“Oh, I can’t believe you’ve done anything that terrible. What was it?”
“I told LuAnne that you and I were thinking of doing an intervention with Helen.” I stopped again, waiting for her response.
“Well, we are. What’s wrong with that?”
“Just that LuAnne can’t keep anything to herself, so it sort of pushes us to go ahead and do it before she lets it slip to somebody who’ll tell Helen. And I wouldn’t put it past her to tell Helen herself. And if I understand how an intervention is staged, the subject is not supposed to know she’s going to be put on the spot. She probably wouldn’t show up if she did. I wouldn’t.”
“Hmm, well, I guess we should go ahead, then. It’ll have to be at your house, though, because mine is full of ladders and boxes of decorations and pine needles, and will be for days to come. So when do you want to have it?”
“It’ll have to be soon—maybe tomorrow night? Sam will be home next week, and I think it’d be better if he’s not around. Helen—well, nobody—would like it if they thought somebody was listening in another room.”
“Okay, who’re we going to ask to take part in this? Who knows her and what she might be doing well enough to express concern?”
“LuAnne, of course,” I said, “and you and I. What about Sue Hargrove?”
“No,” Mildred said. “She’s too nice. She’d never be able to say anything that might be hurtful, which is exactly what Helen needs to hear.”
“Emma Sue Ledbetter?”
“Well, she could do it. Even though Pastor Ledbetter has retired, she hasn’t. And she’s known Helen about as long as we have. Who else?”
“I can’t think of anybody else. Everybody knows Helen, but there’re not many I would call close to her. Although,” I mused, “I wish we could have Mr. Ernest Sitton. He’s her lawyer, so he’d know if she’s overspending. But even if she is, he wouldn’t tell us.”
“Couldn’t, you mean,” Mildred said. “He’d be disbarred. What about Hazel Marie?”
“Well, we could, I guess, although she’s even nicer than Sue.”
Mildred laughed. “How’d we get mixed up with so many nice people? We need to reconsider the kind of people we take up with.”
“That may be true,” I said, although I thought the problem was more that Helen had so few close friends than it was the type of people we knew. “But four may be enough, unless you want to consider Pastor Ledbetter himself.”
“Well, that’s a thought, but I had the impression that Helen doesn’t have much respect for him. Even though he was her pastor for years. And yours, too, so you make that decision.”
“Let’s just say that even though he’s known me for decades, I wouldn’t want him at my intervention. If you ever decide that I need one.”
“Don’t worry. I’ll tell you if I ever do.” After a few seconds of silence as we considered the dramatic step before us, Mildred said, “I’m thinking it’d be better if just the two of us confront Helen, with, I guess, LuAnne, since you’ve already told her, although she’s likely to go off on a tangent.”
“I guess so,” I conceded. “We’ll just have to keep her in line. And I’d rather not involve Hazel Marie, either. She’s much too kind and much younger, too. Helen might resent being criticized by a lesser mortal, so to speak. The same goes for our former pastor, although not because of the age difference.”
“That suits me,” Mildred said. “You and I are the only ones who seem to know the problem and who’re willing to put our lives on the line to do something about it. So if you put it that way to LuAnne, she may back out. And I’d just as soon leave Emma Sue out, too.”
“So would I,” I said. “We’d have to sit down with her and tell her why we’re concerned, and first thing you know, Emma Sue would accuse us of gossiping. She’s been known to view things just a little bit off kilter from what you’d expect.”
“Don’t I know it! Back when I was going to the Presbyterian church, she confessed to me one day that she’d been guilty of estimating how much I spent on clothes and wondering if I pledged the same amount to missions. She asked my forgiveness for secretly judging me, which I was happy to give since it had never bothered me. It’s easy to forgive something you’ve never known about. Except then I kept wondering what else she was wondering about.”
“That sounds like something she’d do. Emma Sue lets a lot of things occupy her mind, including how much makeup Hazel Marie wears. Which I admit occupied mine when Hazel Marie first came to live with me. But what she put on her face didn’t bother me after I saw her one morning with her natural look.”
“Oh, Julia, you are funny. But back to the plan,” Mildred said, getting down to business. “You, me, and Helen, and maybe LuAnne—okay? And tomorrow night, right?”
“Yes, I’ll ask all of you to dinner—consider this your invitation and come over about six. Lloyd will be at a basketball game and Lillian will be back in the kitchen. It’ll be just the three or four of us with no interruptions or distractions. But I’m going to be as nervous as a cat until it’s done.”
“Well, me, too,” Mildred said. “But we need to do it for Thurlow’s sake. I mean, he’s part of old Abbotsville, and even though none of us can stand him, I think we have some sort of obligation to make sure he’s not being taken advantage of.”
“I think so, too. Well, let me call Helen and see if she can come tomorrow night. If she can’t, we’ll have to regroup, but prepare your accusations.” I stopped, then said, “I just wish we had a rehab place to send her to so we wouldn’t have to look her in the eye afterward.”
—
If that wasn’t enough, Lloyd
