Rebecca’s cool demeanor snapped. “You know what, Hanna Beth? It’s not your house. It’s
my father’s
house. My grandparents’ house. I think I can be trusted to take care of it, but if you’d like to take over, please be my guest.” Her hand flailed toward the hallway, inviting me to get up, walk out the door, and see to my own affairs. “I didn’t ask for any of this. My daughter is sitting at home in California right now with a broken leg. I’ve got work piling up at the office, and my . . .” She clamped her lips shut, her nostrils flaring with a breath. “Look, I don’t want to be here, all right? But I’m doing the best I can. I don’t know where Kay-Kay is. I’m trying to figure that out. If I can’t get her, I’ll find somebody else to live at the house and take care of things.” Her eyes narrowed, turned bitter and cool. “Then I can fly home, and all of you can just . . . just . . . go back to normal.” Collapsing into the extra chair, she let her head fall into her hand. Her lips pressed into a tight, trembling line.
I sank against the pillow, the fire spent, my spirits sinking. How could this be happening? How could this possibly work, when I couldn’t produce the most basic information about the affairs of our house, when Rebecca and I couldn’t be in the same room for five minutes without descending into a confrontation?
In his chair, Teddy whimpered, as if he, too, were overwhelmed by the hopelessness of the situation. Weaving back and forth, he watched the reflections shift on the floor tiles. He was self-stimulating, trying to block things out like he used to when he was young. He hadn’t done that in years.
Something metal rang against the door frame. Rebecca and I jerked toward the hallway. Teddy slowed his weaving, started to come back.
“Sorry about that.” Claude’s voice broke the silence as he struggled to get through the door. “Didn’t mean to startle ya, Birdie. I just come to show my picture book. My little neighbor girl brung it to me from my house. Reckon she thought I’d enjoy seeing it, and . . . Well, hey there. I thought I heard someone in here.”
A flush of embarrassment crept into my cheeks. Claude had probably heard every word of our argument through the air vent. Undoubtedly he’d come on purpose.
Pedaling past the bed, he headed for Rebecca. “How-do there. Good to see ya again. How are you, young man?” He held a hand out to Teddy, but received no response.
Normally, I would have tried to entice Teddy into reengaging, but it seemed pointless right now.
“Teddy, this is Mr. . . . I’m sorry. I can’t remember your name,” Rebecca said.
“Claude Fisher.” Claude nodded over his shoulder toward his room. “Next door. I just come by to show Birdie this old picture of my daddy’s mules.” I heard the faint sound of pages rattling, smelled the scent of aging parchment, as Claude opened his book and twisted it around so Teddy and Rebecca could see. Teddy stopped weaving and focused, the light returning to his eyes.
Claude smiled at him. “Look at this one. That strappin’ young feller behind the mule team there is me, if you can believe it. That pair of white mules was brothers, both albinos. My daddy got them from an old black fella that couldn’t farm no more. My daddy won many a pullin’ contest with old Jes and Tab.” He laughed in his throat, and Rebecca politely said the mules were beautiful. Teddy crooked a finger and rubbed it over the photograph.
Mr. Fisher laughed again. “That lanky lad in the picture underneath is me, too. I liked to sit that big yella horse a lot better than I liked starin’ at the rear ends of them mules, I’ll tell ya. I got that horse when I was seventeen—rode him all over Tom Green County. I’d made up my mind, I was gonna be a cowboy, not a farmer. Them mules was the talk of the county, though. Jes was blind and Tab was deaf—them things happen with albinos, sometimes. When you put them in harness together, Tab could see where they was goin, and Jes could hear my daddy give ’em
ge
and
haw
and
giddup
and
woah
. He’d call out, and Jes would move forward, and then Tab would take over and lead ’em straight down the row. When Daddy turned them two out to pasture, he’d put a cowbell on old Tab. Tab would walk a little way, and then he’d shake his head up and down like he was waitin’ for Jes to catch up. Jes could follow that bell sound all around the pasture, uphill and downhill. He could tell that terrain just by how the bell sounded. He was a smart mule to figure that out.” Pausing, he smiled at the picture, shook his head and pointed to Jes, the blind mule. “But the thing I always wondered was how’d the deaf mule know to keep shakin’ his head after he stopped walking, since he couldn’t hear the bell?” Claude paused, regarding Rebecca with a look of consternation. “It was the durndest conundrum the way neither one of them mules could get by on its own, but the two of them was just perfect as a pair. My daddy used to say there was a good lesson in it for people. Most of the time when we got a tough row to plow, the Good Lord makes us fall a little short and puts another mule in the pasture. You don’t never know whether you’re the blind mule or the deaf mule, but you’re always one or the other.”
