All God's Creatures

by Carolyn McSparren

  I glanced at Lanier. I half expected her to intervene. She had always been a good deal touchier about Susan's cerebral palsy than Susan had.

  "Precious little wrong with your body," Eli chimed in. "Except your legs don't work that well."

  "I don't think you'd want me doing brain surgery on you, Aunt Eli. Whoops! Little slip there-no more frontal lobe. Sorry."

  To the best of my knowledge, Susan never spoke of her CP in front of her mother. She certainly had never allowed the bitterness show before. She tried to protect Lanier. Intellectually, Lanier knew she was not responsible for Susan's hypoxia at birth, but emotions override intellect when it comes to love.

  I have good reason to know that.

  Susan hit the arms of her wheelchair so hard it shivered, and a moment later her companion dog Pumpkin laid her head in Susan's lap in obvious concern. "Sometimes I get so mad at my body I just sit here and cuss it."

  Lanier sat rigid. Her hands gripped the arms of her chair.

  "Hey, kiddo," Vickie said, "I cuss my forty extra pounds every morning."

  "You could diet if you wanted to, Aunt Vickie. Not much I can do about this. My theme song's Whole Lot of Shaking Going On." Susan wore a smile more brittle than Steuben crystal.

  "They're making breakthroughs in stem cell research every day. Surely they'll come up with some help for CP in the near future," Heather said.

  "What do I do in the meantime? I ran my daddy off. Mom's stuck with me."

  "Whoa!" Lanier nearly shouted. "Enough. Your daddy ran off because he was a juvenile jerk who wanted to play around. The baby daughter he left behind was barely a consideration."

  "Sure, Mom. Keep that thought." Susan pushed her chair away from the table and spun so fast she ran over Pumpkin's toe. Susan wheeled off through the living room and down the hall. Pumpkin yelped, then ran after her.

  A moment later the door to my guest bathroom slammed.

  "I'm sorry," Lanier said as she dropped her napkin on the table and shoved her chair back. "I'd better go talk to her."

  "Let me," I said. "I'm lousy with my own children, but I seem to get along fine with other people's."

  "Lanier, believe me, as her mother, you'd be pouring oil on buming waters," Vickie said, then shrugged. "Or whatever."

  I walked down the hall and knocked on the bathroom door, then knocked again. Then hammered.

  "Can't I even go to the bathroom alone?" Susan snarled from the other side of the door.

  "Sure, if that's what you're doing. It's me, not your mother. Open up.

  "Go 'way."

  "For Pete's sake, Susan. Open the door."

  Pumpkin opened the door. Across the bathroom Susan sat in her wheelchair. Her eyes looked as though she'd been crying. "I can't believe I dumped all that bullshit on y'all."

  "If you can't let it all hang out and feel sorry for yourself with us, who can you let fly to?"

  "I started out to be funny, but it got out of hand."

  I looked around. "I ought to put a chair in here." I sat on the closed toilet.

  "Daddy Geoff did leave because of me. I don't even remember him. I haven't gotten a birthday card from him for five years. He's got another wife and some undamaged kids now. Mom won't ever find another man willing to marry her and take me on at the same time."

  "First off, you're not that damaged. You can walk when you have to, you can use your fingers pretty well, and in a pinch you really can do most of the things that Pumpkin does for you."

  "On a good day when the medicine's working."

  "Granted. Fourteen is a rotten age. Don't let anybody tell you different. And fourteen when you are different can be hell."

  "You know the worst? Everybody expects me to be some sort of angel, cheerful and happy. They'd all be horrified if I screamed or threw things or had a bitch fit in the middle of English class. Nobody is interested in the real me. Not even the special needs teachers. Dear little Susan, the invisible angel. Isn't she just the sweetest child? And isn't it just terrible she's in a wheelchair most of the time and talks funny and drops things?"

  "You don't talk funny."

  "I do, too. Not very funny, but funny. When I'm tired or having my period or mad I talk really funny."

  "The kids laugh at you?"

