by Rhett DeVane
Norman stepped up behind her and slipped his hands over her eyes. Hannah heard the sound of scurrying and the clink of glassware.
Justine yelled, “Okay, Dad. Lead her in.”
Norman steered Hannah into the formal dining room, an area used for holidays and special occasions. When he removed his hands, Hannah beheld a festively decorated table set with tall tapered candles and the fine china.
“Wow. You guys did all this?”
Norman gestured to the kids. “Don’t give me any of the credit. I was in charge of the spa appointment.”
Justine held the back of one hand to her forehead. “I slaved for, like, hours.”
Jonas grinned. “I made the salad and garlic toast.”
“Don’t even think I baked the pie. I got it from the bakery uptown.” Justine pointed to the sideboard.
Norman pulled out a chair and helped his wife to be seated.
“I don’t know how to act.” Hannah unfolded the linen napkin.
“Sit right there and we’ll bring on the chow.” Jonas dashed to the kitchen, followed closely by his older sister.
That night when Hannah lay in bed beside her husband, she marveled over the entire experience. Her daughter, Princess of Self-Absorption, had cooked a superb lasagna dinner and managed to stay off the phone. Her son’s room appeared spotless, without the usual flotsam of soiled clothes and rank shoes. The entire house had been vacuumed and dusted, and no dirty laundry lurked in the garage. When Hannah felt Norman’s hand caress the triangle of skin at the small of her back—the signal for lovemaking—she wondered if she had beamed into another woman’s life by mistake.
Helen and Hal had called. Her nephews and friends left chirpy Facebook messages. Co-workers signed a card. Suzanne and Becky Weston, an old high-school chum, sang off-key tributes on the cell phone’s voicemail.
She hadn’t heard one growly peep from Ma-Mae. Hannah felt sad, in spite of her family’s lavish attention. Mae had forgotten her baby daughter’s birthday.
Helen’s Hot Corn
1 stick butter or margarine
8 oz. pkg. cream cheese
2, 12 oz. cans shoe peg corn, drained
1, 4 oz. can chopped green chilies
Jalapeno peppers to taste (1 Tbsp. chopped)
Salt and pepper to taste
Preheat oven to 350º
Melt butter or margarine in saucepan over low heat. Add cream cheese and stir until melted. Remove from heat. Combine cheese mixture with remaining ingredients. Bake in a 2 quart casserole dish, uncovered, for 30 to 40 minutes.
Chapter Eleven
Hannah pulled Norman’s truck onto the grass in front of the modest frame house on Satsuma Road. Good, she was the first one to arrive. Time to gather her wits before dealing with Helen’s inevitable torrent of tears.
She shut off the engine and sat for a moment. Thinking about the previous night, Hannah felt a blush of warmth creep up her midsection—for once, not a hot flash. What the heck had gotten into Norman? Mr. Lights-off, Four-second-foreplay, Under-the-covers Man? They hadn’t made love like that since their twenties. Had she raked Norman with her freshly-painted nails? She surveyed her hands; the polish was intact. Hannah made a mental note to check Norman’s back for scratches. No need to court infection. Poor man. It had just felt so good, better than sniffing a fresh coffee bag. She still felt all glow-y and sore, in a good way.
Hannah forced her mind from the marital bed and studied her family’s old home. In spite of Hal’s maintenance, the house and yard had assumed a deserted, hang-dog appearance. Prickly Smilax vines laced the overgrown azaleas. The flower beds sprouted as many dandelions as perennials, and tentative shoots of centipede grass crowded the brick walkway leading to the front steps. The official greeting goose—fondly named Lucy Goosey, a two-foot-tall cement yard ornament—had developed a thick layer of dark green mold. Hannah frowned. The stupid goose had more little hand-sewn outfits than she could count, and had always been decorated with an ensemble reflective of the season. Now it stood neglected and naked, not good for a goose with a taste for fashion.
It all added up to this: if a building could convey emotions, the house looked lonely, abandoned and forlorn. Hannah grabbed a stack of cardboard boxes from the bed of the truck and dug in her purse to locate the key ring.
