Stones in the Road (32 page)

That was your papa.

Papa
? His face brightened like a faucet of sunshine had been turned on.

He wants to see you.

Really?

You want to go?

Sure!

They’re going to have a picnic at the park.

His mom and dad are going to be there too?

Yes
.

He smiled.

I miss him. Is he okay?

You can ask him yourself.

Daddy?

What?

When are we going back home?

We’re not.

Why?

It’s a long story
.

W
E
TOOK
Eli along since his brother Josh was being a “booger breath” and went to hang out with his friends, leaving Eli at loose ends.

“Papa!” Noah exclaimed when we arrived and found the Ledbetters at a picnic table. Noah went running to throw himself into Jackson’s arms. Jackson scooped him up and whirled him around, and I felt something twinge in my heart. Jealousy, perhaps. Bitterness, more likely.

“There you are,” Mrs. Ledbetter said brightly. “Is this another one of your children?”

“This is Eli, one of my brother Bill’s,” I said.

“Hi,” Eli said shyly.

“I remember you,” she said, favoring Eli with a look. “We spent time in a tornado shelter together, didn’t we? We almost died! That’s creates a bond, you know. Stockholm syndrome or something. Do sit down.”

“We don’t want to get in your way.”

“Nonsense! We’ve got plenty of food and it’s a gorgeous day and I insist.”

Hand in hand, Jackson and Noah came to the table.

This is my cousin E-l-i
, Noah signed to Jackson.

“Hi,” Jackson said. “Nice to see you again.”

“What did he say?” Eli asked, full of curiosity.

“He said you were his cousin Eli,” Jackson replied.

“He taught me how to sign my name,” Eli said proudly. “Here. Watch!”

Eli went through his paces. He made it all the way to
S
without a hitch.

As he did this, Jackson glanced at me, his eyes full of something or other. “Hey, Wiley,” he said softly.

I grunted an acknowledgement, not trusting myself to attempt anything more. I gave him the Frisbee and bottle of sunblock.

“He burns easily. You’ve got to—”

“I know,” he said. “I haven’t forgotten.”

They went off to play, tossing the Frisbee between the three of them.

“Do sit down and stop being a poopy pants, Wiley,” Mrs. Ledbetter said, noticing how I stood there, staring at her son.

“We were thinking about you yesterday,” Mr. Ledbetter said. “We went to that park across from city hall, down by our hotel, and we saw the statue of Elvis. We read about that in your book—we didn’t realize he was right across the street. You should have told us.”

“Have yourself some food,” Mrs. Ledbetter ordered. “You look like a scarecrow. Put some meat on your bones, why don’t you?”

“I really didn’t mean to intrude,” I said. “Jack wanted to see Noah, so I said I’d bring him. Eli wanted to come too. I hope it’s all right.”

“Of course it is. Sit down and tell us everything. You’re practically my son-in-law already. I insist on all the details.”

“What details?”

“Life. Liberty. The pursuit of happiness. The whole nine yards. Looks like your face is starting to heal up properly. How’s the broken bones? And when are you moving back home?”

“I don’t know,” I admitted, taking a seat.

“Don’t pester him,” Mr. Ledbetter ordered. “Have a Guinness.”

“I’m driving,” I said. “Got the kids too.”

“Quite right,” he said. “Soda?”

He handed me a cold soda from the cooler that Jackson and I used when we went camping. The sight of that cooler brought back memories of skinny-dipping, fishing, campfires, hot dogs, mosquito bites, a lot of laughter and a tear or two.

“Well?” Mrs. Ledbetter prompted.

I shrugged.

“Jackie’s in a rehab program now,” she said, bending forward and speaking softly. “He told me not to tell you, but I rarely take orders from children, especially my own. I think he might actually stick with it this time.”

“That’s good,” I offered, searching for a neutral word.

“That’s love,” she said, correcting me. “And he’s been to see that woman with the DHS. They’ve come to the conclusion that if Jackie will stick with his rehab program, the DHS won’t pursue any further action.”

I said nothing to this.

“It’s a start,” she offered.

