Your Dream and Mine (5 page)

“Honk next time, and I promise not to throw boxes at you.”

“Deal.”

She returned his grin with a upsweep of lashes and a chocolate-eyed twinkle, then stooped to pick up the cup just as he was leaning down to do it for her. Her face disappeared under the hat again as his hand closed on the
cup the same moment as hers. He let go with a studied nonchalance, and gathered her boxes for her.

“Thank you. I’ll take them now,” she said.

“Let me. You’ll get your dress dirty.” Trace angled her a sidelong glance. “Who’s helping you move, anyway, the queen of England?”

“Beg your pardon?”

“The tea party hat. The dress. Couldn’t help noticing you’re…”

“Overdressed?” She smiled. “Moving is on hold for the day. Mary and I are going to town.”

“Milt’s Mary?”

Thomasina nodded, but didn’t elaborate. Before he could pursue it, she asked, “What about you? You’re not thinking about chopping down the cherry tree, are you, George?”

It took him half a second to realize she was chiding him about the oak tree out at Milt’s. “No, ma’am.” He played along. “You’ve scared me off that project. I’m pulling a porch off an old house instead.”

“Here in town?”

He nodded. “On Church Street just down from Liberty Flats Church. Stop by and I’ll show you around. Not that there’s much to see. It’s kind of an eyesore right now.”

“But with potential?” asked Thomasina, as they neared her car.

“Something like that.” He waited while she unlocked the door.

“Just throw the boxes in the back seat,” she said, and thanked him.

The Penn children raced across the yard as he ambled back to the porch. Trace was about to duck out of sight when he realized Thomasina was the attraction. Thinking they were too late, Winny and Pauly stopped short, disappointment lining their faces.

If it’d been him, he would have pulled away without a second look. But Thomasina rolled down the window and beckoned to them. Trace took his paper inside, poured a cup of coffee, drank half of it and wandered to the front of the house just as Thomasina was pulling away. The children stood on the curb, waving to her. She tooted her horn and returned the gesture.

A regular glutton for punishment.
Trace wagged his head, and went back for a refill.

T
homasina admired the composure with which Mary conducted herself throughout a morning of nest hunting which took them to more houses and apartment buildings than she cared to count. They took a break for brunch at a teahouse, then visited retirement complexes until midafternoon. Seeing Mary’s strength waning, Thomasina suggested pie and coffee before starting home.

While they were waiting for their order, Will Chambers strolled past their table. A square-jawed fellow with neatly clipped red-gold hair and his mother’s blue eyes and Nordic good looks, he gave Thomasina a passing glance and would have walked on by except that Mary reached out and caught his hand.

“Hello there, William. Aren’t you speaking today?”

“Mom!” A smile leapt to Will Chamber’s eyes. “I was just on my way out to the farm. What’re you doing here?”

“We’ve been out and about all day. We’re yielding to temptation before we start home,” said Mary. “You remember Thomasina, don’t you?”

“Yes, of course.”

Thomasina traded smiles and pleasantries. Mary beamed at him with a mother’s pride. “Have you eaten, Will? Then have a piece of pie with us, won’t you?”

Will accepted, and took a seat beside his mother. To Thomasina’s relief, the conversation was general with no mention of the decisions Mary and Milt were in the throes of making. When they had finished their dessert, Will offered to drive his mother home.

“That would be nice,” said Mary, with no outward indication of concern over the bombshell awaiting Will at the farm.

Thomasina parted company with them on the street, and returned home to change her clothes and pack some more boxes. It was close to four o’clock when she trudged down the stifling staircase for the last time that day, carrying the roof to her dollhouse.

Sixteen-year-old Ricky Spignalo was bouncing a handball against the brick wall out front as Thomasina came out the lobby door. Six-two in his purple sneakers, baggy shorts and T-shirt with its cut-out sleeves, he leapt to catch a ricocheting rebound angling toward her car.

“Phone’s ringing, Miz Rose.”

“Answer it, would you?” asked Thomasina, keys dangling from her little finger.

Ricky unlocked her car door and reached in. “Yes, ma’am. No, she ain’t busy. She’s right here.” His glance darted to Thomasina. “Ricky. I’m her neighbor. Yes, ma’am. Nice talkin’ to you, too.” He held out the phone. “Miz Baxter. Says if you’re not too busy…”

Thomasina gave Ricky the dollhouse roof. “Back seat, would you please?”

“Shore, Miz Rose. It’s going to be a pushin’ match, gettin’ it in.”

“Careful, it’s my prize possession!” warned Thomasina as she took the phone. “Flo! What a nice surprise.”

