Scrapping Plans

by Rebeca Seitz

  As soon as they knew whether this baby was a boy or girl, they could register too. Meg said that was one of her favorite things during pregnancy, being handed the UPC scanner gun and set loose in the aisles of Target.

  Tandy had focused so much on the nursery planning, she nearly missed Daddy’s “I do.” She blinked and listened to Zelda follow suit, amazed she’d spent the entire wedding planning the nursery.

  “I now present to you, Mr. and Mrs. Jack Sinclair.” Dr. Acree from nearby First Baptist Church turned the couple to face the crowd. Applause rippled through the room as Daddy took Zelda’s hand and led her back down the aisle.

  Tandy met Clay at the middle of the stage and followed Daddy and her new stepmother out the doors to the reception area. The time for celebration had begun!

  * * *

  “UGH, MY FEET are killing me.” Meg pulled her high-heeled sandal off and dropped it on the floor. “Who told me those would make good wedding shoes?”

  “I believe that was Kendra.” Zelda forked a last bite of wedding cake.

  The fellowship hall lay in party-remain purgatory with empty punch cups and glass plates bearing crumbs and swabs of icing littering the table tops. Only family members remained, picking up and setting things back to rights before calling it a night.

  “The reception was beautiful, Zelda.” Joy stacked plates as she walked from table to table. “We need to tell Athena the cake was divine.”

  Tandy followed behind Joy, a tray in one hand holding dirty punch cups. “I’ll amen that. I ate three pieces myself.”

  “Put me down for three too.” Kendra swiped a wet rag across the cleared tables. “I think I’m on sugar overload.”

  “Well, I only ate one piece, but I put two more to the side to take home with me.” Joy headed toward the kitchen with her tower of plates. “I thought they might come in handy during my next middle-of-the-night sugar craving.”

  Tandy made room for one more cup on the tray. “Ooh, good idea. Save me some too, will you?”

  “Can do.”

  “So, Zelda, when are we going to scrapbook all the pictures from today?” Meg folded up the chairs and stacked them in the corner.

  “I think as soon as we get back from Florida would be good. Surely I won’t forget too much between now and then.”

  “I can’t believe you aren’t going off somewhere exotic to honeymoon,” Kendra said for what Tandy guessed was the thousandth time in the past three weeks. “It’s your honeymoon, for goodness’ sakes.”

  “And like we’ve told you a million times, we are going somewhere special—to the islands for your wedding. Until then, I have a perfectly good home in Naples that I enjoy being in and that your daddy enjoys as well. We can have fun and be together at my home—our home now—for a whole two weeks and not have to worry about maids coming in while we’re still asleep or kids running up and down the hallway at two in the morning. It’s just what both of us want.”

  “Which makes it somewhere special.” Meg gave Kendra a reproachful glare on her way to the corner with two more chairs in hand.

  “Yeah, yeah,” Kendra said. “I suppose you’re right.”

  “And on that happy note, I think I’ll go find your daddy and head on home. We need to get a good night’s sleep before hopping on a plane early tomorrow.”

  Thirty-Eight

  I love the beach.” Zelda settled onto her chaise lounge and pulled her floppy straw hat low to ward off the sun.

  Jack looked up from his Dean Koontz novel. “What do you love about it exactly?”

  “Everything, I guess. The constant breeze, the sound of the seagulls, the kids laughing, the hum of conversation, the crash of waves—it all just calms my soul.”

  He patted her leg and returned to his book. “Then I’m happy we came here.”

  Zelda gazed out across the water, taking in the two sailboats moving like small dots of color off to the right. Between her and the ocean sat a half-finished sand castle, a little girl with red pigtails and a bright orange bathing suit working diligently to finish it, her tongue sticking out and face screwed up in concentration.

  They had enjoyed a blissful week here in Naples, and truthfully, Zelda didn’t know if she’d be ready to go back to Stars Hill once this week had passed. Stars Hill was a wonderful little town—nothing in the world wrong with it and many aspects of it right as rain. Yet the pull of the beach remained, and she didn’t want to leave.

