We Interrupt This Date (19 page)

“A nursing home is not a hotel. What about your
babies?”

“That’s another thing. No home health aide on this
earth will want to walk the babies and take care of them. I’ll have
to hire a petsitter to come in a couple of times a day. My, the
trouble and the expense. But what else can I do?” Her lip trembled
so she reminded me of DeLorean getting ready to pitch a fit.

I turned my head toward the window so she wouldn’t
see me roll my eyes. “Why, Mama, I’ve just had the most fantastic
idea. You and the babies can stay at my house for a few weeks.” I
heard an audible intake of breath from DeLorean’s direction.

Mama fanned herself with a sheaf of papers the ER
receptionist had given her and stirred a lot of dust off the
dashboard. “I couldn’t possibly impose. You already have so much to
deal with.”

“There’s no way you can manage on your own, so I
don’t want to hear another word of protest.”

“I am the last person on earth to put someone out.
The very last. Sophie Rainier, you remember her I’m sure,
inflicts
herself on her relatives to a point where they’re
all on the verge of nervous breakdowns. Last week she showed up
unannounced at her daughter’s house in Savannah and then positively
steamed
when her daughter said the visit was inconvenient
because she already had guests from New York.” Mama dropped the ER
papers in her lap. She hauled a hairbrush out of her purse and used
it to tap my elbow for emphasis.

“Ouch.” I jerked my arm out of reach. “Mama, it would
be my privilege to help you. Besides, if you don’t come to my
house, it would be a lot more work for me to keep running across
the bridge to look after you in Charleston.”

I allowed myself a few moments of mentally rolling in
self-pity. I’d accustomed myself to my empty nest and now all the
members of my family, dogs included, were dependent on me. And
this, after I’d concluded that having DeLorean and Mama in the same
house was about as likely to work out as me falling in love with T.
Chandler all over again.

Mama settled back, wearing an expression like that
you might see on a tennis player who’d just bested her rival for
the hundredth time. She’d planned all along to stay at my place.
She knew I’d make the offer and she knew she’d accept after making
a token protest.

Kenny was in the back yard romping with Brad when I
pulled into the driveway. I smacked my hand against my forehead.
I’d forgotten to call and let him know Christian had fixed the
fence.

“Hey, great dog, Mrs. Caraway.” He came around to the
front and I saw a toolbox on the steps. I tumbled out of the van.
“Kenny, I’m sorry, but when you didn’t show on time this morning, I
let Christian fix the fence.”

“Didn’t show?” His eyebrows came together in a furry
line. “You didn’t get my message?”

“Message?” Light slowly dawned. My message machine
wouldn’t kick in as long as someone was answering my phone. I’d
learned that yesterday when Jack appeared at my door expecting to
take me out and discovered me dressed for an evening of cleaning my
toilet.

“I called yesterday. A lady promised to tell you I
couldn’t get here until after one.”

“Sorry,” called a voice from the back seat. “My
bad.”

Christian had said DeLorean had sat on top of the
phone and we’d assumed all the calls were from Baldwin. As stressed
as she was, when Kenny called she must have completely forgotten to
pass the message on.

I shook off a feeling of annoyance over careless
family message takers and said, “I’m sorry. But how about another
job? My mother sprained her ankle and she’s going to stay with me
for a few weeks.” Running mine and DeLorean’s lives. “Could you
help me get her settled inside and then go with me to get her
things?”

“No problem.” His face brightened and the furry line
turned back into two separate eyebrows.

If it were me with the sprained ankle, I’d be fine at
someone’s house with a gym bag loaded with clothes and toiletries,
but I knew Mama. She’d started a list in the car on the way home
and in addition to the dogs and their equipment and her clothes,
she’d listed at least ten more items she couldn’t live without. Of
course she had to have her cosmetics case, her box of vitamins, and
her new orchid plant, the one with the fuschia blooms. I suspected
from the way her mouth softened when she mentioned the orchid that
Rhett had given it to her.

Between the two of us, Kenny and I got Mama inside
and settled on the family room couch. Before we left, I brought
Mama a cup of tea and a couple of slices of toast and handed her
the TV remote.

