Abide with Me

by Delia Parr

  She looked out at the lake and prayed for guidance. He would know the right time to share the joy that a new baby could bring to the family. And He would help her contain her joy…for just a little longer.

  Jane Huxbaugh lived alone in the last house on the dead end of East Mulberry Street, next to the elevated transit line, affectionately dubbed E.T. by local residents. After nearly thirty years, a thick stand of mulberry trees, wild vines and evergreens created a private border between Jane’s property and the right-of-way claimed by the D.V.R.T.A., the Delaware Valley Regional Transit Authority. At rush hour, trains sped by in both directions at seven-minute intervals, carrying residents back and forth from southern New Jersey to Philadelphia. The noise was so deafening, any attempts to have a conversation outside were useless, which certainly limited the use of Jane’s summer porch at suppertime, even if the drooping screens had been tacked back into place.

  It was now five o’clock. Andrea had no other choice but to park her car on the street under several messy, fruit-laden mulberry trees. She sidestepped her way to the front door and wiped her feet on the mat to remove any remnants of the blackish fruit. Staining Jane’s carpet, even though it was threadbare, was definitely not a good way to open this meeting. Reaching for the tarnished brass knocker, she noticed it was hanging by a single screw and opted to knock with her knuckles instead.

  A train whizzed by. Andrea waited several moments for the train to pass in the other direction and knocked again. She was wiping paint chips from her knuckles when Jane opened the door.

  Scarcely five feet tall, Jane had to tilt her head back a little to meet Andrea’s gaze, but then, she had to do the same with most folks, which did little to refute the impression that Jane’s snooty attitude was deliberate. “You don’t call first?”

  Andrea winced. “Usually I do. I apologize. If this is a bad time, we could meet tomorrow. Either here or at my office, whichever suits you.”

  “What would suit me is a little courtesy and respect,” Jane snapped. “I left a message for you first thing this morning, before you even opened. I expected to hear from you the moment you got to the office.”

  “I’m sorry. I had an appointment early this morning, and I had to tie up a few loose ends first.”

  Jane sniffed. “If you’ve got the contract, then I suppose you can come in now, inconvenient as it is.”

  Andrea drew in a long breath. “I have a contract in my briefcase for you to sign.” Not a lie. Not the whole truth, either, but Andrea was not going to give Jane a chance to slam the door in her face before explaining why the contract she had in hand was not the one Jane anticipated.

  The older woman stepped back and motioned for Andrea to come inside, where the light was dim and the air was stifling, as well as heavy with the odor of cooked cabbage.

  “Kitchen table’s set for supper. We’ll have to sit in here,” Jane grumbled. She removed several piles of clothing from the sofa and stacked them on the floor next to the coffee table, which was also piled high with newsprint, magazines and junk mail circulars. Jane plopped into her rocker, surrounded on both sides by bags and bags of yarn, and pointed to the sofa. “Sit.”

  Andrea offered a quick prayer for patience and courage, sat down and quickly explained what had happened to the original buyer. Before Jane could pontificate on her displeasure, Andrea handed her the contract that the DiMayos had signed a few hours earlier. “Their check is certified. They’ve already prequalified for a mortgage, and we can go to settlement in ten days,” she said quickly. “That would be August third at ten o’clock in my office.”

  With skepticism on her face, Jane studied the contract and snorted. “Selling price is lower. Knew there had to be a fly in that sweet-smelling ointment of yours.”

  “But only by a few thousand,” Andrea countered. “With the earlier settlement date, you won’t be responsible for six weeks of taxes, and you won’t have to pay for the repairs to the sidewalk and driveway, either.” She held her breath and waited for Jane’s response. Andrea had called in every favor she was owed to guarantee such a fast settlement. Absorbing the cost of the concrete repair work was unusual, but she had done it once or twice before. It seemed a small price to pay for the peace and goodwill she might get in return.

  “Stupid law. Thanks to our illustrious mayor and his band of kowtowing commissioners. If the borough wants new sidewalks, let them pay for it. Nobody thinks about seniors trying to live on a fixed income,” she replied, apparently none too happy about the new requirement that all concrete sidewalks and driveways in need of repair had to be fixed, normally by the seller, prior to any sale. She paused. “August third, you said?”

