Chapter 2

When the phone rang again, I hurried to it, hoping there would be news of Mattie’s condition.

“Julia, it’s me,” Mildred Allen said, although I instantly recognized her voice. Mildred lived next door in what was the largest house in Abbotsville or, if not the absolute largest, pretty close to that distinction. “I guess you’ve heard from LuAnne about Mattie Freeman.”

“I have, and I was just sitting here wondering what Mattie will do, now that she probably won’t regain her mobility anytime soon.”

“Well,” Mildred said, “I say it’d be a good thing if she doesn’t. Julia, she can’t hear and she can’t half see, yet she drives that old car like she’s the only one on the road.”

“Oh, I know. I pull to the side when I see her coming.” We laughed a little at the thought of Mattie’s age-old Oldsmobile barreling around town. “I don’t think they make those things anymore, and I keep hoping it’ll die on her. I doubt she’d be able to get parts for it, so she’d have to park it.”

“We’d all be safer if she did, but let me ask you something,” Mildred said. “I’ve had her on my mind all morning and started wondering about this. Have you noticed how Miss Mattie’s teas keep getting smaller and smaller? I can remember when she’d have about a dozen guests every spring to repay her obligations for the past year. Her teas were always lovely—especially those luscious finger sandwiches she served. But last year there were just a few of us there. Are people turning down her invitations or is she just not inviting many?”

“Oh, Mildred, I finally figured that out. It took me awhile, but I think I know the answer. You’re right, years ago she always invited eleven ladies, making twelve counting herself. That’s about all her living room will hold at one time anyway.”

Miss Mattie had lived in a two-bedroom apartment in an old but substantial building near town for as long as I’d known her. The tall, spacious rooms with medallioned ceilings, designed by an architect unaffected by modernism, were filled with furniture of a size and quality that indicated a decline from more gracious surroundings. She entertained once a year—always in the late spring when it was warm enough for her guests to expand into the sunroom through the French doors in her living room.

“Yes, I know,” Mildred said, “but what I’m saying is that she hasn’t had that many guests in a number of years. Last spring there were only five of us, six counting her.”

“Well, hold on. I’m telling you why. You know that lovely china she has?”

“Meissen, isn’t it? I don’t know the name of the pattern.”

I started laughing. “I don’t think anybody does. Remember the time LuAnne raised her cup over her head to look at the mark on the bottom?”

“And tilted it so she spilled tea on herself? I sure do—funniest thing I’d seen in ages.”

“Well, anyway,” I went on when we stopped laughing. “It’s a beautiful set—so thin you can practically see through it and quite old. It’s probably been discontinued by now. But that’s the problem. Mildred, I think that over the years, Miss Mattie has suffered some cup and saucer breakage, and as they break, she’s had to cut down on the number of guests she invites.”

“Why, that’s right. I should’ve figured that out myself. I remember thinking—what was it, three years ago?—how strange it was that Mattie had invited only seven guests. Such an odd number, but that meant she was down to eight cups and saucers. And last year she must’ve been down to six. Oh, bless her heart, that’s so sad.”

“It is,” I agreed, “but you have to admire her for keeping up appearances in spite of it.”

“She certainly does that. And woe be to anyone who leaves her off a guest list. Ever since she started using that walker, though, she’s a danger to have around.”

“Oh, I know. She almost crippled a visiting preacher one time when a rubber-tipped metal leg of that walker landed on his foot. How old do you think she is, anyway?”

“Older than we are, that’s for sure.”

“I guess that makes her fairly close to ancient—speaking for myself, of course.”

“Of course,” Mildred said, laughing. “But, Julia, do you think she’ll have to go into a hospice or a retirement home or what? She won’t be able to stay by herself, will she?”

“I wouldn’t think so, and the way hospitals discharge patients so quickly these days, something will have to be decided fairly soon. Does she really have no family at all?”

“I’ve never known her to mention any, although generally there’s a distant cousin crouching in the background somewhere just waiting for a death notice.”

“Oh, don’t even think that. Besides, I expect that even if a distant cousin shows up, he’d be sorely disappointed.” We let a few seconds pass in silence as we thought of Miss Mattie’s dire straits. “Mildred, you and I may have to step in if it comes down to it.”

Mildred sighed. “I was thinking the same thing, although I don’t want it to get around that we’re providing Social Security supplements. No telling where it would end with all the impoverished widows in this town.”

“I’m in total agreement with that. But let’s just wait and see how she gets along. For all we know, we’ll be dodging that Oldsmobile again in a few weeks.”

_______

After hanging up the phone, I walked to the window overlooking the backyard. It was a beautiful spring day—clear skies and a warm breeze stirring the leafed-out ornamental fruit trees we’d planted a few years back. The forsythia, jonquils, and tulips were about gone, but the wisteria over the arbor and the crape myrtles beside it were just before their full blooming stage.

It was time for Miss Mattie’s annual tea party, but there wouldn’t be one this year. Maybe I should do it for her. That was an inspiring thought, and I congratulated myself for thinking of it. I sat down to think it through.

I would have it here at my house, of course, and Mattie would be the guest of honor. And I would invite more than five or seven or even eleven guests because I had thirty-six unbroken and unchipped cups and saucers. And they would be constantly washed and replaced on the silver tray as guests came and went.

I would seat Mattie in one of the large wingback chairs, not in the living room, which would create congestion at the front door, but here in the new library, where the ladies could line up to be greeted in style. And I’d keep that perilous walker far from Mattie’s chair, so she couldn’t get up and down, posing a danger to every foot in the room.

Mattie would be in her element—she loved parties and never missed a one. If, for some reason, she did not receive an invitation to a party that she knew someone was giving, she wasn’t above calling the hostess with the news that her invitation had been lost in the mail.

But thinking of all that, my mind eventually came back to the question of what was to become of her now. There were at least two large complexes near town that catered to well-to-do couples, widows, and widowers in their declining years, offering both excellent living conditions and lifetime care. One of those would be ideal for Miss Mattie—she would revel in the attention—but I doubted she’d be able to afford either one.

The alternative, as far as I knew, was some crowded government establishment where she’d have a roommate who’d keep her awake by moaning and crying all night, and aide workers who would do the best they could, but which in the final analysis wouldn’t be good enough. Shunted aside, that’s what it would come down to, and I hated the thought of that.

I might as well be honest here and say right up front that Mattie and I had never been close. She’d been on the fringes of my acquaintances throughout the years, and neither of us had made any effort toward a closer relationship. She had always been so old, even years ago when we were all younger. Her hair had always been up in a bun, and her clothes had always been gray or black. For years, she had been a tall, big-boned woman—not particularly overweight, but in the last several years her frame had broadened and become more hunched as her legs bowed from the weight. You wouldn’t want to go through a doorway with her.

I smiled to myself recalling the first time Lloyd had seen her not long after he and his mother had come to live with me. He’d thought she was the witch from Hansel and Gretel, and he’d kept his distance from the oven as long as she was in the house.

It had been a natural progression for Mattie to go from a limp to a cane to a walker. And now, perhaps, to a chair or a bed for the rest of her life.

I got so sad thinking about it that I had to get up and walk around.

And a convenient move that was, because I could walk right on out of the room as Lillian called me to lunch.