Grounded Page 6

  Lindy sliced the pie and passed the dessert to the others while Mary Beth poured coffee.

  “How long will you be here?” Lindy asked, sliding into her seat, her eyes bright.

  “Close to a month. I’m waiting to get rehired by the airline that bought mine out,” Annie said, shifting in her seat at the half-truth.

  “I always thought flight attendants must have an exciting life,” Lindy said. “I’m a lawyer. Mary Beth teaches at Somerville Elementary and Woody is a farmer. And that about sums up every occupation in Lincoln County.”

  Annie laughed with the rest of the group and then said, “Evelyn, how’s Jake? I heard he got another promotion.”

  Evelyn delicately wiped her mouth. “He was offered another promotion a few weeks ago, but he turned it down. They wanted to groom him for the CEO position.”

  “But that’s huge! Why would he say no to that?” Annie said, her fork in midair.

  Evelyn glanced at Beulah, and Annie saw knowledge pass between them.

  “Jake wants to pursue some other options. He’s learned so much, but enough to make him realize he doesn’t want to spend his life in banking. You can hear the rest from him. He’s taking quite a bit of vacation over the next couple of months to decide what’s next.”

  Annie put her fork down, suddenly feeling full. Jake, home at the same time, after all these years.

  Evelyn reached for the percolator. “Who wants more coffee?”

  “Can I get started on the dishes? I need to pick up the kids at three, and I promised them cookies when we got home,” Mary Beth said, standing.

  “I’ll do your part this week,” Lindy said. “You better get a move on if you have to be in Rutherford by three.”

  “I’ll owe you one. Thank you both so much. Annie, it was nice to meet you,” Mary Beth said before waving goodbye.

  “Annie, if you want to go riding, all my horses are shod and ready to go,” Woody’s loud voice reverberated through the kitchen.

  “Thanks,” Annie said.

  “Speakin’ of horses, I better get going.” He gulped down a swig of coffee, setting the mug hard on the wooden table. “I’m due over at the Barretts’ at two for my saddle club’s Sunday ride. Beulah, I’ll bring you over the tomato plants this week. I’ve got to get mine, so I’ll get yours too.”

  “Wait. I’ll send you home with some meat,” Beulah called, but Evelyn was already hunting out a Tupperware container from the cabinet.

  Lindy washed the dishes and Annie dried, while Beulah and Evelyn fixed up another meal for Woody to take home.

  “Maybe we can go to a movie sometime,” Lindy said to Annie.

  “That would be nice.”

  “There’s also a coffee shop in Rutherford where they roast their own beans. You’ll feel like you’re back in New York,” Lindy said. “As long as you have a good imagination.”

  After Lindy left, Annie folded the dish towel and draped it over the edge of the sink to dry. She filled her coffee cup and Beulah’s and sat down at the table with the two other women.

  “Evelyn, how do you feel about Jake turning down that promotion?” Annie asked. “It seems like a big opportunity.”

  “I think he made the right decision. He’s worked hard in the last ten years, taken little time off and saved most of what he made. Now he wants to take a break and examine the possibilities of how to best use his skills and passions. Taking that promotion would have set his life on a course he didn’t want.”

  “Not many young people think that hard about things,” Beulah said, both hands cradling her cup. “Most just take what’s doled out without a question of whether they should or not.”

  “Jake always was a deep thinker,” Annie said.

  “He may spend awhile thinking on something, but once he’s decided, he’ll give it his all,” Evelyn said. “The next couple of months are critical, and Camille plans to spend some time down here as well, so it will be a good opportunity for us to get to know each other better.”

  “So you’ve met her?” Annie said.

  “Only once since they started dating last fall. But Jake has known her father for years. He’s been a mentor to Jake through the banking connections.”

  “At least he knows he likes the family,” Beulah said.

  “Yes, he certainly does.” Evelyn stood and slowly untied the apron and folded it, staring out the kitchen window deep in thought.

