We followed the program printed on the bulletin. Recited ancient texts from prayer books tucked between hymnals in the “back of the pew in front” of us. Each word and phrase stirred things in me. Between the meditation texts from the book I’d found at the cottage and this, I could almost feel myself growing as a Christian. And as I looked straight ahead, book spread over my open palms, listening to the pastor, a growing sense of “home” settled over me. As though I’d been here for all of my life.
Or that I’d remain here for the rest of it.
And even though those thoughts disturbed me, I found myself unwilling to push them away. I liked this sense of being. Very much so. That and the sound of the voice next to me, strong and sure of the recitation. Of his shoulder so close to mine. For the craziest of moments, I realized what I’d been missing all of my adult life. Not just the sense of belonging, but of belonging perfectly.
At Bobbie’s insistence, after service William took me for a walk through the sloping graveyard behind the church. We wove around old headstones and wildflowers, stopping along the way to read mold-encrusted epitaphs written on stone. I marveled at the dates. “Can you imagine . . . ,” I said, more times than I care to admit.
“Do you think that,” William said, “one day, a couple of hundred years from now, someone will stand over our graves, asking that same question?”
Unable to read the emotion in his eyes—they were shaded by dark sunglasses—I studied his face. To see if there might be a hint of humor, a slight curl of the lip. But there was none. Will Decker’s question was both reflective and serious.
“I’ve never thought about it,” I said. “We have a cemetery in Winter Park. Huge, really. Under live oaks, which means the markers—most of them quite ornate—are constantly shadowed.” I swallowed. “Sometimes I like to go there. To mill around the precise, perfectly sectioned rows. I like reading the names, checking out the dates, seeing how people were related to each other.” I tilted my head toward him. “Do you think that makes me weird?”
And then he grinned. “Not that.” Before I could respond with anything more than a swat at his arm, he laughed and said, “Come look back here near the tree line. Something interesting to show you.”
He ambled off. I followed behind, watching a little too intently as he slid his suit coat off his shoulders and down his arms with a “Gettin’ warmer by the minute.” Then he looked back at my feet. “Careful with those shoes.”
By habit, I’d worn a pair of shoes from my “pre–Bubba O’Leary’s” fashion, which of course had been all of the day before. I’d already figured out that I had to walk on the balls and toes of my feet to keep the heels from sinking into the rich earth. Manolo Blahnik divots were not my idea of “leaving a legacy.”
Will stopped in front of the decorative tombstone of Noah Swann, who had been a captain in the Civil War. His wife, Emily Todd Swann, lay next to him. “They died thirty years apart,” he said, “and if you note the date, it’s not the war that took him.”
“Do we know what did?”
“His death certificate—and yes, I’ve seen it—says pneumonia.”
I nodded at the graves, as though giving the souls of the “dearly departed” some form of approval for having lived and died. “You said something interesting?”
“Ah,” Will said, stepping farther toward the tree line. “Check these out.”
Along the line, facing the trees, were small stones with carved first names such as “Sallie” and “Isaac” and “Big John.” Some had only initials. Some held the years of death, others nothing more than the first name of the departed. “Are these . . . the graves of slaves?”
“They are. And they go all the way back to the Revolutionary War.” He pointed to a tall tombstone, arched along its topside. “Now check this out.”
MARGUERITE, it read, CONSORT OF NOAH SWANN.
Then along the bottom, in script: Her children rise up and call her blessed.
“Well, well . . . ,” I said.
“Notice the date of her death?”
I did. Only a month previous to her lover’s. “He must have loved her very much.”
“In a day when such things were known but never discussed.” He remained quiet for a moment. “I think,” he then said with a light chuckle, “that Miss Emily over there lived so long out of revenge.”
I had to chuckle with him. “The power of a scorned woman,” I said. Then, hearing our names, I looked up. Miss Bobbie stood at the top of the hill, calling for us to “come on now or starve.”
