“Sure.” Link took the keys out of the ignition and stuffed them in his coat pocket. “Will you be warm enough? I think there’s a blanket in the back.” Without waiting for her answer, he jumped out and rummaged in the backseat. “Here you go.”
She caught the blue plaid throw blanket he tossed her and wrapped it around her shoulders. They met in front of the truck and Link led the way down toward the pond. The evening fog had dissipated, and now the sun slipped below the horizon, a huge neon orange ball. A small herd of black cows appeared on the other side of the pond, dotting the grassy expanse.
Watching his lean form navigate the uneven pastureland, a wave of sadness rolled over her. Why had she ever thought it would be a good idea to embroil Link in her crazy life? She’d known for a long time what her future held—and what it didn’t. Was she only being selfish to drag Link into it?
She didn’t like the silent answer to that question.
It wasn’t as if she had a miserable life. She liked her work at the bakery. She truly did love Portia. The girl made her laugh every day, sometimes hourly. And she loved Daddy too. Harsh as he could be, he was a good man who’d been through difficult things these last few years. Things that might have broken a lesser man.
“So talk to me.” Link’s soft voice interrupted. He stopped walking and turned her gently toward him. “What’s going on with you?” He brushed back a strand of her hair that had fallen over her eyes. But he didn’t let go and instead coiled it around his finger. She hated to guess what she looked like. Thanks to the blowup with her father, she’d cried off every trace of makeup, and even if she’d had time to straighten her hair it would have been a mass of frizz by now.
She sniffed and bowed her head. “I must look like a hot mess.”
He lifted her chin, his gaze suddenly so tender it made her ache. Then that tiny lopsided smile of his. “You look hot.”
She laughed, but took a tiny step back, away from his touch, embarrassed by his compliment.
He took her arm and steered her to one side. “Careful where you step. It’s kind of a minefield, thanks to the cattle.”
She looked down to see a giant cow pie. “Thanks! Nice save. But you must be going blind, Whitman. I didn’t even have time to do my hair today.”
“I like it this way”—he touched her head again—“all curly and a little wild.”
“Then you’re crazier than I thought.”
“No, seriously.” He shrugged. “Maybe it’s because that’s how it looked the first time I saw you. It just seems more you.”
She frowned and shook her head. “You’re weird.”
He frowned. “What is the deal with you women and hair? And speaking of cows, I’m probably stepping in it big-time here, but you’re just like my sisters—always moaning and groaning about their hair. Corinne wishes she had Landyn’s curly hair and Danae wants Corinne’s darker hair. Mom wishes she still had as much hair as the girls, and they all hope they look like Mom when they’re her age. Why can’t you ladies just be happy with the way God made you?” He ducked as if she might slap him.
Which made her laugh. It felt good to laugh after all the tears today.
They were quiet for a minute before he spoke again. “I suppose that was a super sexist thing to say. But seriously? Guys don’t spend half their lives worrying about their hair.”
“Oh, I know a few guys that just wish they had hair.”
He laughed. “Well, there is that. But seriously, we don’t spend half our lives wishing we looked like some other dude! Besides being a huge waste of time, it’s just stupid.”
“Oh, and now you’re calling me stupid? Wow, you’re on a roll.” She wondered if he knew how close to home he was hitting.
But he looked smug. “Yep, and to think you agreed to go out with me.” He started walking again, one hand lightly at the small of her back.
It was dusk now and his face was cast in shadow. His expression grew serious, reminding her why they were out here in the first place.
She cleared her throat. “About that, Link. I’m grateful I agreed to go out with you. More than you realize, but I want you to know my whole story. I need for you to know.”
“So tell me. I’m listening.”
She shivered. Not so much from the cold, but Link must have thought so because he stopped and pulled the blanket tighter around her shoulders.
