Bless Her Heart
Page 26
“Are you laughing at me?” Miss Georgette stood at the door.
I wasn’t about to tell her I was laughing at the memory of “your navel is a goblet.”
“No, ma’am. I wouldn’t dare.”
She harrumphed as she fumbled with the handle yet again. All I could think was . . .
Bless her heart.
The other ladies filed out, and I considered another Snickerdoodle. I had the container in my hands when the atonal pings of tuning stopped and John started playing a song. I sat as still as I possibly could, trying to discern what he played.
I finally managed to pick out the chorus, which I remembered as “He’s the Lily of the Valley, the Bright and Morning Star . . .”
I didn’t recognize it at first because he was playing the song as a dirge. There was something about that line, though, that I couldn’t quite put my finger on so I did what any self-respecting eavesdropping receptionist would do: I Googled it.
Oh.
Rose of Sharon, Lily of the Valley.
Those names came from Song of Solomon.
Old Posey would probably take this moment to cry for what could’ve been.
New Posey could see the merit in such a course of action, but she read through all of Song of Solomon instead until she found a few verses she liked. In the end, I wrote “by night on my bed I sought him whom my soul loveth: I sought him, but I found him not” and slipped the note into the envelope that contained John’s check. Either he still felt as I did, or he didn’t. At this point I knew I could live without him, but that didn’t mean I wanted to.
On his way out I handed him the envelope. “Thank you very much for keeping our pianos melodic.”
“My pleasure. So, are you doing okay?”
“I’m fine, really. Probably going to kick the last of this morning sickness soon.”
“That’s good, that’s good,” he said, but his voice felt distant.
“Got my divorce today,” I blurted, inwardly chastising myself for tipping my hand.
“Congratulations.” His eyes met mine briefly, but he was obviously uncomfortable. I half wanted to take the envelope back, but he mumbled his goodbye and retreated before I could think of a way to get it back. He’d probably played “Lily of the Valley” for any of a hundred different reasons, not the least of which was that it was a good Baptist hymn. I was a fool who read too much into things.
It reminded me of when Julia complimented me for being open and trusting.
She also told you those were good qualities, that you only needed to be more discerning.
Pretty sure giving a guy quotes from Song of Solomon was less than discerning.
What was done was done.
I picked up my purse and headed for home.
* * *
“The house is so quiet without Granny,” Mom said.
“We’re going to lose Rain to college soon, too.”
“She’s never here anyway,” Mom said as she placed a serving of vegetarian lasagna on my plate next to a salad made with lettuce from her backyard garden. “Then you’re going to run off and leave me all alone.”
“Mom!”
“At least I’ll still have Henny,” she said in a loud voice.
“Huh? What?” my brother said from the living room where he’d fallen asleep in the recliner.
“Supper,” I called.
“Any meat in the lasagna this time?”
I passed him a plate. “You know the answer to that. Also, if I have to eat salad, then you do, too.”
I didn’t mind the salad, but I had as a child. It’d been fun to make my younger brother eat his salad because I was eating mine. Took him almost a year to eat dressing, which meant a year’s worth of watching him make faces while he ate his salad dry.
“Pass the ranch,” he said just as the doorbell rang. I tossed him the bottle and went to get the door.
There stood John O’Brien with a bottle of sparkling cider. “As the apple tree among the trees of the wood, so is my beloved?”
I leaned against the doorway with a smile.
“I know, I know,” he said. “I was looking for something about apples because you once said the minute you were a free woman you’d be on my doorstep with a bottle of sparkling cider. I hate the stuff, but I’ll drink it if it means we can try this again.”
“Well, it’s really hard to say no to the Lily of the Valley.”
He hung his head. “You heard that, huh?”
“Yeah,” I said as I took a step closer. “Brushing up on your Song of Solomon?”
“Duh, they have this whole section about how your hair is like a flock of goats.”
“Thank you?”
“And your breasts are like twin roes, and—”
“Just kiss me,” I said.
He drew me into his arms, and we fit together even before his lips met mine.
“I’ve missed you,” he said, once we both came up for air. We took a seat on the porch swing, and this time we managed to get it to move back and forth evenly—probably because we were sitting so closely together.
“I’ve missed you, too.”
“Does this mean—”
“If you are about to make one of your patently unromantic marriage proposals, stop right there. I’m not saying never, but not until we figure some things out.”
“If I ever propose to you again, it’s going to be so romantic, you’re not going to know what hit you,” he said. “At this point, it’s a challenge.”
“In that case, I’m sorry. What were you saying?”
“Well, I was going to invite you to come live with me so I could help you take care of our baby when he’s born.”
“One, you don’t know that we’re going to have a son. Second, I don’t think so.”
He put a hand on my belly. “It’d be easier to continue knowing each other biblically if we were living in sin.”
