The bunny hopped around the tombstone, and two little guys followed her. Seth sat very still and watched the two babies bravely get out a few feet and then hop back to their mother when something spooked them. “I hated those two years after Daddy left, Mama, but you were like that bunny. You took care of us and you were strong. I don’t think I’ve ever thanked you for the food we had on the table or the shoes on our feet.”
He was still baring his soul when he heard the truck door slam and the engine start up. It was too soon for Emmy Jo to return. Maybe she’d broken up with that kid. Nothing good ever came from Jesse Grady’s bloodline. He checked his watch and was surprised to find that an hour had passed and it was time to go.
“Where to? Dairy Queen for ice cream?” she asked cheerfully.
“That’s the routine.” He waited for her to bring the walker before he stood up. He’d tried getting around in his bedroom that morning without the cursed thing and had done fine. But the uneven ground might send him tumbling, and he didn’t want to endure an assistant for more than eight weeks.
She drove to town and pulled up to the drive-through window, ordering a small cup of vanilla and a medium cup of the same. She handed off one to Seth and set hers in the cup holder below the console.
“So you decided on a cup instead of a cone?” He grinned.
“Yep.” She nodded. “When I saw how much they put in your cup last week, I figured out that you get more for your money that way.”
He chuckled. “Well, then, maybe you are smarter than you look.”
“Hey, now!” She shook her finger at him.
“I’m just speakin’ the truth. Take it however you want.”
“Then I will take it as a compliment. Now to the cabin?” she asked.
He shoved a spoonful of ice cream into his mouth and nodded again.
She hummed the whole way across town to the two-room house and was still at it when she retrieved his walker. He remembered the days when he’d hummed all the way home from the creek banks. In those days, he’d been in love, too.
When they were settled on the porch, she turned up the cup and drank what ice cream had melted before she dug in with the plastic spoon.
“Look, Seth!” She pointed past him toward the end of the porch. “The first rose of spring. Was pink your mama’s favorite color?”
“No, purple was. She loved lilacs best of all, but she had green thumbs. She started those roses from slips. She put a stem in the ground and covered it with a glass jar until it rooted.” He waved a hand toward the end of the house. “She’s got red ones at the back porch, pink ones on this end, and yellow ones under the kitchen window.”
“Holy smoke! Some of the roots on those things are more than seventy years old?” Emmy Jo exclaimed.
“Or older. There were roses here when my folks got married, too,” he answered.
“My granny is good with roses, but she’s real partial to red. Her flower bed is the best-kept one in the whole trailer park. Her mother started some of the roses that she’s got. Makes me wonder if some of hers might have come from the red ones in your backyard. Maybe her mama and yours swapped slips way back when.”
Emmy Jo was like a hound dog on that subject, but he didn’t want to hear about Tandy Massey. Not her flower beds or her roses. He didn’t want to picture her back when she was a feisty teenager.
Emmy Jo had continued talking through his silence, perhaps accepting his avoidance of that topic. “I’ve been thinkin’ about your mother and how life must’ve been with her growing up in the church. It had to be hard on her not to go back there.”
Seth had been there the day that the ladies in the church had shunned her, and he’d seen her walk out of the church, her head held high and her back ramrod straight. He’d been so angry that he’d wanted to set fire to the place.
“It wasn’t as hard to leave the church where Jesse preached as it was the church where your grandmother goes now,” he said.
“She went to both?”
“Yes, she did,” he answered.
Emmy Jo waited, afraid to press him for more. Yet there was something inside her that wanted answers, that wanted to know about Mary, about Seth, that superseded natural curiosity.
“Mama finished school a year early, so she was only sixteen when she graduated. She was engaged to a man named Luke Simmons. They were planning a Christmas wedding that year. He already had a little church over near Loving and he was going to start as their preacher right after Thanksgiving.”
He paused and stared at the lonesome little rose for a long time. Emmy Jo bit her tongue against the dozens and dozens of questions begging for answers.
