Then FM comes walking up, eating a hot dog. “Hey, hon, got you a dog. Anna wanted me to bring it to you.” He usually has better sense than this. He marches right up to his wife. “Got mustard on yours. Hey, what are ya going to do with all these sandwiches?”
Missus’ lips are pressed into a thin line. “Anna sent me a hot dog? That man probably put her up to it. Give me the keys, I’m going down there right this minute.”
FM pulls his hand from his pocket, and it’s barely free before Missus grabs the keys. She storms off, and FM looks at me. “Carolina, maybe you should go down there, too.”
“Can’t,” I explain with a gesture towards the duck pond, which is really a kiddie pool with plastic yellow ducks floating in it. Numbers are written on their bottoms. When a child lifts up a duck, he gets a prize from the corresponding bucket. Not rocket science.
FM shoves the last bite of hot dog in his mouth and comes up beside me saying, “Go. Go. I’ve got this.”
“No. Why would I go chasing her? She’s your wife,” I declare as I solidify my position, gripping the edge of the table the pond sits on.
He shoves with his hip to come between me and the table. As he swallows, he clears his mouth, and says, “Anna and Savannah are there. Missus has a thing against that man, and it might be good for you to be there. I’ve got this. It’s the duck pond, an above-average cat could do it.” One last maneuver by him, and I’m completely out of the way.
“Okay, I’ll go. Just to make you happy.” I turn towards my car and stomp across the grass.
Besides, I think I saw a cotton candy machine beside the purple gorilla.
“Did you hit her?” Missus is yelling from the back of the store. The bright, clean store is full of people, but silent. Well, except for the yelling.
I race back towards Missus’ voice, and as I round the corner, I see her facing down Kendrick and Anna. Savannah just shook her head from her post at one of the registers as I passed.
“He hit Anna?” I ask as I grab Missus’ arm.
Kendrick lifts his hands in surrender. “Oh, yes. And Savannah and all my employees. It’s a regular torture chamber here.”
Anna closes her eyes and shakes her head. Then opening them back up she stares at me and her grandmother as she says, “This is so embarrassing. I can’t believe I wanted to live here. That I wanted you both as family.” She’s practically spitting at the end.
I turn to Missus and whisper, still clutching her arm. “What is going on? Are you okay?”
She lifts her chin, but says quietly, “His wife. Kimmy. Her face. It was bruised.”
Kendrick gets louder. “So of course I did it. Me, the monster.” He looks at Anna. “Can you believe these people here? Lady, I have a business to run. Excuse me. Anna, can you take care of your…” He shrugs then throws out his hand in our direction. “Her? Them?”
“Of course,” Anna says. To us, she says, “You both need to leave. I do not want you here.” Then she follows her boss.
After a deep breath, I turn to face Missus. “Did Kimmy tell you he hit her?”
Her face is strange to me because it’s full of confusion. I’ve never seen her like this. Maybe she’s having some kind of stroke. “Missus? Are you okay?”
She shakes her head and straightens her shoulders. I watch her physically dismiss the confusion from her face. “Of course I’m okay. However, I remain convinced that man hit his wife. You saw how she was in the bookstore. Hiding her face, pulling her hair across it, never looking me in the eye. It’s perfectly obvious.” She turns to stare at the front of the store, where things are getting back to normal.
“But, Missus,” I reason, “Anna wouldn’t defend something like that? She must know him.”
“Oh, she knows him all right and has decided to take his side at all costs.” She shakes herself, and as she heads down the aisle she says something more. Sounded like, “Why do we do that?”
Following her, I ask, “Do what? Who?” But she doesn’t answer.
We pause near Savannah’s register. I look at my daughter, but she won’t look up at me.
Kendrick is running one of the other registers and has the ladies there laughing. He says, “It’s always exciting on opening day, isn’t it?” Then rolls his eyes in Missus’ direction. I don’t know where those ladies are from, but it must not be Chancey, because they look at Missus and keep laughing.
Sometimes when you live in a small town, it’s easy to forget how large the outside world actually is.
