Coming Home

by David Lewis

  She shook her head and placed the deed on the table. “Is this the secret, Bill?” She explained and his smile faded from his face. “I didn’t mean to eavesdrop,” she added, her tone sheepish.

  Bill seemed to struggle for words, then shook his head. The overheard conversation was not about the house.

  “But I think I know,” she submitted.

  Bill met her eyes again, and as painful as the moment was, she was glad to have finally put an end to all the secrets.

  “I’ll have some medical tests, and then I’ll know what to do.” He gave her another sympathetic smile.

  Jessie stared at the deed of trust again. “Thanks, Bill.”

  The twinkle was back. “You hungry?”

  Chapter Thirty

  JESSIE AND BILL settled into a hearty breakfast together. By seven o’clock Grandmother had yet to make an appearance. Eventually Jessie trudged back up the stairs. Having lost several hours of sleep, she was exhausted.

  She awakened in the early afternoon to the sound of her mom’s favorite piano piece—the same one her mother had once played on their piano in Palmer Lake. The piece wasn’t difficult; her mother wasn’t the best of pianists. Still, she’d loved to muddle through the song.

  Jessie jogged her memory. “Humoresque” … by Dvorak. It had a lilting, frivolous spirit to it. The second theme was haunting, almost heartbreaking—in direct contrast to the primary theme.

  She rose and made her way down the hall and looked over the balcony toward the grand room. Grandmother was at the piano, playing from the music book.

  Jessie settled at the top of the stairs and listened. Eventually she heard the shuffling of music and the beginning of another piece, another favorite of her mother’s. Jessie recognized it immediately: “Rustle of Spring” by Christian Sinding.

  When Grandmother began the next piece, the exact name escaping her, Jessie headed downstairs, quietly entering the grand room. Jessie slipped into a chair and closed her eyes.

  When the piece was finished, Jessie opened her eyes and saw that her grandmother, a woman of near-perfect posture, was slouching, bracing herself up by both arms on the piano bench. Maybe she was aware that Jessie had come down.

  “What was that Brahms piece?” Jessie ventured. “The one you always played …”

  Her grandmother looked up for a moment as if giving it some thought, then nodded slightly. She launched into a soul-stirring melody of profound seriousness, and Jessie was taken back again to happier times, only this time, right here in Grandmother’s home. Often following supper, she and Mom would make requests while her father found something else to do. Brahms’s “Rhapsody in G Minor,” she now recalled from some dusty corner of her mind.

  When the piece was finished, Jessie noticed Bill standing at the kitchen door. He smiled, and Jessie could tell from the look on his face something irreverent was sure to follow. “It ain’t country, is it?”

  Jessie chuckled. Grandmother was shuffling through her music again.

  “Dory, you know any Johnny Cash?”

  Her grandmother turned to Jessie, and they actually shared a smile. Then the older woman grimaced as she reached beneath the piano bench, removing a book of none other than a collection of Cash tunes.

  Jessie grinned at Bill, who seemed to be in his glory. “She plays a mean ‘Ring of Fire,”’ he said, teeth gleaming.

  “Can’t stand that one,” her grandmother protested, bending the songbook to keep it open, but she played it anyway.

  Bill sang along as he went back to work in the kitchen. “I fell into a burning ring of fire; I went down, down, down and the flames went higher.”

  That afternoon, while resting in her room, Andy called several times before Jessie finally answered.

  “Would you just tell me that you’re okay?”

  “I’m exhausted,” she replied.

  “Are you packing … to go?” he asked.

  “No,” she replied.

  “Can I see you again?”

  “Andy, I’m not ready to get involved.”

  “We’re friends, aren’t we?”

  “Of course, but—”

  “Then don’t shut me out, Jess. I can …” He stopped.

  Help me? Jessie finished in her mind. “I don’t want …” She stopped. “I’m fine,” she said.

  “May I call you?”

  She hesitated. “I better go.”

  After hanging up, she could smell Bill’s dinner from downstairs … something with onions or garlic. She closed her eyes, squeezing out the tears, and tried to forget Andy’s call.

