Chapter 17 - The Future She Left Behind

Wednesday morning Katelyn’s son phoned as she stepped onto the back porch. “Hi, honey. Did you call to wish Grandma Chandler a happy birthday?”

“Is Dad serious? Are you guys getting divorced?”

Katelyn sat down on the steps. “When did you speak to your father?”

“A few minutes ago.”

How nice of Don to break the news to his kids on their grandmother’s birthday. “It’s true.”

“What happened? I thought you two were happy. It’s not like you ever argued or anything.”

Obviously Don hadn’t had the guts to tell Michael that he’d cheated on his mother. “Your father is having an affair.”

“No way!”

The outrage in Michael’s voice warmed Katelyn’s heart. She had no intention of bad-mouthing Don in front of the kids, but their children deserved the truth. “I didn’t find out until I received the divorce papers in the mail.”

“He didn’t talk to you first?”

“No. A courier delivered the legal document to the house.” Katelyn stared at her left hand. Her marriage was over even if she hadn’t yet signed the papers. But if she took off the ring, would others believe she was looking for another man? Then again, why did she care what anyone thought?

“I can’t believe Dad cheated on you. Are you okay?”

“I’m going to be fine. I don’t want you to worry about me.”

“Dad said the house sold already and our stuff will be moved to storage somewhere.”

“I’ll keep all of your things, including the bedroom furniture. You can get it whenever you want.”

“What are you going to do? It’s not like you can go out and get a job somewhere.”

Katelyn’s hackles rose. “I’m not helpless.”

“You’ve never had a job.”

“Your dad will make sure I’m taken care of financially while I figure out my next steps.”

“Are you staying in St. Louis or living with Grandma Chandler now?”

“I’m not sure, but I have time to decide. Listen, no worrying about me. I mean it. Focus on your studies and enjoy college.”

“Is Grandma Chandler upset with Dad?”

“She feels bad about what’s happening.”

“Grandma never liked him.”

“Did she say that?”

“No, but I could tell by the way she looked at him.”

Kids saw a lot more than they let on.

“Dad said Grandma Pratt’s moving into an apartment near the house.”

“Your father hired a caretaker to check on her every day. She’ll be fine.”

“She’s going to be lonely. She’s used to having you around.”

“It will be an adjustment for all of us.”

“What’s Grandma Pratt been up to?”

“Tonight she’s going to Grandma Chandler’s birthday party.”

“What are you doing down there?”

“I’ve been sketching.”

“Cool.”

It was cool. “And I’m working Grandma Chandler’s hours at the grocery store. She’s enjoying a break from standing on her feet all day.”

“That sucks.”

Katelyn laughed. “It’s not so bad. The ladies at the store are nice.”

“Dad told me not to talk to or text Melissa until he tells her.”

“When does he plan to do that?”

“He didn’t say, but she’s gonna flip a shit.” Michael expelled a loud breath. “Why did Dad have to go and ruin our family?”

“We’re still a family, Michael. That will never change. This isn’t what I wanted for you and your sister, but we’ll get through this. And remember I’m always here if you need to talk.”

“My friends will ask why my parents are splitting up. What am I supposed to say?”

Katelyn hurt for her son. “It’s up to you how much or how little you tell them.”

“It’ll be weird seeing you guys separately.”

“We’ll figure it out as we go.”

“Mom?”

“What?”

“Thanks for always being there for me and Melissa.”

Katelyn’s eyes burned. “I love you, honey.” Time to change the subject. “So what’s new in your life?”

“I went out on a date last night.”

“Tell me about her.”

“It was only a first date, Mom.”

“What’s her name? How did you meet?”

Michael rambled on about a girl named Sloan from Dearborn, Michigan. He’d met her at the pool in his apartment complex. Sloan was really cute. She was a sophomore and a nursing student.

Katelyn thought back to the first time Don had asked her out on a date. He’d turned bright red with embarrassment, which she’d found charming. He’d impressed her when he’d taken her to a swanky restaurant and paid with his own credit card. While they ate dessert, he’d regaled her with stories about the countries he and his parents had traveled to. A week later he’d shown up at her dorm with a beautiful, expensive art easel and he’d won her over.

“Sloan sounds like a nice girl,” Katelyn said when Michael paused to take a breath.

“What am I supposed to do this Christmas if I don’t have a house to come home to?”

“You’ll have an invite somewhere. And remember—home isn’t a house; it’s the people you love.”

“Mom?”

“What?”

“You’re really okay?”

“I’m fine.” She had to be, for the sake of her kids.

“Text me if you need to talk,” he said.

Katelyn smiled. “I will. You want to speak to your grandma now?”

