Lemonade from Lemons(Barbara Mullen) LEMONADE FROM LEMONS

A Short Story
by
Barbara Mullen


All day the tension had been building. He’d been gone five days this time, no more than dozens of times in the past, but this time seemed different. Molly felt it in her gut. It was Christmas week, but he’d done that before too, disappearing as soon as the tree was up. He’d never made off with this much money from their store’s checking account before though. Molly’s mom, with Molly’s help after classes at college every day, had kept the business going for the past few years. With God’s mercy perhaps, because the store had been the family’s only income since her dad had lost his job the year before.

Sure, her dad had made off with smaller amounts in the past and her mom had managed to cover those losses. But this time it looked as if she’d run out of magic accounting tricks. All day she’d been sitting in her rocking chair staring blankly out a living room window, even refusing food Molly had offered her with barely a nod. She hardly noticed when eight year old Denny wandered aimlessly in and out of the room.

Molly looked at her mother again, more closely this time, and was startled by how gaunt and thin she had become, her thick auburn hair turned nearly all gray now and pulled back from her face carelessly with a handful of bobby pins. Worn out and sick, it seemed she simply had no more to give. Molly blamed herself now for not seeing the extent of change in her mother before this.

Disturbed by her mother's appearance Molly made an emergency call to Doctor Jordan who arrived ten minutes later. Rushing into the living room he began to shift through his satchel, immediately pulling out a jar of vitamins and a bottle of red liquid that he called nerve medicine. Molly’s mother swallowed the vitamins with water and drank two tablespoons of the red medicine without uttering a word. After examining her quickly, the doctor, grim faced, took Molly by the hand and led her into the front hall.

“Molly, your mother can’t stay in this house another night,” he said.

“Is she well enough to travel?” was all Molly could think to ask because she wanted her mother more than just out of the house. “She should get out of town before my dad returns. You know how he is when he stumbles in from one of his benders. You’ve nursed him through plenty of his withdrawals.”

“Oh, yes. I’ve witnessed them all right. No, your mother can’t handle one of those tonight. Look at her. She’s only semi-conscious. Travel where? What are you thinking?”

“She talks about living with our oldest brother Michael in Chicago whenever she’s feeling down. Dreams about it too, I’ll bet.”

“Okay. I’m going to order her to stay in the hospital tonight. Your brother Michael might be a solution for now. If she’s able to travel in a day or so, you can put her on the overnight train to Chicago.”

“I have to get Denny out of here too. He’s only eight, you know. I’ll get them both packed and bring her to the hospital in about an hour. And then take Denny to my friend Donna’s house to sleep tonight.”


“But why am I going to Donna’s?” Denny asked fifteen minutes later while yanking on his jacket at the back door.

Their mom suddenly reached her arm around Denny’s shoulder. “Because I’m going to the hospital tonight and tomorrow night Molly’s going to put us on the train to Chicago to visit your big brother Michael.”

Oh God, she’s understood all along what was going on. Our plans have somehow penetrated her numb state. “Yes, you have to go, Mom. Is there any message you want to leave? A note, maybe?”

“Thirty years. Six children. Yes I want to leave a note.”

She walked over to the kitchen table while Molly rushed to get paper and a pen. It took her mom only a few minutes to finish writing, fold the paper and give it to Molly. Molly grabbed it, rushed upstairs and set the note on her parents’ bed.

Her mother took Denny’s hand again. She didn’t look back. Molly picked up their suitcases and all three left the house.

The next morning Molly drank coffee at the kitchen table by herself while trying to absorb the immensity of what had happened the day before. This year for the first time only her brother Johnny had come home for Christmas and he’d already returned to college after the holiday break. Her sisters had married and moved to a nearby town; Brother Michael had come home safely from World War II and was now working in Chicago.

I’m really all alone, Molly noted for the first time. I’ll have to do something, but what? They called me Qeenie and Duchess and Rebel back then, all of them, when they were at home. Yet I was the one left to help our mother keep up the image of a good family and pretense of a normal home and to help take care of the drunk.

She sipped the last of a third cup of coffee and then picked up the telephone, first to call the bank and ask for the exact amount of what she knew would be her father’s last staggering withdrawal from their store’s business checking account. Next she called their four employees to make sure their shifts would be covered for at least a month. She hung up the phone and covered her face with both hands. “Jesus, now what?” she moaned. “Hell, I don’t know. I just don’t know.”

She reached for the phone again and called her oldest friend in the world, Donna, the only person she dared confide in at the moment. After relating each detail of yesterday’s drama, Molly took a quick breath and asked Donna, “So what do you think?”

“Damn, you’ve been dumped on. That’s what I think. You should be the one getting out of town.”

“At least we’re between semesters so I have a couple of weeks to gather my wits,” Molly said. “I guess that’s the only good news.”

“Sure, we can’t solve the problem tonight anyway. Tell you what. I think you should just rest your mind for a few hours. Let’s go to the seven o’clock movie.”

“Good idea! Yeah, let’s do that. ‘Singing in the Rain.’is playing.”

