The Potluck Club—Takes the Cake (11 page)
Britney shrugged. “Don’t know. I can check her credit card receipt.”
“Would you?”
She wrinkled her nose. “For you? Sure.”
Clay watched as she opened the cash register then pulled the one and only receipt from the drawer. “Says right here, Velvet James.
Wow, what a name. Do you know her?”
Clay shook his head. “No, I don’t. She must be new here.”
“She bought a real pretty Christmas card and mother/daughter
ornament for her mother.”
“Oh, yeah?” Clay shifted his weight and leaned a hip against the
counter and looked back to where the Nissan had been parked.
“Maybe she’s here visiting her mother?” Britney speculated.
“Maybe. I’m pretty sure there aren’t any Jameses living here, though.” Then he turned his attention to the pretty woman on the other side of the counter, forgetting about the one who’d just left the store. “You really are quite the detective, aren’t you?” He crossed his arms over his chest. “First you find my email address, then you
get the scoop on the new girl in town.”
Britney placed the receipt back in the drawer and pushed it shut. She laughed lightly and said, “Ask anybody in my family; they’ll tell you. I know how to get what I want. That’s all.”
Lizzie
Immediately after church I’d hoisted myself into Samuel’s black Lincoln Navigator and closed the door behind me, then looked out the windshield with eyes darting back and forth like a spy. Or a madwoman, perhaps.
Five minutes
, I thought.
I just need five
minutes of quiet.
Outside, on the snowy church grounds, my family was gathered in small clusters, talking to other church members. My son Tim, his wife Samantha, and Pastor Kevin were near the front steps, deep in discussion. I hoped—no, I prayed—it was about setting up marriage counseling appointments. I knew Kevin could help them, even for the short period of time they would be staying with us.
A month or so ago Tim had left his wife and children—Kaci, age ten, and Brent, age six—in Louisiana. When he’d arrived, it was with a cock-and-bull story that Samantha was demanding too much of him, both financially and materialistically. I was immediately suspicious. I may not know everything about my daughter-in-law, but I do know she is one of the least greedy people with whom I’ve made acquaintance. She’s always been a loving wife and devoted mother. When she and Tim “had” to get married (as they say) while in college and were forced to live on a lean budget, she never once complained. At least, not to me and—according to Tim—not to her husband or to anyone else that he knew of. When Kaci was born, she discovered the joys of shopping at second-hand stores and the humbling experience of filing for government assistance. Samantha
always said these were her “Growing in Grace” years.
When Tim finished college and began working an entry-level job, they were able to let go of some things and grab hold of others, but I’d never seen even a hint of Samantha craving more than she could afford. She was always content.
My son, however, was another story. Tim was gung-ho on succeeding mightily in everything he did. He worked hard and climbed the corporate ladder at an impressive rate of speed. By the time Brent was a toddler, Tim’s little family wanted for nothing. Still, Samantha volunteered at a homeless shelter once a week, and now that the children were both in school all day, two days a week. So, for Tim to tell me that Samantha had become materialistic was... well... just silly.
But Tim moved back to Summit View with his story, got a job at the same Breckenridge resort where our daughter Michelle works, and seemed to be settling in to the notion of living at home with Mommy and Daddy again. I was willing to be silent and prayerful and bide my time. But the night he proudly dressed for a date with one of Michelle’s co-workers, I took immediate action. First by putting him in his place and then by calling his wife, insisting she and the children fly in for a surprise visit.
I’d picked Samantha and the children up from the airport last Thursday, but already it seems a lifetime ago. When Tim came home from work that evening—totally unsuspicious of his mother’s plotting side—Samantha met him on the front lawn. When he saw her, he stopped. I watched from the living room window as they embraced and witnessed firsthand the power of prayer on my son’s face. He was a young boy in love again, and I was the proud mother hen, clucking about in her roost.
