I introduced myself and asked for Liz.
She said, “Oh,” uncertainly, looking from me to Baby Bear who grinned up at her like a benign Hound of the Baskervilles. Her breeding insisted that she invite the preacher in, but most preachers weren’t accompanied by huge hounds.
I said, “If you don’t mind, I’ll wait for Liz out here. The weather is so nice.”
She didn’t mind at all. I took Baby Bear off his leash so he could anoint the Pickersley-Smythe bushes.
A minute later, Liz was at the door, the Persian doing that ankle thing cats do. She put a hand out and said, “Please come in, Bear, we need you.” Baby Bear romped up to see if Liz might need him, too.
“Is your yard fenced in, Liz? He’s not a digger.”
“It’s fenced. I’ll meet you around back.”
Annie and I garden together; we enjoy it. Even in the worst of the summer heat, we spend several hours at it every week. But when Baby Bear and I stepped into Liz’s backyard, I quickly learned that money trumps labor.
The yard was full of gorgeous magnolias, tons of the ubiquitous crape myrtles, two orange trees and a fourteen- or fifteen-foot tall mature Meyer lemon tree. I will never be able to have a Meyer lemon tree. We don’t get enough sun in our yard for fruit trees. All around the pool (of course they had a pool, this is Texas—I don’t have a pool, but . . .) were huge terra-cotta urns with trailing pansies, yellow and blue and white and deep maroon and those near-inky purple ones. Pansies are annuals. You have to replant them every year. They can’t survive the Texas summer.
There were also banks of Knock Out roses, red and pink and coral, and pink with yellow centers. October, and they’re blooming their heads off, and they’ll keep blooming until we have a frost, which here on the Texas Gulf Coast isn’t always a given. The Knock Out roses hardly ever even get black spot. They’re so hardy, Texas has started planting them on the sides of highways.
I turned in the yard taking in the colors, the sounds of the water falling into a mini grotto, and the sweet, green fragrances and the . . . stale cigarette smoke.
There on the patio floor was a pile of butts. Someone couldn’t find an old flower pot saucer? Or a jar lid? Or something?
Liz’s voice called me back, wanting to know if I was coming in. I’d been delaying.
I made sure the gate was securely latched, told Baby Bear not to drink too much of the pool water and not, under any circumstances, to get in to the pool. I pulled out my handkerchief and gathered as much as I could of the disgusting butt pile, and went to the back door.
The Pickersley-Smythes have a huge kitchen, a good thing as it was currently full of people, sitting at the kitchen table, hovering over the range top and rinsing out coffee cups at the sink. The twins were upstairs in the playroom with Mrs. Holsapple, the woman who came in to help with the boys, Liz told me, and Mark had locked himself into his study.
Everyone went all expectant when they saw me, and I greeted the people I knew—several women from the church were laying out casseroles that had been waiting in their freezers—evidently my e-mail had gotten a fast response—and there were some pound cakes out, too—it looked like the hard-and-fast had been relaxed for this day. There were several people there I didn’t know. Liz made introductions.
“This is my mother, Susan, and my sister, Sue Ellen. Mom, our minister, Walker Wells.”
Susan and Sue Ellen could have been sisters instead of mother and daughter. But that was less of a compliment to the mother; in this case it meant Sue Ellen looked about as old as her mom did.
Both were big, broad women with strong features and big noses. Susan had dyed hair the color of a ripe banana. She wore a straight, navy dress that looked expensive, and she looked about as comfortable wearing it as I would have if I’d had to wear an expensive navy dress.
Sue Ellen was defiantly not dressed up, wearing a Texans jersey over jeans that fit her like panty hose. She wasn’t being kind to those jeans and the jeans were getting their own back. As her mother struggled from her chair, Sue Ellen stuck her hand out for me to shake.
“Sue Ellen Smith,” she said, rhyming the last name with “myth.” She was making a point. It wasn’t “Smythe” like Liz pronounced it.
“Don’t get up, Mom, the preacher understands about bad feet. Don’t you figure, Lizzy?”
Liz gave her sister a cool look and a cooler smile, and slipped out of the room with an excuse about checking on the boys.
