Wild Raspberries

by Connie Chappell

  An idea sprouted, and he clapped his hands. “This calls for a celebration. I propose homemade pizza, store-bought ice cream, and one of my favorite movies.”

  “Nice try, Lucius,” Beebe said, “but I don’t think so. You’re not smoothing this atrocity over that easily. And these three are certainly not entitled to any reward until I get through with them. My God, you can’t spend five minutes in public together without police intervention. Grown women. I can’t get over it.” Beebe rolled her eyes. “Maybe I can get you to pull on each other’s hair, and with the rain coming, throw yourselves down and roll around in the mud. How about that for a show?”

  Lucius looked from face to face. Not one of them looked contrite now. Somewhat apprehensive about Beebe’s mud-wrestling suggestion, but not contrite.

  “I’m done here,” Beebe announced. She threw up her hands, took two paces, then performed an about-face. “No, I’m not.”

  The rain picked up.

  “Lucius,” she drilled, and he jumped. “Is the depot open?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Lucius said, waving the group that way.

  Beebe stalled them for a moment to continue her scolding. “If I was fortunate enough to have three arms, I’d grab each of you by the scruff of the neck and tow you inside. But let’s walk, shall we, like ladies instead.”

  “What did I do?” Callie’s brave complaint sparked Lizbeth and Arnett with the will to form words.

  “Don’t get it started again, out here,” Beebe commanded, silencing them all.

  Lucius held the door. He was torn. He had not been excluded, and he was, more or less, the depot’s host, but his wheelbarrow and tools sat out in the wet. After the last lady filed in, he tucked his chin to his chest and ran through the huge raindrops that exploded on asphalt and concrete, praying he wouldn’t miss too much of the show, to repeat Beebe’s term.

  . . .

  Inside the 1892 train station, cluttered with Lucius’s restoration paraphernalia, Beebe led the thoughtless and somewhat damp threesome to the first patch of cleared floor space. The depot offered none of Heatherwood’s amenities: no comfy couches and no lights to ward off the thickening gloom. So be it, Beebe thought, and turned on Callie.

  “What did you do? Plenty. Here’s how I see it: You can’t have it both ways.”

  “What do you mean?” Callie asked, throwing her shoulders back.

  “I mean, Eleanor baited you, and you snagged it, like a largemouth bass,” Beebe said, referring to Callie’s “Arnett gave Jack to me” line. “It makes me wonder which sentiment is more important to you. To the three of us—the first time we heard it—Arnett’s actions were sacred enough to be a prized and willingly kept secret, treated with reverence. Out there,” Beebe said, jutting her chin toward the parking lot, “it was a snottily delivered condemnation against her.”

  Glaring, Callie clamped her mouth shut.

  Out the corner of her eye, Beebe watched Arnett stand tall. Beebe didn’t comment. Not yet. She’d get to Arnett.

  “So here’s the point, people. Listen up. Everything has two sides. Everything can be spun more than one way. Bottom line: we need to act with basic human kindness and a modicum of desire to make the right choices.”

  Beebe stepped up to Lizbeth. “I didn’t see you slap Arnett, but I’m sure if I had, I would have wanted to put you in that Tahoe, point you toward Florida, and say go. Just go.”

  “No,” Arnett cried.

  Beebe knew she feared the passage south included the loss of her grandson. “And you’re an angel?” Beebe snapped at Arnett. “Slipping around behind Lizbeth’s back. Be friends with the O’Malleys, fine, but don’t recruit them for your team. At home, you recruit your son and sister-in-law. You and Lizbeth must face each other, talk, and resolve this situation in your two hearts. No backsliding. Move your relationship forward for Chad and yourselves. Why would you want this never-ending turmoil?”

  Beebe put Lizbeth in her sights. “Don’t ever resort to physical attack. That was exactly how this whole thing got started. Arnett wanted to slap the living daylights out of Callie in her front yard. What were you thinking? Or more aptly, do you see how grief’s anger, left unchecked, can distort things to the point of violence?”

