Cold Tea On A Hot Day. Curtiss Matlock Ann

just like your daddy was.”

      Marilee could not address this. She felt guilty for feeling so angry at her sister. Even as she thought about being angry, the anger began to ebb and slip into sadness and guilt, which she hated worse. The guilt threatened to consume her. She kept thinking there ought to be something she could do to help her sister, but everything she had tried had failed. She could not look at it anymore.

      “Mrs. Blankenship thinks Corrine needs a therapist,” she said, the words falling out almost before she realized.

      “Half of America needs a therapist,” Aunt Vella said, “but where do you find a sane one?”

      Marilee had to chuckle at this, said so seriously. She gazed at Corrine, who was now twirling Willie Lee on the stool. “I think a therapist is worth trying, but I just don’t know how I can afford it.”

      “Children have an amazing ability to survive. Don’t discount it.”

      “That’s another question,” Marilee said, her gaze coming back to her aunt. “What’s goin’ to happen if Corrine gets really sick? How will I pay the doctor bills? My doctor charges sixty dollars a visit.” The limit of those could plainly be seen. “She isn’t my daughter, so I can’t put her on my insurance.”

      “Oh, my heavens, don’t go makin’ up worries that likely won’t happen.”

      Marilee looked at her aunt.

      Her aunt looked back and said, “We’ll help you, Marilee. You know that.”

      “I know it, but how far can we all go? You know perfectly well a catastrophe could bankrupt us all without insurance.”

      Aunt Vella said very quietly, “Have you thought about adoption?”

      “I’ve thought about it.” Marilee felt guilty for admitting what seemed a very bad thought. “But I don’t think Anita would willingly go along with it. I could press it. I could take her to court and prove she isn’t able to care for Corrine, but what would that do to her?”

      “You can’t take on Anita’s burdens for her, Marilee. She has to own up to being responsible for her own actions. If she’s going to be a drunken sot, she’ll have to take the consequences. You don’t help her by letting her off. Maybe if you pressed, Anita would have more reason to try to get herself straight.”

      Marilee clamped her mouth shut. Discussing this was making her too depressed. She did not have faith in Anita, certainly. And now she was having doubts about having faith in herself. She was sinking into a full decline when the bell above the front door rang out.

      It was Fayrene Gardner entering the store. She came swiftly toward the pharmacy counter and presented Aunt Vella, who stepped forward, with a prescription. Fayrene, sniffing loudly, was clearly distraught.

      “We’ll get this straight away,” Aunt Vella said and immediately stepped through to the back room, calling, “Perry…we need this filled. Perry!”

      Fayrene noticed Marilee, who just then found she was staring, feeling connected by her own distress.

      “Are you all right, Fayrene?” Marilee asked, feeling the need to say something, and hoping Fayrene wasn’t about to confess to having fallen victim to some horrible disease.

      “Men,” Fayrene said vehemently. “I wish they’d all drop dead.”

      Marilee wasn’t certain what to say to that, and became more uncertain when Fayrene’s face crumpled and she went to crying into a tissue. Feeling comfort was required, and needing to give it, Marilee reached out a hand to possibly take hold of the woman and provide what assistance she could.

      But Fayrene pulled herself up tight and called, “Vella, I’ll be back to get it after lunch,” then pivoted and strode out of the store, again holding a tissue over her mouth to block a sob.

      “Well, mercy,” Aunt Vella said.

      “I don’t think I have ever seen Fayrene in such a state,” Marilee said.

      “I haven’t, either.”

      “What was the prescription? Is she really sick?”

      Vella stepped back to the pharmacy area, then returned and said, “Tranquillizer. A good one,” she added with approval.

      Marilee felt quite fortunate in that instant. Or perhaps it was more accurate that she no longer felt quite so alone, after having witnessed another person in despair. It reminded her that life was difficult, and this was a plain fact that, once recognized, made living if not smooth, at least not quite so shockingly distressing. It pointed up that people did continue to live on, no matter how often the will to live seemed to be challenged.

      And at least she herself was within the control of chocolate. Her eye fell to a Hershey bar in front of the prescription counter, and she quickly grabbed it and threw it in with the vitamins Aunt Vella was now sacking.

      “I might need that tonight,” she said. She thought maybe she ought to take a chocolate bar over to Fayrene.

      

      When they came out of the drugstore, Corrine went skipping over in the direction of the florist next door. In fact, to Marilee’s eye, it seemed Corrine was drawn to the tubs of colorful spring flowers on display outside as if by a cord. But when just a foot away, the girl suddenly stopped and turned back to Marilee, in the manner of correcting a wrong action.

      Marilee, who had herself entertained a first thought that flowers were an unnecessary extravagance, said with purpose, “Would you like some flowers? I think I would.”

      As she spoke, she walked to the tubs of mixed bouquets that a few weeks ago Fred Grace, Jr. had begun setting out in front of his florist shop.

      “If it works for Wally-world, it’s sound,” Fred told everyone, referring to the big Wal-Mart chain of stores. Within a week he gleefully reported that impulse buying had doubled.

      “Which ones do you like?” Marilee asked the children.

      Corrine, not quite meeting Marilee’s gaze, shrugged her small shoulders. Her eyes slid again to the flowers.

      “I need some daisies,” Marilee said, reaching for a bouquet. “Absolutely need them.”

      One thing she intended to teach Corrine was a hard-learned lesson she herself had experienced, and that was that beauty was a necessary part of life. She felt society in general had forgotten this, and that fact might just be a major cause of wars. Often, against every cell in her body that told her to be frugal, she would buy flowers or a pretty picture, because she felt her very life might depend on it.

      “You can both choose a bouquet for yourselves,” she told the children as she examined the bouquet she had chosen, peering at little purple things that looked suspiciously like weeds.

      Willie Lee wanted Marilee to pick him up so he could see better, which she did, and he gleefully pulled a bouquet of red carnations from one of the tubs.

      “Cor-rine, you like yel-low,” he said.

      Corrine chose very slowly and reverently a bouquet of yellow daisies and white carnations.

      “Oh, those are lovely, Corrine.”

      “Mun-ro needs flow-ers, too.”

      “He can enjoy ours,” Marilee told her son.

      Her son sighed heavily and bent to let the dog sniff his flowers.

      Pulling a twenty-dollar bill out of her purse, she had Corrine help her figure out the total cost of the three bouquets, which Corrine did with amazing speed. Then Marilee handed the bill to Corrine and told her to go inside and pay Mr. Grace.

      Corrine hesitated, and Marilee wondered if she had asked too much of the painfully shy girl, but Willie Lee spoke up and said, “Mun-ro says he will go with you, Cor-ine,” and indeed, the dog stood ready at the girl’s side.

      Corrine