by Annie Jones
Sadie managed a wry smile. “Maybe if we both do it, we’ll start a trend.”
“Honey, if every woman who felt overwhelmed by her life joined in, the salt from our tears would kill every blade of grass in the park.”
“Really?” Sadie blinked. “Do you think so? When I look at the women around me, they all seem so competent and confident and capable of anything. I feel like I’m the only one whose life is a runaway bus that just broke through the guardrail over a rock-strewn embankment.”
“On fire.”
“What?”
“You left out the part about feeling like that bus is on fire. Oh, and children bouncing on the back seat screaming, ‘Faster, Mommy, make it go faster.’”
“You do know.”
“Honey, believe it or not, that’s one crowded bus.” She raised her head and looked out toward the street. “In fact, I heard in a sermon once that if you think of everyone you meet as an uncertain, hurting individual, most of the time you’ll be right.”
“So you’ve felt that way?”
She nodded. “And you?”
Goose bumps rose on Sadie’s arms. She clenched her jaw and moved her gaze slowly from the cemetery to the distant point of town where the pharmacy stood. “Sometimes I think I’m going to jump right out of my skin, you know?”
Claudette nodded again. “Uh-huh. Jump right out and run away.”
“Yes! It’s like when I was six and I broke my arm.”
“Trying to jump out of your skin?”
“No, trying to jump off the garage with an umbrella for a parachute.”
The other woman winced.
“It hurt bad at first. Then the pain subsided and I didn’t give it much thought. Then I got this itch deep, real deep inside, way beyond where I could stick my fingers down into that ratty old cast to scratch. Nothing worked. Nothing satisfied that need to get at the itch. I thought it would drive me right out of my mind.”
“But it didn’t.”
“Some people might argue with that, but I do thank you for saying it, especially given how you found me today.”
The grass swished around their ankles.
“So you were saying you feel that way now? Like you can’t satisfy some need in yourself?”
“I don’t know what to do, how to help, how to cope, how to give the things that used to come so naturally to me.”
“You feel all hemmed in.”
“I do.” Sadie pushed her hair back and lifted her face to the breeze, her eyes narrowed. “Hemmed in and cast adrift all at the same time. Does that make any sense?”
Claudette stood there a moment with her hand clenched in a loose fist, then took a deep breath and let it out. “It does to someone who’s felt it.”
“Not you,” Sadie whispered, though she already knew the answer.
“Yes, me.”
“But you look so pulled together, and your family…your sons are just precious, and your husband is a minister.”
“Ministers and their families and their wives are not exempt from the harshness of this world, Sadie. Including family trials and insecurities about young, pretty, vivacious, young go-getters.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
“The worst part about that is that I trust Ed. I don’t think I have reason to worry that he will stray from his vows.”
“I know. Makes it worse, doesn’t it? Makes you feel like a shrew for even bringing it up to him.”
“A shrew. Exactly, a jealous shrew.”
“But that’s not what’s at the root of what brought you literally to the ground today, is it?”
Sadie shook her head. She turned, her hands folded together, to watch the kids on the playground for a moment. “I had a miscarriage a little over seven months ago.”
“Seven months? Then you’re coming up on the due date anytime now.”
“Yes.” Her cool fingertips pressed against the hollow of her throat. “It…it just passed. How did you think of that? No one, not even Ed, remembered about it.”
“I’ve marked a couple of those not-to-be-birthdays in my life, as well.”
Sadie reached out and laid her hand on the other woman’s wrist. “I’m so sorry.”
“It’s all right. I have my sons and they are the light of my life.”
“But?”
“I still wonder sometimes what might have been.”
“Do you still have that itch?”
“No. I have ‘the peace that passeth understanding.’”
“I guess that comes in time,” Sadie murmured.
“Not always. Sometimes time needs a little help.”
Sadie threw her hand up. “Spare me the come-to-Jesus-talking-to about how if I laid my troubles on the Lord and truly trusted in Him, I’d be all better by now.”
“I wasn’t going to question your faith. I was going to ask if you’d consulted a doctor,” Claudette told her.
“A doctor?” Sadie shook her head. “And have him tell me to face the fact that after a certain age some women just aren’t going to be able to become mothers again and isn’t it time I accepted that reality and moved on?”
“Is that what your doctor told you?”
Sadie nodded.
“Then the man’s right. It is time you moved on—to another doctor.”
“I…I just can’t. And I don’t see the point of it, really. We didn’t plan the baby that I lost. So it’s not like we need fertility counseling or anything. I just don’t see what a doctor can do.”
“Did you have…trouble after your other children were born?”
“Not bad. I mean, that whole year after a baby is born is so hectic and you’re so tired. How could a person judge really if they were sick or sad or just worn to a frazzle?”
“In other words, yes. You did have postpartum issues in the past.”
Sadie looked away. “That hardly applies this time, though, does it? I lost the baby.”
“But your body still—”
“Don’t, please.” She held her hand up. She’d said more than she wanted to and heard more than she could deal with under the circumstances. “I don’t want to talk about this, not here, not now.”
“When you’re ready to talk—and to hear—more, I hope you feel you can call me.”
