“Well, my dear,” he begins, regally standing beside her chair as she admires him. Resting his thumb on her shoulder, he caresses it through the long-sleeved blouse she wears. I notice his ring, a solid gold band. “When you’re younger the world appears boring. But what you don’t realize is everything you need is right there in the ones you love.”
Her happy smile is instant and she squeezes his hand. “So true.” Returning to me, she asks, “How do you feel about our Nicholas?”
“Um…”
“Nancy, don’t make her nervous,” Michael chuckles as he heads off down the lawn. “You think it’s time to get this fountain working again?”
His wife glances to a dry old dolphin sculpture in the distance, bleached white with age.
“Oh, I’d love that, Michael! Do it for the boys, please!”
He laughs, “They’re not boys anymore.”
Shrugging she faces forward. “They will always be, to me. So, about Nicholas…”
“I like him very much, Mrs. Cocker.”
Pleased and a little mischievous she reaches for the pitcher and fills up my half-full glass. “Tell him to come visit us more.”
“Not sure if I have that pull.”
“You will,” she winks. “And when you do, tell him we won’t be around long.”
Frowning at the fresh memory of Denise’s lost Nana, I tell Mrs. Cocker, “Don’t say that.”
“I’m just living in reality,” she sighs. “But while I’m still here I can use my pull when I need to, now can’t I? I stopped that gossip-train in its tracks. While my grandson is off teaching your boss a lesson, I let it drop in the right ears that it was he who’s been doing the chasing. That got them talking!”
On a gasp, I ask, “You did that for me?”
With a gleam in her warm brown eyes she nods, glancing back to the house. “May, what are you doing up? I thought you were having your nap?”
I look over to find a frail woman accompanied by an attentive nurse, gingerly walking onto the porch. The screen finally closes behind them as the two make their way toward the steps.
Michael Cocker hurries back to help his mother. “Mom, wait there!”
She’s the only one with a Southern drawl. “I’m capable of three darn steps on my own, I thank you!” She swats at the nurse’s attempts to help her, and uses the wooden handrail to make the short journey down as Michael holds his hands out to his mother. With her free hand, she swats at him, too.
“She woke up hungry, Mrs. Cocker,” the nurse informs Nancy.
“Had no breakfast to speak of, so I don’t blame her.” Michael mutters offering his mother his arm. She takes it, glances up to him with sharp blue eyes in nearly translucent skin. He guides her to join us, and she takes her place on two cushions that prop her up to a height where the table isn’t quite so tall for her tiny body.
He frowns, “I’ll get sandwiches.”
Nancy smiles to him. “Thank you, love.” As he heads inside, she tells me, “Grams was staying in a senior living facility but Michael wanted her closer to us.”
Grams sighs, “I miss my bingo!” adjusting her shawl. It’s warm out, but with skin like hers I’m sure she gets cold easily.
Nancy offers, “We could have bingo here if you’d like. Invite some of your friends over.”
Grams perks up. “Would there be sherry?”
“Of course!”
“Well what are you waitin’ for?” Glancing to me she tilts her head. “I don’t recognize your face.”
“This is Nicholas’s girlfriend, Madison Greeley-Smith. She’s a nanny, May.”
“Our Nicholas?”
“Well, of course our Nicholas!”
The screen door clatters behind Michael Cocker as he approaches us with a tray. “These were in the refrigerator.”
Nancy calls back, “Yes, I made them after I spoke with Nicholas this morning.”
Grams leans in, blue eyes scanning me. “Hmm.” Leaning back she sighs, “I wish I had a body like yours when I was younger!”
The Cockers both laugh, “Mom!”
“Well, I do!” Grams watches tidy sandwich triangles set down in front of her. “Those look delicious! May I have the roast beef?”
“You may have any one you’d like,” her son smiles.
“Mrs. Cocker?” The two matriarchs look over at me. “Sorry, I was talking to May.”
“Yes, child?”
“On the ride over, Nicholas told me that you met your husband after World War II.”
Wagging a frail finger at me with one hand, she picks up her sandwich with the other. “Well, that’s not exactly true now. My Jerald was the son of one of my father’s friends. I was just a young girl when we met. Oh, how I loved him. Those green eyes, dark blonde hair, just like my son Michael had. And Jett, too.”
“Jerald,” Mr. Cocker corrects her, but there’s a twinkle in his smile.
“Jett!” she insists, chiding him with a reproachful look before returning to me and picking very small pieces from her sandwich to nibble on. “My Jerald was so handsome, Madison.” Taking a bite her eyes fade off. I’m impressed she remembered my name—it makes me feel kinda special that it stuck in her mind. Not because of her age, but because she thought it was worth remembering.
I’m on the outside of this family, looking in. But they don’t make me feel that way. It’s really nice, actually. And it gives me more faith in Nicholas’s character that he comes from good people like these.
May stares into her history with love glowing from her. “He wrote to me when he was overseas fighting that terrible war. How I waited for those letters! My father forbade me from communicating with him. Can you imagine that? But my momma was a romantic at heart and she saw how much I adored him. She snuck all his letters from the postman and brought them to me. Asked him special to hide ‘em for her!”
Leaning on my elbow, I smile on a whisper, “That’s so sweet!”
Nodding, she stares off, then her gaze darkens a little. “It was torture waitin’ for those love notes sometimes. Absolute torture.” Glancing to me, she pops a bit of beef into
