Who Do I Talk To? (41 page)

Jodi stifled a grin. “Bossy, isn't she?” she murmured as we found a water hose and wet the green floral foam and containers holding the flower sprays.

Behind us, Dandy suddenly starting barking furiously. I whirled and saw a couple of lanky teenage boys pointing and laughing at the open doors of the van. Before Jodi and I could get the flower arrangements back to the van, a larger crowd had gathered—a mother and half a dozen kids from a minivan gassing up at the next pump, a couple of hefty, bearded guys who'd driven up in a dirty pickup, and one of the gas station attendants who came out to see what the ruckus was about.

I sucked in my breath. “Uh-oh . . . look at Dandy.”

My mother's yellow dog was standing on top of the metal-blue casket, facing the open doors, barking and showing his teeth. Lucy stood at the back of the van, arms crossed, eyes narrowed as if daring anybody to get within punching range.

“You got a real dead body in there?” one of the teenagers snickered.

“Whatcha do, steal it from a graveyard?” The two boys thought that was real funny, slapping each other on the back. Even the pickup truck guys chuckled.

Sudden rage burned behind my eyes.
How dare they!
“Okay, show's over, you meatheads!” I yelled as Jodi and I pushed past Lucy and set our armload of flowers into the van. “Lucy!” I hissed in her ear. “Close the doors and get in the van. Now!”

I'd never seen Lucy move so fast. Slamming the back doors, the old lady hustled to the side of the van, climbed in, and slammed that door shut too. I got in the driver's seat, turned the ignition, and started the van while Jodi was still pulling her door shut. “Gabby!” she screeched. I slowed for a nanosecond, but

Dandy was still on top of the casket, barking and snapping at the windows as we lurched past the finger-pointing gawkers.

A glance in the rearview mirror as I took the on ramp for Route 94 heading west caught Lucy climbing over suitcases, boxes, and bags to get to the back doors. She punched the lock; then I heard her coaxing Dandy down from the casket. “Come 'ere, Dandy, it's okay . . . They was just jerks . . . Good dog . . .Miz Martha would be proud of you.” Another glance in the rearview, and I realized Lucy and Dandy must be sitting on the floor with the casket and the luggage, because I could no longer see them.

It took me a good half hour to calm down, and Jodi had to point out that I was riding the accelerator ten miles over the speed limit. She finally coaxed Lucy back into the second-row seat and made her put on her seat belt, passed out the sandwiches her mother had packed, all the while cheerfully pointing out the picturesque farms, lush fields, and little lakes tucked into the rolling hills as we sailed down the highway.

I finally grinned at her. “You'd make a good Jewish mother, Jodi.”

She laughed. “Well, I've got a good role model. Remember Ruth in my prayer group—the one who had twins at fifty? . . .” Pretty soon she had me laughing about the escapades of the two-year- old Garfield twins, running circles around their midlife-plus parents. Then she dug out some music CDs and filled the van with some good gospel, singing along and clapping and waving at other drivers who looked at us funny.

“If there's one thing I've been learning, Gabby,” Jodi said, grinning at me, “it's that praise is
not
Satan's working conditions. When the enemy throws something at you like what happened back there?—it's
praise
that changes the battle lines.”

I wanted to hug her, but I kept my hands on the wheel. How long had it been since I'd had a friend who'd talk to me like that?

We traded drivers at Sauk Center, Minnesota, and again at Fargo as we crossed into North Dakota about midafternoon. We tanked up on Cokes to keep us awake, but my butt was beginning to hurt from the long hours driving. And we still had 250 miles to go!

“Hey!” Lucy called out. “What happened to all the trees and green stuff ?”

It was true. The topography had drastically changed to grazing land and sagebrush country, with the occasional wheat field stretching clear to the horizon. I grinned in the rearview. “This is where I grew up, Lucy.”

I saw her roll her eyes. “Humph. Look like this place never pulled through the Dust Bowl.”

Jodi had just taken over the driving again when my cell phone rang. I scrambled to find my purse and snatched out the phone. “Probably one of the boys . . . Hello? Hello? . . . Oh! Hi, Lee . . .” I felt my face flush, and I turned toward the window.

