Cion (40 page)

“It was avenged,” I say. “Why can’t it sleep in peace like all decent ghosts that have been avenged?”

Darth Vader and Young Anakin walk me to the RV, which is parked on the parking lot of a closed down supermarket on Stimson Avenue. I realize that I do not have the keys. They are with Orpah, wherever she is. Young Anakin says they will keep me company until Orpah arrives.

“If she’ll arrive at all,” says a skeptical Darth Vader.

“She will arrive,” I say confidently. “But you don’t have to keep me company out here. I insist you go your way. Go back to the parade of creatures and have a good time, kids. I’ll be all right here.”

They laugh at my characterization of their Halloween block party as a parade of creatures.

“I’ll come check in the morning,” Darth Vader offers. “If Orpah’s gone back home I’ll help you drive the darn thing back to Kilvert.”

As they leave I call after Darth Vader: “Ruth tells me you’ve given up on your dream for a casino!”

“I don’t need no casino,” he calls back. “I’ve got Beth now. And I’ve got the church too.”

My wait is only an hour, although it seems like half the night because of anxiety and the chill. Orpah arrives and says she was looking for me all over the place. We can’t drive at this hour. I agree. We need some sleep. I take off my cape and top hat. We get under the Irish Wheel, fully clothed. She is a nun today. She is divine. And this makes her more appetizing. But I long ago learned the art of self-control and self-denial. No carnal pleasures tonight.

Her teardrops make her face look like that of a clown. I burst out laughing.

“What’re you laughing at?” she asks.

“Your tears are beautiful,” I say.

“Your tears are beautiful too,” she says.

We cuddle into each other’s arms and sleep. I pray that no one comes in the night and tows the RV away since I suspect it is illegally parked. My thoughts float back to Kilvert; to Ruth and Mahlon.

By the end of October Mahlon’s garden of gnomes had become smaller. Half of it was taken by flowers. Mahlon was becoming a flower man again. He just woke up one day and decided to plant something Ruth called “live-forever.” It would dry with the winter chill in a few weeks’ time, but would come back to life in spring. It would repeat that cycle over and over again till, according to Ruth, the end of time.

I saw this garden when I went looking for Orpah after I had not seen her for days since the Katrina concert. And when I went again the next day to plead with her.

“She’s come to her senses,” said Ruth as she fussed over Mahlon’s flowers.

Instead of talking about Orpah and what she meant exactly by her coming to her senses she was more excited about the flowers. They were daffodils, she said. Besides the bushes of roses. Her Mr. Quigley secretly planted the bulbs a month before, which was a wise time because daffodils liked to establish their roots before the ground froze. They needed the cold weather to form flower buds. I would see them in full bloom early in spring, perhaps in March, because as far as she knew I would still be here at that time since Orpah was not going anywhere.

“I want to hear that from her,” I said to Ruth.

But she would not see me. I decided at that time that she was a lost cause. I would stop chasing after her, pack my things and leave Kilvert once and for all. I would leave her the RV because it was useless to me without her.

The next time I went to Ruth’s the garden was still thriving, despite the drought that was devastating southeast Ohio. The summer had been dry and farmers were fearful that in winter their animals would have no feed. Some had started to use winter feed as early as August. The county was declared a disaster area by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, although the drought conditions were rather spotty. The bottom of the hills had some water while the hills were dry.

It did not seem like the drought was having any effect on Mahlon’s garden. It was getting greener by the day. Ruth’s garden of Swiss chard, parsley and cabbages was luxuriant too.

On the driveway Mahlon was feeding a cow with his hand. Orpah was holding a basin of cow feed. She was sobbing in convulsions. None of them paid any attention to me. I could see though that Mahlon was trying to comfort Orpah. I could hear something along the lines of “don’t worry, little girl, everything will be all right.” I decided not to stop.

There were changes at the porch as well. Ferns were hanging among the wind chimes. There was fuchsia hanging in a basket.

