Between Heaven and Texas (18 page)

“Well, the rest of y'all better get in here. The meat is getting cold.” She turned on her heel and went quickly back inside, letting the screen door slam behind her.

Jeb trooped obediently across the yard, but stopped when he realized Graydon wasn't following. “You better come on. Granny gets mad when the food gets cold.”

“You go on without me. I'm going to head on back to the tack room, get my gear unpacked.”

“I thought you already did that,” Mary Dell said.

“I'd like to take some time to get settled in. I'm not that hungry.”

Mary Dell doubted that, but she didn't blame him for hesitating to sit down at the family dinner table. He hadn't exactly been welcomed with open arms.

“Why don't I go in and fix you a plate?” Mary Dell asked. “I can bring it out to the barn for you.”

“Let me!” Jeb exclaimed. “I'll do it. I can bring Uncle Graydon's dinner. And while you're eating, maybe you could tell me about competing on the rodeo circuit? If you don't mind.”

“I'd be happy for the company. I'll even pull out the belt buckle I won at the Fort Worth Stock Show,” Graydon said with a small smile. “It's silver and big as a saucer. Too heavy to wear, but it looks nice.”

Jeb's eyes grew wide. “Real silver?”

“I guess,” he said with a shrug. “Never thought to check, but it's got a good shine to it. Anyway, you run in and have your supper. Be sure to help clear the table when you're finished. There's no hurry. Okay?”

“Okay! Yes, sir!” Jeb galloped toward the house, grinning for all he was worth. When he got to the door, he flung it open and rushed inside without bothering to wipe his boots. A moment later, the echo of Taffy's harangue wafted through the air, the words indistinct at such a distance, but the general nature of her complaint was clear enough.

C
HAPTER 32

 

M
ary Dell was exhausted. Run-ins with her mother always wore her out and in the three weeks since Graydon Bebee had come to the ranch, battles with Taffy were a daily occurrence. Almost always, the thing they fought about was Graydon.

Today, Taffy's tizzy came about because Graydon had fired two of their hired men. Truthfully, Mary Dell wasn't sure of the wisdom of that move, especially so close to the start of lambing season, but Graydon was the ranch manager, and she felt she owed him her support. Too, coming down on the opposite side of any argument Taffy made was habit by now, an itch she just couldn't keep from scratching. But it sure was tiring.

She'd gone to the big house just a little after lunch, summoned to the scene by her mother. Mary Dell didn't want to go, she had so much to do, but knew somebody had to listen to Taffy gripe. If it wasn't her, it would be Dutch or Graydon. Dutch had to put up with enough as it was, and Graydon had his hands full running the ranch, so Mary Dell was on deck.

It should have been a half-hour errand, but by the time they returned home to the trailer, just as the sun was setting, both she and the baby were in bad spirits.

Howard kept tugging at his left ear and fussing during exercises, cried during his bath, and he howled while Mary Dell rocked him for a full hour before finally falling asleep. By the time she tucked him into his crib, it was well after ten.

Mary Dell wasn't feeling very good either. The ranch was at its most beautiful in spring, green leaves were sprouting and little wildflowers were popping up everywhere, so pretty, but the pollen was sure making her miserable. She went into the bathroom and searched through the cabinet for her allergy pills, an over-the-counter medication she'd discovered that seemed to work pretty well. The box of pills was empty, so she went searching through drawers, hoping to find a forgotten supply of medication or at least a reasonable substitute, locating some on Donny's side of the cabinet. It was a prescription, but the bottle said it was for allergies and the pills looked the same, so Mary Dell took two.

She desperately wanted go into her bedroom, flop face-first onto the mattress, and sleep. Howard would be awake in another three hours, maybe less, demanding to be fed. The way he was pulling at his ear made her think he had an ear infection brewing. She'd have to call the pediatrician the next day. But before that and before she could go to bed, she had to eat something, wash the dirty dishes piled in the sink, and go through the week-long backlog of mail that was piled up on the “catchall” counter next to the microwave, the spot where the things she didn't have time to deal with or put away landed until she did have time. By now, it was a big pile and getting bigger, a treacherous clutter glacier, advancing slowly but surely, threatening to engulf the entire countertop. Tired as she was, she had to deal with it now, while the house was quiet.

