Where Does My Heart Belong? (18 page)

CHAPTER 44

After
we get to the farm and I meet the children, I tell Tony that I’ll watch them. 
They were very polite and somewhat subdued.  Tony tells them that I’m the boss
and whatever I say goes no exceptions.  If they give me any trouble, he will
make sure that their miseries will become his mission in life.  Then he tells
them to get to bed and shows me to one of the spare bedrooms.  “I’ll call you
in the morning. Here’s the number for the motel where we’re staying.  If you
have any problems at all, call me.  In the morning, we’ll be at the hospital. 
Depending on how things go, Manny and I should be back here tomorrow afternoon.” 

The
next morning I feed the kids cereal fruit and toast and tell the girls I want
to look around the kitchen.  I’m going to have to fix them lunch and maybe
dinner too. 

“We
can have sandwiches and chips for lunch,” Carmen says.  “Can we have our favorites
for dinner?  Grandma has two recipes that she does in crock-pots, beans and
weenies and macaroni and cheese.  I’ll show you the recipes.”

Great,
at least there are recipes.  I couldn’t cook from scratch to save my soul. 
After I look over them, I put everyone to work.  Carmen calls out the
ingredients and tells Angie to find them.  I hand Mike a knife and tell him to
cut the weenies into one-inch pieces.  Ricky gets the job of grating the cheese
and D puts everything in the crock-pots after I’ve measured it out.  Once we’re
done with that, the girls want to bake a cake, Isabel’s famous carrot pineapple
cake.  The boys have had enough of the kitchen so the girls and I make the cake
and put in it to bake. 

“Let’s
watch a movie,” Carmen says.  I brought a new one about a horse.”   Even the
boys are in favor of that so we troop down to the family room and watch it
while the cake is baking.  When I go upstairs to take it out of the oven, I see
that the weather is getting nasty.  The sky is black and greenish.  The wind is
howling.  It looks like a bad thunderstorm is on its way.  By the time the
movie is over and we go back upstairs, the storm is awful.  The wind must be
blowing 50 miles an hour and the worst rain I’ve ever seen is pelting down. 
Then we hear a loud banging sound.  Bang, bang, bang, every ten seconds or so.

“What
the hell is that?” Mike says.

“I
don’t know.  Can you see anything out of the windows?” I ask him.

“Yeah,
oh God, Libby, the roof on one of the sheds is coming apart.  I just saw a
piece of metal fly off it and there’s another big piece flapping around that’s
making that banging sound.  I’ll go check it out.”

“No,
you won’t.  Just stay in here until the storm passes.  It seems to be moving
quickly so let’s just wait until it’s over.”

“We’re
going to have to find a way to hold that metal piece on.  If it comes off it
could kill someone or one of the animals out there.”

“We’ll
do that, Mike, just has soon as the wind dies down.  There’s no way we can fix
anything when it’s blowing this strong.  Just relax until I get back.  I'm
going to the kitchen and make a frosting for the cake."  While I'm
searching through the cupboards for ingredients, a horrible noise comes from
the living room.  It sounds a lot like an animal being killed.  I rush in there
and see that D has Ricky in a headlock on the floor and Ricky is screaming.

"Stop
that right now; get up, the both of you."  They get up and glare at each
other and at me.

"I'm
going to put you in the garbage can and let the wind blow you all over,"
Ricky tells D.  "If you're still alive after that, we're all going to bang
on it with sticks."

Tony
was right these guys are something else.  "Nobody is going in any garbage
cans," I tell them.  "Come on, the wind is dying down so let's go out
and look at the damage.  Mike, you lead the way, I'm going to need your help on
this one."

"You
bet, Libby, first we'll need to go to Grandpa’s shop so we can get hard
helmets, and gloves.

It’s
still windy, so I send the girls to the barn and tell them to stay there until
I tell them to come out.    The boys and I go look at the shed roof.  The big
piece of metal is still flapping around.  We’re going to need something heavy
to hold it down.  I notice an old tractor tire lying by the side of the barn. 
“Do you think we could get that tire up there and weigh it down with that?” I
ask Mike.

“We
can try, but I don’t know if the tractor will reach that high.  Let me get it
and we’ll find out.”

It’s
a no go. The tractor is about six inches short of reaching the top of the
shed.  Then I notice that D is missing.  He was here one minute and gone the
next.  Angie comes running out of the barn screaming, “Libby, Libby, two mother
cats are having babies.  There are eight, so far.” 

