More Than Words Volume 4

by Linda Lael Miller

  I hopped from my stool. “Ohmyheaven, it turned up our drive,” I said, as if the child had not just seen that. “I hope Monte didn’t fall off the roof!” Heart in my throat, I sprinted to look out the rear of the stand, with Roline right on my heels.

  There was Monte, standing on the roof, watching the police car approach.

  I took off running up the drive, not even thinking about using the tractor. I’m a little ashamed to say that I clean forgot Roline, too. About halfway along, when I had to slow down because I gave out of breath and leg, I had presence of mind to look back after her, and here came the child, doing her best to run with the cash box, which was large and heavy for her skinny little arms.

  I had forgotten more than the child.

  HERE IS WHAT HAPPENED.

  Cody had called 9-1-1. The best we could all piece together was that he had been upset by the noise of Monte’s hammering on the roof. Laura Jean had thought she had him calmed. She had played with him, doing a flash-card game, on the sunporch, which was an addition with separate roof, so the hammering noise was muted. After a little bit, she had left Cody with his Magna Doodle and gone on busily washing their laundry and cleaning the kitchen. She remembered the phone ringing several times, but she had not answered. “It isn’t my phone, and I thought it best to let the answering machine pick up.” The phone ringing may have upset Cody, too; at least it must have drawn his attention.

  “I was watchin’ the door, not the phone,” Laura Jean said, thoroughly upset and embarrassed, bless her heart.

  The next thing she knew, the siren was wailing outside, and before she got to the door, a police officer came bursting through it. The officer, Teddy Corbett, had not bothered to knock. I have known Teddy since childhood; I substituted in his grade-school classes, he attends our church, and he came to many of Henry’s barbecues at our house.

  On coming through the door and encountering Laura Jean, he had said, “Who are you?” in such a way as to frighten her.

  “I was surprised to see a stranger,” Teddy explained. “I know Miz Perabo lives here alone now.”

  His remark and tone on top of Patsy’s attitude from the previous day made me begin to wonder how everyone saw me. The way they spoke, it seemed I was considered some helpless old lady.

  “Well, I do not think a thief would have an armload of laundry,” Laura Jean pointed out.

  “You would if you were emptyin’ the house,” Teddy countered. “Thieves in rural areas have emptied entire houses by throwing everything into pillowcases.”

  Standing beside Teddy, the second officer, whom I did not know and who had yet to say a word, nodded.

  Laura Jean, hand to her hip, frowned at both officers in such a way that they had to look away from her.

  Then Teddy gathered his bravery and said, “I’m real sorry, ma’am. It was not my intention to frighten any of you.”

  “Anyone want somethin’ to drink?” asked Monte, who was reaching into the refrigerator, bringing himself out a Coke. Without waiting for a reply, he handed me one, too. His eyes twinkled with a certain understanding, as if he saw right into my mind. At that moment I was quite pleased that he, at least, did not regard me at all like an old woman.

  WHILE MONTE WENT BACK UP on the roof to finish the last bit of his reroofing job, Laura Jean and the children walked with me back down to the stand to get it closed up properly. I put up a sign: Closed for the Afternoon.

  After that, I led the children along the fence row. I was not in any hurry to take the children back to the house. Monte’s hammer strikes still rang out, and finding something to distract us all seemed a good plan.

  I had the idea that the children did not spend enough time outside in the fresh air and with nature. I placed the blame of Cody’s calling 9-1-1 on his having spent the better part of the past two days in a vehicle or confined in a gas station or a strange house. Of course this led to impatient and wild behavior. I was of the mind, and even said so, that Cody had been quite enterprising to get himself free of that annoying hammering over his head.

  As we walked along, I pointed out birds and cloud formations. I picked seeded dandelions and blew on them, sending their seeds whirling in the air. Roline enjoyed doing this immensely, and Laura Jean enjoyed it so much, she laughed like a girl with her daughter.

  I held one of the seeded dandelion flowers in front of Cody. “Blow.” I formed my mouth in illustration.

  He did! And his eyes followed the seeds into the air.

