“I don’t know what folks have been telling you,” he said while looking down at his hands.
She sat back and wrapped her hands around her knees. “I haven’t heard anything around town.” She smiled. “I don’t get out much besides church.”
Randy looked her way again, his lips pursed and a stern line between his brows. “I guess we’ve taken advantage of you.”
“Not at all.” Grace sat up straight. Eddy zipped up the steps between them, shivering. “Time to change your clothes buddy,” she said.
He stamped his brown feet and nodded his head up and down, then slammed the door behind him. She called after him, “Remember to leave your suit in the tub, Eddy. Not on the floor, okay?”
She looked at Randy, wondering whether to share a piece of her own history. “In fact it was an answer to a prayer to have some company,” she said instead. Maybe later. She wanted to know about the farm first. “But we were talking about the orchards.”
Randy faced the barren field that stretched past the big house along the rural road. Where rows of fruit trees once marched, only mounds of stumps and overgrown grass remained.
“This far north in Michigan is more cherry country,” he said. “Our father had a kind of apple he wanted to try, one from New England. It actually did very well and we had good yields. He passed away quite suddenly four years ago. Heart attack.”
“I’m sorry.”
“He was a good man,” Randy said quietly. “Neither Ted nor I really had any interest in working on the farm. He knew that and, yes, was disappointed but didn’t try and make us feel guilty about it. I went for a degree in business management and am happy to work with the fruit grower’s cooperative. Ted started his own consulting company. Ergonomics, efficiency in farm practices—you know.” Randy looked at her. “This place influenced us deeply even if we didn’t want to do the same kind of work Dad did.”
He tapped his glasses against his knee. “It’s natural to think your parents will last forever. We didn’t plan ahead too well. Anyway, Ted’s wife, Jilly—ah, ex-wife, that is—did management studies, too, at MSU. When Ted brought her here after they got married, she and Dad put their heads together. He liked her. It never even bothered him that she smoked cigars. She spoke well and was enthusiastic. At first, she did have some good ideas. We all discussed it, and he let her gradually assume management. Mom had been gone a long time by then.” Randy checked the screen door and spoke quickly, quietly. “I don’t know. Maybe he was just happy having a woman around again. Not that anything improper was going on.” He stared hard, challenging her to deny him.
She didn’t respond. He could tell her more if he wished. She wouldn’t encourage him, but she didn’t feel the need to stop him, either. Knowing something didn’t mean she had to make it part of her own life. But it might help her with Eddy if he ever asked about his mother.
“When the apple maggot got out of control, Jilly refused to see how serious the situation was. Despite the agent’s concerns, she would not order the treatment he prescribed. She tried to save money and go natural, but in the end we lost the trees here. Then it started spreading to the neighbors.” Randy grinned at her, humorlessly. “She wasn’t the most popular person in town at that time. In fact, the car accident that nearly killed Ted happened on the way home from a town meeting. Growers wanted her to take responsibility, make her pay damages. I always assumed she and Ted musta had an almighty row.” Randy shook his head, rubbing a callused hand over his scalp again. “Ted refused to say exactly what happened in the car. Jilly left town four months later.”
He stared out once again at the hot wind waving the tall grass. “We did pay the co-op to help out the others who were affected.”
He didn’t mention his father, Grace noted, or how he felt about the circumstances or the underlying reason why his sister-in-law took off.
“We would have started planting cherry trees, but then… Dad became sick. Other things got in the way.”
Eddy came slamming back out through the door. Randy stopped the story. She didn’t press, as she was pretty sure what “things” he meant.
“Come on, feller,” Randy said. “Let’s you and me ride ’em broncos back to the stable.” He took Eddy, whooping, on his shoulders.
She followed them down the sidewalk to the driveway. “Thank you, Randy.” He nodded. She gave Eddy a big smile and gave his fingers a shake. “And thank you, Eddy, for your help today. We’ll take Shelby her berries soon, okay?” The little boy yipped and kicked his heels into Randy’s chest. Randy winced and then winked at her before swooping his nephew to the other side of the hedge.
Grace picked up the inflated colorful plastic ball Eddy played with and brought it to the porch before going inside. Randy wasn’t such a bad guy, after all.
* * * *
Ted returned from the hospital and took Eddy on a promised overnight fishing trip, leaving Grace truly alone for the first time. The hours stretched. She went to visit Shelby.
