by Lin Stepp
Lydia thought back to what Mary Beth said about Sonny. “Have the boys seen Sonny at all since he left? Doesn’t he ever call or write?”
“Once he came through town on a holiday, dropped in to see his family, and I took the boys there to see him. The boys were three. They barely remember the visit. They do know and understand that their father and I are divorced.” She paused. “I divorced him based on desertion after he left me and wouldn’t send child support. He’s supposed to do that now according to the court, but he never does. Instead, he writes and asks me for money sometimes.”
“What?” Lydia felt anger slice through her. “You haven’t sent it?”
“Sonny can talk sweet, be very convincing. Apologize and tell me he’s turning over a new leaf. That he wants to be a better father to the boys. That he’s right on the edge of a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity or is in an unexpected pinch. Needs me to wire him money. Temporarily, of course. As a loan.”
“Do you ever get any of this money back?”
“No. Daddy says not to send him any more ever, but sometimes Sonny sends me threatening letters. He calls and threatens things about the boys if I won’t help him.”
“Oh, Bee.” Lydia reached across to take her hand. “Have you talked to the police about this, or to an attorney? This is serious.”
“Daddy did once. But you see, no one really knows where Sonny is right now. Not even his parents. Sometimes he says he’s in Vegas, sometimes in California. Once he told me he was in Chicago. He said he’d gotten stuck in an airport in the winter, that he and the band needed a little money to rent a car to get to their next gig. This time, even Devon—one of the other boys in the band—got on the phone and said it was true. He begged me to wire them some money.”
Mary Beth sighed. “I guess it was another lie. I never heard back from them, even though I asked them to call me when they got to the next city safely. They never sent back the money, either.”
“Oh, Mary Beth, I’m so sorry. It hurts to trust and to be let down.”
“It does, but it worries me more that I got another letter from Sonny today.” She fished it out of her pocket and unfolded it. “He says he might come through this area on his way to Florida, that their band is going there for some engagements that their manager arranged. He writes that he might want to see the boys, that they ought to know their father.”
Lydia scanned the one-page letter Mary Beth laid out for her to see. “It’s very vague, isn’t it? No specific mention about where he is now, when he will arrive here, or where his band is playing in Florida.”
“I know.” She crossed her arms. “I feel uncomfortable about him coming through, Mother. The boys have seen a few pictures of their father, but they don’t remember much about him. Daddy has basically been their father. They know their Grandad Harper, too, of course, and Sonny’s brother, their uncle Eric. They’ve been happy, despite all that’s happened.”
“You’re worried about them meeting Sonny and how that might affect them.”
“Yes. And something doesn’t feel right about this. He’s never planned a visit like this before. I casually asked Eric the other day if they’d heard from Sonny lately, and he said no. So, he’s written me, but he hasn’t written his family about stopping through. That seems odd. It makes me feel like he’s up to something.”
Lydia looked back over the short letter. “Well, he doesn’t ask for money here.”
“No, and that’s a first.”
“Have you told your father about this?”
“No,” she admitted, twisting a loose strand of hair around her finger.
“Well, tell him. You know I don’t keep secrets from your father. You’ve shared with me, but you need to share with him, too.”
Mary Beth smiled. “It sounds funny to hear you say that when you and Daddy have been separated for so long.”
Lydia stood and started putting the cups and dishes in the sink to wash. “I’ve always tried to be honest with your father.”
“I know.” Mary Beth stood up to help her.
“Don’t worry over the dishes. I’ll wash them up later.” She turned to her daughter with a smile. “Let’s sit out on the porch until you need to go. I want to let the kittens go outside again if they will. I’m trying to train them to get used to the outdoors. I want them to be indoor-outdoor cats. Right now the silly things don’t even know how to climb a tree or pee in the grass yet. I’m taking them out in the yard and hanging them each on the side of a tree to teach them to climb.”
