Secondhand Sister

by Rhett DeVane

  “Miz LaJune is in the activity room at the present. It’s bingo day. I can’t interrupt The Bingo, not for the President himself. But I did let our activities director know to send Miz LaJune down as soon as the last set of numbers is called.” She glanced at the gilded wall clock to her right. “They should be finishing up in a few minutes.”

  The receptionist motioned to a spacious room off the main foyer. “If you’d like, you may wait in our parlor. Feel free to change the station on the TV, or there’s usually a magazine or two lying around. There’s coffee, iced tea and water on a table immediately down the hallway. Please, do help yourself.”

  Chapter Three

  Never a cheerful early riser, Hattie Davis Lewis bumbled into the bright country kitchen to pour a cup of strong black coffee. Ugh. Monday. Again. How did that keep happening? One breath at a time and be thankful for it, her effervescent mother would have reminded her. Shammie, her aging Persian, head-butted her leg. Hattie dumped a handful of kibble into the cat’s bowl.

  Her husband Holston sat at the long oak table with their adopted daughter. Splatters of cereal smeared Sarah Chuntian’s round face. Most of the butter from her toast hadn’t made it past her lips. Every time Hattie looked at the child, her heart felt warm. She blessed the day they had rescued her from that crowded orphanage in China.

  The toddler chattered happily to her father as he alternately perused the daily paper and glanced at the network news. Sure, the child was still in the dreaded terrible two’s, but so far, they hadn’t been horrible. Hattie managed to have more meltdowns than Sarah Chuntian Davis.

  Hattie brushed by long enough to kiss both of them then withdrew for her sanctuary. They wouldn’t miss her. She started the day as usual, in her late father’s butt-worn rocking chair on the shady front porch of the family farmhouse. Several natural springs laced the Davis homestead three miles south of Chattahoochee, and the gentle hills gave the property a mountain retreat ambiance. The solid, wood-framed house, a home the family fondly referred to as “The Hill,” stood atop a slight rise at the end of a long, sandy drive named Bonnie Lane.

  The roof leaked in three places, outside breezes crept inside through small crevices, and termites had chewed holes in a few of the wall studs. Hattie had once managed to burn the kitchen to smut with an unattended grease pot. Still, the Davis house had remained standing through hail showers, lightning strikes, and any number of raging tropical storms and hurricanes. If a structure possessed a personality, the house her father built would be that of a kindly grandmother with a huge, pillowed bosom: a woman who hugged away hurt with fierce, protective love.

  Above the inherited money and stocks, above the rolling acres of woodland Hattie shared with her older brother Bobby, the house shone as the most precious thing Dan and Tillie Davis had left their daughter. Though Hattie rambled following high school graduation and college, The Hill drew her back.

  The last place on earth she’d planned to be was where she ended up, sitting on this porch nursing her morning cup of coffee.

  As her late mother had often commented, “If you chase after a dream long enough, sometimes it’ll catch up to you.”

  The family mutt licked the tip of Hattie’s fingers and pushed his cold wet nose into her free hand. She scratched Spackle’s favorite itchy spot across the bridge of his long snout, a wiry white thatch of hair marking the brownish-red fur.

  “Spackle, patchwork-pooch,” she cooed. “Who’s Mama’s good boy?”

  Jake Witherspoon, Hattie’s best friend and owner of the business connected to hers, had named the mixed-breed pup. The animal had joined the family during the renovation of Jake’s family mansion, a time when most everything, moving or stationary, sported at least one smear of spackle or paint.

  Hattie looked down Bonnie Lane. Though thick trees hid the houses farther down, Hattie sensed the comforting presence of her nearest neighbors. Her remaining sibling, Bobby, had moved to the land with his wife Leigh and son Josh, a couple of years back following their mother’s death. The couple’s cypress log home huddled in the forest on a separate driveway off the main lane. Old family friends occupied the other house, a modest ranch-style dwelling close to the state highway.

  Hattie mentally tabbed through her day. Only one massage therapy client scheduled in the main street clinic in the early afternoon. Thank God. Though she dearly loved the profession, her left shoulder had begun to complain in the last few months. Some days, it hurt to reach overhead to shampoo her hair.

