Creola's Moonbeam (27 page)

“You’re a much better cook than me. Tell you what, I’ll pick up something for us. How about Mexican?”

“I’m teasing you, Honey. We are going out. I have something to tell you.”

“An announcement in a public place. Uh oh, you must have bad news. A different woman in your life?”

“Worse.”

“What do you mean ‘worse?’ Is it Mary Catherine? Butlar? Beau, what is it?”

“I’m sorry, Honey, it’s not a bad thing. In fact, this is something good, and, I believe, exciting.”

“A puppy? Oh Beau, I’m just not ready, not yet. Nestle’s not been gone long enough. You know I’m still grieving.”

“Wrong, again. Stop trying to guess. Honey, the surprise is that I’ve found a new house. Can’t wait for you to see it!”

I nearly ran off the road. I could hardly form words, but finally uttered, “We’re moving? A new home?”

“Well, it’s actually an old one, but it’s the best kind of old. The historical kind. Honey, it’s over one hundred years old! Once we’ve fixed it up, we will really have something.”

Each and every one of our disastrous house projects flashed before me like a dying man’s life passes before him when he stands on the gallows. “You can’t be serious.” I all but
spit
as I laundry-listed every renovation mishap in our twenty-plus-year ordeal. “Beloved husband, do you not remember saying, ‘A little wallpaper, a bit of paint, we’ll have a palace.’ It took two long, horrible decades to make that statement a reality!”

“Exactly. Now we know what we’re doing. It’ll be fun.”

Our connection crackled and faded. Either my cell phone cut out or the Lord Himself ended our conversation. I pulled into a service station and purchased a large Coke and giant-sized box of crackers. The entire box was gone by the time I passed a “Welcome to Georgia” sign on the interstate. I called Beau at his office, only to discover he was at lunch.

I grew more apprehensive with each mile. The house in question must be something special, because Beau Newberry was
not
the moving type. Could my husband actually be in the early stages of dementia?

Having time to think about the situation, I questioned myself. Had I not always hated our ranch house? Was I not the very same woman, who, for years, dreamed of moving?

Twice, we almost had.

by Honey Newberry

I found out beyond a shadow of a doubt that my husband loved me. One Friday came a phone call from my friend, Knoxie. She was a brand-new real estate agent.

“Honey, you won’t believe it. There’s a lady in my neighborhood who wants to buy your house. She’s says she’s crazy about it!”

“I bet you’re right about the ‘she’s crazy’ part.”

In truth, I was flattered that someone appreciated our home. Beau and I had worked mighty hard to improve it. I was all the more interested when Knoxie mentioned how much the woman was willing to pay.

“You have my attention, now.”

“Tell you what, Honey. Are you busy today?”

“Nothing that can’t wait. The children are in school, why?”

“Get ready, I’m coming to pick you up. We’ll take a look at some houses. I already have three in mind. How about it?”

This opportunity was not to be ignored. Twenty minutes later, we were in Knoxie’s car, going over her list of possibilities.

By that afternoon, we’d found “the” house. Newer than ours, it had a nice floor plan, was closer to the children’s schools, and also had a lovely updated kitchen. Ours still sported late 50’s pink appliances and a dark-red linoleum floor. I was ready to sign the papers.

My poor, unsuspecting Beau drove into our garage. The man was ready for a nice, quiet weekend and had not a clue he was about to be broadsided. What Beau had in mind was a relaxed round of golf on Saturday followed by a movie that night. (That’s movie, not
move
). I met him as he stepped from his car. He was startled. I was all but frothing at the mouth.

Knoxie was positioned safely behind me.

“Guess what? We’re selling our house! That’s not all, either. I’ve found a new one!”

Beau stumbled backwards into his car. Gripping the steering wheel, his knuckles white, my husband gritted his teeth and took a deep breath. As if the man hadn’t heard me correctly, I repeated my news, “I said someone wants to buy our house. Even better, there’s another one we can buy
today
!”

This was the moment my longsuffering husband genuinely proved his love for me. After driving home bumper to bumper in Atlanta’s legendary five o’clock traffic, Beau got back into that traffic just please me. Visions of his golf game, popcorn, and a movie burst like a billion tiny bubbles.

When we got to the new house, we parked by the
For Sale
sign.

“Hmm, it seems smaller than before,” I noted. “The yard sure needs work.”

We went inside. Nice living room, spacious dining room. Down the hall we headed with me in the lead followed by a somewhat skeptical Beau. Knoxie, third-in-line and still encouraged, was holding a more neutral position in order to give the two of us our space.

Besides the master suite, which I coveted, the children’s rooms didn’t compare in size to what Mary Catherine and Butlar presently enjoyed. When I admitted that point, Beau’s face brightened. The kitchen wasn’t quite as magnificent as it appeared on first impression.

All and all, I no longer adored the house.

Beau uttered an audible sigh of relief.

