This One and Magic Life Read online

  Papa was too old to go to the war, Donnie and his friends too young. At night they would sit in Papa’s office and listen to the news while he moved red pins around on the map of the world on his wall. Stalingrad. Okinawa.

  Donnie understood later that it was hormones kicking in, but it seemed that summer that his sense of smell was working overtime. The gardenias that bloomed in late May by the side of the house would wake him during the night, sweet and strong, a presence in the room. The sharpness of the tomatoes in the garden. The smell of the wood they cut for stakes. The creosoty, fishy odor of the pier. He was walking around in a world of smells he had never noticed before.

  It was the summer Artie began to paint, too. She talked Mr. Harmon at the grocery into letting her have some of the white paper he wrapped meat in, and she would work for hours using leftover house paint and crayons and anything she could find. They should have talked. Maybe it had been her summer of colors like it was his of smells. She bought a Tangee lipstick, which she used every day until Mama got back.

  One night during that summer, Papa had awakened them. “Come outside. Leave the lights out.” They had first thought it was a jubilee, but it was too quiet. Half-asleep, they followed him out to the dune.

  “Look,” he said.

  On the horizon were pale waves of light, pink and greenish white arcing into the sky and then falling, seemingly, into the bay.

  “It’s the northern lights,” Papa explained. “The aurora borealis. Real unusual display.”

  “What’s doing it?” Hektor asked.

  “The sun. Solar winds. They’re electrically charged and when they hit the earth’s magnetic field they glow like this. You seldom see them this bright and this far south, though, because the particles are drawn toward the poles.”

  Hektor pressed against their father. “Is it safe?”

  Thomas hugged his son. “Safe and beautiful, Hektor. The only thing it may mess up is the radio. We’ll have more static.”

  Artie reached for Donnie’s hand. “Look at that. It’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”

  Donnie had thought so, too. He went inside and got a quilt for them to lie on, the four of them. No one had said, “I wish Mama (or Sarah) were here.” Not even Hektor or Papa.

  Since then, Donnie has seen the northern lights several times over Mobile Bay, but never again with the intensity of that night. The intensity of that summer.

  There were tomato sandwiches and iced tea every night for supper, and they would sit on the porch and eat. And it would stay light so long, and the bay looked like you could walk on it. But they never again believed the world ended at the bay after that summer.

  And now, a lifetime later, the old black man waves Donnie through the gate with his broom. “Come back to see us.”

  Donnie turns to him. “My sister is being cremated. My twin.”

  “Oh, do Jesus, I’m mighty sorry.”

  “Yes.” For a moment the two men look at each other and then Donnie goes through the gate, waits for the light, and walks back to the mortuary. There he washes his face again and sinks down into a sofa.

  “Mr. Sullivan.” A slight young man with acne is standing over him. “We’re ready. We just need you to sign that you’ve received the remains.”

  Donnie sits up, wiping his mouth. He has drooled on the sofa; he’s disoriented by the depth of his sleep.

  “Would you like some water?” the young mortician asks. Donnie nods yes. The man disappears for a second and returns with a little paper cone of water. Donnie drinks it gratefully.

  “You okay?”

  “I was just sound asleep.”

  “I understand. I was sorry to disturb you, but I know you want to get home.”

  “Sure.” Donnie gets up.

  “This won’t take but a second.”

  Donnie follows the young man to an office.

  “Here you go,” the mortician says, handing Donnie a plastic bag and pushing a piece of paper across the desk. “Sign right here.”

  Adonis J. Sullivan he writes on the next-of-kin line trying to keep the pen firm. The bag in his left hand is ridiculously light. He imagines it still feels warm, which in fact is not his imagination, but what does he know? This is what happens with a rush job when you have to use a freezer instead of the usual cooler.

  “You’re sure you don’t want an urn?” The young man is doing his job.

  “No.”

  “Well, that’ll be it, then. Thank you, Mr. Sullivan, and please accept our sympathy.”

  “Yes. Thank you. Could you call me a cab, please?”

  “Of course.”

