Lead weights suddenly lifted from Mercer’s shoulders and evaporated into the air. She stifled a gasp, put a hand to her mouth, and blinked her eyes as they quickly moistened. She tried to speak but had nothing to say. Her mouth was dry so she sipped water. Elaine watched every move, calculating as always.
Mercer was overwhelmed by the reality of instantly walking away from the bondage of student debt, a nightmare that had burdened her for eight years. She took a deep breath—was it actually easier to breathe now?—and attacked another lobster dumpling. She followed it with wine, which she really tasted for the first time. She would have to try a bottle or two in the coming days.
Elaine smelled a knockout and moved in for the kill. “How soon can you be there?”
“Exams are over in two weeks. But I want to sleep on this.”
“Of course.” The waitress was hovering, and Elaine said, “I want to try the panna cotta. Mercer?”
“The same. And with a glass of dessert wine.”
6.
With little to pack, the move took only a few hours, and with her Volkswagen Beetle stuffed with her clothes, computer and printer, books, and a few pots and pans and utensils, Mercer drove away from Chapel Hill without the slightest trace of nostalgia. She was leaving behind no fond memories and only a couple of girlfriends, the kind who’d keep in touch for a few months and then be gone. She had moved and said good-bye so many times she knew which friendships would endure and which would not. She doubted she would ever see the two again.
She would head south in a couple of days, but not now. Instead, she took the interstate west, stopped in the lovely town of Asheville for lunch and a quick walk around, then chose smaller highways for a winding trip through the mountains and into Tennessee. It was dark when she finally stopped at a motel on the outskirts of Knoxville. She paid cash for a small room and walked next door to a taco franchise for dinner. She slept a proper eight hours without a single interruption, and woke up at dawn ready for another long day.
Hildy Mann had been a patient at Eastern State for the past twenty years. Mercer visited her at least once a year, sometimes twice, never more than that. There were no other visitors. Once Herbert finally realized his wife was not coming home, he quietly went about the process of a divorce. No one could blame him. Though Connie was only three hours away, she had not seen her mother in years. As the oldest, she was Hildy’s legal guardian, but much too busy for a visit.
Mercer patiently went through the bureaucratic challenge of getting checked in. She met with a doctor for fifteen minutes and got the same, dismal prognosis. The patient was the victim of a debilitating form of paranoid schizophrenia and separated from rational thought by delusions, voices, and hallucinations. She had not improved in twenty-five years and there was no possible reason for hope. She was heavily medicated, and with each visit Mercer wondered how much damage the drugs had done over the years. But there was no alternative. Hildy was a permanent ward of the mental hospital and would live there until the end.
For the occasion, the nurses had forgone the standard white pullover gown and dressed her in a baby-blue cotton sundress, one of several Mercer had brought over the years. She was sitting on the edge of her bed, barefoot, staring at the floor when Mercer walked in and kissed her on the forehead. Mercer sat beside her, patted her knee, told her how much she’d missed her.
Hildy responded only with a pleasant smile. As always, Mercer marveled at how old she looked. She was only sixty-four but could pass for eighty. She was gaunt, almost emaciated, with snow-white hair and the skin of a ghost. And why not? She never left her room. Years earlier, the nurses had walked her out to the rec yard once a day for an hour or so, but Hildy had eventually balked at that. Something out there terrified her.
Mercer went through the same monologue, rambling on about her life and work and friends and this and that, some true, some fiction, none of it apparently hitting the mark. Hildy seemed to process nothing. Her face was fixed with the same simple smile and her eyes never left the floor. Mercer told herself that Hildy recognized her voice, but she wasn’t sure. In fact, she wasn’t sure why she even bothered with the visits.
Guilt. Connie could forget about their mother but Mercer felt guilty for not visiting more often.
Five years had passed since Hildy had spoken to her. Back then, she had recognized her, uttered her name, and even thanked her for stopping by. Months later, Hildy had turned loud and angry during a visit and a nurse intervened. Mercer often wondered if the medication was now juiced a bit more when they knew she was coming.
According to Tessa, as a young teenager Hildy had loved the poetry of Emily Dickinson. So Tessa, who visited her daughter often during the early years of her commitment, had always read poetry to her. Back then Hildy would listen and react, but over the years her condition had deteriorated.
“How about some poetry, Mom?” Mercer asked as she pulled out a thick, worn copy of Collected Poems. It was the same book Tessa had brought to Eastern State for years. Mercer pulled over a rocking chair and sat close to the bed.
Hildy smiled as she read and said nothing.
7.
In Memphis, Mercer met her father for lunch at a midtown restaurant. Herbert lived somewhere in Texas, and with a new wife whom Mercer had no interest in either meeting or discussing. When he’d sold cars he talked about nothing but cars, and now that he scouted for the Orioles he talked of nothing but baseball. Mercer wasn’t sure which subject held less interest, but she gamely hung on and tried to make lunch enjoyable. She saw her father once a year, and after only thirty minutes remembered why. He was in town supposedly checking on some “business interests,” but she doubted it. His businesses had flamed out in spectacular fashion after her first year in college, leaving her to the mercy of student lenders.
She still pinched herself to make sure it was true. The debts were gone!
Herbert moved back to baseball and rambled on about this high school prospect and that one, never once inquiring about her latest book or project. If he had read anything she had published, he never said so.
After a long hour, Mercer was almost missing the visits to Eastern State. Unable to speak, her poor mother was not nearly as boring as her windy and self-absorbed father. But they said good-bye with a hug and a kiss and the usual promises to get together more often. She said she’d be at the beach for the next few months finishing a novel, but he was already reaching for his cell phone.
After lunch, she drove to Rosewood Cemetery and put roses on Tessa’s grave. She sat with her back against the headstone and had a good cry. Tessa was seventy-four when she died, but youthful in so many ways. She would be eighty-five now, no doubt as fit as ever and busy roaming the beach, collecting shells, guarding the turtle eggs, sweating in her gardens, and waiting for her beloved granddaughter to come play.