Chapter Eighteen

 

Baltimore, Maryland

Friday, September 29, 1995

 

Late that night, after writing the explosion scene her father had described, Lillianna closed her eyes. She wondered if pity and love were related. If she could somehow love her father again, now that she pitied him so much. He’d made himself vulnerable to her, told her about his shame over the accident, a senseless tragedy he believed, with good reason, to be his own fault. For years she’d assumed he’d been hurt in battle somewhere on the beach in Normandy or in the European theater.

The centerpiece of her history had been dug up and exposed as a complete and utter fiction. It left a gaping hole in her past she didn’t quite know how to step over. Still, she admired the courage it must have taken for him to review, so many years after the actual event, that day in all its gory detail.

What would it feel like to let go of all the past hurts and grudges and allow herself to experience whatever might be lurking beneath them? With that question, a picture of her mother developed in small increments of understanding. Cassandra had tried to explain the way she’d touched him again after the accident, viewed him in a different way—no longer the whole man she’d married. Somehow, over the nearly thirty-five years of their marriage, her mother had managed to reshape her love into whatever her father needed.

Lillianna questioned whether she could manage to do the same. Each afternoon, long before visiting hours ended, she yearned to be gone. And when she returned to her hotel, she felt a sense of relief, finally freed from that hospital room. Even though she occupied her evenings reliving the things he told her, she still felt that stingy impatience to be alone, to insulate herself from him, that rose again and again in her life.

But, even as she lingered on those thoughts, she hungered to know more and couldn’t let him stop with that scene in the ambulance. Tomorrow morning, she had to hear more. But what if her brother and Sarah showed up early? It was selfish, she knew, but she wanted him all to herself a little while longer.

She phoned Greg. “I know it’s late. But I was wondering if you and Sarah might like to have a break this weekend.”

“Are you saying you actually want more alone time with him?”

“Yes, I guess I am.”

“I hate to say it, but I told you so.” There was a happy lilt to his voice.

She laughed. “So why did you?”

“Can’t help myself. Let us know as soon as the surgery is scheduled.”

 

Baltimore, Maryland

Saturday, September 30, 1995

 

“God, it must have been awful for Mom. What did she do when she found out? Greg was a baby then, wasn’t he?”

“He was just about a year old, standing up on his own, but not walking. I guess someone must have called your mother because she was there. Greg, too. I didn’t know anything. I was out cold for three days...”

 

Fort Jackson Army Hospital

July 1945

 

Consciousness entered slowly. Calvin floated back and forth between oblivion and awareness. His mind was sluggish and dull, filled with the delirium of morphine. And even as his comprehension began to untangle, he lay perfectly still, his eyes closed, uncertain of his own return.

A wave of pain traveled from his chest to his toes. He tensed, then relaxed again. Calvin had started to drift back into the stupor when he sensed, rather than saw, a woman bending over him. He hadn’t opened his eyes, but he knew it was his wife, Cassandra, and understood she’d noticed the slight movement of his body when it tensed. But before he could open his eyes, he faded back into those circles of oblivion—circles that pulsated with the beat... the beat... the beat of his heart.

He was only vaguely aware of other people—nurses, orderlies, and doctors—coming in and out of the room. And it seemed to him they were in one universe while he occupied another. Minute by minute, the distance between the two worlds expanded. Calvin lay isolated in his, while the others stood together in theirs.

The next time he became conscious of his body, he didn’t know if hours or days had passed. In the quiet of that darkened hospital, Calvin heard the sound of a familiar voice. A man’s voice. His pa. At first, Cal thought he was dreaming.

“Please, God,” his father said, “I know I ain’t deserving of much. But, Calvin. He’s a good boy, God. He ain’t like me, and he don’t deserve to die. I won’t never ask for nothing again. Not so long as I live and breathe. But please, God. Give my boy a chance to live and see his baby grow up.”

Sounds of weeping drifted from the corner of the room and Calvin longed to rise out of bed and comfort his father. Words formed inside his head but couldn’t find their way out, and so he lay there, quietly listening, as his pa bargained with God. A God he didn’t know until that moment his father even believed in.

“I swear to you, Lord. I ain’t never gonna drink another drop of whiskey. Never again. I swear it. If you’ll just let my boy live.”

Calvin’s heart softened, emptied, and filled again with love for his father that welled up inside his chest and filtered into his face, warmed his cheeks and forehead. And it was that love that finally lifted his eyelids.

