Laura Ray (Ray Series) (15 page)

Laura commented, “It sounds like he tried to make something of his life.”

“Well, ever
’ once in a while,” her dad looked her way, “him and his highfalutin’ wife comes around wantin’ to fix things around here. I keep tellin’ him to keep his money for his family. I don’t need nothin’. What I got will last until I’m dead and gone.”

Laura opened her mouth again to speak, when he spoke up again, “I got me some chickens that give me eggs. Ever’ once in a while when I get hungry for chicken, I go out and wring one of them’s neck. Me and ol’ Jeb,” he said motioning toward the dog, “we don’t need too much.”

He looked over at Laura from his rheumy eyes, “Since Mom died, Becky brings more food over here than a man can eat.”

This time Laura managed to say, “Dad, I’m so sorry things have turned out like they did.”

Her Dad held up his hand defensively, “Now, Laura, don’t go troublin’ yourself about things. You had your own family to take care of, you didn’t have time to worry about us.”

“I could have called,” she said derisively.

“Well, your Mom and me, we talked a mite about that and she made me see that callin’ is a two way street. You didn’t call but neither did we, so we ain’t got no right to fuss about nothin’. Tain’t your fault no more’n ours. What’s gone by’s gone by.”

Laura rose from her chair and knelt down beside his chair. She took his old arthritic hand in hers. “Thank you, Daddy.”

“You know what?”

“What?” she asked him.

“When I seen you at the door, it took me a minute to figure out that it was you and not my Jenny a few years back. You look that much like her,” he said squeezing her hand.

“Thank you. I’m proud to look like my Mama.” She got up from kneeling on the floor and sat back on the sofa. “Tell me about Sondra and Nancy.”

“Well, Sondra married a man from down Joplin way. She met him when she was workin’ at the Dairy Queen. They up and moved down to Joplin. She got three youngin’s, two boys and a girl. We don’t see them but maybe on Holidays sometimes.”

“Nancy, now she got her an RN license and she works in Kansas City at some big hospital. She’ll be at the funeral tomorrow
. We called her but she said there wasn’t nothin’ she could do for Mom since she done already passed on and all.”

“Did Nancy get married?” Laura asked.

“Nope,” he shook his head. “None that she told us about anyways. There was some rumor once about a doctor, but I think she found out that he done was married and all.”

Laura left with an easy heart. Her Dad had turned out to be a nice man after all. Especially, she reminded herself, since she could see him now with adult eyes and not teenagers eyes.

Chapter Fifteen

As she drove into Becky’s yard she saw Danny hobbling toward the house. She jumped out of the car, “Danny, what’s wrong?”

Danny ducked his head, not willing to tell that two mischievous cousins bested him, girls especially. “Nothing. I just hurt my leg a bit.”

Nevertheless she insisted that he pull his pants leg up. There was a scrape which could be fixed with a cleanup and a Band-Aid. She could see that underneath the scrape a bruise was forming which would last much longer than the scrape.

She took him inside where Becky provided some antibiotic cream and a Band-Aid. “Okay, now tell me what happened,” Laura insisted when she had his leg bandaged.

Danny looked around to make sure that the girls weren’t in sight. He told her, “Mom, you know I’m a good bike rider.” He looked at her for confirmation.

When she nodded he added, “Those girls challenged me to a race.” He pointed to his chest defiantly, “I’m the same age as Brenda and Debra is younger than us, right?”

Laura nodded again to jump start his story again.
“Well,” Danny continued with indignation, “Those girls challenged me to a bicycle race. I figured I could out do them. Them being girls,” he said widening his eyes. “They went so fast on their bike on this gravel road, I couldn’t keep up.”

“You’ve only ridden on streets in town,” she said in defense.

“Yeah!” he said emphatically. “Aaron and I go fast, too. But we have to stop for street signs.”

Laura bobbed
her head in agreement.

“By the time I caught up with them, they took off on this trail going into a pasture. They were going pretty fast, but so was I. I was right on their trail, then the trail started going down this long winding hill. I began slowing down and they were getting ahead of me again so I figured if they could do it so could I.”

She could see the fear began to creep up in his face, when he added, “There was a gate across the road. The girls jumped on their brakes and stopped just in time but I started sliding. I kept my balance but I still hit the gate going sideways. That’s how I hurt my leg.”

“Surely, the girls didn’t expect you to get hurt.”

“They told me that they had never seen the gate closed before,” Danny stated placing his lips in a straight line not willing to forgive the girls yet.

“Danny,” Laura comforted him, “You’re on their turf now. They have the advantage. I bet if they were playing football with you, they wouldn’t have a chance.”

Danny sat up straighter, he already had a plan. Since his leg hurt so badly he decided to wait a few days.

Becky asked Laura, “How was your visit with Dad?”

“Good,” Laura acknowledged, lifting her eyebrows and shrugging. “He’s essentially human.”

Becky laughed.

Preparations for the family dinner began early at Becky’s church in Carthage. Women from the church and community brought in dishes of food for the family all morning long. Many times Becky spearheaded the plans for other families, but this was the first time Becky’s family had been the recipients. The other women wanted to show their appreciation in return. A bountiful meal of fried chicken and meatloaf with everything else imaginable placed in a buffet line looked and smelled delicious.

Laura anxiously waited for Nora and Jeremy to arrive
. Finally she could show off Danny and her lovely daughter who would graduate from Premed School next year. Jimmy along with his wife, named Anna, arrived early. Laura immediately hit it off with Anna in spite of her dad calling her highfaluting. Soon her sister Sondra came with her family in tow. When Nancy arrived, she and Nora found they had a lot in common and found a table to sit down to visit. It turned out as with most funerals that many stated with regret that it was a shame they waited until a death in the family to have a reunion.

