Chapter 20
Before I can take her hand and gently lead her back to her chair, someone knocks at the backdoor. Virgil. And this time, his red car is parked in the exact spot. I’m not sure if she heard him drive up, or if maybe her own shields are down and the psychic gift she tamped down sixty years ago has reawakened after a long dormancy.
Virgil steps through the door, and in his first breath, looks as if he’s been hit between the eyes with a flyswatter. He shakes his head slightly, then greets us.
Instantly, my mom perks up. She runs her fingers through her hair, otherwise uncombed, then looks at him coyly. “Virgil! I didn’t know you were stopping by. Did you bring Dixxie with you?”
Virgil stomps his feet on the throw rug at the door, then checks both his boots and the rug for any mud. “Um, no, ma’am. Dixxie will be by later tonight. He’s closing a big real estate deal in town, so he’s been really busy.”
Turning to me, Virgil nudges an aluminum foil-encased platter toward me. The plate is warm under my hands. The aroma is unmistakably that of a church potluck, fish frying for a thousand at once, with a generous amount of tartar sauce added to the mix. I peel back the foil to peek underneath.
“The Methodists were raising money for a mission trip to dig wells in Central America. We contributed to their cause.” He winks. “I know how much your mom likes catfish. There should be enough there for both of you if you want to warm it up tonight for dinner.” He clears his throat. “I have another surprise for you after you put that away.”
By the time I return from stashing his gift in the refrigerator, he’s standing in the same place, chattering away with my mom about old stories from the time that she and his own grandfather were young. The difference is, a woman stands between Virgil and the back door.
Surprise?
A pretty blonde with long false eyelashes and bright pink lipstick, she makes a beeline for me as she extends her hand. “Lauren! It’s so good to see you again.” She’s thirty-five at most, lean and muscular under a plain pink T-shirt and tight jeans. Her pink painted toenails peek through her sandals.
I can’t remember the last time I painted my nails.
I’ve seen her before, but God knows where.
“Pamela is Virgil’s new girlfriend,” my mom announces. “You know, Virgil, you and Dixon and Pamela and Lauren? The four of you should go on a double date. I’ll be fine here.”
Virgil catches his bottom lip between his teeth but says nothing. Instead, Pamela takes another step forward and brushes at a piece of fuzz on Mama’s shoulder.
“Yes, ma’am. Maybe we’ll do that.” She pivots on one sandaled shoe to smile at me, then wink. “I was your Mama’s nurse last time she was in the hospital for that, um, unfortunate visit. She and I were excellent friends.”
Mama nods. “I remember you now.”
I remember her, too, now that I have a backdrop in mind for where I might have encountered her. I vaguely recall her bouncing around the hospital, perkier than a human has any right to be. Mama had, to borrow an old British term that Southerners of her generation like, “cottoned to” Pamela just as much as she had to Virgil.
Ohhhhh. I do remember her. The “unfortunate visit.”
If Pamela is offended by my mother’s body odor, she doesn’t show it. This isn’t her first trip to the farm. She was here only a couple of months ago when, while I was in the bathroom, my mom stripped down to her bra and panties and climbed a fifty-foot ladder on the side of the barn to fix an imaginary hole in the tin roof. Pamela, whose knees are far better than mine, had been the one to climb the ladder with a pink housecoat tied around her waist so that she could cover Mama before helping her down. Initially, Mama had refused to move when her male would-be rescuers had climbed up after her, but she’d been agreeable to accepting help from Pamela. Once Mama’s feet were solidly on the ground again, my modest eighty-year-old mother promptly squatted and peed through her underwear in front of all of us, then fell backward into the grass, unable to get up.
I had been appalled. I had never seen my mother act that way. She’d always been the epitome of decorum. I sat on the back door steps and sobbed while the EMTs strapped her into an ambulance. Although I had pushed the memory aside, it was Pamela who drove me to the hospital for what would turn out to be a two-day stay. Along the way, Pamela had explained that my mom probably had a UTI, which can cause bizarre behavior in elderly women.
“You always know,” she had said to me on the drive, “because they’ll be out of their minds and doing things they’d never do otherwise.”
She had been right. The doctors afterward had lectured me to ensure my mom’s hygiene, as if I could control her. What a day for any daughter!
I’m too young to be dealing with this. I am over fifty years old, and I am still too young to be dealing with this. My kids talk about “adulting,” but I have no idea what word to use for this phase of life.
There had been enough chatter in town about it, according to what a few visitors had told us, not because the rescuers or Pamela had leaked the situation but because enough of the bored locals eavesdrop on the emergency channels to know that she was the only eighty-year-old woman at this location who might, under normal circumstances forty years ago, have climbed a fifty-foot ladder to check out her barn roof. Half the townspeople pitied me that I wasn’t able to take better care of her on my own, and the other half blamed me because I wasn’t able to take better care of her on my own.