In the living room Ruth was at her workstation cutting some fabric with the rotary cutter. She did not try to hide it this time. Asian beetles were giving her a hard time though. It was the season once more. I remembered how I helped her stamp them out a year ago. Now they were getting into her coffee, and some had died in the mug while she was still enjoying her drink. Others were biting her arms since she was in a short-sleeved blouse. One was impertinent enough to fly into her cleavage, obviously attracted by warmth. She just froze there since she could not take it out in my presence.

She was all smiles, despite the pests. Her eyes were bloodshot.

“Something very bad has happened in my life,” she said softly. “But I don’t wanna talk about it. God says we forgive and forget. It’s hard to forget though.”

At this the smile disappeared and tears ran down her cheeks.

“What is it, Ruth? What happened?”

“I don’t wanna talk about it,” she said. And then forced a smile on her face again.

Instead she wanted to talk about her new fuchsia. Did I see it? It was going to bloom for the whole summer, she boasted. And did I see Mr. Quigley’s cow? Wasn’t it wonderful that Mr. Quigley was going back to keeping animals? The farmers on the hills were forced to sell some of their cattle cheaply because the pastures were parched. Mr. Quigley raised some money to buy himself a cow. The farmer was kind enough to accept a deposit. Mr. Quigley would pay the balance later. And did I know where the money for the deposit came from? From Obed. Her own Obed who had become a man at last.

“I want you to get me a book on Bible quilts,” she said. “I wanna learn me how to make them Bible quilts.”

Orpah entered and sat on one of the car seats. She was sniffling.

Ruth explained that with Bible quilts you appliqué figures from Bible stories on the quilt. She had already cut some of these figures. She pointed at one which she referred to as Moses and showed me on a quilt where the Red Sea would run and where the Moses figure would see a burning bush. With a rotary cutter, she said, she could cut human figures that were as accurate as if they walked out of the Bible itself. I observed that it was wonderful that she had now learned that she could preserve the ongoing tradition while expressing her own ideas.

“Ruth, I have come to say goodbye,” I said. “I am leaving tomorrow morning.”

“How you gonna drive that ugly thing of yours?” she asked.

“I’m coming too,” said Orpah, jumping up and charging to the workstation. “I’m leaving too, Ruth.”

“No, you’re not,” I said firmly.

“Oh yeah, she must go,” said Ruth. “She caused enough trouble already.”

Orpah burst out bawling.

Between Orpah’s snivels and Ruth’s fulminations I learned that Ruth was on a mission to spring-clean and kill the Asian bugs when she came across Orpah’s new drawings in her room. Old habits die hard. She regretted it after she had already ripped them in two. She had not seen Orpah’s drawings for many months and would not have destroyed them if she’d thought about it first.

When Orpah found her precious work in pieces like that she ran out wailing as if someone was dead. At the clothesline she found one of the pre–Civil War quilts—yes, the one with the first Quigley’s image, Lord have mercy on him—and she ripped it with her bare hands. The material had almost pulverized and was going to fall apart on its own in any case, Orpah cried in her defense.

Recounting these events brought more tears to both of them. I was caught in the middle of a storm. I embraced Ruth with my left arm and Orpah with my right. I let them cry as much as they wanted, holding them very close to me.

I could not leave the next day. Not when things were like this. Instead I went to the Center for a dose of sanity. I helped the women package food for distribution. The drought did not help the hunger situation in the Appalachians. Food pantries and soup kitchens were busier than usual. Some soup kitchens in the county were closing down because they could not raise enough donations for food. Yet despite the decrease in donations, lines were becoming longer at soup kitchens. Families in places like Chauncey were uncertain where the next meal would come from. It was the same in Kilvert. Children were suffering from poverty-induced obesity.

“You can’t close your eyes when your neighbor is living in poverty,” said Irene.

“It is the American way to help,” said Barbara.

