How Sweet It Is - Alice J. Wisler [29]
“That kid sings?” I don’t doubt he can make me cry. He already did that today.
“Wait till the pageant at church. His voice is magnificent.” She sips her tea, adds two teaspoons of sugar from the bowl I’ve placed in the center of the table, and stirs.
“Really?”
“Surprise you?”
“Yes.”
She reaches across the table and touches my arm. “ ‘In youth we learn. In age we understand.’ ” As I try to decipher what she means, she adds, “Austrian writer Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach.” She says the name like this writer is her friend, like she drops in at her house often for sassafras tea and pound cake.
I think of showing my aunt the letter I found from Grandpa and asking her about the raccoon bowl. Perhaps she could even solve the mystery of why he wrote a letter and never mailed it to me.
Rubbing a band of silver etched with swirls of yellow gold and tiny diamonds, she smiles. Looking up from the ring, she says, “Many rings from men, but there is nothing like a sentimental gift.”
I wonder if this is another quote from someone important, but she accredits the words to no one. “My mother died when I was still young. Well, younger than my sixty years now. I was only thirty-five.” Her eyes turn dark, suddenly, like a cloud that covers a summer sun. “Your dad was only thirty-two.”
“So your mother gave you that ring?”
“Oh, no! I found it among her jewelry when she died. Ernest said any necklaces or rings she had could be mine.” Her face breaks into a smile that almost glitters like the ring’s diamonds. “As long as none of my siblings found out and grew jealous. People can fight viciously over the family gemstones.”
I wonder what my sister Andrea and I will fight over when our mom dies. Mom has one sapphire ring, but I’ve never liked it because it looks like it came out of a gumball machine. Once I asked if the stone was real and she just said, “Deena, Deena.”
Solemnly, Regena Lorraine adds, “A lot of forgiving needs to happen in church after a funeral, I think.”
Forgiving. The word makes me feel queasy. I grit my teeth and hope that Lucas’s face will disappear from my memory.
“Oh, speaking of church,” she says, pushing her chair back from the table, “I’ll pick you up this Sunday. Ten-twenty.”
Giovanni, who is lying on the rug by the sliding door, lets out a woof, and I wonder if my aunt brings him to church, too.
If he sits in the passenger seat of her truck, does that mean I have to sit next to him? Does he use a seatbelt?
“Service I go to starts at eleven.” My aunt wipes her lips with a tissue. “Not much of an early bird, so I’m still sleeping during the eight-thirty service.”
I want to say that I haven’t been to church in months, that even before the accident I was neglecting Sunday morning services. Lucas suggested we take drives instead. Then one day he didn’t show up for our Sunday morning drive. When he finally returned my frantic calls that evening, he said he’d come down with the flu. I brought chicken soup to his apartment, but when I got there, only his roommate Allen was home, watching a football game on TV.
A wave of sadness starts to spread over me.
“Okay, Shug?” prompts my aunt.
I just nod.
She takes a few more noisy sips of tea and then announces, “Time to go.” Abruptly, she stands.
“Going to play Clue?” I ask.
She pulls her tote bag over her shoulder and gives a little tug at her gray hair that is now hanging straight, except for the ends, which curve toward her chin. “Not tonight, Shug. Tonight is Scrabble at Jo-Jen’s.”
“Who is Jo-Jen?”
She laughs. “Josephine Jennifer. Friend of mine. She saved me once from a deep depression.”
Is she serious? I can’t imagine my aunt ever being depressed.
“But that’s another story. I’ll tell you later.” She heads toward the door, her rubber-soled sandals flopping against the floor. Over the shoulder without the tote bag, she calls, “It’s a good one.”
Then she’s gone, her dress billowing in the afternoon wind. Giovanni is slobbering and bounding after her.
No wonder people like their dogs so much.