Like Sweet Potato Pie

by Spinola, Jennifer Rogers

  “Oh, please. You’re always so dramatic. I don’t want your inheritance or Mom’s dumb old … Mom’s house, okay? Your house. Forget it. Keep it. I could care less.”

  “Then what do you want? What did you mean by all that lawyer garbage?”

  “Nothing. Forgive me,” she said with a sarcastic laugh. “I didn’t know family had to hold a press conference to ask questions! But then again, you probably don’t consider me family anyway. So be it.”

  Oh boy. I put my head in my hands and offered up a quick prayer for God to FIX THIS, fast. For Him to make something out of our mess before it got any way worse because our conversation was already skidding downhill. Sort of like sledding at Mary Baldwin, but with sharks at the bottom instead of snow.

  I tapped my pen on the desk as I racked my brain to think of something, anything, that could make sense of Ashley’s twisted logic. She had a scheme of some sort; and as usual, I had to figure it out.

  Expenses. Expensive. I recalled the way she’d repeated that word on the phone.

  “Ashley, are you guys doing okay financially?” I blurted. “It’s none of my business, and you don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to. You just seem to be … Ashley?”

  I heard what sounded like sniffling on the other end of the line. “Hello?”

  “I’m here,” she snapped, voice choked.

  “Well.” I scratched my head. “I don’t know what’s going on over there. Can you … um … help me out? Everything okay?”

  If I’d ever believed in the power of God, it was right at this moment. The old me would have hung up on Ashley and thrown the phone out the window by now.

  “Everything’s not okay!” she retorted angrily. “Wade lost his job. He got laid off six months ago and still hasn’t found a job. And I quit mine to take care of Carson. So for your information, no! We’re not okay. Wade’s going to run out of unemployment soon, and we still have nothing.”

  I hesitated for a second to judge if Ashley was lying again. But my gut told me that for once, she spoke the truth.

  “Wade lost his job?” I ran my hand through my hair. “Ashley, why didn’t you say something?” Fresh anger seethed through me.

  “I tried to! But you didn’t want to hear it!”

  “That’s not what happened, and you know it!” I shook my head. “Did it ever occur to you that if you’d just asked, maybe I’d help you?”

  I heard more sniffling on the other end and then the baby gurgling morph into a cry. Plaintive at first then loud and angry. Ashley covered the phone, speaking to a muffled male voice I could barely make out. Wade. Indeed at home and not at work.

  “No. The other one. Over there.”

  “Huh?”

  “Sorry. I’m talking to Wade.” Ashley sniffed again then made a nose-blowing sound.

  “I’m really sorry, Ashley. I thought you guys had plenty of money. I mean, you have your own house.”

  “Our own house? We’ve got a fixer-upper, Shiloh! Have you ever seen the pictures? And it needs more fixing-upping than we can deal with right now. We’re behind on the roofing payments. The furnace keeps going out.”

  “What about Dad? Hasn’t he helped you at all?” I knew Dad had a fairly close relationship with Ashley—at least closer than I did. Which meant they actually spoke.

  “Dad bought us this house,” said Ashley bitterly.

  So Dad gave Ashley a house, and Mom gave me one. Funny. Perhaps Mom left me the house on purpose, to ensure I was cared for, too.

  “Dad’s done a lot for us, Shiloh. I can’t keep asking for more, especially now that he’s putting Tanzania back through school. She’s decided to be a doctor. And of course he pays for Sam and Sarah to go to private school.”

  “Who?”

  “Tanzania’s kids.”

  Wow. Ashley’d just told me more information about my paternal side in one minute than I’d heard in three years. I opened my desk drawer, still trying to take it all in, and pulled out a package of seaweed-flavored Japanese osembei rice crackers.

  “What about Wade’s family?” I asked in midcrunch.

  “They don’t have money. They gave us a sippy cup as a baby gift. Really, Shiloh. A plastic one from Wal-Mart.”

  The baby wailed again, and Ashley blew out her breath angrily. “Listen, you can just forget all of this, okay? I don’t know why I called. I guess I just wanted to say I’m sorry and thank you. And … that’s it. Have a nice life, okay?”

  And she hung up.