“It ain’t just the drought,” said another volunteer. “It’s always like this. It’s the story of our lives. We’ve been hungry for generations. From the time the mines closed.”

In other ways the droughts had made things better. It left a lot of the crops unmarketable and therefore the gleaners got more than in previous years. They got enough tomatoes, for instance, to make enough bottles of the fire-roasted pasta sauce that the food pantry at the Center was able to give each family at least one bottle.

Orpah came to the RV two days later and said that she really wanted to go with me.

“Oh, no,” I said. “I don’t want to be let down again, Orpah. You use me like a tissue. When your tears are dry you will discard me like before.”

She was not running away from anything this time, she said. She had made peace with her mother and both her parents had come to terms with her leaving. Not that she needed their blessings. She was going to leave with me even if they objected. As it was they were giving their blessings reluctantly. But that did not matter to her, because she was her own person. This last one surprised me some because all this time I didn’t know she saw herself as her own person.

The good news that had made Ruth happy was the discovery of Abednego’s quilt—which, for those who knew the story, was really Nicodemus’s sampler—used as batting in the quilt Orpah tore. A professor at Ohio University had evaluated it. He said if it was auctioned at Christie’s or some such place it would fetch not less than $12,000. It might even fetch ten times more. It would take the family out of poverty. But Ruth was adamant that she would not sell it. When Obed heard of her stubbornness he said his mama got fulfillment from poverty. She got solace from the Bible, which promised the last would be first and the meek would inherit the earth. But to Ruth the fact that the quilt was made by the Abyssinian Queen—for if indeed it was Abednego’s or Nicodemus’s it must have been made by her—was more important than any money in the world.

I could not resist Orpah. She knew I would not say no forever.

A few days later we parked our RV on Ruth’s driveway and Orpah packed her stuff in it. Thankfully she didn’t bring any of the larger than life cut-outs. She said Marilyn Monroe was going to look after her room while she was gone.

Obed was here to wish us well too. Beth Eddy couldn’t come because she was at work. Obed came in her car, which he also used to deliver pizza to earn his keep.

Ruth and Mahlon were sitting together on the swing and it was swaying gently.

“Don’t worry too much for Orpah, Mama,” said Obed, as Ruth sniffled. “She’s gonna come back. Our people always come back. It’s the pull of the ancestors.”

Ruth said she knew that her daughter would come back even if she were to go as far as Africa. At least she took comfort in the fact that Obed would return to take over the church in Kilvert when he finished his Bible studies and was ordained. Obed said he already belonged to a church, but not the one in Kilvert. He and Beth Eddy had joined the Church of the Healing Path, which taught its members how to experience shamanistic journeys and how to access the circle of ancestors for personal healing.

“What mumbo-jumbo is this?” asked Ruth. “And you had to choose a time like this to tell me?”

“It ain’t no mumbo-jumbo, Mama,” said Obed. “It’s serious stuff. We’ll invite you to our church one day. Me and Beth. It’s got plenty members. Very nice folks.”

“I ain’t going to no shaman church,” said Ruth vehemently. “What’d Pat Robertson say?”

We didn’t want any explosive situation so early in the morning to delay our departure. Orpah went to the swing and hugged both parents.

“I’ll come back, Daddy,” she said. “We gonna do them memories again.”

“It don’t matter, child,” said Mahlon. “You take your time. Memories are always there. They don’t go nowhere.”

“We ain’t no rootless people,” said Ruth. “It matters to us where we are buried. You know where you gonna be buried? Our people know where they gonna be buried. Here in Kilvert.”

“Barn owls driving spotted owls out of the forest,” said Mahlon softly, in a rhythm that told me he was reciting words learned by heart, “stealing their homes and their tongues, reducing them to a deathly silence.”

We all looked at him for some time, trying to understand what he was talking about. After a few beats we gave up and I reached for Ruth’s hand and shook it while giving her a peck on the cheek. I also shook Mahlon’s hand. After giving me a firm grip he held his hands up and looked at me sternly.