by Leanna Ellis
“We had our difficulties in high school. But she has a good heart. Like Slater.” He was the kid that Oliver got in trouble with last year.
“We’re still friends,” he shrugs one shoulder more as a reflex, “sort of.”
“Exactly. Sometimes we don’t always understand our friends. Sometimes we see them doing destructive things. But we still have to love them.”
“Grandma keeps saying a man is known by the friends he keeps. But didn’t Jesus hang with sinners?”
I put a hand on his shoulder. Pride fills my heart. “You’re right, he did. But his friends didn’t change him. He changed his friends. Not many of us are capable of that kind of strength. That’s why you had to put some distance between you and Luke.”
“So he wouldn’t drag me down with him.”
I slide my arm around his shoulders, his very broad swimmer’s shoulders. “How’d you get to be so wise?”
He shrugs, looks down at the cart, but I see the hint of a smile curling the corner of his mouth.
“Did you hit it off with my friend, Josie? I saw her talking to you the other night at the party. She wasn’t boring you with tales of my childhood, was she?” I’m hoping she wasn’t coming on to him.
“Not really.” He looks away, avoids my question. “Dills for Dad?”
I refrain from asking more directly what Josie wanted. But I decide to keep an eye on her just in case she has her eye on my son. Or my husband. “Of course.”
He picks out a jar, and we move on past cans of tomatoes, stewed, pasted, and sauced. Then the pasta sauce. Paul Newman’s Sockarooni sauce has made it to Texas too. Finally we reach the chili. I’m surprised to find a vegetarian organic variety in this neck of the woods.
“Why are Grandma and Josie so worried about you seeing the sheriff?”
I knock a can off the shelf, and it rolls along the linoleum. “Josie’s worried about me seeing the sheriff?”
“Yeah.” He picks it up, places it in the cart, then adds another. “She said y’all used to date. Grandma doesn’t trust him either, does she?”
My throat tightens again. It’s one way I know I’ve been different in parenting. Oliver made a mistake with his friend Luke. I could have hounded him about it, but I didn’t. I chose to trust him again. And this incident here with that local boy … well, I’m choosing to believe what my son says. My mother wouldn’t. “It’s not the sheriff as much as it is me. She doesn’t trust me.”
“Why? Did you do something bad? With him?” My son stares at me. “Get in trouble?”
My thoughts scramble and I try to scrape them together, figure out how to respond. I don’t want to hide anything from him. I want to be honest. But how? Very cautiously, I move forward. “We dated. Way back in high school. Grandma didn’t approve.”
I think back to the girl Oliver liked last summer. She wore skimpy Britney Spears-type clothing, and I instantly disliked her. But I tried not to say anything. I wanted Oliver to come to that conclusion on his own. And he did eventually when he caught her flirting with some other guy. A painful but good lesson for a boy.
“Mother thought Drew was bad news. Bad for me.”
“Did she approve of Dad?”
“Oh, yes. He was a year away from getting his law degree, which was perfect. Her dream son-in-law. But she didn’t know his story or she would have had more reservations.”
“What do you mean?”
“You know that your father … that his parents abandoned him. It wasn’t until our wedding that Mother learned he was raised in an orphanage.”
“How could she not know?”
“She never asked. She saw what she wanted to see: a law student with a promising career and a secure future.”
“What did she say when she found out?”
“At first she was upset. But then she turned it into a positive. Your grandmother is the best at rationalization. She decided your dad was even better than she thought. He’d pulled himself up by his bootstraps. He had to be the smartest boy to beat the odds, go to school, get his law degree.”
“But what about Sheriff Waring? He’s a good guy.” Oliver clears his throat. “At least he seems like it.”
I catalog all the groceries in our cart, try to think of anything we might be missing. “Is this all we need?”
“Chips.”
“Okay.” We head off in the direction of snack foods. I’m ready for this discussion to be over, but I sense it’s not.
“So did the sheriff end up being trouble like your mom thought?”
