by Loree Lough
“She’s only asking,” Maureen said, “because that house hasn’t been lived in for months. And months. I can only imagine how many cobwebs are dangling from the ceiling fans.”
“An inch of dust on all the furniture,” her daughter added.
“And just think of the ring around the toilet bowls.”
Gina wrinkled her nose. “Eww!”
“Okay. All right. Doesn’t take a brick to fall on my head to—”
When he turned to face the mother-daughter team, he saw the foam rubber brick, dangling from the end of a red plastic fishing pole. Laughing he closed the drawer and tucked the file under one arm.
“Put that toy back in the waiting room where it belongs,” he said, “or I might be tempted to give you your flu shots a little early.”
“We’re through for the day,” Maureen said, closing the appointment book. “We could knock off early and go over there, get the place all clean and shiny for your folks.”
Gina nodded. “And spider-free.”
“And—”
Before either one of them could add another item to the list, he said, “They’ve been living in the jungle for a decade. And before that, a desert. If they aren’t used to dirt and bugs by now …”
Maureen winked at Gina, and Gina winked back.
“What? You two think I don’t have peripheral vision?”
Shoulders hunched, they stifled a giggle.
“So how ’bout it, doc? Can we make the place all pretty for your parents?”
“Fine. Do what you please.” He slid five twenties from his wallet. “While you’re at it, might as well stock the fridge and the pantry.”
They grabbed their purses and headed for the door. Gina stopped halfway there. “Oops,” she said. “Almost forgot …”
She grabbed two bright lab coats from the closet—a blue one with yellow duckies and a yellow one with blue fish—and draped them over one arm. “For Eli’s quilt,” she said, patting them. “What’re you contributing to the project?”
“Not sure.” Maybe Taylor just hadn’t gotten around to asking for something. And maybe your sneering attitude last time it came up made her decide you don’t deserve a spot in the quilt. “Yet.”
“Give her that weird polo shirt … you know,” Maureen said, smirking, “the one with the fat blue stripes?”
“No-o-o … that tie with the reflex hammers all over it!”
“You gave me that one for Christmas last year.”
Blushing, Gina said, “Well, gotta go. Lots to—”
Reece jangled the keys in the space between them.
“Bye,” he said, shaking his head as they raced down the hall.
Well, he had time to kill. Might as well head home and get a few chores done there. Better still, he’d go through his closet to find something appropriate for Eli’s quilt.
An hour later, Reece found himself surrounded by bins and boxes and cartons. An old black-and-white movie flickered in the background as he surveyed the damage he’d done, spreading the contents of the storage closet across his family room.
“There’s another nice mess you’ve gotten me into,” Oliver said to Stan.
“Couldn’t have timed that better if you tried,” Reece told himself. He slapped a hand to the back of his neck and shook his head. There had to be something among the tangle of old clothes and stacks of photo albums that would help Eli think only of him.
Then he recognized the pink box Margo used to keep little girl trinkets in. When he opened it, a miniature ballerina twirled to the notes of the “Dance of the Sugarplum Fairy,” her tiny tutu reflected in the oval mirror behind her. Gently, his forefinger burrowed through the tangle of tarnished chains and faux gemstones, and there, buried under it all, a small blue envelope. On the matching notepaper inside it, Margo had written “This key opens your diary. Don’t lose it!” Every capital letter had been embellished with a curlicue, and she’d dotted every i with a heart. He dropped the key into his shirt pocket and dug through the boxes in search of the diary—it had been pink, too, if memory served.
Ten minutes and two paper cuts later, he found it in an old patent-leather purse. He carried it to the couch and, propping his feet on the coffee table, slipped the key into a lock the size of a lima bean, and it opened with a tinny click. One of the biggest fights of their childhood took place when she’d started tutoring that all-in-black tattooed dropout. He’d seen the way the guy stared at Margo, not his schoolbooks, and a time or two, he’d caught her looking at the freak in exactly the same way. He’d threatened to read every page of her diary if he had to, to find proof they were more than friends. He hadn’t done it, of course, because she’d locked herself—and the diary—in her room for the rest of the weekend.
