Sea Glass Summer (21 page)

Within five minutes of sitting down with Twyla Washburn on that Monday morning, Gwen could have kissed Nellie Armitage's spirit guides for suggesting this woman to be the ideal person to help care for Sonny. He was still upstairs in his bedroom, having not appeared at the head of the stairs when the doorbell rang. They were seated in the book room. Twyla was on the sofa and Gwen in her preferred armchair with Jumbo lying alongside it. The coffee, prepared in readiness, had been poured. A plate of oatmeal raisin cookies was placed within easy reach of both women. The room wore its antiquity well. Very comfortable in there. Even cozy, against the blurred windows, with the table lamps lighted under their mulberry silk shades. The sound of the rain at the windows had a softly musical quality as if on the brink of coming up with a melody. On welcoming Twyla into the house she had instantly recognized her as the woman seated, with the endearing-looking sandy-haired boy, in the same church pew as Sonny and herself. She and Twyla had exclaimed at the coincidence on shaking hands. The strength and kindness of the remembered face, framed by the becomingly cropped gray hair, seemed to settle upon the room like a healing touch. The steady eyes, several shades darker than the smooth brown skin, and the rich, warm voice, both calmed and brightened the moment.

Gwen heard the amusement in her own voice as she described the two previous helpers to whom Sonny had so strongly objected. ‘I wondered with the first one if he'd pull some schoolboy stunt, such as putting a frog in her bed or food coloring in her shampoo. They both treated him like a child which he naturally resented. Oh, dear!' Her expression sobered. ‘I sound as if I'm trying to warn you off.'

‘Not at all. You're saying what needs to be said upfront: that your son is due the respect owed to a grown man. I surely believe that can be provided while managing situations that could get out of hand. The loss of self, the sensation of being swallowed up in a fog of confusion has to be terrifying at times. It's understandable that it should bring on angry, even violent outbursts. Very painful and disturbing for you as his mother.' Twyla directed a look at Gwen that included both sympathy and encouragement. ‘If you decide you want me to come here, I'll do all I can to make sure you get a proper night's rest and some breaks during the day. It's so important that you don't wear yourself out if you're to keep up a reserve of strength. I'm sure your doctor would say you should do something that makes you happy three times a day, Mrs Garwood.'

‘Do please make it Gwen. And if you don't mind I'll call you Twyla, but whatever makes you feel the most comfortable. Of course I want you to come. I'm convinced you're just what Sonny and I need. Bless Nellie Armitage! She explained that you have personal reasons for wishing to be in Sea Glass, relating to your patient Frank Andrews' grandson. Would that be the boy with you in church yesterday?'

‘That's him.' Twyla's tall, bony frame instantly seemed to fill out like a down pillow. ‘I call him my lamb baby, because that's what I saw first time I laid eyes on him. God surely broke the mold when he made Oliver Cully. And Frank and his wife Olive, before she died, more than did their part bringing him up the way his parents would've wanted.'

‘The news of the plane crash that took them and the other grandparents shook-up the community.' Gwen motioned sadly with her hands. ‘In itself it was a terrible thing, and then there was the Cully name and all the excited chatter when Clare Andrews married into the family. I met her once when she was an adolescent – I'll tell you about that sometime. From what I saw and have since she was lovely inside and out.'

‘There was an estrangement between Max Cully, Oliver's father, and his family when he married Clare. Did you know about that?'

Gwen nodded. ‘Through the grapevine and in particular Nellie Armitage. She said when she came to see me about the possibility of your coming here that Oliver has very recently gone to live with his father's brother and wife at the old Cully Mansion. She stressed that until now they've been virtual strangers and you'd like to be close by while he settles in – to be right on hand if he should need you urgently.' Gwen set down her coffee cup. ‘I'm afraid I'm putting that badly . . . as if implying something negative against the uncle and aunt.' She'd very nearly used the word sinister. It had to be the forbidding aspect of the Victorian house, too long abandoned, that suggested macabre possibilities. So foolish! The result of reading too many gothic novels of the sort satirized by Jane Austen in
Northanger Abbey
. Twyla sat silent, as if caught up in her own thoughts and Gwen continued positively. ‘Nellie explained how close you and Oliver have become since you started taking care of his grandfather. A bond I could see for myself in church. However kind Mr and Mrs Cully may be, it has to be a wrenching experience for Oliver being removed from everyone and everything he loves. Anguishing, I can only imagine, for Mr Andrews. Nellie could not speak highly enough of him and the entire family, including the son-in-law.'

