Dreaming August (3 page)

“Tomorrow.”

“You’ve been saying all week. Come on, Ev. You think I want to raise your brats if you croak?”

She laughed. “They do have a father.”

Who they hadn’t seen since Christmas. “Paul’d take them out to Denver. You don’t want your kids raised with all the weirdos out there.”

“You’re awful, Daniel.”

“Just make an appointment. Putting it off is what got you in the first place.”

“I know. You’re right.” She pressed palms to the table and pushed herself to her feet. “I’ll call right now and leave a message. Okay?”

“Heat me some more noodles while you’re up.” He held out his plate. “Please?”

Evelyn swatted him in the back of the head, but she took his plate and spooned more noodles onto it. Sticking it into the microwave, she talked to her doctor. Dan listened carefully to the message she left—a vague name, number, and, please-call-back-at-your-earliest-convenience.

“There. Happy now?” His sister put his plate in front of him, set the phone on the table.

“You going to follow up tomorrow?”

“If they don’t call? Of course.”

He frowned. She was more stubborn than he was, and the reason why something a course of antibiotics could have fixed became a lifelong disease she would never quite escape. Dan knew she wouldn’t call the doc back any more than the doctor’s office would return her call.

A bump upstairs lifted both their heads. Evelyn rolled her eyes. “Joss must be trying to fly again. I’d better go see. You okay eating by yourself?”

“I ate by myself a long time, Ev. Go.”

A squeeze to his shoulder, and his sister left him. Dan listened to her tread up the stairs, to her voice if not the words she said to her son. Picking up the phone, he hit the redial button.

“This is Daniel Greene,” he said. “Evelyn Taylor’s brother. She just left you a message to give her a call back. Now I’m leaving you a message to make sure you do.”

Spirits of the Winds and Leaves

“It’s going to rain. Let me drive you.”

“Ma, come on.” Benny adjusted her goggles. “I’m thirty-six years old. When are you going to stop treating me like a baby?”

“I worry about you on this thing.”

“It’s a scooter. It doesn’t go over thirty miles per hour.”

“People have been killed at lesser speeds.”

“Where do you get your facts from?” Benny glanced skyward. The cloud-cover was definitely thickening, getting darker. She leaned forward and kissed her mother’s cheek, revved the hair-dryer-like engine. “I’m going to see Henny after work, so don’t wait dinner for me.”

“I’ll leave it in the oven.”

Benny pulled away. Clarice’s voice, whatever she was saying, faded. Her mother would watch her until the road curved and took her precious baby from sight, wring her hands, and then head back up the driveway, shaking her head as she went. Benny didn’t have to see the scene to know it by heart.

“How do you stand it?” she’d asked her brother once. Peter had smiled and shrugged.

“She’s Ma. She can’t help it. I don’t mind having someone cook all my meals and wash my laundry.”

“Because you’re still in your twenties and unattached,” Benny said. “Wait until you have a serious girlfriend. Or a wife. There is a reason Tim lives in North Carolina.”

Another smile, a sadder one. Another shrug, half-hearted. While she and Tim were a respectable four years apart, Peter was a full decade younger than Benny. The
oops
-baby born long after her parents thought it could happen. He’d been everyone’s baby, the favorite of every teacher he ever had. At twenty-six, despite the personality and appearance that had the ladies beating down the doors, he remained a devout and determined mama’s boy.

The first raindrops fell. Benny twisted the throttle, pushing the scooter to its limits. The scooter sailed into the gravel lot just as the skies released. She did not like being late, even if there were such a thing at Savvy’s. The place opened when it opened, closed when it closed, and as long as the employees got their work done, her boss was happy.

“For goodness sake, Benny. I’d have come to get you. Why didn’t you call?”

“It’s fine, Savvy. I got here before the rain.”

“Barely.” Savannah—Savvy—Callowell looked her up and down. “You sick?”

Benny gulped. “No. Do I look that bad?”

“Now don’t be defensive. You just look a little…stressed, I suppose.”

“You live with my mother and then talk to me about stress.”

Savannah laughed, the might of her single quirked eyebrow easing. Benny had been one of the first applicants after this small black woman bought the old Larson farm in very white Bitterly, Connecticut six years ago. After the stir died down, Larson’s quickly became Savvy’s to all but the oldest residents, and Savannah became a good friend.

