Authors: Patti Hill
Seeing Things (40 page)
“I'd just had my
quinceanera
when my parents moved us to the United States, and still that agave didn't bloom. I got married, had children. Still no flower. The spring my grandfather died, a shoot as tall as a telephone pole grew out of that agave.
Mi abuela,
she made us all come home to see it blooming. We had a party. The newspaper came and took a picture.”
quinceanera
when my parents moved us to the United States, and still that agave didn't bloom. I got married, had children. Still no flower. The spring my grandfather died, a shoot as tall as a telephone pole grew out of that agave.
Mi abuela,
she made us all come home to see it blooming. We had a party. The newspaper came and took a picture.”
“Did it smell good?”
“Who would know? The flower was too tall.”
“You saidâ”
“I said you needed to smell something rare and beautiful, not something that smelled good.”
I would call Emory, beg his forgiveness, and tell him it was time for me to come home, but first there was something I had to do.
Chapter 42
Before popping the shu mai open, I used my cane to walk around the house. It wouldn't do to have an audience. Satisfied that the house was empty, I opened the take-out box. The steam bathed my face with ginger and garlic. I popped a whole dumpling into my mouth.
“Come on out here, Huck. We need to have some words.”
Only the gray orb floated in front of me. Perhaps I needed to sweeten my words.
“I want to thank you, Huck, for providing my family with a grand adventure. I hope you enjoyed floating on the raft.”
He walked out of the bedroom. “I can't see how you're any better off, seeing I'm so ignorant and so kind of lowdown and ornery.” Huck lounged on the leather sofa like a king being carried on a litter. I half expected him to flip an offhanded salute to the peasantry. And why not, there had been an amazing transformation in Huck. His hair was combed and clean, streaked with highlights from endless days in the sun, and his feet were scrubbed pink. He pulled at the collar of his shirt, a blue calico.
“What you gawking at?” he asked like he'd swallowed a spoonful of castor oil.
“New shirt?”
“It might as well be a feedbag for how it sets a body itching. Aunt Sally has a mind to adopt me and civilize me, but I had a taste of that before.”
“I'm surprised she'd want anything to do with you with all the trouble you and Tom dished out at her expense. You nearly drove the woman crazy.”
“She wanted to tan the Old Harry out o' the both o' us.”
“You look awfully handsome in your new clothes, Huck.”
He stood and pulled the hem of his shirt out of his pants, scratching his belly and back. “I'm lightin' out for the territory first chance I git and dumpin' these clothes in the ditch. I have my old things holed up under a rock down by the river.”
“Huck, I need you to sit down and give me your attention for a minute.”
He plopped on the sofa, arms and legs bouncing from the fall. He huffed and looked at me through his eyebrows.
“Sit up, and don't be giving me any of your lip.”
“I never said nothin'.”
“You didn't have to. Now, I must admit to enjoying, for the most part, our visits, but they have to come to an end.”
“It gets powerful lonesome on the river.”
“You might rethink Aunt Sally's offer. You liked her pies well enough, and the river isn't so far that you couldn't take a line down there to catch yourself some dinner now and again.”
“There's nothing like the bullfrogs a-cluttering through the night when you're floating down the river, but she warn't that bad of a cook neither.”
“There's nothing like three hot meals a day and someone to keep an eye out for your well-being.”
He pouted now. “She smiles about as much as a ham.”
“She's willing to put up with your shenanigans. Getting on in the world means learning to do the same for others. It's called love, Huck.”
“You ain't willing to put up with me no how.”
“Visiting with you filled a need, I can't deny it, but I'm determined to have those needs met by flesh-and-blood people, friends and family, and the Good Shepherd who doesn't give a lick that I'm a lunkhead. I'm asking you, as a friend, to move on. But please consider Aunt Sally's offer.”
Huck stood, his head hung low, and I just about told him to sit back down for a spell. He looked at me with those sky blue eyes of his and drew a finger across his lips. He scuffed across the floor toward the front door, and the closer he got to the door, the lighter his footfalls. By the time he touched the doorknob, his movements made no sound. He turned, set his ratty old hat on his head, and winked.
Chapter 43
“I thought you
wanted
to come home,” Emory said, breaking the ragged silence on our drive from Denver back to Ouray. “That's what you said. That's what you told me.”
wanted
to come home,” Emory said, breaking the ragged silence on our drive from Denver back to Ouray. “That's what you said. That's what you told me.”
“Yes, I did ask you to come.”
“You've changed your mind?”
Bee whimpered from the cargo area.
