Chapter 22
Chapter Twenty-Two
“I’ve got it, Mom. You go on in,” Roland said as his mom made her way to the back of the car where he was opening the door and getting the casserole out.
“Oh, I don’t want you to carry all of that,” his mom said, but she sounded tired.
He wasn’t quite sure why she would be tired, because she had slept all afternoon from what he could figure. He had been out working at the tree farm, and now, since it was Friday night and time for their normal family dinner, their hired guy was holding down the Christmas tree sales.
“Mom, that’s why you brought me.”
“Oh, Roland. That’s not why.” His mom laughed, but it also sounded tired to him.
At least she should be able to be perky for the family. Although, he kind of wished she wouldn’t be, so they could see a glimpse of what he’d been seeing for the past several weeks, almost a month now.
They walked to the porch, with his mother commenting about the Christmas lights that they had strung up on it and how pretty the tree looked from the window.
He thought he felt a few drops of sleet coming down and thought about his rendezvous with his partner tonight. They would just be talking about what they were going to do tomorrow night, and he honestly was looking forward to it.
“I’ll get the door, Mom,” he said, reaching out to grab it so she didn’t have to.
She allowed him to open the door, and they stepped through, calling out to the house to let them know they’d arrived.
Summer hurried forward.
“Mom! It’s so nice to see you,” she said, coming in and giving her a big hug. “Here, I can take that.” She offered to take the casserole out of Roland’s hands.
He figured she could put it somewhere, and he allowed her to take it, holding onto the bag of potato chips that his mom had brought as well.
It wasn’t like her to bring something that wasn’t homemade.
“What’s that?” Summer asked as the bag crinkled when she took the casserole.
“Oh, I just—I saw those potato chips in the store, and I thought about how much the family would enjoy them,” his mom said, and he thought maybe Summer did a double take.
She hadn’t been in the family since birth, as he had, but surely she knew how odd that was.
Gilbert came out next, and he held his hand out for the bag.
“Little bro brought chips? That’s a shortcut,” he said with a laugh after he had given their mom a perfunctory hug.
“Those aren’t mine, those are Mom’s,” Roland said, waiting for his brother’s reaction.
“Mom, you got them on sale, huh?” That was not the reaction he was looking for, but he gave a mental shrug. Maybe he really was just imagining it.
“Come to the kitchen and give me a hand if you want to,” Summer said to his mom with a grin, knowing that she would go.
“Well, thanks. I think I’ll go to the table and sit down though. I want to make sure to get a good seat.” She tried to sound chipper, but it wasn’t hard for Roland to hear the exhaustion in her voice.
That stopped both Gilbert and Summer in their tracks.
Terry and Judd had been coming out of the hall, and they stopped as well.
Amy had been walking in from the dining room, holding the hand of one of the girls, and she stopped with her mouth open. Jones ran into her and said, “What are you doing?” before he too fell silent, although it was obvious he didn’t know what they were all shocked about.
“I think you might have been right about Mom,” Judd said slowly.
“Yeah,” Amy agreed immediately.
“What did I miss?” Jones said.
“We can talk about it at the table,” Summer said, giving everyone a warning glance.
There was a lot of murmuring and talking under one’s breath rather than the normal hustle and bustle and laughter that accompanied these meals.
As the food prep was finished and casseroles and containers were set on the table, everyone filed in, and there was a solemn air that had never been there before.
Roland felt rather justified but also a little bit scared.
His mom was a rock. She had always been there for the kids, and the idea that there might be something wrong scared him to death. They were used to looking to her for her wisdom and her calm and wise advice. What would they do without her?
He knew he was jumping the gun. Maybe she had just been fighting the flu for a while, or maybe it was just something else. Something benign, something that she would be over in a month or two. Or maybe it was something worse.
They prayed and passed the food around, and then as people began to eat, Judd spoke from the head of the table.
“Mom,” he said, calling her “mom,” even though technically she was his wife’s mother.
“I don’t know what you guys are all upset about,” his mom finally said, admitting that there had been an undercurrent—she had known and heard the whispers and conversations that had gone on before everyone got to the table.
“Mother. You have never in your life sat down when there was work to do. You certainly would never allow us to just do it ourselves. What’s going on?” Terry asked, her voice heavy with concern.
“Am I not allowed to be a little bit tired?”
The table was quiet. Of course she was allowed to be a little tired. This is when Roland decided that he might be betraying his mother, but he needed to speak up.
“You slept all afternoon. I thought it was because you wanted to be chipper when you got here.”
His mother gave him an annoyed look. But he wasn’t fooled. He wasn’t in trouble.
“That’s exactly why I took a nap.”
“So you would have energy to help in the kitchen,” Gilbert said.
“Yes.”
“And then you decided that you’d rather sit at the table than help in the kitchen, even though you took a nap in order to be able to do that,” Isadora said.
She looked a little discombobulated as well.
Her world had already been upset by her husband leaving, and she was getting used to being a single mom.
Now, to have something happen to her mom—Roland could only imagine that she did not need her world rocked in that way. Not this soon anyway.
But sometimes a person just didn’t get to choose when they were going to go through a trial.
“Guys, I’m fine. This is just the time of year when everyone’s tired. You guys are all tired too.”
“But we didn’t sleep all day and then go in and sit down.”
“Isn’t an old lady allowed to sit down for a little bit?”
“Mom. I’d really like it if you’d talk to us about this. I think maybe you’re due for a checkup.” Terry spoke, and while she didn’t exactly have her doctor hat on, she had a bit of authority in her tone that even her mother respected.
“Fine. Do you know when I could get in to see the doctor?” she asked, putting a polite smile on her face.
“Anytime, Mom. Come in tomorrow. I’ll pick you up on my way there.”
“And I can bring you home when you’re done,” Roland said immediately. He would be out late with his Secret Saint partner but not so late that he couldn’t get up early and pick up his mom. He would do anything for her.
“All right then, it’s settled. I’ll go see my doctor tomorrow.” She gave Terry a smile. “Now can we have a normal meal? Without everyone getting all upset about stuff?”
It took a little while for the conversation to get going, but after a while, it felt pretty normal.
Roland figured that everyone was trying to come to grips with it as he had been for a while now, and he was ahead of the curve.
But he appreciated everyone trying to be normal for their mom’s sake.
She didn’t like having the extra attention on her.
The meal was shorter than it normally was, and it was 11:30 when he made it to the tree where he met his partner. He figured he would have a long wait, but she showed up within two minutes of him.
Maybe she was as eager as he was to meet.