Visitations
Short story
Long ago, when the world was young and Mack and Jenna Mae McAvoy fully intended to live for one hundred and fifty years, if not forever, their weekly visits to her widowed mother’s home were foretold by a chaotic war of ink on the Mary Engelbreit calendar that adhered magnetically to their refrigerator. Jenna Mae would write “Mother” on each Saturday square upon turning the page to a new month. Later, Mack would cross out the “other” part of the word and add “orgue” to spell “Morgue.”
Mother, you see, had a prominent morbid streak.
Jenna Mae would notice that change to her calendar some days later and would scribble over it lest Mother see it on one of her frequent visits to their home. Mack would execute another sneak attack and Jenna Mae would defend again. The battle would continue until all the Saturday squares were completely blackened.
Despite being denoted by a deep, black square of ink, and despite Mother’s obsession with dysfunction and death, those Saturday visits were cheerful occasions.
On the way to one such visit, Jenna Mae tried to defend Mother’s habitual grim litanies as the modern incarnation of a practice as old as Humanity itself. She said, after the fashion of one of her lessons for fifth graders, “Mack, before we had writing, history and mythology were passed down by oral tradition. You know, telling and retelling stories around communal fires. The epic poems we study today in written form were originally spoken repeatedly and memorized and passed on from place to place. They were turned into verse because that’s much easier to memorize. It was only much later that they were written down.”
Mack said, “So you’re saying that writing was developed to make people stop saying the same crap over and over?”
“Yes—no! Not to make them stop telling the stories. Writing just became a way to record things more permanently. It’s an alternative.”
“But I’m guessing that once they had it all written down, if someone started in on reciting that same history again, people would beg for mercy, say, ‘Hey, we got this on a scroll back at the house, you know.’”
Abandoning ancient history, Jenna Mae replied, “Every family has a keeper of the family history. In our family, that just happens to be Mother.”
Mack nodded and said, “Understood. But why does she only keep the parts about the sick and the dead? When was the last time she told us a happy story? Has anything good ever happened to your mom’s friends and family?”
Jenna Mae played the Sympathy Card. “If you live long enough, everyone your own age either gets sick or dies. It’s the generational conveyor belt. Mother is at the sad end of that belt.”
Mack nodded sympathetically until, after a few more seconds, Jenna Mae added, “Right before the drop-off.”
Mack threw his head back and laughed long and hard. “Oh my God! It must be genetic. Are you practicing to take over for her after she, you know, ‘drops off’? Look, I get it, I really do. But you have to admit, your mom has been this way for a good twenty years, way back when she was just in the middle of the conveyor belt. You would think nothing good ever happens, or if it does, we need to hurry up and pour gloomy sauce on it.”
Jenna Mae nearly resorted to the arm-swat, but she held back because Mack was driving and besides, he had a point.
They pulled into the dirt driveway of the sprawling farmhouse where Jenna Mae was born and grew up. It was on Weaver Road, just barely inside Anniston’s city limits. The house, barn, and other outbuildings sat on five acres between the road and the railroad tracks. Jenna Mae’s father had been a doctor and her mother a teacher, but they enjoyed owning a piece of land. They had let their neighbor pasture his horses in their field and store hay in their barn, so they had all the trappings of the bucolic lifestyle but none of the sweaty work.
After pulling into the dirt driveway and stopping under the canopy of the old oak tree in the side yard, Mack said, “We staying an hour, do you think?”
Jenna Mae said, “One or two. Mom said something about some new chicks, so she’ll want to show us those. Why, you have an appointment?”
Mack grinned and said, “Nope. Just wanted to come up with my numbers.” He squinted as though performing complex calculations and then said, “Three. Wait, five. Yeah. Five.”
The truck safely in park, Jenna Mae swatted his arm and said, “Don’t do that.” But she couldn’t help laughing.
Mack said, “Jenna Mae, ‘How Many on the Slab?’ is a sensation. The game is sweeping the country. All the cool kids are playing it.”
Jenna Mae said, “You set her off, you know.”
Mack, wide-eyed, said, “Moi? Me? How dare you.”
Jenna Mae said, “Just don’t mention any sick or dead people. Or sickness or death in general. Please?”
Mack protested, “I won’t! I don’t! She brings up that stuff no matter what we start off talking about. Sports, the weather, hog prices, you name it.”
Jenna Mae shook her head and climbed out of the truck. Mack joined her. As they walked toward the front porch steps he took her hand and said, “You know I’m right. Remember: five.”
