I lie awake and the silence roars in my ears. The glowing green letters of my alarm clock read 2:45. I was almost asleep when a train woke me. Nana Betsy wasn’t kidding about bright and early. I’m meeting her at seven a.m.
I try to collect my stories of him. It won’t help me sleep, but I do it anyway. I line them up in my mind. I wash them and polish them.
I prepare to lay them to rest.
It’s the third week of eighth grade at NAA. I don’t know anyone because it’s my first year there (it’s an eight-through-twelve school). I’ve left all my few friends and more bullies behind at Bellevue Middle. It’s weird being at a school where everybody in your class is the new kid.
I’m sitting in the back of civics and the teacher, Ms. Lunsgaard, is droning on about bicameral government and checks and balances. This is the longest hour of the day because it’s the hour before lunch. I glance over at the kid next to me. He looks friendly and kind. He grins and starts making elaborate tying motions with his hands. He fits an invisible noose around his neck, tightens it, and jerks it upward, sticking his tongue out the side of his mouth.
I stifle a laugh and pantomime opening a bottle of pills and dumping the whole thing down my throat.
He doesn’t succeed in stifling his laugh. Ms. Lunsgaard peers at us. “Blake? Carver? This will be on the test.”
“Sorry,” we mumble. We meet eyes again. Under his desk, Blake pantomimes cutting his wrist.
The bell finally rings. I’m stuffing things in my backpack. Blake extends his hand to me. “Hey, man, I’m Blake.”
I shake his hand. “Carver.”
“That’s a badass name, dude. Sounds like a serial killer’s name. The Boston Carver.” He has a thick drawl. It doesn’t sound local.
“Yeah, I was named after a short story writer.”
“Oh.”
“An acclaimed short story writer.”
“Oh.” He does an impressed-old-lady voice and covers his O-shaped mouth.
I laugh. “So where did you use to go to school?”
“Aw man, you’ve never heard of it. Andrew Johnson Middle School. It’s in Greeneville.”
“South Carolina?”
“East Tennessee. Way closer to North Carolina than here.”
“How’d you end up here?”
“I live with my grandma, and my grandpa died a while ago, so she needed a change and she wanted me to go to a good school. So we moved here.”
“Cool. You like Nashville?”
“Yeah. I wish I knew more people.”
We drift out to the hall. “You wanna hang out for lunch?” I ask.
He brightens. “Sure, dude. Let’s go.”
We go and eat lunch. He shows me his YouTube page. I tell him about my stories. We laugh.
We laugh a lot, actually.
There was probably some period when we weren’t best friends and inseparable. Days. Maybe weeks, even. But in my memory, from that day on we were as good friends as we’d ever be. It’s funny how memory cuts out the boring parts. And that makes it a good story editor. Sometimes, though, you want to remember every minute you spent with someone. You want to remember even the most mundane moments. You wish you had inhabited them more completely and marked yourself with them more indelibly—not in spite of their ordinariness, but because of it. Because you’re not ready for the story to end. But you only discover this when it’s too late.
I reflect on that as I lie awake waiting for the sun.
I pull up to Nana Betsy’s house at 6:54 a.m. and sit in my car until 7:01. A dog barks at me from behind a chain link fence across the street, and there’s the buzzing of insects, but otherwise the neighborhood is Saturday-sleepy and placid. The air is still heavy with the humidity of summer, even though we’re almost done with the first week of September. Dew sparkles on the grass that’s getting a bit long. I make a mental note to return soon to mow.
Nana Betsy answers the door wearing a T-shirt with teddy bears on it, a University of Tennessee baseball hat, grandma jeans, and white sneakers. She looks the sort of tired that tattoos itself on your face. Not a sort of temporary, passing tired that you can sleep off or wash away. But a little of it disappears when she smiles.
“Blade. Come in, come in. So.”
“So.” I return her weary smile and step inside.
“Are you ready?”
“I think so.”
“Don’t mind getting dirty?”
“Nope.”
“Good, because I thought we’d kick things off with one of Blake’s and my favorite ways to spend a Saturday morning: going bad-fishing. Then we’ll hit up the Waffle House, our favorite place for breakfast.”
“Wait, you mean bass-fishing?”
“Bad-fishing. I’ll explain in the car.”
I help Nana Betsy load a pair of fishing poles and lawn chairs, a cooler, and a tackle box into the trunk of her creaky, peeling, brown Buick. I sink into the pillowy seat. It smells like pine and dusty tissues, and the dash is illuminated with multiple orange lights. The engine makes a squealing noise as we reverse out of the driveway. The radio, tuned to WSM 650 AM, quietly plays Johnny Cash.
“Blake came up with the name, of course,” Nana Betsy says. “I’m nowhere near as quick with the jokes.”
“Nobody is.”
“True. Anyway, bad-fishing is just that. Bad fishing. We weren’t ever any good at it. When Blake first came to live with me, he was eight. He hadn’t ever done any of the things a boy that age ought to have done. Mitzi was always drunk or high. The only men around the house were her boyfriends or worse. So they’d sit Blake in front of the TV for hours and hours on end.”
“That’s how he got into comedy. Watching all that TV. He never talked much about his old life, but he did tell me that.”
“So anyway, one day Blake says to me, ‘Nana, I wanna go fishing like people on TV do.’ Well, my husband Rolly loved fishing. But he’d passed on by then. So I guessed I’d better try to figure it out. I go and buy us a pair of fishing poles and some hooks, and I dig up some worms. We’ll do it like in the cartoons, I reckon. So we go and spend all morning and don’t catch a thing. Not a bite. But Lord almighty, we had fun—cutting up, talking, drinking root beers. We’d been a fair number of times when Blake finally says to me—” Nana Betsy starts shaking with laughter, wiping her eyes. “Sorry, it’s not really that funny. But he says, ‘Nana, we ain’t bass-fishin’, we’re bad-fishin’.’ ”
I’d prepared myself for the experience of treading on sacred ground. But the reality is something else. I suddenly want to confess exactly why I’m not worthy to be doing this. Then Mr. Krantz’s voice echoes in my head and yanks me down to reality. A partial confession only. “Nana Betsy, I’m not sure I’m the person to be doing this. This is so special.”
She turns down the already-quiet radio. “It is special. It’s the most special thing we could be doing at this moment. Which means I decide who’s worthy to be doing it with me. And when I say you are, you are. Got it?” Her tone is kind, but with a don’t-mess-with-me edge.
She glances over at me and I nod.
“What would Blake say if he were here?” she asks. “Would he say, ‘No, Nana, he’s not worthy to be doing this’?”
I shake my head. But I still fear that Nana Betsy’s and Blake’s generosity aren’t enough to absolve me.
“The first time he ever mentioned you was on a bad-fishing trip,” Nana Betsy says.
“Really?”
“I asked him how he was doing at school, if he’d been making friends. He had plenty of Internet fans from his web page, but that’s not the same as real friends. I worried about that because he hadn’t had the best social examples.”
“You wouldn’t have known it.”
“I thought so, but here we’re moving from little-bitty East Tennessee to the big city and he’s thrust into this school with all these smart, talented kids. I knew Blake was smart and talented, but I worried.”
“So what did he tell you?”
