My mom listens even though she doesn’t seem too pleased that her feud with my dad is common knowledge. She opts not to respond to her though, and looks at Amelia. She says, “I’m Regina.”
Amelia, who’s all dolled-up in some kind of sixties throwback style, smiles brightly at my mom. “I’m Emmie’s cousin, Amelia. Welcome to Creek Water.”
I can tell my mom had not been expecting to be treated like an honored guest. It’s kind of throwing her off her game. So, instead of looking for a way to break free, she allows Emmie and Amelia to show her around.
I sneak off to look for my dad, hoping to give him warning that Hurricane Regina has arrived.
Chapter 46
I find Bertie in the basement. It’s dark, dank, and thoroughly creepy down here. I’m pretty sure that aside from giving tours, I won’t be spending any time within its depths. I finally locate my dad in one of the secret rooms, sitting on the dirt floor with his eyes closed. I say, “Dad, what are you doing down here?” but he doesn’t answer.
So, I shake his shoulder. “DAD!” I try shouting, but he doesn’t move. He must be meditating again, so I recite the lyrics from that Beatles song. Nothing.
After carefully weighing the pros and cons, I pull out my phone to ask my mom what to do. She answers right away with, “Where are you?”
“I’m in the basement. I found Dad, but I can’t get him to wake up.”
“Did you try the song?” she asks.
“Yeah, but he’s not responding to it.” I instruct, “I’ll meet you at the bottom of the steps.”
A few minutes later, my mom comes down the stairs. When she reaches the last one, she looks around for a minute. Then, stepping down, she kicks the dirt floor and says, “This is straight-up old-school.”
The dim bulb hanging overhead doesn’t allow for much light, but there’s enough that you can see the ancient furnace in the corner. “I don’t suppose they used this area for more than storage.” Then I shudder and add, “You know, unless they had a body they needed to bury or something.”
My mom releases a bark of laughter. “Lexi, are you afraid?”
“Aren’t you?” I demand.
She shakes her head. “No. This space feels honest to me. It’s not trying to hide what it is.”
“You’re wrong. I’ll show you what it’s hiding.” I take her through one large doorway before pointing to a much smaller one that’s no higher than three feet. I’m guessing the original owners put flour sacks or something against it when it was closed to hide its existence from curious eyes.
I indicate that she should crawl through the doorway and she declares, “I’ll get dirty.”
All I need to say is, “Dad’s in there,” before she’s on the ground moving. I tell her, “I left my flashlight app on. He’s in the corner.” The secret rooms don’t have any light switches that I’ve been able to find, not that I’ve looked too hard. The only reason I knew Bertie was in this room was because the hidden door was open.
I don’t hear anything as I’m sure the brick walls absorb a lot of the sound. “Mom, what’s going on in there?” I shout.
She peeks her head out of the doorway. “I’m not sure what to do to get him to wake up. Let’s get him out of here while I think about it.”
“How?” I demand but she doesn’t answer. Instead she goes back in. Within moments I see my dad’s feet pop out of the doorway. Regina instructs, “Pull him out.”
I pull while my mom pushes, and we eventually succeed in our task. Regina crawls out next and brushes the dirt off her pants as she stands up. Staring down at my dad, she says, “I tried the Beatles, and I tried a couple other things he’s used over the years, but nothing’s working.”
“Do you think he’s had a stroke or something?” I ask, genuinely fearful.
“I don’t think so,” she says. “He looks like he always does when he’s meditating.” She kneels down to take his pulse. “It’s slow but it’s there.”
I punch Beau’s number into my phone. When he answers, I demand, “Come to the basement right away.” I’m not sure what he can do, but we’ll need some muscle if we decide to carry Bertie anywhere.
I turn to my mom. “I don’t remember Dad being unresponsive when meditating before. What’s going on?”
“He started taking this self-hypnosis class so that he could tap into his inner creativity. It turns out he has a real knack for it. So much so that he’s had to program safe words so someone else could bring him out.” She points to her head and says, “He gets kind of lost up there.”
