Love Remains (7 page)

Not that he cared. He would have done that for anyone, not just the first—and only—woman he’d ever loved.

Chapter 5

U
ncertain she would be able to face anybody in the singles’ group ever again, Zarah sought out her grandmother as soon as the worship service ended. She waited until Kiki finished her conversation with Lindy Patterson, not wanting to give either of the grandmothers any reason to discuss or speculate about any past, present, or future relationship there might be between her and Bobby.

Kiki wrapped up her conversation with Lindy as soon as she noticed Zarah waiting in the wings. “Zarah, darling, you look tired.” Kiki pressed her cool, dry palm to Zarah’s forehead.

It was all Zarah could do to refrain from pushing Kiki’s hand away. “I thought maybe I could join you and Pops for lunch, since I haven’t been able to spend much time with you recently.”

Kiki pushed Zarah’s hair back from her face before returning her hand to her side. “What about lunch with the singles’ group?”

“I’d really rather spend time with you. If that’s okay. But I don’t want to be an imposition.” Zarah hugged her Bible and sermon-notes journal to her chest.

“Why do you always think you are going to be imposing on us? You are our granddaughter, our flesh and blood. We want to spend time with you. We want to be able to show you how important you are to us.”

Zarah refused to get emotional. She’d spent far too long not having the strength to adequately police her reactions over the last four months—had found herself crying over greeting-card commercials—and now she needed to start rebuilding those barriers.

“You happen to be in luck—I got industrious and put a pot roast in the slow cooker this morning, so you’ll definitely get us all to yourself, with no waiters to interrupt us.” Kiki waved at someone over Zarah’s shoulder.

“Is there anything I can stop and pick up on the way over?”

“No. I have everything we need. And you know I always make too much food for just Pops and me.”

“Thanks, Kiki. I’m going to run home and change clothes, and then I’ll be over.” Zarah left her grandmother to talk to all her friends and slipped out of the auditorium through a side door unmanned by a church staffer or volunteer shaking hands.

“Zarah—wait! Where are you going?”

If it had been anyone but Flannery, Zarah would have pretended she hadn’t heard and gotten in her car. She set her Bible atop it, forced a smile, and turned. “Hey, Flan.”

“What is going on with you today? I mean, I know it’s a shock to see him again after all that time, but since you already knew he was here—or was it because of the whole chair thing in Sunday school? I would have saved you a seat, but I know you prefer sitting at the desk instead of in the group—especially since you’ve been sick and have to get up and leave the room if you start coughing.”

Zarah touched Flannery’s arm, and Flannery stopped talking. “I have never been so humiliated in my life. He just couldn’t leave well enough alone. I know everyone was laughing at me afterward.”

Flannery’s pencil-darkened brows knitted together. “What are you talking about? Everyone felt guilty for not being the one to do it themselves. Zarah, Bobby saw what none of the rest of us did—that you made yourself into an outsider, and that we’ve all accepted it and let you stay outside the circle instead of being part of the group. A lot
of that is my fault. I know you don’t like to be pushed, and I didn’t want to be the one to push you to change the status quo.”

Zarah crossed her arms and leaned against her car. “I happen to like the status quo. I’m happy with it. I don’t want people making a fuss over me.”

Flannery rolled her eyes. “Including you in the group in Sunday school isn’t making a fuss over you. Bobby did exactly what you would have done if it had been anyone else who didn’t have a place to sit in the circle.”

Because she wanted to stay angry at Bobby, Zarah tried to ignore the logic and truth of Flannery’s statement. “I was happy where I was.”

“Come to lunch with us. We’re walking over to Boscos.”

Zarah’s mouth watered at the thought of her favorite Sunday brunch dish there—a prosciutto and artichoke omelet. “I can’t. I’m going to Pops and Kiki’s for lunch.”

“Then how about you and I get together for coffee this afternoon. Portland Brew at three?”

“Make it four, and I’ll be there.” Zarah let Flannery hug her before they parted. Funny how, when she couldn’t stand being touched by anyone, a hug from one of her closest friends did actually make her feel slightly better.

At home, Zarah quickly changed into a pair of lightweight cotton capris and a T-shirt printed with a design that looked like a watercolor of a Paris cityscape. Someday, she might actually visit the City of Lights, but for now Music City would have to do.

Leaving her subdivision, she drove south several minutes, past the small James Robertson University campus, and turned left into her grandparents’ neighborhood. One of the things she loved about this area was the canopy of trees shading the streets and the big old houses—something her neighborhood, almost equally old, lacked.

She pulled up in front of a large, dark red, foursquare house and
parked on the street in the shade of an old silverleaf maple tree rather than in the sunny driveway. She let herself in through the carport door and was greeted in the mudroom by the decadent smells of perfectly roasted beef and baking bread.

As soon as Zarah stepped into the kitchen, Kiki handed her a glass of iced tea. Zarah thanked her and then crossed the large kitchen to the table, where she bent over and kissed the top of Pops’s head.

“So, you haven’t keeled over and died on us, huh?” Pops snapped the funnies section of the paper to straighten the drooping corners.

