Watermelon Days and Firefly Nights: Heartwarming Scenes from Small Town Life (3 page)

“W
HAT A PRETTY PIECE
,”
gushed clinic nurse Janet Evans. “Esther, have you seen this?”

Esther Vaughn, the clinic’s receptionist and farsighted,
good-natured expert on most everything, pushed her
read
ing glasses up on her nose so as to better study the tiny
stitches. “I’m telling you. I’ve done a good bit of needlepoint myself, but never anything so intricate as this. Lots of work goes into a piece like that.”

“Five months worth. That’s how long Miss Annie said it took her to make it.” Dr. Sarah Strickland, sole physi
cian at Ella Louise’s Family Medical Clinic, held the
framed needlepoint at arm’s length to see the full effect.

“Miss Annie gave it to you? Just now? What a sweet woman.”

“Bless her sweet heart.”

Indeed.

At the conclusion of her regular checkup, Miss Annie Wall, arthritic, diabetic, and experiencing what unfortunately looked like early symptoms of Alzheimer’s, had thrust the unexpected gift upon Dr. Strickland. Sarah had responded appropriately, gently hugging Miss Annie and thanking her profusely. Yet though the tangible expression of Miss Annie’s gratitude truly touched Sarah’s heart, its message rankled.

“Goodness! Where you gonna hang it, Dr. Strickland?” asked Janet. “In the waiting room?”

“Not there,” said Esther. “Way too much stuff clutter
ing up those walls already. I say we put it in the main
exam room.
There’s that blank spot over the scales. Folks could use
something nice to look at while they wait for you to give them the bad news!”

Janet giggled. “I say we hang it in the hall—next to the chart racks.”

“I think there’s a nail in my desk drawer. Want me to get the hammer, Doctor?”

“Wait just a second,” Sarah hedged. “Let’s don’t hang it quite yet.”

“Don’t you like it?”

“Umm . . . ”

“Don’t you wanna hang it?”

“Umm . . . ”

“Maybe she wants to take it home and display it in her house.”

“Why, of course! What are we thinking? I’ll wrap it up nice so the frame won’t get scratched.”

“Be cute in your den.”

“Or in your bedroom.”

“Perfect in your entry hall.”

The truth?

The sampler would hang in none of those spots.

Sarah appreciated the lovingly crafted, gold-framed sampler. She did. She admired the workmanship. She liked the colors. She even thought the border design was especially nice. And she
loved
Miss Annie. What Sarah was less than crazy about was the sentimental, carefully stitched message.

It made her wince.

God Couldn’t Be Everywhere
That’s Why He Made Mothers

Mothers.

Always there for their kids.

Always smiling.

Never too busy to bake cupcakes, read storybooks, or play cars.

Never tired, never irritable.

Never on call at the clinic.

Never,
ever
divorced.

Dr. Sarah Strickland, despite a calm professional manner, despite her competence and her compassion, grieved over what she perceived to be her numerous maternal failings. Becoming a single parent had never been in her plans.

Bless Miss Annie’s sweet heart, indeed. Sarah did not need a needlepoint reminder of what she could never be.

Sarah tucked the framed gift into her tote bag.
It’ll make a nice Mother’s Day gift for my mother,
she mused with a bit of sarcasm. Mom never worked outside the home. Mom never got divorced. Mom’s parenting skills put
June Cleaver to shame.

After her 3:00 appointment Sarah called to check on her twelve-year-old twins. This was the first summer that she’d allowed the boys to stay at home without a sitter. Though they groaned at her repeated safety instructions and reminders not to open the door to anyone while she was gone, and though they told her over and over again that they were
not babies,
Sarah was worried about them.

And called them. At least every hour or so.

“Everything okay, Josh? Good. You had lunch? Kevin too? Potpies? You ate them frozen? Honey, you’re supposed to cook them in the microwave! I’m not sure they’re safe to eat like that. Was the chicken cooked? Are you sure? Okay. Clean up your mess. Put your dishes in the washer. Let me speak to Kevin.

“Kevin? You all right? Good. Nope. No swimming until I get home. About six. Did you get your chores done? All of them?

“What about Georgia? Did you feed her? There’s a fresh bag of dog food in the garage. Feed her first, then bathe her.
Yes. Today. Before I get home. Georgia had better be clean
when I get home or there won’t be any swimming. I mean it. See you in a few hours. Love you. Bye.”

Janet and Esther, whose kids were all grown up, eavesdropped, stifled giggles, and felt sympathy for their boss. Both of them remembered the trials they’d been through when their kids were at home and they were at work.

“I used to worry all day that they’d set the house on fire or something.”

“My two used to fight. I’d just pray every hour that they wouldn’t draw blood.”

“Your boys will be fine,” they assured Sarah after the frozen potpie incident. “It’s good for them to have a little time by themselves. Helps them to grow up and be independent. Don’t you worry. Take care of your patients. If one of your boys calls and it can’t wait, we’ll come and get you.”

But it wasn’t a call from one of the boys that precipi
tated Janet and Esther scuttering like flustered hens into the exam room, where Dr. Strickland was tending her last patient of the day—a skinny little man who had a big wart on the second finger of his left hand.

“Excuse me,” Janet said to the patient. “Dr. Strickland, you better come here.”

