by Nicole Young
“Maybe you don’t remember,” he said after a minute, “but I helped you out of a tight spot or two. The least you could do is return the favor.”
My ears started clanging. GUILT TRIP, GUILT TRIP, the bells warned.
“Don’t get me wrong. I love your sister,” I said. It wasn’t as if I was saying no to Samantha. It was more like I was establishing boundaries in my relationship with Brad. And in a relationship like ours, there was no obligation to return favors. My voice was firm. “It’s just that I’ve just got too much going on in my life right now. I can’t afford to get sidetracked.”
“Name something.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, name something you have going on in your life. I bet you can’t think of anything.”
“I can too.”
“Well?”
He made it sound like I sat around and ate bonbons all day. I cleared my throat. “There’s the whole upstairs that has to get finished. I just need to focus in on that.”
“Sam can help you.”
“What? No. I work alone. That’s how I do things.”
“It’s time to change your policy. Sam is a good friend and she needs you. I’m still a good friend, aren’t I, Tish?”
I squeezed my eyes. Guilt poured like hot coals over my head. “Of course you are.”
“Then do it for me. Come on. It’ll be fun.”
Didn’t he know I’d do anything for him—if only he wanted to be with me? I let out a sigh. “Fine. Whatever. Send her up.”
“Thanks, Tish. You won’t be sorry.”
I gave him directions, then clicked the disconnect button. Tears coursed down my cheeks. I was already sorry.
With no clue as to when Samantha planned on showing up, I went on with life as usual. A week passed, and still no Sam. I figured she’d changed her mind about coming when she heard how unreceptive I’d been to the idea of her moving in. If Sam wanted revenge, she’d gotten it—I’d been swimming in a lake of guilt since that phone call with Brad.
Thursday morning arrived. A touch of disappointment niggled at me when I finally accepted the fact Samantha wasn’t going to show. I leaned on the deck rail out front and gazed at the blue-on-blue lake and sky before me. From the direction of the driveway, I heard the sputter and cough of an engine. I jumped off a corner of the porch and raced to the source. Next to my Explorer, a 1970’s-something Volkswagen van refused to die. The driver got out and ran to me.
“Tish!”
Sam slung her arms around my neck, almost taking me to the gravel. Strands of her long black hair landed between my lips.
I struggled free of the embrace. “Sam! You made it.” I held her at arms’ distance. “I didn’t think you were coming.”
The Volkswagen kept up its wheezing. I nodded toward the red and white vehicle. “What’s wrong with that thing?”
Sam shrugged. “Oh, you know. Old cars.”
She grabbed my arm and practically hauled me toward the cottage. Behind us, the van gave a final sputter, then was quiet.
“I’ve got to see this place,” she bubbled. “I was ecstatic when Brad said you wanted me up for a visit.”
I decided it would be rude to correct her. Brad must have spared her the details of our conversation. “I’m so glad you could make it,” I settled on saying.
“The exciting part is, I can stay until the end of August.” She squeezed my hand.
I ground to a halt just outside the kitchen door. My arm jerked in its socket as she kept walking.
She stopped and turned around.
“Wait a minute,” I said. “Brad told me a couple of weeks. What about the diner?” Surely Sam’s namesake Coney Island restaurant back in downstate Rawlings couldn’t afford to shut down the whole summer.
“That’s the best part.” She jumped up and down, looking like a gorgeous pro football cheerleader in her cutoff denim shorts and white blouse tied over a red tank. “My awesome cousin offered to handle everything until she heads back to Michigan State in September.” She squealed and flashed me a “sis boom bah” smile.
“Great.” Come June, I’d probably be ready to go down and run the Coney myself. I wasn’t sure I could take all this “happy, happy, smiley, smiley” 24/7 for the rest of the summer. Besides, the mention of Michigan State University always made me crabby.
Sam flung back the kitchen door and stared at the room with a look of awe on her face.
“Come on,” I said. “It’s not that great.”
