Half an hour later he pulled his convertible up the oak-lined driveway to his house. As he parked, the front door opened and his mother stepped out, a vision in her green gardening slacks and floppy straw hat. She waved a glove-covered hand, a galvanized tin watering can in the other.
He got out of his car and walked toward her for a hug.
“Welcome home, son. I’ve missed you.”
“You are pretty as a picture, Mother.”
She gave a playful slap to his shoulder. “In my gardening clothes? You are a dear boy.”
“Is Dad home?”
“In his study.”
Tripp kissed his mother’s cheek. “Excuse me, Mother. I need to speak with him.”
“If it’s about the engagement party, I’ve given it a lot of thought. Perhaps you should bring the young lady to meet us before we go forth with plans.”
He touched her cheek, happy his mother’s mental faculties had returned. He drew a deep breath. “We’ll discuss it later, Mother. Right now, I have business with Dad.” And then he smiled.
“Of course, you do, dear.” She tipped the watering can toward a pot of colorful flowers adorning the porch.
As an afterthought, he cast his mother an impish smile and sang, “Mary Alice, Mary Alice, how does your garden grow? With kitten tails and puppydog tails all wagging in a row.”
His mother giggled and clapped her hands like a happy child. “I thank you for the rhyme, but I do believe your version is quite different from the original.”
“Mine put a smile on your face, and that’s all that matters, ‘Mary, Mary, quite contrary—’”
The aroma of frying chicken greeted him, and something baked with nutmeg, as he opened the front door. The thought of approaching his father settled in the pit of his stomach like soured buttermilk.
Long strides carried him down the hall. He stopped at the massive oaken door to his father’s study, raised a fist, and rapped once.
“Enter.” Judge Hartwell looked up from the folder that lay in front of him. He rose with an outstretched hand. “Tripp, my boy, how was Massachusetts? Get the registration glitch taken care of?”
Tripp pushed the greeting aside. He didn’t hide the allegation in his voice. “Honey Belle and her family left town. What do you know about it?”
The Judge spoke sharply. “If you’re making an accusation, it’s damn well not appreciated.”
Tripp answered in a tight voice. “I’ve had a bellyful of lies, Dad. You made it quite clear how you felt about Honey Belle and my marriage proposal to her.”
Without going into detail about his visit with the owner of the house on Barrington Street, Tripp simply stated he’d visited Honey Belle’s workplace only to discover she had quit without notice, and a neighbor had witnessed her and her parents leaving with suitcases.
His father tossed the folder aside. “I don’t expect you to believe me when I say I know nothing of this young woman or her family leaving town. Granted, I’m not in favor of a union with a girl we’ve never met and know nothing about, but I’m hurt to the bone that you’d think I was in any way involved.”
Hearing that admission, Tripp looked into his father’s eyes and thought he saw remorse. Doubt dragged Tripp down. He sighed.
His father walked around the desk and draped an around Tripp’s shoulder, hugging him close. “Disappointment and confusion is written all over your face. We’re all susceptible to bad judgment calls, son. Like I said, I don’t know where Miss Garrett and her family went. And that’s the God’s honest truth.”
Though Tripp had his misgivings, his father had never given him reason to believe he’d stoop to shady, covert dealings. And yet he still wanted to believe in Honey Belle. He moved away from his father’s embrace.
“Tripp, son, listen to me, right now you feel as if your world has fallen apart. At some point, you have to move beyond the hurts, or anger and bitterness will keep you from accomplishing your goals in life.”
Tripp slumped into a leather chair. He sighed heavily. His “Yeah, sure,” didn’t sound convincing.
When he rose to leave, his father said, “This past week your mother has been her old self. Let’s keep it that way.”
“I know. She greeted me, saying we needed to discuss the engagement party. After her last episode, I didn’t think she’d remember.”
The Judge frowned. “Nor I. We’ll not upset her with this nonsense about Miss Garrett. Discreetly explain to your mother you’ve decided to put marriage on hold until after graduation. Tell her you’d prefer an old-fashioned barbeque with all the trimmings because you’ll miss Pearlie Mae’s home cooking once you’re at Harvard. I believe that will sufficiently pacify your mother.”
