“No. Tonight’s my night to work late. I’ll get a burger someplace,” he said wistfully, his eyes on the ham in the oven.
Breakfast was pleasant enough, Brie thought as she wolfed down the massive meal Pearl set in front of her. She offered to do the dishes, but Sela said she’d help Pearl, so she opted to walk Bode out to the gates.
“I see something in your eyes that puzzles me, Bode. Something’s going on. You’re about to make some kind of decision, aren’t you?” Brie asked.
“You watch too many movies, Detective Canfield. I’m glad you’re okay, Brie. A day didn’t go by that I didn’t worry about you. I tried calling you, hundreds of times. I want to make sure you know that. I’ll see you around. How long are you staying?”
“A few days. Thanks for worrying. We can’t get it back, can we? I’m talking about that wonderful time in our lives when we were kids. So often I want yesterday. Is that wrong, Bode?”
“You can’t live in the past, Brie. It’s what’s ahead that’s important—today and tomorrow. Life. Memories are what they are, and are best left alone until there’s nothing else to occupy our minds. That’s my advice for the day.”
“I’m sorry about Callie, Bode. I know—”
“You think you know. It was great seeing you again, Brie. I really miss all of you. Whatever else you may believe, believe this: you’re part of my life, and I don’t want to see it fade away until we only communicate with Christmas cards.”
Brie whooped in horror. “Who is it that never calls, never writes and only shows up when there’s a crisis of some kind?”
“The fact that I show up is proof enough that I care.”
“Like my graduation?”
“Yes. My advice to you now is go take a nap—you look like you could stand some rest. If you don’t like that idea, pick some flowers for Mama Pearl and walk around the grounds. Get a feel for it all over again.”
“Yes, sir,” Brie said, ripping off a smart salute.
Bode’s shoulders shook with laughter as he pedaled out to the main road, but the moment he was out of sight of Parker land he sobered.
Forty-five minutes later Bode Jessup was back in his storefront law office on Main Street. He wheeled his bike through the back door and parked it in a storage room. It was his one treasure left over from childhood, and he wouldn’t part with it for a pot of gold. Satisfied that his treasure was secure, he headed to a tiny, sparkling washroom, where he washed his face and brushed his hair. He yanked at his string tie—his concession to a real tie—and pulled it over his head. He shed his jeans and stepped into a pair of khaki-colored twill trousers. The Keds stayed on his feet. A new business day.
Bode Jessup’s office was normally neat, everything in its place. Today, because of his work yesterday and into the night, it was cluttered with boxes and barrels. He was packing up shop and moving on. He hadn’t lied when he said he had to go to court later in the day. He had one last motion to plead, and until then he’d be here to supervise the labeling and transfer of the boxes and barrels to UPS. He could feel his shoulders start to slump when he sat down in his chair, a gift from Judge Avery Summers when he opened his family law practice. It was worn in now. UPS had promised an oversize packing crate so it could be shipped with his other things.
Bode sat down and closed his eyes. He heard his sixty-year-old secretary, to whom he paid only a pittance, set down a cup of coffee on his desk. She always knew just the right spot to place it. His eyes still closed, he reached for the brew. It wasn’t half as good as Mama Pearl’s, but he needed it.
Jesus, how had he gotten to this place in time where he was giving up everything he loved and cared about? He could feel his body start to tremble as he sipped at the coffee. He had to get himself together, or he was going to blow everything. His head felt like a home for nesting bumblebees, buzzing with fierce intensity. He was leaving the only mother he’d ever known, leaving Callie to another man, and running out on Brie and Sela, the people he loved as much as he loved life. Did that mean he was a coward? He didn’t know anymore.
He wished now he’d had the guts to tell Callie weeks ago that he was quitting, that they weren’t going to work together when she returned from her honeymoon. Callie an attorney . . . it still boggled his mind when he thought about it. Brie was a detective these days, and a damn good one, according to her. A smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. Brie was special
. . . Another time, another place . . .
It was the summer Brie turned six and Bode himself turned nine, when a catastrophe of sorts happened that set the tone for their relationship in the years to follow.
