Susan Kirby - Your Dream And Mine

“Tootsie is your sister?”

He nodded.

Thomasina licked mayonnaise off her thumb and started gathering up papers while he talked about his sister and her job with a computer corporation in California.

“I guess you’re wanting to get back to your moving,” Trace said, when she had tidied up the table. “Are you going to get to the big stuff today?”

“The furniture?” said Thomasina. “I don’t think I’ll have time today.”

“Do you have someone to help you? Brothers? Friends? Your folks?”

“My parents are in Arizona. But two boys in my building bought a purple truck last week,” said Thomasina. “I can probably talk them into helping me out for a tank of gas, a sack of hamburgers and change for the video games at the mall.”

“Teenage versions of our little neighbors, are they?” he said with a baiting grin.

“No. Friends.” Thomasina paused in pleating her napkin and looked at him from beneath half-cocked lashes. “Thanks for the sandwich, by the way,” she added.

A scar had left a narrow indention at the corner of Trace’s eye. It blended into the fine lines that framed those darkly fringed bachelor button blues when he returned her smile. He glanced at his watch a second time, and got to his feet. “If you’re finished, I’ll drop you by the house.”

“That’s all right. I’ll walk home,” said Thomasina.

“Are you sure?”

She nodded. “I want to stop by the post office and change my address. May as well pick up a sack of groceries, too. Does Emmaline carry chocolate doughnuts?”

“Still planning on making friends with the rug rats?” he asked.

Tough guy. Squinting in the sunlight, so innocentlike. Thomasina smiled and countered, “Couldn’t be you like them just a little bit yourself, could it?”

“They’re no worse than traffic jams. Root canals. Clogged drains. Purple trucks,” he said.

“What’s wrong with purple trucks?” inserted Thomasina.

“There’s only one color for trucks. See there?” Trace tipped his head back as the cardinal overhead chirruped in agreement.

“Oh hush, bird. Nobody asked you,” said Thomasina.

Trace chuckled, waved and sauntered across the street to his truck, gleaming red in the sunshine.

The sun was going down as Thomasina arrived at Milt and Mary’s. She found Mary hard at work in the flower garden.

“Nice evening,” called Thomasina from the stone wall. “Is that a hummingbird there in the petunia bed?”

“Mmm.” Mary turned away, but not before Thomasina caught the glitter of tears in her eyes.

“Mary? What’s the matter?”

“I’m feeling a little blue, I guess.”

Thomasina dropped her canvas carryall on the low stone wall and moved closer. But Mary stopped her with an upraised hand. “I’ll be all right, honey. I’m in good company here. Why don’t you go on in and see about Milt?”

“You sure?”

Mary nodded, her face to the setting sun. Thomasina watched the rosy crown slip behind a blur of trees on the horizon. Shafts of light streamed across the heavens like countless arms uplifted in praise. Hallowed be Thy name. The prayer showered over her heart, quieting Thomasina’s anxiety as she retreated across the yard to the house.

Milt was in a chair by the bedroom window, talking on the telephone. He covered the receiver with his hand. “Get me a glass of water, would you, Tommy? I’ve been on the wire all evening, and I’m dry as cotton.”

When Thomasina returned with the water, he had ended his call. She took his blood pressure, his temperature and listened to his lungs before suggesting a bath.

“I guess I’m old enough to know when to scrub behind my ears. Sit down before you wear a hole in the rug.”

Thomasina sat. She returned her stethoscope and blood pressure cuff to her canvas carryall and pulled out her patient log. Her paperback book fell out, too.

“Wish somebody’d pay me to read on the job,” groused Milt, as she picked it up, crossed her legs and turned her log book to the proper page.

“Mmm.” Foot swinging, Thomasina took down the time, his heart rate, blood pressure and other routine information.

“Quit speaking, did you?” Milt spoke over the scratch of her pen.

“No, why?”

“Thought maybe I hurt your feelings.”

“No more than usual.” Glancing up from her record keeping, Thomasina saw him plucking at the sheet. “What’s the matter?”

“I’ve had some things on my mind,” he mumbled. “Sorry I growled.”

“I was kidding, Milt. You didn’t hurt my feelings.” Thomasina grinned and added, “Grumbling comes with the territory.”

“Shouldn’t though. I was wrong about Will and the girls, too,” he admitted. “I gave them a pretty hard time about going behind my back and sending you here.”

He was referring to his behavior following his release from the hospital after a respiratory infection turned into pneumonia. Emphysema complicated matters, which was why his doctor suggested nursing home care. Milt dug his heels in, saying Mary was all the nursing he needed. His children knew better. They went behind his back and called Picket Fence, arranging for round-the-clock nursing.

Frustrated over having no say in his own life, Milt railed over his perceived betrayal at the hands of his son and daughters, and ranted at Mary for defending them. He vented his frustrations and wounded pride on Thomasina, as well. Mary acted as a buffer, apologetic to Thomasina and appeasing to Milt. But even she lost patience when Milt tried to send Thomasina packing.

“Enough is enough!” cried Mary, shaking her finger in his face. “You let the girl do her job, or I’m digging a hole in the flower garden and throwing you in myself.”

Milt took a long look at his worn-out wife and shut his mouth. He had been a different man since.

“You’ve been a big help to Mary and me,” Milt continued. “A friend, too.”

“Careful. I’ll ask for a raise,” quipped Thomasina.

“Hush, Tommy, and let me finish,” he ordered. “The thing about Will and the girls making decisions over my head is that only yesterday I was telling them where they could and couldn’t go, and what time to be home, and I wasn’t taking any back talk, either.”

With his words came a wrenching glimpse of the brevity of life. Thomasina felt the press of work she had not even spoken aloud about, much less begun, and watched as Milt pushed the curtain back.

“It’s about dark,” he said, squinting toward the flower garden. “What’s keeping her?”

Thomasina’s thoughts pivoted. “Are you two at odds?”

“Who?” rasped Milt. “Mary and me? No. What makes you ask?”

Mary’s tears. His trembling hand. His apologies, as if he could use a friend in his corner.

Thomasina said, “The tree in the front yard’s still standing. I thought maybe she told you she’d rather you didn’t cut it down.”

“You’re not paying attention, Tommy.” Milt let the curtain fall back into the place and said without preamble, “We’ve got an appraiser coming tomorrow. We’re going to have an auction, and sell the equipment and the land, too, if we can get what it’s worth.”

The breath went out of Thomasina. She would have sworn he’d give up his lungs, his arms, his legs, his very lifeblood before he gave up his land.

“I’m making the arrangements first,” Milt continued. “Then I’ll tell Will. The girls both live out of state. I’d rather tell them in person, but that’s up to them.”

“None of them want the farm?” said Thomasina.

“They never have in the past. If they’ve changed their minds, they can give fair market value and there’ll be no auction.” Gaze narrowing, he added, “If you’re thinking I owe it to them free and clear, just let me say…”