Keep In Touch with Mrs. T: February 2008

I know all of you students out there are hard at work, stressing over your essays or tests that are due. I just wanted to tell you that I share your pain. I had my first essay of the semester due last week. I felt a little worried because I have fellow classmates that were able to turn in their essays nearly two weeks in advance. However, I worked hard, turned it in on the day it was due, and ended up with an A. I was excited. The thing was, my husband wasn't. He said, "That's good" in a distracted sort of way. I called him on his lack of excitement, and he told me he just expected me to get an A, so it wasn't that big of a deal. The thing is, every paper I work hard on in order to get those A's, so every A is a victory to me. As a master's student, this is the first time in my adult life that I have maintained a 4.0. I was an above average student in high school, a little less than that for most of my undergrad, and better to finish it up. Now that I am consistantly doing well, it is really an achievement. I guess I just had to realize how important school is to me and my future. Anyway, I got an A on my paper, but I expect to work just as hard on the next essay in two weeks.

The tremors had started back up the night that I snuck out of the old 1890s farmhouse where I had grown up. They were short enough that I barely could discern what was happening. Later, amidst the constant excess of Chris and my run down apartment three towns away, I smothered the shakes with slow drags of the pot Chris brought home most nights. Of course, with the loss of Chris’s companionship, so went the access to my fixes. Small town Tennessee is not exactly the world’s largest drug trafficking center. So, I moved on, with old, nearly forgotten demons chasing me every step of the way. A year later, I landed myself a studio job in Memphis, and the seizures were in hot pursuit.
Hanging up the phone after the short conversation with my mother, I wondered how long I should rest at the bus stop before walking home. I didn’t tell them where I was; I tried to put up a façade, as if my world was not caving in on me. Truthfully, this would not be the first night I slept on the side of the road, damp grass shielding me from onlookers. It did not matter where I slept, for sleep was one gift that I had lost in the midst of torturing nightmares that plagued me even when my eyes were open. The last and only bus drove into Roan Mountain at 4:30 p.m., and it would take me at least three hour of my faltering strides to reach my destination. I decided to wait until the last of the village’s traffic pulled away, and then find a quiet place close the hum of the country highway to rest before heading home in the morning. Maybe my parents would think I arrived in a taxi that morning, rather than on a bus earlier this afternoon. Even though I was so close to the step back to my childhood, I still was uneasy about the walk ahead.
I slowly stepped back to the old wooden planked bench that had been my home for the past few hours. My now tattered book bag and guitar case sat unjudgingly near by, and several empty soda bottles were waiting to be trashed. The chilly mountain air brushed at my shorn brown curly hair. I could feel the coolness of the fading painted wood soak through the denim skirt I put on at the last minute before leaving a year's worth of belongings in my small Memphis studio apartment. I didn’t want to cause any more waves than my sudden arrival and clipped hair would already do on my return home.
Like the smell of the soon-to-bloom rhododendrons dancing on the breezes, the long skirt brought my senses back to the lulled life I had lead in Roan Mountain until the abrupt stop almost two years before. The modest apparel had separated me from most of the youth in the small town, along with my caramel colored skin that was in stark contrast with my mother’s pink freckled face. Actually, in stark contrast with nearly the entire population of Roan Mountain. Growing up I thought that my parents were trying to find every possible way that our family could stick out as different from the rest of the citizens. Even sitting at the bus stop seemed to gather the stares of a community milling around the downtown streets.
In the evening’s dusk one particular man walking tall, with a hat pulled low over his face, seemed to have me on his beacon. The strong dark arms woke me up to reality. This was my father. How did he know I was here?
“Evey, don’t you know we have caller ID? A pay phone in town is pretty easy to locate.” My dad lifted the brim of the hat to pierce me with his chocolate eyes.
“Daddy.” I couldn’t contain my overwhelming heartache. I ran to my dad as if I were a five-year-old child. He nearly stumbled over when I wrapped my arms around his lean waist. Tears brimmed in our matching eyes, even as my hands began to shake.
“You’ve gotten bony, sis. Didn’t they feed you wherever you were?” Dad pulled away from my grasp and looked into my face.
“Of course not, I lived off of music and coffee.” Smiling, I followed my dad toting my belongings to the old Ford pick up around the block. Clasping my hands tightly behind me to ward off the tremors, I imagined that this return home could be all I needed to feel steady again.

The drive to the old farmhouse twelve miles up the mountain took longer in the silence coming from the driver’s seat. Dad’s strong black hands grasped the steering wheel as the fields of heather rushed by. I began to get nervous when the white house with green shudders crept out from behind the trees. Instead of the welcoming feeling those surrounding shadowy Appalachian Mountains used to express, knots formed in my stomach at their appearing behind the two-story home. If only I could keep my hands still. I sat on them to hide my secret a little longer, hoping Dad would not recognize my childhood nightmare.
The truck shuddered to a stop in front of the barn that acted as garage, tool shed and feed storage, and I sat unmoving in the passenger seat long after Dad had cut off the engine and stepped out to get my trivial bags. It wasn’t until his coffee colored face, with those genuinely kind eyes, ducked back into the truck that I finally came to my senses.
“Come now, Eve. Your mother has waited long enough to see her daughter.”
“Sorry, I’m coming.” I imagined a faint smile cross his lips. The leather seats squeaked as I slid out of truck’s passenger side, and I slowly treaded to the concrete walk that led to the back porch. Through the screen door the small frame of my mother appeared in silhouette. My dad reached the door first, placing a firm hand on his wife’s shoulder before slipping into the house.
With the screen door open, our eyes met. The freckles on her face had grown more plentiful from two more years of sun, but the fiery red curls had not faded with one gray hair. I was a dark version of my mother, with the exception of the large brown eyes that were identical to my dad, and our similarities were amplified with the time apart.
“You cut your hair.”
“Yeah, it’s hot in Memphis.”
I finally stepped up to stand face to face with her, and she placed her hands on my shoulders. Like the brushes of butterfly wings, Mom’s fingers touched the small splash of freckles on the bridge of my nose.
“Freckly face,” she whispered with a grin.
“Not as much as you.” We embraced.