They got out of the Jeep. Yates swung the rear door open. Noticing loose grass and dirt on the carpeted bed liner, he quickly hand-brushed the particles over to the edge and out. With a wild flourish, he offered Beebe a seat. It was a joy to see her smile.
“Yates, you are so like the little brother I never had.” She made room for him beside her. “So this is your day off. How’s the job going?”
“Great. I’m off to a fantastic start, thanks to Dr. Gabe.” Dr. Hershel Gabriel fixed it so Yates accompanied him on his rounds through the geriatric floor. Once the patients were discharged, Yates also completed at-home follow-up reports. The young nurse was being groomed to play an active role in Gabriel’s partnership with Crossroads. Slow and steady stayed the course. Those words applied to Yates’s career, and he repeated them for both his benefit and for recovering patients who were once again up on their feet and looking to him for a path back to a full life.
“How are you and Mosie getting along?”
Yates picked up that story at the point he accepted Rev. Mosie Razzell’s offer and moved Barleycorn and himself in the retired minister’s two-bedroom bungalow. Over the course of two tear-filled days for both men after the cemetery visit, Yates told Razzell about Terri Miller. He started with first seeing her in the ER, guarding his father’s treatment cubicle, gave detailed accounts of summers with her, and concluded with the woman’s stubborn determination to be returned to Larkspur to meet death and be buried.
Cut into Yates’s tale were Razzell’s realizations—now that his head was clear—about how he got started with the excess medication. Feeling his age and feeling useless, Razzell experienced a creeping depression. He was already cooking with more pills than prescribed when Yates and Barleycorn took up residence at Crossroads. Barleycorn’s name was the trigger. Yates remembered the long stares and awkwardness Razzell exhibited that first evening at bingo. To his depression, Razzell added a revived guilt over Abigail Walker’s disappearance. Beebe’s reappearance, looking so much like her mother, did nothing to dissuade Razzell’s spiraling condition.
“Dr. Gabe would approve of the term spiraling condition,” Yates told Beebe. “He instructed me not to use wigged out.” Beebe laughed when Yates couldn’t maintain a serious expression.
“Mosie and I are both worried Barleycorn may wander out of the back yard since there’s no fence. If that happens while I’m at the hospital, Mosie could never chase him down.”
“I’m glad I called with Daddy’s offer, although neither of us suspected it would be used in this manner.”
Yates felt his enthusiasm dim.
Beebe saw it. “You okay with this?”
“Just where do old tombstones go?” Yates answered Beebe’s question with a question. “The idea that it was a useless stone reminded me of Mosie’s feelings, triggered by Barleycorn. The next leap was easy. If something has to weigh Barleycorn down, I figure it might as well be Terri, you know.” His voice choked just a bit.
Yates purchased two lengths of chain at McKinley Hardware. The shorter one would be wrapped in both directions around the headstone. Once in place, it would resemble a ribbon tied around a gift box. Hooks would connect the longer chain from the headstone to the dog. Yates grinned to himself. His heart swelled. He pictured Barleycorn safely tethered to this last treasure of Terri Miller.
Yates looked up. Hal Garrett’s truck coasted toward them. After the greetings were out of the way, the three of them filed into the equipment garage.
Hal passed Yates a pair of work gloves and donned a pair himself. The cemetery man moved a wheelbarrow to the side. Beebe stepped in to retrieve and fold the tarp covering the headstone. Hal moved long-handled tools out of the corner and pushed a red metal toolbox far enough away so he could stand in its place.
“Ready,” he said to Yates.
Yates walked over. The two men worked their fingers under the block of stone and, grunting, lifted it. Beebe followed them out and over to the Jeep’s rear compartment. Yates barely breathed. Hal’s face reddened from the exertion. When the loading was done, they all gave Terri Miller’s grave marker a long and thoughtful stare, and all for different reasons.
Yates thought Hal stared because it was a final appraisal of his first attempt at accomplishing the old ways with one’s own hands guiding chisel and hammer.
