Home to Big Stone Gap

  “Let me finish,” he continues. “We’re going to go in and clean out the artery and put in a stent to keep the blood flowing.”

  Keep the blood flowing? What is he talking about? It sounds like Jack is dying. Is he dying?

  “Hopefully, this is the only blockage. Then we’ll do a PET scan—”

  “What’s that?”

  “A head-to-toe scan. We’ll do it as soon as Jack recovers.”

  Recovers? How did we go from “hopefully” to “blockage” to “recovers” so quickly? Maybe Jack is fine; maybe they’ll operate and see that it’s not a big deal. Or maybe they’ll take a scan and see that the problem is worse.

  The doctor explains the options, but I barely hear him. I’m in a daze of disbelief. How did this happen? Why didn’t we catch it sooner? I wasn’t persistent enough with Jack; I’d let doctor appointments slide because I was tired of begging him to go. Somehow I feel that even this is my fault. I wasn’t diligent enough, so now my husband has to pay.

  The nurse leads me back to Jack, who is about to be transported to the operating room. I tell him that I love him, and he smiles. I tell him that everything is going to be all right, and try not to cry, but I can’t help it. I cry. I’m afraid of the feelings I have, the depth of them in this moment. I really love my husband, though I don’t always show it. I wish there was something I could say that would express to him the deep meaning he has brought to my life. So I lean down and say, “Thank you.”

  The orderlies wheel him away, and I watch until he is through the doors at the end of the long hallway. I think of the hundreds of times in nineteen years that I’ve watched Jack go, when he’d back down the hill onto Cracker’s Neck Road in his truck, or drive away after dropping me at the airport, or how I’d wait until he disappeared from sight after taking me to Iva Lou’s trailer for girls’ poker night. Jack says that I’m hooked on good-byes. I savor them. I count them. I get lost in them. Does he know how much I treasure him? I wonder. Is that enough to sustain him now?

  There’s something in the way the sheer pale blue curtains surrounding his bed are draped that remind me of the day Jack’s mother died in the hospital. I always loved Mrs. Mac; she had good old-fashioned common sense. She was a direct person—some would say brutally honest—but was never hurtful. She was a mountain girl who lived by a naturalist code: she grew her own vegetables, made her own fires, and quilted her own blankets. She could make do in any situation. I remember how Jack held her when she was dying. He didn’t let go for a long time. I stood back and watched him through the blue curtain. Finally, the nurse gently touched his shoulder, and he knew that he had to leave her. I was waiting on the other side of the curtain.

  I think about dying and all those I loved who are now gone. I feel as though I am falling in line behind them, my mother, my father, Fred, my beloved Spec, and Joe. I had my mother to talk to when Fred died, and when she died, I had Iva Lou to help me. When Spec died, it seemed I had the whole county to mourn with me, so I never felt alone. When our son died, it was the worst thing that could happen to us, but it was happening to our family, and there was much consolation in Etta’s love, and a lot to learn from a little girl as she grieved. Somehow, to share the very worst of life with Jack made it bearable. He showed me how to live with pain, live through it to get beyond it. I wouldn’t have known how to do it without him.

  But I can’t talk to Jack about his illness, and it’s terrifying.

  I smooth the sheets on his bed. Then I decide to make the bed. Maybe, if I tuck the corners neatly and fluff the pillow, the surgeons will take the same care with my husband. If I’m very quiet and very neat, maybe the doctors will go that extra mile, and he’ll be all right.

  There’s a linen pocket on the side of the mattress for personal effects, since there are no side tables in the ICU. I reach inside and collect Jack’s watch, his chain and medal of the Blessed Lady that I bought for him in Florence, and his wallet. A small notepad with a tiny golf pencil is attached to his wallet with a rubber band.

