Cathead Crazy

by Rhett DeVane

  The waiter reappeared. “Here are a couple of pickles for you to take home.” He set a small bag in front of Mae. “Have a great Mother’s Day.”

  Mae’s eyes lit up. “I surely will, son. I surely will.”

  Score one for me, Hannah thought. My mama’s happy.

  Chapter Seventeen

  The muffled blend of voices and her sister-in-law’s distinctive laughter sounded through the closed door of Room 104. Hannah rapped the family-code knock—“shave and a haircut, two bits”—five staccato taps and two longer ones.

  “I’m coming!” Helen’s voice called out, so like Mae’s.

  Helen tapped the face of her watch after she opened the door. “How is it you’re the last to arrive, even though you live the closest?”

  “Am I that late?” Hannah stepped into her mother’s apartment.

  “You’re just not on Helen-time,” Mae said. “She likes to get here ahead of when she’s due. I was buck-naked when she knocked on my door.”

  Hannah shot a sly nah-nah wink at Helen. “I stopped by the pharmacy for that arthritis joint cream you needed, Ma-Mae. That and every time I started to walk out my door, the phone rang. None of the calls were for me, of course. Justine should have a phone surgically implanted. You’d think, with her cell phone, we wouldn’t have half the boys in town calling the land line.”

  “Probably the ones she doesn’t like well enough to give her personal number,” Suzanne said. “My boys weren’t that bad about sitting on the phone, but the girls used to call them all the time.”

  “Women didn’t call men in my day.” Mae harrumphed. “It’s those walking phones that have ruined young people. Now they can go anywhere with a receiver up to their ear.”

  Hannah gestured toward a vase of roses, ferns and assorted lilies. “What beautiful flowers!”

  “Helen brought those. They liven up the place.” Mae rocked back and forth several times before managing to stand. “We best get on down to the dining hall and pick our seats. They won’t have us at our regular tables this afternoon.”

  They joined the train of walker-pushing residents and family members in the hall. By the time the group reached the double doorway, the dining room was half-filled. The usual long rows of tables had been separated into more intimate groups of four to six.

  “Get that one right there by the piano,” Mae instructed. “It’s the closest to the buffet.”

  White linen table cloths were decorated with porcelain cups and matching saucers filled with blooming annuals. A china tea cup rimmed in gold sat at each place, with purple and yellow pansy-print napkins.

  “Isn’t this pretty?” Mae clasped her hands together. “It’s like we’re in England at some fancy-pants high tea with the Queen Mum.”

  Hannah spotted Maxine at a nearby table and waved. As she glanced around the room, several familiar residents smiled greetings.

  “I don’t see that little Barney fellow anywhere,” Suzanne hesitated, then added, “I suppose the men wouldn’t be invited to a mother-daughter tea.”

  “He’s at the V.A. hospital down in Lake City,” Mae said.

  “I hate to hear that,” Hannah said. “Is he very sick?”

  “I don’t know all the details,” Mae answered. “I think they’re doing some extra ‘thur-a-pee’ for his Parkinson’s. Maxine would know. Her fingers are smack dab on the pulse of Rosemont. That’s a fact.”

  Servers meandered through the room with silver teapots, dispensing hot water into the china cups. A plate on each table held an assortment of teas, lemon slices, creamer and sweeteners.

  Helen dipped an herbal mint tea bag into her cup. “This is such a nice way for us girls to celebrate Mother’s Day.”

  Mae said in a lowered voice, “You won’t bee-lieve where the men voted unanimously to go for Father’s Day.”

  The three of them leaned in.

  Mae’s eyes sparkled. “Catharen’s driving them to Hooters for dinner.”

  The shared mental image of the Rosemont transport van pulling into the Hooters Restaurant parking lot sent the four of them into spasms of laughter.

  Mae snapped her napkin flat and smoothed it onto her lap. “I don’t think they’re going there for the food.”

  “For heaven’s sake, Ma-Mae,” Hannah managed between gasps. “What was your first clue?”

  Catharen O’Kelly stopped by the table. “You ladies sound like you’re having fun. What’s got you so tickled?”

  Mae’s eyebrows flickered up and down. “Nothing special.”