“He’s a decent man. Nice and kind. We cared a lot about each other at one time. But we don’t have those feelings anymore. Kind of like that girl you were gaga over in kinder garten. Remember her? Kelly?”
Oliver’s face reddens and he ducks his head.
“Do you still love her?”
“No. She’s—”
“Exactly. But you care about her. You wouldn’t want anything bad to happen to her, would you?”
“Of course not.”
“And that’s how it is with Drew … the sheriff.”
I watch my son as he scans the chip aisle. His profile is exactly like Drew’s. How did I not see it before? Maybe I chose not to see the similarities, just as I’ve chosen not to see the similarities between my mother and me. Oliver’s eyes, hair, even his economy of motion reminds me of his biological father. Oh, Mike is there too. You can’t be near someone your whole life without bits and pieces of their personality rubbing off on you.
Going to England one summer in college, I looked up my father’s family who came from Yorkshire. I only found tombstones in an ancient churchyard, but I took rubbings and brought them home. Mother didn’t want them, so I framed them and hung them in my dining room. The dark charcoal shows the names and dates and makes me think of how our lives rub against others, and we take on others’ qualities just as they take on part of us.
Mike’s words and actions have placed a permanent fingerprint on our son’s heart. Maybe Oliver is a compilation of the best of both men.
“Did you sleep with him?”
I turn the cart too sharply and hit the corner of an aisle, crunching a bag of chips. Nothing like a direct question from my teenage son. Hard to dodge.
“The sheriff?”
My mother would avoid the question or say it isn’t any of my business. But that’s not the type of relationship I have with Oliver. So I take a slow, deep breath and pray for guidance. “Do you remember how I told you when I was saved?”
He nods. I’ve told him the story many times. “On the beach.”
“Yes. I was in college.”
“So you did sleep with him?”
I don’t want him to think he has a free rein to sleep with girls. Both Mike and I have talked to him about sex and its consequences. “I made a lot of mistakes in high school,” I say. “In college. And after. Even now. I’m not perfect.” Which my mother likes to point out. “None of us are, I suppose. That’s the whole point of grace, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Have you made mistakes you regretted?”
“The other night.”
I place my hand on his arm. “Mistakes happen. We can either dwell on them or move on and try not to make them again. Right?”
“Can you forgive me?” Oliver asks.
Tears fill my eyes. “Of course.”
“Even if you’re not sure whether I did it or not.”
I clasp him to me, wrap my arms around his broad shoulders. “I love you, Oliver. Always.”
* * *
I HELP MOTHER in the kitchen as she goes through the leftovers from what friends have brought. She tosses out what she doesn’t deem edible or salvageable. Cal Henry is in the attic working on the electrical wiring above the kitchen. Oliver is outside finishing up in the garage, and Mike hasn’t returned from Daddy’s hotel yet.
“You don’t want to eat one of Mamie Reynold’s casseroles. Trust me.” In the trash it goes. She glances up at the ceiling, at the thump,
thump, thump of Mr. Boyle’s footsteps overhead. “Hamburger Helper!” Mother wrinkles up her nose as she sniffs some tin-foiled concoction. “Can you believe someone would—”
“Mother! These friends took the time to make something nice for you. They spent their hard-earned—”
“Oh, please. Somebody stopped at Wal-Mart on the way over.” It disappears into the bulging trash. “One thing has surprised me in all of this.”
“What’s that?”
“Hazel. I haven’t seen hide nor hair of her this entire week. Why, when her husband died, I was right there beside her, helping her. And she’s practically left town.”
“Maybe it brings up memories that are difficult for her, Mother.”
“Well, maybe.” She pinches her lips together. Then she opens a container. The bottom is stained orange from marinara sauce. “Oliver had spaghetti for a snack and stuck the empty container back in the refrigerator.” She rinses it in the sink. “And the rest of the coconut cake.” She lifts the cake lid—there’s only tiny flakes left on the platter. “Too bad. Hazel’s cake was good.” She pinches coconut between her fingers and slips it into her mouth. “It’s her best recipe. But she won’t give out the secret. I think it’s a liqueur.”
