Love Has The Best Intentions

by Christine Arness

  “Adam, that that you? Remember, you’ve a court appearance at ten this morning—oh, Adam, your car! How dreadful!”

  The woman who approached was apparently also a lawyer. A calfskin briefcase swung at her side and the severely tailored black suit did nothing to detract from her ash blond femininity. Slipping a comforting hand through her colleague’s rigid arm, she turned a laser-blue gaze on Katie.

  “What happened here? Are you hurt, Adam?”

  “She destroyed my car, Michelle! My baby’s ruined. She’ll never be the same. This woman ran right through a stop sign and plowed into me!”

  “Adam, what a terrible tragedy! I can empathize—I know the pain you’re experiencing. I’d be just as devastated if a vandal destroyed one of my Persian rugs.”

  He scowled, as if resenting any comparison between his car and a carpet.

  Katie felt very tired. Adam and Michelle deserved each other. She hoped they would get married and buy a Great Dane which refused to be housebroken around Michelle’s Persian rugs and chewed the upholstery in Adam’s next car.

  Since Adam seemed wrapped up in his own personal torment, Katie offered Michelle an explanation. “As I told Adam before, I’m insured and it was truly an accident. My brakes failed. I’m very sorry.”

  Michelle paid as much attention as if a slimy bug had crawled out of a crack in the sidewalk and attempted to address her. After a haughty glance in Katie’s general direction, Michelle patted Adam on the shoulder in an attempt to offer comfort.

  Adam, however, was still obsessed with his grievance. “Don’t ever wave at me again!” he snapped petulantly and turned his back on Katie.

  “Wave?” Michelle arched perfectly plucked brows. “You know each other?”

  Her assessing glance swept over Katie’s buttercup yellow sun dress, so bright and cheery an hour early, now smudged with dust from leaning on the car, the puffed and bloodied lip she’d seen in her rearview mirror.

  Michelle smiled.

  The contemptuous smile hurt Katie more than the sting of her cut mouth. To keep the tears from spilling over, she turned to survey the damage to her Mustang. The front of her car was badly crumpled and the jagged metal had also cut and collapsed a tire. The effect was that of a dignified matron with a bloody nose.

  She wished fervently that the police would arrive and issue her a ticket—or arrest her. Jail would be better than being imprisoned here in the street with Adam and Michelle.

  “Katie?”

  The familiar voice sent her spinning around, searching for a friendly face in a haze of hostility. “Matthew! I’m so glad to see you!”

  Puzzled by the warmth of her greeting, the man thus addressed sent a quick glance over his shoulder, as if to check whether another Matthew had wandered into the vicinity.

  Katie’s relief was genuine, although their acquaintance was limited to a lunch date several weeks ago. Matthew had installed the new computer system in Katie’s office. She’d enjoyed the conversation, but the memory of a gleaming smile, wavy chestnut hair and a baby blue Camero had kept her from accepting a second date.

  Now the concern in his voice as he asked if she was all right sent the tears she’d been too proud to shed coursing down her cheeks. “My brakes didn’t work—I turned his vintage car into a bull dog—he keeps going on and on about the damage until I could scream! I apologized, Matthew, but he yelled at me.” She gulped. “And she smiled ...”

  Within minutes, Matthew had Katie seated inside his truck while he procured a plastic bag filled with crushed ice from a neighboring residence for her swollen lip.

  When a policeman finally appeared, Matthew explained about the brake failure and insisted that Katie be interviewed as briefly as possible. A sullen Adam watched his bruised vintage baby hauled away by a tow truck before climbing into Michelle’s BMW.

  Matthew opened the door. “I’m afraid your car isn’t drivable, Katie, so I called the garage down the street for a tow truck. I’m going to run you over to the ER for a check-up and stitches in that lip. I don’t like the way it’s bleeding.”

  “I’m not too crazy about it myself,” Katie quipped feebly behind the makeshift ice bag. “But don’t you have to be somewhere on a job?”

  Matthew’s gentle smile widened and he winked. “I’ll call in that I have an emergency. Can’t abandon a lady in distress, can I?”