“It was July 4.” His voice cracked and he swallowed hard.
Emmy Jo wanted to hug him, but she thought he might push her away, so she stayed in her place.
“There was a picnic at her best friend Lillian’s house. Her father, Alfred Conroy, was a deacon in the church.”
Another long pause. Emmy Jo didn’t know if that was all she’d get that day or not. Then he went on. “Alfred offered to take her home at the end of the evening.”
His gray eyebrows knit into a solid line, and he sighed. “I didn’t think deacons were supposed to drink. Maybe he didn’t except on holidays, but from what Dad said he was very drunk. Instead of taking my mother back to the parsonage, he drove down to Hickory Creek and—”
“Oh! No!” Emmy Jo didn’t want to hear the rest of the story.
“He raped my mother, and then he drove away and she had to walk all the way to the church in humiliation with her clothes all mussed. Sam Thomas was sitting on the curb in front of a bar south of town when she walked past. He didn’t say a word to her, but he knew something bad had happened. He figured her father would kill whoever hurt her, and he staggered back here to sleep off his drunk.”
Emmy Jo fought back tears. How would she ever write this chapter in her story?
“She told her father and mother, and they not only refused to believe her, they packed her bags and kicked her out. You can imagine how the rumors went. I expect that the preacher and his wife took the easy way out—it could have ended his career. That don’t make it right.”
“Where did she go?” Emmy Jo whispered.
“She went to Luke’s house. But he’d heard something. I imagine the good reverend took the time to talk ugly about my mother so her words wouldn’t mean anything. Luke met her right on the porch and turned her away. He said that he couldn’t marry a woman like her.”
Emmy Jo’s chest tightened. Her heart ached. Her stomach turned. She couldn’t begin to imagine the pain Seth had gone through at sixteen when he found this out about his mother. It was so painful to her, all these years later, that she thought she wanted to throw herself on the ground and weep for hours. “No!” She slapped the porch post.
“Yes.” Seth’s voice was packed with emotion even in one word. “She had a few dollars in her purse, so she went to the hotel.”
Emmy Jo frowned. “Hotel?”
Seth shrugged. “It used to stand where the grocery store is now. My dad sobered up and went back to the bar that evening. You can imagine what all the men were talking about. Instead of drinking, Sam went straight to the hotel and proposed to my mother. He promised her that he would never drink again if she would marry him.”
“My heart hurts for her.” Emmy Jo swiped an angry tear from her cheek.
“Mine broke when I read that letter,” Seth said. “Dad felt responsible for her miserable state. If he hadn’t spooked those horses, she wouldn’t have been adopted and she would have been raised by her real parents. He felt like everything that had happened to her was his fault. Marrying her would fix it, I guess he thought.”
Seth’s chin quivered, but he went on. “At first she refused, said she wasn’t worthy anymore to be any man’s bride. He was finally able to convince her that it was her only social option—the town had turned its back on her. They went to Graham the next morning and got married a
t the courthouse.”
“Oh, Seth, that’s horrible. I can’t begin to imagine how you must have felt when you read that,” she said.
“The first time made me violently ill. I carried a lot of anger with me for a very long time,” he admitted. “It’s still not all gone.”
“Well, that’s understandable,” she said.
They sat in silence for the rest of the hour, Emmy Jo trying to digest what he’d told her. Trying to feel the emotions that Mary did that evening and the next few days as her whole world crumbled around her—going from a parsonage to this small house, from being a preacher’s daughter to the town’s slut.
So that’s why everyone in town still gossiped about Mary Thomas. They didn’t have any idea what had really happened, and if they did, they still wouldn’t believe a deacon would be capable of such a horrible thing. Oh, my! She slapped a hand over her mouth. Was Seth the product of that rape? She couldn’t ask, and yet she couldn’t get it out of her mind.
