by Gayle Roper
He’d barely hung up when it rang again. It was Libby, voice formal and chilly, asking if Jenna could drive with them to Haydn. “We’re glad to be her refuge.”
Ouch.
Drew hung up the old-fashioned kitchen wall phone, calling himself all kinds of fool because he still planned to drive to Haydn. Did he think she’d appreciate his presence, his support? Too bad he hadn’t brought his winter parka with him. He might need it if there was no thaw in her manner.
He turned and found Ruthie watching him with a mocking smile. She had showered and put on the clothes Libby lent her. She still looked too thin, but at least she no longer appeared ill. And she no longer smelled, or at least she didn’t smell bad. The scent of soap and shampoo competed with the aroma of coffee.
“Trouble with the little fiancée?”
First things first, he thought. “She’s not really my fiancée. That was Jenna’s little joke.”
“Strange joke.”
“She’s thirteen.” Drew moved to the stove and poured himself a cup of coffee. “Want one?”
Ruthie shook her head. “I’ll take an orange juice.”
Wow. Something healthful. He pulled the Tropicana No Pulp (because Jenna couldn’t stand pulp) from the fridge and poured a glassful. Ruthie took it with a murmured thanks.
Unfortunately the surcease would be only temporary. As soon as he gave her his message, she’d be off the walls again. He rubbed at the ache once again thundering through his head. But it was as Ben said: “Even peace may be purchased at too high a price.” The price of peace with Ruthie, at least for the moment, was Jenna, and it was incontrovertibly too high.
“I called Del while you were showering, Ruthie.”
“What?” She was on her feet, fury sparking from her eyes, orange juice forgotten.
“He and Peg will be here Thursday.”
“You had no right.”
He took a sip of coffee. “I have a right to ask anyone I want to my house, and if I want to ask your parents, I will.”
She had no answer to that. “I don’t want to see them.”
“You don’t have a choice. In fact, they’re going to take you home with them.”
Her eyes went wide and wild. “I’m not going! You can’t make me.”
He wasn’t going to touch the “you can’t make me” part because he wasn’t sure he could make her. What was he to do? Carry her out kicking and screaming? That’d really be good for Jenna. “You are going. You have no choice. It is not debatable.”
She collapsed in her chair. Her face crumpled. “You’d kick your own wife out?”
“Ruthie, you are not my wife. You haven’t been for years and by your own choice. I think it’s time you stopped dragging that argument out. It will not work. But you are Del and Peg’s daughter, and they love you and want you to come home with them.”
“I don’t want to go. They’ll beat me up with God.”
“They won’t, and we both know it. They are kind, gracious, and loving people. You have put them through hell, but they are still there for you.”
“But you aren’t?”
“No, I’m not. You have forced me to choose between you and Jenna.”
“You can have us both,” she cried.
He shook his head. “I’m still the same dull and pedantic man you disliked before. Colby Creek is still the same college town filled with the same academic types.”
“But I like being with you.” Desperation tinged her voice.
“You like having a temporary roof over your head.”
“I’ll be good, Drew. I will! I won’t drink. I won’t smoke. I won’t shoot up. I won’t sleep around. I promise.”
Shoot up? He wasn’t all that surprised. It explained why she was just skin and bones. “For how long, Ruthie? But that’s not the point. You’re making Jenna feel unwelcome in her own home.”
“She makes me feel guilty.” She stared at the floor as she made this confession. Tears ran down her cheeks. “I don’t like feeling guilty. It makes me too sad. It makes my world too black.”
Drew looked at her. In less than five minutes she’d been furious, desperate, and awash in self-pity. “Ruthie, have you ever thought about joining a bipolar support group? Or getting involved in church again?”
“Hello, my name is Ruth and I’m bipolar? Not in this lifetime.”
“Then what about church?”
She turned sly. “I could go with you.”
Why did he try? “No, but you could go with your parents.”
She held up her arms, palms facing out. “No. You or not at all.”
Another quote from Scripture flashed through his mind. “Fathers, do not exasperate your children.”
