Texas Homecoming

by Carolyn Brown

  “I remember coming in from my senior prom and sitting in this rocking chair, Mama. You had gone to bed, and you were reading one of those thick romance books you loved. I told you that your Sunday school ladies would throw a hissy fit if they knew you were reading books like that”—Stevie smiled at the recollection—“and you told me that if it was all right with your father and all right with God, then you didn’t care what they thought.”

  Stevie pulled back the lace curtains that now had mildew on the bottom. I should adopt that idea for my own, she thought. I’ll make things right with God and with Cody since we are trying to date, and everyone else can kiss my butt.

  That’s not the way I said it. She could hear her mother giggling in her head.

  “Nope, but it all means the same,” Stevie whispered.

  She made her way from that bedroom to her own room across the hallway and peeked in the door. Her first memory was of feeding her stuffed dogs in that room. Then there was all the excitement of getting ready for her first day of school, the mixed feelings when she went away to college, and then weeping uncontrollably when she found out her mother was dying. Her life was in that one room.

  “Goodbye,” she finally said and headed back toward the kitchen. What was in the upper cabinets was all salvageable, thank goodness. Her great-grandmother’s gravy boat and cookbooks, and her mother’s good china that Stevie’s dad had bought for her on one of their anniversaries. She ran a finger across the stack of plates and the fancy cups and sighed. At least she would have that much to take with her when she figured out where she would build her next home.

  “Hello! Are you in there?” Gracie’s thin voice floated across the living room. “Oh. My. Goodness!” She had a hand to her chest when Stevie limped across the room, carefully avoiding the hole in the floor. “This is so sad. How can you bear it?”

  “Mama would want me to take the good memories and not think about this,” Stevie answered, and tried to change the subject. “Did you get done a little early?”

  “Yes, and I worried about Fifi the whole time.” Gracie wiped away the one lonely tear that was making its way down her face. “Ruth was such a good neighbor and a wonderful person. I’m glad she can’t see what has happened to her beloved home. You are going to have it remodeled, aren’t you?”

  “No, ma’am,” Stevie answered. “I’m calling Bobby Blalock to tear it down as soon as I get what can be saved out of it. If you’re ready to go, I can check on Fifi now.”

  Gracie took one more look at the damage, sighed again, and took a step back, allowing Stevie room to force the swollen door shut and lock it. “Just think, if you’d been home instead of holed up in a barn with Cody Ryan, this wouldn’t have happened.”

  “How do you figure that?” Stevie asked.

  “Ruth taught you to let all the faucets in the house drip when it was freezing weather, didn’t she?” Gracie asked.

  “Never knew of her to do that,” Stevie answered.

  Gracie sighed again. “Well, I would have told you if you’d been home. But getting back to packing, I’ll be glad to help you.”

  “Thank you, but we’ve got it covered,” Stevie said. “I’ll just follow you across the street and leave my van where it is.”

  “But what if you need to give the puppies shots?” Gracie asked.

  “They won’t need those for several weeks,” Stevie said. “Are you sure you’re going to keep both of them?”

  “I’ve thought about it, and decided that I can handle three dogs, but I will need for you to take care of them if they’re females. I sure can’t handle more than three,” Gracie answered.

  “And if they’re males?” Stevie stood on the porch as Gracie opened the door.

  “I don’t like boys,” Gracie said. “That’s why I never married. Men are demanding and want their way all the time, and they mess up a house and expect meals on the table every night. I remember how my daddy and brothers were, and I made up my mind that I was not going fall in love, and I didn’t. My poor mama worked her fingers to the bone doing for my father and brothers. If those puppies are boys, Fifi can just be angry with me. I’ll give them away.”

  Stevie didn’t even realize she was holding her breath until she had let it out in a whoosh when she had crossed the room to the laundry basket in the middle of the floor and checked the puppies. “Two girls. What are you going to name them?”