  "The boys ignore me, but the girls make every effort to include me. Makes them feel good about themselves. They're always nice to my face. I wish somebody would get mad at me or make snide comments. They treat me like a really expensive pet dog. Pat me on the head and consider me some kind of lesser species."

  "Bummer. What do you plan to do about it?"

  "What can I do?"

  "Not play up to their version of who you are, for one thing."

  "Then they'll have an excuse to dump me because I'm a bitch."

  "Some of them will, but you might actually find somebody you could connect with."

  "Aunt Maggie, what the hell-heck-do you know about it?"

  I leaned over and scratched Pumpkin's ears. "When I was in high school I drove a big, yellow Buick convertible. The car was probably the only reason I got invited to join a sorority. One of the girls who joined the same time I did was paralyzed from the waist down. Polio was still a big threat every summer then. There weren't any of those fancy motorized wheel chairs. Mary Jane's weighed a ton and never would fold right. But I could get both her and the chair in my convertible, so I got stuck with taking her to meetings."

  "Stuck?"

  "Stuck. I didn't know her from Adam's off ox when we pledged. There was no more wrong with her mind than there is with yours, but she said everybody treated her like a mental deficient. And a saint. Hoo, boy, a saint she was not. God, what a temper. Nothing suited her. I took her complaints for a month. Then one day when I had the cramps and a sinus infection she hit my last nerve. I called her everything except a child of God. When I finally wound down I started to stammer an apology, but she was grinning.

  "She said, 'I wondered how long you could take the real me before you blew up. I was really sick of waiting' Said I was the first girl in that school or that sorority that had ever treated her as an equal. We were friends until I went off to college."

  "What became of her?"

  "She went to college, because a journalist, and a darned good one. Married. Moved away. We lost touch."

  "So I should be a bitch at school?"

  "I didn't say that. But you don't have to be the sunshine girl all the time. Screw 'em."

  "Right. Screw 'em." Susan sniffled and reached for a tissue from the box on the back of the toilet. Pumpkin jumped up, pulled a tissue and handed it to her gently by one edge. She blew her nose. "Thanks, Pumpkin."

  All of a sudden I had one of those blinding flashes. "Susan, what if you could do something most of them couldn't do?"

  "Like what? Fall down?"

  "I'm serious. Did you ever actually ride a horse?"

  Susan made a face. "Get real."

  "I am getting real. You know Patsy Dalrymple?"

  Susan nodded.

  "Patsy has her little fat fingers in half the charitable pies in west Tennessee. Among them is the Riding for the Disabled program. She's donated four of her old campaigners to them. They use the indoor arena at her boarding barn."

  "I couldn't balance on a horse." Susan thought for a minute. "Could I?"

  "Don't see why not. There are kids one heck of a lot worse off than you who ride. There's even one woman who lost both legs in an automobile accident and rides with artificial limbs."

  "On a horse I'd have legs." She looked up with a frown. "What if I fall off?"

  "There are plenty of teachers around to make certain you don't fall off."

  "Would I just walk around on a lead line?"

  "Depends on how fast you progress and what you want to do."

  Susan turned her head. "My mom would never let me. She's chicken."

  "Are you?"

  "Heck, no." Susan raised her chin. "I'll try anything once."

  "Good.
Then I'll get Patsy to talk to your mother. At the moment Patsy owes me bigtime."

  "How would I get to the stable or wherever they do the lessons?"

  "They have a van to pick you up at school and drop you at home."

  "How come you know so much about this?"

  "I've looked after Patsy's horses for over twenty years. That includes the horses in the disabled program. So, shall I ask Patsy to call Lanier?"

  "Yeah. That'll show those cheerleaders." She gave me a real smile. "Thanks, Aunt Maggie."

  "De Nada. That's what aunt's are for. Now, are you coming back to the table?"

  "In a little while. I get tired."

  "I know you do, kiddo. Go hide out in the downstairs guest room for a while. Take a nap if you can."

  "Okay."

  "Fine. I'll leave you."

  "Don't say anything to Mom about the riding, okay? I'm afraid she'll freak."

  "You got it." I shut the door after her and went back to the table.

  Vickie asked, "Is she all right?"

