Leaving Carolina (12 page)

I curl my fingers into my palms. “Maybe after the service you could call me on my cell phone?”

“I said we’ll talk tomorrow.” He steps forward. A moment later they pause, and Artemis looks over his shoulder. “Tell your uncle I’ll visit him tomorrow followin’ his surgery.”

My jaw drops. “Surgery? Then there is something seriously wrong with him?”

“Well, why else would he still be in the hospital?”

An ache starts in my chest.
Lord, it’s not just indigestion
. I was certain this was a false alarm. Why didn’t I make more of an effort to see him yesterday?

Artemis sighs heavily. “Ya didn’t answer me last week when I asked if ya was doin’ drugs, but if ya are, Piper Pickwick—pardon me,
Wick—ya
need to get help for it.”

There goes my jaw again.

“Your cousin Bart did, and he’s come a long way.”

Right. Now he’s just into breaking and entering.

“Who’s doin’ drugs?” Mrs. Bleeker asks.

I’m tempted to walk away, but if I don’t set Artemis straight, a rumor might spread that could make my stay in Pickwick more uncomfortable. “I do not take drugs.”

He shrugs. “Then it must be that Los Angeles smog gettin’ to ya. Mutates them brain cells, I hear.”

That has to be it, because it couldn’t possibly be that Artemis forgot to update me on my uncle’s condition. “Could be. Well, enjoy the service and I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Or maybe the day after.”

What?!

“I’ll call ya.”

I hold my breath as he guides his wife across the square, following their progress until a familiar figure at the church entrance captures my attention. Of course, why Axel should be familiar dressed in something other than soil-stained work clothes and boots
is beyond me. Just as it’s beyond me why I find myself admiring the way his button-up shirt conforms to his broad shoulders and tapers down to the waistband of his navy pleated pants. Maybe Axel does have a little
GQ
in him…

He raises a hand, and I groan. He’s seen me. My first impulse is to turn away without acknowledging him, but his words from last night—
“Are you always such a snob?”
—play back.

With a tight smile, the best I can manage on short notice, I flash a hand and then hurry to my car. See? Not a snob.

F
ore!” A woman trumpets in concert with a thump against the hospital room door.

Hand on the knob, I pull back to confirm that the nurse sent me to the right room. The dry erase board reads O. Pickwick.

“Hole in one,” calls a gravelly male voice. “Ha!”

“Betcha can’t do it again.”

“How much?”

“A loaf of my flaxseed bread to a jar of your pickled corn.”

“That’s bold of you to put up that stuff you call bread against my pickled corn, but I’ll take your bet.”

Why doesn’t my uncle sound like someone propped up in bed with needles and tubes sticking out all over the place?

I rap on the door and push. The lanky man standing before the window, wearing a purple robe over orange pajamas and gripping an upside-down cane, looks up. From beneath a thatch of seriously silvered hair, he smiles questioningly, causing deep grooves to angle from the corners of his mouth to the flare of his nostrils.

I stare. Despite the years that have had their way with his red hair, it’s Uncle Obe. And he appears amazingly spry for someone about to undergo heart surgery.

I shift my regard to the woman placing a dinner roll atop a
yogurt cup on the floor. What is she doing? And what’s with her hair? Not that I don’t see dreadlocks in L.A., but it’s out of place here.

“There!” With a bounce of blond dreadlocks, she straightens.

If I didn’t know better, I’d say that’s—It
is
her.

“Oh.” The bowed mouth of the unapologetic perpetrator of “the great crop circle hoax” purses; however, in the next instant amusement pushes out her lower lip. “If it isn’t my little cousin Piper.”

Only
little
because I’m thirty years old to Bridget’s thirty-two and five foot three to her five foot six.

She shakes her head. “If Bart hadn’t told me he’d run into you, I wouldn’t have recognized you.”

Was that a slam? Or am I being overly sensitive? Regardless, I’m grateful that my clothes, hair, makeup, and weight are all fashionable. In
fact, far more
fashionable than Bridget with that ratty hair and those holey nondesigner jeans.

