Third Time's the Charm

by Talley, Liz

  “Hey, Sunshine. I’m over here with your mama. She fell off the toilet, but she’s okay. The stubborn heifer finally called me after not being able to get back in her chair.”

  “Oh God. I shouldn’t have left her alone.” Sunny shook her head, feeling even more guilt settling in on her. How could she screw so much up? Her decision-making was total crap. She needed to get it together and stop playing at being something she wasn’t.

  “Wrong. You should. Betty’s been like night and day since you came home. Eden babied her too much and let her get away with being utterly useless. Your mama’s still got some living to do. She made some bad decisions that delivered some really tough consequences, and then she spent years wallowing in self-pity and ugliness as if the world were to blame and not her own self. But you lit a fire under her, and you helped her see that she can do some things herself.”

  “But she just fell off the toilet.”

  “Three months ago she would have just gone in a diaper, and now she doesn’t have to wear those anymore. In fact, she asked me for some Victoria’s Secret underwear for her birthday, and if I would take her over to the VFW to play bingo. That’s huge progress, Sunny.”

  “I guess. Maybe that will make it easier to talk her into moving into a community where she can do more than watch crime drama. She can take up painting, go to the movies, and make some friends. I think she’s lonely, though she would never admit it.” Focusing on her mama made it easier to forget about what had just happened that afternoon.

  Aunt Ruby Jean paused for several seconds, making Sunny wonder if the woman had even heard her. Then her aunt cleared her throat. “Betty asked if I would move in and be her roommate.”

  “What?”

  “She doesn’t want to sell the house that’s been in our family for generations… and she doesn’t want to go to an old folk’s home.”

  “It’s not an old folk’s home,” Sunny said.

  “Sunny.” Aunt Ruby Jean always saw through Sunny’s intentions. “You’re manipulating the situation to benefit yourself.”

  “Well, I learned from the best. Now Betty’s manipulating you.” No surprise there. Sunny should have known her mother would be looking for a way out of selling the house. Of course, Betty didn’t have to sell it at all, but Sunny had been hoping to convince her that she would be more comfortable at the Arbor. “I wasn’t trying to force Mama. I truly thought it would be better for her to be somewhere she could make friends and socialize.”

  “And it would be better for you,” her aunt said.

  “Yeah. That too.”

  “Are you still planning on leaving Morning Glory? You’ve been seeing a lot of Henry, and I heard that Melanie’s retiring. You could have a full-time position working at the high school.”

  “Henry and I are… we were just hanging out.” Even as she said those words, her heart seized up. She couldn’t continue to lie to herself. The hope that they could be something more than friends had interfered with her resolve to leave at the end of summer. She’d let her emotions override her reason. Being involved with Henry was too complicated. Henry should have stayed a part of her past. Why had she had let things go as far as they had?

  Because deep down inside her heart bloomed the belief that she and Henry were soul mates and that they were meant to be together. Because deep down, sitting right beside that belief, was the knowledge that she would always love Henry Todd Delmar. Even when she and Alan were happiest, she’d always known that the love still existed. It had never been torn away and disposed of. She wouldn’t allow it because what she and Henry had had was precious.

  But she’d lived with loving Henry and not having him for many years. It was a role she was accustomed to.

  “I don’t have a future here, Aunt Ruby Jean. I just don’t.”

  “Is that the truth or what you want to believe?”

  “I don’t know, but I have a job waiting for me in California. I can start over there.”

  “I guess I can help you with that. Can’t believe I’m saying this, but I’ll move in with your mama this summer. I’ll sell my place and put the money from the sale into my savings account. That means I can retire in five years instead of ten. And since Betty’s able to look out for herself for the most part, I wouldn’t be assuming a caretaker’s role. You can make a new life and know Betty will have family with her. Maybe I should have done that long ago for Eden, but I wasn’t ready to surrender my total independence. And your mama, well, I think she’s finally turned a corner.”

