The Glory of Green (16 page)

Two of the beautiful stained glass windows were cracked near the ceiling, but the others were unharmed. The glass vases of tulips from our wedding remained on each ledge, the flowers withered and the water dried up.

I knew at that moment we would never worship here again.

Maria and her sons were in the yard when I came out of the church, my eyes wet with tears.

"
Hola,
Miss Lois," she called, and the boys waved shyly, wearing swimsuits and playing in the sprinkler. I walked across the gravel road, trying to pull myself together, the boys going back to a game of chase, timing their moves to coincide with the arc of the water.

"You have heard the news?" Maria asked hesitantly.

"News?" I was shifting from my good-bye to the old church to the exuberance of the kids, thrilled to see them with a yard to play in.

"About the government. A man came by and said we must find a new place to live. They are taking our home."

"Maria, this is the United States. They can't kick you out of your house."

"One moment. I have an official letter for Mr. Chris. It arrived yesterday."

I sat on the front steps and opened the fat white envelope, finding a complicated three-page letter and a thick contract."In light of changes rendered by the tornado of twenty-six March, revisions are hereby made to proposed highway project number 691980, affording the opportunity for the sale of your land at appraised market value within sixty days."

Who got paid to write these things?

The state must think Chris still owned the property and want him to sell out. The words had a slightly ominous tone to them.

"My boys love this home so much. I told them we would not have to move again for a long time. Where will we go?" Maria asked.

"We can fight this."

"But the church must move too. The road will be there." She pointed to the corner.

She was right. A fight would be a waste of energy that none of us had. The church would find a new site and rebuild. Maria and the boys didn't need to be in the shadow of a four-lane road.

"We'll look for new land and move this for you," I said, not having a clue where we might put the trailer. "They don't call them mobile homes for nothing."

She looked at me quizzically, clearly not understanding a word I said.

"We'll find a better place." I worked up my most enthusiastic voice. "It'll be another adventure. Don't worry about anything. Everything is going to be all right."

Easing back into Jean's house, I peeked into the living room where she was sound asleep, a hint of a snore coming from her mouth.

Breathing in the hominess of her kitchen, I took the food from the oven, dished a serving of the casserole onto a bright yellow Fiestaware plate and put the cobbler in a red bowl. I made a small salad with a wilted head of lettuce, figuring Jean needed a vegetable, quietly poured a glass of tea, and broke a piece of bread.

A sudden image of Jean serving the Lord's Supper flashed into my mind.

"Do not let your hearts be troubled," I heard her saying, the lovely Grace Chapel glowing with morning light.

Cody Rigdon is recovering at home after falling out of the back of his friend Brandon's new Chevy pickup.
"A handful of boys were horsing around out in the country. Cody decided to stand up in the bed of the truck at the same time Brandon swerved to avoid a skunk," Cody's dad said. "We've warned him about that before, but I think he learned his lesson this time. He'll be working the next four summers to pay off that emergency room bill."

—The Green News-Item

O
n the first Sunday in August, we ate lunch as usual with Estelle and Hugh, and Chris settled down to watch football videos, a task he seemed never to tire of.

I sat in his lap and kissed his neck.

"I have a surprise for you," I said.

"Here?" He actually blushed and glanced around. "Where are Mama and Daddy?"

"Not that kind of surprise. I have a list of houses for us to look at. I've stalled long enough."

"That's great news." He reached for my notebook. "Let's see what you've found."

I held the list out of reach, swinging it by the metal coil at the top. "No, no, no. I've got our itinerary all mapped out. Let's go for a Sunday drive."

Chris's truck seat was cluttered with a case of water, a map of the parish, country roads highlighted with a marker, and a list of people who needed food, so we climbed into my small car, me in the driver's seat, Chris complaining about how low to the ground it sat.

"We could take your truck if it hadn't become a mobile food bank," I said.

"I don't think I'll ever get caught up. This food business was supposed to have eased up by now, but the more people hear about it, the more requests we receive."

"Give yourself the afternoon off." I was astonished to find myself energized at the prospect of locating a home. "Even though Green doesn't have a lot of neighborhoods to choose from, I ruled out the area around the Country Club. Those houses are dated, and I don't like the thought of living there.The houses in the new development by the school are jammed together, so I put that area on the long list."

"You're telling me we have to live at the Lakeside for the rest of our marriage, aren't you?"

"I have three excellent ideas, so prepare to be wowed."

The first house was a small white frame cottage in Kevin's neighborhood with a patched roof and a cute picket fence. "The neighborhood's a little uneven, but we could put our money where our mouth is and support this area," Chris said.

We got out of the car and walked around the yard.

"It's vacant, but it's been partially restored," I said.

