Summer of Joy (30 page)

Leigh must have been feeling the same way. When she showed up after lunch to see who was riding with her to the shower, she looked ready to explode with happiness. She gave Jocie a hug before she grabbed up Stephen Lee and headed up the stairs to see Jocie’s dad. Jocie started to say her dad didn’t like to be disturbed when he was working on his sermon, but Leigh was up the steps before Jocie could get the words out. From the sound of the laughter from her dad’s bedroom, he didn’t mind a bit Leigh disturbing him.

Things were going to be different around the Brookes’ house after next Saturday, but different in a good way. Leigh already felt like one of the family. Next week would just make that official, and Jocie couldn’t remember ever seeing her father smile so much. Even when he was complaining about all the fuss going on over the wedding, he was smiling. Happy was good. Jocie liked happy.

She was going to be especially happy after next Tuesday when school was finally over for the summer and she no longer had to spend an hour a day in Mr. Creep’s class. He’d head back to Neptune and she’d say a thank-you prayer as she erased all memory of him from her mind. Wes said some people were just past understanding and that there wasn’t any reason straining a body’s brain trying to figure them out. That if a person wanted to strain his brain, he should read Plato or study calculus.

Leigh had warned Jocie the night before that Leigh’s parents sort of fit in that category—the past-understanding category—but that she hoped Jocie would try to like them anyway. She’d said that Jocie didn’t have to worry about them wanting to be her grandparents or anything. That they probably wouldn’t drive to Hollyhill to visit more than once or twice a year, if that.

“I’ll be lucky to get them here for the rehearsal dinner and the wedding. I guess I shouldn’t have asked them to come to the shower, but the people out at the church kept saying they had to come.” Leigh had looked worried.

“I’ll be good,” Jocie told her. “I promise.”

“I wasn’t worried about you being good. I was worried about them being good,” Leigh said with a sigh. “But you know, you can’t make the whole world be happy and get along, can you?”

“Nope,” Jocie agreed. “But we can pray about it. I’ll do a happy-mom-and-pop prayer for you.”

“My mother and dad happy? That would surely be a miracle,” Leigh muttered. Then she laughed. “But then again, look at me. Last year this time I would have said it would take a miracle for me to be getting married to such a wonderful man. And I am. Oh truly, I am.” Leigh had grabbed hold of Jocie and spun her in a circle. Joy sparkles had practically exploded off her.

Leigh was happy. Jocie’s father was happy. Tabitha was happy now that she had Robert writing her love notes. Stephen Lee was always happy as long as he got his bottle and a cookie now and again. Even Aunt Love was happy these days. Sometimes Jocie went in to talk to Zella just to get her frowning and fussing. It made Jocie feel better to know she wasn’t the only one who couldn’t hang on to happiness every minute of the day. But after Tuesday, maybe Jocie could do a better job of it. No school. No Mr. Teacher Creep.

When there was a knock on the door, Jocie figured it must be Leigh’s parents showing up early to check out where Leigh would be living after next week. Jocie whispered her happy-mom-and-pop prayer and hurried to the door. It might not help with the happiness department if Zeb came around the house and started barking at them. Zeb’s barks could practically shatter a person’s eardrums.

Jocie pulled open the door. It wasn’t Leigh’s parents. She stared at the woman standing there on the porch with a half smile on her face and knew her at once—she was much slimmer and older than in the photo that had sat on the piano up until her dad had got engaged to Leigh. Then Aunt Love had put it away in a closet somewhere.

The woman, her mother, DeeDee, smiled a little more and opened her mouth to say something. Jocie slammed the door shut in her face. Jocie stood there and stared at the door and remembered her father’s sermon a few weeks ago about the Bible story of how the angel led Peter out of jail, and then when he knocked on the door where all the followers were praying for him to be released, the servant girl thought he was a ghost and shut the door in his face. His sermon had been about how sometimes people didn’t expect the Lord to answer their prayers.

But this was different. DeeDee standing on the porch wasn’t an answer to prayer. Not now. Not today with the wedding shower hours away. More a reason for prayer.

