A Month of Summer (33 page)

“It’s all right.” Bree emitted a frustrated sigh, as if she were considering giving up legal work altogether. “The file didn’t download right, though. The last half is some kind of encrypted garbage. Can you send it again, real quick?”

“It’ll take a few minutes.”

Bree sighed again. “All right. Sorry, Mrs. Macklin.”

“Don’t worry about it. It’s not your fault.” It seemed strange to be comforting Bree, considering that not so long ago I’d been upset about Kyle letting her listen in on our private conversations. “Things happen.”

“It’s not easy filling your shoes,” she lamented, then seemed to think better of the comment. “Sorry.”

“I’ll have the file to you in a minute,” I promised, taking the phone with me on the way upstairs. I balanced it between my chin and shoulder as I unpacked my laptop on the bed and turned it on. “Thank you for going after Macey earlier, by the way. She called and told me all about the big adventure at school.”

“Sure,” Bree answered. “I don’t mind picking her up. She’s always real sweet.”

I was focused on the computer, trying to hurry the Windows screen along by watching it. The word “always” took a moment to cause a ripple in my thoughts.
Always?
“I didn’t realize you’d picked her up before.”

“Just once when the kid she was supposed to ride with got sick at school, and another day, when her ankle was hurting, and the nurse couldn’t reach her grandma, and her dad was . . .” Bree hesitated, a tiny pause in the stream of singsong communication, during which I imagined all sorts of things. Finally, she finished with, “Out of the office.”

The computer logged on, but all I could think was,
Out of the office. . . . Out? Out where?
If he was in court or had gone to a meeting with a client, why wouldn’t Bree just say that? Why the careful, cagey response? Was she protecting him? Did she know things she didn’t want to divulge? “Hang on a minute,” I said, then focused on the computer long enough to attach the file to an e-mail and let it upload into cyberspace. “All right, the file should be on its way.”

“Thanks, Mrs. Macklin. I’d better go.”

“Bree?” I said, even though I knew she had work to do.

“Yes, Mrs. Macklin?”

“Do you know
why
Kyle was out of the office when the nurse called about Macey?”

“No, ma’am. I don’t.” Her response was quick, almost an apology, as if she’d considered it ahead of time. “He just called and asked me to pick up Macey. That’s all I know.”

“He didn’t say where he was?”
Stop it, Rebecca. Stop. This is inappropriate. It’s pathetic. It’s unprofessional.

“I didn’t ask. Listen, Mrs. Macklin, I know—”

“It’s all right,” I cut her off before she could say anything more. Downstairs, the doorbell was ringing. “Call me back if the file doesn’t come through.”

“All right, Mrs. Macklin. Thanks.”

“Good-bye, Bree.”

I hung up the phone and hurried downstairs. Mary was on the porch. Brandon stood shyly holding her hand, and Brady was asleep on her shoulder. “Sorry,” she said, cuddling his head with her chin. “I tried to wake him up, but he’s out.” Brady’s lips pursed, his shoulders rising and lowering as he exhaled the long, slow breaths of childhood.

“He looks tired,” I agreed, remembering the days when I would get Macey out of the safety seat, carry her through a shopping mall, put her back in the car, and drive home without waking her up. “My daughter always slept like that when she was little.”

Mary fluttered a slight smile, as if she sensed the invisible language of motherhood between us. “They didn’t get much sleep the last couple nights. Normally, he’s pretty independent.” She glanced pointedly at me, indicating that she wouldn’t have a preschooler attached to her hip all the time.

We stood in awkward silence. “I guess you all would probably like to see the apartment, maybe get settled in, huh?” I offered finally.

“Whatever you want to do first.” In one practiced motion, Mary hiked Brady higher onto her hip.

I pointed toward the side of the house, pulling the door closed behind me as we started in that direction. “There’s an inside door to the apartment in the upstairs hallway, but it’s probably easier to just go up the stairway by the backyard gate.”

Brandon shot a glance upward when I said
backyard.
“Is Teddy there?”

“Brandon,” Mary scolded, giving him a reminder look that told me she’d instructed him to be seen and not heard.

