The Best Gift by Wendy Markham
“Oh, no! Oh, no!” Gerald’s owner wails. “Run, Gerald! Run!”
“It’s okay, ma’am! Really, he’s loud but he’s harmless.”
Yeah, right. Judging by the way Dickens is salivating, he’s planning to devour the little dog, sweater and all.
The old lady scuttles her terrorized pet back toward the coffee shop as fast as her thick-soled shoes can carry her. Just as Dickens is about to pounce, she and the dog disappear through the door and it bangs closed behind them.
Clara sees them behind the glass, trembling at the close call.
“I’m so sorry!” she mouths.
The old lady makes the sign of the cross.
Clara looks down at Dickens, who appears not the least bit apologetic.
“Obviously, we know them—or at least, they know you,” Clara tells him as she leads him away. “But somehow I doubt we’re going to get anything out of this connection.”
She sighs, wondering if she should forget the plan, get back into the car, and go home.
Maybe Drew will be there by now, and everything will be back to normal.
But maybe he won’t, and maybe it won’t. Maybe her “normal” is gone forever.
Oh, please. Will you stop?
You’ve been through a lot worse than this, for Pete’s sake. Don’t let some old lady and her ridiculous dog break your spirit.
Drew is out there somewhere.
He’ll find his way back to you.
You just have to have faith.
“Come on, Dickens. We might as well go see if we can find Sequoia Way.”
Chapter Seventeen
“This is definitely our lucky day,” Drew tells Clara as he sets the emergency brake and turns off the engine.
Not only did they manage to zip over the Golden Gate Bridge with minimal traffic, but the fog lifted as they reached the Bay area, giving way to crisp late morning sunshine. Even better, there’s actually a curbside parking spot on the steep street right alongside his parents’ home.
“I just hope it stays lucky,” Clara replies cryptically, and he looks at her in surprise.
“Why wouldn’t it?”
She offers a smile, but it’s forced. “I was just kidding.”
No, she wasn’t.
“What’s up with you today?”
“Nothing,” she says quickly—too quickly. “Why?”
“You seem like you’re on edge.”
Yes, and he realizes she’s been pretty quiet ever since he woke up to find her in the living room, curled up on the couch and watching the Weather Channel. She informed him—not that he’d asked—that it was going to be a cloudy, foggy day, but that tomorrow will be sunny and beautiful.
“I’m tired, that’s all,” she tells him now. “We were up all night. I was, anyway. I don’t know how you went right back to sleep after that earthquake.”
“It was just an aftershock.” He opens the car door. “And it’s not good for you to lose sleep now that you’re resting for two.”
“I know, but I couldn’t help it.” She yawns. “I promise I’ll take a nap for two later. How’s that?”
“Good plan.”
Drew climbs out of the car. By the time he reaches the passenger side, his wife is already out on the sidewalk. She looks smaller than usual somehow, huddled into a thick tweed coat with a red scarf swaddled around her neck against the chill.
“You’re supposed to let me be a gentleman,” he scolds her. “Especially now that you’re . . .”
“What? Getting out of the car for two?”
“Exactly.” He locks the car with a double-chirp of the keys and drapes an arm around her shoulder.
Together, they head toward the three-story Queen Anne Victorian.
Like the others on the block, its sloping foundation is diagonal, aligned with the street’s steep grade. It’s a classic San Francisco painted lady, butter-colored with dark green, sage, and ocher trim.
When Drew was growing up, it was festooned in shades of rose and mauve. It wasn’t easy being the boy who lived in the pink gingerbread house with three larger-than-life older sisters, crazy Aunt Stella, and a doting mother who once approached him on the Little League field when he was on deck, swinging, and dabbed at his face with a spit-dampened lace hankie.
Somehow, when he was about thirteen, Drew convinced his father that his life would be a lot easier if they painted the house a more manly hue. Somehow, his father convinced his mother to go along with it. Somehow, his mother convinced the two of them that pastel yellow was more manly.
And somehow, Drew survived despite it all.
That reminds him—Clara wants to paint the baby’s room pastel yellow. Maybe he’ll try to talk her into navy. Or hunter green. Or even plain old white.
Together, they approach the tall front steps.
“Are we sure,” Drew asks, “that we don’t want to tell my family the news?”
“We’re positive.”
“Maybe it would be nice to share it with everyone while my sisters are still in town.”
“I know, but . . . what if something goes wrong?”
“It won’t.”
“What if—”
“Hey. Cut it out. What ifs are toxic. We’re going to be fine.”
She pauses on the top step, looking up at him wearing a worried expression. “Do you honestly believe that with all your heart?”
“I honestly do. And so do you, deep down inside.”
“I do? How do you know?”
He pulls her close. “Because you’re talking about us. And things always work out for us, because they have to.”
“Why?”
Because that’s what I keep promising you, and if you believe it, it might come true.
Aloud, he tells her simply, “That’s just the way we roll.”
She smiles faintly. “That’s your answer?”
“Makes sense to me.”
“The scary thing is that it makes sense to me, too,” she tells him. “But I’m not ready to share our news with anyone just yet, okay? I’d like to keep it our secret just for a while longer.”