She did feel that she could, but it felt so strange to say that aloud.
“Do you really believe that about the itch? That it’s a sign of healing?”
“It’s a sign of feeling something, isn’t it?”
Sadie drew the fresh-smelling air into her lungs and let it out with a smile. “I guess it is.”
“So what are you waiting for, Sadie? Maybe it’s time you scratched that itch, girl. Scratch that itch.”
“You know, Claudette, maybe I will!”
Chapter Thirteen
“Are there going to be fireworks in the park tonight?”
Ryan tucked the last of six sparklers into the red, white and blue bandanna he’d tied around a beat-up old cowboy hat while he waited for Sadie to pour milk onto his cereal.
“Oh, grow up!” Olivia, leaning against the refrigerator, didn’t even bother to cover the mouthpiece of the phone when she snapped at her younger brother. “When have there ever been fireworks in the park on the Fourth of July?”
“Never. But maybe this year it will be different.” Ryan pushed his hat down low on his head, then nudged his sister out of the way so he could put the milk container back in the fridge.
Olivia nudged him back.
“Things change.” Ryan leaned close enough to make himself heard by whatever friend his sister had on the other end of the line and said, “Mom’s in charge this year.”
In charge. Sadie smiled. She liked the sound of that. And it fit since she’d taken Claudette’s advice, at least professionally, and stood up for herself at work by posting office hours and faxing the mayor a revised job description that included her goals for the coming year.
So far, the man hadn’t sou
ght her out to take her to task over it. He hadn’t called her with a rousing “you go, girl,” either, but at this point Sadie gladly accepted his silence as the ultimate triumph.
“Get real, Ryan.” Olivia turned her back and flicked her strawberry-blond hair over her shoulder. “Mom doesn’t have anything to do with fireworks.”
Ryan plunked the bowl onto the table, swiped his hand along the fringe of red hair touching his collar and mimicked, “Mom doesn’t have anything to do with the fireworks.”
“Stop it, both of you.” The triumph of silence was something she hadn’t quite accomplished with her children.
“Regardless of how we might feel about an opinion expressed in this house, we respect the person expressing it. Ryan, you’re smart enough not to have to stoop to mocking and sarcasm to get your point across.”
“Yes, ma’am.” He ducked his head, pulled out a chair and swung his leg over the back of it to take his seat at the table.
“You may be overestimating by calling him smart, Mom. He hardly seems trainable in basic skills like how to sit down like a human.” The girl sneered and muttered something into the phone, then laughed.
Sadie crossed her arms. Silence might be asking for too much, but certainly she still had the power to maintain a little civility in her own home. “Olivia Amaryllis Pickett, have you ever considered how your brother might feel when you talk to him like you’re a princess and he’s a peon?”
Her daughter blinked. Her mouth hung open. A faint pink started to burn over the apples of her cheeks.
This was it. The moment where Olivia pitched a fit, and for the last seven or so months, Sadie had backed down. This was the moment Mary Tate had predicted, when Sadie had to risk Olivia not liking her, and trust that she would understand that Sadie did what she did out of love.
Olivia shook back her hair and started to say something.
But Sadie was too fast for her. “Because there are no princesses in this house.”
Olivia glowered at her mother, then raised the phone and muttered, “You are not going to believe this—”
“Oh, I think she will believe.” Sadie slid the phone from her daughter’s hand, put it to her ear and told the party on the other line, “Olivia has chores to do. She’ll call you later.”
“Mom!” Fire flashed in Olivia’s green eyes.
Sadie hung the phone back in its cradle. Now or never. she had to stand up and put things back into the proper order in her home, or she might forever lose the chance to give her daughter the gift of loving discipline.
“Like I said, Olivia. There are no princesses in this house.” Sadie offered a magnanimous smile that warned she’d brook no argument. Then she laid her hand over her denim shirt with farm animals staging a patriotic parade across the front, and dipped her head most regally, adding, “But there most certainly is a queen.”
“Mom, I was making plans to meet my friends tonight,” she whined.
“Tonight is for family.” She rubbed her daughter’s back as she moved past to refill her own coffee cup. “I’ve got all the fixin’s for a picnic after we go down to the parade.”
“Fixin’s? Go down to the parade?” She rolled her eyes but stopped short of the kind of theatrics that had become part and parcel of her repertoire for getting her own way. “Since when did you turn into Granny from a bad episode of The Beverly Hillbillies?”
Sadie took the absence of high drama as a sign she had made her first inroad into getting her old Olivia back again. It made her feel good and so she decided to respond in kind, raising her fingers as she counted off her reply. “In the first place, there are no bad episodes of The Beverly Hillbillies.”
Ryan snickered.
Olivia shot him a daggered look.
“In the second place, Granny?” Sadie’s mouth hung open a moment to show her utter amazement at the comparison. “Aunt Pearl, maybe, but Granny?”
“Tell her, Mom,” Ryan said.
“Tell me? Mom, you already warned Ryan about being sarcastic, why are you letting him—”
“And third,” Sadie all but shouted, cutting off the fracas before it could begin. “The queen has spoken. End of discussion.”
