“You’re not supposed to say curse words.”
Melinda spun around and looked at Lorna with wide eyes.
“What the hell do you think I should say?” Her hands were beginning to shake. “What the hell am I supposed to do?”
Her bravado crumbling, Melinda began to cry.
“She’s gonna kill me. She’s gonna beat me but good.”
“Okay, look, my mom is home, she’ll know what to do.” Lorna took Melinda by the hand and started to pull her along. “The longer we stand here talking about it, the harder it’s going to be to get the mud out. Come on, Mellie, let’s run.”
She tugged on Melinda’s hand.
“You don’t understand, Lori, she’s gonna really hurt me.” Melinda’s voice was filled with true fear.
“Not if she doesn’t know. Come on.”
Lorna dragged Melinda along the bumpy field until they reached the Stiles’ property. They ran around the back of the barn and across the yard and straight up the back steps.
“Mom! Mom!” Lorna called from the door.
“Lorna?” Her mother came out of the kitchen and saw the two girls panting, Melinda muddy and obviously in distress. “What on earth-”
“Mellie fell in the field, we have to get her dress cleaned before she goes home. She wasn’t supposed to wear it, but today’s her birthday and…” Lorna gasped.
“Slow down,” her mother demanded. “Mellie, let me take a look at that dress.”
Mary Beth knelt down in front of Melinda and studied the muddy mess. She looked up at the crying child and said, “I think I can get it all out, but if it’s going to be dry in time for you to take it home with you, we have to hurry. Your mother didn’t want you to wear this today?”
Melinda nodded tearfully.
“Go on into the laundry room and take it off. Lori, run upstairs and get Mel something to put on.”
“I have stuff.” Melinda held up the bag.
“Then go change and give me the dress. Let me see what I can do. And in the meantime, I want you to stop crying, wash your face and hands, and get ready to blow out the candles on that birthday cake, okay?”
Melinda had nodded gratefully, the tears beginning to dry.
“Lorna, go find the matches so we can light the candles. The cake is in the dining room,” Mary Beth whispered after Melinda disappeared into the laundry room.
“Mom,” Lorna whispered back, “do you think you can get the dress cleaned up in time?”
“I’m pretty sure I can. Why was she wearing it, if getting it dirty was going to be such a big deal?”
“I think it’s because it’s her birthday dress and today is her birthday. You can do it, can’t you, Mom?”
“I’ll give it my best. Now go get the ice cream out of the freezer. I’ll be in to light the candles in a few minutes.”
Melinda had blown out all ten candles-nine for her years, and one to grow on-with one big breath.
“My wish will come true now.” She smiled at Lorna. “Everything is going to be all right.”
Mary Beth cut the cake and served the girls ice cream-cherry vanilla, Melinda’s favorite-then disappeared back into the laundry room. When five o’clock came and Melinda had to leave, Mary Beth handed her the dress, all clean and pressed, looking as good as new.
“Mrs. Stiles, you did it. You did it!” Melinda squealed and jumped up and down, clapping her hands, her smile lighting the room. “Thank you, thank you.”
“You’re welcome. Now, the next time your mother says not to wear the dress, do us all a favor and don’t wear the dress,” Mary Beth said as she handed her a bag holding leftover cake. “This is for your mother and brother. And there’s a little extra for you, for a snack.”
“Mrs. Stiles, you’re the best.” Melinda hesitated, then threw her arms around Mary Beth’s neck, and shared a whispered secret. “My wish came true. Thank you.”
A rudely loud knock on the back door startled them all.
Lorna opened it to find Jason’s dark eyes staring at her.
“My mom wants Mel to come home now.”
“I’ll drive her, Jason, and you, too,” Mary Beth offered, looking for her keys. “It’s starting to get dark.”
“My mom said for me to walk her.” Jason looked beyond Mary Beth to where Melinda stood. “Come on, Mel. Now.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Stiles, for everything.” Melinda’s voice held a solemnity beyond her years. The smiles were gone, the happy glow had disappeared. She ran out the back door, a bag in each hand, calling over her shoulder to Lorna, “Thank you, Lorna. That was the best birthday ever.”
Lorna waved good-bye from the back porch.
It was the last time she ever saw Melinda.
1
Callen, Pennsylvania
August 2005
The two-lane road meandered languidly through a countryside alive with the colors of late summer. The sun was still uncomfortably hot at four in the afternoon, hot enough that the jacket Lorna Stiles had worn when she set out that morning from Woodboro-forty miles south of Pittsburgh -had long since been removed and tossed into the backseat. At some point while traveling the Pennsylvania Turnpike, it had slid onto the floor behind the driver’s seat, but Lorna had failed to notice. There’d been plenty to think about during the drive east across the state, to her hometown of Callen. A soiled jacket was the least of her worries.
Change had been slow to come in this southernmost tip of eastern Pennsylvania, where Amish and Mennonite farms were interspersed with pricey new housing developments. The one gas station in town was now pump-your-own and was attached to a convenience store, but the stores in the little strip mall on the corner still remained closed on Sundays. While the facades remained the same, the once ramshackle old house on the opposite corner-boarded up as little as three years ago-now housed a day spa and a boutique, while its counterpart across the street had been spiffed up and turned into apartments, with the first floor converted into a bakery and coffee shop. And most noticeably, a housing development was growing in a field where corn once grew a half mile from the intersection that served as the center of town.
A sign of the times. Lorna sighed, and wondered how many other farmers had been approached by developers who wielded huge sums of cash, much more than the farms were pulling in from crops these days. Hadn’t her own mother sold off thirty acres of their land sixteen months ago to pay her medical bills?
A horn sounded behind her, urging her to make up her mind. Turn or go straight.
Lorna went straight, then pulled to the side of the road, waving the impatient driver behind her to go on his merry way. She sat for a moment and read the names on the mailboxes: Hammond, Taylor, Keeler. All names she knew well.