Southernmost Page 8

  “I’m nine years old, Dad,” Justin said, and his face was so serious and mature that Asher couldn’t find it in himself to negate that.

  The cold rains set in. Then the sleet, the first dustings of snow, the thin ones that only last past noon on the most secret ridges. Fisher told him to be patient, the hearing was only three months away. But in those three months Asher thought he might lose his mind. He didn’t get to see Justin enough. Every night he thought of how he wasn’t being allowed to tell his son good night in person. Mornings he awoke and realized there was nothing but the plywood walls of the trailer to greet him. He stood at the window with a cup of coffee and watched snow sift down on the gray trees crowding close to the lake bank. Let there be light Genesis 1:3, he thought in the mornings when the sun arose, and in the evenings he thought: then, darkness came over the whole land Mark 15:33. He had to work consciously to keep a madness from growing in his mind.

  At work one day Cherry came in excited and told him she had seen him in People magazine. “They did this thing where they asked a big bunch of celebrities what they thought about your video! Nicole Kidman talked about it, Pastor Sharp! And Dolly Parton! I about died! Dolly knows who you are!” She was laughing but he felt sick to his stomach. “They’re arguing about it on the news. And I was at the hair salon the other day and everybody in there was talking about it! I can’t get over it.”

  “Well, neither can I, Cherry,” Asher said, and ran his box cutter along the top of another case of Premium saltines.

  “You’ve got the whole country talking about this.” She grabbed hold of his hand, drawing his eyes back to hers. “And you know what, they need to be talking about it. They needed to hear a country preacher talking about it.” She let go his hand and put fists on her hips, the way she balanced herself these days as her belly grew bigger. “All these damn bigots.” She capped a hand over her mouth, her eyes large above her fingers. “I’m sorry to cuss, Pastor Sharp. But it makes me so mad. Why won’t they all just hush?”

  Sometimes when Zelda and Asher talked on the phone, she said a prayer for him, her voice passionate and intent while he waited silently for her to stop.

  “I’ve been studying on all this and I agree with you that we shouldn’t turn people away. But people don’t talk about sin enough anymore, Asher,” she said this time. “We can’t just go around saying that people can do whatever they want. Christian folks have to be lights.”

  “You sound like you’re just repeating all that stuff your husband used to preach,” Asher said.

  “I know my own mind. You’ve always accused me of just agreeing with whatever he said or Lydia said. But I study the Bible, too, you know. I have my own way of thinking. And I don’t want to be mean to anybody. I wouldn’t be. But I also don’t know if I believe in accepting this way of life these men have as easy as you can.”

  “It’s not a way of life, Zelda. It’s just life. It’s their lives.”

  He knew what it was like to be the minority. He remembered the arguments with his mother, trying to get her to be more accepting of Luke. But then it had become easier to just agree with her, to seek her approval. And so he had become a preacher who preached against his own brother.

  “I know you feel alone right now at that church, to be one of the few who agrees with me—”

  “No, honey, I’ve told you: I have my own thoughts on this. And Justin does need to know about sin. He does need to be shown right and wrong.”

  Asher took a deep breath. Something in him had known it would come to this. That he would lose her, too. “I have to go,” he said.

  “I do love you, Asher,” Zelda said, after a pause. “I always will. You know that. Like my own.”

  He clicked off the phone.

  Now he hadn’t heard from her in two weeks. He had called her but she hadn’t answered. On his breaks at work he checked the screen of his phone to see if it showed any missed calls from her.

  Two days before the hearing, he went out back of the grocery on his break and stood where he could see the first hints of purpling of the redbud trees along the Cumberland River. He dialed Zelda’s number again and this time she answered. A great fumbling of the old rotary phone she had seen no point in replacing.

  “Hello?” she said, always that question when she answered the phone since she still had a landline and no caller identification.

  “You’re going to testify against me at the hearing,” he said.

  “Not against you.”

