Sweet Vidalia Brand

by Maggie Shayne

  Setting the vase full of flowers aside, she turned in his arms, twisted hers around his neck, and standing up on tiptoe, kissed him in a way that whispered promises he knew better than to expect her to keep.

  Then lowering down again, leaving his heart pounding like the hind foot of an alarmed jack rabbit, she turned and walked away. “Dinner’s ready. I thought we’d eat in front of the fireplace.”

  “I thought I caught a whiff of wood smoke. That’ll be nice, Vidalia. Here, let me get that.” She was bending over the oven, removing two dinner plates, already loaded with food, and he waited until she straightened up to make his offer, because he was distracted by the view. He was polite, but he wasn’t crazy.

  He took the plates from her, pot holders and all, and she said, “Go on in. I’ll get drinks. Wine with dinner okay with you?”

  “And brandy with dessert,” he said.

  She got wine glasses down while he carried their meals into the living room, and then he stood there for a moment, taking it all in. He’d had houses. Big ones that could be called mansions, though he hated the term. Smaller ones too, vacation places he bought and sold as the whim took him. There had been a beach house on the Gulf and a summer place up in the mountains of Tennessee that he’d kept but hadn’t visited in ages. He’d had a great big stately plantation style house in Dallas. Judith got that in the divorce. After that he’d moved into a modern architectural wonder with uneven peaks and as much glass as wood.

  But this wasn’t a just house. This was a home. The living room was wide and warm. The furniture was arranged so it all sort of faced each other and the fireplace and the Christmas tree that stood in the corner to the right of it. The sofa was huge and soft, and it had a twin. Two double width recliners had been squeezed in there as well. He supposed with a family as big as hers, there needed to be plenty of places to sit. He went to one of the dual recliners, because the coffee table was in front of it, already set with a red and green checked cloth napkins with napkin rings that looked like holiday wreaths holding them, two sets of silverware already laid out, and tall glasses of ice water too.

  He set the plates down, waiting for her to sit before he did. Then he joined her, nodding in appreciation as he did. That tree of hers had so many homemade ornaments there was hardly room for the few store-bought ones she’d added. Popsicle stick and yarn God’s eyes in every color combination you could think of. Tiny pewter frames with newborns all pink and wrinkly held within. Styrofoam balls lovingly painted by tiny hands. Pine cones dipped in glue, then rolled in glitter, dangling from strings. Every Christmas project of five young women and three grandkids decked that tree, and he thought it was the prettiest thing he’d ever seen, next to Vidalia herself.

  “You like my ragtag mishmash of ornaments?” she asked.

  He nodded. “I love it.” And I love you, he thought, but he didn’t say it just then. He didn’t want to keep putting pressure on her to reply in kind, and he thought every time he said it, that was probably what he was doing, intentionally or not.

  The fireplace was brick, and three stockings hung from it, each with a different name spelled out in glitter. The grandkids. Tyler, Dahlia and CC.

  Behind them the fire snapped and cracked and filled the room with warmth and holiday cheer. And the entire mantle was lined with holiday decorations, trees and Santas, a sleigh and reindeer, photos of the kids on Santa’s knee.

  As he turned his attention to the plate of food in front of him, which included a T-bone steak that had apparently been sawed off a T-Rex, a baked potato already loaded with melting sour cream, a slice of warm homemade bread melting with butter, a mound of asparagus, and some glazed carrots, he wondered how he was going to eat it all.

  “Don’t even start,” Vidalia said. “You’ve lost weight just since you’ve been here.”

  “Have I?”

  “Yeah, and you need to put some back on if you want me to be seen in public with you. I’m not going to walk around next to a guy who makes me feel chubby.”

  “You are voluptuous. There’s a difference.”

  “And I intend to stay that way. So since I’m not gonna skinny down, you’re gonna have to chub up.” She winked at him, and he forced a smile he didn’t feel.

