Heart and Home (2 page)

Chapter Two

Ask any resident, and they
would likely agree that Chandra McCarty was the virtual hub of Sonesville. I
guess I’d never realized just how involved and popular my mother actually was.
In retrospect, the signs were always there. She more or less headed up every
organization I ever joined as a child. In elementary school she was our Girl
Scout troop leader, Sunday school teacher and Pop Warner cheerleading coach.
She was a grade mother, a field trip volunteer and a banner member of the PTA.
If something needed doing, my mother did it, and she didn’t complain.

I always thought I was one
of those unlucky kids with a mom who had nothing better to do than embarrass me
at every turn, but the truth of the matter turned out to be much deeper.

See, some people got
addicted to drugs or alcohol, and others gambled. My mother was a habitual
joiner, and by Tuesday morning it became clear just how many activities she
wriggled herself into.

The phone began ringing off
the wall with condolence calls at precisely eight o’clock. I barely managed to
drag myself from bed, much less into the day’s clothing when the doorbell
started to chime. By noon friends and admirers began to forgo phone calls
altogether and just popped by with steaming dishes of food to help us through.
The local clergyman, Pastor Crane, stopped in right around the time my mother’s
quilting circle brought us lunch, and made himself at home. He offered me grief
counseling between shoveling bites of Mrs. Lumbarger’s hearty clam chowder into
his mouth, promising between dabs of his napkin that his door was open if ever
I needed to talk about the Lord’s plan.

“You do still attend Sunday
services in the city, don’t you?” Pastor Crane tilted an inquisitive glance
across the table.

I squirmed, uncomfortable
under the spotlight of his question. Explaining to him that I had little to no
time for church and even less motivation was going to be even harder than when
I’d tried to explain it to my mother. Unfortunately, despite my lack in faith,
I still found it incredibly hard to lie to a man of the cloth.

“No, sir,” I pushed my soup
away untouched, the brick of guilt quickly dropping into the pit of my stomach.
“Sundays are usually pretty busy for me.”

He clucked and shook his
head, his sharp features defined by disappointment. “There is always time for
the Lord, Janice. I hope you’ll keep that in mind during this dark time for
your family.”

Sure that I was flushed with
awkward embarrassment, I nodded emphatically. “I will come straight to you
while I’m here if I find myself in need of spiritual counseling,” I promised.

This seemed to placate him,
and he dug heartily into his soup while my bemused father looked on from the
counter. I wasn’t surprised to see him shaking his head. He had been a rare
churchgoer himself, barely even coaxed to attend on Easter Sundays by my mother.

All afternoon the women’s
social scene, which must have spanned half the county, swarmed by in groups,
dropping off casseroles, cakes, fudge and tins of cookies, determined to cure
our grief with carbohydrates and fond memories. I was surprised at how many of
them knew exactly where my mother kept the best coffee, and even more how to
operate her industrial strength Bunn coffeemaker. Despite having grown up in
that house, it wasn’t long before my mother’s vast social network had me
feeling like I was just getting in their way.

And the way they gawked and
made sympathetic eyes made me feel all of six years old. While some managed to
provoke tearful memories, others said nothing, their piteous eyes boring into
me like nails of sorrow. Just when I thought it couldn’t get any worse, someone
would come up and rest a hand on my shoulder, remarking, “Your mother was just
so proud of you,” or “I swear, Hank, doesn’t she look just like her mama?”

It was nearly four-thirty
when I finally shuffled the last well-wisher out the door and fell slumped into
the arm chair.

“God, I thought they’d never
leave,” I reclined in the chair and nestled my face into the cushion. Eyes
closed, I released a sigh of relief, but no sooner had that breath left my
chest when the doorbell sounded again.

“You have got to be kidding
me.”

“If that’s for me, I’m not
here,” Dad called from the top of the stairs.

“Like I want to be here,” I
mumbled, straining my eyes upward with an unspoken curse. I pushed the chair
back down with a huff and marched toward the front door with every intention of
telling whoever it was that as much as we appreciated their generosity and well
wishes, I’d had more visitors than I could stomach for one day.
 

My intention was never
spoken because when I drew the door open I was struck speechless by the sight
that awaited me there.

I noticed his eyes first.
Stark blue and bright as winter, I was convinced that they were just the kind
of eyes a person would never forget once they’d looked into them, and yet for
the life of me I couldn’t remember the face they belonged to. Standing just
around five feet and eight inches myself, it was rare for me to find a guy I
had to look up to, but this one must have been well over six and a half feet, I
measured as I took a step back. Usually guys that height were bulky, but not
him. He was lean and muscular, and the stubble that shadowed his jaw line
suggested a hint of ruggedness.

“Hello,” the word felt like
jelly in my mouth, wobbly and unsolid.

“Hi, Janice,” he nodded.
Great, he knew who I was, which meant I should have known him too. An uncertain
smile darkened the dimples in his cheeks, “Sorry to drop by on you all like
this. You’re probably beyond fed up with visitors today, so I promise I’ll be
out of your hair just as soon as I deliver this,” he extended a warm dish and
explained, “on behalf of my mother.”

I reached out for the
casserole. Warmth spread into my cold hands and I drew it into the crook of my
arm. “Thank you.”

“I uh…” he moved awkwardly,
as though he’d come to the door knowing what he wanted to say, but was now
reevaluating those words. “We were real shocked when we got the news about your
mama.”

My head nodded
involuntarily, and I swallowed to try and ground myself again. “Yeah, it came
as a bit of a surprise to me too.” It was no use, the head-nodding spurred a
disconnection inside me, and while I tried to maintain my present frame of
mind, it was all I could do to keep from reaching for the door frame to steady
myself.