I glanced down at Susan’s feet. It wasn’t that her feet were bad. It was that they were crammed into a pair of low-heeled black pumps—nun shoes, Merrie would have called them—that didn’t fit.
After I had shaken hands and made the appropriate comments and ascertained that these were at least two of the smokers, to judge by their breath and teeth, I was led to the other end of the table where the old woman who had opened the door for me sat with two men. She was Mark’s grandmother and the older man was Mark’s grandfather. The other man was Jenny’s father, Mitch DeWitt.
I’d guess the Pickersleys to be in their early eighties, but they hadn’t been easy years. I’ve got eighty-year-olds in my church who travel to Estes Park, Colorado, every year and hike up to Flattop. If you’ve spent most of your long life working long, hard hours for small pay and fewer benefits, you won’t be in the hiking crowd at eighty.
Mr. Pickersley had once been tall. He’d curled in as he aged and he was very thin now. His wisps of gray hair had been slicked straight back, and he wore a suit that had fit him when his shoulders were broader and he had stood straighter. His shirt wasn’t new, and his tie was circa 1960. He had his handkerchief out and he mopped the tears from his face before gravely thanking me for taking the time to drop by.
Mitch DeWitt was a much younger man—he didn’t look much over sixty. He’d lived some hard years, too. His shoulders were rangy with the kind of muscles that come from hard work in the sun, not from lifting weights at the gym. His tight, white shirt was sheer enough so that you could see the V-neck undershirt he wore beneath it and the pack of Marlboros tucked in his breast pocket. He stuck an unlit cigarette back in the pack and put a hand out to shake.
“You’re the preacher, right? Phoebe died at your house, that right? You weren’t even home—that’s what I heard. Opened your house up to our little girl and then left her there to die all alone. I heard your daughter couldn’t even be bothered to call nine-one-one like you see three-year-olds do all the time on the news, rescuing their mamas.” He held on to my hand while he said this. I caught a whiff of bourbon along with the smoke and it wasn’t even noon.
I got my hand back. It had gotten quiet in the kitchen. People were listening.
I said, “Phoebe did die at our house. My daughter found her and called for help.” She had—she had called me. “We weren’t expecting Phoebe and we didn’t have any idea what kind of . . . what distress Phoebe . . .” I didn’t know exactly what had happened. I let the sentence trail off, but I met DeWitt’s eyes.
“I’m only saying, is all. Keeping it straight.”
Keeping what straight?
“Did you know Phoebe well, Mr. Wells?” This was Mrs. Pickersley. Her unadorned face was bleak with grief, but she offered up a tremulous smile, all the same. She put her cool, bony hand upon mine and clasped my fingers. Her wrinkled skin was as soft as an old dollar bill.
I told them I hadn’t known her for long.
“She was our snowdrop, Mr. Wells,” said old Mr. Pickersley. “When she was a mite of a girl, her hair was as fair as dandelion fluff, her eyebrows so light you couldn’t see them at all.”
His wife shook her head hard and she blew her nose into a crushed tissue. “All that black hair and the holes all over her dear face—that was a disguise, Mr. Wells. That wasn’t Phoebe. She never did a thing like that ’til after her momma got sick.”
“We don’t want you to think
that was the real Phoebe,” said Mr. Pickersley. “She was grieving. You know how a long time ago, Hawaiians would knock out their teeth when someone died? Saw it in a movie. That’s like what Phoebe did. Same idea. But she was still a snowdrop underneath.” He picked up his mug of coffee and brought it to his mouth but set it down without tasting it. “We’d like to know who gave her those drugs, is what. Our girl had to move all the way across Houston to your fancy neighborhood here to get mixed up in drugs. Someone is not raising their kids right.” He looked at me from under lowered eyebrow shrubs, not accusing, exactly, but looking for an accounting. “She was at your house and Mark tells us Phoebe and your girl had had a falling out, so—” He turned his hands palm up. “—I have to ask you, why, Mr. Wells? What drew her to your house? I don’t want to think unkind thoughts, but I want to know why.”
