Page 9 of Road Trip
“Therese, honey?”
Her eyelids fluttered open. Aunt Fran was kneeling down beside the sofa, a mug of coffee in her hands, concern etched on her face. “I hate to wake you, but Maeve just called me, wanting to know if you were here.”
“Gaaah.” Therese sat up slowly and immediately regretted such a rash move. Her head was pounding.
She took the coffee and managed a sip. “Thank you,” she croaked.
Fran sat on the armchair facing the sofa, the vinyl covering crackling as her bony butt settled. She raised one eyebrow.
“What did you tell her?” Therese asked.
“Just that you were so worn out last night, I insisted you stay here with me.”
“I forget. Is that a venial sin or a corporal sin?”
“I’d say it’s an innocent little white fib. Won’t hurt nobody. And it’s partway true. I would have insisted you stay, if I’d seen what all you did here to clean up after hustling me off to bed.”
“You’re the best.” Therese took another sip of coffee, then glanced at her phone, which was sitting on the coffee table. The screen was dark. Out of juice. Like Therese.
“It’s not even nine o’clock,” Fran said. “How about I fix you some breakfast?”
Therese managed to suppress a grimace. The last thing she needed right now was food. “That’s okay. I never eat in the morning.”
“You girls,” her aunt said, shaking her head. “I guess that’s howyou both stay so skinny. Me? If I don’t at least eat a piece of toast or some buttered grits or a banana in the morning, I get all kinds of grouchy. Hangry, my grandkids call it.”
“Did Maeve say anything else?” Therese asked.
“She mentioned that your uncle Keith was coming over this morning and had something important to talk about with both of y’all. She said he’d be there by ten, and asked would I let you know.”
“Okay.”
Fran’s brow creased. “I accidentally overheard you and Maeve talking out front yesterday. I sure hate that the two of you are fussing.”
“It’s nothing,” Therese said.
“Didn’t sound like nothing to me. And I know your mama worried about it. It broke her heart that the two of you weren’t close. ‘Frannie,’ she’d say to me, ‘when I’m gone, all they’ll have left is each other.’”
“I wish we were closer, but we’re not,” Therese said. “We’re two completely different people. We want different things. Every little thing I do, she judges.”
“She loves you, Terri, but she doesn’t understand you. Not like your mama did.”
“Mama thought I could do no wrong.”
“She was a lot like you, back when she was young. Full of big dreams. Full of big plans. The life of every party. You know, she used to write these little plays, and even though she was the youngest, she’d boss me and Bernie into acting them out—with her being the star and the director, of course. We’d put on her plays in the backyard. She’d hang up bedsheets on the clothesline for a curtain, and she’d charge all the neighbors a nickel to come see us.”
Therese laughed. “I’d give anything to have seen that.”
“I remember all those plays you acted in when you were doing Little Theatre here in Savannah. You were so good as Eliza Doolittle inMy Fair Lady. I swear, you sounded just like Audrey Hepburn in the movie.”
“I don’t think Mama ever missed a single performance of thatone,” Therese said. “But I’m pretty sure that my Southern version of a Cockney accent was criminally bad.”
“Not to us. And definitely not to Mary Helen.”
“Aunt Frannie? Can I ask you something?”
“Long as it’s not my weight or my age, ask away.” Fran sipped her own coffee.
“You know that oil portrait that Mama has always had hanging over the mantel? Do you know anything about it? Where it came from? Like that?”
