Authors: Ruth Ann Hixson
Jan explained, "Lisa, Elena has tried to kill her at least three times. She's lost her job through no fault of her own. And now her mother has wrecked whatever she had left. She already crashed once. We aren't going to stand by and let it happen again."
"By the way," Mark interposed. "Do not, under any circumstances, say anything about Elena to Sherry. She has enough to worry about right now. Elena's under house arrest with a GPS bracelet on her ankle. There is a restraining order against her. She is not to have any contact with Sherry. She has already broken that twice. One more time and she will go back to jail."
"I can just picture Elena in jail," Lisa said with a grin. "That will bring her down a peg or two."
"She's already been in jail twice," Frank said. "It didn't take Darryl long to get her out."
"I'm just glad she broke it off with Mark," Jan added. "I never liked her. Too smarmy."
Frank stood up. "Well, boys, ready to go to work?"
"I'll drive my own truck," Mark said. "I'll probably be staying."
"I want Lisa to stay here and help me clean up the kitchen. We'll be over then. I want to have a little mother-daughter talk." Jan began stacking the dirty plates.
Mark grabbed the key to Sherry's house on his way out the door. No lights showed through the windows as Mark drove in her driveway and parked next to his dad's truck. He headed to the front door. After ringing the doorbell several times he used the key. All was quiet when he stepped inside.
Frank followed him in and went straight to the light switch. "Now that we can see..."
Mark went to the den door. "Locked." He pounded on it. "Sherry, unlock this door or I'm going to break it down. Sherry!" He slammed his shoulder against the door.
"It'll take more than that," Frank reasoned. "I built this house real sturdy."
"Sherry!" Mark called again. He tried the shoulder bit again just as she opened the door. He stumbled and fell taking her down with him. "Oh, God, Sherry. Are you hurt?"
"If I'd known you were going to do this, I'd have put the mattress in the middle of the floor."
****
"You bring the guitar, Lisa," Jan told her daughter as they got out of Jan's black SUV in Sherry's driveway. "I'll get the sandwich I brought for her for supper."
The men had the pickup backed up to the dining room window facing the road and were nailing heavy gauge translucent plastic over it. "Sherry's in the kitchen eating soup," Frank informed them as they went past on their way to the front door. Frank stood on the truck bed holding a three-cell flashlight as Troy helped hold the strip that would keep the plastic from tearing loose in the wind. Mark held the strip with the heel of his hand as he held a nail between his thumb and index finger. He hit the nail to get it started and then drove it in with a single whack with the hammer.
"That's the quickest I've ever seen anyone drive in a nail," Troy commented.
"That's why he's the guy doing it," Frank responded.
Jan didn't bother with the doorbell at the front door. "Sherry," she called as she went through the archway to the dining room. "I brought you a surprise. Along with a sandwich for your supper."
Sherry stood up from where she sat at the end of the kitchen table. "I already know about Lisa. I met her boyfriend."
"In that case I brought you two surprises. Three. I got the remote to the other garage door from your mother's car. And I got something from the trunk." She stepped aside so Sherry could see Lisa with the guitar.
"My guitar! Oh, thank you! Thank you." Sherry's eyes misted over. Lisa set the guitar along the wall as Sherry rushed to hug her. Sherry stepped back to look up at the girl who had once been her best friend and playmate. "You grew
up
."
"Yeah, I did. I had rich soil and deep roots." She hugged Sherry again.
Sherry pulled back. "Careful. My broken ribs aren't all the way healed yet."
Lisa looked around the room and through the archway to the kitchen. "Your mother did all this?"
"Yup," was all Sherry said as she took the sandwich and went back to the kitchen to finish her soup from the small pan she heated it in.
Jan followed her with a pint jar of milk and a plastic container. "This is cherry cobbler. I put two pieces in because Mark will probably want one later. He often eats a snack in the evening."
"So, I hear you're sleeping with my brother." Lisa didn't come into the kitchen but stood in the archway.
Sherry's face went red. "He's sleeping with me. This is my house; my bed."
"Where do you want us to start?" Jan asked.
