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Chapter Seventeen

After arrival at the airport, Lisa took a cab to a selected dealer and picked up the car Bernice had leased for her. She was delightfully surprised and caught in a moment of exhilarated emotion when she saw that it was a yellow convertible. 'That woman,' she thought, smiling.
She drove by grassy green hills and wooded country to the hometown she was longing to see again. She was astonished to see that very little had changed. Different people, later model cars, but other than that it was, indeed, as though time had stood still. She particularly noticed that the little candy store once owned by the family for three generations was still there. As she passed by it, an unexpected mixture of emotion, anxiety, despair, and pain combined to grip her heart as if it was being squeezed by a giant hand. Memories of long ago surfaced and raced across her mind. Memories of a little girl named Lisa dancing in front of the store, frolicking with envious friends. And waiting on customers now and then under the watchful eye of Daddy. She had felt so important and needed.
"Ohhh...Daddy, why did you have to die?"
Lisa stepped hard on the accelerator and sped through town. This time tears didn't come to release her pent up emotions.
Thirty minutes later, a right turn on Flower Road, and she was five minutes away from a meeting with her past, back to her roots.
She pulled up to a dilapidated white picket fence. She opened the gate then slowly drove down the dirt driveway that straddled a strip of browning un-watered grass. She could never figure out why grandpa built the house so far back from the road.
Lisa gasped as the decrepit looking figure of a frail little woman standing on the front porch began to come into focus. She was shocked to see this once beautiful lady, now but a shadow of her former self.
In order to gather her wits, she diverted her attention to the house and surrounding yard. The shiny white paint and bright green trim she remembered, was weathered and peeling away, especially from under the eaves. And the porch, three steps up, was weather torn and without paint except for scattered patches on the railings.
The house was partly shaded by a giant weeping willow that had been there for as long as she could remember. She and Sissy's favorite source of entertainment still hung from a high sturdy branch in the old tree. A thick rope tied through and around an old rubber tire provided an excellent swing.
The weed riddled yard, its grass brown from lack of water and hot sun, bore little resemblance to the green, perfectly manicured lawn Daddy had so proudly cared for.
The one highlight was Mama's impeccably maintained vegetable garden which was partially visible on the left side of the house in full view from the kitchen window. Lisa remembered Mama standing at the kitchen window, ever so vigilant for invading birds and critters.
Mama kept her place on the porch, both optimistic and anxious, yet hesitant and afraid. As the car approached she stood straight with arms crossed and head forward as if straining to see. An ankle-length dress, looking much like it did when it hung from a wooden hanger in the Salvation Army store where it was purchased, fitted loosely over her bony shoulders. Tears began to flow following the path of deep wrinkles that scarred her sun tanned face.
Lisa stepped from the car and began running toward her mother. Mama in turn scampered down the steps and ran to meet her long estranged daughter. And she ran without regard for the excruciating pain that inflamed her swollen and deformed arthritic joints.
They came together under Georgia's ageless sunlit skies and embraced in a cataclysm of joyful emotion, two souls that had been separated by time and distance yet always united.
Mama softly caressed her daughter's smooth facial skin and stroked her blond hair. Lisa brushed the tears from her mother's eyes and they gazed at each other in wonderment and disbelief. Lisa's emotions were a combination of joy and sadness; joyful with the reunion but at the same time saddened at the deteriorated condition of her mother. Mama slipped her hand around Lisa's waist and with a little shove and forward stepping motion directed her to the house.
"Let's go inside dear. I got some ice cold lemonade made up just like I used ta make for ya. You just sit and rest a minute and I'll get it." Once in the house, the happiness of the new moment released Lisa from tension. She sank into the old beat up sofa, throwing her legs over one of its arms and twisting her body into a contorted position like she did in her early teens while spending hours on the telephone.
She had a few minutes to look around and ponder and reminisce while mama busied herself in the kitchen.

A small gentle voice interrupted her musing. "Choose not to be unhappy any longer," was the message. The little voice took her by surprise. It came from within, but not like a normal thought. It left her in a curious state of inner tranquility.
Staring at the ceiling from her prone position she noticed that a water stain, caused by an old leak in the roof, was still there. 'Some things never change,' she thought. 'This world, the universe, both now and hereafter is a beautiful place to be. You cannot change the past and to fret the present or worry the future only serves to constrain the bearing of our fruits. How insightful of me,' she jokingly said to herself. Mama walked back into the room.

"Here we are dear," said Mama. She set a tray with two large glasses of lemonade and a plate of cookies on the coffee table. "These are oatmeal cookies, yer favorite."
Mama's sunken eyes watered again from joyous emotion when she noticed her daughter was curled up in her pretzel-like position.
"Honey, I missed you so much and yer old Mama is so glad ya came."
"Mama, from now on I'll always be here for you when you need me."
Lisa unraveled herself and stood. She indulged in a moment of self-contempt for not coming home sooner. And then she embraced her mother, releasing the innate love for her that had laid dormant in her heart for the last fifteen years.
They talked into the evening, stopping only for sandwiches and coffee for dinner. Lisa didn't tell her mother everything regarding the worst of times but talked at length about Bernice and their future plans.
Lisa could see that Mama was growing tired. The painful arthritis and life sucking cancer contributed to her fatigue.
"I think I'd like to go to bed Mama, I'm kind of tired. We both better get a good night sleep if we're going out to see Sissy and the kids tomorrow. I'm just dying to see them."
"Right now I'm the happiest ole lady in the world," Mama said, reaching out to hold her daughter's hands. A hug, a cheerful kiss, and Mama limped off to bed.

Lisa's bedroom was as she left it; the same bedding, her little rag doll propped up against the pillow, and Sissy's bed situated against the opposite wall. Everything was clean and she recognized the familiar fragrance of Mama's flowers in the room. Not since she left home had she slept between sheets that had been hung out in the fresh air to dry.
Lisa used to always wear one of Daddy's old shirts to bed. Mama remembered and had one laying out. Lisa softly pressed it to her face letting it absorb the last tear she would shed that day.
Before crawling into bed she walked over to the open window and paused to smell the fresh country air. She watched a star fall-a signal of a bright future. Smiling, she slipped between the sheets, sweet-smelling from being dried on Mama's outside clothes line. She closed her eyes, spoke to her God, and peacefully fell asleep.