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  “I’m sorry,” Gloria said, feeling angry with herself for her outburst. “I know I shouldn’t have gotten so excited, but I can’t believe you’re actually thinking of putting Grandma into a nursing home.”

  Geri Bickford lifted her head to scowl at Gloria. A little rivulet of water on the floor had begun streaming between Geri’s shoes, and she bent to attack this new menace. “You haven’t been around.” Her mother’s hand moved swiftly, mopping up the liquid with her sponge in remarkable time. “You haven’t had to listen to the complaints, the whispers.” She straightened, then carried the little red pail to the sink and emptied it.

  “Is this about what people are saying? Or is it about Grandma?”

  “You never did value a good name, a good reputation. You never seemed to care what people thought of you. A good reputation isn’t something you can buy at Sam Hidel’s, Gloria, or Kelly’s. You’ve got to earn it. Even when you do, there’s always someone trying to spoil it. Take it away. And once it’s gone, once it’s lost … well, it’s lost.”

  “Mother, please, let’s discuss one thing at a time. I want to know why you think Grandma should go into a nursing home.”

  Geri wiped her wet hands on a pink and green dish towel that matched her curtains. She had made those curtains herself.

  Actually made them three times, ripping them apart and sewing them until she was satisfied. “Her mind is gone. I’ve been telling you for years that I had my doubts about your grandmother’s mental state. Well … now all doubts are gone. She’s finally crossed over into Neverland.”

  “I just saw Grandma a few days ago. She seemed fine to me.”

  Her mother gave her a pained look before picking up the bud vase to examine it for damage. “Your grandmother’s been running up high bills at Sam’s, buying unnecessary things, silly things, like sugar and flour and chocolate chips, and coconut flakes. She must be baking like a fiend. Making enough cookies for an army. One person can’t eat that many sweets. So I have to assume that after she bakes them, they go in the trash.”

  Gloria’s insides twisted as she pictured Grandma’s five cooling racks loaded with oatmeal cookies. She pulled out a kitchen chair and sat down. No. One person couldn’t eat all that.

  “And she does this every week. Every week, back she goes to Sam’s and charges more flour and sugar and … well, you see the problem, don’t you? She’s flipped. And I have to endure being flagged down by Sam Hidel and having him, in a very loud voice I might add, tell me how high my mother’s bill is getting, and then I see the look in his eyes and everyone else’s who’s listening. And quite frankly, Gloria, I can’t take that look.”

  “What look, Mother?” Gloria hoped she didn’t sound irritated. She so wanted to make up for her previous outburst, but … this whole thing was crazy. Put Grandma Quinn into a nursing home?

  Never.

  Geri placed the vase in the center of the clean, dry table, apparently satisfied it had no chips or cracks, then took a seat opposite her daughter. “I know what Sam and the others are thinking when they look at me like that. They’re thinking I’m not a good daughter. That I’m not doing my job by keeping that silly old woman from harming herself.”

  “Oh, for the love … Mother, how is Grandma harming herself?”

  “By running up debt she can’t possibly pay. And—I didn’t want to tell you this, but since you’re questioning my decision, I will—about six months ago, your grandmother almost burned down the house. If it had gone up in flames, she could have killed herself and others, and taken half the neighborhood out too.”

  “What happened?”

  “She left a batch of cookies in the oven. Fell asleep on the couch while they were baking black as tar balls.”

  Gloria remembered the big, muddy-looking smudge behind Grandma’s stove. No wonder Grandma didn’t want to talk about it.

  “If Ivy Gordon hadn’t stopped by when she did, no telling how it would have ended. ’Course I wish it could have been someone other than that Holy Roller. She probably delights in lifting poor, crazy Hannah Quinn up in prayer every Wednesday night.”

  “Mother, that’s unkind, calling Ivy a Holy Roller and making her sound like a … like a gossip. Ivy’s a lovely lady. As a matter of fact, I went to her prayer group Wednesday, and she never even mentioned Grandma.”

