"We all did, but I know she was a little lonely without you here."
Rebecca's lower lip started to quiver. "I should never have gone away."
Polly knelt down a little and looked her in the eye. "Your mom wants you to have as many experiences as you can have and she wants to hear all about them."
"But ... "
"No buts about it. The two of you talked about it before you went, right?"
"Yes."
"And she wanted you to go, right?"
"That's what she said."
"Your mother doesn't lie, does she?"
"No."
"Then she wanted you to go. You have to believe her and trust her. Okay?"
"Okay." Rebecca picked up a bag. "I'll be back later, Andrew. I need to put my things away."
Rebecca went through the door into the kitchen.
"She worries about her mom all the time," he said.
"I know she does. You are a good friend to her."
"She isn't drawing very much anymore. She spends all her time reading or watching television. I can't get her to play with me like she used to before ... you know."
"Rebecca and her mom have a tough year ahead of them. I suspect that Rebecca doesn't know how to deal with it all."
"She isn't going to relax until after her mom really does die, is she?"
"That's pretty insightful, Andrew. No, this is going to be part of what she has to deal with every day. She loves her mom so much that she can't stand the idea of her not being here, but she's always worried that it is going to happen when they least expect it."
"You're pretty cool, Polly."
"Why do you say that?"
"Because you talk real about this stuff."
Polly ruffled his hair as she stood back up. "It isn't easy stuff to talk about it, but we can't ignore it."
"Does Rebecca talk to you?"
"Not very often."
"She should. I'll tell her to."
"You know where to find me. Now, are you going to be fine down here? Do you need anything?"
"I'm good. I just can't carry a glass in my hand. This cast makes it all weird."
Polly hugged him. "I love you, Andrew Donovan."
"What's that for?" he asked, backing away when she was done.
"You're wonderful. Tell anyone if you need something."
She opened the door to her apartment and found Obiwan lying down on the first step. "You silly dog. Did you hear my voice out there and think I was coming to you? Let's go." He raced up the steps and waited at the top, his tail wagging.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
By the time Polly was ready to head over to Sycamore Inn, Andrew and Rebecca were settled in on her sofa, watching movies. Hopefully everyone had cleared out. There had been a scurry as they looked for apartments and homes to rent, but the community came together and made it happen. Ben and his wife were still at Sycamore House, but they hadn't really even looked yet for another place to live. If Amanda needed more time to deal with her loss, then Polly could offer it to them.
When she pulled into the hotel's parking lot, she was thankful to find it empty. She knocked on the door to Room 1 and opened it. They had pretty much cleaned up after themselves. The linens were all in a pile on the bed and trash had been sacked up and placed just inside the door. People had different ways of leaving these rooms. For the most part it wasn't too bad to clean up after them. She hauled the linens to the bed of her truck and then tossed the bag of trash in after it.
She dutifully knocked on the door to Room 4 and when there was no answer, swiped it open and took a breath. This was what she'd been waiting for and sure enough, here it was. There was trash everywhere. Chocolate and unidentifiable food was smeared across the beautiful wooden desk, the dresser drawers were all standing open, and towels were draped on every surface imaginable. The room stank like something had died and the bed linens were soiled beyond belief. Polly put her hands up to her head, backed up and out of the room and took a deep breath. It wasn't like she hadn't come prepared, so she went back to the truck and took out trash bags, a fresh pair of rubber gloves, and cleaning supplies. At least she'd get in some good hard work today.
Her phone rang while she was bent over, scrubbing the inside of the refrigerator. She'd found the source of the stench tossed behind the fridge and it was now gone from the room in a very full bag of garbage.
"Hello?" she said.
"Is this Polly Giller?" came a strong male voice.
"Yes it is. How can I help you?" Polly sat back on her haunches.
"Hi, Miss Giller. I'm Dean Nelson, Roy's dad. You met him this morning at the hospital in Des Moines?"
"Oh yes. Thank you for calling."
