5. Penny
5
Penny
“W elcome home, Sweet Pea!” Hazel Poleman called out a boisterous greeting from where she sat in the shade of her front porch.
Penny didn’t bother unpacking her things again, but instead, made a beeline across the front lawn and up the steps toward her hostess.
“I’d get up, but as you can see, I’m a bit encumbered right now.” Murtagh, an old Irish setter, lay belly up on the swing beside Hazel, his head in her lap, eyes half-closed, his front paws sticking up, his back legs splayed wide. Hazel scratched his belly in long, gentle strokes, and if it weren’t for the tail swishing back and forth against the seat cushion, Penny might have thought the dog to be in a trance.
“I can see that,” she said, then bent forward to give Hazel a quick hug. She reached down and patted Murtagh’s belly, too. “Nice man-spreading, old boy.” Then she flopped into a cushioned loveseat across from Hazel and glanced around. “Where’s Jimbo?”
“Oh, he’s in the sunroom with Delilah. After this morning’s excursions, we all needed a little rest. Murtagh and I came out here for ours.” Jimbo, a Jack Russel with too-short legs, had a thing for Delilah, Hazel’s French bulldog, and wherever Delilah went, there was Jimbo. “I should have named him Samson,” Hazel often said as she watched the little guy follow Delilah around like the lovesick pup that he was. It didn’t seem to matter to Jimbo that he was half Delilah’s age. He was smitten by the Frenchie’s squished face and droopy jowls, her wide grin and lolling tongue.
“Well, don’t let me disturb you,” Penny said, starting to rise. “I’ll just get my things unloaded and head to my room. You and Murtagh rest. I know my way around.”
“Don’t go on my account,” Hazel said with a wave of her free hand. “I can’t afford to fall asleep. If I take a nap now, I’ll be up all night.” She waited for Penny to get comfortable in her seat again. “I’d offer you something to drink, but it looks like you’ve already been to see Miss Juniper Thomas,” she said, indicating the coffee cup Penny held.
“Yep. I’m good.” She took a sip of the delicious drink as if to prove her statement.
Hazel tut-tutted, and Penny assumed she’d get on her about drinking coffee all day long, but instead, the woman began apologizing. “My darling girl, I am so sorry about this morning and those boys running you off like that. I was so set on getting my errands run, that I just didn’t think about the possibility of you showing up early. Please forgive Ward for his very bad behavior. He’s a lovely young man, and I can assure you, his bark is much worse than his bite.”
Penny dropped her gaze to her lap. “It’s fine, Hazel. Don’t worry about it. I spent some time at The Cracked Spine and then got to see Juno, so it all worked out.” Everyone kept telling her that Ward was such a great guy, but so far, her experience with him told her something completely different. Maybe he just didn’t like her for some reason, but that didn’t excuse his rudeness.
Clearly not convinced, Hazel said, “He’s just had a bit of a rough patch lately. He felt real bad about how he treated you this morning.”
“Hm.” As soon as she made the noncommittal sound, Penny wished she could draw it back in. The last thing she wanted was to offend or upset Hazel. “I totally understand, you know? Going through rough patches, I mean.”
Rough patches, indeed, she understood. Being ugly to complete strangers? That was something she didn’t understand at all.
Snuffling and scrabbling claws on hardwood floor just the other side of the screen door drew their attention, a disruption Penny was grateful for. She got up to let the dogs out and was greeted with wiggly dog butts and excited yapping once they recognized her. “Hello, you goofy little things,” she cooed, crouching down to their level so she could greet them properly with ear scratches and belly rubs.
“How is your mother, dear?” Hazel asked once the melee subsided.
Penny sighed and returned to her seat. Jimbo and Delilah jumped up onto the loveseat, too, and she scooted over a little to make room on either side of her for each pup. “Not great. I guess you could say that we’re having our own rough patch,” she said with just a hint of sarcasm. “Except it’s not really a patch. Things are hard, and honestly, I don’t see them getting easier anytime soon.”
