S4C Final episode

S4C – Nurture/Destroy Episode 10


“I was so jealous of Gladys,” Ada moaned and wiped her eyes outside the private dining room at Sunny Valley. “Mother of six, mother-of-the-bride, and -groom and grandmother, and now great grandmother how many times over?”
Lois patted her sister-in-law’s arm. “Best to let that go and join the family.”
With the extra tables the Quacious clan passed plates where the teenage waitresses couldn’t squeeze by to serve. Laughter echoed off the walls. As Brad’s fabulous crepe desserts were being handed out, Silent Sam entered, escorting a gray-haired lady with smoky blue eyes and a gentle smile. Clearing his throat, he introduced his wife-to-be and turned to Ada.
“I waited so long, because no one before was enough like my best gal.”
Weeping, Ada leaned into Alf, who held her and reached to shake hands with his gangly son.
“Now, Auntie Lo?” Little Seth, clutching his puppy purse, gaped up at the adults.
“That’s up to Samuel,” Lois, ducking beside Tom Archer, waved the younger generation to take over.
At a smile from his bride-to-be, Silent Sam cleared his throat. “Ma, Pa, we know it’d be hard for everyone to come to Texas. We didn’t want to cheat you out of a full Quacious celebration.”
Ada blinked at the length of her son’s speech.
“So we’re gonna do it again. Here. Pastor Marble says it’ll be a renewal of vows and we can redo the whole ceremony – for everybody.”
Gil rose. “And here, from all of us, Ada. Enough frequent flyer miles for you and Alf to visit a these newlyweds a dozen times a year for a decade.”
Ada was, for once, speechless. But her expression said it all.

That evening, only Lois, leaning back contentedly in her rocker, and her brothers – and Tom Archer  lingered in her suite #231.
“You know, Quint, that saying you tried to tell me once about what nourishes me, destroys me?”
“Over indulgence,” Quint nodded.
“Part of it, I’m sure. But I was so full of my sorrows that I found myself murmuring against how you was a little imp and finally too much for my beau Daniel. Like it was your fault you were going on four. Indulged myself in what I’d missed out on.”
“A lot, Lois,” Gil stirred, ready to apologize for what the brothers had cost her.
“Mebbe, but look what you all have given me. The scales don’t come near to balancing, and the good is all in my favor. Why, I declare…”
And off she went into story after story of the farm and the antics of her boys.
After a while, Gil leaned toward Tom Archer. “I think our folks had a premonition when they named her LoQuacious. Think she’ll make it all the down?”
Tom frowned, but the brothers nodded.
Quint and Brad rose, approaching Lois from behind.
She went on talking.
Carefully they tilted her rocker over backwards.
Lois, back to herself, never missed a word all the way to the floor.

S4C serial challenge -- "Nurture/Destroy" Episode 9

Episode 9 – Nurture/Destroy

“We tried to call,” Gil apologized finding Lois and her bent friend Tom Archer weeding in the courtyard. “The gendarmes…?”

“Police? Ah.”

“I like him,” Gil smiled when he and Lois were alone in the elevator.

“Tom?” Lo blushed, realizing she hadn’t thought of Daniel all day. “Hmm.”

A dozen Quaciouses were crowded into #231 when the two plainclothesmen arrived. Seth shifted on Lois’s lap. The taller one blinked.

“Better not try to arrest her with this gang to defend her.”

Chuckles cleared much of the tension.

“Just wanted all of you to know that we’d found old records at the hospital. Doc Travine had left confidential notes and a copy of the letter from Lincoln County about your parents hitting that buck, Ms Quacious. Your mother was killed and your father evidently refused to leave her. Died before they could get him help.”

“No charges against me?”

“For raising us on your own?” Quint scoffed. “The way Brad, here, turned out…”

The laughter this time was richer than mere titters.

“That’s a relief,” Ada sighed. “We were worried, weren’t we Alf?”

Alf glared until Lois touched his sleeve and nodded. “To all of us, sweet Ada.”

“’Sweet Adeline…’” Brad broke into broken baritone, and even the detectives guffawed.

