by Susanne Beck
THANKSGIVING CAME AND went, and for it being my first one as a hostess, it went off pretty well, if I do say so myself. Ruby and Pop joined us at our table, and with Ice’s patient help, dinner went without a hitch, the freshly butchered turkey golden brown, succulent, and as good as I’d ever remembered my mother’s tasting.
And after dinner and desert were consumed, the conversation finished for the night, and our guests seen safely to their homes, we spent the rest of the evening giving thanks in a much more intimate and pleasurable way.
It was, I do believe, the best part of the day.
Christmas, then, was fast approaching, and after several tension-filled weeks, Pop finally came through on his promise and my gift was stored safely away at the bottom of my closet, a place Ice never looked, her own need for a private space prohibiting her from even thinking of looking into mine, even if I had minded, which I most certainly didn’t.
On one evening, a week or so before the Holiday, I was sitting alone, reading a book and waiting for the sound of Ice’s footfall outside the cabin. She’d been away since before dawn, helping the Drew brothers repair some pipes which had frozen, then burst with the winter’s deep freeze. She’d called me once to let me know she’d be late and not to wait dinner on her, and so I didn’t, eating my own and keeping her portion warm inside the oven.
Then I smiled as I heard the crunch of the truck’s tires on the neatly salted and cindered driveway. Getting up, I threw another log on the fire, bringing the heat up so Ice could warm herself after working in the cold for an entire day. Then I lit some candles for ambience and patiently waited for her to come into the house, fiddling a little with the Christmas decorations I’d put up that afternoon as a way to pass time waiting for her to return home.
A knock on the door chased the pleasant thoughts from my mind and my heart-rate accelerated. No one visited this late at night. The only reason someone would have to knock would be to deliver bad news.
Stop thinking crazy, Angel. Ice probably misplaced her key or something. But that thought, in and of itself, was crazy. Ice never misplaced anything.
Ok, then maybe her hands are full and she needs help getting the door open.
Yeah, right. Since when has that ever happened?
It could.
When hell freezes over.
Shut up! Just shut up.
Biting the inside of my lip, I startled as the knock sounded again, more urgently this time. Feeling my breathing pick up its pace, I crossed the living room and opened the door that led onto the back porch, my eyes detecting nothing through the frost-glazed windows.
With a trembling hand, I tried to open the door, but the knob obstinately refused to turn. Once I realized it was locked, I quickly thumbed the release and tried again. It turned easily in my hand and I slowly pulled open the door, resisting the urge to close my eyes to whatever sight awaited me.
And what awaited me was something I would never have believed if I hadn’t been standing there looking at it with my own two eyes.
The blood rushed straight down from my brain, leaving me breathless and faint, as I stared out at a person who could not be standing there. Could not. Yet there she was.
Corinne, her face wreathed in a breathtaking smile, stood before the threshold waiting to be let in.
"Oh. My. God."
Her grin broadened. "Not quite. Will I do in a pinch?"
Her outline became hazy through the film of my tears and I blindly reached out to her, engulfing her in a hug almost as tight as any I’d given Ice, forgetting for a moment her advanced age and frail health.
"Corinne!" I blubbered in her ear, taking in the scent of her with a great, heaving gasp. "Where did you ... ? How did you ... ?"
After squeezing me back just as hard, Corinne pulled away, her own eyes suspiciously bright beneath the glare of her glasses. "Wouldn’t you know? There I was, just minding my own business when out of nowhere comes this big gorgeous lunk of a woman who kidnaps me, throws me in some godawful truck not fit for man nor beast, and drives hell bent for leather through miles and miles of backwoods roads with me hanging on for dear life. The next thing I know, here I am."
Her eyes twinkled merrily as she leaned in close once again to whisper in my ear. "I think I’m supposed to be your Christmas present. If I were you, I’d ask for a refund."
Pulling away from me again, she stepped aside, treating me to a view of Ice, who stood beside the truck, her hands stuffed deep in her pockets, a half-embarrassed expression on her face.
