Seeing Things (11 page)
Authors: Patti Hill
The pastor stood silently for a long time.
“Whose feet is Jesus asking you to wash? Now, relax, I'm not asking you to strip down to your Skivvies and wash anyone's feet.”
A nervous jitter filled the sanctuary.
“Maybe the Lord will, but I won't. No, I'm asking: To whom will you show the full extent of his love?”
“CAN WE STAY A little longer?” Fletcher said, stretching his neck to scan the congregation shuffling toward the narthex and the espresso bar.
“What time is it?” I said.
Fletcher bounced. “Dad will be here in ten minutes.”
“Are you looking for someone?”
“I have a friend who goes here.”
“From school?”
“Chemistry. There. I'll be right back.”
Fletcher returned to the sanctuary, I presumed, since he disappeared into the fog. I swallowed down panic. Unfamiliar situations unsettled macular degenerates like me. The fog made finding a helpful sign or a place to sit a challenge, especially since I liked to look normal in such situations. As casually as I could muster, I shifted my focus to catch a length of wall to lean against, or better yet, a seat near the coffee counter. People milled all around me. The smell of dark roasted coffee and bananas wafted over the crowd. I prayed the prayer God had never left unanswered for me:
Lord, send someone to guide me.
Lord, send someone to guide me.
A woman trailing Estée Lauder and wearing a reassuring amount of denim sidled up to me and slid her arm around my waist. “Birdie! It's me, Ruth. We must get you a seat, dear. We're only a few steps away. I'm sitting with a group of friends you'll love, a couple of the Bats. I'm anxious for you to meet them.”
“My ride will be here soon, Ruth.”
She squeezed tighter. “I'm so sorry I didn't invite you to join me this morning. The church sends a van.” We sat at a bistro table by the espresso bar. Ruth announced my presence to the table. “Hey girls, we have a new Bat joining us. This is Birdie. She's living right next door to me.”
“In that
new
house?” a woman said with a hint of that anger.
new
house?” a woman said with a hint of that anger.
Ruth ignored her. “She can't stay long, but I wanted to introduce you. She's coming to our meeting on Thursday.”
“We're both happy and sad to meet you, Birdie. It's always nice to meet another sister in the Lord, but I'm sorry you got stuck being a degenerate.”
“That's Betty,” Ruth said.
“We mustn't forget to pray for Ruby. She goes for an injection tomorrow. Keep the prayers coming, girls!”
I knew exactly what Betty meant by an injectionâan anticoagulant shot right into the eyeball with a needle. “I'm at end stage.”
“Oh, crumb. Who's your doctor?” asked another woman at the table with dyed inky black hair, a pageboy with bangs curled as tight as cannoli.
I'd had this conversation plenty of times on cruise ships, hiking trails, and in dance halls. Yes, I'd passed up laser photocoagulationâthink of an iron rod cauterizing an opened woundâand tried photodynamic therapy, which turned out to be nothing better than a Band-Aid. Technology hadn't kept pace with the progress of my disease, so I'd determined to outpace the disease.
“I live in Ouray,” I said. “I drive to Grand Junction to see a retinal specialist.”
Fletcher reappeared. “Grandma, Dad's out front. We better go . . .
now.
”
now.
”
I rose. “I'm sorry . . .”
“Don't be silly. See you Thursday,” Ruth said. “You'll meet Ruby too.”
Riding the few blocks home, I felt buoyant for the first time in weeks. “Fletcher, did you enjoy the message?”
“The message?”
“About Jesus washing the disciples' feet?”
“Why'd he do that?”
Chapter 11
I'd fallen asleep with the words of the preacher stitching my thoughts:
To whom will you show the full extent of his love?
Limited as I was in movement, the answer proved singular, simple: my family. But how? These people don't do a thing for themselves. They sent their laundry out and employed Lupe to clean house, a friendly gardener named Roger, and a team of window washers who arrived every Tuesday. True to form, I woke at four, considered flipping on the television, reading my Bible, or listening to more
Huck,
but the kitchen called.
To whom will you show the full extent of his love?
Limited as I was in movement, the answer proved singular, simple: my family. But how? These people don't do a thing for themselves. They sent their laundry out and employed Lupe to clean house, a friendly gardener named Roger, and a team of window washers who arrived every Tuesday. True to form, I woke at four, considered flipping on the television, reading my Bible, or listening to more
Huck,
but the kitchen called.
Clear glass containers filled the pantry, and if the containers were labeled, you couldn't tell it by me. I tasted powdered sugar, baking soda, and something that left a metallic taste in my mouth before finding the workhorse of the pantry, bleached flour. I found butter in the freezer but no lard or shortening. Suzanne stocked only raw sugar. Not finding tapiocaâmy thickening of choiceânearly bushwhacked my intentions, but this was no time to let pride get in the way. I had love to extend. I settled on flour and more butter, not a wholly disagreeable notion. Once I'd assembled everything I needed, including the apples, I studied the oven controls with a magnifying glass. I turned the knob to 425 degrees, and a red light shone. Congratulating myself, I cut the butter into the flour and salt with two knives.
Huck sat at the counter, his chin in his hands. Was his hair longer? “I should have guessed you'd show up with a pie on the way.” Huck's appearance energized the zing of knife against knife through the dough. “That was some show you put on at church. Goodness, but you made it difficult for this old woman to concentrate.”
A lopsided grin let me know Huck enjoyed putting on a performance.