“When is Samuel’s wedding to be?” Lois asked. “I’d bet this clan will fill up a plane flying to Texas to celebrate. Oh, excuse us, Officers. We didn’t mean to take up your time with family affairs.”

“When? In Texas?” Murmurs of congratulations to Ada and Alf were cut short as they realized Lois was addressing the plainclothesmen. “Thank you, Officers, for bringing good news personally like that…”

The phone rang, and Lois nodded to Gil, who was closest, to answer it.

“Never met a family like yours, Ms Quacious. Our privilege. If there is ever anything…”

“There just might be…” Gil said with the grin that Lois had known since childhood meant mischief. “There’s been a bit of thievery…It’s Tom on the phone. He wants to bring up a ‘friend’?”

“You want to report a theft, Ms Quacious?”

“Oh, no, nothing that drastic. But if you’d be so kind as to put a scare into a lady with sticky fingers?”

Roberta, Ada and Gladys had lemonade doled out, with Seth’s in his favorite Spider Man cup when Tom rapped his now-familiar pattern on Lois’s door.

“Archer, Ma’am,” he announced as he ushered in the tiny gnome of a woman with lank hair who now stood wide-eyed, gaping at all the people in the room.

“Didn’t know it were a party,” she croaked. “I loves parties.”

“Then come on in!” Gil stepped up to introduce her. “These are Detectives…”

“Detectives?” she gasped and turned to duck away, but Roberta’s straw purse with the woven hound head whipped out from behind her

“My puppy!” Seth screeched, scrambling down from Lois’s lap.

“Officers,” the woman stammered, “I…”

Lois reached for Tom’s hand as he came to stand beside her rocker.

Episode 8 Nurture/Destroy

Episode 8 Nurture/Destroy

When she was young – even in her sixties – Lois could roll with the punches, pick herself up, dust herself off. But now, as she watched Gladys slip out of Suite #231 of Sunny Valley, Lois knew a weariness unassuaged even by little Seth blowing a kiss over his pudgy hand. She found herself wishing the tot was saying good-bye at Auntie Lo’s funeral.

“Lois Melissa!” she chided herself aloud, but only partially shocked at her wish. The years, the problems had piled up and Lois, no longer a problem solver, staggered under her own inadequacy. No wonder she’d gone silent. Even Quint no longer teased her about her amputated talking streak.

A rap at her door made her jump.

“Archer, Ma’am,” announced a firm, masculine voice that so reminded her of her youthful Daniel. “Puppy pursuer.”

Hazy as she was with self-pity, Lois blinked a moment trying to understand. And then she knew: Tom had found Roberta’s purse with that blasted woven puppy head!

“Come in!” she cried, rocking forward.

He’d never been in her apartment before, but his eyes didn’t stray, at least as much as Lois could tell with his neck bent as it was. “Care for a stroll in the courtyard?”


They were nearly too late. But Lois glimpsed enough of the lanky white-blond hair and narrow features to be able to recognize the thief again. The puppy was once more last to be whisked onto the elevator before it rose.

“What’s her name?” Lois demanded, and then immediately retracted, remembering Tom’s reluctance to tell tales. “I’m sorry. I have no right to ask you. Thank you for keeping me up to date on the investigation. I don’t think I’ll tell the staff. No need for unpleasantness. I’ll watch, and I’ll know what to do.”

The corner of Tom’s nearly hidden mouth turned up in what must have been a boyish grin.

When she looked up, Lois was startled to see Alf watching with particular interest the retreating curved back of Tom Archer.

“Must’a been a fine-looking man in his day,” Alf commented as he held the door to the courtyard. “Shame what happens to good people.”

Lois gaped up at her oldest little brother: Two full sentences in a row, and neither in reply.

He grinned. “You’ve gone silent on us, and Ada’s blubbering over Sam.”

“So you can get a word in edgewise?” For the first time in weeks, Lois bent in a low belly laugh. But then her eyes narrowed. “Why aren’t you two thrilled that Samuel is marrying? Have you met her?”

“Yep,” Alf nodded from his 6’4”. “Like her a lot. Bossy, talkative. Runs her kids and grands and greats like someone else we know.”

