Carry the Light (6 page)

“A job well done,” Charlene murmured. “Thanks.”

Ellie smiled. “You're welcome,” she murmured.

Ellie had lost touch with a few friends after she was widowed—she just wasn't comfortable socializing any longer with couples, always being the fifth wheel. But she could certainly use a friend like Charlene, who would understand the hopes and fears she had about her mother and who would be in town without her husband, on weekdays, at least.

Maybe together, as friends, the two of them just might be able to help each other—to meet the challenge of caring for their elderly relatives and in other ways, too.

W
ith her heart lighter and her tummy filled, Ellie headed home. She always made a point to finish the last mile of her power walk as strong and fast as she had begun, but after leaving Sweet Stuff, she had a good reason to slow her pace—the two white shopping bags she carried.

In one bag, she had enough candy to replenish her supply until the next semester. Included among the goodies were Necco wafers, her favorite. The other bag held a gift basket that Charlene had insisted on making for Ellie's mother, which contained one Easter bunny—from the assortment of stuffed animals that had been in a box they had carried upstairs—along with heart-healthy treats such as yogurt-covered raisins, fruit-flavored lozenges and salt-free carob-covered pretzels.

Ellie could still taste the scrumptious hot chocolate Charlene had made for them, and her sides were still aching from giggling so long and hard during her unexpected visit.

She was a block from home when she heard the whine of sirens. A few moments later emergency vehicles were whizzing by her. She cringed and turned her head away from the deafening sounds as the police car, fire truck and ambulance raced down the avenue, lights flashing.

Out of habit, she said a quick prayer for the unfortunate people who needed the emergency assistance. She also offered a prayer for the men and women who responded to any call for help.

Her ears were still hurting when she saw the police car turn onto her street. By the time the ambulance took the same left, she was running at top speed with the shopping bags slapping at her legs and her heart pounding in her chest.

“Please, no.” She prayed that the emergency vehicles were not headed for her house. She charged down the alley behind her property. She was winded when she reached her backyard and, when she saw the lights flashing directly in front of her house, she grew frantic.

She didn't have time to notice that there was no sign of fire or smell of smoke. And it didn't fully register with her that all of the sirens were silent. She dropped the shopping bags and ran at full speed the moment she spied her mother standing in the crowd of people gathered across the street, wearing her winter coat draped over her green quilted robe and matching slippers.

Clutching her side, Ellie reached her mother and struggled to catch her breath as the fire truck and ambulance began backing up the narrow street.

“What happened? Are you all right?” Ellie managed to ask, searching her mother's face and form for any sign of injury or illness.

“I'm fine,” her mother assured her, before turning to the two middle-aged men standing near her. “Thank you both. You were a great help. Now that my daughter is here, I'll let you get back to your families.”

“Yes, thank you,” Ellie murmured, and nodded to her neighbors, George Pullman and Elliot Welsh, who lived with their families in adjoining houses across the street. After being assured by both men that they were just a call away if she or her mother needed help, and as the crowd began to disperse, Ellie offered her arm to her mother.

“Please tell me what happened,” she implored, and tried to prepare herself, because whatever it was, it was bound to be her fault, at least from her mother's perspective. Still, she wanted to hear her mother's side of it before she had to face the police officer, who was just coming around the side of her house carrying the two shopping bags she had dropped. “What happened?” she asked again.

Her mother's eyes flashed with irritation. “When I woke up, my room was stuffy. I guess it's just because the den is so small, and I'm used to a large bedroom. All I wanted to do was open the window for a little fresh air. Instead, I almost had a heart attack when the alarm started blasting. You could have warned me about the alarm on the windows, so all these poor people wouldn't have wasted their time coming out here making such a big commotion,” she snapped as they crossed the street.

Ellie groaned. “You're right. I'm sorry. I guess I just assumed you knew the windows were included in the security system that I showed you yesterday,” she apologized, although she was fairly certain she had specifically mentioned the windows. “Why didn't you just tell the alarm company what happened when they called the house?”

Her mother tilted her chin up. “I tried, but I couldn't remember the password, so they sent out the cavalry like I was some kind of an intruder who was stupid enough to answer the telephone, or simply an old woman who was too demented to understand what was happening to her.”

Ellie frowned. “The alarm company should have called me,” she said, reaching into her pocket and realizing it was empty. “I'm sorry. I was helping Charlene Butler in her store and accidentally left my cell phone there,” she admitted.

When she saw the officer approaching, she held up her hand, motioning for him to wait a moment, and helped her mother back into the house. “I'm sorry about forgetting my phone, and I'm really sorry about the trouble you had with the password. I thought changing it to Daddy's name would make it easy for you to remember.”

“As if I could rely on your father to do anything in an emergency.” Her mother sniffed, slipped off her coat and handed it to Ellie. “I'm going to the kitchen to make a cup of that dreadful decaffeinated tea and try to forget this ever happened. You handle the police officer on your own. I've been embarrassed enough,” she murmured, and walked away.

Embarrassed herself by the criticism, Ellie laid her mother's coat across the back of a chair and returned outside. Her morning went from bad to awful when she recognized the police officer: Bob Johnson, a former student. In his late thirties, he was a lot stockier now than he had been in tenth grade, but he had not been able to tame the cowlick that still stuck out from the top of his head.

“Thanks, Bob. I'm really sorry you had to come out here so unnecessarily this morning,” she said as he handed her both shopping bags.

“No problem. I brushed off as much dirt from the bags as I could.”

Ellie glanced at the bags for a moment and then smiled at him. “Good job. Thanks. Is there anything I have to do? Fill out a paper or a waiver or something?”

