Mothers and Daughters: An Anthology

by Deborah Bedford

  Magnificent would be if Mother didn’t have this disease in the first place.

  “Would you hand me that towel over there?” And stop talking about this. “I want to get these sweaters laid out to dry before Lexi comes home from school.”

  The front door banged opened. “Mom!”

  “Too late.” Frannie smiled, handing over the thick, terry towel. “Our girl is home.” Cupping her hands around her mouth like parentheses, she called, “In here, rosebud.”

  Dropping books and a one-strap backpack as she came, Lexi rounded the bar. “Hi, Grannie Frannie.”

  Frannie produced a cheek for smooching, and Carrie did the same. Lexi looped her arms around Carrie’s shoulders for a hug, her slim-as-a-rail body pressed into her mother’s back. She smelled of Sea Island Cotton by Bath & Body Works along with freshly applied strawberry lip gloss and that special scent found only in public schools. Her sleek brown hair, lightened like a halo around her angelic face, brushed softly against Carrie’s cheek.

  For the first time all afternoon, Carrie’s mood lifted. Dear Lord, she loved this child. While other mothers bemoaned their teenagers, Carrie felt almost smug about her close-to-perfect daughter. She was good at mothering, a fact that still caused a yearning for the children she’d never had.

  “Do you have softball practice today?” Frannie asked.

  Lexi smooched Carrie’s cheek again and straightened. “Yes. Want to take me out for pizza first?”

  Mother’s baseball cap bobbed. “Sounds like fun.”

  Carrie tensed. Given this afternoon’s talk, the idea of her mother venturing off with her only child was not welcome. Yes, they’d run around together for years like two best friends, but things were different now.

  Lexi opened the fridge, took out a carrot and crunched. “Is it okay if we pick up Courtney?”

  “You bet. Tell her to bring that bong-bong CD.”

  Carrie turned from the sink, hands dripping. “Bong-bong?”

  Lexi’s shoulders hunched into giggle. “That’s what Grannie Frannie calls hip-hop.”

  “Ah.”

  “Go change clothes and get your gear.” Mother’s hands made a shooing motion. “I’m raring to go.”

  “You’re the best granny ever.” After a final, quick hug, Lexi started out of the kitchen, half-eaten carrot in hand. “Wait’ll you see my new batting gloves, Grannie Frannie. They’re so cool. Hot pink and purple. Courtney has the same ones.”

  Carrie waited until Lexi was out of hearing range. “I’m not sure this is such a good idea.”

  Mother, still smiling in Lexi’s direction, slowly turned to face Carrie. “Why not?”

  Carrie clutched the wet towel in her hands like a life preserver. “Did the doctor say you could continue to drive?”

  “Of course. He said I’d know when to stop.”

  That wasn’t too reassuring. “What if you have another lapse?”

  Mother’s smile dwindled away. “Carrie, I’ve driven all over the county since the diagnosis. No problems at all. Besides, Lexi will be with me.”

  That’s what worried her. She bit her bottom lip in an effort to keep her mouth shut.

  But Mother knew her too well. “I’d never do anything to endanger our girl.”

  “Not intentionally.”

  “All right, I hear that tone of voice. You don’t want her to ride with me, do you?”

  Feeling small, Carrie nodded. “I’m sorry, Mother. I’d rather she didn’t.”

  She should have expected the hurt on her mother’s face, but the look of betrayal hit her hard.

  Frannie’s mouth sagged, then tightened with decision. “I’ll go talk to her.”

  As she watched her mother leave the kitchen with less than the usual zip in her step, Carrie felt like the worst daughter on earth. But what else could she do? She had to protect her only child.

  Chapter Four

  “Lord, I’m worried about Carrie.”

  Fran knelt beside her bed. Her tomcat, Tux, lay curled on the pillow above her head, listening with sleepy-eyed disinterest. She’d been here more than usual lately and God always met her, His sweet spirit pouring strength and love into her often frightened being.

  For the last thirty minutes, she’d prayed for Ken. He hadn’t called, hadn’t come by. So she prayed not to be hurt or angry, prayed for understanding. Understanding had finally come when the Lord brought to mind Emily Markovich and her ravaging cancer. For three years Ken had helplessly watched disease eat away at his wife. No man deserved to go through that twice. Though sad to lose his love and friendship, Fran accepted that he simply could not face such an uncertain future.