“Local gal?”

“Dallas.”

“Texas? Ah! And she doesn’t want to leave her family? Even for the wedding? No, especially not for the wedding, I’d imagine. Can’t you two fly down? Oh, they plan to live there, too.”

Alf stared at a hardy zinnia. “Yep.”

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NURTURE/DSTROY

Episode 7 Nurture/Destroy

As the elevator rumbled up and away, Lois jabbed at the call button and, a true fan of mystery movies, watched the dial to see at which level the thief stopped. The lift lumbered to the second floor and then the third.
Knowing it was fruitless, Lois grumbled until it finally returned. Lois entered and tried to press the up button, but a large, blue- veined hand held the door open for four more people ─ three with walkers ─ to crowd inside. Stuck in the back, Lo had no view down the corridors at either stop. At last she sank from third to second floor and shuffled to #231. The puppy purse thief had gotten away.

“At least I know you’re a resident. I’ll find you,” Lois muttered as she shifted from walker to rocker. “I’ll find you.” As she nodded into a nap that she didn’t want and knew would interfere with tonight’s sleep, Lois’s thoughts drifted to Ada’s peculiar reaction to the news of her son’s upcoming wedding.

The man whose curled back imprisoned his chin against his chest was already seated for breakfast when Lois arrived.

“Mr. Archer, good morning.”

Tom bent at the waist in greeting. Lois glimpsed a hint of a smile at the corner of his mouth. “You saw the wayward ‘puppy.’”

“How did you know?”

“Sunny Valley’s a motley collection of people, but our grapevine is first class.”

“So you know who has the purse? She’s done this before?”

Tom tilted to look up at her the best he could.

“You’re not a gossip, are you?”

“Peace here requires a lot of tolerance. We are human.”


Little Seth came running to her. “Auntie Lo! Did you find my puppy?”

Gil’s Gladys pulled the little blond boy gently away, but Lois eased herself into one of the benches off the foyer and beckoned for the child to come into her arms. They talked a moment and then Lois rummaged through her tote bag for her heavyset keys.

“Will you find my apartment key for me, please, big boy?”

The child was soon enraptured poking at every nook and cranny available at his height.

“Glad, what is it? Now don’t pretend with me. Ada?”

Gladys shook her head, eyes brimming.

“Let’s walk in the courtyard.”

As Seth checked each flower with the tip of a key, Gladys pointed discreetly let her grandson. “His daddy. Possibly CA. Gil so wishes it was him instead.”

“Or me,” Lois agreed under her breath. “I can’t see worth a spec, can’t hear half, and can’t work. What’s the point?”

“Oh, Lois, I’m sorry to burden you. I know you’re torn apart being in this place. I do wish you’d come back to the farm and stay with us.”

“And know I’m a burden? No, dear one, thank you, but we’re all better off with me here with my own kind.”

“No one is kinder than you, Lois.”

Lo’s mouth dropped open. “Bossy,” she protested.

“Loving.”

Episode 6 of Nurture/Destroy

Nurture/Destroy Episode 6

Lois was deep in a dream of darting along the irrigation pond with Daniel, laughing, chasing her. Daniel, freckles vivid on his cheeks pinked by summer sun on a redhead’s pale skin, blustered as he caught her. “Lo,” he whispered.

“Lo?” the voice repeated, harsher this time, but the calloused hand on her shoulder was gentle. “Hey, Sis, we’re sorry to waken you, but…”

Blinking, Lois returned reluctantly to room #231 in Sunny Valley. She sat up in her rocker. “Alf?”

Her gaze leaped from her oldest brother to his wife. Ada, known for her combativeness, looked suddenly all of her seventy-eight years. Her silver-streaked white hair, usually carefully if unattractively combed, flopped in strands. Her pale blue eyes were red-rimmed. Alf had chosen for his wife a woman so much like, not his mother (whose loving qualities he had buried along with the pain of losing her), but his sister, the boss of the family and the farm. Ada, nearly Lois’s peer in talkativeness, had recently become champion talker as Lois found she had little to say and no one to listen. But now both women sat silent.

