by Beth Hoffman
As we headed out the front door and down the ramp, we approached Mr. Lamb sitting in a spot of sun. Though it was unseasonably warm for December, he had a stocking cap on his head and was wrapped in a blanket that looked like a dried-out cocoon. “Where you off to, Belle?” he asked in a quivery voice.
“My granddaughter and her beau are takin’ me on a birthday ride.”
Mr. Lamb perked up. “How young are you today?”
“Ninety-four!” Grammy proudly announced.
“Ahhh . . . you’re just a kid,” Mr. Lamb said with a chuckle. “I’ll be ninety-nine come March. You gonna have cake?”
“Yes. My granddaughter made chocolate. I’ll save you a piece,” Grammy said with a wave of her arthritic hand.
Down the walk and across the driveway we went, heading for the sun-dappled sidewalk. Grammy seemed tickled by Sam’s many questions about her life. With stunning detail she recounted what it was like to live off the land in the foothills of Kentucky and how by the age of fourteen she’d sold enough of her homemade jams, jellies, and bread at the side of the road to buy her mother a milking cow.
“Might seem hard to believe,” my grandmother said with a laugh, “but when I was a young girl, I drove the boys crazy. My pa used to chase ’em off our land with a scythe. Oh, you shoulda seen those boys run! When I was sixteen, a young man walked onto our property with a bouquet of wildflowers in his hand. When my pa saw him comin’, he did like always and grabbed his scythe. I’ll never forget how he stood in front the house, turning the scythe real slow so the sun sparkled on the blade. But that young man held his head high and just kept on walkin’ straight toward my pa. It was the bravest thing I’d ever seen! His name was Otto Forrester. A year later we were married, and it wasn’t too long before he and my pa were thick as thieves.”
Sam let out a hearty laugh while Grammy launched into another story. She was having so much fun that she kept asking if we could go farther, and by the time we arrived back at the nursing home, we had pushed her for well over an hour. My grandmother was so tired from all the talking and fresh air that she fell asleep before unwrapping her last gift. So I removed her hat and tucked a pillow behind her head, and then Sam and I quietly left the room.
I laced my arm through his as we walked down the corridor and out the door. While crossing the parking lot, we laughed about how animated and entertaining my grandmother had been.
“She’s a remarkable woman,” Sam said, opening the car door for me. “And a great storyteller.”
He held the door, but I didn’t get in. Instead I turned to face him.
The time had come.
“Sam, I haven’t told you everything. I have one last secret.”
His smile faltered ever so slightly. “You do?”
“Yes,” I said, looking down at my shoes. “And I can’t go any further in our relationship without telling you.”
There was no mistaking the concern in Sam’s voice when he said, “What is it, Teddi?”
Slowly, I raised my head and looked into his eyes. I was surprised how easily the words came. “I’m in love with you, Sam.”
Though I wasn’t certain, I thought he exhaled the slightest sigh of relief as he wrapped his arms around me and spoke into my ear. “I suspected as much, Theodora. But it’s nice to hear you say it. Real nice.”
We stood in the parking lot, making out like sex-crazed teenagers, and when I thought Sam might try to take things too far, he stepped back, held me at arm’s length, and smiled. Just then an elderly couple came walking across the parking lot holding hands, both of them dressed in their Sunday best. I was shocked when Sam called out to them, “Guess what? She loves me!”
And love Sam I did—fully and freely and without reservation. Even during those rare moments when I feared what would happen to me if we ever split up, I knew the flight into the crazy skies of love would always outweigh the uncertainty of days that didn’t yet belong to me.
Sam would often show up at my house with bags full of groceries. He’d ignite my old stove and cook something divine while I sat at the kitchen table sketching designs for trompe l’oeil commissions or compiling lists of supplies Albert and I needed for the shop.