  Jack always carries this small pad and pencil. I special-order them from the same stationer in Richmond who provides me with the blue airmail envelopes and paper for letters to Italy. Jack and I always joke about the tiny notepads. What would he do if they ever stopped making them? The scraps of paper from these pads have been a bone of contention with me for years. All around the house, I find tiny pieces of paper with numbers jotted on them, the measurements and numbers meaningless to everyone but Jack. He keeps these scraps in his pants pockets, on windowsills, and in his truck. He leaves them anywhere and everywhere, and it drives me nuts. I flip the notepad open and see a list.

  At first it doesn’t look like Jack’s handwriting at all. Then I see a familiar “E” shaped like a backward 3, which gives me pause. It is my husband’s handwriting, but the effects of the fall are apparent. The print is wobbly. He must’ve written it lying in this bed moments ago. The note says:

  STILL TO DO

  1. build a bridge

  2. hold my first grandchild

  3. see Scotland

  4. Annie

  I study the list. The thought of my husband dying without having held his grandchildren makes me cry again; worse, to think that he wouldn’t be around to be an influence on them. I don’t want to be a grandparent if he’s not here. I don’t want to be anything if he’s not here.

  So many memories come rushing back, just moments, small pictures, jumbled, out of order. Jack and Etta when she was three, high on her papa’s shoulders, walking across the field out back. He looked like a giant, and she so small. Jack, when Joe was born; he held our son before I did. It just seemed natural; after all, it was the son he had dreamed of, and for so long. Jack at Joe’s grave when we buried him. He could not stop his tears. Jack on our wedding day in Italy, when he toasted my father and looked at him with such respect. Jack helping his mother down the steps at church so she wouldn’t fall on the ice. He treats all women like fine china.

  Scotland: we always said we’d go, but we never found the time. How many hints did I need to know his true heart’s desire and do something about it? The signs were everywhere. He checked out books from the library on Scottish clan battles, even chose a shade of red paint for our living room from a book called The Best of Highland Castles. I didn’t take his dream seriously enough. I made vacation plans, and he went along with them. We were always going to Italy, it seemed, whenever we went anywhere. Maybe Jack was helping me to make up for all the years I didn’t know my father in Schilpario. Maybe he felt he had to put aside his dreams for mine. I should have insisted he go! Why didn’t I? After all, Britain is close to Italy—just an hour flight. I always joke that Italy is the Florida of the UK. We could have done it—we should have.

  Build a bridge? Jack never mentioned a bridge to me. Not once, not ever. This one is a complete mystery to me.

  Annie? I never heard him mention an Annie. For a second I feel betrayed—where am I on his list? I didn’t even make it. It doesn’t matter. I don’t deserve to be one of his last concerns—I haven’t earned that. He’s been the good one all these years. The righteous one. The one with the big heart. All the sweetness, all the light, all the gentle strength, all the things he is. It’s all ending. I can’t believe it. I would give everything I have for more time. Please give me more time. It’s all happening so fast, too fast. I want to slow everything down, buy time. If time stops, that means no harm will come to him.

  I stay next to the bed for a long while, as long as the nurses will let me. I can still picture my husband lying there, and maybe they understand that this is as close as I can get to him for now. The idea of him has to do. After a while, I pick up my purse and Jack’s things and go out into the empty waiting area. Iva Lou is off somewhere, so I sit down and hold Jack’s watch. I trace the numbers with my finger, wishing I could stop the movement of the hands, turn them back to a week ago, when Jack was fine and his artery was clear. I put his watch on my wrist, remembering that
it was ticking on his arm just a few minutes ago.

  Iva Lou gives me a cup of coffee. “Here, drink this.”

  “No, thanks.”

  “Now, don’t do this. Don’t go to that place.” Iva Lou sits down next to me.

  “I’m going to lose him, Iva Lou. I know it. I’m being punished. I wasn’t grateful enough. I wasn’t good enough to him. I made him work too hard to love me.”

  “You’re being silly. You’re human. You’re not some perfect thing that does everything right all the time. None of us are. He’s gonna pull through this because he’s strong. And because he wants to.”

  I look at Iva Lou, hoping that I will see on her face a validation of all she says. I would like to believe it. But I’m afraid she’s wrong. I hand her the list I found.

