Cold Tea On A Hot Day. Curtiss Matlock Ann

mother wanted Marilee to take her car for new tires tomorrow.

      As Marilee listened to this, Parker stepped close and whispered, “Ask her to take the kids for the evening.”

      Marilee, amazed that he would suggest such a thing, scowled at him. “I can’t do it tomorrow, Mom. I can on Saturday.”

      Why couldn’t she take it tomorrow, her mother wanted to know.

      “Ask her…” He encircled her from behind and whispered in her ear about how they could drop the kids off at her mother’s house.

      She wiggled away from him and tried to think of how to put her mother and the tires off until Saturday without getting into a long explanation of having taken the children out of school. She finally got the arrangements straight, promising to go up to Lawton on Saturday morning for tire shopping.

      “I have to go fix supper now, Mom. I’ll see you Saturday.” She hung up with a hard click and looked at Parker, who had turned from her and was stroking the back of his head.

      “You know I do not leave the children with my mother. She does not want the care of them. She won’t half watch them, and I am not going to leave them up there at her house, with her husband drinking every night.” She wondered what in the world had gotten into him to suggest such a thing.

      “Marilee, I want us to go out to dinner. The kids will be okay at your Mom’s for a couple of hours. So what if Carl gets drunk? He doesn’t bother the kids.”

      She gazed at him for several seconds, knowing he could not understand that taking them to her mother’s was the same as setting them adrift for a few hours on a vast, turbulent ocean. The thought of it scared the daylights out of her.

      “Corrine has had enough of that,” she said flatly.

      She averted her gaze, biting back all manner of words she was certain she would regret. She could not sort out what she truly felt. Likely she was overreacting, as was her habit. She just had to get some sort of control of herself.

      “How ‘bout gettin’ a baby-sitter for the kids, then?” Parker asked.

      “I am too tired to shower and dress, much less call to get a baby-sitter on last-minute notice,” she said, unwilling to move in body or mind. “Besides, I have my pieces for Sunday’s issue to write tonight.” She would have to be writing more at nights now, and she thought him shortsighted not to get this point.

      “But I can make hamburgers,” she offered, swept with the urge to make up for her stubbornness, “and you can sit at the table and talk to me while I cook.”

      This would mean energy spent on cooking, which she should save for her writing job. How much easier if he would have been just as pleased with a can of soup thrown on the stove.

      But hamburgers were Parker’s very favorite food, as long as there were buns to go with them—Parker would not eat a hamburger on plain bread. Marilee was fairly certain she had buns in the freezer, and she wanted him to talk with her about the children. She wanted him to understand. She wanted him to share.

      He did not fall into the plan with enthusiasm, but he did fall in and follow her into the kitchen, where he went straight to the refrigerator and pulled himself out a canned cold drink, while she peered out the back door to check on the children, who were playing in the dirt at the corner of their newly turned garden. At least Willie Lee was digging in the dirt for some reason, with Munro lying in it and watching. Corrine was sitting nearby in a yard chair; Corrine was a neat person who seemed to avoid dirt.

      Seeing the children thus apparently contentedly occupied, and finding hamburger buns in the freezer, Marilee’s spirits revived somewhat, and she had hope that she could set everything right with Parker by serving up both a good meal and the correct, upbeat attitude.

      She set about winning him over as she went about preparing supper. She told him of her plans for the summer with the children. She hoped to better prepare them for school in the fall, and to enable herself to take a more forward part of their education, even when they went back to school. She felt she had been expecting too much from the school, a place made for the masses, to deal with the special particulars of her children’s needs. It was her responsibility as a parent to see to those particular needs.

      Parker, who had settled himself at the table with his cold drink, waiting for his supper to be served, replied to her remarks with “Hmms” and “Yes, I guess you can do that,” all basically cautionary in nature, and all much less than satisfying.

      Finally Marilee said, “Parker, I really would appreciate some support here.”

      To which he replied with raised eyebrows, “I’m listening.”

      “But you do not seem to be putting forth helpful ideas,” Marilee said. “I do want your ideas, Parker.”

      “I don’t think you want my ideas. You already have your mind set.”

      She gazed at him, telling herself not to overreact. One thing that she felt always got her into a lot of trouble was her habit of getting so emotional. Both Stuart and Parker had often accused her of this, and she determined at that minute not to give Parker ammunition.

      “One thing you need to think about,” Parker said, “is what Anita might think of you takin’ her daughter out of school.”

      “Anita wasn’t seeing that Corrine got to school half the time,” Marilee answered, stung to the core. “And I don’t see that she is here, making any of the decisions.”

      “Anita is still her mother. You’re makin’ all these plans for a child that isn’t yours. You’re gettin’ way too involved, Marilee. You are referring to Corrine as your child. What if Anita shows up tonight at the door and wants to take her daughter with her? What are you goin’ to do then?”

      “I don’t know,” Marilee said. “I’m just tryin’ to deal with ‘right now’ the best I can. I won’t worry about ‘then’ until it happens.”

      Now that he had brought the concern to the front of her mind, she experienced fear of exactly that happening. This made her angrier at him for making her more fearful.

      “And I don’t know what you expect me to do. Should I just drop Corrine? Not look after her to the best of my ability? Well, who is goin’ to do it, then?”

      Clamping her mouth shut, she turned to the stove to remove the hamburgers from the hot pan before they burned. She herself was burning pretty good and didn’t want to say something she would regret.

      Parker didn’t say anything more about it, and Marilee found this good thinking on his part.

      The atmosphere at the supper table proved strained, despite all Marilee’s good intentions for happiness. She and Parker were patently polite to each other in front of the children. Corrine’s dark eyes moved from Marilee to Parker in a furtive fashion, and seeing this, Marilee brought up the subject of their gardening and the fun they had enjoyed. She managed to get Corrine to smile.

      It had been a good idea, Marilee realized. The children had rosy faces. They had been outside, where they needed to be in the spring, and she had the sudden inspiration that tomorrow she would keep them outside most of the day. There were a lot of things she could teach them outside. So many things that must be experienced and could not be found in books. Being stuck at desks in school had no doubt been a major problem for them. They were souls who at this time needed to be out in the sun. And she could give them that.

      The thought so pleased her that in a flush of warmth for everyone, she looked at Parker and smiled. He saw and smiled in return.

      

      Marilee and Parker were alone in the lamplight in the living room. After supper Willie Lee had, with the innocence of an untroubled mind, simply lain down on the kitchen rug beside Munro, closed his eyes and gone instantly to sleep. Marilee had put him to bed in his underwear and simply wiped his hands with a damp rag; he had not awakened. Corrine was in the bath.

      Parker