Woodlands (3 page)

D
ashing to the checkout stand with a cartful of groceries, Leah greeted the clerk with, “I know, I know, I’m the last one in the store, right?”

“That’s okay,” he said. “Looks like you were a little low on the essentials.” He rang up the four cartons of a dozen eggs and looked at her over the top of his glasses.

“It’s Easter,” Leah said merrily. “They’re for the big egg hunt at Kyle and Jessica’s.”

“Of course. I should have guessed. My kids are going.”

“It’s going to be fun,” Leah said. “I hope the weather stays clear. It was beautiful today.”

The clerk rang up an economy-size package of newborn diapers. “Looks like you’re going to be ready for just about everything.”

Leah only nodded.
Do you have to comment on everything I’m buying?

Apparently he did because he kept going. “Great price on
the roast beef this week, isn’t it?”

Leah nodded again.

“My wife likes these crackers. Are they any good?”

Leah didn’t know. She had never tried them. In an effort to speed up the process and avoid further questions, she stepped to the end of the checkout stand and assisted in bagging her own groceries. She wanted to get as much as she could into two bags and keep the eggs separate in a third bag. The clerk chose to comment on that as well.

“You know what they say about putting all your eggs in one basket? You should put only two cartons in a bag. Eggs can be heavy, you know.”

Leah didn’t know. But she followed his instructions and left the store as quickly as she could. One of the disadvantages of living in a small town was that everybody could figure out what everyone else was doing, which made it difficult for Leah to cover her tracks. She had come to the grocery store late so she would be the only shopper. People who knew her well would have realized she would never buy a roast for herself since she rarely ate red meat.

Stashing the groceries in the back of her Blazer, Leah took off for the address she had scribbled on a sticky memo pad at work that afternoon. The dashboard of her car was freckled with notes she was forever writing to herself. Reminders of things to do, places to go, people to see.

She had a pretty good idea of where this house was located. It was one of the many homes on Glenbrooke’s outskirts, tucked behind a forest of evergreens and then down a poorly marked dirt and gravel road.

Leah found it on her first try. She turned off the engine as soon as the porch light came into view. The Blazer rolled to a stop. As quietly as she could, Leah collected the two bulging
bags of groceries and stepped lightly, heading for the front door.

From inside the house came the sound of a newborn’s cries. As soon as Leah heard them she walked faster, feeling sure that the baby’s cries would cover up any noise she made. It had only been a week since Leah had filed the papers at her hospital desk to send this newborn baby home. Four days later, the father had shown up in admitting with a mandatory hernia operation. He was teased plenty about overdoing it with the sympathy pains for his wife’s recent delivery.

Leah had read the concern in the faces of the young couple. This was their first child. The husband worked construction and would now lose income during his recovery time. Their insurance had a $500 deductible.

That afternoon the hernia patient had been sent home, and Leah hoped the groceries would save the new mom from having to make a trip into town for a few days.

Leah carefully balanced the two heavy bags on the front door mat and gingerly made her way back to the car. When she was sure she was out of sight from the front door and that her car was sufficiently camouflaged down the road, she reached into the glove compartment for her cell phone. Holding a penlight between her teeth, she read the number off her sticky note and dialed the phone.

A woman’s voice answered. The sound of the wailing baby came through the receiver so loud Leah had to pull the phone away from her ear.

“Hello?” the woman said a second time.

Leah lowered her voice to the basement of her range and said, “Yes, hello. I’m calling to let you know a gift is waiting on your doorstep. God bless you. Good night.”

She hung up and waited. From her hiding place, she could
see the door slowly open. Her heart started to race. It always did when she thought of what her gift receivers must be thinking and feeling in that first moment of realization.

The woman stood a moment in stunned silence, holding the crying baby in her arms. She looked left and right and then tried to pick up one of the bags with her free hand. It was too heavy.

I should have put the groceries in more bags so they wouldn’t be so heavy. What was I thinking? She just had a baby, and he just had hernia surgery
.

It was all Leah could do to stay in the car and not hurry to the front door to help carry the groceries inside. But whenever Leah made her secret deliveries, it was incognito. That’s the way she wanted it to stay. Her joy was in the giving, not in being discovered.

The woman went inside and came back with her arms free. Slowly she lifted the bags one at a time. When the front door closed, Leah waited a few minutes before starting the engine and backing down the road. It was difficult to maneuver in the dark so she went slowly. She kept thinking about the fifty eggs that were bouncing around like crazy in the back of the Blazer.

Just as her tires hit the paved street, her cell phone rang. Leah jumped. She stopped the car to answer the phone.

“Who is this?” the male voice asked.

“Who is this?” Leah retorted.

After a pause, the man said, “I got your number off my caller ID so I know that you, or someone at this number, just called us and said a gift was on our doorstep.”

Leah’s heart began to pound. She had never been traced this way before. She felt a rush of disappointment mixed with fear at the thought of being found out. No one had come this close to catching her after almost eight years of clandestine drop-offs.

“I just want to say thanks,” the man said. “You don’t know how badly we needed some of this stuff. Especially the diapers.”

Leah smiled but didn’t say anything. She had answered the phone in her natural voice but made the original call in a deep voice. She wasn’t sure now which voice to use.

“You don’t have to say anything,” the man said after another pause. “We just wanted to say thank you. And God bless you, too.” He hung up.

Leah drove home quickly. A sense of joy overpowered the rush of fear she had felt when she was nearly found out.

The next day at work Leah was all set to carry out another undercover mission. This time to find out the identity of the tan-legged PDS delivery guy by asking Harry, their usual PDS man.

