No Heroes: A Memoir of Coming Home

The Library and Mrs. Jayne

Mrs. Jayne lived all her life in Morehead, and if she had not always been content, she’d made her peace long ago. Occasionally she’d tell a story about going to Lexington with her girlfriends, referring to the trip as “a bunch of country women on the loose.” Mrs. Jayne was my first-grade teacher.

She loved the boys and girls of Haldeman, and we loved her back in the fierce way of children who express elemental emotion with every cell in their bodies. Her house held photographs of people she’d taught, their spouses, their babies, their grandchildren. She was a widow with no kids of her own, and her former students served as family. Each year I sent Mrs. Jayne a Christmas card. I visited when I went home and several years ago I’d introduced her to Rita. All my grandparents were dead. I wanted Sam and James to know Mrs. Jayne.

I drove to her house, thinking of the car I owned in college, a red Maverick that leaked Bondo at the seams. To save money I parked in Mrs. Jayne’s driveway, which was a block from campus. She said she liked seeing the car and knowing one of her first graders had made it to college.

Now Mrs. Jayne was in her eighties. She never locked her door and was hard of hearing. To visit, you walked into her breezeway and began calling yoo-hoo to avoid startling her. Today she didn’t answer and I found her asleep in an easy chair. I gazed around the living room at all the photographs, including one of my sons propped on the mantel. When I was a kid her house was the most proper I’d ever been inside, containing stiff furniture that was uncomfortable to sit on. Later I understood that she lived among lovely antiques that she kept neat and clean, despite using them daily. Now I recognized that everything was a little messy — a pillow on the floor, a rumpled afghan, a water stain on an end table. I tiptoed out. The kids were disappointed and I told them we’d visit the Rowan County Public Library.

I was the first kid to step inside the library when it opened in 1967. The head librarian was Frankie Calvert, related by marriage to Mrs. Jayne. One woman taught me to read and the other placed books in my hands each week. I loved them as a child and my devotion had never faltered.

Due to the library’s limited holdings, you could only check out four books at a time per library card. Since I read at least one book a day, and more during school vacations and weekends, I circumvented the rules by getting library cards for all my siblings, two of whom were not yet in school, as well as a card in the name of the family dog. My mother went to town every Saturday for groceries. She dropped me at the library where I borrowed twenty books, stacked them in a grocery bag, and waited for her to retrieve me. By age ten I knew the Dewey Decimal System inside out.

Now I entered the library with great enthusiasm. A woman from Haldeman was working there and I asked about her family. She hadn’t changed much and I wondered if she thought the same of me. Frankie came out of her office and we hugged briefly, a part of me disappointed that she was not thirty years younger. Frankie possessed a lilting accent native to the hills that is impossible to duplicate in writing. She looked at my sons and said, “They sure are good-looking boys.” She pronounced “boys” with two syllables, as if it were spelled “bo-eeze.” Another mountain trait is repetition and she said it again, carrying me into the past and hearing her tell my mother the same about me.

Frankie showed Sam to the children’s section where he began browsing with the experience of a seasoned library kid. James shyly took her hand as she led him to a special spot. She perched on the edge of a tiny chair, leaned forward with a book in her hands, and read aloud to him. James stared at her face, enraptured by her attention. I recalled listening to her in the same way at his age. When Frankie read to me, she’d been younger than I was now. I felt as if time had altered from a linear progression to one of overlapping concentric rings. I had never left Morehead, but been bumped ahead, with remnants of memory all around me.

I wandered the library, stunned to realize that no one else was there on a Saturday afternoon. During college I had put on magic shows for children here, using tricks I’d made from how-to books. The illusions were simple — cut and restored rope, the production of scarves from a tube, an empty bag that contained eggs. The magic books were gone, hopefully to a child busy at home folding cardboard into secret gimmicks. Inside a battered book, I discovered a check-out card. The signature was mine, dated 1968.

Holding a book that had passed through my hands so long ago gave me a sudden chill that drifted into bliss. The protagonists name was Eddie. He liked to write notes and post them in his house. I copied his behavior, taping my words to various places in our home. I remembered the name of Eddies dog, his best friend, and his enemy. In books, I found kids who shared my interest and adults who appreciated me.

I pulled the oldest books from the shelf and examined each card. Several bore my name from thirty years before, and I made a pile of these books for Sam, enthralled that he would read them at the same age as I had. The presence of my signature indicated that no new card had ever been required. Don’t be sad, I told myself. That’s why you came home — to help fix problems like this.

We checked out the books and walked into the heat of summer. The hills were dulled by the humidity that hung in the air like old breath. Sam was disappointed in the library. He had carefully looked over the books and found nothing contemporary, nothing similar to what he’d been reading for the past year. I gave him the Eddie books.

We returned to visit Mrs. Jayne who yoo-hooed back, fully awake now. I hugged her and she felt fragile as papyrus. She’d lost weight and her clothes didn’t fit, reminding me that she’d always taken great care of her appearance. She insisted on sitting in the backyard to receive summer guests. The boys adored her as if they’d known her all their lives. She sent me inside to pour glasses of “co-cola” for everyone. The kitchen smelled terrible. Dirty dishes filled the sink. The garbage had not been emptied in a long time.

I scrubbed some glasses, poured the drinks, and carried them outside. Mrs. Jayne was talking to the boys with such care that I suddenly understood why children were drawn to her. She would never judge a child, never criticize, never tamper with innocence. She behaved as if every child was her particular favorite. She still treated me that way and I still basked in her attention.

I motioned Rita inside and showed her the state of the house. She said, “I’ll clean the bathroom, you do the kitchen.” We found supplies and worked for an hour. I was tidying the living room when Sam and James entered the house with fearful expressions. I asked what was the matter and Sam spoke, taking the lead as oldest, the way I always had as a child.

“Something’s wrong with Mrs. Jayne.”

“She might be dead,” James said.

Tears flowed over his cheeks as he rushed to me and hugged my waist. I called for Rita, who sat with James on the couch while I went to the backyard. Mrs. Jayne sat in her chair asleep. I took the empty glasses inside and made the boys laugh with the truth of Mrs. Jayne. We walked to the car, but I didn’t like leaving her in the yard in case the weather shifted or the sunlight burned her pale skin. I went back through the breezeway to help her in the house. Her eyes fluttered open.

“Well, Chris,” she said. “What a wonderful surprise. Sit down and let’s have a visit.”

“Okay.”

“When are you bringing those boys of yours for me to meet?”

“Let’s go inside, Mrs. Jayne.”

“We’ll have us some co-cola.”

“I can’t stay too long.”

“You have a busy life now, Chris. There’s one thing I want you to know. I’m just so proud of you for teaching at Morehead. I want you to park in my driveway. It’ll be easy for you to walk to work. I like seeing a man’s car in the driveway.”

“Okay, Mrs. Jayne.”

She eased into her chair, reminding me of a feather pillow slowly settling into comfort. Within a few minutes she was asleep again. On my way out I stopped in the breeze-way. Leaning against the wall were alphabet posters that had hung in my first-grade classroom, and I remembered writing words that began with each letter. I drove home, understanding that naively and perhaps foolishly, I wanted life in Rowan County to be the same as thirty years ago. I wanted Frankie to give me books and Mrs. Jayne to be healthy.

Later, Sam said he didn’t like the Eddie books because they were too much like the old days. He wanted to read about the world of today.