by Lisa Wingate
Claude pedaled his wheelchair backward. “Well … I can go get it, if ya really want… .”
“Yesss.” I nodded, and he turned his chair toward the hallway with a confounded look.
Rebecca scratched the back of her head, squinting as Claude disappeared down the corridor, and Dr. Barnhill began giving instructions for my care and medication. I barely heard the conversation. I kept watching the hallway, willing Claude to come back.
Hurry up, hurry up, I thought, as the conversation began winding down. Ouita Mae strolled in the door, the basket on her walker filled with cuttings she’d pilfered from the front bushes. Dr. Barnhill blanched, seeming eager to finish the conversation so that he could usher Ouita Mae and her cuttings out of the building. “Grandma,” he complained when she started grooming the cuttings and laying cast-off pieces on the table.
“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” she answered. “All the extra work you put in here, I think we can take a few cuttings. It doesn’t hurt the bushes any. I’ll need some water to put them in.”
“There’s a cup in the car. Let’s go see Miss Hanna Beth out, and grab the cup.” He used his foot to nudge Ouita Mae’s walker toward the front door.
I reached out and caught her arm. “No.”
“Well, heaven’s sake.” She looked down at me and smiled. “You’d think a birthday girl headed home for a visit would be in more of a hurry than that. Now, don’t you let us slow you down. I need to get these plants in some water, anyhow.” She turned to her grandson with a purposeful look. “I’ll walk Hanna Beth out and wait on the bench.”
Dr. Barnhill nodded indulgently. “I’m not sure why I bother to make plans… .”
“Oh, hush up, now,” Ouita Mae chided. “I can still turn you over my knee, young man.”
Dr. Barnhill shook his head.
“Better get on, Hanna Beth,” Ouita Mae urged. “You don’t want to spend your birthday sitting here.”
“Wwwait!” I said, but Ouita Mae just shrugged helplessly and turned her walker from the table. “Come on, sweetie. You’ve got a big day ahead of you.” She glanced at Rebecca and smiled as Rebecca took my wheelchair handles and pulled me back.
I looked down the hall, checking for Claude. “Wwwait,” I said again.
“We’d better get going, Hanna Beth,” Rebecca protested gently.
“We gone home, Mama!” Teddy cheered.
Suddenly desperate, I pitched forward, grabbed Ouita Mae’s walker with one hand. I expected the wheelchair belt to stop me, but the buckle snapped open, and I was tumbling toward the floor. Flailing my free arm, I caught a chair. It buckled under my weight and hit the tiles with a resounding clang.
“Hanna Beth!” Rebecca jumped forward to grab me.
“Mama, no!” Teddy joined her, the two of them holding me suspended, my legs tangled in the footrests, my hand clutching Ouita Mae’s walker. The moment seemed to stretch out forever. I imagined myself falling, breaking a hip, a leg.
“We’ve got you.” Rebecca was breathless. “Let go. We’ve got you.”
I held on, my heart pounding, my pulse racing, a fine sweat breaking over my skin. You’ll ruin your makeup. The thought seemed comical, considering. In the slice of open air between Teddy and Rebecca, I could see Claude coming up the hall. Catching sight of the commotion, he sped up, pulling his chair across the floor in double time.
Hurry, I thought as someone’s hand closed over mine, loosening my grip on the walker. After this display, they’d probably revoke my furlough and tie me to a bed.
“Mama, leg-go,” Teddy pleaded.
“Hanna Beth …” Rebecca’s arms were around my middle, trying to lift me back into the wheelchair.
“Everyone hold on a minute,” I heard Dr. Barnhill right behind my ear. His arms encircled me. “All right, Hanna Beth. I’m going to lift you back into the chair now. It’s all right. Just let go of the walker.”
I held on, but my hand was sweaty. Someone was prying my fingers, pulling me loose inch by inch.
“What in tarnation?” I heard Claude say just as my grip failed, sending all of us stumbling backward. Teddy caught Rebecca, and Dr. Barnhill ended up sprawled over my chair and me.
“Good gravy!” Ouita Mae gasped, bumping her walker into Claude’s chair. “What in the name a Pete?” She turned around and gave Claude an irritated look for being in the way.