I sat down at the kitchen table and gratefully clasped the mug of coffee someone set in front of me. “Mr. Pickersley, I don’t know why she came to our house. She wasn’t finding drugs there. We’ve never had that kind of problem with either of our girls. I’m kind of wondering if she wasn’t looking for my wife, Annie Laurie. The girls didn’t get on too well but Annie and Phoebe did. It’s been more than four months since I’ve seen Phoebe over at our house. The girls did have a disagreement, and, you know, there were two years between them. Jo turned fifteen in September. That makes a difference when they’re this young.”
Mrs. Pickersley murmured, “Three years, then.”
“What?”
She said, “Phoebe turned eighteen last January. She missed so many school days, nursing her poor sick momma, that she lost a year—they made her repeat it and that was a shame because her test grades were always real good. But that didn’t matter. You miss so many days of school and you got to do the year over.
“Chet, here,” she patted the back of her husband’s wrist, “he went on up to the school to talk to the principal but he said it was district policy and there wasn’t a thing he could do about it. Said they’d sent home about twenty notices, but there wasn’t anyone there except Jenny and Phoebe and Jenny was too sick to be bothered and Phoebe was determined to be there for her momma.
“We were afraid the holdback would put paid to her dreams of going to the Air Force Academy, but it turns out that should have been the very least of our worries.” Phoebe had told me about the Air Force Academy, and I hadn’t believed her.
Tears fell. “I wish we’d taken her in ourselves—we only have the one bedroom and Mark has this big old house and we thought it was best for her to be with her daddy—there had been some hard feelings when . . . but there never would have been drugs if she’d been living with us!”
Mr. Pickersley said, “We don’t believe it, you know. That she committed suicide. That’s what they’re hinting around, asking those questions like was she depressed and all. But Phoebe would never have done away with herself. She was so strong. She stayed at her momma’s side nearly a whole year, and she must have known it might mean they wouldn’t take her at the Air Force.”
“She was such a good girl,” Mrs. Pickersley said. “We will never believe our snowdrop killed herself.”
DeWitt had lowered himself into the chair next to me. “Not one thing went right for Phoebe after your Mark left my Jenny. Mark has brought this all down on hisself. I lost my daughter and now he’s lost his, too.”
Chet Pickersley gathered himself and with great dignity he said, “Mitch, you have had three wives that I know of and two of those were common-law. Constance and I won’t argue with you that Mark has made some mistakes, but it won’t be up to you and me to be pointing them out. We are sinners, all.”
Mitch pinched the tip of his cigarette out and stuck it back in the pack he kept in his shirt pocket. Without a word, he got up and left the room.
Mr. Pickersley trumpeted his nose and wadded the handkerchief. “Give Mitch his due, it was hard on Phoebe when her daddy took up with Liz. But if things had been that bad, she would have come to us. She knew we would always be here for her. She knew she could count on us if things weren’t working out for her here.”
Mrs. Pickersley shook her head, determined to be fair. “Now, Chet, I’m not sure she would have, either. There had been a rift, you know there was. When Mark left Jenny . . . Phoebe wanted us to take a hard stand. She wanted us to cut our boy off—bring him to his senses.” To me she said, “Now, we didn’t approve of what all Mark and Liz got up to, but I told Phoebe, I said, ‘Phoebe, in our family we don’t cut people off because they don’t behave the way we want them to.’ It’s not Christian. But I don’t appreciate Mitch DeWitt coming over all holier than thou.
“He’s living in that practically new trailer, too! It’s a very nice trailer and Mark is still paying for the space it sits on even though he gave it to Jenny after the divorce.”
A trailer? Another surprise. If I had it right, that meant Phoebe Pickersley had been living in a trailer park while her dad was living among the multi-million dollar homes of Sweetwater. See, it’s not that a trailer park is such a terrible place to live—I wouldn’t want to be in one during a Houston hurricane or one of our rare tornados—but you can be happy most places if you put your mind to it. It’s the contrast that got to me. I had been thinking Phoebe and Jenny were living middle class; now it sounded more like borderline poverty.
“Are Mark’s parents here?” I asked.
