Fallon. She’d probably heard all the yelling. In a strange way, Dyanne almost hoped so. She wanted to throw herself in Fallon’s arms and have a good cry, but she couldn’t. She wouldn’t. Work was work and home was home. No matter how close they seemed right now, they had to remain separate. Dyanne hoped that she and Neal wouldn’t remain separate, too. His negative response to her proposal had sent her reeling, both with its quickness and its finality. What guy didn’t want a baby?
Maybe he just didn’t want one with her.
Trust Me.
Dyanne turned out the light and wrapped herself in a sheet before following her husband. She didn’t know who to trust, but she was running out of options.
The Never Enough
It waits for me at the edge
Of laundry baskets,
Holding my best hopes.
Hungry, it swallows possibilities
Spitting reality at my feet.
“Never,” it whispers, blowing
through the pages beneath my bed.
“Enough,” He says, this
Brightness with no darkness
At all.
I awake, dancing
On the curve between night
And morning, hearing
Only, “Never enough.”
—Karol
Upon waking after dreaming about mangoes and
Ferris wheels
Chapter Six
“They got company over there,” Karol’s son Judah proclaimed at the dinner table. “She looks old, but not boring old. Fun old, like Grandpa.”
“Don’t call people old. That’s rude,” Karol said.
Ryan shrugged. “Not really. We’re all going to get old. Why are people so touchy about it?”
Karol didn’t know quite what to say to that. Or maybe she did, but she didn’t want to hear it. She’d seen the hybrid SUV pull up and the tall woman with a teeny-weeny Afro get out of it. The lady had looked familiar in a way that made Karol catch her breath, but she didn’t think much of it. She’d exhaled like that the first time she saw Hope, too.
She took a breath at the thought of Hope and Singh. She’d picked up the phone a million times to call Hope and apologize about what Rob had done. Why her husband would have asked her best friends to consider moving away still eluded her. Granted, she and Hope may have been closer than was healthy. Karol could see that now. Why wouldn’t Rob have just said that? She’d have listened.
No, I wouldn’t have. I’m not listening now.
The thought hit hard. She’d dreamed of fruit and carnivals and the guest next door. Probably too much pizza, but sometimes it turned out to be important. The new woman seemed important somehow, more than the new neighbors even. Some people just had that way about them, as if you’d known them before. At first, she thought it might have been Dyanne’s mother, but somehow she didn’t think so. Instead it was probably a friend—the one thing Karol didn’t have right now.
That’s silly. You have loads of friends. You could call any woman in the church directory right now and she’d love to hear from you. Other mothers from the children’s school, people you used to work with…
Maybe. Maybe not. After her little trust God speech the other Sunday, the same mothers who had thronged around Hope had barely waved at her during the last service. And Karol really didn’t care. The thought of finding another best friend, telling all the stories, breaking down all the walls…Just the thought of it made her stomach hurt. She couldn’t imagine anyone else getting her corny jokes or having a husband who got along with Rob as well as Singh had. Outside of the new guy next door—and that was just being neighborly—Rob hadn’t been spending time with anyone new, either.
Rob was right. We were too close. All of us.
She piled another pancake on Judah’s plate, grateful that the younger ones were quiet this morning. They seemed too tired to talk.
Be afraid. Be very afraid, she thought. Silence always had a deeper meaning, with these kids at least.
Karol put down the syrup and headed for the bar where the children were sitting. She checked their heads for fever one by one.
“They’re not sick,” Ryan said. “Just sleepy. They were up half the night playing Flashlight and ‘I See You’ with the new lady next door. I told them to cut it out, but you know how they get.”
Boy, did she.
With a smile, Karol served the last pancake and offered warm syrup to the boys after pouring Mia’s. Prevention was ninety percent of the equation with that girl.
Ryan took the bottle himself and looked a little offended that his mother was still trying to fix his pancakes. He grabbed his knife and moved it to the other side of the plate.
