by D L Lane
“Love?”
“Hmm?”
A wash of relief came over me. “I lost you there for a moment.”
“Just trying to put things straight in my head.” Her eyes shifted to me. “Do you know if Claremont is okay?”
I didn’t want to tell her, but I couldn’t hide the truth, so closing my eyes, I said, “I’m so sorry, Mississippi.”
“No.” My wife started crying. “Oh, no, no, no.”
“Shh... Please, I know this has been a horrific day with some horrible news, but try to stay calm. You and your body have been through an ordeal. Getting upset cannot be good for you.”
“His fam-family...”
“I started making calls earlier. We will assist them with the costs of final arrangements for him, and I will go see his parents when I can.”
“Wa-was anyone else hurt or kil-killed?”
“It is my understanding two people were injured, but neither required a hospital stay. You and Claremont took the brunt of the attack before the gunman ended his own life.”
“Mama!” Abram came in the room, tears in his big, blue eyes. “Daddy, is Mama—”
I held up a hand. “Your mother is going to be fine. She’s just received some bad news about Claremont.”
My son went to the other side of the bed, taking his mother’s left hand, holding it carefully.
“Be mindful of the IV, son,” I said.
He nodded, glancing down at Mississippi. “I’m so, so sorry, Mama. Please don’t cry, or you will make me cry with you.”
My wife, ever the strong woman, sniffed then glanced at me. “Will you give me a tissue or something to clean my face?”
I took out my handkerchief and dabbed her glistening cheeks for her, saying, “There” when finished.
“Thank you.”
I inclined my head.
“Mother,” Isaac said, barreling into the room, face ashen. “Are you okay?”
“I’m going to be, my dear one,” she said.
“There are all kinds of things being said on the news, but Daddy’s message said you were hit and had to undergo emergency surgery?” Abram asked as his younger brother joined him.
“I was struck with some shrapnel.”
“Mom?” Jacob asked, coming in, followed by Emmanuel, and Matthew on their heels, the room becoming a buzz of commotion and noise.
“Everyone,” my wife said, the scratchy sound a bit louder, “settle down.”
After they took their mother’s advice, which was in actuality a demand, and gathered around, I explained what the doctor had told me. I wondered how Mississippi would receive the news of having the artery in her neck nicked, worried it might upset her even more, but she shrugged a shoulder up the mattress of the bed, squeezing my hand. “Well, I guess I’ll have another scar to add to my collection, that’s all.”
Since the moment the two of us first met, Mississippi had never ceased to amaze me.
“I’m sorry,” a grumpy looking nurse said, squeezing into the room, “but there are too many people in here. Hospital rules, one at a time!”
“This is my mother,” Jacob said, crossing his arms—obstinate, “I’m not leaving.”
“Neither am I,” said Matthew.
That’s when the rest of the protesting complaints began until I did what I hadn’t done since the boys were small. I placed my fingers to my mouth and whistled. “All right, crew!”
All eyes came to me.
“No more hassling the nurse. She’s right. Rules are rules, and they are in place for a reason. Your mother has been through a lot and needs her rest.”
Letting loose of my wife’s hand, I stood. “Come on. I’ll walk you all out to the waiting room.”
“But, you’re coming back, aren’t you?” Mississippi asked, forehead set into a deep scowl.
I bent and kissed the frown away. “Nothing could keep me from you, my love. Be assured of that.”
Chapter Fifty-Seven
May I have this dance?
February 14, 1978
Mississippi
The Riverside Ballroom was to capacity, Thayer doing something grand. Instead of taking me to dinner as I thought, he’d surprised me for our fortieth wedding anniversary by hosting an over the top party.
Smiling, I looked over to see him talking to some business acquaintances, in his element. And he was still the most handsome man I’d ever laid eyes upon, wearing a black-on-black suit, his left hand tucked in the front pocket of his dress pants, holding a glass of soda water in his left. If I lived to be a hundred, I’d never tire of watching the man. He could capture and hold my attention like no other.
