Minerva heard Piper breathing on the other end, and then the line went dead.
***
Piper drove around the other side of the building where George worked and saw him standing by the garage. Not wanting to honk, she parked in front and waited for him to see her. She watched George notice a couple of the men looking toward the vehicle and he turned his head. Raising his glasses to the top of his head, he strode to the car.
"Some bills are due. I'd appreciate the help...still looking for a job. When can you pay them?" Piper asked.
George took the gas and electric bills and stuffed them in his front pocket. "How do you do, too," he said, trying to smile. "How are you?"
"I'm good." Large sunglasses covered half her face and she knew George couldn't tell if she looked at him or not. "You?"
"Not good."
"Well, I didn't come to talk about us right now, just to give you the bills, like you asked. I know you don't like being late paying them. No luck on a job yet—should be hearing something soon from that antique store in Ruidoso."
"You'll find something," George's voice was soft while he spoke to her but she tried ignoring it. "Walter said to apply at his place, have you done that?"
"Not yet, but I will. I don't know if I want to work with Walter or not." Piper watched a young construction worker cross in front of the car.
"You wouldn't see your mother," George said. Piper shot him a look. "I don't mean anything by that."
"I'm meeting her in the morning, but I don't want to talk about it now."
"Why didn't you come to the party?" George asked. "She was so disappointed." She sensed him moving his face closer to hers. "And so was I—very disappointed." She was silent and stared straight ahead. "Guess I better get back, we got a job in an hour," he said.
"I couldn't handle the stress of it. Just wasn't ready. Seeing everyone having a good time...Fellow not there." She shook her head and the ponytail at the back of her head shimmied. She looked up and saw George straighten himself to return to work. "I'm seeing her tomorrow. We're meeting at the park."
He hunched over to look at her. "That's good to hear. Maybe you guys can patch things up, now that you found no evidence against her." He smiled and put a hand on her arm. She made no attempt to move it.
"Guess there are some things I'll never know," Piper said.
George bent to his knees, face to face with Piper. "It'll all come out in the wash someday. The truth always wins out." He smiled warmly at her and she felt his eyes bore into hers. She caught the meaning of his words and she smiled back, in spite of herself. Something lurched in her heart for him but she ignored it. She wasn't ready to think about her feelings for George.
"Well, gotta go. I think I will go by and pick up an application at Sav-A-Lot. What have I got to lose?" She put the car in gear and looked up at George. In a quiet voice she added, "It's good seeing you. How's it working out at Mom's?"
"It's good. She doesn't bug me too much." He chuckled. "Really, she doesn't bother me at all. How's counseling coming? Do you like it?"
She didn't want to answer his last questions. "I'm glad she doesn't bother you." She became silent and noticed George did, too, as if one was waiting for the other to say something pertinent. "Maybe we can work things out. That would be nice."
George perked up. "That would be great."
"Maybe I can think of a way to change things. Maybe I will learn something about myself going through all this," Piper said.
George reached inside the window and stroked her arm. "I can help. I would really like to. We can get help for our feelings about losing Fellow—counseling maybe."
She locked eyes with George again and let out a deep sigh. "I'm talking about working things out with Mother, George."
***
It was nine a.m. and Minerva made sure the cookies were sitting on her purse. She would hate forgetting them, or would hate if they fell into her purse and were crumbled. She tucked the picture she made into the side pocket, thinking Piper might like to add it to her wall. Of course, Minerva hadn't been inside her daughter's house in a long time, but maybe that would change.
It had been tough crawling out of bed this morning. Minerva's fitful night left her drained and achy. She felt like an old washerwoman padding about the trailer. Her make-up routine was a disaster. When she drew the black eye liner over her lids, she slipped and the tip poked her in the eye. Lew kept sneezing. The dog was never sick. George had kept her fed and watered until Minerva insisted taking over when she saw Lew had gained some weight. She sprayed her new perfume around and around in equal parts on her chest and neck, not imagining the sickly sweet smell may have been causing the sneezing. The dog was sitting on the rug by the toilet, her eyes half shut and her nose runny.
