Remington's Tower

by Katharine Sadler

  I slapped my thigh and grinned. “That’s the answer, Byron. We can shuttle everyone with the snow mobiles.”

  He smiled back. “Not everyone, but maybe the most important people.”

  I got out and tried to grab my bags from under the tarp in the bed of his truck, but Byron insisted on carrying everything himself. I didn’t argue too hard.

  I stepped inside and didn’t even have a chance to check the place out before Barrett grabbed me and dragged me down the hall. “Later, I’m going to make you pay for that dirty, dirty trick you pulled on me, but right now, Betty needs you.” He shoved me into a room and slammed the door behind me.

  Betty was sitting in a chair with a woman standing behind her taking curlers out of her hair. Two more women sat on a king-sized bed with a lilac comforter. “Remy,” Betty said. “I’m so glad you made it.” She smiled, but there was an edge to her voice and her eyes were just a touch too wide.

  I went over and knelt in front of her. “I’m here, Aunt Betty, and I have a plan.”

  Betty squeezed my face and squealed. “I knew you were a genius.”

  I laid out the plan of using snowmobiles to get everyone to the church, but the four women just stared at me blankly.

  “Sugar,” Betty said, her voice too gentle, like she was holding back a scream. “How am I going to ride on a snowmobile and not get my dress muddy and wet?” Her eyes were damp with tears and I knew I had to pull it together and be there for her, to support her on her wedding day.

  I gave her my best glare and stood up so I could look down at her. “Do you remember the Vinton family credo?”

  “That ridiculous nonsense you and your daddy used to sing all the time?”

  I smiled at her scandalized face. “Yep. We are the family Vinton and we know what we know. We are no sheep and we do not bleat, we think and see and live for ourselves. We are the family Vinton. So tell me, Aunt Betty, are you a Vinton or are you a sheep?”

  Her chin wobbled a bit and so did my resolve. “I really just want to be a McKinney.”

  I breathed a sigh of relief. “Okay, then, that’s a great start. Does it need to happen today or do you want to wait until after the snow storm?”

  Betty didn’t hesitate. “I’ve waited thirteen years for that man. I don’t want to wait one more day.”

  Even better. “So, what you need is to marry Leon today. What else do you need? Who else do you need?”

  She lowered her lashes and I saw a couple of tears drop. “I just need the people in this room, my mother, and Leon.” She smiled up at me. “And I’d really like a cake.”

  “What?”

  “I’d really like a cake, but the bakery just called a little bit ago and said they couldn’t deliver in this weather.”

  I was smiling so hard I was pretty sure I looked scary rather than reassuring. “Okay, good to know. But go back just a bit. Did you say your mother?”

  Betty gasped. “Oh, honey. Didn’t I tell you?”

  I sat down on the bed next to a woman in a leopard print jogging suit and took a swig of the wine she offered me. “I think I would have remembered you telling me I have a grandmother.”

  “I’m so sorry, Remy. I’ve just been a little pre-occupied. I told her about you, though, and she’s so looking forward to meeting you.”

  I shook off the revelation and focused on what I needed to do there and then to help Betty. “Okay, none of that matters now. I hear what you need. Let me go see what Leon needs.”

  I breathed a quick sigh once I’d closed the door to Betty’s room and hurried off in search of my uncle. I found Leon slumped at the table, looking like his favorite hunting dog had just died. My worthless cousins were eating chips and staring at him helplessly.

  I caught their eyes and threw my hands up in the air, telepathically asking them what the what and calling them names. They turned away in embarrassment, because they knew they were falling down on the job. I sat next to Leon and patted his arm. “We’re going to figure this out, Uncle Leon. I just talked to Betty and she says she wants to marry you today. All she needs is the people in this house, her mother, and a cake. What do you need?”

  “I just need her,” Leon said, his eyes lighting a bit. “And all of my sons. But how are we going to get married without a priest?”