“Just in case you get any other ideas,” her oldest son said, looking weary as usual of the error that his mother usually realized too late.
Karol tried not to laugh and turned her attention back to the younger children. They were harder to keep up with but easier to figure out. “When that happens, come and let Mommy know, okay? Even if it’s the middle of the night. Things were fine when Rob—Dad—and I came to tuck you all in. I didn’t hear a thing.”
Mia rested her head on her fist, fighting to keep her eyes open. “The lady started it.”
Judah nodded. “I didn’t know that any grown-ups knew how to play Flashlight.”
Ryan rolled his eyes. He was growing up and the antics of his younger siblings embarrassed him more than amused him these days. “These pancakes are awesome, Mom. Did Dad make them?”
He had made them. Rob had slipped out of bed and made the pancakes before work, leaving breakfast and a love note behind. Things were still a little shaky between them after his admission of being behind Hope and Singh leaving. Even now, Karol wanted to call Hope to discuss it, but something held her back. During her Bible reading time, God had given her the scripture to confirm it. One she’d read on many other occasions but never with such a personal meaning:
“…as His divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness…”
“Yes, Dad made them. I just heated them up.”
Judah shrugged his shoulders. “Figures. Your eggs are good, though. The best.”
Except for Dad’s omelets.
Ryan held up a finger. “Except for Dad’s omelets, but still…”
Karol had to laugh. She’d prayed to have a husband like Rob, a sensitive, caring man. She wondered now if she hadn’t forgotten along the way that no matter how sensitive Rob was, he was still a man. Her mother, Faith the Second, had her shortcomings, but she always saw Rob as the man he was, even if she didn’t always treat him kindly.
She decided right then to make Rob a cake for dinner—7-Up cake, his favorite. And after dinner, once the kids were asleep, she’d offer him something much better than her cooking. Until then, she had a day of parenting—no, discipleship—ahead of her. It was time for Karol to let go of Hope and come into her own as a mother, even if it meant starting all over again to find her way.
After breakfast, Karol and the kids did something they hadn’t done since their neighbors moved away. They had Bible time together.
“It’s not the same without Eden doing the voices.”
“Or Bone barking.”
They were right. It wasn’t the same. Though Hope and Singh taught their children at home and Karol’s children went to public school, they’d all gathered each morning for prayer and Bible study in the tree house that Dyanne had torn down. Hope had chosen the stories, usually ones she and her children were studying during their other subjects.
Karol’s job had been bringing whatever supplies were needed for the day’s illustration. She generally brought whatever Hope recommended on the list she gave Karol on the weekends. If there was a project with the story, all the children worked on it together once the boys were home from school. During the day, Karol and Mia went back and forth between houses. Her daughter often came home with a “school” paper of her own, custom made by Hope on he
r computer. No, Bible time wasn’t the same. It never would be. But it was theirs.
“How about we do the voices? All of us. Just follow me. I’m not Miss Hope, but I’m your mom, and I love you. And God loves you, too. I’m sure that Miss Hope would want us to find our own way to have time with God’s Word.”
“Do we have to go outside?” Mia asked.
Karol shook her head. “No. We can do it right here. We can even sing if you want.”
Karol’s younger son, Judah, raised his hand. “Can I do that part today? I learned a new song at church on Sunday.”
And on it went. Ryan headed up the prayer time, even stopping to take requests. Judah led them all in a beautiful, off-key worship song and Mia acted out the story—voices and all—as Karol read it. At the end, instead of the usual short sermon that Hope used to give, Karol went another route. She let the kids ask questions.
They stared at her, stunned. “We can ask things?”
“Sure,” Karol said, wondering if Faith the Second wasn’t right about their creativity being stifled. Had Karol been so caught up in preserving the status quo that her children didn’t think that they could ask her questions about life? About God? Karol hoped she was wrong, but she filled in the silence with her own questions for them until they worked up their nerve.