The sun had all but disappeared, and the landscape was cloaked in dusky shadows. She felt a little braver for it and plunged in. “My mom died—cancer—five years ago. Right before Portia was born. Portia’s named after her, but Mama never got to meet her first—her only—grandchild.” Before tonight, she hadn’t been able to utter those words without crying, but now they came easily. Almost clinically, detached from emotion. “I came home from college to take care of Mama after her first cancer surgery while Daddy kept the bakery going.”
Link reached for her hand. “She must have been sick a long time.”
She nodded, relishing the warmth of his touch even while she knew she was playing with fire to allow it. “Nine years. She had a short remission, but then it came back with a vengeance. It’s a horrible, horrible way to die. But I wouldn’t trade one day I got to spend with my mother while she was dying. Not now. But when it was happening”—she lowered her head, fighting tears of shame—“I resented having to drop out of school. Having to come home and work in the bakery. I was the first one in Daddy’s family to go to college. I won a little scholarship and Daddy was so proud of that. He and Mama already had a little savings set aside and once I got the scholarship money, they started saving for Jerry to go next.”
“That must have been so disappointing. For all of you.”
She shrugged off his sympathetic words. “I’d only been in the dorm a couple of weeks when Daddy called to tell me Mama was sick. I left school of course, and came home. I didn’t mind. I truly didn’t. I wanted to be with my mom. Daddy couldn’t run the bakery by himself, and I knew Mama’s radiation treatments would take up all the money they’d saved. But as time went on, and the writing was on the wall that I wasn’t going back to school—and I had no life outside of the bakery and taking care of Mama . . . Resentment set in. Of course, that was right in the middle of all that stuff with Jerry. And Daddy was so harsh with me. I understand now that he was struggling with his grief and guilt.” She swiped at her cheeks with her free hand. “I think we’ve gotten through it. I’m not mad at my parents anymore. But long story short, I never got back to school.”
Link rubbed his thumb in slow circles on the top of her hand, but he didn’t interrupt or ask questions.
She was grateful. She wasn’t sure she could finish if he did. “I’m not mad at Mama or Daddy. But I am mad at my brother.”
“Why him?”
“As if losing Mama wasn’t bad enough, after she died, Jerry went off the deep end. He pretty much went down the list of bad stereotypes people have of black people. He started running with a gang. He stole from the few people who would hire him. Then, he started doing drugs, then dealing them. Finally, right on schedule, he landed in jail.”
“I’m so sorry, Shayla. That had to be tough, especially when you were still grieving your mom. But that stuff your brother did isn’t confined only to black people.” He gave a short laugh. “Shoot, the only person I know who’s in prison is white.”
She threw him a look. “For what?”
“Murder, actually.”
“What? Who do you know in prison?”
“She’s the birthmother to my sister’s little boys. It’s a long story, but Danae and Dallas were kind of foster parents to Austin after his mother killed her husband.”
“Why did she kill him?”
“He was abusive to her, but it wasn’t self-defense. And she went to jail. Turned out she was pregnant, so Danae and Dallas got the baby too. Two kids almost overnight.”
“Wow. That’s unbelievable.”
He grinned. “They are awesome kids. But my po
int is that no race has a corner on the sin market. Well, except maybe the human race. So don’t be too hard on your brother.”
She rolled her eyes. “You haven’t heard the whole story.”
“There’s more?” He looked almost scared.
Shayla swallowed hard. “The rest is Tara’s story, I guess. But it’s Jerry’s too.” She took a heavy breath. “Tara was pretty messed up in the head. It got worse after Jerry went to prison. We tried to help her as much as we could, but she’d sometimes disappear for days at a time. Usually leaving Portia with us. We were terrified they’d take her away.”
Link shook his head, his features pained. “Looking at Portia now, I’d never guess that was her history. Amazing how resilient kids are.”
“You don’t know the half of it. One night Daddy took some food over to Tara. That girl was always out of money, no matter how much Daddy gave her. Anyway, he heard Portia crying. Screaming at the top of her lungs. The door was locked, but he knew where Tara hid her keys. He let himself in and knew something was wrong the minute he stepped inside.”
