by Annie Jones
“What she wants? Momma, she got in touch because she saw one of those ads, the ones that we had to place to show we’d tried everything we could to reach her. Well, we’ve reached her.” He pulled his shoulders up, presenting a far more in-control facade than his inner turmoil should have warranted. “She’s coming back for Wendy, to make sure she doesn’t lose her forever.”
“You are a good man, Riley, my darling.” She wrapped both her hands around one of his. “Maybe too good.”
He snorted out a soft laugh. “Now those are words I never thought I’d hear from you, Momma. Me? Too good? I thought I was a troublement, someone you still might need to take to the woodshed.”
“Don’t think I won’t if you do anything to risk Wendy’s adoption, including inviting your own sister to waltz back into our lives pretty as you please at this stage of the game.”
“Momma, I don’t understand.”
“Of course you don’t, because you don’t think like your sister does. You can’t.” She patted his hand. “You are trying to find a win/win situation where there just isn’t one to be had. You’re thinking there may still be some way this can work out so that everybody gets what he or she wants. But, son, Marcia, God bless her soul, does not deserve to get what she wants in this case. Not if what she wants hurts that precious little granddaughter of mine.”
“But it hurts Wendy not to see her mother, Momma, not to at least meet her and—”
“I’m not saying keep them apart forever. I am saying that if Marcia wants to stop you from adopting Wendy, from legalizing the reality that you are the only parent that child knows and trusts and has ever had to rely upon then Marcia will have to be disappointed.”
He swallowed, which was hard to do around the lump in his throat. “That’s the last thing I expected you to say. The way you pray all the time for Marcia to come back—”
“To be a part of all our lives, Riley. Not so she can stake some kind of claim on Wendy or use that child to make herself feel better by toying at motherhood until she gets bored with it and runs off again.” The color had gone from Momma’s lips. They had grown as thin and tight as her grip on Riley’s hand. “I won’t let it happen and I want your word here and now that you won’t either.”
Riley’s stomach lurched. Suddenly he wondered if he should have taken Carol’s advice and gathered whatever he could find to use against his sister. He met his mother’s gaze. You’re a good man, Riley. Her words rang again in his ears.
No, he’d followed the right course. Whatever the outcome he’d always be able to live with himself knowing that much remained true. “I won’t let that happen, Momma, I promise.”
Chapter Sixteen
Riley sat on the elevated front porch of Dixie’s house. From the steps, he looked down the gentle sloping hill lined with huge trees and grand old houses, none of which were half as grand as the place he now called home. He could see where, three blocks away, South Dominion intersected Main Street and he realized that was the corner where Dixie had run the stop sign...or had he run it?
Looking back now, he couldn’t rightly say who’d been at fault. What he did know was that it didn’t really matter. What did matter was that they’d made good of the situation.
Of course, he wasn’t thinking about the stop sign incident at all. He stretched his legs out and shut his eyes to let the late winter sun warm him. No, it wasn’t the stop sign encounter on his mind. It was Dixie and how much she had come to mean to him. And he was thinking of Marcia.
Finding fault with Marcia now served no purpose but to feed his anger and justify his anxiety. He smiled. Leave it to Momma to be so right and so wise. He would just have to stay firm in his conviction to protect Wendy. And he would do that by waiting and seeing what Marcia wanted, all the while trusting and praying that God’s will would prevail. On that basis, no matter what, all would be well.
He opened his eyes just as Dixie pulled the car into the long, slanted driveway She gave him a wave and drove around to the back, presumably to let the older ones out nearest the back door. Spry as Smilin’ Bob might be, he walked down the steps of the big house much more easily than he could walk up them again.
Riley considered going inside to greet them but suddenly his legs felt too heavy to move, his seat on the cold stone steps too comfy to leave. Secretly, he hoped that if he lingered here long enough Dixie would come to him. Riley wanted a moment alone with Dixie before he took charge of everyone and gave her the privacy she needed to speak to Lettie about the findings in the family Bible.
