By Summer's End

by Pamela Morsi

  Sonny nodded. “Yeah, but have always been too scared to take the plunge.”

  “They still are,” Phrona said. “I told them, ‘You don’t have to dive, just go and stick your toe in the water.’ That’s what’s been holding them back. They’re afraid that if they sell their house and then don’t like the place, there’s no going back.”

  His mother hesitated, took a deep breath and gave Sonny and Dawn a broad smile.

  “I told them, ‘Don’t sell now,’” she continued. “I said, ‘Find a nice couple that you can trust to rent your place for a couple of years, then when you’re sure, you can sell.’”

  His mother looked down at her plate, no longer willing to meet anyone’s eye.

  Sonny glanced over at Dawn. She was as surprised as he was.

  “Phrona,” Vern said. “I’m sure the kids were thinking about getting a little farther away than next door.”

  She shrugged as if that were no concern. “They’d have their own place,” she said. “Next door or the next county it would still be their own place. And it will be easier for me to help Dawn with the children if I’m right next door.”

  Dawn wasn’t saying anything. Sonny felt like he had to.

  “Mama, it’s very nice of you to do this for us,” he said. “And we appreciate all the help with the kids, but…well, I just hope you haven’t promised the McManns anything….”

  “I’ve promised nothing,” she said. “Now don’t go and reject the place before you’ve even seen it.”

  He shot another glance toward Dawn.

  “We’ll look at it, Phrona,” she said. “That’s all I’ll commit to, we’ll look at it.”

  Sonny was thinking they’d set up a visit on the weekend, but his mother got on the phone and a half hour later, the McManns were at the front door.

  “We’ll just leave the key with you, Sonny,” the old man said. “We’ll walk down to the bingo game at the church. Take your time, look it over.”

  “Excuse the mess,” Mrs. McMann told Dawn.

  There wasn’t any mess, of course. Sonny and Dawn let themselves into the immaculately kept house. The walls needed new paint and the decor was shabby without the chic, but there was a warmth about the place, some intangible something that said this was a home.

  “It’s like something out of another era,” Sonny said. “I honestly expect to see Betty, Bud and Kitten come running down the stairs.”

  Dawn nodded.

  Mrs. McMann’s furniture was vintage, complete with little crocheted doilies on the backs of the chairs. The hardwood floors were dust free and polished, but showed evidence of wear and the scarring of generations of kids and grandkids. The dining room had a built-in corner cabinet for china. The three bedrooms upstairs were not overly spacious, but the master had its own bathroom and the bedroom in the back had a little balcony overlooking the yard. The kitchen was the room most out-of-date. The countertops were covered in a wood grain laminate and the appliances were harvest gold. The worn linoleum on the floor was yellowed from waxing. And as they stood there silently, it was impossible not to notice the drip, drip, drip of a leaky faucet.

  “This is it,” Dawn said.

  “What?”

  “I knew it the moment I walked in the door,” Dawn said. “This is it. It’s the home I’ve been waiting for.”

  Sonny was skeptical. “Are you sure?”

  “Don’t you like it?” she asked.

  “Yeah, I like it a lot,” Sonny told her. “It needs some work, but I don’t mind that. I’d think it was close to perfect except, Dawn, it’s next door to my parents.”

  His wife shrugged.

  “They say to keep your friends close and your enemies closer,” she told him.

  Sonny opened his mouth to comment but she stayed him with a hand.

  “Phrona and I understand each other,” Dawn said. “We’re never going to be friends, but we both love you and we both love the girls. That’s enough in common for us to manage a relationship together. And it will be easier having her right next door. She can see what I’m doing and be a part of their lives every day, without being visiting constantly.”

  “Are you really sure?” Sonny asked again.

  “I wasn’t until I walked into this house,” she said. “This is a home, Sonny. It’s the kind of place I imagined for myself all my life. It’s the kind of childhood I want for my little girls.”

