Sadie-In-Waiting (15 page)

“Doctor?” April asked.

Hannah cocked her head. “Condition?”

“Well, obviously, that’s not normal. Something was wrong with Mama. That’s probably why she ran off. And maybe it’s why she couldn’t try to find us.”

“You could be right.” Hannah lay back on the hood again.

“Of course she’s right.” April lay back, too. “The question is, what does Daddy think he’s going to do about it now? Why, after all these years, did Daddy decide to try?”

“Maybe the stroke scared him into the realization that he no longer had all the time in the world.” Hannah took a deep breath.

“No.” Sadie finally lay back on the hood with her sisters even though the fireworks had dwindled to mostly sound and low flashes beyond the trees. “This started before the stroke.”

“It started the day of his accident at the bank. You talked to him that day, Sadie. Any insights? Anything stand out in your mind?”

“Just the usual. Had to go down to the VFW and pry him out of an altercation with Deborah over his wanting to march in the parade.”

“Too bad he missed our show today.” Hannah laughed lightly. “He would have loved it.”

“He lectured me on pursuing joy and authentic individualism,” Sadie went on.

“Heard it,” April croaked like a bullfrog.

“And I told him about the three of us having words—or, not having words. We weren’t on speaking terms at the time.”

“Oh, no.” April put both hands over her face. “You don’t think…?”

Sadie pulled at her sister’s arm. “What?”

April dropped her hands, pounding them in quick, gentle thuds against the metal of the hood. “Could all of this just be a Shelnutt-inspired ruse to get the three of us talking again?”

Hannah sat bolt upright. Her hands twisted the paper bag around the neck of the medicine bottle inside it. “It better not be!”

“Why?” April asked.

“Mostly because I want to learn the truth about Mom. But also because, if the ruse worked…”

Another firework scaled high, high into the sky above them.

“Oh, no. Oh, no, no, no.” In the burst of light that followed, April’s eyes reflected her sudden understanding of what was at stake.

“Oh, yes.” Hannah nodded knowingly. “Can you imagine? If Daddy discovers this shifty charade has accomplished his goal, what might he try next?”

Sadie chuckled. “Heaven help us.”

“Not a bad idea.” Hannah set the sack aside and lightly brushed her hands together.

“Hmm?”

“Clearly, now we have no concept of what Daddy is planning or what we are walking into in Alphina. We took off in such a flurry, we didn’t even stop to say a prayer for our journey.” Hannah held her hand out first to one sister, then to the other. “I think it’s about time we did that.”

“I said a prayer,” April protested even as she accepted Hannah’s outstretched hand.

“I did, too, but
we
didn’t. Not all of us, together.” Another firework went off, and Hannah followed its upward spiral for a second before she lowered her gaze to the hand that remained empty. ”Sadie?”

Bang! Boom! Ka-powie!
The sky filled with light.

Sadie’s entire being filled with…apprehension. She still prayed, of course. She still believed. But…

If only she hadn’t withdrawn. If only she had asked for help
. The questions she had asked about her mother but that came from the depths of her own pain echoed in her mind now.

Moonie had said he’d have done anything for Mama. Their mother never gave him the chance to prove it.

God had promised He would uphold Sadie in all things and He had not waited for her to admit she needed help, but sent His Son to demonstrate just how far He would go to prove His love.

Hadn’t she waited long enough to share her heart with Him again?

“Okay,” she said quietly but not without reservation. It had been so long and so much remained unsaid, unresolved. “Count me in. But someone else has to be the voice.”

“We’ll do that for you, Sadie.” Hannah extended her hand farther.

Sadie slipped her hand into her younger sister’s grasp, and then into her older sister’s. They bowed their heads, and with the fireworks exploding overhead, quietly joined together to pray for their journey, their father and for each other.

And when the roadside-assistance man showed up at last to haul them from the ditch with a “Sorry for the wait, ladies,” Sadie smiled and said, “That’s okay. Waiting isn’t
always
a bad thing.”

He strode all the way around the car, smacked his chewing gum, then scratched the back of his neck and looked up at them. “Glad to hear you feel that way, ma’am, because this here looks like it could take a while.”

