Stuck in the Middle (4 page)

“Maybe you’re right.” Meeting her sister’s blue gaze across the table, Joan gave a twisted smile. “I’ve been pretty hard on Mom. I probably need to sit down and talk with her.”

A smile lit Allie’s face. Even with limp hair and the makeup sweated off her face and about twenty extra pounds she carried as a result of her overindulgence with ice cream since the beginning of her pregnancy, Joan thought Allie was one pretty woman when she smiled.

“Good. Now go interrupt the flirt fest up at the counter and get me a pint of chocolate ripple.”

Joan stood. “You’re taking it home for Eric?”

“Eric can get his own ice cream.” Allie settled against the back of her chair and took a bite of waffle cone. “That’s for my bedtime snack. And don’t forget the sprinkles.”

“He’s not a drug dealer,” Gram announced a few days later at breakfast.

Joan looked up from the newspaper she always read over her morning oatmeal, a flash of alarm tickling her mind. Drug dealer? What in the world was Gram talking about?

Gram munched a mouthful of Cheerios, obviously waiting for Joan to react to her news. Pink plastic curlers peeked from beneath her pale blue nightcap, a few wisps of white hair flying free to wave above her forehead.

“Who’s not a drug dealer?”

“You know. The man renting the house next door.”

Memory restored, a flush of relief washed over Joan, followed immediately by guilt. She had started watching Gram, apprehensive of every word, wondering if her grandmother really was becoming too forgetful for her own safety. But this time, Joan’s memory was the faulty one.

“How do you know he’s renting, and how do you know he’s not a drug dealer?”

“Because I met him yesterday when he came to bring some boxes to the house and try out his keys. He works nights at the hospital.” Gram grinned. “Actually, he
is
a drug dealer of sorts. He’s a doctor.”

“Really?”

A doctor moving to Elmtree Drive? And renting? Now that was an interesting bit of neighborhood gossip. The homes on their street were nice but not up to typical physician standards. They were old enough to be a bit dingy but new enough to be uninteresting to anyone who liked old homes. Most of the houses were single-level brick crackerboxes, though some, like Gram’s, had a few more rooms and a split-level floor plan. The yards were all clean and kept free of junk but were more likely to have plastic garden gnomes than fancy statues or fountains as decorations. Why would a doctor want to move here?

“And he’s single.” Gram’s eyebrows waggled a few times. “I told him about my beautiful granddaughter who runs the furniture store on the other side of town.”

Joan slumped in her chair, groaning. “Oh, Gram, you didn’t!”

Well, there went any desire to get a glimpse of the new neighbor. If there was a single dating humiliation worse than being fixed up by your grandmother, Joan couldn’t imagine it.

Gram spread her hands wide. “He asked! He needs furniture.”

“Why would a doctor rent furniture? Or a house, for that matter? Why not buy one of those fancy designer homes in a neighborhood like Heartland or Argyle, where all the other doctors live?”

“He can’t afford to buy a house or furniture, because he’s a new doctor with school loans to pay off. He has to have a couch, doesn’t he? He can’t sit on the floor.”

“Hmmm.”

Joan returned to her oatmeal, but her mind wasn’t on the newspaper anymore. Was this an answer to her problem? Having a doctor next door might relieve Mom’s worries, especially if he worked nights. That meant he’d be at home during the day. Surely a physician wouldn’t mind checking in on his elderly neighbor every so often.

She could almost hear Mom’s argument. “He’ll be asleep during the day. He could snore right through a disaster and never even know it happened.”

Besides, brand-new doctors can’t claim their time as their own. Probably not a good idea to rely on him being there every day. Still, having a doctor right next door in case of an emergency was a big relief. And maybe Joan could pay one of the teenagers in the neighborhood to drop by in the afternoon, just to make sure everything was alright. The twins who lived three doors down seemed like nice girls. Gram would love having someone to talk to and stuff with cookies.

Across the table, Gram scooped the last of the Cheerios out of her bowl, ate them, and then wiped her spoon dry with her napkin. As she wiped, the set of her jaw became firm, like a woman with a mission.

She set the spoon on the table beside her bowl.

She dropped her hand to her lap.

She reached up again to turn the handle around to point toward Joan.

She dropped her hand to her lap.

Half a breath later, she picked the spoon up and turned it so the handle pointed toward her again.

Joan watched as she repeated the arranging of her spoon twice before relaxing against the back of the chair with a deep sigh. A shadowy fear settled in Joan’s stomach. Though she usually ignored Gram’s quirks, this was one she hadn’t seen before. And this was different than alphabetizing or organizing. In light of her conversation with Allie, and her worries since then, she couldn’t keep quiet.

“What was that all about?”

“What?” Innocent blue eyes stared across the table.

Joan waved toward the table. “That business with the spoon.”

“Oh, nothing.” Flashing a smile, Gram lifted a shoulder. “Just fiddling, that’s all.”

Her actions hadn’t looked like nothing. If Mom had been in the room, she would have leapt on Gram’s fiddling and pointed out that most people didn’t compulsively shuffle their silverware. She would say this was one more reason they needed to “do something about Gram.”

Joan banished those thoughts with a quick shake of her head and picked up the newspaper. What was the harm in rearranging a spoon?

