Seeing Things, page 14
“That’s lovely of you,” I said to Suzanne, “but I’m sorry you went to so much trouble. I have a retinal specialist who monitors my condition.”
Huck leaned against the doorjamb and rubbed at his eyes with the palms of his hands.
“Am I keeping you from something, Birdie?”
I snapped to, giving Suzanne my full attention, and who wouldn’t? She wore a red dress no bigger than my sleeve. “No. Nothing. Sometimes I get lazy about focusing my attention visually.” That was true.
“My assistant read through all the reports and came up with some recommendations. For instance, there are some experimental procedures that look promising, most having to do with stem cell technology, but those are some years off. Although there is another procedure they’re already doing on a limited basis in the UK, a telescopic—”
“—intraocular lens? That’s a treatment for folks with dry AMD. I have wet.”
“I told Annemarie that.” She shuffled papers before dropping them on the counter. “Anyway, I stopped by the health-food store on the way home.” A tumble of plastic bottles rattled across the granite. “Let’s see, Omega-3 helps with inflammation and has been shown in studies to benefit the retina. And chocolate has more antioxidant power than wine or green tea, so here’s some Godiva chocolate. I didn’t know if you liked your chocolate with or without nuts, so I bought both.”
Huck moved closer, eyeing the chocolate. I turned my back to him ever so slightly. “Suzanne, that’s very—”
“Here’s a bottle of lutein, vitamin A, and high-potency C, E, and zinc are supposed to be helpful. Chronic inflammation arose as a recurring theme in the research, so I bought zeaxanthin, beta-carotene, beta-cryptoxanthin, and lycopene. Simply follow the RDAs on the labels.”
Huck walked behind Suzanne, opening and closing cabinet doors, making a terrible ruckus, looking like a boy with an appetite after a day at school. He still wore the coarse shirt Buck had given him. He’d snagged something to cut a flap of fabric at the shoulder, and the hem had gone rusty like he’d been swimming in the river. More than anything, I wanted to feel the texture of that homespun shirt.
“Do you have any questions?” Suzanne asked.
At some point I’d taken all these supplements and more—most faithfully, the chocolate. Perhaps Godiva outperformed a Snickers bar; I was willing to experiment. When the utter inevitability of my condition had sunk in, I simplified my life by tossing the boatload of bottles in the trash. My vitamin of choice became good ol’ One-A-Day, along with a daily piece of fruit pie. But I had no intention of telling Suzanne of my loss of enthusiasm for swallowing pills, especially since this was the most she’d said to me since the incident in the dining room.
“Suzanne, you’re a fabulous doctor. Thank you, thank you.”
Huck frowned at me.
“We want you to have everything you need.”
Huck opened the refrigerator. I sucked in a breath. The light illuminated his face—every pore, every freckle, the peach fuzz growing down his cheeks. I scrambled for something to say to Suzanne to justify my gasp. “I could never do what you do. I’ve watched those television shows where they peel back a person’s face like they’re removing skin from a chicken.” Huck closed the door, totally enthralled with talk of peeling faces. “I change the channel every time.”
“I’m surprised you can see the television at all.”
“I wear telescoping glasses at home. I’m sure I look like a clown, but I wouldn’t want to miss Meerkat Manor.”
Suzanne slipped out of her heels before she sat beside me. “We visited the Tswalu Reserve in South Africa where we watched the meerkats for hours. An amazing experience.”
Keep the conversation moving, Birdie.
“I don’t know how to thank you for your kindness, Suzanne. I know this stuff cost a fortune.”
Huck sauntered back to the bedroom and disappeared. Too much politeness tended to repel him. I stifled a sigh. He was terribly distracting and impossible to explain, except to open-minded grandsons, and I wanted to talk to Suzanne.
“It really was Andrew’s idea.” She left her stool and moved toward the stairs.
“I baked cookies today,” I said to her back.
She stopped and turned. “What kind?”
“Is there another kind? Chocolate chip, of course.”
“Soft or crunchy?”
“Thick and chewy.”
