“I don’t know. I’ve got Evan at home with my mom . . .” In the silence that followed, my stomach grumbled, loud and angry. I clamped my hand over it and we both laughed.
“How about this,” he said, his smile creasing his right cheek. “Let me grab my keys and I’ll follow you out. Honey’s is on the way back out to I-10. You’ll see it on your right. If you decide to come, just pull in. I’ll be right behind you. If not, no problem. It was a spur-of-the-moment idea anyway.”
I crossed the driveway to my car and opened the door. “I’ll see how things are going at home. Maybe I’ll see you there.”
He climbed into his Land Rover and waited for me to back up and turn around. As I drove past him, my stomach turned in a quick flutter.
I took a deep breath to steady myself. He was essentially my customer, paying me for a job well done. I could handle that. Even still, another burst of nervous adrenaline shot through me, head to feet.
I fumbled with my phone as I pulled out of his driveway, ready to tell my little family I’d be home in an hour. I said a silent prayer Evan would answer instead of Mama.
No such luck.
“You must be having a fun evening,” Mama said.
“I’m sorry I’m later than I thought I’d be. Are y’all okay?”
“You ask as if some catastrophe will befall us if you leave us alone for too long. You do remember that I’ve raised a child too, right? And you turned out just fine.”
“I know. I’m just checking. I told Evan I’d be home by the time she went to bed, but I might not, unless she stays up late.”
“We’re just fine here. You interrupted our third game of gin rummy—this one is the tiebreaker. Loser scoops the ice cream.”
Evan laughed in the background, and the sound of her voice, carefree and light, made my heart ache. I wanted to both be there with them and stay gone longer, enjoying some rare time away from home with someone who seemed to be decent company.
“If y’all are okay, I think I may stop and grab a bite to eat. I haven’t eaten anything since lunch.”
“And will you be dining alone?”
I could hear the smile in Mama’s voice, and it made me hesitate. If I let her in on the fact that Sumner had asked me to dinner, she’d be sitting up waiting for me when I got back, like I was a teenager on a first date.
“Come on. What do you think?” I said instead.
“Well, okay then. Get yourself something to eat. I’ve got to get back to my game.”
Ahead on the dark road in front of me, the glow of a restaurant lit up a portion of the street and I eased my foot off the gas. A sign out front pronounced it Honey’s River Kitchen. People milled about as they waited for tables, and even with my windows up, music from a bluegrass band and the smell of fried seafood found its way into the car. My stomach protested again.
I checked my rearview mirror. From the headlights of another car, I could just make out the shape of Sumner’s head and the angle of his shoulders. Dinner would be nice.
When the car in front of me slowed to turn into the parking lot, I thought about turning my blinker on, parking in the lot, and walking inside next to Sumner. In the small space of a moment, I was caught in the in-between, unsure of what to do.
At the last minute my indecision made my decision. I stayed straight on the road, passing Honey’s and the promise of good food, good music, and very likely good conversation. After a few seconds, the restaurant was nothing more than a spot of light on the dark road behind me.
If I hurried, I could make it home in time for ice cream.
CHAPTER 18
Just as the color of the sky can foretell the weather, many flowers can predict changes in barometric pressure, weather patterns, even the arrival of a visitor. Keep a close eye on your blooms to stay a step ahead.
—CONNIE SUE, THE MYSTICAL GARDENER
JESSIE
A few days later, the sky was heavy, full of rain and anger. With the threatening weather, I hadn’t had a customer since lunch, so I’d taken the afternoon to reorganize some of the shop displays. I did that sometimes when my mind felt uneasy, like something in me wanted to crawl out through my skin and move around before returning and settling back down.
With an almost cool breeze sifting through the open front door, I walked through the shop straightening tabletops and moving pots an inch this way, then an inch that way. Usually the organizing, prettying, and tidying up helped what felt out of place in my mind. Today it didn’t. My mind remained restless, swirling with thoughts of Sumner’s offer of dinner, Mama’s continued memory lapses, and Evan’s fast-approaching ninth-grade year.
