“You promise you’ll come back the day after Christmas? I really like having you here, Ada.”
“Got the ticket already bought and paid for. But you got to promise me that you won’t climb any more ladders to pick apples. If I’m going to live here, you are going to have to trust me to do the work.”
The wrinkles around Essie’s mouth disappeared when she smiled. “I didn’t tell you that just before I fell, I climbed on the roof and fixed a few loose shingles.”
Ada set the milk on the counter. “Great God Almighty, Esther! I’ll have to live with you. Your mind has done left your body.”
“No it didn’t,” Essie argued. “It’s just that my stupid old body ran off and left it. Body is eighty-six. Mind is still twenty-six.”
“Those boys of yours ought to be over here helping you,” Ada fussed.
“Calvin is sixty-eight and he’s had two heart attacks. Can’t say how it’s any big surprise with that woman he’s been married to for more than forty years. She’d nag a normal man to death and Calvin ain’t never been real healthy. He ain’t got no business crawlin’ up on a two-story roof and hammerin’ shingles back on.”
“Neither do you,” Ada said.
Essie shot her a dirty look. “Omar is sixty-six and he just retired from over at Letterkenny Army Depot. His wife is a whiner and a hypochondriac. You just try namin’ a disease and by golly she’s either had it or has it ordered for next year. She’s got him runnin’ back and forth to that drugstore so often it’s a wonder to me that his car don’t have the place on automatic pilot.”
Ada laughed.
The daughters-in-law had always been a sore spot and age hadn’t improved any of them. Essie hadn’t really liked any of them from the beginning, but then they hadn’t liked her either.
“Well, Lester is only sixty and his wife is busy with her church stuff. He could help while she’s off doing her charity work,” Ada said.
Essie shook her head. “Lester got his grandpa’s tongue. Not my sweet daddy’s but his paternal grandpa’s. He’d help but I’d have to endure a lecture about how this house is too big for me and how I should be lookin’ at a nursing home. No thank you!”
Ada strained the milk and put it in the extra refrigerator in the pantry. Ten gallons were ready for sale. It would be gone by noon the next day. If they had ten milk cows they couldn’t keep up with the demand for it.
She wiped her hands on the butt of her jeans and unsnapped a shirt pocket to take out her cell phone. Sage’s cell phone’s battery would have long since died, but there was a possibility that the landline would work.
Three rings later, Sage’s voice came through.
“Grand! We’ve got service, at least on this old rotary phone you keep in the kitchen for emergencies. The storm has passed. It’s still cloudy and cold. How are you? Are you ready to come home?”
“I am home, Sage. How’s the cowboy working out?”
“He didn’t lose a single cow and he’s been doing the milking. You know how I hate to milk. And I painted a new picture. I took a snapshot and sent it to Marquee but then when I tried to call you the battery had gone dead and the service had gone out again. It’s very different than what I’d done before…”
Ada butted in. “Is the cowboy naked in it?”
“Grand!”
“Well, shit! I guess that means you aren’t bein’ nice to him. Is he bein’ nice to you?”
“He’s standing right here, Grand.”
“Is he smiling?”
“Yes.”
“Then he knows we’re talkin’ about him. What do you want me to bring you for Christmas?”
“Just you. Come home and call this whole thing off.”
“Essie needs me. You’re a big girl. You don’t need me, and you are beginning to cut out. Well, shit! I forgot to charge my phone. I’ll call you tomorrow and we’ll talk longer.”
“Grand, I’ll always need you.”
That was the last thing Ada heard before the line went dead.
“Well?” Essie asked.
Ada sat down at the table. “Service is still spotty even on the old phone and the battery is down on her cell phone. Damned technology! Get used to it all and then it plays out.”
Essie poured two cups of strong black coffee and carried them to the table. “Is he a serial killer or were your instincts right?”
Ada picked up her coffee. “She says she needs me and wants me to come home for Christmas and call it all off.”
“And?” Essie held her breath.
“And her tone says something different. I was right. She just don’t know it yet.”
“What if she don’t figure it out?”
“She will,” Ada said.
* * *
Sage grabbed Creed by the arm and danced around the kitchen floor with him. Chores could wait. She’d talked to her Grand and the world was almost right again.
“I heard her voice again, Creed, and she’s fine.”
Creed pulled her to his chest and tipped her chin up with his fist. “Why wouldn’t she be? She’s doing exactly what she wants to do.”
All the air left Sage’s lungs. She wanted her grandmother to come home and never leave again, but after only three days she didn’t want Creed to leave either. She wanted him to kiss her. She wanted to snuggle into his arms and listen to him describe her paintings to her. She couldn’t have it all and she only had until Christmas to decide what she wanted most.
The movement stopped and she looked up at Creed. His lips were coming closer and closer. Warmth shot through her body like she was hooked up to a Jack Daniel’s IV. The first touch made her lips so hot that his tongue felt cold when it gently probed her lips and begged for entrance.
It was the first time that she had experienced a kiss that was every