“Let’s go,” I softly say to Missus and open the door for her. The laughter behind us is hard to ignore, but we do it. We walk out to my car. I lean against the rear fender. Missus, of course, stands ramrod straight. “So,” I ask, “What was that all about?”
“He’s a bully, and I’m positive he hits, well at least hit, his wife. I won’t have it in Chancey.” Then she sees me, really sees me. “What are you doing here? Who is running the duck pond?” She turns toward her car. “I have to do everything for you people.”
She drives off, and I watch her leave. Guess I should get back to my duck pond duty, but I seem kind of stuck here, unable to move. Having trouble imagining Kimmy being hit. I’ve seen the movies, the Public Service Announcements, the music videos, but a person I know? Yeah, I’m lucky, or blessed if you want to say that. I haven’t been around women who were abused. Okay, that I knew about. I’m not stupid, I know it happens, but, well… I can’t imagine it. I’ve never even been near a fist fight. People hitting each other, in real life, just isn’t in my experiences, so it doesn’t compute for me. Maybe Missus is wrong.
Pushing away from the car, I pull my keys from my pocket and sigh. Maybe Missus is wrong. In the warmth of the car, I shiver.
It doesn’t feel like she’s wrong.
Chapter 29
Now I remember why I don’t get up at the crack of dawn and walk two miles every day. Dragging in our front door late afternoon, every muscle in my legs begs me to stop at the couch. Just for a little while. Stretch out and sink into the cushions, close my eyes and let go. But, no. Into the kitchen.
Thank God I’m doing something easy for the supper picnic. Football hot dogs. I pull out a pot and fill it with water, then put it on the burner. As it begins heating, I open two packs of hot dogs, nice hot dogs, not the cheap, skinny, red ones. But even these aren’t appetizing since I had a hot dog already today. Hot dogs are not meant to be eaten often, as they lose their appeal rather quickly. Oh well, no choice now.
Just glad FM arranged to take all the leftover PB&Js to a homeless shelter over in Canton, or we’d have been eating those for dinner tonight, too. Above opinion on hot dogs goes for peanut butter and jelly sandwiches as well. And I had my fill of those yesterday.
Missus refused to discuss the Kendricks once we got back to the softball game. And while the duck pond game isn’t mentally taxing, it’ll wear your nerves to the stub. Little kids were never my favorite, anyway. No need to tell my children that.
Jackson yells as he comes in the front door, “Going to take a shower. I’m filthy. Be right down.”
Hearing him pound up the stairs, I listen for Bryan to come in behind him. When I don’t hear him, I step to the living room door. “Bryan?” I call his name again from the front porch. I’d call his phone, but I took it away from him. It’s got a dead battery and is in the basket on top of the refrigerator. Shoot, I wanted him to load the car. Just when kids get old enough to actually be help, they are never around.
Back in the kitchen, I get out the container of chopped onions, the ketchup, and the mustard. Then I tear off sixteen sheets of aluminum foil, just big enough to securely wrap a hot dog.
As I dump the water from the pot of boiled hot dogs, I hear Jackson coming downstairs. He pops into the kitchen.
“Hey,” I say, “Where’s Bryan?”
Jackson picks a hot dog from the pot and blows on it before taking a bite, but apparently it burns his mouth because I can’t understand what he’s tryi
ng to say.
“What?”
“Um, good hot dog,” he says as he takes another bite, but this time I’m listening harder when he mumbles, “Up at Beau’s.”
“Beau’s?” I ask as I start putting hot dogs in the buns laid out in front of me. “Why would he be at Beau’s?”
“Honey, Beau explained that it was just a kid argument ‘tween him and Brittani. He wasn’t really stalking her. Guess Beau’s sister overreacted. Has some history with guys getting out of control. Pretty dramatic up there, I guess.” He laughs and starts helping me fill hot dog buns.
“Are you telling me Bryan and Brittani are back together?”
He guffaws. “No, not at all. I mean…” He pauses. “I don’t think so. Right?”
And I explode. “You’re asking me? I wasn’t there. Just yesterday we stood right here and said we needed to focus more on him. Remember? Hand me two spoons out of the drawer.”
