Now that Ava Claire had left, I had a chunk of time before the festival to work on any new obits from the day before. Luckily, the laptop was still in the dining room where Mama had left it. Even better, Mama was holed up in her bedroom devouring cooking shows. Thank you, Food Channel’s Cupcake Week. Still, Leon and Daddy could finish making lures in the shop at any moment. I had to act fast.
Opening Mama’s e-mail, I saw straightaway one had come through in the middle of the night. It had a little red exclamation mark, marking it urgent. The sender was bettina@howardcountypress.com. I suppressed an eye roll. Miss Bettina probably called a supermarket ad for foot cream urgent. I clicked anyway.
The subject line read Bob Lafferty, ASAP.
Who on earth was Bob Lafferty? I read on:
I need the Lafferty obit by 2:00 p.m. today. I dropped it by your house in a manila envelope. Vilonia said she’d make sure you saw it. You have, haven’t you? I know he’s not from here, but his VIP family is, and they wanted his obit run yesterday. I need this today, or I’ll be forced to find someone else to write it, or heaven forbid, write the thing myself.
Call me.
—BW
Good gravy on a biscuit! The time on Mama’s laptop read ten till noon. That gave me two hours to turn this obit around. I leaned back in my seat and thought hard. The envelope Miss Bettina gave me before we noticed Max was sick . . . where was it?
I circled the living room for the manila envelope. I looked under the sofa, the tables. I even lifted the rug. It wasn’t behind the couch cushions. Nor was it left on top of the piano or placed inside the bench. Mama must have moved it. But where?
If I remembered correctly, Janet was scrawled in red. So no one should have touched it but Mama. Or me, but I hadn’t. Obviously.
I trudged back to the dining room, where the laptop sat on Nana’s old honey oak table. In the center sat a huge bowl full of dusty wooden Easter eggs. Mama was never any good at switching out the holiday stuff. I turned to the wicker basket on the buffet, jammed full with bills, catalogs, and miscellaneous mailers forwarded from Nana’s address. It was too painful for Mama look through them. Daddy and I should have a mail opening party one night. We’d watch the Weather Channel and sip frosty root beers.
I thumbed through the envelopes on the top and tossed aside a flyer for lawn care because that was what Leon was for, thank you very much. And another for laundry service because, well, that was my job now. Forget it, Mama hadn’t touched this basket in weeks. The mailer wasn’t here, and I was wasting precious time.
I spun around to check her bedroom, when something crinkled under my foot. I lifted my shoe. It was a Little Debbie wrapper. I ran to the wastebasket. Two more. My heart jumped. Someone had bought Little Debbies. And hadn’t Mama found her car keys in the pantry once, between the pasta and the potato chips? I zipped to the kitchen and swung the pantry door wide.
The stepstool squeaked across the floor. I hopped up, skipping right over cans of beans and stewed tomatoes, even ignoring the jars of peanut butter and marshmallow crème, to shove aside Mama’s canisters of sugar, flour, nuts, baking chips, and Dutch cocoa powder. Then, voilà! Two boxes of snack cakes appeared in the way back—and resting on top of them was just the envelope I needed. An 8.5x11 manila one labeled Janet in red ink, last seen three days ago in the living room.
Shoving the envelope under my arm, I marched back to the dining room with a jar of marshmallow crème, a spoon, and one looming deadline. While the first spoonful of fluff melted on my tongue, I tore open the envelope, revealing its contents. The first item, a sticky note, read:
Dr. Robert Lafferty, age 70, of Springdale, AR, died Thursday, April 16.
Something whirred in my brain. I knew that name. I turned it over in my mind, scrutinizing it from all sides. Robert Lafferty . . . Bob Lafferty? There was a Dr. Bob Lafferty mentioned in the baby book Mama had made to record all my important firsts—first slept through the night, first step, first tooth, first food, first word, first doctor visit. Whoa, did that mean . . . ?
I scanned the pages of photographs and newspaper clippings.
Yes.
My heart whispered the obvious truth. Dr. Robert Lafferty was the one Nana had sung praises of every year since my birth. The emergency room doctor who’d massaged my chest with his flat thumbs, willing my feeble heart to kick-start. Lub-dub, lub-dub.