And he hadn’t seen it again until now.
Its cheap plastic binding creaked when he opened it. At first, the rainbow hues scribbled across the pages blurred before his eyes as he inhaled the faint scent of her favorite perfume, Tommy Girl. Finally the fanciful bubble letters took shape and formed words, sentences, and he began to read. Page after page of little-girl dreams and young woman fantasies introduced him to a Margo he never knew. He’d been too busy putting food on the table and making sure he got the kind of grades that would get him into a good college; how else could he earn enough to put her through a good college! If he’d known that she’d meet Eliot halfway through her sophomore year, that she’d drop out to marry him—
“Yoo hoo …”
Annie, come to see if he’d caught a cat in the trap, no doubt. He marked his page with the little key and opened the door.
“Good gravy!” she said. “My hearing must be going; I didn’t hear the bomb that caused this!”
“C’mon in, neighbor.” He cleared her a space on the couch and explained why he’d dragged out most of his past.
“What a lovely idea,” she said. “I never would have thought to put together a quilt for the little guy. Have you figured out yet what you’ll throw into the mix?”
“Nope. I don’t have a clue.”
“Well, let’s see if Annie Landers can dole out some publishable advice.” She squinted one eye, then the other, tapping her chin with a long pearly pink fingernail. “Tell me,” she said after a moment, “what was your favorite thing to do when you were his age.”
“That’s easy,” he said. “Fishing.”
“There’s your answer, then. What do you have in this pile of rubbish that’s fishing-related?”
Nothing from that far back, but unless he was mistaken, he still had that blue chamois shirt. When the weather cooperated, he’d spend entire Saturdays in it, jerking his grandfather’s fly rod above the river. And then he’d met Dixie, who’d turned him into a yes-ma’am lapdog practically overnight. Reece shuddered. Good thing she’d never crossed paths with the guy who wrote the old “love is blind” adage, because “love is blind … and stupid” just didn’t have the same zing.
He spotted the shirt in one of the plastic tubs. “There,” he said, unfolding it. “Thanks, Annie.”
“Glad to be of service. Now tell me … have you bagged that ferocious feline yet?”
He blanketed the diary with the shirt. “Ferocious? What makes you say that?”
“She’s been running around here for months, now, eating garbage, drinking gutter water, no human companionship, dodging those dive-bombing blackbirds. Even if she’d been someone’s pet once upon a time, surely she’s gone feral by now.”
“I don’t know about the blackbirds, but she isn’t eating garbage or drinking gutter water.”
Annie’s pale-blue eyes widened. “Don’t tell me you’ve been feeding her!”
“Okay. I won’t.” And he wouldn’t tell her that the cat had walked figure eights around his ankles, or that she’d let him pet her a time or two either.
From the other side of the TV screen, Hardy said to Laurel “Isn’t this a fine kettle of fish!”
While Annie laughed, Reece got a glimpse of the dia
ry, peeking out from beneath his shirt. Now that he’d found the right addition to Eli’s quilt, he wanted to finish reading the diary, and close the book—literally and figuratively—on that chapter of his life.
If he’d known what Margo had written on those final pages, he wouldn’t have been in such a hurry to show Annie to the door.
Gina unplugged the vacuum cleaner and started winding up its cord. “I’m really glad you could join us, Taylor.”
“Wouldn’t have missed it for all the world,” she said, spritzing furniture polish on the coffee table. “A chance to see you guys when Eli doesn’t need a booster shot and do a good deed? How many times is something like this going to happen!” It was good to have all the hard work to distract her from Eli’s conversation with Reece, too.
Maureen slid the last of a hundred books onto its freshly shined shelf. “Can you believe how much we accomplished, just the three of us?”
The threesome faced one another in a triangle, hands on their hips and frowning.
“What’s left to do?” Gina asked.
