Bodark Creek - 54. Chapter 54

Charley was doing pretty well after his heart attack. He was out seeing his friends, and he was driving again, but his doctor wanted to do a little surgery. “The problem is,” Charley told me, “that he thinks I can have another heart attack at any time.”

“Isn’t one enough?” I asked.

“Well, no one in our family’s ever had two. But that’s only because no one’s ever lived through the first one.”

“Then I’d let the doctor have his way.”

“That’s what I’ve been thinking.”

Only it didn’t work out the way everyone expected. When the doctor was in the middle of the operation, he set off a couple of small strokes. Faye called me again, immediately.

“Charley’s all right,” she assured me. “The doctor says his heart’s actually stronger than he thought. The only problem now is Charley can’t walk.”

“Is he paralyzed?” I asked.

“We don’t know that yet. All the doctor’s saying is ‘weakness.’ ‘He has a weakness in his arm. He has a weakness in his leg.’”

“But you said he can’t walk.”

“That’s what they’re thinking. Though right now, Charley hasn’t tried. He’s not even allowed out of bed.”

“He’s not going to like this,” I said. Charley was always very active.

And when he did get out of bed, he didn’t do well. His left hand couldn’t grip. His left arm could mainly swing. And he could walk, but his left foot dragged.

“When I was in the Navy,” he told me on the phone, “we had this story called ‘The Maniac in the Everglades.’ The guys would tell it at night, when they wanted to scare someone or when they were really bored. And the way you could tell that the maniac was coming is you’d hear his step. Step, then drag. Step, then drag. I think someone once shot him in the leg. Well, that’s how I’m walking now.”

“What did this maniac do?” I had to ask. Charley had never told me the story.

“He murdered people,” my brother said laughing. “So you’d better stay away from me.”

“He still has his sense of humor,” I told Faye later.

“Oh, yes. Though I’m losing mine. And I never did like doctors.”

When Charley started physical therapy, at first, he went two times a week. Then he went four. Then he was going every day but Sunday.

“They like seeing me,” he said. “And they like the way things are working out. I’ll never be able to do a dance, but I’ll probably be all right without my cane. Still, it’s very dull, Addy. You do the same things over and over. And sometimes it just hurts.”

“Do I want to ask?” I said.

“No, just pray that you never have to go through it.”

Instead, I prayed that Charley would all right again soon, and he was. He could get around fairly well, though Faye didn’t like him to drive. And that meant he couldn’t go anywhere without her. He especially couldn’t work as a movie cowboy.

“I’m mainly stuck here reading,” he half-complained. “And you know I’ve never liked doing that as much as you or Faye. There’s the TV. But you can only watch so many ball games before you want to go out and play yourself. And I’m used to always having my friends around. But the strangest thing is that suddenly they’re no longer here. I thought I was imagining it. But Faye says it’s true.”

“What’s the matter with them?” I asked.

“I think they don’t want to be reminded. Don’t want to think this could happen to them. And seeing me with my weak hand. Noticing that I can’t walk the way I used to. Even hearing that I’m having a little trouble with my speech. Though I’ve always talked kind of slowly because of these Navy teeth. But my friends look at me now, and I guess they feel I’ve just gotten away from the Grim Reaper. And he still has his hands on me.”

“That’s crazy,” I said.

“It is. But it’s their loss. And I can make other friends. I can meet new people. I’ve already met folks at the hospital I’m starting to be friendly with. And since we never knew each other before, it seems like we’ve always been this way.”

“That’s great,” I told Charley. And I told him I’d come and visit him as soon as he was ready.

“Why don’t you come after Christmas?” he suggested this time. For months, he’d been telling me to wait. “That way, you still have the holiday with your children.”

That was our plan, but unfortunately it didn’t work out that way. I had my plane tickets and was already packed when Albie had a heart attack. He was eighteen years younger than Charley. He was only forty-eight. But he wasn’t as lucky.

“How could this happen?” Leona asked. We were all in shock. If Albie had been killed in another accident, we couldn’t have been more surprised.

“The doctor said it was an absolute chance,” Albie’s wife Barbara told us. “He said that other than his heart, Albie was in wonderful shape. But there was something wrong with one of his valves.”

“And no one noticed?” Ruth asked. “With all that doctors can do?”

Even being a nurse, Barbara couldn’t answer that. And it was a strange idea anyway. Fifty years before, when my mama died at not much more than Albie’s age, everyone said it was the Lord’s way. Now doctors were supposed to make people live forever.