  Now she’d turned her thoughts to her family, particularly Carrie.

  “She’s having such a hard time with this little problem of mine. Lord, my fondest wish has always been to see her full of Your joy and living in Your extravagant love and grace. But she’s unhappy, angry even, and I fear she’s angry with You. Forgive her, Jesus, and help her. Somehow I’ve failed her. Failed to be the example I should have been. Failed to show her that Your grace is everywhere if she’ll only look. Forgive me, Lord Jesus, forgive me, and teach me how to help her before it’s too late, before my mind is gone and I’m no good to anyone.”

  Tears clogged the back of her throat. She refused to cry for herself, but the thought of her child, struggling and hurting, broke her in half.

  “This latest thing is going to upset her even more, Father. I’m okay with it. Really, I am. Your grace is sufficient. But You know Carrie. She’ll have a fit. And I don’t know how to break the news.”

  Careful not to dislodge the child on her lap, Carrie closed the book she was reading and turned the cover so the half circle of preschoolers sitting around her on the red-and-blue alphabet rug could see the art. “And that, children, is the story of Red Fish, Blue Fish by Dr. Seuss. Wasn’t that fun?”

  “Weed it again,” came one small voice.

  Carrie smiled down into a pair of big brown eyes. “Our time is up for today. Perhaps your mother will check it out for you to take home. And you can ask her to bring you back for story time on Saturday morning. Okay?”

  The child’s head bobbed up and down. Then he popped up from the rug and made a beeline for an approaching woman Carrie knew to be his mother.

  She enjoyed working at the library, loved the order and the quiet and the smell of books. But most of all, she loved reading to the little ones.

  The toddler on her lap popped a wet thumb out of his mouth and grinned at her. Her heart turned over. What she wouldn’t have given to have borne more children. Since adolescence, she’d dreamed of at least three, maybe four, two boys and two girls. When they’d married, Dan had wanted a large family, too, and as the years slid by, Carrie’s feeling of failure had grown because she’d never been able to give him one. A rugged, outdoorsman like Dan naturally wanted a son, though being Dan he’d never complained after her failing became obvious. Though they’d prayed and prayed for more children after Lexi, none ever came.

  So now, to satisfy her nurturer’s heart, Carrie grew flowers, loved her only child, kept the church nursery and read to other people’s children twice a week.

  “Miss Carrie.” A towheaded blonde in a dinosaur T-shirt tugged on her sleeve. “I got a new kitty.”

  “You did?” Carrie shifted the child in her arms, but didn’t put him down. Having a little one snuggled warm and trusting against her felt good and filled a need she couldn’t voice. “Why, Jamie, that’s wonderful. What’s her name?”

  “She’s a boy,” Jamie said with four-year-old wisdom. “Her name is Killer ’cause Daddy said she better kill mice or she’s a dead duck.” He squinted at her mouth. “Have you gots any gum?”

  Carrie laughed and patted the boy’s bony shoulder. “Sorry, Jamie. No gum allowed in the library. Remember?”

  The children began to move away, some to the large, spongy blocks, some to the thick board books, and others to rejoin their waiting mother
s. Reluctantly, Carrie relinquished the toddler to a young brunette who looked barely old enough to drive.

  “He’s precious.” Carrie smoothed a hand over the child’s soft brown hair.

  “Thanks.” The mother, large with yet another baby, took the toddler’s hand and smiled in return. Carrie refused to acknowledge the pinch of envy. She was forty-two, for goodness’ sake. Far past the age to wish for babies.

  Carrie waited until all the children had been reunited with their parents and then rose from the stuffed reading chair and began reshelving books.

  As she bent for a copy of Goodnight Moon, a woman she knew from church approached.

  “I’ve been waiting to ask you, Carrie. How’s your mother?”

  Carrie slid the book into its proper slot while gathering her thoughts. She hadn’t realized Mother’s diagnosis was common knowledge, but in a town this small, she supposed word would get around eventually. Still, the conversation made her uncomfortable.