Beebe’s eyes also lingered on the stone. Yates easily assumed the stone represented the mysterious side of Terri Miller that Beebe would never solve. Yes, Beebe had knowledge, through him, of the last ten summers of her mother’s life, but twice that amount hung in the dark, gray, gloomy mist of the unknown. There, he suspected, it would always remain, although stranger things have happened.
Yates remembered the last time Terri Miller rode in his jeep, how he kept his anger burning to fight the tears, how he tried to tell her he loved her, but how not telling her honored her more. Terri Miller brought the full range of emotions out of Yates: anger, love, honor, and yes, there would be tears. There should be tears. How paradoxical that his life should loom with such expectation, that his horizons should brighten and gather strength on the raveled edge of hers. What an enduring impression, as enduring as a name chiseled into stone.
Hal’s voice snapped Yates back. “Should I follow you and help you get it back out? I can.”
“No, thanks. I’ve got Ned McMitchell lined up. That is, unless Willa’s decided to give birth in the last hour.”
The McMitchells’ baby was two days past due.
* * *
The day the quilt arrived, Beebe and Cliff sat side by side on the couch, sharing it across both of their laps. Beebe stared hard at the squares, machine- and hand-stitched, all fine-quality workmanship. Tears threatened. Her chin quavered. The pain in her throat bespoke the rush of emotions coming at her so quickly, she simply could not form words. When Beebe hoped Cliff might take up the conversation reins, he failed to speak. He projected stoicism. His rigid posture told her of his fight against expressing emotion. The subject matter was, of course, surviving grief. To his credit, he seemed as mesmerized by the quilt as she.
Perhaps it was enough that their random movements in smoothing the quilt carried their hands across cottony nursing garb, silky mint-green pajamas, a woven skirt, a crisp linen blouse, and other quiet memories. She flipped a corner back. The quilt’s backing was cut from the fine tapestry tablecloth Emma Walker gave the couple as a wedding present. Funny how Grandma Emma was stitched into the quilt.
When she suggested that the quilt be folded and kept over her mother’s chair in her parents’ bedroom, she received nothing more than simple agreement.
A tumble of questions lived inside Beebe’s head. Had there been progress concerning Cliff’s grief? Was the quilt’s arrival a setback? She wanted answers while he remained tightlipped. She wanted him to break through and break the silence. What would it take?
Since that day on the couch, regular reports came from Yates on the emergence of Mosie Razzell’s clear mind and full health. With them, a solution presented itself with very little fanfare.
She visited the retired minister and asked if he would counsel Cliff through his grief. “Of course, Daddy has to agree. I haven’t approached him yet.” She sat in a rocker in Razzell’s living room. He occupied the near end of the davenport. Behind his eyes, she saw him putting the proposal through its paces.
“I’ve returned to life, and that life needs a solid purpose. The thing is, I think I would benefit as much as Cliff. That might appear self-serving, but I’m so hungry for something worthwhile that I can assure you Cliff will profit.”
“If the counseling is good for the both of you, all the better. Let me speak with Daddy. Of course, we’re talking about evening sessions, two or three times a week. I imagine
he’ll come straight over from work.”
Razzell’s brows drew down. “Aren’t you joining us?”
“Oh gosh, no. Not me. Just Daddy.” Still he plied her with a questioning look, eliciting more. “I admit, I thought I would when the only recourse was a counseling group out of town, but here, at home, with you, I think Daddy will agree and make the effort without me pulling him through the door by his ear.” She laughed. Razzell cracked a slim smile, not erasing the studious expression on his face. Rising, she said, “Thank you, Rev. Razzell. And you just look great.”
Confidence in her decision to put her father’s grief in this man’s now steady hands was further backed up by his rosy cheeks and an overall vibrancy that emerged since his detox sessions. The reward he earned was a new life with Yates and Barleycorn as companions.