  The social director flashed a smile before drifting off to visit the adjacent tables. In a few minutes, she motioned for the first groups to line up at the buffet. Assorted scones, cookies, cakes and finger sandwiches accompanied a platter of fresh fruit with honey-yogurt dip.

  As her family returned to the table with loaded plates, Hannah spotted Maxine gesturing for her. “Be right back.”

  “Honey, would you escort me through the line? My daughter couldn’t make it today.” Maxine used the edge of the table to help her stand.

  Hannah held out one arm. “I’d be honored.”

  “The way they got these tables set up, makes it impossible for me to get my walker through very easily. Appreciate your help.”

  “I don’t mind at all. Besides, I’m much cuter than your walker.” Hannah grinned.

  “If only I could get you to shut up for a moment’s peace.” Maxine winked. “I’m just pulling your leg. I love to carry on with you. You’re like your mama—full of the devil and not afraid to let him come out every now and again.”

  “Thanks for the compliment, I think.”

  They shuffled slowly toward the buffet.

  “Ma-Mae told me that Barney’s at the V.A. Hospital.”

  Maxine nodded. “That he is.”

  “Will he be back?”

  “I’m not so sure he will.” She grunted. “Good riddance, far as I see it. He’s much too fresh with us women. Always saying things not appropriate and making suggestions.”

  “I kind of liked him.”

  “You wouldn’t after you got pinched, poked and patted a few dozen times.”

  Maxine grabbed a china plate from a stack and heaped it with cookies, cakes and sandwiches. “It got to be tiresome. I even heard that he was taking Viagra. Don’t that just beat all?”

  After she helped Maxine to her seat, Hannah returned to the family.

  “I cleaned out my closet yesterday,” Suzanne said. “I couldn’t believe how many pairs of shoes I have.”

  “I’d guess forty,” Mae said.

  Hannah slipped into her chair. “Has to be at least eighty or ninety.”

  Helen sipped her tea, then dabbed her lips demurely. “Oh you’re kidding, Hannah. How could one woman have so many?”

  Suzanne grinned. “I had one hundred pairs, counting the boots.”

  “You told me not long ago that it was closer to eighty,” Hannah said.

  “I was delusional, I reckon.” Suzanne threw her head back and laughed. “I got to pitching shoes over my shoulder into the hallway—the ones I didn’t wear anymore—and I still had a gobacious amount left. When I turned around, there were over forty pair in the discard pile and I still had plenty in the keeper pile.”

  Helen asked, “What’re you going to do with the rejects? You’re not going to throw them out!”

  “Oh, no. I’ll find something to do with them all.”

  “What size are they?” Helen’s eyes lit up.

  “Six and a half.”

  Helen laced her hands together. “My exact size.”

  “Stop by the house when you and Mae leave today and I’ll let you take them on home to Marianna with you. I got ’em all boxed up in the carport. What you don’t want, give to someone who needs them.”

  Hannah’s bottom lip poked out. “Too bad I wear a nine and a half.”

  Mae patted Hannah’s hand. “You can’t help God gave you feet the size of water skis, honey-pot. You’re taller than you
r sister. I reckon if you didn’t have such big feet to balance out your height, you’d fall on your face. Besides, we love you just the way you are.”

  Hannah smirked. “I’d surely hate to be perfect.”

  The din of female voices and laughter—young and old—flowed around the room like background music.

  “Why didn’t you invite your mama to come along this afternoon?” Mae asked Suzanne.

  Suzanne’s features darkened slightly. “Mama’s not been feeling up to snuff. She gets winded walking across the room. Not only that, she’s anxious about being away from the house for more than a half-hour or so.”

  “Maybe she needs a good cleaning out,” Mae said.

  Ah, yes. Ma-Mae’s answer to everything: proper bowel regularity. The world—heck, the universe—would be a much happier, gentler place if it wasn’t so full of crap.

  Hannah smiled when they entered the public boat launch area. The Apalachicola River flowed beneath the ruins of the Old Victory Bridge and its modern replacement, widening as it passed Chattahoochee Park. Rows of pick-up trucks hooked to empty trailers lined the cement parking lot, attesting to the number of hopeful anglers already on the water.

