by Gayle Roper
“The bathroom!” And Billy’s slight pajamaed figure disappeared down the hall.
“This had better be good, William Clayton Spenser,” she growled as she followed, arms wrapped about her middle to combat the morning chill.
She’d never been convinced that good was the proper word for what she found, but it had taken all the venom out of her. And it certainly wasn’t bad, especially considering the joy Billy received.
Lying on the floor in the linen closet, all cuddled in a pair of worn-out towels Leigh couldn’t bring herself to discard, was their new marmalade cat with six tiny kittens, eyes tightly shut, nuzzling her.
“Aren’t they wonderful?” Billy cried. “Aren’t they the cutest things you ever saw?”
“I knew taking her in was a mistake,” Leigh muttered even as she knelt smiling in the doorway. “Just because it was below freezing, and she was crying on our doorstep, and you begged—”
“Can we keep the kittens, Mom? Huh? Can we?” Billy danced around the bathroom unable to keep still, waves of delight and excitement shimmering off him.
And have seven cats? Leigh shuddered at the thought of all that cat food and litter and multiple litter boxes. Seven boxes? Did cats share? “We cannot.”
Billy put on his patented pleading face. “They’re so little. They won’t take up much room.”
“They’ll grow, and the answer is still no. Absolutely no. Unequivocally no.”
As Billy fondled the marmalade’s ears, he said, “She’s a mama now, and once a mama, always a mama. At least that’s what you say.” He turned and grinned impudently at Leigh. “So Mama’s what we’ll call her.”
So Mama she had become, and Leigh stood in the early April sunshine talking to her for want of another living, breathing body in the vicinity. She pointed to the envelope buried in her carryall. “Will there ever be an end to the misery he causes me?” Her voice was weary as she remembered the media frenzy his murder had generated. Reporters at the door, at school, even interviewing students! And there were the phone calls from prison officials, the buzz of curiosity in her classroom and the teachers’ room, the stares wherever she went. “He’s dead and buried. It should be over. I want it over.”
Mama rolled off Leigh’s shoes onto her back, revealing her belly with the recent spaying scar still visible through her newly regrown fur. Leigh automatically bent and rubbed. Mama purred in delight. All her kittens were now gone, and, fickle animal, she apparently felt no maternal loss whatsoever.
Change maternal to paternal, and you have Billy’s father.
No, she caught herself, trying to be scrupulously honest, always a challenge when thinking about him. As far as she knew, he didn’t even know about Billy. You can’t abandon what you don’t know exists. She straightened and rubbed the headache beginning behind her left eye.
The back door of the main house opened, and the home health nurse walked out. Leigh waved at her, and the woman smiled back as she walked to her car parked in the drive turnaround. As the nurse drove away, Leigh looked up at the rear bedroom window of the main house, Ted’s window. Sweet Teddy. It wouldn’t be long now.
As always the thought of Ted’s impending death wrapped Leigh in a cloak of sorrow. She couldn’t imagine life without Teddy, her one true friend through the years. He would be twenty-nine next week, and twenty-nine was too young to die! She prayed constantly that God would give her the strength to stand the pain of being without the man she loved like a brother.
When had he first adopted her? She thought for a minute and decided it was the beginning of her sophomore year in high school. She had been standing by her locker, shoulders slumped as she struggled with the combination. She was wearing a secondhand top and slacks that she had thought were wonderful when she bought them at Goodwill. As soon as she walked into homeroom, she knew differently.
How did the popular girls know what was cool? How did they know what shoes to buy, what slacks to wear, what hairstyle to get? It was one of the great mysteries of life. She watched TV like everyone else, but she still got it wrong. She got everything wrong! She couldn’t even open her locker, for Pete’s sake!
“Having trouble?” a kind male voice asked.
She spun around to see Ted Wharton looking at her. Ted Wharton! He and his identical twin, Clay, were two of the most popular boys in her class, in the whole school, and they were both handsome, handsome!
“Uh, my lock,” she managed, flushing crimson.
