What Have You Done, Cadwallader?
by Ginny Smith
University of Mississippi
Ginny Smith is a Mississippi writer attending the University of Mississippi. She is an English major with a minor in Classics. In her free time, she likes to read, walk, and watch silly movies. "What Have You Done, Cadwallader?" is her first publication.
Five people stood in the waiting room outside of Cadwallader Smith’s hospital room. Smith was certainly dying; he had been rushed to the hospital only hours before by his screaming wife, who had been crying and rocking by his bedside ever since, holding a noticeably dry monogrammed handkerchief to the side of her cheek. Personally, I think she’s carrying on a bit, Smith had thought in the ambulance, but at that point he had been in too much pain to say anything about it. Once he had regained control of his necessary faculties, Smith had indicated to the nurses that on no uncertain terms did he intend to die without the presence of the five people who now stood outside his door. When his wife had tried to protest, saying that he needed his rest and that most of these people weren’t even family, an irritable Smith had snapped, “Oh, shut up, Monica.” One of the two nurses had sent a shocked look at Smith and a sympathetic look at his wife, while the other had stifled a giggle and whispered something about “baller last words” as she left the room.
The cohort outside had originally arrived in a state of shock and confusion—it had struck all of them as odd that they were chosen as Cadwallader Smith’s bedside companions, but who says no to a dead man?—and were only now beginning to get a look at their surroundings, and to take into account, most especially, each other. Julie, an older woman who looked to be in her mid-sixties, was particularly interested in two younger women who, from her admittedly limited experience in the matter, looked to be in a relationship with each other. That wasn’t what interested Julie at the moment, though; she was more interested in (or perhaps shocked by) their state of dress.
The pregnant one of the two, who had introduced herself as Whipper, had obviously just come from work; she was still wearing her Lucky Lotus apron, and smelled strongly of espresso and spoiled milk. She had also adopted an expression of intense embarrassment, because as time went on, her girlfriend (the Not Pregnant One, Julie had begun to call her in her mind) became increasingly chatty. Not in a very good way.
“Lovely weather we’re having, isn’t it? Whipper was saying just this morning that it’s the best weather we’ve had in years. Of course, I miss the rain a bit, but it’s not too bad when you consider the beautiful days you can have at the park, reading a book or having a picnic. Not that I spend many days at the park, or reading books, or having picnics. No, I’m more the type of person who spends all day wrapped in a burrito blanket, cursing the sun for bleaching my television screen out!” She erupted into high, dolphin-like laughter that drew almost every eye in the vicinity onto her. Julie couldn’t stop herself from whispering, “Disgraceful!” to her husband.
Whipper elbowed her fiance. “Rosie! We are in a hospital,” she said, looking around nervously. “Stop that!” Rosie stopped immediately, looking embarrassedly off to the side.
“Bathroom. Gotta pee!” She fairly jumped away, leaving Whipper alone. Whipper looked around nervously, smiled faintly at a couple of onlookers, and then heaved herself into a chair with a sigh.
She didn’t know why she was here, really. Cadwallader didn’t mean much to her, and she was almost completely sure the feeling was mutual. He was just a regular—a well-to-do man who came into her coffeeshop every morning at around the same time and always ordered the exact same thing: an iced lavender latte with oat milk. It was her favorite drink; he had asked for her recommendation on the first day he came to the shop, and had never wavered from the order she gave him.
The only real notice that Whipper ever took of him was in the mid-mornings; she assumed that he had the type of job that didn’t require him to come in often, because Whipper could frankly not remember a day that she had opened the shop and he hadn’t come in. He was always there at around eight, and always left at around eleven, just sitting and reading, or watching something on his laptop, or just people-watching. The only times Whipper had enough time to chat with him was between the breakfast and lunch rush; sometimes, when she had nothing else to do, she would sit down across from him and chat. He was always nervous; he had what Rosie called “sketchy eyes,” and often she didn’t see him looking her in the eyes at all. He was eager to know about her life, though; Whipper was always surprised and a little flattered at the interest he took in her.
“What do you want to do with your life?” he had asked her once, during a particularly dismal day.
She waved vaguely. “This, I suppose. I love owning this shop, and I love working in it. I’d be a barista until I was sixty, if I could.”
“Why don’t you, then? This has been a successful venture for you, I can tell.”
“Rosie wants to go back to get her PhD in some kind of gender studies thing. If she does, I’ll have to sell this place and go with her wherever she goes.”
“You love her?”
“Of course I do! Why would you ask that? We’re having a baby together!” He raised his eyebrows. “Well, not together together, obviously,” she clarified. “Anyways, my point is, I can be a barista anywhere. She can’t go to school anywhere.”
“You’re not a barista. You’re a businesswoman.”
She had been strangely touched at this, and had quickly glanced up at Cadwallader’s face. There was a strange twinkle in his eye. She looked back down again hurriedly. “Thanks. I guess.”
“And anyways,” he continued, sounding just as embarrassed as her at the weird intimacy they had just shared, “Why can’t you go back to school, just like Rosie? Then you wouldn’t be able to move so easily.”
