it? James?”

James looked startled. “Not me.”

“Martin?”

“Me? I don't even live here.”

“You do now,” Hodge said.

“You're the one's been to college, Martin,” Eugenia said.

“You would be the best choice,” Hodge said.

James looked upset. “Shouldn't we wait until we know something on Leon? It doesn't seem right to carve it up without him.”

“It's just to get all your names on the deed, to get the ownership straightened out,” Hodge said. “It doesn't mean you have to do anything with the property.”

James still looked disturbed. “Is that property even worth anything?”

“The timber on it is worth a little something,” the sheriff said.

“Why can't you do it for us, Hodge? You know how it all works,” Martin said.

“It needs to be a family member.”

“Oh, just go down and do it for us,” Eugenia said to Martin.

Martin sighed. “I guess I can go down there and report back.”

“I have all your mama's and daddy's papers, their death certificates and such,” Bertie said. “I'll get them to you.”

“Great.” Martin didn't sound very enthusiastic.

The sheriff turned to Bertie and James. “I'm going to need to talk to Bobby and his girlfriend about that deed.”

Bertie's heart started to speed up. She could feel the pulse flicking in her neck.

“You want to give me their phone number?” the sheriff said.

“They don't have a phone,” James said. “You can call our house, we'll give them the message. And one of us will come with Bobby, Sheriff.”

“That's fine.” The sheriff snapped the locks closed on his briefcase and stood up. “I'll let you folks know if anything develops.”

“Thank you, Sheriff.” Eugenia followed him to the door. Bertie could hear Eugenia whispering to him, about Bobby, about Bertie. Eugenia cut her eyes back at Bertie, and Bertie heard her tell him as clear as day, “The apple doesn't fall far from the tree.”

That was enough. Bertie started toward Eugenia. “You got no right to be saying that.”

James put his hand on Bertie's arm to hold her back and shook his head at her. “We need to be going.”

“Martin will let you know about the probate thing, won't you, Martin?” Hodge said.

Bertie followed James out the door. Eugenia was still gossiping with the sheriff out on the stoop, though it eased Bertie's mind a bit that Eugenia was the one doing all the talking. Bertie would have felt worse if Sheriff Metcalf was joining in. James said a short “Good night” as they passed. Bertie kept her mouth shut for James and opened her eyes real wide so the tears couldn't pool up. She and James climbed in the truck. James started the engine and pulled out of Hodge's driveway. Bertie leaned her head against the window. Her sad face stared at her from the truck's side mirror. Eugenia's sharp words festered in her brain.
The apple doesn't fall far from the tree
. Eugenia had to know Bertie would go back and change things if she could, that she'd regretted leaving James almost as soon as she'd done it, but she couldn't go back.

*  *  *

It was the dancing that did it, a thing as simple as a country two-step. Whiskers touching her cheek not quite by accident, warm skin beneath them.

She had gone to Lenoir to see a doctor. Not the local man who replaced Dr. Vance, but a gynecologist, one not in her town, who wouldn't be tempted to gossip. She went because James wanted a son. They had the two girls, and they hadn't been able to conceive a third child. Two weeks before, when her monthly showed up, James, thinking he was being kind, remarked that after all, she was getting older. She got the doctor's name out of the phone book. She didn't tell James. She left the girls at her mama's and took the bus to Lenoir. The doctor had his nurse in the room during the examination, but still it was humiliating to have a man prod her like that, even if he was a doctor. When she had dressed again and the nurse had left, Bertie asked the doctor if she could have more children. He said he thought so, he didn't see anything wrong. Then she asked him whether there was a way to make sure it was a boy. She didn't know. What did they know up there in the coves? It seemed like there ought to be a way people could choose. The doctor laughed at her. He told her if she figured out how to fix the sex of a child, to come back and see him and they would patent the process together. She felt so stupid and ashamed.