Claude apologized and started backing up.
Dr. Barnhill buckled me into my seat again. “No more sudden maneuvers, young lady,” he ordered, then brushed the hair out of his face as he turned to Rebecca. “Looks like we’d better get this birthday girl to the car before she tries a handspring.”
Catching her breath, Rebecca moved behind my chair to take the handles, but Teddy was quicker, since he never missed the chance to operate anything with wheels. “I gone push Mama.” Laying claim to the handles and me, he maneuvered around the fallen chair.
“Ate!” The word was out of my mouth before I had time to form it clearly. “Wwwait! Wwwait!”
“Hanna Beth, what in the world has got into you?” Ouita Mae gave me a frown of complete consternation. “You’re finally goin’ to your house, darlin’. It’s all right.”
“Sssee Cl-ud!” I slapped the table, then swirled my hand in the air, trying to bring Claude closer. It was now or never. No telling when, or if, I’d ever have the two of them in one place again. “Ubbb-book. ” I pounded the tabletop again. “Yer ubbb-book.”
Rubbing his stubbly gray chin, Claude flushed, suddenly bashful of all things. “I don’t think anyone wants to see my book right this minute, Birdie. You go on, now. You have a big birthday.”
“Ubbb-book!”
“Now, Birdie …”
“Ubbb-book!” My voice reverberated around the room, so that everyone froze. “Hhh-here.”
Claude drew back like he thought I might slap him. “Well-well-well, all right.” He pedaled forward a few steps and set the book on the table.
“Ummm-ulll,” I tried, but my heart was beating fast, my mind racing. I couldn’t think clearly, couldn’t piece the words together. Below the picture of the mules was the one of the boy on the yellow horse. I slid my hand to the book, pushed open the cover, nodded over my shoulder at Ouita Mae. “Ulll-look, Www-eeda. See?” Teddy, now interested in the pictures, leaned over to help me turn the pages. The photos in front were the most recent—his house, various cars, vacations, his wife, a picnic with neighborhood kids, Claude standing in his vegetable garden, proudly holding a bushel basket of freshly picked corn.
“Yup, that’s a real nice book,” Ouita Mae said obligingly. “I bet a lot of the folks here would enjoy lookin’ at it, Hanna Beth, but you better get on to your birthday.”
“Ulll-look … look,” I insisted, the words coming more easily now.
“All right, hon.” Ouita Mae sighed. She passed a glance at Claude, and he shrugged as if he were apologizing for taking up her time.
I couldn’t find the picture of the white mules. Perhaps this was the wrong book. Perhaps he had more than one. “Ummm-ools … mmmm-ools.” Please, God, if you never give me another grand accomplishment in my life, let me have this little one. Let me help them understand, then go home and have my birthday. And take care of Teddy. That’s all I ask. Just three things. “Mmm …ools.”
“Oh, them old mules?” Claude laughed, the realization finally striking him. “You want me to show that picture of the mules?”
“Yes!” I gasped. Finally.
“It’s back here.” Claude flipped to the end of the book. “Some of them last pictures fell out the other day, and I hadn’t gone after any tape to put ’em back. Can’t filch tape off the bulletin board.” He winked at me.
Squinting through her bifocals, Ouita Mae leaned closer to the book, showing some interest. Overhead, everyone else did too. “She knows my daddy raised horses,” Ouita Mae said, trying to put some method to my madness about Claude’s book and the pictures.
“Oh,” Rebecca mur
mured, moving around the table. Pressing her hands against her thighs, she said, “Hanna Beth, we really need get out of everyone’s way.” She was trying her best to be patient, but I could tell she was frustrated with the delays. As usual, she looked like she hadn’t slept a wink all night and had been rushing all day. She probably thought I wasn’t the least bit grateful for the birthday plans she’d made.
“Yes,” I said, and held up a finger. One more moment. Just one. Claude was pulling out the picture of the white mules from beneath the endpaper in the back of the book. The picture was loose, no longer taped to the page with the yellow horse.
