Good Hope Road

“Everything’s changed . . . everything’s different,” I explained, following him down the steps. “I want to do something with my life. I want to go to school, make something of myself.”

“It’s not an ignorant idea.” Is it? I felt my footing crumble, felt myself sliding back to that place where the doors were closed.

Shad laughed so loud that Nate stirred on the chair behind us, then drifted into sleep again. “How are you going to go off to some school? Where you gonna get the money for that?”

I paused, suddenly unsure of myself. Was I out of my mind? Was I crazy thinking that, just because Mrs. Gibson and Mr. Jaans said things would work out, they really would?

The rumble of the tractor grew louder again, and I glanced over my shoulder. “Oh, Lord, Drew’s coming through the pasture.” My heart leaped into my throat and fluttered like a swallow trapped in the chimney. “You’ve got to go before he gets here.”

The tractor stopped. I glanced around the oleander bush and saw Drew opening the gate to the barnyard. “Shad, please. Just go. There isn’t anything else for you here. It’s over.”

He took a step toward me, then backed off, raising his hands in the air. “All right. I’ll leave.” The anger seemed to fade, and he looked like a hurt boy again. “You ain’t making sense, though, Jenilee. I’m gonna go to the woods for a few days; then I’ll be back.” He rammed his hands into his pockets and walked out the gate.

On the porch, Nate woke up and roared like a suffering lion. “Owww, my leg’s asleep!” he hollered. “Hey, come get me off this chair. I gotta go to the bathroom.”

“Can you look after Nate for a few minutes?” I asked, my mind spinning. What if thinking about college really was a crazy idea? “I need to go take a walk and clear my head.”

Drew looked suspicious. “You’re not going to run off with my truck again, are you? I’ve got to be able to find you if the hospital calls about Daddy.”

“Just do the best you can to ignore him.” Questions crowded my mind. “He got his hands on a couple of beers and I think he took an extra pain pill. He’s pretty well out of it. Keep an eye on him, all right? Don’t let him have any of that pain medicine from the hospital until after I get back.”

Drew rolled his eyes and looked toward Nate. “I ought to leave him sitting there with his leg asleep. He doesn’t need any beer; and he’s too young for it, anyway.”

“I know,” I said, feeling sad, realizing how wrong everything about our lives was for Nate. Nate couldn’t even imagine a life with all the normal rules in it.

I walked away, my throat a giant lump of emotions I was afraid to share. What was Nate going to say when I told him I was thinking about going away to school? Would he think I was running out on him?

My head cleared as I walked down the road, looking at all of the debris that had blown into the ditch overnight—papers, bits of clothing, more pictures, wrappers and empty food boxes. Fluffy scraps of foam insulation clung to the tops of the weeds like cotton candy. In the strangest way, it was beautiful.

Mrs. Gibson’s farm was just as it had been before, except that someone, probably Weldon, had come and gotten the old grain box where Drew and I had stored the salvaged items. I wondered if Weldon had found her notebooks. Would she tell him about losing her memory, and see the doctor about it, as she promised?

Picking my way slowly through the tangle of wood, nails, barn metal, glass, insulation, and twisted pipes, I looked for Mrs. Gibson’s memory books. I moved slowly around the house and barn, crawled into the fallen section of the house roof that rested offkilter against the side of the barn. Here and there, I gathered her belongings—a few old pictures, some recipes, a doll with a handmade dress, a faded movie program from The Wizard of Oz. Picking up an old bucket beside the house, I put the things inside and stood staring around the place, thinking of those first, terrible moments after the tornado.

Lacy’s voice called to me from the cellar. I turned and saw her hands pressed against the screen, her eyes wide, gray, filled with fear in the darkness below.

The cellar door that had barred her escape was gone now. A branch had fallen from the power line above and knocked the door into the cellar, so that only a dark hole remained with the end of the branch sticking out where the door had been.

I moved closer to it without knowing why. Somewhere in the darkness below, I heard the mewing of the cat. My mind spun with a mixture of memory and reality that was hard to comprehend.

Reaching into my pocket, I pulled out the cigarette lighter and struck it, then started slowly down the steps, moving carefully around the branch. Breath caught in my throat as I descended from the sunlight into the darkness, into the memory of that day, of those moments when there was nothing around me but darkness and my own fear.

