Chapter 20 Adelaide
adelaide
I sneaked out to the backyard while Nadine the aide was in the bathroom.
I thought that if I went outside, it might trigger something.
I didn’t expect a memory, exactly—how could I remember something I hadn’t known in the first place?
—but I figured that I might get some kind of notion where to look.
The Meyer lemon tree against the far fence was in bloom.
The scent was dizzyingly sweet. The tulips were still bursting with color, as dazzling and warm as new love.
And the azaleas—oh, what colors! In the last few days they’d opened wide, their petals of fuchsia and pink blazing so brightly they practically burned my eyes.
My fingers twitched, longing to connect with a camera button.
It was one of my favorite times of the year, when God seemed to just burst through the leaves in a sudden, overflowing abundance of beauty.
I felt sorry for people who rushed right by, never seeing the colors, never acknowledging the love the creator poured into making such an opulent display, just to gladden our hearts and assure us of his glory.
But I needed to think about how the yard had looked back then.
Goodness, that would have been sixty-some-odd years ago!
The yard had changed a lot over time. It still has the big oaks, some magnolias, and a couple of birch trees, but a giant elm, some pines, and a pecan tree have since died or been toppled in a hurricane.
The vegetable garden is still on the right side, but it’s much smaller than it was back then, and I didn’t have the flower beds encircling the trees.
The only place I’m pretty sure I can rule out was the center of the lawn.
Charlie couldn’t have buried anything there, or I would have seen it.
Or would I? It had been fall, and the ground was covered with leaves. Maybe right out in plain sight would have been the best hiding place of all.
I leaned heavily on my walker. The truth is, at the time, I hadn’t wanted to see anything.
I’d even asked Charlie if I should skip planting vegetables or flowers that spring, and he’d replied, “No reason not to.” Still, I’d only planted a few tomatoes and peppers and squash plants, no root vegetables or anything deep, and I’d felt uneasy in the backyard all that summer, and most of the summer after.
There’s a possibility, I suppose, that he actually left our property that night to bury that suitcase somewhere else, but the gate squeaked, and opening it wide made it bang against the house, and I think I would have heard it.
Funny how you can fear something so much that you just can’t bear to think about it, but the more you push it to the back of your thoughts, the stronger the dread of it grows. All these years, this fear had been festering in its dark corner. Waiting. Lurking. Spreading in the dark, like a fungus.
Now that I’m finally bringing it forward, it’s shocking, how much it tortures me. Shame is so corrosive. How could I have left it unaddressed for all these years? How had I lived with it? How had Charlie?
Ah, well. What is done in secret will be brought into the light. That’s what it says in the good book, and I guess that’s the way it is.
“Gran?”
I turned to see Hope and the aide standing behind me.
“What are you doing out here?” Hope asked.
“Enjoying the azaleas.” The lie felt bitter on my tongue. Time for the truth, old girl. “And . . . trying to remember something.”
“You shouldn’t be out of the house without someone,” the aide scolded.
I smiled at her. “No offense, dearie, but now and then, I need some time alone. At my age, I think I’ve earned that right.”
The aide put her hand on hip, as if she was about to give me a lecture, but Hope spoke first. “Of course you have. Be careful not to get too tired.”
She motioned the aide back inside and followed her. I could feel Hope, though, watching me through the kitchen window.
She was worried. And it was no wonder; the fact was, I was frail and old and feeble. Standing out here wasn’t helping anyway. I shuffled back to the kitchen, surprised and chagrined at how arduous a trek it was.
“Would you like some tea?” Hope asked.
“Yes, dear. Pour some for yourself as well, and then let’s take it into my bedroom and tell the aide not to disturb us.”
I slowly scuffled into my room and settled in the rocking chair. Hope brought in two steaming mugs, set them both on coasters on my side table, and looked at me expectantly.
“Look in the very back of the closet, on the left. There’s a black-and-white pin-striped dress.”
She stepped into my closet and pulled it out. “This?”
“Yes.”
She brought it to me. It was rayon, had long sleeves, a patent belt, and a flared skirt, and it used to fit me within an inch of my life. I’d always felt so polished and professional when I wore it. I fingered the fabric. “Lay it on the bed, dear, and have a seat.”
