by Susan Schild
A flicker of sadness crossed Dottie’s face, and her voice was weary. “Honey, I tried and tried to talk sense into him, but that kept him away even more. He just wasn’t cut out to be a family man.”
Kate frowned, fixed her gaze on Dottie, and shook her head. “So he was a workaholic?”
Dottie’s mouth tightened and she gazed over her glasses at Kate. “In those days we didn’t call it that. Back then, if a man worked hard and made a good life for his family, he was admired.” She pursed her lips. “But I used to watch Oprah. He probably was a workaholic.”
Kate’s face had gone pale and her mouth was a thin, flat line. “Good Lord. The daughter of a workaholic marries a workaholic.” She hit her forehead with her palm. “And I’m setting up this little one”—she touched her stomach—“to have an absentee daddy.”
“Maybe knowing all this will help you keep that from happening,” her mother said evenly, but sighed deeply. She wasn’t done yet. Gazing at them, her voice grew ragged. “The second problem was the big one.”
Linny braced herself, dreading this next bit of news.
“I’ve been carrying this around, trying to find the right time—and the gumption—to talk to you girls about it.” Dottie opened her purse, and unzipped an inner pocket. “Right before your daddy had his aneurism, somebody, probably a neighbor from down at the river, sent this to me anonymously.” She thrust a faded, grainy Polaroid photo at them, and in a bitter voice said, “This was the problem that I couldn’t get past.”
Kate and Linny examined the photo uncomprehendingly. Their father stood on a dock, fishing pole in hand, his arm looped around the neck of a curvy brunette. She stared up at him adoringly, and her arm was snaked around his waist. Tanned and laughing, her father looked raffish, handsome, and undeniably happy.
Linny felt like she might throw up. Gulping her ice water, she breathed deep breaths until the feeling passed. “Who is this woman?”
“She was a longtime girlfriend. I found letters when I cleared out the river house after Daddy died . . .” Her voice broke off, and her face was tight with anguish.
“Oh, Mama.” Kate reached over to squeeze her mother’s hands.
Linny shook her head as a wave of fury washed over her. Her father had betrayed Dottie and he’d betrayed them. “Why didn’t you tell us? We could have helped you.”
Her mother shook her head sadly. “You girls were deep in grieving about losing your daddy. I just couldn’t heap this on you.” Raising one shoulder, she added in a ragged voice, “Mostly, I was ashamed. I thought he loved me.”
Kate said hotly, “He did, Mama. I just think he was a deeply flawed man.”
“Maybe,” her mother said, but looked unconvinced. Leaning forward, she spoke with quiet intensity. “My girls, life is short. Listen to your hearts, decide what you want, and go get it. Don’t settle for seconds like I did, and if you know something is wrong, move heaven and earth to fix it. Work hard to make happy lives for yourselves.”
The next morning, Linny sat on the porch steps, drinking coffee, and moodily staring out over the fields. This morning’s words from Indigo had been, Serene surroundings calm the troubled heart. Linny snorted. Troubled was an understatement. Her thoughts raced, and she blinked back tears. She felt so sad for all the Taylor women—her mother for loving a man who only gave her scraps, and for her and Kate for thinking that love only came in small bits and parcels. None of them should have had to work so hard for the love and attention of Boyd Taylor.
Linny had adored her father, measured other men against him and always found them wanting. She scrubbed at her eyes with her fingers, feeling foolish. The picture she’d had of him was so wrong. When her cell trilled and she saw Kate’s number, she breathed out a sigh of relief. Talking to Kate would be a tonic. She picked up.
“That was a long, quiet ride home last night,” her sister said, sounding tired. “My head is spinning.”
“So is mine,” Linny agreed. “I just can’t believe how screwy our family was growing up.”
“Every family is screwy in some ways, sis,” her sister said quietly. “Learning this truth is probably good for all of us.”
“How come you’re sounding so Zen about this mess?” Linny asked, an edge of irritation in her voice.
“I meditated this morning, and just spent the past hour doing tai chi,” her sister admitted. “We probably both need some time to take in this news.”
