Folly Beach - Dorothea Benton Frank [127]
“Good morning!” she said, still slightly hoarse. “Do y’all know a four-letter word for a two-toed sloth?”
“Unau,” Ella said. “She asks me this about once a month. I can’t remember the Rhine tributaries or the Asian mountain ranges, but that sloth devil? I got him! So, Old Cabbage, I heard y’all had a party without me last night.”
“Humph!” Daisy said. “Some party.”
“But how are you feeling this morning?” I asked.
“Right as rain!” she said.
“Well, that’s appropriate,” Patti said, “because it hasn’t stopped pouring for the last twelve hours.”
“Yeah, there are palmetto fronds all over the roads and some live oak branches, too. All the gutters are flooded and, of course, Lockwood Boulevard is a swimming pool.”
“I’m so glad you’re all right,” Ella said and took Aunt Daisy’s hand. “I was worried sick.”
We stayed for about an hour and then Patti and I left on the pretext of finding the right laptop and printer for me.
“So, our Mr. Risley is going to help you find a new career?” Aunt Daisy said.
“I doubt that much will come of this but I want to try. I mean, why not?”
“Why not indeed? You girls run along but bring me a surprise when you come back to pick up Ella, all right?”
“Time she start asking for sursies? Time she went home,” Ella said. “Let’s take this coffee cake to the nurses.”
So we did and Nurse Rosol was glad to have it.
“Y’all are too sweet!” she said.
“Not them,” Ella said, feeling full of beans after seeing that Aunt Daisy was going to walk out of there. “That’s my coffee cake.”
“Oh fine!” Patti said.
“When’s Aunt Daisy going to be released? Any clue?” I said.
“I’d say, if she continues to do as well as she’s been doing, probably in the morning after the doctor sees her.”
“Well, listen, I just want to say thanks, I mean thank you sincerely for all you’ve done for Aunt Daisy. She’s, well, she’s the most important person in our whole family.”
“It was my pleasure,” Nurse Tolli Rosol said and I wondered if she could yodel.
I told Ella before we left that she should call us and we’d swing by to get her. She said she would.
The rain had slowed to an intermittent drizzle. The storm seemed to be moving north, toward McClellanville and Georgetown. There was some sunlight breaking through the clouds, sending radiant streams of light across the sky.
“Looks Biblical, doesn’t it?” I said.
“Maybe it is,” Patti said.
“What’s the matter with you? Did you have some religious rebirth you haven’t told me about?”
“Hell, no. But every time I come back here I’m reminded how this place is closer to God than the congested, freezing-cold, super-competitive rat race I run,” she said loudly enough to alarm anyone nearby.
“Inside voice,” I said.
“We’re in a parking lot,” she said.
“Whatever. Had enough of New Jersey?”
“Yes. As soon as I get home and kill Mark for not telling me about Heather Whore, I’m putting the house on the market. I can make wedding cakes here and don’t people down here get bunions and ingrown toenails? We’re moving because there’s just no point in being there without my family. I don’t want to go back. Isn’t that awful?”
“No. I know exactly what you mean. I feel alive here. I feel young here. And my reasons are a lot different from yours, but I don’t ever want to feel like I did when Addison was alive. Not for another minute.”
“It’s a lot to think about,” she said.
“Yeah, well, in my case, the thinking got done for me. Still hard to believe, isn’t it?”
“Where’s the closest Best Buy or Staples? You’ve got a new life to start living.”
By late that afternoon I had my new computer set up in the bedroom downstairs, the one with the tiny desk. If that was the desk DuBose and Dorothy used to write Mamba’s Daughters it was surely good enough for me. In fact, maybe it would bring me luck.
Patti was in the kitchen making dinner. My job was to make the salad, set the table, and be alluring. Clearly, she didn’t trust my culinary gifts beyond poultry and I didn’t care if she had to be the alpha chef. I called