Wedding Ring (39 page)

How could she stand the possibility she might lose another child? How could she survive?

Mack got to his feet. “You know I want a family. But I seem to be out of this equation forever.”

She watched him pick up his clothes and slip them on. She couldn’t speak. She couldn’t reassure him. She was gripped with such apprehension that she could only think of what they’d just done.

He straightened, his shirt unbuttoned. “
Am
I out of the equation? Have you made this decision for both of us?”

“My body. My decision.” She turned up her hands in supplication. “It has to be.”

“So you’ve made your decision, and now I make mine? You, Tess, or someone who isn’t so afraid of what might happen in the future that she’s willing to take a chance on life?”

She was tempted to say yes, to push him so hard he left forever, taking with him the demand for normalcy, for the things other couples took for granted. Perhaps she would have done so at the beginning of the summer, before warmth began to seep back into her soul. But now she couldn’t.

“I love you,” she said softly. “I wish that could be enough.”

He closed his eyes for a moment. Then he moved past her, carrying his shoes in one hand and buttoning his shirt with the other. She heard the front door close a few moments later, then the sound of a car engine.

And the quicksand sucked at her feet once more.

O
n Saturday morning the sun rose with such attitude that by nine the temperature inside the old farmhouse was almost unbearable. Tessa had barely made it through her morning run, and Nancy was already on the telephone over Helen’s objections, calling for estimates on central air.

“You think I’ll let them come here, tear up everything in sight just so you can cool off a little?” Helen demanded when Nancy came out to the porch to join her panting mother and daughter.

“Darned right you’ll let me. I’m the one they’ll call one of these days to scrape you off the floor when you melt like the Wicked Witch of the West, or wherever the hell that woman was from.”

“Don’t you curse at me.”

Nancy kissed her mother’s weathered cheek. “It’s cursing-hot, Mama. Damned hot. Frigging hot. You don’t ever even have to turn the air-conditioning on. Nobody’ll know if you do or you don’t.”

“I lived this long without it.”

“Mama, you want to keep this house in the family, don’t you?”

Helen made a wicked witch face. “What’s that got to do with anything?”

“Do you really think we’ll come back here in the summers if there’s no air-conditioning?”

“I don’t expect either of you to come back. You’ll sell it just like that.” Helen snapped her perspiration-damp fingers.

“No.” Nancy lifted what little hair adorned the back of her neck and fanned herself. “If you leave it to me, I’m going to keep the old place. My mind’s made up. I need somewhere to go outside the city that’s all mine. Who knows, I might even live here someday. And Tessa will want to have it as a retreat, too. She’s a teacher. She needs a place to relax in the summer. It ought to stay in the family.”

Tessa was as surprised as her grandmother. “I thought you couldn’t wait to get rid of the farm.”

“Wrong again, and that’s beginning to be a habit.”

“I won’t turn on the durned thing,” Helen warned. “But I guess they can put one in if it’ll make you happy.”

“Just for the hottest days,” Nancy said, struggling unsuccessfully not to smile.

The three women sat in silence for a moment. Tessa watched with interest as a black minivan drove along the road in the direction of the house. In the city she never would have noticed it, but here it was of primary interest.

“Haven’t seen that van before,” Nancy said, clearly in the country mode, too.

“It’s slowing.” Tessa shaded her eyes. “Maybe they’re lost.”

The van pulled into the driveway, slowly and carefully, and the driver’s door opened. A woman got out and came around to the side to pull open the sliding panel door.

A familiar Old English Sheepdog bounded out and streaked toward the front porch.

Tessa got to her feet and watched as Biscuit, long shaggy fur ruffling in her own breeze, leapt up to the porch and jumped up, paws to Tessa’s shoulders, nearly knocking her to the ground.

“Biscuit!” Tessa burrowed her face against the dog’s fur for seconds before she pushed her down. Biscuit took off to sniff the other two women, but came right back to Tessa and jumped up again, tongue ecstatically searching for available flesh.

Tessa managed to quiet the dog a little, as she watched the woman who was walking toward her carrying a sack of dog chow. “Bonnie? How on earth did you find me?”