"He gave me the information you had on this girl, Jessie Locke."
"Yes. Can you help?"
"I spoke with my boss and come to find out he worked with your friend, Aaron Merritt, before moving to Oelwein. So, he made a quick call and this got turned into an official request."
"Whoa. I didn't mean to do that."
"It's okay. It allows me some latitude."
Polly chuckled. "I can't believe Aaron didn't call to tell me I'd done something wrong. But, I suppose he's been a little busy."
"You all did get hammered last weekend," he agreed.
"Tell me what I need to do to help you."
"I made a call to Dennis Smith's place of work and he is scheduled to be there tomorrow from ten until three. I'll drop by his house while he's gone and hopefully I'll be able to talk to your friend and find out what's going on. If she needs our help, we'll be sure to offer it. If she isn't interested, then I will have to walk away."
"But you can tell me if she's there or not. Maybe I can talk to her?"
"I can make that happen."
"Thank you so much. As long as she's safe, I'm not concerned with where she lives, but her family and friends are worried about her."
"I will contact you tomorrow."
"Thank you again. Your son seems like a really good kid. The young boy who broke his arm at camp just thinks the world of him."
She could almost hear the man smiling. "He is a good kid. He's made us proud. It's hard to believe that in one more year he'll be on his own in the world." He hesitated and then said, "I will speak with you tomorrow. Have a good evening."
Polly dug back into the refrigerator and when she was satisfied it was clean, stripped the bed, trying not to think about what was on those sheets. She was pretty sure that housekeeping in a large motel would never be her calling. She shuddered to think about it. This place was big enough. People could mess seventeen rooms up in a hurry.
She pulled her phone back out and quickly texted Jeff Lyndsay. "Just in case I don't say it enough, I appreciate you."
"What brought this on?" came the reply.
"I'm cleaning out one of the hotel rooms and this is not a job I could ever do full-time. I am glad you are working to find people that will do it and still smile at the end of the day."
"Heh, I'm a rockstar," he typed back.
"The only one I'll ever know," she sent.
She was going to have to bring the vacuum back tomorrow, but for now, she could walk away and not feel as if there was an unfinished mess in her world. Polly pulled into her garage when her phone rang again.
"Seriously?" she said out loud. "I feel like I'm getting nowhere today."
She let the call go to voice mail as she dropped the trash bags on the floor of the garage and pulled the laundry into the back room. All she wanted to do was get the first load into the washing machine and take a shower. She hadn't felt so utterly filthy in a long time. Dirty was one thing, but this was more than she could bear. After starting a load, Polly ran upstairs. Andrew and Rebecca were watching television when she went through.
"I'm taking a shower. That last room I cleaned was awful. Do you guys need anything?"
"We're cool," Andrew said, not even looking up. Polly glanced at Rebecca and got a smile.
"
Are you glad to be home, Rebecca?" she asked.
Rebecca bent over and nuzzled Obiwan's neck. "I am. It's better here."
Polly looked at her phone when she sat down on her bed to untie her boots. Joss had called. Polly's heart sank. She knew that her friend needed her, but the moment she made that call, sadness was going to fill her life again. She took a deep breath and made the call anyway.
"Hi Polly," Joss said. "Nate finally went out to the garage. He's pretty destroyed."
"Would you like to meet me somewhere or can I come over?"
"No, really, that's okay. I'm just going to put popcorn in the microwave and open a bottle of wine."
"I could come do that with you. I'd even bring ice cream sandwiches for later."
"Maybe I should do this one by myself. I'm not much good to anyone and if I want to get all ugly and snorty with my crying, I don't have to be embarrassed."
"If you're sure."
"Yeah. Tomorrow will be better. Both Nate and I know this isn't the end. We just have to manage through it tonight."
"I love you, sweetie."
"I love you too."
