Mourning Gloria (10 page)

Cooking doesn’t require a lot of attention, giving me time to listen, think, and appreciate the space around me. Our house is one of those sprawling Victorians that you occasionally see around here, more often in town, though, than in the country. The former owners planned to turn it into a bed-and-breakfast and called it Meadow Brook, which—considering that the five-acre property includes both a pretty meadow and a spring-fed brook—is descriptively appropriate. It’s close enough to the Hill Country tourist hot spots that a B and B might make good sense. The house is certainly large enough for that: two stories, five bedrooms, a turret at one corner, a wraparound porch with roses and honeysuckle climbing the arbor. Every time the checkbook looks a little thin, I bring up the idea. But so far, we haven’t tried to implement it, partly because we’re all selfish about our personal space and partly because I’m not sure I want strangers in the house as long as the kids are with us.

There’s plenty of personal space. McQuaid has a shop where he works on his gun collection and other projects, and he’s converted what used to be the downstairs bedroom into his private investigator’s office. (He points out that it could be awkward to mix clients and customers—another reason why a B and B might not be right for us.)

Brian, who plans to major in biology when he goes to college, has staked out the creek at the back of the property, where he collects frogs, lizards, and other amphibious creatures. They occasionally go AWOL from his bedroom and exercise free-range privileges around the house, showing up in unexpected places—behind the toilet, for instance, or in Howard Cosell’s water dish.

I have a large garden area for plants I don’t want to grow at the shop, and the screened-in back porch for crafts. Until Caitlin became a part of our family, I also claimed the turret as my getaway place. Then, knowing that every little girl needs a magical place to call her own, I turned it over to her. She sleeps and reads and plays her violin there, and writes in her diary and does the other things that young girls do.

The rest of the day passed so pleasantly that I almost forgot what had happened the night before—or rather, relegated it to the status of a bad dream, like the nightmare that had awakened me. That is, I forgot until I was getting ready to go to Donna’s farm for the meeting and looked in the mirror and saw that my eyebrows were gone and my face was reddened and splotchy. I repaired the damage with an eyebrow pencil and some cover-up, and asked Caitlin what she thought.

She put her head to one side and replied in her forthright way. “It’s better than it was before, but you still look like you leaned too close to the barbeque grill.”

“Oh, well,” I said, and put away the eyebrow pencil. “It could’ve been worse. You sure you’re okay about staying by yourself for a couple of hours this evening? Wouldn’t you rather go to the meeting with me? It’s at Mistletoe Farm.” When Brian’s home, I don’t think twice about going out, because he can handle most crises. But Caitie is just eleven.

“Meetings are boring,” she said, and ran her fingers through her short dark hair. “I like staying by myself, and I have a book to read. Can I make a sandwich?”

“Sandwich, milk, whatever,” I said. “I’ve left a couple of carrot cupcakes. You can use the microwave if you want, but don’t turn on the stove, please. The Banners are at home, if you need them, and their number is on the wall beside the phone.” Tom and Maxine Banner live up the road from us and are on call if one of the kids has a problem. “Oh, and you’ve got your cell?” For a long time, McQuaid and I resisted getting Brian a cell phone, until we discovered how easy it is to keep track of a kid when he’s got a phone in his pocket. Now, we view the phones as another of the costs of having children. The kids have to live without texting, though, and neither of them have Internet access. We’re on a budget here.

She patted the pocket of her jeans, her delicate face sweetly serious. “I’ll call you if I need to.”

“And I’ll call you every hour, so keep the phone handy.” Maybe moms who have more practice than I do can go away and leave their daughters for an evening without worrying. I’m not quite there yet.

“Have a good time,” she said, and hugged me. “You haven’t forgotten about tomorrow, have you?”

I frowned. “Let’s see—tomorrow, tomorrow. We have a dentist appointment?”

She rolled her eyes.

“Must be a haircut, then.” I smoothed her dark pixie cut. “Nope, that was last week.”

“I’ll give you a hint,” she said, and mimed bowing a violin.

“Oh, that!” I exclaimed. “Well, sure. Of course I haven’t forgotten. Your lesson. Four thirty. “

She gave an exaggerated sigh of relief and giggled. “I knew you’d remember. With a little help.”

“I’ll tie a string around my finger,” I said.

