by Rebeca Seitz
He startled at Tandy’s hand on his arm. “I’m sorry we haven’t been by. We should have come. I should have come.”
“Me, too.” Kendra’s hand joined Tandy’s.
Jamison blinked and looked up. He’d seen the sisters take care of each other plenty of times over the years. But he’d never been on the receiving end of their care. Neither he nor Meg had ever had a need for it. Maybe that’s why the sisters didn’t seem to be doing such a good job of caring for Meg—it was as new a concept to them as it was for him. “Well, you’re here now.”
The girls took back their hands and Tandy glanced up the stairs. “That we are. Is she up there?”
“Yep. Reading books or watching television. Or she may be asleep by now.”
“Asleep? It’s barely midmorning.”
“I wouldn’t advise reminding her of that.” He smiled and was surprised by the unfamiliarity of the skin as it stretched across his face. He needed to smile more often. The kids shouldn’t have to deal with two parents in the doldrums.
“Where are the kids?”
“With your dad and Zelda. They spent the night last night.”
Again, he’d tried to create a mood of intimacy. He longed for their lost conversations and had hoped to have a night full of discussion of nothing that mattered. Instead, he’d listened to a vitriol of his shortcomings and gone to bed with an anvil compressing his heart.
“Good.” Kendra tucked her hair into the purple handkerchief tied around her head. “You go have some time to yourself and leave this to us.”
“Oh, I’m fine. I’ve got to clean up anyway.”
“Leave that to us.” Tandy started for the stairs. “You take the time while you can.”
Kendra followed her sister but winked at him over her shoulder. “Just don’t go taking your ‘me’ time anyplace we’re going to hear about, okay?”
He nodded. “No problem.”
* * *
TANDY TRIED TO wrap her mind around Jamison’s image as she ascended the stairs. He looked as if he’d aged ten years in the past three weeks. Guilt ate at her. She should have been here more often.
They all should.
Seeing Meg—strong, resilient Meg—brought down by her own health, though, just rocked her too much. Tandy squared her shoulders. She was done with that now. Jamison should not have to bear this alone, and obviously Meg hadn’t been making it easy on him.
She paused outside the closed bedroom door and looked at Kendra. “You ready?”
“We could stand here until dinnertime and I don’t think I’d be. Jamison looks like roadkill.”
“I know.” Tandy paused, certain only of the fact that she wasn’t prepared to walk through that door and find a woman who looked like Meg but didn’t act like her.
“I was kidding about waiting until dinner.”
She blew out a breath. “Right.”
She opened the door and squinted into the darkness, confused by its presence. “Meg?”
No response came.
“Meg?”
The reply came back muffled. “Hmm?”
Tandy crossed to a window by memory and reached for the cord to open the blinds. After fumbling around a few seconds, she found it and pulled. Sunlight poured through the panes.
“Ugh! Stop that!” Meg’s voice made Tandy’s blood run cold. Never had she heard such anger coming from her eldest sister. She heard Kendra’s gasp.
Tandy finished adjusting the blind—Meg didn’t need to be sleeping in the middle of the morning no matter what kind of mood she was in—and turned to see her sister.
Meg lay sprawled among a tangle of bedsheets. Her wrinkled gown sat bunched up around her knees and a look of annoyance lay upon her face. “What are you two doing here?”
“Thought maybe you could use a little sister time.” Tandy forced cheer into her tone.
Meg flopped her head back onto the rumpled pillow. “What I need is sleep. Go away.”
“What is wrong with you?” Kendra sat down on the bed with a thud.
Meg opened one eye. “You’re kidding, right?”
“No.”
“I had brain surgery, moron.”
“Did they do a lobotomy while they were at it?”
Meg’s mouth gaped open like a fish jerked from the river. “Excuse me?”
“I said—”
“I heard what you said, you inconsiderate idiot.”
“Then answer me, you rude twit.”
