“So it’s my fault, now?” I asked, echoing Cassie’s question of the night before. She had to have learned to fight somewhere. Why not at her mother’s knee? The absurdity of it all made me laugh. I laughed until tears filled my eyes and the image of my absolutely enraged mother blurred as she slammed down her linen napkin and left the kitchen in a huff.
Feeling better, I dressed quickly and hurried outside. Billy was supposed to bring a small front-loader and two men with chain saws out to help us. I wanted to help them.
I turned out to be as useful as a pyramid roofer. Billy showed up right on time, but the front-loader didn’t come lumbering down the road for another hour. When it finally pulled up out front, the driver gave us the bad news. Things were so awful all over town that he could only spare the time to move the trees out of the driveway. All the rest would have to wait until other more pressing emergencies were taken care of. In five minutes flat, the big oak was hoisted up and away. The driver gave a cheery wave and departed.
Since there was little else he could do at the moment, Billy made a survey of the damage to the house. He noticed more than a few shingles missing from the roof and a precarious loose brick or two on the older chimneys.
“I can take care of that myself, Paisley—this week if the weather holds. But all the rest…” He looked sadly at the panorama of limbs and debris piled about. “You’re going to have to wait until I can find some men who have the time to come and cut these trees and carry all this mess away. Every man jack around town is busier than a bucket of red ants right now. There’s hardly a house in the county without some kind’a damage.”
“Mother isn’t going to like that. She’s already crazy to get things cleaned up.”
“Take her away somewhere for a month or two. Maybe I’ll have things shipshape by then. Why don’t you all go see Cassie in Atlanta—there’s a good idea,” he added hopefully.
“Sorry to burst your bubble, Billy, but Cassie came home yesterday afternoon. Anyhow, there’s no way Mother will ever leave things looking like this. She doesn’t care how bad things are anywhere else. This storm was a personal affront to her sense of order and neatness.”
I sent Billy away after extracting his promise to return later in the week with mortar and shingles to repair the roof and chimneys before it rained again. He admitted that he was too chicken to talk to Mother, so I broke the bad news myself.
“Two months! I simply won’t stand for it! Surely there is another way. Why can’t we hire some men from…”
“Look, Mother, Billy has already thought of more possibilities than you or I ever could. You’ll just have to exercise some patience for once and wait your turn. Just think of it this way, we’re lucky we can wait.”
“Well,” she agreed reluctantly, “I am grateful we have a roof over our heads— and, oh, I forgot to tell you! Our electricity came back on a few minutes ago. Now we can finish the food baskets. The driveway was cleared just in the nick of time!” she declared with a smile. “My, isn’t it nice that everything worked out so well?”
She turned on her heels and headed for the kitchen. She had apparently dismissed the storm-ravaged yard from her mind. I stared at her retreating back and wondered how much time would pass before she placed the first phone call to Billy, nagging him to hurry things up.
That’s when I remembered that Watson was still trapped in the garage.
“Damn!”
I had to lean against the corner of the house to keep from falling when the bottom fell out of my chest. My heart fluttered like the wings of a butterfly as I tried to get my breath. I sat down hard in the grass and bent over from the waist until my vision cleared. It was a moment or two before I could inhale freely once again. I had to get the Jeep out! Like it or not, a visit to the medicine man was in order.
Chapter Seven
Cassie returned some time around four. By then, Mother had several Thermos bottles full of hot cream of potato soup and my picnic basket full of homemade cornmeal muffins ready to go. I didn’t have the heart to turn her down when she asked me to drive her to the homes of her elderly friends. Some of them still had no electricity, and it was almost dinnertime.
Cassie went straight to her room without speaking to either of us. I figured she had at least one more day of silence in her, maybe two. I carried the goodies to the rental car and put them in the trunk. When I climbed into the driver’s seat I noticed some papers tucked under the front seat. I pulled one out and read it with amusement bordering on fury.
Cassie had been busy. She had printed up some flyers offering a reward of far too much filthy lucre for her lost puppy. Aggie was described as “loving and sweet, with a friendly disposition.” She had even managed to find a photograph of the dog that seemed to meet that erroneous description.
I wondered vaguely if tornado insurance would cover “lost dog rewards.” Maybe Cassie had five hundred big ones to throw around like that, but I certainly didn’t.
My daughter had also used up all the gas in the rental car. I grumbled about her lack of consideration all the way to the filling station. As usual, Mother defended her actions even though she herself had fussed about Cassie’s lack of thoughtfulness earlier. It was going to be a long afternoon.
It was even worse than I imagined. Every street we turned down was full of fallen trees. Crews were busy clearing the main street from the highway into town, but it was obvious it would be a while before they got to the side streets. We had to walk to almost every house on Mother’s list. By the time we were down to the last Thermos, we were both pooped.
“Looks like Miss Lolly’s street isn’t too bad,” I observed gratefully. “With a little maneuvering, I can drive you right to her front door.”
“Thank goodness! I was wondering where I was going to hide you. Now you can wait in the car. You don’t mind, do you, dear?”
“I’m getting pretty damn tired of paying for childhood sins at this late date,” I admitted with a sneer.
“Spray painting her cat was more than a simple peccadillo, Paisley. And you know how old people are. They remember more of the past than the present. In Miss Lolly’s mind, the incident with her cat happened just yesterday and not over thirty years ago.”
“Well,” I sighed, “I don’t like her either. She smells like stale talcum powder and her hair looks like a used Brillo pad. You need any help with the basket?”
I parked the car in the driveway under the spreading limbs of a big oak tree that had been spared by the storm. The Parsons sisters had lived in this big old house all of their lives. Their papa built the house with the spoils of his thriving lumberyard back at the turn of the century. For years it was the largest, most beautiful house in Lakeland County. When Papa Parsons passed away, the house started to die, too. It was rumored that the sisters were difficult to please, and painters, roofers, and yardmen often failed to answer their calls for help. Gradually, the green expanse of lawn died while moss grew in thick green patches on the roof. The white paint on the intricate gingerbread trim began to peel and flake off. The grass that no longer flourished in the front yard poked up healthy and vigorous between gaping cracks in the driveway. In short, the Parsons’ Mansion had turned into a big decaying grey elephant that nothing short of a deep pocketful of money and lots of love could revive. The sisters might still have the money, but they were both dried up little spinsters and definitely bankrupt in the love department.
Mother’s head and torso vanished behind the green leaves of the big oak as she climbed the steps to the front door. I lay back in the seat and watched her feet as I idly eavesdropped on her conversation.
“Hello, Miss Lolly,” Mother greeted the old woman brightly. “How did you and Miss Hannah weather the storm?”
“Hummpf!”