A Forever Thing (24 page)

“Hello?” Her first thought was that something had happened to
Aunt Maud.

Theron talked fast and furious. “I’m so sorry to call you at this
horrible hour, but I didn’t know what else to do. Tina’s in the bathroom throwing up, and she’s practically hysterical. I’m lost, and
all she’ll say is that she wants Fanny, she’s had a bad dream, and in
between sobs all she says is your name.”

She pictured him wringing his hands and yanking at his hair.

“How do I get there?” she asked.

“Call me when you leave, and I’ll talk you here, and thanks,
Fancy. I don’t know how to handle this. I’m going to be a terrible
father.”

“No, you’re not, New Daddy.” She picked up her jacket, slipped
her arms into it without dropping the phone, and slung her purse
over her shoulder. “I’m leaving right now. I’m walking out the door.”

“Go south toward Moran. Five miles. There’s a big ranch sign
on the left about a quarter of a mile farther. Turn at the next section line road, take the first right, and follow it to the end of the
lane. I’ll turn on the porch light.”

“Okay, I’m in the car and headed toward Main Street. Put Tina
on the phone if she can talk, Theron.”

She could hear the weeping as he neared the bathroom.

“Tina, it’s Fancy. She wants to talk to you,” Theron said softly.

“Fanny?” Tina whimpered into the phone a few moments later.

“Yes, it’s Fanny, and I’m coming to see you. Do you want to tell
me about the bad dream? Was it monsters?” Fancy asked.

“No. It was about you. The man was going to hurt you. He looked
all mean, and you were fighting with him,” she said.

“I’m fine, Tina. It was just a nightmare, and I’m on my way. Can
you stop crying now?”

Snuffling took the place of sobs.

“She’s nodding,” Theron said in the background.

“Right now?” Tina asked her.

“Right now. Can your daddy take you to the living room and
rock you until I get there? Is that okay?”

“‘kay,” she said.

“Give Daddy the phone,” Fancy told her.

“What do I do?” Theron asked.

“Pick her up and take her to the living room and rock her until I
get there. She’s agreed to that.”

“Thank God,” he said as Fancy heard him pick up Tina and walk
to the living room. “I’ve been out of my mind for a couple of hours.
I hated to call you.”

“Why? Because it was the middle of the night? Or because you
didn’t want me to think you needed me?” she asked.

Silence filled the space.

“It’s nice to be needed,” she said.

More silence.

“Are you going to talk to me or not?” she asked.

“She’s … she’s finally falling asleep,” he whispered. “I think
you can go on back home now.”

“I promised her I’d be there, and I’m on my way. If you don’t
want to admit that you need me, that’s your business. But I don’t
make promises I don’t intend to keep”

“You are smart-mouthed, aren’t you?” he said softly.

“Honey, you don’t know the half of it.”

It was three twenty when she pulled up into the gravel circular
driveway. The size of the sprawling white frame house before her
was intimidating. The porch stretched the entire length of the
front, and two lights beckoned her. She didn’t have to knock; the
door was unlocked, and she walked in.

Theron was sitting in a wooden rocker in front of the fireplace
with Tina in his lap. She had her thumb in her mouth and was sound
asleep.

“I told you we finally had it under control,” he whispered as he
looked up at her.

Fancy’s hair was still in pigtails. She wore pajamas covered
with pictures of apples, and they were a mile too big for her. She
wore no makeup and oversized fuzzy slippers.

And Theron thought she looked beautiful.

His heart skipped a beat and then picked up a full, rolling head
of steam.

“And I told you that I don’t make promises I can’t keep. How
long have you been awake?” she asked.

“Three hours, I think. I don’t know. It was horrible.”

“Give her to me, and go to bed. Where does she sleep? We both
have a Sunday school class to teach in a few hours. I’ll sleep the
rest of the night with her. We’ll have `pandy cakes’ for breakfast,
and you can cook them. Wake us up in time to get ready for church,
and I’ll need half an hour at my house. The preacher might not
like me showing up like this.”