Tandy waited. This new Meg overflowed with rage and bitterness. It was almost as if someone had thought up the exact opposite of her sister and traded their personalities in surgery. Meg would never have spoken to them this way in the past. Tandy marveled at Kendra’s ability to roll with it.
“I don’t have to answer to anybody.” Meg dropped back into the pillow.
“Oh, but that’s where you’re wrong, sister dear.” Kendra pulled the pillow out from under Meg’s head. Tandy winced, hoping it was okay to do that to a person recovering from brain surgery. Kendra could be a little overzealous sometimes.
“Hey!” Meg swiped at the pillow, but Kendra tossed it on the floor.
“Time to get up. The day is wasting away and you’re lying here doing the same. Come on. We’ve got errands to run.”
Meg motioned toward the walker resting against the bed’s footboard. “In case you hadn’t noticed, I’m not quite able to run anywhere right now.”
Kendra shrugged as if Meg had said she didn’t have clean clothes to wear. “So we’ll walk. Hobble. Drag. Whatever. We’ll do something besides wallow in our own self-pity.”
“Oh, I’m sure Stars Hill would love to see that. Meg Fawcett Hobbles Her Way Through Darnell’s. They’ll have pictures on the front page of the Press’s Tuesday edition.”
“About time you made it into the paper for something besides your kids’ accomplishments anyway.”
Tandy bit her lip to stop the smile. She’d been handled by Kendra before and knew that, sooner or later, Meg would give in. Kendra’s relentlessness left no other option.
Evidently Meg remembered that as well because she closed her eyes. “Fine. You want to embarrass the entire family by parading a cripple all over downtown, who am I to stop you?”
“That’s the spirit. You need me to help you into the bathroom? Because, cripple or no, we’re not taking that face out of here without makeup on it. No need in scaring the citizenry.”
Meg shot a glance at Tandy. “Can’t you rein her in?”
“Now who’s kidding?”
Kendra looped Meg’s arm over her shoulders and walked with her to the bathroom. Tandy followed, ready to grab Meg if she so much as stumbled.
“You know, I can make it just fine if you’d hand me my walker.”
Kendra glanced at the steel aid and sniffed. “And have you getting around here like Old Mrs. Witherspoon? No. We’re finding you a fashionable cane today. A hip, cool, awesome cane that doesn’t look like something from a hospital supply closet.”
Meg leaned against the counter and took her arm from Kendra. “I don’t want a ‘cool’ cane. I want to be left alone.”
“And, in the absence of that, we’ll get you a cool cane.”
Meg sighed, but she didn’t fight back. Tandy decided to take that as a good sign.
“You know, I’ve never tried woodworking, but I bet I could make you an awesome cane.”
Meg ignored her and continued applying makeup.
“Or we could drive up to Nashville. There’s a store in Opry Mills Mall that has unique stuff and might have a cane. Ooh, or we could put Sara on it. She loves finding different stuff for us.”
Meg finished rubbing foundation into her skin. “A cane definitely qualifies as different, but I don’t think a dress shop owner has such things in her catalogs.”
“Oh, please.” Tandy waved that away. “Sara can find anything she puts her mind to. I think we should ask her. She’s been asking about you all the time. You know she’d love having som
ething to do for you.”
Meg pursed her lips. “I’m sure she only asked so she’d have the latest bit to share with everyone.”
“Megan Fawcett, you know as well as I do that Sara Sykes does not feed the rumor mill around here. She’s genuinely concerned.”
Meg sighed. “You’re probably right.”
“I’m most certainly right.”
Meg adjusted the handkerchief around her head. Tandy wondered how long it would take her hair to grow back and wished again they hadn’t had to shave all of it off to make an incision on one side. Meg had always had such gorgeous blonde hair.
Meg washed her hands, rubbing off the extra makeup there. “Okay, that’s as good as this face can look given that it’s owner is—”
“A sour puss.” Kendra grinned. “Don’t worry, we understand.”
Meg rolled her eyes and allowed Kendra to once again help her into the bedroom. Tandy kept an eye on Meg’s right leg, noting that it seemed a little stronger than it had a week ago.
