MAKING PROGRESS… of sorts (Part 172i)
Elle was asleep on the
couch when I got home. The girls, all of them, were quietly playing in
the den. I asked Jean about her mother and she said that she’d fallen
asleep soon after I left. I asked if they’d had anything to eat and they
said they hadn’t and were hungry. I knew they often made their own
peanut butter and jelly sandwiches at lunch time on Saturdays and asked
why they hadn’t done that. The answer, “because Mommy didn’t say it was
OK”, was strange but it did tell me that they were certainly obedient. I
asked if they’d like pizza and, unfortunately for Elle, their answer was
loud enough to wake her up. She said she’d make supper but the cat was
already out of the bag with the option of pizza having been offered. I
did feel better about having Elle awake while on the pizza run.
While
picking the pizza up I ran into Davo who promptly asked what we were
going to do for a motor. Since Cliffy was the ‘lead’ person for the
whole crew I didn’t want to say anything about the ‘deal’ we were
working on to him. He did ask if we were going to at least attend the
races the next night since it was a special show with some ‘out of
towners’ (racers from other tracks) expected. I told him I wasn’t going
and that I hadn’t talked to the others. Always one to throw out a ‘jab’
he closed with the statement “Three in 24 hours! That’s really something to be
famous for!”, meaning Cliffy having blown up the three motors in 24
hours the weekend before.
I honestly think the older girls
enjoyed the pizza, a rare treat for them, more than the cake and ice
cream at the party. Once they were off to bed I had the chance to talk
with Elle about how she thought the whole affair had gone. I just knew she’d have
something to say about “Goldie” and she did by asking just what her role was in the act. Neither of us could come up with an answer. She
was certainly different, dressed as she was but I had expected Elle to
comment on her general looks. She didn’t, probably because she didn’t
feel all that well but I spent some time lying in bed that night
visualizing her in outfit as well as those strange colored bikini
panties I’d seen.
When Elle seemed not to have recovered by noon
on Sunday I had her call her doctor. Because the doctor was a personal friend of my mother she was told to head for the
hospital where she’d meet her and authorize a blood transfusion for her anemia. The doctor had suggested
it when she’d seen Elle during the week but with Elle’s fear of needles
she’d managed to talk her way out of it. We took the girls to her
mother's house and then headed East to the hospital. I honestly felt that Elle
would feign feeling better to avoid the transfusion but she had reached
the point where reality takes over. When the doctor told her she was
putting the baby at risk if she didn’t it got her attention. I got a
chance to talk with the doctor who told me Elle needed a couple of days
of complete rest on top of the new blood. I knew Elle wouldn’t like
that.
Back at her mother’s house to pick up the girls I got to
see Paula again. She’d won over Elle’s mother enough to get limited
kitchen privileges and even though she usually spent the weekends with
her parents had come back early with some of her food ‘goodies’, as she
called them. Elle, her mother and I came up with a plan for the upcoming
week to give Elle the rest she needed. Her mother would give up her
card games for a few days and would baby sit Kaye as well as do the
cooking for supper each night. Elle was to return to the doctor on
Wednesday to reassess her health at that time and we’d decide where to
go from there.
Walking up the path to our patio I saw lights on in the house
next door. I’d been told the new neighbors would be coming sometime
around Memorial Day but I’d forgotten about it. I pointed it out to Elle
and I remember her comment about them only being there for the Summer.
We’d both hoped for year-round neighbors. Elle always had ‘contingency
plans’ for feeding us when something unexpected happened. She told me to
get her own version of TV dinners from the freezer and to warm them up for
supper. Even though there really was nothing to doing it I was always
uneasy working in the kitchen. It was still daylight by the time I
finished cleaning up. The older girls had homework to do and Kaye was
told to babysit her mother who had taken up residence on the couch. I went outside to take a peek through the hedge that separated the two
houses. There really wasn’t anything to see. There were some cardboard
boxes stacked on the new patio that Jonesie, the ‘jack of all’ tradesman
had had poured for them but there was no signs of life. I’d not had any
contact with anyone from the family after the tree had fallen on the
house during the Winter. I was hard pressed to remember just what I’d
been told about them and just who would be spending the Summer there. I
figured it would all come to light soon enough.
The girls were
all in bed and Elle was preparing herself when the phone rang. It was
after 9pm which concerned me a bit. It it turned out to be my college
roommate, “Wick”, calling to see if I’d had a change of heart about
joining him on a quick trip back to the college for our 10th reunion.
I’d previously told him a hesitatingly ambiguous “no” and he was calling to tell me
that he’d persuaded a couple more of our fraternity brothers to make
the trek. One had been a close friend that had dropped out of sight
after graduation. Not that I made any effort to keep up with they guys
but “Panda” had seemed to have disappeared completely. “Wick” had made a
couple of attempts, through the college, to ‘find’ him but they
couldn’t help. Once he resurfaced and word got out a couple more of
the old “cellar dwellers” agreed to come. I sat there listening to him and
all of a sudden had a real desire to go… but reality, in the form of Elle,
called to me. I told him I was really tempted and wanted to but that
Elle wasn’t doing well with her pregnancy. He knew her and on a couple
of party weekends his ex wife and Elle had roomed together so he closed
by saying he wasn’t leaving until 4pm Friday afternoon. I sat by the
phone for a minute or two before Elle called to me again and I headed up
the stairs.
By then it was only a little almost 9:30pm but Elle was
ready to go to sleep. I knew she wanted a good night kiss but also
wanted to know who I was talking to on the phone for so long. I don’t
know why I hesitated but she picked up on it. I can still picture her
sitting up and resting on her arm and elbow and almost demanding to
know. Knowing how ‘drained’ she was I wasn’t expecting that reaction. I
figured I might as well tell her… and she surprised me when she said if
she felt better by Wednesday that I should go. It didn’t immediately
register with me and she repeated it. I told her I couldn’t with both her and the baby’s health in question. Still resting on her arm she said
she’d be honest with me after seeing the doctor. She said she thought it
would do me good to get away even if it was for only a few days… and
repeated that she’d tell me the truth.
To be continued…
No comments:
Post a Comment