Summer of Joy

by Ann H. Gabhart

  But Jocie knew how Tabitha liked to sleep in the mornings as long as Stephen Lee wasn’t being too loud. Plenty of times Jocie or Aunt Love had fetched the baby out of his crib without Tabitha even knowing they were in her room. So that’s why Jocie was awake and listening. She was on guard. Who knew what DeeDee might do?

  She looked like she might have a secret. Of course everything about DeeDee was a mystery to Jocie. She didn’t know her mother. Jocie used to care. She used to want to know what her mother was like. What her mother liked. What her mother did. Now she didn’t care.

  She did know her mother was sick. Jocie had known that even before Aunt Love had told her they should be kind to DeeDee because she was recovering from surgery for cancer. Jocie still hadn’t been able to find any caring in her heart. That was cold and mean of her and certainly not very Christian-like. Jocie was ashamed of how she was feeling, but even though she was praying about it, she still hadn’t been able to dredge up one scrap of caring.

  And cancer was bad. Jocie knew that. People at church were always having special prayer for somebody who had cancer. Maybe Jocie would remind Aunt Love to ask for special prayer for DeeDee next Sunday. Maybe the whole church praying for her would make up for Jocie’s own halfhearted prayers.

  Tabitha would have to drive them to church on Sunday. Jocie’s dad and Leigh would be somewhere enjoying their first day as Mr. and Mrs. Brooke. Tabitha said maybe Robert could drive them since he was coming in for the wedding.

  Somehow Tabitha had talked their dad into letting Robert be one of his groomsmen. He’d needed two since Leigh wanted both Tabitha and Jocie to be bridesmaids and the number of bridesmaids and groomsmen had to match. It was some kind of wedding rule. So he’d asked Robert. After all, he couldn’t really ask any of the men out at church, because then all the other men might feel slighted.

  Of course Wes was his best man. So Jocie would be walking out with Wes after the ceremony and Tabitha would be walking out with Robert. Tabitha could hardly wait. She was dreaming about when maybe Robert would ask her to walk down the aisle with him in the other direction. She’d told Jocie she’d been praying for a man like Robert to come into her life. Someone good and decent. Someone who could love her and be a father to Stephen Lee. Someone for her to love.

  That was why Jocie wasn’t worried about Tabitha taking off in the middle of the night with DeeDee again. Tabitha wouldn’t miss the wedding. She could hardly wait to put on the periwinkle blue dress and see Robert in his black suit.

  Wes had had to buy a matching suit to be in the wedding. He’d groused about it, but he bought it. For her dad and Leigh, he said. “But I ain’t putting none of that slick stuff on my hair to make it lay down. Not even for Miss Leigh. If folks don’t want to see Jupiter hair, they can look the other way.”

  Jocie heard something in the living room and forgot about Jupiter hair. It wasn’t Aunt Love. Aunt Love always went straight to the kitchen when she got up. She might forget to take the biscuits out of the oven, but she never forgot to put them in. Jocie stood up and went to the door. She pulled it open a few inches and peeked through.

  DeeDee was on the couch holding Stephen Lee. The baby was asleep. DeeDee was rubbing his back and whispering close to his ear. Jocie couldn’t hear what she was saying. DeeDee’s suitcase was on the floor by her feet. Stephen Lee’s diaper bag was beside it.

  DeeDee was so focused on Stephen Lee that Jocie was almost right in front of DeeDee before she noticed her. “You can’t take him,” Jocie said.

  DeeDee looked up and smiled at her, but her eyes were sad. “Poor Jocie. You’re as bad as your father. So afraid of losing your grip on what can’t be held. Don’t you know that the only true way to hold someone is by opening your hand and giving them the freedom to go?”

  “Stephen Lee is too little to go anywhere. He has to be held. And he’s staying here.”

  “I know.” DeeDee kissed the baby’s hair. She kept her voice soft. “I wasn’t going to take him anywhere. I was just saying goodbye.”

  “You’re leaving?”

  “I planned to be already gone, but he felt so good sleeping on my shoulder. His breath warm on my neck. So full of life.” She shut her eyes and laid her cheek against his head.

  “You didn’t tell me goodbye.”

