New Stories From the South 2010: The Year's Best

  The family was seated at the table. Grandmother’s canary, Billy Boy, was singing up a storm in the kitchen—now a tropical zone from the heat of the oven. We bowed our heads. It was time to give thanks for our blessings. Of which, I still believed, I had many.

  Marjorie Kemper died on November 12, 2009, in Southern California, where she lived most of her adult life. She was born April 28, 1944, and grew up in Texas and Louisiana. Marjorie’s short fiction recently appeared in Alaska Quarterly Review, Ploughshares, Southwest Review, and The Sun. She received an O. Henry Prize in 2003 for “God’s Goodness,” which was published by The Atlantic Monthly. Marjorie’s novel Until That Good Day was published in 2003. She recently finished another novel, Between the Devil and Mississippi.

  Elements of “Discovered America” are “true:” That sweet old red and white Ford wagon was named Gratia, after Marjorie’s favorite great aunt, who lived halfway from town up the road to Grand Ecore, a big bluff above the Red River near Natchitoches, Louisiana. We did make such a trip. Both of us got poison oak from our romp by the quarry. We did visit a long-winded old German quack in Memphis. For years my nickname was Loud Man. From there the story takes off into that rich vein of imagination in which writers find the truth that makes great fiction. Marjorie said that when that process took hold, the characters—very much alive within the parallel universe of Marjorie’s mind and heart—told her the story that she typed. And then sculpted to something close to perfection.—Gary Kemper

  Elizabeth Spencer

  RETURN TRIP

  (from Five Points)

  It was during a summer season Patricia and Boyd were spending together in the North Carolina mountains that Edward reappeared. He left a message on the answering machine predicting arrival the next afternoon, saying not to give a thought to driving into Asheville for him, that he would rent a car and come out, if at all welcome.

  “At all welcome” sounded more than slightly aware that he might not be. Yet, of course, Patricia thought at once, they were going to say, “Come ahead, we’d love to see you,” whether it was true or not. And for me, she thought, it really is true, though she doubted it was for Boyd. Edward had a charming way of annoying Boyd, she thought, though Boyd wouldn’t say charming.

  Patricia stood out on the porch of the cottage (rented for the summer) and looked out at the nearest mountain, thinking about Edward. Boyd soon joined her. “Wonder what he’s got in mind.”

  “Oh, he won’t be a bother. He’ll probably be going on someplace else.”

  She could have asked, but didn’t, just what it was Boyd thought Edward had in mind. Money used to be a problem for him, but family business might also be involved. Boyd never cared for him; she knew Edward was acknowledging that.

  “Maybe he just wants to see us,” she offered.

  “Why not a dozen other people?”

  “Those, too. He has affection. And God knows after what’s happened he needs to find some.”

  “Nobody on the West Coast has any?”

  “Well, but that girl died. Outside of that—”

  “You’ll ask.”

  “Certainly I’ll ask. He’ll tell me.”

  “But then you won’t know either.”

  She whirled around, annoyed. “Don’t brand him as a liar before he even gets here.”

  Boyd apologized. “He’s your cousin,” he allowed, adding, “Certainly not mine.”

  Patricia said what she always said, “But we’re not close kin. In fact, hardly at all.” Boyd had learned that just as there were complicated ways Mississippians took of proving kin, so there were also similar ways of disproving it. “God knows,” he once remarked, “All of you down there seem to be kin.” They dropped the subject of Edward.

  Boyd spent the afternoon picking up fallen tree limbs from the slope back of the house. There were pine cones too. He built a fire every night, pleased to be in the mountains in mid-summer and need one. Boyd was from Raleigh, in flatter country, but he loved the Smokies. “My native land,” he crooned to Patricia, “from the mountains to the sea.” Patricia said she liked to look at them, but never ask her to climb one. She wasn’t all that keen on driving in them either, though the next afternoon would find her whirling down the curves to Asheville. “I’ve got to go in anyway, to pick up groceries, oh, and mail off Mama’s birthday present, else she won’t get it in time.”

  “And pick up Edward,” Boyd said.

  “You won’t mind,” she said. “He’ll be nice. I’ll cook something good, you’ll see.”

