by Jill Barnett
It took everything I had in me not to say ‘I didn’t invite you.’ I smiled instead, but it felt brittle. “Well, this is a surprise.”
Molly shot me a look that almost dared me to say something, which I knew now explained exactly why she had been avoiding me.
“Happy Thanksgiving,” I said to him as sweetly as I could, not wanting to ruin the day.
Molly had just lost the father she adored, and now suddenly she’s dating this older man? A man who I knew was hard on women? At the casino he’d said he was a grandfather. My daughter was only twenty four.
I turned away, feeling sick, as they headed for the TV room and walked over to the sink and stood there, gripping the sides. My prescription bottle sat next to the soap dish so I opened the bottle, went over to the island, refilled my glass and washed the medication down with another glass of Mike’s best wine.
Nothing would help me. I understood all too well what had been happening when I was self-absorbed by my grief. There wasn’t enough Zoloft in the world to numb me to the fact that Molly had not been watching out for me that night in our house Tahoe. She had been watching Spider.
Everyone was sitting at the table, hungry and expectant, when I walked into the dining room carrying a big platter of turkey. Phil got up quickly and took it from me. “Wow, look at this,” he said, holding the heavy platter up.
“Yeah, amazing,” Scott said. “It’s not smoked, fried, or pickled.”
The kids laughed and I said, “Your father would love this bird.” I had to admit that sitting on that huge silver platter, this turkey looked to be the most golden brown, perfectly-roasted bird I’d ever seen. Even with half of it sliced, it looked like the November cover of Bon Appetite.
Phillip set the platter on the table and the serving fork fell on the floor, so I went down to pick it up, and saw Spider’s hand resting halfway up my daughter’s thigh.
When I straightened, I could feel the imaginary red horns sprout on my head . I was already holding the long meat fork in my fist, ready to leap across the table and stab him in his black heart. But someone suggested we needed to say grace, so I had to sit down and behave. I couldn’t murder him during a prayer, even though the Good Lord and I had been on shaky ground for a while.
So I tried for a rare second or two to actually speak to God. Save my daughter, save my daughter, save my daughter I mentally chanted. After all, He had saved my son last night.
But the moment was gone with an ‘amen’ and it was immediately chaos with wine bottles and serving bowls passing hand over hand, while gravy boats and butter plates and bread baskets all made the rounds of the table, everyone talking at once.
“This is the best.” Phil held the serving bowl and dumped half of it on his plate. “Sausage stuffing.”
“Oh, Phillip, don’t eat it all,” Keely said. She took the bowl and went out to the kitchen to refill it.
“Oh my God . . . no!” Renee stood up quickly.
“Renee? What are you doing? You don’t even like stuffing.” Scott said, frowning at his wife. He looked up at her. “What’s wrong with you?
“My water broke.” Renee looked down, helpless, then up, her face showing she was ready to cry. “Oh, Mom, I ruined your good chair.”
“It’s fine,” I said, moving quickly to her side. “Are you having contractions?”
She nodded. “Since last night.”
“What?” Scott burst out, and Renee nodded, then burst into tears.
Tyler looked at his mother, then at his father, and his small face turned bright red and he started wailing. “It’s okay sweetheart,” I said, trying to calm him.
“Since last night?” Scott was not happy. “Why the hell didn’t you tell me?”
“Because it’s Thanksgiving,” Renee said sobbing.
I turned away from Tyler and said, “Stop shouting at her, Scott.” Then I took a deep breath and added more calmly, “Take it easy. We’ll time her contractions and then call her doctor.”
Renee moaned and doubled over, gripping the back of the chair.
“There’s a good one.” Scott looked at his watch but forgot about his wife.
“For heaven’s sakes, don’t leave her standing there. Help her onto that sofa.”
Tyler screamed again and Miranda told him to shut up and danced around the table plucking up the candy corn she’d been eating all afternoon, and spinning around the room in circles from all the sugar.
Renee grabbed her belly and I could see the contraction writhe across her bulging stomach. I remembered that pain even all those years later.
“One minute apart,” Scott said. “Can that be right?” He looked up from his watch while Renee dug her nails into his hand.
“Mickey,” I said quickly. “Go call 911.”
“Okay.” He dropped his bread roll and got up, but stopped suddenly and squinted at me from his good eye. “What for?”
“Renee’s baby!” I shouted at him. “It’s okay, Tyler. It’s okay. Your mommy’s fine. G-Mo didn’t mean to yell. Phillip, stop shoveling food in your mouth and go see about your wife. And you, Molly, tear your goo-goo eyes away from Spider, who is old enough to be your father, by the way, and pay attention to what’s going on in here.” Miranda was spinning toward her parents. “Will someone please take these kids?”
Everyone sprang into action at once. But when Molly sent Spider over to take Miranda out of the room, I shouted, “No! She’s too young.” And I handed him Tyler.
“Mother!” My daughter gave me a horrified look.
But Spider laughed at me.
“I’m sorry,” I said distractedly, waving my hand in the air. But I wasn’t .
Keely had walked back into the room before Phil could go find her and she looked at Renee, took in her contracting belly, red face, and pain-filled moans, and the blood drained from Keely’s face.
