The Secrets of Rosa Lee (25 page)

She smiled, much more at ease with him than she had been last week. “You can't beat chocolate-covered cinnamon rolls.” She raised her hand. “Polly, a roll for my friend.”

Polly groaned her usual greeting. “This ain't no fast-service place and I ain't asking if you want fries with that, so just wait your turn.”

Lora split her roll with him and they ate hers while waiting for his to arrive.

“Where are you headed?” he asked between bites.

“The hospital. Billy gets out today. The professor and I got him a room at the dorm. We knew he wouldn't take it if we offered charity, so he'll work off his room and board as the handyman. He'll be taking a full load and working twenty hours a week at the sheriff's office. His boss at the lumberyard said he can work there on Saturdays and breaks if he needs extra money.”

She leaned closer. “You know his family.”

“I met his dad once when I went by his house to ask where I could find Billy.”

Lora stabbed a piece of roll. “The old guy lives within walking distance of the hospital and hasn't even stopped by to check on his son.”

“We can't pick our parents.”

She nodded. “Yeah, but it makes me take a look at my own. I complain all the time about them, but they'd both die for me. It's no wonder Billy got into trouble when he was a kid. He must have had no one looking out for him.”

“You like him, don't you?” Micah felt strange even asking. It seemed like something a middle-school kid would say.

She grinned. “We're friends.”

There was that word again, he thought. That word that could turn on a dime.

They talked, their heads almost touching while people walked by, glancing in their direction when Lora laughed, or when Polly griped about them ordering more coffee and a third roll.

Micah finally forced himself to say goodbye and rushed to his office, barely making it before his first couple came in for counseling. For the next few hours he worked unaware of the storm building outside. About two, Nancy brought him a cup of coffee and told him it was snowing. Micah hadn't even had time to look out his window.

“Early, this year,” Nancy commented. “Usually we don't see snow till after Halloween. Maybe we'll have an early spring, as well.”

Micah watched the magic. Snow, covering everything, making the world newborn one more time.

He wasn't surprised Logan called to ask if he could go over to Jimmy's and make snow ice cream. Micah looked at the light dusting of snow and suggested they might have
to settle for making cookies. Logan didn't seem to mind. Micah promised to pick him up as soon as he could get away from the church.

Micah finished up the paperwork thinking how dark the day looked. As if the earth hugged the clouds close for warmth. Randi had crossed his mind several times and he'd thought of calling her. The day might seem a little less gloomy if he could hear her voice.

Finally, after everyone had left, he picked up the phone and dialed.

She answered on the first ring.

“Afternoon,” he said already smiling.

“I heard about Hatcher. How are you?” she asked, worry touching her words.

“I'm fine.” She'd known his voice, he realized. “How are you?”

“I'm missing seeing you.”

She didn't mess around, this woman who didn't belong in his world. She went straight to the truth. He'd thought their conversation would be small talk, casual. He should have known better.

He closed his eyes and let out a long breath he felt he'd been holding in since he'd seen her last. “Me, too.”

He could hear her breathing on the other end of the line. He didn't have to say more. Neither did she. It was enough to know she was there.

S
idney built a fire in the fireplace of her bungalow and put on her warm flannel pajamas. She'd been cold all day. It wasn't late, but she was ready to call it a night. After teaching her classes, she'd helped move Billy into the dorm as the day grew colder. She'd tried to call Sloan, thinking his truck would help them get all Lora had brought home from the store, but he hadn't answered his cell.

He'd probably gone, she decided. Maybe the men Micah had seen him talking to in the bar parking lot had scared Sloan into giving up. Or maybe he'd been taken off this job and gone on to another without letting her know. After all, she didn't exactly have a bond with Sloan. For him it was probably little more than a flirtation. He didn't owe her reasons. He'd told her from the beginning that he had no home, so why was she surprised he turned out to be a tumbleweed? She'd let him get too close.

She made cocoa, flipped through the channels for something to watch and settled on watching the fire as she thumbed through a book she'd already read twice. Sidney was determined not to feel sorry for herself, but today was her birthday and no one had known, or noticed. Not that it mattered, but she was now forty. Now, officially an old maid. She might as well move in with the Rogers sisters and start playing for who turns out the lights.

