Free The Mulligan by Terri Tiffany Page A

whistles and we carry our warm cups to the rocking chairs to sit side-by-side. The night hushes around us except for a determined chorus of crickets and an occasional bullfrog from the pond behind the house.
    I love these moments, and soon I manage to push the scene with my father to the back of my thoughts.
    “Have you found a church down there yet?” Of course she would ask me sooner or later (sooner, actually).
    “Not yet. I’ve been busy with school.”
    “I joined a fellowship class last month. I met four nice women my age.” My mother smiles, probably remembering her day.
    “Amanda’s pregnant.”
    Her look of surprise tickles my chest. “Wonderful! I’m so happy for her. Her mother will make a terrific grandmother.” She lets her eyelids close and rocks back and forth in an easy rhythm. Is she thinking of rocking her own grandchild someday?
    I set my cup down near my feet. “I saw Dad today.”
    Her rocking stops and then starts up again. She opens her eyes and keeps her look glued straight ahead. “And what did he say?”
    When my mother speaks in that faraway tight voice, I never know how to proceed. Usually I tell her to forget it and chase her down another time. But I only have a few days home and I need to figure out what’s going on with them.
    “Not a whole lot. Something about being a failure. Is he coming home?”
    She places her own teacup next to mine and lets her head fall back against the hard wooden chair again. She closes her eyes once more and stays that way for so long I am afraid she’s fallen asleep. “I don’t know much about anything, Bobbi. My life is off course, and I’m afraid I’m lost.”
    If she’d told me she wanted to jump in the river and never see the surface again, it couldn’t have scared me more. My mother never gives up on anything.
    I remember one time when I was in the fourth grade and we were dressing up for the May Day festival. Robert and I were going to be horses so that meant we had to make masks out of paper bags and wear brown spotted vests. She whipped those vests up in seconds but somehow we couldn’t make our masks look like horses. We finally ran out of paper sacks.
    I started to bawl that I would be the dumbest looking horse in the whole class and Robert rolled his eyes saying he didn’t want to dress up like a stupid horse, anyway.
    Well, my mother wasn’t about to give up. She proceeded to drive to the grocery store, paid the clerk for ten more brown bags and took them over to the art department at our local college.
    I won the prize for the most realistic looking horse.
    “So what are you going to do?” I ask in a voice I can barely hear myself.
    “I’ve asked God that same thing, but He keeps telling me to wait. He has plans for me.”
    I search her profile in the dim light coming off the garage. Tears run down her cheeks and she finally wipes them with the back of her hand. I’ve never seen her so resigned.
    “Do you believe that about the plans?”
    “I have to,” she says simply.
    “Dad should be here, not in some dumb apartment.”
    “I can’t stop him. I found that out a long time ago.” Her voice quivers.
    “So you’re going to wait on God and see what He says?”
    She reaches for my hand and squeezes it. “He’s had a plan for me since before I was born. I have to trust Him, don’t I?”
    I lay my head back and gaze into the night sky where the stars spell their names to me. Is it possible?
    Does God have a plan for me as well?
     
     
     
     

9
     
    I rise the next morning before anyone else. The sun is out and the robins announce it’s daylight from my open window. Amanda and I have arranged to meet at the state park, take a short hike, and grab lunch at the Silver Diner to catch up on all of our news. Like her baby news and why on earth I’m still down in Florida when she needs me here. At least that’s what she told me when I called after my tea on the porch.
    I’ve gotten so use to the warm mornings in