‘Frank is one remarkable, rare man.' Twyla's eyes remained reflective. ‘Never a thought for himself when it became clear he'd have to go in a nursing home. His life since his wife died has been all about Oliver. Not an ounce of love spared from morning to night. Those two surely took my heart from the first day.' She stared into her empty cup before slowly putting it down. ‘I didn't marry until my mid-forties so no children of my own. My husband and I made a very happy life for ourselves until his death. Big families on both sides – plenty of nieces and nephews to help out and enjoy. All grown now. But how I feel about Oliver is different; he's more bone of my bone than any of them, much as I'm real fond of them all. I can't wrap the words around it . . .'

‘You've explained it beautifully,' said Gwen gently, ‘and if being on the spot here with Sonny and me can benefit you and Oliver, it will be a blessing that makes me extra happy. Evenings and nights are when I'll be glad of your help, but whatever the time I want you to feel free to go to him at a moment's notice.'

‘I'm hoping Mr and Mrs Cully will let me drive him to his school in Ferry Landing and fetch him back in the afternoons. There's only a few weeks left till the end of the school year. I'm going to call them; what I'm hoping is that they'll agree to me going over to talk to them about it.' Twyla added as if thinking a thought out loud, ‘Come fall they plan to take him back with them to New York.'

‘How is Oliver dealing with that prospect?' Gwen's heart ached for the boy.

‘It upset him real bad. But yesterday, when we went out to eat before going on to see Frank, I could tell he no longer felt he could open up to me completely, couldn't confide anything that's gotten him upset because of setting me worrying, and having to ask me not to tell his Grandpa. There's an old head on those young shoulders.' The tenderness was visible in Twyla's eyes and around her mouth.

‘Do they have to return to New York because their careers are there?'

‘Frank mentioned that Gerald Cully works from home as a day trader on the stock market, but his wife does a lot of volunteer work supporting the arts. If they could only stay on here while Frank is alive.'

‘Perhaps they'll decide to do that.'

‘I'm praying on it. It's more than good of you to listen to all this, Mrs Garwood – Gwen,' she corrected herself, smiling. ‘Now how about the arrangements for me starting working here? Would this evening be too soon?'

‘That would be perfect.'

‘I'll be going to see Frank later this morning and there's hopefully that visit to the Cullys. If they agree to me getting Oliver from school I could take him back to the house while I pack my case and take care of a few jobs so that everything's left straight. How'd it be if I got back here around five?'

‘I'll have a meal ready.' Gwen suddenly realized there had been something they hadn't discussed – the matter of Twyla's salary. Twyla responded with an amount that struck her as extremely modest, and refused to accept more when Gwen insisted.

‘What I'll be doing here doesn't require an RN.'

‘But it's so reassuring that you are one.'

‘I started out way back as an aid; that's where most of what used to be considered nursing is learned and that's most of what your son is going to need from me, same as Frank.'

‘Sonny has these raging verbal outbursts . . .' Gwen's voice trailed away. She had heard his bedroom door open. Footsteps making their way down the stairs, with a heavy, half-hearted tread.

‘Every patient has emotional needs that need to be met.' Twyla got to her feet and turned to face the man with the uncombed hair and morning stubble entering the book room. He was wearing dark trousers from what was obviously part of a suit, but still had on his pajama jacket with the button askew. ‘Good morning, Mr Norris. I've just been talking with your mother about me coming to help out here. She seems to think we'll all get on fine together. I'm sure hoping you'll come to feel the same.'

Sonny looked past her to Gwen, who had also risen from her chair. Jumbo had tensed, his eyes steadily aware, protective devotion apparent in every line of his velvety body. ‘What about Lilly?'

Lilly Hatter had been coming for years on Wednesdays to help with the housework. A very pleasant, though never chatty, hardworking woman. As his condition declined Sonny had increasingly ignored her, although mercifully without belligerence. ‘She'll still come; but, dear, it will be different with Twyla, she'll . . .'

