Secrets over Sweet Tea (3 page)

The new house wasn’t that bad, actually. The roof was tin, the floors were pine, and the marker outside declared it was of some historical importance. Being downtown was a plus. And then there was the hope. She always tried to hold on to that hope. Could this be the home that held their healing? Maybe.

Yet every room in this new place still smelled and felt un-hers. It held no memories. She didn’t know how to get around it in the dark without hurting herself.

She peeked into the bedroom again. Tyler had rolled over
and started to snore. She walked back down the foreign hall of a home it would take her two years to get used to—just in time for Tyler to want to move again.

A small section of her longer bangs fell in her face. She readjusted the clip. Back in the kitchen, she leaned over to pull a dish out of the box and realized Miss Daisy was staring at her. She couldn’t help but chuckle at the ridiculous expression on this dog’s face. It was truly a face only a mother could love.

Miss Daisy weighed almost eighteen pounds, far more than most shih tzus. Her eyes looked at times like they might pop right out of her head, and her underbite was bad enough for braces. And ornery—oh my, was she ornery. She never came when she was called. And she made it clear that she would let you know if and when she needed you. Otherwise the world was hers, and you were simply privileged to live in it. She was named after Jessica Tandy’s wealthy character in the movie
Driving Miss Daisy
because she, too, pretty much had everyone doing what she told them to do.

Grace and Tyler had bought her a week after they got back from their honeymoon. They’d needed a dog like they needed a hole in the head, and they couldn’t really afford her. But of all the money Tyler had spent in their years together, the three hundred dollars they’d spent for Miss Daisy had been the most worthwhile.

Grace rubbed her eyes. It wasn’t even noon yet, but she’d been up for nine hours already—a full day. This was what her body had been doing for ten years. It was what she knew. But that didn’t make it easy.

She reached for her glass and took another sip of tea. She had already consumed two glasses, one she’d bought for herself
from McDonald’s on her way to work and another she talked an intern into getting for her during one of the morning news breaks. She had done an entire morning news program and four segments during the
Today
show, and now she had a mountain of boxes to unpack. Forget sunshine—she needed sugar and caffeine.

The thought of that mountain overwhelmed her in that moment. The enormity of the task felt as if it might take her breath away. With every move, she and Tyler seemed to have accumulated more stuff—ten years’ worth of it—and not just what awaited her in those boxes. If you could put ten years’ worth of accumulated resentment and disappointment into boxes, how high would the mountain rise?

She reminded herself of the online devotional she had read this morning, one she had e-mailed to her every day. “Faith and obedience will move mountains,” this morning’s entry had said. “Mountains of evil. Mountains of difficulty. But they must go hand in hand.” She had always tried to be obedient. But the faith part—well, that seemed to be getting harder and harder.

She tugged at the bottom of the black zippered sweatshirt that hung loosely over the black tank top and pants that served as her pajamas. Tyler liked to keep it freezing in the house when he slept, which usually didn’t start until the wee hours of the morning.

She was pretty sure Tyler wouldn’t be awake for at least another three hours. There was no telling when he had finally gone to sleep, though he’d been beside her when her alarm clock rang. That wasn’t always the case. Some nights Tyler would watch the sun fall and rise before he ever let his head touch a
pillow, and she’d have to leave for work before he made it home. You would think she’d be used to his schedule by now, but every day it bothered her. Even if their relationship had been wonderful—which it wasn’t—being married to someone you hardly ever saw could take its toll.

When she pulled crumpled newspaper from a moving box, the red corner of a small box that rested inside grabbed her attention, tugging her heart to places she always dreaded going. The Santa plate and mug designed for Christmas Eve and children’s magic were nothing but reminders of what her home lacked. There had never been children’s magic at Christmas for her. She had never watched her child climb the large rubber-matted steps of a bright-yellow school bus going to a world of learning and laughter as she stood in her robe with a steaming cup of hot tea. She’d never wiped her child’s tears after a lost game, a broken arm, or a broken heart. She’d never hung Sunday school artwork on the refrigerator or kept a “mommy’s calendar.” But with every move, she still packed up the plate and mug as if one day her own Christmas magic would happen and she would have a child of her own.

She swiped hard at the tears, tucked the red box in the farthest corner of the china cabinet, and said a brief prayer. “Please, God, let this be the house that holds the laughter of a child.”

Her phone vibrated on the countertop. She picked it up and saw her mother’s picture staring back at her. “Hey, Mom.” She carried the phone over to the large picture window that overlooked Franklin’s quaint Second Avenue.

“Hey. How’s the moving going?”

Grace let out a soft laugh. “Like all the rest.”

“Anyone coming to help you?”

“After the fourth move, I quit asking people, Mom. I decided I wanted to keep my friends.”

