He returns with a couple of mugs in his hands. “Here you go.”
Black. Just assumed, I guess.
I’ll take anything warm at this point.
“So what can I do for you all?”
Jolly points to me.
I clear my throat. I haven’t practiced the question. I should have. I should have worded it carefully, written down a variety of options. But I didn’t. Perhaps I didn’t want it to really work out. What I really wanted was to find this camp deserted, Xavier gone, the trail ended, and that’s that.
“I went to school with your kids, Gary and Mary.”
He closes his eyes. “Oh, which school?”
“Bel Air Christian.”
His face darkens. “Oh.”
“I need to find them.”
“Why’s that?”
“To apologize.”
He sits down on a straight chair and flattens the fluff on top of his head. “Truth is, I haven’t seen Gary or Mary in years.” He looks up, eyes moist but not overflowing. “I never knew how to handle those kids. I don’t think I even knew how to try.”
Jolly clears his throat. “Do you know where they are?”
“Last time I heard, they was somewhere near Amarillo. Gary hit the road as soon as he graduated high school and took Mary with him. I only heard from him once, and that was to sign over my rights to Mary’s guardianship.”
“Did you sign?”
“Uh-huh, and I was thankful to do it. Gary’s a strong one. Now Mary. Oh, dear God.” He tears up again. “If you’ll excuse me. I’ve got some things to attend to. On second thought, you’re welcome to bunk here for the night.”
Jolly helps me to my feet. “No thanks. We’ll just head on back.”
Xavier leaves the room with only a nod. We depart from Xavier and his sad cabin on faraway waters. I guess we all escape one way or another; only some of us have more to escape from, sending us farther out and deeper in.
* * *
We turned around and set up camp a bit later than yesterday so we can make it back to the lodge by nightfall tomorrow. I paddled more often today despite the fact that my arms and shoulders finally feel like someone’s trying to pull them apart with each stroke.
Something about being out here in the wilderness settles my soul. I can see why people yearn to retire somewhere remote, just live their lives in peace without their own expectations or anyone else’s weighing them down.
I quickly slide myself into the sleeping bag and turn on the lantern.
If I could rationalize it as a way Jesus would have lived, I’d do it. He may have gone off to refresh Himself, but He always came back around. At least in His man-skin He did. I sure wish He’d come back around right now.
FORTY-ONE
I drop Jolly off and have to wipe away the tears as he lets himself into that lonely old house. The heat blasts out of the car vents, but even so, I wonder if I will ever feel warm again. Naturally, the cold hit like a slap-boxer on that last day. Jolly and Grandy took it like men.
I am not a man.
If anybody had wanted to see a woman complain and act like a delicate hothouse flower, they would not have been disappointed. Grandy almost pushed me out of his canoe. And surly? Mercy!
The Jacuzzi tub awaits. Now if I could blue-dot that thing, I would! I open the car door, yank my bag from off the backseat, and head inside.
Jace and Will practically trample over each other after I open the door.
“Mom!”
“Hezzie!”
We hug and kiss, and Jace, already having heard all about my chilly bones via cell phone, flips on the electric teakettle. “Hot chocolate all around!”
Will flips it off. “Dad, you gotta use milk if it’s going to be worth drinking. I’ll do it.”
Jace grabs the sugar canister and hands it to Will. “I want to hear all about the trip.”
“Me too!” Will. “I can’t believe you camped out for three days. That’s amazing. You!”
Okay, got it, Will.
“I liked it, actually. If it wasn’t for the cold. We should all do that sometime.”
Jace. “Big-time. I will remind you that I’ve been trying to talk you into it for years. Are you saying I was right?”
“Sometimes we just need to have things foisted upon us before we can really appreciate them.”
“Ah-hah.”
Will measures out the cocoa into the pan. “Dad gave me the basic story about the Andrews kids.”
“Yeah.”
“Gosh, Mom. On one hand I can’t believe you were one of them, but on the other, it kinda gives me hope, you know?”
“I’m sorry.”
“Yeah, well, you’re a nice lady now, and you take up for the weird kids at school.”
“You all are not weird!”
“See what I mean?”
“I thought you’d be angry at me.”
“Why? You’ve only been great to me. I mean, if you were still one of those ladies, like some of them at school who’ve never gotten out of the mean girl phase, it would be different.”
The phone rings. It’s Laney.
“Hey, Laney. How are you?”
“Up to my eyeballs, but what’s new there? Hey, I heard about the service project the women’s committee is doing. Very cool.”
“Did Carmen start promoting it?”
“Oh yeah. In fact, she’s been calling everybody personally. She’s totally on board.”
“That’s great!”
“Just thought you’d want to know. And I’m signing up too. Cade said he’d take off work that day.”
“Thanks, Laney.”
“Hey, you got it. So see you tomorrow, then?” she asks. “We’re meeting at my house.”
“Oh, you have no idea how much I’m looking forward to it.”
* * *
Lark calls as I drive downtown Tuesday morning. “Hey, come by and pick me up. Mother’s driving me crazy.”
“Is she all right?”
