WEDNESDAY
PAIGE
Aunt Kit met Drake and Hannah and me at the door of Momma’s room, looking a little crumpled, but her eyes were bright. “She squeezed my hand! Twice! In response to a question. I think she is hearing us.”
I felt two things at once: a leap of joy and a stab of jealousy. Momma had squeezed Aunt Kit’s hand? Aunt Kit? We’d had no sign of movement from her for over forty-eight hours, and she’d chosen to respond to Aunt Kit?
Immediately I berated myself. Momma had shown signs of understanding something, and it certainly didn’t matter who had asked the question.
“That’s awesome, Aunt Kit! Awesome,” Hannah said.
“Sweet,” Drake added.
She glowed with pleasure. Then frowned. “I’m going to need to get back to Atlanta, but I’ll be here over the weekend.”
I actually felt relieved at this news. Daddy and Aunt Kit had never been close, and I felt he’d rest better with her far away. “That sounds good. Thank you for coming.” I gave her an awkward hug.
Hannah looped her arm through Aunt Kit’s and said, “I know it’s meant the world to Momma. We’ll keep in touch as she progresses.” Then my sister winked at me, and I watched my aunt click her way down the hall and out of the ICU as Drake and Hannah ushered her to her car.
I found Daddy sitting by Momma’s bed. When I entered the room he glanced over at me and said, “She squeezed Kit’s hand.”
I read the expression on his face as easily as I had felt my flare of jealousy—extreme gratitude, and yet a longing for Momma to respond to him, to his voice. So far her eyes had fluttered twice—once when a nurse was administering meds and once with me—and then Hannah had felt her fingers twitch, and now she’d squeezed Aunt Kit’s hand. She hadn’t responded at all to Daddy.
I leaned over, resting my head on my father’s curved back, circling my arms around his chest. “She’s going to wake up soon. I just know it. But until she does, Daddy, you have got to go home and sleep. You’re going to be sick. Have you eaten anything in the last twenty-four hours?” He couldn’t see me, couldn’t see the fear, the tingling suspicion. Carefully I added, “And you aren’t talking to us. I know you meet with Detective Blaylock several times a day, but you never tell us what you two talk about. I know everything is horrible, but please don’t shut us out. Talk to me!”
He let go of Momma’s hand and pivoted around. Then he turned his hollow eyes on me and reached for my hands, and his were shaking slightly. Those large hands trembled with exhaustion and emotion. “You’re right, Paige. I’m so sorry.”
I thought he’d stop with that admission, but his grip tightened, and he stood up and walked with me out of Momma’s room, practically pulling me along. “It’s just that I keep thinking this is all my fault.”
“What is your fault?”
“The shooting.”
I froze.
“If I’d sent her to the beach as we’d planned, it never would have happened.”
I breathed again.
“I wanted her to head to La Grande Motte at the end of September for a month, as she did after every other book release. But she insisted that she should wait a little longer. She didn’t want Hannah to think she was spying on her.”
“They weren’t even going to be in the same town!”
“No, but you know your mother. So we bought the tickets for early November, after the leaves had reached their peak over here.” His voice caught a little. Shaking his head back and forth, he whispered, “I should have insisted.”
Relief flooded through me. Daddy had not been brooding about The Awful Year and hidden secrets. He had simply been blaming himself for poor timing. A feeling of protection for my father surged through me, almost like the shock I’d gotten the week before when I’d accidently touched the knife to the side of the toaster as I was trying to fish out the toast. A zap—strong, warm, electrifying. Almost too enthusiastically I said, “But Daddy, think about it. If someone wanted to shoot Momma that bad—they’d figure out another time and another way, don’t you think?”
He cocked his head. “Maybe. Maybe.”
“Well, one thing I know is it’s not your fault.” I threw my arms around his neck and felt gratified with the powerful hug he returned.
“Thank you, Paige. We’re going to get through this.”