14
They were close enough to the water now to hear it lapping against the shore. Shayla sucked in a hard breath. She’d forgotten how suffocating it was to relive the memories. And her poor dad. If it was this bad for her, even three years later, what must it have been like for him?
Link watched her, the concern in his eyes deepening, and she pushed on, wanting to be done with the telling of it all. “The bathroom was locked, but Daddy found Tara in the tub. She’d sliced her wrists. Both of them.”
Link stopped walking and stared at her in disbelief.
Shayla closed her eyes tight. “She’d cut them the long way too—the way somebody does when they’re serious about dying.”
A gust of wind brought a swirl of dead leaves to dance around their feet, and she shivered again.
He put an arm around her. “I’m so sorry,” he whispered, his voice gentle. “For her. For you and your father. And Portia.”
The ache in her chest fanned out, and it was all she could do to continue. “Tara was already gone when Daddy found her. For probably ten or twelve hours by then, EMS said. Portia was in that crib alone in the house all that time.”
He made a guttural sound and squeezed her hand tightly. “But why? How could someone do that? She had a child!” Disbelief and anger sharpened his tone. “How old was Portia when that happened?”
“Barely two.” She could see his mind working, trying to imagine the cheerful little girl he knew today in that horrific situation back then. It touched her to hear the genuine concern in his voice. To see it in the handsome profile of his face. “And why? We’ll probably never know. She didn’t leave a note or anything. But like I said, she was always a little . . . off.”
“I’m so sorry, Shay,” he said again. “And Portia . . . I can’t even imagine.”
He stooped to pick up a small pinecone lying on the ground, and as he rose, he threw it hard into the water.
“I’m just thankful she was protected from seeing anything. Anyway, even before that happened, Daddy had no use for Tara. Not because she was white,” she explained quickly. “But because she and Jerry had a baby—and they weren’t married.”
“That must be where Portia gets her blue eyes. I’ve wondered about that.”
Shayla shook her head. “Mama had blue eyes too. I don’t understand how all the biology works, but somebody told me once that it took Mama and Tara—two sides of the family—for her to get those blue eyes. I didn’t have a chance at them.” And oh, how she wished she’d inherited Mama’s eyes.
Link smiled and ran his finger down the bridge of her nose. “I like your eyes just the way they are.”
She waved a hand. “You sound like a broken record, you know that? Anyway, of course Daddy blamed Tara—not Jeremiah—for the whole baby-out-of-wedlock thing. So maybe you can see why he doesn’t want me getting involved with somebody who’s . . . not black.”
Link made a face. “Not exactly fair.”
She shrugged. “Maybe not, but it is what it is. Tara’s pregnancy was a big embarrassment for my parents. Daddy was a deacon in our church—in Cape—and he stepped down after that. Never mind there were three other out-of-wedlock babies being brought up in that little church at the same time. I think he’d always prided himself in thinking our family was above that.”
Link seemed to think about that for a minute, started to say something, then chewed his bottom lip.
She ignored that and pressed on. “All of that with Tara happened almost three years ago. I don’t think Portia really has any memories of her. Or Jerry for that matter. We don’t talk about him. Sometimes I think—because she calls my dad Big Daddy—she doesn’t understand that she doesn’t have a father in her life. She knows I’m her aunt, but does a five-year-old really have a concept of what that means? And we tell her that her mama is in heaven, but I don’t know if she is, Link. I don’t know. How could she be . . . with what she did?” Her voice climbed an octave.
Link gave her hand a quick squeeze. “That’s God’s business. We don’t know what happened in those final minutes, Shay. So we can’t know for sure.”
“I guess.” She sighed. “Here’s the thing. And I know this sounds awful. Selfish. But I went from taking care of Mama to taking care of Daddy after my mom died. And now I’m taking care of Portia. And if Jerry gets out when he’s supposed to, I know it’ll be me that takes care of him too. Because I know Daddy won’t. By the time Portia’s grown—and God knows I love her to death—but by then, I’ll be forty-six, maybe forty-seven. So”—her voice broke—“you don’t want to be waiting around for me to be free, Link. Because I don’t think I’m ever going to be free. At least not while I’m young enough to enjoy it.” She affected a laugh that came out more like a sob.
