“Oh, Brooke. Thank you so much for being willing to come out and spend some time with me this morning. I hope it isn’t an inconvenience.” She pushed a button attached to one of the cords coming from underneath her bed, and the TV turned off.
“Don’t be silly, Sister Heinz. You could never be an inconvenience.”
“Oh, the flattery that is poured upon the dying!” She chuckled.
“Sister Heinz, don’t talk like that!” My voice sounded shocked.
“I’m sorry, dear. I didn’t mean anything by it. Not toward you anyway. I don’t mind. I feel more at peace with it than I did yesterday, and a little more excited too, to be honest, which is strange. I know what’s in front of me the next few days here, though. Everybody and their dog will come through those doors. Some will be praying that I will be healed in front of their eyes. Others will tell me how I’m going to go to a better place and I should be happy. Even if it is true, I don’t need someone telling me what to think and feel. Now of all times!” She smiled at me again. “It will be wonderful to have Maudra here. She’ll tell them all where to get off. I hope she’s not gone to get something to eat or anything when Twyla gets here, and you know Twyla will make her appearance. What a wonderful last gift that would be, watching Maudra telling Twyla to stuff it!” She laughed in pure joy at the thought.
I marveled at the strength of the women in my life. Sister Heinz, laughing in the face of death and acting as if nothing bigger was happening than a thunderstorm. Maudra, well, everything about Maudra radiated strength. Even Sue, in her quiet ultra-mannered way, was a tower of might when she needed to be.
“So, Brooke, do you know why I needed you to come talk to me today?” She motioned for me to sit in the chair closest to the head of the bed.
I sat and looked at her nervously. “Not really. The only thing I can think of is that you wanna talk to me about getting right with God.”
“Getting right with God? What in the world, boy? You aren’t right with God?”
I hesitated. “Well, I think I am. I just wondered if you were thinking because I’m gay… because of Jed… because….”
“Oh, for goodness sake!” She let out a perturbed breath and looked so funny that I nearly laughed. “Of all things! How insulting! I had nothing of the sort in mind, young man. I would think you would know that I am fully confident of God loving you and that handsome husband of yours.”
I smiled at her sheepishly. “Sorry. That’s all I could think of.”
She patted my hand. “I forget you’re so young. You’ll quit caring what people think one of these days. Hopefully before you get too old for it to do you any good.”
I continued to smile at her.
“I wanted to talk to you about your mother.”
That, I wasn’t expecting. “Mymother?”
“Yes, dear. Your mother. Are you okay talking about her? I know she isn’t the most pleasant woman in the world.”
I nodded. “Uh, sure. I just didn’t even consider that possibility. Why do you want to talk about my mom?”
“Well, I’m not expecting what I have to say will fix your relationship with her. I know that your relationship with her has been hard, to put it lightly.”
She paused. If she was expecting me to disagree, she would be waiting awhile.
“As I said,” she continued, “I don’t know if this will change anything or even if it should, but it might at least give you some more understanding of who your mother is and why she is the way she is.”
I sat a little straighter. “Okay. I don’t really know what to expect here.”
“It’s okay. How about this? I tell it to you like a story. If you have any questions, feel free to ask. If you don’t wanna say anything after, that’s okay. Will that work?”
“Sure, Sister Heinz. Whatever you would like.”
“You’re a good boy, Brooke.” She took a breath and jumped in. “You may not have known, but I was a teacher when I was younger. I stopped after Kenneth died. I started working at the shirt factory with Maudra after that; that’s when we started to become such close friends. I was thirty-two when he died, so I had been a teacher for about ten or eleven years. Back then, we had a one-room schoolhouse. I know it sounds like something that should have been a hundred years ago, but lots of smaller towns had one-room schoolhouses late into the sixties.
“I taught in Black Jack. I had your momma and her brothers in my class. When I taught, your mom was still really young. As youknow, her brothers were several years older.”
I nodded. I had seen a couple of old photographs of Mom when she was younger, with her two older brothers and her dad. I had never seen a picture of her mom. I never met any of them. She never spoke about them.
“Your grandma died when Rose was just a little girl, probably too young to even remember her. I don’t remember how she died. It was just your mom, the two boys, and your granddad.” She paused for a second, looking like she was searching for words. “None of this is easy, and I am trying to figure out a way to tell it to you as quick as possible. No need to drag it out.”
I had no idea what was coming. “It’s okay, Sister Heinz. You can say whatever you need to say.”
She nodded and then forged ahead, speaking faster. “Your granddaddy was not a good man, and that wasn’t a secret. Everyone knew he beat his wife and the older boys. There were times they would come to school covered in bruises. There was always some story, some excuse. I tried to talk to your grandma before she died, but she got angry and told me to mind my own business. I never saw any signs of Rose getting hit when she was old enough to come to school.
