by Annie Jones
Chapter Eight
“Ran away from home.” Sadie picked up the foil pan from tonight’s frozen lasagna.
Instinctively, she started to immerse it in the hot sudsy water she’d run in the sink to presoak the dishes. But she stopped just in time. The very reason she’d stocked her kitchen with convenience foods was to save herself the trouble of washing pots and pans. She should just throw the thing out.
Really.
Just chuck it in the trash.
Instead, she stood there at the counter contemplating it along with her father’s latest exploit. “Can you imagine that? Just up and running away from home at his age?”
Seated at the kitchen table, Ed rustled the pages of the Wileyville Guardian News. “Where Moonie is concerned, I can imagine just about anything.”
“Mom, tell me again what they call you down at the police station.” Ryan, with the cordless phone trapped between his cocked head and upraised shoulder, carried a precarious stack of dinner dishes to the sink.
“And on a lawn mower!” Sadie banged the used tinfoil pan down on the counter with a very disappointing thwonk.
Ed didn’t even look up. “You should have seen that coming when you took away his car.”
“Mom…Mom…what’s the thing the cops call you?” From his vantage point, towering almost a foot taller than her, Ryan easily capped his mother’s head with one splayed hand to hold her in place. “What’s the name that officer said they gave you? I want to tell Amy.”
“What you should tell Amy is goodbye.” Olivia gathered the salad bowl and bread tray from the table and headed for the breakfast bar. “Your turn to load the dishwasher tonight and I don’t want to get stuck with it.”
Ryan waggled his head, then pretended to flip a strand of long hair over his shoulder in a dead-on impersonation of his sister in full snit-fit mode.
“I saw what you did.” Olivia thunked the leftovers down. “Mo-o-om.”
“That’s ’Fraidy Sadie the Cemetery Lady to you, Miss Smart Mouth.” Sadie slipped away from her son, who repeated the loathsome nickname to the girl on the other end of the line and shared a big belly laugh with her.
Ed uncrossed his legs, then recrossed them the other way. He exchanged one section of the paper for another, then sipped down the last of his iced tea. All without a single upward glance.
Sadie snatched up the disposable pan again.
Ryan then told Amy he had to go and hung up. He was still grinning from ear to ear when he popped open the dishwasher and yanked the bottom rack out to begin loading. “’Fraidy Sadie the Cemetery Lady. I like it, Mom. Very cool.”
“I’m glad you approve. Here.” She slung the crusty foil casserole container into his midsection with a wicked but harmless whack, and smiled far too sweetly. “Wash this pan. And I mean really wash it, by hand.”
“But you’re supposed to throw these away,” he protested.
“Then I’ll throw it away clean.”
He opened his mouth to argue.
She narrowed her eyes and frowned.
He thrust the pan in the sink, turned his back on her and went to work scrubbing.
Olivia gave a minor wiggle of teenage triumph to see her brother taken to task and tackled her own chore with renewed cheerfulness, singing, “’Fraidy Sadie the…”
Sadie tensed. “Don’t finish that, please, Olivia.”
“If the nickname bothers you that much, honey, quit the job,” Ed muttered so low she wasn’t sure he’d meant her to hear him.
“If the…what?” She came around the table and stood, commanding his attention. “Isn’t that a bit like saying if your house is blue and you want it brown, burn it to the ground?”
“Just trying to be supportive.”
“Supportive?” She pulled her shoulders up. “By implying I’m not strong enough to stand up to the good old boys’ network, and at the first sign of them mocking me I should turn tail and run home?”
“Careful around those good old boys, Sadie.” Another page turned. “We’re going to need their good graces when the time comes to sell the pharmacy.”
Sell the pharmacy. Ed had talked about doing that for the last five years. All the while he steadfastly turned down even the chance to talk to any of the prospective buyers who came to town every six months or so.
“Ed, all I’m saying is…Ed?” Sadie clenched her teeth in frustration. “Ed, would you please look at me when I talk to you?”