Nana Betsy smiles. “He says, ‘Nana, I met this nice guy at school named Carver and he ate lunch with me. We’re gonna be friends!’ ”
“That’s exactly how he said it?” It sounds so childlike.
“Exactly. I remember because it was one of those days I knew we’d done the right thing by uprooting our lives and moving out here. That was a big risk and I was scared.”
And then a flash realization: That risk you took resulted in Blake’s death. If you and Blake had stayed put, he wouldn’t have died. “Do you ever regret coming here?” I ask quietly. I can’t bring myself to ask the rest of the question and connect the dots.
But she seems to have done it anyway. Her eyes glaze with a faraway sheen and well up. “No. Blake died here. But if we hadn’t come, he’d never have lived. He found his people here. God’s hand guides our lives, and I believe he guided us to this place. I don’t know why he ordained for Blake to be taken from us; he works in mysterious ways.”
We sit for a few moments with silence between us like a curtain suspended from a thin thread. Then Nana Betsy turns up the radio. “We’ll talk plenty today. But for now, we need to be singing off-key at the top of our lungs to old country music. Tradition is tradition.”
We pull up to Percy Priest Lake, park, and hike a little ways to their fishing spot. We set up the lawn chairs. Nana Betsy helps me bait my hook, chuckling. “I believe I’ve found the lone person on Earth worse at fishing than Blake and me.”
“Lucky you.”
We cast our lines and settle into our chairs.
Nana Betsy claps me on the knee and points. “Look,” she whispers. An elegant blue heron glides past, its spindly legs ramrod straight behind it.
“Whoa.”
“That’s half the reason we’d come. We’d sit in this beautiful place and ponder God’s creation.”
Nana Betsy looks wistfully across the lake. She starts to say something. She covers her mouth, but she’s shaking with laughter and snorting. “Of course, not even God’s mighty creation was safe from Blake. Once, four or five deer walked right up to the edge of the lake to drink, not fifteen feet from us. So we watch them, and Blake whispers: ‘What do you guess God was thinking, Nana? He makes these nice brown deer that blend in with everything, and then he says, No, not done yet. And he gives them these glorious, brilliant, gleaming-white asses. The most beautiful asses of all of God’s creatures.’ ”
We laugh until we’re winded.
“It’s probably why we never caught anything. Couldn’t shut up. Scared the fish,” Nana Betsy says. And after a moment of reflection: “I think a lot about how he changed me. Did he change you?”
My mouth starts before my brain even knows it’s ready. “He made me less afraid to be naked.”
Nana Betsy looks slightly horrified.
“Not that way. Less afraid to be vulnerable. Sorry.”
“Oh, because with Blake…”
“Yeah, you never knew.”
Nana Betsy opens the cooler and pulls out a root beer and hands it to me.
I open it and take a sip. “Once I went with Blake to film a video. The one where he walked into Green Hills Mall shirtless.”
Nana Betsy claps her hand over her face. “Oh. I wish you’d talked him out of that. Lord almighty.”
“Oh, believe me, I tried. I was dying just following him with the camera. I was so relieved when a security guard finally kicked us out after he went into Nordstrom.”
“Didn’t he ask the security guard how he was supposed to get a shirt if he wasn’t allowed to go into a place that sells them?”
“Something like that. Anyway, we go out to the car, and I’m like, ‘Dude, Blake, aren’t you embarrassed?’ And he looks at me like I’m the crazy one, and he goes, ‘Have you ever thought less of somebody for making you laugh on purpose’? And I think for a sec and say no. And he goes: ‘Dignity is overrated. People can live without it. I know because I did. But people can’t live without laughter. I’ll gladly trade dignity for laughter, because dignity is cheap and laughter is worth everything.’ ”
Nana Betsy stares out over the lake, shaking her head slightly. She clears her throat a couple of times and wipes her nose. “He always said the first part to me. Never the second part. How much did Blake tell you about his circumstances growing up?”
“Not much. He obviously hated talking about it. I figured it was bad.”
Nana Betsy finishes off her root beer, puts the empty in the cooler, and pulls out another. She looks pained. “Mitzi was our wild child. She was our youngest, and I guess we were too tired by then to be as strict as we ought to have been, so she did whatever she pleased. She got pregnant with Blake when she was sixteen. It could’ve been any of five men, all over thirty. She picked the one with the nicest trailer and most running cars and convinced him that Blake was his.”
“So Blake never knew who his real dad was?”
“No. And all the possibilities were awful.”
“Jeez.”
“So they”—Nana Betsy makes air quotes—“raise Blake. Which meant sitting him in front of the TV for hours a day in the same filthy diaper while they partied and snorted meth. Sometimes they’d let me take him for the day, and I’d bathe him and feed him good food and try to teach him to talk and read and all the things he was behind on.”
“Did you ever call—”
“Child Protection? My heavens, yes. The sheriff? Many times. But we’re talking about a rural county with limited resources. They don’t do a thing.”
“Sorry. Go ahead.”
“So this goes on until Blake is eight. They leave him for days. He’s not attending school. Mitzi’s boyfriends are slapping him around. And I’ve finally had it. I go get him without asking anyone’s permission. I figure if the sheriff and Child Protection can’t protect Blake from Mitzi, they can’t protect Mitzi from me protecting Blake.”
This spurs a memory. “There’s another way Blake tried to change me,” I say softly. “We were hanging out in my room; I don’t remember what we were doing. Anyway, my mom knocks on the door to ask me a question and I get supermad—I’m embarrassed telling you this because it makes me sound like the worst kid ever.”
“I’m not judging you. You said that Blake taught you not to be afraid of vulnerability.”
“Okay. Well, I get supermad at my mom and she leaves, and Blake goes, ‘Why are you mean to your mom?’ And I go, ‘Whatever, dude, you don’t understand.’ And he’s like, ‘Yeah, I don’t, because if I had your mom, I’d never be mean to her. You have no clue how lucky you are, but I do.’ So yeah. I’m pretty embarrassed to have treated my mom that way in front of him.”
We sit for a while, smacking mosquitos, sipping root beers, and chatting, the sun hot on our backs. A couple of times we think we might have a bite. Of course it turns out to be nothing. Wind shaking our poles or something. We don’t bother reeling them in to see if our hooks are still baited.
Finally, Nana Betsy looks at her watch. “Blade, I’m getting hungry. It’s probably time to say goodbye to bad-fishing.” Her voice cracks. “You made a very good bad-fishing companion, I must say. Second best I’ve ever had.”
“We can come do this anytime.”
She looks at the ground; out over the lake; and back to the ground, blinking fast. “Afraid not. I’m leaving.”
It doesn’t quite make it into my brain. I think for a second she’s talking about us leaving right then. “Wait. What?”
“I’m moving home. I miss my mountains. I was only ever here for Blake’s sake, to put some distance between our old life and our new life. My two sons live in Greeneville, and my older daughter lives in Chattanooga.”
That shuts me right up.
“I have enough years working for the state to get my retirement. I’m putting the house on the market on Monday. I’m not asking for much. Enough to cover the funeral costs and the cost of some little place on the side of a mountain overlooking a holler. And I’ll watch my stories and read my mysteries and have Sunday dinners with my boys and live quietly with my thoughts and memories until the Lord calls me home.”
