The Lost Saints of Tennessee (8 page)

“You should get some rest. I'm pretty worn out, too, so I'll say good night.”

“Oh.”

She wants me to keep talking but I can't. Not tonight.

“Good night, Mother.”

“'Night, Ezekiel.” Her voice is low. “I love you.”

Twelve

1959

Georgia Parker Lacey and my mother, Lillian Parker Cooper, grew up over in Alabama together. Their families lived only a few feet apart on the land Granddaddy Parker owned in Colbert County. Of the ten acres, he parceled out all but a half acre to relatives. Mother liked having cousins to chase through the tall rows of cotton, but there never seemed to be quite enough food or space in the small houses built out of tar paper and Alabama pine.

When she was ten, Mother's family moved the one hundred miles to Clayton. She and Cousin Georgia stayed in touch through letters and saw each other at the annual Parker family picnic. Georgia stayed on in Alabama, running the house and taking care of her mother when she took sick with cancer, until one day she met Osborne Lacey in the general store at Montgomery Landing. Osborne was passing through on his way back home to Virginia, where his family owned more land than anybody else except the state.

Cousin Georgia's letter to Mother after meeting Os
borne
was extra long. She described how he invited her out to his
truck to try a Lacey Farms peach, “the best darned peaches in the South.” Cousin Georgia thought Osborne must be full of himself, but there was something gentle in his eyes she liked, so she followed him outside.

“We grow these on our farm back home,” he said, pulling a perfectly round peach from a sack on the front seat. “Apples, too.”

Georgia bit into the peach and a rush of juice spilled
down her chin. Osborne pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket and reached over to wipe the juice.

“I'll do it myself, thank you,” Georgia said, taking the handkerchief. “The peaches are real sweet. You're right about that.”

He gave her the sack to take home. In return, he asked for her name and address and wrote to her every day for three months until he proposed, by letter, and she accepted, by letter.

Mother went to the wedding in Virginia and swore she'd never go back again. I suspect she was jealous of Georgia and her new role as daughter-in-law of the well-off Laceys, far from Mother's situation as the wife of a failed farmer. For
the next decade, Mother only heard about Georgia through
news from the Alabama Parkers.

When my tenth-grade history teacher told Mother I was smart enough to get a scholarship to college, she recalled that a fine institution of higher education, the University of Virginia, lay only a few miles from Lacey Farms. During the three years that would pass before my high school graduation, Mother and Georgia exchanged weekly letters. Georgia was not the type to hold a grudge and was glad to be in touch with our family again. Mother never said much about their letters other than an occasional comment to Daddy like
How nice it must be to have a washing machine, Carter,
or
What I wouldn't give to go on vacation.
She did not reveal the grand plan she and Georgia had constructed on my behalf until the fall of my senior year.

I arrived home after a bad basketball practice
. Coach Tyler had yelled,
He shoots, he misses, he shoots, he misses,
every time I got near the basket. The only thing on my mind was eating dinner and going to bed. Instead, Mother sat me down on the front porch swing and stood over me, waving a letter in my face like it was the starting flag for the Indy 500.

The source of the letter was obvious from the fineness of the paper. It was so thin the evening shadows danced through the words.

“Cousin Georgia will feed and house you during the four years it will take you to graduate from UVA. The farm's only ­fifteen miles from Charlottesville. They even have an old car you can use to drive back and forth to school. What do you think of that?”

Her face was transformed, its usual strained or annoyed or tired expression replaced with a look of pure elation. It was the most excited I had seen her.

“And,” she went on, “Georgia says every one of those spoiled Lacey men from Osborne back to his great-great-­grandfather went to the university, so there should be no problem getting a slot for you. Probably a scholarship for tuition and books, too. Didn't I say you were going to get out of Clayton, Ezekiel?”

She jabbed me in the ribs with a finger. “Haven't I said that every day of your life, son? I swear, the Lord has answered our prayers. He surely has.”

I stayed quiet for a bit, mindful of the type of response she'd tolerate. Her plans didn't come as a complete surprise. The topic of UVA had come up over the years. I knew it was a good school. I also knew I didn't want to go there.

“That's nice of her, Momma,” I offered, “but I want to go to UT. They'll give me a scholarship, too. And Jackie and Tommy—”

Mother pulled herself upright. In the space of no more than a minute, her expression changed from disbelief to anger to resolve. The last one was, by far, the most intimidating.

“That's not your choice, Ezekiel.”

“Why not?”

I knew I risked a fight, but this was my life.