“Go home and rest. Aunt Kit is leaving, so you should be able to get some sleep.”
He gave a little chuckle and nodded.
“Drake and Hannah and I are here. Go home. The fridge is crammed with food.”
“Okay.”
“And I took Milton to Mrs. Swanson’s. I think she’s having the time of her life keeping watch over the house, collecting the casseroles and mail, and taking care of the dog. But she’ll probably let you have him back, if you beg.”
Daddy actually grinned at that remark, which felt like progress and hope.
Our father played at life. Hannah and I had always loved his perspective, especially since Momma was often brooding, temperamental, and overly sensitive. And with Daddy, we got to be athletes, and we loved it. He’d kicked a soccer ball with us from the time we were tiny. As women’s soccer kept growing in the States, I hoped to follow in my father’s footsteps with a soccer scholarship to college. And then follow Hannah’s example and spend a year abroad in France.
But Daddy had not shown the mischievous, playful side of himself—his real self—since before the shooting, and I longed to have him back.
Aunt Kit’s presence had only seemed to make it worse.
During one of her visits a month or two earlier, she must have gotten into an argument with Momma. I was at the window in my room, staring out at the stars when I heard Aunt Kit storm out of the house, slamming the door. Daddy came out seconds later, running after her. Looking down from my window I saw him grab her arm. Daddy was never one to raise his voice, and I’d never seen him grab anyone but me, and that was during The Awful Year. But he twirled her around and yelled, “Kit, you have got to leave Jo alone! Take your craziness somewhere else! You’re going to be the death of her, I swear it!”
Daddy never swore or cursed, but after he pronounced that, he did swear, using words that made me blush and sent Aunt Kit away in a fury.
JOSEPHINE
1985 . . . For Josephine, marriage was bliss. Patrick played for a minor league soccer team, and she worked for a small neighborhood newspaper. Neither made much money, but they had their dreams. Someday Patrick would join a professional team, and she would write a novel. For now, they lived in a tiny apartment where they laughed and loved, far away from her mother’s frantic social schedule and her father’s philandering and drinking and outbursts of anger. And far from Kit, who jet-setted between Europe and America, doing what she did best—ruining her own life.
One thing Kit said, Josephine agreed with. Soccer players did have the sexiest legs. At least her soccer player did.
———
1986 . . . Generous, Josephine said to herself, looking out at the sandy dunes and the sparkling sea beyond. She felt great gratitude for Patrick’s family’s generosity, paying for their plane tickets to France. Every moment at La Grande Motte felt like a coming home in Josephine’s spirit. While Patrick volunteered his time to travel with the Christian soccer team, she stayed in the apartment where she could watch the sun set over the Mediterranean.
And she wrote.
But she often spent the weekends in nearby Montpellier, learning to cook French style with Patrick’s grandmother, Mamie Bourdillon, and practicing her fledgling French. Surprisingly enough, Mamie reminded Josephine of Terence. On the outside they had nothing in common, from their skin color and gender and language to their culture and social status. But Mamie displayed a type of no-nonsense kindness that Terence had shown too.
Josephine found herself falling in love with France when they visited that first June. She wished she never had to return to the States. She wanted to stay in this old world with its simple rhythms, like shopping at the marché on Saturday mornings with Mamie, whose first thought on waking was, What shall I fix for lunch? Mamie could have hired a full-time cook to prepare the meals, but she preferred to do it herself.
Josephine tried to imagine a life where she didn’t wrestle with twenty demons before getting out of bed. Where the simple pleasure and necessity of lunch was the most important item on the day’s agenda.
———
1987 . . . Patrick was traveling with a Christian soccer team somewhere in Africa for two long months. For the first time, the tiny apartment felt lonely. How she missed him! She snuggled in bed, reading Pat Conroy’s latest disturbingly brilliant release, The Prince of Tides. She had stayed up way too late, caught up in the tragic tale, and had just turned out the light at one o’clock when the phone rang. She climbed out of bed and rushed to get it, expecting to hear Patrick’s voice in a patch of static.