“On their way,” said Mr. Pickersley. “Jimmy is working construction over in New Orleans. There’s work there and he and Lou like it. Jimmy said he had to take care of some loose ends and then they’ll pack up and head this way.
“They wanted Mark and Jenny to join them out there, you know. After Hurricane Katrina? There was so much construction work available, and even though Mark had been working machines for several years, he still knew his way around a construction site. Jimmy said with Mark’s looks and brains, he would have made foreman in no time. Mark and Jenny and Phoebe could have hitched the old trailer to the truck and made a new start in New Orleans. Jimmy said there was plenty of work.” He was silent, thinking about this lost possibility. Then he said what I knew he was thinking. “Wish he had. Might none of this happened.” He shook his head in regret.
A hand topped up the still-full cup of coffee on the table in front of me, and then filled the Pickersleys’ cups. Lizabeth wore a tight smile
“We sure are proud of those two little boys!” Mrs. Pickersley added hurriedly.
“We sure are!” Mr. Pickersley said.
Liz put a hand on my shoulder. “Could I have a word, Bear?”
I stood up with my cup of coffee. Susan and Sue Ellen were looking daggers at the old couple sharing the farmhouse table with them.
Liz led me to the empty study where Wanderley and I had torn Mark’s life apart the night before. She gestured to a chair and after I’d sat, balancing my cup on my knee, she sat down across from me.
It had been a rough night for Liz, too. Her face looked puffy and her color wasn’t good. Dark circles ringed her eyes. Her clothes were perfect, though. Tailored slacks and a neat, fitted blouse.
“You have to help us, Bear.”
Before I could respond, there was a shriek from upstairs and then an avalanche of small sneakers hurrying down the stairs. The fast clip of a woman’s shoes followed after.
“Doggy! Doggy!”
“Boys, stop! No! That’s a strange doggy, we don’t—Mrs. Pickersley-Smythe!” That had to be Mrs. Holsapple, the boys’, what? Nanny?
I set my cup down and caught up to the twins right at the kitchen door.
“Hey, there, fellas, hold on and I’ll introduce you.” I grabbed their hands. Mrs. Holsapple appeared at my side, an attractive woman of fifty or so. I said, “Mrs. Holsapple? Sorry. I’m Walker Wells. That’s Baby Bear. He’s a Newfoundland and they’re great with kids. He wouldn’t hurt them, but come outside and I’ll introduc
e you all.”
I opened up the door and the boys screamed again, beside themselves with delight. Baby Bear saw me and lumbered out of the pool where he’d been taking a refreshing dip. Like I said, that dog only listens to me when he wants to.
The boys dragged me forward and I opened my mouth to yell “No shaking!” just as Baby Bear shook himself, liberally sprinkling us with pool water. The boys laughed their heads off.
Mrs. Holsapple didn’t laugh. I made the introductions and left her to it. I hoped Liz paid her well.
I patted myself down with a dish towel and rejoined Liz in the study, making my apologies as I passed through the kitchen again.
Liz took up where she’d left off. “Mark won’t come out of his study, Bear.”
“What’s this room?” I asked, confused.
“Why, this is the library. Mark’s study is upstairs.”
They had to be running out of names to call their living spaces. “He probably needs some time to himself, Liz, after last night—”
“Excuse me, Bear. What about me?” she asked, putting a hand on her collarbone. “I have all these people here and he won’t even come out and say hello and listen to them tell him they’re sorry for our loss!”
“Liz,” I said, finally understanding her concern, “don’t give it another thought. Nobody is expecting Mark to play the host. He’s in pieces. No one here is going to think badly about—”
“He’s in pieces? He’s in pieces? What about me? This is my loss, too. I, I’m very upset that Phoebe is dead. How do you think this looks to everyone? And the boys,” she added them as a second thought, “the boys are just devastated.”
They hadn’t seemed devastated two minutes ago.
“Mark should be out here with his family. We’re his family—me and the boys! We need Mark. After all I’ve done for him, wouldn’t you think he’d have some consideration for us?”
I sat there, looking at her. Was Liz trying to tell me that Mark should get out of that room and come take care of her? She couldn’t be. No one could be that self-centered. I must have misunderstood.
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