  “As good as can be expected, I guess, given the situation.” She checked the shelving numbers before turning to face the woman. Rhonda Flanders’s face was too thin to wear long hair, but she wore it that way just the same, giving her a cartoonish appearance.

  “Well,” Rhonda said, oblivious to Carrie’s train of thought. “I, for one, thought, it was terrible the way they did her, after all the years she’s put in.”

  Carrie reined in her musings about Rhonda’s too-narrow face and tried to regroup, aware that she and Rhonda were not on the same page.

  “I’m not sure what you mean, Rhonda. Who did something terrible to my mother?”

  Rhonda’s hand went to her lips. Her eyes widened. “You didn’t know?”

  Now Carrie was getting edgy. “Know what? Is my mother all right?”

  “She’s fine. At least, I suppose she is. I assumed she would have told you by now. It happened on Monday. Anyway, that’s what Margaret Johnson told me and she was there when it happened.”

  Today was Thursday. “Rhonda, please. When what happened?”

  “Well, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but she is your mother and you have a right to know. The church board voted.” Rhonda arranged her face in adequate sympathy. “They are replacing Frannie as church secretary effective immediately. She was fired.”

  July was hot enough without getting hot-under-the-collar to go along with the ninety-degree temperatures. Carrie’s fury gained momentum during the five-minute drive to her mother’s house. How could they do this? After all Francis Adler had done for that church, years and years of self-sacrificing service and this was the thanks she got. Fired. Fired. The very word made Carrie so mad she could have chewed glass.

  As she slammed out of her white Murano, she caught her purse strap in the door. Too upset to think straight, she jerked, snapping the strap in two.

  Leaving the strip of tan leather dangling from the car, she hurried to Mother’s front door.

  Frannie’s black-and-white cat, Tux, peered through the front window, mouth open in an unheard mew.

  “Mother,” Carrie called, opening the door without knocking. No answer. “Mother, are you home?”

  The latter was a foolish question. Frannie’s car sat beneath the detached fiberglass carport next to the house. Tux jumped down from his perch to wind through her legs. Carrie stood still for a moment, drawing in the cool rush of air-conditioning and listening for her mother’s perky voice.

  When none came, she started through the house with Tux underfoot. As she passed through the kitchen, she noticed something odd. Clothes and towels were strewn about, hanging over chair backs and on hangers hooked through cabinet pulls. Frannie was a relaxed housekeeper but not to this extent.

  Tux meowed, a loud, complaining sound. He stood over an empty dish at the side of the refrigerator, yellow eyes staring up at her.

  “What’s wrong, Tux? No cat food?” She found the box and sprinkled a few fishy-smelling pebbles into the bowl before continuing the journey through the house.

  She discovered her mother in the guest bedroom.

  Bent over a dresser, Frannie was tossing clothes out with the vigor of a dog digging for a bone.

  “Where is it?” she muttered.

  “Mother? What are you doing?”

  Frannie jumped, straightening so fast she bumped her elbow on a protruding drawer.

  “Ouch. Oh fiddle.” She shook her arm vigorously as she turned around. “Carrie Ann, you scared me, sneaking up like that.”

  “I’ve been calling your name for five minutes.” Carrie looked around at the disaster in the bedroom. “What are you looking for?”

  “That picture of Roland. Do you know where it is? I think his phone number is on the back.” She rubbed the tips of her fingers between her eyebrows. “Have you heard from him?”

  Not only had Carrie not heard from him, she hadn’t heard of him. “Who’s Roland?”

  Frannie stopped her frantic movements; a vague look crossed her face. She blinked rapidly and stared around the room.

  “I always felt bad about hurting him that way. I thought he might have called.” Suddenly, she plopped down on the bed amidst the mishmash of scarves and gloves and socks and other seldom-used items.

  A quiver of uncertainty ran through Carrie. “Mother, I have no idea what you’re talking about. Are you all right?”

  Frannie’s expression went blank. “I don’t know. Wasn’t Roland here?”

  Carrie stood frozen to the spot, sickeningly afraid that her mother was having an episode that had nothing to do with reality. She didn’t know what to do or say. Was it best to let Mother ramble? Or should she remind her of the here and now, bring her back into reality?

