With a Hammer for My Heart: A Novel

GARLAND

GARLAND: She could call it whatever she wanted; it was Lawanda I was thinking about, not baby Nancy Catherine. But she got all blue-faced anyway, had to blow her nose before we got through the second set of doors. "Don't run out of tears too early in the night," I told her. With no warning, she took my arm and started shushing me, saying, "The ER is down this hall." I removed her hand. "Back off, woman," I warned. "I ain't living in pajamas yet." She gave this short sigh so much like her mother I could feel Nora beside me. Gave me gooseflesh. "I tell you, I got to talk to Howard Ingle." N.C. shrugged. It ain't polite for her to look so much like me and then act like her mother. She pushed me through a door into a waiting room. Slumped figures. Mamaw big as life. She stood up as we walked over, held out her hand to me. "A free man," she said when I took it. I whistled through my teeth. The skinny woman I took to be Lawanda's mommy looked scared. Mamaw hugged Nancy Catherine. "I'm Amos Garland," I said to Howard Ingle's wife. "I'm 199 WITH A HAMMER FOR MY HEART sorry about . . . all of this. Is Lawanda going to live?" "They can't tell yet. But they're moving her to Lexington ." "In a helicopter," Mamaw added. And then: "This is June." We nodded at each other. "Who's going with her?" N.C. wanted to know. "Nobody!" June's face clenched like she would cry. "She has to go all by herself." "She won't know—" Nancy Catherine began. "Yes, she will," June cut in. "She's talked to me. She knows what's going on." "That's good," Mamaw said. "Then she knows I said we'd meet her there." "You going?" I asked June. Then her face wadded up and she really did cry. "I want to go, but I'm afraid to leave Howard. He feels so bad " "I got something to tell him," I said. "He doesn't need more blame," she told me. "He's sick with it." "Amos is the person Howard has to face," Mamaw said. "Besides Lawanda. Have a seat," she said to me. "You can't see him till morning anyhow. June just tried and he's asleep." "Will they tell us when Lawanda goes?" N.C. asked. "They got to," Mamaw said. "She's ours." They all settled in. I couldn't do it. The waiting room was small and I'd just got out of jail. "I'm going for a walk," I told N.C. "You hold down the fort." I watched her start to say some caretaking thing, but she was smart—she didn't. I got out fast. The night air was wet and cold. Had that moss-on-rocks smell that mountains make. Felt good to my skin. I tried 200 GARLAND not to think about Lawanda's. I tried to think about getting a government trailer with heat, maybe water. But I kept seeing her face rise like the sun over my ridge, kept hearing her brand-new voice holler my name. I don't know how many times I hiked around the hospital before I heard the chopper coming in. The way sound bounces off these hills, it could have been a squadron instead of just a single on loan from the National Guard. I watched it land, then made my way to the pad, which was on the ground, not the roof. The medics were already out when I got there, hair and clothes blown by the rotor wake. They headed for the hospital . The door opened before they reached it and a tall skinny man began rolling Lawanda out. A herd of people was around and behind her, like dogs following the gut wagon. I saw N.C. coming toward me. They slid a stretcher from the helicopter, moved Lawanda onto it, with all her tubes and bags. I couldn't see much, didn't want to—I've seen enough, buddy. I know what fire does. I thought, Even if she lives through this, that girl is gone. And then I heard Lawanda far away, back in First Bus, say, "I think you're beautiful," to me, all warped and...