The Secret's in the Sauce (30 page)

“Promise me?” The early morning sunlight rested lightly on his face.

“I promise.”

Good news came on the Thursday before Tim and Samantha’s “move out” deadline.

“We’ve found a house,” they said simultaneously around the dinner table.

My hands flew over my mouth. “You did!” I said behind them. “You found a house?”

Could my glee have been any more exposed?

“We did. And,” Tim said with a twinkle in his eye, “it’s just around the block from here.”

“Around the block?” Samuel asked.

“We’ll be over all the time,” Kaci exclaimed.

“All the time?” I asked.

Tim chuckled. “Don’t worry, Mom. We’ll give you and Dad your space for a little while, at least.”

“Who around the block is selling a house?” Samuel asked. Leave it to my husband to stay practical.

“The Whitlocks,” Tim answered.

“James and Betsy?” Samuel asked. “I wasn’t aware they’d put their house on the market.”

“Grandpa, you can’t know everything,” our grandson Brent chimed in.

Samuel smiled at him. “As president of the bank, my boy, I typically can.” He finished with a wink, and Brent snickered in the way boys do when amused by their grandfathers.

“Where are the Whitlocks moving to?” I asked.

Samantha reached for the Louisiana red beans and rice she’d prepared earlier and that I’d served in the vegetable bowl that is a part of my great-grandmother’s dish pattern before spooning a bit more onto her plate. “Mrs. Whitlock’s parents live in Denver and they’re moving up there to help take care of them. Apparently, her father hasn’t been doing well lately, and Mrs. Whitlock—being the good daughter—feels they should move into her childhood home and help out.”

I felt a quick and sudden pang of guilt over my own mother. If I were such a good daughter, I wondered, would I move Mom in with us when Tim and Samantha moved out?

“Wonder what Peter thinks of that?” Samuel mused.

Michelle, who’d remained silent (even for her) during our conversation, nearly choked on the water she was sipping.

While Samuel slapped her between her shoulder blades, Tim reached for the beans and rice his wife was handing to him as he answered, “Actually, he’s pretty cool with it. His job allows him to work out of his home—as you know—so he’s just fine with picking up and moving.”

“Peter and Connie never had any children of their own,” I blurted out. “Makes it easier, I suppose.”

Life came to a quiet halt. When I realized what I’d said—and my family’s stunned reaction to it—I blushed and said, “Not that I would trade any of you for the easy load, of course.”

Eventually Samantha said, “Of course not. As a mother myself, I know exactly what you’re saying.”

I smiled at her in appreciation, and the meal continued with a flurry of information about the new home, move-in dates (in a month, which was not soon enough, but I could now at least see light at the end of the tunnel), and talk of what furnishings would be kept from their home in Baton Rouge versus time for shopping
amidst Michelle’s wedding plans.

For a while, all seemed right with the world.

My breaking point came on Saturday.

Even now, to fully understand what happened, I have to take myself back to Thursday evening, after dinner and baths, when Kaci begged and pleaded for spend-the-night company on Friday evening. Jamie, she promised, was a great little friend, a good little girl, even a Christian good little girl, who was her best friend in the whole wide world and please, please, please MeMa, would you let her come here and spend the night? With everything else going on in our lives, I should have been smart enough to say no, but my granddaughter’s angelic face, freshly scrubbed and framed by long
dark hair, stole my heart and my good sense right along with it.

While Friday evening was uneventful, Saturday morning began with a crash. Literally.

When Samuel and I heard what sounded like glass shattering on porcelain tile, we bolted upright and looked at each other, saying, “What was that?” at the same time. We bounded out of bed, and Samuel, sleepy confusion etched on his face, opened our bedroom door. I stepped into the still-dark hallway first, but when his hand locked around my wrist with a slight tug, I allowed him to pass me. After all—and as any wife knows—if there is a burglar-slash-axe-murderer in the house, the husband should be the one to “go” first.

Even in the predawn, I noticed that Kaci’s bedroom door was ajar, but the significance of that didn’t register. Samuel slipped down the top floor stairs, holding on to the railing and with me close behind. When he reached the ground floor landing (our home is a split-plan) at the foyer, he peered around the doorway as though he were Lenny Briscoe from
Law and Order.
Then he turned back to me and whispered, “Kitchen light is on. Did you leave it on?”

