Different Paths Read online

  “Yeah. They’ve got a pretty nice fellowship hall. And it’s air-conditioned.”

  I pointed a crutch at Randy. “You going?”

  He nodded. “Everyone from our MYF is supposed to go, since she’s our new pastor.”

  Mallory continued. “Other groups are coming, too. Blooming Glen, I think. And Perkasie.”

  “Katherine’s son going to be there?”

  Mallory wrinkled her nose. “Trevor? I suppose.”

  Zach shook his head and looked at Randy.

  I caught the look. “What?”

  “Nothing. He’s just…weird.”

  “Zach.” Mallory frowned.

  “Well, he is.”

  “Yeah,” Randy said. “Super weird. You should’ve seen what he wore to church last Sunday. My mom wouldn’t let me come to the farm in those jeans.”

  Mallory turned her frown on him. “You’d be upset, too, if your parents dragged you across a couple of states before your senior year. And how was he supposed to know what kids wear to church around here?”

  Brady looked at Mallory with surprise. “How come you’re defending him?”

  “Because he’s not weird.”

  Zach and Randy made disbelieving sounds.

  “Okay, fine,” Mallory said. “He might be weird, but that’s no reason to be nasty. It can’t be easy being a PK, especially when the P in question is a woman.” She held up her keys. “Now are you guys coming, or not?”

  Randy hooked his thumb over his shoulder. “I drove over. I thought Zach was coming with me.”

  “We can drop you off here afterward, for your car.”

  “But I want to drive.”

  Mallory bit her lip. “Um, okay, but Mom wants me to drive Zach.”

  Randy nodded. “Sure. I get it. She doesn’t trust me.”

  “It’s not that…”

  “No, never mind.” He lifted his chin at Zach. “See you there. If I make it in one piece.”

  So sarcasm wasn’t reserved solely for adults.

  We watched him drive ever so slowly out the drive in his big old Caddy, the car making a little whining noise I didn’t like. He didn’t spit out so much as one piece of gravel.

  “Way to go, Mal,” Zach said.

  Mallory rubbed her forehead, keys clanking. “I was hoping he wouldn’t say anything, and just come with us.”

  Zach gave my crutches one last look and slumped into the back seat of Mallory’s car. She threw me a sick look before sliding into the driver’s seat, Brady sitting shotgun. I waved with my elbow, and they were gone.

  I was trying to balance in front of my refrigerator, looking for something easy to eat, when the window above my kitchen sink began vibrating. I hobbled over and saw Lenny and Tess astride his hog, parking to the side of the driveway. I couldn’t help but smile at the sight—Lenny with his big bike, big beard, and big body, completely overwhelming the small girl behind him. He stepped off the bike, then gently lifted Tess down, keeping her far from the hot pipes. Together they pulled the helmet off of her head and set it on the ground. He ruffled her hair, and I had a hard time believing anyone could be a better dad for Lucy’s daughter.

  Queenie ran around them as they made their way toward my door, and Tess fell over her, laughing. Queenie made sure there weren’t any spots left on Tess’ face that weren’t licked clean.

  By the time I made it out of the kitchen, Tess was barging in the front door. “Mom said you broke your foot! Let me see! Does it hurt? Those crutches are so cool! Can I try them?”

  Lenny, who followed her in, gave a guffaw. “Take a breath, honeypie. Don’t want you keeling over. Stella here can’t catch you.”

  “Gee, thanks.” I tried to frown, but couldn’t with the sight of Lenny’s grin.

  “Big ol’ cow got ya, huh?”

  “Yup.”

  “Too bad. Lucy called and said we should come on over for supper and she’d feed us all here. ‘Cause you know, you might starve otherwise.” He smiled bigger, exposing the gap between his front teeth.

  “I just might.”

  “Where is Mom?” Tess skipped to the sink and hoisted herself up so she could see out the window.

  “I don’t know. Figured she was here somewhere.”

  Lenny pointed outside with his thumb. “Car’s not here.”

  “It’s not? Huh.”

  Lenny snorted. “Such an observant boss.”

  “Hey. I trust my employees, that’s all.”

  “Uh-huh. Taken much painkiller today?”

  “Oh, shut up.”

