That’s my town, and that’s my family, and I still keep coming back—especially when I need to shake my blues away and clear my big-city head. Next exit ramp? Walkers Pasture.

Chapter 39

Chapter 39

WILLIE AND THE DUKE and I make the trip to Walkers Pasture in a little over seven hours, with just one stop: to walk the dog, hit the bathroom for humans, and consume twenty-five Chicken McNuggets.

I do not call ahead. Mom has no idea that we’re showing up. That’s how we operate with each other. She hears us pull into the driveway. Big Lucy and her cane rush out to greet us with an explosion of “Holy cow!” and “Holy shit!” and “Did you want to give me a heart attack?” She has mastered the craft of smiling and crying at the same time.

Big Lucy shouts at her only grandson, “Who drove? Willie or The Duke?”

Willie, a real little wise guy, answers, “We took turns. And then when we got tired, we let Mom drive.”

My mother hugs Willie so tight that even she feels compelled to say, “You just tell me when I’m hugging you too hard, Willie.”

“Now!” he shouts.

So she turns to me and hugs me just as hard. As far as I’m concerned, she can never hug me hard enough or long enough. As Mom and I hug, I can see two men over her shoulder. Coming through the screened front door are my dad and my brother, Cabot. To put it bluntly, my dad is a mess, a frightful mess. He can’t weigh much more than 110 pounds. A small plastic oxygen tube is attached to his nostril, and the tube itself is attached to a portable oxygen tank on wheels. Daddy hobbles and stumbles along with his walker. Cabot wheels the oxygen tank, looking none too sure of himself.

In fact, Cabot doesn’t look a helluva lot better than Daddy. My brother is almost as frail and skinny as our father. Cabot’s eyes are red rimmed. His head twitches. His brown hair is greasy and matted. His arms shake terribly as he tries to guide the oxygen tank behind Daddy.

Mom sees her two men on the tiny front porch. She stops hugging and starts yelling. “Harold, you should be staying inside on the couch. Cabot, you should be inside with him. You’re in no proper state of mind to be wheeling the oxygen.”

Two things are immediately clear to me: one, Daddy simply does not hear his wife talking; two, Cabot is still a serious drug user. I break away from Mom and rush toward my father, who looks up at me. He’s confused.

“It’s me, Daddy. It’s Lucy,” I say. I kiss him, but he bends his head back down so quickly that I end up kissing the top of his mostly bald head.