  I sat there staring at my computer screen, unseeing, cursor blinking away at the end of my last line of text. The sound of tittering startled me.

  “Congratulations, Shiloh!” Matt the intern poked his chubby head into my cubicle. His shoulder-length hair shivered as he reached for my limp hand and pumped it.

  “Congratulations for what?” I bit into another rice cracker and glared. “Having my half sister hang up on me?”

  He gave my crackers a look and stepped back, the way I did with Meg’s stinky tea mug.

  “Well, if you think that’s a congratulatory event. By all means, imbibe in the festivities.”

  Great. Matt the vocabulary show-off. I’m not in the mood for it. “Rice cracker?” I held out the package.

  He grimaced. “No thanks. But congratulations.”

  Congratulations on what? Being the weirdest person on staff? No, that would go hands down to Clarence.

  I rolled my eyes and turned back to my crime story, but after the third or fourth person had giggled outside my cubicle and put presents on my desk (mostly junk around the office like paperweights and coffee creamer, but still …), I got worried. I went on patrol around my cubicle and found nothing unusual. Until I saw my message board.

  Somebody had erased NOT.

  Chapter 39

  When the snow finally melted in giant, gaping patches, I noticed the grass underneath: fresh and green, alive with glorious, tender life, all spangled with opening crocuses like fallen stars. Everything bloomed in an unexpected early warm spell—fragrant yellow daffodils, lacy pink redbud trees, peach and apple blossoms. The trees budded and began to unfurl delicate leaves, and I threw my head back to inhale lungfuls of fresh spring air. Joyful throbs of light after too-long winter.

  Yomiuri Shimbun called to tell me they’d resolved the housing issue and would send tickets within two weeks. I scheduled a meeting to give Kevin my notice Wednesday morning and begged Becky to take Christie for me until she could find a good home.

  The mountains turned to green lace. Creeks swelled with melted snow.

  And my favorite of all: grape hyacinths that poked up through the winter-bare earth of my flower bed, perfuming the air with their little purple-blue spires of chubby bells.

  I told Faye if I ever got married I’d use nothing but grape hyacinths and Mom’s roses. Just thousands of them, stuffed in every vase, jar, and bouquet imaginable.

  “Daffodils,” said Faye. “That’s what I want.”

  Good thing because they’re everywhere. Rivers of yellow, spilling along the roadsides in butter-colored bliss.

  A million cars clogged Faye’s driveway on the morning of her wedding. Her relatives had arrived from West Virginia and Kentucky, with several more due in any time, and I stepped over crepe paper streamers, discarded suitcases, and white-wrapped packages on the way through the door. My arms full of daffodils and yellow satin ribbon.

  “Oh my lands!” Faye rushed through the house, trying to remember where she’d put the ice or the clear nail polish for Aunt Fanny’s fraying stockings. She’d just had her hair done, and her chic floral dress sparkled. New, I might add. I helped her buy it.

  “Shiloh, honey, thank goodness yer here! How do I look?”

  “Gorgeous.” I hugged her tight and tried not to think about how our afternoons would change. Our phone calls, our coffee visits. Faye would still love me, with all the tenderness of her great heart, but I’d be a distant second now. All as it should be.

  “And you
in that yella dress I picked out!” She put her hands on her hips and shook her head at me. “All the single fellas’ll be buggin’ their eyes out! Especially—” She started to say Adam, I figured, but stopped herself. “Well, anyway, you’ll look real pretty.”

  “Not as pretty as you. Earl’s probably trying to peek in the window just to catch a glimpse. Now, don’t you dare let him see you in your dress, Faye!”

  “Don’t be silly! That’s an old wives’ tale about good luck an’ whatnot. I don’t believe in that mess.”

  “Neither do I, but it’s your wedding! You have to make him wait.” I said it so sternly that she laughed again. “Promise me!”

  When she did, I pulled out a little wrapped box.

  “For me?” Faye’s eyes rounded behind her glasses.

  “Well, I’m certainly not getting married.” I held it out. “Please open it.”

  “Aw, sugar, ya didn’t need to do that.”

  “I want to. And there’s … an explanation.”

  “What?”

  “Open it.”

  Faye graciously took the package then tore off the springy rose-patterned paper and lifted out a velvet box. Opened the lid to reveal a pair of delicate amethyst-drop earrings, just the shade to match her dress and ring.