‘Be like Mrs Broom?'

‘In a way,' Gwen felt a tiny surge of hope, ‘but she'll be spending her nights here, because she wants to live close to the house where the little boy she loves very much lives. The big red Victorian down from the common on Salt Marsh Road.'

‘The old Cully Mansion,' he said surprisingly while inching into the room, finally looking directly at Twyla. ‘Mrs Broom loved me very much. She used to say that I was her best pal.'

‘Mrs Broom,' explained Gwen, ‘was our housekeeper and dear friend in Boston. She was with us from shortly after Sonny was born until several years after he left for college and I moved to Maine. I did my best, but nothing would persuade her to transport so far north. But we continued to visit her often, didn't we, my dear?' Her optimism increased. Sonny's bemused gaze continued to linger on Twyla's face.

‘She had brown eyes like yours. Kind eyes.'

‘She sounds one fine woman; I hope you'll tell me more about her?'

He shifted restlessly. ‘I can't always remember everything. It's like someone locked in my head is trying to shut her out.' He turned back to Gwen. ‘Are the other two coming back?'

‘Which two, dear?'

‘You know! Don't pretend you don't!' His voice escalated. ‘The young woman who looks like Aunt Rowena and the man who took me back to his house. I liked them. I should be able to have people I like here. You've got that dog,' he pivoted to Twyla, ‘tell her it's not fair. She spends more time with it than it does with me.' Fortunately, in one of those verbal sidesteps of his, tugging irritably at his pajama jacket, he then said, ‘I can't find my clothes – that blue sweater or the gray one. I can't stand to have things moved – you know that, Mom. I shouldn't have to tell you over and over again.'

‘Would you like me to help you look, Mr Norris?' offered Twyla. ‘I'd enjoy seeing your room, if you'll show it to me. This is one good-sized house and I can see myself getting lost in it without someone putting me straight on the layout.'

Gwen held her breath. This presented an all-important moment.

‘If you like.' Sonny's response was one of indifference, but compared to hostility that was cause for profound relief. His connecting Twyla with his memories of Mrs Broom might have vanished temporarily or permanently, but it had to be hoped it had seeded a willingness to give her presence a try.

The two of them remained upstairs for about ten minutes. When they came back down Sonny was wearing the blue sweater that was the last Christmas present from his wife Beatrice. He might not remember that, while still knowing it meant something special. For once in the longest time his eyes had regained, if only for a moment, their former bright blue. Suddenly a memory emerged, as vividly as if her mind had just painted a picture in oils, of the boy he had been, seated on the kitchen table, contentedly swinging his legs as he chatted with Mrs Broom and herself. A rosy half-eaten apple in his hand. The sun coming in through the broad window above the sink created a draped, golden chiffon background, as artistically arranged as if twitched in place by an unseen hand. Such memories of the three of them together were almost always golden. This one faded, leaving Gwen torn between the urge to smile or weep. Oh, that smile of his! The one that had sadly so rarely emerged in the presence of his father.

Sensing that Twyla needed to leave to handle all that needed doing before her return in the late afternoon, she planted her feet firmly back in the present. Sonny had headed without a word into the kitchen, and Jumbo came out of the book room to join her as she said goodbye for the moment and opened the front door. She sensed that Twyla was satisfied with what transpired between her and Sonny, but she felt it important to refrain from asking about it. As much as possible she must stand aside and allow their relationship to progress at its own pace. As she headed into the kitchen to encourage him to eat a breakfast, she told herself firmly that she must not be overly hopeful; even so it was hard not to feel uplifted. Plain sailing it wouldn't be, certainly not at first, but she put her faith in the ability of the woman recommended by Nellie Armitage's spirit guides to cope. There was the added factor that Sonny had seen in her eyes a connection to Mrs Broom. He had remarked on their being the same color, but so many people have brown eyes. There must have been something internal and comfortingly familiar shining through that had seemed to reach him, as it had for herself. In outward appearance the two women could not otherwise have been less alike. Twyla tall and spare, Mrs Broom well-padded, full-bosomed as if born to wear a floral apron and her wealth of graying hair in an enormous bun at the nape of her neck.