by Gina Wilkins
Finally, her mother had said something that was true. Kim wasn’t sure how Tate felt about his activities being discussed this way in front of a crowd of strangers, but at least he could acknowledge this one without compromising his ethics.
He started to say something, but then Betsy just had to elaborate. “He’s already got a deal with a major publisher. I’m sure it will be a bestseller, so that means book tours and television interviews. Isn’t that exciting?”
Noting that no one looked particularly excited by yet another boastful update from Betsy, Kim shook her head sternly at her mother in a silent command to stop.
Tossing her head, Betsy looked prepared to continue, but this time Tate interceded. “Actually, my business partner and I are working on a photo-based instruction book for urban vegetable gardening. We don’t actually have a publisher yet, though we’ve had a few promising nibbles.”
Betsy pouted a little that Tate had gently shot down her story. “You’re just being modest, Tate.”
“Now, Betsy, I’m sure everyone knows that you tend to exaggerate a bit,” he shot back.
Biting her lower lip to suppress a smile, Kim wondered if her mother recognized the hint of warning in Tate’s voice. Tate would allow himself to be pushed only so far—and Betsy was getting very close to the limit.
Several barks of laughter, some quickly stifled, followed Tate’s challenge of Betsy’s exaggerations. Kim was pretty sure she heard her brothers’ voices among that outburst. Betsy’s cheeks went pink, though her chin remained high.
Treva, of course, made no effort to hide her gleeful amusement. “Exaggeration is a polite term for some of Betsy’s outright—”
“Not at the table, Treva,” Grandma Dyess cut in firmly, effectively ending the brewing quarrel. Both her daughters subsided into seething looks at each other.
Somewhat inevitably, Betsy took out her annoyance on Kim in a last-ditch attempt to save face. “You’re the one who told me about your husband’s book deal.”
Kim caught Daryn’s hand when the baby reached for Kim’s fork. “I told you Tate’s working on a book, Mom, but I didn’t give you any other details.”
“Well, yes, but you said—”
“You really don’t want to take this any further, Mom.” Kim hoped she injected the same amount of subtle warning in her tone that Tate had earlier. If it worked for him, maybe it was something she should try more often in the future.
“But—”
“Who made this delicious vegetable casserole?” Tate asked quickly, nudging Kim’s knee with his own beneath the table. “Reminds me of one of the dishes on the Emperor’s Platter at my favorite restaurant.”
Taking the hint, Kim focused on her daughter again, though she vowed that if her mother continued to push, it was damn the consequences. Kim was getting close to throwing up her hands and blurting out the whole truth behind her visit. Though she was caring less and less about how her mother would react, she was keeping her mouth shut—for now—out of consideration for her grandmother. But she was making no guarantees even to herself that her patience would last the rest of the day.
Chapter Six
When everyone had eaten their fill, Betsy and Treva—and Bob, of course—headed for the kitchen to start clearing away while most of the other men escaped back to the family room and the ball games. Kim and her cousins tried to help with cleanup, but their offers were declined for lack of space in the kitchen.
“Why don’t you come watch the game with us, Tate,” Julian suggested. “I want to show you a website on my phone that I found last night. It’s got all kinds of useful information about classic muscle cars.”
Tate nodded. He’d barely had a chance to speak with Kim’s brothers since they’d arrived earlier, and while Stuart seemed no more interested in getting to know him than he had last night, Julian, at least, was making a reasonably friendly overture.
Patty and Cara Lynn decided to pour fresh glasses of iced tea and go out in the backyard with Abby, Harper and Lucas. Patty had brought an assortment of outdoor toys to entertain the kids, and she and Cara Lynn had both brought a stack of magazines for themselves. Treva, Betsy and Bob promised to join them out on the patio as soon as the kitchen was set to rights.
“Since you’re not doing anything else right now,” Grandma said to Kim, “you and I can go talk about my arthritis. My hands have been giving me some trouble lately. Maybe you’ll have some tricks my therapist hasn’t thought of yet.”