  “Something,” Lenny said to Tess, “that we should never say to people.”

  I glared at him, and he gave me his innocent look.

  “There’s a new calf,” I told Tess. “If you want to see it.”

  “Really?” She jumped up and down, grabbing Lenny’s arm. “Can we? Can we?”

  “Sure, sugar. Let’s go.” He stopped Tess’ forward progress for a moment as he looked back at me. “You coming?”

  I hadn’t seen the new calf yet, so I agreed. Tess ran ahead and was already oohing and aahing over the new heifer by the time I got there. The calf was a pretty little girl, with black circles over each eye, and white stocking feet.

  “Does she have a name?” Tess asked.

  “Not yet.” I looked at Tess’ eager face. “Want to name her?”

  She let out a little shriek. “Yes! Yes, yes, yes!”

  Lenny winked at me. “I think she wants to.”

  I laughed. “So what’s it gonna be?”

  She bit her lip and hopped from one foot to the other as she considered. “Can I think about it?”

  “Sure. No rush. You can—”

  Lucy’s car pulled into the drive and Tess whipped around. “Mom!” The girl jumped up and ran across the yard to her mother, hugging Lucy’s waist as she held up two bags of groceries. We could hear Tess’ excited yammering from where we stood by the hutches. “Stella’s gonna let me name the new calf, but I don’t know what yet. What’re we having? I’m starved!”

  Lucy laughed, catching Lenny’s eye as we walked up. “That’s great about the calf, honey. And we’re having tacos for everybody. I even got a couple of avocados to make that guacamole Stella likes.”

  My stomach rumbled, and I wondered how fast supper could be ready.

  It was on the table in record time, with everyone helping. Lenny and Tess set out the plates and glasses, and I was put to work chopping tomatoes. When I reminded Lucy of my lack of cooking skills, she assured me that no one had ever died from a badly sliced vegetable.

  “So,” I said once the food was ready, grace had been given, and Lucy’s taco was poised underneath her open mouth. “You really thought Bryan was cute?”

  Lenny looked at his wife, eyebrows raised. “Don’t like the sound of that.”

  She set down her taco and patted his hand. “Don’t worry, darling, he’s not my type.” To me, she said, “Yes, I did. He seemed very sweet, and obviously adores Carla.”

  “Oh,” Lenny said. “Carla’s new man?”

  Tess clapped. “Carla has a boyfriend?” She thought about this a bit more and stopped clapping, a furrow on her forehead.

  “He’s weird,” I said.

  Lucy picked up her taco again. “No, he’s not. He’s nice.”

  “And you can tell that how? By the way his belt buckle takes up half the room?”

  She frowned at me. “He likes Carla, and she likes him. That should be enough for you. No matter what the size of his accessories.”

  “But we don’t know anything about him. He could be anybody.”

  “And so what? There’s lot of nice ‘anybodys’ out there.” She lifted up her taco, but stopped before taking a bite. “He works at the Home Depot, right? You know that.”

  “So he has a job,” Lenny said. “That’s good.”

  Lucy nodded. “And he’s taking care of her dog. So he likes a
nimals.”

  “Then he must be nice,” Tess said.

  Lucy smiled. “Try to swallow before you talk, honey.”

  I fiddled with my napkin. “I still don’t like it.”

  “I know you don’t.” Lucy’s voice was kind. “But Carla really likes him.”

  Tess held up a chunk of tomato. “How come these are in such big pieces?”

  Lucy looked to me for an answer, and Bryan was forgotten.

  By the time supper was over I was ready to help with the evening milking. I stood up at the end of the meal and made to follow Lucy out the door while Lenny and Tess cleaned up.

  Lucy stopped, one hand on her hip. “And where do you think you’re going?”

  “To help milk.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Doctor said I could.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  We stood there for several seconds before Lucy shook her head, rolled her eyes, and continued out the door. The door slammed shut on my crutch, but Lucy didn’t turn around to hold it for me. By the time I got it open and made my way down the side steps she was already in the barn. Stubborn woman.

  I finally got into the parlor, where Lucy ignored me. She didn’t say a word, but I soon learned one very important thing: crutches and cow crap don’t work well together.