  And so it was decided. Over the next few weeks, the McManns moved out and the younger Lelands moved in. Phrona helped Dawn with painting and cleaning. Dawn took her mother-in-law’s advice on updating the look without decreasing the charm.

  The Lelands’ friends and neighbors began showing up with wonderful things for the couple and the house.

  “We were never able to give you kids any wedding presents,” Mildred Snyder explained to Dawn when she delivered a wicker bedroom set with twin beds for the girls. “Now everyone in town is scouring their attics coming up with something perfect for your home.”

  “I know it must feel strange to have your house filled with other people’s secondhand things,” Carlene Ramsey told Sonny. “But recycling is all the rage, isn’t it? And with two little ones in the house, it will be better not to be tearing up the nice things you’ve spent hard-earned money for.”

  In fact, the gently used furniture that graced their new home was tasteful, nice and in very good condition. A flowered couch that Susan Gillette brought over was deemed “totally wrong” by Susan herself with concurrence from Phrona and Mildred. It was quickly donated to the Goodwill and a much better one set in its place.

  The term secondhand took on a completely new meaning when Phrona toted her grandmother’s Spode dinnerware into Dawn’s dining room.

  “You’ll need something to put in that china cabinet,” Phrona said.

  Dawn seemed shocked, off balance, and she shot a wordless glance to her husband.

  “Are you sure you want to leave those dishes with us?” he asked.

  His mother wagged a finger at him. “Sonny Leland, one does not refer to hundred-year-old English bone china as dishes,” she scolded.

  “But with the girls in the house…” he said. “You know kids, something could happen to this.”

  “I raised you with these in my house,” she said. “You only broke the one piece. I always thought you were worth the price. Besides, the girls need to grow up around fine things. It’s part of their heritage and one day this china will belong to one of them.”

  It was a breakthrough moment for Dawn. He could see it in her face. She confirmed it later that evening as they walked hand in hand along the sidewalk. The girls, with Vern and Phrona, were locked in an intense game of Candy Land. Taking full advantage of their opportunity for grown-up conversation, Sonny and Dawn went up and down the streets of their neighborhood. He talked about his new job, the people he was working with, the successes he was making, the challenges he’d not expected. Finally he turned the conversation in Dawn’s direction.

  “Things going well with the house? The girls?” he asked.

  “Everything is great,” she told him.

  “How is it with my mother? I know she can drive you crazy.”

  Dawn nodded. “She definitely has that capability,” she said. “But she doesn’t intrude on our space without calling. And it is great having a baby-sitter right next door.”

  He nodded.

  “She and Vern are good for our girls,” Dawn said. “I can put up with anybody who’s good for the girls.”

  Sonny smiled at her. “I’m really glad,” he admitted. “I felt like you were okay with all this and had made peace with my mother, but today when she brought you the dishes, I saw something strange in your expression.”

  Dawn shrugged. “I guess it was just a realization,” she said.

  “Of what?”

  “I can’t run away anymore.”

  “What?”

  “Always, in the past, I kept open the option that if things went wrong
I could run away,” she said. “Anytime we had an argument or I had a bad day, anytime your parents got on my nerves, anytime I just felt too pressured or overwhelmed, I’d imagine that I could just put the girls in the car and run. I’d drive somewhere that nobody knew us and I’d start all over.”

  “You’d leave me?” Sonny asked.

  “I always told myself that you’d be better off without me,” Dawn said. “You’d get remarried, this time to someone who was much more suited to you. You’d have other kids with her and forget all about me and the girls.”

  “That’s not possible.”

  “I know,” Dawn said. “It was always just a fantasy. Today I realized that.”

  “So you’re not going to run anymore?”

  “Who can run carrying hundred-year-old English bone china?” she asked.

  They laughed together.

  “I love you, Dawn,” Sonny told her. “I want you here with me always.”

  “I will be,” she assured him. “This is the place I’ve been trying to get to. I love you, too, Sonny. That by itself is all I’ve needed to make me stay.”