Jackson nods as he hands me the spoons. “I was concentrating on him. We were on the same softball team all afternoon. We had a great time.”
I hand him one of the spoons back and say, “One is for you to use. Put onions on each hot dog.” Reaching across him, I turn on the oven and add, “I like Beau, but you remember how it felt when her sister was ready for Bryan and Brittani to get married? How we were ‘part of the family’? We got invited to Brittani’s sister’s wedding?”
He stops spooning onions. “We did? Did we go?”
I also stop spooning onions to stare at him.
He quickly adjusts. “No, we didn’t go. And maybe they aren’t going together anymore. Maybe he and Brittani are just friends.” This time he doesn’t look up to see my stare.
“Here, you do the mustard,” I say as I hand it to him. “So what were they doing up at Beau’s?”
“Cleaning up the trailers the floats were on. They belong to her cousin or something,” he says as he concentrates on making trails of mustard on each hot dog.
I add the ketchup and fill him in on what happened at the Dollar Store.
As we wrap the last ones up tight in their individual sheets of foil, he frowns and asks, “What do you think? Seem like it’s true? You know, him hitting her?”
Opening the oven door, I motion for him to put the pan with all fifteen wrapped hot dogs inside, then I shrug. “I don’t know. I need to talk to Missus some more, and I want to check with Kimmy, too. See what she says.”
He leans back against the counter and folds his arms. “Don’t like Savannah being in the middle of all that. Be interesting to see what she says, though.”
I pull his arms open and then lean against his chest, saying, “I’m glad I have you.”
He folds his arms back, this time with me inside them. He rests his chin on my head and murmurs, “World seems crazy sometimes.”
Nodding in agreement, I burrow closer and let the tension in my body go. This feels even better than the couch.
There’s a steady stream of traffic headed up to Laurel Cove. The two-lane road winds up and up, and the slow drive gives me the chance to see the vistas usually missed when I’m driving. Surrounding us is lush greenery, both the mountains and the valleys. There are no splotches of spring flowers from dogwoods or mountain laurels. No reds or yellows or oranges portending the season change into fall. All is green. And thick. And healthy. Summer.
All our chicks ended up at our house and are now riding in the back of the van like they did for years. However, there is no squabbling over window seats, kicking of chairs, smelly feet, or iPods turned up too loud. All three are staring out their windows, not talking. I’d say pouting, except it feels deeper than that. More serious. Even Bryan.
We tried talking at first, but none of them took the bait. So, I’m enjoying the view out my passenger window, and Jackson is listening to the Braves pregame talk on the radio.
This, just us five in the car together, was something I lamented the loss of when Will surprised us with his and Anna’s elopement. We would never be this again. Now we are, and it’s not all it’s cracked up to be. That time is truly over.
I think I appreciated it, recognized it as special. I think I did, but really, is that possible? To understand, to grasp every bit while it’s happening? Or can you only see something once it’s a whole, not something you’re in the middle of, which means it has to be in the past? Our family of five is a thing of the past. Even if Anna and Will don’t make it, she’s part of our family. And there’s the baby.
Strange to be on this side of things. Up until now, I was the one creating, forcing change. Bringing home a fiancé, a husband, then three babies. I was on the pushing, expanding, moving forward side of things. Now? Now I’m on the being left side. I’m on the holding ground, keeping traditions, letting go side of things.
Letting go. Letting go. Wonder if you get used to it?
“Here we are,” I announce as we make the turn into the country club parking area. “Missus said there’s a big area of grass for parking. And don’t you all scatter. We need help carrying everything.”
Parked, Jackson opens the back door, and we load up chairs, coolers, blankets, and bags. One cooler is cold for drinks, the other one has our hot dogs in it. The wide open area at the beginning of the driving range is where we park, but we have to cross back over the road to get to the picnic area. Down below that area a small lake sits, and apparently the fireworks are shot off behind the lake, as everyone faces it. Mountain peaks surround us, and a welcome breeze makes the summer temperatures more tolerable.
