The Pirate Queen Read online

  “It’s my first time,” said Bender.

  Jamie kissed Saphora and said, “Pastor Mims is such a good teacher. You’ll like the sermon this morning.”

  “Have you been going all along?” asked Saphora.

  “It’s our summer church. I’m glad you came.” She led Tobias down the street.

  Pastor John greeted people as they walked under the long canvas awning to enter the sanctuary. He was taken aback seeing Saphora and Bender coming toward him. “It’s nice to see you here,” he said to Bender.

  “Fish aren’t biting. Needed something to do,” said Bender, smiling.

  “Pastor John, it’s good to see you,” said Saphora. “He got me up early to bring him here.”

  “It was her idea,” said Bender.

  “You’re both so very welcome,” said Pastor John. He continued greeting and shaking hands.

  Once they were inside, the old building’s musty smell was overcome by the people who greeted them. There seemed to be a lot going on in so small a place. Two ladies were signing up members for group studies. A smiling man offered them coffee at a table filled with a variety of flavors. He asked them if they were new.

  “First-timers,” said Bender.

  “If you fill this out and give it to me, I have a nice gift bag for you,” said the greeter.

  To Saphora’s surprise, Bender took a pen from the man and filled out the card. He gave it back to him and accepted the gift bag, a pink one he promptly passed off to Saphora.

  They continued down the hallway, following some directions from the man. Photographs of mission trips were affixed to bulletin boards.

  Bender found a seat in the back. Saphora accepted some materials from a woman in jeans who greeted them. Then she sat next to Bender.

  Along the floor in front of her, the carpet showed signs of some upheaval. Old wooden pews had once made impressions on the carpet. Cushioned chairs took the place of the pews now. Saphora remembered going to church with her mother as a girl. The pews were affixed in her mind as the one thing that made her so fidgety. It seemed this church was working to become a more welcoming place. Bender was being drawn right in, brain cancer scaring him from behind, Pastor John smiling and opening wide his doors before him.

  “There’s coffee out in the lobby.” A woman who sat in front of them turned around in her chair. She stuck out her hand. Bender shook it and then Saphora.

  “Thank you,” she said. “I’m Saphora.”

  “May,” said the woman. “You’re new.”

  “Just here for the summer,” said Saphora.

  Pastor John took his spot on the platform, as poised as any man of religious ilk, and placed a Bible on the lectern. He made some humorous comments.

  Bender shifted back and forth. He seemed uncomfortable.

  “Want to go out for the coffee?” asked Saphora.

  He shook his head and said nothing. Then his hand came down on hers. He clasped her fingers. He was crying. A box of tissues sat right under May’s chair. Saphora got him one.

  First Bender whimpered, a noise unlike any she’d ever heard from him. Then he leaned over, his head coming down into Saphora’s lap as he collapsed.

  It took an ambulance twenty-five minutes to come for Bender that morning. Pastor John had stepped right off the platform. He got some of the women praying.

  As Saphora was climbing into the ambulance, one of the attendants was looking curiously at the Jolly Roger on her calf. Her mind was swarming with her husband’s pallor, so it was a strange thing to notice. She sat next to Bender and took hold of his hand. He was eerily still and as white as a beach. He looked dead.

  “I think he’s had a seizure, ma’am,” the other attendant working over him told her.

  “Bender, can you hear me?” she asked. But he was in another place. She talked to him and rubbed his hands. She talked right into his ear while an attendant set up a drip. “Bender, don’t you give up now.” She did not know how many times she said it. But while she had felt awkward in knowing what to say to him up until now, the language was all suddenly so clear. “I love you, Bender,” she whispered. “Don’t leave me.”

  Bender’s crisis brought the whole Warren clan off the waters of the Neuse River and into the uncertainty of a good-for-nothing cancer scare. Jim met Saphora in the Duke ER. By afternoon Bender was moved into a room in the cancer wing, where a team of specialists started the testings that follow in the wake of a cancer patient’s collapse at church. Jim told Saphora this could be the final stage. Gwennie bustled into the room where they had placed her daddy. “Mama, what’s going on? The waiting is driving me crazy.”

