A Life of Bright Ideas (41 page)

“I couldn’t tell if he was breathing when they gave him that shot,” Tommy said when Winnalee let go. “It didn’t look like it, but shit,
I
was hardly breathing by that point. Anyway, those paramedics were on the ball, waiting right near the runway. Boohoo was better before they even got him here.”

Tommy put his hand on my arm, and the relief that radiated from his hand filled me. I exhaled a jagged breath and my tears kept spilling. “It’s all okay now, Evy,” he said, and I nodded,
because my mind was powerless to find any words more momentous than “thank you.”

The rule, I guess, was that only immediate family could go into the emergency room. When the nurse asked if we were
all
family, we said we were.

Boohoo was sitting up in bed when we got in his room, a purple Popsicle tucked between his swollen lips. “I gotta hold this here because my lips are fat,” he mumbled around the icy, purple sphere. He had medicine pasted over the sting marks peppering his face, his arms, and his scrawny neck. Winnalee and I hurried to him, one on each side of the examining room table, and Boohoo tucked his head, the tip of his Popsicle tapping cold against my cheek as he giggled, “Oh no, here comes a love sandwich!

“Feel me,” he said, touching his chest over his heart. “I’m still pounding kinda hard, right, nurse? Not like before, but still kinda hard.”

“It’s the epinephrine,” she said. “It races the heart.”

I think all of our hearts were pounding equally as hard.

“I flied the Piper, Evy. That’s what Tommy said. Did you see me fly in the Piper?”

“Yes,” I told him, looking up to laugh with relief along with the others.

“I flied the Piper, too,” Aunt Verdella said. She was sitting in a chair designed like the couch I’d just left. Her eyes were almost as swollen as Boohoo’s from all the crying she’d done, but she had a smile slow-dancing in them now. “The doctor had to give me something to calm me down,” she said. She reached for Uncle Rudy and tugged on him to brace herself to rise, but a nurse stopped her. “Why don’t you just sit for a bit, Mrs. Peters. You’ve had quite an ordeal.”

“I sure did.” She looked up at Uncle Rudy, and her eyes said all the things she couldn’t say in front of Boohoo. “Course,
I hardly realized I was in the plane, as worried as I was. But boy, when that plane landed and the paramedics took over, I just went down. Plop! Look at this,” she said, pointing to her bandaged knees. “That poor skinny guy—I don’t know his name—tried to catch me, but … well, Freeda, let’s just say that you’d better be slapping my hands a little more often than you already do, because I almost flattened the poor fellow.”

We laughed, maybe louder than we would have otherwise, but relief does that to a person. Aunt Verdella laughed, too, then said, “Oooo, I feel fuzzy. I don’t know what that doctor gave me, but whatever it was, I kinda like it.”

I stepped back when Dad approached Boohoo’s bed, though I wouldn’t have needed to, because he didn’t get that close. He just reached over and patted Boohoo’s foot under the sheet. “You okay there, little buddy?” Boohoo told him he was, and Freeda watched to see if Dad would back away. He did, but—hopefully—only because the woman from the front desk asked him to come to the desk to fill out some forms.

“You’re not going to go try lassoing any more hornets’ nests, now are you, cowboy?” Tommy asked.

“I wasn’t trying to lasso it, Tommy. Rupert is scared of ’em, so I was gonna put my web around it so the bees couldn’t get out. It didn’t work, though.”

We had to hang around for a while so they could monitor Boohoo, and we stepped into the hall when a nurse came in to check “her patients.”

Uncle Rudy clamped his hand on Tommy’s shoulder and gave it a squeeze. He didn’t say anything, but then I guess he didn’t need to.

“You call your ma, Tommy?” Freeda asked.

“No, I suppose I should, though.”

“Yes, you should,” Freeda said. “You’re her little boy, grown or not, and she needs to know you’re safe, too.”

Uncle Rudy was digging in his pocket to find change for
Tommy to use the pay phone when Dad walked past us and out the door. Freeda pursed her lips, then followed Dad out.

I could see them from the hallway window. Dad was smoking, his head down, one hand in his pants pocket, and Freeda was bent forward, her face enflamed with rage. A couple of nurses were soft-stepping around them to get to their cars.