“Mama,” my Jacob called, strolling up with a big grin on his face, “you look beautiful tonight.”
I hugged him, kissing him on his scruffy cheek. He’d decided to grow a beard. “Thank you, son. You are as handsome as ever, though I will never know why you want to cover all that loveliness up with facial hair.”
He chuckled. “I love you, Mama.”
“Well, I’d hope so.” Reaching, I straightened his crooked tie. “I love you, too.”
When the band stopped playing, and the lead guitarist came to the microphone, he drew our gazes by thumping a bang, bang, bang. “If I could have everyone’s attention!”
“You’ve got it!” Matthew, Jacob’s twin, shouted out.
The room burst into laughter, before settling down.
“This next song is for the couple of the evening.”
A tapping on my shoulder had me glancing over. My husband stood there, smiling down at me, shadows from his lashes splaying along the top of his cheekbones. “May I have this dance?”
He held out his hand, and I took it, following as he led us to the middle of the ballroom floor.
With my right hand held to his chest, I wrapped my left arm around him and stared into the eyes of my love.
“You look wonderful tonight, Mrs. King,” he said in his smooth voice just as the song with the same title started to play.
My heart overflowed with delight as we swayed to the music, Thayer singing softly next to my ear, sending a riot of goosebumps over my flesh while warmth stirred inside of me.
Just like the first time he took hold of my hand, helping me over the embankment of the ditch when I was seventeen, tingles joined the shivers, that’s what the man did to me.
Epilogue
Christmas Eve, 1985
Thayer
Chatter, laughter, warmth from the crackling fire, the scent of pine, hot, apple-spiced cider, and freshly baked gingerbread cookies enveloped me as the sounds of the season drifted from the stereo. A bone-deep sense of right settled in, replacing the aches and pains of my seventy-three years, observing my beautiful wife kiss each of our grandchildren on their foreheads—no matter the grumble over how old some of them were.
“Do you need to do that? I’m not a little girl any longer,” Ella complained, a scowl disrupting the unblemished youth of her pretty face.
“Listen here. I kissed you when you came into this world, Ella King, and I’ll keep giving you smooches until the Lord sees fit for me to leave,” my wife assured, hand on her hip.
That was my Mississippi, no holding anything back, not her love or her displeasure.
Scarlet painted Ella’s cheeks. “All right, I’m sorry.”
“I love you, child.” Mississippi pecked her forehead once more. “For good measure.”
“I love you too.”
“Now, go on.” My wife shooed her with a waving hand. “I know you want to snuggle with that beau of yours.”
“Grandmama,” Ella complained, eyes darting in the direction of that long-haired boy who tagged along everywhere she went. “No one says, beau anymore.”
“Well, I do.”
My granddaughter tipped her head back with an exaggerated sigh. “Lucas isn’t a boyfriend.”
One side of my wife’s mouth lifted. “Mm-hm...”
“We’re just friends.”
> “You keep on telling yourself that if it makes you feel better, but no matter what you call him, I don’t want to hear about you leaving campus with that boy and cutting class again.”
Shaking my head, I can still remember Mississippi coming to me years ago, asking if I thought it would be possible for someone like her to go to college, hearing no uncertainty in my response of “Absolutely.”
“But I never finished high school,” she’d said, then nibbled at her bottom lip.
“We will fix that.”
A huge, effervescent smile lit up her face as we walked across the LSU campus hand-in-hand just a few short months after.
“I never believed, in all my wildest dreams, I’d be doing something like this, Thayer.”
Hugging her tight, I whispered in her ear, “This is just the first step of many great things to come.”
In June of forty-seven, my wife was not only the first of her family to graduate from college but did so with honors, earning a degree in economics from Louisiana State University. Later, when someone asked why she’d chosen that as her field of study, she grinned and gave a shrug of her shoulders. “Guess I just had a knack for numbers.”
