“Is the church office phone turned on?” Jacob asked. “I wonder if they’ve tried to call us?”
“We do have an answering machine; I’ll check it if I don’t get through to her.” She was staring at the phone, realizing she had no idea how to use it.
“What’s her number?” Jacob asked. He flipped open his phone. Dorothy spoke the number slowly as Jacob punched each keypad. He handed the phone to her while she passed Vinnie’s back to him. All she got was Katie’s answering machine, which now left her more worried than ever. She hoped they hadn’t had an accident on the way to the church, or that something hadn’t happened to Josh on the way to his dad’s. With all their preparation she hadn’t checked her e-mail today and now wished she had since Josh said he’d be sending her a birthday greeting as soon as he arrived at his dad’s.
“Good idea about the church phone, Jacob,” Vinnie said. “Bradley, run upstairs for Grandma and check the answering machine. Mom, tell him where it is.” But the machine produced nothing.
By 4:10 P.M. action was big at the dessert table and Pastor talked everyone into singing “Happy Birthday” to Dorothy when she got her pumpkin bar. Theresa had made the decision while folks were eating to go ahead and cut them up, putting slices on individual little paper plates. She’d wrapped helpings for the Joys to take with them when she saw them ducking out to get back to the Lamp Post.
Dorothy was just ready to send somebody out on a search party for Katie when they heard the door open and slam shut at the top of the stairs, then heard footsteps in the stairwell. Steven appeared first, then in walked Katie. Brown mascara marks streaked down her face, she had an unreadable look in her eyes, a giant plastic bag in her hand and . . . that hair. Dorothy had to look twice to make sure it was her—as did everyone else. A hush fell over the room. Dorothy scooted herself back from the table and made her way to Katie’s side.
“Oh, honey! What’s happened? Is Josh okay?” Dorothy was sure from the looks of Katie that she’d been wrestling with some kind of a terrible demon, never mind her hair.
“I . . . I. . . . ” Katie moved the plastic bag from one hand to the other as she swiped under her eyes, then looked at her fingers, noting she must have cried her mascara clear down her face. She glanced around the room and saw everyone was already eating dessert, which made her feel all the worse. “Sir Thomas . . .” she muttered, as yet another hot flash snuck up on her and an unbidden band of new tears poured down her cheeks. (She was starting to hate her very own hormones.) Dorothy cast her eyes around for Steven. Maybe he could explain. But he was already at the table piling food on his plate, clearly starving and looking somewhat annoyed.
“Sir Thomas? Goodness gracious, Katie! Who is Sir Thomas? What has happened?” Dorothy’s heart was pounding now; Jacob had stepped up beside her.
Jacob! Oh, no! Katie thought as she fanned herself and sniffed and tried to pull herself together. She must look a sight! Her eyes darted from Dorothy to Jacob and back again a couple of times. Jacob’s eyes were flicking from her hair to her mascara-streaked cheeks to her eyes and back to her hair again.
“Speak to me, honey!” Dorothy demanded.
Katie opened her mouth and then . . . had an out-of-body experience wherein she got a good look at herself, plastic bag in hand, hair missing, face a mess—the disaster she’d left behind in her kitchen. She couldn’t help but to start laughing at herself, which several months ago, before she moved to Partonville, would have been impossible. She laughed and laughed until she finally caught her breath and said, “Sir Thomas is dead” (Dorothy gasped, which made Katie laugh all the more), “but his cousin, Colonel Chicken, is here to take his place,” she said, now doubled over with laughter, as she held out the plastic bag, especially when she noticed Pastor Delbert had rushed over wearing his most concerned pastorly face, having overheard the word “dead.”
Jacob leaned over and whispered in his mother’s ear, “Does she have a drinking problem, Mom?” Dorothy shot him a look.
“Katie, I don’t know what you’re talking about, but I’m assuming everything is okay . . . with Josh?”
“Yes. Oh, yes, Dorothy! I didn’t mean to frighten you! Josh made it just fine.” She was pulling herself together now. “I tried phoning the church office from my cell phone to tell you I was going to be late but I got the recording and didn’t figure anyone would be checking for messages. Steven couldn’t remember his dad’s cell number. We got here as soon as we could. I am so sorry I worried you.”