“Fisher!” Gretchen’s call echoed along the corridor. “I hear your squeaky voice around here somewhere. I’m gonna find you if I have to tear up every square inch of this place. We got a date in the therapy center.”
Claude looked for a corner to climb into. “Oh, hang!” He turned his wheelchair around and started toward the door. “Maybe I can find Mary and get her to hide me. Y’all can hang on to my book and look at it for a while.” He scooted out the door like an inmate on the lam.
Teddy pointed to the book. “How that mule know the bell?”
“I’m not sure, Teddy.” Rebecca’s voice trembled with emotion. I wondered if she was thinking about the mules, considering the idea, as I was, that there was a lesson in the story for us.
Teddy began leafing through the pages.
“I’ll be back in a minute,” Rebecca whispered as she got up and left the room.
Teddy smiled after her, then moved his chair so that he could share the pictures with me. “Look at him cowboy, Mama,” he said, and pointed to a sepia photo of Claude, smiling atop a beautiful palomino horse. “And there the mule and the other mule. . . .”
We’d almost finished the book when Mary stopped by.
“I wanted to check on you before I left,” she said, then noticed me looking at the clock and added, “I have to leave early. Brandon had an asthma attack at school and they gave him his inhaler, but it’s empty now. I need to go pick him up.” Tucking stray strands of hair behind her ear, she squinted toward the parking lot. I laid my hand on hers, and she turned back to me, forcing a wavering smile. “We slept with the windows open last night at home. We just shouldn’t of, that’s all.” She turned to gaze at the book with Teddy. “Oh, Mr. Fisher brought you his book. Did he tell you about the mules?”
“Yeah,” Teddy said, and smiled at Mary.
“That’s a good story.” She slipped her hand from mine and she headed for the door. I heard her meet up with Rebecca in the hall, but I couldn’t make out their conversation. Undoubtedly they were talking about me.
CHAPTER 15
Rebecca Macklin
After a traumatic exit from the nursing center, during which Teddy temporarily melted down about having to leave Hanna Beth, we stopped by the hospital to check on my father again. He was awake, calmly watching a rerun of
Big Valley
and consuming the food on his supper tray. Dr. Amadi wasn’t available, and the nurse had little information, other than the current regimen of medications and what they were for. When we entered the room, my father greeted us warmly and gave us details about the oil field accident that had caused his broken ribs. I played Marilyn, and Teddy hung out by the door, looking uncertain. My father wanted me to call his office, let his boss know he’d be out for a few days, but he would be phoning in for updates on the core samples from the exploratory drilling in the Garner-North field. He didn’t intend to let this little medical emergency sideline him.
As I turned to leave, he reached for my hand, awkwardly catching my wrist first, then sliding to my fingers. Lifting his face, he met my gaze. His eyes narrowed upward, a contemplative network of wrinkles forming around the corners. For an instant, I thought he saw me—not Marilyn, but me.
“Tell Rebecca not to be scared,” he said, and an unwanted tenderness gathered in my throat. I swallowed hard. He searched my face, looking for something. Bringing my hand to his lips, he kissed it, then cupped my fingers between his and held them against his chest. I felt his heartbeat, a slow, steady rhythm that drew me back to a day when we’d lain on a beach beneath a towering palm in Moorea. I’d rested my head on his arm, gazed into the swaying branches overhead, felt a steady pulse against my ear. My eyes drifted closed, and he stayed there while I slept.
I’d let go of moments like that one. It was easier to believe they’d never existed. But now, watching him in the bed, I saw the eyes of the father who waited patiently while I dreamed away the afternoon on the beach.
“Tell Rebecca her old dad’s gonna be fine,” he whispered, his lashes drifting closed.
Emotion overcame me. Pressing a hand over my mouth, I pulled away from him, turned and ran from the room.
Teddy followed me. In the elevator, I tried to rein in my feelings, gather them up, put them in a box and clamp the lid down tight.
