Several times when I did go outside I caught small shapes either gliding or pelting across my yard.
One evening I called Hank Blackshear and said, “Doc, I have a problem.”
“Dashiell all right?” he asked. Dashiell barely tolerated him, but he was fast and experienced. Dashiell had never managed to connect with either teeth or claws.
“He’s having a nervous breakdown,” I said, and explained the circumstances. “I have lived in this house over four years, and I have never had a problem with feral cats, but that’s what they are. Wild as March hares. They slink or bolt or tear off the moment I crack the back door a smidgen. Dashiell is desperately trying to get outside and at them. Lord knows what a wild cat with claws would do to him.”
“Any idea why they showed up now?”
“None in the world. I don’t know whether to start to feed them, and therefore turn them into a permanent problem, or to try to trap them and bring them to you for shots and neutering.”
“That would cost a fortune, Peg, and you’d never catch all of them.”
“My granddaughter, Josie, plays over here at least once or twice a week. I can’t have her bitten or scratched. What if they’re rabid?”
“No rabies in this part of the world, but there are other nasties. Listeria, for one, or cat-scratch fever. She’s unlikely to get close enough to any of them for disease to be a problem for her.”
“What about Dashiell? What about me, for that matter?”
“Dashiell’s had every shot known to man, and so long as you keep him inside, he’s not going to come in contact with his feral buddies.” He hesitated. “There’s always poison, you know, if they become a real hazard.”
“Are you nuts? I just got rid of my poison plants because of Josie. How do you think I could put poison bait out? Even if I could, I wouldn’t. That’s a terrible idea! I’m ashamed of you.”
He laughed. “I thought you’d say that. Look, they don’t seem to be starving, so they must be existing on mice and snakes . . .”
“And song birds.”
“Yes, and song birds. I would suggest leaving them alone for now. Maybe once the females are in kit, they’ll go find somewhere else to raise their babies.”
“But don’t count on it?”
“Right, don’t count on it. Keep me posted.”
That’s where we left it. I hung up the telephone and hauled Dashiell, who was at present in one of his somnolent modes, into my lap and stroked him. “Nature really is red of tooth and claw, old guy. We have to make certain none of the blood is yours, mine, or Josie’s.”
Next I noticed that the cats that frequented my yard weren’t invariably feral. My neighbors don’t necessarily agree with me that all family cats should be kept indoors, but even though the Persian (neutered) from a block over, and the Johnson’s two Siamese females came and went as they saw fit, they had never seen fit to come within spitting distance of Dashiell.
Now nearly every afternoon I found them lolling on my back deck. Oddly enough, Dashiell didn’t seem to have a problem with them, as though he knew they were people cats and therefore entitled to some slack.
He still chittered, however, every time the humongous yellow tom came around. I finally gave in and started putting feed out for them all under the back porch.
Of course, Josie wanted to play with them. I told her that the feral cats were wild. She soon discovered that on her own. One afternoon she chased a small black cat who looked as though she were pregnant and entirely too young to be having babies. Even in her advanced stage of pregnancy, the little mama easily outdistanced Josie.
We had taken to spending every pleasant afternoon down in Josie’s secret garden. I had tried to ride herd on Josie’s selection of seed packets, but she had gotten away from me. Several of the shoots I couldn’t identify.
They shriveled during December, and even Josie forgot her garden in the joys of Christmas. We had a rare snowy yuletide, and Dashiell was happy to be indoors. He even settled down, and the feral cats seemed to have abandoned us. I worried about them in the cold weather, but there wasn’t much I could do.
Wouldn’t you know, the weekend that I agreed to keep Josie from Friday through Sunday so that Marilee and Claude could go off to Lake Lanier to a house party, we had a major storm front slide in. The weather was cold and clear, but forecasters said we might get rain and possibly sleet before the weekend was out. The best thing to do in weather like that is to stay indoors, keep the television set going and flashlights close by, in case the power goes out.