Kim agreed without hesitation. Though basically she was being asked to give a free therapy session on her day off, she didn’t seem to mind. Tate suspected both Kim and her grandmother were using the therapy as an excuse to interact a bit more during this rare visit.
“I’ll watch the baby,” Sandi offered eagerly, stepping forward with extended hands. “Maybe she’d like to come into the den and play on the floor with some toys while we watch the game. I’ll put out a blanket for her to lie on and I’ll sit by her while she plays.”
Kim’s pause was almost imperceptible before she said, “I’m sure she would like that. She’s probably tired of being held.”
As if in confirmation, Daryn kicked her legs energetically. Sandi crooned baby-talk gibberish as she carefully cradled Daryn in her arms.
“There are toys in her bag,” Kim said, starting to move that way.
Tate placed a hand on her arm. “I’ll get them. Go take care of your grandma, Daryn will be fine in the den with us.”
He wasn’t certain she would find reassurance in knowing he’d be near Daryn, since he’d had so little to do with the child thus far, but she smiled and nodded. “Thanks.”
Feeling somewhat obligated now, he kept an eye on Sandi and the baby when they entered the family room. Sandi directed Nelson to spread a blanket on the spotless hardwood floor, then she put Daryn down on her tummy with her toys within reach. Sandi sat cross-legged next to the baby, positioning herself so she could babysit and watch the game. The older children had left a few toys scattered nearby, but Sandi merely pushed those to one side.
Daryn kicked and squirmed and babbled, happy to be liberated for play time. Sandi cooed at her, eliciting giggles that delighted the woman and made everyone else in the room smile. Even Stuart chuckled a little in response to the sound, though Tate noticed that he did not look up from his tablet computer.
“Oh, look at her!” Sandi trilled when Daryn rose wobbly on her hands and knees and rocked back and forth. “Is she crawling already?”
“Not yet,” Tate answered from the couch where he sat next to Julian. “She’s almost there but hasn’t quite put the moves together.”
“She’ll be up and running before you know it,” Nelson advised from the recliner where he’d settled with an after-lunch beer.
“Very likely.”
“Hey, Tate—here’s that website I was talking about.” Julian passed over his smartphone, pointing to the screen. “How’s that for a honey of an old GTO?”
“Sweet,” Tate agreed, confident now that he could look away from the baby for a while.
For the next fifteen minutes or so, he divided his attention between Julian’s car talk, the ball game and occasional glances toward Daryn. Rusty and Mike were deep in low-voiced conversation on the other side of the room. They looked somber, and Tate wondered if they were talking about the state of Mike’s troubled marriage. He wondered why so many members of this particular family were unable to maintain long-term relationships. Sure, they had their flaws, but what family didn’t? Overall, they seemed decent enough, reasonably cordial despite the underlying frictions even an outsider could sense from the start.
A cell phone played a cutesy ringtone, and Sandi made a quick grab for her purse with an apologetic look to the others in the room. Seeing that Daryn was contently chewing on th
e ear of a rubber bunny, Tate turned his attention back to Julian, asking another question about the Mustang restoration. He had to concentrate to hear everything Julian said. The room was rather noisy with the ball game, occasional beeps from Stuart’s computer, jingles from Daryn’s toys, Sandi’s chatter into her phone, Nelson’s soft snoring in the recliner and unintelligible rumble of conversation from his sons in the far corner. In other words, a typical family gathering.
He hoped Kim was having a good visit with her grandmother. And that Kim and her mother would be able to part after this visit on at least reasonably good terms. Betsy was undeniably difficult, and Tate didn’t blame Kim at all for wanting to keep a cautious distance between herself and her mother, but he thought she would regret it if all ties between them were cut. He didn’t like to think of Kim being sad and alone.
“So, anyway,” Julian rambled on, “I plan to be on the lookout for a—”
“Daryn? Oh, my God!”
