Chapter 35

On Thanksgiving Day, Chantrelle called again. Alma Gordon waited for her daughter, Sylvia, and Harold to pick her up for dinner at their house. She covered her cranberry jelly with a cheese cloth and set it on the counter by her handbag. She thought the call might be from Sylvia, and she answered cheerily.

Her horoscope that morning had read, “Patience and kindness take the day.” She thought of all the families at Thanksgiving dinner avoiding conversation about religion, money, and politics. She was thankful to be eating with Sylvia and Harold.

“It’s me.” This was the unmistakable voice of Chantrelle.

“Chantrelle! How are you?” Mrs. Gordon almost knocked over the cranberry jelly in her excitement.

“Owen’s gone.”

“Oh, my God, oh, my Lord, oh, heavens, Chantrelle, he’s just a baby, where is he?” Mrs. Gordon cried.

“Geez, not him,” said Chantrelle. “Baby Owen’s right here. Well, in the other room. Watching TV.” Mrs. Gordon heard her yell, “You okay in there Owen?” Then she was back. “Big Owen. He left. Him and Inez both.”

“Your housemate Inez? Who works at the bar?” said Mrs. Gordon.

“Yeah, well, the bimbo was sleeping with Owen. So I threw his stuff out the window and told him to never come back. I found this place. She said if he was going, she was going, too, and I said, ‘Damn right you’re going.’ Him and her can just go to hell.”

What was it these girls found attractive about Big Owen anyway? Mrs. Gordon had never understood what Chantrelle saw in him, and now here apparently was another girl changing her life for him. The man was an uncouth oaf. And mean. He frightened Alma. She was happy to hear Big Owen was gone for now. Even if he was Baby Owen’s father, he was not a good influence.

“Two guys next door liked our place better, Zach and Zeke, and they moved in, so the rent’s covered at least,” Chantrelle said.

Mrs. Gordon shuddered, thinking about all the comings and goings. “How is Baby Owen?” she asked.

“Aw, he’s okay. He’s having a lot of trouble sleeping, though. Hey, did you know he sucks his thumb when he sleeps? It’s the cutest thing.”

Mrs. Gordon smiled, remembering Owen’s thumb sucking. It was good to hear Chantrelle sounding so besotted.

“What the—Owen what are you doing? No, that’s not yours. Put that down. Owen!” Mrs. Gordon could tell by the tone of her voice that she was talking to the toddler and not a returning Big Owen. “Just a minute,” Chantrelle said and put down the phone. Mrs. Gordon heard Baby Owen start to cry. She sighed.

Chantrelle came back. “Anyway, I just wanted to ask you if you ever tried this thing called diphenhydramine to get him to go to sleep. Zach, he’s one of the guys who moved in, he says a kid should sleep better than Owen does, and this medicine would help. Did you ever use that?”

Mrs. Gordon gasped. She remembered her own experience with diphenhydramine when she’d gotten hives from penicillin a few years earlier. Put her to sleep for hours. She’d missed a quilting get-together with the ladies. And she’d only taken a small dose.

“No, dear, I don’t think that would be good for him,” she said. “I don’t remember him having problems sleeping. He usually went right to bed after his story. Usually around seven.”

“Yeah, well, now he’s still wide awake when we all go to bed at eleven or so, and he cries when I put him down, and he wakes up as soon as he falls asleep.”

“Oh, dear,” said Mrs. Gordon. “Maybe he’s overtired from being up so late.”

“Well, I only let him stay up because when I try to put him down earlier, he screams bloody murder. He’s just not tired.”

“That’s so unusual,” said Mrs. Gordon. Then she had a thought. “Chantrelle, remember when you used to give him Pepsi?”

“Yeah, so?”

“Are you still giving him that? Because Pepsi has caffeine in it and that could make him not sleep.”

From the other end of the phone came silence.

Mrs. Gordon couldn’t believe it. She had written out an entire page of food that Baby Owen liked, all nutritious, healthy food for a child. She had written amounts and how to prepare them for a child his age. When she first met Chantrelle, Baby Owen was eating chips! A baby less than a year old! What was happening now?

“Okay, gotta go,” said Chantrelle.

“Please call again soon,” said Mrs. Gordon. “And Chantrelle, Happy Thanksgiving.”

“Yeah, you too.”

Mrs. Gordon sent up a silent prayer that Baby Owen would eat a lot of turkey and sleep well that night.