Inside, the house smelled of accumulated dust, stale air, and the faint aroma of cinnamon and spices. Hannah smiled slightly as she dumped the boxes on the living room floor. When her mother had lived here, the air always carried a blend of bleach, lemon-fresh Pine-Sol, and the homey scent of her latest baked creation. Mae would pitch a fit and fall in it if she knew her house smelled musty.
Hannah walked through the living room and dining room, flinging open windows along the way, until she reached the kitchen. Over the years, more succulent Southern meals had emanated from the cramped space than from most of the cavernous designer kitchens she had seen. Mae bounced from the stove to the work table, to the diminutive cupboard, and to the sink and back like a quicksilver pinball caught between springing flippers, her cotton ruffled apron polka-dotted with cake flour, oil, and traces of whatever sauce she was concocting.
Hannah left the kitchen to visit the three small bedrooms. Hal’s was located at the end of a narrow hallway, across from a somewhat larger master bedroom. The middle room had been shared by the two girls until Helen married, allowing Hannah to sprawl luxuriously in her own space. Mae had converted the girls’ room into a sewing and art project nook several years after her final fledgling married and moved out.
For years, the house contained only one bathroom. When it became clear that three women sharing vanity time and space was a recipe for misery, Hannah’s father had overseen construction of a small add-on restroom immediately off the master bedroom.
Helen routinely took “forty-forevers” in the bathroom. Hannah recalled the times she and Hal spent pleading and banging on the hollow wooden door, doing the I-gotta-go dance. If a drop of hot water remained after one of Helen’s marathon showers, it was truly a miracle. Hannah learned early on to douse quickly, turn the water off, lather, then turn the water on for a quick final rinse. Hal had learned to cope with cold water washes.
Hannah and her sister united for one common cause: teaching their brother to lower the toilet seat. Even though his first marriage had failed, it wasn’t on account of leaving the lid up for his unsuspecting wife. Helen’s stern warning echoed in Hannah’s memory: “Rules is rules, bubba-boy. Next time I nearly-’bout fall into this toilet because of you, I’m going to stick your head in it and give you the worst swirly-flush any human being’s ever gotten!”
As far as she could recall, the lid stayed down from that point forward. Helen was never one for empty threats.
Hannah put her purse and notepad on the kitchen table before walking out to the screened back porch and down a short flight of steps to her favorite spot under a sprawling ancient magnolia tree. A brilliant scarlet cardinal flitted by and landed on an empty feeder. Mae cherished the birds, from the clamoring blue jays to the diminutive cocoa-brown house sparrows. Hannah located the five-gallon aluminum can where her mother stored the seed and filled all four feeders. Maybe the new owners would continue her mother’s careful guardianship. Hannah sank down onto the second-to-last porch step and propped her head in her hands.
The screened door hinges creaked behind her. “Hey! Wondered where you were,” Hal called out.
“Come sit.” Hannah patted the stair beside her. “Helen here yet?”
Hal grunted as he lowered his lanky frame. “Nope. But she’s on the way, just called me on the cell. Michael Jack’s with her.” Her brother surveyed the backyard. “I need to get over and mow pretty soon. The rain’s making the weeds sprout.”
“I can meet you one afternoon and help whip the yard into shape, before we list the house.”
Hal nodded.
“Didn’t this look different when we were kids?” Hannah asked. “I remember it being so
. . . huge.”
Hal pointed to a cluster of live oaks at the rear of the lot. “I had a tree fort right over there.”
“No girls allowed,” Hannah said in a snarky sing-song voice.
“God knows I had to have someplace to escape you women!”
Hannah snickered. “I used to sneak out there when you weren’t home and sit in it. Just for spite.”
“I knew you did.”
Hannah punched him playfully in the arm. “Oh yeah? How’s that?”
“Girl cooties all over the place. I had a special spray to rid my haven of them.”
“What, like bug spray?”
“Lysol, or some other bathroom odor stuff. Whatever I could find. One time I used half a can of Ma-Mae’s deodorant.”
They shared the silence for a few moments before Hannah spoke. “Must be a boy thing. Josh has a little hidey-hole in his closet.”
“I need to build that boy a tree house.”
