The Caretaker's Son

by Yvonne Lehman

  His eyes naturally went to the shelf marked bestselling novels. Two of his were there, still on the list. As he led her down the aisle, he saw three of his older ones on a shelf facing them.

  “Aunt B reads a lot,” she said, walking along beside him. “I sometimes read a little before I go to sleep. Romances or women’s fiction. I don’t stay up late. Have to get my beau—” She grimaced, looking up at him and said, “My rest.”

  He just shook his head, wondering why she had such trouble about looking beautiful. He took her elbow and steered her into the nonfiction section. “Okay, let’s look for subjects that go along with what you do. Beauty? Nutrition? Modeling?

  “These are helpful in seeing how things are put together. They look like what Celeste wants me to do.” She shrugged. “Now I need to get faith into it.”

  He wasn’t sure he was the one to tell her about that, but he’d try. “You have a good start with your title. When you told me you wanted faith in the book, that said a lot about you.”

  She seemed to consider that.

  “You could write in an introduction or beneath your picture what you believe. You don’t have to preach a sermon. Tell your little stories and make a point of what you learned, like Willamina saying pretty is as pretty does.”

  She smiled at him as if he’d given her a present and breathed, “Why didn’t I think of that?”

  “It’s not your talent,” he said blandly, as if he was not delighted at pleasing her. And her grin meant she knew he was being playful.

  She picked out a few books and they’d almost reached the front when she stopped. “Oh, she said. “Are your books in here?”

  He had to think quick. Didn’t seem the time or way to bring it up, while she was being so uncertain about hers. He could say something truthful. “I sent Miss B each one. She probably has them.”

  “Wonder why she never mentioned them.” Then she shrugged and smiled. “Maybe because I haven’t been around that much. I’ve had my busy life.”

  He tried to make light of it. “Just another book in her massive collection.” His books were called thrillers. But to some they might mean no more than blood and gore and mayhem committed by killers.

  While Annabelle paid for her books, the manager kept glancing at him, as if she wanted to speak. He walked around a bookshelf, away from her searching eyes.

  After they left the store, Annabelle said, “Looks like I had competition in there. She kept staring at you.”

  He jested,. “Probably because I’m so pretty.”

  “Oh.” She stuck a finger in her open mouth and made a gagging sound, then quickly looked around as if someone else might be looking.

  He motioned toward an exit they could take. “If I’d known we were competing, I would have exfoliated.” Her quick laughter started, then stopped when he asked, “Females usually stare at you?”

  She winced. “I must sound so stuck on myself. I was trying to joke about her staring at you. You see...” She continued as they walked to the parking lot. “Parents of the children in my class recognize me. And I speak at churches, and sing. Also at mother-daughter banquets, so I’m recognized.”

  “Does that bother you?”

  “Not when they say they heard me speak and my message meant something. Maybe helped their children see that respect for parents is important. But not when they gush about my looks.”

  “But that’s your talent, your profession. Just as Wesley must dress the part of a successful attorney. A judge wears a robe. Miss B looked the part of a conservative teacher.”

  “I know.” She sighed. “I’m just feeling insecure lately.”

  “I have a cure for that,” he said as they headed toward the car.

  “What?”

  “I’ll tell you in due time.”

  She gave him her whatever glance, and after getting into the car, she looked through the books again and made comments.

  When they arrived at Miss B’s the delivery truck pulled in behind them. After the plants were set out and the truck left, Annabelle came out onto the porch. “Okay,” he said, “Time to get rid of those insecurities.” He drew an invisible line over the plants with his finger.

  “You want me to do that?”

  He was astounded. “Have you never planted a flower?”

  “I’ve picked them. Does that count?”

  “Nope. You can use the experience in your book. How it feels to get your hands in the earth. To smell it up close. To feel one with the dirt. To be mesmerized by the smell of earth and fertilizer.”

  “Fertilizer? What’s it made of?”

  “Don’t ask,” he said. “Put on some old clothes and help.”

  “Old clothes?” Then her laughter bubbled out. “Gotcha!”

  He turned and headed for the cottage. “I’ll get my work clothes on.”

  He returned before she did and began setting plants near where each should be planted. Soon she came out wearing a holey pair of jeans. He figured they were from the time when holey was the style. And she wore a T-shirt that had seen better days.

  “Found these in a kitchen drawer,” she said, tugging on rubber gloves that reached to her elbows. Then she turned and posed as if on a runway.

  “Perfect,” he approved. “You look downright sloppy.”

  “Thanks,” she replied, “but I need to work in the shade so I don’t end up striped.”

  “You have a bias against a farmer’s tan,” he teased.

  “Well, excuse me,” she sassed. “My purpose in life has been to smile, look pretty, please everyone and never get dirty.”

  They got the tools and brought them up. He planted the shrubs where he’d taken out any damaged ones and she scooped out the holes for the small plants and flowers.

  They planted. He’d yell at her occasionally when she started to put a pink bloom where he wanted a white one, then he’d apologize and she’d laugh.

