by Beth Moore
“Girl, do I need to bring you a gallon of water to drink? How long can this take?” The sound of Adella’s voice jolted Jillian back to the present.
“I need a few more minutes. Go work. I’ll come find you when I’m done. You’re making me nervous.”
When Jillian finally opened the bathroom door, three people were standing side by side in her room staring wide-eyed at her like she was an apparition. “What in the—?”
Caryn blurted out, “Well? What did it say?”
David was as red as a beet but spoke up next. “We’re just here for support, whether it’s positive or negative.”
Jillian glowered at Adella. “Thank you for being so trustworthy.”
“I didn’t exactly tell them. Well, not in so many words. Wouldn’t you two say y’all kinda figured it out?”
Caryn and David looked back and forth between Adella and Jillian, apparently unsure of the safest way to answer.
“Anyway,” Adella continued, “you didn’t tell me not to tell, and sometimes you need people more than privacy.”
“Oh, really? Like when?”
“Like now! I was so upset this morning when we couldn’t find you that I let it slip that we didn’t just have one missing person. And Caryn—well, she might as well be a doctor. David has a school holiday. He was ready to drive the whole mess of us to your aid today if we found out you were in trouble somewhere.” Adella paused and lowered her hands to her sides. A certain vulnerability crept into her voice. “To tell you the truth, I was afraid maybe you had done something rash.”
Jillian didn’t feel well enough to be as mad as she wanted to be. “I guess Mother Mary was ready to throw me out over it. She’s so maternal and all.”
“Olivia doesn’t know. I didn’t say a word to her.”
“Well, give yourself a medal.” Jillian drew a deep breath. “It’s negative, anyway.”
“What did you say? Exactly how do you mean negative?” Adella pressed.
“Negative as in I’m not pregnant.”
Adella, Caryn, and David flopped down in perfect unison on the edge of Jillian’s bed and the mattress popped up on the opposite side. Adella slapped her knee and said, “Shout hallelujah, somebody!”
It was unlike Jillian to refrain from snide remarks under the circumstances, especially with the outbreak of religious talk, but she was dead silent this time. Then her eyes widened into hula hoops and she slapped both hands over her mouth.
Adella stood up and stepped toward her. “Child, what is it? What’s wrong with you? You look a little peaked. Are you—?”
Jillian bent over and vomited on Adella’s shoes.
CHAPTER 23
JILLIAN PULLED THE SHEET DOWN from her face and forced her eyes open. She rolled onto her side and turned the digital clock on the bedside table toward her.
“Seven o’clock,” she whispered, dropping her head back on the pillow. “Morning or night?” She sat straight up in the bed, hit by the thought that, if it was evening, she needed to get to work. Or didn’t she have an early shift coming up this week? The first thing Jillian would have to do was figure out what day it was. She’d never felt more disoriented.
She set her feet on the floor, now vaguely remembering Adella helping her into pajamas. The image of Adella’s bare feet popped into her mind, her toenails painted in bright contrast to her brown skin. The bottom edges of her feet looked almost pink. “Oh, gosh,” Jillian muttered, rubbing her head and replaying the scene that had left Adella conspicuously shoeless. If half the house hadn’t been in her room when she projectile vomited, she might have had a shred of dignity left. These people have no boundaries.
Jillian jerked up her feet at the recollection of what had been on the floor in that spot. Both the hardwood and the edge of the rug that had been in the path of destruction were perfectly unsoiled. Someone had cleaned up after her. “Please somebody tell me it wasn’t David. Or Caryn.” Then she recalled David shooting out of that room like he’d been blown from a cannon. She hated that she was probably going to have to thank Adella. Then again, maybe she’d make Jillian mad before she got the opportunity.
David was in the kitchen sitting on a stool at the island, blowing on a spoonful of something hot when Jillian came in. He dropped the spoon in a bowl when he saw her and rose to his feet. “How are you feeling, sleepyhead?”
“Embarrassed. I’m sorry you had to see that.”