“Please, Grace—just go out to breakfast or something, at Kaye’s—anything—and come back and tell me the latest of what you hear. This bed rest is driving me nuts. I never hear any good gossip anymore.” A dog-eared magazine slipped from her lap to the floor of her living room.
Grace was naturally curious about the local lunch counter. But no way would she walk in there alone. “I’m gossip fodder enough. I want to go, but I’ll wait for you, until you’re better.”
“Somehow I knew you’d say that.” Shelby couldn’t keep a pout. “I guess I’d feel the same way, you know, if someone dumped me in the middle of Tennessee where I didn’t know a soul.” She closed her eyes and leaned back.
Grace hurt for her. She and the baby weren’t out of danger yet. Her friend’s exhaustion permeated the little house. “How about I read to you?”
Shelby nodded, a ghost of a smile on her pale petal lips. “I’d like that. No one else would think of that, you know. I’m so glad you’re here.” She turned on her side and reached for Grace’s hand. “When I’m better, I’ll make it up to you.”
“Hey.” Grace squeezed her hand and prayed silently. “That’s what friends are for.”
Shelby pressed back. “Yeah.” She took off her glasses and sighed. “How about where you left off in that book about the sin eater? It doesn’t make sense without you reading it.”
“Sure.” Grace rose and fetched the book from the basket by the rocking chair, settled in, and began to read.
* * * *
A couple of days later Grace stood at her screen door, answering Eddy’s summons. Ted, Randy, and Eddy had obviously been primed by Shelby. The trio showed up with a lunch invitation to Kaye’s. Eddy squirmed with delight and swung like a monkey from his uncle’s big hands.
“Come on! Let’s go!” His enthusiasm brooked no argument.
“I can’t imagine why we haven’t come before,” Ted said into her ear as he leaned over to close the car door after she got in.
She met his apology with aplomb. “I’m glad we’re going now.”
Kaye’s Café and Natural Foods was a street front shop in the old-fashioned downtown that made up Main Street, East Bay. Grace was enchanted with the rolled-out striped awning and round blue lettering showing outward on the large windows. The message announced the day’s special of turkey subs and Tanya’s Tuna Salad.
Eddy, barely containing his excitement, helped his father out of the car and handed him the crutch Randy pulled out of the trunk. Eddy matched him pace for pace up to the entrance of the café, then let go of his father’s hand suddenly and rushed forward. Ted stumbled before he could catch hold of the swinging door and stop it from slamming into his good leg. The boy continued to bound into the café where he scampered to the counter and clambered onto a round red-leather and chrome bar stool.
Grace reached for the door to hold it open for Ted, curious that neither Ted nor Randy reprimanded Eddy. She would have held on to Sean. Of course he’d been too little to run like this. Ted raised his eyebrows as he passed. “Eds hasn’t been here in a while,” he whispered.
Once inside, she followed Eddy’s innocent antics. He folded his hands on the breakfast bar and checked his neighbor’s dishes. Mr. Jeffries from church sat two stools down. Eddy waved and made a show of licking his lips and rubbing his tummy in exaggerated appreciation of Mr. Jeffries’s huge gooey cinnamon bun and big cup of hot chocolate with whipped cream.
Grace blinked and caught herself short. She’d almost run right into Randy, who’d come to a stop in the entry. She checked his profile, curious about the pulse that leapt under his clenched jaw. She swiveled in the direction that held his attention. A uniformed woman leaned over the counter to greet Eddy. Her blonde hair was caught up in a net that made her appear exotic in an old-fashioned way. She had to be Kaye. Hmm, not only was Randy not an ogre, he had a heart that was firmly attached to a beautiful woman.
As if the moment never occurred, Randy moved ahead, steadying his little brother on one side. He nodded to various customers and picked up the state newspaper as they walked past a haphazard pile stacked on the end of a vacant booth.
Ted shuffled across the gray-patterned tiled floor, his head bent and his shoulders hunched. Grace couldn’t bring herself to offer the embarrassment of a second helping hand and continued to glance around as they made their way toward a free table. Were they going to call Eddy over? Kaye continued to engage Ted’s son in animated conversation. The blonde looked up once and smiled broadly right at Ted who was studying his laminated menu as if he’d never been here before.
