I didn’t know what to say so I didn’t say anything.
“Let me guess, he’s not in a very good mood these days,” he said.
“Well, I think that I’m…what I mean to say is, your guess would be correct but I do believe that it’s me who’s putting him in that mood.”
“Frannie, honey, it is one hundred percent not you.”
Again, I had no idea what to say so I remained silent.
“He gets this way on the anniversary,” Mr. Hawthorne relayed.
The anniversary?
“The anniversary of what?” I queried.
“Judy passing.”
Even sitting, I had to brace my hand to the tabletop to steady myself.
Judy. His stepmother. The only mother he’d known.
The mother he’d been forced to watch die.
“We had a thing,” he went on. “The boys were young when it happened and it was me who made the decision, and Noc didn’t agree with it so we had a go ’round about it. He shared how he felt and he was clear on that, even then. This being she didn’t wanna be buried but I wanted somewhere to go where I could be with her. Where the boys could be with her. So I buried her. And every year, day she died, I get my boys together and we go there to be with her. Take some lawn chairs and lay ’em out. Bring her flowers. Sit with her. Throw back some bourbon. Talk about her. Have her with us for a while.”
I thought this lovely and horrible, in equal measures.
Noc’s father kept speaking.
“Noc wasn’t a big fan I went against Judy’s wishes and didn’t cremate her. And he’s also not a big fan of going to see her. Know it. Maybe should let it go. But it’s the only time I got with my family back together, all of us, and it may be me bein’ selfish but I don’t care how old he is. I’m still his dad. And she’s the only mom he had. So I feel he should give me that. Me and Judy. He should give us both that.”
It took a moment for me to do it and my voice was not my own when I replied, “I cannot say you’re wrong about that, Mr. Hawthorne.”
“Lud, Frannie. Please call me Lud.”
“Lud,” I whispered.
“Knew he wasn’t gonna be able to come this year, made him promise to do somethin’ to remember her there. Reckon she’s with all of us all the time, the only way she can be. So told him I want him to find a pretty, peaceful spot, just be quiet and let her be with him. He said he’d do it. Maybe he’s just humoring his old man but gotta say, as much as I know he doesn’t like it, still hope he does it. And because I’m stubborn and love my boy and my wife, the first one I still got, thank the Lord, the last one we lost and it broke us in a way it took a lot of fixin’ and we still ain’t right, I want him here next year. Want him to bring you. Want Judy to meet you.”
Want Judy to meet you.
I’d never felt more honored.
“I think…I think, sir, she already knows me quite well,” I shared carefully.
And hopefully.
Further hoping she liked what she knew.
“I think you are not wrong. Looked after Noc while she was breathin’ in a way there’s no way she’d quit even after she’d stopped. He found you, she’d definitely start lookin’ after you.”
I said nothing, lost in the glory of knowing after his mother died giving Noc to this world, to me, he had another who looked after him at the same time feeling the loss he’d endured when she went away.
“You there, Frannie?”
“I just…need a moment,” I murmured stiltedly.
He gave me that moment but in his, he said softly, “Damned you do.”
“Sorry?”
I heard him clear his throat before he replied, “You do. Heard it in Noc when he talked about you. Now I hear it in you. What I hear pleases me, Frannie, reckon you know that, just reckon you don’t know how much. And it makes me look forward even more to meeting you.”
I knew what he was saying and I was beside myself with happiness he understood my feelings for his son.
But even if I had more information about what was happening, I didn’t comprehend the fullness of it.
Before I could broach that, Ludlum Hawthorne declared, “Obvious this is worryin’ you and thank you for givin’ that to my boy. And thank you again for doin’ the right thing and callin’ his old man to have a chat about it. But I got it from here.”
Oh no.
I knew what “I got it” means and I didn’t have a good feeling about Noc’s father having anything if it had a thing to do with all this.
“Um…Lud—”
“We’ll hash it out and get ourselves sorted. Don’t you worry,” he assured without assuring me in the slightest. “No doubt you know we got a lotta love in our family but that doesn’t mean, four men, all of us pigheaded, we don’t clash. We do. First time you see it, I can understand it’ll worry you. But you’ll also see we get over it. We learned over and over again, doin’ that the hard way, to hang on to what we got. And just so you know, anniversary passes, he comes back to himself. My advice next time, just wait it out. He’ll be good as new in no time.”
“Can I just say, Lud, that—”
He cut me off like he didn’t hear me speak.
“Now I gotta go. Bad timing, Sue’s dragging me out to lunch with her bridge cronies. Twice a year I gotta go to this lunch and if they didn’t raise buckets of money for cancer research, I’d be on my boat with a rod in my hand. But I’ll say, regardless of the subject matter, sure was good to talk to you. Next time we do it, I’ll make you giggle. I’m a comedian. A good one. And don’t listen to Noc or Dash or Orly when they say my material stinks. They don’t know what they’re talking about. I’m damned funny.”