Page 63 of Hearts Aweigh

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“Anyhoo”—Althea folded her hands over her stomach—“I was on a bench opposite her. My grandkids were running around the playground, having a big old time. When I spotted Daisy, she was the loneliest, most pitiful thing I’d ever seen. I waltzed over, plopped down, and asked why she was dressed head to toe in black on a stuffy summer day.”

“What did she say?”

“Not much. Said she’d just come from a funeral.”

“A funeral?” That was the last place he’d seen his mother until this recent trip. He recalled her rigid posture as they stood at the family mausoleum. The way she’d walked away without a word and showed up late for the reception, leaving him alone to fend off the well-bred attendees offering their eloquent, insincere words of condolence. Had she been sitting in a park?

A soft pat brought him back from his musings.

Althea withdrew her hand. “You probably already guessed. It was the day they buried your daddy.” She grinned. “Daisy was pretty prickly at first—answered me with her pert nose in the air. But I could see it was a front. My philosophy is, if you want people to open up, you have to bare your heart first. So I told her about my grandkids—how Jayshawn was the mischievous one, and Bernadette was my little snuggle bear, always wanting hugs.”

Her rich voice rolled out like melted fudge on a marble slab. The sweet musical tone soothed the ache in his brain. Was this what his mother had experienced that day at the park?

Althea stretched her legs out and crossed them at the ankles. “By the time I got through all my kin, your momma started to unbend. I suggested she could tell me about her family, if she wanted. I wasn’t sure she’d take me up on my invite, but she did.”

Spencer picked at the ends of his fingertips. “How much did she tell you?”

“Enough for me to realize I lived a happier life in my one-bedroom apartment than poor Daisy did in her big mansion in the Garden District. It was like the Lawd whispered in my ear, ‘Take her on the cruise with you.’”

He squinted. “It’s hard to believe you’d make such an offer to a total stranger. And even harder to fathom my mother accepted.”

Althea shrugged. “It was a God thing. My oldest granddaughter bought me the cruise as a birthday present, but she had to back out because of work. I told Daisy the ticket was already paid for and it was a shame to waste it. I gave her my phone number and told her to think about it. She called me three days later.”

“Did she reimburse you?”

Althea’s eyes narrowed. “Baby, you got a knack for asking rude questions. I didn’t request a ‘reimbursement.’” She shook her head with the last word. “Her ritzy threads told me she didn’t need a handout, but I wanted to offer her a gift with no strings attached. I got the impression she hadn’t had many of those in her life.”

Spencer squirmed in the lightweight camping chair. He knew the feeling. His father had given him a tennis racket for his tenth birthday but then required he take private lessons and enter the country club tournament. In high school, a fancy sports car arrived the day before his dad “suggested” he ask a businesspartner’s daughter—a spiteful girl the whole class avoided because of her mean temper—to the prom. Every present he’d ever received from his father came with expectations. His mother must have suffered the same experience.

Funny. He’d never bothered to view it from her perspective.

The metal legs of the chair squeaked underneath him. “But how did one trip turn into living on a cruise ship?”

Althea’s belly laugh matched her personality—large and full of life. “We met Gerry and Emily on that first cruise. They were already hard at work matching people, and we didn’t want to miss the fun.”

“But Daisy never uses her credit cards. How can she afford it?”

“Your momma’s clever. Far more than anybody recognizes. When your father’s fancy business partners gave her an expensive trinket or gifted her a designer handbag on her birthday, she saved it long enough for your daddy to forget about it, then hocked it.”

“Hockedit?” Spencer drew back. “I can’t picture her in a pawnshop.”

Althea chuckled. “Imagine the small fortune she gathered over their forty-nine-year marriage.”

“But why?” He scratched the back of his head. “Dad gave her everything she needed.”

“Not the things she needed most. Love, understanding, acceptance.”

Spencer couldn’t argue. His father had never shown those qualities to anyone, including him. “Why stay, then? She could have divorced him.”

“And lose the one thing she reallydidneed?” Althea shook her head.

“Status?”

She smacked his arm hard. “You deserve a whippin’ for that. The one thing Daisy couldn’t live without wasyou, Spencer. You might not have had a close, affectionate relationship, but at least she got to see you. Your daddy ruled like a dictator. If she divorced him, he would’ve kept you away forever.”

Spencer’s brain filled with white noise. This new revelation floored him. It was true. Julius Masterson had valued control above all else. He’d chosen everything from his son’s college major to the woman he married. In all things, Spencer had bowed to his father’s wishes. How could he blame his mother for doing the same?

Althea stood and rubbed the small of her back. “My old carcass can’t handle too much sitting. I’m gonna make a lap around the deck.” She walked away with a song on her lips. “Gonna lay down my burrrrr-dens.”