She could hear the concern in her mother’s voice. “You need me and Dad to come?”

“No, I’m good. I’ll have most of it done by the end of the week. And then we’ll be back to normal.”

“You okay, baby?”

Grace shook at her urge to cry. Her mother had heard enough of her pain through the years. Now, she tried to let her see as little as possible. She didn’t want her to hurt too. “Yeah, all good. It really is a beautiful home, and I’ve always wanted to live in downtown Franklin. Tyler is convinced it’s a good investment.”

“Have y’all decided where you’re going to church yet?”

“No, hopefully we’ll visit a few here once we get settled.”

“You couldn’t get Tyler to stay where you were?”

“No. He just isn’t getting what he needs there, Mom. Not all churches are for everyone, you know.”

She heard the deep sigh in her mother’s voice and hoped a sermon wasn’t next. She was too bone weary for that. She was grateful her mother could tell. “You’re taking the week off from work, right?”

“No, I’m working.”

“Grace, you can’t move and work at the same time.”

“Mom, it’s fine. It will get done when it gets done.”

“Well, please take care of yourself. When is the last time you baked something?”

A distant memory of a chocolate cake came to mind, but for the life of her she couldn’t remember when she had baked it. With the packing, work, and now the move, the last month
had just gotten away from her. “I can’t even remember. Can you believe that?”

“Honey, promise Mom that you will do something for you. I’m sending you some money that is for you to go spend. Not on the house. On you.”

Grace couldn’t help but laugh. She had money of her own. But her mother had been sending twenty-dollar bills in cards since she was in college. She could tell her not to, but it would do no good. “I’m fine, Mom. Honestly.”

“Well, if you need us, please call. You know either of us would be there in a minute.”

“Sure. I know. I’ll call.”

“Love you, honey.”

“You too, Mom.”

She hung up and walked over to the sofa. Her body sank into the green velvet and stretched out. She was so tired. She pulled off her slippers and realized she had forgotten her socks. She always slept in socks, though at some point every night she would kick them off and then find them as a lump under the covers the next morning. Now she was lying here with her body aching, her feet cold, and no clue on the face of the earth where she had packed the blankets. And she couldn’t get up if she tried. Not right now.

In a moment she felt something land on the sofa. She looked down to find Miss Daisy staring at her with those large black eyes. “Whatcha doing, girl?”

Miss Daisy didn’t respond. She simply walked around as if looking for just the right spot to plop herself. Then she did—right across Grace’s feet.

In all the years they’d had her, Miss Daisy had never done
that. Not once. This dog hadn’t even wanted to sit close to them when she was a puppy. And now, in this moment when Grace’s body was as drained as her soul, this creature as stubborn as kudzu chose to lie across her feet.

A thought brushed through her heart:
This is how much I love you—enough to warm your feet.
She knew it was from heaven. It had blown through her on more than one occasion in her life. And right now she needed it—no, she was desperate for it.

She pulled the sofa pillow up tightly underneath her face. As a deep rush of tears fled to the surface, she pulled it in tighter. She would bury her cries in the down feathers.

Just as she had done so many times before.

Scarlett Jo pulled at the bottom of her lime-green sweater, the phone against her ear. She loved wearing this color. It made her think of key lime pie, and she loved key lime pie.

The school had called to tell her that her fourth child, Tucker, was sick. She knew he was sick all right. He was sick of school. He had done this every year since he’d started kindergarten, which was five years ago. At some point near the end of the school year, he would report some kind of complaint. One year he’d said he had typhoid fever. Another year he’d tried to convince the nurse he had tuberculosis, which triggered an uproar in the entire school. Truth was, Tucker could be pretty convincing.

Now his pitifully frail voice came on the other end of the phone. “Hello.”

“Tucker, what is wrong with you?”

“I’m sick, Mama.” His fake cough blared through the earpiece.

She pulled the phone away from her ear. “Well, this is what I have to tell you. If you are sick, this is what your week is going to look like. You ready to hear?”

He hesitated. “Yeah.”

“If I pick you up, you will go straight to your room and get in the bed. I’ll bring you your dinner. There will be no baseball, no basketball, no football. There will be no dairy because dairy makes coughs worse. And if you forgot, ice cream falls into the dairy part of the food pyramid. Then, if you’re still feeling poorly on Sunday when you go to church—and you
will
go to church—you will sit with me in the service, and when it is over, we will—”

That was when she heard a commotion on the phone. “I think I’m feeling better, Mama. Just talking to you has done something for me. Maybe I was just missing you or something.”

She shook her head. “That’s exactly what I was thinking. I’ll see you when you get home.”

“Bye, Mama.”

