The Lilac Bouquet

by Carolyn Brown

  “Well, let’s take a look anyway, just to make him happy.” The doctor checked her ears, nose, and throat, listened to her lungs, and nodded. “She knows what she’s talking about. I can’t find a thing wrong with her. Probably just snorted some pollen up her nose.” He winked at Emmy Jo. “Anything else?”

  “Nope, that’ll do it until next time,” Seth said. “And thanks.”

  “See you in two weeks. You keep a check on the wound, Emmy Jo. If it starts to look red or there’s swelling, call me. Pretty nice to have a live-in nurse and assistant.” The doctor pulled Seth’s pajama pants back into place.

  “Not too bad, but she does have a lot of sass,” Seth said.

  “Good for her. She’ll need it to take care of you.”

  “Newspapers on the patio,” Seth said the minute the doctor was in the elevator and the whirring noise of the helicopter started. “We’ll have to read fast to get them done by snack time.”

  “Why?” Emmy Jo frowned.

  “Why what?”

  “Why don’t we read slower and not worry about the clock?” she asked.

  He shrugged. “I need schedule in my life.”

  “Schedule is one thing. OCD is another.” She followed him out of the office, opening doors for him all the way to the patio. “Looks like rain today.”

  No sooner had she said the words than the first few drops made big splotches on the stones and the walls. She hurriedly grabbed up the newspapers and carried them into the house. “Now what?”

  “We read them in the office.” He turned his walker around. “And Emmy Jo, I am not obsessive. I just like a schedule. It makes my days go by better since I retired. Leave the doors open. We’ll get the smell of fresh spring rain.”

  Seth settled himself on the sofa and propped his legs up on an oversize hassock. She laid the papers beside him and melted into a rocking chair. He picked up the top newspaper, and she took the one from the bottom of the stack. She flipped it open to the lifestyle section and shook her head as she read more about people’s dirty laundry.

  “What are you reading?” he asked.

  “These crazy advice columns again. They’re like a car wreck. It’s hard to not look at them even when you know you should move on down the road and leave it alone. Why do they write this stuff?” She yawned.

  “Because when folks read it, then their problems don’t seem so bad.”

  She popped the paper up in front of her face and continued reading the rest of that column. The next question came from a woman who had not seen her father in more than twenty years and now he wanted to get back in touch with her. They’d been estranged when he’d divorced her mother, married, and had children with a new woman who wanted nothing to do with her. He was divorced again and wanting to reconnect. She laid the paper aside and pulled out another one, read through the comics, and picked up a pencil to work on the crossword puzzle. So what if it was for children under twelve?

  “Did you know my father?” she asked.

  Seth frowned, his white eyebrows knitting together. “No. I knew his name and saw him around town a few times.”

  “Granny says he had red hair and blue eyes like mine and that after my mother died, he got religion and went off to another country to do missionary work,” she said.

  “That’s what I heard, too,” he said.

  Emmy Jo wanted so badly to ask outright if Tandy was the woman he’d loved, but she didn’t have the courage.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Rain. Rain. And then more rain.

  Every day until Sunday afternoon and then the gray skies parted, letting the precious sunshine through for a few hours. Logan was not sitting in his truck waiting for her in the cemetery this time, because his parents had asked him to go with them to look over a church in Wichita Falls. So she spent the hour that Seth talked to his mother in the car trying to get the courage to ask Seth what had become the big question that was on her mind constantly. Tandy wasn’t going to tell her anything, and there was no way she’d ever approach Jesse with such a thing. So Seth was the only one she could turn to, and the problem was that she was terrified of the answer.

  When Seth stood up and turned around, she scrambled to get his walker out of the back, but he’d taken three steps without it by the time she got to him.

  “Not so smart on uneven ground,” she scolded as she set it in front of him.

  “Don’t tell me what to do,” he grumbled.

  “Don’t scare me like that. I was afraid you would fall.”

  “I’m ready for ice cream,” he said. “And I’m not going to use that damned contraption a minute longer than I have to.”

