Chapter 54 Georgia
Georgia
From the porch of the Clementine, I watch Eddie park the car and walk around to help Junie out on the other side. The aunts
dropped me off just a few minutes ago, and I wonder if Junie planned it this way to avoid rehashing things with them. I try,
ever so fervently, to find the chilly hatred I was wrapped in before. Something about it is impossible now. Ever since the
doctor explained Junie’s medical situation, my angry core is all wobbly and threadbare. Perhaps it was a sham from the start.
Everything has been slashed, and under the dappled light of the oak tree he looks like a handsome first responder, come to
rescue us all from ourselves.
In place of my anger, my heart beats loud and imprecise. Stripped down.
Eddie pops open Junie’s car door, and she pretends to hobble out, holding her back like an old lady. She even has a voice
to match. “Oh thank you, young man, for helping me safely back to my homestead.”
Eddie sighs as he follows a few steps behind. He pulls a smile and holds up his hands, looking right at me. I don’t know what to do with her either, I think. I pull the heavy door open with a creak as Junie climbs the porch. The warm air flows in behind her.
“Eddie, a word?” It comes out sounding tighter than planned.
He nods and settles into a rocking chair.
“Take your time, lovebirds!” Junie yells as she swings the door shut behind her.
I let myself smile at the spunk in that woman, then join Eddie in the second rocking chair. They squeak and groan along with
the deck below us as we waffle in place.
“I know I look defeated, but I am still furious,” I tell him. “At least in theory.”
“I know.” He lets out a long breath, his face slackening.
I see his own strife, and I rock myself harder. “I’m so mad I wasn’t there for her. You know that’s what I do. I take care
of her. That’s the only thing I do right. Never in my wildest dreams did I think she’d get cancer, but even less so did I
think she’d be without me at her side.” I remember the other thing. “And what was the genetic stuff the doctor mentioned today?
We’ve already been there, done that. Do you know what that’s all about?”
“I do. And it’s something Junie needs to tell you,” Eddie says. “You might need to be firm with her to get it out.”
My brows crease, and I stop myself from hitting him with “Really, again?” Instead, I sigh. “I guess she’ll have no choice
now that the cat’s out of the bag. But it would really make this easier if you, the medical professional, could just explain.”
Eddie plants both feet on the deck and stops. “My sharing her news wasn’t the right thing to do then, and it’s not the right
thing for this one either.”
“Keeping the people who love Junie most from her is the right thing? What did you think was going to happen? You guys were
going to covertly cure her without anyone knowing?”
“I thought exactly this would happen, and I told Junie a hundred times,” Eddie says. “I would never keep this from you, not
if it was my choice.”
He looks so sincere. I can tell the secret has eaten away at him for weeks—unlike the way it tore through me in a single moment. Different path, similar result.
“Guess you knew I’d react like this,” I say. “To being left out.”
Eddie nods deeply. “And so did Junie. She knew you—and the aunts—would be livid to discover she didn’t tell you right away.
But in her mind, I guess she saw it as keeping you away from the hurt for as long as possible. The Good Hair Days have been
her saving grace, and I think she thought she’d just be blowing up all the good stuff that was left.”
I can’t fault her entirely because it does feel that way. Like all the good we’ve mined from the shop debacle has turned to
dust.
“I’m just hurting. Everywhere and in all ways,” I say. “And I shouldn’t have been awful and rude today. That was Junie’s appointment,
and it should’ve been about her and not my feelings about you.”
In truth, my feelings toward him are more than one thing. They’re like his eyes that look green in one light and brown in
another. My feelings for Eddie are alive and living and seem to swing in ups and downs just like palm trees in a hurricane.
It won’t ever be uncomplicated.
“And I’ll say it again: I never wanted this kept from you, but I was in a hard place, stuck between giving you the truth you
deserved and respecting Junie’s wishes for something that—as you just said—is very much about her.” Eddie looks out at the
road. “And Junie’s not lying when she says I bugged the crap out of her to tell one, some, all, any of you. I told her I’d be there for her, and I will continue to be. But not in place of y’all, just as an extra.”
I might blame it on all the bad news—our upcoming suffering—but I want to tell him that he’s not an extra. Somewhere and somehow,
he became part of the group. And even if I did ignore him today, it wouldn’t be the same without him here on our team.