A moment alone with Dixie. A new energy surged through him at the possibility of that small thing. His heart pounded, dull and hard, as he thought of her seeking him out. Now that he’d found a tentative peace, now that he knew he could and would handle whatever came his way, he felt as though he would see Dixie for the first time with his mind clear and his spirit sound. He leaned back and pictured her dark hair falling over her strong shoulders, a smile—or a double-edged remark—ever at the ready on her full lips.
Suddenly, his own words came back to haunt him: Momma, you’ve got this all wrong. I do not love Dixie Fulton-Leigh. That is, I am not in love with her. Sure I find her attractive, compelling, funny, exciting, but love?
“Yes, love.” Hearing himself murmur the word out loud made it all the more real. He couldn’t deny it any longer. He loved Dixie. He’d known it for some time now. What was more, Riley suspected she loved him as well.
Even now, he could hear Dixie’s reasoned response to their kiss as clear as day “We’re living under the same roof. Our businesses are interdependent. Our families have come to care and count on one another. We can’t lay all that on the line for some misplaced romantic notions... What if it didn’t work out?”
“And what if it does?” He planted his feet on one step, laid his forearms across his thighs, and leaned forward, his hands clasped. “What if it does?”
“What if what does, Daddy?” Wendy came tearing around the corner of the stairs and bounded up them. Baby Belle’s cloth arms and legs bounced wildly in every direction with each step until his darling daughter reached him, and Riley gathered her close to kiss her on the cheek.
“What if...” He did not finish. He had no idea how to express this new, charged outlook to his child or if he should even try. When he heard a familiar humming growing closer, he grinned. “I thought you got something to eat at the drugstore.”
“We did.”
He lifted Baby Belle and put her to his ear. “Then I think your dolly must have come down with the stomach flu or something, sweetheart. I just heard the awfullest tummy grumbling!”
Dixie’s humming grew louder.
Wendy stopped to listen to Baby Belle’s stomach, her face a mask of motherly concern.
Completely unaware of Riley’s joking, Dixie strode into view, still humming as she walked to the front of the house from the garage. Riley enjoyed the view, enjoyed the way she carried herself like she knew who she was and where she was headed at all times without seeming arrogant or conceited. Of course, now that he’d let himself acknowledge how much he truly cared for her he would not have minded if Dixie had forgone that ladylike comportment to come running straight into his open arms.
Instead, she strolled up the walk. The humming quieted.
“I don’t hear anything.” Wendy eyed him suspiciously.
“Hmm, I must have been mistaken.”
“Then c’mon, Daddy, tell me what you were saying before,” Wendy demanded again. “What if?”
“Yeah, what if...” He focused his gaze on Dixie as she started up the steps toward him.
“Oh, Daddy, you’re acting all gooberfied!”
That snapped him back to reality—or what passed for reality around this place.
“I can’t imagine where she heard that.” Dixie looked skyward, striking a pose not unlike the chubby stone cherub that stood watch from the top of its tall pillar at the bottom of the wide, stone stairway.
Riley laughed and chucked his sweet child under the chin. “Yeah, well as long as you don’t start calling me a rowboat or saying I’m oober-gay ied-fay, I guess I can live with it.”
“Obber-what? Daddy, you’re a big sillyhead!” She threw her arms around him.
“Ahhh, the wisdom of youth.” Dixie whooshed out an exaggerated sigh. “Now, you were saying what if...something?”
“Um, yeah. What if...” Riley brushed Wendy’s bangs out of her eyes, gave her another kiss, this time on the forehead, then propelled her around his feet and toward the front door. “What if Miss Wendy runs inside and picks out a jigsaw puzzle, preferably not one that’s been made out of cell phone, and takes it into her grandma’s room? Then she can round everybody up and we’ll all work on putting that together for a while, okay?”
“Thanks.” Dixie said the word softly, her gaze fixed in his.
