“So…where will she go, then?”
“A social worker will be up shortly to talk to her. They’ll probably find a women’s shelter for her, until they can locate family.”
“A shelter?”
“Yes, if they have room. Don’t worry, sir. We won’t put her out on the street.” The doctor patted Steve on the shoulder. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have rounds to finish.”
Steve watched as the doctor walked off, then turned and walked into the room.
She was looking out the window, but turned when she heard the door open. She immediately brightened upon seeing him. “You came,” she said, sitting up in the bed.
“Of course. I told you I would.”
“I know. I was afraid you were just saying that.”
“I don’t say something, if I don’t mean it, sweetheart.” He grinned and tossed his hat on a chair. “How you feelin’ today, darlin’?” he asked, sitting on the bed. He noticed the dark circles under her eyes and figured she didn’t get much sleep.
“Much better. They say I can leave,” she said, smiling, putting on a front for him.
“Yeah. I stopped the doctor out in the hall, and he told me.” Steve hesitated for a moment, watching her, and then continued. “He said a social worker was going to try to find you a place in a women’s shelter.”
“Yes,” she replied.
Steve watched as the smile faded from her face and she looked down at her hands.
“Hey, um, I had this crazy idea driving over here. Now don’t turn me down ‘till you’ve heard me out, okay?”
“Okay. Go on,” she agreed, watching him.
“Well, I’ve been meaning to hire someone to do the cooking and laundry and pick up a little around the place, and well, I just never got around to it, and I was thinking, maybe you’d be interested in the job, until you get your memory back, that is. I couldn’t pay much, but I’d throw in room and board. I think it’d work out for both of us.” He stopped, realizing he was babbling for the first time in his life. What was it about this girl that got to him?
“Cooking?” she asked, looking confused.
“Umm…yeah. You do know how to cook, right?”
“I’m not sure,” she replied, her brow furrowed in thought.
“Well, darlin’, anything you make has got to be better than Pop’s cooking. I don’t think I’ll survive much longer if I have to keep eating that slop. Please, say you’ll do it. Save me.” He gave her his best sad-eyed, puppy-dog look.
“How can I refuse that look?” she asked, the smile returning to her face.
“You can’t. It’s part of my charm,” he replied. “Come on, let’s get you out of here. All this talk about food has got me starving. Are you up for some pancakes?”
Before she knew it, he had her checked out and in his pickup truck, heading to find somewhere to eat.
“If you can wait until we get back to Ruby Falls, there’s a little diner in town.” Steve looked over at her.
“Ruby Falls?”
“Yeah. Ruby Falls.” His gaze left the road to glance over at her. When he saw the questioning look on her face, he continued. “Georgia. That’s where our place is located. We had to drive you into Mercer last night. They have the closest hospital. It’s only about fifteen miles from Ruby Falls.”
“Oh.”
“So? What do you say? Can you wait until we get back there to eat breakfast?”
“That’s fine. Really, I’m not that hungry. I had some oatmeal,” she replied.
“Yuck!”
“It wasn’t that bad.”
“Bleck.”
“Okay, maybe I’m a little hungry.” She grinned.
A little while later, they drove into the small town of Ruby Falls, and Steve pulled into a diagonal parking space on what appeared to be the main street. The window of one of the storefronts was painted in gold lettering with the words ‘Margie’s Diner’.
They got out.
Steve waited for her on the sidewalk and held the door for her. A tiny bell over the door jingled as they entered. They sat at a booth with red, vinyl seats. Steve took two plastic coated menus from behind the napkin holder and handed her one.
A waitress came over, turned their coffee cups right side up, and began pouring them both coffee without asking.
“Hey, darlin’, what are you doin’ waitressing? I thought you were management,” Steve teased.
“Ha, ha. Darleen didn’t show up this morning. It’s not like her, but then she’s not been herself for a few weeks now. I think she’s having boyfriend trouble.”
“Boyfriend? Is she back with Jimmy again?”
“No, this is some new guy. She hasn’t told me much about him, but I get the feeling…”
“What?”
“Oh, never mind. What can I get you, darlin’?”
“You save me some of them honey biscuits this morning?” Steve asked.
“Of course. Don’t I always? You want the usual?”