Minerva rummaged through the medicine cabinet. Maybe she would find some allergy medicine for Lew. Pushing aside a bottle of Pepto Bismol, some Ex-Lax, and a few outdated bottles, she spotted her current prescription. "Shit." She unsnapped the lid and counted the yellow tablets. She had missed her last three pills.
She had been busy the last three days, her mind on everything but her health. She pondered what to do. She couldn't take all three. It would make her feel worse than she had the last day or so, with knee pain and headaches. She dipped one pill into her palm and stared at it. She patted her hair and fidgeted with the bottle, rolling it around in her palm. Lew sneezed again and her shoulders tensed. She forgot about the allergy medicine.
Maybe the pills weren't worth the trouble. Sure, she'd missed a few, but she felt all right. Maybe she didn't need them anymore, since she was working through things on her own. Besides, it was too late to catch up on the medication anyway. She tossed the bottle and its contents in the wastebasket.
It was twenty minutes after nine when Minerva pulled on a jacket and went outside to start the car. She would let it warm while she went back inside and got the cookies and her purse, along with the picture that was still in the side packet. She thought she'd stop and say hi to Walter before going to the park to meet Piper.
Walter wasn't at the store so she left a note saying she'd be back at noon. She had skipped breakfast and didn't feel hungry, but maybe she'd get her appetite back by then. She flipped on the radio and decided to drive around to kill time. She set the dial to the oldies and turned it up, hoping the tunes would cheer her up.
Minerva didn't think about her damp forehead and the slight trembling of her hands. And she didn't notice the dull ache beginning deep in her temples.
Making a left turn, she pulled into the Daisy's Donuts parking lot. Despite her loss of appetite, she'd nibble a bear claw or something, or maybe she'd try a latte this time instead. It seemed like everyone was drinking lattes these days.
By the time she finished the last bite of her chocolate bear claw, she noticed her head pounded and she felt a little dizzy. She had no aspirin with her and didn't have enough time to go back to the trailer. Maybe she'd roll down the window and let the brisk air cool her and she'd feel better by the time she got to the park.
She had twenty minutes left. Driving past the park, she didn't see Piper's car. For a minute she panicked, thinking Piper wouldn't show, but she snorted at herself when she looked at the clock. There was still time. Minerva circled the block, then circled two more times. It was five minutes until ten when she pulled into a parking spot.
Gazing from one side of the parking lot to the other, she only saw unfamiliar cars. She twisted and checked the parking spaces across the street. Piper was nowhere. She strained, trying to catch a glimpse of her on the playground, or coming out of the bathroom. Something snapped in her mind, like a backfiring car focusing everyone's attention, and she felt her wet palms, the trembling of her limbs, her pounding head. She frowned, causing her eyebrows to tighten and lift in a steeple on her face.
Minerva's frown changed to a haunting gaze. She looked around the park but didn't really see. Her mind, drowned in thought, hung on one continuous realization.
Piper didn't love her, she never did. That was plain. Piper had tricked her, and made her look like a damn fool.
***
Piper stepped on the gas pedal. This morning she had called the clinic to check the time of her next counseling session, setting up an additional drug counseling appointment for next week. The over-the-phone interview took longer than she thought. She checked her watch, and looking in the rear-view mirror, pressed the pedal again. She had two minutes to get to the park. She didn't want to be late and cause unnecessary problems with her mother.
She looked around for Minerva's car after she pulled into the lot. Her watch read exactly ten o'clock. Maybe she parked on the other side.
The duck pond was still mostly frozen this time of year, but the ice had broken up, forming huge blocks. Piper sat her purse on the cement table and wrapped her coat tighter around her, sealing out the cold air. The weatherman said forty degrees today, but it felt closer to thirty.
