13. Mandy
I’m too old for babies.
Don’t get me wrong. I like them just fine—they’re cute and bubbly and squishy in all the right ways. But they don’t sleep very well, and I barely sleep as it is these days. The combination’s not good, starting with all the visits you have to make when someone has a baby. From the reports we’re hearing, Donna had a rough delivery, but that doesn’t stop us from at least going by with flowers.
Poor Will looks like someone beat him.
After we visit with Helen, David, and Abby while eating, walk by and check in on the baby, who is blessedly okay, and pick up flowers for Donna, there’s not really much for us to do. I forgot to bring all the cute baby things I ordered in advance online—I found the cutest stuffed llama, of all things. They’re making so many cute stuffed animals these days that it’s almost criminal—but maybe that’s for the best. It would just be one more thing for her to haul home when she does leave. We all sort of stumble over the same idea at the same time after dropping off the flowers.
We have to step out for Donna to pump anyway, so we’re just loitering in the hall when I whisper, “We should probably go home.”
It happens to be the very same time that Amanda asks, “There’s not much more we can do here, is there?”
And that Maren says, “I think we’ve stayed long enough.”
We all laugh.
Except for Emery, our conscience. “Donna’s labor was a mess and her baby has a broken arm.”
“But now it’s all under control,” Amanda says. “If we hang around for very long, we’ll just get in the way when she wants a nap or something.”
“Besides, I have more questions,” Maren says. “You told us what happened that night—a big bunch of nothing—but you had a whole other year of school after that.” She levels an impressive glare at me. “So what happened during that last year?”
“Nothing, really,” I say.
“No plays?” she asks. “Or what about homecoming? Senior Prom?”
“Jed kept being a pain—angry with anyone who looked my way, but not willing to actually ask me out or even talk to me. Stubborn as a mule. And Tommy had already shown me two different times how he felt, or you know, didn’t feel.”
“Let’s head home.” Amanda pulls out her keys. “We can grill her on the way.”
“Grill who?” Eddy’s huffing a little. “Sorry I’m so late. I had animals to feed, and then the Gibson’s draft colicked.” He grabs Amanda by the side of her face and kisses her.
And then he keeps right on kissing her.
In the middle of the hospital, they kiss like he’s returning from war. I swear, I thought it would wear off, but it has not. Not even a little bit. Those two act like teenagers who don’t have a bedroom with a door.
I clear my throat.
“Seriously,” Maren says. “It’s so gross.”
Eddy’s smiling when he finally comes up for air. “I love your mother. You can’t hate me for that.”
“I guess not.” But Maren’s lip is curled. “But I can be disgusted about watching it on Prime Time.”
Emery giggles. “What’s that even mean, prime time?”
Maren shrugs. “Who knows? Some old television thing or something.”
“Hey, do you have your work truck?” I ask.
Eddy nods. “Fed the animals and then came straight here.”
I can tell—he’s in his work clothes. It’s hard to make Eddy look bad, but vets do not dress for success. They dress for abscesses and eye ulcers and hoof trims. “How about I take your truck home and you can ride with your wife and girls?” I hold out my hand for the keys. “Tomorrow morning, you can drop Amanda off at the retreat and pick up your truck.”
Eddy’s smile’s almost blinding. “You’re a genius and a saint.” He drops the keys in my hands.
And I escape.
No more explanations. No more grilling. No more pointed questions and interrogations. I’m free.
Amanda tries, feebly, to stop me, but I shoot out of the hospital and beeline for the old blue truck like an oil-slicked pig headed for its trough. I’m ready to stop talking about Tommy.
Even so, the whole way home, I can’t help thinking about my senior year. It was a whole extra year, and we did not one, but two plays together—both musicals. But Tommy didn’t act in those, and neither did Jed. I was the lead in both, and I sang quite a few songs, but there wasn’t so much as a moment between me and either guy.
The only time I struggled that entire year was actually when that photo was taken, the one Emery found in the box. The one where both the boys are staring at me. But if I get lucky, life will distract the bloodhounds again and I’ll be home free. Tommy’s coming into town in a few days to sign some papers, and then I’ll purchase his family land, and he’ll have no reason to come back here, ever.
Not that it would be hard if it came to that. He hasn’t come back since his senior year, so I worried it might be painful when I saw him again, but it wasn’t. It was as easy as a Sunday morning brunch. As easy as a walk to Birch Creek, the stream that runs across the back of my property. As easy as a drive home from Rock Springs in the summer. By the time I turn down the driveway to my house, I’ve calmed down.
Tommy will come by, he’ll see that my house is just as he thought it would be, and he’ll sign those papers. Then he’ll leave, and all this painful past-dredging and all the questions will go away. I can live in peace again.