  Then we walked beneath the buckeye tree, and I found a few of the hard seed-nuts from the previous year deep in the grass along the fence row. I explained about how the tree put them out in pods each fall. “This entire tree grows from a seed just like this.” I gave them a mini-gardening lesson. Roline quickly found a young buckeye growing farther along the fence.

  I had begun to see that Cody paid attention to me very often out of the corner of his eyes. I would shift my eyes to him, and he would look away.

  Now he put his head down and went along the fence, searching and finding more buckeye seeds down in the grass. He brought them up with his small fingers and took them to his mother. To hold more than one, he had to give her his Magna Doodle, which he had insisted on carrying along with him. Picking up seeds won out.

  “Cody loves round things,” Roline explained. “Here, Cody, you can have this one, too.” Each one she found, she handed to him. He could not hold them all.

  “Here, sweetie…put them in your pocket.” I dared to take hold and pull open his pants pocket. But I did not look him in the eye. Somehow I sensed a wall up toward me.

  Quite soon Bob, always curious, came along the fence. He sniffed at Cody, and Cody stood a moment, staring at him. The gelding’s eye reminded me of a buckeye seed. Could that have been the boy’s thought? I wondered.

  “Can I ride the horse, Miss Ellie? Pleeease?”

  That had been inevitable. “After lunch. We’ll have a picnic in the backyard.”

  Telling Laura Jean to keep the children outside, I went to the kitchen to throw together everything I thought everyone might like.

  In the middle of my whirlwind of activity, it came to me with a suddenness that I had so missed taking care of someone. Henry had needed my care. He had, in fact, so wanted me to look after him that he had encouraged me to quit teaching and make him a full-time job. Say what you will about that, it had made me happy until the day he died. I was such a woman that needed to take care of others. Why the Good Lord had not given me children, I have no idea.

  Once Patsy had said to me, “Ellie, nothing is stopping you from adopting.”

  Why had I not? Henry. Henry had been against the idea. And I had not gone against him. It was not something I could tell anyone.

  And somehow you go along and think: tomorrow…there’s plenty of time yet…tomorrow maybe I’ll have my own child…tomorrow I’ll see about adopting…tomorrow maybe I’ll go back to teaching. Only then tomorrow becomes today and it is too late, your time of children passes, your husband dies and there you are, looking back with regrets of paths not taken. That is life.

  I found two bags of frozen strawberries to make a dessert. And thought of a Ziploc bag for Cody’s buckeye seeds.

  Monte came through the door.

  “Wash your hands and help me carry this out. We’re havin’ a picnic.”

  I EXPLAINED THAT BOB had been a barrel-racing horse. “Even though he is old now, he can still be feisty,” I told Roline. “We will have to let Monte see if he can settle him down before you get on him. Monte was a rodeo cowboy.”

  This impressed mother and child, as I knew it would. Their eyes shifted to him, and he tried to look modest while feeling proud. A few minutes later, Roline had Monte by the hand as they walked toward the corral to get the horse. Laura Jean started off after them with Cody, who cried out and pulled away to come back to the table.

  I knew what he wanted and held out to him the bag of buckeye seeds. He took the bag from my hand without l
ooking at me. I gazed after him as he went back to his mother.

  MONTE RODE BOB OUT ACROSS the pasture and back, and then hauled Roline up in front of him and rode her out around the pasture and back. The child was in heaven.

  “Hi…hi!” Roline called, and waved as she went riding past, secure within Monte’s arms.

  Laura Jean, Cody and I watched from the shade at the rear of the barn. Thankfully clouds were beginning to gather, blocking the hot afternoon sun. I hauled out a hay bale for us to sit on. I watched as Laura Jean guided Cody to sit.

  “Does Cody want to ride the horse?” Laura Jean asked him.

  He gave no indication of an answer. His eyes looked at the horse and riders, then back down at his bag of buckeye seeds.

  When Monte returned for the third time, he alighted and handed me the reins, saying with a grin, “Your turn.”