Tate leaped off the couch when Sandi screeched and threw her phone aside with a clatter. Nelson woke with a start in the recliner, saying, “What? What is it?”
Daryn lay on her stomach, her hands flailing, her face contorted. Tate felt as though he’d been kicked in the chest when he saw that the baby’s lips were turning blue. “She’s choking.”
Mass pandemonium followed. The men either froze or jumped to their feet. Sandi seemed close to hysteria as she wrung her hands and stared at the baby in horror, paralyzed with fear.
Without stopping to think, Tate snatched the baby up from the floor. He had taken a CPR class a few years earlier, after his dad had suffered a blessedly minor heart scare. Choking procedures had been covered in the class, and he only hoped he remembered it all now.
He checked inside the baby’s mouth. He could see something in her throat, but a quick sweep of his finger didn’t dislodge it. She made a noise that sounded like muffled gagging, but he could tell she was unable to cough, and he wasn’t sure she was getting sufficient air. Making an immediate decision, he leaned her head-down over his arm and gave her a quick, careful blow to the back, right between her little shoulder blades. He had to repeat the procedure before she expelled the object with a sputtering, gasping cough, followed by a loud shriek of fear.
Righting her so he could hug her against his shoulder, Tate patted her back as soothingly as he knew how. She screamed bloody murder in his ear, but he didn’t mind, since it took plenty of air to make that much noise.
“It’s okay, Daryn,” he murmured, rubbing her back in a way he’d seen Kim do. “You’re okay now.”
Clutching the collar of his shirt with one hand, she burrowed into his throat, her sobs subsiding to whimpers.
Kim appeared in the family room doorway, her eyes sweeping the room until she found Daryn and Tate. She moved toward them immediately. “What happened?”
“She choked.” Julian reached down to pick up a pink plastic doll shoe, holding it gingerly between two fingers. “On this. I guess one of the girls left it in here.”
“I’m so sorry, Kim. I thought I was watching her so closely.” Still wringing her hands, Sandi sniffled. “I thought all the other toys were out of her reach, since she can’t crawl yet. My phone rang and I looked away just for a few moments—”
“She isn’t actually crawling, but still she can squirm quite a distance.” Looking a little pale, Kim took Daryn, who had reached out as soon as she heard her mother’s voice. Kim looked her over quickly, seemingly satisfying herself that there was no lasting damage from the scare.
“Tate handled it perfectly,” Nelson assured his niece. “Cool as a cucumber. He had her snatched up off the floor and was doing some Heimlich thing almost before the rest of us knew what was going on. The baby will be fine.”
The latter assurance seemed to be directed as much toward Sandi as Kim. Nelson wrapped an arm around his companion and led her off to the kitchen, saying a nice, cold glass of tea would help settle her nerves.
Betsy and Treva entered the room, wanting to know what was going on. Having been filled in, Betsy gave an affecting performance as the distraught grandmother, clutching her throat with one hand while fluttering around Kim and the baby, throwing questions at everyone around.
“She’s fine, Mother,” Kim said for perhaps the fourth time, visibly beginning to lose patience.
Betsy dabbed at her eyes. “I’m so glad. When I think what could have happened…”
She drew a shuddering breath, then said to Kim, “I trust in the future you’ll be a bit more careful about leaving this precious child with just any stranger who volunteers to watch her.”
Kim gasped in outrage. Grateful that at least Sandi hadn’t been in the room to hear the insult, Tate stepped forward quickly. Maybe cutting all ties with Betsy wouldn’t be such a tragedy, after all, but now was probably not the best time to do so.
“Why don’t you and I take Daryn out for a walk in her stroller?” he suggested to Kim, angling himself between her and her mother. “I think it would calm us all down.”
He could almost see a flood of hurt and angry words swirling in her mind, fighting to rush toward her thoughtless mother. And maybe she should release them, eventually. But not now.
