Just Over the Mountain

Sarah put a soft, warm hand on June’s arm and looked pleadingly into her eyes. “We gave Blythe our word that we wouldn’t speak of her situation. We promised to give her time to accept our love for each other, and to decide how she would like to handle letting the community know that Daniel and I are going to be a couple. She’s embarrassed, understandably so. I’ve been slinking around in the shadows for two years now, June. Soon, I won’t be able to honor that promise anymore. Soon, Daniel and I will have to explain if Blythe won’t.”

  “Explain? Some special circumstance?”

  “Exactly so.”

  June chewed on this for a minute. “What a mess,” she finally said.

  “Yes, it is. It doesn’t have to be, but it is. And I’m concerned about Blythe. She’s not facing reality. Maybe you could talk to her?”

  June’s mouth dropped open. “What would I say?”

  “I don’t know, but she should have some help with her dilemma. If only she’d talk about it with someone besides just me.”

  June fought shock again. “She talks to you about the situation?”

  “Of course. She doesn’t really have anyone else. When you have time, June, will you check on her?”

  “I’ve known Blythe and Daniel for years, Sarah, but until a couple of weeks ago when I was called out to the stable on an emergency, neither of them has ever been my patient. It might be out of line for me to say anything at all to her.”

  “Isn’t it appropriate to speak to Daniel’s family? He’s obviously your patient now.”

  “I don’t know. Let me think about it for a while.”

  “Okay,” Sarah said. “Then I’ll get back to Daniel. I wouldn’t be surprised if the stress of all his trouble with women gave him his chest pains.”

  While June was driving back to Grace Valley, she thought about nothing else. These domestic crises, romantic triangles and the like, could be extremely volatile. For all the joking the town did about Daniel’s butt full of buckshot, real tragedy could erupt out of a situation like that. She didn’t want to talk to Blythe. She didn’t want to be in the middle. On the other hand, she’d never forgive herself if something terrible happened that she could prevent. She thought she might have to ask her dad’s advice on this one.

  Sunday morning at the Forrest house, Birdie was up frying bacon and listening to her favorite spiritual station. It got her in the mood for church, and now that there was a new pastor in town, they could all go back to the Presbyterian at the center of town.

  Judge, already in his starched white shirt and tie, brought the paper from the porch to the table. “Don’t expect much,” he told his wife. “That pastor doesn’t know any of us yet, so it isn’t likely he’s going to have a sermon that caters to the town.”

  “He doesn’t need to,” Birdie said. “In fact, it doesn’t matter what he has to say today. All that matters is that the church is open and people can gather there again. How do you want your eggs?”

  “Any old way. Scrambled,” he said, snapping the paper open.

  She cracked a couple of eggs into a bowl and said, “Where are those boys? I called them fifteen minutes ago.”

  “I heard a shower. Someone’s up,” Judge said.

  The Forrest house had a master bedroom on one side of a kitchen-dining-living area that they’d added a master bath to about seven years back. It saved steps, especially in the morning. On the other side of the living room were two bedrooms separated by a bathroom. That was where she’d put her son and grandsons.

  When she knocked on her grandsons’ door, Chris opened his door. He was wearing a terry robe and toweling his hair. “Let ’em sleep, Ma,” he said. “They don’t want to go this morning.”

  “But we always go, Chris,” she said. “It’s a family thing.”

  “They’ve been through a lot. With Nancy and me and all that. Give ’em another week or two, huh?”

  “Well, all right. You know best, I suppose. How would you like your eggs?”

  “Any old way,” he said, grinning. “Scrambled.”

  She patted his cheek, so happy to have him around. “I think you should have them up, dressed and eating, but you know best.”

  Routine was important to Birdie, and at her age one didn’t change easily. She liked to get up early on a Sunday morning, have the one big breakfast of the week, clean up the kitchen, appoint the dining table and put in a pot roast or chicken and vegetables. She’d set the timer on the oven, dress for church, have a little time with the Sunday paper and go off to church, leaving the radio on. They would come home to soft spiritual music, a tidy and welcoming home and the savory smells of their Sunday meal.