  She slung one leg over the rocker arm and pushed with the big toe of her other foot until the chair pitched back and forth.

  Her thoughts drifted to her adopted child’s namesake, Hattie’s older sister Sarah Davis.

  The middle child. The lost baby. The one who didn’t stick around long enough to enjoy sibling rivalry.

  Odd, how often Sarah had crept into her mind lately.

  On The Hill, no one said her sister’s name. Sarah remained shrouded in mystery, a ghostly figure on the periphery of the Davis family.

  Hattie recalled speaking directly to her mother Tillie about Sarah only once. Bobby had perpetrated some unforgivable act of brotherly meanness, and Hattie snuffled to her mother. “If my sissy was here, he wouldn’t pick on me anymore!”

  Her tone had been, no doubt, whiny and high-pitched.

  “My big sissy would be pretty and she would protect me. She would squash Bobby Davis like a cockroach!”

  The flash of pain that had flickered across her mother’s features froze in Hattie’s memory like a Polaroid snapshot. Hattie had cried bitterly, not so much over Bobby’s infraction, but because of how she had somehow hurt her mother.

  When their adopted baby arrived in the States, Hattie bestowed the name on her. Hattie enjoyed the feel of her sister’s name on her lips.

  But the Sarah she had never gotten a chance to know still haunted her thoughts.

  Spackle nudged her hand and she ruffled the hair around his ears.

  How would my sister be as an adult? Hattie swilled coffee and nestled into her favorite sisterly vision. Sarah—wispy and beautiful with fine, aristocratic features, a boon from Tillie’s side of the family.

  Hattie imagined them seeing each other every day, or speaking on the phone—long, lazy conversations about everything and nothing. Grumbling over the high price of gas and the irritating traits of beloved husbands.

  They would shop for hours for shoes and sip mocha Frappuccino with mounds of chocolate-dusted whipped topping. When Hattie discovered a new author, Sarah would be the first person to share the latest novel. Her sister would return the borrowed book. And never dog-ear the pages.

  There would be Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays, when they could take turns cooking the fabulous family meals, served on the heirloom Limoges china.

  They’d occasionally squabble. Sisters do. Nothing important.

  “Want a refill?” Holston’s deep voice came from behind her.

  Hattie’s hand jerked involuntarily, nearly upending the half-full cup. “Um . . . sure.”

  Holston stepped onto the porch and poured a warm-up. Fragrant steam mingled with the morning mists sifting through her favorite tree, the magnolia her father had planted the year Hattie graduated from high school.

  “You’re thinking awfully hard for first thing.” He leaned against one of the porch supports.

  Holston was a transplanted New Yorker, or Damn Yankee, as her late Aunt Piddie Longman had pegged him. After he vacated a high-pressure Wall Street job to write, his highfaluting, social-climbing wife left him for her orthodontist. When Holston arrived in Chattahoochee in the late nineties to cover the hate-crime assault on her heart-deep friend Jake Witherspoon, the town had drawn Holston in.

  Now, living on The Hill with a cherub-faced daughter, one mutt dog, and a fat cat, Hattie and Holston had settled into a union as comfortable as hole-pocked blue jeans. How in God’s green earth had she lucked into such a man? Drop-dead, honey-hush gorgeous with thick, b
lack hair tinged with gray at the temples. He had no idea the snake-charmer effect he had on people, especially women.

  Hattie flushed with warmth, looking at her husband. Standing there with that smile teasing his lips. Wasn’t pure luck and circumstance that had brought Holston into her life. No, that was due to Aunt Piddie, the ultimate matchmaker. Not that Holston needed any help.

  “I am perfectly able to ponder deeply in the morning, thank you very much.” Hattie slumped deeper into the rocking chair. “I can function before nine, you know.”

  “Right.” Holston’s lip lifted higher on one side, showing off a dimple. “By the way, Shammie acts like she doesn’t feel well. She barely touched the food you put down.”

  “Probably another hairball.” The aging Persian required more and more care in her kitty golden years. “I’ll give her some of that gross medicine before I shower.”

  “Appreciate that. I really need my hands intact.”

  “She licks that God-awful paste right off my fingers.”