“Goodness!” Uncle Obe exclaims. “It
is
Piper.”

Talk about a delayed reaction. Equally disconcerting is the enthusiasm that brightens his face. “Welcome home.” He takes a jerky step toward me only to motion me aside. “Mind if we postpone this joyous homecoming? I have a…” He frowns. “… bet to win.”

“We’ll be with you in a sec,” Bridget says.

This is too strange. Might it be a dream?

“Do you mind closing the door?”

I comply with my cousin’s request, but as I walk toward the bed, where a rolling table and cafeteria tray sit, something crunches underfoot.

Bridget chuckles. “Still walking around in that haze of yours I see.”

“Spacey”—that was what she christened me when no further opportunities to call me “crybaby” or “litterbug” came her way. I scoop up what was once edible. “It’s not every day one finds one’s self walking on dinner rolls.” I deposit the remains on the cafeteria tray.

Nor is it every day one sees a roll teed off a yogurt cup. But that’s what Uncle Obe prepares to do to the unfortunate twin of the one I trampled. To top it off, he gives a waggle as he lines up the handle of his cane with the roll.
Has
to be a dream.

A moment later he shouts, “Fore!” and the roll hits the door.

“Wahoo!” Bridget punches the air. “Missed the hook by a foot!”

That little thing on the door?

She gives Uncle Obe a thousand-candlepower smile that transforms her from a dreadlocked rag doll into the Barbie doll I remember. “That’ll be one jar of pickled corn, you old geezer.”

Yep, same old Bridget, tricks and name-calling and all.
Er, “pickled corn” and “old geezer” sounded affectionate as opposed to cruel
. Well, it starts somewhere. Tomorrow it could be his wallet and elder abuse.

Uncle Obe sighs. “That hurts, but at least I won’t have to jaw that bark you call bread.”

She wrinkles her nose and turns to me. “So you’re back.”

“As requested.”
You sound like a martyr. Think before you speak!

Bridget grimaces. “At least pretend to be happy to see us. Or aren’t we good enough for you anymore?”

Now
that’s
backward. As I flounder for a response, she steps forward and sticks out a hand. “Bygones be bygones and all that feel-good crud, hmm?”

I slide my hand into hers, then do her one better by pulling her in and hugging her, as modeled to clients in need of coaching in the art of demonstrations of acceptance and forgiveness. It’s harder than I make it out to be.

Bridget pulls back and claps a hand to her chest. “I’ll be! I could almost believe you like me.”

Leaning heavily on the cane, Uncle Obe advances with a limp more pronounced than Axel’s. “Now, Bridget, you don’t go stirring up a cake after it’s baked. If anything, you add a little… white stuff—frosting.”

“Can’t stand frosting,” Bridget mutters, and when I look at her, she shrugs. “Let’s just take it slow, okay?”

“I couldn’t agree more.”
Watch your tone!

Uncle Obe halts alongside me, forcing me to tip my head back to see to the top of the extra foot he has over me. “Got a hug for your old uncle?”

Did he just wink at me? Has to be a dream. He may have been kind to Mom and me when we were in need, but he never displayed affection. And rarely conversed without reluctance.

The hug is awkward, and not just my side of it. Obviously, this dream stuff is still new to him.

“I have to go,” Bridget says.

Uncle Obe pulls away and pats her shoulder. “Thank you for dropping by.”

“I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Before or after I go under the knife?” Despite his teasing tone, tension knits his words.

I start to reassure him, but Bridget says, “Don’t you worry. Your
doctor is the best in these parts, and this little ol’ surgery is going to be over before you know it.”

Little?
We’re talking about his heart. I’m all for reassurance, but that’s a lie.

Uncle Obe sighs. “And the good Lord
is
watchin’ over me.”

Bridget tenses and, with a smile so forced it nearly slips, says, “There is that too.”

That?

She grins. “Of course, if you don’t pull through, your stash of pickled corn is mine.”

