Best of Me

Chapter 9

Garrett had met Cora in the kitchen and helped her load the baskets for Dr. Foley and Ms. Patty into his car without asking any questions. Neither one lived far from the house and it only took them a few minutes to arrive at Ms. Patty's home. It was a small apartment on the ground floor of an ancient apartment building. Ms. Patty had lived there for over fifty years, since she had moved in as a newlywed. She had never had any children and she always insisted that Cora was like a daughter to her. Something that she repeated regularly to Garrett while they had been visiting.

Ms. Patty was from Mississippi and had a deep southern accent which was something that most people found charming, especially when one considered her small and delicate stature. She took Garrett over to the sofa and left Cora to unpack the limited supply of groceries that she took to her every week.

Both, Ms. Patty and Dr. Foley, existed on limited incomes and the supplies that she took them helped them get by. They also had difficulty keeping house so she did odd jobs for them when she visited. Last week she had helped Ms. Patty, who always required more be done than Dr. Foley.

Ms. Patty charmed Garrett over a cup of coffee and kept referring to him as Cora's nice young man. Garrett had appeared to be bowled over by the little woman and Cora wouldn't have been surprised if he would have spent the better part of the afternoon in her company as she regaled him with tales of her days growing up in the South. She had been very involved in the Civil Rights movement and she had even met Martin Luther King Jr. once.

Cora had had to pull them away from each other with a promise that she would bring him to see her again soon, but they couldn't leave before Cora had promised to give her regards to Dr. Foley as usual.

The trip to Dr. Foley's was a quiet one. Garrett had seemed to be thinking hard about something and didn't appear to be in the mood for conversation so, other than giving him directions, Cora had remained silent.

Garrett and Dr. Foley, a small and portly man, had hit it off immediately. It turned out that they both had a deep love of history and it proved to be a topic of unlimited possibilities as they jumped from decade to decade. When Garrett had mentioned his conversation with Ms. Patty about Martin Luther King Jr. Dr. Foley had been fascinated.

Cora had listened to their conversation as she cleaned the kitchen and did a few other light chores around the house. Usually she would have been much more thorough but she was hurting and couldn't do as much as she normally would. They stayed longer with Dr. Foley than they had with Ms. Patty, but when they had had to leave Garrett promised to visit him again soon so that they could continue their conversation.

Upon their return to the house Garrett had suggested that she rest for the rest of the afternoon and she promised that she would as soon as she had finished with Aunt Mable's lunch. He hadn't argued and she was glad. The last thing she wanted was for Aunt Mable to know about her and Garrett's truce.

She had had a refreshing nap and now she was dressing in one of the few nice dresses that she owned. It was at least two years old but it was in a classic wrap style that would never really fall out of fashion and the peacock blue color was a striking foil for her hair. She loved bright colors but had had to tame down her wardrobe on Aunt Mable's behalf, and she was glad to return to the bright color, even if it was only for one evening.

She looked at her reflection one last time, she had been unable to do anything with her hair because of her inability to lift her arms comfortably, so she had brushed it as best she could and it fell in a curly mass past her shoulders. Her high heels had added a few inches to her miniscule height.

A knock on the door pulled her away from her self-study and she moved to open the door and found Margie looking over her shoulder at Aunt Mable's door.