  “If you all do this every Sunday, shouldn’t you think about getting a dishwasher, Grandma?”

  “I never minded washing dishes,” Beulah said.

  “But it would save you so much time.”

  “I do some of my best thinking while I wash dishes.”

  Annie saw the faint trace of a smile on Evelyn’s lips. “That’s what I always told Suzanne, then I finally did break down and get one a few years ago.”

  Suzanne was Jake’s dark-haired sister, five years older than him. “Are they still in Phoenix?”

  Evelyn nodded while she put on her coat. “She and Steve are doing well. The kids keep them busy.” Evelyn paused at the door. “I’m glad you’re home, Annie. I hope you and Jake can spend some time together while you are both here.”

  After Evelyn left, Beulah settled into a kitchen chair. “It feels good to be off my feet,” she said.

  “You shouldn’t do all this cooking every Sunday, Grandma. You could take everyone to a restaurant instead. It would be so much easier.” Annie refilled her coffee, added real whipping cream to it and started to look at the nutritional value, but decided against it.

  “I enjoy it, and so does Evelyn. We help each other, so it’s not too much work. After all, what else do I have to do on Saturdays? It gives me something to look forward to. I love to be around these young people. They lift my spirits.”

  “Couldn’t you enjoy them at a restaurant?” Annie asked.

  “Oh, maybe every now and then, but they look forward to a home-cooked meal. Most of them eat out all the time. This is a treat for them. And it’s a gift Evelyn and I can give. The arrangement suits us.”

  Annie knew that was the end of the conversation.

  After a few minutes of silence, Annie spoke. “I heard the conversation about local robberies before I came in for lunch. I can see why you were on edge last night. Are you locking your door now?”

  “At night. I’m here during the day, other than running to town for this or that. I leave it open when I do leave, in case Joe needs to come in for something to drink.”

  “Have you thought about selling the farm and moving to town? You could get a nice one-story with a pretty lot and old trees. It would be easier to take care of. I bet Joe would buy this place from you and keep it agricultural, if that’s your worry.”

  Annie thought her grandmother looked very tired when she brought up the subject of selling. It was almost as if a yoke had been dropped on her shoulders. This place was weighing her down. The burden of it was spelled out on her face.

  But when she responded, Annie was surprised by her steely tone. “I would rather be a little uncomfortable in a familiar place than comfortable in an unfamiliar place. I plan to stay here as long as the Lord allows it.”

  Annie sighed. “At least consider a security system. If this drug problem persists, and it will in all likelihood, things will only get worse.”

  “We’ll see,” she said, and once again, Annie knew that was the end of the subject.

  Annie remembered with full clarity why she had hardly been home in the last two years. She couldn’t agree with her grandmother on anything. Her grandfather had been the bridge between them, the peacemaker, and now he was gone. After less than twenty-four hours in the same house, Annie felt their vast differences. But now, there was no Grandpa to fill the gap.

  Might as well get it over with, Annie thought. Throw it all out there on the table.

  “Grandma, there’s more to why I’m here than losing my job. I gave up my apartment with the intentions of moving in with Stuart. The day I
was planning to move, I found out he lied about some important things—things I couldn’t ignore.”

  Annie waited for a reaction, but her grandmother sat there with the usual stoic look.

  “Anyway, I broke it off with him. I could have stayed in New York with friends, but I wanted to get out awhile and clear my head.” Annie fiddled with the handle on the coffee cup. It was blue willow, a pattern her grandmother had had as long as Annie could remember.

  “Well, you should know a man’s not likely to buy a cow if he can get the milk for free.”

  The words stung her. It was high school all over again, and Annie felt the weight of her grandmother’s calm disapproval, heavier than a tongue lashing.

  It took her back to the summer after her junior year, climbing out of her bedroom window onto a branch of an old maple and sneaking off to meet the waiting car out on the road. The party in Von Linger’s field lasted most of the night. The next morning, her grandmother roused her from a short sleep. A long list of farm chores had to be done that day—not the normal things, but cleaning out the chicken house and moving the manure pile. Without saying a single word, her grandmother’s penetrating stare told her she knew it all and was dishing out the punishment.