The lights go out again. I glance up at the ceiling, wonder what we’ll do if Mr. Boyle electrocutes himself.
“Cal Henry!” Mother calls.
“I’m okay!” his muffled response filters through the plaster.
After Mother has emptied containers, and I’ve washed and dried them, she decides to make her famous chicken tetrazzini for dinner, not bothering to consider Oliver’s request for hotdogs. Mother’s tetrazzini is the best. I’ve tried to make it, but it came out watery. While I’m chopping onions, my eyes beginning to burn, there’s a knock on the back door.
Mother grimaces but wipes her hands on a dish towel. “Who could it be now? I never thought I’d say this, but I’m tired of people bringing over pathetic offerings to compensate my grief. I mean, really, who thinks a chicken pot pie is going to make a grieving widow feel any better?”
“You did, when you took Mandy Porter blueberry muffins when her mother died.”
“They were homemade. From scratch.” She opens the door and is full of smiles and happy greetings. Her reaction to our visitor is imperceptible to others, just a slight stiffening of her already-straight spine. She takes a step back, opening the door wider. “Come on in.”
“Is Suzanne here? I don’t want to intrude.”
I recognize my high school friend’s voice and quickly wash my hands of onion juice.
“Yes, of course.”
Estelle Ramirez walks in carrying a Bundt cake. “I thought I’d bring you a little something. What with all the company you’ve been having.”
“How thoughtful of you.” Mother takes it from her and sets in on the kitchen table. Behind Estelle’s back Mother mouths, Betty Crocker.
I ignore her. Estelle has her hands full with so many young children. What does Mother expect, an old family recipe? The fact Estelle was able to bake anything probably took extreme effort on her part. I give her a quick hug. “I’m glad you came by.”
“I felt bad about the grocery store.”
“Oh, don’t worry. I’ve had a little one that I’ve had to chase before.”
“I’m sure it’s been busy around here.” She looks at the obituary that was cut out of the paper and taped to the refrigerator. “What with all the preparations.”
“Where are all your children?” Mother peeks outside the door before she shuts it completely.
“Naldo has them.”
Folding the dish towel, I lay it on the counter. “Why don’t we go sit down in the den so we can visit? Mother, the onions are all cut.”
The lights come on, and Estelle’s brown eyes widen. “I didn’t stop by at a bad time, did I?”
“Not at all. Mother’s having electrical problems.”
She stares at the crack along the ceiling. “The earthquake affected a lot of homes. We’ve had splits in the concrete on our patio. Naldo’s worried it might affect the foundation.”
“It could.” Mother pulls out a frying pan. “No telling what damage it’s caused. I need to call the insurance company.”
Not wanting to get into all the damage this week is causing in so many other areas, I usher Estelle into the den. “Mother’s making chicken tetrazzini. I hope I don’t smell like onions.”
“You’re fine. You look great.”
I lead her past the dining room and into the den where her daughters danced and twirled the other night.
“Your mother’s a fabulous cook. I’ve had her tetrazzini.”
“It’s the best.” No one would dare refute that.
“She’s good at everything, it seems.” Estelle looks around at the beautifully decorated den with its matching sofa and love seat. The colors are tasteful but striking, comfortable and warm, but not homey. There’s something stiff and reserved about the furniture. Mother has poured over all the latest home decor magazines. She knows every trend and trick, and she has impeccable taste. But even though everything coordinates perfectly, something seems to be missing.
“Definitely.” I sit on one end of the sofa and pat the cushion beside me.
“That’s a lot to live up to.” She tugs on her pants’ leg. “At least I don’t have to worry about my kids feeling inadequate. They won’t have some image to live up to. Whatever they do will be better than what I’ve done.”
“Nonsense. I’m sure you’re a very good mother. Parenting is more than keeping a neat home and making the perfect tetrazzini.”