“I agree,” said Linny, rubbing her temple with her fingers.
Her sister sounded determinedly upbeat. “Come with me tomorrow to Bobby’s Hardware summer plant sale. He has these tables he calls the ‘Scratch and Dent.’ They’re full of beat up, wilted perennials that you can buy for cheap and nurse back to life. We can talk more and do something happy and productive while we’re at it.”
She didn’t feel happy and productive. She’d rather brood. But Linny glanced at the yard and saw the spiky pokeweed and crabgrass choking out the neglected flower beds. The weeds looked malevolent. She should yank them out, but it was going to be 106 degrees today, and the red clay ground was baked hard as cement. At least she could make a plan for adding color and life to the yard. Maybe this is what Indigo had in mind when she yammered on about serene surroundings calming troubled hearts. Linny sighed and muttered, “All right, all right. I don’t feel like it, but all right.”
Later that morning, Linny still felt jangled while creating serene surroundings with two gallons of a paint called Lemon Cream. After finishing the bedroom, she stood back and admired her progress. The pick had been a good one. The room looked soft, sunny, and fresh.
Putting down her paint roller, she sank into Child’s Pose and did a few side bends, trying to ease the knotted muscles in her back. Head resting on his paint-streaked paws, Roy blinked at her through the bars of his crate. She chided him as she rose. “No walking through paint pans. You’re in the pokey.”
Even though she’d worked for hours, she still felt a sense of edgy restlessness. She needed exercise. Throwing on a pair of shorts and running shoes, Linny stepped into the sauna of the afternoon air, and did a jog, stumble, rest, and walk combination up and down the quarter -mile driveway and then did it again. Her heart pumped and her muscles complained. She slowed and trudged back to the trailer. Whew. Blowing back her bangs, she stepped into the coolness, and picked up the paint roller.
Dusk fell as Linny sat at the kitchen table with a Lean Cuisine, her bare feet resting on a snoring Roy’s back. She flipped through an old family photo album, looking for clues. When had her parents’ marriage faltered? When had her father gone rogue, choosing his work, his cronies, and a girlfriend over his family? When had he fallen out of love with Dottie? Or had he?
In many of the images taken when she and Kate were young, one or the other parent acted as photographer. The parent in the shot gazed at the photographer with looks that were flirtatious, amused, or knowing. In the photos of Boyd and Dottie together, they looked connected—his hand touched hers, she leaned her head on his shoulder, he gave her a playful look. They looked happy, or at least as happy as a young couple who were raising small children and working hard could be. Peering more closely, she looked for a picture that captured the moment when her father’s love had died—when his eyes had looked hard, bored or irritated—but she found none. All the way up to Kate’s college graduation, they looked like a normal, happy family. She tapped her mouth with a finger, puzzled. She needed to talk to Kate about it. Maybe if she got brave, she’d talk to her mother. Flipping the album shut, she rested her hands on it thoughtfully.
Kate slid into the car the next afternoon, wearing a seersucker sundress with her hair in two improbably short pigtails. “Thanks for driving.”
“Happy to,” Linny responded automatically, but glanced at her sister to size up her spirits.
Kate chattered, “The Scratch and Dent is a lot of fun. Last year, I put the perennials I bought on the porch and babied them for a few weeks. I planted them whe
n it cooled off, and they did just fine. They took off this spring.”
She was rambling. Linny shot her sister a worried look. Ms. New Age Serene was just a little too chipper for having had her childhood memories trampled upon.
Kate gave her a sidelong glance. “How did you sleep?”
“Not well,” Linny admitted, rubbing her grainy eyes as she put the car in gear. “How about you?”
“Oh, like a lamb.” Kate lifted her chin and spoke with studied nonchalance. “Jerry called me about six last night to say he’d be running late. I was real sweet and understanding, then I packed a bag and spent the night all by myself at the Marriott.”
“What?” Linny stepped on the brake, and turned to look directly at her sister.