  But she had hardly made it out to the car when she heard the hornet buzz of a motorcycle coming up the Asheville road. It banked to pull in their drive and under the helmet and goggles she recognized her son. Oh Lord, thought Patricia. Why now? Then she was running forward to embrace him and hear about why now and calling to Boyd and finally getting into the car, leaving father and son to their backslapping and Whatderyaknows. A long weekend away from school. He might have told them. Boyd’s shout of “Wonderful surprise!” followed her down the swirl of the mountain.

  And all the way she wondered if the mystery could possibly come up again. They had been over it before and decided it was just a joke of nature, unfortunate, but only extended family to blame for their son looking so much like Edward.

  Airport.

  The heat in Asheville had about wilted her. She entered air-conditioning with a sigh and headed for the ladies’ room to repair her makeup and make sure she looked her pretty best.

  But before she could get there, a voice said, “Hey wait up, Tricia,” and there he was when she turned, Edward himself, standing still and grinning at her.

  “Oh!” He came forward and planted a sidewise kiss. But even those few feet of distance had let her notice that he didn’t look so great. Older, and not very well kept up. Scruffy shoes, wilted jacket, tee shirt open. The blond hair was mingled with gray, but the smile, certainly, was just as she remembered.

  He was carrying only a light satchel. “I checked the big one.” He caught her arm. “We’re heading somewhere right away and we’re going to eat something edible. I nearly choked on dry pretzels.”

  She managed to find an ancient restaurant, still there from former days, dim and uncrowded, a rathskeller. She sat across from him, her questions still unasked.

  Boyd was fine, she told him. Mark had just appeared. For a minute, she could plainly see, he didn’t recall just who Mark was. Then he remembered. “Oh great!” he said. A silence.

  Food ordered. Time for confidence.

  Yes, his love had died. Yes, she said; she had heard and was sorry. He had taken up with Joclyn in Mexico, followed her out to Pasadena, knew all along she didn’t have long to live. Why do it at all? Patricia had wondered then, now wondered again. Love was what he said. It was reason enough. That was Edward.

  “Oh, yes, Joclyn’s gone,” he said. “I tried but I simply couldn’t stay on out there after losing her. I began to think, Where else is there? I mapped out a plan. Friends in Texas, a covey of cousins in Chicago. Brother Marvin in Washington. You here. I picked you first. And then, possibly, back to Mississippi. It’s always there. Maybe not the happiest of choices. But there is where Mama used to be. But she’s gone, too, and so is the house.”

  “And Aline?” She had to be mentioned sometime, especially if she was also gone.

  “Oh, Lord,” said Edward. “The eternal Aline. Don’t ex-wives ever go away?”

  “What do you mean? Die?”

  “Or something.”

  “I always liked her,” Patricia murmured.

  “Spare me,” said Edward.

  Suddenly, Patricia felt terribly much older.

  Boyd was showing Mark around the cottage.

  “Isn’t it a good place?” he enthused. “It’s owned by Jim Sloan at the office. They couldn’t take it this summer. You can bunk in here. Pat will make up the bed and so forth. And the bathroom’s here. But now come on out and look at the view. We can see the New River. And the ni
ghts . . .! Breathe in the cool. How’s the new course?”

  “I need to talk to you. I may be changing majors.”

  Boyd groaned. “Not again. Well, we’ll discuss it. Meantime, do you remember Edward Glenn?”

  Mark, thin but sturdy, often called handsome, given to pleasing smiles, looked puzzled.

  “Cousin of Mother’s?” he finally said. “Didn’t she—?”

  “Didn’t she what?”

  “I don’t know, Dad. I just thought I remembered something.”

  “You better disremember it,” Boyd grumbled. He was not given to subtlety, but he felt he was in a situation where such was required. “He just called up and said he was coming. Uninvited. She went down to meet the plane.”

  Mark’s young brow wrinkled. “I thought of what I remembered—or what I couldn’t remember. Didn’t Mama date him or something?”

  Boyd whirled on him so sharply he startled him. “Do me a favor? When he comes, act like you never heard anything about him.”

  “If that’s how you feel.” He concentrated, then said: “But why?”