Mary Beth giggled, gathering up both of the kittens in her arms as they headed outside. “How will you teach these two fluff-balls to pee in the grass?”
Lydia frowned. “I’m not sure. Hopefully, they’ll figure that out. If not, I’ll put a little soiled cat litter in a dirt area outside to give them the idea.”
Cuddling the kittens, Mary Beth asked, “What did you name them?”
“Ava for the one you found on the store porch, and Trudi for the fluffier one with the black streak on her nose.”
“Good names.” She put them down gently on the porch so they could explore.
“Where are your boys today?” Lydia asked.
“With Ela. I don’t know what I’d do without her. And when she’s busy, Nevelyn keeps them. Or Sam’s wife, Doris.” She smiled. “I’m lucky to have so many helpers, especially since I opened the store.”
“You’ve done a good job with that store—in setting it up, arranging it, and making it successful, from all I hear. I’m proud of you for that.”
“Thanks. I remember how you used to talk to Dad and Grandmother about opening a store in that old building. You used good reasons and even had little drawings of what you thought it might look like, why you thought it might be successful. You took me to explore through the building once when you were plotting and planning. I remembered all that when I resurrected the idea to Dad.”
Lydia snorted. “I’m surprised your grandmother let you do it at all.”
“I threatened to take the boys and leave if she wouldn’t give me the opportunity to try it. I told her I needed something to do besides sitting around the house all day. I even threatened to get an apartment in Waynesville and work for Holly or to go to your parents’ place in Boone to stay until I could save for a place for my own.”
Lydia looked shocked.
Mary Beth just rolled her eyes. “Grandmother and I weren’t getting along very well by that time.”
“I see.”
A flash of irritation crossed Mary Beth’s face. “She interfered too much in how I raised the boys. She never wanted us to have any fun, to go anywhere or do anything unrelated to the farm.” She flounced in her chair. “If we even played cards or worked a jigsaw puzzle spread out on the table, she’d walk by and make subtle comments about how much time we wasted on foolishness. If I climbed trees with the boys or played tag with them, she said I acted unladylike. If we danced or sang in the house, she frowned and started the vacuum.” Mary Beth turned to Lydia. “Ela said she used to do the same things to you, Mother. I remember it a little, but not much.”
Mary Beth pulled a piece of string across the porch for the kittens to chase. “Even something like playing with a couple of kittens would be something she’d frown over. Grandmother always acted like having fun, laughing, or cutting up were sins or something. I can still hear her clearing her throat and huffing around with her chin in the air. I got tired of it. I needed something outside the house to do, a way to get out from under her constant eagle eye.”
“I’m so pleased she let you open the store.” Lydia watched Mary Beth dribble the string down the porch steps so the kittens would venture into the yard.
“Funny.” Mary Beth smoothed back a strand of hair, tangled by the summer breeze. “The one good thing that happened from marrying Sonny was that I learned I loved to run a business. I really loved working at Harper’s, even in that mess when I first started. I loved arranging everything to function efficiently an
d to look nice. I loved ordering supplies, dealing with the public, even doing the books.” She looked up from where she sat on the porch steps to smile at Lydia. “I’ll tell you something if you won’t laugh.”
“I’ll try not to.”
“I’m going to school online, working on my degree in business. I don’t want to be the only Cunningham without a college degree.”
“And why would I laugh at that?”
“Oh, because I’m not doing it the traditional way, I guess.” She petted Trudi as the kitten rubbed up against her leg. “But as a working mother, taking courses online works well for me.”
“Most colleges are initiating or expanding their online programs for just that reason today.”
“Can I ask you something, woman-to-woman?”
Lydia tensed. “What?” she asked.
“What do you think of Neal?”
Lydia relaxed, having expected a personal probe. “Bee, you should know that I love Neal. I practically raised him at our house, playing with J. T. as much as he did. Why do you ask?”
She looked off down the yard. “I think he might be interested in me.”
“You think?”
