At Peace

“She calls him Joe?” Kenzie interrupted us with her question and I looked back at her because she sounded kind of pissed and when I looked at her she was glaring at Keira.

“Yeah, we all call him Joe,” Keira shared. “Or, at least, Mom, Kate and me do. Dane calls him Mr. Callahan.”

Kenzie’s eyes came to me and I was right, she was pissed.

“He doesn’t let anyone call him Joe.”

I opened my mouth to speak but Keira got there before I could.

“He lets us call him Joe, he likes it.”

I wracked my brain for a way to intervene and stupidly offered, “Would you like to come in, have a pop or a beer?”

She stared daggers at me and announced, “We need to talk.”

I didn’t know what she wanted to talk about, though I did know, whatever it was, I didn’t want to talk about it but I couldn’t exactly shut the door in her face in front of the kids because they didn’t know anything about anything and I didn’t want them to.

Therefore, I invited, “Okay, come in,” then I stepped out of the way.

Her eyes swept Kate, Dane and Keira then they came back to me.

“Alone.”

I looked into my house. There wasn’t much alone space in my house unless I took her to a bedroom which I wasn’t going to do.

Then I saw the sliding glass door to the deck. It was a nice night, not muggy, fresh and warm. The deck was perfect.

“We’ll go sit on the deck,” I told her and swung my arm out, showing the way. She sashayed in, all leg (or, more aptly, bony leg) and swaying hips and she walked through my house as if prolonged exposure to the air the girls and I breathed would contaminate her.

I walked behind her and ordered the kids, “Go back to your movie.”

“Mom –” Keira started.

“Come on, Keirry, let’s finish the movie,” Kate urged, her eyes on me, she grabbed her sister and started pulling her to the couch.

I threw my eldest a smile, saying a silent prayer to God in thanks he gave me one sane daughter and hustled behind Kenzie.

She pulled the door open herself and walked out, her pumps sounding on the wood of my deck as she headed straight to the wrought iron furniture Tim had bought me at an end of season sale three years ago. The furniture was fantastic, a circular table, wide, comfy chairs that rocked and a big umbrella. There were also two loungers. All of these had elegant, tailored gray pads on them.

She dumped her big, slouchy, designer handbag on the table without looking at me or my garden and started digging through it.

I closed the sliding glass door and approached her, stopping out of distance of her nails.

She pulled out a gold case, selected a cigarette, dropped the case back in her purse and put the cigarette to her lips, lighting it with an elegant, slim, gold lighter.

Then she let out of a plume of smoke and stared out at my lawn.

Without anything to say to her, I looked around my deck.

If I wasn’t at the garden center, at the grocery store, doing laundry, ironing, cooking, cleaning house, buying expensive dog food and water bowls, sleeping with Joe or just plain sleeping, I was in my yard.

My boss Bobbie gave great employee discounts and I took advantage as much as I could on our tight budget. I’d used some of the money my brother gave me to augment this but most of that I tucked away for a rainy day. But, even if I said so myself, I didn’t do half bad with my yard.

The front of the house had window boxes on all of the windows stuffed full of flowers bursting out and greenery trailing down. I had sections of split rail fence at one side of my drive and another where the drive met the front walk that ran from the drive parallel to the house. I’d planted lush, tall grasses around the fences with low to the ground flowers that had filled in beautifully in the Indiana soil. I had a burgeoning hanging basket by the front door and the front walk was lined with vibrant, healthy bedding plants. It looked great.

The back was better. The lawn was just lawn but I’d fertilized it and put weed killer on it and it looked brilliant, rich green, thick and lush. But it was the deck that was the show stopper with its posh furniture. I’d bought bunches of terracotta pots in every size and they were everywhere, stuffed full of flowers of all colors and varieties. It appeared random but I spent ages fiddling with them until I liked what I saw.

And it looked beautiful. I had a way with flowers, always did. I had a part-time job in a florist shop before Tim died because I loved flowers. And Bobbie let me do the displays at the garden center and everyone was talking about them. I even had a customer come up to me the week before and offer to pay me to have a look at her garden, said she was hopeless and needed garden direction. I was going to her house on my day off next week.

“You fucking Cal?”

I started and my eyes jerked to Kenzie when she spoke.

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