Only, when I pull up in front of my house, someone’s car is parked out front. It’s a dark blue sedan of some kind, and the plates say Hertz Rental Car. Who would be sitting outside my house at eleven at night? Did Helen’s fancy import break down? Or maybe she didn’t feel like it was safe to drive in the snow. Either way, she must have been flying to beat me home, because I thought we left first. There’s not much hope she’s already asleep. I assume she’s still planning to stay with me, even with all the baby drama we didn’t anticipate.
I brace myself for an interaction with Helen—her new business deal has kept her from being quite as involved with the retreat, and I won’t lie and say I’ve missed having her full attention directed our way. Every interchange with her feels like a game of tug-of-war. In her family, Abigail got all the chill, that’s for sure.
Which is really saying something. Abby’s not exactly relaxed.
As I walk up the steps, I expect the light in the family room to be on. Helen knows where my spare keys are kept, and I’m sure she grabbed one before she left. But the house is dark.
I hear Jed, rifling around inside as he hears my approach, but there are no other sounds.
So when a dark figure stands up in front of my porch swing, my heart nearly gives out. “Oh!” I swing my purse around like it’s some kind of baton and clock the dark man on his side as hard as I can.
“Mandy,” he says. “It’s me! Don’t shoot.”
Shoot? As if. . . It’s a familiar voice, though. “Tommy?”
I rummage around for my key and open the front door, and then I flip on the lights. Jed comes shooting out, grunting and sniffing and squealing.
“Whoa.” Tommy backs up a step. “What’s that thing?”
“It’s my pig,” I say. “Jed.”
He laughs then, and I see my dear friend in the old man in front of me. He has the same bright eyes, the same ready smile, and the same unruly hair. In the dark, I couldn’t quite connect the boy I knew so well with the man I haven’t seen in months. His once dark hair is nearly white, but it’s still thick and shiny. Where his eyes were once unlined, the skin framing them is now crinkled with age.
I saw him less than a year ago, and he looks about the same tonight as he did then, but it’s different somehow, seeing him here. Seeing him on my porch, the porch I stood on, waving, after he biked me back to my house. The swing we sometimes sat on, reviewing homework. The porch where I sat, dreaming about him for years and years and years.
By now, the boards in the deck have all been replaced. Actually, the hardware on the swing’s all new too. But it all looked just the same when he lived here. “This place hasn’t changed at all,” Tommy says. “But why do you live here? I figured you’d be down at Jed’s house.”
I frown. “Ethan Brooks owns that ranch now, and did you notice the signs for the retreat?” I can’t help my laugh. “We decided to make my family land into a resort, and the entrance for it is about fifty yards down the road. It has made the rest of my family’s property pretty different, and living close made those renovations much simpler.”
“Well, yes, I did hear about that, and I saw the signs. They somehow look both elegant and rustic at the same time.”
“That’s Amanda’s input.” I can’t help smiling with pride. “You can’t really stop change,” I say. “So I’ve been working on learning how to roll with it.”
“You look like you’ve been rolling well, Mrs. Brooks.”
“Saddler,” I say. “I never changed my name.”
“Why not?” He frowns.
Time to change the subject. “Why are you three days early?” I ask. “And why are you here, sitting in the dark?”
“I should have asked whether I could come earlier, I suppose,” he says. “And whether I could stay with you.”
I splutter.
“You stayed with me when you came out.” His voice is matter-of-fact.
“You had a guest wing,” I say. “It had its own entrance.”
He shrugs.
“I already have a guest,” I say. “My business partner just found out her house has bedbugs.” I pause so that horror can sink in. It should send him running. Any normal person would shudder in uncontrollable repulsion at the very least.
“And?”
I swallow. “She’s staying with me while they clean up her house.”
“Okay.” He frowns. “Do you only have one extra bedroom?”
“Well, no,” I say, “but?—”
“You’ve at least got to let me come in and use the restroom, right? I’ve been waiting for nearly an hour.”
I sigh in defeat and widen the door.
“After you.” He gestures for me to go in first.
I’m grumbling about faux chivalry as I walk through the door.
“Wait.” He picks up my purse and holds it out to me. “Don’t forget your baseball bat, officer.” His eyes are sparkling.
“It’s called a baton, thankyouverymuch.” I snatch it out of his hands and shove past him.
No one cleaned up the mess from all the kids and there are cheese sticks that have dried out and look like contortionists. Fabulous. Just the type of image I wanted to present.
“You’ve totally redone this place,” he says, looking around. Then he takes off his shoes and lines them up beside the front door, like he’s one of those people who walks around barefoot inside his own house. “It looks great, really great.”
“Did you expect it to have the same brown linoleum sixty years later?” I laugh like I changed it more than five years ago. Like my life has been exciting instead of exactly the same since he left.
When really, it’s been basically the same for decades.
How pathetic.
“Look at all the cool things you’ve collected over the years.” He runs his hand down the back of the elephant as he walks around the family room. “It really makes everything feel. . .fun.”
I’m such an idiot. Why did I buy all that junk? “Well, the bathroom’s just through here.” I walk toward the hall and gesture.
Tommy follows my direction and walks past me, but he stops just a step away and turns back. “And Mandy?”