  “At ten. Unless you’d like to make it later?”

  Jane reached into her apron pocket, pulled out a handkerchief and dabbed at the perspiration beading on her forehead and above her lip. “If you intend to stay in business, you’d be well-advised to check out the folks you’re bringing to Welleswood. This is a family place. We’ve got no room for somebody like that Sanderson fellow. As a matter of fact…”

  Andrea only half listened while Jane offered her usual blend of snide comments and unsolicited advice. She was Jane’s real estate agent. They had a business relationship, not a personal one, thank heavens. Andrea yearned for escape from the uncomfortable heat in the house and from Jane’s company, but she refused to let this woman’s diatribe drain her spirit. As the elderly woman whined on and on, Andrea pictured herself at Jenny’s with her two nieces. Katy and Hannah were still so innocent. So precious. So untouched by the world.

  “A pen! Have you got a pen?”

  Startled, Andrea blinked. “I’m sorry. Did you say—”

  “I said I need a pen.” Jane lifted a craggy brow. “Not one of those common plastic throwaways, either. A fountain pen, if you please.”

  Chapter Six

  Andrea could smell the ribs cooking the moment she turned the corner, a block away from the old Victorian house that Jenny and Michael called home. After pulling into the driveway and getting out of her car, she patted her skirt pocket. Madge’s gift was still there.

  Still overheated after an hour in Jane’s sweltering house, she ran her fingers through her damp, short-cropped hair and followed the sound of shrieks and giggles along the winding flagstone walkway that ran along one side of the house. She stood under the arbor beneath a crown of glorious honeysuckle and surveyed the scene in the backyard. While Katy and Hannah frolicked under an umbrella sprinkler, Michael stood on the upper deck, tending the ribs sizzling on a gas grill. The picnic table on the lower deck had been set for dinner. Jenny and Madge were sitting on lawn chairs in he yard, shucking corn, with a brown shopping bag between them for the husks.

  Andrea watched Michael baste the ribs. He was forty-five, but he looked ten years younger than other men his age. The scrawny adolescent he had once been had matured into a middle-aged adult with scarcely an ounce of fat on his frame. Laugh lines creased his eyes and forehead. His neatly trimmed beard held flecks of gray, finally, but just enough to make him look distinguished. But it was the gentleness in his eyes that marked him as a treasured addition to their family.

  Andrea closed her eyes for a moment, slipped back in time and remembered herself standing in her backyard on West Beechwood Avenue. Her husband, Peter, bless his soul, was putting together a water slide. Rachel and David, about the same ages as Katy and Hannah were now, were running under the lawn sprinkler waiting for Daddy to finish. Andrea strained to keep the scene clear, but it vanished as fast as it had appeared.

  Swallowing hard, she wiped her forehead. She could scarcely remember Peter’s face anymore or the feel of his arms around her when they’d stood at the foot of their children’s beds to check on them late at night. His goodness and his patience and his love for her and the children: those qualities she remembered clearly; those she treasured…then and now.

  “Aunt Andrea! Come and play!” Katy had spotted her and came running, squealing, toward the a
rbor with little Hannah toddling in pursuit. “Wanna see? I can run around the sprinkler with my eyes closed! Wanna see me? Wanna try?”

  “Katy! Leave Aunt Andrea alone. She’s still dressed from work,” Michael called as he waved a welcome.

  Andrea laughed out loud. At six-thirty, the temperature was probably still in the low nineties. Definitely a day to sit by the shores of the river with your feet in the water! Or to run under a sprinkler? She was half tempted to accept Katy’s offer, and the moment Hannah tripped forward and wrapped her pudgy little arms around Andrea’s bare legs to break her fall, Andrea made her decision. She grabbed her youngest niece, swung her up to her hip, stepped out of her sandals and grinned at Katy. “We’ll race you to the sprinkler. Ready? Set? Go!”

  Andrea took small steps to keep pace with Katy, and the three of them reached the spraying water together. Oh, but the water was cold!

