off from his job as sacker at the store. C.C., determinedly cheerful, had put her arm around her daughter and told her (not for the first time), ‘Your true love will come, darlin’, just you wait.’ But Kathryn had angrily shrugged her arm off. It helped not at all that C.C. knew that Kathryn’s anger was really frustration that she too could not leave town, have an adventure.
C.C. sat on the bed, her eyes closed. If only she hadn’t made things so much worse with what Kathryn called ‘the mall incident’. C.C. did regret what she’d done at the mall. But at the time, it had seemed nothing more than a mother’s pride spilling over. Helpful, even. She and Meg had been having lunch after doing some clothes shopping for the trip. When Meg had excused herself to the restroom, C.C. had felt conspicuously alone at her table, so had started chatting with the two handsome young businessmen lunching nearby. It seemed only natural, in the context of their conversation, to show them the picture in her wallet of her beautiful, single, very available daughter.
‘Let me ask your opinion on something,’ she’d said, and they’d both been very willing. ‘Honest, now, don’t you think she looks like a young Meg Ryan?’ They’d nodded, smiling, good-natured. And C.C. had told them with unreserved pride that it was her daughter. Immediately one had said that she, C.C., didn’t look old enough to be that woman’s mother, always the hoped-for response. C.C. had blushed and beamed and given her usual reply: ‘I’m not old enough to be her mother. But I am!’ And when she found out that both men were single, what was she supposed to do? C.C. had only wanted to give Kathryn’s number to the lawyer, the one with the steady job, not the one who was starting an adventure travel business. But how could she politely exclude the entrepreneur?
She’d realized almost immediately afterward that she’d overstepped, confirmed by Meg on the drive home. It was just that C.C.’s heart broke for her daughter. Kathryn was hardly old at twenty-nine, but she wasn’t exactly prime dating age, either. And she had what that lowlife Jordan had called ‘the genetic ball and chain’. Imagine calling a child that! Especially, darling Lucy. C.C. knew she would have to tell Kathryn what she’d done, just in case one (or both!) of the men called. But despite her numerous apologies to her daughter, Kathryn had been madder than a swatted-at hornet. She’d been giving C.C. the silent treatment ever since.
C.C. clicked the lamp off, then peeked out the blinds again, wondering why they hadn’t come in yet. Down below, mother and daughter were sitting in the car, illuminated by the glare from the floodlight above the garage. Lucy was slumped far down in her seat, the heels of her hands on the cushion on either side of her. Her head was tucked turtle-like into her shoulders, her chin down. C.C.’s heart twisted. She hoped something hadn’t happened at school again. She watched through the crack, keeping herself hidden behind the blind. Kathryn took Lucy’s small hand, kissed it, held it to her chest. Lucy wiped at her cheeks with her other hand. C.C. let go of the blind, wanting them to have their private mother-daughter moment.
Until recently, she and Kathryn had always been close too, for much the same reason: they were just twenty years apart in age. Of all the ways C.C. would have wanted her daughter to emulate her, getting pregnant unmarried at twenty was not one of them. For one, it had made C.C. a grandmother at age forty. But she would never call sweet Lucy a mistake, unlike that fool Jordan. He and Kathryn had been dating only two months, but it was two months too long, in C.C.’s opinion. How she wished Kathryn would show that leather-clad lowlife the north end of her boot, send him out of town on that noisy motorcycle of his.
The front door opened, then slammed shut. ‘Meemaw? We’re here! Where are you?’
‘Be right down, Lovebucket!’ C.C. yelled as she headed across her bedroom. She stepped quickly into the bathroom, to the only remaining mirror, to check her hair. It was up, as always, curled, pinned, sprayed and clipped into not quite a beehive, but close. She tucked a curl in, then pushed her palm under it admiringly. Her hair was, and always had been, her best feature. Though she didn’t mind telling people that she now achieved her naturally light blonde color unnaturally.
‘Where are you, Piece-a-pie?’ C.C. called out as she reached the bottom of the stairs.
‘Coming!’ Lucy ran from the living room into C.C.’s outstretched arms. They hugged and C.C. kissed the top of her head, inhaling the child’s sweet scent. Kathryn took a long time hanging their coats among the empty hangers in the hall closet.
Lucy pulled back, beaming. ‘We brought you a present!’ Whatever she’d been crying about in the car was forgotten. At least for the moment. C.C.’s heart gladdened at Lucy’s words, specifically ‘we’. She glanced at Kathryn, but Kathryn spoke only to Lucy.
‘Shhh!’ she gently admonished. ‘We were going to do that at the end, remember?’ Kathryn had not, and would not, look at C.C.
‘Oh. Yeah. I forgot,’ said Lucy, lifting her shoulders apologetically.
‘It’s okay,’ said Kathryn. She at least gave Lucy a smile. ‘You want to go get it? It’s on the back seat.’
Lucy rushed outside without answering, or donning her coat, leaving the wooden door wide open. The storm door slammed behind her and the frigid air blew in through the screen. Lenny had been the one to put the glass panes in each fall. C.C. hadn’t even found them till last week, bringing the last of the boxes from the basement. She’d decided to just leave them there. The new family wouldn’t want them in now anyway. It was almost April, nearly spring.
C.C. smiled, closing the big wooden door. ‘Land, that girl can’t remember to shut a door to save her life!’
‘You and your doors, Mother. She’ll be right back in.’ Kathryn looked past her, her jaw tense.
C.C. nodded, wondering if she should open the door again. She didn’t know how to get off these eggshells with Kathryn.
‘Sweetheart,’ began C.C., ‘I’m glad we have a quick minute alone here. I just want to say, again, that I shouldn’t have given those men—’
‘No! You shouldn’t have. But I don’t want to discuss it anymore.’ Kathryn looked out the small window of the door. ‘So, this present?’
‘Yes?’ C.C. said hopefully.
‘It’s not really a present for you. It’s for Lucy. Mrs Diamont suggested it. I had to go in for another conference and—’ Kathryn caught her breath. ‘She’s way behind in spelling, writing in general. And she can’t–read.’ Her voice cracked, she placed a hand over her mouth briefly, then removed it, placing her palm on the door. ‘Mrs Diamont thinks she’s going to have to be held back, repeat second grade.’
‘Oh, darlin,’ said C.C., stepping toward her daughter, her arms open. But Kathryn spoke without turning. ‘Mother, no. Please. Just–leave it. I don’t want this to come up. With Lucy. But that’s all this present is about.’
‘Of course.’ She got it. She’d gotten it at ‘Mother’. Kathryn called her that only if she was angry, inaccessible. She called her ‘Mom’ casually, ‘Momma’ in a tender moment or when she most needed her. It had been a while since she had heard the tender moniker. C.C. lowered her arms to her sides, then clasped her hands in front of her, then put them back at her sides, suddenly wishing that arms came with some proper storage system. The doorbell rang. C.C. looked at her daughter, asking with her eyes if she could open the door. Kathryn nodded, stepped away, and C.C. pulled the door open.
‘Trick or treat!’ Lucy burst into giggles as she stood outside, her hands behind her back.
‘Land sakes, child! It’s only the end of March. Y’all come back in October!’ C.C. pretended to close the door.
‘It’s a treat for you, Meemaw!’ Lucy laughed, pushed the door open with one hand and brought the gift from behind her back. She jumped up over the threshold. C.C. gently closed the door behind her.
The gift was wrapped in colorful Sunday comics and had an inordinate amount of tape on it. It also had an impressive amount of pink ribbon, wrapped around several times, tied into several floppy bows,