  And at times he’d watch her dig, even move a wiggly worm to a safe place with her gloved fingers, tenderly place a little flower in the hole, fill it and then pat the dirt as if consoling it. His thoughts drifted to his reason for coming here. Finding a place to settle, maybe relating to Miss B like family. He hadn’t even considered relating to her niece. He needed to stay focused.

  “Enough,” he said after a while. “We can leave the rest for me to do in the morning.”

  “Can I help again?”

  “What?” He pretended chagrin. “You still have insecurities, after all this?”

  She shrugged. “I don’t know. Haven’t thought about it for the past hour.”

  He didn’t know if she’d stop smiling, so he did and asked, “What’s for supper?”

  Without hesitation, she said, “I make a mean salad,” and at his sneer, added, “and a delicious peanut butter and jelly sandwich.”

  “A guy could get cleaned up for that.”

  And a while later they sat in Miss B’s kitchen. While they ate, she said, “You did that on purpose, didn’t you? Had me work in the flower bed?”

  He laid his sandwich down and talked over his peanut butter. “I didn’t force you.”

  She smiled. “I’m not complaining. It’s good to do something and not think. But I’ve concluded that writing the book would be like closure on one part of my life, and then I can feel all right about doing something else.”

  He waited, while she washed down a bite with water. Then she said, “I don’t think I want to compete in pageants anymore. If I didn’t win I’d be a loser. If I won, I’d soon be a former again. I’m always introduced as the former something. As if everything is in the past.”

  “It’s an accomplishment. Be proud of it.”

  “I am. But I want to feel I’m doing something now. Do you understand that?”

  “
I sure do,” he said. “Maybe like my swimming. I loved the competition, the awards, the attention. But the day came when it was over. I could have become a coach.”

  She nodded. “Like I became an instructor at the modeling studio.”

  “Nothing wrong with either. But my choice was not to be a coach, but a writer. What do you want?”

  “Be a teacher like Aunt B. Settle down. Be a wife and mother.”

  She sounded to him like someone ready to settle down. Surely she’d told Wesley that. And surely Wesley wouldn’t hesitate. “Then...why don’t you?”

  She sat for a moment, thoughtful. “Well, it’s like that flower bed. You can’t make it look right and plant the flowers until you get the weeds out. See, you’re making me think like you.”

  He just hoped he could keep his thoughts on the straight and narrow. He liked the fact she confided in him, wanted his advice. He hoped he had some wisdom and could impart it. “Don’t forget,” he said. “Weeds reappear. It’s constant work. Flower beds, and life, are never free of weeds.” He looked pointedly at her. “But you wouldn’t appreciate the beauty of the flowers if you hadn’t seen the weeds.”

  “Oh,” she said as if delighted. “That sounds profound. I’ll have to put that in my little book.”

  He scoffed, “I probably got it from one of mine.”

  She jumped up. “I’m going to see if your books are in the library.” Soon she returned, shaking her head. “The only Sinclair book in there has the first name of Upton.”

  He thought that rather funny. When she saw that he was laughing, her sympathetic expression changed and she laughed, too.

  Annabelle longed to be thought of as more than Miss Sunshine.

  Wasn’t that sort of like him being known as Sy DeBerry?

  He liked their relating simply as Annabelle and Symon.

  She had a lot of inner qualities. And he thought she had a lot more flowers in her garden than weeds.

  Could he say the same for himself?

  Chapter 13

  Symon kept reminding himself he was not a little boy anymore. He was a man now. He and Miss B could relate as mature adults.

  They had, on the phone. But he heard and felt the uncertainty in both their voices.

  As he worked the property, mowed around the cherry tree, kept seeing it demolished, remembering it as it had been through the years, he wasn’t so certain what was fact or fiction.

  He’d seen her only once since he left for New York, when he returned to give her his first book. Her brother and his wife were having a dinner party at the house that night. He hadn’t come in. She hadn’t invited him in. She’d hugged him, thanked him, and he’d left. Never returned.

  Until now.

  Other than that, it had been four years. After college he worked on the estate during the summer. His dad’s health was failing and Symon did most of the work. After getting the property ready for fall, one pleasant evening while Miss B sat on the porch in her rocker, he walked up.

  “I’ll be leaving soon for New York,” he said, standing on the top step and bracing his hand against the post where he had leaned his back for so many years.

  Her breath caught. “You know anyone there? Have a place to stay? I know some people—”

  “No,” he said quickly. He’d resolved he would not be dependent on anyone. He would live his life by his rules and in his own way, taking from another person only what he worked for.

  “I have an agent,” he said. “I will be in his guest house until I approve possible lodging.”

  “He...likes your book.”

  She seemed delighted. He felt that way, too, tried to hide it but couldn’t. He felt kind of like he’d felt when he’d finally gotten to paint a slat in the picket fence. And when he was twelve and he’d come to say his daddy would teach him to drive the mower if she approved.

