Ghost of Summer

by Sally Berneathy

  "Well, congratulations."

  Luke turned away, walked around his car from the past and slid into the driver's seat.

  "I think she went to the root beer stand with an old friend." Papa's voice, unaccustomedly irritated, floated down from his bedroom window. "I don't know when to expect her. I'll have her call you when she gets home."

  She raced to the house and darted inside, closing the door behind her and leaning against it.

  Great. This was just what she needed.

  She'd forgotten to call Spencer, who expected strict punctuality. Papa was upset with Spencer who was undoubtedly upset with her.

  But somehow that worry paled beside her other concerns. Papa had been dancing with Mama's ghost, and she had the hots for her former best friend, a friend who'd left her and broken her heart seventeen years ago. And tomorrow night they would all four have dinner together, a meal she was supposed to cook when she had trouble making toaster waffles.

  Served on Mama's best china because that was what Mama wanted.

  Chapter Five

  Kate tiptoed upstairs though she wasn't sure why she was taking such pains to be quiet. Papa was obviously awake, and Mama, she thought wryly, wasn't likely to be frightened into hiding after all these years.

  She tapped lightly on her father's door. "Papa, was that Spencer on the phone?"

  For a long moment there was silence broken only by soft sighs—or whispers? Was Papa talking to himself? Was he answering himself?

  "Yes," he finally said, "but he wants you to call him tomorrow. He's going to bed now." Papa sounded resigned, as if giving her the information against his will.

  Distressed, Kate leaned her forehead against her father's door. Her pending marriage had obviously upset Papa, and that surprised her. He had always been on such an even keel. He'd even taken her rebellious teenage years in stride.

  Was this another aspect of the aging process, another sign that Papa was getting older and changing?

  She didn't like that possibility.

  A yearning flowed over her to confide in Luke, to share the burden and figure out some way to make everything turn out right, the way they'd shared their burdens for the first eleven years of her life.

  She liked that thought even less than the one about Papa getting older.

  She was an adult. She could stand on her own. She had to stand on her own.

  Too bad she hadn't talked to Spencer. He was reason personified. He'd get her back on a rational track and away from these insane mood swings.

  But it was probably for the best. She couldn't tell him the truth about what was going on. She would not expose Papa's problems to a stranger, not even his future son-in-law. Anyway, she couldn't call him back. Spencer's schedule was inviolate. By now he'd already brushed his teeth, put on his pajamas, turned down the bed and fluffed his pillow.

  Too tired and too emotionally stressed to try to comprehend the feeling of relief that came with that conclusion, she went on down the hall to her own bedroom.

  When she checked her cell phone, she noticed that Spencer had called three times, left three messages. She'd listen to them later, when she was in a better mood.

  As she lay in bed, thoughts of Spencer, Papa, Mama and Luke chased each other through her head in sleep-destroying chaos.

  Spencer would be irritated that she hadn't called earlier, hadn't answered her cell and then had been out when he'd called.

  But he could just get over it. She had more important things to worry about.

  Like Papa's sanity.

  Like Luke's reappearance in her life and the strange attraction she couldn't explain or control. She'd adored Luke at one time, but she'd gotten over that ages ago. She was an adult now and past that sort of all-consuming need, that need that could destroy one's soul and rip out one's guts.

  And, of course, she was engaged to be married which meant she didn't have the right to that blatant and unaccustomed sexual attraction. She'd always refused to let herself be controlled by any outside forces, not by emotions or by physical urges. But she'd never experienced anything quite this strong before. She was going to have to keep a tighter rein on her emotions and urges.

  For a long time she lay awake beside her open window, trying to clear her mind, to focus on the night sounds instead of all the problems that had suddenly arisen in her formerly well-ordered life.

  The dark silence was broken by the occasional barking of a dog, the eerie hoot of an owl, the chirrup of a cricket and sounds of the leaves on the cottonwood tree as they danced in the breeze, rustling like satin gowns, becoming still then dancing again.

  She'd been coming to visit Papa regularly ever since she left home, but this was the first time she'd really listened to the night in years.

  Finally the scent of lilacs from Mama's lilac bush drifted in, caressing her senses, soothing the turbulence and bringing elusive sleep.

  Just the way that scent had soothed her to sleep when she was a child and worried about something.

  But...didn't lilacs bloom in the early spring? The question was too much trouble to think about as sleep blurred the sharp edges of her problems. She'd ask Luke about the lilacs tomorrow. He'd know. He always knew everything. He was her best friend in the whole world.

  ***

  Feeling unbelievably peaceful and loved, Kate sat under the big oak tree, her head pillowed on her mother's lap while a mockingbird trilled happily overhead.