“Oh, no worries. I’m a high school teacher. I’ve seen worse. Not a lot worse, I’ll admit.” He grinned warmly.
“You did make a pretty quick exit as I recall.”
“Ah, but for the sake of your honor alone.”
“I bet.” They both smiled. “I only remember having one glass of wine. I don’t even remember finishing it but I guess I did. And I guess that wasn’t all I had. At first I assumed I felt sick because, well, you know. But when the test came out negative—”
“Not for me to judge. Maybe it was a bug. I’m just glad you’re better now. You feel like eating? You’re not going to believe how good this is.” David sat back down and pulled up a spoon heaped with small bits of carrots and celery.
Surely that meant it was evening, but she wouldn’t have been surprised if these people ate fried gator for breakfast with a side of tart green tomatoes.
David kept talking. “You think you slept it off? You’ve been dead to the world all afternoon. I only know that because Adella stuck her head in there a few times, but she locked the door of your room behind her the last time before she left.”
That meant it was the same day. Jillian was relieved. She wasn’t on the schedule for work until tomorrow then. She spied a half-empty sleeve of saltines a few inches from David’s right elbow. Maybe she could eat a few of those.
“The soup is homemade,” he explained. “I added salt and pepper to mine because it was intentionally a little bland for the sake of the sick.”
Jillian sat down beside him on the next stool. “I can’t believe you did that. Thank you, David.”
“I wish I could take credit for it. Your grandmother fixed it. Even boiled a whole chicken for the broth. She said there was plenty of it and for me to help myself. Mrs. Winsee had some too. I think Caryn had lost her appetite though.” David elbowed Jillian gently.
“You’re kidding me.”
“You surprised? Your grandmother is a fabulous cook, Jillian. Granted, she doesn’t usually make a pot of anything that isn’t so spicy you need to be carded to eat it, but there is no denying the woman can cook. She was in here chopping up vegetables for at least an hour earlier this afternoon. Then as it simmered, she headed to the backyard and pulled weeds. She went back to her suite a few minutes before you came out and told me that she’d come put it all away before bedtime.”
“She said it was for me?”
David looked up and squinted his eyes, obviously trying to replay the conversation. “No, not exactly, but who else would it be for?”
“Herself?” Honestly, Jillian couldn’t picture the woman that benevolent.
David laughed. “You see this bowl?” He clinked his spoon against the edge for emphasis. “If she’d cooked for herself, instead of that clear golden broth, there would be a thick elixir from a roux as dark as mud. And see that chicken?”
Jillian nodded, unsure of where this conversation was headed.
“That would be a deveined shrimp nearly as thick as your little finger, boiled to a perfect opaque white. Take your spoon a little deeper on the next round and you’d come up with some lump crabmeat—maybe even a claw—or maybe what you’d score is an oyster.” Jillian made a terrible face. “On second thought, your stomach may not be up to that image. Increase your rice ratio in that bowl for now and pass on the oysters. There’d be some celery just like this but it would play second fiddle to the okra.”
“I get it. At one time, believe it or not, I really did waitress where we served more than donuts. But I’m not a big fan of gumbo.”
“Jillia
n, forgive me, but you have never seen a bowl of filé gumbo in California like I’m talking about unless it was straight from the soup pot of a homesick transplant. Girl, this is Louisiana gumbo. And your grandmother is the Justown Wilsown of Saint Sans, I guar-ron-tee.”
“What’s a justown?”
“It’s really Justin, but he pronounced it that way. Justin Wilson was a famous Cajun chef. A storyteller with the comedic wit of a world-class stand-up. He sort of crafted it all together, and with an accent so thick, anyone past the state line would need an interpreter. He had a cooking show on PBS. Been dead awhile now. Of course, he was famous for chicken and andouille gumbo. You know why de sheecken cross de road, haaah? Really, to run away from dem Cajuns, I tell you dat right now, ’cause Cajun will eat mos’ any-ting, an’ dey love to cook sheecken.”
Jillian had to smile. David was so proper and well-spoken that the accent was delightfully absurd coming from him.
