by Lynne Gentry
Charlotte reaches over and straightens the sheet music. “LaVera used to say a little lipstick always makes a girl feel better.”
Using my friendship with an Avon lady against me is a low blow...even for Charlotte. “I feel fine.” It’s funny how lies repeated often enough eventually don’t feel wrong anymore. “We’re busy here, Charlotte Ann.” I restart the metronome. “Don’t you have papers to grade or something?”
My crankiness deserves a stern look, but Charlotte continues coming at me with an unusual cheeriness I think she’s manufacturing to prove I was wrong about her working for Wilma. “It’s such a pretty day, I think you and Aria should sit on the porch.”
“Nana, please, let’s move to the porch and—”
“I’ll let both of you know when I’m ready to be relegated to a rocking chair.” I hold up a palm to silence their nagging. “From the beginning, Aria.”
My granddaughter’s shoulders slump with a dramatic huff. “I’ve been at the piano for over an hour.
“But you’ve wasted fifteen minutes of it sneaking peeks out the window like you’re expecting company.” I tap the sheet music with my ruler. “Two pages of this Beethoven sonata from memory or I don’t participate in another one of those silly brain games.”
Aria’s glare is more like the pre-teen she should be rather than the mature caretaker she’s become. “I think I liked it better when you weren’t talking.”
I tap the sheet music again. “Play.”
Aria straightens into proper form, lifts her hands to the keys, then defiantly takes one more glance out the window. “Someone’s here.” She jumps up. The piano bench scrapes against the floor. Sheet music flies in the air. “See?”
Determined not to give in to another stall tactic, I busy myself with the task of returning the sheet music to its proper order. “Probably just the mail.”
“Winnie sleeps in on Saturdays.” Aria’s hopping around like she’s either about to wet her pants or she has a secret she can no longer keep. “Maybe you should come see who it is.”
“Sweet Moses!” I scoot past the piano bench and Aria. “If it’ll get you back to the task then...”
Two cars are coming up the drive. A dark sedan and a teal Cadillac.
“It’s Ira!” I drop the ruler, wheel in my Dearfoams, and head for the front door. I fling the screen open and scramble onto the porch. Hand tented over my eyes, I try to make out who’s in the Cadillac. Ira’s daughter is behind Trixie’s wheel and Ira’s riding shotgun, a huge smile on his face and two small dogs in his lap. In the backseat, a giant of a woman with white hair and a big bow is waving and calling my name through the open window.
“Teeny!” I’m stumbling down the steps as they roll to a stop in front of the house.
Aria grips my arm. “Are you surprised, Nana?” Her grin reaches plum up to her glowing eyes.
“You knew they were coming?”
“Mom and I have been planning it for days.”
I turn to the porch where Charlotte is standing on the top step, smiling like the cat who swallowed the canary. “You knew I was having company and let me meet them looking a fright?”
“I tried to talk you into changing, but you’re a stubborn one.” Charlotte comes down the steps, hands me a tube of lipstick, and holds up a small mirror. “Happy birthday, Momma.”
“Birthday? My birthday’s not until October.”
“So, shoot me. We’re celebrating a little early.” Charlotte motions to the tube of red clasped in my hand. “It’ll take them a second to climb out of the car.”
I turn my back on my company. My hands shake with so much excitement I can barely keep the lipstick within the outline of my mouth. I blot my lips together, cap the tube, and hand it back to her. “Thank you, Charlotte.” In an effort to communicate my sincere appreciation for this unexpected gift, I let my gaze linger on hers. “Short of bringing Aria back into my life, letting my friends visit is the best gift you’ve ever given me.”
Charlotte swallows hard. “Go on. Enjoy.”
While Ira unfolds himself from the front seat, I pat my hair into submission. Goodness and Mercy bound across the drive and yap around my legs. I bend to pat their heads and tell Aria, “Better hide your cat.”
“I’ve already put Fig up. Thought we’d introduce them slowly.”
I straighten. “Well, I guess you’ve thought of everything.”
“Sara!”
