About forty-five minutes into the program—after popcorn and soda for Bailey—I watched Derrien leave her seat with Jim. My heart tightened yet again when they started up the aisle next to where Bailey and I were seated. Jim didn’t notice me. I thought he might, but Jim was a one-task kind of guy, and he helped his daughter up the steps. In Bailey’s excitement, she didn’t see Derrien.
Jim’s daughter walked past me without a glance. She apparently was headed for the bathroom because she resurfaced coming back down the aisle within ten minutes.
When she reached our row of seats, she stopped.
As did my breathing.
Bailey tried to jump up screaming with delight to see Derrien, but I held her in place. She looked at me, hurt and confused. She was excited to see her friend.
Derrien knelt on the floor as if to tie her shoe, two inches from my chair.
I stared at the top of her head, but she never looked up. What had happened?
Jim glanced down at his daughter, seeing me for the first time. He looked surprised but traveled down one step then shifted over a bit to his left, in a maneuver that could only have been to block Tracia’s view of me had she looked up. It was among the most loving things I’d seen him do. Bailey vied, without success, for Derrien’s attention.
Little Miss Dickman had something burning a hole in her that she needed to say. I leaned in toward her bowed head, straining to hear amid a cacophonous crowd.
“Miss Katie,” she tried to whisper but ended up screaming, “I don’t want to call attention to you or have my mom see you. She. Hates. You. Be careful if you’re ever around her.” She gripped my right ankle with a trembling hand.
I held my breath. Bailey turned herself near upside down trying to hear Derrien.
“My dad takes good care of me now, and my mom mostly leaves me alone. I spend quite a bit of time with my grandma again.” She tightened her grip on my ankle. “You wouldn’t let me say it before, but you changed my life forever. I will love you till the day I die.” Then, she peered up at Bailey. “I love you too,” she mouthed at Bailey. She squeezed my ankle again, stood, smiled at Bailey, and was gone.
We left the concert hall not long after that. Bailey didn’t object—she was confused about seeing Derrien, but not being allowed to sit together or chat with her friend. She’d missed her terribly. Driving home, tears trailed down my face, washing makeup down the front of a new dress. Bailey, exhausted and still a bit unsure of what had happened, fell asleep.
God amazed me.
I’d planned to attend a plain old conference, only to discover that I had a divine appointment.
My brain roared a hundred miles per hour. Was she happy? How often did she see her grandmother? What did Tracia ‘mostly leaving her alone’ really mean? Would she always remember that I loved her? Did she miss Bailey, as Bailey missed her? I’d chosen to let our last visit together to be about nothing but Christmas. And it had been a good decision. But I hadn’t asked important questions. I needed to know so much more. No … I just wanted more.
It was enough.
God had been gracious. I’d asked Him to show up in Derrien’s life. Sounded like He had.
Sometimes I loved my job.
Sometimes winter arrives in Southeast Texas without being noticed. The first January Bailey lived with me, we noticed. In the second week of January, we had rain. Then we had more rain. Torrential rains, the kind of downpour that washes vehicles off freeways and rearranges subdivisions with water and wind.
Then the ice … ice that never comes to Texas, came. A sudden temperature drop and freezing ice turned yards and streets into a foreign place we did not recognize. No snow … just ice. It was beautiful in the few moments I could look without thinking of the havoc sure to follow. A glimpse of a fleeting frozen wonderland stayed for six days then vanished as though it never came, leaving behind tepid temperatures and mildewing sneakers.
The storm that turned Port Arthur into an ice sculpture brought a barren kind of beauty.
The ice stole some of our most majestic oak trees and our community’s electricity. Electrical lines spared from falling trees stood long enough to collect layer upon layer of ice and then fell, dropping vast darkness over the city. Businesses and schools shut their doors. Blocks and blocks of homes and worksites sat dark and silent. While our homes chilled, the refrigerators warmed. Gas-fueled outdoor grills were laden with deer meat and huge portions of beef that had been stored in freezers meant to last an entire winter but thawed all at once. Most people joined in spontaneous community-wide barbecues. The delicious smell of food filled the air in juxtaposition to the reality of loss, financial devastation, and monumental inconvenience. Families fortunate enough to have gas fireplaces gathered around them instead of going to work or school and talked to each other—since there was no television or computers—and helped themselves to the thawed ice cream.