Since her mother and grandmother had died, she'd felt alone, but never quite so much as she did tonight. Closing her eyes, she tried to think what life would have been like if they'd lived. Her Minnie would have baked a cake, a red velvet with coconut icing. And her mother, who always seemed to know what she wanted, would have brought presents. Little things like socks and books. They would have driven up before dark to her place north of Chicago, and been waiting to eat dinner when she got in from work. Then they'd all laugh as she opened the gifts. Minnie, her grandmother, would tell the story of the year Sidney was five and bought all the things she wanted to play with as gifts for them. Marbree, Sidney's mother, would say what she said every year about how proud Sidney's father would have been of her if he'd lived to see her all grown-up. Then, they'd settle in for the night. Sidney wouldn't have to ask, she'd know they'd stay a few days.

The three of them had been so much alike, not in looks, but in temperament. Through three generations, they could read each other's thoughts and moods.

A tear fought its way down Sidney's cheek. If she'd known them so well, why hadn't her grandmother told her about knowing Rosa Lee? In all the thousands of hours they must have talked, why hadn't she told of living in Clifton Creek? Sidney had to wonder if her grandmother had kept the secret from just her, or from her mother, as well.

They'd been her stable ground all her life and now they were gone. She hadn't even been able to say goodbye. In one car wreck all her family had died. And now, she'd have the rest of her birthdays alone with only memories for company. She'd never be able to ask Minnie her questions or find out if her mother knew the secrets of Rosa Lee that her grandmother had written about. She'd prob
ably never know for sure if it was Clifton Creek they'd been heading to the day they'd both been killed.

Sidney jumped when the doorbell rang. The sudden jolt back to reality shook her. She glanced out at the snow-covered yard and saw Sloan's truck parked in front.

For a moment, she thought of not answering. After all, it was late, probably close to nine. She was ready for bed. He hadn't called. She hadn't dated enough in the past few years to know what the rules were anymore, but surely just dropping by when they'd only gone out on one real date wasn't acceptable.

But none of that really mattered. He was here, standing on her doorstep, freezing.

She opened the door.

The sight that greeted her made her laugh. He stood there, all six foot four of him, his hair and shoulders dusted in snow, with a cake box in one hand and a bottle of wine in the other.

“May I come in?” he asked. “The guy at the store said this wine doesn't need to be chilled.”

“And if I say no?”

He frowned as if he feared she might. “I'm not moving, Sidney. If you don't let me in I'll freeze and you'll have the largest yard elf in town.”

She giggled as she backed out of the way and he walked straight to her kitchen. He sat the cake and wine down and turned toward her. “Happy birthday!”

He flipped open the top of the box. The cake was decorated with red icing roses. Happy Birthday Sidney Elizabeth was printed in bright green icing.

Sidney laughed. “My middle name is Lee, not Elizabeth.”

Sloan ran his finger across a few of the letters and ate part of the
e
and
l.
“I was afraid of that. I had no idea what
it would be so I picked the longest name I could think of hoping for more icing.” He took another finger full. “I love this stuff.” He offered her a taste.

Sidney smiled, her melancholy mood forgotten. “What kind of wine goes with cake?”

“The man at the gas service recommended red. I've always had the feeling wine should be reserved for communion and cooking, but I thought a bottle of whiskey might look just a little strange to give a lady like yourself, Professor.”

“Wise choice.”

While Sloan opened the wine, Sidney found plates. She considered asking him where he'd been all day, but wasn't sure she wanted to know. She liked him, a deep down kind of like that would forgive much, she decided.

They drank wine in front of the fire. He pulled off his boots and stretched out, his long legs crossing half the space in her living area. “So your middle name is Lee,” he said.

She nodded. “My mother was Marbree Lee, so I'm Sidney Lee.”

He studied her closely before adding, “Like Rosa Lee.”

The possibility that had been nagging in her mind since the preacher had told her about the baptism record filled her thoughts. She knew Sloan probably wasn't the one to talk to, but there didn't seem to be anyone else.