I almost knocked Corinne over into the snow as I ran outside the door and leapt into Ice’s arms, arms which caught me and held me easily as I covered her face with grateful kisses. "Thank you," I whispered, too overcome to say anything else.
"You’re welcome, sweet Angel," she murmured into my hair. "Merry Christmas."
I laughed and cried and squeezed her so tightly that I think if she had been anyone other than who she was, I might have broken a rib or two.
A prudently cleared throat pulled me back to reality and I turned my head to see Corinne smirking at us both. "Touching as this reunion is, my dears, I don’t think my future includes turning into a rather decrepit looking ice sculpture. So, if you wouldn’t mind too terribly much ... ."
Blushing in embarrassment, I loosened my hold around Ice at the same time she released me, placing me gently back on the ground. "God, I’m so sorry, Corinne! Come on. Let me show you inside. Do you have any bags?"
"No worries," she said airily, flapping her hand behind her. "The charming valet will get them for me."
I laughed at the low growl emanating from the chest of said valet and grasped Corinne’s hand, leading her into the house. Then I stopped. "Wait a minute. Aren’t you supposed to be in a wheelchair?"
Her eyes widened into the picture of perfect innocence. "That old thing?" Then she grinned. Evilly. "The doctor says I’ve gotten much better. Must be all that free air I’ve been taking in."
I looked at her. "Corinne. You didn’t."
"Didn’t what?" The woman was positively unrepentant.
"You know damn well what I’m talking about. You didn’t fake your disability just to get out of prison, did you?"
"And what if I had?" Her look was one of defiant challenge.
She had a point. Still ... . "Did you?"
After a moment, she backed down. "No. Unfortunately, my disability, as you so politely call it, is quite real. I had a series of small strokes which did indeed manage to leave me confined to a wheelchair for a good little while. But you know how the press likes to blow things out of proportion, Angel. ‘Confined’ is a bit too strong a word. I still use it on occasion if I’m expected to walk a great distance or I’ve been on my feet too long, but otherwise, it just sits in a corner gathering dust."
"Did you bring it with you?"
"Of course. Wouldn’t leave home without it."
Another cleared throat interrupted me, and when I looked over my shoulder this time, I saw Ice carrying the aforementioned wheelchair, together with several huge and no-doubt heavy bags and looking more like a pack mule than my lover, and waiting none-too-patiently for us to move out of the doorway.
Laughing, I went back outside to divest Ice of some of her burden, groaning when I slung a couple of the bags over my shoulder, almost toppling into the snow with the weight of them. "Dear god, Corinne! What do you have in here? Rocks?"
She pinned me with her patented withering stare. "Never you mind, missy. A woman has to have some secrets, after all."
Laughing and shaking my head, I tottered back into the house, my back groaning under the weight of Corinne’s bags. Ice followed me in, finally out of the cold, and together we walked into the guest bedroom, depositing the luggage onto the bed and stretching abused muscles. Corinne joined us there and looked around the room appreciatively. "Not bad, ladies. Not bad at all. A body could get used to a place like this."
I grinned happily, pleased with her stamp of approval. "Well,
it’s yours for as long as you want it." Then I paused as a thought struck me, and scratched at the back of my neck. "Speaking of which, how long are you staying with us?"
Corinne looked at me, over to Ice, then back to me again. She frowned a little. "Um ... perhaps you and your partner there might want to have a little talk. I’ll just stay here and ...freshen up a bit."
I looked to Ice, who gave a short nod and gestured the way out with a brief sweep of her arm. After a second’s pause, I left the room, followed by Ice, who closed the door gently behind her.
I rounded on her, hands on my hips. "Ok. What’s going on." Though I’m sure I sounded angry, I really wasn’t. Consciously, I softened my tone. "Is something wrong?"
"No. Nothing’s wrong." She spread her hands wide. "It’s just that the invitation’s pretty open-ended."
I could feel my eyes narrowing. "What does that mean, exactly?" For a woman who turned ‘blunt’ into an art-form, she could be quite ambiguous when she wanted to be.