Instead she heard her mother’s shrill, panicked cry. “Kit’s in a coma.” Then she whispered, “Drug overdose. We’re so afraid, Jo.”
With no way to reach Patrick, Josephine threw on a pair of jeans and drove straight to Atlanta. She sat by her sister’s bed at Piedmont Hospital for three interminable days until she came out of it.
“I promise I’ll sober up, JoJo. I promise,” Kit mumbled.
When Josephine returned to work, her boss said, “Don’t do that to me again, Jo. I know it’s family, but the stories have to get out. On time.”
Josephine sifted through the thick stack of multicolored index cards. Some were so worn they felt limp in her hands. Her Bible verses. Ever since the youth pastor, Fred O., had encouraged her to use Scripture to calm herself, she had begun writing the verses on index cards and carrying them with her on her daily walks. Some days she merely repeated the words to herself, but on the darkest days, she prayed them out loud, a desperate crying out to God. Today she picked two bright yellow cards, both worn thin. She prayed the verses for Kit and for herself. Verses about anger and forgiving someone time and time and time again.
———
After her three months in the treatment center, Kit asked to move in with Patrick and Josephine. “Just for a few weeks, JoJo. Promise. I cannot return to our parents’ house of lies.”
Josephine felt something inside her die.
“Feeny, I don’t think it’s a good idea,” Patrick said when she told him of Kit’s request.
“But she’s my sister. I have to help her.”
Two weeks turned into two months, and the cozy apartment so filled with love now felt cramped and tense. There was no room for intimacy with Kit’s larger-than-life drama imposed on them.
Josephine felt the darkness creeping in on her, closer and closer, but Kit’s darkness superseded her own. It was as if Kit were hijacking her life, grabbing for any attention she could get. And the way she looked at Patrick made Josephine’s stomach churn.
One night Kit stepped out of the bathroom barely wrapped in a towel and stumbled into their bedroom, completely inebriated. Josephine grabbed a blanket and threw it around her. Patrick, eyes ablaze, yelled, “Get out! Get out now!”
“You can’t turn me away, Pat!” slurred Kit. “You know you don’t want to turn me away!”
Josephine pulled her into the kitchen. “You have to leave, Kit,” she whispered. “I’m sorry, but that’s it. You have to leave.”
Kit gave a pitiful laugh. “You’re just afraid I’ll take Pat away from you! Well, I guarantee if I wanted him bad enough, you couldn’t do anything about it.”
Josephine felt her knees go weak. Heart hammering and in a small voice she said, “I’m not afraid, Kit. But you can’t stay. I think you’re jealous of my life. I want you to find the life you’re meant to live. Not mine. Not Mother and Father’s. Yours. And you can’t find it here. I’m sure of that.”
She found the courage to say the words, but it felt as though it cost Josephine her last shred of sanity.
———
1989 . . . The first miscarriage happened at eleven weeks. Josephine had never seen so much blood. Patrick lifted her off the kitchen floor and carried her to the car, his face pasty white amid all that red.
The second time she made it to fourteen weeks, and this time Patrick was in Africa with the soccer team. Her elderly neighbor drove her to the ER, and Patrick didn’t even know anything about it for two long weeks.
Josephine tried to pull herself back from the edge of that dark hole, but she felt nothing but a withering of her soul, as if her physical and spiritual strength had dried up completely. When she read the Bible verses on the index cards, the words seemed to be in a different language, one she didn’t understand at all.
When Patrick finally got back home, he knelt before her in tears. “I’m so sorry I wasn’t here, Feeny. I’ll quit traveling with the team. I won’t leave you again.”
“I don’t want you to give up your dream, Patrick.”
“You’re more important than my dream. I love you so much, Feeny. I’ll do anything for you.”
She knew he spoke the truth. He cared for her, loved her so much. But sometimes she feared he loved her too much. What would he do for her? Give up his job, his calling, his dreams? Would God ask that of him?