He pointed to boards pulling away from the front windows and the tilt of the tiny cement porch, a wrought iron post pulled out at the bottom.

"Apparently my idea of partially restored and theirs are two different things," I said.

"Good idea to consider this neighborhood," Chris said, "but wrong house."

I made an elaborate show of crossing the address off my list, and Chris tried to read over my shoulder.

"No peeking. This is the Lois Craig real estate tour."

He crawled into my car, his long legs crowded in the tight space. "Next?"

"Iris and Stan are talking about building, but there's another option." I drove to the south side of town. "What if we moved one of these houses onto Aunt Helen's lot?"

We pulled into a dealer who sold houses that were a combination of prefabricated and custom-built, a variety of architectural styles. "What do you think?"

"Interesting idea," he said. "I stopped by here a couple of weeks ago. They have several good-looking model homes."

"They're cute, too," I said.

"I'm not sure I want to live in a cute house."

"Charming, then. I wouldn't have considered this a year or two ago, but now it seems like one of our easier options. Let's look around."

The sales manager made a beeline for us as soon as we stepped from the car.

"Good to see you, Coach, Miss Lois," he said. "I hoped you'd be back together."

I glanced at Chris, sheepish. "I came over here last week too."

As we explored the model homes, we discussed the pros and cons of a new house at the old home place.

"Would it look out of place?" I asked.

"Depends on the style," Chris said.

"Would we be too close to the highway?"

"Not from the revised plans that your newspaper posted online. There's a big slice of land behind the parsonage and then all those trees on your land. That's probably ten acres or more."

"What about construction and traffic noise? Iris is concerned about that."

"I don't think they'll be able to see the interchange from her house, and I know we wouldn't on your land."

"
Our land,"
I said.

"Our land," he repeated.

"It'll be different without the church and your old trailer there. It won't feel like as much of a community, but I guess I have to get used to that idea."

"It'll be a new community," Chris said. "Our lot is not too far from the spot Pastor Jean has picked out for the new church. She hopes we can move Maria and the boys to a spot down that way too. She's found an acre of land near the little store there at the crossroads. Now she has to decide about a parsonage."

We strolled through three model homes, pushing the salesman off on a family who pulled in behind us. "We're having a look," Chris said. "We'll give you a shout if we have any questions."

The floor plans were much more efficient than in the old house where I had lived, complete with laundry rooms, electric fireplaces, and garden tubs in the master bathrooms. The windows were insulated and opened easily, and the doors shut snugly.

I thought of the front screened porch at Aunt Helen's, the pitch of the roof with intricate woodwork, the tall brick chimney, glass doorknobs, and claw-foot bathtub. "They don't have as much personality as an old house, but we could probably replace the deck with a porch."

"There'd be a lot less maintenance," Chris said.

"We could choose interesting colors and decorate them in our style."

"Thank goodness I put most of my catfish collection in Mama's attic," Chris said.

"Please tell me that while half of Bouef Parish blew away, the catfish collection doesn't live on."

"It's available if needed, Mrs. Craig. We can make it the cornerstone of the décor."

"You're keeping secrets. I thought you gave all that to the shelter."

He grinned, his cute Chris grin. "I didn't figure they'd want that stuff."

"At least we have the piece of green pottery you recovered.That's a start. Rose can help us find antiques, too. Linda's been too busy to do much with the shop, but Rose is back to regular hours at the Holey Moley."

"This is a good floor plan," Chris said. "We could have our room here, and the children over here."

My eyebrows shot up. Before we got married, we had discussed possibly having a child one day, but the topic had not been raised since.

"Are we house shopping or family planning?" I asked.

"Just in case. This could be the children's room, just in case.These models would be ideal in a lot of ways, but they're not quite what I had in mind."

"Me either." I was relieved at his opinion and the change of subject.

"We could build a brand-new house," he said. "That's a lot of work, but it could be fun. Maybe more expensive than we planned."

"Before we discuss building, I have one more for us to look at today. It's a little extreme, but promise you'll give it a chance."

"If you like it, I'll give it a chance, whatever it is, wherever it is."

"It's on the lake, in the older part of Major Wilson's development.I vowed I'd never buy over there, but the listing sounds perfect, and the pictures look like it's ready to move right in.It has the master suite on one side and guestrooms—or a nursery—on the other."

A strange look passed across Chris's face.

"What's wrong? I thought you might like living on the lake.The lots are big, and we could even get a boat. They're having an open house today, so we can look around without an appointment."

"Let's take a look," he said. "It can't hurt."

"I'm so relieved that I'm finally excited about looking at a house."

The drive through the brick gates was a transition into another world from Route Two. Most homes had a view of the water, many had piers and boathouses. A row of smaller patio homes sat to the left of the entrance, expensive replicas of Creole cottages with cypress beams and antique brick walkways.

