April Showers by Anne Maisy Scott

 

By

 

Anne Maisy Scott

 

 

This book is dedicated to my mother with

a lifetime of love, despite the weather.

 

Acknowledgments: 

 

I have the utmost gratitude and respect for my hero, my sister, Shell.  I don’t know where I’d be today if it wasn’t for you.  Thank you for everything, sis, and I love you with all my heart. 

 

Thank you, Dad, for all your support.  I will never forget the encouragement you gave to me during the construction of this story.  Thanks for being there for me and I love you very much! 

 

Thanks to my loving husband for all your support during many sleepless nights.  You had to suffer through many of my thoughts and were forced to listen to all my revisions.  I appreciate your spicing up some of my vocabulary.  I love you dearly.

 

This book is a reference for you, my Triple “J” children, of how life can go so terribly wrong.  It is so important to listen to your children and keep them safe.  However, faith, hope, and forgiveness are an important combination to survival.  Thanks for cheering me on and I love you all!   

 

I cannot forget to thank the matriarch of our family, L.H.  I respect and thank you for reading my manuscript and sharing old stories of an era I didn’t know much about.  Thank you for all your support.  I hold lots of love and respect for you.   

 

Many thanks go out to A.S. and N.S.  Thanks for the stories and support.  Thank you for the laughs and for being an inspiration to me.  You are very special to me and I love you both dearly.

 

Thanks to our dear friend Lee, from Kokomo, Indiana.  Thanks for reading the first draft of April Showers.  I appreciate all your input and encouragement to finish this project.  I will always be thankful! 

 

I need to thank my aunt, D.R.T., for listening to my crazy stories through countless, long-distance hours on the phone.  I appreciate your support, which means a lot to me.  I love ya bunches! 

 

I have to thank my cousin, Steve, for daring me to dream.  Thanks for the push I needed to pursue a path I had never traveled, but I had always wanted.  Thanks to you, I am now an author! 

 

Many, many thanks to PublishAmerica for this exciting opportunity to share my story!  Thank you all for everything! 

 

 

Chapter 1

     It was 3 AM when she was suddenly awakened by the piercing rings of the telephone, which echoed off the walls and rattled every fiber in her nervous system.  As she fumbled in the dark to answer the phone, she accidentally knocked the lamp off the nightstand and sent it crashing to the floor.  She managed to grab the phone just before the answering machine was about to kick in.  This seemed to be a ritual in her family as if it were some kind of contest to be able to beat the machine. 

     As she picked up the phone, she covered the receiver with her hand and practiced a few hellos with hopes of lessening the harshness of her morning voice.  She had been accused of being a man on more than one occasion during early morning phone conversations.  Despite her best attempt, she did not manage to pull it off as her voice sounded like a blues singer who smoked three packs of cigarettes a day. 

     “I’m sorry to have wakened you, sir.  I must have dialed the wrong number,” said a familiar voice on the other end. 

     After clearing her voice a few times, she asked, “Who are you trying to reach?”  Her voice was starting to sound more normal and less gruff.   

     “Maggie, is that you?” asked the woman on the other end. 

     Being half asleep, she wondered how anyone knew that Maggie was her childhood name.  When she was born, her sister could not pronounce Megan, so she called her baby sister Maggie, which the name forever stuck within her family back in Ohio.  Her husband, Alec, called her Maggie because he thought it was cute.  She thought with pride, I’m Megan Graham, sales person of the year!  Due to real-estate advertisements and billboards throughout Indianapolis was how the local people knew her.  

     She suddenly realized it was her big sister, Maddie, on the other end of the line.  “Oh my gosh, Maddie!  How are you?  How are the kids?  How’s Chase?”  She was so surprised to hear from her sister that it never occurred to her that the phone call was taken in the middle of the night.  Maggie was always happy to hear from her family, but with her living out of state also kept her out of the loop with her family in Toledo.  It had been at least six months since she had heard from Maddie.  She loved her sister, but they did not always see eye-to-eye. 

     “This is not a social call, Maggie,” said Maddie as her voice dropped and became unusually serious and monotone.  “It’s Mom.  She passed away an hour ago.”

     There was a long pause on the phone.  Maggie felt her whole body instantly go numb.  Her initial thought was that this must be some sort of sick joke.  Maddie was always good for a joke no matter what the cost.  “Madelyn Rose!  This better not be a joke or I will kill you!” warned Maggie.  If nothing else, Maddie was always able to bring the juvenile spirit out of her kid sister. 

     “This is no joke, I’m afraid.  Kenneth called me and told me about it.  He asked me to call you because he had to sign papers or whatever other death things he was called upon to do.  You know that was mother’s wishes.  He’s the one to dictate orders at the time of her death.  She appointed him to her throne years ago when she and Dad did their wills.  Kenneth, the good son!” said Maddie sarcastically.  She had painfully labeled him that for years out of spite. 

     Maggie was overcome by many different emotions, which was why she forced herself to ignore Maddie’s insults against their brother as she abruptly derailed the topic by asking, “How did this happen?  Was there an accident?  Was there someone involved?” with a tone of desperation in her voice. 

     “Hold on a minute,” said Maddie.  She dropped the phone and Maggie could hear her scurry on the other end.  Maggie listened carefully out of concern for her sister.  She then heard a loud slurping noise that hurt her ear.  Maddie returned to the phone a few seconds later. 

     “Sorry about that,” said Maddie unsympathetically, “I spilled my beer.”   

