13
It was the last day of April, a Friday, almost a week since I’d fished with Bobby Lee. I hadn’t seen him since, but we’d talked on the phone several times, and he was a wonderful conversationalist. I was tons more open with him than I’d been with Holt, but still very careful not to mention the dilemma with my career. The CMA Festival was almost upon us, and I kept telling myself that once that long weekend had come and gone, I would do as I darn well pleased. I had enough to live a very comfortable existence if I never sang for money again. What good was being in the Country Music Association’s Hall of Fame if you were miserable?
Looking out the window, I could see the day was beautiful, but I felt nauseated, dreading the interview/photo shoot Mike had scheduled for the afternoon. I didn’t want to paste on another smile, or answer one more question about “Daddy, Don’t Come Home.”
At a quarter ’til nine I heard the beep and hit the button to let Tonilynn’s Pontiac through the gate. She breezed in the door pulling her big beauty suitcase and holding what I thought was a bowling ball. She leaned in to give me a hug. “Morning, hon!”
“Morning.” I sniffed what I thought to be her new musky perfume. “You smell good.”
“That’s not me.” She sounded exasperated. “It’s this cantaloupe Aunt Gomer insisted on sending. Pitched a fit to get out in the garden this morning while it was still dark as Egypt and pick the very first one of the year for you. I don’t even think they’re all-the-way ripe yet.”
“That was sweet.”
Tonilynn sighed and sat down heavily on a stool at the counter, beckoning me to sit in my usual chair for her to work her makeup magic. “Yeah, sweet, I reckon, but she’s driving me crazy with all her craziness. The hard thing is how unpredictable she can be. She’ll be just fine for days, I mean, like you’d never know she had the old-timer’s, but then all of a sudden she’ll take a notion about a certain thing and there’s no way you can tell her any different.”
“Oh, that’s not good,” I said, but my mind was on the fragrant cantaloupe, and my mouth was watering. I loved cantaloupe. It was my favorite of all the melons, delicious sprinkled with black pepper. I smiled over at that netted golden globe on the table, one side with this bleached-out looking oval patch on it like the sun had kissed it with hot lips. I have people who love me, I thought, I have people who care about me and send me things.
“Hey, what was Mike going on about so much last week when we were in the studio?” Tonilynn steadied the heel of one hand with the fingers of her other hand to stroke on my eyeliner.
“Ah, nothing,” I said, hoping she’d let the subject go.
“Come on. Tell Tonilynn.”
I knew she wouldn’t hush until I told her. “He said I might, might be getting an invitation to be inducted into the Country Music Association’s Hall of Fame.”
“Get out!” Tonilynn’s jaw dropped. She started bouncing around on her tiptoes, laughing and waving the mascara wand like a sparkler. Then she hugged me. “That’s awesome, girl! What more could you want?”
That question went around and around in my head as I stared at the cantaloupe and listened to myself breathing.
Tonilynn looked into my face. “You all right?”
I shook my head. “What I want. What I want is something a lot of people get for no reason at all. Just by luck. I want it more than anything in this world! But I can’t get it by being in the Hall of Fame, Tonilynn. I can’t get it by singing, by making tons of money. It’s not something you can buy or earn. And people who have it don’t know how priceless it is.”
Tonilynn laughed, high and breathless. “You’re full of riddles. What is it?”
“Why? I can’t ever have it.”
“Yes, you can! I’ll help you get it.”
“I’D GLADLY TRADE BEING IN THE HALL OF FAME FOR A HAPPY CHILDHOOD!”
Tonilynn flinched, then closed her eyes, lifted her face, her mouth moving silently for several long minutes as I sat waiting. Finally she looked at me. “It’s never too late to have a happy childhood, Jennifer. However . . .” she paused dramatically, “the second one is up to you. I just did what you call an intercessory prayer, and again, the Lord told me you just need to grab his hand and go with him back there to your childhood to pull all that painful stuff up and deal with it.”
“You’ve got to be kidding.”
“Nope. Just ask Jesus to give you the strength.”
I sat there in shock, and then I surprised myself. “Stop cramming all this Jesus-is-going-to-fix-everything crap down my throat! If he’s so all-fired up to make me happy, maybe he should’ve thought about it earlier and given me a different father!”
When Tonilynn had been quiet too long, I swallowed hard and said, “I’m sorry. I just can’t stand to hear you talking about letting God do this or that anymore. About how good God is.”
She didn’t respond right away. She clamped her top teeth on her bottom lip, worked on my eyebrows a bit until suddenly, she jerked bolt upright, put her hands on her hips and shouted, “I rebuke you, Satan, in the name of Jesus Christ, by the power of his blood! I command you to get behind us. Leave us alone! You know you’ve been overcome by the blood of the Lamb, so git! Go to hell, where you belong!”
Tonilynn’s wide-open brown eyes below sparkly blue brow bones would be branded in my memory for years. I didn’t realize I’d been holding my breath until l felt her warm hand on my shoulder. “Listen, hon, I know it isn’t easy for you to trust a Heavenly Father. But you need to realize, he’s not like your earthly one. Speaking of your earthly one, staying mad with him will only eat you alive. It’s poison.” Tonilynn plugged in a straightening iron. “You’ve got to make peace with your past so it won’t screw up your present. And you can’t do it alone. God’ll give you supernatural strength to forgive your father if you just ask.”
I wasn’t sure Tonilynn and I were occupying the same realm. “Even if I did ever manage to let certain stuff surface, Tonilynn, to say I forgave him would be like saying it didn’t matter! But it did matter! Does matter! He hurt me, and I’ll never forgive him for how he ruined my life!”
“Oh, Jennifer, Jennifer. Forgiveness is such a powerful weapon. Inside and out.” Tonilynn took a sip of her Diet Coke. “You need to get shed of your bitterness. Start by opening up to Tonilynn and spilling your baggage. Always does me a world of good to talk things out with another human I trust, as well as the Lord. You’re safe with me, hon. Start with something small. I’m all ears.” She laced her fingers together and waited.
I closed my eyes to block her out. If I opened up to Tonilynn about even something small, that other memory, that insidious thing I felt nipping at my heels might surface. And I definitely could not risk that, even though I knew somehow that that piece of my baggage was the very reason I couldn’t break through to intimacy that would let me love Bobby Lee.
