Grounded Read online

  Beulah’s stubborn streak had almost reared and made Annie go back. But Annie’s offer to stay and help had touched her in a deep place, and by God’s grace, she accepted. Pride. She had struggled with that old sin all her life and reckoned she would until the end.

  Beulah poured water on top of the ham. A little boiling made the slices good and tender. Black coffee sat on the counter, ready to make red-eye gravy as soon as the water boiled off and the ham was removed from the pan.

  “Lord, your will be done tomorrow. I’m in your hands,” she whispered.

  “What can I do?” Annie asked. Beulah noticed she had changed out of her church clothes into jeans and a short-sleeved top.

  “You can get the biscuits out of the freezer and put them in the oven. When I made them up I froze them in the pan, so they’re all ready to go.”

  Annie did as Beulah asked, then set about dressing the table. “Lindy won’t be coming today. Do you know who might be here?”

  “Scott can’t come this week. Set for five, and we can add to or take away if necessary.”

  “What happened with Mary Beth’s marriage?” Annie asked.

  “Her husband took up with a beautician over in Rutherford. Met her through taking his son to little league games. Left Mary Beth and didn’t look back.”

  “Do you think she and Scott will get together?”

  “Hard to say. They seem compatible, but he’s never been married before, and it might be hard for him to take on a woman, two children and an ex-husband who will always be in the background. We’ll see. Were you interested in Scott?”

  Annie smiled, but shook her head firmly. “I’m not interested in anybody. I guess there’s a romantic inside me who would like to see people be happy together. How did you and Grandpa meet?” Annie asked, pulling glasses out of the cabinet.

  “Oh my goodness, I haven’t thought about that in years.” Beulah eased into the chair and took a deep breath.

  “You know the old stone house is where I grew up. It’s also where I met your grandfather.” Beulah watched Annie fill the glasses with ice and tea.

  “Did you go to school together?”

  “Oh, no. Fred’s people were from Gravel Switch, over in Boyle County. In September, after World War II ended in August, Daddy hired on two brothers from over there who were just back from fighting. They needed work, and he needed help getting his tobacco in the barn and we had lost my brother Ephraim in the war, you know. He fell in Italy, at Anzio.”

  Annie sat down and nodded, her eyes wide.

  “The first day they worked, Mama had me take a glass jug of water out to them midmorning. That was when I met the brothers, Fred and Pete Campbell. Of course, I’d been eyeing them at a distance from my room upstairs anytime I could slip away from my chores. When Mama asked me to take water out to them, I was so nervous I couldn’t even speak. I was used to the boys around home, but these two were strangers.”

  Beulah could remember the way Fred looked as if it were only hours before. Before he nodded his hello, he wiped the curtain of sweat off his forehead, as if he were making himself presentable to her. Dark hair and sparkling brown eyes under thick eyebrows—that was what she remembered most. Pete had red hair and freckles. They were different as two brothers could be. Both were a little skinny, but the war had taken a toll on most of the boys coming back. It wouldn’t take long to get the muscle back on them, Mama had said, but it would take years longer to get the haunted look out of their eyes.

  “They were hard workers, getting to the house early and sometimes sleeping in the barn at night if they worked an extra-long day. Fred and me, we started looking at each other all the time. It was like we couldn’t help ourselves. But never once did we have a conversation alone.” Beulah felt the tears fill her eyes. “I was so sad when that last leaf of tobacco was hung in the barn. I thought I would never see Fred again. I watched them leave from the upstairs window of the house, until they disappeared behind the trees on Gibson Creek Road.”

  Beulah took a long drink of the tea. “That night at supper, I was so low I had to look up to see a snake’s belly. Daddy said, ‘Beuly, there’s no sense in mopin’ around. That boy’ll be back around here before the month is out.’” Beulah chuckled. “He was right. Fred came a courtin’ the next weekend, all cleaned up and combed so that I barely knew him.”

  “It was no time at all until we knew we wanted to marry, but I was not quite fifteen and had more schooling left. Daddy said I had to wait until after I graduated from high school. Education was important to him, since he didn’t get past the eighth grade. We agreed, but the day after graduation, I was married in the yard of the stone house.” Beulah felt a tear slide down her cheek.