She accepted gratefully. “Are you going to the condo
right away? The babies need me, but it looks like rain and there is
no point in you being outside if the heavens open up. I suppose
they could wait.” Doubt clouded her face.

The sky had darkened from bright blue to an angry
charcoal in the time since we’d left for the hospital and the air
had chilled at least twenty degrees. I waved away her worries.
“I’ll have them here before the storm breaks. I haven’t lost any
dogs yet.”

I put on a flannel shirt with long sleeves over my
blouse and took my umbrella with me. Traffic was light, typical for
a Sunday, and I made it to Mama’s building in record time.

The beginnings of the promised downpour spattered on
my head as soon as I stepped onto the sidewalk in front of the
condo. Kenny and I shared my umbrella and dashed into the
building.

As soon as I unlocked the door and we stepped inside
the front room, the Chihuahuas swarmed, attacked my ankles like a
couple of stirred up ants, and then retreated behind the couch.

“Is this any way to treat your rescuer?” I called,
shaking my fist in mock anger.

Kenny laughed. “Don’t you like dogs?”

“I like them fine, but these two are not only
neurotic, they’ve chose to focus their aggression on me. You should
see them with my mother. They fawn over her like she’s their
queen.”

“What about the big dog, the one in your backyard? He
likes you, right?”

“Like may be too strong a word. I think tolerate
applies better. He actually belongs to my sister, but he doesn’t
seem to have bonded with her any more than he has with me.”

“Hey, he’s a great dog. If your sister ever decides
to sell him, tell her to let me know.”

“Sure,” I murmured absently, trying to decide where
to start. Mama’s place is cozy and decorated in early frill—lace
curtains on the windows, doilies on the chair arms, and fringes on
the lampshades. Predominant colors were lavender and pink.

“Hmm. Mama wants her own towels. Would you mind
getting them out of the linen closet in the bathroom while I check
in the coat closet for her yarn?”

“Sure.” Kenny saluted.

I found the yarn basket and about five hundred cans
of soup in the closet. Famine was not going to take my mother, not
as long as Campbell’s stayed in business. While I was trying to get
the yarn basket without knocking down a stack of cans, Kenny called
from down the hall.

“There’s nothing in here but toilet paper.”

I went to see for myself. The linen closet was packed
from floor to ceiling with rolls of toilet tissue in every brand
imaginable. “Guess Mama’s expecting the great toilet paper shortage
of the 21
^st
century. Hold on while I look in her
room.”

Mama’s bedroom was as pink and lavender as the rest
of the house. The bottom drawer of her dresser was crammed with
towels and washcloths. I dragged them out and handed them to Kenny
to take to the car while I packed the rest of the things she’d
asked for. Kenny came back and took the suitcases down to the van.
After I gave him the dog food, the orchid plant, and assorted small
items essential to life as Mama knew it, I surveyed the living
room. Chihuahuas nowhere to be found.

“Come on, babies, time to go see your mama.” I
chirped away, sounding more like a demented parrot than a seriously
annoyed woman who was starting to wonder if she could get away with
dropping the babies off at the pound and telling Mama they got
dognapped by a couple of tourists with more guns than brains.

I’d brought Mama’s bag and I opened it wide to give
them the idea. The little darlings pranced away and scooted behind
an armchair. Lovely. On top of packing enough of Mama’s things to
completely fill my mini van, I had to deal with defiant Chihuahuas.
Not how I’d planned to spend my Sunday afternoon.

Sweetpea, usually a meek sort, seemed to have
undergone a personality transplant since his trip to the spa, and
Tiny was always a pain in the ass. Eventually I got them cornered
and tried to gather them in. They snapped at me, one on each side,
then attached their little teeth to my shirt sleeves. Before I
could peel them off, I heard footsteps and experienced a sense of
relief. Kenny could help and we’d be out of here before the storm
moved in from the harbor.

“Kenny, you get the little stud on the right and I’ll
get the other one,” I said without turning around.

I nearly jumped across the room when, instead of
Kenny’s adolescent squawk, a deep voice behind me said, “Where’s
Regina?”

I stumbled to my knees, Chihuahuas dangling from my
sleeves like remoras hanging off a shark. My heart lurched.

