скачать книгу бесплатно
Mary nodded, her face to the setting sun. Thomasina watched the rosy crown slip behind a blur of trees on the horizon. Shafts of light streamed across the heavens like countless arms uplifted in praise. Hallowed be Thy name. The prayer showered over her heart, quieting Thomasina’s anxiety as she retreated across the yard to the house.
Milt was in a chair by the bedroom window, talking on the telephone. He covered the receiver with his hand. “Get me a glass of water, would you, Tommy? I’ve been on the wire all evening, and I’m dry as cotton.”
When Thomasina returned with the water, he had ended his call. She took his blood pressure, his temperature and listened to his lungs before suggesting a bath.
“I guess I’m old enough to know when to scrub behind my ears. Sit down before you wear a hole in the rug.”
Thomasina sat. She returned her stethoscope and blood pressure cuff to her canvas carryall and pulled out her patient log. Her paperback book fell out, too.
“Wish somebody’d pay me to read on the job,” groused Milt, as she picked it up, crossed her legs and turned her log book to the proper page.
“Mmm.” Foot swinging, Thomasina took down the time, his heart rate, blood pressure and other routine information.
“Quit speaking, did you?” Milt spoke over the scratch of her pen.
“No, why?”
“Thought maybe I hurt your feelings.”
“No more than usual.” Glancing up from her record keeping, Thomasina saw him plucking at the sheet. “What’s the matter?”
“I’ve had some things on my mind,” he mumbled. “Sorry I growled.”
“I was kidding, Milt. You didn’t hurt my feelings.” Thomasina grinned and added, “Grumbling comes with the territory.”
“Shouldn’t though. I was wrong about Will and the girls, too,” he admitted. “I gave them a pretty hard time about going behind my back and sending you here.”
He was referring to his behavior following his release from the hospital after a respiratory infection turned into pneumonia. Emphysema complicated matters, which was why his doctor suggested nursing home care. Milt dug his heels in, saying Mary was all the nursing he needed. His children knew better. They went behind his back and called Picket Fence, arranging for round-the-clock nursing.
Frustrated over having no say in his own life, Milt railed over his perceived betrayal at the hands of his son and daughters, and ranted at Mary for defending them. He vented his frustrations and wounded pride on Thomasina, as well. Mary acted as a buffer, apologetic to Thomasina and appeasing to Milt. But even she lost patience when Milt tried to send Thomasina packing.
“Enough is enough!” cried Mary, shaking her finger in his face. “You let the girl do her job, or I’m digging a hole in the flower garden and throwing you in myself.”
Milt took a long look at his worn-out wife and shut his mouth. He had been a different man since.
“You’ve been a big help to Mary and me,” Milt continued. “A friend, too.”
“Careful. I’ll ask for a raise,” quipped Thomasina.
“Hush, Tommy, and let me finish,” he ordered. “The thing about Will and the girls making decisions over my head is that only yesterday I was telling them where they could and couldn’t go, and what time to be home, and I wasn’t taking any back talk, either.”
With his words came a wrenching glimpse of the brevity of life. Thomasina felt the press of work she had not even spoken aloud about, much less begun, and watched as Milt pushed the curtain back.
“It’s about dark,” he said, squinting toward the flower garden. “What’s keeping her?”
Thomasina’s thoughts pivoted. “Are you two at odds?”
“Who?” rasped Milt. “Mary and me? No. What makes you ask?”
Mary’s tears. His trembling hand. His apologies, as if he could use a friend in his corner.
Thomasina said, “The tree in the front yard’s still standing. I thought maybe she told you she’d rather you didn’t cut it down.”
“You’re not paying attention, Tommy.” Milt let the curtain fall back into the place and said without preamble, “We’ve got an appraiser coming tomorrow. We’re going to have an auction, and sell the equipment and the land, too, if we can get what it’s worth.”
The breath went out of Thomasina. She would have sworn he’d give up his lungs, his arms, his legs, his very lifeblood before he gave up his land.
“I’m making the arrangements first,” Milt continued. “Then I’ll tell Will. The girls both live out of state. I’d rather tell them in person, but that’s up to them.”
