“Yep. Then again, neither did Morrissey. Go figure.”
If I ever figured out who Kyoko was talking about half the time, I’d be a happy woman.
I hung up and listened to the silence of the room then shuffled over to Faye’s computer and logged onto the Internet to disperse my good news to the world.
And as I scrolled through my in-box, the cursor hovered over a name I vaguely recognized—an old family friend. I clicked, startled at the brightly colored photos that spilled out. Baby blues and pink of cheeks and Ashley’s dark wheat-colored hair falling over her exuberant dimples. Dimples that reminded me of Trinity and, with a deeper pang, of Dad.
Ashley’s motherly smile took me by surprise. Proud and exhausted and tender, hands circling a pale-blue receiving blanket, minus the bulk of her pregnancy weight. Her husband, Wade, grinning that goofy smile as he tried to change diapers.
My half sister was a mom. I had a nephew. A half nephew.
She hadn’t even told me he was born.
Of course not. I passed a hand along my smooth hair, tied back in its sophisticated ponytail, wondering how things got so ugly between us. Ashley certainly couldn’t blame me. Even so, I felt a bit left out, a mere onlooker in this important event. Worse, a lurker. Just passing through their photos like any other stranger.
“Hello, doll!” said Faye brightly, making me jump as she rattled her key in the door. “Who’s the darlin’ baby?”
I spun around. “Faye? You’re home!”
“Home and waitin’ for yer news, sugar! My lands, yer in a suit! Well, don’t ya look like a million bucks!” She hugged me, smelling of spicy jasmine perfume. Something flirtier than she usually wore.
“You got new glasses!” I traced the wire frame. Younger and slimmer than her other roundish ones, in a modern tone of brownish-red.
“Ya like ‘em? I figgered I’d try somethin’ different.” She set down her grocery bags as I moved to log out and turn off the computer screen. “That little smiler somebody ya know?”
“Carson?” I reluctantly dragged the mouse down his photos. Which, I had to admit, looked pretty good. I could almost smell his sweet baby-powder scent. “He’s Ashley’s baby. Just a month old.”
“Things with Ashley any better?” Faye rested a hand on my shoulder.
“What? How? I got a letter from her lawyer demanding copies of the will, but until Shane Pendergrass comes to haul me to jail, I’m not giving her anything. Not one measly penny.”
Faye sat down next to me. “Well, of course not, sugar. You aren’t obligated to do anything.”
I studied her. “But you think I should.”
“Not at all. But there might be other ways ya could keep the door open.”
“What door?”
“Relationships, sweetheart. Keep the door open to a relationship. Maybe not now, but someday.”
“With Ashley?” My mouth gaped. “Are you kidding, Faye? I don’t want a relationship with her! Or Dad! Ever!” I crossed my arms.
Faye hesitated. “I know, doll, but not so long ago ya thought the same way about yer mama.”
I winced and fresh anger stirred. “Mom was different. Mom changed her life and recognized her mistakes. Ashley and Dad just go on living the way they want and couldn’t care less about anyone else.”
“Well then, maybe ya can be the one to show ‘em a different way.” Faye’s words came out soft, her arm around my shoulders.
“Me?” I gasped. “What do I have to do with anything?”
“The Lord loves us all, sugar. He died for us while we were still His enemies. Ya might not want a close relationship with Ashley, an’ that’s fine, but I wonder if ya might consider shinin’ a little bit a His love through the crack in that door. So if she wants to change one day, she can.”
Great. Here we go again. As if my episode with Chase wasn’t enough. Now I’m supposed to be a light to Ashley, too? Why don’t You dump all the weirdos and creeps in my lap, God?
“I can’t help Ashley, Faye. I’m barely a Christian myself.”
“A little bit a light on a dark night is better than none at all.” She patted my hand as she moved to hang up her coat. “And I think you’ll find that when the Lord’s in ya, it don’t matter if ya been a Christian one day or a hundred. He still works through ya. Still speaks through ya. And still uses ya to draw others to Himself.”
Faye had just stepped around me when I reached up suddenly and snatched her hand back.
“What on earth?”
Her ring hand.
Chapter 29
Faye tried to pull away, but I was too quick for her. The smooth wedding band I remembered had vanished. Instead a small ring of silvery gold glittered in its place, antique, affixed with a sparkling lavender stone.