  As he went around to the driver’s side and climbed up behind the wheel, Katie studied him out of the corner of her eye. Why had she decided this friendship wouldn’t be worth developing? Because Matthew wore khaki work pants instead of a three piece suit? Carried a tool box instead of a briefcase? Went to night school instead of joining the country club?

  Just because his features weren’t poster perfect didn’t mean he wouldn’t be perfect for Katie O’Brien. After the trauma of the morning, Katie was ready to discard her silly, insubstantial fantasies about a knight in shining armor for a man who could chase away the real life dragons that lurked around every corner.

  As Matthew turned the key in the ignition, Katie reached over and patted his hand.

  He glanced at her. “Feel all right, Katie?”

  “I’m glad you rode your white charger today, Matt.”

  “Charger? This is a Chevy truck—not a Dodge Charger. Are you sure you’re not concussed?”

  Katie leaned her throbbing head back and sighed contentedly. “I may not be an automotive expert, Matt, but I do know my knights.”

  THE END

  At Home to Roost

  “Linen napkins?” Pulling on his sweater, Peter gave his wife a puzzled look.

  “I want everything to be just perfect,” Rosemary said, folding the last one and smoothing the tablecloth.

  Peter chuckled. “We never used cloth napkins at breakfast when the girls lived at home.”

  “This Easter is the first holiday everyone is able to be with us,” Rosemary reminded him. “We’re going to show all the family in-laws that gracious living is possible away from the city.”

  Buttoning his jacket, Peter kissed her on the cheek and headed out to do chores. As she bustled around the kitchen, Rosemary thought back ...

  She and Peter had been blessed with three daughters. The girls had loved farm life, each participating in 4-H and showing livestock.

  Both had fallen in love while away at college, Dorrie with an aspiring physician, Karla with a software developer and Alyson with an accountant. Naturally, Rosemary and Peter had hoped that at least one child would marry a man who’d be willing to take over the farm eventually. That wish hadn’t been fulfilled, however, they both knew their daughters’ happiness came first.

  Now, the girls and their families lived in different cities, and opportunities for reunions were few and far between. Their husbands were always cordial, but Rosemary didn’t know them well enough to be truly comfortable in their company.

  Everybody had arrived last night. This morning, Rosemary was determined to overwhelm them with country-style hospitality. There’d be omelets for the adults, and French toast strips and maple syrup for the three little ones. A succulent ham awaited its turn in the oven for the noon meal.

  Peter strode in from chores, ice glittering on his shoulders. “Getting slick out—it’s still sleeting.”

  “How are the new chicks?” Rosemary asked, feeling a twinge of concern.

  “All fifty are still alive and peeping. They’ll be okay ... if the power stays on.”

  Hurrying to finish breakfast preparations while Peter cleaned up, Rosemary scowled at the gloomy sky outside.

  Dorrie strolled into the kitchen with her husband and two children. Alyson and her husband and Karla and Matt and the baby soon came downstairs to join them. Rosemary scurried around her warm, wonderful smelling kitchen, so happy to have the girls home yet still unsure what to say to her sons-in-law. None of them had a country background and she felt awkward in attempting to initiate any conversation.

  She was adding bacon to the omelet mixture wh
en the lights flickered and went out.

  Rosemary tried her best to smile. “Ice on the lines,” she said. Turning to her daughters, she advised. “You better put sweaters on the kids.”

  Alyson jumped up. “I’ll get the wood stove started. Everything will be fine.”

  Shaking her head, Rosemary thought about the newly hatched babies in the chicken house. Without the heat lamps on, they’d quickly freeze to death.

  Peter appeared, reached for his coat ... and hesitated. Rosemary realized her husband wasn’t going to suggest the only method of saving the chicks. He knew how much the reunion and all her careful planning meant to her.

  Then she recalled the wisdom her mother had shared on their wedding day, advice that had come in handy more than once during nearly thirty years of marriage: “Remember, dear, you’re not only marrying a farmer, you’re also marrying the land and the livestock. Always think of it as a package deal.”