I stood in the nest of branches at the bottom of the cellar steps and looked around in the flickering yellow light. Water seeped through my shoes, cool and dark. I smelled it, remembering the scent from that day when I had crawled across the floor toward Mrs. Gibson.

I realized now how afraid I had been, how terrified of everything around me. Afraid to talk, afraid to do, afraid to leave, afraid to stay, afraid to be. Afraid to save someone else. Afraid to confront the darkness and save myself.

As I stood there, I realized I didn’t want to be afraid anymore. In these strange, uncertain days after the tornado, I had come to believe that I didn’t have to be.

The flame flickered out, and I felt the darkness close like something solid around me. There was no fear in me. No voices telling me what to do or who to be. Only silence.

Striking the flame again, I held it out and looked around. The walls of the cellar were lined with long dust-covered shelves that sagged in the middle under the weight of dozens of mayonnaise and pickle jars, the labels carefully scrubbed off. I supposed that at one time they had been filled with canned goods, but they were nothing but forgotten containers now.

I turned slowly as the light glittered against the collection of jars. The glass distorted the light as I moved, bending and changing the image of the flame.

In the corner, the light reflected against the cat’s eyes, orange and glowing, hiding beneath the legs of a small table. The cat hissed as I came closer, then it slipped away into the shadows again.

Something caught my eye on the tabletop. I stepped closer to be sure, but in my mind, I already knew what it was. The notebooks. They must have been there all along. Along with the other things Mrs. Gibson had forgotten, she had forgotten taking her notebooks to the cellar before the tornado.

What would she say when I told her where I had found them? Would she be so glad to have them back that she wouldn’t be upset about forgetting what she had done?

Holding the light in front of me, I moved carefully through the water, took the notebooks, and carried them up the stairs just as we had carried each other after the tornado. At the top, I stood in the uneven shadow of the stark trees and looked at the notebooks. Just ordinary spiral-bound, like the ones I had used in school, ten of them, the pages rippled and worn on the edges, as if she leafed through them often.

You never really know about people, I thought. All the time that I thought she was living a perfect life down the road, she was hiding, just as I was. Afraid, just as I was.

The sound of Drew’s truck chased away my thoughts. I saw him coming fast with Nate in the backseat. Scrambling over the rubble, I hurried to the road as the truck slid to a halt where Mrs. Gibson’s gate used to be.

“Get in!” Drew called, throwing open the passenger door as I jumped over the stagnant water in the ditch and reached the road. “It’s Daddy. He’s awake, and they need us at the hospital.”

I climbed into the truck and shut the door, stacking Mrs. Gibson’s notebooks on the seat between us. “What’s wrong? What did they say about Daddy?”

“It was a receptionist on the phone. She told me she was calling for Dr. Garland in ICU, and they needed us at the hospital as soon as possible. She said it would be best to bring all the family members.”

I clutched the base of my neck, swallowing the lump in my throat. “Is Daddy worse?” I whispered, my soul hiding in a dark corner of the shell that was my body.

“I don’t know. She—she couldn’t say. She didn’t know the details. She just said we should come.” He tightened his grip on the steering wheel, his fingers kneading nervously. “She said Dr. Garland had to go into surgery, so he couldn’t talk to us. Things are still pretty crazy at the hospital, she said. I told her we ought to be able to get there in about an hour now that the highway is open.”

“No. Daddy’s not in surgery,” Drew answered, impatient with me for asking questions he couldn’t answer. He glanced over his shoulder at Nate. “What’s wrong with Nate? How many of those pain pills did he take this morning? I could hardly get him awake long enough to take him to the truck. What was he doing out on the porch drinking beer, anyway?”

Drew slammed a hand into the steering wheel, and the truck swerved, fishtailing on the gravel. “Oh, great! That’s just great, Jenilee.”

“Drew, be careful!” I screamed as the truck slid wildly around a corner, the rear tires careening off the shoulder and spinning out.

Drew ignored me. Letting the truck slow slightly, he turned toward me and pointed a finger. “The next time I see that Shad Bell, I’m going to kill him. You keep him away from Nate.”

