Detours

by Vollbrecht, Jane

  Ellis took a shot. “Say that I’m trying to decide what kind of work I want to do next and that while I’m looking, I’m staying here and helping out with things your dad used to do. You know, things like mowing the lawn and taking you fishing.”

  Natalie lit up like a new candle. “Fishing? Will you take me fishing, Ellis?”

  “Sure. Since Georgia lets us fish all year for everything but trout, we can go fishing anytime we want to.”

  “Sweet! Are we going tomorrow?” Natalie asked.

  “Maybe, but I need to get all my stuff put away.” Ellis hoped the stall tactic wasn’t too blatant.

  “No, you don’t. We’ve still got a whole room full of boxes from when we moved in. Mom says they can wait ’til next summer.”

  “Don’t nag, Nat,” Mary said. “How about you go to your room and get ready for bed. It’s almost ten o’clock.”

  “I never get to stay up and have fun.”

  “No grumping.” Mary pointed toward the hallway that led to the bedrooms. “Go.”

  Mary waited until she heard the door to Natalie’s bedroom close. “Nice save with the ‘you’re weird’ example.” She sat on the chair next to Ellis’s. “And excuse me, but fishing?”

  “Hey, it worked, didn’t it?” Ellis gave Mary a quick kiss. “You and your offspring certainly know how to make a welcome home party memorable. Are you sure I shouldn’t grab Sam and make tracks out of here before things get super ugly for you with your family?”

  Mary wrapped her arm around Ellis’s head in a fake wrestling hold. “Don’t even think about it. I’m never letting you go, no matter what sort of crap my family decides to fling. I think I’ll have a chat with my little sister first. She seems the most likely not to need resuscitation after hearing the L-word. No point putting it off.”

  “For real?” Ellis eased Mary’s arm from around her neck. “Don’t you want to give it some more thought?”

  “Nope. What I want to do is get this table cleared off and find out if my first night of forever with you feels as good as I’ve imagined.”

  “Let me help.” Ellis hurriedly stacked plates and carried them to the kitchen.

  Mary followed with an armload of serving bowls. She stashed leftovers in plastic containers. “We’ll have a tough decision tomorrow night,” she said as she closed the refrigerator door.

  “Why’s that?”

  “We’ll have to pick between tonight’s remnants and the stringer of fresh fish you and Nat bring back from your first angling expedition.”

  Ellis scrambled for a smart comeback, but suddenly Mary was in her arms. The urgency of Mary’s kiss wiped out every thought—other than the one about getting her to the bedroom as quickly as possible.

  But urgent and best-laid plans went awry, and getting to the bedroom wasn’t as easy as Ellis hoped. First, Natalie demanded Ellis tuck her in, followed by Natalie’s inquiry about where Sam would sleep. That reminded Ellis that Sam hadn’t been fed, nor had she been let out for her last visit to the yard. She had no more than tended to Sam’s basic needs and deposited the dog in Natalie’s room when the child summoned her mother and a glass of water.

  “It’s my fault she’s wound up tighter than a spring-load yo-yo,” Mary said as she stumbled back to the master bedroom where Ellis waited. “She had enough sugar at dinner to put her into orbit.”

  Ellis tried to mask a yawn. “Riling her up with our conversation topics and the prospect of a fishing trip tomorrow probably didn’t help the cause, either.”

  Mary snuggled up to Ellis and kissed her lazily. “We better make sure she’s really asleep before we do what I hope you’re still wanting to do.”

  By the time Natalie finally fell asleep, exhaustion had claimed Ellis. She felt like she’d been run over by a whole pack of children in soccer cleats. She helped Mary ease out of her clothes and then dragged her weary self out of her jeans and sweatshirt.

  She lay in Mary’s arms, skin against skin, too tired to do anything more than think about making love.

  She yawned loudly. “If I said you had a great body, would you hold it against me?”

  “I already am,” Mary said. “And I plan to do so every night for the rest of my life.”

  “Perfect. And if I told you I’m probably too tired to do anything more than lie here like this with you tonight, would you hold that against me?”