  Donnie has never fainted in his life, but he thinks he may at any moment. Walking back through the waiting room he sees furnishings and people through a cloud. Outside, he sinks down gratefully on the sunlit steps again, puts his head between his knees, and closes his eyes. In a few minutes, feeling better, he opens them and is looking right into the plastic bag. In it is a small container, the kind you burp. It could be full of applesauce or a morning’s shell collection. It’s the most matter-of-fact object Donnie has ever seen. It’s not Artie. When the cab comes, Donnie picks the bag up easily and heads home.

  NINETEEN

  A White Dinner Jacket

  NAOMI CATES, MARIEL’S MOTHER, KNOWS THE DEVIL HAS BEEN buried up Logan Creek some forty-odd years. Tropical depressions and hurricanes have done their work; he’s coming apart. A whole leg bone, no longer connected to a thighbone, washed into the bay during Hurricane Frederick. But so did a lot of other bones. What’s one more?

  His white dinner jacket, now the color of red clay, is amazingly intact. If one looks carefully, the label on the left-hand side under the breast pocket is legible: Loveman, Joseph, and Loeb, Birmingham, Alabama.

  The creek is widening, becoming deeper. Another hurricane and the devil may be gone. Good riddance.

  Naomi Cates knows this; Donnie and Hektor Sullivan know this; Artie Sullivan knew this. Artie, Donnie, and Hektor buried the devil up Logan Creek. They have never known Naomi knew.

  TWENTY

  Naomi Cates and the Space-Time Continuum

  I REMEMBER NIGHTS I COULDN’T SLEEP BECAUSE THE BABY HAD gotten so big. I hated it when I got that pregnant. You can pull one leg up and sort of lie on your side and sometimes it works for a while and you sleep. But mostly you just lie there, dozing, listening to the sounds of birds rustling in the trees right outside the window, calling out sometimes in their sleep. And inside, the children doing the same, turning, mumbling. You’d think that hard as they play, they’d sleep like the dead, but they didn’t. Sometimes during the night, they’d begin to move, drifting like ghosts through the dark hot house. In the morning I might find Jacob asleep on the front porch and Mariel at the foot of our bed. Steve would be in Jacob’s place and Elizabeth in Mariel’s. “Fruit basket, turn over,” I’d say each morning when I’d open my eyes and see none of my children where they started out the night before. They didn’t remember moving, either. One morning we couldn’t find Harry and I thought, Oh, my Lord, he’s been kidnapped like the Lindbergh baby, which was a dumb thought since we didn’t have a dime a kidnapper would want. He could have wandered into the woods, though, and we were really scared for a while, hollering “Harry!” all around the house, even out at the chicken coop. And finally here he came, crawling out from under the girls’ bed, rubbing his eyes. Don’t ask me how he got out of his crib and under there.

  The only one I could depend on sleeping and not moving was Will. Soon as he thought the children were asleep, he said, “Naomi.” And I’d follow him into the bedroom and pull off my clothes and he’d get on top of me. Sometimes, if he’d had too much to drink, he’d go to sleep without doing anything. And I’d just push him off and cover him up. But sometimes he’d pump up and down for a long time saying “Oh, God. Oh, God” over and over until I was scared he was going to wake up the children and I’d reach down and pull the quilt up over our heads to muffle the sounds. It m
ade him sweat, I’ll say that. Then he’d say, “Jesus!” and it was over. He’d roll over and next thing I hear is a snore. I’d get up and put on my nightgown and tiptoe among the sleeping children out to the back porch where we keep a washpan.

  It’s funny, but it was one of my favorite times. After I bathed, I’d sit on the back steps and let the night air dry me. Summer nights I could hear the music from the Grand Hotel down the bay. I always told myself one night I’d walk down there and just watch the people dancing out in the pavilion on Julep Point. It’s not far, but I never have. Which doesn’t mean I won’t some night.

  But one night, just before Toy was born, even after I’d gone inside and gotten into bed beside Will, I could still hear the music. A full moon had come up and the tree frogs were humming. But suddenly they would all stop like they do, and there would be the music. Will snoring, children stirring, tree frogs, birds rustling, the baby inside me moving. And a mile away people dancing under a full moon.