Polly climbed in the shower and realized that tears were trickling down her face. She shut her eyes and felt the water pelt her back. It wasn't fair. They had been waiting so long. Nothing seemed fair this week. She hunched down and wrapped her arms around her bent knees. This week just plain sucked. The worst of it was that Henry was gone all the time and she hadn't had a chance to talk to him. He came home every night completely exhausted and left before she got up in the morning.
"I could use a little rain here, God," she said. "Make him stop working and come home. Just for an evening. You can have him back tomorrow. And while you're at it, all of these other things that are going on around here? Anything you want to fix would be fine with me."
She stood back up and rubbed shampoo into her hair, scratching her scalp with her nails. Good heavens, that felt wonderful.
She heard a sound behind her and turned around to see a shadow. Before a word was spoken, she screamed!
"Polly, it's just me. It's okay."
Polly peeked out of the shower door. Henry was looking a little chagrined.
"What are you doing here?"
"I'll be right back. I just want to tell the kids that everything is okay. That was a horrifying screech you just made." He jogged out of the room and by the time he came back, Polly had rinsed off and was wrapping a towel around herself.
"Well, that's not any fun," he said, pointing at the towel.
"Uh huh. Cute. Now what are you doing here?"
"Those big black clouds? We slammed plywood onto the roof of Binney's barn and called it a night. I've buttoned up as much of Bellingwood as I could before this rain came in and I'm spending the rest of the day with you. How does that sound?"
Polly threw herself into his arms and her eyes got wet again. She looked upward and mouthed, "Thank you," then said out loud. "It sounds absolutely perfect. What do you want to do?"
"How's our little gimp boy set for tonight? I'd like to go out to Uncle Loren's and poke around. I haven't been in his house for years. There are things out there that our family talked about, but we didn't know if he'd just destroyed them or gotten rid of them. Then maybe we could have dinner all by ourselves."
She hugged him tight and said, "Anything you want to do is great. Just so I'm with you. I've missed you so much."
"I've missed you too. Even when we weren't married, I saw you more than I have this week."
"I'm calling Sarah and see if she'll keep an eye on Rebecca and Andrew tonight. Jason is doing something with Doug and Billy. Other than that, I'm free."
"Did you talk to Joss?"
"Yes. Did you talk to Nate?"
He squeezed her. "No. I told you. We'll work it out. It's fine. You go deal with your world and I'm going to take a shower and get all gussied up for you."
"Really gussied?"
"No, just clean gussied."
Polly turned to leave the bathroom and he grabbed the towel from her. "Hey!" she said.
"I'z jes checkin' to see what I been missin'."
She grinned and looked over her shoulder at him while swinging her hips as she walked away.
"Polly!" he yelled, just as she thumped into the doorsill.
"Yeah. I stink at this," she laughed. Before she knew it, she was laughing so hard she dropped to the floor, holding her belly, snorting until tears ran down her face.
Henry stood over her, laughing a little bit, but he bent down and rubbed her shoulder. "Are you going to be okay?"
"I'm fine. Wow, I'm a dork," she said, still laughing. "It's a good thing you love me. Because I don't do sexy vamp very well."
"You're sexy enough without vamping me. And for some reason, even laughing until snot runs out of your nose is still pretty sexy."
He held his hand out to help her stand up again. "Are you going to be okay now?"
She let out a sigh and said, "I guess. I'm a little embarrassed, but that was too funny."
"Go get dressed and I'd advise you to watch where you're going." He patted her bottom as she walked through the door and into the bedroom.
When he came in to find her, Polly was sitting between Rebecca and Andrew with a book in her lap.
"What are you reading?" he asked.
"A Wrinkle in Time. I can't believe Andrew's never read it before. This is Rebecca's first time too."
"It made me dream of being in space," Henry said. "Can you guys finish this without her? I want to take Polly away tonight."
"Are you going to start your honeymoon now?" Rebecca asked.
Polly put the book in her hands and stood up. "No, we're just going out to his Uncle Loren's house and look around."
"Cool! I want to see that sometime," Andrew said. "I'll bet there's a lot of interesting stuff in there. You should take pictures."