“Nuts?”
“Doubled.” When she didn’t move, I asked, “Milk or coffee?”
“Milk. Definitely milk.”
SUZANNE LICKED HER FINGERS. “I haven’t had a cookie like this since . . . before my parents divorced.”
“I didn’t know. That must have been difficult for you.”
“Not really. My parents fought all the time. Dad had issues. My mother found a wonderful man almost immediately, and he opened the world to us.”
“How old were you?”
“Six. I was in first grade. I remember because I had to change schools, and I loved Miss Baker with all my heart.”
“How fortunate your mother found a man who loved you. My parents didn’t divorce, but my ma died. Two months later Pa brought home Flora Blumgaurd. If he had looked the world over for the one woman who got under my craw and stayed there, he found her. Needless, to say, she wasn’t anything like Ma.”
“How did your mother die?” Suzanne asked with an unfamiliar softness.
“She died of sepsis. Her appendix burst. Pa tried to get a doctor to the station. He rode for two days through the snow, but the doctor got there too late. He was on the other side of the valley delivering a baby.”
“Who cared for your mother while your father went for a doctor?”
“I did. I was thirteen. My sister, Evelyn, she didn’t handle illness well. I tried to lower the fever with cool cloths, just like Ma had done for me. Evelyn brought in buckets of snow to melt.” Ma’s face, twisted in pain, came to mind unbeckoned. No matter how many quilts I had piled on her, she shook with chills. Her skin had yellowed like an old newspaper with a bloodred rash dotting her skin. “I couldn’t do anything for her pain.”
“You were so young. I can’t imagine.”
The tenderness of Suzanne’s words slit my defenses. “I’ve never told this to a soul, but I whispered a prayer of thanksgiving when she finally slipped away.”
“Your father had no business leaving you like that.”
“I don’t blame him. He was the only one strong enough to go. It nearly killed him to leave us; I saw it in his eyes.” I rubbed my temples where a headache threatened. I rubbed harder. “By default, I became the woman of the house, or queen of the house, if you’d asked Evelyn. Flora stepped into an impossible situation. More than anything I wish I’d swallowed all the hateful words I slung at her. I considered her nothing less than demonic for taking Ma’s place. And my pa, we’d been so close. He became a stranger to me, so I hated him too. Oh, the pain I inflicted on my poor, grieving father, trying to do his best to provide for his daughters. As a ranger, he traveled for weeks at a time into the back country doing wildlife studies, patrolling for poachers, rescuing lost hikers. I thought I could take care of myself and Evelyn, but he did the right thing bringing Flora to us.”
Suzanne laid her head on the counter. “Being a stepmother is the hardest thing I’ve ever done. I never dreamed . . . I’ve never failed at anything, but this . . .”
“Something changed between Flora and me when my father died. Death brings startling clarity. We owned a common pain, there was no doubt about that. Looking back over the years she’d been with us, I saw breakfast spread out on the table on a winter’s morning, steaming from the chill inside the station, and Flora dishing the last of the scramble onto Pa’s plate. She hadn’t set a place for herself. Pa died when I was fifty-seven years old, and Flora had just turned eighty. His death knitted us together about as close as two women could be. During those three years the Lord gave us, I learned her first husband and two children had died in a fire just six months before Pa brought her home as his bride. She had no family to take her in and only the clothes the church had gathered to her name.”
Suzanne leaned closer. “What could she have done to make things better?”
“As a girl I wished Pa had never brought her home in the first place, but Pa and Flora were only human. They had their needs, and I don’t begrudge them, not now, for coming together to smother their loneliness. Times were different then. We didn’t read books about our dysfunctional childhoods. We had the self-awareness of tree stumps, but knowing her story may have helped.”
“Did he even know Flora? I mean, two months?”
I sat straighter. “He needed a mother for his daughters. I loved him for that—eventually.”
“She was awfully brave to go with him.”
“Braver than you know.”
Suzanne wrapped a cookie in a napkin and excused herself.
