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Ruby had parked as close to the Hometown Buffet’s front door as she could get and chatted idly with Sister to pass the time. She had driven the gas tank in her car almost dry that morning. First, she had stopped at the Walmart just to kill time, then driven past the nursing home twice, looking for Mack’s Bronco. When the gas gauge reached a quarter of a tank, she proceeded to the cafeteria.
She had speculated on her son’s behavior as they waited. What was this appointment that he needed to take care of? Why had he gone north at the crossroad? Could she have mistaken his car for another one passing?
She wanted that last thought to ease her mind, to lessen the tension that knotted her neck muscles, but it hadn’t. The clock on the dash read twelve twenty-five. She had expected Mack to be there no later than twelve fifteen. Fifteen minutes late was acceptable in her mind. Twenty-five was not. She looked into her rearview mirror, hoping to catch a glimpse of her son’s car.
“We’ll probably need to get you a wheelchair, Sister,” she mused idly. “It’s Saturday so the line will be long, ‘specially as Mack’s running late.”
“Don’t need a chair. Been sitting on my butt all morning—”
“Look, I believe that’s Mack. Yes, here he comes.” Ruby simultaneously breathed a sigh of relief and felt anxiety building in her chest. She wondered what kind of luck her son had had with his grandfather. “You wait there, Sister. I’ll have him get you a chair.”
“I said I don’t want a chair.” Sister opened her door and took off for the front door.
Ruby struggled to get out of the car so she could catch Sister, calling, “Wait, you’ll need help.”
“Looks like she’s motoring just fine on her own, Mama.” Mack looped his arm through Ruby’s. “Sorry I’m a little late.”
“Well, you’re here now,” Ruby said, holding his arm close. “You don’t think we need to get Sister a chair? Looks like we might have to stand in line a bit.”
“I think Sister’s capable of doing more than you think.” Mack nodded at his aunt, who was two lengths ahead of them. “Maybe you shouldn’t wait on her so much.”
Ruby pulled to a stop. “Why, she was to fall and break a hip, I’d never forgive myself. Broke hips lead to an early grave.”
“And some people worry themselves into an early grave.”
Ruby gave her son a scolding but affectionate glance and joined Sister at the back of cafeteria line. Looking around to see if anyone was listening, she leaned close to Mack and whispered, “Well? How’d it go with Pa?”
“Pa wasn’t having a good day. Couldn’t stay awake.”
Ruby felt anxiousness building in her chest again. “But he’s always wide awake in the morning, doesn’t get sleepy till after lunch.” She shook her head, forehead creased. “That doesn’t sound like Pa at all. I’m a mind to just have you help me load him up and bring him home today. That’s it, we’ll eat a bite, then go get him—”
“Whoa right there.” Mack tapped the affidavit folded up in his shirt pocket. “I came here to talk to Pa about this paper, not kidnap him out of a nursing home.” He paused. “Besides which, I don’t think that’s such a good idea.”
“He’d do better back home, I know he would.” Ruby waited for a reply. Though none came, the look on his face indicated he was not of the same opinion. She glanced around the packed cafeteria, spotted many of her regular customers, and decided to postpone that particular conversation until they had more privacy.
“Well then,” she said, moving to the next item on her list. “Did you at least talk to him about that paper?”
“Yes ma’am, I did.”
Feeling the tightness in her chest ease, Ruby let out a long breath. “I knew you could talk sense into him.” She nodded at the paper in Mack’s pocket again. “What do we have to do, see a lawyer to cancel it out? Lord, I hate to have to put more money out to a lawyer. Had to sign Pa’s Social Security over to the home and doubt we could get it back—but no, we’d better make it legal just so there’s no hitches when it comes time to lay him out—”
“Slow down now,” Mack said. “I didn’t say I’d changed his mind.”
Ruby watched as Mack began to rub at his mouth, the worry resurfacing. “Just what are you saying, Mack?”
“Aw hell, Mama.” He blew the air from his lungs. “I didn’t see anything wrong with laying him out with Bill and Jack in the first place. You’re the one with the bee in her bonnet about this business.” He paused. “And by the way, what’s the deal with Grace?”
“Grace?” Ruby said. “You mean my mother Grace?”
“How many Graces we got in the family? You know, most men want to be buried next to their wives. Why doesn’t Pa want to be buried with his? Just where is she, anyway?”
“Grace’s in Beulah Land,” Sister said over her shoulder.
“Where?” Mack caught up with the little woman who had been quietly inching her way forward in the line.
“I said, Grace . . . is . . . in . . . Beulah Land—”
“Hush now, Sister.” Ruby watched heads turning their direction. As Sister moved forward a few more inches, she pulled Mack aside. “All Sister’s saying is that Grace is in Heaven, Mack. Beulah Land’s just another name for Heaven. You haven’t forgot everything you learned, have you?” She laughed, humorlessly. “Though there’s little chance of her being in Heaven, you ask me.”
Sister let out a chuckle. “Grace was a tart,” she said, moving forward again.
“My grandma was a tart?” Mack looked between Ruby and Sister. “One of you want to explain what that means?”
