Restless in Carolina

by Tamara Leigh

  She wrinkles her nose. “Gol, wise?”

  That’s what surprised her—more than me calling her sister? “Yes, you are.”

  “Nah, it’s my gran who’s wise, but maybe when I’m old and prickly like her.” She waves at the twins. “I’ll see you tomorrow, sweetness one and sweetness two.”

  “Bye-bye,” Birdie calls back, which is followed by Miles’s “See ya, Aunt Trinity.”

  Trinity putters her pumpkin coach down the driveway, and I watch until she goes from sight. And still I stand there as her words play in my mind: “There’s only one true happily ever after, and that’s with Jesus. Not that we shouldn’t try to get a taste of it here on earth.”

  I wish her words didn’t bring J.C. to mind, but they do. In turn, J.C. brings an ache to a place inside me where he doesn’t belong. Am I a mess, or what?

  25

  Maggie Pickwick, Reece Thorpe,

  and Devyn Pickwick

  invite you to share their joy

  when they become a family joined together

  by holy matrimony

  Saturday, November 20

  at 2:00 in the afternoon

  The Old Dock at Pickwick Lake

  Pickwick, North Carolina

  P.S. Dress Warmly

  Friday, October 15

  Two weddings in one month. When the Pickwicks rain, they pour. I look from Maggie’s invitation on my refrigerator to Piper’s peeking out from behind it, both secured by the only magnet I could rustle up. I’m happy for my cousins, because Trinity is right—a body needs a taste of happily ever after, even though “happily” doesn’t last “ever after” down here. So is it okay to go back for seconds? And what does it say about the depth of one’s first love if one wants to go back for seconds?

  I’ve been round and round this for days. Round it with myself Round it with God (yes, I’m speaking to Him fairly regularly). And round it with Maggie and Piper, who seem to think I asked them to butt into my personal life. Of course, I probably shouldn’t have told them about my confrontation with Bonnie at Trinity and Bart’s wedding—a weak moment over chips and salsa yesterday at a new Mexican restaurant. Since I rarely indulge in processed, fried tortilla chips, the stuff must have gone to my head.

  Maggie agreed with Bonnie about my widow’s weeds, and I pointed out that I’d shed my dreads, put my ring away, let my finger tan, and was sleeping in my marriage bed again. Then Piper had to put in her two cents by saying there was one last weed that needed to be pulled—my fear of allowing another man into my life. And I said it wasn’t worth the possible pain of losing another man I might come to love. All she’d said was “Better the possibility of pain than the certainty of pain in living a long, lonely life.” She may be right.

  “Ready to go!” Miles appears in the kitchen doorway dressed in the cutest little jeans I ever saw—worn in all the right places, a little raggedly here and there. Of course, they probably cost two or three times what a new-looking pair of jeans would cost.

  “Great,” I say. “And Birdie?”

  “Me too!” She steps alongside her brother.

  Those are also cute jeans—pink piping along the pockets and pink plaid patches on the knees. Unfortunately much of that pink will be going bye-bye. We’re heading to the mansion, Miles and Birdie having surprised me with their enthusiasm over my suggestion we spend the morning working in Uncle Obe’s garden.

  I warned them we would be pulling weeds, getting our hands dirty, and coming into contact with earthworms. Birdie’s response: “Can I cut one in half to see if it really grows into two?” My response: “No.” She was still game, but for how long?

  One hour. That’s how long she makes it before she wrenches her last weed, plops onto her rear, and thrusts a fist above her dirt-streaked forehead. “As God is my witness—oh wait!” She scrambles to her feet and raises her fist again. “As God is my witness, I will never be hungry again.”

  I stare at my niece. What in the world? Miles snickers, and I look sharply at him. “What’s she doin’?”

  He sticks his nose into the crook of his elbow and drags his arm back, leaving a trail of “ugh” down his sleeve. “Pretending to be that Tara girl in Gone with the Wind.”

  “Scarlett!” Birdie glares at him. “Her name’s Scarlett, and she’s not a girl. She’s a weal woman.”

  Okay, so now I know where the quote came from. What I don’t know is where this Scarlett thing came from. “Did you see the movie?”

