Stuck in the Middle (6 page)

The minister waited until they had settled themselves comfortably in their pews to introduce the visitors. “Today we have special guests.” The overhead light turned his scalp red beneath his thinning gray hair. “Robert and Mary Alice Sachs have recently returned to the States from a three-month mission trip to Afghanistan. I heard Mary Alice speak at a district meeting a few weeks ago and asked if she would come and share her message with you. I know you’ll make them feel welcome.”

When Mrs. Sachs walked from the front pew up the stairs to stand behind the podium, Gram shifted in her seat. Joan patted her hand and gave her a smile before turning her attention toward the front. She knew how Gram felt. Any change in their regular Sunday morning routine was . . . disruptive.

“Thank you, Rev. Jacobsen, for allowing me to fill your pulpit this morning.” The woman’s low voice flowed like honey from the podium, melodic and rich. She nodded in the minister’s direction and flashed a set of teeth that battled with the white blouse she wore beneath a dark purple suit jacket. “I want to tell you today about a God who is
real.
I know he’s real, because I have lived in a place where his is the only hand that kept me from torture and death. I have seen his power displayed in ways that leave no doubt that this God we serve takes an active role in our everyday lives, if we let him.”

The woman spoke for forty-five minutes. Joan sat fascinated along with everyone else as she told of wonders like those in the Bible happening every day during their mission. She described healings and miraculous escapes. When they had no food, she said God fed them. Tears glistened in her eyes when she spoke of changed lives among the orphans they went to serve when the children encountered this miraculous God.

Sitting in the pew, Joan’s mind was transported to that far-distant land. What would it be like to do something so exciting, something that made an impact in other people’s lives? But nothing like that ever happened here, in sleepy little Danville, Kentucky. Certainly not in her life. Still, she knew the same God as Mrs. Sachs. Why, then, did he choose to be so evident in this woman’s life, but not in hers?

As Joan bowed her head during Rev. Jacobsen’s closing prayer, that question hovered on the edge of her thoughts. When the organist began to play the final hymn, Gram dropped her hymnal and Joan’s thoughts refocused. As the congregation stood, Joan stooped to pick up the book, her mind already turning toward the afternoon. Tori, Allie, and Eric were coming for dinner. A glance at her watch told her that the service had already run over by fifteen minutes. They’d have to hurry to get home before the others arrived.

The oniony aroma of Gram’s meat loaf filled the house and teased Joan’s rumbling stomach. From her seat in the recliner, she reached toward the coffee table for the Sunday comic section as soon as Allie laid it down.

“Dinner’s almost ready,” Gram announced from the kitchen doorway. “We can eat as soon as Tori gets here.”

Joan tore her eyes off Beetle Bailey. “Do you need any help?”

“You can put ice in the glasses.”

Joan reached for the lever to lower the recliner’s footrest, but Mom came up the stairs from the basement bedrooms at that moment. She had changed from her church clothes into a long peasant skirt and a loose-fitting blouse that hung from her bony shoulders as though she had forgotten to remove the hanger before putting it on. She waved a hand at Joan as she passed through the living room on her way to the kitchen.

“I’ll do it. You visit with your sister and Eric. Tell them about our guest speaker this morning.”

“Guest speaker?” Allie looked at Joan over the top of the entertainment section.

“A missionary. You should have heard the stories she told, about living in danger and miracles and all that.”

“Hmmm.”

Allie looked back down at her paper. Church was a sore subject in the Sanderson family. Eric, who was not a Christian, had relented enough to agree to a church wedding, but had not set a foot through the door in the three years since. After the wedding, Allie came regularly for a while. Then she skipped a Sunday or two. Within a few months she had stopped coming completely.

“By the way, have you finished
Passion on the Ocean
? You’ve had it two weeks.”

Joan grimaced and shook her head. “I can’t get through it. Honestly, I don’t understand how you can read those bodice rippers.”

