Chapter Ten #2
“That makes me sad,” she whispered.
“Me too,” he agreed and eased down into an old ladder-back chair beside the attic window and set the lamp on the floor. “Come over here and look at this. Pull that other chair over here so you don’t have to bend. I’ll scoot over to make room.”
She carefully made her way through all the boxes and trunks. The chair kicked up a cloud of dust when she dragged it across the floor. Some of it filtered down through the lamp’s globe and burned in a blast of color. “What am I supposed to see?”
Walker pointed to the window. “Just look out at the sky.”
She was speechless for a full minute before she could get any words out of her mouth. “I thought the burning dust was pretty, but now that the rain has slacked up, I see a double rainbow! The colors are so brilliant that it takes my breath away.”
Walker pointed, drawing her attention down. “Now look at the tree.”
Tears welled up in her eyes when she saw the limb barely hanging on to the trunk. “The least that the storm could do was take that with it. To leave it looking like that is a disgrace.”
Walker reached in his pocket and handed her a clean white handkerchief. “Look over at the buttercups and the red clover. They are both still there even after the storm. That tree is as much a symbol of you as those wildflowers.”
“How do you figure that?”
“That broken limb is your past. The conversation with your mother was the storm. The limb split away from the base of the tree, and there’s still a little that is sticking on, trying to ruin your future. Let it go, Tina.”
“You are right,” she whispered. “But can we keep a little bit of the wood? I’d like to have something made from it as a keepsake to remember all the good times.”
“Do you want to hang on to any of your past?”
She nodded. “I want to keep the good memories and throw out the bad ones, and I really want something made from that limb, so save a piece of it. Good things can come from a bad past. I’m living proof of that.”
“In that case,” Walker said with a smile, “I’ll save a piece for you if you’ll give me three good memories from the past and three from today.”
“Right now?”
“You can take a moment to think about them if you need it.”
She glanced around the attic, spied the wooden cradle that held her dolls, and pointed at it.
“The past will start off with those. The cradle belonged to Mae when she was a little girl, but she let me play with it when I was a child. Cleo and Mae gave the dolls to me for either my birthday or Christmas. I wonder what they’d think if they woke up now and saw the mess I made of my life. ”
“We’re not talking about sad things. Go on to number two,” Walker said.
“My mother buying me a fancy Easter dress every year and acting like she was proud of me when we went to church is another,” she answered. “And you are the third.”
“Me?” Walker asked.
“Yes, you.” She stood up and headed for the stairs. “You took me back in as a friend, gave me a job, and didn’t hold a grudge against me for ghosting you.”
“Neither did Gracie,” he reminded her.
“She’s number four.” Tina smiled over her shoulder.
“Now the present?”
“You, Gracie, Cleo, and Mae for the same reason that you are number three on the list,” she answered. “Looks like you are the common denominator on the short lists.”
Walker stood up and brushed the dust from the seat of his jeans. “I don’t mind being on both lists. We better get on down to the kitchen. They’ll be waiting for us.”
“What do you think it means?”
“What? That they’re waiting on us, or that I’m on both lists?”
She started down the steps but was careful not to touch the walls, for fear a spider would crawl up her arm. “All of the above.”
“I’m the ghost of Benson past, as well as the one for the present and future?” he asked.
“Looks that way.” She stumbled on the last step and would have fallen flat out on her face if Walker hadn’t grabbed her around the waist and held her tightly against his body.
“But a ghost couldn’t have saved me,” she panted.
“I guess not,” he whispered as he turned her around, his eyes locking on hers.
For a split second she thought he might kiss her, and was torn between wiggling free from his arms and pressing closer to his chest, but he took a step back and the moment was gone.
“Got to watch that bottom step, and the third one from the top of the other staircase,” he said.
“Does it have a desire to kill me, too?” she asked with half a nervous giggle.
“No, it squeaks loud enough to wake the dead when anyone steps on it.”
“I’ll remember that if I’m ever coming in after curfew,” she teased, and felt the rock she’d been carrying in her chest disappear—at least for a little while.