  Diamonds and gold never really appealed to Hannah in the way they did some women. Other than her wedding ring set with its small chip of a stone, a durable watch, and plain gold earrings, she rarely wore jewelry. All she really desired— when asked for a wish list—was a neat house, a clean car, and a little leisure time.

  Norman pulled the boat trailer into position. “All right, son. Let’s get her ready to float.”

  Justine and Hannah transferred a packed cooler and two bulky beach bags to the boat while Norman and Jonas lowered the motor and unhooked the ratchet-ties securing the bow and stern. Jonas held the bow rope and walked alongside as his father backed the trailer into the water. He signaled when the boat floated clear, and Norman drove up the ramp to locate a parking spot.

  Hannah’s eyes watered slightly as she watched her son guide the boat and tether it to a floating dock. What happened to her little boy and who was this lanky muscled young man who had taken his place?

  Many times, she’d heard her mother’s lament about time’s swift passage. It seemed like yesterday when she, Hal, and Helen had played mud pies and built tree forts in the Mathers backyard. Now, Ma-Mae commented she was surprised to see a wrinkled old woman staring back at her when she looked in a mirror. Hannah understood.

  “Yo! Mom! Hop in! Earth to Mom!” Jonas’s voice snapped her from her reverie. He extended a hand and steadied her as she boarded, then helped his sister do the same.

  Norman loped down the dock, the orange boater’s safe box in hand, and vaulted into the boat. “Wait’ll I crank her up, son. She’s been sitting awhile. The battery’s charged up, but we’d best make sure she’s going to run before you shove us off.”

  The powerful Mercury 160 roared to life in a cloud of exhaust, then Norman throttled it back to an even idle. “Like a charm.”

  Jonas flipped the tether rope onto the bow, gave the boat a firm shove, then jumped aboard.

  “Can’t believe this is the first time we’ve had ’er in the water this year.” Norman steered around two bass boats and aimed downstream.

  Hannah tied a scarf over her hair. “We’ve had a pretty cool spring. Now that Ma-Mae’s better, we can go more often.”

  Norman pulled his favorite baseball cap on and secured it to his collar with an elastic clip. No matter how many caps Hannah and the kids gave him, he deferred to the sweat-stained faded yellow Two Egg, Florida hat he had picked up several years prior at a convenience store west of town. In the hat, with his nose ghost-white with sunscreen, out-dated over-sized sunglasses, mismatched T-shirt and cut-off shorts, Norman was the poster-boy for Nerds of America. Hannah swallowed hard around the lump of emotion in her throat. Nerd or not, she loved the man.

  For the first couple of miles, the river flowed straight and wide. Past the train trestle overpass, it narrowed and began the first of many long, gentle curves.

  “Want to drive, son?” Norman asked.

  On a land vehicle, Hannah would have instantly grown white-knuckled at the suggestion. But in the Florida Panhandle, knowing how to operate a boat felt as natural as learning to walk and talk. The nautical basic training extended to women too. Both Hannah and Justine knew rudimentary driving and docking skills. In case of an emergency, having more than one available skipper was not only prudent, but necessary.

  Norman slowed the motor and the boat wallowed in its own rebound wake as it idled in neutral. Jonas switched places with his father and rested one hand on the throttle and the other on the wheel.

  “Ease it into gear like I showed you last year. That’s right. Go ahead and give her a little more.”

  Jonas followed his father’s instructions carefully.

  “Okay, you’re up on plane, so trim your motor back down a bit. That lowers the bow so it doesn’t bounce up and down.”

  Jonas grinned, his dark hair whipping away from his face.

  Hannah recalled the rush of emotions from her youth. Like so many local families, both she and Norman had spent the better part of the seemingly endless summers boating on the Apalachicola.

  “You want to see if the big sandbar’s taken?” Norman called out over the roar of the outboard motor.

  “Okay by me,” Hannah called back. “Did we bring the skis?”

  “Should be on board where we packed them end of last season,” he said.

  Since the river provided passage for barges ferrying goods from the Gulf of Mexico upstream to inland ports beyond the Jim Woodruff Dam, the Army Corps of Engineers regularly dredged the channels, creating wide sandbars, a boon for pleasure boaters. Talk abounded about returning the waterway to its natural state, a proposal Hannah found agreeable. It would mean no beaches, but sometimes nature had to win out.

