One Summer (26 page)

Despite the affection she had long cherished for Michael, in this moment of crisis Rachel was fiercely on Becky’s side.

“Can I get you some coffee or a sandwich, Michael?” Elisabeth asked somewhat nervously. Unlike Rachel’s, her view of her younger daughter was blocked by her son-in-law’s body.

“No, thank you, Elisabeth. I’ve got a dinner engagement. I’ll say good-bye to the girls and be on my way.”

“Say good-bye to the girls!” Becky laughed, the sound high-pitched and near hysterical as she clasped her hands in front of her small bosom. Michael swung around to face her. From her vantage point on the stairs, Rachel could see the look of near-hatred her sister shot him. Ten years ago, Becky had loved Michael so desperately that she had glowed whenever she so much as spoke his name. The contrast between how they had been together then and how things were between them now made Rachel angry and sad at the same time. Was nothing in life permanent?

“You say that so calmly! Don’t you care what a divorce will do to them?” Becky’s voice was shrill.

“Children adjust,” Michael ground out. Tension radiated from his very stance. Rachel was surprised that his fists were clenched at his sides. The Michael she had known had always been so controlled—she didn’t remember seeing him ever lose his temper. But then, she had only really known him over the course of one summer, in a courtship situation. Perhaps the young man she thought
she had fallen in love with had been a product of her own imagination.

“You’re their father!” It was a cry from Becky’s heart. Michael stiffened, then turned abruptly away from his wife, strode past Elisabeth and Rachel without another word, and banged out the back door.

For a moment the three women remained frozen in place. Then Rachel recovered sufficiently to hurry toward her stricken sister. Elisabeth was ahead of her, sweeping Becky up in her arms.

“He came to see how I felt about selling the h-house!” Becky wailed. “He’s going to spend the night in a hotel and come back tomorrow to talk about it. He said—he said a good night’s sleep might help me put things in their proper perspective.”

“That son of a bitch,” Elisabeth said fiercely. Rachel, who had never heard her mother swear before, nodded in heartfelt agreement. She leaned her head against Becky’s in silent sympathy as her sister burst into tears.

26

T
ylerville’s annual Labor Day picnic was held on Saturday night, and as usual almost everyone in town turned out for it. It was a festive event, beginning at six o’clock sharp with a parade and ending at twelve midnight with a dazzling burst of fireworks. A local band played everything from country to rock classics from the gazebo in the center of the town square. Teens sat cross-legged on blankets or sprawled on their stomachs in the grass in front of the gazebo, shouting requests at the band. With nearby streets closed to traffic, younger children ran wild, chasing one another and evading their exasperated parents with practiced ease. Adults filled up on the potluck supper in the garage of the new fire station adjacent to the square. Highlights of the evening included the Tylerville Civic Club–sponsored chasing of a greased pig, and a hot-air balloon ride for the bargain price of one dollar. By the time Rachel arrived, at a quarter to seven, the line for the balloon ride was easily a hundred and fifty strong. Apparently no one was deterred by the fact that the tethered balloon went up for only about twenty feet before it was hauled back in again for the next group of riders.

Rachel’s party included Rob, Becky, the girls, and her mother. She had been of two minds about whether to accept Rob’s invitation, but when he had very decently included
the rest of her family in his offer of escort, she saw no reason to turn him down. Becky needed the distraction of an outing, and her daughters, wilder than usual in the crisis that was engulfing their young lives, needed an outlet for their excessive energy. If Rachel’s heart ached for Johnny, she refused to dwell on the pain. It would go away—it had to. Her mother’s words about wishful thinking—extrapolated to include not just the subject of Johnny’s guilt or innocence but the long-term prospects of any relationship they might attempt—had fallen on fertile ground.

“Aunt Rachel, can we go on the balloon ride?” Loren, age five, tugged on Rachel’s hand excitedly.

