If I Had You Page 17

  Under Nora’s supervision, Tansy and Erin had been making mud pies in the backyard. Nora had left the hose dribbling in the flowerbed. She’d better not leave the girls alone much longer; they would look like mud pies themselves if she didn’t watch.

  So without thinking too much about it she said, “I keep the Lumina title in the cedar chest. When you open the lid, you’ll see your grandmother’s quilt on the left side. Dig under there and you’ll find my papers.”

  “Glad I asked,” he said, shaking his head. “I never would have found it there.”

  When Nora hurried outside, she found Tansy smudging mud under Erin’s eyes. “Look, Nana. I’m making her a football player.”

  “You girls have about five more minutes before I turn this hose on you.” Nora turned the water up and made a broad spray with her thumb. She flicked water along the row of hedges. “Tansy, don’t get any dirt in her eyes, honey. Be very careful.”

  Nora loved the sounds of water. It beat a clump of periwinkles, pooling in dark leaves, plastering stems and blue-pink petals to the dirt. Crickets leapt to higher ground. Petunias lolled sideways under the bombardment. Then she sprinkled water over the girls, too, as they danced in circles through the grass and shrieked. All three of them were laughing when Ben slid open the patio door and called to Nora.

  “Honey?” he called. “Will you come here a minute?”

  “I’m wet,” she answered. “Did you find the car title?”

  “I did.”

  “Good. Okay, girls. Into the laundry room this minute.” She tickled them each in the ribs to get them headed in the right direction and they shrieked again. “Erin, I’ll bring you an extra pair of Tansy’s pajamas. We’ve got to do laundry before I can send you home.”

  But Ben was still standing on the patio with his brow furrowed. “I found some other things of interest, too.”

  “You did?” She craned her neck to see what he had in his hand. There was a stack of folded papers, a clothbound journal, and two or three steno notebooks in which she’d jotted poems and recipes and birthdays that she wanted to remember.

  Goodness, Nora thought, suddenly worried. Had Ben taken the time to look through any of that stuff? That clothbound book had been her journal from high school. She ticked off subjects she might have mentioned during her senior year and decided that, other than mention of her old boyfriend and one anecdote about a water fight in which she’d broken her toe, there would be nothing to make Ben do anything more than laugh himself silly.

  But the journal wasn’t what Ben was holding up to show her.

  “I was curious about this,” he said, holding up a slip of paper with yellowed edges.

  “What?”

  “Come look at it. It’s odd.”

  She stepped onto the patio and took it from him. When she unfolded it and looked, the sight froze her blood.

  The receipt was for doctor’s services at a clinic in Dallas, generically titled Care-of-the-Metroplex Women’s Center. Like any physician’s receipt, portions of it were illegible. Even though the words couldn’t be read, Nora knew what they were. Vacuum aspiration and curettage.

  “What is this place? Why would this be in here, Nora? Do you know what this is?”

  Dumbly, she shook her head. “I don’t,” she lied.

  “It’s from twenty-seven years ago. We were dating each other then. Did you have surgery or something that I didn’t know about?”

  “I—I don’t think so,” she hedged.

  Care-of-the-Metroplex Women’s Center had been an abortion clinic. It might even still be in service there; Nora didn’t know. At the bottom of the receipt, the cost of her abortion procedure had been tallied. $217. Beside that, the red ink stamp: PAID IN FULL.

  Nora had saved it because it was a medical paper. She’d been trying to act grown up and grown-ups were supposed to save things like that. After all these many years, she had even forgotten it was there.

  It was almost ninety degrees out here, so there wasn’t any reason for her to be shivering with cold. If Ben questioned her, she would explain it away. Her clothes had gotten wet with the hose.

  “Nana!” Tansy called from the laundry-room door. “Me and Erin are in here! We’re waiting for pa-jam-as.”

  “I just don’t remember what that is,” she lied. She looked at it again and shrugged. “You know what they say, Ben. If you can’t remember something, it must not have been important.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Here, let me have that thing.” She took the slip and crumpled it up in her hand, her heart pounding. She couldn’t believe it was so easy to lie to him. “I’ll take care of this and throw it away.”

