“Why didn’t anyone tell me?”
“You don’t get to play it both ways, pal. You leave the family—the family isn’t required to tell you every Dear Abby story that comes up.”
“You just told me that my old man threatened to murder my mother and her new husband. Someone should have told me,” I insisted.
“No, no. It seems to me a great man once wrote a letter to all the members of his family …” Dallas began with bitter irony.
“The letter was a mistake.”
“Quite possibly it was a mistake, but it still arrived safely in all the mailboxes of all us McCalls. The man stated quite unequivocally that he never wanted to hear from any members of his immediate family ever again. Nor did he wish to correspond or communicate with anyone who had ever known him as a child or adult in Waterford. He wanted to see no one from his hometown, his college, or his family. The great man was starting life anew, afresh, and this time he was going to get it right.”
“When I wrote the letter, I thought I knew what I was doing.”
“We did too,” Dallas said. “We adhered to your wishes and most of us did not try to contact you during those years.”
“Shyla,” I stammered. “I didn’t know what to do.”
“Neither did we,” Dallas said. “We loved her too.”
I knelt down beside my mother and tried to pray, but none of the old words seemed adequate. I listened to her hard, rasping breathing and laid my head against her chest. Her valiant heart sounded strong and certain and that heartbeat alone gave me reason to hope.
There was suddenly a slight change in her breathing and something must have registered on a machine where the nurses were, for an efficient black nurse came and took Lucy’s pulse and adjusted the flow of the intravenous into her veins.
Then another nurse came over and pointed disapprovingly at her watch like a teacher circling a misspelled word in red ink.
“She’s not gonna die,” I whispered to Dallas.
“If she doesn’t do it in the next few days, they think she’s got a pretty good shot.”
I leaned over and kissed my mother’s cheek, then took her hand and pressed it against my own cheek.
“Say good-bye, Jack,” Dallas advised. “In case she can really hear you.”
“Listen to me, Mama. It was your son Jack who loved you the most. Your other children resented you and called you terrible names behind your back. It was always Jack who was your biggest fan, your number-one cheerleader. Remember that nasty Dallas. He was always spiteful and hateful toward you.”
Dallas laughed as the nurse hustled us out of the intensive care unit.
Outside in the hallway, I felt hammered, flattened out.
“Your old room’s made up for you,” Dallas said. “Dad’s real excited about you coming.”
“He gonna be there?”
“Not tonight,” Dallas said. “We had to put him in the drunk tank at the jail. Just to dry out. He’s taken the news about Mom real hard. Odd, Jack. He still loves her and seems lost without her.”
“Take me home,” I said. “The scene of the crime.”
Chapter Ten
No story is a straight line. The geometry of a human life is too imperfect and complex, too distorted by the laughter of time and the bewildering intricacies of fate to admit the straight line into its system of laws.
The next morning the family gathered slowly again as the ruined cells skirmished in the silent lanes of Lucy’s bloodstream. This gathering was irregular and off-center. None of us wanted to be here. In her coma, attached to all the machines of measurement and warning, Lucy could not hear the house of McCall rallying to her side. No one loved theater or spectacle more than my mother, but this coming together contained no aspects of whim and it was not a joke. She had taught her sons to laugh, but not to grieve. And so, with nothing to do, we sat around and waited, trying to learn the laws and courtesies of dying. Under such extreme pressure, we got to know each other again. We had come to a meeting place in our lives that would be part summing up and part winking to the gods of darkness. The waiting room filled up with strange openings, disorders, and slanted windows facing out to the past. But all exits were barred and there seemed to be no way out as we groped for common ground, as we looked for a straight line to share.
Though we thought we were learning the protocols of dying, we did not know which ones applied to our mother. I had gotten to the hospital at seven that morning and had visited her amid those humming machines that were monitoring her vital signs. The nurses told me there was no change and I was soon banished to the waiting room, where I would learn the arts of vegetating and stillness as I awaited news. I sat surrounded by piles of bad magazines. I observed the decor and the furnishings and thought it took a sensibility of remarkably piddling genius to design a room this jarring. From a machine, I bought a cup of coffee so mediocre as to encourage the writing of an article pleading with the coffee-growing nations not to export coffee to this country until Americans learned to do it right.
