Mother of Prevention (6 page)

We dropped our bags on the floor at gate three and sank into the nearest chairs, trying to catch our breath. Kelli was famished, and grouchy because of it. I rummaged around in my purse and came up with gum, all I had on me. I noticed the flight was loading, so I picked up the shoulder bag and my purse and glanced at our group number. We were Group Six, so we’d have a few minutes. I searched for a kiosk—anything to buy an apple or doughnut.

The overhead speaker said that Group Seven could now load.

What happened to Group Six?

I stepped to the desk, rereading seating assignments. The clerk looked up. “Group Six has already loaded?” I asked.

She nodded.

“This
is
the San Francisco flight.” By this time I wasn’t taking any chances.

She nodded. Then looked at the monitor. “No, this is the L.A. flight.”

“L.A.! What happened to San Francisco?”

She consulted a paper. “I’m sorry—that flight is now boarding out of F12.” She smiled. “Better hurry. The flight leaves in three minutes.”

Rainy San Francisco. I stared out the windows of the Boeing 727 as the aircraft taxied into the airport. Rain hit the windows in sheets. After we left the plane both girls and I were drenched to the core by the time we hailed a cab and piled into the back seat.

The cab took us to The Crab Corner—four-star accommodations, according to the travel agent. Somehow The Crab had dropped a couple of stars by the time we got there. I opened the door to the dingy-smelling room and dissolved in tears.

Kelli and Kris sat me down on the lumpy bed, and then sat next to me. We all had a good cry. Finally Kris got up and plugged in the small coffeepot and made a cup of hot tea. She carried the offering to me, urging me to drink the warm liquid. By now Kelli had fallen over on the awful-looking crab-patterned spread and fallen asleep. One lone piece of gum rattled around in my daughter’s belly.

I took a sip from the cup, and the liquid was so strong my eyes burned, but I drank it anyway.

If I’d been speaking to God, I’d have been asking a lot of questions, demanding to know why He’d do this to me and my girls. He was supposed to be a just and loving God, and there was nothing
just
or
loving
about my situation.

The tea brought me around. Kris had located the thermostat and turned off the air-conditioning and turned on the heat. Warmth filled the smoke-drenched room. I started to come back to life.

“We’d better leave our clothes in the luggage,” I told Kris. I didn’t trust the old chest of drawers to be bug free.

When Kelli woke, we left the room and the three of us waded deep puddles to a fast-food chain sitting in front of a huge, garish pink crab statue. We ate hamburgers and fries. Later we walked around the hotel pool, the facility looking rather bleak, like an ocean after a hurricane. Leaves floated on brackish water; wind had overturned lounges and chairs. Some kid had left a green beach towel and a pair of white sneakers lying beside the pool.

I turned a chair upright and sat down, staring at the dreary sight, knowing with every ounce of perception that San Francisco wasn’t going to be the healing oasis I’d hoped it would be.

Nine o’clock the following morning, Burt Baker of New Homes Realty picked us up. It would have been nice if we could have started yesterday afternoon, but as long as the real estate agent had houses, I had no complaint. Well, not many. The girls climbed into the back seat of Burt’s van, and I took the passenger seat. Burt already knew my budget; it would be hard to find anything in the Bay Area for my price, but he was willing to try, he said, flashing me a three-million-actual-dollar-sales-this-year smile.

Kelli leaned forward and told him how much Neil’s insurance policy was worth, and I reached back and clapped a hand over her mouth. Was nothing sacred to a child?

The first house in my price range scared me. We walked through the “roomy fixer upper,” kicking trash out of our path. The occupants had cats. I spotted cat hair hanging off the one overhead fan in the living area. The cat’s litter box was in the bathtub adjacent to the guest bedroom. The litter had not been changed in what I guessed to be aeons. My eyes watered from the stench and I quickly left the room. Kris and Kelli were not so discreet; they held their noses, making noises like
gross, eweeee
and my personal favorite,
pea yew,
while we toured the remainder of the house.