“Dad told me about that,” I reply. “But it sounds like it could be dangerous.”
“That’s why we have trigger words to bring him back.”
“He’s obviously programmed one no one knows about,” I say.
Regina shrugs. “Your father isn’t like everyone else, honey.” She says that almost admiringly, which makes me realize that her love for him still outweighs her anger.
Beau comes running down the stairs and asks, “What’s going on?”
I point to my dad. “We think he’s meditating, but we don’t know how to get him to snap out of it.”
“Why stop him? Why not wait until he comes to on his own?” Beau asks.
“You mean leave him down here?” That doesn’t sound very safe.
“What could happen?” he asks. “We’re all upstairs and from what I understand, we will be at least through lunch.” He suggests, “I have a blanket in my trunk. I can go out and get it in case you’re worried he’ll be too cold.”
My mom answers, “Let him get cold.” Then she steps over him and starts up the stairs.
Beau looks at me and states the obvious, “She’s pretty mad, huh?”
“You could say that. I’ve never seen her this upset with Bertie before and I don’t know what to do to fix it.”
“Why do you need to fix it?” he asks.
“Because if I hadn’t sent my dad those pictures, he would have never come, and he and my mom wouldn’t be fighting.”
Beau answers, “You didn’t force him to come. In fact, the way I see it, you’ve given him his creativity back. Didn’t you say he’d been in a slump?”
“Yeah, but I don’t want to cause any trouble between him and my mom.”
“Lexi, if there’s trouble, it was there before he came here. It’s not your doin’ and you can’t fix it for them. They’re grownups. Let them deal with it.”
I suppose Beau might be on to something, but I still feel obligated to do something. Although as long as my dad is unconscious, I can’t imagine what that is.
Chapter 47
Gracie and Lee come back with all manner of food. There are sandwiches and cookies, macaroni salad and chips. They set up a buffet on the kitchen counter.
As we gather around our lunch, Amelia announces that she has to go back to work. She takes a moment to tell my mom how happy she is that we’re all having dinner together tonight. After she leaves Regina leans in and whispers, “Why are they so determined that I join them for dinner?”
I smack her arm and say, “Mother, they’re my friends and they’re being nice. Why don’t you try it? I’m pretty sure it won’t kill you.”
She shoots me the hairy eyeball. The one I always get when she thinks I’m being impertinent. Then she picks up a paper plate and examines her choices.
While we’re sitting on the floor in the breakfast nook, Davis comes in.
He walks right over to my mom. “You must be Regina. I’m Beau’s brother Davis.”
My mom nods her head once like the queen she is and replies, “Nice to meet you.”
Without further ado, he reports to me, “I’ve been with Homer. It looks like most of the big repairs are cosmetic, with the exception of the electric. I was surprised to discover that the Benters replaced the plumbing with copper several years ago, so you’re all set there.”
“That’s great news. Isn’t it?” I ask him for reassurance.
“Great news.�
�
Apparently, that’s all I need to know because Davis plops down on the floor next to my mom and says, “I’m mighty pleased to meet you, ma’am. We think the world of your daughter down here.”
“Why?”
“Why what? Why am I pleased to meet you or why do we think so highly of Lexi?”
“Both,” she answers.
Davis doesn’t seem the least bit afraid of my mom, which is the reaction her outrageous behavior is intended to elicit. “Lexi is a friend of my cousins, and Emmie’s always had very good taste in folks. Not only is your daughter a lovely woman in her own right, but from what we’ve just discovered, our families go way back. We have a long-standing built-in bond between us. That has to mean somethin’.”
Regina finally pries her manners open and says, “I’m pleased to meet you too, Davis. Are you planning on helping Lexi fix up the place?”
“Yes, ma’am. We all are. We consider it a family project.”
