A Gracious Plenty

  “Marcus,” Mrs. Livingston screams again. And she pulls herself to her feet and climbs out the window, chasing the storm.

  But I’m tangled in a tree, still wondering if I’m going to die in the invalid’s room.

  “Hey, Finch,” Leonard yells. “Finch!”

  And when I limp out to the other room, I find his father on the ground, bleeding from the head, where he was hit by a window. And not just the glass. The whole frame.

  IT IS TOO late to find her. I know. I want to tell Leonard, “She saw him.” I want to tell Leonard, “She recognized Marcus. She was gone from that minute on.”

  But he can’t understand the way death happens slow sometimes. How sometimes people are dead before their hearts stop beating. How sometimes they walk around that way for a long time before their bodies let them go. Sometimes they even have to chase death down.

  He can’t understand all that. He leaves me there to tend his father, and he says he’ll send an ambulance. By the time I get Mr. Livingston bandaged and iced at the place where his head eggs forth, the Vegetable Man has arrived to give us news.

  He stomps his boots in the foyer for a solid minute, like mud’s worth worrying about when windows and floors explode.

  “Who’s this hillbilly, and what’s he doing here?” Mr. Livingston yells.

  And the Vegetable Man pulls off his cap and bows his head.

  The Vegetable Man, who got stuck at Glory Road and couldn’t get home, says he saw a police car chasing the tornado. “With your wife driving it, Mr. Livingston. Looked to me like she was trying to give that storm a ticket. And it was going over the speed limit for sure,” he says. “I thought you ought to know—in case she borrowed Leonard’s car without asking.”

  Mr. Livingston sits addled, on the floor, saying, “We gotta call the authorities, Miss Nobles. Leonard might need backup.”

  “We’ll do it as soon as we can,” I tell him. “The phone lines are down.”

  The Vegetable Man notices the blood leaking through the bandages I’ve made by candlelight. He disappears just long enough to find spiderwebs from somewhere; then he spreads them across Mr. Livingston’s gashes, to squelch the bleeding, he says.

  And then there’s Reba Baker banging on the door and whispering to the Vegetable Man, who answers it. She calls me out into the foyer, where she stands with a kerosene lamp and teared-up eyes.

  She tells me that Mrs. Livingston didn’t make it over the bridge. “She saved our store from destruction, though,” Reba says. “And I’ll praise God for her forever. That tornado was heading right for us, and I closed my eyes, praying to be spared, and then I heard the siren. She chased that tornado right down the highway, and right over the bridge. But she rammed the car into the steel sides and crumpled it like a tin can. That’s what I hear.”

  “Where’s Leonard?”

  “He’s there, bless his heart. He’s waiting for the fire trucks and the wreckers. But there’s no need for an ambulance, I’m afraid.”

  “Go tell the old man,” I instruct her. “Don’t leave him here by himself, either,” and she scowls at me, like I could ever think she’d do something so heartless.

  And I run out into the night, and the moon’s come out, mysteriously, along with the stars. I hear a siren in the distance, then see flashing lights headed our way. And then I feel a pain in my backside that I haven’t felt before. I put my hand high on my hip and see that I’ve been scraped raw by tree roots.

  “Say there, girlie,” the Vegetable Man asks me, “you need a ride to the bridge?”

  And I do. Someone has taken my truck—either the tornado or Leonard. I’m guessing the latter, but I don’t know how he’d manage to operate it, with the gears the way they are.

  The Vegetable Man drives easy, with his high beams on. He drives slow and maneuvers around downed trees, dead cows, pieces of fence and concrete scattered along the road.

  “You want a beet?” he asks me, and I say no.

  He bites into one laying on his seat.

  “Sometimes,” he says. “Sometimes these things happen. You can’t think about it too hard.”

  I nod.

  “Sometimes something comes along and tears your roots right out the ground, and that’s when you know you been planted too long,” he says.

  I agree.

  “Sometimes you been growing one thing in your garden for too many years, and then everything dies. You gotta give the soil time to replenish itself.”

  “You talking to me in code?” I ask him.

