“I-I’m sorry.”
“Maybe so, but that’s yo’ mama’s problem.” As she stalked to the front door, Beatrice aimed her nose high in the air and gave Evelyn a wide berth. “Don’t come back until you’ve learned some respect.” She latched the screen door and returned to stir her simmering pot.
——————
“Did you try to apologize?”
“Of course, Jackson.” Evelyn pulled the car into the garage and hit the remote.
“What made you say something so off the wall?”
Evelyn threw him the keys as he emerged from the car. “Just hush and open the door. At least she told me I could come back. That’s an improvement.”
“What’s an improvement?” Lis set down the cordless phone. She was sitting at the kitchen table in front of the newspaper’s Lifestyles section.
“Your cooking! What’s for dinner, Mama? You know a man’s hungry after work.”
“We’ll see. Go wash up,” she laughed as Jackson escaped to the opposite side of the house. “That was your sister on the phone, Evelyn. She says she’s been trying to reach you.”
“Yes, I owe her a call. We keep playing phone tag.” Thing was, Evelyn had been “it” a long time, but she didn’t share that with her mother as she set down her purse. “What are you doing here? It’s not like you to be home this early, reading the paper, taking phone calls.”
“Is it early?” Lis looked down at the thin Movado watch on her wrist. “Oh, I was expecting company. Don’t clutter my countertops, Evelyn.”
“Company?” Evelyn moved her purse to her designated wicker basket in the mudroom. There, she noticed a man’s pair of leather shoes. “Mama, is somebody here?” She returned to the kitchen and caught Lis massaging her temples above her closed eyes. Evelyn noted the lines of strain, the tight, pinched mouth. She hesitantly stretched out a hand.
Lis leaned forward, turning her head from side to side, and rubbed the back of her neck and shoulders.
Evelyn used her empty hand to open the nearest cabinet and retrieve the popcorn popper as her mother massaged aches and pains Evelyn couldn’t see. She set it on the counter and found the kernels. “What is it, Mama? Is it Granny B?”
“Yes. Well, no. It’s more like everybody but Mama.” Lis slumped down in her chair.
“Is Aunt Ruthena praying for locusts to eat us out of house and home?”
“Girl, watch your mouth!”
“What about Aunt Sarah?”
Mama opened her eyes. “Speaking of . . . you and Samuel have a lot in common now.”
“With Aunt Sarah’s husband? What would that be?”
“Teaching. Being unemployed.”
Her words had simultaneously hooked and rankled Evelyn. “Huh?”
“He left the hospital.”
“Left the—what do you mean?” Evelyn moved closer, drawn in by the tidbits of information, like crumbs dropped along a forest path. “Isn’t he, like, some head surgeon–doctor–emergency room expert? He’s going to teach at a medical school?”
“Actually, he’s leaving work period, at least for a while. He’s doing the househusband thing, you know, homeschooling the kids while Sarah goes to work. Edmond told me all about it. And it sounds like Edmond’s got a girlfriend—somebody named Carolina.”
“Well, that’s great. Uncle Edmond’s dating a woman named after a state. But what does this have to do with Aunt Sarah?”
“Nothing much. Just that he took this Carolina girl to see Sarah not long after he got out, and when he gets there, the house is all upside down.” She paused. “They’re leaving New York.”
“Uncle Edmond?” Evelyn’s head spun. She pulled out a chair and sat down at the table.
Lis dismissed her confusion with a wave of her hand, like it was Evelyn’s fault she couldn’t follow the story’s bobbing and weaving. “No, child. Sarah and her family.”
“What? Really? I thought she’d purchased a one-way ticket all those years ago.”
“Yes, they’re coming back home. He left his practice, said he needed to slow down and spend more time with her and the kids, write a book about his life in medicine . . . some nonsense. They feel like they can have a better quality of life down here. Of course, it would have been nice if they’d decided this before Mama . . .”
The sentence hung, orphaned, between them.
“Well, she’s coming now, I suppose.” Lis gazed into space.