I knew that look. “Catch your wife, Phillip. She’s going to faint.”
“I need to push!” Renee cried.
“No!” everyone shouted at her at once.
I could hear the ambulance sirens so close. Thank God the fire station was only a few blocks away. Within minutes the paramedics were inside, bags on the floor as they hovered over Renee and I just stood there, having a private conversation with God. I figured He just might have had something to do with the fact that on my husband’s favorite holiday, at four twenty-two p.m., Michael David Cantrell the Third came into the world.
Chapter Twenty One
“You have got to help me do something about your sister.” I paced the floor of in front of Phillip’s desk.
“If you’ll remember, Ma, I tried to sell her to the neighbor when I was ten.”
“I’m serious.” My voice sounded strident. It was the Monday after Thanksgiving and I’d kept my grandkids over the weekend to help out Renee and Scott, and on top of everything, I hadn’t slept much. I’d been panicking about Molly and waking up at three a.m., and I’d seen Mike again. My nerves were shot.
“I don’t get involved in her love life,” Phillip looked away and shuffled some papers. “She’d eat me alive.”
“You can’t possibly be afraid of your little sister.”
“Oh, and you aren’t? She’s run the family since she came home from the hospital. Besides, she’s a big girl. She can make her own mistakes.”
“See? You think it’s a mistake, too. Spider’s way too old for her, and she’s vulnerable, after just losing your dad, and the fact that she hasn’t had a relationship in a while. I’m really worried about this.”
“Spider’s a good guy.”
I ignored him. “She would have listened to your dad, so she might listen to you or Scott.”
“No. She won’t listen to us because we’re not talking to her about Spider Olsen.”
“I haven’t even talked to Scott yet.”
“He and I already talked. Mom, sit down. You’re making me dizzy. Scott and I agreed not to get involved. Besides, as grandpa used to say, the horse is
out of that barn.”
I sat and crossed my legs. I knew what Phillip was saying. Molly was already sleeping with Spider. “I know. I could tell.”
“How could you tell?”
“Besides the fact that he was groping her under the dinner table? Mothers just know these things.”
“If that’s true, then how come you didn’t know they were together in Tahoe?”
“I’d be willing to bet she hadn’t slept with him when we were in Tahoe.”
Phillip frowned at me and asked, “You can actually tell when she’s slept with someone?”
“I can usually tell when all my children are sleeping with someone.”
His face was priceless.
“You and Julie Gardner after the prom. Angela Winston. Jennifer Wasinski. Scott and Crystal McCafferty.” I didn’t mention Molly.
She had been a freshman in high school and fallen hard for a boy who broke her heart, and she would never talk to me about it. She talked to Mike, not about sex, but about being in love and being so hurt when the boy dumped her for a blond cheerleader.
Mike told me he was certain the punk who broke Molly’s heart dropped her for a girl who would give out. I never told him Molly was the one who had given out. I had no proof, just instinct and a certain look, but I knew.
For a long time I would broach the subject of boys when Molly and I had some time alone, but she always changed the subject, as if talking to me about dating or sex broke some kind of teenaged taboo.
Before she was twelve, I gave her the mother-daughter sex explanation and risk talk, and later again the about self-respect and owning your body and your choices. Because I wanted her to understand the value and power a woman had, and that she didn’t have to bargain with her body. That she heard about the facts of life from me was important, to understand what I wanted her to know about love and sex, and love versus sex.
But I tried to make her understand she could always come to me about her problems, about boys or men or heartaches. But she never did. The fact that she wouldn’t talk to me was painful and made me feel like somehow, unknowingly, I had failed my daughter.
Phillip came around from his desk and settled his hands on my shoulders and massaged them. “You look a million miles away.”
I leaned my head back and looked up at him and just sighed.
“She’ll be okay, Mom. She will. They’re probably not serious. Just let it go.”
I didn’t say anything more. My sons were not going to help me on this. They didn’t even agree with me that there was a problem. I felt as if I were fighting some kind of unwritten sexist code, something genetic that came in the male chromosome. Except that I know Mike would have agreed with me.
Phillip was only half right. I was certain Spider wasn’t serious, but I was worried Molly was.
The whole family went to Tahoe five days before Christmas, all staying together and boarding every day like we always had. But this was the first time without Mike.
Back when the company was beginning to see stronger and stronger profits, Mike made the decision to close the company, warehouses and factory from December twentieth until after the New Year, with full pay for all employees. It was his bonus to them and their families.
Our holiday routine was pretty much the same, and we planned to drive home on January second. But this year we had Trey, officially Michael the Third, the newest Cantrell. His Uncle Phil had taken to calling him Turkey, and at first Renee looked horrified, as if she were afraid the nickname would stick. Until Scott warned, “Payback is hell, little bro. You’re going to be father at some point. You’d better watch out.”
But when it came to teasing, nothing stopped Phil. I had a hunch poor Trey was going to be called Turkey for many, many years to come.
And Spider was seemingly inseparable from Molly. I kept wishing it were an Olympic year so he’d be gone commentating half a world away. Instead, he was included in everything we did, including Christmas Eve and morning. My sons continued to welcome him, perhaps even more than before, but I liked to think that was because his ski line and endorsements had sent our profits higher than anyone had predicted.