  Geri twisted her face into a knot. “Yes, I heard about your Levi’s. Disgusting, Gloria. Absolutely disgusting. You act like you were raised in McGreedy’s barn. Honestly! You should have more respect than to wear jeans to church. What were you thinking? Sometimes, you don’t have a brain in your head.” Geri brought her hand up to her forehead, and with a discreet, dainty motion of her finger, wiped away the perspiration that had begun beading across her hairline. “And why you or anyone else would want to sit around for hours listening to other people’s problems and then talking about them under the guise of ‘prayer requests’ is beyond me.”

  “Mother, it’s not like that at all.”

  Geri dismissed Gloria’s remark with a wave of her hand. “Forget it, Gloria. Let’s not go there. It’s still a sore spot. First Grandma gets religion and now you. Oh, I don’t mind you going to church—that’s a good thing—but the rest of it, all that Bible reading and praying … I wanted you to be strong, not go looking for a crutch to hold you up every time something bad happens. And it always does, Gloria. Sooner or later, something bad happens.”

  Gloria rubbed her throbbing temples. It had been a long time since she had had one of her headaches. “Mother, I think it’s wrong of you to want to put Grandma into a nursing home just for the sake of appearances, just to stop people from talking, if they’re even talking at all. But I’ll admit the house is getting too big and … Grandma doesn’t keep it up quite as nicely as she used to. But that doesn’t mean she’s ready for a nursing home. Just something smaller. Maybe we should look into that little retirement community off Route 485 and see how much their condos cost. It’s only twenty minutes away and might be just the thing. Lots of Grandma’s friends are already there, and—”

  “Why can’t you face the fact that your grandmother is incompetent and can no longer care for herself?”

  “Because it’s simply not true, Mother, and you know it.”

  Geri rose from her chair, clenching the pink and green dish towel in her hands. Red finger-sized streaks ran up her cheeks, making it look like she had just been slapped. “Did you come here to … to insult me? Is that it? I don’t understand why you’re so difficult, Gloria. Why you’re so pigheaded and never listen to anyone. Why you take everyone’s side but mine.”

  “And I don’t understand why you hate Grandma.”

  “I … I don’t hate her.” Geri’s face went from red to white. “I just … well, we just don’t get along.”

  “You mean like you and me?”

  Geri let the dish towel fall from her hands onto the table, then lowered herself onto the chair like an old woman. Her mouth sagged to one side like Ivy Gordon’s did after her stroke two years ago, and for a second Gloria wondered if her mother wasn’t having a stroke too. But when Geri picked up the dish towel and began rubbing it, with small circular motions, over the already clean table, Gloria knew she was all right. Only, for the first time in Gloria’s memory, her mother didn’t look glamorous. She just looked old and tired and sad.

  “I suppose you’re going to tell me that’s all my fault, us not getting along.” Geri’s hand continued making those little circles. “I suppose you’re going to tell me that I’m the one who’s difficult.”

  How could her mother be so predictable? So blind? Gloria suddenly thought of Tucker and how she had secretly loved him, or thought she loved him, for years. Hadn’t she, Gloria, been blind too? Unable to see the obvious? And what about not seeing how selfish she was in Eckerd when she wouldn’t even give a hurting girl the time of day, until it was too late because the girl ended up committing suicide? When you got right down to it, the whole human race was blind as ba
ts, with faulty sonar to boot, bumping along the walls of life.

  Gloria touched her mother’s hand. “No, Mother, I’m not going to say it’s your fault. I just want to say maybe we should both try harder.”

  Geri dabbed her eyes with the dish towel, covering it with black mascara. “You don’t understand what it’s like being a mother. How difficult it is. All the sacrifices, the heartache. If you did, you’d be more appreciative.”

  “That’s why I came home, Mother.” Gloria saw the startled look in her mother’s eyes, then saw it replaced by that old stubborn glare.

  “Well … that’s something anyway.”

  “I came home because I love you and wanted you to know that.” Should she finish it? Should she follow it with and because Jesus loves you? When she decided the answer was “yes” and said it, her mother left the table.