“What is this?” I hollered, knowing full well. But I wanted to hear her say it—hear Earl’s name slip from her lips like a secret—hear Faye Clatterbaugh tell me, in her own words, that she’d found love.
Love. The sound reverberated through me like a roar of distant thunder.
“I was gonna tell ya anyway.” Faye cast bright eyes downward, running her finger along the ring. “We jest … we …”
“We who?” I shouted, even though she sat right next to me on the piano bench, pretty pink sweater contrasting with the purple stone.
“Me an’ Earl. I reckon we … well, seems like God’s doin’ somethin’ we didn’t expect.”
“Well, everybody else sure did!” I felt tears brim in my eyes. Faye enfolded me, and I leaned into her shoulder, gasping back a sudden rush of emotion.
For all my ridiculous mishaps in Staunton, this actually worked!
“Are you all really going to …?”
“Get married? Yep. I reckon we’re gonna.”
“What? That fast?” I blotted my eyes, wondering if I’d actually encouraged Faye to take leave of her senses. “You’ve only known him for what, a couple of months?”
“I know, sugar, but when it’s right, well, why wait?”
I couldn’t argue. Just hugged her tight, mind reeling over all the implications of Faye Clatterbaugh becoming Faye Sprouse.
“You’re going to be a wife again!” I blabbered, releasing her to hunt for a tissue. I shouldn’t have said “again,” I suppose. It sounded gauche. But Faye didn’t seem to notice.
“I’m no spring chicken!” Faye chuckled, taking off her glasses to wipe her eyes. “But I shore feel like one! Like I’ve done lost my mind, as giddy as back in high school when I met Mack. Dear Lord! I didn’t know I had any a them emotions left!”
Her teary face turned toward the photo of Mack on the end table. I wanted to snatch it away, to hide it, to bury it somewhere in an attic, but Faye’s hands found it. She turned over the glass gently, stroking the frame.
Two golds touching—one around her ring finger and one curved around the photo.
“I thought you didn’t want to get married again,” I said hesitantly, scrubbing my face with a tissue as Faye’s face darkened slightly, like a cloud passing over the sun.
“I didn’t.” She swallowed hard, looking down at the photo. “I loved Mack. Maybe I still do.”
Neither of us spoke for a minute, and I stared down at the beige carpet.
“Ya see, Shiloh, love ain’t what ya see in the books and movies. Forget all the sultry eyes and trips to Paris and women chasin’ after yer gorgeous, mysterious man. That ain’t real life. My Mack wasn’t even real good-lookin’, to tell the truth. Nobody ever hit on him or chased me around askin’ if he had a brother, like they always show in romance books. But he was my love.”
I looked up in surprise at her tender tone.
“Ya know somethin’, honey?” Faye leaned forward, looking at me with blazing determination. “There ain’t no Mr. Right,” she whispered fiercely.
“What do you mean? I thought you just said that Earl …”
She grasped my hand and turned me toward her. “Men are flesh, Shiloh. They’re human. Do ya hear me? They ain’
t all movie stars an’ muscles an’ bouquets of flowers. That’s Hollywood! Young women fill their heads with this idiotic nonsense an’ then run out and divorce their man ‘cause he ain’t what they wanted. He ain’t what they read about. Thing is, they cain’t never find it ‘cause it … don’t … exist.”
Faye’s bird clock on the wall tweeted the bottom of the hour, but I didn’t move an eyelash.
“Listen to me, sugar. If ya don’t remember a thing I say, remember this: Love is what you live out every single day, good times or bad. Givin’ up things for the other. Changing to accommodate somebody else. Learning to love without all the bells an’ whistles. It ain’t always pretty, and it definitely ain’t perfect. But it’s good.”
She patted my hand and let it go.
“It’s like … well … like sweet potato pie.”
“Pie?” I choked, heart still racing from her speech.
“Sweet potatoes ain’t the prettiest vegetable, Shiloh, once ya dig ‘em outta the dirt. Ya ever seen one?”
“I guess so. In the grocery store.”
