Page 23 of Grounded (May Hollow Trilogy #1)

Beulah sat at the kitchen table, sorting through two drawers and finding things she didn’t even know she had, like an old-fashioned cherry pitter and a cheese grater she had never even taken out of the box.

Now that she had a date for her surgery, it seemed time was flying by, despite all the things she wanted to get done beforehand.

“Dr. Wylie is the best for knee replacements in the region,” he had said. “We’re lucky to have him in Rutherford.”

Beulah wondered about that. Maybe Lexington would have been a better choice. But she believed in buying local, and as much as possible that went for her medical needs too.

Beulah wondered if Annie might be laid up in a hospital bed too, after that fall from the horse. She had suggested that Annie go to the doctor, but she would have none of it.

“There’s nothing wrong. I got the wind knocked out of me, that’s all,” she had said that afternoon after Beulah poured several cups of hot tea into her.

Annie was exactly like her: stubborn and hard-headed the girl was, unlike her mother who went any way the wind blew. The only things Annie seemed to get from her mother were her looks, her love for faraway places and her taste in men.

Sure enough, she seemed fine and was back on that horse by the weekend.

Determined not to let that animal get the best of her, she finally mastered trotting the old mare around the pasture after first getting the hang of it in the barn lot.

Woody was a good teacher, Beulah had to give him that.

But he was awful attentive to Annie for more reasons than his love for horses, or so she thought.

Annie had finally gone to church on Sunday morning and Beulah had preened like a rooster at Somerville Baptist, showing her granddaughter off to all the churchgoers.

Annie looked real pretty. She wore a red dress that set off her dark hair and brought the color to her face.

They sat in their normal place, six rows from the back on the organ side.

Even the preacher commented on Annie’s presence, right from the pulpit.

They had gotten a lot of attention on Sunday, what with Annie there and Beulah’s upcoming surgery.

They were already passing around a sign-up list in her Sunday school for folks to bring supper to them the week after she came home from the hospital.

It was mighty hard to think about being on the receiving end of charity, but she reckoned it was all right this once.

Sunday dinner had the whole group gathered around Evelyn’s table. Annie fell right into the conversation, laughing and talking with Scott, Mary Beth, Lindy and Woody. Even Evelyn commented on Woody being there on such a prime fishing day.

“Went early this morning,” Woody had said. The question of why he couldn’t do that on other spring Sundays hung in the air, but no one pulled it down.

The days seemed to fly by and here it was Monday.

Beulah pulled a garlic smasher out of the drawer and put it in the Goodwill pile.

Rarely did she ever use garlic in her cooking—it didn’t sit well on her stomach.

She was an old-fashioned cook, and to her all these kitchen gizmos were a waste of time and money.

They were bought at these home parties when Beulah felt sorry for some young woman trying to make a little extra money to help out her family.

And here they sat in the back of her drawers, most never even used.

Who needed fifteen gadgets for chopping when a knife did the trick?

Going through these drawers and cabinets was something she had wanted to do for a long time, but looking at the job made her tired.

Annie tackled it with a vengeance, climbing down on the floor and pulling Tupperware bowls out of the dark recesses of the cabinets.

With a Clorox mixture, she wiped out the dust and dirt from crevices Beulah hadn’t seen in years.

A scream pierced the air making Beulah jump as if she had been shot. The metal gadgets dumped onto the floor.

“Heaven help us! What in the world?” She grabbed her cane and managed to stand and slowly make her way to the back door.

“Snake! Snake!” Annie was outside hopping around like she was stepping on hot coals.

“What in heaven’s name?”

“Don’t come out! There’s a snake right under the door!”

Beulah pushed open the door to see what was causing her granddaughter so much distress. There in the threshold was Booger, her old black snake.

“Calm down. You’ll scare him,” Beulah said.

“I’ll scare him?”

“Booger, I thought something happened to you.” Beulah glanced up at Annie. “Hush now, he belongs here.”

Annie looked at her like she had sprouted another head. “You want a snake next to your back door?” she asked.

“Booger keeps the mice down. Black snakes also eat poisonous snakes, though we usually don’t have that kind of trouble around here. This is the first time I’ve seen him this spring.”

