October 17, 1965, Dutchyville, GA
wo months, seventeen days after Bell’s collapse in San FranT cisco, her dad, Britten Houston, hurried home from Savannah, excited with his discovery.
In the days after her July 29 collapse, he had questioned everyone in San Francisco who had been with Bell when it happened, and he had recorded everything they could remember about what she had said to them. Several of them mentioned Quang Tri, although no one knew what it meant. Finding that it was a province in Vietnam was easy, but it was another dead end. Brit couldn’t see how it could help Bell. He chided himself for taking three full weeks to realize that he needed to find out what had happened there at the time Bell collapsed in San Francisco. Then he had to deal with the Army’s reluctance to part with information, speaking to countless low and mid-level officials who didn’t have the authority to give out that information, and high-placed officials who were never in their offices or never returned Brit’s calls. Now that he’d found the information, he only hoped it would be in time to provide the breakthrough Bell needed.
Hurrying into the house, Brit encountered Sally, the live-in nurse Brit had hired to tend to Bell as she lay in the coma, a spontaneous coma, the doctors called it. They found no defect to account 205
for it, leaving Brit with hope that the proper stimulus could still bring her out of it.
The year before Bell’s collapse, Sally had been attending nursing school in Chicago. She had read an article in a Chicago newspaper about an upcoming concert, and she’d recognized Bell’s name, so she went to the concert to hear her childhood friend perform. After the concert, she found her way backstage and stood off to the side as musicians and other well-wishers clustered around Bell. Brit was there. The newspaper article had mentioned he often traveled with Bell. As people began leaving, Sally saw Bell glance her way a couple times. Soon only the conductor remained. Bell had looked again at Sally, she took two steps toward her, and then stopped and opened her eyes wide in astonishment. “Sally? Is that you?”
“You recognized me? I don’t believe it.”
The three of them had a late dinner that evening and did a lot of catching up. Brit told Sally he clipped newspaper articles from everywhere Bell performed, photocopied them, and sent them on to Cat and Ada. He insisted it would be no problem to make a third copy. He’d written down Sally’s address, and thereafter, he sent out three copies.
The following year, two weeks after the San Francisco incident, when Brit brought Bell home, he had called Sally to ask if she would be interested in a job. Without hesitation, Sally agreed. Brit removed all the furniture from the formal living room on the first floor, installed a hospital bed for Bell and another bed for Sally.
It wasn’t the Army who gave Brit the information he needed.
Brit had been visiting the Savannah Evening Press, the local daily, searching through back issues of papers from large cities, looking for any mention of Quang Tri Province on last July 30. The staff there got to know Brit. One afternoon, a woman who wrote a column had hurried over as soon as she saw Brit arrive. A neighbor she’d run into had mentioned her son was home on leave. He had been in Quang Tri Province. Would Brit like to meet him?
Brit would.
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That evening, over a beer, Tommy Davel told Brit what he could about Quang Tri. When Brit asked about a specific Friday, the 30th of July, Tommy couldn’t think of anything at first. He got a calendar from the kitchen, stared at it for a while, then he snapped his fingers. “That has to be the day that spotter went down. Heard the colonel was steamed.”
“Spotter?”
“A small plane. They use ‘em to spot for air strikes.”
“What happened?
“Don’t know much. Two Army officers, plane goes down less than a mile out from base. Both died. Don’t think I ever heard their names.”
“They know why the plane went down?”
“They either don’t know, or ain’t sayin. Heard Colonel Brewster was fit to be tied, sent some Captain to Greenland over it. I never heard no more.”
“Do you recall what time the crash happened?”
“Well, I was still at chow, so it would-a been… right ‘round 07:15. Yep, right ‘bout there.”
Brit already knew Nam was fourteen hours ahead of San Francisco time. He did the math. “Jesus,” he said. “Do you know anyone still at that base? Someone you could call, ask for the names of the two who died? I’ll make it worth your while.”
“Well, that’d be difficult. Tell ya what though. There was a corporal, worked for the colonel, last name a Sanders. I don’t recall his first name, we all jus called him Sandy. Good troop. He’d know the names, ‘n he come out same day as me, said home was a little town called Sandersville, somewheres east a Macon. I cud try information, if I find a number, call ‘im right now. How’s zat?” Brit could have kissed him.
Tommy made the calls, and as soon as Brit heard the names Sandy provided, he knew he’d struck pay dirt. He’d seen one of those names at least a dozen times while he and Bell followed the Dallas papers for news of her incident: Casey Peterson.
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“Have any luck?” Sally asked now, knowing Brit had hoped to come home with information he could use to help Bell.
“Did I ever,” Brit said, as he hurried to the living room doorway, and peered through to look at Bell. “You’re not going to believe it. The young cop, the one from Dallas? Don’t know what he was doin’ flying a plane in Nam, but he was. And he died, near as I can tell, the very minute Bell went into that coma.”
“Oh, that’s so sad!”
“It is. But Dallas connected them, don’t you see? He and Bell, because of Dallas. That must be it. She must have sensed it, somehow, his dying. She couldn’t help him, so something inside of her shut down. I’m not sure if you believed any of that stuff I told you, about Dallas…”
“If I didn’t before, I do now. How does this help Bell?”
“The docs say she can still hear. Maybe if she hears his name it’ll wake her up. It’s a long shot, but…”
Brit walked into the room and took a seat beside Bell’s bed. It was hard to see Bell like this. She breathed on her own and had an intravenous feeding line attached to her arm. Brit had been telling himself to ignore how frail she looked, but it was hard. He wanted to grab her thin shoulders and shake her awake. Loud, but not too loud, Brit spoke the name, “CASEY PETERSON.” When nothing happened, he realized just how much he had been hoping Bell would awaken, sit up in bed, and ask for Mom’s cello. He spoke the name again, then Sally tried it, to no avail.