  Annie failed at controlling the irritation in her voice. “You’re right, Grandma. But times have changed. It’s hard to make it in the city without sharing living space. Besides, it’s unfair and extremely politically incorrect to refer to people as cows.”

  Beulah reached across the table and covered Annie’s hand with her own. The gesture surprised Annie, diffusing the anger. She couldn’t meet her grandmother’s gaze, instead staring at the older woman’s hand. Skin thinning, with age spots and calluses; it was the hand of an active person. Years of using hoes, stripping tobacco, cooking and cleaning had marked them. They weren’t pretty hands, but they had character, as if they could tell their own story apart from Beulah.

  “People aren’t cows. They have precious souls that can be easily damaged when too much is shared too soon.” She removed her hand and laid it firmly on the table. “Now, you are welcome to stay here as long as you like. Frankly, I’d be grateful for the help. We’re in the midst of putting out the garden, and I’m not getting around as good as I used to.”

  Annie nodded. The dread of truth-telling gone, surely now the worst was over.

  Chapter Six

  Beulah gazed out the window while she washed the evening’s supper dishes. Long shadows spilled across the grass from the setting sun. The white blooms hung heavily on the locust trees out in the field, and the scent wafted in through the window screen. A rainy spring meant a good first hay cutting and it bode well for her garden. Seeing everything so young and green, with the full anticipation of summer stretching ahead, made her brim with hope and promise. It reminded her of the verse in Jeremiah she had taken for her own so many years ago: “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord. “Plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”

  If only the knowledge would take hold of Annie. She slept late her first few days at her grandmother’s and didn’t want to leave the house, other than to return the rental car. Annie hadn’t even bothered with television, even though the TransAir merger was all over the news: jobs lost, lawsuits popping up right and left— a regular mess. Having dozens of TV channels was something Annie surely enjoyed about big city life.

  Beulah remembered when Annie first moved in with them at age twelve after her mother died

  “Grandma, why can’t you get cable? I’ll pay the difference with my money.”

  “I’ve never seen good come out of watching television.”

  “But there are educational programs, even a travel channel, more than we get now. Please?” Annie had clasped her hands together and looked longingly at Beulah.

  “You didn’t have cable at your other house, and we’re not going to have it here,” Beulah had said, hoping that was the end of it.

  “But we couldn’t get it back there, and you can here. Jake has it, so if it comes to his house it would come here.”

  “Just because a body can do something doesn’t always mean a body should. We don’t need the extra expense, and you need to save your money for college.”

  “Grandpa wants it too,” Annie had said, stomping off.

  Fred hadn’t wanted it, of course, but he never knew how to say no to Annie or her mother, Jo Anne, for that matter. It had always fallen to Beulah to hold the line on discipline. Losing Jo Anne had broken her heart. It would have been easy to give in to Jo Anne’s beautiful daughter, the little girl who lost her mother and, for all intents and purposes, her father, but Beulah knew it would do the child no good in the long run. More than once, she had wished Fred had been stronger with Annie and Jo Anne. It was a man’s duty, but not all men took to it. All in all, she never held it against him. Fred was a fine Christian man who loved and provided for her, Beulah reasoned, and that was what mattered.

  Oh, how she missed Fred! He balanced her out, facing the world with a grin and a laugh. Losing him had created a vast hole in her heart these last two years. Worse still, he left her without any way to reach Annie. They were two different kind of people, she and Annie, and Beulah could not imagine what went on inside Annie’s head. It was plain to see Annie felt the same about her. The visits from her granddaughter had nearly stopped altogether, like a well run dry in the middle of summer.

  And what would Fred say now? He would be heartbroken to know Annie had nearly moved in with a man before they were married. She wondered if Annie would have even considered such a thing if Fred were alive.