  “I had no idea the house had all that family history,” Annie said.

  “Honey, the stone house has been in my family for six generations. This house was part of a tract my Daddy bought when he added this front section. Fred and I moved here when we got married, and after Mama and Daddy passed, we rented out the stone house.

  Late that afternoon, Beulah poured hot water into the teapot and called for Annie. Her grandchild was deep into one of Janice Holt Giles’s books, a local author who wrote about the Kentucky frontier, long since dead. The back porch had become Annie’s favorite reading place when she wasn’t busy working around the house or outbuildings.

  “I wanted to talk to you before I go in for this surgery tomorrow. Sit down here a minute.”

  Her granddaughter sat down, a serious look on her face.

  “I want to make sure you know how things stand if something happens to me tomorrow,” Beulah started.

  “Oh, Grandma, nothing is going to happen to you. It’ll be fine!”

  Beulah covered Annie’s hand with her own. “It probably will be, but we need to have this talk anyway. There’s a lockbox under my bed behind the shotgun. The key to it is taped inside my medicine cabinet door. A copy of the will and all my account numbers and life insurance policy are in there—everything you need to know when I die to handle all the paperwork.”

  “Grandma, you’re not going to die.”

  “Maybe not this time, but if we have this conversation now, it will make it easier on you when I do go. It may not be tomorrow, but it will be someday.” Beulah took a drink of her tea while Annie sat quietly, waiting.

  “I’m leaving ten percent of my estate to the church. There should be more than enough cash in the life insurance policy to handle that. The rest will go to you, including the farm. It’s all paid for, and I’ve squirreled away a nice sum down at the bank. It doesn’t provide much cash flow for running the farm, but Joe pays a good amount for the lease in January, and between my social security and interest on the CDs, I’ve been able to manage. The farm will be yours to do whatever you wish with it.” Beulah smoothed out the wrinkles in the orange apron. “Of course, I would love for you to keep the farm and live on it, but I know that’s unlikely. If you decide to sell it, it would be my preference that you give Jake a fair price on it and first option. If Jake turns it down, I’d like you to offer it to Joe and Betty next. If neither family wants it, you are free to sell it to whoever you wish at whatever price you wish.”

  “I had no idea how much history was here. I mean, I’ve been to the cemetery a hundred times, read the names on the stones, but somehow I never connected it all.”

  “I’d love to see you keep it, of course. But if you marry a man you meet up North, it’s likely he would rather have the cash so you can buy something there. And it’s hard to maintain a farm when you’re not here to see after it. Joe or Jake might be glad to farm it for you, but it won’t be the same as having someone live here.”

  Annie was quiet the rest of the night, and Beulah was sorry to have laid such heavy talk on her. It had to be done sooner than later, and the surgery tomorrow was a good reason to do it sooner.

  Beulah readied herself for bed, pulling on her nightgown and opening up her Bible to read after she pulled the covers around
her. After a bit she closed the book, set it on the nightstand, and turned off the bedside lamp.

  In the dark, her mind went over a verse she memorized as a child, First Peter 5:7: Cast all your anxiety on Him, because He cares for you. Meditating on that sweet thought, she fell asleep.

  Chapter Nineteen

  The night before her grandmother’s surgery, a strange unease permeated Annie’s soul. The depth of her own self-centeredness settled full upon her like a heavy storm cloud. Sleep came with disturbing dreams.

  There was her grandfather working in the fields. He was hoeing between rows of tobacco, and the sweat rolled off his face and arms in stringing beads that dropped to the ground. On the rich black dirt, the sweat turned to trickling streams of blood filling the furrow between the tobacco plants. It flowed down the hill into Gibson Creek, where it turned back to water, rushing over rocks and around the creek bend until it disappeared beyond sight, beyond the farm.