  “Are we going to the home place today, or will the chair on the porch be too wet?” she asked.

  “I’ll sit on the quilt if it is.”

  “Then ice cream and the cabin it is.” When they reached the place, Seth carefully unfolded the quilt, revealing a fluffy throw inside. He handed it to her before he arranged the quilt the way he wanted it in his rocking chair.

  “Thought you might need that to sit on, since the porch is wet,” he explained.

  “Thank you.” She managed a smile, but it didn’t lift her spirits.

  “I haven’t heard you sneeze today,” he told her.

  “I told you from the beginning that I was fine.”

  “Nora has always had a bout with sneezing in the spring and in the fall,” he said.

  Emmy Jo wondered why he’d think of Nora, but it did open up a way to get him talking. “Tell me about her. Were y’all good friends? Did you share things, or were you fighting siblings? I never had a brother or a sister.”

  “Nora is an angel with a set of horns,” he answered. “She has always had a temper and a smart-ass attitude, but her heart is made of pure gold. She took Matthew with her to Amarillo, and she and her new husband made sure he was taken care of. She’s short like you, has red hair and blue eyes, and she’d fight a forest fire with nothing but spit for her family.”

  “Why didn’t you go there when you got out of the army?” Emmy Jo asked.

  “Mama said that we didn’t run from our problems. Besides, I had my reasons.”

  “Which were?” she pressed on, hoping that he’d shed some light on her heritage.

  “You remember I told you about being in love with a girl who got pregnant and then insulted my mother because she was going to marry Jesse Grady. She wanted to get out of Hickory so bad that she tricked him into marriage by getting pregnant. Well, I was on the creek banks with her the night we all graduated.”

  “I remember.” Emmy Jo’s chest tightened.

  “Nora and Walter, the man she married the next week, had taken Mama home, because Nora thought that’s where I went. Then they took Matthew to Libby’s for ice cream. When I came in, my mother was lying in a pool of blood on the floor. She was able to tell me she had tripped and fallen.” Seth’s voice cracked. “And then she died in my arms.

  “If I’d been there I might have gotten help and saved her, but I was on the creek bank with a girl who didn’t want anything to do with me,” Seth said. “And I don’t expect you to understand, but I . . .” He stopped and looked out over the yard.

  “I think I do understand. Hickory was home and you felt guilty. You hoped that by coming home you could show that woman you loved that you weren’t that boy with nothing to offer anymore. That you were becoming a respectable citizen. And you wanted to be close to your mama’s spirit,” she said.

  “Pretty smart for a kid.” Seth grinned.

  “So what happened when Jesse came home?” she asked.

  “Jesse never did acknowledge the baby he’d produced. He married his wife, Nancy, after he got his education to be a preacher and moved into the pastor’s position at the church. That other girl was pretty wild, so maybe he thought she was lying when she told him. Or maybe he thought he’d never be accepted as a preacher if folks knew. Hell, Emmy Jo, I don’t even know for sure that she did tell him. Maybe she was just sayin
g that to me so that I’d quit begging her to marry me,” Seth said.

  “Does she still live here in Hickory?”

  Every single, solitary clue led straight to Tandy. Even her heart said it was Tandy, and that made sense. That would explain everything—the whole enchilada about why the three of them had been at cross purposes since they were in high school.

  “I’m tired now. Let’s go home and eat some dumplings and then have a game of Scrabble. I think I could beat you tonight.” He avoided her question.

  She pointed at him. “Dream on, Seth. It’s my turn to win.” She had a thousand more questions, but there was still time, and it seemed as if he could only stand to tell her bits and pieces at a time.

  Seth didn’t like things undone. Everything had a place, should be in its place, and that included this new thing with not knowing whether he or Jesse was the father of Tandy’s daughter. He sincerely hoped that it wasn’t him, because the guilt for not taking care of his only child would be a burden to carry. Then, in a moment of pure insanity, he would wish that Emmy Jo was his great-granddaughter, so that he wouldn’t come to the end of his days with nothing but a bank account that would choke a king to show for his entire life.