She slipped her arms around Tina and again experienced the
shock of electricity between her skin and Theron’s when he transferred the child.

“Come on, baby girl. Let’s go get some sleep,” she crooned as
she followed Theron down the hallway. She curled up beside Tina,
and in minutes she was asleep. Not even one crazy dream interrupted their slumber.

The coffee table in Hattie’s living room was, for today, Tina’s
“cabinet.” Hattie’s smaller pots and pans were scattered as the child
played pretend cooking. Underneath the table was evidently the
oven, because when she put something under there, she had to have
a hot pad to get it out. She stirred excessively, baked only a few
minutes, and tasted with slurps regularly. Her doll and bear listened intently to her prattle about macky cheese and chocolate
cake and tasted them often from the couch.

Sophie, Kate, and Fancy sat around the kitchen table with hot
chocolate and powdered-sugar donuts. Tina had eaten half a donut.
Her chocolate was cooling until she could drink it without burning
her mouth. She looked up periodically to make sure Fancy was still
in her sights and kept playing.

“So, tell me how it is you’ve got that cute little thing today. I’m
going to have a dozen who look just like her someday, you know.
With my heritage it could happen. You want to give her to me so
I’ll have a head start?” Kate asked.

“I’ve got her because Theron has to catch up on schoolwork to
get ready for tomorrow. She could have gone with him and played
in the office, but that wouldn’t be nearly as much fun as baking
chocolate cakes in the oven under the coffee table. And, no, you
cannot have her. If she’s ever up for grabs again, I get first dibs,”
Fancy said.

“How could anyone just walk off and leave something that precious?” Sophie asked.

“I guess it’s easy to leave something you didn’t ever want in the first place. Look what Hattie did. She might as well have left
Momma.”

“Okay, now that we’ve established why we get to drool over a
child today, start with Monday and tell us, play by play, what happened,” Sophie said.

“In the beginning God created dirt,” Fancy said.

Kate rolled her eyes.

Sophie giggled.

`And then he made man, and the devil put an ego on him, and
Theron Warren was born,” Fancy intoned. Then she went on to tell
the story about the previous week in detail and how she’d gone to
Theron’s house in her pajamas on Saturday night and slept with Tina.

“This morning we got up, and, sure enough, he had pancakes and
sausage ready. I fixed her hair and dressed her while he got ready for
church. Don’t those French braids look cute? Anyway, we drove into
Albany together. He dropped me off here so I could get ready, and I
met them at church. She clung to me like she was afraid I’d disappear again when I made it to the Sunday school room”

“After church?” Sophie asked.

“We ate at the Dairy Queen, and I brought her home with me.
You all showed up five minutes later, and that’s my story and I’m
sticking to it.”

Kate swept her black hair back over her shoulders. “We got the
history lesson. I want the whole story now. Did he kiss you?”
Fancy blushed.

“Out with it,” Sophie said. “We’ve been cheated out of the dayby-day because you didn’t take your charger.”

“Don’t squirm. It makes you look guilty,” Kate laughed.

“Okay, he kissed me”

Both Kate and Sophie nodded emphatically.

“And?” Kate asked.

“And I saw fireworks and heard bells, and it was a very fine
kiss,” Fancy said honestly.

“Where’s it going?” Sophie asked.

“Probably nowhere. He’s got Tina to worry about right now.”

“Right,” Kate said with a giggle.

“Okay, we’ve covered my week in two cups of hot chocolate. I’m making a pot of coffee to cut the sweet, and then it’s your turn,”
Fancy said.

Sophie sighed. “After a red-hot week like that, mine is barely
pale pink.”

Kate riffled through the cabinets and found a bag of Oreos.
“Well, mine sure ain’t burgundy, but it was a pretty good one”

“Me first, then. I don’t want to bring up the rear with a puff of
wind against two tornadoes,” Sophie said. “Aunt Maud made her
will and left me her half of the ranch. The other half is left to my
uncle’s great-nephew. That was done back before he died and can’t
be changed”

“So what are you going to do when she’s gone?” Fancy asked.

