En masse, like a tidal flow, they all exited the kitchen and went through to the front windows to see what Corrine was talking about. It was a truck, the side emblazoned with Cooper’s Appliances, the appliance store owned by Marilee’s stepfather. Stuart was there speaking to the driver.
Marilee went to the door Tate had already opened and followed him out onto the porch to greet Stuart, who said quite grandly, “Make way for the new washing machine.”
Well, mercy.
“It’s the latest technology,” James said to Tate. “Loads from the front. Won’t go off balance. Can handle blankets and quilts.”
“I see that,” said Tate, who stood beside him, looking on from a safe distance so as to avoid being mowed over by female enthusiasm. The women were oohing and aahing and swarming over the washer and dryer like bees feeding on ripe honeysuckle.
“Marilee had her heart set on it,” the man said of the washer. He was clearly pleased with himself.
Tate kept his mouth shut and his arms folded in front of him, although he was fairly certain that no one would condemn him for socking the guy who was attempting to seduce his fiancée with appliances.
“I can fit,” Willie Lee said. He had crawled into the washing machine.
“Oh, you wild boy,” Vella said. “Get out of there. What if it started?”
“I would get wet.”
“It can’t start without pushin’ these buttons,” said Corrine, who indicated the buttons, then put her face back into the instruction manual.
“Why don’t you try it out, Marilee, while the appliance men are still here?” proposed his mother, who Tate would have thought would not have been in there, getting carried away. He considered his mother’s enthusiasm very near betrayal.
“Good idea. Let’s rewash Willie Lee’s quilt.”
Watching the women, Tate was put in mind of hens clucking over a new baby chick. He wished he could have gotten something back from Guy about the honeymoon arrangements. Surely a grand honeymoon would top a washer and dryer, although, observing the excitement, he wasn’t certain that even carte blanche to Walt Disney World and breakfast in bed for a week could top this deal.
Marilee, her face glowing with pure rapture—yes, it was rapture, Tate saw—whirled around. “Oh, Stuart.” This was her fourth Oh, Stuart, at least. “I’ve been wanting this very washer. How did you know?”
“A little bird told me,” Stuart answered and winked at Corrine, whose expression also showed traces of admiration.
Stuart, who had little experience in buying presents, was thoroughly glad he’d gone all out with the washer and the matching dryer, too. Apparently two dozen long-stemmed roses didn’t cut ice here in this country of motherhood and home-ownership.
He had a sense of a glimpse into a foreign world and was reminded of how Marilee had been during her first trip to Europe with him. She had looked at everything from the giant plane to the first-class accommodations to every bit of the foreign land with great wonder, and upon Stuart as a prince among men for giving her the world.
He had forgotten how it felt to be a prince among men, he realized. Each time Marilee’s eyes lit on him, he experienced a sort of expansion of his entire being.
She kept saying, “Oh, Stuart,” and regarding him with wonder and delight, and he kept expanding. He had the thought that maybe he had found the cure for his illness, that maybe he had gone into instant healing. At the very least, in that moment his sickness held no meaning for him at all.
When Tate announced, “I’m takin’ everyone out to celebrate the new washer and dryer,” Marilee instantly came out of her ecstasy over the new washing machine and realized the situation.
Tate was jealous. Always a man who liked to shine, he had stood back this entire time, while she had neglected him in her thrill over the washing machine. She felt immediately ashamed that an inanimate object could have gotten her so off track as to make her forget him, one of the most thoughtful men in the world and one who certainly didn’t deserve being forgotten for a washing machine, no matter how wonderful.
She went to him, and quick thinking came to her aid, when she said the perfect thing. “Oh, thank you, sweetheart. What a wonderful idea. That way we can go out and celebrate this lovely wedding present Stuart has given us.”
She beamed at Stuart, and he blinked.
Tate, instantly jumping onto Marilee’s train of thought, said, “That’s right. A present like this needs celebrating. Let us show our thanks, Stuart. Valentine’s choice of restaurants certainly won’t come up to those you’ve enjoyed throughout the world, but the Main Street Café does the best it can.”
