Mars with Venus Rising

by Hope Toler Dougherty

  “Right, but he closed us down in Illinois.” Jancie folded her arms across her chest with an exaggerated sigh.

  “What’d you do with the socks?”

  “Lugged them all the way to the Pacific Ocean—”

  “And all the way back to Mars, P.A.”

  “So... you didn’t try to sell in any other states?”

  “No.” Winnie shook her head. “We didn’t think it was worth the hassle.”

  “And the socks?”

  Penn pounced. “You need a pair?”

  John reared back his head and roared. “Seriously. You’ve still got them?”

  “Not all five hundred pairs, but I think we have a few left. They’ve donated socks to worthy causes for years.” She leaned toward him and whispered, “If you hear anyone refer to them as the sock ladies, now you know why.”

  Jancie pursed her lips. “They do not.”

  “Great story.” He plucked another sourdough knot from the basket. “I really shouldn’t have another, but these rolls are fantastic.”

  Aunt Jancie inclined her head. “Thank you. Have as many as you want, but save room for dessert. Chocolate cake.”

  “Chocolate cake? I feel like I just won a contest, and the prize is this fantastic meal.” John sipped his water and rested against the slats in the chair. “Thank you again, ladies.”

  Aunt Jancie giggled. “My word, hon, but you do go on.” She dabbed her mouth with her napkin, but Penn saw the satisfied grin she tried to hide with the cloth.

  Aunt Winnie brought the cake to the table and served the first slice to John.

  “Mmm.” He swallowed a bite. “Chocolate chips inside?”

  “Yep. Chocolate icing, chocolate cake, and chocolate chips. It’s probably the best cake they make.” Penn savored the tip of her slice. “My favorite, for sure.”

  Puffed up by the compliments, the aunts smiled, swished their shoulders, and batted their eyelashes.

  Aunt Jancie cut the edge of her piece with her fork. “John, my late husband used to drink milk with this cake. Would you like a glass?”

  With his mouth full of chocolate, John widened his eyes and nodded.

  Aunt Winnie glided back to the kitchen.

  “You know, I’ve had chocolate cake in...I don’t know... maybe nine or ten different states. In fact, my boss invited me to eat with him the other day in this four-star restaurant in Georgia. Chocolate cake for dessert, too, and I’m telling you this cake right here,” he pointed his fork to the half slice left on his saucer, “this tremendous piece of chocolate bliss beats that impostor hands down.”

  Penn grimaced. “You travel a lot. Your boss lives in Georgia?”

  “No, he’s from Wexford.” He sliced off another bite. “We were down there because he wanted to golf with some buddies for the day. Nice life, huh?” He slid the chocolate morsel into his mouth.

  She knitted her eyebrows. “So were you writing about golf? I’m sorry. I’m not following. You were in Georgia for the day with your writing boss?”

  Aunt Jancie stiffened in her chair. “Penn, sweetie, could you hand me another napkin, please? John, have some more cake.” Her voice rose and cracked. She grabbed for a random bowl and dragged it toward her plate.

  John turned his dessert plate. “Still working on this piece. Thank you.” He smiled at Jancie and turned his attention back to Penn. “Sorry, Penn. My flying boss. Next week he’s got a meeting in Ohio, so I’m flying him over there for the day.” He smiled. “Somewhere west of Cleveland.”

  Penn gripped her fork until her knuckles turned white. “Flying?” Her voice was barely audible.

  Aunt Winnie, returning from the kitchen, froze in the doorway, the milk sloshing over her fingers.

  “Yeah.” John glanced at Penn and his gaze fell on her knuckles. He narrowed his eyes. “I’m an on-call pilot.”

  Penn’s fork dropped and clattered on top of her knife. She crossed her arms in front of her, grabbed her sides, and fought to pull in air. “Pilot?” She forced the word through tight lips.

  “Yeah. Penn, are you all right?” John leaned toward her, but she pushed her chair away from the table.

  “I’m sorry, but...ah...I need...I need to...” She shook her head. “Sorry.” She sprinted out of the dining room and mounted the stairs two at a time.

