DevilMayRide

19
Sadie screamed and ran after Scott, but he was gone. It was out of her hands. If he wanted to advertise her craziness on Emerald Nine News, there was nothing she could do.
Feeling sad and depressed, she went home to her mother.
“Nice that you could come,” her mother said when she answered the door. “I’ve got a roast in the oven and we’re just working on making decorations for the shower.”
Sadie followed her mom through the living room, where her dad sat. He waved hello.
“Your sister, she had to go home ’cause some big guy was coming over. She said he works for you,” Sadie’s dad said.
“He does.” She leaned over and gave him a hug.
“Why is he with your sister? Shouldn’t he be at work with you?”
It is work. I’m paying him, Sadie thought.
“Yeah, Thuggy’s just doing something for me with Dawn,” Sadie said vaguely.
“What kind of a name is ‘Thuggy’?” Dad asked.
“It’s short for ‘Thugwold.’ ”
“Shit. That’s even worse. What kind of a name is ‘Thugwold’?”
But her aunt rushed into the living room and saved her from answering.
“Sadie, I’m so glad you were able to make it!”
Aunt Lynn snagged Sadie by the hand and pulled her into the dining room, where her mother sat at a table covered in disposable diapers.
“What’s going on?” Sadie asked.
“Peggy has a bee in her bonnet about decorating the house for the shower,” Auntie Lynn announced, rolling her eyes.
“It’s a great idea,” Sadie’s mom replied. “We’re going to use pink and blue streamers as a clothesline across the dining room, and then we’re going to use pink and blue clothespins to hang the diapers.” She handed Sadie pink and blue Sharpie markers. “You are going to take ten of the diapers and write one big letter on each one so that it says B-A-B-Y-S-H-O-W-E-R.”
Sadie thought it was the stupidest idea for a decoration she’d ever heard of and she really hadn’t planned on spending her evening coloring diapers.
“I’ve got a ton of paperwork to get caught up on at home,” Sadie began. “I don’t know how long I can stay.”
She hated the disappointment on her mom’s face and immediately regretted the words.
“Sadie, when was the last time you checked your tire pressure?” Sadie’s dad griped from the living room a few feet away. “Come outside for a minute. Your tires are looking low.”
Sadie closed her mouth against telling her father she was a grown woman who could take care of her own tires, thank you very much. She slipped her feet back in her shoes and followed him out.
“The tires look fine, Dad,” Sadie said.
“You can never be too sure.” He pulled a tire gauge from his pocket as they approached her Honda, and knelt at the front tire.
Sadie knelt beside him and watched as he spun the stem cap off. There was a small hiss of air as he pressed the gauge quickly and firmly to the valve and then quickly read the number.
“You know, this shower is real important to your mom,” he said, getting up and walking over to the rear tire. “I know you’ve got your own busy life going on, but, well, family is all she’s got.” He looked her in the eye then and Sadie saw wrinkles on his face she’d never noticed before. God, when had her parents gotten old?
“I know. You’re right,” Sadie said. “I should be more involved in the shower.”
She followed him around the other side of the vehicle and joined him to kneel beside the third tire. It wasn’t the first time he’d used car maintenance to cover a serious conversation. That first time would’ve been when she was sixteen and had just started dating. He showed her how to check the car’s oil and then told her just because a boy had hands didn’t mean she needed to let him use them. She should’ve remembered that little nugget of advice with Zack.
“I thought Mom would want one-on-one time with Aunt Lynn,” Sadie said, and the defense sounded weak even to her own ears.
“Having Lynn around is good for your mom, but having her girls around gives her something to show off. Do you get that?”
He walked over to check the pressure on the final tire.
“I get it. I’m sorry. Things have been a little crazy at work, but I promise to try and spend more time with Mom.”
“And I don’t mind seeing your mug around either. I won’t be around forever, you know.”
A pang of emotion bloomed in her chest.
“You’re not sick, are you?”
“Nah.” He stood and dusted his hands on his pants.
“My blood pressure’s a little high sometimes, but the docs are taking care of that.” He put his arm around Sadie as they walked back toward the house. “Why don’t you ever bring around that Zack Bowman character? He seems like an upstanding kind of guy.”
“It’s complicated,” Sadie mumbled.
“It always is,” he said with a chuckle.
They walked back inside the house arm in arm. Sadie went toward the dining room to join the women, and her dad plopped himself back down on the sofa in the living room to channel surf.
“Looks like I can stay a little longer than I thought,” Sadie said, sitting down at the table next to her mother.
“We can use all the help we can get,” her mom replied.
