Aftermath

by Ann McMan

  Syd sat quietly for a moment and then looped her arms back around Maddie’s neck. “Wanna rethink my earlier offer?”

  “Which offer was that?” Maddie ran her hands up along her back. “I can’t really recall.”

  “Really?” Syd glanced at the wall clock in the kitchen. “I have about forty-five minutes to jog your memory.”

  Maddie kissed her. “You’d better work fast.”

  Syd smiled against her lips. “Fortunately, for you, I always do.”

  Chapter 12

  HENRY LOVED TO fly.

  Even though he couldn’t really see out the front windows of the airplane, Maddie let him sit on the front seat beside her on the way to pick up Gramma C. She even got him a smaller pair of ear things so he could hear her better.

  He liked taking off the best. Going that fast was really fun. He wondered if a car would do the same thing if it went fast enough. Maddie said that it wouldn’t, but he really wasn’t sure. He thought about the red Camaro. That car sure took off. And it flew all over the place. Lots of people saw it, too.

  But Maddie was always right.

  Maybe it was just a magic kind of car.

  That had to be it.

  Henry really wanted Maddie to buy a car like that, but she said they’d probably get another Jeep. He liked the old Jeep okay, but a flying car would really be cool.

  Maybe Syd could get one.

  Uncle David said that Syd’s car was like a motorized hunk of limpa bread. Henry didn’t really know what that meant, but Syd told him to give it up. She wasn’t getting a new car until the wheels fell off her old one.

  Uncle David told her that this probably wouldn’t take very much longer.

  They argued like that a lot. Maddie said it was like playing ping-pong with words instead of a ball and paddles.

  He couldn’t wait for his daddy to come live there with them. Maddie said they could go and visit him at the hospital soon. Henry had been working on pictures to send him to decorate his hospital room. Maddie said that Gramma C. had gone over to see his daddy yesterday.

  Henry loved Gramma C. They always had fun when she came to visit.

  Well . . . all except for those piano lessons.

  Somebody was talking to Maddie on the radio.

  “Cessna Four Two Nine Whiskey Papa, this is Potomac Center.”

  “This is Cessna Four Two Nine Whiskey Papa,” Maddie answered. “Go ahead.”

  “Four Two Nine Whiskey Papa, Martin State Airport is twelve o’clock and fifteen miles. Expect a visual approach to runway three-three.”

  “Four Two Nine Whiskey Papa has Martin State in sight.”

  “Four Two Nine Whiskey Papa, contact Martin State Tower on one-two-one point three.”

  “Four Two Nine Whiskey Papa over to tower on one-two-one point three.”

  “Martin State Tower, Four Two Nine Whiskey Papa is with you for a visual to runway three-three.”

  “Four Two Nine Whiskey Papa cleared to land on runway three-three.”

  “Roger, clear to land runway three-three.”

  Maddie looked at Henry. “Okay, sport. Ready to help me set this thing down?”

  Henry nodded enthusiastically. “Do you think Gramma C. is watching us?”

  Maddie smiled at him. “I think so.”

  Henry sat back and grabbed hold of the sides of his seat like Maddie told him to do during takeoffs and landings.

  Henry felt a rumble when the landing gear went down. The airplane seemed to go faster, but he knew that it really was slowing down. Then he felt the tires touch the ground, and his seatbelt held him tighter against the seatback as Maddie put on the brakes. Out the windows, he could see the tops of buildings whizzing by.

  “Four Two Nine Whiskey Papa, cleared to ramp,” The voice on the radio said.

  “Roger,” Maddie said. “Four Two Nine Whiskey Papa to the ramp with you.”

  They turned off the runway and drove more slowly toward the building where they would pick up Gramma C. and get more gas for the ride back home.

  Maddie parked the airplane and shut off the engines. A big man in a blue jumpsuit appeared next to the door on Henry’s side of the airplane. He opened the tiny door.

  “Hi there,” he said. “I heard that your passenger here might need a hand getting out?”

  “Thanks,” Maddie said. “I think he’d appreciate that.” She helped Henry unhook his seatbelt. “You wanna hop out, sport?”

  He nodded and let the man help him climb out onto the wing and then to the ground. Maddie followed him out, hopped down, and stood beside him. A big blue fuel truck pulled up next to the airplane.

  Maddie took hold of Henry’s hand. “Come on, sport. Let’s go find Gramma.”

  “Okay, Maddie.”

  They walked toward the big glass building. Henry saw a tall woman standing near the doors.

  “Gramma C!” he yelled. He pulled his hand free and ran the rest of the way to greet her.

  She smiled when she saw him coming and knelt down so she could hug him. Henry thought she smelled like those little oranges you always got at Christmas.

  “Hello, little man,” she said. “Thank you for coming to get me.”

  Maddie walked up to join them.

  “Hello, Mom,” she said. “I guess you can tell that your copilot was pretty anxious to greet you?”

