Authors: Ruth Ann Hixson
She put a forkful of egg in her mouth and chewed it while she thought about his question. She swallowed. "Maybe."
"I guess that's a step up from the 'I don't know' you gave Jan."
"She told you?"
He grinned. "We are on speaking terms, you know."
She chuckled. "I would hope so since you're married. Mark and I still need to have that talk. All he wanted to do last night was go to bed and sleep. He said he wants to be sober when we discuss the future."
Frank nodded. "That's a good idea. Discussing the future requires a clear mind."
Frank got up to pour himself another cup of coffee. "Do you want one?"
"I'll get it." She carried her dirty dishes to the sink and took down her favorite blue mug, the one that had 'teacher's pet' on it. "Do you think Mark would cheat on me?"
"I doubt it. He loves you. I think his ramming around is done. He's ready to settle down with you and make babies."
Sherry's brown eyes widened. "What if I don't want babies?"
"Do you?"
"I don't know. Not yet. I don't know anything about babies."
"They don't come with instructions. It's a sort of a learn-as-you-go project. Nothing can compare with the first time you hold your baby and realize that you've made another person; that making love could produce such a beautiful human being."
"I have a whole list of things I want to discuss with him." She pulled the list from beneath her tablet and added 'babies'.
There was so much she needed to discuss with Mark. Depending on what time he got home, she would probably have a little more than a hour before he had to go help with the milking. After she finished eating, she went to the pantry to go through her stock of food to see what she could make for him for supper. She asked Frank what kind of food Mark liked.
"He'll eat anything that doesn't eat him first," Frank told her. "So will I. Of course Jan's a real good cook so I don't worry if what she makes is good. I know it is."
"Are you hinting that I'm not a good cook?"
He grinned down at her. "Are you?"
"Gram was a real good cook and she taught Mom. Mom taught me. Plus what I learned on my own. Anyone who can read and follow instructions can learn to cook. I think I'll make an apple pie. Thanks for picking my apples for me. I should have called as soon as I saw them in the garage yesterday. I had something else on my mind."
"Mark?"
She blushed but nodded. "I thought he found someone else especially after Elena sent me that." She indicated the picture of Mark kissing the blond. "And Mom told me she saw them at Haley's Saturday night. I was afraid I was losing him. That's when I realized that I do love him."
"Her name is Rochelle Logan. They went to school together. Even dated. But her ex-fiance came back from Afghanistan and they got back together. She told Mark to come back to the woman he loves. That's you." With a chuckle he added, "She told him to stop thinking about his penis and think about you."
Sherry blushed an even deeper red. She was at a loss for words to counter that line. When Frank went home, Sherry went to the garage for apples for her pie. She picked up the bucket and carried it to the kitchen. Mitzi stayed behind to explore the garage.
Sherry had to go get her because she climbed up on the work bench and couldn't figure out how to get down. "Curiosity killed the cat," Sherry informed her as she carried her back to the house closing the kitchen door.
When her pie was in the oven, she set the timer and went to the den to put the clothes Angie Dale had given her on the book shelves. She had previously gone through them but there were too many to put in her plastic storage tubs. As she sorted through them she thought about Mark. She thought about him all the time. But now she mentally went over her list of things she wanted to talk to him about.
She lost track of time until she heard the buzzer of the timer going off. She hurried to the kitchen to take the pie from the oven. It looked perfect. She hoped it tasted as good. She wanted to surprise Mark with her culinary capabilities. The aroma filled the kitchen. The only thing missing was the cinnamon. She didn't have any. She set the pie on the counter and glanced at the clock. Both hands pointed straight up.
She heard a vehicle and looked out the window. Frank was getting out of his truck with a plastic bag. She could only guess it was lunch. As he walked into the kitchen. he drew a deep breath. "It smells yummy in here. I brought vanilla ice cream to go with it. Homemade."
"I just took it out of the oven," she protested.
He shrugged. "It should be cooled off by the time we eat our sandwiches. Jan made me some ham salad and I brought homemade bread and lettuce." He set the bag on the counter and began to unpack it. "And milk. Don't just stand there, girl. Help me get this around so we can eat. I'm starved."
