Irene was sitting around a table with a group playing bingo when the girls all arrived that Sunday afternoon.
“Come on B twelve! Come on B twelve!” the little man beside her said.
“Willie, there ain’t no B twelve on your card,” Irene said.
“But there is on yours and it’s all you need to bingo. Maybe you’d give me the candy bar if you win?” Willie said.
“And the next number is B twelve,” the caller said.
Irene yelled, “Bingo,” so loud that it made Fiona jump.
Irene pushed her card back, told the caller to give the candy bar to Willie, and hurried over to hug Fiona. “You were my good luck charm. And you brought everyone with you.” Irene clapped her hands. “Audrey is here to see her great-granny.”
Fiona hugged her grandmother fiercely. “I’m so glad to see you. I’ll be home for a few months, so I can come see you real often.”
“Did they tell you that sometimes I have trouble remembering things?” Irene whispered.
“Yes, Granny, they did.” Fiona tried to swallow the lump in her throat but it was impossible.
Irene took Fiona’s hand in hers and led her to the sitting room. She pulled her down on one of the two facing sofas and held her arms up to take the baby from Allie. “Dora June, what in the hell are you doing here?”
“The girls are taking me Christmas shopping,” Dora June said.
“And they think I’ve lost my mind,” Irene said sarcastically. “Why would my girls take you anywhere after the hell you gave Allie and Lizzy?”
Dora June crossed the room and laid a hand on Irene’s shoulder. “I’m so sorry for that, Irene. I’ve been jealous of you my whole life. You got Katy and then three granddaughters and I wanted them all for mine.”
“That’s why you tried to drive them crazy with your meddling?” Irene crossed her thin arms over her chest and continued to frown.
“When you decided to live here, I…” Dora June paused. “I didn’t know how to…”
Fiona very gently squeezed Irene’s hand. “Granny, it’s okay. Dora June and Truman are staying at Audrey’s Place while Mama is on vacation. Their house burned down and they needed a place to stay.”
“Now I know I’m either crazy or dead. Ain’t no way Truman would stay there. He’s too self-righteous. Who are these other girls you brought with you?” Irene cocked her head to one side and studied her other two granddaughters.
“This is Allie and Lizzy. My sisters, remember? Your granddaughters. Allie is getting Audrey out of her coat so you can hold her,” Fiona said softly. Her mother had warned her that Irene’s memory could flash on and off like twinkling Christmas lights. “Remember when you came to Dry Creek last week and we put up the tree but it was too windy to put up the outside decorations?”
“I wish I had a tree,” Irene said wistfully.
“I’ll bring a little one and some decorations next Sunday and we’ll put it right there in the corner. Maybe I’ll even make a butter rum cake this week.” Fiona winked but it was all she could do to keep the tears at bay.
Irene clapped her hands. “I love butter rum cake. Remember when we used to make them at Christmas for the church potluck and we never told anyone that it had real alcohol in it?” She glanced at Dora June. “I bought rum, didn’t I? At a liquor store in Wichita Falls.”
“You bought the rum because Truman would have pitched a fit if I brought liquor in the house and we made them at your place.” Dora June smiled.
Irene frowned. “Who are these girls again, Dora? Did you and Truman adopt kids after all? Is this pretty little thing your grandbaby?”
Dora June wiped away a tear. “Got something in my eye. Yes, we did adopt all these girls. They’ve been our biggest blessing these past few days. You don’t mind if we adopt them, do you?”
“Hell, no! Everyone needs kids. I don’t know what I’d do without my Katy,” Irene declared.
Allie put Audrey in her lap. “She’s a good baby as long as she gets her way. Kind of like Lizzy.”
“She looks like Fiona,” Irene said. “My mother had red hair but she didn’t like it so she put stuff on it. It stunk and I didn’t like to be in the house when she did that.” She frowned again and then smiled. “You are Allie and you are Lizzy and you belong to Katy, right? You aren’t Dora June’s kids?”
“Not really. We are your granddaughters and the baby is Audrey,” Allie said.
“Audrey is the hooker that built our house. How can this be Audrey?” Irene was visibly confused.
“We named her after our great-great-grandmother,” Allie answered.
“Well, ain’t that a hoot,” Irene giggled. “Where’s Katy?”
“She’s on a little trip with Trudy and Janie,” Allie repeated.
“Oh, no! Those two are always up to no good. Tell her that I said she has to come home. They’ll have her drinkin’ and chasin’ bad boys.” Irene’s voice shot up to just below yelling.