I look up and Ira’s arms are open wide. “Ira!” I probably look like a giddy teenager glad to see her beau home from war, but I don’t care. I fall into his embrace. He smells of the peanut butter and birdseed he uses to make his corncob critter feeders. That he would leave his feathered friends at The Reserve to come see me stirs tears. “What on earth are you doing here?” I mutter into his ear.
Before he can answer, Teeny taps my shoulder. “Sara, we’ve come to stay.”
I pull back from Ira’s hold. “Stay?”
Ira nods. “Got a formal invitation in the mail.” Ira pulls an envelope from his shirt pocket. The stationary inside is creamy white. Expensive by the feel of it. Charlotte McCandless, Attorney at Law spans the letterhead.
“Me too.” Teeny waves a matching envelope. “Just like his.”
A quick scan of Charlotte’s letter to Ira makes everything clear. This isn’t a birthday lunch invite, but rather an invitation to move in...to make Fossil Ridge their home...permanently.
My jaw goes slack. Disbelief clogs my throat. I can only hold out the letter to my daughter and pray she understands the gesture as my need for further explanation.
“It’s true,” Charlotte says. “I’ve asked your friends to move in and Aria’s been helping me get ready.”
“We’ve had to be so sneaky.” The truth comes spilling out of Aria. “I thought for sure you’d notice the grab bars around the tub. Most falls occur in the bathroom, you know.”
“I didn’t,” I say, my mind still reeling from the shock.
“Winnie kept you out extra-long on the mail route for several days last week so Raymond Leck could install them.”
“Raymond?”
“Simmer down, Momma,” Charlotte says. “He’s been a great help.”
“Yeah, he helped us rearrange the bedrooms, rewire some lighting, and remove all of the rugs and runners,” Aria says. “The Consumer Product Safety Commission estimates 6,800 elderly people are treated in emergency rooms for injuries related to rugs and runners every year.”
That I hadn’t even noticed these changes to the house I’ve lived in for forty years rocks me to the core. “Well, sounds like you really have thought of everything.”
“Dad,” Esther walks up accompanied by a handsome young man I’d guess to be in his late teens. “Aren’t you forgetting something?”
“Oh,” Ira takes my hand. “Sara, this is my oldest grandson. He offered to take off work to help us move in. Brandon this is Mrs. Slocum, her daughter Charlotte, and granddaughter Aria. Ladies, Brandon.”
“Nice to meet you, ladies.” Brandon definitely inherited his grandfather’s charm. “Want me to get your surprise for Mrs. Slocum out of the Caddy, Pops?”
“Please.” Ira squeezes my hand. “Close your eyes, Sara.”
“I don’t know if my heart can take any more surprises.”
“Close them tight,” Ira insists, tightening his squeeze to my hand for assurance. “You’re going to love it.”
“Very well.” I close my eyes.
All around me are the sounds of excitement. I hear the faint tinkle of a bell, followed by a gasp from Charlotte, and a cheer from Aria.
“Go ahead, Sara,” Ira says. “Open them.”
My eyelids flutter, then freeze in shock. Brandon stands in front of me, his arms straining beneath the weight of a large bird cage. Inside the cage, a beautiful ringneck parrot sits on a perch and peers at me through the bars.
Ira is pointing to the gift like he’s Vanna White and I just bought a vowel. “He’s all yours, S
ara.”
Tears spring from my eyes. “He looks exactly like Polygon.”
“He doesn’t talk,” Ira says.
“Yet.” I slowly stick a gnarled finger through the bars. The bird hops off his perch and wraps his claws around me. “But he will.”
Chapter 26
CHARLOTTE
Here’s your Austin Statesman, Ira.” I place the newspaper on the kitchen table where Momma, Ira, and Teeny are having breakfast and discussing the pros and cons of frozen lima beans. “I’m afraid your copy is always going to be a day late since they have to mail it.”
Momma reaches over her tea cup, snatches up the plastic sleeve, and dumps the paper in her lap. “Ira ordered the paper for Bojangles. He needs his cage liner changed every day.”
I nearly choke on my toast. “Bojangles?”
“You don’t like his name?” Momma asks.
“He’s your bird. You can name him whatever you want. It’s just that Bojangles isn’t a math term I’m familiar with.”