“Pa.” His voice was so soft Calvin wasn’t sure the word had actually formed itself and left his mouth.

His father raised his head, opened his eyes and tilted his ear toward the hospital bed.

“Pa,” Calvin said again.

This time his father leapt up from his chair and rushed across the room to Calvin’s bedside. “Calvin. Can you hear me, boy? Are you awake?”

“I can’t hear so good. What happened to me, Pa? What happened?”

“That thing you boys found was an old grenade, left over from the last war. The explosion busted your right eardrum. Your head’s all bandaged up. That’s why you don’t hear me so good, son.”

“Mario. Where’s Mario? Is he all right, Pa?”

“I don’t know nothin’ about him. It was pretty bad, though, and several of you got hurt. Some didn’t make it. That’s all I know.”

A picture of Mario rose in Calvin’s mind, and he didn’t know if it was real or just a photograph he’d seen once where Mario lay peaceful and perfectly still in a field, sleeping against the side of a tree stump. Calvin closed his eyes, shook his head to clear away the image, then looked up again at his father. “Where’s Cassandra? She was here, wasn’t she? Is she all right?”

“She’s worried to death about you, boy. Stayed right next to your bed. Night and day since she got here. I talked her into getting some rest. Said I’d stay by your side till she came back.”

Calvin stared into his father’s face. His eyes were glossy, the lids raw and irritated. But he broke into a smile when Calvin said, “That’s good, Pa. That’s good. You gotta take care of her and Greg for me now.”

“You’re gonna be all right, son. You’re gonna get better and take care of them yourself. You have to.”

Calvin nodded and attempted to shift himself on the bed. Most of his body was encased in plaster. Both legs, all the way up to his waist, with a steel rod connecting the two casts. His right arm was also casted, and at the end, in the place where his hand should be, a sphere of gauze swelled into a small basketball. A drainage tube stuck out from the gauze.

With a rush of fear, he understood the severity of his injuries. His face grew clammy. A heinous pain climbed from his legs into his chest and hung there by his ribcage until he wept from exhaustion, pain, fear and the simple, naked knowledge nothing would ever be the same again. And because of that, nothing except the pain mattered.

The sounds of his own weeping disturbed him after a minute or two, and he sucked in his breath, a little horrified, for the noise seemed remote and no longer connected to him. It was as if he had a coating of insulation around all awareness, and the insulation could be sloughed off for only an instant or two before his pain drew it safely around him again.

His father touched his forehead. “Stay with me, son. Please. I’m begging you. Stay this time.”

Calvin opened his eyes.

His father chattered on. “Your sisters is all here, Calvin. And your brother, Ron. Grandpaw, too. He took the train. They’re all in the waiting room. Every single one of them. Calvin, do you hear me?”

“Am I gonna die, Pa? Is that why they all came?” Calvin’s eyes clamped shut again as he tried to shut out the pain that licked ravenously at his body. Sweat coursed down his face in definite streaks like the lines formed by tears.

“No, boy. That ain’t why they came. They love you. We all do. That’s why they’re here. Do you hear me, son? Answer me, Calvin. Answer me, please.” His father put his face close to his son’s and spoke into his left ear.

“I hear you, Pa. But it hurts. It hurts so bad.”

The return of consciousness came with a price and Calvin heaved from one crescendo of agony to another. He whimpered and muttered incoherently. His legs ached, and he made feeble, impossible efforts to bring his knees up to his chest.

“I’ll get a nurse. Just hold on, you hear me. Hold on, boy. They’ll give you something for it.”

As the morphine entered his bloodstream, Calvin’s chest grew taut. It was a pleasurable sensation, like when a person was in the first phase of drunkenness, satisfied to feel only the euphoric symptoms of his inebriation. He waited for the ease, for that distance that needn’t be filled with anything other than his roving thoughts swirling in waves around his head. For a moment, joyous possibilities floated before him. He would get well again.

Calvin imagined Greg growing up, going to school, playing baseball. The two of them, together, discussing important things. Before re-entering that drug-induced sleep, his last conscious reflections were of his son, of the life he dreamed for them. And a swell of pride rose in his chest.

When he opened his eyes again, Greg was lying in his mother’s lap in a chair by the window, the sky lit from behind them as the sun mounted slowly into morning. Its warmth and brightness filled the room, and a circle of golden light wrapped itself around his wife and son.

He stared at them. They were engrossed in each other. The baby’s small hand encircled his mother’s finger in a perfect ring. With his other hand, Greg brushed the air over his head, split it into graceful pieces.