“It’s perfect! Look at this countertop.” She caressed the red-and-gold flecked pre-Formica. “And this floor!” She stooped to take a closer look at the rubbery tan and black tiles.
I supposed I shouldn’t expect anything less from a woman who owned a ’50s diner and a ’70s VW bus.
“Well, where do you want me?” Sam asked, adjusting the overnight bag on her shoulder.
I swallowed. My room upstairs was my cozy haven. I wasn’t about to give it up for company. That left the downstairs bedroom, the only one with a bed. But that had been my mother’s snug harbor. I wasn’t sure I could give it up to Sam either.
I sighed. It was only temporary.
I walked down the hall to the door. “You can sleep in here for now, I guess.” I swung it open. The picture window on the far wall framed the lake view to perfection. Even with the tatty mattress showing, the room felt bright and clean.
Sam brushed past me to the window ledge. “It’s gorgeous.” She turned back to look at the bed. “I brought my own stuff, so you don’t have to worry about sheets and towels and all that.” She peeked around. “I’ve even got my own bathroom!”
“Uhh . . .” I followed her in while she flipped open the medicine cabinet and checked out behind the shower curtain. “This is the only bathroom that’s working a hundred percent right now, so we’ll have to share.”
“Goody!” She slung her arms around my neck like some sugar-fed sorority sister.
All that huggy-huggy stuff had been nice once a week on Sundays back in Rawlings. But somehow now, here at the cottage, it felt more like an endurance test.
I gave her a momentary return squeeze, then pulled away. “Okay. Just so we’re straight, I get the right side of the sink top and the bottom two shelves of the medicine cabinet. We each do our own laundry and we alternate cleaning up.”
She stared at me, with a look of surprise on her face. “Yeah. Sure. Sounds good to me,” she said.
The instructions had slipped out without much forethought. Now I wondered by her look if I had said something off-base. “You’re okay with that, then?”
“I guess so. It seems kind of formal, but whatever.”
I swallowed. My hands twisted. “Did you have something else in mind?” I didn’t want to seem too stiff. She was Brad’s sister, after all. We were practically family.
Sam shrugged. “Not really. I just figured I’d set my stuff wherever there was room. I don’t want to put you out.”
I nodded, glad I hadn’t offended her in any way. “That’s fine. I’ll just leave my stuff right where it’s at then.”
“Okeydoke. So what’s for lunch? I’m starved.”
“Oh my goodness.” I clamped my hand over my mouth. “I’m supposed to be at my friend’s house for tea right now. Just help yourself to the fridge.”
I raced out the door and headed to Candice’s house, glad at least that Sam was there to guard the lodge.
“Love is patient, love is kind,” I repeated over and over along the way. I pulled into Candice’s drive. Heaven knew I’d need a good dose of patience and kindness to make it through the months ahead with Sam.
21
“There you are,” Candice said when I arrived.
In the two weeks since I’d last visited, her porch had become an oasis of flowers. Between each white post hung pots dripping with bright pink impatiens.
“I thought you weren’t planting until after Memorial Day,” I said in a half-whine as we touched cheeks.
“I listen to the weather report,” she said. “If there’s even a chance of frost, I bring my babies indoors.”
“Well, everything looks beautiful.” I gave a pitiful sigh. “With my garden shed burnt to the ground, I’m ready to give up on my landscaping plans.”
“Oh, pish, Tish.” She waved a hand at me. “You make it sound like it’s the end of the world. Plow forward. Don’t give those wretched men that kind of power in your life.”
We walked into the house together.
“I know you’re right,” I said. “But I’m feeling kind of vulnerable now. First my garden shed, then what? I can’t fathom the kind of people that do that stuff.”
“Welcome to Port Silvan. I warned you how things could be around here.”
“You did. I’ve just been so good at minding my own business. I can’t imagine this even happening to me. It wasn’t my fault Drake Belmont got put in jail. But I still took the blame.” My whine grew louder with Candice’s sympathetic ear.
She walked toward the kitchen. “I wonder who did nark on Drake?” she asked over her shoulder.
