We Interrupt This Date (18 page)

“Nice meeting you, too.” I said evenly, hiding my
surprise.

“I sort of have a boyfriend, you know.”

Her boyfriend must be Brandon of the Citadel. I
wondered if Trinity had told Mama about the sleeping arrangements.
Probably not, or she’d still be in the house listening to Mama tell
her that sleeping bag or not, a proper young lady does not spend
the night in a man’s room unless she
wants
to provide fodder
for the gossip mill.

After they left, an uncomfortable heaviness settled
in my stomach, signal that I needed to put myself on a mini diet
for the rest of the day. Could be I was simply feeling guilty over
my failure to leap to rescue Christian from his job.

Mama was in the kitchen washing my cookware when I
got back inside. She put the last pan in the rack, rinsed the sink,
and hung the dishcloth over the faucet. “I have to rush. My babies
are home alone and they do not understand why I had to skip church
and tear over to Mount Pleasant first thing to visit kin. They do
not know I had to leave them home in case
that animal
was on
the loose.”

“Christian fixed the fence. Brad won’t be in the
house or on the porch or anywhere else close to your babies from
now on.

She clapped her hand over her heart. “I certainly
appreciate your concern. They are very delicate, you know.” She
snatched up her purse. “I will speak to DeLorean.” She turned in a
complete circle looking for the offending daughter, who’d gone
upstairs. “When I see her. Surely she can’t afford to feed an
animal that size if she can’t even feed herself.”

My exact thought. I walked Mama to the door,
wondering what made her think she could influence DeLorean. Of
course, I knew it didn’t matter to Mama if she talked until she
keeled over from exhaustion. It was her self-assigned duty to spend
her days directing the lives of her family and friends as she saw
fit.

Mama stepped outside still muttering about DeLorean
and her self-made problems. She’s gone down my steps a thousand
times, but today she caught the heel of her shoe on the second step
and tumbled to the ground before I could catch her.

I bounded forward and knelt at her side. “Mama, are
you okay?”

Her face was pale and her eyes were closed. She
opened them briefly. “Don’t screech, dear, it isn’t ladylike. I
believe I’ve broken my ankle.”

“Don’t move.” I pressed my hands on her shoulders as
if I thought she was planning to leap to her feet and rumba down
the driveway. “I’ll call an ambulance.”

“I am not dead or dying. Take me in the car. Thank
God the babies weren’t with me. Did you see how my purse flew
halfway across the front yard and landed on the walkway? They could
have been killed, smashed like little bugs.”

I rolled my eyes heavenward. Why in the world was she
worried about dogs when her ankle was already the size of a
grapefruit? I raced into the house and yelled for DeLorean.

She helped me get Mama into the van and then she ran
back inside for Cole and his equipment, despite Mama’s protests
that she didn’t require an entourage for a simple trip to the East
Cooper Regional Medical Center. My sister caught my eye and
mouthed, “She’d never forgive me.”

I heaved Cole’s diaper bag, a blue and yellow
carryall half the size of a footlocker, into the back and rammed
the key into the ignition.

“How are you holding up?” I said, when Mama winced as
we roared out of the driveway.

“Regina Marsh is not a woman who complains or whines.
Thirty-one hours of labor with you and thirty-seven with your
sister. I certainly know how to deal with pain.” Mama turned her
long-suffering face in my direction and managed a watery smile.

From the back seat DeLorean didn’t quite manage to
suppress a snort. We both knew that once Mama got started on the
subject of childbirth she was compelled to go through the entire
labor process minute by minute. And when she was done talking about
her own, she’d get started on those of her friends. I’d lost count
of the number of times I’d heard about Millie Conrad’s forceps
delivery. According to Mama, Millie never could walk straight after
her son was born and it was positively frightening the way she
rocked spraddle-legged from side to side when she climbed a set of
porch steps.

After a squad of attendants took Mama back to see to
her injury, DeLorean and I settled in the waiting room. If past
experience was any guide, we had a long wait. During the years
Christian was growing up, I’d accustomed myself to emergency rooms.
There was the time he had a fever of 105 degrees and the time he
broke his arm playing baseball and the time he wrecked his bike and
had to have stitches in his leg.

