Because of Joe

by Because Of Joe [Contemporary Rom. ] (lit)

  The smile slipped from his face as he remembered that he'd learned it all too late.

  Rags stirred in her sleep, compacting herself even more, and he drew the sheet up over her shoulder in case she was cold. He hoped she didn't wake instantly sorry they'd gone to the wild place together. He could envision her cheeks going red and her eyes staring down at the hand-pieced quilt.

  He remembered telling her he loved her and wondered if she'd known he meant it. Or did she think he'd said it to manipulate her? He was a Maguire, after all, and that was what they did best.

  Her eyes opened, soft and foggy gray, and she turned to face him, dislodging the cover from her shoulder. "Good morning."

  "Hi." He reached to smooth the strands of hair that fell into her face.

  "I'm sorry I woke you last night." She flushed, but only slightly.

  "Are you really?" He smiled at her, and trailed his fingers around the curve of her jaw. "I'm not."

  "Can we stay here for a couple of days?" she asked.

  He nodded. There was no hurry. Joe's last e-mail had said he was in northernmost Maine, freezing his butt off, but that he was leaving for North Carolina any minute. "This desolation is beauty in itself, and will make a great contrast to the high color stuff you're sending me and what I got in Vermont and New Hampshire."

  Tell didn't want to think about Joe, didn't want worry over his physical condition to cloud this time with Rags, but putting a child's plight out of mind was akin to counting stars. You might start out all right, but then something would distract you and you'd be hopelessly lost.

  By the time they made it down to breakfast, Esther's grandsons had already left. "Morning classes, they said. Girlfriends, more likely," she offered, setting a platter of Canadian bacon and eggs on the table, "but they got the walls all done and part of the trim. I can do the rest myself and be back in business by the weekend."

  Which was how Tell found himself painting woodwork all morning. "I don't even like to paint," he groused. "Why couldn't we have hired someone for her?"

  "I'm not sure." Rags looked at him, her grave expression seriously diluted by the streak of paint on her cheek. "But it wouldn't have been the same."

  "I know."

  After a lunch served by a paint-spattered Esther, Tell and Rags went for a walk through the town. When their travels took them past a golf course, he looked at the undulating fairways, his mouth all but watering. His clubs were in the trunk of the Monte Carlo, but he hadn't played since they'd left Rags' house. It wasn't as though he could just desert her in a strange town; he'd done enough of that when they were married.

  "Why don't you play?"

  He turned his attention to Rags. "What?"

  "Why don't you play eighteen holes? It's chilly, but not too cold to play."

  "But you hate golf."

  She laughed. "I didn't say we, Tell, I said you. And don't act like you mind playing by yourself when you don't."

  "But what will you do?"

  She looked confused. "Whatever I want."

  In the end, he didn't play by himself. Esther put on a fuchsia sweatshirt advertising the bed and breakfast, plaid knickers, and a visor bearing the Nike Swoosh, and went along. Tell wasn't thrilled with the idea, but he didn't know a polite way to tell their hostess he'd rather go alone.

  "You can just lock the door if you want to," she told Rags. "If anyone wants a room, they'll come back, and the machine will pick up the phone."

  "Fine, fine." Rags flapped a hand at them and closed the door so quickly she almost caught Tell's foot in it.

  ~*~

  "You go first," said Esther, when they rolled their rented cart up to the first tee of Allegheny Greens. "I use the women's tees these days."

  He drove-badly-and got back behind the wheel of the cart.

  "She'll be fine," said Esther. "She got along without you for a bunch of years, didn't she?"

  "Yeah, she did, but part of our problem was that I was always off doing what I needed to do and leaving her to deal with things. I feel like I'm doing the same thing now." He shoved his foot down on the brake. "I can't believe I just said that to you. I don't generally discuss my personal life with people who haven't already seen me screw it up."

  "It's the glasses," she said sagely, pushing up her rimless spectacles. "Makes people think I'm older than God and know everything." She stepped out of the cart and reached behind the seat for her driver, looking back at him with perpetually twinkling eyes. "They're close to right, too."