  The third time I fell—also the third time Lucy pretended it hadn’t happened—was enough. I gathered together what was left of my pride and stumbled to my office. Queenie stayed in the parlor, most likely afraid of getting a crutch in her eye or me falling on her head. Can’t say I blamed her.

  When I made it to my chair and had gotten my breath back, I called Carla’s house. I wanted to know how it went, moving back home from the hospital.

  There was no answer, so I called Grand View. Carla was still in her room.

  “How come you’re still there?”

  Her frustration was almost visible at my end of the phone. “The doctor didn’t get here till late this afternoon. Said he wanted to keep me overnight yet. Guess he needs to make one more payment on his yacht. Or his villa in Guadalupe.”

  “Carla—”

  “I know, I know. It’s for my own good.”

  “I wasn’t going to say that. I was going to say that if he’s anybody his villa is in Cancun.”

  She laughed harshly. “Yeah. Whatever. He said I can go home in the morning, as long as nothing happens overnight.”

  “You feeling okay?”

  “I’m fine. How’s your foot?”

  “Peachy.”

  “Sure. Lucy kick you out of the barn yet?”

  “Not exactly.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Bryan there?”

  “Not right now. Went home to check on Concord. Poor dog’s feeling neglected.”

  “Oh. Well. That’s nice of him.”

  “Sure is. But then, he’s a nice guy.”

  She wanted me to say something. I could feel it. So I did. “Give me a call in the morning if you need a ride home. I’ll be glad to come get you.”

  She grunted. “Or have Lucy come get me, more like. Forget it. Bryan will take me home.”

  “But if I—”

  “Goodnight, Stella.” And she hung up.

  Shit.

  I put the phone back in its cradle and stood up. Blood rushed to my head, and I quickly sank back into the chair. The fuzziness in my head was soon replaced by the throbbing of my temples, and I opened a desk drawer to get some ibuprofen.

  The bottle was empty.

  I looked at the ceiling. Looked out the window. Blew my bangs off my forehead. And pushed myself back up to make the trek to the house.

  Lucy was standing in the middle of a row of cows, her rag dripping soapy water back into the bucket as she watched me lumber through. Neither of us said anything.

  Outside, Lenny and Tess were climbing onto his bike, helmets on. I hoped he’d wait to start it until my pounding head and I were behind the closed door of my house.

  “You look like crap,” Lenny said.

  “Gee, thanks.”

  “Didn’t mean it bad. Need some help?”

  I shook my head, then regretted it. “I’ll be fine. Thanks for coming over here for supper.”

  “No problem. We always enjoy seeing you.”

  Tess didn’t look so sure, but that could’ve been because I was wincing with each step.

  I passed the bike and began the trek up the sidewalk. “I’ll see you guys soon.”

  “Sure.” And he started the bike.

  I went as fast as I could up the steps, but by the time I made it to the door he was already out the lane. I pushed my way inside and into the bathroom, where I found a partially filled bottle of painkillers. I downed the recommended dose and sank onto the sofa.

  The sound of the door woke me, and I peered up at Lucy.

  “Come on,” she said.

  She half-lifted me off the sofa and helped me up the stairs, where she peeled Dr. Peterson’s sweatpants off of me, made sure I didn’t pass out in the bathroom, and tucked me into bed.

  “Need anything else?”

  I glanced at my nightstand to make sure the phone was on its cradle, and lay back on the pillow. “Nothing else.”

  “All right. Call anytime. And don’t get up for milking in the morning. Zach and I will take care of it.”

  I thought for a second she was going to kiss me goodnight, but better sense prevailed and she walked toward the door.

  “Luce?”

  She stopped.

  “Thanks.”

  She smiled, and was gone. Her footsteps were quiet on the stairs.

  I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and prepared to fall asleep.

  But of course I couldn’t.

  I counted sheep. I counted calves. I counted rows and rows of cornstalks, tassels blowing in the wind.

  None of it worked.

  I reached over, finally, and got the phone. I heard Nick pick up on the first ring, and started in before he could even say hello. “You’re never going to believe my day.”

  So I told him. I told him about Carla being stuck in the hospital, I told him about Katherine’s office getting vandalized, I told him about Lucy’s defense of the still-unproven Bryan, and I told him about my broken foot. When I stopped to take a breath, he waited.

