“You’re changing the subject again.”
I brought the filled mugs over to our bed and smiled at my husband. “But this time not on purpose.”
Samuel reached to take the mugs from me so I could better maneuver into the bed. “Aha.” He winked. “I knew it.”
I’d settled back in and took the first hallelujah sip of coffee. “Back to the deadline, Samuel. You really are making it difficult for me to follow you this morning.”
“A deadline, yes. I think we should give them until the first of April to find a house.”
“That’s nearly another whole month.” I frowned, then grinned at Samuel. “I was thinking more along the lines of next weekend. I know people who have found houses to buy in far less time.”
“Compromise, then. Two weeks. Today’s the 4th; we’ll give them to the 18th. The shower is a week after that, and you’ll need every bit of your sanity to be both mother of the bride and be a part of
the catering team.”
I took another sip of coffee. “I need to talk to Lisa Leann about that. I really can’t do both.”
“I should say not.” Samuel took a long swallow from his mug, then leaned his head back and closed his eyes as though savoring both the thought of our home in less disarray than it was now and the delicious flavor of Chock Full o’Nuts. When he opened them
again he said, “Next: I’m going back to work.”
I felt a surge of joy so strong my headache all but disappeared. “What? When? Are you sure you’re ready? Have you talked to the
doctor about this?”
Samuel chuckled. “Take a breath, Liz. I know I’ve been underfoot—”
“That’s not your fault, Samuel. You were hurt and—”
“Oh, don’t try to soften it, now.”
I felt myself blush. “It’s not that I haven’t cared.”
Samuel leaned over and nuzzled my neck, sending shivers from my nose to my toes. “I know,” he whispered. “But you’re pretty sick
of me being here, aren’t you?”
I tilted my head toward his, encouraging the sign of affection to continue. “Samuel,” I whispered back. Then, realizing where the nuzzling was heading, “Are you sure you’re well enough? For this?”
Samuel leaned back, slipped the coffee mug from my hands, and then placed it along with his on the bedside table beside me. He pulled me into his arms then and drew me back down into the bed, teasing me with nothing more than the twinkle in his eyes. He peered over me. “Doctor’s orders. Which you would have known if you’d been home last night.”
I laughed out loud. “Oh, shame on me.”
Later, as I took a long, hot shower, I made two vows. One: to stop leaving home in the evenings to drink my cares away, even if only with a single glass of wine. I reckoned with myself that even though, yes, Jesus did drink wine, it simply wasn’t for me. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have such a headache on the mornings after nor would I be lying to the people I love most.
Two: to visit my mother before heading over to Lisa Leann’s shop for whatever crisis had arisen since the day before.
I pulled into the parking lot of the Good Samaritan an hour or so later. Glancing at my watch as I exited my SUV, I reasoned that I’d have at least another hour with Mom before I’d have to leave. I only hoped that it would be enough time for her. As things were going, it was plenty for me.
I entered the building and then took the elevator up to Mom’s apartment. When I knocked on the door she didn’t answer right away, and when she did I saw to my horror that her hair was disheveled— pressed against one side of her head and sticking straight out on the other—and that she wasn’t yet dressed for the day. “Mom?” I stepped over the threshold. “Are you okay?”
“I can’t get Papa on the phone.”
I closed the door behind me, thinking that it was going to be one of those days. “Mom, let’s get you dressed.” I turned her toward the bedroom door.
“I’ve called and called and called, and he just doesn’t answer.”
I kept my hands on her shoulders as I guided her into her room. I helped her to sit on the unmade bed, then shivered. “Mom, do you have your heat on at all?” I asked, searching for the thermostat.
“Papa works at the gas company, you know,” she mumbled after me as I stepped back into the entryway. The thermostat was to the left of the kitchen door. A quick look told me it had been turned down to 50.
“Mom, who turned your heat down?” I called out, turning the dial to 70.
“But today is Saturday, isn’t it?”
I went back into the bedroom and saw that she was now taking off her gown, a floral flannel with snaps from the collar to the hem. “Mom, what are you doing? Let me get your clothes before you start taking off your gown. You’ll catch pneumonia in this meat locker.”
“Papa likes to go hiking on Saturdays.” She was pulling the gown from her shoulders. Of course I’ve seen my mother’s naked body before, but this was too much for the first five minutes of my visit.
