The Stories We Tell (9 page)

Platitudes. I hate platitudes. They were everywhere in my childhood: small statements made to ease the uneasiness, make certain the uncertainty in an unpredictable world. Clichés, placebos: “All things work together for the good.” “Patience is a virtue.” “Love is all you need.” “God is enough.”

“A dingle,” I say.

“What?” Max looks up.

“That's what Willa and I call those bullshit statements like ‘These things take time.'”

He laughs beautifully. “Tell me about this.”

It's such a Max thing to say, and I forge ahead. “Well, Willa and I had a name for platitudes, because, of course, as children we didn't know the word
platitude.
We called them ‘dingles.' We still do.”

“Go on,” he says.

“It happened one Saturday afternoon on a youth group camping trip. The boys were being crude, talking about taking dumps in the woods and how girls wouldn't do it because dingles would get stuck on their butts unless they wiped with leaves, which we were all too prissy to do.

“Poor Willa was the girl who innocently asked, ‘Exactly what is a dingle?' The boys laughed, and she was crazy-red-faced embarrased. Then they told her, ‘It's the little leftover poop that sticks to your butt.'”

Max and Francie burst out laughing and Francie tosses a wad of paper across the table at me. “No way. God, I can see Willa as red as blood at that answer.”

“She was,” I say. “That night when we got home, hiding again under the bed, Willa was wallowing in the shame. I told her to forget it because the boys were crude and disgusting and had no idea what they were saying. ‘They'll forget about it by tomorrow,' I told her. ‘And if they tease you again, you tell them that they're a dingle.' Then—just like my mother would have said—I said, ‘This too will pass.' And Willa's perfect answer was, ‘Now that's a dingle.' And the name was reborn.”

“Okay, you're right,” Max says. “Those platitudes are dingles. It's just what you say when you don't know what to say.”

“Exactly. So I guess sometimes nothing is better than dingles.”

“True.” Max touched my hand, and quietly we all returned to our work.

Halfway through the hour, Francie asks, “Did you ever think about making Number Four A ‘Search for the Truth' instead of ‘Search for the True'?”

I shake my head. “Nope. We wanted it to be for everything that is true, not just one truth.”

“How apropos,” Max says.

“You and your highfalutin Latin words.” Francie grins at him.

“Actually, I think it's French,” he says.

“Maybe if you spent less time with your printing presses and books, and more time out chasing girls, you'd talk normal.” Francie ducks as he pretends to throw a pencil at her.

“You can use the word in one of your songs and then you can thank me later.”

Across the room, Francie's cell rings with the sound of cowbells. “Be right back.”

Max stands. “I need to pick up a quoin key from Cameron. I'll be back in a few.”

“I'm headed to the hospital,” I tell him. “I'll stop on my way and get it for you.”

“Really? That'd be great.”

I walk back to my work space and Max follows me, points to an invitation tacked to my bulletin board. “Don't forget about the party this weekend.”

I groan and drop my hand on top of my head. “Shit, I totally forgot.”

I take the invitation from the board and read it again.

Eve and Cooper Morrison

& Mayor Stanton

Invite You to Celebrate

Savannah's Philanthropist of the Year

Averitt Cooper Morrison IV

Benefiting

HOME RUN

Music, Small Bites and Libations

This is followed by the date and time.

Max takes it from me. “‘Small bites and libations.'” He doesn't even try to hide his laughter.

“Shush,” I say. “I know this is not your kind of party.”

“You should probably cancel, Eve. You can't have a hundred people at your house in a couple days.”

“I can't cancel,” I say. “It's too late. The quartet. The caterer. God, what a mess.”

“The quartet. I could definitely jam with them. Maybe Francie could join them.”

I scrunch up my nose and shoot him a sideways glance.

“Sorry,” he says. “I couldn't resist. Seriously, though—can I do anything?”

“Come to it?” I ask.

He shakes his head. “Anything else?”

I grab the invite from him. “Thanks for reminding me. I've got to make some calls and then…” My voice trails off and I drop the paper on my desk.