  At least Jack understood when she brought it up. Fearful he would want to sell the Naples house, she’d hesitated saying anything those first few days. Yet Jack was thrilled to have a house in Naples to which they could escape when the weather turned wintry in Stars Hill.

  If she remembered the past winter in Stars Hill correctly, that would put them back here at the Naples house around the first week of December or so. Would Jack want to spend Christmas in Naples? Probably not. They wouldn’t want to be away from the family during the holidays.

  And that would take them into January before they came back to Naples. Five months without the Florida sun, three of them probably freezing under a winter sky leaden with the threat of snow.

  Zelda sighed.

  “Something wrong, love?” Jack peered at her over the top of his novel.

  “I just love the beach.”

  “Struggling with the idea of Stars Hill again?”

  “A little.” She shifted to face him. “You know it isn’t that I don’t love Stars Hill. I do, and I want us to be near the girls and their families—especially now, when Joy and Tandy are about to gift us with grandchildren. I guess I’m being selfish and wanting it all, wanting to transport this—” she waved a hand to encompass the sand and surf all around—“back to Stars Hill.”

  Jack waited a few moments, she supposed to see if she had finished. When she held her silence, he gave a small nod.

  “I’m not sure what to say, love. I enjoy the beach, though it’s not in my blood like it seems to be in yours. I need the change of seasons to mark time for me, and I need the community and family of Stars Hill in my life. We’ll be back down here after Christmas, once the babies are born, and in the meantime we’ll be going to St. Thomas so you’ll have some beach time there as well.”

  His hopeful look made her realize how selfish she sounded. “I know, dear. I’m just being a difficult old woman.”

  “Oh, now, stop that. You start saying you’re old, then I’m going to have to acknowledge I’m right there with you, and I’d prefer to stay in my blissfully ignorant of age world right now.”

  She chuckled. Marrying Jack had changed so much of her life, brought loads of happiness and purpose. So what if she had to spend some months in Stars Hill? She liked Stars Hill. She mentally shook off the funk that had settled upon her like a dark storm cloud on this bright, sunny day. “Okay, I’ll talk no more of age if you agree to put that book down and walk with me to get some lunch. All this sea air makes a girl hungry, no matter how old she is.”

  Jack stuffed a bookmark into his book and set it aside. “You’re on.”

  They rose and strolled down the beach, hand in hand. Zelda was grateful for the built-in shorts feature of her bathing suit. She’d tried on all the latest ones with little skirts across the front to hide the post-fifty bulge, but skirts seemed entirely too girly for the beach. The beach was about walking and running and playing volleyball and building sand castles and doing. Who could do all those things in a skirt?

  Kendra had wholeheartedly approved of the suit. Kendra would, of course, being the most healthy and active of all the daughters. Despite their rocky start, Zelda thought she probably identified most closely with the passionate and artistic Kendra.

  “Penny for your thoughts,” Jack said.

  “I was just thinking about the girls and which one I understand more than the other.”

  “Did you come to any conclusions?”

  “I think Kendra’s the easiest for me to know. She’s got a passion and zeal for life that I can
identify with.”

  “She and Tandy both do—that’s what made them harder to raise. They’d storm through the house, slamming doors and generally behaving like a tornado if things weren’t going well.”

  “That does sound hard to deal with.”

  “On the other hand, they were balls of sunshine and joy if their lives were working out well in their eyes. We vacillated between thrilling happiness and utter despair for each day of high school. Marian used to say we’d all perish from the drama.”

  Zelda laughed, enjoying both the conversation and the feel of sand between her toes. “I can believe that. So were Joy and Meg any easier as little girls?”

  “I don’t know if ‘easier’ is the right term. Quieter, yes. But sometimes quiet can be more dangerous and difficult than a child who lets all of her emotions out in a maelstrom. We worried over them, unsure if they’d tell us their troubles and triumphs or simply keep life events to themselves.”

  “And did they share?”