  I held the reins loosely, and Bob’s head turned toward Cody. I crouched to Cody’s level; the horse’s head and mine were side by side. We both looked at Cody.

  Cody’s eyes came up. He looked at Bob, and then his gaze slid to me. I smiled, rubbed the gelding’s nose and said, “Bob likes you, Cody.”

  I raised an eyebrow to Laura Jean, and, each of us taking a deep breath, she told Roline to slip back as she lifted Cody to put him in the saddle.

  Cody screamed in a way that could curdle blood, and his legs kicked frantically in midair. Laura Jean got hit in the head; I grabbed him from the other side. Then he was in the saddle, with Roline’s arms around him, and I took off at a trot, leading Bob by the reins, with Laura Jean jogging along beside. The minute the horse started to move, Cody shut up.

  We jogged to the edge of the pasture. The only time Cody started to get upset was when we stopped, which I had to do to catch my breath. I showed him and Roline how to make the horse go themselves by making the kissing sound at him. This sound proved to be something that Cody could do. I watched the look on his face when he made the sound and Bob moved. I could almost see a connection in his brain, as he connected something he did with moving the big animal.

  Some fifteen minutes later in the kitchen, where we ran to escape the downpour, leaving Monte to care for the horse, Laura Jean made an exaggerated sound upon kissing Cody lightly on the cheek. He repeated this back to her. And then we were all doing it to one another and laughing. It was the first time that I saw Cody really and truly laugh.

  As Laura Jean took the children off to wash up and get on clean, dry clothes, I opened the refrigerator, intent on assembling a snack, of course.

  Then I paused with the door open and cocked my ear, listening to the sounds of voices and bodies moving through the house. A house that had been quiet for a very long time, even when Henry had been there. A rush of feeling came over me that I did not understand, only knew as change.

  THE RAIN CAME DOWN outside. Nevertheless, when Monte learned of Roline’s keen desire for computer access, he sprinted out to his pickup truck to retrieve his laptop. He got it set up for her at the desk in the kitchen, using his cell phone for Internet access, no less (what an age we live in!), then threw himself into Henry’s old recliner. I brought him a glass of sweet tea and several cookies. Not ten minutes later, I had to remove the glass of tea from his hand, as he had fallen asleep.

  I sent Laura Jean for a hot soak, while I watched the children and prepared supper. Roline shortly abandoned the computer and fell asleep on the floor in the sunporch, in front of the television. Cody came to the kitchen with his Magna Doodle, and I gave him his bag of buckeye seeds, which I had retrieved from the grass where he had dropped them earlier. He went off to the sunporch and sat playing beside sleeping Roline. I brought him a bowl of grapes and watermelon cut up and sat myself down with him on the floor. He gave no indication of being aware of me.

  I watched him select grapes and line them up on the floor, then line buckeye seeds beside them. Taking up his Magna Doodle, I saw a horse figure drawn there. I drew the figure of a boy on top of it. Then I drew buckeye seeds. I displayed this to him. I saw him look with a sideways glance of his eyes.

  Next, and somewhat to my surprise, he handed me a buckeye seed. For whatever reason, I chuckled, and his face came up. He smiled, his eyes meeting mine fully. It was all I could do not to hug him, but I was afraid that might startle him.

  For supper, I served ham slices, cheese-topped new potatoes, fresh green onions and green beans, and sliced cold tomatoes. Cody, and Monte, too, especially enjoyed the dessert of sliced peaches I found in the freezer and which I topped with real whipped cream.

  Shortly after, Laura Jean took the children off to get bathed, and I walked Monte outside to his pickup truck. Impulsively I stretched up to give him a kiss on the cheek. “That’s for all you did for me—for the kids, too—today.”

  He touched the spot and grinned slowly.

  “You’re welcome. I should say, though, that if it is goin’ to take that much effort to get favor from you, I’m gonna have to give it up.”

  I do not know what got into me, but I replied saucily with “You come back tomorrow and find out.”

  “You’re usin’ me, woman.” And he had kissed my lips before I knew what he was about.

  I got all flustered and went to step backward, but he held me.

