The Supremes at Earl's All-You-Can-Eat

Chapter 37





By the time Richmond brought me to the house in Leaning Tree, I was holding on to just a tattered corner of the world of the

living. I had used up all of the energy I had left in me explaining to Richmond what I needed him to do, and I spent most of the

drive from the hospital resting my head against the car window, watching the scenery go by.

Throughout that short ride, I kept picturing James and how he was going to react when he found out I’d run off the moment I got

the chance. He’d be good and mad at first. He would ask Richmond why he helped me do this foolish thing and Richmond would shrug

those big shoulders of his and say, “She told me to.” James would cuss, maybe even take a swing or two at his friend. But he’d

think it over and forgive Richmond, eventually.

I hadn’t exactly lied to James. I’d promised him he wouldn’t come back to the hospital and find me dead. And that was the

truth. He would be angry with me for a while, but then he’d admit to himself that I would have found a way to do what I wanted no

matter what. And then he’d acknowledge that he couldn’t have brought himself to help me do it. Yes, James would understand what

I’d done. He couldn’t stay married to me for thirty-five years without learning to roll with the punches. He might even laugh

about it someday, maybe turn it into a funny story to entertain the grandkids with when they’re older: “Hey, did I ever tell y’

all about that last crazy thing your Grandma Odette did?”

Richmond helped me out of the car and into the wheelchair we’d borrowed from the hospital. When he wheeled me back behind the

house we crossed paths with my father. Daddy looked up from the 1960s-style riding lawn mower he was tinkering with. He saw me and

smiled. Then he wiped his hands on a red shop rag that was covered with black oil stains and he waved at me.

Richmond and I bumped along the cobblestone path that led past the gazebo. Clarice, bless her heart, had been good about taking

care of Mama’s garden. It looked better that year than it had in ages. The climbing roses that Mama had trained onto trellises

and an arch were in full bloom. The pink and white flowers and rich green foliage provided shade for Aunt Marjorie, who sat under

the arch smoking a cigar and sipping gold-colored liquor from a mason jar. She called out, “Hey, Dette.” It cheered me to hear

that wonderful, unique voice of hers again, that sound that made you imagine she gargled with pine tar and rock salt. But I didn’

t have time to say more than a quick hello to her. Richmond, a good soldier who knew a thing or two about breaking rules, was

intent on accomplishing the mission I’d assigned to him. He quick-stepped behind my chair as fast as his bad ankle would allow.

When we got to the far end of the garden, where it was too overgrown for him to continue to push the wheelchair, Richmond stopped.

He came to my side, slid one arm under my back and the other beneath my knees, and lifted me. Then he carried me up the hill

toward my sycamore tree.

At the base of the tree, Richmond put me down with my back pressed against the warm bark of its trunk. He saw that I didn’t have

the strength to keep my head from falling forward, so he adjusted my position against the tree. Then he lifted my chin so I could

look up into the branches and see the green leaves against a blue sky unbroken by a single cloud.

I thanked him, but he couldn’t hear me.

I let go then of that little bit of the world I’d been holding on to. When hazy liquid flooded in from the corners of my vision,

I didn’t try to swim against it. I let the tide carry me up toward the branches of the tree where my mother had given birth to me

after following a witch’s advice so many years earlier.

“Hello, tree, my first cradle, my second mother, the source of my strength, the cause of my struggles. I’m back home.”

I saw Mama then. She was wearing her best dress, the light blue one with embroidered yellow flowers and green vines. Her legs were

crossed at the ankle, and she kicked her feet out in front of her like she was on a swing set. She shared her tree branch with

Eleanor Roosevelt.

I breathed deep and inhaled the smell of the soil, the aroma of the honeysuckle that drifted up the hill from the garden, the

faint odor of Aunt Marjorie’s foul-smelling cheap cigar. I felt good. Felt like whatever happened next would be just fine. I

floated and waited.

I looked around for that welcoming light I’d heard about, but I didn’t see it. Instead, everything around me seemed to glow and

shimmer in the sunlight. I heard beautiful sounds—not the voices of dead loved ones, but the laughter and singing of my children

when they were tiny. I saw James, young and shirtless, chasing them through Mama’s garden. Off in the distance I saw Barbara Jean

and Clarice, and even myself when we were kids, dancing to music pouring out of my old pink and violet portable record player.

Here I was with my fingers brushing up against the frame of the picture I’d been painting for the last fifty-five years, and my

beautiful, scarred husband, my happy children, and my laughing friends were right there with me.

I looked up then to tell Mama how overjoyed I was to see that crossing over was just like she had said it would be. That was when

I saw Mrs. Roosevelt reach out, pick something from the tree, and then pass it to Mama. I watched as Mama rolled whatever she’d

been handed around in her palms before letting it go. It fell from her hands, through the branches and leaves of the tree.