The idea met with enthusiasm from Aunt Vella and Franny, who appeared to have become friends on first sight. The friendship was stimulated by both women discovering they each liked onion burgers.
“I’ll drive,” Aunt Vella said, and directed everyone where to sit.
Willie Lee and Munro went back into the cargo area, while Corrine sat between Franny and Vella up front, and Marilee found herself crammed between Tate and Stuart in the back seat. Tate put his hand around her shoulders, while he leaned forward and tossed comments to Stuart, and Stuart batted them back, about like a tennis match going on in front of her face.
“So, how long are you goin’ to be able to stay, Stuart?”
“I don’t really have any schedule.”
Marilee thought of what Aunt Vella had said about him paying for a month at the Goodnight. She didn’t want to get into that, though.
“No assignment waiting?” Tate asked.
“No…I am working on the one about vintage motels. When I get enough together, I’ll let you see if you want bits on ones in this area.”
“I know we will. Maybe you’ll want to stretch your stay until next month and come to our wedding.”
Marilee listened carefully.
“I might be here.”
In her robe and slippers, Marilee went through the dimly lit rooms, checking the front door, putting final dirty dishes into the dishwasher, checking the back door, all the while savoring the quiet of the house. Just her and the children, sleeping now, alone, at last.
If she was this relieved to be alone with the children, how would she manage when she married and Tate was present all the time? The thought was disturbing.
They would be over at his house, she thought, with an instinctive glance through the back door window glass, in the direction of the big Porter-Holloway house, which could not be seen through the rows of cedars.
Which was it—she could hear Aunt Vella’s voice—Porter or Holloway?
Holloway, she thought firmly, and tried the name on for size: Marilee Holloway.
The girl, Marilee Justus, had been left so far behind that she sometimes could barely remember her. Marilee James, who had been married to Stuart, no longer existed, so it was right that the name passed on. It seemed there ought to have been a name between Marilee James and Marilee Holloway. Perhaps it was the right time, after all, for Stuart’s visit, in order that she might, in a manner of speaking, hand him back his name.
Just then her gaze fell on the new washer and dryer. Smiling with pleasure, she ran her hand along the cool, smooth enamel surface of the washer, and remembered Stuart and how happy he had seemed at giving her this present.
She was deeply touched. Surely this was his attempt to make amends for his past neglect.
It would take a lot more than a washer and dryer to make up for nine years of abandonment.
Perhaps there was no way to make up for the hurt. Perhaps there was only moving past it. With forgiveness.
Thirteen
Where love comes great, so comes fear…
“Your mother has a date with Winston?”
Tate nodded. “They’re attending a play up at the senior center in Lawton.”
“A play? What is it?”
“Kiss Me Kate, I believe.”
She tried to picture this. Yes, she could see it, wigs, costumes and big bos
oms.
Tate added, “And afterward they’re havin’ dinner at Christopher’s. Mom was dolled up for the occasion. Wore her diamond earrings.”
“Your mother seems to me to always be dolled up. She’s drivin’, I take it?” This would be nice for Winston, who wasn’t allowed to drive himself anymore. Then she pictured Franny’s sports car. “The MG?”
“I lent her the BMW. It’s easier on Winston…who looked like a cool cat, too. His best Stetson, dark coat and string tie. Looked ten years younger.”
Aunt Vella was busy, and Franny was off on her date. This meant the children would have to go with them to their consultation with Pastor Smith.
“What about Jenny?” Tate asked. Jenny was the teenager who had baby-sat for the children on a number of occasions.
“It’s too short notice to call her,” Marilee said.
There was a question in Tate’s expression. She could almost hear him thinking: Why hadn’t she reserved Jenny days earlier? Why had she not prepared for this meeting? In that annoying instant of clarity that one gets when facing oneself, she knew she had kept putting off any plans concerning this meeting with Pastor Smith.
“Where’s Stuart?” Tate asked. “He’s been here every day, and now he’s not? Why don’t we call him to come stay with the kids?”