She shook her head. “I can’t. I…..well. This is a little personal, but I grew up in the foster care system. I didn’t have a good enough GPA to get a full ride, and didn’t have anyone willing to pay for my college. This is a fine life, though. I’m happy where I am.”
Rosie didn’t know him well at all, although Whipper talked about her to him quite often. He regarded her, Whipper thought, with a distant grumpiness that seemed to be a front for real tenderness. He seemed to grudgingly believe that Rosie was “good enough” for Whipper, but made it clear that he didn’t want to believe this. She’d somehow won him over, and he’d been completely blindsided by it.
Dennis Corcoran, on the other hand, did not have the foggiest clue as to why he was
there. “Who wants us at the hospital?” he had barked at his wife as they pulled out of the driveway.
“I told you,” Julie had said patiently. “His name is Cadwallader Smith. He’s a friend of mine from college.”
“Hmph. Cadwallader Smith.” He rolled the name around his tongue for a moment. “Hell of a name. What’s wrong with him?”
Julie stared out the window for a moment. “I don’t really know, dear.”
To be completely honest, Julie wasn’t even sure that she would recognize Cadwallader Smith if she saw him. Julie was one of those cheerleader girls—the kind of girl who grew up in a town, went to college there, and married quickly, settling down in the same town. Julie had lived all of her sixty-three years in Coolidge. If she had one regret, it was that she learned much too late that living in the same town all your life makes it very, very hard to avoid people who had done the same thing.
Cadwallader had never called her “dear.” It was an old name, she reflected, sitting in the hard hospital chair. It was a name you use for your husband, a name you only begin to use once you’re forty or older. Cadwallader called her “love,” often, and sometimes, “sunshine.” Those were starburst nicknames; they didn’t feel the same as dear, which was comforting in a way, but in the way that a dusty old Bible is comforting. You don’t feel the comfort in a nickname like “sunshine,” but then, you also feel the excitement—you feel the name on the tip of your tongue, bursting into flavor and passion and supernova energy. “Sunshine” is a starburst name, a name of youth and beauty and sex. “Dear” just wasn’t the same, Julie noticed.
She did agree with Dennis, though. Cadwallader was a hell of a name. And when she knew him, Cadwallader was a hell of a person. “Hey, sunshine,” he’d say, leaning on the doorframe to her dorm room. “What are you doing tonight?”
She’d try her best to laugh tinklingly, and blush prettily. She’d look down, move in close, and look back up at him with wide, naive eyes. “You?” she’d ask. He would grin.
As it turned out, she didn’t really know when they grew apart. There was no formal breakup; it was more of an understanding during the nine months she went away. She’d found out early about the accident, and had taken it upon herself to take care of it. “I’ll write,” Cadwallader said desperately, holding her close on her last day in the dorms. The conditions of your contract state that a person is prohibited from living in the residential area while pregnant. He had kept his promise to write, but Julie couldn’t face reading his letter. And after the adoption went through, and she had recovered, coming back to finish her degree in Elementary Education, she found that she couldn’t face him either.
She should have kept in touch, she realized that now. But she had had a good life—and, from what she heard, so had he. They had both found jobs, had fallen in love, had gotten married. She wondered if he had ever told his wife about her.
Every year, up until her retirement, Julie had scanned the faces of every kindergartner who ended up in her class. She scrutinized their stubby noses with her long one, their soft, fine hair with her own coarse and dark hair. Even ten years after the Incident, when she knew that her child would be long past kindergarten, she couldn’t keep herself from Hoping and scrutinizing. The kernel of Hope had grown into a fierce spirit inside of her, the nugget of a child she would never know. She felt every inch of the Hope’s life, though, deep in her belly—felt the Hope’s grief, and joy, and pain, and happiness. She knew her child, in the deepest and most unexplainable ways that a mother can. There were ways of finding the real one, Julie knew, but she found that she couldn’t bring herself to do it. If she did, she knew, the child might not be that kernel of Hope she felt, and that filled her with a sadness too deep to comprehend. And so she stopped herself from finding the child. She couldn’t stop herself, though, from wondering if Cadwallader had ever looked into it.
A young man in scrubs broke Julie from her reverie. The Not Pregnant One was back, she noticed wryly, and was anxiously rubbing her sweaty hands over her gaudy purple overalls. Gaudy purple overalls! At a hospital!
“Mr. Cadwallader is ready for you now,” the young nurse said. “He’d like you to come in slowly, so we’ve divided y’all into two groups.” The boy had a strong Southern accent, Julie noted with some interest. She also noticed Whipper roll her eyes at him. “First up, Mr. and Mrs. Corcoran and Miz Fletcher.”
Julie stood up and pulled a grumbling Dennis to his feet. They led the way into the dark room, with Rosie following behind, looking nervously back at Whipper. Don’t make me go, she mouthed. Whipper smiled and rolled her eyes.
The departure of the other three left Whipper with an old woman, in her nineties at least, who had been sitting silently in a chair since they arrived. Her name was Aramata, and she was Cadwallader’s mother.