She reached in each pocket and pulled out a mitten. Pulling them over her hands, she looked around the park. From where she was she couldn't see the other parking lot. It was only five after ten and Minerva would be here soon. Mom wasn't usually late, she thought.
Minutes later, Piper sat down at the bench. She rubbed her hands together for extra warmth. A small boy ran by with a big dog barking beside him. He waved and she waved back.
While the unforgiving breeze swept across the park, several huge, black clouds lurked above. She shivered and pulled her coat tighter around her again.
She reached in her purse and brought out Fellow's red heart valentine. It had wrinkled a bit and she laid it out, smoothing its side. She was careful not to smudge the bursts of color in the center he'd made with jumbo crayons. In each curve, Fellow had colored pink smiley faces.
Piper turned the heart over and saw where Fellow had scribbled his name. She taught him only weeks before to write his name, sitting with him for hours, practicing over and over. A tear stung hot at the corner of her eye.
She glanced around and turned the heart back over. Fellow had written I love you in purple letters. He drew what looked like a woman wearing a housedress beside it, complete with slippers, the fuzz springing from them in all directions. Fellow had drawn himself beside Minerva, a stick figure with his hand clinging to hers.
She squinted and brought the heart closer to her eyes. Slowly she made out the name written in crayon right beside the small stick figure. The letters were distorted and she strained again to see. A sunken feeling gripped her chest and she gasped.
The hand clinging to Grandma's, to Minerva's, wasn't Fellow's. It was hers. She recognized her long brown hair and he had drawn her wearing her favorite shirt.
Fellow had drawn her, standing next to Minerva, their hands clasped and smiles on their faces, happy to be with each other. Piper's hands dropped to her lap and she looked out across the park. What made her son draw her and her mother, standing together, holding hands and smiling?
She remained there for nearly half an hour. She was there until light flakes began to fall, the day darkening to gray. Unaware of her frozen fingers, she held the heart in her hands. She smiled a thin line at the boy with the dog when he passed again, so he wouldn't stop and inquire about anything. She cried, but her tears were invisible, melding with the snowflakes caressing her cheeks. Her posture slumped, but she didn't bother correcting it, only sat there, avoiding the eyes of anyone else who passed by.
She cried silently until the snow gathered on her shoulders, until it was time for her to go.
***
Minerva had gone directly home after the park, and, heading to bed, swallowed four aspirins on the way. The doctor instructed her to do this when an attack was coming on, told her it would ease the symptoms. Minerva had fallen right to sleep and awoke feeling better. The headache was gone and she was calmer. Her thinking was clearer, too, much better than the haze she'd experienced while waiting for Piper.
She pulled herself out of bed and searched the wastebasket for the bottle she'd thrown away two days ago. She knew then she had to take her pills. Finding them at the bottom, Minerva uncapped the lid and counted how many were left. She had thrown out almost a whole month's supply. Putting one on her tongue, she washed it down with a drink of water from her cupped hands and placed the pills near her toothbrush where she would remember to take one every morning.
A few days passed. Minerva busied herself by baking treats. Three cellophane-wrapped fudge cakes lined the kitchen counter and beside them, three unfolded, decorated boxes. She had splurged on them that morning, taking her time to choose a box each of them would like. For Walter there was one with musical notes on it, considering how he loved the old crooners. For John, she chose a box with golf balls on it. She smiled when she thought of the promotion he had received. Now if he could only find a nice girl and get married.
She folded the first perforated line on George's box, the one covered with hearts and bows. She knew it wasn't his style, but maybe it would cheer him. She may lose him as a son-in-law, by name, but she wasn't about to lose him as a son. At least she prayed she wouldn't. He was a good man. When he had told her Piper was thinking of filing divorce papers, his eyes had started to tear up when he mentioned losing Minerva for a mother-in-law. Minerva told him that wouldn't happen. To prove it, she would make him a fudge cake, too, one he could take with him to his new apartment. "Give Piper time, she'll come around. I believe she loves you very much. You've been very good to her and she knows it," she had said to him after he packed his bags.
