Truth Is Like the Sun

Chapter 24

Flying back to Memphis on her own had been a letdown in a sense. Carol Ann got home just before dawn and everything seemed to be painted in midnight blue, like ink bursting from the fragile nib of a fountain pen. She thought of Elvis, how he had pulled her against his chest and held her there for minutes until they could no longer elongate their parting.

Carol Ann had been hoping that her mother was still asleep, but Louann appeared the moment she unlocked the door, a look of disapproval plastered over her face. The journey had left Carol Ann so exhausted that the energy to care evaded her.

"Well..." Louann began. "Where is my grandson?"

Carol Ann narrowed her eyes. "He's still at Elvis' aunt and uncle's and when he gets up he's gotta go to school."

"I wonder if he's been to school at all this week."

"When I talked to him on the phone he said-"

"He's ten. He lies. You don't know those people-"

"Mother," Carol Ann cut her off. "I just got here and I'm tired-"

"So you wanna go to sleep when normal folks get up. Same way he does."

"I have a job. I'll have to be up tomorrow by six no matter what. So will you-"

"When are you gonna get the boy?" Louann demanded.

"When he's off school." Carol Ann proceeded to drag her bags up the stairs, hoping that her mother had the courtesy not to follow her. Of course Louann did not.

"Do you think that this is good for the boy? All this back and forth with-"

"I left him with relatives this one time. I don't think that it'll hurt him any more than it hurt me to be with relatives every summer."

"Those people are no relatives of ours. You didn't even meet em before you send him-"

"You could have watched him, mother," Carol Ann forced out. She finally reached her bedroom door which she flung open. She noted the fresh sheets on the bed, the way the pillows had been propped up in a neat row in her absence. Carol Ann yanked the blanket back, destroying her mother's handiwork in one swift motion. It was oddly satisfying to do so.

Unpacking, she decided, would have to wait. She stripped out of her clothes and into a random nightgown. Her mother would have been shocked to see her falling into bed without having washed or brushed her teeth, but the exhaustion took over and dragged her down. When she closed her eyes, Elvis' smiling face danced in front of her eyes. She wondered what he was doing right now, as she was drifting off to sleep.

Whose arms would he fall asleep in today? Would he be on his own instead? She didn't know which option she preferred but before she could further agonize about it, sleep took over. In her dreams, she saw a beach occupied only by herself, Elvis and their son.

"Carol Ann!" A voice invaded her perfect dream world. "Carol Ann!" Her stomach churned as the bed shook, a firm hand grasping at her shoulder. "Carol Ann, you said that you would get your son from school. Now get up."

Carol Ann lurched up into a sitting position so fast that her head spun. The first thing she saw when she opened her eyes was her mother, who stood there with her arms crossed across her chest.

"Over thirty years old and you need your mother to wake you up." Louann gave a grave shake of the head. "You'd get up by yourself when you was no more than eight years old."

"Cause I'd get a whoopin' if I didn't."

"Are you tellin' me that I didn't raise you right then?"