Alf, father of and model for Silent Sam, found himself uncomfortably the one making explanations.

“Good gracious, Mister,” Ada finally lifted her blotchy face to snap, “stop mumbling and get to the point!”

With a tiny smile of relief, Alf went still.

“It’s Sam, my son, my only son!”

“Samuel’s hurt?” Lois demanded but Ada dissolved again into tears.

“He’s getting married,” the laconic Alf summed up.

“Well, that’s good news – isn’t it? Samuel’s never been interested before. Why aren’t you two thrilled?”

“Oh, you never understand!” Ada huffed, rising. “Come, Mister!” she commanded and rushed from the room.

Alf stood torn between explaining to his sister and following his distressed wife.

“Go to her, Alfred. You can call later and let me know.” Lois shooed him out. In his own good time, Alf was would deliver clear and distinct information.

Nodding in her rocker until her bird-call alarm chirped, Lois rose heavily to start her long shuffle to the dining room. Dinner bustled. Her tablemates chattered, and Lois, after picking at the dry, flaked pink mass that had been billed as Columbia River salmon, rose to shuffle back to her room.

Although she’d promised herself she’d tackle the gently-rising stairs at least once every day as long as she was able, Lois started toward the elevator. Lois Melissa was tired. Bone weary.

“Sign of depression,” she scolded herself, “and the Quacious family knows the remedy for that: good, honest work!”

She chuckled bitterly. She hadn’t been able to do anything constructive in months. “Piddling!” She bit at the word in disgust and started again toward the elevator, only to glimpse a straw purse with a woven puppy head being yanked onto the elevator just as the doors closed.

“Dratenflankle!” Lois cried, lurching forward. “That’s Roberta’s purse and I’m gonna find out who took it!”

Serial: Nurture/Destroy Episode 5

EPISODE 5:
Snatching up her walker, Lois hustled into the corridor. It wasn’t Ada yelling, but a short gnome of a woman with ill-cut straight hair who was clutching at the crotch of her lime green polyester pants in front of the unisex public restroom.
“Lemme in there!” the woman hollered as she pounded on the door with her free hand. “You witch, lemme in there or I’m gonna wet myself! I’m partly paralyzed and I gotta have the bar on the wall to pull myself up!”
“Welcome to Sunny Valley,” Lois whispered toward the person behind that battered door. To the all-but-dancing gnome, she said, “I have a pull up bar in my bathroom. Would you like to…”
The dance jerked Lois’s way and then past her. The gnome disappeared into #231. Lois maneuvered forward to rap gently at the hall bathroom door. “She’s gone. You can come out now.”
“I was done, but I was afraid to come out,” a paste-white, oval-faced lady whimpered at the door she held barely ajar. “Where is she?”
“Using my facilities,” Lois pointed back toward her apartment. “I’m Lois…”
“You’re the new guest with all the grandchildren and the brother who makes those cream puffs.”
“Grand nieces and nephews. No children of my own. Just my brothers,” Lo started to explain, but the sound of flushing startled them both.
“I can’t get away!” the white face disappeared and the door closed with a distinct click as the lock slid closed on the inside.
The gnome of a woman waddled out wiping her hands on Lois’s handtowel Roberta had embroidered with an elaborate “Q.”
“Musta been a kid done this,” the gnome commented as she peered at the irregular letter. “Rob was eight at the time,” Lois explained.
“Eight, huh? Must not’a had a very good teacher. Here.” She laid the wet towel on Lois’s arm and, hitching up her lime green pants, and swung away down the hall.
Open-mouthed, Lois leaned into her walker and watched the gnome disappear into the south corridor.
“Talk about poor teachers,” Lois muttered. “Who instructed you in manners?”
“Talking to yourself?” a male voice rasped behind her and Lois startled, dropping the wet towel.
Incredibly long fingers reached to pick it up. Only a man with Marfan’s Syndrome could have fingers like that.
“Samuel?”
Alf and Ada’s only son shuffled beside her. She looked up into that gaunt, Abe Lincolnesque face and saw emotional pain she’d never witnessed in Silent Sam.
“Come in, come in, child,” she said though Sam was in his early seventies. But first she rapped again at the bathroom door. “It’s Lois. She’s gone,” Lo informed the closed door.
Sam’s shaggy brows lifted, but he asked no questions even as he helped Auntie Lo into her rocker.
“Sit down, Samuel,” Lois invited, forgetting for the moment that his lanky frame was far more comfortable unfolded. “What is it?”
“I - I tore her apart,” Silent Sam whispered.