  “But for her. To say that I’m not fit to have joint custody. After all we’ve been through together, and as good as you know me, you’re going to lie for her.”

  “Not lie, Asher. And she’s not gonna take him away from you. You can’t expect him to go back and forth all the time, half with you and half with her—”

  “Why not?”

  “A child needs his mother.”

  “Not when his mother is a judgmental fanatic who cares more about church than she does her own damn son!” His voice rose with each word. He tried to calm himself. He knew it was the wrong thing to say but he wasn’t going to apologize. “You realize that she’s asking for me to only get him once every two weeks? You know what that’ll do to him.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’ve prayed and prayed about this. I’ve struggled so hard with it, Asher. But this is what the Lord has told me to do.”

  He hung up on her, drew his arm back, fought the urge to throw the phone into the river.

  17

  As they made their way up the tiled stairwell to the courtroom, Fisher tried to prepare Asher. “So many people are opposed to what you’re standing for—and that video has become so popular—that the odds have been against us from the beginning. It’s not right. But—”

  “Well you’re not one to give your client a lot of hope before they go into the trial,” Asher said.

  “Hearing. Not a trial. Big difference,” Fisher said, and stopped on the landing to drain her Mountain Dew. “And I’d rather you go in with low expectations than high.”

  At the end of the hallway Zelda stood by the large wooden doors that led into the courtroom. She was clutching the top of her purse, her face screwed up in confused grief. As Asher and Fisher walked toward her, Lydia’s lawyer shuffled out of the ladies’ room and took the crook of Zelda’s arm, directing her into the judge’s office.

  Asher felt as if he didn’t have any emotion in his body.

  “Can you honestly say that Asher Sharp is not a good father?” Fisher asked Zelda.

  “He’s a real good father, but—”

  “A simple yes or no, Mrs. Crosby.”

  Zelda struggled to keep her eyes from drifting to either Asher or Lydia. She looked down at her lap, causing her voice to be muffled, so Fisher had to ask her to repeat herself. “Mrs. Crosby. Can you honestly say that Asher Sharp is not a good father?”

  “No,” she said, and just before Fisher could spin on her heel and say that was all, she added: “But he’s misled right now. He’s all mixed up.”

  Asher watched as they turned off one row of lights so the video could be seen better. He watched the entire video with everyone else. The first time he had seen the whole thing. He watched as the judge made a barely visible shake of his head when it was over. He was a shiny-headed old man whose pinkish face had softened and melted in his old age, causing him to favor an old granny-woman from photographs of the Great Depression.

  Lydia was dressed like a television evangelist: a bloodred dress suit, large white ruffle on her blouse that skimmed her chin anytime she talked or moved her head, hair meticulously poofed and sprayed. She looked stronger now. But when her eyes fell on Asher’s he saw the hurt that still lived there.

  “Your Honor, my main concern is having primary custody of our son so I can oversee his moral and religious upbringing,” she said when it was her turn to address the judge. At least she would not lie on the stand and say Asher was a bad father, either, when pressed by Fisher.

&nbs
p; But none of it mattered and Asher drifted away somewhere when the judge came back in and awarded full custody to Lydia. Fisher capped her hand over Asher’s forearm as if holding on to a stair railing. He would no longer be required to have supervised visits but he’d be able to have Justin stay overnight with him only four nights a month. “The father shall have the right to unimpeded telephone calls and the ability to write his son letters whenever he chooses,” the judge said, his words gelatinous with phlegm that caused him to cough wetly, without covering his mouth. “The right to receive from the child’s school . . .”

  Asher didn’t listen. Instead, his mind was already turning with ways to make it right. He should have stayed quiet. He should have stayed with Lydia. But as soon as these thoughts wended through his mind he knew that none of that was possible, no matter how badly he wanted it to be.