PAIGE
When Hannah and I returned to Momma’s room, Drake was bent so close to Momma that for a second I caught my breath. Was she talking to him? I watched in silence. No, no, of course not. But he was talking to her, low and soft.
“Momma Jo, I’m leaving now, and the next time I come, we’ll continue this conversation. Please don’t worry. I love you, Momma Jo.” He kissed her softly on the cheek, then stood up and gave a nod our way.
Any movement? I mouthed.
He shook his head.
“It almost looked like you were having a real conversation,” I added when we were out of Momma’s room.
“How I wish. But I believe you’re right. I think she hears us. And I think she was delighted with my news.”
“What news was that?”
He took my hand. “Just reminding her how much I love her and how she really saved my life. How she’s family to me.”
But I could tell he’d said something else too. “And?”
“And now I’ve got to be getting back to school. Walk me to my car?”
Hannah gave me a wink—the nerve—and went into Momma’s room.
“Sure.” But I didn’t want him to go. I had more questions, more things I wanted to hash out with him.
The sun was bright, enhancing the colors on the trees, making them sparkle as they softly twirled in the breeze. Momma loved fall, and I had a lot of memories of hiking in the hills with her at this time of year.
“You going to hang in there, Bourdy?” The way Drake pronounced my nickname made my stomach do a little flip-flop.
“Yeah, sure. We’ll figure this thing out.” It came out as a squeak.
“We’ll figure this thing out? That’s a worse line than You’ve got the best bed in the whole place.”
“Agreed. So here’s what I really want to say.” I cocked my head to the side. “Do you remember other things about The Awful Year?”
He gave a halfhearted shrug, his posture deflating the slightest bit.
“You do remember something!” I accused.
Drake stopped, took both of my arms in his hands, and got the sweetest, saddest look on his face. Then he took his left hand and rubbed my cheek softly with the back of his hand, as he had done a hundred times before when he wanted to calm me down. Only this time it sent chills through me, and then I blushed, and all I could think of for a few seconds was how Hannah said that Drake cared deeply for me.
The gesture was kind and compassionate, but perhaps, the thought zipped through me, perhaps not like a brother stroking his sister’s cheek. It unnerved me so much that I actually jumped when Drake started talking.
“Oh, Paige. I spent half of that year on the couch in your den, pouring out my heart to your mother. Of course, I have a hundred memories.”
A thought struck me, something I had never considered before. “But did Momma pour out her heart to you too? Did she tell you anything that would make what happened later make sense?”
“So many hard things happened that year. I’m sure she talked about some of them,” he said vaguely.
“You won’t tell me, will you? Is it to protect Daddy? Is that why?”
This time he pulled me into his arms and held me against his chest where I could hear one of our hearts—or perhaps both—thump, thump, thumping. “Paige, I promise I would tell you in a second if I remembered something from those difficult weeks and months that could shed light on what’s going on right now. I promise.”
Then he bent over and kissed me oh, so softly, on the cheek. He squeezed my shoulder and was gone.
I walked back into the hospital and went down to Café 509 feeling light-headed, heart and mind racing, not paying attention to anything but Drake’s last comment. I actually bumped into someone who was carrying a tray, and when I looked up and muttered, “Excuse me. I’m so sorry!” I saw that it was the tattooed blond man I’d seen in the middle of the night on Monday.
He looked startled for a second, his pale eyes unfocused, then he recovered, recognized me, and said, “Hey.”
“Hi. Gosh, I wasn’t looking where I was going. Did anything spill?”
“Nah, just a little of my Coke. Got plenty left.”
I watched him lumber over to one of the tables and sit down. He fidgeted with the paper on a candy bar, peeled it down, and took a bite of the chocolate and then a sip of his Coke. His hands were trembling, and he seemed pretty strung out.
I walked over to the table and asked, “Is your son okay?”