  That would sure make Tandy madder than a wet hen after an F-5 tornado. He smiled. It would be her comeuppance after the way she talked about my mother. But she’s had her just due. She lost her daughter and then her granddaughter, and now she’s on the outs with her great-granddaughter. I will never forgive her for what she said that night, but I can’t help but feel sorry for her.

  “Who’s winning?” Emmy Jo asked as she settled him into the passenger seat.

  “We aren’t even playing yet, so how do I know?” he grouched.

  “You were fighting with the voices in your head. I could see you were winning and then you were losing and then you were sad.” She parked the car in the garage and then hustled around back to get his walker.

  And if that’s not Nora Thomas talking to you. She said the same thing to you more times than I can count. I swear. His mother’s voice came through loud and clear in his head. Why don’t you just accept the fact that she’s yours? You already know it in your heart.

  Because—he sighed—I don’t want to be disappointed again, Mama.

  He couldn’t keep his mind on the board game and she won three out of three, netting her five dollars. It was well past dark when they parted company and he went to the patio to listen to the radio for an hour before turning in. Instead of turning the radio to his favorite old country station, he put it on one that played the newer stuff. Every song that played that evening brought back memories and visions, most of them having to do with his family before his mother died and/or Jesse and Tandy.

  “How Do You Like Me Now” by Toby Keith especially spoke to him. The lyrics didn’t exactly match his and Tandy’s situation, but the idea behind it was the same. Then an artist he’d never heard of named Jon Pardi sang “Head Over Boots.” He’d been in that place with Tandy all those years ago, and he’d never gotten over her. Too bad she hadn’t given him a chance. He’d have made her a queen just like the singer said. After that Randy Travis sang something called “Three Wooden Crosses” that said something about a hooker and a preacher that caught his attention more than the rest. The lyrics warned that what was left behind when you left the world wasn’t as important as what you left behind you when you died.

  “I’ve got to know,” he muttered as he left his walker beside the chair and went to the three-foot wall, where he paced from one end to the other and back again. After five trips, his hip began to hurt, and he went back to his walker. He rolled it into the kitchen, where he cut a slice of pecan pie, poured a glass of milk, and was in the process of eating at the cabinet by the moonlight pouring into the window when the lights came on.

  “Holy hell!” he grumbled. “You almost blinded me.”

  “Sorry about that. I couldn’t sleep and I remembered those leftover chocolate cupcakes.”

  “Well, make a little noise from now on,” he said.

  Emmy Jo didn’t argue, which surprised Seth. She always had a sassy comeback to whatever he said.

  She uncovered a container with three cupcakes inside. “I’ll share.”

  “I’ll take one, since I had pie, and you can have the other two,” he said.

  “Fair enough.” She backed up against the cabinet and removed the paper wrapper from the first one. “I love chocolate—cupcakes even more than candy bars.”

  “Tomorrow we need to drive over to Graham and have the car serviced. I made a ten o’clock appointment. There’s a fancy little doughnut shop not far from the place where I get mechanic work done. I thought we’d get our midmorning snack there. They make amazing iced doughnuts, and they even sprinkle them with tiny little chocolate chips,” he said.

  She carried her second cupcake and the gallon of milk on the counter to the table, along with a glass. “And you are just telling me this now?”

  “Forgot about it,” he said. “You are my assistant.”

  “Yes, I am and I’m more than ready to go somewhere.” She smiled. “Why do you go to Graham? There’s places to get a car serviced here in Hickory.”

  He stole long glances at her. Nothing about Tandy there except the fire in her temper and her humor. Lots of Nora, and those eyes were Thomas blue. He remembered another song he’d heard that evening. Tanya Tucker sang “What’s Your Mama’s Name,” a song about a man who was hunting a woman he’d loved many years before. He was interested in a little green-eyed girl because her eyes were Wilson green. It made Seth want to find out for absolute sure what Rose’s daddy’s name was, since her eyes were definitely Thomas blue.