She kneeled down next to me, reaching for my hand. Hers looked lost on the wide expanse of mine.

“You know UVA is where you should be, son. I've told you and told you how you're the brightest star. You're different from Jackie and Tommy.”

She stroked my hair, something she used to do every night
when I was a child and couldn't fall asleep. I ducked my head.

There was quiet between us, both of us planning what to say next. When she turned to face me, tears welled in her eyes and I knew I was done. The path I had chosen was being blocked by a force as immovable as one of the century-old hickories near our house.

“Who else in this family can go to UVA? Violet didn't finish high school. Daisy and Rosie will get married soon enough. Your brother couldn't even finish eighth grade.”

Daddy's old bluetick, Walker, wandered up on the porch looking for a pat. I scratched behind his ears, the uncomplicated love welcome. The air was filled with the smells of wood smoke and burning piles of leaves.

When Mother spoke again, the words emerged slowly, each one dropping with dead-on accuracy.

“I need you to do this, Ezekiel. For me.”

Though only seventeen at the time, I understood that she
needed me to be a success more than she needed anything else. All of us kids had heard the stories of Mother's singing, how the sweetness of her voice used to make people cry in church. How she longed to sing on a stage, how she never even made it to the Mabry High annual musical, thanks to getting pregnant with Violet. Mother's failures were many in her eyes and her chances for redemption few.

Carter's voice boomed from the backyard, yelling for me to come play basketball. The solid whack of the ball hitting the side of the house echoed onto the porch. I eased myself out of the swing.

“You go on along,” she said. “You'll be leaving your brother soon enough.”

Thirteen

1985

The smells of bacon frying and coffee brewing wake me. It is the first time since the divorce that someone has prepared breakfast for me. I lie in bed, content to let the sounds of the morning wash over me. Downstairs, the oven door opens and slams shut, Cousin Georgia baking a pan of biscuits, most likely. I hear a shower turning off somewhere.

The seams of the star quilt covering the bed are fragile beneath my fingers. The individual squares are beginning to fray and pull apart at the edges, showing the same signs of age as everything else at the farm. Tucker stirs awake on the rug, passing gas that smells of the junk he's been eating the past week.

“Man,” I complain.

He yawns.

Osborne's heavy footsteps pause outside my room. A light knock on the door sets Tucker to barking.

“Come on in,” I say, standing up with a stretch. Judging by the kinks in my neck and the soreness of my back, the mattress must be a holdover from my previous stay.

Dressed in jeans and a long-sleeved white shirt with the Lacey Farms logo—an apple and a peach in a basket—on the pocket, Osborne appears younger this morning. He wears a Smith's Feed and Fuel baseball cap. Backward. It makes him look like the grandfather of one of those singer types who talk more than sing, the ones Honora listens to on her Walkman.

“Sleep all right?” He gives Tucker a pat.

“Out for the count, sir. And you?”

He walks over to the window, lifting the yellow curtains to the side. “I believe this room has one of the nicest views.”

My eighteen-year-old self spent more than a few Sundays looking out across the farm instead of studying. Miles of split-rail fence trace the property line until it meets the horizon. It had been hard to grasp how the Laceys owned more land than a person could see with his own eyes. The orchards lie to the north, the barn to the west, with the square of the riding ring in front of it.

“That's the window I'd look out when I couldn't sleep at night. The dark threw a funny purple color across the property. Took me a while to get used to the quiet here. Back home, I was used to trains passing through and making a lot of racket to get me off to sleep.”

“You had trouble sleeping? If Georgia knew about it, she would have called Amtrak and got them to divert a train through here.”

The thought pleases me.

“No one else has stayed in this room since you left,” Osborne says. “Georgia wouldn't have it.”

This makes me skittish. The room is a shrine to the boy I was then, not the man I have become.

“I'm sorry Georgia felt that way.” I bend down to tug on my boots. “This room no more belongs to me than it does the dog.”

“You were like a son to her, Ezekiel. To both of us. You still are.”

Pointing to the bed, he says, “That quilt there? Georgia started sewing it the first time your mother sent a letter asking about the university. You weren't more than fifteen. But Georgia told me she felt in her heart you were going to come live with us and she wanted to make you a proper quilt for your bed. She said it had to be a star quilt because that's what your momma was always saying about you—you were the brightest star in the sky.”

“Mother said a lot of things.” The words come out harsh and dance too close to the edge of whining. “Things didn't turn out quite like Mother planned.”

“Seldom do.” Osborne's hand wanders up to scratch the back of his head and he seems surprised to feel the bill of the hat. He turns it around to face forward, transforming himself back into the old farmer.