  Pastor Shipton did all right for his first Sunday. The church wasn’t half-full; it would take time for people to get back into the routine. Some may have found other churches over the summer and might not return. But she was so relieved to have their church back, nothing else mattered.

  When Birdie, Judge and Chris approached the house, it was to the sound of rock music. Rock noise. “What the hell is all that racket?” Judge wanted to know.

  “That, Dad, is the sound of teenage life,” Chris said.

  When they walked into the kitchen through the back door, Birdie gasped. Her kitchen was a disaster. Cereal bowls, plates and glasses half-full of milk lay scattered everywhere, and the refrigerator door was ajar. The music was too loud to think. Chris turned it down, which brought the boys from the back. “Hey!” one of them protested. “What’d you do that for?”

  “Because it’s too loud,” Chris said.

  “Well, we ain’t got our own system anymore, you know! You made us leave it behind. What are we supposed to do?”

  “Boys,” Birdie said. “Come in the kitchen and clean up. This is a terrible mess.”

  “Later,” Brad said.

  “Yeah, Dad,” Brent said. “What’d you expect us to do?”

  “Make do,” Chris said. “This is Grandma and Grandpa’s house, and they aren’t used to loud rock music. We’ll get you a radio set up as soon as we get settled.”

  “Yeah, sure,” Brad said, turning in a pout to go back to his room.

  “Later?” Birdie questioned, looking first at Chris and then at the remaining twin, Brent.

  “Later,” Brent said, then turned and followed his brother.

  Birdie looked at Chris in confusion. Later? Had they really just said that?

  “Come on, Ma, they’re teenagers. Tough nuts. I’ll help in the kitchen.”

  “Chris, you shouldn’t let them talk like that. You would never have been allowed to talk like that.”

  “Times have changed, Ma. Come on.”

  It was when they started cleaning up that Birdie noticed there were no savory smells coming from the oven. Upon inspection, she saw that it had been turned off. She opened the door and the interior was barely warm. She reset it and went to her grandsons’ room while Chris continued washing dishes from the kitchen table—dishes that had been taken right off the dining-room table and used.

  Birdie knocked on the bedroom door, but she didn’t wait. She opened it. They were each lying on a twin bed, stockinged feet on the walls, tossing a ball back and forth to each other. The room was a disaster. Their clothes, both clean and dirty, were all over the floor. “Hey!” they said in unison, affronted at being disturbed.

  “Did you turn off my oven?” she asked icily.

  Brent sat up and shrugged. “It was getting hot in there and we were eating.”

  “I see,” she said. “Now it will be two hours longer before we can have Sunday dinner.”

  Brad sat up and took his turn at a shrug. “I ain’t hungry.”

  Birdie closed the door and thought, briefly, about telling her only son to take her only two grandsons to a hotel.

  The Presbyterian church hadn’t held services since the early-summer departure of the last minister, Jonathan Wickham, so June and Elmer had been playing hooky on Sunday mornings. They made a couple of treks to other churches in neighboring towns,
but hadn’t found a service that filled the bill for them.

  But that fact hadn’t stopped their Sunday meals together. It just changed the routine slightly. Elmer used to put the pot roast and vegetables in the oven before church and they’d take it out, slightly overcooked and dry, after services. Aunt Myrna joined them most of the time, unless she had a better offer.

  Staying home from church allowed Elmer to put the roast in and keep a closer eye on it, adding water when the meat began to dry out. His Sunday meals had improved measurably since, and he was usually finishing the crossword puzzle in ink before June and Sadie arrived. So even though there was a new pastor in town and church had started up again, Elmer and June stuck to their new routine for the time being, sleeping in a little later and enjoying moist and delicious roast-beef dinner.

