Summer of Joy

by Ann H. Gabhart

  “At your grandfather too, although he doesn’t talk about the past. He’s always told Jocie he fell out of a spaceship from Jupiter.” David looked toward the kitchen where the wind was rattling the kitchen windows. He hadn’t gotten around to replacing the putty in them again last summer.

  Robert smiled. “Dad said his father was always a great storyteller. When I was a little boy, I made up an imaginary grandfather. We went for walks together. He told me stories. He listened when things went bad.”

  “It wasn’t imaginary for my Jocie. The two of them have a special relationship.”

  “It sounds like my grandfather has a good life here, and I don’t want to do anything to spoil that for him,” the young man said. Then he looked sort of wistful as he went on. “But do you think there’s any way me and my grandfather might still have a special relationship of our own?”

  “I don’t know, Robert. I guess that’s up to you. And to Wes.”

  25

  The next morning Tabitha was out of bed early, taking a shower, brushing her long honey-brown hair till it shone, searching for the green sweater that matched her eyes.

  Jocie looked up at her from where she was changing Stephen Lee and said, “He didn’t come here to find you, you know. He came to find Wes.”

  “Wes? What are you talking about?” Tabitha pulled the sweater over her head and yanked her hair free as she turned away from the old dresser mirror to look at Jocie.

  “Robert. Robert Green probably. Wes’s son, grandson, nephew, or something.”

  Tabitha frowned. “What makes you think that? Did you sneak out in the hall and eavesdrop on him and Daddy last night?”

  “Nope. All you have to do is look at him.”

  “I looked at him,” Tabitha said.

  “Yeah.” Jocie picked up Stephen Lee and kissed his cheeks before she said, “I guess your mommy must have been swooning too much to use her eyes.”

  “I wasn’t swooning.”

  “Don’t get me wrong.” Jocie looked at Tabitha. “I don’t care if you were swooning. He is sort of cute.”

  Tabitha came over to sit on the bed. Stephen Lee reached for her and she took him. She thought maybe that had been the best thing about Robert. He hadn’t batted an eye when she’d said Stephen Lee was her baby. He’d still looked at her as though he thought she was pretty. But he might have thought she was married and her husband was just off in the army or somewhere. She’d have to find a way to tell him that wasn’t the way it was. “And you think he looks like Wes?”

  “He does look like Wes. Taller and lots younger and his hair doesn’t stick out in every direction, but you could put pictures of their faces on top of one another and the eyes and mouth would be the same.”

  “You make that sound like a bad thing.”

  “I didn’t mean to.” Jocie stood up and went to the dresser to brush her own hair back away from her face. She didn’t look at Tabitha in the mirror.

  “Well, it doesn’t make any difference to me who he came to find. He came and now maybe I can find him. You think he’s awake already? He and Dad talked a long time last night.”

  “He’s up.”

  “How do you know?”

  “He and Dad went out awhile ago. To try to get his car out of the ditch. But the snow’s drifted some.”

  “Have you been outside already?” Tabitha asked. Jocie had been dressed and gone from the room when Tabitha woke up that morning.

  “Yeah. I went out real early. I wanted to see the snow before anybody messed it up so I could get some good pictures for the paper. Of course Zeb had already made footprints all over. He must have some malamute or something in him the way he was jumping around and rolling in the snow. Maybe I could teach him to pull a sled.”

  “Not likely. That dog only does what he wants to do when he wants to do it.”

  “That’s because he’s so smart,” Jocie said.

  “Yeah, whatever.” Tabitha carried Stephen Lee over to the window to peer out. Her room faced the back and she couldn’t see the road from there, but she could see the snow. Lots of snow on the ground and some still swirling in the air even though the sun was shining in a bright blue sky. “You think they’ll be back, don’t you? I mean, they won’t just head for town.”

  “Not without breakfast. Plus I doubt if anybody will be able to head for town until the snowplow comes out. And who knows when that will be? Dad took the shovel to dig out the worst drifts between here and Robert’s car. Oh, and the phones are still out too.”

