Noah turned into the parking lot of the Dairy Queen. “Either of y’all up for ice cream? My treat. My truck automatically turns in when I see a DQ sign. I love their dip cones.”
“Yes!” Kayla tossed her paperwork over on the back seat and was already undoing her seat belt when Noah braked and found a parking spot.
Not wanting to leave the paperwork was childish for sure, but Teresa had a hard time walking away from it. In all her wildest dreams, some of which included winning the lottery, she never thought she’d be able to even think about being her own boss. She gave the paper one last look and hurried along so Noah wouldn’t have to hold the door open any longer.
Noah went straight to the counter but lingered back just a little to let her and Kayla order first. Luis had never done such gentlemanly things. He always told the lady what he wanted, and then she had to figure out what she could afford with the money she’d saved for them to have a burger or tacos.
“I want a strawberry sundae,” Kayla said.
“Whipped cream and a cherry on top?” the lady behind the counter asked.
“All of it, and can you make that strawberry ice cream instead of vanilla?” Kayla asked.
“I sure can.” The lady looked past Kayla at Teresa. “And for you?”
“Hot fudge sundae,” she answered, almost tasting it as she said the words. When she celebrated something big, like a fifty-cent raise on her paycheck, she always treated herself to a hot fudge sundae on the way to work the next day, and she never told Luis about it.
“And you want a dip cone, don’t you?” She waved at Noah.
Noah flashed a smile at her. “You know me too well, Miz Martha.”
Even though the lady was at least twenty years older than they were, Teresa fought with a little streak of jealousy. Noah had not done one thing to suggest that he wanted to be anything other than friends, so she had no right to the feeling, but there it was in all its bullfrog-green glory.
“I’ll bring your order to the table. Want a free cup of coffee to go with it?” Martha asked. “We make fresh every hour, but there’s still half a pot and I hate to throw it out.”
“We’d love that and thank you.” Noah gave her another one of his sexy grins.
Kayla found an empty booth and slid into one side. “Hand me your purse, and I’ll put it over here with mine.”
Teresa handed over her purse and sat down on the other side of the table. The booth wasn’t very big, so when Noah sat down beside her, their hips, shoulders, and knees were touching. She hoped that he couldn’t hear the thumping beat of her heart, feel the heat that she did, or see the sparks dancing around the room.
“This is what I did to celebrate when I had a good-tip day,” Kayla said. “I’d treat myself to a double strawberry sundae and eat it very slowly. Sometimes I’d get a cup of coffee afterward, but not always.”
Teresa found it hard to believe that she and Kayla both celebrated victories, however small, the same way. She’d always thought that they were as different as night and day.
“Did you tell Denver?” Teresa asked.
“Hell no! I did not! He would’ve said something hateful about it.” Kayla spit out the words in a rush. “What’d you do when you felt special?”
“Exactly what we’re doing today. The Dairy Queen wasn’t far from the nursing home. I’d go there on my way to work and eat a hot fudge sundae. And I didn’t tell Luis, either,” she answered, amazed that her voice sounded almost normal. “How about you, Noah? What’d you do to celebrate something big?”
“Until six years ago, I’d open a bottle of expensive whiskey,” he answered.
Martha brought their ice cream and coffee, winked at Noah, and said, “Y’all enjoy, now.”
“I’m sure we will.” Noah grabbed a fistful of napkins from the dispenser and laid them all on the table. “I’m not being wasteful. I just know that when this thing starts drippin’, I’ll need most of those.”
“Well, if I drop a single drop on the table or on my shirt, you can bet your sweet little butt I will lick it off. I don’t waste DQ ice cream.” Kayla dug down deep in the sundae and brought a spoonful to her mouth.
Like always, Teresa ate the cherry off the top first, chewing slowly and enjoying every bit of the flavor. With that taste still in her mouth, she took the first bite of the warm chocolate and soft vanilla ice cream. All those textures and flavors combined reminded her of the few good times she’d had since she had left Birthright. In among all the disappointments and regrets, she had her hot fudge sundaes.
