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One Leaf Too Many

By Julie B Cosgrove

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Bailey Edwards paused in the entry.
“What is it?” Her best friend, Shannon Johnson, halted to keep from running into Bailey’s back.
“It’s too quiet. And cold.” Bailey rubbed her arms as she stepped across the marbled tile foyer floor.
“I’d say they have the AC set on 72. Not exactly energy conscious but comfortable to me, girl.”
Bailey scrunched her mouth to the side. “I didn’t mean the room temperature. It’s not how home usually feels for Sunday dinner.” She peered into the formal living room. “Mom? Dad?”
From deeper in the house, high heels clicked across the floor. Her mother, Emily Edwards appeared, wiping her hands on a dish towel.
“Hi, Mom.” Bailey shuffled to meet her.
Before she got within hug distance, she noticed the wrinkles on her mother’s brow furrowed underneath her department store foundation and blush.
“I didn’t feel like cooking. Sorry. Just ordered from Chang Wong’s.” Her mother flashed a hostess smile. “Can I get ya’ll some iced tea?”
Bailey eyed Shannon, who arched an eyebrow. Emily Edward’s Sunday dinners were renown, and her recipes had been featured in the local paper numerous times. She loved to cook and usually put out a spread for ten—even though her family now only consisted of three— leaving leftovers for Bailey to cart home and devour for lunch during the week.
“Um, sure, Mom. That’s fine.” Bailey glanced around as she followed her mother into the parlor. “Where is Dad?”
Her voice cracked. “In his den I imagine. Pouting.” She slumped into the down cushions of the davenport. “He refuses to go to our college alumni banquet during homecoming…again. Every year we get an invite and each time he firmly says no. But this year is a milestone. His fiftieth. All I did was mention it and boom!” She waved her hands in the air.
Shannon leaned into Bailey’s ear. “Perhaps I should leave?”
Bailey raised her eyebrows.“Yeah. I’ll get a ride back. I think there is more to this…”
Her mother jolted from the sofa. “No, absolutely not. He is just being stubborn. He’ll come around. Come help me set the table.”
The two thirty year-old friends traipsed behind her matronly swishing hips, reminding Bailey of ducklings following a mallard to the reflection pond.
Throughout the dinner, the four adults barely spoke. Each forked their vegetable fried rice, Mongolian beef, or cashew chicken. Her father finally pushed his chair from the table.
“Bailey, Shannon, please excuse me. I have a lot on my mind.” He bent to air-kiss his daughter’s cheek, nodded to her friend, ignored his wife, and plodded down the hall.
Her mother rose and went into the kitchen.
Bailey mouthed for her and Shannon to leave. They gathered up the take out containers, placed them into the plastic sacks they’d arrived in, and then stacked the china plates, sterling silverware, and crystal water goblets onto a silver tray resting on the sideboard.
As they drove out of the older, established neighborhood toward their more urban apartment row area of town, Shannon broached the subject, her ebony hands tightly gripping the steering wheel. “Are they going to be okay?”
Bailey swatted her concern away. “Sure. Dad’s probably feeling his age, that’s all. Doesn’t want his peers to see him with a paunch and white hair, as if they all don’t look like that by now.” She clucked her teeth. “Still, it’s weird.”
“What?”
She swirled a lock of her auburn hair. “Dad rarely talks about his college years. I wonder why?” She turned to her friend and gazed into her chocolate eyes. “And Mom never mentions her side of the family. It’s like they contracted amnesia right before Travis was born.”
“Your older brother?” Shannon chuckled. “Text him. Maybe he has a clue.”
“Perhaps I will.” She squinted into the sun as it traveled in an arc toward the western hills.
The two rode in silence the rest of the way.
Shannon pulled into their complex and parked in her designated spot. “See ya for choir.”
Bailey closed the car door. “Sure. See ya.”
She flashed Shannon a quick grin and plodded down the corridor to her unit. When she heard the faint mew on the other side, her world became better. As she shoved the key in the lock, she sloughed off the angst of the afternoon.
Surely her parents’ solid marriage remained crack-free.




“What’s taking Jessica so long in there?” Shannon eyed the wooden door with the silhouette of a woman on it.
