He heard someone clearing their throat softly and turned around. It was P.J. Dalton, probably staying behind to reassure him that everything would be okay, something his wife should have done if she had any heart. Dan had been feeling abandoned by her as well…
“How will they ever take me seriously now?” Dan asked plaintively.
“You don’t give yourself enough credit,” P.J. answered. “You inspire people with your words. Heck, you’re so good, you had me fooled.”
Dan stared at him. “What was that?”
“Everything you said about God. You sounded like his voice on earth.” The young man stepped closer, his expression not quite as adoring as before. “But clearly you’re not. A loving god would not do to your daughter what you just did.”
It was the reverend’s worst fear come to life. Damn Jess.
“You prove my point,” Dan said, throwing out his arms for emphasis. “If my most loyal believer doesn’t believe, how will anyone else?” His voice was thin and feeble.
“Oh, I still believe in God,” P.J. said, “but not in you.” He smiled enigmatically and left.
Dan was, for the first time, utterly dismantled, left with no idea how to do his life anymore. It wouldn’t go back to the way it was. Could he live with that, with whatever changes this day brought about? He wasn’t sure.
Chapter Eighty-Three
Jess’s heart leapt to her throat when she got to the house and saw the sedan parked in the drive. They were home.
She swallowed hard and turned the unlocked doorknob. When no one seemed to be downstairs, she rushed upstairs to grab her duffel bag. Exhausted and sweaty from her long trek, she breathlessly made her way down the hall to her bedroom. Before she entered it, she sensed that someone was already there. It was her mother.
“Jess.” That was all she said, all she needed to say. She’d been staring out the window, her fingers clutching her necklace. Now she turned to face her daughter.
Jess didn’t see the disapproving glare she was so familiar with. Not this time. There was something else she’d never seen before—understanding. Her mom reached her arms out to hug her—the most unexpected reaction Jess could have imagined. She hugged her a long time.
“I thought you hated me,” Jess said, still catching her breath.
“Of course not,” her mother said, holding her daughter by the shoulders. “I love you.”
“Dad always said I was born for a special purpose,” Jess said. “Maybe it was to piss people off. Especially him.”
Her mother smiled a bittersweet smile. “Some people need to be pissed off every now and then. Trying to stay calm all the time isn’t healthy.” She laughed to herself. “We used to think if you kids heard us arguing, it would scar you for life.” After a pause, “I’m sorry I let you down.” She seemed sincere.
Jess put her head down. “I get it. You were tryin’ to keep the peace.”
Realizing she hadn’t seen her father, she asked, “Where is he?” She looked around, afraid.
“He wanted to stay at the church for a while.” Her mother’s voice was eerily pleasant. Jess could usually sense the meaning in her tone. This tone meant something was either ending or beginning.
“What about Danny?” Jess asked.
“He had to work, but…” she added reluctantly. “He made me promise to tell you…” She struggled to say the words, “you’re badass.” She rolled her eyes. It sounded so funny coming from her, a proper lady. “His exact words.”
Jess laughed, then pulled her duffel bag out from under the bed. “I can’t stay, Mom. Everyone in town—”
“To hell with the town.”
It may have been the first curse word Jess ever heard uttered by her mother. She stopped a moment, surprised.
“If I stay, he’ll hate me. He’ll make me go to that Christian academy, won’t he?”
Her mom shook her head, exasperated. “It might be better, though. I mean, it can’t have been easy at the high school, especially without basketball.” It seemed she had finally put it all together and understood why Jess was no longer playing on the team.
“No.” Jess hung her head. “There’s another place I could go for my last year, I think. It’ll be easier for everyone.”
“Your father and I may have our differences, but we’ll work it out.” She collapsed on Jess’s bed and cried. “Running away doesn’t solve anything!”
“Mom.” She reached out to her.
She wiped her eyes and sat up, taking a deep, shaky breath. “The truth is, he said he doesn’t want to see you anymore. But he’s just angry now. It will pass.” Seeing Jess’s face, “I probably shouldn’t have told you that. But you’re my daughter!”
“It’s okay.” Jess stood up, gripping the handle of her bag. “I’m sorry to be somethin’ else you’re gonna have to work out.” She opened the top drawer, and stuffed what little cash she had into the duffel bag.
All her mother could do was sit and watch helplessly as another of her kids left. If only she could stop this…
“Jess,” her mother said. “No matter how upset you make me, I would never disown you.”
“But I can’t live with him.” Jess shook her head. She was done being treated like a criminal for something she no longer believed was a crime. She went for the door…
“Wait!” her mother called.
Chapter Eighty-Four
Jess and her mother sat in the dilapidated Greens Fork bus station, waiting for the bus with their tickets and bags in hand.
“You don’t have to go with me,” Jess said.
“I want to. I’ll make sure you’re all set up and safe and…” Her voice shook. “I think it’s a good idea, until things cool down.”
Jess covered her hand with her own to reassure her. “You got a way of talkin’ to him where he’ll listen.” She sounded like the wise elder, reversing roles with her mother just as Stephanie had to.