“You know, I think your leg may be getting a bit better.”
“Stick around.” Meg removed her gown and pulled the shirt Kendra offered over her head. “In an hour or so, it’ll decide to ignore me again. The strength and feeling come and go faster than my mood swings.”
“At least you know you have them.”
Meg smiled. “I do know. I’m sorry I bit your head off before.”
“I’m just happy to know you’re not possessed and that somewhere in there lurks my sister.” Kendra knelt at Meg’s feet and helped her pull on a pair of elastic-waist pants.
Meg placed her hands on Kendra’s shoulders for balance. “I don’t know why it keeps happening. One minute I’m fine and thinking I’m on the road to recovery. The next, I hate my life and everything around me. The doctors say it’s my brain trying to recover, but I wonder if I’m not losing my marbles.”
Tandy came to stand beside Meg. “You’re not losing your marbles.”
“I am losing my husband, though.” Meg’s voice wobbled.
“Jamison?” Kendra rose. “You tell whatever little voice in that head of yours is whispering these lies to just shut up. Jamison’s tired and this isn’t easy on him, but he would never leave you.”
Meg brushed a tear from her cheek and put her feet into the shoes Kendra laid out. “Oh, I didn’t mean he was leaving me. You’re right. He wouldn’t leave. He’s not that kind of man. But I know he’s exhausted, and I can’t seem to quit yelling at him or criticizing or correcting him. It’s like, I know he won’t leave, so it’s safe to take out my anger on him. Does that sound dumb?”
“No, but you are going to have to give the man a break sometimes. He looked like death warmed over when he answered the door.”
Meg shook her head. “I know. I did that to him.”
“The situation is doing that to him. It’s doing that to you as well.” Kendra led them toward the bedroom door. “What you need to do is stay mad at the situation and let him join you in that anger. Don’t be turning that temper of yours on him. Y’all come together in your fury and see what you can conquer together.”
Tandy’s eyes widened. When had Kendra gotten so wise?
Meg nodded, while tears continued to slide down her cheeks. “Here I go again. If I’m not yelling, I’m crying.”
Kendra patted Meg’s hand that draped across her shoulder. “If I get a vote, I choose the tears. Your temper isn’t anything I want to mess with again.”
Meg gave a small laugh.
Tandy followed them down the stairs, a chore that now took ten minutes instead of ten seconds. Meg placed one foot down, then the other beside it, imitating the descent of a toddler instead of an adult. One arm stayed looped around Kendra’s shoulders while the other had a death grip on the banister. No wonder Meg chose to stay upstairs all day. Just getting to the lower level probably tired her out.
Not that she would get better by sitting in bed all day, Tandy reminded herself. This may not be the easiest thing for Meg to do, but it may be the most necessary thing to do right now. Meg needed to be reminded that a world revolved outside her front door. The surgery hadn’t brought about the end of life, though maybe the end of the life she’d known.
They finally made it to the bottom of the stairs. Meg licked her lips. “Can we rest a minute?”
“Wimp,” Kendra teased.
“Guilty.”
“Okay, but only for a minute or two. The faster we get you into the car, the sooner we get to shop.”
“I can’t wait,” Meg deadpanned.
Kendra and Tandy laughed.
Eleven
A bell tinkled overhead as Jamison walked through the door of Clay’s Diner. He’d driven the back roads for half an hour to clear his mind, just breathing in the clean air and letting his eyes focus on the clouds overhead. Clay always knew who in town needed work, and he hoped someone had mentioned the need for a housekeeper position lately. He caught Clay’s eye on his way to a booth and nodded.
Clay came from behind the counter and over to the booth just as Jamison slid into it.
“Hey, stranger. Hungry for an early lunch?”
Jamison glanced at the clock on the wall and saw that it was a little after eleven. “Yeah. A burger would be great. And some tea.”
“You’ve got it.” Clay scribbled on a pad. “How’s Meg?”
Jamison shrugged. “She’s recovering. We get good days and we get bad.”