However, by lunchtime not a single delivery had been made to the hospital. Leah had planned to run errands during her lunch break, but now she didn’t want to leave the hospital in case Harry came while she was gone. She ate in the lunchroom, facing the door so she could see the admitting desk.

Harry never arrived. Leah found it hard to believe the hospital had no deliveries all day. When she left at four-thirty, still no deliveries had arrived.

Leah closed her car door and checked the sticky notes on the dashboard for her list of errands. The first note reminded her to drop off three muffin tins at Ida Dane’s home on Fourth Avenue. Ida was making cupcakes for the Easter Saturday event and had left a message on Leah’s phone the night before asking if she had extra tins.

Leah parked in front of the blue house and paused a moment to take in the carousel of color that surrounded the fifty-year-old A-frame home. Ida’s flowers were her joy. Bright
red tulips, nodding yellow daffodils, and deep purple pansies lined the steps to her front door where a clump of tall iris stalks looked as if they were getting ready to open in time for Easter Sunday. Ida’s dogwood tree on the side of the house had burst into a canopy of bright pink blossoms.

Heading for the front door, Leah noticed the dainty white alyssum and abundant grape hyacinth that ran the length of the border along the front of the house. She knocked on the front door and watched as the afternoon breeze danced through the dogwood tree, causing the blossoms to flutter to the ground like confetti.

“Ida?” Leah called out, knocking again. “It’s Leah.”

The front door was closed. Leah guessed Ida was running errands. She was one of Glenbrooke’s most active senior citizens, although in the past few years Leah had noticed Ida becoming more easily confused and keeping more to home than she used to. Leah left the muffin tins propped against the side of the screen door and told herself to call Ida later to make sure she had found them.

Leah was down the front walk and opening the door to her Blazer when she heard the deep rumbling sound of a delivery van rounding the corner onto Fourth. Something prompted her to duck inside her car and watch to see who was driving the van. It might be “him.”

The brakes squealed as the van came to a stop in front of her car. She peered expectantly, waiting until the driver hopped out and headed up Ida’s walkway with a clipboard and a small package.

Leah smiled. There he was, tanned legs and all. With her window rolled down, she sat back and decided to watch and listen. He obviously hadn’t noticed her when he rushed up to Ida’s door to make the delivery.

He was knocking on the door when thin, little Ida came
bustling around the far side of her house wearing garden gloves and waving a pair of clippers in her hand. “Yoo-hoo! I heard your truck pull up. I was hoping my package would arrive today. Oh, why, you’re new, aren’t you?”

He handed her the clipboard. “Yes, I am. Could you sign for me, please? Line 19.”

Leah watched as Ida signed the paper and then looked him over. “Do you have time for a glass of lemonade?”

Leah thought this was the perfect setup. If he went inside for lemonade, she could go back to the front door saying she wanted to make sure Ida had found the muffin tins. Ida would invite Leah inside for lemonade, too, and voilà, Leah could meet Mr. PDS.

“No, I have a few more deliveries to make,” he said. “Thank you, though.”

“Oh!” Ida said, reaching over and picking up the muffin tins. “Did you leave these also?”

“No, they were there when I came up.”

“Really?” Now Ida seemed intrigued. She looked around but didn’t notice Leah in the car. Leah didn’t know if she should wave and call out or start the car and dash away. Either choice seemed awkward so she stayed where she was, feeling relieved that neither of them seemed to have noticed her sitting there, spying on them. The lilac bushes must have hidden her from easy view.

Ida held up the muffin tins and triumphantly announced to the delivery guy, “I bet the Glenbrooke Zorro left these for me. He must have known I do lots of baking for Easter. I’ve always hoped I’d be visited by the Glenbrooke Zorro, and it looks like today was my day!”

Leah sank down in her seat. She couldn’t drive away now. How could Ida have forgotten that she had called Leah to bring over the muffin tins?

“Well, have a nice afternoon,” the delivery guy said before turning to go.

“Wait!” Ida called out. “I don’t know your name, young man.”

Leah thought that was a much better departing line than “Care for a Sno-Kone.”

“Seth,” he called to Ida from the middle of her garden walk. “Seth Edwards.”

“Next time you come to my door, Seth Edwards, you make sure you have time for a nice glass of lemonade.”

“I will. Thanks.” He waved and hustled back to the delivery van.

Leah stayed slumped in her seat, watching and waiting for him to leave. Seth. Seth Edwards. It had a nice, stable sound to it.

Seth settled into the front seat of his van and appeared to be checking a map before pulling out. Leah waited. Seth put down the map and glanced in the rearview mirror. He was at just the right angle to look into the cab of Leah’s Blazer, and when he did, their eyes met. Leah sheepishly waved. Seth smiled and waved back. He looked to the front door of Ida’s house. Ida had gone in and taken the package and muffin tins with her. Seth looked back at Leah and smiled again.

Did he just deduce that I was the one who left the muffin tins? He’s new in town. He can’t know anything about the Glenbrooke Zorro. I hope he ignores that comment as the prattling of an old lady
.

Leah expected him to start up his van and be on his way. After all, he had said he had several more deliveries to make. But to her surprise, he grabbed his map and exited the van. Before Leah knew what was happening, the bronzed, bare legs of Seth Edwards were striding toward her.

R
esting his arm on the open window of Leah’s Blazer, Seth leaned in and said, “Hi there.”

“Hi.” Leah felt certain her round cheeks were a bright shade of tulip red.

“I wonder if you could do me a favor.”

“Sure,” Leah said quickly. Too quickly, she thought, so she added, “I owe you a favor after the way you helped me out last night. You really saved the day for me.”

“Good. Now maybe you can save the day for me. Can you tell me how to get to Medford Court? The map shows it as being off Nineteenth, but I was just there, and Nineteenth doesn’t go through.”