“What’s the matter? Copy machine acting up again? Can’t it wait?”

“No. Copy machine’s fine. There’s an officer here. He says he’s just come from your house, and he needs to see you right now,” Esther said.

“Mr. Stevens,” Janet told the befuddled and already disinfected patient, “can you wait just a minute? Here’s a magazine for you to read. Dr. Strickland will be right back.”

When Sarah saw the uniformed officer standing in the
waiting room, nervously shifting from one foot to the
other, holding his hat in his hand, she knew deep within her heart that her worst fears were about to be confirmed.

The news had to be bad.

I should never have left the boys alone,
she thought.
I should have made them go to day care no matter how much they protested. What was I thinking? Fact is, I should have let the practice go for the summer and stayed home with them.
But then how would I have kept us afloat financially? This
is
what I get. I should never have agreed to the divorce. That’s
it! No. I should have never married their father in the first place. Why, I should have become a teacher instead of a doctor! Teachers have summers off. What kind of a mother leaves her babies alone at home in a world full of violence and crime?

Keeping her panicked thoughts to herself and feigning a physician’s well-practiced calm, Sarah looked the officer in the eye and asked right out, “Tell me. What is it? Are my boys hurt?”

“Ma’am,” said the officer, “I don’t know anything about your boys.”

“You don’t! Then who does?”

“Ma’am, I’m here about your dog.”

Her dog? Her boys? What was going on?

“I’m the new animal control officer. Todd Scutter. Moved here with my wife, Patricia. I don’t deal with boys. Just dogs. Cats too. Well, and rabbits sometimes. Even a snake or two on occasion . . . ”

What? The boys were okay? Professional calm forgotten, Sarah sank into a chair. Esther got out a manila folder and fanned her while Janet went for a glass of water.

“Uh, ma’am, do you live at twelve-thirteen Garden Patch Road?”

“Yes, but—”

“Then I’ve got the right person. Seems we’ve got us a little problem. It’s not that there’s no ordinance against keep
ing your dog on the roof of your house, but ma’am, your
poor pooch is barking her head off up there. Pitch of that roof’s
pretty steep. Isn’t much in the way of shade. I don’t think
she’s too happy, and neither are your neighbors. Three of ’em called city hall to fuss about it. I tried the doorbell at your house but didn’t get any answer.”

No answer at the door. Of course. Both boys knew better than to answer the door when she wasn’t home.

Wait a minute. There was a dog on the roof of her house? Georgia? What was Georgia doing up there?

“Someone told me you would be working here, so that’s why I’m calling on you at your place of business. Ma’am, do you think you could find some other place to keep your dog?”

You bet she could.

After finishing up with Mr. Stevens’s wart (“Put antibi
otic ointment on it twice a day and keep it covered with
a bandage. Sorry you had to wait.”), Sarah drove home. Sure enough, perched on the roof of the house, alternately whining, panting, pawing, and barking, was poor Geor
gia. Unable to lie down without losing her balance and
tumbling to the ground, she nervously paced back and forth. Though she
looked completely worn out, when she saw Sarah, her
stumpy tail began to wag.

“Hold on, girl. Just give me a minute, and I’ll get you down.” Sarah got a ladder from the garage, leaned it up against the side of the house, climbed to the top, and brought the shaky-legged dog down to safety. Sarah released Georgia into the fenced backyard of the house, then waved at the nosy neighbors across the street.

Engrossed in a video game, Kevin and Josh didn’t even look up when Sarah walked into the house.

“Hi, Mom.”

“Hi, Mom.”

“What’s for dinner?”

“Can we go swimming now?”

She turned off the game.

“Mom! Why’d you do that? I was way ahead.”

“Why you got a mad look on your face, Mom? We did our chores.”

“We cleaned up the kitchen.”

“Picked up our clothes.”

“We even gave Georgia her bath.”

“And where is Georgia?” asked Sarah.

“Uh-oh.” The twins looked at each other.

“Just a second, Mom; I need to get something from outside.” Kevin got up to go outside.

“Too late. I already got her down. Can you tell me how exactly Georgia got up on the roof?”

“We put her there.”

“Guys, why would you do that?”

“You told us to bathe her.”

“You said she had to be clean when you got home.”

“So we put her up there to keep her from getting dirty.”

“Did you smell her, Mom? She smells pretty good.”

“For a dog.”

After a moment’s pause, Sarah’s tense shoulders relaxed.
The furrow in her brow smoothed. The churning in her
stomach slowed. She bent and gave her boys big hugs
before allowing that Georgia did indeed smell pretty good.

For a dog.

T
HERE WOULD BE TIME
to correct their misdeed. Time for Sarah to teach her boys yet more stuff about safety and pet care and how they must never, ever climb on a ladder when she wasn’t home.

But all that would have to wait for another day. On this one, Sarah, like Georgia, was simply going to enjoy the exquisite feeling of having her feet set back on the ground.

3

L
ET
H
ER
E
AT
C
AKE

“C
HAMBER OF
C
OMMERCE
.
Yes. Yes. Can you hold on a minute, please?” Faye Beth Newman held her freshly manicured hand over the mouthpiece of the phone. “Mayor,” she hissed, “it’s Windell Minter. He wants to know if you’re still here.”