  Saphora held on to Gwennie until Gwennie sobbed. She had never been a girl to cry openly. But she could not contain it. Neither of them could. Gwennie said, “I told Celeste to feed the boys and drive them here later. I think she listened.”

  Ramsey came running up the hallway and into the room. “I’m here, Mama. Celeste is parking the car.”

  Turner ran in right behind him. They were standing at the foot of the bed when Saphora said, “Let’s step out.” When they followed her into the hall, she led them to a nearby waiting area to sit and hear the news. She told her sons, “He’s not responding to anything.”

  Gwennie quietly joined them, sitting on the arm of Turner’s chair.

  Jim came into the hall. Saphora introduced him to Gwennie, Turner, and Ramsey. Jim said, “I’m glad to find you all here. He’s had a stroke, Saphora. It will be a few days before we know how much brain function’s been affected.”

  Because Turner had to leave by six o’clock, Ramsey felt the worst for also needing to leave so abruptly. But he had already booked their flights out for Sunday night. They had packed already and brought their luggage and kids in tow. He sat with his head in his hands. “Celeste brought Emerald along,” he said. “I figured she could ride back with you, Gwennie.”

  “I’ll see to her,” said Gwennie.

  Bender’s predicament had softened them all, even toward Emerald.

  The sound of running was heard from the end of the hallway.

  “I think your family’s here, darling,” said Saphora to Ramsey. She walked down the hallway to quiet the grandsons and greet her sister.

  Emerald complained, “I could not sit alone worrying back in Oriental.”

  Saphora led them back into the hospital room, where Emerald took it upon herself to sit at Bender’s bedside. The brothers nervously traded chitchat about work while Gwennie went downstairs to make calls. Turner was good about asking the nurses medical questions and then translating the answers for Saphora. But the sun was going down, and it was inevitable that Saphora would have to say good-bye to Ramsey and Turner and their families. Ramsey and Celeste took their good-byes out in the hall. Saphora told Ramsey, “I’m just glad you were here. You got to see him spry and surrounded by his grandsons.”

  “It’s not over, Mama,” said Ramsey.

  Turner hugged him and each of his sons.

  Eddie and Liam held on to each other, laughing like boys do when they’re afraid to show emotion.

  “I don’t want it to be,” she said. She had cried all the way through Sunday. Now even saying good-bye to Celeste was painful. She kissed Celeste. The twins were hanging on to Saphora’s legs as if they were being wrenched from their mother.

  “Your daddy’s bringing you boys back,” said Saphora. “Aren’t you, Ramsey?”

  “Soon,” he said. But Celeste cast her eyes away. It was the cost of airfare that weighed in part on their decision to travel home, and Ramsey had to be back at work.

  “I told Daddy I’d be back next week or so,” said Ramsey. “I think he heard me.”

  “I believe that,” said Saphora.

  “Gwennie said she has to go back tomorrow,” said Celeste.

  “She does, but she has all kinds of airline miles. She’ll use them if need be and get herself back here,” said Saphora. It was so hard having children scattered all over the country
, like seeds in the wind. “I’ll keep you updated by phone, Ramsey,” she said.

  Liam hugged Saphora until it hurt both inside and out. “I’ll see you soon,” she said.

  “Nana, is Papa dying?” he asked. He was red eyed, as upset as Eddie, who was the closest to Bender of all the grandsons.

  “Liam,” said Ramsey, “let’s go.” He herded the boys toward the elevator.

  “I’ll walk them out,” said Turner.

  Celeste sobbed and then was gone.

  Saphora dreaded going back into the hospital room, not just because Emerald was no comfort, but because Bender had not responded to any stimulus, not even when Gwennie had spoken into his ear and begged him to open his eyes. Seeing him lying still and not giving out orders and managing the world left a giant vacuum inside Saphora.

  She found Emerald sitting beside him, talking as if he heard her. “They say they can hear us, you know,” she told Saphora. “I’ve been telling him how I bake brownies.”