  “You’re so pale, Virginia, you’re starting to look like one of those Kabuki dancers.” Cutter walked over to the heavily draped Palladian window and pulled open the velvet curtains. “What you need is some sunlight. Some fresh air.”

  Sun crept over the Berber carpet, the small brocade armchair that was as old as the Flood, the scrolled mahogany bedposts that were even older, the mauve and cream dust ruffle and floral comforter covering the queen-size bed, and finally over the pasty, wrinkled face of Virginia Press. When Cutter opened the window, she sank deeper against the five pillows bracing her and covered her face with one hand.

  “Did you come to harass me? No loving, thoughtful son would let that howling wind buffet his mother’s sick body. For heaven’s sake, close that infernal window! And those drapes too.”

  “You can’t hide out in here forever.” Cutter poured himself a glass of cold water from the sweating silver pitcher on the nightstand. “It’s time you joined the human race.”

  “Says who? And that’s my water. Who invited you to come into my room and take over? Is nothing sacred? I’m a sick woman.”

  “Don’t you want to know what your precious Medical Data is doing?”

  Virginia dropped her hand and closed her eyes in an obvious attempt to shut out the slice of light cutting across the bridge of her nose, then brought her comforter up under her chin. “Go away.”

  “I thought you’d like to know that I was thinking of throwing out that disgusting office furniture you bought from the Salvation Army—”

  “I didn’t get it from the Salvation Army!”

  “And when I say I’m throwing out the furniture, I’m talking about the furniture in all the offices, and replacing everything with Ethan Allen. I hear they have a new line … Hemingway, I believe. Very expensive. Very comfortable.”

  “You’re the son from hell.”

  “And you, Virginia, are a … phony.”

  Virginia opened her eyes and squinted at him. Her birdlike fingers curled around the edge of the comforter. “Why can’t you call me ‘mother,’ like other children?”

  “Why aren’t you like other mothers?”

  Virginia rolled onto her side, her bony fingers disappearing under the covers. “I’m taking a nap. You can go or stay. Suit yourself. Just spare me the sound of your voice.”

  “Seems I remember you doing this when I was in fourth grade and Sam Hidel called about the five candy bars I stole. Then again in seventh, when the principal called and told you I was the worst disciplinary problem he had seen in years. And what about the time I almost failed tenth-grade English? I believe you stayed in bed for five days then. ’Course there were other times, so many I can’t even remember the reasons.” And now this, just because he’d refused to get married and had moved out. “You need to get a new act, Virginia. Something more original. This gig has gotten stale.”

  “Your father would turn over in his grave if he could hear you now.”

  “You’ve never held out this long before. You want to tell me why?”

  “I don’t want to talk to you about this or anything else.”

  Cutter walked over to the bed and sat down. “But Dr. Grant thinks we should talk.”

  Virginia turned, but not enough for Cutter to read the expression on her face. “What did that big mouth say?”

  “Nothing.”

  She rolled back onto her side. “Well, doesn’t that tell you there’s nothing to say?”

  “Then why have you stayed in bed for nearly three weeks? Even for you, that’s a record.”

  Virginia curled into a tighter ball under the covers. “Has anyone told you you’re becoming more disagreeable every day? I’m only glad your father didn’t live to see how you turned out.”

  This time the barb about his father hit the mark. “You’d make a great guppy, you know—they eat their young too.”

  Virginia twisted around, then with some effort pulled herself to a sitting position. “I don’t know why you insist on being so disgusting.”

  “Maybe because you always insist on being so unkind. You just can’t leave my father out of it, can you? Does it gall you so much that I loved him? That I miss him?”

  Virginia’s eyes became as hard as ball bearings. She rolled them across Cutter’s face, as she had all his life, leaving invisible grooves. For a minute she looked as if she was going to say something.

  When she didn’t, Cutter rose from the bed. She looked so small and shriveled. He resisted the urge to press on the covers to determine how much was body and how much blanket. For an instant he pictured her melting away like the wicked witch in Oz and was only mildly startled to find no objection rising in his breast.

  “I’m afraid you’ve cried wolf once too often, Virginia. My sympathies only stretch so far.”