Noah nudged her with his shoulder. “What are you thinking about?”
“I was thinking that the little things in life are pretty precious,” she answered.
“You learn that real quick when you hit rock bottom,” Kayla agreed.
“Oh, yeah,” Noah said. “You sure do.”
Miss Janie and Sam were on the back porch when they got home that afternoon. She’d been up more than three hours, but she didn’t want to go to bed. She seemed agitated and kept leaning over in her wheelchair so she could see the dark clouds approaching from the southwest.
“We’re going to have a storm,” she declared.
The smell of rain was heavy in the air, and the sun had gone behind a layer of clouds so thick that the sky looked like a rolling bank of dark fog coming right at them.
Sam sucked in a lungful of air. “I love the smell of fresh summer rain, but I sure don’t like a storm.”
“Is it March?” Miss Janie asked.
Normally, after the first of June, folks in Birthright usually couldn’t beg, buy, or borrow a drop of moisture—not until fall, and then it was iffy until after Christmas.
Kayla understood how difficult it would be for someone who could hardly keep a time frame in her head to keep the months straight. “No, it’s the twenty-fourth day of August,” she gently reminded Miss Janie.
Miss Janie pointed toward the sky. “The only thing in the whole world that scared Aunt Ruthie was storms. She wasn’t afraid of the devil himself, and I always figured she could put out the flames of hell with a cup of water and maybe back old Lucifer down with a few well-placed cusswords. But a cloud like that would send her gathering up a picnic basket full of food for us to take to the cellar.”
Kayla giggled at the image that popped in her head. She’d never met Aunt Ruthie, but she’d seen pictures of the lady. She was a short woman, and Kayla imagined her looking like an elf dashing around the house getting food ready to take to a storm shelter. Kayla remembered being afraid of the pictures of the old lady when she first came to live here because Ruthie’s eyes looked like they could see right into her very soul. That scared her far worse than a storm or even a tornado.
“Were you afraid of anything, Miss Janie?” she asked.
The older woman toyed with the arms of her wheelchair for a while before she answered. Kayla thought maybe she’d jumped time frames again, but then she said, “I was afraid of my mama when I was a little girl, and I was afraid that no one would ever love me. I wasn’t pretty like some of my classmates. Mama dressed me funny. Wearing bright colors or pants was considered a sin in our family, and makeup was a no-no. I was plain in every way. Then, when I was fifteen, Jesus came to work for my grandpa on his little farm. He told me I was pretty, and he flirted with me. He even came to church just so he could see me. For the first time in my life, I felt special. If he’d asked me to run away with him to Mexico, I wouldn’t have even looked back as I left.”
“Did you have a sad goodbye when he left?” Kayla asked.
“We both cried until our eyes were swollen, and we promised that we wouldn’t love anyone else, and when we got old enough, we’d get married and be together forever.” Miss Janie wiped a tear away with the back of her hand.
“Do you ever wish that you hadn’t gotten pregnant?” Kayla asked.
“No sense in wishin’ for what can’t be undone. Aunt Ruthie said that he and his father didn’t come back to work for my
grandpa again. She never lied to me about anything, so I believed her,” Miss Janie answered.
“I’m going to go home right now so I don’t get caught in the rain.” Sam got up and headed out the back door. “See y’all later.”
Kayla had dropped her bank papers on the bottom step of the staircase, but Teresa kept the papers in her lap when she sat down in one of the chairs around the small table on the screened porch. She could understand how her foster sister felt about such a windfall, but she didn’t have to hold the folder to prove that she’d never have to worry about her next meal again.
“How are you feeling this afternoon, Miss Janie? Did you and Sam have a good visit?” Kayla took a seat beside Miss Janie.
Miss Janie frowned and shook her finger at Kayla. “I told you to call me Mama. We don’t have to pretend anymore. Did Noah get the banking done like I told him?”
“Yes, I did.” Noah sat beside Teresa at the table. “Rain might cool things down a little bit.”
Miss Janie began to wring her hands, and her eyes darted back and forth from the sky to the front door. “We should go inside and pack a basket to take to the cellar.”