  “Not for a minute. To tell the truth, all that hash-slinging and banner-making wore me out.” Mary brushed her fingertips lightly over Ellis’s back. “We’ve got from now until forever, so I can give you a rain check for one night.”

  “Here we are, together at last, an old boring couple.”

  Mary leaned down to reach Ellis’s lips and kissed her soulfully. “Too many words. The only ones that count are here, together, and couple.”

  ∗ ∗ ∗ ∗

  For the tenth time in as many minutes, Ellis got up from her chair in the living room and looked out the front window. Yes, Sam would woof to announce Mary’s return from her conversation with Gloria, but dang, what was taking so blasted long? What if Gloria went ape shit and smacked Mary with a frying pan? Worse, what if she’d called Anna and Anna had shown up to give Mary the worst tongue-lashing of her life?

  I never should have let her talk me out of going with her, Ellis thought. If we’re a team, we should do this sort of thing together.

  At long last, Ellis heard Mary’s Xterra. Ellis met Mary on the front steps and fired her questions one after the next. “What happened? How did it go? Are you all right? Should I pack my stuff, move away, and leave no forwarding address?”

  Mary’s smile helped erase Ellis’s worst fears. “Walk in the park. As we suspected, Gloria had almost all of the puzzle pieces in place.”

  “She’s okay with it? With us, I mean?”

  “For the most part, yes.” Mary kissed Ellis after they stepped inside and closed the door. “Turns out that Adam has an uncle on his mother’s side who’s—to use my sister’s words—a pretty boy. Once she reminded me about him, I remembered seeing him at Gloria’s wedding. To tell the truth, I think she was a little jealous of him.” Mary stifled a laugh. “He was almost prettier than she was.”

  “Does he live around here?”

  “No, he moved to Atlanta right after high school, and unlike me, had the good sense to stay there.”

  “Does he have a partner?”

  “Does it matter?”

  “No, I was just curious.”

  “Gloria didn’t mention a partner, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t have one. From what she said, I got the impression that Adam is one of the few people in his family who hasn’t written the uncle off as a lost cause.”

  “Does Adam see him or talk to him?”

  “Some, but it sounds like the uncle isn’t any more interested in spending time with the family than the family is in having him around.”

  “How loving and supportive.”

  “At least Adam left the door open. Gloria told me that the uncle was a lot younger than the rest of the kids in the family. He and Adam were more like siblings than separate generations.”

  “I guess it can’t hurt to have at least one more family member playing for our team.”

  “The uncle?”

  “I meant Adam, but sure, I’ll count old Uncle What’s His Name, too.”

  “Isn’t that funny? Now that you mention it, Gloria never once called him by name.”

  “Shadow people don’t get names, babe. We’re merely the poor, misguided unfortunates—those lesser beings who populate the lower rungs of nearly every group.”

  “There are worse things than going through life unnoticed.” Mary kicked her shoes off and curled in a corner of the sofa.

  “No doubt.” Ellis plopped beside her. “Would it be all right, though, if I noticed how good it feels to be next to you?”

  “If I can notice the same thing about you.” She welcomed Ellis’s kiss.

  “Thanks for telling your sister
about us.”

  “Thanks for giving me a reason to need to tell her by moving in with Nat and me and making this house our home.” Mary held Ellis tight. “And it was lots easier knowing you’d be here to hold me when I got back today.”

  “Today and every day, love. I promise.”

  ∗ ∗ ∗ ∗

  Over the next couple of weeks, Mary made room in closets and drawers and Ellis stowed her clothing and other personal items. Mary found a great deal on a small second-hand desk for Ellis. It fit nicely in the corner of the third bedroom where Mary wrote her articles for Georgia Life.

  Once Ellis had her computer hooked up, while Mary labored on her assignments, Ellis spent time scouring the Internet for job leads around Clarkesville. To say that she found slim pickings would be to overstate her success.