“I don’t see why the government has to be involved,” Mr. Ledbetter added. “But apparently there isn’t a single problem that the government can’t make worse. I guess they’ve got to find some way to spend our tax dollars. I can’t imagine drugs are much of a problem down here.”

“You’d be surprised,” I said.

“I’ve always thought of drugs as more of an urban problem,” he said.

“I think we’re holding our own. We’ve got meth labs coming out the wazoo. Anything you guys can do, we can do, and a whole lot worse.”

“Surely in a religious state like Mississippi, you wouldn’t have the sort of problem with drugs that urban centers like Boston do.”

“Well, first, don’t call me Shirley, and second, if you’re going to run a meth lab, you need a bit of privacy, a little shack out in the woods—and we’ve got plenty of those. We’ve also got a lot of poor people. Poverty and drugs go hand in hand, and folks gotta make a living somehow.”

“It’s like an episode of
Breaking Bad
,” Mrs. Ledbetter offered, using a small plastic knife to cut cheese into small squares. “I’ve never understood drugs myself. Apparently they’re quite fascinating.”

“Apparently,” I agreed.

“So when are you moving back home?” she added.

“I’m not,” I said.

“Don’t be ridiculous. You had a little spat—you’ll get over it. That’s what couples do.”

“I think it’s a little more than that.”

“Well, what?”

I did not know how to answer, did not want to.

“What?” she pressed.

“Is it true about the woman in the wheelchair?”

“He was very young when that happened. Nineteen.”

“I’m surprised he didn’t go to jail.”

“It wasn’t completely his fault. The woman slammed on her brakes—she’d just been to Starbucks, and she spilled hot coffee in her lap while going through an intersection. If Jackie hadn’t been high, he might have slowed down a bit, and it wouldn’t have been so bad, but he plowed right into her.”

“Oh.”

“But she’s not the one in the wheelchair. After he ran into her, he put his car in reverse and hit the gas. Why, I don’t know. His car shot backwards onto the sidewalk, and he pinned a woman to the side of a building.”

“Jesus.”

“Yes. All purely accidental, of course, and if the police had thought to test him for drugs, the story would have had a much different ending. But he knew what he’d done, and so did we. Right after that, he went into rehab for the first time.”

I considered all of that in silence.

“Let’s not get maudlin,” she said. “Jackie says your church is having a fundraiser to help pay your medical bills. I thought that was so sweet. We’d love to come.”

“We do that a lot down here,” I admitted. “All kinds of people need help with medical bills.”

“Obamacare should sort some of that out,” she offered.

“Well, if there’s one thing we hate more than the federal government, it’s Obamacare.”

“Not surprising,” Mr. Ledbetter said. “It’s not the government’s job to tell people they have to have insurance.”

“They tell people to get car insurance,” I countered.

“That’s different.”

“I’m not so sure it is.”

“Please don’t talk about politics,” Mrs. Ledbetter said. “The only thing more boring than a politician is talking about a politician.”

“We need to get the government off our backs,” Mr. Ledbetter said forcefully. “That’s hard to do when you’ve got a Marxist for a president whose answer to each and every problem is more government interference in our lives. Obama so loved the poor, he made millions more, or so I’ve heard.”

“I’ll bet those Wall Street bankers who got bailed out can’t wait for the government to get off their backs too,” I said. “But of course, making sure they get their million-dollar bonuses is far more important than helping some little old lady pay for heart pills. Would be easier for everybody if those elderly bastards would just kick the bucket and stop sucking up our tax dollars.”

“I’m not sure I would put it that way,” Mr. Ledbetter replied.

“That
is
the message, though, isn’t it?”

“I think you’re being overly simplistic.”

“Perhaps,” I agreed. “I do know one thing, though. Little old ladies needing heart pills can’t afford to dump endless millions into the laps of politicians, so they have no voice. I don’t know who all these politicians are representing, but it’s certainly not me, and not anyone I know.”

We dickered back and forth. He was the sort of man who believed gun control meant downing a shot of whisky and using two hands. I watched Jackson and the boys as we talked. They were running around, their laughter and Noah’s hoots and honking drifting across the grass.