“No,” I whispered back.

When Samuel turned, he jerked suddenly and took a step backward, stepping on my foot in the process. I, directly behind him, fell against the bottom stairs. When I was able to regain my composure, I saw Tim and Samantha standing behind Samuel. They were dressed in adorable matching pajamas—which was nearly amusing at this early hour. Amid a flurry of “Are you okay?” and “What was that noise?” we were finally able to determine that whatever the noise was, it came from the kitchen, and that Samuel and Tim—who I now noticed was armed with one of Brent’s baseball bats—were required to go check it out while Samantha and I held back in case someone needed to call the sheriff’s office.

Samuel moved from the foyer to the large dining room, which segues into the kitchen, with Tim on his heels, while Samantha and I held back in the foyer. When the shadowed backs of our husbands were no longer visible, I held my breath until I heard “What in the world?” followed by “Honey, are you okay?”

It was then Samantha and I joined Samuel and Tim—and Jamie— in the kitchen, where my great-grandmother’s vegetable bowl lay shattered on the kitchen floor. “Oh no!” I exclaimed, bending down to pick up the fragmented pieces. “Oh no . . . oh no . . . oh no . . .”

“I’m so sorry,” Jamie said. I looked up at the child dressed in lavender Bratz pajamas. Her long blonde hair was tussled about her head and her sleepy blue eyes filled with tears.

“Young lady,” I said in my best teacher voice. “What are you doing down here this time of night, and what are you doing with my great-grandmother’s vegetable bowl?”

The tears began to flow down her cheeks as she explained between hiccups that she’d seen the bowl in the kitchen (I’d not yet put it back in the china cabinet where I should have put it, shame on me) and thought it was very pretty. She woke up and, unable to go back to sleep, decided to come downstairs to explore a bit because “Your home is just so pretty, Mrs. Prattle” and when she turned the bowl upside down to read the underside of it, it slipped and fell.

“I don’t understand. Why would you turn it upside down?” I asked, still squatting but no longer picking up pieces.

“I dunno. That’s what my mom does whenever she’s looking at china, so that’s what I did.” The waterworks came fast and furious at this point.

“Well, what’s done is done,” Samuel said from above us.

“Sweetheart, let’s get your face washed and make sure there are no cuts on you, and then I think you should go back to bed.” Samantha reached for Jamie, and Jamie eagerly—too eagerly—went with her while Tim said, “Here, Mom. Let me get a broom and clean this up.” He turned and stepped carefully toward the broom closet.

“Unfortunately, this can’t be salvaged,” Samuel said, “but there’s no point in making the child feel worse than she probably does
already, Liz.”

I looked up at my husband. “You know how much I love this china,” I said. “Oh, why did I even think to bring it out the other
night? Why didn’t I put it up after I’d washed it?”

His hand reached for mine. I set the broken pieces back on the floor and took his hand. “Let’s go to bed, and Tim will clean this up right away,” Samuel said.

“I’ve got it, Mom,” Tim said, broom and dustpan in hand.

Samuel and I returned to our room, but I didn’t go back to sleep. When the seven finally rolled into place on my digital bedside clock, I got up, took a long shower while my coffee brewed, and then prepared myself for the rest of the day.

I could not have possibly prepared myself for the rest of the day. By noon Jamie had managed to take everything out of Kaci’s closet under the pretense of “organizing it” and had convinced Kaci to allow her to “style her hair.”

This included cutting Kaci’s hair. With Samantha now in an uproar over her daughter’s new “do,” and with my great-grandmother’s china bowl lying in shards at the bottom of the kitchen garbage can, I decided to leave the house for a visit with Mom.

I no sooner got into the assisted living facility than I was, once again, accosted by Luke Nelson. “Mrs. Prattle, have you managed to find another location for your mother?” he asked without even
saying hello.

I sighed. “Not yet. My brother’s wife had another heart attack and I—”

“I’m so sorry to hear that. Is she okay?”

“She’s much better, thank you. But he’s been a bit preoccupied this week, you understand, and I—”

“Of course I understand, Mrs. Prattle, but I’d feel much better if I knew your mother had another facility lined up to take her when her Alzheimer’s becomes too much for her to stay here. I would hate to have an unfortunate incident here at the Good Shepherd—”

“An unfortunate incident?”