The Corcoran’s hadn’t noticed her, in all of the hubbub surrounding Rosie’s and Whipper’s outfits. That was perhaps just as well, Aramata thought dryly. It is perhaps a tad awkward to run into your son’s ex-girlfriend on the night of your son’s death. And from what she could tell, Julie hadn’t told her husband anything about the nature of her relationship with Cadwallader. Aramata didn’t want to ruin that.
“Excuse me.” Aramata looked up at the face of her granddaughter. She had known it was her from the moment Whipper had walked in the door. Whipper carried Cadwallader’s proud nose and Julie’s dark hair, but held herself in a different way from either of them. She was more defensive, Aramata thought. “May I sit down? Only it seems strange to be the only two people in the waiting room and sitting across the room from each other.” Aramata smiled warmly.
“Of course you may.”
“Thank you so much.” Whipper sat gingerly next to her grandmother. “This is an odd sort of meeting, isn’t it? I mean, I hardly know Cadwalla–that is, Mr. Smith. He’s just a regular in my coffeeshop. And from what I could tell, that older man–Mr. Corcoran, was it? –doesn’t seem to know him at all. I heard him asking the nurse to tell him what Mr. Smith looked like. Isn’t that strange? Who would invite complete strangers to their hospital bed? And why did we come? It’s not as if he’s friend or family. Why did you come, if you don’t mind me asking? Did you know Mr. Smith?”
Aramata smiled. “Very well. He’s my son.”
“Oh!” Whipper turned red. “I’m so sorry, I—I didnt mean–”
“No, dear, you’re right. It does seem odd–after all, why would you come here? As you said, you barely know him.”
“Well, it—I suppose it just seemed like the right thing to do.” Whipper hesitated. “I mean, I suppose I did know him, in a way. I mean, I saw him and spoke with him every day for a good many years. Even if I didn’t always speak with him, he was always kind to me. And that in itself is a kind of intimacy, don’t you think? I doubt many other people could say that they had spend three hours a day with Cadwallader Smith for over four years. Maybe I feel I owe it to him. I don’t know,” she said, feeling suddenly shy. “I’m so sorry, Mrs. Smith. You must be feeling devastated. I don’t know what came over me, you should be the one working out your feelings, not me.”
Aramata smiled. “I think it is a kind of intimacy, Whipper. I think that you’re very brave, and very kind, for coming here today—after all, you and your partner are about to witness someone’s….well, someone’s death. That can change a person; it’s a very hard thing to do. And to put yourselves through that simply to comfort someone that, as you said, you don’t know very well, is a sign of very strong bravery, I believe.” Whipper smiled. Aramata pressed on. “And I think you’ll find, in time, that you’re wrong. I think you’ll find that you are about to lose someone very special to you. I hope you’ll remember how special, my dear.”
“Miz—um, that is to say, Whipper? And Mrs. Smith? He’s ready for you.”
Cadwallader Smith died that night, surrounded by a family that only he knew for a fact was his own. That knowledge died with him, and Aramata’s correct suspicion died soon after, with her. She went back to her nursing home that night feeling completely content. Cadwallader’s wife had sniffed at thought of his own mother not even crying at his death, but Aramata was surprised to find a quiet joy. When she died three months later, it was with the absolute knowledge that she would join her husband and son in her own time and way. She also died with the knowledge that she had done her part for the next generation.
Three months after Cadwallader’s death, Whipper got a letter explaining the details of a surprise inheritance. “Who is Aramata Smith?” Rosie had asked. Whipper was too speechless to reply; the inheritance from the stranger she had met through the death of another stranger included enough money to send her daughter to university. That was something that Whipper would be very, very happy to pay for.
Julie came back to a silent house and a grumbling husband, and lived for the next five years in a silent house with a grumbling husband. Cadwallader’s death had given her nothing, but, she reflected, Cadwallader’s life had given her quite enough. As she hung up her coat, turning away from the silence broken only by grumbles, she noticed something odd. Closure, her therapist had mentioned. That was bullshit, Julie had thought. But she did notice that she grieved two deaths that day; with Cadwallader’s death came the much more real death of that little Hope inside of her stomach.
Interview with the Author
1. What was your inspiration for this piece?
I have a great affinity for ensemble pieces of media—things like novels with an omniscient narrator, movies with a widely-connecting cast, and short story collections with interlinked narratives—so I wanted to use that kind of idea and scale it down to a short-story level. It was difficult to pull off (as I believe my professor mentioned, there are nine characters in as many pages), but I think that this idea was my general inspiration for this piece.
2. What is your creative process? (How do you go about writing or creating?)
I think many of my creative writing strengths lie in revision, so that’s where the brunt of my creative process is. For the first draft, I will just sit down and try to hammer out as much of the plot as possible, not caring about the quality of the writing. Once I have the basic plotline down, then I can go back and hammer out the finer details and improve my writing.
3. What are some influences on your artistic process?
I think I am heavily influenced by writers who excel in character-study, like Fredrik Backman and Elizabeth Strout. However, I am also lucky enough to come from a long line of writers in my family, so I’m sure that they are huge influences in my subconscious as well.
4. Is there anything more you’d like our readers/viewers to know about you or your work?
It was such an honor to be accepted for publication. I worked very hard on this piece, and I am so appreciative of everyone who has helped me along the way.