“It’s still there.”
“Not because of the festiveness or the way the house glowed. Not because of those divine aromas—pine and brown sugar and ginger and pumpkin. But because of the people—some of the very people I least expected to care, I’m ashamed to say. Do you know that Mrs. Witherspoon volunteered to direct the Ladies Aid Society in sewing layettes for the newborns?”
“None were born during the fund-raising parties, were they?”
Anna’s smile widened. “Only one. Dr. Noel spent the latter part of the evening upstairs with Lydia and a laboring mother. We fully anticipated a long labor for that wisp of a girl. The celebrating carried on. As was our custom . . .” Her voice quavered.
Ivy waited, feeling in her own body empathetic twinges.
“As was our custom, Josiah concluded the evening with the reading of the Christmas story, including Isaiah, chapter nine.” She leaned closer. “Can you imagine the thrill that rolled through the parlor when he read, ‘For unto us a child is born,’ and a baby’s first cry pierced the night?”
“Oh, Anna!”
“Half the crowd dropped their teeth and the other half burst into applause.”
Ivy sobered. Who would applaud when her child was born? She alone. And the woman with more stories than time. “Was it a boy or a girl?”
“A darling, red-haired, red-faced boy. The mother named him after Dr. Noel.”
23
Becky—2013
Becky set her purse on the boot mat inside Monica’s back door. “If asked how I thought the New Year would begin, I can’t imagine it would have occurred to me to answer, ‘Working a mercy job.’ ”
Monica stopped sliding her laptop into the glove-leather shoulder bag lying on her granite countertop. “It’s not a mercy job. I really do need help.”
Friend of mine, you need a little practice in authenticity. “And I really do appreciate it.”
“How did the house showing go?”
Becky draped her coat over the back of a bar stool. “They weren’t interested.”
“That’s too bad.”
“I’m okay with it.”
“Really?”
“Lauren was still on Christmas break then.”
“Brianne, too.”
“Oh. Right. So, we weren’t sure when would be the best time to talk to her about the whole idea of selling our house and moving to the duplex.”
Monica zipped her shoulder bag closed. “You haven’t told her?”
“We did. Right after the realtor called and said he wanted to bring someone over. Are you familiar with the term hissy fit?”
“Seen a few.” Monica smiled. “Thrown a few. Lauren wasn’t happy about it?”
“When the realtor called back to confirm a time, he could hear her in the background. He offered to try to set up a different day.”
“How kind of him.”
“Christmas week? Really? I don’t know how he could have imagined that was a good idea. But desperate times call for—” Would conversation ever be devoid of dangerous topics, pain-inducing catch phrases?
Monica shrugged into her coat and tucked a too-stylish-to-be-warm scarf around her neck. “Is Lauren more comfortable with the idea now?”
“She’s gone from hostile to mildly irritated that she wasn’t brought in on the initial discussions, since it’s ‘her life’ and all. Not her money, but her life. I can’t blame her, I guess. She was so close to expressing gratitude that we’d be willing to do something like that to help give Jackson and her a head start, but then . . . ”
“Then what?”
Becky sighed, well practiced at it. “Then she heard that the duplex doesn’t have a built-in dishwasher and . . .”
With her hands gripping the ends of her scarf, Monica said, “I don’t think God intended life to be this complicated.”
“Agreed. Well, I’d better get busy and you’d better get moving.”
“Everything on the list make sense?”
Becky scanned the spreadsheet of cleaning chores that her best friend had created for her. “Makes sense.”
“So what do you think? Four hours? That’s about all I can afford to pay, and about how long I’ll be at the women’s shelter annual meeting.” Monica hiked the strap of the shoulder bag higher. “With Brianne back at school, you can feel free to . . . um . . . use the sound system if you want music. There’s bottled water in the fridge. Leftover quiche.”
“I brought a sandwich.” Becky rattled the lunch bag in her hand as if to prove the point.
“Is Gil watching Jackson?”
