(2008) Down Where My Love Lives Read online

  Maggie was a champ. I was real proud of her. She pushed and I coached, "One-two-three . . . " I'd count and she'd crunch her chin to her stomach, eyes closed and with a death grip on my hand, and push.

  That was two days and ten lifetimes ago.

  THE SMALL, PRIVATE ROOM THEY PUT US IN WAS dark, overlooked the parking lot, and sat at one end of a long, quiet hallway. The only lights in the room shone from the machines connected to Maggie, and the only noise was her heart-rate monitor and occasionally the janitor shuffling down the hall, rolling a bucket that smelled of Pine Sol over urine. Somebody had shoved Maggie's bed against the far wall, so I rolled her over next to the window, where she could feel the moonlight. By rolling the bed, I unplugged all the monitors, setting off several alarms at the nurses' station.

  A pale-faced nurse slid through the doorway and into the room. She stopped short when she saw me sitting next to the bed, quietly holding Maggs's hand. She almost said something but changed her mind and went to work instead, repairing what I'd torn apart. Before she left, she grabbed a blanket from the closet, put it over my shoulders, and asked, "You want some coffee, honey?" I shook my head and she patted me on the shoulder.

  Maggie has lain there "sleeping," unconscious, ever since the delivery. I wiped her arms and cheeks with a warm, damp rag and then felt her toes. They were cold, so I looked through our bag, found a pair of socks that I gently slid over her heels, and put another blanket over her feet. After pulling the sheets up around her shoulders, I sat down next to the bed and tucked her hair behind her ears, where I still felt some dried blood. For the third time, I ran a towel under some warm water and wiped her face, arms, and neck.

  I don't remember my arms being sore afterwards, but I do remember it took the nurse three tries before she found my vein. Maggie needed a lot of blood pretty quick, so I gave one more pint than they normally would allow. The nurse knew Maggie needed it, so when I grabbed the needle and told her to keep going, she looked at me over the top of her glasses, opened another Coca-Cola for me, and kept drawing. I walked back to the delivery room with both pits of my elbows taped up, sat next to the bed, and watched my blood drip into my wife.

  While I was sitting in the quiet beneath the moon, a wrinkle appeared on Maggie's forehead between her eyebrows-her trademark expression. A sure sign that she was determined to figure something out. I placed my palm on her forehead and held it there for a few seconds while the wrinkle melted away and her breathing slowed.

  "Maggs?"

  I slid my hand under hers and thought how her callused fingers seemed so out of place on someone so beautiful. Under the rhythm and short blips of the heart-rate monitor, I watched her heart beat, listened to her short, quick breaths, and waited for her big brown eyes to open and look at me.

  They did not.

  I stared out the window over the parking lot, but there wasn't much to look at. South Carolina is one of the more beautiful places on God's earth-especially where the wisteria crawls out of the weeds that can't choke it-but the parking lot of Digger Community Hospital is not. I turned back to Maggie and remembered the river, the way the light followed Maggie's eyes, her smile, her back, and how the water had dripped off her skin and puddled on her stomach. "Maggs," I said, "let's go swimming."

  THE DAYS TURNED INTO NIGHTS AND BACK INTO days, and I became afraid to blink, thinking I'd miss the opening of her eyes. During that time, I'm pretty sure other people came in and out of the room, but I never saw them. I think I remember Amos putting his hand on my shoulder and telling me, "Don't worry, I'll take care of the farm." And somewhere during one of the nights, I think I remember smelling the lingering aroma of Bryce's beer breath, but for seven days my entire world consisted of Maggie and me. Anything outside that picture never came into focus. The periphery of my life had blurred.

  On the afternoon of the seventh day, the doctor took me out into the hall and gave me his prognosis. Consternation was painted across his face, and it was clear this wasn't easy for him, no matter how much practice he must have had at delivering bad news. "Dylan, I'll give it to you straight," he said.

  The seconds melted into days.

  "Maggie's out of what we call the hopeful window. The longer she stays in this vegetative state, the more involuntary muscle responses she'll begin to have. Unfortunately, these muscle responses are from spinal activity, not brain activity. Within the next few weeks, she's got a 50 percent chance of waking up. The following month, it drops in half. Following that ... " He shook his head. "Of course, this is all just statistics; miracles can happen. But they don't happen often."