I had taught Marilee not to fear either the dark or storms. In my day, before weather reporting began to be so accurate, we could enjoy a good ice or thunderstorm without worrying so much about whether there was a tornado on the ground in the next block.
Now I was teaching Josie. We always spoke together of ‘the friendly dark.’ Although I kept a night light on in the hall and the bathroom, Josie had resolutely refused one in her room. I suspect watching Monsters, Inc., about a hundred times helped many children get over their night fears. As a matter of fact, they probably slipped into their closets in hopes of finding something cuddly.
Late Saturday afternoon, however, darkness had closed us in early, and the temperature dropped even further. Josie crept into my lap and leaned her head back against me while she watched cartoons—something I seldom allowed—and I read the storm crawl across the bottom of the screen. We began to have lightning—a rare occurrence in the winter.
I had taught her to count the seconds from the flash to the boom so that she could tell how far away the lightning was from us. Under her breath I could hear her counting, “One-one-thousand—two-one-thousand—three-one-thousand. Oooh!” As she heard the crack. Several times she sang under her breath, “Twinkle, twinkle little star, how I wonder what you are.” That was a sure sign that she was nervous.
Dashiell was also more nervous than usual, although I saw no sign of his buddies on the back porch outside the French window.
I had decided that this would be a good night for pizza, Josie’s absolutely favorite meal. I buy a pizza at Piggly Wiggly, then fix it up with extra mozzarella and pepperoni. I left Josie watching some Japanese cartoon with a big-eyed child who could fly, while I fixed the pizza.
I had just put it into the oven, when Josie came flying into the kitchen.
“Grammie, Grammie, come quick!” She grabbed my hand and pulled me into the den.
“What’s the matter, baby?”
“It’s Dashiell, Grammie!” Her face looked stricken. Her eyes were enormous. “He got out.”
“He what?”
She shrank from me. “The little black cat came up on the porch. I wanted to pet her.” She shuffled her feet and whispered, “I just opened the door a tee-ninesy bit.”
“Stay here,” I snapped. I opened the door to the back porch. The wind cut through me. The trees were flapping in the wind, and I could smell ice on the way. I called “Dashiell!” over and over again. I ran down the back steps and almost tripped in the dark. If he’d been chasing the black cat, Dashiell could be halfway to downtown Mossy Creek in two minutes. He’s old, but he can still run when he wants to.
Josie tried to come after me. “Don’t you move!” I snapped at her.
Dashiell wouldn’t be able to hear me above the sound of the wind. Although it was barely five o’clock, the light was already fading. I ran through the yard calling for him. He must be terrified. Once outside, he’d have no idea how to shelter from the wind he’d never felt before.
He knew nothing about streets and cars. I ran around the house and up and down the street praying I wouldn’t find his little body. Then I ran back all the way to the alley fence line. I checked the hidden garden too. I called again and again, but neither saw nor heard him.
I even crawled under the back porc
h in the mud hoping he’d taken shelter there. Again nothing. I hadn’t stopped to pick up a jacket, so by the time I climbed the stairs to the pack porch I was shaking.
Oh, Dashiell! He’d never survive a night like this alone and afraid.
Then I saw Josie standing just inside the door. I had never been truly angry with her before. I didn’t touch her. I don’t believe in using violence against children. In my heart I knew she hadn’t intended to cause harm, but she had willfully disobeyed me, and in doing so she might well have caused injury or even death to Dashiell.
Her thoughtless action could have terrible consequences.
I think she was expecting me to scream or rant or cry. That’s what Marilee does when she gets upset, and she upsets easily. I, on the other hand, almost never become angry, but when I do, it is a cold anger.
“I’m sorry, Grammie, I’m sorry,” she wailed.
I didn’t dare speak to her, but went to the telephone and called my neighbors. Their cats were all safe indoors. They promised to keep an eye out for Dashiell. “I’m afraid he’ll be run over in the street,” I said to Mrs. Johnson. “Or be torn to bits by that blasted yellow tomcat.”
She tried to reassure me that he’d find his way home. If he didn’t, we’d put up posters in the morning. “It’s all we can do,” she said.