"You look starved. I know how Jan cooks. What did you have for breakfast this morning?"
"Sausage and pancakes. But that was five hours ago. I've been working since then."
She took down two plates as he spread two large slices of homemade bread with the ham salad. He topped them with lettuce and added a second slice of bread on each. Sherry cut them diagonally and carried them to the table as he got two glasses from the cupboard and poured the milk.
"If I eat a sandwich this big I won't be able to hold pie and ice cream," she complained.
"Just eat it. You've lost weight. You need some extra calories."
"I'll get sick. My nerves have been so bad..."
"Eat."
She hadn't realized how hungry she was until she began eating. Frank devoured his sandwich and drained his glass of milk. Without asking her permission, he got up and cut the pie. Steam poured out adding to the aroma.
"I only want a little piece," Sherry said. "I'll cut my own. Just enough to taste it." The ice cream began to melt as soon as she scooped it onto the pie. "I told you it's too hot."
"The ice cream will cool it off and the pie will melt the ice cream. Just the way I like it. Jan makes good ice cream."
"What are we going to do with the leftover ice cream? I don't have a freezer."
"I'll take it home."
When the dishes were done, she went back to work in the den. Her clothes were all sorted, folded and placed on the lowest shelves. She carried her books, an armful at a time, to the den and placed them on the shelf above her clothes. She didn't even have enough to fill one shelf. That would change. She would begin looking for books in the thrift store. Winter was coming and she loved to read. She could curl up in front of the fireplace while Mark did his school work... She stopped herself. They hadn't even had that talk yet.
She looked out the window at the blowing leaves. The trees would soon be bare. Something tugged at her heart, calling her to come down to the old swimming hole. She wondered if the temperatures had warmed up. The brightly shining sun could be deceiving.
She took Mitzi to the breezeway, made sure the doors to the kitchen and garage were closed, went outside and began walking down the slope toward the creek. Frank came around the field with his machine and waved. She waved back.
At the swimming hole she looked out over the water. Yellow and red leaves floated by on their way to the rock dam where they got hung up until too many piled up and spilled over with the water. A huge poplar tree had blown down over the creek quite some time ago. On the far side, the limbs had been sawed off, probably for firewood. The tree had been uprooted and its huge root system was still attached. Along one side, the soil had been scraped out between the roots to form a ladder.
She climbed up and walked out over the swimming hole where she sat down with her sneaker-clad feet hanging over the water. She let the muse take over and was soon thinking of three children splashing in the water on a hot summer's day. Mark had taught her to swim.
"Mom's calling me," Sherry said and waded to shore. She'd felt so heavy when she first got out of the water. She scrambled up the bank. "I'm coming, Mom!" She knew she'd be in trouble for being down at the creek without an adult present.
She tripped on a piece of a dead limb and fell, cutting her knee on a sharp rock. She'd cried when she saw the blood flowing. Mark folded his tee shirt and wrapped it around her leg and tied it in place with the string from one of his sneakers. "I'll carry you piggy-back," he told her and squatted down so she could climb on his back. She'd cried out when he put his arm around her leg because it hurt. Then he'd slid his hands under her bottom and laced his fingers together to make a seat.
She wasn't afraid of him. She didn't think he was being bad by touching her butt. He was just trying to help her. Her mother had been furious and tried to hit Mark. She never understood why until now. Her mother thought Mark was being bad.
Her reverie was interrupted when Frank called, "Have you figured out how you're going to get back to shore?"
She pulled her feet up and tried to stand up and nearly fell in. Frank laughed at her futile effort. "It's not funny!" she called back to him.
"Just do as I tell you. Put your right hand on the tree trunk to brace yourself. Now pull your left leg up and over the tree until you're sitting astride. Now put your hands on the tree in front of you and scoot ahead. Keep doing that until you're over here."
She hitched herself along until she was over land instead of water. Frank was there to help her down. "If it'd be summertime, I'd have let you fall in."