Jordan arrived red-cheeked and cold-nosed, with all the groceries he could carry. He slept on the sofa throughout the storm. Bailey snuggled beside him before trotting to her floor pallet in front of the glowing fire, apparently feeling the sense of uncertainty settling over absolutely everyone. Our home stood safe, sound, and unaffected. Of everyone I knew, only those with homes on the golf courses were untouched by the storm—but were touched instead by people. We, like our neighbors, invited everyone we could pack in, to shower, dry their hair and clothes, warm up, and have a good cry.
I thanked my husband humbly for insisting on a treeless environment.
The clinic stood in the wake of the ice storm. Clients called my house to see if I fared okay, and I called theirs for the same reason. Several days passed before the police department would allow me into that small nook of town to check on my property.
When I could maneuver my way to the clinic through all the felled trees, police barricades, and creeping traffic, I was surprised to find a car in the driveway. I assumed it to be a stranded car until I drove into the entrance myself and saw that the empty car had been positioned in the side driveway as far toward the carport as a massive fallen tree—one that had belonged to the neighboring store—would allow. The tree had broken down my fence but spared my carport. Still thinking no one could be there, I found it odd that the car felt warm when I rested my hand on the hood.
I’d arrived at the clinic with my Nikon and a heavy heart, to find the building miraculously unscathed. Other than being dark and empty, all seemed well. The trees, while most fared better than I feared, dropped broken limbs. Large sections of mangled oaks hung at pathetic angles. Long icicles hung, causing trees and shrubbery—but most of all the porches—to assume a quality reminiscent of some scary scenes in Dr. Seuss books. Somehow, though, it was all beautiful.
I needed pictures for the insurance company, but I also wanted snapshots for myself. The Main Street property, being as special to me as my home, I wanted to photograph the place wearing its ice suit.
I slung my camera strap over my head and wound around fallen limbs as I picked my way to the backyard. No one who worked at the clinic entered through the front door. We didn’t even have a front key that I knew of. The first person to arrive, almost always Alicia, keyed her way into the back, opened the place for the day, unlocked the front door, and went to work. The last person out—usually Alicia—reversed the process at the end of each day.
I had my head down navigating through the debris when a voice startled me. “What are you doing here?”
I jumped.
A female sat on my swing, hugging her knees into a tight knot. An oversized gray hoody seemed to wear her. Clumps of damp hair peeked through her headwear.
“Jacy?” I asked, walking across the porch toward her. I wanted to ask her what she was doing there, but I never asked a client “what are you doing here?” especially if the place was locked up and I found a shivering prodigal hiding out on the swing. “What brought you here?” and “what can I do for you?” are very different questions from “what are you doing he
re?”
“Yeah, it’s me,” Jacy said. “Who thought you would be here? Everything is closed.”
“Welcome,” I said. “I wasn’t expecting you either.” I walked over and stood in front of her, seeing then the tears pooling in her eyes and forming icy paths down her cheeks. “It’s harder to recognize you with wet hair and your knees tucked under your chin. You must be freezing.”
Jacy wiped her face with the back of her hand. Traces of her mascara smudged her jeans. She was not officially a client, but she had visited with me several times since Bailey had landed, however briefly or sporadically on her mother and Thomas’s doorstep.
“I’m pregnant,” Jacy said.
“Well, we can’t have a pregnant gal out in the cold, though since the storm, I don’t know if my office will be warmer.” I motioned with my hand for her to follow. “We can see if it’s better inside.” The icicles began to drip.
“No,” she sniffled. “I don’t want to bother you.”
I circled back toward the swing since she stayed there.
