by Abbi Glines
“I didn’t do anything,” I replied, not sure how my opening a few doors helped make it easy.
“You have no idea how ugly that can get. She saw you and she didn’t turn on me. She didn’t want to let you down. You aren’t Honey, but she sees you and remembers.”
I felt tears sting my eyes again. When Gran died, it had hurt. I’d felt completely alone in the world. She had been my rock in this life. What I hadn’t realized was she had been other people’s rock too. Her death had not only been hard on me, but it had been just as hard on others. Especially Lily… and Saul.
“How often does she do this?” I asked him.
“Longest she has gone clean and sober is ten months, three weeks, and a day,” he said. “When I let my guard down and don’t check on her daily, things can get bad. If left without someone to watch over her, she can end up on things worse than liquor. It takes three months or more in rehab when she starts with the pills or worse.”
My chest was tight again with emotion I couldn’t express. I sat there silently until Saul pulled into the parking deck at the Hendrix. After he parked her car, he turned to look at me. “I’ve got it from here. Thanks for your help,” he said, before opening his door and getting out.
I waited until he had mine open and I got out wanting to do something more. Help him get her to the penthouse at least. It felt wrong just leaving him here like this.
When I didn’t walk away, he ran a hand through his messy curls. “I need to do the rest alone,” he said, understanding why I hadn’t moved.
“Why?” I asked him because I disagreed. He needed help.
“Because, Henley. This is what I fucking do. Just go.” It wasn’t the cold pitch in his voice that sent me away; it was the warning glare in his eyes. He did not want me here.
By the time I reached my car, the tears were freely streaming down my face. Not because Saul sent me away but because it was all he knew. He didn’t trust people enough to rely on them. He did it himself. Except when Gran came along. He hadn’t been able to send Gran away.
Twelve
I never made it to Wanda with the photo album. The rest of the day I had spent trying new recipes in hopes baking would make things better. It hadn’t, but in the end, I had been distracted. Being back at work today was a relief. Hillya’s great-niece, Emily, was visiting for the summer, and I had spent the morning training her to work the register. She was a year younger than me and just finished up her second year at Florida State.
Her hair was a deep shade of auburn and it made her pale skin appear porcelain. I would have hated her for that alone if I hadn’t immediately liked her. She worked hard and had a good sense of humor. Something about her felt familiar but I couldn’t place it. By lunchtime, we had bonded and by three when she got off work, we had planned a beach day the next time we both were free.
Hillya had sent me home after four because she was closing early today. I would be off again tomorrow, but then on Thursday, the store was hosting a book signing and would be open late. I was needed to work the bar that night. Hillya served red and white wine along with a signature cocktail at signings. This would be my first one and I was looking forward to it. I’d never been to a book signing before.
I texted Rio that I would be home and available after six tonight if he wanted to bring the letters over. When he texted that he would be there at seven thirty, I decided to head to the address Gran had left me for Wanda and get the album delivered. I smelled of baked goods and coffee, but I doubted Wanda would mind that.
The address led me to a nursing home and I sat in my car for several minutes after parking, staring at the building. I was vaccinated, but I wasn’t sure what the protocol for visitors would be at a nursing home. I reached over and opened my glove compartment to takeout a mask. Although the world had slowly begun to become normal again, especially in the southeast, I kept a stash of masks for the places still requiring them.
I grabbed the album and headed for the entrance. There was a nurse at the door and the sign on the door clearly stated masks were required. I slipped it on and took my vaccination card from my purse to show her.
“I need to get this album to a Wanda Sellers. My gran passed away and she left instructions to bring Mrs. Sellers this album,” I explained.
The nurse smiled. “Oh, Mrs. Wanda will love this. A visitor and a gift. Come right on in,” she said as she pointed down the hallway. “You can find her right down there. Third door on the left. Room number fourteen.”
“Thank you,” I replied and headed down the hallway toward door fourteen. The resident of room eleven was sitting at her door holding a doll with brown curls and wearing a large wide smile. She was running her hand over the dolls curls and whispering something to it when she noticed me. Her head snapped up as if I was there to take her doll from her and she looked ready to defend the baby.
I smiled at her. “You have a beautiful baby,” I said.
The lady’s fearful expression vanished and she beamed up at me from her wheelchair. “Thank you. She looks just like her daddy,” the lady replied.
“He must be very handsome,” I told her.
She nodded her head vigorously. “Oh, he is! He’ll be here to get us soon.”
I held my smile and then waved at her before continuing on to door fourteen. It was across the hall and one door down from eleven. There was an older lady with pearls around her neck, white hair in a neat bob, and a yellow dress trimmed in white standing there observing me. I didn’t know if this was Wanda Sellers or not. Although she was dressed as if she were about to go to church, she was much older than I expected. This lady had to be ten years older than my gran had been.
I stopped at her door with the album tucked under my arm. “Hello, I am looking for a Mrs. Wanda Sellers.”