In January I was in bed watching late-night TV when a dance competition came on. I watched the couples move in ways that left me mesmerized. I lay propped up on pillows, longing to learn the tango and the cha-cha, and I fell asleep fantasizing about Sam and me dancing across my moonlit patio. The next evening I asked him if he’d consider taking dance lessons with me, and though he claimed to have no sense of rhythm, he was a good sport, so we signed up for an eight-week Latin dance course for beginners. Neither one of us was very good, but we had tons of fun, and by the end of the fifth week we could do our own version of a steamy tango that ended with Sam driving us back to my house in a fevered rush. Then we’d race up the stairs and dive into bed.
I laughed when, after dance class one evening, Sam pushed back the bedsheet and moved sweat-dampened strands of my hair across the pillow. “Teddi, maybe we should just try doing a simple polka.”
“Why?”
“Because if this is what happens when we tango, what the hell will happen when we get to the paso doble? You’ll kill me.”
FORTY-TWO
MONDAY, APRIL 5, 1993
My bedroom drapes swelled in the warm breeze as I stepped out to the piazza. The morning air was saturated with the fragrance of spring, the birds were in full chorus, and my azaleas were popping with deep pink blooms. I breathed deeply, feeling alive and whole and, as my brother would have said, awake.
Leaving the French doors open, I dressed for work while making mental notes of the plants I wanted to add to my garden. I knew it would be a fun project for Sam and me to do together. I took my time walking to the shop, stopping to admire an arbor smothered in Confederate jasmine. As I turned the corner and walked down Wentworth, I saw a man hammering a sign into his lawn. I knew I’d be late for work when I read those two magic words: YARD SALE.
“Got a lot of stuff here,” the man said. “If you have any questions, just let me know. My name’s Stanley.”
“Thank you.”
I wandered past two card tables piled high with clothing and headed for a row of furniture that sat along a hedge. First in line was a green plaid sofa that was without a doubt the ugliest thing I’d ever seen in my entire life. Next was a pine dinette set followed by a giant console stereo. Beyond a cluster of metal file cabinets sat a small bedside chest. With its French styling and tapered legs, it was almost identical to the one I’d sold to Mr. Palmer over twenty years ago.
The memory of that day made me smile, and despite its poor condition, I decided to buy the old chest. I carried it to the front yard, where Stanley was sitting on the porch steps. “There’s no price tag on this piece,” I said, setting the chest down on the grass. “How much are you asking?”
He thought for a moment. “Thirty-five and it’s yours.”
“Thirty-five and you can keep it.”
Stanley eyed the chest. “I guess I’d take thirty.”
“I’ll pay fifteen.”
He looked from me to the small tin cash box sitting next to him. “Well, I was hopin’ to get more, but . . . all right.”
I gave him the cash, tossed my handbag over my shoulder, and lugged the chest all the way to the shop. When I walked into the workroom and set it down with a huff, Albert stopped what he was doing and furrowed his brow. “Where’d that piece of junk come from?”
“A yard sale. It used to be in a fine home until someone threw it out. Then someone else picked it out of the garbage and didn’t take care of it.”
“Who told you that?”
“The chest did—told me its whole story while I carried it to work.”
Albert screwed up his face. “Well, if the chest told you that story, I guarantee ain’t
none of it true. That chest,” he said, pointing a screwdriver at the cracked drawer, “is a liar.” And then he launched into the richest laughter I’d ever heard. I started laughing, too, and pretty soon we were both howling.
Albert was still laughing when he loosened a hinge from a cabinet door and shook his head. “Walking in here with a talkin’ chest. Lord, Teddi, the things you come up with.”
I smiled and went into the kitchen to make a pot of coffee. After checking out the front of the shop, I straightened a few paintings and polished a mirror. When I heard the coffeemaker stop gurgling, I walked to the kitchen and poured Albert a cup.
“Here you go,” I said, offering him the mug. “Guess I’d better get busy and—”
Albert took a sip and grimaced.
“What’s wrong?”
“If I drink any more of that, I’ll be seein’ through walls.”
“Well, some people like my coffee.”