She would have swatted him again if he hadn’t taken such a strategically firm grip on her near hand.
Jenna Mae opened the front door and they stepped in, both yelling, “Knock-knock! Hello! We’re here!” Mother wore hearing aids, which worked passably well but which seemed to filter out the sounds of door-knocks and doorbells. Or perhaps Mother heard those sounds, but as was the case with car horns and sirens and people calling out her name in stores, she had entered a phase in which she only reacted to audible stimuli that came from directly in front of her, and which followed a more elaborate protocol than simply floating unbidden into her ears.
Unlike knocking, clamoring from the hallway did register with Mother, for their cries were answered by a thin voice from somewhere in the back of the house calling out, “Come in! Come in!”
Grace Spivey Nelson rubbed the palms of her hands on her apron as she bustled out from the kitchen. She hugged Jenna Mae first, and planted a kiss on her cheek. She then wrapped Mack in a tight embrace, her arms around him just above waist level due to their height difference, and said, “Oh, Mack, you are solid.” She tilted her head back to look up at his face and said, “Pretty soon you’ll grow so tall I’ll need a stepladder to hug you.”
Mack laughed and said, “Hi, Mom. Don’t worry, I think I finished growing a long time ago. Up, anyway.” He patted his stomach with both hands and added, “I might keep growing out.”
Miss Grace led them to the sitting room, where Mack and Jenna Mae sat together on an antique brocade loveseat. Grace sat in the matching wingback chair across the coffee table from them. She took a deep breath, let it out with a slight hooting sound, and said, “Phew! I’ve been baking all morning. Pies. One for me, two for the church.”
Mack said, “Smells good in here. What’s going on at the church? Somebody die?” Jenna Mae made a low strangled sound but he did not turn toward her.
Grace stood up suddenly and said, “My pie! I have to take the last one out of the oven.” She hurried from the room.
Jenna Mae said, “Mack, I told you—”
Mack held up a hand and said, “I know, I know, don’t set her off. But she brought up the church. What am I supposed to say? It was a fair question.”
Jenna Mae said, “The pies could be for a social, or a wedding, or anything.”
Mack said, “You’re right. I’m sorry. I won’t count this one.”
Jenna Mae said, “This ‘one’ what?”
Mack said, “This body on the slab. If the pies are for a body.”
Jenna Mae said, “I don’t care about your stupid slab game. Just don’t set her off.”
Mack nodded contritely and folded his hands in his lap.
Grace came back in carrying a tray with three glasses of iced tea. She set the tray down on the coffee table and resumed her seat on the chair. She said cheerfully, “It’s all over but the cooling down.”
Mack raised his glass of tea as in a toast and said somberly, “Amen.”
Jenna Mae gave him a brief mini-glower, then said, “Speaking of cool, I do believe we could have an early Fall this year. Our poplar tree is losing leaves. Did you ever notice how poplars tend to lose them all at once? It’s like it’s raining leaves.”
Grace slowly drank from her own glass of tea, swallowed gratefully, and smacked her lips before saying, “I have noticed that. It reminds me of that little boy who died at the middle school.”
Mack smiled as he sat back, crossed one ankle over the opposite knee, and said, “Do tell.”
Jenna Mae said, “No! I mean, Mother, how in the world did we get from talking about the weather to talking about a little dead boy?”
Grace said, “Why, the poplar leaves, Dear. You brought it up.”
Jenna Mae said, “Was this the Kerwin boy?”
Grace said, “Yes. Little…James…Kerwin. It was during gym class.” Her methodical rendering of the boy’s name, with her head bowing a little more as each syllable emerged, would have sufficed to summon his ghost had this been a seance; it nearly did so anyway in spite of the bright morning sunlight that suffused the sitting room.
Jenna Mae said, “Mother, James Kerwin was my classmate. One year behind me, anyway. I told you this story right when it happened what, thirty years ago? You tell us about it at least once a year.”
Grace nodded and said, “Mmm-hmm. That gym teacher, what was his name?”
Mack said, “Coach Matthews.”
Grace continued, “Darn me, I don’t remember. It doesn’t matter. He wasn’t rough like some of them. The lesson that day—the activity, I suppose you would call it—was running. The whole class was supposed to run for two miles.”
Jenna Mae said, “Mother, I just told you that I told you this story! You don’t need to tell it to me…to us! We know it! We were there! Students in the same school when it happened!”
Mack said, “Jenna Mae, let her speak.”