It was a bright, sunshiny day without a cloud in the sky when Sela and Brie arrived with Mrs. Canfield, who all but pushed the girls from the car in her hurry to get back to town. Brie dawdled, her sandal-shod feet digging in the sandy ground. Holding hands with Callie, Bode had run to the gate to meet them. Callie tugged at Brie’s arm as Bode stood to the side listening to Sela. As young as he was, he could see that both Brie and Sela needed a bath and to have their hair brushed. They were both wearing the same dresses they’d worn the day before and the day before that. Breakfast was ready—golden scrambled eggs, extra crisp bacon, and a mountain of toast spread with butter and jam. Pearl rang the breakfast bell. As one, the children looked in the direction of the back porch, then at Bode, who dropped to a crouch so Brie could get on his back. He counted to three, and they all galloped toward the house. Pearl was mixing Hershey’s chocolate into big glasses of milk when the children sat down at the table and unfolded their napkins.
“It’s not ’portant,” Callie pouted.
“Is so,” Sela insisted.
“It makes you special,” Bode said.
Brie cried quiet tears as she munched on her toast.
“Tonight when you go to sleep the Tooth Fairy will leave you a present. She left me one when my front teeth fell out,” Bode lied with a straight face.
“Will she leave me one, too?” Callie demanded.
“Probably so,” Bode said, “but not till your teeth fall out.”
“My mama said I look ugly with no teeth and all the freckles on my face. Mamas don’t lie. I don’t want to be ugly; I want to be pretty like my mama,” Brie said.
“You are pretty. Look at us, we don’t have freckles so that makes you special. Isn’t that true, Mama Pearl?” Bode turned to her for help.
Pearl’s eyes rolled back in her head as she slapped the dishrag against the hot frying pan. “That’s right, Miz Brie. The Lord gave you freckles so’s other people can see them. They match your curls. That makes it real special. When your new teeth come in they’re going to look like real pearls. You listen to me now and don’t you be crying.”
“Yes’m,” Brie said, choking off her fears.
“You finish up now and scamper into that bathroom and turn on the water. Bode, you carry the dishes to the sink. Miz Callie, you fetch me two dresses and some hair ribbons. Don’t forget to bring the underwear, too.” The children separated and met later on the back porch.
There Bode set up shop and outlined the day’s agenda. “Today is going to be Brie’s day. We’re going to do whatever she wants. Tomorrow is Callie’s day and the next day is Sela’s day. It’s fair,” he said sternly.
“Am I really special, Bode?” Brie asked.
“Yes. First we’re all going out to the angel oak and sit down. We’re going to take turns counting your freckles. You have to sit still and hold your face like this.” He demonstrated a stretched-out look. “No laughing.”
“Will we win a prize?” Sela asked. She had all the prizes she’d won in a paper sack in her dresser drawer.
“Nope. Brie gets the prize because she has the freckles.”
“I wish I had freckles,” Callie said wistfully.
“Me, too,” Sela said.
Brie preened as Bode started to count.
When the freckle-counting came to an end, Brie threw her arms around Bode and said, �
��I love you, Bode.”
“I love you, too,” Callie said.
“I do, too,” Sela chimed in. “Do you love us even if we’re girls?”
“Yeah,” Bode said gruffly.
“We’re sisters,” Callie said happily. “What are you, Bode?”
“He’s our brother. Isn’t that right, Bode?” Brie demanded.
“It’s pretend. You need to know the difference,” Bode said.
“Is that the same as belonging together? I want to belong,” Sela said stubbornly, tears sparkling in her eyes.
Callie jumped up, and shouted, “Bode is mine—I saw him first. He lives here. He’s mine! He belongs to me.” Sela and Brie started to cry. Bode flapped his arms in dismay.
“A long time ago people owned people. They don’t do that anymore. I can’t belong to you, Callie—it’s the law. We go together, but nobody owns anybody else. The only way you can belong to someone is to your mama and your papa. Maybe when I get married I will belong to someone. I have to ask the preacher. I don’t want to be telling you wrong,” he said solemnly.
“Will you marry us?” Brie demanded.
