“Are you ready for THE FINAL RECKONING?” she asks. “Are you willin’?”
“I am willin’,” I say, even though it has just occurred to me that maybe I’m not. I have no idea what THE FINAL RECKONING is. The room has drawn darker and the wind… it’s unearthly sounding.
Miss Lydia’s eyes close and she begins to chant, “Open your heart… open your mind… open your heart… open your mind.”
I do.
“Breathe in my breath three times.”
So honey sweet.
“Allow yourself to drift away to the night of the crash so-” She steels herself. “The spirit of rememberin’ is comin’ upon you.”
I don’t want to disappoint her, but I desperately do not want to go on with this. I am feeling floaty and faraway and frightened. Untethered. Because suddenly, I’m not in her parlor anymore. Not in Hundred Wonders. Not even in Cray Ridge. I’m back in the kind of night anybody in their right mind stays home and is grateful to do so, me and mine heading down here to start my summer stay. The rain is gushing down so bad it’s erasing the highway line and our Buick’s sprouted wings more than a few times. And the sky isn’t the only one spittin’ mad. My mama’s saying in her crossest of voices, “We’re not gonna outrun this storm… Lydia… get off at the next exit. Ya got talent at findin’ motels, don’tcha, Joe? ’Specially the real cheap kind.” Daddy’s bellowing back, “Goddamn it. I’m warning you, Addy… for the last time…,” and Mama starts screaming. The driver of the car is burying her face in her hands when Daddy lurches for the wheel too late. And then there’s an explosion.
We’re never gonna outrun this storm, Lydia.
Lydia?
“It… it was… you drivin’ that night?” I ask, trembling.
Miss Lydia reaches out for me, and when I pull back, her tears come. “Addy thought that it’d do me good to come visit y’all up in Chicago to get away from Cray Ridge for a bit, and then… then we’d all drive back down here together. I knew she and your daddy’d been havin’ some marriage problems, but that whole week they fought something awful. The night… that night we were headin’ back down here, they were so upset and outta sorts they asked me to drive, and I did… but then… in all their arguin’… the rain sheetin’, I was wore out with their mad, and still feelin’ so sad about Georgie, I closed my eyes, just for a moment… a moment is all… and then the bus…”
“I… I… Is this why Grampa doesn’t want me to visit with you?” All this time I thought he was being so unreasonable. And that my daddy was the one driving. “Ya fell asleep at the wheel? Why didn’t you tell me the truth?”
“I couldn’t… I couldn’t risk losin’ ya like I lost Georgie and Addy and…” Miss Lydia breaks into the kind of banshee wailing she does when we do one of our LAYING UPONS on Mama’s grave. “I’m sorry… I’m sorry… I’m sorry… forgive me… I’m sorry… I’m sorry… I’m sorry… forgive me…”
"Y’ all right in there?” Teddy Smith has come up the porch steps and is calling through the screen door. “Lydia?” When he pokes his head in and sees her balled up on the sofa, he rushes to her side, lifts her into his arms, and carries her off toward her bedroom, leaving me behind and alone.
All these years of believing in Miss Lydia with my whole heart and soul. How could she? That means the ACTUATIONS, and even worse, the VISITATIONS were a lie, too. And they were the only way I had to stay close to my mama.
I’m not sure how long I lay there on her parlor sofa letting the torturous sad spew outta me, or how long it took before I realized that my gulping breaths, they smell so strong of lilies-of the-valley. But now I am sure that I can hear Mama’s laugh that pealed like church bells resounding inside me. She drank coffee black. Melancholy was how she felt when she was done with one of her paintings. She adored applesauce cake with a sprinkle of cinnamon hot out of the oven. The warmth of her against the warmth of me, our heads sharing a pillow. The last thing she said to me ’fore I fell asleep every night, no matter how mad or sad or busy she was, “I love you forever, my little Giblet. No matter what happens… don’t ever forget that.”
That’s when it comes to my mind that I’ve not been completely right about why my mama hasn’t been resting in peace. It is because I’m NQR, but not the way I’ve been thinking. No. She isn’t pacing heaven, wringing her strong but small hands ’cause I confuse my words and my mind wanders. Or even ’cause of the blue streak that runs through me. It’s because, ’cept for a smattering here and there, I did forget about her love for me. And there’s no way she can rest eternally until what’s been lost is found and returned to its rightful owner.
So I pick up the picture of her and me at my graduation that Miss Lydia left lying on the table, and holding it to my heart, I trumpet loud enough that she’ll hear me all the way up to the pearly gates, “Oh, Mama. Rest assured. Your little Giblet remembers.”
Birthday
Could it be just this morning that I believed the nature sounds were so much louder here in Hundred Won-ders? Like this is where it all begins and the rest of the world’s gotta put up with hand-me-downs? Now the cemetery looks desolate like any other. And the baptizing creek’s got some scummy weeds floating on top. Even the flowers don’t smell as sweet.
Me and Teddy Smith are sitting side by side out on the wood bench across the road from Miss Lydia’s house. He’s staring off yonder and I am struggling to fit together the pieces that got me to where I am right now. Mama. How right it feels to have her back cozy in my mind. And Miss Lydia, I’m thinking on her, too. I don’t believe I’ll ever be able to forgive her. Even if I wear purple every day for the rest of my life. Not ’cause she was driving the car the night of the crash. That was just an accident. That coulda happened to anybody. But having your trust snatched away from you like that? That’s gotta be about the worst thing there is. Makes me feel like I lost my grip on a trapeze, knowing I’ve got no net below. Maybe many, many, many moons from now, I’ll be able to say to her, “It’s all right, ya made a mistake, Miss Lydia, let’s have a kitty cuddle.” But maybe not neither.
“Ya know, don’tcha,” Teddy says, extending his arms, “that this, all of it, come ’bout ’cause of you and your mama? The signs.
The healings. The baptisms. All of it goes back to that night of the crash.”
I figured some of that out while we’ve been sitting here staring at the Wonder signs. Like plucking off artichoke leaves to get to the heart of the matter, all of a sudden I understood what they really meant. Especially:
WONDER # 100
SAVING THE INNOCENT IS THE JOB OF THE ONE WHO’S
GOT HOLD OF THE WHEEL
“That’s how she got herself burned,” he goes on. “Lydia’s the one pulled you away from the fiery car. If she hadn’t stumbled into a creek after the exertion of it all, she’d be ’side your mama right over there.”