The Matchmakers of Butternut Creek (29 page)

“Who are you?” Yvonne asked in a tone that successfully shut the bossy woman up.

“I’m sorry,” Winnie whispered.

Henry simply glowered at the assembled Widows.

“You need to allow your daughter to make her choice, to get married if she wants to. Our minister…” Birdie stopped speaking and actually cowered. Never before had she cowered, but the look on Henry’s face frightened her. For a moment she considered that, perhaps, she hadn’t used the most judicious words. No, she’d spoken the truth. The Miltons had overreacted.

“You don’t think we love our daughter?” Henry thundered.

“Now, now, now.” Blossom spoke in a gentle, calm voice and held up her hand. She stood and approached Henry with more courage than Birdie could have mustered. “I think we have a slight misunderstanding.”

“Misunderstanding?” Henry exploded. “That woman—” He pointed at Birdie, his hand shaking. “That woman told us we have kept our daughter from happiness.”

“I don’t believe she meant it exactly like that.”

Yes, Birdie had, but she hadn’t expected Henry’s reaction. Not that she shouldn’t have. If anyone had said that to her about Bree or Mac, she’d deck ’em. Birdie sat back, vanquished and annoyed because she had to allow Blossom Brown to rescue her, their mission, and the happiness of the preacher.

“Why don’t we go into the kitchen, just the three of us?” Blossom pointed to herself then the Miltons and spoke in a sugary sweet voice that made Birdie want to stomp her feet.

Instead she mumbled “Hrmph” to herself.

Blossom continued, “My cook makes the most delicious coffee cake. I brought one to share with you.” She turned toward Yvonne. “Cook uses real butter and fresh eggs and has little, tiny chips of walnuts and apples with a streusel topping.” She took Yvonne’s arm. “I know you’ll like it.”

Slowly and amiably, Blossom urged the two out of the living room and into the kitchen.

“And tea,” Birdie heard the newest Widow say. “Cook makes the most wonderful tea. I brought a carafe of that. Or, if you prefer, she packed mocha cappuccino in a thermos. Now, I’m sure you have lovely china, but I brought my mother’s favorite along.”

Birdie let out the breath she’d been holding and whispered a prayer of gratitude for help coming from unexpected sources. Neither Winnie nor Mercedes said a word. Both looked a little shell-shocked.

The three Widows sat quietly in the living room. They could make out rustling sounds in the kitchen, the clink of china, and bits of conversations, a word here and another there, but nothing more. At least they didn’t hear Henry shouting. Absence of loud voices probably signaled a suspension of hostilities.

“You should have known better than to let me talk first,” Birdie whispered after about ten minutes.

“We didn’t know you’d make such a terrible mess of it,” Mercedes said.

“We should’ve,” Winnie added.

“Yes.” Birdie sighed. “You should have. I’m sorry.”

The three Widows didn’t move for nearly half an hour, sitting in silence with their backs straight and hands folded in their laps. During the entire time, all Birdie could think about was that she had destroyed their mission. Their most important effort at matchmaking had failed because of her. A bitter defeat due to her incompetence.

The sound of movement and laughter came from the kitchen. Blossom returned to the living room with a happy Yvonne and a smiling Henry.

“So good to meet you.” Blossom grinned at both Miltons.

“Please drop by anytime.” Henry took her hand and shook it. “I’ll carry your bags out.”

“And make sure you send me that recipe,” Yvonne said. She hugged Blossom.

Within minutes, the Widows were back in the car. Actually, Birdie realized, three Widows and one Matchmaker.

“What happened in the kitchen?” Birdie asked, humbled and greatly chagrined for her part in what could have been a failed maneuver.

“We had tea and coffee cake and chatted.”

“And?” Winnie prompted.

“And we worked things out. Yvonne is going to talk to Gussie, try to see how much of what we guessed is true. She’ll handle it. We can relax. She did swear us all to an oath of secrecy. We are not to mention this to anyone. They want to deal with this themselves.”

“Besides, we don’t want the preacher to know we meddled,” Mercedes said.

All four nodded.

“Thank you, Blossom,” Birdie said, so filled with relief she could have hugged the woman if they weren’t in the car. Not that she actually would, even when they got back to town. Although she had to push the words out, Birdie again said, “Thank you.”

