Marriage Seasons 04 - Winter Turns to Spring (18 page)

“I might say something nice if I could find the man I married last Valentine’s Day. I hardly know
you
. You’re either at Larry’s or sprawled out on the couch every night when I walk in the door. You never hold me or cuddle with me. Whenever you want me, it’s just grab, grab, grab. If you’d like for me to respect you, then be respectable. Be nice to me.”

“I work at least forty hours a week at a job I hate so I can bring home a paycheck for you. That’s pretty
nice
, if you ask me.”

“If you hate your job so much, do something else. Go to college.”

“Yeah, right.” He yanked open the door. “You could have at least hung stockings, Ash. Any normal wife would have done that much.”

As he strode out onto the stoop, he could hear Yappy scrabbling along behind him. Ashley followed, her untied shoes flopping on the wet sidewalk.

“You don’t think I’m a normal wife?” she shouted. “Well, you don’t know anything about me! You have no idea what I’ve accomplished! I’m better than normal. I can succeed, Bradley Hanes. I can make a good life for myself, and I don’t need you around to do it!”

Brad bent down, picked up Yappy, walked back to his wife, and set  the dog in her arms. “Then why don’t you and your flannel nightgown get out of my life,” he growled, his face an inch from hers, “because I don’t need you either.”

“I hate you!” she screamed, tears falling as he threw open his car door and got in.

“I hate you too,” he muttered. Clenching his jaw, he peeled out of the driveway, screeching the tires on the pavement.

It was hopeless.

Patsy could see that right away. No matter how many times Derek Finley let Cody maneuver his car around the road that encircled Deepwater Cove, the boy was bound to mess up one way or another.

“Keep trying, honey!” she called out, waving a gloved hand as Cody made another pass by her and Jennifer. With the salon closed for the next few days, the two women had agreed to venture outside and cheer on Cody’s latest driving lesson.

“Go, Cody!” Jennifer yelled.

“You can do it!” Patsy pumped her fist as he steered down the hill on the left-hand side of the road.

“He can’t do it,” she muttered. “He never will, Jennifer, and that’s just the plain old truth of the matter. We are going to have to figure out how to tell Cody in the sweetest possible way before he runs Derek’s car smack-dab into someone’s deck. I don’t understand why Derek keeps trying. I’ll swear that poor man must have lost a good two years off his life by now.”

Jennifer laughed. “We didn’t believe Cody could pass the written test, remember? But he did.”

“Barely. I think the officer cheated just because Cody’s so earnest.”

“They can’t do that!”

Jennifer was smiling, looking as beautiful as ever, Patsy saw. She still hadn’t sorted out her feelings or made any decisions about her future. But at least the memory of what had happened in Mexico seemed to be fading. Thank the Lord. He could soften terrifying memories, and He could certainly guide a lovely young woman in the right direction. No question about that.

“Do you see them?” Patsy asked, standing on tiptoe to scan the back side of the looping road. “I hope that boy hasn’t plowed into a ditch.”

“Oh, here they come again.” Jennifer clasped her gloved hands together in excitement. “Look, Cody’s staying mostly on the right side of the road! He’s doing it, Patsy.”

The car screeched to a sudden stop right beside the two women. Both Cody and Derek snapped forward, kept from slamming against the windshield only by their seat belts. The driver’s window lowered, and Cody stuck his head out, grinning from ear to ear.

“How about that?” His blue eyes fastened on Jennifer. “Did you see me go all the way around without drifting into the middle?”

As Jennifer congratulated him, Patsy studied the man in the passenger seat. Derek had leaned his head back and was breathing as though he’d just completed a half marathon. Despite the chilled air, beads of sweat dotted his hairline.

“You doing okay there, Derek?” she called.

He glanced her way and rolled his eyes. Patsy took the silent message to heart.

Laying her hand on Cody’s shoulder, she spoke softly. “You’ve been working hard on your driving. How about some chocolate cake?”

She could see the struggle. Driving around the circle another time … or chocolate cake at Patsy’s house. Which would it be?

“I cut the cake into squares,” she told him. “Just the way you like it.”

“Okay!”

