From Here to Home

by Marie Bostwick

  “Me too. But then I say stuff like that and Amanda says, ‘Fine, Mother Teresa. Then tell me what you want to do.’ And, of course, I have no idea. Which makes her crazy. But don’t you think it’s a good idea to take time to figure it out?” Holly asked, then answered her own question. “I do. At least a little while.”

  “Just tell her to cool her jets for a couple of months.”

  “Amanda’s all right,” Holly said, shoving a bolt of pink paisley into an open spot on a shelf. “She’s just doing her job. And she cheered up when I told her I’m making her a quilt.”

  “You are?”

  Holly nodded. “A House block pattern, all solids but kind of scrappy. Every block is a different color. She told me her rotten ex-husband got their house in the divorce, so, I don’t know, this just seemed like a kind of good idea.”

  “She’ll love it,” Cady said, sliding her last bolt, a blue-andred windowpane check, onto a shelf of Americana fabrics. “Let me know if you need any help.

  “Hey, remember that first day we met? When you had that bobbin so tangled up I had to use an X-Acto knife to cut through the threads? And the time you sewed that wonky Snowball block to your sleeve? Did you ever think then that you’d actually make a quilt voluntarily?”

  Holly grinned. “Never.”

  “Neither did I. But I’m glad you stuck with it, glad things worked out. You know, a lot of things are working out,” Cady said, sounding a little surprised.

  “Sure, it really sucks that the show got canceled. I have no idea how we’ll hang on without the publicity. But I’m doing better now and so is Rob Lee. Linne seems happy, horse-crazy as ever, but happy. Even Grandma seems to be in her right mind. Most of the time,” she said. “When she’s not poisoning people’s food.”

  “Hey, that was totally justified,” Holly said. “Artie had it coming to him.”

  “Maybe, but I’ll still think twice before ever eating her ambrosia. Anyway”—Cady shrugged—“things are okay. Howard found his father and a new kidney all in one day. Of course, Aunt Mary Dell is dealing with a lot of stuff, but I could hear how relieved she was to know that Howard would be okay.”

  “Me too,” Holly said.

  “My only big concern, at least this week, is dealing with Fred.” Cady walked to the back of the store and started turning off the lights. “I thought that Fred was always griping because Rob Lee wasn’t doing his job, but now I see that Fred is always griping because he’s a griper. I’m glad Aunt Mary Dell is coming home soon. Then she can deal with him.

  “But I really don’t know what we’re going to do about the lambing season. It’s always a crazy hard time, everybody taking shifts, working around the clock for about two weeks. But you really need somebody dedicated and experienced to be in charge, and I’m not sure Fred is the man for the job. Things can go very badly, very quickly if a ewe has trouble during labor, and since income from the quilt shop is bound to sink once Quintessential Quilting goes off the air for good, we can’t afford to lose a single lamb.”

  “If I’m still in town by then, I’ll come and help,” Holly said. “I don’t know anything about sheep, but if you need an extra pair of hands, count me in.”

  “Thanks. I might take you up on that.” Cady started walking through the shop, turning out lights as she went. “Rob Lee is definitely where he needs to be right now, but the timing couldn’t be worse. Fred is so lazy. Always complaining about something. I can picture him upping and quitting just when the ewes start to pop. Oh, well. No point in worrying about it, but it’s hard not to. I just wish we had a manager we could count on.”

  Before turning out the last light, Cady shouted, “Linne! We’re ready to go! Are you coming or not?” She waited a moment. “I’m counting to three. One! Two!”

  The pounding of feet on the wooden floor of the upstairs classroom and down the stairs sounded like a stampede.

  “New cowboy boots,” Cady explained. “Birthday present. She had to have white ones, just like Miss Holly’s.”

  “Not too practical,” Holly said, grinning as Linne came bounding down the stairs, “but super cute.”

  “Did you turn off the lights and the DVD player?”

  “Uh-huh,” she said, then turned to Holly. “Can we go for a ride later?”