“He’d probably like that. Norman’s a good man and a wonderful father, but heaven help us all if he so much as picks up a hammer without someone giving him directions.”
Hal’s handsome face lit up in a smile. “He can’t be all bad. He’s put up with you for all these years.”
“Everyone has a cross to bear, I suppose.” She stood and swatted the dirt from her pants. “We’d better go in and at least do a quick review of Ma-Mae’s list. You know we’ll have to deal with Helen’s hysterics soon.”
“Suzanne’ll be by later. She had to run her mama over to Tallahassee.”
“Anything wrong?”
Hal held the door open for her to pass. “Routine stuff. Ruthie takes a blood-thinner and they check her every so often. Where’s Norman?”
Hannah felt the warmth rise. Again. So adolescent, to heat up at the mention of his name. What the heck. If she was lucky, maybe they’d do it again soon. For Christmas. Or Easter.
“He’ll be here after lunch. The kids are off with their friends for spring break, so this really does work out to go ahead and do this now.”
Hal paused before entering. “It’s mighty strange to think of anyone else living in our house.”
The sound of sniffling and loud nose-honking alerted Hannah to her sister’s distress. She found Helen sitting cross-legged in the living room amidst a stack of plastic storage bins.
“Honey, maybe you should take a break for a while. It’s not like we have to do this all in one day.”
Helen wiped mascara sludge from beneath her eyes. “I can’t help it. It’s like she’s already gone and we’re picking through her belongings.”
Hannah knelt. “I know, Sissy. It’s hard for Hal and me too. I thought maybe this room and the storage closet would be easier for you than . . . the bedroom.”
“I don’t think I could take going through her clothes.” Helen inhaled and exhaled, obviously willing her emotions to subside. “I was doing pretty well with the list, separating things out like she wants, until I found these.” She motioned to three identical gray plastic bins. “The others are full of Christmas decorations and one box is nothing but outfits for Lucy Goosey. Lordy be, that statue surely has a load of clothes! A Santa cape and hat, a spring showers raincoat and tiny umbrella, an orange and yellow polka dot shorts suit and sunglasses. There must be over a dozen.”
“I guess after we moved out and most of the grandkids were older, Ma-Mae poured all of her sewing skills into that yard goose. I found a tiny pink tutu and tiara in the sewing room. I’d never seen that outfit before. What’s in these other boxes?”
Helen snapped the lid off one container. “Looks like she was busy compiling scrapbooks.” She handed a large leather binder to Hannah. The first page, written in Mae’s careful block printing, read: “This is your life, Hannah Mathers Olsen.” Inside were photographs from black and white baby snapshots, up to grade school, high school, college, and finally, marriage and family.
“Mine and Hal’s are basically the same.” Helen ran her fingers through the piles of loose pictures. “The rest are various vacation and holiday photos.” She dabbed fresh tears. “That’s not all. She’s also written little notebooks for all the grandkids.” She fished in one of the bins. “Here’s Michael Jack’s.”
“Grand-Mae Remembers,” Hannah read the title aloud. She flipped through several pages of her mother’s script. “This is amazing, Helen. Suppose it was to be for Christmas, or something? Our birthdays?”
“Could be. Maybe it was left here for us to find. You remember how it always delighted Ma-Mae to hide our gifts when we were kids.”
Hal and Michael Jack walked into the living room. “I thought we’d run up to Bill’s and pick up some lunch. My stomach’s beginning to think my throat’s been cut,” Hal said.
Hannah stood and stretched. “Good idea, bro. I’m going to splurge on one of those wonderful gut-burgers—all the way, with cheese.”
“Fries?”
“Might as well. And a large unsweetened tea with a couple of packages of sweetener in the pink pack.”
“You’re so much like Ma-Mae that way, Hannah,” Helen said. “Eat all you want, by golly, but don’t dare put real sugar in your tea.” She turned to her brother. “I’ll take a chef salad with ranch dressing on the side. And sweet tea for me.”
The four of them sat on the front porch. Grease and catsup dribbled down Hannah’s chin. “This is absolutely scrumptious.”
“Mr. Bill uses real meat and slaps ’em up by hand,” Hal said. “None of that pre-fab hockey-puck crap.”