I told Samuel later that evening that I suspected Tim & Co. would stay on through Christmas, then head back to Louisiana. Over Friday evening’s dinner I asked Tim if he’d put in his notice at work. He looked up at me with a mouth full of spaghetti (albeit one stray noodle hanging from his pursed lips). His eyes registered surprise, then made their way over to where his wife was sitting, as
though to say, “Not now, Mom... not in front of Samantha.”
I dropped it. They have, after all, three weeks before the first of the year.
I sighed, closing my eyes.
Three weeks.
It’s not that I don’t love my children. I do. I love them very much. It’s just that for the past several years our house has been home to “just the three of us.” Meaning Samuel, our daughter Michelle, who is twenty-five, and myself. With Michelle being deaf and Samuel and me being quiet by nature, our home had become a sort of silent retreat. I’d grown accustomed to it, eagerly anticipating coming home from my job as a high school librarian. I’d long ago forgotten the chaos children can bring into a house.
Later that night, as Samuel and I lay in bed together, holding hands and looking up at a ceiling shadowed by the moon and the evergreens outside our bedroom, I’d giggled a bit. “Remember the good ol’ days?” I asked him.
I turned my head and watched in the moonlight as his smile spread across his still-handsome face. “You mean when the kids were little or when the kids were gone?”
I looked back to the ceiling and waited before I replied. “Good question.”
We talked then about how it felt to have all the children, their spouses—or, in Michelle’s case, boyfriend—and our grandchildren together for a meal. The night before we’d all gone out to Apple’s, Summit View’s best restaurant, for dinner. There were sixteen of us, total. Samuel and myself. Michelle and Adam, the new fellow in her life. Tim, Samantha, Kaci, and Brent. Sam Jr., his wife Mariah, and their children, Mia, Haley, and Julia. (The joke in the Samuel Prattle Jr. household is that Sam Jr. is so outnumbered, even the dog and cat are female.) Finally, there was our oldest daughter, Cindy (who we’ve always called “Sis”), her husband Isaac, and their son Elijah.
Too many for this old woman to keep up with.
Now, for the past hour or so, we’d occupied the better part of two pews at Grace Church. Samuel sat proud, and, I admit, I did too. It does a parent’s heart good to know that all her children, children-in-law, and grandchildren love the Lord. It truly does.
I breathed in deeply, taking in the scent of the car’s glove-soft leather. I shivered in the frosty air, knowing my time alone was about to come to an end. The cold would drive the entire crew—or, as many as would fit—within this vehicle in seconds.
Sure enough, it did. I sat passively and forced a smile as my brood turned from their various places on the church’s front lawn and advanced toward me like a pack of hungry wolves wrapped in wool and leather.
I’d already begged Samuel to take us out for lunch, because I had not one single bit of energy for cooking for sixteen people.
“The café okay?” he asked me.
“Works for me,” I said.
When we entered Higher Grounds we were greeted by the owner, Sally, who stood by Clay Whitefield’s table, poised with a full pot of coffee.
“Table for sixteen,” Samuel said with a grin.
I watched Sal blanch. Her eyes darted behind me, bouncing as she mentally counted the number of Prattles coming in behind us. One of Sally’s servers, Eleana, stepped up.
“Eleana, put some tables together in the back, will ya?” she asked, though the question was more of a demand than a request.
Eleana, young and pretty, turned on her heel and moved to the back of the café. Within minutes, the Prattle family was sitting down, doing the two things they do best: eating and talking loudly.
Too loudly.
Just three more weeks, Lord. Just three more weeks. And then, back
to what we call normal.
Tim and Samantha made the announcement in our family room over coffee and the cake I’d bought from the bakery counter at Higher Grounds. I was sitting in my favorite chair, legs crossed, plate of cake in one hand, fork in another, ready to cut into the rich velvet of million dollar pound cake when my son barked out, “Mom, Dad, we’ve decided to stay.”