Eyes narrowed to angry slits, Olivia studied her for a moment, then her shoulders slumped forward just a little and she shook her head. “You sure are in a black mood today.”
“Actually—” Sadie paused to double-check her own emotions then continued “—for the first time in a long while, I’m not in any kind of mood at all. Not a black mood. Not a blue mood. Not a stuff-my-face-with-licorice-jelly-beans mood.”
Olivia cocked her head, her lip thrust forward just enough to remind Sadie of how she used to pout as a five-year-old.
“Give it up, sugar.” With a gently placed hand on her daughter’s back, Sadie sighed and gave her best sublimely imperial smile. “You do not want to mess with the queen when she’s not in a mood.”
Olivia jerked away, her face set in a squinty-eyed scowl. “You’re just being mean.”
“Nope.” Undeterred, Sadie put her arm around her child again and gave her a quick hug. “I’m being something I haven’t been in a long while—the mom.”
“Yeah!” Ryan clapped his hands. “It’s about time!”
Olivia frowned at her younger brother, then at Sadie.
“That means we’re going to start sticking to the rules around here.” Sadie’s smile did not falter.
Olivia raised her chin and challenged, “All of us?”
“All of us.” She gave her daughter an extra squeeze. “Including me. I know it’s been hard for you to have me so out of it these past months, but I’m better now. Everything’s going to be better now.”
“Better for who?” Olivia slipped away, her head down, and slunk off toward the door.
Sadie did not call after her. She had hoped for more, but understood that too much had gone undone and unsaid the last few months for her to repair it all with a promise.
Still, it warmed her heart in ways she couldn’t describe when her surly teen stopped at the threshold, turned, and with only a fleeting glance to meet her mother’s gaze whispered, “Welcome back, Mom.”
And then she was gone.
“That went well.” Sadie rubbed her hands together and grinned at her son.
“Yeah, I especially liked the part when she compared you to Granny Clampett.”
“Moses.”
“Don’t go biblical on me now, Mom, I’m still eating cereal.”
“Not that Moses. Granny’s name was Daisy Moses, not Clampett.”
“Okay, should I worry that you know so much about a fictional character or pretend it’s cute?”
“Cute, unless I start mistaking myself for a fictional character, then…”
“You did call yourself the queen,” he reminded her.
“That’s not fiction.” Sadie grabbed a wooden spoon from the countertop and waved it with a royal air.
Ryan stood, carrying the empty bowl freshly slurped of all the cereal. As he passed his mother, he dropped his sparkler-adorned hat onto her head and beamed down at her. “If you’re the queen, you need a crown.”
“Thank you very much.” She gave a curtsy. “Now all I need is my prince to come galloping up on his white horse.”
“See ya, Sadie!” Ed strolled into the kitchen…and right out the back door. His golf clubs rattled along behind him.
“So where are the fireworks going to be, Mom?” Ryan asked as he rinsed out his bowl. “Can we have some at home?”
“You want fireworks at home? Stick around,” Sadie muttered. In a few quick steps she crossed the floor and stepped out onto the back porch.
“What?” Ryan moved to follow her.
“Never you mind.” She waved for him to go on about his business, calling as an afterthought, “The city fireworks display starts at dark out at the fairgrounds. And be informed—we are going as a family.”
She let the screen door fall shut with a decisive whap before an arg
ument could arise—or maybe just in time to keep her son from hearing the potential argument brewing in the driveway. “I don’t suppose you heard that, did you?”
“Heard what?” The bright morning sun washed Ed’s thinning hair out to a soft gray rather than the distinguished salt-and-pepper it shone under the lights at the pharmacy.
“My pronouncement about spending this holiday as a family.”
“Okay. Good plan.” He opened the trunk of Moonie’s yellow convertible, then turned to get his golf bag.
“If it’s such a good plan then where do you think you’re going?”
“To make a fool of myself.” He held up a putter and grinned. “And before you get upset, it’s an all-male outing. You have nothing to fear—Go-Go is a no-show.”
“Clever. But this isn’t about Go-Go. This is about priorities. We need to talk.”
“The four most dreaded words in the female vocabulary.” Ed crimped his forehead down, his eyes sparkling with undiluted good humor. “Sadie, honey, you know I’d be happy to talk to you. I love talking to you.”
“You do?”
“Of course.” He looped his arm around her waist and ducking under the brim of her cowboy hat—crown—planted a kiss on the side of her neck. “It’s my second-most favorite thing we do together.”
“Ed!” She feigned shock, then laid her hand on his cheek and shut her eyes.
He turned his head and kissed her palm.
Her pulse picked up. She loved this man.
He kissed the inside of her wrist.
And he loved her.
He always had, all these years. She knew that. But he’d neglected these sweet reminders for so long. Too long. No wonder she had begun to doubt the strength of the bond between them.
She took a long shuddering breath and held it. She knew what she wanted to hear. He could mend so many bridges if he’d only take her in his arms and tell her…
“I have three guys expecting to meet me at the course in half an hour. No time for talk now.” He checked his watch, then moved around her so quickly that it knocked her crown forward over her eyes. “Can’t it wait?”
If he had worded it any other way, she just might have backed down. She pushed her hat to the back of her head. Maybe.