I pulled the gown back over her shoulders and snapped the top button, then looked her in the eye. “Mom! Stop. Let me get you some clothes before you start taking your gown off.”
Mom blinked a few times. “Lizzie, when did you get here?”
I sighed, then wrapped Mom in my arms for a quick hug. “Just a minute ago.” I stepped toward the closet. “What do you want to wear today?”
Mom laughed lightly. “Oh, whatever you choose. I’m not too picky.”
“Since when?” I asked in jest. I pulled a pair of gray wool slacks and a cream-colored turtleneck from the closet. “How about this?”
“It’ll do.” I wasn’t sure if she was being playful or obnoxious.
I brought the clothes over to her, then helped her in the task of undressing, then dressing again. I went into the bathroom and retrieved her comb and brush, then came back and worked a bit on her hair.
She glanced over at her bedside large-numbered digital clock. “What time is it? Surely it’s not as late as that.”
“I’m afraid it is,” I said, gently tugging at her hair with a small curling brush. “You’ve slept nearly half the day away.”
She sighed. “I wonder sometimes, what’s the point of getting up these days?”
I stopped in my brushing and felt my eyes fill with tears.
Will this be me someday? Would this be Michelle or Sissy, brushing my tangled mess of hair, helping me to get dressed? “Now, Mom.”
Mom turned her head just enough to look up at me. “You don’t know,” she said. “You don’t know.”
I looked deeply into her eyes for a moment, then smiled at her. “Do you remember when you used to make those scrumptious apple rolls for breakfast?”
Mom turned to look forward. “Your father loved those things more than he loved me, I’d bet you,” she said. This time I knew she was teasing. My father had nearly worshipped the ground Mom walked on, and she’d adored him equally in return. “Of course I remember them. I’d as soon forget my sweet Horace before I’d forget those apple rolls. I’ll bet I made them three or four times a week.”
“You made them every Saturday.” I started brushing her hair again. “And only on Saturdays. They were our special treat.”
Mom chuckled before saying, “I made them for you and your brother every Saturday. For your father, I made them three or four times a week.”
I sat next to Mom and dropped my hands in my lap. “Are you serious?”
Mom smiled at me. “Your father and I had a very special relationship,” she said. “We kept secrets you children never knew about.”
“Like what?” I was suddenly very curious about what private relationship my parents had had, even thinking to the passion that— after all these years of marriage—Samuel and I had, though our children were, no doubt, very unaware of it.
“Like none of your business,” Mom replied tartly. “We kept our secrets and I’ll continue to keep them.”
I remembered the teddy Luke Nelson had informed me Mom had “ordered” from the schoolgirl, Kimberly. But, before I would allow my mind to go there, I said, “I understand.” I kissed her on her cheek.
“What I wouldn’t give for some of those apple rolls. With your father, of course.”
“Mmm . . . I was saying to Samuel this morning that I wished I had some to eat with our coffee. I haven’t made them in ages, and I’m not even sure I’d remember how.”
“Do you remember the secret ingredient?” Mom asked me, taking the brush and comb from my hand and walking toward the bathroom with them.
“Secret ingredient?” I rose, following behind her, then resting my shoulder on the door facing. “What secret ingredient?”
Mom paused at the vanity, then set the brush and comb on the countertop. I watched in the mirror as her face grew pensive, and when she looked back up at me in the reflection, I noticed her eyes had filled with misty tears. She swallowed hard. “I don’t know, Lizzie.” The tears spilled from the corners of her eyes. “Oh, Lizzie. I just don’t know!”
My new husband was fit to be tied.
“What do you mean you have a meeting today?”
I stood in the kitchen near the window that overlooked a snowcovered blanket where my spring garden would again soon be, pouring a cup of coffee for myself and another for Vernon. “Lisa Leann sounds like the world is coming to an end, Vernon. But whatever it is, it can’t take longer than an hour. And as fast as that little Texan talks, thirty minutes at best.”
