CHAPTER 31
OPAL
“AUNT MAY? IT' S ME, OPAL.” “Opal, darling, how are you?” Opal chokes back tears. “I'm sinking here, Aunt May.”
“Hold on a sec, darling, can you?”
She hears May telling whatever guitar-picking man she is presently with to get going. A man's laugh floats through the wire, then the sound of a kissâwet and long. Men love May, and she returns the compliment. Finally, her aunt picks up the receiver again.
“What's going on, child? Tell your Aunt May.”
Instantly, Opal is catapulted back to her childhood, to the number of times she would ride her bike over to May's for consolation and understanding.
Tell your Aunt May. Give me a kiss.
Opal cannot imagine two women more different than May and Melva. Melva all tight-lipped and hard-edged; May full of laughter and ready to take love anywhere she finds it. You wouldn't believe they were sisters. Opal is no different than May. You wouldn't take her for her mama's daughter.
“Have you talked to Melva?” she says. “Has she told you Billy is trying to get custody of Zack?”
“She told me. I laughed out loud. I mean, the whole idea of Billy getting Zack is a joke.”
“Well, I'm not laughing, Aunt May. I'm sitting on my last nerve here. The woman the court appointed is due here in an hour. She's coming for an interview, and I'm definitely not laughing.”
“Well, anyone would be nervous about that, child, but you try and relax. Don't think of her as your enemy. She's just another woman, sugah. That's all. Just another woman with a job to do. You don't have anything to worry about. Any fool with two eyes can see that Zack's place is with you. Just look her straight in the face like you've nothing in God's world to hide. Be friendly.”
How can you act friendly when a person is prying into your life, deciding whether or not to let you keep your son? “Do you know Mama and Daddy are on Billy's side?”
“Melva made that clear. She's turned pure crazy on this subject. I swear, sometimes I don't know what's the matter with her.”
What
is
the matter with her mama? What's gone so wrong between them? “Why does she hate me so, Aunt May? Why does my Mama hate me?”
“Oh, sugar, she doesn't hate you.”
“She does. She doesn't even like me.”
“Now don't you be saying that. Don't you even think it.”
Opal settles back and stares out the window, traces the progress of a squirrel up the trunk of the maple over in Rose's yard. What
is
she to think?
“Do you remember when I was in the high school play?”
“
Our Town?
Sure do.” Opal can almost
hear
May's smile though the wire. “Lord, but you made me proud.”
“Mama didn't even come.”
“Oh, surely she did, child.”
“She didn't. Not for one performance. She got one of her sick headaches. She didn't want to see me.” She rushes on before her aunt can reply. “And she missed every single one of my dance recitals.”
“Surely she didn't.”
“And when I was having Zack, Mama didn't even show up at the hospital. Do you know where she was? Do you, Aunt May? She was getting her hair done. I was in the hospital having a
baby
, having her grandchild, and she was getting a dye job. Jesus.”
“Try and understand, Opal.”
“Screw understanding. I'm sick of being told to understand. And why are you defending her? Everyone always defends her. All I know is that she hates me.”
“She doesn't hate you, Opal.”
“She does.”
“She's jealous of you.”
“What?”
“Jealous, honey. Your mama's always been jealous of you.”
“Of me? How can you be jealous of your own child?” She can't imagine being jealous of Zack. She thinks of how Melva is all the time saying, “We only want the best for you.” How can you wish the best for someone and then be jealous if she gets it?
“Opal, Melva's afraid of you.”
“Afraid of me?”
“You remind her of too much. She sees herself in you.”
“I'm nothing like Mama.” Outside, two squirrels are playing hide-and-seek in the branches of the maple. “There's not one thing Mama and I have in common.”
“But she
was
like you. Not the way she is today. Back when she was your age, she gave our mama a run for her money. About drove her crazy. They had some fights those two.”
“Mama did?”
“She surely did. If Papa hadn't kept the guns locked up, I think one of them would have killed the other.”
“I can't picture that.”
“Let me tell you, I was witness to the battles. Opal, honey, don't be too hard on your mama. She's just trying to make up for the mistakes she's made in life.”
“Mama never made any mistakes. Don't you know that? She's perfect.”
“Your mama's no different from anyone else. She has her share of regrets. That's why she's so hard on you.”
“Right.”