  “Tie! Tie!” Katy cried, and started running. “Catch me if you can!”

  “Andrea! Have you lost your mind?” Jenny called.

  “Oh, no! Andrea! What on earth are you doing?” Madge asked loudly.

  Laughing, Andrea ignored both of her sisters, set Hannah down and lifted her face to the spraying water. It felt delicious. Then she quickly stepped out from beneath the water and shook the droplets from her face.

  Katy grinned. “I guess Aunt Andrea is too old to play like me.”

  “She’s certainly old enough to know better than to run under the sprinkler in her work clothes,” Jenny teased. She handed Katy a towel and wrapped one around Hannah. “I have more towels inside. I’ll send Michael—”

  “No. I think I’d rather drip-dry,” Andrea said. “It shouldn’t take long in this heat. Besides, we’re eating outside. It shouldn’t hurt if I drip a little water on the deck.” While she used her hands to ruffle her hair back in place, she spied Madge sitting in her chair, apparently too shocked to do more than stare at her.

  Jenny nodded toward the house. “I’m going to take these young ladies inside to change into dry clothes before dinner while Michael finishes up the salad. Why don’t you talk to Madge and see if you can convince her you haven’t taken the final leap into senility?”

  Andrea shook the water from her skirt, remembered the present she had tucked into her pocket and grinned. Hopefully, the watch was waterproof. “Hurry back.”

  “Start without me. I won’t be long, just in case you need me to perform CPR. Madge is as white as Mother’s azaleas used to be.”

  While Jenny and Michael ushered the girls inside, Andrea took a deep breath and sat down next to Madge, who was shucking the last ear of corn without looking at Andrea. “You’re going to get sick, running around under the sprinkler like that,” Madge said.

  “I am sick. I had chemo this morning, remember?”

  Madge’s hands stilled, and she looked up at Andrea with tear-filled eyes. “Of course, I remember. The question is whether or not you remember that you have to take care of yourself. Did it ever occur to you that you might catch a chill?”

  Andrea laughed, stretched out her legs and wriggled her toes. “It’s at least ninety degrees. The humidity is close to one-hundred percent. I seriously doubt I have to worry about getting a chill.”

  “Your resistance is down.”

  “Not after a single treatment. Later, yes. But not now. As a matter of fact, I feel utterly refreshed. You might want to try it sometime.”

  Madge sighed and carefully removed every strand of corn silk from her manicured fingernails. “I prefer air-conditioning, which you have in your home, in your office and in your car, I might add.”

  “True. But Jane Huxbaugh doesn’t. Try sitting in her living room for an hour like I just did, and you’d run under a sprinkler, too.” She paused. “Although, maybe, you’d change into your bathing suit, and you’d have your matching cover-up and beach sandals with you, too.”

  Madge lowered her eyes. “Go ahead, make fun of me. But even if you’re not going to worry about yourself, that doesn’t mean other people will stop worrying. Or caring,” she whispered.

  Andrea’s heart skipped a beat. “I’m sorry. I’m just teasing. I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings.” She let out a long sigh. “I sounded a little like Jane Huxbaugh, didn’t I? I guess I was with her a little too long today.”

  Madge chuckled and leaned back in her chair. “That’s okay. Anyone who spends an hour alone with Jane Huxbaugh deserves a medal. I sure wish I knew what made that woman so miserable. Brenna told me just the other day that none of the other volunteers at the thrift store want to work with Jane in the afternoons. Some of the customers have complained about her, too.”

  Andrea steepled her hands on her lap. “Disappointment can eat away at a person until there’s nothing left but bitterness that taints everything beautiful in this world. Without faith, there’s nothing. No friends. No hope. Not even any joy.”

  “That sums up the Spinster Huxbaugh pretty well,” Madge admitted. “But her fiancé left her at the altar…what? Fifty years ago? I can’t imagine the shame and embarrassment she must have felt at the time. Still, fifty years is a long time to be bitter.”

  “Unfortunately, it hasn’t been long enough. Some people still want to know what happened that day, but she’s never told anyone. I can’t recall her fiancé’s name at the moment, but he left town and no one ever heard from him again.” Andrea did a little mental arithmetic. “I do remember Mother saying Jane was supposed to get married right after her fiancé returned from the war in forty-five. Miss Huxbaugh was nineteen. She’s seventy-seven now. That would be almost sixty years ago.”

