It took all day for Calleigh to work out the details. She had to pick out a casket, chose music for the service, approve an obituary (for once she was grateful she was from a small town where the you are afforded with these courtesies), pick out flowers, a headstone. It was overwhelming. For a fleeting moment, she considered driving back to Maitea and Warrener's house and asking them to help her, but, no. She was an adult. She was a Duquesne. She could do this one final thing for her father alone. Heaven knows she'd taken care of him enough when he was alive, this should be no problem. Finality at last.
Stepping into the kitchen later that evening, her senses were assaulted with familiar aromas. Maitea had been cooking all day. She opened the refrigerator and smiled at the sight. She'd made a feast, enough to feed the Darnell High School football team, if Calleigh wasn't mistaken. She grabbed a plate out of the cupboard and helped herself to a helping of tamales and rice. No body cooked like Maitea. Popping her plate into the microwave she turned around as a noise caught her attention.
"You found your dinner?"
"Yes, Abuela." Calleigh kissed the older woman's forehead. "Thank you. It smells amazing."
"Good." Maitea nodded. "Eat up. I made plenty. You need some meat on your bones." She pointed accusingly, though jokingly, to Calleigh's trim waistline.
"I'll do that."
The microwave beeped to signal it's completion of the cycle, and she grabbed her plate and sat down to eat.
"Did you get everything finished?" Maitea smoothed Calleigh's hair, standing beside her.
"I think so." She answered, mouth half full of tamale. "There's more to it than I imagined. I had no idea funerals were so complicated." She attempted a smile, but truthfully couldn't bring herself to complete it, and it died on her lips. "I have to talk to the attorney tomorrow about the estate."
"I will go with you." Maitea announced with purpose.
"You don't have to."
"I will go with you." She merely repeated, giving Calleigh her "look." The look that said, "Don't argue with me, little lady." Calleigh smiled, and nodded.
"Thank you."
"No thanks." She was in the refrigerator again, grabbing something from a covered dish. "I made banana empanadas." She placed two on a plate, and sat it in front of Calleigh on the table, and went out the back door to the screened-in patio.
Calleigh couldn't bring herself to speak. How she'd missed this. This love. This acceptance. This pampering. True, she fancied herself quite the modern, independent woman, capable of caring for herself, cooking, paying, being on her own. But this – this idea of family – people who love you unconditionally, without reserve and without regard for your capacity to pay it back – this was heaven to her. People she could depend on. People she could trust. In all her life, Calleigh had known that the only people she could truly, absolutely depend on where Maitea and Warrener. They were always there when she needed them, and she'd never even had to ask. Well, she mentally amended her statement; she knew she could depend on Eric. He always TRIED to be there for her, and that had to count for something. She couldn't fault him if he wasn't around by virtue of her own defenses, her own standoffishness. She kept him at arms length, assuring him that he could tell her anything, that she'd help him with anything, while refusing to accept the same kindness when he tried so considerately to extend it to her.
She poured herself a glass of milk, and sat down to her empanadas, deep in thought. Maitea and Warrener. They'd tried to protect her, shield her from the world from the day they met, thirty or so odd years ago. It had been Warrener who'd sparked her interest in science. He was the physics teacher at the high school. They'd go on long hikes through the woods, identifying plants and animals, tracks, and bugs. He took her stargazing, watching meteor showers and comets, explaining the basic concepts of cosmology and astronomy in simple, age appropriate terms. They'd built model rockets when she'd grown older, Warrener insisting that she master the physics and calculus necessary to explain their motion before she could launch them. She'd spent hours in his study, pouring over physics texts even as a small child. She could calculate the trajectory of a bottle rocket when she was twelve, adjust for wind when she was fifteen, and by her senior year in high school, she was taking correspondence classes with a university to advance her mathematical abilities having long since passed her teachers.
Maitea had taught her Spanish, instilled a love of language and all things beautiful. She was an artist, a painter, and Calleigh had lost track of the hours she'd spent curled up under a blanket on the back porch watching Maitea paint and repeating Spanish phrases, mastering the language. Maitea had been more of a mom to her than her biological mother, and Calleigh had insisted on calling her "Abuela" as a spoken symbol of her love for the gentle woman. It had been Maitea who explained to a frightened Calleigh what it meant to "become a woman" as she put it. Maitea had baked birthday cakes for private celebrations, and taught Calleigh how to bake as well. Neither one of them, Maitea or Warrener, had ever missed a school performance; she'd dragged them both to Grandparent's Day, much to the chagrin of her actual grandparents. When Calleigh was a senior in high school, Adam Reynolds asked her to the senior prom. She was so ecstatic, but she needed a dress. Her parents could have afforded a lovely dress, and her mother would have gladly gone shopping with her, but she didn't need to. Maitea had seen Calleigh leafing through magazines, gazing at the dresses and talking excitedly about what kind of gown she wanted. Two weeks later, Maitea had shyly presented her with a stunning dress, the exact materialization of what Calleigh had described. Midnight blue and floor length. Satin material that rustled when she walked. Simple and elegant and perfect. Calleigh had been speechless with emotion, and she found she still choked on her milk a little as she thought about it. She still had the dress, tucked safely in the back of her closet, delicately preserved with plastic and mothballs. She'd never seen such a beautiful gown, and she had never felt as beautiful as she had that night, a shimmering star in a vision of blue.
When Calleigh went off to Tulane for university, she'd gotten what she considered deathly ill her freshman year. She was never sure how Maitea knew, since she never mentioned it to her, but within three days, her Abuela had taken a bus to New Orleans, arms laden with homemade soup and family remedies, and taken up residence in Calleigh's dorm room, hovering and cooing over her. She stayed two weeks until Calleigh had recovered from the bout of pneumonia, fussing and dashing about to the doctor, getting her notes from professors and fellow students. She'd even improvised a kitchen in the common area, and cooked up masses of food for the other students on her floor. After that, Calleigh had been quite a celebrity around campus. Maitea had, unknowingly, made her famous, at least with the freshmen, and prevented her from ever being lonely while she was away at school. After the dinners Maitea fixed them, everyone wanted to hang out with Calleigh, take notes for her in class, study with her in the library, work on projects with her…date her. She smiled at the memory of a group of awkward eighteen year old male physics and engineering majors from her freshman physics class, clustered around her in lecture. Following her around campus. It had been a LITTLE annoying, but she was never lonely. And the boys DID come in handy occasionally. She was always safe on campus. Never had to walk home from the library alone at night, never had to climb on one of those precarious stools the library had to reach a book off the high shelf. She had her fan club to take care of those things. All thanks to Maitea. Or so she thought. The truth was, though Calleigh would never realize it, was that out of the handful of female physics majors, she was by far the prettiest. And the sweetest. The boys flocked to her for her spirit, her vigor, her kindness, her beauty, and her brains. Of course, the home cooked meals didn't hurt, either.
Chapter seven, done at last. Pretty much the whole story is mapped out already, but the rate limiting step here is TIME to type. I hope you enjoyed it. Thanks to all who reviewed, and corrected my babelfish German! Lol That's what I get for studying French instead! I hope this is coherent. R/R