  After they passed the third set of granite jetties, the first large sandbar came into view. One boat was pulled to the shore.

  “Plenty of room,” Norman said. “This all right with you folks?”

  Jonas pulled back on the throttle.

  “Tilt the motor up a little so the prop will clear the shallows.” Norman signaled Jonas. “Perfect. Shift to neutral. Let the momentum take her in. Slow. Slow.”

  Justine crouched on the bow with the tether rope, then vaulted easily into the shallow water and pulled the boat onto the sand.

  “Good, Son. Cut the engine.” Norman jumped out and secured the anchor line. “All right, kids!”

  Hannah grabbed a beach bag and hopped overboard onto the warm sand. “Let’s set up underneath the willows.” She pointed to a clump of trees lining the beach.

  Jonas stood beside her. “You sit down, Mom. We’re supposed to do all this. For Mother’s Day.”

  Hannah crossed her arms over her chest. “I’ll pretend y’all are my personal slaves for the day.” She unfolded a towel and flopped down. “Okay. I’m ready for you to wait on me hand and foot. Attend to my every want and need.”

  Justine walked by, carrying the loaded picnic basket. “Don’t get carried away, Mom.”

  “What did you kids pack for lunch?” Norman asked.

  “You mean, you didn’t have a hand in this?” Hannah asked.

  Jonas thought the microwave was God’s gift to cooking, while Justine generally tried her level best to avoid the kitchen, zipping through long enough to grab a soft drink or a bag of chips.

  “I was in charge of the boat: the equipment, gas and oil. Your son and daughter insisted on providing the picnic.”

  Hannah imagined the menu: Cheez Whiz and saltine crackers, a half-full bag of corn chips, maybe a few now-cold microwave pizza rolls. Hannah’s stomach lurched. The price of motherhood. She could tough it out for one meal. A container of antacids waited in the medicine cabinet at home.

  “I know what you’re thinking,” Justine said. “I can cook if I want to. Remember the lasagna?”

  And
Donald Trump could possibly darn his own socks. But did he? Hannah suppressed the urge to laugh at her daughter, standing there so puffed up and indignant with her hip cocked to one side and her hands propped on her slender waist.

  “That was frozen. All you had to do was shove it in the oven,” Jonas mumbled low enough that his sister didn’t hear.

  “You can do anything you set your mind to, sweetie.” Hannah said. Ma-Mae’s old adage came in handy.

  Justine nodded once and fired orders to her brother. A faded quilt served as an oversized ground cover. Justine removed several plastic snap-lid containers from the cooler, then arranged floral-printed paper plates, napkins, iced-tea-filled cups, and plastic cutlery in the middle of the quilt. The finishing touch, a single rose bud atop a pastel greeting card.

  Jonas bowed. “You first, Mom.”

  Hannah’s eyes widened when she beheld the offerings: wrapped sandwiches of pineapple, cucumber, or ham and cheese, dill pickle spears, green and black olives, grapes, Granny Smith apples and a tomato/feta cheese/artichoke pasta salad. In lieu of the usual potato chips, bags of pretzel pieces in cool ranch and honey mustard flavors.

  “Wow!” Hannah looked up at her children. “Obviously someone has been busy.”

  Jonas beamed. “I made the sandwiches.”

  “And the salad?” Justine pointed to herself. “That would be—me.”

  “My daughter? The one who can barely boil water without scorching it?”

  Justine nodded. “Really, I made it. At Brittany’s. It’s her mom’s recipe. Simple. Just macaroni—cooked first, of course. A can of drained diced tomatoes, some crumbed feta cheese, and chopped-up canned artichoke hearts. Oh, and a little extra-virgin olive oil.”

  “Somebody pinch me.” Hannah glanced at Norman. “You had absolutely no part in this?”

  “Other than doling out the cash for the groceries, no.”

  Jonas handed her a plate. “You going to eat or what?”

  Later, Hannah lolled on the quilt, content with a full stomach. Norman pulled one of the kids while the other watched the skier for hand signals. Jonas fell five times before successfully balancing on the slalom. His sister, a natural water skier since her preteens, effortlessly negotiated the river.