by Thianna D
“What is it?” she said. “What’s happened?”
“Mama Venia,” Cadence at last made herself whisper. “Can I please come home?”
It didn’t matter that Venia no longer lived in the same house, or even in the same state, in which Cadence had grown up. It didn’t even matter that Cadence had never been to the new house, which wasn’t more than an hour or so from Denver, up over the mountains in a small community called Corbin’s Bend. Home was wherever her Other Mother was, and there was no place right now that Cadence wished more that she could be.
“Do you need me to come get you?” was Venia’s immediate response. “I can be there in an hour…” She must have checked her watch. “…hour and a half, depending on traffic.”
For the first time in what felt like months, Cadence heard herself laugh. It was soft and breathy, and the smile it forced her face to adopt felt much too brittle to pass for real. “No. No, I’m pretty sure my car can make it over the pass.”
“Do you have enough money for gas?”
Hugging her mother’s ring so tightly that she could feel the tiny stones biting into the soft flesh of her palm, Cadence nodded until she remembered Venia couldn’t hear that. “Yes.” Pawning this ring was going to hurt more than the pins in her legs, but there were times when adult responsibilities had to take precedence over childish wants. “Yes, I do.”
“Call me every half hour on the half hour until you get here, or I’ll go crazy thinking about your old car chugging up all those mountain curves. When are you leaving?”
“Right now,” Cadence whispered. Just as soon as she exchanged her beloved mother’s ring for a full tank of gas. She reached for her duffel bag, slipping her meager jewelry box into the side pocket and pulling the roadmap out onto her lap. After saying her goodbyes and scrubbing her wrist across eyes she refused to acknowledge were wet, she folded it to show the route from here to there.
Corbin’s Bend.
It felt like home already.
Chapter 2
Her car overheated twice. What should have only been a one hour trip from Denver, over the mountains to the quiet community of Corbin’s Bend, had instead taken three. Most of which had been spent on the side of the road with the hood up while she waited for the car to cool down enough to add more water to the steaming radiator. Eventually though, she did make it and right from the start, as she pulled off the mountain highway onto the winding, high-country road that connected the quiet co-op community of Corbin’s Bend to the rest of the world, it looked like a nice place to live.
Thirty-thousand wooded mountain acres surrounded a small community, with a population sign on the outskirts boasting just over four hundred people. It was freakishly clean, nothing like Denver, although it took a slow drive through the looping main road for her to recognize exactly how neat and tidy a city could be. She passed the school, the market, the community center and parks, and, oh, the houses…Stepford Wives came immediately to mind, with all those well-manicured yards, neatly cut lawns, and paint-by-number houses, of which there appeared to be only seven design variations. How the people of Corbin’s Bend managed to find their way back to their own homes each night was a mystery. At first glance, all the houses looked alike.
That was grossly unfair, and Cadence knew it the minute that uncharitable thought crossed her mind. Many of the houses did look identical, but only if one failed to look beyond all the extra finishing touches that individualized each and every residence. Purple and blue rhododendrons here, plaster garden gnomes among white roses there, a short picket fence surrounding a house on the corner with a sign that read “Beware of Dog” with a picture of the most non-threatening pug underneath.
In every neighborhood she’d ever lived in, there was always at least one house determined to “slum it up” for everybody else. But as Cadence drove slowly from one residential street to the next (incredibly conscientious of the potential of children at play, as the cautionary signs proclaimed) she couldn’t find a single ill-maintained home. Nor was any one house grander than its neighbors. Every single residence in this place could have pictured on the front cover of Better Homes and Gardens.
Unbelievable.
There wasn’t a single apartment complex either. That wasn’t just odd, it pretty much guaranteed Cadence would never live here. Without a job and with her credit in the tank like it was, there was just no way she could afford to buy a “Better Homes and Gardens” house.
On the next street over, Cadence finally found the neat little house and tidy yard that matched the address Venia had given her. And there she was, her Other Mother, stepping out onto the porch even as Cadence pulled into the driveway. Just that quickly, everything else was forgotten. She couldn’t get her car parked or her seatbelt off fast enough. She couldn’t even run for fear her new legs wouldn’t be able to oblige her, but even that was forgotten when she and Venia finally crashed together and her Other Mother flung her arms around her. The two women hugged. No sound, no tears. Just an embrace so tight that for a few fragile seconds, Cadence didn’t feel like such a failure.
“You’re too thin,” Venia said gruffly, stroking back her hair and pulling far enough away to give her a disapproving once over. “You look like you haven’t eaten a decent meal in weeks.”
For the second time today, Cadence felt her too-brittle face yielding to a strained laugh. “I’m fine. I promise, I’m fine.”
“You’ll be even better once I put some food in you.” Giving her a final pat on both shoulders, Venia at last set her aside. “You go on inside. I’ll get your luggage, and then we’ll have a nice cup of tea and play catch up.”
“There’s just one bag,” Cadence said, feeling ridiculously embarrassed about watching Venia pull her duffel out of the passenger seat. It was lazy of her not to carry it herself.
“Pfft!” Venia waved her on. “I’ve got it. Go, go!”