  Beebe closed her eyes and rubbed her temples, suddenly exhausted. When she spoke again, she moderated her tone. “I think, now, we can understand. We can draw the line right here and walk away, instead of continuing this circuitous route.” Beebe slipped hair behind an ear. “I had a friend in high school. Tonya Fuller. Tonya had a sister. They would fight, as sisters do. Tonya’s mother would make them put one arm around the other and hold hands until they kissed and made up. It was intended to be punishment, to dissuade unacceptable behavior, but it was also an important reminder of how sisters, how family, how people should act, how forgiveness is portrayed. Eventually, the sisters did it, but Tonya said it was a sham. They just complied to get away from the close quarters. We pledged honesty here, sisters.” She pointed her finger at each of them in turn. “Honesty, Arnett, says you don’t go next door for the purpose of spying on Chad’s whereabouts. You approach Lizbeth for a simple explanation, and you approach her privately.”

  Arnett folded arms under ample breasts, but withheld comment.

  “So,” Beebe said, “we’ve made no progress in, oh, I don’t know how many days now.”

  “Six, if you count today.” The voice belonged to Lucius.

  Beebe whirled. She forgot about him. When did he slip inside? He held a broom. A small mound of sawdust lay at his feet.

  “She wants to take me to court,” Lizbeth said accusingly.

  “Grandparents have rights,” Arnett declared.

  “Oh, Arnett, no.” Beebe raised her hands and let them fall, slapping her thighs. “Now you want to recruit the court system. How big of an army will it take to keep one woman and a small child in Cassel?”

  “It was John who ruined everything,” Arnett said, reprising her standard excuse.

  Beebe’s glower cut off Lizbeth’s and Callie’s intended remarks.

  “Is that what you want to do, sit down and etch onto Chad’s heart the idea that his grandfather was a villain? Maybe you could use one of those fancy cells phones with a camera,” Beebe said, demonstrating, pretending to hold such a device at arm’s length. “With Chad on your lap, you could record the scene for all time. Chad will definitely want to preserve that for posting on his Facebook page. The world should know.”

  Quiet rang through the depot.

  Beebe’s head hurt. Her chest was tight. She wanted to bring this caucus to an end. “So, my dear sweet Sebrings, where are we? A hug and a kiss?” She looked from one to the other. “Just a hug, then?”

  Suddenly, Lucius was beside her. “Aw, come on, a little sugar? One of you?”

  “Ride back in the same car together?” Beebe looked at Lizbeth.

  “Up to her,” Lizbeth said, passing the decision.

  No concession came from the other Sebring.

  “Everybody will feel better after pizza and ice cream,” Lucius said, pushing his earlier plan.

  “It’s too good for them.”

  “Ple-e-e-ease, Beebe,” Lucius begged, gripping the broom handle tightly in both fists.

  “Fine, then.”

  “And a movie?”

  “Why not?”

  “Excellent. I’ll meet you at Heatherwood in…” he squinted at his watch, “ninety-two minutes. Now, scoot. Lucius has to shop.”

  On the way out, Callie tapped Beebe on the arm. She turned and received Callie’s car keys. Callie said she wanted to spend time with Lucius. Arnett heard and planted herse
lf in the Santa Fe’s passenger seat, leaving Lizbeth to drive back to Heatherwood alone.

  . . .

  Callie ran for Lucius’s truck while he locked the depot’s doors. Raindrops thudded loudly on the Ford’s metal roof.

  When Lucius was behind the wheel, he said, “That was grueling, but nice of you to make things easier on Arnett.” His eyes shone their unusual shade of green against the stormy backdrop.

  “How do you mean? I want some one-on-one time with you.”

  “You gave Arnett an out,” he said, fitting the ignition key into the slot. “She wouldn’t ride with Lizbeth, and she wasn’t forced to ride with you.”

  “Beebe is better?”

  “Better than walking.” With the truck’s engine purring softly, he flipped the windshield wipers into operation. “Still mad at Arnett?”

  “A bit, yes, but Beebe took a lot of the sting out.”

  “She made a lot of sense.”

  “You knew she would.” Then pointedly, she added, “And you knew she was moving to Michigan.”

  He froze, elbow out, hand gripping the gear shift.

  “You knew. Now don’t deny it.”

  “Well,” he whined.