“They can be a challenge at first, can’t they?” He leveled his engaging grin on her. “Let me help.”
Of course he’d opened the locker in a flash, but then he walked with her to the cafeteria, just like she was one of the real girls, not plain old Leigh Spenser. Once there he sat with Clay and their friends, but just having him walk with her made sitting alone not quite so painful. He didn’t seem to care in the least that she was Johnny Spenser’s drip of a daughter.
The miracle was that he’d sought her out after that, talking with her at her locker, laughing at her weak jokes, walking her to lunch most days. At first she had thought he might like her in a boy/girl way, but she understood quickly that he liked her in a better way: as a friend. She couldn’t understand why, but she knew it was true. She in return loved him unconditionally. He brought light into her somber, often dark world and acceptance where she usually knew rejection.
She wasn’t certain when she first realized that Ted was leading a double life—Dr. and Mrs. Will Wharton’s wonderful churchgoing son on one hand and Teddy Wharton, denizen of the wild gay life, on the other. The deceit that came to characterize his life bothered her a lot, more than any moral questions.
“You’re trying to be two things at once, Ted. You can’t keep it up. Either you’re the straight, good guy most people think you are or the gay one.”
He’d just smile and ask, “Which one should I be, Leigh?”
“The honest one. No matter how open-minded I try to be, I don’t like you being gay, but I can live with it if you’re honest.”
“I can’t be honest. Too many people will get hurt.”
“But, Teddy,” she warned him time and again, “you’re asking for trouble hanging out with those loose people.”
He always waved her worries away. “I’m being careful, sweetheart. Believe me. I’ll be okay.”
But she had continued to worry and with reason. He hadn’t been careful enough. She cried when he told her he was HIV positive. He just held her and told her he was going to beat it. He’d be okay. She should save her tears for someone who needed them.
Because she loved him, she wanted to believe he’d never get really ill. At least by now she had met Jesus, and Teddy wasn’t the main rock in her life anymore, but the pain and fear she felt for him were incredibly intense.
Then came the full-blown AIDS. And now the unexpectedly rapid deterioration. The weekend he came home “to live as stressfree a life as possible,” she knew it meant he’d come home to die, however long that took. She wasn’t able to stop crying. She actually made herself sick, scaring poor Billy half to death as she knelt in front of the toilet and heaved and heaved.
Now there was just overwhelming sadness whenever she thought of him.
She reached for the door to her apartment. It had been a long, long day at school. Usually her fourth grade students were fine, but a week of spring vacation began with the close of school today, and they were more than ready. So was she. All she wanted was to climb the stairs and flop in her favorite chair, a good book in one hand, a sweetened iced tea in the other.
“Oh, Leigh!”
Her hand on the doorknob, Leigh turned back to the main house. The main house. It always sounded like some great manor house in an English novel with lots of outbuildings dotting the vast estate, but there was no vast estate here, no mansion, just a large cream Victorian with dark green, crimson, and white gingerbread trim. The garage with Leigh’s apartment over it sat at the back of the property and was painted the same colo
rs as the house. Leigh and Billy had lived here for four years now, a wonder she still had trouble comprehending. There was no location in Seaside as wonderful as this property, reaching directly to the dunes, the beach, and the Atlantic Ocean.
Nor was there anyone as wonderful as Julia Wharton, resident angel. Leigh smiled at Julia as she came out the back door of the house. She didn’t look like an angel, just an attractive widow in her late fifties with carefully colored blond hair and unbelievably thick brown lashes rimming her clear blue eyes, but Leigh knew from experience that she was one. She was also a crackerjack realtor, Ted’s mother, Leigh’s landlady, and a very good friend.
“Will you and Billy come for dinner?” Julia asked as the women met in the middle of the small backyard. Property in a shore resort like Seaside was so valuable that no one wasted much land on lawns, especially since the salt air and the summer heat made keeping a decent one nearly impossible. Julia brushed a curl behind her ear with a hand covered with flour. “I’m making a lemon meringue pie.”