“I will call her soon as we get home,” Lizzy said.
“Okay, now tell me, Dora, about your house burnin’ down. Did it hurt any of your goats?” Irene asked.
Fiona didn’t care if she had to hear about a fire and goats. It could be the last time she’d ever see her grandmother even in a semi-lucid state and she intended to capture every moment in a memory so she could visit it again when the dementia claimed Irene’s mind forever. Dora June talked and Irene hummed as she rocked back and forth on the sofa with the baby in her arms.
When Dora June finished talking, Irene smiled sweetly. “I’m so sorry but I’m glad that you and Truman finally came to your senses and adopted some kids. Now you can have this baby back and I think maybe it’s time for my nap. This baby reminds me of a little girl I knew a long time ago but I can’t remember her name today.”
Dora June took Audrey and held her close. “It’s okay. Next time maybe me and you will break out of this place and go to Frankie’s to do some dancing.”
Irene put a finger over her lips. “Shhh, don’t tell the girls about that night. Our mamas would have sent us off to a convent if they’d known.”
“Yes, they would have but it was the last night before I married Truman and we wanted to be wild and free,” Dora June said.
Allie gasped.
Lizzy giggled softly.
Fiona grinned so big that her face hurt.
“Frankie’s isn’t a place for young ladies,” Irene declared vehemently as she shook her finger at Allie, Lizzy, and Fiona. “Don’t any of you go there.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Allie nodded.
“Now get on out of here and let me sleep. Sometimes I have the best dreams about a house and a bunch of little girls in it.”
Tears streamed down Fiona’s cheeks and dripped onto her shirt as they walked Irene down the hallway to her room. Lizzy’s hand closed around hers and Allie hugged her from the other side. It wasn’t fair that the grandmother who had lived with them her whole life was in that condition. Fiona’s heart was heavy with guilt. She should have come home more often. She should have told her mother about the divorce when it happened rather than being so stubborn; then she would have been here the whole past year.
“It’s okay,” Lizzy whispered as she wrapped an arm around her sister. “We still cry, too, but today was a good day. She knew all of us for a little while.”
Irene went right to her bed and curled up like a little child. Fiona covered her with a crocheted throw and they all tiptoed out of the room. Allie closed the door behind them and Dora June put the baby in Fiona’s arms instead of Allie’s. “You need this right now.”
“My heart is breaking,” Fiona said when they were in the lobby again. “I had no idea that it would be this hard.”
“Before we take another step, I owe every one of you an apology,” Dora June said. “I wouldn’t blame you if you kicked me out on the road halfway home the way I’ve acted in the past. Allie, I was beyond rude to you. Lizzy, I tried to run your life. Fiona, I gave you advice against Jud and I didn’t even know him or Blake or Toby before I judged them.”
“Accepted and you are forgiven,” Lizzy said. “Now let’s go get some retail therapy to make Fiona feel better. What store are we going to first?”
“Whichever one is closest to the front door at the mall.” Dora June smiled. “Thank you all for everything.”
“Merry Christmas to us all,” Lizzy said. “Now that you are our friend, maybe Fiona won’t be in trouble as much as we were.”
“Not if she’ll hang up her coat, turn out the lights, and lock the door. Truman fussed all day yesterday about that,” Dora June said.
“You left your coat on the floor?” Lizzy whispered incredulously. “What…oh, my God…were you drunk or undressing on the way up the stairs?”
“Was Jud involved in this?” Allie asked.
Fiona widened her big green eyes, smiled, and told a lie. “No, he was not.” She did cross her fingers behind her back and since it was the Christmas season and everyone was in a forgiving mood, maybe God would let it slide. She changed the subject. “Next Sunday I am going to decorate a tree for Granny in her room. Who is coming with me?”
Three hands shot up in the air.
“Good. I’m holding you to it. We need to have presents to put under the tree. Candy. Cookies. Stuff that she’ll enjoy. Let’s wrap it all up so she’ll have lots of presents.”
“Chocolate,” Lizzy said. “She loves chocolate on anything from doughnuts to ice cream.”
They all nodded in agreement. Fiona felt a little better when Allie parked at the front entrance of the mall. She fully well intended to buy Audrey something first, but her mind was on what she’d like to get for Jud when she and the entourage entered the mall.
Jud was waiting in the chair on the landing when Fiona and Dora June came home that evening. Truman was snoring in the recliner in front of the television in the living room but he roused enough to fuss about all the bags Dora June brought into the house, his voice carrying up the stairs without losing a bit of its volume.