  ~*~

  What just happened? Something upset Penn, but what? Was she sick? They’d been talking about flying. Was she afraid to fly?

  John looked for help from the aunts.

  Jancie leaned against the table with her elbows, face in her hands and shaking her head.

  Winnie had placed the half empty glass of milk on the table and now stood with her eyes closed, wringing a napkin and chewing on her bottom lip.

  “Ladies?” He shifted toward the stairs. “Should I go after her?”

  “No!” Two pairs of eyes flew open and pinned him to his chair.

  “Sorry, John, dear.”

  “Sorry, it’s just—”

  Both spoke in short bursts before taking a slow breath.

  Winnie returned to her chair and rolled the corner of her napkin into a tight point. She kept her gaze on Jancie who, after several moments of what seemed to be silent communication between them, shut her eyes and nodded.

  Jancie pushed her unused spoon back and forth beside her plate. “We knew this was going to happen.”

  “Yes. Yes, we did.” More turns on the napkin point curled it into a spiral in Winnie’s fingers.

  “We should have told her about your job, but we thought waiting was the best idea.” Jancie clasped her iced tea glass and wiped a swath of condensation with her index finger. “We wanted Penny to get to know you...”

  “We wanted to welcome you to Mars, help you get to know the community. We hoped Penny and you could become friends and maybe in time your job wouldn’t...she wouldn’t...”

  “Yes, we should have mentioned it to her before now, but the reason we didn’t is Penn’s story. It’s up to her to tell you.” Jancie rubbed her forehead.

  “Exactly. Yes, it certainly is.” Winnie fretted with the napkin, attacking another corner.

  “She looked so...” Jancie glanced toward the staircase, her chin trembling. “Oh, my girl. My dear girl.”

  “Ladies, please.” He leaned toward them. “I’m lost here. I get that Penn’s upset...or sick. What is it? Tell me, please. I want to help.”

  Silence from the aunts. Silence and more shaking heads.

  Winnie couldn’t stop wringing her hands.

  “Ladies, I kinda figured out that flying isn’t her thing, but lots of people don’t like to fly. There’s more to the story.” He waited. “Am I right?”

  Jancie nodded. “We’ll give you the bare bones, but you’ll have to get details from Penny.” She sighed. “Oh, it’s hard, John. We don’t normally talk about this. Haven’t in years.”

  “My sister’s right. It’s hard, too hard, but you need to know.”

  Jancie drooped in her chair. “Haven’t you ever wondered why Penny lives with us, two old aunts?”

  “Instead of with her parents or even in an apartment by herself?” Winnie rolled the spiral into the center of the wrinkled napkin.

  “I suppose so, but I’ve never really mentioned too much about my parents either.”

  Jancie reached across the table, seized Winnie’s hand, and pressed her lips together. “When Penny was six years old, her parents and her little brother went for a flight in her dad’s Cessna, and it crashed.”

  Winnie kneaded Jancie’s white knuckles. “All three were gone in one afternoon.”

  John’s stomach clenched. No wonder she had to leave the table. She’d lost her family in a plane crash. “What about Penn? She wasn’t with them?”

  Jancie shook her head, “No, at the last minute, a friend called with an invitation to play. Melody let her go. She never saw her parents or baby brother again.”

  “Melody and Thomas died instantly from the impact. Little Jaspe
r died at the hospital.”

  Both women stared at the table in front of them, lost in their tragic thoughts. Their eyes shone with tears.

  John, careful of their feelings, needed to hear the rest of the story. “And you took her in.”

  Jancie gasped and blinked. “Yes, we did.” She patted Winnie’s hand then rubbed wrinkles from the tablecloth. “I’d been retired from teaching for about a year or so. My husband was dead. Nothing was keeping me in Oxford. Winnie had retired from the Department of Social Services about six months earlier.”

  “Our brother, Graham, Penny’s grandfather, still ran his company. He served on the school board and was a deacon in the church.” Winnie shrugged. “Melody’s grandmother, who raised her, lived in Florida. Everybody else was either too busy or too old. We had time on our hands.” She lifted her chin. “We were the perfect choice.”