“Sometimes,” her mom said, “all the talking in the world doesn’t matter.” Then she stared ahead, thinking aloud to herself. “Got the checkbook, Danny’s staying at his friend’s house…Oh, and your father called. He’s meeting with an old friend, Barney someone. I think he’ll be back late.”
“It’ll be okay,” Jess said. She didn’t envy all the hard choices her mother had to make. But Jess herself had never felt so clear, so ready to face her life as herself and not as anyone else.
A bus going the other direction pulled out and for a second Jess thought she saw Stephanie standing there. But it was just a thin guy who was probably hung over and coming to the station to sleep it off. It was a popular gathering spot for all of the drunks in the county.
Jess wished Stephanie would come through the door. That’s what would happen in a movie. But life wasn’t a movie. She had to make peace with what had happened, to see that Stephanie had come into her life for one reason only: to turn Jess’s life around in a direction she might never have found or which would have taken her a lifetime to find.
When Jess thought of Stephanie in the future, she’d think of her fondly. She wasn’t going to completely let her go, though. She knew that. She’d left all of her trophies at home, but the faded photo of two young girls, her most prized possession, was tucked away in her wallet and secured inside her bag, along with a simple clay-colored rock and a bundle of scribbled notes.
She’d have to make peace with her parents someday too. Or try to anyway. She didn’t know if she’d ever succeed with her father. Jess couldn’t think too much now about him disowning her. If she did, the tears would come and never stop.
As for her mother…she was coming with Jess today, but their relationship still had some rocky ground to cover. Sometimes she thought her mother was the most dangerous kind of woman, someone who was loyal to a fault, remaining steadfast simply because she’d made a pact with herself. If something changed that might call that loyalty into question, she simply refused to see it. Jess wondered if the wives of Hitler and Stalin had been like
that, smart enough to know the egomaniacs they were married to were wrong, but feeling so bound by a promise they’d made that they felt obligated to them for life.
The bus finally came. It was mostly empty, except for a few tired-looking people. Jess tried to figure out what their stories were, if they were going toward something or running away from something. She liked to think she was doing both.
At the front of the bus a woman with leathery skin was holding a huge basket with what seemed like all of her belongings inside. There was a jar of coffee lying on top. Her weathered face and all of the deep wrinkles and creases on it reminded Jess of all the storms they’d had this past winter. It seemed her whole life was represented in that basket.
Jess had a ten-dollar bill in her wallet that she wanted to give to the old woman. But how could she, she wondered, without embarrassing her?
“Hang on here,” she told her mother and made her way to a seat across from where the woman was sitting.
“Excuse me, ma’am, I think you dropped something,” Jess said, slipping the ten into the woman’s hand discreetly. She turned around immediately and left in case the woman refused it.
When Jess returned to her seat, the lady gave her a confused but grateful smile. Her mother patted her daughter’s hand.
Church was nothing like real life, Jess thought as the bus pulled out of Greens Fork and began to rock along. If it was, her dad would have talked about the kindnesses everyone could show each other every day and not yell from a pulpit about all of the things that would lead you to hell.
She glanced out the window, a flurry of disconnected thoughts racing in and out of her head. The frozen faces of the congregation. Alex being held up by his teammates. The look on Stephanie’s face the first time she kissed her. This journey to herself—it had been a hard-fought battle, like walking through fire and coming out fine on the other side.
She could hardly contain her smile. She didn’t want to. It felt strange, but maybe this was a feeling she’d just have to get used to—the feeling of freedom—no longer holding herself in bondage with guilt and regret.
“Daddy could’ve been a good preacher,” she told her mother. “If only he didn’t pretend to have all the answers.”
Her mother covered her hand with hers as they watched the countryside sail by. In time, hills and valleys disappeared into flat land and the odor from a nearby paper mill. Jess started to miss Tennessee. All her memories had been set in southern landscapes—so beautiful, so romantic—the perfect backdrop for a childhood. Or a story of first love. She would always miss them. And Stephanie…
It was time, though, for a change of scenery. She took the New England calendar out of her backpack and focused on her new destination.
Chapter Eighty-Five
Ivy and Cobb met Jess and their mother at the bus station in Valdosta. It was a bittersweet reunion, but so nice for Jess to see that her sister was looking well, her face rounder from the pregnancy. Even Cobb seemed more like a grown man, partially because he’d finally learned how to shave. Like a real gentleman, he took their bags as they went to the car. Luckily they’d traded the truck in for something that could fit more people.
They led Jess and her mother to their home—a simple cottage with a screen door that slapped them in the backs as they brought their bags inside. Jess looked around. It was cozy and warm, a place where she could relax for a while, at least for her last year of high school.
When Ivy was done shrieking and laughing at Jess’s recounting of what had happened in church, she caught her breath and offered everyone some iced tea.
“I’ll help you,” Jess said, following her sister into a kitchen where their elbows could touch every counter at the same time. It was strange seeing her round belly; it looked as if she’d slipped a basketball under her shirt.
