All Roads Lead Home (Bellingwood) (56 page)

"Really?
You're that stubborn about it?" Lydia asked.

"I'm really that stubborn. Give me a map and some
time. I hate GPS systems. That woman is always yelling at me and she gets so
mean when I make a wrong turn. 'Recalculating, recalculating' sounds more like.
'Stupid girl, you should have listened to me.' I gave my last GPS to Drea
because I nearly tossed it out the window on the interstate one day."

"You could have turned it off."

"Right.
Well, it found a new home and I'm perfectly happy
without it," Polly laughed. "Alright, their home is that big white
house over there on the hill. Are you ready for this?"

"Not really," Lydia breathed, "but
let's get it over with. Then I vote we go get ice cream."

"It's a deal!" Polly said. She took a deep
breath and pulled into the lane.

"Damn it," she said.

"What?" Lydia asked.

"I'm worrying about it again. Do I go to the
front door or the back door?" Polly turned to Lydia with a pout.

"Figure out where the cars are. Go to that door,"
Lydia said and pointed to the back door.

"You're knocking first, then," Polly said
and parked the truck.

They got out of the truck and Lydia walked up to the
door. As she raised her hand to knock, Polly recognized Mrs. McKenzie already
walking toward them. Lydia stayed her hand and waited until the door was opened.

"Mrs. McKenzie?" Polly said, "I don't
know if you remember me, but I'm ..."

"Polly Giller!" she said. "What are you
doing here today? I heard you were back in Iowa and bought the old school over
in Bellingwood."

"I am back," Polly said. "And yes, I
did buy the old school. I've been having a lot of fun renovating it."

"What can I do for you today?" she asked
Polly and Lydia.

"May we come in? We'd like to talk to you about a
few things. Oh, and this is Lydia Merritt, a friend of mine from Bellingwood."

"Sure! Where are my manners? Come on in." They
followed her in through the mud porch, up three steps and into the kitchen.

"Oh, this is lovely!" exclaimed Lydia.
"What a beautiful view you have!"

"Thank you," beamed Shirley McKenzie.
"We renovated the kitchen three years ago and I like to spend mornings in
here." She pointed at the table. "Go ahead and have a seat. Can I
pour some coffee for you?"

Lydia nodded at Polly, "I'd love some,"
Polly said.

Then Lydia asked, "Mrs. McKenzie, I'd like to
speak with your husband. Is he here this morning?"

Shirley McKenzie's face took on a look of concern.
"Is there something wrong? I guess I don't understand why you're here?"

Lydia assured her, "There's nothing wrong. I'd
like to speak with your husband and Polly here wants to tell you a story."

"Well, alright. He's
out in the shed working on the old mower." She poured coffee into two
cups, setting one down in front of Polly and holding on to the other. "That's
what he likes to do when harvest is finished. I keep trying to talk him into
taking a vacation, but he won't hear of it.
Tells me there
will be plenty of time for that in the future."

She set her coffee
cup down on the table, pulled her cellphone out of her pants pocket and said,
"Here, let me call him. He'll be on the lookout for you."

"No that's alright," Lydia stopped her with
a hand upraised. "I can find him." Polly knew that she didn't want
the man to know what freight train might be coming at him."

Shirley McKenzie looked a little dazed and slipped the
phone back into her pocket. Lydia walked back outside and headed for the shed.

"What's going on, Polly? Tell me why you are here
today?" the woman asked.

"Sit down, Mrs. McKenzie. I feel a little silly
sitting here all by myself."

After they were both seated, Polly asked, "When
was the last time Bruce called you?"

"Is he alright? Has something happened? What
about Hannah and the children? Are they okay?" Worry filled the woman's
voice.

"He's fine. Hannah and the children are fine. So,
you know about them?" Polly asked.

Mrs. McKenzie nodded. "I do. He called me when
they got married and then when they had that adorable little baby. We exchange
emails, so I've seen pictures of them. Lyle doesn't know that I talk to him. It
just breaks my heart, but that husband of mine has a stubborn streak a mile
long and when Bruce walked away from him, he hurt his dad pretty badly. It was
one of those things I could never fix."

"Bruce needs you right now, Mrs. McKenzie …"
Polly started.

"Oh, please call me Shirley. We're way past the
Mrs. McKenzie age, I think," Shirley McKenzie interrupted.

"Alright ... Shirley.
What I was trying to say was that Bruce and his
family need
you. He has nowhere else to go and nobody else he can
turn to. He's been trying to make it alone and I think they are finally at the
end of their rope," Polly said.

"What do you mean? I thought he had a good job
out in Colorado!"

"Well, he did and Hannah had a job too, but the
economy finally got to them and they've sold everything and packed their entire
lives into a car and were on their way back to ask your husband for a job on
the farm."

"Oh." Shirley's shoulders drooped and she
let out a sigh. "I don't know what my husband will do. This wasn't a great
year on the farm either."

"Mrs.
Mck
... Shirley. They
are at my place right now," Polly said.

"What? They're in Iowa and they didn't come here?"

"Well, there was some trouble and they ended up
at my school. Neither of us knew the other was there until we recognized each
other."

"What kind of trouble? You said the children were
alright?"

"Everyone is fine. They are all staying together
in an extra room I have there. Hannah is a wonderful person and Bruce seems to
love all of those children a lot."

"Oh, I know he does. He talks about Sammy and
Emma like they were his own." Shirley said. "But, you said there was
trouble. What kind of trouble?"