There was a door up ahead, another outlet to the parking lot, and I knew if I slipped through it I could hear what Freeda was saying, without being noticed. But I didn’t need to. I already knew. So I hurried along toward the restroom, recounting the whole awful event in my mind, exactly as I would have written it to Jesse.

Boohoo was in the front yard, making little hay bales out of fresh grass clippings from the narrow trails Uncle Rudy’s lawn mower was leaving, and tying them with gold yarn. He had them stacked on the front steps, his toy baler nearby. “They look like real ones, don’t they, Evy?” I told him they did, and he added, “ ’Cept mine are green.” I put my hand on the top of his sun-warmed head, just to feel him here.

Boohoo paused to scratch his stings, itchy in spite of the calamine lotion. His fingers still had a yellow tinge to them and were a bit puffy, but the doctor said that would go away in another day or two. “Is Cupcake awake?” He shouted to be heard over the mower, since Uncle Rudy’s pattern had led him up close to the house again.

“Yep. Winnalee’s giving her her bath.”

“Okay. When I’m done haying, I’m gonna go see her. She’s happy in the morning. Not like Freeda.”

I waved to Uncle Rudy, and Boohoo got still. “That a bee, Evy?” he asked, his index finger all that moved as he pointed toward his hay bales.

“No, just a horsefly,” I told him.

“Good. Because I don’t like bees no more. If I get stung again, then Aunt Verdella has to give me a shot. She practiced a needle on an orange at the hospital, and she wasn’t very good at it, either.”

I wanted to smile, but couldn’t. Boohoo would carry his fear of bees now, the same way I carried my fear of storms. “Bees won’t sting unless you’re by their hive,” I told him, hoping Uncle Rudy was right about that.

It was Winnalee’s idea to put on our fashion show for Freeda and Aunt Verdella that night, since I’d just finished altering the last dress. “It’ll be fun. Like playing dress-up again.” Not all the dresses fit us right, but most of them fit one of us well enough. So while Winnalee gave Evalee her bath, I was to hike over and ask Aunt Verdella and Freeda what time they could come over.

I could hear them shuffling in the kitchen as I neared the porch, and the sound of a spoon clinking against the rim of a coffee cup. The smell of dill and garlic wafted through the porch screens. I paused to give Knucklehead a pat. Even Uncle Rudy couldn’t believe that he was still with us, and although I knew it wouldn’t be long now, for today anyway, I was just grateful that he was.

“Oh, Freeda. I can hardly stand the thought of you leaving,” Aunt Verdella was saying, as my foot reached for the step. I brought it back down.

“I know, but let’s face it, I can’t impose on you guys forever.”

“ ‘Impose’? Freeda, how can you even say that? You’ve been nothing but a blessing since you’ve been here. Taking over the garden so Rudy could hay, helping me with the house and Boohoo … helping me with my diet … giving me a friend to talk to. Helping Button …”

I stepped to the side so they wouldn’t see me through the screen if either of them happened to look over from the table.

“But I’ve got a salon to run, Verdella. Terri’s been great about holding down the fort since Winnalee took off—she needed the extra money—but she’s got three little ones at home. I’ve got to get back, Verdella.”

“I know, but I wish you didn’t. When are you leaving?”

“I told Terri I’d be back to work next Monday. I think we’ll pull out on Thursday. Evalee’s got a doctor’s appointment next week. We should get her back in time for that. And—”

I cupped my hand over my mouth.

“Winnalee’s going, too?” Aunt Verdella asked, her voice soaked in dread. I snapped my eyes shut, and wished I could close my ears just as easily.

“Verdella, Winnalee’s doing her best, but she needs my support right now. She’d have to take a night job if she stayed, and you know as well as I do that night jobs are scarce in Dauber. It would have been hard for the girls as it was—Button watching Cupcake during the day while Winnalee worked, Button sewing in snatches and doing the brunt of her work at night—but now that Linda’s selling the shop, the girls will both be needing to look for jobs.”

“Marge or Hazel aren’t taking over Jewel’s store? Button didn’t tell me.”

“Marge told Ada she doesn’t want it, and neither does Hazel. It would be just too much for them at their age.”

“Oh my,” Aunt Verdella said.

“But it isn’t just about the money, Verdella. Even though Winnalee pretends it is. Since Boohoo’s run-in with the hornets, she’s been fretting over every possible awful thing that could happen to that baby. She needs her mom right now. I wasn’t there when she was little; I want to be here for her now. I guess you could say it will be my redemption. And I don’t want to miss out on Evalee’s first years.”