  He wasn’t going to gain any weight, and he probably wasn’t going to be able to do this fabulous meal of hers justice. The symptoms of the end didn’t come on until things were about to get very bad, very fast, or so his doctors had told him. And they had begun. He was nearly out of time, then. But he was sure as hell going to try to make it through the holiday.

  He sawed off a piece of steak, so tender he didn’t really even need the knife. Vidalia picked up a remote, thumbed a button, and soft romantic holiday music came on. She leaned against him a little, then sat up and dug into her own meal.

  He surprised himself with how much he managed to tuck away, but had to plead for mercy where dessert was concerned. She agreed to put it off until later, then excused herself to use the restroom.

  He took the opportunity to clear away their dishes, rinse them and load them into the dishwasher. When she came back, he took his turn freshening up. He’d even brought along a toothbrush, that was how hopeful he was that there would be some making out going on tonight. The kind that would make a teenager blush.

  If he could hold up. He was tired. Weaker than normal. It wasn’t a good sign.

  When he returned to the living room, he held out a hand instead of joining her on the couch. She took it, and he pulled her to her feet and then right up against him, and he started moving her around to the music. Merry Christmas, Baby wasn’t the easiest to dance to, but he thought they did a pretty good job. God, she felt so good against his chest. And her hair smelled good, too.

  She looked up at him, smiling. “I thought maybe I could give you your Christmas present tonight,” she whispered.

  “I’ve got no objections.”

  “It’s got two parts to it.” She snuggled her head onto his chest. He closed his eyes and hoped the next song would be just as slow and mellow. So far, they all had been. Maybe she’d planned it that way.

  “I didn’t see anything under the tree.”

  “Well, it’s not the kind of gift you can wrap,” she said, very softly. And maybe her voice trembled a little bit. “You’ll get one of those tomorrow.”

  “This is getting mighty interesting now,” he said. “Go on...?”

  “Well, the first part of it is this.” She lifted up her head, and looked right up into his eyes. “I love you, too.”

  Everything in his life lit up. She lit up. She glowed momentarily with backlighting that seemed to be a mixture of gold and red and white around the outside. He stared down at her, blinking in blatant disbelief.

  “I think I’ve always loved you. And I have no doubt that I always will.”

  He opened his mouth to tell her how much that meant to him. How long he’d been waiting, how much he’d been hoping, and how sorry he was that their time together would have to be so brief.

  But he found he couldn’t speak. Something odd was happening and he felt like he wasn’t in control of his body anymore. He thought the music had changed. It sounded like a choir of about a thousand voices, all singing different notes, but in perfect harmony, no words, just that tone. And the room around Vidalia had sort of vanished. There was only her, all lit up like the angel on top of the tree, looking up at him, and saying, “Bobby Joe? Honey, can you hear me?”

  “You love me,” he said. And smiled. That smile stayed in place, even when his eyes fell closed and his body fell off him, just as if he’d stepped out of it. As if it was a suit of clothes, just falling bonelessly to the floor, while he remained up above.

  But then Vidalia fell to the floor too, bending over that discarded suit and shaking it, and calling his name, and starting to cry.

  “I’m not there. I’m up here,” he tried to say, and he noticed the body on the floor. The way the mouth moved when he tried to speak, and tha
t was when it hit him that he had left his body.

  Was this it, then? Was he dead? No, not yet! Please, not yet! The ring, he had to give her the ring. He stared down at the body on the floor, willed the hand to move, strained every part of whatever he was now, and by gosh, it worked. That hand moved. It didn’t feel like he was moving it directly. More like he was the puppeteer, pulling the strings.

  Vidalia crawled away from him, but only a few feet, grabbing a phone, then hurrying back again. She dialed, spoke rapidly, and clicked off while he could still hear the operator telling her to stay on the line. Her second call was to one of her daughters. He didn’t know which one. He heard her say, “Call your sisters. Call his sons. Meet us at the hospital. It’s bad, I just know it.”

  She dropped the phone, bending over his body, close to his face. “Bobby Joe, dammit, I knew something was wrong. You should’ve told me. Come on, don’t give up. Hang on for me, will you?”

