Chapter 8
The following morning, I sat at the dining room table, drinking tea and looking out the window at the leafless oak trees in the back yard swaying in the late autumn wind. As I lie in bed last night waiting for sleep to come, I thought a great deal about my children and their behavior.
What Katie and Benjamin needed now was their mother. They shouldn’t be spending all their free time helping me fix up a house. That could wait. It didn’t look very nice, but it was clean.
They were used to better, I was used to better, but that would come in time, too.
The first on my list of fun things to do with my children today was breakfast at their favorite restaurant, The Three Sisters Café. As the name implied, three sisters owned and operated the establishment. Mary handled the business end of things and waited the counter and tables. Martha cooked and Mabel baked the most scrumptious desserts I'd ever eaten. My hips attested to that from time to time.
By the time we left the house, eleven o’clock rolled around.
I drove toward Main Street against the glare of the midmorning sun and amidst the bustle of churchgoers. After parking the car, we strode into the diner. A quick glance around suggested we might be taking our breakfast out to the car. The stools at the counter were taken. Every table was occupied, as was every booth. Great. We hit the brunch crowd. Foresight. Where was it when I needed it?
“The placed is packed. Let’s go home.” Katie turned to leave, like her word was law. The aroma of bacon and sausage sent my stomach into a growling frenzy. I grabbed her by the arm. “Wait, honey. I’m sure a table will free soon.”
Benjamin yanked on my pant leg. “Mom, there’s a man waving at you over there,” he said and dashed toward the booths.
Too late to stop him, I grabbed Katie's arm and hauled her with me as I went after Benjamin. By the time we reached him, he was talking nonstop to a stranger.
“We didn’t feel like having cold cereal this morning, so Mom took us here and now we don’t have no place to sit.” Benjamin tugged on his bottom lip with his teeth. “That bacon shure smells good.”
“I’m sorry,” I said, preparing to usher Benjamin back to where we'd stood. I glanced at the gentleman and realized he wasn’t a stranger at all. “Alex. Hi.”
Benjamin peered up at me. “You know him, Mom?”
“Yes, sweetie. We met before.” I made the introductions. Katie plainly cared less. Benjamin, however, seemed quite taken with him, which I suspected had something to do with the motorcycle helmet perched on the seat next to him.
“Do you have a bike?” Benjamin asked, excitement animating his voice.
“Uh-huh.”
“A Kawasaki, I bet.”
“Nope. A Harley.”
God, I'd been right about that. I didn't give myself too much kudos. Alex just looked like that bad boy who'd ride a Harley.
“Cool. Will you take me for a ride sometime?”
“Benjamin,” I said, injecting some sternness in my voice. The question surprised me, though it shouldn’t, not from my son.
“It’s okay.” Alex turned and gave his full attention to Benjamin. “If it’s all right with your mother, sure.”
Benjamin looked up at me. I nodded, knowing it was a mistake to agree and praying the opportunity would never come about.
“You’ll probably have a long wait for a table.” Alex looked at me. “Would you like to join me?”
“No. I ... we ... er — ”Benjamin’s squeaky cry of delight interrupted my superlative refusal.
“Awright.” He jumped across the seat and landed safely in the corner of the booth. “Then you can tell me all about your bike and how you know my mother.”
I wasn’t stupid. I knew when not to argue.
Katie and I tripped over each other trying to get the space next to Benjamin. My daughter won. Alex stood, took his helmet and set it on the floor, then gestured to the empty bench.
I slid across the seat, already feeling shy to sit next to a man I hardly knew. Alex took up more than his share of the space when he settled in beside me. Our thighs touched. Why did that unsettle me?
Katie crossed her arms against her chest and peered at Alex. “Yeah, I’d like to know how you know my mother, too.”
The first words my daughter spoke this morning was to order us out of the café. Now, it was to find ammunition to use against me. I loved my daughter, I told myself. Loved her... loved her... loved —
“So, Katie, how do you like your house?” Alex smiled, obviously hoping to sidetrack my children.