Tonilynn spritzed a sweet-smelling mist onto my hair and began running a straightener from crown to ends. “So,” she said, “remember me talking about that word cathartic a while back? How music has the power to heal? Remember that?”
I concentrated on not answering.
“Anyhow,” she continued, “I was listening to this show on the radio a few days ago about Carly Simon, and I still can’t get over how much power music has in it. It is simply miraculous when it comes to healing.”
I sighed.
“I did not use the G word, now, did I?”
“No.”
“So anyway, Carly developed this awful stammer when she was just a little bitty girl. She had the hardest time saying anything. It was painful. Hurt her so bad when the teacher at school would ask questions and she knew the answer but couldn’t say a word because she was afraid of her face squinching up and her words sounding funny. Imagine being a six-year-old who stutters, and how mean kids can be at that age. Anyway, finally Carly’s brilliant mother told her to tap out a beat on her leg and sing what she wanted to say to the beat. Her mama taught her to speak-sing with rhythm, and the only time Carly’s stammer went away was when she was singing.
“The entire family started singing everything around the house. You know, stuff like ‘Come eat supper,’ or ‘See you this afternoon.’ ” Tonilynn put a hand on my shoulder. “Isn’t that amazing? Don’t you just love Carly’s songs? ‘You’re So Vain’ and ‘Anticipation’? She’s recorded over thirty albums, won two Grammies, influenced a whole generation of women.”
Tonilynn waited. But I had no words.
“Well, it just proves that life may have been really traumatic for Carly when she was little, but it turned out to be a blessing in disguise. Turned out music was cathartic. I just love that word!” Tonilynn pointed at me with her straightener. “You know what? Music therapy is Carly Simon’s special cause now because of the powerful way singing helped her work through her disability. She’s helping others by being a spokesperson for stuttering awareness.”
I shrugged. Certainly it was painful, and I wasn’t downplaying Carly’s affliction, but I would give anything had my cross to bear been something physical like stuttering.
I knew what I needed for my hurts, and I was counting down the minutes until my weekly trip to the riverbank in the morning.
After the photo shoot, Tonilynn asked if I wanted to grab a cheeseburger and a Coke at McDonald’s. We ordered at the drive-through, then sat in the Pontiac to eat and talk. The sky was overcast and gloomy, but I was feeling a huge sense of relief to be done with the interview and photo shoot. We laughed about all the young couples hanging out in the parking lot, hands in the back pockets of each other’s jeans, their faces turned toward each other with rapturous expressions.
“Love is blind.” Tonilynn’s eyes lingered on one happy couple.
“Yeah.” I knew just what she meant. I didn’t associate Bobby Lee with a disability, even when I was standing right beside him. His wheelchair was invisible to me. I loved his sense of humor, his kindness, his compassionate brown eyes. I hadn’t accepted any of his continual requests for dinner and a movie, nor had I mentioned to Tonilynn that he and I talked on the phone so often. I looked sideways at Tonilynn, her confection of hair and spidery lashes, wondering how it would be to have a mother-in-law who was also my beautician and best friend. I loved her like a mother. It could work. I felt giddy inside for one brief instant, before acknowledging I wasn’t capable of intimacy with any man.
I ended up asking Tonilynn if she wanted to take a ride to downtown Nashville, to Division Street. Something in me craved to see the Best Western, reminisce about those days when I’d just arrived in Music City, maybe talk about dear Roy Durden some.
“You want to go cruising, girl?” Tonilynn turned to me with a mischievous grin.
I nodded, smiled, thinking, Isn’t forty-eight a little old for cruising? Then, just as quickly, It’s not like twenty-eight is that young either, particularly for a girl’s first time.
All of a sudden, we were pulling out onto Old Hickory, and before I could hardly think, merging onto I-65 North, zipping along with the radio blaring as Tonilynn wove in and out of traffic while singing to Dwight Yoakam’s “Guitars, Cadillacs” in a very loud, off-key voice. Seemed lots of other folks had the very same idea for their Friday night, headlights and taillights glowed in a cheery line all along the interstate. “Man, I sure hope we wake up tomorrow to clear skies,” Tonilynn said, taking a swallow of her Diet Coke.
“Me too.” I was hoping with all my might against the weather forecaster’s words. I knew April was all about rain, but tomorrow was May first, and I needed my infusion of peace at the Cumberland. It wasn’t fair for it to rain on a Saturday!
We took the exit for Demonbreun, turned left, then circled the Musica statue in the roundabout at the top of the hill. “Here we are, hon,” Tonilynn said in an excited voice as we turned onto Division Street. I saw the familiar gold letters and the red crown that formed the Best Western logo, and I got that warm glow inside when something’s deeply familiar in a good way. We slowed to ‘cruise speed’ and I soaked it in, picturing Roy behind the counter, dancing in his seersucker suit, the joyous anticipation of a gourmet feast on its way to him.
“Little bit smaller than Harmony Hill, hm?” Tonilynn teased.
“Yeah.” I laughed, and feeling a rush of boldness, I said, “One day you ought to bring Aunt Gomer and Bobby Lee to Harmony Hill for a visit.”
“It’d be like the Beverly Hillbillies!” Tonilynn laughed. “That reminds me, Bobby Lee said the fishing trip he took with you was wonderful.”
“We didn’t catch anything.”
“Don’t gotta catch nothing to have fun, now do you?” she said in a singsong way, and I wondered if Bobby Lee had revealed any intentions to her. But I didn’t want to ask, for fear he hadn’t, and I didn’t want to ruin the mood.
We made a U-turn and drove over to Broadway, watching people streaming by in happy groups on the sidewalks, admiring the lights of nightclubs and restaurants. Being in the thick of the glittering city after sunset made excitement bubble in my bones like ginger ale. I thought how nice it was to be in the heart of Music City, where the beautiful Cumberland wove her way through the earth like a thread. I smiled, thinking of my trip to see her tomorrow.
I was in a truly blissful place mentally, until all of a sudden something sucked the breath right out of me. I hadn’t been paying close attention, and Tonilynn had wound her way back over to Demonbreun where some neon words on the storefront of the Déjà Vu branded themselves on my retinas. Showgirls! Full nude dancers!