“And I’ll tell you something else.” Drew turned his attention to the road again, but kept his finger pointed at me. “When this is all over, I’m taking you and Nate back to Springfield with me. If Nate’s drinking beer and popping pills with Shad Bell, he’s about that close to some real trouble.” He held his thumb and forefinger an inch apart. “And if you’re still thinking about getting back together with Shad, so are you.”

“Drew, I . . .” I stood on the line between fear and anger, unsure of which way to let my emotions fall. “Daddy will never let you take Nate away, Drew, and Nate won’t want to go, either. Nate won’t just walk out on Daddy. He won’t. Nate’s nothing if not loyal. Even to Daddy.”

Drew glanced at our little brother in the backseat, and then at me, his dark eyes softening. “One way or another, I’m going to make it all work. I did the wrong thing when I left the two of you here alone. But Mama was sick, and I knew if I took you away, there would be no one to take care of her. I told myself it was best that way, but the truth was, I knew it was wrong.”

He turned his attention back to the road, shaking his head, the hardness melting from his profile so that he didn’t look so much like Daddy. “You know, Jenilee, I stood in the door that day, and I came so close to telling you to hop in the truck, we’d go by the school and get Nate, and we’d be out of there. But Darla was pregnant, and I was just out of the army. I didn’t have a house or a job, and I didn’t see how I could handle anything more.”

I nodded, closing my eyes and thinking of that day, and how much I had wanted him to rescue us. I wondered what our lives would have been if he had. My mind couldn’t paint the picture. I could not imagine what I would have become without the years of hardship, Mama’s death, the tornado, all that had happened afterward.

I laid my hand on Drew’s arm, and took a breath. “Drew, I want to tell you something. There are a lot of details to it that I don’t know yet, but Dr. Albright, you know, the doctor who helped us at the armory? He thinks he can get me into this internship program where I could work in a hospital and start on a college degree in something to do with medicine. I know it seems like a crazy dream, but I was thinking . . . well, I was thinking maybe it would work. Maybe I could do it.” I stared straight ahead, afraid to move, afraid to say anything more.

Drew rolled up his window so that the truck was quiet. The minutes ticked by in painful silence as he stared at the road ahead. Finally, he said, “I think it’s a good idea. It would be a good thing for you.”

I found myself nodding before he finished. “I know. It sounds perfect. I don’t know any of the details yet, but it sounds like . . . well . . . like the answer to a prayer.”

Drew quirked a brow to hear me talking about prayers, then nodded like he agreed. “Well, then we’ll make it work out somehow. Somehow it’ll be all right.”

I nodded, but inside I was thinking, Will it? In all our plans, there was one thing left to consider—the one thing neither of us wanted to think about. The one person who held sway over our lives, and always had. Daddy.

I looked at Drew, now softened, weary, worried. If Daddy was recovering, if we reached the hospital and we had to face him, would we still have the strength to break free?

The questions spun through my mind like the cloud of dust billowing around the truck as we stopped at the highway intersection before pulling onto the interstate. Drew stepped on the accelerator and we sped toward Oklahoma City, toward something we didn’t know or understand, and couldn’t be ready for.

In the backseat, Nate slept, unaware. He awoke an hour later as we pulled into the hospital parking lot. Gripping his head, he leaned against the window. “I feel sick.” He groaned.

“Yeah, no kidding.” Drew jerked the back door open so that Nate almost fell out. “You ever take anything from Shad Bell again, I’m gonna make you more than sick, Bubby. You just keep that in mind. And you aren’t legal for beer, either. Remember that.”

Drew waved me away as I moved to help Nate. “You just remember this the next time you think about popping pills and getting drunk.” He stepped away and left Nate standing on his good leg, clinging to the side of the truck. Drew reached into the back of the truck and pulled out Nate’s crutches. “And, here, you can use your crutches to get into the hospital. I’m not going to carry you. You’re a big man drinking with Shad Bell. You figure out how to get yourself in the door.”

Nate took the crutches and turned to me, utterly miserable, looking for help. Then he glanced at Drew and stood straighter, bracing the crutches under his arms and starting up the walkway.

“You shouldn’t be getting wasted at all,” I snapped, my nerves on edge. “Drew’s right. You’re too young to be drinking.”

To my surprise, Nate didn’t argue. He glanced at Drew. Had Drew told him the same thing? I wondered what Nate was thinking, but as usual, he didn’t say. “What did the hospital tell you about Daddy?” he asked.