  I lay there a long time; maybe I slept. Maybe the moon in my face was too bright. Whatever. All I know is that suddenly everything was still. Too still. I looked at the Big Ben on the nightstand. Twelve o’clock. We were caught between yesterday and today.

  And then I felt the baby kick, and Will sighed and turned in his sleep. The Big Ben gave a loud click. But I had the strangest feeling that I was still caught. There are times between, I thought. And if I had to explain what I meant to anybody, they would have thought I was crazy. But I knew I was right. There are spaces between breaths, when one year becomes another or one second another. Between the clock’s tick and the second’s hand. There are all these spaces, these times. Like when a person dies. There has to be time between being there and not being there.

  Well, it knocked me out of sleeping the rest of the night. All I did was lie there and think about spaces between things and what did it mean. At first light when I picked my way among my sleeping children and went out to the yard, I felt like I had learned something. I wasn’t sure what. All I knew was that while I waited for the sun to show first orange, I wriggled my toes in the sand and thought. Spaces. Spaces.

  And now Artie is gone, caught in the space between one breath and the other while I kept breathing, old woman breathing that hardly moved the sheets. I heard the shout of “Jubilee” and thought the touch on my cheek was a memory.

  Lord knows, there are enough memories. Live this long and they run out of your ears, disappear. And the ones still in your head you can’t trust.

  But I trust the memory of the beach that morning, me going to work late because I’d been up all night with sick children, seeing what Artie, Donnie, and Hektor saw lying in that tidal pool, and watching what they did. And I didn’t say a word. Never will.

  Why should I?

  I loved Thomas Sullivan. Simple as that. Many’s the day I’d time my walk home from the Grand Hotel and dawdle at the shell road until I saw his car coming. Then I’d hike my heels like I was in a hurry and he’d stop.

  “Come on, Naomi. I’ll give you a ride home.”

  And I’d slide in that car that smelled of Prince Albert tobacco and something lemony and be happy.

  It broke my heart to see the way Sarah treated him. And the way she treated those children and not a one of them being able to forgive themselves all these years.

  If Thomas had said, “Naomi, I’m going to keep driving,” I’d have said, “Fine,” and gone with him. Gone hightailing right on down the road with that good, sweet man and the smell of Prince Albert and lemons. But he didn’t.

  The strange thing, though, is how it’s not Thomas in my dreams but Will. He comes in the door with rabbits he’s shot or fish he’s caught and he smiles at me over the heads of our children. Him with all that dark curly hair.

  Well, it’s all dreams anyway. And dreams don’t make a grain of sense. And sometimes I don’t know if I’m beginning or ending. Or if any of us are. And that’s all right.

  Artie, it’s time for One Life to Live.

  Go with God.

  TWENTY-ONE

  Barbie Dolls

  WHEN DOLLY AWAKENS FROM HER NAP, HER HEADACHE HAS come back in full force, and her whole body is stiff. She rolls over and pulls the drapery back. The light on the water is like a blow. God, she thinks, I’m really sick. She groans and sits up. Her stomach heaves; she makes it to the bathroom just in time.

  “Dolly?” Her mother’s voice. “You okay in there?”

  Okay? Another spasm of retching grabs her. Her mother opens the door and comes in. She holds Dolly’s head like she did when Dolly was a child. “It’s all right,” she says. “It’s all right.” She wets a washrag and holds it against Dolly’s forehead, against her throat. The nausea begins to subside. Mariel leads Dolly back to the bed and folds the cloth against her forehead.

  “Wait here,” she says. “I’m going to take your temperature.”

  Dolly sinks back against the pillow. She is content to let her mother take over. She opens her mouth obediently when Mariel returns with the thermometer. She holds her mother’s hand. It’s cool and familiar.

  “Almost a hundred and one,” Mariel says. “I’m going to call Dave Horton.”

  Dolly doesn’t argue. She feels limp, drained. She hears her mother in the hall dialing, talking. Talking to Dave Horton’s office. Dave Horton who is a doctor now, who had helped Dolly cut up a pig in biology when they were in high school. She dozes, incorporating the hum of the air conditioner and the sound of her mother’s voice into a high school lab.