Grace gnawed at her lip and hoped Randy hadn’t seen the bold appreciation the café owner threw at Ted. Of course, she could be mistaken about the identity of the woman behind the counter. A little secret it wasn’t. She took a deep breath and looked around the place, antsy and nervous to meet people who might have talked about her. She recognized three of the customers from church and smiled at them. One of the women who worked at the resale shop was seated at a sunny table under the big window. They exchanged nods. No one approached them, though. Well, whatever. They were probably just as freaked out about a stranger trying to move in on their homeboys as she was attempting to pretend she could be one of them.
She was glad she knew about Jilly. Randy might be a regular here, but Ted obviously was not, and his flushed face hinted at his embarrassment. He had once been popular, Shelby told her. Now Ted undoubtedly thought of himself as broken and crippled, pitiful. And probably ashamed of his former wife’s actions.
When Grace caught both Randy and Ted looking at her, she nodded over to Eddy at the counter. Three older ladies pinched his cheek or patted his head. “It’s a shame no one pays any attention to him at home,” she commented dryly. The grooves on either side of Randy’s mouth deepened for a moment and his eyes crinkled. Ted relaxed, sagging against the seat.
Clattering plates and silver provided a cheerful backdrop to the smell of sweet onions over chocolate and pancake syrup perfume. A coffee bean grinder whirred. To their right another room opened up with a variety of shadowy boxes and bags on shelves. Must be the natural foods side of the business. Since she’d assumed the café only served natural foods on the menu, she hadn’t gone inside before.
Now she wished she had come earlier. She and Jonathan had belonged to the little natural foods co-op back in Woodside and she missed it. Maybe the store could order some of the special whole grains and herb teas she was used to drinking back home if it didn’t already stock them. She reached for a menu as she watched a tall teen glide up to the table, tablet ready. Pretty girl. Somewhat aloof, but not snobby. More…professional, like she was trying to play a part.
“Grace, meet Kaye’s niece, Tanya,” Randy said. Tanya Smits was waif-thin with mature brown eyes. Ted had explained on the way downtown that Kaye took the girl in when her brother needed a long stay at a rehabilitation hospital a few years ago. The situation suited all of them and Tanya stayed on after her father’s successful treatment. No mention was made of her mother.
Grace smiled. Tanya hesitatingly returned the smile with a hurried glance at Ted Marshall, then an even quicker check of her aunt who was filling a coffeepot with practiced ease, her attention still lasered on Ted. The smile drifted blankly over Randy, then cooled considerably as it passed on to her.
Grace hadn’t connected all the dots yet around the hometown relationships, but she was beginning to pick out the outlines of this particular picture.
Jimmy Marshall’s annual two-week visit was scheduled for the end of summer. One afternoon when Ted came for his son, he filled Grace in on the sordid details of his brother’s son with little encouragement on her part.
The cousin who “punches hard” according to Eddy was the only child of Randy and his former wife who now made her home in Sault Ste. Marie. High school angst, prom night, and longing for the girl who wouldn’t give him the time of day apparently led to some bad decisions on teenaged Randy’s part.
Grace wasn’t surprised. Hope deferred makes for a sick heart.
“I guess we could say that my eighteen-year-old brother, Righteous Randy, the president of the church youth group, dealt himself and Jenny Walden a bad hand,” Ted said. “They got married then divorced after Jimmy was born. I think Jenny loved him, but…Kaye Smits was her best friend.”
Ted’s tendency to gleefully share personal news about people in East Bay sometimes made Grace squirm, but she was glad to know some of the facts about Jimmy. “The Kaye from the café?”
“Yeah, that’s her. Randy sure had a bad rep at church,” Ted said. “Dad was upset and told him he was glad Mom was gone. That hurt Randy most about the whole thing, I think. Jimmy’s an okay kid. I liked Jenny fine, too, but…well, it’s water under the bridge, now. Jenny helps manage the kitchen at the big restaurant in Soo. Have you ever been to the U.P.?”
“Yoopee?” Grace asked.
“Upper Peninsula—of Michigan,” Ted explained.
“No, Ted, I haven’t been up there. Is it far? What’s ‘soo’?”
“A half-day drive. Soo is short for Sault St. Marie.” He spelled it. “Old French. It’s a really pretty town. The big lock and dam to get through to Lake Superior from Lake Huron is there. It’s fun to watch the big ships go through. And there are a lot of sailors and merchant ships that stop. Eddy loves it. And you can go across the bridge into Canada. Have a passport?”