Providence (19 page)

“No problem,” Dottie said. “We’ll come around about noon to pick the three of you up.”

My desire to get out from under Dottie’s grip was strong, so I just gave another half smile. “Thanks,” I said, separating myself from her. “Rosie is looking forward to tomorrow.”

I don’t know if it was the extra rest or the big lunch that restored her energy, but Rosie talked on and on through supper. She wanted an accounting of everybody who passed through the Second Hand Rose door. By the time we moved into the front parlor for the evening, she was trying to decide what items would sell best for Christmas.

“Rosie,” I said. “I noticed a sewing machine on the shelf, so I tried it out and it works.”

“Of course it works,” Rosie said. “Why would I sell a machine that didn’t work?”

My mind immediately made a list of the many broken items in the store, but I decided to keep it to myself. “I was wondering if you would mind if I used the machine to make some tree skirts and stockings, and maybe even some doll clothes,” I said.

“Where are we going to get the material for those things?” Rosie asked. “Lydie might carry some, but we probably would have to go back to the mall. I wish you would have thought of this the last time we went to there. It’s too crowded for me after Thanksgiving.”

“I was thinking we wouldn’t need to buy fabric,” I said. “What if I cut up some of the clothes and ties that haven’t been selling anyway? I went through the store this morning and found quite a few things that would work.”

“You are too clever for me,” Rosie laughed. “I said it before and I’ll say it again. The day you two walked into my store was the luckiest day of my life. You use anything you see fit. I won’t stand in the way of the family artist.”

“We are the lucky ones,” I said, and got up to get Georgia ready for bed.

After we got the baby tucked in for the night, Rosie went off to bed, too. I decided to watch a movie on the television, but my mind was too cluttered to follow the story. I gave up and slid into bed, but no matter how heavy my eyelids got, I couldn’t fall asleep. I’d thrown Daddy’s note away, but his words were etched in my brain. I had spent most of my growing up years helping out at home. Maybe that’s why Mama and Daddy seemed to see my leaving as losing a hired hand instead of missing a daughter.

CHAPTER 22

I opened my eyes the next morning and looked over at the clock on my bedside table. When the time, nine-fifteen, registered in my brain, I bolted upright. I had never slept this late before. Why hadn’t Baby Girl demanded attention before now? I looked into the crib and there she was holding onto her feet and rolling from side to side with this big old toothless grin on her face. I stood there watching for a few minutes and laughing at myself for being such a worrywart. When the ammonia smell drifted up from her diaper, playtime was over.

“Good morning, sleepyheads,” Rosie said as we walked into the kitchen. “I thought I heard you up and moving, so I started breakfast. I made us something substantial today just in case dinner is a long way off.”

I put Georgia in her baby seat and set the table. “I need to stop by the store for just one minute this morning,” I said. “Dottie and Ray are going to come by and drive you over to Pete’s. Georgia and I will meet you there.”

“You’ll do no such thing,” said Rosie. “Today is a holiday. We don’t do business on holidays.”

“I’m not opening the store,” I explained. “I just have to pick something up. I made a little gift for Pete to thank him for inviting us today. I forgot it at the store yesterday. It will only take me a minute. Georgia and I will probably beat you over to Pete’s.”

Georgia and I set out for the store about a half hour before Dottie and Ray were expected at the house. This turned out to be the perfect timing. I walked up to Pete’s house just as Ray pulled his car into the driveway. When I saw Ray get out from behind the wheel dressed in a suit and tie, I was glad I had worn my good dress.

Back home, we didn’t dress up for the holiday. All work on the farm stopped by breakfast on Thanksgiving Day. This, of course, left the whole family packed into our tiny house. Things tended to get ugly fast, and by mid-morning Daddy would send anyone not able to help with the cooking out into the fields to do their whooping and hollering. Jeans and coveralls were more suited for a Miller Thanksgiving than dresses and suits.

