The Third Paige
By: Lee Mont
Tags: Self Worth, Worthiness, Hope, Healing, Individuality

Chapter Three

Devil’s Club

Image by mkweb2 via Pixabay

I was set to leave for Kodiak in a few days and I had been more than tempted to back out. But I figured that I’d probably suffer fortuities that I wouldn’t be able to re-broker if I did. Mase would probably feel some kind of way and there was no telling when the chance to advance myself would come back around again — assuming the company wouldn’t outright fire me for pulling back. The prospect of mom and pop finding out didn’t warm my heart either. Cousin Jerry was supposed to look after the house while I was gone which probably wouldn’t be that hard even for him given that most everything I owned of value would be in my carry-on. The year had definitely been a doozy and the pandemic had virtually put the whole world on pause but apparently to peeps who valued commerce over conscience, my flight was booked for Saturday morning, September 26th with a departure time of 11:37 a.m. from Wilmington International Airport.

Nobody had picked up on it, but for awhile I hadn’t been myself. I’d been having a rash of dreams that I just couldn’t chalk up to mere happenstance. Since her passing in 2012, I never once dreamt of my grandmother. Every night for an entire year after she passed, I tried to invoke her presence any way I could when I slept, but she was gone forever.

But after being estranged for so long, I now found her timing eerie. Just when I was set to take off for Alaska, her spirit had become restless. In my dreams, for some reason I was always standing over her grave; there because she was speaking. It was something that I needed to know but I could never discern her tongue; her mumble was always just above a whisper. Right when her utterance became halfway intelligible, I always woke up.

Other nights when death was strong enough to keep her in the ground, it beats me how I got there, but I was inconspicuously present in the setting of an obscure hole-in-the-wall type of dwelling place situated in the uncharted space beyond human intelligence where any and every one I’ve ever had issue with were having the time of their lives; drinking, dancing, and being merry.

Everyone was dressed in red and it was always extremely hot in the building, everyone drenched in sweat but me. And A Man. His face was formless; sitting atop a mezzanine emceeing the crowd. It’s not until I awaken that I realize that I’d just left Hell. Whatever it may or may not have meant, I felt it appropriate to leave it to fate to decide.

Dwelling on what I didn’t understand, I felt was sure to give me away. In fact I think Mason kind of sensed that something was with me. He stopped by the house one evening after work. He normally gave me a heads up when he was subject to swing by but a few days before we set sail to Alaska, he came unannounced . . . not that it mattered. He wanted to know if everything was alright because I seemed a little distant at work that day. I assured him I was cool and that everything was copacetic.

Alaska was on the way and I made like my mind was clear. However it was anything but.

Friday September 25th

I scurried over to mom and dad’s before heading out west. Sis was over at the house as well so I had everybody right where I needed them to see me off. If I didn’t see them now, the opportunity wouldn’t come. I wouldn’t have time the next morning before I departed. I walked into the house and mom was cooking croakers; dad in the living room studying his Sunday School lesson.

“Hey boy,” mom said rinsing her hands of fish fry batter.

“Hey mom . . . Dad,” I responded.

Sis was in the back room yapping her gums with someone on the horn. I’d holler at her when she came out.

“You good and packed?”

“Yea as much as I’m gon be,” I answered.

Dad taking a break from his study, walked into the kitchen.

“What part of Alaska you going to again?”

“Kodiak . . . you heard of Kodiak bears ain’t ya?” I asked.

He nodded affirmatively to convey his understanding. “Yea I’ve heard of Kodiak. Ain’t a military base there or something?”

“Yea The Coast Guard.”

“You behave yourself over there.”

“Yea I got it Pops . . . easy day.”

“Love you boy, call when you land.”

“Ok. Will do.”

He retreated back into the living room to re-engage his focus on his lesson. Sis must have heard the banter from the back room. Amazing how she was always able to split her devotion between her own phone conversations and outside exchanges of others. I smelled that Rogue by Rihanna before she ever entered the kitchen.

“You aint gon yet knucklehead??” she asked positioning her left hand on her hip.

“Does it look like it?”

I was literally standing right in front of her but still evidently, she wasn’t convinced.

“I thought you said the 25th.”

“The 26th Antionette . . . I said nothing about Friday the 25th.”

She eased her hand off her hip and back to its resting state. “How long you gon be over there?”

“About three weeks.”

She proceeded towards me and hunched my side suggestively as she stepped near the door just to my left.

“Come outside for a minute.”

“I’ll be back ma . . . gonna step outside a minute.”

“Alright . . . fish’ll be ready when you get back in,” she assured me.

I stepped outside and sis was waiting for me by her Yukon, a stone’s throw away from the house.

“Yea what up?”

“Don’t say anything but mom has been hurting in her chest the last week or so. She thinks it’s just a pulled muscle but I’m not taking any chances.”

My sister knew me well. Where family was concerned, news of this magnitude was never met with calm. She secured both my shoulders with her hands yanking me slightly ajar before I even had the chance to retort.

“Don’t worry about nothing. You go to Alaska and do what you have to do. I got it.”

Sis and I spoke the same language and I do believe that I was cut from her vein just as much as mom and dad’s so any time she was adamant about leaving nothing to chance, I was never wrong in knowing where it would ultimately lead.

“I couldn’t get no appointment before you left because everyone is booked up but I finally got one for Monday the 28th in Chapel Hill. I’m not taking her to anyone around here. You go out west and take care of business. I’ll keep you posted.”

The alarm of what I’d just heard took awhile to register and I needed something to steady the pulse of my mind but the gravity of the moment was just too much to temper in short order so I already knew that anxiety was going to be the unseen passenger on the flight when I boarded the next day.

I always had a penchant for trying to fight God’s battles but in my older age I’m learning to lean, so I allowed this one to fall squarely in his lap.

Sis was getting ready to head home and I was about to do the same. I walked back into the house to make my recess official.

“Ma I’m getting ready to get on out of here, go on to the house and take a load off before that long flight tomorrow. Dad . . . I’m outta here.”



So he wouldn’t have to completely break rank from his position on the sofa, I stuck my head around the corner of the kitchen to bid him goodbye.

Still feeling short on time, I hopped into my Chevy and make a beeline to the house. My stuff all packed, all I had to do before I boarded the plane was SLEEP. It was a little past seven and I was dog tired and I planned on making the best out of the last night in MY bed. As it turned out, if I ever got any rest, it would be in Alaska.

Gramps came back. And this visit left nothing open for interpretation. Tonight was different. As I stood at the foot of her grave, her message was clearer than a Carolina sky blue and she only said it once before I was jarred awake:

“Take care of your mother.”

The hell could that have meant? And why now? Take care of her from Alaska? I never knew five words could be so heavy but they weighed mightily on my heart.