Annie was still hopping a bit, like she had to go to the bathroom.

“Now, if I could only bend down, I’d pick him up and get him out of your way. Do you want to get him for me?” Beulah asked, amusing herself.

“No! I’ll go around to the front door.”

She watched Annie high-step it around the side of the house and chuckled to herself. Beulah could almost hear Fred laugh with her. If he was still living, it was something they would replay to themselves over and over, milking the humor until they had their fill.

Annie picked up the mess Beulah had made when she jumped up at Annie’s screaming, then she hightailed it upstairs to go through more closets.

Away from the snake, Beulah thought, laughing again to herself.

Her granddaughter had country in her, but it was going to take peeling off layers to get it out.

Later, the phone rang and Beulah sighed, anticipating the effort to get up out of the chair and answer the wall phone. It stopped ringing and soon she heard Annie coming down the steps, the portable in her hand.

“That was Woody. He’s on his way over with the tomato cages you ordered. He said he’d put them on for us,” Annie said over an armful of clothes from one of the upstairs closets.

“Good! My old cages were falling apart. I finally sent them off with Joe to the scrap metal place last fall.

“Is Woody always this … available?” Annie asked.

“This is not quite normal, but I’m grateful for it, whatever the reason.”

Annie raised her eyebrows and shrugged.

Minutes later, Woody was at the back door.

“I see Booger’s back,” Woody said.

“Is he still under the door?” asked Annie.

“Naw, he’s moved up to sun himself on the old millstone.”

“Would you like a sandwich, Woody?” Beulah asked.

The peanut butter and grape jelly were still on the counter from their lunch.

When Woody nodded, Annie sat down at the table with the bread and fixings.

Beulah did not know what she would have done without Annie this last week.

She had become her hands and legs, doing everything Beulah’s knee kept her from doing.

“Woody, how’s your mother doing?”

“She’s no different. I reckon she’ll be laid up on that nursing home until she draws her last breath. I go see her twice a week, but she don’t know me.”

“Well, it’s good of you to visit her. She may know more than we think,” Beulah said.

“That’s what I tell myself, but it’s awful hard seeing her like that for all these years.

Now, I’ll just tell ya, thar’s things worse than death.

Fred did it the right way. He just took out of here quicklike.

Made it harder on y’all, but better for him.

But a horse kick to the head, now that’s not something to be trifled with. ”

Woody folded his long legs into a chair at the table and wiped his brow with a napkin. To Annie he said, “So you fly around in those airplanes for a job.”

“That’s right,” Annie said, and Beulah watched her spread the generous portion of peanut butter over the bread.

“I wouldn’t get on one of those airplanes if my life depended on it.” He blew on the palms of his hands as if they were clammy.

“Really? Isn’t there somewhere you’d like to go?” Annie asked, setting the sandwich down in front of him.

“Noooo, ma’am! Anywhere I want to go, I can drive.” He gulped his sweet tea.

“Don’t you want to go to another country, like France or Italy?”

“I don’t want to go nowhere the people don’t speak English.

I like to understand when somebody’s talking to me.

I don’t have no use for vacations. I hear ’em talk all the time about saving up for a trip to Hawaii or a cruise to the Bahamas.

They get worked up in a frenzy trying to leave, then they come back all wore out and tellin’ about what all went wrong.

I did it once and that was enough. I take my vacation every time I get up on my horse. ”

Beulah saw Woody was getting worked up and decided to change the subject. “Tell Annie about your farm, Woody.”

His mouth was full of bread and peanut butter, but he tried talking anyway. “Little bit of everything. I still raise tobacco and a little corn. I’ve got goats, chickens, cows and I trade horses here and there. Got several kids too.”

Beulah watched as peanut butter oozed around his loose bridge, likely the only thing holding it in place. Poor Woody needed a wife to advise him on personal care issues, but as amused as she was with his attention to Annie, she knew that would never work.

“How old are your kids?” Annie asked.

“Well, let me think. I had twins two weeks ago and a set of triplets the week before. Last month it was another set of twins and quadruplets.”

Annie’s eyes grew wide with amazement.

“He’s talking about his goats,” Beulah said.