It Happens Every Spring

by Gary Chapman; Catherine Palmer

  “I look like Jesus,” Cody announced. “I thought Jesus was in Brenda’s basement, but it was me.”

  “He saw his reflection in the sliding glass door,” Brenda explained.

  Patsy tilted her head. “Come to think of it, Cody, you do look like Jesus.”

  “Because I’m a Christian.”

  “Is that why you look like Him?”

  Cody nodded. “Okay.”

  Patsy laughed. “I’d love to shave off those whiskers, Cody, but I’m afraid I’ve got a perm coming in right now. Of course, if you and Brenda could wait a little while…I…uh…”

  Patsy glanced at the sunroom, apparently realizing that having Cody sit down among the tea-sipping ladies was probably not the best plan. “We’ve got all kinds of magazines in the waiting area,” she said, gesturing toward a row of five chairs that lined one wall. “I keep men’s magazines in stock too. Fishing, hunting, boating. All that.”

  Brenda squared her shoulders. “Cody and I will have a cup of tea and wait for you to do the perm,” she said. “Then you can work on his hair and beard while she sits under the dryer.”

  “Well—” Patsy swallowed—“all right. We’ve got chocolate cake in the counter. Help yourself.”

  “Chocolate cake!” Cody’s blue eyes brightened. “My daddy told me that only a Christian would give you chocolate cake. Are you a Christian?”

  “I certainly am,” Patsy said. “That’s why I named this salon Just As I Am. My favorite song in the whole world says that Jesus loves us just as…” She stopped speaking and gazed at Cody. Her eyes misted. “He loves us just as we are. No matter where we come from or how we’ve acted or what we look like. God loves us all.”

  “Okay,” Cody said.

  “You and Brenda step over there for a cup of tea and some chocolate cake. I see my perm just driving into the parking lot.”

  “Thanks,” Brenda said. For a moment, she covered Patsy’s hand with her own. Then she nudged Cody toward the tea area.

  Young Ashley Hanes was sitting with Esther Moore at one table. Kim Finley and her twins, Luke and Lydia were at another. No doubt they had come into the salon this afternoon for haircuts, Brenda mused. Their mother always kept the ten-year-olds scrubbed, pressed, and looking adorable in color-coordinated outfits.

  Brenda steered Cody to the empty table and pointed him to a seat. She sensed everyone staring as she arranged her coat and purse on the opposite chair. The moment Cody sat down, Kim began gathering up her children, wiping their mouths, and urging them to put on their jackets. Red-haired Ashley went as pale as a ghost. Esther looked annoyed.

  “Hey there, Esther.” Walking past the table toward the hot-water urn, Brenda greeted the older woman. “And how have you been, Ashley?”

  “Fine,” they said in unison.

  “That’s Cody at the table. You’ve probably seen him around.”

  As she bent to fill two teacups with hot water, Brenda heard someone come up beside her. She didn’t have to look to know it was Esther. With her glossy white hair and sweet smile, Esther Moore had a kind heart and was loved by the neighbors in Deepwater Cove. But Brenda knew the woman had strong opinions about everything. Her husband, Charlie, had been a mailman before retirement. Now instead of letters, he carried gossip from house to house. If he wasn’t driving around in his golf cart gathering up hearsay, he was down at the dock fishing for rumors. And, of course, every tidbit had to be filtered, sorted, organized, and officially stamped at the grand post office—Esther.

  “How are you getting along these days, Brenda?” Esther dropped some change in the basket and took another tea bag. “I hardly ever see you out and about. Seems like the last time we talked was the day you came in to get your hair cut.”

  “That’s right,” Brenda said. “When the weather warms up a little more, I’ll probably be in the yard. Have you seen my pansies? They made it right through the winter this year. I don’t think I lost a single one.”

  “I noticed that.” Esther used a pair of tiny silver tongs to drop a sugar cube into her cup. “You always have such a pretty yard. Charlie thinks it’s the nicest in the whole neighborhood. We love those baskets of petunias you hang by the door, and last year you had so many roses!”

  “It was a bumper year, all right.” Brenda was about to head for the sweets when Esther put out her hand.

  “Brenda, I ought to tell you that Charlie’s been a little concerned about your friend.”

