Randy White: Seduced

I was about to cover my deception by shifting topics when I saw Loretta charge out of the house wearing a housecoat and fluffy pink slippers. Her mannerisms were frantic as if she were being chased, or had suffered a second brain aneurysm. She bounced on her toes and flapped her hands in my direction, then charged back onto the porch.

“Something’s wrong,” I said.

“Nothing we can’t fix, Hannah, if you’re willing to-”

“Not us, my crazy mother,” I interrupted, and went out the cabin door in a hurry.

The former lieutenant governor was either dead or in a bad way. I knew it when Loretta blocked me from the porch, saying, “Even as a child you had a selfish streak. Now you refuse to do me this one little favor?”

The favor she had demanded was, “Go away, and, for god’s sake, don’t call the law. It’s too late to save your mama from sinning… But you didn’t hear that from me. I’m not gonna confess to anything.”

I felt a little dizzy when I heard those words. “Where is he, Loretta?”

“Who?”

“You don’t think I recognize his car? If Mr. Chatham is sick, we need to do something. Please tell me something terrible hasn’t happened.”

She stared at the Lincoln Town Car and hyperventilated.

“Loretta, move. If Reggie’s sleeping in the backseat, go bang on the window and get him up here. I’ll look for myself.”

Reggie was Mr. Chatham’s limo driver.

“Not until I think this through,” she snapped, and squared herself in front of the door. Loretta isn’t a large woman-not compared to me, her only child-but she has a magic way of puffing herself while her bright blue eyes catch fire. “For once in your life, do something to make me happy, Hannah. Just go away and leave us be.”

“I’m not leaving until-”

“Do as you’re told, young lady!” she hollered, and glared with those wild eyes of hers.

For an instant, I was a child again, standing in the same doorway of the same house that hadn’t changed much since my mother had stung me with similar words many times, over many years. But that girl was long gone, along with her timid nature. “If you don’t move, I’ll go ’round to the back door. Or pick you up and carry you to the couch. Is that what you want? The two of us wrestling around like crazy people while we could be helping?” Then I called over the top of her head, “Mr. Chatham! Everything okay in there? It’s me, Hannah Smith.”

On the mantel above the fireplace is a cherrywood clock my great-grandfather made when he wasn’t fishing mullet, or selling rum and egret plumes. The clock’s ticking was the only reply.

“My lord,” I murmured. “Loretta, talk to me. Please tell me you did not do something crazy. You didn’t stab him, did you?”

“Stab him! ’Course I didn’t. In my own bed? What do you think I am?”

“My lord,” I said again. “Is that where he is?”

With a dazed look, she turned toward the hall, her bedroom beyond, then appeared to wilt and stepped away. “When the law comes, I suppose you’ll tell them the governor ain’t the first man I killed.”

Kilt is the way the word is pronounced in the small fishing communities of Southwest Florida.

“He’s dead ? ”

“I believe he is,” was her cryptic reply, “but Harney’s not the type to give up all at once.” She began to sob.

I rushed into the house to where Loretta’s recliner faced the TV, which wasn’t blaring soap operas for a change. Nearby was her walker. It was covered with a caftan as a vanity. Aside from confiding to a few women friends, she won’t admit she needs help getting around, not even to our handsome UPS man, let alone a former lover. I slid the walker within reach and hurried down the hall, calling the governor’s name.

The door to my old room was open, nothing I recognized on the walls or desk. Loretta’s door was shut tight, which was normal. As always, I could feel the privacy of shadows and forbidden drawers radiating from within. Twice I knocked, then bumped the door open. After a look, I hollered, “Call nine-one-one. Hurry!” but didn’t budge for a moment because my legs felt watery, like in a bad dream.

In life, Mr. Chatham was an imposing man with oversized accomplishments. He favored Western-cut suits, string bolo ties, and the only time he removed his hat was when entering a house, or greeting a lady, or before sliding into the back of his limo.

His cowboy hat-“my John Wayne Stetson,” he called it-was the only reason I knew for certain the man who lay there, toes up and naked with vomit crusted on his chin, was the former lieutenant governor. My mother, despite her panic, had had the good manners to place the hat strategically over his pelvis. The Stetson tilted, as if on a peg, the man’s two long, heavy legs sticking out. I charged in and did what I’d been taught in a CPR course I had to take when I’d upgraded my captain’s license. Mr. Chatham’s neck was as white and cool as clay when I felt for a pulse. Glassy eyes failed to respond to my shouting, nor when I hammered a fist on his chest.

Next step: clear the airway, then begin mouth-to-mouth. Practicing on a CPR dummy had not prepared me for the realities involved. But I did as I’d been taught. Billowed two breaths into his lungs, then shouted out the compressions in a robotic way while I pumped his chest. This helped stem a blooming nausea.

“Mama-you’d best be dialing that damn phone! Carry it outside while you talk, and bring Reggie fast as you can.”

There was no need to add this because the chauffeur was suddenly beside me, hands on my shoulders, and cooing in his gentle Southern way. “You done what you could, Miz Hannah. Go on now, girl, an’ leave the rest to me.”

I stepped back and brushed hair from my face. “He’s got no pulse. Did Loretta call nine-one-one?”

Reggie, a tiny, wiry man, was wearing the same blue cap he always wore. “All taken care of,” he said. Then he removed his driving gloves and yelled, “Governor! Wake up, sir. This is ain’t no place for this to be happening.”

He plopped down, grabbed the man who’d been his employer for decades, shook him by the shoulders, and looked up at me with wide eyes. “Lord God, he’s cold as death, Miz Hannah. His heart done stopped. I knew this was gonna happen.”

“You can’t be sure.”

“Cold as he is? Honey, he’s been gone a while.”

“We have to keep doing compressions until-”

“I know, I know,” the little man said, yet sounded resigned. “I took that course for my chauffeur’s license, but the governor wouldn’t like it, you seeing what I gotta do first.” He glanced at the Stetson, as if to convey his meaning, then hunched his back and continued CPR. Between breaths he told me, “Leave us alone, girl. It’s what he’d want.”

I was duty-bound to stay but suddenly in need of air. In the bathroom, I left the water running to cover the sound of my nausea, then washed my face and went searching for my mother. She was on the porch, rocking and staring past the mangroves that fringe our dock. It was a cool, bright afternoon in February, with the sky too low for soaring gulls and frigate birds. When I covered her legs with a blanket, she spoke in a monotone. “No need to badger me, I know it’s my fault. He warned me often enough.”

“Don’t fret about that now.”

“I’m being punished for doin’ what I knew I shouldn’t do. I, by god, deserve whatever hell has to offer, ’cause that’s where I’m headed.”

“Don’t say such things. Do you mean Mr. Chatham mentioned he had heart problems? I think that’s what happened. He had a heart attack.”

“It wasn’t him who warned me.”