She came back into the living room from the kitchen, carrying a glass of sweet tea.
“Here you are, darling,” she said, handing me the cold, sweaty glass. I took a sip, savoring her ability to brew the best tea I’d ever tasted. It held the perfect sweetness—not bitter, not weak, and the color was transparent mahogany. She sat down in her rocking chair and pulled a quilt over her skinny legs, the wormy veins hidden by fleshy panty hose.
“Why haven’t you come in four months?” she asked.
“I’ve been busy, Mom,” I said, setting the tea down on a glass coffee table in front of the couch. “I had the book tour and other stuff, so I haven’t been back in North Carolina that long.”
“Well, it hurts my feelings that my son won’t take time out of his high-and-mighty schedule to come visit his mother.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I really feel bad.”
“You should be more considerate.”
“I will. I’m sorry.”
“Stop saying that,” she snapped. “I forgive you.” Then turning back to the television, she said, “I bought your book.”
“You didn’t have to buy it, Mom. I have thirty copies at home. I could’ve brought one.”
“I didn’t know that.”
“You read it?”
She frowned, and I knew the answer. “I don’t want to hurt your feelings,” she said, “but it’s just like your other ones. I didn’t even reach the end of the first chapter before I put it down. You know I can’t stand profanity. And that Sizzle was just horrible. I’m not gonna read about a man going around setting people on fire. I don’t know how you write it. People probably think I abused you.”
“Mom, I—”
“I know you write what sells, but that doesn’t necessarily mean I’m gonna like it. I just wish you’d write something nice for a change.”
“Like what? What would you like for me to write?”
“A love story, Andrew. Something with a happy ending. People read love stories, too, you know.”
I laughed out loud and lifted up the glass. “So you think I should switch to romance? My fans would love that, let me tell you.”
“Now you’re just being ugly,” she said as I sipped the tea. “You ought to be ashamed of yourself. Mocking your own mother.”
“I’m not mocking you, Mom. I think you’re hilarious.”
She frowned again and looked back at the television. Though strong-willed and feisty, my mother was excruciatingly sensitive beneath her fussy exterior.
“Have you been to Dad’s grave yet?” she asked after a moment.
“No. I wanted to go with you.”
“There were flowers by the headstone this morning. A beautiful arrangement. It looked fresh. You sure you didn’t—”
“Mom, I think I’d know if I laid flowers on Dad’s grave this morning.”
Her short-term memory was wilting. She’d probably taken the flowers there yesterday.
“Well, I was there this morning,” she said. “Before it clouded up. Sat there for about an hour, talking to him. He’s got a nice spot under that magnolia.”
My eyes wandered through the overgrown yard, alighting on the fallen swing we’d helped my father build. He would not be proud of how I’d cared for his wife. But she’s stubborn as hell, and you knew it. You knew it better than anyone. Leaning against the railing, I looked thirty yards beyond, staring into the woods, which started abruptly where the grass ended.
Something inside of me twitched. It was as though I were seeing the world as a negative of a photograph—in black and gray, two boys rambling through the trees toward something I could not see. A fleeting image struck me—a cigarette ember glowing in a tunnel. There was a presence in the forest, in my head, and it bowled me over.
I could not escape the idea that I’d forgotten something.
17
I left my mother’s house before dusk, and for the forty miles of back roads between Winston-Salem and my lake house near Davidson, I thought of Karen. Normally, I’d banish her from my thoughts at the first flicker of a memory, but tonight I allowed her to remain, and watching the familiar roads wind between stands of forest and breaks of pasture, I imagined she sat beside me in the Jeep.