“Here’s them old mules,” Claude said. “My daddy won many a contest with them two. Funny thing was, one was blind, and one was deaf….”
Claude prattled on about the mules, and Ouita Mae turned the picture around, then traced the edge with her finger.
“I think one of your pictures has fallen, old rooster.” Ifeoma was suddenly above us. “I have discovered it in the corridor, just now.” On the table, she laid the faded sepia photo of the smiling young cowboy on the tall yellow horse.
Ouita Mae touched the face of the boy, blinked hard. Nudging her glasses higher onto her nose, she stared deep into the image.
Claude went on with his story. “Darned near kilt my daddy to have to sell that team. He couldn’t even do it hisself. He sent me off to the auction sale with ’em. Said he didn’t want to know where they went, nor what happened after. My sister was down with polio, and he knew them mules would bring the money we needed, and that was that. I never did know what become of the mules, but many was the time I thought about the day of that auction sale. It’s funny how there’s whole parts of your life you don’t remember, and then there’ll be a day where every moment’s as clear as if you’d just lived it.”
A tear traced the creases of Ouita Mae’s cheek, trickled downward, like the beginnings of a river coming to life again after a long dry season. “I think we’ve met before,” she whispered, turning from the picture to Claude, from the boy to the man. “I think we met a long, long time ago. Do you remember a girl riding a brown and white paint horse? You gave her a first kiss out behind the barn.”
Claude looked up, took in her expression, blinked in confusion, in surprise and disbelief.
“The girl didn’t tell another soul about that kiss,” she whispered. “Except the white mules who lived on the lane by her school. She often fed them carrots, so they wouldn’t reveal her secret.”
Claude’s eyes widened, grew moist. His lips parted, trembled upward, and all at once, I knew he saw the girl from long ago.
I patted Teddy’s hand and motioned for him to move me back from the table. Neither Claude nor Ouita Mae seemed to notice as we slipped away with Dr. Barnhill, leaving them alone to finish the story that had been interrupted so many years ago. They didn’t need me any longer, and besides, I was on my way home.
CHAPTER 27
Rebecca Macklin
I was determined that no matter what happened afterward, we would give Hanna Beth a perfect birthday. She would be home with my father and Teddy, and for the first time in a long while the house on Blue Sky Hill would be filled with family. Even if this was the last good day, the only good day before the world caved in around us, I wanted our family to have that much.
Perhaps throwing it all together—readying the garden, picking up a cake, contacting Dr. Barnhill about taking Hanna Beth home for her birthday, stopping by the little white church to invite Pastor Al and any other friends or neighbors Hanna Beth might have been close to—were only desperate distractions. The idea of celebrating Hanna Beth’s birthday was a tiny bright spot amid the cloud of looming reality. Planning the party felt like something manageable. Something I could do, other than wait for Kyle and Macey to arrive, wait for someone from the constable’s office to show up and throw us out of the house, wait for my mind to cycle repeatedly through the unavoidable questions. Hanna Beth? The house? Teddy? My father? Kyle? Susan Sewell? The bank accounts? Kenita Kendal? Pregnancy?
None of it seemed real. Hanna Beth’s party was real, a tangible accomplishment. Her expression when we told her she was going home for the day made all the effort worthwhile. Her smile was one of pure elation. As we put her in the car and drove through the city streets, she thanked me over and over, then turned her attention to noting familiar landmarks and pointing out antique roses growing in front of various houses and businesses, which, apparently, Teddy had rooted from cuttings and given away over the years.
“So goo-duh, so good!” Hanna Beth reached across the seat and held my hand, squeezed hard. “So happy birrr-day my howt.”
I laughed. “You may change your mind before we actually get there. I have a few stops to make—dry cleaners, post office, grocery store for milk.” In the backseat, Teddy started to say we had plenty of milk, but I quickly shushed him. “It’s okay, Teddy. Your mom knows it might take a little while for us to get home.” I shot him a pointed look in the rearview mirror, and his mouth dropped open in a silent O as he remembered the top-secret birthday plan, which included stalling Hanna Beth’s arrival until a call from the house informed us that all the partygoers were in place.