“And I don’t know, but I tried to do what I thought you would, if you were there. Just to cover your spot until she let you in.”
At that my anger is entirely eclipsed. Eddie is thoughtful, intentional in the most compassionate of ways, and it strikes
me that I can’t think of anyone I’d nominate as a better proxy. Eddie is remarkable at almost anything he tries his hand at
(minus skateboarding, but that’s a story for another day). The things he encounters, people, places, events, all of them seem
improved after he leaves simply because of his presence.
His presence is a special energy, a brand of magic all his own. I’ve tried to tuck away my awareness of it, my familiarity
with it, really—all for the sake of moving on. But here in the midst of all this personal tragedy swirled into us like milk into coffee irreversibly, he is exactly the
kind of help we need.
I don’t want Eddie to go. In fact, I want him closer.
“I believe you,” I say. “And thank you. Lord knows if it’d been left up to Junie and Junie only, she might have never scheduled
the initial follow-up appointment.”
“Hey!” Junie’s voice squeezes out of a crack in the window behind us. “I heard that!”
I whip around. “Serves you right for eavesdropping. Scram!”
Junie sighs reluctantly, and I hear the pop of the window closing all the way.
I turn back to Eddie. “You know what I mean.”
He nods. “It’s one of the things I love most about her.”
The comment makes me swell. Knowing how to love Junie is about the closest to knowing me as is possible for another human
being on this earth.
“You’re the best.” Tears gurgle in my throat, and though I know most of them are sad, I wonder if even a few are happy ones.
Because of him. Because he really took such good care of her, took her this far.
I stand. Eddie joins me. We let our hands float close and linger.
It feels like standing beside something so big that it casts a shade wide enough for both of us.
Something large enough to hold all our good parts—the jetting around Whitetail in his truck, the study dates turned movie afternoons, the falling asleep on his chest. But it also holds the rest—the hurt, my shame.
I could reach out a pinky so easily, intertwine my fingers with his, and perhaps by extension, a little bit of my
heart. If he’d have me.
His draw on me is unmooring.
But so is the fear.
“I should get going.” I point inside the house. “Can’t leave that mustang alone for too long or God knows what she’ll get
up to.”
Eddie laughs, then rubs his forehead. He looks up and rests his hand on my cheek. At his touch every inch of me comes alive,
and I pull in a hurried breath. He rubs his thumb along my jawline, then ever so gently he places a slow kiss on my cheek.
“I’ll call you soon,” he says. “To check in on everything. You included.”
All I can manage is a frenzied nod as he turns and starts down the porch steps.
I slump back onto the rocking chair, and all I can feel is the patch of kissed skin, tingling. I put my hand over it—to save
it, to box it up and bring it home and keep it forever.
A few minutes later I hear a car engine approach. My dad’s car crawls up the gravel driveway and parks behind the limelight
hydrangeas. Slowly, he exits the vehicle, grabs something from the passenger seat, and pops the door closed behind him.
As he approaches, I smell what he’s brought before I can see them. The cinnamon hits my nose, and it reminds me of Mama.
“Dad,” I say, when he comes near the porch.
He climbs the wooden steps slowly and sets down the platter of perfect, June-worthy cinnamon rolls before taking me in his
arms.
“Those cinnamon rolls.” I laugh. “I’m so glad you took over.”
“It’s fun for me,” he says. “How’s our patient today?”
I motion inside. “As well as she can be, I guess. Let’s go inside and she can fill you in on what the doctor really said, with me to fact-check.”
He was the only one of us who respected Junie’s wishes to limit her number of supporters. “I’ll come to the next one,” he’d said. “But that means all of you Louises will be sitting that one out.” In the long run, it’s probably a smarter tactic.
“I figured we might’ve gotten a Junie edit before,” he says.
I nod. “You’re not wrong, but I’m sure she can be bribed into full truth with all of these cinnamon rolls. You made them perfectly
for her.” The comment catches in the back of my throat, but I don’t think he hears it. The moment of us baking together feels
like a lifetime ago, considering all that has unfolded since, and only now do I see how it’s maybe the closest I’ve been to
him in a long time.
“Both of you, honey,” he says. “These are for both of you.”