Reinventing Leona (21 page)

“I think she’s had one too many dill pickles.” Nola Gay settled into the recliner in the corner and shifted her purse to her lap. She cranked the footrest lever, and her thick ankles popped straight out in front of her. “Ah . . . that’s better.”

“What do you think you’re doing? You don’t have the right to make yourself at home in my room.” Leona’s mother struggled to raise herself, but fell back with an exhausted huff. “Get these pickled broads out of here.”

Breaking free of the force holding her feet to the floor, Leona inched forward, her shoe rolling across something on the floor. “They’re just here to cheer you up.” She looked down and saw pink sponge rollers littering the floor. Smoldering emotions sparked into flame. She bent and stuffed curlers into her jacket pockets. “Mother, why did you rip these out? It took me an hour to roll your hair.”

“They were uncomfortable. I’ve sent my driver to fetch my hairdresser.” Her mother ran her fingers through the haywire strands crowning her head. “Look at this mop. It’s been nearly two weeks since I’ve had my hair done.”

Would this woman’s ability to incite Leona’s feelings of inadequacy and reduce her to a freckled-faced schoolgirl who could never pass muster ever diminish? Leona had spent years working with packed sanctuaries of crabby old coots, and none of them peeved her as quickly and completely as did her own mother. “I did your hair last night, Mother.”

“You missed one, dear.” Nola Gay pointed, directing Leona’s attention to a roller wedged under the door like a doorstop.

“Thanks.” Leona jerked the roller free, and the door slammed shut.

Nola Gay fiddled with the recliner lever. “We told your mother that Earlene over at Snippers does a fine job with a wash and set.”

“We even volunteered to bring Earlene over here, but your mother insisted that poor chauffeur fellow drive all the way back to the city.” Etta May picked up an overlooked roller near the bed and handed it to Leona.

“If I wanted blue hair, I would have asked for your hairdresser’s name,” Mother snapped.

Nola Gay pushed herself up on her elbows. “Bertie, I don’t understand how anyone could be so attached to a skunk stripe down the middle of their pointed head. You need your roots done.”

“Sister,” Etta May interrupted, casting a reproving look her twin’s way. “Do not grow weary in doing good, and at the proper time, you will reap a harvest.”

Nola Gay considered her sister’s chosen Scripture for a moment, “Well, you know how I adore a good harvest.” She wiggled back into the recliner. “But her roots are horrible.”

“Get these blue-haired Twinkies out of my room.” Leona’s mother pounded the bed with both fists. “Next thing you know they’ll be wanting to anoint my head with oil just like those idiots you call elders. Look what that greasy stuff did to my hair.”

“Mother, that’s enough.” Blame or no blame, Leona felt the strong urge to strangle the hostile woman. “These people just want to help. To let you know they care about you.” She wrenched open the bottom dresser drawer and emptied her pockets.

“If they think they can grease me up good enough to slip through the bars of heaven, they’re wasting their precious oil. How long do you think it would take your God to realize I didn’t belong on his side of the pearly gates?”

Nola Gay gasped, her saddened eyes seeking out Leona. “Everyone has their cross to bear, and she is yours.”

No kidding.
Humiliation buckled Leona’s knees as her mother’s blatant blasphemy yanked the bottom card from Leona’s reared-in-a-godly-home image and toppled the whole fabricated construction like a house of cards. How could she ever look the Storys in the eye again now that they knew what kind of a family she really came from?

Etta May cleared her throat, and Leona braced for the rebuke she deserved.

But it did not come.

Instead, without missing a beat, the seasoned woman jumped into the lull in the conversation as if ignoring irreverence was the best way to save the pastor’s wife from the deadly rot of her heredity. “Leona, Hathleen told us about your job. We’re so excited for you.” A proud smile spread across her stained dentures.

Leona’s mother arched a faded brow in need of a sharp pencil. “What job?”

“Your daughter is going into the newspaper business.” Etta May’s face glowed. She put a hand on Mother’s pajama-clad shoulder and leaned in as if she was about to divulge her secret pickle recipe. “Leona is the new reporter down at the
Messenger
.”

“You got a journalism job?” Her mother’s surprised tone carried a sharp-edged note of hurt, poking a hole in Etta’s excitement.