When their curiosity kicked in, the children’s queries were more numerous and complex than she anticipated. More than once she had to admit something they rarely got to hear from their mother’s mouth: “I don’t know.”
They seemed glad to hear it. So did the tall, beautiful woman visiting the people next door. Unlike the new neighbors, who always approached cautiously, tiptoeing around the edge of the yard, this big, beautiful woman cut right across the lawn and up to the front door. And she didn’t ring the bell, either. She knocked a rhythm that sounded like music. Like a secret.
Karol’s little disciples scrambled away from the table to meet her as though they’d been expecting her all along. Mia made it to the door first, swinging it open without asking who it was. Karol frowned, pushing herself up and following behind. Even if they’d watched the woman approach through the window, the lady was still a stranger. Karol would have to get on her daughter about it later. At the moment, though, she was as excited about the visitor as the kids were, only she couldn’t figure out why.
“Hi! We were hoping you’d come over,” Mia said, taking the lady’s hand as though she’d always known her.
“Well, of course I was coming over. We had such a good time last night. I had to come and meet you all. Your mom and dad, too.” She reached out to shake Karol’s hand. “I have the funny feeling that I’ve met your mom already. I just can’t put my finger on where.”
Karol’s breathing quickened as she took the woman’s hand. So it wasn’t just her imagination. She stared at the lady, squinted even. “Did you have long hair before? Locks maybe? I’m Karol, by the way. Karol Simon.”
The woman’s eyes narrowed. “Yes. I cut my locks a few weeks ago. You may have seen me speak somewhere. I’m Fallon. Fallon Gray. It’s not my real name, but it’s sort of stuck on now. Just like your face.
“I’m not placing Simon, but your eyes are familiar. Very familiar. You look like Eric Ware, a professor I once knew from Morris Brown College. Do you know him? I’m reaching. You’ve probably never heard of him. He teaches—”
“Anthropology. He’s my father.”
Ms. Gray, the embodiment of self-assurance and poise, crumpled a little. She patted Mia’s hand and then her own. When she spoke again, her words came at half the speed and volume. “You’re Eric’s daughter? He talked about you so much…” Like an intake of breath, she came back to herself. “Come here, girl. You ’bout like family. Where’s your mama? Or is she still calling herself Faith number two?”
Karol was too stunned at first to respond. She was still hung up on hearing her father’s name so many times on this stranger’s lips. Eric. She’d said it all in one breath each time, as if it really meant something.
“Faith the Second,” Mia corrected, holding up two fingers. “She brought clothes. Drove a big car. You just missed her.”
The visitor sat down on the couch and slipped off her Etienne loafers. Mia jumped right into her lap.
“Imagine. Dee Dee moves in next door to Eric Ware’s daughter. God certainly has a sense of humor. And irony, too. Always with the irony. People miss that about Him.”
Karol didn’t miss it. She didn’t miss a thing. “Dee Dee? Do you mean Dyanne?”
“Uh-huh. She goes by that, too. I call her Dee Dee Thornton. She’s my publicist. Oh, I’m getting ahead of myself. I’m supposed to be telling you why I came over. Your kids were so cute in that window last night and I had a dream, you see…”
Karol stiffened. Her own dreams were one thing, but she didn’t go around telling people about them.
Fallon continued. “I dreamed about mangoes and Ferris wheels. It’s not the first time, either. I had that dream when I first started writing and sometimes I get it when I’m about to meet somebody important. Folks that stick. Always people. Do you all know what I mean?”
The children nodded furiously. Karol nodded slowly, trying not to cry.
“Well, anyway, see. The devil messes with us all, tells us we’re not good enough, that we’ll never be good enough and God sends us always people, folks who always know what to say and do to make us feel better. Mangoes make me feel better. And I’m terrified of Ferris wheels. Sometimes I dream of big, juicy beautiful things that I can’t afford to be scared of. I think one of those things is you, Karol. Or maybe all of you.”