Allie dropped her hands, the newspaper wrinkling in her lap. “They’re well researched, and usually historically accurate.”

Joan gave a snort. “Maybe some are, but the writing is so bad in that one I didn’t notice the research.”

“All English majors think they’re book critics.” Allie stuck her tongue out at Joan.

“Don’t let her fool you, Joan.” Eric winked at his wife. “She likes the rippling muscles.”

“Speaking of that, I want to get a look at this doctor.” Allie tossed the paper onto the coffee table and twisted around to kneel on the couch, resting her arms on the backrest so she could peer through a crack in the white curtains covering the front window. “Eric, do something to make him come outside.”

Eric’s eyes remained fixed on the television screen. “You want me to ring his doorbell and run away?”

Joan laughed as her big sister rolled her eyes. Allie had found her perfect match in the even-keeled 9-1-1 dispatcher. His quiet manner and steady approach to life countered Allie’s exuberance, and a moment of watching them together left no doubt that he adored his lively wife. A good thing since, according to Allie, his dark good looks attracted women like a bag of chips on a beach full of seagulls. Eric had slipped into the lives of the Sanderson women shortly after Grandpa’s death, a comforting male influence. And he was good with a toilet plunger too.

“So you say he’s cute?” Allie caught Joan’s gaze with raised eyebrows.

“I didn’t say, but yeah, he was okay.” If you were into gorgeous.

“Where’s he from? Where did he go to medical school? And most importantly, does he have a girlfriend?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t ask for his life story. I just talked to him for a minute.” Joan returned to Beetle Bailey.

“A minute is more than enough time to acquire all the pertinent information. If I had been there, I’d have found out all that
and
how much he makes.” Allie turned back to the window. “Let’s see. We know he has a dog. That’s probably why he’s renting a house instead of an apartment. He drives a red Ford Probe, older model.”

“Nineteen ninety,” said Eric, without looking away from the TV.

Joan looked up at him. “How do you know the year?” “It was in the driveway when we got here.” He shrugged. “I noticed. Ohio plates.”

Allie turned, her face alight. “Hey! Eric could run his license plates. That’ll tell us if he has a record or anything.”

“I am not going to run his plates,” Eric said in a voice that left no room for argument.

She showed him her lower lip in a quick pout, then raised her head to shout toward the kitchen. “Tori just pulled in the driveway.”

The arrival of the youngest Sanderson sister caused a flurry of excitement. Joan stood with the rest of the family on the landing inside the front door to greet her with bear hugs and cries of “welcome home!” Though she lived only thirty-five minutes away and visited often enough that her arrival shouldn’t cause such a stir, people couldn’t help but get excited when the baby of the family showed up.

Like Allie, Tori Sanderson exuded energy. She stood only five foot three and had inherited her mother’s thin frame without the gangly height. Her bright golden hair was the envy of blondes everywhere, and her elfish features and infectious grin had drawn attention from the first moment she toddled into the public eye.

Joan watched as Mom, first in the reception line, embraced her baby and exclaimed over her new designer jeans. Tori hugged Gram next, and the older woman’s face brightened with delight. Next Tori stooped to place both hands on Allie’s belly before hugging the mama-to-be and her husband.

Self-pity stabbed at Joan. When was the last time someone greeted her with such enthusiasm? In fact, when was the last time someone greeted her at all? She never went anywhere and, therefore, never came home to a reception line like this one. Maybe she should leave too, just go off on her own and let Gram and Mom fend for themselves. That’s what Tori had done. She hadn’t worried about her family when she found that apartment in Lexington.

Because Tori knew she was leaving everything at home in competent hands.
Her
hands.

“Joan!” Tori nearly knocked Joan off balance with her enthusiastic hug. “It’s so good to see you. I’ve missed you. When are you going to come spend the night with me, like you promised?”

Ashamed of her feelings, Joan returned Tori’s embrace. “I mean to, but you know how it is.”

