by Rhett DeVane
“Except the worries are still there,” Hannah said. “You pass them along to your adult children.”
When Hannah walked in from the seminar, she found Jonas hunkered over the kitchen table. “Hey, baby.” She pecked him on the head and parked the rolling suitcase by the table.
“Mom. How was—?”
“In a minute!” she called over her shoulder as she tore a path to the bathroom.
When she walked back into the kitchen, she noticed the object of her son’s intense focus: a length of bent wire. “Sugar, exactly what are you trying to do?” She grabbed a bottle of peach/mango flavored water from the refrigerator and plopped down opposite him.
He held up the barely recognizable clothes hanger. “Voila!”
“I give up. This new miracle of youthful ingenuity is—?”
He wedged the hooked end of the hanger between the skin and the cast on his left arm, and slid it in and out. “SCSD—Sub-cast scratching device. Neat, huh?”
“Clever.” Hannah scanned the kitchen. A few dirty glasses, chip crumbs, a skillet with congealed grease on the stove. All in all, not too bad. “But a bit risky, don’t you think?”
Jonas’s dark brows furrowed. “No. Why?”
“If you nick the skin, you could get an infection and that wouldn’t be good. The wound can’t get air and there’ll be no way to put any ointment or a bandage over it.”
Jonas poked out his bottom lip: the same gesture he had used since early childhood when considering a perplexing problem. “Good catch, Mom. Back to the drawing board.” He extracted the scratching tool and studied the hooked end. “I can cover this with a cushioning layer of . . . something.”
“I’m sure you’ll work it out.” She ruffled his thick brown hair. “How have things been? Anything new to report?”
“Gah, Mom. You weren’t gone that long. Not like things happen around here at killer speed. Dad’s in town getting a haircut. Um . . . oh, and Mrs. Rodgers came by and told Justine that Brittany’s breaking out of the hospital this week.”
“Good! On both accounts. Your father needed to clean up a bit, and I’m proud Brittany’s improved.”
“Brit’s going to a place for crazy chicks who don’t eat. I don’t remember.”
“Some kind of treatment center?” Hannah asked.
Jonas shrugged. “Dunno.”
“Anything else?”
“Dad and I caught ten bream this morning—we went at the crack of dawn. I helped clean them, and we froze ’em in baggies.”
More fish. My freezer is practically an aquatic morgue now. “The river wasn’t too high, then.”
“Way up over the banks. Muddy as all get out. We went to Lake Talquin instead.”
“And your sister. Did she tag along?”
He fixed her with a serious expression. “Get real.”
Right. What was I thinking? Justine touch bait or a fish? “What did she do with herself?”
Justine swished into the kitchen. “Herself was a perfect angel, thank you very much.” She pecked her mother on the cheek.
“Well?”
“Well, what? I stayed home. Except I did go visit Grand-Mae like you asked.”
“And?” Why did she always feel as if she teased bits and pieces of conversation through fine mesh with a pair of tweezers?
“She’s in a class-A funk. I took her out for ice cream. Even that didn’t help.”
Hannah took a deep breath. Since the hurricane excitement, Mae’s mood had once again turned sour. How Pollyanna-ish, to think her mother would somehow forget to be depressed and miraculously change for the better over a weekend.
“What’s for dinner?” Jonas asked.
“Whatever you order. I’m not cooking after driving in from Jacksonville.”
The kids exchanged knowing looks. “Pizza okay?” Justine asked.
“Only if you get hand-tossed. I hate the thin kind. Tastes like ketchup on potato chips. Add extra sauce and cheese. I don’t much care about the rest. Get a lot of meat for your father.”
Justine tapped the memorized number for the local pizza delivery business. “It’s going to cost, with all the extra stuff.”
“Everything has a cost,” Hannah said.
Chapter Thirty-two
An insistent ringing jarred Hannah from sleep. For a moment, she didn’t know where she was—still in the Jacksonville hotel room or at home. She snaked one hand toward the house phone, checked it, then tapped with the same hand to locate her cell phone buried beneath a mound of newspapers on the bedside table.
