of times that he was thinking about looking into his family background. They carried on several minutes of friendly conversation. Mac can talk to anybody about anything, and this woman was apparently happy to dive into genealogy. Now Mac tossed out various names – MacDonald, MacDermott, MacHenry – without ever actually including his own MacPherson, and they got deep into Scottish and Irish ancestry, how to do genealogical research while vacationing in Mexico, and, somehow, hobbies involving stuffed animals. During that time I put the roast back in the oven to keep it warm.
“So?” I said when he finally put the phone away.
“Her name is Sylvia, and she works for the power company. Her name before she married Gene Haldebrand was Braxton, courtesy of former husband Dwayne Braxton, with whom she has two daughters, Celeste and Beth. Her maiden name was McDougal. She’s never been to Scotland or Ireland to check into McDougal ancestry, but she’s hoping to persuade Gene to go next summer. She wondered about trying haggis. I advised her to start with a small bite, not a big mouthful. Scottish haggis is definitely an acquired taste.”
An impressive amount of information for a few minutes of conversation. A little more time and he’d no doubt have known her date and place of birth, where she and Deputy Chief of Police Haldebrand honeymooned, and whether her belly button was an innie or an outie.
“I wonder if she still has close ties with the Braxtons?”
“She may have. She said one of her daughters lived with her grandmother, and they were having a big Braxton family get-together for the grandmother’s birthday this weekend. She seemed like a nice, friendly person. She collects teddy bears.”
“She didn’t seem all that nice and friendly when she was telling me I had to pay that back bill on the electricity.”
But Mac does have a talent for bringing out the nicer side of people. Now he added, “She names each of the teddy bears. Her latest is J. Edgar. Named after J. Edgar Hoover, whom her husband greatly admires.”
I guessed there was as much logic to that as to my naming Koop after a former U.S. Surgeon General who was vigorously opposed to smoking.
I dished up pot roast and vegetables, sliced the freshly baked bread, and added the salad I’d fixed earlier. We sat down to eat.
Mac was silent for several minutes while he ate double helpings of roast and asked for another slice of bread. Finally he said, “Does knowing it was a former Braxton you talked to at the power company change your mind about staying here for a while? We could be on the road within minutes.”
Yeah, that was the great thing about motorhome life. If you didn’t like your location at the moment, you picked up and moved, and took your whole life with you. For a few moments I was ready to do it.
But my reasons for staying kicked in again . My responsibility in Lillian Hunnicutt’s death, which translated into a responsibility not to let the Braxtons get away with what they’d done to her. And this was home. The more I thought about it, the less willing I was to let the Braxtons run me out of it again.
Mac grunted as if he knew my response without my ever saying anything, and we continued the meal without words. I figured he was silently fuming about my stubbornness and what it would take to make me change my mind about staying. But when he finally spoke, after a big dish of peach cobbler, it wasn’t about picking up and leaving.
“I don’t think we should just sit here biting our fingernails and getting nervous ulcers while we wait for the Braxtons to mount an attack or an ambush or whatever they decide to do,” he said.
“You never bite your fingernails or get a nervous stomach,” I pointed out. Mac’s stomach can take anything from a tsunami of garlic to chili hot enough to set a glacier on fire. His fingernails are unremarkable but also unbitten.
“I may start having trouble with both, worrying about you and
“So?” I said when he finally put the phone away.
“Her name is Sylvia, and she works for the power company. Her name before she married Gene Haldebrand was Braxton, courtesy of former husband Dwayne Braxton, with whom she has two daughters, Celeste and Beth. Her maiden name was McDougal. She’s never been to Scotland or Ireland to check into McDougal ancestry, but she’s hoping to persuade Gene to go next summer. She wondered about trying haggis. I advised her to start with a small bite, not a big mouthful. Scottish haggis is definitely an acquired taste.”
An impressive amount of information for a few minutes of conversation. A little more time and he’d no doubt have known her date and place of birth, where she and Deputy Chief of Police Haldebrand honeymooned, and whether her belly button was an innie or an outie.
“I wonder if she still has close ties with the Braxtons?”
“She may have. She said one of her daughters lived with her grandmother, and they were having a big Braxton family get-together for the grandmother’s birthday this weekend. She seemed like a nice, friendly person. She collects teddy bears.”
“She didn’t seem all that nice and friendly when she was telling me I had to pay that back bill on the electricity.”
But Mac does have a talent for bringing out the nicer side of people. Now he added, “She names each of the teddy bears. Her latest is J. Edgar. Named after J. Edgar Hoover, whom her husband greatly admires.”
I guessed there was as much logic to that as to my naming Koop after a former U.S. Surgeon General who was vigorously opposed to smoking.
I dished up pot roast and vegetables, sliced the freshly baked bread, and added the salad I’d fixed earlier. We sat down to eat.
Mac was silent for several minutes while he ate double helpings of roast and asked for another slice of bread. Finally he said, “Does knowing it was a former Braxton you talked to at the power company change your mind about staying here for a while? We could be on the road within minutes.”
Yeah, that was the great thing about motorhome life. If you didn’t like your location at the moment, you picked up and moved, and took your whole life with you. For a few moments I was ready to do it.
But my reasons for staying kicked in again . My responsibility in Lillian Hunnicutt’s death, which translated into a responsibility not to let the Braxtons get away with what they’d done to her. And this was home. The more I thought about it, the less willing I was to let the Braxtons run me out of it again.
Mac grunted as if he knew my response without my ever saying anything, and we continued the meal without words. I figured he was silently fuming about my stubbornness and what it would take to make me change my mind about staying. But when he finally spoke, after a big dish of peach cobbler, it wasn’t about picking up and leaving.
“I don’t think we should just sit here biting our fingernails and getting nervous ulcers while we wait for the Braxtons to mount an attack or an ambush or whatever they decide to do,” he said.
“You never bite your fingernails or get a nervous stomach,” I pointed out. Mac’s stomach can take anything from a tsunami of garlic to chili hot enough to set a glacier on fire. His fingernails are unremarkable but also unbitten.
“I may start having trouble with both, worrying about you and
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