He went on, his voice sounding as if it were coming from far away. “The next Sunday she got dressed and walked to church, held her head up high and went right to the front pew. Her mother went over and sat down beside her, whispered a few words in her ear, and she got up and left. Dad said she came home with tears flowing down her face,” Seth said.
“And that’s when she started going to the other church?” Emmy Jo asked.
“No, she didn’t go to church again until seven months later, when I was born. I was so tiny that the doctor said I wouldn’t make it through the night. I was probably three months premature and only weighed about three pounds. In those days, babies who were born that early didn’t live. Dad said that she promised God she’d go to church somewhere if he’d let me live. She started going to the little church where Tandy goes now, and she never missed a Sunday until after my dad left us.”
“Seven months! I bet the rumormongers had a field day with that,” Emmy Jo said, glad that he didn’t belong to that horrible man.
“Right after I was born, Luke married Lillian, and Alfred escorted his daughter down the aisle. Preacher Roberts performed the ceremony. The morning that my mother was kicked out of the preacher’s house and went to Luke’s place, she told him what had happened, but he didn’t believe her. Or maybe he did, but he knew that marrying a woman who—well, you understand—would kill his career as a preacher. I don’t know what was in his mind, but my dad said that he played the poor, put-upon fiancé who’d been jilted for the town drunk. Then when I was born early, it solidified his standing.”
“She should have yelled it from the rooftops and told the police,” Emmy Jo said.
“I guess after her parents and Luke all turned their backs on her, she didn’t figure anyone would ever take her word over Alfred’s. He was a pretty big name in Hickory in those days.”
“And her best friend turned on her, too. That’s too much for any woman to have to bear,” Emmy Jo said. “I wish you could tell me that your dad buried them in the woods.” She made a mental note to ask Edith about Alfred next time she went to the library.
Seth smiled. “So did I at one time. That’s enough for this day. It’s time to go home and heat up leftover chicken and dumplings for our supper.”
After that story, Emmy Jo could agree that it was enough for that day, but on another day, she wanted more. She had to know everything.
Warm wind whipped the sheer curtains back away from the open balcony doors that evening when Emmy Jo opened her computer. She quickly wrote down Alfred, Luke, and Lillian’s names so that she could look them up in the newspapers on her next day off. Edith would surely remember something, too. That lady loved to talk.
Then she began to write. Emotions flooded through her as she imagined the day at Lillian’s house, how they’d likely giggled and talked about Mary’s upcoming marriage to Luke and maybe even discussed whom her friend was interested in. After a picnic meal shared on a quilt with Luke and his friends, there would have been fireworks and then . . .why didn’t Luke take her home? Was he called away on a visit for someone who was sick?
She inserted a line of question marks to fill in later and with a heavy heart went on to the next part of the chapter. Did Alfred tell her that he knew she’d been putting out to Luke? What kind of language would they have used in 1934? They might have said she’d been sleeping with Luke rather than having sex, since that word was still mentioned in whispers in Tandy’s circles. She made a note to look up the wording when she could hook up to Wi-Fi.
When she finally crawled between the sheets that night, the emotion of the day sent tears to her eyes again. Her phone pinged, so she picked it up from the nightstand and found a text from Logan: Call me. I’m worried.
She checked her messages and found that he’d sent six more texts since they’d parted in the cemetery. She quickly hit “Speed Dial,” and he answered on the first ring.
“Is everything okay?” Logan asked. “I was about to call you.”
“It’s fine. What’s going on there?” she answered.
“You sound like you’ve been crying. Are you sure everything is okay?”
She knew every nuance in his voice, and his tone spoke volumes. “Just a little tired, but Seth and I had a good day. He’s opening up to me and talking to me more, so I feel like I’m accomplishing a little of my goal to make him like me.” She wiped away a tear. “Now tell me about your day.”
“Diana came over and made supper for us, so I washed up the dishes to give them some alone time,” he said. “I just wanted to hear your voice tonight. Go to bed and dream of me, darlin’. In only a few weeks we’ll be together forever.”
“That day can’t arrive soon enough,” she whispered.