“What if she asks about Honey Belle?”
The Judge cast his son a wink. “You’re almost a lawyer. You’ll figure it out.”
Over the next few days, Tripp packed books, clothing, ski poles, skis, snow boots, and other personal belongings. Deciding to leave the convertible in South Carolina, he loaded one of the spare station wagons with his gear.
He planned to submerse himself in his studies, and hoped to erase Honey Belle Garrett from his heart.
Chapter Fourteen
Valdosta, Georgia
On a sweltering September afternoon, Honey Belle sat under a canopy listening to a minister speak words over her father’s grave. Her mama’s ragged sobs tore at her heart. She reached over and clasped the blue-veined, bony hand.
“Don’t be sad, Mama. He’s in a better place.”
“Your daddy weren’t much. Dang it, he was all I had.”
You have me, Mama. Don’t I matter to you? Honey Belle nearly choked on the words stuck in her throat. It seemed even in grief her mother bore no kind thoughts toward her daughter.
Three weeks after arriving in Valdosta, Jack Garrett’s health had turned for the worse. He’d passed quietly in his sleep the day after he was admitted to the hospital.
A week after her father’s funeral, Honey Belle sat on the bathroom floor, hugging the commode. Regular as clockwork, when she’d skipped her monthly, she hoped, then prayed she wasn’t pregnant. As she hung her head over the toilet bowl and wearily mopped her face with a damp cloth, beads of sweat lined her top lip.
Her stomach continued to heave. She tried to spit out the taste of bile as it clawed her throat.
Lying with her head against the cool porcelain tube, she didn’t bother to look up when the bathroom door opened.
Sarcasm laced Delilah’s voice. “I knowed it. I knowed it all along. You’ve got the look about you.”
Honey Belle kept her eyes closed. Hoping to settle her stomach, she drew several deep breaths. “What is it you know, Mama?”
“You’re green as a gourd. Don’t take no rocket scientist to figure out you done got yourself knocked-up.”
Honey Belle opened her eyes and shifted around to turn on the faucet. She ran cold water over the cloth, rung it out and wiped her face again.
“We’ve just buried daddy. I didn’t even get a chance to tell him about the baby. For once, Mama, please this one time, can’t you be happy for me? It’s your grandchild.”
“No, it ain’t. It’s your bastard.”
The bite in her mother’s voice caused Honey Belle to look up. Her jaw firmed as she spoke. “Leave me be, Mama. I’m too sick to argue.”
With each passing day, Honey Belle watched her mother grow frailer. “What can I do, Aunt Tess, short of forcing her to get in the car and driving her to the doctor? She refuses to go for a checkup. I’m worried about her.”
“Delilah always was as hardheaded as a stubborn mule. If I have to pitch a hissy-fit to get her to the doctor, then that’s what I’ll do.”
A few days later, true to her word, Honey Belle’s Aunt Tess pitched an old-fashioned, Southern hissy-fit and said she’d drag Delilah by the head of the hair to the doctor, if she had to. Honey Belle had never seen her mother back down to anyone, but back down she did.
&
nbsp; The diagnosis was bad. Stage four breast cancer had spread throughout her mother’s skeletal system.
“What can we do, Doctor?” Honey Belle dreaded his answer.
“Along with chemotherapy and radiation, we can pray for a miracle.”
Though the prescribed treatments amassed a wad of doctor bills, in the end, the treatments didn’t save Delilah. Honey Belle thought her mother was too tired and worn out to fight for her life.
Five months later, on a frigid January morning, Delilah Garrett closed her eyes and passed from this world without a kind word to her daughter or for the grandchild she’d never know.
Part of Honey Belle felt as if the world had crashed down around her. She wondered if it was wrong for the other part of her to feel relief.
A few days after her mother’s funeral, Honey Belle and her Aunt Tess were in the parlor. January had brought a rainy winter, and Honey Belle sat in front of the fireplace sipping hot cocoa and enjoying the warmth. Her aunt’s home was everything she’d dreamed of, with its sprawling front porch supported by huge columns, a porch swing, and a neatly groomed yard surrounded by a white picket fence.