“Needs a little work,” Burt said, “but fresh paint and new wallpaper will make a huge difference. Lot of possibilities,” he added, pausing to admire the pitted oak woodwork.

The only possibilities I could see were a bulldozer and a dump truck to haul off the rubbish.

“Well, I have more!” Burt said when he realized I was underwhelmed, to say the least. And indeed Burt did.

For the next six hours the girls and I tramped through equally nauseating possibilities. Then Burt drove us to the “for just a little more” listings. These were minimal improvement; one or two actually demonstrated potential, but the prices were thirty to forty thousand dollars out of my price range. I’d
been warned that Bay property was expensive, but I’d never dreamed that an ordinary house—similar to what Neil and I had bought in Oklahoma eight years ago—would cost close to half a million dollars.

I didn’t have that kind of money and I couldn’t raise it. My job paid well, but not that well. I’d even gotten a raise with the move—now I knew why.

When Burt dropped us back at The Crab, the girls and I headed upstairs and fell across the bed. The three of us lay there in the dingy room, staring sightlessly at the ceiling. Sticker shocked.

“What are we going to do, Mommy? We don’t have enough money to buy a house, do we?”

I shook my head. “Not one of those houses, Kris.”

I knew the poor thing had more responsibility on her young shoulders than was fair for a seven-year-old. She worried about me, about family finances. It wasn’t reasonable what I was putting her or Kelli through, but I was powerless to pull myself together, too discouraged to show any true grit at the moment. I wasn’t competent enough to raise these children.

You should have taken me, God.

I realized that I’d spoken to Him for the first time in weeks. Then I couldn’t stop. Bitterness tumbled out.

It should have been
me.
Neil could have handled this better. He was stronger. Smarter. Wiser. I’ll only make a mess out of raising my children. I can’t provide a decent home. I fall apart at the first sign of difficulty. How could You have made such a mistake?

Rain splattered the dingy windows, and I closed my eyes. My head pounded; I hadn’t eaten all day. Kris had made coffee this morning, and before Burt picked us up we’d walked to the fast-food restaurant and Kris and Kelli had eaten a breakfast sandwich.

I turned to look at my daughters, now fast asleep on the bed beside me, their young faces so innocent in sleep. What was I going to do?

“Mommy?”

“Yes, sweetie?” I stirred. The bedside lamp was on, so I must have fallen asleep. I looked up at Kris and smiled. “What is it, honey?”

“Kelli’s got a toad cornered in the bathroom.”

Her declaration took a second to register. Then I leaped off the mattress and shot into the bathroom in time to see my precious five-year-old reach for the toad.

“S-to-o-o-op!”

She jerked her hand back, eyes wide. “It’s a baby, Mommy. Isn’t he cute?”

“Don’t touch that slimy thing!” I knew I looked and sounded like a wild woman, shrieking, scaring my daughters to death, but amphibians of any kind freaked me out!

Rain, shabby houses, snakes.

What next, God?

I didn’t care to know. I had more on my plate than I could handle.

And now toads.

W
e arrived home from San Francisco exhausted and a little down from our trip, but safe. The salon phone would be ringing off the hook as usual for appointments between appointments. Now it was Monday morning, and my day had started off on a sour note.

Kelli was up and dressed, ready for school. Kris was still staggering around half-asleep, her hair looking as if she had been caught in an electric fan, and she was still wearing pajamas. How had I managed to give birth to two daughters with such completely different personalities?

The phone rang while I was slapping cereal bowls on the table. I stumbled over Sailor and dropped a jar of grape jelly. The jar hit the floor squarely on its glass bottom. Whoever had used it last hadn’t tightened the lid. The lid shot off and a blob of jelly caromed off the ceiling, leaving a lovely purple blotch.

I grabbed the receiver and snapped, “Hello.”

“Kate?” Maria? On the phone this early? This would not be good.

