Chapter Thirty-Four
The road home can be a long and winding drive, a labyrinth of memories and mistakes. I hadn’t been to the old house in longer than I liked to admit, but of course I still knew the way. I both hurried and dawdled, at first watching my rearview mirror for Henry or the doctor, but the closer I got to home, the slower I went. At one point, I pulled off the road and sat in the tall grass of the ditch, watching clouds roll overhead until dusk arrived. You see, the house was both a beacon and a burden, calling me back, but I was no longer the person I had been, just like it was not the house I had left.
The house had always looked old, but now it lurched on its foundation, tilted as though it wanted to lie down and rest. Mama’s rosebushes had gotten leggy, and the rose of Sharons climbed so high they nearly blocked the second-story windows. The glow of the porch light revealed wood that poked bare from the paint chips that had long since peeled away. Daddy never would’ve, I began to think to myself, but then I stopped. Daddy had been gone close to a decade, leaving his wife to manage it all.
I felt like a stranger standing on the front porch, hoping to be let in. I knocked on the screen door, which hung crooked on its hinges, threatening to fall with each tap. When had the place become so decrepit? While I waited, the porch light flickered, and a jolt raced through me as the stale taste of rubber lay thick on my tongue, that memory too singed to be forgotten.
As I considered knocking again, the inside door creaked open and a voice I knew well said, “Lucy?”
I had been so strong that day. I had showered and gotten dressed. I had been hopeful with Henry and sat up straight beside him in the doctor’s office.
Regardless of how my body ached and the rash across my cheeks itched, I had put on the brave face. And then, when I needed to, I ran.
But now, standing on that porch as the gray-washed planks that my grandfather had cut, sanded, and nailed into place bowed beneath the weight of my slender body, I had no more strength to give. In the place where I had learned to dam up my tears, the barricade broke and I sobbed.
“Mama!” Georgie’s crutches clacked on the wooden floor as he moved away from the door and called for our mother.
Through a veil of tears, I saw something I had never seen before: my mother running toward me.
“Lucy? Lucy!” She kept saying my name. Each time, it echoed through me, reminding me of who I had been, as if calling me back to myself as I came home. She pushed the screen door open so hard I thought for sure it would come loose of its hinges once and for all. “Get in here!”
I walked into the house so full of memories and smells. I swore I picked up hints of cinnamon and nutmeg, as if she had pulled a peach pie from the oven only moments ago. I walked into the warm glow of the living room, and Mama stood in front of me. I didn’t know what she knew. I hadn’t phoned her, but I didn’t know if Henry had said something. Did she know I had lost my mind? Did she know I had been tucked away in a mental hospital? Did she know I was on the lam? I was afraid to look her in the eyes, because I thought my eyes would tell the story I would rather keep hidden.
“Let me look at you,” she said.
I was so glad she didn’t ask how I was, because I didn’t have an answer, but I wondered what she saw. There were moments with Wesley when I’d look at him and see him differently. He was always growing and changing, but sometimes it would take time for me to realize that, and then one day I’d
catch sight of him in an ordinary moment, maybe as he ran into the kitchen and begged to lick the beaters, and I’d see him differently than I had a minute ago. A lot of moments had happened between the last time my mother had seen me and that evening when I escaped the sanatorium and come to stand on her front porch. What did she see? Had I changed?
She had. She was so much smaller than I remembered. Her wrinkles pressed in deeper, the lines beside her lips and eyes showed her years and heartache. But her determination stood.
I straightened my dress and wiped at the persistent tears. That’s when she looked at me, clear as day. And that’s when her voice changed, her breath caught in her throat.
“Dear God.”
I must’ve looked worse than I realized.
As she brought her hand to her mouth as if to stop her astonishment from escaping, I lowered my eyes and my guard, and I confessed, “They say I’ve gone mad.”
“No. No!” She moved toward me. Taking my chin in her hand, she turned my head from side to side. “Oh, child. You look just like him.”
I always had. I wondered sometimes if Mama wished I looked more like her. If I had been a small version of her, would she have paid me more attention? But I’d gotten Daddy’s almond eyes and apple cheeks.
“Have they seen this?” she asked.
“Seen what?”
“The wolf’s got you, too.”
Perhaps I wasn’t the only one who had gone mad. I looked at Georgie, who shrugged.
“Mama,” I said, “you’re not making any sense.”
“The rash. Have they seen it? And what else? Look at you, how tired you
are. What are you feeling? Aches, pains, sore arms, legs, hands?”
She had never known me as well as she did that moment. For once, she could read my mind. I didn’t need to speak. She saw the answer in my eyes, and she saw the signs of it all spelled out so clearly in the butterfly rash across my face.
“It’s not madness. It’s lupus,” she said. “Just like him.”
