The Todd Lambert Special, Page 2

to Rae, who had assumed the Thursday luncheon duties early in 2011. Now in September of 2013, it was like Sam and Jenny had always been coming to Tommie’s. Maybe that was due to how this house still welcomed a raft of familial get-togethers. As they sat for chicken soup and crackers, Tommie considered the recent barbecue; everyone had been there, even the farthest flung members. The grandchildren, and now great-grandchildren, were usually split at Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Easter, but every Smith and Cassel came together in summer. Thinking about the recent reunion, Tommie laughed out loud, and three faces turned his way.

  “What’s gotten into you?” Jenny asked.

  “You realize everybody was at the reunion?” Tommie grasped Jenny’s hand, then smiled at Sam. “Even Todd. We’re gonna remember that party for a long, long time.”

  Tommie then considered that it was also the first barbecue where Sam and Jenny did not dance together. They had gracefully excused themselves, while their children and Tommie’s twirled all across Tommie’s front lawn.

  It had been a night full of reminiscing, but two weeks later, Todd was dead. Yet, as Sam smiled, holding his wife’s other hand, the better memories prevailed. “You’re right, farmer,” Sam said, finishing his soup. “I’ll remember that night until I can’t anymore.”

  Rae rolled her eyes as Jenny chuckled. Jenny then she steered the conversation to some of the newest Smith descendants. As Rae started talking about great-grandchildren, Tommie observed his wife; her demeanor hadn’t picked up since Todd’s funeral, but chatting about toddlers lifted her. Jenny mentioned that her youngest daughter was starting to hint about having another baby, and that Eric and his wife were thinking similar thoughts, which was news to Tommie. He spooned up the last bite of soup as the women began to laugh.

  Once lunch was finished, Tommie and Sam took all the empty soup bowls to the sink. The women were still discussing their descendants, but Tommie wasn’t quite ready for dessert. Sam stepped out of Tommie’s back kitchen door, and Tommie followed, the day bright and warm. Yet Tommie felt chilled, and he wondered if Sam had picked up on his mood. Maybe Todd’s passing was hard on all of them, and perhaps for Jenny and Sam it was most difficult. Since Jenny’s multiple sclerosis was diagnosed, Todd had become a part of their circle, although often staying on the outskirts, just like he’d lived his whole life about a mile and a half out of Arkendale, down a deserted lane, in an old trailer. His isolation had initially been to thwart law enforcement, but over the years, Todd had preferred the solitude, breached only by those in need. Tommie had approached Todd first, not long before Jenny fell ill. Rae’s nightly beers had stopped easing her pain, and Tommie had wondered if pot might do the trick.

  Just over the last couple of years had Todd accepted Tommie’s invitation to the barbecue, at about the same time Sam’s youngest son had started growing weed. It was relatively legal for Eric to do so, on behalf of his mother and her medical marijuana card. He didn’t till a big patch, just enough for Jenny and Rae to smoke, and for Rae to bake with. Todd had wanted to cut back on his clients, and Eric had the time, when not busy helping his dad with their apple orchard. Tommie had smiled when learning of the handover; it was in Eric’s genes to be a tiller of the land, even if cannabis was the crop.

  Tommie didn’t know who was taking over the rest of Todd’s exploits; those sorts of questions weren’t important when compared with the women Tommie and Sam loved. The men kept glancing at the kitchen, and finally Tommie spoke. “Jenny doing okay?”

  Sam sighed. “Yeah, but it’s strange. She never had any deep love for Todd, but his death hit her hard, or harder than I expected. Rae seems the same.”

  “Yeah, I can’t say she loved him either.” Tommie smiled. “But she respected him. I suppose at the end, that’s something.”

  Sam thrust his hands into his pockets. “Gonna be weird, not seeing him around. Not too many of us left, you know.”

  “Oh now Sam, you’re barely seventy.” Tommie grinned, then kicked the ground with his boot. “But you’re right, not gonna see that long ponytail blowing in the wind anymore.”

  The only hint to their youth was that slender gray braid that had dangled from the back of Todd’s head, often tucked into his collar. Yet, his marijuana use hadn’t all been for personal relaxation. Initially Todd had started growing pot to ease the suffering of his sister Brenda, who had died of multiple sclerosis before she reached thirty years of age.