“Yes. Sorry.” I reached for an attitude adjustment. “Things are a little hectic around here this morning.”

Maria accepted the apology at face value and got down to business. “
Chérie,
did you find anything to buy in San Francisco?”

“Nothing I could afford. And the ones I could afford wouldn’t make a good doghouse. Why?”

“Well…” She hesitated. “I got word today they need you in your new position by the beginning of December.”

I gasped for breath. December! That was barely a month away. Had I heard that right?

Maria’s voice came over the line edged with worry. “Kate? Are you there?”

“I’m here,” I muttered, staring up at the ceiling as if I expected to see a bevy of angels winging to my rescue. All I saw was grape jelly.

I got my second wind. “December!” I shrieked, probably puncturing Maria’s eardrums. I was sure she would never over-react this way. “Are they out of their minds?”

Kelli’s head jerked around. Sailor whimpered, and even Kris opened her eyes. I took a deep breath. “Say you’re kidding me.”

Maria made soothing noises. “I know it’s difficult, yes? But it will all work out somehow.”

“Can’t you do anything?”

“I can’t make decisions for San Francisco.” I heard the finality in her voice. “I would help if I could, you know that.”

Oh yes, I knew. I sighed. “Well…December. How about that?” How would I manage? I hadn’t even put the house on the market.

“Kate? Do you need to take a few days off? You’re on a salary, you know. It won’t make any difference in your paycheck. I
can
take care of that.”

I swallowed the lump in my throat. I would miss this woman, miss all my friends and customers. Whatever made me think I’d want to move away? “Thanks, Maria. That would help.”

“All right, then it’s settled. Take a few days, pack, take care of business. I’ll cover for you here.”

I thanked her again and we broke the connection.

Sailor scratched at the door and I yelled for Kelli to put him out. I poured orange juice and milk, doled out lunch money, combed Kris’s hair and found Kelli’s jacket. All the while my mind raced. What was I going to do? I had to sort through seven years’ accumulation. Get rid of things we didn’t need, sell what I could, choose what I wanted to move. Move where? I didn’t have a house in California. I would have to make another trip to San Francisco.

I loaded my daughters into the car and backed out of the drive. I had to break the news to them, and they were not going to be happy.

“Guess what, girls. Maria called this morning and we’re going to have to move sooner than I expected.”

Kris fixed me with an accusing glare. “When?”

I kept my eyes on the road. “The beginning of December.”

Kris gasped. “We won’t get to spend Christmas here!”

Christmas? Oh, yeah. That was coming, too. How could I have forgotten our number one major holiday? I sighed. I couldn’t do this.

Tears sparkled on Kris’s eyelashes. “I don’t want to move. Why can’t we stay here?”

“I have a chance at a better job, one where I don’t have to fly.”

“Can we take Mrs. Murphy with us?” Kelli asked.

I could only wish. “No, she has a home and family here.”

“Then I’m not going.” She stuck out her lower lip in a remarkable imitation of my mother. Why hadn’t I noticed the resemblance before? Sensitive to a fault, and determined to have her own way. She was the overly protective type, too. When
Kelli was three years old, on Mother’s Day Out at the church, a program for preschool children, there she would be, putting her arm around the smaller children and cooing, “Do you have to potty? Now, if you do, you come tell me. Mr. Potty is our friend!” They thought she was a pain in the neck.

Exactly like my mother.

“Look, girls.” I tried to explain. “I don’t like the way things are working out either, but we are going to have to make the best of it. Like it or not, we’re moving to California by the end of November and I expect you to help me.”

“It isn’t fair,” Kelli burst out. “If Daddy was here…”

I didn’t want to go there. I couldn’t drive and cry at the same time.

Kris said it for me. “Daddy isn’t here.”

“No,” I agreed. “I’m sorry.”

They sat quietly for the rest of the ride. When we reached the school, Kris said, “It’s all right, Mom. I’ll help. I promise.”

