The Hellion (36 page)

It felt awkward, standing on the front step waiting for someone to answer the bell--after all, they'd scampered at will into and out of this house for years. Tommy Lee stood with his hands buried in his coat pockets, his collar still turned up, his expression grave as he stared at the black metal mailbox beside the door. The wind lifted his coattail and slapped it back across his thigh, and Rachel placed her hand on his sleeve to squeeze his arm reassuringly.

The door opened and there stood Lily, gaping as if they were ghosts, holding the edge of the door and not moving a muscle.

Finally Tommy Lee said, "Hello, Mother."

His words seemed to shake her out of her trance. Her lips opened and her eyes skipped from Tommy Lee to Rachel and back, but though her throat worked, no sound came out. So Rachel added, "Hello, Lily."

At last Lily found her voice.

"Have-hello," she said, though it was no more than a weak, breathless squeak.

"We wondered if we could talk to you and Daddy."

"Which-why, of course. Come in. Come in." Suddenly she was all action and smiling solicitousness, stepping back and waving them in with fluttery, nervous gestures. "Well, my gracious, what a surprise this is. I was just ... Come, sit. Where did he ... Gaines?" she finally called, glancing around as if she'd misplaced him.

"Lily, where are my slippers?" came his voice from upstairs.

Lily flapped her hands. "Oh, that man, forever losing something. Just ... Would it ... Excuse me just a minute." She went to the bottom of the stairs and called up, "Gaines, we have company. Leave your shoes on."

"Company? Who?"

"Come see," she answered.

A moment later Gaines Gentry appeared at the foot of the stairs, and when he saw who stood across the room he stopped dead in his tracks. His eyes zeroed in on Tommy Lee, held for some

time before shifting to Rachel momentarily,
    
435 then settling on his son again. Disbelief registered on his face. His cheeks began turning an electric pink, and finally his feet started moving.

"Well, this is a surprise."

"Hello, Daddy. I hope we're not interrupting your dinner," Tommy Lee began.

"No ... no!" Gaines responded eagerly. "We hadn't started yet. Your mother was just setting the table." He stood near enough to touch, but both he and Tommy Lee refrained from reaching out to each other. Rachel sensed his breathlessness and noted a trembling in his hand as he patted his shirtfront and repeated, "Well, this is quite a surprise. Tommy Lee." And as if just now remembering himself, Gaines turned to include his other visitor. "And Rachel, too."

"Hello, Gaines."

Tommy Lee cleared his throat. "We'd like to talk to both of you if you have a minute."

"Why, sure, sure ... let's sit down. Lily, is there any coffee?" he rambled nervously.

"No," Tommy Lee interjected. "No

coffee for us. We'll only be a minute."

"Well, sit down anyway. Can I take your coats?"

The whole thing was starting out just as Rachel had suspected it would, with everyone walking on eggshells. Gaines's face was so bright by now he looked in danger of having a stroke, and Lily wore a porcelain smile that made it quite impossible to look her in the eye. Finally they were all perched, Gaines and Lily on overstuffed armchairs, Tommy Lee on a davenport beside Rachel, the only one to lean back with any semblance of composure.

Silence fell for several uncomfortable seconds. Then Tommy Lee cleared his throat, rested his elbows on his knees, and chafed his hands together, studying the floor between his feet, finally glancing up to ask, "So, how have you both been?"

"Fine!" they replied together, then glanced at each other sheepishly while the room grew tingly with tension.

"Me, too. I ah ... live out on the lake now."

"Yes, we heard."

"My daughter lives with me."
       
437

"Your daughter!" Lily said, as if surprised.

"Yes, the one you've seen with me at church."

"Oh, yes, of course. My, but she's pretty."

Tommy Lee allowed himself to smile, raising his eyes to Rachel as if for fortification. "Rachel says she looks like you." Lily grew fluttery again, and Tommy Lee cleared his throat and lurched to his feet, then began pacing nervously.

"We, ah ... Rachel and I have been seeing quite a bit of each other since her husband died."

"We were so sorry to hear the news, Rachel. Such a young man."

"Yes ... well ..." Rachel searched for something to say to cover the awkward moment. "Tommy Lee has helped me tremendously to get over Owen's death."

She lifted her face to Tommy Lee, and their eyes met and held as he added, "And Rachel has helped me, too. I've been managing, with her help, to get my life back on track." He drew a prolonged breath, and she offered a

smile of reassurance to force him on. "I was running pretty wild there for a quite a few years ... thought I had the world by the tail, but actually I was on a self-destruction course. Rachel made me realize that." Still their eyes communicated as he added more softly, "Rachel's made me see a lot of things."

Gaines and Lily observed the tender expression passing between the two and dropped their eyes to the carpet, but their son suddenly seemed to draw himself back to the present, squaring his shoulders and facing the two seated on the matched chairs.

"You see, it's because of her that I'm here. She and I ... we're ..." Tommy Lee's troubled eyes wavered from his mother to his father. Then he swung around, took two jerky steps toward the fireplace, shoved one hand through his hair, and mumbled, "Oh, hell." Finally he spun to face them once more, and when at last he said what he'd come to say, it came out all in a rush. "Rachel and I are going to get married this Saturday, but before she would agree to it she made me promise to come here and settle things with you, so here we are."

Not a sound adulterated the silence.
    
439 From the kitchen came the smell of supper cooking, while in the living room four uncertain people faced one another, each waiting for the next one to say something.

Lily was the first to respond. She pulled her lips together long enough to breathe, "Married?" Her eyes were enormous as she looked up at her towering son, who stood with his hands buried in his coat pockets, a defensive scowl on his face.

"Yes, married. We thought you should know."