“So, what’s up for today? You want me to get started on the tomatoes?”

“Let’s go to my office.” Savannah turned away without waiting for a response.

“What is it?” Benny hurried after her. “What’s wrong? Did I leave the hose on again? Your office flooded, didn’t it?”

“No, Benny.” She gestured Benny in, flicked on the lights and crossed to her desk. Twisting in her red-leather-rolly-chair, Savannah clicked at her keyboard. “Do you have something you want to tell me?”

“Tell you?” Sweat beaded Benny’s upper lip. She forced her hand to keep away from her belly. “About what?”

“All those late nights. I wondered what you were doing.”

“I wasn’t doing…I mean, I was, but…” One week of being the nearest thing to happy she’d been in six years. One week! “How did you know? I thought no one—”

“Well, sugar, why did you let it go live if you didn’t want me to know about it?” She pushed away from the computer, motioned Benny in. “It turned out really beautiful. Thank you, Benedetta. I forgot all about that picture you snapped of me.”

Savannah smiled back at her from the screen, short hair coiled into spikes and dirt on the white tank top accentuating every farm-chiseled muscle in her thin arms. The blur over her left shoulder Benny had cropped out at least a half-dozen times was still there, but otherwise, it looked damn good.

“I totally forgot about this,” Benny said. “It’s just a blogger site. I scheduled it to go live and then—” She spread her fingers. “I’ve been a bit preoccupied lately. Sorry, Savvy. I meant to tell you so you could tweak it if you wanted.”

“I don’t know the first thing about blogging.”

“It’s simple, and fun. You can write daily posts or weekly or whatever you want, but all the information anyone needs to find your farm and what it’s about is right there on the main page. There are links to pictures and a few testimonials I might have made up but are completely true. Do you like it?”

“I love it.” Savannah took both Benny’s hands and gave them a squeeze. “You’re a wonder.”

“I was bored and couldn’t sleep. I’ll give you the sign-in and password. It’s all yours.”

“Will you show me how to…tweak it? Is that the right word?”

Benny laughed, this time without the queasy feeling. “Sure. I’ll pull up another chair.”

* * * *

Despite Savannah’s assertion she knew nothing of computers or social media, she caught on quickly. By lunchtime, Benny was out in the greenhouse, nibbling at a sandwich and thinning blossoms off the tomatoes finally ready to be planted in the ground now that all danger of frost was done.

“Too many on one stem doesn’t give them enough room to grow,” Savannah once told her. Benny hated denying even one blossom its chance at becoming a tomato, but she’d been working at Savvy’s long enough to know her boss was right. It still bothered her every time.

She forced herself to eat her lunch. All the prego-books she read said she’d start showing soon. Tall as she was, she’d never been supermodel thin. Voluptuous, Henny used to call her. She preferred the exotic sound of
zaftig
. Keeping her curves would buy her another month, maybe two before her pregnancy became too obvious. If her mother found out, it was all over. Worse would be for Dan to figure out that Valentine’s Day had gotten him a bit more than laid.

She had to tell him. She had to. What kind of woman, what kind of mother kept a good man from his child?

Benny plucked, ate. Not only did Dan have the right to know his child, their child had the right to know his father. Not even her most confused and reluctant moment chased that knowledge from Benny’s head. But how? When? What would she say?

Hey, Dan. Remember the night we had sex in the carriage, in the cold, under the stars? You do know how babies are made, right? Well, we made one. Henny’s wife and his best friend, bumping uglies in public. So much for loyalty, eh?

Even as a joke, the thought made her nauseous, so nauseous she couldn’t finish her sandwich. The same had been happening since the lines first appeared on the pee-stick. Soon, she kept telling herself. She would tell him soon. But soon never came, because the nausea always hit, because the guilt of producing life when Henny was dead simply turned her brain to mush.

“Good Lord, sugar, if you don’t look like you’re about to go down.” Savannah’s arm went around her waist, supporting her when she didn’t even realize her knees were starting to buckle. She helped Benny to an overturned crate, sat her down, pressed a cool hand to her forehead. Benny closed her eyes. She willed the nausea and the thoughts to subside. A moment, two, and she started to feel better.

“I won’t ask what’s going on,” Savannah said. “You won’t tell me if I do, but please see a doctor about whatever this is ailing you.”