When I hung up, I realized I could smell the pizza. It was more than due to come out of the oven.
Josie ate two bites of her pizza. I didn’t manage that much. She kept jumping up and running to the door to look out. She didn’t ask me to read her a book. I helped her bathe, put on her pj’s and tucked her in early. We both knew this was no ordinary night.
As I closed the door of her room, I could hear her sobs.
The Mossy Creek Gazette
215 Main Street • Mossy Creek, Georgia
From the Desk of Katie Bell, Business Manager
To: Honey Lymon
From: Katie
Honey—
I agree with you wholeheartedly. Something was in the air on Saturday. It was a day for . . . changes of heart. Transformations. Fresh starts. Okay. I’ll just say it.
Miracles.
I’ve read the story you sent me. The one about what happened to you and Bert and the kids. You asked me to give my honest opinion of it, so here you go:
Yes. Yes. Yes. Your sister’s children will love it. When they’re old enough, sit them down in a quiet spot, and read it to them. Tell them it’s your words, but their mother’s spirit. Yes, I think our loved ones can speak to us after they’ve passed from this world. Maybe not in voices we always recognizes, but they do send messages. I believe your sister wanted you to write this story for her. I believe she whispered it in your ear.
And I believe you’ll be speaking for her, speaking her heart, when you share it with her twins.
Darn it, Honey, reading this story made me cry. Me. A tough gossip columnist. Crying.
Keep this up, and you could ruin my journalistic reputation.
Your friend,
Katie
Chapter 12
Love lives on.
Gone, But Not Forgetting
I SHOULD HAVE GONE back to Mossy Creek for a visit sooner. Like maybe before I died. Then my twin baby girls would have met their aunt and uncle, Bert and Honey Lyman, while Cam and I were still around to ease them into the relationship. And maybe now they wouldn’t be screaming at Honey while she laid them into car carriers in the back of her beat-up ‘92 Pontiac Lemans.
Shoot, my sister Honey hadn’t even met their daddy. And no, it’s not what you’re thinking—it wasn’t my husband who’d kept me from going back to see my sister for five years. From the time I met Cameron Ross, an executive at the San Francisco movie studio where I did voice-over work for cartoons and commercials, to the day we had the twins, he’d wanted to meet my family.
They would have liked him, too, if only because of how he’d taken to me. Just as an example, my specialty at the studio was a Southern accent. I know, I know, but hey, a woman born and raised in Mossy Creek whose accent was thicker than syrup had to start somewhere. Even so, I always worried about it sounding too countrified, but Cam thought it was “sultry.” Go figure. He found everything I did “warm” or “cute” or “adorable.” You’ve gotta love a man like that.
Anyway, it wasn’t Cam’s fault I didn’t go back. Or Honey’s either, for that matter. Honey and I were close, even if we did live on opposite coasts. We weren’t the kind of sisters who called each other up once a year to exchange stilted “how are you’s” and excuses about why we had no time to write. We were the in-your-face kind, always intruding on each other’s lives.
She’d send me articles torn out of Ladies Home Journal about how to make a Thanksgiving centerpiece with just a burlap sack, some chickpea hulls, and pumpkin-orange ribbon, and I’d send her a cappuccino machine. Even though I knew she could be at the Naked Bean in five minutes to get her own cappuccino.
It was easier than sending myself.
But I was here now, and not exactly by choice. All because me and Cam hadn’t made a will. We kept putting it off until we had time. After that freaking bus hit us on the one night we hired a babysitter so we could go to the movies, the time factor became pretty much irrelevant.
After the accident, Cam had floated right on up the tunnel and into the light—he was sensible that way. You don’t get to be an executive, even in the movie business, by breaking the rules.
But me, Miss Ever-Loving Rule Breaker, I was still here. I couldn’t let go of Amy and Anna, especially when I knew where they were going. To be raised by our only living kin, Honey and Bert, in the same house as the Demon Child: Jeremy Albert Lyman.
