The Lost Saints of Tennessee (25 page)

“I forgive you.”

Elle's voice makes me almost drop a china cup. She does not look in my direction.

“But if you ever do it again, I'm gone. And I'll know if you do. Understand?”

I want to face her but instead keep my body
forward, though I sneak a sideways glance.
She looks vulnerable and hurt and I know I have caused it. Somehow a soap bubble has landed on top of her head and I lean in to blow it off.

“Not so fast. I asked you a question.” The bubble pops silently on one of her curls.

“I apologize for hurting you and I promise never to do it again. And I understand the consequences if I screw up. But I won't.” My voice is low but clear.

“Good,” she says.

By midnight the marathon Scrabble game has finished, sending Elle home and all the adults to bed. Oz takes a large piece of hummingbird cake and a cup of coffee with him, which, my cousin says, as they ascend the stairs, will keep him up all night. My daughters stay up watching
Footloose
on the VCR in the living room.

Jackie and I head up to our rooms and say our good nights. A few minutes later, a soft knock comes at my door. When I open it, Jackie stands there in purple polka-dotted flannel pajamas that look like they belong to Louisa. Her hair is pulled back from her face in a loose ponytail, and the first hints of gray stand out among the chestnut strands. Even in the dim hallway light, the wrinkles around her eyes and mouth are visible. The past few years have not been easy for her, either.

She holds out a photo. “I found this the other day. We took it when we first moved into our house. Remember?”

Smiling into the camera are Jackie, Carter, and me, our arms thrown over each other's shoulders. Carter holds a hand-lettered sign that reads, “Our House!”

I take it from her, and the scene comes back to me. How young we were, still in our twenties. Carter may have been the most thrilled because the new house gave him his own room for the first time in his life.

“May I keep it?”

She nods.

“Thanks. And thanks for bringing Louisa.”

It feels natural to reach for her hand, lacing my fingers through hers.

“You always had the biggest hands,” she says. Her fingers tighten around mine. “Can we talk? Maybe in your room?”

I hesitate.

“Please?”

In the small confines of the room, she sits cross-legged on the bed while I stand as far away as possible at the window. The moon casts a bright glow across the barn and the old orchard.

“It's not going to work out with Curtis. It was a mistake, Zeke. All of it. Divorcing you. Marrying him.”

The words don't make sense at first. A mistake? In the weeks and months after the split, I dreamed of her saying these things, convinced myself that she would realize what we had was worth saving, that I could pull myself together and love her properly. Give her what she needed. Keep our family together.

“I love you, Zeke. Nothing's changed about that. Not ever. I've always loved you.”

The room feels too dark and I switch on another lamp. The light touches her face, revealing the hope on it.

Jackie's news doesn't fill me with a surge of triumph. Instead, I feel an odd emptiness. It's too late. For both of us.

“Say something, please, Zeke.”

“I love you, too, Jackie. Always have. And I'm sorry about Curtis. I want you to be happy like you deserve to be.”

She pulls her knees up beneath her chin, looking exactly like the fifteen-year-old girl I fell in love with.

The sound of our daughters' laughter comes up the
stairs and we share a smile.

“We made them,” I begin carefully. “Those two amaz
ing creatures down there. Maybe that's what us being to
gether was about. What we have is all twisted up now, Jackie. We love each other but not like we did before. I know we were
happy for a long time. You're the only woman I've loved
with my whole heart. But Carter's death. The divorce. Curtis. That's
become part of us, too. And how can we be good together with all of that between us?”

Jackie bites her bottom lip. I grip the windowsill behind me in an effort to restrain the impulse to take her in my arms and kiss away the hurt. Seconds stretch out.

“It's Elle, isn't it?” she says.

“Yes and no.”

The tears start in earnest now, and just as I'm about to say to hell with a decision I'm not sure I've even made, she's gone, the door closing with a soft click behind her.

Forty-Two

1985

Louisa barges into my room at eight o'clock the morning after Thanksgiving.

“It's time to get up, Dad.”

The riding lesson isn't for another two hours, but I get up anyway. We pass Jackie's closed door on the way downstairs and I wonder what she and I will say to each other today.

Georgia is in the kitchen rolling out biscuit dough on
a wooden cutting board covered in flour. Louisa watches as my cousin uses an old Vienna sausage can to cut out perfect round circles from the dough.

“Want to try?”

Louisa nods. Georgia tells her to sprinkle a little more
flour on top before Louisa uses the can. My
daughter beams as she places her first biscuit into the pan.

“You've never made biscuits before?” Georgia asks.

Lou looks over at me, shrugging. “Just the Hungry Jack kind. Where you pop the can with a spoon.”

My cousin harrumphs.

After breakfast Lou and I head down to the stables. The temperature is colder this morning, high forties, and we both walk fast to ward off the chill.

“Dad, they must be rich. That's a mansion back there.” She jerks a thumb at the house and shakes her head. “I've never seen a place like that. And look how big the farm is!”

I follow Lou's gaze toward the lake and realize I've already begun to take the size of the place for granted.