  “Oh, doll, these are jest beautiful! These are …” And then I saw it. The delight in her eyes that shifted swiftly to recognition. “These are Ellen’s, honey.”

  “My mom’s. I know.”

  “They were her favorites. She used ta tell me …” Faye’s blue eyes started to tear up, and she lifted one of the earrings, turning it in the light.

  “That I always loved it when she wore them. I remember.” I swallowed the bulge in my throat. “Please put them on.” My fingers shook as I took off the silver backing.

  “Now? Are ya sure? I can’t take yer mama’s special jewelry, sugar.”

  “You’re not. I’m giving them. Please. Do it for me.”

  Faye sniffled as she took out her pearly studs, replacing them with the amethyst drops. They looked so elegant, dangling by her hair. Just like they used to sparkle by Mom’s so many years ago.

  “You’re my second mom now, so I thought they’d suit you just fine. I was right. You’re beautiful.” I squeezed her hand. “Go make Earl proud. And Mom, too.”

  Faye put an arm around me, and we just stood there a minute, looking out over the mess that was now her house. Suitcases and bags and wedding presents everywhere. Ribbons and shoes and potted gerbera daisies.

  For a moment I could feel in my soul the goodness of God and how special Faye was to me. And somehow I to her. Resurrection again! And what better way to celebrate the resurrection of my life—and Jesus’—than just before Easter, with two people I loved pledging their lives together.

  Before I could speak again, a noisy car pulled up, people laughing and shouting and banging doors, and Faye introduced me to funny relatives from Kentucky who didn’t speak any form of English I’d ever heard. And the moment slipped away.

  But I stored it in my heart, like the memory of Mom wearing those pretty amethyst drops to an art show, arm-in-arm with me.

  I lugged my stuff to an empty bedroom then put on my dress. I smoothed my hair down under a wide, white headband, bangs swept to the side, and sprayed on a fruity shine serum. Put in little daisy earrings I’d bought from an art bazaar. Spritzed on springy perfume and stepped into white-and-linen wedge-type sandals. And then I headed out to put together the daffodils for Faye’s bouquet.

  My arms overflowed with yellow when Tim and Becky arrived. Becky in a smashing pale blue-and-white gingham checked dress, and Macy in something mint green and lacy. We all looked like a bunch of pastel Easter Peeps.

  “Hold these,” I ordered Tim, handing him the daffodils. “I need to tie on the ribbon.”

  He jerked his hands back as if bitten by a snake. “Flowers? I ain’t holdin’ no flowers!” he groused. “They’s gonna make my hands smell all sweet!”

  “Heaven forbid.” I rolled my eyes. “Tie the ribbon then.”

  For a new dad, Tim had picked up on the ribbon-tying awfully quick. He made nice big loops and left long, yellow, satiny curls hanging down as I instructed him.

  “You’re going to be good at hair,” I said, watching his steady hand as he fixed the bow. “Just wait ‘til you get into braids and barrettes.”

  “Shoot, Yankee! I don’t know nothin’ about all that! I’m just gonna take ‘er fishin’. Ta heck with hair!”

  “You say that now.”

  Although Tim did sport a striped Western-style shirt and cowboy boots. Bolo tie. Vic Priestly NASCAR baseball cap. Maybe I was wrong.

  “You’re going to wear a baseball cap to Faye’s wedding?” I took back Faye’s bouquet and wrinkled up my nose.

  “Shucks, why not? Ain’t no black-tie affair.” He grinned. “I might take it off when she comes down the aisle. Mebbe.”

  Adam at least put on a shirt and tie, but when he arrived I found myself so knee-deep in fixing the gift table, setting up chairs, and lining the aisle with white and yellow gerbera daisies that I could barely say a civil “hello.” Instead, to my surprise, he jumped in beside me—tying silky, transparent crepe ribbon along the aisle, looping it from folding chair to folding chair, and then set out more chairs and stacked more gifts while I wrote down the names.

  Then Adam disappeared to his truck and returned with mounds of flowers: super-fragrant Easter lilies in creamy white, pink-speckled stargazer lilies, and potted tulips and hyacinths. We stacked them around the simple arbor where Pastor Davis would speak then set to work tying stems of lilies into the arbor.