The mention of the lemon meringue struck a chill through Leigh, and her hand went to her heart. “Are you baking as therapy? Is Teddy worse? Did the nurse give you bad news before she left?”
In the weeks after it became obvious that Ted was dying and Julia had taken an indefinite leave from her job to be available in whatever capacity she was needed, she had baked so many pies and cakes and cookies that the rescue mission in Atlantic City took to sending a van over every day to pick up the bounty.
Julia blinked in surprise. “Ted’s fine. I just felt like baking.”
Leigh smiled in relief. “From scratch as usual?”
“Of course.” Julia’s eyes flashed. “I would never cheat with one of those store-bought crusts.”
“If I baked like you, I wouldn’t either,” said Leigh who regularly bought her crusts premade. “We’d love to come.”
Even if there weren’t years of rescue and reclamation to Julia’s credit, that invitation alone proved her angel status, coming as it did at the end of a long month, a long week, and a longer day. The mere thought of coming up with a nutritious dinner for Billy and herself had been draining Leigh’s few remaining energy reserves.
“I’m indulging in celebratory baking,” Julia said in a happy rush. She grinned, absolutely delighted with her good news. “Clay’s coming home.”
Leigh shivered as a dark chill raced through her. She felt turned to marble just like in the game she had played as a kid when you were flung away and had to freeze in whatever position you found yourself until whoever was it came to wind you up.
Only this was real.
“—this weekend.”
Leigh shook her head and managed to hear the last part of Julia’s continued comments. “He’s coming for the weekend? That’s nice.” And we can go away for the weekend, Billy and I. He will just have to miss his Little League game Saturday, and the choir will never notice my absence Sunday morning.
“No, no.” Julia patted Leigh’s hand again. “He arrives this weekend, probably tomorrow, and he’s staying until after Ted—” Julia’s voice broke, and tears shimmered in her eyes.
Until after Ted dies. Words no mother wanted to speak.
Selfish, selfish! Leigh berated herself as she watched Julia blink back the tears. Worrying about your feelings, your embarrassment in a situation like this. Are you so petty you’d deny Julia the consolation Clay could bring? After all she’s done for you?
“I’m glad for you, Julia. Having Clay here will be a wonderful comfort.”
Something in Leigh’s voice made Julia look at her quickly, apparently misunderstanding the restraint. “Not that you aren’t a comfort,” she hastened to say, reaching out and hugging Leigh. “I don’t know what I would have done without you over the past three years since Will’s death. And Billy. It’s just that Clay’s—”
“Clay’s your son,” Leigh finished, forcing her voice to be warm and excited. “And Ted’s twin. You need him. And he should be here.” Though why she hadn’t realized that before, she’d never know. Something so blatantly obvious shouldn’t have been a surprise. But it was, probably because he came back to Seaside so rarely and stayed so short a time. His last visit of any length had been at his father’s funeral, and she had managed to keep out of sight by burying herself in the kitchen or staying in her apartment. When he came for just a weekend, she and Billy always conveniently managed to be away.
Julia rubbed her floury hand across her forehead. “Sometimes I hate what’s coming so much I can hardly stand it. And I hate facing it alone.”
This time Leigh wrapped her arms about Julia. When Will Wharton had died suddenly three years ago, she had been almost as lost as Julia. “I know.” Leigh kissed Julia’s cheek. “He was such a great guy. We all miss him.”
Julia pulled back and took a deep breath. She straightened her shoulders and raised her chin. “I can do all things through Him who strengthens me,” she quoted. “I can.”
Leigh watched Julia walk back to the house and marveled at the woman’s strength. She turned back to the garage and slowly climbed the steps to her apartment, emotions roiling.
Dear Lord, on one hand I know Julia’s right. I can do all things through Your strength. But I don’t know about Clay, Lord. I just don’t know.