“Yes. The Good Shepherd in Nashville—one of our Southern locations—recently had a resident who caught her kitchen on fire when she forgot she was making soup. Fortunately everyone got out okay, but as you can imagine there was extensive fire and smoke
damage and—”

“I get your point, Luke. I promise you that I will take care of this on Monday. In fact, I’ll take a half day from work and make this
my sole priority. Would that satisfy you?”

Luke’s face pinked. “I don’t mean to be unfeeling.”

I took in a deep breath and exhaled slowly. “Of course you don’t,” I finally said. “I’m going to go up and see my mother now.”

“Of course,” he said, stepping aside.

Mom was not having a good day. She was feisty and forgetful, and after an hour or so of helping her bathe and dress, and then settling her down in front of the television, I bent down to kiss her forehead and said, “I’ll see you later, Mom.” I’d spent as much time with her as I could reasonably deal with on a day that had begun entirely too early.

She nodded in response, totally fixated with the screen of the television. I glanced its way; Steel Magnolias was on, which had always been one of Mom’s favorites. I patted her shoulder and said “I love you” about the same time as Olivia Dukakis says to Shirley MacLaine, “Ouiser, you know I love ya more than my luggage . . .”

Mom chuckled at the screen, and I slipped out of the apartment unnoticed. As I waited for the elevator doors to open, I pressed my back against the wall opposite the hallways, dipped my chin toward my chest, and began to weep. The elevator door opened and closed without my having entered it.

By the time I made it to my car I had sobered enough from my crying spell to drive without impaired vision. But my hands were unsteady, and I was forced to clutch the steering wheel with both hands. I was halfway home when my cell phone chimed, telling me I had a text message. I had reached a traffic light holding its own at red, and I slowed my car to a stop, then checked the message on the oversized face of my new Motorola Q.

It was from Michelle.

“Mom,” it read. “LLL sez my gown may or may not be available in my size!! Hlp!!”

The light turned green, and as the cars in front of mine began to roll forward, I pulled over to the shoulder of the road, set my hazard lights, and sent Michelle a responding text.

“Don’t worry, sweethrt. God made alt. shops. :o) We have 3 mths 2 spare! LLL just trying 2 feel important.”

I reprimanded myself for the last sentence but sent the text anyway. Then I dialed Lisa Leann’s home number.

“This is Lisa Leann,” she sang.

“Lisa Leann, this is Lizzie.”

“Goodness, what timing you have, Lizzie. I just got off the phone with Michelle. Do you know I just love those TTY operators! I feel like I’m a part of some spy show, sending out secret code, ending all my messages with ‘go ahead.’”

“Lisa Leann, can you please tell me why you insisted on telling Michelle that her dress might not be available in her size? What possible reason might you have for this? I mean, we’re what? Three months out? Do you not think for one single second that a good alterations shop might be able to handle this? Don’t you have connections, for heaven’s sake?”

“Why, Lizzie, you sound distraught.”

“I
am
distraught, Lisa Leann. I have a lot going on in my life right now, and I certainly do not need my daughter, three short months from her wedding, in any sort of turmoil. She should be enjoying this time, not fretting through it.”

“Now, Lizzie, if you will just calm down I will tell you that I always keep my brides informed of all the details. And I most assuredly told Michelle that we’d have plenty of time to find a seamstress. What kind of wedding coordinator do you think I am?”

I sighed so deeply, I’m surprised the car didn’t blow off the side of the road. “Lisa Leann,” I said after several deep breaths. “You are a fine coordinator. My nerves are just a little raw right now, and I should have calmed down before I called. My apologies.”

“Apology accepted, of course.”

“I’ll let you go,” I said. “I’m sure you have plenty to do without dealing with a crazy woman’s hysteria.”

I ended the call without a proper good-bye, then gauged traffic and slipped between two cars and continued toward home. But when I reached the next traffic light, I shifted into the left turn lane and turned my car toward Silverthorne.

On my way I called Samuel and gave him a bald-faced lie. “Hey, honey. I just got off the phone with Lisa Leann”—which was true—“and she insisted that I head over to one of the outlets in Silverthorne where some fabulous mother-of-the-bride sale is going on”—which was not true—“so, if you don’t mind I’m just going to run over there and see what’s what. By the way, how’s the fort holding up? Is our home still a war zone?”