S
adie let up on the gas pedal as the car went skimming past the Welcome to Alphina sign.

“Finally,” she muttered under her breath, careful not to wake either of her sisters, who had both zonked out shortly after they’d hit the highway again.

Some lone late reveler must not have felt the same respect for the weary, however. As the car cruised from the darkness through the illuminated circles created by the streetlights, three quick, earsplitting firecrackers erupted nearby.

“What was that?” April jerked into a dazed consciousness.

Hannah groaned and put her hand to her forehead. “Isn’t this holiday ever going to end?”

“It already has.” Sadie tilted her head toward the Citizens Savings and Loan, where the time and temperature flashed electric red. “Twelve fifty-seven. It’s officially July the fifth.”

April groaned, stretched, then let out a long, loud yawn. “And too late to do any real detective work.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t say that.” Sadie wasn’t sleepy. The whole night had recharged her in ways that she hadn’t counted on. During the drive, her mind had not stopped whirring away. Maybe what had been awry with her these last months had not been some failing on her part. Maybe the seeds of her inability to rise above her sadness lay in her family history.

And she had finally come to the place where she could get some answers.

“What do you suggest we do?” April pulled the band from the end of her frazzled braid and started to undo her hair as if already preparing for bed.

“I know my vote.” Hannah rested her cheek on the back of the seat. “We check in to a hotel, get a good night’s sleep, then in the morning use the phone there to call all the other hotels and see if we can find where Daddy is registered.”

“Or…” Sadie stopped at a red light and leaned forward over the steering wheel, peering at a parking lot two blocks away.

“No ‘or,’ please, Sadie. Last time you gave us an ‘or’ option, we ended up as the star attraction in a fool’s parade.” Hannah curled her hands under her chin and fought to keep her eyes open. “I’m exhausted, tired right to the marrow of my bones. I need to rest.”

“You’re not supposed to be tired,” Sadie argued, her energy unabated. “You’re the young one here.”

“Well none of us is as young as we used to be.” April wriggled her fingers through the heavy strands of her hair. The tightly crimped waves clung to her knuckles as she raised her hands and began massaging her scalp. “So I suspect we all could do with a good rest before we tackle what might be the biggest confrontation of our entire lives.”

“Or…” The light turned green and Sadie took off.

“Or
what?
” Hannah snapped without opening even one eye.

“Or we could cruise around town a bit and see if we can find Daddy,” Sadie said softly.

“Cruise around? Are you crazy?” April disentangled her fingers from her hair with a few crisp shakes. “Three weary women meandering through a strange town looking for one cagey old man?”

“How hard could it be?” A car slowed to turn in front of Sadie, and she eased her foot onto the brake. “He’ll stick out in that big white van with Royal Academy and a beauty-pageant tiara painted in red on the side.”

“He sticks out plenty enough in this boat of a car around itty-bitty little Wileyville, and half the time we can’t find him there.” Hannah frowned, her eyes shut even tighter.

“Look, I saw the population as we drove in.” Sadie tapped her foot on the gas and sent the car gliding down toward the next turn, which she made with ease. “Twenty-four thousand, a little more than twice the size of Wileyville. It’s doable, I tell you.”

“No, it’s not.”

“April’s right, we could never, even in our wildest—”

“Here we are.” Sadie pulled the convertible to a stop in the empty parking space directly across from a big white van with Kentucky license plates and Mary Tate’s logo, big-as-you-please, shining in the overhead light. “Now what?”

April hopped out and went to peek inside the van. “Maybe we should just camp out right here. You know, sleep in the car so Daddy can’t slip out without us knowing.”

“Sleep in the car?” A lock of hair fell over Hannah’s eyes. A tremble started in her lower lip that warned she might just burst out crying if they chose that alternative.

“I say we get a room and deal with Daddy in the morning. We could all use a good night’s sleep,” Sadie insisted.

“Sleep,” Hannah echoed.

“But what about the car?” April argued. “There’s no place in this lot we can park it that Daddy won’t spot it the second he comes out of his room.”

“Hmm.” Sadie glanced around to confirm April’s assessment. “Okay, simple fix. We all know Daddy is a creature of habit, right?”

