The House on Sugar Plum Lane (9 page)

“I'm sorry,” Eddie said. “Having a family member in prison is tough on everyone.”

“It's just one of those things, something we've learned to live with. I was hoping Danny had pulled out of it, that he'd put it all behind him, but now I'm not so sure that he has.”

“Then maybe playing with the team would help.”

“It might make it worse. If he didn't mention anything to you, he might prefer to keep his ugly family secret to himself.”

“I could talk to him. Maybe take him to watch the kids practice.”

She wasn't sure how to voice her objections, her concerns. But maybe it would be best to level with him.

“Truthfully?” she said. “I'd rather see him run around with normal kids, those who have two parents in the home. I think it would be best if he was able to see examples of happy families.”

“Before you make a decision, maybe you and Danny ought to come out to Mulberry Park and watch the kids play. My brother runs a tight ship. I think you'll be surprised to see how good he is with those boys. And at how they look up to him.”

“I'll have to think about it.” She'd also have to find someone to sit with Ellie and the younger kids.

Hilda and Walter weren't due back from their cruise for another ten days, so they wouldn't be around.

When someone tugged on her shirt, she glanced down to see Sara standing at her side.

“When are we going to make the tortillas?”

“Right now, honey. I'm sorry.”

“Are you making them yourself?” Eddie asked.

Maria nodded. “There's nothing like warm, homemade tortillas.”

“You've got that right.” A smile lit his face, and she found it difficult to tear her gaze away from his.

But she'd promised to take the girls in the house. And she had to check on Ellie. There was no telling what the poor old woman might get into or where she might wander.

Sadly, Ellie Rucker wasn't the same dear neighbor that she'd once been.

 

Inside the Rucker house, in one of the spare bedrooms, Amy knelt beside the open closet door, where she'd found a small blue plastic storage container filled with paid bills, canceled checks, and tax returns. She'd only taken a cursory glance at them, assuming that Ellie's family would have to go through them and decide which to keep and which to shred.

Since the contents were already packed, she pulled out the entire container, got to her feet, and carried it to the area in the living room where she'd been stacking the other boxes she'd packed.

Then she returned to the closet, wondering how Ellie could have managed to fill such a small space to the brim with so many odds and ends. Someone had built shelves along the back wall, each of which was loaded with things the woman had accumulated over the years.

Amy's gaze lit on a large red carrying case adorned with hand-painted white roses. She unlatched the metal clips and opened it. Inside, she spotted a keyboard and realized it was a musical instrument of some kind.

An accordion? she wondered. She'd never seen one up close before.

Had her great-grandmother been a musician?

Apparently so.

Rather than set the instrument aside, she pulled it out of the case, unhooked the sides, and allowed it to expand. Then she slipped her arms into the straps. She didn't have a clue what to do next, but she'd had piano lessons as a child and knew her way around a keyboard. Before long, she'd gotten comfortable with the feel, with the sound, and was playing a melody by heart.

She wasn't sure how long she sat there, fiddling with the instrument and trying her hand at a simple tune. She wasn't a talented pianist as her mother had been, but she did okay. She'd never stopped to think that she and her mom might have inherited their musical skill from the family they'd never known.

After twenty minutes or so, Amy closed up the accordion and returned it to its case. Then she took it to the living room and left it with the growing stack of items that had belonged to Ellie.

When she reentered the upstairs bedroom, which she'd begun to think of as the yellow room because of the sunny color of the walls and the old-style bedspread with a daffodil print, she spotted an interesting painting on the wall. It was a watercolor of children playing at a park on a summer day.

She hadn't paid much attention to any of the framed artwork that decorated the house, but this particular painting called to her, and she drew close enough to note that it was an original and not a print. It was also very good. She looked at the bottom corner for the name of the artist. It was painted by E. Rucker.

Ellie had been quite a woman, Amy realized, regretting that they'd never met.

But standing around bemoaning the fact wasn't doing her any good, so she returned to the closet, removed the items off the shelves, and carefully placed them in the boxes she'd brought. When she ran across a book, a journal of some kind, she stopped to open the blue floral cover and scan the pages.

Unable to stifle her curiosity, Amy carried the journal to the bed, took a seat on the edge of the mattress, and began reading.

Amy read several more entries, getting a feel for the vivacious young woman who was a lot like some of her friends had been right after high school graduation.

Her
friends?

What about
herself?

At one time, Amy had been so sure about her feelings for Brandon, so confident that their marriage would last forever, that she hadn't been able to imagine them being anything other than happy.

Their kisses had been magical, too. But whatever they'd shared had been fleeting.