Scott admitted at the year-end board meeting that Mike had been smart to sign Spider to a longer term deal than Scott had originally wanted. They had argued over it at one point because of the huge amount of money. Now, compared to sales and orders, it looked like we’d stolen him for peanuts.
And Spider seemed determined to be accepted.
But there was still tension between my two older sons, though they both spoke of the company with pride and of its future with enthusiasm. I wondered if they could find a way to a true partnership, or if there would always be differences, just because they were so different.
Thanks to my grandkids and kids, Christmas worked. My family was raucous and challenging and fun when we were together. We laughed, played silly games or watched movies at night, and the days of celebration passed for me with only fleeting dark moments, late at night when I was alone in our bed. The rest of the time I was able to assuage the black hole of my loneliness by spending a lot of time on the mountain.
Chapter Twenty Two
A light snow was beginning to fall when I came to the bottom of a run and booked it toward the lift, which was almost empty. I figured I had plenty of time for a few more runs. The conditions were close to perfect; there was no wind and it was snowing. I loved this kind of snow—big, lightly floating flakes that made me want to catch them with my mouth like pieces of popcorn.
It was New Year’s Eve and the crowds were leaving the mountain early. When the next chair came around, there was no one else but a guy in the singles line, so the two of us took one quad chair up toward the top trails.
We sat with just a few inches between us, surrounded by the utter quiet of snow falling on a mountain top. The snowflakes were drifting like feathers down through the air.
“It’s so quiet when it snows like this,” I said aloud. “Almost as if the snow makes everything it covers breathless.” The words just came into my head and out of my mouth; it was the kind of thing I would have said to Mike, but never to a stranger. I was instantly embarrassed and could feel my flush. “I’m sorry,” I mumbled and couldn’t look at him.
“I read somewhere that snow can absorb at least twenty five percent of sound,” he said to me in an amazing voice that made me have to look at him. “So you’re right, snow makes the land breathless.” His voice surprised me; it was slow and Southern, the kind of cowboy drawl you expected to call you “Sugar.”
I was thankful to him for not making me feel like more of a fool, so I smiled.
He was decked out all in blue and wearing a knit hat over dark hair. He looked oddly familiar in the way some strangers do, that kind of déjà vu thing that has you scanning back in your mind for some kind of concrete recollection.
He had pale blue eyes with laugh lines in the corners, dark stubble over a strong jaw, great nose, and was really, really good-looking in that edgy, outdoor-rough, Marlboro Man ad kind of way. He looked to be a good decade younger than Spider, and I idly thought that based on looks and age, I wished this guy had met my daughter first.
“The snow is perfect,” I said for conversation, perhaps because I just wanted to hear his voice again.
“Sure is, but not too many of those folks down there seem to care.”
Behind us, way down in the parking lot, people were gathering in dark clusters, packing up gear and driving away, and there were very few skiers and boarders coming down the top runs.
“Let the fools leave,” I said. “I’d rather take a few more great runs than start partying. Been there, done that.”
“I hear ya,” he said. “Back when I was twenty two, I celebrated New Year’s and completely lost the rest of 1989.”
I laughed and did the math. He was forty one. Molly was almost twenty five. Sixteen years older? Before Spider Olsen, I might have thought that was too old for her. Now, compared to a tomcat player
who was twenty five years older, and a grandfather, this guy was a kid. And frankly, I could listen to him talk for days.
“I’m here with my family,” I offered, looking for wife and girlfriend information. The trouble with winter sports was that gloves hid the ring finger.
“I’m all by lonesome,” he said, dragging out that last word as if it was part of a song.
I looked at him for a second—he really had the most incredible eyes—and said, “You know, I have a really good-looking twenty-four, almost twenty-five year old daughter.”
“I just bet you do.”
I leaned back a bit as I looked at him, gauging him. “Seriously.”
“Seriously?” he repeated, looking me in the eye. “Then thanks, but I like my women a little less fresh and just out of the gate.”
“Oh, I get it.” I laughed. “You like the stale, barn-sour older types, probably what? Thirty?”
With a soft, knowing grin he said, “Tell me why you’re trying to set up your daughter with a stranger who could be big trouble.”
“Are you big trouble?”
“There are a lot of folks who would swear I was. But they don’t know me now. I got over causing trouble a long time ago.”
I liked his honesty, until he said, “You evaded the question about your poor daughter.”
“My poor daughter is dating an older man, older than dirt.” I couldn’t keep the disgust from my voice.
He laughed. “So you’re desperate.”
“You have no idea. It gets worse. He’s been divorced three times.”
“Some folks just keep trying, thinking eventually they’ll get marriage right with someone new. Usually the problem most likely isn’t the need for someone new.” From the way he said it, I knew he wasn’t talking about the world at large; this was a man who owned up to the failures in his past. “What does her father have to say about it?” he asked.
“I’m a widow.” I could say it without aching pain now. I’d had enough practice.
To his credit, he didn’t give me that look I hated. “Then it can’t be easy to sit back alone and watch,” he said kindly.