“And today?”
“Today your wife and our sister-in-law are over there giving me a break. I’d say it’s a good day.”
“Kendra or Joy?”
“Ken.”
Clay nodded.
“Hey, I think I need to hire a housekeeper for a little while. Do you know anybody who’s looking?”
“Jenny Sanders came in here a while back asking if I knew about any houses that needed cleaning. That the kind of thing you’re looking for?”
“Yeah. I need cleaning and help with cooking. I think the kids might mutiny if I fix hot dogs with mac and cheese one more time.”
“Jenny’s a good cook. She worked here for a while, before I had Spencer. Makes a mean chef salad.” Clay tapped his pencil on the order pad.
“Salad—green, leafy stuff with vegetables thrown in, right?”
Clay grinned. “I’ll go get her number.”
“Thanks, man.”
“No problem. Should have thought of it before now but I can’t get my head out of baby world long enough to do anything but keep the diner going.”
“No worries. I remember when we first had James. I don’t think I slept for a year.”
“Did it get easier the more kids you had?”
“That depends—does Tandy want more kids?”
“She says no for now, but maybe one more in a year or so.”
Jamison unfolded his silverware from its napkin. “Then I’ll refuse to answer on the grounds it may incriminate me.”
“Message received.”
Clay headed back to the kitchen and Jamison gazed out the plate-glass window with “Clay’s Diner” painted across the front in navy letters. So much had changed in his life these past few weeks that the normalcy of Lindell Street struck him as odd. He half-expected everyone to look different, to be as shell-shocked as he felt inside. But, no, there went Corinne Stewart, walking down the street in her suit and pumps, handbag swinging from her arm, breeze rustling her white curls, and a smile upon her face.
Jamison shook his head. Life could be so absurd. Going along, happy as a clam one minute, racing like a madman to the hospital the next. Married to a content woman who mothered your children with wonderful tenacity and ability one day, then yelled at them for no reason the next. He watched Ms. Corinne enter the antique store across Lindell and envied her day.
What was he doing? Envying a widow woman? He shook himself. This had to stop. Self-pity never got anybody anywhere, and Meg didn’t need a husband more focused on his own problems than hers
. He had to shape up. Be the man she needed him to be right now.
Though, if he gave up all pretense of machismo, he had no idea what kind of man she needed. Strong? Of course. But strong how? Stand up to her when she yelled? Tell her she acted the part of a raging banshee and needed to get control of herself? Or strong enough to let her be whatever she felt at the moment, to give her space to work through the tumult of emotions?
Considerate? Sure. But considerate of what? Her feelings, no matter how crazily they fluctuated from second to second? Or considerate of their children, who did not need to see their mom in that condition?
Patient? No doubt. But patient in what manner? Patiently bringing her back to a sense of her old self or patiently accepting the new Meg? Patiently counseling the kids that Mommy is going through a rough time or telling them that Mommy has changed?
He sighed. Maybe he didn’t have enough strength for this. A truly strong man would know what to do, wouldn’t he? Before this nightmare, if anyone had bothered to ask, he would have affirmed he had strength. He knew the Maker of strength and could lean on Him if anything horrible ever happened.
But now he knew better. He knew that just because the world turned upside down, God didn’t drop what He was doing and come running to your side with advice. Oh, he didn’t doubt for a second that God was there. He just wasn’t there, physically beside him, discussing the situation and telling him how to be, what kind of man Megan needed.
Clay sat a plate in front of him, pulling him from his reverie. “Grub’s on.” He tossed a slip of paper onto the table beside the plate and took the seat across from Jamison. “That’s Jenny’s number.”
“Thanks.”
“Don’t mention it. Tandy called while I was cooking up your burger.”
“Is Meg okay?”
“She’s fine.” Clay paused. “Now.”
Jamison sighed. “She’d been having a bad morning.”
“From the way Tandy described it, I hope this was a horrible morning.”
Jamison shrugged. “Like I said, some days are good, some not.”