My brother Tee arrived next, unshaven and unkempt. It looked as though he had found all his clothes at the bottom of a laundry hamper. He taught autistic children in Georgetown County and when asked about why he chose such a profession he would say, “After growing up in this family, I found autism refreshing.” Tee always found himself in the dead center of family battles and was always being caught in acts of unsure and ambiguous diplomacy, though no one ever doubted his good will.
“I’m not sure if I’m glad to see you or not,” Tee said to me.
“You’ve got about a week to figure it out,” I said. “Then I’m back to Rome.”
“What if Mom dies?” he asked, then said quickly, “Don’t answer that. Forget I even asked the question. I feel guilty enough as it is. I read that leukemia is the only cancer that’s strictly affected by the emotions. Remember that time I flunked biology? Or the time I shoplifted a bag of M&M’s when I was five? It made her emotional. A leukemia cell could’ve formed right then when she was spanking my fanny.”
“Good thinking,” I said.
“You’re tired of me already, aren’t you?” Tee asked.
“No, Tee. I’m worried about Mom,” I said. “I’d hate to come to this hospital with bad breath. This place thinks a tongue depressor’s a major breakthrough in science.”
“It’s gotten better,” Tee said. “By the way, brace yourself, big one. John Hardin’s on his way to town.”
“How’s he doing?” I asked.
“Staying out of the mental hospital,” Tee said. “Dupree watches over him and rides herd on him pretty close. Mom still refuses to think anything’s wrong with him. But that’s her baby. She’s always cared most for John Hardin.”
“Does he know she’s sick?” I asked.
“I told him yesterday,” Tee said. “But he laughed too, once he heard it was leukemia. Thought I was pulling his leg. Be careful of John Hardin. He can be sweet but his temper is hair-trigger. He offends easily.”
“Thanks for the warning,” I said as Dupree and Dallas made their way down the long hospital corridor toward us.
“No change, huh!” Dallas said as he threw himself heavily into a couch. “You’ve been in to see her, Tee?”
Tee shook his head and said, “My value to the family lies in my waiting room manner. When you guys fall apart, you’ll need Tee, the Rock of Gibraltar, to steady you out and get you on course. I haven’t been in that room yet. The thought of Mom’s dying gets to me bad enough. I’m keeping clear of the real thing.”
“Makes sense to me,” Dupree said as he walked toward the door leading to the intensive care unit. “By the way, Jack, an early warning signal. John Hardin’s left his island house and is on his way here. Dad’s due to be released from jail right about now.”
“It’s a Norman Rockwell painting in the making,” I said.
“Forgot to tell you, Jack,” Dallas said. “Life in Waterford’s still interesting. Fucked up, but interestin
g.”
“Bad movie,” Tee added. “Lousy script. Poor location. Ham actors. Hack directors. But melodrama up the old wazoo.”
Jim Pitts, our stepfather, approached us from the other corridor, his step military and even spritely despite a noticeable limp in his right leg. He lifted his hand to stop Dupree from going in to check on Mom, indicating that he would like to talk to all of us. I found myself resenting Dr. Pitts for the single crime of having married my mother, yet I had rejoiced in Rome when she wrote me she was leaving my father. It was obvious he felt natural as Lucy’s sons gathered in a semicircle around him. My mother’s condition had forced us into an alliance none of us wanted. He was a measured, soft-spoken man whose sentences took time in the saying. When he was nervous, a slight stammer caused an even greater logjam of words.
He said, “I went to see your father and gave him a full report on Lucy’s condition. Even though your mother didn’t wish to see him, the fact that she’s in a coma changes things. I did what I felt to be right. I asked him to visit her this morning.”
“That was nice of you, Doctor,” I said.
“Too nice,” Tee said. “Kindness gets my guard up. Makes me suspicious.”
“I never had children of my own …” Dr. Pitts began.
