Chapter XII
Jim Powell stood at the window of the country chintz bedroom at Possum Hollow, looking out at the sunny morning, already as bright as noon. In the distance beyond a rose garden at the back of the house lay green folds of Tennessee mountains showing not a trace of human habitation. You’d think you were out in the middle of nowhere. Strange to think that last night after the race there had been so many cars on Volunteer Parkway that it had taken the bus a couple of hours to go three miles. He wondered where all those people were now. The drivers had taken their helicopters back to Tri-Cities to their waiting jets, of course, but that still left nearly a hundred thousand spectators earthbound in a mostly rural area. Surely there weren’t enough hotel rooms and B &Bs in the vicinity of Bristol to hold all of them. He supposed that many of them were in yet another snails’ procession of traffic on I-81 heading for more distant highways to take them home. Soon the bus tour would be joining the line of cars in the eastbound lane, because the next stop on the tour was the speedway at Martinsville, just under two hundred miles to the east.
Jim had been awake for more than an hour, lying wide-eyed in the darkness because he hadn’t wanted to disturb Arlene by turning on the bedside light. At daybreak he took his magazine over to the desk chair, and angled it so that the sun illuminated the pages, glad that the sun came up well before seven in August, because he could never sleep for more than six hours anymore. His wakefulness was partly a factor of age and partly because he needed to be a light sleeper now in order to keep an eye on Arlene. Her illness made her restless. Sometimes at night she would get out of bed and begin to wander-he wasn’t even sure she was fully conscious at those times-but she would slip out from beneath the covers and begin to walk around in the dark. Jim was always afraid that she would fall or, worse, manage to open an outside door and wander off into the night. He had read newspaper accounts of old people getting lost like that, straying off into the woods, their remains found weeks or months later by hikers or a party of hunters.
It didn’t happen every night. The new medication seemed to help some. Arlene could go for days or even weeks seeming almost like her old self and then, without warning, the erratic behavior would begin again. Being in a strange place could cause it; he’d noticed that. Any change in routine seemed to upset the precarious balance of her reason and send her tumbling into confusion once more, but he was there to protect her. He wanted to keep her in the world as long as he could, because he didn’t want to live without her.
She had slept well last night, perhaps tired out by the plane ride and the excitement of the race. The trip had exhausted him as well, so he was thankful to have had an easy night with her.
“We’re leaving bright and early!” the bus driver had announced.
Jim looked at his watch and sighed.
Martinsville. That brought back memories. He wished that when the bus headed off up I-81 that the road would roll up behind them, erasing all the years between this room, this day, and the last time they had been together at Martinsville.
Arlene had been so excited to be at the race. Her hair was still more honey-colored than gray back then, and her eyes had sparkled with delight as they walked together through the campground, greeting old friends and looking at all the banners and handicrafts celebrating the fans’ favorite drivers. Arlene was wearing her Earnhardt vest, the one she had quilted together into a patchwork composed of threes, black Monte Carlos, and checkered flags. It had been much admired by passersby as they strolled hand-in-hand past the rows of campers, and Jim remembered how proud he had been, how happy.
The word among the longtime fans was that Dale Earnhardt was going to be available for twenty minutes that afternoon to sign autographs at a sponsor’s booth behind the Speedway, and he had suggested that they go early before the line got too long. But Arlene just shook her head and looked up at Jim with a smile tinged with mischief. “Let’s go back to the camper instead, Jim,” she said. “I believe I’d rather spend the afternoon with you.”
“But why are you taking mother on this bus tour?” his oldest daughter had asked. Jean lived in Seattle, was married to some software baron, and she was always after her parents to come out and visit with her. Jim suspected that she saw their visits as a grown-up form of Show-and-Tell, an opportunity for her to display her tasteful gray Escalade, her angular modern house with its geometric furnishings of steel and glass. Jean seemed to think that good taste meant emaciation in all things. They would go out and visit her, perhaps for Christmas if Arlene was feeling up to it, but a trip to Seattle wasn’t what he wanted for their anniversary journey.
“I understand your wanting to travel with her while she’s still able, Dad, but surely there are things she’d rather do? She’s always wanted to go to Ireland.”
Jean hadn’t spent much time around her parents in the past decade. Jim realized that her image of her mother was frozen in some past era, perhaps when Jean had been in high school. No matter how many times he talked about Arlene’s deteriorating mental condition, it didn’t quite register with Jean. Perhaps denial was in itself an incurable form of dementia.
Ireland. Arlene couldn’t even recognize their own home some of the time. He’d explained to Jean that going to a foreign country would be a little more difficult than he could manage. Suppose Arlene became ill while they were abroad. Would they be able to get medical treatment? He didn’t want to risk it.
“Or you could come out and see us,” Jean had said. “It’s lovely here in Seattle in August.”
He thought, but did not say, that Jean was unprepared for a visit from them, given her roseate picture of her mother. Let her keep her memories intact, at least. Or perhaps he was being selfish. Visiting grown children was not the holiday he had in mind. He loved his daughter, but he wasn’t altogether sure that he
Besides, seeing their little Jean, now an exercise-trim matron with reading glasses perpetually perched on top of her head, would only remind him how old they were and how little time was left. He wanted to escape the narrowing present. To go back to a happier time.
“But-a Dale Earnhardt tour, Dad?” Jean had said in tones of icy condescension. “I thought racing was