Two
CLAY WHARTON TURNED off the Garden State Parkway and onto the Ninth Street Causeway, driving across the salt marshes and bay to Seaside. He inhaled deeply, the smell of salt water, marsh, rotting vegetation, and fresh briny air filling his lungs. He realized with surprise that he had missed this distinctive aroma, the smell that meant the shore. There was simply no other smell like it.
He scanned the bayside of the barrier island he had called home for the first eighteen years of his life. Though it was located only a few miles south of Atlantic City and was as tourist intense as any shore community could be, he was pleased to see that skyscraper condos still hadn’t taken over. Motels of two and three stories, private homes with docks housing boats of all sizes, marinas, and undeveloped marshes lined the bay.
He had been in grade school when the town had voted to outlaw any construction over three stories.
“High rises would block the view of almost everyone and make Seaside another Atlantic City without the casinos,” his father had explained carefully. Dr. Will Wharton was a councilman at the time, and the outcome of the vote was very important to him. He saw it as life or death to Seaside as a family-oriented resort. “Our goal is to keep the people-friendly atmosphere and to allow the sea breezes to reach everyone.” Will had looked earnestly at Clay and his twin, Teddy. “Believe me, boys, sometimes ‘progress’ is not beneficial.”
The young Clay hadn’t grasped the significance of the vote. He’d been too easily impressed with the glitz and sophistication of any new idea, and rebuilding Seaside to resemble other ocean communities had seemed reasonable to him. Bigger was obviously better. Only old guys like his father missed that evident fact. Clay had thought his hometown a “quaint” community that needed a touch of modernity.
Now as he looked at the low rooflines of the houses, motels, and restaurants that lined the bay, he was thankful for men and women like his father and the building codes they’d had the foresight to put in place. Seaside was still Seaside, tourism still its primary business, but it was a comfortable, livable town.
He glanced at the passenger seat where his long-haired Jack Russell terrier sat, trying to keep his balance as he strained to see out the windows.
“Terror, you’d see better if you stood with your front paws on the edge of the window. You know. Like I showed you before we left home.”
Terror looked at him, smiling happily, his tongue lolling. He didn’t seem to mind that he saw mostly roofs and sky. As long as he was along for the ride, he seemed to say, it was enough.
Clay reached over and stroked the dog’s head. “At least you aren’t trying to sit at my feet any longer.”
Clay had spent
the first half hour of the trip grabbing Terror as the dog, unused to riding in a car, tried to get comfortable on the floor between the accelerator and the brake, as close as he could get to Clay, what with the bucket seats and gear console.
Terror, now convinced that the seat was preferable to the floor, licked Clay’s hand, devotion shining in his brown eyes.
“Do you know why Emilie bought you?” Clay asked conversationally. “Given the fact that you’re not going to be any threat to Lassie or Rin Tin Tin intellectually, I’ve begun to suspect that she saw the handwriting on the wall and got you for me for Christmas as a revenge gift that would keep on giving for years.” Clay grinned as he scratched the dog’s ears. “The laugh’s on her, though. Did you know that? I happen to like you.”
In response, Terror sneezed and lost his balance.
Poor Emilie, Clay thought as he grinned at Terror. She’d never stood a chance with him, but she hadn’t seemed to get the idea. Apparently she believed in the if-he-sees-me-enough-he’ll-like-me school of relationship development. Accordingly she managed to be everywhere he was for over two years. It had been, to put it mildly, wearing.
Since he was very active with the high school program at church, so was she. When he decided that singing in the choir might be fun, she joined too. When he played on the church baseball and basketball teams, she came to every game and cheered him on. It wouldn’t have been so bad if she’d liked high school kids, had a decent singing voice, and understood the nuances of either game.
Still, he had to admire her single-mindedness even as he dreaded her sticky-sweet, “Hi, Clay. Whatcha doing?”
It had taken a long time, but she finally seemed to grasp the idea that he was a lost cause when for Christmas she gave him Terror with a red bow about his neck, and he gave her a Point of Grace tape in a colorful little bag with no tissue stuffed in the top—the same gift he gave to everyone else on the youth group leadership team.