“Georgia will be waiting breakfast on us.”

Tucker's ears perk up and he trots out the door behind Osborne.

After the meal Cousin Georgia kisses Osborne good-bye as he heads off to town. She winks at me over his shoulder. As soon as the solid shut of the mahogany front door echoes through the house, she unties the blue apron from around her waist and says the dishes can wait.

“Fill up your coffee cup and follow me.”

Tucker is content to sleep off his breakfast in the kitchen. A smoke with coffee feels necessary, but I refrain. Cousin Geor
gia takes off in the direction of the apple orchard. The morning air settles on us, heavy with humidity. “Thunderstorms later today. That hurricane on the coast is causing all sorts of trouble.”

A cow lows out to us from the barn.

“Dairy cow?”

She shakes her head. “Regular old stinky longhorn. Longhorn! About fifteen years ago a semi wrecked on I-64 with a full load of cows. Most of them were killed, but a few survived. The Humane Society put out a call to the farmers around here to take in the rest, since the rancher who owned them couldn't be bothered to come fetch them. We took in three. Down to the last one now.”

She pauses at the edge of the riding ring. A gauzy mist floats over the fields. Beyond them, the hills rise up until they grow into proper mountains.

“I need a cigarette, Ezekiel. Have you got one?”

Her mouth sits in a straight line.

“What about the emphysema?”

“I don't have it. Osborne does. I can't smoke around him.”

I try to hide a smile as I pull the pack from my shirt pocket and help her light up. Grab a smoke for myself, too. Georgia inhales deeply, as if she's been underwater for hours and just came up for air.

“The man is driving me crazy. Crazy, Ezekiel. I don't know how much more I can stand.”

This is not good news. Are there no happily married couples left in the world?

“His nephew took over managing the family's real estate holdings last year. Told Osborne he was welcome to drop by whenever he wanted. Drop by? Oz has run the company for the past twenty years. They thought he was getting too old, which he is, but that's not how you treat a person. Then Mother Lacey died in June, crazy as a june bug by the end. Father Lacey didn't last much longer. He passed in December from a burst aorta.”

She tosses the remainder of her coffee into the grass. “Osborne's got what his mother had and he's scared to death. Early Alzheimers, the doctors say. We were so caught up in caring for his father we didn't pay attention to his own forgetfulness. But right after the funeral, when our days stretched out with no one to take care of but ourselves, the symptoms got worse. He'd leave
the house only to turn around because he forgot where he was
going. Or he'd go to the grocery store with a list I gave him and buy nothing from it, only sweet things he used to eat as a boy.”

We finish our smoke in silence. One of Mother's aunts got Alzheimer's when we were kids, though they didn't call it that then. Mother forced us to go see Aunt Ginny at the nursing home every Christmas and Easter. I hated the place with its smells of pee and bad food. Hated the starving looks the residents gave us when we walked by their rooms. I'd get sick to my stomach as soon as we pulled in the parking lot.

Georgia lets out a small, unsure laugh. “Listen to me. Your first morning here and I'm going to have you on the road before lunchtime with my nonsense. Come on.” She grabs my hand in hers. “Let's go see the apples.”

The sight of row after row of stalwart apple trees brightens her mood. A light breeze carries the heady smell of ripening fruit. Shiny apples wink out from the trees' nooks and crannies.

“Good crop?”

She surveys the orchard, placing a hand on the closest one and glancing up. “The Pippins look really good. In six weeks time, they'll be ready.”

After wandering through several rows, she stops to tug a small apple from a tree's lower branch. A pocketknife appears from Georgia's housedress and she slices off a wedge of fruit. The interior is dull green but fading to red. Faint russet-colored dots can be seen on the meat.

“See?” she says. “It's not juicy yet. The flesh is this nice creamy yellow color, but taste it. Not sweet. A few more weeks.
These Golden Pearmains are my favorite. We're one of the
few orchards left in the state that still grows them. The big orchards won't, because the apples spoil before they can get them to the grocery store. But they make the best cider in the world. The McNatts buy bushels of them from us and press them to sell at their fruit stand.”

The sound of a car coming up the drive interrupts us. Georgia frowns.

“The boys must not have been too talkative this morning. Let's walk back.”

Fat raindrops begin to fall, slowly at first, then in rapid streams. I pull off my top shirt and hold it over Georgia's head as we hurry back to the house. Osborne stands on the front steps getting drenched, and even I can tell that something is not right. Cousin Georgia rushes to him. Tucker appears and looks from me to the Laceys as if he's not sure who to let cross the threshold.