“I thought,” Jacy said, “I could just sit on your porch and pretend you were with me.” She balled a tissue that she’d tugged from her pocket into a knot. “We’ve been chatting for at least an hour.” She tossed me a sad smile.
I sat beside her, the chain squeaking in protest. “It’s beautiful,” I said, looking around at the ice, “in an odd sort of way.”
“Yeah, spooky, but I like it,” she said.
“Wouldn’t you rather have the real me?” I asked. “Or would I just get in the way of your conversation?” I shivered, grinning at her. I wasn’t wearing a heavy jacket. I hadn’t come prepared for an outdoor session. I laid the camera on the table near the swing and tucked my hands between my thighs.
“It’s you who’s freezing,” Jacy said. “I told you I didn’t want to bother you, and I’m bothering you.” She hunched her shoulders, made a fretting sound, and scanned my face with apologetic eyes.
I squeezed her hand. “You are never a bother. Have you told the father you’re pregnant?” Icicles dripped more steadily.
“Yes, Ryan’s happy. Not planned, but he’s happy anyway.” She held up her left hand, which sported a simple gold band under one of the tiniest diamonds I’d ever seen. “We got married.”
“Want to talk about why you are so upset?”
With her right foot, Jacy kicked at the frozen gardenia bush next to the swing. A row of icicles crashed to the ground. “My mother,” she snapped.
My brows arched. “Jillian not happy about her first grandchild?”
“No. I mean yes.” She sighed. “I mean no … that’s not the problem. Yes, she’s thrilled.”
“That’s a good thing. Right?” I pushed against the concrete to gently move the swing.
Without getting up, Jacy started mimicking something.
It took me a minute. I laughed.
Jacy picked up a pretend purse, checked a hairdo in a pretend mirror, then picked up a pretend book and tucked it under her arm. Oh, not just any book.
She crossed herself piously.
Dispensing with the theatrics, she hugged her knees again. “A good thing? Sure, if I didn’t know what a self-righteous, pious hypocrite she is, it would be just dandy.”
I heard a hint of steel in her voice. She came to rail against her mother’s rejection of Bailey. All her frustration could be pretty much summed up with one question using various words and assorted expletives. “What in hellacious acres is wrong with my mother,” she asked, “when it comes to my sister?”
“Spill everything in your heart,” I invited.
She wagged her head back and forth. “Where do I start?”
Chapter 29
“Where did you start in your pretend conversation?”
“I told you,” Jacy said, turning toward me, “that Thomas is a spineless wuss who lets my mom lead him around by the stones. And that my mother, in my mind, has somehow merged with the character from The Wizard of Oz video she watched hundreds of times with me and Justin when we were kids. She has become The Wicked Witch of the West.”
I looked at her and waited. I knew there was more … that Jacy had just started.
“Once upon a time, my mother was a good person. I’ve asked Ryan a thousand times, ‘Where is my mother?’” She looked at me through little-girl eyes. “She wasn’t always like this.” Her eyes turned damp again.
I nodded. I believed that to be true. However, Jillian had dropped off the face of my earth. She hadn’t kept an appointment for months, but Thomas still came for his … until Bailey didn’t want to see him anymore. We’d made an agreement that Bailey would spend one night a month at their house, but she’d stopped wanting to go because Thomas paid no attention to her. When I told him how she felt, he agreed to do whatever Bailey wanted, putting up no fight to see her at all. Nothing I had worked out with the Russells meant anything. They did as they pleased. Bailey’s grandma continued to stop by periodically, and my girl always seemed glad to see her. It was obvious to anyone who witnessed their time together that her grandmother loved her, but she often spoke disparagingly about ‘her worthless son who needed a swift kick to the bottom.’
Jacy spoke again, drawing me back to our conversation … and the chill that hung heavy in the air. “All Ryan can do is put his arms around me and hold me.” She sniffed. “He has never known any side of my mother than this one—who makes me cry all the time. She had already become this hard, mean-spirited woman before he met her.”
“There are times,” I said to Jacy, “when the people who love us the most can only put their arms around us and hold us. You’re blessed to have Ryan do that.”
