Waking Up in Dixie (22 page)

As much as she hated to admit it, she didn’t want him to, no matter how unrespectable that was. “I miss you,” she confessed. “Miss our talks.”

“I miss you, too,” he said, his voice catching.

She exhaled heavily. “I’ll call you when we find out anything.”

“Okay.”

She hung up, flashing on the feel of his arms around her and the heat in his eyes when he looked at her. Her insides did a flip.

Then she thought of Howe, holding her close as they both grieved their runaway daughter, and felt the old “bad girl” guilt she’d known as a child when her father had beaten her older brothers, yet never laid a hand on her.

“Hey,” Howe said from behind her, sending Elizabeth half out of her skin. “I was looking for you. Dr. Clare said we could come in this afternoon to go over the test results.”

“Good,” she said, pocketing her cell phone, heart pounding. “I’ll get my things.”

Howe waggled his brows. “We can have lunch at the Varsity!”

“You and the Varsity,” she said, grateful he hadn’t noticed her reaction.

Dr. Clare showed them the MRIs and confirmed that nothing new was abnormal. Everything looked fine. Elizabeth was surprised by how elated she was to hear that Howe was all right. But her relief was tempered by growing dread about their missing daughter.

When the sixth day came and Patti still hadn’t gotten in touch, Elizabeth broke down and called the police to report both their daughter and her car as missing.

True to Howe’s prediction, the cops took the report, but didn’t seem concerned, especially after Elizabeth explained that they’d had a fight over the car.

Less than fifteen minutes after she got off the phone, Augusta called and royally chewed her out for “parading their family differences before the police, of all people, and trying to make a criminal out of her own flesh and blood.”

Then she demanded to speak to Howe and railed on him, swearing on his father’s grave that she’d never forgive them if anything happened to her granddaughter. After that, she gave them the silent treatment—a blessing, as far as Elizabeth was concerned.

As the days went on, even Howe’s optimism flagged. He even begged off Rotary, saying he didn’t feel well—his first successful white lie since the stroke.

Elizabeth didn’t know whether to consider that a good sign or a bad one.

Worried and guilt-ridden, he retreated into himself and his study, reminding Elizabeth all too much of the way things had been before his illness.

Every time the phone rang, Elizabeth’s heart leapt, hoping it would be their daughter. More than a week had passed without word when she answered yet another ring. “Hello?”

“May I please speak with my son?” Augusta’s frosty voice asked.

Disappointed, Elizabeth went to his closed study door and tapped it lightly. “Phone, Howe. It’s your mother.”

“Thanks,” came back through the door. She heard him pick up the extension. “Hello?”

She hadn’t intended to eavesdrop, but before she hit the kill button, she heard Augusta say the one thing that kept her from hanging up.

“I have word of Patricia,” Howe’s mother told him.

“Thank God. Is she okay?” he said. “Where is she?”

“In jail, thanks to you, at Destin,” Augusta snapped. “For stealing her own car. She called, asking me to bail her out. I’ve already engaged a lawyer there to do so, but if you pursue this ridiculous stolen-car business, I shall cut you off without a penny, Howell, and I mean it!”

“Of course we won’t charge her,” he said, ignoring the useless threat. “We just want her home.”

“Thanks to you,” his mother shot back, “she doesn’t want to come home.”

Elizabeth winced for Howe.

“Well, we want her here,” he said, his tone firm. “She needs to learn that running away doesn’t solve anything. Tell the lawyer not to bail her out. I’ll take the first flight to Destin.”

“Let me go, instead,” Augusta said. “She’s furious with you, and I don’t blame her. She can stay at my house till both of you come to your senses.”

Elizabeth gripped the phone and bit back,
No, no, no!

“Mama,” Howe said, “I really appreciate your offer, and I know you mean well, but I need to be the one to get her. And I need to drive her and the car back. It’ll give me a chance to talk some sense into her.”