  “Which friend?”

  Esther looked flustered. “Uh…him.” She glanced over at Cody. “As a matter of fact, several of us in Deepwater Cove aren’t quite sure what to make of the situation. You know…him sleeping on your porch swing.”

  Brenda clamped her mouth shut to keep from saying something she might regret. All these months of emptiness—sitting alone in her house missing the children, cooking meals that nobody would eat, painting and sewing on furniture that didn’t matter to anyone—and the first time anyone in Deepwater Cove acted like they cared, it was to complain! No one had stopped at the house to visit her. No one had asked why she’d let the fallen leaves molder on the lawn or the spiders move back onto the porch at the end of the summer. No one wondered how she was getting along without her children there.

  “You can tell Charlie that Cody is very comfortable on the swing,” Brenda said. “I appreciate his concern. It’s sweet of him to care about my friend.”

  Esther stood gaping as Brenda walked to the glass counter and took out two pieces of chocolate cake. Carrying the cake to the table and then returning for the tea, Brenda kept her focus on Cody. He was scratching his head with the pointed tines of a fork while studying himself in the stainless-steel napkin holder.

  “I sure do look like Jesus,” he said when Brenda sat down. “Like in the Bible when He was sitting on that rock with all the kids on His lap and around His feet. ‘Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not: for of such is the kingdom of God.’ Mark 10:14. I look like Jesus on that rock.”

  “Not for long. I’m eager to see what Patsy can do with your hair.” Brenda pushed Cody’s tea and cake in front of him. As he warmed up to her, he had become more verbal, and much of his conversation showed a fairly high intelligence. He could cite many Bible verses.

  “That beard has to go,” she told him. “No one can see what you look like.”

  “I’m twenty-one,” Cody said. “Time to make my way.”

  “You’re an adult, all right. I wish we knew where your father went off to.”

  Picking up a clean fork, Cody leaned forward in the chair and lifted a bite of chocolate cake to his mouth. “Make my way,” he said glumly. “Time to make my way.”

  “Why did your daddy want you to leave?”

  “I’m twenty-one. Time to make my way.”

  Brenda sighed. They had been through this conversation many times, and it never got them anywhere. She had no idea how long Cody had lived with his father, or where. Nor did she know what had possessed the man to send this man-child into the world alone. Surely Cody’s dad must have known the young man would have a difficult time surviving on his own.

  “I’m a sweeper,” the young man said suddenly. “I kept the trailer span. That was my job. I kept everything span.”

  “You lived in a trailer?”

  “Until we moved out and lived in our car. In the trailer, I swept the floor with a broom. Like her.” Cody pointed a finger at one of the stylists who was brushing shorn hair from her last cut into a dustpan. “I can mop, too. With a mop and a bucket and water. My daddy says I keep everything span.”

  “Now, Cody, where was this trailer? Was it near—?”

  A deafening, floor-shuddering buzz suddenly blasted through the salon, cutting off Brenda’s words. Walls shook. Ceiling fixtures swayed. A row of teacups leaped off a shelf in unison like a team of synchronized swimmers diving into a pool.

  As the cups shattered on the floor, a look of horror darkened Cody’s face, and he clamped his ha
nds over his ears. The buzz grew to a roar that sounded like the end of the world. Both of Kim’s twins began to scream as Patsy Pringle came running into the tearoom.

  “What on earth?” she cried. “What on earth?”

  Cody let out the wail of a wounded animal. He bolted from the table, knocking over his chair, and ran through the salon as though a bear were after him. As Brenda tried to steady the plates and teacups rattling on their table, she watched him fling open the door and vanish.

  “Oh, my stars, not again!” Patsy hollered over the roar. She flung a handful of pink plastic curlers to the floor. “That does it. I will not stand for this!”

  She turned and dashed out the salon door behind Cody. Still holding on to the table, Brenda saw the buxom salon owner march past the window toward Pete’s Rods-n-Ends, the tackle shop that had recently opened next door. Then, like every other customer in the salon, Brenda raced after Patsy.

  The only difference was, Brenda was looking for Cody. And he was nowhere to be seen.