  Later that afternoon, the hospital executive responsible for accounts receivable stopped in for a visit. "Mr. Styles, I'm Mr. Thentwhistle.Jason Thentwhistle." He stepped into the room and extended his hand.

  I immediately didn't like him.

  "Yes, well, I think we should talk about your financial arrangements."

  I turned my head slightly and narrowed my eyes.

  "Coma patients often require long-term hospital care...."

  That was all I needed to hear. I hit him as hard as I couldmaybe as hard as I've ever hit anybody. When I looked down, he was crumpled on the floor, his glasses were broken in three pieces, his nose was twisted sideways and smashed into his face, and blood was pouring out of his nostrils. I picked up his heels and dragged him out into the hallway because I didn't want him bleeding on Maggie's floor.

  "D.S., YOU BEEN HERE SINCE YOU LEFT THE HOSPITAL?"

  I opened my eyes, remembered Thentwhistle, and looked around. The head hovering over me was familiar.

  "Dylan?" A big, meaty black hand gently slapped me twice in the face.

  That was definitely familiar. "Amos?"

  Slapping my cheek again, he said, "Hey, pal? You in there?"

  I must have moaned, because Amos grabbed me by the shoulders and shook me.

  "Yeah, yeah," I said, swatting at his hands, "I'm in here." My head was killing me, and the world was spinning way too fast. Amos's hands stopped the spinning but not the pain.

  "D.S.?" Amos brought his face closer to mine. "Have you been here since you left the hospital?" He was still out of focus.

  "I don't know. When did I leave the hospital?"

  "Tuesday," he said, shading my face with his hat.

  I swatted at it because it looked like a buzzard. "What day is today?" I asked, still swatting.

  "Thursday." Amos crinkled his nose and waved his hand. "And it's a good thing it rained too." Waving the air with his hat, Amos said, "D.S., you stink bad. Whatchoo been doing out here?"

  I reached for the tractor, pulled at the tire rod, which my grandfather had bent twenty-one years ago pulling stumps, and tried to pull myself up. I could not. I thought for a minute, but I couldn't remember. "Thursday?"

  I pulled my knees up and scratched my neck and the four itchy bumps on my ankles under my jeans.

  Amos looked doubtful.

  I guessed again, "Tuesday?" The rush of blood to my head caused my head to bob, rock, and crash into the cornstalk that was growing up out of an anthill.

  Amos caught my head. "Here, you better sit still. I think you been sitting in the sun a little too long. How long you been out here?"

  Ordinarily Amos's English is pretty good. He only drops into the South Carolina farm-boy dialect when talking with me. After twenty-five years of friendship, we had developed our own language. People say marriage works the same way.

  "I need to get to the hospital," I muttered.

  "Hold on a minute, Mr. Cornfield. She's not going anywhere." Amos tapped the plastic cover on the tractor's fuel gauge. "And neither is this old tractor. We got to get you cleaned up. If it weren't for Blue, I'd still be driving around looking for you."

  Blue is a blue heeler and the most intelligent dog I've ever known. He's seven years old and is better known as the "outdoor dog" that sleeps at the foot of our bed.

  I rubbed my eyes and tried to focus. No improvement. Amos was about to brush
my shirt off with his hand, but he took a second look and thought better of it.

  "My truck's low on gas. Where's your car?" I said. "Can you take me there?"

  Seeing me return to life, Blue hopped off the tractor, licked my face, and then sat between my legs and rested his head on my thigh.

  "Yes, I can," Amos said, articulating every letter. "But no, I will not. I'm taking you to work."

  Amos wasn't making a lot of sense.

  "Work?" I looked around. "Amos, I was working until ... well, until you showed up." I shoved Blue out of the way. When he gets excited, he drools a good bit. "Go on, Blue. Quit it."

  Blue ignored me. Instead he rolled over like a dead bug, turned his head to one side, hung out his tongue, and propped his paws in the air.