The school nurse got on the phone. “Well, I’m not sure what you said, but the color came into his cheeks while you were talking.”

“It’s a miracle, I guess.” They laughed and the nurse hung up. Scarlett Jo pressed the End button on the phone and shook her head again. This was her payback for passing along her drama gene to Tucker. At least that’s what Jackson loved to remind her of.

She picked up her pink-flowered key chain, grabbed the
caramel pecan round she’d picked up that morning from Merridee’s, and headed out the door. A jogger’s dark-brown ponytail slapping against a slim back caught her attention.

The jogger’s name was Amanda. She lived a few streets over, had a couple of little ones who rode the bus with Scarlett Jo’s boys, and she ran every morning about this time. Dark curls bounced at the end of her long ponytail. A pretty woman, though Scarlett Jo was convinced the child needed food. In fact, one day she had pulled up beside her and invited her to breakfast. The girl’s thighs needed biscuits.

But something else about Amanda concerned her. In twenty years of ministry, Scarlett Jo had encountered all different kinds of women. There were those like herself, completely satisfied with the men they had, though not unable to appreciate a fine specimen like George Clooney or Brad Pitt. But there were other women who seemed to walk around with an Open sign. They had that inviting way. And even though Amanda was a wife and a mother, there was something about her that Scarlett Jo discerned as available for more. Scarlett Jo hoped for the day when she could get Amanda over for biscuits or something and maybe get into her heart at the same time.

Scarlett Jo started down the steps, then stopped, turned, and hurried back inside. She pulled a small crystal vase from the cabinet above the refrigerator. She was grateful in moments like this for her height. Her poor mother was just under five feet tall, and the woman practically had to carry a step stool everywhere she went. Scarlett Jo half filled the little vase with water, then grabbed some scissors and went out the door, breathing in the beautiful Tennessee spring morning.

Franklin was pretty quiet today. It usually was this time of morning, right before the lunch crowd took over the restaurants and the streets. Jackson had told her to wait until the weekend to visit the new people on the block, but that seemed ridiculous. Being neighborly meant you were there when your neighbors needed you. These people had just moved in, so they needed food, fellowship, and friends. They needed to know that the people on their street were amiable and inviting.

She clipped a couple of yellow daylilies from the plants that were flowering beside her porch and carried them inside. She stuck them in the vase, grabbed the pastry box again, and headed back outside to make a new friend.

A knock on the door startled Miss Daisy from Grace’s feet, waking Grace as well. She had fallen asleep hard. She looked at the clock on the newly installed cable box. It was eleven thirty. She had slept for about forty-five minutes, and the fog was still heavy on her head. She was in no way ready for company. She zipped her sweatshirt up a little higher. Her bare feet made their way to the foyer, and she saw her bright greeter through the glass-paned door as soon as she rounded the corner. Miss Daisy was standing at the door with her head thrown back, barking. Her barks came out more as a howl sound. That sound had been one of Grace’s favorites for years.

“Hush, Miss Daisy.” She nudged the fur ball back with her foot and opened the door to the beaming face of the statuesque blonde in front of her. As soon as there was room, the woman’s hand shot out with a vase of yellow daylilies. “Here, sugar, these are for you.” The voice came out like any true Southern
voice—sweet, more syllables than necessary, and accompanied by an endearment commonly associated with baking products.

Grace took the vase. “Thank you. They’re lovely.”

The vase’s relocation allowed her to catch sight of the huge daisies perched atop the woman’s flip-flops. They had to be the largest shoe flowers she’d ever seen. But that might be appropriate since they graced two of the largest feet she had ever seen. Were they tens? Twelves? Bigger? The woman herself was pretty big. She stood a good head and shoulders over Grace’s five-foot-three-inch frame. Grace always marveled at how people were fashioned so differently.

The woman’s hand was still extended, and her smile widened. “I’m Scarlett Jo Newberry. I live just four doors down from you, and I wanted to come introduce myself.”

“Grace Shepherd.” Grace offered a smile of her own. She couldn’t help it. The woman was so animated.

She also looked a little confused. “But you sound . . . Southern.”

Grace laughed. “Born and raised.”

“Well, I’ll be. I thought—” Scarlett Jo stopped midstream as if catching herself.

“My husband is from New York, though.”

The visitor gave an amused nod. “So y’all have a mixed marriage then.”

Grace laughed again. She knew all too well how different Tyler’s and her worlds were. He still made fun of the way she greeted most people with a hug, and he refused to use the word
y’all
. But he had gotten used to a lot of the things that she loved about the South, especially her cooking. Five years ago, she would have officially pronounced Tyler a naturalized
Southerner. Now they seemed to be back in Civil War territory. Civil. Yet still a war. “Yeah,” she said, “every now and then a Yankee will be brave enough to snatch one of us.”

