A Match Made in Dry Creek
In the meantime, there were things to do.
It wouldn’t hurt for Doris June to do some shopping before she came. Of course, she’d never go shopping for herself if her mother suggested it. No, Mrs. Hargrove decided, the only thing to do was to ask Doris June to go shopping for something for her mother.
Doris June would love that. She had never liked the gingham housedresses that Mrs. Hargrove usually wore. Of course, the housedresses were perfectly fine. They were easy to wash and most of them had a zipper in the front so Mrs. Hargrove didn’t need to fumble with buttons when her arthritis was acting up.
Besides, in Mrs. Hargrove’s opinion, Doris June had no right to complain about the fashion of others, not when all she ever seemed to wear were business suits. It was a frustration to a mother when she had a daughter as beautiful as Doris June, who seemed determined to hide that fact from everyone.
To begin with, Doris June had good bones and good posture. She stood tall and confident. Her hair was a honey-blond and she didn’t make the mistake of bleaching it lighter, hoping it would become that Hollywood blond that actresses seemed to favor. Doris June’s skin was clear and her blue eyes looked straight ahead at life. She didn’t wear much makeup, but she didn’t need to.
Doris June was a classically featured woman. Sometimes, though, Mrs. Hargrove worried that her daughter didn’t look as young as she should. Before all of that elopement business, Doris June had looked like every other teenage girl. She’d bounced. She’d chattered. She’d even worn some kind of bright blue fingernail polish at the time. But after the elopement—well, Doris June just didn’t seem the same. She stiffened up.
She walked instead of bouncing. She was patient and long-suffering. Mrs. Hargrove couldn’t help but notice that her daughter had started to dress like an old lady. Not that she wore housedresses like Mrs. Hargrove did. She would never do that. But Doris June stopped wearing anything that seemed youthful. She still had all the looks she needed to grab the attention of any man she wanted. It’s just that, once she had their attention, they were more likely to think of her as a good neighbor or a good employer than a romantic partner.
Mrs. Hargrove decided it was too late to worry about the bouncing. At forty-two, Doris June would have outgrown that by now anyway. But Mrs. Hargrove figured she could do something about the suits Doris June always wore. She had suits in black, gray, and navy, and she wore them with white blouses. She always looked crisp, but even Mrs. Hargrove knew clothes like that encouraged a man to think of a tax audit rather than a candlelight dinner.
Mrs. Hargrove felt too guilty to ever talk to Doris June about the kind of clothes she wore, but a mother noticed certain things even if she didn’t know what to do about them. Maybe she could do something now, though, if she had Doris June go shopping for her. If she wanted to get Doris June to buy some new clothes for herself, she had to get her into different stores than the ones where she usually shopped, so she wouldn’t ask her to buy more gingham dresses. No, she’d ask Doris June to get her a spring dress or two that had some style.
While she was there, Doris June might even pick up some high heels for herself. It wouldn’t hurt to remind Curt that Doris June had nice legs.
Yes, Mrs. Hargrove thought, this just might work.
Chapter Two
Doris June Hargrove looked up from the contracts she had in front of her. She managed the advertising traffic in the main television station in Anchorage and she often had ad contracts on her desk. Usually, she knew exactly what contracts were in front of her, but ever since the telephone call from her mother two hours ago she hadn’t been able to concentrate.
She had suspected for months that something was wrong with her mother. After Christmas, her mother had sounded depressed in their twice-weekly telephone calls and then, in the last couple of months, her mother had sounded too cheerful. Doris June asked her mother if the doctor had given her any new prescriptions and her mother had said no, so Doris June decided her mother must have just had cabin fever and was growing happier as spring started to take hold in Dry Creek.
Doris June hadn’t spent a winter in Dry Creek for years, but she remembered the bitter cold well enough to understand how her mother’s mood might improve as everything started to thaw. Even Anchorage tended to be milder than southern Montana in some winters.
Of course, the winter wouldn’t explain everything. Her mother still wasn’t eating right. These days, if Doris June asked her mother what she’d had for lunch, her mother would say she had a can of soup; and she wouldn’t even know what kind of soup it was. That wasn’t like her mother.