Drew blinked in surprise, then bent down on one knee and scooped them into his arms. Closing his eyes, he buried his face between them and held on, whispering, “Hi, babies. How are my babies? Oh, God, I’ve missed you two.” His voice was choked with tears.

Darla came across the lobby as we stopped behind Drew. She and Drew looked at each other for a moment, uncertain; then he stood up, still holding the children. He reached for her, and she fell into his arms, completing the circle.

“I’m sorry.” Her voice was thick with emotion. “Drew, I didn’t know. I didn’t know you were calling my parents’ house looking for us. I thought you were running out on the kids. That’s why I filed the legal papers. It was wrong, Drew. The kids need their father. I need you. What I did was wrong. I’m sorry.”

Darla pushed away finally, wiping her eyes. “They need you upstairs, Drew. Your father’s awake, but there are problems. I’m going to send the kids home with my brother. I want to stay with you, all right?” Her brown eyes were wide and uncertain, afraid he would say no.

“They miss their daddy. We need you, Drew. All of us.” She looked at the children, her eyes filled with love. Touching the side of Drew’s face, she met his gaze. “When all this is over, we’ll go home and talk, all right? We need some time, and the kids need time with their daddy.”

Darla smiled. “You just behave yourself and do what the doctors say. Don’t be trying to get out of bed like you were that first day after the surgery.”

The kids giggled, clinging to Drew’s legs as Darla’s brother came from the other side of the lobby and told Darla he was going to take them home. Drew kissed them good-bye, reluctant to let them go; then we turned and walked to the elevator, none of us saying anything as the elevator climbed slowly to ICU. I watched the lights change on the console, watched each floor passing, and wondered what we would find when the elevator stopped.

I felt my body go numb as the doors opened. Drew glanced at me and nodded; then he took a deep breath, stepped from the elevator, and held open the door. We asked about Daddy at the reception desk, and the nurse led us to the ICU waiting room, rather than letting us go in to see Daddy. As she turned to leave, we stood just inside the room, waiting for her to give us some clue as to what was happening, but her expression was unreadable.

We moved to the comfortless vinyl chairs around the edges of the room, all of us silent, not knowing what to say or what to hope for. Darla laid her hand over Drew’s. He didn’t move to hold her hand, but didn’t pull away either.

Beside me, Nate tapped his knuckles against his cast, looking worried. He glanced at me and his lips twitched upward at the sides, a false attempt at a smile.

I closed, then opened my eyes, and watched as the doctor scooted the magazines out of the way and sat on the edge of the coffee table, facing us. Setting a chart on the table, he introduced himself, gave his title, shook Drew’s hand. I barely heard what he was saying. I looked at his hands and pictured him holding Daddy’s life in them.

“The situation is this,” he said slowly. “Our immediate concern was the bleeding from your father’s kidneys and the damage to his liver. During the last surgery, we were able to stop the bleeding and remove the damaged portion of his liver, but this morning’s ultrasound detected multiple blood clots in his inferior vena cava. The danger, of course, is that the clots could break loose and travel to his lungs. There is too much risk in relying on medications alone to dissolve the clots. We will need to do another surgery for the placement of a Greenfield filter, which, in lay terms, is a cagelike device designed to stop clots from going to the lungs.”

“We hope so. At this point, there is very little choice. The clot could move into his heart at any time, causing a heart attack. However, he is refusing any further surgery. He is extremely agitated and emotional. We were hoping that if you talked to him, you might be able to calm him down and convince him to sign the consent form. If he will not sign, the fact that he is heavily sedated, and therefore not fully rational, makes it acceptable for either of you to sign the forms as his next of kin.”

The doctor picked up his clipboard and stood. “He is, of course, still in ICU, so you’ll have to go in only two at a time.” He stopped in the doorway, turning back to us. “Remember to keep things calm and pleasant. Talk about things in the future he might look forward to. If you have any unresolved family issues, now is not the time to bring them up.”

I wondered what I could possibly say. Daddy didn’t think much about the future. He lived one day at a time, and told us he figured he’d die before he got old. Maybe refusing the surgery was his way of making that prediction come true.

Drew and I looked at each other as the doctor turned and left the room. Nate grabbed his crutches and stood up, starting toward the door.