Sometimes it was more than bumping into each other. Like him with his coffee cup this morning. And her waiting till he came out of church after the service. These were not accidental encounters, they were planned.
To what avail?
Mary's car was like a kiln inside. Naturally, it had no air-conditioning, and Tess wondered again what she did with all the money she sent her. She sighed, dried the sweat from beneath her nose with one finger and wished she could return to Nashville tonight. It'd probably be better for everyone involved, she thought, including Kenny Kronek.
She found Mary bathed, dressed and eager to leave.
'Hi, Mom,' she said, kissing Mary's cheek.
'Hi, honey.'
'This is the day, huh?'
'At last. You got my car downstairs?'
'Right by the door.'
'Well, then… let's bust me out.'
A girl came in pushing a cart. 'For the flowers,' she explained, and left it. Tess started loading them up but Mary said, 'Before you take them down, will you sign a couple autographs for some of the nurses who didn't get a chance to meet you? I told them you wouldn't mind.'
Actually, Tess was in a hurry to get out of there. A hospital was a dreary place on a beautiful spring afternoon, but she signed some papers anyway for the list of names Mary gave her, then finished loading up Mary's flowers. She was surprised to discover separate bouquets from Kenny and Casey, apart from the one Faith had picked and brought over herself. Every day Tess saw more clearly how their lives were intertwined with her mother's.
Getting Mary into the backseat at the hospital proved fairly easy with help there to assist her. Basically, Mary was instructed to do all the work herself, bearing her weight on her hands, which was safer than letting other people try to move her. When she was settled on the pillows with the windows rolled down, they headed home, Mary praising the weather, the beautiful day, and the joy of being released from the hospital. Then she said, 'Kenny and Faith came to visit me again last night.'
'They did? I saw them leave but I thought they were probably going out to dinner.'
'They went to dinner afterwards. Do you know how many times he came up to see me?'
'How many?'
'Four. Isn't that something? Why, some of my own grandkids didn't get up to see me even once, and that boy comes up to visit me four times. That Kenny… I tell you… I don't know what I did to deserve him, but he's like the son I never had. I couldn't love him more if he was my very own, and that's the God's honest truth.'
They stopped for a red light, and Tess said, 'Momma, can I ask you something?' She tried to see Mary in the rearview mirror but could not. 'Just exactly what is his relationship to Faith?'
'What do you mean?'
'You know what I mean, Momma. Are they lovers?'
'Tess, for heaven's sake. What kind of question is that?'
'Oh, come on, Momma, this is 1995. Unmarried people do have lovers.'
'Well, I wouldn't presume to ask.'
'You don't have to ask. All you have to do is look and see if her car is ever there in the morning.'
'I don't pay any attention to things like that.'
'Casey says they are.'
'Well, Casey should button her lip! I can't believe they'd do anything like that around her. And why are you bringing it up anyway?'
'Just curious, that's all.'
Mary said, 'Oh, look, is that a pink dogwood in bloom over there?' and Tess understood, her mother didn't like anything less than complimentary being said about her precious neighbor.
When they pulled up in the alley at home, a surprise waited. Renee and Jim came out of the house waving hello and smiling. It was the first time Tess had seen Jim since she'd been home, and he had a bear hug for her, along with the greeting she'd come to expect over the years: 'If it isn't old Tess-tickle. Hiya, sweetheart.' They both laughed at the age-old joke. He had the most teasing smile Tess had ever seen, and crinkly eyes and not much hair. She liked him as much as she always had.
'Jim, you big bald brat. When are you going to stop calling me that?'
'Never. I'm going to tell the
'Jimmy, Jimmy, Jimmy,' she scolded, 'will you stop calling Tess that awful name?'
Tess got the walker from the trunk and they all stood by rather helplessly, for there was little they could do except coach as Mary maneuvered herself out of the car, gripping the edge of the roof and moving by degrees. The walk to the house seemed a good half mile long in light of the slow progress Mary made with her walker, each forward movement measured and cautious. They hovered beside her and as they reached the back steps-three very high steps that had been homemade years ago-Kenny showed up, sprinting across the yards.
'Hey, wait for me!' he called.
There was a flurry of greetings and Kenny said to Jim, 'Just like last time?'
'Just like last time, okay, Mary? We've got the program down.' The two men took Mary's arms over their shoulders and lifted her bodily up the steps and into the house. She ordered one of the girls to get her antique chair from the living room. The one with the high seat. When the girls asked if she shouldn't lie in bed and rest for a while, she replied, 'Been away from my kitchen long enough, and I do believe that's coffee I smell. Nobody's going to stick me in the bedroom when my kids are here!' She carefully maneuvered herself onto the armchair and prepared to hold court.
Renee had, indeed, brewed a pot of coffee and she said that Judy and Ed were also on their way over. Judy showed up with a German chocolate cake and they all stayed to visit and snack. Ed's greeting for Tess was much less jovial than Jim's had been. He was a quiet man who repaired appliances and largely took orders from his wife, exerting his own form of retaliatory control by pinching pennies and making her account for every one she spent, even though she had a business of her own. The family characterized Ed by repeating the story of the time he had finally agreed to go to Hawaii, then refused to pay for a rental car and forever after claimed he didn't like Maui because there was nothing much there to do if you didn't know how to swim. Ed greeted Tess with a hug that was chary of body contact, and said, 'How are you?' then sat down to tell Kenny how many pounds of scrap copper he'd managed to pick up on the job, and how much it was worth per pound.
Within twenty minutes all three of Judy and Ed's kids showed up, too, and around three o'clock, the bride-and groom-to-be, Rachel and Brent Hill, along with Renee and Jim's other kid, Packer. Packer had earned his nickname at age three when he had gotten mad at his mother and declared he was leaving home, to which Renee obligingly replied, 'Okay, sweetheart, you want me to help you pack?' She had helped him fill a duffel bag and load it on his red Radio Flyer wagon, then watched him trudge off down the driveway till he got to the curb and turned uncertainly with big crocodile tears in his eyes. Forever after, the family had called him Packer.
Amid the pouring of coffee and the serving of cake, the story got told again, and laughed about again, along with a few others. The cousins exchanged small talk about what was going on in their lives, and the adults did the same. It was small town U.S.A. on a Sunday afternoon, the traditional family gathering at Grandma's house, and Tess could see how her mother reveled in it. When someone remarked that they'd pretty much taken over her house, and asked if they were wearing her out and should they leave, she said, 'Don't you dare!'
So they stayed, and Kenny with them.
The kitchen was crowded. Not everyone fit around the table. Kenny stood with his backside against the kitchen sink, and Tess stood with an arm propped against the living room archway. Sometimes, above the heads of the others, their gazes met, but they were careful not to be seen fixing on one another overly long.
Conversations overlapped. The fourth pot of coffee got perked. The phone rang and Kenny was the closest so he reached over and answered it without asking permission.
'Mary,' he said, 'it's Enid Copley. Do you want to talk?'
'I don't think I can get over there,' she said from the other side of the table. ' 'What does she want?'
