“If breakfast’s ready, let’s eat?”
Assembled at the kitchen table, Cindy, Bonnie, and parents bowed heads in prayer. Cindy, palms together, fingers extended upward, billowed Bonnie’s pride as teacher. Dad rose to wave the door to the porch twice to chase excess heat outside. After the meal, Grandpa guided Cindy outside to swing under a giant oak’s emerging canopy. Rope threaded through two holes in a six-by-eighteen inch oak board created a seat with ends securely tied to a hefty, horizontal limb. Bonnie told the seat board a scrap saved from the wood Dad used to build her cradle more than two decades ago. A cradle heirloom Bonnie rocked infant Cindy in. The out-grown cradle, at the foot of Bonnie’s bed, filled with a collected doll and stuffed animal menagerie.
Bonnie carried dishes to Mother at the dishwasher before they both ambled to the screened-in back porch. Bonnie, from the exterior screen door, waved as Cindy, behind a tree, hid from Grandpa. She guessed hide-and-seek and loved the hours playing that childhood game with Dad.
She gazed at Mother use both hands to sit. “Ethyl says son stopped plans to build a new house now that there’s a strike at Jove Foods.” Mother rocked back and forth, eight-inch knitting needles stuck in yarn tucked at left side.
“Didn’t know he worked there. You’re talking William, right?”
“Uh-huh. Really a shame.”
Bonnie squirmed hips and then gave up trying to fool Mother the wooden yellow-painted Adirondack chair was comfortable and switched to sway back and forth on the cushioned suspended porch swing. “What’s the shame?”
“William’s house. Ethyl said vandals broke in while the lawyers squabbled in probate. Tub overflowed. Rabbits from the nearby old cemetery dirtied the whole house.”
“Sounds awful.” Bonnie called out to daughter, “Cindy, look harder.” Grandpa kept shifting position around a towering sycamore twenty feet distant.
“William’s wife, even with disinfectant spray and heavy scrubbing, wouldn’t sleep in any room. They moved rented trailer out there as a temporary living solution.”
“That’s nice.” Bonnie watched Cindy through window screen more than listen to Mother.
“You see William much?” Mother began to knit a newborn’s bootie.
“No. Why?”
“William’s cousin, Ethyl’s nephew, is coming from Omaha next month to help William clear additional acres. Says they’re going to blast tree stumps with dynamite.”
“And, I suppose this nephew is single, employed, age appropriate, and good-looking?”
“How’d you guess?” An impish, coy smile unlocked Mother’s lips.
“M-o-t-h-e-r!” Bonnie’s irritation blast lasted but a few seconds. Mother had been instrumental in Bonnie’s introduction to Matthew. Bonnie adored him and wouldn’t let the memories fade. An Iraqi insurgent road bomb killed him and two platoon buddies. Every morning Bonnie strapped on a service 9-millimeter a fear twinge radiated chest to toes. Fortunately, all rounds fired merely ripped pistol practice range paper targets. Bonnie hastened to change subject. “Could you and Dad watch Cindy if I get hair appointment with Crystal around lunch time?”
“Of course, you never ask enough.” Mother’s rocker clicked in four/four time.
Bonnie, from the kitchen, telephoned Crystal and snapped up a one o’clock cancellation. Three hours later at noon, she hugged Cindy and drove off to add grocery and hardware store errand stops. At both places the strike ensnared every conversation. Relief arrived at the hair salon where soap operas and romance gossip dominated.
Bonnie, on a green vinyl visitor’s bench, rested forearms on tubular chrome, pressed lips closed, and allowed roving eyes, which caught the oversized red purse at Violet Strum’s feet before the woman’s mouth twitched, dryer hood obscuring higher facial features.
“Say, Bonnie, you dent Jonas McHugh’s aversion to dating women? My grandson craves the muscles the Sheriff has.” Adjacent female patron’s head bobbed. Crystal exhibited knack for blunting unwanted conversation by running hands up behind Violet’s ears ostensively to check hair dryness. Bonnie strained to hear Crystal’s comment about Melanie Stark, but couldn’t.
“How else you think she became vice president at thirty-three?” Violet replied, loud.
“Brother-in-law saw her yesterday at the picket line chatting with the Sheriff,” Crystal said.
“You woulda thought he’d be married by now,” Violet said. “Must be mid-thirties.”
“Why? Sister cooks, launders, and likely doesn’t charge rent.”
“Melanie spent all night looking for him at the church social.” Crystal pointed a black fine-tooth comb at Bonnie. “Isn’t that right, Bonnie?”
All conversation stopped. A plastic hair roller bounced on the floor to accent a heater’s exhaust fan hum. “Don’t know,” Bonnie replied, twisting into vacated salon chair. Topic switched to Dancing With The Stars eliminations when Crystal produced scissors to snip near Bonnie’s ears.
Returning to parents’ home by two thirty, Bonnie hugged and thanked both profusely. Dad buckled Cindy in. No sooner had Bonnie finished waving goodbye then a backseat peek revealed the closed eyes of a tuckered out Cindy. Life should always remain so peaceful, thought Bonnie.
Parking Toyota in assigned complex space, Bonnie lifted a napping Cindy and bypassed the four-story building elevator to carry Cindy up one flight to 209, their second floor unit. Bonnie undressed Cindy, gently laid daughter into a youth bed, and tucked white sheet to chin. She kissed Cindy’s forehead, whispered, “Love you,” and tiptoed from the bedroom.
Afternoon sunbeams cast welcome rays as she hurriedly unloaded the car in two trips. Stretching out on the sofa, she finished last chapter of mystery novel, A Body To Bones. Fresh air playing extended Cindy’s nap. Bonnie, taking advantage, lifted back her bed’s top sheet, slipped Mother’s knit sweater off, and, after a button twist and zip, allowed jeans to fall to bedroom floor.
Recalling Mother’s oft-repeated words, Bonnie didn’t curse the chilly bedclothes warmed solely by her body. Neighborhood dog barked. Cindy didn’t cry. Bonnie buried head in a pillow.
* * *
Incoming call vibrations clacked Jonas’s portable police radio against nightstand walnut laminate. Only minutes before, after closing the bedroom blinds to block the mid-morning sun, his nose nestled into the down pillow. He missed Webster’s weight pin coverlet to both feet. Right hand reached out from beneath the blue-and-white checkered top sheet to press the speaker-on button.
Paul’s crackling voice urged hustle to the Jove Foods main gate, pronto.
Within twelve minutes, Jonas drove past a semi-truck convoy assembled in a parking lot three blocks from the Jove truck entrance. The company hadn’t lied. They’d plow through the picket line in broad daylight, not slink in under the cover of darkness. He muttered, “All fools.”
He parked behind Paul. Two men, one of whom he recognized worked at Jove Foods, ran past front bumper toward a growing throng with and without picket signs. Men without signs brandished a walking stick or baseball bat. Jonas assumed the taped wooden Louisville