“I’ve been trying for three days to get you, sweetheart,” said Flo. “I was worried.”

“I’m sorry, Flo. I’m in the process of moving. I should have called.”

“Moving?”

“Yes, to a beautiful old house in Liberty Flats.”

“Oh, Thomasina! How exciting. Nathan will be thrilled. Ever the financier, you know. He thinks paying rent when you’ve got the resources to buy is money down a rat hole.”

Thomasina was about to correct Flo’s assumption she was buying the house when she looked up in the rearview mirror to see a car pull up behind her. The hard-bitten expressions of the driver and passenger made her uneasy. Seeing them motion to Ricky, she said, “Hold on a sec, would you Flo?” Thomasina reached out the yawning car door and caught Ricky’s arm.

“Ricky? I could use some help moving. Think it’d be all right with your mom if I borrowed you for a few hours?”

“She ain’t here,” said Ricky, turning away from his tough-looking peers. “She’s workin’ over at the dry cleaner’s.”

“Climb in and we’ll buzz by.” Thomasina took the passenger’s seat while Ricky slid behind the wheel. “Buckle up, okay?” she said, and grabbed the phone again. “Flo? You still there?”

“Trouble?” asked Flo, as astute as ever.

“You know what they say about three-day fish.” Thomasina put it in code.

“Stinks like bad company?” Flo picked up on it immediately, for it was she who had recoined the phrase while
guiding Thomasina away from a fast crowd in her teen years. “Young Ricky keeping rough company, is he?”

“Not yet At least I don’t think so,” said Thomasina, breathing a little easier as the two young men sped away in their car.

“You can’t save the whole world,” said Flo gently. “You know that, don’t you, baby?”

“That never kept
you
from trying,” countered Thomasina with a smile in her voice.

“God sent you to us,” said Flo. “He knew I had more mothering in me.”

“You certainly did, and am I ever grateful! I love you, Flo.”

“I know, honey, and we love you. Listen, about this house you’re buying—you’re not taking out a loan, surely? You know all you have to do is say the word and Nathan will liquidate some of your stocks. The timing couldn’t be better. Nathan was saying just this morning…”

“I’m not buying, Flo,” she inserted quickly. “I’m just renting.”

“Oh! Well. Nevertheless.” Flo dropped single-word sentences the way she always did when shifting mental gears. “You need to study up on your…”

“Not the stocks and bonds thing again?” Thomasina forestalled her, crowding out the familiar guilt rush that always came at the mention of the investments Nathan had made on her behalf over the years. “You know I haven’t a clue about that stuff.”

“Nonsense! You have a good mind,” said Flo.

“Flo…”

“No, let me finish,” Flo said gently. “Nathan misses the number crunching now that he’s retired. You know how unassuming he is. He isn’t going to bore you with knowledge
you don’t want. But your interest would buoy him up tremendously, Thomasina. Truly.”

“All right, then,” said Thomasina, wheels turning. “Ask him about a farm.”

“A farm?”

“Yes. Ask him if a farm is a good investment.”

“Are you serious? Whatever for?”

Thomasina glanced at Ricky, one hand on the wheel, the other getting familiar with the radio. His mother was trying hard to keep him in school and off the streets. Mrs. Spignalo worked two jobs and worried a lot over the daily dangers and enticements facing Ricky. There was a glut of single parents like her raising kids in precarious circumstances on their own limited strength outside the Lord.

“Just ask him, Flo. Tell him I’d like to turn it into a campground.”

“Campground?”

“Yes, a Christian children’s camp,” said Thomasina. The dream had words now. Spoken out loud, it could not be recalled. It was so heart-stopping a moment, the blood roared in her ears. “Listen, could I call you back this evening? I need your prayers, and advice. And Flo? Thank you for worrying about me. Thank Nathan, too. For… everything.”

Thank you.
Far too small. The only meaningful way Thomasina knew to repay the debt owed was to be a vessel of their kindness, passing along to others the new life begun in her when they took her in and loved her into Christ.

Her throat was dry, her palms sweaty and her heart pounding so hard, she thought it would beat a hole in her chest. Was this what it was like to give birth to a dream?

I’m scared, Lord. Help me, help me do it right.

Trace had spent most of the day with sledgehammer and crowbar, knocking the two porches off the old house. The
front one was in slightly better shape than the back had been, and stubborn about turning loose of its moorings. He did what he could with hand tools, then went back to the shop for the chain saw.

When he returned, cars were gathering in front of the church and down both sides of the street. There was no off-street parking. Paying little heed to slamming car doors, he climbed up on the roof, ripped the chord on the chain saw and made some critical cuts. The porch leaned drunkenly as he came down off the ladder. He pushed a severed column and jumped back. The porch came down like a house of cards.