I poured ice water into the flour mixture until the dough barely held together. “You know, Huck, something's been gnawing at me. The last time you visited me, I could have sworn I heard you speak.” I rested my hands on the side of the bowl. “I wouldn't mind one bit if you wanted to speak your mind, anytime at all, day or night. What with your adventures with Tom and all, I'm sure you have stories worth hearing. I'm nothing but a grandma, Huck. You can't get in trouble with me.”
Knowing that nothing clammed a boy up faster than a female gaze, young or old, I set to kneading the dough. When I finally looked up, Huck stretched toward the ceiling and yawned. His indifference miffed me.
“Don't go thinking you can bamboozle me, Huck. I've been around the block more times than I care to admit. I heard you talk. I know I did, so there's no sense in playing these games. Spit it out. What's going on in that shaggy head of yours?”
Huck left his seat, and I feared I'd overstepped the unspoken boundaries of our friendship. He slipped from the counter to lean against the cabinets and set to chewing the end of his pipe.
“Okay then, keep me company while I bake this pie. You're a joy to look at, I can tell you that. Those blue eyes of yours are going to be woman-slayers one of these days. Talk when you want to. I'm not going anywhere.”
The stove pinged and I nearly jumped out of my skin. I read the LCD numbers with the magnifying glass. The oven had reached temperature, and I hadn't even rolled out the crust. I needed a rolling pin.
I felt my way through every cupboard, high and low, which proved no small task with my enormous boot. I'd used jelly glasses in the early years to roll out a crust, but all of Suzanne's glasses were cut crystal. My ankle ached. I pumped the boot up tighter. “You could help me,” I finally said to Huck. “I'm trying to do something nice for my family with a broken ankle. If you know where the rolling pin is, let me know, won't you?”
He backed away from the base cabinet he'd been leaning against, and with a flourish, gestured at the cabinet door. My heart thumped. His gaze held me. The boy. The apparition. My own imaginary friend spoke to me . . . if you're of a mind to count gestures in reply to a question as I am. My hand trembled as I opened the cabinet door. I found the mixing bowls and a French coffee press and assorted baking pans, just as I had the first time I rummaged through that cabinet's contents. I stretched my reach and there it wasâa tapered rod of wood. French. Of course. Once I held the rolling pin in my hands, the sting of fresh wood thrilled my nose.
“I'm awfully grateful, Huck,” I said, but in his typical manner, he'd already moved on. Did he go back to the story? Was he floating under the moon on the Mississippi River? Was Jim at the tiller, humming a lullaby as he dreamed about reuniting with his family?
ANDY STRODE INTO THE kitchen about half past five, wearing a sweater over a golf shirt, probably a prototype for next year's line. “Good grief, Ma, what are you doing up at his hour? You shouldn't be on your feet,” he scolded. Then, “Is that a pie baking?”
“Apple,” I said, opening the oven. “Couldn't sleep. Too much on my mind.”
“Suzanne can prescribe something.” He poured coffee into a travel mug.
“Getting my hands into dough cleared my thoughts. I needed something to do.” Andy sat at the counter while I cut the pie. “You're looking a bit casual this morning.”
“I'm meeting a client for a round of golf in the Springs.”
“Colorado Springs? Have you looked out the window? You might have a hard time finding your ball in the snow.”
Andy cupped his hands to look out the kitchen window and swore. “This storm wasn't due until after lunch.” He swore again.
“Think of this as a grand opportunity to spend some quality time with your mother.” I pushed the pie toward him.
“Ma, Iâ”
“I heard about the storm on the news. It's swinging up from the south. Morrison Hill will be treacherous. Surely your client has already gone back to bed.” I popped the top off the ice cream carton. “One scoop or two?”
“Pie for breakfast? I can't remember the last time.”
I drew a curl of ice cream with the scooper and served him. “You should never eat pie alone.”
He sighed and picked up the fork. I bit my lips to keep from smiling. I hate gloaters.
Andy studied the pie. I'd loaded it with fruit, using every apple in the crisper, latticed the top crust, and brushed the pastry with egg yolk and milk before sprinkling the top with cinnamon and sugar. No one walks away from a pie like that.
He gouged a bite and pressed the tines of his fork into the ice cream. Melted cream dribbled down his chin. “Hot,” he said and moaned.
I sat beside him and stifled the urge to moan myself. My ankle throbbed, but pillows and ice packs would come later, after Andy left. For now, he sat where I wanted him, several compass points closer to the boy I remembered. I knew better than to spew sentimentality, but the warm pie and ice cream melding in my mouth seemed to open a door long closed. “I miss eating pie with you.”
“Sorry I haven't been around much. My marketing VP was courted away by our biggest competitor. That meant starting a new campaign from scratch. I hope you've been comfortable, Ma.”
To this point, the conversation had followed surprisingly close to my rehearsed plan. But now I met a conversational fork in the path: Should I ask Andy about the argument he'd had with his father all those years ago, try to gain some closure, which might actually reopen a gaping wound? Or should I stick to the here and now, deal with the subject at hand: Fletcher?
“I'm a little concerned about Fletcher,” I said.
Andy laid his fully loaded fork back on the plate. As surely as if a mason had blown through the room, a stone wall filled the space between us. He pushed the plate away. There went the breezy lecture I'd prepared about boys needing fun and freedom. I took a conversational back step. Any wall erected could be torn down again. “He's been absolutely wonderful to me. He walks Bee and does a great job. Bee can be a hellion on a leash. She's more responsive to him that she is to me; it must be his confidence.”
“Fletch?”
“Bee smells weakness.”
Andy picked up his fork. “It's just that . . . we've had our problems with Fletch lately.”
“Boys can be inconsistent.”
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