“Can’t. Got these glasses perched just so on my nose. If I so much as hiccup, I won’t be able to read another word.”
She opened her mouth, then shut it again. Though the man couldn’t act more irritating if he tried, the plain truth was that he wasn’t trying. He just wanted to take a few minutes before he went down to close the store to leaf through the paper. And he looked so darling doing it, too, with his hair mussed up and those banged-up black reading glasses balanced on the end of his nose. How could she stay mad at him?
Sadie exhaled, leaned her forearms on the back of the nearest kitchen chair and shook her head. “I give up.”
“What? What’s wrong now?” He looked up at last, and true to his prediction, the glasses listed drunkenly to one side. “You want me to paint the house brown?”
“No, sweetheart.” She laughed. “I want…”
Well, that was the million-dollar question, wasn’t it? It had gone unanswered since that day when Mayor Furst had shown up on her doorstep and she started on this new, unknown path. What did she want? Until she could define it clearly, how could she ever hope to achieve it?
She ruffled her fingers through her hair, then folded her arms over her chest and gave it a stab. “I want everyone I love to just be happy.”
She smiled because she thought she should after saying something so trite, it had an empty ring even to her own ears.
No one in the room said anything.
“Except maybe Daddy,” she added, needing to fill the crackling quiet. “Maybe, just maybe, Daddy could stand to make himself a teeny bit less happy, especially if it meant the rest of us could have a day’s worth of peace.”
“I, for one, completely understand what Grandpa did.” Olivia tore off a piece of plastic wrap big enough to mummify the half a loaf of garlic bread left over from the meal. “In fact, I’d go so far as to call it a noble act of rebellion, the powerless individual struggling against his controllers to reclaim his legally recognized and totally fundamental right to drive.”
Sadie resisted the urge to take the bread from her child’s hands and do the job for her. “Thus spoke the girl who earned her license but lacked the foresight to earn any money to pay for a car or for the added expense to our insurance, which we told her we would not pay if she let her grades slip below a B average.”
“It’s not fair.” Olivia stared down at the wrap and the loaf.
Here we go. Hot-and-cold-running hissy fits or however Mary Tate had described it. For a second Sadie thought the girl would break into tears. And if she did, could Sadie hang tough and not rush to her and try to make it all better? She hoped so, but…
Luckily, or perhaps blessedly, Sadie never had to face that test.
Ed stood, cast his cattywampus glasses aside, then went to his daughter, putting a hand on Olivia’s back. “You knew the rules years ago. Don’t try crying foul to us now and hoping things will change.”
Her slender shoulders rose and fell, then her strawberry-blond hair shimmied as she raised up her chin and said, “I meant it’s unfair to Grandpa, taking away his car.”
“Yeah, well, your grandpa violated a few rules himself.” Ed glanced at Sadie and winked. “Like refusing to yield the right-of-way…to a four-story building.”
“Following too closely—” Sadie crossed her arms “—behind a four-story building.”
“And don’t forget the worst one of all.” Ryan swung around to face them, one sudsy finger thrust up in the air. “Denting up a classic, mint-condition Caddie.”
The
room went so still, Sadie could hear the soap bubbles drip from her son’s hand onto the creased leather of his athletic shoes.
“On a four-story building,” Ryan rushed to add.
Sadie laughed at her son’s pathetic joke and shook her head.
Olivia took the leftovers to the refrigerator.
“Shame about that car, though,” Ryan grumbled, turning back to his work.
“No kidding.” Even with her head in the refrigerator, the pout came out loud and clear in Olivia’s voice. “You know, he promised me I could have it someday.”
“No way!” Ryan flicked bubbles in his sister’s general direction. “That baby is mine. You wouldn’t have a clue how to take care of it.”
“That’s what mechanics are for.” She batted her eyes above the open fridge door. “All I have to do is drive it around and look great.”
“You are not insured to drive that car, young lady.” Ed labored to get his reading glasses balanced back in place again.