He kisses her forehead. “That’s fine with me. My sisters would just be all over you and want to tell you all about their delivery room adventures and my mother would start pestering you about when she can babysit, and they’d all drive us crazy from now until the baby comes.”
“Yeah, but that’s what families are for. You’re so lucky you grew up here, surrounded by all that chaos and stability and love.”
“Our baby will grow up the same way . . . hopefully with a little less chaos.” He reaches for the doorknob and opens it for her. “Come on, let’s go in.”
They step into the front hall, where they’re immediately sideswiped by a scooter. It’s one of his nephews—he can’t tell which, because the boy is wearing a helmet, and because his sisters have a whole cluster of kids who are all between the ages of four and seven and roughly the same size and build.
“Hey, Aunt Clara! Hey, Uncle Drew!”
“Hi, Kevin.” She plants a kiss on his helmet as he zooms past hollering, “Grandma, Aunt Clara and Uncle Drew are here!”
“Are you sure that was Kevin?” Drew asks Clara, taking off his coat and opening the front hall closet only to find it jammed.
“I’m positive it’s Kevin. You’re not?”
“Sometimes those guys all look alike.” He takes her jacket and, after a glance at the overflowing coat tree beside the door, opts to drape them both over a holly-festooned newel post.
“You’re kidding, right?”
“Not really.”
“But they’re your nephews. Please tell me you can tell them apart.”
“When they’re not wearing helmets. Otherwise, it’s easy to mistake them for each other. Or Aunt Stella.”
She grins at that. “Well, it was hard enough for me to tell your sisters apart when I first met them, and they weren’t even wearing helmets.”
“You always say that, but I
“It’s all those D names, remember?”
“Yeah, but then I taught you the trick to keep them straight . . . My sister Debbie acts like a debutante, my sister Dani was the tomboy and refused to answer to anyone who called her Danielle, and my sister Doris is the adorable one.” Seeing Clara’s eyes widen, he asks, “What? What’s wrong?”
“Your sister Doreen.”
“Right. She’s the adorable one.”
“You said ‘my sister Doris.’”
My sister Doris . . . ?
A girl with freckles and red pigtails flashes before his mind’s eye.
Not Doreen. She’s a fair-skinned blonde.
“Doris! Did you cut my girdle up to make a slingshot?”
“Drew?”
He blinks. “Yeah, I meant Doreen. Slip of the tongue.”
“Look at you two, empty-handed.”
Drew looks up to see his brother-in-law Rick coming down the stairs carrying a portable folding crib, a pink Hello Kitty suitcase, a tub of Lincoln Logs, and a camera bag.
“Running away from home?” Drew asks him dryly, going over to hold the door open for him.
“No, but I might consider it once we get home, after an eight-hour drive with three overtired kids in a compact car loaded down with all the crap we came with, and another heap of stuff they got for Christmas.”
“Need some help?” Clara asks.
“Nah, this is the last load. We’re going to get on the road right after we eat. Just enjoy traveling light while it lasts, guys, because once you start having kids, your arms will always be full of stuff, and your car will be full of stuff, and your house will be full of stuff—and trust me, none of it will even be yours.”
With that, he walks out the door, and Clara and Drew look at each other.
Before they can say a word, his mother pops in from the kitchen.
“Drew! Clara! What a great surprise!”
Wearing faded jeans and a pair of fashionable-framed glasses perched low on her nose, ash-blond Sandy Becker looks twenty years younger than she actually is. Between her family, her hobbies, and her volunteer work in several civic organizations, her life has always been a whirlwind of activity—and that’s just the way she likes it.
Her three daughters are contentedly following in her footsteps. Meanwhile, Drew’s father, a corporate accountant, has a more laid-back, quiet demeanor. Like father, like son.
“What brings you two into town today? I thought you were planning to spend a quiet weekend.”
“We were. But then Clara apparently decided she hadn’t gotten her fill of chaos the other night, so we’re back for more.”
“You came to the right place.” His mother hugs her. “I hope you’re hungry, because you’re just in time for breakfast!”
“I’m starved, actually.”
Breakfast? Drew looks at his watch. It’s a quarter of noon. But his family has always been a bunch of late sleepers.
“I could eat,” he tells his mom.
“Good! I made eggs Benedict—well, not for Ed, he’s having an egg-white vegetable omelet because of his cholesterol, but—Clara, are you all right?”
She swallows audibly, looking faintly green. Uh-oh.
“I’m fine.”
“It’s just that she’s allergic to eggs, Mom,” Drew speaks up quickly.
“What? How is it that I never knew that?”
“There are a lot of things you don’t know about her,” he tells his mother, draping one arm around her shoulder and the other around his wife’s, winking at Clara as they make their way to the noisy kitchen.
There they all are:
Dad; Debbie and her husband Ken; Dani, who’s married to Rick; Doreen and her husband Paul. His grandmother is there, too, and Aunt Stella, wearing her crash helmet. There are plenty of assorted kids and babies on laps, on scooters, on the floor in front of the open pots-and-pans cupboard.