  The sound of the music brought her back to reality. Her grandmother was back at the piano, playing a piece from the Classical Era—Mozart, Haydn, or perhaps early Beethoven.

  She pondered what Bill had said in the wee hours today. “Look beneath the surface of her life.” The irony of that statement, referring to a woman who seemed to live on the surface of life. Had Jessie misjudged her grandmother by making the same mistake?

  She thought of her father’s pills again and struggled with a lingering sense of guilt and regret. I meant well. I was trying to help. That is where she and Doris Crenshaw had something in common. Neither of us meant any harm and yet, in spite of our good intentions, things went very wrong.

  An hour before dinner, she finally opened her mother’s letter and read the whole thing, from beginning to end.

  Do you remember when we walked all the way to Monument on the trail?

  Jessie did. They had started early in the morning at the lake, and her father had picked them up several hours later. Her mom had written of other favorite memories, recounting times together, events shared. Occasionally the letter rambled, but overall the letter revealed her mom at an unusually clear moment, something that had been rare in the last days.

  I’ve asked God to keep you in His love, honey… .

  There had been a time when she herself prayed the exact same prayer for her mom.

  There’s nothing I need to say here, because there’s nothing we haven’t already said to each other… .

  Mom had always treated her with uncommon respect. As if she saw a little adult hidden away inside of Jessie.

  I prayed that He might let me see you grow up, but perhaps that is not to be.

  The letter was getting harder to read.

  Promise me you’ll keep believing, sweetie. No matter what happens, hold on to Jesus.

  “Too late,” Jessie whispered. “I already broke the promise.”

  Her mother closed with a P.S. and a smiley face: Did I ever tell you that you were my longed-for child?

  “Not enough,” Jessie whispered.

  When she was finished, she held it to her heart and lay back on her bed.

  That night, after getting ready to retire, Jessie shut out the lights and knelt beside her bed for the first time in over a decade. She bowed her head, folded her hands, and tried to say something … anything. Instead, her tears flowed freely. “I don’t know what to say to you,” she finally whispered.

  She went to bed frustrated. Years and years of walls had locked everyone and everything out. Opening up to God still seemed impossible, especially with such seething anger just beneath the surface. “Get it out,” Mrs. Robinette had told her. “God isn’t afraid… .”

  Did she even believe God existed? Who was I talking to if I don’t believe?

  “Find me, God,” she finally whispered. “Help me.”

  The next day, at Grandmother’s urging, Jessie called a neurologist. “Don’t you worry about the cost,” she’d said. “We’re going to get to the bottom of this.”

  Jessie talked to a Dr. Sawyer and explained her situation. The doctor transferred her to the nurse to make an appointment.

  “Are you a new patient?” the administrative nurse asked.

  “I might be,” she replied, explaining her situation.

  “That will be a very specialized test,” the nurse said. “It might take a while for the results.”
r />   “I can wait,” Jessie said. Believe me, I can wait.

  Later that morning, Jessie noticed Bill in the garden, planting geraniums along the gazebo. She stood in the alcove a moment, gazing at Bill’s flowers, marveling at how she’d looked right through them at first. In such a hurry to get on with her journey, she’d merely observed the surface of their beauty. But this time she was struck with such a feeling of bliss it nearly took her breath away. Where did that come from?

  Bill looked up when she wandered out and stopped what he was doing. He wrinkled his brow. “Howdy, Jessie girl.”

  She offered to help, but he waved her away, so she sat on the wooden steps of the gazebo as Bill went back to digging his holes.

  “You’ve been planting geraniums for a week, Bill,” Jessie kidded.

  Bill chuckled. “Keep getting sidetracked.”

  “That’s a hot pink,” she commented.

  “Ain’t it, though?” he agreed, standing on his knees. He pointed to the one remaining plant and then raised his eyebrows at her.

  “I’m afraid my thumbs aren’t so green,” she said, kneeling next to the old cowboy.