  TANSY CAME IN one afternoon carrying a dilapidated cardboard box from her closet. “Can I play with this?”

  “Oh,” Nora said, putting her own hands beneath the box, too, just in case it wanted to topple. “I had forgotten all about those.”

  Tansy plopped the box on the carpet and pried open the lid. “Nana, what are they?”

  “Pieces to a tea set.”

  Tansy picked up one wad of newspaper with her little hands. A tiny teacup, made from eggshell porcelain, rolled out onto the floor.

  Nora continued. “It’s to have tea parties with.”

  “Whose is it? Is it yours?”

  “Oh, well. Just . . . be careful, sweetie. It breaks.”

  “Why is it wrapped in newspaper?”

  “I did that.”

  “But why?”

  “When something’s very breakable, you want to protect it.”

  As her granddaughter pulled out yet another newsprint-wrapped object, Nora realized she would have to sit down this minute and show Tansy how to handle teacups. Either that or she ran the risk of having something chipped or cracked.

  “Here.” Nora knelt beside her granddaughter. One by one, Nora unfolded pages torn from the Butlers Bend Echo-Bulletin, dated long ago. Dated the day that Nora had sorted through Tess’s belongings and put them away.

  “Look,” she said to Tansy and revealed a platter no larger than a sand dollar. “Here. Do you want to hold it? Set it down carefully on the floor. Carefully.” The melancholy she felt upon seeing this tiny plate was something Nora hadn’t expected. In this one vulnerable moment, Nora ached for her missing daughter with a sharp pain that felt physical. An invisible hand seemed to grab her heart and squeeze.

  She and Ben had been through the entire Dallas phone book on more than one occasion, searching for a Cootie Banks. Ben had confessed that he’d driven through several dicey neighborhoods when he’d been in Dallas for an asphalt conference, hoping to catch a glimpse of someone familiar. “I was afraid I was going to get shot,” he’d told her later.

  “Here’s the little teapot,” Nora said. “And here’s the lid. It fits like this.” She set it on top with a gentle clink. “See? You can do this one. You get to put the lid on the sugar bowl.”

  “Does real sugar go in here?”

  “It can.”

  Once Nora had gained confidence in Tansy’s cautious hands, they spread the entire ensemble before them between their knees—the sugar and creamer, cups and saucers, the teapot with its spout curved like a ballerina’s arm.

  “Why is this here, Nana? Did you buy it for me?”

  “No.”

  “Why do you have it then? Who does it belong to?”

  Silence. In that pause, Nora muttered up another of her quiet prayers before she spoke. “It belonged to your mother, that’s who it belonged to.”

  “Oh.” Tansy sat still for a time. Then, “Do you think she would like me to play with it?”

  “Yes, I think she would like it.”

  “Can we have a tea party right now?”

  “Hm-m-mm.” Nora didn’t have to think about that very long. “I don’t see why not.” And as Nora filled the tiny teapot with warm chai, she cradled it in her fingers for a moment and felt the heat against her palm. She poured two-percent milk inside the miniature creamer.
She dug deep inside a drawer and found a box of sugar cubes. Ben had gone through the cookies—such a sweet tooth he had!—so she covered the diminutive platter with a stack of crackers and butter.

  They’d settled into their chairs accompanied by a teddy bear and two dolls and had begun to smear butter on crackers when Tansy asked, “Nana?”

  Nora had finished the cracker and took a tiny sip of tea, just the way a lady of breeding is supposed to sip tea, with her pinkie finger extended. “Yes?”

  “How many babies did you have in your tummy?”

  The teacup paused in midair. Nora stared at her.

  “Well, I—”

  She couldn’t swallow as her heart began to ramrod in her throat.

  Why would Tansy ask a question like that?

  Tansy shoved a cracker in her mouth. There were crumbs all over her lips. “I think, maybe, two.”

  “Tansy, honey,” Nora’s voice wavering. “What are you asking me about that for? Why would you want to know?”

  “Was my mommy in your tummy?”

  “Yes.”

