When Mercy Rains (16 page)

Anger glinted in Suzy’s eyes, and Abigail gloried in it. Finally a real spark of emotion instead of the nicey-nice sweetness she’d showered over everyone since her arrival. When Suzy replied, sarcasm colored her tone. “How could I say no to the only invitation I received in twenty years?”

Abigail narrowed her gaze. “Don’t turn it back on me, Suzanne. When I put you on the bus, I told you to come home after the baby was born. You chose to stay away.”

“You chose to—” Suzy snapped her mouth shut and closed her eyes. For several tense seconds she stood in silence, repeatedly clenching and unclenching her fists. At last she relaxed her hands, opened her eyes, and pinned a calm look on Abigail. “Mother, I refuse to fight with you. Maybe one day we can sit and discuss my leave-taking, but I will not do it in anger. So I think it’s best if we set the topic aside for now.”

Abigail blew out a derisive breath and began unbuttoning her dress. Her fingers trembled uncontrollably, complicating the simple task. Before Suzy could offer to help, she snapped, “If you won’t talk to me, then get out. I can put on my gown, take myself to the bathroom, and put myself to bed. I’m not a little child who needs your help.”

Suzy hesitated.

Abigail screeched, “I said get out!” Hurt flickered in Suzy’s eyes, but Abigail ignored it. As her daughter moved stiffly toward the door, Abigail called after her, “Don’t think you have to stay here for me. I can take care of myself. I don’t want to be your Christian duty, Suzanne.” The door slammed on Suzy’s exit. Abigail’s manufactured fury seeped out of her in a rush. She sagged forward and whispered, “I just want to be your mama again … and I can’t be. So go home, Suzy. Please—go home.”

Suzanne

Suzanne stepped into the kitchen Saturday morning and found a young boy sitting at the table with a bowl of cereal in front of him and a spoon in his hand. The boy shifted to look in her direction, and as she looked into his face she was whisked backward in time. She gave an involuntary jolt. A single-word query escaped on a breathy note: “Paul?”

The boy’s forehead crinkled. “Paul’s my dad. I’m Danny.”

The boy was a carbon copy of his father from the cowlick in his thick dark hair to the shape of his ears and the dimple in his chin. She hadn’t realized she’d carried such a strong memory of Paul as a boy. The discovery disconcerted her. It took a full minute to bring her thoughts to the present. In the meantime, Danny sat gazing at her with his spoon gripped in his hand, his cereal turning soggy.

She located her senses and said, “I’m sorry I disturbed your breakfast. Go ahead and eat.”

Danny dipped his spoon, but he watched her out of the corner of his eye as she moved to the stove to start the percolator. He swallowed a bite and scooped up a second. “Are you Mrs. Zimmerman’s daughter? The one who left a long time ago and is a nurse?” He stuck the spoonful of shredded wheat in his mouth and chewed while gazing at her.

Of course community gossip would be overheard by children, too. Suzanne forced a smile. “That’s right.”

“Seems like Mrs. Zimmerman sure could use a nurse. She can’t walk, you know. Dad says she never will. You gonna live here now?”

Suzanne feigned great interest in measuring coffee into the aluminum basket. Since the evening Mother had ordered her out of her room three days ago, the two of them had barely exchanged two civil words. Mother refused to let Suzanne help her ready herself for bed, and she’d chosen to go unbathed rather than have her daughter assist her in and out of the tub. Danny was right. Mother most definitely needed a nurse. But Suzanne would not be filling the role.

The queries she’d sent online via Alexa’s smartphone—thank goodness she’d agreed to let her daughter purchase a phone with more bells and whistles than her own simple little flip phone—should produce a candidate soon. At least, she hoped so. She didn’t know how much longer she could bear Mother’s snarls and contempt.

She settled the lid on the percolator, adjusted the flame beneath the pot, then glanced at the wall clock. Eight fifteen. She frowned. Mother should have come out of her room by now. She turned to Danny. “I’m going to go check on Mrs. Zimmerman. Do you need anything before I go?”

The boy gazed at her for a few seconds, unblinking, then he shrugged. “I’m okay. Thank you.”

Danny possessed the guilelessness of a youngster but was also polite. His parents had done well with him. For one fleeting moment she pondered if she’d had a boy instead of a girl, would he have looked like Danny? She pushed the reflection aside, offered him a smile, and then quickly aimed herself through the hallway to the other side of the house.

Once outside her mother’s bedroom she paused to send up a petition for patience. She’d exhausted her own supply days ago.
Your strength is sufficient, Lord …
 The prayer complete, she tapped on the door. “Mother? Are you awake?”

“It’s after eight, Suzanne. Of course I’m awake. I’ve been awake for over an hour already.”

“May I come in?”

“Yes, and be quick about it.”

Suzanne bit the end of her tongue, drew in a deep breath, and opened the door. Her mother had donned a dress and sat in her wheelchair, but her thick gray-streaked hair lay in flattened strings across her shoulders. She held a hairbrush in one hand and a pair of flesh-toned support hose in the other. As Suzanne entered the room, Abigail thrust the hose at her.

“I’m dizzy this morning, so I can’t put these on myself. When I lean forward far enough to reach my toes, I’m afraid I’ll fall out of the chair. Hurry and get them on me. My feet look like sausages.” She pushed the command through clenched teeth, clearly irritated at having to admit needing help.

Suzanne battled irritation, too. She bit back a sharp comment, knelt before her mother, and rolled the hose to slip over her feet. She stifled a gasp when she looked at her mother’s swollen ankles. Her feet shouldn’t look this way so early in the morning. Any number of calamities could befall someone who’d lost the use of a limb. Blood clots were one of the worst and often caused the kind of swelling Suzanne now witnessed. Aggravation fled before the tide of worry. When she’d finished helping Mother dress, she’d call Clete and suggest a trip to the doctor for an MRI or sonogram of Mother’s legs.