Her eyes narrowed right back at me. "It means just what I said, Angel. As far as I’m concerned, she’s welcome to stay as long as she likes. I didn’t put a specific time limit on it."
Nodding slowly, I crossed my arms over my chest. "Something tells me this could turn in to more than just a visit."
She smiled. "Only if that’s what we all want it to be, Angel. I’m only speaking for myself here. You were worried about how she’d get on after prison. In truth, so was I, though I know Donita and I know she’d take the best care of Corinne she could." Turning away, she walked over to one of the chairs in the library and sat down, her hands clasped and hanging loosely between her knees. When she looked up at me, her face was as sincere as I’d ever seen it. "Your life isn’t the only one Corinne has saved, Angel. And I think maybe I want to give something back to her too."
Her head bowed and, unable to help myself even if I had wanted to, I walked over to the chair and perched carefully on one arm, sliding an arm around her shoulders and hugging her to me. It seemed quite obvious to me that something more than the current conversation was bothering her. "You wanna talk about it?"
After a moment, her head lifted and she quirked a small smile at me. "Maybe later."
Which meant, of course, that the subject was as closed as it could possibly get. For now.
I smiled to lighten the load. "Alright. You know where I live."
She butted me playfully with her head. "I know alright."
"So, shall we pay the piper for making her wait so long in that bedroom?"
Ice snorted. "Wait, my ass. She’s heard every word we’ve been saying."
The door eased open and Corinne’s perfectly coifed head poked out, her smile broad and knowing. "Was there ever any doubt?"
Laughing, I jumped up from the arm of Ice’s chair and escorted our guest over to the couch. "You’re incorrigible, Corinne."
"Mmm. So a lover or two has said in their time, yes."
Damnit! She did it again! Even after so long apart, that blasted woman still had the power to make me blush harder and more deeply than anyone save Ice. A change of subject was definitely in order. "Would you like some tea? Food? Anything?"
"No food, thank you. Ms. Tall, Dark and Mute over there somehow managed to dig up her manners from whatever grave she’d buried them in and got some ‘food on the hoof’ on the way in. Though I think I’m still picking gristle from what few remain of my real teeth."
I looked over at Ice, who simply rolled her eyes and went back to the book she’d been reading the night before; something by Elliot, I believe, though she went through them so quickly it was difficult to be sure from one hour to the next.
"How about some tea, then?" I asked Corinne.
"That would be lovely."
"I’ll get it," Ice said, coming to her feet and laying the book down on one of the tables. "You two just ...catch up or something."
Laying a hand on her arm as she passed by, I pulled her to a stop. "I’ve got your dinner in the oven if you’re still hungry."
She smiled and kissed my hair. "Great. Be back in a bit."
And with that, she was gone, leaving us both to stare after her.
"You have done that woman a world of good, Angel," Corinne remarked finally, softly.
"Freedom did that Corinne. I just helped it along a little, that’s all."
Smiling at me with infinite fondness, she tugged my hand, getting me to sit beside her and engulfing me in a wonderful hug. "Nonsense, sweetheart. You tended a soul that was sickly and dying. You made it strong and full of life again. No one and nothing else can take credit for that, Angel. That woman in there is the way she is now because of you. Never sell yourself short on that. It doesn’t become you."
Sometimes prayers you didn’t even know you had are answered with such sweet simplicity that your heart swells in your chest and fills you with a warmth that even the sunniest spring day could never rival.
For me, this was one of those times. I allowed myself the comfort of an embrace I’d missed far more than I’d even admitted to myself, letting her love and kindness flow over me, soothing insecurities that I didn’t realize I possessed.
Then I straightened up, drying my tears with the back of my hand and gave Corinne a watery smile. "So," I began after clearing my throat, "tell me how you really got here."
Laughing, she leaned her head against the back of the couch and grasped one of my hands, pulling it into her lap and holding it closely between both of her own. "That, my dear Angel, is a story and a half." Behind the thick lenses of her glasses, her gaze turned inward. "The Bog changed a great deal after you left it, Angel. The warden who’d replaced that idiot Morrison was forced to step down after some scandal or other, and the next one was hand-chosen by the governor himself, it being close to elections and all, don’t you know."