  Then, she was with her grandmother in front of the old stone house. Her mother was there for a moment, but then she left the ground, floating toward heaven like a balloon, her feet dangling. Annie reached for her, grabbing her feet and holding on as hard as she could. Her mother was telling her to let go, pointing to her grandmother who was now leaving the ground. Annie ran to her and held her, and when the alarm went off at four in the morning, she was hugging the pillow tight with both arms.

  Annie slid out of the bed and onto her knees beside her nightstand. With a heavy heart, she prayed to the God of her childhood:

  Lord, please forgive me. I have gone my own way these many years. Please make me a new person …

  It was still dark outside as Annie helped her grandmother to the car and then slid into the driver’s seat. They were silent most of the way, neither of them morning people, before Annie finally broke the silence.

  “Grandma, I’m sorry I haven’t been around much these last few years.”

  “Oh, that’s all right. When you raise children, you expect them to leave the nest at some point.”

  “I know, but I could have visited more. I think for a while I was running away from the grief of losing Mom and even Grandpa. I’m sorry I haven’t been around for you.”

  “You’re here now, and this is when I need you the most. Let’s not dwell on things we can’t change.”

  Annie felt warmth spread over her heart for the second time this morning and knew that all was well. Something was different now, with her grandmother and with God. There would be more visits to her grandmother even when she went back to New York. There was no reason she couldn’t hop flights to Lexington anytime she wanted.

  “Here we are,” she said, pulling up to the hospital.

  They spent the next hour filling out paperwork and getting Beulah moved back to the surgery preparation area, where she changed into a hospital-issued gown. Her clothes and personal belongings were put into a plastic bag with her name and room number. A nurse recorded her vital signs and started an IV. They waited in silence under the bright fluorescent light of the pre-op room, tucked behind a flimsy privacy curtain. Annie sat in a molded plastic chair next to the mobile bed Beulah was lying on under blankets and a sheet.

  The curtain shifted, and Scott Southerland moved inside the tentlike room.

  “Land sakes, what in the world are you doing up here? And you, not even my own preacher?”

  Scott nodded to Annie but made his way over to the other side of the bed where he could reach down and kiss Beulah on the cheek. “I needed to make hospital visits this week, so I figured I might as well come when you’re here.”

  Annie saw her grandmother tear up and clasp his hand. “That was mighty sweet of you, Scott.”

  “How about a prayer?”

  “That’s what I was lying here thinking I needed.”

  She reached out and took Annie’s hand and held Scott’s in the other.

  “Dear Father, we are so thankful for your precious child, Beulah. Please guide the hands of the surgeons and strengthen her during and after this surgery. We ask that you bring Beulah into full recovery and give grace and strength to her caregivers. Amen.”

  When they opened their eyes, a nurse was waiting.

  “It’s time to go, Mrs. Campbell,” she said.

  Scott squeezed her hand and slipped out with a wave to Annie. Annie held on to Beulah’s other hand. “See you in a little while.”

  They wheeled her grandmother out of the pre-op room and down a long, well-lit hall. Annie watched until they turned a corner out of sight, and then she went up a floor where she would wait while the surgery took place.

  After settling into a corner of the vast waiting area, Annie prayed for her grandmother and, like Scott had done, even for the doctors doing the surgery. After a few minutes, Evelyn stepped off the elevator with to-go cups of coffee in each hand and handed one to Annie before she sat down.

  “Any word yet?”

  “They just took her back about thirty minutes ago,” Annie said. “Are the men working?”

  “They arrived after daybreak and started right away on scraping off the old paint.”

  The door to the waiting room opened, and a nurse came out and asked for another family. Annie hadn’t realized she was holding her breath until she let it out.

  Pastor Gillum, in a suit and tie, with his great white head of hair combed back in a wave, stopped by and had another prayer with her and Evelyn. An hour passed. Evelyn went with her to the cafeteria for toast and coffee. Afterward, they settled back in the waiting room, flipped through magazines and watched the news intermittently. The door opened again and a nurse called, “Campbell family.”

  Annie jumped to her feet. The nurse smiled and said, “Come on back, please.”

  Annie turned and motioned to Evelyn. “You’re family too,” she said. Inside the door, the nurse talked to them as they walked down the hall.