Several minutes later I flipped the phone closed and dropped it back into my purse. “Uh, just my lawyer.”

“Uh-huh. Does your face always get red when you talk to your lawyer?”

“He's sweet on her!” Lucy hollered from the backseat.

“Oh, stop it, Lucy. We're just friends. He's concerned, that's all.” I assumed a nonchalant slouch as Jodi drove straight toward the sun slipping down the western sky, grateful for the wraparound sunglasses hiding the telltale confusion in my eyes.

Familiar fast-food icons were harder to find once we left the main highway and headed north on a two-lane toward Minot, but we finally spied a Hiway Drive-In just as we turned onto Route 52. We ordered hamburgers, fries, and milk shakes to go—and to my surprise, Lucy shoved some crumpled dollar bills into my hand to pay for hers.

Once we'd finished eating, we all fell silent, opening the windows and enjoying the cooling air as the sun slipped toward the horizon. I couldn't help thinking about the last time I'd driven this road with Paul and P. J., going to visit my mom a mere month and a half ago. So much had happened since then . . .

I called Aunt Mercy when we were about an hour out and asked if she'd heard from Celeste and Honor. “They should be at the house by the time you get here,” she said. “I'll meet you there too.”

The setting sun had streaked the western sky with golden, orange, and brilliant red clouds when I finally pulled Moby Van into the parking lot of Minot's family-owned funeral home. Jodi and Lucy waited in the van while I went inside, signed the necessary papers to transfer my mother's casket, and walked out with the director and a couple of his staff pushing a rolling cart. Dandy whined as my mother's casket was loaded onto the cart and wheeled inside, but Lucy kept a tight hold on his collar.

The funeral director handed me a folder with my copies of all the papers. “I believe your aunt, Mercy Shepherd, suggested a family viewing tomorrow afternoon at four, and then a service in our chapel on Sunday at two, with the burial immediately following. Does that sound right to you, Mrs. Fairbanks?”

I nodded, shook his hand, and climbed back into the van, not really thinking about what he'd said. I was thinking about meeting my sisters after two years, showing up in my mother's driveway with a monster van that said “Manna House Shelter for Women” along the side, our mother's dog with still-visible scars on his shoulder, and two strangers, one of whom was a crusty old bag lady in a rumpled flower skirt and ankle socks.

chapter 42

I pulled Moby Van into the driveway of my mother's house, right behind a silver Chevy compact with a rental car sticker.
Home.
The yard had been mowed—Aunt Mercy must have hired a neighborhood kid—but my mother's beloved flower garden across the front was thick with weeds.

No, no, can't let the weeds take over!
Heading straight for the flower bed, I started yanking weeds right and left.

Dandy tumbled out of the driver's side door I'd left open and ran all around the yard, sniffing and whining. “He knows he's home,” Jodi murmured, climbing rather stiffly out of the front seat and sliding the side door open so Lucy could get out.

The front door opened. “You made it!” Aunt Mercy beamed. Her silver-rinsed hair was cut in its usual youthful pixie cut. “Quit pulling those weeds, Gabby Fairbanks, and come give me a hug . . . Oh, oh, Dandy, yes, yes, you can come in too . . .” She turned and called into the house. “Celeste! Honor! Gabby is here!”

My oldest sister appeared two seconds later, suntanned and freckled, wavy brunette hair caught at the back of her neck with a wooden barrette, wearing a black tank top and khaki cargo pants cropped at the knee. She gave me a quick hug. “Hey there, Gabby. Talk about timing. We just got here thirty minutes ago . . . Oh! Who's this?” Celeste's hazel eyes looked over my shoulder, and I realized Jodi and Lucy were still standing on the front walk.

Uh-oh.
Didn't I tell my sisters I wasn't driving alone? “Come on up here, you guys. Celeste, this is Jodi Baxter, my friend who graciously offered to help me drive the van from Chicago . . . and, uh, Lucy Tucker, a friend of Mom's who's been taking care of Dandy—kind of a long story. Jodi and Lucy, this is my dad's baby sister, Aunt Mercy, and my sister Celeste . . . Say, where's Honor?”