We wound to the back. "Here's the turn," I said. "Even the street has a cute name. How could you not be happy in a house on Bluebird Lane?"

I glanced at my notes and back at the brass numbers on the door. "This is it. It looks better in person. Isn't it darling?"

I was almost to the front door before I noticed Chris wasn't moving. His car door was open, and he had both feet on the ground but he didn't seem to have any momentum.

"Come on, slowpoke," I yelled. "They're going to close at four."

He stepped out of the car and leaned against the front fender, his hand on the hood as though to hold himself up.

"Lois." His quiet voice seemed to reverberate across the yard."I know what it looks like. This was my and Fran's house."

I took a step toward Chris and then turned back to the house, looking at it as though I'd never seen a house before. A young woman with a real estate nametag came to the door and invited me in. "It's stunning," she said. "The original owners were quite creative with the design."

"I'm stunned all right," I mumbled, feeling as though I might throw up. "Excuse me."

Chris and I got in the car and made the short drive back to the motel in silence, except for an occasional sniffle from me and one heavy sigh from Chris.

When I pulled into the parking spot, I didn't know what to do. Part of me wanted to push Chris out of the car and run away. Another wanted him to explain why he had never mentioned a house on the lake.

He spoke first. "I'm so sorry. I never meant to mislead you."

"That's obvious," I said in my most sarcastic tone, a good dose of hurt mixed in. "You made me think you and Fran lived in the trailer on Route Two. Not one time has a house on the lake been mentioned, not one time."

"Can we go inside to talk about this? My legs are cramping."

"You go. I've got work to do at the paper." I put the car in reverse, but he didn't move.

"I'm not getting out of the car without you," he said in a subdued voice.

I started driving. "Well, I guess you can go to the
Item
with me."

"Can we at least talk about this rationally?"

Hearing my husband of four months imply I was irrational added fury to my emotions. I drove too fast down Main Street, largely empty on a Sunday afternoon, and whipped into the
News-Item
parking lot, swinging wide, and flattening the newspaper box.

I had never heard Chris utter a curse word, not even in the middle of the tornado, but I think he came close at that moment.

I put my head on the steering wheel, hiding my face.

"Let me try to explain," he said.

"I thought I knew you."

"I thought I knew you, too. I had no idea you had delusions of being a NASCAR driver."

"This isn't a joking matter."

"I suspect Stan will agree with you on that. How many times have you flattened that rack?"

"I'm going inside. You can do whatever you want to do."

"Could you take me to get my truck?" he asked. "We left it at my parents' house."

For a moment I considered telling him to walk. "I guess so."

"May I drive?" he asked.

I didn't answer but walked around the car, my knees trembling.

We met at the trunk, and he reached up and touched my hair, one of his most tender gestures.

"I love you, Lois. You make me happier than I ever expected to be. You make me happy even when a tornado hits." He tried to hug me, but I stood rigid, not nearly ready to yield to his sweetness.

We pulled out. Again the drive was silent, me staring out the window, feeling betrayed.

Before I realized where he was going, we pulled into the driveway where the cottage had stood. The birds seemed to be singing extra loudly. More than anything I wanted to run into the old house and throw myself on my bed, sinking into my beautiful new down comforter and feeling the cool pillow under my head. But all that was wiped out.

We walked over to the swing and sat down. "I don't suppose we can let this go?" Chris asked.

I didn't say anything, wondering what planet he was from.

"Are you going to talk to me?" he asked.

I crossed my arms, ever-so-slightly enjoying watching him squirm.

"Lois, I'm sorry. I don't know what else to say."

"How about telling me what else I don't know about you? How about explaining why no one in town ever mentioned a fancy lake house, Mr. I-love-the-stars-and-open-space?"

"I wasn't trying to hide it from you. At first, it didn't seem relevant. We weren't dating, so I let it slide. Later I knew it bothered you to talk about Fran, so I didn't know how to bring it up."

"It's hard to think about you being married to another woman," I said. "To find out you lived in that beautiful house.. . . It's like learning there's a side to you I never had an inkling of." . . . It's like learning there's a side to you I never had an inkling of."

"Fran was a wonderful wife—"

"Thanks for reminding me."

"Let me finish. She was a wonderful wife, but she didn't much like the country. That was her dream house, and it meant more to her than it did to me."

"Did you build it yourselves?"

"We did. I said I'd never do that again, but I'd do it in a minute if that's what you want. You're the best thing that ever happened to me. I sort of always knew I'd marry Fran from the time we were in high school, but you, you caught me off guard. You were an unexpected gift."

I looked over at the house site, remembered sitting on the porch, risking my heart to a man who had loved deeply before, remembered Chris's willingness to risk his heart again.