  “Mrs. Campbell did fine,” she said. “She’s in recovery. I’m taking you to that waiting room. Someone will come and get you as soon as she is awake.”

  In a few minutes, she and Evelyn were in the room with a groggy Beulah. Annie thought her grandmother looked so vulnerable, lying there with her leg stretched out and wrapped in bandages.

  She smiled at Annie and held out her hand to her. Annie grasped it.

  “How are you?” Annie asked.

  “I’m still here,” she said, letting go of Annie’s hand to reach for Evelyn.

  “Are you in any pain?” Evelyn asked.

  “If I am, I don’t know it yet.” The corners of her mouth pushed up slightly in an effort to grin. “Did they say when I can go home?”

  Annie fought to control a laugh. “They’re mostly concerned with getting you into a room right now.”

  “I reckon.”

  “The doctor won’t be by until tomorrow morning to check on you. Evelyn will come and spend tomorrow afternoon and evening with you. I can stay the rest of today.”

  “No sense in that.”

  Evelyn smiled at her. “We can watch soap operas like we used to.”

  “I reckon.”

  Two orderlies entered the room in squeaking tennis shoes, white shirts and pants, with clipboards in hand. “Mrs. Beulah Campbell?” said one of the men, but even though she nodded in answer, he checked her wristband and her chart to make sure.

  “We’re taking you to room 305.”

  “Okay,” Beulah said. Annie smiled at her still-sleepy grandmother.

  Evelyn left to fix lunch for the painters. Annie went on to the room, getting there before Beulah. The squeaking tennis shoes announced her grandmother’s arrival as two orderlies wheeled the awkward metal transport bed into the room. With tender, experienced hands, the men transferred her from one bed to another. After they left, she saw that her grandmother was comfortable, had ice water and was settled on the pillow just so.

  “Why don’t you go on home, Annie? I believe I’d rather you be home seeing after things.”

  “I don’t m
ind staying here at all. Don’t you want the company?” Annie asked.

  “I’ll be fine. I’ll probably sleep most of the day. I think I’d rather you be home. I don’t like leaving the house to sit empty. And you’ve already had a long day.” Annie knew the house was anything but empty at the moment, but she didn’t want to give the secret away.

  “If you’re sure … I’ll be back later tonight, anyway.”

  “Betty Gibson said yesterday she would come by this evening. Pastor said he would be by tonight as well. You stay home and rest. You’ll have the full care of me soon enough.”

  “I’ll leave this afternoon, but I’d like to stay for a while.” Annie leaned over and kissed her grandmother on the forehead.

  After she left the hospital, Annie stopped at a department store and got a few items of clothing she could use on the farm. A grocery store had a selection of organic produce, something missing from the locally owned store in Somerville, and she stocked up on fruits and vegetables. There was a Chinese restaurant in a strip mall out on the bypass, and she picked up a carry-out for supper. She was too tired to fix anything for herself tonight. Funny, she hadn’t lifted a finger all day, but waiting in the hospital was exhausting.

  It was nearing dusk when Annie passed the grove of walnuts in the driveway. As the house came into view, it looked naked with all the old paint scraped off and the primer not yet on. The men had done good work in one day.

  She put away the groceries and then carried the Kung Pao chicken to the front porch, settling herself on the steps as the fading light of evening slipped away. At first it seemed so peaceful and quiet, but as she listened close, there were the bullfrogs croaking in the pond, and in the front yard, a kildeer made a terrible racket as one of the cats got too close to her nest. She feigned injury, trying to lure the cat away, squawking and holding one wing out as if it were broken. The ruse worked, and the cat went after the mama bird, who escaped with a perfectly good set of wings at just the right moment. A hoot owl called from above, adding to the evening cacophony.

  Annie was finishing her dinner when a tiny greenish-yellow light floated up from the ground and blinked on and off. Then another and another floated up until the yard was full of hovering yellow beads of light, blinking signals to each other. The lightning bugs put on a mesmerizing show. Annie sat a long time and watched the magical display.