  “Not tonight,” Cady said, answering for Holly. “It’ll be dark by the time we get home. Besides, we’re supposed to be having a girls’ night, remember? Miss Holly is sleeping over. Grammy is making hamburgers and hot fudge sundaes and then we’re going to watch a movie.”

  “Your mom is right,” Holly said, seeing Linne’s disappointed face. “It’s too dark tonight, but we can go for a ride in the morning, okay? Right after breakfast.”

  “Okay!” Linne exclaimed, happy once again.

  She grabbed hold of Holly’s hand as they walked through the door. Cady bent down to put the key in the lock.

  “Good, now that we’ve got that settled, what movie are we going to watch?”

  Linne grinned mischievously and Holly winked at her.

  “National Velvet!” they chorused.

  Cady covered her face with her hands, groaning and laughing at once.

  “No! Not again!”

  CHAPTER 47

  “Come on, Momma. Please?” Howard begged. “Just one more time.”

  Mary Dell shook her head.

  Normally, she found it impossible to refuse Howard anything. If that weren’t the case, she wouldn’t have been at the amusement park on a hot afternoon in early April, on the final day of a very strange weeklong tour of Dallas’s major family-friendly attractions that had included the Dallas Zoo, the World Aquarium, the botanical gardens, the Museum of Natural History, the Frontiers of Flight Museum, and the Fort Worth Stockyards. But after seven days of enforced family togetherness, Mary Dell had had about all she could take.

  She was amazed that Howard’s stamina had held up so well this week. Yes, he slept in the mornings and she made sure he was in bed by nine, but he had much more energy than before. Donny’s return seemed to have affected him like a shot of adrenaline, and Mary Dell was happy to see him enjoy himself, but even so, she was counting the hours until they could return to Too Much.

  “Baby, I can’t,” she said wearily. “Three roller-coaster rides in one day is two more than my limit. Besides, my feet hurt. Y’all go on without me. I’m going into this café to get myself a Dr Pepper. I’ll be waiting right here when you’re done.”

  Howard looked disappointed, but he ceased his pleading. “All right, Momma. We’ll see you in a little bit. C’mon, Daddy.”

  Donny pushed his Stetson back on his head a little and wiped his forehead. “Think I’ll sit this one out too. You and Jenna go on and have fun. I’ll be right here, keeping your momma company.”

  Before Mary Dell had a chance to lodge a protest, Howard grabbed Jenna’s hand and walked off toward the end of the line for the Judge Roy Scream roller coaster. Having already ridden the coaster twice that day, Mary Dell knew they wouldn’t return for at least half an hour, which meant that she would now be forced to do the thing she’d been trying to avoid all week: spend one-on-one time with Donny.

  Wonderful.

  The café was crowded, as lots of people had decided to take a break to escape the heat and enjoy a cold drink, but they were fortunate to spot a family getting up from a table on the patio, located under a blessedly shady tree. Mary Dell sat down, laying claim to it while Donny went off to get their drinks. He returned a lot quicker than she’d hoped.

  “Here we go,” he said, removing the big paper cups from the tray and setting them on the table. “I asked for extra ice in yours.”

  Mary Dell smiled woodenly and took a sip, wondering if he expected her to give him a gold star for having remembered that she liked her drinks cold.

  “Bet I know what you’re thinking,” Donny said. “You’re thinking, ‘Dang. I was just inches from a clean getaway.’”

  He smiled and Mary Dell smiled back,
partly because he was right but mostly because that’s what she’d been doing this whole long week, smiling and trying to go with the flow.

  There was a lot at stake here, and as much as she found the events of the prior week, particularly Donny’s suggestion that they take a “family vacation” together, bizarre in the extreme, she was trying not to rock the boat.

  She’d tried to explain this to Hub-Jay only the evening before, while they were having dinner at the hotel after Mary Dell and Howard had returned from their “family outing” to the stockyards. Hub-Jay wanted her to ask Donny for a divorce, but Mary Dell insisted that she couldn’t until after the transplant. Howard’s kidney function was nearly unchanged since their last appointment. Until it slipped below acceptable levels, Dr. Brewer would not perform the operation.