“Sure. I’ll wish her a happy birthday.”

“Hang on.” Katelyn walked across the yard to the shed, where the door stood open. “Mom, it’s Michael.” She handed off the phone, then returned to the porch. A few minutes later, Birdie hollered for Katelyn.

“Come give me a hand, will you?”

Katelyn returned to the shed and poked her head inside. “Happy birthday.”

Her mother ignored the greeting. “Michael’s worried about you.”

“I hope you said I was okay.”

“I told him that you’re one of the strongest women I know.”

She was strong when it came to advocating for others, but not so much herself. She’d always made sure everyone was taken care of. Now it was her turn to focus on herself so that her kids wouldn’t worry about her.

She pointed to the mess her mother was making. “Why are you organizing the shed on your birthday?”

“I’m looking for my guitar.”

“What guitar?”

Her mother pushed a box aside. “The one I played when I sang you to sleep at night.”

“I don’t remember you singing to me.”

“I stopped playing when you were three.” Birdie leaned over a box. “I can’t reach it.”

“Let me.”

Birdie wiped her face on the hem of her T-shirt. “The guitar case is behind the Christmas bins.”

Katelyn lifted the heavy carton and placed it on top of another. Her mother was a pack rat. “What else besides Christmas decorations do you have stored in these bins?”

“Your father’s fishing gear, his camping equipment and his bears.”

Katelyn’s dad had collected little wooden statues of bears.

“I’m keeping his things in case Michael and Melissa want any of them.”

“I see it.” Katelyn reached behind the sign advertising Santa Claus Lane and grabbed the battered case.

When she handed it over, Birdie left the shed and returned to the porch, where she sat down and pulled out the guitar. Her fingers caressed the strings. “It’s a Martin D-35 made in 1976.”

“That thing looks huge in your hands,” Katelyn said.

“It’s a larger guitar than some, but the high and low sounds on it are beautiful.”

“Play something.”

After a couple of false starts her mother’s fingers plucked the strings, and real music filled the air. “That was beautiful, Mom. What’s the name of that song?”

“I didn’t give it a title.”

“You wrote the music?”

“I did.”

“How old were you when you started taking music lessons?”

“I taught myself,” Birdie said.

Like mother, like daughter. Katelyn had never taken art lessons when she’d been younger.

“I was thirteen when I knew I wanted to sing in Nashville.”

Her mother had wanted to escape her childhood home as much as Katelyn had. Birdie had grown up an only child of older parents on a farm near Wallace, Kansas. Grandma Ada had died of a heart attack when Katelyn was seven years old, and on the way out of town after the funeral, they’d stopped at a convalescent home to visit Katelyn’s grandfather, who’d suffered a stroke a year earlier. That was the last time she’d seen her grandfather.

“So that’s why the kitchen radio is always tuned to a country station.”

“When I was a teenager,” Birdie said, “I’d try to mimic the songs on my guitar.”

“What happened to your dream of going to Nashville?”

“I met your father and became pregnant with you.”

Katelyn had known her mother had been three months pregnant when she’d married her father, but she hadn’t known what her mother had given up to keep Katelyn.

“Couldn’t you have continued singing?”

Birdie quit strumming the instrument. “Your father put in a lot of overtime, but he didn’t make enough money for us to afford our own home, so I had to work, too.”

“You could have written songs and played in your spare time.”

“You mean the same way you’ve painted in your spare time while raising the twins?”

Touché.

“Is that why you didn’t protest when I went out of state to college?”

A watery film covered her mother’s eyes. “I wanted you to follow your dream and not end up like me, always pondering what would have happened if I’d kept playing.”

Katelyn picked at a piece of peeling paint on the step. She could only imagine how disappointed her mother had been all these years, knowing Katelyn had stopped painting. “It’s not too late to play the guitar again.”

“I’m sixty.” Birdie laughed. “What’s a woman my age going to do with a few lovin’-and-leavin’ songs?”

“Perform at local bars,” Katelyn said.

Her mother plucked a guitar string. “I haven’t written music in decades.”

“If you need inspiration for a new song”—Katelyn pointed at the back door—“she’s sitting inside at the kitchen table, picking the raisins out of an English muffin.”

Birdie winked. “Maybe I can come up with a short little get-even ditty.”

* * *

“Thanks for coming in,” Abby said Wednesday evening when Katelyn walked up to the register. “It’s been dead as a doornail since seven thirty, but Walter has a rule that two people have to close when he’s not here.”

“Where’s Layla?” Katelyn asked.

“Brian took her and Gavin to the movies in Odessa. Gavin’s been wanting to see the latest Star Wars movie and Brian said he wanted to see it, too.”