  The similarities between Annie and Jo Anne were hard to ignore. Beulah wrung out the dishrag and hung it on the faucet, recalling the night Jo Anne came to tell them she was pregnant. She came by herself, even though she and Eddie had already gone to Tennessee and married. Beulah could still see her long brown hair, parted in the middle and hanging in her face. Part of her had wanted to reach out and push the hair back out of her face, but another part of her wanted to slap her child. Beulah felt a deep hurt and anger at her only child, throwing her life away like that.

  Beulah had cautioned her against Eddie Taylor. He was a handsome fellow, but he came from a family full of liars and rakes. The saying was, “If a Taylor said it, don’t believe it.” But as is the way in this fallen world, they were a fine-looking bunch of smooth talkers, and her Jo Anne was not the first to fall under their spell. The whole county had believed Eddie’s uncle when he ran for the state legislature. It had all gone fine, until the FBI found him to be siphoning off campaign donations.

  But they had married, and she had hoped Eddie would be different. He wasn’t. In less than a year, he was gone, and Jo Anne never saw him after that.

  Beulah pulled out a red, blue and yellow checked towel from a cabinet drawer to dry the dishes. She liked color; it made her feel good. That was what Annie needed, she thought: color. She was always dressed in black. Who in the world wouldn’t be depressed, wearing mourning clothes all the time?

  “Why don’t you wear that pretty red sweater?” Beulah had suggested before they went to church last Christmas.

  “You don’t like what I have on?”

  “We are celebrating the birth of our Lord, not his death,” Beulah had answered.

  “It’s just black, Grandma,” she said. And so they trotted off to church, Annie in solid black and Beulah in her cream sweater with the gold Christmas tree pin that Fred had given her one Christmas years ago. Annie needed color but Beulah would not suggest it again.

  She might never have the relationship with Annie that Fred did, but she did know how to pray for her. And pray daily she did. It was no accident Annie was here. Beulah believed it was nothing short of divine providence.

  With the colorful towel, Beulah dried the last dish and put it away. Then she went through her nightly ritual of filling the percolator basket with Maxwell House and the pot with water so it was ready t
o plug in when she got up. The quicker she could get that first cup of coffee, the better.

  Her knee ached worse than usual—must be another big storm coming through. She winced with pain as she climbed the steps. That doctor was on her about getting it fixed, but it would have to wait. “Big storm comin’ …,” she said aloud as she reached the final step, pulling herself up with the handrail.

  Chapter Seven

  Annie was relieved when the voice mails from Stuart tapered off. She had left the ringer off, not wanting the temptation to answer.

  One morning, finally feeling rested, she went out on the back porch and called Janice. Her friend was upbeat, a stark contrast to Annie’s own dark funk.

  “I think I’m going to like it better than TransAir,” Janice said. “I’m on a route to Milan, and the other flight attendants are super nice. One girl is from Tennessee and she sounds like you.”

  “I want to get back so bad, I can’t stand it!”

  “Why? Do you know how many people would love to get a month in the country? This is a huge gift. Enjoy it!”

  “Yeah, I guess. But it reminds me why I got out. I forgot how quiet it is. I feel like I might go crazy,” Annie confessed.

  “Just think about all the fresh air you’re taking in,” Janice said.

  “Uh-huh. You mean that sweet air wafting over from the silo and the cow pastures?” Annie glanced at the silo, as if she could almost see the scent of fermentation coming her way.

  Janice laughed. “Something like that. You should make the most of it. Go fishing or snipe hunting or whatever it is you do in the country. Look up an old friend from school.”

  “Actually that may be easy to do. My friend Jake is coming down later this week.” Annie traced a crack in the concrete with her finger. “We used to be really close, but we haven’t been around each other in a long time.”

  “There you go. It’s looking better already.”

  After the call to Janice, Annie returned Prema’s voice mail and was updated on Prema’s new roommate’s strange fascination with David Bowie.