Vernon was sitting at the head of the table. He was dressed in jeans and a black sweatshirt with “SVHS L&O” in bold gold lettering worn over a light gray tee whose collar peeked just over the neckline. I knew the sweatshirt had been a special gift from the Summit View High School Law & Order Club, something Vernon had helped form with the help of the principal, for students who were looking into law enforcement as a career goal. He was as adorable in that shirt as he’d been himself in high school and even cuter with his little-boy pout. “But I made sure I wasn’t working today, just so you and I could spend the day together. Seems to me that since we came back from our honeymoon, we’ve hardly said ‘boo’ to each other.”
I brought the cups of coffee to the table and sat next to him. “The club meets at one. I’ll be home by two. We have what’s left of the morning and then what’s left of the afternoon.” I smiled at him. “Not to mention the whole night long.”
Vernon pinked like a schoolboy, then continued whining his debate. “But the morning is nearly over, Evie-girl.”
We’d slept in. From my viewpoint—as a woman who has rarely slept in a single morning her whole life—it had been glorious. When we’d finally forced ourselves from the bedroom and into the kitchen, I found to my dismay the answering machine light blinking madly that I’d missed five calls and had five messages. Wouldn’t you know; they’d all been from Lisa Leann?
“Call me back immediately, Evangeline,” she said. “We have to talk.”
“Evangeline Vesey! Where are you?”
“Hello? It’s Saturday morning, 9:15. I need to talk to you. Where are you?”
“Evie. Lisa Leann. I’m going to drive over if I don’t hear from you soon.”
And the last call: “I’m giving you ten minutes, and then I’ll proceed to break down your door. It’s now nearly 10:00.” Pause. “Call me.”
I knew it was an emergency, or at least as close to one as a person can have when dealing with Lisa Leann. And, I had a sneaking suspicion that everything in her world was akin to a catastrophe.
“Where have you been?” she asked when I called her. “I called at 8:30 this morning and you’re just now calling me back?”
“We slept in.”
“Didn’t you hear the phone ring? How could you sleep through five phone calls?”
I had turned the ringer off our bedroom phone just so we could sleep late this morning and without interruption. When I told her this she merely said, “Oh.”
“What’s this great trauma about?”
“I’ll tell you when I see you. And believe me, it’s a big one.”
“Why can’t you tell me now?”
“Because I don’t intend to repeat myself five ways to Sunday.”
I had no idea what that little Southernism meant, but I could figure it out . . . with a cup of coffee . . . which I now sipped with Vernon at our kitchen table.
“I promise I’ll be back by two,” I said, patting Vernon’s hand that rested on the table. “If not, you have my permission to be mad at me for a whole five minutes.”
He smiled then. “I could never be mad at you for five minutes, Evie.”
I stood and began walking out of the room, pushing him a bit on his shoulders with my fingertips as I walked past. “Oh yes, you could.”
I arrived at Lisa Leann’s at ten till one, not wanting to be late. After all, the sooner we could get the show on the road, the sooner I’d be out and back with Vernon. When I’d left the house he promised me an afternoon and evening I’d not soon forget if I made it home by two. I vowed right then and there to leave the meeting by quarter till, no matter what.
On the way there I called Donna cell to cell, to see how she was doing on time.
“I’m practically there. What is all this about, anyway? Do you have any idea?”
“None whatsoever. But it had better be as big a calamity as she’s making it out to be, that’s all I have to say. Your father and I had big plans for our day together, and Lisa Leann has put a crimp in our style, so to speak.”
“Spare me the details.”
I could almost see her rolling her eyes, and for a tiny little moment, I felt a shiver of glee at the whole thing. Every so often watching Donna cringe was—quite honestly—worth the effort it took to see it happen.
Unfortunately, right then, I could only hear her exasperation.
“Oh, well,” I continued. “I’ll see you there in a few and we’ll find out just what this latest Texan tragedy is all about.”
“Whatever it is . . . it sounds like a . . . how would Lisa Leann put it? . . . A doozy.
”
I laughed. “You’ve certainly got her pegged.”
We said our good-byes, and within seconds I was turning onto Main Street, ever so careful in the fresh shroud of snow that had fallen during the morning. I wasn’t sure what Vernon had in mind for this afternoon, but it had best include a fireplace and a cup of hot cocoa if the man knew what was good for him. According to the weather forecast, we’d be lucky to hit 20 degrees by the day’s end. I shivered, even with my car’s heater going full blast and my coat wrapped tightly around me.