by Pamela Morsi
Zaidi thought about that for a moment and then nodded.
“Cool,” she said.
The community did a huge outdoor dinner at the house. It was ostensibly for the family, but in Catawah, a lot of people were part of the family, or were married to people in the family, or felt as close as family. A huge crowd showed up. Car after car parked up and down the street and every visitor brought a pie or a salad or a bean casserole.
Nearly all of these people had a story they wanted to tell about Bud. And Jack found himself learning more about the old man in death than he’d ever known in life.
Jack and Claire were the center of attention among the crowds of friends and relatives. They spent most of the afternoon shaking hands, meeting people and thanking everyone. There were the townspeople who’d been friends of the Crabtrees all their lives. There were professional people in the recycling industry who had known Bud and Geri through their volunteer work. And the guys in the veterans organizations, who knew Bud from his war record. There were even members of the Stark family who claimed
to be relatives. Though Cousin Reba made a point of telling him that the Shertz family didn’t claim any kinship to them and warned Jack to keep his distance. Jack shook hands with a tall, robust man of about sixty. “I’m Lester Andeel,” he said. “Bud and my dad were best friends in high school. My parents and Bud and Geri had a double wedding. That was the first time they got married.”
Jack laughed. “You know I didn’t even hear the two weddings story until a couple of days ago,” he said.
“Yes, the four of them ran off to Arkansas on graduation night,” Lester said. “My father was killed in WWII, but my mother stayed a friend to Geri and Bud all her life. She always bragged that she was the only person in Catawah who had been at both their weddings.”
“There’s so many things about my grandparents that I’m just finding out about,” Jack admitted.
But he also learned some things about his father, as well. A very lovely older woman tugged on his sleeve.
“You’re Jack, right?”
“Yes, ma’am,” he answered.
“Oh, don’t call me ma’am, it makes me sound like I’m a thousand years old. I’m Melinda,” she said. “Melinda Carson, I used to be Melinda Masterson.”
“It’s nice to meet you, Melinda,” Jack said. “Thank you for coming.”
“I was your father’s steady girlfriend in high school,” she announced.
“Really?”
She nodded. “He was such a good guy,” she said. “He looked a lot like Geri, but he was kind and decent and honorable, just like Bud. I miss them both.”
“Thank you.”
A few moments later Jack felt Claire come up next to him and he slid his arm around her waist. He felt stronger with her at his side.
The aunts were all there, sitting in the shade, talking, joking reminiscing. They waved the couple over. Jack and Claire worked their way in that direction. As always, the three were unique. Jesse was wearing a classic business suit. Aunt Sissy’s dress was blousy and unfitted. And Aunt Viv had on a three-piece man’s suit with an actual watch fob hanging out of the vest.
Aunt Jesse handed Jack a worn and faded pale green shoe box.
“I decided I’d better bring these to you today, in case I’m the one in the casket at the next one of these shindigs.” Her tone was light, but the whole day had been that way. Jack could not imagine a more upbeat funeral than the one they’d shared. It was all about the celebration of life and almost nothing about the sadness of loss.
“Is this the military stuff?” he asked. He would have peeked inside, but he saw that it was taped up.
Aunt Jesse nodded. “Geri had me save that for you,” she said. “So now you’ll need to save it for your children.”
“We’ll do that,” Jack said. “I promise.”
After a few more moments of conversation, other people came over and Jack and Claire moved away. They were walking toward the house when Jack suddenly stopped in his tracks.
“What?” Claire asked him.
“Come with me,” he said.
He made their way across the yard as quickly as they could without being rude to any of the people who greeted them. Once inside the wood shop, Jack closed the door, ensuring their privacy.
On the table was the treasure box. It was near completion, both the bottom section and the top had been completed and the locations for the lid hinges had been drilled. Jack had put the first coat of oil on the wood, but it would need several more after it dried.
He tested it for tackiness and was satisfied that it wasn’t sticky.
“I think I figured it out,” he told her.
Jack took the shoe box that Jesse had given him and slipped it inside the treasure box. It was an exact fit.
“Oh, wow,” Claire said. “Your dad wasn’t building anything for the treasures under the bed—he was making this specifically for the medals.”
Jack nodded. “That must have been why Bud never finished it,” he said. “He must have realized what it was for when he looked at the boards. Since he didn’t have the stuff anymore, he didn’t see any reason to finish the box. But he couldn’t make it into anything else, either.”
“This is where they belonged all the time,” Claire said.
Jack nodded.
28
Bud
It was the music that awakened me. If anything, it seemed even louder than it had been before. It was a couple of minutes before I realized it was because that breathing machine was not whistling anymore. I tried to see why and to my surprise my eyes opened right up. I had been too exhausted to even lift the lids for days. Now I could see the room with perfect clarity. Small, beige and maroon with two chairs, one by the bed and one by the window.
I could see myself, as well. All the wires and leads, all the needles and tubes and those terrible restraints that had kept me fastened to the bed, all of that was gone.
I sat up in bed. I felt fine. I didn’t even feel light-headed.
Where was everybody? For almost the whole time I’d been here, I’d always had the sense that there was somebody with me in the room. But there was nobody here now. I sat there for a few minutes, listening to the music and waiting for somebody to come in so that I could tell them I was awake.
When nobody came, I decided to get up. I gingerly put my feet on the floor, but found there was no weakness in them. I didn’t have my stick to lean on, but found that after a couple of steps, I didn’t even need it.
At the doorway, I looked out.