They stopped at the Frothy Soda Fountain after the movie and met some friends to catch up and have a few laughs. For half an hour it almost felt like any old regular Friday night to Molly.

On the way home Molly and Donna parted at their usual corner and Molly hurried down Center Street toward home, just as she had done all her life. Then remembering that tonight the house would be dark and she would be alone, she shivered and pulled her sweatshirt tighter around her. I’ll be all right, she told herself, ordering her feet to keep walking, but then came to a sudden halt in front of her house. Was her head playing tricks on her or had a shadow moved behind the window of her mom and dad’s bedroom? No, because a second later the form appeared again and seemed to be lowering itself to the edge of the bed. Then a shimmering night light came on and the shadow became a dark silhouette.

Molly grabbed hold of a corner light post and held on. Her body felt drained of normal functions that would allow her to move or even breathe right. She hung onto the post so tightly her fingers turned numb. The shadow, her father, had his head bent forward, surely reading her mother’s note now, Molly guessed. How many times have I wished him run over by a truck? Or willed him to fall off a cliff? Or to drown in the lake? she wondered. So why am I paralyzed now? What the hell, and now with tears on my cheeks? Shouldn’t I be applauding this moment? Isn’t this just punishment for God’s sake?

She moved one foot, then another, closer to the house and their front door. Where else was there to go? She took off her shoes at the door and crept up the stairs. “Who’s that?” a voice called out from the nearly dark bedroom. She froze in place at the open door, unable to make a run to her bedroom or to even answer him.

“Come here you,” he groaned. His words slurred, head still bowed, he continued to gaze down at the paper in his lap.

She managed to find a fragile voice and whispered from the hall, “It’s me. Molly.” At the same moment, she sensed that he wasn’t as drunk as usual after a binge. She crept about a foot inside the door as he turned and cast his red rimmed eyes over at her.

“Come over here, girl. Have a look at this. From your mother.” His voice cracked. “She’s gone. Took Denny with her. How the hell could she do that?”

Molly, at last finding timber in her voice, bellowed out. “She should have left you years ago, you bastard. You nearly killed her with all your hours and hours of drunken insults. You want her to come back so you can finish the job?”

“Stop that, Molly. You’re upset about her leaving. You don’t mean that. Jasus, I need you now. We’ll make a home here till they come back. You’ll see. We’ll show her. She’ll be back. She can’t stay away for long.”

“You remembered my name for once? What else do you remember about me, Daddy? Never once did you ever hug me or even set a hand on my shoulder. Never asked how I was. And now we’re going to be chummy here together?”

“Christ, you have to take care of me!” He wiped his hand over his forehead and sobbed. Then he reached into his pants pocket, pulled out a grubby handkerchief and wiped away the slobber on his face. “You can’t leave me too. You owe me!”

“I don’t owe you my life. You won’t ever know how much I wanted you to love me. But you never looked at me. Well, look now. Guess what? I’m real. Tell me, what is my college major? Where were you the night I was awarded the American Legion award in the eighth grade? Not at the ceremony for sure. Not at my high school graduation either, were you? What is my best friend’s name? How old am I?” Even with her heart thundering against her ribs, she could have gone on and on. But he interrupted her.

“Foolish questions. What the hell is wrong with you? You have to help me get your mother and Denny back here.”

Molly felt as though her legs were getting weaker and going to give out. She wanted only to escape from the bedroom but somehow summoned another deep breath. “Sorry, I have to take care of myself now,” she said. “You don’t care how many lives you’ve damaged. Even now, you think only of yourself. You’ve never been a father to me. Never knew me. Never tried to know me. Didn’t know I existed. And yet I pity you.”

She whirled around and fled through the upstairs hall. She bolted the inside lock on her bedroom door and rolled up in a blanket on her bed. And all night listened to the sounds of his misery, moaning and crying like a forsaken child, next, howling like a coyote barking at the moon.

In a moment of unexpected quiet with daylight already showing through the space between her curtains, Molly dozed off.

When she awoke he was gone and her first thought was: I must leave town before I hear from him again, or, God forbid, he returns. She wrapped herself in a warm robe and went downstairs to the kitchen. With coffee made, she sat at the kitchen table sipping from her mug and wiping tears from her cheeks till they ran dry.

Then she picked up the phone and called her mother in Chicago.

An hour later at the Frothy soda shop she told Donna, “I did a lot of thinking this morning. I called my mom and she told me what I had to do next. First, have Morris Realtors sell the house right away and have them lease out the store to anyone who will take it. And then give the proceeds to the bank to pay off as many debts as possible. My mom wants me to get a job and rent a room somewhere in town and finish college any way I can. I don’t know if I want to do that.”

“Geez, Molly. Do you know how to do all that stuff your mother wants you to do?”

“Nope.”

“Well, say you figure it out. If you have to work to pay rent and at the same time try to finish college, why not blow out of this burg and do it somewhere else in a more smokin’ place than this?”

“Anywhere is more smokin’ than here. But they don’t just give away train tickets you know.”

“Must be some way you could get some money.”

“Must be.”