Nurture/Destroy Episode 4 Flash serial contest

Episode 4

“You knew about your parents’ accident? At the time?” The beefier detective peered from under thick eyelids. Even Silent Sam appeared about to say something. Of course, he wasn’t competing now with his mother, Ada, Lois thought, then bit her lip to chide herself for meanness.
As they heard the knock, Lois knew it was her oldest brother and his wife – it served Lois right.
The detectives indicated Alf and Ada were to sit without speaking. He motioned for Lois to continue.
“Pa was driving Ma to take care of her sister Louise, sick with milk fever. Hit a buck. All three killed, though the buck staggered a hundred yards before he went down.”
“The buggy had no windshield,” Ada protested.
“Pa had a Chivvie,” Alf told the policemen. “Teaching me to drive. That made me maddest, that that Chivvie was gone.”
Only the detective’s glare shut Ada’s mouth, but even Lois was heartsick to hear such a confession from Alf. He’d shouldered a man’s workload before he needed to shave and still he condemned himself.
“Why didn’t you tell anyone, Lo?”
Tears sprang to Lois’s eyes. Indignation. Fear. The near panic she’d felt those decades before when Louise’s husband came to take little Quint while the search for Pa and Ma was going on.
“We’re a family!” she’d stated then. “Quint stays with us. Pa said.”
Then she’d had to substantiate the lie: Pa had telephoned; Pa would be home soon. Trouble with the Chevy but they’d be home soon.
“It was only way they’d let us stay together. By the time everybody knew they weren’t coming, they could see we were making it on our own. They let us stay together.”
They stared at her in silence.
“You were fifteen, Lo,” Silent Sam whispered. His father Alf had turned away, blowing his nose hard into his handkerchief.
The detectives rose. “We’ll check, best we can,” they told Ada. Nodding at the others, they closed the door to #231 behind them.
“All these years. Why didn’t you tell us?” Ada demanded.
“Hush, Mother!” Sam snapped. “Auntie Lo did what she had to. And so will I.” He unfolded his long frame from the sofa, nodded to his father, paused in front of his mother as though he would say something more, and then lumbered to the door.
“Sammy!” Ada wailed, but he left without turning.
They sat a moment listening to the Seth Thomas clock measuring unforgiving time.
Alf drew Ada out of her chair. “Lo,” he nodded, too overcome to say more.
“Wait ‘til it’s confirmed,” Lo instructed, “for their sake,” she added when Alf shook his head. “No doubts.”
He nodded again and herded his wife away.
Lois rocked, staring at the rag rug, remembering each tiny shirt or blouse she’d sewed or mended for her boys. Four brothers. Her boys because no one else could keep them together.
She was allowing a memory of Daniel creep in when she heard an anguished howl.
Ada!

NURTURE/DESTROY Episode 3

Episode 3


“Stop fussing!”
Blinking at Lois in her rocker, Mrs. Fairday huffed. “I am not accustomed to being addressed like that, Miss Quacious.”
“Sunny Valley will not be sued. My niece removed her valuables before allowing little Seth to play with that dratted puppy purse. So don’t be concerned. Please, I’m tired.”
“Sunny Valley wants only the best for its residents.”
“Then please let this resident rest.”
Drawing down her frilly blouse, Mrs. Fairday strode out, closing the door to #231 with studied gentleness.
“Twit,” Lois seethed. For long minutes she studied the trail of red braided into her rag rug. How she’d loved that blouse. Ma had dyed grain sacks to surprise her for her eleventh birthday. Ah, the love! “Love costs,” Lois hissed. And how it cost! Ah, Quint. Children do things never knowing what price their loved ones pay to protect them. “And you never will know. Not from me!”