Jocie stared at the door and waited. She wasn’t sure for what. Divine inspiration perhaps. Her father’s and Leigh’s voices drifted down from the room upstairs, mixed in with Stephen Lee’s happy squeals. Tabitha was singing as she got ready upstairs. Aunt Love was banging pans in the kitchen. Jocie was hoping DeeDee was disappearing off the porch. Going back to her car. Driving back to California.

Funny. For years Jocie had hoped to open the door and see her mother and Tabitha standing there. She’d wanted a mother desperately. A mother who would brush Jocie’s hair and make cupcakes for her school parties and laugh at her silly songs.

It had never happened, and slowly over the years she’d realized it would never happen. Finally after Tabitha had come home, Jocie had quit even wanting it to happen. She had Wes to laugh with her. They didn’t have class parties at high school so she didn’t need cupcakes anymore. She could brush her own hair. She had her father to love her. But now it had happened. Her mother was standing on the other side of the door.

There was another knock. Louder this time. Determined. Aunt Love stopped rattling pans and came to the kitchen door to peer out at Jocie staring at the door. Another knock. Aunt Love frowned and said, “Well, gracious sakes, Jocelyn, can’t you hear that knocking? Somebody’s at the door. Open it up and see who it is.”

Jocie glanced over her shoulder at Aunt Love. “I know who it is. It’s DeeDee.”

Aunt Love’s frown got deeper, but Jocie didn’t wait for her to say anything. She just reached over and pulled open the door again.

Her mother was still smiling. Not a big smile. Not a particularly happy smile. More a whatever-happens-keep-on-smiling type smile. “Hello,” Jocie said.

“Are you Jocie?” her mother asked.

“I am.”

“I’m—”

Jocie jumped in front of her words before she could say she was Jocie’s mother. She wasn’t her mother. She didn’t have a mother. Had never had a mother. “I know who you are. You’re DeeDee.”

“Yes,” her mother said, the smile still firmly on her face. “I thought you might not recognize me. May I come in?”

“It’s not really a good time,” Jocie said.

Behind Jocie, Aunt Love was whispering a Bible verse. “ ‘I will have mercy on her that had not obtained mercy.’” But Jocie wasn’t feeling merciful. Just worried that DeeDee showing up at the door was going to ruin everything. Make the happiness in their house drain away.

DeeDee put her hand flat against the door to keep Jocie from shutting it. “I drove all the way from California.”

“Why?”

“Because I wanted to.” DeeDee’s smile got a bit larger. “Is your father here? And Tabitha?” DeeDee’s eyes pushed past her to search the room behind Jocie.

Aunt Love stepped up beside Jocie and took hold of the door and pulled it open wider. “Of course you can come in. You must be tired from your trip. Can I get you a glass of tea? Maybe something to eat?”

“The tea would be nice. You’re Lovella, Mae’s sister, aren’t you?”

“That’s right,” Aunt Love said.

“You look different,” DeeDee said.

“I am different. It’s been a lot of years since you saw me,” Aunt Love said.

“It’s more than just being older. You look changed.” DeeDee studied Aunt Love for a moment before she went on. “Maybe it’s the smile. I never remember you looking happy.”

“‘This is the Lord’s doing; it is marvelous in our eyes.’”

“Scripture, I suppose. I do remember that about you. How you quoted Scripture at me whenever you came around.”

“You just laughed at me,” Aunt Love said.

“Did I? Oh well, I probably laughed at everybody then. Things aren’t so funny these days.”

“I’ll get your tea. Please sit down.” Aunt Love headed toward the kitchen before Jocie could offer to go instead and escape standing there alone with her mother.

Then her father and Leigh still holding Stephen Lee came out of her father’s room to look down at them from the top of the stairs. Her father’s smile disappeared, and just as Jocie had feared, the happiness seemed to drain away with his smile. Leigh looked puzzled, then worried. Jocie had no idea what to say or do. Neither from all appearances did her father.