  With a shrug that conveyed a resignation bordering on defeat, Virginia slid down under the covers until she was nearly flat. Then without a word, she turned back over on her side.

  She did look frail. And her face, with all the new lines marking her forehead and cheeks like furrows in Clive McGreedy’s freshly plowed fields, made her look five years older than she had before taking to her bed. What if there really is something wrong? Cutter watched the small mound move up and down as she inhaled and exhaled. After a while, he assumed she had drifted to sleep, and turned to go.

  “Geri told me Gloria’s back in town.”

  Cutter stopped. No … he wasn’t going to go through that again. He wasn’t going to allow his mother to manipulate and shove and push him—or Gloria—to the altar. Virginia could stay in bed till next Christmas for all he cared. He walked toward the door in silence.

  “I’d like to see her. Will you tell her that? Will you tell her I want her to come visit me?”

  “I doubt she’ll come,” Cutter said without turning. He hoped his voice sounded sufficiently gruff to discourage this new direction their conversation had taken. When he reached the heavy oak door, he took one last look at the wispy figure coiled beneath the comforter. “But I’ll ask.” His words surprised him, then made him fume. Conditioning was a powerful tool, and didn’t she know it?

  Gloria pulled the long white shoelace across the floor of her living room, keeping one step ahead of Tiger as he pounced and jumped and slunk after it. From time to time she let him capture it, then laughed as she watched him roll entangled around on the floor. She couldn’t believe how wonderful it was to have her own pet, or how attached she was to him already. And she supposed that in his own way, Tiger was attached to her too.

  She stretched out on the rug to watch him, and that’s when he pounced—on fingers, arms, legs, anything that moved, and Gloria squealed with laughter.

  “A merry heart doeth good like a medicine.” Yes, it did. And wasn’t it working now? Already she felt the healing balm of joy flowing through her.

  Mother had drained her, sucked her dry of all the love Jesus had put into Gloria. And the thing with Tracy was draining her too. Four calls, and Tracy hadn’t returned one of them. What was that all about?

  She rolled onto her side and lay quietly. Tiger stopped pouncing and curled up near Gloria’
s cheek. She propped up on one elbow and rubbed his ear, then watched him close his eyes and curl his paws. Funny how it wasn’t just dogs that liked having their ears rubbed. They were content now, she and Tiger. In this insignificant little moment, she felt God’s love return and fill her and realized that He must have filled a thousand such insignificant moments before, but she had never noticed. And then she understood He had enough love to fill all the insignificant moments that were to come in her life.

  Tomorrow, right after church, she’d go visit Tracy.

  Chapter Five

  PEOPLE ARE STARTING to talk about the way you’re dressing, Gloria. That’s what her mother told her last night over the phone, just before Gloria went to bed. A year ago, that rebuke would have made Gloria toss and turn all night. But she had slept like a clam.

  The wind caught Gloria’s hair, whipping her face as she pedaled down Main Street on her Schwinn. She released one handlebar and swiped at her eyes, but it was futile. Another puff of wind, and Gloria again squinted through a tangle of brown strands. All this “talk” wasn’t really talk at all; it was Mother still annoyed over Gloria wearing jeans to the Wednesday night prayer meeting. And this continual harping was meant to keep Gloria from doing it again before there really was talk. Wait till Mother found out she hadn’t worn a dress this morning to Sunday service either. You couldn’t wear a dress and ride a bike at the same time. Mother should understand that.

  Honestly. The things Mother worried about.

  As Gloria’s legs moved in rapid circular motions, she felt the rolled-up cuffs of her chocolate-brown slacks begin to slip. She’d have to be careful. If her cuffs caught in the chain, it would be good-bye, pants. She stopped by Cameras & More long enough to roll her pants to just below her knees, then headed for South Cranberry Street. A sudden gust of wind filled her beige blazer like a sail, popping loose one of the metal buttons and making it hit the pavement with a ping. Now her open blazer flapped in the wind like newly sprouted wings. What a sight she must be—with her hair swirling, her partially bare legs moving a mile a minute, and her blazer flailing around her. Wait till Mother heard about this.