It had never occurred to me that Blake’s death would have this particular sort of consequence. I thought its impact would be limited to grief, guilt, aching, missing. Not packing up and moving. I wonder what else will fall now from this shaken tree.
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. I’m happy to be going home.”
“I mean I’m sorry for making you move.”
“We’ve been through this. You have no need to apologize.”
But I do. I committed something so close to negligent homicide that I’m not even allowed to tell anybody but Dr. Mendez and Mr. Krantz. If I weren’t guilty, why would I need to be careful about telling my side of the story?
“Okay,” I say finally. I start to pick up my pole.
Nana Betsy puts her hand over mine. “No. Leave it.” She pulls a piece of folded-up notebook paper from her front jeans pocket and unfolds it. She smoothes it and sets it on one of the chairs. She uses an egg-sized rock to weight the paper.
I catch a glimpse of the note, which is written in precise, neat, grammar-school handwriting. It reads:
To whoever finds these things:
Please keep them—they’re yours.
They belonged to my grandson and me.
We were never much good at fishing
but we used them to make many wonderful memories.
I hope you’ll do the same.
In loving memory of Blake Jackson Lloyd
I start up the path, expecting Nana Betsy to follow. She doesn’t.
“Blade, do you mind going along without me for a few minutes? I need a moment or two here alone.” Her voice is a scratchy whisper, the wind through long grass. She hands me the car keys.
Before I go, I watch as she lowers herself into the chair beside the one with the note. She rests her elbows on her knees and buries her face in her hands.
I do the same thing when I get to the car.
We’ve each mostly composed ourselves by the time she joins me, about ten minutes later.
“All right,” she says with what seems to be genuine cheeriness (or at least temporary unburdenedness). “I could use some traditional post-bad-fishing waffles and bacon. How about you?”
“Always.”
We drive to the nearby Waffle House. As we park, Nana Betsy laughs. “This must not seem like a very glorious last day for Blake. But this is what he and I loved to do together. Every Saturday morning we could, for the last few years. I’m only guessing this is what he’d have wanted for his last day, but it’s definitely what I’d have wanted.”
“Since I’m Blake today, I say it’s what he would have wanted.”
“I think if what you’d do for your last day on Earth doesn’t look like a pretty normal day for you, you probably need to reexamine your life.”
“I agree.” I guess a Buick in a Waffle House parking lot is as good a place as any to have your notion of the well-lived life cracked open wider than the Grand Canyon.
“Let’s go eat some waffles.”
A blond waitress with a smoker’s voice greets us. “Good mornin’, Betsy! Been a while. You got a different breakfast companion.”
Nana Betsy’s smile fades almost imperceptibly. “Hello, Linda. Blake couldn’t make it today. This is his best friend, Carver.”
“Hi.” I wave.
“Good to meet you, honey,” Linda says. “Y’all need a menu or you gettin’ your usual?”
Nana Betsy looks to me. “I’m fine with whatever the usual is,” I say.
“Usual it is,” Nana Betsy says.
“Comin’ right up,” Linda says. “You tell your grandson we missed him today.”
Nana forces a smile. “I bet he knows.”
We sit and Linda hustles off after pouring us cups of coffee. Nana Betsy leans over with a whisper. “I couldn’t tell her. She’s so sweet, and there wouldn’t be any point to making her sad.”
“Blake would have found this funny.”
Nana Betsy’s eyes twinkle. “I imagine he’s looking down from heaven right this moment and laughing about the little trick we’ve played on Linda.”
I smile and play with my fork.
“You believe in heaven?” Nana Betsy asks.
The easy answer is I used to, as casually as I believed anything relating to the Divine. It was an untested, unexamined belief, and so it dwelled comfortably in me. But now? If you came to me and said, “Listen, Blake’s going to die, but that’s okay because you believe in heaven, right?” my answer would have been no.
“Yeah. Mostly,” I say. “But I haven’t spent much of my life considering it like I am now.”
“I believe in heaven,” she murmurs. “I believe in a resurrection of the flesh when the dead will rise. I believe all that. And you’d suppose that’d make all this easier. Believing in my heart that I’ll hug Blake again someday. It should be as easy as if I were sending Blake off to camp for the summer. But it’s not.”
Linda reappears with two plates piled high with waffles and a large plate of bacon. “Y’all enjoy now.”
“You bet we will,” Nana Betsy says.
We both look out the window at the cars passing, the people coming and going. Listen to the clink of silverware, the sizzle of the grill, the crunch of bacon. The hum of conversation and the occasional shouted order.
I feel a confessional yearning. “What do you think it takes to keep you out of heaven?”
Nana Betsy holds my gaze while she finishes her bite and takes a sip of coffee. “What do you mean?”
“I mean what if God thought I had something to do—” Linda approaches and fills our water glasses.
“Y’all good here?” Linda asks.
“Right as rain,” Nana Betsy says. Linda leaves again.
I speak with a light tremor. “What if God holds me accountable for the Accident?” I want to say more, but Mr. Krantz’s words resonate in my head. I’ve always found it baffling why criminals ever confess to crimes. Especially when they hand police the only thing they have to go on. I understand perfectly now.
“Let me tell you about the God I know.” She looks out the window for a second and looks back. “My God judges a whole life and a whole heart. He doesn’t judge us by our worst mistakes. And let me tell you something else. If God is someone who makes us walk a tightrope over the fires of hell, then I don’t care to sing his praises for eternity on some silver cloud. I’ll jump off the tightrope before I’ll do that.” Her voice trembles as she says the last part, but it doesn’t blunt the edge of her conviction.
I suddenly feel like I have a huge ice cube stuck in my throat. I try to swallow it away. I’d love to borrow her conviction, but I can’t quite.
“Do you mind if I tell you a totally random story that has nothing to do with this topic?” I ask.
“Not at all.”
“I remember once, Blake was over at my house and Georgia had a couple of friends over and they were listening to music with the bedroom door open. And Blake and I go into the hall, where they can see us, and we start doing funny dances. Twerking and hulaing and the chicken dance and stuff. At first they were screaming at us to go away, but by the end they were laughing so hard they couldn’t breathe. Anyway. I guess it doesn’t sound that funny when I tell it. Maybe you had to be there.”
Nana Betsy is shaking; she has her hand over her mouth and tears are streaming from her eyes. I can’t tell if she’s laughing or crying. Finally she gasps, and it sounds like a laughing gasp. “Aren’t most stories about the people we love that way? You had to be there.”
We finish eating and stand to leave. Nana Betsy pulls yet another folded-up piece of notebook paper from her pocket and places it on the table, along with a twenty and a crisp, new hundred-dollar bill and sets an empty glass on top of it all.
“Bye now—y’all enjoy your day!” Linda says, bustling past with a pot of coffee. “See you later!”
“Bye, Linda,” Nana Betsy says. “Thank you for everything. And Blake says thank you too.”
Linda doesn’t seem to detect the finality in Nana Betsy’s voice, but I do.
We walk out to the car in pensive silence. As for me, I’m pondering hell. I’m wondering if rather than some ardent lake of fire, filled with the shrieking damned, it’s an endless corridor of noiseless, windowless rooms. And inside, each one of the damned sits comfortably on a perfectly ordinary office chair, stares at the bare gray walls, and relives their worst mistake.
