“I’ll be back around noon, I think. I’m meeting the contractor out at the house this morning. They’re having some issues with the foundation. I’m probably gonna need to go by the building department, so I could take you then. Or if you want to make a list, I’ll pick it up when I come home. It’d be nice to eat lunch with Sweet if she’s up to it.”
“Well, they’s some personal things I need to get, so if I could get a ride into town, that’d be better.”
“No problem,” Bubba John said. “I’ll see you at lunch, then.”
“I’ll fix y’all something nice.” Beanie waved over her shoulder and Bubba John pulled away.
Breakfast went off without a hitch and the kids made it out the door on time. Sweet made it to the kitchen just in time to kiss them all goodbye, before taking her coffee to the living room.
Beanie made two plates with toasted bagels and fresh cantaloupe slices and joined Sweet for their morning visit.
“Bubba John says he’ll be home for lunch. What sounds good to you?”
“He told me he would try to make it, but the way things have been going lately, I wouldn’t set any store in that.”
“Ain’t that the pure truth?” Beanie shook her head. “But, he said he’d run me into town after lunch, so I’m hopin’ nothin’ comes up. I’m all outta feminine products and I’m needin’ ‘em pretty bad right now.”
The tears came so fast, Sweet didn’t even feel them coming.
“Oh, no…Sweet, I’m sorry. I’m sorry. Oh, me and my big mouth.” Beanie leapt up to grab a box of tissues from the coffee table.
Sweet gave what could only be described as a cross between a laugh and a sob. “Who’d have ever thought I’d feel this awful about never having another period? It just doesn’t make sense, does it?”
“Of course it makes sense,” Beanie pulled five tissues from the box in rapid succession and thrust them into Sweet’s hands.
Sweet leaned her head back on the chair, buried her face in the wad of tissues and sobbed for a full minute. Beanie fluttered about her trying to think of what to say or do to make it better. She thought of nothing at all.
When it looked like Sweet’s crying had settled, Beanie asked, “Did you…want…to have more babies?”
Sweet hiccupped softly and blew her nose.
“Maybe - I don’t know. I always wanted to fill my table, and I’m one shy.” Sweet laughed then. “That sounded ridiculous. An empty chair is no reason to have another child. What I meant to say is, I just wanted to have the option to have another one. I can’t wrap my head around this being the end for me. It’s funny, there was a time when I thought there would only be the twins. All those years of trying for the big family I always wanted, and every month I got the answer not yet. And now its absence means not ever.”
“I’m sorry, Sweet,” Beanie said. “Sometimes I could just cut my tongue out.”
“It’s okay, really,” Sweet said. “I’m just having a pity party. I need to remember to count my blessings. Lord knows there are many.”
“Now that’s the truth if I ever heard it,” Beanie said. “I’m gonna leave you alone now so you can finish your breakfast. I’ll come back in an hour or so to check on you. You need anything else ‘fore I go?”
“Can’t think of anything right now,” Sweet said, and turned on the morning news program she started watching in the hospital.
As it turned out, Bubba John was late for lunch by about an hour. Beanie had made a pot of tomato soup, and had the good sense to wait until he arrived to make grilled cheese sandwiches. She took her lunch to the camper and told Bubba John to just honk when he was ready to go to town.
***
Beanie and Bubba John had only been gone about forty-five minutes when T-Ray burst through the back door and bee-lined for his mama’s room. Sweet was napping when he knocked on the door and entered without waiting for an invitation.
“What in the world, son?” Sweet was startled by the entry and concerned by the look on her oldest son’s face. “What’s wrong?”
“I don’t know, Mama, you tell me!” T-Ray dropped his backpack on the floor with a thud.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. Has something happened?”
“Uh, yeah, something has happened. And you would know it if you weren’t lying here in bed pretending nothing’s wrong.”
Sweet sat up in bed and moved her feet to the center to make room for T-Ray to sit down.
