The Lilac Bouquet

by Carolyn Brown

  Emmy Jo wiggled in her chair. “He thought you belonged to him, didn’t he?” Her heart raced, and her palms went sweaty. The man must have gone through hell with the guilt eating away at his soul all those years.

  Seth exhaled loudly. “Yes, he did. Maybe it was because his only child died and he had no one, or maybe the brain cancer messed with his mind, but he left his entire estate to me. Overnight I was a rich man, with more money than Midas.”

  So that’s where the money came from. Seth had inherited it, plain and simple. Who Tandy’s child belonged to would sure take a backseat to that well-kept secret. She held her breath and waited, then remembered that for the first time he’d initiated the conversation, so maybe by the time he finished, she’d know everything.

  “I bought a new sofa and a new bed and a bookcase,” he said. “After that, if I wanted a property, I bought it, until I owned half the town.”

  Emmy Jo let that sink in for several minutes before she asked, “Did you ever buy your family land back from the Gradys?”

  His chin lowered to his chest, and he looked up at her from under a furrowed brow. “Took twenty years, but Jesse’s dad was retiring and Jesse didn’t want the place. He was into the preachin’ business by then, so I bought it through one of my corporations and he didn’t know that I was the buyer until after the deal was signed and sealed,” Seth said. “You do realize that no one else in the world knows this, Emmy Jo?”

  Are you telling me about your finances because I’m your great-granddaughter or because I’m your friend? Or because I helped you make a bucket list?

  “What did you do with the land?” she asked instead of voicing her true questions.

  “I tried to get my sister to come back here and live on the farm, but she liked city life, so I’ve leased it for years,” he said. “You and Logan want the house? I’ll give it to you as a wedding present.”

  “Your ancestral home? Don’t tease me, Seth.”

  “I’m not teasing. One of the things on my bucket list is to do something big and something nice for a pesky, smart-ass kid.” He grinned. “It’s not as big as this place. Tell you what—you can have your choice. This one or that one.”

  “No, no, and no!” she said.

  “Why? I’ll end up giving it all to charity when I’m dead anyway.” He removed the paper and wrote on it.

  “You are going to have to live to be a hundred to do all the things you are putting on that list,” she said, her mind spinning in circles at his offer.

  “If I did, I couldn’t spend all the money I have made over the years,” he told her. “Know what I wrote just now? I’m going to buy my own jet airplane so I don’t have to fly commercial. I’m too damned old to drive to Galveston to get on a cruise ship or to Nashville to go to the Opry.”

  “That’ll mean hiring a pilot, or are flying lessons on your list?”

  “Oh, no! I’m eighty-two, and I am going to learn to live,” he told her with conviction. “I’m thinking that I might spend everything I’ve got before I die.”

  Emmy Jo laid her notebook aside and applauded. “Now, that should be at the top of your list.”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  A nice breeze ruffled the new spring leaves on the trees in the cemetery. Bright sunshine warmed the day without making it hot. Birds chirped away as they flitted around, keeping the cemetery cleared of gnats and bugs. Baby squirrels used the tombstones for an obstacle course, romping and playing on them like a jungle gym.

  It didn’t hurt as badly that day when Seth bent to remove the old bouquet and put a new one on his mother’s grave. He settled into his chair and motioned for Emmy Jo to go on and visit with Tandy, who waited on down the road a hundred yards. When she was out of hearing distance, he sighed.

  “Mama, Emmy Jo has changed my life. There’s a chance after the doctor clears me that I won’t be here every single Sunday. I’ve made a bucket list. You would laugh at the idea.” He held his face up to the sun and enjoyed the warmth.

  “What goes on in heaven, Mama? On some level do you know that I’m here?” He chuckled, looked down, and laid a hand on the quilt that had covered his mother’s bed the whole time he was growing up. “Did you use Nora to send Emmy Jo to me? Right now I don’t even care how it all happened. I’m just glad she came into my life even at this late date, because she’s opened my eyes.”