Where was Jeremy anyway on this uncharacteristically icy Georgia afternoon? Why hadn’t he gone with Bert to the airport to pick up Honey and the babies? Had she finally come to her senses and sent my severely autistic nephew to an institution? Or at least placed him in a group home?
“How was your flight?” Bert asked Honey from the driver’s seat.
She flashed him a crooked smile. “How do you think? I had two babies with me.”
“Couldn’t have been worse than flying with Jeremy.”
“Want to bet?” She smiled. “Actually, they weren’t too bad. At least they only screamed at takeoff.”
“So the other passengers weren’t cheering when you got off the plane?”
She laughed weakly. “No, thank heaven. I hope I never have to go through that again. Although with the way Jeremy has improved, these days I think he might actually behave well on a plane.”
I snorted. That was Honey’s latest tall tale—how much better Jeremy had gotten since my last visit. I didn’t believe it for one minute.
“You look tired,” Bert said.
Honey pulled down the car visor to examine her face in the inset mirror. “I guess I do.”
She should have tromped on the fool’s foot. A man ought to know better than to say something like that to his wife. Especially a sweet guy like Bert, who bought Honey roses whenever she cooked him a roast because “roast is a lot of trouble to make.”
Maybe that’s why she didn’t deck him for his comment. Because one thing you knew about Honey—she loved Bert. I guess I understood why, even if he did tell corny jokes and run a radio and TV station out of the renovated barn next to their house.
Honey sat back. “It’s been a wild week, I tell you—dealing with the custody thing, talking to lawyers and pediatricians, arranging the funeral—” She crumpled in the seat. “Oh, Bert, I should have flown out there before. After Jeremy got better, I should have gone to see Sunny. Now it’s too late.”
With a scowl, Bert reached over to take her hand. “Don’t you dare feel bad about that. It was a lot easier for her to come here, and she wouldn’t.
”
Just as the old familiar guilt grabbed me, Honey said, “Can you blame her? On her last visit, Jeremy put on a real show for her—that was all she remembered.”
Oh, yeah, definitely. Five years ago, I’d visited them for three days of hell. Jeremy had slapped Honey a couple of times for trying to keep him from racing down the path to Hank and Casey Blackshear’s homestead next door so he could jump in the pond on their property. Whenever he escaped the house, he made a beeline for that scummy pond. And since he drank the water when he took a swim, Honey wasn’t about to let him “fill his belly with germs.”
For all her maternal trouble, she practically got beat up. And that wasn’t the first time either. Nor did he limit his “challenging behaviors” (isn’t that a nice euphemism for “beating people up”?) to Honey. He knocked Bert in the back once, and even took a swing at me.
Not that I blamed Jeremy for being mad about his lot in life. He couldn’t talk or even sign. His weird obsessions compelled him to patrol the house closing doors and toilet lids and putting the caps on things. Every time you walked through, he had to come behind shutting everything. And if you moved the books or videos he kept in some bizarre order only he understood, he went ballistic.
Jeremy went ballistic a lot.
No, it wasn’t his fault he was autistic, and yes, I should have been more understanding, but it’s hard to be understanding after hearing your sister’s head crack against tile when your nephew pushed her into the tub because she’d tried to make him bathe—apparently, ponds were fun but bathing wasn’t. Only the grace of God—and a hard head—kept her from splitting her skull open on the ceramic soap dish that day.
The truth was, the boy terrified me. I made a resolution then and there. No visits to Mossy Creek as long as the Demon Child lived in that house.
Yet here I was heading to Mossy Creek again anyway. Funny how fate messes with your life. Or death, as the case may be.
Honey sighed. “Sunny never gave Jeremy a chance, no matter what I said.”
How could I? I knew my sister—she always put a good face on everything. Like those god-awful outfits she wore. She claimed it was because she liked it that way, but I knew better. In grade school, I used to bask in the reflected glow of my older sister Honey. As the high school homecoming queen, she was considered the prettiest and most fashionable girl in Mossy Creek.
A Day in Mossy Creek Page 18