“They’re all lumpy and crooked and got knobby purple skin. Kinda ugly shape. But once ya cook ‘em awhile over God’s good ol’ refining fire and sprinkle on some sugar and spice, a little laughter and a lotta forgiveness, a heap a mistakes, you’ll make a dessert fit fer a king. Lands, one a the best things I ever put in my mouth!”
“Didn’t we have that at … um … Adam’s house?” I asked hesitantly, afraid to meet her eyes. “For his birthday?”
“Yep. That’s the one.”
I twisted my fingers together, remembering the way he’d put the plate in my hands. That scar across his knuckles.
“God’s heroes are real, Shiloh,” said Faye, tears welling up in her blue eyes. “They fail and make mistakes. They can’t complete ya or fulfill ya ‘cause only Jesus can do that. They ain’t always gorgeous or even good-lookin’. But they’ll hold yer hand ‘til the day they die an’ lay down their life for ya like the Good Shepherd Himself. Now that is real.”
I heard my cell phone vibrate in my purse. But I didn’t move to pick it up. I couldn’t.
They’ll lay down their life.
Kyoko’s voice rang in my head just like I’d heard it on the Tokyo subway: “Carlos has never given up anything for you!”
And then I felt the weight of Adam’s cell phone in my pocket. The cream-colored table skirt reminding me of my newly painted kitchen. The bandage on my finger and his hand reaching out to touch it.
Faye chuckled. “Ain’t much mysterious ‘bout a man when ya wipe his hair an’ stubble outta the bathroom sink. When ya pick up his dirty, sweaty clothes off the floor and clean his toilet. But I tell ya one thing—there ain’t a love on this earth that can compare. Do ya hear me, Shiloh Jacobs?”
I moved my mouth, and my voice could only squeak out a whisper. “Tell me, Faye. Tell me what love is.”
“Ya wanna know? It’s yer husband refusin’ to look at some cute young thing in a red dress when ya start to get gray hair and a few extra pounds from the years. It’s the way he hugs ya to his heart when yer still in a paper gown on a doctor’s table and he just told ya that ya cain’t have kids.”
She jabbed her finger at me, tears spilling down her cheeks. “It’s when he looks at ya, all wrinkled an’ old with yer hair in curlers, and says yer more beautiful now than the day ya met and how he’ll never leave ya.
“That’s love, Shiloh. Don’t ya ever forget it. Ya might not see it in them books, but that kind a love will fill yer soul fer the rest of yer life.”
The soft lines in her neck quivered slightly as she swallowed, tracing Mack’s face with her finger.
I followed her with my gaze, down to his reddish hair and gigantic smile. Big shoulders and skinny neck. “My Mack wasn’t a looker,” she’d said. “But he loved me.”
He loved me. That word again, with that same wistful tug.
I could see it in Mack’s face. The lines squinting at the corners of his eyes, his too-thick eyebrows and unphotogenic, gaping mouth. And her upturned face, looking into his with a laugh.
And yet I’d never seen a couple with so much joy in their eyes as Mack and Faye, frozen right there. Beautiful. He was beautiful. Beautiful in his unabashed love for Faye, his proud grin. I held my hands from reaching out.
“Why, Faye?” I wept, taking a tissue on the end table to sponge my face. “What changed your mind about Earl?”
“He’s a good man. Life is short, sugar. Sometimes you’ve jest gotta say yes.”
I glanced around the room at the soft peach-colored drapes. The patch of pale sunlight on the carpet, the emerald plants blooming in the brightly lit corner. I imagined Mack peeling off his coat in the doorway, filling the house with his booming presence.
Instead it would soon be Earl standing there, the lines in his face like a weathered barn plank: sturdy, steady, holding up the walls and ceiling with the force of his gentle smile. Surrounding Faye with his simple grace and simple ways.
Not a palace, but a barn. Not a marble slab, but a rough pine board.
The kind that surrounded Jesus when He came to earth, squealing out his first breaths in a manger for animal fodder.
The simple made holy.
Faye said something, and I forced my head in her direction. Tried to focus over my shuddering breath.
“Are you going to move to Earl’s?”
“No. He’s gonna move in here. There’s more space here, an’ his business won’t hurt a lick if he comes across town.”
“But I thought he didn’t want to move! Stella said—” I broke off, not sure how much of my behind-her-back plans I wanted to reveal.