Mae’s voice said, “Hannah? You are coming by the Mont this morning, aren’t you?”
“Yes.” Don’t I always? Hannah heard the disconnect click on the other end.
Norman rolled over and opened one eye. “Problem?”
“Dunno.”
“Want me to go?”
Hannah scrubbed the sleep from her eyes. “Nah. You pull breakfast duty.”
Hannah located her mother in Rosemont’s sunroom, sitting alone by the aquarium.
“Morning.” Hannah kissed her mother on the cheek before settling onto a chair. The light-filled room with its yellow and green-printed cushions, airy wicker furnishings and leafy plants provided a direct contrast to her mother’s glum demeanor.
Mae glanced down at her watch. “Almost not morning, now.”
“I was exhausted from the drive home yesterday. I couldn’t get going, not even for church.”
Her mother’s blue-gray eyes stared across the room at nothing in particular.
“Not feeling well today, Ma-Mae?”
“Burdened.” Mae faced her. “We need to talk.”
Please. Not funeral plans. Not today. Hannah closed her eyes for a moment, took a deep breath and focused. “What’s on your mind?”
“I’ve been carrying around a secret all these years. Not my secret. More, your daddy’s secret. But it fell to me, after he passed.”
A female resident stopped her walker in the hall outside long enough to sense the privacy of their meeting before moving away.
“That was Ethel Price. Glad she didn’t stop. She can talk a blue streak. Says the same thing over and over until you want to choke the life from her.” Mae paused before continuing, “Josie says I need to tell you this, honey. I don’t see as it matters much now, but she’s a firm believer in unloading one’s trespasses before traveling on Home. The baggage can slow a person down, Josie says.”
“Ma-Mae, I—”
Mae held up her hand. “Just listen. May not make a never-mind, but still I’d like to get it out in the open.”
“If it’s that important to you.”
“It’s about that Motivano boy.” Mae tapped a finger to her temple. “Try as I may, I can’t seem to call up his first name.”
“Marcus,” Hannah supplied.
“That’s it! Couldn’t remember that to save my soul. Marcus Motivano.”
Hannah felt the muscles around her lips pull taut. “What about him?”
“Your father did something he wasn’t particularly proud of at the time.” Mae reached over and grasped her daughter’s hand. “But maybe now, with you having children of your own, you can understand why he did it.”
Hannah’s skin prickled.
“Did you ever wonder why that boy seemed to up and vanish—” Mae snapped her fingers. “—like that?”
Hannah nodded.
“Your daddy ran him off.”
“What?”
“That’s right. You were out of town. Something or other . . . some trip with your school friends . . . ?”
“That was years ago. I don’t know.” Hannah said.
“Marcus came calling at the house. He seemed to be as fond of your daddy and me as he was of you.” Mae smiled. “Loved my lemon pie.”
Mae licked her lips, as if the tartness had stained them over the years. “Your daddy, he smelled a rat. Thought the boy was way too charming and all. He had a little daddy-to-son chat with him.”
“Oh?�
��
“Yep. Surely did. Told him you were a good girl, the kind who’d make any man a faithful and loving wife and mother. Told him you weren’t to be played with and tossed aside. He was trying to ferret out the boy’s true intentions. Whether they were honorable, or not.”
Mae paused to catch her breath. “Your daddy was as crushed and heartbroken as you when Marcus stopped coming around. Then we found out he had taken up with some floozy. Remember how your daddy refused to hear his name even mentioned in our house?”
Hannah’s gaze fell to her lap. She picked at a ragged cuticle until it pearled with blood.
“Your daddy was torn up. Knew he’d caused your loss, in a way. He was terribly disappointed in Marcus too. That boy had betrayed all of us. Not just you. Many a night, I saw your daddy walk the halls, tormenting himself with what-ifs.” Mae searched her daughter’s face.
The gurgling of the fish tank aerator filled the silence. Hannah grabbed a used tissue from her purse, wrapped her wounded cuticle, and pressed to staunch the bleeding. “Why didn’t Pop ever tell me?” She asked in a soft voice.