How we knew each other shouldn't shame either of us, but I was thinking that Katie might be guessing that her father wasn't the only one who had an affair. She didn't know me at all, if she could even consider that.
“It stinks, literally.” She kicked the metal center leg of the table.
This time Alex directed his smile at me before turning to Benjamin. “How about you, young man? How do you like your house?”
Benjamin sat on his legs and leaned his elbows on the table, his small hands clasped together in front of him. “It rocks. It has this big, big bathtub with bear paws and the attic is full of neat stuff. We saw a bat up there.” He studied his fingers for a moment, then looked up. “It's gone now, but Mom still won’t let me in’estigate it on my own.”
“That’s too bad. Maybe I could come over sometime and us men can check it out.”
Benjamin’s eyes shone like newly minted coins.
Great. Just what my son needed — encouragement.
“Maybe your sister could join us.”
Katie unfolded her arms. “No way.”
“Please excuse my daughter’s rude behavior. She’s upset with me because she thinks I’m responsible for her parents’ divorce.”
“Mawum.” She rolled her eyes. “God. What’s the matter with you?”
I stared into her eyes. “Obviously, my daughter has trouble with the truth also.” Where did that come from? Maybe I was getting a little batty.
“God, Mom.” Katie slouched lower in her seat and gave the table leg a wallop that shivered the salt and pepper shakers.
Benjamin pursed his lips and peered at Alex. “My sister’s goin’ through a rough patch right now, but she’ll be all right in a little while. She’s really nice, once you get to know her.”
"I know it." Alex sat back, frowning. “How old are you, sir?”
Benjamin sat back, too, assuming Alex’s relaxed position. “I’m seven years, six months and ...” He counted on his fingers. “Ten days old.”
“That makes you — ”
“Almost eight ... years ... old. I was born April 13, 1998.”
Alex leaned forward, looking directly at Benjamin. “Another thirty minutes and I would’ve figured that out.”
“I’m shure you would’ve. You seem smart enough.”
Alex turned to me. “Susan, your son is — ”
“Purrr ... cocious Mom says.”
Alex had a marvelous laugh and a terrific way with children. Truthfully, there wasn’t anything about him I didn’t like. Benjamin seemed bewitched, and my daughter ... well, wouldn’t give a second glance to Tom Cruise at the moment.
Benjamin squirmed on the seat and blurted, “Our house has a ghost.”
Given his fidgeting, I'd expected that Benjamin was about to let loose with something that would either embarrass me or fill me with pride. I braced for the former and rehearsed an apology, but it was unneeded. I peered at my son. "Didn't we investigate the attic — "
“It’s true. I’ve seen it,” Katie said.
That nearly shocked me out of my loafers. After I found my voice, I said, “Katie, you never told me that.”
“Well, if you took a moment for me, I’d’ve told you.”
It crossed my mind she might be making this up. She knew I didn’t believe in ghosts. Still, my daughter never lied, or at least, never used to. In my pe
ripheral vision, I noticed Alex lean in closer to Katie, as though he wanted to commit everything she said to memory.
“What did he look like?” he asked.
“First of all, it’s a she.”
“A she?” If I believed in ghosts, which I didn’t, they would be male.
“Mine’s a boy,” Benjamin said, bobbing his head.
“A boy?” I closed my gaping mouth. These fabrications were all too much for me. Ghosts in my house? Not one, but two? Impossible. My children simply possessed overactive imaginations.
“And second of all, she’s gone now.”
“Mine’s not.”
I patted Benjamin’s hand. “Is it all right if we let Katie tell her story first, honey?” He nodded, but not happily. I turned my attention to my daughter. “Gone,” I repeated. If she ever existed, or materialized, however it was said. I still harbored doubts. It might be best, though, to humor her. “When did you see her, honey?”
“Last night in my room.”
“What did she look like?”
One by one my daughter touched her fingers, as though she were counting in tune to a nursery rhyme. This little piggy went to ....