Teddy patted my shoulder awkwardly, which seemed an odd turnabout, considering that a short time before I’d been the one trying to calm him as we prepared to leave the nursing home. “It okay, A-becca. It soo-kay. Don’ cry, A-becca.” The wall between me and the tears burst, and they tumbled forth, raw and pure. I stood sobbing in the elevator as we reached the ground floor. I wasn’t even sure why. Amid the crushing tide of anxiety, some logical part of me was echoing Teddy.
It’s okay. He’s resting comfortably. Hanna Beth’s doing better. Things are functional at the house. And Mary just made an offer that I can consider. Mary’s suggestion could solve everything. . . .
Sniffling and hiccuping, I wiped my eyes, aware of Teddy’s heavy arm resting over my shoulders. “It so-kaaay, A-becca. It so-kaaay.” He squeezed and patted, pulling me off balance. “We gone get pizza now. I like pizza. Egg-tra cheese.”
I nodded, taking a tissue from my purse and wiping my cheeks.
“I don’ steal no pep-poni today.” Teddy pointed a finger and waved it sternly at me. “You don’ steal no pep-poni, too, A-becca. You don’ steal no pep-poni.” He snort-chuckled, and I realized he was making a joke.
I hiccuped and giggled, and Teddy laughed along with me as the elevator opened, and we stepped into the parking garage. “I won’t steal the pepperoni, Teddy.”
He patted me on the top of the head as if I were a puppy. “You get all the pep-poni, A-becca. It soo-kay.”
I felt an overwhelming sense of tenderness toward Teddy, followed by a measure of guilt. When he looked at me, there was only acceptance, blind faith that believed the best in me, that could love me, in spite of everything.
There were a million things I wanted to say, thoughts I didn’t know how to express, especially to Teddy, so I settled for, “We’ll order extra pepperoni.”
He clapped, then jerked upright as the sound echoed through the hospital parking garage. Clapping again, he cocked an ear toward the reverberation.
“There’s an echo,” I pointed out. “The sound bounces off the walls and comes back. Like this, see?” Cupping my hands around my mouth, I hollered, “Hello!” and the sound came back, “Ello-ello-ello-o-o-o.”
Teddy’s eyes twinkled and his lips spread into a grin. “Pep-poni!” he hollered, and the sound came back, “Poni-oni-oni-oni.”
I felt light, buoyant like the echoes themselves. I remembered standing with Macey on the rim of the Grand Canyon, shouting into the abyss and hearing our voices come back. “Extra pepperoni!” I hollered. The sound bounced through the parking garage before escaping onto the street.
“Egg-tra pep-poni!” Teddy repeated, then clapped his hands as his words Ping-Ponged around us. A family on their way to the elevator stopped to stare, the parents allowing only polite glances, while two young kids gawked openly, and a preteen girl rolled her eyes, whispering something behind her hand. I knew what she was saying—not the exact words, but I knew. I recognized the look. I could see myself at twelve, the day Teddy ran across the lawn to greet me and I slammed the door in his face.
If it were Macey standing there, what would she do? In the midst of all the Gifted and Talented classes in school, the gymnastics lessons, the dance lessons, the glitzy birthday parties filled with beautiful, brilliant little girls, had I ever tried to teach her the lessons that mattered most? Had I tried to show her what Teddy so naturally understood—that life is beautiful, awe-inspiring in all its forms? Had I ever attempted to combat the perfection-centered culture Macey saw on television, that she lived in every day—the culture that believed people like Teddy should be kept out of the way.
“Hieee!” Teddy waved at the family as they passed. They didn’t answer, just walked on. The woman gave me a sympathetic look. I didn’t want to respond, but my cheeks went red, and I quickened my step toward the car.
Teddy patted me on the head again as I pressed the remote and the doors unlocked. “You a good girl, A-becca,” he said, then threw his head back and hollered, “Egg-tra pep-poni!” He listened for the reverb.
“Extra pepperoni!” I cheered with him, and our voices rang through the maze of concrete and steel. I didn’t care who heard.
After Wal-Mart, we ended up at Chuck E. Cheese’s with two sodas, breadsticks, and a double pepperoni pizza. Teddy ate like he’d never seen food before, then went to the game area to play ski-ball. Before long, he’d made friends with the little boy next to him and was sharing his game, letting the little boy make every other toss. They were cheering each other’s accomplishments when the child’s parents came and snatched him away, and Teddy was alone again. He went back to playing his own game, pausing to cheer when players nearby hit the 100,000-point hole.