Leona hated the wounded and worried look creasing Etta’s face. She wanted to reassure the dear woman that she knew her sharing the pastor’s wife’s personal information was done in love. And she appreciated the support. But she couldn’t help wishing that just once, she could have been the one to tell her own news.

That’s what she got for allowing pride to take over her better judgment. If she hadn’t wanted to make sure the job would work out, she could have told her mother herself. But the thought of admitting failure knotted her stomach. Would she ever get past wanting to please her mother?

Willing herself to clear the tense air, Leona offered a cautious response. “Ivan has attended church with us for years. I think he hired me out of pity.”

“If you wore that Peter Pan collar, I’m sure you’re right.” Her mother yanked the blanket across her chest and held it in place with her crossed arms.

“Is that all you’re going to say about it, Mother?”

Her mother kept her eyes on the lint she picked from the thin cover. “It’s about time you bought yourself a nice suit.”

Nola Gay and Etta May exchanged uncomfortable glances, but no one said a word. In the strained silence, Leona could hear the second hand on the wall clock methodically click its way around the face of time.

Pinching blanket fibers between her thumb and forefinger, Mother ignored the eyes honed on her.

Etta May cleared her throat. “Don’t you even want to know what Leona will be writing?”

Leona’s mother sighed, looked up, and glared at Etta’s hopeful face. “Oh, all right. What section?”

Success illuminated Etta’s face. “Obits,” she crowed, as if Leona had just won a Pulitzer.

“My daughter is going to write obituaries?” Mother tossed the accumulated fuzz ball on the floor, then fluffed the back of her flattened hair with her chipped nails. “Now there’s a position one should aspire to.”

“She did a terrific job on Reverend Harper’s write-up. Everyone said so.” Etta May pulled a folded piece of paper from her purse. “Sister and I have jotted down a few things and would appreciate it if you could work up ours as soon as possible.” She pressed the paper into Leona’s hands.

Leona felt her jaw drop, words tumbling in all directions. “You want me to write your obituaries now?”

“Why certainly, dear.” Etta May’s yellowed dentures filled her smile.

Mother’s hands slapped the covers. “But you’re not dead, you old fool.”

Nola Gay shook the unyielding recliner lever with two hands. “If we wait until we’re dead, we won’t be around to read them when they come out in the paper. Where’s the fun in that?” She swiped at the perspiration forming on her brow.

“You know how we love to see our name in the paper.” Etta May stepped across the room, put a foot on the stubborn lever, and dropped Nola Gay’s Easy Spirits to the floor with a jarring thud. “We haven’t had our name in the paper since our pickles took first at the county fair.” She offered her sister a hand.

With a heave, Nola Gay popped out of the overstuffed chair. “Besides, if we take a look at your work, we can eliminate any embarrassing inaccuracies before the paper hits everyone’s front porch.”

Etta freed the back of her sister’s dress caught in the waistband of her panty hose. “Once Modyne typed 1902 instead of 1912, and in a keystroke, Lucille Ellis departed this life ten years older than necessary. Lucille would have been mortified.”

“Leona, I would think you, of all people, know how women are about their age.” Nola Gay leaned in and whispered, “Claiming to be forty when they’re really fifty.”

Squirming in her fancy shoes, Leona wondered if that surprise fiftieth birthday party J.D. had planned would haunt her the rest of her life.

Etta May grinned, waving away Leona’s need to set out on another guilt trip. “Truth is, we’d like to have a few copies framed for Ray’s kids.”

Nola Gay turned to the wild-haired woman whacking a TV remote controller across her flattened palm. “Bertie, you might want to think about having Leona go ahead and write up
your
obituary.”

Mother dropped the remote. “What?”

“Well, if you’re not willing to work to get yourself out of that bed, you might as well be dead.”

A swath of red blazed up her mother’s neck and exited her mother’s ears in a mushroom cloud of steam. Leona took a step back, warning bells clanging in her head. But before she could broadcast an eruption notice, the rumbling volcano grabbed a ribbon-wrapped Mason jar off the swivel bed stand and heaved it across the room. Spicy vinegar dripped down the pristine wall, trumping the smell of hospital disinfectant.

“That is what I think of your soggy pickles!”

“What a waste.” Nola Gay shook her head.