“No, I don’t.” Tori stepped back but didn’t release her grip on Joan’s arms. “And I don’t care how it is. You need to come to Lexington for a weekend. We’ll rent chick flicks and have a sleepover and stay up all night talking about our older sister.”

“Hey!” Allie sniffled, injured. “You have to be nice to me. I’m pregnant.”

Grinning, Tori threw her arms around Allie’s neck and squeezed. “Just kidding, Allie-gator, you know that. You can come too. We’ll have a Sanderson Sister Sleepover.”

“Let’s do it! And soon, before the baby comes.”

Allie and Tori hugged again, bouncing on their toes, and then as one turned to Joan. Each of them extended an arm to pull her into a three-way hug. Joan joined them, touching her dark head to their blonde ones, hearing a sister giggle in each ear.

“The Sanderson Sisters, together again!” Allie announced.

“We’re in trouble now,” Eric mumbled, turning back toward the living room and his ball game.

“Dinner’s almost on the table,” Gram announced.

“I’m starving.” Tori raised her nose and sniffed. “I don’t know what it is, and I don’t care, as long as it isn’t pizza or fast food.”

“I can’t believe you eat junk and stay so skinny.” Allie shook her head, her arm still around Tori as she propelled her through the living room toward the kitchen. “It’s not fair. What are those jeans, size two?”

Joan fell in behind them. That’s the way it had always been—Allie and Tori plowing ahead, arm in arm, chattering like a pair of squirrels while she, the quiet one, trailed behind, a black jelly bean in a basketful of Easter eggs. Trying to match words with either of her sisters was too exhausting to even consider. Neither of them could talk without hand gestures and, usually, a full pantomime. The entertainment they provided was worth sitting back to watch.

After dinner the women shoed Eric into the living room as they took their accustomed places in the cleanup assembly line. They had a dishwasher, but it was rarely used. Gram and Mom scraped the leftovers into plastic containers. Allie stood with her arms sunk to the elbows in soapy water, handing the clean, rinsed dishes to Tori for drying. Then they passed to Joan, who moved around the familiar kitchen without thinking, storing the dishes in the places they had occupied for more years than the girls had been alive.

“Hey, look!” Allie leaned over the sink, straining her neck to see out the back window. “It’s the doctor next door.”

The towel stopped swiping the white china plate as Tori turned a round blue gaze toward Joan. “There’s a doctor next door?”

“There sure is,” said Allie. “And get a look at him. What a hottie.”

Joan placed the plate she held onto the stack in the cabinet while Tori shoved Allie away from the sink and stood on tiptoes to see outside. If only Ken had stayed in his house. He was part of
her
neighborhood, and she had been the first to meet him, to play with his dog. She had dibs.

“Hottie is right.” Tori spoke without turning from the window, her voice warm with appreciation. “When did he move in?”

“Yesterday,” Mom said. “He came to work at the hospital two weeks ago. I haven’t met him yet, though.”

“He’s a nice young man,” Gram added.

She placed a lid on the plastic bowl of leftover mashed potatoes and pressed in the center. When the lid didn’t seal, Mom reached over and snapped it shut. Then she snatched it up and put it into the refrigerator with a single movement, leaving Gram standing beside the empty counter. Irritation flashed through Joan. That brisk, no-nonsense manner probably made Mom a good nurse, but did she have to be so abrupt at home?

“C’mon, you guys. Let’s go introduce ourselves.” Tori tossed the dishtowel at Allie, who caught it midair.

“Alright. Hey, Eric.” She raised her chin and shouted toward the living room. “I’m going outside to meet a good-looking doctor. You’d better come along so he doesn’t sweep me off my feet.”

“Unless he’s into instant fatherhood, that’s highly unlikely.” Tori gave her sister’s belly a pat. She turned a questioning gaze toward Joan. “You coming?”

Joan hesitated. Though she’d like to talk to Ken again, the thought of trailing along while her lively sisters gawked and flirted did not appeal to her.

She shook her head. “You go ahead, and I’ll finish up here.”