“It was very nice,” she said airily. “Watched premium cable until late.” Kate tapped the side of her head. “I finally got it. Jerry has to stop working so much, and has to get serious about taking better care of his health. It’s not an option to go on the way he’s going. I’m not going to let him be an absentee husband and father like Daddy was, or kill himself young and leave me alone.” Kate pushed a stray lock of hair behind her ears, and her chin jutted out. “I’m finished being nice.”
Linny nodded, impressed. “Good for you. What did Jerry think?”
“I left him a note telling him exactly where I was going and why. He kept calling me and calling me, but I didn’t pick up. I let him twist in the wind. Finally this morning I took his call, and he tripped all over himself with apologies. We had a long talk when I got home. I told him this can’t go on.” Her voice was steely.
“So he’s agreed to the new plan.” Linny gave a relieved sigh, as she flicked on the blinker and accelerated onto the bypass.
“So he says. If he’s not, I’m going back to the Marriott more frequently.”
“I’m proud of you.” Linny patted her arm. Sweet Kate could kick some behind when she wanted to. “So this showdown was triggered by what Mama told us?”
“Yup.” Kate nodded emphatically. “The marriage enrichment books I read say your parents’ marriage is the blueprint for your marriage—the men you pick are based on what’s familiar to you, and your need to sort out unfinished business.” She spoke with quiet intensity. “But it’s not destiny. You don’t need to repeat their mistakes. You can stop a crazy pattern. Deliberately do things differently if you know what you saw was unhealthy. That’s what I’m going to do.”
Filled with admiration, Linny reached over and squeezed her sister’s hand.
After an hour of blessed distraction, weaving up and down aisles of limp, tired-looking greenery, they loaded the Volvo with bedraggled verbena, lavender, speedwell, clematis, and bee balm. The gangly leaves of a too-leggy crape myrtle wedged behind her seat tickled Linny’s shoulders, and her sister had two puny looking gardenias clasped between her feet on the floorboards.
Kate looked over at her and gave her a cheeky grin. “That was fun, wasn’t it?”
“Okay, okay. So you were right. It was happy and productive.” Linny pretended to grouse, but did feel lighter. “One more thought about the family drama . . .”
“Shoot,” Kate said, slipping on sunglasses.
Linny flipped down the sun visor and mulled over what had been quietly nagging at her all morning. “Buck was so much like Daddy that it scares me.” She turned to her sister. “He even kind of looked like Daddy, and had his man’s man, hail-fellow-well-met persona.” She shuddered. “Maybe I picked him because of that.”
“Maybe,” her sister said thoughtfully. “But you picked, Andy, too, and that was a good relationship. He was just the opposite of Daddy—faithful, available, devoted.”
“I got lucky,” she admitted. “But really, he picked me, and just wore me down.” She gave Kate a rueful smile. “Of course, he could be an absent-minded-professor type. He could get so caught up in what he was doing, that he wouldn’t notice if I walked by only wearing whipped cream, and he forgot birthdays and anniversaries.”
Kate chuckled, remembering. “You finally put those dates in his Outlook.”
“He also used it to remind himself to say ‘I love you.’ ” In a spot-on imitation of his soft Southern drawl, she said, “I said I love you on our wedding day. Why reiterate?” She shook her head, and thought more about her parents. “I’m mad at Daddy, mad at Mama for putting up with it, and just so disappointed.”
Kate nodded. “It sure explains a lot about Mama. That was a crazy way to live—getting by on crumbs from Daddy. She must have been so angry and humiliated when she found out.” She shook her head, looking disgusted.
“I’m sure she felt bad about herself, and decided it was her fault that he stayed away,” Linny added, shuddering inwardly as she recalled how Buck’s infidelities had pummeled her self-esteem. “It must have been surreal, finding out about the other woman while grieving Daddy. Maybe she wondered if the whole marriage was a sham.”
Kate cocked her head, and looked sad. “Do you think it was?”
As she pulled back on the highway, Linny shook her head. “I don’t think so. I went through photos yesterday, and they looked happy. I remember a lot of love, too. Maybe he just got lost, and she let him.” She felt the heavy pall of sadness weigh on her again. Turning to look at Kate, she asked, “Are we banged up perennials?”