“Do
you know where D is? I don’t know where he went.”

“He
went to the house to get a rifle.  There’s a raccoon in there and it will kill
the baby kitties.”

This
could be my worst nightmare.  How will I ever explain to them why I let an
8-year-old have a rifle?  Then I hear the sound of a car.  It’s Tony and Manny,
thank God.  I ask Ricky to go get them.  When they get here, Manny looks at all
of us wearing our hard hats and gloves.  “What’s going on here?”

“The
shed roof is coming apart.  We thought we could weigh it down with that tire
but the tractor won’t reach that high,” Mike says. 

“That’s
a good idea, son, but first I think I’d like to climb up there and see what
needs to be done.  Get me a pair of metal cutters and the nail gun from the
shop, will you?”

All
of a sudden, D yells out from inside the barn.  “Angie, where did that
son-of-a-bitch go?”

“Look
in the grainery,” she screams.

“I
can’t wait to blow his shit away,” he screams back.

“What’s
he doing in there?” Manny asks.

“There’s
a raccoon in there,” I tell him.  “Two of the mother cats are having their
babies and Angie’s afraid it will kill them.”  All of a sudden, a shot rings
out and then D comes out holding up the rifle in one hand and a dead raccoon by
the tail in the other.

“I
got him, Angie.  He can’t hurt your baby kitties now.”

Angie
goes over and kisses him on the cheek.  He kisses her back.  Tony looks like
he’s about to stroke out. 

“Good
shooting, son,” Manny tells him.  “If you all want you can go back to the house
now, Mike and I can take care of that piece of metal.  We’ll have to wait until
tomorrow to do any major repairs anyways.”

CHAPTER
45

After
Manny and Mike get finished with the roof, Manny asks if we want to eat out or
stay here.  I tell him that I have kid food in the crock-pots but it's not
enough for everyone. 

"Great,
we’ll stay here then.  I'll get some steaks thawed out and put some potatoes in
to bake.  In the meantime, could you go to the store and pick up some things? 
I’ll make you a list.”

"I
will.  I was going there anyway since I need stuff for the frosting on my
cake.  Is there anything you want me to get?" I ask Tony.   He doesn’t
volunteer anything so I wait until I have Manny’s list and then I head out the
door.  He follows me out and walks with me towards the car where Mike is
waiting in the driver’s seat.  When he sees him, he says, "What's that
punk doing behind the steering wheel of my Cadillac?"

"Earlier,
I asked him if he would drive me to the store.  I've showed him how everything
works.  He's really excited about driving it."

"Of
course he's excited, how often does he get to hot-rod a Cadillac?"

"There
isn’t going to be any hot-rodding, he told me that he was a good driver and
that he'd drive safely."

"I
know there's not going to be any hot-rodding because I'm coming along."

When
we get to the car, Mike sees us and gets out, thinking Tony is going to drive.

"No,
get back in Mike, you can drive."

"Gee,
thanks Uncle Tony."

Tony
looks in the back seat where Ricky, D, and Angie are sitting.  D and Angie are
holding hands.  "You," he says, pointing at D.  "Get out and go
sit up front.  Libby is going to sit back here with Angie and I’m going to be
up front with you and Mike so I can keep an eye on the two of you.  Hold on for
a minute, Mike.  I want to tell Manny that I’m leaving."

Mike
does a great job of driving us to the store and Tony compliments him on it. 
“You’re a good driver, Mike.  I just may have to hire you to squire me
around."

"Thanks,
Uncle Tony.  Dad taught me to drive as soon as I was big enough to look over
the steering wheel.  I've been driving around on the farm forever but I get
nervous when I'm out on the highway."

"Well,
they say practice, makes perfect, so maybe we should just get together and do a
lot of practicing.”  Mike beams at him.

Once
we get to the store, the kids all pile out and rush towards it.  They remind me
of a swarm of locusts descending on a wheat field.

Tony
turns around from the front seat and says, "Let’s just sit here for a
couple of minutes. We’ll go in after they’ve been in there for a while so it
won't look like we‘re with them in case they try to knock the joint over."

"Oh,
for heaven's sake, they're not going to do that!”

"You
can never tell.  Do you know what they did on the last day of school this
year?  There's this goat farm that’s close to D and Ricky’s school.  Somehow,
they managed to steal three of them and turned them loose in the school.  That
in itself was bad enough but they painted a number on each of them, 1, 2, and
4.  The school staff spent most of the day looking for number 3."