“Mack gave me directions.” Bonnie Hitchcock was a short woman with pixie-cut dark hair and an athletic body. She set the bag on the ground before she searched Tessa’s face for clues. “He didn’t tell you we were coming, did he?”

Nancy got to her feet. “He didn’t tell her, but he told
me
.”

Tessa glanced at her mother. “Did you forget to mention it?”

“No, I was afraid to.”

Tessa had known Bonnie for years. Her son Danny had been Kayley’s best friend in preschool. “So what’s going on?”

Bonnie looked increasingly uncomfortable. “I thought you knew. We can’t keep Biscuit anymore, Tessa. Danny’s developed asthma, and in addition to everything else, he’s allergic to dog fur.” She hesitated. “And it’s never really worked out the way it should have, I’ll be honest. Biscuit misses you. We had to keep an eye on her every minute or she tried to run away. She likes my kids, and when they’re home with her she’s okay. But she’s never been ours. Not really.”

Tessa felt her throat tighten. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“You had enough to handle. Mack said you could take her for the rest of the summer. I can try to find her another home, but this will give us some breathing room.” She tried to smile. “No pun intended.”

Tessa once again quieted Biscuit, who was clearly overjoyed to be there. The dog plopped down on Tessa’s foot and rubbed her muzzle against Tessa’s knees.

“Don’t worry,” Tessa said. “We’ll take care of it.”

“I’m really sorry. She’s a great dog, she really is.” Bonnie straightened a little. “But, Tessa, she’s a one-family dog. She
knows
who she belongs to.”

“She belonged to Kayley,” Tessa said.

Bonnie didn’t back down, and she didn’t flinch. “No, she belonged to all of you. Just look at her right now if you have any real question about it.” She looked as if she wanted to say more, but she didn’t. She smiled ruefully; then she raised a hand in farewell, peering around Tessa to wave goodbye to the other women before she started back to her van.

“I’ll be durned,” Helen said. “That mangy rotten dog is back.” Then she rose, stooped and rubbed the mangy rotten dog’s floppy gray ears.

By afternoon Biscuit owned the farm and the house, and she’d chosen a shady corner of the porch as her own after scaring away two of the barn cats who’d come looking for a handout. She snoozed there now, unaware that she was the topic of conversation between Tessa and her grandmother. Nancy was at the Claibornes’, picking up Cissy for a trip to Wal-Mart. The two had arranged it during a particularly rousing chorus of “Waiting for the Boatman” on music night, and now Nancy also had a mission to buy dog supplies.

“That dog. She’s like that thing those Australians throw,” Helen said.

“A boomerang.” Tessa sniffed. “Exactly what am I going to do with her?”

“Seems easy enough. You keep her. She’s not a pup. She’ll be all right at home during the day alone. And she can run with you in the mornings and keep you company in the evenings when Mack works late. You needed company.”

Tessa’s heart melted a little every time she looked at the dog. “I gave her to Bonnie because I thought she needed to be with children. She was Kayley’s companion.”

“I think you gave her to those folks ’cause it pained you too much to see her without your little girl.”

“Just like you to go right to the heart of it.”

“Just like me.”

“Some of both.” Tessa decided to be honest. “But mostly because it hurt so much.” She was surprised she could admit it so easily.

“The dog seems perfectly happy to be with you now. I don’t like dogs, you understand, but if somebody had to have one, that’d be a good one to have.”

Tessa thought of Mack and the things she’d said to him. “It seems like everything I’ve done for years has revolved around Kayley’s death.” She looked up and saw understanding in her grandmother’s eyes. “You appreciate that better than anybody I know.”

“Some time ago you asked me what I’d learned after Fate was killed, from losing all my family so sudden like. And I told you maybe you weren’t ready to hear it.”

“I remember.”

“Here’s what I learned, Tessa. There’s only one thing worse than dying or being left behind, and that’s wasting the life God gives you.”

Tessa still wasn’t sure she was ready to hear it. “Is that what I’m doing?”