What had happened to her? She'd always been such a good housekeeper. People had warned her that having a baby changes your life and your priorities, but nothing they'd said prepared her for the reality of parenthood—especially single parenthood of a child with Down syndrome.

And her family wasn't helping either, she thought as she tiptoed out of the nursery, down the hall, and through the living room, gathering up more stray items to add to the catchall pile. Here was Graydon, an absolute godsend in their hour of need, an angel on horseback coming all the way down from Kansas to help them, and Taffy treated him like he was a drifter looking for a handout!

It's not so bad when it's me; I'm used to it. She's been against him from the first second. But she has no call to treat him so mean. I've had it with her! And if she
ever
says another careless word about Howard—that's it! I'll never speak to her again, and I don't care what Daddy says.

Mary Dell felt a twinge of guilt. She knew she should forgive and forget, but this was easier said than done. She'd never been particularly short-tempered, not until recently. These days, it took just about every ounce of energy she had to keep from exploding, sometimes over the silliest things. She'd always said that there would be less offense given if less offense were taken. But when those offenses were directed toward Howard, it was a whole different ball game. When someone was mean to her baby she became not just offended, but incensed. Marlena Benton didn't know how lucky she was to have escaped their confrontation in the Tidee-Mart with nothing more than a bruised ego. It had taken every ounce of self-control Mary Dell had to keep from planting her fist right into Marlena's smug, over-lipsticked mouth.

As she spread pimento cheese on a slice of Wonder Bread and popped the top on a can of Dr Pepper, she wondered if Taffy had ever felt like that about her. She could imagine her mother getting into a catfight to defend Lydia Dale, but it was impossible to conjure a picture of Taffy doing the same for her. No use wondering why; Taffy was Taffy and nothing would change that.

It was her sister's behavior and attitude that really irked her. Hadn't Lydia Dale been the one wringing her hands with worry over how she could help Mary Dell lighten some of the financial burdens and responsibilities that had fallen into her lap? The fact that her twin was now unwilling to do something as simple as display a little hospitality and support when Graydon showed up, offering a real answer to at least some of their immediate problems, made Mary Dell wonder if Lydia Dale was as worried about her as she professed to be.

Mary Dell pulled a stool up to the counter, next to the catchall pile.

She was starting to wonder if Taffy's self-centered ways were rubbing off on Lydia Dale. She didn't like to think that of her own sister, but a lot of women became more and more like their mothers as they aged. Mary Dell had seen it firsthand.

Take Pearl Dingus; when Pearl was a child, she was a rebel. She took her momma's oft-repeated advice not to “drink, or smoke, or chew, or go around with boys who do,” and turned it right on its head. Well, that wasn't quite fair. Pearl didn't ever chew, at least Mary Dell didn't think she did, but she'd done about everything else and had just about driven her parents over the edge. But somehow, as the years passed, Pearl had morphed into her momma's image. She traded in her halter tops and miniskirts for high-button necklines and calf-length hemlines, married a preacher, and started “speaking the truth in love,” which, as far as Mary Dell was concerned, was just another word for lecturing, just like her momma did. Mary Dell liked Pearl, even if she was a little self-righteous, and figured it was better that she'd forsaken the road to hell and damnation to follow in her mother's footsteps, but she couldn't say the same thing about her sister turning into a next-generation Taffy. Nothing good could come of that!

How could Lydia Dale have supported Taffy's opinion over hers? She was supposed to be on Mary Dell's side! Other than Dutch, no one was on her side. No one lifted a finger to help! Didn't they see how hard she was working? How trying to care for Howard and figure out a way to keep the ranch together, not to mention stuffing down the grief of being abandoned by her husband just when she needed him most, was wearing her down? How could they be so selfish? She expected that kind of thing from her mother, but she'd never, ever imagined Lydia Dale would abandon her too. The more Mary Dell thought about this, the angrier she became. Washing down a mouthful of pimento cheese sandwich with a long and fortifying swig of Dr Pepper, she started in on the catchall pile, determined to take control of this mess, if nothing else.

She pulled four quilting magazines out of the pile and shoved them aside, then decided that she'd probably never, ever have five minutes of time to herself to read magazines again and threw them all into the trash. Then, rethinking her action, she pulled her favorite,
Quilt Treasures,
out of the wastebasket performing a quick flip-through to see if maybe, just maybe, the magazine had published one of her quilts but had forgotten to notify her. Next, she started ripping open envelopes one after the other, scanning the contents and dividing them into personal letters, advertisements, and bills.

