The Sweet By and By

by Sara Evans

  “I suppose.” Was she docile? Beryl considered it fatigue.

  “Are you scared?”

  “I’ve tried not to think on it too much. What it means, death.” Beryl curled her hands in her lap. “So far, it means I can’t work. Dr. Meadows took me off the truck, Jade. Rolf doesn’t have a place for me in the office. Not that I’d want it. No one else in Prairie City knows except Sharon. I got tired of keeping it to myself. How much joy can one woman contain?”

  “Does Bob Hill know? You two have been divorced—”

  “Six years. He doesn’t know, nor Mike. Nor your dad. Only you, Jade, besides Rolf and Sharon.”

  “This is surreal, Mama.” Jade shook her head.

  “I’d like you to be my executor.” Beryl drove easily in the practical, emotionless lanes. “Aiden’s on the road so much, and Willow, well—”

  “She’s the kite in the breeze.”

  For a while, they sat shoulder-to-shoulder on the step, silence a buffer between short bits of conversation.

  “What’s going on with Dustin? The annulment?” Beryl ventured onto sandy ground.

  “Seems he’s disappeared. Max contacted a lawyer in Des Moines who will handle the proceedings as soon as we find him. If we don’t, Max and I won’t be able to get married.”

  “Max will find him.” Beryl patted Jade’s knee. “Think Dustin will give you any fuss over the annulment?”

  “He’d better not,” Jade scoffed. “After what he put me through . . .”

  “I saw him around town a bit after his dad died, but then—”

  “Rowdy died?” Jade’s eyes were wide, her mouth in a surprised O.

  “It’s been eight years, I guess.”

  “Wow, Dustin, that feels weird. I still see him as the calming force between you and Mrs. Colter, as the one who tried to defend me. Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “Probably thought you wouldn’t want to know, Jade. We weren’t speaking much in those days.” In these days.

  “June, Ward, we’re home.” Willow held up brown bags of food, entering the foyer ahead of Max. The pink scarf around her neck matched the hue of her cheeks.

  Jade met her in the middle, taking one of the bags with a glance back at Beryl. “Where’s Max?” she asked Willow.

  “On the phone again. Beryl, I brought you a burger and a shake. You need to eat, young lady.”

  “I am a bit hungry after all.” Beryl pulled herself up by grabbing onto the banister and followed the girls into the living room.

  Willow and Jade sorted out the orders, chatting about Froggers’ good food. Roscoe stood between them, tail wagging. The aroma of grilled beef made Beryl’s mouth tingle and her stomach contract.

  “Beryl.” Willow handed her a wrapped burger and a tall shake. “Roscoe, we didn’t forget you either.”

  Trying to lower herself to the carpet, Beryl almost toppled forward, then Jade’s hand reached under her arm, helping Beryl ease down to the floor. A white napkin appeared over her shoulder. “Do you want salt or ketchup?”

  “Now you’re talking.” Beryl peeled away the burger’s paper. “Any fries over there, Willow?”

  “Hot ones, coming up.”

  Beryl couldn’t chew fast enough. Willow was on target. She’d needed to eat. Willow laughed at something, sounding altogether like her Granny. Rolling and merry. Jade was more like, well, Jade. Steady and even, as if merriment from her must be earned.

  Tears rose again, causing Beryl’s heart to thump. She tossed Roscoe a fry. She’d miss them, her girls and Aiden, even in death. Though she hadn’t earned the privilege.

  “So what’s up with the whole Dustin thing?” Willow dropped to the blanket, legs crossed, food arranged in front of her. “Here comes Max.” She held up his burger. “It’s getting cold, dude.”

  “Jade.” Max stood at the edge of the room, an intensity in his eyes. “We found Dustin.”

  It was raining again. In the Blue Umbrella’s office, Jade worked through the bank statement, listening to the water drops smack the window every few seconds—thump, thump-thump—to the lullaby of Roscoe’s snore.

  In the nighttime quiet, memories surfaced. Jade propped her chin in her hand and stared at the black window. Mama’s confession remained on the outside of her soul like an oh-by-the-way, finding no ledge on which to land.