Penny’s mother’s disease had first reared its ugly head almost a decade ago when Judy had begun having trouble recognizing people and places. She couldn’t remember names, or she’d get distracted and forget what she was doing. That, in and of itself, wasn’t such a terrible thing, but when she started accusing her friends and loved ones of hiding things from her, or worse, stealing from her, Penny had all but forced her mother to see a specialist.
By the end of the appointment, Judy had been in tears as she’d acknowledged how afraid she was just to wake up each morning. “I feel disoriented and scared all the time,” she’d admitted, clinging tightly to Penny’s hand as she talked. “The other day, I went to the grocery store.” She’d paused to blow her nose, and when she lifted her head again, the expression on her face had broken Penny’s heart. “I—I walked out of the store with a full cart and didn’t pay for anything. I just went to my car and started loading up.”
“Oh, Mom,” Penny had murmured from the chair beside her. “I’m so sorry.”
“It gets worse,” Judy had continued. “They sent security out after me, and I thought it was the police. I—I panicked, not understanding what they wanted from me, so I got in my car and locked my doors, and just sat there, crying. Finally, another customer came up to my window pushing a cart and holding my purse. I guess I trusted her, because I rolled down my window enough to talk to her. She was very nice, by the way.”
Dr. Traynor had nodded understandingly. “People usually are,” he said. “We forget that sometimes.”
“Well, not only had I walked out of the store without paying, but I’d taken her cart instead of my own.” Judy had lifted her arm to show them the bright purple lanyard she wore around her wrist. It had her house and car keys on it. “I started wearing this thing some time ago after locking myself out of my house a few too many times, so I had my keys, and I didn’t even miss my purse.”
At first, Penny had been upset that her mother hadn’t confided in her, but as Dr. Traynor explained more about early-onset Alzheimer’s—Judy was only forty-eight when she’d been officially diagnosed—and what the future held for them, she’d quickly shifted her mindset toward what they could do to make things easier for them both, rather than focusing on what couldn’t be changed.
To limit the disruptions in Judy’s life, Penny had given up her little apartment and moved into her mother’s condo, back into the bedroom where she’d spent her teen years. Judy had brooked no argument about giving up her driver’s license, and less than a year later, she could no longer continue her job as a bank administrative assistant. So while Penny was at work, Judy attended a daycare for adults that was less than half a mile from the elementary school.
It was during her second year of living with Penny that Judy started talking about taking a summer vacation at a place called Autumn Lake. “I want to take pictures of it,” she said by way of explanation. “I think having photos of people and places that mean something to me will help me remember the important stuff as long as I can,” Judy had said, even though Penny had never heard her mother talk about the town before. But she’d been happy to oblige, and Judy had insisted on paying for everything.
That first summer in Autumn Lake had been such a gift to both of them. Judy had seemed to regain some of her confidence and joie de vivre , and Penny had found herself relaxing for the first time since learning of her mother’s illness. Sitting out on the dock one day, their legs dangling in the water, floppy sunhats protecting their faces, her mother had told Penny about her memories of Autumn Lake.
“I came here with my parents and another family a few times when I was a teenager. Your Aunt Jean was already married and out of the house by then,” she’d said. “The family we came with were the Pontiers—I don’t remember the parents’ names, but there were two girls about my age, Silvia and Rita, and a boy, Hector.” Judy had smiled shyly at Penny and added, “I was so in love with Hector Pontier, Penny. We stayed in the Pontier’s little vacation cabin closer to town, but they knew a lot of people around Autumn Lake, and we spent long, lazy days in float tubes or, if we were lucky, row boats, drifting up and down this shoreline. This dock was always one of our favorite stops. It was before that house was there,” she said, pointing at the little bungalow on the other side of the inlet. “We’d swim in the little cove there, climb up here and warm ourselves in the sun, then head on home when we got too hungry.”
To Penny’s delight, her mother had relayed story after story about the summers she’d spent in Autumn Lake. It was as though being here had opened a trapdoor and let all the memories out.
