Page 16 of Over the Verdant Hills
“Hey, Mom. You’re up.” Josiah walked into the kitchen as evening descended along the lakeshore.
His mom, recovering from her MS flare-up, typically was in bed when he got home.
“I’m feeling a little better. And I wanted to fix supper for you.”
His dad was staying overnight in Blueberry Beach. He worked three long days, then a short day, and was home the other three.
On the days when his dad worked, he tried to make a point of being around for his mom. Time had gotten away from him this evening. Maybe because of talking to Claire, of realizing that she’d become a different, better person than she had been in school, or maybe just wanting, for some strange reason, to get the work done at the house so she could enjoy the flowers she’d talked about with such love and fondness.
He was a fool. She wasn’t going to care whether he got the house done fast or slow. But for some reason, he was driven to do it.
“Thanks. It’s always nice to come home to someone to talk to,” he said. Sometimes he liked to be alone with his thoughts, but he knew that his mom most likely was not going to be around for decades, and he had made a vow when she had first been diagnosedwith MS that he would appreciate every second he had with her. He hadn’t always been able to keep that vow, but he kept trying.
“I didn’t realize you were lonely,” she said, walking slowly to the cupboard to get out a bowl so she could scoop out the soup he’d made the night before, when he’d gotten home from working on the yachts.
He tried to make his work schedule when he had to be away align with his dad’s work schedule when he got to be home. They didn’t always make it happen, and they had a neighbor lady who could come and help with his mom. Still, he liked it best when he or his dad was able to take care of her.
“Mom, you don’t have to do that. I can get it warmed up, and you can sit here and talk to me.”
“I like to take care of people. I know it’s ironic, saying that when I need so much care myself. But let me, since I’m feeling well enough today.”
He nodded, grabbed a spoon from the drawer and iced tea from the fridge, and poured himself a glass before sitting down at the small kitchen table.
There was no need to go into the dining room and sit there, with it only being his mom and him. They were very casual when his dad wasn’t around.
“How’s Miss Mattie doing?” his mom asked.
He paused. He’d told her that Miss Mattie had been diagnosed with leukemia about six months prior, and her prognosis. He had wondered each time he was there whether Claire knew or not. She didn’t act like she did. He didn’t know if she’d be wasting her time working on a ladder painting a house if she knew. He wished that Miss Mattie would tell her, and then she could make the decision that he had made years ago regarding his mother.
“She’s doing well. Can’t really even tell,” he said as his mother nodded and the microwave beeped, and she walked slowly over to get his bowl.
She set the steaming soup in front of him and then walked to the refrigerator to grab butter before she pulled bread off the counter.
He remembered the smell of warm baking bread that had drifted out of the house while he was working, and he had wondered if Clairehad had a hand in it. Miss Mattie was known for her delicious homemade bread, and it would be a shame if Claire didn’t learn how to make it too.
But no one had asked him, and he needed to keep his opinions and thoughts to himself, although…
“I told you her granddaughter and her two children have moved in with Miss Mattie?”
“You did. Claire. I remember her from your school days.”
Their school wasn’t that big, and neither was the town. Everyone knew everyone else. So it didn’t surprise him that his mom remembered her.
“I don’t think she told Claire about her diagnosis. I’m not sure if I should say anything or not.” He was hoping his mom might have some words of wisdom.
She paused, setting the salt and pepper down in front of him before she sank into the other chair. “I don’t know what to say about that. I know Claire would want to know, but I also think that if Miss Mattie wanted her to know, she would tell her. So you’re torn, because they want different things, most likely.”
Yeah. That was the problem. He nodded and then said grace before starting to eat. “Did you already eat?”
“I wasn’t very hungry tonight,” his mother said.
He tried not to worry about that. He wasn’t going to try to coax her to eat if she wasn’t hungry. Although if she was hungry and just too tired to make something, he would do his best to help her. But that didn’t seem to be the case—she’d just warmed soup up for him.
“I never thought when you were a teenage boy that you’d be able to make soup that tastes that good. I had some earlier.”
Maybe that was why she wasn’t hungry. He shoved the thoughts away. He’d long ago accepted that she was going to have good days and bad days, and she wasn’t going to get better. MS wasn’t a disease that could be cured. So bad days were to be expected. Not that he liked it, but he couldn’t let himself go into a tailspin every time it seemed like she wasn’t doing as well as he wanted her to.
“I’m glad you liked it.” He didn’t mention that he’d had to learn to cook for survival reasons, since she was often sick and in bed, and if hewanted to eat, he had to figure out something to make himself. Plus, he was responsible for taking care of his mom. That was part of the reason he’d stayed home and didn’t move out of the town or the house he’d grown up in. He could hardly take care of her if she starved to death under his watch.
