The Special One. James Griffin
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The Special One
by
James Griffin
Copyright 2013 James Griffin,
All rights reserved.
Published in eBook format by eBookIt.com
ISBN-13: 978-1-3018-7352-4
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.
1
Rhetta Sweeney wasn’t half as crazy about tag sales as was her sister. Cathleen usually started scanning the newspapers on Wednesdays, writing down the addresses for that weekend’s adventure. Cathleen didn’t drive any more, having vision issues that left her severely nearsighted. So it befell her older sister to be the chauffeur on that Friday morning in November.
Both were now widows, each only using their married names now for contracts and checks. Whatever friends were still alive never did take to the “new” names, for they had been “the Sweeney girls” long before “those men” came along. So, over the years since their husbands passed, things settled back down to normal. The Sweeney sisters were back.
It was the third stop of the morning. After this one they knew all the good pickings would be slim, so it would be “goin’ home time” soon for tuna sandwiches and tea. Cathleen was in the garage area, slipping her hands between garments hung on a makeshift closet pole that was propped up between two chests. Out in the driveway, Rhetta was walking between the various boxes and tables, glancing sideways through the corners of her eyes at possibilities, cautious not to arouse the awareness of the sellers.
You see, Rhetta had learned the game of supply and demand. If she showed too much interest in a thing, she’d have a harder time bargaining its price down. So when her heart’s eye caught on something, she’d frown, jerk her head back in feigned indifference, and walk away. Only at leaving time would she present her pennies- on- the- dollar offer, come what may. It always worked.
But then she forgot. She forgot to walk past. Forgot to hide her feelings for “the deal.”
On a card table there was a cardboard box filled half way with old sheet music. One thing Rhetta’s eighty years could never steal was her love of playing her piano. This brown-edged music was all from the fifties, back when she played constantly. There they were, some she had owned then: “Misty,” “Memories Are Made of This,” even “I’ll Be Seeing You.”
Rhetta realized her eyes were wide with interest, so she caught herself, regaining control. She had shaken it off, blinking twice, then thumbing through a bunch at a time to get past her emotion.
But her composure was short lived. Near the back of the pile was a non-descript sheet of church hymns, and on its cover was a colorful picture of a stained glass church-type window. The window was of a Gothic shape, pointed upward in its center. In the center of the glass was a lily, of almost white color, surrounded by oranges and light greens.
“Rhetta? Rhetta! What’s wrong?”
She felt her sister’s hand on her arm more than her words. Jerking her arms away from the sheet music, as if she was receiving an electrical shock, Rhetta shook her head, blinking her eyes. Then the felt the tears as they streamed down her cheeks. Embarrassment followed, the clutching of her arms to her stomach as she quickly turned away, her lips trembling. Fumbling, desperately, she found a Kleenex in her purse and wiped her cheeks before anyone could see.
Rhetta busied herself with feigning great interest at what Cathleen had selected, “Oh, let me see that one held up to you. Silk? Ah, yes. If we take it in just a bit in the hips it’ll be perfect, Cath. And the dark crimson? Perfect for the holidays. What else have you got there? Some blouses?”
When all was said and done, Cathleen had taken six clothing items. Rhetta had chosen to take only one thing, which was for her granddaughter, Emily. For her it had to be the little unicorn statue; the collection in that girl’s bedroom curio cabinet could never be big enough.
The last leaves of the stubborn oaks were swirling around the ladies’ feet as they brought their treasures back to the car. In the distance they could hear the roars of the Brookline High School’s football game. Rhetta gently held the figurine with both hands, cradling it with care and then with an extra squeeze of her fingertips as she thought of the cheerleading squad, and of Emily, one of it’s co-captains.
Cathleen’s only child, Billy, or “Bill,” as he preferred, is now 42, and lives in Boston proper. He and his wife, Joanna, have twin six year old boys. Billy manages the produce section of the local Stop and Shop. Joanna has her real estate license, but when houses stopped selling she got a part time job at Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital as a receptionist for Dr. Penn, a psychologist. Bill and his mom talk by phone at least twice each week, and they come to visit a few times a month. The proximity makes the relationship easy, especially since Cathleen doesn’t drive.
Rhetta, on the other hand, had three children: two girls and a boy. The youngest, Ann, is 39, without children, and divorced. She works mornings at a health club and in the evenings as a waitress at a large sports bar.
The middle child is Robbie. “Rob” is 42, and he has always been the cut-up, the trouble maker. A good boy he was, but always skirting the edges of the law, and always staying a half step ahead of it. A bit after high school he ran with some gambling buddies and found himself in a few dead ends, so he quickly stepped into an Army recruiter’s office one day and was off to training camp and two tours in Afghanistan. Robbie went in tough and came out hard, yet still his mamma’s boy. Always wearing a smile, he is, as he drives a truck for a plywood wholesaler, toothpick in his teeth and tattoos up and down both powerful forearms. His eyes, though, have an inner darkness in them ever since he went away. He, too, is divorced, with four kids of his own under the age of fourteen. He shares custody with his ex-wife, right down the middle. He and Tammy are close friends.
Rhetta’s eldest, Julie, is 54. Julie is married to Ed Miles, a truck salesman at a large dealership in Shrewsbury. Julie herself is a stay at home mom, yet maintains a busy piano lesson business there. She has eleven students that come for lessons each week, and three children. The oldest child is the aforementioned Emily, who is seventeen; Brett is sixteen, and little Alex, six. Alex was quite the surprise, but a beautiful one at that.
Rhetta calls Robbie about once a week, gets calls from Ann about once every three, and doesn’t really have to call or be called by Julie, since the connection between Emily and her grandmother is an almost daily one.
The two sisters live in a large three story colonial-style house, mostly made of stone. It has six bedrooms, three baths, and a detached two car garage. It, like the high school, is in Brookline, Massachusetts. The house was the family home of the Bartletts. That was Rhetta’s married name. She and Ted lived there, raising their three children with no apparent troubles, until Ted died of lung cancer after a lifetime of smoking. When Cathleen’s husband subsequently passed five years later of prostrate cancer, Rhetta invited her to share her house.
Since childhood, the two sisters’ relationship was strained, but close. Cathleen was enamored and envious of her older sister, yet she depended upon her for her maturity, which Cathleen never got around to finding on her own. There was a rivalry, yet they were close, for Rhetta understood her sister and long ago accepted her, even with her shortcomings. So it came as no surprise to their surviving friends that they took in together once widowhood came to them.
Rhetta didn’t pull the car into the garage, seeing that there was an afternoon trip to the grocery store still on her day’s itinerary. As the sisters walked into the house, Cathleen remarked upon the clouds blowing quickly in from the west. Her sister hardly glanced upward, still somewhat lost in thoughts of another time and another place.
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