“I'm sorry, Eve.”

“It's just life,” I say. “It gets so tospy-turvy, so wiggly and squiggly and…”

“I know.”

“That's what Gwen says when I say ‘I love you.'”

He gives me a smile, but I can feel its sadness under my ribs like a heavy weight.

“Don't look at me that way,” I say.

“What way?”

“Like you feel sorry for me.”

“Eve…” He touches my cheek but quickly pulls his hand away. “I never feel sorry for you. I just wish there was something I could do for you.”

I turn away because I feel the need to bury my head in his shoulder, to wrap myself around this man and let him hold me until everything is gone—all the problems, all the pain, all the unknowing. Instead, I wave my hand over my shoulder. “Go to work.”

I open a file for my meeting with a caterer later in the week. She's sent some of her recipes and menus so we can get a sense of her style. Outside the studio, the wind picks up and rattles the barn door against the track. Thunder echoes far away and my phone buzzes. It's Savannah Memorial, and Willa is asking for me.

I put the caterer's folder aside and stand. “I'm going to see Willa,” I announce, and my voice cracks.

“Oh.” Francie spins around in her chair. “Want me to go with you?”

“No,” I say. “I got this.”

*   *   *

Willa's room is crowded with the paraphernalia of hospitalization: balloons, cards, and flowers. There's a tray with uneaten food—a yellow mess that must have been scrambled eggs hours earlier, and an unpeeled orange. Her bed is cluttered with blankets, as if Willa kept asking for more and the hospital staff just heaped them on one after the other. Her guitar is propped against the bed rails. Willa sits, but her eyes are closed. The TV is on with a
Friday Nights Light
rerun, where Coach Taylor is hollering at a hungover Tim Riggins.

I stare at her and then touch her shoulder. Her eyes are open, green and clouded with sleep. She smiles. “Hey, sis,” she says. Her gaze is slow and lazy, wandering up. “Damn, how does a girl sleep through Tim Riggins?”

“Codeine, most likely,” I say. “Can't really see any other way to ignore him.”

She laughs, and the sound, though weak, is lovely, like one of her softer songs. I sit on the chair next to her bed and move the guitar over. “Who brought this?”

“Benson dropped it by,” she says, rearranging her body on the bed, twisting her head to one side to look at me.

“You planning on entertaining the troops in Savannah Memorial?” I ask.

“Yep. Me and Bob Hope.”

“For sure you were hit on the head. This is 2014. I'm sorry to tell you that Bob Hope is dead.”

She smiles, but no laughter. “No, Benson brought it because he said I'd left it that night.” Willa exhales. “I've been trying so hard to remember, Eve—everything—but I can't. My mind is empty, like nothing happened between Wednesday morning and Friday morning. I can't find anything.”

“Anything? Getting dressed that night? Being at the bar?”

She shakes her head and closes her eyes tightly. “Benson said he asked everyone at the bar if they saw me leave or get upset or anything. One bartender said it was my turn to sing, but I walked toward a corner booth. Then I was gone.”

This was Cooper's story, minus the drunk wobbling.

“But Margot said I hadn't had a single drink. She'd know.”

“Who's Margot?”

“The bartender.”

“Well, we already know you didn't. Your blood was clear.”

Willa stares at me for such a long while that I think she's lost her train of thought, wandering off into some other land. The neuro practitioner has warned me of possible TBI symptoms—agitation, combativeness, slurred speech, loss of coordination, and, worst of all, convulsions. I watch her so closely. Is she combative? Is her speech sloppy? I'm alert and on edge, as if I'm the one with side effects from the accident.

Then she speaks. “I do remember something, though.”

“What?” I ask, moving closer with anxious curiosity.

“I thought I'd died,” she says simply.

“What?”

“That's all I remember.”

“Tell me.”

She speaks in the quietest whisper, so I lean in to hear her. “I thought the streets would be gold, but they weren't; they were made of South Carolina mud, thick and wet, no different from the path to the river, really. I was lighter, though, and I could fly. That was the best part—when I realized I could fly. I wasn't sure who I wanted to see first: Mom, Dad, Granddad, or old Uncle Mike and his snake tattoo. But I didn't see anyone and I was alone and I didn't mind it so much at all.