I waited for her return before replying. The china clinked as she set it out. She poured the steaming liquid.
I sipped Candice’s flavor of the day, some kind of tangy orange and cinnamon combination. “Did anyone really have to nark on Drake, or are the cops finally doing their job?” I asked.
She tilted her head, as if considering. Her long neck added grace to the movement. “The cops generally take a hands-off approach to the area. Port Silvan is too far from civilization to be much of a blip on their screen. Still, when there’s a tip on a big dealer, they’ll make a move.” Her voice took on a cynical tone. “We wouldn’t want the rest of humanity contaminated by the filth around here, now would we?”
I stared at her for a moment, amazed at her enigmatic personality. “So which is it, Candice? In one breath you condemn Port Silvan, and in the next, you defend it.”
She laughed and rocked backward. “I know. I guess it’s a bit of a love/hate relationship. I’ve had the best times of my life here on the peninsula.” She paused and looked down into her tea. “And also my worst.”
I nodded, empathetic.
She stirred another scoop of honey into her cup as if to sweeten the memories. “I had so many plans when I was young. Noble plans. Good plans. But everything went wrong. I married wrong, I left my husband wrong, I never had those kids I wanted.” She looked at me, misty eyed. “I even messed up royally with your grandfather. I mean”—she half smiled—“the damage was already done. I should have stayed with him and proved, if only to myself, that I could make a relationship work.” She tapped the spoon on the edge of her cup and laid it back on the table. She took a sip of tea. “Instead I held a grudge against him all these years. It’s as if I went out of my way to be alone and miserable my whole life.”
I stared at the tray of tea and sandwiches on the table in front of me. I knew all about the psychology of self-deprivation. It was infinitely simpler to identify when it glared like a gaping wound in someone else’s life. “You can’t go back and do it over,” I said. “But did you ever think about making another go at it with my grandfather? A fresh run?”
She waved a hand. “No, no. Too many years of hurt between us. Some things are better left the way they are. Why open a can of worms?”
I shrugged. “Maybe the label just says worms but there’s really something beautiful inside.”
She bit her lip and gave a nod. “Maybe. But I’m not sure at my age I have the strength to find out.”
I reached across the space between us and touched her hand, lightly wrinkled but still soft and smooth. “Look at you. You have so much life. I can’t believe you’ve gotten this far with a defeatist attitude.”
She grinned. “Maybe not. But still, I’m just a crotchety old lady. I’m too old for love.”
“Nobody’s too old for love.” I put on my choir robe and started preaching to myself. “Especially not the kind God has to offer.”
I recognized the defiant set of her chin.
“Just hear me out, Candice.”
She leaned back and crossed her arms.
I inhaled a breath of courage. “I still struggle with feeling worthy of love. When my mom died, my grandmother took out her anger on me and my grandfather. He was lucky. He drank himself to death. But I lived to deal with all Gram’s bottled-up grief. I finally dumped my own anger onto her when she was dying. I paid a big price, but because of it, I discovered God’s love. I realized He never forgets about me even when I forget about Him.” I gazed into her eyes with all my strength, hoping my message might make it through the wall she’d erected. “He loves you too, Candice. I know He does.”
She took a rasping breath. “God and I don’t have much in common anymore.”
“You’re wrong.” I gripped her wrist. “You walked away, not Him. He’s still got big plans for you. Good plans. Maybe plans with my grandfather, if you let it happen.”
She pushed my hand away. She lined up the spout of the teapot with the honey decanter. She moved a doily to the corner of the tray and set her cup on it, laying her spoon neatly on the saucer. “That’s a nice sentiment, Tish,” she said. “But there are things you don’t know that make what you’re suggesting impossible.”
“Nothing’s impossible with God.” I showcased my limited knowledge of Scripture.
She glared at me. “Some things are.”
Our eyes linked in a stare down. I broke contact first.
“Hey, did I mention I have a friend staying with me now?” I asked. A change of subject seemed the wisest course.
Her eyebrows arched. “A friend? And who might that be?”