Celeste nodded a mute greeting to my guests and jerked a thumb inward. “Living room. Kinda broken up.”

Aunt Mercy, bless her, rose to the occasion. “Well, come in, come in, girls. We've got the air on; it's cooler inside. Did you all eat? Because I've got a pasta salad in the refrigerator and garlic bread in the oven. Would you all like some iced tea?”

“Oh, good,” I heard Lucy mumble, as we trailed my aunt inside. “Been a couple hours since I et.”

I let Aunt Mercy herd Jodi and Lucy into the kitchen at the back of the house, while I detoured into the living room. My sister Honor was curled up on the couch, her face a blotchy red, a pile of tissues in her lap. Her screaming blonde hair, complete with green and red streaks, was even longer than the last time I'd seen her. She'd added skinny braids hanging down in front of her ears with tiny feathers and beads tied at the ends. A graceful blue dolphin tattoo dove from the top of her shoulder halfway down her bare upper arm. Probably had some mystical meaning. I wanted to shake my head. She looked like a cross between an aging hippie and a runaway kid on Rush Street in Chicago.

“Oh, Gabby,” Honor wailed, throwing both arms around my neck as I bent down. “Can you bear it, coming home, and Mama not being here?”

I endured Honor's awkward hug for half a minute, then untangled myself. I could hear Dandy's nails clicking on the wood floors, going from room to room, whining, then scrambling upstairs to the second floor. At that moment, I felt worse for Dandy's loss than I did for me and my sisters.

“We've got company,” Celeste informed Honor, raising an eyebrow at me reproachfully.

Honor's red-rimmed eyes flew open. “Who?”

I tipped my chin up defensively. “I couldn't drive Mom's casket all the way from Chicago by myself.”

Celeste flopped in an easy chair, frowning. “But who's the old lady? I mean, she looks like something you found on the street.”

I almost laughed.
Bingo.
“It's a long story. But please, be kind—”

We heard the dog scrambling back down the stairs, and then he appeared in the living room, staring up at me, brow wrinkled, whimpering. “Oh!” Honor gasped. “What happened to Dandy? Where'd those long scars come from?”

I sighed, settled down on the carpet with my back against Celeste's easy chair, and pulled Dandy down beside me. “Like I said, it's a really long story.”

We talked until midnight, my sisters and I—me doing most of the talking as I tried to tell my far-flung siblings what had hap pened since I'd realized Mom couldn't stay alone any longer and had taken her back to Chicago with me for an indefinite visit.

Aunt Mercy graciously entertained Jodi and Lucy while we talked, put Lucy in the small “summer bedroom” off the back porch, made up the pull-out couch in my dad's study upstairs for Jodi, leaving the two bedrooms we girls had shared growing up for Celeste, Honor, and me. “I'll be back in the morning,” she'd whispered, poking her head into the living room to explain the sleeping arrangements. I heard Lucy calling Dandy, and the dog disappeared. I wondered if he'd sleep in my mom's bedroom, as he'd always done before, or with Lucy.

I bet on Lucy tonight.

“Wish you had let us know what was going on.” Celeste's scowl was in danger of becoming a permanent fixture. “It's bad enough that Philip threw you out, but
Mom
. . . !” She cocked an imaginary rifle and “aimed” it at a picture on the wall. “I think I want to kill him.”

I gaped at her. “Let you know?! Not like I didn't try. Neither of you guys is very good at returning phone calls. Or living within reach of a cell phone signal.”

“Mom was really staying in a homeless shelter?” Honor said it like she'd just driven out of the fog. “That's . . . that's
awful.
You should have sent her to live with me, or . . . or something.”

I grabbed a throw pillow and smacked my California-dreaming sister with it. “Hey! I tried to get both of you out here in June for a family reunion. If you'd made half an effort, we could have made a decision about Mom together. But that didn't work out, did it? So quit blaming me. I did what I had to do.” I folded my arms tight across my chest. Both my sisters stared at me. The wall clock ticked in the silence that followed. Finally I let my arms fall to my lap, along with the tears I'd been pushing down all evening. “Didn't know my whole life was going to unravel.”