As she tugged one hose leg over her mother’s foot, she suddenly realized Mother was wearing the same blue print dress she’d worn yesterday. She glanced at the end of the bed—the neatly made bed—and spotted the folded nightgown she’d set out for Mother last night. Sitting on her heels and loosely clasping her mother’s thick ankles, she looked up in astonishment. “Did you spend the night in your chair?”

Mother’s lips pursed into a sullen line. She looked away.

“Mother! You did, didn’t you?”

Mother whacked the arm of the wheelchair with her hairbrush. The
crack
reverberated from the plaster walls. “What difference does it make if I want to sit up all night or not?”

“It makes a difference because of this.” Suzanne lifted one of her mother’s feet. Mother turned her face away and set her jaw in a stubborn angle. Suzanne sighed. “Mother, listen to me. The chair doesn’t allow enough circulation. You need to be out of your wheelchair at least eight hours of the day so the blood can flow.” She pulled the hose free and examined her mother’s toes by turn. They were cold to the touch, but to her relief she found no evidence of gangrene.

She tugged the hose into place and then rested her hands on her mother’s knees. “You’re going to need to keep your feet elevated today. Do you want to lie in your bed with a pillow under your feet, or would you rather go out on the porch and sit in the lounger?”

Mother huffed a mighty breath. “I want to stay in my chair.”

“That isn’t an option.”

“Do not treat me like a child, Suzanne.”

“Then stop acting like one.”

Her mother glared at her for several seconds as if trying to wish her away, but Suzanne remained on her knees, quietly waiting for her to choose where she would spend the day. Mother was stubborn, but Suzanne was, too, and she would win. Her mother’s health depended on it.

Finally Mother threw her hands in the air, the hairbrush nearly clipping Suzanne on the chin. “Fine! I won’t stay cooped up in here.”

Suzanne rose, hiding a smile. “The lounger it is.”

“I want breakfast first. At the table, not outside where bugs will bother me. And when I go to the porch I want Alexa to sit out there with me. If you want to be helpful, you can do laundry.”

Pain stabbed at the blatant rejection, followed by a fierce prick of apprehension. But Suzanne decided to choose her battles carefully. She gave a brusque nod.

Mother jammed the hairbrush at Suzanne. “Since you’re determined to treat me like an invalid, you can do my hair. But hurry up. I want my morning coffee.”

Suzanne gritted her teeth as she wove Mother’s hair into a bun. Another battle would surely ensue when she gave her mother a cup of herbal tea instead of coffee. Caffeine wouldn’t help flush the excess fluid from her body. As soon as she had Mother settled on the porch, she’d take Alexa’s telephone and check for messages. Another nurse couldn’t arrive soon enough.

Suzanne

Suzanne entered the back porch and layered her mother’s sheets in the barrel-shaped belly of the wringer washer. She’d been surprised by the presence of the electric washer, which was considered a “modern convenience.” All through her childhood, a hand-operated tin tub had lurked in a corner of the basement, and from the time she was six or seven years old, she had helped Mother turn the crank that operated the beater paddles. Having a plug-in machine with no hand crank was a huge step up but still a far cry from the automatic machines she operated at the Laundromat in Franklin. She hoped she wouldn’t do something wrong and render the washer inoperable.

As she turned the faucets to fill the tub with water, Paul came around the corner pushing a wheelbarrow. His son followed on his heels, whistling. The boy caught Suzanne’s eye through the screen and ceased his tune to smile and wave at her. Self-consciousness attacked with Paul so near, but she couldn’t ignore the gregarious boy. She offered a quick wave and then turned her attention back to filling the washer.

“Um … Suzy?”

Paul spoke, sounding as self-conscious as she felt. Slowly she turned to look at him through the gauzy wire.

“Do you have to do laundry today?”

Considering Mother’s adamancy, she did have to see to the wash. Rather
than share her mother’s blunt orders, Suzanne formed a question of her own. “Is there a reason I shouldn’t?”

He grimaced. “Danny and I are pouring the wheelchair ramp. Now that the ground’s dried up and the
Farmers’ Almanac
predicts sun for the next several days, it seemed a good time to get it done. I closed up Pepper in the barn so she won’t get her paws in the wet cement, and you won’t be able to use the back door until the cement dries. Probably tomorrow evening at the earliest.”

That explained the absence of the affable pooch and the presence of the odd wooden framework built over the porch steps. She’d meant to ask Clete about both when he came by the house.

Paul went on. “So if you intend to hang clothes on the line, you’ll need to go out through the front door.”

Suzanne had no desire to lug baskets of wet laundry all the way through the house, past Mother on the porch, and then around to the backyard. “We used to hang our wet clothes on lines in the basement during the winter months or on rainy days. I’ll just hang everything down there today.” She hadn’t been in the basement since her return. Were the lines still up? She swallowed a laugh. Why wouldn’t they be there? It didn’t seem as though much else had changed in the past two decades.

She stepped closer to the sagging screen and peered at Paul through a sizable tear in the mesh. “I know you’re remodeling the kitchen and bathroom and putting in ramps to accommodate Mother, but are you planning to do any other work out here?”

Paul’s brow crinkled. “Such as?”

She hurried to the washer, turned off the faucets, and flipped the switch to activate the rotator. The machine chug-chugged to life. She returned to the screen and raised her voice to be heard over the washer’s loud motor. “Well, painting for one thing. It’s all peeling and looks awful.”