The Last Breath

“Not at all.” This is clearly the Fannie Miles show, and I’m happy to let her lead.

“Great.” She settles her ample behind onto the couch, casting an expectant glance around the room. “So where is everybody?”

“You’re looking at them.” I try not to feel sorry for myself as I say the words, or think about the knife of resentment I feel jutting out of my back, somewhere in the vicinity of right between my shoulder blades.

Fannie lifts a crayon brow. “I thought Cal said there would be three of you.”

I nod. “There goddamn better be. But for now I guess it’s just me.”

She wraps a warm palm over my arm and gives me a kind smile. “Then right now, sugar pie, you’re the only one who matters.” Fannie pulls back her hand, sits up a little straighter. “Okeydokey, then. How much did Cal tell you?”

“He filled me in on the basics. That you’re responsible for my father’s care and comfort, that you’ll manage his pain without prolonging his life, that you’ll stay until the end.”

The end. A growing ball of nausea takes root in my belly, one that has nothing to do with last night’s liquor.

“But more important,” I continue, “how much did Cal tell you?”

“I assume you’re talking about your father’s legal issues?”

I shake my head. “You’d have to be dead to not know about those. I’m wondering more what he could have possibly said to make you agree to take this job.”

Fannie shrugs. “That’s easy. He’s paying me two dollars more an hour plus a whopper of a bonus if I stay until the funeral.”

I don’t respond. In my job, I’ve met plenty of people for whom money is a legitimate reason to do just about anything—dig a community well, disappear without a trace, murder a business partner. Tending to a dying man is as good a job as any, I suppose. And depending on the size of the bonus and how long Dad lasts, the amount could be substantial. Fannie doesn’t look particularly hard up for cash, but who am I to judge?

“You’re worried that money ain’t proper motivation, aren’t you?”

“I just want to make sure you know what you’re getting into. We aren’t the most stable of families, as I’m sure you can imagine. Quite honestly, though, our dysfunctionality is the least of your problems.”

Fannie catches my meaning instantly, making me think she’s already considered the consequences of taking this job. “You mean my being here isn’t going to get me elected the next Miss Rogersville.”

I nod.

She barks out a laugh, slaps a palm to a meaty thigh. “I hate to tell you, honey, but that train left the station ’bout twenty years ago.” When she sees I’m not ready to join in her hilarity, her expression sobers to half-serious. “You must be the one living way off in Australia.”

“Africa.”

“Africa. I coulda sworn it was Australia...anyway, my point is you weren’t here, so you couldn’t have known folks are already blabbering about me on account of my rat bastard ex-husband. I swear, how I stayed married to Lester Miles for fifteen years without catching a venereal disease is one of God’s great mysteries.”

I can’t help but smile, but there’s a warning buried in the gesture. “This job is going to take gossip to a whole new level.”

“Sugar, if I’da cared what people thought of me, I never woulda married that no-good snake back in ’95, and I sure as hell never woulda told everybody he spent our retirement fund on cocaine and hookers after I left his sorry ass.” She lifts her entire upper body in a shrug. “Not only do I need this paycheck, I also don’t give a flying pile of pig shit what people think about my being here.”

I sit for a long moment, trying to process what Fannie just told me. A lying, cheating, thieving spouse would certainly feed the Rogersville gossip mill. Not on the scale of a father who may or may not be a murderer, but still. She must be well-acquainted with how it feels to walk into a room and be greeted with silence, even though every person in there has plenty to say about you behind your back.

The bigger question is, how can she stand it?

“How do you do it?” I ask. “How do you not care?”

Fannie looks at me with kind eyes. “You just don’t, sugar, that’s all.”

She pats my arm again and hoists herself off the couch, following the scent of freshly brewed coffee into the kitchen. Halfway there she turns back with a soft cackle. “Otherwise give ’em the line about the flying pile of pig shit. That one always works.”

* * *

After a second cup of coffee, Fannie refuses my offer to help her rearrange the room or cart in her busload of medical supplies. She shoos me off, ordering me into a hot shower and something more proper than a backward tank top. Once upstairs, it’s not the shower knob I reach for but my phone. Cal, Bo and Lexi, in that order.

Cal picks up on the first ring. “Good mornin’, baby girl. How you holding up?”

“I’m okay. Fannie’s here.” I sink onto the foot of my bed and wait while Cal takes in my meaning behind those four words, which he does pretty much immediately.

“Where are Bo and Lexi?”

Nothing slips by the Tennessee Tiger.

The hurt comes flooding back, this time with the tears I managed to fend off last night with alcohol and Jake. Alone in my old room now, I don’t bother to check them. “Lexi ditched me last night, and Bo still hasn’t called me back.”

Cal curses under his breath. “I’ll call them on my way into court, and I’ll use my lawyer voice. Don’t you worry, darlin’. I’ll make sure they get their asses over there pronto.”

Part of me, and not a small part, wants to believe him—Cal’s lawyer voice is certainly something to be feared—but the realistic side of me knows better.

“I’m afraid it’s going to take a lot more than a stern talking-to to get Lexi over here, and same goes for Bo. But that’s not why I’m calling. When I was in town last night, I heard about some protesters. A local group of Bible-beaters, and it sounds like it’s going to be a shit storm.”

Cal half groans, half sighs. “I’m not particularly surprised. People in that town sure loved Ella Mae, and sixteen years isn’t nearly long enough to heal their wounds. Especially with that damn garden to remind them every time they drive through town.”

My uncle is right. If the Ella Mae Andrews Memorial Garden on all four corners of Depot and Main doesn’t prompt folks to remember Ella Mae, the women of her former garden club, who make sure the plot thrives all year round, will. Even in February, when the trees are bare like they are now, it’s kind of hard to miss.

“Is there any way we can stop them?”

“Folks have a constitutionally protected right to engage in protests, assuming they’re peaceful. As long as they stick to the street and don’t disrupt traffic, we have to let them.”

What traffic? I look out my bedroom window over the front yard and the empty asphalt that dead ends into our driveway. With only a handful of homes on a stretch of almost a mile, Maple Street isn’t exactly a major throughway.

“What about noise ordinances? I heard they’ll have bullhorns.”

“Noise amplifying instruments are a different story. They’re not allowed without a permit. I’ll have my assistant check if any noise ordinance waivers have been issued, but without those, they can sit out there all the livelong day if they want.”

Cal’s answer heaves and swirls in my stomach.

“Have you talked to the officer in charge yet?” he asks. “He should be able to tell you how much preparation the protesters have made, if any.”

“Not yet. He’s coming an hour ahead of Dad, so I’ll ask him then.”

“I knew I could count on you to keep things under control.”

The absurdity bubbles in the base of my throat, and I want to laugh and cry and scream. Control? What control? Maybe Cal somehow got me confused with Fannie or his power-shopping assistant, because I have nothing—nothing!—under control.

“I should have this case wrapped up in a few weeks,” he says, but the distracted quality in his voice tells me the only thing he’s eager to wrap up is this conversation. “Once I do, I can move into the house with you. I sure hate that I can’t be there today.”