“The rest of the laundry,” Maureen said, counting on her fingers, “scour the kitchen sink, make up the bed, fill the fridge and the pantry.”
“Why don’t you two do the grocery store run while I stay here and finish up.”
“Sounds like a plan,” mom and daughter said and left Taylor alone in the house.
She’d spent countless hours here over the years, keeping Margo company when Eliot was deployed, babysitting Eli when his mom drank too much or took one too many sleeping pills. When Mark was on the road, Taylor had missed him, too, but she’d rather miss him than blot him from her memory with alcohol and drugs!
It didn’t take long to get the master bedroom ready for Reece’s parents. Odd, that he’d held onto the house all these years. God sure knows what He’s doing, she told herself, because if Reece had sold it after Margo’s accident, her mom and dad wouldn’t have a place to come home to … a clean cozy place, thanks to Gina and Maureen, insisting that Reece let them tidy up.
A glance at the clock told her she’d imposed on Isaac and Tootie long enough. Besides, she had beds to change at home, breakfast to plan, a sweaty little boy to bathe and tuck in, and a quilt to finish.
After making the turn onto Turner Street, Taylor decided it would be a shame not to stop for some of Eli’s favorite muffins and a few cookie crumblers, too. The short walk from the parking lot to the Next Door Bake Shop felt refreshing, despite the sticky August air.
“Taylor …”
The voice had come from across the street.
“Taylor Bradley?”
Mark’s old roommate? It had been years since she’d seen Fred!
As he made his way to her side of the road, she was sure of it. “Didn’t your mother teach you to look both ways before crossing the street?” she teased.
A car horn blared and a minivan slowed as Fred held up one hand. “Sorry,” he said, wincing as he saluted the driver. When he reached Taylor, he added, “You know me. Never did much care for authority figures.”
Which was nonsense, because last she’d heard, Fred had founded a corporation that made him famous the world over as “The Diamond Guy.” And a person didn’t reach those heights by disrespecting people in power.
She hugged him hello. “You look great, but I almost didn’t recognize you behind all that hair stuck to your handsome face.”
Grinning, Fred cupped his chin. “This old thing? Had it for a lot of years now. Guess you’d say it’s one of my trademarks.”
The other being diamonds, of course. “Still designing Superbowl rings and jewelry for kings and queens?”
“Yeah,” he said, waving the compliment away. “And is that husband of yours still the worst taco maker in the country?”
That husband of hers had been gone for years now, but they’d lost touch with Fred a long time before that. He hadn’t heard. How could he have heard that Mark had died? His simple question caught her so off guard that it rendered her speechless, and the reaction showed on Fred’s face.
“Aw, man. No. No way.”
It showed in his concerned voice, too. “Oh, now, don’t look at me that way. I’m fine.” She squeezed his hand. “Honest.”
“So … so what … how did it happen?” Then his hands went up, as if she held him at gunpoint. “You don’t have to answer that. I’m an—”
“How ’bout we go inside,” she said, pointing at the Bake Shop’s door. “I’ll tell you all about it over coffee.”
“I’d love that, but …” Fred winced. “I have to get over to Virginia Tech, to give my lecture about how to tell a real rock from a fake.”
“I saw you do that demonstration on The Tonight Show; it’s the reason I wore a plain gold band.” Until Eliot and Margo died, reminding her how much it hurt to lose Mark. Why wear a symbol of love and marriage when she wanted no part of pain like that again?
“I’ll be in town through the weekend. Give me a call,” he said, handing her his card. “Maybe we can work something out.”
“Will you be here on Sunday?”
“Matter of fact, I don’t leave until Monday afternoon.”
“Then come to dinner. We can sit around and relax, get caught up … and I’d love to introduce you to Eli.”
“You and Mark had a kid? That’s great!”
Now that he was smiling again—really smiling—she hated to break it to him.
“No, Eli is my brother’s little boy. I got full custody when Eliot died in Afghanistan and my sister-in-law had an accident a few months later.”