  Empty cars sat parked in front of the various businesses that made up the strip mall, while other vehicles streamed up and down Highway 5 through Tranquility, which was nothing more than the row of stores, a bank, a grocery, a bar, and two restaurants. A line of trees, just beginning to leaf out, rimmed the parking lot.

  Brenda sensed Cody would have headed for protective cover.

  “Now you just come with me!” Patsy Pringle was saying as she hauled a burly, bearded man out of the tackle shop by one of his beefy arms. “Take a look at what you did to my tearoom, mister. And while you’re at it, you can explain yourself to my customers!”

  “I started up a chain saw—that’s all,” the man said. “Just to see if it worked.”

  “You might as well have cut right through my wall with that crazy thing,” Patsy snapped. She waved a hand toward the group of women who stood on the sidewalk in plastic capes, curlers, and layers of tinfoil. “Come on back inside everyone. This Einstein is Pete Roberts, our new neighbor.”

  The man reminded Brenda of a Saint Bernard being dragged down a sidewalk on a leash. He gave the ladies a sheepish smile as Patsy pulled him into the salon.

  Brenda hurried over to the line of trees. “Cody?” she called. “Cody, it’s all right. You can come out now. That loud sound was just a chain saw in the store next door.”

  Nothing in the woods stirred except a gray squirrel. It leaped from a stump to a low branch and then scurried up the trunk.

  “Cody?” Brenda yelled again. “It’s me, Brenda. You can come back now. Everything is safe!”

  She stood for a moment, feeling almost as awful as she had the fall day when Justin and Jessica drove off to college. Emptiness sucked through her like a vacuum. She tried to breathe, but couldn’t.

  “Cody!” she called, more softly now. She knew it was useless. “Come back, Cody. Please come back.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Steve Hansen had a plan. A foolproof plan. He had closed on a lucrative sale that morning and finished his office work early. This meant he would get home in time for supper—an event he was determined to avoid. So he would greet Brenda with a shouted hello. Hoping she wouldn’t come looking for him, he would quickly change into jeans and a T-shirt, grab his fishing pole, and head down to the dock.

  After work, he had stopped by Rods-n-Ends and asked for a dozen minnows. Like most bait-shop owners at the lake, Pete always scooped out about twice that many—plenty enough to keep Steve busy until well after dark. He also bought a rotisserie hot dog and a can of soda. He would eat while he fished.

  If things went well, he would be able to head for bed without ever setting eyes on his wife. That would be good. Her project to save a local drifter from homelessness had come to an abrupt end the other day. Every time he asked what was wrong, Brenda stared at him from beneath hooded eyelids as if he was supposed to read her mind. These days she barely spoke to him, and she shrank from his touch. Forget about the two of them doing anything in bed but sleeping. Brenda had made it perfectly clear she was not interested.

  As he switched off the car engine and listened to the garage door go down, Steve closed his eyes, leaned his forehead on the steering wheel, and tried to pray. He had loved Brenda from the minute he first laid eyes on her. They had been high school sweethearts, and up until the last few months, she had been trim, pretty, smart, fun loving, and as sweet as a slice of warm pecan pie.

  What was wrong with Brenda lately? Why wouldn’t she ever talk to him or touch him?

  Frustrated, realizing that his prayer had come to nothing, Steve opened the car door. The handyman Brenda had hired was supposed to start on the basement remodeling today, and Steve fervently hoped that project would improve his wife’s mood.

  As Steve opened the door from the garage to the kitchen, he heard a sound that hadn’t been in the house in months. Brenda was laughing.

  “All right, all right,” she said with a chuckle. “If you say so. I think it’s kind of extravagant, but why not?”

  “You deserve it, so you ought to have it,” a deep voice answered her.

  Steve rounded the corner to find his wife standing in the foyer with a tall, lanky fellow in a sweat-stained ball cap, a paintspattered shirt, and an even dirtier pair of jeans. The man’s focus shifted to Steve, and his expression sobered a little. “Howdy. I’m Nick LeClair, A-1 Remodeling.” He held out his hand. “You must be the famous Steve Hansen.”

  Steve shook his hand. “Did you and Brenda work out a plan for the basement?”