Again.
And again.
And again.
Nana Betsy planned well, because she knew we’d need some quiet by this point. So we go to an early movie, which works because she and Blake used to love to go to movies together.
It’s an adaptation of Danny, the Champion of the World. It was one of my favorite books growing up, and I’d been planning to see it anyway. Of course, I usually saw movies with Sauce Crew or Georgia. Yet another way that my life has changed that hadn’t occurred to me until now. Jesmyn might have been game. That seems probable, in fact. Possible wishful thinking on my part.
Nana Betsy and I get a huge tub of popcorn to share. “I don’t blame you a bit if you can’t eat another bite. I sure can’t. But Blake and I always split a big popcorn and tradition is tradition.”
As we sit in the dark and watch, I reflect on the mundane rituals, laid end to end, that form a life. We work to make money and then hopefully use that money to buy ourselves memories with the people we love. Simple things that bring us joy.
I don’t pay much attention with my swirling thoughts, and most of the movie slips past me. Maybe I’ll come see it again with Jesmyn.
Neither of us touches the popcorn.
The movie ends and Nana Betsy pulls herself out of her seat with a groan. “These movie theater seats do a number on me. Getting old is no fun.”
Not getting old is also no fun.
Nana Betsy shuffles toward the exit. “I guess I won’t make it to the movies much anymore. At least until the other grandkids get a little older. I don’t like going alone, and Blake was my movie buddy.” She opens the door to the outside, and we squint in the brilliant afternoon sun after the cool dark of the theater. I wonder for a second if this is how resurrection feels. Stepping out of darkness into blinding light.
As we make our way to the car, Nana Betsy shades her eyes and says, “I always told Blake he should try to find some pretty girl to take to the movies instead of me. He always said ‘No, Nana, I’d rather go with you.’ Truth be told, it makes me a little glad he never found the right girl.” She starts to unlock her door.
And now I have a huge, huge problem.
“Yeah, well you’re gayer than…riding a white pony through a field of dicks,” Eli says to Mars. They crack up again. Eli slaps Blake’s arm as I pull up to Eli’s house. “Come on, bro, you must have one.”
Blake sort of half smiles and shifts in his seat. “Naw, y’all got this.”
“Come on,” Mars says. “Do Blade. Dunk on him.”
“Naw, I got nothing here.”
“You’re losing your edge,” Mars says as he and Eli hop out.
“Your mom is losing her edge,” Blake says.
“That doesn’t even make sense,” Mars says.
“Your mom doesn’t even make sense.”
We laugh, and Mars and Eli run up the walk to Eli’s house.
I pull away and start driving to Blake’s house. I’ve never heard him this quiet. I reach over and punch his arm playfully. “It’s cool, dude. We just need to have a gay-joke training montage, where you’re running while I ride a bike, and lifting weights while screaming gay jokes, all in preparation for your redemption from this humiliating defeat.”
Blake chuckles, but his heart’s obviously not in it. “Yeah.”
“I’m kidding with you, man.”
“Yeah.”
“You cool?”
“I’m good, I’m good.” Then after a few seconds: “Can I ask you something?”
“Sure,” I say.
“Naw, never mind.”
“Dude.”
“Naw, it’s weird.”
“Obviously. It’s you asking.”
“Promise I can trust you?”
“Yeah, man. Totally. For real.”
He sighs and scratches his head. He starts to say something and stops. He tries again. “How did— When did you find out you liked girls?”
I’m stunned. “Uh. You mean sexually or whatever? Since I was probably eleven or so. Why?” In my heart I already know exactly why he’s asking.
He takes a deep, shuddering breath. As if he’s about to try to escape a sinking ship. “Because. I…have never been into girls…that way. Ever.”
A long silence.
I want Blake to be the one to break it when he’s ready, but he doesn’t, so I do. “Are you into…?”
“Sheep? Naw.”
We laugh.
“Yeah,” Blake says quietly. “I think…it’s guys I like.” He adds, hastily, “Not you; don’t worry.”
“Wow.”
“Obviously I like you as a friend. But not that way.”
“Jeez, now I’m wondering if I should have moisturized or exfoliated more. I mean, I work out,” I say.
“No you don’t,” Blake says.
“Hey. I’m sorry, dude,” I say, my smile drifting off. “About every gay joke I’ve ever made. I didn’t mean it maliciously. Mars and Eli would be sorry if they knew. They aren’t really homophobic. None of us are. We just—didn’t think. It was dumb of us. I’m so embarrassed.”
“It’s cool. I’ll tell them someday, but let’s keep this between you and me for now, okay?”
“Yeah, man. Of course. But I am gonna tell them to chill and knock it off next time they make gay jokes. It’s shitty to joke like that anyway.”
“That I wouldn’t mind. It’s good to get this off my chest. You’re the first person I’ve told. Thanks for listening.”
“No problem. This won’t make us any less friends.” And after a second: “But real quick, is it my haircut?”
He didn’t tell her. I figured after he told me he’d tell her. It had been a little less than a year ago. And now I have to decide whether to let her completely know Blake.
If he wanted her to find out, he would have told her.
If he didn’t want anyone to find out, he wouldn’t have told me.
Maybe he wanted to wait for the right moment to tell her. He would have told her eventually.
That moment will never come now.
He never told you that he was going to tell her.
He never told you that he wasn’t going to tell her.
She’ll be perfectly happy with her memories of him if she doesn’t know.
Her memories of him will be incomplete if she doesn’t know.
It will hurt her to learn that I found out before she did.
She invited you here today because you hold pieces of Blake that she doesn’t.
It’s the wrong thing to do.
It’s the right thing to do.
Nana Betsy gets into the car and so do I. “All right, now we—”
“I should tell you something.” This is a bad idea.
“Okay. Sure.”
The words stumble in my mouth on their exit. “Blake…never found the right girl because he…didn’t want to.”
“Ain’t that the truth. Seemed like dating was the last thing on his mind.”
I wait to catch her eyes before she starts the car. “That’s not what I mean.”
Her expression doesn’t change for several seconds. Then realization slowly dawns. She shakes her head like she’s half-asleep and trying to rouse herself. “He wasn’t…”
My heart drips cold and viscous down the inside of my chest—whites from broken eggs down refrigerator shelves. I really wonder if I’ve done the right thing.
She takes her hand from the keys and deflates into her seat, paralyzed. The only thing more stifling than the heat in the car is the silence. She leans forward and starts the car, and the air conditioner wheezes blessedly to life. But she sits back again and we don’t move.
“I had no idea,” she says. “We lived together for years. I hadn’t the slightest notion.”
“Me neither until he told me.”
“When did he tell you?”
“Little less than a year ago.”
Her face creases and she starts weeping. “Why didn’t he tell me?”
“He…was going to. He told me.” This is an unambiguous lie. But necessary to fix what I fear I’ve broken.
“But why wait?”
“I think he…knew how much your religion means to you, and it worried him how you’d react.”