He grumbled while I went into my office to call a delivery company. I was still on the phone when Inez came in. She hadn’t yet closed the door when Albert called out, “I sure hope you’re gonna make coffee, ’cause the stuff Teddi made could poison the devil!”
A few minutes later, I heard her rinsing the pot in the kitchen.
I had barely unlocked the front door when the bell began to ring and people walked in. By eleven o’clock I’d sold a nineteenth-century rocking horse, a pair of Chinese blue-and-white porcelain vases, and a French vitrine that I’d had for ages. When I brought the sales slips into Inez’s office, she let out a whoop. “You’re selling antiques like your pants are on fire. You keep this up and we’ll all be driving red convertibles!”
I gave her a wink and waltzed down the hall and into my office. Though I often thought of him, and always with great fondness, for some reason Mr. Palmer had been on my mind for the past few days. I still missed him and knew I always would.
While I sat at my desk and jotted down a few notes about what I needed to replenish my stock, I leaned back in my chair and whispered, “Mr. Palmer, things here are going just fine. And I hope, wherever you are, things are fine for you, too.”
Just as I stood to pull a catalog from the shelf behind my desk, the phone rang. A moment later Inez called out, “Teddi, for you on line one.”
I picked up the phone.
“Hey, Teddi, it’s Gabe.”
“Hi. I was thinking about you and Sally last night. How’s the construction going on the clinic?”
“Good. It should be up and running by June.”
“I can’t wait to see it, and—”
“Teddi, can you talk—I mean, privately?”
I pushed the door closed and sat at my desk. “Yes, why?”
“Early this morning I was up in the hayloft building a wall and thought I heard something. It’s Sally’s day off, so I figured it was her. When I called out, she didn’t answer. I put down the hammer and listened, but all I heard was the animals rooting around in their cages. About an hour later, I went to check on a mourning dove we’re rehabilitating. When I walked into the bird room, I swear all the hairs on my arms stood straight up. Someone had come into the barn, and whoever it was had put an eagle inside a cage. I kid you not, Teddi. A bald eagle.”
“Do you think it was one of the rangers?”
“No. Sally was in the kitchen and would have noticed if anyone had pulled in to the driveway. Just one look and I could see that the bird had a broken wing. I ran and got Sally, and we loaded the bird into a transport cage and drove into town. Doc Waters measured its bill depth and hallux length and confirmed that the eagle is a female. She’s a big girl, too. Her wingspan is eighty-two inches. X-rays showed that her humerus was broken—that’s the equivalent of a human’s forearm.”
“Will she be all right?”
“It’s too soon to tell, but I think so. She’s on pain meds right now, but once she’s stabilized, Sally and Doc will operate.”
The silence that followed was so hollow that I thought we’d been disconnected.
“Gabe?”
“I’m here. Teddi, what I’m going to tell you will sound really strange, but I swear it’s exactly what happened. When Sally and I got back from the vet’s, I went into the barn and started looking around. Nothing was out of place. I opened the back door, and there were dirty footprints on the stone step. They weren’t mine, and they weren’t Sally’s. Whoever came into the barn walked around the flight cage and entered through the back door. I looked around and found a few more footprints—one set was a lot bigger than the other. No question about it, they were definitely from two different people. I went back inside the bird room, and that’s when I saw something.”
“What?”
“A plastic container was shoved against the wall on the side of the cage where the eagle had been placed. Either it hadn’t been there when I discovered the eagle or it probably was but I just didn’t notice it. The container was dirty and looked old—it was about nine inches square.”
I pressed my hand over my heart and nearly strangled on my own words when I asked, “What was inside?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t open it because—”
“Can you open it now, while we’re talking?”
“No. The lid was sealed with several layers of duct tape. I mean, really sealed. It wasn’t until I turned on the overhead lights that I saw a name written on the tape. Well, not written exactly—it was carved into the tape, probably with the tip of a knife. There was no mistaking the name.”
Gabe paused for a moment, then lowered his voice when he said, “It was ‘Teddi.’”