  "Sure. She's going to rest a little."

  "It was bad enough when she was little, but she's a teenager now. She's not just angry, she's scared," Lanier said.

  "So are you."

  "Terrified. What happens to her when she's grown? Or if I die? If she wants to have a home of her own? Babies?"

  "She'll have them if she wants them bad enough. Butt out, Lanier. She's not engaged yet."

  "And probably never will be."

  "Don't bet on that." I made a mental note to call Patsy first thing in the morning.

  I wanted to avoid Eli, so as she was saying goodbye to the girls, I high-tailed it out my back door and across the lawn to the clinic.

  I half expected Eli to follow me, but she'd brought her truck, so she'd have to drive down my driveway to the fork, then turn left and drive up the short driveway to the clinic parking lot.

  I had promised to say good night to Loba. I never forget a promise to an animal. though I don't seem to have a problem ignoring promises to the people I love. Otherwise I'd have seen that blasted Mona Lisa at least once with Morgan.

  We had dawn-to-dusk lights set on poles along the driveway and over the parking lots, so even if the moon had not been high, I wouldn't have needed a flashlight. Morgan's idea, of course.

  I loved this place at night after the clinic shut down and the front gates were securely dosed. They'd open to let the gals out, but nobody could drive through unless we unlocked them electronically from either Eli's or my house or from the clinic.

  The fifty acres Morgan had bought when we couldn't afford peanut butter for dinner was now worth hundreds of times what he paid for it. When we moved into The Hideous House, we were out in the country. Now gigantic MacMansions were springing up all along the road. The house Morgan had built me, the clinic and Eli's cottage were all dwarfed by starter castles. If I should die before Eli, Nathan and Sarah could sell off a few acres and retire on the proceeds without ever encroaching on either the clinic or Eli's cottage and grounds.

  The thought of someone tearing down my house made my blood freeze. But there's nothing stable except change, right? Who knew, after I retired I might even sell it myself to move to Africa or India.

  That idea didn't appeal to me, as a matter of fact.

  The night was cool, but felt wonderful after the close atmosphere of my house.

  At least two bullfrogs drummed and thrumped down by the pond at the back of the property. Probably fighting over the ladies. I disturbed a mocking bird who whistled at me as I passed. The night insects kept up a continuing chorus of chirps and peeps.

  Whoever said the country was quiet?

  The light outside Loba's kennel revealed her curled up outside on the remains of what Marion had called "her beddie." I would tiptoe away without waking her.

  Loba raised her head and stared straight into my eyes. In the reflection her pupils glowed blood red.

  At that moment a bat swooped through the light in its nightly hunt for mosquitoes, and from somewhere back in the woods an owl hooted.

  I shivered. I don't belong here. Loba does. She should be padding silently under the trees and pouncing on field mice. Would she learn to hunt for her food? Staring into those blazing eyes, I felt certain she would. "Goodnight, girl," I whispered.

  Loba twitched her tail once against the concrete, the lowered her head and closed her eyes.

  This was Pan's world-wild, amoral, with no regard for human concerns. In truth I was Pan's servant. I turned and half ran back to the safety of my lighted kitchen.

  Bear, Teesy, and Bok Choy met me at the kitchen door. They eddied around my ankles and chattered at me. "All right, dad-gummit. You're not going to starve." I took a deep breath, opened a can of cat food and divided it among the three bowls. Bear and Teesy attacked their bowls. Bok Choy nibbled his fastidiously for a moment, then turned away to wash his paws.

  I was leaning against the washing machine watching Teesy and Bear when Eli opened the back door without knocking and stalked into the kitchen. I jumped. "You scared me half to death."

  "I want to talk to you."

  Chapter 34

  In which Maggie eats crow

  Uh-oh. Ambushed in my own kitchen.

  Eli's current border terrier, Sugar Pie, trotted in behind her and went immediately over to see whether the cats had left any treats behind.

  "Maggie, don't let him do that," Eli said.

  "It's all right, Eli."

  "He's getting too damned fat as it is. That's why I brought him. He needs the walk."