Her sister sighed, and she said softly, “All of us are, sweets. Every last one.”
As she placed the last plant on the shady side of the porch, Linny heard her phone, and scrambled back to the car to catch the call, but it had rolled to voice mail. When she saw her lawyer’s number, she drew a shuddery breath and listened.
In her throaty voice Diamond said, “My pet, we have offers on both of the Caddy and the Pepperdine, and they’re both scandalously low. We can negotiate them up a bit higher, but you’re still looking at losses. Call me.”
The figure she named made Linny sink to the steps, her shoulders sagging. Once again, she was hit head-on with misery from the past—misery created by an irresponsible man. She thought about Kate’s vow to put a stop to craziness in her life. Hitting the recall button, Linny left Diamond a message in a surprisingly calm voice. “Get rid of them. I don’t care if we take a hit. Let’s get this done and move on.”
CHAPTER 13
Working Girl
When Linny woke early the next morning, she lay in the weak morning light and assessed her mood. Her stomach did a back flip. As she rubbed her eyes with her fingers, she gave herself a shake. No more chicken little. She’d brace up and move forward, whether it was growing a business, going back to work for a corporation, or moving to Austin.
Expecting to feel leftover sadness or anger about her family, Linny was surprised to find that the buzz was partly excitement. Pulling Roy onto the bed beside her, she inhaled his warm puppy smell and snuggled him. She thought about Kate’s words about family history not being destiny, and about feeling fresh resolve to free herself from the past. Like her sister, Linny would not just move forward with her life, but surge forward, avoiding mistakes she’d made in the past, and learning from mistakes her mother had made.
Whenever she felt overwhelmed by a problem, Andy used to always say, “Slow down, now. You can handle anything that this life throws your way. You’re smart, you’re kind, and you’re responsible. Get focused. Remember all that you have going for you.” She did have good things going for her—the freshly hatched plan for her new business of teaching people to be nicer to each other, her rent-free trailer with the wood floors that was turning from an ugly duckling into a bit of a swan, and an embarrassment of riches when it came to love from family and friends. Her mother’s truth-telling was galvanizing. She’d work to see the abundance she had, stay on the lookout for good things to happen.
At six forty-five a.m., Linny pulled into the parking lot of Grocery World. She was going to start eating healthier, too. Carefully, she selected Greek yogurt, fruit, and chicken breasts and quick-stepped by the aisle with the Cheetos a
nd the M&Ms.
“Good morning,” she said to the checkout clerk, as she laid her items on the conveyor belt.
“For some.” The checker sighed heavily “I worked all day yesterday until nine last night, and my manager made me come in for this early shift.” Shaking her head and looking disgusted, she dropped Linny’s grapes into the plastic bag with a thunk. “So of course I was twenty minutes late this morning. The man docks my pay and I’m working like a dog.” The cherries fell free into the bottom of another bag.
Linny winced and did the math. At $1.98 per pound for the grapes that got chucked into the bag, and the ridiculously expensive cherries that had been a splurge for her, she wanted her fruit to be treated carefully and she didn’t want to hear about the woman’s hard life. She just didn’t.
As the checker weighed the bananas, Linny asked sweetly, “Can you please put them in there more carefully?”
The woman grumbled over her shoulder to a co-worker walking by. “Carla, he scheduled me for this shift too.” The bananas didn’t have a chance.
Feeling the heat of anger, Linny bit back words. The woman was lucky to have a job. Taking a deep breath, she exhaled Indigo style. This Negative Nancy was not going to affect her mood. She’d keep her cheerful, positive attitude no matter who she encountered.
As she wheeled the cart out of the store, she paused at the Customer Service desk, scribbled down the name of the manager that was posted on the wall, and smiled a determined smile. Mr. Jim Petit was going to get a call from her soon to discuss ways she might help his staff give customers a more positive shopping experience.
As she put up the last of her groceries, she got a text from Dare.