Persuasion, Captain Wentworth and Cracklin' Cornbread
Page 21
“It rarely does,” Theresa said. “I’m sorry for that. I hope you two can reach a place of peace, knowing that the past is long gone and all we have is right now.”
“I want that. But I don’t know if it’s possible.” Lucy wasn’t sure it was possible to watch Jem date someone else, knowing she still loved him.
Theresa squeezed her hand. “I’ll be praying for both of you.”
“Thank you,” Lucy said, and felt tears well in her eyes. She brushed them away, irritated at herself for becoming emotional. When Rebecca had offered to pray for them, she’d felt a rush of defensiveness. There was no hope, so she shouldn’t even ask God for help. But now that Lucy knew herself better, knew her heart had never let Jem go, she was desperate for that prayer. She was at the end of her emotional rope and was finally at that place where she welcomed those prayers. It was the place she should have been in the beginning, but was too busy fighting the truth.
“Let’s get this movie started. There’s nothing like a little Austen to soothe the wounded soul,” Theresa said.
Lucy nodded and inwardly steeled herself. Spending so much time with Jem had left her feeling raw, as if her emotions were exposed to the world. Watching a romance about lost love might be more than she could handle.
“Here we go.” Theresa sat back, looking over at Lucy. “Thank you, again.”
“For being fed and pampered and relaxing on your couch?” Lucy asked, laughing.
“For making a lonely old lady happy.”
Lucy didn’t know what to say. Loneliness might be their common bond, really. It had nothing to do with age or marital status or employment. Sometimes, you just needed a friend to sit on your couch and watch your favorite movie.
They smiled at each other for a moment, then the strains of instrumental music drew their attention to the screen. A dark-haired young woman trotted through a mansion, checking off items on a clipboard, directing servants, adjusting the white sheets. As she moved from one era to another, Lucy felt her stomach drop. Anne Elliot was doing what Lucy had narrowly avoided: making sure everything was ready for her to leave. The music swelled as Anne gazed over the furniture, unrecognizable under the protective covers, and Lucy felt Anne’s loss more deeply than she could have imagined.
She gripped her chilled glass of orange-and-raspberry juice. When Rebecca had talked about Austen, she’d mostly mentioned Mr. Darcy or Mr. Knightley. Lucy hadn’t thought of the doe-eyed, pale-skinned heroines.
On the screen, Anne Elliot walked down a long hallway, glancing just once at the covered paintings, her mouth a grim line. Lucy thought Jane Austen would start the story with the romance, or the loss of it, but instead the tale seemed to begin with Anne’s home, and having to make difficult decisions. Maybe this writer from two hundred years ago knew how everything important met at the intersection of family, home, love, and loss. This was something Lucy understood with every fiber of her being.
The final frame of the episode faded away and the credits began. Lucy heard a sound and glanced at Theresa, preparing for tears. Instead, the older woman’s head was resting on the back of the couch and she snored softly.
Lucy smiled, forcing herself to take a deep breath and unwrap her arms from around her middle. She’d been so engrossed in the movie that she hadn’t even noticed Theresa had fallen asleep. The story was heartrending, but something had hit her harder. Every time she saw that cold, shuttered look on Captain Wentworth’s face, she saw Jem. Old hurts and bitterness were so clear in his eyes that it took her breath away. She closed her eyes for a moment. I know I was wrong, but don’t let him hate me. Maybe it was too much to ask, but grace was powerful, and someday they might be able to forgive each other.
Anne hoped she had outlived the ageof blushing ; but the age of emotion she certainly had not.
—ANNE ELLIOT
Chapter Seventeen
“I can’t believe this is only the beginning of July. It feels like the middle of August.” Leticia wiped her forehead and adjusted the little fan at her desk. “I’m startin’ to think I’d better move back to Detroit.”
Lucy tossed the used sanitary wipe into the wastebasket and took another. The smell of the bleach stung her nose, but the toys in the clinic waiting room would be free of germs for the next group of little kids. The afternoon had been so busy she hadn’t had a chance to sit down, but with the momentary lack of patients, she’d planted herself in the kids’ play area. “Did you like it there?”