“If you leave, I’m leaving too. I’m not going to be stuck here along with all these local drips and squares?” Donna’s blue eyes brightened suddenly. “With four teenagers at home, my mom and dad might not even notice a missing twenty year old.”

“Holy Toledo, that’s a different story.” Molly ran her fingers through her mop of reddish brown hair. “Would you really go with me? But how do we pay for it? Maybe my mom has some jewelry hidden under a floorboard that she forgot to tell me about.”

“Yeah, and secretly my mom probably has the Hope Diamond locked in a bank deposit box.”

“I do have one idea. My mom hasn’t mentioned the furniture.”

“You mean that old junk is worth something?”

“Enough for two train tickets, maybe. I don’t know. Of course, mums the word if we find out it is worth something. I guess this would have to be a bigger secret than our sixth grade Flash Gordon Glow in the Dark Ring Club.” Molly laughed and then they both doubled up giggling.

“Going anywhere would be spectacular considering we’ve been nowhere,” Donna said.

“How about Florida?” Molly sputtered. “Or, oh my God, New York City!”

“I’m thinking the wild west would be mind boggling. Picture us skiing in the Rocky Mountains. Maybe on the slopes with a bunch of groovy college boys!”

Molly slapped her hand on the table. “Oooooh! Yeah! Wyoming? Colorado? Utah?”

“Hey, I just remembered one of my mom’s friends moved to Denver last year,” Donna said. “Not that she would help us out with jobs or places to live or anything but it might be smart to know one person at least in town in case we get in a real jam. But where is Denver?”

“In Colorado, you moron.”

“Well then, where is Colorado?”

“We can buy a map and find out,” Molly said. “Feature that! The Rocky Mountains!”

The next day Molly forced herself to make the assigned phone calls, first to the realtor to sell the house and lease out the store and then to the bank about paying off the debts. Amazed and thankful at first that people at the other end of her calls were treating her requests with respect, she soon realized it was because she was their only means of collecting their money owed.


I can do this, Molly kept assuring herself that afternoon while she and Donna walked ten blocks to the used furniture store on the other side of town.

“Are you sure you have permission to sell this stuff.” was the first question a large unshaven man in overalls asked her.

“I’m the only one around who does have permission,” she said. “The rest of the family has flown the coop.” She laughed nervously and added quickly, “I’d just as soon you kept this furniture sale quiet by the way. Confidential, if you know what I mean.”

“Sure thing, I get it. Privacy and all. We’ll send a truck over tomorrow afternoon to give you an estimate. If we agree on the price, we’ll haul the pieces away then and there.”

As the two men strode through the home, Molly followed them. She ran a hand slowly over each piece as they slapped price tags on them. Suddenly aware of what she was doing, saying goodbye to each article, she backed up to a wall and put some distance between herself and the old scratched dining table where she’d had Sunday dinner every week of her life and the sofa where she’d lain for months with her leg in a cast and the beds her sisters and brothers had slept in all their growing up years and the kitchen table where she and her mother had got to know one another, over and over again. She swiped the back of her hand over her watery eyes and reminded herself this is your ticket out of town, girl. So swallow the tears for now.

“No, don’t take the bed in the upstairs bedroom. My father needs a place to sleep when, I mean if, he returns,” she told the older man, the same one she’d spoken to the day before in his store, and then asked him, “Would it be possible for you to tow away everything else left in the house and take it all to the dump tomorrow? I’ll pay you for the job from the furniture sale money.”

“Sure thing,” he said.

Relieved when finally nearly all the furniture was in the truck, Molly went to her own room and packed as many of her own precious belongings and clothes that she could fit into two large suitcases. Donna arrived as planned with her own packed bags just as the men carried out the last item, her mother’s rocking chair.

The burly store owner gave Molly an agreed upon four hundred dollars in cash and then set his bulky hand on her shoulder. You done good, Miss. I’m sure this couldn’t have been an easy thing for you to do. I wanted to tell you that before leaving.”

A short while later Molly and Donna dragged their suitcases out the front door and lugged them about a half a block down Center Street. Then they both swung around to take one last look at the old place. What they saw though, at the same moment, was Molly’s dad’s old baby blue Studebaker streaking in from a side street and careening into their driveway.

“Ten minutes earlier and he’d have caught us red-handed,” Donna shrieked. They both whirled around again and galloped, four suitcases waving at their sides, all the way across town to the train depot.

No time for regrets. I’ll have plenty of time for that later, Molly told herself as she marched across the station to the train master’s window. “Two coach tickets overnight to Chicago and two more coach tickets on the Denver Zephyr out of Chicago in the morning.” She counted out the dollars to pay him and was pleased to have $150. to stuff back into her purse.

Minutes later, a whistle pierced the night air and a big black engine puffed to a stop in front of the depot. A porter jumped out of the baggage car and grabbed all four of their suitcases. A moment later, the conductor shouted, “All aboard” from the train steps of a passenger car and beckoned Molly and Donna with a wide sweep of his hand. “Coach car, right here, young ladies.”

“Halleluiah!” Donna howled and then leaped up the stairs two at a time.

“Damn!” Molly, at her heals, yelped, “Holy Cow! Here we come, world!
Ready or not!”

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