They’d made the decision to spend every summer from then on at Hazel’s bed and breakfast. Sadly, Judy had only come with Penny the first three years before traveling became too difficult and too confusing for her. Then, Aunt Jean, Judy’s sister, had insisted Penny continue to go on her own. “Your mother set this up with me right after that first trip you girls took. She made me promise that I’d take care of her when the time came that she couldn’t go, and that I’d make you go, anyway.” Her mother had even thought to earmark a small savings account to be used each year to cover Penny’s expenses. “It’s your mother’s gift to you for giving so much of yourself to her.”
Penny had been coming back to the lake alone every year since.
To Hazel, she now said, “The sundowners has gotten a lot worse lately. She’ll sleep for maybe an hour at a time, then get up and wander the house. I have childproof stuff on all the doors, all the appliances around the house, all the faucets—she started leaving faucets running every time she washed her hands—but I’m considering putting up some kind of a temporary partition or maybe even a pony wall with a door that can be locked to keep her out of the kitchen altogether, since cooking with her underfoot can be pretty chaotic. At least with a half wall, I could keep an eye on her while fixing our meals. She’s not so easily distracted by television anymore, and I think somewhere in that head of hers, she just wants to be useful, to help.”
Jimbo licked Penny’s hand in commiseration, and Hazel nodded slowly. “Is she a flight risk?”
Penny shrugged one shoulder. “Not that I know of. I have cameras all over the house now—it’s kind of creepy. It’s the only way I can keep track of her and still get some sleep, though, and so far, I haven’t seen any signs of her trying to leave the house.”
“And your aunt? You mentioned that she was having some health issues, too.”
Penny nodded. “That’s part of it. Aunt Jean is almost twenty years older than my mom. Did I tell you that? Her arthritis is bothering her much more these days, particularly on her right side, her hip and shoulder. Her doctor says she might be a good candidate for surgery at some point, but he wants her to lose some weight and start with physical therapy first. The PT is helping a little, but she’s struggled with her weight her whole life. She’s trying; it’s just not happening very fast, and she’s super discouraged about it.” Penny paused, then added, “I think having Mom is a bigger burden than she’s letting on.”
“Oh dear. My goodness. What a painful situation you’re all in, my dear girl.”
“Uncle Ron is a godsend, though,” Penny said, the thought of her aunt’s fun-loving husband bringing a smile to her lips. “He’s great with Mom, and she responds positively to him, even though she doesn’t seem to know who he is anymore, so that makes me feel a little better about leaving her to come here.” She rested her head against the back of the seat and blinked rapidly against the tears that stung her eyes. She didn’t want to cry, and she knew she would if she looked at Hazel. “I kinda think this may be my last time here, Hazel. At least for a while. I just don’t know how much longer they’ll be able to manage Mom without me around, you know?”
Hazel said nothing for so long that Penny lifted her head to see if perhaps she’d fallen asleep. But the woman was studying her with a contemplative expression, her brow furrowed, and her lips pressed together.
“What?” Penny asked hesitantly, not sure she wanted to hear what Hazel was thinking.
“I suppose I’m worried about how much longer you’ll be able to manage your mother if you don’t come here.”
Penny looked down at Delilah who had shifted so that her head rested on Penny’s knee. She stroked the velvety fur of the dog’s ears. “Me, too,” she admitted softly. “But then I just feel selfish, and that doesn’t help anyone. We do what we have to do, right? She’s my mom.” As if that clarified everything.
To Penny, when all was said and done, that was, indeed, the bottom line. Judy Anderson was her mother, and other than Aunt Jean and Uncle Ron, there was no one else who could or would care for her the way Penny did.
“You know I’m praying for you, Sweet Pea. And for your mama and your aunt and uncle.” It wasn’t a question. Nor was it news to her. Penny knew Hazel had an active prayer life, and the older woman had been blessing her with her prayers for all the years she’d been coming to Autumn Lake.
Penny sighed again and squared her shoulders. She needed to talk about something else. At least until she was settled into her room, had a few uninterrupted nights’ sleep under her belt, and several hours of escape between the pages of her books. “So what kind of work are you having done around here?”