  The three Hudsons met around one. Elmer would have a glass of red wine—sometimes June would join him—and Myrna would have her martini. Sunday was the only day she had it before five, and she confessed to looking forward to the drink all week. They had dinner by two, dessert and coffee by two-thirty, and Myrna was asleep in the big chair by the window by three. It was just as well, Elmer was fond of saying, because he wouldn’t let her drive home in that big old Caddy till she worked off her martini.

  That Sunday found June and Elmer settled in rockers on the front porch, their coffee cups on the table between them, Sadie at June’s feet. June noticed the window ajar about six inches, Myrna not far away on the other side, her head tipped back and her mouth open slightly. She snored softly. “She can’t hear me, can she?” she asked her dad, her voice lowered.

  “She appears pretty well out. Why? You have gossip?”

  “I don’t know if it’s gossip or a medical issue. Maybe both. Last night I attended Daniel Culley. He was having chest pains. He was in Sarah Kelleher’s bed.”

  Elmer’s eyes widened and sparkled in anticipation. “Truly?”

  “When the decision was made to take him to the hospital, he told Sarah to call Blythe and tell her. And you should have heard the way Sarah talked to her, telling her she’d been given plenty of time to accept the situation, that she’d have to come around sooner or later and the sooner the better so the three of them could have a relationship. Et cetera, et cetera.”

  “Whoa. That’s direct, now, ain’t it.”

  “I admit, I was in a state of shock.”

  Elmer tsked and shook his head. “Hard to imagine Sarah being like that. She’s so sweet. So— What’s the word?”

  “Like Mother Earth. I pulled her aside at the hospital and said I thought it was completely understandable that Blythe would be upset. Sarah said things were not as they appeared, that she’d never steal another woman’s husband, even though it appears another woman’s husband was certainly in her bed.” June went on to recap the conversation she’d had with Sarah as best she could recall it.

  “Neither Daniel nor Sarah seemed in any way embarrassed,” June went on. “They act as though Blythe’s stubbornness is getting to be a bit drawn out.” She shook her head. “Their relationship has been going on for two years and they’re getting tired of waiting for Blythe to accept it. She said there were special circumstances. And she’s worried about Blythe. She asked me to speak to her.”

  “And say what?”

  “That’s my second question. My first question is, why would I get myself involved? She’s not my patient. Neither is Daniel, really. I just gave him emergency care and transport and put him in the hands of a staff doctor.”

  “You’re certainly not obligated.”

  “But what if she’s in trouble, Dad? What if she’s badly depressed or despondent because of this affair her husband is having?”

  “I guess we know why he got his butt filled with buckshot, don’t we?”

  “What if next time she shoots him in the head? Or hurts Sarah?”

  “Maybe the person you should talk to about this is Tom. If you think this could lead to some crime, some danger.”

  June groaned and let her head fall into her hands. “Oh God, how do people get themselves into messes like this? What in the world sort of special circumstances could Sarah be talking about?”

  “Maybe they’re not married,” Myrna said from the living room. They both cast startled looks through the living-room window. “Blythe and Daniel. Maybe they’re not legally married. For whatever reason.”

  “Myrna! I thought you were asleep.”

  “I was. But it sounds like I woke up just in time!”

  The following Monday morning the Stones came to work in separate vehicles. June didn’t think anything of it. It made sense, especially for those days when John would take the ambulance home after clinic and Susan went to the Dicksons to pick up Sydney. Any working couple who didn’t want to be stuck waiting around for each other would do the same.

  A couple of hours later when Susan said, “You have Carl Bertrand in room two, Doctor,” June thought, Hmm. Was that a tad stiff?

  Just before lunch, when there were no patients waiting, John walked down to the Flower Shoppe and purchased a bouquet for Susan. Jessie fairly gushed at the romantic gesture. Susan placed the flowers on Jessie’s desk and left them there, but did not seem to warm up to John.

  June was the last one to leave the clinic at about 6:00 p.m., and as she passed the trash can, there were the flowers. “Ho boy,” she muttered to herself. She was afraid their falling-out might have something to do with the clinic job, but she wasn’t about to ask. There were areas of life in which she was a coward. All these troubles between husbands and wives was underscoring her timidity toward involving herself in others’ marital problems. What the heck, she wasn’t married! What did she know about it?

