Mom Over Miami (12 page)

“Looks like before we take on the world, we have to make some big changes. And it won’t be pleasant.” She just hoped that wasn’t an indication of what the rest of the day held for her.

“D
addy did what?” Hannah pressed her cell phone to one ear and put her finger in the other. And she still couldn’t hear her sister over the bickering of the DIY sisters. Tessa wailed. A freshly primped and permed Aunt Phiz who had run to the rescue when Hannah called to report the mess sang as she worked loose the corner of the paint-spattered carpet. “He said what to who?”

“What?” Phiz jerked her head up. “What’s that baby brother of mine gone and done now?”

“Baby?”
Jacqui stopped wagging her finger in her sister’s face long enough to send a disbelieving look at Hannah’s elderly spitfire of an aunt.

“Yes.
Baby
brother.” To the dauntless Phyllis Amaryllis, Moonie Shelnutt was and always would be her sweet “baby” sibling, even though they were both well into collecting Social Security.

“If only I had been blessed with a baby brother instead of a bossy sister.” Jacqui finger-combed her hair, only to hit a snarl of still-moist caulk mixed with paint. She groaned and drew her hand away.

Hannah and Phiz both saw what was coming, but they couldn’t warn Cydney fast enough to stop her frantic spit-cleaning of her tennis shoe and duck.

Th-wapp!

“Oh!” Cydney took the lightly flung goop right across the cheek. “Why you—”

“Watch your mouth. We’re in the church,
baby
sister.”

Cydney narrowed her eyes and swiped the mess off with the back of her hand. “Better to
be
the baby than to
act
like the baby.”

“Shh,
ladies!
” And she meant that term in the most lenient sense possible. “Please! I can’t listen to you, quiet my baby and talk to Sadie all at the same time.”

If only God had blessed her with that level of multitasking! Maybe then she’d finally get everything done and make everyone happy all at once. She picked Tessa up from the baby seat on the floor, planted the child on her hip and began pacing.

The noise level dropped to a dull roar.

Hannah shut her eyes to blot out everything but her sister’s voice. “Say that again, Sadie. Daddy went where and asked for what?”

“He went into the vet clinic with his neighbor’s new kitten tucked under his arm and announced, ‘I’m here for my cat scan!’”

Maybe it was the ridiculousness of her situation. Or maybe having the image form in her head of her daddy clutching a small furball to his blue sweater, his gray hat screwed down tight to hide the orneriness in his eyes that set her off. Hannah didn’t know. And it didn’t matter. She had to laugh.

“Great fun for you, sure.” Sadie’s bristling carried like an electrical current through the lines.

“Besides, if anyone is acting infantile around here, maybe we should look to the person whose immature artistic style belongs stuck up on a refrigerator, not factored
into a design scheme.” Jacqui shook her head to loosen more caulk.

“Did I catch you at a bad time?” Sadie asked.

“Yes.” Hannah moved to the doorway that separated the two rooms. “You did. Excuse me just a second.”

She caught Jacqui by the arm and helped her through to the next room, where her sister stood surveying the wreckage that had once been a pair of hand-decorated shoes.

“Jacqui? Cydney? This is an important phone call. It’s concerning my family. For the next few minutes, all issues concerning my family will be being conducted over there.” She pointed to the toddler room. “All issues concerning
your
family will be contained in here.”

Wham
. She slammed the door between herself and the wide-eyed, paint-slopped sisters.

“But then, there doesn’t seem to be such a thing as a good time to catch me these days,” she told her own sister in the sweetest tone imaginable. “So go on talking.”

“Okay. So Daddy pulls this stunt at the vet, and after the giggling died down in the waiting room, he tells everyone there to be sure to let his busybody daughter know that he’d reported for his test as per her orders.”

“Did he now?”

“I’ve been fielding calls all day long.”

“Interesting.”

“Interesting that Daddy pulled this stunt, or interesting that he actually listened to what I told him and acted on it—childishly—but acted on it just the same?”

“Interesting that when told to get word to his
busybody
daughter, everyone called
you
.”

Sadie chuckled soft and quick before clucking her tongue. “I guess if he’d said call his celebrity daughter, you’d be the one trying to convince Lollie Mulldoon that Daddy’s actions sprang from sarcasm, not a desperate plea for help.”

“Sarcasm? What’s prompted Daddy to resort to sarcasm now?”

“Not like he needs prompting.” Aunt Phiz and Sadie treated Hannah to the remark in stereo.

Hannah blinked.

Aunt Phiz suddenly got terribly involved in not looking like she’d been eavesdropping. She gave the far corner of the carpet a mighty yank.

A long, ominous ripping sound tore through the vacant room as the flooring came loose.

Sadie pressed on. “What usually leads him to sarcasm? He’s trying to take the heat off.”

“The heat off?”

“Because he doesn’t want to have the tests.”

“Oh.”

Hannah rubbed her forehead, but that didn’t ease the tension brought on by the reminder of their father’s transient ischemic attacks. He had the first about the time she’d learned she was pregnant with Tessa. The same time they had all learned about the ultimate, heartbreaking fate of their mother.

“What?” The carpet fell from Aunt Phiz’s grip, sending a load of musty-smelling dust through the room.

Hannah bounced Tessa on her hip, turning away so she wouldn’t show her disappointment and concern to her aunt as she answered the question. “The tests.”

“He still hasn’t gone for those?”

Hannah shook her head.

Payt had tried to hook Daddy up with the best neurologists in Kentucky for a year now, but the old man always had an excuse to cancel the appointments.

“He says he feels fine,” Hannah relayed to her aunt.

