She walked into the kitchen, put on water for tea, and washed the few dinner dishes that remained in the sink. Just as she was spooning honey into her cup of chamomile bliss, her cell phone rang.
“Okay,” Chantay said without hello. “We’re going to have to get one thing straight, because you’ve obviously got it twisted. I am the one you call with the play-by-play. You should have been on the phone to me as soon as you left Adam’s office!”
“Hey, Chantay.”
“Hey? Is that all? Did you get my message?”
“I did, but I’ve been a bit preoccupied. Mama walked off this afternoon while I was at the interview. She’s okay. We found her a couple blocks over, talking to Ms. Disney’s neighbor. He was just about to bring her home when Miss Mary and I turned the corner.”
“Good Lord, Gwen,” Chantay said, her voice changing quickly from pseudochagrin to true compassion. “You must have been worried sick.”
“I was, still am. At times Mama is her old self, you know? Talking, laughing, cooking like she used to. But then in the next moment she snaps, and begins asking the same questions over and over, and leaving burners on under pots of already cooked food.”
“You’re still making sure the gas line to the stove is off when you leave, right?”
“Yes, and she’s none too happy. Thinks I’m trying to run her life. I’m just trying to keep her from burning it up! If it wasn’t for the fact that Robert was here last time…” Gwen stopped short of finishing the sentence. She didn’t even want to think about what might have happened if her brother had not been visiting when Lorraine left a pot of greens boiling on high and had then gone to her room, closed the door, and fallen asleep.
“Good thing Robert forgot his cell phone and had to come back for it,” Gwen continued. “Otherwise they would have been gone to the airport and…it’s just a good thing he came back, that’s all.”
“I still don’t understand why I’m not your sister-in-law. You know I should be raising Robert’s kids right now, instead of Mike’s and Tashon’s.”
“Uh, if I remember correctly it was you who dumped my brother for Mike, or are we having selective memory and rewriting history now?”
Chantay sighed audibly. “I cannot tell a lie. I don’t know what I was thinking that night when I let Mike take me for a ride in his shiny new Mustang. And we all know the end to that run around the block. I came back with more than a hickey on my neck.”
What Chantay had come back with was delivered nine months later, her daughter who shared the name of their town, Sienna. Two years younger than Chantay, who was a year older than Gwen, Robert was devastated when he found out the love of his teenage life was pregnant. She’d been his first.
“Too bad I didn’t know then what I know now,” Chantay murmured, in a conversation they’d had more than once. “Mike took half the girls in school for a ride in his Mustang and on his joystick. He even cheated on me while I was pregnant with Sienna. You know that’s why we eventually split up: three people in the bed all the time is a crowd, even if the dick is good. Dang, and what is Robert now?”
“CFO of Automated Technologies,” Gwen responded. “He deserved the promotion after hanging with the ups and downs of that company for the past eight years.”
“And he’s been married to his wife a long time, huh? I bet he’s tired of tapping that familiar territory. Wonder if there’s any chance—”
“Don’t even start with that nonsense,” Gwen said, cutting Chantay off. “Denise is a good woman to Robert, mother to their son, and she’s family.”
“Hell, I’m family. I’ve been in your family longer than her!”
“Yeah but she’s family family, as in with a ring, a license, and a vow. Besides, you know how faithful Robert was with you, how deep he falls when he loves someone. He is still in love with his wife.”
“Oh, who asked you,” Chantay huffed. Both women were silent for a moment, thinking about woulda, coulda, and shoulda.
“So…since I’m not going to get Robert, are you going to get Adam? How was the closed door meeting?” Chantay let her voice provide the correct inference to her question.
“Not as you or I had imagined,” Gwen answered, glad to change the subject. Chantay could be stubborn when she wanted to and Gwen didn’t want any shake-ups to her brother’s happy home. “First of all, Adam oh, oh, has turned into Adam, oh no!”
“What do you mean by that?”
“How can I put this nicely? Our firm piece of Hershey’s chocolate has morphed into a Klondike bar.”
7
The jazz music streaming from the radio sitting on Mama Lorraine’s kitchen counter provided the soothing atmosphere Gwen needed. She smiled as she moved her body to the rhythm and put up groceries. Since arriving in Sienna, her schedule had been hectic. But she’d gotten a lot done. In just over a week, she’d bought a car to replace the gas guzzler she’d sold before leaving Chicago, checked out several assisted living facilities, and with the help of her mother, had narrowed the choices down to two. And the biggest and best news? She’d received and accepted the official offer to teach at Sienna Elementary.
Orientation was a week away, so the faster she got her mother settled in and adapting to her new living arrangements, the better. She didn’t want to leave Lorraine alone all day. Even with Miss Mary nearby, she couldn’t depend on her mother’s neighbor to be responsible for watching Lorraine’s every move. It pained her to think of her mother anywhere but in the home she’d shared with Harold for the past thirty years, but at the end of the day, the only thing that remained constant…was change.
As if thinking about Mary Walker conjured her up, the doorbell rang, followed by Mary’s familiar “’lo, Lo”: ’lo short for hello, and Lo, the nickname she gave Gwen’s mother when they’d met decades earlier.
Gwen walked over and opened the door. “Come on in, Miss Mary. Mama’s in the bathroom.” She continued talking as Mary followed her into the kitchen with a covered casserole dish. “I see you’ve been cooking again. What do you have that smells so good?”
“Oh, just a spaghetti casserole I whipped up. You know I can never cook just for myself. Thought I’d come and share it with you and Lo.”
“Well, that’s sure nice of you, Mary,” Lorraine said as she rounded the corner. “It seems like I can never get this stove to work since Gwen’s been home. I need to have the man come out and fix it.”
Gwen and Mary exchanged a knowing look. “I’m sure everything’s working just fine,” Mary said. “You just need somebody here when you’re cooking.”
Lorraine’s face contorted into an uncharacteristic scowl. “I’m plenty grown, Mary Walker, and been cooking since I was ten years old. I know my way around a kitchen and don’t need nobody to help me cook!”
“Mama, why don’t you and Miss Mary visit while I make a salad?” Gwen underscored her suggestion by gently placing her arm around her mother’s shoulders as she walked her toward