“Like it?” Leticia gave her a look. “Like hearing gunshots all night and bein’ afraid my husband was gonna be robbed on the way to work? No, I didn’t like it. When we knew we were having a baby, he wanted to move home.” She sighed. “I wasn’t convinced it was the right thing. I mean, the South is the last place a Black person wants to live, right?”
Lucy smiled. A sort of a “reverse Great Migration” was happening, and Leticia’s story was just one of dozens she’d recently heard. As the Northern cities struggled under bankruptcy and poverty and crime, families were moving South, searching for a place to raise their kids. “But you changed your mind.”
“I sure did. There’s a real sense of family here. And the kids are taught to respect their elders. They have expectations here that I didn’t see in Detroit.” Leticia paused. “And the food is amazing. Everything is fried or buttered or cooked in a cast-iron skillet, unless it’s right out of the garden.”
“We’ve got a bumper crop of corn and beans this year. You take some when you leave, okay?”
“I sure will, but I might have to fight your kitty to get in there.”
Lucy snorted. “She’s a tiger. A really tiny, harmless tiger.”
“Maybe she’s jealous that people are taking her green tomatoes and okra. Maybe you should show her what the end product is like so she’ll let us through.”
“I don’t know if Hattie would enjoy deep-fried okra, but I can try. It’s better than the chitlins Zeke is giving her. Poor thing is going to have clogged arteries before she’s a month old.”
“I’m not a fan of chitlins, but I don’t think they’ll hurt Hattie,” Jem said from the doorway. “If we’re discussing people food, I don’t care what it is, as long as Lucy makes it. She can really cook.” He was wearing a white lab coat that had DR. CHEVY embroidered above the pocket.
“Thank you.” Lucy stood up, suddenly feeling as if she didn’t know where to put her hands. She hadn’t seen him in his doctor’s coat before and he looked different, more official and less like the boy she once knew. She hadn’t seen him since the presentation, and although she’d thought it would be a relief not to run into him, she’d missed him. No matter how many times she told herself not to get attached, she felt a rush of happiness to see his smile.
“Zeke said your peanut plant is growing real well.”
She nodded. “It is. Thank you again. I think we could make our own peanut butter if we get a good crop next year. Or peanut brittle. Or maybe boiled peanuts for a treat.”
“So many options. What do you say, Leticia?”
“My neighbor made me some boiled peanuts. I never had anything so disgusting in my life. So slimy and salty.” She shuddered. “Anything but boiled peanuts would be fine.”
“You’ll need a lot for peanut butter. I have an idea,” Jem said. “You should sing to them.”
Lucy started to laugh. “And why would I want to do that?”
“Helps them grow. It’s scientifically proven.” He rubbed his chin. “But these are authentic Mississippi heirloom peanuts. They’ll need just the right song.”
“Like some Elvis? Or B.B. King?” Leticia asked.
“Nah. We need a Confederate soldier song, a folk tune.”
Lucy put her hand to her mouth to hide her smile. She knew what was coming. The only thing better than hearing Jem sing this song was going to be watching Leticia’s face when he did.
Leticia shook her head, her mouth open in disbelief. “What on earth are you singing? ‘Goober Peas’?”
He just grinned and kept singing. “Just before the battle, the General hears a row. He says, ‘The Yanks are coming, I hear their rifles now.’ He turns around in wonder, and what d’ya think he sees? The Tennessee Militia, eating goober peas.”
“I thought it was the Georgia Militia,” Lucy interrupted.
“I’ve heard that version, too. But I think the original had Tennessee Militia because they were the last to declare secession.”
“But it’s a reference to the Battle of Griswoldville, where the Georgia Militia fought so bravely. It doesn’t make as much sense with Tennessee,” Lucy said.