  “Well!” Gracie huffed. “They can’t have a nice French name like Fifi. Maybe that one with the brown spot on her head can be Minnie, and the other one can be Mable. Oh, Fifi, how could you have done this to me? Now you’ll have to share all the attention with these little girls of yours.”

  “They look healthy, and Fifi seems to be doing very well,” Stevie said. “Just call me when they’re about six months old and make an appointment to get them spayed. But as soon as they are weaned, you’ll need to get Fifi fixed or else you’ll be having more puppies.”

  “I’ll put it on my calendar right now. What kind of house are you going to build?” Gracie asked. “That lot isn’t very big. I guess you could put up a two-story place.”

  “I’m not going to rebuild in that spot,” Stevie said. “I haven’t decided what I’m going to do just yet. I don’t know where, or even if, I’ll build right in town.”

  “Oh, really?” Gracie raised a gray eyebrow. “Surely you aren’t thinking of building out there on Sunflower Ranch.”

  “I’ve got a while to think about it,” Stevie said. “I’ll just add today’s visit onto the bill when I spay Fifi here in a few weeks. You have fun with the puppies. They can be quite entertaining.” She escaped from the house with all its crocheted doilies and pink rose wallpaper, caught a breath of fresh air when she hit the porch, and would have jogged to her van if her leg hadn’t been aching.

  Gracie didn’t even ask about my leg, she thought as she got in behind the wheel and started up the engine. She could just see the woman racing to get her phone out of her purse and start making calls. The cell phone towers were probably already heating up with the hot gossip.

  She had barely made it back to the bunkhouse when her phone rang again. “This is Dr. O’Dell,” she answered as she turned off the engine and answered the call, hoping the whole time that it was Cody and not Gracie.

  “Well, hello, Dr. O’Dell,” a familiar voice said.

  “Rodney?” she asked.

  “In the flesh, and a little less than four hours north of you,” he chuckled.

  “Is everything all right?” she asked her old boss. “How’s the crew up there in Oklahoma City? Have y’all thawed out from the snowstorm?”

  “Crew is fine and send their love,” Rodney said.

  When she heard that word, she immediately thought of Cody.

  “We had to close things down for two days because we lost power, but we’re up and running now,” he answered. “And everything is great. I just got a huge promotion. I had two offers—my choice of going to Australia to run a clinic over there or moving to Las Vegas to open up a brand-new one.”

  “Congratulations,” Stevie said. “Which one are you taking?”

  “Las Vegas!” he said. “I don’t want to live in Australia. Which brings me to why I called. I don’t know how things are going in Texas, but the clinic here in Oklahoma City needs a supervisor if you want to come back to this area. Or since I didn’t want the position in Australia, that one is open also. Would you be interested in either one?”

  “Oh, my!” A vision of her house came to mind. Other than the promise of a few dates and a hamburger with Cody, there was nothing for her in Honey Grove anymore. “That’s a lot to think about.”

  “I’m leaving in a week, and the folks in Australia said they’ll need an answer in a week,” Rodney said.

  “They’d hire me without an interview or…” she started.

  “When I turned them down,” he butted in before she could finish, “they asked if I could recommend someone else, and I immediately thought of y
ou. With your mother gone and no other family to keep you anchored, that would be a perfect job for you. I remember you saying that you wanted to travel, so I told them all about you, and they are very, very interested. They said they’d hold off posting the job until you talk to them.”

  “But…” Stevie stammered.

  “But you can also step into my position here at the clinic. As you know it’s more paperwork, more responsibility, and headaches, but a lot more money. Will you at least think about both jobs?”

  “Yes, I will definitely think about them and give you an answer by Monday,” she agreed.

  “That’s fair enough,” Rodney said. “I’ll be looking to hear from you then. Bye, Stevie.”

  “Goodbye,” she said and laid her head back. Could she really leave Honey Grove? Could she walk away from Cody? Would she be giving up the opportunity of a lifetime? The chance to travel? Or to run her own clinic in Oklahoma? Only to have things fall apart in Honey Grove?