“Ira says this bird can’t talk but he sure can dance.” Aria rocks back on two legs of her chair and sticks her finger through the bars of the parrot’s cage. “Dance, Mr. Bojangles.”
The bird tilts his head then hops from foot to foot. I can’t help but join the laughter and cheers that follow.
“A dancing bird, two tea-cup poodles, one Siamese cat, a brilliant teenager, three challenging senior citizens—”
“And one beautiful music teacher,” Ira says.
“Sounds like we’ve opened a zoo.” Momma’s brightened so much since Ira and Teeny’s arrival, it’s hard to believe she has Alzheimer’s.
“I’ll be ruined if word of this ever gets back to my colleagues on the Hill.” I drop the crust of my toast in the scrap bucket Ira insisted we keep for the chickens.
“Our lips are sealed.” Ira drags pinched fingers across his grin. “Mind if I read the obits before we cut up the paper, Sara?”
“Obits?” Momma frowns. “Why the obits?”
“Like to check to make sure my name isn’t there.” Ira’s chuckling as he takes the paper from Momma. “Want me to check for yours?”
I have to admit the old man deserves much of the credit for the fresh air we’ve all sensed since he arrived. His stories about life on his goat farm have Aria begging for a kid of her own.
“Do you know how to read between the lines?” Momma asks.
“Between the lines?” Ira’s as confused as the rest of us by this strange statement. He pats my mother’s hand patiently. “Can you explain reading between the lines to me, Sara?”
“After a long illness is a phrase used for people like me,” Momma says flatly. “People who die a piece at a time. Whether it’s better to be betrayed by one’s body or one’s mind has always been up for grabs.”
Silence drops like a shroud over the breakfast table. Even Ira doesn’t have a snappy comeback.
Bojangles dings the bell attached to his little swing.
Momma squares her body like a fighter ready for the next round. “Died unexpectedly can mean an accident, but as in Martin’s case, it meant suicide.” Momma doesn’t look at me. “That’s how Mitty Stringer wrote up Martin’s obit. Died unexpectedly. Remember, Charlotte?”
“I don’t.” I spear her with a warning glare she ignores. “Come on, Ari, we’re going to be late.” I gather my purse and keys. “Now, Aria.”
“Wait.” Aria refuses to budge from the table. “Did Nana just say my grandfather killed himself?”
Momma’s mouth falls open. She looks to me like she can’t believe what’s just tumbled out of her mouth and she’s horrified. The panic in her eyes begs me to fix it. To somehow put the cat back in the bag.
“How did he die?” Aria asks. “Why’d he do it?”
I’ve faced powerful senators and cut-throat litigators, but I’m not sure what terrifies me more. That sooner or later I’m going to have to reveal family secrets to my daughter or that my mother no longer has a filter.
“It’s a long story, Ari.” I sling my purse strap over my shoulder. “One that deserves more time than we have right now.”
“Tonight?”
Ira comes to my rescue. “Tonight, we have to plan your birthday party, Aria.”
I can see why my mother loves this man. “That’s right. Labor Day weekend is coming up fast and we have to decide whether to host the party on Sunday or Monday.”
“Who’s going to come to a party for me?” Aria pushes back from the table.
Teeny’s hand shoots into the air. “I will.” She pulls her hand down and begins putting names to fingers. “Teeny. Ira. Winnie. Bo. Sara. Gert from the pharmacy. Dr. Ellis. Your mother.” She lifts her head, a big smile on her face. “That’s eight. We’ll need a big cake.”
In the week that Teeny and Ira have been with us, it’s as if the country air has unstopped Teeny’s voice, but still we marvel when she speaks.
“Ember will come and some of her friends, don’t you think?” My effort to keep the conversation steered away from suicide is met with the roll of Aria’s eyes.
“Ember only hangs with me because she has a crush on you.”
“What?”
“Ember thinks you’re the bomb when it comes to music and she wants your help to get on one of those stupid talents shows so she can get the heck out of Addisonville.”
“Well, it’s good to have dreams.”
“Did you give up your dreams because your dad killed himself?”