“Opal, I'm going to tell you something I've got no right telling, but I'm going ahead anyway. It's something that may help you understand about your mama and the guilt and regrets she lives with and why she's so hard on you and why Zack is so important to her.”
Opal rolls her eyes. Nothing May can say will soften her heart toward Melva.
“When Melva was fifteen and just about the prettiest girl in New Zion there was a boy we were all crazy about. One of the Munford twins, Henry James. Lord, Lordy, was he good-looking. And smart. He went up north to school. Rhode Island, I think. One of those Ivy League schools. Anyway he came home for the summer, and right from the start he settled on your mama, cut her off from the rest of us and swept her off her feet. He brought her flowers and wrote her poems. One night he climbed the old water tower down by the depot and wrote her name in letters eight feet tall. She didn't stand a chance. By the time September came, your mama was in love.”
Opal pictures the old tower. Anything written there had been painted over a long time before she was born.
“Of course Henry James headed back up north. Your mama, she just about set up camp out by our mailbox. About two weeks after he'd gone, she learned she was pregnant.”
“Mama?” Opal feels peculiar, like she is hearing a story about someone she both knows and doesn't know at all.
“A week or two later, when she couldn't figure out what to do, she told me. Course, she couldn't tell our mama.”
Opal remembers when she got pregnant how her mama went on and on about how she'd shamed the family. She thinks of the times her mama put down May. “May's no better than a revolving bed,” she'd warn. “You're not careful you'll end up just like her.” The hypocrite.
“One night after dinner, we went to the phone booth down at Calley's Drug Store and called up Henry James. Told him the story. He surely didn't send flowers or poetry then. No. All that boy sent was money. To take care of it, he said.” May stops to take a breath. “There wasn't even a note in the envelope. That about broke Melva's heart. She kept saying that if she learned anything it was about the trouble that comes from believing every promise you hear.”
What? Is she supposed to feel sorry for her mama now? Is she supposed to understand? Well she doesn't. More than ever she doesn't understand how her mama could want to take Zack away from her.
“Don't you see, Opal? Your mama couldn't keep her baby, and you got to keep Zack. She's always been bitter about losing her child, but now she's jealous too. You're stronger than she is, child. You fought to keep your son. She can't forgive you for that.”
SARAH ROGERS GETS RIGHT DOWN TO BUSINESS. “AS THE judge explained, I'm Zackery's advocate. My job is to see that he is properly and fully represented.”
Like Zack needs anyone to represent him. Opal scratches her hip. She doesn't like the first thing about this woman.
“I'll organize and present all relevant information to the judge so that he can make an informed decision. This includes our office's recommendations.” She gives Opal a wide, fakey smile. “We all want what's best for Zackery.”
Right, she thinks. As if I want what's worst for him.
“After I talk with you, I'll be talking with his teachers. Your neighbors. And of course, I'll want to talk with Zackery. I'll probably be recommending that he have a psychiatric evaluation.”
“Zack. I call him Zack.” One of Sarah Rogers' eyes is the tiniest bit smaller than the other.
Sarah takes a seat and digs out a notebook. “Zack goes to school. Is that right?”
Opal nods. “Half a day.”
“What about out of school? Who are his friends? Does he have a special playmate?”
“Not really. Just the kids in school.”
“Does he ever stay overnight anywhere else?”
“He's kind of young for sleepovers.” Opal picks at her chipped nail polish. What does any of this have to do with Billy suing for custody?
Sarah Rogers makes a notation. “When was the last time he had a checkup?”
“Checkup?”
“Seen a doctor? Had a physical?”
Opal deflects the question. “Are you going to be asking Billy questions, too? He doesn't know the first thing about raising a child. Instead of talking to me, you should be checking up on him.”
“Of course, we'll be talking to Zack's father,” Sarah says smoothly. “But right now, I am interested in you. Let's see, where were we? Oh, yes. When did Zack have his last checkup? Who is his pediatrician?”
Could she lie? How closely do they investigate?
“He hasn't needed one,” Opal finally says. “He hasn't been sick since we moved here.”
Sarah checks her notes. “I see here that he had a broken arm last fall.”
Opal shivers, draws her arms tight. Who has she been talking with? “That wasn't an illness. An accident.”
“There was a notation about bruises on the hospital records. I gather there was some concern expressed by the covering physician. Have there been any other accidents?”
“No.” Forget what Aunt May said. This was not just another woman trying to do her job. This was a bitch who was going to make her look bad. She struggles to keep her temper from flipping on.