  Jancie pressed a napkin under her nose. “Penny knew us. They visited Oxford twice a year. We’d come up here a time or two. She loved us.”

  He needed all the details. “But you live here, not Oxford.”

  “Right. She’d been through enough.” Jancie folded her arms against her chest. “We wanted her to have stability, so we moved.” She shrugged. “Stability for her. Adventure for us.”

  “Exactly.” Winnie nodded and smiled at her sister. “An adventure for sure.”

  The pieces of Penn’s story clicked in John’s brain. He understood her refusal to ride his motorcycle, her distrust of new or different things, her subdued, fragile air hiding underneath a prickly shell.

  He wanted to understand more. “Who was the friend she visited that day?”

  “John, we’ve said enough. Penn can tell you anything else you want to know—or at least what she’ll let you know.”

  Winnie ignored Jancie. “Abby Parker. Missy’s older sister.”

  7

  Penn ascended the stairs two at a time but didn’t slam her bedroom door. She didn’t want to give them anything else to think about—or talk about. Heart pounding, she closed it with a soft click as she turned the lock. In the sanctity of her room, she dove onto her bed, tears and sobs captured within the soft puffs of her pillow.

  She sobbed for the parents she had trouble remembering and the brother she missed even now. She cried for the friendship forever fractured because of her survivor’s guilt.

  She cried, too, for the guilt that came close to smothering her whenever she’d let herself mourn for what might have been. She cried because the aunts tried so hard to make her happy.

  They loved her unconditionally. They contended with her quiet spells and prickly moods. They’d carted her to church and Girl Scouts and sports events. They bought Peri for her and gave her every material advantage.

  If pink shirts were the rage in elementary school, they dressed her in pink shirts like every other girl in third grade. If everyone learned to ice skate, they signed her up for lessons. They gave her everything they could, except what she wanted most of all—her parents and brother back.

  Penn crushed her pillow harder to her face and cried for John. She’d tried not to enjoy his company, tried not to fall victim to her aunts’ matchmaking ploys, but she’d let herself because it felt good. He was fun and funny. He was kind to her and to her crazy aunts. He didn’t let his limp sideline him. Brave and strong, he did whatever he wanted.

  She should have known. No. She had known. How many times had she told her aunts he wasn’t for her? But she hadn’t listened to her own words.

  He rode a motorcycle. He met life head on and didn’t worry about what ifs. Who bought a fixer-upper without skill or knowledge? John did because he wasn’t strangled by potential problems or what ifs.

  She wanted to be like that.

  When the emotional storm passed and the last shudders subsided in her exhausted body, she rolled over onto her back. She heard the old grandfather clock chime the half hour. Slanting her aching eyes took effort as she glanced at her alarm clock.

  Eight thirty. She pushed herself to sitting and leaned against the bed board. A headache beat a persistent rhythm between her temples.

  She didn’t have to look in a mirror to know she was a sight. She blinked grainy, raw eyes. Stuck in place, her contacts made any eye movement uncomfortable. Her nose, swollen from the tears, glowed with red that showed in her peripheral vision.

  Her face needed a rinse. She should try to rectify the damage, but the crying had depleted every ounce of her energy. No worries about moving, however. She had no plans of returning to the dinner party.

  Muffled voices floated up the stairs from the foyer. Subdued sounds. Had they told John her story? Probably—even though they’d always honored an unwritten rule. They never talked about it. They didn’t need to. They knew the story inside and out.

  She’d lived it.

  Well, if he did know, fine. It wasn’t as if they were a couple or anything. They’d never been alone together unless one counted the few minutes in the car driving back and forth to Hartwood and the few minutes in his apartment before David returned.

  Again—fine. No harm, no foul.

  Her studying needed attention. She’d have plenty of time now without the distraction of reciprocating dinner dates with the aunts and John. She’d study, study, study, pass the CPA test, get a fabulous job in Pittsburgh, and move to an apartment there where no one knew her as Penny-the-girl-who-lost-her-parents.

  A shiver skipped up her spine, and she hugged herself, her ring pushed into her side.

  The plan didn’t seem as tempting as usual tonight.