  Rosemary nodded to Peter, and then grinned at the grandchildren. “Guess what?” she announced. “We’re having ‘company’ for breakfast!”

  The omelets ended up as a big casserole cooked on top of the wood stove. The grandchildren helped their mothers toast bread in the family room fireplace.

  That adventure, however, was nothing compared with the excitement of watching fifty peeping yellow balls of fluff peck at feed in a makeshift pen in the kitchen!

  Warm and well fed, the curious chicks were soon hopping over improvised barriers to make a break for freedom. The grandchildren shrieked in glee with each attempted escape. Even Rosemary chuckled when Alyson’s husband sprawled on his belly to recapture a fugitive behind the refrigerator.

  When the power had been finally restored, and order along with it, the ice had been completely broken ... both outside the sprawling farmhouse and within. Easter dinner—a little later than planned—was accompanied by happy chatter and lots of laughter.

  Afterward, as Rosemary surveyed the newly scrubbed kitchen floor, Peter put a hand on her shoulder. “Satisfied, honey? I know things didn’t turn out quite like you planned.”

  She leaned against her husband and sighed. “Mother used to say that children, like chickens, always come home to roost. But, next Easter, let’s hope only chocolate bunnies provide the excitement!”

  THE END

  Harvest Gold

  Theresa zipped up Megan’s jacket and planted a kiss on the furrowed brow of her youngest child. “No more frowns! Tomorrow’s Saturday and you can help Daddy all day. Hurry, sweetie, or you’ll miss the bus.”

  Jerry and Amy trooped into the kitchen and picked up their lunches. At the door, they turned to give her an appealing look, both barrels.

  Although her heart ached for them, Theresa shook her head. “I know you love harvest season, but you’ve got to go to school.”

  Through the window, she watched them walk to the gate in their new clothes. No hand-me-downs left to pass from Amy to Megan. New shoes, new jackets. Glancing around the room, she felt again an unpleasant tingle of shock at its unfamiliarity.

  Theresa was loading the dishwasher when Bruce strode in. She smiled at her husband. “How goes the harvest?”

  “Great! Gorgeous fall day, hon. Make sure you spend some time outside enjoying that high blue sky.”

  After washing his hands, he poured himself a cup of coffee. “All that water pressure still makes me jump—I’m not used to living in such luxury.” Looking around, he took a sip. ‘You must be in seventh heaven. All the stove burners work, the refrigerator spits out ice at the touch of a button—”

  Theresa felt a surge of irritation at her husband’s blindness. “But this morning I mixed up our pancakes in a stainless steel bowl instead of using Grandmother Evelyn’s spatterware. I’m surrounded by things bought from a store, objects without history. He could God do this to us?”

  Bruce’s wind-reddened face creased in concern. “Honey, we agreed that the most important thing is that we all survived unhurt. We should be thankful, not angry.”

  “Alive, but without a past.” Theresa added soap and slammed the dishwasher door. “Family photo albums from three generations, Grandpa’s love letters to Grandmother while he was in Europe during the war—all ashes!”

  “We’re alive,” Bruce repeated and gave her a patient smile. “What if the fire had started while we were asleep in our beds instead of safe at church? I know your grandmother’s things meant the world to you, but she’d be the first to say that they weigh pretty light on the scale compared to Jerry, Amy, and Megan. The kids need us to be strong, Tee. Remember, they’re going through a difficult time, too.”

  Long after Bruce had gone back out to the fields, Theresa sat and brooded. Although thankful that they’d been protected from physical harm, she still felt an aching sense of loss. The oak harvester table would seem like an alien in this spanking new kitchen, but she missed its beautiful wood grain. Bruce didn’t understand the importance of heirlooms or how much she had cherished the tangible evidence of the unbroken cords which created a family.

  Gathering laundry in their bedroom, Theresa kept her eyes averted from the space where her grandmother’s quilt rack should be standing. Grandmother had designed the “Golden Harvest” pattern quilt featuring delicate sprays of wheat on a cream and blue background for Theresa’s wedding.