“How do you discipline your son, Miss Gates?”
I beat him with big sticks, she thinks, but says, “Time out. If he's really naughty.”
“How would you characterize Zack's relationship with his father?”
Easy answer. “He doesn't have one.”
“And before you left New Zion?”
“He hardly ever saw him. Billy didn't have the least interest in seeing Zack. I don't know why the hell he wants him now.”
“And your parents? How was their relationship with Billy?”
“All right, I guess.”
“How is it now?”
“Better than mine.”
CHAPTER 32
ROSE
“JUST RELAX, MRS. NELSON,” THE NURSE SAYS. Rose is prone on the examining table, stripped to her panties, although thank God the nurse has draped a sheet over her legs.
The doctor is a bantam of a man. White as an uncooked perch, probably from taking his own advice. The waiting room is filled with literature advising patients to avoid the sun. Rose remembers when people used to tan without worrying. She spent whole summers spread out on a beach blanket like a sacrifice, her skin slathered with a mixture of baby oil and iodine. Her father spent every day of his life working outside on the farm. By the end of haying season, the skin on his arms was so thick and dark it reminded her of a turtle, yet he never gave the least thought to cancer. You didn't used to hear as much about it. Not like now. At least three people she and Ned know have had skin cancer. She supposes, if you believe everything you hear, it has something to do with the thinning of the ozone layer. She is suspicious of these proclamations of scientists. Who's to know that they're not just making these things up?
“Good morning.” The doctor gives her a quick nod and immediately begins to recite. “Patient female. Fifty-four. Complains of itch and redness around a mole on her abdomen.”
It takes Rose a moment to realize he is speaking into a microphone clipped onto the lapel of his lab coat.
He wheels a stool over next to the table and sits. “Let's take a look.” He presses a finger against the mole. “Hurt?”
“No. Just itches.”
He turns to the nurse, who hands him a small instrument. “Questionable,” he says to the mike. “Zero point eight centimeter, asymmetrical, variable pigmented macula on right periumbilical.”
Macula. Periumbilical.
His hands move over her stomach.
“I think it's a good thing to check it out,” he says to her. “We'll take a biopsy. Then go from there.”
Roseânever a fainterâfeels dizzy. “Now?” she says.
“It's a simple procedure,” he explains. “I'm going to give you a local. You'll just feel a pinch.” He wipes her abdomen with a swab. She smells the alcohol. Wait, she wants to say. Let me think about it.
“Five cc's of lidocaine,” he says to the nurse.
Rose grits her teeth against the anticipated pain, which, when it comes, is less than she expects. A pinch, like he said.
He pats her arm. “I'm going to let that take hold. Shouldn't be more than a minute or two.”
He wheels away, drops the hypodermic on a tray, and leaves the cubicle.
A few minutes later he is back. “All set?” he says. He washes up in the basin, pulls on a mask. She hears the slap and snap as he pulls on latex gloves.
She stares at the ceiling, feels a sensation of distant pressure on her belly. A tickle. He talks into the Dictaphone, but she blocks out the words.
“All done,” he says sometime later. He puts a block of gauze on her stomach and secures it with tape. Strips off his gloves.
“Any questions?”
“Wellâ”
“The nurse will give you instructions. We've put a dry sterile dressing on it. You'll need to change it every day for ten days and apply an antibacterial medication. Of course call us if you have any concerns.”
“When will you know if it'sâ”
“We'll have the results in a week. I'll have the office give you a call.”
“And then you might have to remove it?”
He looks at her and then laughs. “I just did.”
“You did?” She had expected a big procedure. Hospital. Pain.
“Try not to worry,” he says. “From the look of it right now, everything will be fine.”
OUTSIDE THE SUN IS SO BRIGHT, IT BITES HER EYES. EVERYTHING is sharp, as if he has operated on her vision. She is surprised to find she is hungry. There is food at home, but she takes herself out for a sandwich at Friendly's, like a celebration although Lord knows she doesn't yet know if there is the least thing to celebrate.
After lunch, she stops at a nursery and buys two small pots of red geranium. Ivy trails over the edge of the planters. All the way on the bus ride back to Normal, she cradles the bag on her lap.
THE CEMETERY IS DOTTED WITH SMALL SQUARES OF RED AND white. Every Memorial Day for as long as she can remember, the American Legion has set flags out on veterans' graves.