  Lydia sat very straight-backed. She did not look victorious. Zelda’s shoulders were hunched forward with betrayal. Her gray hair was latched in a loose knot at the back of her head and he could see the trembling of her body in it. As soon as the hearing was dismissed Asher bolted to his feet and walked out. He threw the heavy wooden door open and half ran to the stairwell, trying to get away from it all. On the landing Fisher caught up with him, took him by the elbow.

  “We can appeal,” Fisher said. “People think differently in Nashville and I think we can show that they were swayed by their religious biases. I’m raring for a fight if you are. I say let’s do it.”

  Asher steadied himself, palm flat against the green tiles of the wall. “How long would that take?”

  “It could take up to a year,” Fisher said. “But we’d really be making a statement—”

  “A year? I couldn’t stand that. I couldn’t—I’ve lost my son.”

  “It would be worth the wait, though. My ex only sees our children about five days a month and it works out. They know when you love them. They know that—”

  “I can’t stand to be away from him that much,” Asher said. “I can’t even stand the thoughts of it.”

  “We can appeal, though,” Fisher repeated. “We can get him back. And really, I’ve always thought we’d have to go on up, to the court of appeals, because of the way people think here.”

  “I’ve lost my boy!” Asher found the rail on the stairs, stepped down.

  “It’ll get easier . . .”

  Asher saw himself and Justin walking on the ridge above their house. Asher pointing to the trees, Justin following the sweep of his finger. And then, their feet on the soft soil of the trail, Justin’s small hand finding its way into Asher’s.

  Asher stopped on the stair and looked back at Fisher, standing there on the landing as if awaiting something to happen. No, it won’t ever get easier, he thought. Not for me or for him.

  “You go home, get some rest, and come in on Monday,” Fisher said, “and we’ll get the ball rolling.”

  Asher flew down the stairs, faster and faster until he was almost in a sprint, and then finally he was outside, in the cool air of an April morning, and driving his Jeep home in complete silence, and then there was the lake and his empty trailer.

  That evening he walked through the dark woods and squatted down on the rocky bank so he could hear the soft wash of the lake’s small waves supping at the shore. Back at his trailer he warmed up a can of soup. He studied all the postcards that he knew were from his brother, laying them out on the carpet before him as if setting up a game of solitaire. He ran his finger over their shiny fronts, turned them over and read the words once again. He tried to pray, but still he could not. He did research online. He would be quiet, but he would work. He’d plan. He’d drive to Nashville, go over to Opry Mills and buy Justin some new clothes. Go to the bookstore for more information. Educate himself. He’d get the supplies he needed. He knew what he had to do.

  18

  The night was black and hot with high summer and the cicadas along the river were screaming. As he turned into Zelda’s driveway Asher clicked off the headlights and his eyes adjusted to the dark; the moon had slid out from behind the silver-edged clouds and he could see well enough to roll down the steep driveway with ease. He shifted into neutral and killed the ignition.

  The Jeep came to a stop near Zelda’s front porch, the long ropes of the willows brushing against the car’s hood. The cicadas quieted. Here their songs shook like nervous tambourines. A whip-poor-will let out its lonesome call.

  “Lord have mercy,” Asher said aloud, and these four breaths of words calmed him. He eased the Jeep door shut and kept his eyes on the front door of the house, willing himself to not notice Zelda’s waxy red geraniums and the chimes that hung from the eaves. Still, seeing these things reminded him of his ex-mother-in-law’s liver-spotted hands digging into the potting soil, of Zelda looking up with a smile on her face.

  He knew Justin was here. He had been watching for days now, his car hidden in a pull-off near the river, himself perched within the cover of the willows down by the river so he could see their comings and goings. Lydia had made a big show of hugging and kissing both her mother and Justin, which meant she was going out of town for a day or two, at least.

  Three sharp raps with his right hand.

  He counted to three and knocked again, harder.

