His Sweetest Song

by Victoria H. Smith

  I nodded. “That’s the plan. I still have a lot of things to figure out.”

  Up until literally a few weeks ago I had been intending to sell, the developer picked out and everything. I had people giving offers well over market value following the write-ups in the many publications my aunt’s house had been a part of. It’d actually been helpful for me to find buyers. I had people falling out of my aunt’s windows wanting to turn the place into everything from a campground to a resort, the house itself untouched, but the land around it and even part of the town included in the restructuring of the project. They wanted to launch something huge, something that would change this town on its head and though progressive it really wouldn’t be the same town. It would change it.

  “I can imagine,” Ava said, eyes on me. “But everything will be okay. I know it.”

  “Oh, it will.” I smiled at her, leaning on a box. “I’ll figure it all out. Well, Gray and I. He’s been really helpful with all the decisions and everything. He’s going to make sure my aunt’s land is treated right.”

  He’d probably keep up with it until his dying day if I let him.

  Would we get that far?

  I hoped so and the very thought had me smiling.

  Ava gave me a knowing smile and she went silent while we finished setting up. A beanbag hit one of our tables at one point, which got Jasmine chastised by Jolene. I retrieved it for the girl, saying it wasn’t a big deal before giving it back to her.

  “What do you say?” Jolene questioned, eyeing her.

  Dark-green eyes and a huge smile went shy on Jasmine’s face.

  “Thanks, Ms. Alicia,” she said, chewing her lip a little.

  I smiled. “No problem and it really isn’t a big deal.”

  That one had been for Jolene, the woman patting Jasmine’s shoulder. She guided her off to play, but her niece lingered a second. She followed us around from table to table, playing with the little decorative streamers we placed around the baked items. I figured with her new intrigue Jolene would send her off and I think she would have.

  If not for what she said.

  “Now that Ms. Alicia is staying everything will be good,” she said, smiling wide. “Now that she’s not selling everything will be good.”

  I didn’t understand what she’d said and her saying something of that nature was quite odd to me, causing me to look up at her.

  I ended up panning over to her and I had some eyes before me, ones that’d definitely heard what she said.

  Jolene’s hands came together and Ava’s eyes… well, escaped entirely. It seemed the inside of her arms became her fascination when she crossed them and Jolene put her hand softly on Jasmine’s tiny shoulder.

  “Run along,” she told her. “Run along” like she didn’t say something weird.

  Like she didn’t say something weird that involved me.

  The young girl skipped off and that left a vacancy in the air, one in which I wanted answers to and no one was giving them, both ladies’ eyes on everything but me.

  My arms folded, I approached Jolene, her niece the one that said the words.

  “What’s going on?” I asked. “Why did she say that?”

  A breeze of her bright, auburn bangs flipped when she lifted her head. The school teacher opened her mouth perhaps to say something, but Ava seemed to have finally found her voice.

  “It’s okay, Jolene,” she said, her jaw moving a little. “I’ll talk to her.”

  The teacher left us to our peace and more of that silence occurred, which at this point, was really testing my patience. Ava had moved over to one of the pie tables at this point, tapping her fingers on it and I joined her.

  “Ava?” I questioned. “What’s going on?”

  She had no words for me at first, kicking her boot behind her and then…

  “What do you want me to say, Alicia?”

  My eyes flashed, not understanding.

  “Say…?”

  She nodded, her eyes sad all of a sudden. I wasn’t used to this on her, not at all. She may have been shy sometimes but was never sad.

  Nor ashamed.

  Her arms moved over the other, her gaze panning over the little world of busy townsfolk, which worked around us.

  “We just figured,” she started, eyes moving, sight circulating. “We just figured if you saw all this, saw Mayfield and everything… Got to know us and all that you wouldn’t…”

  She said… us.

  My gaze travelled now, everyone around us working, but in this part of the bazaar, this part of my world was crumbling.

  “You didn’t want me to sell?” I concluded, the reality coming in a chilling wave. “You didn’t want me to sell so you were what…? Nice to me—”

  She had always been nice. She’d always been there and well before recently with inviting Gray and me along to functions with her friends. She was always there.

  She was always good.

  “That’s not why I—”

  She came closer, but I veered away, my arms tight around me.

  Ava’s hand closed like she was attempting to reach out, touch me when she truly knew she shouldn’t.

  Her mouth moved. “That’s not what it was like.”

  “Then what was it like?”

  “It was…” Her voice stopped on the end like she was trying to choose her words, her lashes lifted when she seemed to have found them.

  “That’s what it started as,” she admitted, the dagger sharp, the slit inside deep. “But then we got to know each other.”

  They’d gotten to know me, this town. It’d become less trying to get Josephine’s niece not to sell and more about actually liking her at some point, knowledge in which most likely the whole town was in on.

  Everyone except me.

  The reality had me turn from her, a tremor in my arms. It filled me up, angered me, and even more when I remembered one other person. He’d been the person, the one that mattered most with his daughter.

  My phone in my hand, I started dialing, but then I heard his voice. My vision panned out the door, the church event room open to the sun. A clear view of the parking lot displayed from here and that’s where Gray was, his daughter’s hand in his. He let her run out, then tugged her back into a hug.

