“She wasn’t a person to arouse envy or strong emotions, one way or another. In high school she rarely fell victim to the kind of gossipy swirl girls indulge in at that time. I hated that when I was in high school. I can’t think of anyone who disliked her.” She paused. “Really.”
“That’s a wonderful tribute.”
“The only thing she ever said to me, and this wasn’t about a personal dislike, was she’d become so interested in alternative cancer treatments because of her work on the five-K. She felt some of them were bogus medical scams that preyed on people when they were most vulnerable. She thought others held out such promise for a cure, but the federal government prevented their use. She felt some doctors were so angry they used outlawed substances and treatments. They hid it, of course. Pooch, herself, was disgusted at how pharmaceutical companies, the insurance companies, and the government have corrupted medicine. After hearing that, I inquired as to what she’d seen at the hospital. She said she’d tell me later. Now there’s no later.”
Harry considered that. “Every time I pick up the newspaper there seems to be some squib about a new cancer treatment. One article says that eating almonds keeps cancer at bay—you know, that sort of thing. I never know what to believe.”
“Nor I.” Mrs. Benton’s eyes lit up for the first time since she’d come to Virginia. “John and I are fortunate. Cancer doesn’t run in either of our families. Pooch became interested in nursing when a childhood friend died of leukemia in eleventh grade. It was an interest that deepened with the years.”
“She had a good mind,” Harry said.
Mrs. Benton put lots of Bubble Wrap on top of the glasses, for the carton was full. “There. One more done.”
“I’m beginning to understand where Paula acquired her organizational ability. In our meetings, if anyone got off track, she’d say, ‘Let’s cut to the chase.’ I’d tell her she was being a Yankee. Southerners live for anecdotes and diversion. However, I always did just what she said.”
For the first time, Mrs. Benton truly laughed. “I can just hear her.”
Hearing laughter, BoomBoom, Alicia, and Susan looked in from the next room. They each smiled slightly, for they believed laughter healed. A shock such as the one the Bentons had endured would take a lot of laughter and love.
So many people had helped that the house was emptied, tidied up, and the large U-Haul was loaded by three-thirty that afternoon. Mrs. Benton handed each person a potted plant. The dried bulbs in old Ball jars she gave to Alicia as a special thank-you for the pleasure Alicia’s movies had given her and her husband.
As the Bentons walked up to the truck, Dr. Cory Schaeffer stepped up to the driver’s side. Both Bentons looked at him as the other workers crowded around.
“We hope your journey is safe. We know in time the grief will fade and happy memories will remain. We all would like you to know that your daughter’s memory will remain with us. We have renamed the five-K in her honor. From now on it will be known as the Paula Benton Five-K Run for Breast Cancer Research.”
John Benton burst into tears. Words wouldn’t come. His wife reached for his hand, squeezing it.
He nodded to his wife, composed himself. “Thank you. Thank you.”
• • •
Later that evening, as Harry finished up her farm chores, she returned to what Pud Benton said about Paula not having any enemies. Maybe she didn’t have any personal enemies, but maybe something else had happened, something to make her a target.
She caught herself. “I watch too many crime shows on TV.”
Mrs. Murphy, Pewter, and Tucker, who always helped with the chores—well, Pewter made a stab at it before sitting down—knew their human’s mind was preoccupied.
“Think this has to do with her test Wednesday? The one she’s calling ‘the hook’?” Tucker picked up a blue rubber bone she’d left in the barn yesterday.
“Not a chance.” Pewter tossed her head.
“Well, she does have that on her mind,” Tucker said.
“Pewter’s right. Mom’s displaying that nosy look. First there was the distressed look and the weird smell, and now there’s the nosy look.” Mrs. Murphy batted the blue rubber bone.
Tucker sighed. “Yeah, I know. I was hoping I was wrong. That nosy look is never good for her.”
“ ‘Her’? It’s never good for us,” Pewter said with conviction.
The sun bathed the mountains, meadows, and rooftops in soft afternoon light. Harry—an art history major who had graduated from Smith—always thought of this time of day as being wrapped in spun gold. People who didn’t know her well would ask how she shifted from Smith to down-and-dirty farming, and Harry answered truthfully that farming taught her to appreciate nineteenth-century painting. Her eye—good to begin with, and trained at Smith—found in nature such symmetry, change, and ravishing beauty that farming was the perfect life for an art history major.
In an hour, the sun’s outer rim would dip behind the Blue Ridge Mountains. The colors depended on the pollen in the air, dust particles, and the angle of the sun to the earth. Most spring sunsets, like today’s in late April, were a clear sky, which then deepened. However, if there were clouds, the colors radiated salmon, peach, and periwinkle, with streaks of flaming scarlet. This would settle into lavenders, dusty roses, and finally purple, transforming into a pulsating Prussian blue. As for the mountains, the shadows in the deep crevices and bowls turned from dove gray to gray to charcoal and finally black. The normal blue of the mountains became a cobalt blue with dark gray streaks until at last sky and mountains accepted nightfall.
She would turn forty-one in August. With the exception of college in Northampton, Massachusetts, and weekends at Yale and Dartmouth, as well as Boston, her life was in central Virginia. She loved New York City, but what art history major wouldn’t? For graduation, her parents, not rich, had sent her to Europe. Susan’s parents sent her, too. The friends went to different colleges, but instead of weakening their bond, it had strengthened it. Harry loved England and Ireland, especially the countryside. The biggest surprise to both of them was how small Europe was. Driving east through Austria, they realized an hour would dump them into Hungary. Even Germany, a relatively large country in Europe, seemed tiny compared to the United States. But art, well, Harry often thought of what she had seen in galleries, in cathedrals, and on the people themselves. The Viennese were stylish, the Parisians more so in an obvious manner; the Berliners and Hamburgers certainly threw themselves together; and then there was London. Somehow she expected everyone to look like the since-departed, much-loved Queen Mum. The Brits’ reputation for dowdiness was undeserved. Wherever she and Susan traveled, they were dazzled by the artifacts and the people, all of whom were kind to two kids from Virginia.
Much as she learned and loved it all, looking at the mountains, seeing the peach trees in full bloom, the pastures turning an impossible emerald green, she knew she’d be a country girl forever. Given the lump in her breast, Harry wondered how long forever would be. Putting that out of her mind, as well as the nasty fact that Wednesday loomed, for it was already Sunday, she handed Cynthia Cooper a gin rickey.
“When did you learn to make one of these?” Coop admired the tall, thin glass, leaning back in the lawn chair in Harry’s backyard. “My mother used to make these, and gin and tonics.”
“Once the weather turned, right? That’s when your mother made them?”