Michael Jack cleared his throat. “Um, I wanted to ask you all something.”
“Sure, hon.” Helen reached over and pushed a strand of her son’s sandy brown hair from his eyes.
“How would y’all feel about me buying this place?”
Mae’s three offspring stared at Michael Jack for a moment before his mother answered. “You’d want to live here? In Chattahoochee?”
Michael Jack nodded.
Hannah tilted her head to one side. “It’s a bit of a commute to Tallahassee.”
“It’s only thirty-five minutes by the Interstate to my building. I could find someone to carpool with, like you do. A lot of people from over here work in Tallahassee.”
“Wouldn’t you much rather buy a little townhouse over there, or maybe a duplex without much yard to keep up?” Helen asked.
Michael Jack swabbed a thick home fry in a puddle of catsup. “I’m kind of tired of living over there. I mean, it was fine when I was twenty-one and hitting the clubs, not that I ever partied that much.” He glanced at his mother. “I find myself wishing I could come home to somewhere a bit quieter and simpler.”
Hal clamped a hand on his nephew’s shoulder. “I can’t speak for everyone, but I wouldn’t have a problem with you buying the place.”
“Ma-Mae will be thrilled,” Hannah said. “If we didn’t need the money to help pay for Rosemont, she’d probably just sign it over.”
Michael Jack waved his hands. “I don’t want that. I’ll buy it, fair and square. I’ve got decent credit. I don’t owe a dime to anyone, except for six more payments on my truck. I’m pretty sure I can get a mortgage.”
“As far as I’m concerned, it’s a done deal, baby,” Helen said.
Michael Jack’s face lit up. “Cool! I’ll get busy.”
“We’ll have to get it appraised, son. Soon as we get things cleaned up a bit, we can move on this as fast as you’d like. It’ll save us a tidy sum, not having to list with a realtor.”
Suzanne’s van pulled into the driveway and she bounded up to join them on the porch. “You save me a little bite?”
Hal passed his wife a white paper bag dappled with absorbed grease. “Got you a BLT and some home fries. They might be a bit cold by now.”
Suzanne dug into the bag. “Doesn’t matter one hair to me. I’ve never met a potato I didn’t like.” She took a bite of her sandwich and shared Hal’s tea. “What’s up? Y’all are all grinning like goats eating briars.
”
Chapter Twelve
Hannah glanced at the monthly newsletter for Mae’s assisted living facility. The headline and accompanying photograph midway through the first page caught her attention.
“Welcome to Rosemont’s Newest Resident, Miss Lucy Goosey Mathers.”
In the photo, Lucy Goosey sported a fetching early spring sundress, completed by a silk rose-trimmed straw hat and purse.
“Lord have mercy!” Hannah thumped her coffee mug on the table and reached for the phone. “Hey, favorite sister-in-law,” she said when Suzanne answered. “Did I wake you?”
“You kidding? I got up at chicken-thirty to bake brownies for my grandson to take to a little party at school.”
“Have you gotten this month’s Rosemont Rap?”
“I haven’t seen it yet. Doesn’t mean it’s not here. Your brother brings in the mail and piles it on the kitchen counter. I haven’t gone through it for a couple of days. Hold on.”
Hannah heard the faint rustle of papers.
“Well, look at that! Ain’t that Mae’s yard goose?”
“One and the same.”
Suzanne’s bubbly laughter brought a smile to her sister-in-law’s morning face. “Guess it’s a good thing we gave Lucy to Rosemont. Says here they’re planning a welcome party.”
“Unreal.” Hannah scanned the short article. “Lucy’s going to be stationed at the front desk as the official greeter.”
“That’s rich. Those folks at Rosemont surely take any excuse to throw a party.”
“Family and friends are invited. Wanna go?”
“Sure. I bet it’ll be a hoot.” Suzanne paused. “Why don’t you phone up Helen and we’ll make it a girl-thing? You know Hal and Norman would rather watch paint fade.”
“Good idea. Helen’s always accusing me of leaving her out of our social loop. I can’t help it she lives an hour away.”
“Heavens!” Suzanne said when she stepped into Rosemont’s front hall. “Looks like the Easter Bunny stroked out.”