When it appeared she didn't intend to answer, I prompted her. “Katie?”
She looked across the table at me and shrugged. “She had mid-length, blond, almost white hair, tied back with a yellow ribbon. Her eyes were blue.” Katie stared into space for a moment as though visualizing the apparition. “Like the color of an unclouded sky. She wore long, flowing white silk and a bright light surrounded her.”
“Anything else?”
Katie stared into space again for a moment. “Her baby fingers curled inward. Just like yours, Mom.”
Oh God. Goosebumps broke out on my arms. Until that last detail, Katie could have been describing a fantasy figure in a movie, or one of her teachers. My mother, deceased now twenty-one years, had appeared to my daughter. A woman Katie had never met, a woman she never knew, yet she'd described her precisely. I studied Katie, wondering whether or not to believe her. I spoke of my mother often to my children. Through my eyes, I wanted them to see her as the wonderful, generous and compassionate woman she was. Maybe my mother had appeared to Katie. Or maybe she fabricated the story. The picture Katie presented seemed too detailed for it not to be true, though. I remembered describing Mom to my children, but couldn't recall telling them that she liked to tie her hair back with ribbons, particularly yellow ribbons. Then it dawned on me. Photo albums. Was my daughter really so vicious and vindictive that she would do and say anything if she knew it would hurt me?
“Mom, what’s the matter?" Katie asked. "You look like you saw a ghost.”
I clasped her hand. She didn’t pull away. “I’m all right.” Should I believe a word she'd said?
“Did this woman say anything to you?” Alex asked.
“I was crying and she appeared.” Katie stared into space, as though picturing the moment. “She sang, ‘Hush little baby, don’t you cry ....” My daughter turned to me. “Mom, you always sang that to me when I was little.”
I expected her to burst into laughter. She didn’t. Judging by the serious expression on her face, she’d told the truth, or the truth as she remembered. Sometimes, dreams could appear real, then be recalled as vividly as though they actually happened. I couldn’t dismiss that possibility.
The turmoil and upheaval in Katie's life lately could account for a hallucination, as well. Maybe she subconsciously dreamed up this person, someone to give her what she apparently wasn’t getting from me — comfort and security. Oh God. How terrible a mother was I?
“Rats.” Benjamin said, snapping his fingers. “Mine doesn’t sing to me. Mine just wants to play games all the time.”
Mary appeared at our table to take our orders.
Flabbergasted by my children's stories, my mind refused to think coherently. After several seconds of 'ahs' and 'ohs', Alex took the liberty and ordered for us. The breakfast special — eggs, sausages, pancakes, homemade blueberry syrup, orange juice, two coffees and two glasses of milk.
When Mary left, Alex said to Benjamin, “Games are fun. I like playing games.”
“You do?” Benjamin asked incredulously.
“Sure, I do. Hasn’t your mama ever told you all men are boys at heart?”
Benjamin looked at me, grinning. “No, she ne’er told me that.”
Alex draped an arm across the back of the booth. “Maybe we can play Chinese checkers some time.”
“Cool. I love Chinese checkers. I always win.”
“That’s because you cheat, little brother.” Katie elbowed him in the ribs.
“Do not.”
“Do too.”
There were so many more questions I wanted to ask my children, but not there, in public where I could be overheard. I knew too that my queries needed to be casual-sounding and made to look like they stemmed from curiosity rather than fear — which was what I actually felt.
“So, Susan, how are the house renovations coming along?” Alex asked as though sensing my desire to change topics.
I mustered a smile and told him what we accomplished so far. “And someone from Home Building Supplies is coming first thing in the morning to measure for new cabinets. You wouldn’t happen to know the names of any reliable plumbers, electricians and floor finishers, would you?”
“As a matter of fact, I do. I’ll bring you a list tomorrow, if that’s okay.”
I smiled again. It seemed I did that a lot with him. “That’d be great.”
Our breakfast arrived and I dug into it with a gusto that surprised me.