  REAL LIFE

  24

  As the heat of August grew more oppressive, my mom seemed to rally. She finished her second course of the chemo and rarely even mentioned her illness. All her clothes had gotten too big and she still had days when she was too nauseated to eat. She never bothered to get a wig, assuring everyone who suggested it that her hair would grow back in no time. She did have little tufts of peach fuzz in the front. She wore her ball-cap from time to time. Sierra, who now used Vern’s computer to search for fashion hints on the Web, had downloaded a bunch of scarf-tying techniques. And she kept wrapping them around Mom’s head in really cool ways. But mostly in the heat, she just went bare-headed and we got used to seeing her that way.

  Sierra began talking about school. Of course, I knew what this was all about. Seth and Sierra were now a bona fide item. They saw each other nearly every day. Seth attended a private arts academy near downtown. They both knew that if Sierra were to go to the same school, she had to apply.

  When this subject came up, I couldn’t even look in anybody’s direction. I remembered what Mom had said to Del and I knew that she would never have planned for us to be here that long. The deal she’d made with Mrs. Leland was to stay for the summer. The summer was nearly over, even if her chemotherapy wasn’t, and we should be back on the road very soon. My school clothes were still in the suitcase under my bed, packed and ready to go, along with the soccer photo of my dad. Mom was getting better and we were getting out. I knew it.

  Sierra had no gleaming of understanding. We were sitting in the little sunporch area of Mom’s room. All the windows were open, the early morning breeze was seeping in, but it was already warm enough that anyone but Mom would have turned on the air-conditioning. She was cold, of course, sitting in her chair wrapped in a blanket, Rocky in his favorite spot on her lap.

  “It’s like an art school,” Sierra said. “I could like be an artist and do paintings or something and people would buy them for like museums and stuff.”

  “Sierra,” Mom pointed out, “you don’t know how to paint.”

  “Well, isn’t that more reason why I should be going to that school?”

  “They don’t let people in for free,” Mom explained. “And you haven’t shown enough talent to have any chance at a scholarship.”

  “Mom, duh,” she said, incredulously. “The Lelands have plenty of money.”

  “Vern is retired,” she said. “They’re living on a fixed income, which I’m sure is not nearly as much as you think. And that money is theirs, not yours.” Mom’s tone was firm.

  “I’m their granddaughter,” Sierra said. “If they want to spend money on me, I think we should let them. After all, they don’t have anyone else. Dakota and I will get everything when they die.”

  “They’re not dead yet,” Mom said. “And I’m thinking, Miss Sierra Leland, to encourage them to leave everything to charity.”

  My sister turned to me for help. I had none to offer.

  “We’re leaving soon,” I told her.

  Mom glanced up, surprised.

  I continued. “As soon as Mom is stronger, we’re getting out of here.”

  “No!” Sierra was genuinely miffed.

  “Maybe we’ll go out to Vegas,” I suggested to my sister. “The weather out there would be good for the winter. And you know how you love the place.”

  Sierra was shaking her head.

  “I’m not going,” she said. “I’m not leaving Knoxville.”

  “Knoxville’s too little and too boring,” I insisted.

  “I’m staying here,” she said. “This is where I want to be. If you and Mom want to leave, then go ahead without me.”

  Sierra flounced out of the room in a huff. Rocky raised his head up to follow her retreat curiously.

  I looked over at Mom. She was snuggled deeper in her blanket and staring out the window at nothing in particular.

  “She won’t be mad for long,” I told her.

  “I know,” Mom said. “Staying mad at people is just way too much trouble for your sister.”

  “And she doesn’t mean what she said,” I insisted.

  Mom sighed heavily. “I think she does,” she answered. “I’m getting trapped here. I’m sick and I’m trapped.”

  “No, you’re not, Mom,” I assured her. “We can get out of here. We can just jump in the car anytime and go. You’re between treatments now, we could go somewhere else, anywhere else. They give chemo everywhere.”