I’d been by the club a hundred times, walking from the Best Western to the Cumberland or getting off the interstate to head for Music Row, but generally, I averted my eyes quickly, keeping old memories locked up safe. Occasionally, I’d feel sorry for the girls inside, nothing more. Now . . . maybe I’d been away too long . . . maybe I’d been too open, thinking about possibilities with Bobby Lee, or maybe, as Tonilynn so often said, “It’s all in the timing.”
I’ll never know why, but in that moment, the neon glare hit me as it never had in all my years in Nashville. Chills raced up my spine, shame radiated out from my center, a nerve-racking clench of fear prevented me from swallowing, and my heart pounded like a jackhammer as a skeleton from my closet began clawing it’s way up out of that red Georgia clay, its bony finger twanging a string I never wanted played.
I didn’t even have to close my eyes and I saw that scene—a little story playing out all those years ago in that falling-down house in Blue Ridge. What startled me most, as I am generally an auditory rememberer, was that it was so colorful. Everything was hypervibrant with color. I was sitting cross-legged on the green Naugahyde sofa that mother had bought at a yard sale for ten dollars, a slit in the middle cushion had cream-colored stuffing oozing out. I saw Mother’s feet in dingy pink slippers on the warped kitchen floor, and the yellow counters with a set of copper-colored canisters reading Flour, Sugar, Tea, and Coffee. My father was home on one of his rare Friday evenings. It was early yet, eightish, and he was pacing around in his navy sock feet, his brown arms sticking out of a light blue short-sleeve shirt with Foster’s Garage and Omer embroidered on the pocket in red. A vanilla-colored dial phone that hung on the wall above the breadbox rang.
I broke out in a cold sweat at what I knew was coming. “No!” I slumped down in the Pontiac’s front seat and held myself stone still, staring at the latch on the glove box, trying to will it away.
Tonilynn hit the brake so hard I slung forward. “You okay?”
My teeth chattered. I shook my head.
“What’s wrong?”
I couldn’t speak.
“Talk to Tonilynn, Jennifer. Please.” She pulled into a parking lot and cut the engine.
I sat frozen, the scene in living color playing inside my head. “I was just . . . I swear I didn’t invite it.”
Tonilynn’s eyes bathed me in love, her hand gave mine a squeeze. “Tell me.”
I swallowed the knot in my throat. “It was a Friday night, stormy out, and we’d just finished supper. Mother was in the kitchen cleaning up; I was sitting in the den, and the phone rang. It was O’dell, one of my father’s poker buddies, calling to say they were all coming over around nine. I knew Mother wasn’t happy, but she didn’t say anything. They always got really drunk and loud, you know, tore stuff up. I didn’t like it because I could never get in my pallet when they played poker at our house because they dragged a card table out on the screen porch.”
“That was hard, hm?” Tonilynn raised her eyebrows.
“Yeah. I wanted to run outside and hide in the woods, but like I said, it was storming, and plus, they usually stayed until the wee hours. That night my father got into the whiskey before the rest got there. Mother said to him to take it easy and he said for her to keep her trap shut.
“I went in the front room, out of sight, to read a book, well, not really reading but just looking at the words and trying to act casual even though I was shaking, and . . .” I felt tears, warm on my cheeks.
“And?” Tonilynn blotted my face tenderly with a McDonald’s napkin.
“Later, after they’d been there awhile I was still curled up in the chair underneath an afghan, listening to them getting drunk, laughing, and playing cards. I guess I fell in and out of sleep, because I heard my name, and I was groggy, and then my father said, ‘Jennifer can be our dancing girl.’ ”
I closed my eyes, felt Tonilynn’s hands grasping mine.
“He walked into the front room, yanked the afghan away and said, ‘Get your top off and come dance for us, girl.’ My brain wouldn’t work, my legs wouldn’t go. I thought I must be dreaming. Then he said it again, and I guess it sunk in that this was real. I was so scared, so embarrassed. I was only fifteen, and I thought I better do what he said because he was so drunk and full of himself. He was a mean, violent drunk, and I didn’t know all that much about men or sex or any of that stuff.”
My neck felt hot, but I looked straight into Tonilynn’s eyes. “Next thing I knew I was standing there on the screen porch, bare from the waist up. So I guess I did get up and undress even though I don’t remember it. I moved, but it felt awkward, just kind of letting my hips swing. I figured out pretty quick I had to close my eyes and imagine I was alone, dancing for the trees. The men really liked it, they were all whooping and grunting and saying stuff like, ‘Yeah baby, dance!’ and ‘Shake them thangs!’ ”
“You were just a child,” Tonilynn whispered.
“I was fully developed.”
“Did anybody touch you?” Tonilynn cupped my face in her warm palms, her question reverberating in my shocked brain. “Did any of them touch you? Tell me they didn’t touch you.” She sounded angry, and I liked that. I shook my head. This was something I’d marveled at all these many years, that none of them had “taken advantage” of me that night. It was one of those things in life that makes a person incredulous—them grabbing their crotches, out of their minds and me in my vulnerability—that no sexual intercourse had happened.
Tonilynn stroked my cheek. “But your innocence was shattered. He robbed you of your dignity.”
I nodded, feeling my face crumple.
“He made you feel dirty.” Tonilynn squeezed my hand. “And you bottled it up all these years.”
My finger was twirling my hair so fast and furious, I felt it ripping out strands, but I liked the pain. I needed the pain. After a bit, Tonilynn reached up and stilled my hand. She pulled the hairs from between my fingers and let them drift to the floorboard. “Where was your mother? She didn’t stop them?”
“No.” The word gagged me. After a spell, I was able to speak again. “She never would say one word to me about it. I remember she came out of her bedroom when the men started getting rowdy because they liked my dancing, and she looked out on the porch while I was dancing, but she just put her hand over her mouth and ran back into her room. But the next day, when I finally gathered up the nerve to confront her about it, she denied it had even happened.” I slid off the seat, onto the floorboard, my hands over my face.
Tonilynn draped herself over me. “That’s right,” she murmured. “Cry it out. It’s good for you. You’ve done a brave thing, Jennifer. That’s been bottled up inside you all these years, and this is the first step on your way to healing.”