The next morning Joan came out of the basement bathroom she shared with Mom, dressed for work on what she knew would be a busy Saturday. Head lowered, she nearly collided with her mother in the hallway. Mom worked three-on-three-off, but had been pulling extra shifts at the hospital for several months since they were shorthanded. Dressed in wrinkled blue scrubs, her eyelids drooped behind her brown-rimmed glasses, and her wavy blonde hair looked as though she had run her hands through it a couple dozen times too often. Half a head taller than Joan’s five-six, her normally erect back slumped forward.

“Oops. Sorry, Mom.” Joan peered at her face. “You look beat.”

Her mom covered a huge yawn with pink manicured nails and gave a weary smile. “I am beat. I feel like I could sleep for a week. Thank goodness I’m off until Monday.” Joan hesitated. Now would be a good time to talk since Gram was still asleep. When Mom started to step around her, Joan put a hand on her arm. “Listen, I’ve been thinking about our conversation the other day.”

Caution stole over Mom’s features. How many times had Joan seen that expression? She suspected Carla Sanderson didn’t know what to make of her middle daughter. Allie and Tori had inherited their mother’s vivacious personality, her love of chatter. Joan had always been the quiet one, more like Daddy.

“You mean the one where you hung up on me?”

Joan let her gaze drop. “Yeah, that one. I’m sorry.”

Mom patted her shoulder. “It’s okay, honey. You were busy, and I shouldn’t have called you at work. I didn’t mean to upset you.”

“I just . . . I just wondered what you’re planning to do.” She tugged at the hem of her blouse, looking anywhere but into her mother’s eyes. Why did she find it so difficult to come right out and tell Mom what she was worried about? She never had any problem talking to Daddy . . . before he left. “You know. About Gram.”

Mom shook her head and sighed. “I’m not planning anything.”

“Then you’re not going to put her in that new nursing home in town?”

“You mean Waterford? It isn’t a nursing home. It’s an assisted living center.”

A knot of dread settled in Joan’s gut. “So you’ve looked into it.”

Mom leaned against the doorjamb, removed her glasses, and rubbed her eyes. “No, I haven’t. But a couple of the oncology patients have been released to the nursing program there. The doctors speak highly of the place.”

A feeling of near-panic threatened to clog her throat. Mom actually talked to people about it. “Gram doesn’t need a nurse.”

“I didn’t say she did. But you’ve got to admit she has slipped in the years since Grandpa died.”

“So she alphabetizes things.” Joan ran a hand over her ponytail, smoothing every hair into place. “So what? She’s not dangerous, not to herself or to anyone else.”

Mom shook her head. “I’m not talking about her kooky alphabetizing habit. She’s weaker, more frail, and her eyesight isn’t what it used to be. And she forgets to take her blood pressure medicine half the time. If we weren’t here—”

“But we are here.”

Mom gave her a tender smile. “You won’t be here forever, honey.”

“I’ll stay as long as Gram needs me.” She lifted her chin.

“I know you would, but that’s not healthy, and Mother doesn’t want you to give up your life for her.” She pushed off the doorjamb and stood up straight. “Can we continue this conversation later? I’m so tired I can’t think straight.”

Joan didn’t want to talk about it later. She wanted Mom’s promise now, right this minute, that she wasn’t going to force Gram out of her house and into a nursing home. Or an
assisted living center
, either.

But Mom did look tired, exhausted even. And besides, Joan didn’t want to push her into a corner with an argument. “I guess so.”

Mom put her arms around Joan, and Joan returned her embrace while fighting a sense of impending doom. She didn’t feel better after the conversation. In fact, she had practically confirmed that Mom was thinking about sending Gram somewhere else to live.

As she headed down the hallway toward her bedroom, Mom said over her shoulder, “Wake me up in three days.”

Joan stood looking at the bedroom door long after Mom closed it, lost in thought. She was right about Gram getting forgetful. But that didn’t mean she needed to be put away in a home.

Joan would just make it a point to be sure Gram didn’t forget anything important.

~ 3 ~

Joan turned onto Elmtree Drive, her Nikes striking the pavement with an even
thud-thud
. Bright sunlight blurred her vision. She reduced her pace for the last stretch of her five-mile run, regulating her breath for the slowdown, and glanced at her watch. 7:30. Plenty of time to get cleaned up before Sunday school. A trickle of sweat slid from her temple down to her jaw, and she brushed it away with her hand. Her mind felt clear, energized by her run.

She continued her deceleration and slowed to a brisk walk as she passed the Faulkners’ house, thankful for the spray from their misplaced sprinkler on her hot face. Gram would say they were wasting money watering the sidewalk, but their flowers certainly liked the water and rewarded them with a sweet-scented rainbow carpet along both sides of the walkway leading to their front door. The grass became notably dingier as she crossed the property line separating the Faulkners’ yard from their neighbor’s, the Hendersons’. She glanced toward the front window, noting the charcoal-gray cat perched regally on the windowsill inside. Its head turned to watch her pass, as it did every morning.

She caught sight of someone heading toward her, a man walking a dog. Or, to be more accurate, a dog pulling a man, straining against its leash as it ran back and forth from one edge of the sidewalk to the other. When the dog caught sight of Joan, it tugged with renewed purpose until it gave a strangled cough. The guy winced as his arm jerked forward, but kept his grip on the leash.

“Don’t blame me if you choke,” he scolded the dog, who ignored him and kept up the effort to get at Joan.

She stopped a few yards from the eager dog. It didn’t look dangerous, but she knew better than to approach a strange animal without caution. Its ears perked forward and its tail wagged nonstop. Sure, a wagging tail looked like a friendly gesture, but pit bulls wagged their tails too. She certainly didn’t want to be a topic for the morning headlines: