Potter Springs (25 page)

“Just a minute!” he called out, his tongue a terry cloth slab. “Be right there!”

He hustled the cans to the garbage, smelling stale alcohol throughout his living area.
Please, God, don’t let it be someone from church.

With his luck, it would be Dale Ochs, with a pink slip and a box of Mark’s office belongings. And a big grin.

Smoothing his hair, Mark made for the entryway and hoped his eyes weren’t too red. Maybe he could plead sickness. Get rid
of whoever had the audacity to knock his door down on a Monday morning. His day off.

The squeak of the hinges nearly leveled him, but he clenched his teeth and stood strong. Morning sun streamed behind a gaggle
of ladies, all smiling at him. Truly, a gaggle.

Peggy Plumley led the charge. “Good morning, Mark!” she sang in an impossibly cheery voice. “We’re here for the housecleaning
shift.” She pushed past him, nearly knocking him over with a gigantic yellow pail full of cleaning supplies.

Behind her stood Missy Underwood, Shelinda James and Pam Hart, each dressed in work clothes and carrying bundles. Shelinda
and Pam chattered as they swept in. “I’ve brought some King Ranch for your dinner.” Shelinda’s mittened hands held a steaming
casserole.

His stomach flipped. “Thanks.” Flattening himself against the wall, he counted the troops. Invaders. Four, counting Missy
who ran back to the car.

Pam Hart sniffed deeply as she entered. “Why, it smells like a fraternity house in here!” she announced to the room at large.
“I know, because my daughter from Chitapee…”

At this familiar phrase, Peggy made a face and disappeared down the hallway.

“… once dated a boy in a fraternity out at OSU.” Pam breathed excitedly, adjusting the waistband on her stretchy pants with
a vigorous snap. “And I visited, and it smelled just like this!”

Shelinda jammed an elbow in Pam’s rib cage.

“Ouch!” Pam cast an injured look at her younger friend.

“We’ve got plenty to do without standing around here gabbing.” Shelinda looked pointedly at the broom and dustpan in Pam’s
hands. “Get moving.”

Pam balanced the equipment against the wall and gripped her ample hips. “I
know
what I smell and that smells like
beer
-”

“Pam!” Peggy’s authoritative voice called from the back of the house. “I need your help here in the bathroom. You can scrub
the potty.”

Shuffling away, Pam grumbled, “Well, I never.”

“Probably not,” Shelinda agreed under her breath. She nodded at Mark and turned to the kitchen.

Wincing at the idea of strange women scrubbing his toilet, Mark held open the door for a trailing Missy. She maneuvered down
the sidewalk, holding her prize with both hands.

A glass pitcher, full to the rim. Sweat beads from the cold trickled down the sides. Ice bobbed, fruit slices twirled in the
heavenly liquid. Lemonade.

“I made it fresh this morning,” Missy told him. “At the last minute, I just thought… that maybe you’d like some.”

Mark lifted silent hallelujahs and ran for a glass.

Seated on the couch, he finished the last of the pitcher, sucking it down like a 10K runner in the Sahara. Greedy and grateful.

When his stomach quit the churn cycle, he realized women inhabited every room-scrubbing, washing, poking through his belongings.
He tried to intervene. “I can get this, really.” He pulled at Peggy’s laundry basket.

“Now, Mark, let us do this for you.” Peggy insisted. “You just step aside and we can get to work. We’ll be done in a jiffy.”
Brooking no argument, she squished down the hall in her nurse’s shoes, carrying a folded load of his underwear.

Mark wondered if escape might be his best option. Maybe a quick jog through the neighborhood. Clear his head and get out of
the house.

He went to the master bedroom to grab his running shoes. As he shut the door for some privacy, he heard a fumbling in his
closet. “Ooof!”

Thank God he hadn’t started changing into his workout clothes, or else he’d be giving new meaning to “Just As I Am.”

“Who’s there?”

“It’s me.” Peggy came out, her handkerchief askew, rubbing a red mark on her head. “I was putting some things away, and knocked
this over.”