“...Don’t ask me, Juniper.” Mississippi's voice brought me back into the present, having missed part of their conversation. “Go ask your granddaddy. He’s the one to talk to about politics.”
May of nineteen-hundred-and-fifty-two started my two terms as governor, making Mississippi Kaitileen Singleton-King, the first lady of the Great State of Louisiana. During that time, she and she alone was responsible for opening, Kings View—a treatment facility for drug and alcohol addiction, and Kings Corner—a vocational training center to help teach those who have struggled in life to learn a trade and find a placement, giving them stable work. In nineteen-seventy-four, she came to me with her idea of opening a third facility. A home for battered and abused women. Kings Crossing opened a year later and wasn’t only a shelter, but one of the first rape crisis centers in our state.
“Maybe later, Grandmama,” Juniper said. “Granddaddy looks relaxed and happy over there in his little world.”
Taking a satisfied breath, I smiled. Never let there be any doubt, our heavenly father does work in mysterious ways. I didn’t know there was a plan for my life until I met the too skinny girl walking up the dusty road in the blazing-hot sun the day she turned seventeen. And I sure didn’t believe in God then, but that all changed. And while our lives have had many ups and downs, he’s never left Mississippi or me, even if we had left him for a time. You see, He took that poor, uneducated young lady who people believed wouldn’t amount to anything. That girl who suffered a great many tragedies and overwhelming heartaches, and transformed her life to ‘The most influential woman in the south,’ as she’d been referred to in newspaper articles and television shows.
With His help, she became the catalyst in changing the lives of countless others.
So, even if we couldn’t see it at the time, He did have a plan from the very start. And, I’m happy to say, the Lord has been the head of my life for the past forty-nine years, not only blessing me with Mississippi, but with five wonderful sons, sixteen grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren. All of whom are bouncing around the estate someplace.
“Mississippi Kaitileen King, you’d test the patience of Job!”
That voice, with the French Cajun accent, was Emeline, my grandson Micah’s lovely wife. She and my wife became friends the instant they met, or “Thick as thieves,” Mississippi would say. So, I don’t think anyone was surprised when Emeline bestowed the honor of naming her daughter, our first great-grandchild, after her.
“You get back here; I’m not done zippin’ you up!”
Emeline had no sooner finished her sentence when five-year-old Little Miss came tearing into the parlor, giggling like a loon, frilly green-dress hanging around her thin hips, the rest of her as bare as the day she came screaming into humanity.
Our baby-girl took after her namesake, in looks, tenacious curiosity, and fiery demeanor.
“Hey there.” Stretching, I reached and snagged her up, feet still moving in midair. “You shouldn’t be running from your mother.”
“Funny,” she said in a giggle, wiggling as I placed her on my lap, leaning back on my favorite couch.
“Don’t you know you can’t go around half-dressed?”
Tugging her clothing in place, I quickly zipped the back, giving her a peck to the top of her head.
“Thank you, Grand-père,” Emeline said, sounding exhausted but relieved I had her daughter as she scurried over to me.
“No thanks needed, dear.”
“Yeah,” Little Miss said, climbing me like a monkey to smooch my cheek. “Moi, je t'aime.”
“Aw-baby-girl—” I smooched her back. “I love you too.”
“Do you have her for a bit?” Emeline rubbed her forehead. “I need to finish getting ready.”
I nodded. “You go on. I’ve got her.”
“You behave for your arrière-grand-père, okay, Beb?”
“Will.” Little Miss gave a firm nod before kissing her soft-lined palm and tossing it to her mother.
After pretending to catch the sentiment and put it in her pocket, Emeline left the way she’d come, but in far less of a hurry.
“Look at all that hair,” I said, brushing some of my great-granddaughter’s long, red/brown curls from her rosy cheeks. “You look just like your great-grandmother.”
“I know,” she said breezily, feet swinging over my knee. “I’ve got her eyes, too.”
“Yes, you sure do.”