Bailey clenched her jaw to stifle a yawn and shrugged. “I don’t know. But we promised we’d wait.” She pulled up her sleeve and stared at her watch. “Nine-fifteen? Wow, choir practice ran late tonight.”
Shannon pressed her shoulder against the wall of the corridor connecting church’s classrooms and the choral room as she ran a hand through her black, wiry hair. “And I still have two pets to look in on before I can go home.”
“Pets and Plants Pamper is booming, then?”
“It’s September. Kids are back in school so the cruise lines offer huge discounts. I have eighteen empty-nesters and retirees on vacation who’ve booked my services. Had to hire a new part-time attendant.”
“Very nice…” Bailey smiled back despite a headache inching into her temples.
“Except when she calls in with a sick kid on her third day.” Shannon thumped her head onto the wall. “Think we should check on Jessica?”
“Maybe she has an idea for a new article and is scribbling it on the toilet paper.”
Shannon snickered.
The yawn finally escaped. Bailey clasped her hand to her mouth. “Oh, excuse me. It’s not the company…well I take it back. It’s the company I work for. They’re running me ragged. This week has been a killer so far, and it’s only Tuesday. Hours poring over cash receipts to discover a $5.93 discrepancy have left my brain-frazzled.”
“Well, that explains things.” Shannon winked. “I thought maybe you were going for the smoky look with those dark bags under your eyes.”
“Are they that bad?” She turned to view her pasty reflection in the glassed case displaying a poster for the upcoming sermon series on spiritual gifts.
“Still worried about your parents?”
“Not in the least.” Bailey raised her chin.
“Uh, huh. Whatever you say.”
A piercing shriek echoed from inside the ladies’ room.
Bailey spun toward Shannon. “Did you hear that?”
The two pushed open the door and rushed inside.
Jessica White, wide-eyed and flushed, thumped a flier near the hand dryer as she danced on her toes. Her blond ponytail swished back and forth like a pendulum wound too tight. She beckoned Shannon and Bailey with her other hand. “Look. Look.”
“What now, Jess?” Bailey slumped from relief her friend didn’t lie bleeding on the bathroom floor with a knife-wielding madman hovering over her.
“Read.” Jessica tapped the paper again.
Bailey inched forward and squinted to decipher the blurred letters, caused by water splatters from numerous wet hands reaching for the dryer button. “The Gospel of Matthew. Led by Grace Perkins.” She scrunched her brows. “So?”
“This is our answer.” Jessica’s head bobbed rapidly as her blue eyes grew even larger.
“To…?” The throbbing headache frizzled Bailey’s patience. She wanted to go home.
“Oh!” Shannon’s face illuminated. “To what we discussed last Saturday over our momentary indulgence of pizza. Wanting to get into a good Bible study.”
“Exactly.” Jessica bounced again, her eyes shimmering under golden bangs. “Mrs. Perkins knows everything about the Bible. E-very-thing.”
Shannon shifted her weight to her left foot. “True. She’s been leading Holy Family Bible Church studies and Vacation Bible School since I was a kid.”
Jessica still summer-tanned hand patted Shannon’s darker arm. “With a brain still sharp as a pin, I hear. Even though she’s at least eighty.”
“Very well. I’m game.” Shannon turned to Bailey. “You?”
“Sure. Why not?” Bailey stifled another yawn. “Let’s go sign up.”
“Goodie. This will be so much fun.” Jessica danced out of the ladies’ room down the hall to the signup sheet, attached to a clipboard hanging outside the classroom where the study would be held.
“I need her energy.” Bailey dragged her feet.
Shannon scoffed. “You need sleep.”
“That, too.” Bailey scuffled down the corridor, putting a reminder in her phone to purchase a new study Bible, a college-lined tablet, and a pink highlighter.


Two weeks later, the three best friends sat together in a circle of uncomfortable, metal folding chairs.
“Welcome, ladies.” Mrs. Perkins gazed around the room over her readers, perched half-way down the bridge of her nose. The earpieces were supported by two rhinestone-covered strings around her neck. The fake jewels twinkled in the harsh florescent light’s glow as she pivoted her head to count each face staring back at her.
