Waking Up in Dixie by Haywood Smith

bowels of her purse.
    “You can call Charles,” Augusta announced, opening her slim crocodile clutch. “I’ll break the news to Patricia. She’ll be heartbroken. You know how she adores her daddy.”
Far more than she adores her mother,
Elizabeth silently finished for her, then let it go.
    “Good idea.” Frankly, Elizabeth dreaded telling Patricia. Unfortunately, her daughter took after Elizabeth’s father—the life of the party, all impulse and emotions, and devil take the effect it had on anybody else. Elizabeth loved her, but despaired of her manipulative ways and lack of focus.
    Augusta drew her cell phone from her purse and stared at it as if it were a snake.
    Elizabeth volunteered, “Her number’s—”
    “I know her number,” Augusta snapped. “It’s just this contraption that takes me a minute.” She dismissed Elizabeth with a waggle of her crowded gold charm bracelets. “Don’t look over my shoulder. Call Charles.”
    Elizabeth couldn’t let Charles get the news the way Howe had about his father. If they were going to lose Howe, she prayed there would be time for Charles to be there. She pressed speed dial for Charles’s cell. To her vast relief, he answered.
    “Hey, Mama. What’s up?”
    How could she tell him? “Your father’s sick, Charles,” she said quietly. “He’s in surgery at Piedmont. I think it would be best if you came home right away. Do I need to call the dean? I know your bar exam is just a few weeks from now, and—”
    “I’ll get the first plane out,” he said, his tone clipped. “Don’t worry about the bar exam. What is it, Mama? I want to know.”
    Always the straight shooter, her wonderful boy, as direct ashis father was oblique. A strong boy. And good to the bone. “It’s a tumor,” she said, “a small one, in the front of his brain. The blood supply ruptured, causing a stroke, but the doctor said the mass appeared to be regular and contained.” The possibility of cancer hung unspoken between them. “Your grandmother got us airlifted to Piedmont and called in Dr. Clare, a wonderful neurosurgeon.”
    The children didn’t know much about their other grandmother, safely tucked away in a Clearwater condo provided by Howe, and Elizabeth meant to keep it that way. “Gamma says he’s the best.”
    “Good.” Charles’s voice strengthened. “Don’t worry, Mama. Dad will be all right. He always lands on his feet. You just hang in there till I get there. One of the guys can take me to the airport. I’ll charter a plane if I have to.” He’d gotten his pilot’s license at sixteen, and his commercial license at eighteen. “I’ll get Sam to meet me when I get to Atlanta.” Charles’s best friend, Sam, went to Emory.
    “Don’t speed,” she cautioned. “And make sure the plane’s safe. I couldn’t stand it if something happened to you, too. I’ll see you when you get here.”
    “I’ll be careful.” A brief pause. “Do you want me to call Patti?”
    Elizabeth glanced over to see Augusta pressing the buttons on her cell. “Thanks, but Gamma’s doing that for me.”
    “I’ll see you soon. I love you, Mama-lama.” He used the name he’d called her as a child, and it almost undid her.
    “I love you, too.” Her eyes welled with tears, not for herself, but for the loss her son was facing. Howe hadn’t been a demonstrative father, but he’d been a good one, and Charles loved him.
Please, God, keep him safe. Keep them both safe.
    She closed the phone, suddenly feeling hollow.
    “Patricia, this is your grandmother,” Augusta enunciated. “Call me at once. There’s been a family emergency. My cell phone number is . . .” She glared briefly at Elizabeth. “What in blazes is it? I never call myself.”
    “Four-oh-four, five-five-five, eight-eight-two-one,” Elizabeth summoned from somewhere in the obscure reaches of her mind, though how she remembered was beyond her.
    Augusta repeated the numbers, then said good-bye and held the phone out