On his feet, he placed a hand on her back and guided her to the open door. Throughout her brief visit, pleasant sunshine and warm air filtered through the screen.
“So, you’ll call?” he said when they stood outside on the porch.
“Yes, I will—or Daddy will—to set up the first session.”
“Fine,” he said, patting her shoulder.
She descended the few porch steps. Along the front walkway to her car, it dawned on her that Mosie’s invitation to attend her father’s grief sessions was not merely a polite gesture or a measure aimed at minimizing Cliff’s unease. Mosie suggested that her grief still prickled behind the scenes. She settled herself in the driver’s seat, her purse on the passenger’s side. Leaning over, she searched the leathery object for car keys. Finding them, she sat up straight only to find that Razzell had magically appeared at her driver’s door, its window down.
“Are you sure you won’t join us?”
Beebe decided to use plain words to set Mosie straight on his miscue regarding her grief. “I handled Mother’s loss months ago. I miss her. I always have. I always will. It’s kind of you to be concerned. But I’m good. Really, I am.”
An odd beat passed while he held her eyes in his gaze. He double-tapped the base of the window frame and said, “Off with you then,” and stepped back.
In the rearview mirror, she caught sight of him standing in the street. His stalwart figure topped with a head of white hair. Hands in his pockets, he watched after her as she drove away.
She broached the idea for Cliff’s consideration that same evening. She pushed the fact that something meaningful in Razzell’s life would cement his convalescence so the sessions would be mutually beneficial for both men. Still, Cliff’s quiet nature prevailed. Beebe went on to say that if he decided against Razzell’s counseling, she would make the effort to locate sessions in a nearby town. For good measure, she added that she’d be happy to keep him company on the ride over.
The “good measure” argument produced the anticipated result. Cliff went to the phone and set up his first appointment with Razzell for the next week.
With that decision made by her father, she thought he would feel a weight lift, but he remained reticent. No memories shared. He would not talk about Abigail Walker. Had he nothing to say?
Theme of Family
Since it was late September, Beebe set out to clear some of the flowerbeds around the house. She dragged a canvas catchall with a wide mouth from bed to bed. It caught the now petrified begonias, petunias, and impatiens she yanked up and tossed in. With the bed on the north side of the house devoid of annuals, she angled around the corner into the front yard, towing the catchall up in her arms. Off near the blue spruce, Beebe observed a woman who appeared to be Melinda Thorndyke. Beebe set the catchall down, pulled off her garden gloves, and let them fall to the ground.
When Melinda didn’t notice her cutting across the row of graves, Beebe spoke quietly from several graves away. “Am I intruding?” This was their first encounter since the board meeting at Crossroads.
Nearly a month passed since the grave beside Patsy Thorndyke’s was disturbed. The dirt there was tapped down. The sod had taken hold. All looked good.
“Hi, Beebe.” Melinda looked genuinely pleased to see her. Errant strands of her dark curls blew with the breeze. “No, you are not an intrusion. Today was my parents’ anniversary. It was such a pretty afternoon, it just drew me outside. And here I am. I don’t come often.”
The admission mirrored the impression Beebe felt that a closeness had not existed between Melinda and her parents. Patsy and Kenneth Thorndyke’s graves were memorialized with a double bronze marker. Melinda brought yellow mums for the embedded bronze vase that lifted up and out from beneath the marker’s surface. The bottom of the vase locked upright into grooves designed for just that purpose. Melinda held a nearly empty water bottle. Beebe suspected the missing contents were poured into the vase to keep the flowers going for a while.
Melinda fiddled with the bottle. The former grief counselor felt she should let Melinda direct the conversation. After a long moment, she did.
“My mother was not always a model to emulate. In fact, I didn’t like Patsy Thorndyke very much.” She gave Beebe a sad smile. “That’s awful to say, I know. And what bothers me about my involvement in your mother’s situation at the hospital is whether my actions were driven just a little bit by what my mother would say if I went to Abigail and tried to help rather than turning my back on her and racing for cover under the guise of hospital protocols.”