As if that weren’t enough, the space on my counter where my laptop usually sat yawned up at me, reminding me of Ben and his expression when Carol Anne asked him about Marissa.
I filled a glass with water and sat on the top porch step. A fine mist fell from the sky, so light I couldn’t see it, but I could feel it. On another day I would have gone back inside, but the cool caress felt good on my bare arms and legs.
I’d only been there a moment, putting together a plan for the rest of the afternoon, when I heard a rumble, then Ben’s Jeep appeared on the road. Stanley’s head poked out of the back window. The sight was surprising yet, in some way, familiar too. As if I was used to seeing his car on the road. Which I most definitely wasn’t. Not anymore.
He came to a slow stop in front of the shop, then climbed out and held up a hand in greeting. Before he realized what was happening, Stanley pushed his way between the front seats and leaped out of the open door with free abandon.
“Stanley, no!” Ben called.
The dog flew through the yard toward my house next door. When he noticed me on the porch of Twig, he changed directions and headed straight for me. I stood but not fast enough. Stanley bounded up the steps and stopped with one huge paw on each side of me, his face inches from mine. He finally stopped moving, panting and grinning at Ben as if to say, “Here she is! I found her!”
I brushed off my shirt, not sure if I wanted to laugh or curse. Ben grabbed Stanley’s collar and pulled him down the steps. “Not exactly the way I planned to say hello.”
“He seems extra boisterous today. Maybe it’s the weather.”
“Maybe so. He was running circles around the den. If I hadn’t gotten him out of the house, he would have worn straight through the carpet.”
“You might as well have a seat while he runs around.”
“Actually . . .” He glanced around me into the shop. “If you’re not too busy, I wanted to see if you’d take a ride with me.”
I raised my eyebrows. “Oh. I don’t know. I’m by myself in the shop this afternoon . . .”
“No, I get it. Totally. It’s nothing.”
I chewed on my thumbnail, thinking. It was my shop. And I was doing nothing productive today other than thinking myself into a frenzy. Plus, it was close to the end of the day. “On second thought, a ride would be nice. Let me just tell Evan.” She’d been with me all morning, loading the table along the side of the shop with begonias, vincas, and geraniums, but she’d gone back to the house with Mama to help get dinner together.
I grabbed my phone and sent her a quick text. I’m running out for a little bit. Doubt anyone will be shopping in this weather, but please keep an eye out just in case.
K. Where are you going?
I paused, unsure of how much to tell her. I’ll be back soon. Text me if there’s a problem.
I dropped my phone in my bag before she had a chance to respond to my vague answer.
Ben corralled Stanley back into the car and I sat in the front seat. He turned around to back up, his hand on the back of my seat, his upper body close.
I shifted and turned toward the window. “How’s the computer coming along? Any chance of it coming back to life?”
“I’m still trying to resuscitate it. It’s taking some . . . creativity.”
I groaned. “I hate computers.”
“D
on’t give up on it yet. I may be able to bring it around.”
As we talked, he drove up Glory to the highway, then turned on the next street, which snaked through a beautiful grove of oak and maple trees. Everything was familiar but somehow felt new at the same time. Sort of like Ben. A rock trail, just wide enough for one car, forked off the road. The end of the trail opened up to a wide pebble-bottomed creek. Trees and vines hung over the edges, and tiny fish darted here and there in the clear water. Even on a dreary day, this place seemed almost magical.
I smiled. “The Icebox.”
“I haven’t been here since high school. I was in the grocery store the other day and heard some kids talking about it. I can’t believe they still hang out here.”
“Oh yes, they still come. Evan’s just recently started asking to go alone. I felt funny letting her go without me, but it really is so close. And we all did it with no problems. Probably younger than she is now.”