I moved to a bench in the backyard to play fetch with Bee, all the while running my words over and over in my head. Nothing I’d said resembled the speech I had rehearsed. Something else had taken place between Suzanne and me, something I couldn’t quite name. I now held a robin’s egg in my hand, its weight barely noticeable, and yet the burden nearly toppled me.
“Come on, Bee. Ready for dinner?”
Bee trotted toward the patio door and our bedroom within. The click of her toenails on the stone patio birthed an idea.
Chapter 23
Bee leapt into the cargo area of Emory’s orange and white Bronco, a relic of the seventies and a testament to his unfaltering if misguided devotion to the Denver Broncos football team. He closed the gate, and Bee barked in protest.
“Do you think she’ll be all right back there?” I asked. “She’s used to the front seat.”
Emory held me by the shoulders. “Let me help you pack. It would take no time at all. If we left within the hour, I could have you home in Ouray by nine, even if we stopped for enchiladas in Edwards or a hamburger in Glenwood Springs. I can call Elsie. She’ll turn up your heat, make it nice and cozy for you.” He wrapped his arms around me, and to my utter amazement, my shoulders shuddered and the tears finally fell. There’s nothing more pitiful than a weepy old woman, but I couldn’t stop. His warmth, the pure humanness of his presence pulling me closer disarmed me. Besides, his jacket smelled of smoke and pine sap. Home.
“I sure do miss you, Birdie.”
“I miss you too.” And because I’d already saturated his shoulder with tears, I released him, lowering my head to gather my emotions like shells off the sand before I dared to speak. “Things are complicated here. I thought I knew my family. I don’t, and that’s nobody’s fault but mine. I don’t believe God pushed me down the stairs, but he’s not above using a broken ankle to change me.”
“I think you’re perfect just the way you are.”
Bee had stopped barking. Some faithful companion.
“I’ve known from the beginning that Bee’s my top competition for your affection,” he said, taking my hand. “It’s no small thing that you’re sending her away.”
“Don’t make me out to be a saint. I’m having second thoughts; Fletcher and Bee have become bosom buddies. But sending Bee home just seems like the right thing to do.” I rested my forehead on Emory’s chest again. I sure liked the sound of his heartbeat. “Promise me you’ll take Bee out to Carver meadow to chase rabbits.”
“And Josie will keep her in town while I’m working.”
“You’ve talked to Josie?”
“I see her now and again. She stops by the pharmacy.”
“Is she all right? It’s not like Josie to take a pill, unless you count those grass clippings she mixes in her orange juice.”
“She misses you. She asks for news.”
“She could call.”
“You and I both know that won’t happen.”
If this good-bye took any longer, I would jump in the cargo area with Bee. I said to Emory, in my best good-soldier voice, “You better get going.”
“Will you be okay?”
“That old dog snores like a freight train.”
“I snore a little.”
My heart fluttered. “Everybody does.”
“Birdie . . . ?”
“Lord willing, I’ll be walking without restrictions in three weeks. We’ll have all the time in the world to talk about the future.”
“When you get home, I have a surprise for you. But first I’ll grill you a steak with a touch of pink, just the way you like it, and I’ll sauté some mushrooms for the top with lots of butter and garlic. And I’ll trade a bottle of Elsie’s blood-pressure medication for a loaf of her sourdough bread. If she balks, I’ll throw in a can of Gold Bond. She goes through that stuff like water.”
Tears threatened again. “I’ll bring a pie.”
“Elderberry?”
“I thought you liked my apple best.”
“I like your apple pie fine. But your elderberry pie makes my toes curl.”
Talk of curling toes warmed my face. “You better get going,” I said with more authority than I felt. “That storm’s supposed to hit the mountains before midnight.”
“I’ve driven through lots of storms. In fact, I’d drive to hell and back to see you.”
“Thanks for answering my distress call. I wouldn’t trust Bee with anyone else. I’m awfully glad you came.”
“How glad?”
“Glad enough to tell you I don’t deserve your kindness, but selfish enough to want it all the more.”
Emory got quiet, and I feared I’d played my hand too boldly.
