The Wedding Tree

by Robin Wells

  “That’s right, Mom.” Eddie was at my elbow, his round face beaming. “Hope sent me some of your work from the sixties and I’ve had copies made, and we’ve got buyers already lined up.”

  “Well, goodness gracious!” This was all too amazing to take in—and in the midst of it, people kept coming up and telling me how much they treasured photos I’d taken of them or their loved ones.

  Among the display of townspeople was one that didn’t belong there—one that I had hidden in the bottom of my closet: the photo of a young airman in uniform, smiling just a bit. But the one that made my heart turn over and nearly overflow with emotion was a photo of Charlie on the porch of our house, my favorite photo of him.

  “Oh my,” I murmured.

  The mayor clanged a spoon against his beer mug, and the roar of the crowd shushed to a murmur. He tapped it again, and the room fell silent. “Ladies and gentlemen, if I could have your attention, please. As you know, we’ve gathered here to show Miss Addie our love and appreciation, and to give her a big send-off to California. Her son, Eddie, wants to say a few words.”

  Eddie edged his way to the coffee bar. “Mother always wanted to be a photojournalist.” He looked straight at me. “She worked as one during the war, and dreamed of traveling the world and capturing all of the important news of the day. She thought she’d put those dreams away when she had my sister and me. She thought she gave them up to raise her family and care for my father, and his parents, and her parents.” His gaze lingered on my face, full of love. We’d sat up late for five nights, talking, since he and Ralph had come to town, and I was eager to spend more time with them in California. “She might not have known it at the time, but she did capture all the important news of the day. She captured the highlights in the lives of everyone in this town.”

  “Darn tootin’!” Harvey Angus yelled. “And we sure do thank you for it!”

  The crowd laughed and burst into applause.

  “That’s right, Miss Addie,” said the mayor. “And we want you to know how very much you mean to all of us, and how much we appreciate all that you’ve contributed to our lives.”

  My eyes swam. Eddie was right—I had covered stories that were big and important and far-reaching, and I hadn’t even realized it.

  But it wasn’t my photography that was my major achievement. No, sir; my greatest achievement was my family. I looked at Eddie, his eyes shining with pride. My little Eddie, so teased in school, was happy and thriving, loved and loving, caring for the dental health of hundreds of patients. I thought of my brilliant Becky, so bright that men who made millions turned to her for advice on how to invest it. I thought of Charlie and his father, how they’d provided the supplies that had helped build and repair most of the homes in this town. I thought of my father, who’d talked many people out of foolish lawsuits they would have later regretted, lawsuits that would have ruined other people’s lives.

  I looked at Hope, my lovely, gifted granddaughter, talented beyond what she dared even dream for herself.

  Oh my goodness—what if we all are? What if everyone held so much potential that the world could barely contain it?

  Over the din of the crowd, I heard Mother’s voice. “See there, Addie? I told you that you needed to find out the truth. And the truth is . . . we are all so much more important than we know. We don’t have a clue how wide our ripples ride out on the waters of the world.”

  “You were right, Mother,” I whispered.

  “But so were you, child,” Mother replied. “So were you.”

  54

  hope

  What a wonderful party,” Peggy said as Eddie and Ralph led an exhausted Gran out the door. “I enjoyed it every bit as much as Miss Addie!”

  “Me, too,” said Aimee, picking up an empty glass.

  “Me, three,” said Kirsten, rolling up the white butcher paper that had served as tablecloths.

  “Thank you so much for putting this together.” I looked at Kirsten and the other women, affection forming a knot in my throat. “Gran was so moved.”

  “It was our pleasure.” Lauren smiled at me. “And speaking of moved, you’ve done wonders, getting her home shipshape in such a short time. It ought to sell quickly. I just learned that a major communications company is moving its headquarters here, so about a hundred new people will be relocating to Wedding Tree.”

  Lucky them. I added another cake-smeared paper plate to the stack in my left hand.

  “Speaking of moving, Jillian called this afternoon and told me she’d accepted a teaching job in Atlanta,” Peggy said.

  Everyone murmured at once.

  “No!”

  “Really?”

  “Why?”

  Peggy lifted her shoulders. “She said she wanted a fresh start.”

  “She’s going to join us at the beach tomorrow!” Zoey said.

  I knelt down. “It sounds like a wonderful time.”

  “Yeah,” Sophie said, “But she’s movin’ away. An’ you’re moving, too.” Her eyes filled with tears. “Why does everyone have to go away?”

  The lump in my throat grew bigger. “So new people can come. Maybe you’ll get new neighbors with children you can play with.”

  “But they won’t give us painting lessons.”

  “Or tell stories about Mr. Monkey!”

  Tears tracked down both girls’ faces. My eyes were getting pretty watery, too.

  “I love you, Mizz Hope,” Sophie said solemnly.

  “Yeah.” Zoey nodded.

  “Oh, I love you, too!” I gave them both a big hug, touched by the easy way they said the words I didn’t dare voice to their father. Their warm little bodies smelled like outdoors and cake and banana-scented sunblock, and I thought my heart might crack. I kissed their cheeks. “Have a wonderful summer.”