“What’d you do, buy out the whole store? We ain’t got a house to keep all this stuff in anymore. All we got is one room,” Truman complained.
Dora June fussed right back at him. “Oh, Truman, stop your bellyachin’. We got the whole corner of the living room to store it until I can get it all wrapped and put under the tree. Be thankful the girls wouldn’t let me stop at that RV place and buy a travel trailer. I wanted to, but they laughed and said you’d never leave Dry Creek, not even to camp out on the Brazos. I think we should buy one and go see as much of the whole United States as we can before we die. Maybe even Canada. I always wanted to see Niagara Falls.”
“You wouldn’t leave your goats, so stop talking that nonsense,” he continued to fuss.
“I’ll barbecue every one of those little critters and serve them at the Christmas potluck if you’ll buy me a big old RV and take me to see all the sights in this wonderful country,” she said.
“You’d be whinin’ to come home in less than a week.”
“Damned if I would,” Dora June said.
“You cussed on Sunday.”
“Shows you how serious I am.”
Jud kept the laughter to a chuckle. Truman in a travel trailer would take more than a Christmas miracle. It would take even more angel dust than heaven had on hand.
Fiona hung up her coat.“I’m taking my stuff to one of the spare bedrooms. I’m too tired to wrap presents tonight. Dora June about wore all of us out. And, Truman, she really did want to stop at the RV place when we passed it.”
“She can shop the legs off a two-year-old who’s had candy for dinner and supper,” Truman said gruffly.
Jud heard a little pride in his comment. It was taking a while but Truman was coming around and his bark was a hell of a lot worse than his bite. He might just be willing to burn that Scrooge attitude by Christmas day after all.
“You are about ninety percent bluff, you old goat,” he whispered as he got to his feet and met Fiona halfway up the stairs to help her carry her bags.
“I played dominoes with Truman all afternoon,” he said.
“Really?”
The remnants of whatever enticing perfume added with the cold wind she’d brought in with her stirred Jud’s desire to hold her, to kiss her again, and to go many steps on past that.
“I lost ten dollars in quarters to that sly old fart. He’s got a poker face and I promise you one thing, I will never play cards with him. Where are we going with these?” he asked.
“Into Lizzy’s old room.” She slung open the door and set the bags on the bed before slumping into a chair beside the dresser. “Have a seat and talk to me. I’m exhausted. Can you believe it’s only three weeks until Christmas day?”
He sat down on the end of the bed and picked up one of her feet, unzipped her black boot, removed it, and massaged her foot. “Poor baby,” he drawled.
“God, that’s wonderful.”
“You looked stunning in church this morning,” he said.
She pushed her hair back behind her ears. “But now I’m so tired that I look like the last rose of summer that the little dog pissed on.”
“You do have a way with words.” He put her foot down and picked up the other one.
“I’ll miss this whole thing we have when I leave,” she said.
“And you’ll never come home again?” He dug into the heel of her foot, working out a knot.
“Sure I’ll come home but you’ll find someone else to give foot rubs to. Long distance never works,” she said.
“So we would be in a long-distance relationship?” he asked.
“We’d have to be in a relationship first. And let’s face it, Jud, with me leaving town, I don’t see the sense in starting one. Anytime I came home to visit family, it’d be too weird.”
“What if we go real slow and see where it leads?”
The words made a lot of sense, but the feel of her skin, even that on her foot, sure told him a different story. He wanted to treat whatever chemistry they had between them like a roller coaster. Go very fast! Scream! Wrap up in the afterglow that arrives after sex and cuddle until they were both rested enough get on the roller coaster for a second ride.
“Truman probably did us a favor on Friday night.” She pulled her foot out of his hand and pushed up out of the chair.
He followed her across the landing to her room and put an arm on either side of her, caging her against the door. Her long lashes fluttered shut and fanned out on her cheeks. The tip of her tongue tempted him as she moistened her full lips. He lowered his face and shut his eyes, using his senses to guide him straight to her mouth. The electricity between them was so hot that he could hear sparks crackling all over the landing.
When the kiss ended, Fiona opened those fascinating deep green eyes and gazed past the bottom of his heart into his soul. “I thought we were going to take this slow,” she murmured.
“This is slow, darlin’. Fast would be a walk backward to your bed or maybe I’d pick you up and carry you to mine.”
She tiptoed and brushed a quick kiss across his lips. “I can do slow—for a little while.”