Link peeled her hand from his and put his hands on her shoulders, turning her back toward the truck. For a minute, she thought he was just going to take her home. Instead, he took her hand again. “It’s getting dark. We should get back to the truck while we can still see.” He brought her hand to his mouth and kissed each finger. “I know you feel caged, Shay. And I don’t blame you. I would too. But caring for Portia, for your mom, even the way you take care of your dad now—that’s what makes you who you are, what makes you so special, so amazing in my eyes.”
She wanted so desperately to believe him. But she knew the truth. “I don’t think you get to count sacrifice when it’s so full of resentment.” Tears clogged her throat, and she regretted ever confessing any of this to him.
But he only held her hand tighter. “That’s like saying being brave doesn’t count if you’re scared. Of course it counts. You’re doing the right thing. Anyone in your shoes would have moments of resentment. But I’ve seen you with Portia, Shay. I know how much you love her. What a great life you’re creating for her. And I hear the love in your voice when you talk about your mother.”
“I do love them both. Daddy too. Even Jerry. But I hate what happened to our family. I used to have a family like yours, Link. We laughed together. We prayed together. I didn’t realize Mama was the one keeping us from falling apart. And why”—her voice faltered—“if it was God who took her from us, as some say, why would He do that when He knew it was her holding us all together?”
Link shook his head, frowning. “I don’t know the answer to that one. But I do know that some things just aren’t meant for us to understand. Not on this side of heaven anyway. Sometimes—well, maybe always—we just have to take it on faith that God knows what He’s doing.”
She tensed and pulled her hands from his grasp. “So you’re saying you do think God took Mama?” She huffed softly. “Well, if God took her, then I don’t have much respect for Him. I can’t believe a good God would do that. I just can’t. Especially not after everything that’s happened since she died.”
“I understand why you’d feel that way,” Link said quietly.
But a slight chang
e in his tone gave her the impression he didn’t agree.
They trudged toward the truck in silence, Link staring off toward the road in the distance, his thoughts seeming far away.
“I shouldn’t have put you in this position,” she said. “I’m sorry. Please forgive me. You . . . you’ve been a good friend, and I was wrong to drag you into all this.”
He stopped walking and turned to look at her. “First, you didn’t drag me into anything I didn’t want to be dragged into.”
She gave a humorless laugh. “Then you’re weirder than I thought.”
But even in the near dark, she could see that he didn’t crack a smile. “And second,” he said, “you mean way more to me than merely a good friend, Shay. And if I’ve done a poor job of communicating that up until now, then that’s my fault.”
A shiver stole down her spine, but not an altogether unpleas-ant one.
“I’m not saying the complications of your life don’t scare me a little. And I’ll go ahead and admit I’m a little terrified of your dad.” He shot her a smile that said he was kidding. Mostly anyway. “But I’m drawn to you, Shay. Ever since the first time I saw you at the shelter—you probably don’t even remember it—I haven’t been able to get you out of my mind. And as much as you’re trying to scare me off—at least that’s what it feels like—my feelings for you aren’t going away, which—you may not want to hear this—I sort of take as God’s leading.”
She shook her head, even though her heart was nodding—and smiling. “Be careful. You may find yourself regretting those words one day.” She meant it to be teasing.
“Stop it!” His jaw tensed, and his eyes narrowed. “Please.” He touched her arm as if to soften the harsh words. “Quit putting yourself down like that. It’s not becoming. And it’s not showing much gratitude to the one who made you.”
At first she thought he meant Mama. But she quickly realized he was referring to God. And she felt chastised. And realized Link was right. She hated the way her whining made her sound. And yet, she’d felt obligated to warn him.
Home At Last Page 11