Tribute

by Nora Roberts

  grandfather’s temples under his Washington Redskins cap. Ford shouted, made wide arm signals as he started over, and saw the smile spread on his grandfather’s sweaty face when Ford caught his eye.

  Charlie shut off the lawn mower. “Well, hi there. Hi there, Spock,” he added, patting his thigh in invitation for the dog to plant his hind legs for a head rub. “What’re you doing out this way today?”

  “Mowing the rest of your lawn. Granddad, it’s too hot out here for you to be doing this.”

  “Meant to get to it earlier.”

  “I thought you hired a neighborhood kid to do this. That’s what you told me when I said I’d come by and do it.”

  “I was going to.” Charlie’s face moved into what Ford thought of as Quint stubborn. “I like cutting my own grass. Not on my last legs yet.”

  “You’ve got plenty of legs left, but you don’t have to use them working out here when it’s already ninety and humid enough to drown in your own breath. I’ll finish it up. Maybe you could get us a couple of cold drinks. And Spock could use some water,” Ford added, knowing that would do the trick.

  “All right then, all right. But you be sure you put the mower back in the shed when you’re done. And don’t bump into those rosebushes. Come on, Spock.”

  It took less than twenty minutes to finish it off—with his grandfather watching him like a hawk through the back screen door. Which meant, Ford thought, they didn’t have the AC turned on inside.

  By the time Ford stowed the mower, crossed over the tiny cement patio and walked through the screen door, he was dripping. “It’s August, Granddad.”

  “I know what month it is. Think I’m senile?”

  “No, just crazy. Let me assure you, air-conditioning is not a tool of Satan.”

  “Not hot enough for air-conditioning.”

  “It’s hot enough to boil internal organs.”

  “We got a nice cross breeze coming through.”

  “Yeah, from hell.” Ford dropped down at the kitchen table and gulped the iced tea Charlie set out while Spock lay snoring. Probably in a heat-induced coma, Ford thought. “Where’s Grandma?”

  “Your aunt Ceecee picked her up, for the book club gab session at your mother’s bookstore.”

  “Oh. If she was here, she’d give me cookies. I know damn well you gave Spock some before he passed out.”

  Charlie snorted out a laugh, but rose to get a box of thin lemon snaps off the counter where he’d left them after treating Spock. He shook some onto a plate, set it in front of Ford.

  “Thanks. I bought a house.”

  “You’ve got a house already.”

  “Yeah, but this one’s an investment. Cilla’s going to fix it up, perform major miracles, then I’ll sell it and be a rich man. Or I’ll lose my shirt and have to move in with you and Grandma, and suffer from heat prostration. I’m banking on the miracle after seeing what she’s done with her place.”

  “I hear she’s done some fancy work over there. Changed a lot.”

  “For the better, I think.”

  “Guess I’ll see for myself at the Labor Day shindig she’s having. Your grandmother’s already been out shopping for a new outfit. It’ll be strange going to a party there, after all these years.”

  “I guess a lot of people who’ll go would have been to parties there when Janet Hardy was alive.” Perfect opening, Ford thought. “Mom and Dad, Brian’s parents. You knew Bri’s grandfather, right?”

  “Everybody around here knew Andrew Morrow.”

  “Were you friendly?”

  “With Drew Morrow?” Charlie shook his head. “Wasn’t unfriendly, but I can’t say we ran in the same circles. He was older, maybe six, eight years.”

  “So you didn’t go to school with him?”

  “We went to the same school. Back then, there was only the one. Andrew Morrow, he had the golden touch. Golden tongue, too,” Charlie said and wet his throat. “He sure could talk anybody into fronting him money, but by God, he lined the pockets of the ones who did. Buying up land, putting up houses, buying up more, putting up the stores, the office buildings. Built the whole damn village, served as mayor. Talk was he’d be governor of Virginia. Never did run though. Talk was maybe he had some dealings that weren’t up-and-up.”

  “Who did he hang with, when you were boys?”

  “Oh, let’s see.” Charlie rattled off some names that meant nothing to Ford. “Some of them didn’t come back from the war. He ran some with Hennessy, the one’s in the loony bin now.”

  “Really?”

  “Went around with Hennessy’s sister Margie for a time, then broke it off when he met Jane Drake, the one he married. She came from money.” With a smirk, Charlie rubbed his thumb and fingers together. “Old money. Man needs money to buy up land and build houses. She was a looker, too. Snooty with it.”

  “I remember her. She always looked pissed off. I guess money can’t buy happiness if you shop in the wrong places. Maybe Morrow looked for more pleasant companionship.”

  “Might could’ve done.”

  “And that might be why he didn’t run for governor,” Ford speculated. “Sticky affair, threat of exposure, bad press. Wouldn’t be the first or last time a woman killed a political career.”