The lady looked me up and down. I suddenly felt as if I should have changed into something nicer than my work clothes. When her gaze met mine, she smiled. “You’re Honey’s granddaughter.”
Relieved, I nodded. “Yes, I am.” I wasn’t sure how she could tell that, but I was glad I wasn’t going to have to explain.
“He will be here soon! Keep a look out and you’ll see him. The best-looking man in Alabama,” the lady from eleven called from across the hall.
I glanced back to see her still beaming at me.
“Come on in my room. Gladys will continue to yell out crazy things if you don’t. The rest of the place has learned to ignore her. Bless her she’s been insane for a couple years now,” the lady I was assuming was Wanda told me as she turned and walked into room fourteen.
I took a quick survey of the place and it reminded me of a bedroom from the fifties A chenille bedspread with blue and yellow flowers covered the bed. At the foot of it, there was a white lace shawl. Old photos in elaborate frames as well as newer photos sat everywhere. The lamp on the bedside table was made of white hobnail glass. It was similar to those I had seen only in antique stores. A wooden rocker with a crocheted blanket the same blue as was on the bed in the corner.
“It’s not home, but I did my best to make it feel like I had some home here with me,” the lady said.
I turned to look at her and she stood over by the door. “It’s lovely,” I told her and I meant it. This was nothing like the boring white bare walls I had imagined a room here to look like. I wondered then what room eleven looked like inside. If Gladys had decorated it.
“You are the spitting image of Honey when she was your age.”
“You knew Gran when she was my age?” I asked her, suddenly very interested in what she had to say.
She let out an amused laugh and nodded. “Indeed, I did.” She then took a step toward me ad held out her hand. “I see you have no idea who I am. I’m Wanda Sellers. I was Honey’s eleventh grade literature teacher then years later, I became her friend.”
I placed my hand in hers and the soft skin of her palm
was cold as we shook hands. “It’s nice to meet you, Mrs. Sellers. I’m Henley Warren.”
Wanda released my hand and nodded her head. “Yes, I remember the day you were born. Your momma had left town and your grandmother was beside herself with worry. But Lord she was so proud of you. The pictures were always in her purse and she wouldn’t let a soul pass her by without showing off her granddaughter to them.”
I hadn’t known that about Gran. My memories of her were sparse until I was about six years old. My mom started leaving me with her some during the summers.
“I often wished my mom had raised me here,” I told Wanda.
Wanda gave me a sad smile. “Perhaps your life would have been different. The path you were given is yours to walk. Wishing for a different path only hinders your success on the path you are on.”
She even spoke like a literature teacher. “Yes, I guess it does.” I took the album from under my arm. “Gran left me a list of some things she wanted me to do for her around the time she got sick. She thought, well, she wanted to be sure if she didn’t survive Covid that I would handle things for her. This is on the list,” I said as I held the album out to her. “She wanted me to give this to you.”
Wanda took the album from me and held it in her hands for a moment before walking over to the rocking chair and sitting down. I stood there and watched as she opened it so very slowly, as if she already knew what was inside and thought it was something to be cherished.
She studied each page carefully before turning it. I wasn’t sure if I should stay or go, but then I decided I would stay until she looked up and acknowledged me again. I wanted to tell her goodbye. After the fourth or fifth page, she sighed and smiled then lifted her gaze from the photos to meet mine.
Her smile was teary and I wondered what it was that made her so sad about the album. The ladies in it were younger than she was and she couldn’t have been on the trips with them. Which made this all the more interesting.
“Thank you for making sure I got this. I didn’t know she had these photos,” she told me, but it still didn’t explain why she cared about pictures from a trip my gran had taken with other people.
“You’re welcome. I’m glad they mean something to you,” I said, not willing to ask her questions and invade her privacy. If she had wanted me to know she would have shared it.
“Oh yes,” she said, smiling fondly at the photos in her lap again. “Honey always knew of my love for Nancy. She never judged me or condemned me for my ways. Even when she was a young girl in school, I think she knew about my secret affair,” she chuckled softly.
To keep my jaw from falling open in shock was a feat I deserved an award for. I stared at Wanda as she looked on at the pictures. I wasn’t sure what to say or if I had understood her correctly. She was in her mid-eighties. She had to be. Her room looked like something decorated by every southern grandmother at the Baptist church.
“Nancy wasn’t as young as your mother. Don’t go judging me there. She was in her second year of college when I met her. I was fresh out of college and had my first real job teaching school. She had the most beautiful blonde hair and those dimples when she smiled. I think I fell in love with her the moment I met her. She loved me too, just not enough,” she said sadly and glanced up at me.
“I too often wonder about the road I wished I had been given. The road that doesn’t judge so harshly and allows you to love whomever you choose. I didn’t have that road and neither did Nancy. She could never openly love me. She cared too much about what others would do and say. She was fragile. Although she never married either. I believe it was because her heart was taken and always would be.” She paused then and I swallowed past the lump forming in my throat.
The world had been cruel to so many in the past. It still was at times, but things were changing. They had to… so people like Wanda could love freely.