“I’m making the choice for Jenna, Ruthie. She has no one but me. You have Del and Peg. You’ll go with them, and she stays with me. That’s the way it’s going to be.”
“But I don’t like it that way.”
“I’m sorry about that, but it changes nothing.” Drew noticed his headache lessening. Just showed what making decisions could do for your health. “Your dad and I have decided to buy you a one-bedroom condo about a mile from their place.”
“I don’t want a condo in my hometown!”
He ignored her protest. “This way you will always have a place to live, but you don’t have to live with your parents. You may leave there whenever you want, but you will always have someplace to come back to if things get rough.”
Her anger reappeared. “You just want to make that blond bimbo your real fiancée.”
The thought of protesting Ruthie’s description of Libby flashed through his mind, but he stifled it. Rabbit trail. “I can think of worse things.”
“Like me living here.”
He did not contradict her.
She stormed out of the room, and when he left for Haydn later in the afternoon, he still hadn’t seen her again.
When we arrived at my parents’, the front door was open, letting in the heat. That in itself indicated that today was a special day. The girls and I climbed out of the van and walked to the house carrying our various offerings. Chloe and Jenna had made chocolate chip cookies and managed not to eat all the dough before baking. I carried a bowl of freshly cut fruit, the palette of melons and citrus, grapes and berries glorious to the eye. I gave a quick knock for courtesy’s sake and stepped inside.
I saw my father almost at once. He had always been a big man, and he’d spent a lot of his incarceration pumping iron. At fifty-two he looked strong and healthy, though pale. A few days working in his bedraggled garden would bring his color back.
He saw me at the same time I saw him and opened his arms. “Libby!” He grabbed me in a bear hug, and Jenna grabbed the fruit bowl to keep it from being dumped on the rug.
Dad stepped back and grinned at me. “I was afraid you wouldn’t come celebrate your old man’s release. Religion does strange things to people sometimes, and Mimi’s told me that you get more religious all the time.”
I bit back a comment and said, “It’s wonderful to see you, Dad.” And it was. My eyes filled with tears, and I prayed fiercely that he would keep his nose clean. And that he would find Jesus.
“And there’s my Chloe!” He grabbed her and gave her a bear hug too. I grabbed the chocolate chips. “I tell you, I’m too young to have a beautiful, grown-up granddaughter like you.”
Chloe blushed, pleased at the compliment. “This is my new friend, Jenna, Granddad.”
Jenna appeared a bit uncertain, like she wasn’t sure how to greet an ex-con, but Dad put her at ease with a pat on the shoulder. “I’m glad you came with Chloe, Jenna. The poor kid needs someone her own age instead of all us old guys.”
“Well, Libby, you made it.” Mom came to stand beside Dad. “I wasn’t sure you’d bother.”
I sighed inwardly and forced a smile. I never meant to make Mom unhappy, and quite truthfully I wasn’t certain how I did it, but somehow it always happened, even before I became a believer, just
more strongly after. “Of course I’d come. This is a very big day.”
She ignored my assurance. “Well, your sister beat you. She arrived in a limo.”
I’d arrived in my flaking van.
“She looks beautiful, very stylish.”
I was wearing khaki slacks and a white polo.
“She’s in the kitchen helping out with the final touches on the food platters.”
I was standing in the living room talking.
I forced another smile. “I’ll just take these things out and see how I can help.” I held out the fruit and the cookies, both of which I’d somehow ended up holding. She ignored them and so brushed aside the hours we’d spent making them.
Remember, Libby, you did this for Jesus, not for your mother.
Still, my black cloud released a little drizzle.
“Hey, Jack! Welcome home!” The next-door neighbors came in the front door, Mrs. Edgar with a tray of brownies in hand.
“Pete and Laura!” Mom said, all smiling and welcoming. “Thanks for coming over. And, Laura, what wonderful-looking brownies! How thoughtful of you.”
As Mom and Dad turned their attention to the Edgars, Chloe sidled up to me.