“I thought we’d have another twenty years,” Barbara went on. “I never even thought about this.”

“Either did I,” I told her. “I wouldn’t have said that William would make it to ninety. But who’d have thought we’d lose him at seventy?”

“Albie was such a sweet man,” Ruth told us. “I don’t think he ever said a mean thing in his life.”

“And some people might have laughed at him,” Leona added. “Because they knew he couldn’t do everything they could. But Albie never minded.”

“He just went right on,” I said. “I’m going to miss him so much.”

“I’m not sure what I’m going to do now,” Barbara confessed. “I really need to think.”

“What’s she need to think about?” Neal asked me. “She has a good job. She has a comfortable place to live. Why change anything?”

“I think it’s the same as what June was thinking after Uncle Walter died,” Pat told Neal. “June thought she was too young to be alone for the rest of her life. And that she’d never meet anyone she wanted to here.”

“This is gonna sound mean,” Neal replied. “But I wouldn’t think of leaving here. And how can you say there’s no one to meet in this whole part of Texas?”

I laughed at that, but Pat wasn’t so sure. “If I wasn’t so busy,” she admitted, “I might think of moving on, too.”

“Would you really?” I asked. “When you finish your RN?”

Pat wouldn’t give me an answer. She just looked at me and smiled.

Charley said he wanted to come in for Albie’s funeral, but his doctor said it was too soon for him to fly. “We’d have to drive,” Faye said, “and that would take three days. Too long to be cramped in a car. Charley says we could make it in two, but not with me at the wheel.”

“I wouldn’t fly, either,” I told Faye. “It wouldn’t be any good for Charley’s blood pressure.”

“That’s why his doctor worries about another stroke.”

So Charley didn’t come, and I put off my trip for another month. “We can celebrate your birthday,” Charley finally allowed. I didn’t want to tell him that my seventy-first could never be as special as my seventieth. William was still alive then, and we were in Salzburg. “Even if it’s March and rainy,” he said, “it’s beautiful”

“It is,” I agreed. And I didn’t know how much.

My actual seventy-first birthday went quietly. I was never much for celebrating, not the way other people do. Though as I got older, the birthdays that ended in zeroes and fives began to feel like holidays. And I understood why people wanted to have parties and reunions.

“I’m afraid I have disappointing news for you,” Albie’s wife told me when I got back. “I’m going to move to Austin. I’ve been offered a job.”

“Is it really worth going there?” Joann asked. “When you consider all you’re going to lose?”

“Pat walked away from the hospital,” Barbara pointed out. “And she’s doing fine.”

“But I’m going back,” Pat claimed. “You know how they’re waiting for me.”

“I can go back, too,” Barbara said. “And maybe that’s why I’m taking this chance. Though there’s something I do want to do for your family first. I know it’s Albie’s house, and that he lived in it all his life. But it was yours before that. And I think it should stay with you.”

“Don’t you need the money?” Del asked.

“Everyone needs money,” Barbara said laughing. “But this is more important.”

I was really touched by that. Though I didn’t think Barbara should just give us the house. It wasn’t worth much because there were too many other old mill houses. But I had some money that William’s family had given me, and I gave it to Barbara as a surprise.

She cried when she saw the check. “I’m just a fool for leaving all of you,” she said. “You’re the nicest people.”

Del laughed at that, but not while Barbara was around. “Now what are you going to do with that house?” he asked me. “It’s hardly worth taking trouble to rent.”

“I’m going to live there,” I said. “The farmhouse is getting too big for me. And this way I’ll be close to Pat and Ruth and Leona.”

“Could you really live there again?” Joann asked. “It’s so small.”

“And it needs fixing up,” Neal added. “I don’t mean to say anything against Albie and Dock and Aunt Rosalind, but they sure let the place go down.”

“They did not,” I insisted. “That house is even older than I am. It’s allowed to fall apart a little.”

“When was it built?” Susan asked.

“Well, it was already there when we came in 1910. And we were always told that it was one of the first mill houses.”

“Probably around 1902,” Del decided. “You sure you want to live in a place that old?”

“Our farmhouse was built in 1894,” I reminded him. “So I’m really moving to somewhere newer.”

Everyone laughed at that, and by the time we all finished working on the house, it certainly looked better. And there was something very nice about being home again.