Marriage Seasons 01 - It Happens Every Spring (3 page)

This was just like Steve, she fumed. Leaving her alone so he
could show off one of his listings. They rarely ate dinner together
anymore. He never seemed to have time for her. And when he was
home, all Steve could talk about was closing costs and termite
inspections and septic tanks.

Brenda hugged her bent legs and rested her forehead on her
knees. For what seemed like the hundredth time, she wondered
what had gone wrong. She had eagerly awaited her "empty nest"
life and had looked forward to all kinds of activities-redecorating
the house, volunteering at church, joining the local garden club,
and sewing to her heart's content. Maybe she could fulfill her
dream of one day starting a little interior-design business.

Even better, she and Steve would have unlimited time together
once the kids were on their own. They could travel, dine out
together, go to movies, entertain guests, and take regular sunset
boat rides.

But it hadn't turned out like that at all. Steve was never at home,
and without someone to share her plans with, they began to seem
pointless, far-fetched, even boring.

Christmas had come and the kids arrived home from school,
but they left again quickly-bright eyed and eager to get back to
their friends and classes. Nowadays, Brenda had trouble getting
out of bed and finding things to do. It was so quiet and lonely in the
house. If the kids had still been around, she never would have
fallen apart over a simple Missouri thunderstorm or a stranger at
the door. You couldn't collapse if someone needed you.

Now she was all alone in the big, empty house with some crazy
man on the front porch. He would probably cut her into pieces and
throw her in the lake, and who would even care?

"Because I saw Jesus downstairs in your basement." He was back
at the door, knocking on the window again. "I did. I saw Him. He
was looking at me."

"Jesus doesn't live in this house!" she shouted. "Go away! Just
leave me alone!"

"Because I saw Him. That's why I asked about the chocolate
cake."

"You can't have my chocolate cake, okay? I made it for ... for
." Who had she made the cake for that afternoon? She was on a
perpetual diet. Steve usually took clients or colleagues out to dinner at the country club.

"Are you a Christian?" the man asked. "Because my daddy
said-"

"Listen, what is your problem, mister?" Suddenly angry, she
leaped to her feet. "You can't just go knocking on people's doors in
the middle of a rainstorm when the electricity's off! You can't just
ask for chocolate cake! And for your information, Jesus does not
live here!"

He brushed his finger under his nose. "Okay."

"So go away before I call the police!"

"Okay." He scratched his head. "I'm hungry. Do you have any
kind of food? Because if Jesus doesn't live here, I could eat potatoes. Or bread."

"Are you even listening to me?" she asked him through the window.

His face lit up in the darkness. "Oh! I forgot the magic word:
please. That's what I did wrong. I knew I must have forgot something. Hi, I'm Cody. Please can I have some chocolate cake?
Please?"

Curious in spite of herself, Brenda stopped shivering and studied the creepy figure on her porch. Freaky long hair. Big, bushy
beard. Weird blue eyes. Why did he speak like that-like a little
boy? Adults didn't talk about "the magic word." They didn't come
begging for chocolate cake in the middle of the night. They certainly didn't claim to have seen Jesus in the basement. He must be
schizophrenic or psychotic or something like that.

"Hi, I'm Cody," he said again. "What's your name?"

"Brenda." She had no idea why she told him.

"How old are you?"

"You can't ask that. It's not polite."

"Okay." He turned away.

Brenda stepped toward the door. "Wait. Just hold on a second,
all right?"

He turned around and pressed up against the window again.
Making a tunnel with his hands, he looked at her.

Sure she was completely nuts, Brenda fumbled toward the
kitchen. She found a box of matches, lit one of the many scented
candles she kept around the house, and then cut a perfectly
squared piece of cake. "Triangles are okay, but I like squares better,"
the man had told her. Who talked like that?

She should be hunting for her cell phone and calling 911 instead
of cutting cake for the murderer on the front porch, but so what?
Sliding the portion onto a small plate, she added a fork and a napkin. Then she carried the candle in one hand and the cake in the
other to the front door.

"I thought you went away," he said. "I thought you pro'ly left
me.

"I brought you some chocolate cake. Now, go sit on the porch
swing over there."

He smiled. "Chocolate cake! I love chocolate cake!"

"Sit on the porch swing. I mean it. Sit down and don't move."

"Okay." His shoulders slumped and his muddy shoes crossed
the wooden deck to the swing.

Brenda could hear the rain pouring outside as she unlocked the
door, quickly set the plate and candle on the welcome mat, and
then shut the door again. When she turned the lock, the electricity
in the house suddenly came back on.

"Hey!" Cody said, gazing up at the porch fan with its central
light fixture. He focused on Brenda. "Hey! Look!"

She nodded. "You can get the cake now. It's by the door."

"I'm not allowed to touch candles," he told her. "Because fire is
hot. Because it can hurt you."

"Then don't touch the candle. Just get your cake."

He stood, looking tall, bushy, and frightening again. Wearing
only a yellow T-shirt, a faded blue zippered jacket, a pair of ragged
jeans, and grubby sneakers with holes in the toes, he looked as wet,
bedraggled, and forlorn as a stray dog. He must be about to freeze,
Brenda thought.

Bending over, he lifted the cake from the plate. In two bites, it
was gone. "Chocolate cake!" he said, beaming at her. Dark crumbs
coated his crooked teeth. "I knew you were a Christian."

"You're right," Brenda said through the locked door. "I am a
Christian."

"Because I saw Jesus in your basement."

"No, you didn't. He's not here, Cody."

She studied the man as he licked his fingers. He must be some
homeless person. She had read in the newspaper that many of
them were mentally ill. Maybe he was harmless after all. Feeling
less fearful with the brightly lit foyer and porch, she let out a
breath. "Are you still hungry?" she asked.