“Aren’t you glad? It’ll be nice to have Sarah close by. Near Aunt Ruthena? In Spring Hope?”
Lis said nothing, at least not out loud.
“What is it? What are you not telling me?”
“I just imagine Sarah is going through some things right now.” Lis took a sip of her diet soda and shook her head.
“Ye-es, but I’m sure she’s working to keep it all together, what with the children and all.” Evelyn got up and found the canola oil. She plugged in the popper and poured a tablespoon of oil into the pan. The agitator started to turn.
“In a situation like this, children can be as much a complication as a blessing.”
As she slowly added the kernels, Evelyn weighed her words carefully to avoid hidden minefields buried in the sand of their conversation. “What complications? I thought Uncle Samuel’s purpose was to reduce the complications.” As the popping slowed, Evelyn turned off the pan and flipped it, focusing on the popcorn tumbling into the stainless steel bowl instead of her mama’s face.
“No, not now, now that he’s decided to throw away his successful big-city medical practice for a life as a country doctor.”
“I take it you don’t agree.” Evelyn poured melted butter onto the popcorn and sprinkled it with salt.
“Of course I agree. What’s to disagree with? A man voluntarily giving up his medical career for his wife and family? I don’t know anyone else who would do that. Especially when it’s his job that supports the family. And he’ll be homeschooling six kids at that. No, I don’t have anything to say but good . . . about Samuel.”
About Samuel. “What’s the point, Mama?” Evelyn plucked a kernel of popcorn. “Because if this is about Kevin and me—”
“Nobody’s said anything about you and Kevin—”
“—I don’t want to hear anything more about it,” Evelyn finished heatedly around a mouthful of popcorn.
“Listen, girl, don’t give me orders in my house, especially with your mouth full of food.” Mama rose.
“I’m not giving you orders, Mama, but . . . what? Do you think Kevin should quit his job?”
“Who said anything about you? Although you can learn a lesson from Sarah’s situation.”
“And what would I have to learn from this situation, Mama? Marry a doctor? Move to New York? It’s too late on both fronts.”
“Don’t get smart with me. You can start smelling yourself if you want to, but anybody will tell you it’s not smart to leave your husband for months at a time, with him traveling all around the world, meeting all kinds of women. With you thousands of miles away, just getting more and more pregnant by the minute.”
“Ooooohhh! I knew it! I just knew it wouldn’t last.”
“What wouldn’t last?”
“You. Us. This. You staying out of my business.”
“So it’s okay for you to ask me all about me and my mama and daddy and talk all about my sister’s business, but I can’t ask you about what’s going on in your house. That’s how it is?”
“No. You just shouldn’t talk about things you don’t know anything about.”
“I know quite a bit about it, young lady.” Her mama squatted down to pick up stray kernels. “And I’m not talking about Sarah. I’m talking about what I’ve learned from living, Evelyn, from being a woman, from being married for longer than two minutes, from having the sense God gave a cucumber.”
Since most of those points didn’t apply to her, Evelyn jumped on the one brick that did seem aimed at her glass house. “So are you saying I’m stupid for tr
usting my husband?”
“Yes, I am.”
“What?”
“Okay, misguided. First of all, you need to trust God, because man will fail you every time, you included. Nobody’s perfect. Only God exceeds our expectations. That being said, you should be with your husband, Evelyn. You know it. He needs to tend to you and this child of his. I don’t know why you refuse to go home, like you’re embarrassed or scared of something—”
Evelyn’s temper flared higher as Mama retrieved the partial stick of butter and returned it to the refrigerator. “First of all, there’s nobody for me to go home to. Remember my imperfect husband? He’s in Europe. And secondly, did you forget about what’s going on right here?”
Lis slammed the ceramic bowl on the counter. Popcorn flew. “Forget what? That my mama is dying? That my daddy’s already dead and gone? Or maybe you think I forgot about all my brothers and sisters and all their problems? Just what did I forget about, Evelyn?”
“Then you see why I should stay.”