“We’ll be going back to Boston soon,” Mrs. Ledbetter announced. “I have to say it’s been a very interesting visit. I just adore the countryside. It’s really a rather beautiful state. Wouldn’t hurt to have a few more dentists, though.”

“We don’t all have bad teeth,” I pointed out.

“We saw a woman at the gas station, didn’t we, dear?” she went on, addressing herself to Stephen.

He chuckled.

“Heavens!” Mrs. Ledbetter exclaimed. “She was the ugliest woman I think I’ve ever seen. I didn’t realize people could be so ugly. Then she opened her mouth and started talking and, good Lord, those teeth! She was missing her two front teeth, and the rest of them—well, let’s just say that they can restore the Sistine Chapel, but they’re never going to restore those teeth on that poor woman. I think I was actually frightened a little. But she was the friendliest woman I’ve ever met, and she carried on with her Southern drawl, and her
y’all
and
I reckon
and
oh shucks!
and she was the sweetest thing. We were lost, weren’t we, dear? Jackie was taking us to that Civil War cemetery, and we had quite lost the way. It was in Okahoma or something.”

“Okolona,” I said.

“Something like that. And we stopped at this dreadful little place by the road. I didn’t even want to go in, but I had to stretch my legs, and I thought, what’s the worst that could happen? This isn’t
Deliverance
. And there she was, minding the store, as it were. And she was so sweet, and so polite, and she came right out and gave us directions and pointed up and down the road and wanted to make absolutely certain we knew how to get there. Mind you, she was the sort of person likely to ask you how far it is from Miami to Florida. What can you say? There’s only two kinds of people in the world, and she wasn’t one of them. Anyway, I asked this little person at this little gas station, ‘Did you grow up around here?’ ‘Oh, yes, ma’am,’ she said. ‘I grew up right over yonder.’ Then she told us about how she
used to pick cotton when she was a child. Her father would hire a bunch of workers, and they would all go out in the fields, and she talked about running up and down the rows of cotton and getting into trouble for not working hard enough, and it struck me. This is her home.”

“And?” I prompted, not certain where this story was headed.

“You hear all these dreadful things about the South—the slaves, and civil rights, and the KKK, and all the rest of it. And here’s this white woman who grew up and still lives within walking distance of the fields where she used to pick cotton as a child. And she’s perfectly happy. Like none of that stuff ever happened. I felt like I was visiting Borneo and talking to a native in the jungle. So anyway, we got to talking, and it turns out it was her husband who knocked her two front teeth out. Years ago, she said. Right before he ran off with his girlfriend to New Orleans, where he eventually robbed a bank and got himself sent to prison. You know, I don’t think I’ve ever met a woman whose husband went to prison for robbing a bank. It was extraordinary! So this woman raises four children on her own. No education. Nothing. And for some reason, she’s happy. I couldn’t understand it. If my husband had knocked my teeth out and left me for another woman, I’m quite sure I’d be in prison right now because I would have shot the bastard.”

“Is there a point to this story, dear?” Mr. Ledbetter asked, stifling a yawn.

“I found it extraordinary that someone with so little could be so happy.”

“Happiness is a choice, Eunice. You know that.”

“Yes,
I
do, but I wonder if our future son-in-law knows that?”

They turned to look at me.

“I’m guessing y’all took too much LSD during the seventies,” I said. “Anyway, what’s known in these parts as sodomy-based marriage isn’t legal, so I don’t think I’ll ever be your son-in-law.”

“You could come to Boston and get married,” Mrs. Ledbetter said.

“I’m quite sure that would be a gigantic no.”

“But why?” she asked.

“You know why.”

“If you hate him so much, why do you keep staring at him?”

“Because I want to kill him. I’m talking Chainsaw Massacre Tupelo style, with blood and guts from here to Jackson and back.”

“At least you’re in touch with your feelings,” Mr. Ledbetter observed.

“I’m so angry at that man I don’t want to think about it, because I might very well get up and go over there and bash his teeth in with my cast.”

“But you won’t always be angry,” Mrs. Ledbetter said.

“Right now I don’t see how anything else is possible,” I admitted. “I was very clear about drug use. I forgave him once and gave him a second chance. I won’t be fooled again.”