Mae’s lips drew into a bittersweet smile. “He was afraid, baby.”
“Why?”
“You were so jewel-eyed over that boy. Your daddy was scared you’d turn against us and run after Marcus. Your daddy loved you better than life itself. Deep down, he felt he did right by interfering. Still and all, he was terrified of losing your love and respect if he confessed to meddling in your private affairs.”
Hannah willed herself to take a deep breath and exhale slowly. “It was probably a good decision, not to tell me. I was so stupid-in-love. I’ve thought about that time in my life a lot.” She managed a flicker of a smile, remembering the recent sheet-churning dreams. “I never understood how Marcus could just drop me. I thought I wasn’t pretty enough, smart enough, good enough—”
“Wasn’t you that was no good, sugar.” Mae fiddled with her plain gold wedding band. “Your daddy wasn’t easily swayed by a smile or smooth style. Marcus even had me bamboozled. Your daddy looked clean through him and didn’t much care for what he saw.”
“I’m glad you told me, Ma-Mae. I don’t blame Pop. Not at all. I would do the same thing to protect one of my kids.”
Mae gave Hannah’s hand a gentle squeeze. “I’m so happy you aren’t angry.”
“Time for us to let it go, eh?” Hannah leaned over and kissed her mother’s powdered cheek.
“Good as gone.” Mae whisked a hand through the air. “My friend Josie was right. I feel like I’ve dropped a lead weight.” One of her eyebrows elevated slightly. “Can I ask you something else, then we’ll leave it behind for good?”
“Sure.”
“Did that boy talk you out of your panties?”
“Ma-Mae!”
Her mother jabbed her in the side. “C’mon. We’re both grown women now.”
Hannah tilted her head back and laughed. “Once. Nothing to describe in juicy detail, since there were so few details to the whole thing.”
Mae’s eyes narrowed. “I thought so!”
“Takes two, remember.”
“Still and all. A pox on him!”
Chapter Thirty-three
“How will I make it through work? I barely have the energy to breathe.” Hannah raked her hand through her hair.
“Don’t you know what today is?” Norman asked.
Hannah sighed. “Wednesday?”
Norman peered at her over his morning paper. “July 20.”
Happy occasions like birthdays and anniversaries, Hannah managed to record on the official refrigerator calendar, and in her day-planner and computer at work. She had never been one to count sad dates. Norman was the one who recalled those numeric details.
Hannah joined Norman at the table with a hot cup of black coffee. She had no appetite for breakfast. “Okay. . . ”
“Today is the eighth anniversary of when your father died.”
Hannah sat back and curled her fingers around the warm mug. “That’s right.”
“You always feel this way starting in mid-July. Just like your mother.”
“Really. Do I?”
“Yes, hon.” Norman snapped the paper closed. “You worry about Mae and how she gets in the summer, but you do it too.”
Hannah reached over and gently rubbed the soft black hairs on the back of his hand. “What would I do without you, Norman Olsen?”
Grieving, Hannah thought, seemed to operate on a preset time schedule: two to three days of intense sorrow followed by no more than a couple of weeks of numb inactivity. By six weeks, the bereaved was expected to bounce back into the ongoing push of daily demands. In six months, hardly anyone mentioned the deceased or asked about any leftover sorrow of those left behind.
When her father, J.B. Mathers had died, Hannah had taken one week away from work. The call came on a Wednesday before lunch break. She remembered it as if it were yesterday.
Her mother’s voice, shaky with emotion, said, “Sugar, it’s your daddy.”
A twisting sensation started in her stomach. His heart, again? “Are y’all at the ER?”
Silence then, “No, baby. He . . . he’s passed.”
Hannah couldn’t grasp the idea. “Pop?”
“He was working on the boat motor. I told him it was too hot out.” Mae’s voice faltered. “I made lemonade and when I took it out to him . . . ”
The sound of sniffling and short staccato breaths echoed from the other end.
Hannah’s stunned brain kicked into emergency mode. “I’ll be home as soon as possible. I need to call Hal and Helen.”
“Your brother’s here. He’s called your sister.”