She fumbles in her purse for a pocket pack of tissues and dabs at her eyes. “Our religion definitely doesn’t approve of that lifestyle, but I never did believe that people choose to be that way. I wonder—if maybe I’d gone and gotten Blake from Mitzi’s sooner—”
“I’m pretty sure that’s not how it works. I think he was born that way.”
“I can’t wrap my head around this. There was a huge part of him who was a stranger to me.”
“It was just one part of who he was, though. You knew him as well as anybody on Earth.”
“Not as well as you, I guess.”
“But you know tons about him that I didn’t. I think the only person who knows someone completely is that person. And even then not always.”
“I pictured his future all wrong. I pictured a girl in a wedding dress and grandkids.”
“You can still picture a wedding and grandkids. Just that there’d be a tux instead of a wedding dress.” Please let me be making this better and not worse.
“I’ve only ever known one gay person. My hairdresser in Greeneville. I loved him. But it was easy to tell with him.” Nana Betsy blows her nose and presses her hand to her forehead. Her face crumples and her weeping becomes sobbing. “So often I let people talk awful ‘Adam and Steve’ sort of hateful nonsense in front of Blake and didn’t say a thing. It’s no wonder he was scared to tell me.”
My heart keeps dripping. “I’m sorry if my telling you this hurt you. I tried to do the right thing.”
Her voice quavers. “You did right. You’re here to help tell Blake’s story.” She hesitates. “Blade, do you think he ever got to love anyone the way he wanted to?”
“I don’t know. I hope so.”
“Me too.”
She goes to put the car in gear but stops again. “You can say no to this, but would you do a little playact with me?”
“I’ll try.”
“Will you be Blake and tell me so I can say out loud what I would’ve said? In case he can hear us?”
“I guess so. Okay. This won’t be as funny as if it were Blake.”
“That’s all right.”
“Okay. Um. Nana, can I talk to you about something?” I don’t know how to do this. I guess there’s no manual for coming out of the closet on behalf of your deceased best friend.
She wipes her eyes. “Yes, Blake, you can.” We both laugh even though it’s not funny.
“I’ve known this for a while, but I need to tell you I’m gay.”
Nana Betsy looks skyward. “Blake, honey, if you can hear me, listen real good now.” She faces me and swallows hard, and when she speaks, the tremor is gone from her voice and it envelops me like a down quilt. “That doesn’t make a damn bit of difference to me. I love you more than I love God himself. So if he’s got a problem with anything, he can talk to me, because I love you how you are. Now, if that’s all you had to tell me, we’d best go have some of my homemade fried chicken and cornbread. Your favorite.”
She nods once, like a judge pounding a gavel, and puts the car in gear, and we leave.
She wasn’t speaking hypothetically when she mentioned the fried chicken and cornbread. We’re sitting in her kitchen while she waits for the Crisco to heat up in one of her black cast-iron skillets. Another skillet is in the oven, getting hot for cornbread. A mound of flour-and-spice-dredged chicken thighs sits on a platter. A mixing bowl of yellow cornbread batter sits beside it.
My emotions roil. In some ways, this day has sharpened everything I’ve felt over the past weeks. The guilt. The grief. The fear. It’s honed them to a razor, singing edge. But in other ways, it’s removed that edge slightly and replaced it with a dull sense of absence. While the grief feels like a more active emotion—a process of negotiation—the absence resembles grief with a measure of acceptance. If grief is a pounding surf, the absence is a melancholy, gently tossing sea.
“Are you glad you did this?” Nana Betsy asks out of the blue. My face must have betrayed my emotion.
“Yes.” This is largely true. The untrue part of it relates mostly to my wishing I never had occasion to be sitting in Nana Betsy’s kitchen, having a goodbye day for Blake. “My therapist thought this would be a good idea.” This is also not completely true. In fact, it’s mostly not true.
“Goodness, a therapist? I thought this had hit me hard.” Nana Betsy tosses a pinch of her chicken seasoning in the oil, where it pops and sputters. Using tongs, she carefully lowers a few pieces of chicken into the oil. They sizzle and bubble.
I guess I might as well tell her. I wouldn’t have brought up Dr. Mendez if part of me didn’t want to. “I was having panic attacks. I’ve had three so far. The first was a couple hours after I left your house on the night of Blake’s funeral. The second was on the first day of school, right as I was walking in the door. The third was after I found out—” This confession is going further than I’d planned.
“Found out what?”
My mouth goes dry and I’m lightheaded. “Found out that the DA is looking at pressing charges against me for the accident.”
“Do what now?” She turns from the stove, her mouth agape, her tongs at her side.
My voice is small—that of a kid who peed his pants in class. “Mars’s dad asked the DA to investigate the accident and see if there are any charges they can bring against me.”
“You have got to be kidding me.”
“I wish.”
“What on Earth?”
“We talked to a lawyer, and he said they might be able to charge me for negligent homicide.”
“How?”
“I guess if they could prove that I was texting Mars, knowing that he was driving and knowing that he would text me back and that I knew texting while driving is dangerous.” My insides are a writhing ball of eels.
Nana Betsy turns to the stove and flips the pieces of chicken. “But you didn’t know all that.”
I’m paralyzed. I don’t say anything. I don’t move. Nana Betsy catches my gaze. It feels like holding my hand too close to a fire. Appropriate, since this whole conversation could burn me someday. But again, that irresistible compulsion to purge myself of the poison of this guilt.
“But you might have known all that,” she says quietly.
Still frozen, in my weak voice, I say, “My lawyer told me the only way they could get me is if I confessed. And they can’t make me do that. But if I confess to someone else, that’s how they’ll get me.” I’ve just roundly boned myself. And it’s bizarrely satisfying. Like peeling off a scab. Sticking a Q-tip too far into your ear. That inexplicable desire to jump off high places or swerve into oncoming traffic. Weird how we’re programmed to get pleasure from destroying ourselves.
Nana Betsy doesn’t say anything for a moment as she reaches into the oven, pulls out the skillet, swirls some bacon grease in it, pours in the cornbread batter, and returns it to the oven. She sits at the table with me. “Then I guess this conversation never happened.”
“You don’t need to lie for me. I deserve to be punished.”
“Lie about what?”
“This is why I didn’t feel I deserved to be here today.”
“What’s why?”
I put my face in my hands. “I’m so ashamed of myself. I hate myself for what I did.”
Nana Betsy pulls my hands from my face and grips both of them. I can’t look at her. My face is burning.
She waits and, when I won’t look at her, says, “You made a mistake. But this thing needs at least one survivor. You owe it to Blake to survive this.”
She lets go of my hands, stands, and carefully lifts the chicken out of the skillet, letting each golden piece drip before setting it on a plate covered with paper towels.
She lowers three more pieces into the oil and sits. “I tell you who really wouldn’t have blamed you,” she murmurs.
I shake my head slightly.
“Blake. He didn’t play the blame game. I never once heard him speak an ill word about Mitzi. And you wanna talk about someone who he could’ve blamed? Everything I know about his growing up, I learned watching him or hearing from somebody else. Never him.”
“He never told me anything bad about her.”
“He didn’t pity himself for the hand life dealt him. I don’t guess he’s sitting in heaven doing that now because he’s not growing up with you.”
The “not growing up with you” feels like I’m trying to digest a stomach full of cold nails.
