Long Memory (4 page)

“They need someone to care for them. Family. Not someone hired to do a job. They need to be here. Where they lived their lives and raised their children.”

James pointed at the house. “That house? Nonie and Grampa bought that house after my mother graduated from high school. Aunt Jean bought the house next door three years later. Neither one of them raised kids in these houses.”

“Between the two of them, they raised half the adults in this town. You and your mother may not care about them anymore, but the people of this town do and I’m not letting you take them away from their homes.” She leaned toward him with her fists clenched. “Listen here, I don’t know what you and your mother are trying to pull, but it isn’t going to work. I already talked to Mary Lou at Social Services and she said your mother can’t have them placed in a home while the situation remains stable.”

“Is the situation going to remain stable when school starts?” James kept his tone cool. He needed to know more before he could make any kind of judgment. If his mother had bothered to fill him in a little it would have helped. Of course if this little firecracker would stop going off every time he asked a question it would help too.

“Are you questioning my judgment?”

“No, I’m asking a question.” Her face was turning a rather scary shade of red. If they could talk rationally he might be able to get to the bottom of it. His mother required special handling. If Beth explained her side to him, he could present it in a way that would get his mother off her back. Then he could be her hero. Right now, he’d like to be somebody’s hero. “Can you calm down a little please?”

“You are
just
like your mother,” Beth shrieked.

“I am not,” James roared.

She reared back.

James’s eye started to twitch. It always did when he got upset. Being accused of acting like his cold, self-absorbed mother would do that. Not that he didn’t love her, but he loved her at least two thousand miles away.

“Beth? James?” Aunt Jean’s quavery voice from the porch stopped both of them before they spoke again. She stood at the railing looking out in their general direction, but at least two meters over their heads.

“What’s the matter, Jean?” Beth called. She started toward the house. “Everything all right?”

“I thought I heard shouting.”

Beth glared over her shoulder at him. The look could have leveled a medium-sized metropolitan area. “Everything is fine. Don’t you worry. Has Nonie still got her bandage on?” She stopped below the porch railing, looking up at Aunt Jean. Her skin was quite pale for a gardener. Pale and milky smooth. James wondered how much sunscreen she used.

“I’m doing my best. Did they say when she could take it off?”

“Probably anytime now. Why don’t you call the hospital and ask them?”

James walked up to stand beside Beth. It was that Jekyll and Hyde thing again. Reading him the riot act one minute and chatting pleasantly with the relatives the next. She managed to be cute the whole time too. “Can she do that?” he asked.

“Of course I can do that,” Aunt Jean snapped. “I’m not an invalid. And don’t talk about me like I’m not here. I’m going blind, not deaf.” She spun around, hobbled across the porch and slammed the screen door behind her.

“Well, I guess she told you.” Beth walked back to her abandoned pruning project, leaving James alone.

He watched her cross the lawn, gather up the rest of the trimmings in the bucket and disappear deeper into the garden behind a stand of pampas grass. His charm was obviously damaged along with his ego. The only thing really working at full capacity was his integrity, and that was getting a little too heavy to bear.

Chapter 3

Beth stepped out of the shower. James was a wrinkle she hadn’t anticipated. Of course, she hadn’t anticipated most of these wrinkles. The way he talked, he didn’t know anything about her battles with his mother. He might be swayed to help her against Donna. Jean hadn’t been enthusiastic about Donna and James’s relationship, but it might be better than the old lady thought. Plus, a blood son had to have some influence, didn’t he?

Unless he planned on moving back here and taking over her apartment. His life had sort of come unglued. Beth looked around her little bedroom. The blue bedspread with the purple trim and the purple pillows. A faux window painted on the wall. Her apartment was cozy, but it did only have real windows on one side and it was still a basement. If he could take care of the girls, she would gladly leave him to it, but he needed more training before he could take over that task.

It would be nice if he stayed. He had the bearing of an action hero. Someone who was prepared at any moment to save the day. Light brown hair and dark brown eyes, trim build. He had to work out. He was an accountant, not a landscaper, but he certainly had the build of one. Once word got around town that an eligible man had arrived, there would be a feeding frenzy.

If he planned on staying. She wasn’t going to be ousted just so his mother could get her grubby paws on the property. What kind of greedy shrew would put her own mother into a nursing home just to get her hands on the cash value of the estate? Beth set the timer beside her bed for five minutes. For five minutes she would fume about Donna and then no more. If she didn’t put a time limit on it, she’d be angry all through dinner, and tonight was their weekly trip out.

By the time she got upstairs, dressed in her pink sundress and white sandals, she’d put Donna out of her mind. James sat on the couch channel-surfing. Nonie was sleeping in her chair. Beth studied her for a minute to make sure she was still breathing. One of these days she was going to come upstairs to find that Nonie wasn’t breathing, and that thought scared the bejeezus out of her. Jean had taken off her bandages so she didn’t look as frightening. Jean had also reminded Nonie to change into going-out clothes. “Jean went to get dressed?” Beth asked.

“Get dressed for…” James looked up and his mouth stopped working. His lips remained puckered around the “for.”

Beth held her breath for his response. She hadn’t picked the dress to impress him, but she had been pondering the size of the single female feeding frenzy when she pulled it out of the closet. He didn’t look pleased, but he didn’t look displeased either. It was taking a long time for him to pick a side.

“For what?” he finished.