“There’s a woman watching us from a window,” he said.
“To the south?”
“About two hundred years old?”
“That’s Ruth, and she’s watching out for me, so you better mind your manners.”
“I don’t think I will.” He hooked my chin with a finger and covered my lips with a hungry kiss. A flood of warmth weakened my knees. “I’ll be seeing you,” he said. I stood at the curb, leaning hard on my walker until the grind of his motor accelerated into traffic at the corner.
“Is there room in your life for a misbehavin’ dog and Huckleberry Finn, Sir Emory?”
“YOU SENT BEE HOME? Why? You said I was doing a good job with her.”
“Sit down,” I said, patting the bed, but Fletcher remained at the door. “This has nothing to do with you. You were great with Bee. She loves you. You’re not so bad with old women either. This one loves you.”
He turned to look out the door. “Did you send Bee away to make Suzanne happy?”
Yes. No. It’s not that simple. “Bee needs room to run. She’s a mountain dog. If she doesn’t chase a rabbit every now and then, she gets herself in trouble, or worse yet, I get her in trouble thinking booties will turn her into a lapdog.”
“This is about Suzanne,” he said, collapsing into the recliner.
“Fletcher, come visit us when school’s out. We’ll go for hikes. Bee will be awfully happy to see you, and so will I.”
Fletcher held his head in his hands. He whispered, “Joe DiMaggio. Center field. New York Yankees from 1936 to 1942 and 1946 to 1951. Played in ten World Series.”
“Fletcher?”
He looked up. “Joe had a 56-consecutive-game hitting streak in 1941. Some say that’s the most accomplished statistic in baseball. I’m not so sure.”
“When I feel overwhelmed, I remember a Bible verse my pa taught me.”
“Huh?”
“When life gets out of control, I say this to myself: ‘Some trust in chariots, and some in horses: but I will remember the name of the Lord my God.’”
I didn’t have to see Fletcher’s face to know I’d completely confounded the fellow. “Have you seen Ben Hur? It’s a movie, kind of old but very dramatic. There’s a chariot race. Terribly bloody. I think you’d like it.”
“It’s not one of those musical things, is it?”
“Heaven’s no. The story takes place when Rome ruled the known world. Four-horse teams pulled chariots at a full gallop around a huge racetrack, with the drivers snapping whips over the horses’ heads. One of the chariots is rigged with blades to shred his opponents’ wheels. Oh, it’s quite the nail-biter. Evelyn spent that whole scene in the bathroom. Not me. I cheered on Charlton Heston.”
“Who?”
“You don’t know Charlton Heston?”
“Did he ever play James Bond?”
For the sake of the story, I overlooked Fletcher’s ignorance, however heartbreaking. “You’ll have to check him out on the Internet.”
“What happened in the chariot race?”
At least he was paying attention. “The pounding of the horses’ hooves rattled my rib cage. The race was thrilling and terrifying at the same time. I watched a lot of it through my fingers. Charlton Heston wins, of course, but his childhood friend is trampled to death by horses.
“But that was just a race. The chariots and their mighty horses represented the strength of the Roman Empire. I can only imagine how their enemies trembled when teams of chariots thundered toward them and their puny swords. Surely the ground shook. The point is, to this day, when things go bad, people reach for their most powerful weapons. The Egyptians and the Romans brought out their chariots. Today we fling hateful words about. Sadly, some resort to violence. When I’m threatened, sarcasm is my weapon of choice. But when I stop to remember the name of the Lord my God, I know he is faithful to look after me. No sarcasm needed.”
“I don’t get—”
“Fletcher, bringing Bee here was a big mistake, selfish on my part. I knew Suzanne wouldn’t like it, even though your father finally relented to bring her along. You did a great job exercising her and keeping her out of trouble, but her presence caused more problems than she solved. You mustn’t worry about her. She’s staying with a good friend of mine who lives above Ouray. She’ll have the run of the mountain.”
Fletcher fumed, then bolted for the door, slamming the wall as he walked out of the room. “I hate her! I hate her!”