“Nancy passed away five years ago. She had cancer. Although she had no children, she had a multitude of friends and family who loved her. She had her church and I believe that was what was most important to her. I understood and accepted it, but I loved her dearly.” Wanda held up the album. “And now I have pictures. I had none but that one,” she pointed to a faded polaroid photo of a girl that looked to be about my age smiling at the camera. It was in the most elaborate frame in the room, making it the most cherished photo in the room.
I quickly glanced at the other pictures and wondered who the children and the couples were if she had no husband or children of her own. The photos showed a life fully lived. It appeared as if she had led one of happiness.
“I may not have had a husband or children, but I taught school for over fifty years. I have more children than any one person could want. There were many I grew close to and I have ten godchildren and one great-godchild. Your mother is one of the ten. The day she was born, I gave her a silver spoon with her name and birthday carved in the handle. Then when you were born, I knitted you a pink blanket-”
“With white flowers,” I finished for her. I still had that blanket. I had loved it dearly.
Wanda smiled at me and nodded her head. “That’s the one,” she confirmed. “I made my path the best that I could. That’s what matters in the end. You don’t get another path. Never forget that.”
I moved then. I walked over to Wanda and bent down and hugged her. I felt robbed that I hadn’t known her until now. “Thank you,” I whispered and her hand came around and patted me on the back.
“Thank you, Henley Warren.”
I let her go and stood back up. “I wish I had gotten to meet you before now.”
She smiled. “Oh, child, you have met me before. I made you cheese and marshmallow sandwiches while you played in the sprinkler in my yard.”
The memory of the redheaded lady with her polka dotted dress serving my gran ice tea on her back porch while I played in her yard came back to me. “That was you?” I asked then, wondering how many years it had been.
She nodded her head. “Yes. That was me.”
“But we didn’t come back again,” I said.
She sighed. “When you were eight years old, I moved to Louisiana. I got a position as a professor at LSU. I needed to get away from the town and the life it had forced upon me.”
“Oh,” I replied, understanding full well her need to leave.
She looked down at her album again. “But when I retired there was no place I wanted to be but here. This is home.”
I realized something standing in that lavender scented room filled with things from times gone by. My gran could have given this album to Wanda after Nancy’s passing, but she held onto it. I wasn’t sure why she did but I did know why she wanted me to be the one to bring it to her. This was Gran’s way of making sure I met Wanda. She was teaching me things even after she had passed on. I thought of the rest of the list and wondered if more lessons were to come or even possibly a few revelations.
Thirteen
Rio had been sitting on the front porch swing when I pulled into my driveway. I had texted him when I left the nursing home. My visit had taken longer than anticipated. Wanda Sellers had ended up being more than an old lady I was to drop a book off to. I promised to come back and bring proper ice tea because the stuff they serve at the nursing home has no sugar in it, according to Wanda.
I headed to go up the stairs and stopped when I reached the top. “Sorry,” I said although I wasn’t sorry I had gone.
He shrugged. “You’re just thirty minutes late,” he held up a bag from the burger place in town. “Gave me time to eat dinner.”
“Okay, well, want to go inside to do this?” I asked him and went to unlock the door.
He picked up a large 11 x 14 envelope and his burger bag. “Yep. Especially if you have some muffins or cookies.”
“I have cupcakes I made yesterday as a trial. They are gluten, dairy and nut-free, but I think they turned out good
. The icing needs some work before I make them for the café,” I said.
“I’ll eat ‘em,” he replied, and I closed the door behind him.
“Make yourself at home. I will get the cupcakes and a couple bottles of water unless you like oat milk and want that instead.”
He scrunched his nose. “I’ll stick with the water.”
“Thought so,” I replied and went to make up a tray with the cupcakes and a few slices of blueberry loaf I had left.
“Can we go search the attic after you read these?” he asked, as I walked back into the room with the food and drinks.
“Sure. I’ve not been up there yet because I hate ladders, but I will toughen up.”
He handed me the envelope then reached for a strawberry cupcake. “These look like a professional made them.”
I shrugged. “Well they don’t taste like it, yet.”
Rio took a bite as I pulled the letters from the envelope. I wasn’t sure what I was going to find out or if Rio was right in his way of thinking. What I did know was he was right about something. Gran’s list wasn’t a simple list of things she wanted done after she passed away. It was more than that.
As I was unfolding the first letter on the stack, yelling from outside caught my attention and my head snapped up to look toward the window.
“What the fuck?” Rio muttered, standing up and walking over to see what was going on.
I put the letter on the coffee table and followed him as another shout rang out.
“Dammit, psycho bitch,” Rio said and started for the door.
“What is it?” I asked, hurrying after him and out onto the porch.
“Fleur,” he said, heading down the stairs, and I realized then the red convertible was in the middle of the street two houses down and she was standing on the hood of it spinning in circles.
On the street in front of her stood Saul. He was the one who had been shouting. “Get DOWN, Fleur!” he yelled and she stopped spinning then threw her head back and laughed.