“Mrs. Fontaine is more of a seafood purist when it comes to her gumbo. I am too, but from this side of the bowl. Never made any of my own. How’d you manage to get me to go off into all of that?”
Jillian shrugged her shoulders, her stomach gurgling.
“Oh yeah! I was saying that’s how you know she didn’t make this homemade chicken soup for herself. Face it. It’s for you.” David scooted out his stool. “Let me spoon you up some. Sound good?”
David twisted the lid off the pressure cooker and dipped a ladle in it, stirring the soup several times. Jillian trailed behind him and peered over his shoulder as he scooped toward the bottom of the pot and lifted the ladleful of white meat chicken, carrots, celery, and small cubes of potato. Jillian wasn’t sure whether she’d feel better if she ate or worse.
“Hmmm,” she said. “I don’t eat much meat. Do you know if that chicken is organic?”
“That I couldn’t tell you.” David looked at Jillian with a trace of bewilderment.
Mrs. Winsee stuck her face right in between theirs, startling Jillian. “And how is our patient? I wore my washable slippers just in case you weren’t done. See?” Mrs. Winsee pulled up her satin robe a few inches, exposing an ankle so white, it shone like a naked lightbulb. Her slippers were solid gold sequins with plastic black bows.
“You sure those are washable, Mrs. Winsee? They’re pretty fancy.” David always found some way to compliment the old woman.
“The gentle cycle. I’m sure of it.” She was having a perfectly lucid moment, it seemed, although she’d been gently banned from the laundry room since an unfortunate incident involving an entire gallon of Tide. She’d blamed it on Mr. Winsee. The washer had bubbled up like a volcano for days every time somebody threw in a load. “These remind me of the matching pair Maude Anne and I got from Mother on Christmas Day 1942.” Mrs. Winsee was still staring at her feet. “We also got matching gowns and robes. We felt like princesses in them. We twirled and twirled for Father.”
Jillian tried to steer the conversation from turning into a Norman Rockwell painting. What Mrs. Winsee needed, Jillian figured, was a realist, and if Jillian was anything in her own eyes, it was a realist. “It doesn’t matter. You’re safe. My stomach’s too empty to be a threat.” She sighed, accepting her unavoidable fate as the laughingstock of Saint Sans over the baptism of Adella Atwater’s favorite heels.
“But nothing surpassed the Christmas of ’45. That was the year we tore red foil wrapping and satiny ribbons from matching pairs of ruby slippers. They were glittery patent leather. Oh, how we squealed and clicked our heels.” Mrs. Winsee closed her eyes and tapped her heels together counting to three. “There’s no place like—”
“Holy cow, is this soup ever good!” David spoke up before Jillian could say anything cynical and stuck a ladleful of broth right under her nose.
“I don’t think I can eat it after all.”
Mrs. Winsee offered cheerfully, “She said you wouldn’t.”
“What do you mean she said I wouldn’t? Who?”
“Olivia. She said, ‘Now watch her not eat a single bite of it.’” Mrs. Winsee smiled ear to ear as innocently as if she’d just paid someone a thousand-dollar compliment. “I sound just like her, don’t I, David? I could play her on the silver screen.”
Jillian threw open the cabinet and pulled out a bowl. “Give me that,” she ordered David as she snatched the ladle from his hand. She dipped it deep into the pressure cooker and splashed its contents into her bowl, flinching as drops of near-boiling liquid splattered her hand. On her way out of the kitchen, she grabbed the saltines and, hands full, headed for her room.
As she reached the door to her suite, she heard Mrs. Winsee say to David, “Well, I suppose a woman has a right to change her mind, but I wonder why she didn’t want to eat in here with us.” Jillian made no attempt to hear his response. She elbowed through the door she’d left ajar and slammed it behind her with her foot.
Before Jillian could decide where to set her bowl of soup, she saw a cell phone on her bedside table with a handwritten note:
Jillian—
Please use this while you are in town. It’s an extra one I have on hand. It’s a year or so old but still works fine. I took the liberty of having it reactivated. It’s already on my bill.