Anyone who thought having to acknowledge the success of another person in carrying out her mission didn’t mortify her didn’t know Birdie MacDowell very well. Her failure and the need to thank Blossom Brown humiliated her.

“Dear,” her mother greeted Gussie as she arrived home from work. “Your father and I need to have a little chat with you.”

Uh-oh. The words
need to have a little chat
constituted the highest level of the early warning signal.
Want to talk to you
meant a serious problem but at a lower level—say, roaches in the kitchen or weevils in the flour.
Need to have a little chat
meant a severe hazard, a red-level threat, a national emergency, perhaps enemy attack or a constitutional crisis.

Or an egregious transgression on Gussie’s part.

“Let’s sit here in the living room,” Mom said. “To be comfortable.”

Oh, sure, Gussie would be comfortable for this “little chat.”

Her mother wore a lacy white shirt with her cameo, another sure sign of an impending emergency and the possible arrival of Armageddon. For a merely important talk, she wore her pink T-shirt with the rabbit on the front.

Gussie glanced at her father who attempted to look uninvolved, sinking back in his recliner with his newspaper in front of him. This was the equivalent of a high-pitched warning signal screaming,
Leave me alone. I’m not part of this
.

“Let me go upstairs…,” Gussie said before her mother shoved her toward a chair.

Her mother recognized the words Gussie used when she attempted to escape a crisis.

When she didn’t sit, her mother took Gussie’s elbow and escorted her to the chair.

Thoroughly warned that she would
not
like the coming “chat” but acknowledging she couldn’t get out of it, Gussie sat.

Loving God, save me
, Gussie prayed silently.

For the first time Gussie could remember, her mother had a difficult time beginning what she called “the chat” and Gussie called “the grilling.” Mom sat, crossed her legs, and swung her right foot left and right. She played with the cameo, rubbing a thumb over the silhouette of a rose and fiddling with the clasp.

“Gussie,” she said at last, her voice serious. “We had visitors today. From Butternut Creek.”

“Not Adam.”
Oh, please, let it be Adam. Please, do
not
let it be Adam.
When she realized how hopeless and hopeful her voice must have sounded—hard to accomplish that with only two words—Gussie cleared her throat and asked in a neutral voice, “Adam?”

“No, Birdie MacDowell, Mercedes Rivera, and two other women. I believe you know them?”

“The Widows?” Darn. This was serious. Again, hope and despair filled her.

“I’d forgotten that’s what they call themselves.” Mom nodded. “Yes, the Widows.”

Gussie attempted to wait out her mother, force her to bring up the subject. She should know better. After all these years, she could never beat her mother at the waiting game.

After a long silence, Gussie asked, “Why shouldn’t they stop by? Aren’t you and Miss Birdie and Mercedes old friends?”

“Why do you think they stopped by?”

Gussie shrugged. As useless a reaction as attempting to stop Shaquille O’Neal when he drove for the basket.

“To talk about Adam?” Gussie asked, then paused, hating to add the rest. “And me? Not, of course, that there is an ‘Adam and me.’”

Her mother leaned toward Gussie and shot her the glare of death. “They tell me,” she said, “the reason you and their nice minister broke up is because of us, your father and me, because you feel as if you must take care of us for the rest of our lives and have put your happiness on hold.” She leaned back and crossed her arms. “Is that true?”

“Oh, no.” Gussie shook her head. “No.” Again, her mother said nothing. “Well, only a little bit. You know how much I love you. If you hadn’t supported me after…” She couldn’t finish the sentence.

“After what?” her father said, breaking into the conversation.

He’d been so quiet, she’d nearly forgotten he sat only five feet from her. She swiveled to look at him, “You know,” she said.

“But you can’t say it.” He tilted his head and studied her face. “Maybe if you could, you’d do better, maybe start healing.”

“I’ve healed,” she squeaked, which pretty much gave her feelings away. She’d
thought
she’d healed until she met Adam. If healed meant she wanted to live normally and fall in love, well, she’d missed the mark by miles.

“You were saying that if we hadn’t supported you after Lennie hurt you so badly, you would have fallen apart?” Mom leaned forward, this time her eyes filled with compassion.

“Yes.”

“And, because of that, you have to take care of us forever?”

“When Dad went in the hospital, I realized how…how…”

“Old and frail and sickly we’ve gotten?” Dad asked. “I resent that.”