  One morning after another fruitless search, she skimmed through her emails and came across the message she’d saved from her brother. Wow, she thought, it was more than four months ago that I found that letter from Mom and wrote to Nicolas. I still haven’t gotten in touch with Anika. With all that’s happened since Nathan died, I haven’t had time to even think about what I might say to my sister.

  She looked across the room and saw Mary typing furiously on this month’s magazine stories. As always, the sight of her beloved Mary made her heart seize with joy. My heart and soul. My family.

  Ellis opened the bottom desk drawer and pulled out the photo album she’d looked at for the first time in early June. She hurried past the pictures to get to the page where her mother’s letter began. She read quickly until she found the line she wanted to be sure she remembered exactly: A real family is made by love and shared experiences, not by bloodlines.

  She drank in another lingering eyeful of the beauty known as Mary Moss.

  Family.

  It was time to connect with her sister and brother, time to let the healing start. It was time to forgive Becky Blumfeld and embrace the wonder that only a family can provide.

  ∗ ∗ ∗ ∗

  Ellis snapped her cell phone shut and clutched it to her chest. A tear wedged its way out of the corner of her eye. She meandered outside to look for Mary, who had told her she’d be pruning the butterfly bushes.

  “How did it go?” Mary laid her long-handled loppers on the ground.

  “The last time I talked to my sister was at my dad’s funeral in 2002. And we didn’t really talk much then. She and Nicolas came to Savannah together, and neither one of them brought their spouses or their kids. All any of us wanted to do was get the service over with and get out of there.”

  “When was the last time you’d seen her before that?”

  “She came home a few times while she was in college, but I really don’t remember much about her.”

  “But you told me your mom’s letter said she took care of you when you were a baby.”

  “Uh-huh. And now that I’ve talked with her—really talked with her—for the first time in my life, I can’t believe I ever had a bad thought about her. And she’s already a grandmother. I’ve never even met my nieces, and now I’ve got a grand nephew and there’s another baby on the way.”

  “Congratulations, Auntie Ellis.”

  “That would be Aunt Gretchen to them.”

  Mary chuckled. “Oh, right. I forgot. Let’s go inside, Gretchen, and you can tell me everything your sister said.”

  Ellis grabbed Mary’s outstretched hand and they ambled across the yard. “I should have recorded the call. We covered so much I’m not sure how I’ll be able to tell you all of it.”

  “Try,” Mary said as they stepped inside the front door.

  “Anika said she and Nicolas were convinced that Dad told them he wasn’t their real father right before they left for college because he wanted Mother and him and me to be the perfect family. They thought it was his way of saying, ‘Have a nice life; stay the hell away.’”

  Mary and Ellis dropped side by side onto the sofa. “Do you think that was his intention?”

  “Who knows? My dad sure wasn’t Mister Warmth and Personality, but I never thought he was intentionally cruel. Maybe he figured since they were adults, they deserved to know some bastard had abandoned them.”

  “One time you told me you always felt like it was your parents and the twins who were the real family and you were the afterthought.”

  “Yeah, I figured she and Nicolas hated me for coming along and messing up their happiness.”

  “Turns out they thought the same of you.”

  Ellis twisted her index finger in front of her ear and made a goofy face. “God, this world is a screwed up place. It’s a miracle we’re not all permanently institutionalized.”

  Mary kissed Ellis’s cheek. “Forgive me for saying so, but hearing all this about your family gives me comfort.”

  “Why? Because misery loves company?”

  “Kind of. But it’s more like we can look at ourselves and say, ‘Look, despite all the crap we went through with our families, we’ve made it this far, and we’re still functioning adults. We are what we are in spite of our past, not strictly because of it.’”

  Ellis considered for a moment. “Sort of like hope triumphing over doubt.”

  “Exactly.” Mary lifted Ellis’s arm so that she could cuddle against her. “How else would anyone ever decide to bring a child into this loony bin known as planet earth?”

  “Sometimes I wonder if this thing we call life is really remedial play for retarded third-graders in a distant galaxy.”

  “Could be. We can’t know for sure, so we might as well try to enjoy the ride.” Mary pulled Ellis’s other arm around so that Ellis was hugging her. “Now, I want to hear the rest of what your sister had to say.”

