God's Country

By the end of the following week, a pattern emerged. Bradley would come home and Miranda would hardly speak to him. She would put some dinner on the table and sit in her mother’s chair, watching him eat. He would say thank you and clean his dishes, then get in his car and leave again. Most nights he came home, late. Sometimes he didn’t. She couldn’t seem to care.

She sat listlessly at the table with a cold cup of black coffee, fingering a pack of her mother’s cigarettes. She heard the front door open but remained with her back to the kitchen door.

“Jesus, girl, you look like a fucking scarecrow,” said Sherry’s no-nonsense voice. She walked over, plucked the cigarettes out of Miranda’s hand and threw them in the trash. She looked in the refrigerator, threw a couple more things in the trash, and starting making cooking sounds. Miranda didn’t respond in any way.

She was getting through her rounds at work, back to seeing a full roster of patients. But no one was calling her the Patient’s Favorite anymore. Rick was the only one she could even bear to hold a conversation with, if you could call their brusque exchanges conversation. Her hands were as capable as ever, but her personality seemed to have crisped away with her mother’s body, reduced to a pile of ash and bone.

“Have you seen Lupe?” Sherry asked sternly.

“Not since the funeral,” Miranda replied with an effort.

“Fine. We’re going down there after I make sure you eat some dinner. Then I’m bringing you back here and spending the night.”

“You don’t have to.”

“I know that.” Sherry slid a plate of scrambled eggs and wheat toast in front of her, with a sliced apple. “Now eat, or I will force it down your throat.”

Miranda picked up her fork and put a tiny bite of eggs in her mouth. Her gorge rose and she put the fork down.

“Eat!” shouted Sherry, right in her ear. Miranda, startled, swallowed involuntarily. She waited a moment, but the food stayed down, so she tried another mouthful. When she had finished most of the eggs, one slice of toast and a slice of the apple, Sherry let her go get dressed.

They drove in silence down to Lupe’s little apartment. Sherry knocked on the door while Miranda stood in the corridor, staring at the swirls in the green and mustard carpet. Good colors, if you’re trying to hide random vomit and defecation stains, she thought. Lupe opened the door and let them in, giving Sherry a kiss on the cheek.

They sat in the living room and Lupe brought them tea. Miranda let hers cool on the polished wood coffee table while Sherry brought Lupe up to date on her latest adventures.

“So, Little Miss Sherry, why have you brought my granddaughter to me, looking like this awful wet rag?”

“Lupe, you need to talk to her. She’s not eating. She’s not talking. She can’t say where her boyfriend is, and you know how Bradley adores her. She’s a mess.”

“I’m here,” said Miranda, annoyed that they were talking about her in the third person. A mistake. Sherry’s gaze turned back to her.

“Then act like it.”

“My mother just died, for God’s sake. Give me a break.” Miranda got to her feet and stalked into the kitchen.

Lupe followed her. “My last daughter just died, mija.”

“I know, Grandma.” Miranda leaned her head against the cool white refrigerator. “I know. How do you stand it?”

“I just stand, and trust that God will keep me on my feet.”

“I’m standing, Grandma. I’m back to a full load at work. I’m taking care of my responsibilities.”

“That’s good. But I think Sherry is trying to say that your heart is closed. You can’t do that, mija. It doesn’t work. It can’t heal that way.”

“It hurts too much.”

“It will hurt you more to keep doing what you’re doing. And not just you.” Lupe sat at the kitchen table. “Miranda, where is your man?”

“I don’t know. I think he’s back at his own house.”

“Why isn’t he with you?”

“He tried to be. I don’t know.” Miranda sat as well. “He just feels empty to me. Like he does all the right things, but he’s missing something important. I don’t want to be around him. I can’t bring myself to care.”

Lupe snorted. “You’re hard on a man, mija. He is handsome and charming. He has a good job, makes good money. He loves you, he helped you through the terrible time your mother was dying. Why are you pushing him away?”

Miranda didn’t say anything. It was too hard to describe. Too much effort.

“All right, then. Who can you talk to? Not me, I know that, or Sherry wouldn’t have to drag you down here.” Miranda’s gaze flickered guiltily. “It’s all right. I understand, at least, why you don’t want to see me yet.” Lupe’s gaze sharpened. “But there is someone, isn’t there?” She covered Miranda’s hand with her own. “Who is it?”

“Rick,” said Miranda reluctantly. “Fuentes.” Lupe frowned.

“Who is that?”

“My patient, Grandma, I told you about him. Out on Paco Ano.”

“The Paquito!” she spat, and got to her feet. “Miranda! What is wrong with you? I told you – they are not our people. They are not like us.”

“Don’t you talk to me about who ‘our people’ are. I don’t have people! I only have you, and you’re….”

“Dying, too?” Lupe said softly. Miranda nodded, staring at the floor. As angry as she could ever remember being.

