Sweetgrass. Mary Monroe Alice

father with their eyes.

      Hank polished his glasses with his napkin, a habit she’d come to recognize as a preface to a lecture. “Morgan’s being here will just complicate things, you realize.”

      “I don’t see how. He’s here to see Daddy. I don’t expect he’ll stay long.”

      “Not if he’s true to form, he won’t. But you know your mama’s been real uneasy about leaving Sweetgrass, no matter how we’ve tried to reason with her.”

      “I don’t expect his visit will make a difference one way or the other. More’s the pity. Mama June could use the support of her family now. I wish he would take an interest.”

      “Are you so sure? We haven’t seen the will and he is the only remaining Blakely.”

      She swirled her wine and replied dryly, “Last I looked, I’m still alive and I’m still a Blakely.”

      “You know what I mean,” he said.

      She tilted her head and drank. “I’m afraid I do.”

      “You’re not a Blakely any more,” Chas said, looking up with an obstinate glare. “You’re a Leland.”

      Hank chuckled and raised his brows at his wife.

      Nan’s gaze swept the three sets of eyes that looked at her from across the table with a possessiveness she found oddly comforting. She thought back to the time her father had said those same words to her. Preston’s tanned and deeply lined face, usually thoughtful, had been hard and his eyes were like blue chips of ice. She shivered at the memory. That day she’d told her father that she’d decided to follow her new husband’s wishes and sell the fifty coastal acres deeded to her at her marriage. Hank had brokered a deal with a local development firm and it had been a major boost to his career in real estate.

      She had been a young bride, behaving in the manner in which she’d been bred. A woman’s place was at her husband’s side. As the wife, she was the accommodator, the peacemaker, the right hand to her husband. She was doing what her culture—what the Bible—taught.

      That deal had cost her. To her father’s mind, selling the family land had severed her tie to the family. Her father cast her from the status of an “us” to a “them” in his polarized vision of the world. It wasn’t something spoken; he was never one to confront her about it. He held his disappointment inside, simmering under the cool surface. The separation was felt indirectly, subtly, so that the relationship cooled not overnight, but over the course of months and years. Nan had always felt his silent treatment was undeserved. And it had hurt her, deeply.

      “I surely am a Leland,” she replied to Harry’s assertion. “But you have Blakely blood running through your veins, too, don’t forget.”

      “Forewarned is forearmed,” her husband joked, jabbing at the meat with his fork.

      “Now, that’s not nice.” Nan flushed as the boys barked out a laugh. She sat back in her chair, feeling as though a chasm had expanded between the two sides of the table, dividing them. She narrowed her eyes as she regarded her husband. For all his jokes, Hank had been plenty thrilled to be part of the historical Blakely clan when he’d married into it.

      Though she couldn’t blame him for his change of heart. Daddy’s indifference toward him had been positively embarrassing.

      She looked at her hands, tanned and slim. Beneath a thick diamond-and-gold wedding set, the skin was white, like a brand on her left ring finger. She was Nan Leland. For eighteen years, Hank and the boys had been the epicenter of her life. Wasn’t a wife and mother supposed to be the heart of the home? Now, however, the boys were poised for leaving and her husband seemed more and more distant. Her father was near death, her mother was alone in that empty house… She took a ragged breath, then a thought brought a half smile.

      But Morgan was home.

      Her mind turned to the long, welcoming avenue of oaks at Sweetgrass. While the boys laughed between themselves, Nan was listening to the voice of the little girl still alive within her, fiercely whispering, “I’m a Blakely, too.”

      Across the churning, gray-green Ashley River in Charleston, Morgan was clenching his fists at his thighs, a nervous reaction to the strident ding of the hospital elevator. Seconds later, the metal doors swished open and he faced the mint-green walls of the medical center’s third floor. He sucked in his breath and drew inward as he followed the yellow arrow painted onto the polished floors that would lead him to the stroke rehabilitation center. As he walked, an elderly, pasty-faced inpatient clothed in the flimsy, dignity-depriving hospital gown limped past him with great effort, clutching a stainless-steel walker and supported on either side by some family member offering encouraging comments.

      The nurse at the station looked up in a guarded greeting.

      “I’m looking for Preston Blakely’s room. I’m his son,” he added. “Morgan Blakely.”

      “Your father is in room 321,” she said after a quick check. Her voice seemed too loud for the hushed floor. “He’s finished his therapy session and is resting.”

      “Will I disturb him?”

      “Oh, no. He’ll enjoy the company, though he might not show it.” Her rigid face shifted suddenly to reveal concern. “This is your first visit, isn’t it?” When he nodded she leaned forward and said kindly, “You do know that he can’t speak? Or move much?”

      “Yes.”

      “Just checking. Didn’t want you to be shocked. It’s never easy to see a loved one the first time in that condition.” Her eyes remained dubious but she waved him on. “You let me know if you need my help for anything.”

      He clenched his fists again and swallowed hard. His feet moved as though on automatic pilot as he scanned the faux-wood doors for 321. When he found it, he paused outside the silent, dimly lit room.

      Morgan rarely saw his father in bed. Preston Blakely was a man who prided himself on rising before the sun, the kind of man who liked to get a head start on his day. Morgan perceived his father as someone vertical, standing erect, upright and plumb. So to see him lying prone on the thin, hard, unforgiving surface of a hospital bed was unnatural, like coming across a buffalo down in the prairie. The first time he’d witnessed that lifeless mountain of a beast, it had sent a numbing chill straight to his core. He felt the same helplessness now, unsure of what to expect or of what to do next.

      It wasn’t courage that compelled him to take the step into the dim, sterile room. Nor was it a son’s sense of duty. Compassion brought him to his father’s side. A thin blue cotton blanket covered his father, giving him a mummy-like appearance as he lay flat, toes pointed, one arm curled oddly against his chest, the other lying still by his side.

      Preston seemed small. His usually tanned and ruddy complexion had turned pasty white, and skin sagged from his prominent cheekbones like putty. His mouth, which could deliver orders and a good story with equal authority, now hung slack and drooped to one side. It frightened Morgan to the core to see him this way. He was acutely aware that he was on his feet and his father was not.

      Morgan pulled a chair closer to the bed and slumped into it. He folded his hands across his belly and sat quietly staring at his father while, inwardly, memories raged with an old, seething anger. After what seemed a long time, he checked his watch, then groaned, knowing he’d be here for hours more. Already he felt depleted. He got up to walk around the room, checking out the flower arrangements, recognizing the names of old family friends on the cards.

      There was a chart posted on the door, a simple hand-drawn box with lines marking date and time of day. It was colored in red, blue and yellow, and he knew for certain that it was made by his mother, who had always made lists of the children’s chores with little stars pasted on them. On the chart were the signatures of those who had volunteered to sit with Preston. The same few names appeared over and over, and as the days turned to weeks, even those names appeared less frequently. In the past few days, most of the slots were blank save for