“Who, may I ask, is Sir Thomas? Obviously someone close to you, from the looks of you when you first got here.”
“I’m sorry, this is going to sound like I’m daft.”
“You can say that again,” Steven mumbled as he passed by her with his piled-high plate.
“Sir Thomas Turkey. Sir Thomas the frozen turkey that, even though I tried to dismember him with a hacksaw I found in the barn, refused to thaw enough for me to cook.”
“You tried to hacksaw a frozen turkey?” Bradley, who had by now joined the group, asked. “With an actual hacksaw?”
“I had no choice. Sears was closed.” Jacob, Bradley, Dorothy, Pastor and Father O’Sullivan, who had stepped up, looked blankly from one to the other, then back at Katie again.
“Did you have enough turkey for everyone without Sir Thomas?” Katie asked.
“Thanks to Lester,” Nellie Ruth said, who had now joined the growing band of folks everyone was staring at. “God provides! Not to worry!”
“Oh, I’m so glad,” Katie said with relief, “really. Guess you don’t need this now then.” She removed the giant carton of chicken from the plastic bag. “Poor Sir Thomas was so dismembered—it was such a hopeless mess, really—that I finally gave up on him. When Steven arrived, I made him drive us to Hethrow. You can’t imagine how many places we cruised until we finally found one open! Something for . . . tomorrow’s lunch for your family, Dorothy,” she said, handing her the carton, then chuckling. “Steven was a real champ!” Katie said glancing his way. Dorothy turned and looked at Steven, who shrugged his shoulders as he shoveled another bite of potatoes into his mouth. He was famished and disappointed to have missed eating Thanksgiving with his dad but glad to be sitting with him now.
“Take your coat off and come relax, Katie,” Dorothy said as she accepted the carton. “I think you need to eat something yourself. Chicken?” she asked with a twinkle in her eye, holding the carton in front of Katie, which set them all to laughing.
Katie fixed herself a plate of food from the bounty of turkey, dressing, green beans and scrumptious-looking sweet potatoes, one of her favorites. It all smelled and looked delicious.
May Belle slowly rose out of her chair when Katie returned to the table with her plate. “Oh, honey, I’m so sorry to leave just when you’ve arrived, but I need to go lie down. You can have my place right here.” Vincent stood, which was the first time Katie had noticed him. “Vincent! It’s good to see you again,” she said as she seated herself, “although I must be a sight to behold.”
“Well, I must admit you look different, that’s for sure.” He laughed and Katie noticed he had the same twinkle in his eye as his mother. He quickly turned his attention to May Belle and asked if he could give her a ride home.
“No, you stay and visit. Earl will escort me on the walk home. To tell you the truth, getting in and out of the car is harder than just taking my time and walking.”
“Let me help you up the stairs then,” he said. She took him up on the offer, Earl close on their heels. Katie seated herself in May Belle’s chair while she watched Vincent’s act of kindness. He was built completely different from his brother. Not as lean, but such broad shoulders. When she turned her attention back to her dinner, she noticed for the first time that she’d seated herself right across from Jacob.
“I agree with Vinnie; you sure do look different. New haircut,” he said without revealing what he thought about it.
“Yes,” she said, “cut being the key word here.” She
wished she could crawl under the table, but at least her hot flash was subsiding.
“I like it,” he said.
“I must look a wreck,” she said, unable to get past her self-consciousness, but laughing just the same while she smoothed down the little twerps of hair that served as a neckline. She’d never get used to it.
“You look (he glanced at her mascara-stained cheeks again) unusual but nice.” He sounded sincere but she didn’t know him well enough to know if he meant it or not. “You seem more . . . relaxed, for lack of a better word, than when I last saw you.” (Clearly, Katie thought, he is measuring his words, making it all the more difficult to tell if they were sincere or not.) “But then I guess after one has spent a day hacksawing a frozen turkey named Sir Thomas, one is at the very least tired, if not relaxed.” He couldn’t help but grin.
Pastor set his second dessert down next to Katie and slipped into what had been Earl’s chair. “I’m so glad you could make it, Katie—without your hacksaw, of course.” Josh’s reference to Delbert’s sense of humor zipped into her thoughts. She wondered if she’d be lucky enough to become known as the town’s hacksaw lady who owned the mini mall, rather than the city slicker.
