As Faye and Amande parked the wheelchair at a picnic table behind the diner, Julie brought out their meals.
“Thank you so much for helping her,” she said, gesturing toward the silent woman, sitting contented in the pale northern sunshine. “Ennis has been behaving uglier to his aunt by the day. He never hits her or does anything to call the sheriff about, but the whole town’s upset about how he treats Sister Mama. God knows what’s happening with her business and her money. He’s probably got power of attorney.”
As she left, she said, “Dwight—that’s my boss—he says there’s no charge for your meals today. He’s been so upset about Ennis that I imagine you’ll be getting free desserts every time you come in here, forever.”
So this was Sister Mama, the town’s famed root doctor. Faye had called around after she heard that Myrna was taking the woman’s herbal potions, and she couldn’t find a soul who was willing to say anything against Sister Mama. She was reputed to have cured cancer and made barren women into happy mothers. If the stories were all true, this wizened old woman had conquered the common cold. She could probably cure a rainy day.
Samuel, who had a rich man’s appreciation of business savvy, had told Faye that Sister Mama was quick to see the business potential in Internet sales of hoodoo paraphernalia. Her wares ranged from mojo bags to hex-cleansing floor washes to graveyard dirt. Unfortunately, it seemed that even Sister Mama couldn’t cure old age nor, unless Faye missed her guess, a serious stroke.
Faye didn’t like the idea of Myrna taking anything prescribed by a woman in this condition. It seemed impossible that Sister Mama was capable of prescribing anything these days. Did that mean Myrna was taking whatever Ennis wanted to sell her? Faye wouldn’t trust the man to give her an aspirin, much less an unknown number and quantity of unnamed herbs. She mentally penciled an end-of-the-day visit to Myrna into her schedule. Faye wanted to check out Myrna’s health with her own eyes, and the bereaved woman would be needing her friends today.
Faye and Amande took turns helping Sister Mama with her meal, and the disabled root doctor ate very competently when she wasn’t angry with Ennis. She still couldn’t speak, but Faye was struck by the way she studied Amande’s features. The girl was lovely, yes, but Faye thought Sister Mama saw something else. She wondered what it was.
After they’d all eaten their fill, they took a moment to enjoy the mild air. Faye couldn’t say she blamed Sister Mama for wanting to eat outside.
Faye looked up and saw Ennis pausing self-consciously outside the diner’s side door. When he saw that she’d noticed him, he walked over.
“I apologize for my behavior. Thank you for helping my aunt with her lunch. It’s been…hard…lately. I’ll try to do better.” After he’d said his piece, he’d wheeled Sister Mama away.
Faye remembered her mother’s and grandmother’s last years. Being needed around the clock was hard and lonely. She had a notion of what Ennis’ life was like, but that didn’t mean she could excuse his behavior.
***
The clock crawled toward quitting time. There was a reason Faye was here, doing work so tedious that her competitors hadn’t bothered to bid on it. Her firm couldn’t afford to be picky, and Samuel had approved a budget that would pay her salary for six weeks. Even better, it would cover clerical help that Amande was well-capable of doing. In this economy, a paying summer job for a seventeen-year-old was no small thing.
Best of all, the project budget included travel expenses for them both, providentially paying for a trip that she had so wanted to give Amande. She didn’t know where the child would go to college but, as long as Faye had breath in her body, she would go. While they were in New York, they would drive around and look at college campuses, just to get an idea of what they were like. Just to feed her daughter’s dreams.
When Faye and Joe had first met Amande, the girl had been frantically brainstorming ways to fund a longed-for college education. Recently, Faye had stumbled across some of those plans. At the top of the list was “Earn as much free college credit as the school system will give me,” a strategy Faye applauded. At the bottom of the list were “Sell my blood,” and “Sell my plasma,” along with Internet-generated information on how often she could do that and how much income each sale would generate.
Faye had torn this piece of paper into itty-bitty pieces. Her daughter was going to college, and she would be keeping all her blood while she did it.
Opening another unlabeled box, Faye found dozens of stone tools that looked an awful lot like the ones already on display. Amande was staring out the window, but Faye merely cleared her throat without comment. If her daughter could tolerate this level of boredom for weeks, while weathering a seventeen-year-old’s mood swings, then the two of them just might enjoy this trip.
Without bringing her eyes back from the window, Amande held up another photo. “Display or defer?”
Amazing. The child could work while she daydreamed.
The photo was an unremarkable shot of somebody’s brand-new Chevy. “Defer,” Faye said victoriously. She handed Amande the box of stone tools. “Now, put the freakin’ photos away. I want you to take pictures of these things and zap ’em to your father.”
Amande fondled the chipped stone tools. “Oooooooh…Dad’s gonna love this part of the job.”
“Yup. He’s gonna be able to tell me who made all this stuff and how long ago. Then he’s gonna tell me whether they rate a big shiny display case or whether they should be properly stored someplace where they will never again see the light of day.”
“Dad comes in handy sometimes.”
Yes, he did. The only reason Faye and Amande could be in New York, breathing museum dust, was because Joe was watching little Michael. In theory, Joe would be catching up on the company’s accounting while Michael napped. In actuality, Faye expected to go home to a mud-covered child who had learned to track deer, and a grown man sheepishly admitting that he had no idea of the state of their accounts receivable.
Faye figured there were worse things than being married to a man who could hear a quail breathe, then put an arrow in its eye. Even if their accounts receivable always fell short of proper recordkeeping standards, Joe’s family would never starve.