Sitting next to the bed, leaning close to Bell’s ear, he told Bell the story, how she had touched the mind of a young policeman, guided him in preventing an event that would have shaken the nation. At his time of greatest need, some part of Casey Ray Peterson had called to her, but it had been much too late, “for you to help, and that failure was too much for you to accept. You ran away, somewhere deep within yourself, and that was ok, Bell. You needed time to recover. You’ve been gone long enough now, two months and seventeen days. So many people miss you. It’s time for you to come back, to come home to us, Bell.”
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For the next three days, Brit or Sally repeated a version of that story to Bell, six or eight times each day. They varied the position of the hospital bed from sitting up to lying down. They also changed the side of the bed from which they spoke. Near the end of the third day, Brit and Sally were in the kitchen together, and Sally left to carry a tray of supplies through the double pocket-doors of the living room. Brit heard her scream and drop the tray. He came running and found Bell staring at them, smiling feebly.
“Hi,” she croaked, in a weak, scratchy voice.
He was so excited he felt like jumping and whooping, but he was afraid he would scare her right back into the coma. Instead, he said, “Hey, sleepyhead. How long you been awake?”
Bell tried to speak, but, “Har… ta,” was all that came out. Sally recovered from the surprise and rushed to Bell as she said, “Oh, Bell, honey, don’t even try to talk. It’s gonna take a while. Here, I have a tablet and pen. You’re gonna feel weak, might be hard to write, but take your time and rest when you need to, ok?”
Bell nodded once. Sally helped her to grasp the pen and then held the pad of paper angled so Bell could write.
15 m
“You’ve been awake for fifteen minutes? Why didn’t you call?” Brit asked. Bell took a sip of the water Sally offered her, and then wrote again.
Heard you. Didn’t want you stop.
“You know you were…”
Coma… yeah.
“You know how long?”
2 mo 20 days.
He moved closer to the bed, “How the heck did you know that?”
Both remind… every day, how could I not?
“So, you did hear us?”
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Deep, where. She glanced at Sally. Way deep inside.
“Do you know why? Why you were in a coma, I mean?”
Yes. Need talk about that. She glanced at Sally again.
Brit held an arm toward Sally, beckoned her, and while she stepped forward he said, “You might as well know, Cat and Ada stayed for a few days after I brought you home, but after they left, I needed someone to talk to, and Sally’s a good listener. She knows all about Dallas, everything, and horse camp too.”
“And don’t forget, Bell,” Sally said, “that time at my house.
Mom’s told me about it. She’ll be so happy to hear about you. She’ll want to come down, from Chicago, when you feel strong enough.”
Good. That you know. And about your Mom.
“You were saying,” Brit said, “that you know why?”
Bell stared at Brit for a few moments, then tears formed and rolled down her cheeks. She began coughing and had a bad time of it for a few minutes. Sally told her to rest for a while, and she and Brit sat while Bell closed her eyes and slept for twenty minutes.
When she opened her eyes again, she panicked for a few seconds, but seeing Brit and Sally calmed her, and she pointed to the pen again. Sally got her to take a sip of water, and Bell wrote again.
Oh Dad he seemed so close. Thought I could just reach. Catch. Pull him back. Seemed he was just beyond my hand. For few seconds. But he wasn’t. And I couldn’t. And everything just. Ended.
They called her doctor next, and he insisted they transport Bell to the hospital in Savannah. He met them there and examined Bell.
She remained two days for testing and observation. When she left the hospital, she was still weak and needed physical therapy for several weeks, but she had youth on her side. Sally stayed on to help with the PT appointments and to monitor Bell’s progress. Besides, Brit felt having Sally around would be good for Bell. They continued to sleep in the temporary quarters in the living room.
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In three months, Bell was doing well. Sally felt guilty accepting a salary any longer. They moved the bedrooms upstairs again and released the living room back to its original purpose. Brit told Sally she was part of the family, and was welcome to live there as long as she wished. She accepted the offer, but began looking for work. It took only a few weeks for her to find a job in Savannah, and rather than commute, she found a small apartment in the city. She continued to call the Houston house home, however, and spent most days off there.
Sally’s mom, Julia, stayed with the Houstons whenever she came to visit Sally. Before long, it became obvious to Sally, Bell, Cat and Ada, that Sally was not the only reason for Julia’s visits.
Three years later Brit and Julia married.
As the years rolled on the old house saw more and more activity. Cat and her husband moved closer to Dutchyville, and most weekends found one reason or another to go home, along with their three children. Ada lost her husband to an accident in 1975. She found work near Dutchyville and she and her ten-year-old son moved in with Britten. Bell came and went as her busy concert schedule demanded, but her permanent home and mailing address was where it always had been, since she was three. She never married. Sally continued to call the place home, even after she married an architect from Savannah, and after they bought their own house and began having babies, first two boys, then three girls.
Brit wisely saw early on the need for more accommodations.
He developed the third floor into three bedrooms and a bathroom.
When the whole crowd, seventeen, was there at one time, which happened two or three times a year, all the bedrooms were used and the old house was in its glory. It was a chaotic, boisterous, heady time for Brit, who could not believe how his life had changed from what it had been, and what he thought it would continue to be, in 1946, when he received the first letter from Saji Tal. Brit knew that much of his life would have been the same without the entrance of Isobel Brahamms into it, but he believed Bell was the catalyst that made it all work, and the glue that held them all together, though he 211
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