I
crack up laughing.  "That's a good one.  Did they get caught?"

"Nope,
I guess nobody saw them do it and they sure weren't talking.  Come on let’s go
in now.  If they hit you up for money, don't give them any.  They all get an
allowance so they can spend their own."

Yeah
right.  First thing off, Mike finds some kind of wrench that he doesn't have in
his toolbox and Tony offers to buy it for him.  Then Ricky wants a backpack to
carry his books.  Angie and D are loaded down with junk food.  Tony pays for it
all.  What a softy.  He may call them punks and put them down, but I can tell
that he loves them to death, and it’s obvious that they love him too.  They all
crowd around him, giving him high fives, hugs, and thank yous.

After
I collect everything on Manny’s grocery list, I wander around the store.  I
love these little country stores.  They have a little bit of everything.  I
find an area that's selling artwork and homemade crafts.  A pretty sun catcher
catches my eye.   It’s a green humming bird drinking out of a red Hibiscus
flower.  The sky is a brilliant blue and the yellow sun is shining down.  It is
so beautiful.   While I'm admiring it, Tony comes over and says, "That's
really pretty.”

“I
know. Wouldn’t it look great in one of the living room windows back at Sea
Cliff house?” 

“Are
you going to get it?” 

"Nope,
it's $30.00, too rich for my blood.  Are you ready to go?  I have everything on
my list.”

When
we get out to the car, he says. “Did you by chance get any lemons?”

“No,
they weren’t on the list.”

“I
think I’d like to make a batch of margaritas tonight.  Hold on for a minute,
I’ll go get some,” and he goes back into the store. 

After we get home,
Isabel calls and says that she and Luis are on their way home.  José is doing
well but they're going to keep him in hospital overnight.  It wasn't a heart
attack as they first thought.  The doctors are calling it a mild cardiac
episode and he can probably go home tomorrow.  Everyone is relieved.

When I go up to my
room to freshen up before dinner, I see a little brown paper sack on my
pillow.   Inside is the beautiful hummingbird sun catcher that I admired in the
store.  So, that’s what he really went back in the store for.  “Oh, Tony”, I
say to myself.  “You are the most wonderful man I have ever known.  You give
and give to me and I take, and take,  I just wish I knew what I could do for
you.”

CHAPTER
46

When
Isabel gets home and sees me, she puts her arms around me and starts to sob. 
“Oh, Libby, thank you for staying with the children.  You don’t know what it
meant to have my sons there with me.  I was scared to death that I might lose José.”

“De
nada,
Isabel
.
  It wasn’t a problem. 
They’re wonderful children.  I’d do it again in a heartbeat.”

“Come
upstairs with me, Libby.  I want to freshen up before dinner.  The boys can
handle things in the kitchen.  I taught them all to cook so they know what to
do.”

When
we get upstairs and walk into her bedroom, she says, “Do you know this will be
the first night that I haven’t slept with my husband since Tony was born?  
More than 30 years, I can’t imagine what that’s going to feel like tonight. 
I’m so scared that I’m going to lose my husband.”  I wrap my arms around her
while she sobs against my chest.

“Would
you like for me to stay with you tonight?  I don’t mean to be intrusive but if
it would help I’d be glad to do it.”

“Oh,
would you?”

“Of
course, I’ll go get my things.”

Later
that night while we are getting ready for bed, she asks me, “So how do you like
having Tony and Angie for roommates?  Are they behaving themselves?”

“Oh,
my goodness, yes.  Tony is the most wonderful person I’ve ever met and your
sweet granddaughter is such a pleasure to have around.  I couldn’t ask for
better roommates.”

“I’m
glad.  I know they’re happy living there.  Libby, can I be frank with you about
something?”

“Sure,
go ahead.”

“I
think Tony is in love with you.”

“Has
he told you that?”

“No,
just call it mother’s intuition.  I can see it in his eyes.  I can tell by the
way he acts around you.  I’ve never seen him like this before.  Has he told you
that he loves you?”

“Not
to my face.  One day when I was upset, he stayed with me until he thought I was
asleep, but I wasn’t.  When he left he kissed me on the forehead and whispered
‘I love you, Libby’.”

“What
about you?  How do you feel?”

“It
doesn’t matter how I feel because I’m not in a position to….”