"I should probably let Bruce tell you himself,
but while he was stopped for speeding through Bellingwood, a dog found drugs
hidden in his car." Polly stopped as the poor woman gasped. "He says
they aren't his drugs and Hannah assures me he would never do anything like
that. I tend to believe her, but right now, the sheriff is investigating. They
arrested both him and Hannah and both are out on bail right now and staying
with me until the sheriff can figure out what is going on."

"Arrested?
Bail?"
Shirley McKenzie put her elbows on the table and
dropped her head into her hands. "What is happening?"

"What is happening is that your son needs help
from his parents and you are going to have to figure out how to get your
husband to come down off his self-centered high horse and think about someone
else." Polly took a breath and realized she might have pushed too far.

"I'm sorry," she said. "That was a
little extreme. I shouldn't have said that."

"No, that's alright. You didn't say anything I
haven't said to him over and over again throughout the years. He let my boy go
and wouldn't budge because of his pride. I hoped one day he would finally
mellow out about all of this, but obviously I can't wait any longer. I don't
know what I'm going to do, though."

She thought for a moment. "I need to talk to
Kevin, I suppose. He's never said much about Bruce leaving, but I know it’s
been hard on him having to be the only one responsible for everything around
here."

"Is there anything they need right now?" she
asked Polly.

"Nothing other than a place to
live, a job and a family to help them get through this.
I think that's enough," Polly said. It occurred
to her to wonder when she had gotten that snippy with people. Lydia must be
rubbing off on her.

"Is this what your friend is talking to Lyle
about?" Shirley asked.

"Yes it is. Her husband is Aaron Merritt, the
Sheriff. He's gone out of his way to keep the family together while all of this
is going on and she has fallen in love with those little kids," Polly
responded.

"I hope she has more luck than I do with him. He
usually just walks away and keeps walking until I can't follow him any longer. By
the time he gets home in the evening, we're both too tired to talk about it and
neither one of us wants to fight at that point, so it's been easier to let it
slip aside."

Polly opened up her mouth to speak again, but stopped
when she heard the back door slam open and Lydia stomp her feet up the steps. "Come
on, Polly, we're not welcome here any longer. I think we need to go."

"But, wait!" Shirley McKenzie said.
"What happened?"

"Your husband," Lydia spat, "is a mean,
nasty man who doesn't deserve to have small children around to tell him that he
is a good grandpa." She took Polly's arm and pulled her up out of the
chair. "I'm sorry for being rude right now, but foul words are going to
come out of my mouth and it's not fair for me to do that to you."

She propelled Polly down the steps and out the door
with Shirley following close behind, who said, "I'm so sorry he was rude
to you. I'll try to talk to him and get him to see reason. I think it's about
time I exercised a few rude behaviors of my own."

"I do apologize," Lydia said. "I'm
generally not like this, but that man is one angry old cuss and when he treats
a woman like he treated me, my mouth comes unglued and gets me in trouble. I
hope to meet you under better circumstances another time, so you can find out
that I'm not quite such a bitch."

She got in the passenger side of Polly's truck and
slammed the door. Polly looked at Mrs. McKenzie and raised her eyes, "I've
never seen her like this and I'm sorry that we've upset your family here. We're
having a big Christmas party at the school tomorrow night for the whole town if
you'd like to come over and see Bruce and Hannah and the children. You're more
than welcome and we'll keep trying to figure something out, alright?"

"Alright, dear.
Thank you for stopping by to tell me what's going
on.
" Shirley McKenzie pulled Polly into a hug. "I'm
so sorry this has happened. Tell your friend she doesn't have to apologize to
me. I know Lyle can be insensitive."

Polly got in the truck and backed out of the lane.
When they got on the road, Lydia threw her hands up in the air. "Polly I'm
so angry right now, the only words I can think to say are mean and ugly and
well ... filled with curses. That man has his ass so tightly bound up, he can't
see for all the shit filling his body. I want to curse everything about him. And
then I want to do it some more."

Polly tried not to giggle. Listening to prim and
proper Lydia curse was more than she could handle with a straight face, so she
kept quiet.

"Well, aren't you going to ask me what
happened?" Lydia demanded.

"Would you like me to go to Dairy Queen for some
ice cream?" Polly asked.

"Hell no.
I'm too angry to eat ice cream," Lydia
responded. "But, go there anyway. I might change my mind."

Polly chuckled and turned east and drove into Story
City. "Okay, what happened out there? I was having a perfectly pleasant
and, shall we say, polite conversation with his wife."

"That jackass told me I had no business bothering
him about a son he had written off years ago. If said son couldn't be bothered
to let him know that he was even still alive, there was no way he was going to
offer any assistance or help. He didn't care if Bruce had a family. He was so
wrapped up in starting his own life without his
parents,
he could damned well live out there on his own and make it with or without
them. He, the old man, had made it on his
own,
there wasn't any
way he was going to take that from a self-centered son who thought he could do
it without him.

"I might have reminded him that he was farming a
family farm and hadn't ever done it on his own, he'd had a good solid start,
when that set him off on another tear about how he'd been responsible to his
family and had stayed here to work when everyone else took off and then he
decided to tell me about his wonderful son, Kevin, who chose to stay and help
with the farm.

"That is one bitter old man and all I wanted to
do was kick him in the balls just to watch him groan on the floor while I stood
over him and spat. However, I restrained myself and asked about grandchildren. He
told me that his perfect son, Kevin, had three children and those were enough
in his life and he didn't need any more draws on his finances. If Bruce had
gone out and gotten a woman pregnant and couldn't support her, that was his
problem, not his father's problem.