“Cool,” she said. “Make it a violin string.” One of her rare, brilliant smiles flashed across her face.

 

 

THE rain had stopped by midafternoon and the sun had come out, turning the wet grass and trees to glitter and raising the temperature by about fifteen sultry degrees. As I drove into town to pick Ruby up, I had to pass the burned trailer. I didn’t want to look, but I couldn’t help myself, and the sight brought the whole scene back, hot and fierce. The trailer was a ruin, a twisted hulk of scorched, scarcely recognizable metal, and despite the rain, the fire had extended in a smudge of blackened trees and underbrush halfway to the top of the ridge. The area was marked with yellow crime-scene tape and the fire marshal’s car was parked out front.

Resolutely, I turned my attention away from the trailer, toward the evening. Our Local Food Society meetings are pretty informal—I was wearing plain khaki walking shorts, a dark brown tee, and sandals. Ruby, when she finally appeared, was distinctly colorful. She came running out of her house breathlessly, dressed in red pedal pushers and a red-and-yellow draped top, carrying a tote bag.

I love Ruby. What’s more, I admire her courage. To look at her, you’d never know that she belongs (as she puts it) to the tribe of one-breasted women. She had breast cancer surgery a few years ago, and refuses to get an implant. “No foreign bodies inside my body,” she insists, and chooses her clothes with care. She says she’d rather have people looking at her face than her boobs, anyway, and she makes up accordingly. She’s fond of colored contact lenses, well-defined eyes, glittery eye shadow, and bright red lipstick—not to mention that carroty hair, which she likes to wear frizzed. Today, it was held back from her face with red and yellow plastic barrettes.

“Vivid,” I said appreciatively, as she got into the Toyota and put the tote bag on the floor.

“Thank you,” she replied, settling in and fastening her seat belt. “Sorry if I’m late. It was Doris, of course. She had another . . .” She turned to me and her eyes widened. “Omigawd, China! What happened to
you
? It looks like you were torched!”

“An explosion.” I shivered. “A trailer fire. Out on Limekiln Road. I was on my way home last night when I saw it.” The rest of the story came tumbling out, uncensored and replete with the gory details, since I didn’t have to worry about Caitlin listening in.

“Oh, gosh,” she said, and touched my penciled-in eyebrow with her finger. “I’m so sorry, China. What an awful thing to have seen!”

“A damn sight worse for the woman inside the trailer,” I said grimly, and started the car. “If I’d shown up three or four minutes earlier, I might’ve been able to get her out.” I bit my lip, trying not to hear the echo of the frantic cry for help. “Even two minutes—that might’ve done it.”

Ruby said the same thing Sheila had said. “You can’t blame yourself, China. You did what you could, as soon as you got there. Have they found out who she is?”

I swung away from the curb. “If they have, I haven’t heard.”

To tell the truth, I really didn’t want to know. The whole episode had begun to seem ugly and repulsive, too much like the sordid episodes of my former career. I didn’t lead that kind of life anymore. I shoved last night’s events into the back corner of my mind.

“You started to say something about Doris,” I said. “What happened? Did she run away from home again?”

Unfortunately, something is always happening to Ruby’s mother—or to be more precise, Ruby’s mother is always making something happen. Doris lives in a senior care facility called Castle Oaks, about ten minutes from Ruby’s house. In the past, we have made fun of her situation—among ourselves, of course, not in front of Doris. As Ruby and I would put it, her mom was one taco shy of a combination plate. Carrying on the food metaphor, Amy would say, “Gramma has been out to lunch for the past few months.” Kate would add, “The poor old thing is a couple of eggs short of a dozen.”

We’ve laughed at these lame little jokes, but sadly, for there is really nothing funny about Alzheimer’s. It’s a tragedy, nothing less, for the person who is afflicted and for family and friends. Still, what else can we do but chuckle at this business of being human and growing older and losing our grip on the dailiness of life? And everybody who knows Doris admits that, even in her worst moments, she can be very funny indeed.

“No, she didn’t run away from home,” Ruby said ruefully. “She got in a fight. She beat up on another old lady.”

“Oh, my gosh!” I exclaimed, and my lawyer mode clicked in. “Assault and battery? Is anybody going to press charges? Is—”

“No, of course not,” Ruby said. She was trying to smile, but not doing a very good job of it. “Things like that happen in the Alzheimer’s wing all the time. They just patch people up and get on with it.”

