NaNoWriMo: Day 30

For Stella and Buckley, the year did start off rather well. They both went back to work after the holidays and things were settling into a sort of normalcy. Stella went to work at the school, then at Angel’s on weeknights. She managed to have weekends off. Buckley spent the night with her on some Friday and Saturday nights. She started making time for girlfriends. Buckley’s mom started to find her place in the community through the church. Things were good.

            No one talked about the men who had died the year before at Herlin Hall.

            Months passed and soon it was nearly spring break. Stella had made plans for Paige and Lottie to come and see her for the holiday. Lottie had decided that she wanted to make another documentary about Putnam County, but she didn’t know about what. Meanwhile, The Gators of Herlin Hall would soon be shown before the thesis committee.

            Buckley was still walking around with the ring in his front right pocket. The time just hadn’t seemed right to pop the question. While Stella’s depression had lifted, they had both been so busy, and she seemed so content with the way things were at the moment, he didn’t want to complicate things with talks of marriage. There would be time for that. They were both happy and with her parents out of the picture, she wasn’t going anywhere.

            There was also the matter of his mother to be dealt with. While she was finding her place in the community, she was also finding new and interesting ways to junk up her and subsequently, his living space. She had not thrown out one newspaper in the six months she had lived with him. Not even one. Her bedroom was a disaster looking for a place to happen and now she had gotten the bright idea that she wanted to burn candles in there. He felt like he was looking after a child instead of the woman who raised him. On the one hand, he wanted to get married and have a family with Stella, but on the other, he couldn’t see putting her through the stress of having to deal with his mother. It wouldn’t be fair. So, he held onto the ring and waited.

            Stella of course knew about none of this. She thought things were going along wonderfully with Buckley and his mother. She didn’t even think about the fact that she hadn’t been over to his house in months. She liked that he came and stayed with her. It was weird staying in the same house with his mama. And anytime there was a dinner party it was either at Herlin Hall or at Father Donovan’s House, so she didn’t think much of that either. She would have had Buckley’s mama over, but the old lady couldn’t make the stairs. Alas.

            Paige and Lottie arrived in Putnam County a week before Easter, which was the day after the Catfish Festival in Crescent City. Rhodes and Stella reflected that it was hard to believe a year had passed by already. Paige, who had majored in Physics was on break from her Computer Science Master’s program at UWF and she and Lottie had driven to Putnam County together. Stella had the week off from school, but she still had to work at Angel’s which Paige and Lottie found to be great fun. Lottie spent a great deal of her time in the evenings interviewing the locals on camera while Stella waited tables, while Paige drank coffee and read books.

            Their days were spent driving around the back roads of the county, exploring the places that were off of the beaten path, looking for the things that only the locals knew about. Lottie was their guide. They spent a lot of time in between Crescent City and Palatka weaving in and out of the lush green highways taking in all the junk shops and small, otherwise insignificant roadside attractions. It occurred to Stella as they visited several of these junk shops in their travels that she could see how Buckley’s mama could find a fascination with the things she found there. The places were full of all sorts of things you didn’t just see every day. The remnants of lives you have no idea had even been lived. They were almost like low culture museums, what with all the record albums, household items, and various sundry ephemera. These places held a record of the ways people once lived. The trick that Buckley’s mother couldn’t seem to master was to not walk away with the sum of someone else’s life on your back. A piece here and there woudn’t weight you down. But to carry it all with you, in addition to your own – it was too much. The burden was too great.

            The three women however did possess the skill of moderation and therefore they were able to enter these establishments and exit with one or two things each. Stella was quite fond of buying records and old photographs. She had begun to surround herself with other people’s families since her own wanted nothing else to do with her. She had hung several of these postcard sized photographs in frames in various places around her apartment, along with some pictures of celebrities she had cut out of some magazines and a few pictures of her and Buckley. She was creating an illusion – building a narrative. For her ersatz mom and dad, she had a photograph of Lou Reed and Laurie Anderson. All the ones from the junk stores were her ancestors. She still held out hope that her sister and nephew might be a part of her life so she hadn’t replaced them yet.

