Bookends
The rising sun peeked out as Kylie entered the address into her cellphone, already connected to the Buick’s nice stereo system that Aunt Florence didn’t appreciate nearly enough. She set her playlist to the Eagles, a good compromise for their age and musical differences. Then, she steered the sedan onto the Interstate, pointing them from rural Kentucky to the east, toward more daylight, toward her appointment in Louisville, toward something both fearful and hopeful.
They drove past exits for small towns, and both remained silent except for occasional comments on the landscape. As on recent mornings, nausea overwhelmed Kylie, so she welcomed the lack of conversation. On the other side of Elizabethtown, she focused on the Interstate’s steep, curving slope and nearby big rigs. They finally reached a straight patch of highway, and Kylie exhaled. Her mind again drifted to their destination.
“You nervous?” Aunt Florence asked.
Kylie turned down the stereo’s volume. “Some.”
“It’s gonna be fine. What did the boy say?”
Aunt Florence always called Hunter the boy.
“Not much. He gave me some money.”
“That was right nice of him.”
Kylie didn’t want Hunter blamed. “It’s not just his fault.”
“I wasn’t criticizing. It’s good he done that. Did he offer to come with you?”
Kylie shook her head. She and Hunter had been together four years. He should’ve offered to come. He also hadn’t been there for the required tests or counseling she’d endured. Kylie held back a sob and wished she could have a saltine. Nothing after midnight, they’d said when she made the appointment. She peered to the lush green Kentucky hills. nothing like white elephants as in that Lit 101 story, which she now better understood.
“We’ll use his money and mine,” Aunt Florence said. “We ain’t using no insurance.”
“They only take insurance if life-threatening.”
“Just as well. You don’t want your momma getting papers about this anyway.”
No, Momma would never know about this.
“I have my own money.”
“You keep your money for school this fall. You’re gonna be the first in the family to graduate college.”
“I will.” Kylie’s tone was a promise.
“Your momma’s my youngest sister…” Aunt Florence paused.
Kylie glanced at her.
Aunt Florence stared straight ahead. “She’s been brainwashed by some folks. Woman don’t even know her own history.”
“What doesn’t she know?”
Aunt Florence was quiet, extremely quiet, and she was already a quiet woman. They drove for miles, reaching Shepherdsville, before Aunt Florence spoke again.
“Only me and Daddy knew. I was the oldest of us seven kids. I was the one who had to take care of the others when your grandma passed.”
Kylie’s maternal grandmother had died when Kylie’s mother was two years old. Aunt Florence was turning 17.
“A blood clot, right?” Kylie asked.
A massive cry, like a sudden summer thunderstorm, came from Aunt Florence.
Kylie had never seen this woman cry. Not at births or funerals, not at weddings or graduations. Momma had always said that her sister was steady and dependable, like basketball season coming around every winter. She’d told Kylie that she sometimes felt guilty because Aunt Florence had raised the six of them and never had any kids of her own, but Aunt Florence hadn’t seemed sad about this, telling Kylie more than once that she was happy with her life of running her seamstress shop and travelling for two weeks every summer seeing places across the country. Kylie wanted to be independent like Aunt Florence and to have freedom about choices for her life. She feared letting herself get tied down too soon.
Now, she wondered if Aunt Florence’s sobs meant she’d changed her mind about helping. Kylie was near tears herself.
Finally, her aunt calmed and shifted her body toward Kylie, the seatbelt stretching across her bony shoulder. “I’m gonna tell you something you can’t never tell your momma, so you’ll have two secrets from her.”
Kylie took a deep breath and started to ask if this could maybe wait, but she felt beholden to Aunt Florence for her help, so she decided to shush and listen.
“One afternoon back in ’72, my momma and daddy came home from Nashville, and she was white as the bedsheets she hung out to dry every Monday. Then she started hurting real bad and bleeding something awful. They both hesitated on going to the hospital. Then when she could barely stay awake, they went. I’ll never forget the look on Daddy’s face when he came home. Just him. His tears could have filled Mammoth Cave.”
Kylie’s knuckles turned white on the steering wheel.
“I’d been listening all along, and I knew what’d happened. They couldn’t afford another one, and she was older by then and just too wore out. My sweet momma bled to death.”
Kylie’s mind raced. “Maybe I shouldn’t…”
“Now, you don’t need to worry none. You’ll see a real doctor and get good care. You’ll be safe. Things are different. There ain’t no need for back alleys now.”
“Yes,” Kylie whispered.
“But you seen the news; you heard about the leaked report. So we’ll get you in there today and then to the hotel to rest.”
“I tried to get an appointment for tomorrow, but I guess lots of people want a Friday. I think my missing two days of my summer job made Momma wonder though.”
“When we go back home, I’ll tell her you got sick with a stomach flu and we missed going to the museums and seeing the Victorian houses.”
The Louisville skyline was visible now, and they drove along the curvy Interstate until the GPS indicated it was time to exit. Kylie found her way to the clinic. Protesters lined both sides of the sidewalk.
“You never mind them busybodies,” Aunt Florence said. “Let’s go in.”
As Kylie reached to turn off the ignition, she saw the date on the dashboard.
June 23.
Her grandmother had been a year too soon, but she was just in time.
***
Diana McQuady’s work has been published in anthologies, newspapers, newsletters, and journals, including a story, "Plan B" and a novel chapter, "Fortunes Told," in The Write Launch; a story, “Flaming Star,” in Cosumnes River Journal; and essays in the anthologies New Growth and I to I: Life Writing by Kentucky Feminists. Diana holds an MFA from the Sena Jeter Naslund-Karen Mann Graduate School of Writing at Spalding University.