“Someday. I said someday.”
Without moving his head an inch, Ed delicately picked up the paper again as he said, “Let’s hope it’s someday in the far, far future.”
“Oh, Daddy, you have to stop thinking of me as a child.” Olivia slammed the refrigerator door.
The sound made Ed startle, which sent the glasses tumbling into his lap. “I say someday in the far future because neither of you will get that car until Grandpa Moonie dies.”
Die?
Her daddy? Sadie blinked. Why had Ed brought up such a ridiculous notion?
Olivia huffed out of the room.
“I give up.” Ed snatched up the glasses and tossed them onto the table along with the remnants of the unread paper. “Think I’ll head back down to the store.”
Sadie swallowed hard, and suddenly, without even realizing she’d intended to say anything at all, she blurted out, “I wish I knew how Daddy was doing at Hannah’s.”
Ed stood, his iced-tea glass in hand, and stretched. “Then go over and see.”
“And have her think I’m spying on her?” Sadie’s hand went to her throat. “Never!”
Ed went to the sink. “You wouldn’t be spying on her.”
“Yes, she would,” Ryan said, taking his father’s empty glass and dousing it in the sink.
“She would be checking in on him.” Ed spoke slowly, distinctly, the way they used to spell words around the kids when they were trying to keep a secret. “It’s not the same thing.”
“Speaking for those of us who have had Mom—” Ryan pulled his hands from the water, suds flying as he made quotation marks in the air “—‘check in’ on us when we weren’t doing anything but practicing a guitar piece with Amy, I say it stinks of spying.”
“Since you were ‘practicing’—” Ed’s large blunt fingers mimicked his son’s gesture “—with Amy on the front porch, with the light off, it’s fair to say that when your Mom checked on you, she had a good reason.”
“And if I checked on Daddy, I would have a reason,” Sadie told her son. Then she turned to Ed, her forehead scrunched down tight. “What would be my reason?”
“Well…you could…or maybe…” He stroked his chin, the lines around his eyes creasing deeply before his whole face lit and he said, “You know how your daddy loves chocolate-covered cherries?”
“Yes.”
“And how Hannah never has any sweets around because she’s always on a diet?”
“That’s true, she is. Ever since she married Payt, she’s always on a diet. In fact, she’s completely banned all candy from her home. Banned it. That skinny little—” Sadie wrangled to find the right description “—candy banner.”
“Well, we just got a fresh shipment in at the store today.”
“Pretty lame, Mom.” Ryan pulled the plug, and the water rushed down the drain in big gulps.
“Lame is in the eye of the beholder, son. My daddy likes chocolate-covered cherries, and there he is, stuck in a house with a woman who hasn’t let sugar-laden fatty snacks cross her lips or her threshold for five years.” She tried to look sincere, though not overmuch, as she didn’t want to give her son the impression she didn’t understand how thin a justification she’d chosen. “Can you imagine how that makes him feel?”
Ryan used the wad-the-tea-towel-up-in-a-ball method of drying his hands. Using that same level of attentiveness, he deadpanned, “If I say yes, can I go to my room?”
“Go.” Ed waved his son off. “And speaking of that, I think it’s time I headed out, as well.”
“Yes, you should go. I have to go, too. I’m a woman on a mission.”
“A spy mission,” Ryan called out from the hallway.
“A family mission,” Ed corrected, taking Sadie by the shoulders. “That is, it will be a family mission if you stop by and get April.”
Sadie winced. As if things hadn’t already been stretched to the limits between the sisters, to then have two of them show up on the third’s doorstep armed with nothing more than a box of chocolate-covered flimsy excuses? “I don’t think April and Daddy are talking yet.”
“All the more reason to do it.”
Sadie wanted to see her father. She wanted to see how Hannah and he were getting along. She wanted to know just what exactly happened between April and Moonie.
In the distance Ryan’s bedroom door slammed shut.