Doris June wished she had a penny for every time her mother had told her that there was too much salt and too little nutrition in canned soup and that it didn’t take much time or trouble to make a pot of vegetable soup so there was no excuse for just opening a can.
It was the endless cans of soup that made Doris June start to worry that her mother was sick. But then, in this latest call, her mother had asked Doris June to go shopping before she flew home. She had already bought a ticket for May tenth at her mother’s request so she didn’t see any problem in picking up a few things for her mother.
Doris June had shopped for her mother before and knew just where to find the housedresses that her mother liked. She even knew the colors her mother liked; they never varied. Nothing about her mother’s wardrobe varied. But this time her mother didn’t want a gingham house dress; she wanted a frilly, spring dress.
“In cotton?” Doris June had asked, bewildered.
“No, cotton’s too plain.”
Cotton’s too plain, Doris June had wondered if she’d heard right. Her mother swore by cotton. It’s all she ever wanted to wear except for an old wool suit that she brought out for weddings and funerals. She’d never asked for anything else.
“I’m thinking of some of that floaty material you see people wearing in magazines these days,” her mother continued.
“You mean like chiffon?”
“Yeah, something like that,” her mother said. “Something that swishes and swirls when you turn. In some pretty colors. Maybe rose or violet.”
“You mean like the stuff they use when they make prom dresses?”
“Yeah, that would work.”
“It doesn’t sound very durable,” Doris June said. And what had happened to navy gingham housedresses with zippers?
“Well, goodness, we don’t always need to be practical. A woman needs a pretty dress or two. And buy something for yourself while you’re at it—something that isn’t a suit. Something that floats.”
“You’re sure you don’t want me to come home before the tenth?” Doris June asked after a moment. Her mother had already asked her to come and help with the traditional Mother’s Day pansies in church. Doris June didn’t understand why her mother needed help with a few plants, but if her mother asked for help, Doris June would drop everything to go. She had a plane reservation to leave next Tuesday, but she could change her plans.
“Oh, don’t come early.” Her mother sounded alarmed. “We won’t be ready for you.”
“We?”
“Well, Charley’s going to help me start the baskets. I won’t need your help until the tenth.”
Doris June was dumbfounded when she hung up the phone after the conversation ended. When she combined the mood swings with the erratic behavior and the talk of dresses in chiffon material, she finally realized what it all must mean.
Her mother wasn’t sick: she was going senile.
That must be why her mother had stopped cooking for herself and had become obsessed with planting pansies.
Come to think of it, her mother had said months ago she and Charley were going to put off the work they had to do for the tourism board. Doris June hadn’t heard a mention of it since. Her mother wasn’t the kind of woman to keep anyone waiting for months for a few pieces of information, especially not an official group like the state tourism board. The woman who raised Doris June would turn that work around in a heartbeat.
Yes, something was wrong.
Even the pansies seemed to be an odd idea now that Doris June thought about it. Her mother hadn’t planted pansies for the past ten years. And, with her arthritis, why start again now? Was her mother having some kind of a flashback to a happier, simpler time?
Doris wondered if her mother had been showing other signs of confusion. Her mother hadn’t been putting together any puzzles lately, either. She used to do dozens of puzzles every winter. Maybe the thousand-piece puzzles were suddenly too hard for her.
Doris June made a mental note to pick up some hundred-piece puzzles while she was out shopping. A few puzzles that weren’t too challenging for her mother were certainly better things to buy her than some chiffon dress. Where would her mother even wear a dress like that?
Doris June decided she would also stop by her doctor’s office and see if they had any information on the signs of early dementia. Maybe there were some mental exercises her mother could do or some special vitamins she could take.
Doris June knew her mother didn’t have severe problems. If she were exhibiting really bizarre behavior, it would be obvious to everyone and someone from Dry Creek would call Doris June and tell her about it.
Doris June took a deep breath and made herself relax. It wasn’t anything earthshaking. Older people often found themselves a little confused. Her mother was probably at the place where she needed to start making adjustments in her life. It was nothing to cause any major alarm. It was simply a part of the aging process. Her mother believed in being practical about such things, and Doris June had no doubt her mother would take her diminished sharpness in stride.
