Chapter Nine
Nine
A Pearl of Wisdom
from Renny Russo
“If you don’t ask, the answer will always be no.”
Juliet
Two hours later, I stood in the kitchen, thinking that Tenn’s coffee maker might be as old as I was. Big and boxy, it had once been off-white but had yellowed with age. How it still worked was beyond me, but I was grateful it did.
Once I filled a mug, I wandered into the dining room.
Tenn’s latest art project was on the dining table, right where he’d left it yesterday after hurting his back.
I ran my fingers over the lino, feeling the ridges.
He told me the carving would eventually reveal a bird, but right now it looked more like a landscape, all wiggles and squiggles.
I trusted his vision, though, because around the room hung some of the beautiful prints he’d already completed.
A hummingbird, an owl, a dragonfly. I loved that he used his background as a field biologist in his artwork, tying together two of his passions.
I made my way to a front window and looked out at the clear skies. I’d checked the weather radar on my phone earlier, and thankfully, no rain or storms were predicted for today. I’d had enough of those for quite a while.
A plump robin sat on the front porch railing.
I took a sip from my mug and watched the bird preen, sticking its beak under a wing.
My gaze went straight to the white splotch at its neck, and I absently raised a hand to the pearly scar that sat in the hollow between my collarbones.
When the bird noticed me watching, it held my gaze for a long moment, and only looked away because Maeve had started up the walkway.
I hurried to the front door and pulled it open. She sailed inside with a hearty hello and dropped her big purse and lunchbox by the door, before heading for the coffeepot, travel mug in hand. “Did you get much sleep, honey?”
Her blond hair was pulled back in a loose twist and secured with a bejeweled clip.
Looking ready for work, she wore a flowy blue dress, big bold jewelry, and a pair of leather slides.
According to Tenn, Maeve had founded a respite house, Juneberry Cottage, fifteen years ago.
It was a place that offered rest to caregivers by taking over their duties, usually for a short time, giving them a much-needed break to prevent emotional and physical burnout.
I had the feeling there was a story behind the cottage because respite care wasn’t just a job.
It was a calling. A whole-heart, all-in, eat-sleep-breathe way of life.
I followed her into the kitchen, like a little fish caught in her wake. “A bit,” I said. “You?”
She’d worked her tail off at Vera’s house last night, even with her bad hip.
“About the same.”
“How’s the patient?” she asked, glancing out the kitchen window at Tenn and Katy in the backyard, filling bird feeders. He was moving at a glacial pace while she darted around the yard like a hummingbird, her French braid holding tight.
I took a sip of coffee. “He said on a scale of one to ten, the pain is a three.”
As Maeve filled her travel mug, she smiled. “Which means it’s a seven at least.”
“That’s what I figured. I’m going to try to get him to rest as much as possible today.”
Laughing, she checked her watch. “Good luck with that. You may have noticed my brother is a stubborn man.”
“Is he?” I asked with a big smile.
She laughed again as my phone buzzed. I pulled it from my pocket and saw a reminder about a hotel reservation for next week that I hadn’t yet canceled.
Maeve leaned in. “I don’t mean to be a nosy biddy, but I couldn’t help seeing the picture on your phone. Who might that handsome gentleman be?”
She was talking about my lock-screen wallpaper. “My grandfather,” I said, trying to keep my voice calm, even. “His name was Ronald. Ronald Stephens.”
Sympathy filled her eyes and she pushed a hand against her heart. “Oh, honey. Was?”
I nodded. “He passed away a few months ago.”
Rubbing my arm, she said, “I’m so sorry. I can see you two were close.”
I glanced at the photo. It was of Grandpa and me about five years ago. We’d been kayaking on Lake Michigan. After the lightning strike, I’d been utterly confused in the hospital when I saw the picture on my phone and had no idea who he was.
Since then, it felt like I was slowly getting to know him through the photos, the ones in my camera roll and the ones in the albums Amy had uploaded.
Through the pictures, I’d been able to study the progression of his life, from mischievous child in the ’40s, earnest teen in the ’50s, to a somewhat startled-looking newlywed and proud father in the ’60s.
It seemed to me that his thirties, forties, fifties, sixties, seventies, and right up until he passed away at eighty-five, had been spent mostly as a dedicated family man.
There were many pictures with my grandma, who passed away in her forties.
With my mom. With Eric and Amy and then me and Hunter and Jordan.
There were hundreds of photos of birthdays and holidays and camping trips.