  “Snowmobiles,” I said. I turned to my cousins. “Byron, call the priest and find out where he is and if he’s willing to do the wedding here if someone picks him up on the snowmobile and brings him.” Byron nodded and pulled his phone from his pocket, asking his dad for the contact information. “Barrett,” I said. “Call your worthless brothers and find out how far away they are.”

  “What are you going to do,” Barrett asked. He tried to sneer, but he was already scrolling through contacts on his phone so his sneer was less than effective.

  “I’m going to figure out the deal with the cake.”

  I called the bakery, and then Barrett and I waited for Byron to finish up his call with the priest. He sat at the table and shook his head. “Okay, the priest sounds like an elderly man.” He looked at Leon who nodded in affirmation. “And he lives across town. He doesn’t want to drive in this, but he says if we can get to him with a snowmobile, he’ll take a ride back here. How far away from here is he, Dad?”

  Leon shrugged. “In good weather, it takes about fifteen minutes to get to his house next to the church, but that’s with stoplights. As the crow flies it’s probably just two miles.”

  “Okay, then we need to figure out a route to him that takes us over grass, because there’s only a few inches covering the roads and sidewalks and I don’t want to wreck the treads on the snowmobiles.”

  Leon waved a hand. “I don’t care about the damn treads.”

  Byron rolled his eyes and smirked at me and Barrett. I thought it was kind of cute how dramatic Leon was being. “That’s fine, Dad, but we need enough tread to get us to your priest and back comfortably.”

  Leon sighed and nodded. “Yeah, okay. Betty will know better than anyone how to get to him without using the road.”

  Byron stood to go find Betty, but I stopped him with a raised hand. “The bakery has the cake, but they locked up and left as soon as the snow started falling. They figured the wedding would be cancelled or postponed, so—”

  “They should have called,” Leon said.

  “They should have,” I said. I had told the bakery owner, who had the shop line forwarded to her cell, exactly what I thought of her not calling to check on the status of the wedding. She tried to say it was my fault for being crazy enough to go ahead with a wedding in the middle of a snowstorm. “But they didn’t call and the owner, the only one with a key to the shop, lives about thirty minutes out of town.”

  Leon dropped his head in his hands and moaned.

  “Remington can make the cake,” Byron said.

  I glared at him. “Really, Byron? Why can’t you or Barrett make the cake? I’m not any better at baking than either of you.”

  Byron sighed like he carried the weight of the world on his shoulders. “I’m going to be picking up the priest and Barrett…Barrett…”

  I continued to glare at Byron.

  “Barrett can’t even boil water without screwing it up,” Barrett said.

  I turned my glare on him and he had the good sense to shut up.

  “Fine,” Byron said. “I was being sexist. I won’t ever do it again. But you and Barrett are going to have to fight it out, because I have to go oil and gas a snowmobile.”

  Barrett smirked. “Wanna arm wrestle for it?”

  “God,” I said. “What are you? Five?”

  He continued to smirk like his big biceps could take down little old me in less than a minute, but he didn’t know that Byron had taught me some new tricks.

  “Fine,” I said. “We’ll arm wrestle for it. Where are Keats and Tennyson?”

  “They’re still forty-five minutes out and moving slow.”

  “So, we’ll give them two hours to get h
ere before we start anything. Sound good?”

  Barrett nodded and Byron left to go find Betty and the snowmobiles.

  “Okay,” I said, turning to Barrett. “How about that arm wrestle?”

  Barrett snorted, but I glared at him until he realized I was serious. He put his arm on the table, and I popped my arm up there and gave him a sweet smile. “So, Barry,” I said as he gripped my hand. “Seeing anybody?”

  He gritted his teeth and started to push against my hand. “No talking.”

  I smiled and just sat there, holding my hand and arm in place as Byron had taught me, and let Barrett wear himself out trying to push my arm down. As soon as I thought he was worn out, I pushed hard against his hand. He grinned in triumph and pushed back with a force I hadn’t felt before. “You think Byron never used that trick on me?”

  “Oh, damn it,” I said, pretending to be upset. I may have expected to win, but that didn’t mean I didn’t have a back-up plan. “I guess I have to make a cake and you get to help Betty get beautiful.”

