Good Hope Road (28 page)

I looked into those clear, soft eyes of hers, and something inside me sank. I knew what she was asking and why she was asking it. I wished I could say,
Oh, yes, certainly I believe that. I think a body can leave behind all the bad in their past and turn off from it, like they were turning down a new road.
I wished I could say that. But I knew better. I knew that the past had pecked away at me all my life, and I never got away from it.

Every time I thinned the iris bulbs by the fence, I thought of my poor sister, Ivy, because she loved irises. Every time I thought of her, I looked down the road at June Jaans’s place, and I hated him more because he was responsible for Ivy dying. Every time I looked at that oak tree in the yard, I remembered how Cass used to have a tree fort up there, and how he stood by that very tree and cursed me because I couldn’t accept the girl he was gonna marry. He hadn’t been home in years, because I made it plain I didn’t like that no-good, bar-waitress wife of his. That was why my granddaughter Lacy looked at me like a stranger now.

The past had been with me all my life, following me like a shadow, attached to my body and to the ground around me, so that I never got away from it.

I looked at Jenilee and thought all of that in a second or two. I wanted to tell her that the past is like a ball of twine. It starts small, and keeps unwinding, until the trail reaches to places you can’t even see anymore. All the things that have happened before are all wound around you like puppet strings.

“You don’t leave it behind,” I said quietly. “You just do your best to manage with it and go on.”

Jenilee nodded, looking out the window. I knew I had told her what she had expected to hear. She looked sad, but not surprised.

“People should.” June’s voice come from his cot in a rustle of sheets.

When I looked over my shoulder, he was sitting up.

“People should learn to leave the past behind,” he said again, and I knew he was talking to me. “You can’t plow a clean row while you’re turned around looking where at you’ve been.” He shook a finger at me, his blue eyes hard with determination, filled with sparks, like those of the boy he used to be. “You spent enough hours on the tractor to know that, Eudora.”

He give me one last, hard look, then turned to Jenilee and held up a piece of paper. “Here’s another letter, Jenilee. It was stuck to the back of one of them old pictures. Go hang it on the wall by the other two. It might do
folks
some good.” He looked at me when he said
folks
.

Jenilee, of course, didn’t know his meaning. Only June and I knew that long-ago part of our past. Only he and I felt those wounds that were still so fresh.

Jenilee moved to his bedside and reached for the letter. June put his hand over hers lightly, not holding her there, but she didn’t pull back. Instead, she looked at him like a child might look at a grand-parent—like he was old, and wise, and important.

“Don’t let anyone tell you that you can’t become somethin’ new. You’re like one of them spring calves, all tangled up inside your mama, and tryin’ hard to get out and find your feet. You got a long ways to go in your life. You find your feet, and then look where you want to go, and start runnin’. Don’t look back.”

Jenilee nodded, sighing. “I don’t know where I want to go.” She pulled her hand away from June’s, looking embarrassed by all his sentimental rambling.

June smiled, groaning under his breath as he lay back down. “You’ll figure it out. Just keep goin’ in a straight row, and don’t look back, all right?”

“All right,” she said, then walked across the room and hung the letter up with the other two. She run her hands up and down her arms, reading the words to herself; then she turned toward the door. “I better get home so we can go to the hospital,” she said, but the look on her face told me she was about to cry, and she didn’t want us to see it.

The look on her face stayed with me for a long time after she left. I wondered about her while I hung pictures on the wall. As the morning wore on, the crowd around the wall grew larger, folks wandering in one or two at a time, looking at the pictures, talking about what the pictures made them remember.

I wished Jenilee could of been there to see it. I wondered what she would find at the hospital—if that father of hers would be awake, and if she would be glad about that. I wondered if she was afraid he wouldn’t recover, or afraid he would.

I thought again about what might of gone on in that house with the bushes grown over the windows to make Jenilee so quiet and shy and afraid of everybody.

Mazelle Sibley come in at noontime with one of her sandwich trays. She looked at the picture wall with narrow eyes. I reckon she didn’t like it because it was Jenilee’s idea.

“Well, I’ve just been down giving sandwiches to the sheriff’s crew. Poor Mrs. Anderson is there with them, still hoping to find her baby. I gave her a sandwich and a Pepsi-Cola, thought a little food might be a comfort.”