  “I noticed that,” Gramma C. said. She stood up and hugged Maddie. “How about my pilot?”

  Henry could see Maddie smile against the shoulder of Gramma C’s green jacket. “The pilot was pretty anxious, too.”

  They stepped apart.

  It was windy, and Maddie’s long hair was blowing all around her face.

  “Let’s go inside,” she said. “We can get something to drink while they refuel the plane.”

  Henry looked up at her. “Can I get root beer?”

  “I don’t know, sport.”

  “I like root beer, too,” Gramma C. said.

  Maddie looked at her in surprise. “You do?”

  Gramma C. stared at her. “Of course. Do you think I exploded into adulthood like Athena from the head of Zeus?”

  Maddie smiled at her. “I confess that the idea has occurred to me once or twice.”

  Gramma C. shook her head. “Well, I actually did have a childhood, and I loved root beer, too—just like Henry.” She took hold of his hand. “Come on. Let’s go and find some.”

  “Okay.” Henry looked up at her. “Maddie likes coffee with lots of sugar. Syd yells at her about it.”

  Gramma C. nodded. “That’s good. She should yell at her for that.”

  Maddie did that thing with her eyebrow.

  They all walked into the building together.

  ON THE FLIGHT back to Jefferson, Maddie and Celine talked in vague and nonspecific terms about Celine’s visit to see James Lawrence. Henry was in the backseat of the airplane, playing with a puzzle Celine bought him in the gift shop at the FBO.

  “It was a clean procedure with no complications,” Celine said. “He has a good prognosis for a quick recovery. He’s got some phantom limb sensation right now, but that should subside within another week or so. His attending is more concerned about evidence of PTSD related to the events surrounding the immediate aftermath of the injury.”

  Maddie looked at her mother. “I worried about that.”

  Celine nodded. “With good reason. It’s a lot easier to address the physical aftereffects of combat than the emotional ones.”

  “What do they think about his ability to take on full-time parenting responsibilities?”

  Celine looked apologetic. “I didn’t feel that I could ask about that.”

  “I understand.”

  They rode along in silence for a few moments. Maddie understood that it would be better to wait until they were at home and safely out of Henry’s earshot to pursue this topic, but she was having a hard time containing her curiosity—and anxiety. It was frustrating as hell. Like waiting on a set of lab results that she
was ninety-nine percent certain would bear out the diagnosis she was already poised to make.

  James would go home to Kannapolis, and he would take Henry with him. And that would be that.

  She and Syd would find a way to go on. And maybe, if they were lucky, James would let them stay in Henry’s life. Maybe he’d even consent to let them have him for weekend visits, or for part of his summer vacations.

  That last thought made her insides twist. It reminded her of her own childhood in California with Celine, and all the holidays she spent, roaring back and forth across the country in a desperate bid to spend time with her father in Virginia.

  But that was a different time with different circumstances, and Maddie understood those dynamics now in a way she never did, growing up. Henry’s life was far less complicated. He had a father who loved him, and now he had Maddie and Syd, too. And they would always be on hand to help James in any way they could.

  They would always love Henry—even if they didn’t see him every day.

  She felt the nagging prick of a moroseness that was getting harder to keep pushed down. She knew that Syd was struggling with the same thing. Each passing day carried them closer to the inevitable end of their time with Henry. It was a damn telltale heart, beating its staccato way out of the darkness of her subconscious and into broad daylight, where it could no longer be ignored. Sometimes the banging got so loud that she wanted to cover her ears with her hands to quiet it.

  She felt a hand on her leg.

  Celine was watching her with a worried expression.

  Maddie rested a hand on top of her mother’s and squeezed. “It’s okay.”

  “It’s really not,” Celine said.

  “No,” Maddie agreed. “It isn’t.”

  “I have faith in you,” Celine said. “In both of you. You and Syd will find a way to make this work.”

  Maddie smiled at her. “We all will.”

  They flew along in silence, while Henry sat quietly in the back seat, intent on solving a puzzle of his own.

  Chapter 13

  THINGS WERE HOPPING at the Midway Café.

  Since Michael had been on hand to help out in the kitchen, Nadine had consented to reopen the small restaurant for supper three nights a week, and business was booming. It wasn’t long before word about the miraculous cuisine being served-up there spread to remote locations like Blacksburg, Roanoke, and Winston-Salem. Nadine’s husband, Raymond, now spent half his time sprawled out across one of the back booths, swilling Diet Dr. Pepper and grousing about how much it was going to cost them to extend the parking lot. He was tired of people parking all over the grass out front. Nadine said he just needed to get his thumb out of his ass and order a truckload of gravel.

  Nadine and David had even managed to hammer out an uneasy truce about “improvements” to the décor. All of the small tables now sported tablecloths—in plain white (Nadine won that round). And each table now had a simple clay pot with early spring hyacinths and curly willow tops (round two to David).