“I don’t know why Bradley meets with your approval, but Rick doesn’t. Bradley is white. He was born in a Louisiana trailer park and has no family at all. No one. No connections.” As the words fell out of her mouth, she realized that was the wrongness she felt in him. He’d been too perfect, too willing to compromise for her, to be with her, to be a part of her life. It was because he’d had none of his own. Despite his outward advantages, he bore a sense of desperation, of neediness, like an undershirt full of holes. It was what he wore next to his skin. And when Lupe died, she herself would be just the same, floating loose in the hard, wide world.

“Bradley is far less ‘our people’ than Rick, or hell, almost anyone else in this town, by any measurement you’d care to name.”

“A vacuum is something you can fill, mija,” said Lupe. “Corruption is not something you can escape.” She rose unsteadily and Miranda leapt to grasp her by the arm. “If you two will excuse me, mija, I think it’s past my bedtime.”

Miranda took her into the bedroom and then she and Sherry left, locking the door behind them.

“Thanks for bringing me down here to have a fight with my Grandma and send her extra early to her grave, Sherry,” said Miranda.

“Don’t be a bitch,” said Sherry. “You know you needed to see her, even if you did have a fight.”

Miranda stared out the window, chewing this over. “Okay. Maybe.” There was a long silence. “Hey, can you stop at Bradley’s house? I want to see if he’s there.” Sherry smiled.

“That’s the first sensible thing I’ve heard you say in days.”

Sherry pulled into the driveway. “I’ll just stay here. Wave out the front door if you’re staying and I’ll be on my way.”

“Just wait here.”

Miranda climbed out and rang the front doorbell. The door opened. A tall blonde woman stood in the doorway, her blouse unbuttoned, a smell of whiskey pouring off her. Miranda smiled. This was going to make everything much, much easier.

“Is Bradley here?” she said politely. The woman weaved, trying to focus on her face.

“You mean Boo, sweetie?”

“Yes. Yes, that’s exactly who I mean.”

“I’ll see if I can disentangle him,” she said, screeching over her shoulder. “Boo! It’s for you, honey!”

He appeared in silhouette, also with his shirt hanging open, a cigarette on his lip and a beer bottle in his hand.

“God, Miranda,” he said, and the bottle crashed to the floor and shattered. She stepped inside.

“It’s all right,” she said calmly. “I only need a minute.” He pushed the giggling blonde towards the kitchen, where more voices could be heard.

“Nothing’s going on, Mir,” he said, his voice a bit slurred. “Just some guys from work and their, uh, girlfriends.”

“Bradley, I just wanted to say thank you for all your kind support during the last few months. It would have been much more difficult without you, but now I think it’s time we both moved on.” He started to speak, but she forestalled him. “You don’t owe me anything, not even an apology, but I owe you one. I’m sorry, Boo Radley, that I can’t be what you need me to be. I think it would be best if you picked up your things from the house while I’m at work tomorrow, if you could do that, and leave the key in the mailbox.”

“Oh, darlin’, don’t do this. Mir, please. I know I haven’t really been there the last few weeks, but we can…don’t just leave. I hate being left, Mir, you honestly have no idea.”

“I have some,” she said softly and reached up to tuck one strand of hair behind his ear. “I’m so sorry, but I truly wish you well,” and left before he could trap her there with lean, strong arms or honeysuckle words.

“You broke UP with him?” screeched Sherry in her ear, pulling out of the driveway way too fast and accelerating down the quiet residential road like a hot rod driver. “I would never have brought you over here if I knew you were going to do that! I am washing my hands of you, Miranda. You don’t know when the best things in life are staring you in the face.”

They drove up the grade in silence and Sherry dropped her off at the end of the dirt track, practically shoving her out of the car. She walked up the long, bumpy road in total darkness, tripping once and falling hard to her knees. Glowing green eyes stared at her from the underbrush. A possum, probably, or maybe even a badger. She stayed on her knees and crawled the rest of the way, not even realizing when the tears started pouring down her face.

They don’t know, she thought to herself, sitting on her front doorstep and wiping streaks of mud across her cheeks. None of them know. I’m a mermaid. I live in the creek. My hair is moss and my fingers are tendrils of water that reach down the hills all the way to the sea. I know about things, about what they are. I know the mineral nature of them, their quiet decomposition. I know about the dapples of leaves and the lives of creatures they would all need microscopes to see.

She fell over on her side, staring up at the underside of the front porch overhang in the yellow light of the old bare bulb that served them for a nightlight. She could see spiderwebs, making the gritty wood seem even dirtier, older, unloved.

“Charlotte, where are you?” she said aloud. “I need you to come tell me about life and death and the seasons and how it’s all okay.”

“Wilbur! Wilbur!! Soooooey!!” she howled, suddenly hysterical with laughter. She sat up. “Oh my God, I think I’m really losing my shit,” she said, not liking the way that sounded out loud. She shook herself off and went inside, climbing into her shower and using the last of the green apple scrub to rid herself of the last of the crazy feelings. That was the first good night’s sleep she’d had since her mother died. But somehow, the next morning, she was not surprised to get the phone call telling her that Lupe had been taken to the hospital.