Over the screech of rusty nails and the groan of splintering, crashing wood, someone called, “Timber!” Trace looked toward the street as the dust cleared. A petite, blondhaired woman closed the door on her late-model minivan.

“Will I be in the way if I park here?” she asked.

“You’re fine.” Trace was turning away when he noticed the plates on the minivan. Arizona. He pivoted, jaw dropping. “Deidre?”

“Trace?” Her blue eyes widened. “Trace Austin! I don’t believe my eyes!”

Her smile came out, and the years fell away in an adrenaline rush, a clenching gut and a shower of sparks. She was as golden as ever, flying across the grass with her halo of curls bouncing and her arms open wide. She smelled like cotton candy and burned like sun rays, showering sparks as her arms closed around him in a sisterly embrace. Trace listened hard to catch her silvery laugh over the buzz in his brain.

“It’s been a long time, hasn’t it?” cried Deidre. “Let me look at you! My goodness, Trace. You’re as handsome as ever. There now, I’ve made you blush. Or is it the heat?
You’re dripping wet.” She laughed and stepped back to knock the dust off her loose-fitting denim dress.

“You’re looking great, Deidre,” Trace said, trying to shake off the numbness. “How have you been?”

“Terrific. And yourself?”

“No complaints.”

“As destructive as ever, I see,” she said, with a teasing gesture toward the collapsed porch.

“Got to tear down before you can build up.” Trace’s lips limbered up enough to return her smile.

“We could use a man like you at school. We’re suffering growing pains you wouldn’t believe. God’s blessed us with so many children, we don’t have room for them all. Say, I don’t suppose I could talk you into a packing up your pony and coming out our way?”

“I heard you were home, drumming up support.”

“And spending some time with my folks,” she said, nodding. “Are you coming to the soup supper tomorrow night?”

“Milt sold me a couple of tickets.”

“That isn’t what I asked,” she said, adopting that lilting tone he remembered so well.

“The thing is…”

“No, no, don’t disappoint me with excuses, I’ve heard them all,” Deidre talked right over his stammering attempt to come up with one. “If you don’t come, I’ll just have to give you the spiel one on one.”

“Which spiel’s it going to be?”

She laughed at his guarded tone. “I got knocked off my soap box a long time ago, so relax. How about tonight? I’ll tell you all about the mission school and give you an idea what it is we’re doing and the sort of help we so desperately need. Have you got an hour for an old friend?”

Trace braced himself for the tide to sweep over him as
it always had in response to the slightest entreaty from her. But the seas of his soul were settling.

“Just half an hour?” she said, misunderstanding his hesitation.

“How’s seven sound?” Trace asked. “We’ll catch up over dinner, then see a movie if you like.”

“A movie! I don’t know when I’ve been last,” Deidre said with that shining energy he’d found so irresistible in the past. “I better go, I’m supposed to be peeling carrots and setting up tables.”

“Making you work for your soup supper, are they?” he asked, following her glance toward the church.

“I don’t mind, I offered,” she said with a smile, and opened her arms again. “It’s so great seeing you, Trace.”

He’d forgotten how tiny she was. It had always been part of her appeal. Hearing a car, Trace looked up to see Thomasina’s car cruise by, her back seat piled sky-high. There was a guy at the wheel. Trace’s pulse kicked unexpectedly as Deidre stepped out of his arms.

“I’ll see you tonight,” Deidre called, and started away.

Trace couldn’t remember later if he answered her or not. What he did remember was Thomasina, on the passenger’s side, head turning for a quick glance, then away. The car did not stop.

Trace meant to work another hour. Instead, he picked up his tools and cleared out.

“So where is this house anyways, Miz Rose?” asked Ricky.

“Never mind, Ricky. I didn’t get a number, just Church Street,” said Thomasina, without letting on that she’d seen what she’d come to see, and then some. Regretting the impulse that had brought her by to have a look at Trace’s
project, she added, “It’s getting late. Let’s get home and unload all this stuff, and I’ll drive you back to town.”

“You goin’ to let me cut the grass first, like you said?”

Reservations crept in. Perhaps she should speak to Trace about it first. His offer to let her use his mower may have been based on the assumption she’d be doing the mowing.
Was that his type? Blond and petite and perky. Forgive me, Lord,
Thomasina checked herself. She didn’t even know him, much less the woman. What was wrong with her anyway?

“Miz Rose? Which way?” Ricky brought her back to earth.

“I’m sorry. Left, and back through town.” Thomasina swept her hand through windblown hair and vowed to think no more about Trace or his little canary of a lady friend.