  “What’s this?” she asks.

  “It’s from Jack’s notepad.”

  “Jack wrote this?” Iva Lou sits down and reads it. “‘Still to Do.’ Told ya. He’s making lists of things—ole Jack Mac ain’t going anywhere. Who the hell is Annie?”

  “I have no idea.”

  “I’m sure it’s nothing.” A worry crease appears between Iva Lou’s eyes.

  “For Godsakes, Iva Lou, I don’t care about that.”

  “I would. I don’t care how sick Lyle gits, he better not write some mystery woman’s name on a pad for me to find. I’d rip his wig off.” Iva Lou pokes me. I manage a smile. “Jack’s in good hands. Got the best surgeon here.”

  “How do you know?” I ask.

  “What?”

  “How do you know he’s not going to die?”

  “He didn’t have the look.” Iva Lou exhales.

  “What look?”

  “Surrender.”

  “He seemed so sad.” I open my purse, looking for a tissue.

  “That’s just Jack Mac not wanting to be any trouble. He was lying on that gurney wondering if the surgeon’d had his lunch. He doesn’t want to bother people. You know how he is.”

  I nod.

  “Your husband is and will forever be a giver and not a taker. I never saw him take nothin’—and I know men.”

  “You’re right.”

  “When I had my cancer…”

  I nod that I remember.

  “Well, I knew I wasn’t a goner. I just knew it. And Jack knows he ain’t a goner. You should pray for peace of mind, not anything else. He’s gonna be around a long time.”

  I take Iva Lou’s hand. “What if he isn’t? What will I do?”

  “Don’t go there.”

  “I can’t help it. I’m scared.”

  “Of course you are. He’s irreplaceable. I know they say that anybody can be replaced. Well, there’s two places that’s not true: right here, in Jack Mac, and at the county library. Ever since Mrs. Horne died, the main branch has been a mess.”

  “I’ve got to call Etta!” I stand.

  “You’ll do no such thing!” Iva Lou pulls me back down to the chair. “She’s all the way over in It-lee. There’s nothing she can do.”

  “If it were me in there, Jack would call right away.”

  “And I’d stop him the same as I’m stoppin’ you. You ain’t thinkin’ clearly. Call her when you got good news from the surgery, and not before.”

  If there was ever a daughter with a deep affinity for her father, and he for her, it’s Etta and Jack. There were times when I felt they were closer than Etta and I were, but I never minded. I’d spent most of my life craving that connection to Fred Mulligan, and then once I’d met my real father, I had waves of it. Etta and Jack’s relationship has an edge over me and my dad, of course, because they’ve had a connection since the day she was born, while I had to wait thirty-five years for mine. Iva Lou is right, though. What good would it do to burden her at this point?

  “I meant to tell you something. When you stopped by the house the other morning,” I say.

  “What’s that?” Iva Lou looks at me.

  “I thought I saw my son in the woods.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I saw a young man walking in the woods, and he looked like Joe, if Joe had lived.”

  “Honey-o, now you’re scaring me.”

  “I was scared. I must’ve looked a fright, because Jack went out in the woods and looked for him.”

  “Bless his heart.”

  “I know. He’d do anything for me. Even when I’m crazy, he tries to make sense of it.”

  “Why do you think you saw Joe after so long?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Maybe he was trying to tell you something. Sometimes angels do that, you know. They try and guide us in small ways.”

  “Maybe he was coming to get Jack.”

  “Don’t let your imagination run wild.”

  “Too late for that.”

  A few hours later, I wake up to the insistent hum of my cell phone. I fell asleep in the chair next to Jack’s bed after hearing that the surgery went well and Jack would be under the anesthesia for a few more hours. I must’ve been so relieved, I went right to sleep. I sit up and take my cell phone out of my pocket. Jack is still asleep in the hospital bed. I have a dull headache, my back is sore, and the heat that has kicked in makes the air so dry, it’s hard to breathe.

  “Hello?”

  “Ma, it’s Etta. I got your message.”