  A tiny sparrow lit on the lilacs and cocked its head one way and then the other at him before it flew away. Three squirrels played chase over his mother’s tombstone and then used it for a game of king of the mountain. Life was going on all around him, and Seth was finally ready to embrace it.

  “But it’s scary. I’ve done nothing for so long that I’m not sure I know how to step out into the crazy world,” he whispered. “I think maybe I’ll go on a cruise. That doesn’t sound quite as daunting as riding a motorcycle. And Mama, what do you think of me offering to let Emmy Jo have her wedding at my house?”

  The little sparrow returned, perched on the bouquet, and then pulled a silk petal from one of the flowers and flew straight up with it. Seth followed it to a tree limb above his head, where the bird wove that bit of purple into its nest. He smiled and nodded. “It don’t get much plainer than that, Mama. It’s never too late to build a nest, is it?”

  I want to be a grandfather even if she never sees fit to call me Grandpa. I want to be something more than a friend to her, Mama. If she’s willin’, I’d even let her live in the big house with me. She and Logan could have the whole upper floor. Wouldn’t it be something if I lived long enough to see their children and hear laughter in that big old place?

  With the car windows down, Tandy lurked behind the wheel when Emmy Jo bent at the waist and peeked in through the passenger side. “Want to talk inside the car or get out and sit on the grass?”

  “Inside is fine, unless you’ve got folding chairs for us like Seth has.”

  Emmy Jo left the door open to get more air in the car. “You didn’t bring me a brownie?”

  “Well, you didn’t bring me a million dollars, so we’re even,” Tandy said.

  “No, we’re not. Who is my great-grandfather?”

  Tandy sputtered and stammered and finally threw up both hands. “Dammit, Emmy Jo, I’ve told you that’s in the past and I’m not talking about it. You know that I was not a little Goody Two-shoes, and you also know that I got right with the Lord.” She wiped her brow with the back of her hand and stared straight ahead.

  “Is it Jesse Grady? Is that why you’ve always hated Logan?” Emmy Jo blurted out. Emmy Jo knew the answer, but she wanted to hear her grandmother’s side of the story.

  Tandy set her mouth in a firm line and looked out the side window. “Seth has been talking to you, hasn’t he? What has he told you about me?”

  “He didn’t tell me anything. When I pressured him to tell me about you, he said I should talk to you. I’ve been spending a lot of time at the library looking up things about you and Seth and Jesse, as well as Rose. Did Rose belong to Jesse?” She had to push her grandmother or they’d never move forward.

  Tandy pointed down the road. “What is he saying? Has he lost his mind in his old age? People do that when they shut themselves up in the house and do nothing for twenty years. They completely lose sight of reality and begin to think the dead can hear them. And what’s that in his lap?”

  “You’re changing the subject.”

  Tandy didn’t say a word for several moments. “He has lost his mind, hasn’t he? Do you have to feed him? Does he wear a drooling bib?”

  “I do not have to feed him. He reads about half a dozen newspapers every morning from front to back, and he loves the old classic country music, just like you do. And it’s not insane if he talks to his mama once a week; it’s therapy. And that is a quilt in his lap. It holds a memory of his mother, I’m sure, but I haven’t asked,” Emmy Jo said tersely.

  Tandy’s head jerked around so she could glare at Emmy Jo. “Whose side are you on? I’m your grandmoth
er. I raised you and did right by you. All Seth has done is tell you stuff to confuse you and give you a big paycheck.”

  “Well, since you brought it up, why don’t you want me to marry Logan? And I’d like an honest answer. Is it because we share a bloodline all the way back to Jesse? Did you sleep with him?” Emmy Jo pushed again.

  “Humph.” Tandy snorted. “I will not answer those damn fool questions. And if this is the way you’re going to treat me, then get out of my car.”

  “You have always answered every question I asked, Granny,” Emmy Jo said softly as she got out and slammed the door shut. “But for your information, I’m not kin to Jesse in any way, so if that’s why you hate Logan, it can end.”

  “How do you know that?” Tandy’s voice was little more than a stunned whisper.