“You’re probably right.”
“I don’t let Mother’s perfectionism affect me.” I straighten my skirt. “I’ve learned we’re all in different seasons of our lives.” Then I realize how I do, in fact, compare my meager hostess abilities to Mother’s. “Would you like something to drink? Coffee? Tea? Maybe a soda?”
“I’m fine. It’s nice just to sit here for a minute without someone tugging at me or needing something.”
Smiling, I settle back into the couch. It feels like when we were in high school. Estelle would come over and we’d sit cross-legged on my bed. We would study for a while, then talk about boys or an upcoming party.
“When Oliver was a baby,” I say, “and I was totally overwhelmed with taking care of him. I didn’t even manage a shower every day, but I remembered how my mother was always dressed and ready for Daddy to come home from work. How she made sure she freshened her lipstick and touched up her makeup, even putting on perfume.” I roll my eyes. “It was like living with June Cleaver.”
Estelle laughs.
“Please don’t tell me you manage that way when you have more children than mother and me put together.”
She keeps smiling. “No way. There are weeks I don’t get a shower. Most mothers experience that. If they’re honest.”
“I like to imagine it was the same for Mother when I was a baby. And if it wasn’t … well, I don’t need to know that. No one is perfect. So don’t let Mother fool you.”
“Well, you’re the one that seems perfect to me.” She gestures toward me. “You have beautiful clothes. Your makeup always looks perfect. And your hair …”
“Tell me I’m not a chip off the old block.” I laugh uneasily. Mother is the last person I want to emulate. “Well, I’m not perfect. Not by a long shot.”
Estelle nods, as if she’s absorbing my words but not quite believing them. She picks at a dry spot of food on her shirt. I want to hug her, but I resist. It feels as if my sins might rub off on her. And she looks so innocent. So sweet.
“I’m sorry about your father, Suzanne. I really am.”
Inside I cringe and I want to tell her the truth. “It’s okay, really.”
“It is?”
“Well, you know, I’m fine. Mother’s fine.”
“She seems to be handling all this beautifully.”
“Of course.” Sh
e’s the master orchestra leader.
“I saw your son outside. He’s so handsome.”
“Thank you.”
“Do you think he looks more like you or his father?”
I’ve heard that question a thousand times from friends over the years; it’s harmless but unsettling. “I don’t know.” I glance toward a portrait of Oliver when he was two, barefoot and chunky, with a wide, dimpled grin. Those days were so much simpler then. “How many children do you have now?”
“Five.” Estelle settles a pillow on her lap, toying with the corners.
“You are busy. And to think you took the time to make a cake.” Guilt twists inside me. All of this care and concern for nothing.
“They’re good kids. Most of the time.”
“Naldo must be a good father to keep them for you.”
“He’s the best. I’m very blessed.” From her smile I know it’s true. “All the kids look like him, but that’s a good thing. He’s very handsome. Your husband is handsome too. And kind.”
“To put up with my mother, he’d have to be!” I laugh.
“Naldo ran into him at the barber’s the other day. Asked him for some business advice. You know, legal stuff. And your husband was so kind to help. Free of charge. I’m surprised there’s not a line outside the door. He must be making house calls.”
I frown. “What do you mean?”
“Oh, I saw him going into Josie’s house. It’s on the way from my house to your mother’s. He should open an office here. I bet he’d have enough business to keep him busy for years to come.”
I don’t respond. Moving back so close to my parents is not an option. Especially with Drew living here.
“Do you remember dreaming as teenagers that we’d meet some fabulous man, handsome and rich and, well,” she sighs, “to think our dreams have come true. Mostly true. Mine’s not rich, but I couldn’t ask for a better husband than Naldo. I’ve had friends who’ve worried if their husbands are faithful. You know, are their hunting trips for quail or something else? But Naldo isn’t like that. He’s faithful. Did I say something wrong?”
“What?” I give myself a shake. I’m not sure what she said after the part where she saw Mike going into Josie’s house.