Summer Breeze

by Catherine Palmer

  Kim froze as she stared at her husband’s hardened features. In the backseat, neither twin moved a muscle. Derek rarely expressed negative feelings, but when he did, it had an impact.

  For so long Kim and her children had basked in this man’s gentle kindness and words of support. How many times a day did Derek tell Kim she was beautiful and whisper that he loved her? How often did he go out of his way to play with the kids, to let them know he was proud of them, to compliment their schoolwork or art projects? Quietly, he had surrounded the family with protection, adoration, and encouragement. And look how they repaid him.

  Her eyes filling with tears, Kim reached out to lay a hand on her husband’s arm. “I’m so sorry, honey,” she said. “Please come to church with us. Please don’t let—”

  “To tell you the truth,” he interrupted, moving his arm away from her touch, “I’ve decided I like my mother’s brand of religion better than yours. If Christianity causes people to act like this, I don’t want any part of it. Maybe I’ll give ol’ Buddha a try.”

  He reached across her and pushed open the passenger door. Frantic, she brushed at her cheeks, but the tears wouldn’t stop. How had things come to this?

  “You kids go on inside,” Kim ordered, leaning over the seat and brushing them out the door. “Meet us in the parking lot after Bible study time.”

  “But what about you, Derek?” Luke asked. “I thought you were coming with us.”

  “Not today,” Derek said. As the twins raced for the church, he studied his wife. “I wish you’d go with them, Kim. I need some time to think.”

  “Derek, we have to talk about this,” she told him, shutting the car door. “The kids, your mother, religion. You mentioned wanting a baby, and we need to discuss that. There’s the whole issue of Joe and his relationship to the twins. And now we find out that Lydia’s best friend is dating a teenager! Please—let’s drive over to Bitty’s and get some coffee.”

  “I’ve had my coffee, and I’m not interested in talking. Everything’s abundantly clear to me. I’m sure it is for you, too.”

  “Maybe our problems are obvious, but we need to figure out how to solve them.”

  “You know how I solve problems, Kim? I lock them up. That’s just the way I handle things.”

  “Sure, if you’re a patrolman dealing with a—” A pounding on the car’s window cut off her words. Kim turned to find Luke staring in with a pained expression. She lowered the window. “What is it, Luke? Derek and I are talking.”

  “My insulin kit. It’s in your purse, remember?” His big brown eyes filled suddenly with tears as he glanced at the man in the driver’s seat. “I’m sorry, Derek. I didn’t mean what I said about you. I hope I grow up to be like you and not my other dad. I don’t want to go to jail or become an alcoholic. And I like Grandma Finley. Lydia does too. It’s just that we don’t think she likes us. She’s always reminding us that she’s not our grandmother by blood, only by marriage. And when we saw those weird religious things in her bedroom, we started thinking that maybe she was a witch even though we know she’s really not. But if she is a witch, it’s okay, because we’re not scared of her. So please don’t divorce us, okay? Lydia feels the same as me; I promise.”

  Derek blew out a breath and leaned his head on the seat back. “Just go on to church, Luke. It’s all right.”

  “Are you going to divorce us?”

  “No, I’m not going to divorce anyone. Get going, now. You’ll be late.”

  Luke gave his mother a final pleading glance; then he slipped his kit into his pocket and ran toward the church. Kim opened her purse and pulled out a tissue. This was a nightmare. For a few precious moments, she had cherished such hope. A fragile hope, but a real one. Now it had vanished like flower petals in a harsh winter wind. And she wasn’t even sure why.

  Derek put the car into gear and backed out of the lot. Kim blew her nose and tried to blot her cheeks, but the sight of her son’s face had just about killed her.

  Luke was right in being fearful about the future—look what she had put her children through already. Though they had been young at the time, Kim knew the twins recalled the scenes of drunken rage and cowering fear that had occurred between their parents. When they escaped that life, Kim and the twins had lived in a women’s shelter for a time. Things had been so difficult as she struggled to clothe and feed her little ones. Then she had married Derek and forced yet another adjustment on the children. Until now, she had believed their life was finally better. But Derek’s angry words had sent a frightening chill clear through to her bones.