I put the basket on the hood of Ray’s car so we could arrange the breads inside of it. I was almost too busy concentrating on how pretty that basket looked to notice the corsages Rosie and Dottie were wearing. They were the kind of thing though that once they caught your eye, you just couldn’t look away, no matter how hard you tried. Each corsage was an arrangement of red, yellow, and orange flowers and ribbons. Each one was bigger than Baby Girl’s head. I stood there staring at them, speechless.

“Don’t you worry,” Ray said, smiling. “We didn’t forget you.” He opened his trunk and pulled out a white cardboard box.

I looked at the box, picturing one side of my chest collapsing under the weight of one those corsages. I gulped and prepared my thanks. “You shouldn’t have,” I said.

“Nonsense. Ray buys me a corsage every year. Your day shouldn’t be any less special than mine. I hope you don’t mind that your corsage is a little different from ours,” Dottie said. “But I didn’t think you would want to be wearing a straight pin while carrying the baby.”

I let out my breath and smiled, probably more than I should have. “I don’t mind at all,” I said. “I think it was real thoughtful of you to consider Georgia’s comfort and safety.” I opened the lid of the box.

“Let me help you with that,” Ray said. He lifted the corsage from the box and slid the gold elastic band over my hand. Flowers stretched from my wrist to my elbow.

“Thank you,” I said. I’m ashamed to admit that my feelings of appreciation were overshadowed by my trying to figure out how long I had to wear that little garden before finding an excuse to plant it back in the box.

Pete did the holiday justice, giving us all plenty to be thankful for that day. When he brought out the desserts, Rosie asked if everyone could wait a bit before indulging our sweet tooth. “Lily promised me she would stop by for dessert,” she explained.

She had barely gotten the words out of her mouth when the doorbell rang. Pete came back into the dining room with Lily and John in tow. His arms were filled with another basket of goodies. He put down the basket and pulled another chair over to the table, so Lily could sit beside Rosie. Ray stood up and said, “We have room for you down here, John,” he said, placing a chair beside mine and winking in my direction.

I wanted to disappear into the rug below me. I wondered if there was anyone in town who didn’t know John had caught my eye. I was grateful when Dottie started a conversation at the other end of the table. I stayed quiet, and I noticed Lily did too. Much as Dottie tried, she couldn’t coax more than a few polite phrases from Lily’s lips. After we enjoyed enough desserts to last us until Christmas, Ray stood up and stretched.

“You give one hell of a party, Pete,” Ray said. He rubbed his stomach. “That was some spread you put out. I hate to be the wet blanket, but it’s time for me to call it a night. I have to get up extra early tomorrow to get a jump on all those shoppers. If I don’t keep pouring coffee in them, they might be too tired to keep on shopping.” He laughed and bowed to Rosie. “I hope you don’t mind us leaving a little early, Rosie.”

Rosie accepted his arm and allowed him to lift her to her feet. Dottie was standing by with their coats. I dressed Baby Girl for the trip home, thanked Pete, and leaned over the stroller.

“I think it would be easier to get the carriage in the car without Georgia in it,” Pete laughed.

“We’re going to walk back,” I explained.

“Not tonight,” Pete said. “It’s dark and it’s raining out there. You can’t be walking in this. You ladies stay in here, and Ray and I will get the carriage in the car.”

“We don’t have a car seat with us,” I explained.

“The carriage doubles as a car seat, but there’s no need to bother with that,” Lily interrupted, placing her hand on the carriage.

I was about to speak my piece, when Lily added, “We have a car seat in our car. We can take them home.”

Without another word, John folded the carriage, thanked Pete, and went to put the carriage in the trunk. There was a wild exchange of hugs between us all before John returned. I noticed no one gave Lily their usual bear hug. Instead, they treated her like an expensive and fragile china doll.