Kelli still looked like a thundercloud, but she muttered, “Me, too—but it’s not fair.”

My heart broke. I swear I heard it crack. I turned to face them, my wonderful, courageous daughters. “Look, girls, California won’t be so bad. You’ll make new friends and we’ll be close to the ocean and Disneyland.”

A purely wicked gleam flashed in Kris’s eyes. “Can I get my eyebrows pierced?”

“Not on this planet. Don’t even think about it.”

Kelli’s lips curved in a reluctant grin. “I want a nose ring.”

Okay, no more television. Or at least not unless I was in the room. “There will be no body piercing. Subject closed.”

Kelli hugged me. “Bye, Mom. Have an awesome day.”

Kris, who had already got out of the car, popped back in to throw her arms around me. “Don’t worry, Mom—it will be all right. We’ll like California.”

I hugged her tightly. “Oh, Kris, thanks. I’ll see you later.” She closed the car door and they ran toward the school.

Pulling into traffic, I struggled with fresh tears. How had Neil and I managed to raise two such terrific kids? I didn’t deserve them, but somehow I was going to protect them, even if I did have to do it by myself.

I drove to White River Realty and listed my house for sale. Molly Ervin, my new Realtor, filled out the listing. “When can I see the house?”

“Anytime you like. I have to be moved by the first of December, so the sooner the better.”

“I see.” She pushed her glasses up her nose with one finger and nodded her head, gray curls bouncing. “I’ll try to get it in tomorrow’s paper and I’ll put it on our Internet site. If it’s all right with you, I’ll stop by in about an hour and take a look. I’ll leave a lockbox and put a sign up in the yard.”

“That sounds great.” I gave her my phone number and she gave me her card. I walked out feeling as if I had just cut an important tie to my past. Events were moving much too fast for me. I started the car and drove home, planning to straighten up the house before Mrs. Ervin arrived.

I didn’t go into the house right away. Instead I sat in the driveway looking through the windshield at my home, trying to see it the way a prospective buyer would. The trim needed painting. Neil had put that on his to-do list. The rooms were small, the attic unfinished. You had to jiggle the handle on the toilet tank to make it shut off. Then there was the stove…. Like all old houses it had its shortcomings, but it was home and I loved it.

I got out of the car and went inside, walking through the rooms, picking up the girls’ clothing, cleaning the bathroom. So many memories lived here and I was moving away.
God, am I doing the right thing?

God didn’t seem to be speaking to
me,
either.

I stared out the kitchen window, not really seeing anything. I needed help. There was no way I could do all of this myself. I picked up the phone and called my mother.

You’d think at my age I would know better than to give in to impulses.

She answered on the first ring, no doubt anticipating the SOS. Her radar was uncanny.

“Kate! What a pleasant surprise. How are you, dear?”

“I’m fine, Mom, but…”

“How are the girls?”

“They’re fine, Mom, but…”

“Are you back to work yet?”

I gritted my teeth. “Mom! Let me finish a sentence, okay?”

“Well, really, dear. By all means, talk.” She sounded hurt, and I sighed. I shouldn’t have called. I’d forgotten how overwhelming she could be. I loved my mother, but she had a lot in common with a runaway bulldozer.

“I’m selling the house.”

“Oh, Kate! You’re moving to Kansas!”

I blinked. Where had that come from? “Well, no. Actually I’m moving to San Francisco.”

Dead silence.

I had never known my mother to be so quiet for so long. Something was wrong. She’d had a heart attack. I was sure of it.

I yelled, “Mom!”

“What?” She yelled back.

“Are you all right?”

“I was until you yelled at me. What’s wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong.” I took a deep breath and started over. “You were so quiet I was worried.”

“Well. You’d think I was never quiet. I was trying to absorb what you said, and then you yelled at me and I nearly had a heart attack.”

Okay, it was all my fault. Somehow I had expected that. And it wouldn’t have occurred to me to think that she’d had a heart attack if she wasn’t always threatening to have one.