“You’re the one—”
Undaunted, Grace went on, “Well, they set out running on the dirt road next to the school, which went into some woods and around the big open field out back. The teacher—what was his name—”
Mack said again in the same even tone as before, “Coach Matthews.”
Grace continued, “That teacher waited twenty minutes, then he set out after them in his car. That way he could pick up any stragglers. He was a nice man. It’s not like those kids were in training for the Olympics or anything big. They only had to try. In fact, do you know what that Mister So-and-So always told the class before the two-mile run?”
Jenna Mae said, “Yes, Mother, I do. It was the same every year so I heard it three times, from sixth grade through eighth grade. Coach Matthews would always say, ‘Go fast if you can, but any of you little fat kids who want to can just walk it. I’ll pick you up in my car.’”
Grace said, “Jenna Mae, that’s cruel to call people ‘fat.’ I believe he exhorted the students to give their best effort according to their individual abilities, but I like to think he did so without using such ugly words.”
Jenna Mae flopped back against the sofa, her arms crossed and her face aimed at the ceiling.
Mack said, “Go on, Mother Grace. What happened next?”
Grace needed no encouragement, but she was happy to receive it. “After a while, the teacher set out in his car and picked up a few slowpokes and completed the circle back to the starting point behind the school. They did a headcount and only then did they realize that one child was missing.” Here, as was tradition, she paused and clasped her hands together before saying slowly, “And that child was—” She left that sentence hanging and fixed her intense gaze upon each of her listeners in turn.
“Little…James…Kerwin?”
“That’s right, Mack, thank you. Little…James…Kerwin…was not present and accounted for, sir. No sir, he was not. Drink some tea, Jenna Mae, you sound like you have something stuck in your throat. Is that why you didn’t answer first?”
Jenna Mae muttered, “It’s a one-person story. Oft told.” She did take a sip of tea and then placed her glass rather firmly back onto the tray before sitting back again.
Grace, like a wandering bearer of epic mythologies of old, illustrated with her hands as she continued: “The teacher, Mister—never mind—the teacher got back into his car and set out to find that boy.”
Mack said, “Mom?”
Grace said, “Yes, Mack?”
Mack said, “I was wondering—did the teacher just leave the rest of the class standing there unsupervised?” Jenna Mae’s hands assumed a form suitable for choking a person, but she otherwise did not move.
Grace clapped her hands and said, “What was I thinking? I left something out! No, of course not, Mack. He left his able assistant gym teacher in charge of the class. It was close to the end of the class period, you know, and it would not have done to leave the other children to their own devices.”
Mack raised one pointer finger for emphasis and said, “That would not have done.” He turned to Jenna Mae for acknowledgment, which was forthcoming in the form of an upper lip raised in a snarl.
Grace said, “Indeed, it would not have done at all.” She shivered at the very thought of such an impropriety. “Where was I? Oh yes. The teacher drove slowly around that course. No boy did he find. Upon returning to the school building, he called the principal’s office. The principal summoned emergency responders—it would have been the volunteer fire department back then, plus the police. They searched the road on foot, and they did ultimately find Little…James…Kerwin. Sadly, he was dead. Long dead, beyond resuscitation they said, even had he been found right away. They later found that he had a congenital heart defect. Could have died at any moment regardless of the activity. Running—or walking, actually—did not kill him. May he rest in peace.”
They observed a moment of silence, with the twinkle in Mack’s eyes fortunately making no sound. Jenna Mae sat up and leaned her crossed arms on her knees and said, “Mother, why on earth did you tell us that story, right now in particular?”
Grace pondered for a few moments, and a troubled look started to form as she said, “Why, honestly, I don’t—” then she clapped her hands and pointed at Jenna Mae and said, “You brought it up! The poplar leaves! The teacher didn’t find that boy at first because of exactly what you said! The boy was at the tail end of the pack, behind even the little fat—I mean the husky children—and he started feeling poorly—he had a congenital heart defect, would have died regardless of activity, they say—and so he stumbled off the course and sat himself down against a poplar tree. And it was the beginning of Autumn and just as you described, those poplar leaves rained down upon him as he died, and thus did the poplar leaves swiftly cover Little…James…Kerwin.”
Mack whispered, “That’s one body on a slab,” to Jenna Mae, who pretended to ignore him. Then, as something of a peace offering, he asked the room at large, “Say, who likes the Braves’ chances in the playoffs this year?”
Grace said, “Matthews!”
Mack said, “Eddie Matthews left the Braves long ago. I’m talking here and now.”