The first lightning streak zigzagged in a ragged pattern across the sky. A loud clap of thunder followed in a few seconds, and then the wind started blowing hard enough to knock a few tree limbs onto the roof.
“That’s our cue to get Miss Janie into the house. We might be in for a bad one,” Noah said.
Noah pushed Miss Janie into the house minutes before a fierce wind slammed the first drops of the rain against the screened wire around the back porch. Teresa brushed away a few sprinkles from her black hair as she closed the door behind them. She quickly checked her bank papers to be sure they hadn’t gotten spotted by the rain. Then she laid them on the bottom step beside Kayla’s. They were safe and dry right there. She patted them and then hurried into the living room, where Noah had taken Miss Janie.
“Someone needs to get the basket ready so we can go to the cellar,” Miss Janie said. “We’ll need to stay down there until the storm passes.”
“Why do we need a basket?” Kayla asked.
Miss Janie raised her voice above the howling wind and rain. “Because we might have to stay in the cellar for a while, and we’ll need food if we get hungry. Bread, peanut butter, jelly, cookies, and milk. We can’t go to the cellar without the basket.”
“I don’t think we can get your wheelchair down the narrow steps to the cellar,” Noah told her.
“Then pack a basket, get some blankets and pillows, and we’ll stay in the hallway. It’s in the center of the house, and there are no windows in the doors to blow out and hurt us.” Miss Janie barked orders. “Right now, go! Aunt Ruthie’s spirit is afraid.”
“I’ll get the food.” Kayla took off for the kitchen.
“Blankets and pillows coming right up.” Teresa headed upstairs. This was a new twist for her. Back when she was in high school and a storm came up, the only thing Miss Janie had said was that she hoped the wind wouldn’t knock the power out.
“We’ll be waiting right here in the hallway.” Noah turned the wheelchair around and pushed it out of the living room.
Teresa took the stairs two at a time, threw open the linen closet between her bedroom and Noah’s, and grabbed three blankets and as many pillows. Common sense told her that the storm would probably pass in half an hour, but logic didn’t play a part in Miss Janie’s world anymore. If it meant washing bedding because it had been on the floor, then that would be a small price to pay to keep her happy.
The load in Teresa’s arms was stacked up above her eyes, so she eased down the stairs, one at a time. When she reached the last couple of steps, Noah rushed over and took the pillows from the top. His arms brushed against hers, and as usual, sparks that were brighter than the lightning and twice as hot lit up the whole area.
“Aunt Ruthie made sandwiches,” Miss Janie said.
“Then that’s what we’ll have.” Kayla got a loaf of bread and peanut butter from the basket.
Teresa laid the blankets on the bottom step and sat down in one of the three ladder-back chairs that Noah had brought in from the kitchen. “Do we spread the blankets on the floor, or would Aunt Ruthie mind if we use the chairs?”
Miss Janie shot a mean look her way. “Aunt Ruthie has been dead for years, but she was smart. She always said that you stay away from windows and glass during storms, and to go to the center of the house. If you can get to a cellar, there’s cots to sit on and blankets. They’re to wrap around you in case the power goes out in the storm and it turns freezing cold.”
Anything other than stifling heat and humidity in Texas in August would break all kinds of weather records, Teresa thought as she took a seat in one of the chairs. “Why did you want me to bring pillows?”
“To put over your pretty face if glass starts flying.” Miss Janie shook her head in disbelief. “I thought I taught you girls all this when you lived here with me.”
“Yes, ma’am, you did, but we forgot,” Kayla said.
“Oh, no!” Miss Janie’s hands flew to her cheeks.
Teresa was instantly on her feet. “Did we forget something?”
Miss Janie shook her head. “No. We’ve got what we need, but I’m so sorry that you forget things.” She removed her hands and wiped a tear. “The doctor didn’t tell me this disease I have was hereditary.”
Teresa bent and hugged Miss Janie. “It’s not, Mama. Kayla meant that it’s been a little while since we were here, and we might have let a few of your good teachings slip away from us.”