“I walked up here once when I was nine,” he said. “I had to give up my entire race car collection for a month, but I can still remember how cool I felt walking up here alone.”
We climbed out of the Jeep and stood at the edge of the creek. The drizzle had stopped somewhere between leaving the shop and arriving at the Icebox, and gauzy rays of sun pushed through the cloud cover. To the left of us, a huge log lay suspended over the water, its ends long buried in the sand and rocks on the banks. Just under the center of the log was the deepest water in the Icebox, always a little colder than at the edges. I knew because that’s where Ben and I always used to sit.
He leaned down and unclipped Stanley’s leash but kept a tight hold on his collar. “Stay close,” he said. Stanley whined, and as soon as Ben let go, he barked and ran off, nose to the wet, marshy ground.
Without the distraction of Stanley nearby, awkwardness crept between us. A dragonfly flitted low over the water, its wings a dull green rather than the usual iridescent.
“I guess tiptoeing to the center of the log is out of the question.” He was smiling.
“Yeah, I don’t think I’m as light on my feet as I used to be.”
He chuckled. “You’re not kidding. I think I’ll stick close to the banks today.” He sat on one of the large flat rocks that dotted the edge of the water and patted the space next to him. I slid my feet out of my boots and sat too, stretching my legs until my toes found the lukewarm water.
He leaned forward and picked up a smooth rock, then skipped it across the surface of the water. It bounced twice before plunking down into the depths.
“You used to be able to do four.”
“I used to be able to do a lot of things.” He picked up another rock and passed it back and forth between his hands. “Do you remember all those rocks we used to collect around here?”
I nodded. “You used to leave them in our mailbox.”
“Only the best ones.”
“Mama would get so mad when she’d reach her hand in the box and pull out wet rocks instead of her mail.”
“I usually tried to dry them off before I put them in. Maybe I was in a hurry sometimes. Probably trying to go undetected.”
One hot afternoon at the Icebox, I’d tromped through the shallow water, scanning the bottom for shiny rocks. Scattered among the regular brown and gray pebbles were what I now know were likely old pieces of glass—shattered Coke bottles, beer bottles, who knew what else that had been dropped and left over decades of people playing along the banks. All I knew then was that I liked the rocks that glimmered with a tumbled shine once I cleaned the mud off and held them up to the sun. I started collecting them, and Ben added to my collection. Then he added other rocks that caught his eye—some striped, some milky white, and others that appeared almost like marbles, with a thread of rich brown or red running through the center.
For much of high school, when I least expected it, Mama would come in from getting the mail and drop a little pile of rocks on the table in front of me. She was usually muttering under her breath, but I loved the treasures. I’d twist and turn them in the light, savoring the colors that bled into each other.
“What’d you do with them all? I must have left you hundreds of rocks.”
“It wasn’t quite that many.”
“You probably tossed them out. No reason to keep a bunch of dirty rocks around.”
I couldn’t tell him I’d actually saved those rocks, dropping each one into a hand-carved box Daddy had bought for me at an arts and crafts show in Gulf Shores. I definitely couldn’t tell him that box of rocks was still in my closet. That it had gone with me from Perry to Birmingham and back to Perry again. That I’d never had the heart to get rid of what felt like a box full of innocence and promise.
“I guess so.”
He sighed and leaned back on his hands. Stanley darted around next to the water nearby, his feet wet and muddy.
“That meeting the other night.” He shook his head. “Everything’s exactly the same around here, isn’t it? I guess I thought all these years later there’d be new faces. Or at least new gossip.”
“As far as faces, there’s some new mixed in with the old. But the gossip is the same—who’s stopped going to church, who’s had a baby, who’s dating whom.”
“And you’re okay with it? Still being here, still hearing the same talk, seeing the same people?”
I shrugged. “My life is here. My work. My family.” I brushed some dirt off the edge of my shorts. “I don’t see many of those people all that often. Twig’s open six days a week. That doesn’t leave much time to get out and about.”