Nana Betsy gets up to flip the chicken. “Speaking of growing up, how you doing these days? You been able to make some new friends?”
“Did you ever meet Jesmyn, Eli’s girlfriend?”
“The pretty Oriental girl?”
I blush. “Asian.”
Nana Betsy covers her mouth like she burped. “Sorry. Asian.”
“Yeah. She and I have gotten to be pretty close friends through all this. But she’s about it, friendwise. I used to be friends with Adair, Eli’s sister. Not so much anymore.”
“At least there’s someone.”
“I had my sister Georgia around and we still talk and text and stuff, but we can’t exactly go to a movie together with her in Knoxville for school.”
“What about your folks?”
I squirm inwardly. “I don’t really talk to them much about my life.”
“They seem nice.”
“They are. I thought you’re supposed to have your private life from your parents.”
Nana Betsy turns from the stove and puts her hand on her hip. “I can tell you that ain’t written anywhere.”
I stare at the beige linoleum floor. “I don’t know what my deal is.”
Nana Betsy, perhaps picking up on my reluctance to talk about this topic, blessedly allows it to die. She pulls out the rest of the chicken, sets it on the platter, opens the oven, and pulls out the steaming cornbread.
She comes to the table, balancing one of the plates she prepared us on her forearm while holding a pitcher of sweet tea. She returns to the refrigerator for a tub of homemade coleslaw.
She says grace over the food and we dig in.
“This was the exact meal I made him to celebrate him getting into Nashville Arts. I told him he could pick any restaurant, but this is what he picked.”
“I can see why,” I say through a mouthful. “I wasn’t even hungry.”
“Save room—there’s lemon chess pie in the fridge.”
We eat slowly, savoring each bite as we think Blake would, and talk for hours. We treat the meal like we’re taking Communion, which I guess we are, in a way. We settle into a comfortable back-and-forth of the small, ordinary things we remember about Blake.
She tells me he never killed spiders because they ate bugs he feared more.
I tell her about how Blake pronounced “library” as “liberry” all his life, as far as I knew.
She tells me Blake loved licking the eggbeater so much that if he wasn’t around, she’d put it in a bowl in the fridge for him for later.
I tell her Blake was never once mean to anyone at school.
She tells me he hated raisins.
I tell her how I would let him drive my car and how excited he always got; the novelty of driving never lost its luster.
She tells me he never learned how to swim or ride a bike.
I tell her about our first argument—over whether woolly mammoths could still be alive somewhere in Siberia.
She tells me how, until he was fourteen, she used to leave the hall light on for him after he went to bed.
I tell her how every time I said goodbye to him, it cast a faint shadow on my life—muting every color—until I saw him again.
It’s early evening when we’re done eating and talking and what remains of the lemon chess pie sits on the table in front of us. We both recline in our chairs to relieve the pressure on our diaphragms.
“Well, are you ready for the next part?” Nana Betsy sweeps some crumbs into her hand and deposits them on her plate.
“As long as it’s not more food. Not that this wasn’t excellent.”
She smiles and gets up. I hear her rummaging around. She returns holding a pink rubber bladder. There’s a mischievous glint in her eye. “Ever played with one of these?”
I shake my head.
“It’s a whoopee cushion,” she says. “Here.” She blows it up, sets it on her chair, and sits on it with a piercing, squalling fart noise. We laugh.
“I’ve read about those,” I say. “But I’ve never seen one.”
“I had to order this off the Internet.”
“You could probably download an app on your phone.”
Nana Betsy looks sheepish. “I’m too old-fashioned to have thought of that.”
“What’s it for?”
“We’re going to experience the world through Blake’s eyes. I contacted YouTube and I was able to get the login information for Blake’s site. I need you to help me make a farewell video for Blake.”
I hadn’t even thought of what had become of all of Blake’s YouTube followers. I wondered if they had any idea what had happened.
“I have plenty of experience as Blake’s cameraman.”
“Then we ought to be set. First things first, though: we need to record an introduction to the video. Might as well do that here.”
While I film, Nana Betsy stumbles and stammers her way through her message. “Hello, everybody. I’m Blake’s grandmother. Blake has passed on and we miss him. We wanted to thank all of you for supporting him. Thank you. This next video is our tribute to Blake.”
Nana Betsy picks up her keys and purse, which she empties out enough to accommodate the whoopee cushion. She inflates it and puts it inside. She does a test, squeezing it. It works. She inflates it again and replaces it. “Okay. Let’s go.”
We drive to a craft store. That was my idea. Blake loved the places with prim and proper employees, and a hobby store is sure to have a few who love flower arranging a lot more than fart noises.
“Whew,” Nana Betsy says as we sit in the parking lot. “My stomach is full of butterflies. How was Blake able to do this?”
“Blake didn’t come up with this, but he said comedy was about controlling why people laugh at you.”
Nana Betsy nods firmly. Her face is more resolute. She takes a deep breath. “Then let’s go control why people laugh at us. For him.”
We walk into the potpourri-scented store. Nana Betsy clutches her purse at her side like it contains an explosive device—which I suppose it does. Her lips are tight. Her eyes move side to side quickly, seeking our target. I have my phone at the ready.
There are more girls in their twenties with pierced noses and purple hair than I expected. They’re no good to us. I scan the store. We wander to the fabric aisle.
“There,” I whisper, and nod slightly in the direction of a matronly-looking woman with short gray hair. She has her reading glasses perched on the end of her nose, and she’s rolling up a bolt of flannel.
“Yep,” Nana Betsy whispers. She takes another deep breath. “Oh, Lord, what am I doing?” she mutters to herself.
We approach the woman. I slip my phone from my pocket and pretend to be engrossed in checking something, but I’m filming. Beside me, Nana Betsy swallows hard and steps forward.
“Excuse me, ma’am,” she says. Her voice sounds pinched; higher than usual. Like she has a whoopee cushion stuck in her throat, actually.
The woman looks up with a dour expression and raised eyebrows. Good choice of target.
“Can I help you?” she asks.
“Yes, we’re looking for—” Nana Betsy sets her purse on the table and reaches in, as if she’s about to pull out a sheet with measurements scribbled on it. Instead, she grips the whoopee cushion and squeezes, emitting a long, sonorous, flatulent squeal. And then there are a couple of moments of complete silence, which is the perfect cutoff point to stop filming. The woman’s mouth is slightly agape, and her eyes shift quickly between Nana Betsy and me.
Nana Betsy’s face looks like she fell asleep in the sun and woke up five hours later. She’s stammering an apology between nervous giggles and has her hand on the woman’s arm. “Ma’am, I am so, so sorry. I honestly did not mean to be rude. We had to—I—”
The woman looks at Nana Betsy like she’s actually ripped ass right in front of her. “I have a lot to do here, so if y’all don’t mind.”
Nana Betsy quickly composes herself. It reminds me of how she did at Blake’s funeral. She speaks more slowly and quietly. “I sincerely apologize, ma’am. I lost my grandson a few weeks ago. He was a prankster and loved stunts where he acted the fool in public.” She nods in my direction. “His best friend and I are out to have a last day to say goodbye to him. I needed to experience a little piece of his world through his eyes.”
The woman’s expression visibly relaxes. “I’m sorry for your loss.”