Before she could step back, Cody put the car in gear and started down the road. Patsy and Jennifer gasped in unison. Weaving from side to side, the vehicle was in imminent danger of rolling into someone’s yard or dropping into a drainage ditch.

“He’s going to crash!” Jennifer cried, clutching at Patsy and squeezing her eyes shut.

“Derek’s there, don’t forget.”

The car veered to the left, missing Opal Jones’s mailbox by an inch. Suddenly the horn blared. The car swung right, sending up a spray of gravel from the road shoulder.

“Oh no!” Jennifer grabbed Patsy’s hand. “Oh!”

“He’s headed for my garage!” Patsy took off running—not an easy feat in her pointy-heeled, knee-high leather boots and pencil skirt.

Jennifer passed her easily, racing down the damp roadway toward the small house Patsy had called home for many years.

“Lord have mercy!” Patsy breathed out as she sprinted along, trying her best to hold things in place. “Lord, make him stop. If You love me at all, Lord, stop that boy’s car before he hits my house!”

As Jennifer reached the foot of Patsy’s driveway, the car jolted and veered toward the garage as if Cody were aiming to bash right into it. Patsy screamed. The car swerved again. Her heel caught the edge of a crack in the pavement. The fragile dogwood sapling in her front yard disappeared beneath the bumper. Patsy tumbled onto the road, her boot heel snapping off and her ankle twisting beneath her as she landed on her knees.

Looking up, she saw that the car had stopped. The windshield wipers fanned back and forth as Cody hopped out of the driver’s seat and began dancing around.

“I goofed up!” he wailed. “I couldn’t remember how to stop! I’m sorry! I nearly hit the garage. I killed Patsy’s new tree.”

As Jennifer raced toward Cody, Derek rounded the front of his car to assess the damage. And that’s when Patsy felt the pain shoot up through her leg like a fire-hot poker. It curled into her hip and then raced back down and around her ankle.

Unable to move, she sat paralyzed, staring at her shredded stockings, scraped knees, torn skirt—and those two legs sticking out oddly from beneath it. Were they hers? Was that what hurt so much? She opened her mouth to wail but nothing came out. Darkness swam across her vision. She was going to be sick.

“Patsy!” Derek Finley’s voice rang through the black cloud. “Patsy, can you hear me? You’ve skinned your knees, and you may have hurt your ankle. I’m going to get this boot off.”

She gritted her teeth and grabbed the Water Patrolman’s shoulder as he tilted her just a little, unzipped the boot, and worked it carefully off her foot. Tears sprang to her eyes, and there wasn’t a thing she could do to stop them.

“It h-h-hurts!” she bawled.

“I know, I know. Let’s see if we can straighten your leg. Does anything feel broken?”

“Everything!” she hollered, all at once unable to hold back the tide of anguish. “I’m bleeding! I’m dying here, Derek! My leg’s broken, my foot, my ankle. It’s killing me. All of it. Give me morphine! Call an ambulance. I’m fixing to die.”

She could hear him chuckle. “Stop laughing at me, Derek Finley. Get me off this road! Now!”

“Calm down, Patsy. If you can yell that loud, you’re going to be okay. It’s the quiet ones we worry about. I don’t carry morphine, and you don’t need an ambulance either.” He was pressing on her leg, moving things around. “Nothing looks broken. I think you’ve sprained your ankle.”

“Sprained?” The way her foot was throbbing, she felt certain it must be half torn off. She couldn’t even look at the thing. Her leg was probably a bloody stump.

“Hey, Patsy.” Jennifer knelt beside her on the road. “I’ve brought Derek’s car back around. Do you think you can get in?”

“Get in? Do I look like a woman who can get into a car?”

Derek slid one hand under her arm. “Come on, Patsy. Let’s get you inside and warm you up. Then we’ll decide if we need to go to the hospital.”

Unsuccessfully fighting tears, Patsy allowed Jennifer and Derek to help her off the road and into the backseat of his car. For some reason, her pain and tears opened the floodgates inside her, and everything sad in her life came flowing out all at once. Her father’s early death. Her mother’s long battle with Alzheimer’s. Her endless struggle to keep her salon afloat. Her loneliness.