  “Thank goodness we have electricity,” Tabitha said.

  “Yeah, speaking of which, I’d better go down and make sure Aunt Love doesn’t forget the biscuits. You want me to take Stephen Lee while you finish primping?” Jocie reached for the baby. “You know he probably thinks you’re married.”

  “Then I’ll just have to tell him I’m not.”

  “What are you going to tell him about Stephen Lee?” Jocie asked as she swung the baby up in the air and made him giggle.

  “That I made a mistake.”

  “Stephen Lee isn’t a mistake.”

  “No, but Jerome was.”

  “Maybe Robert is too. What if he’s the one who’s married instead of you?”

  “Go, save the biscuits.” Tabitha grabbed a pillow off the bed and threw it at Jocie.

  Jocie laughed as she ran out of the bedroom. Tabitha could hear her singing to Stephen Lee all the way down the stairs. “To know, know, know him is to love, love, love him.”

  That’s all Tabitha wanted. To get to know him. She wasn’t going to fall in love that easy. She couldn’t. She had responsibilities now. But it was fun to talk to a person of the opposite sex again. She was practically living a cloistered life in Hollyhill. There were boys, but none she was interested in. And none who seemed the least bit interested in her even if she had been interested in them. That was probably best until Stephen Lee got older. But still it wasn’t half bad to feel that funny flip of her heart again when a boy looked at her. It meant she wasn’t dead yet. She hadn’t been too sure a few times in the last couple of months.

  Jocie wanted to walk to town, but her father wouldn’t let her. Said Wes hadn’t known about Robert for twenty-one years and that a few more hours wouldn’t matter. Of course her father didn’t understand why she needed to talk to Wes. She didn’t understand why she needed to talk to Wes.

  Robert was a grandson. Jocie’s father told them that at breakfast. He said Zella had tracked him down somehow after the tornado last summer, but she’d kept it a secret. Guess Wes would know now why Zella had been acting even weirder than usual the last few months.

  Later Jocie’s father pulled her aside. “It’s not a bad thing. Robert Wesley showing up. Wes will be proud to have a grandson like him.” But her father hadn’t looked all that sure of what he was saying. He had looked sure when he’d told her that under no circumstances was she to walk to town and go see Wes until after he’d had a chance to talk to Wes himself.

  So she had to wait. They all had to wait, trapped by the snow. Robert didn’t seem to mind all that much. He was enjoying Tabitha making eyes at him. They’d already exchanged addresses. Tabitha must have found a way to tell him she was single and available.

  Aunt Love and Jocie’s father liked Robert too. And what was not to like? He smiled all the time and had polite cornered. And he was smart. Studying physics and science at a university up in Ohio. Even that was like Wes. The being interested in science and how things worked.

  Jocie got her notebook out and tried to write down what was bothering her, but she didn’t know how to put it into words. She ended up just writing what her father had told her. Wes loves me. He may not really be my grandfather, but he loves me. Then she put the notebook up and pulled her boots back on. She couldn’t walk to town, but she could walk somewhere. If she didn’t move or do something, the spiders crawling around inside her were going to eat her alive.

  She wasn’t outside even long enough to decide whe
ther to walk back in the old apple orchard or down the road before Robert followed her out. Jocie was surprised Tabitha wasn’t running after him.

  “Hey, wait up,” he called. “Do you mind if I walk with you?”

  She did, but she couldn’t very well say so. If only he’d really been from Jupiter instead of Pelphrey, Ohio. If only Zella had minded her own business. Jocie stood in the snow and scratched Zeb around the ears until Robert caught up with her. Then she led the way out to the tumbling down rock fence between the backyard and the old apple orchard. The rocks looked like marshmallow cushions.

  Robert picked up a handful of snow and tried to make a snowball, but the snow was too fluffy. “How much do you think is on the ground?”

  “Seven inches,” Jocie said. “I measured earlier. It’s drifted higher in places though. Do you get a lot of snow up where you live in Ohio?”

  “Piles of it.” He gave his handful of snow a fling. “But that’s okay. I like snow. How about you? Do you like snow?”