Jackson lays face down on the blanket, and I unfold one of the canvas chairs to sit on. I sigh and relax for the first time all day. Savannah sits down on the edge of the blanket, and Will rests on the bigger cooler. Bryan is digging through the bags.
“Now what?” Savannah asks.
“Are your friends here?” I ask, without opening my eyes.
“I guess,” she answers. “Everyone said they were coming up here. Only thing to do, sounds like.”
Bryan sets forth his first priority. “Can we eat? I’m starving.”
That gets Jackson’s attention. “Yeah, me too.”
So much for relaxing. “Okay, fine. Bryan, hand out the plates and napkins.” I get up from my chair. “Don’t need utensils. There are chips, whole dill pickles, and cookies for dessert. Canned tea, soda, and water in the cooler.”
“Guess I’m eating with y’all?” I look up to see Anna standing at the corner of our blanket.
“Of course,” I say. “Will, open her a chair. Bryan is handing out paper plates.”
Jackson gets up and stretches. “What’s everyone want to drink?” he asks as he begins handing out cans and bottles.
“Really?” Savannah sighs. “There are onions on all of them?”
When I turn towards her, I see she’s opened up three of the foil wrapped hot dogs. “Yes, and quit opening them up, the steaming of the bun and all is the idea. Boys, eat those she’s opened. What, you don’t like onions, now?”
She rolls her eyes, “I’ve never liked onions.”
I flop in my chair beside Anna and say, “Then scrape them off. You’ve always liked onions before.” I try to share a smile with my daughter-in-law at my daughter’s expense, develop some good will, but Anna’s not having it. It’s hard to do, but she’s sitting stiff as a steel rod in a low-slung canvas chair. She has on the same clothes from earlier. A navy skirt and a short-sleeved white shirt. She even still has on her lanyard with her name and assistant manager trainee title under the Dollar Store logo.
Will is eating his second hot dog and hasn’t said a word. He finally says sideways to Anna, “Who’d you ride up here with?”
“Missus and FM dropped me off. They’re at the dinner in the clubhouse. She tricked me. I thought I was eating there.”
“Oh,” Will says. Then adds acerbically, “Sorry.”
“Apology accepted,” Anna says, and I tense. Jackson looks at me with raised eyebrows.
Will’s voice ge
ts harder. “So where’s your boss? With his family? Bet his kids like fireworks.”
Anna stares at him and then, with a small smile and superior tone, answers, “Mr. Kendrick is in the clubhouse at the dinner for the important people.”
Will crumples up the foil in his hand and throws it across the blanket in the direction of the plastic trash bag. “So that’s how they got you up here. Funny, you were just a stray we brought here from Athens, but now you’re too good for the rest of us.”
Stray? Yikes! “Okay, that’s enough, you two.” I reach out and put a hand on Anna’s arm. “Anna, we’re glad you are here.”
She smirks. “Will’s right. I’m only up here on this mountain because I hoped to keep Missus off my boss. She attacks him every time he turns around.” Then she swings her head to Savannah. “Right, Savannah? You saw her today. She’s completely out of control.” Anna looks back over her shoulder. “I only hope she’s under control in there. Kyle is just trying to do a good thing in Chancey.”
Will stands up. He stands over Anna’s chair, and he’s livid. “Kyle? You call him Kyle? Who are you?” He stomps off and leaves the rest of us with open mouths.
Bryan tries to fix things by holding out the package of Oreos he’d just pulled out and offering them to Anna. “Want an Oreo?”
She shakes her head and smiles a bit, although it doesn’t look much like a real smile. “Oreos? No, I don’t want an Oreo. I don’t eat chocolate, remember? Of course, why would any of you remember, or care? You didn’t want me sticking around, anyway.” She leans back in her chair and eats a chip from her plate.
“That’s not true, Anna,” Jackson says. “Remember, we took you in last year when no one even knew who you were.”
There’s that ‘not real’ smile again. “Oh, when I was a ‘stray’? Guess I wasn’t thankful enough. Didn’t pull my own weight. You know I was free labor for all the things Carolina and Savannah didn’t want to do.”
Kids are Chancey Page 20