“No, I don’t. You think your very presence wills Mama to live? To keep her one day, one second longer than the good Lord decides to? You know better.” She jabbed a finger on the countertop. “You’re here because you’ve got your own family crisis at home, and you think by hiding out here you can avoid it somehow. Well, you can’t.”
Evelyn tried to tug away her eyes, but Lis held on.
“You can’t, Evelyn. So you and your baby go home.”
“Yes, Evelyn, come home. Please.”
Evelyn gasped and turned toward the speaker, the person she dreaded yet longed to see. “Kevin!”
He stood there, barefoot, framed in the doorway leading from the back stairs. His eyes raked her face first, then moved down to take in the rest of her. His eyes widened.
Chapter Twenty-One
“WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE? Mama, what is Kevin doing here?”
“I suppose he came to see his wife.” Lis picked up the bowl and dropped it into the sink with a clang. She stepped over scattered popcorn as she left the kitchen. “I’ll finish cleaning up later. Jackson and I are eating out.”
And so they were alone, together.
Evelyn was too tired to run—what she really wanted to do—and too tired to fight. Her mama had drained whatever emotional and physical resources the growing baby hadn’t sapped. All she could do was endure his stare.
“So it’s true. You are pregnant.”
She crossed her arms over her belly, peering down at her feet. An incongruous thought popped into her head. How much longer will I be able to see my toes?
“Evelyn? I mean, we’re having a baby . . .”
“Why aren’t you wearing any shoes?”
“What?”
She pointed to his feet. “I saw your shoes when I first got home . . . Company. You’re the company Mama came home early for!” Evelyn turned her back to him as realization sank in.
“My shoes . . . ?” Kevin looked toward the mudroom as if he was trying to catch up with his wife’s train of thought chugging far and away from him.
“When did you get here, Kevin? You’ve been here awhile—long enough to take off your shoes, change clothes. And you said, ‘You are pregnant.’ Does that mean you already knew?”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa. Me first. I get my answers first. You don’t get to take the offensive here.”
“This isn’t a game we’re playing, Kevin. Defense, offense.”
“But you’re playing keep-away with my baby, Evelyn.”
“Your ba—?”
“Kevin? Hey, bro! I didn’t know you were here.” Jackson appeared out of nowhere and jogged over to his brother-in-law. “So glad to see you, man!” He grasped Kevin’s right hand and simultaneously embraced him with his left. After two big claps on the back, he backed up. Jackson’s head swiveled from one to the other. “What’s going on? Am I interrupting something big?”
“Um . . .”
“We’re just trying to catch up. Actually, we were heading out to the swing. Dude, okay if we catch up later?” Kevin grabbed her hand, waved “good-bye,” and dragged her out the back door.
“What are you doing?” Evelyn tried to pull her hand from his.
But Kevin held on more tightly, interlocking their fingers as he strode toward the swing mounted to the rafters of the side porch. Once there, he let go of her hand, only to wrap his arms around her and pull her close. He gently resisted her initial feeble efforts to brace her hands against his chest and push him away.
After a moment or two, Evelyn’s hands crept into his hair seemingly of their own volition, and she lowered his head to her shoulder. She closed her eyes and soaked in the woody scent of him, the feel of him against her.
Kevin’s shoulders shook as he cried. And it wasn’t long before she soaked his T-shirt with her own tears. They clung to each other.
After what felt like hours, Evelyn pushed him away. She reached into the pocket of her loose-fitting striped dress and withdrew the handkerchief she’d begun carrying. She dried her face and leaned against the rail. She felt Kevin stand behind her, and as much as she wanted to melt against him, she clung to the post for support.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
Evelyn felt his words tickle the tiny hairs on her nape. “I-I just couldn’t. If you knew, I couldn’t—”
“Leave me?” Kevin placed a large, warm hand on her shoulder and forced her to turn. Then he used his long index finger to tilt her face. “You knew I’d never let you leave if I knew about the baby.”
“But that shouldn’t be the reason you hold on.”
“I’m not the one who let go.” His voice never rose a decibel. If anything, it became more hushed.