Once we got to the car, Lily took command. She settled Rosie into one side of the back seat while I buckled Baby Girl into her seat. Then Lily motioned to me to get into the front seat, while she took the position next to Baby Girl. When Baby Girl started fussing, I wished I had spoken up and taken the back seat. Lily asked John to turn on the sound system. At first I thought, she was using a too fancy name for a radio, but when John pushed the button the car filled with a symphony. “That should soothe her,” Lily said.

I wanted to correct her, but within two minutes Baby Girl let out a contented sigh.

When we arrived home, Rosie kept thanking Lily for coming and John for making sure she came. I used the wet weather as an excuse to cut the love fest short and to get Baby Girl inside.

Georgia had a hard time falling asleep that night. The truth be told, as great a job as Pete did that day, Baby Girl was the real center of attention. She had been passed from one set of arms to the next all day. She had been bounced, tickled, sung to, and sniffed a hundred times. She wasn’t ready to give up the spotlight for bed.

I went to my room and picked up a picture book that I brought home from the library. Rosie almost laughed her teeth out when she saw me bringing books home for Baby Girl. She may be right about Georgia being too young to understand a story, but my reading them soothed and calmed her as well as any music could. I settled us into the rocker and began reading. By the time I turned the last page, Baby Girl was in a place where I could put her down for the night, and Rosie was fast asleep.

After I settled Baby Girl into her crib, I decided to stop by Rosie’s room. In all the months we’ve lived here, I’d never stepped to the other side of her door. But the night before Rosie had gone to bed with the parlor afghan still wrapped around her, and I was afraid she might catch a chill dozing out in her chair without it.

Even my good intentions couldn’t keep a bad feeling from creeping over me as I passed through the doorway. It felt like the time when I was in second grade on our field trip to the museum. Mary Louise Horton was scared to death of the mummy they had laying out there. I wanted to show her there was nothing to be afraid of, so I slipped under that big red velvet rope and touched that mummy with both of my hands. It gave me chills, but I didn’t want Mary Louise to know that. Before I could even finish saying, “See, Mary Louise. There’s nothing to be afraid of,” I felt my teacher, Mrs. Lincoln, gripping my right shoulder and the museum guide in the navy blue suit grabbing my left. I spent the rest of the afternoon sitting in the museum office while Mary Louise and the rest of the class finished the tour. To top it off, Mrs. Lincoln wrote my parents a letter telling them how disappointed she was in my behavior. Daddy said I had shamed the whole family.

I only tell you that so you will understand why, even though I had a perfectly good reason for entering Rosie’s room, I failed to cross the room and answer the phone ringing on Rosie’s bedside table. Instead, I ran out of the room and down the hall to the kitchen phone.

The voice on the other end belonged to Rosie’s granddaughter. I woke Rosie and while she chatted on the phone, I sat there thinking. This was the first time I had ever spoken to Rosie’s granddaughter, but she didn’t even ask who I was or what I was doing answering the phone. I wondered how often they had spoken about me. I wondered if Rosie didn’t want me to know what she had to say. I closed my eyes and pictured the black phone sitting on Rosie’s bedside table and realized that she probably talked to lots of folks on the phone without me knowing. She wasn’t keeping secrets; it was just a convenience.

And then, as it so often happens in my brain, one worrying thought brought me to another. When I closed my eyes and pictured that phone ringing, I saw something else. On the bedside table, right next to the phone, were about a dozen caramel-colored tubes with white labels stuck on them. I closed my eyes and tried to see them again. I guess I was really hoping to
not
see them again. But there they were, medicine bottles lined up like soldiers guarding Rosie’s bed.

Rosie came down the hall. “I’m going to pop in your room to say good night to Georgia Rose,” she said. When Rosie came out again, she said, “Our little angel is already asleep and I think it’s time for me to join her.”

I wanted to ask Rosie about the amber tubes on her nightstand. I wanted her to tell me everything was all right. But the words didn’t come out of me. Instead, I got up and hugged her tight.

“Now what did I do to deserve that?” Rosie asked, smiling.