  “I’m done,” I said.

  I could almost feel his sigh of relief. “Sounds like it’s dangerous to be a woman up there these days. Maybe you’d be better off staying down here.”

  My throat went dry, and the ibuprofen that had been working suddenly stopped. “Yeah,” I said. “Yeah, maybe so.”

  He laughed quietly. “Just joking, Stella. You know that. It was just a joke.”

  But jokes aren’t supposed to make your stomach hurt.

  Chapter Fifteen

  When I woke up I felt sort of like a new person. My clock said six forty-five and I struggled to remember the last time I’d slept in that late. Maybe Saturdays in junior high, when my mother was still alive and Howie took care of the milking. But thinking about Howie, whose death the previous summer had almost destroyed me, threatened to get my head back to hurting, so I pushed all thoughts of him from my mind.

  I sat up carefully and eased my legs over the side of the bed. The worst throbbing was gone, but a dull ache had settled into my leg, and it seemed to weigh twice its familiar heft. My morning trip to the bathroom took more than its usual time, and I washed the best I could, since I didn’t feel up to waterproofing my cast yet. By the time I made it down to the kitchen for a bowl of Cheerios it was almost seven-thirty.

  I hobbled out to the barn, my armpits sore from the last day’s pressure. Queenie trotted over and sniffed the crutches, in case they’d turned into something different overnight. I reached down and scratched her ears.

  “Hey, how are you?” Lucy stood up beside Ariel.

  I groaned. “Been better, been worse.”
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  Zach, squatting beside a cow further down the row, ignored me.

  I shifted the crutches and leaned on them with my forearms, Queenie dancing away, as if the crutches had moved on their own. “Anything I can help with?”

  This brought a snort from Zach, but Lucy smiled. “I don’t think so. Thanks, though.”

  “Tess okay?”

  “She’s at home with Lenny. He has to go into work today, but he said she can hang out at the store, at least for a while. Bart will be there, and she hasn’t gotten to spend time with him lately.”

  Bart Watts, Lenny’s business partner at the Biker Barn, their Harley-Davidson store, had become “Uncle Bart” to Tess, and the two got along like they’d been playing together since her birth. He’d sworn to Lucy early on that he wouldn’t smoke around his new niece, and I was hoping it might be the catalyst for getting him off the habit. I wanted to keep him around as long as possible, and his promise to Lucy seemed like a good start.

  I sank down onto a straw bale to watch Lucy and Zach work. There was always paperwork to be done in the office, but who wanted to do that that early in the morning? I sat for a while, but soon realized that watching other people milk wasn’t even close to the same experience as doing it myself. I tried to close my eyes and relax, breathing in the warm, homey smells of the cows, but at that close range it wasn’t very smart.

  I pushed up from the bale and limped without my crutches over to the bulletin board to see what had been tacked up.

  “Got a photo of the new calf already, I see. Thanks, Zach.”

  He made some sort of noise, but didn’t actually say anything.

  “Now we just need Tess to decide on a name. She come up with anything last night, Luce?”

  “Nope. Nothing yet.” She stopped in the middle of the aisle. “Are you supposed to be walking around like that?”

  “Why not? It’s called a walking cast.”

  “But aren’t you supposed to cover it while you’re in the barn?”

  A minivan pulled into the lane, sending Queenie into a frenzy, and I looked out, happy to escape Lucy’s last mothering question. The van was an Odyssey I didn’t recognize. I limped back over to the straw bale to grab my crutches, and headed outside, in Queenie’s wake.

  Katherine Hershberger hopped down from the side door, then turned to offer a hand to Ma Granger, who slid slowly out. Tricia and Sarah, Katherine’s sister and niece, got out the other side, while the men—Katherine’s husband, Alan, and Tricia’s husband, David—stepped out of the front doors. Trevor, who looked like he’d just rolled out of bed, hair askew and several angry pimples adorning his chin, finally emerged, climbing through the middle seats from the back. It was like those clowns who keep getting out of the VW Bug, except this group looked a lot grumpier. I thumped toward them behind Queenie, who ran enthusiastic circles around the car, finally stopping by Ma, whom she knew. Tricia stood halfway behind her husband, as if Queenie were a threat, while Katherine looked on in amusement.