Grace said, “No, Mack, the gym teacher—he was a Mister Matthews. ‘Coach,’ they called him. My goodness what a relief. You don’t know what it’s like when your memory starts to go, and you have these blank spots where you used to know things.”
Mack said, “Okay, then. So the Braves—”
Grace said, “He retired from teaching on the spot, you know, that Mister Coach Matthews. He blamed himself for Little…James…Kerwin. Couldn’t bring himself to work with children from that day forward. Too risky. He moved a good ways away. I hear he tried farming.”
Mack said, “Well, at least he found another career, did something productive.”
This time, Jenna Mae matched his smile and they turned identical sad-yet-optimistic expressions toward Mother, who shook her head and said with grim satisfaction, “He hated farming and his land was stony and his yields were chronically poor. Bad pH or some such. Farmer Matthews—né Coach— ultimately died a broken man.”
On the upside, the name “Matthews” had finally lodged in Grace’s near-term memory, though now the story was over and the name was liable to return to cold storage.
With his mouth hidden by his drinking glass, and speaking too quietly to be picked up by hearing aids, Mack said, “That’s two on the slab,” and took a gratifying slurp of tea.
The dam breached—or, more correctly, the dam sluice gate thrown open on a hair trigger—more bodies flowed onto slabs from Mother’s reservoir of doom and gloom, even as the three living people happily enjoyed warm pie and then played with the unseasonal new chicks that had recently emerged peeping and cheeping from Mother’s incubator. The chick-fondling was accompanied by Mother’s allocutions as to the transitory nature of their cuteness—yea, their very lives—but it was enjoyable nonetheless. Jenna Mae marveled, as she always did, at the way Mother faced the world with such positive, life-affirming activities, even as she emitted horrific tales and reminders of the fate in store for all living things. She was the most cheerful-looking, rosy-cheeked Troubadour of Tragedy, her spirits seeming to take wing as she loosed sick, sad ghosts upon her—for the moment—corporeal and breathing guests.
But that was long ago, when the world was young and Jenna Mae’s and Mack’s joint immortality was still on the table and even Mother, though not covered by their pact, was showing promising signs of permanence, not unlike a well-tended vintage warship. Now, ten years after Mother’s death and five years after Mack’s passing, Jenna Mae still made a weekly visitation to her mother—just a short visit to say “Hello,” and to keep the weeds from encroaching upon her parents’ graves. Mother had performed a similar service for her own parents and grandparents. Jenna Mae was not entirely decided on all matters involving eternity, but she knew for a fact that in life, Mother had definite opinions about people who let weeds grow on their so-called loved ones’ graves. Mother’s opinions, if not her mortal soul, still had the power to compel Jenna Mae to observe the grave-tending ritual.
During each visit to the cemetery, all of Mother’s oft-repeated stories played in Jenna Mae’s head at the speed of thought. A lifetime of stories of families and friends and random townspeople, many tragic stories but many nice ones too, played right there behind her eyes, thanks to Mother’s impulse to tell and retell every little thing in epic form, ad both nauseam and infinitum.
If Mack were still with her for these visits, Jenna Mae knew that they would have found themselves retelling Mother’s stories to each other, even if they were just reminding each other of the many times that Mother had retold each one. They might have found that it’s not enough to refer to the story; once you mention it, you must tell it in full whether or not your listeners have heard. Mother’s ritual would have become their ritual. So far, Jenna Mae had not had the urge to inflict Mother’s stories on her own descendants, precisely because doing so would have led her to conjure Mack’s ghost just as the ghost of Little…James…Kerwin…had been brought, gasping and stumbling toward that prodigiously shedding poplar tree, into so many family gatherings.
Mack’s grave was just a few feet away from her parents’. It may or may not have been an overgrown mess. Jenna Mae didn’t know because she had so far managed to blank it out of her vision while visiting Mother. To tend it would require her to look at it, and looking at it would allow the sight of it to enter her brain through her eyeballs, thereby acknowledging it as real, which might imply that it was in some way just and natural, and inevitable, and even—grotesquely, impossibly—acceptable.
Mack’s grave was none of those things, so she did not look at it. Ever.
An excerpt from this story appears in the July, 2024 issue of the Birmingham Arts Journal.
The first story about Jenna Mae McAvoy was published in the AWC Awarded Writers Collection, 2020, and can be read here.
Another story about Jenna Mae appeared in Volume 18, Issue 3 of Birmingham Arts Journal and can be read here. On page 16, it says “continued on page 26.” That should say page 41.