She wrinkled her nose at him. "I know how to swim. Mark taught me a long time ago. Frank, I remembered."
"Remembered what?"
"The day Mark brought Lisa and me swimming down here. I know he didn't mean any harm when he touched me like he did. He didn't molest me like Mom said."
He grinned down at her. "We already told you that. Didn't you believe us?"
"Yes. But it's means so much to remember it. The next time I see Mom I'm going to tell her, too." Her face got a pinched look like she would cry. "All those years that I grew up without Gram, believing what Mom told me. It hurts so much."
"I've got to take the dump truck to the bins to empty it. Want to ride along?"
"Sure. Why not?" She not only rode along when he went to unload the truck, but she rode along in the combine for most of the afternoon. And they talked about a little of everything. But every time Frank tried to talk about her and Mark she guided the conversation away to a safer topic, saying, "I need time to get my feelings about Mark straightened out. He's going to stop after school so we can talk until it's time to do the milking."
"Better have a pot of coffee ready for him. He likes his coffee as much as I do."
The next time he stopped to unload the combine's bin, she climbed down. "It's three o'clock. Mark will be home soon. Thanks for putting up with me."
"My pleasure. Usually the only company I have is Laddie and the radio. You can ride along anytime."
Sherry walked slowly back to the house. Tension was building as to what she would say to Mark. Laddie padded along beside her. "You can't come in the house until you stop wanting to use Mitzi for a chew toy," she told him. She sat down on the porch at the top of the steps. Laddie lay down beside her laying his head on her thigh.
She scratched behind his ears and petted him as she let her mind drift to what the future might hold. "Oh, my," she said as she looked at her watch. "It's almost time for Mark to be here."
She pushed to her feet and unlocked the door. "No, Laddie, you can't come in." Mitzi wasn't in the breezeway. The garage door stood open. She was certain she had closed it. She walked to the door and called, "Here, kitty, kitty, kitty." Mitzi didn't come and she didn't see her anywhere in the garage.
"Now where could she be?" She closed the door to the garage and turned around to the kitchen door which stood open. She stared in horror at the scene before her. Almost everything breakable was shattered on the floor. Her apple pie was turned upside down on top of it all. "Who?"
Stepping carefully so she wouldn't cut her feet on the glass, she picked up the phone and dialed Frank's cell. He answered immediately. "Frank, please come right away! Someone has trashed my house."
"Listen! Get out of there! Whoever did it may still be there. I'm on my way as fast as this machine can bring me."
Chapter 22
Sherry stood with her hand on the wrought iron porch post as she watched the big green machine lumber up the slope toward her house. Her heart felt like it was being squeezed and the lump in her throat felt as big as a baseball. Her efforts to keep from crying made it hard to breathe. Who could have done this to her? Her first thoughts turned to Elena Bayshore but she was wearing a GPS bracelet on her ankle. Was she cunning enough to beat the system?
Frank parked the combine beside the yard and climbed down. He came toward Sherry on the run and took the porch steps two at a time. He seized Sherry in an embrace. "Thank God you're okay."
"I couldn't find Mitzi," she choked. Tears filled her eyes.
"She probably found herself a hidey hole. Cats are like that."
"What if she's dead lying in there under all that broken glass?"
"I'll have a look. You stay here. We don't want to disturb things before the police get here." He went inside.
It seemed like a long time before he returned. "I didn't see Mitzi but I can tell you that whoever did this was in a fit of rage. Even the windows are broken out. I turned off the furnace. No use in wasting all that heating oil. Mitzi may be in the den. That door's closed."
"It was open when I left."
"Perhaps Mitzi was being a pest and whoever did this shut her up out of the way. We'll see once the police get here. I called PSP and Mark. And Jan. Mark said he was on the exit ramp from 322. The way he drives he won't be long getting here."
"Why would anyone do this? I didn't have much; now I have even less."
"I'll tell you one thing, Sherry. You can't stay here until this is cleaned up and the windows fixed. It isn't safe. Here comes Mark and it looks like he's only hitting the high spots."