  She couldn’t stop shivering as she dabbed at the tears streaming down her cheeks. Derek had told Luke he wouldn’t divorce Kim, but what must he think of her now? He had gone from a peaceful, independent life, in which the only thing he had to think about was maintaining order on the water. Now she had brought all kinds of turmoil and chaos into his life. His words were always kind, but did he really mean them?

  “Kim, please stop crying,” Derek said evenly. He had driven back to Tranquility and was parking in front of the pumps outside Rods-N-Ends. “We’re running a little low on gas. I’m going to fill the tank. Try to cheer up.”

  Cheer up? Impossible. Nodding mutely, she held a tissue under her nose as Derek got out of the car. Pete Roberts had hired part-time help for Sunday mornings and a couple of evenings a week, but Kim noticed that today Pete was inside the store. To her dismay, he ambled outside as Derek began pumping gas.

  “Howdy, Officer,” Pete greeted his customer. “Playing golf this morning?”

  Kim could hear Derek’s deep voice. “Just out for a drive.”

  “I’ll wash the windows for you. Nice day, ain’t it? Not too hot. People are heading for the lake like bees to honey. I’m surprised you’re not on the water this morning.”

  “Working the late shift.”

  “That’s when the party gets going.” Pete’s bearded face and blue eyes appeared in the side window. “Hey there, Kim. How’s the kiddos?”

  “Fine,” she managed. She pulled her appointment book out of her purse and studied it, hoping he wouldn’t notice her swollen eyes and damp cheeks.

  “I figured you’d be at church by now.”

  “We dropped off the twins.”

  “Takin’ a break from religion. Sounds good to me. I thought I’d sit by a spell too. Me and Patsy used to see each other at church and go out to lunch afterward, but she won’t even look me in the eye since the Fourth of July incident.”

  Kim frowned. “But that incident turned out fine. Luke is feeling much better now.”

  “Aw, it’s not Luke. Patsy blames me for setting her down in that wobbly lawn chair. I mean … well, it was kind of funny when she fell through, but Patsy didn’t see the humor in it. That one little thing riled her worse than all the chain saws and Weedwhackers I had revved up next door to her salon.”

  “She’ll get over it,” Derek spoke up. “Just give her time.”

  “I hope you’re right. I couldn’t take another minute of sitting on that hard pew and looking at the back of Patsy’s head. You know, if you’re going to claim to be holy and righteous and walk around with all that sanctification oozing out, well, it seems to me you ought to be able to forgive a fellow for accidentally dropping you into a loosey-goosey lawn chair.”

  “I couldn’t agree more,” Derek said with a dry chuckle as he paid for the gas. He slid back into the driver’s seat and looked across at Kim. As he put the car in gear and pulled onto the highway, he spoke gently but firmly. “I’m going to the house. I have some paperwork that I’ve put off too long. Why don’t you drive back to church and pick up the kids? We’ll eat lunch, and then I’ll go to work.”

  “But what about Lydia’s horrible attitude? … And all this tension between us? … And your mother?”

  As she spoke the final words, a fog lifted momentarily and Kim suddenly saw the crux of their problems. It was Miranda. She had upset the twins. She had destroyed the balance o
f love and mutual support between Kim and Derek. The longer Miranda had stayed, the worse things got, until now Kim had even begun to wonder if her marriage could survive. Only one solution became clear: Miranda had to go. And Kim had to convince Derek to make that happen.

  “Derek, we need to talk about your mother.”

  “Kim, it’s like I told Pete. Let this stuff go. Give it time. It’ll pass.”

  “But it won’t. I know we’ve had a lot of different things come up this summer, but one problem is affecting all of it. Your mother needs to move out of our house. We have to get back to normal, and that means she has to go. I want you to tell her that it’s time to leave.”