  “I saw you two yesterday. Your heads together. You passed her some papers.”

  “She begged me to be her confidant—”

  Callie turned his way, her bent left leg pulled onto the worn fabric seat. “And something’s up with you and Willie.”

  “No.” His answer was almost shrill.

  “Yes,” she mimicked his tone. “You moved the dinner from Friday to Saturday. Why? I want details, Lucius Dameron. Don’t make me call Willie.”

  “You wouldn’t.”

  “I would.”

  “He won’t tell you.”

  “He’d tell me in a heartbeat.”

  “Isabelle.”

  “Isabelle won’t stop my call.”

  “No.” He took a breath. “Isabelle’s the problem.”

  Callie sat back, satisfied. Beebe had one approach. Callie, most definitely, another.

  Between the depot and Godfrey’s for groceries, Lucius divested himself of detail after detail. Callie listened and felt herself stepping into Jack’s shoes, becoming the masterful peacekeeper he had been. Callie thought she had a solution to the Isabelle situation. She laid it out for Lucius, then stayed in the truck and, with Lucius’s encouragement, placed a call to Willie’s office. Isabelle answered. While she had Isabelle on the line and before she was put through to Willie, she asked her to locate an out-of-state phone number involving a second situation on Callie’s mind.

  She and Willie talked through Lucius’s return with his purchases, then the three of them conversed, via speakerphone, until the mountains blocked the signal. At that point, an eager Willie was making plans and grateful to Callie. Lizbeth Sebring, Callie passed along, possessed a degree in finance. She might measure up as Isabelle’s replacement. Maryland State Senator Amos Emerson could provide a trusted reference on her work ethic.

  At the Bullwhip cabin, so Lucius could pick up a movie on DVD, Callie used Lucius’s landline and placed another call to the Michigan phone number Isabelle provided. When Vincent Bostick identified himself, she said, “You don’t know me, but I’m Beebe’s friend.”

  . . .

  Arnett glanced out Heatherwood’s kitchen door. A steady rain fell. She and Lucius shared one couch; Callie and Lizbeth, the other. Beebe sat, her legs crossed, in her standard chair at the end of the coffee table. She faced the TV. Everyone watched Lucius’s movie selection: the 2008 musical, Mamma Mia, starring Pierce Bronson and Meryl Streep.

  The coffee table was laden with plates, napkins, soda glasses, and the remains of two pizzas. Arnett slipped unobtrusively between the opening alongside Beebe’s chair with her empty plate and glass. Her course to the kitchen took her past the quilt and the photographs of three Sebring males. In addition to everything else, the quilt still demanded their focus.

  Steeling her fortitude, Arnett snapped her eyes forward and went to rinse her dishes in the sink. She dried her hands, intending to return to the group, but a handful of nearly forgotten memories peeked around the corner of her mind. She wandered back to the quilt.

  If the quilt maker’s identity remained anonymous, she would admit to being impressed with the workmanship patching Dan’s clothing into a keepsake. Callie clipped the numeral fourteen from the front of his high school baseball jersey. How many times that dusty and stained uniform came through the wash. Arnett slid Chad’s picture over a bit and off the square with the red Kool-Aid stain. A wriggling Chad, six months old and cradled in Dan’s arm, kicked the glass he held. Dan’s favorite weekend-around-the-house shirt would not release the stain. Neither would Dan release the shirt. He wore it anyway. The story must have been related from Lizbeth to Beebe to Callie in order for Callie to understand that the stain spoke to Dan’s laid-back, unpretentious nature.

  Several squares were cut from his paint-splattered Levis. She smiled as she counted another eight very colorful squares. Why Dan adored Hawaiian shirts, she didn’t know, but his collection was honored nonetheless. The three patches Arnett treasured most, Callie cut to fit diagonally into the six-inch-square design. Each patch consisted of one word. Together, they read, World’s Best Dad. Arnett owned a clear memory of taking Geoff, aged nine, shopping. They bought the black-on-gray imprinted sweatshirt for a Father’s Day gift.