            Paige and Lottie knew nothing about what had gone on with Stella and her parents so as far as they knew, her affinity for musty old pictures was nothing more than a passing fascination. They also knew nothing about what had happened between her and Brad or why she and Buckley had ultimately gotten back together, but they were happy for her. They could tell that he made her very happy, and they hadn’t seen her very happy in college. She had been content perhaps, but rarely happy.

            That Friday, the night before the Catfish Festival, Stella didn’t have to work at Angel’s and the girls went to Crescent City for the gospel singing and pre-Catfish festivities in Eva Lyon Park.

            “Why are we doing this again?” Stella asked.

            “It’s just what you do,” Lottie replied. “Everyone goes to the park to listen to the gospel music, then they all walk down to the Parker House and get drunk. It’s like a big reunion. I imagine I’ll see all sorts of people I haven’t seen in years.”

            “Is that a good thing?” Paige asked with a laugh.

            “That depends.”

           

            They arrived at the park just in time to hear Sister Dollie Harrell and the congregation of the Pentecostal Revival Center do a stirring rendition of “Lord, Prepare Me to Be a Sanctuary” a sight the likes of which Paige had never seen. Lottie was used to this sort of thing because she had grown up in the area and Stella had become acquainted with Sister Dollie since moving to Putnam County over the summer. For Paige though, the sight of the bespectacled, high haired, modest dress wearing lady preacher with the thick Southern accent was a bit of a shock. She was from a less rural part of the state and not accustomed to seeing Pentecostal Holy Rollers. Sure there was Pensacola Christian College, but she tried to stay as far away from their student body as they did from UWF so that never the twain should meet.

            “Why are we here again?” Paige asked.

            “This is just what we do. Come on, let’s sit down.”

            There were risers in front of the stage for people to sit on. These were donated from one of the area schools. There were also plenty of people who brought lawn chairs and folding chairs to sit it. Most of the crowd gathered in front of the gazebo/stage was over the age of 50, meanwhile middle and high school kids congregated behind the stage and cavorted around the park.

            “We aren’t going to stay long. I just wanted to see a group that had some boys I went to school with in it.”

            “Ah,” said Stella.

            The group was called God’s Examples and they were an R&B Gospel act. And they were great. Paige and Stella were captivated.

            After the show, they wandered down the street to the Parker House for the “reunion” or whatever Lottie had called it. When they got there, the whole parking lot was roped off and there were police there guarding it. Essentially, the whole bar parking lot was turning into a big block party.

            Stella had told Buckley to meet them at the Parker House. He still hated parties, but for someone who hated parties he sure seemed to go to a lot of them lately. In truth, Stella wasn’t really fond of parties either, but she liked spending time with her friends and they all seemed to like to spend time at parties.

            There were so many people inside the bar that it was nearly impossible to get a drink. Outside there was a stand selling beer, but Stella was drinking Diet Coke since she was driving and that she had to get from the bar. Eventually, Buckley showed up and the ladies got their drinks much more quickly owing to his imposing height.

            All things told, they had a good night at the Parker House. Lottie saw a lot of her friends from school and introduced Stella and Paige to them. Lottie seemed to have a smugness about her – probably owing to the fact that she was one of the only people to have gotten out of Crescent City while all the rest of her classmates seemed to have stagnated and remained in the same place.

            Stella wondered what would become of her if she stayed in this place for too long. She liked it in Putnam County, but would she end up like Lottie’s friends? On the way home, she asked Lottie that very question:

            “Lottie, would you think less of me if I stayed in Putnam County indefinitely?”

            “I would probably be sad for you.”

            “Why?”

            “There aren’t a lot of opportunities here. People just stagnate. There’s no way to grow, really.”

            “Well, what about Rhodes?”

            “Rhodes is the exception, not the rule. And Rhodes has a lot of money. Also, I don’t even think Rhodes is very happy. In his own way, he’s stagnating too.”

            “But I like it here, Lottie. It’s quiet. It’s peaceful.”

            “I like all those things about it too, really, I do. In a lot of ways I love where I’m from. I’m proud of where I’m from. But there’s very little here for someone like me.”

            “But why do you look down on all your friends who are still here?”