“How are you going to talk to Aunt Tori about the jewelry with all these people here, Mom?” she whispered. She was worried, and I knew exactly how she felt.
I shrugged as Dad dragged the Edgars over to greet me. While we tried to establish how long it’d been since we’d last seen each other, Dad turned to Chloe and Jenna.
“Why don’t you girls sit in the rockers on the front porch and say hi to everybody who shows up?” For a moment he looked uncertain. “That’s assuming anyone bothers to come.”
“Of course people will come,” Mom said quickly. “You have lots of friends, Jack, and you know it.”
“Had,” Dad said. “Back then. We’ll see about today.”
There was a small silence. Then Dad grabbed the cookies from my hand. “Here, girls. Take these for sustenance.”
“The girls made those for your party, Dad,” I said as Chloe took the bag of cookies with a smile.
“Yeah?” He beamed at them and they beamed back. “That was so nice of you! Make sure you get a glass of iced tea or lemonade or Coke or something to wash them down.”
The girls grabbed a soda from the cooler in the dining room and ran to the porch.
“Hey, Jack, you get to watch the Phillies much in there?” Mr. Edgar asked. “Not that you missed much if you didn’t.”
I left Mom and Dad and the Edgars and went to the kitchen with my unacknowledged bowl of fruit. I found Nan and Tori leaning against the counters. Tori had a fistful of plastic wrap that she had pulled from platters of lunch meat and cheese purchased at the supermarket, her “helping out with the final touches.” The platters themselves sat ready to go out onto the dining room table.
When the two of them saw me, all conversation stopped. Of course I immediately assumed they had been talking about me. A few more drops fell on my head.
Nan gave me a tight smile. “Glad you came, Libby.”
“What’s with everyone thinking I wouldn’t come?” I set the fruit on the counter with a bit more force than appropriate. “I wouldn’t miss Dad and Pop’s homecoming for anything.”
“You don’t visit much,” Nan said.
I bit back the facts that Tori visited less than I and that in all the time I’d owned my house, Mom and Nan had only come over once before yesterday, and that was at Christmas for about fifteen minutes. They’d barely had time to eat a couple of Christmas cookies before they made their escape. I decided they thought that I, like Madge, would probably force them to read the Bible before they left. The fact that I had a Bible on an end table open to Luke 2 and the Christmas story probably confirmed their irrational and erroneous fear.
Nan pushed away from the counter. “Mike’s in the backyard, taking inventory on how things have fallen to pieces while he’s been gone. I think I’ll go join him.”
And it was Tori and me, alone in our mother’s kitchen. Mom was right; she did look gorgeous. Her black linen shorts were topped with a sapphire knit, its scooped neck revealing a generous amount of cleavage. Her black slides had a strip of twisted sapphire leather studded with mirrors that glittered when she moved. She wore her hair in one of those artless-looking dos that take forever to arrange, and her makeup was perfection. Dangling from her ears was what appeared to be a small fortune in diamonds, creating iridescent rainbows where the sun struck them.
She grinned at me, looking as fresh and innocent as dawn. “You won’t believe what happened to me last night.”
Did that mean she wasn’t sneaking through our house stealing my jewelry?
“I helped deliver a baby! I was just telling Nan about it.”
I started to laugh. I couldn’t help it. The image of Tori delivering a baby was more than I could take in. After all, work was involved, and so was mess. She avoided both with a determination that matched Princess’s resolve to get to the Hershey’s Kisses.
“The wife of this client of mine had her baby on the casino floor, right between two rows of quarter slots.”
“On the casino floor? Like literally on the floor?”
“Yep, and I was the midwife.” Tori laughed. “You should’ve seen me, Lib, on my knees in my Marilyn Monroe dress, catching this baby as it popped out.” She held out her hands to demonstrate. “Then out came the second baby, but the EMTs had arrived by then.”
“Twins. Two girls?”
“A boy and a girl. They named the girl—that’s the one EMTs caught—Victoria, because I helped with the delivery.”
“After you! Now that is something very special.”