I’m going to become hypnotized for sure. Bailey squinted from the prisms’ twinkling glare.
“This year we are going to be studying the Gospel of Matthew. We will take one chapter per week.” She gave a small head nod. “Yes, that comes out to 28 weeks, which I know leads us right up to Easter. Minus two weeks for Christmas of course.”
Bailey rubbed her eyes.
“Are you okay?” Jessica leaned in, drowning out Mrs. Perkin’s attempt to answer Amanda’s question about how many times they were allowed to be absent.
“Yeah, just tired. Work.” She rolled her eyes. “I love equation solving and researching into more economic ways to manage the restaurants, but eye strain is the pits.”
Jessica and Shannon gave her a sympathetic shrug. Bailey wiggled her behind to try to find a better position while balancing her Bible and notebook on her knees. Her parents’ continued iciness toward each other caused the tossing and turning at night more than work stress did. So uncharacteristic for them. She shot up a silent prayer to God, confessing her worry…again, and asking for clarity.
After they went around the room telling their names and why they had signed up, the sixteen ladies, ranging from twenty-two to sixty-who-knows, settled in to begin the study.
“Let’s turn to the first chapter that explains the genealogy of Jesus.” Mrs. Perkins cleared her throat, shoved her readers further up onto the bridge of her nose, and began to read. “Matthew, chapter one, beginning at the first verse. ‘This is the genealogy of Jesus the Messiah, the son of David, the son of Abraham: Abraham was the father of Isaac, Isaac the father of Jacob, Jacob the father of Judah and his brothers…’”
As Bailey focused on the passage, her brain perked. Jesus could be traced all the way back to Abraham? Wow. She recalled God’s promise to Abraham that he would be the father of many nations, and then how the Bible said believers were all children of God. Now it made sense. A new energy shot through her mundane workaday world. How cool is this! God had it all planned out.
That encouraged her that He had plans for her situation as well. She inched a bit closer in her chair as Mrs. Perkins went down the list of names, letting the ladies find the passages in the Bible that related to each ancestor and allowing a few of them to read.
Bailey wrote copious notes. By the end of the session, her hand cramped. She shook it, which sent her pen rolling across the floor.
Shannon retrieved it. “Girlfriend. Were you writing a novel? I thought that was Jessica’s thing.”
“I texted almost everything Mrs. Perkins said into my tablet. She is interesting, right?”
Jessica sucked on her finger. “Me, too. I think I sprained my left thumb.”
“You were right, Jess.” Bailey lifted her New Testament and notebook to her chest as she stood. “Mrs. Perkins does know everything about the Bible. I could barely keep up. It’s got me wondering…” Bailey peered off into space.
Jessica came around to her side. “Uh, oh. The wheels are churning again.”
Her friends began singing the chorus to Rolling on the River about the wheel of the riverboat, the Proud Mary, churning up the Mississippi.
Bailey chuckled. “All right, y’all. Listen up. How much do you know about your past? Who begat who in your families? Anyone famous back in the day?”
Jessica frowned. “I’m adopted, remember?”
“Oops, yeah. Sorry.”
“It’s fine.” She pushed through the door into the courtyard of the church.
Bailey grimaced and quickened her step to catch up to Jessica. “Really, Jess. I sometimes speak before I think.”
Shannon scurried to catch up and laughed. “Sometimes?”
The three nudged each other as they walked to the parking lot. Bailey glanced at each of their faces. “We know each other well, don’t we?”
“Sure.” Jessica bobbed her head. “Which is why we can razz each other.”
“And share secrets,” Shannon added to stay in the conversation.
Bailey halted at the curb. She clicked the keyless fob. Her hatchback blinked in response. “I have a sneaky suspicion my family may have a few I don’t know about. Mom never really talks about growing up. I mean, I know she had three brothers, but...”
“You never met your grandparents, right?” Shannon shaded her eyes from the setting sun glaeming over their town before it slipped behind the lush mounds of the Texas Hill Country.
“Nope. Not on either my Dad’s or Mom’s side. Dad’s father was killed in action and his mother committed suicide several years later.”
“That’s awful.” Shannon laid a hand on Bailey’s shoulder.