            “They make me sad because they were never brave enough to try anything different. At least for you, this is something different. You aren’t staying in your comfort zone. Moving here. Living on your own. Having 2 jobs. Moving here without even having a job. All of that is brave. They made me sad because they lack courage. They don’t even seem to wonder. I wonder about everything.”

            “Do you really think this place will turn on me?”

            “I don’t know. It seems like it’s treating you well for now. You seem to have fallen in with a decent crowd – although I wouldn’t trust Rhodes and Selena any further than I could throw them.”

            “Why?”

            “Rhodes is a cad and there’s something catty about Selena. And she looks at Buckley too much.

            This would have been something for Stella to think about – all of these things would have been things for her to think about, were it not for what happened when they got back to Palatka that night. Stella, Paige, and Lottie went to bed in her apartment after drinking some wine and listening to some records. The next morning, they drove back to Crescent City for the Catfish Festival. The arrived at around 10:30 and meandered through the car show before finding a decent spot from which to watch the parade. Like the night before, Buckley was supposed to meet them there. However, the parade, with all of its Shriners, Marching Bands, and Homecoming Queens came and went and there was still no sign of Buckley.

            The girls made their way to the park in order to partake of the food the festival had to offer – specifically “swamp cabbage” which Lottie’s mother described as being “So good it’ll make your tongue slap your brains out!” There was also gator tail, frog legs, quail, strawberry shortcake, and of course catfish to be had.

            By the time 3 o’clock rolled around and Buckley still hadn’t arrived Stella thought that they should head back toward Palatka. The festival was winding down and she was worried about where Buckley might be. It wasn’t like him to stand her up.

            She decided to swing by Buckley’s trailer on the way to her apartment.

            She saw the smoke from over a mile away.

            At first she thought he must have been having a bonfire – burning some limbs or something, but as she got closer, she saw that the trailer was nothing but a burned out shell. She leapt out of the car and ran to the fire fighter closest to her.

            “Where is he?” she asked frantically.

            “Who are you, ma’am?”

            “I’m his girlfriend. Where is he? Where is Buckley?”

            “They’ve already taken him to Shands in Gainesville.”

            “What happened?”

            “I’m not at liberty to say.”

            “I’ll tell you what happened,” said Leland coming out from around one of the fire trucks. “His mama set the damn house on fire with them candles of hers and those newspapers she wouldn’t get rid of.”

            “How do you know?”

            “He told me as he was gettin’ loaded into the ambulance.”

            “How’d you get here so quick?”

            “Seen the smoke, rushed over.”

            Stella turned to her friends with tears in her eyes. “We have to go to him.”

            “I’ll call my parents when we get there. I’m sure they’ll let us crash at their house. We can leave from there to go back to UWF in the morning.”

            “I can’t believe this is happening,” she turned to Leland. “What happened to Buckley’s mama?”

            Leland just sighed and shook his head.

            At this, Stella broke down and fell to the ground sobbing. Leland went and knelt beside her and held her heaving shoulders. “What can I do?”
            “Call – School – Donovan -?”

            “You want me to call your school and Father Donovan?”

            She shook her head.

            “You got it. And I’ll be over to the hospital tonight, okay?”

            She shook her head again.

            Leland motioned for her friends to come and get her to the car. He handed her keys to Paige. “You drive.”

            When Stella got to the hospital it was hours before they let her in to even see Buckley. Not being a member of his family, or his wife it was hard for her to get any answers as to the status of his condition. Leland, Father Donovan, Rhodes, and Selena arrived long before there was any word about his prognosis. Lottie and Paige waited with Stella and took turns sitting with Stella and trying to keep her calm while the other got the story from Leland about what had happened. Together they were able to piece together the following:

            The night before Buckley had arrived home to find his mama once again burning candles in her bedroom only this time she had fallen asleep with every one of them aflame. He went around blowing them out and in so doing ended up knocking over one of the stacks of newspapers she had stacked in her room. This knocked over a candle and caught on fire and before he knew what was happening, the whole room was on fire. Buckley’s mama woke up, but for reasons no one could understand, she didn’t really seem to understand what was going on. He managed to get her out of the house just before it went up in flames.