"I'll do that. You guys head down to Rebecca's mom when she calls, okay?"
Andrew scooted closer to Rebecca. "We're going to read for a while, though. This is cool. I like having people read out loud to me."
"It never gets old," Henry said to Polly as they headed down the back steps. "You're a good reader, too. I like listening to your voice."
"You're just saying that because you have to."
"Not really. So, did you get everything taken care of for tonight?"
"Jason is going to take Obiwan out later, Rachel has food to feed the hordes, the kids are staying with Sarah until Sylvie gets here and I think that's it."
"You're amazing." He kissed her on the cheek and held the truck door open for her.
"I was pretty motivated."
Henry pulled into his Uncle Loren's driveway. Nothing had really changed. The yard was still littered with junk, but at least Polly knew that when she went inside, it would be relatively clean.
"What happened with the cats and chickens this week?"
"Aunt Betty has been over to take care of the chickens. Mom spent the week looking for homes for the cats. I think she got all of them dealt with. Two of them just became shop kitties. Since Dad is out there all the time, they'll be happy and safe. When I was over this morning, they'd already found a home in an old toybox of mine. Dad's such a sucker." He opened the front door and flipped the light on and gestured for Polly to go in first.
"So, what did your uncle's will say?" Polly asked. Wow. They hadn't had time to talk about anything this week.
"He left everything to Dad and Aunt Betty. They'll figure it out. It's not like anyone is in a hurry to sell, so this will probably be here until they're dead and gone and all of us kids will have to deal with it."
"That's not a good idea, Henry." Polly placed her hand on his arm.
"Don't worry. I know and so does Dad. It will get handled."
He led her through the living room, into an immense dining room and then into the kitchen. It was a small room, with ancient appliances. Old yellow curtains hung from the window over the sink and on the w
indow of a back door.
"When Grandma was still alive, this was the place to be," Henry said. "I'd sit there in front of the cupboard and watch her cook and bake, helping whenever she had something for me to do. Dad would always bring me out when she was canning, so I could run everything down to the cellar and stack it on her shelves." He looked out the back window. "She had a huge garden out here and over on that side, there were even a couple of rows of grape vines. She made the best jelly."
Henry sat down and looked around, then jumped up. "This cookie jar was always full." He took the lid off. "As she got older, the cookies were more store bought than homemade, but I could always count on getting a cookie when I was here."
He pointed to a worn corner on the table. "I remember her teaching me how to use her old grinder right there. She made carrot salad all the time. It was just ground up carrots and mayonnaise, but whenever we ate here, that was on the menu. I ground more carrots for her …"
Another door was standing open and Polly looked through it to see a wooden staircase leading up. "What's up here?" she asked.
"The bedrooms. Let's go." He followed her up the steps and pointed ahead. "That's the bathroom. She had a clawfoot tub in there. I don't think she ever put a shower in. Especially once she quit using these rooms all the time. We kids liked the tub. It was fun and different."
"This front room was Loren's, but the other two were for us kids whenever we visited. The back bedroom was Dad's when he was a boy, so that's where I liked to sleep. She had a white chenille bedspread on the bed with blue and pink flowers. I used to run my fingers through the patterns at night."
Polly had never seen him reminisce like this and followed him to the back room.
"Wow. Loren didn't change a thing. Look at this, Polly."
Sure enough, the bedspread was still on the bed, the pillows tucked in and everything neatly arranged. There was a linen runner on the dresser and a little chair sitting beside the bed.
"That's kind of weird. He never wanted anyone to visit, but he kept it ready, just in case."
"I wonder if he slept up here in his old bedroom or moved downstairs into Grandma and Grandpa's room."
The front bedroom was immaculate and when they checked, the dresser was empty. They went back downstairs and through the kitchen into an office utility room. Just off that room was another bathroom with a shower and then the master bedroom. This was where Loren must have been staying.
Tomorrow's Promises (Bellingwood Book 7) Page 15