  "Katie, my precious daughter," Mama said, "it's been too long since we talked. Papa and I are so proud of the woman you've become, of all your accomplishments. But you still have some very important things to learn."

  "They're sending me to a seminar in California in October. I'll learn about everything new that's coming out. I'm up for a promotion." Kate kept talking because she sensed she hadn't yet said what her mother wanted to hear.

  Mama smiled. "That's wonderful. You always were bright. But that's not really what I mean. You need to realize that you never lose someone once you love them, no matter how far away they may go."

  More birds of different varieties joined the first, their songs becoming louder.

  "I lost you. I lost Luke. I'm losing Papa," Kate protested, though how could she believe what she was saying when her mother was right there with her?

  Mama smiled and stroked Kate's hair, just the way she'd done when Kate was a little girl. Her lips moved as though she were speaking, but the bird songs had become so loud, Kate couldn't hear the words.

  Kate awakened with a start and the realization that the trills of an entire choir of birds originated outside her window and not in her dream.

  She sat up, pushing aside the compelling wisps of the dream. She'd dreamed about Mama a lot when she was a child, but this was the first time it had happened in years. Undoubtedly brought on by Papa's delusions about Mama.

  Slipping into her robe, she padded down the hall. As she passed her father's room the scent of lilacs drifted out...the same scent that had lulled her to sleep last night. It had been Mama's favorite scent, and Papa had planted the bush for her when they'd moved into the house. It was now quite large.

  She must be wrong about it being past time for lilacs to bloom. Or maybe the odor had permeated the walls of the old house over the years.

  She started to move on when she heard the sound of Papa's voice. He was speaking quietly, presumably to himself, and she couldn't hear the words. Briefly, she considered putting her ear to the door or even looking through the big, old-fashioned keyhole. In light of his recent actions, spying would be justified.

  But she couldn't make herself do it, couldn't treat her father with so little respect.

  She started to move on down the hall, but halted with one foot in mid-air. Her father's voice had stopped, and for an instant she could have sworn she heard a soft, airy female voice replying.

  She hurried away, making haste to get downstairs and start the coffee. A little caffeine should clear her head, and apparently it needed clearing.
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  As she shoveled the dark grounds into the filter, her mind raced. Either her father had a woman in his room or she was having auditory hallucinations or—she sighed and leaned against the cabinet with relief as the answer occurred to her—he had risen early and turned on the television set he'd moved up to his room.

  Of course. It was all quite mundane.

  This whole business was making her edgy, imaginative, ready to ascribe paranormal meanings to perfectly normal events.

  She jumped as the coffee maker began to gurgle then laughed at herself. It just proved her own assessment of her mental state.

  However, even in the best case scenario, this still meant Papa was carrying on a conversation with the television set.

  "Good morning, sweetheart. Coffee sure smells good."

  She turned to see her father amble through the doorway, lay his gun belt and hat on the cabinet, pull out a chair and sit down at the table. He was dressed neatly in his uniform, wide awake and beaming. He was happy in his delusions, she had to give him that.

  "Guess you don't get to come down to the smell of coffee brewing very often," she said, holding her breath as she waited for his answer.

  "Not since the last time you were here."

  Well, at least Mama didn't make his morning coffee. That was, she supposed, a positive sign.

  "How about a little breakfast, Papa?"

  He nodded. "That would be real nice. I bought some bacon and eggs and some of those instant grits."

  It was the meal he always ordered when they went out for breakfast.

  She got the bacon from the refrigerator and laid it in the big iron skillet but then stood staring at it.

  Bacon and eggs.

  Cholesterol.

  Papa didn't really need anything clogging his arteries, restricting the flow of blood to his brain.

  "How about some..." She hesitated. She couldn't remember seeing anything even vaguely resembling a bran muffin, bagel or whole grain cereal in the well-stocked pantry.

  "Some what?" Papa asked.

  "Some coffee while you wait for the bacon," she improvised. What the heck, one more shot of cholesterol shouldn't make much difference. She'd go buy some bagels or cereal and skim milk today. "I think the coffee's just about ready." She took from the cabinet his oversized mug that read World's Best Father.

  As they ate breakfast, Kate found herself relaxing. Everything was comfortably ordinary and familiar...the sun coming through the faded yellow curtains on the kitchen window as the morning breeze puffed then dropped them, the scarred wood of the round table top, her father's drawling comments. This was the way it had always been. It simply wasn't possible that Papa really had a problem, that he'd changed so drastically.

  Papa finished everything on his plate—there was nothing wrong with his appetite—then poured himself another cup of coffee, added cream, and sat back down.

  "What did you plan to fix for Luke for dinner tonight?" he asked.