After a moving, emotional silence, Judah farted.
All of the kids squealed. Mia threw a pillow at him.
“Sorry. I ate my pancakes too fast. Now I’m hungry all over again.”
Their visitor laughed a long throaty laugh. “Don’t be sorry, baby. I thought that was me. We can do lunch together. Your place or mine?”
Before Karol could answer, Mia threw up a fist. “Our place!”
Fallon Gray threw back her glorious, glossy head and laughed again. “Lead the way to the kitchen.”
When she’d left this morning, Dyanne had asked only one thing of Neal—to keep an eye on Fallon Gray. And that was the very thing he’d failed to do.
“So where is she?” Dyanne asked, skimming a hand through her freshly relaxed hair and putting down a bag of fruit from the farmer’s market. She had something to tell Neal, something she should have told him before anything else, but Fallon’s absence took priority.
Neal, who’d spent the day catching up on his own Internet security business, shrugged his shoulders. “She’s a grown woman, honey. She’ll be fine.”
His employees telecommuted from across the country and had things pretty well in hand for the next few weeks, but Neal never let too much time pass without checking on the servers and all the monitored accounts. People would be amazed to know how many hack attempts there were to sites with even the highest levels of security. Neal knew better than anyone that there was a slim line between a breached system and a secure one. He was starting to think the same about his marriage.
“I didn’t ask you her age or whether she’d be fine. I asked you where she was.”
“Who, Fallon? I don’t know. She went out. Taking a walk, maybe? Her car’s still here.”
“No. It’s not.”
“Well, it was.”
Dyanne gave up. Neal hadn’t even raised his head to look at her. Usually, she would have been right beside him—or in the next room—head down and nose to the grindstone, too. Today she was irritated by his lack of eye contact in the same way Neal had often been with her. She’d have to process that later. For now, she had a bestselling author with a deadline, missing in action. That was not acceptable. “I’ll find her. Wait up for me. I bought something today. I need to talk to you about it.”
“Right,” Neal said, typing faster than most secretaries and still not looking
up.
Gathering her courage, Dyanne tugged down the beautiful linen dress she’d picked up from a quaint little shop in town when she’d stopped to feed the ducks at the man-made lake and park where the farmer’s market was held. Dyanne had liked the dress so much that she’d put it on right there in the store and carried her own clothes out in a bag. She’d raced home to show Fallon, thinking she’d get a kick out of it. Aside from fitting Dyanne perfectly and giving her the appearance of curves she didn’t possess, it was the color of mangoes. She’d bought something else, too, something that had seemed like a perfect fit at the time, but now didn’t seem like such a good idea. Oh, well. It could go back.
For now, she had to find Fallon, who was still nowhere to be seen. Dyanne had a sinking feeling about what might have happened to her. The neighbors. Or knowing Fallon, it might have been her that “happened” to them. Either way, it was not okay. Fallon Gray had come to Dyanne’s to write a book and that’s just what she was going to do. No matter how much Steve Chaise laughed with Fallon, he wouldn’t be smiling if there wasn’t a publishable manuscript on his desk a month from now. Dyanne wouldn’t be smiling, either. She wasn’t smiling now, not even when Fallon’s car pulled up—without her in it.
Her neighbor Karol put the car in Park and got out slowly. “Your guest came over. We made lunch. She wanted some fruit to make the kids a smoothie. Our van takes a lot of gas. She insisted that I take her car—”
“She shouldn’t have.”
Her neighbor smiled, as if she wanted to laugh. “She said you’d say that. That she shouldn’t have come over, that I shouldn’t drive her car—which I don’t think I should have, but she’s quite persuasive and has full coverage. Look, why don’t you come in for a minute. I know things have been a little bumpy between us, but we really are good people. The kids, too. They’re just…kids.”
Mom's the Word Page 7