  “Can we come see you in ’cago?”

  I blinked back my tears. How was I supposed to answer that? “I’d love it if you did.”

  Thank God Griff came to the rescue. “Hey, girls—who wants a piggyback ride to the car?”

  “I do!”

  “Me, too!”

  Moods instantly elevated, both girls tried to climb on his back.

  “Hey, Matt, come over and saddle up, too,” Griff called.

  Matt dropped the paper plates he was gathering into the trash and came over. Sophie jumped on his back. “I’ll take them to the car, then come right back,” he said.

  “You should go on home and tuck them in,” I told him. “This is the last night before their beach trip.”

  He nodded. “Come over when you get through here,” he murmured to me.

  Sophie hugged his neck. “Bye!” she called to me.

  “Bye.” Zoey waved.

  I forced a smile and waved back. My throat felt as if I’d swallowed a goose egg as I watched them head out the door.

  • • •

  It was after eleven when I stepped onto Matt’s back deck.

  He was waiting for me. “Quite a party,” he said, handing me a glass of wine as I settled beside him on the glider.

  “Yeah. Gran was still excited when I got home.”

  He put his arm around me. It felt so right and warm. I just wanted to stay there forever. My heart constricted in my chest. “What time does your big trial start?”

  “At nine in the morning. But I have a staff breakfast at six thirty.”

  “You better get to bed, then.”

  His hand moved to the back of my neck. “I can think of something that could help me relax.”

  My pulse started a familiar tattoo, but my heart was breaking. Tears threatened my eyes. “I’m really tired. And with Gran still awake, and Eddie and Ralph all in the house . . .”

  “I understand.” He stroked my hair. “I’m really looking forward to this weekend.”

  I nodded, bu
t my heart felt like a mass of coal. The weekend in New Orleans was a prelude to my move to Chicago. Our time together in Wedding Tree was practically over.

  “I can’t wait to get you all alone.” He moved my hair and kissed my neck.

  Oh God. How could I go away for a weekend with him? I would only fall more deeply in love, and leaving would be all the harder.

  He angled in for a kiss. I found myself holding back—and he must have felt it, too, because he pulled away and caressed my chin. “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah,” I murmured. “Just really drained.”

  “Go and get some sleep, then.” His finger flitted over my cheek. “I’m staying in Baton Rouge the next two nights, but I’ll be in touch, and I’ll see you Thursday afternoon. This is going to be the best weekend ever.”

  I gave my best imitation of a smile, then slipped off the porch and through the hedge, just as the tears I’d been holding back began to fall.

  55

  hope

  TWO DAYS LATER

  Chicago was hot, but it was a drier heat than in Louisiana. The wind blew my hair in my face as my friend Courtney and I walked into a coffee shop in Hyde Park.

  Courtney had left her husband in charge of her two toddlers and driven in from the suburbs to help me look at condos. “That last place was perfect,” she declared as we waited for the barista to complete our orders. “It had a great view, a balcony, a powder room as well as a full bath, and it was completely renovated. And those wide-planked hardwoods were to die for!”

  “Yeah. It was pretty nice.”

  “Nice?” Courtney’s eyes widened. “It was perfect!”

  And it was. The problem was, I couldn’t get up a head of steam about it.

  “The agent said you need to move fast,” Courtney reminded me. “There are five other interested buyers looking at it just today.”

  “Yeah, I know.”

  “So what are you waiting for?” Courtney demanded. “The place is fabulous, and it’s just a block from your work. There’s no way you’re going to find anything better.”

  She was probably right. The condo had plaster crown molding, vintage light fixtures, and many of the charming old-fashioned touches I loved, as well as all the modern updates I wanted. But it didn’t have a garden out back with azalea bushes. It didn’t have a swing in the backyard or the front porch. The sounds out of that bay window were of traffic and sirens, not wind rustling through the oaks. There was no screen door that neighbors could yoo-hoo through. The door opened into an overly lit narrow hallway that smelled vaguely of Chinese food.

  “Tell me one thing that’s wrong with it,” Courtney said.

  “It’s in Chicago.”

  She scrunched her forehead into a confused frown. “You want a place in the suburbs?”

  Being surrounded by children and families would only make me feel more lonely. I shook my head.

  “Oh, I get it. You’re pining for that guy in Louisiana.”

  I blew out a sigh and watched a woman cross the coffee shop, holding the hand of a little girl about Sophie’s age. “I think I’m pining for Louisiana, period.”

  “It’s just a matter of getting re-acclimated.” The barista put our drinks on the counter, and we headed for a table recently vacated by a guy working on a tablet. Courtney licked a bit of foam off the rim of her cup. “Look, you may not want to hear this, but as your friend, I feel the need to tell you anyway. Through no discernible effort of your own, you’ve landed one of the most sought-after jobs in the art world—a job that not only pays well but offers the opportunity to travel and meet fascinating people and influence what kind of art gets seen by thousands of people. That is power. That is a fabulous opportunity. And thanks to your newly discovered late grandfather, you can afford an incredible place to live. Frankly, I’m green with jealousy. Seems to me you’ve got the world by the tail. So what’s with the Debbie Downer attitude?”