“Yes, Pastor Delbert, I’m quite glad to have left my hacksaw behind for my late arrival—which I’m sure was stunning enough without it,” she said smiling, looking into those eyes that appeared even more like hers now that her hair was back off her face.
“Please just call me Delbert, Katie,” he said, pushing his glasses up his nose with an exasperated sigh. “You ever wear glasses?” he asked.
“Not yet, although I imagine I’ll be aging into them pretty soon.” Surely they arrive right after hot flashes.
“I’ve worn them since I was a kid,” he said in a confessional tone. “I have to admit to disliking them.”
“Ever try contacts?” Jacob asked.
“Don’t have the courage.”
“I did have the courage,” Jacob said, feeling compelled to slightly readjust his glasses now that Pastor had done so with his. “Didn’t like them. Nothing wrong with glasses.”
Katie studied Jacob’s dark eyes. Jacob and Vincent were each handsome, she thought, but not alike. Vincent was lighter in skin tone, fuller in the cheeks, and yet, there was something that looked the same about their faces. She turned her attention back to Delbert.
“Josh is one of the neatest kids I’ve met in a long time,” Pastor said. “He’s so honest. Refreshing, really.” Katie wondered what her son had said, what he’d revealed about her, maybe. “He’s big on family. I like that,” he said with a smile. Family. Such a simple word, Katie thought. Such a meaningful word. Thank You, God, for my son. Bring him home safely.
Delbert finished his dessert, patted his stomach and bid his adieu. Pastor’s wife and kids walked over and gave Katie a friendly greeting. “We’ll have to have you and Josh come for dinner one night,” she said to Katie.
“That would be nice.” Thank You again, God. Baby steps ...
Before long, everyone was starting to take their leave, some stopping to make a contribution to one of the envelopes on the table or pick up a tinfoil doggie bag Nellie Ruth had whipped up. Seeing the contribution envelopes, Katie reached into her handbag and grabbed some bills. She decided since she’d given up on Sir Thomas and hadn’t even served the chicken, the least she could do was to help underwrite the day.
“Time to clean up,” Dorothy said. “Earl was going to be one of the main helpers, but I’m glad he’s home with his mom. Nellie Ruth and Lester, you two have done more than your share. You head on home—or to wherever you might need to go next,” she said, winking at Nellie Ruth. “Let me and the boys and the rest of St. Auggie’s cleanup volunteers take over now. Katie, I reckon you’re needing a nap after your harrowing day. Why don’t you swing on by to May Belle’s tomorrow. She said we’ll have my birthday lunch at noon, even if I have to bring it.” Dorothy pointed to the chicken. “Looks like you’ve already supplied the party!”
“If somebody can give me a ride home later, I’m going to stay and help clean up, too,” Katie said. “It’s the least I can do after not showing up with the turkey. And as far as your birthday party tomorrow, that would be wonderful. But again, I’ll need a ride. Boy, depending on people to haul you around is a pain.”
“Sure is,” Dorothy said. Katie clicked her tongue, realizing the insensitivity of her statement in light of Dorothy’s recent loss of her wheels. Dorothy reached out and patted her arm; it was obvious Katie was chastising herself. “It’s just the way things are for me, dear. Not your fault. When you get your son and your car back, enjoy them both while you can! As for that ride home after the cleanup, I’m sure somebody in my household can get you back to the farm. They’re all itching to visit it anyway.”
“You sure?” Katie was not in a hurry to get home. She wasn’t sure which would be more disturbing: her empty house or Sir Thomas’s now scattered—and oh, no!—partially thawed parts.
“I’m sure. By the way, now that I’m used to looking at it,” Dorothy said, “that is one handsome hairdo, young lady.”
“I second that,” Vincent said, having stepped up behind her.
“I thought the same thing,” Jacob said.
Hm, Dorothy thought as she looked from one of her son’s faces to the other, both of them beaming right at Ms. Durbin.