“Uh-huh,” I answered, pretending to be busy. I was hoping she’d move on.

“Did you hear there are
reporters
in town asking about the
baby
? They’re going to broadcast the story on the
news
. I told them what I knew, of course. Told them what a shame it was that the poor mother had to come in here and see her baby girl’s picture
hanging
on the
wall
of the
armory.
Honestly, I can’t imagine what that
Jenilee Lane
could be thinking, putting that picture up there. Doesn’t she have any sense? How horrible for poor Mrs. Anderson.”

“Jenilee didn’t know who the picture belonged to,” I said flatly. “No reason she would know it was the Anderson baby.”

Mazelle tipped her chin up, making a
tsk-tsk
sound. “Don’t imagine you can expect—”

A string of curse words outside the door cut her off.

“Oh, my word!” She gasped, stepping out of the way just in time to keep from being run over by Shad Bell, of all people.

He let out another string of curse words as he bumped into the doorframe and stumbled through the door. He stopped just inside, his fists wadded up at his sides like he was spoiling for a fight. He walked past us and said something to June.

June raised his hands into the air, palms-up, looking confused.

I hurried over to see what was going on. “Shad Bell, you leave June alone,” I said. “This is a hospital. You ain’t supposed to be in here.”

Shad turned to face me, stumbling against June’s bed so that I thought he might fall right down on top of the man. “Where’s Jenilee?” His words were slurred. He turned his face toward me, and I saw that he was half-covered in blood, dripping from a fresh gash in his forehead.

I grabbed his arm to keep him from falling. “My Lord, Shad, what in the world kind of idiot thing have you done to yourself?”

Behind me, Mazelle said, “Oh, my!” again, then scooted over to where the garden club ladies were sitting.

Shad drifted to one side, then righted himself again and looked at me, his eyes cloudy with liquor. “I’m trying to find Jenilee,” he slurred, the words barely understandable.

My mind put two and two together, and I realized I was right about the two of them. Jenilee was mixed up with him again. I didn’t like that idea at all. The only thing a boy like Shad Bell could bring to Jenilee was trouble.

“Well, she ain’t here.” I held on to his arm to keep him upright. In the bed, June raised his hands up like he was going to catch Shad if he fell. Fat chance of that. I knew if Shad fell on that bed, June would be squished flatter than a fritter.

I pulled Shad’s arm and got him to step away. The blood from his hand dripped on my arm, and I looked at that cut in his forehead. “Good gravy, what did you do to yourself, Shad Bell?” I asked again.

Shad wiped the blood away with the greasy, wadded-up T-shirt he had in his other hand. “I run my truck into the ditch outside of town.” His eyes started to close, and I give him a quick shake to wake him up. He jerked, and went on talking, the words mixed together like garble on a radio. “I was bringin’ the dozer . . . into town . . . to see Jen . . . Jenilee.”

“Well, you’re too drunk to be drivin’ any truck with any dozer trailer on the back,” I snapped, giving him another shake as he tried to close his eyes again. I glanced over my shoulder to where Dr. Albright was in the corner talking to some folks about the pictures. “Doctor!” I hollered, getting the feeling that any moment Shad Bell was going to topple like a ruined silo. “Doctor! Someone’s hurt over here.”

Shad shook his arm, trying to break my hold on him. “I don’t need no doctor.”

“Yes, you do,” I barked at him. “Stand still. Doctor!”

Dr. Albright started over from the other side of the room. Seeing the blood, he got in a hurry.

“I don’t need no doctor!” Shad hollered, breaking my hold on his arm and staggering backward. June gave Shad a push in the rear end, sending him back to me.

“Be still!” I said, grabbing his arm again.

“I don’t need no doctor!” he wailed, like a kid about to get a shot. “I gotta go get the truck outa the ditch . . . and the dozer.”

“You ain’t in no shape to drive no dozer!”

“I can drive my dozer if I want. I’m gonna help folks clean up.” He tried again to get shed of me, but I hung on like a hound on a coon.

“Let me go!” he bellowed.

“I ain’t lettin’ go!”

“I’m gonna go help folks.”