“After we eat,” Becky interposed before Rachel could answer in the affirmative. Rachel had taken the older girls to a movie earlier in the afternoon while Becky and Michael had talked further. Elisabeth, who had kept two-year-old Katie, gave Rachel to understand that the visit had not been a success. Becky had run up to her room in tears not fifteen minutes after it began, and Michael had icily promised to return again the next day. But by the time Rob came to collect them for the picnic, Becky had herself under control, and except for a slight redness around her eyes, a stranger would have found no indication that anything was amiss with her. Rob, apprised of the situation by Rachel, obviously found Becky’s courage commendable, and he spent much of the drive to town and the subsequent walk to the square telling foolish, corny jokes in an attempt to lift her spirits. By the time they joined the throng around the supper tables, Rachel thought that if she had to listen to one more such idiocy, she would dump her paper cup of iced tea over his head.

But Becky was relaxing and even smiling a little under his verbal nonsense. It occurred to Rachel that she might be in danger of losing yet another man to her sister. It also occurred to her that this time, with this man, she didn’t really care.

“Katie, no! That’s hot!” Rachel grabbed for her youngest
niece, who was lunging for the silver coffee dispenser set up at the end of a long, heavily laden table. Barely catching the toddler in time, she hauled the struggling Katie onto her hip and pacified her with a brownie purloined from the dessert table. They were twenty-five cents each, but the line to pay was long, and she decided to let Katie eat the treat there and then, and confess and pay for it when she paid for her own plate.

“Let me take her, Rache,” Becky murmured when Rachel rejoined the group. Katie, her face wreathed in chocolate icing and smiles, shook her head vigorously at her mother.

“Katie stay with Aunt Wachel,” she said firmly. Rachel laughed and hugged her niece, not even minding when Katie patted her cheek with a gooey hand. Becky, with an exasperated cluck, used her paper napkin to remove the worst of the mess from the vicinity of the child’s mouth. By then, the napkin was so dirty that to attempt to wipe Rachel’s cheek with it would only have made the problem worse.

“She’s got chocolate on your face,” Rob whispered to Rachel when Becky’s attention was claimed by their mother.

“That’s all right. It’ll wash off.”

Rob used his own napkin to rub the icing from Rachel’s face, and she smiled at him for his trouble.

“Your sister’s children are real cute,” he told her.

“Aren’t they?” Rachel kissed Katie’s plump baby cheek to prove it and picked up a plate to serve herself from the buffet. Around her, friends and neighbors called greetings to the three Grant women, and there was much exclaiming over Becky, who didn’t get back to Tylerville that often, and her children. Becky looked very pretty in her ankle-length green sundress with its bare shoulders and back. Rachel, who had chosen to wear navy shorts and a bright yellow T-shirt, could not help but notice the male attention that Becky attracted on all sides. If Michael was no
longer interested in his wife, she would not be left to wither on the vine. Rachel was glad to discover that her sister’s appeal to men pleased rather than pricked her, as it might once have done.

Rachel chatted to all and sundry and obligingly turned when requested so that Katie could be viewed and admired. Katie, bless her, had decided for some unknown reason to be good. She laughed and clapped her hands and said “Hi!” to everyone who spoke to her. “Little angel,” “What a poppet!” and “Look at that sweet child!” were some of the comments that came Katie’s way. Rachel, fielding compliments and diverting grabby little fingers as best she could, discovered that balancing a squirming two-year-old on one hip while trying to fill a plate at the same time was no easy feat. Fortunately, Rob, seeing her dilemma, took her plate and filled it at her direction. Lisa and Loren were old enough to manage on their own, with a little help from their mother and grandmother, and eventually the whole group was able to retire to one of the dozens of tables set up under the trees.

Rachel relinquished Katie and sat down with an inner sigh of relief. The child seemed to weigh a ton, despite her diminutive size. It was still daylight, as it would be until almost nine o’clock, but the fierce heat of the day had gentled into a comfortable warmth, and a soft breeze fanned Rachel’s hair back from her face. It was pleasant to relax with family and friends, pleasant to listen to the music that was just the right distance away, pleasant to watch the children laughing and playing tag and hide-and-go-seek across the square. Pleasant even to cut up food for the delectation of her smallest niece.

“I want another bownie,” Katie said, eyeing the plenty before her with disfavor.