“I’m dyin’ for some of your strawberry waffles, Margie.”
“Waffles, huh?”
“With strawberries and whip cream,” Steve clarified with a grin.
“And who’s your friend? You gonna introduce us or what?”
“Umm, sure. Margie this is…this is Summer. She’s our new housekeeper.” Steve looked over as she almost spit out a mouthful of coffee.
“Pleased to meet you, Summer. Steve’s a good guy; you just have to cut through all the hogwash. So, what’ll you have, Summer?”
“Umm, I guess I’ll have the same. Thanks.”
“Margie left, and she looked at Steve questioningly. “Summer? Where did you get that?”
“Well, look, we have to call you something, and I sure as hell am not calling you Jane Doe. I think Summer fits you.”
“Oh, really? Why?”
“Well, because you’re a blue-eyed, blonde and pretty as a sunny summer’s day.”
She stared at him a long moment, then she smiled and shrugged. “Okay. I like that.”
“Good. Now drink your coffee, Summer.”
They drank their coffee, and soon Margie brought two big plates of waffles, piled high with strawberries and whip cream. She also slid a plate of honey biscuits in front of Steve, and she refilled their coffees.
“Y’all need anything else, now?” she asked.
“No, Margie. Thanks,” Steve said, as she set the check down on the table.
“Enjoy your breakfast. It was nice to meet you, Summer. And Steve, say hello to Jessie for me.” She walked away.
“Who’s Jessie?” Summer asked Steve.
He poured syrup on his waffles. “She’s my daughter. You’ll meet her later, when she gets home from school. She’s a senior in high school.”
“Oh. I didn’t realize you were married,” Summer commented, lowering the mouthful of waffles she was about to eat.
“I’m not. I was.”
“You’re divorced then?”
“Umm, no, not divorced. My wife disappeared twelve years ago,” Steve said, his expression turning blank.
“Disappeared?” Summer asked, looking up from her plate. “What do you mean?”
“She just vanished. Went to town one day and never came home.” He didn’t say anything more for a few minutes. He just sat there, drinking his coffee.
Summer didn’t know what to say. He obviously didn’t want to talk about it. She looked down at her plate. “I’m sorry. It’s really none of my business. I-”
Steve interrupted her, as if he hadn’t even heard her. “She’d gone to town to run some errands, and she left Jessie with Pop.”
He was staring at the table, and Summer had a feeling that he was reliving it in his mind.
“Jessie was four years old then, going on five. Rita stopped to pick up some photos of her and Jessie that I had taken that week. Patsy at the drugstore had called to tell her they were in, and Rita couldn’t wait to see them. She was supposed to meet her girlfriend for lunch, here at this diner,” he explained, tapping the table with his finger. “Patsy said Rita couldn’t wait to hurry over and show her friend the photos. She said she remembered that Rita had glanced down at her watch and that it had been about five minutes to noon.”
He looked up at Summer and smiled, remembering his wife. “Rita never liked to be late, so she had hurried out.”
Summer nodded.
He looked away. “It’s only two blocks from the drugstore to here. She never showed up. Her girlfriend called the ranch at twenty minutes past noon to see if she had left yet. Pop told her that she’d left a while ago and was going to the drugstore first to pick up her photos. Her friend waited for a little while, but she had to be back to work at one.”
He paused to take a sip of coffee.
“What happened?”
“Rita never came home. At first Pop didn’t worry. He figured she must be busy. After all, she hardly ever had any time for herself since Jessie was born. He figured she needed it, and she hadn’t seen too much of her girlfriends, either.
“I had been across the state line that day, looking at a new tractor. When I got home at five o’clock, she still wasn’t back, and Pop was starting to worry. It wasn’t like Rita to leave Jessie for that long, or not to have called. Of course, back in those days, no one had cell phones.
Summer nodded.
“We went looking for her. We found her car parked where she’d left it, parked around the corner from the drugstore. We searched and searched, and we reported her missing to the sheriff.”
He was quiet for a moment.
“We never found her. It was like she just disappeared off the face of the earth, and no one saw a thing.”
Summer reached across the table and touched his hand. “I’m so sorry. It must be terrible, the not knowing.”