I raise my eyebrows.
He whispers, “I’m not afraid of bugs—bed or any other variety.” Then he ducks into the bathroom.
Who does he think he is? Fred Astaire? What’s he even saying? Because if he thinks an innuendo about bedbugs is going to interest me, he has completely lost touch with reality.
I’m not even one inch into figuring out what he’s saying when the door swings open. “Oh, man. I’ve been up since early this morning, and I cannot wait to go to bed.” Helen dances through the front door and promptly trips on Tommy’s neatly discarded shoes.
I step toward her and catch her windmilling hands, stopping her from falling face-first, but her purse is collateral damage. It hits the floor and sprays things out in all directions. I bend over and start gathering things up and handing them to her until my fingers close around a small photograph. A very unique type of photograph.
“Helen Fisher, what on earth is this?” I wave the ultrasound in front of her. “I may not be an obstetrician, but that looks like a baby.”
Helen straightens, shoving a handful of something into the bottom of her very expensive, very fancy designer bag, and then she extends her hand imperiously. “It’s nothing.”
I yank my hand back. “It doesn’t look like nothing.”
She rolls her eyes. “It fell out of Abby’s bag in my car last week, I think from her purse. She’s been working on Nate’s baby book, and I didn’t want her to lose it.” She snatches her hand back. “But by all means, you keep up with it instead.”
“Oh.” I take three steps into the kitchen and drop it on the counter. “Speaking of keeping up with things, I have a friend who was supposed to be coming out in a few days.”
“Is that why you bought all this ugly, bizarre stuff?” Helen spins in a circle. “Because the idiots you call friends bought my lie, but if you don’t at least take the tacky Ross Dress for Less tags off everything. . .” She shakes her head. “No one’s going to believe that my decorator who costs me several hundred thousand a year actually bought a knock-off totem pole and a terrible reprint of Seurat’s Eiffel Tower—that’s not even the right color palette.” She’s frowning.
“Helen,” I say, glancing back at the bathroom. “You’re talking really loud, and that friend I was talking about?—”
“Wait, is it a guy?” She bites her lip. “So that’s why you got all this weird, new stuff. You want to impress him. I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but you went the wrong way. Trust me. Even the cabin-chic you had going on before this was better than. . .” She waves her hand through the air. “Whatever this is.”
I’m going to kill her, but I’m still holding onto hope that perhaps Tommy can’t hear any of what she’s saying through the door. “It is a guy, but I don’t want to impress him. And I didn’t buy all this stuff recently?—”
Helen leans over and yanks a tag off the top of the totem pole that I was too short to see. “Nice try, but this tells me otherwise.” She tosses it at me, and it bounces off the end of my nose and spins round and round, fluttering down to the ground like an oak pod buffeted by the wind.
The bathroom door opens, and Helen’s eyes widen as Tommy emerges.
“Did you really want to impress me?” Tommy’s smiling as he exits the bathroom. “Because if so. . .” His grin widens. “Even if all your stuff burned in that fire, you didn’t need to buy replacements.”
Yes. The fire. I should have thought of that. It would have been a great excuse for why I didn’t have anything from my trips. “It’s just that?—”
“Whoa.” Helen’s clutched her purse to her chest like it’s a shield. “Who are you, and what were you doing in that bathroom?”
“Well, I don’t usually talk to people I’ve barely met about my bladder control and bowel movements, but if you insist.” He’s smiling.
The usually unflappable Helen looks well and truly horrified.
“This is my friend,” I say. “The one I was trying to tell you about. He was coming to visit in a few days, but he surprised me and came early.”
Helen lowers her purse, slowly, but she still looks unimpressed. “You’re not staying here, are you?” Her nose is scrunched up more than Jed the pig’s is, and that’s saying something. He’s been captivated by something on Helen’s pants.
“Who’s having a baby?” Tommy picks up Abby’s ultrasound photo and peers at it. “What a cute little gummy bear.”
“I thought it looked more like an otter,” Helen says. “But gummy bear works.”
“No one’s having a baby,” I explain. “That’s an old image from Abby—she’s making a baby book for her little guy, who’s almost nine months old now.”
Tommy’s eyebrow arches. “Plenty of things in life confuse me. It happens often enough that it’s almost a state of being for me at this age. But after forty years in medical equipment sales, I do know that this photo was taken by a Phillips Epiq 5, and with that model, the date’s always stamped right here.” He taps the top of the image. “Unless I’ve completely lost my mind, this photo was taken today, so it’s not the ultrasound photo for a nine-month-old baby.”
I turn slowly toward Helen. “You don’t say.”
She crosses the room and snatches the photo out of Tommy’s hand. “How wonderful that you came early.” Then she stomps to her room and closes the door.
“She’s a lot scarier than bedbugs,” he says. But then he walks past me and slowly turns right in front of the door. “And it’s still not enough to scare me away, Amanda. I’ll come back to see you in the morning.”