  “As long as it doesn’t make us miss too much school. The buses won’t run when there’s snow and then we end up going to school into June. I hate going to school in the summer. But of course right now we’re off for Christmas anyway.” Jocie was rambling. She shut her mouth, stepped through the breach in the rock fence and looked up at the sky. It was extra blue. The Lord had known what he was doing when he made snow white and the sky such a vivid blue. Great is the Lord and greatly to be praised. Aunt Love was always quoting something like that out of Psalms. Jocie would have said it out loud if she’d been alone, but she wasn’t alone.

  They walked along without talking for a little ways. Jocie was thinking about claiming she was cold and suggesting they turn around when Robert said, “Your father told me you and my grandfather are real close.”

  Jocie wasn’t sure what he wanted her to say to that, so she just nodded a little and kept walking. They were almost to the end of the apple orchard, but Mr. Crutcher didn’t mind her walking in his pasture fields. Her dad walked there all the time when he was praying through something for a sermon or whatever.

  Maybe she should be praying through something. She just wasn’t sure what. She wasn’t sure why she had that spider crawly feeling inside and tears in her eyes that weren’t there just because of the cold wind blowing in her face. Just because proof that Wes wasn’t from Jupiter was walking beside her didn’t mean Wes had to stop telling her Jupiter stories. And even if he did, so what? She was too old for Jupiter stories anyway.

  “Tell me about him,” Robert said.

  “What about him?”

  “I don’t know. Tell me why you love him.”

  “Why do you want to know that?”

  “So I can love him the way you do. Like a real grandson would.”

  It seemed only fair, so she told him about the spaceship from Jupiter. And about the motorcycle and how Wes talked to the press to keep it running. She told him about the tornado and the tree falling on Wes. She didn’t tell him why they were out in the tornado. She figured that would just confuse things. Last she told him about Wes being baptized in the river even though it almost made his ears freeze and fall off. They both laughed about that.

  By the time they walked back to the house, she’d passed some of her love for Wes over to Robert, but the funny thing was she didn’t have a bit less inside her. Maybe love really was like a candle flame that kept burning just as brightly no matter how many other candles were lit from the flame.

  The snowplow was coming down the hill when they went back inside.

  26

  The phone woke Leigh. She sat up in bed and looked at the clock. She blinked her eyes and looked again. It said eight thirty. She must have forgotten to set her alarm. And no wonder after the ordeal of visiting her parents and then the wild ride home in the snow. She had been exhausted.

  The phone was still ringing. She got out of bed and ran for the kitchen in her bare feet. The cold wooden floor shocked the last of sleep out of her. Leigh dropped a dishtowel on the floor to stand on as she reached for the phone that was still jangling. It was no doubt Judy to check on why Leigh wasn’t at work. Or maybe David letting her know his phone line was fixed. Or perhaps her mother to say she was sorry she hadn’t acted happier about Leigh’s engagement. That—her mother being happy—was about as likely as temperatures in the eighties today.

  Leigh picked up the phone and said hello. No one was there. She said hello again. Still nothing. There must be trouble on her line now. She was about to hang up when she thought she heard something. She pushed the receiver up closer to her ear. It sounded like someone breathing on the other end of the line. “Hello. Is somebody there?”

  No answer, but the breathing got louder. Definitely someone there. Edwin Hammond. Leigh took the receiver away from her ear and gently hung it back on the phone hook. Why did she think of Edwin Hammond every time something happened that made her uncomfortable? And why in the world would he call her up just to breathe in her ear? But then again, why would anybody?

  The phone started ringing again almost at once. She stared at it a minute before she picked it up. “I want to know who this is right now,” she said without even bothering with a hello.

  “Whoa, Leigh! It’s Judy. Judy Mitchell. What ever happened to hello, how are you?”

  “Oh, I’m sorry, Judy. I just got a prank call and I thought he was calling back.”

  “What? Did he say something ugly to you?”

  “No. Whoever it was didn’t say anything. Just sat there breathing in my ear.”