Yes. Instead of job hunting. “He has me on speed dial for emergencies, like losing the pacifier.” Bad example! Becky, can you never say anything right to this woman with whom conversation used to flow like a chocolate fountain?
Monica laughed more loudly than the situation called for. “Well, there’s a cure for that.” Monica’s face blistered.
Awkward. Their debates about the merits of pacifiers and Brianne’s history of finding a “cure” for an unwanted baby fogged the air between them.
“So, have a great meeting, Monica. Don’t worry about anything here. If I can’t get it done in the four hours, I’ll make a note on the spreadsheet.”
“Great. That’s . . . thank you. See you in a bit.”
Becky took a deep breath the moment the door closed behind her friend. Awkward, awkward, awkward.
What was there to clean? She had a list, but from all appearances the kitchen, at least, was photo-worthy. Nothing out of place. Not so much as a water spot on the faucet or a dot of burned-on mac and cheese on the stovetop. She tucked her lunch bag onto one of the sparkling clean refrigerator shelves and turned back to the room and the list.
Arms extended, she leaned over the granite-topped island and laid her cheek against its cool, impossibly smooth surface, not out of island-envy or granite-envy, but with the exhaustion that comes from holding it together when everyone around her was falling apart. She stood like that—bent at the waist with her cheek pressed into the granite—until her neck protested.
Upright, and with the stark winter sun flooding the kitchen as if it owned the place, Becky noticed the smudge her cheek had left on the stone surface.
Finally. Something to clean.
Having more than two bathrooms had a downside, apparently. They all needed cleaning.
Had Monica mentioned that each of the five bedrooms had its own bath, plus the powder room by the front entrance and the half bath in the finished basement? Becky couldn’t remember hearing Monica complain about an excess of toilets and tubs. But she wondered now how her friend had managed to get anything else done before hiring a scullery maid.
With four second-floor bathrooms sparkling and one to go, Becky hauled her bucket of cleaning supplies to the door at the end of the hallway and bumped it open farther with her hip.
A caterpillar of discomfort crawled up the back of her neck, every hair disturbed by the action. Something wasn’t right. Her stomach clenched. It was odd enough being alone in her friend’s house, moving possessions that weren’t her own, rearranging microscopic dust molecules and praying she was putting the magazines back exactly as Monica had artfully splayed them on the coffee table.
She wasn’t about to use the sound system, as Monica suggested. She touched only what she had to in order to do her job. But here, in Brianne’s room, something made her want to go digging. Trouble had an odor. Acrid. Sulphurus. She smelled it now.
Becky hadn’t been quiet while scrubbing, flushing, and vacuuming. Any intruder—hiding—would know she was there. The thought did not bring even a dust bunny of comfort. Someone knew. Waited. Lurked. Hidden.
If she were going to make a career out of cleaning houses, she’d have to conquer the squirmies. Ridiculous.
She steadied herself and made each footstep solid, WonderWoman-like, as she moved deeper into the sunlit room. She swung her bucket of supplies and contemplated whistling, but couldn’t think of a wh
istleable song.
A wave of outright envy replaced the silly ruffling she’d felt. Brianne’s room didn’t need vacuuming. Not even a gum wrapper or fleck of potato chip on the floor, much less the Lauren piles Becky was used to. Nothing on the floor.
Except Brianne.
On the window side of the bed, Becky found Brianne sitting on the floor, her back against the eyelet dust-ruffled bed, her bare feet straight out in front of her, eyes locked on emptiness.
“Hey, Brianne. You scared me. I thought . . . your mom thought . . . we thought you were at school.”
No answer. But the girl drew her thin arms around herself.
Becky slid to the floor beside her and assumed the same position, back against the bed, feet in front of her. “Not feeling well today?”
Nothing.
Kids playing hooky didn’t scare Becky. But the utterly blank look on Brianne’s face did.
“Hon, I know things have been rough lately.” Lord God, if You ever had words to spare, I could use some! She waited.