“I think you need to slow down a minute and tell me what you’re upset about,” Sweet said, patting the bed beside her legs.
“I don’t wanna sit down, Mom. I want you to get up!”
Sweet sighed. “I want that, too, son. But right now, I want you to remember who you are talking to and tell me what the problem is. I can’t read your mind.”
“The problem is, Mom—the problem is—the whole school is talkin’ about Dad bringing his girlfriend home right under your nose. So, we’re coming home from school and there they are, goin’ into the grocery store together, just laughin’ and havin’ a good ol’ time.”
“Oh, stop being so dramatic, T. Beanie needed some things from the store and your daddy gave her a ride to town, and that’s all there is to it. It’s not like I didn’t know about it.”
“Why’d she have to go with Dad? Why didn’t she wait for me or B-Kay to take her? What was so all-fired important she had to go right then, huh? Well, I’ll tell you something right now, Mom, if you had to listen to everything these stupid kids are saying, you’d be dramatic, too. It’s disgusting, Mom, and I can’t believe you’re letting Dad get away with this shit.”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa—stop it right there, son. Your daddy is the most honest man I know…”
“Are you kidding me? He’s lying to you every single day, Mom.”
“That’s enough, T-Ray. I mean it. Don’t you open your mouth again, and don’t you dare leave this room before I say what I’m going to say,” she said, as he picked up his backpack to leave.
“I don’t know what it is you think I can do differently right now. I’m doing my best to get better. The only thing in the world that’s important to me is my family, and I will not watch it be destroyed. Not by gossip, not by locker room nastiness, and certainly not by my own son. Sit down, T-Ray. Right now. Sit down.”
T-Ray dropped his backpack again and took a seat across the room on the edge of a chair that held a stack of clean clothes.
“Your father has never, ever done a single thing to make me doubt his word. Maybe things don’t add up right now. Maybe it does look a little weird having the two of them together in town. I’m sorry that’s hard for you. I’m sorry kids are being mean. You’re going to just have to ignore it until it settles down. Beanie won’t be here forever, I can promise you that. But right now, she is here helping me and helping you, while I recuperate. And I will not have you being disrespectful to any adult, let alone the three in this house right now who all deserve better.”
“Are you done?” T-Ray asked after a moment of silent reproach.
If Thomas Raymond Atwater ever knew he had crossed a line, he knew it at that moment. His mama, recuperating or not, flew out of her bed and crossed the room so fast he fell back in the chair and slid halfway to the floor trying to back up out of her way.
Sweet pointed her finger so close to his face she could feel her son’s breath moving rapidly through his nose.
“Don’t you ever speak to me that way again. Do you understand me?”
T-Ray tried to sit up and she laid one palm on his forehead and shoved him back down.
“Don’t move. Don’t you dare move.”
At that moment, there was a soft knock on the door, and B-Kay stuck her head in the room.
“Mama?” she asked, taking in the scene before her. There was her brother, sprawled across a chair, and her mother, in a soft cotton nightgown, looming over him, her breath coming in short, sharp bursts. She turned to look at B-Kay and T-Ray took that opportunit
y to slide out from under her and make his escape.
Sweet said nothing, just returned to her bed and pulled the covers up to her neck.
33
Trouble is Brewing
“I’m sorry, what?” Sweet asked, not sure she heard her husband right.
“I have a meeting tomorrow about the house,” Bubba John explained. “I’m sorry, I forgot about the appointment. Can’t B-Kay take you?”
“All the way to Tallahassee?”
“She can drive. Besides, you’ll be with her.”
“What about school?”
“She can get out early. She hardly ever misses school. We’ll write her a note.”
“Why can’t you just change your meeting time?”
Bubba John sighed.
“Well, I could, but it would be harder than you might think. I’m trying to work around other people’s schedules, too.”
“Right, and I’m one of the others. Except I should be a bit higher in the priority ranking, don’tcha think?” Sweet asked.
“Honey, you are my top priority and you know it.” Bubba was annoyed and it showed.