“Oh my. Button will be devastated. Boohoo, too. And Reece …”

“Reece,” Freeda said, as though she only meant to think his name.

“Verdella,” Freeda said after a pause. “I know he’s like a son to you. And I know you loved Jewel. But for a moment, could you please forget those things and listen only as my friend?”

“Of course,” Aunt Verdella said, in a voice as soothing and gentle as hair brushing against your bare back.

“I’m in love with him, Verdella.”

“I know, honey. I ain’t blind.”

“There’ve been times when I’ve wanted to use the oldest trick in the book to win that guy over—you know, like I never learned that that doesn’t work in the end, anyway. I felt so desperate to try and force
something
to crack that hard shell of his. But he’s not ready to love anybody yet. Not even himself.”

“Oh, Freeda.” There were tears in Aunt Verdella’s voice.

“One night last week, we had a few beers at his place, and we kissed. He’d have gone to bed with me in five seconds if I hadn’t pushed him away. But I had to. Because it would have only been sex to him, and it would have been making love to me. It’s one thing to have a stranger turn away after sex, but the man you love?”

“He cares about you, Freeda. I know he does. Thursday, when I ran some of those creamed peas and that ham over to
him, he grinned when I came in the door, and I could see he had to work hard to keep that smile on his face when he realized that you weren’t coming in behind me.”

“Sure. Because I can make him smile—outright laugh now and then. Well, I
could
anyway. Before I chewed his ass about what he said to Button after Boohoo got stung.”

“What’d he say?”

Freeda ignored her question. “You know Reece. His heart is closed as tight as Fanny Tilman’s asshole. The night before Ada’s picnic, around dusk, I talked him into going for a walk …”
My dad went for a walk?
“We’d been working on his kitchen for weeks and he’d never even come close to opening up. But that night, he almost did.
Almost
. I stopped, and I had my hand on his arm, and I looked him straight in the eye and I said, ‘What is it, Reece? What are you holding in there that keeps you locked away from me? From your kids?’ He shook my hand off and told me to mind my own business.”

“Oh, I knew something had happened between the two of you, Freeda. You looked so sad when you got back, and you haven’t gone over there since, have you?”

Freeda’s sigh sounded painful. “He’d have gotten past my prying if I’d backed off, but after the things I said to him the day Boohoo got stung, I’m afraid he’s cemented shut any hairline cracks he might have had on his heart by now.”

“Oh, Freeda,” Aunt Verdella said. I waited, my hand resting on the scratchy gray siding to steady myself. The Malones had plans to leave, and Winnalee hadn’t thought to tell me? And Freeda
was
in love with my dad? Everything felt surreal, but for the skin between my teeth, the itching on my arms, and the ache I felt for Freeda’s anguish.

“Verdella,” Freeda finally said, “Rudy was a widower when you met him. Was it hard for him to let you in?”

“Well, honey, I met Rudy long after Betty passed, so I guess it was different. He was ready for someone in his life by
then. I wish Rudy would talk to him, but you know Rudy. He doesn’t like to interfere. After Jewel died, he told Reece that he would always be here if he needed him, and he won’t say it again because he thinks that’s pryin’. I’ve tried talking to him about Reece, but all he says is ‘Verdie, some winters just hang on longer than others.’ ”

They were quiet for a minute, and I heard a chair scrape the floor. Then Freeda spoke. “I don’t know, sad of a thought as it is, I’m afraid Reece is going to live out the rest of his life cut off from everybody and everything, including himself. I have to accept that I can’t change that.”

“Oh, honey, I can see how this is breaking your heart.”

Freeda cleared her throat. “Well, forget me for a second. Think about what he’s doing to his kids.” Freeda must have gone to refill her coffee cup, because there was a clink and the chair scraped the floor again. “Verdella, I hope you don’t take this the wrong way, but it can’t be a coincidence that Button’s been pining away—for what, four years?—for some guy who only saw her as a friend. Using any scrap of attention from him that she got, to convince herself—even us—that he loved her in a romantic way. I’ll bet you any money, that through the years you told Button often how much her dad loved her, and that he just wasn’t good at showing it. I’d have said the same thing. But do you see a connection here?”

“Not really,” Aunt Verdella said in a voice too small to be hers.