She drew a deep breath, then relieved his tension by nodding. “I think that’s a good idea.”
Betsy brightened. “Maybe I’ll come along.”
Moving forward to stand beside his wife, Bob took a firm grip on her arm. “I think Kim and Tate would like a little time alone with Daryn, honey. Why don’t we go start that dominoes game we talked about earlier and leave the others to see the end of the ball game? Treva and Grandma both want to play, and maybe Patty and Cara Lynn would like to join us.”
Tate sent a look of gratitude toward Bob, and then he and Bob led daughter and mother in opposite directions.
* * *
It was another beautiful afternoon, a little warmer than the day before, but still comfortable enough for an afternoon stroll. Large trees lined the old sidewalks, providing nice shade, though roots had kicked through the concrete in places, making the sidewalk somewhat uneven. Concentrating on guiding the stroller along the more level paths helped Kim to push the events of the past few minutes out of her mind, though she knew it would all rush back at her later.
“That’s a shame.”
Trying to focus on the moment, she glanced at Tate, who strolled beside her with his hands tucked casually into his pockets. “What?”
He nodded toward a large, older home across the street. “Those two nice trees in the side yard? Elms. They’ll be dead in a few months.”
She frowned as she studied the tall, spreading trees. Only then did she notice that the leaves at the very top of the trees looked wilted and yellow.
“Dutch elm disease?” she hazarded, remembering reading something about that devastating fungus.
“More likely a disease called elm yellows. Still kills the tree.”
“Is there anything to do to save them?”
“Not at this stage. The only decision now is when to cut down the tree to avoid damage to the house when they fall.”
“That’s a shame. They look old.”
“Elms grow fairly fast, which is what made them such popular shade trees. Unfortunately, the older varieties are highly susceptible to diseases spread by beetles, or perhaps by pruning with shears that haven’t been disinfected after contact with sick trees.”
They kept walking, putting Grandma’s house behind them. When they approached a particularly uneven section of sidewalk, Tate stepped up to place his hands beside Kim’s on the handle, adding his strength to help guide the stroller over the broken concrete. He didn’t move away once they’d passed the section, but continued to match his steps to hers at a leisurely, companionable pace. Daryn had already fallen
asleep, Mr. Jingles tucked snugly against her.
The aging neighborhood was quiet on this Saturday afternoon, little traffic on the dead-end road. Kim nodded toward a particularly pretty flower bed in front of a white frame house with an inviting wraparound porch. “I love those roses. The pale yellow ones with the darker yellow centers? They’re so cheerful looking.”
“Sunny Knock Outs,” he said at a glance. “Good, hearty choice for people who don’t want to put a lot of effort into their gardening. We plant several varieties of Knock Outs. The yellow is a popular one. I’m partial to the heirloom roses, myself, but they do take a lot more work.”
“I’d like to try growing some roses someday. When Daryn’s a little older and can potter around in the yard with me.”
Tate nodded. “You can always ask me for advice for the best varieties.”
At their weekly lunch meetings, she added mentally. Starting tomorrow, she and Tate were no more than lunch buddies again, with only funny anecdotes remaining from this weekend—once she’d put enough distance behind her to find the humor.
“How was your therapy session with your grandmother? Did you have a chance to chat?”
“Some. She showed me what she’s been doing, and the exercises she has been given are fine. I gave her a few minor pointers, but I wouldn’t want to interfere with the regimen her own therapist has recommended for her.”
“Any awkward questions? About us, I mean.”
“No, not really. She asked about your landscaping business, and I told her about some of the projects you and Evan have taken on lately. It’s hard to tell with Grandma sometimes, but she seemed to approve.”
“From what little I’ve seen, she’s an interesting woman.”
“She’s a little intimidating,” Kim confessed. “Always has been. I used to be nervous around her when I was younger. Not so much anymore.”
“She doesn’t hesitate to speak her mind, does she?”