  “Shit no,” he says. “I’m just talking to pass the time.” And he laughs.

  A little later, he asks me, “Did that baby you were watching ever cut his teeth?”

  “Yeah,” I say.

  When we get to the bridge, there’s just a siren wailing—and I think, at first, that it’s coming from the fire truck, but it’s not. It’s just about all that’s left of Leonard’s car or his mother, either one, and it doesn’t stop sounding for a while. I keep imagining baby Marcus with the siren in his throat.

  I tell Leonard I’m sorry. I ask him if he needs me. But he says no, that he’ll be okay, that he’s headed to the hospital to find his father, that he’ll talk with me tomorrow.

  “Say, Finch,” he says. “I think she might’ve killed my brother.”

  “She might have,” I tell him. “But that didn’t keep her from being a good mother to you.” And I don’t know why I say such a thing. I don’t know if she was a good mother or not.

  “Yeah.” He laughs, for just a second, before he returns to the scene.

  And I just leave him my truck, because what else will he drive? And Leonard’s all out of shape, but I’ve got strong legs. And a couple of miles ain’t far to walk after such a big storm—even with a sore backside.

  By the time I get to the graveyard, it’s nearing daylight, but I don’t have the energy for inspections. I see that my house is standing, though most of the roof is gone. I stretch out in bed and close my eyes and shift my legs to make room for a scared cat that I can’t even see. I hope it’s a cat anyway. I sleep beneath stars, beneath soggy blankets, beneath ivy dangling over my head and finally the sun.

  I know the Dead haven’t disappeared because the sun does rise. The roosters do crow. The clouds move across the sky like always. I know the Dead are around somewhere, but it seems I have gone deaf to them now.

  When I rise, I eat my breakfast. I didn’t lock the gate, so there’s nothing to open. I don’t have my truck, and the tractor’s turned over, so there’s nothing to drive but the lawn mower. I pick up the limbs from the yard and drag them to the edges. Fruits and vegetables splatter against the dirt like they’ve been dropped from a hundred feet, but my mower is turbopowered, and so I lift the blade for high grass and I mow. I make applesauce and squashed pears. I mince melons with cucumbers and try not to think about how it’s all going to smell in coming days.

  I hook a trailer to the lawn mower and head up the hill, stopping to pick up limbs. It’s going to be an all-day job. I can tell.

  I find tombstones cracked like teeth and part of my fence mangled. And at the top of the hill, I find Reba Baker, scrubbing off William Blott’s memorial with ammonia and Tilex.

  “I know there’s gonna be people coming up here to dig Mildred Livingston’s place,” she tells me. “I didn’t want no remnants of these words left.”

  “That’s kind of you, Reba,” I tell her.

  “If I had it to do over again, I reckon I’d do it different,” she tells me.

  “What do you mean?” I ask her.

  “I can’t abide a queer,” she repeats. “I really can’t. But I reckon I could have turned my cheek, the way Jesus did, when somebody slapped it.”

  “Somebody slapped Jesus?” I ask her.

  And she looks puzzled, like she’s not sure. Then instead of answering me, she says, “Aw, girl,” and she stands up and hugs me, and I hug her back before I leave her to her work.

  It takes a lot of fixi
ng to get the graveyard back in shape. The adult women’s Sunday school class volunteers to help me. They come out wearing stomping boots and they carry away the random things dropped down on Nobles Hill by the storm: a soggy mattress, a tire iron, a YIELD sign, a toilet seat, a child’s plastic horse. There are so many things left behind by the storm, and if any of them have meaning, I can’t find it.

  One of the women brings along her granddaughter, who I’ve met before, smoking where she had no business. She hangs back at first, but I shake her hand and she helps me stake off the place where Mrs. Livingston will rest. She holds the string while I tie it to the posts, and I tell her, “Don’t never be nobody’s project.”

  And she nods.

  THE BURIAL’S A big one, with the whole town coming out. I stand alongside Leonard, who kneels next to his father, who cries into his handkerchief—and thumbs the baby’s stone.

  There are hundreds of flower arrangements, from dignitaries and local people alike. And when the burial is over, Leonard stays behind to spread the flowers to other graves.