  The menu was an eclectic mix of county standards and low country specials. Michael was in awe of how Nadine could make even the simplest concoction vibrate with uniqueness. Sometimes it was as simple as adding Kellogg’s Corn Flakes to the meat loaf and finishing it off with a ladle of wild mushroom gravy or glazing the country ham with Cheerwine. He paid attention, and he didn’t ask a lot of questions. He learned that if he kept his peace, she’d sometimes volunteer little tidbits of information about the recipes.

  “My grandma, Harriet, used to soak her cut-up chicken overnight in a bowl of buttermilk. She’d also throw three or four slices of fatback into the oil while she was frying it.” Nadine laid another chicken leg into the hot iron skillet. “In my view, that fatback was always better tasting than the chicken.”

  “Why don’t you cook it that way now?” Michael asked.

  She mopped at her sweaty forehead with a thin, striped dishtowel that was nearly bleached white after many years of hard use. “Most of my customers already have one foot in the grave. I think it would be unchristian of me to hurry them along, don’t you?”

  “I don’t know about that, Nadine. The closest I ever felt to the lord was the day I first tasted your banana pudding.”

  She slapped him with her hand towel. “Don’t you blaspheme in my kitchen, boy.”

  “You know it’s true.”

  She shrugged. “Walk your tall ass over there to the refrigerator and bring me that bowl of chicken thighs.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  Michael did what he was told. With Nadine, things worked better that way

  Michael also learned that Grandma Harriet made a damn fine hummus out of butter beans. “Of course, they didn’t call it hummus in those days,” Nadine explained. “It was just her Sunday bean spread, and she’d always make it in the hottest part of the summer, with the fresh beans that were left over from canning. I always hated it when I was a girl,” she added. “But now, I realize that was just because I was sick to death of them from having to spend my school holidays shelling the damn things.”

  Michael suspected that Nadine’s Sunday bean spread was a tad more exotic than grandmother Harriet’s had ever been. For one thing, she seasoned hers with cumin and garlic. He talked her into trying it with some tahini and lemon juice, and the result was remarkable. They were now serving the modified hummus as a special appetizer, but Nadine insisted that they continue to call it bean spread.

  “Nobody will eat it otherwise,” she said. “And I don’t want it collecting mold in my refrigerator.”

  Michael found it hard to disagree.

  “Nadine, I want you to think about something,” Michael said. He sat the big bowl of chicken thighs down on a table next to the stove.

  She looked up at him. There were splatters of grease all over the lenses of her wire-framed glasses. Her brown eyes looked suspicious. “What is it?”

  “With luck, the repairs on the inn should be finished in another month or so.”

  Nadine started to transfer the chicken thighs from the bowl of buttermilk to a flat pan containing the seasoned breading mixture.

  “I guess that means you’ll be going back to work in your own kitchen, then,” she said. Her tone was unreadable.

  “Well . . . yes,” he replied. “But I have an idea I want to run by you.”

  “What is it?” she asked again. Before he could reply, she added, “If it has anything to do with leaving your partner behind, you can forget about it.” She dropped a couple of breaded pieces of chicken into the hot oil, and they started to sizzle. “You’re just lucky I haven’t taken a meat cleaver to that boy before now.”

  Michael smiled at her. “No. David goes where I go.”

  “Good thing.” She clucked her tongue. “That boy gets on my last nerve.”

  Michael laughed. “Nadine, you have more last nerves than Carter’s has little pills.”

  He could see her trying not to smile.

  “What’s this idea, then?” she asked.

  He leaned his big frame against the counter and crossed his arms. “I was thinking that we might engage in a little quid pro quo.”

  She slapped him on the arm with her tongs. “Don’t you be suggesting any of that perverted stuff to me, boy. You know I don’t cotton to any of that mess you white boys get up to.”

  “Hey!” Michael grabbed a towel and dabbed at the spot her tongs left on his sleeve. “You just got grease all over my new jacket.”

  Nadine glared at him over the rims of her glasses. “I guess your boyfriend will just have to spot clean it, then, won’t he?”

  “Come on, Nadine. I know you like David.”

  “I might like him just fine,” she said. “That doesn’t mean I don’t think the two of you are on a slippery road to perdition.”

  They’d had this conversation before.

  “Are you quoting Grandma Harriet again?” he asked.

  She shook her dark head. “Nope. Grandma Harriet took a more kind
ly view toward your kind.”

  “My kind?” he asked. “Why was that?”

  “Maybe she was just the kind of Christian who didn’t throw stones?” She shrugged. “It also could be because she lived longer with Miss Rosa than she did with Granddaddy.”

  “Miss Rosa?”

  Nadine nodded. “She played piano at the A.M.E. church in Denton. Grandma Harriet moved into Miss Rosa’s apartment after Granddaddy died. They lived there together for more than thirty-five years. You never saw one of them without the other. When Grandma Harriet died, Miss Rosa only lasted a few weeks without her.”