She handed him a boot box, cracked open with papers spilling over. “Looks like it could be important.” What appeared to be
a doctor’s bill poked out the side.

“I’m afraid they got a little mixed up. Sorry about that.” She handed him the mess, her eyes soft. “I’ll go get the girls.
We should be about finished.”

The door clicked behind her.

The edge of the bed squeaked under Mark’s weight. He wondered what Amanda would store inside an old box. He handled all the
financial bookkeeping and didn’t know of anything missing.

Cautiously, he opened the cardboard container. The pink paper slipped out, the edges wrinkled, scrawls at the bottom barely
discernible. A hospital charge. From when Mandy lost the…

He tossed the receipt on the mattress, digging deeper into the box. That terrible day. He saw no need to revisit it by poring
over old medical charges. Katy had paid them in full without batting an eye.

Old Dragonlady did have her strong suit.

Next, a string of blurry photos, long and narrow on a shiny roll. Each focused on what looked like a see-through peanut, floating
in a tornado. Ghost white lines in cloudy black ink.

The baby. His mind voiced it before he could catch himself. The sonogram photos of the baby.

His throat squeezed shut, and he coughed into a fist. Must be the hangover. Maybe he’d go out and get a big glass of water.
Put these relics away and go for his run.

He cocked his head to the side, listening. No hens clucking. No vacuum roar. They must have gone home.

The urge to run slid away.

He turned his attention to the photos, trying to remember.

Wishing he could forget.

As he traced the images in the pictures, he named each place he could identify. The top of the head, the face. Perfect. He
recalled that much.

He’d been so worried that his and Amanda’s heated scramblings, illicit exchanges, had resulted in a mistake. A physical punishment
for physical transgressions.

He’d prayed for mercy each night, for forgiveness, expecting none.

When he saw the screen that day in the tech’s room, he’d almost wept with relief. He held himself in check, though, frozen
by the image swirling on the screen. Transfixed by the technician’s voice, pointing out all the parts.

Femur and fingers, tiny toes and great big eyes. Or at least, dark pockets where the eyes were. Little sage, floating. Protected.
A perfect gift for imperfect people.

The baby’s heartbeat thudded in time with his own. Love personified. Powerful pulses that thrilled and scared him.

And Amanda in some awful robe-thing, gray-blue cotton in a cold room. Her eyes darted to his. Biting her lip, she laughed
and cried all at once, pushing her hair out of her eyes. Happy.

One of the last days he saw her that way.

The perfect gift he hadn’t wanted, taken back. Passed in a pool of blood around his lover’s feet, her face wild with the pain.
He’d gathered her close, held her to his chest and carried her to the car. He caught a scent of pennies. Copper pennies, spent
and gone.

The whole time his heart pounded, louder than the day at the tech’s room. Calling in silence to their baby, his baby, as he
drove, frantic in Houston traffic.
Hold on. I do want you. Can you hear me? I want you. Hang in there. Daddy’s heart is here for you.

But it hadn’t worked. His blessing, his punishment, had slipped away, quiet as it came. Leaving broken people behind, one
of whom refused to crack.

He set the sonograms carefully on the bed and returned to the box. The baby book. On the very bottom, still in the bag from
the card shop where she had bought it. The plastic wrap crinkled as he pulled it out. On the front, little mice danced among
ribbons and flowers. Raised, scroll lettering for the title, bumpy under his fingers.
The Story of Baby.

He opened the cover and flipped through thick pages, preprinted with areas for lists and photos. Spaces for the sonogram.
Baby’s first picture. Room for remarks from Mommy. From Daddy.

All empty.

Not one line filled.

No evidence that a baby ever existed. Because that’s the way he’d wanted it.

A white rectangle, no bigger than a playing card, floated out and landed on the carpet by his feet. He picked it up. Betty’s
Hallmark. The receipt, for $21.95.

She’d kept it in the book. Why?

Then he remembered. How he’d scolded her when she bought the album. Her middle barely rounded from the pregnancy, showing
him her purchase. Blushing and excited.