  Kate cringed. She'd hoped he might forget the dinner. "I hadn't really thought about it. What would you like, keeping in mind that my cooking repertoire is very limited."

  "Oh, I was thinking maybe we could start with stuffed mushrooms for an appetizer, follow that with a spinach salad, then that chicken in wine stuff with the little potatoes and onions in it, asparagus on the side, nice bottle of white wine, and top it all off with chocolate brownie pie."

  White wine, stuffed mushrooms—the strange items of food she'd seen in his pantry began to make sense. In a senseless sort of way.

  "You already bought all the ingredients. You planned this before I got here."

  Across the table, he met her gaze unflinchingly, innocently. "I had to go to Tyler to get the wine, but Clifford's had everything else. No fresh asparagus. It's out of season. But Mama said the frozen would be all right. They freeze that stuff in seconds, you know. Purely amazing. I can still remember when we used to keep stuff cool in an ice box with just a chunk of ice in the top."

  Kate lifted her hand to her forehead as if she could somehow grip the irrational situation and force it into something rational. "Mama said—Papa, Mama's dead! She died twenty-six years ago."

  "Some might say that."

  Some might say that? What kind of a reply was that?

  Not a good one.

  She dropped the subject and switched to something he couldn't equivocate about. "I don't know how to cook any of that stuff."

  "Don't worry. We found recipes for everything, and I'll be home around noon to help you." He sipped his coffee as casually as if he hadn't been dropping bombs all over the place.

  "Help me?" she croaked. "Look, this is just you, me and Luke. Why don't I do another baked chicken? Or maybe even a steak. I can grill steaks and make baked potatoes. Luke isn't expecting a fancy meal."

  Papa looked out the window. "I guess that would be all right. It's just that it's been such a long time since I had stuffed mushrooms and that chicken and wine stuff with the French name. What do you call it?"

  "Are you talking about coq au vin?"

  "That's it. Coq au vin. I surely do miss all those things."

  This was very strange. How could he miss something she'd never known him to eat? Even on their visits to the nicer restaurants in Tyler and Dallas, Papa had never ordered anything other than the basics...fried chicken, steak, chicken fried steak. She'd never heard of a sudden yen for gourmet foods being part of senility, but what did she know?

  "If that's what you want," she said. "If it'll make you happy, I'll do my best."

  What the heck. It was, as she'd pointed out, only Luke and her father. If it turned out totally inedible, they could always have sandwiches or order a pizza. Luke would understand.

  A knock sounded from the front door, and Kate jumped. For a split second, she'd thought it was Mama come to help her cook this crazy meal for Papa.

  "That must be Luke," Papa said.

  "Luke? What would Luke be doing here this early in the morning?"

  "I called him before I came down for breakfast and asked him to pick me up. One of the tires on my car is a little low. I thought since I'd be home this afternoon anyway, I'd just wait and get it fixed then." He stood and took down another cup from the cabinet. "Would you let him in while I pour him some coffee?"

  Let him in? Reluctantly, Kate rose, appalled that she'd gone abruptly from worrying about Papa's sanity to worrying about Luke seeing her in her faded robe with her hair an unruly mess, her face pale, lipstickless, blushless and mascaraless—the last of which translated to eyelashless.

  Not that what she looked like mattered. Luke had never been more than a friend, and now he wasn't even that. He was an acquaintance, someone out of her past, someone who'd disappear back into her past as soon as she did whatever she had to do for Papa and left town.

  She marched to the door and yanked it open.

  Luke stood on the porch, again wearing his tan uniform, gun belt strapped around his waist, hat held politely in one hand. "Good morning," he said, and his voice and eyes were distant, giving verification to her mental assertions about their relationship...or lack of one.

  "Good morning. Come on in and have a cup of coffee."

  He shoved his free hand into his back pocket. His boots were planted firmly on the porch, a shoulder's width apart. She could tell from his stance and his expression that he was going to refuse.

  That was good. She didn't want him to come in for a cup of coffee or anything else.

  "Papa's pouring it now," she added.

  Papa wasn't the only one with sanity problems. She did want him to come in. What was up with that?

  He hesitated, and a thousand emotions fought for ascendancy in Kate's fickle brain. Or maybe they were originating in her heart. Surely nothing from her brain could be that illogical.

  "You're probably in a hurry. I'll fix you a to-go cup," she forced herself to say.

  Did a shadow of disappointment cross his face, or was it just a shadow from the oak tree?
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  "Thanks." He sounded relieved. His expression she'd thought she'd seen had been only a shadow from the leaves overhead.

  She went back to the kitchen, took down a disposable cup and poured in the last of the coffee.

  "What are you doing?" Papa asked.

  "Luke's in a hurry. He's in too big a hurry to come in and have coffee."