I sneak a peek at my mom and can tell she isn’t sure what to make of this. She doesn’t know Emmie’s family from Adam, but they’re so warm and welcoming, they’re making it hard for her to be standoffish. Although, I’m sure she’s still distrustful.
Davis sits with us through the rest of our meal and doesn’t get up until Homer comes into the room. The building inspector says, “Everything looks to be in pretty decent order.”
“What about the roof?” I ask. I remember Beau warning me that it probably only had a couple years of life left and that a new one would cost a small fortune.
Homer says, “It was replaced ten years ago. You probably got another fifteen years or so on it.” So, that was just another thing Beau was making up to turn me off the idea of buying this house. If he hadn’t so recently changed his tune, I’d call him out on it.
Homer adds, “Tell Beau I’ll email him the whole report by the end of business today.”
As Homer walks out of the kitchen, who should come strolling through but my dad. He looks dazed and confused. I cannot believe that all the commotion didn’t bring him out of his trance earlier.
“Dad,” I say. “Mom’s here.”
Bertie looks down and sees my mom; a myriad of emotions cross his face, the predominant one being joy. Oblivious to his audience, he drops down next to her and pulls her in for a full-body hug. You can tell Regina wants to yell at him, but he doesn’t give her the opportunity. Instead he kisses her quickly and in a voice thick with emotion admits, “I’m so glad you’re here. Honey, something miraculous is happening, and it wouldn’t be right for it to happen without you.”
My mom finally pushes him off of her and admonishes, “Lambertos, what are you rambling about? I’m not here for anything miraculous. I’m here to find out what in the world is going on with you. How dare you pick up and leave without discussing it with me first?”
My dad doesn’t respond to her anger. Instead, he says, “I know what my series is going to be about and it’s going to be the most important thing I’ve ever done.”
“What?” she demands.
“You know I can’t talk about it until the first painting is done. You have to trust me.”
“I’m mad at you, Bertie. I don’t feel like trusting you,” she says.
Instead of apologizing to her again, he very uncharacteristically stands up for himself, and tells her, “I’m mad at you too, Regina.”
“What? Why?” she demands. “You’re the one who ran away from me. I didn’t leave you.”
He shakes his head. “You’ve kept me at arm’s length during our entire relationship.”
“What in the world are you talking about?” she demands.
He replies, “I’ve asked you to marry me thirty-four times. You’ve said no the same number of times.”
My mom scoffs. “I never said yes because I don’t believe in marriage.”
“But I do,” he replies. “It’s my understanding that relationships are about give and take. The way I see it, we’ve lived the last thirty-five years honoring your beliefs. I think it’s time for you to bend and spend the next thirty-five honoring mine.”
“Dammit, Bertie!” my mom yells. “I don’t need a piece of paper from the state of New York to tell me how much you mean to me.”
“That’s not what it’s about,” he says. “It’s about standing before God and man and pledging ourselves forever. That means something to me.”
My mom shakes her head. “You run out on me and then have the nerve to demand that I do something I don’t believe in? That takes balls, Bertie.”
“No,” he answers her. “I told you why I’m here. I’m here to create the most important work of my career. If you can’t understand that, then you don’t think very highly of what I do. If you can’t compromise your ideals to do something that matters to me, like I’ve done for you, then clearly our partnership is not an equal one. I’m tired of being the one to make the concessions.”
“What are you saying?” my mom demands.
“I’m saying that I love you, Regina Cohen. We’ve created a family together and it means more to me than anything in this world. I’m saying that if you don’t want to marry me, then I’m going to take that as a sign that you don’t love me as much as I love you and I’m going to walk away.”
My mom looks like she’s been punched in the gut. “Where did this come from?” she demands. “You’ve never spoken to me like this.”
Bertie leans in and gently kisses my mother on the lips. She doesn’t move an inch. He pulls back and says, “Before you decide, you’d better know that I’m through keeping my feelings to myself. I’m going to tell you exactly what’s on my mind from here on out.”
Regina snaps, “You’re not selling your case very well.”