He’d told her it cost too much. That they’d need to save their pennies because his severance was running out. There’d be time
for books later, he’d said. Keep the receipt so you can take it back.

Take backs. He hung his head in his hands. He wished he could. To start over, from the beginning. But not all the way.

Just to the part where he had quit being human.

He’d been right about one thing. It had-all of it-cost way too much.

M
otor scooters zoomed by little pastel houses as Amanda walked along the cobbled streets of Laguna Madre. Washed-out patterns
on clothesline sheets fluttered as they baked in the sun. Waving her along, even as her feet wearied.

Heavy with books, her straw bag cut into her shoulder. She’d found, under Consuela’s guidance, a fabulous used book store
chock full of American paperbacks. Excited as a child at a candy shop, Amanda loaded her peso bargains high on the dusty counter.

Now she wanted to find the right spot to indulge. A cold Zapata soda, a good read and shade sounded like sweet heaven. The
beach, her hotel, seemed too far to wait. Besides, she’d grown tired of her corner of paradise on the beach, sun dappling
in between the fronds of a palm. The view never changed.

Amanda stopped in a small rose garden on a side street, just down the block from her hotel. She’d admired it on her walks,
the bushes blooming full in the middle of November.

Everything would be dead back home in Potter. Dry and brittle. Brown and dull, skeleton branches whipping in the wind. Lifeless.

But here, hot and humid, it smelled like flowers.

A stone bench nestled under a tree, the shade inviting after the white-hot street. An ideal roosting location, she decided.
To rest her shoulder and slip her flip-flops off, to wiggle her toes in the grass.

She loved the beach, but she did miss grass.

She flipped through her satchel and picked out a mystery. Setting the soda on the bench, she tucked her feet underneath her
and enjoyed the sounds of birds flitting in the trees. They sang as she turned the pages, losing herself in another world
of intrigue and suspense.

A rusty squeak broke through the story. An aged gardener, sweating in the midday sun, pushed a wheelbarrow filled with tools
and mulch. His feet looked like leather, bronzed in thick sandals. He tugged a straw hat off his head and wiped his brow with
a kerchief.

“Hola.”
He nodded.

“Hi.” She smiled back.

He creaked down a pathway, stopping in front of a gathering of roses. Pinks and whites spilled together, red ones topped yellow,
some loosened blooms withered on the ground. Abundant glory with a heady fragrance.

“It’s beautiful,” she observed, hoping he’d understand her compliment. The locals grasped her English better than she did
their Spanish.

“Gracias”
He tipped his hat. Polite, but intent on his task. He picked spent petals from the ground and put them in a bucket. Broken
twigs, bits of windblown trash, all went into the can on the wheelbarrow.

She wondered how long he’d tended this garden. The healthy plants and vigorous growth spoke of dedication.

The gardener clipped the greenery, shaping each plant, cutting dead wood away. He whistled, a low happy sound, as he knelt
in the dirt, heedless of Amanda and her book.

She watched, strangely enthralled as he continued pruning, gently parting the sharp limbs with his bare hands. A thorn caught
him, cut deep through thickened skin and brought blood. The song stopped.

Bringing a rag to his finger, he rubbed the wound. Several spots stained the cloth and he tossed it without further examination
into the catchall wheelbarrow.

Maybe now, hell get some gloves,
she thought.

But he returned to his work and the song began again.

“Doesn’t that hurt your hands?”

He shifted on one knee to face her. “Senorita?”

“Your hands.” She lifted hers to show him. “The roses,” she pointed. “The thorns. Don’t they hurt?”

“S/.” He laughed and held his palms up, turning them to reveal whisper-thin white lines on both sides. Spiderwebs engraved
in the flesh.

“Then why do you-”

“It is worth it,” he interrupted. A king in his kingdom, sweeping grandly with one arm, sweat stained underneath. “Is worth
it-for the roses.” Not asking if she agreed. He began his whistle song, turning back to his clipping.