  Birdie nods. “At Aunt Trinity’s yesterday. She made us popcorn.”

  There we go—the dots connected, from Birdie’s performance back to Trinity’s suggestion that I confirm with Scarlett O’Hara that true happiness is only found in Jesus. Somehow, I don’t think Bonnie will be pleased her five-year-old has graduated from fairy tales to old movies.

  “Except for the fighting and the soldiers, it was boring,” Miles says with another wipe of his nose.

  “No, it wasn’t!”

  “Yes, it was. It was a stupid girl movie.”

  Birdie kicks dirt at her brother.

  He jumps up. “What’d you do that for?”

  “ ’Cause you’re wong! Scarlett didn’t get her happily ever after, but she got strong.”

  Miles’s mouth pinches. “Frankly, my dear, I don’t give—”

  “Okay!” I shoot upright, separating them by placing my hands on their shoulders. “How about some iced tea? Or lemonade? Miss Daisy said she’d make up a pitcher.”

  They grumble at each other as I guide them along the winding path and up the ramp to the kitchen. No sooner do I settle them at the island counter opposite each other than Piper appears.

  “This just in.” She holds up a white envelope, and I know what it is.

  I finish pouring glasses of lemonade for Birdie and Miles, remind them to behave, then cross to where my cousin stands before the pantry flipping through the papers.

  “Oh, Lord,” she breathes. “Would you look at that?”

  I growl when I see the dollar amount. The string of numbers is certainly long enough; however, the first number following the dollar sign is nearly half what it should be. And I know what happened—what Maggie feared.

  I step back from Caleb Merriman’s joke of an offer. “Would you keep the kids for me? I need to drive over to my parents’ and talk to Daddy.”

  “But he’s here.”

  “What?”

  “Arrived a half hour ago and said he needed to speak with his brother in private.”

  “Where?”

  “Uncle Obe’s room.”

  I don’t know what that means, but it fits. “Birdie? Miles?”

  Their baleful eyes, which have surely been inflicting silent wounds on each other, turn to me. “I need to talk with Uncle Obe. Miss Piper will keep an eye on you, all right?”

  They go back to glaring over their lemonades.

  I turn right out of the kitchen and a few moments later stand before Uncle Obe’s bedroom. The door is closed, and I can’t help but put an ear to it.

  “Now I don’t rightly know what he’ll offer,” Daddy’s voice is muffled through the door, “but it has to be as clear to you as it is to me that preservin’ the estate as a private residence is best for all. And Caleb Merriman is prepared to do just that.”

  I shouldn’t eavesdrop.

  “So he says,” Uncle Obe’s rickety words struggle through the wood, making me wonder if he knows or suspects what J.C. tried to convince me of. “Now that J.C., him I kind of like.”

  “As I told you, Obe, Dirk Developers has withdrawn their offer.”

  Does Daddy’s eavesdropping on me justify my eavesdropping on him?

  “And need I remind you that their proposal was to turn the estate into a golf resort? Humph! So they’re no longer a consideration, meaning we have only two legitimate offers on the table. The offer from the single-family home developer and the one from Caleb Merriman—well, when he makes an offer, which I’m sure will be soon.”

&n
bsp; “I don’t like one and I don’t trust the other.” Uncle Obe’s voice rises. “And you know why I don’t trust Merriman? Because of your ch-ch-championing of him.”

  “Championin’?”

  “Now, Bartholomew, I’m not so far gone I don’t remember your feelings about Caleb’s daddy for the inflated interest rate he charged on the … money you took from him to keep the mill afloat. Why, if I hadn’t negotiated a settlement, you’d have lost your house and more.”

  I hang my head. Always Uncle Obe to the rescue, chipping away at his inheritance to keep his brothers’ heads above water and out from behind bars.

  “Regardless,” Daddy says, “Merriman’s is the best offer you’re goin’ to get, and I say you take it before it walks away like the offer from Dirk Developers.”

  A long silence, then, “I’ve half a mind to put in a call to J.C. to see if we can’t come to terms.”