  Sunny scraped a hand through her hair, the blond evidence she’d tried to get her old life back mocking her. Even as her aunt dropped what she’d most wanted in her lap, she wanted to contrive an excuse to not leave.

  Because of Henry. And Landry. And Katie Clare. And Woozy. And Grace. And, God help her, her mama. Morning Glory held people who meant something to her. She’d almost had the community she’d always wanted. She’d almost had the man she’d always desired.

  But that was the part of herself she didn’t need to listen to. That was the part that actually thought she could fall in love, have a family, and plant pansies on the doorstep each fall. That was the stupid part of herself that believed life would hand her love.

  “That’s terrific news, Aunt Ruby Jean. Mama will be happy to not leave her house, and the upside is I fixed up the house so it feels almost like new.”

  “I can reimburse you for some of that, Sunny. You’ll need some extra money to get that new start you want out west.”

  “We’ll talk about it later. I’m on my way home now.”

  “I heard Katie Clare fell out of a tree at the Bolton place,” Aunt Ruby Jean said, her voice softening with concern. “Crazy Ted said he saw the ambulance and went to check out what happened. The Boltons said it wasn’t your fault. I mean, I know you’re probably trying to blame yourself, but that child is a hardheaded little jackrabbit. She tried to climb a tree in the town square during the Easter hunt picnic. Officer Webb brought her back to her daddy, who didn’t know she was even missing.”

  “It happened on my watch,” Sunny whispered, remembering Jillian and her accusations. The hate in the woman’s eyes. God.

  “It could have happened on anyone’s watch. You’re not to blame, sweetie. So don’t go there.” Aunt Ruby Jean was a woman who meant business. Her word was law. Listen. Obey. Don’t cross me. “Now, I’ll see you in church tomorrow and lunch afterward. I put a pot of peas on and told your mama to make cornbread. Let her do it. She can. And I’ll see y’all tomorrow. Oh, and make sure your mama doesn’t wear that whore lipstick.”

  “But—” Sunny bit down on her protest because her aunt had already hung up.

  How in all of creation was she going to get her mama to go to church? And should they all wear hard hats in case the church fell in? Because that was a real possibility.

  Finally Sunny could leave Morning Glory.

  The timing couldn’t have been more perfect. After the events of that afternoon, nothing sounded better to her. Time to move on down the line.

  Even if she’d be leaving her heart in Morning Glory… again.

  Henry stood on Sunny’s front porch, feeling much the same way he’d felt that spring day over sixteen years ago. Though the birds were chirping, the sun was shining, and wind chimes tinkled nearby, change stirred in the air as he knocked on the door for the second time.

  The door opened and Sunny stood there, clad in a Led Zeppelin T-shirt, old gym shorts, and a ponytail that was falling down on one side. She didn’t smile.

  A week had passed since he’d seen her. He’d texted her a few times but found her terse replies disconcerting. She’d inquired about Katie Clare who now wore a bright pink cast and still had a decent-sized lump on her forehead. The child had not had a torn ligament after all and was reveling in the attention from her classmates with typical Katie Clare zeal. So far she’d collected three “really cool” pencils, a friendship bracelet, and a package of Skittles. The teacher had let her
stay in and help grade papers until the doctor gave the okay that she could go out for recess. Overall, his daughter had used her accident as an opportunity to regale her classmates with the increasingly embellished tale of her fall and to score some goodies.

  “Hey,” he said, smiling at Sunny. “Thought if Muhammed wouldn’t come to the mountain, the mountain would come to her.”

  “Who said you get to be the mountain?” Her expression was guarded and she looked like the woman he’d first encountered months ago—a fortress prepared to repel anyone who might breach her defenses.

  “Touché,” he said, trying for lightness.

  “So, what are you doing here?” She shaded her eyes.

  “What do you mean, what am I doing here? I’m here to see Betty of course.”

  She twisted her lips. “She’s napping, but if you want to wake her, you might take a gun. Or a baseball bat.”

  “You know I’m here to see you, but I’m gathering you’re not going to ask me inside. Should we try out… are those new rockers?”