  Arnett looked over to the women whose combined efforts produced the quilt. Emotionally, she was steering a path between melancholy and redemption, but she rerouted that. Her gaze zeroed in on the back of Beebe’s head. It would take more than Beebe’s contempt for Arnett’s first line of defense to alter her strategy. The court system and the power of its judgments were both indulgences and obsessions. It seemed foreign to abandon those emotional highs now.

  The movie played on. A balcony-bound Meryl Streep with a two-woman backup group sang down to a courtyard filled with young people.

  Since she was up, Arnett went ahead and scooped ice cream into bowls, wondering about Lucius’s thought process. He selected Rocky Road.

  . . .

  The rain’s droning banter had not lulled Arnett to sleep, so she threw off the sheet and chenille spread, dropped her legs over the side of the bed, and pushed her feet into slippers. Standing in her bedroom doorway, she looked down the row of doors and saw that Callie’s, at the far end, stood ajar. She took a few steps into the great room. As she suspected, Callie’s form came into shadowy focus on the far couch. She appeared asleep. Arnett moved quietly to the kitchen door. Multiple flashes of lightning from the worsening storm lit the quilt and gave a ghastly glow to the three framed images. With care, she pried the door loose of its frame.

  The air outside cooled significantly. Her summer-weight, knee-length nightgown was not much protection against the damp and dripping world. With the porch roof and towering picket fence of pine trees around the property, she had no window to the sky. Thunder rumbled closer, and when lightning ignited the heavens, it illuminated a fully saturated yard.

  Arnett skirted the round table to sit in the adjacent chair. She folded her arms for added warmth and pulled her feet under the chair to avoid the backsplash of rain falling off the roof.

  It was not often that sleep evaded her. Her father, the proud Judge Cyrus Oldstone, claimed that fortune as well. How appropriate that she would think about her father, dead now for years, during a lashing and howling storm. He had not mellowed with age, quite the opposite. The enraged storm was, in all likelihood, his reincarnated spirit come to order her out of bed to appear before him as he’d done once before. On that occasion, he shouted down he
r best arguments. Mentally, she was arranging her evidence for the current West Virginia case when an earth-rattling crack of thunder vibrated the porch. Inside, on a two-second delay, a long chilling scream sliced through the night and left her frozen to the chair.

  Seconds passed before Arnett recovered her wits. She jumped to her feet just as Lizbeth slammed through the screen door. Launching herself off the porch and into the yard, she screamed her dead husband’s name repeatedly. A pajama-clad Callie fled the cabin behind her, pleading for Lizbeth to stop. Callie chased her in jagged rents through the muddy yard. Drenched and stumbling, the two drifted closer and closer to the river.

  Arnett waited at the break in the railing. The door banged again, and Beebe was at her side, peering into the darkness. She asked no questions. The mad scene in the yard summed it up completely.

  Directly overhead, lightning and thunder strobed and crashed in a frenzied dance. Then a bolt struck a solid object so near and with such force, Arnett and Beebe cringed away, hands clapped to their ears. When Arnett opened her eyes, Callie’s face was turned up, mesmerized. Arnett ducked her head out from under the overhang to see what captivated her. Rain pelted her face, but there was no mistaking the looming danger. “Oh my god,” she breathed, “the tree.”

  Responding to the warning tone, Beebe’s head and shoulders leaned past the canopy. She saw it, too. Halfway up in the evergreen, a fire flared. Its momentary life was smothered by the downpour, but the sacrifice was noted. It drew and held the eye. Staged to perfection, the tempest silenced itself to permit the sound of ripping lumber to thrill the audience. A ragged crack appeared. Quite gracefully, the top of the tree, in freefall flight, glided toward the ground.

  Arnett grabbed the porch post and watched in horror.

  Callie snapped into motion, desperate to outrun the falling treetop. She lunged forward to grab Lizbeth’s arm, but hand and arm were slippery. The connection wasn’t made, but she succeeded in pushing Lizbeth. Lizbeth staggered several yards, lost her footing, and fell. Callie tried to regain her balance and keep her momentum. The entire scene seemed to both drag in slow motion and play out rapidly to its conclusion. The Big Pine, the cabin’s former namesake, tumbled down on Callie. She was swallowed up by the stormy night as the branches flapped serenely to rest against the wet earth.