Tabitha pushed past them and came running down the steps. “DeeDee! Is that really you? I heard your voice, but I couldn’t believe you were really here. Oh my gosh! Why didn’t you write and tell me you were coming?” She grabbed her mother in a hug. “Did you see Stephen Lee? He is so precious. You won’t believe.”

36

L
eigh watched Tabitha embrace her mother and felt as if the house was collapsing around her. Her hopes and dreams were crystallizing in her mind and then shattering into a million pieces. Had the Lord just been playing a game with her, letting her get her hopes up, only to bring David’s first wife, his first love, home to show Leigh how foolish she’d been? Thinking a man like David could love her. Imagining being married to such a man. Even dreaming of having his babies.

Tabitha ran back up the stairs and grabbed Stephen Lee out of Leigh’s arms. The baby laughed when Tabitha bounced back down the stairs with him.

Leigh struggled desperately to hold on to her smile as she looked at David who was staring down at the woman at the bottom of the stairs. He looked stunned. Stunned by her return to his house. Stunned by her beauty.

Leigh made herself look at the woman again. She was reaching long, graceful arms for Stephen Lee and the baby was reaching for her. Stephen Lee loved everybody and was used to being passed around at church. Still, Leigh felt somehow betrayed by the smile the baby was bestowing on this woman, this person who was really his Grams. Not just a pretender the way Leigh was.

Adrienne didn’t look like a grandmother. She didn’t look all that much different than she’d looked in the picture that used to sit on David’s piano. Leigh looked at the piano. The picture wasn’t there now. But the woman was. She was still beautiful. Exotic almost. And very, very slim. Suddenly Leigh felt like a cow. An awkward, stupid cow. She wished she were closer to the door so she could just slip outside and drive away.

“What in the name of heaven is she doing here?” David said.

Leigh wasn’t sure if he was talking to himself or to her. She didn’t have an answer anyway. Not a good answer. But she found her voice and said, “I don’t know. Maybe you should ask her.”

David looked over at Leigh almost as if he had forgotten she was there. Then his face softened as he said, “It’s okay, Leigh. Everything will be okay.”

“Okay,” Leigh repeated.

“Adrienne always did have an almost uncanny sense of timing,” David muttered as he moved past Leigh to head down the stairs.

Leigh followed him down. What else could she do? She couldn’t just stay there at the top of the stairs watching the family reunion. Halfway down the stairs, Leigh looked over at Jocie. She looked as confused and unsure of herself as Leigh felt.

David could hardly believe Adrienne was standing there in his living room. He had long given up her ever returning to Hollyhill. He wasn’t happy to see her there now. She would have a reason for coming. And whatever that reason was, it would mean trouble for him. He didn’t want trouble this week. He wanted to simply rejoice in the gift of love the Lord had presented to him and feel joyful as the days passed until his wedding next week. It would have been better if his past had stayed on the other side of the country.

“Hello, David,” Adrienne said as she swept her eyes up and down him. “You’re looking good. Very good.”

“Thank you. So are you,” he said.

“You never were a good liar,” she said.

He let that pass. Truth was, she didn’t look good. She was too pale. Nothing but skin and bones. She looked sick. Was that the reason she’d come home? To find someone to take care of her? He mentally shook his head. This wasn’t her home. She’d deserted it years ago. She couldn’t just show up and decide it was home again. She
wouldn’t
just show up and decide it was home again. Not Adrienne.

“Jocie says I’ve come at a bad time,” Adrienne said with that smile he’d once so dreaded seeing on her face. The smile that meant she was glad to be causing him problems.

“A busy time,” David said. “We have a wedding shower out at the church in a couple of hours.”

“A shower? Who’s getting married?”

Before David could answer her, Jocie jumped in. “Dad’s getting married. Next Saturday.”

Adrienne didn’t look at Jocie but kept her eyes on David. “You? You’re getting married again?” She let out a laugh. “Oh, this is too much. After all these years and then I show up just in time to wish you well. Or perhaps not to wish you well. Who’s the lucky lady? Anybody I know?”