Out of his depth, Bode said, “Sure.”
“Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy,” Brie chortled. “We’re getting married. When?”
When? “When we get old and go to college and make something out of ourselves.”
Brie started to cry again. “What if Pearl says we can’t get married? What will we do? We have to mind Pearl, or she won’t love us.”
Bode thought about his response. Finally, he said, “I don’t know what we’ll do. We’ll get smart when we go to college and maybe we can do it then.”
Callie hated to be put off. “What if we can’t? Will you marry some other girl?”
“I don’t know, Callie,” Bode said fretfully.
“You can lie and say you don’t want to,” Sela said.
“It’s a sin to tell a lie,” Brie said.
“I don’t want to think about it today,” Bode said. “We said we’re going to do whatever Brie wants to do. We promised, and you aren’t supposed to break a promise.”
“Let’s go cat fishing. Whoever catches the biggest fish gets a prize.”
“What’s the prize, Bode?” Sela asked, her eyes shining with happiness.
“If I tell you it won’t be a surprise. Get the fishing poles and I’ll meet you by the pond.” Now he had to come up with two prizes, one to put under Brie’s pillow and one for whoever caught the biggest catfish. His shoulders slumped with the weight of his dilemma.
Bode hopped from one foot to the other, his face a mask of misery. He was waiting for Pearl to finish picking up the picnic basket. “Mama Pearl, I think maybe I told a lie. I told the girls I would marry them. They pester me. I don’t know what to say to them. Is it a bad lie?”
“Not for now. When you start to grow it will be a bad lie. You can’t marry three girls. You get that notion right out of your head, Bowdey Jessup. Someday when you is growed like a man, you’re going to meet a girl who will love you like Pearl does. She’ll give you fine children that you will love and squeeze, but it can’t be them girls down at the pond. You hear me now, Bode?”
“I hear you, Mama Pearl.”
Bode finished the coffee, his eyes damp with his memories. Seeing Brie yesterday and again this morning had been such a shock. She looked so fragile, so vulnerable. Her tart tongue, her “tell-it-like-it-is” persona was still the same, though. Coming back here for Callie’s wedding would heal her, even everything out for her. It wasn’t that Bode was a mind reader, it was just that he’d been so close to all of them, that he knew instinctively when things were right and when they were wrong. It was almost as though all four were extensions of one another.
They were grown now, living hundreds of miles apart, but it didn’t matter. They stayed in touch with letters and phone calls, but he only called and wrote on birthdays and Christmases. He didn’t know which he hated more, writing letters or talking on the phone. He did his best to avoid both whenever he could.
Bode wished for yesterday the way he always did when his memories took him back to his childhood. So many years ago. He could remember the day Clemson Parker had come to fetch him from the preacher’s house to take him to Parker Manor. It was still as fresh in his mind as though it were yesterday.
Yesterday. . . .
“Do you have everything, Bowdey?”
“Yes, sir. This is all I have,” the six-year-old said, pointing to the paper sack at his feet.
“Pearl will take care of that. We’ll get you some new clothes and some shoes and maybe a pair of sneakers. Would you like that?”
“Yes, sir, I would. Who’s Pearl?”
Clemson Parker dropped to his knees. “Pearl is a wonderful woman who is going to love you so much you will be smiling all day long. My little girl will be your sister. I want you always to be kind to her and to love and respect Pearl. Do you think you can promise me to do that?”
“Yes, sir, I can make that promise to you. I’ll never break it either,” Bode said solemnly.
“I believe you, Bode. I guess you’re wondering why I’m taking you away from here. A friend of mine, Judge Avery Summers, told me the Reverend had too many mouths to feed. The Judge and I, we decided to see if we could find good homes for you and three of the other children to help out the Reverend. I’m going to adopt you, Bode. Later I’ll explain what that means. For now I don’t want you to worry about anything. I’m going to give you a good life where you’ll be loved and happy. You’ll have your own bedroom, your own things, good clothes, and good food. We’ll be a family. Family is the most important thing in the world, Bode. I don’t ever want you to forget that.”
“I won’t, sir.”