Nana Betsy fumbles in her purse again and comes up with a twenty-dollar bill. She holds it out to the woman. “Please, take this. We were only trying to make ourselves look foolish, not you.”
The woman shakes her head and gently pushes the bill away. “No, ma’am. I lost a nephew in a motorcycle accident a few years ago. Grief makes fools of us all.”
Nana Betsy puts the bill back in her purse. “Yes it does. Anyway. I’m sorry again if I offended you.”
“No apology necessary. I hope you two have a lovely rest of your night.”
We walk to the car.
“That wasn’t bad,” I say. “The real thing works better than a whoopee cushion, though. Makes it easier to maintain the eye contact that Blake said was so essential.”
Nana Betsy smiles. “At my age, you don’t risk that sort of thing, even if I could manage the way Blake could.”
She unlocks the car and we get in.
“Did you take a good video?”
“Yeah. Do you want me to upload the videos for you?”
“Would you? Here.” She hands me a slip of paper with Blake’s YouTube login information. I log in from my phone and upload the two videos we recorded.
“That was tough. I’d never want to do it again. We go about our lives doing everything we can to keep from looking silly,” Nana Betsy says.
“It’s fear. We’re just afraid.”
“He lived for that rush of doing something ridiculous to brighten someone’s day. He did that over and over again—faced down the fear to make people laugh. I don’t know how he did it. I almost died in there.”
No one knows how anybody lives through anything. People just do.
The shadows are long and the light hazy and golden when we get back to Nana Betsy’s house.
She seems more somber and contemplative now. Maybe shooting the video broke one last wall inside her. “I’m about beat,” she says. “But there’s one more thing I had planned.”
We go to the kitchen, where she opens a bulging brown paper bag sitting on the counter. It’s filled with large ears of corn.
She fumbles in a cabinet for a pot and fills it with water. She doesn’t look at me. Something has descended upon her. “When Blake was eight, Mitzi forbade me from seeing him. She said she was tired of my getting in her business. They moved up to Johnson City, about an hour away, to make things harder.” Her voice is so hushed, I strain to hear.
She puts the pot on the stove and turns on the burner. She takes a piece of corn from the sack and begins shucking it.
“Can I help you with that?” I grab an ear and start shucking it beside her.
“Please. Anyway, I’m sitting at home one night and Blake calls. I’ll never forget how small and thin his voice was. He said, ‘Nana, Mama’s been gone for three days and I’m scared.’ I said, ‘Honey, enough’s enough. Nana’s coming for you.’ ”
She takes the ears of shucked corn and lowers them into the water. She sits down at the table, and I join her.
“So I load up Rolly’s shotgun and put it in the car. I’m ready to take my grandson home at gunpoint from my own daughter and whoever else if need be. Can you imagine?”
“No.” We laugh even though it’s not funny.
“So I drive as fast as I’ve ever driven. When I get there…the smell when I opened that trailer door. I still remember it.” She shudders with the sense memory. “Garbage mixed with cigarette smoke and filthy clothes and spoiled milk and rotten meat. Which is odd because I didn’t see a thing in the house to eat that came from nature. Old Mountain Dew bottles and empty Twinkies boxes and crumpled-up potato chip bags lying everywhere. You hear people talk about living in a dump? This was truly worse than the garbage dump. To this day, I can’t fathom how human beings lived there.”
“Jesu—jeez.”
“I call out to Blake, and I finally find him hiding under the bed. I put down the shotgun so’s I don’t frighten him. He comes out and he’s filthy. He looks and smells like he hasn’t bathed in a month. Which makes sense, because I try a faucet and nothing comes out. He’s covered in sores and bug bites. He has a hand-shaped bruise on his back and another that looks to be a shoe print.”
It feels wrong to speak now, so I don’t. Terrible things can be as holy as beautiful things, in their way. I have no words, besides. This story is as new to me as the news of Blake’s sexuality was to Nana Betsy, and I can only receive it.
She checks on the corn and returns.
“So we leave fast as can be. I left Rolly’s loaded shotgun for them as a little present. Just clean forgot it. They probably hawked it and used the money to buy meth before they even noticed Blake was gone. When we get home, it’s past midnight. The grocery store’s closed and I’m too exhausted to go anyway. But I want Blake to have something to eat. I don’t want him going to bed hungry even one more time. I want to feed him something that grew in the soil; that soaked up the sun. So I had this bag of corn that I’d bought the day before from a farm stand. It was beautiful. We ate it warm with butter and salt. It was sweet as candy. He ate three ears.”
My heart feels like it has a thin silver wire wrapped around it, cutting into it with every beat.
“So that’s how we’ll end this goodbye day. By eating this beautiful corn that tastes like the night Blake’s life began. I hope you have room.”
I do.
We butter and salt our corn and sit on the porch in rocking chairs, eating while the sun dips below the horizon and the sky dissolves to a pallid blue-pink gradient. All around, the smell of leaves and grass relinquishing their warmth.
“You wanna hear about when Blake made me laugh the hardest?” I ask this without even really knowing the answer, because sadness has so palpably seized Nana Betsy.
“Of course.” She gives me a smile that leaves her eyes behind.
“So I go with Blake to one of y’all’s church picnics. I don’t remember if you were there. Anyway, this little kid is saying grace and he’s up there with the microphone, and he’s going, ‘Lord, we just thank you for the grass and the trees and the oceans’ and he’s basically thanking God for every single thing on Earth. And of course, we’re both starving. So Blake says, in this way-loud voice: ‘Move it along kid. I have places to go and people to see.’ ” As I tell the story, I’m not certain that was the time Blake made me laugh the hardest—after all, that moment had a lot of stiff competition—but it did make me laugh very, very hard.
Nana Betsy chuckles softly but still exudes melancholy. “I wish I’d held on to every moment with him the way a drowning person holds a life preserver.”
For a time, we rummage through the drawers of our memories, pulling out the stories that are brightest and sharpest, like knives, and setting them in a row. Rekindling fires that had burned to embers. And then we are silent and still because merely listening to ourselves breathe feels like a holy rite in Death’s halls.
She looks as weary as I feel. I’m hesitant to be the one to end the day, but somebody has to do it.
“Not that I want to, but I should probably go,” I say, leaning forward in my rocker. “This was good. I’m glad I did this. I know Blake better now.”
“It’s past my bedtime, too.” She puts her hand on mine, and I can detect the tremor in it. “I can’t thank you enough. We did simple things today—the things Blake and I did in a normal week. But that’s how I’d have wanted to spend a last day with him.”
“Me too.” I start to rise. “I’ll be back soon to mow.”
“You don’t need to do that. Fresh air’s healthy for me.”
“I know, but…” I stand, the food settling in my stomach. “This all still hurts. Not as bad as it did, though.”
“No,” she says distantly. Some timbre in her voice sounds new. Jittery. On edge. She’s fidgeting in her chair as though she wants to say something. She won’t look at me.
“Nana Betsy?”
She meets my eyes and there’s fear on her face.
“Carver, I have one more thing to ask.”
“Sure.” She called me Carver, not Blade. I’m now infected with her apprehension. I sit.