Funny, how all those old dynamics from childhood can replay so easily decades later. Makes sense, though. Both family patterns and community patterns are set in the foundational years of our lives, and only through smashing that foundation do those patterns change.
Virgil interrupts the awkward silence between Pamela and me. “Miss Emma, I have a present for you in my car. I’ll be right back.”
“Ooh, a present?” She stands at the back door and watches. Just like a little kid.
How did my mom who was always such a strong but oppressed woman turn into a child so quickly? If she was fragile when I first came back home right after Mother’s Day and had aged so much in less than half a year of widowhood and strokes, now she looks even older, even feebler. It’s like she’s a wisp on the wind. Any second now and she’ll float away and I’ll lose her.
Virgil returns with a decorative bag in his hands and a curly ribbon on top. The design on the bag is festive with pink tissue paper poking out of the top. It could’ve been meant for birthday or some congratulatory event. In this case, I am positive it was meant only for my mom and that he had taken extra time to pick it out. Whatever it is, it has his energy all over it.
My mom gushes as she reaches inside the bag with him still holding it. She plucks out a tall plastic bottle with a pump lid. From a few feet away, the bottle looks like any commercial body wash, but as I lean in for a better look, I see that the label has been printed by its maker: a purple oval with white lettering and small symbols in the corner—the same bind rune that Virgil has tattooed on the inside of his right wrist.
My mom presses her nose against the bottle and inhales deeply. “This smells so good!” She thrusts it in my face. “Have you smelled this, Lauren?”
I get only a whiff before she takes it back. Sandalwood. And roses. Not a typical body wash, but then its maker isn’t typical either. A blue haze glows around the bottle. Virgil’s energy. Not only does he turn stump-water into healing rinses, but apparently he also makes intention-infused body wash for elderly women.
As my mom turns to show it to Pamela and the two of them launch into enthusiastic chatter, Virgil pulls me aside. “We need to talk.”
I know he means absolutely nothing negative by it, but those words alone are such an old trigger from my first husband. “We need to talk” always meant I was about to be upset.
Virgil seems to read my mind. “Nothing for you to worry about, Laurie. I’ve taken care of it, but I need to fill you in on what’s going on.” He lowers his voice. “The swamp.”
For my mom to be so oblivious to everything going on around her, some things she zooms in on immediately. She jerks her head up. “What’s going on at the swamp?”
Clearing his throat, Virgil doesn’t hear her. He sinks his hands into his pockets. “I don’t mean to bother you, but I hired a local company, like we talked about, to come in and haul away all the old metal that’s piled up and buried around the swamp. Took me a while to get us off the wait list, but they’re good guys and worth the wait. They’ll take it for scrap value so you don’t need to pay them anything. Not much wetland left. The swamp has dried up. Changes in the weather patterns. But as long as we can stay ahead of inspectors, I think I can help you avoid getting a hefty fine.”
Out of the periphery of my vision, I notice my mom’s eyes go wide. If she’s ever tried to hide her panic in the past, she can’t now. Worse, I know that she and I are both staring back at Virgil at the same time, eyes wide, both of us. I can’t have anyone digging too deeply and finding Bobby’s remains!
Virgil stares at me with a look of concern. Instantly, I raise my empathic shields. I can’t have him figuring out my secrets either.
But why would my mom be in such a panic? She doesn’t even know what happened there. Or if she does, she’s denied it to herself. Maybe if some fictional girl on a dragon had endured what I had, she’d be a little more understanding.
Virgil’s eyebrows furrow as he looks from my mother to me and back. He reaches out to put a reassuring hand on her shoulder.
“Don’t you worry, Miss Emma. I’ll make sure you don’t get fined. I’ll take care of everything. I promise.”
My mom blinks. “Virgil, were you just saying something about the swamp?” Her memory of his words are gone almost as soon as the echo of his voice fades.
Before he can answer, I say, “Mama, wasn’t that sweet of Virgil to bring you the new body wash? You’re gonna smell so good after you bathe in that.”
“Yes, Miss Emma. I hope every time you breathe in that good smelling soap, that you think of me and of my brother and even of my mama and how much we love you.”
My mom, having forgotten completely about the swamp already, beams back at him. “Aw, I declare. You and that brother of yours are such sweet boys. Your mama must be so proud of y’all.”
Pamela lightly touches Mama’s elbow. “Miss Emma? While I’m here, how about I help you with your bath so that you can try out some of your new good-smelling soap? I can do that for you just like I did when you were in the hospital, and that will give Virgil and Lauren time to do some chores around the house. Would that be okay with you?”
She nods and frowns at the same time. “I was in the hospital? When was I in the hospital?”
“Oh, it’s been a long, long time ago. Nothing for you to worry about, Miss Emma.” Pamela leads the way to the bathroom while Virgil and I smile reassuringly.
Under his breath, he murmurs, “Grab your shoes, Laurie. We need to take a walk. There’s something serious we need to discuss.”
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