“You didn’t miss a thing,” Dallas said.
“What I mean is, if I can do anything for you boys …” he said. “I will always keep your wishes uppermost in my mind. If I make you uncomfortable, or if you wish to talk privately, I can always go outside and smoke a cigarette. I understand how a stranger could make you ill at ease at such a time.”
“You’re our stepfather, Doc,” Dupree said. “You’re Mom’s husband. You’ve got more right to be here than we do.”
“That’s very kind,” the doctor said. “But I’m aware of the discomfort I may cause.”
“You?” Tee said. “Cause discomfort? Wait till you see us around our real father.”
“We make you nervous, Doctor,” said Dallas. “But don’t take it personally. The McCall brothers have that effect on everyone.”
“Speak for yourself, bro,” Tee said.
Dupree said, “You’ve been nice to my mother. We appreciate that, Doctor.”
“Let me go check on my sweetheart,” Dr. Pitts said, moving toward the door at the end of the room.
“Nice guy,” Dupree said.
“If you like the type,” Dallas answered. “He’s too dull for me. No balls. No juice. No pizzazz.”
“I like it when a guy marries my mom and lacks balls,” said Tee.
“I don’t need pizzazz after Dad,” I said.
“Or juice,” Dupree said. “A perfect day for me is when nothing out of the ordinary happens, where I never lose my temper, or get mad at my boss. I’d like the temperature always to be seventy degrees, the sky clear, and my car always to start. I’d like to stay this age always, never get sick, and have baseball played all year round. I don’t like surprises. I like routine. Patterns make me happy.”
“You sound like a dope,” Dallas said.
“He sounds just like you,” Tee said. “You’re a lawyer, the scum of the planet. You want peace and quiet in your life, but you want the rest of the world to blow up around you. If three hundred passengers die in a flaming plane crash in Atlanta, three hundred lawyers go to bed happy knowing a big paycheck’s coming up.”
“It feeds the family,” Dallas said, grinning.
“Human suffering feeds your family,” Tee corrected.
“Oh, cut the wordplay,” Dallas said. “Ah, what’s that lovely sound?”
“A siren,” Dupree said. “Mozart to Dallas.”
“A payday coming home to papa,” Dallas said, and none of us saw our father coming down the corridor in his classical mode of unsteadiness.
When our father entered the waiting room every one of us knew immediately that he’d been drinking.
“Ah! The source of all joy,” Tee whispered as the sons observed the father’s long entrance in silence.
“How did he get liquor this early in the morning?” Dupree asked Dallas. “He must bury liquor bottles all over town, then dig them up like a dog when he needs them.”
Dallas said, “I’m lucky enough to be his law partner. I’ve found a pint of liquor in a law book he hollowed out. Found another in the tank behind the toilet in the women’s bathroom downstairs. Another in a rain gutter outside his office window. If hiding things paid well, he’d be a millionaire.”
While my father was entering the room, I tried to see him with new eyes, not as the boy who grew up ashamed that his father was the town drunk. He still made an effort to carry himself with dignity and he still possessed that strange handsomeness that makes aging easy for some men. His hair was thick and silver, as though it were made from a tarnished tea service. His body had softened, gone to seed in the usual places, but you could tell that this had once been a powerful man. I waited to hear the voice, that finely tuned baritone instrument that lent weight to every word he ever uttered. His bloodshot eyes fixed us to the spot and he stared at us as though he were waiting for someone to introduce him to strangers. His specialty, long since perfected, was to make every moment difficult.
“I guess you think I should hire a marching band to welcome you back,” my father, Judge Johnson Hagood McCall, said to me.
“It’s great to see you too, Dad,” I said.
“Don’t look at me that way,” my father ordered. “I refuse to accept your pity.”
“Jesus Christ,” Tee whispered.
“Say hi to Jack, Dad,” Dupree suggested. “It’s a question of manners.”
“Hi, Jack,” my father said, mugging, his words soft around the edges. “Great to have you back, Jack. Thanks for not calling, Jack. For not keeping in touch.”