Hours later, up on Cagle Mountain, I lay on the featherbed, my heart raw from the memory I’d dreaded with every cell in my body for the past thirteen years. That memory I’d spent my energy running from like a mouse aware of a hungry cat. Tonilynn had said to cry it all out and I did. I cried about how Tonilynn and I had been in one of those gilded moments of life, cruising along in perfect harmony, our spirits soaring, until a dark cloud from the past moved in and destroyed it. I cried about how she said my father had stolen my innocence. I cried about how my mother had sided with denial instead of her daughter. How she might never know the real me or celebrate my success, or hold me close and say “I’m sorry. I know that hurt, and I should’ve done a better job of protecting you. Please forgive me.” I cried about Tonilynn’s concern, how when she got me back up into my seat, she’d fastened the seatbelt and kept her right hand on my shoulder the whole time she sped home to Cagle Mountain, saying, “You don’t need to be alone right now. You need to be with people who love you,” continuing her sympathetic words as she half-carried me into the guestroom, removed my shoes and oh-so-gently helped me into bed.
I cried over the fact that it was Saturday, and I might miss my trip to the Cumberland, miss her calm waters, that dose of peace, and then I cried because longing for that made me feel selfish when I had people here who loved me. Speaking of feeling selfish, I also cried over the lifeblood that Mike Flint spent on me, the very fact that he’d believed in me from the start and had no idea what I was hiding. I cried for those young dancers behind the walls of Déjà Vu.
Finally and most of all, I cried about the years I’d spent running, so messed up and pathetic, and the fact that life had dealt me a pathetic hand, had cursed me with such a depraved and filthy-minded father who was the root cause of all my travail.
That was when the hatred rose up within me like a tidal wave. The fury dried my tears, and I rolled over, my swollen face cool in the dark room. What amazed me was that despite bawling for hours and no sleep (by the glowing digital clock on the bedside table, it was three a.m.) I felt like I could run a marathon. I wanted to go to Déjà Vu and hit somebody, fight for all those young girls with dreams of being a country music diva like me who were having to pay the bills by dancing at that so-called gentlemen’s club. None of those places downtown or along the highway were for real gentlemen! Mr. Anglin was a true gentleman, and I had sent him to an early grave. Because of my father!
I sat up, swung my legs off the bed and marched to the kitchen where I found Tonilynn at the table, working a jigsaw puzzle and drinking a Diet Coke. I sat down opposite her. “Flowers?” I pointed at some pieces with red shapes like petals.
“Eiffel Tower in springtime.” She fitted the piece in her hand along the bottom, leaned back in her chair and considered me. “Feeling better, hon?”
“Feeling mad.”
“I hear the Hair Chair calling our names big time.”
I shook my head, but smiled at Tonilynn, thankful for her attempt to lighten the mood. Behind her, out the window, I noticed it was raining hard.
“ ’Bout time to build an ark, hm?” Tonilynn pressed another piece into place. “Speaking of the ark, Old Noah was a man of great faith.”
One thing I did not need was a conversation about faith. We sat quietly for a while, Tonilynn sorting puzzle pieces by color and me waiting for the right moment to ask her to drive me back to Harmony Hill. Riverfront Park opened daily at six, and I’d never been that early, but something in me thrilled to think about visiting the Cumberland in darkness. Surely the rain would let up shortly. Thinking about Riverfront Park led to thoughts about the upcoming CMA Festival. My chest tightened at the thought of singing, though I reminded myself that having the river beside me would help me get through it, and that I’d quit the music scene totally after my festival performances were done.
“People of faith can change this world.” Tonilynn reached for her Diet Coke. “Jesus said faith is strong enough to move mountains.” Her eyebrows were raised up high over eyes soft with concern. “Faith can change the way we see our world now, Jennifer. Also the way we look at things tomorrow, and also, maybe most important for you, the way the past has shaped us.”
I frowned.
She paused to sneeze, and for a moment I relaxed, thinking she was going to hush about it. But in the next breath, she asked, “You hear what I’m saying? Praying, mixed with faith, is a mighty force.”
Tonilynn was getting a little too close for comfort, and I stood up to go back to my room. She grabbed my hand. “Doesn’t it feel good to have gotten that memory out, hon? That there’s no more hiding from the past? No more running from the pain? Now it’s time to go to the One who can totally set you free. Who’ll help you forgive your father.”
I wouldn’t even try to play along. Nothing, no one was powerful enough to help me forgive that man! Like she could read my mind, Tonilynn said, “Jennifer, to forgive him doesn’t mean you’re excusing what he did, or saying it didn’t matter. Because it did! He victimized you, and your anger is understandable! I promise you, God’s mad about it too. Your forgiving your father won’t exempt him from the just judgment of God, doesn’t mean he won’t be held accountable for what he did to you.
“But if you keep living with such bitterness, you’re chaining yourself to your father and the hurt! I know some people who are so obsessed with revenge that their whole life revolves around it. They’re captive!
“Forgiveness is so liberating. Remember when we were talking earlier and I said that when you fantasize evil toward your father, you’re giving the enemy ground? Satan loves that! On the other hand, Satan trembles when we pray. So, please, hon, listen to Tonilynn—pray and ask God to help you get rid of the hate and the bitterness. If you don’t, it’ll destroy you!”
I focused on the rain pelting the window.
“Jennifer, look at me. If you really wanted to get even, you could do it easy enough. You could run his name through the mud. Everyone would hear what Jenny Cloud had to say! But would that erase what happened? What purpose would it serve? Knowing you, you’d probably feel even worse. You’ve got to think of forgiveness as a powerful weapon.”
Tonilynn reached for my hands, held them in hers, running her thumbs over the calluses on my fingers from years of playing guitar. A little thought snuck in. What if my heart had become calloused too? But just as quick I cast it out. It wasn’t that I didn’t think what Tonilynn had, her faith, was real. I believed that, for her, it was a very powerful solution, a healing to her wounded past. But I knew for me, someone whose innocence had been stolen, my anger was my soul’s way to reassert its worth. I had a lot invested in my bitterness. Without my fury, who would I be? a doormat like my mother? some weird, wacko religious nut? I didn’t see the benefit of all this self-denial, this “letting God redeem your past and use it for the glory of his kingdom.”
A wave of mental exhaustion hit me, and I almost said, “Okay, I forgive him, now will you drive me back to Harmony Hill?” But Tonilynn would know it was a lie. I picked up a corner piece of puzzle and turned it this way and that, pretending to consider where it fit. “Please drive me back to Harmony Hill?”
