Scarlet Woman

“Neither did I, and I was with him yesterday. How’d you know I’d be on that plane?”

“It was the next one in from Baltimore, and I knew you’d make that one if you could.”

He remembered Melinda’s comment about his lack of male chauvinism just as he was about to ask Callie for the keys to her car, and he smothered a laugh. Instead, he asked her, “You want to drive, or you want me to drive?”

The startled expression on her face was evidence that he ought to mend his ways. “You’re going to sit in the front seat beside me while I drive?”

The laugh poured out of him, until he stopped trying to stifle it and leaned against the car, enjoying it.

“What on earth are you laughing at?”

He told her, leaving out what he considered irrelevant. “Maybe she was telling me something. Do you think I don’t have enough respect for women?”

Both of her eyebrows shot up. “You? No, I don’t think that. You’re a man who takes charge, and I expect you’d want to drive even if it was John’s car.”

He opened the driver’s door and held it for her. “You drive. As for me driving John’s car with him sitting there, you and I both know he’d have to be deathly ill. Did he get in yet?”

“He’ll be in tonight.”

Much as he disliked facing what he knew awaited him, it was nonetheless good to have the affection and support of his siblings, John and Callie. He knew they’d all be strong for their mother, but did they hurt as he did and did they feel cheated of a father’s love? Maybe some day they’d talk about it.

Whatever he’d expected, it wasn’t the smile with which his mother greeted them. “I’ll be lonely when y’all leave,” she told them, “but he wouldn’t want us to sit around with long faces.”

He hugged his mother and walked into the house, feeling the difference the second he stepped across the threshold. The windows were wide open, and the curtains flapped in the breeze that flowed through the rooms. He turned to look at his mother with what he knew was an inquiring expression.

Her smile radiated warmth and contentment. “The last thing he said to me was ‘enjoy what’s left, and let the sunshine in.’ I’ll love him as long as I breathe, but I aim to do that starting now.”

The pain began to crowd his heart. Maybe it wasn’t the time, but he couldn’t hold it back. “You loved him so much, as hard a man as he…he was?”

With a vigorous shake of her head, she said, “He wasn’t hard. I know he seemed that way to you children, but the day he married me, he promised I’d never want for anything. Sometimes he worked all day and most of the night to keep that promise. I hurt for you all when you were growing up, and I didn’t like to see how you felt about him, but he taught you the values that would see you through life.”

“Mama, when I was ten or eleven, I’d get so tired I couldn’t even run.”

“I know, son. And I remember how he held my hand and cried at your college graduation as you stood up there and gave that speech, top student in your class.”

She turned to Callie. “When you got your degree, he said we’d go to your graduation even if his strawberries rotted on the bushes while we were gone, and you know the value of those berries and what they meant to him. He loved all of you.” She sniffed and blew her nose, fighting back the tears, but her eyes remained dry.

“John surprised us with these air conditioners he designed for his company,” she went on, “and your father walked all the way to Mr. Moody’s house and asked him to come down and see what John did. He was so proud of you all.”

Her arms wound around his shoulder, reminding him that he could count on her when everything else failed, and it had always been that way. “You were the one he worried most about,” she said with a wistful smile, “because you are so strong-headed, and you were so angry with him. Let it go, son.”

Why did the price of forgiveness have to be so high? He looked at his mother with new insight about the way their family life had been when he was young and bitter, and now he had to know more. “Did he ever tell you he loved you?”

Her lips parted in what was clearly astonishment. “Yes. All the time. Not always with words, maybe, but in numerous other ways. Let it go, son. Let the sunshine in.”

Blake lifted his shoulder in a shrug. “I guess I have to. The trouble is I wanted to love him.”

“You children made his last years beautiful. He had a lovely home, more than enough for us to live on even if we didn’t work, and for the first time in his life, he had a little leisure time.”

“I’m glad we could do it.”

John arrived that evening and they finished the funeral arrangements while they reminisced about their childhood. Blake didn’t like the drama and commotion that accompanied Southern mourning, and he was glad to have a moment alone. He walked out to the front gate where the summer breeze carried the scent of roses and the clear moonlit night brought him memories of his childhood. And loneliness. He went inside for his cell phone, came back and telephoned Melinda. Maybe it didn’t make sense, but he needed to hear her voice.

“I’ve just been thinking that I had no idea where you are,” she said after they greeted each other.

“I’m in Six Mile, about twenty miles outside of Birmingham. It’s small, barely a hamlet. Here’s my cell-phone number. Call me if you want to.”

“I will, and I’m glad you called me. How’s your mother taking this?”

“Philosophically as usual. I guess it’s worse for me than for Mama and my sister and brother, because my relationship with him was so much poorer than theirs, but I’m making it. Being with John and Callie, my older brother and sister, and talking things over with them puts a clearer perspective on my childhood. I’ll be fine.”

“How’d you get there from Birmingham? Rent a car?”

He leaned against the gate and inhaled the perfume of the roses. Strange how the floral scene reminded him of Melinda. Bright. Cheerful and sweet. “I’d planned to rent one, but Callie met me.” He told her of Callie’s reaction when he asked her whether she wanted to drive her own car. “I’ll have to be more careful. Callie says I’m just a guy who takes charge, but that can seem overbearing. What do you think?” He realized that he wanted her to think well of him, and that surprised him, because he didn’t remember ever caring whether anyone liked him. He had to do some serious thinking about what Melinda Rodgers meant to him and what, if anything, he’d do about it.

Her voice, soft and mellifluous, caressed his ears and wrapped him in contentment. “I think you’re tough, and I imagine you can be overbearing, but you haven’t treated me to any of that, so I don’t know.”

“What were you doing when I called?”

“I…uh—”

“What?” He told himself to straighten out his mind, lest his imagination get out of control.

“Well, I was lying here looking up at the ceiling, and don’t ask me where my mind was.”

“Would I be presumptuous to think your mind might have been on me?”

“Roses are red and violets are blue.”

He laughed because he couldn’t help it and because so much of something inside of him strained to get out. “I wouldn’t take anything for that. Go ahead and keep your secrets.”

“Are you going to let me know when you’re coming back so I can meet you?”

He closed his eyes and let contentment wash over him. In the seventeen years since he’d left his paternal home and the mother who’d nurtured him, he’d forgotten what it was like to have someone care about his comfort and well-being. Irene made a stab at it, but he didn’t cooperate because he didn’t want an office wife.

“I said I would, and when I tell you I’ll do something, I do it if it’s humanly possible. Remember that. I’ll see you in a couple of days.”

“Can I do anything for you while you’re away?”

“Thanks, but…” It occurred to him that she could, but he hesitated to involve her. He hadn’t heard from Ethan in over two weeks, and if the boy got into trouble again, he’d be a three-time loser, which meant he’d be an old man before he got out of jail.

“If you don’t mind, call this number, ask for Ethan, and find out how he is. Tell him where I am and that I want him to call me tomorrow night. Don’t give him your name, telephone number, or address. Just say I told you to call him. If he’s in trouble, call me back.”

To her credit, he thought, she didn’t question him about his relationship to Ethan, but promised to do as he asked.

He didn’t want to leave her with a cold good-bye, but their relationship didn’t warrant much more. So he merely said, “Talk to you again before I leave here,” and she seemed to understand.

“I’ll expect that,” she said. “Take care of yourself.”