  Boyd was irritable. “I’ll tell you later. After he leaves. Promise. Okay?” Outside in a flat side yard, Boyd explained he was trying to set up a fish pond. “Sort of kidney-shaped,” he said. “Something to leave for the Sloans. They insisted on leaving us the house. Just the utilities to pay, though I guess if the roof blew off . . .”

  “But do they really want a fish pond?”

  “No trouble in summer. Just stock it. Feed ’em. Winter comes, scoop out the fish, drain it, leave it. We can start it while you’re here.” Mark had a look he got when something sounded like work. But then he got on better with his father when they worked together. Quarrels came when they pulled in opposite ways. He knows that, too, thought Mark. That’s why he’d brought this up. Mark knew he had to ease his father into his new plans. Boyd went to a tool shed and produced two shovels. With a plastic measuring cup, he dribbled lime to mark the outline. He stood looking for a moment before he took up a shovel. A sudden thought. “Have you eaten?”

  “I’m okay,” said Mark and drove his shovel in the turf.

  In Asheville, Edward and Patricia sat in front of a large house that was half burned down, surrounded by guard ropes and evidences of reconstruction, which was not at the moment proceeding. It was the remains of My Old Kentucky Home, the house Thomas Wolfe had lived in and wrote about. Though why Edward had to see it, she wasn’t quite clear.

  “It’s for my soul,” he explained. “Tricia! I’ve got to live again. Every little bit helps.”

  She was wondering what little bit Thomas Wolfe had to offer.

  “Didn’t Wolfe have to put up with an awful family,” Edward recalled. “I wonder how he stood it. We were luckier than that.”

  “Are we getting into family?” She was tentative.

  “It’s what we share,” said Edward.

  “Boyd’s family . . .” she began again.

  “What about them?”

  “I’ve managed somehow. I even get on with his mother.” She switched the subject. “You met Joclyn in Mexico.”

  “Yes, and I knew even then she was dying by degrees. After that she went back to Pasadena. I followed. Then there was chemo, all sorts of cures. But through it all she was happy. We were happy.”

  “Was that your reward?”

  “Umm. The trouble now is, she was terribly rich. I didn’t know how rich. It was some family legacy. Who’s ever going to believe I didn’t do it for that? Didn’t even know a lot about it. Who’d believe it?”

  “Nobody in Mississippi,” she was quick to say.

  Edward laughed. “Right on.” A pause, then, “How did this house burn?”

  “If I knew I’ve forgotten. Old houses just burn, I guess.”

  “I read Wolfe long ago. You learn something from other people’s bad times.”

  “Like what?”

  “How to get through your own.”

  “Edward?”

  “Um.”

  “It’s Mark. My son Mark.”

  “Of course. What about him?”

  “Well . . . I better tell you.” She laughed a little nervously. “He looks a lot like you.”

  “Poor kid . . . only . . . Well, now you’ve said it.” He sat quietly, slowly digesting the implications. “I thought that was a dead issue. . . . Want me to leave?” He was only half-joking.

  She was silent.

  “Tricia . . . what if he does? Nothing happened. . . . We both know that. We’ve been all over it. I don’t even think about it, haven’t for ages.” He stopped again, realizing he was getting off on the wrong track. “Let the past go.”

  “Boyd might not be the friendliest in the world.”

  “Maybe we can charm him with a drink or so.”

  “Just play it straight and we’ll be okay. He’s such a nice guy. At this moment you need us . . . need me. You said so. Besides, nothing happened.”

  “Tricia, nothing did happen.”

  “Right.”

  “Think of all Wolfe’s talent in that one house . . . Busting to get out. And it did.”

  She started the car and backed away. Grey, old-fashioned, rambling and unsavory, the house had still managed to assert itself. The long-ago meetings, quarrels, seductions, and heartaches of that big, lumbering man’s life, the family’s torments, had all smoked up right out of the windows and porches to sit on the backseat of the car, leaning awkwardly over, speaking in their ears. So time to let it back out and then move on. Patricia thought she would read his book again. Look Homeward, Angel. Wasn’t that it?