Marilee didn’t like the idea.
“Why not?” Tate observed her. “He’s Willie Lee’s father, Marilee. And if he was going to abscond with Willie Lee, I imagine he would have done so before now.”
Marilee did not care for the sarcasm in his voice.
Before she could whip out a reply, however, Willie Lee appeared in the kitchen doorway. “What is abab-s-con-d?”
“Tate was just teasing, honey. Ab-scond. It means to carry away. Now, sugar, go get your jacket. We are all goin’ to see Pastor Smith…yes, Munro, too, but he’ll have to wait outside.”
She shot Tate a pointedly raised eyebrow while waiting for Willie Lee to be out of earshot, after which she said, “No, I don’t think Stuart wants to take off with Willie Lee, but neither do I feel confident that he could handle any crisis that might arise. Crises do arise at the most inopportune times, like when mothers are absent.
“And I am not telephoning him—” she spoke with careful diction, enunciating every one of her g’s, as was her habit when seeking to make a point “—because I do not consider him at my beck and call for baby-sitting…and because I cannot tell you of the countless times during our marriage when I would be waiting for him and would telephone him to find out where he was and when he was going to come, only to get no answer, or to have him say one thing and do another. I had not heard a word from him in two years before he decided to drop in. I am not calling him now.”
Tate was staring at her, his eyes widening as her feelings tumbled out, unchecked, like so much water breaking a dam.
Immediately she turned her back, awash with self-consciousness. She had not known she felt any of it and was quite dismayed to have to look at her anger fresh, as if her intentions of forgiveness last night had never been.
“Come here,” Tate said in a gruff manner, and then he had grabbed her arm, turned her and was hauling her against him. “The man should be horse-whipped,” he said, his tone and words a soothing balm to her wounded spirit. And then he was kissing her in a way that caused her to slip her arms around his neck and kiss him ardently in return.
She gasped for breath when they broke apart, and her head spun, and she blinked back silly tears.
Tate whispered, “I am not such a fool as to ever set you aside, Marilee. I love you, and I won’t ever let you doubt it.”
“Oh, Tate.”
She looked into his eyes, which were intent upon her, so dear and blue and hot as a day in midsummer. Words tumbled over themselves and jammed in her throat. She pressed her hand to his cheek.
Then a movement, a footfall, some motion, drew their attention to the doorway. Stuart stood there.
“Sorry to interrupt.”
There he was, her ex-husband dropping in at will again.
Stuart’s eyes moved from Marilee to Tate and back again. “Willie Lee asked me—if I understood him correctly—if I was going to abscond with him.” He paused, gazing directly at Marilee. “I told him I hadn’t planned on it.”
Tate said promptly, “Well, good. Would you stay with the kids while we go to see the pastor about the wedding plans? Make yourself at home. There’s a fresh pitcher of ice tea in the refrigerator.”
Marilee found Stuart’s reply of, “Uh…okay,” far from reassuring.
“That’s great,” Tate said. “Thanks a lot, buddy. We won’t be but an hour or so.” He had hold of Marilee’s hand and was leading her toward the door.
Tugging away, she insisted on jotting down the phone numbers for the parsonage and Tate’s cell phone. “Just in case anything should happen.”
Tate appeared with her coat, and as she slipped into it, she thought Stuart’s expression was still a little hesitant and uncertain. He actually looked a little ill.
But then Corrine was there and saying, “I know Tate’s cell phone number by heart, Aunt Marilee,” with a logic and confidence that caused Marilee to smile and bend over to kiss her niece’s cheek.
Tate took her hand again and hurried her through the living room, saying as they went out the door, “It’s a beautiful day. Let’s walk.” He entwined his fingers in hers and smiled a smile that touched deep into her middle. What a bug she was for her moodiness of late. She so wished she could get a handle on that.