  “We both have things we aren’t going to talk about, but I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that Rose was not Jesse’s daughter. With all of our blood types, it’s not possible.”

  “Well, shit!” Tandy groaned. “I ain’t sayin’ nothin’ more.”

  “See you Tuesday morning for breakfast at Libby’s. Be thinking about telling me just who else could be my great-grandfather,” Emmy Jo said and walked away.

  As she neared Seth, he looked up and smiled. “I’m ready to go for ice cream. I think I’ll have chocolate today.”

  “Really? I thought vanilla was your favorite.” She started toward the car for his walker.

  “And I don’t need that thing today. Just let me rest my hand on your shoulder. Those exercises the doctor made me do have been working. I think I’m ready to give up the walker. That’s two things off my bucket list.”

  “Good for you! Two big changes in one day.” She folded his chair, took his quilt, and put them away and then came back to lend a shoulder for support. “So chocolate, huh? If you are going out on a limb, maybe I’ll try one of those lemon chillers.”

  “Change is in the air. Must be summer on the way.” He got comfortable and fastened his seat belt.

  He opted for a chocolate malt, and she got a lemon chiller. They carried them to the porch, his left hand on her shoulder until he could grip the porch post for support to get up the steps. Then he went to the rocking chair and eased down into it. She sat down in her regular spot and used a post for a back brace.

  “This is really good, but I like vanilla ice cream better,” she said.

  “I’m with you. Vanilla ice cream is better,” he agreed. “Did you miss Logan on Thursday?”

  “Yes, I did. I thought when he went away to college, it would be terrible, but I got to see him every weekend. I can’t remember a time when we had to live on text messages and phone calls this long. But it’s only for a few more weeks. Do you realize that tomorrow I’ll be your assistant a whole month?”

  Seth kicked off the rocking motion with his good leg. “What are we going to do to celebrate? Got another movie in mind that we could watch?”

  “Nothing comes to mind, but when we leave here we could go to the movie store in Graham and see what they’ve got to sell or to rent. How would you like to watch The Sacketts? They made a television miniseries about them.”

  His old eyes glittered. “Are you serious? Can I buy it?”

  “I’m serious,” she said.

  “Does either of those two actors we saw in The Bucket List play in it?”

  “No, but Sam Elliott does. You kind of remind me of him, with your hair and mustache,” she answered.

  Seth’s chest seemed to puff out a bit. “Really? You think I look a little like a movie star?”

  “Wait until you see him,” Emmy Jo answered. “It’s like looking at your doppelgänger. You even sound like him.”

  “Well, what are we waiting for? Let’s go buy movies.”

  She finished her lemon chiller and tugged her bright-blue T-shirt down when she stood up. “You have to tell me more about your years in the real estate business while we drive, okay? But I need to tell you that Granny wouldn’t own up to anything today. I told her that Jesse was not Rose’s father, but I’m going to have to wait until Tuesday to make her talk to me.”

  “No hurry,” he said. “But there’s not much to tell there. Clifford died and everyone thought I’d saved enough money to buy the business and life went on.”

  But there is a hurry, because I want to know for absolute sure.

  Emmy Jo whipped her red hair up into a ponytail before she started the engine. “Did they begin to understand that you could buy the whole town, plow it under, and plant turnips on it if you wanted?”

  “No, I was still that Thomas kid who’d finally gotten a business in town. They came to me to sell their property, to buy property, and to take care of surveying for them,” he said. “Some of the old diehards didn’t like dealing with me, but they were afraid to say too much. After all, I knew every single man who walked under that red light on our porch.”

  She giggled as she put the car in gear and backed out onto the road. “And then you went to visit Nora and fell in love, right?”

  “We’ll talk about that another day,” he said. “Right now I’m interested in watching The Sacketts.”

  “You might like Lonesome Dove, too. It was made into a miniseries that is still available to buy,” she suggested as they left Hickory behind them.

  “Oh, I do want that one, too.” His voice reminded her of a little kid’s on Christmas morning.

  “Granny got on a kick and watched Westerns for a whole summer when I was about thirteen,” she said.