“But still . . .” I glanced at her. “What was the fight about?”

“They were in the cafeteria, having lunch, and the other old lady snatched up Mom’s carton of milk and poured it into the fish tank. She was feeding the fish, she said. So Mom plopped a wad of mashed potatoes down the back of her dress. The old lady slugged her with a pork chop. Mom knocked her down and sat on her.” Ruby was smiling, but her eyes were filled with tears and I could hear the sob in her throat. It was funny, but it wasn’t. “I don’t think the episode lasted more than a minute,” she added, “but it got everybody’s attention. The nurses said that the old folks were all gathered in a circle, shouting for their favorites.”

“Anything for a little excitement,” I muttered. “Were you called in to referee or did you have to clean the fish tank? I don’t imagine that the fish are very happy, swimming around in milky water.”

Ruby wiped the tears off her cheeks with the back of her hand. “I was called in to bring Mom a pair of spare glasses. In the melee, hers got stepped on and smashed.”

“Gosh, that’s too bad,” I said. “I hope the other old lady didn’t get hurt.” Doris is strong in her dotage. She went AWOL from Castle Oaks a few months ago, and it took a couple of burly cops to escort her back home.

Ruby giggled through her tears. “She lost her upper plate. When Mom jumped her, it popped out and got broken. But she told the nurses that she was glad to have an excuse for a new one, because the old one never fit just right.”

I shook my head in amazement. “You and I should be so lively when we get to their age.”

“I just hope I get there with all my marbles,” Ruby replied.

“Yeah. Me, too. I want to be able to laugh at myself.” I glanced down at the tote bag on the floor. “What’s in the bag?”

“My famous Hot Lips Cookies.” Ruby sighed. “Unfortunately, the only thing local about them is the habanero powder. I got it from one of the vendors at the market, who grows the habaneros on her deck. The rest . . .” She shrugged. “It’s pretty difficult to bake if you have to restrict yourself to what’s grown locally.”

“You’re right,” I said. “Flour and sugar are a problem. Wheat and sugar cane are grown and processed in Texas, but the packages don’t tell you where the stuff comes from.”

“Oil and shortening, too,” Ruby added thoughtfully. “And baking powder and baking soda. And salt—don’t forget salt. It’s a terrific idea, eating locally, and I’m all for growing lettuce and tomatoes and planting peach trees instead of crepe myrtles. But I don’t know anybody around here who has a salt lick. Do you?”

“I read that the Indians used to get salt from seep springs over in Llano County, which is less than a hundred miles away,” I replied. “And there are salt mines on the Gulf Coast.”

“Well, maybe.” Ruby shook her head. “But I’d hate to try and find my own salt. I can’t even begin to imagine what would happen if we couldn’t go shopping for what we need.”

We were silent for a moment, contemplating our utter dependence on the grocery chains. At last I changed the subject again.

“So how was the Long Shot last night? Did you and Hark have a good time?”

Ruby gave a little shrug. “It was okay. Hark isn’t much of a dancer.” She brightened. “I danced with a cowboy who
was
, though. I mean, really.”

“Hey.” I frowned. “Aren’t you supposed to dance with the one that brung you?”

Ruby was defensive. “Well, I would’ve. In fact, I wanted to, but Hark got involved in a game of pool. You know how he is when he gets a cue in his hand. He totally forgot about me.” She sighed lustily. “I have to tell you, China—Jackson is a real cowboy.”

“Jackson? A cowboy named
Jackson
?”

Ruby nodded. “He’s the foreman at a big ranch in Llano County. Thousands of acres.”

Hark doesn’t look much like a pool shark, but looks are deceiving. And he’s definitely much better at the table than he is on the dance floor. Still, he and Ruby were out on a date and he should have danced with her instead of playing pool. It was not the better part of wisdom to leave her to the tender mercies of the local cowboys, who are great dancers but play fast and loose with hearts.

“Hark should have been paying attention to you,” I said sternly.

“You bet. Anyway, Jackson invited me to the rodeo on Friday night. He’s riding bulls.” Another giggle. “He’s an outrageous flirt, China. And really cute.”