Can't Wait to Get to Heaven (28 page)

Easter at Elner’s

E
lner and everyone else in town were so happy she had made it home in time for Easter. And this Easter turned out to be one of the best ones ever. The entire family flew in to spend it with her. Dena and Gerry flew in from California, and Linda and Apple came in from St. Louis. As usual, the day before Easter, Elner and Luther dyed over two hundred fifty eggs, and by sunrise on Easter morning, the two were out in the yard hiding them. Elner walked around the yard with the golden egg and thought about where she might hide it.

Norma got up early and ran out to the cemetery to put flowers on her parents’ grave, and when she got back, they all headed over to Elner’s house. The Easter egg hunt always started around twelve, but this year people had arrived with their children even earlier, and everyone was waiting in the front yard at 11:45 ready to go. When it was time, Elner stood on the porch and rang the old school bell, and about eighty little children with baskets along with Polly, Louise’s forty-two-year-old daughter, ran screaming and running at breakneck speed through the yard, while the grown-ups sat in lawn chairs and watched them. Sonny the cat had to run up a tree before he was trampled to death by the rushing hordes, and he sat there very unhappy-looking for the next hour. Louise Franks and Elner watched Polly as she ran giggling from place to place, along with five-year-old Apple by her side. As it turned out, one of Tot’s grandchildren found the golden egg, but as usual, Polly Franks received the biggest prize, a large stuffed rabbit that Elner and Louise had picked out the week before. Later that afternoon, after all the children except little Apple and Polly had gone home, Macky and Gerry set up the big folding table out in the yard and they had their Easter dinner under the fig tree. Reverend Susie Hill was with them and said grace, and then they started passing out the food. Elner sat happy as a lark eating her food and drinking her big glass of iced tea. She turned to Dena and said, “You know, this is about one of the best Easters I remember, and if you think about it, I had my own little Easter already, didn’t I? I sort of rose up from the dead myself. And I’m mighty glad I did, I wouldn’t have missed this ham and these deviled eggs Louise brought over for anything.” She called out down the table, “I think they’re the best deviled eggs you ever made, Louise!”

Louise Franks laughed and said, “Elner, you say that every year.”

Elner said, “Well, then it must be true.”

Susie, the Weight Watchers leader, helped herself to a second helping of the sweet potatoes with the marshmallows on top, and added, “Everything here is delicious.”

Elner looked at the assortment of pies and cakes at the end of the table and said, “I can’t wait to hit the coconut cake and that lemon icebox pie, can you?”

“No,” confessed Susie, “me either.”

The next morning when Linda came to pick up Apple, who had spent Easter night with Elner, Sonny the cat was hiding under the couch, and couldn’t wait until she left. He was tired of being picked up and almost squeezed to death by the little girl. It wasn’t until they were on the plane flying home that Linda noticed something on her daughter’s hand. “What is that on your thumb?”

Apple proudly held it up. “Aunt Elner took my fingerprint. Did you know that nobody in the whole world has one just like it?”

Falling in Love Again

5:48
PM

A
unt Elner’s near-death experience had a profound and unexpected effect on Macky. Almost losing one person you love shines a bright spotlight on life, and suddenly strips you of everything but your real feelings. And after the close call with Aunt Elner, for the first time, Macky saw the true facts as clearly as if a fog had suddenly been lifted. He realized that what he had felt for Lois had never been real love. Not the deep-down-in-your-bones-and-marrow love he had for Norma. Lois had been an infatuation, an ego boost, a last grab at youth fantasy. Over the years Norma had become so much a part of him that he had almost forgotten that she was his whole life. What the hell had he been thinking, for one second to even seriously entertain the idea of going off with a stranger? He had come so dangerously close to wrecking his life. Some great act of fortune or luck or something had saved him. That afternoon Norma walked in the door, exactly as she had a thousand times, but this time he really saw her and she was as beautiful to him as she had been at eighteen.

“What are you looking at, Macky?” she said as she put the mail down on the hall table. “Are you sick?”

“No,” he said. “Have I told you lately that I adore you?”

She put her purse down. “What?”

“Did you know that you are more beautiful than you ever were?”

“Me?”

“Yes, you.”

Norma looked at herself in the mirror. “Me? How could you think that, with my gray roots and wrinkles and old tired saggy body, and now these red things on my nose? I’ve just fallen into a heap.”

