WE GATHER TOGETHER by Edward L. Woodyard

We Gather Together Chapter Twenty-Five

Cara McCulloch dropped Courtney back at nursery school for an afternoon dance lesson. On her way home, she drove by the Drexler house and saw Annie's Suburban parked in front of the garage. She slowly pulled into the driveway because of the rise in the road outside of their house which would cause the undercarriage of her minivan to scrape. She parked behind the Suburban and turned around to Lindsay, who was teething on colored plastic rings, while slouched in her car seat in the back. "Let's go ask Aunt Annie how Cousin Kelly is doing."

Annie had been the most excited member of the McCulloch family to meet Cara. Finally, Annie said to herself, she would have a sister. Cara and Annie were instant friends. Annie could finally be allowed to engage in girl talk, something Cara knew about since she had two older sisters.

When Cara met Drew at his college reunion, she was helping out her sister Gabriella who had started a catering business affiliated with her husband's Greek-style restaurant. Usually Cara babysat her two nieces and nephew while her sister and brother-in-law were catering weddings, anniversaries, and birthday parties. However, Gabriella's main server had called in sick, so at the last minute, Cara helped out at the Madison College class reunions while their mother got to watch Gabriella's kids.

Cara had graduated from Albany State the year before and was thinking about getting her graduate degree in business. She was already helping with the books and payroll for her father's construction company and concrete business. Lorenzo Messina had built a large home west of Albany out of reinforced concrete for her mother and their three daughters. The daughters all had to live at home while they attended college and then had to remain there until they were either married or reached the age of thirty, whichever came first.

Cara was the youngest Messina daughter and the only one still at home. Cara's parents were first generation and had both immigrated in the 1950s to New York with their parents while each was still young, before puberty, so neither spoke with an Italian accent. They had met at a parochial school in Albany, but neither had gone to college, although Cara's mother, Celeste, had taken some accounting courses. Lorenzo had done exceedingly well as a contractor, having started as a stonemason. He used skills he learned from his own father, who in turn had learned them in the quarries at Carrara where generations of Messina men had labored since before Canova and Michelangelo.

Celeste Messina found work as a bookkeeper in suburban Albany for an insurance agency which had been awarded the state employee health contracts. After the head of the agency introduced Lorenzo Messina to the bureaucrat in charge of hiring contractors for state building and road projects, Lorenzo became a millionaire three times over within ten years. He sent all three of his daughters to St. Aloysius's all-female parochial high school where the nuns gave them lessons in etiquette and propriety, whether they wanted them or not. Cara and her older sisters knew how to set a table, to hold a fork correctly, to dance so to leave room for the Holy Spirit, and to appreciate all that God and America had given them.

Cara knew the strict rules of the Messina household; she would not do what her eldest sister Angelica had done by rebelling and running away. Cara would live at home and work in her father's office, helping with inventory and payroll. While filling out her applications for graduate school, she dreamt of a home of her own, one that would not be made out of reinforced concrete. It would be a classic two-story center hall colonial with three bedrooms and a master suite. Little did she know that the house she dreamt about would become a reality so soon.

Cara and Drew had eloped to Niagara Falls six months after they met; it was right after Scott had moved to San Francisco so they lived for three months in Scott's old apartment over the auto repair shop until they found a small stone caretaker's cottage on an old estate in Castlebury. By then Cara's father had calmed down about forcing his youngest daughter to get an annulment, especially when he found out that Cara had become pregnant on the night she and Drew were married in some motel off of I-90 east of Buffalo.

Cara found the home of her dreams in New Fordham. While she never got her business degree, she wouldn't really need it in order to do the part-time accounting work at the printing plant, especially at tax time.

Cara and Drew moved to New Fordham just after Courtney was born; Lorenzo Messina had a work crew drive down from Albany to do all the remodeling needed in their new home. He put the workers up at a local motel which allowed the house to be updated and renovated in less than three weeks. The place had to be perfect for his latest grandchild. All was forgiven.

As Cara held onto Lindsay and approached Annie's front stoop, she wondered if Annie had forgiven Jack yet for walking out on her and the two kids. Cara knew enough not to say anything about their situation. She was there to listen to Annie and not to judge. She shuffled through the fallen leaves on the front walkway and tried the front door. Finding it locked, she rang the doorbell.

Annie was taking laundry from a dryer and folding it on a counter behind her. She heard the doorbell ring and walked through the kitchen and dining room to answer it. She peered through the small leaded window in the door, smiled to herself and opened it.

"Hi. I'm glad it's you. I thought Jack had come back."

"How's Kelly?"

"Upstairs sleeping. Jason's upstairs too. Shut himself in his room with a video game. He's mad at me."

"They okay?"

"Kelly will be fine by tomorrow. Jason could take a while longer. He needs to know that just because I'm mad at his father doesn't mean I'm mad at him."

"That's tough for a seven-year-old to grasp."

"I have to try, Cara. I can't have him angry all the time."

"Have you thought about family counseling?"

"If I couldn't afford to take Kelly to the doctor, do you think I can pay for a therapist?"

"Doesn't Jack's insurance. . .?"

"Of course. But the co-pays and fulfilling the deductibles. . ." Annie didn't finish her sentence as she led Cara into the kitchen. "I think Jack's holding out on me."

Annie went to a closet off the back hallway and took out a cardboard box of toys. She removed a small blanket from a shelf and spread it on the kitchen floor by a table and chairs. Cara put Lindsay on the blanket as Annie put some toys around the baby. Lindsay still grasped her teething rings.

Cara looked over at Annie, "There's probably a good reason, Annie."

"For me keeping all these toys?"

"For Jack holding out on you." Cara wanted Annie to talk seriously

Annie then asked, "Do you think it has to do with his job?"

"You heard about Worldwide starting a new division."

"I got a news alert about it on my cell phone. That affects the printing plant too."  

Cara wanted to keep the subject on Annie, "Isn't that what Jack does? As part of his job? Send out those news alerts?"

"Cara, what if Worldwide's getting so big that they dump Redfield and Stanton and go with a big New York agency instead?"

"Then Jack could be out of a job."

Annie started panicking a bit, but Cara motioned for her to calm down. Annie saw Cara grin and get a glimmer in her eye.

"One money-saving measure," Cara suggested, "would be Jack checking out of his motel room and moving back in here. It'd also eliminate the need for therapy sessions. You two would have to talk."

"He's not moving back in, Cara."

"Why not?"

"I'm not ready for him."

But Cara wasn't buying Annie's excuse. She knew otherwise.

"Have you told him yet?"

"Told him what?" Annie was being coy, not wanting to answer her sister-in-law.

Cara looked at Annie's stomach. Annie got immediately defensive and looked away.

"How do you know?" Annie asked. "I haven't told anybody."

"Annie, I just had a baby. I know how your body changes."

Annie put her hands to her face and started pacing the kitchen. She became upset. "God, Cara. What do I do?"