“I think you could still get a scholarship for college,” Ivy told her, pulling down glasses. “Valdosta High School’s got a great basketball program. Our neighbor’s kids go there.”
A glimmer of hope.
Their mother had no sooner walked in the door than she got down to work making up the guest bed in the next room. There was an awkward pause when she noticed Cobb standing in the doorway, and then Jess heard her say, “Thank you. For everything.”
He wasn’t a big talker, but he had sensitive eyes that conveyed a lot. “You’re always welcome here, Mrs. Aimes,” he said.
She went over and gave him a hug.
Jess was struck by how much less tension was here—the place was so much smaller than their farmhouse, cramped even, and yet the underlying feeling that everyone wanted to pounce on everyone else was absent. It was a place where she could breathe.
Their mother spent only one night with them before taking the bus back to Tennessee. All the way back to the station, Jess and Ivy tried to talk to her about what they’d seen and felt.
It’s our last chance to save her before she goes back to hell.
“Yes,” their mother said. “I know. But you don’t know the man your father is. Not completely.”
“That’s not true,” Jess said. “I saw him in the shed one night…” She decided it was better not to jump off that cliff. “He’s not so easy to talk to.”
The mother of all understatements…
Carolyn patted her hand. “I think he’ll need time.” Her face was unreadable; it was always hard to know what was going through her head. Jess couldn’t imagine the words that would be exchanged between the two of them when she returned. Of all the awkward conversations in the history of conversations…
“Take care of Danny,” Jess said.
Their mother let out a long sigh. “I wouldn’t be surprised if he flies the coop next.”
Jess felt sure that was most likely coming. No way was he going to let their father use him for target practice. Could he could stick it out until he graduated from high school?
“He has big dreams,” their mother said, as though she were glad to talk about anything else besides their father disowning people. “But music…I don’t know. He doesn’t have the motivation you need to make something that’s a long shot work out. It takes hard work that he doesn’t seem willing to put in. Your dad and I have been up nights talking about it.”
“You don’t know him,” Jess said. “Danny will work hard at whatever he wants.”
Her mother smiled and nodded, as if acknowledging the truth of that. “I was the same way,” she chuckled ironically.
When they parted at the station, it seemed so strange, this fracturing of their family. But Jess as well as her mother knew that her dad wouldn’t tolerate her at home after the big scene she made. They hugged so tightly. As Jess released her, she recognized her mother’s strained smile. It was the one she wore when she was trying to convince herself that everything would be fine.
Watching the bus pull away, Jess felt her new life officially beginning.
They all waved, and Ivy shouted to her mother’s window, “Don’t worry! We’ll take care of her!”
They watched the bus disappear, replaced by new cars along the curb.
“What did you mean?” Jess asked as they made their way back. “You’re not gonna make me do chores too?”
“It’d be nice if you helped out,” Ivy said.
“Course I will,” Jess insisted. “And when the baby comes. But no yard work.”
Ivy laughed.
“I mean it,” Jess argued. “You’re not the boss of me.”
They bickered all the way back to the car.
“This should be fun,” Cobb groaned, pulling out his keys.
* * *
Jess’s last year and a half of high school was a pleasant surprise. She not only made the basketball team at Valdosta senior year, but she made some good friends, ones she knew she’d probably stay in touch with for the rest of her life. She got a scholarship to Louisiana State University—no thanks to Sylvia Drysdale, who refused to respond to questions from college recruiters. Jess would always reme
mber her and the betrayal in her small, insignificant office that had seemed at the time to hold the key to her future. Everything had seemed so bleak then, a dead end. She knew now that there was a way through even out of the darkest of times, that she was going to be fine come what may, and for that hard-learned lesson, she had the coach to thank.
Whenever she thought of the people back in Greens Fork, Jess didn’t carry a grudge against them. What used to seem black and white she now understood to be neither, that everyone was trying to survive, just like her.
Every night in the guest room of Ivy and Cobb’s cottage, Jess would pull out the photo of herself and Stephanie when they were kids, smile to herself, then shut off the light. Stephanie was with her always and for that she was grateful too, despite the pain.
Her efforts to contact Stephanie had been useless. She’d asked Cobb to contact his brother Chip for her, to let Stephanie know her new address. For Jess, it would be impossible to send a letter to her and be sure it would ever reach her, especially if Arlene Greer got the mail first. Chip promised he would give Stephanie the address, but there were no letters from her.
When Jess asked Cobb about it again, he told her that his brother hadn’t been able to find her in school, then or the following fall. Wondering what had happened, Jess had called the Greens Fork High School, pretending to be an admissions counselor from LSU. When she spoke to Principal Edwards, the principal said that no student by the name of Stephanie Greer was going to the school. The mystery deepened. When Jess got off the phone, she was left with more questions. Had Stephanie and her mother moved away? She might never know. She told herself she had to accept this uncertainty—but she never did.
Chapter Eighty-Six
Southern Girl Page 37