  Eating her burger before Max came into the room and dropped his own bomb, she thought about talking to him. Should it bother her that Mama’s news didn’t bother her?

  Jade would have time to deal with Mama after the wedding. She was used to boxing up her feelings about her. But Dustin? She had to deal with him now.

  Jade slid open the top right desk drawer. The Froggers napkin scrawled with Dustin’s cell number sat on top of her sticky notes.

  Seven working days left to get the annulment. Max said the Iowa attorney he contacted was set to move the moment Dustin signed the papers.

  Set to move. Jade slapped the drawer shut. Max made it sound like a business merger. But it was the ending of a marriage that once encompassed her heart. Did the fact that it was a dead, ultimately painful marriage change that reality? Or the excitement of his touch, the swing in her heart when he’d glanced at her down the high school halls?

  Jade scraped her hair away from her face. She wanted a hot shower and her warm bed. She hated Prairie City showing up in Whisper Hollow. And why did Willow get to be the kite in the breeze?

  “Are the answers out there, in the alley?” Max fell against the doorframe, his phone in his hand.

  “Maybe?”

  Moaning, he reached his hand around to his back and took the rickety metal chair. “Long day.”

  “Is your back bothering you again?” Jade twisted to face him.

  “Feels like it might catch.”

  Jade’s gaze landed on the wildflower poster. “I’m trying to imagine what I’ll say to him.”

  “Don’t overthink it, Jade. It’s a phone call. ‘How are you? Can you sign the annulment papers? Have a nice life.’”

  Jade’s fingers spun the pen sitting in the middle of her desk. “Sounds rude.”

  “Babe, seven days. If we can’t get to the judge by the thirteenth, the fourteenth isn’t happening.”

  “You’re mad. You’re blaming me for this.”

  “Did I say I was? It’s just frustrating.” He angled forward with his elbows on his knees, arching his back. “Shouldn’t have gone to the gym the other day.”

  “Because it’s a detail. A bump in Max Benson’s smooth road. Something you can’t control.” Jade swallowed the emotion stinging her eyes and nose. “It’s not about me or what happened thirteen years ago, but about you getting what you want.”

  Max was silent, and Jade’s heartbeat picked up the rhythm of the rain. Thump, thump-thump.

  “Maybe.”

  “Maybe what?”

  “I don’t like my future with you being out of my control.” His voice wavered. “When I met you, Jade, you were like . . . like this fragile bird. I could tell one of your wings had been wounded, but you fought so hard to fly, high and straight. I wanted to make life easy for you, to help you.”

  Jade rolled her chair over to him and slipped her hand into his.

  “The more I knew you, the more I wanted to be like you,” he said. “Fly with my own wounded wing.” He twisted her diamond around her finger.

  “What is your wounded wing, Max?”

  “That I actually lived a life without you.”

  She answered with an airy, breezy exhale. “Mr. ‘Chattanooga’s Most Eligible’? I don’t believe it.”

  He gripped her arm, pulling her chair between his knees and kissing her. Closing her eyes, Jade released into the moment. “I can’t lose you, babe. You’re on every page of my future. I’m ready to settle down, have a family, be one with a woman.”

  “I’m yours.” She stroked her hand over the contours of his face. “You have to believe me.”

  “The past is the past, over, gone,
locked door. Right?”

  “Nothing back there but a bunch of broken skeletons.” She wrapped her fingers around his. “How mighty can a bunch of skeletons be, anyway?”

  “Exactly.” He lifted her chin to see into her eyes, letting her see into his. “I can endure back pain, the antics of an intrusive mom, and a hectic law practice, but Jade, not a life without you.”

  The rain hit harder and faster on the window. Thump-thump, thump-thump.

  “So do you want to hear the rest of the story?” So much of her past had spilled on her present path, why not get it all out, picked through, then swept away.

  “If you want to tell me, yes.”

  “By November of ’96 . . . wow, and here we are getting married in November. I didn’t put it together until now.”

  “Good, we’ll erase his horrid memory with our own beautiful one.”

  Jade ran her thumb over his fingers. “After the night I blurted out the truth in his parents’ kitchen, things went well for a few days, but . . .”