Lily's face was pale as parchment, and she touched her heart and looked to her husband for a reply, but he was as surprised as she. Though they had seen Rachel and Tommy Lee exchanging hellos on the church steps, they had no idea the two had been seeing so much of each other.

Tommy Lee crossed to his mother's chair and hunkered down before it, taking her hand. "I love her more than I could ever begin to tell her. I've never stopped loving her. Having her in my life again has given me the strength to turn it around in the nick of time. But she's very wise, more so than any of us three ..." His eyes moved to a stunned

Gaines, then back to Lily. "She realized that a lot of what was wrong with my life stemmed from the bitterness I felt toward you two. And I want it over. Over and done with." Then he ended softly, "Don't you?"

The look they exchanged was poignant as Lily's eyes filled with tears. "Oh, Tommy Lee, I've prayed for years to hear you say that."

"Why didn't one of you say it?" he asked, a shadow of hurt in his tone.

Her eyes dropped to their joined hands. "Stubbornness, I guess. Pride." She looked up into her son's eyes and added quietly, "Guilt."

Still holding his mother's hand he turned his head to include his father as he said, "Rachel and I want an end to all that. It's over. She and I have a second chance and that's all that matters now. Beth will be living with us, and--don't you see? It's almost as if Providence decided in our favor after all these years. She's not the same Beth we lost, but that doesn't matter. Isn't it time we all put that incident behind us? God knows I'm as guilty of keeping old wounds from

healing as anybody. But now there's going
   
441 to be Rachel ... and me ... and Beth. I ... I'm anxious for you to meet her."

"Our ... our granddaughter." Lily's face had all but collapsed with emotion. She struggled to hold back the tears, but they coursed down her cheeks.

Tommy Lee smiled crookedly and teased, "Well, it's nothing to cry about, Mama."

And at last they could restrain themselves no longer. Lily threw her arms around Tommy Lee's neck and he fell to his knees beside her chair, hauling her roughly against him. Looking on, Gaines stood and took a halting step toward them, and Rachel could tell by the expression on his face that he was having difficulty restraining his own tears.

When mother and son drew apart, Tommy Lee looked up to find his father hovering nearby. Slowly he straightened and the two confronted each other with a gravity that was palpable, while the eternal moment lengthened. Then they pitched roughly together and slapped each other's shoulders.

"Son ..." Gaines choked.

Tommy Lee's eyes were closed, his throat

working convulsively against his father's shoulder.

They backed apart, laughing self-consciously. Then Tommy Lee was striding toward Rachel, reaching for her hand to pull her to her feet and include her in the celebration. She went from Lily's arms to Gaines's, accepting and giving embraces with a residue of self-consciousness still making the scene very strained.

"We all have a lot of time to make up for," Lily offered.

It seemed to Rachel that Lily had shrunk over the years, and it made her realize how old their parents were getting. Yes, there was much to make up for. Lily tried several times to say something before finally managing to complete the thought.

"Would you ... Thursday is ... Well, I was just thinking, if you ... haven't made any other plans, Thursday is Thanksgiving, and it seems we have a lot to be thankful for this year. Would you care to join us for dinner? And bring Beth, too?"

The eagerness shone in her eyes. Tommy Lee and Rachel both saw it there before exchanging a silent glance. Actually, they'd made plans for Rachel to spend the day with Tommy Lee and Beth

at the lake house. But now she answered
  
443 for all three of them.

"We'd love to. Is that okay with you, Tommy Lee?"

"Uh ... oh, of course!"

The look of delight that came over Lily Gentry's face was radiant while Gaines patted his shirtfront and rocked back on his heels, smiling and nodding.

Tommy Lee and Rachel left minutes later amid more stilted farewell pats and hugs. When they were walking to the car, Tommy Lee asked, "So what about that turkey we bought, and the plan to move your stuff out to my house after dinner Thursday?"

"We'll leave the turkey in the freezer and move my things at midnight if we have to. As your mother said, we have a lot to be thankful for this year, and it will be auspicious to begin all together at a Thanksgiving table."

As Tommy Lee opened the car door for her he added, "Just about all together."

She glanced over her shoulder. The pecan tree was bare of nuts now, and beyond it the break in the boxwood hedge was merely a shadow. The

sweetgum tree had dropped all its balls, too--everything looked wintry and cold. She lifted her eyes to the house beyond the hedge and thought of how wintry and cold its lone resident must be. Daddy, she thought, and her heart ached with pity for a man so steeped in pride he would remain in self-imposed exile rather than bend.

"We'd better go, Rachel," Tommy Lee said softly.

She looked up at him beseechingly. "Do you suppose he'll ever change?"

"It would take a miracle, I think."

As they drove away, Rachel's eyes lingered sadly on the dim light in her father's living-room window.

           
CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  
Thanksgiving dawned gray and misty, but Gaines had a cheery fire already ablaze in the hearth when Tommy Lee, Rachel, and Beth arrived at the Gentry home. The aroma of roasting turkey filled the place, and there was a sense of true welcome as the three stepped inside. Gaines and Lily were smiling and

jovial, and though it was easy to see the
    
445 excitement shining from their eyes, upon meeting Beth there was a first cautious reserve. To Rachel and Tommy Lee's delight, it was Beth who put it to rout.

With the offhand congeniality that can sprout from teenagers at the most unexpected yet opportune times, Beth assessed the two eager faces, grinned over her shoulder at Tommy Lee, who stood behind her, and commented, "You're right, Daddy, I do look like them."

The laughter that followed broke the ice, and within half an hour of their arrival they were all immersed in photo albums filled with pictures of Tommy Lee and Rachel, and for each picture there was a story. Beth listened raptly, laughing at the photographs of her father as a skinny teenager who appeared to be all bones and hair, and at Rachel in a ponytail and spit curls. Lily proved to have a marvelous talent for storytelling, relating tales even Rachel had forgotten.