“I was hoping to appeal to your leadership abilities,” Vincent said, “but I can see you want this without any sweetening, so here goes: After I nearly ran you down on Town Street, I got worried.”
“You seem confused a lot lately, and Vincent said you were confused that day,” Ned tagged on.
Razzell huffed a wordless response.
“In a couple weeks, Crossroads will launch several assistance programs for seniors. We came to ask you to step up in advance.”
“Would you sit with a doctor?”
“Are you nuts?” Razzell squawked.
Vincent almost laughed. Razzell got the jump and labeled his visitors mentally incapacitated before he and Ned could lead the angry senior down a path to that reality about himself.
“Don’t think it’s just Vincent and I who notice changes in you. Willa and Rosemary, too.”
“It’s a conspiracy,” the old minister exclaimed. He started to pull the screen door closed, but Vincent grabbed it. Razzell could have terminated the conversation by shutting the wooden door, but that hadn’t occurred to him.
“Okay, Mosie. I’m willing to negotiate. You think about what we’ve said. I’ll give you a week.” To Vincent’s challenge, Razzell growled. “Because tomorrow, I expect Crossroads will hire someone to implement all these new programs.” Vincent grinned. “It’s Beebe Walker. Remember? Cliff’s daughter. She’s moving back.”
Vincent wasn’t sure, but Beebe’s name seemed to rattle Razzell.
His mouth opened and closed, then opened again. “How many times are you going to call me old? No help. I’m fine. I don’t want anyone, even Beebe Walker, invading my privacy. Why would I? Nothing’s wrong.”
In the splutter of his indignation, Vincent thought Razzell was trying to convince himself.
“It’s not an invasion, Mosie,” Ned said. “It’s a visit. I’ve not met Beebe, but she must be prettier than me. Would you rather I stop by every day?”
“Don’t bother.”
“What will you do? Not let me in?” Ned’s hands went up to indicate his current surroundings, stranded on the stoop.
“A couple of buckets of cold water—no, probably just one—and you’ll get the message.”
“You’re not serious?” Vincent said, almost amused by their cockeyed banter: the former minister, cranky to a fault; the current minister, smiling and unflappable.
“Oh, yeah. He’s serious,” Ned said. “He’d spill half of it on the way to the door, but he’s serious. We’re wasting our time, Vincent. Come on.”
Vincent climbed down the steps. The banister was still in his hand when he heard Ned speak, his voice held a pleading quality, yet rested firmly against his resolve.
“Don’t make me do it, Mosie. Don’t make me call apps.” Ned laid emphasis on the last word.
Vincent wondered what Ned meant by apps. He couldn’t believe it had anything to do with cell phone downloads.
Along with his confusion, Vincent witnessed a bit of Razzell’s fire die.
“You remember apps,” Ned said.
The repetition was unnecessary. The day’s cloudy disposition hovered directly over the Rev. Mosie Razzell. Vincent assumed the men shared a dark memory. It didn’t budge Razzell from barring the entrance to his home, but his emotional presence waned for a long moment, during which Vincent thought he heard him say, “Right before taps.”
Strange, Vincent thought, putting the two rhyming lines together: You remember apps. Right before taps. But nothing there offered a coherent clue.
Softly, Ned said, “Then let Vincent and Crossroads step in. Don’t repeat history.”
Vincent waited, hopeful, while another few seconds ticked by, but Razzell remained reticent. When Ned pulled on his earlobe, Vincent knew the conversation between the two ministers reached a bulwark. “Well, Mosie,” Vincent said, “we’ll pray for you.”
Vincent watched something pass between the two men. When Razzell spoke, his genial response surprised Vincent. “Prayers I’ll accept.” Then he stepped back and closed the door.
Ned’s chin dropped to his chest. He breathed a long sigh before descending the steps.
“What was that about?” Vincent said. One behind the other, the two men used Razzell’s narrow walkway to return to the car.