“Actually…”
Not sure she was being reasonable, or if she was simply feeling a little emotional, Sweet stopped herself.
“That’s not fair,” Bubba said, answering Sweet’s unspoken thought, which was just enough to push Sweet beyond reason.
“Not fair?” Sweet whipped her head up and gaped at her husband. “I’m not fair? The situation is not fair? What exactly is not fair?”
“Whoa, Sweet…”
“Don’t you whoa me, Bubba John Atwater…I’ve already been whoa’d to damn death. You wanna know what’s not fair? What’s not fair is me sitting in this chair having to find someone else to take me to the doctor because my husband is unavailable. What’s not fair is me losing all options for having another child. They took my womb out and they didn’t ask me; they asked you, and you didn’t want any more kids anyway.”
“Sweet, that’s not true…”
“It is true! It is! And now I’m stuck here in this house being cared for by someone who the whole town thinks is sleeping with my husband – and what’s worse is, I like her. That’s what’s not fair. And I can tell you this, Bubba, it’s a good thing she can’t drive, because if you let her take me to the doctor while you go see someone who’s too important to change a meeting time, I’d lose my entire mind and not just the fragment of it I’m losing right now.”
For the next minute or so the room was quiet, save for Sweet’s ragged breathing and occasional sniffle. Bubba John said nothing, just stared at the floor. The silence was broken by the squeak of the back door. They both looked up then, expecting to see Beanie entering through the kitchen, but the room was empty, which meant she’d already been there and left.
Bubba stood then, looked toward the kitchen and back again.
“I’ll take you to the doctor tomorrow,” he said. “Right now, I’m going to go take a walk, because on the scale of fair and unfair, that was off the charts, Sweet.”
Bubba John snagged his ball cap and his cell phone from the kitchen table before exiting through the back door.
Sweet was in bed when her husband returned fifteen minutes later. That night, for the first time in all the years they’d been married, Bubba John Atwater slept on the couch.
The next morning Sweet woke to find a note on the kitchen table.
Gone to Live Oak for meeting. Back in time to take you to Tally. Beanie said she’ll do breakfast. Coffee in pot is ready to brew. Just hit go.
34
Time to Face the Music
At 6:30 that same morning, Suvi Jones walked into the Mayhew Café, morning paper in hand, as if he hadn’t been missing in action for over a week now. He took his customary place, nodded at Sissy with a grimace that hinted at a smile, ruffled through the paper to find the sports page and snapped it open – all without glancing once at the round table. Had he looked, he’d have seen five regulars frozen in mid-conversation, eyes darting from one to the other with occasional sidelong looks toward Suvi himself.
LouWanda found her tongue first. Leaning forward, she used a stage whisper loud enough for aging ears to hear.
“Lord love a duck. Look what the cat drug in.”
“It’s been over a week,” Randy Kerner said. “I thought he was never comin’ back.”
Sissy bumped the back of Mac McConnell’s chair with her knee.
“Close your mouths and stop staring for cryin’ out loud.” Sissy refilled four cups, waited with coffeepot in the air while LouWanda drained the last drop from her cup, then refilled that with a bold pour that lasted less than two seconds and left the cup filled to the rim without spilling a drop.
“Well, can you blame us?” Clyde asked. “I thought he’d never show his face in town again.”
“Prob’ly took him that long to get the cake off of it,” Mac boomed, breaking into a wheezing laugh at his own joke.
The other four managed to contain themselves, but only barely.
“Knock it off,” Sissy hissed between clinched teeth. “I ain’t never throwed nobody outta here, but don’t you bet I won’t.”
“S..s…sorry,” Mac wheezed. “I c…cain’t help it!”
“Well, go on outside ‘til you can,” Sissy said. “You’re embarrassin’ yourself.”
Mac heaved his bulk out of the chair and stumbled out the front door. The others, chastened, but still slightly tickled, suddenly got busy looking at menus they hadn’t used in ten years. Sissy, shaking her head in disgust, walked away muttering to herself.