“The river was bluer and bubblier. The fish, God, the fish were huge. I looked for Jesus. He should have been there, in his white robes. But then the sky broke open with these blazing red patches. The sky was something solid and it broke into pieces. Blue scabs fell away and the red part stayed, and it was too bright to look at. I closed my eyes, but even then, even with my eyes shut tighter and tighter, it hurt. And the whole time I was flying, and because I was dead, there was nothing that could kill me, so I flew higher and higher … and … higher.” Willa closes her eyes, as if the telling is too much. “That's all I remember.”

I sit, stunned for a moment, as if I have entered her dream and am soaring with her, higher, lighter. I'm inside the red sky, flying. These rushing words—this is how she sings and how her lyrics sound, but not how she normally speaks, so poetic.

“Oh, Willa,” I say. “You told that so beautifully. Your words are not mixed up.”

“Don't tell anyone about it, because they'll think I'm crazy. The scary part is that my trip to this heaven was more real than the night of the accident. It's like this memory took the place of what
really
happened.”

“Things will be mixed up for a while. That's what the doctor told us.”

“This is way past mixed up.…”

Just then, the door opens. It's Gwen with the leftover Chinese food. “I brought gifts,” she says.

“Real food,” Willa exclaims. “Thank God.”

“No,” Gwen said. “Thank Gwen.”

As they dig into the food, Gwen tells Willa about a girl who tried to kiss Dylan at a party. I excuse myself and wander to the cafeteria, feeling left out, as if I'm intruding on a private interlude.

Sitting at a table alone in the far corner of the cafeteria, I hold a lukewarm cup of coffee and wonder about the accident, about my sister and my husband, about the tree and the car and how they came together in a mangled mess. Sometimes I just get it all wrong—what I think, what I believe. Confusion is twisted metal, convoluted in my mind.

“Eve.”

I look up when I hear Max's voice and feel a warm spread. “Hey.”

His hands are shoved into his jean's pockets and he looks down at me. He pulls out a plastic chair with a screech across the linoleum floor. “I went to see Willa, but Gwen's in there and I felt like I was intruding. They told me you were here.” He sits.

“I'm glad you found me.”

“So what are the docs saying?”

“She'll probably go home tomorrow. Physically, there's nothing wrong with her. It's all in her head.”

“You mean like she's making it up?”

“No, like her injury is inside her head, her brain. It's all this terrible wait and see game.”

“Wait and see?”

“How the concussion or brain swelling will affect her. It might be nothing. It might be everything.”

“Big difference between everything and nothing.”

“I know, I know.” I rub at my eyes. “So, how was the studio this afternoon? On the way here, I stopped at Cam's to pick up that part for you. He's ordering it.”

“Thanks, and yes, all was fine at the studio. I have set up an appointment for you to meet with a new client. She's an accountant who asked specifically for you. She wouldn't meet with anyone but you. Mary Jo something or other. She wants a new logo, posters, and business cards. I can change it if you need time.”

“No, that's fine,” I say.

“I know this is bad,” he says, and waves his hand upward. “I want to do what I can to help.”

I rotate the Styrofoam cup in my hand, watching the coffee swish around the insides.

“Her head was hit and hit hard. The whole story, it's so confusing—all of it. I want to make sense of everything and I can't make sense of one thing.”

My palm is splayed open on the table and Max places his hand in mine. A wave of warm shame washes over me: I'm confiding in Max about Cooper and Willa, and surely this is a betrayal of some kind. But here he is, in the hospital cafeteria, with his kind eyes and his wrinkled shirt and his soft voice. Cooper is out with coworkers. Willa is in a hospital bed with dreams of heaven. Gwen is laughing with my sister about Dylan. And here I am, alone in the hospital cafeteria with cold coffee and Max.

“I need to go home.” I stand.

He stands with me, smiles sadly. “Hey, let's go get something decent to eat. I'll treat. Come on.”