“Why San Francisco?” she asked. “You and the girls belong here, in Kansas. This is your home, dear.”

I couldn’t go “home.” We were two women who couldn’t live under the same roof…in the same town…same state.

“Listen, Mom. I have a new job. I’m being transferred to California.” I hurried along, afraid she would interrupt again. “I have to be in San Francisco by the beginning of December.”

“That’s only a month away. Kate, are you sure about this?”

“It’s what I have to do, Mom.”

She sighed. “Your father and I will come to help.”

“Well…” Too late I was having second thoughts.

“No, no. Don’t give it another thought. I’ll talk to your father and we’ll be there as soon as we can get our things together and take the cat by the kennel.”

She hung up, cutting me off in midprotest.

What had I done?

She would drive me
insane.
I pictured her in my mind—short, stocky, strawberry-blond hair, although she owed most of that coloring to artificial means these days. She never gave an inch, even when she was wrong. If anyone could motivate this move, she could.

Mrs. Ervin arrived and I showed her through the house while she took notes and asked questions. Trying to see the house through her eyes made my home seem even shabbier. We walked around the backyard trailed by Sailor, who followed me acting nervous, as if he knew something was up. The girls’ swing set filled one corner. Just one more thing that would have to be left behind.

“Mrs. Ervin?”

“Call me Molly.”

“Molly. Do you think the house will sell quickly?”

She cocked her head to one side and flashed a smile. “I’ll certainly do my best. The housing market is strong now and I have a couple of clients who are looking for something in this price range.”

We went back into the house and she gathered up her purse and briefcase. “I’ll be in touch.”

I showed her out and fixed myself a sandwich. While I ate it, I spent a little time digging through the kitchen cabinets trying to decide what to take and what to sell. Definitely take my grandmother’s dishes—fine Bavarian china with a rose-and-basket-weave design. I had inherited it when Grandma died, which had really upset Mom because she had expected the dishes to come to her.

The phone rang and I answered it to find my mother’s voice spitting out words like a mouthful of pebbles. “We’re coming Wednesday. Don’t do a thing until I get there. We need to get organized before we start sorting and packing. Your father and I will stay as long as you need us.”

“Ah…right.”

“Don’t worry, dear. I’ll take care of everything.”

I hung up feeling as if I’d been flattened by a steamroller. She would organize everything. She would sort. She would pack. Mom was coming. Everything would work out. Relax.

So why was I worried?

“You did
what?
” I gaped at my mother, unable to believe my ears. “Tell me you didn’t do that.”

She raised her eyebrows at me. “I invited our family members in Oklahoma to come here to celebrate Thanksgiving early. Family supports family, and right now you need all the support you can get.”

“Where do you think I’m going to put all those people?” I stopped yelling and started mentally calculating the damage. “How many did you actually invite?”

Mom rolled her eyes and looked to be silently counting. I braced for the total.

“Let’s see. Clyde and Onie.”

Okay, her sister and brother-in-law, I could handle that.

“And their family.”

Hoo, boy. Sons, daughters and grandkids. That made fourteen people. Plus Mom and Dad and the girls and me, five
more—nineteen. I needed to buy a much bigger turkey than I had planned on. Mom’s facial muscles puckered.

“What?” I demanded.

“Well, I just thought. I didn’t invite Uncle Frank and Aunt Bossy. I mean Bessie.”

“Well, don’t. We’ve got more now than we have room for. Some of them will have to stay at a motel if they’re planning to stay overnight.”

And no, I didn’t need my great-aunt. Put her and my mother in the same room and I’d end up with a catfight supreme. Both women thought they were born to rule, and they didn’t brook any interference.

Mom shook her head. “Oh, no. I told them they’d have to leave before night. I made that perfectly clear.”

Yeah, that’s what concerned me. And with my luck they’d all die on the road—half the guest list couldn’t see after dark—and I’d be held responsible.