  DeeDee opened her eyes and looked at Jocie. “I haven’t left yet.”

  “You left the other time. You could have said goodbye.”

  “Oh, but I did.”

  “No, you didn’t. I remember when you left. I would have known if you had told me goodbye.”

  “Not then. Not when I left Hollyhill. I told you goodbye when you were three days old. I gave you to your father. A gift. A total, complete gift.”

  “Why didn’t you love me?” Jocie felt an ache that went all the way down to her toes. “Was I too ugly? Did I cry too much?”

  “You weren’t ugly. At least no uglier than any newborn baby. And all babies cry.” DeeDee ran her hand up and down Stephen Lee’s back.

  “Then what was wrong with me that you couldn’t love me?”

  “Your father loved you. Wasn’t that enough?” DeeDee didn’t wait for her to answer. “Love isn’t something that a person can conjure up. It’s either there or it isn’t. I didn’t want to carry you, Jocie. I didn’t want to be a mother. I can give you nothing now that will make that any different. All I can give you is the truth.”

  “I’ve always wanted to know the truth.”

  DeeDee stared at her. “You’re more like me than either of us will ever want to admit.”

  “I don’t want to be like you.”

  DeeDee smiled a little. “Whether you want to be or not, you are. You’re tough. You know what you want and you go after it. And someday you’ll have to leave this place behind just as I did.”

  “No,” Jocie started.

  DeeDee took one of her hands off Stephen Lee’s back and held it up to stop Jocie. “Only time will tell, I suppose, which of us is right. Don’t worry. I won’t be around to say I told you so. I’m dying, you know.”

  “Not everybody who has cancer dies.”

  “No, not everybody, but the monster is running rampant inside me. It’s just a matter of time.” She said it matter-of-factly. Then she smiled a little again. “I promised David I wouldn’t tell Tabitha, but he didn’t ask me not to tell you.”

  “How long?”

  “I don’t suppose anyone ever knows how long they have. People die every day without expecting to. Heart attacks. Plane wrecks. Cancer just gives you more time to dwell on it.” Stephen Lee stirred a bit and she started rubbing his back again. “And time to hold one child you love. He has my eyes, you know.”

  Jocie frowned and shook her head as she stared at her mother’s face. “Your eyes are green. Stephen Lee’s are brown. Tabitha says like his father’s.”

  “True enough, but nevertheless they’re like mine too. I saw that in the first picture Tabitha sent me.”

  “And that’s why you love him?” The ache was fading inside Jocie. Now she was just curious.

  “I don’t know, Jocie. Love is a strange animal. You can’t always tame it and make it behave the way you want it to. For years, I thought I could. I thought I could use love the way I used lipstick and perfume. Just to get what I wanted. But real love isn’t that way. Real love bangs you around and makes you do things you never thought you would do.” DeeDee glanced around the room. “Like be sitting in this house again.”

  “I’m sorry you’re dying.” Jocie was surprised to realize she wasn’t just saying that to be nice.

  “Yeah, me too. Me too.” DeeDee tightened her arms around Stephen Lee for a moment before she stood up and handed the baby to Jocie. “Here, Jocie. Take good care of him for me.”

  The baby barely stirred before he settled his head on Jocie’s shoulder and kept sleeping. “I will, but not for you. I love him myself.”

  “Too much like me.” She smiled and shook her head. “This time you will have you
r goodbye. A final goodbye.” DeeDee picked up her suitcase. She looked directly into Jocie’s face. “Goodbye, Jocelyn.”

  Jocie didn’t say goodbye back as she watched DeeDee turn and walk out the front door. She wanted her to go, to be gone, yet at the same time she wanted to call her back. Tell her that maybe she could try to love her, and that if she did, maybe DeeDee could try to love her back. She looked around as if she expected to see her father there so he could tell her what she should do. But of course he wasn’t there.

  Aunt Love was. She was standing in the doorway to the kitchen watching Jocie. She reached for Stephen Lee. “Go, child, run after her and tell her the Lord loves her. That’s the least we can do for her.”

  Jocie ran out the door and down the steps. DeeDee’s car was already rolling down the drive, but Jocie yelled at her to stop. DeeDee put on the brakes and waited.