  “Maybe it was a bad connection,” Judy said. “There’s a lot of snow out there. It’s probably messing up some of the lines.”

  “I guess so. I think David’s phone is out.”

  “Hey, I heard about the engagement. Congratulations. Or maybe I’m supposed to tell David congratulations and you best wishes. I never get that straight. He’s not there, is he?” Judy’s voice changed to a teasing tone. “Maybe that’s why you’re late to work.”

  “No, of course not. We got engaged, not married. Yet,” Leigh said and felt a lift of her heart. If she hadn’t been on the phone, she would have twirled across the kitchen floor in a happy dance. She made herself think about talking to Judy again. “I’m sorry about being late, but I just woke up. I must have forgotten to set my alarm. Tell Ralph I’ll be in as soon as I can get dressed.”

  “That’s why I’m calling. To tell you Ralph said not to bother. We’re both down here at the office, but the snow’s practically up to your knees out there. Nobody’s going to be coming into town this morning. If you want to, you can come in at lunch and I’ll take the afternoon off.”

  “Sounds good. That’ll give me time to hunt my snow boots.”

  “You’d better dress warm. That wind’s whipping out there and it is cold with a capital C. I keep telling Ralph he needs to retire so we can go to Florida every year for the winter.”

  “You can’t do that. I need my job,” Leigh said.

  “Now maybe, but who knows what will happen after you get married? I’ve heard being a preacher’s wife can be a full-time job. Not to mention headache.”

  “I’ve got plenty of aspirins,” Leigh said. “How in the world did you find out about it so soon? I was looking forward to springing the news on you myself when I came in.”

  “Are you kidding, kid? The news was all over Hollyhill before three o’clock yesterday afternoon even with a blizzard going on. We have a fine network of news that doesn’t depend a bit on your future hubby-to-be’s newspaper.” Judy laughed. “And that’s not the only news going around. You should hear what I heard last night at church.”

  “I don’t know if I want to,” Leigh said. “Is it good or bad?”

  “More like wild and crazy,” Judy said. “Have you talked to Zella today?”

  “No, I told you I just got up. Why? Is something wrong with her? Wasn’t she at church?” Leigh had no trouble imagining Judy’s face. Her eyes would be wide and sh
e’d have that knowing smile. Judy loved being in the know on the latest gossip going around town.

  “No. She asked Gertie to pick her up, but then when Gertie got there, Zella ran out in the snow to tell her she was sick. Didn’t even put on a hat. Now can you imagine Zella out in the snow without something protecting her hairdo?”

  “Not really,” Leigh said. “But I don’t know if I’d qualify that wild and crazy.”

  “You haven’t heard everything yet. There was a strange car parked in front of her house. And that’s not all.” Judy paused to let a little silence gather on the line between them for the dramatic effect. “She had a man in the house. Gertie saw him through the window.”

  “Gertie’s half blind.”

  “True, but Eldon Johnson who lives across the street isn’t. He was outside clearing the snow off his walk when the man got there. Said he was young. Said he asked where Zella Curtsinger lived. Eldon saw the car’s license plate. It was Ohio. Now who in the world does Zella know in Ohio? And then she lied to Gertie. Have you ever known Zella to just out and out lie?”

  “She could have been sick even if she did have company.” Leigh took up for Zella. “He was probably a long-lost relative come to visit.”

  “That’s the story going around. A long-lost relative she never expected to show up in Hollyhill. Like a son she adopted out years ago after an indiscretion.”

  “An indiscretion? That’s crazy,” Leigh said. “We’re talking about Zella.”

  “I told you it was wild and crazy, but sometimes wild and crazy turns out to be true.” Judy laughed. “I can’t wait to see that ring.” Then she hung up.

  Leigh put the receiver back on the hook and stared at the phone. She forgot about her cold feet. Should she call Zella? But what was she going to say? Oh, Zella, I heard you had a man in your house last night and the rumor’s going around that it might be your son. She couldn’t say that over the phone. That would be something better said in person. That way when Zella fainted, Leigh would be there to catch her and fan her face.