  “That’s a lifetime.”

  “Not in our family,” Andrea murmured. She opened her eyes again. She was only a year away from turning fifty-eight herself. “Neither Mother nor Daddy celebrated their fifty-eighth birthdays, not to mention Kathleen or Sandra.” Kathleen had died a week shy of her thirty-fifth birthday. Sandra had been fifty-one.

  Andrea cleared her throat. “As short as each of their lives were, I think they all understood something that has eluded Miss Huxbaugh all these years.”

  Madge cocked her head. “Such as?”

  “They knew how to forgive others, as well as themselves.” Andrea recalled the sermon their pastor had given a few weeks back. “Reverend Staggart said forgiveness stems from faith and the blessings we get from forgiving others is like a warm shawl. It wraps around our hearts to heal the hurts, ease the pain of disappointment and douse the flames of anger.”

  A silence rested between them. Then Madge finally spoke. “Speaking of shawls, that reminds me of something I need to talk to you about, but…that can wait.” Her bottom lip trembled. “Can you forgive me for telling Jenny about your cancer? I didn’t mean to interfere or break your confidence, but I just…I just needed to see someone and talk. Russell is still away.…”

  Andrea reached over and gave one of Madge’s earrings a gentle tug. “You’re already forgiven. And I have a present for you to prove it.”

  Sniffling, Madge looked up, her eyes shining with anticipation. “You do? You have a present for me?”

  Andrea leaned to one side and retrieved the soggy package from her skirt pocket. She handed Madge the gift, but did not let go. “Before you open it, you have to make me two promises.”

  Madge hesitated. “What kind of promises?”

  “First, don’t get offended. Second, you have to promise you’ll wear it every time you’re supposed to take me for my treatments.”

  Madge rolled her eyes. “I have a watch, Andrea. I have several, as a matter of fact. Just because I was late one time, one time, taking Sandra for her chemo doesn’t mean I’ll be late again.” She rotated her wrist, and the sunlight danced on the amethysts and diamonds surrounding her gold watch. “This has a brand-new battery and it works perfectly fine.”

  Andrea let go of the present. “Not like this one. Go ahead. Open it.”

  Madge peeled back the water-soaked wrapping and opened the
box. Her eyes widened. “It’s wild! Wherever did you find one the exact color of my convertible?”

  “It was easier than you might think.” Chuckling, Andrea pointed to one of the silver buttons on the side of the watch. “Push that one. It’s an alarm. On the days I have to go for chemo, you have to promise me you’ll set it. When it goes off, you’re not allowed to turn it off until you get to my house to pick me up. That way you’ll be on time.”

  “I promise.” Madge pushed the button, and the tune began to play.

  Andrea held her breath, hoping Madge would appreciate the melody. If not, well, forgiveness was not a one-way street.

  Madge’s eyes widened. Her lips curled into a smile that stretched to a grin. When Jenny and the girls returned, Madge gave them a demonstration and they all joined in to sing along as they marched to the picnic table for dinner. “I’m late. I’m late. For a very important date. No time to say hello. Goodbye! I’m late, I’m late, I’m late.”

  Forgiveness reigned. Joy abounded.

  Alleluia!

  Chapter Seven

  The following day, running late after a settlement that nearly did not happen, Andrea waited for the light, crossed the avenue and hurried to meet Madge for lunch. If someday she were to write a book about the ups and downs of real estate, today’s settlement would have to be in the first chapter.

  Both buyer and seller had arrived on time at the title company where Andrea and the other principals were waiting in the conference room, ready to proceed, but only the buyer’s wife had come inside. In near panic, she told them her husband was still in their car, suffering from a full-blown panic attack. It had taken Andrea and the couple’s attorney over an hour to calm the man and convince him that buying a home, even for the first time, was eventful, but not threatening. Though the settlement had proceeded smoothly from that point on, Andrea was way behind schedule. If her luck held, Madge would be running late, too.