  Holston opened the screened door. “Oh, she takes it from me too. No problem. But she gets a little jubilant and bites down when she’s done.”

  Chapter Four

  Elvina Houston stabbed a red-hot painted nail at the computer. “You ain’t gonna beat me, you hear.”

  It beeped. Sassed by a dang piece of technology.

  Another day, another dollar as the supreme ruler of the Triple C Day Spa and Salon, and head of Chattahoochee’s little-old-lady hotline. Heavy responsibilities.

  After her best friend Piddie Longman passed away, Elvina had taken the wheel and the Triple C evolved into the social nucleus of Chattahoochee and several surrounding communities. Nothing slipped past the scrutiny of the day spa compatriots and their faithful clientele.

  Mandy Andrews, head stylist, paused at the door to the reception room with a steaming mug of Earl Grey in hand. “Mornin’, Elvina. How’s Buster doing?”

  “That dang cat is fine. The doc sewed his ear back on. Reckon I’m going to have to stop letting the little fool roam. It’s not like he has any working male parts anymore. He only goes out womanizing as a consultant. There’s a black and white Tomcat somewhere behind me that exists only to beat the tarnation out of poor Buster.”

  Elvina frowned at the monitor. Lord knows how she’d survive the transition to this century.

  Give her a columned book, and she could color-code and move massage, manicure, and hair-stylist appointments around until the Second Coming of Christ. But learn the computer at her age? It would take a reservoir of green tea to ricochet her around the learning curve.

  Mandy peered over Elvina’s shoulder. “What do I have first thing?”

  Elvina tapped a couple of keys, grumbled when she didn’t reach the desired screen, tapped again. “Bertha Littleton is coming at nine for a color. Why you don’t convince the woman to go gray is a mystery to me. No matter how much energy you put into it, I swannee, her hair looks more like a Halloween fright wig every year.”

  “I do the best I can working with what she has left, ’Vina. Bertha’s happy. Suppose that’s what counts most.” Mandy took a loud swill of tea.

  “She tries to do it herself between visits to you. And I’m here to testify, the color she comes up with doesn’t occur in nature.”

  The click of the back entrance door sounded deep in the rear of the mansion. Elvina glanced up from the monitor. “Bound to be Evelyn. She’s coming in to get a head start on the jackets she’s making for the holidays.”

  Mandy checked the time on the ornate wall clock behind Elvina’s desk. “Unreal.”

  Elvina nodded at the supreme seamstress when she stepped into the room.

  “Mornin’, glory!” Evelyn said in singsong. Shopping bags hung from both arms.

  “Mornin’, yourself. I don’t recall ever seeing you vertical this time of the morning, Ev.” Mandy flicked a conspiratorial wink toward Elvina.

  “No time to sleep.” Evelyn blew out a breath. “The holidays will be upon us before we know it. And chenille is not the easiest fabric to tame. It’ll take me longer than that quilted satin I used last year. But . . . one must keep up with current fashion.”

  “What are you and Joe doing for Thanksgiving?” Mandy asked Evelyn.

  “The usual.” Evelyn shifted the bags. “Probably out to The Hill. Hattie has more space for the family. By the way Elvina, I do hope you’ll come this year. Mandy, you and Bull too, if you’d like. Heaven knows, there’ll be plenty of food to go around. We never know how many will show up. Hattie likes to take in folks who don’t have anywhere to go. She’s like Tillie was. Heart the size of Texas.”

  “Thanks for the invite, Evelyn,” Mandy said. “Bull and I are considering taking a Caribbean cruise this year.”

  Elvina sniffed. “Floating around on a party-barge the size of a football field is no way to spend a family holiday, but suit yourself. As for me, I wouldn’t pass up the meal on The Hill. It makes me not miss my dear friend Piddie so much.” Her eyes burned. Time had passed since her best friend had died at age ninety-eight, but Elvina’s grief knew no bounds.

  Every morning before beginning her day, she visited the small flower memorial garden behind the mansion, the final resting place of Piddie’s ashes. Or part of them, at least. The rest lay in Alabama, scattered across the plot of her departed husband. Leave it to Piddie Longman to have a vacation grave.