“None of them want the farm?” said Thomasina.
“They never have in the past. If they’ve changed their minds, they can give fair market value and there’ll be no auction.” Gaze narrowing, he added, “If you’re thinking I owe it to them free and clear, just let me say…”
“I wasn’t,” Thomasina inserted hastily.
“In my book, giving them something they haven’t worked for is less a gift than a test of character, and I did my part in their character years ago. Anyway, I’ve got to have a little something set by to take care of Mary.” Milt jutted out his knobby chin, rubbed his bald head and waggled a finger in the general direction of his water glass.
Thomasina took it to the kitchen and filled it again. He spilled more than he drank, and dropped the glass, trying to return it to the table.
“Jeb Liddle’s been farming the ground for almost a decade now. He’ll bid,” he said as Thomasina stooped to pick up the glass and the scattered ice cubes.
“How many acres are there?”
“Why? Have you got a nest egg?” he injected on a lighter vein.
“Mostly in stocks and bonds,” she said.
“Ya, right. So what are you doing here?”
She shrugged off his disbelief and said with a grin, “Can’t a girl have a hobby?”
“Cute, Tommy Rose.” he chortled. “Grab a piece of paper now, before you get too sassy for list making. There’s something I want you to do for me tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow’s Saturday.”
“Your day off,” he said, nodding. “I know that. But while Mary’s fine with the plan, the details are making her weepy. I figure she’ll be better off nest shopping than getting all antsy over the appraiser prowling the place. I can’t very well ask Will to take her, now can I?”
“I’d be happy to take her,” said Thomasina. Seeing that Mary wasn’t the only one having a tough time with the details, she leaned forward and patted his knee. “Are you sure you’re all right with this, Milt?”
“I won’t say it’s easy. But it’s God who’s lifted us up and given us opportunities and God who says when it’s time to let go.”
“He’s said this?”
“Not in words. But the indications are there.” Milt took his time, pumping up on oxygen. “Yesterday, we both had doctor appointments. Mary had some cancer a few years ago, so she gets checked out now and then.”
Seeing him harden his jaw, Thomasina tightened her grip on the forgotten book in her lap and braced herself for the worst. He drew the curtain back again and said without looking at her, “She came out of the office, and I found myself noticing she was thin. Thinner than she’s been in a while.”
Thomasina’s hand flew to her mouth. “Oh, Milt.”
“No, it’s all right. The tests were routine. The lab called this morning, and the results were fine. But it was a wakeup call, Tommy Rose.” His bony throat wobbled. Tears gathered as he added, “I may be a stout-hearted old cuss, but I’ve got enough gray matter left to know it isn’t land or barns or a house full of trinkets making each day worth getting up for.”
Thomasina made a big business of studying the inside cover of her paperback. Her eyes were too full to read while he fought for control.
“The girls have families of their own now,” he said finally. “Will’s married to that lumberyard of his, and Mary agrees if we don’t make some decisions soon, the kids’ll end up doing it for us. It goes down the hatch a lot easier, makin’ them myself. Even hard ones. Like I said…” He trailed off a moment, then began anew, his voice growing stronger for the oxygen boost. “Seem to be spending a lot of time at doctors and pharmacies these days, so I reckon we’ll find a place in Bloomington where everything’s close by. An apartment, maybe where the upkeep is somebody else’s headache. Or a retirement village where they do the cooking and everything. Make it easier on Mary.”
“Sounds nice,” murmured Thomasina.
“A regular second honeymoon.” He checked the tear coursing down his seamed cheek, and beckoned with a gnarled finger. “I want you to look up some addresses and write them down for tomorrow, Tommy Rose.”
Milt went on to give her a list of retirement facilities, plus a real estate agent he had contacted. Mary came in a while later and went over the whole thing again with Thomasina. Obviously they had given the decision a lot of thought. Thomasina listened without comment, except to say she’d help in whatever way she could. Mary thanked her for giving up her Saturday, sweet-talked Milt into taking a bath, then left herself to get ready for bed.