After a bristling pause, Augusta said quietly, “Howell, though I suppose I can understand your recent efforts to provide more discipline in Patricia’s life, I must ask if you’ve considered the fact that nineteen years of indulgence can’t be undone in a matter of weeks, or even months.”

“Yes, Mother,” he answered. “I’m all too aware of that. I can’t
undo what happened, but she and I have to work this out between us. I wouldn’t dream of putting you in the middle of this mess.” That was one way of putting it. “I appreciate your concern, but helping her avoid this isn’t helping. She needs to learn that there are consequences to her actions.”

“Weren’t you listening?” his mother scolded. “Regardless of your own change of mind and manners, Patricia is the same girl we both loved before your stroke.” She left Elizabeth out of the equation, of course. “You may have changed overnight, but it’s completely unreasonable to expect her to do so.”

Ouch. Went for the jugular with that one.

“Let us handle this, Mama,” Howe insisted. “Elizabeth and I are her parents, and we want what’s best for her. You’ll just have to trust us in this.”

Yay, Howe, for including her.

He went on with, “And I don’t want you bothering Elizabeth about any of this, either. In the future, if you have any criticism of me or my family, call me about it. Elizabeth has never done anything to justify the way you treat her, and I want it to stop, Mother. I mean it. I will not have you criticizing her anymore, tacitly or otherwise. If you do, I’ll . . .”

Hardly believing her ears, Elizabeth held her breath, waiting for the rest.

“I’ll tell everybody at Rotary that you wear a wig.”

“You would not,” Augusta breathed, aghast.

“Oh, yes I would. I even know where you buy them,” Howe said, to Elizabeth’s total surprise.

She’d wondered why her mother-in-law drove an hour every
week, each way, to have her hair done in Atlanta, when it never looked that good.

“And we won’t even discuss the Depends,” Howe threatened further.

“Now you’re sounding like your old self,” Augusta accused.

Howe didn’t take the bait. “Whatever,” he said calmly. “But ease up on Elizabeth. And leave Patricia to me. I mean it. Call off the lawyer.”

“If you insist,” she snapped. “You sound just like your father! Good-bye.” She hung up.

“How was that?” Howe said over the dead air that followed.

“You knew I was listening?” Elizabeth exclaimed.

“I didn’t hear you click off, and I didn’t mind,” he confessed. “It was thirty years late in coming, but I’m glad you heard.”

“So am I.”

“Good.” She could almost hear him smile. “Can I take you out to lunch,” he asked, “on the way to the airport? Say, the Varsity?”

“You and your Varsity.”

Two hours and three chili dogs later, Elizabeth dropped him off at the Atlanta airport and said a prayer for traveling mercies. And a change of heart in their daughter—which would take a Red Sea miracle.

Howe and Patti arrived home late the next day. After a sullen hello and brief hug—clearly under duress—Patricia flew up to her room and slammed the door.

“That went well,” Howe said dryly, “don’t you think?” He made straight for the Advil in the cabinet over the dishwasher, and this time, Elizabeth didn’t blame him.

He inhaled deeply. “Wow. Fried chicken.”

“Homemade,” she said, following him into the kitchen. “It helped to pass the time while y’all were on the road.” She’d fixed Patricia’s favorite supper: fried chicken, butter peas, rice and gravy, broccoli and hollandaise, deviled eggs, and sliced tomatoes from the garden. Elizabeth had cooked all day, glad for the distraction.

The way things had been going, Elizabeth had feared a policeman would turn up at the door to tell her they’d been in an accident. She took a tall glass from the cabinet. “So, how’d it go with Patti?” she asked above the raucous jangle of ice from the
dispenser in the refrigerator door, followed by the mechanical whoosh of filtered water. She handed the glass to Howe.

“Could have been worse,” he told her. “She could have jumped from the speeding car on the Interstate.”

“That bad, huh?” She handed him the glass.

His brows rose. “I kept telling myself to stay calm, that she was just testing me.” He managed a wan smile. “You’d be proud of me. I didn’t pull over once, and I hardly cussed at all. Only cried three times.”