  She nodded. “Found those at Lowe’s. Got ten percent off using my military ID. Of course, technically I’m no longer a military spouse, but since my husband died last year defending our country, I figured the government wouldn’t get their panties in a wad over my saving ten percent on some rocking chairs.” She gestured to the two shiny black rockers.

  “Your porch looks nice,” he said, walking toward the chairs.

  She looked around. “Yeah. It turned out good.”

  He eased into one. “Nice rockers.”

  She sat in the other, crossing her tanned legs. When had she had time to get so sun-kissed? Sunny turned and arched an eyebrow. “So… how are things?”

  “Good. And how have you been?” He wanted to tell her to cut the shit and tell him what was up her butt, but he didn’t want to spook her.

  “Good. I’ve been cleaning up outside. Planted a few tomato plants out back and put in some shrubs over there.” She pointed toward several Indian hawthorns lining the front of the house on each side.

  He could give a squat less about landscaping. He needed to know why she’d pulled so hard and so fast away from him after Katie Clare’s accident. Surely she knew he didn’t blame her for what had happened. His daughter had eventually admitted to both him and Jillian that she’d purposely not told Sunny she was going to climb the tree because she knew Sunny wouldn’t have let her. The kid also owned up to the fact she’d initially ignored Sunny’s pleas for her to come down and had instead climbed higher. They hadn’t had to punish her for being disobedient. Missing soccer practice for three weeks had proved more than enough punishment.

  “What’s wrong, Sunny?”

  “Nothing. I’ve been busy getting this house wrapped up. It’s May and school is winding down, so… I’ve been busier than normal.”

  “You know I’m not talking about that. I’m talking about why you won’t talk to me anymore.”

  She sucked in a deep breath. “Because it’s easier that way. Things weren’t going to work anyway.”

  “What wasn’t working?”

  Giving him a flat look, she turned her gaze to the house across the street. “All of it. I knew I couldn’t get involved with you. I told you that, but I let you talk me into this friendship… and kissing… and it’s just not what I need right now. It’s not working.”

  “Bullshit. I talked you into kissing me? To sleeping with me? That was all you, sweetheart.”

  Her gaze snapped to his. “That may be, but that doesn’t change the fact that I can’t do this with you. Look, we have all these leftover feelings from our past. We were once good together, and we’ll always have those memories, but we can’t build a future on something so flawed. We had our chance and we blew it.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “It’s not bullshit. It’s the truth.”

  “You think because we messed up years ago—because I messed up—that we can never have something strong between us again? Because that sounds like an absolute. Like we could only possibly have one shot at something. If that were true, no one in the world would ever succeed at anything.” It was a good argument. Maybe some things were one-shot dreams, but not most things. Thomas Edison once said he’d found hundreds of ways to not make a light bulb. Thomas hadn’t given up and neither would Henry.

  Sunny set her jaw and refused to look at him. “It’s just how I feel. Katie Clare’s accident woke me up to what I was trying to do.”

  He inhaled and exhaled. “Which was?”

  “Trying to fit into a shoe I wasn’t meant to wear. You’re not my husband, and your kids aren’t and never will be mine. I had started to lull myself into a false sense of belonging here… with you. And that life is one I wasn’t meant to have.”

  “Again, bullshit.” Anger rose inside him, and he had the inclination to shake her until she abandoned the idiotic thoughts that flitted through her pretty head. What? She thought she didn’t deserve to love and be loved? Because she’d had her one shot at love and missed the mark? Or maybe this was because she couldn’t have children. Either way, it was a messed-up view of life in general. “Sunny, you’re throwing up walls when there’s no need for them. Of course Landry and Katie Clare are not your kids, but they could be something more than just ‘Henry’s kids.’ They like you. A lot.”

  “I know, and that’s part of the problem. I don’t need to get that close because I’m leaving, Henry.”

  “Why, Sunny? I mean, Christ, you have people here who love you. And if Melanie retires, they’ll offer you a job with good benefits. You’re already part of this community. It’s where you were born, raised, and where you belong.”