  “Your father’s gonna get mad,” I tell him.

  “My father will get over it,” he says. And he’s sad, but determined. He’s trusting his instincts.

  He puts a wreath on William’s grave, a basket on the Poet’s. A potted plant for Ma, a standing cross for Papa, an arrangement of wood and ribbon for Lucy. He leaves all the roses for his mother but passes a spray of carnations to Marcus. And then there are flowers for others. There seem to be flowers for everyone.

  Lois Armour is among the last to leave, staying later than even the fellows who lower the coffin and repack the dirt. She comes to me and says, “I know this ain’t a flower, but I was wondering if I could leave it for Lucille.”

  From her purse, she pulls a crown, tiny and glimmering in her hand.

  And I don’t know what to say, because there’s no way for me to tell whether she’s leaving behind the beauty-queen image or keeping it alive in her heart. But she’s here, at the graveyard, standing by Lucy’s grave.

  “I think Lucy’d be glad you came,” I say, and I nod when she situates the tiara beneath the stone.

  And I don’t know if she’ll like it or not. I really don’t.

  “Lucy,” she says, smiling. “That’s what I called her when she was a baby. The name really suited her better than Lucille, I guess. It didn’t sound quite as sophisticated, though.”

  “How bad was the damage at your place?” I ask her.

  “It clipped right by us,” she says. “We were so lucky. We didn’t lose a shingle.”

  “I’m happy for you,” I tell her. “If you get in the mood to do repairs, you can come help me.”

  “I will,” Lois Armour replies, and she shakes my hand.

  I watch her find her car and then drive down the hill. I follow the car with my eyes clear through the cemetery gates.

  And then I put Lucy’s crown on my head, step up on her stone, and look out from her grave at the world, at all these flowers against the dark branches half-stripped by rain. This cemetery—it’s a carnival of color, of life—the trees and bushes hacked up by a storm but still green, the fruits on the dirt instead of on branches, the flowers everywhere, flaunting petals and stems.

  In my heart, I know that Ma has lightened, that Lucy’s blown her anger out, that Papa’s fading, too. I know that things have changed, for better and worse, because they have to. But I’m lonelier than ever, and after all this time, the only truth I claim is this: You can’t drag things back from the grave, and trying will just wear you out.

  I imagine if I could still go there, if I could haze to the Dead, I’d see a party going on. A good-bye celebration for those who have lightened, the Mediator handing out balloons. I imagine I’d see Lucy dancing, her hair flying wild and her teeth catching light the way jewels do. And William playing happy tunes on a shiny instrument. I imagine I’d hear Marcus chattering and waving, wearing a road map for a diaper and pointing to the sky. And maybe Ma’s the one who carries him. Maybe they float on up together, in bubbles Papa blows, with the Poet saying meaningful words and shrugging when everybody claps.

  But it’s all imagining. I don’t really know a thing. And I’m the only one here, with Leonard walking toward the gate now, looking back and stretching out his hand my way, smiling at me ’cause I look silly in this crown. And I don’t know how I feel about this place with just me and the broken trees and the river rushing downstream in the distance. In my heart, I know I’m not alone, but I can’t be sure—not really. From where I stand, I can’t see much, and the only thing that holds me up is my own tough skin and the promise of touch.

  About the Author

  Sheri Reynolds teaches writing and literature at

  Old Dominion University. She is a native of

  South Carolina, a graduate of Davidson College

  and Virginia Commonwealth University, and

  lives now in Norfolk, Virginia.

  Coming in April 2006 from Shaye Areheart Books

  Firefly Cloak

  A Novel

  Sheri Reynolds

  THE NIGHT BEFORE she lost her momma, Tessa Lee camped out in a two-room tent with her momma, her little brother, Travis, and a crooked-nosed man named Goose. Goose had picked them up that morning at a grocery store in South Hibiscus and loaded their bags into the back of his pickup, while her momma gave Tessa Lee a shove into the cab. When Travis was settled beside her, and when her momma had rooted in and slammed the door, Goose said, “Let’s skedaddle,” and they rattled through the parking lot, waving good-bye to the old men who sat out front on benches and waited for the ice-cream truck.