“It's pretty here,” Lou says. “Do you like it?”

“Yes. But you're in Mabry, so I could never like it as much here as wherever you are.”

Lou wrinkles her nose, hiding the sprinkling of freckles across its bridge. “That's what Mrs. Hopkins would call an evasive answer.”

“And who is Mrs. Hopkins?”

“My civics teacher. She says politicians give the best ones. We've been reading some of them in class.”

“You're in sixth grade this year, right?”

“Seventh.”

“Right. I can't keep up.”

She runs ahead when the riding ring comes into view.
Old Whitey has been let out and is standing in the middle
looking around as if she's supposed to be somewhere else, like in her stall eating oats.

“Look at her!” Louisa says, climbing up on the ring's
fence. “She's gorgeous.”

“Now that's a word I don't think old Whitey's been called before.” Elle joins us at the fence. She winks at me over Louisa's head.

My palms begin to sweat. Elle wears the usual riding pants and a jacket zipped up to her neck, but I know the lines of her body beneath the material. The traitorous thought comes that if the girls were gone, Elle and I could go back to her house and properly make up.

“Ready for your first lesson?” Elle asks.

Louisa nods, shy all of a sudden.

“Did your Dad give you some tips? He's a pretty good rider now.”

I swear to God I am blushing. Louisa peers up at me. She looks at Elle and then back at me.

“Just sit deep in the saddle and don't be afraid, okay?” I say.

Within ten minutes, Lou is leading Whitey around the ring. The horse stops suddenly, needing to scratch. My daughter loses her balance in the seat and tilts dangerously but rights herself just in time.

Elle charges at Whitey and gives her a slap on the butt. “Look, old girl, you don't get to stop when you want.”

She apologizes to Louisa and they're off again. I watch as Elle corrects Lou's posture and helps position her feet in the stirrups. Lou listens, learning as quickly as she can. This is the determined child—physical skills come easily to her and she will work until she's mastered them. At nine months old, Louisa decided she was ready to walk and spent an hour one day pulling herself up to stand, trying to take a step, and falling. Over and over she did it, crying, until Jackie picked her up off the floor. Then she wailed to be put down.
Down, down, down,
she said. When Jackie put her back on the floor, Lou took her first step.

“Thanks for ruining everything again, Dad.”

The shout comes from behind me. Still wearing her pajamas, Honora charges toward the riding ring. Whitey snorts and starts dancing around.

Elle grabs hold of the reins. “Let's walk him back inside, Louisa. I'll teach you how to take the saddle off and brush him, okay?”

Lou watches as her sister stomps into view, but she lets Elle lead the horse out of the ring.

Honora is within two feet of me. She is crying. Before I know what's happening, she shoves me with both hands, surprising both of us with the force of it.

“Why do you have to be such a loser, Dad?”

Her voice is so loud Elle and Lou must hear every word.

“Can't you just leave us alone? Stay here and marry that ugly horse woman if you want and leave us the hell alone.”

My daughter didn't figure this out by herself.

“Honora.” My voice is low.

“I don't care, Dad. I really don't give a shit, okay?”

She drags the sleeve of the pajama top across her eyes.
“When were you planning on telling us you're not coming back home? Christmas, maybe? A nice present for Lou and me?”

I touch a hand to her elbow and she shakes it off, stepping back.

“Honora, listen. I planned to talk to you both about it this weekend. This isn't how I wanted you to hear it.”

“Hear what, Dad?” Louisa says.

She walks out from the barn and stations herself next to Honora. Lou's expression is hurt but not surprised. They
expected
Dad to screw up again. It was just a matter of time.

“Girls, Cousin Georgia and Oz need help here. Osborne is sick and isn't going to be able to take care of the farm. They asked me to take over.”

There is an audience of three for this conversation. Elle is still in the stables. The girls' faces are unchanged and it's clear that the Laceys are not a compelling reason for my decision. Lou's hand slides into her sister's. They face off against me.

My daughters are fifteen and twelve and I have done nothing but break their hearts.

“The past few years have been really hard
on you. And they shouldn't have been. It must have felt like I
disappeared when your mother and I divorced. And I'm sorry.”

“And now you're going to disappear again,” Honora says.

I shake my head. “I'm going to live here. But I'll come to Mabry every chance I get. At least once a month, maybe twice. In the summers, I hope you'll think about spending part or all of it here. You could learn to ride and help on the farm and—”

“But why do you want to live here? Without us?” Louisa's voice cracks.

My ex-wife did this to hurt me, with no thought of what it would do to them.
Goddamn, Jackie.

“I know I haven't shown you very well over the past few years how much I love you. I left Clayton to come here because I couldn't get over the divorce or Uncle Carter's drowning. I know he died a long time ago, but for me, the feeling sad part never stopped. Carter was my twin brother and I don't know if you can understand what it might feel like to lose your best friend and your brother in one moment. I had to find a way to make Carter's death not the thing I think about every morning and every night before I go to bed.”

Elle takes a brush into Whitey's stall. The sound of the tack room door swinging shut reaches us.