Silence settled over the house. The loss of Saturday would set Thomasina’s moving behind a bit. But she wasn’t pressed for time. Thomasina sat by Milt’s bed, thoughts flitting from pillar to post in an attempt to hold at bay the biggest thought of all. She thought about Trace inadvertently touching her shoulder, and Winny asking her if she was moving in with Trace. Out of the mouths of babes. Was her decision to move impulsive? Had she been in such a red-hot hurry, she hadn’t even prayed?
She prayed now. For Milt and Mary, too, making hard choices not only for the sake of their family and of each for the other, but because they trusted God with their future.
As did she. But she would not pray about the thought, the dream. She couldn’t. Not when Milt lay a foot away, relinquishing with pain and raw courage what had been his for a lifetime. It seemed callous, irreverent even, the line between dream-seeking and covetousness—a slim, slippery treacherous one. God’s will. God’s will. Even that seemed dangerously close to vindicating her right to prayerfully dream while he slept on his losses.
Thomasina rose and stretched and wandered the room on soundless feet. The lamp left burning in the living room shed shadowy light on photographs that affirmed lives built on Until death do us part.
Milt in a suit, broad brown hand slicking back a full head of black hair as he traded smiles with his white-veiled bride. Milt astride the tractor seat, a muscular arm snaked around a fair-haired toddler. Milt holding a framed diploma as he and Mary flanked their cap-and-gown-clad twin daughters. Milt clowning for the camera, giving Mary rabbit ears as they posed at their fiftieth wedding anniversary party.
The deep waters of a verse about times and seasons under God’s heavens soothed heart sores and guilty pangs. Thomasina thought on these things.
Later, Mary slipped into the room. “You go on and get some rest, Thomasina,” she whispered. “I don’t want you wilting on me while we’re house hunting tomorrow.”
“What about you?”
“I’ll be fine.” Mary took off her slippers and sat down on the bed. She looked at Thomasina with a spark of dismissal in her eyes. Thomasina took her paperback book and went out into the living room. When she tiptoed in later to check on Milt, Mary was tucked under his arm, next to his heart, fast asleep. They both seemed small and frail, yet enduring. Dear souls. Thomasina touched her fingers to her lips and blew them a misty kiss.
Trace got off work at two on Friday night and went right to bed. Recently he had signed papers on a small, run-down two-bedroom bungalow a block past Liberty Flats Community Church. It needed a lot of work, and he wanted to make the most of his Saturday.
He was awake before the alarm. It took him a moment to realize the sound of running water was coming from Thomasina’s side of the house. He’d heard her come in a couple of hours earlier, and knew she couldn’t have had much rest. Must be bent on getting an early start on the rest of her moving.
Trace showered and shaved and pulled on a pair of jeans and a T-shirt before going downstairs to plug in the coffeepot. The sun was shining through the carpenter’s lace, making patterns on the freshly painted floor as he went out on the porch to retrieve the paper.
He scanned the headlines and was on his way inside again when Thomasina stepped out of her apartment into the shared foyer. She juggled a lidded cup, her pocketbook and an armload of empty boxes.
“Nice morning,” he said.
Thomasina jumped and fumbled her boxes.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you.” Trace stepped out of the line of fire as the lidded cup bounced after the boxes. “Burn you?”
“I don’t think so.” Her whole face disappeared beneath a wide-brimmed straw hat as she ducked her chin, checking her dress.
Trace was checking it, too, though with a different view in mind. A womanly dress, as opposed to those loose-fitting shapeless things that seemed to be all the rage. Eggshell white. Sleeveless with a modest neckline and a fitted bodice. The hem brushed shapely calves, with a slit to the knee for an unencumbered stride.
“It takes a full cup before I get my equilibrium,” she offered by way of explanation.
“You better lay off the coffee. You’re awful jumpy,” he countered.
“Me?” She tipped her face. It glowed a pearly pink in the straw hat frame. “Couldn’t have a thing to do with you slipping up behind me in your sock feet?”
“Just getting the paper.”
“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.
Chapter Seven (#ulink_8e70e474-50de-532d-937e-e043b3fda155)
Thomasina 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.