Aunt Lynn sat, elbows on the table, chopping away at yellow construction paper.
“What are you making?” Sadie asked her aunt.
“They’re supposed to be baby bootees for wall decorations,” Peggy said with a look of disdain.
“Hey, I’m doing the best I can,” Aunt Lynn said. She held up a crookedly cut yellow bootee that looked more like a deformed cowboy boot. “What can I say? Glen was more crafty than I ever was.” She sighed. “Remember all those wooden butterflies he carved and nailed up on our fence?”
“Oh yeah,” Sadie said, smiling. She called out toward the living room, “Dad, remember when you tried to show me how to carve one of those wooden butterflies after I got back from a visit?”
“How can I forget?” He held up his index finger. “Five stitches taught me to never assume wood carving was easy just because Glen made it look like it was.”
Dad put his feet up on the coffee table and settled in to watch CNN.
“I still have the butterflies up on the fence,” Aunt Lynn said wistfully. “They’re faded from the weather, but I don’t have the heart to bring them down. You know, when I brought him home to die, he told me he’d been dreaming about the butterflies and missed them.” She sniffed and reached for a tissue.
“I always thought Uncle Glen died in the, um . . .” She groped for the PC word for lunatic asylum and the best she could come up with was, “Hospital?”
“Nope he was determined as all get-out to go home for a visit. It was like he knew he wasn’t long for this world and wanted to pass away at home.” Her tongue stuck out of the corner of her mouth as she carefully cut out another lopsided baby bootee. “He was only home a few days before the stroke hit.”
“Yes, it’s almost as if he knew,” Peggy said sadly. “It was nice that Brian happened to be out that way and got to see him.”
“They had a great visit too,” Lynn stated, finishing off the baby bootee and starting on another. “I left them alone to chat and Glen was having one of his few days when he wasn’t talking to the dead.”
Sadie’s hand jerked and she drew a blue line right across the diaper she’d been working on.
“Wh-what did you say?” Sadie stammered, her gaze fixed on her aunt.
“Look what you’ve done,” her mother exclaimed, snatching the ruined diaper from Sadie’s hand and giving her a new one. “Try and pay attention,” she said, clucking her tongue.
“Aunt Lynn, what did you say about Uncle Glen talking to the dead?” Sadie repeated, ignoring her mother.
“Well, that’s what he always said.” She shrugged and held up her yellow construction paper bootee to eye it critically. “He thought the voices inside his head were ghosts. The voices of dead people who had messages for him.” She tilted her head and looked quizzically at Sadie. “Oh, you mustn’t look so upset about it. He sure wasn’t the only one. There was one guy in the institute who thought he was Abraham Lincoln.” She shook her head and chuckled at the memory. “He really believed it too, just like your uncle believed people who had died talked to him. He insisted on it even in his last couple hours. Poor Brian sat there and listened to him ramble on, and when he had the stroke, your brother was just so upset. It’s too bad he was in the room when it happened, but, you know, it was nice too for Glen to be surrounded by family.”
Sadie’s head felt woozy. The Sharpie marker she’d been holding slipped from her fingers and rolled onto the floor.
“Are you okay?” her mom asked. “You look pale. I bet you haven’t eaten yet today.” She got to her feet. “I’ll check on the pot roast. It should almost be done.”
Sadie got to her feet.
“I’ve got a bit of a headache. I’ll go splash water on my face.”
She went down the hall to the powder room. She closed and locked the door and ran the water before tugging her cell phone out of her purse.
“What are you up to?” Sadie asked as soon as Maeva answered the phone.
“I’m sitting back and relaxing with a glass of wine while Terry massages my feet.”
“Oh, that sounds tough.” Sadie felt a pang of jealousy.
“Well, I had a tough day. The usual skeptics and sincere believers came in for psychic readings, but we had a knock-’em-dead sale on crystals in the store side of the shop and I was on my feet more than I’d like.”
“Then how about going on a nice leisurely drive with me tonight?”
“Where?”
“Redmond.”
“That’s not so bad.”
“Redmond, Oregon.”
“That’s like three hundred miles!”
“Yes, but I’ll do all the driving and you can just sit back and relax.”
“I’m sitting back and relaxing now and I’m getting a foot massage. Did I mention that Terry’s got marinara sauce simmering on the stove?”
“You can eat your pasta first, since I’m committed to consuming a dried-up pot roast at my mom’s.” She lowered her voice. “Look, I’m willing to massage your feet if you’ll come with me.”
“You must be desperate. What or who is in Redmond, Oregon?”
“My dead uncle.”