  “The arbor still looks bare,” I said, tilting my head.

  “I know.” Adam studied it, chin in hand. “Like it’s got holes in it.”

  “Any ideas?”

  “Just one.”

  “What?”

  “Come with me.” He held out his hand a bit hesitantly, and I awkwardly grasped it as we hurried across the grass toward the woods. Me trying not to fall in my sandals and ruin my dress.

  We saw them at the same time: redbuds and dogwood trees, blooming pink and white in the riot of new greens. Adam pulled out his pocketknife and sliced off slender twigs full of blooms, handing them down to me.

  “Are you sure? This one looks like poison ivy.” I jerked my hands away from a flowerless green vine.

  “It’s Virginia creeper. Five leaves, not three.” Adam’s voice sounded distant, almost cold. “It’s a weed, but I think it’ll work to cover the bare spots on the trellis.”

  I didn’t know what else to say, so I pretended great interest in the wedding party, bright spots in the distance through the trees. A chilly wind blew, scattering fuchsia redbud blossoms across the ground.

  “So you heard the news about Rick,” said Adam finally, grunting as he shimmied partway up a small tree to cut a few more stems.

  “That he’s going to Georgia? I heard. Congratulations. I would have called, but …” I shifted the branches in my arms, not sure how to explain myself.

  Adam didn’t look at me. I watched his knife slice off a branch, and then he dropped to the moist, mossy ground, brushing himself off. “No. He’s not going.”

  “What?” I hollered, flinging my arms up in the air. The branches went everywhere, and Adam bent to scoop them up. “What do you mean he’s not going?”

  “I mean he’s not going.” Adam clicked his pocketknife and stuck it in his pocket, throat bobbing as he swallowed. “And that’s that.” He lifted his eyes to mine in a split-second ray of blue then looked abruptly down at the branches. Kneeling down to gather them up one-by-one, and shaking off the dirt.

  I squatted down awkwardly in my dress, ignoring the scattered blooms. “Why, Adam? Why isn’t Rick going? He won that scholarship! He was supposed to—”

  I broke off at Adam’s silence as he smoothed the branches then piled them together and held them out to me. I clumsily stood and put my arms out
.

  “Rick asked them to give the scholarship to a buddy of his who’s worse than he is.” He stood and sifted through some boughs, struggling with his words. “The guy burned something like seventy-five percent of his body and lost a leg and an arm. He lives in Marietta, Shiloh. That’s less than an hour from the rehab center.” He let the twigs go. “Rick says he can make it. And he’s afraid his friend won’t without help.”

  “Rick.” Tears welled up as I arranged the branches in my arms, gently patting the blooms. “He’s really a hero.”

  “He is.” Adam turned away, ducking under a thick limb. He held it out for me and I walked under, as if stepping under a wedding arch.

  “So you’re going to Atlanta without him? I heard you have some work lined up there.” I smoothed my hair where twigs grabbed at it.

  “No.” Adam turned suddenly to face me, hand trembling on a rough tree trunk. “I’d already told Rick I couldn’t go with him.”

  “You what?” I cried.

  “Don’t drop those again!” Adam scolded, taking the bunch from me. “We’ve got to hurry. The arch isn’t done yet, and …” He checked his watch and marched through the lush spring thicket, leaving me stammering to myself.

  I came to my senses and stomped after him, trying not to fall on the roots and twigs. Wondering how in the world Adam and I always ended up in the messy woods with too-nice clothes.

  “You’re staying?” I grabbed my head in my hands.

  “Yes. And I’ve been accepted at James Madison University in Harrisonburg. I start in the fall.” He kept his eyes on the tree above him, pulling down a creamy white, bloom-laden bough. His voice thin and tight.

  I swiveled my head, feeling like two semitrucks on Interstate 81 just hit me at the same time. “School? You’re going back to school?”

  “Engineering. Don’t ask me how I got in. It’s a miracle. My scores aren’t that good anymore now that I’ve been out of academics for so long.” He whacked off the stalk of dogwood with more force than necessary.

  “Congratulations, but … What am I saying? How could you abandon Rick?” I practically shouted.