Brianne’s toes must have been cold. They were almost blue.
“Do you want me to call your mom?” I’d like to call mine.
Becky rubbed her hands on the knees of her jeans. “I’m here if you want to talk. Even if you don’t. I’m . . . here.”
Several moments passed, each more awkward than the previous.
“Look, Brianne, why don’t we go down to the kitchen and make some tea. Do you drink tea? We can talk down there. I’m getting too old to sit on the floor for too long.”
Brianne’s arms fell limp into her lap. Her left fist unclenched, releasing what she’d been holding—an orange plastic bottle with a white childproof cap.
Becky grabbed for it. Empty. “Oh, Brianne!”
By the time she’d called both Monica and Gil, the paramedics were flying up the stairs. Becky shook and paced as they checked the girl’s too-faint vitals and tried to stabilize her enough to get her loaded onto the collapsible gurney.
“I made her throw up,” she coughed out. “But I don’t know if that was the right thing to do. It’s all here in the bucket.” She pointed to the repurposed cleaning bucket with a pool of stomach contents and partially dissolved pills. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. And I just sat there with her when I found her. Probably five minutes. I should have called right away when I saw her sitting on the floor that way. I just never thought . . . I didn’t think . . . ”
“Mrs. Trundle, it’s going to be okay. We need all of our people working on Brianne right now. Why don’t you give her mom another call and tell her we’ll be transporting Brianne to Memorial.”
“I think she knows that. It’s the closest hospital.” She circled the huddle of paramedics.
The female paramedic nearest her laid a hand on Becky’s forearm and gave a comforting squeeze. “Just call to confirm, okay?”
“Okay.”
Memorial Hospital. Where Lauren and Brianne were born, three months apart. Where life began for them, in a way. Life, Lord. Please, spare this life.
No mere cry for attention, the doctor said. Brianne took enough painkillers—leftovers from Monica’s hysterectomy a year earlier—to completely silence whatever voices screamed inside her head.
Becky couldn’t hear what screamed inside Monica’s, but she could imagine.
Motherhood isn’t for sissies. She’d read that somewhere. She’d lived it. Still did.
How many nights would she relive the scene in Brianne’s bedroom and everything she’d done wrong? She’d cleaned four bathrooms while a young girl suffered in silence down the hall, slipping closer to the edge of eternity. She’d shaken off the unease rather than listening and acting sooner. She’d thought she could talk to Brianne and make her feel better. She’d suggested tea to a young woman an inch from death.
Not exactly impeccable mothering instinct.
“It’s my fault.” Though softened because of the crowd in the hospital cafeteria, Monica’s voice shook so much that it sounded like a choir member with excessive vibrato.
Becky sipped her coffee and temporarily suspended her own guilt. “Monica, this is not your fault.”
“Yes, it is. I . . . I didn’t say it aloud, but I thought it.” Her gaze registered as blank as Brianne’s a few hours earlier.
“Thought what?”
“How . . . lucky we were.” She huffed. Monica no longer exhaled. She sighed her way through life. “Blessed. I used the word blessed.”
Becky’s mind wandered close to the edge of what Monica might have meant, then shrank back. “What do you mean?”
Monica tore her napkin into scraps of discomfort. “My grandchild is gone. That will never be okay. But few people knew . . . or will ever know. Life . . . life was going on as if nothing ever happened.” She swept the scraps into a small pile. “But look at you and Lauren.” Her eyes flicked to Becky, then quickly away. “It’s always with you. The problem. The history. The fallout.”
The debt. The sleepless nights. The smell of sour milk. Smeared diapers. More diapers. A ceaseless echo of concern for Lauren’s and Jackson’s futures.
The smell of baby lotion after Jackson’s bath. The sight of his only-for-Grammie smile. The bubbling giggle that was worthy of YouTube. The feel of his hand on her cheek, no heavier than a birthmark.
“Jackson’s life may not have started the ideal way, but that’s what grace is for.”