Tori grinned, and I saw a real person in that pleasure, not the creation she had made herself to be. And I was filled with relief. If she was delivering babies on the casino floor, she wasn’t sneaking around in our darkened house snitching shoeboxes.
“Where’s Chloe?” Tori asked.
“Dad assigned her and Jenna to welcome patrol on the front porch.”
Tori’s eyes lit up. “Jenna, huh? Does that mean that her daddy’s here too? Mom said she invited him.”
“Drew’s not here.” I struggled to keep my face and voice neutral. The last thing I wanted her to know was that Drew and I had had words and that I ached more than was appropriate over it.
Tori studied me for a moment, and I wondered what she saw. Then she pushed away from the counter. “I’ve got something for Chlo.”
“Oh no, Tori. I don’t want you buying any more things for her. Nothing. You’ve done more than enough already.”
She waved her hand, as if she were swatting my words away as she would a bothersome mosquito. “I’ve already bought it.”
“So return it. You know as well as I that you shouldn’t be spending money on things for Chloe. Don’t you owe a bunch to some not-very-nice man who keeps making threats?”
She glanced at me quickly, then gave a negligent shrug. “It’s nothing. It’s taken care of.”
“You paid off your debt? All of it?” With the contents of my shoe-box? All my ugly suspicions rushed back. “What about the puzzles?”
“They’re nothing, Libby. Just forget it, all of it.”
“Nothing? I read those puzzles, Tori. I even did the one you dropped on the Fourth. PAY UP OR ELSE.”
She grinned at me. “How many hours did it take?”
“This is not funny. PAY UP OR ELSE. Or else what? Are they going to kill you too?”
Tori gave a strange little laugh. “You’re overreacting to a bad joke.”
“A dead man is a bad joke? Give me a break! I know you’re deeply in debt, and I-I don’t want to trip over you some morning.”
“You’re crazy, Libby.”
“No, I’m not. I’m scared. For you. I’ll help you any way I can.”
She frowned. “Listen hard, Lib. I do not need your help. I do not want your help. There is no threat. None.
I’ve taken care of it.” She spun on her heel and strode into the living room.
I followed her, more worried than ever.
“Hey, Chloe!” Tori called. “Come in here, sweetie. I’ve got something for you.”
Chloe appeared in the front doorway. “For me?” Her eyes were eager.
Tori nodded as she reached into the corner behind the sofa and pulled out a bulging garbage bag, the big green kind that people put leaves in. She thrust it at Chloe as everyone gathered to watch.
“Whoa!” Chloe took it with a large smile. “My own garbage bag. Gee, thanks, Aunt Tori.” She glanced at me, and I smiled. I could see her relax. Whatever her present, she might as well enjoy it.
There was a curly ribbon bow tying the bag shut, and Mom had to get a pair of scissors to cut it loose. The bag fell away revealing a green microsuede pillow, the kind that looks like the top half of an overstuffed chair.
“Cool.” Chloe nodded her appreciation as she hugged it to her chest, its arms wrapping around her sides in an inanimate hug. “It’ll go great in my daffodil room.”
“Very cool,” Jenna echoed. “Look, Chloe! It’s got speakers in each arm and a sound jack.”
Chloe pulled the pillow away to see where Jenna pointed. Her smile was glorious. “Thanks, Aunt Tori!” Chloe dropped the pillow on the sofa and threw herself into Tori’s arms.
Tori smiled smugly at me over Chloe’s shoulder, and the little dark cloud over my head grew blacker, the raindrops denser. I felt very ugly as I told myself I should be grateful instead of suspicious, but there it was, the nasty truth about Libby Keating. She expected ulterior motives.
“Wait! That’s not all.” Tori pulled a small package from her purse. She held it out to Chloe.
Chloe ripped the paper away and held the gift high for everyone to see. “An iPod! I’ve been wanting one forever!”
That was news to me, but even if I’d known, there was that pesky mortgage.
Tori pulled a rectangle from her hiding place by the sofa and held it out.