The Pecan Man(49)

“Blanche, wake up," I said, shaking harder when she did not move. I think that‘s when I knew she was gone from me. I picked up the phone on her bedside table and dialed Patrice's number. I explained where I was and she said she would call the ambulance and be right over.

I didn't know what to do, so I did the first thing that came to mind. I went to the kitchen and put on a pot of water for tea. It seems ridiculous now, but that's what I did.

When I went back to Blanche's room, I carefully placed her hands on her stomach and pulled the blankets up to her chest. Then I crawled into the bed beside her, resting my head on her shoulder and one hand over both of hers. I watched my hand rise and fall with each breath, the sound rumbling in my ear.

I didn't move again until the ambulance arrived. I never heard the sirens. All I remember hearing was the sound of the teakettle screaming on the stove.

Patrice came in right behind them and we comforted each other as the paramedics tended to Blanche and hustled her into the ambulance. Patrice drove us to the hospital, calling her sisters from the cell phone in her car.

Blanche lived another two weeks, though she never regained consciousness. In hindsight, I wish I'd never called a soul. I'd rather have just stayed right there until it was over, than to see my dear friend lying in a cold, sterile hospital room like that.

I've made up a new lie and I tell it to myself every day. Blanche died in her sleep, there in the house where she raised her children, amongst all her memories and all the things she loved. Marcus was there, and Grace, too. Grace, full of life and hope and promise. We were all there, me, Eddie, the twins - the whole family, there to tell Blanche goodbye and send her off to be with her husband again.

I've never been afraid of dying. I don't know what will happen when I do, but I have to believe I'll be with Walter again. I have to believe that I'll have another chance to tell him everything I did not know when he was on the earth and in my living room.





Twenty-nine





Grace did come home for the funeral, which went by in a blur for me. I remember so much about my life in those last twenty years, but I only barely recall being there for the service. The girls were inconsolable, I remember that. Blanche was 59 years old, far too young for the girls to be losing their mother to the stroke that ultimately took her life.

A week or so after the funeral, Patrice convinced Grace to get help for her drug addiction and, wouldn't you know, she started out at Lifeways downtown. She's been in and out of rehab ever since, though I heard she was doing well since her last relapse a few months ago. Patrice has been raising Grace's children for the most part, but Grace sees them often. She lives in Blanche's old house, which Patrice has fixed up quite a bit since her mother's death.

And now, here I am again. It is 2001 and I am preparing for yet another funeral. I'm too old for this, I've decided, and I'm never going to another funeral except my own after we bury The Pecan Man. I just can't do it anymore.

Chip Smallwood delivered Eddie’s meager belongings to me a few days after he died alone in his cell. The tattered shoebox held a few small objects and several letters. There was a pewter lapel pin, wings with a bomb dead center. There were a few photographs, one of a very young Eddie in military uniform holding a girl no more than four or five years of age. Another of a smiling young woman in cap and gown. A note on the back read: Dad, Sorry you couldn’t be there with us. I know you’re proud. Love, Tressa.

The last was one I had taken the first Christmas Blanche and her girls spent with me. Gracie grinned from her perch on Eddie’s lap. Blanche sat on the couch with one arm around Patrice and the twins at her feet. Chip and Clara Jean were squished together on the couch beside Patrice. Chip was smiling awkwardly at the camera, but Clara Jean was looking up at him with the same adoration I had seen in the earlier pictures of Walter and me. The floor was littered with wrapping paper and shiny bows. It was a bittersweet time for all of us, and the photo made me a little sad.

The small stack of letters was tucked into an envelope embossed with Jeffery Thatcher’s return address. There was Eddie’s Last Will and Testament naming me as the Executor of his estate, such as it was, and a letter from Eddie addressed to me. He must have thought I’d live forever, or at least longer than he would. It was the first time I’d known for certain that he was not illiterate, as I’d often assumed. The writing was child-like but the spelling was good and I could read the words he wrote. I could tell he had put a lot of thought into what he wanted to say. There were two letters from Tressa Hightower, addressed to Eldred Mims in care of the prison, with a return address in Alabama.

The instructions for Eddie’s burial were simple. Arrangements had already been made and his daughter had been called. I learned more about Eddie in the few days after his death than I had in the years preceding it. He was not quite as poor as I had expected, but was frugal with the meager income he did have. As such, he didn’t wish to have his body sent to Alabama, but preferred the pauper’s burial the state would provide, even if it meant that he would be laid to rest in a town that would forever remember his name with a mixture of horror and sadness, however wrongly imagined. The box came the day before Eddie’s funeral and I made several phone calls to assure that he did not leave this world without a proper goodbye.





Thirty