Leticia stared from Lucy to Jem. “I can’t believe you two are arguing about this song. It’s a nonsense song. I can’t even tell what you’re talkin’ about.”
“It’s not nonsense.” Jem looked shocked. “It’s part of our Southern heritage, right, Lucy? Everybody should know ‘Goober Peas.’ ” The corners of his mouth went up. “Plus, it’s just a good song.”
He crossed the waiting room and held out his arms, one hand upright and the other curved as if there was a person inside that space. Lucy blinked up at him. “I don’t know the dance to it. I didn’t know there was one.”
“There’s no dance. Come on, it’s easy.” He took her left hand and wrapped his arm around her waist. She could smell soap and something like freshly mown grass. He started to move in a slow waltz as he sang, “I think my song has lasted almost long enough. The subject’s interesting, but the rhymes are mighty tough. I wish the war was over, so free from rags and fleas. We’d kiss our wives and sweethearts, and gobble goober peas.”
“You two are plum crazy,” Leticia said.
Lucy joined in on the chorus, laughing into the words. “Goodness, how delicious, eating goober peas. Peas, peas, peas, peas. Eating goober peas. Goodness, how delicious, eating goober peas.”
She started to let go of his hand, but Jem held tight, moving smoothly into another step. “Did you know there’s a stanza they sang at the Union prison on Johnson’s Island?”
Lucy shook her head. It was hard for her to think straight when he was so close to her. His voice had lost its cheery tone and his eyes were somber. They moved easily together around the waiting room, and everything faded away as he sang, “But now we are in prison and likely long to stay. The Yankees they are guarding us, no hope to get away. Our rations they are scanty, ’tis cold enough to freeze. I wish I was in Georgia, eating goober peas.”
He sang the chorus, but she didn’t join in. The words were slow and sad now, nothing like the jaunty folk song it had been when he’d started. She glanced up. His hand was warm in hers, and she felt his arm strong against her back. He held her just as surely as Marcus had. But where Marcus’s strength set off warning sirens in her head, Jem’s made her forget the world. There was nothing but him and her and this sunny waiting room on a Thursday afternoon. The lines of his face were so familiar, the way his mouth tilted up on one side.
“I sure wish it was cold enough to freeze. I don’t know why these old places don’t have air-conditioning,” Leticia said.
Her words seem to filter in to Lucy from somewhere far away. She stood motionless, Jem still holding her hand, their gazes locked. Her pulse thudded in her ears. The look in his eyes wasn’t bitter or cold or anything she had seen before. He seemed to be caught somewhere between fear and hope.
Leticia cleared her throat. “I hate to interrupt the moment, but we’ve got company.”
Lucy sprang away from Jem, her gaze darting to the doorway that led to the hall. She expected to see Aunt Olympia there, a furious expression on her face. But the area was empty. She looked around, confused.
Jem was watching her, eyes narrowed. He dropped his hand to his side. “Just a patient, Lucy.”
Turning to the glass doors that led to the deck, she saw a young, pregnant woman carrying a baby on one hip. “I wasn’t . . . I just thought . . .” Lucy’s face went hot. She’d been scared senseless at the idea of being caught with Jem, and he knew it.
He walked away without another word, holding the door open for the young mom. Lucy felt her stomach drop into her shoes. She had failed him. Again. She’d prayed they could be friends, but it would never happen. Jem was wonderful and funny and sweet, but they could never be friends because Lucy was a coward. She swallowed back a sour taste in her throat. All it had taken was the suggestion of Aunt Olympia’s disapproval and she’d snapped ten years into the past. She was still the girl who was afraid of her daddy’s disapproval, the one who didn’t want to lose his love because she was too stubborn, too strong-willed.
“Kaniesha, is everything okay?”
She shook her head, her braids shaking from side to side; her face was tight with worry. “Dr. Chevy, Tina sounds so bad. She had a cold and she was coughing, and now she’s not coughing as much. But listen.” Kaniesha held the baby up. The infant’s dark eyes were heavy lidded and she let out a feeble squawk. Her tiny voice was hoarse.