  “What are you thinking about?” Emmy Jo asked.

  “I was listening to some different stations on the radio. Some of them really spoke to me. And to answer your question, I changed when my favorite mechanic took a job in Graham. No underlying secret reason other than that and I like the pastry shop over there and I really like the air-conditioned waiting room at the garage,” he said.

  “Which songs?” she asked.

  “Just some that I hadn’t heard in a while and a couple I’d never heard. Nora fusses at me for not stepping into the modern world, so I did a little bit tonight.”

  “You didn’t come home for four years after you left? Not even once or twice to see Nora and your family?” she asked.

  He removed the paper from his cupcake and took a bite. “I believe you young kids say that it was a time when I found myself.”

  She fidgeted, wanting him to go on and tell her more, but he took his own good time in eating the whole cupcake and then refilling his glass with milk.

  “I was away from Hickory for the first time. The people around me had no idea about my mother or me. I was just another recruit with no hair and a scared look in my eye.”

  “I can’t imagine you without hair,” she said.

  “In those days, I wore it really short anyway, so it wasn’t as big a deal as it would be now. I got acquainted with a few guys in Kentucky, though I left them all behind when my training was done. From there I went to a place called Wildflecken, Germany, and saw real snow for the first time in my life. Got there in February and thought I’d freeze plumb to death by the time spring came.”

  “We have snow,” she argued.

  “We get snow and then in a few days at most, it melts. We had snow from February until May, knee-deep in most places,” he said. “I got so homesick that after the first year I declared I’d never leave the state of Texas or complain about the heat. Where all have you been, Emmy Jo?”

  “I’ve been to Oklahoma and Arkansas, but that’s the limit of my travels. Did you get homesick for Nora and your brother?”

  Seth’s head bobbed once, and his eyes misted over. “Nora wrote to me twice a week and Matthew wrote pretty often, but he was a ten-year-old kid and he was in a new place, so I didn’t expect much from him. I hid every time I read the lette
rs because I cried, and men, especially in those days, did not show emotion. Then one day while I was in my hiding place, which was the corner of the mess hall after hours, I met Markita. She was a German girl who had been hired to translate for the base.”

  Emmy Jo’s ears perked right up when he mentioned a possible romance. “What did she look like?”

  “Dark hair, big blue eyes, and almost as tall as me. She sat down beside me and didn’t even smile when I wiped my tears away with my fist. She asked me if the letter was from my mother or my girlfriend.”

  “And?” Emmy Jo asked after the pause lasted three minutes past eternity.

  “And I told her neither. What I said was that my mother had been dead for more than six months and the letter was from my sister, who was raising my younger brother. That started an amazing friendship that helped me get through the next years. It went to a relationship within six months, and when my time was up we were in love.”

  From the sadness in his eyes, Emmy Jo wasn’t sure she even wanted him to go on, and yet she had to hear the story.

  “I didn’t have a thing to offer her in Texas. The home place was there, but I couldn’t bring her to a tiny cabin that didn’t even have an indoor bathroom. I had to come home and get a job, at least rent a decent house and do a million things before I could ask her to marry me.”

  “You didn’t even give her the choice?” Emmy Jo fussed at him.

  “She cried the last night we were together, and I promised that as soon as I had a job, I’d send for her. She promised that she would be ready. But . . .”

  Emmy Jo shook her head emphatically. “No buts. Don’t say that word. You deserved some happiness after all you’d been through. Tell me that she came to Texas and y’all had some good years together.”

  “No, I came home, got a job, and we wrote letters. At first it was every day and then every couple of days, and then after a while we did good to write once every two weeks. Then six months later I got a long letter from her saying that she’d found someone else, a sweet German fellow who worked at the base, and they were in love. She was breaking it off with me so they could get married. By the time I got the letter, the wedding was already over, and I never heard from her again,” Seth said.