Page 52 of Grounded
“Thank you, Sandy,” Beulah called as the young woman left the room. Well, it helped to know someone. It might get her a quicker trip to the bathroom if necessary.
Of all the things to ponder in the hospital, why did she have to be reminded of Annie’s high school boyfriend, Brett Bradshaw. Those Bradshaws were good-looking as Hollywood actors, but a bad lot, heavy into drinking, and some said, drugs. She tried to warn Annie away from him, but Beulah saw right quick Annie wasn’t hearing any of it.
When the warnings didn’t take, she and Fred talked about it and decided not to say anything else for fear of pushing her in his direction. Looking back on Jo Anne’s situation, their dislike for Ed might have made Jo Anne more set on seeing him, but who knew? All they could do was the best they knew how at the time.
Instead, she bit her tongue when Annie talked about Brett and brought him around. She had been pleasant to the boy, fed him meals, soda pop and chips. Annie had dated him until they went to college. He finally broke it off with her in college, and Beulah was never so relieved. Better heartbreak now than later, when she was saddled with little children.
Beulah fiddled with the plastic bracelet on her left hand. Come to think of it, that was about when Annie and Jake quit being so close. When Brett Bradshaw entered the picture, everything between Annie and Jake changed. Jake found a girlfriend after that, and even though the families still got together for special occasions, it wasn’t like before when the kids were younger.
It was a disappointment for both her and Fred and the Wilders because Jake’s personality suited Annie. It reminded Beulah of how Fred had balanced her out. Annie tended to be high-strung, a little like the thoroughbreds Fred used to trade for from time to time, but Jake was easygoing and cool as a cucumber. Once when the kids were eleven or twelve, Annie flew into the house all in a dither. “Jake’s arm, it’s broken,” she had said, barely able to get the words out. Jake trailed behind, holding his arm and studying the strange angle as if he were looking at it under a microscope. Of course, he might have been in a bit of shock, but that incident had impressed Beulah. He didn’t cry or complain one bit, at least as long as he was in her care.
Compatible as two peas in a pod, they had all thought. When they went out to dinner on Saturday nights, as had been their tradition for nigh on twenty years, Fred and Charlie teased that if the kids married, it would join their two farms and make a nice big plantation for Annie and Jake to keep up, but they never went on like that in front of the children. No, the kids never knew how they all felt, and it was better that way, with how things turned out.
Jake had found his way and Annie would too, Beulah was sure. It all worked out good in the end for those who loved the Lord, like that verse in Romans said.
Eleven o’clock. She turned on the television and flipped through the channels to see if anything was worth watching. She found a local channel playing round-the-clock sermons. She listened first to the Baptist who had a tendency to screech. Then there was the Presbyterian who took a whole hour preaching on two verses—“unpacking,” he called it. Now, she was in the middle of a breathless preacher laying hands on people right and left. Her knee exercises the nurse was teaching her would go particularly well with the cadence of this preacher. Hold, two, three, four … “And God said,” five, six, seven, eight, “Do not fear!’”
At the end of a sentence, he made a mighty groaning noise, sucking in a lungful of air before he went on to the next sentence.He ought to have an X-ray,she thought. Her cousin sounded like that, and he was eaten up with the emphysema.
After that she switched off the television and hoped desperately for sleep. When it did not come, her eyes rested on a sign below the clock. It read, “Dial-A-Prayer.”
“Well, now,” she said aloud, “I could sure use a prayer right now.” She picked up the receiver and dialed the number posted on the sign.
The line was busy.
Chapter Twenty-Two
After the icu scare was past, Annie confessed her water fiasco to her grandmother.
“We’ll start all over if it is ruined,” Beulah said. “I’ve had to do that before when a late frost took everything I planted one year.”
Woody thought most of the garden would be all right, other than one corner that might not survive the drowning. “Nothing to do but wait and see,” he said.
As frightened as Annie had been at her grandmother’s health scare, the extra days had given the painters more time to work. Another man had shown up on Wednesday to help speed the work along. The priming was finished and they had started the actual painting.
Annie had hoped it would all be done before her grandmother came home over the weekend, but it all depended on the weather, according to Woody, who appointed himself supervisor.
On Friday morning, Annie called Duke at the hardware store and made a request she’d been thinking about all week.
“Sure thing,” Duke said. “I’ll put your name on it. It’ll need a coat of paint, but you should have some left over from the house.”
Still in her pajama pants and a long sleeve shirt over a T-shirt, Annie took her coffee to the back porch. Curled in a chair with a throw wrapped around her shoulders for extra warmth against the cool morning, she quietly listened to the birds singing in the trees. It sounded like an enormous orchestra warming up, each playing his or her own song before the conductor approached the podium, and they all quieted in preparation for the musical piece.
Annie tried to remember the last time she heard such a mass of birds singing in New York or even Rome. Had other noise drowned it out or did she not listen? From now on, she vowed, she would listen for the birds no matter where she was in the world.
Nutmeg stood next to the fence, barely moving a muscle. It was as if she were posing for a sculpture. Annie sipped her coffee and watched her for several minutes to see if she would move from the spot, but she didn’t. The mare pawed the ground, but remained motionless as if she were waiting for something to happen.
The whole pasture wasn’t visible from where she sat on the porch, but she could see maybe a third of it. It was the same section where she fell off Nutmeg, which must be how her grandmother knew what had happened.
When Woody brought Nutmeg over, he said, “Horses can get into anything. Best check them once a day.”
Annie looked for Nutmeg once a day, although she didn’t exactly know what she was looking for. She figured as long as a horse was upright, it must be okay. And there was Nutmeg standing next to the fence and looking perfectly content. There seemed to be no need to walk all the way out there.
Woody stopped by to check on her, sometimes twice a day and particularly at mealtime. She liked Woody and even felt a little sorry for him. He seemed very devoted to his mother’s care and Annie admired him for that; but Annie wondered if she should come right out and tell him she had no interest in dating, now and maybe ever. Being that forthright had always been difficult for her. Janice would come right out and say it: “Woody, I appreciate your help, but if you’ve got anything else on your mind other than friendship, forget about it.”
The contents of her coffee mug empty and the morning wearing on, she went inside and called the hospital number posted next to the phone.
“I’m tolerable well. Ready for better food, that’s for sure. You can’t imagine what they call sausage and biscuits.”