“Come on, Ari. I offered before-school vocal tutoring for the small ensembles and it would be helpful if I was actually there before school. And I can’t work on their harmonies if you’re not there to accompany them. So, let’s get going.”
We’re not a half-mile away from the house when Aria brings up the subject again. “Did it make you sad when your dad killed himself?”
“Of course.”
“Is that why you never go with Nana to put flowers on his grave?”
Is it? I’m pondering all the reasons I don’t traipse across the pasture and climb the bluff over the river to forgive Daddy when a huge billboard alongside the road catches my eye.
ELECT SAM SPARKS for COUNTY TAX COMMISSIONER
The punch to my gut takes my breath. “Oh, no.”
“Mom? You okay?”
I shake my head. “I’ve been so busy senior-proofing the house, getting Momma’s friends settled, and trying to stay one step ahead of constant lesson planning that I’ve completely forgotten to deal with Momma’s in-arears tax bill.”
“Don’t try to change the subject.” Ari spins toward me in the seat. “Why did my grandfather commit suicide?”
I point to the billboard. “Ari, if Sam Sparks gets elected he’ll come after Fossil Ridge so fast you’ll be asking me to explain murder.”
Chapter 27
CHARLOTTE
I watch the clock at the back of the auditorium, awaiting the arrival of my planning period. My fingers itch to check my phone. The moment the bell rings at the end of third period, I grab my purse and race to the teacher’s lounge.
“Win,” I whisper the moment she picks up. “Will Sam Sparks be elected?” I can hear gravel pinging off the undercarriage of Winnie’s VW. She’s out on her mail route, possibly driving past Fossil Ridge as we speak.
“C?” she shouts. “I can’t hear you.”
Luckily, no one else is in the lounge so I turn my back to the door and repeat my question, this time with the volume raised in my voice.
Winnie responds with a loud, “I’m guessing you saw the campaign billboard in the Wootens’ pasture.”
“Why didn’t you say something?”
“What’s it to you if Sam Sparks throws his hat in the political arena?”
I check to make sure no one’s slipped into the lounge while I had my back to the door. “Momma’s behind on her property taxes.”
“Yikes.”
“I found a notice in one of her mountainous stacks of bills.�
��
“Why didn’t you take care of it?”
“This outrageous love crap has me so distracted I forgot.”
“So, deal with it now.”
“Win, I need help? I don’t know Texas tax law, but I’m guessing Momma qualifies for some senior exemptions or reductions in her tax bill.”
“I haven’t practiced law since I got hired on at the post office.”
“Win, please.”
Her sigh blasts my ear. “Come by Bo’s station after school and we’ll draft a letter.”
“No time for letters. We’ve got to go to the county seat today.”
“The election’s not until November.”
“Once Sam is Tax Assessor he can have Fossil Ridge revalued at a higher rate. I don’t know how long it will take to sort and settle Momma’s debts. Sam isn’t running because of his public servant nature. He’s looking for a way to starve us out.”
“Settle down.”
“Says the woman who accuses me of putting things off.” Ding. I pull the phone from my ear and see that the incoming message is from my husband. “Winnie, I’m getting a text. I’ll pick you up at 3:30.”
My fingers shake as I hang up then click and read the message from James. “That sorry son of a gun.”
I sprint from the teacher’s lounge and race to the middle school hall. Through the window in the English classroom door I watch my daughter. She’s sitting on the front row, working on this week’s vocabulary words. Blonde curls frame her innocent face. I clench my phone and make myself a promise. For as long as possible, mastering synonyms and antonyms is going to be my little girl’s only problem.
Chapter 28
ARIA
I wait for the dust from the school bus to settle before I tackle the cattle guard between the rusted cowboys guarding Nana’s lane. Careful not to twist an ankle, I step from metal pipe to metal pipe then start walking toward the freshly painted house at the top of the hill. When the afternoon sun hits the warped boards just right, you can still see blue beneath the new white paint. Mom started her teaching job before she could give the boards another coat. She said she was going to hire Raymond Leck to finish the job, but then Nana threw a fit. Said she didn’t want that crepe murderer covering up the last traces of her past.