Ugh. Ward was not a topic she was interested in discussing, either.
“Oh, it’s just minor stuff. A wobbly banister, a loose floorboard or two, a roof patch, that kind of thing. This old house is feeling her years.” Hazel let out a dry chuckle. “Just like I am. We both need a little shoring up these days.”
Penny shook her head. “Don’t say so. You’re both perfect just the way you are, Hazel. That’s why I come here. I don’t want some fancy shenanigans like they have across the water. I want hearth and home and cozy, creaky beds, and tranquil views of the water out my bedroom window.” She gestured at the expanse of the wraparound porch. “I want to lounge in squishy chairs with a cuddly dog or two and while away the day in a good book. I want to sit on the end of the dock with my feet in the water, wishing Mom were here with me. Maybe take a swim with the dogs, because they won’t judge me for wearing the same bathing suit that I’ve had for more than a decade. Don’t ever change any of this, you hear?”
Hazel laughed appreciatively. “You are a delight to my soul, Sweet Pea.”
That evening, Hazel served up a simple meal of buttery baked potatoes and a mix of sauteed summer vegetables for dinner. Even though her home was officially a bed-and-breakfast, Hazel often cooked all three meals for her guests when there weren’t too many mouths to feed. Tonight, it was just the two of them and the dogs.
“Why does food always taste so much better when someone else cooks for you?” Penny asked when her plate was clean and her stomach full. “That was absolutely delicious, Hazel.”
“I hope you left room for dessert.”
Penny grinned, stuck out a leg, and rapped her knuckles against her shin. “It’s hollow. There’s room.”
“Dishes first, then strawberry shortcake with whipped cream out on the front porch,” Hazel said, pushing to her feet. “We can watch the sun set over the water; it’s glorious this time of year.”
The two of them made quick work of the cleanup, then took their dessert plates outside just as the first of the fireflies began drifting up from the lush grass of the lawn. They ate in awestruck silence as the sky turned to molten lava, the fiery hues painting the water to match, then faded to bruised purple, then inky blue. The stars pricked holes in the velvet night, and the crescent moon, come late to the party, made her grand entrance low on the horizon, while the reflection on the lake transformed the display into something otherworldly.
In a hushed voice, Penny said, “I wonder if God is looking down and seeing what we’re seeing right now, and thinking, ‘Wow. I did good.’”
Hazel reached over and patted her knee affectionately. “I can assure you, Sweet Pea, that He says exactly that whenever He looks at you.”
Penny had to blink away the sting of tears. “Thank you,” she murmured. Hazel always knew just the right thing to say. Sometimes it was hard to remember that she was precious to anyone. As her mother’s condition worsened and she had a harder time remembering her daughter at all, Penny found it especially hard to remember.
On the other side of the little inlet, the windows of the bungalow across the way glowed warm with light from within, and she could just barely make out the carefully manicured shrubs that bordered the porch and marched down either side of the straight walkway that led to the driveway. So different from Hazel’s whimsical style, but still lovely in its own right. She pointed at it. “Doesn’t that place look like something right out of a painting?”
Just then, the front porch light of the house flickered on and off, then on and off again.
“All is well across the way,” Hazel said by way of explanation. “That’s Ward letting me know. He’s likely sitting out on his front porch this evening, too.”
“Wait. Ward? I—I thought your friends lived there. Rachel and her husband… um, Ted, right? Did they move?” She hoped nothing bad had happened to either of them.
Hazel nodded. “Ted and Rachel St. James, yes. St. James Mobile Boat Repair. They’re still there. Ward is their son,” she clarified, a smile in her voice.
“Ward St. James? He’s your neighbor? He—he’s sitting outside watching us?” She was suddenly terribly self-conscious. Had she unknowingly flashed him when she’d propped her feet up, or something else as equally awkward? Had he seen her pointing at his house and thought she was pointing at him?
“Yes, Ward lives there with his parents. For now. He’s working with his dad.” Hazel was chuckling softly now.