“She is woman, hear her roar, Heather. She’s been reading a book that’s driving her crazy, and yet she won’t put it down. Said she’s always wanted to read Gone with the Wind, and so before she dies, that’s what she’s doing. Only she’s already taken up with Melanie Wilkes, and poor Scarlett can’t do one thing right.”
“Wasn’t that kind of the point?” I’ve never read the book myself.
“Beats me. But you should hear her yelling at that woman and Margaret Mitchell besides. I can’t hear myself think.”
“Sure, I’ll swing by. See you in a few.”
So this is a nice little sparkle to the day.
* * *
While Sister J leads Lark up to the transitional floor to show her what needs doing, I sit on a stool by the worktable in the kitchen and cut the black spots off of ten heads of broccoli. Cream of broccoli soup tonight with cheese that came in from one of the grocery stores, along with some outdated tubes of poppin’ fresh biscuits. I’m almost tempted to take some home with me.
Honestly, I think Sly, who turned up last week, went Dumpstering and found this loot, but I don’t want to ask for sure.
I hear Mo holler from his desk, “Now don’t you be disturbing that nice lady back there, Knoxie.”
Oh great. Why me? Why does he always want to talk to me? All I can think when I’m talking to him anymore is that I’m jeopardizing my family by even being around this guy, like if I’m caught in some kind of drug war and I die, then Will is left without a mother, Jace without a wife, and then who would be around to get rid of the green-dotted merchandise?
But then I remember that only the grace of God, in a general sense, keeps us all from being murderers and thieves.
“Heather Curridge.”
“Hello, Knox. Pull up a stool.”
He does, darn it. I was hoping this would be one of his breeze-throughs.
“What are you up to today?” I ask, then clap my hand over my mouth. “Forget I said that.”
“Well, actually, I’ve been doing a little soul-searching. A very little, but any improvement is good.”
“So what has your search dug up?”
“I was thinking about why I am the way I am. It’s not like a five-year-old ever dreams of doing what I do.”
“What did you used to want to be?”
“A fireman, of course. Then a policeman.”
I hoot out a laugh.
“And then I suppose I was around ten years old when I found myself out on the corner and realized it was either us or them, and them was a lot richer and more powerful. It wasn’t a hard decision for me, unfortunately.”
“I’m sorry for you, Knox.”
He picks up a broccoli floret and examines it. “How do you make up for it once you’ve done so many things to so many people?”
I tell him about Gary and Mary. The trip to Minnesota. His soulful eyes close. “It would take me the rest of my life to try and make up for my sins like that, unfortunately.”
“Can you think of anything better to do with it?”
“Pray for me,” he said.
And I assure him I will. “I already have been, in fact.”
On the way home, I tell Lark about him. “Now what got into him? What’s happening inside that man?”
“Who knows?”
“I saw the side of him that Jesus loves, though.”
“That’s good, Heather. I hate to say it, but I don’t think you’re through with him. Not by a long shot.”
* * *
The three of us pore over five different floor plans from Alva’s portfolio. I spread them out on the empty dining room floor. Yep, empty.
The table and chairs, sideboard, and china cabinet brought twenty thousand at auction. I had no idea they were such good pieces when I bought them from an antiques dealer awhile back. Obviously he didn’t either!
“Wow, Mom. These are great. Are we really going to do this?”
Jace. “Yeah. We’re going to sell this place just before the hospital ship goes out, and this will be built when we’re gone.”
“Have you found the land yet?”
“No,” I say. “But that will come. We have awhile to decide.”
We all agree on the same plan, the Guggenheim. Lots of windows, three small bedrooms, and a wide-open space that envelops the kitchen, a family room, and a dining area, all on different levels under the same stretch of ceiling.
“And it will be done in white,” I say.
“No arguments from me.” Jace.
Will says, “As long as I can do my room in whatever color I want, I don’t care what you do with the rest.”
Teenagers.
Will points to a figure in the lower right-hand corner of the plan. “Look, this went for seven thousand dollars back in the ’50s!”
Jace and I both gasp, then burst into laughter.
Will settles a hand on an indentation in the carpet left over from the buffet. “How much did you get for the dining room furniture again?”
Mercy!
FORTY-TWO
November is one of my favorite months because it brings my favorite holiday, Thanksgiving. The spirit of gratitude revolutionizes, so human in the good sense of what is human. I believe we are at the highest pinnacle of being completely human as God designed us when we are most grateful.
Will is grateful today because I’m letting him take off school to come help.
I have to remember to pick up the Thanksgiving turkey on the way home from the Hotel. Carmen really played this day up big. We’ll be finished with that room in no time.
We pull into the school parking lot at quarter to eight, and judging by the look on her face, Carmen is anything but grateful right now. She storms toward me across the tarmac. “I’m so mad I could spit!”
“Why?” I’m doing all I can not to laugh. Carmen has been snippy, bossy, angry, but the expression on her face can only be categorized as outrage.
“Five of us, Heather. There’s only going to be five of us . . . counting you!”
“That’s okay. Will’s here too.”