The man got to his feet, and with a hand that was as big as a ham hock, he tousled Bode’s hair. It felt good, wonderful really. What felt even better was when Clemson Parker shook his hand and called him young man. “I don’t want you to be scared, now. You just be yourself and grow up to be a fine, upstanding young man Pearl and I will be proud of.”
Bode wanted to ask about Mrs. Parker, the little girl’s mother, but stopped himself. It didn’t sound like Pearl was the mother, just someone who maybe was a pretend mother.
The little girl who was his new sister and who he was supposed to be kind to was sitting on the porch when Clemson Parker ushered him up the back steps. A big black woman with a thick braid in her hair was standing in the doorway, her arms outstretched. Bode knew instinctively that he was supposed to walk into those comforting arms. “Are you Mama Pearl?” he whispered.
“Yes, chile, I am,” Pearl said, hugging him. She tousled his dark curls the way Clemson Parker had done, but when Pearl did it, it was so soothing he wanted to close his eyes and drift off to sleep. “Did you have any lunch, Bode?” she asked, never loosening her hold on the boy.
“No, ma’am.”
“Well then, you just climb up on that swing with Miz Callie and wait for me to fix you something. Miz Callie, mind your manners and say hello to this young man. His name is Bowdey Jessup. Your papa is going to adopt him, so then his new name will be Bowdey Jessup Parker. He will be your brother. Your papa said he’s going to bring some children from town to play with you both. In a while. I don’t know when that will be. Soon, I expect.”
Bode sat down on the swing. He hopped off almost immediately when he remembered Mr. Parker saying he was supposed to be kind to Callie.
“I can push you if you want me to,” he offered.
“Yes, push me, Bode. You can stop when Pearl brings your lunch. I like to swing, don’t you?”
“Sure,” Bode said, and Callie smiled up at him. He saw the golden curls, the smile, the pretty hair ribbon and ruffled dress. Her shoes were black and shiny, and her socks were so white they looked like snow. It wasn’t going to be hard to be kind to this little girl. He was never, ever, going to break that promise to Mr. Parker.
“Where did Mr. Parker go?”
“Up to see Mama. My mama doesn’t come downstairs. She stays in her room and takes medicine. I see her every afternoon. That’s why I have on this dress and hair ribbon. After I see her I change my clothes and shoes. I can play with you then. We can have a tea party. Pearl will give us cookies and soda pop.”
Bode groaned. “If I have a tea party with you, will you help me catch some frogs? We can have a contest if we catch some. You know, to see whose frog can jump the best. We can have a prize for the winner.”
“Oh, my goodness. What will be the prize?” Callie cried excitedly. “I don’t have prizes for tea parties.”
Bode stopped pushing the swing. “Then why do you have a tea party?”
“For the cookies and soda pop. What’s the prize?”
“It’s a secret. I’ll make it. I like to make things. Maybe we can have the cookies and soda pop at our frog contest.”
“Should I bring my tea set?”
Bode remembered his promise. “Okay.”
Pearl stepped onto the back porch, a tray in her hand that she carried over to a child’s table and chairs in the corner of the porch. Bode watched as she spread a white napkin on the little table and removed the plate that held a thick ham sandwich onto another napkin. There was also an apple and a slice of peach pie and a huge glass of milk. He never had this much food at the preacher’s house. He’d never been really hungry, but he always left the table wanting more. He understood, though, that the preacher had many mouths to feed, and the food had to be portioned out so everyone got some. Orphans had to be content with what the Lord provided. The preacher’s words were always kind, but it didn’t help the rumbling in his stomach.
“While you eat your lunch, Bode, Callie is going upstairs to see her mama. She can play when she comes down.”
“Thank you, ma’am,” Bode said, sitting down on the child’s chair, only to find that his legs were too long to fit under the table. He felt agonizingly self-conscious, felt his neck grow red. In a second Pearl had the food transferred to the tray again and was on her way to the kitchen, where she placed everything on the big table just the way she’d done at the little table. “You sit here, Bode.” Her smile warmed him all over. And that warm, wonderful, loving smile stayed with him until it was time to leave Parker Manor and go away to school.
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