  Later than it should have been, they pulled up to the cottage. Boyd and Mark were out on the terrace, drinking beer and admiring the view. But the stunning moment soon arrived, as Patricia and Edward appeared. All they did, naturally, was shake hands, then stood there, boy and newcomer, look-alikes, though not really carbon copies. Patricia removed herself hastily to the kitchen to stash away groceries, while Boyd turned and looked out down the mountain. The talk was perfunctory—weather, national news. Edward to Mark: “So what are you into at the university?” Mark to Edward: “It was history, but I’m trying to switch. I came home to talk about it.” Boyd, disgruntled: “He’s switched once already. Not good to keep on switching.” Mark: “Computer science is a must these days.” Boyd: “History is a great base. You can always take up the computer stuff when you finish that.” Mark: “That’s postponing.” Edward: “I shouldn’t have asked.” Silence.

  Patricia appeared with drinks. Bourbon for Edward with a little splash of water. Scotch straight for Boyd. Another beer for Mark. She had changed and smelled fresh. She settled into a lounge chair with gin and tonic.

  “We started the fish pond,” said Boyd.

  “You can see the New River,” said Patricia.

  “It wasn’t so much that I didn’t like history. Old Douglas was interesting about the Greeks.”

  “The Greeks are important,” said Boyd. “Ask Edward.”

  “So I’m told,” said Edward.

  “You all always knew each other,” said Mark. “Funny, but I don’t even remember kids I knew growing up.”

  “Well, being kin . . .” Edward began. “It makes a difference.”

  “Always at Aunt Sadie’s,” Boyd said with a shading of contempt, but maybe he was only recognizing their nostalgia for those youthful days. Patricia doubted it. She was bound to remember that one last evening. And so was Boyd. And so was Edward. And so soon after getting married too. Which made it worse.

  She had often replayed it. Scene by scene, like a rented movie, its sequence never varied.

  Edward was drunk and turning in. Boyd was drunk and staying up. Patricia was drunk and had gone to bed.

  A house party given at Aunt Sadie’s for Patricia and Boyd, bride and groom. What a glorious afternoon it had been! They had spent it walking to familiar places on the big property: the garden swing out near the lily pond, the winding path down to the stables,
now empty, the old tennis court. Aunt Sadie, widowed but content these past years, with two gardeners to help, kept it all up. She had Lolly, too, a wonderful cook. Late as usual, Edward had appeared.

  “Well, it’s about time,” Aunt Sadie scolded. “We’d about given you out. Where’s Aline?” “Home with a headache.” Edward’s code response, everyone knew. He and Aline were famous for pitched battles. Aunt Sadie gave him a drink. The guests were trooping in. It had turned black and was about to rain. Thunder grumbled. They all crowded inside.

  “We’ll play games,” somebody suggested, trying to ignore the weather threat, though the sky had turned purple and looked low enough to touch. They were setting up a table for bridge when the lightning flash crashed right into the room and the lights went out. “Too dark to see aces,” Patricia said. Edward declared it was too dark to do anything but drink.

  “We could all go to bed,” said Boyd, provoking laughter to acknowledge his honeymoon state of mind. Aunt Sadie said no, they could eat, as everything was done. She began looking for candles.

  By the time they sat down everybody had taken a drink too many. They alternated between silly remarks, some known only in the family, and gossip about absent relatives. Both subjects made Boyd cross. Patricia could sense this, but didn’t see it was so important or why they should stop having fun. The family didn’t get together that often. He could stand them this once.

  Somebody (must have been Aunt Sadie’s big son Harry) also sensed the unease. He said to Boyd, “You can see what a crazy family you’ve got into.”

  “Well,” Patricia chimed in, just being funny, “you ought to see Boyd’s family.”

  That remark didn’t work the agreeable way Patricia had hoped, but by then it was pouring rain. She was never sure why he was so angry. He put down his napkin and got up from the table. Everybody tried to look like maybe he was just going to the bathroom. They ate steadily on, as though nothing was wrong but the weather. Edward tried to get Aunt Sadie to make a fourth for bridge. Everybody had another drink, which they didn’t need. No lights came on. Patricia finally groped up to bed with a flashlight thinking she would find Boyd, but nobody was there. He couldn’t be out in the rain, she thought, undressing, but as soon as her head hit the pillow, she went out like a light. So when the body landed in bed, it hardly registered, if at all.