Wendy Hornsby - The Color of Light

There was a discussion about a rocking chair in the sun porch that Mom said her great-grandfather had made. The experts agreed that the rocker was very old, quite plain, worth little, and absolutely charming. It was labeled for transport to Minneapolis.

During the upstairs foray, the dragonfly brooch caused some excitement and a lively debate about its age and market value. I heard the front doorbell, gave the brooch a last fond glance, and went down to see who was there.

Gracie Nussbaum greeted me by pinching her nostrils together. “What is in that Dumpster, dear? Something you found in the back of the freezer?”

“It does smell ripe,” I said, ushering her inside. “The refuse people promised they would pick it up today.”

She pressed her cheek against mine. “How’s it coming over here?”

“We’re almost to the end, Gracie,” I said. “We’re just waiting for the trucks to come and haul away Susan’s things and Mom’s piano. I know, I think, what’s going home with me. When all that’s cleared away, we’re ready for the cleaning crew and then University Housing’s walk-through.”

“What a relief it will be for you to have it done.” She turned toward the stairs when she heard the women’s laughter. “Is Susan upstairs?”

“She is.”

“If you’ll excuse me, dear, I’ll just go up and say hello.” On her way up the stairs, she glanced back at me. “You should call your mother.”

I heard a truck out front and opened the door to see who it was. I called up the stairs to Susan. Her hauler had arrived.

Despite the advice offered by five women executives, the hauling crew made short work of strapping protective quilted pads around Susan’s pieces and loading them all onto a pallet that was set on the truck’s hydraulic back gate. When everything was arranged on the pallet, the load was tightly cocooned inside heavy plastic wrap. Susan signed the bill of lading, and watched to make sure that her pallet was correctly and securely labeled. Before they closed the truck’s big door, she slipped the crew chief some cash and offered an admonition about her expectations for a safe delivery.

After a few near misses with the Dumpster and the flower borders, the truck was on its way down the street. There was a collective sigh and a moment of silence.

“Mission accomplished,” Jean offered with a grin.

“Thank you for everything, cousin.” Susan wrapped an arm around me. “We’ll collect our bags and get out of your hair now.”

“Stay for lunch?” I asked.

“Thanks, but we really should get on the road,” Maureen said. She turned to Gracie. “Where do you live?”

“Just a couple of blocks over,” Gracie said. “My bag is all packed and ready to go.”

I laughed. “Have you signed on as tour guide, Gracie?”

“No dear, I’m just a hitchhiker. Your mother is driving up to San Simeon this afternoon to meet us. She wanted to visit with Susan. The change in plans made that much easier for her. And she didn’t need to talk very hard to persuade me to come along.”

“Oh” was all I could think to say. Mom didn’t need to clear her plans with me, but I admit that I felt quite left out of the loop. I was tired. A few days on the coast would have been a welcome break. Not today, though. But soon, very soon. I managed what I hoped was a smile. “Have fun.”

Gracie took my arm as we all walked back into the house. “Your mother would have called, dear. But you know how you dig, Maggie. She simply does not want you to delve further into Tina Bartolini’s private life. And it is private, you know. After all these years, can we let her memory rest in peace?”

“You sounded like Mom just then, Gracie.”

“I tried my best to.” She wagged her finger at me. “Why do you dig so, Maggie, dear?”

“I’ve given that some thought, Gracie. I think it’s because I always knew that people were keeping secrets from me. And on some level, I knew the secrets were about me.”

“Did you?”

“I’d have to be deaf and blind not to.”

Apparently that was a good enough answer for her. She smiled up into my face and patted my cheek. “Promise me two things, dear?”

“Maybe.”

“Promise me you will call your mother right away. And promise me that this time you won’t grill her about events she feels are best left buried.”

As I watched Susan go upstairs for her bag, I thought about something she had said earlier. Some secrets are too big to be kept forever. I thought it was also possible that some secrets were too big to be revealed.

“Maggie?” Gracie gave my arm a squeeze to get my attention.

“Maybe,” I said.

Max carried Susan’s bag to the six-person van they had rented for the trip. A “mommy van” Angie called it.

“I wish I could be of more help to you,” Susan said, taking my arm as we walked toward the van. “This is such a big job. But I think I can be most useful now by just getting out of your way.”

“You’ve helped more than you know,” I said. “I enjoyed the little time we’ve had. Now, go have a wonderful time.”

“You will try to join us by the end of the week?”

“I’ll do my best,” I said.

Max handed her into the van. After we waved good-bye, Max, with a heavy sigh, said, “God, would I love to be in that van.”

“Call Susan. They’ll turn around and come back for you.” I told him Mom and Gracie were joining the party and he might as well.

“Nope.” He draped an arm over my shoulders and pulled me against him. “I promised Jean-Paul I won’t let you out of my sight until he gets back tonight.”

“He’ll be here soon enough. If you want to go, then go.”

He shook his head. “Even if he hadn’t asked, I’d be staying. You and Casey are all the family I have left, kiddo. Nothing happens to you on my watch. Besides, we have work to do.”

I pulled away enough to look up at him. “You’re not going to start sleeping on my bedroom floor again, are you?”

The question took him aback. “You remember that?”

“I do,” I said. “Something Susan said this morning reminded me. Why did you do that?”

“I don’t know, exactly,” he said with a little shrug, releasing me. We walked back inside, away from the smelly Dumpster. “It was probably more for my sake than yours. After Mark died, I didn’t want you to wake up in the night feeling sad and alone. I wanted to be there if you needed me.”

“Uncle Max, Susan asked me why you’re so much younger than Dad. It occurred to me that when you lost your parents, you were about the same age my friend Beto was when his mother died.”

He thought for a moment before he nodded. “Pretty close, yeah.”

“I don’t know very much about what happened to your parents.”

He knuckled my head. “You weren’t around yet, squirt.”

“Max, after they died, did you sometimes wake up feeling sad and alone?”

“That was some conversation you and Susan had,” he said, trying to pull off a scowl but failing. “But, yes, sometimes I did. I thought I had plenty to be sad about. You know, strange room, new town, new school, Mom and Dad gone, living with my big brother. But Al and Betsy just folded me into their household like I was one of their own. Mark and Emily were little pains in the ass and I fell in love with them. It all felt very normal very soon.”

“I suppose I should thank you for softening the ground around here so that when Dad got me away from Isabelle and brought me home, Mom didn’t toss me out on my ear.”

“Yep, you were exactly what Betsy needed all right, one more little pain in the ass to bring up.”

The piano mover came. The three-man crew locked Mom’s beautiful instrument onto a triangular steel-frame dolly, wheeled it out the front door and lowered it off the porch on a portable hydraulic lift. I asked the crew boss, a giant of a man named Hong, if I could pay him to also shift some furniture out to the garage for me.