“Okay, I know he’s interested in me, but it feels weird.”
“Why?”
“Because I’ve known him forever, because he was J. T.’s best friend growing up. Because he’s older than me.”
“Only four years older. That isn’t much difference for adults. Only for children.”
She shifted uncomfortably. “It scares me thinking about getting involved with someone after all I went through with Sonny.” She patted the letter in her pocket. “And because of the problems I still have with Sonny.”
“From what John told me, Neal had a failed relationship, too. He got hurt and betrayed. Perhaps you have something in common there.”
She pulled the string along for the kittens again. “He’s talked to me about that.”
“That’s good.” Lydia’s lips twitched. “Has he kissed you?”
“Mother!”
She shrugged. “Just a question.”
A flush touched Mary Beth’s cheeks. “Not before this weekend. And even then, we were playing night tag with the boys. We raced out into the bushes to hide. I stumbled and tripped. Neal caught me and it just sort of happened.” She turned to look at Lydia and wrinkled her nose. “Now I’m going to feel weird when I see him again.”
“Meaning this has kicked the friendship up to a new level.”
“Yes.” She sighed. “And I don’t know whether I’m ready for our friendship to go there yet.”
“Then talk to Neal about it. He’ll give you time.” Lydia smiled. “He may feel weird about what happened, too.”
“No. He feels smug. I saw it in his eyes.”
Lydia tried not to grin. “What do you want now, Mary Beth?”
“I’m not sure.” She played with her rings, eyes downcast.
“Was Neal a good kisser?”
Mary Beth looked shocked.
“It’s important,” Lydia prodded.
She blushed, then grinned. “Better than I might have expected.”
“Well, that can sometimes be a big factor in things. Maybe you ought to test that aspect again in a more deliberate setting.”
Her eyes twinkled. “I’ll give that some thought.”
Lydia wisely refrained from any more comments.
Mary Beth glanced at her watch. “You know, I hate to go, but I need to get back and help Ela with dinner.” She skipped up the stairs to give Lydia an impulsive hug. Lydia hugged her back with warmth, then watched her daughter walk with a light step out to her truck.
“Love you and see you again soon!” she called out as she climbed in.
Her heart full, Lydia whispered softly to her departing car, “Love you more, Mary Beth. Love you more.”
CHAPTER 10
Later in the week, John saw Lydia heading down the driveway at Charlie and Nevelyn Sheppard’s house. He was working with Charlie today in the Upper Orchards along with Charlie’s son, Chuck; Charlie’s father, Sam; and Eugene Sheppard. Too much work waited to go and talk to her, but his eyes followed her.
John noted that she’d caught Eugene Sheppard’s attention, too. At eighty-two, he sat on an old barrel under a shade tree, in the supervisory role more common for him these days since he’d passed eighty.
“There goes Lydia,” he said. “Nice to see her back around the place.” His eyes shifted to John. “You reckon you and she will get back together?”
“I can’t rightly say, Eugene.” John split open another bag of fertilizer with his knife. Based on Neal’s soil tests, they were applying fertilizer in a circle around each tree in this section of the orchard today, six inches out of the drip line. Earlier, they’d weeded around the tree roots.
The old man nodded. “Yep. That Lydia’s always been the kind to have a mind of her own.” He grinned. “Pretty woman, though. Always was a looker.”
John followed Lydia’s progress along the drive as he stopped to mop sweat off his face with the bandanna stuck in his back pocket. The sun blazed down relentlessly today, not uncommon for mid-June.
Lydia wore those capri pants she seemed to favor now, in a bright strawberry color with a long, breezy checked shirt over them. She swung an aluminum bucket in one hand. Looked like she might be heading to the ridge area to look for blueberries and blackberries after her visit at Nevelyn’s.
“John.” Sam Sheppard interrupted his thoughts. “I think we need to upgrade the rodent guards around those young trees we put out in the Side Orchards this spring.”
“You seen problems there?”