  “It’s simple,” Dave says. “The aorta is right here. See?”

  “They said to come in. They’ll work you in as soon as they can,” Mariel says. “Those shorts you have on are fine. Here, let me brush your hair.”

  “I’ll do it,” Dolly says. “I need to brush my teeth, too.”

  Under the fluorescent light in the bathroom, she looks terrible. She sees what she’ll look like as an old, old woman. The reflection waves, blurs. She closes her eyes and holds on to the sink. When the room quits revolving, she combs her hair and brushes her teeth. At this rate, they can put me in the casket, she thinks, and Father Carroll won’t be working for nothing.

  Her mother is sitting on the bed when she comes out. She looks worried. “Anything hurt you besides your head?” Mariel asks. “Your neck isn’t stiff or anything?”

  “No, Mama. Just my head.”

  “Well, maybe we won’t have to wait too long. Dave’s been here less than a year, but his practice is already growing by leaps and bounds. He took over Dr. Garret’s practice, you know. Looked after Artie the last few months after the specialists had done all they could do.” Mariel pushes some sandals toward Dolly who is wandering around the bed. “What are you doing?”

  “Looking for my purse.”

  “In the chair. You don’t need it, though.”

  “Insurance card.” Dolly is amazed at how willing she is to surrender totally to her mother’s care. She gets her billfold from her bag, slides her feet into her sandals, and they go down the stairs.

  “I’m taking Dolly to the doctor,” Mariel calls into the kitchen.

  Reese sticks his head around the door. “You sick, Dolly?”

  Dolly tries to smile. “If I’m lucky, Dave Horton won’t recognize me.”

  “Puke on him if he don’t.”

  “If Donnie calls, Reese, will you tell him to come on out here? We need to be at the funeral home by at least six.”

  “I’ll tell him. Wait a second.” He steps into the hall bathroom and hands Dolly a towel. “You might need this.”

  “Thanks.” Dolly holds his gnarled hand against her cheek for a moment.

  Reese watches the car pull away. How many times he had driven Artie down that same road to the doctor. He starts to go back into the house but changes his mind and goes to sit on the dune instead. He waves at a barge; a man standing on the deck waves back.

  The Harlow Medical Arts Building is a small brick building that houses
Harlow’s one dentist and one doctor. At one time Dr. Garret had delivered babies here and done minor surgery in a small operating room. Three rooms had been available for overnight stays. Insurance costs had put an end to that, though, and those rooms are now examining rooms or are used for storage.

  The waiting room, Dolly realizes, has not changed since she was a child and Artie had to bring her here frequently. She rubs the small scar over her eye, the result of tying a rope to a hammer and trying to throw it over the limb of a pecan tree. By the time she got to Artie, she had had a handful of blood, and Artie had almost fainted. “Don’t ask me how or why, but she hit herself in the head with a hammer,” Artie had told Dr. Garret, handing Dolly over to him. And he took her in and stitched her up and gave her a sucker. And the time she stuck a needle in her knee, the infected cut from a catfish fin, the minor fevers, bumps, scrapes. The patience Artie had had with her.

  There are only two other people in the waiting room, an old man and woman who seem to be together. Dolly sinks into a chair still holding her towel while Mariel takes her insurance card and goes to sign her in.

  I want to have children, Dolly realizes. Bring them in here for their shots, have their height measured on the Mickey Mouse wall chart, hold them against me. She looks at her mother filling out the form. Mariel has put on her glasses and is holding the insurance card away from her, trying to make out the numbers.

  “Just a few minutes,” Mariel says, coming to sit by Dolly. Dolly reaches over and takes her hand.

  Mariel wants to say, “I love you, Dolly.” She wants to say, “I’m sorry for everything,” but she doesn’t know exactly what she’s sorry for. Mariel wants to apologize to her grown child for something, a whole sea of vague failures. Instead she holds Dolly’s hand, feeling how hot it is, and worries. She feels a pulse beating. She doesn’t know if it’s hers or Dolly’s.

  “Dolly?” A woman in a nurse’s uniform is standing over them. “Billie Joiner. We used to live down from your Aunt Artie.”