“You knew my mom before Bailey,” Jacy said.
“Yes.”
“What do you think happened?”
“I think it’s complicated.”
“Try me,” Jacy said.
“Disillusionment, unmet expectations, prince hopefuls that sometimes become frog realities.”
Jacy grinned. “One of the reasons I like you is because you tell the truth.”
“Ditto,” I said.
“I won’t forgive her if she can’t love Bailey. Who hasn’t had disappointments?” Jacy glanced at me. “You’ve had disappointments, right?” She nodded yes for me. “Everything in your life couldn’t have been perfect.” She shook no for me.
“I’ve had disappointments.”
“But you love Bailey, right?”
“I love her.”
“This will sound silly,” Jacy said, “but that video has been haunting me.”
“That video?” I felt my brows pinch.
“The Wizard of Oz. I have bad dreams about it.” She turned away from me and spoke in softer tones. “Me and Justin watched it so often, I know it like the back of my hand. In my mind, Bailey has become Dorothy, and for nearly a year she has been clicking her heels together saying, ‘There’s no place like home. There’s no place like home.’ Only in my nightmares, there is no Auntie Em waiting for her. Geeze, there’s not even a dog named Toto at my mom’s house waiting to make Bailey feel special.” Jacy looked away, but her voice cracked, and I knew she was crying again. “I’m not a child anymore. I know what you have done for Bailey.” Then she stopped talking.
I knew she’d paused to see if I had anything to say to that, but I didn’t. I just laid my hand on her back.
“You’ve done everything. You’ve cleaned her up.”
I chuckled softly.
“You’ve taught her to read. You’ve dressed her. But ya know what I’m the most confused about?” Jacy blew her nose on her balled tissue and sniffed.
“What’s that?” I asked.
“She was perfect before you did all that.”
“She was.”
“I don’t think the fact that she said ’ain’t’ or didn’t use a napkin made her a lesser child. Heavens above, she was six tiny years old.” She turned in the swing to look at me again. “Who in the world do my mo
ther and stepfather think they are?” She arched her brows and leaned toward me in the swing.
“I don’t know,” I said softly.
“This would chap my mother’s behind,” Jacy said, relaxing her spine again, “but I’m going to tell you something that’s been on my mind for a long time.”
“Tell me,” I said.
“Do you remember when my father left my mother and married Lynnelle?”
“Yes,” I said. I did remember. Jillian thought no one would ever suffer the way she had.
“I was fifteen and Lynn was only twenty-four, and my mother called her a harlot and my father a low-down cradle robber.”
“That’s pretty much a quote as I recall,” I said.
A heavy chunk of ice slid from the building roof, slammed onto the roof over the porch then crashed to the ground just beyond a magnolia bush. “Oh,” we said together, as we both jumped.
“Well,” Jacy said, after looking around to check for additional sliding ice. “Lynnelle Annette Reynolds would die before she would do to Justin and me what my mother and Bailey’s own worthless father have done to her. And,” she continued, “I know what my mother thinks of my father for dumping her. But Catherine, he would die before he would let any wife of his or anyone else for that matter trample me and Justin. I am certain of that. I would stake my life on it.”
“From what you’ve told me of him,” I said nodding, “I would say that’d be a pretty safe bet.”
“The first Labor Day weekend after him and Lynnelle got married, they made plans to go out on Monday night. He knew me and Justin would be staying over for that Monday. He just wasn’t thinking about it at the time he made plans for just him and Lynnelle.”
Jacy was stressed. I had not heard such lapses in her grammar since she was fourteen. “Lynn loves us a lot, but she wanted to get a sitter or rent a movie for us and go on their date. My dad said no, we would all stay home or all go out together. They could have their date on a night when me and Justin wouldn’t be there. When Lynnelle pushed her luck and said she thought the two of them deserved to go ahead with their plans. My father spoke to her in the harshest tone I’ve ever heard him use with her.”
The Children of Main Street Page 27