  Barrett froze mid-victory dance. “What?”

  “Well, I can’t bake a cake and help Betty into her dress and run all the little errands she’s going to need someone to run, can I?”

  Barrett lunged at me, his face quite red.

  “Barrett.” Leon’s voice and tone stopped my cousin. “You will not attack your cousin on my wedding day.”

  Barrett grunted and patted Leon on the back. Then he looked at me and snarled. “Tomorrow, sister, it’s on.”

  I couldn’t help laughing, which only annoyed Barrett more. I left him in the kitchen to figure out how to bake a cake and went to find Betty.

  She was in her bedroom, laughing at something with her friends, but she stopped laughing as soon as I stepped in. “It’s okay,” I said. “Byron’s getting the snowmobile ready to go, Barrett is working on the cake, and I’m all yours.”

  Betty grimaced. “Barrett is picking up the cake?”

  I bit my lip not to laugh at her expression. “No. the bakery’s locked up tight and the only person with a key is half an hour out. Barrett is going to make the cake.”

  “Oh, dear,” Betty said.

  One of her friends, a pretty woman with dark hair, skinny jeans and a cute slinky top, stood. “I’ll go help him, Betty. Don’t you worry about a thing.”

  “Thank you, Mary,” Betty said. “How long before we start?”

  “A couple of hours,” I said. “What can I do?”

  “Well,” Betty said, tapping her chin thoughtfully.

  I ended up moving the living room furniture out of the living room to make space for the ceremony. Luckily, I had Barrett to help me move the furniture, since Mary kicked him out of the kitchen because he handed her salt when she asked for sugar. After Byron returned with a red-faced, but cheerful priest, Betty sent Byron and Barrett back out to ferry some more of her friends over.

  I set up what chairs we’d need for the small group of people who’d be there, and then set out the flowers the florist had delivered early that morning. My stomach started grumbling about the time I finished setting out the flowers, and I went to the kitchen to find something to eat. I found Leon and Mary arguing over a big pot of something warm and bubbly.

  “Is that something to eat?” I asked, ignoring their argument about basil.

  Leon smiled when he saw me, and Mary relaxed. “It’s my famous chili, sweetheart. Figured all these people would want something to eat after the ceremony.”

  “Any chance I could eat some of it now?”

  “Sure,” Leon said. “But the cornbread’s not ready, yet.”

  “That’s okay,” I said. “I just need something.

  By the time I finished eating, Keats and Tennyson had finally arrived as had all ten of Betty’s guests. I went back to Betty’s room to help her get into her dress and found her already dressed, looking absolutely gorgeous and talking to an older woman with white hair, a svelte figure, and wearing a beautiful burgundy dress. Betty had tears in her eyes and I started to step back outside, so as not to disturb them. Betty spotted me before I got all the way out of the room.

  “Oh, Remy, come in. This is your grandmother.”

  The older woman turned to me and smiled. She had Betty’s eyes, my eyes, but she had my father’s complicated, charismatic smile. She stepped toward me, hands out, and I involuntarily took a step back. Something wasn’t right, but I couldn’t remember…then I did remember. I remembered her face, younger, screaming at me and so, so angry. “You hated me.”

  The woman’s smile faltered, and she dropped her hands and stepped back. “Yes, Remy, I did hate you for a time, and I was cruel to you and to your father. I’m sorry for that. There is no excuse for it. I was selfish and I was angry and I took it out on a little girl who didn’t deserve it. Can you ever forgive me?”

  “Why?” I asked.

  Her shoulders slumped and she took another step back, as though giving up on me already. It was a weakness I didn’t recognize. My father never backed down from a challenge. My uncle and cousins never backed down. I never…but then I remembered that I had backed down. I’d backed down from Worthy, because I cared too much and I suspected he could hurt me. He could walk away from me as my father had done. Even when he’d kept me with him, my father had chosen his games, his crimes, over me and my needs. I’d been abandoned and neglected by him, because he chose not to see me and the harm he was doing me. On some level, I’d feared that Worthy would choose answers and his need for revenge over me. I’d backed down from Worthy to avoid being hurt.