“Honey Belle, it’s time you and I had a serious woman-to-woman talk.”
Honey Belle nibbled on crackers topped with peanut butter. “Whatta you want to talk about, Aunt Tess?”
Her aunt pointed at the little mound beneath Honey Belle’s shirt. “You have some important decisions to make.”
“Like?”
“Marrying your daddy was the death of anything good for my sister, and I don’t mind saying so. You know it as well as me. Not even forty years old, she was used up and wrung out like an old dishrag.”
Though Honey Belle’s parents had shown little affection toward her, she’d loved them. “Mama was always telling me she’d made a mess of her life. The thing she never told me was why she chose to marry my daddy at such a young age.”
Tess’s voice took on a hard edge. “Delilah had a wild streak in her. She was always in a hurry to grow up. Our mother constantly warned Delilah about sashaying her behind like an open invitation to the boys. Said she’d get caught. Delilah ran away. Mama called the law. Cops caught up with her and brought her home. Delilah hated mother after that. She skipped school, started smoking, drinking, staying out all night. She was the bane of our mother’s existence.
“And Delilah did get caught—with you. Jack Garrett was a sweet-talking, handsome good-for-nothing. He promised my sister the moon. All she got was pregnant. Barely sixteen when you were born, she suffered in hard labor for three days. The doctor said you were too big and she was too small. After you came a string of miscarriages, until the doctor said she needed a hysterectomy. That was a blessing in disguise.”
“Why didn’t you ever marry, Aunt Tess?”
Her aunt moistened her throat with a sip of coffee. “Who says I never married?” As if wanting to change the subject, Tess hastened on. “That’s neither here nor there. As I was saying, you have some important decisions to make, Honey Belle. You can choose to educate yourself and raise this child proper, or you can follow in your mama’s footsteps, scrimping and pinching and always dreaming about what you’ll never have.”
Honey Belle caressed the small protrusion beneath her shirt. Inside her womb grew a baby whose life she was responsible for. The decision was an easy one. “After I quit school, it was difficult listening to the kids at the Burger Bin talk about what colleges they planned to attend, their future careers. I always planned to get my GED. But both mine and mama’s paychecks were needed to keep us going, especially after daddy got sick and couldn’t work anymore. After awhile, time slipped away, and the GED never happened.”
Aunt Tess stretched her feet toward the fire, her voice matter-of-fact. “After the baby is born, if you choose to get your diploma, and perhaps attend college, I’ll help you with the finances, and this will be your home for as long as you care to stay. If you choose not to get an education,” she shrugged her shoulders, “you’ll have to find your own place, and take care of the baby as best you can.”
Honey Belle choked on the cracker that seemed to grow inside her throat. She’d used a good deal of the blackmail money from Tripp’s father to pay for her parent’s medical and funeral costs. Funny how, at the time, she’d thought ten thousand dollars would last a lifetime, when in fact it disappeared almost as quickly as water down a drain.
“I don’t want my child growing up poor and illiterate, Aunt Tess.” She heaved a sigh. “Living in South Carolina, the way we did, I didn’t see much wrong with my life.”
Honey Belle glanced around the cozy room with wall-to-wall carpeting and not a speck of dust anywhere. “If you’ll drive me to the vocational school, I’ll start working toward my GED next week. Maybe I can get finished before the baby is born.”
Aunt Tess clapped her hands together. “That’s the spirit.” Then she turned serious. “You’ve never spoken of the baby’s father. Is there a reason?”
“If there were, I wouldn’t care to discuss it.”
Honey Belle knew she could never divulge Tripp’s identity, for more than one reason. First, there were those horrid blackmail photographs to contend with, and, most importantly, she feared what Judge Hartwell would do once he found out she’d had a baby and decided to keep the child.
Her aunt’s voice interrupted her thoughts. “Don’t you think the father has a right to know? At least notify him so he can pay child support.”
“Let me repeat, Aunt Tess, I don’t care to discuss it.”