Olivia
The phone number with a local area code was written at the bottom and a wall charger was draped next to it. Jillian sat down on the edge of the bed and picked up the phone and held it. As much as she hated to accept the charity, especially from Olivia and especially right now, the humiliation of giving the landline at Saint Sans for her contact number at work had been almost more than she could stand. It was a wonder she’d withstood the temptation to turn on her cell phone from San Francisco, but she was too afraid she’d find out that there was a warrant in California for her arrest. She plugged in the phone, ate a few crackers, and pressed the On button.
If anyone had ever texted from this phone, the log had been wiped clean. Only three contacts were stored: Adella Atwater, Olivia Fontaine, and Saint Sans Apartments.
CHAPTER 24
JUNE 1918
THE MALADY disabling young Brianna Brashear had left her mother limping as well, though her infirmity was not as clear to the eye. Evelyn Ann doted day and night on her ailing child. She’d taken the pain personally when her daughter’s recovery was not all they had hoped and prayed it would be, and she determined to devote the rest of her life to easing the child’s burden.
Naturally this left her less available for ministry in the church than many expected. She hosted the occasional ladies’ tea but only reluctantly. She cooked adequate but simple meals for visiting missionaries but added little conversation to the table she painstakingly set. Despite frequent pointed suggestions from the faithful, she felt no obligation to the choir nor a summons to the piano bench.
What Mrs. Brashear lacked in congregational servitude, her husband worked tirelessly to compensate for. Reverend Brashear was gregarious, warm, and so unflaggingly energetic that he could wear on the nerves.
Most of the time he seemed unaffected by his helpmate’s detachment, but on occasion, a keen observer could see him look toward her with pleading eyes, begging her to spring to life and amaze their community with her wit and wisdom. In his rare quiet moments, he couldn’t shake the feeling that Evelyn Ann blamed him for Brianna’s condition, although for the life of him, he couldn’t fathom how. He chose to stay busy, and she chose to let him.
CHAPTER 25
“RAFE ADORED THAT CHILD.”
Adella was taken aback by Olivia’s unexpected declaration—both by what she said and the fact that she was there saying it at all. Adella was in the utility room early the next morning when Olivia happened by and dropped that bombshell. And apparently that wasn’t all she had to say because she went right on without even noticing Adella’s reaction.
“She was his whole world. His whole face lit up when he talked about her.”
Adella gathered her wits and replied, “I had no idea you remem
bered her so well.”
“Well, of course I remember her. She was the daughter of my only child.” Olivia somehow managed to always dodge the word granddaughter. “He loved her mother for that matter, though God only knows what he saw in the woman.”
“I’m sure Jaclyn was beautiful.”
“I despised her so much that I really couldn’t tell you. But I don’t think he was hung up on her because of her looks, and it certainly wasn’t her winsome personality. I think it was a case of rejection making the heart grow fonder. Jaclyn didn’t want Rafe, so he wanted her twice as much.”
“How old was Jillian when Jaclyn started pulling back from him?” Adella popped the door of the dryer open so it would stop turning. She meant to hear every word.
“Oh, that started before he even knew Jaclyn was pregnant. She told him she didn’t have the same feelings for him that he had for her and that she didn’t want to see him anymore. That he’d taken it more seriously than she had. I didn’t know all of this until later, needless to say. Communication has never been a Fontaine family trait. He still tried to pursue her after that, but she managed to avoid him and dropped out of sight.”
“But she was already pregnant at that time?” Adella struggled to keep the timeline straight.
“Yes, she was. He pined for her for several months and tried to move on. Then, about the time he started pulling out of his misery, he caught a glimpse of her from a distance at the airport when he was about to fly out on a business trip.”
Adella had only known Rafe in his severest destitution, so she’d never imagined him living a normal life. Taking business trips. With every sentence tumbling out of Olivia’s mouth in that utility room came a new frame to try to force his picture into.