“That’s our cue,” Will said. “Ready?” He extended his hand in invitation to walk ahead of him.
I nodded, but not before looking back at the small nearly unmarked stones, wondering about the connection between them and the dead lying beneath Rob’s property.
23
After returning to the cottage from lunch with the Deckers, I changed into comfy clothes and called Gram. “Good timing, my darling,” she said. “I’ve just now returned home from Sunday dinner with your parents. Do call them as soon as you can.”
I pictured her smile, making me feel both sadly nostalgic and happy at the same time. “How was service?”
“Good as always. And how about you? Did you enjoy yourself?”
“I did. I went to church with the Deckers at Cabbot’s Creek Baptist.”
“Lovely place. Your grandfather and I attended there, you know.”
I found a seat on the sofa, all the while picturing my grandparents, young and sitting side by side on one of the pews. Near the front. As William and I had. “You did?”
“We certainly did.”
“Gram?” I let her name hang in the air for a moment. “When did you know you loved Papa?”
“When he left for the service. We’d known each since we were children. When we were in school, you know, and he was the most frustrating young fella I’d ever known.”
“In what way?”
“In every way. But there was something about him I suppose I was always drawn to. And then, the night before he went off to Basic, I went to his going-away party. We sort of . . . we had a moment. And then, when he was gone, I knew. I wrote him a letter every day he was away, without fail.”
I closed my eyes at the thought of my grandmother writing letters to her young “fella,” of waiting for his return, of praying for him daily, and of marrying him.
“Ashlynne?”
My eyes opened. “Yes?”
“You think you’re in love with him, don’t you?”
“Who?” I feigned ignorance.
“Don’t get smart with me, Ashlynne Paige Rothschild. You know who I’m talking about. William Decker. Every phone call we’ve had in the past week, you’ve complained more about him than you’ve talked about the young man who took you to the football game and bought you barbecue.”
“Oh, Gram. Don’t you think falling in love in one week is about the silliest thing you’ve ever heard? Not that I’m falling in love, mind you. That’s so . . . so . . . Harlequin.”
“Well, my dear, at least you didn’t insult me by denying it.”
I stood, brushed imaginary lint from the front of my blouse, and walked into the kitchen. “I only admit that he is intriguing.”
I opened the refrigerator and peered inside. “I’m scared, Gram,” I said, pulling out a bottled water.
“Of what? Love?”
I screwed open the top. “I’ve never been in love before. I’ve never even been in like. Besides, it’s only been a week.”
“Never be afraid of love, sweet one. Just hop on in and enjoy the ride.”
I gulped the water. The cold slipped down my throat, bringing immediate relief to the knot forming there. We said our good-byes and ended the call.
“But it’s not the objective,” I whispered to the sweet kitchen. “That’s not why I’m here.”
24
I drove to Brianna’s small but tidy home, located near the courthouse on one of the side streets do
wntown. She met me on the front porch as soon as I stepped out of the car. “What happened?” she asked, gaping at the side of my Jag.
I frowned. “Will and I went to battle with an embankment and the embankment won.”
Her mouth remained open as she skipped down the steps. “Is it fixable?”
“Probably not around here,” I said. “It’s unattractive, but drivable.” I reached into the backseat and brought out a small cosmetics bag, then closed the driver’s door.
She shook her head at the other side of the car. Held up a finger. “No, you know what you should do? Call my daughter’s daddy. He’s good at stuff like fixing cars. He can buff that out in no time and you’d never know the difference.”
Uh-huh. “I’d better wait until I can get it back to Orlando.” I walked around the front of the car.
She frowned. “Maybe, but Cliff’s real good.”
I reached her, looked at the damage one more time, like I’d done a hundred times by now, thinking that if I stared at it long enough, it would fix itself.
“Mmhmm.” Brianna pointed to the bag in my hand. “Whatcha got there?”
I lifted the cosmetics bag. “Some cosmetics . . . brands I like. I thought I’d show them to you.”