  “Alicia?”

  Ava’s hand pushed over my shoulder, the hand of whom I thought had been my friend.

  “Alicia… it all changed.”

  Meaning she was actually my friend now. It all was no longer a ruse, but the thing was, it took two people to make a friendship.

  And maybe I didn’t want to be her friend anymore.

  Leaving her hand, I heard her call my name, which I ignored. I needed to ask someone something, his eyes lighting up the minute he watched me cross the threshold of the church.

  But then he saw it, saw something in my eyes. The realization caused him to let go of both his smile and Laura’s hand, his own guiding behind her shoulder.

  “Did you know?” I asked before I even got to him, Laura between us. “Did you know about the town? People pretending to be nice? People pretending to be my—”

  He’d gotten to me at this point because I stopped unable to go any further.

  My lashes lifted. “Did you know about the town trying to get me not to sell my aunt’s estate?”

  His gaze travelled over my face in a way that didn’t necessarily tell of guilt, but not unknowing either. The very existence of the latter drove the wind clear out of me and he squeezed Laura’s arm.

  “Laura, go play.”

  “Laura, stay.”

  Her attention ventured between us both, not knowing what to do. This man was her father.

  But I was her friend.

  We’d gained more than that, this girl and me, and because we had, she wasn’t moving, Gray pulling her back into a hug since she wasn’t.

  His face straightened, serious, but he wasn’t talking quick enough.

  “Did you know?” I asked, truly not a hard question. “
Did you know and were you in on it too?”

  “Of course I didn’t want you to sell, Alicia,” he said, shocking the hell out of me in the purest form. He’d been so honest. He shook his head. “I didn’t want developers coming in here, slashing up Jo’s property.”

  “So you knew? So you—”

  I started to walk away but he used a hand, grabbing me. He made me stay with that hand and he made me listen despite what he’d already done to my heart. He’d done a number on it. He really had.

  Breathing, he pushed his hand down my arm.

  “I may have heard word about it,” he said. “This is a small town, and yes, I may have heard something.”

  I closed my eyes and he guided me closer, his voice near my ear.

  “But listen to me when I say I had nothing to do with this,” he went on. “I may have not wanted you to sell, but I respected your decision. Damn—” He reconsidered his words when he noticed Laura below. He squeezed me. “Alicia, I helped you for God’s sake.”

  He may have helped me and even respected me, but that didn’t leave him victimless. He had knowledge of something he could have shared with me at anytime.

  He just chose not to.

  Leaving his hands, I couldn’t hear anymore.

  “Alicia!”

  My name called wasn’t deep but light, the sound of a little girl.

  Her voice truly almost had me turning around, but I couldn’t stop my steps, moving forward. Somewhere in the distance I heard a, “Let her go,” then a quieter version of the same. “Let her go.”

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Alicia

  The home of Josephine Bradley rattled that evening, rocked with anger and a storm amongst other things. The wild of winds and rain slammed upon the house after such a perfect day and kept me up, kept me in my head more than I liked. Eventually, I fell back asleep, but came out of it with a dream that had me circulating the house.

  As well as ripping up boxes.

  I went in search of something I saw as clear as day, needing something, anything of truth. I’d had so many people lie to me, Ava, Jolene…

  Even Gray.

  He had in a way by omission no matter how unintended. I couldn’t trust people like I thought I’d been able to. I questioned everything. If I had rushed into the decision of staying here and if I had should I move forward with the plans to stay. Everything in my head was a screwed-up mess of doubt and confusion, but one thing made sense, the dream I had.

  Where is it? I know it’s here.

  The fifth box I found in my aunt’s basement left me empty, the visions in my head I knew had to be true. I hadn’t just dreamt them. They happened and I had to find the evidence of it, a photograph.

  On the sixth box, I found my proof. It’d actually been right underneath a photo my aunt had of herself and her sister, my mom, when they’d been in their youth. I had no idea the time period of the photograph, but my mom’s face resembled that of my own young memories.

  She looked just like me in her twenties, the same wide eyes and soft features. My mom was beautiful and I was glad I had so many photos such as this at my own home.

  Home…

  I had no idea where that was for me at the present, but I hoped finding this evidence was the key. Placing the photo of my mom and aunt to the side, I picked up the one underneath.

  It was the two of us, my aunt Josephine and myself. I sat back in my nightgown, my bottom touching down in the hallway I’d been ripping boxes I drug up from the basement in. Crossing my legs, I waved my hand over the photograph I remembered being in when it was taken, the memories so fuzzy.

  My mom had taken this. I remembered that.

  I remembered my mom telling me to smile into the camera, but I hadn’t had to. I had my aunt Jo’s arms around me, her warm loving embrace. I remembered never wanting to leave it.

  She always gave the best hugs.

  My head hurting, I pulled for more memories of the woman in the photo, a woman who looked so much like my mom, me. Even a decade over my mom they could have been twins and very similar to myself today in her features, her natural set of wild curls around her head the only difference between us.

  I smoothed my hand over the older photograph. This was when people actually took and developed pictures instead of snapping a photo with their camera phones. It was a different time, a great time.