She
interrupts me.  “You’re pregnant, aren’t you?”

Oh,
God.  “Yes, but it’s not his.”

“I
didn’t think it was.  My son would have told me if he was expecting a child. 
Do you mind telling me about it?”

So,
I tell her the whole rotten story about Red.  When I’m finished, she hugs me
and says, “I think you dodged a bullet there on that one.  No matter how much
you loved him, you’re better off without him.  A man who truly loves a woman
would never do what he did to you.  So, he doesn’t know about the baby?”

“No,
I found out after he was gone.  I have no idea where he is and I don’t think
I’d tell him if I did.  In fact, I’ve been thinking of giving it up for
adoption.  I don’t think I can raise a child all by myself but every time I
think about giving it up I don’t think I can do that either.”

“Does
Tony know all of this?”

“He
knows about the baby but not about me wanting to give it up.  But Isabel, Angie
doesn’t know, and I want to keep it that way until Tony thinks it’s the right
time to tell her.”

“She
won’t hear it from me.  He didn’t turn away from you when you told him, did
he?”

“No,
that was the day I was upset and he said he loved me.  Then he moved in.  He
said I didn’t have to go through it alone.”

“My
instinct tells me that I’m going to have a new daughter-in-law and grandchild
in the very near future.”

“Now
that really would be a fairy tale ending, wouldn’t it?  Somehow I don’t think
fairy tales happen to girls like me though.”

“Of
course they do.  Just look at Cinderella,” she teases.  “I think you and Tony
are a couple of fraidy cats.  He’s worried that you’ll turn him down if he asks
you to marry him and I think you’re afraid to show your true feelings towards
him because he might reject you.  I’m confident that this is all going to work
out for the best.  Keep the faith, my dear.  Now, if I could just figure out
what’s going on with Luis.  It’s as if he’s off in la-la land somewhere.  If I
didn’t know better I’d think he was in love too.  I asked him if there was
anything bothering him but he said no.”  I start to chuckle.

“Okay,
so what do you know that I don’t?”

“He’d
kill me, if he found out I told you, but it’s nothing bad.”

“He
won’t find it out from me, so please tell a concerned mother what she wants to
know.”

“He
met a woman and I think he’s smitten.”

“That
explains it.  He did sort of remind me of a lovesick calf today.  So who is
she, how did he meet her?”

“She’s
the flight attendant on my jet.  He met her when we flew him to Eagle Valley so
he could drive my car back.  I flew home in the jet, then she stayed with me
until Tony, and Luis got back.  That night we all had dinner together and
danced.  Hang on, I’ll show you some photos.”  I get my purse and take the
photos out.  I hand her one of Sandy and Luis seating on the couch, grinning.

“My
goodness, what a beautiful, beautiful woman, no wonder he’s smitten.”

“You
bet, and she’s just as beautiful on the inside as she is on the out.  We’ve
become friends, and I’m pretty sure that she’s smitten too.”

“Goodness
gracious, maybe I’ll be going to two weddings one of these days.  Tell me more
about her.”

“She’s
40, never been married, and has been flying for years.  Her greatest joy in
life is helping and pampering people.  I feel so blessed to have her for a
friend.  I hope it works out for them.”

“I
do too.  Luis deserves some happiness.  He went through hell when his wife died
from cancer.  Libby, I hope you don’t think of me as a meddling mother.  One of
my cardinal rules has always been never to meddle in my children’s lives, but
when I see them unhappy or struggling, I want to know why.  I want to know if
there’s some way I can help them.”

“What’s
it like to be a mother?”

“Oh
my goodness, girl, we don’t have time to go into all of that tonight,  but off
the top of my head I will say it’s bliss and terror all rolled up into one. 
When your baby is born, and the maternal instinct takes over, you will want to
protect and nurture it.  I can’t speak for other women, but for me, that
instinct has never gone away.  Your baby could look like an alien from outer
space, but it won’t matter, you will fall madly in love with it.   I love my
husband more than anything in this world.  I'd take a bullet for him, but my
love for him doesn't compare to the love I feel for my children. You’ll never
have another day in your life without fear in it.  You’ll always worry that
something might happen to your child.  It’s the hardest job you’ll ever do, and
the best.  Please think long and hard before you decide to give your baby up. 
Regretting your decision in years to come might be harder to live with than
raising it.  Let’s go to sleep now, honey, I’m tired, but just know that I’m
here for you whenever you want to talk.”