“I motion to amend that to a creature of mostly
bad
habits.” April grinned. “And I’m sure Hannah will second that, right, Hannah?”

“Sleep.”

Sadie laughed. “So it’s easy. Daddy gets up at the same time every morning.”

“Six-seventeen,” Hannah and April said together.

“Exactly. Six-seventeen. So we just arrange a wake-up call for 6:00 a.m., get up in plenty of time to throw on some clothes, dash out here and nab Daddy before he can get gone for the day.”

“Works for me. How about you, Hannah?”

“Sleep.”

“Is that a yes?”

“Sleep.”

“I think that’s definitely a yes,” Sadie said as she took the key from the ignition and opened the car door. “Let’s go crash for a few hours, so we can be ready for whatever Daddy throws at us in the morning.”

“We can be ready for anything Daddy throws at us in the morning?” April stood in the open doorway of their tiny room six hours later, staring at the note slipped under their
door. “But what about the things even Daddy doesn’t control?”

Sadie sat on the edge of the bed staring at the numbers on the bedside clock. “I had no idea we’d crossed over into the Central Time zone.”

“Well Daddy did. Or rather, according to his note—” April lifted the page of motel stationery and read aloud “—These old bones rise like them in Bible days—when the good Lord tells them to. With the time change, guess that means I got up a full hour ahead of the normal time on the clock. I was a bit grumpy about the whole mess until I came out to find my car, and the clerk told me three beautiful women had driven it here. Imagine my delight!’”

“Delight.” Sadie shook her head. “You have to hand it to him, he never lets up. You or me, we’d hardly have used that word to describe what we felt in the same situation.”

April looked out at the parking lot. “We did sort of set him up for an ambush, didn’t we?”

Hannah picked through her open overnight bag like a jeweler selecting the perfect tool to perform precision diamond cutting. Finally she withdrew a small bottle of moisturizer and a prepackaged facial cloth, then picked up a towel and bent forward to wrap it around her head. “Not intentionally. We had his best interests at heart.”

“Well according to the note he left when he headed out of here, he always had our best interests at heart raising us, too.” Sadie had empathy by the armload for the old fellow, but that didn’t mean she had suddenly been struck with amnesia. “But I have to tell you, being on the receiving end of those best interests, it didn’t always feel
deelightful
.”

Hannah dropped onto the bed. In her slightly oversize robe, towel turban and pale, crestfallen expression, she
looked a bit like a pile of damp laundry. “He could have at least left us the keys for the van.”

“‘Sorry, girls, can’t leave the keys for the van.’” The paper rustled in April’s hands as she held it up high to read it in the poor light of the predawn day. “‘Royal loaned that van to me.’”

“Royal?” Sadie frowned. “That man! Sometimes I could just—”

“Wait!” April held one finger up. “‘To get him off the hook right now, he told me where the keys were, and said I could use it in a pinch.’”

“Like I didn’t already feel queasy enough.” Hannah rubbed her eyes, then rested her forehead in her hands. “Go ahead, read on.”

“‘So I pinched them keys…’”

Sadie groaned at the awful pun.

“‘…and set off with a mind to take the best of care of the vehicle. Since none of you three have permission, to my knowledge, to access this van, I don’t see how I could leave the keys for you. Not to worry, though.’”

“You’d think he’d know by now that the time we worry the most is when he tells us not to worry.” Sadie stood and crossed the room to finish reading the note over her sister’s shoulder.

“‘I have some business in town that doesn’t involve you three.’”

“Ha!” Sadie couldn’t help throwing her two cents’ in.

“‘But it won’t take too long. I hope.’”

“He strands us here and hopes it won’t take too long?”

“What constitutes ‘too long’ in Daddy’s world, anyway?” Hannah rose from the bed slowly, her knuckles white from clutching the bottle in her hand.

“That’s a good question. One would think to set a
benchmark like that would require a person to have a clue as to what most of us consider too much to endure, too far to go or too long to wait.” Sadie inched in closer behind her sister, then went up on tiptoe to get a better look at the rest of the note.

April twisted her upper body around to keep Sadie from reading ahead and went on, “‘When I’m done, I’ll hurry right on back, and the three of us can talk.’”