  Her heart a stone in her breast. Theresa lugged a basket filled with wet towels out to the clothesline strung in the back yard. The scarred wooden poles had somehow escaped the fiery holocaust which had consumed both the house and her past. As she worked, Theresa tried to count her blessings but her thoughts kept straying to her losses.

  As the towels danced, she recalled her grandmother’s wedding toast. “You name means ‘reaper’, Theresa. God’s blessed you with a family that has truly sown the seeds of love. Now you and your children will reap the benefits. Always treasure the fruits of the harvest.”

  But that harvest was gone, reduced to charred timbers and soot. After her parents’ death in an automobile accident, Theresa had gone to live with her grandparents, with Evelyn serving as both mother and grandmother. Tears gathered in Theresa’s eyes as she touched the only heirloom left to pass on to her own children, Evelyn’s wedding ring. The band seemed almost paper thin and too large for her finger, but she treasured this last remaining link to her beloved grandmother.

  Caught up in her unhappy reflections, Theresa reached down for another towel, only to discover that the basket was empty. Stretching, she looked around and decided Bruce was right—the day was too beautiful to be spent indoors. She wandered out to this barnyard where a wagonload of soybeans sat untended and suddenly remembered being a little girl on her grandfather’s farm.

  Impulse quickly turned into action and soon she sat perched on a shifting pile of beans. Running her fingers through them, she recalled a childish fantasy that the beans were jewels.

  “I’m a princess,” Theresa said aloud. “I’m very, very rich. I live in a castle and can buy anything I want!”

  But the glow of pleasure faded almost instantly. A barnful of gold coins couldn’t buy back her grandmother’s dishes or the lovingly stitched Golden Harvest quilt. No amount of riches could bring her parents and grandparents back to life.

  In a silent cry, she asked, God, how could you do this to me?

  Wiping away a tear, Theresa froze, staring at her hand. The ring was gone!

  She knew the precious band must have slid from her finger while she sifted through the beans. Whispering frantic prayers for assistance, Theresa scrabbled through the soybeans, although she knew her quest was as hopeless as searching for a needle in the proverbial haystack. As if mocking her anxiety, the beans slipped merrily through her clawing fingers.

  Weeping, she gave up. “Grandma!” she cried aloud. “I’ve failed you! Everything’s lost. If you were here, you’d say—”

  Theresa stopped in mid-sob, realizing exactly what her grandmother would say to such blatant self-pity. “Bosh and nonsense, Theresa!
You’ve got a loving husband, three healthy children, and a new house filled with fancy appliances and you’re bawling like a baby?”

  “But a house isn’t a home, Grandma,” she whispered. “You were the one who taught me that money can’t buy happiness.”

  Eyes closed, Theresa tried to imagine what her grandma would say to that. Probably something along the lines of “Making a house into a home is your job, Theresa. Doesn’t the Good Book say that before the reaper, comes the sower? You’ve got fertile ground, child. Start sowing!”

  Someone, Theresa realized, needed to plant the happy memory seeds. With careful nurturing, love would sprout and grow strong enough to withstand life’s droughts and storms. She sat stunned, glimpsing for the first time the glory of her grandmother’s true legacy, a gift which could never be lost, stolen, or destroyed.

  She scrambled out of the wagon and ran toward the house, her heart soaring like a kite riding the wind. No more tears of self-pity. She’d fix a special supper and tonight they’d have an hour of family storytelling before bedtime. Plans for a new quilt were forming in her head. She’d call it “Loving Harvest” and make one for each of her children.

  Theresa paused to pat a passing barn cat. “Every tradition,” she told it excitedly, “has to start somewhere!”

  THE END

  Case in Point

  The woman’s head was bent, a silken shower of hair concealing her features. Only the rigid set of the jaw was visible, a hint of pale lips pressed together. The fingers of her right hand nervously twisted an engagement ring, as though to wrench the sparkling stone from its setting.

  I smothered a growing feeling of discouragement. The woman seated across the desk had retreated behind an aloof curtain of privacy, shutting out the unpleasantness of our meeting with the effectiveness of a soundproof wall.