Penny couldn’t blame her—she was acting kinda silly. But the thought of that awful man living just around the inlet had her way too flustered. She could see that front porch from her bedroom window. Which meant that he could see her bedroom window from his front porch.
Not that he’d be looking, of course.
“I thought he was… I don’t know. A handyman? He was here doing construction stuff.”
“He was here doing neighborly stuff,” Hazel corrected. “And boat repair isn’t such a far cry from home repair, is it?” Now she was teasing her.
Penny turned in her seat so that she was facing Hazel, no longer looking out over the water. She felt very conspicuous sitting on the well-lit porch. Ward had to have seen her pointing at the house. There was no way he hadn’t. He’d flashed the lights right then. “I suppose if he has the right tools,” she said in response to Hazel’s question.
“Oh honey. He’s got the right tools.” Hazel winked at her. “You had to have noticed how handsome he is. I know you’re not blind.”
“Hazel!” Penny couldn’t help the chortle that escaped her at the woman’s tawdry remark.
“What?” Hazel shot back. “I’m not blind, either. That young man comes from good stock, too. His parents are lovely people, inside and out, and they raised him to be the same way.”
Penny shook her head. “You know, people keep telling me he’s this great guy. I just don’t see it.” She shrugged. “And no, I’m not blind, either. He might be good-looking on the outside, but at least around me, that’s where it ends.”
“Hmmm.” Hazel made a thoughtful sound in the back of her throat. “Well, maybe you two need the chance to make a second first impression.”
Her deceptively casual tone made Penny narrow her eyes at her. “Now don’t you be getting any crazy notions in your head, Miss Poleman. I’ve already had a second first impression of him, thank you very much. We ran into each other at Juno’s, too. And my first impression was accurate the second time, as well. He is not someone I have an urge to spend time with anytime soon, okay?”
Hazel shook her head. “I don’t know why not. You two have several things in common, now that I think about it.”
“I don’t want to know what they are,” Penny insisted, covering her ears with both hands. “And please stop thinking about it.”
Hazel chuckled and patted Penny’s knee again. “If it’s meant to be, it’s meant to be.”
“I have no idea what you mean by that, but again, I don’t think I want to know.” Penny lowered her hands and drew her legs up so she could rest her chin on her knees. She smoothed her skirt down over her legs so just the tips of her feet stuck out from under her hemline. She’d painted her toenails candy apple red yesterday, and she peered down at them, smiling at how cheery her feet looked. She didn’t love pedicures like every other woman she’d ever met—she was too ticklish to enjoy someone else touching her feet, for one thing, and she inevitably messed up the polish before it was dry. But she’d gotten pretty good at applying her own polish and had quite a collection of fun colors to choose from.
“Rachel—Ward’s mother—almost died last year,” Hazel said, ignoring Penny’s protestations. “Ward came home to help take care of her and to help his father run the family business until they get back on their feet. He left behind a whole different life to be here for his parents, and it hasn’t been easy for him. I think you, of all people, would understand. You might be good for each other, Sweet Pea.”
“But he’s a jerk,” she retorted, reticent to give him a break, even though her heart twisted sympathetically inside her chest. “And I don’t think he has any more interest in spending time with me than I do with him.” Desperate to change the subject, she said, “Speaking of ways to spend my time here, I can’t wait to do a little gardening. I can’t believe I haven’t been out back to see it all yet. Today has been a rather odd first day in Autumn Lake for me, that’s for sure.”
Hazel’s expression softened, and her eyes took on a wistful gleam. She didn’t speak for a moment, and Penny found that she was holding her breath. Finally, Hazel said, “Well, dear, as you know, nothing stays the same for very long, right? You’ll find that’s true in the garden, too.”
“Is—is everything all right?”
“Of course,” Hazel assured her. “Everything is just the way it should be.”
Later that night, lying on her side on the comfy creaky bed in the pale peach room that she loved so much, as she peered out through the partially opened curtains into the night sky, Hazel’s words came drifting back through her mind.
Hazel hadn’t really answered Penny’s question at all.