  "D.S."Amos ran his fingers around inside his deputy's belt. "Don't start with me. I ain't in the mood." He put his hat back on, hefted his holster a bit. Then he raised his voice. "I've been looking for you all morning in every corner of every pasture. All thirty-five hundred acres." Amos waved his hands as if he were on stage or telling a fish story. He could get animated when he wanted to. "Then a few minutes ago, I'm driving past this field, and I see this rusty old thing your grandfather called a tractor sitting driverless and parked out here at the intersection of Nowhere and No Place Else. Except one thing sticks out and grabs my attention."

  Amos reached over and began scratching Blue between the ears. "Ol' Blue here is sitting at attention on top of your tractor like he's trying to be seen. So I turn the car around and think to myself, That'd be just like that old fool to go through one week of hell and then walk out of the hospital, only to end up out here and act like he's farming.

  He reached over, picked up a handful of sand, and slung it into the corn. "Dylan Styles"-he looked down a long row of corn that was planted in more of an arc than a straight line-"you're an idiot. Even with all your education. You can just about strap an alphabet behind your name, but I'm your friend and I'll tell it to you straight: You're a sorry farmer and a clanged idiot."

  Amos is smart. Don't let the deputy's badge fool you. He took this job because he wanted it, not because he couldn't find anything else. Amos takes nothing from nobody-except me. He's big, articulate, black as black comes, and my oldest friend. He's a year older than I am and was a year ahead in school. In my junior year of high school, we were the two starting running backs. They called us Ebony and Ivory, for obvious reasons.

  Amos was always faster, always stronger, and he never once let anybody pile on me. I've seen him take two linebackers and shove them back into the free safety on more than one occasion. The only reason I scored my first touchdown was because he carried me. I got the ball, grabbed his jersey, shut my eyes, and he dragged me eight yards to glory, where I saw the goal line pass under my feet. When I looked up and saw the crowd screaming, Amos was standing off to the side alone, letting me take the credit and soak it all in.

  Later that year, the Gamecocks gave him a scholarship. He lettered four years and was an all-American three. From day one he studied criminal justice and learned everything about it that he could. Right after graduation, Amos applied with Colleton County and came home. He's worn that badge ever since. Last year they sewed sergeant's stripes to his shirtsleeves.

  I rubbed my eyes and steadied my head between my hands. The world was spinning again, and the ants at my feet weren't helping my perspective any.

  "Is there somebody else around here I can talk to?" My voice was pretty much gone, and all I could muster was a smoker's whisper. "Amos, have you had your coffee this morning? Because I'm tired and I don't quite remember how I got here, but I think you're riding me. And if you're riding me, that's a pretty good sign that you have not had your coffee."

  Amos was really animated now. "I've been traipsing around this piece of dirt you two call home all morning. Thanks to you and your disappearing stunt, I ain't had the pleasure of my morning cup of coffee. What is it with you Styleses and this piece of dirt? If you're gonna choose someplace to catch up on a week with no sleep, you could have picked a better place than the middle of a cornfield. In the last hour I have ruined my pants, scuffed my boots, torn my shirt, and there is no telling how much pig crap I've got smeared on me right now. Why do you keep that old pig?"

  "Who? Pinky?"

  "Well, of course, Pinky. Who else makes all this stuff?" Amos pointed at his boots. "In all my life, I have never seen a pig crap the way she can. You ought to enter her in a contest. It's everywhere. What do you feed that thing?"

  "Amos ... AAmos." I stuttered and shivered. "It's got to be close to ninety, and I feel like crap. I'm itching everywhere, and I've got a headache. All I want to do is see my wife. Please, just help get me back to my house."

  Amos knew when to quit.

  "Come on, D.S. Inside." He picked me up and hooked his shoulder under mine. "Ivory, did I already tell you that you need a shower?"

  "Yeah, I heard you the first time."

  We crashed through the corn and limped toward the house.

  Pulling me along, Amos asked, "What's the last thing you remember?"

  "Well," I said, aiming my toes toward the porch, "I was sitting with Maggs when this suit from the hospital poked his pointy head through the door and asked me how I intend to pay my bills. He started to say something about how expensive it was to keep Maggie there. So I did what any husband would have done. I turned around and clocked the pointyheaded son of a-"

  Amos held up his hands. "I get the picture."