That was when Leland showed up. He had been driving home from Herlin Hall late that night and seen the flames from the road. Knowing that it was Buckley’s house, he stopped by to see if there was anything he could do to help. It was while Buckley was explaining the first part of the story to Leland that the old lady disappeared back into the fire. No one will ever know what treasure was worth losing her life over, but as soon as Buckley realized what his mother had done, he dove head first into the fire after her.

Not long after Buckley disappeared into the house after her, the fire department showed up and began trying to put out the flames.

“There’s a man and woman still in there!” Leland had cried, but the fire fighters were convinced that with the flames raging as they were there was no way anyone could still be alive. But Buckley wasn’t just anyone and after a few moments, he stumbled out of the trailer carrying his mother’s lifeless body.

The firefighters and EMTs immediately began administering CPR and loaded him into the ambulance for Shands. As they were loading him into the ambulance he called weakly to Leland and told him to wait at the house for Stella when she came the next day. He knew she would come looking for him. In hindsight it might have been more merciful to have sent Leland to tell her rather than having her view the burned out shell of the trailer, but Buckley wasn’t thinking very clearly having been nearly burned to death.

           

At around 8 PM a doctor finally came into the waiting room and told the group that they could see Buckley.

“He’s going to look a little shocking though – he’s sustained some pretty extensive burns.”

“Is he going to be okay though?” asked Leland.

“Time will tell. He seems like a fighter, but the burns and the smoke inhalation are pretty extensive. He’s been asking for Stella. I think it best if only she sees him for tonight. We wouldn’t want to overwhelm him”

Stella looked at Paige and Lottie. “I don’t know if I can do this alone,” she said, he voice cracking.

“You can do this. Think about who you’re doing it for.” Paige said, squeezing her hand.

Stella then followed the doctor down the hall to where Buckley was. The doctor wasn’t lying, he looked terrible. His skin was burned off completely in places. Everything was slick with medicine and salves, and he looked like he was in so much pain. She wanted nothing more than to hold him, but she knew that she couldn’t touch him.

“Hey, Buckley,” she said softly.

            “Stella,” he said in a rasping voice.

            She went over and sat in a chair next to his bed. “I’m here.”

            “Stella. I killed my mama.”

            “No you didn’t.”

            “I did. I’m being punished. It hurts so bad.”

            Stella was near the point of sobbing again, but she was using every bit of willpower she had to keep her composure for his sake.
            “That is not true. This was an accident. A terrible accident. But you’re going to get better, and we’re going to get on with our lives. We are going to get married and raise children together. We are going to be happy.”

            “You would marry me now, looking like this?”

            “Of course. I love you. What a silly question.”

            Buckley felt in his heart that he wasn’t going to make it out of the hospital. He could feel the life slipping away from him ever so slowly. He might have days or weeks, but he wasn’t going to recover. The fact that she still loved him and still wanted to marry him was enough to make him wish he had just asked her to do it when he’d had the chance. With his mama dead, he would have no one to leave his not altogether modest estate to. But he said nothing of this. He didn’t want to cause a scene in the hospital by asking her to marry him then and there.

            “I love you Stella.”

            “Oh Buckley. I wish I could kiss you.”

            Buckley smiled a little. It hurt, but he did it anyway. “I’d like that, but I don’t think you’d want to get this medicine on your lips.”

            “Would it hurt?”

            “It would be worth it.”

            “Don’t say that.”

            “Kissing you is always worth it.”

            “I wouldn’t want to impede the healing process, Buckley.”

            He sighed. “Promise me that the next time I ask you to kiss me, you will.”

            “Alright. I will.”

            They sat together for quite a while just staring at one another – that was the most touching they could do. She so badly wanted to do anything to soothe his pain, but she was powerless to help him. All she could do now was love him. She found the impotence to be a terrible feeling.

            After what seemed like no time at all a nurse came in and told Stella that visiting hours were over.

            “Goodbye, Buckley. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

            “Stella,” he said. “before you go, I want to ask you something.”

            “What is it?”

            “Do you think there’s any way that I would be able to meet Hope?”