“You don’t think this man or boy has a moral obligation to you and the child?”
“Aunt Tess, I respect you with all my heart, and I’m forever grateful you’re providing me with a home, and the opportunity to get an education.” She stared down at the cup in her hand. “Trust me when I say the baby’s father couldn’t care one way or the other. He’s not someone I want in our lives.”
With the damning evidence his father possessed, Honey Belle had convinced herself there was no way Tripp Hartwell the Third would want his name connected to her or to a bastard child.
“So be it, Honey Belle. I’ll ask no more questions.”
Honey Belle stretched and yawned. “I think I’ll call it a night, Aunt Tess.”
With a quick peck to her aunt’s cheek, Honey Belle climbed the stairs to her bedroom. It had become a nightly habit to sit in the rocker and stare out the window at Orion and the Big Dipper, twinkling in the winter sky. Settling in the chair, she cradled the small mound of her belly. She rocked back and forth, picturing herself in maternity clothes, with swollen ankles, needing help to get out of a chair.
She managed to forget, for a few minutes, how drastically her life would change in the spring. When she thought about it, and about raising a child alone, her heart didn’t know how to react. Then she reminded herself she wasn’t alone. She had Aunt Tess.
By habit she looked upward. “Look, baby, a shooting star.”
It was as if the unborn child had heard her voice and rewarded Honey Belle with a fluttering kick. She hadn’t expected it, that jolt of excitement, that maternal surge of protectiveness.
She gently caressed the little lump poking her in the side. “Your daddy taught me the names of the stars. When you’re born, I’ll teach them to you.”
She brushed back the rush of tears and fought the melancholy threatening to engulf her as she sat alone in the darkened room.
Her mind drifted to the night on the beach when Tripp had pledged his love to her. She’d made a wish on a shooting star that night, too. It had come true—Tripp had asked her to marry him.
She bent her head toward her stomach and whispered, “I wish upon this shooting star that someday you’ll get to know your daddy.”
Wiping a tear from her cheek, she was lost in thought for a long moment. “I promise I’ll never be cold and distant toward you. I’ll never treat you the way my parents did me.”
And then she added, “I don’t care
if you’re a little girl or a boy. I’ll love you.” Secretly she yearned for a son—a tiny version of Tripp.
Honey Belle gathered her senses, because she couldn’t let her heart go in the direction it wanted to go.
****
The next morning Aunt Tess drove Honey Belle to the vocational school. Honey Belle walked through the glass doors and couldn’t deny her stomach was doing flip-flops. She rubbed her sweating hands down the sides of her jeans as she and her aunt walked across the tiled lobby.
“Aunt Tess, what if I’m not smart enough?”
Her aunt laughed a little. “You’re smarter than you give yourself credit for, Honey Belle.”
“And that’s another thing, Aunt Tess.”
“What is?”
“My name. I’ve never liked it. When I was thirteen, I asked Mama if I could change it. Of course, you know her answer.” Judge Hartwell’s sneering contempt of her name echoed inside her head—Sounds like a fifty-dollar prostitute.
“Takes money to change your name, and think of all the rigmarole you’d have to go through to change your driver’s license and your Social Security card. Is it really that important to you?”
Honey Belle looked up, meeting kind eyes with crinkled lines of age and experience at the corners. “When you put it that way, I guess it sounds rather pathetic. Back in South Carolina my friends called me H.B.”
“Then call yourself H.B. and others will, too.”
“I can’t avoid giving my real name when I fill out forms.”
“Don’t make things complicated. Simply fill them out, then in large bold letters write ‘Prefer to be called H.B. Garrett.’”
Honey Belle ignored the impatience in her aunt’s voice and followed her through a door marked Registrar’s Office.
****
On the way home from registering for classes, Aunt Tess offered to treat them to lunch. They stopped at the Silver Bullet Diner.
“Why aren’t you eating, Honey Belle?”
Honey Belle ignored the cheeseburger sitting on her plate. “I’m eating.” She smiled and bit into the burger. She ate a bite, swallowing in a way that looked painful.
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