Cadence limped up the flower-lined walkway, managing the three porch steps with stiff-kneed but minor difficulty, and opened the door. She took one look at those orange walls and for the first time, the smile and the laugh she couldn’t quite stop felt genuine.
“Sherbet,” she said. “What is it with you and this color?”
“It’s warm and welcoming.” Closing the door behind her, Venia dropped her duffel on the couch and led the way to the kitchen. “Come on. I’ll put the kettle on.”
“Most people use a coffee maker these days.”
Venia scoffed. “Bite your tongue.”
Smiling, Cadence followed her from the living room into the kitchen. Orange sorbet paint and vanilla-white cabinets and trim reminded her of ice cream.
It used to be her favorite flavor.
“You look like you’re doing well.” Cadence sat at the kitchen table, her gaze drawn back across the open space into the living room. Funny, how much this place reminded her so strongly of the house in Florida. The layout was different, but many things (like some articles of furniture and the pictures across the fireplace mantel) looked very much the same.
Preparing two cups while the water heated in a kettle on the stove, Venia followed her gaze to the pictures. There were a lot of memories on that mantel: Cadence and Cecily; Venia and Cadence’s mother, Anne; Venia and her husband, Greg, also gone.
Venia drew a soft breath and smiled, before turning her attention back to the tea. “Some days are still hard,” she admitted. “But I’m where I need to be.” Bearing two steaming cups, she came back to the table and handed one to Cadence before sinking into the chair at the head of the table beside her. “All right,” she said, folding her hands around her cup. “Let’s see them.”
Currently rubbing at her right knee, trying to ease the persistent ache, Cadence didn’t even try to pretend she didn’t understand. She grimaced, but dutifully worked both pants’ legs high enough to show the scars and the bumps of the pins just under her skin.
“It’s okay,” she lied, running her hands over the mottled scars, surgical and othe
rwise. “It doesn’t even hurt anymore.”
Though fifty-three, Venia hardly looked her age. She didn’t have much in the way of age lines, just a few wrinkles that creased in at the corners of her eyes and around her lips, especially when she flattened them a frown, the way she was doing right now. “Cadence Anne Westmore, you’ve been dancing from the moment you learned how to stand. Don’t tell me it doesn’t hurt. I happen to know you better than that.”
“There’s no help for it, then,” Cadence amended.
“That,” Venia said wisely, “is altogether different from not hurting.” She always knew exactly what to say to cut to the meat of any matter. “How long will you be staying?”
“How long will you have me?” Cadence didn’t mean for her voice to crack, but it did anyway.
Reaching across the table, Venia covered her hand and gave it a squeeze. “Until the cows come home, and well you know it. I don’t have a guest room any more, but the couch is comfortable as hell. I practically lived on it those first few months after Greg died, until I could make myself face the bedroom again. I swear, you’ll think you’re lying on a cloud. As for everything else…” She offered another squeeze as she said, “Well, time has a way of sorting things out. I promise, you might not think so now, but you’re going to be just fine.”
Cadence didn’t have it in her to argue. Forcing another smile, she let Venia believe she felt comforted.
Her duffel bag found a place to live in an out of the way corner of the living room behind one arm of the sofa. Later, Cadence even helped with dinner, deliberately keeping the conversation light. She asked about Cecily and the new boyfriend she was seeing. She asked about Corbin’s Bend and if her aunt liked living here better than Florida.
“Winters are an arthritic hell,” Venia said, then closed her eyes with a heaven-sent smile that made her nose crinkle with near girlish-glee as she added, “but the people here are the best! Cady baby, I wouldn’t live anywhere else. Not for all the money in the world.”
Cadence was glad. If anyone deserved such happiness, surely that person was Mama Venia. She kept that thought firmly in mind, clung to it all through dinner and the quick little clean-up that followed their simple two-person supper. And later that night, when the talking was done and the lights were out, Cadence lay under her blanket on the living room sofa and privately admired the awesome acoustics taking place in that little house. Clear from Venia’s bedroom, as clearly as if they were in the same room, she heard Venia talking on the phone.
“No, it’s just a visit… Don’t worry, Brent. My Cady is a good girl… No, she doesn’t know a thing… It’s been a hard few years for her. This is something she really needs. I consider this a personal favor… No, she’s not the type to make trouble… Of course. I’ll make sure she obeys our rules, and like I said, she’ll only be here for a little while… You too. Have a good night… Tell Char I said hello.”
Hugging a couch pillow against her chest, Cadence kept those acoustics firmly in mind and covered her mouth with her hand to help muffle what few inadvertent sounds escaped her when she cried herself to sleep.
Chapter 3
There was only so much pity-partying a girl could do before it was time to just plain stop. The following morning, Cadence woke up on the sofa with a crick in her shoulder and the sun in her eyes, and she knew she’d reached that point. She’d always been independent. She’d always pulled her own weight and made her own way. She was not going to be anyone’s burden, least of all her Mama Venia’s. So she got up early, took a shower, and brought in the…could it even be called a ‘newspaper’?