Doris June was just glad she would be able to give her mother some more help during the whole process. It might even bring her and her mother closer together, Doris June decided. Her mother had been the strong one her whole life; it was natural that the positions would reverse themselves and Doris June would become the one who was strong for her mother, instead.
The next week, on the Nelson farm just outside of Dry Creek, Charley pulled a chair up to the old table that stood squarely in the middle of the kitchen. Over the years, the stove in the kitchen had been replaced twice and the refrigerator three times. The cupboards had been refaced and the floor retiled. The one thing that hadn’t changed, though, was the table. He had sat down to breakfast at the same table in the same chair for the past forty years.
For some of those years, Charley had wondered if his life was in a rut. A man ought to see some change over the years, he figured, or there was no point in being alive.
When his son, Curt, moved home to take over the farm duties, Charley thought about relocating to someplace else, like maybe Florida or even just into the town of Dry Creek itself. He got maps and a book on the best places to retire. Then he realized he had everything he wanted in this small piece of Montana farmland and there was no reason to move anywhere else.
He’d had no reason since then to regret his decision to stay.
Watching the haggard look leave Curt’s face and seeing Ben fill out like a normal healthy teenager was something Charley wouldn’t miss for all the beaches in Florida. The big city of Chicago had taken its toll on his son and grandson, and Charley was glad they had returned to their roots.
Breakfast was Charley’s favorite meal because all three Nelson men sat down together just like they were going to do this morning. It was seven o’clock and Ben was just coming in the kitchen door after feeding the horses. Curt was standing in front of the stove getting ready to flip the eggs.
Charley hated to catch Curt in a moment when he needed his concentration, but sometimes a man had to think about the greater good even if it meant a yolk got broken.
“I just wish Ben could have been alive to see you making your traditional Mother’s Day breakfast for his grandmother,” Charley said. “You did it every year. A boy should know what his family’s made of.”
“No big secret there. We’re probably made of fried eggs and pancakes by now,” Curt said as he turned one of six eggs on the same griddle he’d used a little earlier to make pancakes. Fried eggs and pancakes were about as advanced as the cooking got at the farm, although Curt could make a good bowl of chili as well.
“If I remember right you made some fancy French toast one Mother’s Day. What was it you put in it?”
Curt grinned. “I put cinnamon on top of it. I thought I was really the gourmet chef.”
Charley smiled. “And you had some real maple syrup. Your mother talked about that syrup for days. She couldn’t figure out where you’d gotten a bottle of the stuff.”
“Billings,” Curt said as he turned another egg with a flourish. “I bribed Mr. Dennison and he brought it out for me when he did the mail route.”
“How come we never have French toast?” Ben grumbled as he pulled his own chair out. He’d just washed his hands and he wiped some of the dampness on his jeans before he sat down on the chair and pulled it close to the table.
“I only made it that one time for Mom,” Curt said as he reached up into the cupboard and grabbed a platter.
“I wish I’d been there,” Ben said quietly.
Charley had never seen a more wistful boy than Ben. Charley had thought Ben would outgrow it when he was on the farm, but he hadn’t yet. The boy always looked like he was missing something. And he was too quiet. He didn’t yell and shout like most teenagers, not even at basketball games.
“I wish you’d been there too, son,” Curt said as he put the turner under a couple of eggs and slid them onto the platter. The pancakes were keeping warm in the oven. “I wish it more so you could have met your grandmother than because my French toast was anything special.”
“Your grandmother was real tickled when you were born,” Charley added. One of the sad facts of his life was that his wife had died a few months after Ben was born and, due to her sickness, had never seen Ben. If the boy’s grandmother had lived, she would have known what to do to make Ben feel he had whatever it was he was missing.
“I always like to think Grandma would have been something like Mrs. Hargrove,” Ben said.
Curt set the platter of eggs and pancakes in the middle of the table and pulled out his own chair. “Your grandmother was not quite as opinionated as Mrs. Hargrove.”