Wait. That wasn’t on the list anymore.

“Where’s Pete?” she sniffled. “I need Pete.”

Jennifer glanced at her and smiled as she pulled the car into the driveway and they came to a gentle stop. “I’ll call him in a minute when you’re settled. We have to deal with Cody, too.”

Oh
, Patsy thought,
Cody
. How long would it take him to recover from this latest calamity? She had witnessed his breakdowns before. When he’d first come to Deepwater Cove, frightening things caused him to emit an animal’s scream and bolt away in terror. As he had settled in and become less fearful, his episodes evolved into bouts of crying, wailing, and even yanking at his own hair. Nowadays, he still wept sometimes, but he had learned to make less of a scene. She recalled him dancing in her driveway.

“My dogwood tree,” she moaned. “I planted it in the spring.”

Derek opened the back door and reached for her. “It took a hit. But it’s just a sapling. It may not be a goner. How’re you doing?”

“
I’m
the goner. Are you sure you don’t have any morphine? Someone needs to knock me out.”

Again he laughed. “I’m not on duty, and I only carry first aid supplies when I am. You’ll be all right, Patsy. Lean on me.”

With Jennifer and Derek supporting her on each side, she hobbled onto the deck and through the front door. They eased her down onto a sofa. As Jennifer placed Patsy’s leg on a pillow, Derek returned from the kitchen with a bag of frozen peas.

“Those are the expensive kind, you know.” She glanced at him. “I was going to serve them for … oh, rats. Tomorrow’s Christmas, isn’t it? And here I am, nearly dead.”

“I’m 99 percent sure this is a sprain, Patsy,” Derek told her as he wrapped the peas in a dish towel and packed them around the swelling joint. “Your boots were tight enough that they protected the ankle.”

“My boots are what did me in.” She sighed and closed her eyes. “Where’s Cody?”

“Hiding in the bathroom,” Jennifer told her. She had finished blotting and cleaning Patsy’s skinned knees, which somehow didn’t even need bandages. With a sigh, Jennifer focused on the powder room’s door. “I’m going to serve the cake. That’ll bring him out.”

“I’m afraid I’ll have to excuse myself from the dessert portion of this event,” Derek said with a wry smile. “I’ve had about as much excitement as I can stand for one day.”

“Are you going to give up on Cody?” Jennifer’s question came out in a whisper. “Do you think he can ever learn to drive?”

Derek studied the ceiling for a moment. “Not sure. He does tend to have a one-track mind. Driving involves doing a lot of different actions all at the same time. If he’s working to stay to the right of the roadway, he can’t seem to remember to check his rearview mirror or watch for a car that might be pulling out of a driveway. If we’re approaching a corner, Cody will put the blinker on but then forget to slow down, look both ways, and turn the steering wheel. He just sort of leans his whole body to one side, as if that will somehow cause the car to follow suit. We’ve driven over more curbs than I care to think about.”

“That’s autism,” Jennifer murmured. “I’ve done a lot of reading on the subject. It can be hard for an autistic person to multitask. Apparently they can master one behavior but then forget about all the accompanying actions. It takes a long time to integrate everything they’re learning.”

“Well, the words
give up
are not in my vocabulary, and I’ve got plenty of time to work with Cody,” Derek said, giving her a smile. “With another set of twins on the way and Kim starting to slow down, I’m not planning to go anywhere. They’re boys—did you hear? Mom wants us to call them Eric and Derek, after my father and me. But no way. Kim and I have decided we want Bible names. Names that have meaning, like …”

From her position on the couch, Patsy tried to focus on the genteel sharing of information between Derek and Jennifer. But she found it hard to keep from butting in and ordering one of them to get her something for this pain. And fast!

“That’s a great idea,” Jennifer was saying. “My parents went with the whole
J
concept—Jennifer, Justin, and Jessica. But it caused a lot of confusion for us. People can’t remember who is who, so we—”

“Excuse me,” Patsy said finally. “I hate to interrupt, but I could use a slice of that chocolate cake, Jennifer. And could you gather up a nice mix of painkillers for me while you’re at it?”