(To read chapter 2, click here.)
Chapter 3
“Oh,” she said. Her mouth turned down. “You brought Beau.”
Karen lay on a rickety wicker chaise lounge on her front porch, sipping green tea. She was wearing her Miss Piggy slippers and Rick's plaid bathrobe.
“Of course I brought Beau. Can you imagine him living with your daddy in that 4th floor apartment, alone all day, fighting with Sebastian?” Sebastian was Sam's new Siamese cat. “I think not.”
Karen's face softened. She gazed down at Beau's big black eyes and heart-shaped ears. “Oh well. He can stay in your room.” She slipped her cell phone from her pocket. “I see you spent over at hour at Stop-and-Go.”
“Dang!” I thought. “I forgot to turn off my Google Maps Share Location setting when I got to town.”
“And you were up at 1:30 a.m. Really, Mom? You shouldn't drive that late. Nothing good happens after midnight, remember that.” Karen is a bossy daughter, but quite caring.
“I know, I know.”
“You should've gone to Rick's for coffee. He was there at 6:30, and his brew is so much better. Lottie is a pain in the neck.”
“Yes, I met Lottie. She looked tired,” I replied.
“Rick does the morning shift himself.” Karen sat up, and an empty tub of Haagen-Dazs White Chocolate Raspberry Truffle ice cream fell to the floor. I said nothing.
“Breakfast,” Karen said shortly, and scooped up the little carton. “I usually buy their Green Tea flavor. Hideous.” We went inside.
The house was not in so bad a state as I'd expected. Yes, the kitchen counters were crowded with dirty dishes and pots. Yes, the cat hair was thick on the ground. Yes, the laundry was reaching Mt. Mitchell's height. I could knock out all those jobs in a day. Karen, however, looked drained. We sat in the living room. She was spooning sugar into her green tea.
“Don't you think that defeats the purpose of its health benefits?” I asked as I sank into a wing-back chair and plopped my feet on a stool. Beau slinked under my chair.
Karen gave me her Karen look, which says silently, “Mom, don't even --”
I didn't ask how she was feeling. Chemotherapy had left her fatigued, nauseated, and from the look of her legs, a bit bruised.
“When's your next treatment?” I asked.
“Next Friday. Then I'm done for a while, we hope.” She straightened her husband's bath robe over her knees gracefully for my benefit, but I knew she was trying to hide the bruises from me. She doesn't want me to worry.
“You've still got your hair!” I said brightly.
“I know!” And she bounced her shoulder-length locks and turned her head. “Not bad! Still, it does come out in handfuls sometimes. But it looks full.”
A few minutes later she went back to bed and I attacked the kitchen. I'm a firm believer that if the kitchen is tidy, the rest of the house will follow. By noon, the kitchen was done, the second load of laundry was in, and I was vacuuming. I heard the front door slam. Rick was home for lunch.
“Hiya, Mom-in-law!” he said, and gave me a passing kiss on the cheek. “Welcome!”
“Glad to be here,” I replied.
Rick doesn't like to impose. He didn't assume I'd made him lunch. He went quietly to the freezer, pulled out a Hot Pocket, and was about to put it in the microwave.
“Rick!” I yelled from the dining room. “None of that junk food, young man!” I rush into the kitchen. “There's homemade macaroni and cheese in the oven. And some fruit salad in the frig.”
“Yumm,” he moaned, closing his eyes. “I smelled it, but thought it must be my starved imagination.” He laughed.
“Nope, your nose is working fine. And I'm making spaghetti for supper.”
“Yes!” he exclaimed. “My favorite! And … garlic bread?”
“Of course.”
We ate lunch together in the kitchen. We talked about how Karen's doing, about the coffee shop, about the boys' school. Then I asked my question, the question I'd been waiting to ask.
“Rick, is there a funeral home in Peace Valley?”
He cut me a look. “Oh boy,” he muttered. “Karen is going to kill you if you go that route. You know that, don't you?”
“Well,” I replied, “I have to work. No – I want to work. And that's the work that fascinates me. She's just going to have to accept that I'm a weird mama, that's all.”
He stabbed a chunk of watermelon. “Yeah, there's a funeral home. It's on Pine Street, downtown, just before it turns into,” here he paused and then laughed, “I never thought of it before, but just before Pine turns into Cemetery Road. That's appropriate!”
“And convenient,” I added, and we laughed. Rick laughed like a man who hadn't done it enough lately. “I might stop by and introduce myself, see if there's the slightest chance of a job.”
Rick stacked our plates and moved to the sink. “I doubt it,” he said. “Emery Plott's been there forever. He does it all himself. Well, he has a secretary. And he's got somebody who does the heavy work now – transporting bodies, I think. Still, it wouldn't hurt to ask.”
Rick was mindlessly swirling dish water around and gazing out the window into the backyard. “Did Karen tell you?”
“Tell me what?” The air in the kitchen became still, as if a little bomb was about to drop. I felt a pain in my stomach. I waited.
“She wants to have another baby.”
That tight balloon of anxiety that all mothers keep stored in their chests in order to worry appropriately for their children, no matter how old they are, suddenly deflated in relief. “Oh! Is that all?” Rick turned to me, and I knew I'd said the wrong thing.
“I mean,” I corrected, “Um, that's not a good idea! She can't get pregnant while she'd on chemo.”
“She shouldn't,” he replied. “That doesn't mean she can't.”
“But she's not --”
“No.” He shook his head. “She just wants a baby. One more baby, she says. I think she wants a baby girl.”
I paused, looking for the bright side. “That must mean she's hopeful for the future, right? And it means you have a happy marriage, I think.”
Something about Rick's face told me I had walked into private territory. “Yes, we do.” Then he smiled at me. “Don't want to worry you, Mom-in-law, but if Karen's moody or seems sad, I thought you should know it's because she wants a baby and really can't have one right now.”
“Well, thank you, Rick.” Now the aura in the kitchen was distinctly awkward. “More fruit salad?”
“Nope,” he said, wiping his wet hands on a towel. “Gotta dash. Come by the coffee shop sometime this afternoon if you have time. I want to show it to you!” And he was gone.
Karen napped on and off through the afternoon. Jimmy, who is four, came home at 1:00 from pre-school, and Jeffrey, who is six, arrived at 3:30. They were a whirlwind of squeals, stories, hugs, snacks, running feet, sticky fingers, and adventures out the back door. Dinner was basically ready, so I sat on the porch stoop and watched them climb up and down a rope into their tree house. It was perfect weather for outdoor play: cool, breezy, no mosquitoes. Sweater weather. The boys were wearing capes and shining flashlights into the tree tops in spite of the late afternoon sunlight. I heard the phone ring inside. Karen answered it.
“Mom!” she screeched from her bed of leisure, “It's Daddy. He says, how do you get ink out of a silk tie?” These calls come several times a week from my husband. We've been separated four years now, but he still calls me first when it involves shopping, cooking, washing, cleaning, gardening, or interpersonal relationships.
I hollered back to Karen, “Tell him it's hopeless. Throw that tie in the trash.”
“Daddy says you bought him that tie on your honeymoon!”
“All the more reason …” I began.
Karen's voice talked softly with Sam for a few minutes as the sunlight faded and the boys' flashlights twinkled in the tree. I heard Karen humming. She always hums when she puts on her make-up. Then I heard Sam come in the front door and go upstairs. This house feels peaceful, I think. Peace Valley. Maybe this can be home for me.
“Supper time!” I called. “Last one here is a rotten egg!”
copyrighted by M.K. Christiansen
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