“Let’s just see if he’s still saying that once I get a hold of him.” The old gal slapped her hands together. Her ample upper arms swayed and joggled, making her look pretty formidable for a senior citizen with a clown-hair-colored poodle perm.

“You?” Hannah asked.

“Who?” Sadie shot back.

“Me!” Phiz motioned for Hannah to hand her the small cell phone. “Sounds like our Sadie has her hands full. And since you don’t seem ready or willing to accept my help, why shouldn’t I hie myself down to Wileyville to see what I can do?”

Because you’re my help. You came to me. To impose yourself on my life. Not Sadie’s. Mine
.

Mine, mine, mine
.

Not since Daddy’s last stunt had anyone responded with such unreasoned childishness.

At least once a day, maybe more, Hannah secretly wished her aunt would fly back to China or India or even just drive to the drugstore long enough to give Hannah a breather. But hearing her announce her plans to leave, the truth hit Hannah. For once in her life, someone had come running to her first, not to her sisters. If Aunt Phiz ran off to Sadie’s aid at this first bit of small trouble, where would that leave Hannah?

Talking to herself. That’s where. And it had already been pointed out to her that she was no good at that kind of thing.

Suddenly she felt like the lost, lonely child she had once been. She wished her aunt could pack her up in a suitcase and fly her away.

“Give me the phone, honey.” Phiz stuck out her open palm.

“No, wait!” Sadie, who for someone who had the patience of a gnat had gotten pretty good at telling other people to wait, lowered her voice and spoke in a quick, panicked tone. “Tell Aunt Phiz I have things under control. We’ve finally got the MRI scheduled at a time that I can take him.”

Hannah relayed the message word for word.

“I’m hanging up now before she gets a chance to argue. Give her my love.” And Sadie was gone.

“Thanks a lot,” Hannah muttered. She depressed the end call button with one thumb, then showed the turned-off phone to her aunt with a shrug. “Guess Sadie had to run.”

“I’ll bet.” Aunt Phiz shook her head.

Hannah slid the phone into her purse. She paused to listen for the sisters in the next room. “That’s certainly an eerie silence.”

“Maybe they’ve made their peace.”

“Maybe they’re resting in peace. If you know what I mean.” She stuck her tongue out and made a slash across her throat with one finger.

Tessa grabbed her hand in motion and promptly began to gnaw on one knuckle.

“I’d like to go in there and put Tessa in one of the cribs while we finish up in here.”

“Stealth, my dear.” The older woman raised a penciled-in eyebrow. “Get in, get out, don’t get involved.”

Hannah nodded. “Good idea.”

She took a breath, laid her hand on the door and waited. For what, she didn’t know, but that’s what they always told you to do in those Safety First filmstrips at school.

Feel the door to prevent walking into a fiery death trap
.

No heat.

No sound.

She glanced back at her aunt.

“Go!” Phiz urged.

“Please excuse me for one moment, ladies, but I need to put Tessa…” She had the baby halfway into the crib before she realized she’d been talking to an empty room.

“Where’d they go?” Aunt Phiz asked.

“I don’t know and I don’t care.” Hannah put the baby down and hurried back through to the toddler room. “Let’s just finish our work here and run before they get back.”

“Yes. Good. When in doubt work fast and get out.” Aunt Phiz held up her index finger. “That shall be the new Shelnutt family motto.”

Hannah liked it. She liked it a little too much.

In fact, she wished she could have put it into action moments later when she and her aunt stood elbow-deep in dirty work and the older woman turned the subject to Hannah’s daddy again.

“MRI, you said?”

“Yes. It’s a magnetic resonance imagining machine.” Hannah made a motion in the air with her free hand to try to indicate the big tube that they would be sliding Moonie into.

“I know what it is, honey. You might recall I hold multiple advanced degrees in history and science.”

“Oh, yeah.”
Clod! You did it again. Thought only in terms of yourself and your experience with someone, and ended up missing out on the bigger picture
. “I guess when you see someone everyday in curlers and house slippers, you tend to forget she’s a well-educated world traveler. Dopey me.”

“You are not dopey. You are darling. And dedicated. And more than a little distracted.” Soft folds framed Aunt Phiz’s sparkling eyes and kind smile. “But never dopey. Don’t tell yourself different.”

“Thanks.”

“Not only do I know what an MRI is, my dear, I had reason to see one in action a few years back when one of my classes got to observe a mummy being sent through the device.”

“Wow.” Hannah blinked. “That must have been fascinating.”

“Yes, indeed.”

“Maybe you can use that story to convince Daddy to give it a try.”

“The test of choice for three-thousand-year-old pharaohs?” She tapped her finger to her cheek. “It might just be the thing to appeal to his vanity to know he was in the company of kings.”

“If nothing else, it would give him a terrific lead-in for the epic tale of Moonie’s Medical Miracle.” Hannah dropped to her knees to better roll up the heavy old carpet. “Way better than that taking-the-cat-to-the-vet story.”

“I don’t think so. After that experience?” Phiz did her bit by nudging the musty cylinder along with her foot. “Not even for the sake of telling a great story will your daddy get inside of one of those closed MRI machines.”

“I don’t know about that. You’ve never gone up against Sadie once she’s made her mind up.”

“She’s a stubborn one, I’ll give you that. But where do you think all that mule-headedness comes from?”

“Let me guess, from Moonie, the Mule King?”

“Moonie the Miracle Boy.”

“Is this the story about how he got lost in a cave and lived on his own for days and everyone gave him up for
dead, then miraculously he came wandering out without a scratch on him?”

“Is that how he tells it now?”