  Charlie flicked the back of his fingers up the side of his neck. “Politicians,” he said in a tone that expressed contempt for the entire breed. “Still, he was a popular man around here, with most. He gave Buddy’s daddy a leg up in the plumbing business. Brought a lot of work to the valley. Buddy’s doing the work over there at the farm, isn’t he?”

  “That’s right.”

  “He did some back in Janet’s day, he and his daddy. Buddy had more hair and less gut in those days, and about ran the business by then, I guess. Been about your age, a little more, maybe.”

  Ford filed that away, tried to wend his way back. “I guess back when there was only one school, all of you shared a lot of teachers. Like Brian, Matt, Shanna and I did. Mr. McGowan taught us all, and Matt’s little brother, Brian’s older sister. Back in elementary school, Mrs. Yates taught us to write. She always crabbed by my penmanship. I bet she’d be surprised by what I do today. Who taught you to write, Granddad?”

  “God, that takes me back.” He smiled now, eyes going blurry with memory. “My mama started me off. We’d sit at the table and she’d have me trace over letters she made. I was right proud when I could write my own name. We all had Mrs. Macey for penmanship, and she’d mark me down for writing the way my mama taught me. Made me stay after school to write the alphabet on the board.”

  “How long did she teach there?”

  “Years before, years after. I thought she was old as the hills when I was six. I guess she wasn’t more than forty. Sure was a hard case.”

  “Did you ever write her way?”

  “Never did.” Charlie smiled, bit into a cookie. “My mama taught me just fine.”

  Ford reported to Cilla under the blue umbrella, over a cold beer. “It’s not much. Shared teacher in the person of the per snickety Mrs. Macey. A lot of Morrow’s generation, and those coming up behind him, would’ve been taught to write by her. He was friendly with Hennessy, at least until he threw over Hennessy’s sister for the rich and snooty Jane. He put Key-stone Plumbing on the map, along with other businesses. He may or may not have had some shady dealings and/or extramarital affairs that prevented him from running for governor. He had friends in high places and you could say boosted friends into high places. Through the connection to him, some of them could have met your grandmother, and an affair could have followed.”

  “The who you know and how you connect doesn’t run that different here than it does in Hollywood.” Or probably anywhere else, Cilla mused. “Buddy worked here when he was in his thirties? It’s a little hard to see Janet tumbling madly in love with a plumber, especially Buddy. Still, he’d have only been a few years younger than she was.”

  “Can you picture Buddy writing phrases like ‘I place my
heart, my soul, in your lovely hands’?”

  “Really can’t. There are more connections between the then and the now than I realized, or appreciated. I may never know if there’s more to then than just the continuity of the place. The way it’s going, I may never know how, even if, what’s been happening here connects.”

  “The Hennessy house is up for sale.” Ford laid a hand over hers. “I drove by after I saw my grandfather. Curtains are drawn, no car in the drive. Spanking-new Century 21 sign in the front yard.”

  “Where is she?”

  “I don’t know, Cilla.”

  “Maybe if she’s responsible for this morning, it was a final f uck-you.”

  It didn’t play that way for Ford. The panels didn’t fit, and the images in them didn’t form true. He’d keep shifting them, he thought, changing, resizing, until he had not only the picture, but the whole story.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  With a great deal of pleasure, Cilla hung her first kitchen cabinet.

  “Looking good.” Thumbs hooked in his front pockets, Matt nodded approval. “The natural cherry’s going to work with the walnut trim.”

  “Wait until we get the doors on. Things of beauty. So worth the wait. Guy’s an artist.”

  She laid her level on the top, adjusted.

  “It’s beautiful work, and a lot of it.” He scanned the space. “But we’ll get them in today. How long before the appliances are back?”

  “Three weeks, maybe four. Maybe six. You know how it goes.”

  “The old-timey stuff’s going to be great in here.” He winked at her as she stepped down off the ladder. “Don’t let Buddy tell you different.”

  “It’ll give him something to complain about instead of my pot filler.” She ran her hand, lovingly, over the next cabinet. “Let’s get her up.”

  “One second,” Matt said as his phone rang. He glanced at the display. “Hey, baby. What? When?”

  The tone, the merging of the two words into one stream had Cilla looking over.

  “Yeah. Yeah. Okay. I’m on my way. Josie’s water broke,” he said, snapping his phone off. “I gotta go.” He lifted Cilla off her feet, a happy boost into the air.

  “So this is what goes on around here all day,” Angie said as she came into the room.

  Matt just grinned like an idiot. “Josie’s having the baby.”

  “Oh! Oh! What’re you doing here?”

  “Leaving.” He dropped Cilla back on her feet. “Call Ford, okay? He’ll pass the word. I’m sorry about—” He gestured toward the cabinets.