  He wanted to nod, but every asset was focused on moving the hand. He closed it around the box in his pocket. He couldn’t feel the box with his hand, he could just tell that there was something between the fingers and the palm, and he willed them to squeeze hold of it as he tried to tug the hand back out.

  Frowning, she looked down, apparently feeling the movement.

  She took his wrist, gently pulling his hand from his pocket. Yes, finally! He relaxed the hand open, letting go of all that effort and floating more easily and lightly above his body. The little box fell out of that pale, lifeless hand that did not feel like his own, rolling onto the carpet, and Vidalia gasped softly. “Oh, Bobby Joe, you didn’t....”

  He wanted to watch her open it, to see her expression when she did, but there was noise out front. Time sure had passed quickly, or someone had been close by.

  “Mama!”

  One of the girls. He didn’t know which one. There was something pulling him away, something so beautiful that he couldn’t focus much on what was going on below. The choir grew louder, and he turned his attention toward it and saw swirls of color that didn’t exist on earth. They were outside the spectrum.

  Wow. That was something. Are you seeing this, Vidalia? Are you seeing this?

  Chapter Nine

  * * *

  “Mama, what happened?”

  “Maya,” Caleb said, “keep the kids in the kitchen, hon. Let me try to help.” Caleb knelt beside Bobby Joe, opposite Vidalia, but she only barely noticed him there, and his voice faded to a sort of deep hum.

  Don’t take him from me, Lord. It’s too soon.

  The front door opened and banged shut again. And then again every few heartbeats or so, and more voices joined the insect-like drone that was filling her head as she stared down at him. So pale. And thinner than I even realized. Look at his collarbones.

  Noticing his collarbones made her notice that someone had opened his shirt, and she dragged her eyes off Bobby’s sweet face long enough to look to see who. Paramedics...efficient and confident, and asking her to move aside and let them work. Who knew how long they’d been asking? She’d only just noticed they were here. Numbly, she told herself to move out of the way, but her eyes locked on Bobby’s face again, and her hands tightened on the one they held, and for the life of her she just couldn’t back away.

  “Bobby, don’t go,” she whispered. “Bobby, don’t you go.” His eyes were closed, his lips as soft as they’d been when he’d been kissing her only a few minutes ago. She looked at his nose, at his jaw, at his eyebrows, memorizing him in her heart.

  “Mama, come on. Let them help him, Mama,” said two of her daughters at once. Their hands were on her shoulders.

  Nodding, she laid Bobby’s hand on his chest, and tried to get up onto her feet, but she stumbled, and one of her strong sons in law caught her. She got her balance as Alex helped her a few steps away, and then she looked up and all her girls were standing there, wide, wet eyes so full of love for her that it broke the log jam, and she just burst into tears.

  “Did someone call his sons?” she asked, knowing she’d asked before, but she couldn’t remember the answer. They were walking across the blacktop lot toward the glass doors of the hospital. Only a short distance away, the ambulance sat outside the emergency room doors, having beat them here, but not by much.

  “They’re already here,” Selene said. “That’s Jason’s truck, next to where we parked.”

  “Oh.” She nodded, wanting to go directly to the ER doors. Only her family all around her, herding her with them to the approved entrance, kept her from going. They got inside, and while some of them veered toward the nurses’ desk, she just kept walking, aiming in the direction of the ER. And Bobby.

  Her family came behind her, every last one of them. She didn’t know who’d been the last minute babysitter, but someone must have come through.

  Jason came out of nowhere and said, “Vidalia. Good. You’re here.”

  “I’m here. Where is he? What have they said?”

  “Nothing. Nothing, but as I was just about to tell my brothers...” he turned to look behind him, and Vidalia realized there was a waiting room behind there. He hadn’t come out of nowhere, he’d come out of there. Joey and Rob were standing within, pale and shocky looking. There were orange vinyl chairs mounted to the walls, and two rows down the middle, bolted to the floor. There were vending machines with junk food and junk drinks. The only healthy thing in the hospital waiting room was the bottled water, and she wasn’t so sure about that.