Beth let her breath out. Still not pleased or displeased, he seemed to have fallen on the fence of not caring. “Dinner. We usually go out on Thursday. We go to the library and the diner. You don’t have to come if you don’t want to. But you’ll have to move your car. You’re blocking me in.”

“I’ll drive.” He stood up. “You’ll have to tell me where to go.”

Beth couldn’t resist raising an eyebrow to that.

He rolled his eyes at her. “Is this a dressy affair?”

“No, but we do run into students.” Beth smoothed her hands over her skirt. “I try to look nice.”

“For Nonie’s students?”

“For
my
students, who are usually the children or grandchildren of Nonie and Jean’s students.”

“And this is what you do for fun?”

Beth shrugged, glancing at Nonie. Still breathing. “This summer. Last summer, Nonie was still good enough that I could leave her and Jean alone. Up until the end of this school year they were all right as long as someone checked on them during the day while I was at school.”

The front door opened, and Jean tottered in. She stopped at the door, beaming. “Aren’t you two just adorable together?”

“Are you ready, Jean?” Beth asked before Jean could go on.

Jean had changed into a prim tan skirt and sleeveless white blouse. In her hands, she held her library bag and her purse. She gave Beth a heavy sigh in response. “Let’s get the old lady up so we can go. Are you coming, James?”

“Sure. But you have to tell me where to turn.”

“We’re only going to the diner. You know where the diner is.”

“No, I don’t. I didn’t grow up here.”

Beth thought she heard a trace of defensiveness in his tone.

“Oh that’s right, your mother couldn’t wait to get out of this little town. She didn’t even want to bring you back for visits. She always sent you on the bus by yourself.” Jean’s voice dripped sarcasm.

That explained the defensiveness. He must have been through this before. “Jean, why don’t you go get into James’s car? We’ll be right behind you. James, will you wake up Nonie?”

James looked at his grandmother with apprehension. Taking a deep breath, he leaned over and patted her on the shoulder. “Nonie? It’s time to go.”

Nonie opened her eyes and fixed them on James. She frowned. “Frank?”

Everyone froze where they were. The name was the acoustic equivalent of shattering glass.

“No, Nonie, I’m not Frank. I’m James. Your grandson.”

His voice was so gentle, Beth found herself blinking back tears. He was facing away from her so she couldn’t see how he’d reacted to being called by his grandfather’s name, but he sounded calm. Maybe he could be trained to take care of the girls. If he planned to stick around.

“My grandson?” Nonie blinked. Then she started to stand. James reached out to help her, but Beth caught his arm.

“Let her do it herself. Just be there if she needs you,” she told him.

James hovered beside the chair until Nonie was upright. “I have to get my keys.” He turned so that she couldn’t see his face before heading down the hall.

Beth sent Nonie in the direction of the car and waited for James in the house. Jean would deal with her outside. When James came back, he didn’t look broken up. She didn’t believe it for a second. How could anyone not be upset after being called by their late grandfather’s name? “She does that all the time.”

“Does what?”

“Calls people by the wrong name. She calls me Jean.”

“No big deal.” He shrugged.

“I think she gets confused about who’s who and she grabs the first name that comes to mind.”

“Hey, lovebirds! The car’s locked. We can’t get in,” Jean shouted from outside.

Beth scoured the floor for a convenient hole to drop through. None presented themselves.

“Well, Aunt Jean has bellowed.” James went out the door.

Beth paused in the middle of the living room long enough to shudder. Jean had obviously decided they were meant for each other. She would spend most of her copious free time plotting to get them together. At least James was a better candidate than the last guy Jean had set Beth’s hat for. The UPS guy was nice, but Beth suspected he was gay. Either that or he had a strong aversion to elementary school teachers. Most men did.

At the library, Andrea Seaforth and Becky Raney both stopped working when they walked in. Beth considered going right back out. Let the frenzy begin. Andrea was married, but she had single friends. Becky was single, but far too young. Beth doubted that would stop her.

“Hello, and who is this?” Andrea asked.

“This is Donna’s boy, James.” Jean hefted her bag of audio books onto the counter. “What do you have for me this week?”

“James, huh?” Andrea smiled. “Hello, James. You here for the festival?”

“What festival?” James smiled back.

Beth handed him a flyer for the town’s annual Summer Fest. James might end up being the most interesting attraction.

“Oh this. I remember this from when I was a kid. There was a lot of watermelon.” He studied the flyer with more than idle interest. Beth noted that someone should have hit spell check because instead of having an eating contest they were having an “eating conest.” If she had done the flyer like she always did, that wouldn’t have happened.

“It’s next week,” Andrea added. “You have to come.”

“There’s a dance that Friday.” Becky fluttered her eyelashes. “I’ll save you one.” Becky had started fluttering those eyelashes in second grade. Too bad she had the body of a Teamster.

“I always hated watermelon. It’s a laxative, you know,” Jean announced. “What do you have for me this week?”

Beth put her own novels on the returns counter and headed into the stacks. She usually got two books a week in the summer, but the way the girls were she hadn’t been able to get out as much. This time she selected three and carried them to the checkout desk where Becky and Andrea had turned their attention on James again. He was leaning on the counter laughing while keeping an eye on Nonie and Jean sitting in the chairs inside the entrance. If he’d turned the full wattage of that smile on her, she wasn’t sure how she would resist. Becky and Andrea weren’t even trying. They both leaned on the counter laughing with him until she cleared her throat.