Blackberry Winter

She glanced at her mother, then at the child’s grave the three of them seemed to be standing around—or at least she assumed it belonged to a child, because of the lamb resting on the top of the headstone.

Her mother abruptly began to walk away.

“Ms. Kimball?” Meyer called after her and she turned to look at him. She turned, but she didn’t want to. Loran could feel her wariness more than see it.

“There’s an eating place on Highway 16, just before you get to the Parkway,” Meyer said. “The food’s good. You just take this road as far as you can, then turn right. It’s on the left, before you get to the Parkway bridge. Best apple pie in the world,” he added, as if he thought it would matter.

“Thanks,” Maddie said. “Maybe we’ll try it.” She walked on.

“Are you done with the flashlight?”

“Oh. Yes. Thank you.”

Loran watched as her mother returned it, still trying to understand. She was rapidly losing hope that Maddie would be answering any of the questions she’d been formulating all the way down the Blue Ridge Parkway. Aside from her normal policy regarding inquiries, it was obvious that Maddie didn’t feel up to being interrogated—or anything else for that matter.

“Don’t take my mother off anywhere again,” she said to Meyer under her breath as she walked by him.

“Do what?” he said, clearly surprised.

“You heard me,” she said without stopping. She ran the few steps it took to catch up with Maddie.

“Did you find everything you needed to buy?” Maddie asked lightly.

“Yes.”

“See anything interesting?”

“No.”

She had seen a sign for a hospice agency that had been set up in what used to be somebody’s brick ranch house, but that was the last thing she would have wanted to talk about, even if Maddie hadn’t been sick and a prime candidate for their services.

“Are you ready to go back to the B and B now?” Loran asked the question, but she wasn’t offering alternatives. She wanted Maddie accounted for and resting in a warm and comfortable place out of the cold wind, and, as far as she was concerned, it wasn’t up for discussion.

Maddie looked up at the sky. “Beautiful,” she said, supposedly admiring the last tinges of orange and purple in the sunset but in fact studiously trying to avoid answering Loran’s question. “Look.”

Loran looked. Briefly.

They walked by an abandoned backhoe and a newly dug grave, and Loran shivered as much from the dread the sight of it evoked as from the cold. She didn’t like anything about this place.

“So you and Oscar are new best friends,” she said as they crossed the road to where she had parked in the circle drive in front of the church.

“Oscar?”

“The guy with the truck who takes my mother off to God knows where when I’m not looking.”

“Oh, that Oscar.” Maddie suddenly smiled. “Oscar. Meyer. I get it. Does he know you call him that?”

“Yes, he does, and whatever you do, don’t start tap dancing.”

“I’m too tired to tap dance.”

“Which is exactly the point, Mother. Why are we here? What are you doing?”

“You mean besides hoping to convince my lovely daughter to buy me a hearty meal before she locks me in my room for the night?”

Loran gave a sigh. “There is no talking to you, is there?”

“Nope. You’re not going to ground me, are you?” Maddie asked, smiling.

“Oh, very funny. I would if I could, believe me. I would have brought you out here, you know.”

“I…needed to see it alone.”

“Alone—with Meyer Conley along.”

“Meyer is a very unobtrusive person,” Maddie said.

“It’s his job to be unobtrusive or anything else the guests or Mrs. Jenkins want him to be.”

“Maybe so. But somebody definitely took the time and the trouble to teach him how to behave. You don’t see much of that anymore.”

Loran didn’t miss the not-so-subtle dig at Kent, and once again she felt the urge to cry. No. Not just cry. To throw her head back and wail, like some big overgrown child who had dropped her ice cream in the dirt, lost her nickel, torn her best dress and broken her favorite doll—and who was completely out of options.

“He’s been all over the world, in the military,” Maddie said. “I think there’s something a little sad about him, too. Did you notice that?”

“Everybody I’ve seen here looks sad. Are you trying to change the subject?”

“Not…very,” Maddie said.

“You’re not well, Mother—”

“No, I’m not. So humor me. Tell me what you bought on you shopping spree.”

“Deodorant,” Loran said, fumbling with the remote on her key ring so she could unlock the SUV doors. She glanced over her shoulder. Meyer was standing at the same place in the cemetery where they’d left him.

“Lucky me,” Maddie said as she opened the door, smiling until Loran smiled in return—in spite of herself.

“What else?” Maddie said when they were both in the SUV.

“A toothbrush and toothpaste, a three-pack of men’s undershirts, a red flannel nightgown, socks, a pair of jeans, a three-pack of ugly cotton panties, some weird shoes and a shirt, royal-blue plaid, also flannel.”

“Going for the Oscar look, are we?”

“Ha, ha. I didn’t have much choice if I wanted to be comfortable. Really, Mother, if I didn’t know better, I’d think you were making fun of him.”

“I wasn’t making fun of him. I was making fun of you and Kent. I wonder what he would say—if he saw you dressed like that?”

“Nothing. He wouldn’t recognize me.”