            Stella was filled with all sorts of emotions at once. One part of her wanted nothing more than to be able to share their daughter with him. He was obviously very upset and scared and he wanted to make sure that there was some part of him out there in the world. But there was the sensible part of her that realized the way he looked would be entirely too much for a child of Hope’s age to understand.

            “I’ll see what I can do,” she said. “Get some rest. I love you.”

           

            As soon as she got to Paige’s parents’ house, Stella got on the phone with Montgomery to tell her what had happened.

            “He wants to meet Hope. What should I do?”

            “I’ll talk to the Campbells and see what I can do. How soon do you think it needs to be?”

            “Oh God, Montgomery! I don’t know! The doctor didn’t seem to be very certain whether or not Buckley was even going to make it. Soon?”

            That was all the guidance that Montgomery needed to set to work. She called back the following afternoon.

            “They said they could be there tomorrow afternoon.”          

            “What? Are you serious?”

            “Yes.”

            “What did you tell them?”

            “Everything you told me.”

            “And they were okay with bringing a four year old to visit a stranger in the burn unit?”

            “Apparently, they visit hospitals and nursing homes with her on the regular and this isn’t something out of the ordinary for her.”

            “Well, how lucky.”

            “I thought so. Listen, I’m going to drive up there too. I know all your friends are leaving tonight and I don’t want you to be alone.”

            “Thanks. How are mom and dad?”

            “Still not speaking your name.”

            “I guess they’d be thrilled if they knew what was going on.”

            “I don’t think so. They do love you, they just love being right more.”

           

            That Monday afternoon Montgomery and The Campbells arrived at the hospital within minutes of one another. Stella was in the waiting room, waiting for Buckley’s bandages to be changed.

            When Hope walked in, she stood up and nearly opened her arms up to the little girl, but then she remembered herself. Hope was wearing a green plaid dress that made her hair and eyes stand out against her pale skin in the same way green did on Stella. Instead of focusing her attention on the little girl, Stella held out her hand to Mr. and Mrs. Campbell.
            “Hello, I’m Stella. Thank you so much for coming.”

            “It’s our pleasure. You know, we would have loved to have had a relationship with you and Buckley after the adoption, but your parents were adamantly against it.”

            “Yes, they would have been. But my parents and I aren’t speaking anymore, so we may do as we please.”

            Mr. and Mrs. Campbell looked shocked at this response, but Stella didn’t care. She was too tired to care. She had been spending all of her waking hours at the hospital keeping vigil over Buckley, praying with Father Donovan, and doing whatever small tasks she could that made her feel as though she were making some sort of a difference in his recovery. Each day he seemed a little stronger, but there was a chance that was her wishful thinking. All the doctors would say was “He’s not out of the woods yet.” What did that even mean? What woods?

            Stella and the Campbell family waited together for the nurse to admit them into Buckley’s room. Stella didn’t say much; instead she watched her daughter and thought about what it would be like if she had been allowed to be her mother. While she was certain that things would be very different and perhaps even better for everyone involved, there was no way to be sure that they wouldn’t all still be sitting in this waiting room, or worse yet, be in the burn ward with Buckley.

Maybe it had been for the best that things had gone the way they had between her and Buckley all those years ago. While she would have given anything to have been able to raise her daughter with the great love of her life, she would not have put her daughter in a house with Buckley’s mother which is likely what would have happened. Buckley’s mother was destined to be his undoing it seemed.

Finally, the nurse came out and said that Buckley could entertain visitors. The Campbells said that they would stay outside if Stella wanted to take Hope by herself. Stella found this to be a strange offer considering the nature of the visit, but she also didn’t want to have to deal with them anymore than she had to. They were nice people, but she couldn’t even deal with nice at the moment.

Stella took the Hope by the hand and walked her through the burn unit to where Buckley lay in the bed covered in salve and bandages.

“This is Buckley, Hope. He has heard a lot about you and he wanted to meet you.”

“How does he know about me?”

“I knew you before you were born,” Buckley said.

“How did you know me before I was born?”

“I knew your mother.”

“Oh.”

“Yes. Your mother was a very special lady.” Buckley paused. “So, can you tell me a little bit about yourself? What do you like?”
            “I like ballet, My Little Pony, Rainbow Brite, and Legos.”