How many years since I’d last seen him? I couldn’t
remember. Long enough for his red hair to turn a pinkish white, his
stomach to develop a slight paunch, and his face to sag around the
edges. But he was still good-looking for someone his age.

Something clicked—maybe the sight of the plaid
pants--and I knew this was the man Mrs. Barkley had told me about
who’d come looking for Mama the day I took her to the doctor. Why
hadn’t I investigated at the time?

A sly grin pulled his thin lips apart. He put his
hands on his hips and rocked back on his heels. I looked at his
shoes. Expensive. Italian leather. That figured.

“Susan. All grown up.”

“That tends to happen to a kid as the years
pass.”

“Where’s your mother?”

“I don’t think that’s any of your business.” I leaned
backward and hit the coffee table.

“You tell her I want her answer. I don’t care where
she’s hiding, I’ll find her, and she’ll give me what I asked
for.”

“Get out before I call the police.” My initial
confusion had given way to righteous anger.

“Mrs. Caraway?” Kenny appeared in the doorway. “Is
this man bothering you?” His voice cracked.

Bless him, he was only seventeen and had yet to fill
out. His arms hung at his sides like bent sapling branches against
his skinny body, but he was prepared to defend me against a man who
must have outweighed him by more than fifty pounds.

“No bother,” I said. “This is my ex-stepfather and
he’s on his way out.”

Again the sly grin. Didn’t the man have more than one
expression? Come to think of it, I couldn’t remember any others
except anger.

“Ex-stepfather, that’s rich. But, yeah, I’m leaving.”
He sauntered to the door, and Kenny moved quickly aside to let him
pass.

Memories of childhood rushed over me, and my hands
shook. I would probably have knelt in shock for hours if Kenny
hadn’t said, “Did you know you have little dogs hanging off your
sleeves?”

“Right,” I said, frowning down at my arms. “I knew
thatl.”

I let Kenny help me pry the jaws apart. My thoughts
churned until I wondered if my brain would turn to butter. I hadn’t
seen Philip Beauchamp since DeLorean was fourteen and he
unexpectedly showed up for her birthday to bring her an imitation
Barbie, one of those crudely put together hard plastic dolls you
can buy for a couple of dollars at discount shops. Mama had come
close to fainting when she saw him, and I’d had to run Philip off,
slap a cold cloth on Mama’s forehead, and console DeLorean. And
this on a day when T. Chandler chose to have one of his fits
because I asked him to pick up Christian at the sitter’s on his way
home.

I wished I hadn’t been there when Philip walked in.
And I wondered what he meant when he said, “Ex-stepfather, that’s
rich.” Did he think he was still my stepfather because he’d been
married to my mother for a couple of short years? Jerk.

When we got back, Kenny and I unloaded Mama’s things.
I brought her the purse and set it in her lap. She took the babies
out and let them give her some sugar. Wordlessly I handed her a box
of tissues and went to fix lunch for Kenny.

I waited until Kenny left—after eating the four
grilled cheese sandwiches I fixed for him and drinking half a
gallon of milk--before I told Mama I’d seen Philip Beauchamp. At
her condo.
In
her condo.

“Did you remember my vitamins, Susan? And my bag of
prunes?” Mama cupped her hands around the nest of sleeping
Chihuahuas in her lap. “And the food for the babies?”

“Yes and yes and yes.” I stood in the middle of the
room between the couch where Mama lay propped on pillows with her
foot elevated and the love seat where DeLorean sat with Cole
sleeping in her arms, his rosebud mouth making little sucking
motions. Thank God he didn’t look one bit like his maternal
grandfather. “Mama, did you hear what I said? Philip Beauchamp. In
the flesh. At your condo.”

I watched Mama’s expression not change, though her
cheeks pinked up about five shades. No surprise, but I hadn’t
expected one. From what Philip had said, he wanted something from
Mama and he’d already contacted her.

DeLorean put her hand to her throat. “What if he
found out he has a grandson and he wants to see Cole?” Her arms
acted reflexively, pulling her son closer to her chest. DeLorean
had been a baby herself when Philip left. When he’d crashed her
birthday party all those years later, he’d been drunk and had
almost gotten into a fistfight with the father of one of her
friends, so DeLorean had been able to see for herself what a jerk
he was.