Page 66 of The Night the Lights Went Out
Not that either of them had been looking to ask a favor or to fulfill one, but Merilee had been on her way to the grocery store—the children at their father’s for the weekend—and had passed Sugar just as she’d delivered a swift kick to the back tire of her car. It wasn’t that she was angry at the car. It was old, after all. She was irritated because she would probably have to buy a new car at this stage in her life, when her chances of getting her money’s worth were next to nil.
When the hymn ended and Merilee made to move out of the pew, Sugar put her hand on her arm. “Just wait until they’ve all left. I can’t stand the jostling and the crowds.” She sat back and waited for the people to step around them, patient smiles on their lips.
After everyone had left and the organ had stopped, Sugar took a deep breath. Her family had been coming to this church for more than a hundred years. The church had built a new, larger sanctuary a while back, but one service a month was still held in the old one, and that’s the one Sugar went to.
“Is this where you and Tom were married?” Merilee asked in her church voice.
“Yes. And my grandparents. Not my parents, though; they were married in Savannah, where Mama was from. All the funerals were here, too. Just memorial services for Bobby and Tom, though, since they’re buried overseas. Mine will be here, too. I’ve already worked out all the details with the pastor. Wade has a copy.”
“Of course you have,” Merilee said. She stood and moved into the aisle and waited for Sugar to haul herself up, even waited patiently while the blood began to flow again into Sugar’s extremities so she could move. Sugar assumed she was used to waiting on small children, so it probably wasn’t something Merilee had to think about.
“Nothing wrong with being prepared. That’s the problem with the young people today. Everybody thinks nothing bad will ever happen, so they don’t plan for it.”
Merilee held up her elbow and Sugar surprised them both by taking it. “I don’t know if you’re including me in ‘young people,’ but I’m prepared. You should see your cellar. I could live there for a month without having to come up for air once.”
“How old are you?” Sugar asked. “Just in case I need to change my classifications.”
A corner of Merilee’s mouth twitched. “Thirty-six. But remember that thirty is the new twenty.”
“Humph. And ninety is still the old ninety.”
Merilee laughed out loud, then slapped her hand over her mouth when she remembered where she was. They were silent as Merilee led Sugar down the front steps one at a time, Sugar’s other hand clasped tightly to the banister. The older she became without falling, the more nervous she became that she might.
A slip and fall on her front steps was the whole reason Willa Faye’s daughter had decided it was time to move her mother out of her house and into that retirement community with the ridiculous overblown name—the one Wade was always telling Sugar she should consider. As if she had any inclination to move into what was basically a dormitory for the elderly, complete with rubber chicken at dinner and motorized scooters.
Willa Faye was happy there, had even started sharing meals with a younger gentleman of eighty-seven. But Sugar couldn’t leave her home, not while she still had breath in her. And not just because she was stubborn and liked things her own way, and had no interest in doing anything on anybody else’s schedule. If only her reasons were that uncomplicated.
“I don’t mind taking you straight home, but if you need anything at Kroger, I was headed that way...”
Sugar shook her head. “Seniors’ day is Wednesday and the store has coupons and discounts for the old people. I’ll wait to go then.”
“Oh, of course. I didn’t know.” Merilee began walking in the direction of the parking lot, but Sugar held her back. “I’d like to walk a bit, if you don’t mind. I get stiff sitting for an hour. I should tell the pastor he should write shorter sermons.”
“Sure.” Merilee moved in beside her and tucked her hand in the crook of Sugar’s elbow. “Lead the way.”
She’d thought they’d walk down the sidewalk adjacent to Main Street for a block or two—just enough to get her hip joints moving again. But her feet seemed to have another idea entirely, and they ended up on the path leading them to the graveyard. She was a frequent visitor here, her friends now seeming to die with alarming regularity.
They walked slowly, admiring the old-growth trees that shaded the paths and the leaves that had just started wearing their new autumn colors. “Is this where your family is buried?”
Sugar stopped, suddenly tired. “No. We have a family cemetery. Pretty much everyone, except for Bobby and Tom, is buried there.”
“Is it nearby?”
“Near enough.” She spotted a bench and began leading Merilee toward it, eager to get the pressure of standing off of her knees and hips.
Merilee waited for her to sit before joining her. “I can take you sometime, if you’d like. I mean, if you don’t want to drive or go alone, I’d be happy to take you.”
“I can go by myself.” Realizing she’d been rude, even for her, she said, “Thank you. But I go there to talk with Jimmy and Mary. They don’t answer—I suppose I’d need to seek a doctor’s advice if they did—but I try to make up for all the conversations we didn’t get to have.” She paused. “And I speak to my mama sometimes, too, for the same reason.”
She felt Merilee looking at her. “I wasn’t aware that you had a good relationship with your mother.”
Sugar started to press her lips together, wondering what it was about this woman that made her share so much. Maybe it was the simple truth that there was so much unsaid, and too few people remaining whom she could tell. “I’m no doctor, but I’d say my mama had depression or one of those mental diseases they all talk about today, and there’s now probably some pill she could have taken to make it go away. But all we had then was something to make her tired so she didn’t notice how unhappy she was. I wish I could go back with all I know now and apply it. Then maybe I could have the kind of conversations I always imagined a girl would have with her mother.”
“If you figure out how to do that, let me know.”
A limb of crimson maple leaves shuddered with excitement above them as a bird stretched its wings and flew away, the temptation of a blue sky more interesting than their conversation. “That’s a red-winged blackbird,” Sugar said with confidence. “They’ve usually gone down to the coast by now—don’t like the colder weather.” She pressed her back against the bench, thinking of Jimmy and of her deal with God that he’d be the last loss in her life. As if, in the stupidity of the young, she believed she had any bargaining power at all in the grand scheme of things.
But as part of her reasoning there’d been what Jimmy had taught her about the migrating birds, about how they came back year after year, and how that always filled him with hope that despite storms and losses, the opportunity to start again was always there. It was why she’d said yes to Tom. If only to show Jimmy that maybe he’d been right. She stopped and turned to Merilee. “Did your life change after David died?”