  Twenty-one

  The Colters’ house, November 1996

  “If you’d stay in town once in a while, Beryl, instead of gallivanting all over God’s green earth, you’d know what your daughter was up to or not. Are you married now? Oh, right, a musician. I heard the girls talking at the PTA.”

  Jade hunched against the overstuffed cushion of the Colters’ family room sofa and stole a peek at Dustin. Two weeks ago in this same room, he’d stood toe to toe with his dad, defending her, their marriage.

  But then he disappeared. He changed his hall routine and transferred out of Mrs. Glenn’s math class to Mr. Hancock’s. Jade hadn’t seen him in a week.

  “What’s your excuse, Carla?” Mama shot to her feet. “You’re home all the time, apparently gossiping, while your son talked my daughter into forgery.”

  “She seduced him.”

  “He’s lucky she even looked his way.”

  “Carla, Beryl,” Mr. Colter interjected, his words sharp at first, then soft and slow. “Blaming one kid over the other isn’t going to solve this.”

  Mama smacked her gum and jutted her hip, acting like a floozy, showing the plump of her breasts over the cut of her top. Jade’s cheeks burned when she caught Mr. Colter looking before he dashed his gaze to the floor.

  “All right, Rowdy.” Carla crossed her arms. “What’s your solution?”

  “Get an annulment. Straightforward and simple.”

  “Annulment?” Mama fired. “Without asking the kids? Rowdy, they got married on purpose.”

  “They are too young, Beryl,” Carla interjected, powering each word with emotion. “They don’t know what they want in life, what it takes to make it in the world. Dustin has a wrestling scholarship to Northern Iowa.”

  “Jade isn’t going to stop him.” Mama whirled around. “You want to go to college, too, don’t you, baby?”

  Oh, Mama. Don’t be so trailer trash. “They know, Mama.” Dustin, please, look at me.

  He remained slumped in his chair, swinging his knees to and fro with his chin in his hand, memorizing the carpet pattern.

  “Didn’t we raise you better?” Mrs. Colter swatted at him.

  “Yes,” Jade said, surprised by the sound of her own voice. “That’s why he wanted to marry me. Because you raised him to respect women.”

  “Oh, mercy.” Mrs. Colter exhaled, hand to her forehead. “Do I even want to ask what that means?”

  “Mom—” Dustin spoke for the first time since Jade walked into the house.

  “If the kids want to be married, let them be married.” Mama spread her hands, peering around, waiting for the bandwagon to fill up. “We raised them to think for themselves, be decent human beings—who are we to tell them they’re wrong?”

  Mama, can you please not be a ’60s hippie for once? It’s 1996. The world has changed. Give a real argument.

  “Beryl,” Carla started, “you’ve been married three times. Do you really want to give these kids relationship advice?”

  “Bite me, Carla.”

  Carla had better watch stepping in the ring with Mama. With one cutting glance, she could leave a person bleeding.

  “Hold on now.” Mr. Colter worked to be the neutral, wise party, but have mercy, he was about to step into a catfight. Ain’t safe, Mr. C. “I think we can find a compromise here. Beryl makes a good point, Carla. The kids did get married. Legally or not, right or wrong, they made a gutsy move. Must have been for some reason.”

  “Well, then,” Carla quipped out of the side of her mouth, shooting her husband a look. He’d pay later for not backing her 100 percent.

  But when Mr. C smiled at Jade, she felt his heart to defend her.

  “All right, Jade, Dustin, what do you say?” Mama barreled down the open communication lane. Gig waited for her at Granny’s, not too happy about cutting the last week of their bar-hopping musical tour short to deal with his wife’s teenage daughter. “Jade, speak up. Do you want to be married to Dustin?”

  More than anything. She peeked at him, wanting some kind of clue before she wandered onto the high wire without a net. But his eyes were still aimed at the floor.

  “Dustin?” Mr. Colter shoved his son’s shoulder. “What about you? You proposed, gave her a ring. Do you want to be married?”

  Mr. Colter, don’t, please. Couldn’t you leave us alone, let us talk about our relationship in private? If she’d learned anything in their brief marriage, it was to let Dustin brood for a bit, then he’d open up enough for her to dig down to the true intent of his heart. She knew Dustin better than she knew herself.