  Tommie shivered; Sam and Jenny would gain a few more grandchildren before it was all said and done, but if Jenny lived another eight or ten years, Tommie would be giving thanks. He rarely thought about it so blatantly, but she had been confined to bed for much of spring, not even pot alleviating her aches. That was when Rae finally agreed to use a cane, accepting that while she wasn’t as spry as before, at least she could still get around on two feet and one stick.

  But a walker was waiting, because once Rae acquiesced to a cane, it was as if her bad leg had grown weaker. After Sam and Jenny left, Rae would smoke a joint, then take a long nap. She might wake for dinner, but Tommie would spend much of the day by himself, which wasn’t altogether bad. There were cows to look after, perhaps a visit from one of his kids, or from one of Sam’s kids. Tommie saw as much of the Cassels as he did his own. Living just a couple hundred yards down from Sam was part of it. That these two families had been in each other’s back pockets for nearly forty years was another. Then Tommie stared at Sam, saw the same ideas on his face. And the least favorable one, that these two men might be living alone in their farmhouses one day while the women they loved were up smoking joints with Todd Lambert and the rest.

  “There’s nothing we can do about it,” Sam said, as if having read Tommie’s mind. Sam scuffed his foot against the dirt, then wandered toward the barn. Barring some unfortunate accident, it was going to be Jenny or Rae next. And to Tommie, who thought of Jenny as his sister, he wasn’t quite sure which would hurt him the deepest.

  There was no question, however, for Sam. “There might not be too much time left.” Sam’s voice cracked, then he gazed at Tommie. “She says she doesn’t think she can use the walker anymore. Says the chair is easier.”

  Sam cleared his throat, then continued. “She says if Rae needs it, well, best to keep it in the family.”

  Tommie nodded, noticing how Sam couldn’t utter his wife’s name in conjunction with this information. Jenny hadn’t looked particularly weary at the barbecue, but that she and Sam hadn’t danced together had been telling. No one had said anything aloud, but later Tommie had mentioned it to his daughters. He hadn’t said anything about it to Rae.

  “Can Eric do something, I mean…” Then Tommie sighed. Pot wouldn’t heal Jenny, but it kept her feeling good, and fuzzy. But she had decided it was better to be light-headed than constantly stuck in bed. “Is she really gonna give up the walker?”

  “She’s telling Rae right now. And she’s hoping Rae will take it, God knows she could use it. She gonna get high after we leave?”

  Sam wore a small smile, which roused Tommie’s. “I bet she’s already broke out the goods. By now they’re both probably three sheets to the wind.”

  Sam’s ensuing laugher was honest, and it stirred some relief in Tommie. Only Jenny would be able to convince Rae to use a walker, but Rae had twisted Jenny’s arm about trying pot. Her Todd Lambert special, Rae had called that batch of chocolate pound cake that Jenny had been tricked into tasting. Now Rae also baked it in cookie bars, and at Christmas she made a fruitcake that was shared only between a few. But while chocolate pound cake possessed the most medicinal properties, even that enhanced dessert wasn’t enough to halt an illness that in all likelihood would separate Sam from the woman he loved.

  Tommie blinked away tears, then nodded. “Well, about time to get us an oatmeal cookie, doncha think?”

  “Yeah, the grandkids helped me bake them yesterday when they got done with school.” Sam smiled, wiping the corners of his eyes. He listed names Tommie knew well, a growing brood wh
o would never recall Grandma Jenny taking that task, but at least she was still here, even if it meant spending the rest of her life seated in a wheelchair. Tommie let that idea slip away as he and Sam reached the house, hearing their wives cackling like two hens as the familiar scent of pot drifted through the back screen door.

  Two days later, Rae was standing behind Jenny’s walker, and less than a week after that she was actually quite capable with the contraption, as she called it, negotiating Sam and Jenny’s kitchen at Sam’s seventieth birthday party. Rae directed the kitchen traffic, gripping the sides of the walker like a general. By the time dinner was eaten, she was seated, gabbing with her daughters and nieces. She had been much like her old self, bossy and slightly acerbic. And everyone was glad to see her that way.

  Those most pleased were Tommie, Sam, and Jenny, who chatted with their relations in the living room amid wobbly toddlers and swift youngsters, who nimbly weaved around those elders. Tommie smiled, gripping Jenny’s hand. She had used the wheelchair exclusively since speaking with Rae, but while Rae had graciously taken to her walker, Jenny was having a harder time no longer being vertical.

  Tommie saw it in her cloudy brown eyes, and the way her