  She was right. I was behaving like an ungrateful wretch. I put down my iced tea and leaned forward. “Here’s the thing—I rediscovered what I love about art. It’s not looking at it and assessing it and evaluating it as an investment prospect. I like making art, not making money for other people from it.”

  She lifted her shoulders. “So do both. Paint in your free time.”

  “I won’t have much free time.”

  “Well, that’s good. It’ll keep your mind off your Louisiana heartthrob. And you’re in the perfect situation for a job like this. It’s not like you’re tied down with a husband and kids.”

  Funny how this pep talk was doing just the opposite of what it was meant to do. My purse buzzed with the “Matt’s calling” ring.

  “Isn’t that your phone?”

  “Yes.”

  “You’re not going to even look at it?”

  I didn’t need to.

  “Ah. How long are you going to keep avoiding him?”

  I lifted my shoulders. My throat felt too tight to reply.

  After seeing Gran off with Eddie and Ralph yesterday, I’d grabbed the first plane to Chicago. I hadn’t trusted my resolve, so I’d waited to text Matt until after I’d landed.

  A weekend together would just make good-byes all the harder. Decided to spare us both and head back to Chicago early. Loved every minute with you.

  He’d immediately called me. I considered not answering, but I couldn’t do that to him.

  “You’re standing me up, and just leaving a text?” he’d demanded.

  “I don’t have anything else to say, other than what I wrote you.” Tears had pooled in my eyes as I waited for the baggage carousel to start. “I couldn’t enjoy the weekend, knowing it was just a long good-bye. I didn’t see the point in dragging things out.”

  “Who says it has to be good-bye? Last I heard, planes fly back and forth all the time.”

  My voice sounded choked and raw. “Matt, we both know a long-distance relationship won’t work. You struggle to make time for your kids as it is, and my new job will involve lots of weekend functions and travel.”

  “I thought we’d talk about all that this weekend.”

  “There’s nothing to talk about. I—I have to hang up now. I see my bag.”

  “Wait—you’re already in Chicago?”

  “Yeah. Sorry—gotta go.”

  He’d called right back. I hadn’t answered. He’d texted.

  This is a pretty one-sided decision.

  Please don’t make it harder than it needs to be.

  “That small town wouldn’t be the same without your grandmother there,” Courtney said, pulling me back to the moment.

  “I know,” I sighed.

  “And chances are, things wouldn’t have worked out with this guy. The fact you both knew it was going to be temporary might have been part of the appeal. That’s what makes a spring fling so romantic.”

  Was that all Matt and I had had together? A spring fling?

  No. There had been a lot more to it than that—on my end anyway. But falling for him wasn’t a good enough reason to give up the biggest career opportunity ever likely to come my way. If my experience with Kurt had taught me anything, it was that career decisions needed to be made solely by me, based on facts and sound reasoning, not emotion or persuasive arguments. I would be a fool to pass up this job.

  But some part of me—some wistful, old-fashioned, sentimental part, the same part that loved negligees and peignoirs and honeymoon words—would probably always secretly wonder otherwise.

  ONE MONTH LATER

  “I need you to go to an art festival in Miami next week.”

  I was sitting in my boss’s office, gazing at a massive Wintrope on her wall. I knew the painting was appraised at $750,000. I knew it was entitled Energy. All the same, I couldn’t help but think that the artist was running a scam, because it was nothing but a blob of orange on
solid red. I could have painted it in five minutes flat.

  “We’ll have several clients there,” Ms. McAbbee continued.

  I nodded.

  “And be sure and pack some evening clothes.” She looked at me in a way that meant she was trying to convey something she didn’t want to come right out and say. “I realize you’re new, but schmoozing is a very important part of what we do.”

  So she’d noticed I’d ducked out early and kept to myself at the last few events. After discussing a few other matters with her, I headed back to my office—I had an office to myself, a real office with a window!—and gazed out at the view.

  In the past month, I’d technically done everything I was supposed to do. I’d moved into a new apartment. I’d decided to take a short-term lease so I could look around and find something to buy that excited me as much as Gran was excited about her new city. (Gran and Snowball were happily settled in an assisted living apartment in San Francisco, two blocks from Eddie and Ralph. Ralph had set her up a Facebook account, convinced her to give digital cameras a try, and now she was regularly posting photos.)

  I’d bought new clothes. I’d gotten my hair trimmed. I’d even gotten a makeup makeover. I spent the day on the computer, looking at art, researching statistics, and finding comparables, and in the evenings, I was expected to go to gallery openings, galas, and other places collectors frequented. I was busy all the time, but I didn’t feel like I was accomplishing anything. I felt like a stand-in for someone else’s life.

  My phone rang. I recognized Gran’s number and quickly answered. “Hey—how are you doing?”

  “Just dandy. But I need to ask you to do a favor. I need you to go to Wedding Tree for the closing on the house.”

  Gran’s house had sold for full list price to an investment consortium the first week it was on the market.

  “Eddie can’t get away, and the closing company says they need someone from the family to be present to sign the papers.”

  “Can’t the attorney do it?”

  “Afraid not, dear.”