I laughed out loud. “I’ve already had enough of sins, deadly, original, or otherwise.”
“What if I told you the dog misses you.”
“Mmmm, I do like that dog.”
“What if I told you that I missed you?”
“I’d say, let’s see how we feel in three months.”
“You’re on.”
His lips touched mine, and I almost couldn’t breathe from happiness. I had everything I could ever want or need in that moment on that porch swing, and if anyone had a problem with how I’d arrived at such blessings?
Well.
Bless her heart.
Mrs. Morris’s Snickerdoodles1
You will need ...
1½ cups sugar
½ cup butter, softened
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 eggs
2¾ cups of all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon cream of tartar
½ teaspoon baking soda
¼ teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons powdered sugar
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1. Preheat the oven to 300 degrees.
2. In a large bowl, combine the first 4 ingredients (sugar, butter, vanilla, eggs).
3. Stir in flour, cream of tartar, baking soda, and salt.
4. Blend well.
5. Shape into 1-inch balls. (An ice-cream scoop can make this process much easier.)
6. Combine sugar and cinnamon, then roll each ball in the sugar and cinnamon mixture. Coat thoroughly.
7. Place 2 inches apart on an ungreased cookie sheet.
8. Bake at 300 degrees for 15 minutes or until edges are set. Immediately remove from the cookie sheet.
Notes: Depending on your oven, baking the cookies at 350 for 10 minutes might be a better option. You may also want to put the dough in the freezer for just a few minutes before you start rolling it into balls. You can also put the cookie balls in the freezer on a cookie sheet for a few minutes and then store them frozen until you’re ready to bake them. I’ve heard this is good for portion control, and, remember, one of the messages of this book is all
things in moderation.
A READING GROUP GUIDE
BLESS HER
HEART
Sally Kilpatrick
ABOUT THIS GUIDE
The suggested questions are included to enhance your group’s reading of Sally Kilpatrick’s Bless Her Heart.
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
1. Posey decides to give up church for Lent and to sample being bad rather than good. Can you sympathize with her choice? Do you think you would’ve made the same decisions?
2. Song of Solomon starts as a joke between John and Posey but becomes more important throughout the story. Is that a book of the Bible you’ve read? Do you think that Christianity stifles sexuality or reveres it? Or both?
3. In what way do you think being married to a self-proclaimed pastor blurred the lines between religion and marriage for Posey?
4. If Posey’s family and friends noticed that Chad was isolating her from them, what responsibility—if any—did they have to intervene on her behalf? Should they have? If so, how do you think Posey would’ve reacted to such an intervention?
5. Do you know someone like Chad? If you were Liza, what would you have told Posey? Or would you have been quiet for fear of losing the friendship?
6. Novels, especially romance novels, influence Posey throughout the story. Have you ever read a book that profoundly affected your life or how you view the world?
7. Have you read that book? What did you think? Do you think what a person reads should influence his or her job prospects?
8. Have you ever had a tarot reading? If not, would you?
9. When Posey has a yard sale, John tells her that the records she was about to sell for fifty cents each are worth a lot more. What’s the biggest steal you’ve found at a yard sale?
10. Which character did you empathize with most and why? Is that character your favorite? Why or why not?
11. Do you think that John and Posey could’ve had their happily ever after earlier if they’d gotten together sooner or do you think each one of them had to live through the bad times to appreciate the good?
12. Not knowing her father haunts Posey. Do you think that not knowing him influences some of her decisions for good or for ill?
13. Have you lived your life sheltered like Posey or more adventurously like Rain? Do you think either way of life is right or wrong? Why?
14. It takes Chad’s leaving to wake Posey up, but what are some incidents that show she’s empowering herself? Did you find her sympathetic or did you lose patience with her?
15. Miss Georgette sparks Posey’s return to teaching, a job she loves, but she also shames Posey at the end. What do you think about Miss Georgette and her meddling? Is she good, bad, both, neither?
16. At both the beginning and the end of the story Posey is sitting at a receptionist desk in a church. What’s different? Is anything the same?
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Born and raised in West Tennessee, Sally Kilpatrick graduated from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, with a BA in English. At UT she met and married a Georgia boy. Now they live in Marietta, GA, with their two kids. She holds a Masters in Professional Writing from Kennesaw State University and taught high school Spanish for eight years before taking a sabbatical to write and mother full-time. In addition to reading and writing, Sally likes traveling, historic house tours, running, religious studies, and all things geek. Readers can learn more at www.sallykilpatrick.com or follow her on Twitter and Facebook.
Notes
1 Okay, this recipe doesn’t really belong to Mrs. Morris. Thanks to Leslie L. McKee for sharing her recipe, and to Jeanne Myers and Lynne Ernst for adding some detail. For this book, I contribute the following: SpaghettiOs (open the can and heat up—if you dare) and Thin Mint Brownie Mix (open box, follow instructions).