  He parred the first hole by the skin of his teeth. Esther birdied it. "I love her," he said on the way to the second tee, and felt inordinate pleasure in having said it aloud.

  "A blind man could see that," she offered, "but it seems to me you both get your past and your present kinda mixed up."

  "Probably," he agreed.

  "You going to drive, or are we going to sit here and watch the leaves fall? Keep your head down."

  He shot her a look of mild annoyance. "Do you treat all your guests this way?"

  The grin he expected didn't materialize. "No," she said quietly, "but when you two walked through the door, it was like looking back thirty years and seeing my husband and myself. I don't know why. I don't have that ESP they used to talk about on television."

  Tell remembered what Rags had told him about Esther Yoder's life. "How did you do it?" he asked. "How did you leave the past behind you?"

  "Don't know that we ever did," she admitted. "You ever played in best ball tournaments, where you all hit off the tee and then play the hole with the ball ending up with the best lie?"

  He nodded.

  "I guess that's what we did. We just played with the best ball."

  ~*~

  She'd never realized how much she cherished solitude.

  Rags stood back from the wall and looked critically at the stenciled green vines that meandered on the wall over and beside the doorframe. She hoped that was the look Esther wanted.

  It had been so long since she'd done anything creative she'd almost forgotten how good it felt. As she gathered the tools she'd used to paint the stencils around the upstairs hallway doors, she tried to recall when she'd stopped trying. It hadn't been at any certain moment, she realized, but time had taught her that Maguires did things well or they didn't do them at all; they hired people. Painting, sewing, or accomplishing anything "okay" was not an option.

  But that didn't explain away the past eleven years.

  The thought was so startling that Rags sat down on the carpeted stairs, staring sightlessly at the stencils and paintbrushes in her lap. She'd created a new persona after her divorce, become a successful businesswoman and homeowner, and left Mrs. Tell Maguire behind.

  But she'd never reclaimed Clarissa Aloysius Ragsdale.

  Of course, she rationalized, there hadn't really been time. She'd been too busy raising the kids and making a living. Too busy perfecting her professional smile and proving she didn't need anyone.

  She was still sitting there when Tell and Esther came in laughing. She swallowed disappointment that her time alone had ended and aimed a vague smile in their general direction. "You have new guests, Esther, honeymooners who don't mind the smell of paint. I sent them on a tour of the town while I made up the bed and put champagne on ice in the Amy suite. There's ham in the oven. Scalloped potatoes, too. Your vines are done. They're not very good."

  "Oh, let me look." Esther bustled past her. "They're perfect," she called back a moment later. "Well, not perfect, maybe, but ideal for Plumfield. They look homey and warm and remind me of my mother's ivy she used to have climbing all over the kitchen. It wasn't perfect, either; it was dusty."

  Tell smiled at Rags, his eyes shaded by the baseball cap he wore. "You were busy. Did you have fun?"

  "Yes," she said. "Yes, I did."

  "Me, too."

  "Good."

  But was it? Shouldn't they want to be together all the time if they were interested in rebuilding a relationship? Rags almost laughed wh
en she realized how very little she actually knew about man-woman relationships. The only real one she'd ever had was with the man standing at the bottom of the stairs.

  He smelled like fresh air and his Dockers hugged his hips and his brown hair stuck out all ways from underneath his hat. There was a streak of dirt on his shirt and his cheeks were ruddy from the cool air. To the critical eye, he would look "okay." To hers, he looked splendid, and she was suddenly glad he was back.

  "I like you in Dockers," she said. "You're not as bandbox neat as you used to be, and I like that."

  He looked down at himself and then at her. "Show me these vines you painted."

  Reluctantly, she led the way upstairs, leaving her painting paraphernalia on the step. He would like the vines, she knew, and he would probably even say he'd like them in his house on the beach. But he'd hire a professional, and his vines would be perfect.

  "Those are pretty." He stood back from them. "Would you do those in the house in Florida next time you're there?"