“I think so.” I crossed the driveway and started around the side of the house. “Let’s go upstairs for a minute, and then we’ll find Teddy, and he can help you bring in your things.” I flinched apologetically as we walked through the gate and started up the wooden stairs to the garage apartment. “I really have to apologize for the condition of things up here. I wanted to have it cleaned before anybody . . .” I was about to say “moved in,” but that seemed too much an indication of permanence. “Stayed here.”

“It’ll be fine,” Mary answered, almost too quickly. “The boys and I can clean it up. They’re good helpers, aren’t you, Brandon?”

Her son shrugged, trudging unenthusiastically up the stairs, with an eye toward the backyard. I wondered where Teddy was.

Opening the apartment door with Mary and Brandon next to me on the tiny landing, I felt the need to apologize again. Compared to the grandeur of the house, the apartment was terribly Spartan. “I checked to make sure everything was working out here, but I have to warn you that it’s very bas—” The last syllable, “ic,” slipped from my lips and disappeared as the door fell open.

The upstairs apartment was anything but basic. In fact, it was a sea of color, a bouquet of scent, and light, and texture, a masterpiece of living treasures. Brightly blooming moss roses and vincas trailed along the tabletops and the arms of the sofa and chairs. On the empty bookshelf, tiny seedlings stretched upward in a carefully arranged rainbow of plastic cups, and along the windowsills, iris and daylilies waited in colored glass bottles that caught the evening sun and showered the room with tiny prisms of painted light.

In the time I’d been downstairs fretting over the dishes, Teddy had filled Mary’s room with growing things, creating a welcome card of life, and hope, and possibility. Where there had been only a silent, dusty space, suddenly there was a home.

CHAPTER 20

There are times when you awake, and sense the coming day hovering just beyond the edge of the world. Your heartbeat quickens, anticipating the blinding brightness of it, grasping its awesome possibility. You await the first rays of dawn, feeling that God must have whispered something in your ear just before you roused from sleep. You can hear the voice, not quite the words, but you feel, you know with everything in you, that a promise has been made. The dark night of your soul is fading and dawn will soon arrive.

Claude, already moving around in his room, must have felt it, too, or perhaps he was just restless, a bit lonesome with Mary and the boys not coming to wash up for several mornings now. He was happy that they were settling in so well at my house, but still he missed them. Mary promised that on the weekend when she was off work, she would bring the boys to see him. Claude said she didn’t need to bother with him on her day off, but it was clear that he wanted the visit. I felt sorry for him, having no one to come see him in his old age.

He wheeled himself to my door, hesitated there. “Pssst. You awake in there, Birdie?” He kept his voice low, because if Betty heard him prowling around this early, she’d put him back to bed.

“Yes,” I answered. The word, like my mind, was clear this morning. I felt as if I were my old self, as if I could sit up, swing my legs around, get up and raise the window blind to greet the day. If they’d left the wheelchair yesterday, I would have been tempted to try it. Perhaps Gretchen was afraid I might, and that was why she’d taken the wheelchair away, after letting me sit up for quite a few hours the last few days. Being upright again felt glorious.

Gretchen warned that I shouldn’t do too much at once, as she hefted me back into bed. It was strange to have Gretchen telling me to slow down. Mary’s moving in at my house and the news that Edward was doing well after coming home from the hospital had filled me with vigor. I couldn’t wait to get better, go home, and see him again. The sooner I became operational in the wheelchair, the sooner that would happen.

Claude came in my door and moved straight to the window. “Morning, Birdie,” he said. He was cheerful, but not so much as in the past. The idea that he couldn’t go back to live alone in his house weighed heavily on him. The rates for the supplemental insurance that was helping to pay for his stay in the nursing center had been raised, and he knew that, in the long run, he wouldn’t be able to keep up his home and pay the added insurance costs. He’d had some discussions with his niece about moving to Seattle to live with her, but the idea of giving up his home was impossible for him to face. He talked often about his place, and all the memories he had of it.

“Looks like Betty’s closed the blind again,” he said as he entered my room. He pulled the cord and fished the pushpins from the windowsill. Even Betty had finally given up and begun leaving them to keep Claude from sneaking down the hall and stealing more. “She ought not do that. The view from this window’s too pretty to miss. All I got’s a durned flower bush.”

