The Empty Nesters Page 44
“Then let’s do it. Get the paperwork started, and call the people who offered you the job. When you get home in a few weeks, we’ll talk to a real estate agent and make a trip to Virginia to find us a place,” she said.
“You are amazing,” Brett said. “I’m going to call the company and tell them I’ll take the job.”
“Time is going to pass so slow between now and Zoe’s graduation,” Joanie sighed.
“Hey, I went through a few channels and found out that the graduation is December seventh, on a Saturday. I’ll be getting in on December fourth. Think you could be in Lawton by then?” he asked. “I’ll have a hotel room all ready for us.”
“I’ll be there with bells on my toes.” Everything seemed right now that it was settled.
“I’d rather you be there in that cute little red lace teddy,” he whispered.
“Your wish and all that.” She made a mental note to get somewhere between now and then to buy some sexy lingerie. That red thing had gotten eaten by the washing machine.
“Love you,” he said.
“Love you.” The call ended, and she held the phone to her heart. “Please come home to me safe. We’re so close to the finish line. Don’t get hurt or killed now.”
Carmen poked her head into the door. “Are you okay?”
“Just sending up a prayer that Brett comes home in one piece,” Joanie answered honestly. “I’ll worry until he’s here.”
“Even more than before?” Carmen asked.
Joanie laid the phone on the vanity. “More than ever, because when he comes home, he’ll be here forever. We all live in fear of a black government car driving up to the curb and two uniformed soldiers bringing the news that our husbands were killed in action. But now that the time when he retires is only weeks away, I’m scared out of my mind that something bad will happen.”
“If anyone understands, Diana and I do.” Carmen slipped an arm around Joanie’s shoulders. “Just think, though. You get to tell Zoe good news, and I have to tell Natalie bad news.”
“I’m so sorry,” Joanie’s voice cracked. “But this isn’t on you to tell her. It’s Eli’s job.”
“No, it’s mine, because she needs to hear it from me. I’m the one who stayed home and raised her. I’m the one who sat up with her at night when she was sick, the one who held her when her first boyfriend broke up with her. Eli has been a good father, but I need to tell her, because she’ll need comforting,” Carmen said.
“Are you going to tell her before basic is done?”
Carmen shrugged. “I don’t think so. It might hinder her, and then that would be my fault. I’ll tell her to her face so I can hold her when she cries.”
“What if Eli tells her first?”
“I’m going to tell him that the only way I’ll sign the papers is if he keeps his mouth shut. If he goes against his word, I’ll shoot him.”
“If you do, Diana and I’ll borrow Tootsie’s shovels and bury him so far back in the woods that the coyotes can’t even find him.” Joanie meant every word. That Gerald’s and Eli’s actions could cause her to have doubts about Brett made her twice as angry as she might have been.
“Our worlds are sure changing, aren’t they?” Carmen started out of the room.
“In a couple of years we’re going to look back and see that everything that happened was for the best.”
Carmen stopped at the door. “I hope so.”
So do I, Joanie thought as she started taking the sheets off her bed.
Chapter Thirteen
Tootsie had always loved the Colbert family reunion, but that morning she awoke dreading it. Even though she’d been a part of the family for sixty years, Smokey wouldn’t be by her side when she walked into the church fellowship hall.
But I left you with four kids to take to the reunion, Smokey’s voice reminded her.
“Yes, but I miss you. I can get by in the day, even when they’re arguing over who gets the oven next or who has rights to the washing machine first, but it’s not you, Smokey,” she whispered.
My body is gone, but you’ve still got my heart and my spirit. Take those with you today.
“Oh, I will. Without those I’d refuse to go at all.” She threw back the covers when she got a whiff of bacon and coffee. “This reminds me of you so much. You’d sneak out of bed and get breakfast going before I ever woke up.”
She waited for a long time, but Smokey didn’t have anything else to say. Finally, with a long sigh, she slung her legs over the side of the bed, put on her slippers and a robe, and made her way to the kitchen.
“Good mornin’,” Diana said. “You’re the first one up today. Coffee is ready.”
Tootsie went to the pot and filled a mug, then added two spoons of sugar and enough cream to turn it light brown. “I thought you weren’t cookin’ until next week sometime.”
“I woke up early, so I thought I’d do breakfast this morning. What time do we leave for the reunion?” Diana brought an omelet out of the oven and put in a pan of biscuits.
“Ten o’clock. That’ll get us there in time to get our food on the tables and do a little visiting. Grace is said at twelve o’clock sharp. Then we eat and visit all afternoon. We usually gather up our dirty plates and start home around four,” Tootsie answered between sips of coffee.
The front door opened, and the sound of Luke’s whistling preceded him into the kitchen. “What is that delicious-looking thing on the top of the stove?”
“That would be one of Diana’s oven omelets.” Tootsie could actually feel the vibes bouncing off the two of them. Why, oh why, hadn’t she thought to introduce them a year or even two years ago?
Because Luke always visited us here in Scrap, not in Sugar Run, Smokey reminded her.
He was at your funeral. I could have made them acquainted then, she argued.
Too many people were there, and you weren’t really thinking about playing matchmaker. She could imagine Smokey’s deep chuckle, and it warmed her heart.
She opened her mouth to fuss at him but then snapped it shut. The kids would think she’d done lost her marbles if they knew how often she talked out loud to Smokey.