  This meant that they were all stuck in an uncomfortable limbo, waiting for Howard’s health to deteriorate to the point where the operation was required and they could all resume their regular lives. It might take a month or it might take a year, maybe even two. There was no way to know for sure, but until it did, Mary Dell was loath to do or say anything that might make Donny change his mind about giving Howard his kidney—nor did she appreciate being pressured to do so.

  “Come on,” Hub-Jay had protested. “You don’t seriously think he’d renege on the kidney just because you want to remarry, do you?”

  Maybe not. But if you’d asked her thirty years ago if Donny would have been capable of deserting his wife and his baby, she’d have said no, absolutely not. But he had. Which only went to show you—men were capable of anything. And since she didn’t know what to make of Donny’s sudden reappearance any more than she’d known what to make of his disappearance all those years before, and since Howard’s health and life hung in the balance, it was wiser to not take any chances.

  Donny took the plastic top off his soda and took a long drink. “Thank you for putting up with me this week,” he said. “I know it’s been awkward for you.”

  “Well.” She paused a moment, trying to think what she could say that was true but innocuous. “Howard was glad to get a chance to get to know you better. And I am grateful to you for what you’re doing for him. It can’t have been easy for you.”

  Donny shook his head. “You’re wrong. Nothing was ever easier. I’ve been waiting for a chance to do some good for Howard for a long time.”

  Mary Dell pressed her lips together so hard they went white as she swallowed back a bitter retort, stopping herself from pointing out that if Donny had really wanted to do something for his son, he might have started by not abandoning him.

  Her attempts at disguising her emotions didn’t seem to be working, because Donny said, “I know you’re mad at me, Mary Dell. There’s no need to bite your tongue in half, trying to pretend you’re not. I don’t blame you for not believing me. If I were you, I wouldn’t believe me either, but I’m telling you the truth.”

  Donny curled his two hands around the base of his soda cup and looked down at the table. Droplets of condensation dripped down the sides of the cup and onto his fingers.

  “I did want to help Howard. From the day he was born, I did. But I just didn’t know how. And you were so busy reading all those books and articles about Down syndrome, articles with words I couldn’t even pronounce let alone understand, and spending every waking minute taking care of Howard, talking to him and doing those exercises . . .”

  Donny was right about the way she’d been trying to keep the peace all week pretending she wasn’t angry with Donny. But that wasn’t anything new.

  For years that stretched to decades, Mary Dell had told herself she’d forgiven Donny, that he just wasn’t as strong as she was. Perhaps there was some truth in this last part, but the assertion that she’d forgiven him was a myth of the first magnitude, even though she’d actually convinced herself it was true.

  Had Donny never returned, had Mary Dell never been forced to look him in the eye again or listen to the sound of his voice, she might have carried on like that, year after year, painting over the black fury of betrayal with layer upon layer of whitewash and rationalization, a protective coating against emotions too frightening to face, a makeshift patch job to fill in the cracks and hold together the pieces of her broken heart.

  But Donny had returned, riding in on the white charger of his perfect kidney to save the day and Howard’s life from the genetic misfortune that Mary Dell had passed on to their son. And now that he was here, spouting nonsense and excuses, Mary Dell couldn’t live with the lie of feigned forgiveness, not for one more hour, not for one more breath.

  “Stop right there,” she snapped. “Don’t you dare sit there and tell me that the reason you left was because I wasn’t paying enough attention to you, Donny Bebee. Don’t you dare! I had a baby to take care of; a sickly baby, born a month premature and with Down syndrome. Yes, it’s a big word—Down syndrome. And when the doctor came and started talking all that medical jargon about chromosomes and genetics and intellectual deficits and shortened life expectancy and I don’t know what all, I was just as terrified and confused as you were. I didn’t know what it all meant or how I was supposed to deal with it. But I did, Donny. I figured it out. Because somebody had to! Because that’s what parents do!