  Derek groaned.

  “I mean it, Derek. There’s no other solution.”

  “You’re looking at this from one angle. Don’t overreact. We can handle it.”

  “Can we? If you really believe that, then we had better start talking. We need to figure out a way to make things better.”

  “You like to talk. I don’t. We’re different, okay?”

  “No, it’s not okay,” she said. “We can’t be different. Not with this. We have to be united. You want to lock our problems away like prisoners, but what happens when the prisoners get released or break out? And they always do.”

  “They get out, cause a little trouble, so we round them up and put them back in jail.”

  She reached for another tissue. “If you won’t talk, will you at least listen to me?”

  “I heard you already. You and the kids.”

  “Did you hear me say I want your mother to leave? Did you listen to Luke when he came back for his kit? That’s how they really feel, honey. They love you. It’s not like Lydia said.”

  “Kim, I’m trained to listen to people. I carry a recorder when I’m on duty so I don’t miss a word. It’s my job to hear things exactly as spoken.”

  “But you can’t listen just to the words! You have to hear what’s beneath them. You have to listen to people’s feelings and behaviors and attitudes.”

  He gave her a long look. “I’m not like you, Kim. I hear what people say, and I take them at their word.”

  “And then you lock them up behind bars of silence.”

  The mute hostility continued until they finally arrived back at the house. Miranda was outside in her nightgown and slippers, snipping blooms off the tea roses that Kim had worked so hard and with such patience to grow.

  Spotting the car, Miranda lifted a hand and waved. “You both came back!” she said as Derek switched off the engine and opened the door. “How nice! I’m cutting a bouquet for our luncheon table. It’s so drab and dreary in the dining room—all those bare windows! I thought we needed a lovely centerpiece to draw everyone’s focus and brighten things up. Oh, Derek, will you fetch one of those vases from the garage? Kim has put them up so high I can’t reach them.”

  Feeling as though her last hope had been snipped off like a rose that had just begun to bloom, Kim stepped out of the car. She clutched her Bible and fought tears once again.

  “Kim, you’ll be happy to hear my news!” Miranda strolled over, a large cluster of red blossoms in her basket—and the rosebush behind her completely bare. “After hearing those awful comments Derek made about my incense, I decided I should make some changes. So I’ve set up my altar out on the deck. That way I’ll have plenty of room to perform my yoga and tai chi movements, I can meditate to the sound of the birds in the trees, and no one will be bothered by the fragrance of my patchouli incense—though I have to say, I like it better than the potpourri you’ve put in those little baskets around the house. See? Things just have a wonderful way of working out, don’t they?”

  With that she swung away and hurried over to Kim’s patch of newly opened daylilies.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Patsy was putting the final strokes of topcoat on Ashley Hanes’s fingernails when she noticed Cody sweeping up under another stylist’s station. The curly-haired young man focused on his work with all the concentration of a brain surgeon. Ever since he had started helping out at Just As I Am, she noted, the salon looked fresh, clean, and tidy.

  “I hear Cody’s turning out to be quite an artist,” Ashley said.

  “It sure took me by surprise,” Patsy replied. “The first thing I realized was that he had a kind of flair for organizing the styling tools. He wound their cords just so and placed gel, spray, mousse, and shampoo in neat rows.”

  “Didn’t he work on the curtains, too?”

  “Yes, Brenda Hansen taught him how to use the washing machine, and the next thing I knew, he had washed every curtain in the salon and then hung them up again. He found a long piece of ribbon, snipped it up, and used it to pull them back.”

  “I thought he could barely tie his shoes,” Ashley said. “And now he’s making beautiful bows?”

  “Not only that. See those flowers on the checkout desk? I never could get them to look right. But Cody went to work on them, and now they get so many compliments that I bought more flowers for him to put into garlands and posies.”

  “I didn’t know Cody made those! I saw they were for sale, so I bought one and hung it over our bed. Brad hasn’t noticed, but I think it looks really pretty.”Ashley reflected for a moment. “What got him started on painting the walls?”

