“Well, what did you think?”
“Very respectable. I enjoyed the music a lot. I’m looking forward to practice on Tuesday.”
“Hi, Mac,” Casey said, and they hugged.
“Hi, sugar.”
“I thought about our song all night long.”
“Jack’s going to call me on Tuesday the minute he hears it.”
“Oh, great. Listen, some of my friends want to meet you. Would you mind?”
“No. Bring them over.”
She brought up two girls who also sang in the choir. When Tess had given them several minutes of polite chitchat, the three girls drifted off, leaving her with Kenny.
“Casey’s excited about the song you two finished,” he said.
“So am I.”
She expected him to express an opinion about her encouraging Casey, but none came. Still, the remarks seemed to leave a blank between them, and he quickly changed the subject, as if to keep her captive a few minutes longer on this beautiful Sunday morning with memories of daybreak still lingering on their minds.
“So you’re going to bring Mary home today.”
“I’ve got the pillows all loaded in the backseat of her car.”
“Well, I know she’s mighty anxious to be back home.”
“The truth is, so am I. It got a little lonely around there last night.”
Neither of them made mention of the early-morning staring he’d done from his back step while she was jumping cabbage rows in her lingerie. They watched people getting in their cars at the curb and leaving, and realized they had nothing more to say but were lingering for the sake of lingering.
“Well …” she said, glancing at her watch. “I’d better be going. I can spring her anytime after noon.”
“Yeah, I’d better find Casey, too. We left a ham cooking in the oven.”
There was a parking lot at the rear of the church. When she turned toward it, he turned with her and strolled along at her side, his hands in his trouser pockets. They went around the side of the building past a crab apple tree that was blooming, their footsteps lagging, enjoying the sun on their heads and the simple act of strolling side by side through the lovely spring day. He walked her to Mary’s Ford while thirty feet from it Casey and her friends stood talking near someone else’s car.
“ ‘Bye, Mac!” she called, and they all exchanged waves. Kenny opened the driver’s door for Tess just as he had last night for Faith. He did it without hurry—a man who performed courtesies for women without conscious thought. Tess got in, stuck the key in the ignition, glanced up and said, “Thanks.”
The day was so hot and still that the birds had stopped singing. The heat beat up from the blacktop parking lot and from the vinyl car seat as Tess found her sunglasses and slipped them on. In no particular hurry.
She started the engine. In no particular hurry.
Rolled down the window of the open door. In no particular hurry.
She glanced up at Kenny again but couldn’t think of a thing to say. The stroll from the church to the car had felt as natural as slipping into the pew had felt earlier. Much to her surprise, she found herself reluctant to leave him.
He acted as if he felt the same. He gave the car door a push with both hands, and said quietly, “See ya.”
“Yeah, see ya,” she replied, and realized, as she put the car in reverse and glanced in the rearview mirror, that the girls were standing there watching them.
She thought about him too much on her way to the hospital, about him and Casey and Mary, and how Mary loved them both, and about being back home, and this most peculiar lethargy that she was feeling this morning. It was easier to simply keep bumping into him than to avoid him, and each time she did, she lost a few more of her objections to him.
Sometimes it was more than bumping into each other. Like him with his coffee cup this morning. And her waiting till he came out of church after the service. These were not accidental encounters, they were planned.
To what avail?
Mary’s car was like a kiln inside. Naturally, it had no air-conditioning, and Tess wondered again what she did with all the money she sent her. She sighed, dried the sweat from beneath her nose with one finger and wished she could return to Nashville tonight. It’d probably be better for everyone involved, she thought, including Kenny Kronek.
• • •
She found Mary bathed, dressed and eager to leave.
“Hi, Mom,” she said, kissing Mary’s cheek.
“Hi, honey.”
“This is the day, huh?”
“At last. You got my car downstairs?”
“Right by the door.”
“Well, then … let’s bust me out.”
A girl came in pushing a cart. “For the flowers,” she explained, and left it. Tess started loading them up but Mary said, “Before you take them down, will you sign a couple autographs for some of the nurses who didn’t get a chance to meet you? I told them you wouldn’t mind.”
Actually, Tess was in a hurry to get out of there. A hospital was a dreary place on a beautiful spring afternoon, but she signed some papers anyway for the list of names Mary gave her, then finished loading up Mary’s flowers. She was surprised to discover separate bouquets from Kenny and Casey, apart from the one Faith had picked and brought over herself. Every day Tess saw more clearly how their lives were intertwined with her mother’s.
Getting Mary into the backseat at the hospital proved fairly easy with help there to assist her. Basically, Mary was instructed to do all the work herself, bearing her weight on her hands, which was safer than letting other people try to move her. When she was settled on the pillows with the windows rolled down, they headed home, Mary praising the weather, the beautiful day, and the joy of being released from the hospital. Then she said, “Kenny and Faith came to visit me again last night.”
“They did? I saw them leave but I thought they were probably going out to dinner.”
“They went to dinner afterwards. Do you know how many times he came up to see me?”
“How many?”