“Hmm. And my mom’s parents died in a car accident when she was a freshman in college. An aunt helped to raise her youngest brother.” She scrunched her mouth to one side. “At least I think that’s right.”
“No wonder they don’t talk about their youth.”
“It does make sense, Shannon. Maybe that’s why Dad doesn’t want to go to the reunion. Bad memories.” She shrugged. “But that doesn’t mean I can’t learn more about their parents’ lives.”
Jessica’s eyes lit with sudden revelation. “I get it. So studying all this begetting has you curious about your family history?”
“I guess it does, Jess. To be honest, I’ve been a bit concerned about their standoffishness. I prayed to God for an answer. Maybe this is it.”
Shannon chuckled. “Bailey, you’re gleaming. I haven’t seen you this excited in months.”
Bailey’s face warmed. Work really had been getting to her, zapping her of her normal go-get-um attitude. Along with her parents’ bizarre behavior. “It’s like a kiwi seed stuck in my gums. The idea won’t let loose of my brain cells.”
Jessica cocked her head and ran her tongue over her teeth at the idea. “So…?”
“I want to study my family genealogy.” Bailey set her shoulders back with purpose. “Starting next weekend.”
“Seriously?” Shannon knitted her brows.
“Yep. See ya’ll for the special choir practice on Thursday.” She grinned and waved as she stepped off the curb.
“Don’t remind us!”
Her girlfriends giggled at their response in unison.
Bailey slid into her front seat, started the ignition, and turned on the radio. A peppy DJ announced, “And now a blast from the past. All the way back to Christmas, 1968 recorded by Credence Clearwater Revival. Get yo’ grandparents and jack up the volume. They’ll remember this one fo’ sure.”
I don’t have any. She reached her hand to punch in another station then halted. The men’s voices started blaring out the story of the Proud Mary steamer on the Mississippi River.
“That’s what Shannon and Jess were singing. Humph.” Bailey shrugged her shoulders, threw back her head, and sang along.
Halfway through the chorus, chill bumps coated her arms. Could this be a sign?
She knew her mother’s mother, Mary Beth Holston, came from Louisiana. Proud Mary. Lived all her life on the Mississippi bayou until she moved to San Antonio after WWII. Both are known for their rivers. Kept rollin’ on the river. She and her husband were killed in—wow, 1968! The year this song was recorded— leaving behind four children ranging from fifteen to twenty-two.
Had to be a sign. She didn’t believe in coincidences. But why would God want her to delve into her family history?
Bailey turned the radio off as she edged into her neighborhood a few miles beyond the ever-sprawling San Antonio city limits, which threatened to encroach big city life onto their cozy town like spilled ginger ale seeping toward the remote control on a coffee table.
Hmm. She calculated the year span in her head. 1968. Almost fifty years ago. Mind blogging how long songs remained a part of their culture. Which ones would her grandchildren know in fifty years? If she ever married, that is.
Bailey waited at the traffic light. If her grandmother Mary had died while in her mid forties, it meant she would have been born around 1922 or so. Is that where she should begin?
Unanswerable questions danced in her head. What had it been like to live through the Depression and World War II? The Civil Rights Movement and all those assassinations? What had her grandparents been like? Did they have a great marriage?
A pang hit her chest at the thought of Jacob. If he hadn’t found that land mine in Afghanistan four years ago, would they have had a great marriage? Bailey never had the chance to walk down the aisle to find out.
Sniffling back a lump in her throat, she returned her thoughts to the 1960’s. So much to learn about that era. Why wait until the weekend? She may as well begin tonight. Bailey made a sharp right and headed to the edge of town a where her parent’s acreage lay.
She should check on them anyway. Besides, it was Tuesday. Her mother always served her mouth-watering King Ranch Chicken casserole on Tuesdays. Surely there would be leftovers. Better than downing a salad or yogurt again. Her stomach grumbled at the thought.
She’d run an extra two miles tomorrow morning to make up for it. Settled. She exited the expressway.
As her headlights bounced off their four-car garage, a thought tickled her mind. Perhaps there was a reason her mother never talked about her kin. Open that door, ask the questions, and nothing might be the same again.
“Don’t be silly,” she scolded her reflection in the rearview mirror. “Drama is Jessica’s thing, not yours.”

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