  It was the first time Tessa Lee had ever heard that word skedaddle, and she sang it over and over to a tune she made up herself. She sang it to Travis and grabbed at his pudding belly and made him laugh until her momma told her to quit.

  “She ain’t bothering me,” Goose said. But Tessa Lee shut up, anyway.

  They’d left behind her bicycle and her Weebles, her Spirograph and her books. Her momma had said she wouldn’t need toys while she was on vacation, but as they drove along hot roads that faded into wavy black seas, it seemed strange to Tessa Lee that she’d be going on vacation with a man she’d never met before. He was friendly enough and let her steer for a long time in Alabama, but while Travis was steering, she turned around and saw that the wind had blown over a bag of her clothes. Her winter coat had spilled out, and the furry hood shivered like a kitten against the tailgate.

  Tessa Lee shivered, too, in spite of the thick heat, and said to her momma, “Must be going on vacation in the North Pole if I’m gonna need my fur coat when I get there,” and Tessa Lee’s momma shook her head and lit another smoke.

  “Smart girl,” Goose said.

  “If she’s smart, she’ll quit sassing,” her momma replied. But Tessa Lee could tell she wasn’t mad. Just worried. She could see worry in the way her momma tapped that cigarette at the edge of the windowsill, trying to keep the ashes neat and short and manageable. Not a bit like laid-back Goose who let his ashes grow long and fade to white, then drop down warm onto his hairy belly.

  Goose listened to country and sang with all the yodelers and told stories about going on alligator hunts when he was a boy. After a while, Travis fell asleep, and when they stopped for gas somewhere in Tennessee, Tessa Lee’s momma was left holding him while Tessa Lee went in the store to help Goose tote out the Yoo-hoos. When the man behind the counter said, “Your little girl’s gonna be a heartbreaker,” Goose said, “Already is,” and winked at Tessa Lee, and she trotted out proud with the drinks and decided it wouldn’t be so bad to have a daddy named after a bird.

  “Gotta gear down,” Goose said as they went up a hill, and by then they were in the mountains and gearing down a lot. Tessa Lee adjusted her legs so that he could work the gearshift. The backs of her thighs sweated against the vinyl seat, and when she tried to move them, a little bit of her skin got pinched in a place where the seat h
ad cracked and the foam poked through. Goose jiggled gears against the insides of her knees, and Tessa Lee looked at her momma, who took tiny quiet gasps of air and twiddled her fingers through Travis’s curls until his head looked like a hundred black fins.

  They stopped again at a truckstop off a busy highway, a bright yellow building where they sold ponchos and fireworks and bumper stickers that Tessa Lee wasn’t allowed to read. Her momma yanked her away from the stickers and paid for their bags of barbecue potato chips, along with some Handi Wipes for the truck. When they got back out, Goose had moved the truck to the rear of the building, behind three big metal Dumpsters that sat there like a row of rhinoceroses, minus their horns. He was changing the license plates.

  “What do we need new license plates for?” Tessa Lee asked.

  “Shhh,” he said, then whispered, “We’re in a new state, gotta have new plates.” Then he looked at her momma and said, “Load ’em up, Sheila.”

  “Come on,” her momma said, but Tessa Lee was already hunched down next to Goose.

  “These plates aren’t new,” she said.

  “Sure they are,” Goose answered, looking over his shoulder and then giving all four screws another quick twist. “They’re new to us. Hop on in the truck, now. We gotta scoot.”

  So Tessa Lee climbed inside and soon they were on the road, the red line of the speedometer climbing up to the middle, then pointing all the way to her momma’s bony knees.

  She thought about those license plates as she ate her chips, then while she sucked the barbecue powder off her fingers and nibbled the orange outlines from the edges of her nails. She thought about those plates all splattered up with bug bits, little flecks of bugs from faraway places. Finally she asked, “What did you do with our old license plates?”

  Her momma sighed and said, “Honey, Goose just swapped plates with somebody headed for where we came from. Now their license plates will match where they’re going, and ours’ll match where we’re going.”