“There’s nothing wrong with a woman having opinions,” Charley said. He knew Curt still had hard feelings for all of the Hargroves, but he kept hoping someday Curt would soften his views on Mrs. Hargrove. Charley counted the woman as one of his best friends and it rankled that his son didn’t respect her as he should.
Curt grunted. “She can have opinions as long as she keeps them to things she knows about.”
“I can’t imagine that there’s much that Mrs. Hargrove doesn’t know about,” Charley said. She had tended his broken leg and made him a salve that killed the pain better than the pills the doctor had given him. She didn’t just have book learning, either; she was a woman who knew her Bible. That had to count for something.
Curt snorted. “I can think of a thing or two she doesn’t know.” Curt stopped and looked over at his son. Curt swallowed and his voice was milder when he spoke again. “Of course, we all respect her for what she does for the community.”
Charley nodded. He was glad Curt could rein in his annoyance. “Mrs. Hargrove has a way with children.”
“She’s always nice to me,” Ben said. “I like her.”
Ben was looking at his father with a big question in his eyes and Charley could see that Curt was holding his tongue. Charley was glad that he and Mrs. Hargrove had decided to do something to try and fix the hard feelings they had caused all those years ago. If Curt’s feelings about Mrs. Hargrove were anything to go by, there were still some unresolved issues.
“The Hargroves were always our best and closest neighbors,” Charley finally said.
Curt clenched his jaw briefly before relaxing it. “And Mrs. Hargrove always charges me a fair price for leasing her land.”
Charley nodded. “She’d rather rent that land to you than anyone.”
“It’s good land.”
Charley thought he’d begun his conversation satisfactorily. He didn’t want to force Curt in any direction; he just wanted to give him time to think. “We have a lot to be grateful for—including these eggs.”
Curt looked at his father and took the cue. “Well, let’s pray then so Ben isn’t late catching the school bus.”
After taking a moment to let his irritation quiet down, Curt began to pray. Curt figured God knew his heart when it came to the Hargroves and that would have to do for now. There were other things to think about. “Lord, thank you for all you give us today and every day. For food, for work, for family and friends—we thank you. Keep us safe and help Ben in school. Amen.”
Curt decided he would eat his pancakes and forget about the Hargroves. There was a minute’s worth of silence when he thought his strategy was working.
“I bet Mrs. Hargrove can make French toast,” Ben said as he slipped a second pancake onto his plate. “She’s probably got a recipe and everything.”
“I’m sure she does,” Curt said as he took the platter that Ben passed his way and looked up at the clock. “You’re going to have to get ready for the bus soon.”
“I’ve got time,” Ben muttered. “I’d even have time to eat French toast for breakfast if we ever had it.”
“Well, Mrs. Hargrove has offered to cook us dinner when we help her with those Mother’s Day baskets,” Charley said from the other side of the table. “If we wanted to make it French toast, I’m sure that would be fine.”
“We don’t want to waste one of Mrs. Hargrove’s dinners on something I can make myself with a few pointers,” Curt said as he cut into the pancake on his plate. “I still remember the lasagna she used to make.”
Curt wasn’t sure exactly when he had agreed to help Mrs. Hargrove plant her pansies, but he wasn’t sorry that he was doing it as long as he could do it without having to spend too much time in her presence. He had plowed the plot for her six weeks ago and covered the whole thing with a heavy plastic that kept the warmth inside.
Mrs. Hargrove had some solar lights out there and the whole thing made a low-lying greenhouse. He’d been skeptical that it would work until he remembered that Mrs. Hargrove had found a way to grow her pansies years ago in the old days when she didn’t even have the solar lights.
“She’d have to drive into Billings to find the ingredients for her lasagna,” Charley said. “And you know her car’s been having some trouble so she’s not driving it that far these days.”
“Well, I could drive her into Billings.”
Charley looked down at his pancake. Things were working out better than he had hoped. “Wouldn’t hurt to make the trip count twice. Someone needs to pick Doris June up this evening.”
“Doris June’s coming?”
Charley nodded.
“Here?”
Charley nodded.
