“I asked you, Did you see anybody around?”
“Well, somebody kept bringing us groceries. And I knew it couldn’t be Santa Claus like you said.”
“I’m a crazy old woman, Angel.”
“No, you’re not! And I’m not going to let you use that for an excuse. You don’t want me lying to you. Well, I’m sick and tired of you lying to me.” Her voice was high pitched and much louder than she meant for it to be.
“You tell me something first.” The old woman leaned forward, suddenly cagey.
“What?” asked Angel.
“You tell me how come you’re all interested in stars?” There was no use lying, but she didn’t know how to begin on the truth. So she just stood there, trying to think.
“You seen Ray. I know. There is two people around here who is star-crazy. One is Liza Irwin and the other is Ray Morgan. I know you seen Liza, but I’m thinking you been sneaking out at night to see Ray.”
“How could I see Ray? Ray is dead. You said so yourself.”
“I said my Ray was dead. They killed him over there, and the thing that come back was this—this zombie. You know what a zombie is?”
“Like a ghost?”
“Exactly. He wouldn’t talk. He couldn’t work. He just spooked the hell out of me. He weren’t my little boy. I kept throwing him out of the house. He’d come back, promising to get off the drugs. Next thing I knew he was stealing my TV or my Social Security check. I throwed him out again.”
“But you let him live in the trailer.”
“That was later. After he was in jail. He come out, he’s sick, and he don’t have no place to go. I ain’t letting him in my house again. Not on your stuffed cabbage. He’s not my boy. He’s some stranger wearing my boy’s face for a Halloween mask. He’s over there in the trailer, he ain’t on the streets, but I don’t have to see him. I don’t have to pretend he’s somebody I use to care about.”
She wiped her face on her dress skirt, glancing up to see Angel staring down at her. “I’m not crying over Ray. I finished crying over him years ago. I’m crying over all the waste of lives this house has seen. I been here all this time, watching the waste of manhood, but I can’t make it stop. I lost my boys, so I thought when that tramp left Wayne to me, I could do it right this time. Well, nobody knows better’n you how I failed there, Lord save us.” She tore at the side of her dress like she wanted to rip it. “Then I thought maybe with Bernie—You was so good with the boy. I thought maybe you and me together could put a stop to all these generations of losers, but your mama took care of that, didn’t she?” She sighed deeply. “I just pray to God I don’t live long enough to see that boy go to jail. That’s all I ask. To die before that happens. I can’t stand no more failure, Angel. I just can’t.”
“You didn’t fail with Ray, Grandma.”
“The hell I didn’t.”
“No, you didn’t. You’re right. I have seen him. I’ve seen him lots of times. On clear nights I go out, and he teaches me about the stars. At first I was so dumb, I couldn’t see anything, but he’s so patient, he just tells me over and over. His heart is almost big as the sky, Grandma. Anybody would be proud to have him for a son. Really.” Grandma lifted her face from her apron and stared at Angel as though she was trying to suck the light out of Angel’s eyes. “You ain’t lying to me. You think he’s a good man, don’t you?”
“I know he is, Grandma. I ought to know. Where I’ve had to live there are plenty of bad ones. He’s a really good man, and he wants to see you.” Angel went over to the old woman’s chair and knelt beside her. “Children need their mamas, Grandma. Doesn’t matter how old they are.”
“Hmmph.”
Angel stood up. “Well, I’m going to call Miss Liza in the morning and see if she can find somebody to give me a ride to the hospital. I’m going to visit him even if you won’t.”
“You and your danged Miss Liza! She was always so smart and good. Everybody loved Liza Irwin, even when we was kids. Then Ray—who did he go running to ever time he was hurting? Not to me, his own mama. No. It was his precious Miss Liza, who comes telling me I got to let him live in the trailer. Well, I let him, didn’t I?”
“Grandma, it’s okay. Really. He called you. He wants to see you. I know he loves you.”
“Go to bed. You got no business being up so late.”
“Okay. But you think about what I said, all right?”
In reply, Grandma just sniffed.
Angel went on to bed. She lay there reviewing the last crazy days. The star man missing. Wayne showing up. Her almost going missing, too. The star man...No, she wouldn’t think of him dying. He was just going to have an operation. Nor would she think of Wayne being tracked down and heading back to jail.
***
Miss Liza called her great-nephew Eric, and the two of them appeared at about eleven the next morning. Angel had been ready since she called the librarian at nine. Grandma was still in her bathrobe.
“You coming, Grandma?” Angel asked when she heard the car drive up.