Lois woke up stiff and sweating, still in her rocker. What had Ada meant? Who was opening the cold case? Murder? How could they think Ma and Pa had been murdered? It was an accident. The buck’s antlers shattered the windshield – and Ma. Pa had twisted the steering wheel into a pretzel.
Chilled, Lois struggled to get up. She needed to sleep. To heal. She was here in Sunny Valley. More like the Valley of Death, but I better not say that to Fairday, she chuckled on the way to a warm shower.

At breakfast, a man bent nearly chin-to-chest slowed as he passed Lois’s chair near the window by the courtyard. As he nodded, Lois feared he might tumble forward and fall, but his manner was so gentlemanly that she bit her lip to say nothing.
“Top o’ the mornin’, Ma’am. Tom Archer.”
“Mr. Archer.” Lois smiled.
“How soon does the youngster need that puppy?” Archer twisted slightly to peer at her from one glittering blue eye.
“What? Need? Why, never, I suppose.”
“Wisdom in the Quacious clan,” Archer raised one hand away from curved body as though in salute and shuffled on to his table near the foyer.
“Tom’s a strange duck,” a plump woman with bright pink cheeks sat at Lois’s right. “I’m Abby – Abigail Mortensen. And this lady coming is Bernadine Rice. Frank Trofred will be late. Always is. But if Tom bothers you, Frank will be frank with him.” Grinning at her own joke, Abby dived into her poached egg as soon as it was set before her.
Watching her, Lois found she wasn’t hungry. “Just hot chocolate, please,” she smiled at the slender redheaded waitress. It was good to see smooth skin.

Precisely at 10:30, an authoritative knock rapped on Lois’s door. Silent Sam, Alf and Ada’s gaunt giant of a son, led in two beefy men who had to be policemen. Lois heard only snatches of their requests for information.
“But it was all in the police records. Montgomery County court house.”
“Burned down.”
Lois closed her eyes.

NURTURE/DESTROY Episode 2

“Thanks for helping me move in here at Sunny Valley, Ada. But now you stay? You must want to crucify me without an audience.”

“To save face,” Ada snapped.

Smiling, Lois rubbed her chin. “This old thing?”

“The whole family worships you.”

“Except you. Shows your good sense.”

“Then you admit it?”

“Admit what? Stop dramatizing and talk plain English, Girl!”

“I’m no child! I’m not ten years younger than you!”

Lois stared at the frayed edge of her rag rug on the new-fangled faux wood. It lacked the deep warmth of the farm’s oak floors, but it beat the linoleum at the apartment building she’d just moved out of. Absorbed, Lo only slowly comprehended Ada’s tirade.

“Murder?” Lois lifted her head to stare.

“They’re re-opening the cold case. Your parents!”

“Dead these 72 years.”

“So you did know! You told everyone they were away visiting.”

“Helping Ma’s sister…”

With a knock Gladys entered trailing little Seth. “Sorry, but it’s almost 12:30.” Gladys yanked her great-grandson aside as Ada stalked out. She grimaced at Lois. “You didn’t eat, did you?”

“Not hungry,” Lois started, but Gil’s well-rounded wife wouldn’t understand. “Saving room for Brad’s treat.”

Aunt Roberta’s straw purse with its woven puppy head dangling on his arm, tow-headed Seth toddled between Lo and her walker. It slowed progress, but Lois smiled. Seventy-two years ago, Quint was this size. Lois at fifteen had had to keep the family together!

“Easy,” Gladys crooned, extracting struggling Seth from Lo’s unheedful clutch. “Auntie Lo’s tired. Moving is hard on any woman.”

“Oh! Sorry, child. I’m fine. We’ll be late for Bradford’s extravaganza.” They hobbled on. “Don’t get old.”

“Wouldn’t think of it,” Gladys chuckled.

“We’re sure it won’t happen to us.”

“But then it does.”

“Treasonous bit of our body by bit.”