  So many questions, and not one single answer.

  Chapter Twenty

  Stevie’s mother had often told her that work would take her mind off whatever was stressing her. So, when she got home, she parked her van beside the barn and went to the tack room. All kinds of stuff had been left on the worktable—jars of screws, nails, tools, and even a can of paint. The small refrigerator had an apple in it that had probably come over on the Mayflower, and carrots that were growing beards.

  “If cleaning this doesn’t de-stress me, nothing will.” Stevie removed her jacket and filled a bucket with water from the bathroom sink. She found a bottle of cleanser that was so old that the label had faded, but it still smelled lemony, so she poured some into the bucket, grabbed a sponge, and went to work on the refrigerator first.

  When that job was done, she began to organize the shelves. First by taking all the stuff from the cabinets and wiping them down, and by arranging all the items in a logical order as she put it back. “Mama, it’s not working,” she mumbled. “I’m still tied up in knots worrying about the house, the job offers, and this thing, whatever it is, with Cody.”

  Her phone pinged, and she dragged it out of her pocket to find a message from Cody: We are at the hotel. Will call this evening. Dad is exhausted.

  Her thumbs quickly typed, Okay.

  She had just hit send when her phone rang. She hadn’t realized that it was suppertime until she saw that the call was from Mia and checked the time.

  “Hello, Mia,” she said.

  “Daddy has a volunteer fire meeting in town this evening, and they always have it catered in by the diner. It’s just us girls, and the twins of course. You are coming to eat with us, right?” Mia asked.

  “Be there in just a few minutes.” Stevie rushed through putting the last of the things on the shelf, decided she’d better use the crutches to go to the house, and made sure her van was locked before she started that way. Mia was waiting with the back door slung open when she arrived.

  “You should have called. I would have come and got you in the work truck,” Mia scolded her. “And why is your van at the barn? Are the alpacas all right?”

  “Don’t be nosy,” Pearl called out.

  Stevie leaned the crutches against the washing machine and limped on into the kitchen. “Alpacas are fine. I had a few hours after I checked on Gracie Langston’s poodle and her two new puppies, so I cleaned the tack room. Mama told me that I could relieve the stress of my problems with hard work, so I gave it a try.”

  “Did it work?” Mia asked.

  “Nope,” Stevie answered. “Maybe I didn’t work hard enough.”

  “If you cleaned that nasty tack room, you worked plenty hard,” Addy said as she set a pot of potato soup on the bar. “We’re doing buffet style tonight.”

  “Smells and looks wonderful,” Stevie said. “Is it okay if I wash up in the sink?”

  “Fine by us,” Pearl told her. “Anyone who will tackle that part of the barn can wash their hands anywhere they please. Want to talk about your problems? Got to do with the house?”

  “That’s part of it, and thank you for getting a crew together to pack everything for me. I went by there today and said goodbye to the house. Does that sound crazy?” Stevie asked as she washed and dried her hands. “It’s like I’m grieving for something that has no life and never did.”

  “Oh, honey.” Pearl filled a bowl with soup and carried it to the table. “That house has been very much alive. If the walls could talk, they would tell about the day Ruth brought you home from the hospital and how she was so proud of you for following your dreams. That’s just two incidents that come to my mind.”

  “What about this house?” Mia asked. “What would it tell us?”

  “Too many things to count,” Pearl said, and smiled. “I’ll say grace for us right here at the bar.” She bowed her head and said a quick prayer, asking God to bring Sonny and Cody home safely and giving thanks for all the natural things that they could enjoy. “Amen. And now back to memories in a house. Sonny was raised right here in this place, and all three of our boys were as well. Then we had the privilege of you and Addy coming to live with us during some tough and lonely times.”

  Mia took her food to the table. “I never thought about it like that. I guess you really did need to say goodbye to your house, Stevie. But you mentioned puppies? Gracie didn’t say anything about puppies at church last Sunday, and she’s always telling us something about Fifi.”