  “Hi, honey.”

  “What’s wrong? Why are you at the hospital?”

  “It’s Daddy.” I start to cry.

  “What happened?” she says evenly.

  “He fell at work, and it turns out he had a blockage in his artery. He had surgery this morning, and he’s doing really well.”

  “Why didn’t you call right away?”

  “The time difference,” I lie. “There was nothing you could do.”

  “I could worry for you! I’m coming home.”

  “No, no. He’s going to be fine.”

  “Can I talk to him?”

  “He’s sleeping.”

  “Mom, you’re not lying to me, are you? Is it worse than you’re saying?”

  I go into a long explanation of the surgery, repeating everything the doctor told me. I give her the good news; there was plenty of that. I recount that Jack’s heart is strong, he just had a buildup of plaque in the arteries, and now he’s on blood thinners and he will heal.

  “I’m coming home.”

  “Etta. I would tell you if it was bad.”

  “I want to talk to Dad.”

  The nurse comes in and checks Jack. I watch as she takes his blood pressure and checks the dressing on his bandages. Jack stirs a little when she touches him.

  “Can we call you later? When he wakes up?” I ask.

  “Okay.” Etta begins to cry. “Is he going to be all right?”

  “Yes. Yes. I promise.”

  “Mom?”

  “Yes?”

  “I don’t know what I’d do if something happened to Daddy.”

  My heart breaks for her, but I don’t cry. “Listen to me, Etta. Your father loves you, and he’s proud of you. Your happiness makes him strong. He wants you to be happy.”

  “How can I do that when he’s suffering?”

  “Because you have to.”

  “I want to come home and take care of him.”

  “Don’t worry. I’m waiting on him like he’s a duke.”

  “I shouldn’t be here. I should be home with you.”

  I had prayed for Etta to come to this realization before she moved abroad, got married, and decided to go to college in Italy. I knew there would be a moment when she wished she was nearer to home, closer to us. This is one time when I wish I hadn’t been right.

  “Don’t be silly,” I tell her. “Your life is there, with your husband who loves you. Don’t worry.”

  Mountain View

  The thunder is so loud over Cracker’s Neck Holler, it sounds like the mountains are splitting open. The occasional bolt of white lightning in the dark, followed by deafening claps, sends Shoo the
Cat under the sofa. I place some chunks of black coal on the fire. The flames from the logs engulf the coal; it crackles with small pops of silver where the dust hits the fire.

  “You done good with that farr, honey.” Jack puts his arms around me.

  He’s been home a few weeks now, and the truth is, I’m getting pretty good at building fires myself, because I won’t let him lift a thing. “You banked it, I just added the coal.”

  “Some storm.”

  “Terrible.”

  “We’ll wake up to butterscotch mountains in the morning.”

  “You think so?”

  Jack and Etta used to name the mountains by season. In late November, when the rains came in, the last of the changing leaves’ shimmering colors would go; ruby and gold and orange would give way to bare fingers of deep blue branches as far as the eye could see. Even the pine would lose some of its green luster, turning to a dusty purple as the cold set in. The earth below would turn the color of butterscotch.

  “Today is the first day I feel like myself.” Jack sits in the chair and puts his feet up.

  “The doctor said it would take six weeks.”

  “I didn’t believe him.”

  “Do you need anything?” I kneel next to Jack’s chair. “How about a cup of tea?”

  “I sort of like you waiting on me hand and foot.”

  “This is what it was like in the pioneer days, before women had careers.”

  “I like it.”

  I kiss Jack on the cheek. “Why wouldn’t you?” He pulls me onto his lap. I put my arms around his neck. “Did you e-mail Etta?”

  “I sure did. I don’t like that instant-message feature at all.”

  I laugh. “I know. It’s annoying.”

  “Do you ever think all the romance has gone out of the world?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I miss paper and ink and the thought it took to write a letter. To really figure out what you wanted to say.”

  “What do you want to say?”

  Jack looks at me. “Thank you for taking such good care of me.”