He nodded, standing up to glance toward that direction of the orchard, while dusting fertilizer off his knees. “Looks like rabbits might be getting through the outer fencing. It wouldn’t be much of a problem in itself if the trees weren’t so small.”
Eugene laughed. “Yeah. We don’t need no Peter Rabbit munching up all those new trees, that’s for sure. We got some young Rattle Cores started in that orchard—that’s one of them real old apple varieties. Don’t want to lose those.” He warmed to the subject. “You know them apples have a hollow core, and the loose seeds will rattle around inside the core if you shake ’em.”
Sam smiled at his father. “I remember, Dad. John and I used to play with Rattler apples as kids.”
Chuck propped an arm on his rake and pushed back his bill cap. “My little Dillon enjoyed playing with those Rattler apples last fall. He rolled them up and down the floor listening to the seeds rattle around inside.”
“He sure is a cute one.” Eugene chuckled. “It’s a treat to me and his great-grandma Ozetta to watch him play, especially riding that stick horse of his around the yard. Ozetta made the head of it from an old sock and I whittled up the stick to size. You know, despite all them fancy toys of his, I think the boy loves his old stick horse the best.”
Attention moved back to their work then, but John’s eyes drifted thoughtfully to Chuck, his shirt off in the heat, only twenty-one years old and already a father of two. He and Vera Scanlon married in high school, with a child on the way, the two of them only kids themselves. Charlie Sheppard and his wife, Nevelyn, supported the couple, moving them into their big house to join them and their two younger daughters, Sara and Kristen, embracing Vera into their fold with warmth. She needed support, coming from a family filled with quarrels and alcoholism.
As if reading his thoughts, Eugene said, “We all appreciate how Mary Beth is letting Vera work down at the store part-time.”
John measured out a six-inch line around the base of a Jonagold apple tree. “Mary Beth and Nancy are glad to have her. The store’s growing, getting busier. They needed more help.”
Chuck pricked up his ears. “We’re savin’ the money to build our own place.”
Eugene waved a finger at him. “You remember John showed you that area on the Upper Farm Road where you can build if you mean to stay working at the
farm. It’s a good spot with a fine view over the farm. We could use someone living closer to the lodge and rental cabins, too.”
“I aim to stay, Grampa Gene.” The boy said the words with pride. “There’s been Sheppards managing Cunningham Farm since the eighteen hundreds.”
John smiled. “I’m glad to hear that, Chuck. And since that’s the case, I don’t think you’ll need to build. I talked to the contractor who built the rental cabins only last month. He has a plan for a larger log home that will blend in with the lodge and rentals in looks. I’ll build the house if you and Vera plan to stay on the farm. You can work on the farm and manage the lodge and rental properties for me, too, if you want more salary. You can take care of the tube rental slopes and the business there in the winter, as well. I need someone living on that part of the land. This ghost business has shown me that.”
Chuck’s mouth dropped open. “Mr. Cunningham, that’s too generous.”
“Don’t be looking a gift horse in the mouth, boy,” said Eugene. “Sounds fine to me.”
“Well, there is a catch.” John gestured the men toward the big coolers in the back of the truck for a water break. “Jim Reeves, the contractor, said he’d reduce the house costs considerably if we do a large portion of the construction work. Everything we’re capable of.”
Chuck’s eyes brightened as he sluiced cold water over his face to cool off. “I’ll do anything I can to help.”
Sam grinned. “John, you know you can count on all of us to help. Manny, too, I’m sure, and even the women when there’s painting, papering, or landscaping work to do.”
“Well, good. We’ll start work on the house as we can. You know we won’t get much time after the apples start coming in this fall, but over the winter and spring, things lighten up a little. Maybe we can get you young folks into your own place by this time next year.” John clapped Chuck on the back. “I’m pleased you want to stay on the land, Chuck. I’ll call you and Vera to come and look at the house plans when Jim comes to the house next. Let you put your input into the design.”