  Jocie didn’t give herself time to think about what she was saying. She just ran right up to DeeDee’s window and said, “The Lord loves you.”

  DeeDee smiled her sad smile. “Does he? How do you know?”

  “The Bible says the Lord loves everybody. And you can still love him.”

  “And how about you, Jocie? Can you still love me? Doesn’t the Bible say we’re supposed to love everybody too?”

  “It does. And I do, Mother. I hate you, but I love you at the same time.”

  “See, just like me.” DeeDee smiled sadly and took her foot off the brake. “Always telling the truth even when it tears a hole right through you.”

  Jocie watched her mother drive away. She never looked back. Not once.

  39

  It was a long drive to Florida, but the hardest part for Adrienne had been getting out of Holly County without turning around. She hadn’t wanted to leave Stephen behind. She’d wanted to just sit there on that couch or in the rocker on the porch and hold him until she died.

  But then again, sometimes she felt as if the real Adrienne Mason had already died and left behind this pathetic shell of a woman to mark her place for a few more months. It didn’t really matter all that much where that place was. David, who had been born with a corner on good and noble, would have helped her find a place to live in Hollyhill. He’d have let her keep holding Stephen even though she had certainly never done anything to earn that privilege. Nothing except give birth to his mother. Perhaps that was enough.

  That silly girl of a woman, Leigh whatever her name was, seemed well suited to David. Nothing at all like Adrienne. The girl would have probably even helped David take care of Adrienne if she had stayed. It would have been her ticket to sainthood. Her good deed of the century.

  Adrienne didn’t want to be a good deed. She’d always made it on her own, under her own terms. She’d finish like that. One way or another. She had the memory of Stephen’s soft curls against her cheek and the smell of his baby body to carry her through. Once that was no longer enough, the doctor had given her a prescription to help her walk down the final road through the pain that would come and that Dr. Mike had warned her might be brutal. Dr. Mike told her not to worry about the pills being addictive. No time for that. And even if there was, she wouldn’t be addicted long.

  The Florida sunshine wasn’t much different than California sunshine. Hotter maybe. Adrienne didn’t mind that. She liked hot. But she missed the California feeling of youth and opportunity. Florida felt old, where people went when they were finished, unlike California where people went to become stars, to get rich, to begin.

  The curtains in her mother’s trailer did have ruffles, but they weren’t pink. They were yellow and the carpet was a smooth, flat tan. Easier to sweep the sand off it, her mother said, and lizards couldn’t hide in the nap.

  Adrienne barely recognized her mother. She’d gone blonde instead of gray. She wore bright-colored shorts and sleeveless tees. She was part of a group of friends who did everything together. Not unlike how things were in high school way back when, her mother said. And even more fun because nobody was fighting over who was prettiest anymore. They were just playing. She did shuffleboard on Tuesdays and Thursdays. She played bingo on Mondays and Saturdays. They got together for cards on Friday. She went out to eat every day. She had a big tricycle that she rode around the block for exercise and a boyfriend who rode with her.

  She looked relieved when Adrienne said none of those games appealed that much to her and that she planned to just sit on the beach and watch the ocean. So Adrienne sat in the sun and watched the waves sweep in and out. Sometimes she put her chair close enough to the ocean so the highest tides washed over her feet and swept the sand under her chair until it was smooth and new looking.

  She gathered the sunlight around her like a blanket and let her mind wander wherever it wanted. She liked to imagine Stephen sitting at the edge of the ocean and how he might laugh when the waves touched his toes. His baby laughter would echo in her head, and she would smile. Other times she wished Francine were there to cry for her. And sometimes she thought about Jocie running after her to tell her the Lord loved her.

  40

  Leigh was awake before the sun came up on Saturday morning. She didn’t want to miss a minute of June 5, 1965, the day she was going to become Mrs. David Brooke. It was a beautiful day. Even before the sun came creeping over the eastern horizon and climbed above the trees across the street to start pushing its light through her bedroom window, she knew it was going to be a beautiful day.