“But you make time for exciting orientation meetings?” A half grin eased over his face.
“Yeah, when Evan decides to tell me about them.” I laughed, just a puff of air. “If it’s something for her, I go. She doesn’t care one way or another if I don’t show up at the pancake breakfast or sell popcorn at football games, but I like to know who people are—teachers, parents, kids. It’s important to me.”
He tossed another rock into the water, then tilted his face toward me. Twenty years slid away in that look. “You’re a good mom.”
I shrugged again. “I try. I feel like I have a lot to make up for. Things were . . . hard at the beginning. Before we moved back here. Even though she was too young to remember much.” She did remember some though, a voice reminded me. She remembered the bathing suit. Tiffani in our driveway. Of every memory her young mind could have clung to, of course she remembered the most humiliating, gut-wrenching moment of my life.
“I can understand that. I feel the same with Nick.” He sighed. “Talk about a difficult beginning.”
I wanted to ask. I’d wondered for so long. But I felt too removed. Too separate from his life to ask personal questions like that.
“I’m trying to make things right now. I have no idea if I’m even in the vicinity of right, but I’m trying.” He shifted and brushed the dirt from his palms. “I know you must have heard Carol Anne the other night at the meeting.”
The words made my heart beat faster. I could hear it thumping in my ears. “I don’t . . . I’m not sure.”
“It’s okay. I know you heard. About Marissa?” He turned toward me, his eyebrows bunched up. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say Carol Anne was trying to talk as loud as possible. As if everyone in the gym needed to know about my personal life.” He shook his head. “She and Marissa were roommates at Alabama, and apparently they still keep up with each other. Which is just perfect for me, as you can tell.” He rubbed his eyes with his thumb and middle finger. “The last thing I wanted was to move back here and immediately become juicy gossip.”
“So, Marissa. Is she . . . ?”
“Yeah.” He ran his hand roughly through his hair and sat up, resting his elbows on his knees. “I guess she’s my girlfriend, although that doesn’t really even . . . cover it.” He exhaled, as if the words had taken everything out of him.
“I’m not sure I really get it, but it’s . . . it’s okay.”
“Oh. Wow.” If there was any time to play it cool, this was it, but I failed miserably. Nick’s mother. This was no plain old girlfriend. This was a family. I passed a hand over my forehead, brushing my bangs away from my eyes. “So that’s what you meant when you said you were trying to make things right.”
He clasped his hands together, then picked at something on his thumbnail. “She’s some of it.” He didn’t say anything else.
“I’m sorry. It’s none of my business.”
“No, I’m sorry. It’s fine.” He took a deep breath. “Okay, nutshell version. Marissa and I ran into each other at the Atlanta airport last year. She’s a flight attendant now, and I was on my way back from a conference. I hadn’t seen her in . . . Well, it had been a really long time. We didn’t have much of a relationship back when we . . . Anyway, we were both shocked to see each other, and she wanted to get to know Nick. So here we are. A year later.”
“Wow. You’ve been together a year. Things must be going well.” The words I’m happy for you danced in my mouth, but I couldn’t release them. They felt too loaded, too ironic.
“I guess so. I don’t know.”
“But you moved here. Won’t that make things harder?”
“It’s funny, even back in Atlanta, we didn’t actually see that much of each other. She’s gone all the time on flights—she often flies internationally and stays gone a week or more at a time. When she’s in town, she usually catches up on sleep and exercise. We agreed that me moving here wouldn’t change things all that much. She can change her destination to Mobile and visit us here, and I’ll still have to take trips to Atlanta now and then for work.”
“I get it.”
He was silent a moment. “No, you don’t. How can you? It’s ridiculous. Even I can see that.” He raked his hand through his hair again and sighed. “We’re hanging on by a thread, but somehow we’re still hanging on. That’s got to count for something, right?”
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