At Risk of Being a Fool (32 page)

“Hardly. She likes Randy. She even goes so far as to say he’s
not
a shit, and if that’s not conclusive, I don’t know what is.”

“And it wasn’t Cervantes, either?”

Ricardo Cervantes. Jeanie covered her eyes with her hands. She’d met him, and he was dead now. She’d met him, and liked him, but he’d hated her.

“Jeanie?” The wheelchair rolled closer. “Jeanie, are you all right?”

“I’m sorry, Estelle. My injuries are nothing compared to yours. Lacerations, contusions, that’s all. I shouldn’t be such a wimp.”

“Not to mention fifty stitches on your hip,” said Estelle. “And a broken bone or two. I had a little chat with your nurse.”

“Oh heavens, Estelle, don’t go scaring off my nurses.”

“All right.”

The unusually quiet voice brought Jeanie to tears. “It’s not that anyway, not the pain or the stitches. I just, somehow, can’t deal with the fact that someone hates me. All my life, I’ve bothered people, pestered people, meddled with their lives. Always for their own good, I told myself. But now, I wonder. I meddled in Quinto’s life, and his brother hated me. He wasn’t just angry with me. He
hated
me.”

“The man was certifiably insane. Jeanie.” Estelle touched Jeanie’s arm. “No one alive now hates you.” She pulled out Jeanie’s hand and trapped it between her own. “No one hates you, Jeanie. It is not remotely possible to hate you. I can tell you that for certain. I tried.”

Estelle handed her a Kleenex, and she blew her nose. Obviously, it was a three-Kleenex job. Estelle pushed the box into her hands, and sat back.

“About that book you lent me,” said Estelle.

“Which one?”

“The last one. Unalloyed, unabashed sentimentalism.”

“What?”

“You heard me. Over-emotional tripe.”

“How can you
say
that?” Face flushed with indignation, Jeanie threw the Kleenex box across the room. “Just what parts of Alex Haley’s Roots do you consider over-emotional
tripe
?”

The smile on Estelle’s face began slowly, spread wider, reluctantly displayed her perfect teeth, and finally reached her eyes, sparkling.

“Ha,” she crowed. “Gotcha!”

~*~

Once Jeanie was alone again, she wondered how she’d wangled a private room. She tussled with the idea for a moment and gave it up. Her mind was a marshmallow. Lightly toasted.

A glimmer of blue touched the sky. As she watched, clouds drifted across, obliterating it with the multi-layered silvered clouds,
Oregon
beauty at its finest. Some people thought the rains were depressing, but she’d always loved them.

Some people thought being a teacher was depressing.

Some people were fools.

Twelve months of the year contained two months of summer, four months of rain, and six months of a brisk, breezy world of life, growing, ebbing, climbing, and falling. Teaching was the same.

Life is a potato.
Her smile was fleeting.
Edward
.

She reached for Julianne’s letter.

Dear Mama Jean:

When Geoff and I got married, you gave me a clump of your mother’s calla lily. You about broke my heart, saying you wanted me to have it because I was your daughter now. Every time we moved, I divided the lily, and took part of it with me. Funny to think all the places your mom’s lily is still growing, isn’t it? I thought I’d send you a start for your new house.

I’m not good with words, like you and Aunt Shell. I don’t know how to put this. But Papa Edward’s not going to get better, and Aunt Shell’s so far away, and Annalisa died, and I keep thinking that you must get lonely. I know you don’t want to move to
Florida
, and haul Papa Edward so far. Geoff understands it too, really.

But Mama Jean, in your letters, it’s as if you’re hiding from us. They’re funny, and I laugh, but I know there’s a lot going on you don’t tell us. Well, look at last spring. If Aunt Shell hadn’t called, we still wouldn’t know about Papa Edward.

You don’t have to hide from us. You don’t have to protect us anymore. I love you and admire you, and I really want to be your friend, and not just your daughter-in-law. So, when you plant this lily, please think of me? And maybe let me get a little closer to you?

Love always and forever, Julianne

Jeanie retrieved the box of Kleenex from the spot Estelle had parked it for safekeeping. She blew her nose loudly.
Can’t I do anything but cry?
she thought disgustedly. Cry, weep, whimper, and scream. How had Edward put up with her, all those years?

Papa Edward’s not going to get better.

Her children had lives of their own. Her own mother and mother-in-law had never quite stopped trying to bring her up. She’d sworn not to make the same mistakes. For years she’d watched, supported from afar, offered hints when asked, kept her mouth shut when she wasn’t, and tried to spark laughter in the midst of their crises. And she’d been proud of that.

Anger surged.
That’s not enough for you?
she thought at Julianne, thousands of miles away
. I take care of myself, and I manage just fine, thank you much. I don’t need some little girl pulling at my heartstrings, urging me to open up and bleed all over everybody.

Papa Edward’s not going to get better.

She let the loss of Edward sweep over her. Kherra had spent months trying to make her see it. But all her life, when she was sick, the focus was on getting better. She hadn’t been able to get past that. With Edward, getting better would never happen. If she were lucky, he’d hit a plateau and stay there for a while. Then with a lurch of a train, gearing down for a hill, he’d move slower, and slower, and finally stop altogether.

Edward was not going to get better.

What did that leave for a woman who watched, prodded, observed, meddled, and most of all fitted her life around other people? When she erupted with needs of her own, Edward soothed her, catered to her, infuriated her, and made her want to hit him. Like a padded cell, where it was all right to be crazy, Edward absorbed all the frenzied emotion of her life. Marriage worked that way, and hers had, for forty years.

Julianne was right. Apart from Shelley, she had no one with whom she could collapse into a pool of grieving Jell-O. She found her mind grappling with the image, distracting itself. Green Jell-O, she decided. Or perhaps butterscotch pudding.

...
Think about letting me get a little closer to you?

Maybe. A little closer. Perhaps.

There was Julianne’s box, on the floor under the table, with its plastic bag of dirt, holding a living offshoot of her mother’s hopes and dreams, and then her own, and now Julianne’s. How many generations before? How many in the future?

At the bottom of the typed letter was Julianne’s signature, in blue ink, looping letters, rounded, and generous. She traced the outline with her finger.

Maybe, Julianne
, she whispered.
I’ll try.

###

About the author:

Jeanette Cottrell teaches high school in
Oregon
.
Jeanie McCoy is her alter ego.
She is married, has grown children, as well as a cat who keeps the local dragons under control. Jeanette loves to read, quilt, and trav
el by unicorn, or on dragonback
.

Discover other titles by Jeanette Cottrell at

www.jeanettecottrell.com