  “No. it’s where you belong. There are things I am not meant for. I know that. It’s pretty evident that I couldn’t have children for a good reason.”

  “Are you even listening to yourself?” he asked, rising from the chair and walking across the no longer sagging porch. “You think God is punishing you by not giving you children? What kind of god do you think we serve, Sunny? And do you know how ludicrous it is that you’re using what happened to Katie Clare to justify this?”

  “Don’t tell me what I feel.” She jabbed her pointer finger down on the arm of the rocker.

  “I will when it’s wrong.”

  She glared at him, and in her blue eyes he could see the stubbornness that had often been her downfall. She’d made up her mind and didn’t want to be moved.

  Try a different tactic. “So what about me? Don’t I matter? I thought things were going good between us.”

  “Because we went on a few dates?” She spread her hands and looked up at him. “Yeah, the sex was good and we’ve had some laughs, but I can’t go back in time, Henry. I’m not some pathetic woman who needs you to rescue her.”

  “Who said I was trying to rescue you? I was dating you with the hope you’d see that we are good together… with the hope you could grow to trust me again. And I was giving you the space you had asked for. Shit, Sunny, give me some credit for trying to do the right thing.”

  “You always do the right thing, Henry. That was the problem from the beginning, and it’s still the problem. You’re trying to rectify what happened in the past. You still feel guilty and you want to fix things. That’s what all this has been about—the past.”

  He couldn’t believe the conclusions she’d drawn. How messed up was this woman? And how hard was she trying to run from anything remotely good in her life? “Are you effing crazy? You think I’m trying to make something up to you? You think that was a pity fuck? Or maybe because I’m a guy, it would mean nothing to me? And I suppose those dates were supposed to be about getting back in your pants, or maybe you thought they were some sort of payment? Hell, I have no idea what sort of intent you subscribe to my actions. You might think I’m a serial killer trying to lure you to my lair, because obviously nothing about me is honest or pure.”

  “Don’t treat me like I’m crazy,” she said, leaping to her feet.
“I’m not.”

  “Then don’t say insane things just so you can justify running away from me.”

  “I’m not running. I had a plan from the beginning—get my mama settled and go to California. That’s not running away. It’s running to something. I deserve a new life and a new start. I don’t want to stay here where people know everything about me. Being a Voorhees in this town sucks, Henry. It sucks.”

  “You sure have a shitty opinion of people.” He stood because he had to do something other than sit and listen to her bull. He stared at the neighbor’s wind chimes clinking.

  “All I’m saying is that my plan was a good one, and you”—she stood up and poked a finger in his chest—“are muddying my waters by trying to convince me I’m somebody I’m not. I’m not the old Sunny, and I don’t want to belong to you or anyone. And I damn sure don’t want to stay in this town.”

  “Then go.”

  “I will.”

  For a few seconds they both stood across from one another. Emotion stretched between them, and it hurt to feel the widening gulf she was intentionally creating. Sunny was afraid that someone loving her was too good to be true.

  “You know what this is about, Sunny? It’s about being afraid. You’re afraid to love me. Afraid to love my kids. Afraid to want something good for yourself. You’d rather wallow in the sorrow, in despair, just like your mother does, because that’s safer than actually taking a leap of faith. Essentially you’re saying you’ll be content to sit and watch life go by because you’re too scared to get out there and actually live it. And that’s really sad. In fact, that’s pathetic.”

  She looked like he’d hit her with a shovel. “Get the hell off my porch.”

  Henry shook his head. “I thought I could change your mind. I thought you would be able to see that love is powerful enough to sew us back together again. But you just want to run from all you are and all you could be.”

  Sunny stilled, her anger leaving as suddenly as it had come. Instead, she looked defeated. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe I want to escape who I am. Sometimes that’s how people deal. They avoid what hurts, and you hurt me. Alan hurt me. Life hurt me. So maybe being afraid is the only way I can survive.”