  The door chain clattered and the knob twisted. Zelda’s soft face appeared in the crack. “What is it?” she said, peering over her glasses. Asher got a tenderness for her in the center of his chest that threatened to spread easily despite her betrayal. Her small, bluish-gray eyes squinted to see better: curiosity at first, then recognition, shock.

  “Let me have him, Zelda.”

  “You shouldn’t be here, Asher. I’m—”

  “Let me have him,” he repeated. She had stood by and let this happen, but she had also been the only mother he had ever had. Don’t look at her eyes. Don’t think of her gathering up her dress tail to wade in the Cumberland that day.

  Zelda hesitated, keeping her eyes on his while she tried to figure out what to do.

  “You know what’s right,” he said. “You know she shouldn’t’ve taken him from me.”

  “Asher—” Zelda said, her voice trembling now “—you’ll wake him up—”

  So Asher willed himself to drift outside his own mind and heart and everything he had known for all these years and he kept repeating Justin’s name in his mind. He pushed himself against the door with such force that the impact knocked Zelda away, but did not break the chain. She tried to slam the door shut just as his shoulder made contact again. This time the chain broke and the door flew open and he was in Zelda’s good, familiar house that always smelled like bacon grease and fresh coffee.

  The door had knocked her back so that she had fallen onto the coffee table. There was a great crash of breaking things; the large orange ashtray she had kept twenty years past her smoking husband’s death, the iridescent candy dish that had belonged to her great-grandmother. Once Asher had held the dish up to the sunlight and watched the milky colors change within its curves like something sanctified.

  Asher saw the gash beneath Zelda’s eye, a thin line of blood rising. He felt a shudder escape his throat at the understanding that the edge of the door had struck her. The nausea of guilt washed down his torso.

  Zelda put her hand up to the cut, moaned, then her fingers drifted down to clutch at her lower back. She drew in a great gulp of air.

  Asher wanted to help her up, to help her. Yet he knew he could not.

  You’re like a son to me, she had said, once.

  Now Zelda put her hand out in front of her but Asher turned and moved down the hallway lined with framed photographs. Lydia’s school pictures. Their wedding portrait, Asher’s arms encircling her waist as he stood behind her. Like a different life he had lived ages ago. Then: baby pictures of Justin. Asher felt so dizzy he reached out and steadied himself against the wall.

  “Justin!”

  Music from an old movie played on a television down the hall.
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  Asher heard Zelda let out another moan. His name seeped from her: “Asher. Please.”

  Justin lay in the blue glow of the television, that eerie light flickering around the room. Apparently he had fallen asleep next to Zelda, watching television. On screen Ava Gardner was throwing back her head to laugh at something Richard Burton had said while palm trees swayed behind them. Justin was on his back, one arm above his head, the other resting on his chest in a tightened fist. The way he always slept.

  Asher had not seen him in two weeks, an eternity. He longed to stretch out here beside his son and go to sleep. He was so exhausted. But he couldn’t stop now.

  He hustled Justin into his arms and headed down the hallway, rushing past all those photographs again. Trying to not look at Zelda, who still lay in the broken wood and glass of the coffee table, moaning his name. She caught sight of Asher moving toward her, carrying Justin and she reached out her arm, her face full of hurt. Not anger or malice. Grief.

  “Please don’t do this,” she begged.

  Justin slept soundly, accordioned across his father’s arms.

  He would remember this act of leaving her for the rest of his life.

  He slid Justin onto the back seat. The child’s eyes fluttered open and then closed as sleep overwhelmed him again.

  A turn of the key, the slide of the gearshift, and then the Jeep was peeling out, the wisps of the willow sucked away as they moved up the driveway and onto the road, then onto the smooth purr of blacktop where Asher once again could hear the cicadas screaming along the black river in the hot, still night.

  Part Two

  The Open Road

  1

  The red of morning streaked the eastern sky before they had even crossed the county line. Asher drove out of the little town he had known his entire life—Good-bye, Cumberland Valley—and into the great unknown of a new day and a new life. He hoped so, at least.