  “One of the things on my bucket list is to watch a movie at least once a week. I might buy enough to last all summer.”

  “Or two weeks if you watch one every day.”

  He slapped his good leg and grinned. “You know what the nice thing about actually owning movies is? I can watch them over and over and study the characters.” He pulled his yellow paper from his shirt pocket and crossed off something.

  Look at us now. Seth Thomas is my friend. I wonder if I could convince him to walk me down the aisle at my wedding. Then I’d show the whole town that not only am I breaking the Massey curse, but that Seth Thomas is a good man.

  Graham was not a busy town at three o’clock on a Sunday afternoon. Very few cars were on the streets and most of the stores were closed, but the movie store out on the edge of town was open until five, so they had plenty of time.

  “You are going to use your walker. It’s not an option,” she said.

  He unfastened his seat belt and swung the door open. “I don’t need it.”

  “Trust me and don’t argue. You are going to take it inside and use the seat part to sit on, because this is not going to be a five-minute trip. It will take you a while to figure out what you want to buy or rent,” she told him.

  “It will take me three minutes. I want everything they have about the Sacketts and whatever movies any of Larry McMurtry’s books have been made into.”

  “What about Hatfields and McCoys? I was thinking maybe that would be our celebration movie, since it’s about six hours long. We could spend the whole afternoon with it and maybe even have supper in the office if it’s not finished.”

  “Get the walker out,” he said.

  He truly felt like a kid let loose in a candy store with ten dollars in his pocket. He kept handing Emmy Jo movies until the basket was full. She took it to the front of the store and brought it back empty, and he started all over again.

  “Why didn’t you do this years ago?” she asked.

  “Like I said, I preferred a book, but I’m going to make up for lost time now,” he answered as he handed her a copy of Quigley Down Under. “This one looks good, too. It’s got a Sackett in it, even if he’s not a Sackett.”

  “Don’t you want some of the newer movies?” she asked.

  “Maybe after I watch all these a few times, we’ll come back for more.”

  “Seth, it’s going to take you months to watch all these movies. I’ll only be with you another four weeks,” she
said.

  “What if I paid you double what you make now to quit your other job and be my assistant full time?” He put one more DVD in the basket and stood up.

  “Don’t tease me,” she said.

  “Who says that I’m jokin’? We can discuss it later. Right now, let’s pay for this and go home. We can stop by the Dairy Queen and have a burger for supper. When we get home maybe we can watch one of the Sackett movies together.”

  “Wow! You are getting daring. No dumplings for supper?” She carried the basket to the front of the store.

  He whipped a credit card from his pocket and signed the receipt. She carried two bags to the car and got everything loaded in. “You serious about a burger? Ever tried a bacon cheeseburger?”

  “No, but it sounds good. And there’s something I really want to talk to you about on the way.” He took a deep breath. “How much is the rent on the trailer that Logan is looking at?”

  She shrugged. “I have no idea.”

  “When we get parked, call him and ask him.”

  “Why?”

  “I’m about to make you an offer you can’t refuse.”

  She giggled. “I read The Godfather and saw the movie. If I refuse will I find a dead horse head in my bed?”

  “You are too young to have read that book. It’s almost fifty years old.”

  “Had to read it for psychology class, but I liked it, so I rented the movie and watched it, too,” she said. “Dead horse?”

  “No, I’d be afraid of what you’d do to get back at me.” He laughed.

  She pulled into a parking place right in front of the café and fished her phone from her purse. Her thumbs worked double time over a tiny keyboard, and then she hit an icon on the screen. In only a few seconds the response came back and she sent back a smiley face.

  “The trailer will be six hundred fifty a month,” she said.

  Seth shut his eyes and swallowed hard. “My farmhouse is empty right now. You can have it as part of the package if you will agree to be my assistant. I’ll give you the month of June off for your honeymoon and wedding, pay your insurance, and match every dollar that you put into retirement. When I’m home, you will work for me Monday through Friday from nine to five with Friday afternoons off. If I’m not home, then all you have to do is check on the house every few days and call me once a day. Think about it.”