“Very nice. Do you have any favorite stories?”

“I like the three little bears, and little red riding hood, and snow white.”

“Classics. I like that.”

“Why are you in the hospital Mr. Buckley?”

“I was in a fire.”

“Did it hurt?”

“It hurt a lot.”

“Does it still hurt?”
            “Yes.”

“Can I do anything to make it feel better?”

“Just sit here and talk to me, Hope. I want to learn all about you.”

And that is just what they did until the nurses told Stella that it was time for Buckley’s physical therapy session.

That night, Buckley stopped breathing.

The doctors and nurses tried their best, but they could not revive him.

Father Donovan was the one that had to tell Stella the news. She was distraught. Devastated beyond words.

            “Why Father? Why?” she sobbed.
            She felt as though she were dying. Her own life appeared to be over. She had lost her family, and now she had lost the only man she could ever love. She longed for death. She invited it. She wanted to be with Buckley, wherever he was now.

            “You can’t think like that, my child,” Father Donovan had said. But what did he know?

            After Buckley’s funeral, Stella returned to work at the school and at the diner, but her heart was not in her work. She was just trying to finish out the year before deciding what she was going to do with the rest of her life. Without Buckley, everything seemed dull and pointless.

            Just as the school year was winding to a close and Stella still had not decided whether she was going to return to teach in the fall she received a letter from a law firm in Gainesville. It requested her presence for the reading of Buckley’s will on the first of June. This development led her dread the end of school even more. She didn’t want anything of Buckley’s. She wanted Buckley.

           

            When the first of June arrived, Stella drove to Gainesville for the reading of the will. She was a little surprised to find that she was the only person there. The lawyer was very polite and invited her into his office, offering her a cup of coffee.

            “It’s a pleasure to finally meet you Miss McCartney. I’ve heard so much about you.”

            Stella was confused by this, but she chose not to ask.  This situation was hard enough without questions.

            “Let’s get started, shall we? You are here today for the reading of the last will and testament of Mr. Buckley Wolf. Mr. Wolf had a rather unusual request for this will, but considering how little property he had to bequeath I allowed it. The will is as follows:

            ‘Dear Stella,

This is Buckley. If you are hearing this letter, then I have died. I am sorry to have done so. I tried my best to live for you, but I’m not as strong as you think I am sometimes. I am but a man. A very big man, but a man. Never the less, I am sorry that I can’t be here for you anymore. Just know that I have always and will always love you with my whole heart. You always were the only woman for me. There was never anyone else. There never could have been. I don’t know if there’s a heaven, but if there’s life after this one I’ll do my best to be with you somehow, watching over you in the best way I can.

That said, I have some things that I want to give you that may keep you safe in a more realistic sense. Namely, all of my money, except for a trust fund which I have discussed with the lawyer to be given to Hope when she is an adult. Hopefully it will get her through college and give her a good start in life. As for you, you will get all the property that belonged to my mother in South Florida, all of the money I inherited from her (which is considerable), and all of the money I have saved away, which is also not a small amount. With this you should be able to live comfortably and securely by doing whatever work you want for the rest of your life.

I also leave you the engagement ring that I never found the right time to give you. I wanted to ask you but the time never really seemed right. Now it’s too late. If you meet someone who makes you half as happy as you made me, please don’t wait like I did. Move when opportunity strikes. I don’t know what to tell you to do with the ring. Wear it. Sell it. Give it to Hope when she’s old enough to have it. I hope that when she’s older you’ll tell her about us. Tell her how much we loved each other and how much we would have loved being her parents.

I have to go now. I miss you already and you’ve only just gone for the night. I can’t imagine what death is going to be like without you. Whatever you do, you have to promise me that you won’t be in a hurry to join me. You promised me that when I asked you again, you would kiss me. I’m going to ask you again, but it’s just going to be a while. Until then, I love you.

Buckley.

           

Stella was sobbing by the time the lawyer finished reading the will. Buckley was still taking care of her from beyond the grave. The lawyer took out the ring and it was gorgeous. She slipped it onto her finger and there it would stay until Buckley asked her for a kiss.

Thus ends the story of Buckley, or Days of Our Gators.