  “Well,” Stevie said with a giggle, “she’s embarrassed that her precious poodle has been out slumming with the neighbor’s corgi. They will be some strange-looking dogs if they get poodle hair and short legs.”

  Pearl laughed. “Gracie is probably mortified.”

  “Hey, I heard from Cody,” Stevie said. “He says that they’re in the hotel and Sonny is exhausted.”

  “Sonny called me just before you arrived,” Pearl said. “He sounded so tired and said that Cody had ordered pizza delivered to the room, and that as soon as he ate, he was taking a shower and going to bed. This trip always wipes him out.”

  “Do they have any tests results yet?” Stevie asked.

  “No, that’s what they’ll talk about tomorrow morning,” Pearl answered. “His last appointment is for a consultation at eleven o’clock, and then they’ll start home. Sonny and I will probably stay home until after the weekend. The snow is melted now, and it’s time we got back to our own schedules, anyway.”

  “And that is?” Stevie asked.

  “We have Sunday dinner together, and pop in and out when we want to,” Addy said.

  “But we don’t have supper here every evening,” Mia added, “and I’m going to miss that.”

  “We all need time apart as well as time together,” Pearl said.

  Did Fate have a hand in that call from Rodney? Stevie wondered. Did it come when Cody and I are apart for a couple of days so I can think about it without distractions?

  * * *

  Cody made sure that Sonny’s cane was right beside the bed, and that his dad was snoring before he called Stevie that evening. When she didn’t answer on the fourth ring, he started to hang up and send a text, but then he heard her voice.

  “Hello,” she said. “Sorry about that. I was just getting out of the shower.”

  “Then you’re wearing nothing but a towel?” Cody teased. “I’m closing my eyes and getting that picture in my mind.”

  “I’m wearing your terry cloth robe, and it smells like your shaving lotion,” she answered.

  “Even that looks sexy. Is the belt tied or untied?” he asked.

  “It’s your imagination, so just picture me however you want,” she joked.

  “I miss your teasing,” he chuckled.

  “I miss you,” she said.

  “Well, there is that too,” Cody admitted.

  “Will you be home in time for supper? I’ve got something I need to talk to you about, but not on the phone,” she said.

  “We should be home in the middle of
the afternoon,” Cody answered. “I’m dreading the consultation tomorrow. I’m afraid the best news we can hope for is that the disease hasn’t worsened. I didn’t realize how much Mama does to help Dad until today.”

  “At least you get to have more time with him. Treasure every moment,” Stevie said. “I went back to the house today, Cody. I made peace with tearing down the place as soon as things are packed and moved out.”

  “That’s a good thing. Do you feel better now?” he asked.

  “Much better,” she answered.

  “Mama told Daddy that you had spent some time cleaning the tack room,” Cody said. “You didn’t have to do that.”

  “It was either that or clean the bunkhouse, and the tack room needed it worse,” she told him. “I was working through some issues.”

  “Get it all settled?” Cody asked.

  “Not one bit,” she answered, “but I’ve got until Monday, and we’ll talk about it when you get home.”

  “Oh…kay.” He hoped that this talk wasn’t to tell him that she’d found a house in town to rent. He didn’t want her to move out of the bunkhouse. “Will you save me a hug to go with the talk?”

  “Of course,” she said. “I meant it when I said I missed you. Mia has arrived. I should go now.”

  “Good night…love,” he said.

  “Good night, Dr. Cowboy,” she fired back.

  He could have talked with her until midnight about anything or nothing, teasing or serious, and he felt just a little cheated when they had to end the call after only a few minutes. He watched a couple of reruns on television and then went to bed. The next morning, he woke up five minutes before six to find his father already up and dressed.

  “You going to sleep all day, son, or are we going down to the restaurant for some breakfast and then get on out of this place? I’m ready to go home,” Sonny said.

  Cody sat up and rolled the kinks out of his neck. “Me too, but you’ve still got a couple more appointments today. The last one should be over by noon.”