“You’re the only one who can answer that, but I can answer for myself. I wasted a whole lot of mine, and I wish I could call it back. Your own mama paid the biggest price for that. Now I’ve got months and days left to me, not years and years. And I’m answering for all the mistakes I made.”

Tessa put her hand on her grandmother’s. She, of all people, knew how hard this was for Helen to admit.

Nancy arrived home after her shopping trip with Cissy. They had ogled baby clothes and supplies, and Nancy had made a mental list. She planned to have a baby shower for the girl, and now she knew what Cissy needed most. She had already talked to Mrs. Claiborne, who was thrilled to let Nancy make the arrangements.

Then they had visited Helen’s church to meet with the women’s auxiliary, who had agreed to help set up the quilt show. Now Cissy was in on the plans, and she had been welcomed by the other women as one of them.

Nancy carried a brand-new giant-sized dog bed up to the porch, along with a bright red collar and matching retractable leash, but Biscuit was nowhere in sight. Nancy went in search of everyone. She found her mother in her room, but no sign of Tessa or the dog.

“They’re down at the creek trying to find some blackberries for a pie, but don’t go yelling for them. They need some time alone to get reacquainted,” Helen said.

Nancy sank to the bed. “Maybe I should have told her the dog was coming. I didn’t know what to do. I was afraid she’d say no.”

“She doesn’t know what to say or what to do, just like you. Family curse.”

“What are
you
doing? Or don’t you know?”

“Sorting through some old things of mine.” Helen held what looked like a batch of quilt blocks up to her chest.

“What are those?”

“Just some old blocks I made a while ago.”

Nancy knew something was wrong. Helen looked vulnerable, or as vulnerable as she would ever look. Nancy wondered if these were more of the spectacular Shenandoah Album blocks, like the ones in the quilt she’d amazed her daughter with a few weeks ago, the quilt that would be the centerpiece of the quilt show.

“May I see them?” Nancy put out her hand.

Helen looked torn. “I wasn’t going to show these to anybody.”

“Mama, porno quilt blocks? Naked ladies and gentlemen?”

“Nanny, who do you think you’re talking to?” Helen flushed.

Nancy wiggled her fingers. “Mama…”

Helen thrust out her hand.

Nancy’s smile disappeared when she saw what the blocks were. “Oh, Mama…” She spread them out on the bed beside her. They were Sunbonnet Sue blocks, a traditional block of a little girl in an old-fashioned dress, a wide bonnet covering her face. But these had been updated. There was Sunbonnet Sue flying a kite. Sunbonnet Sue in a frilly white tutu and ballet slippers. Sunbonnet Sue reading a book, feeding brightly colored chickens, fishing in a pond.

Sunbonnet Sue playing with an Old English Sheepdog.

Kayley’s life in quilt blocks.

Nancy didn’t know she was crying until a tear splashed from her chin to her wrist. “Oh, Mama…”

“I was making it as a Christmas present. For her room. I was finishing up that last block, the one with the dog, when I got your phone call saying she’d been…”

Nancy wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. “So you put them away.”

“I couldn’t finish the quilt. How could I? I knew it would make Tessa that much sadder to see it.”

“Just like the wedding ring quilt.”

Helen’s voice broke. “She was just a little thing. She never did a mean thing to anybody.”

Nancy got up and went to her. She put her arms around her mother and felt Helen’s shoulders heave. “I miss her, too.” She tried to blink back tears and found she couldn’t.

Helen’s arms came around her, and they held each other for long moments.

“You ought to finish it,” Nancy said at last.

“No, I put it away, and that’s that.”

But Nancy thought differently. “Let me have the blocks, then.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. But I’d like to keep them. Somebody should be able to look at them and remember her.”

Helen was clearly debating with herself, but she nodded at last. “You take them.”

Nancy moved away so she could see Helen’s face. She traced the path of a tear with her fingertip. “Let’s go see what we can make for supper tonight.”

“If Tessa comes back with blackberries, we’ll make a pie.”

“And finish it in one sitting. That sounds like supper to me.”