“Four. Isn’t that something? Why, some of my own grandkids didn’t get up to see me even once, and that boy comes up to visit me four times. That Kenny … I tell you … I don’t know what I did to deserve him, but he’s like the son I never had. I couldn’t love him more if he was my very own, and that’s the God’s honest truth.”
They stopped for a red light, and Tess said, “Momma, can I ask you something?” She tried to see Mary in the rearview mirror but could not. “Just exactly what is his relationship to Faith?”
“What do you mean?”
“You know what I mean, Momma. Are they lovers?”
“Tess, for heaven’s sake. What kind of question is that?”
“Oh, come on, Momma, this is 1995. Unmarried people do have lovers.”
“Well, I wouldn’t presume to ask.”
“You don’t have to ask. All you have to do is look and see if her car is ever there in the morning.”
“I don’t pay any attention to things like that.”
“Casey says they are.”
“Well, Casey should button her lip! I can’t believe they’d do anything like that around her. And why are you bringing it up anyway?”
“Just curious, that’s all.”
Mary said, “Oh, look, is that a pink dogwood in bloom over there?” and Tess understood, her mother didn’t like anything less than complimentary being said about her precious neighbor.
When they pulled up in the alley at home, a surprise waited. Renee and Jim came out of the house waving hello and smiling. It was the first time Tess had seen Jim since she’d been home, and he had a bear hug for her, along with the greeting she’d come to expect over the years: “If it isn’t old Tess-tickle. Hiya, sweetheart.” They both laughed at the age-old joke. He had the most teasing smile Tess had ever seen, and crinkly eyes and not much hair. She liked him as much as she always had.
“Jim, you big bald brat. Whe
n are you going to stop calling me that?”
“Never. I’m going to tell the National Enquirer one of these days and they’ll put it in a headline.” He stood back and assessed her. “Jeez, you look good, kid.” He braced his hands on his knees and looked through the open back door of the car. “Hi, Ma, how you doing in there? Need some help gettin’ up those back steps?”
“Jimmy, Jimmy, Jimmy,” she scolded, “will you stop calling Tess that awful name?”
Tess got the walker from the trunk and they all stood by rather helplessly, for there was little they could do except coach as Mary maneuvered herself out of the car, gripping the edge of the roof and moving by degrees. The walk to the house seemed a good half mile long in light of the slow progress Mary made with her walker, each forward movement measured and cautious. They hovered beside her and as they reached the back steps—three very high steps that had been homemade years ago—Kenny showed up, sprinting across the yards.
“Hey, wait for me!” he called.
There was a flurry of greetings and Kenny said to Jim, “Just like last time?”
“Just like last time, okay, Mary? We’ve got the program down.” The two men took Mary’s arms over their shoulders and lifted her bodily up the steps and into the house. She ordered one of the girls to get her antique chair from the living room. The one with the high seat. When the girls asked if she shouldn’t lie in bed and rest for a while, she replied, “Been away from my kitchen long enough, and I do believe that’s coffee I smell. Nobody’s going to stick me in the bedroom when my kids are here!” She carefully maneuvered herself onto the armchair and prepared to hold court.
Renee had, indeed, brewed a pot of coffee and she said that Judy and Ed were also on their way over. Judy showed up with a German chocolate cake and they all stayed to visit and snack. Ed’s greeting for Tess was much less jovial than Jim’s had been. He was a quiet man who repaired appliances and largely took orders from his wife, exerting his own form of retaliatory control by pinching pennies and making her account for every one she spent, even though she had a business of her own. The family characterized Ed by repeating the story of the time he had finally agreed to go to Hawaii, then refused to pay for a rental car and forever after claimed he didn’t like Maui because there was nothing much there to do if you didn’t know how to swim. Ed greeted Tess with a hug that was chary of body contact, and said, “How are you?” then sat down to tell Kenny how many pounds of scrap copper he’d managed to pick up on the job, and how much it was worth per pound.
Within twenty minutes all three of Judy and Ed’s kids showed up, too, and around three o’clock, the bride-and groom-to-be, Rachel and Brent Hill, along with Renee and Jim’s other kid, Packer. Packer had earned his nickname at age three when he had gotten mad at his mother and declared he was leaving home, to which Renee obligingly replied, “Okay, sweetheart, you want me to help you pack?” She had helped him fill a duffel bag and load it on his red Radio Flyer wagon, then watched him trudge off down the driveway till he got to the curb and turned uncertainly with big crocodile tears in his eyes. Forever after, the family had called him Packer.
Amid the pouring of coffee and the serving of cake, the story got told again, and laughed about again, along with a few others. The cousins exchanged small talk about what was going on in their lives, and the adults did the same. It was small town U.S.A. on a Sunday afternoon, the traditional family gathering at Grandma’s house, and Tess could see how her mother reveled in it. When someone remarked that they’d pretty much taken over her house, and asked if they were wearing her out and should they leave, she said, “Don’t you dare!”
So they stayed, and Kenny with them.
The kitchen was crowded. Not everyone fit around the table. Kenny stood with his backside against the kitchen sink, and Tess stood with an arm propped against the living room archway. Sometimes, above the heads of the others, their gazes met, but they were careful not to be seen fixing on one another overly long.