  “A crafts room!” Brenda exclaimed, her green eyes sparkling. “It was Nick’s idea. I explained how the basement had been the playroom when the kids were little, and then it became the teen hangout, and that I just didn’t know what to do with it now. All their trophies are down there, and school pictures, and the wide-screen TV. The puzzles and LEGOs…you know? Nick and I were looking at the paw prints where Ozzie had jumped into the paint, and he asked me why they were pink. So I showed him my chairs!”

  “Which chairs?” Steve asked. He had no idea what Brenda was talking about—paw prints, chairs, pink paint. What on earth was a crafts room, and why did the Hansens need one?

  “The dining-room chairs.” The emerald sparkle in Brenda’s eyes faded to a dull, wary olive. “The ones I painted.”

  “Oh.” Steve glanced across the foyer into the dining area. Sure enough. Pink plaid chairs. Where had those come from?

  “Nick thinks they’re wonderful,” Brenda said. “I showed him the slipcovers I’d sewn for the couches. He knows a lady who hired someone to make a set of slipcovers, and he says hers aren’t nearly as professional looking. Our house has been mostly contemporary, you know, but I’ve been wanting a change. I told Nick my thoughts, and he says with a little paint and a few alterations, we can easily go cottage.”

  Steve stared dumbly at his wife. He had no idea what she was talking about, but at least some life had come back into her eyes.

  “Cottage,” he repeated, nodding sagely. It was a trick he’d learned years ago. If he couldn’t remember, didn’t understand, or couldn’t make himself care what his wife was talking about, he simply repeated her last word. Worked like a charm. She never knew he was paying no attention.

  This time, Brenda rolled her eyes. “Nick knows several store owners who are interested in painted furniture too. He thinks I should continue perfecting my art.”

  “Perfecting your art?” Steve mouthed. When had painting chairs and draping sheets across furniture become an art?

  “We can cover the floor in a neutral vinyl,” Nick was saying now. “Then we can divide the room into work zones for Brenda. We’ll use different shades of paint and a few built-in dividers to separate each area. It won’t take much—time or money. We can give her a sewing spot with a big table where she can spread out her fabric. Then we can create a painting space where she’ll be able to drip without causing any problems. I’ve got an idea for a large, shallow metal tray that will allow her to put t
he furniture safely on the floor. She told me about her gardening, so I thought we could set a potting area next to the sliding glass door. And that ought to just about take care of her.”

  Steve blinked, trying to work his head around potting, sewing, and painting zones. All day he had been thinking about closing costs and mortgage rates. Phrases like your dream vacation home and fishing, floating, and fun and lakefront beauty had been zipping around in his brain. He had photographed three houses, one of which was about to collapse on its foundation, and had spent hours trying to get good shots from flattering angles.

  What on earth was a potting area?

  Steve rubbed his temples. For the first time since he’d walked into the house, he noticed that Brenda was wearing a pretty purple shirt and a pair of black slacks. It looked like she might have done something with her hair, too. The edges were different.

  Deciding the best thing to do at this point was follow his original plan of action, Steve mustered a smile for his wife. “Well, that sounds interesting,” he said. “Looks like you’ve got your work cut out for you, Nick. Write us up an estimate, we’ll take a look at it, and then we can talk some more.” Turning to his wife, he continued speaking. “I guess I’ll head down to the lake and wet a line, Brenda. I haven’t been home early in a while, and Charlie Moore tells me the crappie are really biting these days.”

  “Nice to meet you, Steve,” Nick said. “You’ve built yourself a great reputation here at the lake. I wouldn’t be surprised if you got the Realtor of the Year award at the banquet this Christmas. Congratulations.”

  Steve nodded to acknowledge the compliment; then he hurried toward the bedroom. He could hear the excitement return to Brenda’s voice when she began conversing with the handyman again. Well, if it made her happy to pot, sew, and paint, then that was all right. Maybe she would get back to normal eventually.

  In fact, now that Steve recalled the situation, Brenda had looked like her old self today. Maybe even better. He decided to revise his plan and only fish for a little while. If Brenda was happy about the basement remodeling, maybe she wouldn’t push him away in bed again tonight. In fact, the more he thought about it, the more Steve felt sure good things were right around the bend.