Folding her hands patiently in her lap, Hanna Beth sat gazing out the window, occasionally noting flowering plants, or snorting at new condominium construction, and commenting on old buildings being converted into luxurious loft apartments.
“The neighborhood’s really changing,” I commented, then was immediately sorry I’d brought it up. My stomach clenched at this reminder of the eviction notice. I imagined our house on Blue Sky Hill being torn down, the old-growth trees and antique roses plowed under to make room for cookie-cutter condos or zero-lot-line mini-mansions. The idea was sickening. There had to be a way to prevent my father and Hanna Beth from being robbed of their home.
Kyle would figure out something. I might question his commitment as a husband and father, but I had no doubt about his skills as a lawyer. If a loophole existed in a real estate deal, Kyle could dig it up. He knew exactly where to look. He would find a way.
Would we? Was there a way for us?
I pictured Macey watching our belongings being divided, just as I had all those years ago. I imagined that kind of pain inside her, imagined it living within her like a damaged organ undergoing a slow bleed for the rest of her life. I would do almost anything to prevent that. To save her, to save this new baby. Our son. Our daughter.
Ours. In my heart, I knew I wanted to raise this baby with Kyle. I wanted the two of us to come together, to be the way we were when Macey was young. Back then it was us against the world, working together to start a business, to buy a house, to begin a family, to build a life. Seventeen years later, there was so much history between us, so many memories. How could we let it go?
Would I stay with a man who’d been unfaithful to me? If he admitted it, would I stay with him?
If he denied it, would I trust him?
Things aren’t always what they seem. I looked at Hanna Beth, next to me in the seat. She isn’t what you thought she was. You could have discovered that long ago. You could have had years with her, with Dad, with Teddy, but you chose to believe the worst. You chose to be angry. You chose not to forgive. You chose the pain.
The phone rang, vibrating against the console. The noise took a moment to register.
“Phone, phone, phone!” Teddy cheered, leaning into the space between the seats.
I flipped open the phone and answered. Macey was on the other end. “Mom, we’re here.” Her greeting echoed through the earpiece, then she lowered her voice. “We, like, went right to the backyard, the way you said. This place is totally awesome. I like the little greenhouse thing. Mary said I could go in it, so I’m here with the plants right now. Everybody else is ready on the patio, and Mary just went inside to wake up Grandpa Parker. She said he probably won’t come out here for the party, though. He’s, like, afraid of the backyard?”
“We’l
l see how that goes,” I answered.
The plan was to give my father and Hanna Beth a moment to reunite in the privacy of the living room first, then see if he would go into the yard with her. So far, even with the new medication, he never ventured beyond the house and the garage, but he’d awakened particularly clearheaded and happy today. When I showed him the calendar and told him it was Hanna Beth’s birthday, he smiled at me and said, “Of course it is. You didn’t know?” He’d helped with the preparations by blowing up balloons, his hands shaking as he went through the painstaking process of tying each one, then giving them to Brandon and Brady, so they could dash out and decorate the patio furniture.
I wondered if he would enjoy Macey’s company as much as he relished the companionship of Mary’s boys. It would be nice for her to have another grandfather, one who had hours and hours to sit and tie balloons, play marbles on the floor, engage in domino games, or figure out how to put broken tires back on toy cars. Macey would enjoy that unqualified attention.
“So, how long until you get here?” Macey asked. I heard the greenhouse windows squeal as she cranked them open. “I can’t wait to see the inside of the house. This place is so cool. Who grows all these plants and stuff?”
“I’ll talk to you all about that in a little while,” I answered, deliberately vague because, beside me, Hanna Beth had tuned into my end of the conversation.
“ ’Kay.” Macey paused. “Some more people just came. A dude in a preacher suit and a lady.”
“Thanks for the update, Mace, I’d better go now.” I hoped Hanna Beth couldn’t hear Macey chattering on.
“Oh, sorry,” Macey whispered.
“Love you,” I said, as if she weren’t just a few blocks away. It was hard to believe she was so close, and in just a few moments I’d have her in my arms.
“Love you, too, Mom. Hurry, okay?”
“I will.”