“You can’t put stock in what Sister says these days,” Ruby whispered, moving closer. “I’m afraid there might be something to this gene business.”
“I’m not following you,” Mack said, frowning.
Ruby raised her eyebrows and simultaneously tapped her head. “Pa and Ida? And now, Sister? You know . . . genetic?” Getting a blank stare, she moved even closer. “Pa’s sister, Ida, was put in Vinita. She suffered from depression or some such thing. Now with Pa’s spells and . . .” She paused, glancing at Sister. “Well, I’m afraid some of the family’s strangeness might have got passed on.”
Mack snorted. “Can’t speak for Ida, but genes don’t have anything to do with what’s wrong with Pa.” He paused, shaking his head. “And the same goes for Sister. There’s an explanation for what she was hearing on the roof.”
“Well, think what you want,” Ruby snapped. “You don’t have to live with it day in and day out!”
“Now, Mama—”
“Can we get back to that paper in your pocket?”
She pointed to the folded affidavit in Mack’s pocket again, then watched as he studied the tiles on the floor. Mack had grown harder to talk to in the last year, ever since she’d called him about the incident with his grandfather. Irritable. Touchy. She could tell that he was in one of those moods right then. As they moved up another foot in the line, she found him looking at her intently. Whatever was on his mind was about to leave his mouth, and she felt a knot in her stomach tighten.
“Mama, I’m gonna find Bill and Jack, bury Pa where he wants.”
Ruby’s felt a dizzying spin in her head. “You’re what?” she mumbled.
“He’s earned the right to his last request.”
“You would shame this family?”
“Shame or not,” Mack said. “I’m doing it.”
“Pa’s lived through enough shame,” she said. “What with Grace deserting him and his . . . condition. He doesn’t need to suffer any more than he already has.”
“I grant you, he’s suffered more than his share.” Mack paused. “I don’t want to hurt you, Mama, but I plan on looking for Bill and Jack. Pa’s in his right mind.”
“Grace was a Georgia peach,” Sister said out of the blue.
“Sister!” Ruby tugged on her sister’s sleeve. “Hush now. We’re talking business here.” Reeling with the import of Mack’s words, Ruby searched for a way to gain control of the situation. “What about your job, Mack? I thought you could only stay the weekend. You don’t have time for this nonsense.”
“I can take a couple more days. Need to spruce the house up a bit anyway, trim those tree limbs you mentioned. In between, I’ll look for Bill and Jack.”
“They’re in Beulah Land,” Sister said impromptu. “With Grace.”
Ruby rolled her eyes. “Tell me that sounds like a person in their right mind.”
Mack grinned. “Who’s to say Sister’s not right. Maybe it’s just one big happy family in Beulah Land.”
Instantaneously, the anxiousness for her father and her annoyance with her son and the worry over her sister’s mental condition collided within Ruby and burst forth with a zeal the likes of which would have made an evangelical preacher envious.
“Mack Barlow,” she shouted, raising one hand heavenward. “Are you telling me a couple of long-eared, braying mules went to Heaven? Only those with souls go to Heaven!”
You could have heard a pin drop in the Hometown Buffet. Ruby saw heads turning her way. Some belonging to people she knew, some to others she recognized but could not put a name to, some to total strangers. With certainty, they would all remember who she was from this day forward.
“You saying Whitey doesn’t have a soul, Mama?” Mack grinned. “I always figured I’d run into him one of these days . . .” He pointed toward the ceiling of the Hometown Buffet. “Up there.”
“Oh, Mack.” Feeling tears brim her eyes, Ruby blinked hard.
Walking up close, he put his arm around her shoulders. “Where do you suppose I should start looking, Mama? Where’s the last place you lived when Pa was still farming with mules? Was it before he got back from the war? Or after?”
“I’ll not help you one bit!” Ruby crossed her arms over her chest and turned her face from him, turned away from everyone in The Hometown Buffet to stare at a wall the color of putty.
“Was me,” Sister said unprompted, “I’d look in Beulah Land.”
“Sister!” Ruby hissed. Seeing Mack grin again, she elbowed him in the ribs for good measure.
“Was right after the war,” Sister went on, inching her way forward. “That’s when he bought that second-hand tractor. Used it to dig the hole to bury Bill and Jack in. Biggest hole I ever saw.”
Mack stopped smiling. “Are you saying both those mules died at the same time?”
Sister hesitated. “Well, I guess they must have, seeing Pa buried them in the same hole.”
Ruby shook her head, drained of energy. “Mack, you ‘re not putting any stock into any of this nonsense—”
“Where was that, Sister,” Mack said. “Where are Bill and Jack?”
“I swear,” Sister mumbled, irritably, “the whole world’s gone deaf.” She pulled Mack’s head close, put her mouth next to his ear, and yelled, “Bill . . . and . . . Jack’s . . . in . . . Beulah . . . Land.”
Without any thought to locality or those present, Mack let out a guffaw that could be heard the next county over. A startled busboy dropped a tray of dishes causing cafeteria workers and customers to stare, Sister reached the front of the line and demanded her senior citizen’s discount, and Ruby turned her burning face to the putty-colored wall, making no attempt to push genes from her mind.