After a flurry of hugs and kisses and rearranging of chairs, Drew and Clara squeeze in around the large oval table, along with Rick, who’s finished loading the car. Drew’s mother serves an egg-white omelet to his father, eggs Benedict to the rest of the family, and offers Clara just about everything else in the fridge and pantry.
“Really, I’ll just have a bowl of cereal,” she insists, and his mother busies herself lining up an array of boxes on the countertop, reading all the ingredients to make sure that they don’t contain eggs.
“You know, if this family grows any bigger, we’re going to need to buy a new dining set,” Drew’s father announces from his perch at the head of the table.
“I hope it does grow bigger, Grandpa, because I want a sister,” Drew’s only niece, Katie, says wistfully.
Dani shakes her boyish haircut hard. “No more babies for me, honey. I’ve got my hands full with you and your brothers.”
“Maybe you’ll have a girl cousin someday,” Debbie tells Katie.
“Yeah, Aunt Debbie will give you one,” Doreen pipes up.
“No, no, no, I meant that Aunt Doreen would give you one.”
Drew grins as his sisters, both the mothers of two boys, good-naturedly toss the responsibility back and forth, speaking to be heard above the pot-lid percussion ensemble on the floor.
Then his oldest—and loudest—nephew, Sean, announces, “Aunt Clara should have the new girl! She doesn’t even have any kids yet.”
“When are you going to have a baby, Aunt Clara?” Katie asks, lighting up.
“Oh . . . someday.” Cereal spoon poised in front of her mouth, Clara looks uncomfortable, and Drew knows it isn’t just because the strong scents of eggs and coffee are wafting in the air.
“Hey, Dad”—he jumps in to quickly change the subject—“speaking of getting a new kitchen table . . . what ever happened to that old one we used to have?”
“Which one?”
“You know . . . the one that had the chrome trim around the sides and that aqua-colored Formica top?”
“I don’t remember that table.”
“That’s because we didn’t have one like that,” his mother informs Drew, reaching past his shoulder to fill his coffee cup.
“Yes, we did. A long time ago, when I was really little, before you guys remodeled the kitchen. Right, Dad?”
“I don’t think so. When we first moved in, we had a round oak table—”
“Oval,” his mother corrects him.
“Oval?” He frowns.
“It was definitely oval, Dad.” Debbie pats his shoulder.
“You know your father.” Drew’s mother affectionately ruffles what’s left of her husband’s hair. “Sometimes he remembers things all wrong.”
“Hey! You don’t remember the table Drew’s talking about, either, Sandy.”
“Well, you can’t remember something that didn’t even exist.” She plucks an empty creamer pitcher from the center of the table.
“Sit down, Mom, I’ll fill that,” Drew’s brother-in-law Ken offers.
“No, you all sit and eat your eggs before they get cold.” She bustles away.
“You guys remember that old kitchen table, right?” Drew turns to his sisters.
“Definitely.” Debbie nods. “Mom’s right, it was oval.”
“No, not that one! The aqua one with the chrome trim!”
They all shake their heads. All but Grandma, who looks uncertain, and Aunt Stella, whose expression is hidden behind her helmet.
Drew sees that Clara is looking at him wearing a strange expression. Her brows are knit and she’s biting her lower lip as if pondering something.
“Sorry, Drew, but an aqua table sounds pretty hideous,” Doreen comments.
“Maybe, but it must have been the style because the whole kitchen was aqua back then.”
“Aqua was very popular,” his grandmother announces, bobbing her white head. “Remember, Stella?”
“Vrrrm, vrrrm,” she says agreeably.
&
They must have knocked down a wall or two when they remodeled, Drew realizes, because the old kitchen was much smaller.
“Well, not everything was aqua,” he recalls. “The cupboards were white—and metal, with long silver handles.”
“The old cupboards weren’t metal, they were wood,” his father contradicts. “Dark wood.”
“I’m pretty sure they were metal, and white, Dad. And the walls were white, too—white bead board. But the floor was this kind of speckled aqua linoleum.”
“I don’t remember that at all,” Dani tells him.
“That’s because you weren’t a little kid, so I’m sure you didn’t spend a lot of time crawling around down there like I did. I remember playing on it the way these guys are with the pots and pans. I had this game I used to dump out all over the floor—a bunch of metal rods and a magnet you used to pick them up, and Mom was always finding the rods all over the floor. Remember, Mom?”
Back from the fridge with a full pitcher of creamer, his mother shrugs. “I remember finding your matchbox cars all over the house, Drew—that must be what you’re talking about. Little metal cars, not metal rods.”
“I remember sticks!”
“Are you sure? Because you might have inherited Dad’s lousy memory gene,” Dani teases him.
Ignoring her, Drew says, “There were metal sticks and they were part of that game . . . and some of them had painted wooden knobs on the end.”
He has a dim memory or playing it with one of his sisters, and it was probably Doris, who’s closest to his own age.
Doris? You mean, Doreen!
Unsettled by yet another mental slip, Drew wonders if his mind is just playing tricks on him. Can he possibly be wrong about the game? And the aqua kitchen?
No. I can picture it all, clear as day.
He turns to his youngest sister. “I think you and I played that game together a few times. Don’t you remember?”