  “Why that?” asked Saphora.

  “I couldn’t think of anything else.”

  “You can go for coffee, sis. I’ll take a turn,” said Saphora.

  “Did you see them off?”

  Saphora took the seat next to Emerald. “Liam was sad as could be.”

  “My grandson Clay looks a lot like that one,” said Emerald. “He’s grown now and in community college.”

  “Mother called,” said Saphora. Late Saturday night her mother called to ask if Emerald was driving her crazy. “She’s coming too. Just as Gwennie has to leave.”

  “You’ll not be alone, I grant,” said Emerald. “It’s not good to be alone when you’re gripped in such misery. When Alan left me, and then Tom gave me such pain—you know he smoked pot—I sat for days on my couch. The TV played night and day.”

  “Don’t cry, Em,” said Saphora.

  “You know I can’t stop,” she said. Since she was very young, she could cry on command. Emerald could cry when everyone was laughing and cracking jokes.

  “I need you to pull yourself together.”

  “But crying, they say, is like cleansing the heart.” After all these years, Emerald had found a justification for her continual crying jags.

  “Then yours is spotless as a newborn.”

  Emerald had built herself up as the family mourner. “I think it’s my gift.”

  “You’ll need more tissues then. That box is empty.”

  “I’ll get some from the nurses’ station,” she said. She stopped at the door and then walked out, her bottom lip quivering.

  Saphora took Bender’s hand. “You’re cold, love.” She pulled the blanket over his hands and up to his neck. “I’m sorry that I left Emerald in here so long. She wants to help but doesn’t know how. I hope you could hear your children telling you how much they love you. Eddie’s so sad about this, Bender.” She talked right along. Emerald might be right about him hearing what was said. But then he might be free-floating in some place between earth and space. “Gwennie’s staying another day. She thinks she can breathe you back to us somehow. She’s got that determination to get her way, you know.” She pressed a tissue to her lips to stifle a sob.

  Gwennie was taking Bender’s stroke harder than either of the boys, even Turner, who was as emotional as a woman. She had talked at great length to Jim and then gotten all kinds of ideas off the Internet. That worried her even more. She read that a brain cancer patient’s chances of survival were lessened if he started having strokes. “Bender, you’ve got to try,” Saphora said. “There are things we’ve left unsaid to each other.” She put her head down against the side of his bed. “We can’t leave us like this.”

  He made a noise like a cat bringing up its just-licked fur. But the lashes that had started growing back did not flicker.

  “I never said I was sorry. I know I have a part in our disintegration.” It seemed odd to say it out loud, but then she felt better. “That is where we’re left if you don’t come back,” she said. “I don’t want us to part like two leaves on the water.” That had been a poem he had read, had it not? Or maybe she had heard it in one of those awful dramatic movies played over and over in the afternoons. “We’re like so many of those couples we know. I don’t want us to have lived and then be left with things we should have said.” She was starting to feel more alone talking to a lifeless version of Bender.

  “I found an entire cabinet of tissues,” said Emerald, bolting through the door, arms loaded.

  “Six boxes is a lot.”

  “Oh, Saphora, you’ve been crying too. Look, tears on the sheets.”

  “Give me a box then,” she said. “Come and sit by me, Em. Tell me about Tom.”

  13

  Do you really want to look back on your life and see how wonderful it could have been had you not been afraid to live it?

  CAROLINE MYSS

  “But your flight doesn’t leave until tomorrow,” said Saphora. “And it’s late.”

  Gwennie’s suitcase sat by the door. They had decided against staying in a hotel and had driven back late to Oriental.

  “I’m needed in New York. My client’s fighting to hang on to the only business he’s ever known. A competitor has swooped in like a bandit and applied for a patent on the software my client developed.” She was putting in a second earring when she said, “I’ll be back, Mama. Daddy won’t even know I’ve gone.” When she said it, the resentment at her daddy’s situation bled through.

  “Emerald thinks your daddy can hear us,” she said.

  “Maybe he can. If that’s right, then he’s more blessed than we are.”