She wanted to keep the channels of communication open between her sisters and father.
Ed already had his lab coat in his hand, ready to go back to the store.
But most of all she wanted not to have to spend yet another night feeling lost and alone in her own home.
“Okay, I’ll do it. But don’t lock up the store until you hear from me, you got that, Ed?”
“Okay, but why?” he asked as he ushered her out their front door.
“Because if I drag April over to Hannah’s house to see Daddy unannounced, we may need emergency medical supplies before the evening is through.”
Chapter Nine
“You’re sure Ed suggested this?” April waited in Hannah’s driveway, her arms folded.
“Yes.” Sadie withdrew from the back seat of her sister’s tiny car the biggest box of chocolate-covered cherries that they stocked at the store. “For the last time, Ed came up with the whole idea.”
“He used to be such a reasonable man.” April shook her head. Her ponytail bobbed like a wagging finger to underscore her disbelief. “What happened?”
The car door fell shut. Sadie headed up the walk without a backward glance. “You didn’t have to come with me, you know.”
April, who had not spoken to Moonie since the day of his great escape, kept at Sadie’s heels. “Like I told you, I only came tonight out of loving compassion for Hannah and the desire to show support for and solidarity with her, as the one now responsible for the care of Daddy.”
“Uh-huh.” Sadie shot a look over her shoulder. “And?”
“And?” April blinked, her face pained like an innocent accused of high treason.
Sadie wasn’t buying it. She prodded again, “And?”
April opened her mouth, closed it, then winced. Then, her eyes alight, she indulged in a delightedly wicked grin. “And because, if Daddy has got up to anything untoward or audacious, I want to see it with my own two eyes and not give that baby sister of ours a chance to put her goody-two-shoes spin on things.”
“She can spin until she falls down drunk with dizziness, that won’t change the reality. We know Daddy can make life very difficult. I mean, after what he pulled at your house.”
“Nice try, but you won’t get any information out of me that way.”
“Fine.” With a gentle but well-placed shove, Sadie propelled her older sister onto the long, narrow porch. “Just ring the doorbell.”
“Me?” April’s eyes grew wide. “Uh-uh. I refuse to leave my fingerprints at the scene of a crime.”
“Which crime?” Sadie had to smile. “Us dropping in unannounced or Hannah str
angling us for doing it?”
“Oh, she won’t strangle us.”
“No?”
“Too easy to break a nail that way.” April crinkled up her nose. “She might, however, snatch those chocolates from your hands and crack them over your head.”
“The crime then being, what? Assault with a delicious weapon?”
“Don’t laugh.” April wagged one finger. “It could happen. Good thing you didn’t bring Daddy a sub sandwich. They’d have her for assault with a deli weapon.”
Sadie rolled her eyes but recovered from her aversion to the awful pun quickly enough to add, grinning, “Or a crocheted scarf—assault with a doily weapon.”
“Stop! I give up. I’ll ring the bell.” April depressed the lit button beside the wooden door with the leaded-glass panel in the center.
“Or a stuffed bear—assault with a teddy weapon.”
“Quit joking, will you? If Hannah opens the door and finds us snickering together, she’ll immediately assume we’ve cut her out of some family secret.”
“We’ll just tell her to be thankful we didn’t show up with a bicycle.”
April grimaced, then bit her lower lip. “Dare I ask?”
“Assault with a pedally weapon.”
April groaned, but that didn’t hide the fact that she did laugh at the horrible bit of wordplay. “Okay, now stop, I mean it. Someone’s coming, and we have to straighten up and stop—”
“Hello, ladies!” Payt flung the door open.
“—clowning around,” April managed to conclude despite her mouth hanging open in naked awe.
“How lovely of you to pay us a call.” Their brother-in-law stepped out onto the porch and greeted them with effortless and genteel aplomb. Not something one normally finds in a fair-haired, handsome doctor dressed in purple scrubs, green high-top sneakers and sporting a big red rubber ball on his nose.