“I’ve decided to linger.” Zarah sank into the chair beside him. It didn’t matter how long she’d lived in Nashville or how many times she sat in this kitchen, she could never forget that her mother grew up here—that her mother had eaten at this very table, had probably sat in this chair, had laughed and cried in this room, and had stormed out of this house almost forty years ago to elope with Walter Mitchell the night before he shipped off to Vietnam. If Kiki and Lindy Patterson hadn’t been trying so hard to get Zarah’s mother and Lindy’s son together, Zarah’s mother would never have made the biggest mistake of her life.

Zarah shook off the welling memory of the terrifying fights her parents used to have, unable to understand how two people who fought like that in private could put on such a show of being the perfect couple in public. Just like everything else in history, nothing she could do now would change it. She could only learn from it and move forward. She picked up the Op-Ed section of the newspaper and quickly scanned the titles of the pieces from the syndicated columnists before flipping it open to the center where the local opinion pieces were located alongside the letters to the editor.

“That one columnist really doesn’t like you.” Pops didn’t bother looking up from the comics.

Zarah didn’t have to ask what Pops meant but looked at the right-hand side of the two-page spread:

MITCHELL’S WHITE WHALE

An expensive, illogical, and self-destructive quest. You might think I’m referring to Captain Ahab and his ill-fated hunt. But this is no work of fiction. Dr. Sarah Mitchell of the Middle Tennessee Historic Preservation Commission has far surpassed Melville’s Ahab with her manic search for a Confederate battlement which no other historian or archaeologist will confirm ever existed….

“The least he could do would be to get my name right.” She closed the newspaper section, folded her arms atop the table, and rested her chin on her wrist.

“Sort of makes you wonder what else he’s getting wrong if he can’t even get your name right.” Pops reached over and patted Zarah’s back.

“I mean, there has to be other stuff going on in this city that’s more important than the fact I got a couple of injunctions to stop development down on that riverfront property.”

“Sounds to me like he has a vested interest in getting that property reopened for commercial development.” Kiki clanked a wooden spoon on the side of the slow cooker and put the lid back on. “Why else would he always be railing against you?”

The columnist had started his tirades against Zarah and the commission about four months ago. The second injunction had stopped the developer from tearing down three flood-damaged old houses, clear-cutting the land, and building another strip mall, and it had benefited the neighborhood by stopping construction of something that would have lowered the home prices in the area. “Dennis has contacted the newspaper and told them we would be happy to have someone come out to talk to us about the site and about the research. I think this columnist hasn’t bothered because it makes a convenient subject—so he can gripe about it when he can’t come up with an original idea for his column.”

The oven timer buzzed, and Kiki pulled out a small pan of yeast rolls, filling the room with a tantalizing aroma merely hinted at before. Zarah pushed back from the table and stood.

“What can I help with?”

Kiki shook her head, opened her mouth as if to speak, closed it again, and turned to pull the pot roast out of the slow cooker. “Why don’t you grab the plates and silverware and help Pops set the table while I finish up with this?”

Zarah didn’t bother keeping her smile to herself. After all these years, she had finally trained her grandmother not to insist Zarah do nothing and act like a guest. Zarah selected three different-colored plates from Kiki’s massive stoneware set along with a three-piece flatware service for each of them and carried them into the dining room. Even though she would have been perfectly happy eating lunch at the kitchen table, Kiki would insist—no matter how many people or how few, whether related or not—that guests should not eat in the kitchen.

Pops brought in place mats and cloth napkins which he set at the places at the end of the table closest to the kitchen. Zarah set out the plates and silverware.

“How was the party Friday night?” Pops rested his forearms on the back of the head chair and watched her finish setting the table.

“I didn’t enjoy it as much as I thought I would. I wasn’t feeling well and had to leave early.” While she knew Kiki would never lie to Pops about anything, she trusted Kiki to keep her promise of confidence. Pops knew the whole story, all about her past with Bobby, but she wasn’t sure she was ready to tell anyone else about Bobby’s role in Friday night’s fiasco.

Over lunch, topics of conversation stayed on safe grounds: the newspaper columnist, Zarah’s job, books they had read recently, and updates from Kiki and Pops about other family members. Though she actively participated in the conversation, during lulls or when she was listening to one of her grandparents speak, her imagination drifted
to Boscos, picturing Bobby there, surrounded by at least ten of the pretty, flirtatious, twentysomething girls from the singles’ group. Even if Zarah wanted him back—which she didn’t—she would never stand a chance against those girls. She had no delusions about her looks; her eyes were such a light blue they sometimes appeared to have no color at all, while her nose was, according to her grandmother, a throwback to Kiki’s Greek ancestors. Zarah didn’t know if that were true or not; all she knew was that it was too big, too pointy, and had been the source of much amusement for her classmates in elementary school and middle school. Kiki said it made her unique. Of course, having pretty much the same nose as Zarah, she would say that. Bobby was the only boy she’d ever known who said he thought she was beautiful and didn’t suggest she get a nose job. But with the way things ended, she couldn’t be sure he truly meant anything he had said to her.

Zarah and Pops insisted Kiki sit at the kitchen table while they did the dishes and cleaned up the kitchen. Kiki kept them entertained by reading tidbits from the Lifestyles section of the newspaper.

Though both Kiki and Pops entreated her to stay, just after two o’clock Zarah said her good-byes and left, feeling better than she had in weeks.