  Jack nodded. “Most of the time. We had to force conversation sometimes, especially with Joy, who can crawl so far into her head she loses sight of the world around her.”

  “They sure are an interesting bunch.” She sidestepped a broken sea shell. “The restaurant is right up here.” She pointed to a seaside eatery and they left the hard-packed, wet sand to cross the powdery expanse.

  “Zelda, I want to thank you for taking such an interest in my girls.” Jack huffed a bit as their feet dug into the deep sand. “I know they’re grown women and don’t need raising anymore, but they sure will like having a step-momma around, I think.”

  She brought their clasped hands to her face and kissed his. “It’s my honor and privilege to be their step-momma. I’m just happy they’ve accepted me, accepted us.”

  Sacrificing a few months of the year’s beach time was worth the love of a new family.

  Remember that.

  * * *

  A STIFLING AUGUST blanket of humidity and heat had slowed Stars Hill citizenry to nearly a crawl. They sat around the diner, lazily bringing glasses of iced tea to parched lips, the old-timers telling stories of past droughts and baked earth.

  Clay went through double his usual complement of ice, but was so grateful to have any at all, he didn’t complain. He dumped another scoopful of the refreshingly cold cubes in a glass and filled it with water.

  Crossing the dining area, he set the glass down on the table. “Here, sweetie. Drink this before you leave. I can’t have the mother of my shrimp getting dehydrated out there.”

  Tandy looked out the big plateglass window. “Ugh, it is so hot out there. I forgot how hot we would get before fall. I can’t wait for the seasons to change. Look out there—the air is literally shimmering with all the heat.”

  “It is stifling,” Kendra agreed. “I hope Zelda’s got the wall unit going in the scrapping room because, while I love my scrapping, I’m not about to sit up in a hot room and try to be creative.”

  Tandy turned back to the table and smiled up at Clay. “Burgers for us all, yes. You know Zelda, she’s not about to cook, much less a meal for four extra mouths.”

  “I’ll have ’em ready in a jiffy. You just sit and drink that water.” Clay sauntered back to the kitchen and Tandy took the opportunity to appreciate his retreating frame.

  “Pregnant women should not ogle like that,” Kendra teased, adjusting the bright white kerchief around her head.

  “We can ogle the guy who fathered our child, can’t we?”

  “Well, I suppose. I’m not sure about the rule there.”

  “Then let’s make it ourselves.”

  “Makes sense. We don’t like playing by other people’s rules anyway.”

  “Exactly. I say, henceforth, every pregnant woman has the right, maybe even the duty, to appreciate the physique of the man who got her in the family way.”

  “Appreciating his physique is what got you in the family way, sister.”

  “So for consistency’s sake, I should continue doing so.”

  “By all means, we want to be consistent.”

  Tandy took a drink of water and swallowed. “Have you talked much to Zelda since they got back?”

  “Not a whole lot. The Sisters, Ink stuff has been keeping me pretty busy. We got a hundred new memberships this month.”

  “You’re kidding! A hundred? Wow! We’re going gangbusters!”

  “I know, pretty soon we’ll have a good portion of the scrapping community signed up in Sisters, Ink.”

  Tandy looked off into the distance. “Just think, all those women out there making connections and forming friendships. Imagine how much more easily they can get through the tough times when they’ve got sisters to lean on.”

  “And enjoy the good times,” Kendra added. “Most everything is better when you have somebody to share it with.”

  “Amen to that.”

  Clay approached the table, plastic bags full of Styrofoam boxes in each hand. “Here’s your dinner, ladies. Tell Zelda I said, ‘Hi and welcome back.’”

  “Will do.” Tandy stood and gulped down the rest of her water. “Love you.”

  “Love you too.”

  The sisters left the restaurant and piled into Tandy’s car for the drive out to Daddy and Zelda’s.

  “You know, you’re not going to be able to fit a baby into this car.” Kendra looked into the backseat. “At least it won’t be easy.”