  Tuesday passed much the same. Susan was as cheerful and efficient as ever, but John was a little irritable. Susan didn’t go out of her way to smooth things over. When John went to the hospital on rounds, June couldn’t contain her curiosity a moment longer. She asked, “Is everything all right between you and John?”

  “Growing pains,” Susan said, forcing a smile. “Nothing for you to worry about.”

  That pretty much told her to butt out, so she whispered to Jessie when the Stones were out of earshot, “Do you have any idea what they’re squabbling about?”

  “Not exactly,” Jessie said. “But I did hear Susan tell him she had invested enough of her life into his career and constant comfort.”

  “Oops. This is big. We’d better tread softly.”

  On Tuesday night, over meat loaf, she described the frigid air in the clinic to her dad. Elmer listened without interjecting much comment—a rarity for him. When June had run out of things to add, he said, “You know, I always wondered how your mother did it.”

  “Did what?”

  “Remained in service to others all her life.”

  “Do you think that’s how she saw her life, Dad? Because that would be sad. I’d hate to think she wasn’t entirely happy.”

  “Marilyn insisted she was happy. But I was aware of how many sacrifices she made over the years, how many town parties she went to alone, how many dinners went cold and how many nights she lay awake and worried while I went out on house calls in all sorts of weather. I didn’t have to do many things for your mother, but she did everything for me.”

  “It was all about you,” June said, understanding something about her parents for the very first time.

  “She told me she envied my love of medicine. She said she wished she had some special talent, something she was driven to pursue, but she claimed to be content with her family, her home, her garden, her friends. Of course, that was Marilyn’s special talent and I wish I’d shown more respect for that. We come to some realizations too late.”

  “Mom never felt less than respected, Dad. I know that for sure.”

  “I hope that’s right, June. Now, apparently, Susan Stone has decided it’s time to get back to her nursing, and you told me she’s a natural.”

  “Dad, she’s remark
able. In just a couple of weeks she had the clinic in the palm of her hand.”

  “Think about it, June,” Elmer said. “Think about what Susan has done to support John, starting back when his ex-wife was harassing them, moving away from her family so he could do another residency—and that while expecting their child—and eventually moving here to a small town where she knew no one. She’s done everything John’s way for a long time, and no doubt spent many evenings and weekends alone while he worked. Doesn’t it sound as though Susan wants to take her turn?” He took another bite of his dinner. “Who knows what brought something like this to the front page.”

  June gulped. “I bet you can thank me for that. I let her know that I’d love to have her in the clinic full-time. John must be ready to clobber me.”

  Elmer smiled. “John is forty years old. It’s high time he learned the facts of life.”

  For some reason, it was that statement that caused June to speak up about something she’d fully intended to hold quiet on. “Dad, Chris Forrest came to the clinic after hours to see me.” Elmer merely lifted his eyebrows so they rose above his glasses. “He wanted to explain, apologize and make amends.”

  Elmer looked down, said nothing and began scraping the last of the mashed potatoes off his already clean plate. Elmer had never held much forgiveness in his heart for what Chris Forrest had done to his daughter.

  “Don’t get me wrong, I don’t feel sorry for him,” June said. “But he did say something that had never occurred to me. He said I hadn’t told him I’d changed my major to premed. He said you told him, and added that I’d be in school for many more years than originally planned.”

  Elmer lifted his eyes to June’s, but he remained quiet.

  “He said that with school being the struggle it was, with me making a decision like medicine without even telling him…well, I guess he felt he couldn’t measure up. And he felt I had abandoned him.”

  Elmer made a face and shook his head in apparent disgust.

  “Well, you can appreciate how that could happen,” June continued. “We were young, but we were talking about getting married. And then I took a fork in the road without even calling or writing to him about it. I changed all my plans, so he changed all of his. And, I wasn’t going to tell you this, but he claims to have felt terrible about it ever since.”