Last Known Address. Elizabeth Wrenn

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ stood, massaging her lower back. If fifty was the new forty, it still came with the old aches and pains of fifty. She reached up toward the ceiling, stretching, muttering a Hail Mary, but thinking it wasn’t quite fair that she felt fifty, six months before she turned fifty.

      C.C. lowered her arms, found herself staring out the bedroom door, down the hall, at the blank wall, the nails and hooks poking forlornly out of the wall where the family pictures had hung. She’d decided to leave them; maybe the new family would use them. How odd it had felt, padding about her nearly empty house these last few days, knowing it wasn’t hers anymore. Most of the proceeds from the sale had gone directly into an account that, God willing, would be enough to buy a small place outright, when she returned. There wasn’t nearly as much as she had hoped; they didn’t have a lot of equity, and she’d gotten caught in a down market. If the housing market recovered before she was ready to buy, she’d be in a real pickle. Yet again, her security seemed inexorably linked to Dogs’ Wood, Aunt Georgie’s house–her house, now–in Tennessee.

      The closing on her Iowa house had been weeks ago, but Shelly–real-estate agent extraordinaire–had put a clause in the contract for C.C. to rent it back till they left, and a few days beyond so that Kathryn could come to collect the bed and dresser for her apartment, and take the remaining boxes to storage. C.C. had had a flare of excitement when Kathryn had mentioned the new guy at work, Matt, who had a truck and was going to help her move the things. The maternal delight had once again been too obvious on C.C.’s face. Kathryn had quickly informed her, with stern emphasis on the words she clearly felt her mother needed to hear, that Matt was over ten years younger than she, a kid, nineteen, and she was going to pay him to help her on his day 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! СКАЧАТЬ