  She nodded hello to each of the boys, when what she wanted to do was hug them. But they weren’t close enough for that, were they?

  Her question was answered when Joey came and hugged her. “Vidalia, are you okay?”

  Behind him, Rob looked her over worriedly. “They said he was with you when he collapsed.”

  “And Jason was about to tell us something about that. He got as far as...‘Dad’s sick.’” This, Joey said with a look over her head toward his oldest brother, who had come back into the waiting room on the tide of her family.

  Vidalia turned too, sinking into a chair because her knees were too watery to hold her up any longer. “I knew it. I knew something was wrong with him. What is it Jason?”

  Jason stayed standing, though everyone else sat. “It’s a blood condition. He’s known for three months now.”

  Joey and Rob looked at each other and then at Jason again.

  Vidalia said, “He’s known what, exactly, for three months now, Jason?”

  Jason lowered his head and swallowed hard. “That’s he’s dying.”

  “God no,” she whispered.

  “How long have you known?” Joey asked softly.

  “Since I got here.”

  “And you didn’t tell us?” Robb demanded. “How could you not–”

  “He wanted to give you a Christmas to remember,” Vidalia interrupted. She met Jason’s eyes. “That’s it, isn’t it? He was going to tell us all right after the holiday. But he didn’t want that news to ruin it. He wanted us all to have one wonderful, perfect family Christmas with him.”

  “Almost word for word what he said to me,” Jason said, wiping a tear away from the corner of his eye before it could spill over.

  “So this is...this is it? His time is up?” Vidalia asked.

  “This fits what the doctors told him.”

  Vidalia lowered her head, her girls were all around her, hugging her, touching her, holding her, patting her.

  The ER doors opened and a grim faced doctor she didn’t know–she’d have so preferred someone she knew–came to stand among them. “He’s stable for now. We’ve got him settled in a room, and he’s comfortable.”

  “I just can’t believe there’s no cure for him, Doctor,” Vidalia said. “He’s got more money than God. Surely somewhere in the world there’s a cure for this–”

  “There is a cure, ma’am. He needs a bone marrow transplant, but he’s got a rare blood type and none of his sons are matches. He’s on the waiting list, but I’m af
raid he’s run out of time.”

  That buzzing sound came into her head again, and she heard nothing else. Nothing at all as she stood there with her gaze turned inward. And when she focused outward again they were all staring at her, and Selene stood closest of all. Searching her mother’s eyes, she said, “I have a rare blood type too, or so they tell me every time I give a pint. You should test me. Shouldn’t they, Mom?”

  Vidalia met Selene’s eyes.

  “I can do math, you know,” Selene said. “And I look a little like Joey.”

  Vidalia could feel the realization of what Selene was talking about blinking into each person’s head in that waiting room. Her girls were looking at her in shock, and Bobby’s sons were staring at her in dawning realization, as well.

  “Yes,” Vidalia said, nodding slowly. “Yes, Bobby and I had...one night together all those years ago, and yes, there’s a very good chance that was the night Selene was conceived. I was married, I was lonely, I was drunk, and.... No. No, you know what? I was in love. That’s what I was. I was in love with the man I was meant to be with. And I couldn’t be with him, and that was the tragedy. Not the affair. Not the pregnancy. Not even the lie I’ve told all this time. The tragedy is that we were meant to be together and we couldn’t be, and now we can be and he’s...he’s–”

  “He’s found a donor,” Selene said softly. “I know it. I can feel it.” Turning, she kissed her husband hard. “I love you, Cory. And I’ve gotta do this.”

  “I know you do. I’ll call your friends, get them to fire up their cauldrons. I know the deal.”

  She smiled, and turned to the doctor. “Take me to the bone marrow drilling rig, Doc. It doesn’t sound like we have time to waste.”

  The doctor looked befuddled, but seemed to be getting it. Before he could lead her away, Joey shot forward and hugged Selene hard. “I have a sister,” he said, sort of into her hair, but everyone heard it.