  Mom reached over and patted my hand. “You’re the one who’s always fighting to stay put,” she reminded me.

  I shrugged. “Vern can take my books back to the library. I wouldn’t even need to say goodbye to Spence. I could send him a postcard.”

  She wove her fingers in with mine and gave my hand a little squeeze. “I always thought you would be the one to tie me down.”

  “I just want you to be happy, Mom,” I told her.

  She smiled at me. “Thanks.” She loosened my hand and opened the blanket wrapped around her. Her T-shirt was round-necked and low cut. She pulled down the neckline to totally reveal her tattoo.” You know why I have this?” she asked me.

  “To remember my dad,” I said.

  She shook her head. “Not exactly,” she told me. “Sonny Leland was the most important person in my life, besides you girls. I’m not any more likely to forget him than I would be to forget you. Nothing could make that happen.”

  “Then why the tattoo?”

  “It’s there to remind me that I do have it in me to be happy,” she said.

  “Well, of course you do!” I thought it was a very strange thing for her to say.

  She laughed. “I love that about you, Dakota,” she said. “I love that you are so determined to make the world work. Sierra finds it easy to be happy, her personality is just like that. But you, you’re a lot like me. You have to work at it. I look at you sometimes and I think, yes, that’s what I might have been like if life had just been a little more kind. I want life to be kind to you.”

  “It is, Mom,” I assured her. “And it can be kind to you, too.”

  She raised her eyebrows skeptically and went back to staring off into the distance. I knew she was thinking about the cancer. I knew she was feeling trapped. I knew she wanted to be on the road. I tried to think what it was that kept us in places. There were places we stayed for months and months. For much longer than we’d been in Knoxville. Why had we stayed? What had kept us there?

  Guys. I realized that we’d only stayed for guys.

  “Del Tegge likes you,” I blurted out.

  “What?”

  “Del Tegge,” I said. “He likes you.”

  She shook her head. “He’s just a nice guy,” Mom told me. “He’s not interested in me that way.”

  “He is, he is,” I insisted. “Sierra thinks he is and she knows about these kinds of things. And Del
asked me himself what…what he could do to make you like him.”

  Mom laughed out loud at that.

  “Dakota,” she said. “I sure hope you’ve really misinterpreted the guy. It’s either that or he has some kind of pervy thing for bald women.”

  “Mom!”

  She ran a hand across the top of her head. “There’s nothing here but the hope of hair,” she said.

  “You don’t need hair to be pretty,” I said. “You tell Sierra all the time that beauty starts on the inside.”

  “Well, my insides are even sadder looking than my outside these days,” Mom said. “My CAT scans even make the oncology nurses cringe.”

  “No, Mom, I think you’re beautiful inside and out,” I told her.

  “Thank you,” she said.

  “You’re welcome.”

  “But, Dakota,” she cautioned. “Don’t go getting ideas about Del and me. Guys don’t fall for women who have cancer. He’s just a nice man, trying to be a friend. I know you don’t have a lot of experience with that kind of guy, but that’s what he is. Anyway,” she said, pointing to her tattoo again, “the guy is really not my type.”

  I’d said the same thing myself.

  I hadn’t wanted Mom to get involved with anyone, but now I could see that involvement might be the very best thing for her. Unfortunately, I’d already screwed up things between her and Del with the foster care thing.

  There had to be something else, some other way to make a connection with a place that didn’t involve men or disease. Nobody could keep running forever. Eventually there had to be some reason to just stay put.

  In midafternoon, like most every day, I made my way to Mrs. Leland’s behind-the-garage office. That day, surprisingly, Rocky trotted at my heels.

  “Am I bothering you?” I asked from the doorway.

  She motioned me in.

  “Rocky, too?” I asked, as the dog hesitated on the step.

  “Of course,” she said. “I haven’t seen much of that creature for the past few weeks.”

  “He hangs with my mom, a lot,” I told her. “I don’t know why he likes her, she’s never liked animals much. We could never have a pet or anything.”