“After you eat,” Rachel told her, reducing the child’s ham to bite-size pieces.

“No, now!”

“Katie, behave.” That was Becky, intervening from across the table.

“Mom, she’s not going to have a fit, is she?” Lisa asked in an undertone, sounding disgusted. Like the rest of the family, she was well aware of her youngest sister’s propensity for tantrums when life did not please her.

“Bownie!”

“Mom …”

“Aunt Rachel, I’ve finished. Can we go ride in the balloon now?” Loren bounded up from the table and came around to Rachel’s side.

“Let Aunt Rachel eat first, dear,” Becky said.

“Aunt Rachel—”

“We will, sweetheart, I promise. But I am starving, and if I don’t eat, I’ll probably just dry up and blow away.”

“Will not!”

“Loren, run and play.” There was a slightly harassed note to Becky’s voice. “Bownie!”

“Katie, dear, won’t you eat up your nice ham for Grandma? Or how about a bite of macaroni and cheese?” Elisabeth held a forkful of her own macaroni and cheese across the table.

“Bownie!” said Katie, scowling ferociously at her grandmother.

“Katie, hush and eat!” Becky sounded tense as she frowned at her youngest. Seated between Rachel and Rob, Katie looked adorable with her blond pigtails and blue gingham pinafore, even with her lower lip thrust out and her small arms crossed defiantly over her chest. Lisa, seated between her mother and grandmother opposite Katie, and Loren, still dancing around the table, gave their little sister identical disgusted looks.

“Bownie! Bownie, bownie, bownie!” It was a piercing shriek. Heads turned at surrounding tables.

“Mom, can’t you do something?” Lisa asked in a low
voice, scrunching down in her seat. Loren stood still to watch the fun.

“Katie Lynn Hennessey, that is quite enough! Young ladies do not behave that way.” Elisabeth tried to quell her headstrong granddaughter with a stern tone and a shake of her head.

“Please, Mom? Before she has a fit?” Lisa’s plea was urgent.

“What do you want me to do?” Becky said to Lisa through her teeth. Then, “Rachel, look out!”

But Becky’s warning came too late. Katie, screaming, “Bownie, bownie, bownie!” at the top of her lungs, knocked her filled plate to one side. It skittered along the side of the table and overturned in Rob’s lap.

“Oh, no!” Rachel gasped.

“Oh, dear!” Elisabeth moaned.

“Katie Hennessey!” Becky hissed.

“Damn it!” Rob bellowed.

The cries of distress were simultaneous. Rob jumped up and brushed as much of the mess as he could from his perfectly pressed khaki slacks. Rachel, grabbing a screaming, kicking Katie before she could cause more chaos, looked at the damage to Rob’s trousers and was appalled. Ham, mashed potatoes, gravy, macaroni and cheese, cherry Jell-O, and bits of fruit salad all clung to the expensive twill.

“For shame!” Becky said, coming around the table to claim her bellowing youngest. For an instant, just an instant, Rob glared at Katie with real fury in his eyes. Rachel saw his expression and was taken aback. Katie was just a baby, after all, and her action was nothing more and nothing less than babies do every day. It had certainly not been deliberate. Was this the man she had thought would be a good, patient father?

“I’m so sorry,” Becky apologized to Rob, while at the same time doing everything she could to hang on to her child, who was caught up in the throes of a full-blown
tantrum. Elisabeth, attempting to come to Becky’s aid, whispered, “Naughty, naughty!” and shook her finger at Katie. The older girls, transparently embarrassed by their sister’s lapse, slunk out of sight.

“Don’t worry about it. It wasn’t your fault.” Rob had recovered his suave good manners and was ruefully dabbing a napkin at the mess on his pants. Rachel, wetting her napkin in Katie’s glass of water, bent to help him.

The roar of an engine drew her eyes past Rob’s leg to the barricades that closed off the street at the edge of the firehouse parking lot. That she had heard the sound at all over Katie’s blubbering, the caterwauling of the band, the hiss of the hot-air balloon, and the chattering of her neighbors at the surrounding tables surprised her. She must be somehow attuned to the sound …