  Another long silence, during which I imagine Daddy building up a head of steam. And that’s when I open the door—for fear his desperation will cause him to fling Uncle Obe’s “half a mind” back at him.

  I step into the sunshine-lit room and settle my gaze on Daddy, who stands over the armchair in which Uncle Obe reclines. “Is this a secret meeting or can anyone join?”

  Daddy turns, his face red in some places, purple in others. “Your uncle and I are engaged in a discussion that does not involve you, Bridget.”

  “But it does involve me, since I’m fairly certain it’s based on a conversation I had with Piper at the beginning of the week—one it appears you listened in on.”

  Daddy’s eyes nearly come out of their folds, they get so big. “I … well … couldn’t help but hear … and you … eavesdroppin’ … respect your elders …”

  I stand taller. “I know two wrongs don’t make a right, so before we commit another wrong, there’s something Uncle Obe ought to know.”

  Daddy’s mouth twitches. “All’s said that needs to be said.”

  “There’s more. You told him Dirk Developers walked away from their offer, but did you tell him why?” Not that he might have arrived at the conclusion, and not that I’m certain of it myself, but biased as I am by my time with J.C., I’m less inclined to believe he pulled out simply because he decided the property was a bad investment.

  “I have no idea what you’re talkin’ about. Now why don’t we let my brother get his rest?”

  As Daddy moves toward me, flapping a hand as if I’m a sheep to his shepherd, I look to Uncle Obe, whose eyes on me are little more than dashes between narrowed lids.

  “The Calhouns,” I say, and Daddy gurgles as he halts between us. “J. C. Dirk is a Calhoun.”

  The dashes snap to O’s. “That young man who was here with you awhile back?”

  I cross my arms over my chest. “Yes.”

  Uncle Obe settles deeper into his chair. “Right here, under our …” He taps his nose.

  “Not by coincidence either, I wager.” Daddy trundles back around. “By design, Obe—to exact revenge on our family for swindlin’ his great-granddaddy out of his land. Not true, of course. Anyone with half a brain knows that poker game was played fair and square.”

  He knows Uncle Obe believes the poker game was rigged and that he intends to make restitution to the Calhouns. Thus, I’m inclined to believe the “half-brained” comment was intentional. I grind my teeth. I’ve never understood why black widow spiders eat their mates, but if it were their daddies …

  Uncle Obe merely smiles. “No, Bartholomew, I don’t know that, and neither do you. What I know is our great-granddaddy was a … What’d you call it? A swindler. And the Calhouns were as likely a target as the others.” As Daddy blinks, my uncle slants his head to the side and gives me a smile. “So this J.C. was lookin’ to restore his family’s property.”

  “That’s right. Before his father passed, he promised him he would get it back—but not tit for tat, Uncle Obe. By buying it.”

  “How do you know this?” Daddy demands. “And why did you keep it to yourself?”

  “J.C. told me.” I push my hands into my pockets. “I didn’t say anything because we didn’t part on the best of terms. I was mad at him for deceiving—”

  “He most certainly did, the scoundrel.”

  Uncle Obe raises a hand. “Bartholomew, let her finish. What happened, Bridget?”

  “I told him our family is far removed from Gentry Pickwick”—though times like this I’m not sure I should include Daddy in that generalization—“and that the reason you’re selling the estate now is because of the high cost of making restitution to his family and that you wanted it done before …”

  Uncle Obe slowly lowers his lids, then slowly opens them. “You told him right.”

  “I also suggested revenge might have ruined him as he said it had ruined his father. Though he put in his offer the next day, I’m thinkin’ that once what I said settled in, he saw the truth of it.”

  “And withdrew the offer,” Uncle Obe murmurs.

  “Hallelujah to that,” Daddy says. “Though I do think you’re givin’ the man too much credit for decency. More’n likely, it was a business decision—he decided the estate wasn’t a good investment after all.”

  I considered the same thing myself, so I can’t be too upset with him.

  “I remember the Calhoun boys.” Uncle Obe stares past my shoulder, as if at a movie screen on which the memory is playing back. “Dirt poor but proud those young uns were. Had a bit of the wild in them, always runnin’ around and getting into trouble. Their mama worked all the time, and their daddy … Well, he was around. One day he was sittin’ at the counter of Martha’s place, looking scrawny as a cat caught in the rain, nothing but a cup of c-c-coffee in front of him. Martha tried to give him a bowl of stew on the house, but her only thanks was that he didn’t throw it back at her.”