“He loves his house. All his kids grew up there. When I first met him, he was real straightforward about not movin’, but in the end, sometimes ya gotta give somethin’ up, Shiloh. That’s what love’s all about, ya know.”
I pressed my eyes closed, trying to take it all in. The pain and memories that bloomed in a tender corner of my heart, giving way to hope. A new song. Crocuses pushing up tendrils through the snow. Something waking, blinking in a light I’d never seen.
“Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.”
“Why does love have to give up something, Faye?” I took her hand, suddenly vulnerable as I ran my fingers over her ring.
She closed her hand over mine. “I reckon that’s what makes a sacrifice so precious, sugar. The cost. We all give up somethin’, or we stay the same, set in our ways. God left heaven fer us, doll, and died fer our sins. I guess we jest reflect the Father.”
I sat there awhile without speaking, tracing my empty ring finger until Faye broke the silence.
“I reckon we’ll get married right away. In the spring. March, prob’ly. No fancy weddin’. Jest some relatives an’ friends, an’ Earl’s kids and grandkids. We might even do it here at my place, in the backyard, with Pastor Davis.”
I imagined it suddenly, Faye in a pretty dress and the wind blowing those grasses in the field. All of us gathered under the blue sky. Daffodils poking up where the snow had been, reminders of glory after loss.
“Would ya mind bein’ in my weddin’?”
“Me? You want me?” Tears choked me.
“‘Course I do! Jest one little bridesmaid, an’ I cain’t think a nobody else I’d rather have but you.”
My hands shook so much I had to scrub them on the knees of my suit, twist them together. Faye chose me? The cheater and copier? The one who’d written her off as backward and ignorant and mocked everybody’s grits and collard greens?
She laughed and hugged me, and I sat there trying to imagine Faye as a wife. Washing Earl’s overalls and kissing him over the pumpkin and tomato vines. I bet her faucets would work better than anyone else’s in town.
“Why, ya ain’t even told me yer news! Why are ya in a suit?” Faye put her hand on her hip. “An’ me blabberin’ on like this!”
She studied me a min
ute then slowly raised an eyebrow. “Yer good news ain’t about Adam, is it?” she asked in hushed tones, lips curving into a smile.
“Adam?” I dropped the glossy portfolio of my news articles, half-dug from my bag, splatting its expensive pages across the carpet. “Kind of. Yes.”
I hauled the portfolio up and plopped it in my lap, avoiding her eyes. “I’ve been thinking, Faye, that maybe if I stay here in Staunton a little longer I can find out if …”
My cell phone buzzed again, and I reluctantly reached for my purse. “Just let me get this phone call first. Somebody’s called me like five times.” I picked up the phone. “No, six. And it better not be the septic service, or I’ll …”
I put the phone to my ear and listened, nodding. Then blanched, barely able to hold the phone to my ear. “What did you say?” I gasped. “You’re sure he was talking about Adam Carter?”
I listened, open-mouthed, then slid right off the sofa and onto the floor, hand on my forehead.
Chapter 30
You can’t be serious, Stella. You can’t be.” I tried to speak, but nothing came out.
“I know. Ain’t it great?” I could almost hear her grinning over the line. “I mean, when I heard they was lookin’ for somebody to give a scholarship to at that new rehab center, best in the country, I jest thought a Rick right off the bat. There’s a heart a gold if I ever seen one, an’ I’d be tickled pink if they chose him. So then I talked to my cousin’s husband, who works there, and he pulled for Rick’s name. And they picked him! He’s gonna get ev’rything paid for, Shiloh! All kinds’a new-fangled stuff. Things they’re experimentin’ with an’ whatnot.”
“In Atlanta,” I repeated, trying to force it into my stunned brain. “With Adam.”
Faye looked up then immediately slipped into the kitchen, closing the door behind her.
“Shore! Ain’t that a swell setup? Adam’s a real nice guy from what I seen of him, an’ they’ll pay for somebody to stay with Rick for two years. Room an’ board. ‘Cause Rick’s gonna need a lotta support an’ somebody to drive him to treatments and therapy and stuff. But after that, ol’ Rick’ll prob’ly drive himself!”
Like Sweet Potato Pie Page 28