The baby gazed directly into his mother’s eyes as he sucked the bottle she held. Calvin knew, with certainty, his wife remembered Elsie Ruth; thought about the little sister who died in her arms so many years ago. And he could tell by the look on her face, Cassandra feared something could happen to Greg.

It could be a terrible thing to know someone else’s secret fears, an added hurt on the way to loving. The color had been sucked from Cassandra’s cheeks, and he understood her fragility. No one knew better than Calvin did now that only a thin layer of skin kept us from spilling out into the world.

Sensing his wife’s sadness and fear, he longed to reassure her, to cradle her face in his hands and kiss it all far, far away. But where were his hands? He stared at the ball of gauze, tried to wiggle his fingers within it, but nothing moved. Only a dull ache. He held his breath and shifted his gaze to his left arm, bandaged, but not casted. Through the gauze and tape, the outline of a hand appeared. Calvin breathed, then whispered, “Cassandra.”

Startled, she jumped to her feet, cradled the baby in the crook of her right arm, and leapt across the room. “Sweetheart. You’re awake. How do you feel?” She touched his cheek with the palm of her hand. It was cool and so, so soft.

Calvin turned his head, moved his face beneath her touch.

“Your pa told me you woke up last night and talked. I’m sorry I wasn’t here, sweetheart. I shouldn’t have left you.”

“You need to rest. You can’t be with me all the time.”

“I wanted to be here with Greg when you woke up. So you’d know we’re here for you. And we’re going to help you heal and learn how to get around again.”

Sweat beaded on his upper lip. “What do you mean, get around? What do you mean by that?” The shrill volume of his voice startled him. “Are they saying I’m not gonna walk again? Is that what the doctors are saying?”

Again, she touched his face. “Don’t get yourself all riled up. No one’s said that for sure. But it’s not going to be easy, Calvin. You’ve lost some bone in your legs.”

“Don’t worry, Cassandra. I’ll walk again. Those doctors don’t know anything about me. I’ll show all of them. I’ll walk again on my own two legs. You watch me.”

She smiled then. “For now, you’ve got a lot of healing up to do before we worry about walking. Are you in much pain? Should I go get the nurse?”

“No. Not yet. I just wanna... I just wanna look at you for a minute.”

“I must look like something the cat dragged in.” She smoothed the front of her blouse. “I haven’t had a bath or washed my hair or anything.” She ran her fingers through her tangled curls. “I met your sisters and your brother, Ron. All of them are here, Calvin. Every one of them. And they’re so nice. Just like you said. They love Greg to pieces. It’s like they’re my sisters, too, now. Like after all these years, I got me some sisters.” Her eyes sparkled past his and into an old dream.

“Speaking of sisters, were you thinking about Elsie Ruth a minute ago... giving Greg his bottle?”

“Well, yes, I reckon I was. How d’you know that?”

He grinned. “I just knew, that’s all.”

She looked at him quizzically, her head tilted. “I’m gonna fetch your family, Calvin. They been waiting such a long time and they’re gonna be happy to see you awake.”

And so Calvin’s sisters, Evie, Allie, Pam and Nellie, his brother Ron, his pa, and his grandpaw formed a half circle around his bed. He couldn’t believe it, but there they were, together in the same place—his whole family after all those years. How often had he imagined this day? Dreamed and planned what they’d say to each other? His sisters were all grown up and so beautiful. Nellie’s red hair, long and wavy, hung halfway to her waist.

And Ron. Jesus, he’d grown up to be a tall, handsome man, with no trace of the heart murmur Grandmaw had worried so much about. Dressed in his army uniform, Ron looked a lot like a young Grandpaw.

“It’s good to see you with your eyes open, Bugs.” Allie, beautiful Allie, with her dark hair and eyes, reminding him so much of the picture of his mama he’d toted around most of his life.

“You went to an awful lot of trouble to arrange a family reunion, big brother. You coulda found a nicer spot.” Ron smiled and gently touched Calvin’s shoulder.

“You grew up, Ron. You grew up real good.” Calvin had struggled such a long time over the loss of his family and had grown nearly resigned to their disappearance. He could barely believe this reunion wasn’t another dream the morphine sent. But it was true. His entire family surrounded him that morning at Fort Jackson Army Hospital when the light re-entered Calvin’s life.

His spirits lifted in spite of the tears that rolled down both cheeks. He was strong and absolutely certain he could rise above his broken body—rise like a gull lifting from the sea and soaring toward the sun.