  She’d lifted her chin in that teacherly way of hers. “Is that what you plan to do with your life, Symon? Have you forgotten your goal of putting those stories on paper. You going to get your joy on that big machine?”

  “Well, yes, ma’am,” he said. “My daddy will teach me everything about that machine. He’s already been teaching me about starting and stopping. Now, if I don’t experience it, how is my killer going to learn to fix the brakes on that contraption so the murder looks like an accident?”

  She nodded and said quietly, “You do have a point.”

  He’d felt it, the deep breath that swelled his chest. He’d closed his hands like he had to do something to keep from running up and hugging her. And he thought she did, too. She reached out and held on to the banister. He had to keep his distance. She was the teacher, the employer. He was the caretaker’s son.

  As time moved on, and he grew from child to growing boy, to teenager, she’d said, “I think it’s time you learned to drive my town car.”

  He’d been confident enough by then to say, “I’m not wearing one of those jackets and caps with a brim and scrambled eggs on it.”

  “Fine. A white shirt and nice pants will do.” She laughed and said, “No shorts.”

  He scoffed playfully, “What about a bathing suit? After all, I made the swim team.”

  “Oh, Symon. That’s wonderful. I guess all that swimming in the creek paid off. Even if you did do it against my better judgment.”

  “Where I swam was like a deep pool. And going upstream like a salmon may have its advantages.” He laughed, then became serious. “The coach says I’m a natural. Which means he wants me to practice more.”

  “You want that?”

  “Yes, ma’am. If I do well on the team I could get a scholarship to college. Besides,” he said, since he knew she delighted in his stories, “I already have this idea about a guy with extrasensory powers who looked into the mind of a swimmer he’s jealous of and gives him a brain hemorrhage. Want to hear more?”

  “Write it down. I’ll read it when you make it into a book.”

  “Thank you,” he said.

  “You’re welcome,” she said and for Christmas she gave him a year’s paid membership at the fitness club.

  That had worked well for him through high school, then college. And then he went off to New York.

  When he’d talked to her on the phone and told her he was writing a book about her influence in his life and writing, her uncertainty reminded him of how his publisher had reacted when he told him.

  Jim had pursed his lips for a moment. “You don’t mean change genres. No, you know better than that.” He leaned forward, propped his forearms on the desk for a thoughtful moment. “You mean like Grisham writing that Christmas book and Patterson with his children’s books.”

  Then Symon saw the light come into the publisher’s eyes like it had through the years when he’d told Miss B his story ideas. Jim began to nod. “Your speaking engagements always result in additional sales. They love your childhood stories. Your audiences always want to know more about what sparked ideas for you.”

  He was nodding. “Yes, it may be time for your own story. Young author makes good. Most writers become overnight successes after twenty or thirty years. You did it at the beginning.”

  Symon shrugged a shoulder and accepted that. He’d done it with his first submitted book. But his writing had begun when he was five years old sitting on the porch while Miss B told about save-Anna.

  Then Jim laughed. “This is perfect. A thriller mystery writer with a book titled The Cherry Tree. They’ll love it. The title is so bland, so common, everyone will want to know what’s in it. Only interest anyone has in a cherry tree, other than springtime in our nation’s capital, is George Washington. Cannot tell a lie.”

  Symon stared.

  Jim stopped laughing and began to nod. “You said something about that in a talk you gave. About fiction not being a
lie, but truth in living color.” He began to nod. “Your cherry tree comes in there somewhere.” He leaned back. “Okay. Write it.”

  Yes, Symon thought then. And now.

  The subtitle would be, Where the Truth Lies.

  That’s why he’d come back. To find out just what he and Miss B were to each other.

  So much depended on how she chose to relate to him.

  Would she want him to sit in her parlor and drink tea or coffee and look at the photo albums? Or would he sit on the porch, propped against that long white column?

  She would decide if he’d relate to her as Sy DeBerry, acclaimed thriller novelist.

  Or...Symon DeBerry Sinclair, the caretaker’s son.

  Chapter 14

  Annabelle had just finished on the treadmill when Symon called to say the porch repairmen would be there shortly. She hurriedly showered, dressed and settled at the breakfast table with a bagel, cream cheese, orange juice and her laptop.

  “Scat,” she warned and SweetiePie reluctantly ambled away and hopped up onto a windowsill, probably dreaming of capturing a golden retriever.

  She opened her emails and emitted a little laugh, seeing she had one from Symon. He’d written, I’ve looked at your blog. Copy three of what you think are best on different subjects. Then we’ll work on an outline. Go ahead and write a query letter.

  Good grief, what was that? Oh well, he could explain it later. In the meantime, she copied one on makeup, another on exercise and the last on nutrition.

  Afterward she felt rather helpless, then remembered the books she’d bought. She’d already looked them over. Okay, he’d said she should look at the index for an example of how to develop an outline.

  Ah, that helped. So under makeup, she added hair and nails, and then decided makeup should go under that category and she’d call the whole thing Grooming. Woo-hoo, she was becoming a writer.