  “I’ll call you if there’s any change.”

  “I’m coming back Friday night.”

  Saphora threw her arms around Gwennie. “That’s what I need to hear, when you’re coming back.”

  “It’s that Luke, isn’t it?” asked Emerald, who was coming down the stairs.

  “I don’t know what you mean.” Gwennie would not look at her aunt.

  “What is this smile, Gwennie? Is Emerald right?” asked Saphora.

  “He’s a summer thing, that’s all,” said Gwennie.

  “He’s a grieving man, Gwennie. Please don’t make him one of your things you tuck into a temporary part of your life,” said Saphora.

  “I should know not to date a man my mother knows better than I do.”

  “I’m not saying that I know Luke all that well,” said Saphora. “But he’s not a summer fling kind of guy. You know that, Gwennie.”

  “Luke and I are friends, is all. Don’t make it more than that,” she said, her impatience evident in the way she aimed her suitcase at the front door.

  “But look how you’re smiling every time you say his name.” Saphora thought Luke’s effect on her was sweet. But still, she worried for his heart. Gwennie thought commitment was calling her stockbroker twice a week.

  “I’ve got to go. I got the last seat on this flight, and knowing Northwest, they’ve overbooked.”

  There was a knock at the back patio door.

  “There’s your summer fling as we speak,” said Emerald. She was still perched on the staircase, giving her a bird’s-eye view through the patio glass.

  Gwennie ran to the back door as Luke was opening it up to her. “Luke, I was coming over to say good-bye,” she told him.

  “I couldn’t wait,” he said.

  Gwennie stepped outside and closed the door behind her.

  “Oh, she’s completely smitten,” said Emerald.

  “Poor Luke.”

  “Eddie told me Luke’s digging for treasure in his backyard,” said Emerald. “Don’t you find that strange, given his circumstances?”

  “Luke doesn’t divulge all that much to me, Em.”

  Luke took Gwennie’s hand and led her off the deck, as if they could hide from Emerald’s nosy curiosity. Emerald slowly climbed the staircase until she said she could see the tops of their heads. “He’s got her in his arms,” she said, as if reporting. “I wish
I could read lips. He’s saying something, what is it?”

  “Emerald, come down. Gwennie wouldn’t like you spying on her.” Saphora came up on the bottom stair step. “What are they doing?”

  “Oh, now that’s a kiss.”

  Saphora ran up three more steps. Gwennie’s back was to them as she stood down on the lawn beyond the deck. Luke was holding her so close that she finally collapsed on him, crying.

  “Summer fling, my foot!” said Emerald.

  “Poor Gwennie,” said Saphora.

  “Poor Luke,” said Em.

  The next morning, Emerald must have decided that Bender’s cancer could be crushed with all-purpose cleaner. She sprayed it on every kitchen surface and then went to work on the library baseboards. She was leaping to reach the library’s arched doorway when the doorbell rang. She stopped long enough to let Tobias in the house. He ran to the back patio door, out onto the deck, and then back inside. Every Monday for the past few weeks he had counted on finding Eddie waiting for him up in the tree or out in the garage airing up his bicycle tires.

  “Eddie’s gone,” said Saphora. “I told him to call you.” Eddie had looked sad at the mention of telling Tobias good-bye. “He’s coming back, probably next weekend. He’s got school coming up, and his mother wanted to buy him some school clothes.”

  “He didn’t call. What about Liam?” asked Tobias.

  “All gone,” said Emerald. She raked the top of the doorpost.

  “Where’s Dr. Warren?” asked Tobias.

  “Tobias, come on over here,” said Saphora. She seated him at the breakfast bar in the kitchen. “Dr. Warren’s gotten very sick. He’ll have to stay a long time in the hospital.”

  “Mom told me she heard he got sick at church,” said Tobias. “But I thought he was, you know, throw-up sick.”

  It was probably all over town that Bender collapsed in church.

  “He left church Sunday in an ambulance,” said Saphora.

  “I’ve ridden in ambulances,” he said. “He wasn’t afraid, was he?”