“Jigsaw puzzle! Hooray!” Both of Wendy’s hands shot up in the air. “First a treat at the drugstore now a jigsaw puzzle! This is turning out to be a great day!”
The slapping and scuffing of her small shoes as she scampered off echoed through the high-ceilinged porch. The front screen door creaked open.
Riley kept his eyes on Dixie, and she on him.
The screen door fell shut with a whap. The distinct sound of Wendy running toward them reached Riley’s ears just seconds before she whisked past him.
“Thank you, Miss Dixie, for being so nice to me.” Wendy stretched her arms toward Dixie, Baby Belle slung over her shoulder. Wendy went up on tiptoe, and even her fingers wriggled and strained to reach the woman standing at the foot of the steps. Her small body tensed as if singularly concentrated on getting her hands on something that she feared would always remain just beyond her grasp.
And just a moment before that thought and sight broke his heart, Dixie bent at the knees and wrapped his daughter up in a hug so all-encompassing that if he had not already admitted to himself that he loved the woman, he would have realized it on the spot and never been able to deny it again.
“You’re welcome, sweetie-pie. I just wish I had more time to do things with you, but things have just been so hectic since you came to stay”
Wendy drew back. “Maybe when my bedroom is finished you can come in for a sleepover.”
“I’d like that.”
“Daddy, you can come too and it’ll be like a slumber party.” Wendy beamed at him in her exuberant innocence.
Dixie kept one hand on Wendy’s back and put the other on her own hip. “If he so much as jokes about doing that, honey, he’ll find himself sleeping in the doghouse.”
“But Peachie Too doesn’t have a doghouse. She sleeps under Grandpa Smilin’ Bob’s bed.”
“All the better.” Dixie winked at Riley
He grinned.
“Now, you go on inside like your daddy asked.” Dixie urged Wendy back up the stairs. “And pick out that puzzle. And not one of those easy hundred pieces, either. Get one with lots of sky and sea.”
“But those are harder and take longer.” Wendy trudged up the stairs this time, slowed, it seemed, by trying to process the logic of Dixie’s request. “And sometimes Aunt Sis and Grandpa Smilin’ Bob fight over which piece goes where.”
“To quote a wise woman, ‘all the better.’“ Riley pretended to take a swat at Wendy’s backside to hurry her along. “Now get a wiggle on and hop to it.”
Wendy giggled, then she wiggled, and then she hopped right on up the stairs and through the front door.
“So, how did the talk go with your mom?” Dixie put her foot on the next step and leaned against the concrete handrail, the stone cherub looking down over her shoulder.
“She gave me some sound advice about not borrowing trouble by worrying over what Marcia might want. I need to set my own goal then deal with things as they arise.”
“Not borrowing trouble is always a smart way to go.” She bowed her head slightly and put her fingertips to her lips.
Riley wondered if she was thinking of their kiss. He knew he was. Unfortunately, that led to thinking about the promise they’d made to not get involved. He started to push up from the steps, to go to her and take her in his arms and tell her—or perhaps show her—how much he regretted sealing that bargain with her.
“Well, I need to go inside.” Dixie ran her finger along the inside of her mother’s necklace, straightened her back, and started up the stairs before Riley could say or do anything more. “Do you know if Lettie’s up and around yet?”
“Yes, I helped her to her rocker just before I came outside.”
“Her rocker? I left that Bible on the table right by there.” She jogged to the top of the stairs past Riley and onto the porch. The screen door screeched in protest as she swung it wide.
Riley leapt to his feet, not ready to let her go so easily. “Dixie, wait!”
“What is it, Riley? I’m in kind of a hurry.”
“I, uh...” What had he planned to do? Shout “I love you” from the front porch? He exhaled hard, gritted his teeth, then looked up and relaxed. He’d find another opportunity to talk to her soon. “I’m going over to Jackson Monday morning to see about getting a new cell phone.”
“And?”
“And to meet with...” He stole a glance into the house through the open door. The chances of anyone overhearing him were small but he chose to play it discreetly just the same. “To meet with our lawyer. Do you want to come?”