When he looked at me with his scary eyes, I couldn’t help it, I felt sorry for him again.
“He’s in surgery right now. Pretty hard on me and my wife. She’s gotta be at work—she’ll be heading over here in a little while. Surgery lasts a long time.” He wrung his hands together. Then looked up at me again. “Got another of your mother’s books. Trying to keep my mind busy.” He patted the paperback that was lying beside his tray.
I stood a little way off, my hands in my jeans pockets. “I know what you mean. It’s horrible to keep waiting.”
“Your mom any better? Not saying too much on the news these days.” Before I could answer, he added, “Never mind. I remember you don’t like to talk about it. Sorry to ask.”
“She’s still in the coma.”
“Well, I’m sorry to hear it.”
“Thanks. I hope your son pulls through the surgery okay.”
He nodded and turned his head down and started reading the novel, his mind seemingly a million miles away.
HENRY
He’d been in surgery for a long time. Five hours at least. Every once in a while a nurse would find me in the Pediatric ICU waiting room on the third floor and say, “He’s doing fine, Mr. Hughes. Still in surgery. Don’t you worry.”
I didn’t know what else to do with myself but read and walk and drink some more Coke.
About one or two in the afternoon, having texted Libby three times, I went back down to the cafeteria to get some lunch. I was just sitting down when I looked up and in walked Miz Bourdillon’s daughter. Again.
She sat down across from me and asked, “Is he still in surgery?” She had this expression on her face, like she really cared about my boy.
“Yep. They been letting me know every hour or so how it’s going. Last time the nurse said maybe only another hour. Thought I’d get a quick bite before they’re done.”
She was running her hands through her thick hair and staring at the novel by her mother, trying to read the title, it looked like to me.
“It’s the one about the alcoholic and the way she’s tryin’ to make up with her family.”
“Oh yeah. That one is a bit sad.”
That surprised me. “Doesn’t it have a happy ending?”
“No, it ends all right, but there are a lot of sad parts.”
I got up my nerve and said, “Can I ask you something, Mia Bourdillon?”
“You can call me Paige.”
“Okay. I’m Henry. My boy, his name is Jase.” I was fiddling with the novel, turning it over in my hands. “Have you read every one of your mother’s books?”
“Sure. I’ve read them all.”
“Do you think she believes all that stuff she writes about?”
She frowned at me. “What do you mean?”
Slow down, Henry. Slow down. Don’t go scaring this girl. Take it nice and easy.
“About forgiving people. Did she mean what she wrote in that first one—about the teenager forgiving the man who abused him so bad? Do you really believe people can forgive?”
She sat silent for a moment, then said, “Well, I know my mother believes in forgiveness—on an eternal scale and a very small human scale too. And I have to admit, I’ve seen it happen lots of times in my family’s life—people forgiving each other.”
I couldn’t help it—I blurted out, “What does it look like?”
That made her nervous, and she started twirling a strand of her hair around her finger, staring out the window. “It’s a little complicated to explain.”
I didn’t think she was gonna say anything else, and I was kicking myself for asking too many questions. But after a while she said, “But when it happens, you feel it, a relief, a long sip of water on the hottest day of the year.”
I think she was surprised at herself, too, because she paused again and her pretty face got all red. Then she started blinking back tears, and I was gonna say, “Never mind,” but she kept talking.
“It’s like Momma says—the forgiveness isn’t for the one who hurt you; it’s to keep all the bitterness out of your own heart. And it’s spiritual. That’s the only way to say it. It changes something in your heart.” She smiled a little, and her face was so pretty when she did, her big brown eyes sparkling a little with tears.
“Yeah, it sounds spiritual, or something, in her books.”
“I can tell you for sure that Momma believes what she writes. I don’t always buy it, but she does. She’s very spiritual.”
“I like the things she says, but I don’t think they can be true.”