“Are you all right? You look
a little pale,” he noted.

“Yeah.” Still nodding, I
blanched at the realization that I probably looked like some insane bobble-head
doll. “Tired,” I noted.

“I bet,” his frown deepened
into lines of concern. “Well, you know, I’m sure you’ve heard this about a
hundred times already today, but if you need anything,” he paused and then
added for extra emphasis, “anything at all, you know, don’t be afraid to call.”

“Thank you,” I leaned my
shoulder into the door frame.

“You’re welcome.”

He hiked down the porch
steps and walked toward a white, Ford pick-up truck with the exhaust puffing at
the edge of the sidewalk. Halfway down the walk he stuffed his hands into his
pockets and lifted his shoulders around his ears to ward off the bite of the
wind. That wind jangled through the chimes that decked the front porch before
it cut through me. Shuddering against the chills, I didn’t move from that place
even after he slipped into the driver’s side of the pick-up truck. I lingered,
warmed by the casserole in my arms, and watched the taillights disappear into
the evening.

“Who was that now?” Dad’s
voice startled me back to myself, and I stepped back inside. I closed the door
and started toward the kitchen.

“I have no idea.” I held the
casserole dish out to him.
 
“Whoever it was brought this for his mom.”

Dad took the foil wrapped
casserole and lifted it to breath in the aroma. “Lottie Kepner,” he said.
“Broccoli casserole. She must have sent Troy over.”

“Troy Kepner?”

Sonesville’s own native son.
I should have known. He was a bigger celebrity than I was, having gone off to
Penn State University on a full football scholarship the year before I
graduated high school. It was only then that I vaguely remembered something my
mother had mentioned during one of our phone chats about him coming back after
his father died to take over their family farm.

“The one and only.” Dad
turned toward the refrigerator with the casserole dish.

Troy had been a year ahead
of me in school, so we hadn’t socialized often. There were a few childhood
instances I recalled. Most of them involved him chasing the girls around church
picnics and threatening to give them cooties, or teasing the cheerleaders after
Pop Warner football practice. I’d lost interest in cheering by the time I got
to fifth grade, but Troy Kepner followed football into high school, where he
became an all-star quarterback. His junior year he took George Meyers High
School to the state finals for the first time in more than three decades. The
town was abuzz all year, and then the summer before he was a senior the college
recruiters made it perfectly clear just how valuable he was.

“So he never finished
school?” I wondered.

“Nah,” Dad opened the
refrigerator and began to shift the different casseroles around to make more
room. “Damn shame too. He could have played pro if he’d finished.”

“Huh.”

I never paid attention to
football in high school, or the people who played it. I only vaguely remembered
a dark-haired cheerleader who attached herself to Troy through most of high
school. Sondra or Sonya something or other. She’d even taken the liberty of
staking her claim on Troy in the girl’s locker room in thick, black marker. I
wondered if her claim still held. It wasn’t unusual for Sonesville high school
sweethearts to graduate and then marry. Surely after he came back she dug her
claws into him again.

Mom tried to keep me up to
date on all that, but most of it went in one ear and out the other. In fact, I
hadn’t even paid attention while I’d lived there, as most of the guys I dated
at the time were from neighboring rival towns and none of them had been into
sports.

“It’s a real shame what
happened to that boy,” Dad took out a container of chili and set it on the
counter, replacing it with the casserole. “No one here to care for Lottie or
the farm, he didn’t have much choice in his future.”

“Yeah,” I laughed. “Like
Lottie ever needed anyone to care for her.”

An image of Lottie Kepner
flashed through my memory. She had been diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis long
before I’d ever met her, and despite the debilitation of her illness, she was
probably one of the feistiest and fiercest women in the entire town. Every
Sunday she walked into church with her head held high, not a trace of pain on
her face despite the cane that supported her every step. Usually Troy would
walk behind her, his gold curls freshly washed but completely unruly. Like Dad,
Aaron Kepner barely ever came to church, but that didn’t stop Lottie.

“She did have that
accident,” Dad said. “She hasn’t been the same since then, and Troy certainly
doesn’t let her too far out of his sight these days.”

He brought two clean bowls
to the table with spoons and then placed a dish of chili in the microwave.
While he set to the task in silence, I thought about Troy and Lottie Kepner. As
cruel as it sounded, at least I had the luxury of a father who could take care
of himself once I went back to the city. A part of me cringed inwardly when I
thought about what my mother would think of that attitude. It was a horrible
thought, and I was a horrible daughter, but I couldn’t begin to imagine being
tied to that town again, especially not after tasting the freedom of the world
outside.

Dad reached into the
microwave and started to pull out the dish he’d been reheating the chili in
when he let out a yelp and a curse that startled me from my seat. “Jesus H.
Christ!” he added, withdrawing his hand to shake it furiously on the way to the
sink.

“What’d you do?”

“I burned myself, what’s it
look like?” He snapped.

I turned on the cold water
and drew his hand under the rushing stream. It was immediately pink, and a
blister would probably form, but overall it looked fine. “You gotta be careful
with pottery in the microwave, Dad.”

“Pottery in the microwave,”
he muttered as he pulled back his hand and reached for a paper towel. “They
should put instructions on that stuff.”

“They probably do,” I turned
off the water and grabbed two potholders from the drawer. “Mom probably has a
whole drawer full of care instructions around here somewhere.”

“Yeah, yeah,” he grumbled.

“Just sit down, and I’ll
take care of this,” I said. I finished stirring the chili and popped it back
into the microwave. I couldn’t help but wonder, as I watched him sit down at
the table and rub an ice-cube over his burn, if I hadn’t spoken too soon about
him being able to take care of himself.