Printed off somebody’s home computer, the paper was really more of a pamphlet. It numbered five pages total with articles on both sides that covered local community events. By the time Venia ventured out of her bedroom in a blue bathrobe and fuzzy slippers, Cadence had breakfast on the table, had just poured her second cup of coffee, and was polishing off her last bite of toast while she read through what constituted for local news. Not a lot happened in Corbin’s Bend. Someone was expecting their second baby. Someone else was apparently in trouble because, although no specific crime was mentioned, a disciplinary tribunal was being arranged and all community members were urged to attend. There was a birthday party scheduled for that Saturday and information was being sought in connection with a broken window at the Amore Italian restaurant.
Cadence turned the page. There was even a Classifieds section, of sorts, although it wasn’t arranged in any particular order. None of them were Cadence’s idea of an ideal job, but she only had a month to get her mother’s ring out of hock or lose it forever. Since she was going to need to get her car fixed before attempting another trip over the mountains, at this point, anything that came with a paycheck, and she thought she could physically do, was getting circled.
“You know,” Venia yawned, pouring herself a cup of hot coffee. “No one would fault you for taking at least one good day to rest up and recoup.”
“I hate waiting.” Cadence circled another ad—deli clerk for a grocery market. She’d never worked deli before, but she did have experience working a register. Granted, that experience dated back to her sixteenth year and that register had belonged to a Dairy Queen, but really, how drastically could registers have changed in ten years’ time? It didn’t pay much better, but as far as her pride was concerned, anything was an improvement over, say, waiting tables at Amore’s. Then again, a job was a job. She circled that ad too.
“You always did.” Sinking into her seat at the head of the table, Venia only just stifled a groan when her butt made contact with the chair. “These old bones don’t move so well in the mornings anymore.”
That made Cadence smile, though she didn’t bother glancing up from the newspaper. “The way you age, your ‘old bones’ will be moving around long after the rest of us are dust.”
“What can I say? I’m a fine, fine wine.”
“Or a cheese.” Cadence couldn’t remember the last time she’d sat around a table just bantering and teasing. She hadn’t known she’d missed it this much until now.
“I’ll limburger you,” the older woman muttered, pushing aside a breakfast plate laden with a thick wedge of ham and cheese omelet. She sipped her coffee instead. “So, what are you looking for?”
“A paycheck.”
Tsking, Venia picked a piece of toast off her plate and began to eat it. “All right, read them to me.”
Shrugging, Cadence went back to the top of the classifieds page. “There’s not a lot here. Only about…seven ads and they’re spread all over. I don’t know who put this paper together—”
“Ettie Thomas, a friend of mine. About once or twice a week, she copies down all the ads off the community bulletin board and then sends it out to those of us who don’t get out much.”
Cadence looked up at her in concern. “Why don’t you get out much?”
“Oh, I get out all the time. I opt for the paper because I’m nosy that way. And lazy. Why wander all over town to get the news when I can have it delivered right to my porch?”
Scoffing, Cadence shook her head. “You ought to be ashamed.”
“So they keep telling me.” Venia grinned, completely without remorse. “So, what’s Ettie got to say about jobs?”
“Like I said, there’s not a lot being offered and what there is, is scattered in amongst all the buy, sell and trades. There are a couple cars here and there. Free puppies that were, apparently, found abandoned out on the highway. Whoever did that ought to be strung up.” Cadence shot a glance at her Other Mother. “That’s a direct quote, by the way. I like your friend Ettie already.”
“Me, too.” Venia picked up the other half of her toast. “What else is there?”
“Uh…Oh, Auntie Q’s Antiques is having a ‘hairbrush blowout’ special this weekend only. With or without bristles, it says. What good is a hairbrush without bristles, is what I’d like to know? I don’t see their sale being very successful.”
“Mm,” Venia said noncommittally, her eyes sparkling and her mouth full of toast.
“And here, there’s an ad for a guy selling collars, leashes, belts and straps in leather and chainmail. For all your personal needs, he says. Chainmail? Seriously? You must have some majorly butched out dogs around here. Sale on crops, but he doesn’t even say what he’s growing.”
“How short-sighted of him.” Smirking, Venia licked butter and crumbs off her thumb.
“No kidding. Here’s an ad for the night shift at the book store, which is probably a misprint. What kind of book store stays open all night?”
“What kind indeed,” her Other Mother mused.
Cadence read the ad quietly before circling it. “I can probably do that. How hard is it to sell books? Although…I don’t know. What if they need me to step up on stools or reach high shelves? I don’t know,” she said again, even softer this time. “Oh, wait a minute…it says it’s located about fifteen miles down the road but, Ettie says, it might be worth the commute because it offers a fifty-percent discount on all inventory, except insertables. Insertables? What the hell kind of book store is thi—Ooooh.”
While Venia shook her head, Cadence scribbled that ad off her list of potential employment opportunities.
“Never mind that one,” she said and continued down the page. “I don’t know which is worse, that ad or this one: ‘Fully furnished spnk mobile. Sound proofed interior, 3 foldouts, sleeps 8, kitchen, bath, private bed. Low miles, drives great. Take your fun down to the lake. No one’ll be the wiser.’ What’s a s-p-n-k mobile?”
“No idea.” Venia buried her smile behind another sip of coffee.