She laughed, but it was a bitter sound. "He’s a good man, as far as wardens go, I suppose. What is it they used to say? ‘Strict, but fair.’ He fired most of the guards, though. Said their attitudes ‘weren’t in keeping with the welfare of the prisoners’ or some such blather." She waved a hand. "I didn’t bother keeping up with the rest of his reformer’s lingo after that."
"What about Sandra?" I asked in a hesitant voice. The head guard had been a very special person in my life during those long, cold and sometimes bitter years in prison.
"He showed some smarts by keeping her on. If nothing else, she has the respect of the inmates and he can’t afford to be without that link to the animals in his cages." She shifted slightly on the couch, adjusting the glasses as they rested on her nose. "In any event, not all the changes were visible ones. I suppose you could say that the Bog lost its spirit."
And here, she turned to me, her smile sad, but loving. "One it never knew it had."
I was tempted to throw in some offhand comment, but her previous gentle rebuke against selling myself short made me hold my tongue, though in no way have I ever felt that I gave that place any type of spirit at all.
Smiling slightly, she continued. "I’d seemed to have misplaced my own sense of spirit somewhere along the line as well. When I first began to feel unwell, I chalked it up to a healthy dose of convict’s depression and let it go at that." She shrugged. "Didn’t seem much point in doing otherwise."
I could feel the tears, hot and wet, as they rolled down my face, blurring my vision of her as she recited her tale with all the dispassion of a woman reading a faintly interesting newspaper article.
"Don’t cry, Angel," she said, using much the same tone Ice did when making that same request. "The story does have a happy ending, after all."
"I know," I said, sniffling—something I hated to do, by the way. "I just wish I could have been there with you. For you."
"I’m just as glad that you weren’t," she replied, gripping my arm with a strong hand. "I would have never wanted you to see me like that, Angel. Never."
"But ... ."
"No. Do not blame yourself. Those strokes wo
uld have come whether you’d been there or not."
"But, maybe ... ."
"Stop." She laid a gentle finger across my lips, halting my words, her eyes stern. "No more."
After a moment, I nodded and she removed her finger. "Good. Now, where was I?" Then she smiled. "Ahh. Finally. I thought perhaps you’d gone to China to fetch the leaves yourself."
Slightly startled, I looked up to see Ice standing next to me, two mugs of tea in her hands and a concerned expression on her face. Coming to my feet, I took the mugs from her hands, put them on the table, and hugged her to me to allay whatever fears her expression was revealing. The arms that encircled me in return were hesitant at first, but when I simply squeezed harder, their grip around me tightened and I smiled, the last of my tears drying on the fabric of her shirt. "I’m alright."
She pulled away, staring at me with intent. "You sure?"
Smiling more broadly, I nodded. "Yeah. It just hit me hard for a minute there. I’m ok now."
After looking at both of us for a very long moment, Ice finally released me completely and walked over to the library, sitting down and picking up her book once again.
Reclaiming my spot on the couch, I picked up my mug, handed Corinne hers, and together we sipped our tea in silence, listening to the crackle of the fire’s flames.
After several quiet moments had passed, Corinne resumed her tale. "One morning, I awoke to discover I couldn’t move much on the left side of my body. I tried to call for help, but found I couldn’t speak well, either." Then she laughed. "I suppose it was one of the first times in my life that I was actually happy I was in prison. Once I’d missed headcount, the guards came looking for me, and the next thing I knew, I was taking a nice ambulance ride to the county hospital."
She took another sip of tea, then continued. "The doctors couldn’t do much for me. Apparently I’d had several strokes in quick succession over the past several days, the last one being the biggest. They gave me some medication they said might help and arranged for me to be transferred to a Rehabilitation Hospital to learn how to walk, talk, and care for myself again."
Her face became stony. "The warden forbade it. He demanded they discharge me and send me back to prison without therapy. To their credit, the doctors put up a good fight, but in the end, the warden won out. They put me in a wheelchair, and off I went, back to the Bog."