“That’s an improvement,” she acknowledged. “Especially under the circumstances.”

He downed the Advil, then gulped half the water. “Well, at least she got it all out into the open. Said she wants to move out.” He gulped the rest like a man who’d been lost in the desert. “Whew. Thirsty. Got any tea?”

Like all his other appetites since he’d woken up, his thirst consumed him in the moment, to the exclusion of everything else.

Elizabeth refilled the tumbler from the fresh-brewed pitcher of tea lightly sweetened with real sugar, just the way Patricia and Howe liked it, then prodded him back to the matter at hand with, “So what did you tell her?”

He drained half the glass. “I told her she wasn’t a prisoner, but she’d have to do it without the car or any help from us. So she said she’d move in with Mama. When I said that wasn’t going to happen, she called Mama.”

“Who told her she could move in, I’m sure,” Elizabeth said.

“No.” He sank to a stool. “God bless her and her wig, Mama said she wasn’t going to get in the middle.”

Miracle of miracles. Never underestimate the power of blackmail, especially when it involved an old woman’s vanity. “And?”

“And Patti went ballistic for about thirty miles, accusing us of turning her grandmother against her, then cried for another twenty over how cruel and heartless we were.” He looked at Elizabeth with fresh assessment. “Is that how she’s been with you all these years?”

“Only since she could talk,” she replied evenly. “And only when you weren’t around, of course.” She got out the heirloom silverware she’d used for everyday since they’d moved in, a small act of defiance on her part.

Howe shook his head. “Whew. I had no idea.” He got that tortured guilt look. “I should have known. Should have defended you. I’m amazed you can even speak to me.”

She pulled three linen napkins from the drawer. “I loved you,” she said, her use of the past tense sending a brief flicker of affront across his features.

“God, Lizzie, I’m so sorry I let her treat you that way.”

Why did he always have to use that wretched name when he said something nice?

“So what happened next?” she asked, moving to set the breakfast table.

“I told her she could stay at home and work at the bank and go to school till she passed a quarter. Then she could have the car back, and her charge cards, as long as she used them responsibly.”

“I’m sure that went over well,” Elizabeth observed as she laid out their places. She’d even used Patricia’s favorite peach-colored roses for the centerpiece.

“You can imagine,” Howe said. “She called Charles and announced she was moving in with him.” He shot her a brief sidelong glance. “I hadn’t thought of that one. But thank goodness, Charles had the sense to turn her down.” A smile flickered at the corners of his mouth. “I think he enjoyed that almost as much I did.”

“Good for him.” Elizabeth crossed to start taking out the food. Like most men, Howe couldn’t keep his hands off the deviled eggs, but she’d made plenty and offered them up as consolation. “Here.” She set the egg-shaped tray in front of him. “Have a couple of these to tide you over.”

That brightened his mood considerably. “Don’t mind if I do.”

Elizabeth removed the clean kitchen towel that covered the platter of chicken with the same flourish her own mother had used when she was little.

Howe eyed the chicken, then her, with equal hunger.

“I missed you last night,” she said quietly. Her bed had seemed too big and too empty without him.

“And honey, did I miss you. Patricia snores a lot louder than you do,” he joked, but the desire in his eyes made her own insides do a flip. Especially when she flashed on seeing his lean body naked in the shower that night.

Everything was so mixed up. Because of P.J., she felt as if she were cheating to think of her husband that way.

Elizabeth headed for the back stair and called, “Patti! Supper! I made your favorites.”

A muffled, “I’m not hungry,” came down from the room above them.

Elizabeth’s disappointment must have showed, because Howe got up with a firm, “I’ll get her.”

Elizabeth looked at the intimate table setting and the island laden with comfort food. “Wait. Do you have to?”

Howe laughed, a sound she was getting used to, and gave her an impulsive peck on the cheek. “Not if you don’t want me to.”