The stack of personal letters was pathetically small, only one little thank-you note from Mrs. Covey, a lady she knew from church, a recent widow. Mary Dell had shown her how to make her husband's old ties into a memory quilt. The old woman's heartfelt note helped douse Mary Dell's ire, but not enough and not for long. After tossing out the stack of advertisements, Mary Dell started in on the bills. It dwarfed the other two stacks by an exponent of three. All the usual suspects were depressingly present—electricity bills, mortgage bills, insurance bills, tax bills, propane bills, and the car payment, accompanied by the ones that were less regular but also added up—doctor bills, vet bills, feed bills, magazine renewal bills, another from Jimmy's Garage for the oil change and 150,000-mile service on her car, as well as a credit card bill that still carried most of the balance for that ridiculous, over-the-top orgy of Christmas presents that Donny had bought, the toys he'd assured her they could afford and then paid for with a credit card—just months before he left town and left her holding the bag!

The next envelope was the checking account statement, and the news there was no more encouraging. She could pay the bills, but the balance was getting uncomfortably low, and if she wanted to keep a decent safety cushion in their cash reserves, she wouldn't be able to make more than the minimum payment on the credit cards.

Mary Dell knocked back the last swallow of Dr Pepper and smacked the empty can down on the counter in frustration.

How was she supposed to manage all this on her own? With barely a word of encouragement or appreciation from anyone? It was so unfair.

She started to sweep the pile of empty envelopes and paper clutter into the wastepaper basket but saw one more unopened envelope that had escaped her notice. She turned it over. It was from
Quilt Treasures
magazine. There was no window on it and her subscription was paid up, so she knew it wasn't a bill. The return address said C. J. Evard.

Mary Dell had seen and opened many such envelopes in the past, but this time she was sure this wasn't a rejection. It couldn't be. Her quilt was beautiful, perfectly and precisely constructed, not so much as a thread out of place. She had never worked harder on any project. There was no way in the world that C. J. Evard could reject her, not this time. And didn't it say in the Bible that God wouldn't give a person more to deal with than they could bear? If that were true, then the envelope must contain the letter she'd waited so many years to receive. This letter must be
the
letter, because Mary Dell couldn't deal with one more disappointment, not today. She was sure she'd reached her limit.

She clutched the envelope to her pounding chest, took a deep breath, held it, and said a silent prayer before finally ripping the flap open and pulling out a sheet of creamy, white stationery, folded thrice. She opened it.

“No!” Mary Dell shouted and then, “Damn it!” And then a whole string of other words that, until that moment, she didn't even know she knew.

But cursing did not make her feel better, nor did kicking the wastepaper basket across the room. That just created more mess that she was going to have to clean up because there was no one else around to do it for her.

She went into the kitchen in search of a MoonPie, thinking the taste of marshmallow and graham covered in chocolate might soothe her, but found the box empty. When she opened the refrigerator she discovered that she'd just drunk the last Dr Pepper. She did spy, far in the back, next to an open box of baking soda, half-hidden behind a jar of pickled peppers and a wilting cabbage, two bottles of Lone Star that Donny had left behind. Mary Dell pulled them out, opened one, and drank it quickly as she paced back and forth, from the refrigerator to the stove and back again, and again, and again. When that bottle was empty she opened the second, took one more turn around the kitchen and then, her mind made up, scrounged through one of the drawers for a pen and sheet of paper, sat down, and began to write a letter, scribbling furiously, pausing only long enough to take generous swigs of beer between sentences.

Later, she would be unable to remember the exact words and phrases she wrote that night. She wasn't a big drinker to start with, and the combination of beer and prescription allergy pills clouded her good sense and her memory.

But Mary Dell recalled that she'd told Miss Evard that she wouldn't know a good quilt if it walked in the door and bit her on the backside, that she lacked the sense that God gave gum trees, and that it cost her, Mary Dell, absolutely nothing to write these things because it was all true and since she was sure that Miss Evard wouldn't read this letter, undoubtedly being too busy riding her high horse to read anybody's letters, it didn't matter anyway.

She did remember the last sentence word for word, and the way the words looked on the page, sloping sloppily down and to the right as it became harder and harder to make her pen behave.