“Yes, I suppose I better explain that.” Ned’s stride slowed. For a moment, he was lost in thought. “Man, I wanted that to work, but it gave him a heads up.”
Vincent let Ned’s wishful thinking pass and prodded again. “Wanted what to work?”
Ned rubbed his face thoroughly with one hand before he began. “About three months into transitioning me for Mosie, we visited the grandfather of a church family. He was 87 and living by himself. That was the problem. The place was a wreck. He was no longer capable of caring for himself, nor the house. I’m not sure what the family wanted because it was clear they didn’t want to take him in. But after seeing the deplorable conditions, Mosie and I couldn’t ignore them. Things were unsanitary.” He shook his head, as if trying to obliterate an unpleasant memory. “It was all very sad.”
Vincent stepped over the curb and rounded the car’s bumper to the driver’s door while Ned reached for the handle on the passenger side.
“Mosie and I tried to convince the grandfather to consider assisted living. Check into possibilities. We thought he might relent.”
“No go?” Vincent said, sliding onto the front seat opposite Ned.
“His obstinate nature prevailed. Sometimes, he’d sit and talk with us like old friends. Sometimes, he got hostile.” Ned buckled his seat belt. “Sometimes, he was lucid; sometimes, he wasn’t really in there.”
“So what’s apps?”
“Adult Protective Services.”
“Oh,” Vincent said, the light finally clicked on. Ned had been pronouncing the acronym, APS, as a word.
“Mosie made the call. He had to. The man’s name was Charles Riley. Things moved fairly quickly after Mosie pushed the issue. One day we visited, and Charles sat in the kitchen, wearing nothing but a soiled Depends. It was February. He had the gas jets on the stove turned up all the way. The flames reached a foot high. He used the stove to heat the kitchen. He said the furnace wasn’t working, but that wasn’t the case. I went to the thermostat, turned it up, and the furnace clicked on right away.”
“The stove being used that way was a disaster waiting to happen.”
“That caused Mosie to rush APS into action. Funny, I use the term as a word, but Mosie and I didn’t assign it. Charles did. The acronym was laid out in bold letters across the top of his social worker’s business card. The day the social worker came with the nursing home’s rep to, in effect, whisk him away without warning, Charles picked up the card from the table. He said, ‘APS, right before taps.’” Ned looked over at Vincent. “He was career military. He died three months later. It was a blow because both Mosie and I thought he would bounce back, become active with proper care and nutritious food.”
Vincent started the engine.
“We can’t make the call yet, Vincent. We’ve got to stay close to Mosie. Keep him in that house.”
Vincent knew what Ned was thinking. He didn’t want to be responsible for placing Mosie in a facility, where he would retreat to an early death. A light rain returned. But for the windshield wipers’ regularly timed swish, the ride back to Crossroads and Ned’s car was a quiet one.
After Vincent saw Ned on his way home, he checked his inbox for the email he expected from Beebe. It waited with the subject line, “Curriculum Vitae Attached.” He read the document, found it impressive, and thought his board members would have no difficulty
approving her employment, even given the short time frame for consideration. He forwarded the message to the members. Their meeting would convene early the next evening.
* * *
Beebe Walker woke, dragged her legs over the side of the bed. She stretched and yawned, then began her morning ablutions.
Her walk to the kitchen for a much-needed cup of coffee was interrupted when she crossed the living room. The answering machine’s blinking light caught her eye. She went to the desk and manipulated the controls. She thought the call came in during her shower, but the date and time recorded said she apparently missed the red light when she stumbled through the house after ten o’clock last night, wanting sleep more than anything. The caller’s voice belonged to Vincent Bostick.
“Beebe, where are you? The decision’s been made. The counseling job is officially yours. The employment contract will come out of Ron Smith’s office. He’s an attorney and one of my board members. Monday is the start date as planned.” Beebe winced and sat down hard in the desk chair.