Maybe I got cold feet because it happened too quickly. But for whatever reason, we neither bought nor sold a house that Friday. I thanked Knoxie for her time. Beau smiled affably, played golf on Saturday, and took me out for dinner and to see a romantic movie. The popcorn was very fresh, and so was my husband.

Our second potential change of address came about a couple of years later. That time around, we decided to work with a builder. We selected plans for an L-shaped home which would be built in a new subdivision in our neighborhood, one right around the corner. The builder even agreed to add a picket fence in front. My lifelong ambition has been to have a home with a white picket fence.

All we had to do was sell our current house.

I again contacted Knoxie, who arranged for a caravan of real estate agents to come by the next Tuesday. Their cars pulled into our driveway. Doors slammed and agents invaded. Ten or twelve of them trooped about, inspecting, making notes, and talking a strange buyer-seller language among themselves.

I felt as if I were inside a fort under fire.

“How many walls have you folks knocked out?”

Nervously, I responded. “Not too many, I suppose. You’ll notice the house remains standing.” No one laughed. “Hmmm. Well, I’ve never actually counted, let’s see. Initially, just the one wall in the family room. That is, if you don’t count the sliding glass doors as walls. If you do, that would be three, in total.”

Someone scribbled on a yellow legal pad.

I well-remembered the night Beau and I knocked out the wall which separated the kitchen from the family room. It was a spontaneous project, a way to distract us from our worries. During dinner we’d been glued to the TV watching coverage of Desert Storm. This was the first fierce nighttime attack on Baghdad. Beau and I were very worried about our two nephews — his sister’s sons — both of whom were talking about joining the army. The young men, college students, were just the right ages to go to Iraq.

We moved the couch away from the wall and started to bash out door frames and paneling.

The Patriot missiles were launched.

Beau kicked out sheetrock.

The evening sky of Baghdad was bright with ominous blasts of fire. Bombs exploded.

I swept up rubble.

Desert Storm ended in just a few days. The boys remained in college. We could walk directly from the kitchen into the family room.

“Oh, wait,” The agents began to grow impatient.

I tapped my head as I mentioned something else. “There was also the big supporting wall we took out to enlarge the master bedroom. Also, do you think an outside wall should count since it’s now a bay window?”

The agents stared at me.

“So,” interjected Knoxie, “Honey is trying to tell you seven or eight walls have been removed to create better flow.”

“Yes, that’s it, flow.” I nodded like a wooden puppet. As if my strings were being manipulated, I continued, “If you’ll notice, we
do
have excellent flow.”

My friend, Betty Ann, once commented that every time she visits, she finds another wall missing. “I worry that one day I’ll come, and your whole home will have caved in like a house of cards!”

The realtors seemed to be having the same thought. I changed the subject. Leading them onward, I pointed out the mantel downstairs, one that we’d purchased at the Scott’s Antiques Show in south Atlanta, and hauled home on the roof of our old station wagon. Beau had worked diligently to refinish the piece. His efforts had paid off; it’s a beauty.

“Wonderful mantel,” said Knoxie.

An agent nodded, “Of course, that will stay.”

Stay
? After all the effort Beau put into it? She couldn’t be serious, could she? Leaving that mantle would be like abandoning a much-loved puppy to an unappreciative stranger. I was beginning to make mental notes of my own.

When I led the caravan outside, the realtors jotted down “brick walkways.”

“My husband built them.”

“There’s another lovely walk around on the other side of the house,” Knoxie added.

“That’s right, when we had the sunroom built in 1983, the workmen ripped out the original screen porch and pitched all the bricks into the middle of the yard. My husband carefully cleaned the cement from each and every brick and used them to lay his walks. He suffered painful cuts and bruises on his hands and on his arms and knees.”

The realtors only grunted.
           

I looked around the yard while the agents checked out the swimming pool. My eyes went to the initials carved on the patio’s concrete. “HN + BN.” An agent toed it with the tip of her shoe. “This can be removed,” she told the others.

I thought about Butlar’s childhood scribbling on the basement stairway wall. When he was in second grade, our little boy had painted in block letters, “I love this house.” I’d left the inscription in place. No doubt, if I escorted the agents down there, one of them would bleat, “This can be removed.”

My eyes filled with tears.
Mom loves this house, too
.

That was the end of the new home with the picket fence. I took Knoxie to lunch and apologized for once again wasting her time. Not too long afterwards, Knoxie went into teaching.

I pulled into the driveway and pushed the button to raise the garage door. Up it went. That it still worked was a novelty. Throughout the years, the door had suffered frequent abuse from “Butts Up,” a rowdy game our children played with tennis balls. Later on, it was habitually thrown off its track by not-so-gentle wallops as the kids learned to drive at the wheel of my station wagon. And, as recently as the previous springtime, we’d chosen to leave the door up for an entire month, to provide a safe ledge for a nest of baby wrens.

I rushed indoors and found Beau. “Howdy, stranger.”

He hugged and kissed me. “I missed you, lady.”