“I tried to call you a couple of times, Dad,” I said. “But it’s hard talking to a man after he’s passed out.”
“Are you implying that I have a drinking problem?” the judge said, rising up to his full length, his head thrown back.
“An outrage,” Tee said happily.
Dallas said, “Like saying Noah had a problem with the weather, Pop.”
“Drink some coffee,” Dupree offered. “Sober up before you go see Mom.”
My father looked at me, then sat down on a chair, falling the last several inches.
“You heard that your mother deserted me for a much younger man, I suppose,” he said to me.
Dallas said, “The doc’s a whole year younger than Pop here.”
“There’s no need for your editorial comments, Dallas,” the judge said. “I am merely stating the facts. His money blinded her. Your mother always had a weakness for material things and ill-gotten pelf.”
“Pelf?” Tee said. “Mom likes pelf? I don’t even know what it is.”
“That’s why you’re only a public school teacher in the state that ranks last educationally in this great nation,” the judge said. “They allow you to teach other idiots, I am told.”
“My kids are autistic, Dad,” said Tee.
“Aren’t you glad Dad’s drinking again?” Dupree asked me, trying to divert attention away from Tee. “I never feel closer to the old boy than when he’s going through delirium tremens.”
“I’m not drunk,” the judge said, “I’m on medication.”
“Dr. Jim Beam,” Dallas said. “Still practicing after all these years.”
“I have an inner-ear infection,” the judge insisted. “The medicine affects my sense of balance.”
“That infection must be hell,” Tee said. “It’s been around for thirty years or more.”
“All of you were in league with your mother against me,” said the judge, closing his eyes.
“Got that right,” Tee said.
“God help me ignore the whimpering of this pack of craven dogs,” the judge prayed.
Tee began barking and Dupree turned to me and said, “Moi, a craven dog.”
“Shape up, Dad,” Dallas said.
“Don’t embarrass us in front of Dr. Pitts. It was nice of him to invite you down.”
“He is a home wrecker,” the judge said. “Nothing in the world could keep me from my wife’s bedside when she faces the Maker. The Lord will be very hard on Miss Lucy, I’m afraid. The good Lord is harsh with those women who abandon their poor husbands at the time of greatest need. Mark my words.”
“Time of greatest need?” Tee asked.
“Ear infection,” Dupree said, helping him out.
“Bulletin just in,” said Dallas, going over to brush dandruff off our father’s wrinkled suit. “She’s no longer your wife. You’ll need that information fresh when you go see her.”
“She only divorced me because she went through a midlife crisis,” the judge said, more to himself than to us. “It’s far more common than you might think. It usually occurs when a woman goes through the change of life—when she can no longer bear fruit.”
“We’re fruit,” Tee said to me, pointing to himself.
“Get hold of yourself, Dad,” Dupree said, bringing back a cup of hot coffee in a paper cup. “We’re gonna need you before this is over.”
“Where is John Hardin?” the judge asked. “He is the only one in this family who has remained constant to his father. Through all of this, he and he alone still loves me, still respects the institution of fatherhood. Can you believe it?”
“Tough,” Dupree said.
“Hard to swallow,” Tee said.
“Jack,” my father said to me. “There’s plenty of room at the house. Please feel free to stay with me.”
“I’m already there, Dad,” I said. “I slept there last night.”
“Where was I?” my father said and I saw the fear in his eyes as he tried to remember.
“Drying out,” Dallas said. “In your pied-à-terre over at the county jail.”
“Then tonight we’ll talk,” the judge said to me. “Just like old times. All of you boys come over. I’ll barbecue steaks in the backyard just like I used to do when you were kids.”
“That’d be nice, Dad,” Dupree said. “Thanks.”
“Sounds great,” Tee agreed.
“Tell them, Jack,” my father said, his eyes changing, glistening. “Tell them what I was like in the early days. I used to walk down the street and everyone used to step aside out of respect. I was a man of substance then, someone to be reckoned with, wasn’t I, Jack? Tell them what people used to say. The boys were all young then, they might not remember.”