  The sky could have been clouded over and rain falling in buckets, and it still would have been a beautiful day. But it wasn’t raining. The sky was a cloudless blue. Almost the same color as the dresses Tabitha and Jocie would be wearing that afternoon in the wedding. The weatherman had promised low humidity and a nice breeze with eighty for a high. It was almost enough to make Leigh wish she’d decided to get married outside at the park.

  But First Baptist would be nice. There would be plenty of seats and Zella was overseeing the decorations. She’d wanted roses, but Leigh told her she couldn’t afford that many roses. She’d have to go with something cheaper like daisies.

  “Daisies?” Zella had practically squawked. “I guess you just want me to go out in the field and pick them. Honestly, Leigh, this isn’t the time to be pinching pennies. You only get married once.”

  “I like daisies. And sunflowers. Sunflowers just look like they’re shouting out joy, don’t you think? The way they reach for the sun.” Leigh held her arms up over her head to demonstrate and smiled.

  Zella didn’t smile back. “They’re messy. They drip pollen all over. Roses are better. Besides, sunflowers aren’t blooming yet.”

  “They’ll be blooming somewhere. Blanche over at the flower shop can get them. I want daisies and sunflowers of joy,” Leigh said. “Big bunches of them.”

  “That might be better suited at Mt. Pleasant than First Baptist,” Zella said with a sniff.

  “Then maybe we should move the wedding back to Mt. Pleasant.”

  “I guess you expect people to stand outside and peek through the windows once all the pews are full.”

  “If they want to,” Leigh said. She didn’t really care. All she cared about was how she was going to look in her perfect wedding dress and how David was going to look as he stood at the front of the church watching her walk down the aisle. Whichever aisle it was.

  Zella mashed her lips together into a thin line before she said, “All right. Daisies and sunflowers it is. With one bouquet of roses on the reception table where the cake is going to sit in the fellowship hall. You don’t want pollen all over your cake and in the punch, do you?” Zella didn’t wait for an answer. “I’ll pick those roses out of my garden. And Lovella’s. She has some yellow ones. That won’t cost you anything.”

  “Thank you, Zella. For everything. Without you, we might not be talking about roses or sunflowers,” Leigh said as she gave Zella a little hug.

  “True enough. Sometimes people have to be shoved toward their destiny.”

  Destiny. A marriage w
ritten in the stars. A match made in heaven. A blessed event. A reason for celebration. And she was celebrating as the sun began to rise on her wedding day.

  Leigh sang a few hallelujahs as she danced across her bedroom, through the living room, and into the kitchen.

  She didn’t even mind when Mrs. Simpson hit her broom handle against her ceiling below Leigh’s feet. After today, Mrs. Simpson’s too-sensitive ears would be somebody else’s problem.

  Nearly all of Leigh’s stuff was in boxes, ready to move. She hadn’t figured out exactly where she would put any of it at David’s house. His house was already full of stuff and people. David was talking about building on a couple of rooms. Some of the men at church had volunteered to help. Thank goodness, they weren’t having to make extra room for Adrienne. She’d left.

  David hadn’t asked her to. Leigh hadn’t asked David to ask her to, but Leigh was still relieved Adrienne had decided to leave before the wedding. Leigh did feel bad for her. Not just because of the cancer, but because she’d never realized the blessing of her family. A blessing that was now Leigh’s.

  Leigh filled the teakettle and put it on to heat. She had so many butterflies in her stomach that she wasn’t sure she’d be able to eat a thing, but she stuck some bread in the toaster. Maybe the butterflies were hungry and would settle down if she fed them.

  She picked up a paper plate covered with ribbons off the table. Jessica Sanderson had carefully threaded all the ribbons from Leigh’s shower gifts through a slit in the paper plate so Leigh could use it for her wedding bouquet at the rehearsal. Leigh fingered the long, streaming ribbons.

  They’d had the rehearsal at Mt. Pleasant Church the night before. Zella had said that couldn’t happen, but David told Zella not only that it could happen. It would happen.

  “One church is not that much different from another,” he’d said and held up his hand to stop her protests. “So First Baptist does have a longer aisle, but that just means more walking. We don’t need any practice walking. And right or wrong, we’re having the rehearsal at Mt. Pleasant because the good people out there have been planning for months to have the rehearsal dinner for us in the church basement. So we’re going to enjoy.”