Scarlett Jo snorted slightly as she slapped her hand at Grace. “Well, where’bouts?”

“Where’bouts?”

“Yeah, where’bouts were you born?”

“Oh. I was born in Atlanta actually, but my family moved to Knoxville when I was in high school.”

Scarlett Jo’s eyes widened. “Ooh, I love Atlanta. Oh, and Savannah and Charleston. I swear, if I believed in reincarnation, I would want to be reincarnated as Scarlett O’Hara so I could wear those fancy dresses and corsets and ride in carriages and all.”

“Doesn’t get much better than the South.”

“Only I can’t imagine trying to confine all this in a corset.” Scarlett Jo gestured toward her ample chest. “Could you imagine being the poor soul who had to strap me in?”

Grace wasn’t sure quite how to respond to that. Fortunately Scarlett Jo’s mind seemed to wander for a moment, then focus on the item in her other hand.

“Oh, silly me, I brought you this too.” She stuck out a white box with a cellophane cutout on the top. Some kind of gigantic sticky bun peeked out at Grace through the window. “These caramel pecan rounds are sinfully good, and I’ve always thought moving is a perfect excuse to eat sweets.” Scarlett Jo’s half laugh, half snort came out with no apologies. “That’s why I’ve declared every day is moving day. Hey, I’m always moving something from one place to the other.”

“This does looks delicious,” Grace offered. “My husband and I will enjoy this.”

“Just the two of you?”

Grace shifted, but with her hands full, she couldn’t shift far. “Yes, just the two of us. And Miss Daisy here, of course.”

Miss Daisy seemed to raise an eyebrow as if to make sure they knew she was listening.

“Well, I have five boys who are completely rentable, and on some days I will be more than willing to send them over for free. If you need lawn services or gutter cleaning or you simply want to be entertained, they are at your service.”

Grace smiled. “I’ll definitely remember that.”

“Do you need anything? I know how hard moving is. I could fix you a meal, get you some groceries—honestly, anything you need.”

Grace could use all of the above. “No, we’re good, I think.”

“All right. But remember, I’m just a few doors down, and I’m always available. Whatever you need—you come get me anytime. I just wanted to let you know you have neighbors who’re glad you’re here. That’s all.”

“That’s very kind of you. I really appreciate it.”

“Okay, well, I’m off to go to Harris Teeter. It’s super doubles week.”

“Super doubles?”

“Oh, child, do you not know about couponing?” She seemed to stop herself, then laughed as if she realized it was a stupid question. She flipped her hand at Grace. “You don’t need to know a thing about couponing if it’s just two of you. I’m feeding a pack of wolves at my house. If I didn’t know how to coupon, my children would have had to eat me by now. But if you ever want to learn how to do it, you just let me know. It is crazy, girl! I can go to a store and leave and they’ve paid me money.”

Grace did know about couponers. Recently, her station had even aired a clip of a woman dressed in a cute jacket and nice shoes, digging through a recycling bin in search of coupons. She wondered if she’d ever catch sight of Scarlett Jo in a Dumpster. It didn’t seem out of the question. “I’ll remember that,” she said.

“Okay, I hope to see you soon,” Scarlett Jo offered as she headed back down the sidewalk. She turned sharply. “You look so familiar to me. Have we met before?”

Grace got that a lot. “No, I don’t think so. I’m sure I’d remember.” She eyed Scarlett Jo again. There was no way she could forget.

Scarlett Jo shrugged as if she wouldn’t worry about it anymore that day—sort of like her namesake. “Well, you have a wonderful day, sugar.”

“You too.” Grace watched her new neighbor as she walked up the street. She had a sneaking suspicion this wouldn’t be the last time Scarlett Jo Newberry knocked on her door. She smiled at the thought. Grace was neighborly by nature too. It was in her DNA. Tyler could be out trimming the hedges and completely ignore a neighbor walking by. Grace couldn’t. Making connections with people was one of the ways she kept herself feeling alive.

That’s why she still cried at sad news stories, even if she was the one delivering them. Her first two years of being a broadcaster, she’d thought she might get fired for it. But when the viewers started calling in about the new “anchor lady” who shared their sorrow, she’d figured she could let the tears fall if they needed to.

She brought the pastry box to her nose as she made her way to the kitchen. Ignoring the boxes at her feet, she opened the
one in her hands. She took out the large round bun and cut off a section, which she placed on a paper towel and stuck in the microwave. The whir of the motor was the only sound in the quiet house. She stared at the spinning pastry through the glass and watched as the edges of the caramel icing began to melt and a few pecans slipped down the side. Then she popped the door open, poured a cold glass of milk, and carried her treat out to the back porch.