Conversations overlapped. The fourth pot of coffee got perked. The phone rang and Kenny was the closest so he reached over and answered it without asking permission.
“Mary,” he said, “it’s Enid Copley. Do you want to talk?”
“I don’t think I can get over there,” she said from the other side of the table. “What does she want?”
He asked Enid what she wanted and reported, “Just wants to see if you’re home yet and how you’re doing.”
“Tell her I’m doing okay and I’ll call her tomorrow. Tell her all you kids are here.”
When he’d hung up he refilled his cup, crossed his ankles and resumed his pose. As he settled back against the cabinets, his eyes met Tess’s and this time they stayed. She had been watching him answer her mother’s phone and refill his cup just as any of the others might have done. It struck her full force how he dovetailed into her family—not just into Mary’s life, but into that of her extended family—with the nonchalance of one who need not think about it because his acceptance there is taken for granted. He knew them all, had known them for years. He liked them all and they all liked him. “Tell her all you kids are here,” Mary had said, as if he were actually one of her own.
A little while later, he set down his empty cup and maneuvered through the thicket of chairs on his way to the bathroom. Tess was still leaning against the archway, blocking the way.
“ ‘Scuse me,” he said, as he edged by her. She stepped back to make room for him, and he went through. When he returned a minute later, he stopped right behind her and she had the distinct impression he’d gone to the bathroom to get himself near her as unobtrusively as possible.
She glanced back over her shoulder and inquired quietly, “Where’s Casey this afternoon?”—the first words she’d spoken directly to him since he’d been in the house.
“Out riding her horse.”
With everybody else continuing to chatter in the kitchen their conversation went unnoticed.
“Horses and music,” Tess observed, “those are her two big things.”
“You’ve got that right.”
He told her about the conversation he’d had with Casey about keeping her horse after she graduated, and asked, “Do you still ride?”
“I don’t have time anymore. Lots of people around Nashville own horses, but not me. I live in town.”
“Maybe you’d like to ride with Casey sometime while you’re here.”
“I thought she just had one horse.”
“She does, but she boards him out at Dexter Hickey’s place, and Dexter’s got enough of his own that they always need exercising. We can ride them whenever we want.”
“Sounds tempting. Maybe when Momma gets more steady on her feet. Speaking of Momma …” She turned her back against the archway and crossed her arms, facing him. “I hear you went up to visit her again last night.”
“Well …” His quick downward glance telegraphed modesty. “It was on our way to dinner.” She had noticed before how he downplayed anything he did for Mary.
“Still, you stopped by.” She paused before adding, “I guess I’ve never properly thanked you for all you’ve done for her.”
“No thanks necessary. Mary’s a great gal.” He smiled at Mary through the archway, but she was busy enjoying her family.
“Faith’s been awfully good to her, too.”
“Yes … well … Faith is a good woman.”
Of course Faith was a good woman. He wouldn’t be tied up with her if she weren’t. Tess knew that much by now. She couldn’t stop herself from asking, “So where is Faith today?”
“At home. Sundays we save for ourselves.”
So Kenny and Tess had cleared their consciences, hadn’t they? Sunday was Kenny’s day to do as he wished. It was his and Faith’s agreement. They were still wrestling with the idea when the back screen door opened and Casey burst into the room, still in her riding clothes.
“Hey, ya’ll!” she greeted. “What am I missing? Mary, you’re home! Oh, cak
e! Yum! Judy, did you make this?”
“Pee-ew, girl do you stink!” Renee said. “Go take those boots off!”
Casey fit in as easily as Kenny did. She put her boots on the back step, helped herself to cake and stood stocking footed, eating it and visiting with the cousins. Stuffing the last bite into her mouth, she said, “Hey, Mac, can we do our song for these guys?”
“What song?” somebody said, and the next thing they knew they were all in the living room, Mary resting on the sofa with a pillow between her knees, the others sitting on the furniture and the floor. The only one who didn’t come fully into the room was Judy, who lingered behind Kenny in the archway where it wouldn’t be noticed if she failed to applaud.
Tess and Casey shared the piano bench with their backs to the group. But when they sang, everyone listened. And when they finished, everyone applauded. Except Judy. She had slipped away into the kitchen where she was cleaning up the cups and saucers. Kenny remained with his shoulder to the wall, arms crossed, but one forefinger lined his lower lip and the expression in his eyes was that of a man torn between celebration and suffocation as he watched and listened to Casey. He could hear, unquestionably, that his daughter had talent. But it would eventually take her down a road of which he disapproved, an eager disciple on the heels of her idol, of whom he was beginning to approve more and more.
When the song ended Tess sought his reaction first, glancing at him immediately, and in his frown she saw ahead to a time when all these undercurrents would become exposed and he would either blame or praise her for the part she’d played in Casey’s future. There was more going on between them, too: there was this cat-and-mouse game they were playing with their unwanted attraction for each other, plus the words of the song itself, speaking about a woman reassessing her values and those of the people she loved.
Everyone started talking at once, the hubbub full of surprise and praise.
“Wow, that’s good!” Packer said to Casey. “Are you gonna sing it with her?”
“I already did, on a demo tape.”
“No, I mean like for real.”