  His blue eyes became intent. “You remember, Ellie, that Laura Jean and the kids are only passin’ through.”

  “I remember.” What did he think of me?

  He got into his pickup, slammed the door.

  I took hold of the open window. “You know, we all are just passin’ through, Monte. All the more reason to enjoy and do all that we can for one another.”

  He nodded. “I just don’t want to see you get hurt when they leave in a couple of days.”

  “I’m fine.”

  He backed his pickup truck, turned and waved as he drove away.

  Standing there watching after him, I felt my lips tingle where he had kissed me. And then as Monte’s truck passed out of sight, I saw Patsy’s Chrysler 300 coming. I blinked, and thought with great relief that Patsy could not have seen the interchange between me and Monte.

  The Chrysler approached up the drive. I stood waiting, and saw Stu was at the wheel. The car came to a stop, and Patsy got out of the passenger side. I leaned down and called a greeting to Stu through the open window.

  “Hey,” he said back, with a wave.

  “We hear you had a bit of excitement up here today,” Patsy said. “We were just over at the café and ran into Teddy.”

  “Just a bit.” News in this town traveled faster than greased lightning. Teddy was a distant nephew of Stu’s.

  “Teddy said Monte was here then, too. He’s been here a lot lately, hasn’t he?”

  “He put a new roof on the house. That takes a few days for one man.”

  “Well, I’m glad today turned out not to be anything serious. I brought something for your friend.” She thrust a couple of papers at me.

  I took the papers with surprise.

  “Teddy told me about the boy. We’ve got three autistic boys this year, just finished IEP on each of them.”

  “Really?”

  I looked at the papers—one from the state about individual education programs, and another a brochure for an organization called Autism Speaks.

  Patsy said, “We’ve got a new special education coordinator this year, who had this information. There’s a real push on for more public education. I know things could be different over in your friend’s school district, but I have plenty of this info…shows what is available to her.”

  “Thanks…I know Laura Jean will appreciate it.”

  Patsy regarded me expectantly.

  I threw my arm around her shoulders. “Come on in and give them to her yourself,” I said, thrusting the papers back into her hands.

  Patsy would really be disappointed if Laura Jean left without Patsy getting to lay eyes on her. And Patsy was my best friend; I wanted her to know that.

  “THAT WAS NICE O
F your friend—Patsy—to bring this information for me,” said Laura Jean.

  “Yes, she’s a sweetheart…but she really wanted to get a look at you. She’s likes to know what’s going on.”

  We were at the kitchen table, I in a chair, and Laura Jean on a small stool at my feet, giving me a pedicure, the first professional one ever in my life. When Laura Jean had heard this fact, she had said, “You sit right down here. It is not natural for a woman not to ever have a pedicure.” She insisted on painting my toenails a bright red, and I let her. My toenails were far enough away from my eyes so that the bright color did not seem so loud.

  While she worked over my feet, I read the information Patsy had brought and flipped through the two books on autism belonging to Laura Jean. “Did you say that Cody had been in occupational therapy?” I was trying to remember the bit about this I had learned in college.

  “Uh-huh. We were just gettin’ started with it—it was through the school.”

  While I perused the book, she talked about Cody’s various ailments. He seemed to have digestion difficulties and to catch just about everything that came along. Most of the therapies, even a lot of the medical care for autism, weren’t covered under their HMO plan. She had gotten some help through state programs. It had taken her months to get him enrolled in the early special education class.

  “Now we’ll have to go through it all again where my sister lives.”

  “Yes, but now you’ll have experience with the system. And maybe Patsy’s information will prove helpful.”

  She breathed deeply as she recapped the polish. “Sometimes it’s all just so much to learn. I just don’t…well, I can’t seem to keep up. And it’s not fair to Roline. Everything I have goes to Cody, and she gets lost in it.”

  “Of course it is all so much,” I said. “Life is so much, for any of us sometimes. But, honey, you are doin’ a great job. You have two beautiful children, and thus far you have managed to keep them fed and clothed, and to get the best care possible. You have to go on believin’ in yourself. You have to believe, because you are all those two have.”