Grif Stockley - Blind Judgement

by thirty years of gravity is well camouflaged.

“Are you doing okay?” I ask.

For an answer she wipes her eyes. What a stupid question.

“Follow me to the kitchen. What are you doing here?” she asks over her shoulder as she leads me through a living room filled with furniture that has seen better days.

“You’ve got that serious expression you used to get when you’d try to convert me to Catholicism. You want some coffee or a drink?”

Facing a two-hour drive, I say I’ll take some coffee and sit at her kitchen table and marvel at how easy this feels, as if she has been patiently expecting my call for the last quarter of a century.

She takes a sack of coffee beans and empties them into a clear plastic container and pushes a button.

The noise prohibits an immediate response, and I look around her kitchen to keep from staring at her. Though spotless as I had expected, the appliances look ancient, and I remember a sentence from her letter that farming in eastern Arkansas has been very difficult in the past twenty years. In the driveway stands an ‘87 Mustang. There obviously hasn’t been much replacing of big ticket items in the Marr household lately.

“I know I mentioned my little epiphany the summer I met you,” I say when the grinding stops, “but did I talk about it that much?”

“Night and day,” she teases me, pouring water into her coffee maker.

“You were such a zealot!”

“I was?” An agnostic now since Rosa’s death, I find it hard to believe I ever proselytized anyone, especially Angela.

“With all those hormones flowing,” I ask, already comfortable bantering with her, “how did the subject of religion even come up?”

“You were such a talker,” she says, smiling, “I was afraid you’d never shut up long enough to ever kiss me.”

What different memories we have.

“Sarah went through a period her senior year in high school of being a fundamentalist,” I admit.

“Maybe it’s in the genes.”

Angela sits down across from me to wait for the coffee to brew.

“My boys couldn’t find the inside of a church if they tried,” she says, sounding regretful.

“And after their grades this semester, I’m worried about them. But they can’t come back here and farm. This place isn’t going to be here.”

So much for sex. Like a married couple, we substitute in its place talk of children and money.

Angela’s lower lip pooches out just a bit the way it did when she was upset three decades ago.

“It’s that bad, huh?” I say softly.

“I’m really sorry.”

Tears come again to Angela’s eyes. She never knew how to hide anything. Maybe that was why I was attracted to her. In the South women were taught to play games. Angela didn’t know how and was too honest to learn.

“Dwight didn’t really have anything to keep on living for. The farm has been going broke for years,” she says softly, looking out her kitchen window.

“And farming was all he ever wanted to do. He loved it.

There aren’t any jobs here anyway.”

Behind his back, we made fun of Dwight.

What a hick! A living teenage country legend.

4-H Club President. Won ribbons at the State Fair every October for pigs, for God’s sake. Dwight wasn’t cool. I pretended to be shocked when Angela told me after I returned from Peace Corps training that she and Dwight were getting married. I wasn’t. Dwight had been in love with her for years, and finally she had the good sense to realize it. The only

thing she asked of him was that they live in town. Never a fool, he bought a house in the city limits and commuted every day twenty minutes to his farm.

“What are you going to do?” I ask, beginning to feel awkward.

“This isn’t your problem,” Angela apologizes, pouring coffee into two chipped mugs.

“It’s just that I’ve been dealing with the bank again this week. They keep telling me to rent out my land.

Dwight’s brother wants to buy me out and carry the mortgage, but I know he can’t pay me.”

I am taken aback by how much she is revealing to me, but I shouldn’t be. For some reason we trusted each other from the moment we met.

That first night on her front steps she had confided how upset she had been when she had learned her father was moving to Arkansas, of all places. Obviously, I had talked about the marvels of Catholicism. I stand up to take the cup she hands me. Her hand is shaking. Family businesses.

They’re messes, whatever the nationality.

“What is Cecil like?” I ask, retrieving somehow the name of Dwight’s brother. Odd what is in the memory bank. Cecil was two years younger, and since those kids worked all the time on the farm, I just barely knew him.

“You’re not obligated to sell to him.”

Angela makes a face before sipping at her own coffee. I should know better, her expression says.

“Of course I am,” she says, her voice slightly bitter as she sits down at the table across from me.

“He’s my husband’s brother. What is Cecil like? He’s like every younger brother. If Dwight had planted beans instead of cotton, if they had bought more land instead of renting … the last two years as things were going from bad to worse it got pretty tense between them.

His wife, Nancy-you may not remember her since she was a lot younger-has been good to me and the boys, but it’s been a strain on everybody.”

I require some milk for my coffee, and, not wanting to make her get up again, I walk over to her ancient GE and open it. Damn. The top shelves are as bare as my own. Three cartons of Dannon fat-free plain yogurt, a quart of Carnation Coffee-mate Lite creamer, a quart of Minute Maid orange juice and four cans of diet Coke. No wonder she’s thin: she hasn’t eaten solid food since high school. I flavor my brew, and wonder why I like instant better than the real thing. A character defect, undoubtedly. I like cheap bourbon better than the expensive stuff. It tastes better with Coke. Angela looks up at me and forces another smile.

“How’s Sarah?”

I nod, glad to talk about a more pleasant subject.

My daughter has been the only thing between me and the nut house most of the time for the last seven years. I sit down again, making the oak chair squeak under my weight. Twenty years ago she must have had nice furniture in this room. Today, it could stand some glue.

“She’s great. First semester she became a raging feminist and quit junior varsity cheer leading because the costumes exploited women. I think she’s calming down a little, but next year it’ll be something else. She’s very passionate, like her mother was.”

Angela pushes back a lock of hair from her forehead.

“Do you still miss Rosa?”

I take off my jacket and hang it on the back of the chair to give myself time to think.

“Not consciously so much anymore,” I say candidly.

“But she was so alive that there’s a big hole I’ve had to realize can’t be filled. You really learn the hard way that people are unique and can’t be replaced.

She wasn’t perfect, but she was good in a way I’m not. She cared about others past the point of just wanting to be liked herself. Do you know what I mean? You would have been friends.”

Angela studies me carefully and strokes the left side of her face.

“Do you have a picture of Sarah?”

From my right hip pocket I tug out my wallet, which as usual is too full of laundry slips, business cards, and ancient notes to myself to make a smooth exit.

“This is Sarah last year,” I say handing her the wallet.

“She looks just like her mother when I met her in Colombia.”

Angela examines the photograph and winks at me.

“God, Gideon, no wonder you married Rosa.