The girl—Paige—shrugged. “Yeah. Well, sometimes I feel that way too. But she’s been through a lot and forgiven some pretty awful things.” She flashed me her cute smile. “I haven’t forgiven a lot of people, but somehow Momma has.”
I had nothing to say to that, but fortunately my phone beeped with a text from Libs, and Paige said bye and left.
JOSEPHINE
1990 . . . It always came back to the blood. So ironic. Seeing the blood every month was a vivid reminder that she was not pregnant, but also a scarlet memory of the miscarriages. She wrote for the paper, collected rejection slips from magazines, and watched Patrick’s passion ebb as he left his dream of playing on a top-level soccer team for a job in insurance.
And then the monthly blood.
Again the darkness encroached. “You’ve given up so much for me, Patrick, and I can’t give you the one thing we both long for.”
“We’re okay, just you and me, Feeny.”
But every phone call with her mother suggested a new treatment or asked if she had contacted a different infertility specialist.
“Yes, we’ve tried, Mother,” she’d confide. “But I’ve gotten pregnant before. The doctors say it will just take time.”
Josephine thought about loss and how it drew so many closer to God. She reached out for her Bible and whispered, “Just make everything I go through worth it, Lord. I don’t know how you’ll do it. But please just somehow make it worth it to you.”
———
1992 . . . When Patrick found her in tears that night, he drew her into his arms. “Your period?”
She shook her head and whispered, “No.”
“Then is it something with Kit?” Her sister had never asked to live with them again, but that didn’t mean she didn’t ask for other things.
“No, no. Not at all. Just a rejection letter from a magazine.” She swiped her tears and tried to smile through them. “My third this month.”
“Let me see that thing,” he said. Before she could protest, he had pinned the rejection letter to the rubber dart board in their little study and began throwing darts at it. “Didn’t some famous writer say that rejection slips are badges of courage?”
She laughed. “I haven’t heard that.”
“Well, I say it’s just a matter of time until they’ll be calling you the next Victor Hugo, and Jean Valjean will rise from the grave and christen you a genius.”
“That sounds heretical, soccer boy,” she teased back, then took a dart and threw it with all her might. She hit the letter right in the center.
“I know what we need, Feeny,” Patrick said after pinning two more rejection letters to the dart board. “We need a vacation. La Grande Motte is calling. Maman and Papa are dying to see us. Mamie too. Please, let me suggest it?”
“Another handout from your parents. And you don’t even have vacation time.”
“I have ten days.” His eyes, those beautiful soft brown eyes, were twinkling. “I’ll go for ten days, and you’ll stay for a month.”
“A month!” The thought of it made her heart race with excitement. “I have a job, too, remember.”
“But didn’t your boss say that you can now send him your articles through fax?”
“Only if your parents will let me use their fax machine.”
He raised his eyebrows and gave a wink. “I imagine I’ll have to twist their arms, but it’s worth a try.”
As she walked on the beach with her feet in the icy water, the darkness began to dissipate. And when Patrick returned to the States, she sat down at the little table that gave a view of the Mediterranean and started writing her first novel.
______
Josephine watched her bulging stomach with wonder. Twenty-eight weeks. Every time she caught her reflection in the mirror, she blushed and smiled and thought of the gift it was that this baby had been conceived at La Motte. “A French baby,” she teased Patrick.
The early contractions kept her bedridden. The dry heaves never ended. She lost weight. But the baby grew. When Kit called, high and needy, Josephine simply said, “Kitty, I can’t come. Not this time. I want this baby to make it.”
The jealousy and anger in Kit’s voice felt like just one more stab, an agonizing and never-ending contraction.
———
1994 . . . She cradled her daughter in her arms and stared into those dark gray eyes that stared back at her. Hannah Isabelle. Named after her American and French great-grandmothers. Life and lightness returned to their apartment. And hope.
PAIGE
I tiptoed into Momma’s room; the sun was setting outside the window, and it made the leaves shimmer like multicolored pennies. I took hold of my mother’s hand. She still lay there, eyes closed. Her head bandaged, with a tuft of hair, dark and matted, escaping beneath the gauze, tubes all around, the beeping sounds, the calm.