“Oh, Jennifer.” Tonilynn took the piece from me and fit it in its place precisely. “It’s not an experience that will bring us down or shatter us. It’s our response to that experience. You know who Fanny Crosby is?”
Reluctantly, I nodded.
“When she was six weeks old, the doctor seeing to her didn’t do right, he fouled up certain procedures, which caused her to be blind! Being blind was no picnic, but Fanny didn’t get bitter and all eaten up with mad. She forgave that doctor, and she wrote more than eight thousand hymns! She used her adversity.”
“What happened to her is totally different, Tonilynn.”
“Not really. You and Fanny were both given a gift—the gift of music. Gifts are easy—they’re given, after all. But forgiveness is a choice, a choice that can be very difficult. And she forgave, Jennifer.
“See? You can fill your heart with revenge or release, hate or hope, fear or faith. Bad stuff can have eternal value if you view it from God’s perspective. The things that hurt you can have a purpose. He’ll use them for your good, make you stronger, and you can use them to minister to others.
“Hey, I know!” Tonilynn slapped the table and the puzzle jumped. “Jennifer, you need to write a song about this topless dancing incident!”
“What?!” I felt like running outside in the pouring rain. “That’d be the worst thing to do! Believe me, I know!”
“Jennifer, Jennifer. First, forgive your father, and then you can use the energy of your anger in a positive way. I’m convinced your own healing is through your music. It’ll be cathartic to write a song about it. You know how powerful music is. Think of the words on that poster at Flint Recording! ‘Music can transport, transcend, and transform.’ ”
I didn’t answer.
“Your song can be somebody’s therapy.” Tonilynn was standing now. “There’s a lot of hurting, vulnerable people out there. What if you knew there was some young girl experiencing the same kind of thing you did, but she’s afraid to speak up? You could speak up for girls who have no voice, or don’t know how to use it. You could help some young girl find her own strength. Wouldn’t that be reason enough to brave the heartbreak?”
Tonilynn hit a nerve. I recalled the heart-stopping terror of opening my mouth about what my father had done—to anybody except my mother that one time. I was scared people would be disgusted with me, or judge me if they knew what had happened. Afraid they’d think I’d somehow invited it. It really was some heavy baggage to lug around. Guilt and shame are powerful emotions, even if they’re unwarranted. But did they excuse me from caring about all the young girls out there being abused, victimized by men in their families? Girls who were scared to speak up?
Wasn’t that just like Tonilynn to pack my bags for a big guilt trip! Saying a star like me could speak out and do wonders! I turned away from her, mad. There was only so much one singer could do. In a way I was outraged that Tonilynn wanted me to throw myself on the altar! Into my mind’s eye came Roy Durden, saying, If you need that kind of stuff, a crutch to lean on. Did I not realize on the day I first sat in the proverbial Hair Chair that Tonilynn was simple? That Tonilynn wasn’t dealing with reality?
I was ready to lash out at her, though that very next instant I also felt an enormous compassion expanding inside me. I remembered how Tonilynn had drawn me under her wing from the start, showering me with her friendship, restoring my dignity when it came to Holt Cantrell. She’d made me laugh with her Aunt Gomer stories, accepted me into her family, held me in her arms, and cried right along with me, saying, “I know it hurts, hon.” All this shot through me like a current, shorting out my superior airs. If I had anything good, any friend on this earth, it was Tonilynn. She knew the entire me, and she loved me. And here I was acting like an ungrateful snot! A snob.
The rain came down in sheets, and I swallowed my argumentative words. Later, there would be a time to tell her just the way it was going to be. First I needed to get myself to the Cumberland and organize my thoughts. I reached across the table, took Tonilynn’s hand in mine, and said, “Let’s get this puzzle finished.”
Tonilynn shook me. “Huh?” I said, in a fog of confusion.
“Wake up, hon. I need to tell you something.”
The serious note in Tonilynn’s voice made pin pricks on my skin. I opened my eyes. I was in the guest room at Cagle Mountain. The room was murky, and I heard the steady drum of rain on the tin roof. Tonilynn looked bad: deep circles of exhaustion beneath eyes wide with fear. I was scared to ask what, but I didn’t have to.
“Aunt Gomer’s had another stroke. She can’t move a muscle, can’t say a word. I called and an ambulance is coming to fetch her. Bobby Lee’s going to ride with me to the hospital. Help yourself to anything in the kitchen. I’ll call you.”
I heard her talking to Bobby Lee in the hall, her voice panicky, a far cry from the sure and sassy Tonilynn I was used to. When they were gone, I lay still. The clock said it was a little past two p.m.
Perhaps it was from sleeping odd hours in an unfamiliar place, the shock of being wakened with bad news, or fear of what might happen to Aunt Gomer, but I was feeling unreal. It was all too much on this first day of May, after everything I’d been through. Plus, my feelings were hurt at the way Tonilynn had rushed around without even inviting me to go with them to the hospital. Did she truly think I was family?
I knew my imagination was going wild, and I got mad at myself because I also knew in my gut that this was not about me. It was only concern for Aunt Gomer that was in Tonilynn’s mind now. And the idea of what Aunt Gomer was going through was horrific. What if she had to go in an old folks’ home? What if she died? Feeling panicky, I wrapped myself up tight in the quilt and concentrated on the drumming rain. When I heard Erastus’s muffled sigh as he poked his head into my room, I was overjoyed. “C’mere, sweetie!” I called, hugging his ribs when he sidled up next to the bed. When he decided to head out, I swung my bare feet to the pine floor and followed him to the kitchen.
The Eiffel Tower in springtime covered half the table. I got one of Bobby Lee’s Pepsis out of the refrigerator and turned to Erastus. “You need some water?” I filled his bowl at the kitchen sink and slumped down in a chair at the table. After lots of lapping, Erastus plopped down at my feet. A quarter ’til four and the afternoon sky was so overcast it seemed like night.
“How about let’s see what’s on television,” I said after a good quarter hour of watching my cell phone.
“. . . record-breaking torrential downpours are causing flooding in parts of Nashville . . . thus far, the southeast side of town has been hit the worst . . . many streams and creeks, normally slow trickles are now raging torrents, and there are reports of trucks submerged on the highway, residents chased from their homes by rapidly rising waters . . .” The weatherman’s face had a look of seriousness like it was carved from granite as flood advisory warnings scrolled across the bottom of the television screen in bold letters.