“You ain’t in shape to help nobody.”

The doctor hurried up beside me and grabbed Shad’s arm, moving him toward an empty cot with strength that was surprising, considering that Shad was a big boy. “Calm down, son,” he said, sounding much nicer than I did. “Sit down and let’s have a look.”

Shad struggled to get away as Dr. Albright tried to put him onto the bed. Pushing the doctor off his feet, Shad stumbled three steps, whirled around twice like a dizzy ballet dancer, and fell smack on the floor.

I stood there lookin’ at him as the doctor climbed back to his feet. “Well, that was darned stupid,” I said to Shad as he lay looking up at me, his eyes fluttering, on the verge of going under. “Now you’re stuck on the floor.”

He reached up a hand like he was gonna get up, then let it fall, groaned, and lay there, helpless. Something about him all of a sudden reminded me of a little boy needin’ his mama. I walked over and got a pillow while the doc started examining that cut.

“Here you go, you idiot,” I said, slipping the pillow under his head. “Lordy, Shad, haven’t you got a lick of sense in your whole body?”

He groaned, and his eyes fluttered back in his head as the doctor spread the wound apart to look at it.

“Just be still, son,” the doctor said. “All you need is a few stitches, and twelve hours or so to sleep it off.”

Shad blinked hard, focusing his gaze on me. “I gotta get the dozer and help folks,” he choked out, his voice almost gone.

“You can’t help nobody right now,” I whispered, stroking his dark hair away from the wound and the blood, trying to keep him calm while the doctor went for his medical kit. “Just go on and go to sleep.”

“Can you . . .” I had to lean close to hear Shad’s voice. His eyes were closed and he was drifting off. “Can you tell Jenilee I come here . . . to help . . .”

He fell away, and I stayed there for a minute as the doc came back and cleaned the wound, then stitched it up. I looked at Shad and felt sorry for the mixed-up boy that he was.

I didn’t imagine he’d learn anything from this experience, or that he’d ever learn. His mama and daddy had him late in life after tryin’ for years to get a baby, and they’d pretty well spoiled him rotten.

Whatever’s going on between him and Jenilee Lane,
I told myself,
you’re gonna find a way to put a stop to it, Eudora. This critter is the last thing she needs to be mixed up with
.
You’re a pretty stubborn old woman, and most of the time you can find a way to get done what needs doing.

The doctor shook his head as he bandaged the wound. “Is this Jenilee Lane’s husband?” he asked.

“Oh, Lordy, no!” I choked on the thought. “Don’t even say such a thing. This here is just about the worst example of a young fella in the whole county.”

“I see.”

I opened my mouth to ask why he had such a powerful interest in Jenilee. Then I realized someone was over my shoulder. I looked up and saw Nolan Nelson, the school principal, leaning over me to get a look at Shad.

“Looks like he didn’t come out of the tornado too well,” he said, looking more concerned than Shad deserved.

“He ain’t hurt from the tornado,” I said, standing up. “He’s drunker than a skunk, and he run his truck into the ditch pullin’ the bulldozer trailer. Whacked himself in the head in the process.”

Nolan grimaced. “Well, he’s going to have a double headache when he wakes up and his daddy hears about that. His daddy will be hotter than popcorn in a fire. Maybe Shad will learn something.”

I laughed out the side of my mouth. “Not likely, I’d say. He come here looking for Jenilee Lane. You know anything about that?” I figured if anyone would know what was going on, it would be the principal. Nolan was like a daddy to the young people in town. He practically worked miracles with those kids, but even he hadn’t been able to do anything with Shad Bell
.

“Well, can’t say I know anything about Jenilee and Shad,” Nolan answered, “other than that they used to date before Shad’s daddy sent him off to Montana a couple of years ago.”

“I think there’s something going on between them, and that would be a bad thing for Jenilee. She don’t need to hook up with a lowbrow like this one.”

Nolan squinted, looking concerned, but I could tell he wanted to be careful of what he said to me. “Well, I wouldn’t jump to too many conclusions. Jenilee’s a smart girl.”

“Smart girls been known to get with ignorant men.” I crossed my arms over my chest and let him know I wasn’t backing down. “Happens all the time. It don’t need to happen with her.”