As she continued to read, she learned that Harold, along with a couple of his buddies, had joined the Army shortly after December 7, 1941. Ellie had been both proud of his courage and scared to death that something would happen to him.

They'd married on the tenth of December, and they'd spent their honeymoon in a cabin on Palomar Mountain. One of Harold's letters had said as much.

Needless to say, Ellie didn't go into any detail, other than to say she was blissfully happy to be Harold's wife and that she was painfully sad to know he would be shipping out soon.

As Amy continued to read, Ellie became so real to her that she couldn't help thinking that if they'd been the same age and if their paths had somehow been able to cross, they might have become good friends.

Had Harold ever learned that Ellie was pregnant?

The letters Amy read yesterday suggested that he'd thought about the possibility yet didn't know for sure. Had Ellie's news reached him before he died?

Amy read on, but long before the pages in the journal were filled, Ellie's entries came to an abrupt stop.

Tears welled in Amy's eyes and emotion clogged her throat. Harold and Ellie's relationship was the kind a couple dreamed of having, but it had ended before it had a chance to grow. And at eighteen, Ellie had been left a widow.

Amy held the journal to her chest and grieved for the young mother who would have to bear her child alone. Who'd held her hand when she'd given birth?

Probably her mother, Amy thought. When she'd been in labor with Callie, her mom had been a godsend. But it hadn't been her mother she'd wanted; it had been Brandon.

As the day had worn on, and as each contraction came on the heels of the last, she'd begun to wonder if he would even show up at the hospital. Her mom had taken her there, and Brandon was supposed to meet her as soon as he'd gotten out of court.

He'd been late, of course—as usual.

But at least she hadn't been completely alone. She supposed she should take comfort in that, but her disappointment had been palpable.

She took one last look at the journal, at the empty pages. According to the notes her mother had made during her search to find her birth family, Barbara Rucker had been born on September 19, 1942.

Amy hoped the baby girl had grown up to bring her mother joy, and that the two had been close.

It was nearly noon when Barbara drove her white Jaguar into Fairbrook and turned down Main, one of the three tree-lined streets that bordered Mulberry Park. She scanned along the curb, looking for a parking space, only to find each of them taken.

She heaved a heavy sigh and drove around the block one more time, waiting for something to open up. She hadn't expected it to be this busy, but the lunch crowd was probably out in full force, getting a bite to eat at one of several trendy cafés that provided outdoor dining or shopping at one of the specialty stores that drew people from miles around.

Of all the days for her to try and squeeze in a visit to her mom, she couldn't believe she'd chosen this one. She and her husband had an important dinner party that evening with one of his political supporters, and she needed to stop at her favorite dress shop in Del Mar to pick up the new St. John Knit she was having altered. She also had a hair appointment later this afternoon.

She glanced at her wristwatch, the Rolex Joseph had given her last Christmas. She didn't have time for any of this, but due to the setback Joey had suffered last Wednesday, it had been two weeks since she'd last checked on her mother. She probably should feel guilty about neglecting her daughterly duty, but she'd called Maria periodically to ask about her, to ask whether she needed anything. At least her mom wasn't locked away in some cold, sterile convalescent hospital. Instead, she was in a private home and receiving quality care.

Besides, her mother rarely recognized anyone anymore.

As a white minivan backed out into the street, Barbara hit her brakes and uttered, “Thank goodness.” Then she snagged the vacated space in front of Specks Appeal, a shop that sold designer eyeglasses.

She got out of the car, locked the door, and walked past several storefronts until she reached Petals and Stems, with its red-and-white striped awning and the colorful window display of gerbera daisies and hydrangea.

A middle-age man dressed in blue coveralls was sweeping the sidewalk in front of the building with a push broom. He glanced up when she approached, stopped working long enough for her to reach the door, and smiled, revealing a gap where one of his teeth used to be.

“Good morning,” she said, making eye contact yet avoiding a full-on gaze.

“It certainly is.”

A bell attached to a chain on the door tinkled as she entered the shop, with its colorful displays of plants and flowers and cool, fresh floral scents. She didn't have time to dawdle, so she made her way to the refrigerator display case, opened the glass door, and made a quick and appropriate decision: a bud vase filled with three pink roses and a couple of sprigs of baby's breath.

“Hello there.” A woman with salt-and-pepper-colored hair made her way to the counter, smiling and wiping her hands upon a green full-length apron. “Can I help you?”

“Yes, thank you.” Barbara carried the vase to the counter. “I'd like to purchase this.”

As the woman rang up the sale, Barbara lifted her Louis Vuitton purse, set it on the countertop next to the vase, and searched for the matching wallet that held her cash and credit cards.