“Amen,” he said.
She laid the phone to one side and shut her eyes, but then they popped wide open. “But today didn’t have anything to do with Seth and Jesse and my grandmother. That’s still a mystery.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
Tuesday morning Emmy Jo arrived at Libby’s to find her grandmother already in a booth awaiting her with a smile. Breakfast had been ordered, but Emmy Jo didn’t think that had anything to do with her mood.
“Did you win at bingo?”
“If you weren’t up there in that godforsaken mansion, you’d know the news and the gossip. But yes, I did win. Did you bring the brownies?”
“I did. I was surprised when you called and said that we could have breakfast before we went to the trailer for brownies and milk,” she said.
“I’ve decided that you might bring me luck,” Tandy said. “And I’ll take a couple of brownies with me. I’ve got to go to the church; I volunteered to do some cleaning today.”
“Well, at least we get to have breakfast together. Maybe next week I’ll come to the trailer.”
“Sure,” she said. “Now tell me about what’s happened since I saw you last.”
“Pretty much just settling into routine. I really like Sundays, when we go to the cemetery and then to the cabin.”
“Cabin?” Tandy asked.
“The place where he grew up.” Emmy Jo dug into her food.
“You mean that shanty?”
Emmy Jo bristled. “He calls it a cabin. It’s peaceful there, even if it does need a little paint.”
“Don’t you take that tone with me,” Tandy shot back.
“Then don’t call it a shanty. It sounds . . .” She paused.
“You can make a purse out of a hog’s ear, but it don’t make it a fancy one,” Tandy said. “Cabin makes that place sound all la-di-da, like his big old mansion up there on the hill, but it is what it is.”
“What it is, is peaceful and I like being there. I can almost feel his mama’s spirit in the place.”
Tandy sipped her coffee. “Well, who in the hell would want to feel the spirit of Mary Thomas’s ghost? For God’s sake, Emmy Jo, you know about that woman. What kind of spell has Seth got you under to be wanting to commune with his dead mother?”
“I�
��m not under any spell,” Emmy Jo said. “And I do feel peaceful at the cabin, as if angels are watching over me.”
“And you don’t feel peaceful in our trailer?”
Emmy Jo counted to ten before she answered. “Of course I do, Granny. Let’s eat; our eggs are getting cold. I remember a sassy old girl who told me once that cold eggs ain’t even fit for the dogs.”
Tandy grinned. “She’s a pretty smart old girl.”
“Oh, yes, she is.”
Customers trickled out of the little café as they finished, so Diana’s mother had time to pull up a chair and visit. The three of them chatted about Diana’s Christmas wedding, which would now happen in Tandy’s church. Emmy Jo noticed that Tandy couldn’t hide her smile at the thought that Jesse Grady’s family was missing out. No way would Tandy ever set foot in the church where Wyatt Grady preached.
It was after ten when Emmy Jo finally reached the library. Edith was busy straightening books and Emmy Jo tried to sneak into the newspaper room, but the woman had the hearing of a bat.
“Well, good morning. I wondered if I might see you,” Edith said. “What are you researching today?”
Emmy Jo glanced over at the magazine table surrounded by four comfortable chairs. “Would you have time to tell me what you know about some of the older residents? I can look it all up, but if you already know . . .”
“Oh, honey.” Edith beamed. “Come right on over here and sit down where we can be comfortable. Who are you interested in? My family has been in Hickory since the sixth day of creation, so I know all about everyone.”
“It’s Alfred Conroy.”
“Oh, he was a pillar in town. Deacon of the church. Had his finger in lots of goin’s-on around here. Was on the town council, I think, and even served as chamber president for a few years. Almost got appointed to be the mayor, but then the bad thing happened,” Edith said.
“What bad thing?” Emmy Jo held her breath.
“His only child died. You see it was like this.” Edith went on to tell about how Lillian and Mary Roberts had always been friends and how the friendship ended when Mary took up with Sam Thomas.
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