LITMIR.BIZ

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between Linden Falls and the small town of Cora to check on Gus. Though she doesn’t want to admit it, Gus is getting weaker by the day. As she pulls into the driveway, she examines the small three-bedroom farmhouse she’s lived in since she was ten. Gus has always kept the house in perfect condition and she has to look closely to see any signs of wear and tear, but they are there. The paint on the black shutters is beginning to fade and crack and the white siding needs a good power wash. The lawn is neatly trimmed but not mowed the way Gus would do it, if he were healthy. For a while Charm tried to mow the lawn in the diagonal pattern Gus preferred, but though he never said anything, she could tell the imperfect lines frustrated him. Finally, Charm called a fourteen-year-old neighbor who lives a half-mile down the road to take over lawn duty. But Gus won’t let anyone touch his flower beds. They are still his domain, although with his illness they have suffered for it.

      Charm steps from her car, grabs the bags of groceries and walks around to the side entrance. She sees Gus on his knees, his back to her, head bent, and for a moment she thinks he has collapsed. Dropping the grocery bags, she runs toward him. Gus suddenly turns his head as he hears her approach and slowly gets to his feet, shakily lifting his small, portable oxygen tank. “Charm, where were you?” he croaks. “I was worried.” His plaid shirt envelops his thin frame and his khaki pants hang loosely on his hips. He painfully pulls off his gardening gloves and drops them to the ground. He has slicked his thick black hair from his face, and beyond the grayness of his skin and his sunken eyes, Charm can see a glimmer of the handsome man he once was. The man her mother decided to keep around longer than any of her many other boyfriends and actually marry. When Charm was little, she proudly watched the two of them together, her beautiful blonde mother and handsome, funny Gus, the firefighter.

      Reanne Tullia was with Gus for four years—a world record for her, Charm thinks. Eventually, her mother got bored playing her part in their happy family, left Gus and then divorced him. Charm was ten when they moved in and fourteen when her mother was ready to move on. Reanne traveled the short distance across the Druid River and went back to live in Linden Falls. Charm went with her for a few weeks, but it was unbearable. In the middle of the night, Charm called Gus and begged him to let her return and he said yes, with no questions. Charm and her brother asked to stay with him and Gus was kind enough to let them.

      Now Gus is very sick. Lung cancer, a by-product of his job as a firefighter and years of smoking. Gus took early retirement from the fire department about five years ago, after he got sick. Since his diagnosis, he routinely asks her why she would want to stay with a sick old man. “Because this is my home,” she always tells him. “You are my home.”

      “Hey, Gus.” Charm tries to sound casual, not wanting him to know she is worried. “I just went to the bookstore and got some groceries.”

      Gus holds her gaze for a long moment, then asks, “How’s that little boy?”

      “He wasn’t there, but Claire says he’s doing fine. He starts kindergarten next week. Can you believe it?”

      Gus shakes his head. “No, I can’t. I’m glad he’s doing well.”

      “I brought you kolache,” Charm says before he can say anything else about Joshua. She hands him the bag of the Czech pastry that he loves so much. “I promise, someday I’ll learn how to make them myself,” she tells him as he reaches for the bag.

      “Nah, this is perfect,” he says, though she knows they aren’t. Gus used to make delicious authentic kolache from his grandmother’s recipe. Now, more often than not, he is too weak to stay on his feet for more than ten minutes.

      “Your mother called,” Gus’s voice rasps, making him sound older than his fifty years. It’s difficult for Charm to tell whether it’s the cancer or whether he is upset about her mother calling.

      Charm and her mother rarely speak. Every once in a while, they try to rebuild their relationship but their encounters usually end in bitter tears and angry words.

      “What did she want?” Charm asks glumly.

      They walk into the kitchen through the side door and Charm pulls a chair away from the table, its legs scraping noisily against the faded blue-flowered linoleum. Gus lowers himself slowly into the seat. Gus has been wobbly on his feet and she is constantly worried about him falling. Yesterday he tripped on the ridge where the carpet meets the linoleum and took a tumble. Gus bloodied his knees and bruised his elbows in that fall. Charm had to sit him down like he was a three-year-old and clean his scraped knees, covering them with Band-Aids. She knew then that it was time to have a conversation with Gus about getting someone to stay with him during the day while she was at class or at the hospital.

      “She didn’t come over, did she?” Charm asks, and her eyes pop open in panic. If her mother has stopped by, she’d have taken one look at Gus and seen how sick he is and, like a vulture, start circling. Gus doesn’t have much, but he owns his house and car outright. Reanne always thought she should have gotten the house in the divorce and Charm wouldn’t put it past her to try and get her hands on it now.

      Gus shakes his head, which looks too big for his body now. He has lost so much weight the past few months. “No, she just wanted to talk.” Charm watches as Gus pulls a kolache from the bag and takes a small bite. He does this for her benefit; he doesn’t want her to call the doctor and tell her he isn’t eating. He never eats more than a few nibbles of anything anymore.

      “She wanted money, didn’t she?” Charm asks, already knowing the answer. So typical of her mother. No phone calls, no birthday cards, nothing. And then out of the blue, poof! A phone call. Not to Charm, of course. Reanne knows better than that.

      “No, no,” Gus says defensively. “She just called to see how we were doing.”

      “She mentioned me?” Charm asks skeptically.

      “Yeah, she did.” With a trembling hand, Gus brings the kolache slowly back to his lips. His face is pale. He had tried to shave, but missed several stubbly patches on his neck. “She asked how you were, how school was going for you, what was new.”

      “What did you tell her?” Charm asks almost fearfully. She doesn’t like her mother knowing about the details of her life. The less she knew, the less she could use against her.

      “I didn’t tell her much,” Gus says miserably, and Charm knows he still loves her mother. She is very lovable. Until she’s not, Charm thinks, and then you just want to slap her away like she’s a pesky mosquito. But Gus still hasn’t gotten over her, even after all these years. “I told her that you’re doing well, that you graduate from nursing school next spring. That you’re a nice girl.” Then Gus’s face darkens, a storm cloud passes over his face. “Of course, she asked about your brother. I told her that I hadn’t heard from him in years and haven’t missed the son of a bitch one bit.”

      “I bet she loved that!” Charm smiles. Her brother is her mother’s favorite. His father was the only man her mother ever truly loved and, in turn, he wanted nothing to do with her. Smart man, Charm thinks.

      Gus sets the kolache on the table and looks at Charm, pain ingrained in his tired blue eyes. “She said that he called and left a strange message on her machine.”

      “Oh,” Charm says casually, as if she doesn’t care. “What kind of message?”

      “She didn’t say. Said she wanted to talk to you. She wants you to call her back,” Gus says coarsely.

      “You look tired,” Charm tells him. “Why don’t you go and lie down for a while.” Gus doesn’t argue, which says everything. Slowly, he pushes his chair away from the kitchen table and gets unsteadily to his feet. “Remember, Jane is going to stop over later tonight,” she reminds him.

      Almost every evening, Jane, a nurse from the Visiting Nurse Association, stops by to check on Gus. She’d arranged for Jane to come when Gus began coughing up blood and was starting to get more and more confused. Jane takes his blood pressure, listens to his lungs and makes sure he is being properly cared for. Gus always takes great pride in the way he looks and tries to

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