“Sam Walters. From back in Rawlings.”
“You never told me about Sam.” Her voice had a singsong quality to it, like she was ready to break into a round of “Tish and Sam, sitting in a tree, k-i-s-s-i-n-g . . .”
I laughed. “Sam as in Samantha. She’s the sister of Brad Walters. A friend of mine.”
“You never told me about Brad,” she said in the same silly voice.
“Oh, he’s just a friend.”
“Just a friend, huh?”
I swallowed the lump that clogged my throat every time I said his name. “Yeah.”
Candice became serious. “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize.” She looked up at the ceiling, then back at me. “Boy, don’t we make a pair.”
I nodded, fighting back the tears.
“Come on. Let’s go for a walk.” Candice stood, loaded the tea supplies on the tray, and delivered it to the kitchen. We grabbed a few finger sandwiches and walked out the back door.
The scent of fresh grass, hot from the sun, greeted us. Winged insects hummed in the breeze as they picked their way from dandelion to dandelion across the green field. We started off down a two-track that cut next to an old barbed-wire fence.
“It’s so beautiful here,” I remarked as I munched.
Candice took in the view. “You should have seen it back in the good old days. We had horses and cattle and chickens.”
I pictured the field bustling with livestock. “You must have loved it.”
“I still love it. Maybe more now that I can get up when the whim hits instead of when the cock crows.” Candice shook her head, staring at the ground in front of her as we walked. “The animals are what got me through. I could handle anything as long as my horses came running when they saw me.”
“How many did you have?”
“It varied year to year. But the standbys were Brigitte—she was my favorite for saddling up—and Clint. He was a big, clumsy gelding, but gentle as anything.”
“I’ve always wanted to ride a horse.”
“You sat on them plenty when you were little.”
“I barely remember.”
“Your grandfather kept horses too,” she said. “He still does.”
We turned a corner at the end of the field and followed the trail in
to the woods. The sunlight dimmed beneath the infant leaves. I slapped at a mosquito buzzing in my ear.
“In fact, your mother was quite the horsewoman,” Candice said.
I looked at her, thrilled. “Really? Did you ride together?”
“Now and then. Mostly I stayed behind and played with you while Bernard and Beth went riding. I couldn’t bear gallivanting around with those two. My stomach couldn’t take it.”
I smiled. “No wonder I loved you so much, Jellybean.”
She laughed with me. “We made great companions, we two.” She swatted at a mosquito near her cheek.
“We still do.” I smacked a bug on my arm.
“I don’t know about you, but I’m getting eaten alive. Let’s get out of these woods.” Candice itched at a welt on her hand.
“Me first!” I whirled and ran, leaving Candice and the mosquitoes behind.
“Not so fast, young lady.” Candice’s voice came from only a few steps back.
I broke into the field, back in bite-free sunshine and warmth.
Candice stopped next to me seconds later. She leaned hands on knees, recovering her breath. “Not bad for an old gal, huh?” she said.
“Either you’re in great shape, or I’m in lousy shape.” I laughed.
“You’re in lousy shape.”
As we walked back to the farmhouse, I gave her the rundown on Sam.
“So the ex-husband is back on the loose.” Candice shook her head.
“Brad seems pretty upset about it. But what are the chances of this guy really doing anything?”
She stopped and looked at me, her expression dead serious. “Count yourself blessed, Tish, that you’ve never been abused at the hands of someone you love. There’s nothing harder than opening your eyes when you want only to keep them closed. There’s nothing like finally admitting to yourself that you’re ‘one of those women’—the kind of woman you always despised for having no backbone, for not having the good sense to leave a situation that’s killing you.”
“I’m sorry, Candice, I didn’t mean to—”
She rolled over my words as if I’d never spoken. “If Sam’s ex is anything like mine was, he’s going to come after her. It’s as if he can’t help himself. He’s going to make her pay for putting him in prison, because, naturally, all his problems are her fault. And if she doesn’t grovel just right and beg his forgiveness, then he’s going to hurt her. He’d rather see her dead than free.”