Louisa breaks away from her sister and comes to my
side. She touches my arm.

How do you accept forgiveness when you know you don't deserve it? This girl loves me still. There is a moment when I fear I might abandon any attempt to keep myself together. Can I let them see their father brought low by what he has done and, more important, not done?

In their early years I was surprised by how easily my children forgave transgressions. It seemed to come naturally, as if the burden of holding a grudge weighed more heavily than the hurt. When I considered my own childhood, I recalled that my siblings and I had been the same way. Quick to anger, quick to forgive. Of course, Honora has developed the capacity to stay angry. Does each of us have a quantity of forgiveness allotted to him? And once exhausted, do we lose the ability altogether?

“Are you going to marry Elle?”

Louisa asks the question. Honora looks away. I pause, wanting to make sure I get this one right. For them. And for Elle.

“She and I are still getting to know each other, so I don't know if we'll get married someday. All we know right now is that we like each other. Okay?”

“Thanks, Dad. That's super,” Honora says. “We feel
much better.”

She tugs on her sister. “Come on, Lou.”

My youngest pats my arm before following Honora. Their figures retreat over the hill. Lou is only two inches shorter than Honora now. If Lou ends up outstretching her sister, Honora will not be pleased. The girls hold hands and Lou's blonde ponytail sways back and forth against her back as she walks. At least Jackie and I gave them each other
.

After my daughters disappear from view, I hear Diamond's bridle
jangling like coins in a pants pocket as Elle leads him out into
the ring. His head swivels back to the stables,
where the rest of breakfast waits.

Elle walks over to the fence. “Are you okay?”

“No. I'm a bad father, Elle. For deserting them again.”

“You're not. You're living somewhere that makes you happy.”

I shake my head. “Doesn't matter. For them, it's the same thing—I don't love them enough to stay in Clayton. I couldn't love their mother enough to keep our family together.”

“Finding out that Dad is living here permanently and shacking up with the ugly horsewoman is a lot to take in.”

Tucker joins Diamond in the ring. After sniffing at the horse's hooves and almost getting clobbered, the dog turns around in circles trying to bite his tail. Just as he grabs hold of it, he loses it again and the circling starts over.

“I have to find the girls,” I say, pushing off from the fence.

Elle grabs my arm. “They don't want to be anywhere near you right now. Be patient. Let them be angry and hurt for a little while.”

What if I do what Honora and Louisa want? Leave Lacey Farms. Leave Elle. Dover Elevator might hire me back.

With some effort, I could get promoted to assistant manager. Maybe shift manager. Make more money. Buy an actual house. In Clayton. Meet Jackie at Motel Tolliver every now and then.

How long would it take for me to start longing again for a trip to Pigeon Forge?

No.

I choose to give them a father who lives in Virginia over a father who is not living.

Honora fails to speak one word to me over the next three weeks. A fourteen-hour drive back to Clayton for Christmas looms. I had hopes the trip would give her a chance to get out all the mad things she needs to say. But my daughter retreats behind the earphones of the Walkman player and speaks only when she's hungry or needs a rest stop. I try a few times to get her to turn off the music but then I give up. Instead, I keep the radio tuned to country stations with the volume high enough to drown out the synthesized beats from the passenger side.

Honora stays with Jackie and Curtis while I freeze in the back bedroom of what has become Violet's home. It still feels like Mother's house since Vi hasn't changed much of anything yet. To reach the creaky rollaway bed, I have to step around ­silver-wrapped bricks of fruitcake lining the floor. Mother used to call the room her own walk-in freezer on account of its lack of heating.

Louisa invites me to attend Christmas Eve service at Curtis's church, Mabry Methodist. I don't want to go but Lou appears to be making an effort not to hate my guts, so I will. No one bothers to tell me the Methodists like to dress up. I wear pants and a shirt, the only male out of diapers not wearing a jacket and tie.

Before the service begins, the minister asks all those who attended a dad and daughter retreat to come up front. When my youngest and Curtis join the group, I shoot a look at Jackie. She shrugs, but Honora catches my eye and makes a gagging gesture with her finger.

This may be the nicest thing she's done since Thanksgiving.

When we are on our way back to Bailey a few days later, Honora surprises me by pulling off the headphones. We've just passed the city limits of Nashville.

“I saw Brian in town.”

My hands clench the steering wheel. If I had seen the boy, the two of us might not be driving back to Charlottesville today. I stare straight out at the road and tell myself to breathe.
Let the girl talk
.

“He was in Grayson's Café. Tried to act like he didn't see me but I know he did.”

She fiddles with the buttons on the cassette player, not looking at me either. “He was sitting with all his jerk friends.”

Breathe
.

“Right next to their table was the bakery counter. And before I knew what I was doing, I had grabbed a whole cherry pie off the top and dumped it on Brian's head. Then I walked out.”

I steal a glance at her. A small smile curves her mouth upward.

“I would've paid money to see that, sweetheart.”

She shrugs, clamping the earphones back on, but I can tell she's pleased.