“I’ll use my insurance money and buy him out. I hope he hates
ranching and whatever his half is worth will put dollar signs into
his eyes.”

“Sounds like a good plan to me. Are you really going to run that
ranch for the rest of your life?” Fancy said.

“I hated it as a child and a teenager, but it’s my life now. So, yes,
Iam”

Kate ripped open the bag of cookies and scattered them all over
the table. “Oops.”

Tina heard the noise and came running, braids bouncing, red
dress swishing against her legs. “I want one.”

Kate handed her four.

She stared at them and looked at Fancy.

“It’s all right. You can have them. See if your doll or the bear
wants to help you eat them,” Fancy said.

Tina smiled and took off to the living room. She put a cookie
in each of the pots, and they instantly became “macky cheese”
and “mean beans.”

“What was that all about?” Sophie asked.

Fancy lowered her voice to barely a whisper.

Sophie and Kate leaned in to hear.

“She’s been raised literally since birth in a day-care center, so
rules have to be followed. She sits at the table and puts down her
fork between bites. After lunch she goes directly to her pallet or
wherever for her nap. No hassles or begging.”

“The perfect child. How horrible,” Kate said.

“Did she have a nap today?”

“Soon as we ate lunch and got here. She curled up on the sofa.
Slept thirty minutes and had just gotten up when y’all arrived.”

“Wow,” Sophie said. “I fought my momma tooth, nail, hair, and
eyeball not to take naps after I was three.”

Fancy nodded and changed the subject. “Now tell us about your
week, Kate.”

“I won the betting pot at the police station.”

“And what were you betting on?” Sophie asked.

“Wrong question.”

“How much was it?” Fancy asked.

“Bingo. Right question. Two hundred dollars to do with whatsoever I please. I can’t make up my mind if I’m going to blow it all
on massages or buy a new pair of boots.”

“Now what were you betting on?” Sophie repeated the question.

“Had to be football. You can’t bet with Kate when it comes to
football. Cowboys against who?” Fancy asked.

“Wrong again.”

“Okay, I’ll play. It was how long it would take a fly to find the
donut in the wastebasket,” Sophie said.

Kate shook her head and blushed.

“It’s got something to do with Hart Ducaine. Nothing or no one
else in the world can make Kate’s face hot enough to ignite,”
Fancy said.

“Right on the money, all two hundred dollars.”

“So what was the bet?”

“He was at the pro-bull-riding in Nevada. We had a bet going
whether he’d get the buckle or not. All those young fellers want it
so bad, and Hart’s already got two. So the bet wasn’t who got it but
whether he would get it.”

“How’d you vote?” Sophie asked.

“For him. Two things that man can do: ride a bull and kiss. I
knew he’d win if he rode, and he did. I got the pot.”

Fancy giggled. “You weren’t even sixteen when you knew him,
and he was barely eighteen. How many other boyfriends have you
had since then?” Fancy asked.

“I don’t kiss and tell.” Kate laughed.

“How about you, Sophie?” Fancy pressed on.

“One in my whole life, and I married him.”

“Good Lord! We’ve got to find you a boyfriend. But you’ll
hardly have anything to compare him to,” Kate said.

“I’ll find my own boyfriends, thank you. Mercy, it’s five o’clock.
I’ll barely make it home in time to help Aunt Maud do the chores,”
Sophie said.

“Aunt Maud should leave that to the foreman. What’s she
thinkin’? Doin’ chores in the middle of the winter in her condition,”
Fancy said.

Sophie busied herself getting into her coat and the boots she’d
taken off at the door. “You want to tell her that?”

“No, I do not!” Fancy gave her a hug and waved good-bye.

“Me too.” Kate slipped her feet into boots. “I’ve got a shift
starting in a couple of hours. Give me a hug.”

Tina reached up her arms and said, “I want a hug too”

Kate dropped down onto her knees and gave the child a fierce
hug. “I get one and Sophie doesn’t?”