Finally, it came down to me where I sat on the ground—or floated in the air, I wasn’t quite sure which I was doing. I felt the

thing land on my lap.

The object Mama had dropped rested just above my knees. It was small and dark green with blackish-brown spots. I felt the heat it

had absorbed from the summer sun coming off of it so strong that I wondered if it might burn clean through the thin robe I was

wearing.

Then I felt and heard it tick. Like a time bomb.

I looked back up at the tree again. This time I studied it more carefully. I focused on the shape of the leaves. I squinted and

saw that there were clusters of little round fruit covering the tree. I watched as Eleanor Roosevelt tugged another one from the

tree and let it fall. This one landed on my head and then bounced off to my right.

“Damn you, Richmond Baker. This is just you all over. I give you one thing to do and you screw it up. And, to top it off, you do

it when I’m too gone from the world to yell at you about it. Any fourth grader can tell a sycamore from a time bomb tree. Now

here I am with walnuts falling on my head while I’m trying to die the way I want to.”

I picked up the walnut from my lap and tossed it at him.

To my surprise, Richmond ducked. Then he backed away several feet.

He started apologizing. “I’m sorry, Odette. A tree’s a tree to me. They all look the same.”

Another surprise. What I’d believed I had shouted out in a place far beyond Richmond’s hearing, I had apparently bellowed

directly at him. And he’d heard at least enough of it to know that I was truly pissed. Richmond kept his distance, afraid I might

find the strength to toss something else at him.

Throwing something else at Richmond wasn’t on my mind, though. I was too busy trying to figure out why I was alive when all the

indications were that I was done for. I put my hand to my forehead. I felt hot. But it was the heat from the sun now, not the fire

that had been roiling in my blood since the day of Sharon’s wedding.

I called up to Mama, “Is this a miracle?”

She raised and lowered her shoulders. Her voice drifted down: “Maybe. Or maybe this is just what’s supposed to be.”

Richmond assumed I was talking to God, so, preacher’s son that he was, he bowed his head. I started to feel bad for yelling at

him. He’d done me a big favor, one I couldn’t have asked anyone else to do. And it wasn’t his fault he screwed it up. That was

just his nature.

“I’m sorry, Richmond. I shouldn’t have yelled at you, or thrown that walnut either. You’ve been a good friend, and I

appreciate it.”

Sensing that the danger had passed, he came closer. Then he sat down next to me in the shade of the walnut tree. The summer

afternoon heat was getting to him and he wiped his forehead with a handkerchief he’d pulled from his pocket. “Umm, so do you

want me to carry you somewhere else? If you point out the sycamore, I can take you to it.”

I pondered what I should do and couldn’t come up with a decent answer. “I’ve gotta tell you, Richmond, I’m not quite sure what

to do. I’d only planned the day as far as this. I had it on what I’d taken as good authority that I’d be dead by now.”

I turned my face up toward the top of the tree and cut Mrs. Roosevelt a dirty look. I was happy to still be a part of the world of

the living, but I’d gone to a fair amount of trouble to get myself to my sycamore tree—no, walnut tree, thanks to dumb-ass

Richmond—so I could pass in peace. Now it looked like it was all for nothing.

I looked around and saw my sycamore tree about fifty yards away, as twisted and beautiful as ever.

Richmond saw where I was staring. “You want to go over there?”

“I don’t think so. It appears I won’t be dying just yet. Let’s go back to the hospital. If we’re lucky, we might make it

before James gets back. If he finds out about this, I might die on schedule after all.”

Richmond chuckled.

“I wouldn’t laugh if I was you. After James is done with me, he’ll want a piece of you, too.”

“Well then, we’d better get a move on.” Richmond got up on one knee and then bent and scooped me up from the ground.

“Really, Richmond, I don’t think you have to carry me. I can probably walk, if you help me.”

He began to climb down the hill with me in his arms. “No, no, you’re as light as a feather,” he lied, grunting with every step.

“You know, Richmond, I see why all the women love you so much. You talk a bunch of shit, but you make it sound good.” I wrapped

my arms around my accomplice’s thick, muscular neck and enjoyed the bouncy ride.

Over Richmond’s shoulder, I smiled up at my mother in the walnut tree. She gazed back at me, looking as pleasantly surprised as I

was to see me leaving this place alive. Then I focused my attention on that bothersome Eleanor Roosevelt, who had caused me so

much concern and vexation throughout the year. I wanted her to know, before Richmond carried me out of sight, that she might have

had me worried, but she never had me scared.

I balled my hand into a fist and shook it at Mrs. Roosevelt. And, just before Richmond and I reached the tall reed grass at the

back end of Mama’s garden, I shouted as loud as my hoarse throat would let me, “I was born in a sycamore tree!”