“We had the best time last night, Drake and Hannah and I,” I told her. “Just like old times, sitting in front of the fireplace. Drake was actually able to build a roaring fire. Remember how he never did a very good job, and we called him a failed Boy Scout? Well, anyway, we sat there eating all this absolutely yummy food. So many people have brought food . . . the neighbors, people from church and from Daddy’s work, from the library. And to date you’ve received over ten thousand emails and Facebook posts from your readers. You sure are keeping me busy, Momma.
“Can’t wait till you’re back in the kitchen baking your delicious blond brownies. The desserts that people are bringing from the Chocolate Fetish and the French Broad Chocolate Lounge are awesome, but nothing can beat your blond brownies.”
I wasn’t sure, but I almost thought I felt a very slight movement in Momma’s hand.
“We talked about how much fun we’d had on those weekends when the youth group came with all of us scattered around the house in our sleeping bags. And how the first year you made that huge pan of lasagna. You bought this enormous lasagna dish and then once you got everything ready to bake, you discovered it wouldn’t fit in the oven! You had to get Drake and Dad to carry it over to Mrs. Swanson’s and use her brand-new, state-of-the-art oven. Mrs. Swanson, bless her heart, was thrilled of course.
“Can’t wait till we have the youth group over again. I’ll help you with the lasagna. Or spaghetti. Remember, I know how to fix that too.” I chuckled. I had never been interested in cooking, but Momma insisted I know how to make one meal, and so she taught me how to make spaghetti sauce—Bolognese—which could also be used for lasagna.
“And Drake acts all worried about his last year in school, but you and I know he will do great. I’ll bet he gets a job offer after his very first interview.” I knew I sounded a bit desperate, wanting to keep talking, to keep giving her a chance to connect. But then not wanting to wear her out.
“And Hannah will tell you herself, but she agreed to go back to Aix on Saturday.”
Momma definitely squeezed my hand with that. I jumped a little and got chills—of excitement—and tried to continue talking normally.
“Yes, that’s great, isn’t it? She’s going to be touring five or six art museums in November. The Musée d’Orsay and the Louvre, of course, and several others when they go up to Paris, but she’s also going to see the Bayeux Tapestry in Caen. And take the course on painting en plein air from the wonderful lady who teaches in Aix.
“And Daddy said we’ll keep the plans just like we had them. We all know you’ll be excited to go back to La Grande Motte—we’ve still reserved it from Mamie and Papy for those two weeks at Christmas, and of course Hannah will be with us. And if you want to go in early November, that can still work too, and you’ll just stay and write until we get there. Think of it, Momma, two months at the beach!”
I had made up such a string of lies that I felt like I was in the middle of inventing one of my own stories.
“And Drake is interested in coming to La Motte, too, and Ginnie even said she might enjoy a break at the beach. She calls at least three times a day. Daddy isn’t letting anyone but family come yet—well, and Drake. But Drake is just like family. . . . But in a few days, when you’re feeling a little stronger, we’re going to let others come, little by little. Mrs. Swanson first. She’s been an angel with all the mail and the food and Milton. Oh, Milton! He misses you something crazy, and you know how Mrs. Swanson bosses him around, poor devil. But he’s getting walked twice a day, and I promise I won’t let Mrs. Swanson stay with you too long. . . .”
On and on and on I talked, but Momma didn’t move again. I read her more emails and letters from fans and friends, and then the sun set and I sat in the dusk, feeling the coolness descend on the room and the little flutters of hope float off with the last rays of sun. In the silence I heard again the beep of the machines, breathing in and out, in and out, for little Momma.