The man who'd been sweeping out front returned to the shop. His lips parted as if he intended to say something to the woman at the cash register, then he clamped his mouth shut.

“That'll be twenty-one dollars and fifty-three cents,” the woman said.

As Barbara pulled out two twenties from her wallet, the man raked his fingers through his thinning gray hair.

“Chuck,” the woman at the register said, “I'll be with you in just a minute.”

While waiting for her change, Barbara lifted the bud vase to her nose and sniffed the flowers that lacked the fragrance she was used to.

“They're pretty,” the woman said, “aren't they?”

“Yes, although I'm spoiled. My mother used to have a green thumb, and her roses consistently won blue ribbons at the Del Mar Fair. She raised the most beautiful and lush rosebushes in the county, if not the state. But she got arthritis in her back and had to give up gardening a few years ago.”

The man—Chuck—took a couple of steps toward Barbara. “Excuse me, ma'am.”

Barbara drew her purse closer to her chest as she slowly turned to him. “Yes?”

“Are you Ellie Rucker's daughter?”

“Do you know my mother?”

“I met her at the soup kitchen that's run by the church across the street. She used to come in regularly, especially at the end of the month, when she was trying to stretch her Social Security check.”

Barbara's cheeks warmed, and her jaw ground shut. Her mother hadn't said anything about struggling to make ends meet. If she had, Barbara certainly would have stepped in to help. In fact, whenever she'd asked her mom how she was doing, she'd been told that everything was fine, that the Lord provided for all her needs.

Hating to have either the man or the florist think she'd been remiss, that she'd somehow failed her elderly mother, Barbara said, “She never mentioned anything about going to the soup kitchen. If she
had
…”

“Ellie wasn't one to complain. But then I don't have to tell you that.” The man chuckled. “She was your mom. You know her better than any of us.”

Barbara forced a smile. In truth, their mother/daughter relationship hadn't been good in ages, and while Barbara wasn't happy that they'd never buried the hatchet over the disagreement they'd had more than forty years ago—had it been
that
long?—she'd been too proud to admit it, too angry to completely forgive her.

“When you see Ellie,” the man added, “give her my best. Tell her that Chuck Masterson said hello, and that he's praying for her.”

“I'll do that.”

Chuck turned to the woman behind the counter. “Is there anything else you'd like me to do for you while I'm here, Suzette?”

“Actually, the toilet in the back is leaking. I think it needs a new valve or something. Are you any good at plumbing?”

“I'll see what I can do,” he said before heading to the back of the store.

When he was out of sight, and after she counted out Barbara's change, Suzette leaned forward and whispered, “Chuck's a really nice guy. You wouldn't know it, but just three or four years ago he used to be homeless. He was also an alcoholic with a bad liver, from what I heard. But thanks to the folks at the soup kitchen, he turned his life around. Now he lives in a small trailer on the church grounds, and a lot of the merchants in the area try to keep him busy with odd jobs.”

Barbara merely nodded, still dealing with the uneasy fact that her mother had been frequenting the soup kitchen rather than asking her for help.

 

While Chuck lifted the ceramic lid to the toilet tank and checked the valves and fittings for a leak, he overheard Suzette talking about him, about the life he used to live, about the problem he'd once had.

He probably ought to be embarrassed by the man he once was, but he was so happy with the man he'd become that it no longer mattered.

As he reached into the water-filled tank and tightened a loose valve, he thought back twenty years to the day it had all started.

Chuck and his wife had left their young son with a sitter, then driven to the mountains to go skiing with friends. They'd had a blast, then stayed for a late dinner and had a couple of drinks. Their friends decided to spend the night and encouraged them to do the same, but Chuck had to work the next day.

“Come on, baby,” Marianne had said. “Let's just get a motel room and head home early in the morning. The sitter won't mind. I'll just give her a call.”

“I'm fine,” he'd insisted. “I want to get home tonight.”

But he
hadn't
been all right. He might not have been legally drunk, but he'd dozed off behind the wheel, and the car had run off the road and slammed into a tree.

Marianne had suffered internal injuries and needed surgery upon arrival at the hospital, while Chuck ended up with a concussion, a nasty cut on his head, and multiple fractures in both legs.

The pain had been excruciating, but the guilt had been worse. Still, he might have gotten through it all just fine had the surgeons not opened up Marianne, found inoperable cancer, and given her just weeks to live.

Her last days on earth had been a nightmare he'd tried his best to forget.

After she died, the doctor quit prescribing the heavy-duty narcotics, claiming Chuck was becoming dependent. So he'd turned to alcohol to numb his pain and still the haunting memories of Marianne's heartbreaking deathbed confession.