“And I think I was secretly grateful, in a twisted sense, that Brianne and I didn’t have to deal with it anymore. It was over. Done. Sad, but . . . behind us. You know?”
The look on Brianne’s face a few hours earlier said it was anything but behind them.
“Beck, I brought this on, thinking thoughts like that. It’s a miracle Brianne’s alive, considering what an idiot I’ve been.”
Becky’s next swallow of coffee tasted especially bitter. Or maybe that was the taste of sorrow.
“I’ve been thinking about this since the moment Lauren came to me a year ago, broken. I’ve wrestled with the question, desperate to know an answer that would make sense.”
Monica sniffed. Twice. “What question?”
“What comes after remorse?”
“A constant, relentless, throbbing pain.”
“That’s all true—the relentless, throbbing, piercing pain. And mercy when we’ve blown it. And grace for the next step.”
“Lauren, what are you doing here?” The sight of her daughter alive, upright, and standing in front of her in the hospital hall brought Becky within a hair’s breadth of tears.
For the first time in a long while, the hug Lauren returned was at least as strong as her mother’s. “I had to come. Dad said he’d watch Jackson longer so I could . . . be here. Is Brianne . . . ?”
“It’s not good, honey. But the doctors are hopeful. The paramedics were there so fast.”
Lauren’s chin quivered. “I should have been there for her.”
“We all have our regrets. Every one of us.”
“Brianne and I used to be so close. Jackson kind of changed all that.”
“Changed a lot of things.” Becky put one arm around Lauren and squeezed.
“Yeah. Like teaching me the meaning of love.”
Whoa! Where had that come from?
With a mittened hand, Lauren swiped at her eyes. “Can I see her?”
“We’ll ask Monica.”
“I need Brianne to know I get it. I understand.”
Becky’s vision blurred. It happened a lot lately.
When Monica’s ex-husband arrived from Colorado Springs, the hospital shrank. Lauren and Becky stepped back, promising the hurting ones that they were a phone call and five minutes away, if needed.
Becky considered asking Lauren to drive them home. Her eyes hurt and a headache flashed across her forehead like an electronic tennis match, all service aces.
But Lauren seemed just as shaken, and she blinked her eyes as if fighting a dislodged contact lens.
Tragedies
without explanation provoke either copious amounts of speculation or complete silence. The Trundle car remained a vacuum chamber of silence on the ride home, until they pulled into the driveway.
“It’ll be all over school in the morning,” Lauren said, face forward, hands pressed between her knees.
“I imagine it will.”
“That’s one of the hardest parts.”
Becky steered into the garage, put the car into park, and turned off the engine. “Was it the hardest part for you . . . with Jackson?”
“No. I mean, there’s always gossip, even if kids are getting pregnant on purpose.”
“What?”
Lauren looked at her. “Not me. That was a total accident.”
“The dare?”
“Could we save that for later?”
“Later comes eventually.”
Lauren quieted. “I know. The hardest part was telling you and Dad. What was the hardest part for you?”
“You’ve never asked that before, Lauren.”
“I know. Mature, huh?”
Oh, that girl has her father’s sense of humor. Great. “I guess the hardest part for me was lying awake that first night after you told us. Okay, the first week. All I could think about was how much harder things were going to be for you than they had to be. How many things were changed now. How much narrower your choices, and how much it would cost you.”
“You and Dad have paid for most of it.”
“Not in dollars.”
“Oh. Right. You didn’t lie awake thinking how stupid I was?”
The temp in the car quickly plummeted with the heat off. But this was too important to hurry. “If Jackson rolled off the couch and bumped his head on the coffee table . . . ”
“Mom!”
“Stay with me. If he did, despite the fact that you told him to stay put, and he got a concussion . . . ”
“Good grief, Mom! That’s a horrible thought!”
“If that happened, would you lose sleep over his not staying put or over his pain and the consequences?”
When the Morning Glory Blooms (9781426770777) Page 21