Corrine, who had followed, hung on the porch post and watched her aunt and Tate walk down the brick path to the sidewalk. Her gaze lingered on the adults, seeing Aunt Marilee’s soft wool coat swing jauntily with her steps and how her aunt leaned her head briefly against Mr. Tate’s shoulder. A great sense of satisfaction engulfed her. Somehow, whenever her aunt seemed happy, Corrine felt happy.
For another full minute she clung to the porch post, listening to birds chirp, looking up through the bare tree branches to the cloudless sky and feeling the warmth that promised spring was just around the corner. She went over and sat herself in the porch swing, at the edge, so that her feet would touch the floor; she pushed back and forth and prayed that she would never have to leave her aunt and Willie Lee.
Her imagination, given rare rein to visit the positive side, formed lovely pictures of life for all of them together, with Aunt Marilee as her mother and Mr. Tate as her daddy, and Willie Lee there needing her to look after him, flowers on the breakfast table, saying grace at meals. And having her own room, with a four-poster bed, like the one she had seen in Southern Living magazine.
Maybe she could even have a horse. Maybe they would move to a house out in the country. She pictured moving Mr. Tate’s big house out in the country, and there was a red barn and a wooden corral, and inside it a horse for her, a painted pony, and a littler one for Willie Lee. And big trees surrounding the house, hovering over it as if stalwart protectors. It was all so beautiful and filled her heart so much that her breathing was squeezed.
Just then, a sound—a bicycle rattle—popped her eyes open. Here came Ricky Dale Oakes, speeding into the driveway, veering from the rear bumper of Mr. James’s car and coming across the grass, braking at the foot of the porch steps. Corrine felt a flash of delight.
The way he said, “Hey, Corrine,” in a hushed voice, like he had a secret, caused her wonder what was up. He parked his bike and took the steps two at a time. “I got—”
His words were cut off when his stupid black puppy, tongue lolling out of the side of his mouth, came pushing up past him and over to slobber on Corrine.
“Eww…get away from me, dog.”
“Oh…here, hold this.” Ricky Dale pulled a box from inside his jacket and shoved it at her. It was a big matchbox. Then he took his rowdy dog by the collar and led him off the porch, making him lie down at the foot of the steps.
Corrine looked at the matchbox. There was somethin
g inside, and it did not feel like matches.
Ricky Dale hopped back up on the porch and took the box, saying, “Look at this.”
He pushed open the box. Why, there was a little bird inside. Its head came popping up.
“It’s just a baby,” Ricky Dale said in a hushed tone.
Corrine looked more closely. The little bird blinked its eyes and shook its little self, then fell over.
“I found it over at Mr. Winston’s. I think it’s wing is broken.”
“Oh,” Corrine said sadly. Then, “Why are you whisperin’?”
“Look, get Willie Lee out here and see if he can fix it.”
Corrine stared at him. Then she shook her head. “No.”
“Come on, Corrine. Let’s just see what happens. Maybe it was coincidence that Beau got up after bein’ kicked…but maybe Willie Lee did do some-thin’. Let’s just see what happens. I won’t tell. I promise I won’t.”
She glared at him. She didn’t think she could like him now, and this made her really mad at him, because she had begun to count on liking him and having him for a friend.
“Don’t you want to see if Willie Lee can do it?” Ricky Dale said pointedly.
Her gaze, which had dropped again to the little bird in the box, flew upward to his eyes. They were the cat’s-eye marbles again.
“We need to see, Corrine.”
She did want to see, although she could not say that, so she just said, “Okay. You go on around back. I’ll bring him out there.” The backyard seemed a lot more private.
She slipped quietly through the front door. Willie Lee, with Munro lying against him, was watching his ant farm, over on the rug in front of the television. The action of explosions on the television arrested her briefly. It was a movie. On Pay-for-View. They almost never got to watch movies on Pay-for-View. Aunt Marilee considered most of them unfit for children’s consumption. Apparently Mr. James found them fit for him.
But he wasn’t in sight, and she wondered where he was. She pushed the front door closed and went to look in the kitchen, but upon passing the hall, she saw that the bathroom door was shut. Maybe she could get Willie Lee before he came out.
At the Corner of Love and Heartache Page 14