She exhales hard and reaches into her pocket. She pulls out another folded piece of paper. She almost drops it, her hands are shaking so badly. She unfolds it and I see a phone number. “I hired a private investigator to find Mitzi. He tracked her down a few days ago and got me this number. I haven’t called her yet to tell her. I thought today would give me the strength and I could do it alone, but I’m coming up short. Will you come inside and stay a few more minutes to hold my hand while I call her?”
I push down the shadowy dread scaling the ladder of my ribs. “Yes.”
Her face twists. She sobs. “She’ll say, ‘You took Blake from me and now he’s dead because of it.’ And I don’t know how to respond, because she’s right.”
“No. But…No…that’s wrong. That’s ridiculous. It’s because of me. Like I told you.”
Nana Betsy laughs bitterly through her tears. “Oh, Blade. He would have never been in that car if I hadn’t moved him here first. I’m just not ready to hear it from her. But I’ll never be ready, so I guess this is it.”
“It’s not your fault.” I meet her eyes and hope mine speak my conviction.
She finally nods. “Okay.” She says it like she doesn’t want to argue; not like I’ve convinced her. We walk inside and sit next to each other at the kitchen table, in the dark. I figure if she wanted the light on, she’d have turned it on.
She takes a deep breath. “Lord give me strength.” She picks up her phone and dials. I reach over and hold her hand. She grips it like the drowning person she spoke of earlier.
I hear the phone ringing on the other end. One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Nana Betsy looks skyward. I see her murmur something. Six. Seven. Each ring is a crow pecking me in the ear. Eight. Nine. She grips my hand tighter.
And then somebody answers as Nana Betsy is lowering the phone from her ear.
She snaps the phone back up. “Mitzi? Mitzi? Is this Mitzi? Mitzi, this is Mama. Mama. Mitzi can you—can you turn the music down, please? Turn the music down, please. It’s not important how I got it; I need to talk to you. I know. I know, but you— Sweetie, please, you need to listen to— Because it’s about Blake. It’s about Blake.”
She’s crumbling in my hand. It’s like trying to grasp a handful of sand from the ocean while the waves come in.
She tries to say something else, but the words dam up in her throat. Tears course glistening down her cheeks. “I can’t,” she mouths. “I can’t.” She drops her phone hand to her lap, illuminating us in the screen’s ethereal white glow. Mitzi screeches something. Nana Betsy covers her eyes and shakes her head.
I feel it impending. Something sliding off a shelf. But it doesn’t fall. It sits tottering at the edge, waiting to fall. But it doesn’t fall.
This. You can do this for her if nothing else. I let go of Nana Betsy’s hand and slowly reach for the phone. I still hear Mitzi yelling. It would almost be comical if it weren’t so very uncomical. Nana Betsy barely resists before letting me take the phone.
I raise it to my ear. “Hello, Mitzi?” I swallow hard. My legs start bouncing. My heart is laboring.
“Who the fuck is this?” Mitzi speaks with a chemical croak. I feel roaches crawling under my skin and sores on my face and my teeth decaying just listening to it. She has gangrene at the jagged edges of her voice. In the background I hear a TV or loud music and a man’s voice saying something.
“This is…I’m Blake’s friend. Carver. Blake’s best friend.”
“What’s going on? Why’s my mama calling me about Blake? How’d she get my number?”
“We’re—we’re calling to tell you that Blake died in a car accident a little more than a month ago.” My throat throbs from restraining the deluge.
“What? No he didn’t. This a joke?” Her words are defiant, but her voice is small. Like that of a child who’s been told that a beloved toy is past repair. Or maybe like someone who’s been slapped. I hear that experience in her voice too.
I shake my head and then I remember Mitzi can’t see me. “Blake is gone. We had his funeral. We buried him. Nana—your mom tried to find you but she couldn’t in time. I’m—I’m sorry. I’m really sorry. She wanted to tell you sooner.”
“No.” Mitzi’s voice is smaller still. “I don’t even know who you are.” I hear the man’s voice again, closer.
“I’m sorry.” My voice quavers.
“Jeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeesuuuuuuuuuuus nooooooooooo.” Her lament collapses quickly into incoherent, unshapen shrieking.
I have to hold the phone away from my ear. Nana Betsy covers her ears and rests her elbows on the table. She’s sobbing and drawing ragged breaths.
When I put the phone back to my ear, Mitzi is keening a litany of “Put her back on. Put her back on. It’s her fault for taking him. I want to tell her. Put her back on. Put her back on. It’s her fault. It’s her fault he’s dead. Oh, Jesus Lord. Oh. Oh, I can’t. I can’t. Oh.”
“No,” I say, with as much steel as I can muster. “I won’t put her back on. You’ll yell at her.”
Nana Betsy lifts her head and reaches for the phone. But it’s a halfhearted attempt and I stand and pull away. Mitzi is choking on sobs. So I fill the space. “It’s not her fault. It’s nobody— It’s my fault. It’s my fault. You can yell at me. Do it. Yell at me. It’s my fault.”
She wails, “You let him get hurt. You didn’t take care of him.”
“I know,” I say, tears welling hot and dropping. “I’m sorry.” But something is turning in me. Something is combusting and turning to anger. I can tell I’m about to say something I’ll regret, and I’ve become acquainted with regret. “But neither did you. You weren’t there for him. You weren’t even there at the funeral. Your son had a good life because of your mom. He had friends and people who loved him. You should be so grateful to her. I’m—”
The line goes dead, and the only sound in my ears is Nana Betsy’s subdued weeping. I slowly lower the phone and set it on the table. I feel like I’ve been hung from a tree branch in a sack and beaten with a stick.
“I was going to give you back the phone. I didn’t want her blaming you. I didn’t expect her to hang up.”
She shakes her head. “Thank you for telling her.”
I suddenly realize that I more or less confessed to Mitzi in the process. I should probably not do that anymore. At this moment, though, I don’t really care. Let them try to find Mitzi. From the sound of things, she won’t even live another twenty-four hours. Better yet, let them crucify me. It would be a relief.
Nana Betsy looks hollow and vacant. She seems to struggle to hold up her head. “I’m wore out. I don’t have anything left.”
“I’ll go.” I start for the door.
“Blade?” she calls. “Will you playact one more thing with me?”
“Yes.”
“Let me really say goodbye to Blake.”
“Okay.” I steel myself.
She stands and faces me. “Blake. I love you and I loved the days I had with you. I have numbered every one of them in my heart. Someday, when that trumpet sounds, I’ll hold you again in my arms.” And she hugs me.
Words abandon me.
After a long while, she says, “This was a worthy goodbye day. I hope you agree.”
“I do.”
“Blake was a beautiful boy and I’ll miss him.”
“I will too.” With that I leave.
My parents are watching TV in their bedroom. I hadn’t told them much about what I was doing today. Only that Nana Betsy and I were spending the day together to remember Blake.
I go in and hug them longer than usual and tell them I love them. They ask about my day and I tell them I don’t want to talk; I’m too tired. We’ll talk about it later.
I flop down on my bed, text Jesmyn, and ask if she can talk.
While I wait for her to respond, my memories fold and replace themselves in the trunks I’ve removed them from. Today was cathartic in the way of a vigorous puking session. You don’t feel good, exactly. Just purged of something.