“Okay, six. But still no. It’s not okay. I’m beginning to think you were right about this stuff. Maybe we should keep this sort of thing to ourselves. Nobody wants to help anyway.” She stomps her foot like a five-year-old, and I want to hug her.
“Don’t listen to me about anything, Carmen. I’m finding out I don’t know much about pretty much everything. And it’ll be okay. You did what you could. Some listened. Most didn’t. Isn’t that usually the way?”
She looks over at the school, shrugs. “Well, when you put it that way, you’re exactly right. I don’t like it, though. I mean, it’s one thing to not show up when you promised to decorate the gym, but to paint a homeless shelter? After you said, ‘I swear, I’ll be there bright and early tomorrow morning, Carmen’?”
“Who else is coming?”
“Laney, who’s more excited than you can imagine.”
Knew that.
“Olive and Betty Hayes.”
“Betty Hayes? She’s eighty if she’s a day!” Her daughter Olive has a son in Will’s class.
“I know. She sidled up to me at the basketball game and said she still had a great painting arm.”
I clap. “That’s wonderful! Are they meeting us here? We can all drive down together if you’d like.”
“They’ll be here any minute. We can take my van.”
“Sure. Can we stop for coffee on the way?” I wrinkle my nose. “The stuff at the Hotel is pretty bad. Jimmy doesn’t make good coffee, and I don’t want to tell him so.”
“Sounds good to me.”
Betty and her daughter Olive arrive together, both swimming in large khaki pants and loose men’s shirts. These two define the word delightful. Betty lives with Olive and her family these days and does all the grocery shopping and makes dinner too.
“Hellooooo!” Betty waves her hands and scoots toward us. Betty smiles all the time.
Olive shuffles right on behind her. “Hey, guys!” She holds up a tray of drinks. “Thought I’d presume you’d all like some coffee.”
Of course. Yes, the Hayes women are just the type. Why don’t I ever think of Olive when I think about the other moms at the school?
Olive hands me a cup. “I remember you telling me you like those chai teas a couple of months ago.”
“Bless you.”
“Skim mocha, no whip.” She hands another cup to Carmen.
Laney screeches in, executing one of those mind-boggling, high-speed parking jobs you see every once in a while, the driving antithesis of Liza. “Is that coffee?” she hollers as she extracts herself out of her old Windstar. “Because if it is, I’ll take it!”
Nicola jumps from the passenger door. Will shoves his hands in his pockets and walks toward his real live girlfriend. Okay, I have to admit I’m relieved. When your son’s a misfit, you do tend to think, down in the whispery portions of your mother-mind, that there isn’t a girl alive who will actually appreciate him.
Laney looks as if she spent the night running through the forest. Her hair porcupines out from her scalp, and her clothing twists askew around her reedy body. “I swear, I’m going to leave at 6:00 a.m. next time I get a day off. It took us fifteen minutes to say good-bye. ‘I’m only going for the day,’ I kept saying to Hannah over and over again.”
Olive holds out the gold. “I wasn’t sure what you like, Laney, but I assumed with your slender figure you could afford anything. So I got you a whole-milk white chocolate mocha.”
Laney sips. “And you figured perfectly.”
“I didn’t realize Nicola and Will would be here. Sorry I didn’t pick them up a drink.”
Laney shakes her head as she sips. “No prob. Thanks, Olive. How much do I owe you?”
Betty. “That look as you sipped was worth every penny.”
Carmen claps her hands. “Let’s go, then! Giddyup or something like that.”
We all climb into her van, every one of u
s happy to be there, feeling a bit like we’re heading off to summer camp. And that’s why it was only us. Some jobs God reserves for those who are delighted to have them because He knows that’s pretty much going to be the only reward coming anyway.
I pat Carmen on the shoulder. “See? It’s all going to be fine.”
Her eyes crinkle in the rearview mirror, and she turns on her CD player. The strains of Glenn Miller’s “Tuxedo Junction” fill the space.
Betty smiles. So do the rest of us.
* * *
Mo hollers. “Ho! Here they are! Lookin’ ready to do some business!”
Betty holds up her paint roller and gives it a victorious shake. The others do an equally endearing motion, and I swear, my face will split like a tree under lightning, my smile’s so wide. Will and Nicola hold hands.
My old people meeting my new people.
I take a mental snapshot of their lovely female faces.
Mo picks up the phone. “Sister J? Paintin’ crew’s here!” He hangs up after her response. “She’ll be right down. There’s some coffee if y’all want some.”
We all hold up our cups.
I chuckle.
Mo raises his brows. “Yeah, Jimmy’s not the best at coffee, is he? Next time, though, you be bringing one for me, all right?”
I make introductions, and Mo shakes all the women’s hands. Will introduces Nicola, and Mo acts like he’s just met a princess. My son looks ready to zing even as Laney looks like she’s going to pop like a balloon rising toward the trees. She gazes around in a state of almost wonder, and I have no idea what’s going on inside her head. Carmen just looks ready to get to work.
“Big room,” she says.
“Definitely.”
She turns to the other women. “So I thought we’d have a bigger crew. Do you want to make two days of this, or stay until we finish the job?”
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