In the Wild Light

Back in Sawyer, Cash feels oddly out of place. Christmas itself is quiet and peaceful, but Cash is aware of how much worse his grandfather seems. Because Delaney’s mother, still experiencing opioid addiction, has left town with a new lover, Delaney spends most of the break with Cash and his grandparents. They talk about their new lives, the school, their new friends, and that trip to New York.

Before heading back to Connecticut, Cash and Delaney paddle a canoe down the Pigeon River on one of “those tranquil days when the river reflects the brisk blue of the December sky” (291). Delaney counsels Cash to move on from Vi. She makes a reference to how she has lived with “unreturned love” (290), but Cash does not pick up on her hint. All Cash thinks is how great it would be to someday have a girlfriend just like Delaney.

Saying goodbye to his grandfather the next morning is particularly tough for Cash. He fears he may never see his grandfather again.

Back at school after a long bus ride, Cash meets up with Vi, who gifts him The Alphabet in the Park, a book of Adélia Prado’s poetry. She hugs Cash and tells him she wants to be friends again. “My life,” Cash decides, “is better with her in it” (297).

Back from break, Alex reveals that in Houston, friends of his family are facing deportation. Alex prays that God will protect them but is not sure God ever listens. Cash nearly shares with Alex the truth about his mother’s overdose but pulls back, uncertain what Alex might think. Alex says he will keep praying for his friends back home; quietly, Cash asks Alex to include his grandfather in his prayers.

The winter term begins. One night, as Cash struggles to write a poem about winter, he and Delaney compare their majors. Delaney argues that both poets and scientists try to understand the world, and that poetry, like science, gets people to think about processes like love, time, and death in new ways.

At three in the morning, Cash gets a phone call from his grandmother telling him to come home because Papaw’s health is failing. Cash has never flown in a plane before but gets to Sawyer by noon.

On the way to the hospital, Cash remembers to text Delaney back in Connecticut. He is not prepared to see his grandfather coughing fitfully in the hospital bed, his eyes bleary and listless as he watches a game show. In a moment of “triumphant laughter” (310), however, Papaw suddenly peels off the tubes running into his arms and makes a crude joke about the hospital gown showing his rear end, asking Cash to get them a bucket of greasy fried chicken.

As Papaw tries to sleep, he asks Cash to read him some of his poems, declaring each one to be “beautiful” (312).

There is a loud disturbance in the hospital corridor, and Delaney comes rushing into Papaw’s room carrying a small mason jar. Without saying anything, she rushes to Papaw’s IV bag and struggles to open it, intent on pouring whatever is in the mason jar into the feeding bag. By this time, nurses are swarming in and calling for security. Delaney tries to explain that the mixture, which contains her new strain of penicillin, is a promising new curative and that she is there to help Papaw.

It takes a small phalanx of security guards and orderlies to get Delaney out of the room. Out in the corridor, frustrated, she hurls the mason jar at Cash, telling him, “You should have had my back” (321). The jar shatters and the miracle muck goes everywhere. Cash takes her to his grandparents’ house where, exhausted, she falls into a deep sleep.

Cash returns to the hospital to sit with Papaw. As his grandfather lies there, weak and struggling for breath, he pulls off his oxygen mask and tells Cash a story about growing up, about learning the words for “tree” and “wind” and how learning about the world lets people “[see] the face of God” (323). Cash whispers how much he loves him, hoping to take that love with him toward “whatever unmapped land he’s journeying to” (324).

While Cash sleeps by his bedside, Papaw dies, his final breath “no more ceremony than a leaf falling” (325).

Cash feels a “great desolation” (326), a sadness beyond words. He heads outside. He is aware Delaney is approaching, and the two hold each other, saying little.

Papaw is cremated. He wanted no funeral, just Cash and Delaney to scatter his ashes along the Pigeon River. “Papaw’s existence,” Cash decides, “was quiet and small, but it was a life defined by the love he gave and got” (328). There is no eulogy as they scatter the ashes in the dark water, just their tears.

Cash remembers deer hunting with his grandfather when he was 12. He remembers taking aim with the heavy rifle and managing to hit a deer that flailed crazily in reaction. At the time, Cash knew he should be proud and happy but was disturbed by the dead animal they dragged back home. That night his grandfather assured him that Cash would never need to hunt again, and that Papaw just loved spending time with his grandson. In his recollections of this moment, Cash realizes that his grandfather taught him to love the world without taking anything from it.

His grandmother tells Cash that he needs to return to school, for his sake and for his grandfather’s sake.

Delaney and Cash board the bus back to Connecticut. Delaney tells Cash about her own frenetic bus ride to the hospital carrying the mold. Cash says little, the “cold cast-iron wrecking ball that smashed [his] life to rubbish now hang[ing] in [his]chest” (335). Along the way he reads a letter from his Papaw that his grandmother gave him before he left. “If we have a soul that lives,” Papaw writes, “then my soul will keep loving you” (336).

Alex and Vi wait for them at the bus stop. Their love and support make Cash feel that staying in Connecticut is going to be more difficult than he imagined. He just wants to be alone.

When he meets Dr. Atkins in class the next day, she tells him that now, more than ever, is the time to turn to the solace of poetry. She advises him to embrace his emotions, and not to pretend to be anything but heartbroken. As a welcome-back gift, Dr. Atkins gives him cornbread based on her own family’s Tennessee recipe. Cash breaks down in tears.