  "Me?"

  He looked around. "I don't see anyone else here."

  "Oh." She felt foolish. "Sure. I just didn't expect you to like them. They're kind of amateurish."

  "Really?" He looked at them again, his gaze following the painted ivy from beginning to end. "Not to me. Of course, you've always had a talent for things like that. I envy you that." He pushed open the door to their room and gestured for her to go ahead.

  "You envy...what do you mean?"

  "You could make good things out of not much. Don't you remember when the twins decided to do a mural on the hallway wall? Instead of painting over it or scrubbing it, you framed it. That 'mural' got more positive response from people who visited our house than any of the stuff the decorator put up."

  "I thought you hated it."

  "I loved it. I wish we'd cut it out of the wall when we sold the house." He dropped his cap on the dresser and pulled his shirt over his head. "I'm going to shower." He pulled off his trousers, leaving them in a heap on the floor, and came over to her, touching her cheek with his thumb. "You have green cheeks, old lady. Maybe you should come in with me."

  She looked up at him. He had what the kids called "hat head," where the baseball cap's band had left an indentation in his hair all the way around his head. Oh, yes, she thought again, splendid.

  "Will you wash my back?" she asked.

  He grinned, tugging at the bottom of her tee shirt. "If you'll wash mine."

  ~*~

  Esther Yoder wouldn't accept Tell's credit card when they left. "Just keep in touch," she said.

  In Gettysburg, they toured the battlefield on foot, on a bus, and in their car. They lay in bed in the hotel and watched the movie Gettysburg, then got up in the morning and walked the battlefield again. In the cemetery, they stood with sagging shoulders, unable to assimilate the scope of the devastation. They thought of the events they'd seen in their own lifetimes and of their three sons and drew closer together, their hands linking.

  Tell took pictures of little boys in blue and gray kepis, old soldiers in VFW caps, a group of teenagers who stood in the cemetery with their heads bowed. Wearing a Confederate coat and holding a rifle, he posed with Rags and had his picture taken. She wore a dance hall girl's costume, and he spent the rest of the afternoon thinking about how her legs looked in fishnet stockings.

  They shared a room and a bed without discussion, returning to it after dinner and watching television and playing cards. After a while, discussion turned to fishnet stockings and Confederate coats, and they made love accompanied by laughter and sighs of completion.

  "Joe's in North Carolina at Ben's," Tell murmured before he slept. "We should probably head that way."

  Chapter Twelve

  "He's here, Dad."

  The words were abrupt, without preface, and Tell came upright in the passenger seat of the Monte Carlo. Ben was so courteous he probably wouldn't have exited a burning building without excusing himself. "Ben?"

  "You need to come right away." Worry lent an unaccustomed urgency to Ben's measured voice.

  "We're about two hours away."

  "Good. He's with me. He won't go to the hospital."

  Tell closed his eyes, pinching the bridge of his nose between a thumb and forefinger. "We'll see about that."

  Rags was speeding by the time he disconnected the cell phone, her jaw tense. "Be careful, old lady," he felt compelled to say before dialing the telephone once more. "Sam?"

  Even with Rags driving like a bat out of hell, the remainder of the journey to Round Rock, North Carolina, was uneventful. At least until the Monte Carlo came around the two-way exit off the highway that led to the village.

  That was when the old Ford pickup with a primer-painted front and a bright blue bed erupted into their lane and hit them head-on.

  ~*~

  She couldn't move, she couldn't see, and her face felt as though it was on fire. She had no idea where she was, where Tell was, or what in the hell was going on. She was, however, going to find out. Just as soon as she could get her eyes open.

  "I'll tell you, Mama, it amazes me what you'll do to get Joe to the hospital."

  She didn't need opened eyes to recognize that voice or the warm fingers that held hers. "Ben?"

  "You know," he went on, "Micah was always the one who would do anything to get his own way. At least now we know where he got that from. You're every bit as bad."