"I already cleaned the den and the living room. I'm going to start on the dining room next. I need to get the men to carry the daybed to the living room. And that red wicker table. She wrecked my plants and broke my lamp.
"Lisa and I can carry those things over. Frank and I carried it in. Lisa's a big strong girl."
Sherry just got up from eating when Mark came in through the breezeway carrying Mitzi. "I need some coffee." She bent down, picked up the broken carafe to the coffeemaker by its handle and held it out to him. "Have fun." She took Mitzi to the den and closed the door.
Mark removed the cup that held a used filter and grounds. He turned it over and tore off the doohickey that closed off the flow when the carafe was removed. He returned it to the coffeemaker, put in a filter and scooped in ground coffee. Sherry came back to the kitchen and stood watching him as he opened one of the deep drawers beneath the oven and took out a saucepan and ran water in it. Dumping the water in the reservoir, he set the saucepan under the filter and turned on the coffeemaker.
"Think you're smart, don't you, Mr. Blakely?" she commented.
He grinned. "I'm an engineer. If I can't figure out how to make coffee I don't deserve that degree."
Frank came to the door. "We're not finished yet, Mark."
"Just making coffee."
Frank looked at Mark's makeshift coffeemaker. "Yeah!"
"Now all I need to do is come up with some cups," Sherry said dryly. "Oh, by the way, Mark." She leaned down and carefully turned the apple pie right side up. She held it out to him with shards of broken glass sticking out of it. "I baked you an apple pie yesterday."
"It has two pieces taken out of it."
"We had them for dinner with vanilla ice cream," Frank remarked.
"Oh, the sorrow!" Mark feigned grief. "You had apple pie and I didn't get any."
Sherry picked up on the theatrical theme. "Don't worry, my love! There are more apples in the garage."
"You two are nuts!" Lisa said. "Bonkers."
"Back to work," Frank cut in. "Enough fooling around."
"Find some cups," Mark ordered as he went out the door.
"Finished with dining room." Jan pulled the big box into which they put the debris to the archway. "Who's going to carry this out to the truck?"
"Not me, that's for sure," Sherry answered. "I'm not supposed to lift heavy. Let the men do it."
"Watch you don't cut yourself," Jan warned as they began picking up the broken glass and china.
"Don't throw away anything that didn't break," Sherry ordered. "I don't have much left."
"I can give you some things. When I have time to do some fall housecleaning. Lisa can help me tomorrow."
"Oh, Mom! I didn't come home to work. I just wanted you to meet Troy."
"Everyone in this family shares in on the work." Jan picked up Sherry's favorite blue mug. "Here's one that didn't break."
"My favorite!" Sherry exclaimed.
Jan handed it to Lisa. "Read what it says on the other side."
"Teacher's Pet. Are you?" She looked at Sherry.
Sherry blushed. "I guess you can say that. I bought it because I liked the picture of the little girl."
Chapter 25
"Good morning, sunshine." Mark kissed Sherry awake. "It's past eight o'clock. We have to go get groceries."
She reached out to him. He pulled her into his arms. "Here comes another 'oral invasion'."
"Umm." She responded as his tongue probed her mouth giving as good as she got. When she began to unbutton his shirt he pulled away.
"We can do this later. Get up and get ready to go. You need to eat something." He stood up and reached down to pull her to her feet. "You look good as a blond. I made coffee. I also brought a pint of milk along over."
Sherry emptied the Cheerios box and poured milk over the cereal as Mark poured her a mug of coffee. As he sat down on the other chair, his cell rang. He took it out and looked at it to see who was calling. "Yeah, Dad?" He listened a bit, then said, "I'm going to take Sherry for groceries."
He listened again. "If you insist." He disconnected and looked at Sherry. "We have to postpone our shopping. I have to go help Dad."
"To do what?"
"He didn't say. He just said he needed my help. Lisa and Troy went to town to see her best friend. I guess she wants to show off her boyfriend. I shouldn't be gone more than an hour."
"Fine. If that's more important than I am."
"It's not more important than you," he argued. "It won't take that long. Finish eating and get dressed. I'll be back before you know it."
"I'm going to take a shower." She left him in the kitchen without a goodbye kiss. He shrugged and went out when he heard the truck horn.
