Folly Beach - Dorothea Benton Frank [36]
“No, thanks.” I leaned on the hood of his car and wrote out my cell phone number. “Yeah, sleep’s a precious commodity these days. My mind just whirls around all night. I should write a book.”
“Shouldn’t we all? I’ll call you in the morning?”
“Sure.”
“You sure you’re okay?”
“Yeah, thanks. I’m fine. Just beyond exhausted in mind, body, and spirit, but other than that?”
“Cate? I’m really sorry about this.”
“No sweat, really. I needed a jolt.”
“Right. Okay, then . . .”
He smiled at me again, climbed into his SUV that was heavy-duty enough to pull a trailer of horses, started the engine, and then he drove away into the night.
“Wow,” I said.
Inside of twenty minutes I was climbing the steps up to Aunt Daisy’s front porch. I had called ahead to say I had been delayed by a fender bender but save me a plate of whatever they were having and I would see them very soon.
All the lights in the house were on and I rang the doorbell. I was excited then, smelling the salt rolling in from the ocean, feeling the dampness swelling my hair. I felt myself sliding back to my childhood and I remembered being really young and how complete I felt then. Maybe this would be good for me, to be here, to remember who I had started out to become, to find that girl and resuscitate her, see if she had any life left in her. Maybe if I could find her I wouldn’t feel like an old, used up, and fractured middle-aged woman. Maybe I’d try to figure out a way to stay until I could put myself back together again. I heard uneven footsteps.
“It’s open! It’s open! Come on in! Come in out of that cold!”
It was Aunt Daisy, of course, hobbling toward the door. I tried the handle and the door opened with no problem. I stepped inside, adjusting my eyes to the bright lights.
“Hey!” I said. “Look who’s back just like the flu! How are you?” I hugged her so hard I thought she might break but I was so filled with relief to be there at last.
“Close that pneumonia hole!”
I closed the door behind me as quickly as I could.
“Oh! My dear girl! How I’ve missed you! Let me look at you!” She stood back to give me the once-over and the tears in her eyes tumbled down her cheeks.
“You can’t cry, Aunt Daisy! Don’t! Believe me! I’ve shed enough tears for both of us, enough to last all our lives!” I hugged her again and we made our way toward the kitchen, from where the smell of something wonderful was beckoning us to follow. Good grief, we were surely turning into a bunch of weepers.
“Oh, shoot,” she said and pulled a tissue from her sleeve to blot her eyes, “look at me!”
“You’re fine! How’s that foot?”
“Like hell. Hurts like hell.” She blew her nose. “I’m just a sentimental old fool!”
“No. You’re not. You’re perfect. Now, what do I smell?”
“Okra soup. What else? In this weather? It’s so damn cold you could lay down and die.”
“Well, don’t do that! I couldn’t handle another funeral quite yet. Hey, Ella! You’re here!”
Aunt Daisy’s companion and partner of forty years stood there with her hands on her hips, grinning wide. There was a warm pecan pie on the sideboard that I could smell from across the room.
“And just where else would I be? We can’t have Miss Daisy running around in that cast, falling down and breaking her other foot, too, can we?”
“Ella? Are you making us martinis or what?”
“Yes, Your Highness!” Ella mumbled.
“I heard that! I finally moved her in,” Aunt Daisy said. “After all these years? Let ’em talk and see if I care!”
“That’s right!” I said. “Wait till the neighbors hear what happened to me, you two old scandals will look like Republicans.”
“Grey Goose good for you?” Ella said, shaking the martini shaker like mad.
“Anything. Believe me. For the first time in my life I can honestly say I have earned a cocktail.”
As she poured the drinks out into three martini glasses, I realized the shaker was meant to look like a penguin. It seemed to me I had seen one before, ages ago.
“How cute is this?” I said. “Where’d you find it?”
“Catalog,” Aunt Daisy said. “Restoration Hardware, I think. Maybe Target?”
“Ever since she became an invalid . . .”
“I