  ~*~

  John struggled to keep his mind on the instruments in front of him. Thank goodness, the weather cooperated with this trip. Clear, calm days made flying easy. Easier, at least. No thermals to thump the Cessna and jolt the pilot into stress mode.

  Smooth flying—one reason his mind kept backtracking to Penn. His heart ached for her. No wonder she seemed a little closed off, a little timid.

  No, not timid. He’d seen a bit of her back-bone show up at the apple meetings. More like cautious. Yes, cautious about new experiences.

  He couldn’t imagine losing his parents—and one of his brothers. He shook his head. He wished she pick up her phone or at least return one of the four calls he’d left since last Saturday night.

  Winnie and Jancie told him to be patient, commiserating with him when he’d called the land line, but they held on tight to their gate-keeper roles, not giving the phone to Penn, simply reiterating, “She’ll be fine. Don’t worry.”

  Butler Airport came into view, and he radioed to ask for clearance. “Butler traffic, Cessna 46722, fifteen miles southeast at two thousand five hundred, landing, requesting airport advisory.”

  The voice from the airport crackled over the intercom. “Cessna 46722, Butler traffic, runway zero two in use, wind calm, altimeter 30.02, enter left downwind, report turning left base.”

  “Cessna 46722, roger.”

  Several miles outside the traffic pattern, John scanned the horizon for other planes. When a silver flash grabbed his attention from the left window, he glanced toward the ground. He noticed a pile of brown dirt, reminiscent of a grave. No, it looked exactly like a grave right after the casket was lowered and covered with fresh dirt.

  For him to notice this grave-like mound from his vantage point, it had to be huge. The pile protruded from the earth with an enormous reach, partially obscured at one end by a...what? A weeping willow tree?

  Interesting. What would fit in a hole that big?

  Just before entering the traffic pattern, he noticed a rectangular hole. A big, rectangular hole. Parked beside it, an empty pickup truck waited. The hole edged beyond the front and back sides of the truck. At one end of the hole, a backhoe worked on what looked to be a ramp.

  John dragged his gaze back to the front windshield as snippets of conversation flashed in his mind. “Stolen equipment. Buried. Revenge.”

  Who had been talking? Where had he heard this crazy talk
? He squinted and concentrated on the instrument panel, but those words fluttered in the back of his mind.

  He grabbed the microphone. “Butler traffic, Cessna 46722 turning left base runway zero two.”

  “Cessna 46722 cleared to land.”

  He turned the plane onto the left base of the landing pattern, and the memory of the conversation returned with clarity. Al and Jacob. They’d discussed the buried equipment at the last Apple Fest meeting.

  Had he really seen what he thought he saw? Or had that truck been parked beside the hole to carry off the dirt pile? But why would anyone dump the dirt on the ground instead of dumping it straight into the truck? Waste of time and energy.

  His heart thumped, escalating the adrenaline that normally accompanied every landing. He forced his attention back to his main task, promising himself to call Al as soon as he finished this flight.

  Buried equipment? Seriously? He’d thought Jacob had been joking at the meeting.

  Apparently not.

  ~*~

  John sent up a quick thank you prayer for a safe landing. Just before touchdown, a rogue crosswind had required a crab angle set up on the final approach, and he transitioned into a side slip during the flare. A couple of bumps later, he taxied to his parking spot near the hangar.

  Not a text book landing, but he subscribed to the tenet he’d heard from almost every pilot he’d ever known. Any landing one walked away from was a good landing.

  Unfolding himself from the cockpit, he stretched and turned on his phone. He wanted to talk with Al before doubts mushroomed about what he saw. Hearing Al’s voice mail kick in, he frowned and pressed his fingers to his temple. He left a quick message with just enough details to create interest without confusion. He didn’t want to leave a crazy message about buried equipment.

  His phone indicated a message.

  Andy Duffy, youth pastor at Love Community Church, invited him to be one of the chaperones with the youth group to the amusement park on Saturday.

  He’d hoped that maybe Penn would have come around by then, and he could visit with her, but the way things were going, that hope probably wouldn’t happen. He pulled up his calendar. No flights scheduled.