  She kept chewing. Nora ought to tell her not to talk with her mouth full, only she couldn’t. Her blood had turned to ice.

  “Then, was I in your tummy?”

  Oh.

  Oh.

  Just a child’s question. As insignificant as the questions on the doctor’s form that asked every time she went in for her annual exam, How many pregnancies? How many live births?

  “No, you were in your mama’s tummy. Your mama was in my tummy.”

  “Where is she now, Nana?”

  “Who?”

  “My mama.”

  Those other questions, Nora hadn’t expected. This one, she had known eventually would come. She took a deep breath before she spoke.

  “We don’t know, little one.”

  “Why did she leave me with you, Nana?”

  And now here Nora was, left fumbling for words. “She had hard things in her life. She left because she thought we could take better care of you then she could.”

  “Did she tell you that?”

  “No. But it’s what I think.”

  “Do you ever look for her?”

  “We used to, Tansy, but not anymore. Don’t let your tea get cold. You’d better sip some.”

  “Didn’t she want me, Nana?” Tansy, turning a sugar cube over and over, each granule sparkling as it caught the light.

  “Oh, yes. She wanted you; don’t ever doubt that.” Nora had been practicing these words for a long time. “Only, you have to understand this one thing. We wanted you more.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Ben had Tansy out inspecting the highway next in line for resurfacing, Project 290-04, when he heard the Grumman G154 Ag-Cat overhead.

  That’s the way it always happened with Creede Franklin. Boy could be gone forever and all you’d hear above would be the buzzing of bees. But let him come home on leave from the United States Air Force and, within hours, the sky would be full of him again.

  “Hey, Mr. Crabtree!” The biplane came at him so low Ben fought the urge to protect his head with his arms. He couldn’t do that. He used his hands to cover Tansy’s ears instead.

  The plane rose over the highway, banked sharply to the left, and aimed right toward him. Ben straddled the middle of the road and stood still. Here it came. Straight on. The plane yawed to the right at the last possible second.

  The old duster bounced three times when Creede set it down in the pasture. Baxton Lance would have something to say about that. Just like that kid, taking it upon himself to use Baxton’s alfalfa field for a landing strip. He landed wherever he wanted, like the whole of Gilford County belonged to him.

  The propeller chopped and slowed. Creede unfolded himself, climbed out. “Heard you were back in town, young man,” Ben shouted. “How’s the United States Air Force treating you? How’s Candice?”

  For all the times he’d used the word kid and boy and young man, Ben would never see Creede Franklin as anything else. “Howard Ruckmann told me you knocked a piece of stem crystal over in Jane’s china cabinet this morning, buzzing their place.”

  Creede, whistling Jungle Boogie through his teeth, came sauntering through the grass. He reached out to pump Ben’s hand with palms as big around as baseball mitts. “Guess I’d better give Missus Ruckmann a call and apologize. They don’t have stem crystal in Iraq. At least not where I fly.”

  “Well now, son.” Not meaning to sound stern, but it came out that way anyway. “You’d best realize where you’re flying now. You’re not in Saddam’s backyard. You’re in mine.”

  But Creede wasn’t looking at him. His whole demeanor had changed. He was staring at Tansy instead.

  “Don’t tell me this is who I think it is!”

  Tansy poked out her belly. Her mouth twisted like a candy wrapper.

  “This is our Tansy. Tansy, this is Cr—Mr. Franklin.”

  Creede glanced at Ben again. “She doesn’t look a thing like—” He clawed his hair with his huge hands. “Well, no, she does.”

  That was what everyone thought. No one said it aloud in front of her, but they all whispered the same words. She doesn’t look a thing like her mother. Then they realized they were wrong. Tansy was the spitting image of Tess. Except for all that hair. All those curls, all the wrong color.

  “Gosh, you’re growing up.” Creede bent to her level. “Last time I saw you, you were only about”—he indicated with his hands—“yay long.”

  “Thought she’d be a good one to help me inspect this road.” Ben peered past his elbow and lovingly jostled her arm. “Project 290-04, Gilford County. Wexler Paving starts resurfacing this road on Monday.”