  “Don’t worry about it.” Cilla gave him a two-handed shove. “Go! Go have a baby.”

  “We’re having a girl. I’m getting me a daughter today.” He grabbed Angie on the way out, dipped her, kissed her, then swung her back up as he ran out of the room.

  “Boy, talk about excellent timing.” With a laugh, Angie tapped her lips. “He gives good kiss. Wow, big, huge day. I need to call Suzanna, Josie’s younger sister. We’re friends. And another wow, look at all this!”

  “Coming along. Look around if you want. I need to call Ford.”

  While Cilla made the call, Angie poked around the kitchen, in the utility room and back out.

  “Men are odd,” Cilla stated, hooking her phone back on her belt. “He said, ‘Cool. Got it. See ya.’ ”

  “A man of few words.”

  “Not usually.”

  “Well, I’ll use some to say, Cilla, this all looks amazing.” Angie spread her arms. “Totally amazing. And how the hell do you know where to put all these cabinets?”

  “Diagram.”

  “Yeah, but you had to make the diagram. I have a hard time figuring out if I can move my bed from one place to the other in my room, and where the dresser could go if I did.”

  “I had a hard time getting through a class, much less imagining teaching one the way you’re going to do. We all know what we know.”

  “I guess we do. Well.” Angie gave a snappy salute. “Private McGowan, reporting for duty.”

  “Sorry?”

  “I’m here to paint. I could try to help you put these up now that Matt’s otherwise occupied. But I think you’ll be a lot happier with my painting skills than my cabinet-hanging ones. How do you hang them, anyway?” she wondered. “I mean, what holds them up? And never mind, I’d rather use a paintbrush.”

  “Angie, you don’t have to—”

  “I want to. Dad said they’ve finished scraping the old paint on the front and one of the sides, and they’ll be working on the back today. And if there was more help, we could get some of the primer on what’s been done. It’s my day off. I’m the more help.”

  She tugged at the leg of her baggy white painter’s pants. “Look. I have the outfit.”

  “As fetching as it is, I don’t want you to feel obligated.”

  Angie’s face turned from teasing to solemn. “Are you ever going to think of me as a sister?”

  “I do.” Fumbling, Cilla picked up her level. “Of course I do. I mean . . . we are sisters.”

  “If that’s true, then let me say: Shut up, and show me the paint.” Her smile went sly. “Or I’ll tell Dad you’re being mean to me.”

  Amusement came and went, but the quiet glow remained. “You’re a lot like him. The, ah, one who made us sisters.”

  “I have only his good qualities. You, on the other hand—”

  “The paint’s out in the barn. We can go out this way.” Cilla opened the back door. “Maybe I don’t like having a sister who’s younger than I am and has a cute little cheerleader body.”

  “Maybe I don’t like having a sister who has a yard of leg and miles of perfect hair. But I’ve got a better ass.”

  “You do not. My ass is famous.”

  “Yeah, you showed enough of it in Terror At Deep Lake.”

  “I did no ass work in that picture. I wore a bikini.” Holding back laughter, she stopped to pull out her keys, glanced over at the house. “Oh, damn it!”

  Turning to look, Angie gaped at the sight of her father, three stories up, standing on scaffolding, scraping away.

  “Dad! Get down from there!” They shouted it in unison. Gavin looked around, and down, then sent them a cheerful wave.

  “I told him not to go up there. No scaffolding, no extension ladders.”

  “He doesn’t listen, not when he’s decided to do something. He pretends to listen, then does what he was going to do anyway. Is it safe?” Angie asked, gripping Cilla’s arm. “I mean, it’s not going to fall over or collapse, is it?”

  “No. But . . .”

  “Then we’re not going to look. We’re going to get the paint. I’m going around to the front of the house, you’re going inside. Where we can’t see him up there. And we’re never, never going to tell my mother.”

  “Okay.” Cilla deliberately turned away, then stuck the key in the padlock on the barn.

  OLIVIA ROSE BREWSTER came into the world at 2:25 P.M.

  “Matt’s floating,” Ford told Cilla as they drove to the hospital. “Passing out bubble-gum cigars with this dopey smile on his face. The kid’s pretty cute, got all this black hair. Ethan was bald as my uncle Edgar, but the girl, she’s already got a headful.”

  “Uncle Ford seems pretty pleased, too.”

  “It’s a kick. It’s a pretty big kick. Josie looked pretty whipped when I saw her, right after.”

  “There’s a surprise. She should have looked camera ready after pushing eight pounds, five ounces out of her—”

  “Okay, okay. No need for details.” He hunted up a parking space in the hospital’s lot. “I talked with Matt while you were cleaning up. He said they’re both doing great.”

  “It’s nice to come back here for something happy.” She skimmed her gaze up to the Intensive Care floor.