“Good God, Taylor. Life has really put you through the ringer lately, hasn’t it?” He handed her a pen. “I’d love to have dinner with you. Scribble your address on the back of that card while you tell me what I can bring and how early I can get there.”
She withdrew one of her own business cards from her purse and gave it to him. “We eat at three on Sundays, but you’re welcome any time.”
“Looking forward to it,” he said, squeezing her hand.
With that, Fred walked south as she hesitated outside the café door. All of a sudden, the muffins lost their allure; the only thing she was hungry for right now was a big hug from Eli.
And maybe one from Reece.
17
Make yourselves at home,” Reece said at the end of the tour.
“That won’t be hard,” Judith said softly. “It’s a lovely house.”
“Yes, Margo had excellent taste.” Which you’d know if you’d ever been here before. “There are a few things in the fridge and pantry. Make a list of anything more you’d like, and I’ll pick it up on my way home this evening. Tomorrow, I’ll see if my secretary can—”
“You seem a little disappointed that we can’t join you for dinner, and I’m sorry about that, but your dad’s exhausted.”
Is that how she’d interpreted his pent-up rage? As disappointment? That might be funny … if it wasn’t so all-fired sad.
“You know we’d love to join you otherwise, don’t you?”
Now how would he know what they loved, or what they didn’t love, when they’d been out of the country for most of his life?
Judith looked around the room and nodded. “You certainly did right by your sister.” Tears shimmered in her eyes when she smiled up at him. “You always were a good boy—we couldn’t have dedicated ourselves so wholly to God’s work if you hadn’t been—and you’re a good man, too.”
Oh, this is rich! he thought. So that’s how they’d chosen to rationalize all those lessons in checkbook balancing and first aid and running the household appliances … so they could desert their kids to do God’s work?
“Train up a child in the way he should go,” she recited, eyes closed and pointer finger aimed at the ceiling, “and when he is old, he will not depart from it.”
“Proverbs 22:6.” The fact that he’d remembered it after all these years surprised him. That she had the unmitigated gall to look proud of the les
sons she and his dad drilled into his and Margo’s heads—by any means necessary—didn’t. And people wondered why he took such a hard line on Christians!
“My biggest regret is that you haven’t given us grandchildren.”
He searched her gaunt face for a sign that she’d been joking, because surely that wasn’t her biggest regret. “Oh, don’t look so worried,” she said, squeezing his forearm. “You’re not getting any younger, but it’s different for men. You can have children until you’re old and gray. Why, just look at Abraham!”
That was no more relevant than the fact that Sarah was ninety when she gave birth to Isaac. Yeah, he knew his Bible, all right, including Exodus 20:12. It hadn’t been a huge hardship, obeying the rest of the Ten Commandments, but that fifth one? The only reason his father was off napping in his dead daughter’s house was because Reece had chosen not to add an if to that one: honor thy father and mother if they didn’t leave their children without explanation and barely enough to sustain them for six stinking months.
If he closed his eyes, he could read what Margo had written throughout her diary: Reece is mean. Reece is a control freak. Reece cares more about getting good grades and making money than he does about me. And the kicker, found on the last page: Reece does what he must to keep up appearances, but he’s selfish and cold. And knowing what’s about to happen, I can’t in good conscience leave Eli with a man like that. Seven exclamation points followed that entry. Seven!
“I can see that you’re restless … I get the same way when I’m worried that I might not arrive on time! So you go on ahead to your little dinner party. Your father and I will be just fine. We don’t want you to be late on our account.”
They waltzed in here after decades of tending to the needs of other people’s children, but didn’t want him to be late. Priceless! When Jesus said leave your worldly possessions behind and follow me, that isn’t what He meant!
If he didn’t get out of this house, and fast, Reece didn’t know what awful thing he might say. Like God’s work was more important than being with your daughter on her wedding day. More important than consoling her when her husband died at war. More important than making sure your only grandchild was properly cared for after … Reece couldn’t complete the rant for fear he’d hate them for paving the road she’d followed to suicide.