“That’s two nights in a row they’ve been together. Any chance Layla will change her mind about him?”

“I doubt it.” Abby reached beneath her counter for the glass cleaner and paper towels. “Speaking of soccer games, my father really enjoyed chatting with your mother-in-law last night.”

Vern had entertained Shirley for most of the soccer game with stories about the different congregations he’d been involved with and the quirky people he’d met through the years. “I think Shirley enjoyed herself.”

“Will you wipe down the doors while I stock the checkouts?” Abby handed over the cleaning supplies.

“What’s Walter up to tonight?” Katelyn asked.

“He wouldn’t say, but last month I caught him using a dating site on the office computer. Maybe he’s out with one of his connections.” Abby opened a box of candy bars and found a spot for them next to the register.

Katelyn wiped the fingerprints off the doors, then restocked the plastic bags at the end of the checkout counters. “Tell me about your father,” Katelyn said.

“My mom was his second wife. The first one divorced him when he started drinking. He’d been sober about a year when he met my mother, and she was a decade younger than him when they married.” Abby waved a hand before her face. “After Mom died, Jackson phoned and said he was worried about my father.”

“Jackson contacted you?”

“He said Dad had fallen off the wagon and that’s when he told me that my father was his AA sponsor.” Abby shrugged. “All that AA stuff is supposed to be kept secret, but that’s impossible to do in a small town like Little Springs.”

Katelyn was glad Jackson had Vern looking out for him.

“I arrived here, thinking I’d only stay a few weeks,” Abby said.

“But your dad wouldn’t stop drinking?”

“No, he’s remained sober, but he’s lonely. I think he needs a companion. Someone to tell him where to go and what to do like my mother did.”

“Has he dated since your mother passed?”

Abby shook her head. “I invited him to live with me in Dallas, but he doesn’t want to leave Jackson or the other members of the group.”

“What are you going to do?”

Abby replaced an empty candy box with Tic Tacs. “When I threatened to leave town, Dad got teary-eyed and I dropped the subject.”

“I wish I could help,” Katelyn said.

Abby smiled. “Maybe you can.”

“How?”

“After watching Shirley and my father at the soccer game, I’m certain that my dad likes her.”

A red flag went up inside Katelyn’s head. “Maybe you’re mistaking like for amusement.” No one liked Shirley.

“Nothing ventured, nothing gained,” Abby said. “Will you find an excuse to bring your mother-in-law by the house when Dad’s home?”

“I don’t think this is a good idea.”

“Why not?”

“She’s not interested in dating.” At least not anyone she deemed beneath her.

“Sadie said Shirley’s been a widow for three years. She’s probably as lonely as my father.”

Katelyn hadn’t given any thought to Shirley being lonely after she’d moved in with them in St. Louis, but she supposed it was possible even for someone as ornery as her mother-in-law to miss having a companion to do things with. “Your father is a down-to-earth, nice man, but Shirley’s . . .”

“Snooty?” Abby laughed. “She’s exactly what my father needs to pull him out of his funk.” Abby deposited the empty candy boxes in the recycle bin next to Walter’s office. “When are you and Shirley leaving town?”

Katelyn hadn’t decided yet. “We’d only planned to stay a couple of weeks.”

“Then we have to hurry.”

“Maybe we should give it a little more thought.” Katelyn still wasn’t sold on the matchmaking idea.

“I’m desperate. I’ve put my life on hold long enough.”

“Have you tried using a little tough love with your father and returning to Dallas without him?” Katelyn winced. Where was her tough love when she’d allowed Shirley to tag along on her trip home? “Or you could create a profile for your dad on a dating site.”

Abby ignored the suggestion and glanced at the store clock. “It’s almost nine. Let’s lock up.” She handed Katelyn the keys to the front doors. Five minutes later Abby turned on the security lighting and checked the bathrooms to make sure no customers were left inside.

“Got any plans tonight?” Abby tossed her smock into the locker.

“Nothing exciting.” She hoped to finish the drawing she’d begun of the Little Springs Ladies’ Society meeting at Sadie’s beauty shop yesterday. “I’m heading over to Doris’s house to stop in at Mom’s birthday party.”

“I forgot about Birdie’s birthday.”

“What do they do at these parties?” Katelyn asked.

“I think they play cards and drink sangria.”

“Sounds harmless enough.” Katelyn grabbed her purse and they left through the back door.

“Fancy car,” Abby said when she saw the Mercedes.

“My mother-in-law likes to show off.”

“Sure I can’t talk you into setting her up with my father?”

“Not a chance.” She doubted even a servant of God could survive a date with Shirley Pratt.