  I suspected my grandmother had also been hurt by my father and she wasn’t backing down because she lacked the backbone, but because she feared me hurting her. Understanding this, I softened toward her just a bit.

  “I did hate you,” she said. “I blamed you for all the trouble Eunice got into. When he married, I blamed his wife. I figured she demanded a fancy house and fine things and he had to turn to crime to afford those things for her. When she died, I couldn’t blame her any more so I blamed you. I was so determined not to see how I’d spoiled my son, how I’d taught him to be the man he’d become. When you left us and he didn’t change, I had to look myself in the mirror and accept what I’d done.”

  No, this wasn’t a woman who backed down from anything. “I don’t think it was all your fault,” I said. “I don’t think my father would blame you.”

  She smiled, but it didn’t reach her eyes. “I haven’t quite gotten up the nerve to visit him in that place,” she said. “But I’d like to have a relationship with you, if you’d let me. I’d like to make up for my past mistakes.”

  I stepped closer to her. “I’d like that.”

  She hugged me and then held me at arm’s length and studied me. “So like your mother. I wish your grandfather could have seen you, but he passed on two years ago.” She gave me a watery smile. “He’d have so loved to know you.” As soon as she mentioned my grandfather, I remembered him. He’d been a quiet man, who smelled like cigars and peppermint. My grandmother gave me one more hug, wiped her eyes, and turned to her daughter. “Today, we need to get my daughter married. What do you need from us, dear?”

  Betty smiled and tears shone in her eyes. “I don’t need anything more than what I have.”

  ***

  Betty and Leon were married in their living room, among their friends and family, while a snowstorm raged outside and we all prayed the electricity stayed on long enough to get us through the service. It didn’t. The lights went out as Betty was walking across the room to Leon. So we lit all the candles I’d pulled out earlier and Keats and Byron got a fire blazing in the fireplace. Betty and Leon were married by candlelight, the only music the whistling of the wind outside.

  I think everyone looks more beautiful by candlelight, and Betty looked like an angel. Leon was happier than I’d ever seen him before and the way the two of them looked at each other made my heart flip with hope that someone would look at me that way someday.


  Once they were married, the party started. We ate chili and cake and Leon dug out some marshmallows that we roasted over the fire. The priest stayed for dinner, but then Byron and Barrett ferried him and the other guests back to their homes, until the only ones left were me, Betty, Leon, and my four cousins.

  “So, where are you going on your honeymoon?” I asked, once everyone was together again and all of the furniture was back in place in the living room.

  “Well,” Betty said. “We wanted to be here for Christmas with all of you kids, so we’ve decided to take our honeymoon in February. We’re going to Key West.”

  “Wow, that sounds wonderful,” I said.

  Leon, who hadn’t been out of touching distance of Betty since the ceremony, wrapped an arm around her and squeezed her tight. “Anywhere is a honeymoon if Betty’s with me.”

  Byron shot me a look like he thought Leon had lost his mind, but I couldn’t help melting a little bit. I may have grown up with five of the most unromantic men in the world, but I was finding that I had more than a few romantic bones in my body.

  Betty met my eyes and the joy in hers made me tear up.

  “Remy,” she said. “Where’s that boy you’re dating?”

  I froze for a moment, shocked by the question. With the snowstorm and the wedding, I hadn’t forgotten about Worthy, but I’d pushed him to the back of my mind, where he was just a fuzzy reminder of hurt and mistakes. I forced my smile back into place. “We broke up.”

  Betty nodded. “Is that because he’s Arle’s son?”

  “Partly.” I didn’t know how much Leon had told Betty about Worthy and his manipulation of me and Byron, and I didn’t want to say anything bad about him if she didn’t know.

  Leon frowned. “If Arle were still alive, he’d have been thrilled at the thought of our Remington and his Lawrence getting together. If he’d had the chance, he’d have asked me to look out for his family. I couldn’t do that when they lived so far away from us, but I feel I ought to look out for him and his brothers if I can, now that I’ll be living so close.”