Pieces of My Life

Chapter 5

Loretta Lynn peered down at the phone receiver that hung in her hands. The shrill of the dial tone echoed throughout the room as she tried to process what had happened. Elvis was quite the prankster but this seemed over the top, even for him. Her trembling fingers flipped through her address book until she found the phone number for Graceland.

"Hello?" A youthful, rather bored sounding voice answered.

"Lisa Marie, is that you?"

"Yes..."

"Are any of the guys here right now?"

"Why?"

Loretta twisted the telephone cord around her wrist and clenched her teeth. "Get one of 'em and tell him to check on your daddy." Loretta swallowed. How did one tell a seventeen-year-old girl that her father, whom she adored, was possibly having a heart attack?

"Your daddy told me that he might be... he said he thinks he's havin' a heart attack so you gotta send someone to check on him. Please, honey?"

"Um... hold on...". Lisa's voice was replaced by a deep, manly one.

"What do you want?"

Loretta didn't recognize him. The Mafia's voices, none of them as unique as Elvis' smooth-as-silk one, all blended together.

"Please check on Elvis. He was breathin' funny and said he was under the weather and that he might-"

"I can't understand a word you're sayin'," the man cut her off. "If you want E, why don't you call him?"

"I did!" Loretta exclaimed. "You gotta go check on him."

"He was probably messin' with you."

"I don't think so. Just check on him, please." Her mind flashed back to his birthday party. He'd been healthy and vibrant and in such good spirits. But she knew how quickly God could snatch someone away. Their subtle courtships spanned over two months, give or take, but yet she couldn't fathom him no longer existing on this earth. Loretta wasn't well versed in anything related to medicine, but she did know that, if Elvis was having a heart attack, his chance of survival was dwindling with every minute she spent trying to convince his buddies to check on him.

"Please just check on him," Loretta begged. "If he was just messin' around it'll only take you a minute but if he-"

"Alright, woman. I'll check on him."

He hung up with a curt goodbye.

The need to see Elvis alive, whole and recovering pulsed through her so intensely it blinded her to everything else. Only the intensity of her focus made her capable of staying on her feet at all as she threw random clothes into a suitcase and headed for the garage. She didn't even bother telling Gloria that she was leaving. Deep inside she knew that if his friend hadn't checked on him by the time she made it to Memphis, it would already be too late.

Loretta tried to regulate her breathing, attempting to ward off the onset of a panic attack- she had one when she was told that her son had died and no desire to relive that experience.

She shouldn't be driving in this state, but it was the only choice. Their relationship was as private as it could be. Her children, other than Ernest Ray, barely even knew that they were seeing each other. When she told her twins, they laughed and said that they couldn't picture her with Elvis.

Now they might never-

"Stop it," she scolded herself.

Loretta drove in silence. Every once in a while, when she stopped at a red light, someone's gaze lingered on her as though they were thinking 'Is that Loretta Lynn?'. In the end they probably all decided that it couldn't be, because they couldn't fathom Loretta Lynn venturing out on her own like this.