I stood stock-still, my head spinning and my heart pounding as the cameras panned the dark brown waters of many swollen creeks and tiny streams now turned to raging torrents. There was the Cumberland, big drops of rain hitting the surface hard enough to splash up and bounce before they melded in with the rest of their kind. Overhead the clouds gathered and roiled, like froth on cappuccino, so thick you couldn’t even see the city skyline.
I couldn’t watch anymore. I turned the television off and dialed Tonilynn’s cell phone. No answer. I stepped over to the window at the kitchen sink and looked at my reflection in the window glass. Could things get any worse? It made me feel dizzy, like I needed something to grab hold of and hang onto for dear life. Erastus pressed his nose to my hand and I sat down on the floor and hugged him. For a while, we stayed like that, staring wide-eyed at nothing.
A half hour later, there was still no word from Tonilynn. I stepped outside and Erastus watched me from the porch. Rain hit my hair and trickled down to my scalp, ran down my forehead, my neck, and soaked my chest. Hard drops hit the dirt yard, making a giant puddle, flattening Aunt Gomer’s irises. I kept seeing the Cumberland in my mind’s eye, the television images of those people evacuating their homes.
It was around five o’clock when I went back in, dried myself on a kitchen towel, and hesitantly turned the television back on. It seemed the water had stopped rising. I wept in relief and released a breath I hadn’t known I was holding. “Oh, thank God! I cried out, and in the next instant wondered where in the world that had come from. I sure wasn’t in the habit of communicating with him.
“Well, buddy,” I said to Erastus, “looks like we can breathe easier now. About the flood anyway.”
I dug around in the refrigerator and made a bologna and mustard sandwich on white bread, then poured some dog chow into Erastus’s bowl, and we ate supper together. At last, a little after seven, my phone rang.
“Aunt Gomer’s suffered a major stroke,” Tonilynn said wearily. “She’s in ICU.”
I swallowed. “She’s a tough old bird. I’m sure she’ll be fine.”
The line was quiet for a moment, then Tonilynn said, “Doctor says to prepare for the worst.”
Seized by fear, I stammered, “She made it through the last one.”
“She still can’t move a muscle, can’t utter a word. I can just tell she’s not in there.”
“What do you mean she’s not in there?” I clutched my phone.
“She’s gone on to wherever saints go when the spirit leaves the body.”
I didn’t know what to say. “Well . . . you never know. Miracles happen. Hey, did you hear about the flooding?”
“Some.”
“Well, thank goodness that’s over. Looks like dear Nashville’s safe now.”
It seemed Tonilynn was too distracted to pay attention to what I’d said. “We’re staying here at the hospital tonight.”
My heart sank.
“Would you mind staying there to keep an eye on the place? Look after Erastus?”
“Sure. You can count on me. Will you be home tomorrow?”
“Guess I better get back to Aunt Gomer. I don’t want her to . . .” Tonilynn’s voice faded and the line went dead.
I sat down at the table, resting my head in the crook of my arm for a long time, thinking about how disposable, perishable, temporary, the human body is. What struck me hard was how much I’d miss Aunt Gomer if she died. I had some things I really wanted to tell her, like how beautiful her flowers were and how seeing the sunrise with her had been priceless. Things on Cagle Mountain would sure be different without her around.
I didn’t want to be alone, and I didn’t know if Erastus was allowed in the featherbed, so close to nine, I made a pallet on the floor of the front room from an old army-green sleeping bag I found in the coat closet. I lay down and invited Erastus to join me. “Lie down, boy,” I told him. “Let’s go to sleep.” But I stayed awake for a long time, waiting for what I did not know.
I awakened around six the next morning to a loud clap of thunder. Erastus buried his head underneath the sleeping bag and his hindquarters trembled. “It’s okay, buddy,” I crooned, and lay for a while on my pallet, wondering what was going on with Aunt Gomer and how early was too early to call Tonilynn. Then I started thinking about getting back to Nashville, to Riverfront Park for my missed time at the river. Whenever I missed a visit—and that was rare—it felt like an important piece of me was missing, and I was not myself. I was lost somehow.
Finally, I let Erastus outside, went to the bathroom to cup my hands and splash water on my face and made my way back to the kitchen. As I was scooping coffee into the percolator and pouring food into Erastus’s bowl, he came barking at the back door. When I opened the door to let him in, his fur was slick from the drizzle, and the land beyond him stretched out dreary and wet.
I can’t say I was surprised when I turned on the television to see more warnings about flooding in Nashville. The rains continued. Roads were submerged and houses were surrounded by water where people were climbing out of windows into boats. The sight of a house trailer tipped on its side as it floated by made me draw in a breath and hold my hand to my mouth. The deluge was incredible! It seemed almost like a movie: concerned officials warning, citizens stunned and stuttering, their hands slicing the air as they described what was happening. The camera panned to a woman sitting in a rescue boat. Her voice was shaky, her red hair falling crazily into her distraught face. “It’s all I have,” she said, nodding toward the floating mobile home. “We never dreamed . . .”
Moved to tears, I pulled my eyes away, and just as I did there came a long rumble of thunder laughing at me. “It’ll be okay, boy,” I sang to Erastus as he quivered beneath the kitchen table.
That entire May weekend record-breaking amounts of rain fell in Music City. If I turned on the television, there were muddy rescue people, reports of power outages, gloomy skies, and gloomy forecasts. Erastus and I paced the farmhouse, listening for word from Tonilynn. Through lunch it rained, and all that early afternoon, steady, soaking, and surreal.
At three my phone rang, and I hit the Talk button while looking out the window at trees slumped dark and dreary in the downpour.
“She’s gone, Jennifer.”
I held the phone, Tonilynn’s words like a punch in my stomach.
“Jennifer?”
“What? What do you mean?”
“Aunt Gomer crossed the Jordan at 12:14 p.m. She’s with Jesus now.”
“No!” Tears bloomed in my eyes.
“Yes, and I’m glad,” Tonilynn said in a faltering voice that belied her words. “Aunt Gomer didn’t want to suffer the indignity of growing feeble and losing her faculties. Anyhow, I wanted to warn you that when the news hits the church’s grapevine, there’ll be ladies by the dozens bringing food to the house. If I’m not back yet, could you please let them in and keep up with who brought what?”