  Uncle Obe stares hard at that place over my shoulder. “I knew his family was struggling, same as his daddy and his daddy before, so I took the …” He pats the arm of his chair. “… this thing beside him and offered him a job.”

  “And he spat on your shoes,” Daddy says. “I was there, Obe, and you were supposed to be havin’ lunch with me, not dispensing handouts to ungrateful slackers.”

  Uncle Obe’s gaze flies to Daddy, and there is such anger in his eyes that my own seems little more than an appetizer. “Do you recall why you were there, Bartholomew?”

  “Not rightly, I don’t.”

  “You needed another loan, though we shouldn’t call it a ‘loan,’ should we?”

  Gripping my hands before me, I silently beg my father to blush to prove he isn’t more closely related to great-granddaddy, and he does. Still, he splutters, “Regardless, those Calhouns were bad news.”

  “No, b-broken, is what they were. Like we all are, though some more noticeably than others. But now we Pickwicks have a chance to make things right, and we will.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Daddy is obviously as suspect as I am that Uncle Obe’s plans have changed.

  “Excuse me,” someone says, and I look over my shoulder at Uncle Obe’s daughter where she stands in the doorway, a glass in one hand, the fingers of the other closed over something. “It’s time for my … er, for …” She sets her jaw. “It’s time for my father to take his medicine.”

  Good for you, cousin.

  She steps forward, and the sun slanting through the room lights on her dark hair, drawing out the auburn tint that evidences the red passed on to her by Uncle Obe.

  Daddy shifts his weight, and I know he’s eager for Daisy to exit so he can get to the bottom of his brother’s meaning.

  However, after Uncle Obe washes down his medicine, he says, “Won’t you stay, Daisy Marie? We’re nearly done here.”

  She looks from Daddy to me. I nod, and her face lightens as she positions herself alongside her father.

  “So, Bartholomew?” Uncle Obe prompts.

  “How, exactly, do you intend to set things right
with the Calhouns?”

  Uncle Obe seems to disappear from the room, but eventually he says, “I need to think on it.”

  Daddy huffs. “But you will sell to Caleb Merriman?”

  “I don’t know that, though I’ll give his offer a look-see when it comes through.”

  “It came through a little while ago,” I say. “But it’s not going to work.”

  “Whyever not?”

  “Because the offer is for sixty percent of the asking price, Daddy.”

  If I didn’t witness the depth of my father’s startle, I don’t know I’d believe his surprise. Then he didn’t tell Caleb that Dirk Developers withdrew their offer?

  “Sixty percent!” He scratches out the words. “That’s all he offered? Why that—”

  “Go home, Bartholomew.” Uncle Obe reaches for his daughter’s hand. “Take care of that sweet wife of yours, and let me handle this.”

  My daddy’s mouth twitches, but he raises a hand and swipes a good-bye.

  “I’ll walk you to your car,” I say.

  “Bridget?” Uncle Obe calls as I follow my father.

  “Yes?”

  Once Daddy is gone from sight, he says, “Anything goin’ on between you and this J.C.?”

  A lie tempts me, nearly justified as it is by Daisy’s watchful gaze, but I say, “Not anymore.”

  He nods. “Come see me before you and the kids leave. I might have somethin’ you can do to help me.”

  “Something to do with J.C.?”

  “Maybe.”

  I start to protest but say, “I’ll drop by before we leave.”

  I catch my father as he slides into his car and lay a hand on the door to prevent him from closing it. “Did you tell Caleb what you overheard of my conversation with Piper?”

  His face puckers with distaste and denial, self-righteous in its intensity.

  “Daddy, the truth.”

  He remains puffed up awhile longer, then sags. “I told him. But I did it for you. I thought he’d make you a good husband, give you the life you deserve, a life like Bonnie’s.”

  Heard that before. Too bad he doesn’t understand me well enough to know that would not be a good fit.