But I’d never had to worry over an injury to my own
mother. I don’t know what I’d have done if anything had happened to
her while I was growing up. She was, after all, my only living
parent. And DeLorean was my only sister, I thought, with a rush of
guilt.

“Dee?” I said, half-turning to face her.

“What?” She poked the nipple of a bottle into Cole’s
mouth and said something to him in baby talk about him being a
handsome little man.

“I’m sorry about last night.” I could have added that
I didn’t know what had gotten into me, but that would have been a
lie. “I was awfully snappy with you over absolutely nothing.”

“Hey, stressful times, right” She pursed her lips and
blew me a kiss.

I shrugged. I wondered if I’d handle it any better
the next time I let my feelings about Jack get out of control. But
I’d been over this topic last night. About a hundred times while
I’d lain awake. What Jack did was Jack’s business, and the same for
DeLorean. I was not going to turn into my mother, captain of the
interference police.

DeLorean hummed Cole to sleep and turned her
attention to a documentary about crocodiles that was playing on the
TV opposite her chair. I busied myself perusing magazines. Minutes
became an hour. The crocodiles on the screen gave way to elephants.
Finally I tossed down a six-month-old copy of Redbook and
stood.

“I’ll see if they’ll let me in the back to check on
Mama.”

“Good idea. I’m surprised they didn’t come and get
one of us already.” She looked across the room at a white-uniformed
figure pushing a stretcher holding a screaming child. “Scratch that
idea I had about nursing school. I could never be a nurse.”

Better she should find out now rather than later
after she’d invested time and money in a career change.

“I’m going to consider something else. I couldn’t
stand being around sick people and not being able to cure them.
What do you think about paralegal studies?”

She wouldn’t have the patience for such detailed
work.

“Sounds great. But you’ve got plenty of time to look
around and find what interests you most.”

I scurried away before she could ask for more career
advice. DeLorean was the most bullheaded person on the planet and
she was not about to listen to any suggestions I might come up with
any more than I’d follow her advice to give up on the idea of the
ghost tour business. Come to think of it, being bullheaded was a
trait she got from Mama. Some people liked to accuse me of that
same trait, but I preferred to think of myself as
strong-minded.

I went up to the desk and asked about Mama.

“Mrs. Marsh? Oh, yes, the lady with the ankle injury.
Sorry, only one visitor at a time in the ER.” The receptionist
picked up a chart and beamed me a pert smile that seemed more a
signal for me to politely go away than a willingness to answer more
questions.

“Excuse me?” Only one visitor. That I could
understand, but who else would be visiting Mama? DeLorean and I
were her daughters. No one except us would be here, not even her
church family, as she called them, because they didn’t know about
her injury.

“Mrs. Marsh already has a visitor.”

“That can’t be.” I leaned over the counter, and she
quickly swiveled her computer monitor to face it away from me. “My
sister and I are her only family. Except for her grandsons, but
Cole is only a baby and Christian is away at college.”

“Her friend is with her.” Much arching of eyebrows
from the unhelpful desk queen.

Friend? Had she called Pastor Whitfield or Ruth
Ames?

The door leading to the back opened. I turned, my
attention caught by a distinguished looking gentleman walking past.
He looked vaguely familiar.

The desk queen followed my gaze. “There he is. Now
you can go back. Cubicle three. It’s on the right after you pass
through the double doors.” She hit a buzzer on the wall next to a
chart rack.

Very efficient. But I was so deep in thought
wondering about the identity of the visitor, I almost didn’t get
through the electronic doors before they swung shut on my butt.

Mama was lying on a gurney in a curtained cubicle.
Her eyes held the dazed look of someone who’d been drugged. She
shook her head when she saw me and pointed toward her right foot,
which was elevated.

“It’s sprained, not broken,” she said, her voice
sounding almost disdainful as if she blamed her ankle for betraying
her. “They’re going to wrap it.”