“Sure. When are you and Bobby Lee coming home?”
“There’s a few things to handle here, so I’d say not until late. I talked to the preacher, and it’ll be a few days until we can get things together for her funeral. I can carry you back to Brentwood tonight after you help me pick out something for Aunt Gomer to be buried in. Will you help me with that, hon?”
“Of course.” I was pretty sure Tonilynn was unaware of the severity of the flooding, and I didn’t want to tell her because a big part of me wanted to deny it was actually happening. Earlier I’d caught snippets of television footage of Brentwood. The Little Harpeth River was almost white water rapids at the Brentwood Country Club, and the golf course was a lake. Also, it looked like Manley Lane was flooded and the road surface of Holly Tree Gap Road was buckled from floodwaters. I heard a reporter say Granny White Pike was literally under water.
“Tonilynn? I’d like to stay up here on Cagle Mountain tonight.”
“You sure? What about that cat of yours?”
I heard the teasing mixed with the gratitude in Tonilynn’s voice. “I’m sure.”
“Thanks, hon. You’ll be a big comfort. I better go see about Bobby Lee. Now, watch out, I imagine they’ll start showing up any minute with food. Help yourself to whatever your heart desires.”
Erastus went berserk at the sound of Bobby Lee’s wheelchair on the ramp. Zigzagging around the den, he went straight to Bobby Lee’s knees to whimper with delight the instant the door opened. For a while I watched their reunion, then Tonilynn putting her handbag away in the pantry, peeking up underneath tinfoil and Tupperware lids, wedging some dishes into the already overflowing refrigerator. She looked decidedly unglamorous—flat lifeless hair, dark smudges of mascara underneath her eyes, clothes wrinkled and weary. I stood wordlessly in front of the pantry, feeling useless in the face of such grief. What could I do to make things better?
“Hey, Jennifer.” Bobby Lee wheeled over to me in his wrinkled Allman Brothers T-shirt, his hair in a tangled ponytail, one of Aunt Gomer’s pale blue bedroom slippers perched on his thighs. “How are you?”
“Okay,” I said, feeling tears starting in my eyes. “I’m sorry about Aunt Gomer.”
“Yeah. I still can’t hardly believe it. I’m gonna put on one of her albums.”
I understood. Without Aunt Gomer, the house seemed empty, too quiet.
I went into the guest room, lay down on the featherbed, and listened to the Louvin Brothers singing. I must’ve fallen asleep because the next time I was aware of anything, the quilt was spread over me and it was pitch dark. The luminous numerals on the digital clock read 4:22 a.m. A faint aroma of coffee drifted to my nostrils.
Tonilynn was in the kitchen hunched over a shoebox full of photographs. I saw she’d laid several out on the table: a feathery-edged sepia-toned portrait of a baby in an old-fashion buggy, one from a 1960s Christmas if you went by the clothes, what looked to be a young Tonilynn, ten or so, holding a basket full of kittens with Aunt Gomer standing behind her, four women with matching bee-hive hairdos posing behind a banner that read “Bake Sale,” one of Aunt Gomer in 1980 with her brand-new Ford. Tonilynn looked up at me, her face haggard. “The funeral director asked me to gather up some pictures of Aunt Gomer. He wants to put them up on a screen at the front of her funeral, rolling like a movie! Ain’t that crazy?”
“Well . . . maybe it’s so people can remember when she was in a younger, happier time of her life.”
Tonilynn shrugged. “He asked me to bring them with the clothes we want her buried in. I’m thinking she’ll look best in her magenta pantsuit and that cream-colored polyester blouse with the bow at the neck.”
I poured myself a cup of coffee and sat down across from Tonilynn. “I think she’d rather be in her gardening getup—the straw hat and that threadbare chambray shirt and those ancient men’s khaki’s she held up with a rope.”
A laugh flew out of Tonilynn. “Let’s do that! Oh, Jennifer, wouldn’t she be proud of all this food in her honor?”
“She would.”
Tonilynn looked thoughtfully at the counter. “Whenever Aunt Gomer heard somebody’d died, she was the first one there with a fresh-from-the-oven cake. I’m amazed when I think of all the cooking, serving, cleaning, gardening, and putting-by she used to do.” She paused, and got a faraway look. “Aunt Gomer stayed right by Bobby Lee’s side for months after his wreck. Fixed him breakfast, lunch, and a big supper every day. Refilled his tea, fetched the remote for him. She lived to serve folks!
“Remember after her first stroke, when I had to feed her? I thought she was just ornery and stubborn and didn’t want to accept help? But now I think it was that she couldn’t get up and do for folks! She wanted nothing more than to hop up out of that bed, get home, and take care of me and Bobby Lee!”
Tears ran down Tonilynn’s cheeks. “She spent her lifeblood caring for others. For me! And I wasn’t easy. I don’t deserve all that woman’s done for me. Know what, Jennifer?”
“What?”
“I had issues with certain stories in the Bible, some stuff that bothered me? Well, Aunt Gomer’s stroke gave me a whole new perspective.”
There were a lot of things I had issues with, but at last I asked, “What?”
“Remember that woman Jesus healed in the gospel? She had a fever, and Jesus touched her? Well, she hardly got herself a breath before jumping right up from her sickbed and serving. I always thought that was awful, sexist. I mean, here the poor woman’s been at death’s door, and then she hops right up and starts serving the menfolk! I thought she deserved a little R&R. Let the men serve themselves for a change!
“But I bet she was like Aunt Gomer. She was absolutely thrilled to death to serve, to be able to fix a nice plate of loaves and fishes.” Tonilynn’s jaw shook with her fervency. “See?”
“Um . . . sure.”
Tonilynn smiled. “Oh, hon, I appreciate you saying that, but you don’t really.” I started to argue, but she held up her hand. “It’s okay. We all have things that are difficult to wrap our minds around.”
I was thinking, Yeah, like letting Bobby Lee go to live his own life?
Tonilynn looked at me hard. “Before she passed, I told Aunt Gomer who Bobby Lee’s father is.”
I knew what a huge thing that was for Tonilynn, but immediately I discounted it by telling myself that Aunt Gomer had been mentally out of it.