  Bill dug a hole, and Jessie pressed the last plant into the cavity, surrounding it with dirt. He stood up, slapping his leg free of dirt.

  He removed his hat and wiped his brow. Gesturing to the gazebo, he said, “Let’s chew a bit.”

  “Did I ever tell you how much I love gazebos?” Jessie joked as she followed Bill underneath the pentagon roof, sitting on a bench across from him. “A time or two,” he replied, twinkling. She gazed beyond the fence to the Russian olives in the next yard. The aroma wasn’t noticeable, but the chalky green was almost startling in the cluster of forest green trees.

  Jessie asked why he hadn’t mentioned his church attendance.

  “So … you do go?”

  Bill grimaced. “I guess I tried to stay in the background. This was your grandmother’s time.” He shook his head as if his own explanation were feeble.

  “Background isn’t a good role for you,” she said with a smile.

  At noon Jessie attended another club luncheon with her grandmother. Another set of interesting personalities, giving Jessie the same kinds of inquisitive glances, but Doris seemed more subdued this time, less outspoken. Jessie found herself watching her, wondering what had happened to over-confident Grandmother.

  That evening Jessie knelt beside her bed again, feeling as if her elbows were sinking into the mattress. Something was eating away at her from the inside, forcing its way up. She took deep, anguished breaths, then said, “Here I am again, God. I still don’t know what to say.” She was tempted to quit and go to bed.

  Instead, she whispered, “I’m very angry with you.” The floodgates seemed to open—her tears, the bitterness, the sense of betrayal. It all came out. For an hour or more, she struggled with the pain, talking to God at times as if He were a monster and at other times as if He was everything she had ever hoped He would be. She fell into bed, exhausted, but an underyling peace lingered as she drifted to sleep.

  The next morning over breakfast, her grandmother startled her by grasping her hand and asking her to stay for the summer.

  Jessie was taken aback. “I need to get to my job.”

  Doris shook her head vehemently. “You don’t need to work, my dear.”

  “But I should. I must.”

  Her grandmother closed her eyes and shook her head, a small smile escaping her lips. “Jessica, have you looked around?”

  Jessie was confused.

  “All that I have will be yours … one day.”

  “I didn’t come here for that—”

  “I know you didn’t,” Grandmother said.

  “It’s not right,” Jessie countered, in turmoil, overwhelmed with such a gesture. “I don’t deserve—”

  Doris put her finger to her lips, and her eyes glistened. “Please think about it, Jessica. Just for the summer, if you wish. You can always go on to school in the fall.”

  That afternoon the neurologist visit with Dr. Sawyer, a blond woman with glasses, went as well as could be expected. Jessie suffered through a series of questions designed to determine if she was displaying any troublesome signs. Headaches? Confusion? Memory loss?

  Jessie answered as honestly as she could, but the doctor’s concern seemed to grow with each answer. “Maybe just … stress?” Dr. Sawyer suggested, smiling tentatively. “We’ll have a better idea in a few weeks.” She ordered the blood test, which was administered in the lab downstairs.

  Andy called a few days later while Jessie, Bill, and Grandmother were relaxing in the grand room. Bill was reading a magazine, and Grandmother was doing needlepoint. “I’m coming down tomorrow,” he announced. “I need to see you.”

  “Andy, don’t—”

  “I have to,” he said, and hung up before she could object further. For the next few minutes, she dialed and redialed his cell phone, but he didn’t answer. This is impossible, she thought, unable to stop the tears.

  “You okay, Jess?” Bill asked. Grandmother was also looking at her, obviously worried.

  “It’s nothing,” she replied, wiping her eyes with a tissue.

  “Would you like some space?” asked Grandmother.

  Jessie shook her head. She couldn’t get Andy’s call out of her thoughts.

  Her father had been a different man before her mother got sick. Betty, too, had fond memories of the man before Mom’s horrid illness. What kind of person would I be to let Andy fall in love with me? she taunted herself. I would destroy his life.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  ANDY CALLED the next morning to say he’d be there in half an hour. Doesn’t this guy ever work? Jessie thought, hanging up the phone. She waited for him on the front steps. At 9:55, Andy’s Toyota pulled into the driveway, and Jessie felt her heart sink.