Mae and Cleo were at the bottom of the stairs, looking up at them when they started down. “What took you so long? Supper is on the table. Did you find any leaks?” Mae asked.
“We stopped to enjoy the rainbow,” Tina said.
“If you hurry, you might be able to see it,” Walker added.
They both rushed across the foyer, and Mae opened the door. “Oh, Cleo, a limb has been torn off the kids’ tree.”
Cleo peered over Mae’s shoulder. “It will grow back with time. At least it didn’t uproot the whole tree. I wonder what other damage it did in town.”
“I was so glad nothing was harmed here that I didn’t think about the rest of the town,” Walker groaned. “Soon as we eat, I’m driving down to the store to see if everything is all right there.”
Mae stepped out onto the porch. “We need to check out the yard and Cleo’s greenhouse. The soup will stay warm until we get back.”
Cleo wasted no time heading around the house to the backyard. “It’s gone!” she wailed. “Every bit of it is gone, even the steel frame.”
Walker jogged over to her side and drew her close for a side hug. “I’ll rebuild it. I promise. We can even make it bigger this time, if you want.”
“But everything in it . . .” Tears rolled down her cheeks.
“I’m glad it’s gone, and I’m going to petition the city council to not let you put that ugly thing back. That thing was an eyesore,” Iris yelled from the other side of the fence.
For such a tiny, bony skeleton of a woman, she had a big voice that sounded like it could carry all the way to Vega.
Tina had forgotten Iris’s loud, shrieking voice, but she remembered thinking, even as a child, that if the fire siren ever lost its power, the department could call on her to make the noise for five full minutes.
“That’s so mean,” Cleo snapped.
“I spent the whole time I was in the cellar on my knees, praying that the storm would blow your whole house plumb away and leave nothing but green grass,” Iris declared at the top of her lungs. “I even asked God to take all y’all with it.”
“All of us? What did I ever do to you?” Tina asked.
Iris’s finger shot up like a rifle. For a few seconds Tina wondered if bullets could possibly come out of the end and kill her on the spot. “You have never been good to my niece Sabrina. She’s a sweet, good girl, and you’ve been so cruel to her. You are the reason her fiancé broke up with her.”
Mae walked right up to the wire fence and glared at Iris. “You have an evil soul, Iris Holt. If you died tomorrow, you might have to spend eternity in purgatory because neither the devil nor God would want you.”
“As long as you and Cleo ain’t there, I’ll be happy,” she smarted off, and whipped around to go back to her house.
She’d only taken a couple of steps when she lost her balance, fell forward, and landed face down in a mud puddle.
At her age, she didn’t pop right back up, but had to work her way onto all fours and then to her knees.
When she set her right foot down to brace herself, the slippery mud sent her right back into the dirty water.
“Serves you right,” Cleo yelled across the fence.
“Do we go help her?” Tina asked Walker. “Poor thing looks like a skinny piglet wallowing around in that mud.”
Iris finally got on her hands and knees and crawled away from the puddle.
Her cotton dress, covered with mud just like her face, hung on her thin body like a burlap bag on a mop handle.
When she was on her feet, she bent over, picked up a fistful of mud, and slung it over the fence, hitting Mae square in the face.
Cleo looked like a shadowy flash as she put a hand on a post and went over it like a teenager.
She lunged at Iris, and the force sent them both right back into the puddle.
They came up sputtering and spitting, and when they got their breath, Iris tackled Cleo and held her head down in the water.
Walker jumped over the fence himself like it was a hurdle at a track meet.
Using the chain link fence like a ladder, Mae crawled over it with a speed Tina didn’t know she possessed. By the time she reached the mud puddle, Walker had pulled Iris from Cleo’s back and had dragged her a few feet away. Mae rushed over to Cleo, who was sitting up and trying to catch her breath.
Tina stood there in shock as she watched the old women. The sight was worse than trying to pass an automobile accident without slowing down, or better yet, trying to not stare at the way folks dressed in Walmart.