As she approaches Todd's grave, she sees a spot of blue. Closer she sees that someone has left a tiny bouquet of lilacs by his headstone. Her mouth tightens with displeasure. Occasionally she still finds things here. Flowers for the most part. Right after the funeral girls in his class used to leave all manner of things there. Letters. Plastic flowers. Stuffed toys. She threw them in the trash. She has no interest in knowing the girlsâit is, of course, girlsâwho leave these things, the same ones who made spectacles of themselves at his funeral, as if by the noise of their grief they were staking claim on her son. She removes the bouquet, already wilted, and walks to the edge of the cemetery, where she tosses it.
Four years ago, she planted a willow at the foot of Todd's grave, and the grass is thick and green beneath its shade. Newly mowed. Ned makes out a check each year to the cemetery commission to ensure that the grave is taken care of. Not far from this plot is a grave of a twelve-year-old boy. It's a patch of weeds. How anyone could let it go like that is beyond her. Rose gentles her thoughts toward forgiveness. A grave is, after all, just ground. Maybe their way of grieving is to turn away. Maybe they've died, too. Or moved. How could they move? Perhaps a person could. The real grave, she thinks, is a place inside you.
She takes a Kleenex out of her handbag and wipes a bird dropping from the face of the headstone; then she slides the geraniums out from the shopping bag and places the pots by the stone. They won't bring him back. Nothing will bring him back, but the flowers make her feel connected to him. Grieving is about not forgetting.
She flattens the bag and sets it on the ground, then sits. The lidocaine is wearing off, and she feels a sensationânot quite painâwhere the mole was removed. In the distance, she sees a man walking a retriever. He should not be hereâthe cemetery is postedâbut she isn't up to a confrontation.
She still has not given her answer to the editor, a man named Bruce Constantine. “We have to know soon,” he told her last week. “We're closing in on our deadline for the issue.” He has a nice voice, calm and patient.
She had pretty much decided not to let them publish her piece. Grief is private, regardless of all the nice things Mr. Constantine said. But now she is having second thoughts. She allows herself to be consoled by the idea that no one she knows would read it. Probably not one living soul in Normal has even heard of the
Sun
. And he said what she wrote would help others. She doesn't know if this is true. She doesn't think anything she read could have helped her after Todd died. But the editor's compliments stay in her head. She wants more and feels guilty for wanting it.
“I don't know,” she says to Todd's headstone. “I don't know what to do.”
WHEN SHE GETS HOME, THERE IS A CAR PARKED IN THE driveway. As she nears, a woman steps out of the car.
“Mrs. Nelson?”
“Yes.”
“I'm Sarah Rogers. I called you earlier.”
Lord, she has completely forgotten about the appointment.
“Yes,” she says. She'll be damned if she's going to apologize for being late.
The woman holds out her hand. “This won't take long. Just a few questions about your neighbor.”
Rose shakes hands but doesn't invite her inside.
“As you know, I have been appointed by the court to evaluate and make a recommendation.”
Evaluate.
Sticking her nose in where it doesn't belong. The woman follows her inside.
“You're friends with Miss Gates. With Opal?” Sarah Rogers begins.
Rose hesitates. A land mine here. “Hmmmm,” she says, noncommittally. She doesn't want to get involved, but she doesn't want to say anything to hurt Opal either. The girl may not be the best mother in the world, but the truth is, Opal loves her boy. More than a father who has shown up only once.
Sarah Rogers opens her briefcase and takes out some papers.
“What can you tell me about Zack? I'd like to know what you've observed about his relationship with his mother.”
“I don't really know them that well,” she says.
Sarah checks her notes. “According to Opal, you baby-sit for Zack.”
“Once,” Rose says. “New Year's Eve.”
“Did she happen to talk to you about how she came to Normal?”
This is a safer subject. She tells her about how Opal threw a die and drove that many tanks of gas. She tells her that Opal believes in signs.
“And she said you were there when Zack broke his arm. Can you tell me about that?”
Rose hesitates. “I need a glass of water. I'm parched. Can I get you one?” Caught between a rock and a hard place. She doesn't want to lie. Buy time, she thinks. If she tells the truth, what will happen to Zack? She knows what Ned would tell her to do. But what does her heart tell her? How did she get in this deep?
“Mrs. Nelson?” Sarah prompts.