Jem took the stethoscope from around his neck and quickly pressed it to the baby’s chest. “She certainly sounds congested. Come on back. Leticia will grab the paperwork and you can fill it out in a few minutes.”
Seconds later they were gone and Leticia was bustling around, pulling intake sheets from the drawers. Lucy numbly went back to the plastic container of disinfectant wipes. She had begged for some sort of peace between them and it had seemed as if God had answered her prayer. It was too bad that she had ruined it, again.
Tears filled her eyes and she blindly wiped a bright-yellow airplane and set it back on the shelf. She had thought if she could only have one more chance, then maybe things could be different. But she had to face that no matter how many chances she got, no matter how many times Jem forgave her, she wasn’t strong enough to be the woman he needed, the woman he deserved.
She’d thought Regan was the worst person he could be with, but Regan would never be ashamed to be with Jem. Regan might be shallow and petty and ignorant, but she was not afraid.
Lucy had never felt so disappointed in herself in her whole life.
The door swung open and a man with two small children walked in. He looked dirty and tired. He crossed the waiting room, dragging a little girl in each hand. “Excuse me.”
“Yes?” Leticia stacked forms and slipped them onto a clipboard.
“My girls are startin’ school after the summer. The teacher says they need to get their vaccinations.”
“Have they had any before?”
“No, ma’am.” He shook his head. “I always had them brush their teeth, though. They got real good teeth.”
Leticia smiled at the two girls, who each hid behind one of their father’s legs. “Well, let’s get you all set up for a checkup. Do you live near here?”
“Pretty close. We took two buses.”
Lucy tried not to show her surprise and turned away. Two buses was close? She thought fifteen minutes in her own car was too long some days.
“I’ll ask Dr. Chevy, but I’m pretty sure he’ll just want to do a basic checkup today and then we’ll start to schedule the vaccinations.” Leticia leaned down to the girls. “So, no shots today, okay?”
One girl leaned out and flashed a wide smile. “Can we play with your toys?”
“Sure, go ahead.”
Both girls scampered toward Lucy, tiny pigtails bouncing. They stood for a moment, surveying the brightly colored puzzles
and plastic push toys.
“Wow,” one breathed. She looked up at Lucy. “Are these all your toys?”
She smiled. “No, they belong to the clinic.”
The other girl nodded. “I knowed that. Nobody got that many toys.”
Lucy looked at the small shelf. It was so easy to forget that there were children right in her own hometown who couldn’t imagine owning five toys and a puzzle. She crouched down and held out her hand. “I’m Lucy. What’s your name?”
“Linnie. And this Winnie.” They wore identical smiles, their bright black eyes sparked with curiosity. “Are you the doctor?”
“No, I’m just volunteering.”
“I knowed that, too.” Winnie gave her an exaggerated shake of the head. “Girls is never the doctor. They’s the nurses.”
“Oh, no, what about Dr. Clare? Huh? The lady doctor who took care of Grammy in the hospital when she broke her hip bone?” Linnie asked.
“Yeah, but she was a white lady. They can be doctors.” Winnie looked at Lucy. “Right? There are white lady doctors. I seen ’em.”
Lucy felt her eyes go wide. Were there children who still believed your gender or color dictated your career? “There are white lady doctors, Black lady doctors, white man doctors, Black man doctors.”
They stared at her.
She thought for a moment. “And there are white man nurses and Black man nurses, too.”
“Now you’re just bein’ silly,” Linnie said, and let out a laugh. Apparently Lucy had gone too far and the girls had decided she was pulling some sort of prank.
Jem appeared in the waiting room, brows drawn together. “Leticia, I’m setting up Tina with a nebulizer, but I can’t find the infant masks.”
“Top drawer at the end,” Leticia answered, not looking up. She was helping the twins’ dad fill out paperwork.
Jem nodded, then turned to Lucy. “I know this isn’t part of your job description, but I was wondering if you could help back here for a moment?”