Before the funeral began Laura got a shock of her life, when a woman walked in
to the dining hall that she recognized. There stood Maggie Ray, John’s mother, smiling at her. She had a man with her. Laura felt that she prejudged her when the unbidden thought crossed her mind;
I wonder who this unfortunate man is.

Maggie
wiggled across the dining hall of the church in her formfitting skirt straight toward Laura with her man in her wake. Her extra-large boobs bounced along in front of her. Laura had never been fond of the woman even when she and John were dating. John had never been inclined to get in touch with her after they were married.

Sh
e approached Laura with a huge overly-friendly smile displaying large teeth obviously infected by gingivitis. She reached out to her grabbing her hands and pecking her on both cheeks. Maggie pulled back and gave her another of her sparkling smiles.

“Hi, Mrs. Ray,” Laura greeted her.

“Hello, Laura,” Maggie greeted in return. “I know you didn’t expect me to be here, but when Becky called me about how to get in touch with you. It set me to thinking about you and the children.” She pulled the man standing behind her forward. “This here is Nathan, Nathan Weathersby.” Maggie looked at him lovingly. “He’s my new husband.”

Nathan held out his hand, “How do you do?”

Perfunctorily, Laura held out her hand to shake. “How do you do?” she repeated.

“Laura, I would like to meet my grandchildren, if you don’t mind?” Maggie asked.

Laura shook herself as if coming out of a trance. It had been so many years since she had seen her that the shock had seemingly numbed her brain. “Of course,” Laura turned to locate her children.

Maggie saw Nora first, “Let me guess, that lovely young woman over there at that table is one of them.”

“Yes,” Laura broke out into a smile. “That is my daughter sitting there with my youngest sister. Come along, I’ll introduce you.”

Nora spotted her mother coming toward her bringing a man and woman with her so she stood up to greet them. Nora thought this must be some long lost distant relative.

Before Laura could say anything, Maggie grabbed Nora into a hug and said, “I’m your Granny!”

Nora gave Laura a puzzled look over Maggie’s shoulder.

“Nora, please meet your father’s mother.”

Nora leaned back and frowned, “What?! I didn’t even know I had a Granny!”

“Well,” Maggie said apologetically swinging her head from side to side. “I know I haven’t kept in touch but Nathan here,” she fondly touched his arm, “has shown me the error of my ways.”

Nathan warmly responded by putting his arm across Maggie’s shoulders. He held out his hand to Nora and offered to shake her hand, “How do you do?”

Nora held out her hand robotically, “How do you do?”

“This is my new husband, isn’t he the sweetest thing you ever saw?” Maggie said
gazing lovingly at him.

Laura wondered to herself,
number which
? Keeping her thoughts to herself, she looked around for Danny.

Maggie watched Laura to see where she was
looking. She spoke up first, “I see him.” She made a beeline to Danny, saying, “I see little John.” Sure enough she grabbed Danny and gave him hug, weeping, “This is my little John.”

Danny waited patiently for this wild woman to turn him loose, when she said, “I’m your Granny.”

Danny looked at his mother with a puzzled look, “I thought my Grandmother had just died.”

Laura began to say something to help her children out of this confusing mess, when Maggie spoke again with an exaggerated smile, “I’m your Daddy’s Mama. I’m your other Granny.”

Maggie ran her hand over Danny’s hair, “The spittin’ image of his Daddy, the exact spittin’ image.”

Laura stood with one hand on her hip looking at Maggie wondering what she could say to resolve this embarrassing situation. Her poor children a week ago didn’t even know they had any relatives except her and each other. Now they have relatives hanging on them from every direction, so much so that they
were having trouble keeping up.
Ha
, Laura thought,
I’m having trouble keeping up and I already knew most of them.
Laura tried to evaluate Maggie’s behavior. Was she drunk? Was she high on something? Or was this genuine emotion?

Laura glanced at Nathan. How genuine was he? Was he as loony as Maggie?

Maggie asked, “Is this all of John’s children or are there more?”

“This is it. We only had two.”

“You have done well.” Maggie patted Laura on the shoulder. “I told John when he started dating you, ‘Now John, that Laura is a good girl. You’ll do well to marry her.’ And he did. He always was a smart boy.”

Maggie stayed through the funeral and visited more with Nora, who introduced her to Jeremy, her husband.
She didn’t want to let go of Danny who reminded her so much of her own son.

Laura stood with tears in her eyes at her mother’s casket holding Danny’s hand on one side and Nora’s hand in the other. What she remembered the most about her mother was helping her struggling with the old wringer washer on the back porch, standing in the kitchen
kneading bread or stirring a big pot of something on the stove. Laura remembered taking turns with her while they ironed all day long to get everybody’s clothes ready for the next week of school or work. She remembered watching her mother crank the old wood stove in the living room to empty the ashes so they could keep the house warm in the winter, then her mother wiping her face with the tail of her dress in the summer to remove the sweat from her red, hot face.

Laura turned her children’s hands loose in order to wipe the tears from her own face when Becky, Nancy, Sondra, and Jimmy all gathered around her and had a group hug. The sobs wracked through all of them. She knew she was loved by her family, in spite of her defection. She knew now that when she left home, Becky stepped in and helped her moth
er in her stead. Her mother had never been left alone; Laura knew that she could release her guilt.

She went to her father sitting hunched on the front pew. He looked so small compared to what he seemed in her childhood. His wiry hair and beard almost covered his whole head. He looked so pitiful grieving for his wife in his own way. Laura sat beside him and put her arm around him. He lifted his watery eyes to look at her and said in a thin voice, “I loved my Jenny. I don’t know how I’ll go on without her.”

“I know, Daddy,” Laura said softly patting his shoulder, “I know.”