“We'd better stop.” The canyon hugged the interstate, so I knew we'd entered Glenwood Canyon, but that was about all. “Where are we?”
“We just passed the Bair Ranch exit.”
“Grizzly Creek exit then. That'll do.” I turned in my seat toward Bee. “You better cross your legs, little missy.”
Waiting for the exit, I did my best to wink away the tears, but they streamed down my cheeks and dampened my T-shirt. I finally swiped at my eyes and made like I was cleaning my glasses. We drove on as silent as two fence postsâme in my hole and Emory in his. As he pressed on the brake to exit, he said, “You told me to come. I came. Now . . . now you're all sappy and weepy. I thought you'd be happy.”
I didn't understand the brew of doubt and anticipation that bubbled inside me. How could I explain it to Emory? A heart doesn't move from one place to another just because the rest of the body logs miles on the interstate. As for me, I'm well acquainted with the strange things that tether a heart in place, like when my family left the farmhouse in the Smokies. I was ten years old. I barely waved good-bye to Leslie, my best friend, but I ached for months for the dependable water stain on the ceiling and the way the house accompanied the wind with snaps and creaks. Being homesick for a water stain? That's a fickle heart. Walking away from Andy, Suzanne, and Fletcher? That was a different story all together. I was straining against the most primal of instincts: to run through fire and brimstone to be with my family.
Emory opened the car door, and the rush of the Colorado River bounced off the canyon's towering walls to welcome me. “Wait here while I get Bee,” he said.
“Wait!” I grabbed at his sleeve. “Do you hear that? Oh my, I'd almost forgotten.”
Emory offered his elbow, and Bee pulled hard at the leash. Fletcher had taught her to heel and to heel smartly.
“Are you sure you can manage both of us?” I asked.
“I've learned to hold on for dear life when I'm around either one of you.”
Bee sniffed every square inch of the rest area. All of our pleading for her to hurry her business only made her more determined to find the perfect spot to mark. “Good grief, Bee. We don't have all day!”
“Don't we? What's the rush? I have a rope in the car. It's long. Bee can sniff around as she pleases, and we can sit here and admire the scenery.”
I laid my head on his shoulder. “You're right. This is a lovely place.” Emory handed over Bee's leash. I pushed Bee's rump toward the pavement. “Sit! I won't be tugged at, you bamboozler. See if I ever stop a car for you again.” Bee lay at my feet, and I considered feeling sorry for sassing her. Instead, I closed my eyes to listen to the river's song and the rattle of aspen leaves overhead.
Do you trust me?
My eyes popped open. I closed them against the disappointing fog.
Do you trust me?
“Emory!”
“I'm here, I'm here,” he said, drawing me into his arms. “Did something startle you?”
“What should I do? I haven't a clue. Andy doesn't have a job. They have that big house to take care of. Fletcher has so many questions. We talked for hours after every youth group meeting. And Suzanneâwell, she really is a fragile thing. How will she manage all of her new responsibilities?”
“Without you?”
“Now that I'm getting around better, I couldâ”
“Answer me this, Birdie: Can God accomplish good things without you dabbling your fingers in everything?”
I sat up. “What are you trying to say?”
“It's a question we all have to answer sooner or later, some of us many, many times. When you were off in Denver, it seems like the question came to me a hundred times a day in one form or another. I agonized over being so far away. Who could take care of you as well as me? In case you're wondering, the answer was no one.”
“I didn't realize . . .”
“Birdie, I want to take care of you every minute of every day from now until forever, but I know that's not possible. You'll fly off with your Round Robins, or I'll have to deliver insulin to Crazy Bill up to Beaver Lake, orâand this is the toughest separation of allâone of us will enter forever before the other.”
“I was hoping for a two-seater blaze into glory.”
“That would be just fine with me.” He stroked my cheek. “But we both know . . .”
“Only too well.”
“Loving you has introduced me to a whole new kind of faith. It's not enough for me to believe my Savior loves me. Now I have to believe he loves you too, that he can do wonderful things in your life, with or without my help.” He sat quietly for a moment. “I will treasure every moment we do have together. I can promise you that.”
“That's enough for me.”
Chapter 44
I used a painter's brush to drench the sky penciled onto the watercolor paper with pools of water. Evangeline grunted from her infant seat. Bee sniffed her, whimpered, and then slunk away into the house. I swirled a fat, round brush in cadmium red and tapped the point into cerulean blue before blending the colors on the palette. Suzanne slept in the hammock, shaded by a stand of aspens flittering in the breeze.
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