  God, why don’t You do something? This is hideous.

  Silence pulsed in the room like some cruel beat of music until Tux found them. He hopped up onto the bed. Not caring that his owner was out of touch, the cat rubbed a whiskered jaw against Frannie’s hand.

  Struggling not to cry, Carrie slid down next to her mother and put an arm around her shoulders. “Mother, do you know me? Do you know where you are?”

  For a moment, the only sounds were Tux’s rumbling purr and the outside hum of someone’s lawn mower. Carrie didn’t know what to do but wait and hope that her mother would come back to reality.

  As if the human and feline touches grounded her thinking, Frannie stroked the cat’s head and spoke. “Of course I know who you are. Goodness’ sakes, Carrie Ann. A mother knows her children.”

  Carrie breathed a sigh of relief but the tight pinch in her chest didn’t go away.

  “Who is Roland?”

  “Roland.” Voice caressing the word with an odd tenderness, Frannie stared down at the purring cat. Tux gazed back with a blink of gleaming yellow eyes. “Roland and I dated in high school, but then he went off to war and never came home.”

  “You never told me that. How did you hurt him?”

  “Your daddy came along after Roland shipped out—older, more worldly—and swept me off my feet. I wrote Roland a Dear John letter.” Her attention drifted across the room to a photo of her and Dad on their wedding day. Mother wore an enormous corsage on the shoulder of a Jackie Kennedy-style suit, her bouffant hair in a flip while the daddy she didn’t remember looked smug in his skinny tie and button-down collar. “What a shameful thing to do to a soldier fighting for his country. I was a Christian girl. I knew better. Lord knows, I’ve repented of that many times.”

  “I’m sure the Lord has forgiven you.” What else could she say?

  “Oh, me, too. He’s so sweet. He whispers in my heart that He doesn’t remember my past sins, but I remember, and I’m still ashamed to have treated Roland that way. I’ve always wondered if my letter made him careless. They said he jumped out of a foxhole and charged up a hill under enemy fire. He won a Purple Heart and a Silver Star for saving his platoon. Not that he ever knew it.”

  “The war took him, Mother. Nothing in that was your fault.”

  “I hope n
ot. I surely do. Roland James was a good boy who was sweet to everyone. And dance!” Frannie fanned herself. “You should have seen him do the Twist. Mercy!”

  Carrie sat in utter amazement. She’d never thought of her mother as a teenager, much less a teenage heartbreaker.

  “I don’t know what made me think of him today,” Frannie said, that lost look coming over her again.

  “Me, either, Mother. But I’m glad you’re okay.”

  “Right as rain.” She didn’t look right as rain. Her eyes were red-rimmed and tearstained and still a bit vague, but Carrie kept that to herself. “So what brings you here? Did I miss another dinner?”

  “I heard something at the library. Something that upset me. What happened at the church?”

  Her mother glanced away and then back again. Her shoulders drooped and, with a shock, Carrie thought she seemed suddenly, frighteningly old. “They let me go, honey. They had to. No need to be angry about it.”

  “Is that why you didn’t tell me? Or did you—” She stopped short of asking the humiliating question.

  “No, I didn’t forget. You’re already upset about this illness of mine. I didn’t want to add to your worries.”

  Carrie sighed, deep and heavy, seething underneath. “You’ve worked for the church in one capacity or another for years. Why did they do this to you?”

  “See? I knew you’d take it all wrong.” Frannie picked up the long, lanky cat and set him on her lap. “They had no choice. I can’t do the work anymore, so I tendered my resignation.”

  Indignation rose as hot as steam. “Rhonda said they fired you.” And they called themselves Christians.

  “I guess they did. The mix-up in the speaker’s dates was the last straw. All that airfare wasted.” Mother slid a beringed hand over the cat, over his head and down his long, glossy back. A slight tremor shook her fingers as her face crumpled. “I don’t want to forget, Carrie. I don’t want to fade away like some old lady who has lost her mind.”

  The knowledge that this was exactly what would happen seared through Carrie. She closed her eyes against the look of agony on her mother’s face.