“Well, thank God for that,” Miss Janie said.
When Teresa sat back down, Kayla leaned over and whispered, “Guess we better be careful about using that word—forget.”
Teresa nodded.
Noah had cracked the front door to peek at the storm, but he came back to sit down beside Teresa. Their chairs were close enough together that his knee brushed against hers every time he crossed or uncrossed his legs.
“You’re fidgeting,” Teresa whispered. “Are you afraid of storms?”
“No, but I don’t like spaces with no windows,” he admitted. “I feel like I’m in jail.”
“How would you know what that feels like?” Teresa asked.
“Maybe someday I’ll tell you,” he said.
Before Teresa could say another word, Kayla said, “Miss Janie, why didn’t you take other kids into your home after we left? I figured that you’d have a couple more when I got here.”
“I didn’t want just any girls. I wanted you two,” she answered.
Teresa was afraid to blink for fear she would lose Miss Janie altogether. “What about Kayla?”
“I thought I’d hit the jackpot when they told me they needed a foster mother for her. That made my family complete.” Miss Janie smiled. “I’m waiting on a sandwich. If we don’t eat the food in the basket, the storm won’t ever pass. That’s part of the ritual.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Kayla handed her the first sandwich she’d made and went on to make another one. “You had retired when you brought me home. Did you ever regret having two arguing teenagers in the house?”
“Lord, no! I loved every minute of it.” Miss Janie bit into the sandwich. “You girls kept me from going crazy, at least for a little while. I hate this worm in my head that lets me get all confused. I’m glad that you girls aren’t going to inherit it from me. What were we talking about, and why are we in the hallway with the doors closed? I like to feel the breeze. Open the doors,” she demanded.
“The storm,” Noah said. “We have to keep the doors closed until the storm passes.”
“We go to the cellar if the radio says there’s a tornado,” she said. “Not when there’s only wind and rain. This is a very good sandwich, but I’d rather eat it at the table. Where is Sam? He doesn’t need to be outside in this weather.”
Noah stood up and pushed the wheelchair toward the kitchen. “He’s gone home, and I’m sure he’s
inside his house, where he’s dry and safe.”
Again, Miss Janie drew her brows down. “After we have our afternoon snack, I think I’ll be ready for a nap. Rain always makes me sleepy.”
The storm pounded the house hard for an hour before the rain slacked up. Noah peeked out the door and checked the progress several times during that sixty minutes. At one time he started upstairs to his office, but Miss Janie became so agitated that he sat back down in a chair. They ate peanut butter sandwiches and drank milk from plastic cups until finally the thunder and lightning subsided. Noah opened the doors at both ends of the long hallway, and then pushed the wheelchair out of the kitchen.
“I’d like a nap now,” she said. “We’ve survived, and that’s a good thing.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Kayla stood up and pushed the wheelchair toward the bedroom.
Noah went ahead of her and opened the door. “Look at that, Miss Janie”—he pointed toward her bedroom window—“the squirrels are happy that the storm has passed. They’re playing chase through the tree limbs.”
“I’m glad it’s over, too, but don’t expect me to climb trees.” She held up her arms for him to pick her up.
He scooped her up like a baby and gently laid her on the bed. “Please don’t try to shimmy up a tree. It would make us feel bad that we couldn’t go with you.”
Teresa covered her with a throw, and Kayla removed her slippers.
“Honey, where I’m going, you all three can go, if your hearts are right with the Lord.” She closed her eyes and was instantly asleep.
Teresa had tears in her eyes as she left the room. Kayla headed toward the kitchen, and Noah got busy returning the kitchen chairs to where they belonged. Teresa picked up all the blankets and carried them back up to the linen closet. When she turned around to go get the pillows, Noah was bringing them to her.
“Seeing her in her right mind, even for a little while, was sure nice.” He stepped around her and laid the pillows on a shelf. “We might not get many of those moments.”
“I don’t want to think about that right now.” Teresa wiped the tears away with the back of her hand.
Miss Janie’s Girls Page 17