Sherry knew she was being demanding and unreasonable but she wanted Mark to herself that day. Her long shower put some warmth back in her body. Frank had turned the furnace back on the night before but the thermostat was set at sixty degrees.
The day was cloudy with a light drizzle falling.
A gray day for a gray mood
, she thought. She pulled on a pair of turquoise slacks that Angie Dale had given her and topped them with her white sweat shirt. Then she went downstairs to work on a shopping list. How she wished she had a refrigerator. Then she could shop for groceries properly.
When she finished her list, she took inventory of what she had left. Not much in the line of breakable things. She had her blue mug and a smoke gray individual casserole dish with a plastic cover. And a set of glasses that were on an upper shelf of the cabinet. Maybe she could get Mark to take her to the thrift store. He'd probably want to go to WalMart and buy new.
It was nine-thirty and Mark wasn't back yet. He didn't even tell her where he was going. That perturbed her, too. She went to the den to put wood on the fire but it was already out. Mitzi was curled up sleeping on her favorite chair.
Sherry wandered back to the kitchen. Not wanting to start any big jobs until after they went for groceries, she was at a loss of how to occupy herself. "I should go to the dollar store, too," she mused. But she didn't have her driver's license. She didn't have any money because her bank account was still frozen. She needed quarters so she could go to the Laundromat. The basket in the downstairs bathroom was full.
She was thinking about calling Mark on his cell phone when she heard the truck in the driveway but she couldn't see out because of the plastic that covered the windows. It sounded like the truck was right outside the kitchen window. She stepped out in the breezeway so she could see. Mark was up on the truck taking a blue tarp off a large rectangular something.
Frank opened the storm door and put the tab in place for it to stay open. She opened the inner door. Mark was using a hand truck to move a fridge to the back of the truck. "Open the kitchen door, too," he called.
She was beside herself with joy. Just what she'd been wishing for. As soon as they had it in the kitchen, she threw her arms around Frank. "Oh, thank you!"
He grinned down at her. "Don't thank me. Thank Mrs. Williams. She bought a new side-by-side and there's nothing wrong with this one so she gave it to you."
"Do I get a hug, too?" Mark asked. "I did most of the work." She threw her arms around his neck and kissed him.
"See you kids later," Frank said from the door. "I have work to do."
"Mrs. Williams even cleaned it up for you. All we have to do is fill it with food. Are you ready to go?"
"I want to go to the thrift store first."
"I can afford new," Mark reminded her.
"That is my decision to make," she retorted.
Chapter 26
"Sherry?"
"What do you want, Mom?"
"That's a fine way to greet your mother."
"What do you expect after what you did to my house? I have no reason to be nice to you."
After a period of silence Alison rejoined, "I guess I got a little carried away. I got mad when you weren't home."
"Try enraged, Mom. Mad might be a broken glass or two. You wrecked my entire house. You broke my windows."
"I'm sorry, baby. I'll make it up to you."
"You're darn right you will."
"You have to get me out of here. I'm going crazy. I can't stand to be shut up like this."
"You should have thought of that before you trashed my house, stole my identity and guitar and tried to steal part of my heritage. Part of your heritage, too. How do you think I feel about that?"
"There's a bail hearing tomorrow at ten. You could put up your property for my bail."
"Right, Mom. So you can run out on me and leave me holding the bag. Get real!"
"Baby, please. I'm your mother. Please get me out of here."
"Don't hold your breath."
Alison began crying. "Will you at least come to the hearing? Please don't abandon me," she begged.
"I can't come to the hearing. The cops have my driver's license. I have no money for gas because my bank account is frozen. You stole my checkbook."
"Please, Sherry. Don't leave me in here."
"I'll think about it, Mom. No promises."
"At least come to the hearing."
"If I can find a way. Goodbye, Mom." Sherry hung up. Then she sat down and cried. She could hear her mother's plaintive voice begging her to get her out of jail. "Why?" she cried. "Why should I feel like I owe her?"
Sherry got a can of cat food and fed Mitzi in the breezeway but she didn't leave the door open for the kitten to come back in. A look at the clock told her it was past six o'clock and already dark outside partly due to the rainy evening.