Clusters of mini-conversation ceased. My mouth, opened and ready for its first bite of cake, froze. Samuel jutted forward in his recliner, and Sam Jr.—in his manner—snickered. “I knew it,” he said. He looked over at Mariah, who swallowed hard, and said, “Didn’t I tell you? Do I know my little brother or what?”
Mariah stood, placed her dessert plate of uneaten cake on the coffee table, then walked over to Samantha, reached down, and hugged her. “It’ll be good to have my sister-in-law so close by.”
Cindy pretended to be offended. “Hey, what am I? Chopped
liver?”
Together the three young women embraced each other, no doubt envisioning days of shopping or skiing together, followed by dining out at Apple’s or in Breckenridge. Fun-filled family outings that—God willing—would not include Samuel or me babysitting at every turn.
Michelle signed,
What is going on?
Before I could answer, Tim signed back:
Samantha and I are
staying in Summit View.
Michelle clapped her hands together, leaping across the room and throwing herself into her older brother’s arms. By this point, our grandchildren were skipping about, bouncing up and down, and squealing as though it were already Christmas morning and they’d actually managed to spot Santa coming down the chimney.
“Put your fork down, Lizzie,” Samuel said, “before you poke your eye out.”
I complied, then looked over at Tim. “What about your home
in Baton Rouge? What about the kids? School?”
Tim’s smile fell a bit, but he kept an arm looped around Michelle’s waist as he said, “Mom? Are you upset with me? I thought you’d
be happy.”
I put my plate (with fork resting atop it) in my lap and pressed my fingertips to my chest. “I am happy. I’m just surprised, is all.”
Tim nodded. “I guess it would be a bit of a shock, eh, Dad? You and Mom, here alone for so long, no telling what kinda wild things you two have been used to doing.”
“Tim!” Samantha exclaimed, blushing for the both of us. “What a thing to say.”
Tim released Michelle and came over to where I was sitting. He reached down and kissed me on the cheek. “Mom knows I’m kidding her.”
“Does that mean,” Samuel finally said, “that you are planning to stay
here
? In this house?”
Tim turned to him. “Well, just for the time being. We’ll put our house in Baton Rouge on the market, and when it sells we’ll buy something up here. In the meantime, I’m thinking this is plenty big for all of us.”
He was thinking. How wonderful that my son had decided to start thinking.
I cleared my throat. “And how long do you think that will take, Tim?” I think I swallowed, but I could be wrong. I could have just lightly choked.
Tim squatted down, rested his elbows on his knees, and spread his hands wide. “Gee, Mom. I don’t know. The market’s pretty good right now. Seller’s market, actually. I looked into it last night on the Internet. I also shot an email to our realtor and told her what we were planning to do.”
“Have you heard anything back from her?” Samuel asked.
“Yeah, as a matter of fact I had an email this morning. I checked before we left for church. She said she could sell our house in a month, she thought. Maybe two. Maybe even less. It’s new. It’s in a nice neighborhood. Good school district for kids.”
“And what about Kaci and Brent? What about school?” I looked over to where the kids had been jumping about just moments ago and noticed they’d all gathered around where Cindy and Samantha were still standing. They were glued to every word being said.
“It’s probably going to be most difficult for Kaci here,” Samantha said, reaching over to smooth Kaci’s long dark hair.
“But I’ll get over it,” Kaci interjected. “I like it up here, MeMa.” Her dark eyes grew wide. “I love the snow and the mountains and being near you and Grandpa. And I’m sure I’ll make tons of new
friends. Besides, I can email all my other friends.”
I smiled at her. “It will be so nice to have you in Summit View, my love. To be able to watch you grow into a young lady.” I looked back at Tim. “Well, it sounds like you’ve made up your minds. Thought it through. I don’t mean to sound as though I don’t want you to be here. It was just a bit of a shock for me.” I touched my son’s shoulder. “I love you and of course I want you to be nearby. And, you’re right when you say that it’s going to be a little different around here.” I looked to Samuel. “But it’s not forever, and in the end, we’ll have all our children here. Right, Dad?”
