At Home on Ladybug Farm - Donna Ball [109]
“So I did the cutting,” said Lori cheerfully, “with a jigsaw I borrowed from Farley. We had to do it while you weren’t around,” she added.
Cici’s hand went to her heart. “You—used a jigsaw?”
“Look.” Noah grinned as he gestured to the bench. “We fancied it up some for you.”
The ladies walked over to the bench. Cici still looked stunned as she tried to get the picture of her daughter with a power saw out of her head. Lindsay reached the bench first and burst into delighted laughter. In a moment the others followed suit.
On the seat of the bench Noah had painted three large red and black ladybugs.
Noah and Lori wanted to show them the reflecting pool, which had also been cleaned and restored—although, Lori assured them, without nearly as much trouble—and which was actually reflecting a swatch of blue sky and the corner of a puffy cloud. The secret, according to Noah, which he had learned from some of the guys at the hardware store, was painting the bottom with pitch.
But by far the best idea of the morning was when Bridget suggested that they all enjoy a breakfast of fruit and coffee cake out in the fresh air around their beautifully restored fountain—which of course, made it impossible for Lori to cook the breakfast feast she had planned. Afterward, they all went to church services, and Noah wore a tie.
Two dozen long-stemmed roses arrived from Bridget’s children, along with handmade construction paper greeting cards from the grandchildren, and after lunch her son and daughter placed a conference call and they talked for half an hour. Ida Mae made a strawberry shortcake using angel food cake layered with fresh strawberries so sweet and juicy they soaked all the way through. They ate it sitting on the front porch in the lacework shade of the poplar tree, watching the hummingbirds dart back and forth.
“This,” declared Cici, setting her plate aside, “has been an absolutely perfect Mother’s Day.”
“I couldn’t agree more,” sighed Bridget contentedly.
“Me, either,” agreed Lindsay. “In fact, I think I’ll spend the rest of it sitting by our gorgeous new fountain, reading that novel I’ve been promising myself I’d get to all spring. That’s something I’ve wanted to do ever since we bought this place. You two couldn’t have given us a better present.”
Noah, who was sitting on the steps, scraped his plate clean. “Maybe I’ll just get me another piece of cake.”
“You could offer to bring someone else one,” Lori pointed out, and he gave her a scornful look as he passed.
“You know where the kitchen is.”
Lori glared after him for a moment. “Just when I think there’s hope for him . . .”
Then she shrugged it off and turned to them. Her eyes held the carefully guarded excitement of a secret that had been kept too long. “Everybody,” she said, getting to her feet, “wait right here. There’s one more present. I wanted to wait until you had time to relax and appreciate it.”
“Oh, Lori, really, you’ve done too much already . . .” Bridget started to protest.
But Cici smiled broadly, leaning back in her rocker and stretching out her legs, “I’m totally relaxed.”
“If it’s more cake,” Lindsay said, “bring it on.”
“Wait right there,” Lori called over her shoulder as she hurried inside.
When she was gone, Lindsay said fondly, “I think the two of them are enjoying this more than we are. They’re great kids, both of them.”
Cici smiled. “Did you ever think, when we moved in here last year, that it would all turn out like this?”
“Did you ever think,” countered Bridget, “under any circumstances at all, that we would be spending our retirement years raising a teenage boy?”
“What, are you kidding? I’m still trying to get my mind around the chickens.”
“We should get a cow,” Bridget mused. “If we’re going to live on a farm, we should have a cow.”
Cici returned a steady look. “Do you know what I like best about this house?”
“That it doesn’t have a cow?”
“Right.”
Lindsay’s smile was wistful. “I sent Mandy some photographs of Noah. For Mother