  “So I’m sorry if Howard didn’t live up to the ideal of whatever it was you thought your son ought to be, but guess what? It wasn’t about you. It was about Howard, the baby we both prayed for. Do you remember that, Donny? Do you remember all the years of heartache and infertility? The eight miscarried babies I bore and buried and mourned? Do you remember how we used to lie in bed at night, holding hands on top of the quilt, and prayed for God to give us a baby? Because I do. We prayed for a baby, a healthy, living baby.

  “And so when our child was born, I loved him with all my heart. Because Howard wasn’t just a baby. He was my baby, our baby, the gift God meant us to have, a sweet, loving, beautiful boy who happened to have Down syndrome and deserved every ounce of love, strength, intellect, and effort I could muster.

  “And if cherishing and caring for that precious gift, giving him the attention and time he needed to grow up to be the man he is today, meant that I didn’t have time to cook your damn supper, or wash your damn clothes, or stroke your damn ego—well, forgive me, Donny, but I really don’t give a rat’s rear end!”

  Mary Dell was not normally given to profanity of even the mildest sort, nor to making scenes in public. Yet she’d done both, speaking so loudly that two families sitting nearby hurriedly gathered up their food and went in search of someplace else to sit. Mary Dell didn’t notice or care. Three decades of suppressed fury, betrayal, fear, denial, and heartbreak poured from her mouth in a white-hot stream.

  Once she’d let it loose, there was no stopping it, not as long as she remained in Donny’s presence, and so she got up to leave so abruptly that the chair she’d been sitting in tipped backward and to the side, blocking her exit.

  Mary Dell bent down and grabbed the chair, trying to pull the obstacle from her path, which gave Donny time to intercept her. He begged her to stop and listen to him just for a moment, but she didn’t want to hear anything else he had to say.

  He clutched her arm, but she jerked away from his grasp, then hauled back her arm and let it fly like a catapult loosed from its tether, slapping him so hard that the ever-present Stetson fell off his head.

  The crack of her hand striking Donny’s face and the sight of the angry red mark on his cheek brought Mary Dell back to her senses somewhat. The fight-or-flight response Donny’s words had summoned from her quelled slightly as she remembered that Howard would be returning to this spot looking for her before long. She realized she couldn’t just run away before Howard returned, but that return to clarity didn’t mean she had regained control of her emotions.

  “How could you do it?” she asked, tears streaming down her cheeks. “How could you leave us? How could you leave me?”

  And there it was, at last.


  The question she had never dared to voice until now, because she already knew the answer. She had heard the malevolent whispers in her mind for years now.

  Donny left because he didn’t love her. Because she was unlovable. Aside from Howard, no one loved her. No one could.

  This was what she had always known in her heart but never dared to admit, even to herself. This was the belief that made her barricade her heart behind the excuse of a marriage that had ended in all but name, preventing anyone else who might hurt her from getting too close. Until now.

  Before Hub-Jay came along, keeping suitors at bay had been a relatively easy task, partly because she had found such fulfillment in her son but mostly because she’d never encountered a man of Hub-Jay’s caliber before, someone so fine and loving and good that he made her consider lowering her guard.

  But that was before Donny’s return, before she remembered how much it had hurt when he’d left, recognizing once again the hole he’d left in her life and how close she’d come to disappearing inside it. She couldn’t take that kind of risk again; she couldn’t endure that kind of pain.

  That was why, on the previous night, when Hub-Jay had pressed her to ask Donny for a divorce and the conversation between them became heated, she had taken the ring from her finger and given it back, saying that she should never have accepted his proposal, that it had been a mistake.

  “How could you do that to us? How could you leave me all alone? I hate you, Donny! I really hate you!”

  He took a step toward her and gathered her in his arms. She didn’t draw back or resist, but laid her head on his shoulder and gave herself up to the flood of emotion as the man who had been her husband held her close and whispered, “I know you do, Mary Dell. Sometimes I hate me too.”

  CHAPTER 48

  Mary Dell cried for a long time, and Donny let her, ignoring the whispers and stares of people who walked past gnawing on turkey legs and carrying cheap stuffed animals, holding on tight while she undammed years of pent-up resentment, recrimination, doubt, and despair, until she was spent and dry and finally able to hear what he’d come so far and waited so long to say to her.