A shy smile broke across her face. “I guess that’s why you’re here. Come on in, then,” she said. “Maris is sleeping, but she should be up soon.”
We entered through the front door into a nondescript living room, sparsely furnished—and mismatched. As though she’d hit every secondhand store in North Carolina until she came up with enough pieces that she could call the room a “room.”
“It’s not much,” she said. “But it’s home.”
I forced a smile. “It’s lovely. Warm and inviting.” I raised the cosmetics bag again. “Where shall we have our makeup party?”
“There’s a table in the kitchen back here,” she said. “Lots of light.”
“Sounds good.”
I followed Brianna into her kitchen. As in William’s kitchen, windows ran across three of the walls. But Brianna’s had thin, ruffled curtains pulled to the sides. White linoleum countertops buckled at the seams but had otherwise been scrubbed clean. She also kept a glass cookie jar filled with Oreos pushed into one corner beneath painted-white overhead cabinets.
“Would you like some sweet iced tea?” she asked.
“Water will be fine,” I said. “If you don’t mind.”
“Not at all . . .”
I sat at the table and opened the bag while Brianna pulled a bottle of water from the refrigerator. She placed it before me, sat in a nearby chair with one leg tucked under her backside, and leaned forward with her arms crossed and resting on the table. “Wow. You’ve got a lot of pretty things in there.”
I smiled at her. “Do me a favor. Go wash your face.” I handed her a half-filled bottle of my favorite cleansing milk.
Brianna took the bottle, left the room and, by the time she returned, I had bottles and tubes of my favorite cosmetics laid out on the kitchen table.
She touched her face with her fingertips. “That made my skin feel real nice.”
“It does, doesn’t it?”
“I really appreciate you teaching me some things, but I bet all this is way more expensive than what I could ever afford.” She sat in the chair she’d left a minute earlier.
Well . . . it wasn’t cheap. “Sometimes, buying less-expensive items means spending more because you have to replace them more often.” I chose a bottle of facial serum. “Squirt a little on your fingertips and then massage it into your face.”
She did, closing her eyes.
“Just dot around your eyes,” I said. “Don’t pull.”
Her eyes opened.
“Like this,” I showed her, using my own fingertips. A sense of satisfaction washed over me as I demonstrated the action. For the second time that day, I realized I’d found something I liked very much. This, showing someone who’d never had the opportunities I had, what I’d learned—just because I’d been born into the “right” family. Someone who seemed to want me to show her. Wanted to know what I know.
The experience was completely new to me and too long coming.
Brianna repeated my actions, dotting around her eyes. “Now what I have here,” I said, picking up a small silver jar, “is a daily moisturizer. What you use at night and what you use during the day—two different things.”
“Do you like Rob Matthews?” she blurted, her eyes locked with mine.
The question came from nowhere, or so it seemed. I placed the jar of moisturizer on the table and blinked. “I do.”
“As a boyfriend?”
Shaking my head, I said, “No. But I do like him very much as a friend.”
“Just . . . as a friend?”
I tilted my head. “My turn to ask questions—do you like Rob Matthews?”
Her cheeks grew rosy—and I knew it wasn’t from the application of facial serum. She covered her face with her hands, then removed them as if we were playing peekaboo. “Are you sure you don’t? ’Cause he seems like he likes you a lot.”
I folded my hands. “I think,” I said slowly, “that perhaps Rob hoped for more.” I raised my brow.
She pulled a tube of mascara toward her and fingered the twist-top. After a moment of chewing on her bottom lip, she said, “I’m sure he thinks I’m just a kid.”
I did the math. If Rob and Will were best friends, then Rob was probably thirty-six. Thirty-five at the youngest. That made Brianna eleven years his junior. Still, they were both adults and, based on the story of Miss Helen, this wouldn’t be the biggest scandal to hit Testament in the “love and marriage” department. “Have you told him how you feel?”