The doctor for whom my grateful mama had baked a separate from-scratch cake celebrating my first birthday and every one after that, until he retired and moved away before I was four. Mama said you never could repay goodness like that.
Before I came home, all she knew to do while days stretched into weeks, and weeks into months, was to tie an apron around her waist and bake. Lots of prayers are lifted while flour’s sifted, Nana would say with a wink.
So here I was, snacking on marshmallow fluff, sitting crisscross applesauce in a dining room chair, and typing up my doctor’s obit:
Dr. Robert “Bob” Lafferty, age 70, of Springdale, AR, slid into home on Thursday, April 16. Born October 22, 1944, to hardworking dairy farmers, Lafferty’s childhood revolved around two things: baseball and milking the family’s cows. A stickler for being on time, Lafferty was a teacher’s dream. He was tardy once—the day his cows, Pearl and Spalding, escaped the fence and created a grand slam of a traffic jam. Always keeping his eye on the ball, Lafferty shocked no one when he was accepted to medical school at the University of Mississippi (’70). He practiced family medicine at Mercy Hospital and had the honor of catching countless newborns—singles, doubles, even a couple of triples. Left to cherish Dr. Lafferty’s stats are his mother; his sister, Olivia (Brooks) of Power Alley, MS; his faithful dog and companion, Deuce; and a host of extended family, friends, and hospital staff. A celebration of Bob’s life will take place at 2:00 p.m., Friday, at Christ the King Cathedral, Springdale, AR. Don’t be late or you’re out! To make it a double-header, a smaller, separate memorial will follow in Howard County, MS, in Mercy Hospital’s Chapel. This date is to be determined. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to the Northwest Arkansas Animal Shelter or Marchofdimes.org. Play ball!
With the press of a button, I launched the obit through cyberspace to Miss Bettina’s computer, and the cycle of life smacked me square on the head. “Thank you, Dr. Lafferty,” I whispered to the air around me. “Thank you for not quitting on me.” My mind drifted to the pet store photograph of Izzy, aka Ray Charles, whose stare seemed to say, And thank you for not quitting on me.
My heart fluttered lub-dub, lub-dub for maybe the gazillionth time in my life, and I thought of Daddy, and all the worrying he did then and now, and of Mama, and her Infinite Sadness hanging low like a cloud, and suddenly I knew there was no way, no how, I’d quit on Ray Charles. Not without a fight. Because that’s what I’d always been, a fighter. Nana said.
I bowed my head right then and there, even though it wasn’t anywhere near mealtime. Nana said the good Lord wasn’t bound by time. He’d listen anytime, anywhere, if your heart needed to speak. I squeezed my eyes tight, folded my hands, and prayed.
Dear Lord, it’s me, Vilonia Beebe. I live in the tire swing house on Walleye Street, but I guess you know that. I wanted to talk about, well, lots of things. For starters, I’d appreciate it if Ray Charles got matched to a good home, preferably ours. He can’t go somewhere where they’ll name him Izzy. You know better than anyone he’s not Izzy material. I just know he’d do Mama’s heart good, like a big dose of nasty-tasting cherry-flavored medicine that you want to spit out, but in the end, you force it down like a brave soldier. And hallelujah, it does make everything better, like it promises right there on the bottle. I guess what I mean is Ray Charles could bring back Mama’s laugh. Is that in the Holy Bible somewhere? About laughter working like cherry-flavored medicine? And what makes a person more happy than cuddling a puppy? . . . Okay, maybe cuddling a baby hedgehog. But it’s against state law to domesticate one—I know because Leon looked it up on the Internet once. And God, you know Leon’s trying out for track team. And I still need a goldfish. That’s a long story. . . . And I know you see Daddy working to keep our house one step under chaos (his words, not mine) and, well, sometimes he washes my clothes on the hot cycle, and they shrink up two sizes too small. That leaves me wearing Leon’s old baseball jersey that says ROACH CARPET & TYLE in ironed-on letters. Speaking of dads, AC’s dad is still deployed. So keep an eye on him, too, would you? And one more thing. Please tell Nana I’ve grown a quarter of an inch. Over and out.
Amen.