Yes, they planned on the Monday in question being her first day, but that was before. Just yesterday, Beebe was asked to lead a weeklong grief retreat. The regular counselor was called away on a family emergency. There was nothing Beebe could do but agree to substitute. She was available. The retreat fell during the last week of her two-week hiatus at Swanson’s.
Vincent kept talking. “Call me between twelve and one tomorrow. Other than that, my schedule’s full. Anyway, congratulations. I’m just as happy as you are. Can’t wait to talk.”
At the appointed time, Beebe dialed Vincent’s number. He answered promptly.
“Vincent, hi,” Beebe said.
“Beebs,” Vincent said in a comfortable way that made her relish old times. “Perfect timing. I just hung up from Ron. He expects to have the employment agreement ready to mail Monday, but he’d rather email it.”
Vincent was scooting ahead, and scooting quickly. Beebe slowed him down. “Maybe we should back up a minute.”
“Back up? You mean you’re not taking the job.” Vincent sounded nervous. In her mind, she pictured his rather large Adam’s apple bobbing.
Beebe spent most of the morning practicing the short speech she would give Vincent, the one that would elicit his complete and utter understanding of the situation involving the grief retreat that would go unsupervised for a dozen paid-up attendees if she didn’t fill in.
“Of course I’m taking the job. I just need to delay my arrival by ten days or so. Remember, this past Monday started my two weeks off between counseling classes?”
“But, you’re not going to be there for the start of the next class.”
“Right, but I need to step in for another counselor at a retreat location out of town. An emergency came up for her. Well, the details aren’t important. The long and the short of it is, I’m going to be delayed. Because of the retreat.” Funny, Beebe thought, how putting him off another ten days quieted her jitters over the change planned for her life. The calming sensation made her feel like she was breeding a lie to some degree.
There was a bead or two of silence over the line before Vincent said, “Well, okay. I’ll explain it to the board. There should be no repercussions. A week or ten days is hardly a problem. I guess I’m just thinking about Cliff. And me.”
At first, Beebe was pleased to hear that Vincent sounded on board with her adjusted timeframe, then he added the words that tugged at her heart. “I haven’t forgotten about you guys. Don’t think I have. I just need a little neater wrap-up here. The counselor I’m filling in for is a friend.”
“Got it. I understand.”
With Vincent’s words, Beebe wasn’t too startled to realize that her closeness to him felt warmer than any emotion she felt for her father.
It was after eight that evening when she dialed Cliff Walker’s home number. It occurred to her that since he didn’t feel the weight of the untold secret she and Vincent hid about Abigail, he wouldn’t be so affected by setting the day of return back some. Besides, summer months were always busy ones for Cliff at the hardware store, as Vincent pointed out. His thoughts would be concentrated there.
After an exchange of pleasantries, Beebe said, “It turns out my old employment will delay my arrival by at least one week.”
“At least one week, huh?”
Beebe couldn’t read her father’s questioning tone to determine if more lived in those words. “No more than ten days at the outside,” she said.
“Well, I should probably start letting people know you’re coming.”
There was an implication in that statement, but Beebe couldn’t assess its meaning. “No reason to go to any trouble,” she said, trying to sound upbeat. “Larkspur probably hasn’t changed. Someone’s radar will go off the minute I cross the town limits with all my worldly goods in the car. Ding, ding, ding, someone will just know and spread the word. You and I won’t need to lift a hand.”
Beebe laughed at the conjured scene. When Cliff did not, the jitters made their returning presence known in her stomach. When the time came, she felt sure they would accompany her every mile of the way to Larkspur.
* * *
A week after Beebe made her two calls home, Yates Strand drove back into Larkspur. It was early August. He had a strategy, scanty possessions, and a big yellow dog named Barleycorn.