Her sister’s movements did not deter Sadie. She had set out on this odd little adventure because she had determined the time had come to take action. And action she would take, right down to peeping around her sister’s back to finish off the last of their daddy’s instructions. “‘Until then, the main part of town is due east a couple blocks, and though this strip of road has grown up a lot since we last lived here, I can eyeball plenty of places within walking distance that look to serve a decent meal. It’s on me. See you soon.’”

April dug into the envelope with the motel logo on it and withdrew two twenty-dollar bills. “Just like when we were kids, remember? When he used to bribe us with cash not to tell Aunt Phiz anything potentially incriminating or embarrassing during her visits?”

“I have to confess.” Sadie ruffled her fingers through her unruly morning hair. “I always told.”

April gave a flippant wave. “Oh, me, too.”

“Not me!” Hannah fluffed the lapels of her pink robe.

In a flash April’s wave turned into an invisible fan, which she flapped under her chin, her eyes batting like a delicate southern belle. “Well aren’t you the Miss Goody Two-shoes?”

“More like Goody Toe-shoes.” Hannah grinned and wrinkled her nose. “Up until about age seven, I made up
songs about Daddy’s exploits and sang them for Aunt Phiz while I spun around the den pretending to be a ballerina.”

April slapped Sadie’s arm with her faux fan. “You’re kidding.”

“Uh-uh.” Hannah’s wan face lit up—well, as much as a face can on only a few hours’ sleep. “And when I got a little older, I used to make up mock newspapers with articles on all the family doings—Daddy had his own section—and send them to her wherever she was teaching that year and even to her archaeological digs.”

“Why, you darling little snitch!” Sadie laughed.

April put her arm around Sadie’s shoulder as she told Hannah, “No wonder you’re still her favorite!”

Sadie looked to her older sister, and before she could think of a reason not to, rested her head on April’s shoulder and sighed. “Well clearly bribery didn’t work on us as children. Whatever made Daddy think he could use it now?”

April pressed her cheek to the top of Sadie’s head. “Maybe because now we’re stranded in a cheap motel in Alphina, Tennessee.”

“Stranded and starving.” Sadie straightened up.

April slipped inside the open door and let it fall shut at last.

There was something final in that action. Something that said that this path—the one they had chosen when they agreed to come on this trip together—was now closed. “Okay, now what?”

Hannah looked to Sadie.

April did the same.

“Why are you two turning to me? Last time I made a decision, we ended up in a ditch.”

“Yeah, but the time before that, we got to ride in a parade.” Hannah moved to the sink.

April, already dressed for the day, sat in the wobbly chair by the lone window in the room. “And before that, it was your ruling that set us off on this whole adventure, which, despite its obvious flaws, I count as a positive experience.”

Water gushed into the basin. Hannah went through her cleansing routine quickly, then bent down and splashed two handfuls of clear water onto her face. Between pats with the towel to daintily dry her cheeks and chin, she concluded, “So with that kind of record, I’d say the chances are pretty good that you’ll pick a winning option, Sadie.”

They looked at her, and though neither one said another word, Sadie could feel their expectations closing in around her.

What are you waiting for, Sadie?
They said it with their eyes and the way they each leaned forward just a little as they watched her intently.

At first their stress over Daddy had got them
not
speaking to each other. Then it got them speaking, if only a little, about their mother. And now this. Hannah and April wanted her to speak for the three of them. Together. As sisters.

It was a monumental moment in their relationship. Sadie didn’t dare blow it.

“Okay, well…” She took a deep breath of the motel’s stale air. “We came here out of concern for Daddy, right?”

The others nodded their agreement.

“So since we can’t go looking for Daddy now, maybe we should think about looking for what he came after?”
What did that mean, exactly?
Even Sadie didn’t know.

“Yes. I get it.”

“You do?” Sadie asked her older sister, unable to hide her relief.

“Sure.” April turned to Hannah. “Sadie is saying we should try looking for information on Mama.”

“Mama?” Hannah looked down a moment, then raised her hand to cover her mouth.

She’d honestly been thinking more of plying April for memories of the town, of places that Daddy might want to visit while here. An old church. His former place of business. But this idea—to actually look for clues about their mother….