What Love Sees (45 page)

Three months later, moving day came. It was crisp and the morning air felt pure and clean. They ate their last breakfast in Ramona at Franny and Ed’s.

“Mom, Hap’s got his eyes closed again.” Faith’s voice wavered between tattling and helping.

“Peeps, Hap,” Jean said, her abbreviated reminder to keep his eyes open. Hap grunted.

“Boy, you’d better be glad your water pistol’s packed,” Forrest said, “or I’d pop you one, right between the eyes.”

“And you know he can do it, too,” Faith chimed in. “Pop does it all the time, Franny, whenever we tell him.”

“I’m going to throw it away,” Hap grumbled.

The Mayflower moving van arrived and the family trooped back across the dirt road between the two houses for the last time. Jean wrapped her sweater tighter.

Faith held Jean’s hand as they walked. “I’m going to miss Judy, Mom.”

“Oh, she can visit weekends any time. And we’ll learn places in Escondido you two can ride.”

“But I won’t have any friends.”

“That won’t last two days, I bet. We’ve all got to keep growing. Old friends are sometimes too comfortable. Sometimes old places, too.”

“I don’t want to say goodbye.”

“When you say goodbye to one thing, you usually say hello to something else.”

“Can we have a kumquat tree at our new house?”

“Sure.”

One by one, the pieces of their Ramona life were carried off and disappeared into the depths of the moving van. The older boys stood staring.

“Mom, one of the Mayflower men has lots of muscles,” Billy whispered.

“I’m sure he does.”

“How’s he going to move the piano?”

“How do you think it got here? Grew? They have a way.”

The two men guided it on rollers and hoisted it neatly on pulleys into the van.

“Wow. Look at that,” said Forrie, his voice breathy and full of admiration.

“That’s ’chin,” Billy said.

“What’s ’chin?” Jean asked. “Suddenly I hear it all the time.”

“Aw, Mom, it’s only a word,” said Billy, wandering off.

“Is it short for something else, Forrie?”

“Yeah.”

“What?”

“Just a word.”

“What word?”

“Bitchin’.”

“Forrie. That’s a barn word. I won’t allow that in the house.”

“I won’t say it in the house. Anyways, we’re between houses. We don’t have a house today. Besides, we don’t say the whole word.”

His logic amused her. Maybe she’d just have to grow up with the kids. She went back in the house to find what was left.

Midmorning, Mother Holly brought a pot of coffee for the moving men, and they took a break in the patio. Jean could hear her outside.

“Do you know these people well?” one of the Mayflower men asked Mother Holly.

“Pretty well.”

He spoke more softly. “Neither one of them can see?”

“No.”

“And the littlest kid, too?”

She heard Mother Holly clear her throat. “Do you remember that old saying about the Lord putting burdens on backs that can bear them? More coffee?”

The six-note melody of a meadowlark trilled through the air and Jean came outside again. “Doesn’t that just chill you it’s so beautiful?”

“What, ma’m?”

“You mean you didn’t hear that, the meadowlark?”

“No, I guess I didn’t.”

“We hear a couple every day,” said Mother Holly.

“I sure hope there are meadowlarks in Escondido. Do you live there?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t suppose you know?”

“No, ma’m, I guess I don’t listen much to birds.”

“What a shame. Just think what you’re missing. Well, are we nearly loaded?” Jean asked.

“Just about.”

Jean asked Mother Holly to write out the check. Then she felt for the lower right corner of the checkbook, edged her hand up a half inch and three inches to the left, signed it slowly and held it out. After a momentary hesitation, the man took it. “Where’s your husband, ma’m?”

“Probably out loading his horses. A friend’s going to move them.”

“He rides horses?”

“All his life he has.”

He cleared his throat. “Do you have family where you’re going?”

“No. The only family we have is here, and back east. We don’t know anyone in Escondido.” She sensed what was coming next, but she didn’t harden herself against it. She just stood naturally, without the old tense, stay-alert, forward leaning posture. She faced him directly and let a slight smile play over her mouth.

“Excuse me for this, but lady, I don’t see how you’re going to get by, seeing as how three of you—”

“Your job is to move us. Ours is to keep on moving once we get there.” She smiled at him with what she meant as kindness, turned back into the house, and paused in the dining room when her heels tapped against the Mexican tile floor. Right about here was where Forrest lit the matches for candelight that day. Slowly, she walked through every room and trailed her fingers along the adobe bricks. In Faith’s room, she bent down low and felt along the first row of adobes until she found the tooth fairy hole. She smiled. It would be a curiosity to the family that bought the house.

After a while she walked outside again toward the Chinese elm. Her feet felt the scooped-out dips of packed earth where the swings had hung. A warm breeze brought the rumble of Heddy and Karl’s chickens. The mint smelled fresh and sweet and green. Her arm went around the trunk of the Chinese elm.

“You look silly, Mom.” Forrie laughed. “Looks like you’re saying goodbye to a tree.”

“I am, Forrie.” By themselves, echoing in the darkness, the words struck her with the authority of a private, solid declaration. “I am.”