If he doesn’t…?! That is not something you tease about. I look to Uncle Obe, but he makes a closemouthed sound that thumps up from his chest and quivers his lopsided nostrils. Was that a chuckle? “Maybe I’ll write that into my will.”

Bridget’s gaze pins me, and I’m reminded of the reason I’m here—a more pressing reason if Celine’s suspicions about Janet Farr are correct.

Bridget looks back at our uncle. “I’d be forever beholden to you.” She crosses to the door where I once more fall under her gaze. “I’ll be by sometime this week to pick up my jar of pickled corn.”

“In the pantry, Piper,” Uncle Obe says, “on the highest shelf in the back, behind the baked beans and applesauce. Until I make up a new batch, I only have six left—”

Five.

“—so don’t let her take more than one.” This wink is so exaggerated there’s no question that’s what it is. “Have to keep an eye on my supply. Won’t be any fresh-picked… corn for a little while yet.”

Obviously, I have a lot to answer for. I look to the door and catch Bridget’s raised hand as she slips into the corridor.

Uncle Obe sighs. “It sure is good to have you home, Piper.”

“Thank you. Er, shouldn’t you be lying down? I mean, considering you’re having surgery tomorrow?”

“I’m tired of bein’ on my back. Got boredom coming outta my ears.”

Hence, the dinner roll debacle. “I’m sure the doctors want you to rest. You don’t want your condition to worsen.”

“They do say it could completely give out at any moment.”

I stare. “But if it’s that serious, why are they delaying surgery?”

“You’ve forgotten that things move slowly in the South.” He gingerly lowers to the mattress. “Dr. Pernick had a golf tournament this weekend, so tomorrow is the earliest he could fit me in.”

Golf takes precedence over heart surgery?

Uncle Obe frowns. “Are you all right?”

“No.” I blink. “I mean, yes. I’m just concerned about you.”

“I appreciate that, but it’s a fairly open-and-shut surgery. They open me up, put a new one in, and close me up. Just like that.”

What? No one said anything about a heart transplant! There’s nothing open and shut about that. He could die!

“Goodness, Piper, if you go any whiter, they’ll be throwin’ a sheet over you long before they throw one over me.”

I lay a hand on his arm. “Would you do me a favor?” I reach past him and plump the smushed pillow. “I’d feel better about our visit if you were resting.”

He grimaces. “My back end gets mighty sore, but all right.”

I pull the covers over him and draw a chair near.

“I truly am glad you’re home. You were always a good girl.” His eyebrows lower, and he mutters almost to himself, “If a bit odd.”

Odd? Me?

“Of course, I’m hardly one to talk.”

No, he isn’t. In fact, in the short time I’ve been here, he’s probably said more than I heard from him in all the years I lived in Pickwick.

He plucks at the blanket. “Artemis tells me you’ve made a name for yourself workin’ with actors and politicians—polishin’ them and cleanin’ up their messes.”

“I make a good living at it.”

“Uh-huh.” He looks at the ceiling. “How’s your mother?”

“Well, thank you. We share a condo in L.A.”

“I always liked her. I’m sorry Jeremiah wasn’t a better husband and father.”

“Me too.” I would have loved to be loved by the first man in my life.

“Chalk it up to further evidence that God can turn bad into good. Just like He did when I went flyin’ off the golf cart when I hit poor Roy.” His eyes moisten. “For hours I lay on the driveway, my chest achin’ somethin’ mighty, certain I was about to die, and all I could think was that I’d never be able to make right all the things it was in my power to do somethin’ about.”

My throat tightens as I imagine the state of his conscience as he lay there.

“I promised God that if He spared me, I would no longer sit
around just thinkin’ about making good on the wrongs committed by our family. And do you know, not two minutes later, Axel found me.”

Too bad his timing wasn’t better. A few minutes earlier, and I might not be here. Now, not only do I have to convince Uncle Obe not to change his will but to break his word to God. Of course, does God expect him to make good on a promise made under duress? And Uncle Obe couldn’t have been in his right mind as he lay there waiting to die. And we mustn’t forget he might not be in possession of a right mind even under the best circumstances…