“Maybe so, but you’re my heap, and you don’t look old to me.”

Norma said, “Well, don’t ever get your glasses changed, because you are obviously losing your eyesight, because I look just like the wreck of the hespers.”

He laughed. “What are hespers?”

“I don’t know, but that’s what I look like.”

“Well, you look like a million bucks to me, and I just want you to know that you are and always will be the only girl for me.”

She walked over and put her hand to his forehead. “Macky, you’re not sick are you? Is something wrong and you’re not telling me?”

“No.”

“Have you been to Dr. Halling behind my back?”

“No, I’ve never felt better in my life. How about we pretend it’s Sunday?”

“Sunday? Why…” Then it dawned on her what he meant. “Oh, for heaven’s sake, Macky, it’s only Tuesday.” And she looked back at him. “Do you really think I still look OK, or was that just a come-on?”

“Norma, of all the women in the world, to me you are the best-looking. And I can see fine, just like Aunt Elner says…all the way to the moon.”

Norma sat and stared at him for a moment, then said, “You know what?”

“What?”

“I think I just heard church bells…. Did you?”

“What?” Then it dawned on him what she meant. “Oh, yeah. I hear them.”

“Let me go and have my bath. Can you hold that thought for thirty minutes?”

“Barely, but I will.”

As he sat waiting, he thought, “Marriage. Isn’t it great? Each time you fall back in love with your wife, it gets better and better.”

As she sat in the tub, Norma was so relieved and happy. She knew Macky like the back of her hand, and she could tell by the way he looked at her that he was finally once and for all over that Lois. He thought that she hadn’t known about it, but she had.

The Letter

9:18
AM

A
few days after Easter, Elner went to the mailbox and pulled out a letter, postmarked Kansas City. She did not recognize the handwriting. She opened it, and read what was written.

Dear Mrs. Schrimfinkle,

I want to thank you for that mighty fine cake recipe you sent to my daughter. I enjoyed it to the highest.

Yours truly,

Mrs. Teresa McWilliams

Elner laughed at the way her named was spelled, and sat down and wrote her a note back.

Dear Mrs. McWilliams,

I am so happy you are enjoying the recipe. If you are ever over close to Elmwood Springs, please drop in and see me.

Sincerely,

Elner S.

A Surprise for Linda

6:31
PM

A
few months later, Linda Warren was making dinner for herself and Apple when the phone rang. She almost didn’t get it. When the phone rang at dinnertime, it was usually a telemarketer, but it kept ringing.

When she picked it up, a man’s voice asked, “Is this Linda Warren?”

“Yes?”

“Who works for AT&T?”

“Yes?”

“Oh, well, I don’t know if you remember me or not, it’s been a while, but I was one of your aunt’s doctors, Brian Lang the neurologist. I spoke to you when she was in the hospital?”

“Oh yes, of course.”

“How is she doing?”

“Just fine.”

“I hope you don’t mind me calling you like this, but I was just transferred to St. Louis, and…well, I wondered if I could take you to dinner or lunch…or something.”

“I see, well, I think that would be very nice.”

After they had set a date for that Friday night, she hung up and was strangely excited. Of course she had remembered him. She remembered thinking that he would be someone nice for Apple to get to know. He was one of the best-looking Chinese men she had ever seen. She wondered if he knew she had a Chinese daughter.

Of course he knew. Elner had told him. Besides, when he’d first met Linda, he’d thought she was one of the best-looking girls he had ever seen.

A daddy for Apple. What a happy thought.

He sat in the phone booth at the airport and thought, “I hope she likes me.”

She thought, “I liked him right away.”

He thought, “Maybe I’ll find out what area of town she lives in, and get an apartment nearby.”

She thought, “I need to lose three pounds before Friday.” It would be hard. It was already Thursday.

He thought, “I liked her right away.”

She thought, “Don’t get excited, it’s just dinner.”

He thought, “I’ve been looking so long, maybe she’s the one.” Maybe they were supposed to meet.

Someone knocked on the door of the phone booth.

“Are you finished?”

“Sorry,” he said, and he picked up his bag and walked out, thinking, “I could be just starting.” He looked around the St. Louis airport. It suddenly looked so nice. June was suddenly bursting out all over!

“Oh, dear,” he thought, “I am in trouble.”