He looked up in surprise. "Yes, I am! I could eat another piece of
chocolate cake."

"I'll fix you some dinner. Wait there on the porch swing. Don't
move.

At least she would have something to tell Steve when he came
home tonight, Brenda thought as she returned to the kitchen. Her
husband had zero interest in the chairs she was painting downstairs. Or anything else she did, for that matter.

Working day and night during the fall, she had sewn brand-new
slipcovers for the sofa and two armchairs. He hadn't noticed. She
waited three days before calling her handiwork to his attention.
Then he had said, "Brenda, if you wanted new furniture, why
didn't you just tell me? I'm making enough money now to buy you
a whole new living-room set."

As if that's what she had wanted. Brenda took two pieces of
baked chicken, some leftover green-bean casserole, and a dollop of
mashed potatoes from the refrigerator. Setting the plate in the
microwave, she felt her anger and hurt grow as she set the timer
and punched the Start button.

When the kids were growing up, Steve had worked in sales at an
auto-parts store, and he had eaten up all the details of what the
family had done each day while he was away. He wanted to see
every drawing and read the kids' book reports. He roughhoused
with Justin and piggybacked Jennifer and Jessica all through the
house and yard. He laughed at the stories of their shenanigans, and
in the evenings, he even listened to Brenda's plans for the weekend
or a coming school holiday.

But Steve didn't care about the pink-and-yellow-plaid chairs
she had been painting for the dining room. Plaid was very trickyvarious-sized bands of glazed color going this way and that. He
would have no idea how hard it was to paint. Who thought about
the intricacies of plaid?

Steve wouldn't notice how the dining chairs matched the napkins and placemats she had sewn. Or how all of it coordinated with the
new slipcovers in the living room.

"Pink?" he had said when he finally focused on the sofa with its
beautiful print of roses, ivy, trellises, and butterflies. "Well ... I
guess I can learn to live with it."

Learn to live with it? What kind of a comment was that?

"It wasn't Jesus after all."

The voice in the kitchen knocked the breath right out of
Brenda's chest. She turned to find the long-haired stranger standing less than five feet away. Streaks of mud trailed from his shoes
back across the living room toward the stairs that led to the basement.

The sliding glass door. The unlocked screen.

Brenda grabbed the knife she had used to cut the cake. "I told
you to wait on the porch swing!"

He took a step backward and held up his hands. "Whoops. Are
you mad at me?"

"Go outside. Get out right now. I mean it!"

"Because I went around the house to check on Jesus, and He
wasn't there. It wasn't Him after all, and you know how I figured it
out?"

"Cody, you may not stay in this kitchen. Go out the front door
over there. Do it now."

"It wasn't Jesus. It was me." He smiled, chocolate-cake crumbs
still filling the crevices of his teeth. "The door was like a mirror.
When I looked in the basement, I thought it was Jesus, but it was
me. Just me in the glass, like a mirror. Can you see how I got confused-with my beard and hair all long? It was me, not Jesus.
That's funny."

"It's not funny that you came into my house without asking.
Now go outside this minute."

"Okay." He looked at the floor as he turned away. "I thought
you might give me some more chocolate cake even though Jesus
doesn't live downstairs."

"I'll give you some dinner ... and cake ... if you'll go outside."

"It's warmer in here."

"But you can't stay. You're not invited."

"Okay." Cody shrugged, then dragged his muddy shoes back
across the kitchen and through the foyer. "You are the nicest
Christian I ever met. And you are the only lady I ever knew with a
pink cat."

"A pink cat?" Behind him, Brenda carried the plate of steaming
food, unlocked the door, and gave him a gentle push back onto the
porch. It was cold outside.

"For your information, my cat is gray. Here, take this," she
ordered, handing him the plate.

Then she picked up the candle from the welcome mat, retreated,
and locked the door again. As Cody sat on the porch swing to eat
his dinner, Brenda raced down the stairs and locked the sliding
glass door.

When she turned around, she noticed what she had missed on
her way down. Muddy footprints mingled with a pattern of pink
paw marks that covered the basement floor. And on the coffee
table, where her three children had propped their feet while watching television, sat one miserable-and very pink-cat.

Charlie Moore's teeth were chattering as he drove his golf cart past
the Hansen house. With the electricity back on in Deepwater Cove
and all the neighbors safe and sound, he was eager to get home to
Esther. Before he set out on his appointed rounds tonight, she had
packed him a thermos of water-cold, of course, since the power
was off and she couldn't make coffee. And she had put some of her
famous chocolate-chip cookies in a Baggie for him. Those were
long gone now.

A mug of hot chocolate sure would taste good, Charlie thought.
He knew Esther would have the stove on and the water heating when he walked in the front door. He would ask for two marshmallows even though it was against the rules for his diabetes.
Esther would give them to him too, because she'd realize he was
about frozen to death. Besides, if a man couldn't have marshmallows in his hot chocolate, what was the point?

"Now, what in the dickens ... ?" Charlie muttered as his golf
cart crept to the top of Sunnyslope Lane. He pushed the brake
pedal, put the cart in reverse, and looked over his shoulder as he
backed down the hill. There was a man sitting on Steve Hansen's
front porch. He was eating off a plate and rocking so hard in the
wicker swing that it looked like the whole porch might come down.

Glad he had decided to leave his dog, Boofer, at home, Charlie
parked beside a large lilac bush that was just beginning to leaf out
and set the brake. He could see immediately that the swinger was
not Steve Hansen. Steve kept his dark hair cropped short and his
face neatly shaved. These days, he usually wore a suit and tie,
because he was always driving around the lake to show houses
listed with his real-estate agency. He had gotten a little thicker
around the middle, but who didn't as the years went by?