  "I dragged him out in the hall, and Maggie's nurses started looking him over. But to be honest, they didn't seem real eager to start tending to him." I glanced at the cut on the knuckle of my right hand. It was still puffy and stiff, so I guessed I had hit him pretty hard. "I don't remember too much after that."

  Amos carried me a few more steps to the house. Without looking at me, he said, "An executive from the hospital named Jason Thentwhistle, with two loose teeth, a broken nose, new pair of glasses, and one very black and swollen eye, came to the station to file a complaint against one Dylan Styles. Said he wanted to press charges."

  Amos kept his eyes aimed on the back door, but a smile cracked his face. "I told him that I was really sorry to hear about his altercation, but without a witness we really couldn't do anything." He turned and held me up by my shoulders. "D.S., you can't go around hitting the very people who are taking care of your wife."

  `But Amos, he wasn't taking care of my wife. He was being an-

  Amos held up his hand again. "You gonna let me finish?"

  "I should have hit him harder. I was trying to break his jaw."

  "I didn't hear that." Amos wrapped his arm tight about my waist, and we took a few more steps.

  I stopped Amos and tried to look him in the eyes. "Amos, is Maggs okay?"

  Amos shook his head side to side. "No real change. Physically, she seems to be healing. No more bleeding."

  "I'd drive myself, but I might have to push my truck to the station, so can you please just take me there without a bunch of conversation?" I asked again.

  Amos dug his shoulder further under mine, dragged me closer to the back porch, and said, "After your interview." He grunted and hoisted me up onto the steps.

  "Interview?" I sat down on the back steps and scratched my head. "What interview?"

  Catching his breath, Amos wiped his brow, straightened his shirt, gave his gun belt another two-handed law enforcement lift, and said, "Mr. Winter. Digger Junior College. If you can survive the interview, you'll be teaching English 202: Research and Writing."

  It took a minute, but the word teaching finally registered. "Amos, what are you talking about? Speak English."

  "I am speaking English, Dr. Styles. And in about two hours, you'll be speaking it with Mr. Winter about the class you're going to teach." He smiled and took off his sunglasses.

  Amos only calls me doctor on rare occasions. I finished my doctorate a few years back, but because I quit teaching after gra
duate school, few knew it, and fewer still called me by the title. Although I was proud of my accomplishment, I had little reason to make sure everybody knew about it. My corn didn't care what kind of education I'd had. It sure didn't help me drive that tractor any straighter.

  "One thing at a time," I said, shaking my head. "Will you or will you not take me to see my wife?"

  "D.S., have you been listening to me?" Amos raised his eyebrows and looked at me. "Dr. Dylan Styles Jr. is soon to be an adjunct professor at Digger Junior College, teaching English 202: Research and Writing. And"-Amos looked at his watch-"Mr. Winter is expecting you in his office in an hour and fifty-seven minutes."

  He unfolded a slip of paper from his shirt pocket and handed it to me. "Don't fight me on this. They need a teacher, and for a lot of reasons, you need this."

  "Name one," I said.

  Amos wiped the sweat off his brow with a white handkerchief. "Taxes, to begin with. Followed by your loan payment. Both of which are coming due at the end of the month, and the chances of you actually producing anything but a loss on this piece of dirt are slim to none. Teaching is your insurance policy, and right now you need one."

  "Amos, I've got a job." I waved my arms out in front of me. "Right here. Right out there. All of this is my job." I pointed to the fields surrounding the house. "And how do you know when my taxes and loan payments are due?"

  Amos dropped his head and pointed to the soil. "D.S., you and I grew up right here, playing ball on this field. You busted my lip right over there, and"-he pointed to his house-"two hundred yards across that field and over that dirt road is my house and my dirt. So I know about dirt. I don't want to see you and Maggie lose it." He spat. "Heck, I don't want to lose it. So don't fight me. Put your education to work, listen to what I'm saying, and get in the shower while you can still afford to pay for hot water."

  "How's Maggie?" I asked again.

  "She'll live. She's stable. At least physically. Mentally ... I don't know. That's His call." Amos's eyes shot skyward.