She picked up her mug and settled on the bed beside the dress.
I leaned back in the rocker, closed my eyes, lapsed into storytelling mode. “Two days after I got back to New Orleans from my trip with Joe, I got a phone call from my mother. In those days, a long-distance phone call was a rare thing indeed.”
1943
I’d been in my room, composing a letter to Joe, when Lucille called me to the phone.
I’d raced downstairs, hoping it was Joe, but that dream was squashed as soon as I dashed into the living room and saw Lucille’s cloth-curlered head pressed against the receiver, her forehead creased.
“But I’m sure she said it was an uncle who died,” she was saying.
Oh, dear Lord. As the kids say today, I was busted.
I’d told Marge all about the trip and Joe’s proposal, of course, but not Lucille.
She’d no doubt offered my mother condolences on Uncle Leo’s passing.
My chest felt like a truck was parked on it as she extended the phone to me, her gaze reproachful. “It’s your mother.”
I hesitantly took the receiver. “Hello, Mother. Is everything all right?”
“Yes, yes. But what was Lucille saying about you going to an uncle’s funeral last week?”
“Uncle Leo? He’s a, uh, jazz musician. Everyone calls him that.
He’s the uncle of a, uh, close friend.” For a person who never lied, I was spinning quite a spiel.
I turned my back to Lucille, who was hovering nearby, obviously listening.
I needed to change the topic, and fast. “I’ll tell you all about it in a letter—I don’t want you buying out the phone company.
What are you calling about? Is everyone okay? ”
Fortunately, the news that had spurred the call was more urgent than Mother’s curiosity about my weekend. “We’re great. Charlie’s coming home on Friday!”
My heart rolled in my chest like a ship in high waves.
“You have to be here,” Mother said. “He specifically asked.”
My heart lurched again. “But, Mother, I have to work.”
“You can come afterward.”
“But . . .”
“No buts, Adelaide. He specifically asked for you, and I’m not telling Virginia that you can’t make it.”
“But, Mother—I—I’ve met someone else. In fact, I’m writing you a letter telling you about him, and . . .”
“Stop right there, young lady. This isn’t the time for that kind of thing.
You put that aside for now, you hear me?
” Mother’s voice was as commanding as General Patton’s.
“Put that aside, and come home Friday. And I expect you to be the girl you’ve always been with Charlie. He’s lost enough already.”
My throat tightened. “What do you mean? Did he . . . did he lose his leg?”
“No, but they had to amputate some of his toes.”
Relief poured through me. Toes were so much better than an entire leg! And yet, it was still a loss. “Poor Charlie.”
“Yes. His leg is very weak, but he still has it. He’s on crutches, but they expect him to be able to walk on his own eventually.
Now I expect to see you Friday night. There’s a bus that leaves New Orleans at six thirty in the evening and gets here at nine thirty.
See that you’re on it. The town is doing a big party in his honor Saturday, and you have to be here. ”
There was really no help for it. How could I not go to Charlie’s welcome home celebration? He was my childhood friend, my high school sweetheart, the only child of my mother’s dearest friend.
I hung up the phone, despondent. I had no choice.
Was life always going to be like this . . . a good thing happens, and then a bad one? At what point did everything start to be okay?
Back then, I thought there was some golden moment I would arrive at, a turning point after which everything would be fine and dandy. During most of my youth, “after the war” had looked like that moment.
It was naive and juvenile, I know now. It probably came from reading too many books and watching too many movies with happy endings.
But when Joe left and Charlie came home, that was the first time I began to realize that maybe there was no such thing as a trouble-free ever after.
Maybe life would always be a constant mingle of good and bad.
Maybe no matter how perfectly I dreamed and planned, something would always be undone, missing, lacking, or askew.
Maybe I would always think, “I’d be perfectly happy, if only . . .”
At the time, of course, I didn’t know this. I spent most of the long bus ride thinking how I would let Charlie down gently. All my thoughts were focused on Joe and how marvelous our lives would be together.
I’d expected to see my mother at the bus station—and possibly my father. The person I hadn’t expected to see was Charlie, standing right there where the bus unloaded, propped up on crutches. His parents stood on either side of him.
“Adelaide,” he said, his voice thick with emotion.