Mae pounded Cleo on the back and said, “Spit all that mud out of your mouth before you swallow it down in your lungs. How did you ever let that witch get you down?”
“She’s a wiry piece of work,” Cleo answered, and spit dirty water at Iris.
Mae slapped her a couple of more times. “Get it all out.”
“Don’t hit me no more. I’ll live,” Cleo said. “Go beat the hell out of Iris.”
Walker held Iris with her back against his chest. She squirmed and kicked his shins, leaving mud all over his pants. “I could use some help,” he yelled at Tina.
Tina finally got her wits about her and took off running. She cleared the fence too and quickly found out how strong Iris’s legs were when she tried to hold them down. “Stop it, Iris. Y’all are old women. Act your age.”
“Put me down, and I’ll show you how strong I am. I can whip Cleo and Mae both with one hand tied behind my back,” Iris squealed.
Mae left Cleo still gasping for air in the puddle and stomped over to Iris. “You aren’t anything but a skinny bag of wind.”
“If you lay a hand on me, I’ll see to it you spend the rest of your days in prison,” Iris sputtered. “Get off my property right now.”
“I wouldn’t hit a neighbor,” Mae said in a saccharine tone as she turned and walked back to the mud puddle. She filled both hands with mud and headed back to where Walker and Tina were still trying to corral the woman.
Iris wiggled free and ran toward Mae with her fists up, but she slipped and took another tumble. Mae piled all the mud in both hands on top of the gray bun sitting on Iris’s head.
“You are going to prison,” Iris said.
“She did not lay a hand on you,” Cleo said, “but you did try to drown me. We’ll see who goes to jail.”
“Get off my property!” Iris screamed again. “The whole damn lot of you are in breach of the restraining order I have out on you.”
“That thing isn’t even good anymore. The judge said that it was only in effect for a year,” Mae said, “and that was five years ago.”
“I’ll file a complaint on you for attempted murder.”
“Okay, ladies,” Walker said in a calm voice. “I believe it is time we all call it a day.”
When they were all back on their side of the fence, Tina looked up at Walker and said, “I don’t want the two of us to ever hate each other like they do.”
“We won’t.” He grinned.
“How can you be sure?”
“Because I will never buy a goat.” He winked.
“You are a crazy old bitch,” Cleo hollered as she took several steps back toward the fence.
Iris crossed her arms over her chest. “I hate all you. Tina caused the breakup between Sabrina and Brandon, and we ain’t never had a tornado come through Benson before now. She’s brought bad luck to us all!”
Tina could believe that Iris would buy Sabrina’s story since they were kinfolk, but to say that she could bring down a tornado was too much. “That’s ridiculous. I do not have that much power.”
“But the devil does, and you are his child,” Iris screeched.
That was when Mae stomped right back over to Iris’s property and pushed her into the puddle.
Tina jumped the fence this time and pulled the two old women apart. “I’m declaring myself the referee in whatever this thing is. Nobody wins. It’s a tie. Iris, go take a bath. I hope you have a good plunger, because you will probably clog up your pipes. Come on, Mae, I’ll help you over the fence.”
Iris shook her fist at them as she turned and stomped toward her porch. “I’m calling the police soon as I get cleaned up.”
“Please do,” Cleo said. “I’ll tell them that you tried to drown me.”
Tina and Walker together got Mae back into her own yard, and they all four started for the porch with Cleo in the lead.
“Don’t y’all dare track mud in on my clean floors. You stand right inside the door and—”
Mae’s giggles turned into laughter before she even took the first step in the house.
“What’s so funny?” Cleo demanded.
“Good Lord, Cleo. You’re going to be the one who will track up the house first.” Mae wiped at her face with the sleeve of her shirt, smearing even more mud across her cheeks.
“We might as well all get cleaned up. We’d be eating more mud than food if we tried to have supper right now.
I bet my potato soup is heated and ready to go. ”
“Or burned,” Cleo snapped, and kicked off her shoes on the porch.
Tina nudged Walker on the shoulder. “You gave your word about a goat.”
“And I will keep it,” he whispered.