Porch Lights by Dorothea Benton Frank Read Free Book Online Page B

told me about Deb and her Zumba classes and she told me about the hot doc next door, saying I should meet him in case I wanted to fill some time at the VA hospital or at the medical university downtown. She didn’t want me to get bored, and she was more than happy to see about Charlie.
    On an odd note, she became animated but very circumspect when she talked about this Steve Plofker fellow. Her voice went up an octave, which led me to consider that perhaps she had a crush on him. The thought of that sort of rocked my brain, but I tried very hard to maintain a poker face because it was one of the rare occasions when I felt like she was talking to me as a girlfriend. Besides, the truth would reveal itself in its own good time. I wondered if Daddy suspected any competition. Probably not. I wondered if he would care. Of course he would. His ego would get up on its hind legs and start bellowing like Tarzan. Funny. I’d never thought about my mother’s needs in the romance arena. Probably because I have never had a single thought about my mother being in the romance arena.
    We probably would have spent the whole night on the porch, just swapping old memories and stories and reliving easier days. I wasn’t even hungry because lunch was on the late side and I had eaten a lot more than I usually did. I guess I was sitting there in that rocker just time traveling back to my childhood. Maybe I was too exhausted to get up. Maybe I thought Charlie would just sleep through the night. I never expected what happened next.
    Mom got up to go to the kitchen to pour us a glass of wine and to get a box of Cheez-Its, which are my personal devil to resist and she knew it.
    “Do you want me to flip on the porch light?”
    “No, I think I like it like this. Check on my boy, will you, please?”
    “Of course!” she said and closed the screen door gingerly.
    Slamming screen doors, car doors, cabinet doors—doors slamming was a shared pet peeve. Anyway, a few minutes later Mom reappeared with Charlie at her side. Even in the dim light I could see that he had been crying.
    “Sweetheart! Come here! What’s wrong?” I held out my arms to him, and he climbed up on my lap, burying his face in my shoulder. “Tell me, baby. What happened? Did you have a bad dream?”
    “No . . . I was just . . . listening to him . . .” Charlie choked up and began to cry in earnest. I could feel him shudder, and with each sob my heart broke a little more.
    “Oh, my poor sweet boy! Tell me, honey. Tell me who you were listening to.”
    “He was listening to his voice mail,” my mother said, holding up his cell phone. “There’s a long message on here from Jimmy.”
    “It was the last time he called me,” Charlie said. “I just don’t want to erase it.”
    “You don’t have to, sweetie. You don’t ever have to.”
    It was then that I realized that no first-aid kit in the world could fix this. But at least I didn’t have to worry about Charlie working Mom’s nerves; he already owned her heart.

Chapter 4
Nonsense! no!—the bug. It is of a brilliant gold color—about the size of a large hickory-nut—with two jet black spots near one extremity of the back, and another, somewhat longer, at the other. The antennœ are—
—Edgar Allan Poe, “The Gold-Bug”
    Annie
    W ell, I don’t have to say this, but I’m going to say it anyway. When I found Charlie listening to his father’s voice mail, it just about broke my heart into a million and one pieces. After I pulled myself back together and I could really see just how off kilter Jackie was, I decided I simply had to step in and take over. I was going to keep the boy’s mind busy. And I was going to find plenty for Jackie to do too. My mother always said, “Idle hands are the Devil’s workshop.” The same thing applied to brains. Mercy! Was that the truth or what?
    So at seven thirty the next morning, while the house still slept, I called Deb. “You up?”
    “Of course I’m up! Already