“That’s the usual procedure with sprains.” Hey, I
watch ER, I know how the process works. “The receptionist said you
had another visitor and I saw a man go out right before I came in.
Who is he, Mama?”

She stared at me for a long minute. “Here I lie in a
hospital bed, racked with pain, and all you can think to do is ask
nosy questions?”

I pulled the visitor chair up to her gurney and
plopped down. “I’m wondering why a man, someone I’ve never met, is
allowed to see you while DeLorean and I have to sit out front
worrying.”

“Worrying? For heaven’s sake, it’s only a sprained
ankle.”

“For all we knew you’d sustained internal injuries.
Want to tell me about your friend?”

“You should have only one concern on your mind and
that is concern for your mother and her well-being. My gentleman
friend, not that it is any of your business, is Rhett Dearborn.
We’ve been seeing each other for almost five months.” Mama’s
expression went from dazed to defiant, as if she expected me to
wail and rip my hair out because she had a man in her life after
more than twenty years alone.

“That’s great,” I said. “Really wonderful.”

She shifted, trying to move higher on the gurney, and
I wondered if I should offer to plump up her pillow. “I hadn’t
realized I was sometimes lonely until I started spending time with
Rhett. The babies are good company, of course, but they can’t carry
on a conversation.”

Really? This was the first time she’d ever admitted
the Chihuahuas couldn’t take the place of people.

“But why did you keep your boyfriend a secret?”

“
Boyfriend
?” Mama made tsk, tsk sounds. “That
sounds so undignified. Rhett is sixty-four years old, and I have my
own reasons for keeping my personal life to myself.”

“But now that I know, there’s no reason why you can’t
tell me all about him. And arrange an introduction. I’m happy for
you, Mama.”

“We’ll see about the introduction.” She sniffed.
“I’ll give you the condensed version. Rhett is widowed, one grown
son. Well-off. Retired from a shipping business. And he’s a
wonderful man, a real southern gentleman. He wants to marry me, but
of course I said no.”

That’s all? Marriage? And of course she said no? My
jaw dropped and my mouth hung like an open trap until Mama reminded
me to shut it. Good manners and all that.

“Marriage? You’ve got to accept.” It was about time
she had some happiness in her life—as well as someone to keep her
occupied so she’d stay out of my business.

“Love or no love, the subject is finished.” She
closed her eyes and sighed gently, and I noted that the bright
light overhead made the lines around her mouth seem deeper, which
only added to the impression that she was suffering.

I drummed my fingers on the edge of the gurney.
Clearly Mama wouldn’t have told me about her boyfriend if she
hadn’t gotten injured. Older man friend, I meant. But why?

The ER crew bustled in while I was still pondering,
and I went back to the lobby to update DeLorean. I didn’t leave out
the part about Rhett Dearborn.

Her eyes grew huge. “If I weren’t holding a sleeping
baby, I’d be positively jumping with excitement. What did she say
about him?”

“Practically nothing, except that he’s widowed and
he’s asked her to marry him and she turned him down. But I thought
he looked familiar when I saw him leave. Now I remember. I saw him
walking with her last week when I was out for coffee after yoga
class. I wasn’t sure at the time it was Mama—she was in shadow—and
I certainly didn’t expect to see her with a man.”

“I don’t know why she’s being silly about not wanting
to get married. Did she say why?”

“No. And I’m not going to ask her.”

Mama wouldn’t tell me, I knew that much. But I was
determined to find out on my own, so I could try to get her to
change her mind.

Of course Mama couldn’t go home to her condo alone. I
suggested she hire someone to come in for a week or so until she
was able to move around on her own. “It won’t be for long,
Mama.”

“But there’s no way I can climb the stairs to my
place. I can’t walk and surely you don’t expect me to hop.”

“I expect you to take the elevator like normal
people, Mama.”

“I don’t take the elevator in my building. You know
that and there is no use trying to persuade me that thing is
safe.”

“This is an emergency. I’ll ride up with you and then
I’ll call one of those home health places and ask them to send
someone.”

“I told you I am not riding that untrustworthy
contraption. Just drive me to a nursing home and check me in for a
few weeks.”