  Tandy turned the air conditioner to high, shifted into first and pulled out of the parking space. “I know. Clay says we need a minivan, but I’m not sure. A minivan? We’re only having one child, not four. Besides, I don’t think I’m old enough to own a minivan.”

  “You could get an SUV.”

  “And spend hundreds every month in gas? No, thank you.”

  “So you’re back to the minivan.”

  Tandy sighed. “Looks like it. We looked at a Town & Country, and they’re pretty cool. They’ve got built-in DVD players, and if you get the leather option, they’re a nice ride.”

  “You in a minivan. That’s definitely a scrapbook moment.”

  Tandy rolled her eyes and shifted again. “It hasn’t happened yet.”

  “Mm-hmm. We’ll see.” Kendra adjusted the vent so that the cool air hit her neck. “I can’t believe how hot it is and it’s barely lunchtime.”

  “It’s getting ridiculous, but it’ll have to break soon, right?”

  “I worry about the farmers if it doesn’t. The crops aren’t looking too hot right now.”

  “They said on the news if we don’t get rain within a week, the corn harvest will be significantly affected.”

  “Have you seen the weather forecast?”

  “Yeah, there’s a slight chance in a couple of days that we’ll get some scattered showers.”

  “Well, I guess we know what to pray for then.”

  Tandy slowed and pulled the car into Daddy’s driveway. She scanned the rows upon rows of corn, standing proud and tall in the fields surrounding the house. Their giant leaves were folding inward in a desperate attempt to conserve water. “For Daddy’s sake too.”

  “Mm-hmm.”

  She parked the car and they piled out, heading toward the house. “Looks like Meg and Joy beat us here.”

  Kendra held up the bags of food. “Well, they didn’t have to stop for dinner.”

  “Does it feel weird having to bring our own food to Daddy’s house?”

  “Kind of. But it’s not like we didn’t know Zelda has nothing in common with Momma. The woman doesn’t have a domestic bone in her body.”

  “It’s strange, right? I mean, I’ve accepted Zelda and all that, but it’s hard to figure out how Daddy could have loved Momma so much and then fallen for a woman like Zelda.”

  Kendra shrugged, rustling the plastic sacks. Their sandals slapped on the worn wooden porch steps. “No accounting for love, you know?”

  “Yeah.”

  They made their way to the third-floor scrapping room.


  Meg hopped off her stool and took the bags from Kendra. “We were beginning to wonder if something had happened.”

  “Nope, just waiting on food.” Tandy went around to her side of the table and began arranging photos.

  “And I, for one, am glad you did.” Zelda began pulling the Styrofoam boxes from the bags and distributing them to each sister.

  Meg opened her container. “What’s Daddy doing for dinner tonight?”

  Zelda waved a hand in the air. “Oh, I’m not sure. He’s a big boy though, and he knows his way around that kitchen. He’ll find something.”

  Tandy shared a look with Kendra, whose eyebrow raised. Definitely not like Momma. She pictured Daddy cutting cheese slices and layering them on crackers and felt a twinge.

  Her stool scraped across the floor when she pushed away from the table. “I’ll be right back. I’ll just go check and make sure he found something.”

  “Well, that’s not necessary,” Zelda said. “Like I said, he’s a grown man. He can find dinner.”

  Tandy swallowed her desired reply. Like you did? We brought you your dinner. “All the same,” she said instead and shot down the stairs before Zelda could protest again. She found Daddy in the kitchen, staring at a refrigerator whose shelves were depressingly bare. Daddy’s smile held mischief though. “It looks like I should have placed my order tonight.” He shut the refrigerator door.

  “I’m so sorry, Daddy. I assumed she would fix something for you, or I’d have brought you a burger too.”

  Daddy shook his head before the words were out of her mouth. “I know, honey girl. Don’t you worry for a second about me. I’ve got more food in this kitchen than some kids see in an entire year. I won’t starve to death.”

  It’s not starvation of the stomach I’m worried about. How does she feed your soul?

  “Still, I feel awful that we’re all chowing down on burgers up there and here you stand with not even a piece of turkey or ham to make a sandwich.”