  “I noticed he was always looking at the hairdo magazines. He told me he would like to paint those pretty ladies, if only he could. So I bought him a watercolor pad, some brushes, and some paper—and lo and behold if Cody didn’t knock the socks off everyone with his portraits. So I just decided to give him the whole wall. He works on it every day and night whenever he has a spare moment.”

  Both women studied the large mural. Then Ashley said, “There’s something kind of weird about it. Do you know who those women remind me of?”

  “Jennifer Hansen?” Patsy asked.

  “Yeah. What’s the deal with that? Does Cody have a crush on her or something?”

  “Oh, I think he sees her when he’s over at the Hansen house working with Brenda on his social skills and his reading.”

  “I hope he’s not getting too attached to Jennifer. I heard she’s going to be a missionary.”

  Patsy nodded. Steve and Brenda’s older daughter had returned to Deepwater Cove after a mission trip to Africa. Jennifer had her heart set on living in a jungle somewhere and teaching people about God. She was beautiful, smart as a whip, and sweeter than molasses. But she hadn’t even noticed the moon-eyed young man who dawdled nearby every time she came in for a trim. One of these days that girl was going to recognize herself on the wall of Just As I Am, and Patsy feared that her reaction might hurt poor Cody.

  “I’ve made every station span,” Cody announced just then, broom in hand as he walked toward Patsy. “I’ll mop tonight. Would it be okay if I painted for a while?”

  “It’s almost time for the TLC meeting,” she told him. “Don’t you want to join us?”

  “No thanks. But thank you anyway.”

  Patsy smiled. “Ashley, I’m going to go check the appointment book. You keep your nails under the dryer for a few minutes; then you’re done.”

  Cody accompanied her across the room. “You did a great job today, as always, Cody. This place looks so good I hardly recognize it.”

  “Yes, you do. This is Just As I Am. It’s your beauty salon.”

  “It sure is.” She reached out and ruffled his curls. “You might be due for a trim one of these days, sugar pie. We don’t want your hair getting all matted up again.”

  Cody gazed down at the floor for a moment as if searching for words. Then he lifted his head. “I want to tell you something, Patsy Pringle. Here it is. I want to say thank you for shaving off my hair a long time ago when I first came to Deepwater Cove. And thank you for giving me a job. And for paying me real money. And for buying me watercolors and paper. And for letting me paint your walls. And for—”

  “Good gravy, that’s about enough!” She laughed and gave him a warm hug. “J
ust seeing your smile is all the thanks I need.”

  “But here’s the last thing I want to say. Even though you never gave me chocolate cake, I think you’re a real Christian. My daddy taught me lots of Bible verses, and when I say them in my mind, I think of you because you’re like the good people in the Bible. And that tells me you’re a Christian.”

  Patsy swallowed. “Well, that’s so nice.”

  As she had at least a hundred times a day, Patsy gave a guilty glance across the salon at the wall dividing her shop from Pete’s Rods-N-Ends. She knew she ought to go over there and make peace with the man. Not only had Lydia Finley challenged her, but every Scripture she read and each whispered word in her heart told her to forgive him.

  “Pete says you are an apple.” Cody nodded as he spoke. “That’s what he told me yesterday. He said you’re mad at him, because you fell through the chair and everyone laughed, including me. We were laughing because your bare feet were sticking up in the air. It was very funny. I still laugh about it when I remember how you looked, Patsy. But Pete said you’re upset, because you believe people laughed because they think you’re fat. But you are not fat. You’re an apple. That’s what. An apple.”

  Patsy stared at the earnest blue eyes. All she could picture was a big, round, red apple, and if that’s what Pete thought of her, well, she ought to just wring his neck. But Cody was standing there looking at her, watching to see what she would do.

  She set her hands on her hips. “Did you come over here and talk to me about being a Christian because you know I’m upset with Pete?”