“Hey, is anybody there?” I called out.
I didn’t see a soul. And I doubted that anyone could hear me over the band that sounded a lot like Sammy Kaye doing a rousing rendition of “Daddy Swing and Sway.” I glanced to the left toward the end of the hallway and there was a door. It looked vaguely familiar, but what captured my attention was the colored lights that gleamed in that direction. That’s where the music was coming from. I shook my head with disbelief. Good grief, why would they have a nightclub in a hospital. It was the craziest thing I’d ever heard of in my life.
I headed down that way. I could hear laughter inside, so at least there would be someone to tell me where the nurses might be.
As soon as I stepped past the door into the anteroom, I recognized the place. It was the Jitterbug Lounge. I’d been in this place five hundred times and it was as familiar to me as my own name. But how could it be here? I didn’t try to answer the question. I just walked inside.
I stood for a moment, watching the dancers, listening to the band. It was so familiar and yet there was a luster to it, a warmth and a thrill that I had never quite experienced. I felt young and strong again, young and strong and eager to dance.
“Dad!”
I heard the voice and turned toward it.
“Dad, you made it,” he said.
I couldn’t believe my eyes but there he was standing right in front of me, looking young and strong and exactly as I
remembered him.
“J.D.?”
“Yeah, it’s me,” he said. “It’s really me.”
He wrapped his arms around me in a bear hug and the feel of it was like a flood of molten joy that poured all inside me and burnt away every whit of sadness and anger and disappointment I’d carried in me.
“Oh, J.D., oh, J.D., I’ve missed you,” I said. “I’ve missed you.”
“We’re together now,” he said.
Deliberately, I pulled away from him. “J.D., there are things that I’ve wanted to say,” I began. “I have such regrets. There are things that I should have told you and I never did.”
“Dad, it’s okay,” he assured me. “It’s okay. I know. I know everything.”
“You know everything?”
He nodded.
“Do you forgive me?”
“There is nothing to forgive,” he said. “But there is plenty to talk about. And now there’s no reason why we can’t talk about all of it.”
“No, no, I guess there’s not.”
“But later,” he said. “Right now, I’m going to duck out of this place. All this old fogey music, it’s not really my scene.”
He laughed and I found myself laughing with him.
“Besides,” he said, “there’s somebody waiting out there for you.”
I glanced toward the dance floor. It was a mix of couples, lots of G.I.s in uniform and girls with bouncy hair and seams in their stockings. I didn’t see anyone I really recognized. Then a girl caught my eye. She had her back to me. She wasn’t dancing, she was just standing there. She was small and delicate and looked especially fine in a red pencil skirt with only a tiny row of kick pleats near the hem. Her dark brown hair had been twisted and primped into a thousand loosened pin curls. Her legs were not so long, but they were well-shaped, and the calves tapered attractively to her ankles and the straps on her perilously high heels.
There was something so familiar about her. And I was really enjoying just watching her watch the dancers. When the music ended it was as if I were holding my breath. She applauded the band and then she turned in my direction.
From across a distance of a half dozen yards our eyes met instantly and I’m sure my jaw must have dropped open.
My rational mind made no decision to go to her, but my arms and legs acted upon instinct. A second later she leaped into my arms and I was pressing my face in her soft, sweet-smelling hair.
“Crazy Girl, my crazy girl!” I said over and over again.
“Bud, oh, Bud, I’m so glad to see you,” she told me.
“Geri, I love you so much,” I answered. “I know I haven’t said that enough. But I’ve been so sorry that I didn’t say it to you more.”
She laughed. “I love you, too,” she told me. “And as for your faults in the past, well now it seems you’ll have eternity to make it up to me.”
She was teasing me as she feigned toughness and raised that defiant chin I knew so well.
The musicians struck up another catchy tune.
“Dance with me,” she said. “I’ve been waiting so long, and I just don’t want to dance with anybody but you.”
I pulled her in my arms and we moved across the floor. We were as good together as we’d ever been and better than I even remembered. The sultry blond vocalist at the microphone sang the words that were in my heart. “You’re the one who made my dreams come true. And when the angels ask me to recall the thrill of it all. I will tell them I remember you.”
Also by Pamela Morsi
Territory Trysts
Wild Oats
Runabout
Tales from Marrying Stone
Marrying Stone
Simple Jess
The Lovesick Cure
Small-Town Swains
Something Shady
No Ordinary Princess
Sealed With a Kiss
Garters
The Love Charm
Women’s Fiction
Doing Good
Letting Go
Suburban Renewal
What Was and Might Have Been
The Cotton Queen
Bitsy’s Bait & BBQ
Last Dance at Jitterbug Lounge
Red’s Hot Honky-Tonk Bar
Contemporary Romance
The Bikini Car Wash
The Bentley’s Buy at Buick
Love Overdue
Mr. Right Goes Wrong
Single Title Historicals
Heaven Sent
Courting Miss Hattie
Sweetwood Bride
Here Comes the Bride
With Marriage In Mind in the collection Matters of the Heart
The Pantry Raid in the collection The Night We Met
Daffodils In Spring in the collection More Than Words: Where Dreams Begin
Making Hay
About the Author
National bestseller and two-time RITA Award winner, Pamela Morsi was duly warned. “Lots of people mistakenly think they are writers,” her mother told her. She’d be smart to give it up before she embarrassed herself. Fortunately, she rarely took her mother’s advice. With 30 published titles and millions of copies in print, she loves to hear from readers at her website @ pamelamorsi.com
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