Chapter 4 #2
Ugh. What I really want to say to my publisher is no.
No, I would not prefer to extend the fall book tour by another two weeks.
No, I would not like to drive to Huntsville for a signing.
Or, for that matter, to “mosey on over to Alpharetta, since it’s not much farther.
” On the heels of my three-day teaching event in Maryland?
It’s too much. A weighted blanket of exhaustion descends over me just imagining it.
Two rows ahead, a tiny head pops up. Golden, lighter-than-air corkscrew curls veer in every direction like prairie grass.
Little Miss now holds a fat blue crayon and evidently has a keen radar for mush-hearted grandmothers.
I wink. She returns a coy smile. I duck my head, then snap it back up wearing my silliest grandma expression. Her giggle makes my heart lighter.
I play the silent peekaboo game again, but when I come up, her mother has already coaxed her back into her seat. Shoot.
Beyond my window, the rugged landscape brings to mind that old TV show Bonanza. Or a rudimentary picture even I could color. Mentally, I select my own fat crayons. Cornflower for the sky. Burnt sienna for the desert soil and those low, round buttes. Olive for the scrubby fields of sage.
The plane taxis. My mental portrait will have to suffice until next time.
Back to the problem of my publisher’s request. This much I know.
I haven’t outlived my love for the ministry, but I’ve sure outlasted a whole era of book people.
Over time, the familiar faces at BeLoved Books—all those dear, dear friends I brainstormed with, laughed with, and scarfed down barbecue with since as far back as the Clinton presidency—have been succeeded by a new regime. Younger. Hipper.
Do people still say hip? See, that’s exactly how un-hip I dare not let the newbies know I’ve become. I cannot afford to have those folks thinking I’m on the decline. Even if someday I manage to accept it for myself. Which isn’t today.
I know what I have to do. Delaying any longer won’t change my answer. I’ll say yes. Never mind that it effectively eliminates any fantasy I’d begun entertaining of a surprise return visit to Lucyland for Chase’s birthday. Move on. If wishes were fishes, we’d all have a fry.
Besides, they aren’t wrong. Huntsville is an easy drive. And isn’t this precisely why Rog and I invested in the new Sprinter van? With him practically retired, he’ll be game to tag along. We’ll make a jolly time of it.
Surely there must be something new to experience in Alabama. Something I’ve never thought to bread and fry or bake into a pie.
“Sorry,” I say to my seatmate, realizing I’ve just snort-laughed out loud. The kind lady God placed shoulder-to-shoulder with me is eighty-five, if a day. “Just thinking about Alabama cuisine. Ever been?”
The woman’s chuckle is deep and musical, like molasses or an old gospel refrain.
For a moment, I think I see “the look” in her eyes.
She opens her mouth as if to say something.
Instead she closes her lips. When she opens them again, it’s to introduce herself as Opal.
No need to ask Opal which end of the journey she calls home. Her gentle twang speaks volumes.
The sun glints painfully off the plane’s wing as it banks eastward. Casting a final glance at the lofty peaks below, I spot the slender, pointed one visible from Lucy’s charming balcony.
“Mmm. God sure don’t make no junk.” At Opal’s words, I turn to find her looking over my shoulder. “Pleasure trip?”
I swallow past a lump in my throat. “Mostly.” I don’t dare bring up the part where I’d boxed up my mother’s clothes that still smelled like her.
Or that I’d donated them, along with furnishings that had been in the family forever but wouldn’t be useful in staging the house for sale.
There’s something tender and safe about Opal.
Something motherly that threatens to burst the dam inside me.
I won’t have it. The woman doesn’t need some strange, silly lady blubbering all over her lovely turquoise blazer.
I clear my throat. “Visiting my daughter and grandson. You?”
“No, ma’am.” Opal purses her lips. “No grandchildren.” She turns her attention to the patent leather purse on her lap.
Unsnaps its gold closure. Removes a Kindle.
The finality of her answer carries meaning.
Any fool could see that. “Lord didn’t see fit to give me no grandchildren,” she says, looking straight ahead.
“But that’s okay. That’s alright. God is good. ”
I hum sympathetically. After letting a few moments pass, I say, “Well. I hope you had a nice time in Oregon.”
She lays her hand over mine. “Listen, child. You get to be my age, you just grateful you can still move your old bones.” A deep chuckle, then, “And to have somebody to visit, somebody who still remembers you. Mm-hmm.” Opal’s gaze holds mine.
The whites of her eyes are more of a warm yellow interlaced with red veins.
“Number your days, is what I’m sayin’. Yes, ma’am,” she says. “You be sure to number your days.”
I give the woman a slow, contemplative nod. Funny how just this morning I’d been reading Psalm 90, where Moses prayed those very words. No, not funny, and undoubtedly not a coincidence. Something warm bubbles in my chest.
Yep, you’ve got my attention.
Later, I look up from the bubblegum-pink notebook filled with weeks of scribbled thoughts for my next study. Next to me, Opal sleeps with her mouth ajar. Her lips move almost imperceptibly, as if she’s whispering her innermost secrets to God. Suddenly I yearn to hear her story. All of it.
How strange.
And then that feeling comes over me, the one I’ll never get used to. A grim sensation I can only describe as hollowness. I’m a jack-o’-lantern, scraped bare inside yet wearing a carved-out grin.
I’ve never been comfortable with silence, not the way my Roger is. Or Lucy.
Here I am, surrounded by all kinds of interesting people. Calendared out through next February. Gifted with purpose. And yet . . . another wave of fatigue presses. And something else. A longing for something I can’t name.
Number your days, the ache in my chest seems to murmur.
I close my eyes, and Lucy’s face appears, looking like it did in that moment in her living room when she’d shared so vulnerably.
Green-blue eyes as penetrating as a river.
My mother’s eyes. In them, I could’ve sworn I saw the child she once was looking back at me.
And I’d had the uncomfortable sense that once again she wanted something from me I didn’t know how to give.
Heavens to Betsy. Could it be that Lucy isn’t the only one who’s stuck?