“The color of bluebells,” she chirped, making me smile.
“The color of bluebells,” I confirmed.
“Tell me the story, Arrière-grand-père.”
My eyebrow lifted. “What story, sweetheart?”
She sighed as if my question were ridiculous. “You know. The one about Arriére-grand-mére.”
“Oh...” I tapped the tip of her button nose with my fingertip. “I think you’ve heard that story a hundred times, at least.”
“Tell me,” she whined, pink, bow lips pursing.
“All right, all right.” I settled her next to me, then looked into the face I adored. “Your grandmother was born in the middle of the night—”
“Durin’ one of the worst storms ever,” she finished.
“It rained so hard the banks of the Mississippi overflowed.”
She patted my leg. “That’s why she got her name, huh?”
“That’s why.”
Her angelic face beamed. “And I’m named after her; only it didn’t rain when I was born.”
I chuckled. “No. It didn’t rain.”
“Everyone!” My wife called, gaining the room's attention. “We’ll be gathering around for the annual reading.” Her gaze bounced to our eldest son. “Did you bring it?”
“You know I did, Mother.” Reaching into his wife’s tote of a purse, that he carried more than she did, he slipped Kaitileen’s worn, white Bible free—the one passed down from generation to generation. “Here it is.”
My wife took it, with reverence in the way she handled the heirloom, then came over. “Thayer,” she said, giving it to me.
Taking great care, I took hold. “Okay, all. The boss has spoken, so it’s time.”
“Boss,” Mississippi snorted and rolled those eyes at me.
When my spouse took a seat to my left, Little Miss scrambled across my thighs to get to her.
“Now, we know this time of year is special”—glancing over, I winked at my lovely wife—“for many different reasons.”
She blushed a pretty shade, grinning.
“But,” I said, “the greatest reason isn’t to open all those shiny presents under the tree, is it?”
“N-o-o-o.” Little Miss shook an emphatic head, curls bouncing.
“Our sweet girl is right,” I said. “It’s because of the birth of Christ we truly celebrate.”
“His
name shall be called Emmanuel!” My vivacious great-granddaughter shouted out, clapping. “Just like my grand-oncle.”
Laughter filled the space as the whole King brood settled in, taking up the entire parlor.
“Yes,” Mississippi said, squeezing her much younger twin. “Just like your grand-uncle.”
While I could quote Matthew one, eighteen through twenty-eight by heart, I opened the Bible to the passages I’d turned to for the very first time one Christmas Eve, when I read them to a devastated girl attempting to recover in nineteen-thirty-six. Then read them again with five-month-old Emmanuel in her arms, before I proposed to her the way a man should, down on my knee, shimmering ring in hand, telling her just how much I loved her.
And I’ve read them every year since.
Taking a moment to look at my wife—her silver-streaked hair upswept into an elaborate twist, the laugh lines around her pretty mouth, and those few crinkling the edges of her sparkling eyes, I loved her even more if such a thing were possible.
Thank you, Lord, for all you’ve done for Mississippi and me, and for the gifts of this life and our family. I cherish them all.
“Come on, Granddaddy,” my eldest grandson, David, groused like a heckler in the nosebleed seats. “What are you waiting for?”
“Just making sure all of you are ready,” I replied, taking hold of my wife’s warm hand.
“Ready!” Little Miss confirmed, bouncing on her lap.
Glancing down, I focused on the words across the page. “Now the birth of Jesus Christ was on this wise: When as his mother Mary was espoused to Joseph, before they came together, she was found with child of the Holy Ghost...”
The End
Reading Guide
Thank you for reading Thayer and Mississippi’s story. It is my sincerest wish you enjoyed the journey. If you would take a moment to leave a short review, I would greatly appreciate it. Honest reviews are extremely beneficial to authors.
Would you like to read more of my work? Check out That Place Called Home, the first book in my contemporary, inspirational romance series Cedar Point. You can find out more about that book by visiting my website.