But Evelyn’s heart heard him. A tear coursed down her cheek. “I couldn’t stay, Kevin. You hurt me. You betrayed us.” Her hands splayed on either side of her stomach.
Kevin didn’t point out that there had been no us, no baby, at that time. He seemed to understand: they’d always been a family, the two of them, the children that would come one day, their vision of themselves. “I know. And I’m sorry. I need you to know how sorry I am.”
Evelyn nearly muttered, But that’s your mama’s problem, but she forced her grandmother’s words down her throat. She choked out, “I do, Kevin. I believe you.” And she did. “It’s just hard to forgive. I’m just so hurt.” The pain wasn’t quite as sharp, however. Life did feel like it would go on—that their life could go on together. But she had to know.
“Who told you about the baby? You knew before you saw me. I saw confirmation, not surprise.”
“You . . . you take my breath away.” Kevin’s voice was hushed as he clasped her face and brought it close to his. His eyes reached for hers.
She felt him seek permission, and she nodded almost imperceptibly.
He leaned in and brought her closer, kissing her lips tenderly, then more passionately. Their cheeks were wet with intermingled tears when he pulled away. “I’ve missed you. I love you so much. You don’t know how much I’ve prayed for this.”
Evelyn’s hands grasped his. She squeezed them as her eyes pored over his face and searched his eyes.
“It was Granny B, wasn’t it?”
Chapter Twenty-Two
EVELYN AWOKE to a silent house. Jackson had dropped Mama at her salon on his way to his part-time job. Kevin had an early conference call. She didn’t waste time pining for any of them.
When she pulled up at Granny B’s, the house emanated abandonment. She left the Impala’s engine running and the door partly open and knocked anyway. Flummoxed, she returned to the car. She rolled down her window and considered her next move.
“Watch out now!”
Gasping, Evelyn’s hand flew to her chest. She turned to her left and beheld her grandmother’s neighbor. “Hi, Mrs. Johnson.” Evelyn smiled weakly.
“Hey . . . Sorry to give you such a fright! I saw you walkin’ up to the door and I thought to myself, ‘That looks like Granny B’s gra
n.’” Velma Johnson cackled. “And then I said to myself, ‘It sure is! And she’s pregnant.’ Then when I saw you sittin’ here, I thought I’d mosey on over.”
Evelyn smiled again, though she had no idea why. Mrs. Johnson drew out all her words like she was singing them, and it irritated the dickens out of her.
“So you’re pregnant?”
“Yes, ma’am. How are you?”
“I’m fine, fine. You’re gettin’ mighty big there.”
Evelyn’s smile died in her heart, though it remained plastered to her face.
“You’re lookin’ to have that baby soon, heh?” Mrs. Johnson pushed.
“Well, right now, I’m looking to find my grandmother. Have you seen her?”
Mrs. Johnson gave Evelyn’s belly another piercing stare. “Why, yes, I saw her. She was walkin’ back behind the house not that long ago. Now, where’s your husband?”
Pretending not to see her ashy fingers grip the window, Evelyn grasped the chrome handle and cranked it up. She turned off the car and got out. “I’ve got to go. Mrs. Johnson. I really need to try to catch up with Granny B.”
To her consternation, Mrs. Johnson fell into step beside her. “I’m sure she’ll be right back. She cain’t get but so far in this heat.”
Evelyn’s brain sent the order to smile, but her lips refused to obey. “That’s just it, Mrs. Johnson. I don’t want Granny B walking around in this heat. So I’d better go—”
“I see your mama here from time to time. And I see this green car you’re drivin’ here a lot, too. Most ev’ry day. She hasn’t ever had this kinda comp’ny.”
“And you would know, wouldn’t you?” The younger woman finally dug out a grin to cover her sarcasm. She drew up on the side of Granny B’s house.
Mrs. Johnson seemed to hear the truth and not the spirit of Evelyn’s words. “Yes, I sure would!”
“Well, I really have to go, Mrs. Johnson. You say she headed that way?” She pointed toward the woods directly behind the house.
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