His landlady hated to see him pack and move from the apartment above her own living quarters that she rented cheap. She kept the dog when he drove Terri Miller to Larkspur in March. She liked Yates, and she liked the idea of a pet to pet who wasn’t her pet. Barleycorn, not destructive in any manner, was a quiet mutt. He seemed quieter of late because he mourned the loss of Terri in his life, just like Yates.
Since his heartbreaking first visit, Yates graduated with a nursing degree and passed the state boards in the top ten percent. Then he closed out his life in northern Michigan and his meager bank account. The life of a student with tuition and rent to pay hadn’t left much in the way of savings. He was hopeful his plan to move into the Crossroads hospice would give him a place to stay without depleting his pocket money the first week.
When he told his father, Arthur Strand, of his plans, he was more than hopeful in his delivery. He might have led his father to believe room and board at the hospice had been nailed down. Naturally, Arthur Strand worried about his son. Terri Miller possessed some connection with Larkspur, and Yates told his father he aimed to find out what that was. Before he made the trip, he applied online to the local hospital in Larkspur and was patiently awaiting a late August interview. He couldn’t know how long it would take so he might as well be gainfully employed. Thoughts of the job interview and the gainful employment appeased his father’s concerns to some degree.
It was around two when he looked up at the street signs: Battlefield and Standhope. He tugged at Barleycorn’s leash. A few seconds later, he paused, his hand rested on the knob to Crossroads’ door. He turned his head and let his gaze ease down to linger on the sidewalk bench. His memory placed Terri there, a huddled mass of disease and pain. The din of Battlefield seemed to crawl silently by behind him. Swallowing the lump in his throat, he twisted the doorknob.
Man and dog stepped immediately inside a large, open room filled with chairs aligned in rows. He found a slideshow in progress, attended by a rowdy bunch of seniors. He recognized Vincent Bostick, seated in the back row. Vincent noticed them and came over. Introductions followed. Vincent escorted him into an adjacent hallway, away from the noise factor in the main room. Yates and Vincent sat in two chairs that lined the wall.
Yes, in all honesty, Yates was homeless of his own making, since he gave up his small apartment and moved south without making arrangements for another. But he didn’t
say that to Vincent. Most of his story was truthful, although he started with a nonspecific reference.
“People told me this was a homeless shelter, among other things.” Yates tipped his head toward the example of other things winding down in the main room. “I’m a graduate nurse. I’ve applied to Lakeview General. I have an interview in two weeks, but nowhere to stay, and no money for lodging. I was hoping I could stay here, help out, use my skills in the hospice if needed, or really, anything else, for a roof over my head.”
“Well,” Vincent said, eyeballing him. Yates presented a good appearance. He wore clean clothes, jeans and a collared shirt. He was clean shaven. He did need a haircut.
Yates reached into the front pouch of his backpack. “Here are two letters of reference. Please. Read them. Call the numbers. Check me out. It would only be for a little while.”
Vincent’s gaze dropped to the dog, on the high side of eighty pounds.
“Only I can speak for Barleycorn.” This was the untruthful part. His landlady would praise the dog, but he didn’t want Terri’s name mentioned, which was a risk if Vincent called back to the woman. “He’s a good dog. He won’t cause any problems, I promise. I’ve got enough money to feed us for a few weeks, but that’s it.”
Vincent lowered the glasses that rode on top of his head. He read the letters. “I’ll make the calls.” A bit of sternness clung to his tone. Then, flipping the glasses up, he smiled. “And we won’t let you starve.”
Yates took the words as a good sign, preliminarily. Often one to over-think situations, Yates wondered if Vincent meant he would see that he and Barleycorn got food, but no bed. For the next twenty minutes, Yates pondered the situation he placed himself in while Barleycorn wandered between him and the doorway where the seniors talked and laughed.
Yates stood when Vincent walked back down the hall and extended a hand. “In exchange for chores, you’re welcome to stay. The caveat to that is, the dog must remain well-behaved. There’s a park a block over. That’s your destination for walks.”
Proper Goodbye Page 8