“Come in the house now,” she says to Osborne. “What's the matter? You're so pale.”

He shakes his head. She grabs one of his hands and pulls him inside. Sensing they need to be alone, I back down the steps.

“Ezekiel,” he calls, “don't go. It's nothing you can't hear.”

Georgia's impatience with him appears to grow at the same rate as her worry. Water trails down Osborne's clothes, puddling in small circles around his work boots.

The sharp buzzing noise of an electric hedger comes from the back. Osborne looks up.

“It's Jimmy in the back, darling. That's all.”

“What's he doing?”

“Trimming the holly bushes. You know how they like to take over that side of the house.”

A dark look crosses Osborne's face. “Now, Georgia, what are those holly bushes trying to take over?”

“Nothing. Nothing. Hush. Tell us what's gotten you so upset this morning.”

“It's Joe Cummins. He dropped dead of a heart attack right at my feet while we were having coffee at the Feed and Fuel. Just fell out of his chair, grabbing at his chest, and then he was gone.” He snaps his fingers. “No more Joe.”

Georgia's hands fly to her mouth and she shuts her eyes for a moment before wrapping her arms around him. Osborne throws off her embrace.

“We all knew he had a bad heart. But I've never seen a man die before. Right at my feet. And one of my oldest friends. I don't want to tell you about it. I just want to walk for a while.”

“It's raining,” she says.

He steps out the front door. Georgia grabs a slicker from the coat tree. “At least wear this.”

With slow movements, Osborne does as she asks and takes off in the direction of the lake, turning back long enough to say they should go see Joe's wife when he returns. We stand in the hallway, Georgia and I, for a good five minutes, watching Osborne. I don't know what to say.

“Why don't I go into town today? You don't need a
houseguest right now.”

A world of hurt and worry settles on her face, deepening the lines around her eyes. And then it vanishes. “Don't be silly. Come help me with the horses. We better get them fed before the weather gets worse. Our stable boy is down in Florida at Disney World this week with his family.”

Rain jackets are procured. The stables are situated down the knoll from the main house. Osborne Sr. developed a taste for horse racing and bought two racehorses right about the time I was leaving the farm. Though there are ten stalls, only three of them are occupied now. Cousin Georgia hands me a bucket filled with oats and I follow behind. We feed a pinto first, then a sleek, black Thoroughbred, and lastly an old white horse who tosses his head when he sees me until Cousin Georgia whacks him on the butt and tells him to cut it out.

“Grab a brush from the tack room and brush Darcy. She's the pinto. Another one of Osborne's rescue animals. You don't even want to hear that poor creature's story. Watch out for her back feet, though. If you catch a big tangle on her tail, she'll stomp you.”

In the next stall Georgia brushes the large black horse with strong sure strokes and I try to copy her as best as I can. We work our way from the head to the tail. The sweet smell of hay mingles with the warm, strong scent of the horses and the leather of the saddles.

“It's a wife's nightmare, you know.” She speaks while spreading an armful of fresh hay in Darcy's stall. “I'm sure Joe got up this morning, ate his two eggs and bacon, and kissed Eliza good-bye just like he did every day.”

Darcy stomps the moment I near her tail with the brush. If I hadn't been standing as far as possible from her hindquarters, she would have neatly crushed my foot. Georgia laughs, sounding like a girl of eighteen, not a woman in her seventies.

“It's funny how horses have such predictable personalities, isn't it? She's been doing that since the day Osborne brought her home from the rescue farm in Lynchburg. Broke two of Oz's toes that first year.”

“Thanks for letting me brush her.”

“You're tough. Now go give old Whitey a good brushing. She's too tired to try anything.”

While Whitey does not try to stomp me, she does keep reaching her mouth back to bite my hand. Her teeth are huge and yellow.

“If I remember right, people around here foxhunt,” I say. “Do you ever use the horses for hunting?”

Georgia snorts. “Do any of these motley beasts look like they're ready for hunting? Well, maybe Diamond here.”

She gives him an apologetic pat. “Foxhunting is not something Oz or I will ever do. Can you think of anything more ridiculous, really? We ride the horses, of course. Not much else to be done with them. Though Osborne and I have stopped taking a nightly ride around the property. He fell off Whitey this summer, I don't know who was more embarrassed—Osborne or Whitey. We haven't gone out since.”

After shutting the horses up snug in the barn, we head back to the house. Georgia stops and shades her eyes with a hand, looking off toward the eastern fields. Osborne's figure is headed for a dense grove of cedars and hickories.