Of apple picking and beach trips to Lake Michigan and carnivals and rides on the North Pole Express at Christmastime.
My favorite shots of him, however, were the ones taken when he was twenty-three.
He’d embarked on a big solo road trip that year, six weeks long.
In one of the photos, he had a beaming smile as he sat among purple sandpipers on a Tybee Island beach.
In another, he posed with flamingoes in the Sunken Gardens of St. Petersburg.
He’d had an ear-to-ear grin as he watched the ducks in the lobby of the Peabody Hotel in Memphis. He’d had a special fondness for birds.
Robins in particular.
“Morning,” Tallulah said, shuffling into the kitchen holding Mary Joy.
The baby’s hair was damp and smoothed down, but I had no doubt that once it dried, it would return to looking like downy fluff. She’d been whining until she spotted Maeve, who kissed the baby’s cheek, then Tallulah’s.
“I wish I could stay,” Maeve said, lightly squeezing my arm and giving me a sad smile, “but I have an early meeting. I’m just going to pop out and say hello to Katy and Tenn before heading off.”
Tallulah said, “Give Renny a kiss for me.”
“I will, honey.” Then she gathered her things and headed out the back door, through the screen room, and into the yard.
I glanced at Tallulah. “Do you want some coffee? I just made a fresh pot.”
Dark shadows circled her eyes. “More than anything in the world.”
I smiled at that and reached for a mug. “Rough night?”
I hadn’t seen her yet this morning, because I’d been trying to stay out of the way, keeping to my room until I could deny my need for coffee no longer.
She peered out the window into the backyard, where Katy was standing on a bucket to add seed to a finch feeder while Maeve chatted with Tenn.
The chubby robin with the white marking was now bopping around the vegetable garden.
I touched the scar at my neck. The pendant that had been melted by the lightning strike had been a robin.
According to Amy, it had been a gift from my grandfather on my twenty-fifth birthday.
She said it was a bit of a joke, since Grandpa was always urging me to spread my wings and fly.
Apparently, he often regaled me with stories of his travels, especially of his trip to the South, and tried to talk me into going on one as well.
It was why I was here. Well, not here in Forget-Me-Not, but here in the South. I was replicating the trip I’d seen in the photo album. I’d been to Tybee Island. To St. Petersburg. And I’d have seen the ducks at the Peabody as well, if I hadn’t been detoured here.
I was trying to see life through his eyes. At least a little bit of it.
And the robin with the strange white marking on its neck had been with me every step of the way.
I didn’t know what to make of that. Or, at the very least, I wouldn’t allow my heart to believe what it wanted so desperately to believe. It seemed too foolish. Too outlandish. Too … hopeful.
“The roughest,” Tallulah said. “Katy had a nightmare. And Mary Joy was fussy all night. She didn’t keep you awake, did she?”
“Not at all.” There was no possible way to hear a fussing baby over the AC. “Cream? Sugar?”
“A little of both. Thank you.”
As I set my mug on the counter, my phone dinged again. This time with a text from my mother.
Mom: Still alive?
Me: Barely—I need more coffee
Mom: Haha. Did you get your syllabus yet?
I held in a groan. I’d been trying so hard to forget that I’d enrolled in an online program to get my master’s in clinical research.
Me: Nope.
Mom: Might want to check into that. Gotta run. Love you.
Me: Love you too.
As I set my phone down, I shook my head. It was so like my mom. Check in, check out. She was always busy, busy, busy.
I poured Tallulah’s coffee and slid it over to her as she sat at the island. She was dressed for work in a white cotton blouse with eyelet trim, green ankle pants, and ballet flats, but her ginger-brown hair was rolled in large Velcro curlers, and her face was bare.
She nodded toward my phone. “Everything okay? You seemed … not upset, bothered, maybe?”
“Everything’s fine. It was just my mom making sure Tenn didn’t murder me in my sleep.”
Tallulah huffed. It sounded the tiniest bit like a laugh. “You’d think she’d call for that. Anyone could be on the other end of a text. Papaw could’ve commandeered your phone.”
I smiled at the mere thought of it. “I don’t think that occurred to her, and I’m not going to tell her or she might actually call.”
Tallulah cupped Mary Joy’s head in her hand and kissed the top of it. She eyed me. “You don’t want to talk to her. Your mom.”
It wasn’t a question.
I started putting away the clean dishes from the dishwasher, trying to earn my keep, since Tenn had waved off my offers to pay him for allowing me to stay here. “Not really, no.”