  “Dustin, think about this, son. You’re too young.”

  “Carla.” Mr. Colter broke in hard.

  After a second, Dustin stood. The knots in Jade’s gut multiplied like crazy. Say it, Dustin. Say, “Dad, let Jade and me talk alone.”

  Instead he reached for his hat and slipped it over his head with the bill in the back. “No, I don’t.”

  The last thing Jade ever heard from Dustin Colter was the bang of the kitchen door.

  Mama slammed the driver’s side door shut and cranked the truck’s engine. “You’re better off, Jade, better off. What in the world were you two thinking? If he wanted sex . . . That’s it, isn’t it? Mother’s religious crap got to you. ‘Wait for marriage.’”

  “I told him he didn’t have to marry me.” Curled on the old floorboard, dirt crunching under her legs, Jade buried her face in the torn vinyl bench seat and let go of the sobs she’d been holding in her chest.

  “Listen, it’s going to be all right.” Mama popped the clutch, manhandling the truck down the drive. “Cry it out, cleanse your soul.”

  “Mama, please stop.” Jade popped open her door before Mama had a chance to brake and hung her head out the door, emptying her stomach. When she eased back into the cab, Mama gently drove forward again.

  “You’ll get through this.” The gears whined as she powered up the engine and shifted.

  Jade shivered as her sobs waned. But silent tears flooded her cheeks. “I don’t want to get through this, Mama. I want to be married to him. I love him.”

  He was home. Now where would her heart live?

  “Then why didn’t you say so? Goodness, Jade, speak up for yourself. Do you want me to turn around?”

  “No—Mama, no.” The idea of facing Mrs. Colter again cut a deep swath through her heart.

  “Well, maybe he’ll come around.” Mama fished in her purse, producing a napkin, shoving it under Jade’s cheek. “Are you pregnant?”

  “Mama—”

  “You did have sex with your husband, didn’t you? And by the way, I’m not ready to be a grandma.”

  “Can this not be about you for once?” Jade clenched her jaw as she wound the napkin around her fingers.

  “You know what I mean.” Mama thumped the wide, round steering wheel with the palm of her hand and muttered a few four-letter words. “Can you believe that Miss Priss, Carla? Hasn’t changed one bit s
ince high school.”

  The old engine rattled as Mama slowed for a stop sign, grinding the gears when she shifted into first.

  “She was nice to me.”

  “Sure, until you married her son. Boils my butt she acted like it was all your fault.”

  “I’m not pregnant.”

  “You sure?”

  “Yeah—” Pretty sure. Dustin didn’t have any condoms the last time. He kept forgetting to buy more. Jade talked to him about visiting the free clinic in Des Moines so she could go on the pill, but once summer football started, time got away from them. Dustin assured her that condoms were doing the job. Then school started, and he began ever so gradually to drift. And forget.

  “If you are, let me know. The sooner, the better. We can get it taken care of. It’s no way to keep a man, Jade, being pregnant. He’ll go off to college, and you’ll be stuck slinging hash at a truck stop from midnight to seven, growing old and tired before you turn twenty.” The truck gained speed as Mama made the final shift into third. “He’s a cruel, stupid boy, Jade. I’m shocked you fell for him. You seemed to be so keen about people. In a few months, you’ll be moved on.”

  Jade wiped under her eyes with the napkin, then blew her nose. “I’m not you, Mama. I can’t just move on.”

  “You’d better learn. Don’t waste your life pining. You’ll turn pathetic.”

  Jade shoved off the floorboard, plopping down on her side of the old bench seat, moving away from the torn, sharp-edged vinyl poking through her jeans and biting her skin. “Are you mad?” She pressed her face against the window. The cold glass felt good.

  “No. It’s not like I didn’t do things that shocked my mother when I was your age.”

  “Or now.”

  “Hush, because I can be mad if you want. I wouldn’t have legally tied myself to a thughead jock, but I did a few things that would’ve curled your Granny’s hair if she’d known.”

  “Like what?” Jade had heard Granny arguing with Mama over her choices, but the details had never been colored in. “When you were my age?”