Word had spread that dessert today was a renowned chef’s specialty. White heads bobbed in anticipation. The Quacious clan clumped in the foyer watching their youngsters shyly interact with Sunny Valley residents hungrier for a child’s giggling than for any edible treat.

As Lo entered, Mrs. Fairday, the director in frilly blouse, motioned with the microphone toward the head table. But Lo sat heavily on a bench near her brothers.
“Yes, well…” Smiling with raised eyebrows, Fairday announced, “Everyone! I want to introduce our newest guest, but she insisted we first meet her family. We compromised. I’ll introduce Lois’s four younger brothers and their wives and you can guess at the myriad others!”

Low titters erupted.

“Ada and Alfred Quacious, oldest. Gil and Gladys, third brother. Quint, who has articles in Science Today. Second brother Bradford will introduce himself his own way.
“Ah, now! In honor of our newest resident, Lois Melissa Quacious, who’ll be a west winger, # 231. Welcome!”

Seven high school waitresses, white aprons over black slacks, paraded in with trays of flaky swans floating on whipped creamy filling. Arthritic hands applauded. The appreciative murmur was pierced by a child’s wail.

“My puppy! My puppy’s gone!”

S4C serial challenge -- "Nurture/Destroy" Episode 1

Episode 1

“Quod me nutrit me destruit.”

“What nourishes me…” Lois frowned at her seventy-five-year-old baby brother.

“…destroys me,” Quint nodded.

“That from those science magazines you write for?” Lo fussed maneuvering her walker through the doorway.

“Sunny Valley’s photo-cell doors will open for you.”

“And a gazillion decrepit old people.”

“132,” he corrected, ever precise. “Besides, you did most of the culling when you came here from the farm.”

“Culling,” Lo chuckled for the first time as she settled into Quint’s Probe. The smell of leather reminded her of buggy rides with Pa decades ago. “It was hard giving away Ma’s table settings, but they belonged where families are growing. Must’a been harder for Ma to move from her father’s mansion to Pa’s sixty acres. She managed.”

“There’s nothing Auntie Lo can’t do,” he said just loud enough for her to hear without needing to acknowledge.

Embarrassed, Lois regaled Quint with stories of Pa whipping up Black Knight to make the buggy jounce, just to hear Lois and her mother squeal. But she quieted as they pulled into the country lane to the Quacious family farm. Gil’s boys had done well; the knee-high corn stood straight and well-spaced. And this year, too, they’d spared the old elm and its nests.

“Auntie Lo!” A dozen children ran from the porch, barn and coop to surround Quint’s Probe.

Drying her hands on her bibbed apron, Gil’s Gladys shooed grand and great-grandchildren aside as her strapping sons extracted Lois from the car.

“Dratenflankle!”

Her nephews held Lois in midair, afraid they’d hurt her.

“No, put me down. I’m fine; my memory’s a sieve. I forgot Gil’s Golden Anniversary card.”

“Never mind, Sis,” Gil soothed, though Lois was instantly suspicious when she glimpsed conspiratorial grins. “We know where to find you.”

“Old folk’s home,” Lo muttered as she was spirited across the enclosed back porch with its new boards showing orange among the gray. “Good job fitting,” Lo commented. They glided through the cluttered, aromatic kitchen into the living room as the rest of the family tumbled in the front door.

The expanded oak table was set to perfection with Mother’s delicate Old Rose china. Lois cocked her head, flattered that Gladys would use what Lo had given her and Gil for their golden celebration. Then Lo gasped to realize that the stemmed glasses were those she’d given Alf and Ada, and the linen napkins were tucked through the silver rings Lo had given her second brother. Smiling, Bradford lit the silver candelabra.

All of Ma’s special things, dispersed years ago. Lo had never expected to see them again. The family must have planned this for weeks.
They surrounded her, generations of Quacious family.

“Thank you, Auntie Lo!” they cried.

“Ever seen Lo speechless before?” Bradford demanded to general laughter.

Lois fell into the chair at the head of the table, rheumy eyes bright with tears.

Leaning to fill Lo’s water goblet, Ada hissed, “How could you? You tell them, or I will!”