HENRY
Libby hadn’t made it to the hospital yet, but they finally let me in to see Jase after the surgeon came and said that everything went just fine. The doctor had a confident look about him, but I figured he had to look that way. I went into Jase’s room and sat down by his bed and couldn’t keep the tears from falling. They’d broken open his chest—didn’t say it like that, but that was the truth—and put in a pig’s aorta instead of whatever was in there first. And Jase seemed more fragile and frail and white than ever.
Everything in me was shaking, my hands, my head, my mind, especially my mind. I felt woozy, weak-like, even scared. Yeah, terrified for my boy. You’d think I’d be all relieved when that surgeon said things had gone well, but I didn’t trust anyone too much, and there wasn’t nothing good in the whole wide world about watching your boy lying there so still and pale and looking just about dead.
I got up and then sat back down, up and down, with every beep of those machines. Up and down, watching to make sure his little chest was going up and down too. Like to drive me crazy, all that noise, not too loud, just constant, and then some other machine chiming in, as if they were trying to make music for some horror film. I’d seen plenty of those. Too quiet, too loud, too much.
I was clutching Miz Bourdillon’s novel real tight when I finally decided to sit back down and read it. The story had upset me a bit, and then with her daughter saying it got even sadder, well, I wasn’t so sure I wanted to read it anymore. But I hadn’t brought anything else with me, and I didn’t want the TV to be blaring while Jase was trying to rest.
So I read that book, and nurses would come in and look at Jase, and once or twice I stepped out to the waiting room while they did stuff. And I got to be kind of thankful for the story, because I was getting right caught up in it and forgetting how worried I was for my boy. The words just kept on carrying me along, and I got to the sad part and had a few tears, but right after, this real sweet scene came out of the blue, surprising me. Like the bad stuff hadn’t been able to snuff out the good stuff, or maybe it even happened because of the bad stuff. Yeah, that was it. Got a bit confusing in my mind. And I kept thinking about this line: “You don’t need a candle unless it’s really dark in the house.”
I got to the end, and Libby still hadn’t shown up at the hospital, and it was getting dark outside. And suddenly I couldn’t keep it in anymore. Just right there started weeping, sobbing, and the poor nurses kept looking at me funny, with sympathy but a little something else in their eyes, like people did lots of times around me. I guess they were scared. Or just felt sorry for me.
But Miz Bourdillon had written my story again. It was about good coming out of bad and about new beginnings, and about light shining in darkness. And though she didn’t put it exactly like that, it sounded just like something Jesus or maybe someone else in the Bible might say.
I had to see Miz Bourdillon. I just had to. Had to ask her the questions that was percolating in the back of my mind and then dripping down into my heart. Libby always said I asked the craziest questions and I should leave people alone, and lots of times people got scared when I talked too much.
Couldn’t talk to Miz Bourdillon yet, but maybe when she came out of her coma, maybe Paige would let me talk to her about her stories. And here’s what I wanted to say to her: Miz Bourdillon, you think good can come out of bad, I know, and I’m glad you didn’t die, and I hope you get well, and I bet your next book will be even better . . . but here’s my question: Maybe good can come out of bad for you, but what about for that person who tried to kill you? Can anything good come out of it for him?
That’s the question I wanted to ask her while machines kept breathing for Jase, and Libby called me on my cell and said she was driving real slow along those curvy roads and she wasn’t gonna get here before midnight.
“But you go back to the Rathbun House and get some sleep, hon. You’ve got to get some sleep.”
So I watched the machines proclaiming my boy’s life on that screen in neon reds and greens, and I went beside his bed and leaned over and said, “Live, sweet boy. Please live. You’ll see. Things is gonna be different. Better. You just keep on breathing and getting well.” I surprised myself with how soft and soothing my voice sounded, and then I shocked myself good by saying something else. “These hard times are gonna be used for good. Make you stronger, son. Make you better inside and out. They’re changin’ your heart.”
In and out, the machines breathed for my boy as the sun set over those fiery mountains, and I sat by his bed and did something I hadn’t done in a real long time. I prayed the only prayer that came to mind. “Let him live, God. Please let him live.”