On the way home from the funeral and for the rest of the day, Miss Edna said very little and kept mainly to herself. Nate and Grandmother Tillman assumed she was just melancholy over Maddie’s death. She hardly said a word during dinner. Nate began to suspect it was something other than the funeral that had her down.
After dinner, they all washed dishes, as usual. This time, however, Miss Edna was drying everything with an exaggerated care, as if she were trying to focus her whole consciousness on the act, trying to contain it so it didn’t go someplace else, someplace she didn’t want it to go.
“Why’d you have all those phone books,” Nate asked.
Grandmother Tillman looked at him, then at Miss Edna. She wasn’t reproachful. It felt to Nate like that day the storm had come up and he’d asked his grandmother what had been in the bag she sent to his grandfather. It just felt like Miss Edna needed to answer this question.
“I collected phone books. The truckers would bring them to me from towns they passed through.” She answered in a slow, distant-sounding voice.
Nate could tell that this was where she’d been trying to keep her mind from going.
“Why?”
She was quiet for a long time.
“I was married once, did y’all know that?”
Grandmother Tillman and Nate shook their heads.
“Lord, I wasn’t even sixteen yet, when I married Lonnie, my high school sweetheart. Had two babies right away, two little boys, Andy and Robbie. She sat down at the kitchen table and was quiet for a long time. “When I was nineteen, I got real crazy and ran off with some slick roadie that worked with a traveling country western music show. I was hot stuff, traveling and seeing big cities.” She looked real embarrassed and shrugged. “That lasted for about two months, and then he dumped me. Gave me bus money to get back home.”
She paused and distractedly smoothed an invisible tablecloth with her hands for a minute.
“I wasn’t going to go, not that I didn’t still love them. I just didn’t feel I could ever get them to take me back. Finally, I went. Not to ask them to take me back, but just to tell them I was sorry. I wanted to tell them that I loved them and they didn’t deserve to be treated that way. I didn’t want my babies wondering why their momma had left them and wondering if there was something wrong with them. I wanted to tell Lonnie what a good man he’d been and how there was something wrong with me, and not him. I just wanted to tell them I was sorry and tell them one last time that I loved them. I know you probably find that hard to understand.”
Grandmother Tillman said, “Oh no, baby, I understand.” For the first time, Nate realized how much it must have weighed on his grandmother all these years that she had never gone to the cave to see his grandfather.
“What happened when you went?” Nate said.
“Moved. Our old place was empty. Lonnie didn’t have any real family. He’d been raised by an uncle, who didn’t seem to care one way or the other, and none of our old friends knew where he’d gone with the boys. They were just gone.
“I traveled around a bit after that and would look for them in towns I went through. I got in the habit of calling directory assistance and asking for the number of Lonnie McElroy, just on the off chance that he was in that town. After I settled here in Davis Corners, I asked truckers to bring me phone books from towns they went through. I looked in them to see if Lonnie and my boys were there.”
She started to cry quietly, “I don’t want them to take me back. I just want to tell them I’m sorry and that I love them.”
Grandmother Tillman got up and went to her. The two of them held tightly to each other and cried.
Grandmother Tillman then went into her cupboard drawer and took out a tablet of yellow, lined paper and a pen. She put them in front of Miss Edna.
“You write a letter to them right now, this minute, and pour your heart out. Tell them everything you feel. Say everything you’ve wanted to tell them all this time.”
Mess Edna looked at her and started to protest.
“Do it now, just like I said. You tell them everything you feel.”
Miss Edna did as she’d been told and sat there for half an hour, writing in that tablet. When she was done, she’d filled up three sheets. She looked at Grandmother Tillman, asking now what should she do.
“Get to bed, all of us, let’s get to bed. We’ll deal with this in the morning.”
Grandmother Tillman and Miss Edna hugged again for a moment, and then everybody went to their rooms.
The next morning they had breakfast together and Miss Edna’s mood had lifted. She was the Miss Edna in wet hair and a country dress who smelled like Ivory soap. The yellow tablet was nowhere to be seen.
After breakfast, Grandmother Tillman suggested they all go for a walk, so they strolled down to the bridge that crossed the Sawatassee River. They stood and watched the slowly swirling water slip around the rocks and through the deadfalls.
Nate threw a stick into the water and watched it spin and whirl and make its way downstream.
“Where’s it go,” he asked.
“Bigger rivers, the Gulf, the Atlantic Ocean, and from there the whole world,” Grandmother Tillman said. She looked at Miss Edna.
Miss Edna perked up as she watched the stick float out of sight. Grandmother Tillman reached into the deep pocket of the dress she was wearing and pulled out a sealed jar with the sheets from the yellow tablet folded up neatly inside.
“You’ve said everything you can say. Send it, and get on with your life.”
Miss Edna took the jar and rolled it in her hands. “The whole world,” she said wistfully. Then she caringly lobbed it into the river. They watched it float downstream until it, too, went out of sight. Grandmother Tillman put her arm around Miss Edna’s waist and started to lead her away from the river.
“Back in the house I’ve got an envelope with two hundred dollars in it. I’ve checked bus schedules to Atlanta and one leaves every day. I’ve also got the names of some women residence hotels you can stay at until you get yourself set up again.”
Miss Edna looked at her with disbelief and shock.
“Of course, you’re welcome to stay here with Nate and me as long as you want to, but there’s nothing for you here in Davis Corners. You need to get on and start your life over.”
“I can’t take your money,” Miss Edna said.
“Pay it back, then. Anyway, with you around, Nate’s hormones are going crazy and he’s eating me out of house and home.”
Nate blushed and wanted to crawl under a rock.
Miss Edna started to cry again and Grandmother Tillman put her arm around her.
“I’ll find that hungry banker and open that restaurant, and I’ll pay back every penny,” Miss Edna said.
“I have no doubt that you will.” Grandmother Tillman laughed.
“But I’ll never be able to repay what else you’ve done. I’ll always love you.” She kissed Grandmother Tillman on the cheek and ran up to the house.
Grandmother Tillman and Nate walked silently the rest of the way. She seemed to be savoring her newly won kiss and the declaration of love from one she’d befriended. Nate thought how strange it was that something as simple as a broken ceramic statue couldn’t be fixed, yet something as complex as a human heart could be broken and made whole again.
His own heart was breaking the next day as they put Miss Edna on the bus to Atlanta, Georgia. Not much was said among any of them. Miss Edna and Grandmother Tillman hugged, squeezed, and patted. Everyone cried and waved. Nate made sure Miss Edna’s bags got safely loaded into the baggage compartment beneath the bus and watched her climb up the steps. She turned one last time.
Grandmother Tillman called out, “It wouldn’t hurt at all if that banker fella was single.”
So with two hundred dollars, sound advice, and the love of two people going with her, Miss Edna started her life over.
Chapter 23
Copyright (C) 2009 Michael A. Hughes
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