The Red Strokes

Chapter 15 - Lilah

A sharp knock on the door ends my conversation with Val and my smile melts when I open the door to find George standing on the welcome mat. At this very moment, I believe it's possible to feel color drain from my cheeks.

"Hey, how did today go?" He attempts to nudge past me without waiting for me to move to the side. "And whose car is that?" he asks, pointing to the blue Ford.

I don't move. If he wants to get by me, he's going to have to knock me down. "What are you doing here?"

"You're kidding." The look on George's face is one of confusion, the vertical wrinkles between his eyebrows deepening into ruts.

I take a calming breath and shift to the right just enough to close the gap between the me and the doorframe. He says, "You're not going to let me in?"

"No, I'm not." If I hadn't heard the words in my own voice, I wouldn't have believed I had said them.

He throws his hands into the air. "What's this about?" He backs up a step. "The funeral? You're pissed I wasn't there to hold your hand at the damned funeral, is that it? Hell, the way you've been acting the last few days you're lucky I'm here now."

There it is. Staring me in the face: big, bad, and ugly trying to hide behind Ralph Lauren pinstripes. I'd be lying if I said I had never seen George in this light, but today is the first time my head and heart are shaking hands over it. There are lessons that take a lifetime to learn and then there are those that are learned in less time than it takes to slam a door.

Gasps float through the room, one of them my own.

"I can't believe you did that," Michelle.

"The only thing that would have made the moment sweeter was if his fingers were still in the door," Val.

"V-a-l," Michelle.

"I can't believe I did that. I don't think I've ever slammed a door in someone's face before," I say, a slight tremor making another pass through me. "It was like a gust of wind came out of nowhere and sucked it out of my hand, almost like doing it was beyond my control."

"Beyond your control? Woman, you owned it." My sister and Michelle share a spirited high-five as they return to their seats at the table.

I turn my head, unsure which caught my eye first, a glimpse through parted curtains of George's car backing out of the driveway or light breaking through a small opening in the door to the study. The door creaks open further, but there's no one in view making it look like one of the rooms you see in low-budget horror movies where copious amounts of blood seem to run from the ceilings, and eerie organ-music acts as the perfect backdrop to ear-piercing screams. An end table stops the door from opening any further and within seconds, Heddie Mae and Avery appear from behind it. There isn't enough space for both women to pass through the doorway at the same time, but that doesn't stop Avery from forcing herself between the doorjamb and her grandmother, never letting go of the older woman's forearm. Even though she's wafer thin, the area is so tight I know she has to feel the striker-plate digging into her hip as they squeeze through, but she doesn't let it show.

Val and Michelle join me in the living room and we watch Avery help her grandmother to the couch. "Were you able to sleep?" I ask.

Heddie Mae half-falls onto the cushion, finishing her descent with a muted groan. Once seated, she answers, "Just a cat-nap to chase the spells."

Michelle, who I've come to learn is a natural-born hostess, offers each of us something to drink and another chance at her cookie platter from earlier. Heddie Mae accepts a glass of water while Avery sits erect and stone silent. She seems almost birdlike, postured and lanky like a flamingo with small, close-set eyes that dart between speakers with little to no head movement. Avery's edgy stare and a twenty-year separation lend a discomfort to the room, but Heddie Mae's warm eyes and soft tone make it bearable.

I know Val and I each have a dozen or more questions we'd like to ask, but being the less apprehensive of the two, Val begins. "I noticed you have Mississippi plates on your car, I assume you drove up. We're hoping you plan to spend some time here. We have a lot of catching up to do."

"Well..." Heddie Mae begins. I had noticed earlier' during our short conversation and before the spell took over her; she seems to frame her replies more slowly and with more thought than I remember. A dramatic infliction tells me there's a lot more to what she's saying than what her words reveal.

She continues. "Your father asked me to come an I reckon y'all will let me know when it's time to leave, but we didn't fly. Avery drove it straight through."

Val and I are still looking at each other when she asks her next question. "You and Dad were in touch?"

That would have been my number two question right after why he asked her to come in the first place.

"Oh my. Always," Heddie Mae says with certainty as if there's no other answer. "Every Sunday I'd no sooner walk through the door after church, an the phone would ring. Your father wasn't a church-going man, as you know, but he'd tell me our talks always made him feel clean as if he was newly born an river-dipped."

"I had no idea," Val says. "He never said anything."

Heddie Mae clears her throat and for the first time since they sat, Avery turns her head to assess her grandmother.

"We knew my leaving was hard on you girls. We thought it best to leave well enough alone an let the wounds scab over."

I lean forward. "And you didn't think coming back after all this time would open those wounds? Do you have any idea what it was like seeing you on my porch? My emotions are running a little off-kilter the way it is with Dad and Doriah and George—" I stop myself before I pour my entire life into her lap. I feel every eye in the room on me. "I'm sorry." I mean that. "I am happy you're here."

Heddie Mae nods into her chest. When she raises her head, she looks at me when she speaks. "I got a lot to say, an you got a lot to hear." She glances around the room and picks up her water glass. "It'll all make sense before the egg timer rings."

Val stares at me for a moment as if looking for answers I don't have. She turns to Michelle, and says, "Maybe I will hang around for a while."

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