  "Want some iced tea?" I said, putting off the evil day as long as possible.

  Eli sat at the kitchen table and folded her arms across her meager chest. Bad sign. "No, I do not want some iced tea. What possessed you to ask those women if they wanted to buy you out?"

  "I should have waited, but..."

  "If you stopped working and went off traveling full time, you'd lose your mind in six weeks."

  "But maybe it's time for me to try something else."

  "Lordy. What else are you suited for, woman?" Eli blurted. "Nuclear Physics? Driving a race car?"

  She was starting to annoy me, largely because we both knew she was right. "There are plenty of positions for experienced vets in places like South Africa or India. I could go work at a national park somewhere."

  "And what am I supposed to do in the meantime, while you are off finding yourself?" She sucked in a deep breath. I could see she was trying to calm down. "Ever since you found that damnable scrapbook, you've been feeling guilty..."

  "Morgan wanted me to retire when he did. That would have been at the end of this year."

  "You know he never meant you should retire totally. Cut back. He wanted a playmate for part of the time. Retiring was not some deathbed promise."

  "Morgan didn't have a deathbed." I thought I'd been a brick since Morgan died on me. At one point, I'd worried that I hadn't loved him enough because I had been able to go on. I'd built a snapping turtle shell around my emotions. I had refused sympathy or pity because I knew I'd go to pieces if anybody offered them, but at least with Eli I'd expected a modicum of understanding. After all, she'd gone through the same experience when she lost Josh. Now here she was nipping at me like Sugar Pie nipping at a skunk.

  The steel in my voice even surprised me. "Nathan's married and living on one ocean. Sarah's living on the other and traipsing all over the globe. Neither one of them is looking to provide me grandchildren any time soon, if ever, and working all the time, how could I see them anyway? Face it, Eli, I don't have any other family left."

  I knew the instant the words left my mouth I'd screwed up.

  When Eli gets mad, she yells. When she goes all the way to rage, she gets very quiet. That's when she's truly scary.

  "I see," she said very quietly.

  I could feel my shoulders tighten. "I didn't..."

  "I know precisely what you meant, Margaret Parker Evans McLain. Morgan was the on
e who always called me family. I'm not at all certain now whether the words ever left your mouth. I do not, in any case, carry one smidgen of DNA from either the Evanses or the McLains. I am not family. Obviously, so far as you're concerned, I have never been family. Godmothers are not family. I am not actually Sarah and Nathan's aunt."

  I opened my mouth to interrupt, but she raised both hands.

  Anything I said would make it worse.

  "I am close enough to run a business with, share land with, babysit your children, attend Nathan's stupid, boring Lacrosse and soccer matches with, share Christmas dinner with. But I am not family. I always thought I was a damned sight closer to you than to my chauvinist father and my stupid brothers. Obviously, I was wrong. You can sell your part of the practice to an orangutan without a by-your-leave. You want to be alone, Margaret? How about I sell my half of the partnership to some stranger and run off to Africa? You'll damned well be alone then." She stood up. "Come on, Sugar Pie."

  I had to block the door physically to keep her from storming out.

  Eli and I usually have one good fight a year. I always apologize, even if I'm not wrong. She never will.

  In this case, however, I couldn't have been more wrong if I tried. I wasn't certain I could make it right.

  "Sit down," I said.

  "Move out of the doorway or I'll sic Sugar Pie on you."

  "Gee, I might actually lose a toe. Sit, Eli, or I swear I'll sit you right on your butt."

  She sat back but turned away from me. That little chin of hers could have carved a Christmas fruitcake, it was stuck out so far.

  I sat opposite her. I tried to take her hands, but she pulled away from me, so I had to be content with putting my hand on her arm. Sugar Pie sat at her feet looking from me to his mistress with real distress on his funny little otter face.

  I took a deep breath. "I'm sorry. I have said a lot of dumb things in my life, but that's about the dumbest. You know I love you. You're the sister I never had and the friend of my heart." I was starting to get teary-eyed. I hate it when I cry. It ruins my strategic position. Tonight, I was willing to sob my guts out if that's what it took.