Curt told himself he should have seen this coming. He knew Doris June didn’t usually come home for Mother’s Day, but this was a special Mother’s Day for Mrs. Hargrove if those pansies were anything to go by. He supposed Doris June would want to spend the day with her mother. He couldn’t begrudge her that.
“I’ll be happy to lend my pickup to Mrs. Hargrove,” Curt said. “No point in two people making the trip to Billings.”
Charley nodded. “I’m sure the two of you can work something out.”
Curt looked over at his father. The man was innocently eating a second pancake and looking as if he hadn’t been anywhere around when the noose had been thrown around Curt’s neck.
“Linda from the café might be able to drive Mrs. Hargrove to Billings—she can use my pickup,” Curt added. He’d be willing to pay Linda a prime wage to do just that. Doris June liked Linda. She’d be happy to have a ride back to Dry Creek with the young woman. Curt knew Doris June wouldn’t like to see him meeting her at the airport. In fact, she might stay on the plane rather than get in a pickup that he was driving.
When Curt moved back to Dry Creek four years ago, he had assumed he would see Doris June again. He had even hoped they might have a nice, quiet conversation about what had happened all those years ago. He knew a hole had been burned through his world the day their elopement fell apart, and he couldn’t believe it hadn’t affected Doris June as well. There was no ignoring that hole, but maybe if they talked about what had happened, they could become friends again.
At the very least, Curt would like to apologize. He’d been impatient back then when he had pressed Doris June to elope with him. He’d been wrong to pressure her and then wrong to run off and join the army when everything fell apart. He’d started to write her a letter many times, but he never found words that said how very sorry he was if he had hurt her.
He knew he’d hurt himself with his hot-tempered actions. He’d lost the best friend he’d ever had in his life.
Curt knew better than to hope that someday they could be more than friends. He was a man who believed in the power of prayer to heal things, but even he couldn’t believe Doris June would forgive him to that extent. He knew Doris June. She was a very organized woman, and if she had moved him to the “undesirable” section in her mind, she wouldn’t likely budge from it later. She had been furious with him when they parted twenty-five years ago, and her silence since then told him all he needed to know about how she felt.
Of course, it hadn’t all been his fault. Curt often wondered if Mrs. Hargrove ever told her daughter how many times he had asked for Doris June’s address in Alaska and been refused. When he thought about it much later, he couldn’t believe that Doris June had forbidden her mother to give him the address, so he laid the blame squarely at Mrs. Hargrove’s feet.
And the older woman was still at it. The fact that Doris June went out of her way to avoid seeing him when she came to Dry Creek was not lost on Curt. When she came to visit her mother, Doris June always seemed to know where he was—at least, he assumed she must know where he was because she was never at the same place as he was and, in a town the size of Dry Creek, that could only be intentional. Even if Doris June had not asked her mother back then to refuse to give him her address, she was certainly asking her mother to help her avoid him these days.
It was too bad, Curt told himself as he pushed his chair back from the table and stood up to go get the rest of the pancakes that were in the warm oven. It was definitely too bad. There had been many times over the past twenty-five years when he could have used a friend like Doris June. He liked to believe that she missed his friendship as well. Even if she could never love him again, he wished she could forgive him enough to sit down with him and ask him how his life was going.
Of course, for her to do that she would have to talk to him again and that didn’t seem likely. Once Doris June made up her mind about something, it stayed made up. She was one stubborn woman. Just like her mother.
Chapter Three
Doris June waited for the airplane to come to a complete stop at the Billings airport before she unfastened her seat belt. It was dark outside except for the lights on the runway. Other passengers had started to reach for their overhead luggage, but Doris June was content to live by the rules and stay seated. She had a bag of puzzles in the overhead compartment and she’d wait for the line of people to pass before she pulled it down. She’d gotten to the airport at six o’clock this morning anyway and she was tired.
She could also use the few extra minutes to go over in her mind what she intended to say to her mother about the quite understandable possibility that her mother’s mental agility was compromised and that her mother might want to be open to receiving some help. Help that Doris June fully intended to give even if she had to pretend to take a series of short vacations to Dry Creek, Montana, to give it.