He didn’t say anything, just nodded and took another sip of his coffee. “Come on, eat your waffles. They’re getting cold,” he said, breaking out of the somber mood and forcing a smile.
They both sat in silence for a while, until finally Summer pushed her plate back. “That’s it. I can’t eat another bite. I’m stuffed.”
Steve looked at the food still left on her plate and pointed at it with his fork. “You’re gonna hurt Margie’s feelings. She’ll think you don’t like the food.”
“I liked it. It was great. There’s just way too much of it,” Summer said defensively.
Steve smiled and stole a sausage off her plate.
Summer rolled her eyes and laughed.
He finished his plate, paid the check, and they headed back to the truck.
He opened the door for her, and she climbed in. He closed the door, walked around, and climbed in the driver’s side. Starting the engine up, he backed out and headed down the street.
“Mind if I smoke?” he asked, turning to look at her and reaching for a pack of cigarettes sitting on the dash.
“No. Go ahead, but those things will kill you, you know?” She watched him shake a cigarette out of the pack with one hand and put it in his mouth.
He tossed the pack back up on the dash, took a lighter out of his pocket, and lit it. Rolling down the window, he blew the smoke out and turned to look at her, smiling. “I know. I need to quit, huh?”
“Yes, you do,” she agreed, smiling.
“I’ve tried, but it’s damn hard,” he confessed, taking another hit off the cigarette and looking over at her with a sheepish look on his face.
“If at first you don’t succeed…”
“Try, try again. Yeah, I know,” he finished the saying.
She smiled, shaking her head and looked out the window.
“Hey, you’re not going to nag me day and night, are you?”
She turned back to study him for a moment and then smiled. “I might.”
“Oh, Lord,” he said, shaking his head.
Steve drove down the street to the Super Center at the outskirts of town. He pulled in the lot and parked.
Summer looked over at him. “What are we doing?”
“I thought we’d pick up a few things for you. Toothbrush, underwear, whatever basics you may need. If you can wait on clothes shopping, I think my daughter may have some clothes that would fit you,” he replied, opening the door and climbing out.
They went into the store.
“I need to go to the automotive department. Why don’t you get whatever you need and I’ll meet you in about twenty minutes? Is that enough time?”
“Yes. Sure.”
Summer picked up some toiletries and some underwear, and met him at the cash registers.
He had a case of motor oil under his arm and a pack of spark plugs in his hand. They checked out and Summer grabbed her bag of items, while Steve put the case of motor oil on his shoulder, and they walked back out to the truck and headed back to the farm.
Steve pulled the truck down the gravel drive and parked behind the farmhouse. It was the first time that Summer got a chance to see the place in daylight. She looked around as she reached for the door handle.
There was a large gravel area behind the house with a huge barn set back and to the left from the house by about fifty feet. It was unpainted, and the weathered wood had turned to a light gray. There was an attached corral on the far side. She glanced around and noticed a very small second house with a front porch set back about the same distance to the right, under some tall pine trees.
She climbed out of the truck and shut the door. The yard was neat, without a lot of clutter and junk lying around. Just then she noticed a cat rubbing up against her leg, and she bent down to stroke its soft gray fur.
“That’s Eddie,” Steve informed her. “There are about a dozen more cats around the place. They live out in the barn. Except for Eddie. He’s Jessie’s cat.”
“I see,” Summer acknowledged. She picked up the cat and scratched behind its ears. “Well, hello, Eddie.” The cat purred and closed his eyes.
“Now you’ve done it. You’ll never get rid of him,” Steve warned her. “Come on. I want you to meet Pop.”
Summer set the cat down, followed Steve up the back stairs, and through the screen door.
“This is the mudroom,” he said, over his shoulder.
It was a small room with a washer, dryer, utility sink, and what looked like a waist high freezer chest. There was a line of pegs against the wall that held assorted jackets and quilted flannel shirts and a row of muddy boots and shoes along the floor.
Summer followed him through another door and into the kitchen. She vaguely remembered this room from the night before. She remembered the old wooden table and chairs. The floor was old, red linoleum. There was a white porcelain double-sink under a window that looked out over the back. The curtains were cheery red gingham, but had seen better days. The ancient refrigerator and stove were a matching harvest gold.