Dixie looked inside, then at him again, her actions brisk and agitated. “Can’t we talk about this later? I’d like to come along but that may well depend on how things go with Lettie.”
“I understand. Good luck.”
“Luck? I can get along fine without luck right now. Courage, confidence, compassion—those I need in a big way.”
“Then you are going to do just fine, Dix. You are going to do just fine.”
* * *
“Not that one, this one.” Grandpa’s directive carried down the long hallway from the room at the back of the house.
“I want to do one of The Great Artists of the World series, Smilin’ Bob.” Aunt Sis’s lamenting wail came wafting even more clearly through the house. “Isn’t it bad enough I’ve relinquished my ties to the Every-Other-Thursday-Afternoon Arts and Culture Society and to most of my more aesthetic aspirings to stay here and run this household? Must I also be reduced to whiling away my leisure time fitting together ridiculous pictures of kittens with yarn balls or photographs of sailboat-littered harbors?”
Dixie tensed. She did not need this now. She wanted to approach Lettie with a clear head and a calm demeanor. She wanted to present this to the old woman in an atmosphere of love and kindness so Lettie could feel safe to talk and know that her disclosures would be taken seriously. A bunch of caterwauling over the selection of jigsaw puzzles going on in the background was hardly conducive to that.
“I’ll take care of it, Dix, don’t fret.” Riley had slipped in the door so quietly she had not realized he was there until he put his hands on her shoulders as he moved past her.
For a second she was tempted to grab his hand and ask him to stay, to help her do what she had to do, to be strong for her and perhaps, for Lettie, too. Funny, she thought as she watched him head down the hallway and out of sight, how quickly she had come to rely on the man, how deeply rooted her trust in him had become...how much she cared for him, despite her many protestations that she could never allow that to happen.
She sighed and whispered the words she’d heard him murmur as she met him on the steps this afternoon. “What if…”
The commotion in Verdi’s room at the back of the house rose to a low rumble then ebbed until Riley alone spoke softly, but firmly. She could not make out exactly what he told them but she recognized the tone and knew he had taken things in hand. Riley had done what he had set out to do, and now she must do the same.
“Miss Lettie?” She tiptoed to the sweeping archway that led to the parlor where the old gal loved to sit, soa
k up the sun, and still keep herself privy to every activity going on in the main floor of the home. “Miss Lettie, are you in there?”
“Come in, lamb. I’ve been waiting for you.”
“You...you have?” Dixie stepped so carefully she could have walked across a field covered with wild birds feeding and never disturbed a feather. “That’s good, I suppose, because we have to talk.”
“Yes, child, we do.” Lettie patted the black Bible lying in her narrow lap.
Dixie’s stomach clenched and her throat went dry. For the last hour she’d rehearsed in her head every imaginable way to handle this except one where Miss Lettie already knew what was coming. She didn’t know why but this made her feel like a kid caught with her hand in the cookie jar. Having been in that actual situation a time or two with Miss Lettie doing the catching, Dixie had reason to feel uneasy.
“I guess it’s really none of my business, Miss Lettie.” Dixie sank onto the footstool next to Lettie’s rocker. “But when I saw the names recorded in the family register there, well, I just have so many questions.”
“Only way to get answers is to ask, lamb.”
Dixie rounded her shoulders as she looped her arms over one upraised knee. “Where to start...I want to know why you kept it secret so long and who all you’ve kept it secret from? How’d you manage to get married in Mississippi and then stay married without anyone suspecting, especially when you had a child together—”
“Now that part is easy to answer, child. Let me start there. We did not marry in Mississippi. We never would have been permitted to, no matter how rich or powerful the Founder may have been.” Lettie brushed her fingers over the gold-stamped name in the corner of the Bible. “We married up north while we accompanied young Samantha Eugenia and George Robert—your grandparents—on their extensive wedding trip.”
“You...went with them on their honeymoon?”