30
Dorothy couldn’t remember when she’d enjoyed a finer birthday party. Her belly was full of chicken and yesterday’s leftover mashed potatoes; she was flanked by her family, May Belle, Earl and Katie, who felt like family; and the best part was that she was about to blow out the candles on the lemon chiffon cake in front of her, which—Thank you, Jesus, for the miracle of drugs and Your touch—her best friend in the world had felt well enough this morning to bake. She drew in a deep breath to make her wish, then held it while deciding to pray it instead of just wish it. Lord, help me remember this wonderful moment after my family has all gone back to their homes—and help them to get there safely, she added as she exhaled and blew out all six candles Earl had placed on top of the cake in a lopsided circle. Everyone clapped and cheered. “Nice to know you’re still full of hot air, Grandma,” Bradley teased. Dorothy reached out and touched his cheek. “Like Grandma like grandson,” she said. “But for goodness’ sakes, let’s stop jawin’ and get this cake cut! After eating nonstop now for two days, I’m about to starve to death!” She patted her stomach while May Belle removed the candles and took hold of her pearl-handled cake cutter. Dorothy noticed a quick shadow cross May Belle’s face when she handed it to Jacob and asked him to do the honors. May Belle had pushed the edges of her healing back far enough this morning. Help us all to remember, Lord, Dorothy prayed, what it is we need to remember—including when it’s just time to enjoy!
Dorothy watched the cake plates pass from one to the next in utter awe of a God who had not only planted the seed of the idea for the Thanksgiving dinner into the hearts of His daughters, but had taken care of every detail—and she was having lemon chiffon cake to boot! She raised her glass of water high in the air and said, “I’d like to make a toast.” Everybody grabbed what they had in front of them, from coffee to cake, and raised it. “Happy birthday to me and may we remember to have hearts of thanksgiving every day of the year!”
By Friday morning at eight-thirty sharp, just as Herm had predicted, he and Vera had loaded up Henrietta and were tooting the horn as they pulled away.
Suddenly Henrietta came to a halt, then began to back up to where Arthur and Jessie were standing side by side, having stopped waving—and sighed—when they saw Henrietta’s brake lights come on. Herm rolled down the window after he’d backed right up next to them.
“I’ve GOT IT!” he shouted. “Herman the Vermin says good-bye until we meet again—to Art with a Heart! Who would have ever thought!” he said, laughing like a hyena. Once again, Henrietta began to roll down the driveway, the sounds of her horn toot-toot-tooting until
she was clear out of sight.
THE END
A Note from the Author
In my last Note from Dearest Dorothy, Help! I’ve Lost Myself, I wrote to you from the bustle of Partonville. This evening I type to you from my silent home office.
Okay, it’s morning now. (And isn’t that the way of life?!) With a gust of surprising strength, last night the fine folks of Partonville drew me back, back into their lives in order to make sure I hadn’t misquoted any of them. Then suddenly (time passes like a finger snap when I am in Partonville), “Oh! It’s past my BEDTIME!” (“Now I lay me down to sleep . . .”) Eyes blink open, my senses awaken. A glass of iced tea. Yes, it’s morning now and I am back at my computer, Celtic music whirling out of my speakers, encircling me, infusing me with energy. And here’s all I can think about: the mystical and magical way music “plays” its way into a story, influencing moods, temperaments and thus the story itself.
For this book, my fingers most often typed to the rhythms of either vintage standards or Celtic. When Arthur whips out his good ol’ Hohner Harmonica to give us a tune (yes, in my mind’s eye, he plays for me too), I recall the songs my parents loved. Songs they sang together during all my growing-up years, right out loud, right there in our home. And then they would kiss. Songs that were “their songs.” Songs that are now mine—and Arthur’s.
When NEW LOVE is in the air (OH! Edward Showalter and Nellie RUTH!), I hear the vigor of the happy Irish flute, the power and vulnerability in uilleann pipes.
A couple minutes have passed since my last sentence. I don’t even remember what I was going to say. A Celtic tune so JOY-FILLED spirited me to stand and dance, to lift my arms and twirl. (Just like that, the mystical, magical powers of music have changed my story.) But then, when it is The Day you have completed a labor of love (Thank you, Big Guy!), what more fitting thing can one do!
Dearest Dorothy, Who Would Have Ever Thought?! Page 30