    “What happened to Mom?” cried Maggie.  “I’m stunned because I believed with all my heart that she would outlive us all!”  

     Maddie let out a little chuckle and said, “It’s so funny to me that she was found dead at home on the toilet.  Don’t you find humor in that too?  The queen was sitting on her throne,” she laughed.  Maggie could hear her sister open another beer. 

     “Who found her that way?  She lives all alone!”

     “Kenneth to the rescue!” said Maddie as if she were announcing a superhero.  “He’s always been kind of a grunt man,” she laughed.  She paused briefly and her voice dropped and became serious again, “No.  I don’t really mean that.  Even though he is Mom’s favorite, he’s still my little brother and I do love him.  I’m just letting off some nervous tension, as Dad would say.  But we all know that Kenneth is a butt-kisser.” 

     “Does Kobe know yet?” asked Maggie.

     “Of course he knows.  He got the call from Kenneth before 911 was even dialed.  It must be a twin’s bond or something,” Maddie scoffed. 

     “What was Kenneth doing at Mom’s house at that hour anyway?” asked Maggie while trying to set the scene in her mind. 

     “You know how the neighborhood is in the north end.  They’ve got the Crime Stoppers program in full motion, thanks to Dad.  Neighbors know everything in the north end.  I guess Mom was on the toilet and must have had a heart attack or something.  Her lights were still on at such a late hour and it attracted the attention of the nosey old Widow Dooley from next door.  The old fossil tried phoning Mom to check on her.  After fifteen minutes of her not getting any answer, she decided to notify Kenneth right away.” 

     “How awful!” exclaimed Maggie with such sorrow.  Maggie sensed the preoccupation on Maddie’s end of the conversation.  It was obvious that Maddie had just slammed her beer.  There was an awkward moment of silence, which prompted Maggie to ask with uncertainty, “So, you think it was her heart?”

     Without hesitation, Maddie blurted, “You have to first have a heart to have a heart attack!”

     “Maddie!” exclaimed Maggie with great surprise.

     “I’ve always believed that she’s had a big black hole that pumped poisonous blood.”

     Maggie shook her head with disbelief after hearing such harsh words at what should have been a tender moment.  “You’re in shock, Maddie,” she said softly.  “Try to calm down.  I know that you don’t mean that.”  

     Maddie cried, “Maggie, she is the reason for so many hurts in our lives.  The biggest disappointment is when she drove Dad out of the house.  Well, one of the biggest.  You of all people know exactly what I mean by that!” 

     The girls spoke on the phone for two hours.  Maggie worried about Maddie being home alone.  Her husband, Chase, was on his way home from a business trip in Milwaukee.  His firm was flying him back home on their company jet after he received the news about his mother-in-law.  Chase knew things would not be good for Maddie, especially after April’s death.  He knew that ill, dormant feelings would soon surface and flood their lives as if a dam broke. 

     As it was, the whole family struggled to keep their heads above the flood waters created by their mother’s torrential rains of disappointments and ridicule, which had become known as April Showers.  Their father, Michael, was also a victim of such harsh and violent storms.  There was not much they could do to protect themselves from the ugliness except to huddle together and weather the storm.  They found their strength through unity and humor—lots of humor. 

     Maggie did her best to stay on the line with Maddie until Chase got home.  Maddie was getting groggy and conversation kept circulating back to how their mother, April, despised Maddie and their father, Michael, the most out of the Getman family.  Maggie was so relieved to hear in the distance, “Doll! Where are you?” Chase had made it home.  He raced through the house to comfort his grieving, intoxicated wife.  Maggie listened sympathetically as Chased embraced her sister while she sobbed on his shoulder.  When Maddie began to quiet down, he retrieved the phone and thanked Maggie for keeping his wife company. 

     “I’ll be there sometime tomorrow,” promised Maggie.  She ended her conversation with the famous “I love you guys.”   

     Maddie was the one who introduced “I love you” as a family ritual when she was about ten-years-old.  She always envied her best friend’s family because they always said it without shame or embarrassment.  Since then, the Getman family always said it along with a hug whether they meant it or not. 

     Maddie always warned, “We just never know if that might be the last thing we might ever say to one another.”  She would always follow-up that statement by teasing, “I know that what I really want to say would be safely spoken behind your back!” 

     Maggie had been sitting in the dark since 3 AM.  Daylight would soon be arriving along with her husband, Alec, who was a third shift supervisor for General Motors.  Still being in a state of shock and disbelief about her mother’s death, she decided to make a positive out of her negative tension.  She was just too wound up to go back to sleep.  She was certain to have her house cleaned before Alec got home.  The first place she needed to start was picking up the broken pieces of her lamp that rested at her feet.

     She carefully walked across the room to turn on the overhead light so that she could see just how badly damaged the lamp was.  She was hoping that it sounded worse than it actually was and her perpetual optimism kept her hoping against the odds, but the loud crash was a sure indication that the lamp was demolished.  With a quick flip of the light switch on the wall, her suspicions were confirmed and she grabbed the wastebasket from the master bathroom.  As she stooped over to pick up a large piece of jagged glass, it suddenly dawned on her that the shattered lamp was a metaphor of her life.  

       Maggie pondered that thought for a moment.  She interpreted it as her needing to pick up the broken pieces of her past by freeing her incarcerated ghosts from her closet by way of assessing the damage, consider discarding or repairing it, and then move on with her life.  With a newfound confidence, she thought to herself, if I can survive the clean-up duties of a messy past, then I will never be broken nor in the dark again, as she cleaned the mess from her bedroom floor.