Minerva didn't know what else to say to George, but she liked the way his face lit up after she said that. She knew he would do anything to keep Piper, but wasn't as sure about what Piper would do. She imagined her being less sentimental about the break up. Piper was made that way, not very forgiving, and stubborn.
She pulled the lever on the recliner and the footstool popped out. She stretched, rubbed her knee, and straightened her housedress. The ache in her body was better today, not like when she had returned home from the park. Minerva laid her head against the back of the chair. Henry's recliner was the most comfortable in the trailer, and she was more secure sitting in it, the molded seat cradling her, as it had Henry. It was almost like she was sitting on his lap. She wondered what he would say about her ruined attempt at a visit between her and Piper, how Minerva was there and Piper had not cared enough to show up. Would he be upset with her, or Piper? Would he suggest Minerva forgive and forget...remind her Piper was her child and she must be the responsible one? Or would he gently scold his daughter on her manners...tell her that her mother was the only one she would ever have? Or would he shake his head in his sad way and suggest maybe next time Piper will come around again. One thing she was sure of, he would be on her side, not Piper's. And in the end, he would tell her so.
This was why her husband's death made her feel uneasy. Piper thought Minerva was responsible for it. And maybe, in a way, she was responsible. Henry wasn't as happy with Minerva as she thought he was. Or maybe it was her who never gave his happiness much thought. Hadn't she failed as a wife in their thirty years of marriage? Was it her who made him turn to another woman, made him find comfort and friendship with someone else? Maybe it wasn't a stomach problem he died of after all. Maybe he had died of a broken heart. She blinked and her nose reddened. Something about it all made her feel so...damn mad. She didn't know why, and she didn't want to think about it anymore.
Minerva pulled an afghan around her and crossed her arms under it for warmth. She strained to listen to the wind and the incessant scratching of skeleton branches with their twiggy fingers against the spare bedroom window down the hall. Someday she would chop that little tree down. She was tired of the nerve-wracking sound it made in winter, its desperate clawing against the house.
If her daughter didn't want to see her, to hell with her. Minerva didn't want to get together and fight anyway, which was what they'd end up doing. Piper hadn't even called after standing h
er up. At least Minerva had tried, which was more than anyone could say about Piper. Maybe it was best, Piper living her own life, and she living hers. No, Minerva thought while she lay stretched in the chair, her arms still crossed on her chest and her head against the back of the seat. I simply will not talk with her again anytime soon. She stayed there for a while, thinking of this and that, her mind eventually wandering off to other things. And when her mind again turned to Henry's death, she winced and tried forcing the thoughts away. She knew why it all made her damn mad, only she never wanted to face it. Henry could make her so angry, and she had often warned him not to push her. Poor Henry. He didn't know what to say to her or how to say it. She was wrong about what he'd tell her about Piper and their relationship. He wouldn't say a word. Not anything she wanted to hear anyway. Eventually, when he started getting sick, she did what any smart wife would do. She took care of him on her own. He was so sick and needed her constant help. The doctors had told her so. She took care of her husband when the doctors couldn't.
Minerva slung the afghan at her feet, rose and found her sack of icing tubes deep in the closet. Maybe she would unwrap the cakes and decorate each one. A little extra sugar made everything better. The bag was old and slightly musty, and she hoped the icing was still good. She trudged into the living room and sat down on the couch. Opening the sack, she rummaged through the icing tubes: pink, orange, blue, green, red. She pushed those aside and looked for any other colors she may have. Purple would be good, a nice, manly color. She finally found one and put it beside her on the couch. She thought she had a brown icing tube and kept searching, moving aside cookie cutters. She flipped through tube after tube and came across a glass vial. She removed the vial from the bag and looked at it.
Minerva Day Page 27