“I know what’s wrong with me,” Benny started, but pulled herself up short. “Too many late nights drinking and partying with my friends.”

“Very funny.”

“Would you believe I’m an avid gamer who stays up playing online with people I’ve never met in the flesh?”

“I would, but no, that’s not it either.” Savannah cocked her head. She pursed her lips. She looked about to say something, but turned away instead. The hand moving to and dropping quickly from her brow was as slight as the way the corners of her eyes suddenly pinched, but Benny noticed.

“Valerie got here a few minutes ago,” Savannah said. “She can finish this. You rest a bit, Benny, and then go home. Dr. Callowell’s orders, y’hear?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Benny tried to tease, but Savannah had already turned away. Her steps were hurried, as if she were fleeing something but didn’t want that something to know. It wasn’t the first time Benny noticed this, or the ephemeral sensation of spider-webs on skin that accompanied it. Still, she let it slide. At the moment, she had her own sensations to deal with.

Benny forced the remainder of her lunch down, rested a few moments in the cool office and went home. Only she didn’t go home.

Riding the still-wet roads to the cemetery, Benny breathed in the cool, washed-clean air. It settled the queasiness she was convinced came as much from anxiety as it did her pregnancy. She anticipated the muddy earth awaiting the morning glory seeds in her pocket, the flowers needing dead-heading, and filling the bare spot on Mrs. Farcus’ plot with the marigolds riding in the milk crate bungee-corded to the back of her scooter.

Turning her scooter into Bitterly Cemetery, the familiar peace descended. As a devoted teenaged-goth-chick, Benny had done the black eye-liner and lipstick, wore ironic t-shirts and hung out at the cemetery with all the other goth kids. Whatever trendy, put-on reason her friends might have had, the cemetery wasn’t a place of dead bodies and séances to brave on Halloween Night for Benny. It was a place of peace, of rest.

She used to stroll among the stones, looking at the dates and wondering about the lives lived between them. She made up stories, and sometimes found histories in the library. Harriet Gardner Farcus had been one of those histories. The daughter of one of the founding families, she’d married the son of another. She was born, lived and died in Bitterly, never having stepped foot outside its confines. It hadn’t been difficult to find stories about her. Midwife and herbalist, Harriet Farcus had also been known to foster any orphaned animal left upon her doorstep. Benny liked to think of her as a benevolent witch in a land that no longer believed in such things. When Henny died and Benny realized a plot near her was vacant, she had wept tears of joy.

Leaving her scooter in its usual spot under the shade tree, Benny went first to Henny’s grave. The garden was a bit soggy, but nothing squashed. She dead-headed spent flowers and planted the morning glories, blew her husband a kiss and turned to Harriet’s grave.

“What the—?” She spun, and spun again. That tap. Another one. Benny gritted her teeth. Squinting, she scanned the area for someone who might be tossing sticks or little stones. There was no one, and neither were there any bits of stick or stone on the meticulously cared-for grass.

Benny inhaled deeply, glanced at her husband’s grave, and took her marigolds to Mrs. Farcus.

“I don’t know what the heck is going on here, Mrs. Farcus,” she murmured as she dug the hole. “I’m not imagining it. Yesterday, I could convince myself. But again today? Am I hallu—”

Again the tap, this time, harder. Benny spun to her right to find no one there, only empty air that felt strangely emptier than the air to her left. No stone in the grass. No bird or bee or anything but the silent cemetery and late afternoon sunshine. She glanced at Harriet’s marker.

“Is it…is it you? Are you…?” Benny shook her head, chuckled softly. “Don’t be stupid, Benedetta. You’re addled these days, is all.”

Her hand moved to her belly. Aside from the tech at the childbirth clinic, no one knew. Necessary as it was, it felt like betrayal, like she was unhappy, like she didn’t want the baby she kept secret. Her hand still on her belly, she touched Harriet’s marker.

“I’m pregnant.” The words rushed out in a breath exhaled. “I’m going to have a little baby in November. I think it’s doing strange things to me. I keep feeling—” A sound like wind, and again the tap. Concentrated. Harder. Benny startled, but she didn’t turn. “Who…who are you?”

This time, not a tap, but a gentle squeeze that lingered like comfort. Benny closed her eyes. “If it’s you, Harriet, give me a squeeze.”