  Ellis filled her in on the details she’d gathered from her hour-long call with Anika. It boiled down to some major misconceptions between Ellis and her half-siblings due to a glaring lack of information; a bond of love that, although neglected, was still in existence; and promises to find ways to be part of one another’s lives.

  “I can’t wait for you and Anika to have your first fight,” Mary said.

  Ellis pushed Mary away so that she could see her face. “What an awful thing to say.”

  “Not at all. It’ll be nice to have the spotlight on your sister’s annoying behavior for a change.” Mary poked her finger on Ellis’s chest as she spoke “your.”

  Ellis grinned. “That’s one of Natalie’s favorite ploys—whining about not having a sibling to blame and to boss around.”

  “Can you blame her?”

  Ellis grew pensive. “Maybe for the first time ever, no I can’t. Every kid should have a brother or sister to help them navigate life’s highways.”

  “And detours,” Mary added. “Don’t forget the detours.”

  ∗ ∗ ∗ ∗

  Ellis reread the letter she’d written to Becky. She’d spent much of the next morning striving for the right mix of gratitude and appreciation for their years together, conciliation for her strident behavior when she had run into her and Ruthann in June, and congratulations on finally fulfilling her dream of being a mother. Satisfied that she’d found acceptable words, she opened the small lockbox that held her important papers and took out the promissory note Becky had given her when they dissolved their union. In bold letters, she printed PAID IN FULL across the Terms of Payment section of the note. In her regular cursive, she added a line at the bottom of the page: Use this for your child’s college education, music lessons, or soccer equipment. Best wishes to all three of you. Love, Ellis.

  Chapter 11

  “I really think it would be better if I stayed home.” Ellis ran her finger around the edge of the pie plate sitting on the kitchen table. “You could leave me a slice of this apple pie, though.”

  “Honestly, Ellis, you’re worse than Natalie.” Mary swatted Ellis’s hand to keep her from picking at the pie crust. “Thanksgiving is for families, and you’re part of this family now. We’re going to Mother’s, and t
hat’s the end of the discussion.”

  Ellis had managed to avoid any serious confrontations with Mary’s family in her first two months in Clarkesville. Of course, avoiding confrontations meant pretty much avoiding the Moss family altogether. She had spent a strained afternoon with them two weeks earlier to help celebrate Natalie’s tenth birthday. Thanks to the general confusion generated by six children clamoring for more ice cream and squabbling over who got the next turn with Nat’s sing-along karaoke mike, the seven adults in attendance hadn’t talked about anything more pressing than getting the candle wax out of baby Erin’s hair. But now the holidays were upon them, and Ellis’s dodge-and-weave tactics weren’t going to work as well.

  “Is everybody going to be there?”

  “If by everybody, you mean my sisters and their families and my mom, then yes, everybody will be there.” Mary crimped a sheet of aluminum foil over the pie. “And if we don’t get going, we’ll be late. You do not want to give my mother a reason to declare Thanksgiving a disaster due to a delay in serving her turkey.”

  “All right. Message received. What else do we need to take?”

  “A large dose of patience and good humor and our adorable ten-year-old.”

  “Ten going on twenty-eight, as her dad might have said.” Ellis regretted the words as soon as they’d left her lips.

  Ellis watched as Mary distracted herself with checking that the stove burners were turned off and looking out the window over the sink. “Our first Thanksgiving without Nathan. Some days, I still expect him to come through the door calling for Natalie to hurry up.”

  Ellis stepped over behind Mary. “I’m sorry. I should have thought before I spoke.” She kissed the back of Mary’s neck. “I’ll try to be smarter from now on.”

  “No, I think it’s good we talk about him, especially in front of Natalie. She needs to remember her dad and know that it’s okay to miss him.”

  “Do you miss him, Mary?”

  “Of course I do. He was a part of my life forever. He was one of my best friends, and don’t forget, without him, I wouldn’t have Natalie. I suspect I’ll miss him every day for as long as I live.”