“No, I…”

“What I really resent—” He tossed the paper on the floor, a sure sign of agitation. “What I do resent is that you didn’t talk to us about this, you shut us out. We didn’t realize a problem existed until these…these Widows dropped in and told us.”

“We should have spotted that, Henry. Gussie hasn’t been herself recently.”

“She seemed happy,” her father said. “She looked great until a few weeks back. We know she does that, covers up her feelings.” He paused. “You’re right. We should’ve realized she acted happy on the surface so we wouldn’t worry.”

“Yes, underneath she wasn’t happy,” Mom said.

“Hello,” Gussie said. “I’m right here. You shouldn’t talk about me while I’m sitting right here.”

“Dear, I’m sorry. Would you prefer to leave the room so we can talk about you more comfortably?”

“No. Talk
to
me.”

“All right. We should have noticed you haven’t been happy since you and your young man broke up.”

Did her mother not realize that, if they’d broken up, Adam no longer could be considered “her young man”?

“We want to know if that’s our fault and what we should do.” Dad lowered the recliner footrest, stood, and moved to sit in a chair next to Gussie. He took her hand. “I can even quote the Bible here: ‘A man leaves his father and his mother and cleaves to his wife.’” He held his other hand up when Gussie began to protest. “Think we can read that as a woman leaves her parents as well. That’s what people do, they start a new family. They become one flesh, Gussie, exactly as your mother and I did.”

“If you want that for yourself, we do, too,” her mother said.

“If you don’t, we still don’t want you to give up your life to stay with your aging, decaying parents. Maybe you’d like to move to Austin, be closer to work. Most important, we don’t want to be used as an excuse for you not to find the life you want. We don’t want you to hide behind us because you’re afraid.”

Was she afraid? Well, yes, of course, for many reasons. Her parents were aging. Their health concerned her greatly.

And Adam. She thought about him, wondered about her feelings, about trusting, but the-cleaving-and-becoming-one-flesh part scared the living daylights out of her.

“What would you do if I didn’t live here?”

“We lived a long time on our own, dear. We survived before you were born, while you were a child, and after you went off to college.”

“I hear the Baptist retirement center may have openings,” her father said. “We could buy one of those little houses. We have lots of friends there, and they all say it’s a good life.”

Oh, so they did have choices. Shame spread through her that she’d considered herself their only future. Humbled, she asked, “Would you like that?”

“A house takes a lot of upkeep,” her father said.

“Since the dog died last year, we haven’t needed a yard,” Mom added.

“What we’re saying, dear, is that you don’t have to—in fact, you shouldn’t—give up your life for us. We have other options. We want you to find happiness.”

Gussie smiled. What a mess she’d made of things. “I’m sorry. I should have talked to you. I shouldn’t have assumed I’m indispensable.”

“Of course you’re indispensable, but not in the way you think. You’re our daughter. We love you, but you aren’t our nurse or caregiver or keeper. You’re our beloved daughter.” Dad squeezed her hand. “What do we need to do? What do you need to do? Do you love this Adam?”

She looked from her mother to her father while she considered the question. “Yes, Dad, I think I do, but I’m frightened.” Her voice broke on the last word.

Her mother stood and took Gussie’s other hand. “As much as I hate to admit this, we should thank those Widows for dropping by. Now we can start to work on your future.” Her mother paused. “Oh, and we asked them not to mention this visit to Adam or anyone in Butternut Creek.”

“They agreed?” Didn’t sound at all like the Widows.

“Yes, we came to a meeting of the minds on many subjects,” Mom said.

“Thanks, Mom and Dad.” Gussie stood, pulled both parents to their feet for a group hug. “I’m going upstairs. I need to think.” This time, her mother allowed her to leave. Once in her bedroom, she settled at the computer and opened her mail. The usual: spam and a couple of notes from friends, including two from Clare. Adam hadn’t written her for weeks. Not that she blamed him.

What now? Should she write him and explain? Maybe pray for guidance? Ask him to pray for her?

No, not yet. She knew what she had to do—what she and God needed to do together. She needed to get straight, come to peace with her past in a way that didn’t mean celibacy or require her to toss up roadblocks between her and what she wanted, really wanted: to be with Adam. She wouldn’t get in touch with him until she knew she could give all of herself. She could only hope he still wanted her.