We sat and enjoyed the sunrise together, partaking of it in shared silence until the last shades of amber and crimson faded, and the clouds lost their silver linings. After that, Claude gave the play-by-play of the morning workers coming in. “There’s our Mary,” he said. “Good to see her looking better rested. I sure keep thinking that young husband of hers’ll come back. I never would’ve guessed him for the kind of man who’d run off and leave his family. Sad thing.”

“Yes,” I agreed.

Claude went on talking, his habit as our conversations were mostly one-sided. “Why, there’s Dr. Barnhill and Ouita Mae. Guess she couldn’t resist comin’ in for breakfast. Can’t blame her. Now that she’s officially checked outa this place, she’s probably bored, sittin’ around the doc’s apartment alone.” Swiveling in the chair, he glanced at the wall clock. “Guess I’ll head on down to breakfast myself.” With sudden enthusiasm, he backed up the chair and turned it around. Over the past few days, I’d begun to suspect that Claude had taken a shine to Ouita Mae, but as far as I could tell from watching her, he might as well have been a toad under a bucket. She couldn’t see him at all. The times I’d tried to bring up his name, she’d made it clear that, having had a long marriage that was pleasant enough, but never really a love match, she had no interest in old men coming around. She was content to be a widow and someday, if her grandson would cooperate, a great-grandmother.

If she knew who Claude was, would she feel differently? Would she look at him and see the blue-eyed boy with whom she’d shared her first kiss, the boy she still remembered after all these years?

As the nursing center came to life around me, I considered the possibility.

Gretchen, to my delight, had me first on her list after breakfast. When she was finished, she put me in my chair and gave me what seemed like a tender comment. “You’re just a fireball this morning, aren’t ya?”

“Yes,” I said, and she pointed a finger at me as she turned to leave.

“You keep that up, we’re gonna have to send you home.”

“Yes.” I thought she might have been smiling, but she remained bent over her cart, so I couldn’t see.

“Just behave yourself there,” she said before disappearing out the door. Passing Claude in the hallway, she told him he’d better save up his energy, because she had some things in store for him today, then she moved on down the way.

Claude came in my door seeming as pleased as I’d seen him in a while. “Why, look at you, up and around, chipper as a chipmunk. How about we go for a stroll in the garden? We can pull ourselves to the top of the hill, then put our feet up and see who rolls down the fastest.”

I laughed. “Mmm-beee lay-der.”

“I think I done found someone to rent out my house for a while,” he said, clapping his hands briskly together. “I knew I was gonna have to do somethin’. I can’t afford to keep it settin’ there and pay the home owner’s and taxes and lawn care, and also my Medicare supplement and such. But I think I got my problem solved just now.”

“Oh?” I was surprised to see Claude so enthusiastic about someone else living in his house.

“Sure enough. Funny thing turned up at breakfast. Just happened that I was goin’ in as the doc and Ouita Mae was headed through the line. So, I says, ‘Hey there, Doc, how’s about we share a table?’ He thought that’d be fine, of course. Anyhow, he had the want ads with him, and turns out he’s lookin’ for a bigger place to rent, on account of Ouita Mae not moving back to Houston. So I says, ‘Doc, why don’t you rent my house from me? I can’t go back and live there alone with my ticker havin’ spells. I can’t afford to hire help, the place needs to be took care of, and I need the money to pay expenses.’ He said, sure, he’d go by and look at it, so we called my little neighbor girl and set it up.” Claude gave the biggest smile I’d seen from him since his birthday. “Now, how’s that for a stroke of divine providence?”

“Good,” I said, and it did seem like divine providence. Perhaps the connection between Claude and Ouita Mae would yet be made, even if I couldn’t bring it about myself.

“I’ll have to get my niece to come help me pack up some stuff.” Claude gazed out the window, seeming a little more melancholy. “Might be, Doc Barnhill’d be all right with me leaving the things from my trains out in the work shed. He probably ain’t much of a gardener, anyhow. I got my bell and engine number out there, my hat and coat, an A & NR Railroad plate, and a sign from the old station at Lufkin. They let me go get them treasures when they retired my engine. The neighbor kids like to come and look at it sometimes. Say, Birdie, did I ever tell you about my trains?”