“Oh, no,” she said, handing the tube of mascara back to me. “Besides, I’ve got Maris and he probably wouldn’t want someone with a kid.”
“There’s only one way to know for sure,” I said.
She shrugged one shoulder.
“I could talk to him . . .”
She covered her face again and stifled a giggle. “This feels like we’re in high school or something.”
Worse. Junior high. But I didn’t say it. “Well?”
Brianna dropped her hands and chewed on her lip again. “All right.” Her eyes grew large. “But only if it should come up on its own.”
I couldn’t imagine it would. “Brianna,” I said. “What goals . . . have you set . . . for yourself? Beyond working at the drugstore restaurant and cleaning other people’s houses?”
She looked down. “To be honest, I’ve never really had a goal. Which is probably what got me in trouble in the first place.” She smiled weakly. “No direction. I mean, I was popular in school and all. Homecoming queen. But truth is, I couldn’t succeed long term, because I didn’t know what I was doing next week much less after school.”
I took a long swallow of water and allowed her words to sink in. With the exception of a few friends, I’d stayed to myself most of my life. Opting for solitude over popularity. But I had always had a goal. A goal was what had brought me to Testament and, no doubt, after this one had been achieved, I’d point my nose toward another.
“It’s not too late,” I said. “If you could be anything at all, what would it be?”
Brianna didn’t hesitate. “A soccer mom.”
My shoulders dropped. “A socc—” I shook my head. “That’s it?”
“That’s . . . everything. The way it stands now, I’ll be working so hard, I’ll never get to be there for Maris if she goes out for soccer or ballet . . . or anything. All I want is to marry a good man—a Christian man—and be able to stay home, so I can be a good wife and a hands-on mom. That’s what I want.”
Which was not what I would have imagined her answer to be. But every goal had to have steps toward it. “So what are you doing to meet . . . that goal?”
She grinned. “Letting you talk to Rob Matthews.”
We laughed together. Which felt really good. But so
much more was at stake, not that it was any of my business. “But, Brianna . . .” I busied myself, rearranging the bottles and jars and tubes between us. “Are you interested in Rob because he’s a good catch or because you think you could actually feel something for him?”
She stood, walked to a cabinet, and pulled out a glass and then to the refrigerator, from which she pulled a large pitcher of tea. Pouring the tea, she said, “I think Rob Matthews is about the finest man around . . . even better than Will. He’s godly, he’s cute as a bug’s ear, and he’s kind.”
A bug’s ear? Well, all right then.
I picked up the moisturizer again. “Here, put a little of this on, applying it like so,” I said, showing her how to sweep her fingers upward.
She placed the glass on the table. Took the top from the jar as she sat. “Smells pretty.”
“Brianna . . . ,” I began slowly. “Speaking of Will . . . do you know anything about his return from Chicago?”
She applied the cream, just as I’d shown her. “Nothing, really. He was gone for quite a while, though.” She looked at her fingertips. “That good? The way I did it?”
“Perfect.” I chose a light foundation and a clean cosmetic wedge. “Close your eyes,” I said.
“Of course,” Brianna spoke so that her lips hardly moved as I dabbed the sponge over her face. “I was a child when he left for college.”
Of course . . . How silly of me not to realize. “So you really don’t know anything about why he came back from Chicago.” I closed the top to the foundation laid the wedge wet-side up, and picked up a compact. “This is a highlighting blush . . . because with your fresh face, you don’t need anything more.”
She smiled as I stroked a brush across the glittery surface. “No, I don’t know anything.”
“Make your cheeks into little apples,” I said, showing her with my own. She did.
“But my mama said she’d heard he’d gotten into some kind of trouble up there.”
I dropped my hand from her face. “What kind of trouble?”
Brianna blinked. “I can’t remember what she called it. Mama heard Miss Bobbie talking to Mr. Shelton one time when she went by to drop off the church news to the paper, and I heard her telling my daddy about it.”
The Road to Testament Page 21