The booze had worked—at least, that's what he'd told himself over the years. It's what he'd told his son, too, when Brandon had cried and accused him of drinking too much, when he'd told him that he needed to get a job and go to work each day like other dads.

But the boy hadn't bought Chuck's lame excuses, and when he was seventeen, he graduated from high school, snagged a scholarship to some big, impressive university—Chuck couldn't even remember which one.

How was that for being a Loser Dad?

Either way, he hadn't seen his son since, which was too bad. He'd give anything to talk to Brandon now, to apologize and try to make amends, but he wasn't sure how to find him, let alone approach him. Maybe he'd still be an embarrassment.

Chuck hadn't had a drink in nearly a year, and he had a place of his own now—no more living on the streets. But even though he'd turned his life around and was truly content for the first time he could remember, he supposed he wasn't someone Brandon could be proud of.

Most of the people who were his friends these days wouldn't have wanted to have anything to do with the old Chuck. But he wasn't the same guy he once was, and they knew it.

He'd gotten the ultimate second chance. And just as Suzette had said, he'd had those folks down at the soup kitchen to thank for it all. They'd given him more than a handout. They'd given him friendship, too. And they'd shared their faith.

It was just as if some giant heavenly lightbulb had come on, and he'd never been the same again.

Chuck just wished he could have met Pastor Craig and the folks who ran the soup kitchen years ago so he wouldn't have had to beat himself up for so long.

There was one guy in particular who'd had the most impact on him, a homeless man named Jesse. One day, while they were eating meat loaf and baked potatoes, the two sat together. Jesse had zeroed in on Chuck, peeling away the dirt and the phony smiles. He'd known things that Chuck had never shared with anyone before, things that had hurt too bad to deal with sober. Not the actual details, but he'd pegged all the feelings, all the internal struggles that had caused Chuck to turn to the bottle in the first place.

It was almost as if the guy had been psychic, although he hadn't come out and revealed anything specific—past, present, or future. He just sort of knew the root of the problem.

After that, Pastor Craig had gotten a hold of Chuck, telling him about how much God loved him, how Jesus had died for him. And now Chuck was a new creation, a new man.

Too bad he hadn't come to grips with all of that years ago. Maybe then Brandon wouldn't have bailed out on him.

“Call the boy,” Jesse had said, encouraging Chuck to reach out first. “He's in the phone book.”

“Maybe someday,” he'd replied, afraid to admit that he hadn't been brave enough to make that call. To risk facing his son and learning that his best foot forward wasn't anywhere good enough.

“Your life is nearly over,” Jesse had said. “And what do you have to show for it?”

He didn't have squat, if you counted earthly possessions. But for the first time in forever, he had his self-respect and the assurance that everything was going to be okay—one way or another.

The day before Jesse left Fairbrook, he'd brought up the subject again. “You're about to check out of this world, Chuck. You don't have much time left for reunions.”

At first, Chuck had thought the homeless man was just blowing smoke. After all, they were all on a wacky roller-coaster ride through life. But Chuck had been having a pain in his gut that wouldn't go away, and he'd stopped by the free clinic a few weeks back.

“I figure it's my liver,” he'd told the doctor. “I haven't taken very good care of myself.”

“Your liver isn't the problem,” the doctor had said. “I'm afraid you have cancer.”

Several tests later, Chuck had been given the news. He had six months—
tops.

A lot of guys might have been shook up. But Chuck knew where he was going. And he'd been redeemed. He was more certain of that than the notion that the sun would rise tomorrow morning.

Well, that it would come up for those who were still riding the roller coaster.

It was weird, Chuck thought, as he replaced the toilet tank lid and washed his hands in the sink. He'd kind of like to have an impact on lives while he was still here, just like Jesse had done.

But his roller-coaster car was slowing to a halt, and he wasn't sure how much time he had left to ride.

 

After turning down Sugar Plum Lane, Barbara pulled behind a white pickup filled with landscaping tools and parked in front of the old house. She shut off her engine, but didn't get out of the car right away. Instead, she checked out the yard—the lawn and the shrubbery—noting that the gardeners were making some headway, but they had a long way to go before the grounds looked the way they should, the way she remembered.

A young Hispanic man—one of the gardeners, she assumed—was talking to a petite blonde on the porch of the old house. The woman must be the tenant, but Barbara didn't see any reason to introduce herself. She'd rather their contact be through the property management company.

So she reached for the bud vase she'd placed in the cup holder so it wouldn't tip over on the drive to Sugar Plum Lane, climbed from the car, and strode along the walkway to Maria's door with the pink roses in hand. She hoped they would give her mother a lift and provide some color for her bedroom.