He shakes his head. “It’s all of me or nothing, Regina. You’d better think about that.” Then he walks out of the room, leaving both Mom and me more than a bit shell-shocked. Something is very definitely going on with Bertie, and as far as I can see, those changes are for the better. Now we have to sit back and see how my mom is going to handle it. I don’t doubt that she loves my dad. I know she does. I’m just not sure she has what it takes to compromise to the degree he’s asking of her.
Chapter 48
My mother sits on the floor completely mute. I’m sure she never thought my dad would talk to her like that. That hasn’t been their dynamic. Normally, she’s the one telling everyone how it’s going to be, and we’ve let her.
I look up and see that Beau walked in at some point during Bertie’s speech. From the look on his face, I’m guessing he caught most of it.
I suggest, “Mom, why don’t we go find a nice hotel for you?” I’m guessing hell will freeze over before she goes over to my dad’s apartment now. I turn to Beau and ask, “Can you recommend one?”
He strides over to my mom and reaches his hand down to her. “I don’t think your mama needs a hotel,” he says.
“What do you think she needs? A park bench and a blanket?” I ask more than a little sarcastically.
“She needs family,” he announces, ignoring my tone. My mom silently stares at him, so he continues, “Come with me, ma’am. I’m gonna to take you over to meet Myrah and Clovis.” I scramble to my feet to join them, but Beau says, “I think your mama needs to go on her own. I’ll pick you up after I drop her off.”
I expect Regina to tear into Beau for being so presumptuous, and quite honestly I’m looking forward to the fireworks. I don’t appreciate his coming in here and trying to run the show when it’s not his show to run. But much to my surprise, my mom lets him help her up and even says, “I think that might be the ticket.”
I watch in shock as Beau and Regina leave the house together. What just happened?
I follow them out onto the front porch and see Bertie sitting on the front steps. My mom walks right past him without saying a word.
I sit down next to him. “Wow, that was quite a scene.”
“Damn straight,” he answers. “Don’t
follow in my footsteps, Lexi. When you find the person you want to spend your life with, make sure you let them know up front what matters to you. And if those things change, don’t stay quiet about it. You can’t grow together unless you communicate your feelings.”
“Did you really mean it when you said you’d walk away from Mom if she didn’t agree to marry you? That seems a bit drastic, don’t you think?”
“I love your mother enough to live with her forever the way things stand now. But I’m getting a little insecure in my old age, and I want a grand gesture. Marriage is the gesture I’m looking for.”
I’m glad my dad is standing up for what he wants, but I worry what will happen to him when my mom doesn’t give in to his demands. “What do you want to do now?” I ask.
“I’m going to walk back to the loft and get started painting,” he says.
“I’ll bring dinner.” I ask, “You in the mood for any particular textures?”
He thinks for a minute before saying, “Gooey. But not hot gooey, like melted cheese.”
“What would that be then?” I wonder out loud.
He shrugs. “I don’t know, but I don’t want it to be sticky, just gooey.” Then he stands up and announces, “Tell your mom that I’ve started and that I don’t want her interrupting my flow unless she’s ready to concede to my wishes.”
“Dad,” I caution, “you know this probably isn’t the best way to deal with her.” Especially as he’s never acted this way before, so she’s totally unprepared.
“Tough. Maybe it’s time she learns that this isn’t the best way to deal with me.” Then he speeds off down the sidewalk like he’s a magnet being pulled home.
Holy crap, talk about unexpected events. I’m not sure how everything is going to work out or even if it is. My parents are both in town and not speaking to each other, I’m buying a house and starting a new business, and I’m falling for a guy who may or may not be in a relationship with another woman.
I’m not sure what to do next. So, I decide to go back inside and spend some time visualizing myself in my new home. I should pick out what bedroom I want and which to renovate for guests. Instead, I pull a small pad of paper out of my purse and begin a list.
The Move (The Creek Water Series Book 2) Page 18