  My eyes itching, I realized I had tears in them when they slid a heated trail down my cheek. I rubbed them away with my sleeve, the soft material I’d found in her closet. My aunt’s old nightgowns smelled like amber and honeysuckle. They smelled like her and I loved them.

  I smiled at her in the photo.

  What should I do?

  I called out to her with my mind like she could answer back and the thrashing of the winds on my door almost kept me from hearing the lightest knock ever imaginable. Sitting in the hallway, I had been able to hear it but definitely didn’t understand it. It was late, too late for visitors.

  In the back of my mind as I got up, I figured it might be Gray for some reason, wanting to fix whatever happened today with a few words and his presence. I wasn’t sure it’d be that easy though.

  I just didn’t know who to trust anymore.

  No large frame silhouetted outside the opaque glass so I knew it wasn’t him and the figure had been much shorter at my door.

  Laura jumped into my arms the moment the door opened.

  Alarmed, the little thing pressed her face into my stomach, nearly shivering and covered in rain and the storm’s elements.

  “Alicia…”

  Her trembled cry into my waist had me holding her, my hands folded behind her. She basically shook like a leaf on my stoop and my thoughts immediately traveled toward the depths.

  And the fact that her father wasn’t with her today.

  Squatting, I got to her level, pressing my hand to her face. The questions would have ensued if not for her frantic cries.

  “Please don’t leave. Please don’t be mad at my dad.”

  Her arms pushed around my neck, the strength of this little girl almost made me fall back. Gripping the porch with one hand and her with the other, I cupped the back of her head.

  “Laura, what’s going on? What are you—”

  She peeled away with tears in her eyes, her face flushed and strands of her dark hair sticking to her round cheeks. She was covered in rain, her hair messed about and the fact she’d truly had somehow made her way over here rang clear before me.

  “Dad said I had to let you go, but please don’t go. Please don’t be mad at him.”

  “Laura—”

  “Please, Alicia. Whatever he did I’m sure he’s sorry.”

  “Honey, your daddy didn’t do anything.” I shook my head, confused. She was speaking a mile a minute and I didn’t understand.

  The storm gaining behind her, I rose, taking her by the shoulder and guiding her into the house. A child, she went on about her dad and me being mad and I caught up with her as I took her saturated raincoat, then laid her damp boots out to dry. Her clothing had miraculously managed to remain unscathed in all this, but I still got a towel to dry her hair.

  “But, but, but why did you leave church then?” she breathed, finally taking a moment to while I squeezed out her pigtails on the couch. None of the curls I put in them remained from earlier that day. After getting them as dry as I could I looked at her.

  “I left because I had some things to figure out,” I told her, telling her the truth. I put my hands on my lap. “Did you walk all the way over here?”

  Her furious nod followed a rub of her eyes. She was still crying and coming down from whatever this was. I decided to take her into the kitchen and get her a cup of cocoa to warm her up. We got her a blanket along the way and I grabbed my cellphone as well, thinking I needed to call her dad.

  “Your dad must be in a frenzy,” I said, knowing that was putting things lightly. He lived on the other side of town and for her to walk all the way he
re without him and in a storm at that?

  I dialed, her resistance moving toward me when she grabbed my arm.

  “Please don’t call him. He’ll be mad.”

  Damn right he would, but he needed to know.

  I put my hand on her head. “He needs to know you came over here and you shouldn’t have, not by yourself anyway.”

  “He doesn’t know I left,” she said, peeking up at me with the blanket over her shoulders. “He was sleeping when I left. Please, Alicia. It took him all night to finally go to sleep.”

  The reality of that had my eyes closing and, eventually, I did hang up the phone.

  “He gets a call in a little bit then. You’re off the hook.”

  After acknowledging what I said with a nod, she stood back, a sniffle in her red-tipped nose. I got her cocoa heated up quickly and we took it into the living room, both of us coming down from the excitement of both the evening and the day.

  Laura took her cocoa on the couch, the blanket around her shoulders while she lay under my arm.

  “You shouldn’t have come over here, honey,” I told her, shaking my head. “Your dad’s going to have a fit.”

  She said nothing to my words, simply sipped her cocoa and sniffed again.

  “Why did you leave?” she edged out, her lashes flickering as she stared at my lap and I sighed, crossing my legs in her direction.

  Pushing my hand down her hair, I guided her to look up at me, those cheeks still rosy and sweet.

  I smiled at them. “Sometimes grownups need time to work things out.”

  Her brown eyes traveled around the room.

  “That’s what Daddy said,” she concluded, taking another sip of her chocolate and the words had me laughing a little.

  Her daddy was a very intelligent man, and even though I knew that, this all was so much more complicated.

  The soft rumble of the storm whooshed around us and Laura sipped her cocoa, no other words about her father said. Nestling herself up on me, she stared at my lap and suddenly tiny fingers slid into the pocket of my bathrobe.

  My aunt’s photo peeked out the top and I grabbed it for her, smiling when I took her cup and exchanged it for the photograph. Weathered, the two people inside were a little hard to make out, but clearly she knew the older woman was my aunt.