“I heard her yell, ‘Do you want to see what your good friends’ son did to me?’ and honey-pie, that’s when I started running. She was trying to pull off the bandages. And the mother… she was
I shook my head.
“She said, ‘I can’t blame him, how can I? He used to play in our yard, and he was just the sweetest boy.’ Can you believe that?”
I could. Because I thought I had already met Mrs. Dunhill, in a manner of speaking. On West Seventh Street, chasing after her older son and yelling at the top of her lungs.
“You may find her… overly emotional,” the nurse said. “I just wanted you to know there’s a good reason for it.”
She wasn’t overly emotional. I would have preferred that. If there’s such a thing as serene depression, that’s where Sadie’s head was at on that Easter evening. She was sitting in her chair, at least, with an untouched plate of chop suey in front of her. She’d lost weight; her long body seemed to float in the white hospital johnny she pulled around her when she saw me.
She smiled though — on the side of her face that still could — and turned her good cheek to be kissed. “Hello, George — I’d better call you that, don’t you think?”
“Maybe so. How are you, honey?”
“They say I’m better, but my face feels like someone dipped it in kerosene and then set it on fire. It’s because they’re taking me off the pain medication. God forbid I get hooked on dope.”
“If you need more, I can talk to somebody.”
She shook her head. “It makes me fuzzy, and I need to think. Also, it makes it hard to keep control of my emotions. I had quite the shouting match with my mother and father.”
There was only the one chair — unless you wanted to count the commode squatting in the corner — so I sat on the bed. “The head nurse filled me in. Based on what she overheard, you had every right to blow your top.”
“Maybe, but what good does it do? Mom will never change. She can talk for hours about how having me almost killed her, but she has very little feeling for anyone else. It’s lack of tact, but it’s lack of something more. There’s a word for it, but I can’t remember it.”
“Empathy?”
“That’s it. And she has a very sharp tongue. Over the years, it’s whittled my dad away to a stub. He rarely says anything these days.”
“You don’t need to see them again.”
“I think I do.” I liked her calm, detached voice less and less. “Mama says they’ll fix up my old room, and I really don’t have anyplace else to go.”
“Your home’s in Jodie. And your work.”
“I think we talked about that. I’m going to tender my resignation.”
“No, Sadie, no. That’s a very bad idea.”
She smiled as best she could. “You sound like Miz Ellie. Who didn’t believe you when you said Johnny was a danger.” She thought about this, then added: “Of course, neither did I. I never stopped being a fool about him, did I?”
“You have a house.”
“That’s true. And mortgage payments I can’t make. I’ll have to let it go.”
“I’ll make the payments.”
That got through. She looked shocked. “You can’t afford to do that!”
“I can, actually.” Which was true… for awhile, at least. Plus there was always the Kentucky Derby and Chateaugay. “I’m moving out of Dallas and in with Deke. He’s not charging me rent, which frees up plenty for house payments.”
A tear crept to the edge of her right eye and trembled there. “You’re kind of missing the point. I can’t take care of myself, not yet. And I won’t be ‘taken in,’ unless it’s at home, where Mom will hire a nurse to help with the nasty bits. I’ve got a little pride left. Not much, but a little.”
“I’ll take care of you.”
She stared at me, wide-eyed. “What?”
“You heard me. And when it comes to me, Sadie, you can stick your pride where the sun doesn’t shine. I happen to love you. And if you love me, you’ll stop talking mad shit about going home to your crocodile of a mother.”
She managed a faint smile at that, then sat quiet, thinking, hands in the lap of her flimsy cover-up. “You came to Texas to do something, and it wasn’t to nurse a school librarian who was too silly to know she was in danger.”
“My business in Dallas is on hold.”
“
“Yes.” And as simply as that, it was decided. Lee was going to New Orleans, and I was going back to Jodie. The past kept fighting me, and it was going to win this round. “You need time, Sadie, and I have time. We might as well spend it together.”
“You can’t want me.” She said this in a voice just above a whisper. “Not the way I am now.”
“But I do.”