The day turned gray-blue: the drive home, crying so hard she could barely see the dotted white highway center lines. Some other part of her consciousness took control and helped her to arrive safely in Chattahoochee. She and Hal met with the funeral director. Helen stayed with Mae.
The casket display area still hovered in Hannah’s memory, a surreal sales lot of caskets in different designs, colors, and prices in a thickly carpeted room. The lighting, soft and rose-tinted, floated from frosted-shade pole lamps. Ethereal music wafted from a hidden speaker.
Hal, now the official patriarch, had handled the financial arrangements while Hannah debated over the style of casket, finally choosing a navy metallic model with burnished pewter trim. Blue was Pop’s favorite color.
At the visitation, Hannah responded as heartfelt condolences ebbed and flowed around her in a garbled rush. Later at the Mathers home, supplies and food poured in: cakes, pies, casseroles, cold cuts, coffee and tea, paper goods, cases of soft drinks, and platters of country-fried chicken. Though grateful, the family picked absently at the food. Hannah recalled Piddie Longman’s red velvet cake, rich and sweet with mounds of cream cheese icing: the only flavors that managed to revive her stunned senses.
After the funeral, the crowds diminished. The front doorbell fell silent. Only close friends and the immediate neighbors entered unobtrusively through the unlocked back door to offer support. Her father’s muddy worn work boots stood in the garage. His jacket hung on a peg. His woody scent lingered in every nook. The memory of his laughter and generous spirit hovered at every turn. Some people, Hannah believed, left larger holes in the universe than others when they crossed over.
She would have it all to go through again. Death, cloaked in shadows, waited patiently with his curved harvesting scythe.
Hannah heard the sound of someone clearing her throat and glanced up from the computer screen. Suzanne, resplendent in an orange floral-print sundress with matching sandals and handbag, stood in the threshold of Hannah’s Tallahassee office cubicle. “Hey-ho, sister-in-law of mine.”
“Hey, yourself!” Hannah pushed away from her desk and stretched. “Have a seat.” She cleared a stack of papers from a chair.
“Looks like you’re up to your armpits.”
“Is there any other way?” Hannah said. “What b
rings you to the big city, Sis?”
“Shopping.” Suzanne grinned. “Is there anything else?”
“Don’t tell me. You bought a new outfit a couple of weeks ago and you don’t have exactly the right shade of shoes to match.”
“I didn’t come for shoes today, smarty pants, if you must know. I’m looking for something for Mama’s birthday. Lord help me, I don’t have an earthly clue what to get her.”
“After a certain age what can a person want, or need, for that matter?”
“Exactly.” Suzanne finger-combed her blonde curls. “I decided to stop in and see if maybe you might do lunch with me.”
Hannah glanced at her cluttered desk. “Wish I could.”
“Sure you can. This will be right here when you get back.”
“That’s what I know.”
Suzanne pursed her lips and tilted her head to one side. “Besides, you need to take a little fun break.”
“You’ve been talking to Norman.”
Suzanne’s brows knit together. “I know how you are, Hannah. Your brother’s the same way.”
Hannah crossed her hands over her chest. “Oh, and how’s that?”
“Y’all both try so hard to pull off this tough exterior, but I know you.”
“I don’t have a clue— ”
“The anniversary of your daddy’s death, that’s what. You think the people around you don’t notice how you’ve both fallen into a deep funk?”
Hannah slumped in her chair.
“No use rolling around in it by yourself. I’m here to help.”
“What about Hal?”
“Don’t you worry about your brother. I’m here, right now, right here, to see to you.” Suzanne snuggled her purse beneath one arm and stood. “So, what’ll it be? You best take me up on buying lunch. This gift horse might trot on back to the barn if you don’t.”
Hannah put her computer into hibernation mode. “What the heck? I hardly ever take an actual lunch break. I’m overdue.”
Suzanne swept her arm in an arc. “After you, darlin’. I’ll even let you pick the place. I have to tell you though; I’d be happy if it’s not a five-star joint. Not that you’re not worth it, but I’d like to have the money to get home.”