  “To each her own,” Mandy said. “I look forward to acres of food I don’t have to fix myself. It’ll be the first time in as long as I can remember that Bull and I went on a trip, other than to a dang fishing tournament or to a Bass Pro shop.”

  Evelyn turned to head back to her sewing workroom then spun around. The bags tethered on her arms banged against her body. “I almost forgot! The strangest thing happened to Joe.”

  Elvina leaned toward her. Second only to the Triple C, Joe’s main street eatery claimed the award for town gossip. Biscuits and fresh coffee provided a big draw for community relations.

  “Some lady came in for breakfast,” Evelyn said. “Joe said she was the spitting image of Tillie. Really unsettled him.”

  “Did he find out where she was from? She staying around town?” Elvina asked.

  “Joe didn’t say,” Evelyn said.

  Elvina frowned. “Too bad she didn’t stop by here. Joe, bless his heart, is not inquisitive enough for my liking.”

  Evelyn agreed. “He hates to meddle.”

  “You’d think after all those years spent coaching those mental patients up at the State Hospital, your husband would’ve gotten the hang of ferreting details. If you don’t pry the lid off a person, you’ll never see what’s inside.” Elvina snapped her head up and down for emphasis.

  Mandy pulled a face. “Lord help, ’Vina. You sound more like Piddie every day.”

  The compliment flowed over Elvina like warm honey. “That, I consider high praise.”

  *

  Mary-Esther waited in the cheerful Sewanee Springs parlor with its pillowy chairs and coordinating couches, widescreen plasma television, piano, and tasteful framed art. No matter how fancy the surroundings, facilities for the aged struck her as waiting rooms for the final boarding call. And they all had that smell.

  Mary-Esther harbored an affinity for the elderly. Most appeared to share the same emotions keeping her company: fear, confusion, abandonment.

  In the hall, two female residents pushed walkers. They paused long enough to give her the once-over then wheeled past.

  Years back, she had worked as an aide in a nursing home. Draining job. Though she tried to leave the feelings behind her when she pushed from the facility’s front door, the sum of their afflictions stuck to her along with the scent of stale urine. Still, she tried her best to listen to them, to make them feel someone, anyone, cared.

  That smell shoved her into the past and her mother’s final months. Mary-Esther struggled to push down the melancholy. She’d had her fill of hospital rooms, brisk nurses, and abru
pt physicians. Faced with their own inability to turn fate in a patient’s favor, most preferred distance to empathy.

  Yet, there had been times when she too had become frozen to her mother’s scuffling efforts to live. Toward the end, Loretta Boudreau Day boiled in the soup of her septic kidneys. Mary-Esther prayed for The End.

  Guilt waited to escort her through the funeral. Guilt remained her companion. It sat right here next to her now, breathing the stale Sewanee Springs air.

  A shuffling noise sounded from the hall. A squat toad of a woman pushed a silk flower-decorated walker into the parlor and squinted at her through smudged glasses. LaJune Eldridge, no doubt. The family resemblance to Sheila, the dispatcher, was clear. LaJune’s dyed hair glowed, the pink of county fair cotton candy. Why couldn’t old women settle for plain white?

  “You the one asking after me?” the woman inquired.

  Mary-Esther stood, walked across the room, and offered her hand, careful to grasp LaJune’s hand gently. Old joints and bones never appreciated a firm handshake. “Yes. I’m Mary-Esther Sloat. Thank you for seeing me.”

  LaJune motioned to the couch. “We’d best sit. My back hurts too bad to stand and pass the time. Too many years of lifting and tugging patients. I was a nurse, in my day.” The old woman toddled to one of the long couches, backed into position, and locked the hand brakes on the walker before slowly lowering herself.

  Mary-Esther chose a chair next to the old woman and sat.

  “You bring my tomatoes?” LaJune’s green eyes sought hers.

  The question stalled Mary-Esther for a moment. “No, uh . . . no tomatoes. Your niece at the sheriff’s office said you might be able to help me with something.”

  “Oh?”

  “I’m looking for some of my relatives, if they still live in these parts.”

  LaJune pulled a hand-crocheted wrap across her lap and legs. “Are you cold? I am. It’s like a deep freeze in here.”

  “No, I’m comfortable. Thank you.”