When she got to Suvi’s table, she sat an empty cup on the table and filled it carefully.
“I’m sorry about them,” Sissy said.
“No need to be,” Suvi said grimly. “I’ve learned to tune them out.”
“You don’t need a tuner. You need volume control, darn their hides. Whatcha havin’ this morning?”
“Over easy with bacon,” Suvi said. “I guess everyone knows, huh?”
“What they don’t know, they make up.”
“God’s truth, isn’t it?”
“Yep,” Sissy said and went to put in the order.
Suvi had taken cover behind his paper when Will Thaxton walked in. The full house he’d had for the weekend all left the day before, so he decided to take the morning off.
Will was not accustomed to eating breakfast out at all, let alone enough to know where all the regulars sat at the Mayhew Café. So, he chose the quietest table he could find, which happened to be right across from Suvi Jones. Will sat facing the wall of newspaper without considering who might be behind it.
Sissy greeted him almost immediately.
“Hey, there. Long time no see. You having coffee this morning?”
“Please,” said Will.
Will grabbed one of the menus propped between the napkin holder and condiments and winced when his fingers stuck to the plastic covering. He opened the menu using just his fingertips on the edges and laid it flat on the table, then made a mental note to wash his hands before his food arrived.
When Sissy came back with his coffee, Will ordered a Western omelet, egg whites only. That got Suvi’s attention. He folded down a corner of his paper to see who ordered eggs without yolks and found himself face to face with Will Thaxton. Had anyone been paying attention at that moment, they’d have seen two men in the throes of silent struggle.
Will spoke first.
“Morning, Suvi.”
“Will.” Suvi nodded once. “Egg whites, huh?”
“Watching my cholesterol.”
“Hmph,” Suvi said, and turned back to his paper.
Will slid back his chair and stood, casting a shadow over Suvi in the morning slant of sun. Suvi, without looking up, folded his paper and stood, expecting to face Will directly. He raised his head in time to see Will pass by on his way to the restroom. Now standing with nowhere to go, Suvi surveyed the room to see if anyone noticed. Sissy appe
ared from behind the buffet, Suvi’s breakfast in hand.
“You leavin’?” Sissy asked.
“No. Huh-uh. I was…uh…stretching my legs,” said Suvi. “You know…knee still bothers me some.”
“Oh, okay.” Sissy set two plates of food on the table and squinted at Suvi. “You all right?”
“Yeah…yeah, just hungry,” Suvi said.
“Sorry it took so long. They’re kinda backed up in there. You sure you’re okay? You look mad.”
“Nope. I’m good.” He made a show of bending and flexing one very long leg before sitting back down in his chair. He was just settled in when Will returned from the restroom, drying his now clean hands on a white paper towel. Neither man acknowledged the other.
For the next five minutes Suvi focused on nothing but eggs, bacon, toast and pancakes. Will fiddled with his cellphone, sent a quick text to his daughter asking when she might have time for a vacation, and downloaded the app he deleted two days prior because he thought he might be addicted to playing card games, not to mention the fact that he really didn’t like being reminded of his current situation.
Solitaire, indeed, he thought as he tapped the screen to deal a new set of cards.
And then, damn these sound effects, as the shuffling cards announced his pastime to the entire room.
Suvi chuckled.
“What’s so funny?” Will asked, clearly not amused.
“Nothin’,” Suvi said. “I play the same game. Drives me nuts.”
“What’s your best score?”
“Who knows? I keep deleting the app and starting over. If I don’t, I’ll stay on it for an hour, trying to get one second faster.”
“Ha! Me, too,” Will said, finally cracking a smile.
After an awkward moment of silence, Suvi stood and folded his paper under his arm.
“Have a good day, Will,” Suvi said.
“You, too, Suve,” said Will.
What Matters in Mayhew (The Beanie Bradsher Series Book 1) Page 18