  Andy got out of the car wearing gray chino slacks and a brightcolored T-shirt and holding a bouquet of roses. Jessie winced. He shut the car door and approached the steps.

  “You look great,” he said, his blue eyes hesitant.

  “Thank you,” she replied. I’m not foaming at the mouth just yet.

  “So do you.”

  “Frankly, I didn’t expect to find you here.” He grinned and pushed the lavender roses forward. “These are for your grandmother.”

  Jessie squinted. “Oh, they are, are they?”

  “Sorry,” he added with a glint in his eyes. “Is she here?”

  “You are so bad,” Jessie accused.

  “Well … I suppose I could give them to you. You won’t tell her, though, will you?”

  “She might appreciate them more,” she said and felt a sharp pain of regret. She’d intended to make the visit very difficult for him, which now seemed impossible. It hurt too much.

  Andy was undaunted. “Well … maybe you can both appreciate them.” He laid them beside her on the step and sat down. “I missed you.”

  Jessie picked up the bouquet and breathed in the aroma.

  “Guaranteed to open,” Andy said, “or my money back.”

  Jessie placed the flowers on the step. Her emotions were a mess.

  “I need your help with something,” Andy said cheerfully. “A little romantic advice.”

  “I’ll see if I can reach Dear Abby.”

  “You see, I’ve met this girl … who seems to like being with me … and then she suddenly freezes up and acts—” he paused for emphasis—“like she doesn’t like me.” He turned toward her with a look of mock seriousness. “What am I supposed to think?”

  “Maybe you read her wrong.”

  Andy considered this. Jessie felt terrible, but there was no other way.

  “So … I’m wrong?”

  “Things aren’t always as they seem.” Jessie answered coldly, but her heart was breaking.

  “Should I try talking to her?”

  “Andy—”

  “I want you to meet my mother,” Andy interjected.

  “It
didn’t go too well the first time,” Jessie replied without missing a beat, looking out beyond the wrought-iron fence. They heard the squeak of the door behind them and turned to see her grandmother looking down at them. “Oh, good,” she said to Andy, “I was afraid you’d left, young man.”

  “No, ma’am,” Andy replied.

  “You’re staying for lunch, right?” Grandmother asked.

  “Oh … no … I didn’t mean—”

  “Nonsense,” she murmured and disappeared.

  Jessie shuddered. From bad to worse.

  Andy winked at her. “That settles it.”

  “Settles what?”

  “We have to get married.”

  “Andy—”

  “Did you see the way she looked at me?”

  “What?”

  “I saw a tone.”

  “You saw a tone.”

  He nodded. “I’m approved of. You’re finished.”

  “Andy, you’re just—”

  He leaned over, and before she realized what he was doing, he kissed her. Full on the lips.

  When she pulled back, he was gazing into her eyes. “I love you, Jessie.”

  Jessie shook her head and sighed.

  Lunch was a miserable affair. Andy was animated and charming. Bill carried on as if Andy were his son, and it was horrendously annoying. Even Grandmother seemed to enjoy herself at moments.

  When Jessie went to the refrigerator for olives, Bill was removing an extra serving spoon from the drawer, and Doris and Andy were engaged in conversation. Bill whispered into her ear, “He’s quite a looker, you know.” He nudged her with his elbow. “I’d tie that one up.”

  Tie him up? Jessie nearly groaned.

  By the end of the meal, she was a nervous wreck. Andy has no idea, she thought, steeling her resolve. He’s running on pure emotion… .

  As Bill cleared the table, Jessie said, “I have some shopping to do.”

  “Oh … I was hoping we could walk around the Broadmoor lake,” Andy suggested softly.

  “That’s nice of you, but …”

  Bill settled back in his chair and appraised her curiously. His twinkles were exasperating. Put a sock in it, Jessie thought. Even her grandmother seemed a bit taken aback by her attitude.