“And she doesn’t mean pickles.” Etta May directed her pointed gaze at the breathless woman who had maneuvered two stiff legs over the edge of the bed.

“Bertie, if you’re feeling well enough to chuck pickles, then it won’t be long before you’re up and around.” Nola Gay let her purse strap drop into the crook of her arm.

“Get out!”

Etta stepped over the spreading syrupy puddle. “We’re praying for you, Bertie.”

“You know what I think you can do with your blasted prayers,” Mother growled between clenched teeth.

Nola Gay nodded. “And that’s never stopped us before.”

“Thank God.” Leona threw an arm around the neck of each sister, then whispered, “Thank you. That’s the first sign of life I’ve seen in her since the accident.”

“Then our work here is done.” Nola Gay patted Leona’s arm, then backed from her embrace. She took Etta May’s elbow. “Let’s go, Sister.”

Rendered speechless as the sisters shambled from Roberta Worthington’s room, Leona turned and regarded her mother. Pity pricked her heart as she watched the cursing woman struggling to reach the aluminum walker parked beside her bed. Leona started across the room, but some unseen force stopped her.

She took a moment. For the first time in her life, she examined her mother with the eye of one gifted at ministering to the hurting rather than that of a slighted daughter. Why had she never thought of doing this before? From this vantage point, she could see the demons of anger, disappointment, and emptiness consuming the aging woman the way cucumber rot destroys a healthy vine.
Lord, help me find the courage to get to the bottom of this darkness.

Undulating peace covered Leona. She wouldn’t help her mother reach the walker and she would not feel guilty about it. Like a butterfly wrestling to break free of its tightly woven cocoon, her mother had to do it for herself if she had any hope of finding her wings.

Her mother’s condition was helpless, not hopeless. Roberta Worthington was a cucumber ripe for pickling, but the transformation would require a canning expert. Imagining God rinsing out a Mason jar brought a smile to Leona’s lips, and a spark of hope to her heart.

* * * * *

David checked the caller ID, then punched in his mother’s number. He hoped the time difference wouldn’t catch her crying in a lonely bed. As he waited for the connection, he considered Momma’s surprising reaction to his career announcement. No fit, no tears, no trying to talk him out of it.
Grief must have muddied her thinking.
David felt a twinge of guilt for using his legal training to strike in the midst of her vulnerability.

“Hello.” Momma’s greeting sounded terse, but not the least bit groggy.

Probably still not sleeping would be his guess, and Momma didn’t function well without her beauty rest. David remembered the few times she tried to sponsor the youth group’s all-nighters. She’d be the life of the party until the clock struck midnight; then a werewolf could not have sprouted claws and fangs faster. Momma believed the best way to avoid youthful temptation was to forbid frolicking after midnight, much to David’s embarrassment as a teenager.

“You rang, Momma?”

“I did.”

“What’s up? Grandmother giving you grief?” David yawned, unable to hide his own inability to catch some decent winks.

“Yes, but nothing I can’t handle.”

The trademark confidence in her voice was probably for his benefit, but David greedily indulged in the comfort anyway. He stepped away from the small window of his flat overlooking a quiet side street. Since his return, he hadn’t been able to shake the feeling that someone had stuffed him into a tiny, damp box and closed the lid. Leaving the cramped, claustrophobic quarters tucked under a canopy of gray skies in exchange for the wide-open spaces of the heartland had a distinct appeal he had never felt before.

“David?” Momma’s irritation snapped his attention into place. “This is costing money.”

“I’m sorry, Momma. I was just thinking about how it doesn’t surprise me that you’re managing to deal with Grandmother.”

“Well, in a manner of speaking.”

“What do you mean?”

“She’s being a little stubborn about her pain meds and therapy. The doctor says it’s normal, but if she doesn’t get those joints moving, the muscles in her legs may atrophy. I’ve threatened to wheel her into the country club and let all her tennis pals push her around, but she says she’ll sue if I do. Can she sue her own daughter?”

“In a heartbeat,” David laughed. “But can she win? That’s the important question.”

“Unbeknownst to the old girl, she may have slit her own throat by sending you to law school.” Momma’s evil chuckle was reminiscent of having satisfactorily corralled rowdy teens.

“So you called to see if I’d represent you against Grandmother?”

“No.”