He grinned and patted his chest pocket. “All done. Got it right here. Spelled everything right, too,” he added with a wink.

“I should expect you would,” she replied. Spelling was never a problem for him. Turning in homework or projects on time had been his weakness. “How are Amy and the boys?”

He pulled out his cell phone, flipped it open and pulled up the picture gallery. “Amy's always great, but you know that,” he said as he turned the cell phone so Ellie could see his wife's picture.

“I sure do,” she murmured. Amy had graduated as valedictorian, earned her teaching degree in just three years, and now taught at a charter school in Philadelphia. She still wore her hair long and straight and looked nearly the same as she had in high school.

“The boys are catching up to me faster than I thought they would,” Bob told her proudly, and clicked the viewer to enlarge the picture of them.

Ellie's eyes widened. “Those boys look like you put yourself through a copy machine three times!”

He laughed. “They're all in middle school now. The twins are in seventh grade. John's in sixth. They'll be heading up to the high school in a couple of years, so get ready. Unless you're planning to retire soon,” he said as he stored the cell phone away.

“Not that soon,” Ellie replied. In fact, she hoped she might spend the rest of her career as an administrator. It was a good possibility, as long as her current supervisor, Nate Pepperidge, finally retired this year, as rumors suggested he would. If she landed the job she had been dreaming about for most of her career, she would miss all three of Bob's sons in the classroom, but she wasn't ready to mention that possibility now.

Instead, she wrinkled her nose. “I don't suppose there's any chance the false alarm didn't go over the police scanner, is there?”

“Not even. My guess is that the students who don't find out about it over the weekend will know by the end of homeroom on Monday.”

“You're right. They will.”

“And they'll have a good time teasing you about it, too, unless what I've heard about you lately is wrong.”

It was her turn to grin. “If you heard that I'm still a tough, no-nonsense teacher, you heard correctly. Unfortunately, I had to relinquish my title as the Cranky Queen of Corridor Duty to Mrs. Josephs and Mrs. Snyder when I became head of the department.”

His eyes twinkled. “I heard those two are so tough you might have put yourself through a copy machine twice when you trained them, too.”

She laughed. “The Welleswood pipeline is alive and well, I see. Thanks again, Bob. I'll make sure there won't be another false alarm here.”

Back in the house, she locked the front door but didn't rearm the security system. She hung her mother's coat up in the closet and carried the two shopping bags into the kitchen. Almost immediately, her tension melted away. She had repainted the kitchen last year, and the warm yellow walls made her feel as though she had her very own piece of the sun inside her home.

Her mother looked up for a moment from her seat at the round oak table, and used the palm of her hand to smooth the yellow-and-blue striped place mat under her mug of tea. “I never did understand the reason some people prefer these place mats. A properly ironed tablecloth looks so much nicer.”

“Maybe it's because washing and ironing tablecloths takes too much work. Besides, a tablecloth would cover the top of the table, and the grain is really pretty,” she pointed out, admiring the round table she had bought shortly after Joe died because she could not bear to eat a meal, especially breakfast, longing for him to be sitting at the head of the table.

“That may be true,” her mother countered, “but you'll never be able to convince me that a home is ever as well cared for when a woman spends more time working outside of it than inside.” She paused to take a sip of her tea. “Women seem to justify taking all sorts of shortcuts these days, and that's only one reason the divorce rate is so high.”

Rather than provoke an argument by defending women who worked, Ellie pulled the gift basket from the shopping bag and set it on the table. “This is for you from Charlene Butler,” she said, and tugged the lavender bow into place. After sliding the basket across the table to her mother, she put her own shopping bag on the table and sat down. “She sends her get-well wishes, too.”

Eyes wide, her mother briefly fumbled with the bow before pulling the cellophane free. The moment she lifted out the tan cotton-tailed bunny that stood some twelve inches high, she brought the stuffed animal to her shoulder. “What a soft little sweetie,” she murmured, stroking the fur with her fingers as if trying to calm a fussy baby. “I'm not going to be able to eat anything from Sweet Stuff. Not on my new diet. But this little bunny is just too dear.”

Ellie removed the rest of the cellophane from her mother's basket. “Everything in here is quite suitable for your diet. Charlene's been stocking healthy items, including sugar-free candy, for a while now,” she said, and then went on to share the news she had gotten about Miss Gibbs, as well as Charlene's temporary move to Welleswood to care for her aunt.

Her mother let out a sigh and tilted her head toward the bunny. “Poor Dorothy. I'd heard something about her being ill. She was about four years behind me in school, but I've known her for a good seventy-five years. What a sad life she's had.”

“What makes you think her life has been sad?” Ellie asked.

“Back in our day, very few women chose to remain spinsters, but that's what Dorothy did. She never married and never had children. And she had her chances, too.”

“Maybe she never met the right man,” Ellie suggested, defending the elderly woman, since she was not here to defend herself.

“Maybe she was too fussy,” her mother responded.

Ellie changed the subject to avoid an argument. “I'll let you sort through the goodies Charlene put into the basket for you while I unpack the other bag,” she said.

Her mother tugged Ellie's bag down far enough to peek inside, and rolled her eyes. “Really, Ellie, one of these days you're going to regret fueling that sweet tooth of yours.”

“If I haven't regretted it for sixty years, I think I might be safe,” Ellie said, sliding the bag closer.

“That's what I thought when the doctor told me fifteen years ago to stop eating the way I did. Just look where that's put me.” Her mother glanced around the room, frowning, as if being in Ellie's home was the worst place she could be.

Ellie swallowed hard, blinked back tears and left the kitchen to stash away her candy and to tuck this new hurt next to all the old ones before she walked back to Sweet Stuff to get her cell phone.