Leave it to Tonilynn. “It was before her first stroke, when she was still mostly in her right mind. It computed with her, Jennifer. It really did. I know because we had several conversations about it.”
“Okay.”
“I showed her the tattoo. For once, she didn’t give me her sermon about desecrating the temple of the Holy Spirit. She just started bawling about a memorial garden her friend Viola got her to plant at the church in Robert’s honor.”
“What?”
“Might help if I told you Robert was the son of her best friend, Viola Gooch, the pastor’s wife. Robert died in a motorcycle wreck when Bobby Lee was an infant. He never told nobody he was a father.”
“Is that why you didn’t tell her who Bobby Lee’s father was?”
“Well, partly. A baby out of wedlock was a huge scandal, and I didn’t want to crush Reverend and Mrs. Gooch any more on top of burying their son. Just didn’t seem necessary. But there were other reasons. I realized I still loved Robert, and Bobby Lee was like my secret, a way to hold Robert to my heart.”
I was quiet a while, pondering the odd thought that it had been a motorcycle wreck that claimed Robert’s life and another that had disabled his son. I stood unsteadily, squinted at my watch, which said five a.m., glanced toward the window. No moon, no stars were visible. Only low, dark clouds. “Mind if I turn on the news?”
“Go ahead, hon.”
It was like a slap in the face to hear the National Weather Service meteorologist saying, “Weekend storms dumped more than thirteen inches of rain in two days. Dark brown waters are pouring over the banks of Nashville’s swollen Cumberland River, spilling into historic downtown where businesses are being shut down and authorities have closed off streets. In residential areas, the catastrophic flooding has ruined homes, and families are being evacuated. Four bodies have been discovered dead in their homes, two in cars on the standstill lane of the interstate and four outdoors. Stay tuned for—”
Tonilynn pressed her hand to her mouth. From behind it came a piercing wail like someone had stabbed her. I stopped breathing, felt like I was spinning away in weightless space. I ran out the back door and down the steps, not caring about the sloppy mud sucking at my feet or the bushes slapping my arms.
Sinking onto the floor inside the ancient barn, rainwater ran off my face, trickled down my body. I patted myself stem to stern. My heart was still going, air still moving in and out of my lungs, blood coursing through veins, flesh and bone connected.
But my soul was crushed. I could not stir a single hopeful thought. Everything I’d had, thought I’d had, was changed. I tried to picture my Cumberland, but all I could see were the muddy, raging torrents from the television screen. Massive, sweeping devastation.
It wasn’t cold, but it was damp and I wrapped my arms around my knees and let the tears flow down my face and neck. I cried so hard and long it just sucked the starch right out of me. I fell over and lay like a dry husk, barely breathing.
After a spell, lying there in my weakened state, snippets of Tonilynn’s sermons began. Jennifer, where do you run in times of trouble? In your hour of need, who or what is your refuge? Jesus Christ is the fountain of living waters, and I’m telling you, for us believers, Jesus is the hope that anchors our souls. What’s amazing is we can cling to him through whatever trials we’re facing. As long as there’s a God like him, no situation’s hopeless. He understands our hurts, and he’ll bring us through them, make us stronger. Before I was born again, I used to—
I made a fist and beat the floor. Lifting my face to the rafters, I shouted “You think you’re so great, and look, you can’t even keep one measly river between its banks! Some Holy Force you are! And while we’re at it, you let my father steal my innocence! He trampled my tender little heart, so shame on you! Now you’ve ruined my whole entire life, and I hope you’re happy!”
I collapsed again and lay there in the damp—for hours it seemed, until I heard someone approaching. I opened my eyes to see Bobby Lee inside the barn. “You okay, Jennifer?” he asked, squinting. He was wearing Aunt Gomer’s straw gardening hat. At first I thought he’d done it to make me laugh, but then I heard the grief in his voice, and I knew how hard all this was for him.
I sat up. “I’m okay.”
“Do you need anything?”
“No. How’d you know where I was?”
“Mama said she thought you’d be out here. She said to ask you to come back inside to dry off and get some food.”
I shook my head.
He peered into my swollen face with his beautiful eyes, and gently asked, “Want to talk?”
“No.” Though I’d thought it impossible for my body to produce any more tears, I began to cry.
“Hey, hey. What’s all this?” Bobby Lee reached for my hands.
“I . . . I never thought something like . . . like a flood could happen in Nashville! Feels like there are no safe places anymore.” A tear fell off my chin onto his forearm. He kissed it away and tingles ran up and down my spine. It was odd to feel grief mixed with such tender longing.
“I know. They’re calling it ‘the single largest disaster to hit Tennessee since the Civil War.’ This is one of those times I really miss my legs.”
“Oh.”
“Downtown’s so bad President Obama declared it a disaster area. Aid organizations are rushing in, and all these different local groups are stepping up too. Nashvillians are joining work crews all over Davidson County, using boats and jet skis to pluck stranded residents from their flooded homes. There’s still a bunch needs to be done—mucking out rooms, tearing down ruined drywall, cleaning up debris. What’s worrying me is a lot of folks are ignorant about electrical lines. They’ll go sloshing through murky water without a thought.”
While I was nursing my own hurts, this man was thinking about how he could help other people! I promised myself that when I got home I’d do something big for flood relief. It had to be better than focusing on myself. I was growing so tired of myself. Tired of listening to my own thoughts, of eating and drinking and walking through this world with just myself. “You’re an inspiration,” I told Bobby Lee.
“Talk about an inspiration.” He pulled my hands to his mouth, kissed each fingertip. “I’ve loved you from the first moment I saw you.” I looked into Bobby Lee’s soulful eyes, eyes he got from his mother, and I felt the strength of his love like a soft blanket draped over me. My heart started galloping a mile a minute and I so wanted to wrap my arms around him. But something inside me wouldn’t let me. I was unable to find any words either.
Bobby Lee felt my fear because he pulled me up onto his lap, cradling me in those strong arms until the world faded away. It was the most natural thing in this world, and I had no reflex to pull away when he whispered, “It’s okay. You don’t have to answer. But it breaks my heart to see you crying like this, and I’m gonna hold you long as you need me to.”
The minutes passed, and I had this thought about how I wouldn’t mind staying right there forever. Then, just when I was realizing the strange sensation of aching lips, Bobby Lee bent forward and kissed me so hard on them that every single thing inside of me melted.