“I hold no grudge against you, Melinda. I haven’t even run the scenario of what would have happened differently if hospital administration and law enforcement weren’t brought in. Honesty, thirty years have passed, the story is fully engrained just as it played out back then. There are no options, no alternate endings. But Mother transformed her life. I learned about that transformation. Look at things this way, you brought that about. You followed the rules, and, somewhere down the line, Mother found sobriety and came back to us. More often than not, life is not well lit. It’s full of dark passages.”
Melinda nodded. Her eyes darted from place to place. She brought her concentration back. “Standing here, it feels like I should tell you an unflattering story about my mother. It involves your mother and your Grandma Walker.”
“Really? Even Grandma Walker,” Beebe said. “Sounds intriguing.”
“Well, let’s just say it lights my mother’s passage through life fairly well for all to see.” Off in the distance behind Melinda, a migratory flock of ducks flew silently southward. “Did you know that your parents rented a little house over on Arbor Street when they were first married?”
Beebe shook her head. She knew nothing but life in the caretaker’s house.
“My parents owned several rentals around town, and Mother was in charge of rent collection. When I began working the same shift with Abigail, Mother decided to revive a situation involving the collection of rent from Arbor Street. Apparently, your father had his job at the hardware store. Your mother was finishing nurses training, which takes money—I know,” Melinda said, fingertips touched her breastbone. “She was pregnant with you, so money was tight in the Walker residence. Mother felt no compunction to show compassion. I guess for two months the rent went unpaid. My mother and your mother had words. In the revived version, my mother told me how she proudly tagged your parents the Two-Warning Walkers. If another transgression occurred, a for-rent placard would go in the little house’s window.” Beebe thought Melinda replicated her mother’s sneer perfectly. “She could degrade people with just two or three well-chosen words. Of course, I found Abigail owned all the compassion my mother did not.”
Beebe listened closely. This tale covered completely new ground.
“When the bedpan hit the floor over your mother’s problem,” Melinda smiled with her insertion of hospital humor, “I explained my part in things to my parent
s. I was young and scared. The police were called. Abigail disappeared. It was frightening. I was panicky. The hospital was abuzz.” Suddenly, her face darkened. Her lips tightened and shrunk. “But my mother looked at me without a hint of understanding. Just as snidely as she was capable, she chirped, as if well-deserved, ‘Third warning.’”
The words grated across Beebe’s heart even though they were heard three decades later and secondhand. She studied Melinda Thorndyke, who stepped inside herself, leaving Beebe alone to wonder what she thought. “But you’re here today. You’ve forgiven her for her ways?” There was something about mother and daughters who traveled a rocky road and the forgiveness sought at the end. It was an enduring scenario, fit for the ages. Beebe hadn’t realized she forgave her mother until her father recognized that forgiveness strung through the words of Abigail’s obituary.
“I began to accept my mother and her shortcomings when, over the years, I saw worse examples. My brother and I contribute to society. Whether it’s to spite her, who knows?”
Beebe considered Melinda’s attitude an odd mix of blasé and providence. She thought the woman next to her seemed entitled to a shared secret, and an uplifting one. “See this grave?” Beebe pointed to the one that bordered Patsy Thorndyke’s.
“Yes, I was going to ask you about that marker.”
“I’ll tell you about that in a minute, but first, you should know that when Mother died under the name Terri Miller, and Daddy had to find a spot for the quote-unquote indigent burial, he buried her there. My mother and your mother were neighbors for six months.”
“Beside Mother!” Melinda’s mirth was hearty. “Serves her absolutely right.”
The stone marker next to Patsy Thorndyke’s grave read: HERE LIES ONE MANGLED SWING.
Hal Garrett chiseled the words on another excavated flat stone suitable for a grave marker. He caught on to a technique with the serifs, Beebe thought.
Proper Goodbye Page 32