Every vein in my body hummed as I rose from the chair. “I’m coming to get it. I’ll leave right—”
“I just sent it UPS to your shop. You’ll have it tomorrow afternoon. Here’s the tracking number.”
I was so shaken I could hardly write the number on my desk pad. “Gabe,” I said, putting down my pen and feeling dizzy, “do you . . . do you think it’s from Josh?”
“All I know is that something told me to get it to you as fast as possible. I’m sorry. Maybe I should have called you before I drove to town. But I thought—”
“It’s all right, Gabe. Really.” I rubbed my hand across my face. “You did the right thing.”
When we’d said good-bye, I stared at the tracking number, not knowing how in the name of God I’d get through the next twenty-four hours.
Arriving home at six-twenty with a throbbing headache and a tight jaw, I downed three aspirin. Even my shoulders burned with tension. When the phone rang at seven-thirty, I nearly jumped out of my skin.
“Hello.”
“Hey, darling. How was your day?”
“My day? Oh, my day was . . . it was fine.”
Clutching the phone close to my ear, I came close to telling Sam what had happened, but I changed my mind. It was difficult to keep my voice steady throughout our conversation, and twice he asked if I was all right. Claiming to be nothing more than “just awfully tired,” I left it at that. After making plans to have dinner together on Wednesday evening, we said good-bye.
Unable to eat or think straight, I curled up in bed with my arms wrapped around Eddie and watched the minutes tick by on the clock. At midnight I got up and cleaned the kitchen floor. At 12:45 I put a load of laundry into the washer and then ironed a stack of blouses. Finally growing tired at 1:40, I slipped back into bed and fell into a dreamless sleep, only to awaken at 4:30.
Memories of my brother flashed through my mind until I thought I might go mad. At five o’clock I got up and went down to the kitchen to make a cup of tea. With my robe wrapped tightly around me, I took my tea and went outside. While Eddie nosed around the flower beds, I paced from one side of the garden to the other. Then I sat on the chaise and rested my head against the pillow. It was damp with dew, but I didn’t care.
; As I lay wondering what the day might bring, I watched a lone crow move across the pale morning sky.
FORTY-THREE
TUESDAY, APRIL 6, 1993
The shop was filled with customers. Every time the bell above the door rang, my heart leaped. Throughout the day I paced, watching the front window for the UPS truck to pull to the curb.
At 3:40 a woman came in. She was a tourist from Mississippi who launched into a litany of questions about antiques. I tried to give her my full attention, but when the hands of my wristwatch moved to 3:55, I began inching toward the door with the hopes that she’d leave. At 4:05 she was still talking.
I wanted to set my hair on fire.
Finally she left, and I stood at the window and waited, so nervous that I could hardly keep my knees from buckling. When the hands of my watch moved to 4:40 and I thought I’d collapse from stress, the UPS truck roared to a stop at the curb. I charged out to the sidewalk, nearly mowing down a young couple walking their dog.
Tim, who’d driven this route for years, hopped off the truck and laughed when I all but ripped the package from his hands. “Must be important, huh, Teddi? Here, you’ve got to sign for it,” he said, giving me a pen.
I scribbled my name and clutched the package to my chest as I watched the truck pull away.
Though closing time was six o’clock, I grabbed my handbag and asked Inez to lock up. My nerves were so taught when I left the shop that my ears grew warm. I walked at a brisk pace, dodging a group of Citadel cadets and blasting by two elderly women strolling arm in arm. When I was halfway down Archdale Street, I slowed. Maybe I was savoring the last few moments of wonder, or perhaps I was simply exhausted by the long hours of anticipation. Whatever it was, I turned onto Queen Street and entered my home enveloped in an eerie kind of calm.
I set the box on the kitchen counter, gave Eddie a hug, and let him outside. From the window I watched him run around the backyard. Every few seconds I’d look over my shoulder at the package sitting on the counter, aching to open it, yet terrified to see what was inside.