  "Where's-" her mouth wasn't working any better than her eyes "-Dad?"

  Ben's voice was soothing. "Down the hall."

  "He's all right?"

  "He's fine. He's in the coronary care unit because he has a history, but there are no problems."

  She relaxed slightly, knowing Ben would never lie to her-she was pretty sure he'd taken an oath at divinity school-then forced herself to say, "What about Joe?" She knew she wasn't going to like the answer.

  She didn't.

  ~*~

  "Dad, you can't give me a kidney." Even Joe's voice sounded weak. "There are, contrary to what you and Mama think, limits to the responsibilities of parenthood."

  "Sit down before you fall down." Tell made himself sound stern, fatherly, in command. It wouldn't do to start bawling now. Parenthood wasn't the only thing with limits. "Who says I can't?"

  "Me."

  Tell wasn't going to dignify that with a response. "You're sure your mama's all right?"

  "Positive. Her face is burned from the air bag and they have her eyes bandaged because of that. She has severe abrasions all down her left side, but no broken bones." He looked up when his brother came in. "Probably a chip on her shoulder by now, too. Did she yell at you for losing her glasses, Ben?"

  Tell watched as Ben came to sit on the edge of the bed, one hand resting for a moment on Joe's shoulder. "She's fallen back to sleep. They've got her doped up because she's going to hurt bad when she really wakes up."

  Joe nudged his brother with a foot. "Ben, I need you to tell Dad it's okay to let me go. We've talked a lot about this. I've made my peace with God, made out a will giving my dubious fortune to all the nieces and nephews I don't have yet, and chosen the pictures for Micah's and my book. Hell, I've even written my part of the dedication."

  His voice was calm, reasonable, and quiet. Tell wanted to smack him into next week.

  Joe leaned forward in the chair, his hands steepled together and his blue eyes so intent Tell found it impossible to look away. "I don't mind dying, Dad, but I'm not going to chance taking you with me. A dead guy's kidney is hard enough to think about. I'm not even going to consider yours." His gaze shifted back to Ben. "Tell him."

  "I can't do that, Joe." Ben rubbed his hands over his face. "I tried going at this as a minister and it didn't work, so I'm going at it as your brother and Dad's son." He smiled ruefully. "That's not working too well, either, but it's all very simple. I'm not willing to lose you. I refuse to once again be the oldest sibling who always has to be an example."

  ~*~

  Ther
e was no place in the world so lonely as a private hospital room, Rags decided. She'd thought it would be better when the bandages were removed from her eyes, but it wasn't. Light from the corridor filtered under the door and she could occasionally hear noise, but neither the light nor the muffled voices made her feel less alone.

  It was hard to believe it was only a few days ago that she'd decided she loved solitude. Right now the aloneness felt heavy and uncomfortable, as though she were wearing a flannel nightgown in an overheated bedroom.

  When her eyes were open, she heard Ben's words over and over again. "Without a transplant, Joe will die very soon. He has decided that rather than receive a kidney from Dad, with the possible risk to his heart, he'd rather go ahead and die. He's at peace with that decision. He is, however, the only one who is."

  Rags had not been surprised by her oldest son's obstinacy, but lack of surprise did nothing to dispel the fear of losing him.

  When had Joe truly become her son as well as her husband's "by-blow"? At first she'd felt only the compassion she'd have felt for any child in a bad situation, that maternal zing that came the minute she laid cheek against his forehead. The generic emotion had grown quickly into affection, but she wasn't sure exactly when she'd noticed that Joe's portion of her heart was as big as those belonging to Ben, Micah, and Marley.

  "Don't talk to your mama like that."

  The memory of Joe's angry words made her smile. He'd been yelling at Micah being disrespectful.

  "She's your mama, too. You can talk to her like that, too. She's not going to send you back or something." Micah had tossed her a look that might have been an apology before stomping off. Joe had looked after him with an expression of discovery on his face.

  Maybe it had been then. Or maybe it had been when she divorced Tell and Joe elected to stay with his father. It had broken her heart.