  They all three stared at the road for a moment.

  “Looks like a fine highway to me. You ought to see what passes for roads in—”

  He stopped when Tansy let go of her grandfather’s hand. She picked up a chipped stone and rolled it between her fingers. She looked it all over before she offered it to Creede.

  “Thank you.”

  She hid her hands behind her back.

  “It’s a very pretty rock.”

  She spoke. “It’s granite.”

  Creede turned it inside his fingers, too. “Mind if I keep it?”

  “It’s a present,” she said. “You’re always supposed to keep a present.”

  “Well, thank you!” Then, “I tell you, Mr. Crabtree. This Ag-Cat is a queen among planes. Sure, I fly F-16s. But no matter the technology, no matter the newest thing, there’s always something about the first plane you fly.”

  “Is there?”

  “Same way there’s always something about the first girl you love—”

  That comment hung between them. He’s talking about Tess, Ben thought. When he saw the melancholy in Creede’s eyes, he knew he was right.

  “I feel like I’ve lost my closest friend sometimes,” Creede said.

  “Do you?”

  “I feel like I’ve lost her over and over again.”

  “We all do.”

  Neither of them had ever said her name. As though to counter the presence of Tess between them, Creede said, “You asked me about Candice. She’s doing okay. But it’s tough on her. We don’t have a lot of time together right now.”

  “It’s tough on any girl, being married to a flyboy.”

  “Sometimes I think I ought to give it up and stay closer to home. She doesn’t like Eielson very much.”

  There was a moment of cautious silence.

  “Say.” That same old grin stretched the width of Creede’s face. “What would you think if I took you up?”

  Well now, Ben thought. Nora would never approve of me letting Tansy do something dangerous like that.

  “Notice anything different about the old girl?”

  Ben eyed the green-and-yellow biplane with suspicion.

  “Dad took the hopper out. Once I left for the force, he figured I wouldn’t make money dusting crops. He converted her.”
>
  Ben knelt to brush dirt off Tansy’s hand, buying himself time. “Afraid we’d better take a rain check, Creede. Nora might not like— Well, she keeps a pretty close eye on this little one. Doesn’t want anything to happen to her.”

  “Converted her so she’s got two passenger seats. Got a seat belt in there for both of you. Cockpit’s totally gone, did you notice that? Aren’t many people get to fly open air above Texas, smell all that fine dirt. Oil. Cow. I-75 roadkill. Skunk.”

  “I don’t think we should,” Ben insisted.

  Creede pitched Tansy’s rock up and caught it in his fist. “It’ll be something she can tell her grandchildren about. Her first time up, with an honest-to-goodness lieutenant. Whaddaya say, kid? Up and down.” He winked. “Just ten minutes flying. Want to go?”

  Ben could have killed him for making it sound like a carnival ride. “I don’t think Nora would—” Even though she was way too heavy, he spun Tansy up into his arms, gripped the hem of her shirt with an anxious fist.

  “Grandpa,” she pleaded in the tiny voice that he would probably never learn to say no to. “I want to.”

  “It wouldn’t hurt anything,” Creede whispered.

  Tansy Aster was big and heavy already. But still, she could feel so small to Ben sometimes. She lay with her cheek and the heavy weight of her head pressed against the ridge of his jaw.

  “The open-air flying, it’s a guy thing. Women don’t understand the thrill,” Creede said. “I wouldn’t force you—”

  But suddenly Ben wanted to go up in that plane worse than anything. He wanted to make a decision about Tansy for once! Nora drove him crazy sometimes, always looking for danger. “You’d bring me back to my car? Right here? Resurfacing Project 290-04?”

  “I’ll set you both down right here.”

  “You promise?”

  “Yes.” The men’s eyes met. “I do.”

  Tansy’s face still lay against his, her skin as cool as an apple peel. She touched his cheeks with her hands; one of her littlest fingers, which wasn’t that little anymore, jabbed him in the nostril. “Grandpa, let’s go.”

  But this isn’t danger, he reminded himself. This is Creede. “Yes,” Ben echoed his granddaughter. “Let’s go.”