“I've had a wild thought haunting me,” she said trying to make her words sound casual. She laid out all the facts. The note on the recipe card her grandmother kept in a safety deposit box, the baptism her grandmother attended two weeks before her mother was born, the fact that Rosa Lee left her house to Minnie if claimed within a year, and now Lee being her middle name.

“Your grandmother Minnie could have used the middle
name of Lee with her daughter because she was such good friends with Rosa Lee.”

“But wouldn't Minnie have mentioned it sometime? Wouldn't she have said, ‘I named you Marbree Lee after an old friend'? To my knowledge, Minnie never mentioned Rosa Lee or the house or even Clifton Creek to me or my mother.”

“Strange,” Sloan agreed.

Sidney turned toward him needing to talk to someone about her theory. “It adds up to only a slight possibility, but I have the feeling that Rosa Lee Altman could have been my real grandmother. My birth grandmother.”

“But what about the birth record of your mother being born in Chicago?”

“I remember hearing Granny Minnie say that she delivered at home. My grandfather lived for several years but they had no more children. Knowing Minnie's love for children, if she could have had more, she would have. Since she said she delivered my mother at home, there was no one to say that my mother wasn't born in Chicago.”

“What name was on the baptism record Micah found?”

“That's the strange part. None. I thought priests had to have a name before they baptized. Maybe he thought Rosa Lee would fill it in later.”

Sloan shook his head. “I don't know about the name, but the idea is too outrageous. You're suggesting that your grandmother took Rosa Lee's baby and raised it as her own.”

“Think about it. If she'd kept the baby, she would have been an unwed mother. Back then people didn't accept babies born out of wedlock. Fuller was dead. He couldn't marry her and make it right. She'd have no chance of ever getting married with a bastard baby. Again and again folks have mentioned how Henry Altman was a fine and proper
man. Having an unwed daughter with a child wouldn't have been very proper back then.”

Sloan shook his head. “I don't know. I somehow would have guessed Rosa Lee stronger than that.”

“Me, too. It was just a wild thought. But, maybe there was another reason she couldn't keep the baby. Maybe she had to make a choice.”

“But what?”

Sidney tried to think of a reason Rosa Lee would give the baby up besides how people would look at an unwed mother.

Sloan stood and walked to the door. Without stepping outside, he grabbed a sack he'd left on the porch. “I brought you something.”

“You didn't have to do that.” Sidney laced her fingers to keep from jumping to get the present. “We've only known one another a few days.”

“Yeah, but we're going to know one another for a long time and I wanted to start something.” He handed her the sack. “I got to tell you, Professor, I've had a few one-night stands in my life, but I don't plan on you being one of them. We may not be teenagers, but we might as well get started on a few traditions that'll last the years we have left.”

She carefully pulled an aluminum-wrapped tamale out and looked up. “A tamale?”

“Two dozen,” he corrected with pride. “You think that will be enough for the party?”

“What party?”

“The one we're having in about ten minutes. It's your birthday and you should have a party. I told everyone to be here by a quarter after nine.”

Sidney looked up in shock. “You're kidding.”

He shook his head.

She jumped up and ran to the bedroom.

“I kind of liked the pajamas. Don't feel like you have to change. I told everyone it was come as you are.”

“I'm going to kill you, Sloan McCormick, when this night is over,” she yelled from the bedroom. “I swear I'll kill you.”

“I kind of figured you liked surprise parties.”

Before she could say more, the doorbell rang. By the time she'd dressed and combed her hair, everyone had arrived.

“You shouldn't have come,” she said after they all yelled happy birthday. “It's too cold and late. The roads are bad.”

No one appeared to be listening.

Billy stood with his arm around Lora's shoulder. He looked pale, but happy. “We all wanted to come,” he said.

“We needed a reason to celebrate,” Micah added as he handed her a book tied in ribbon. “I didn't have a chance to buy the right book, so I'm giving you my copy.”

Sidney turned over what had to be a treasured book, a first edition of
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.

“Thank you.”

The Rogers sisters organized the party, telling everyone where to sit and passing out food. Their gifts were crocheted house shoes that looked as if they could double as long pot holders, and a lap quilt in Easter-egg bright yarn.

Lora gave Sidney a book on gardening and several hand tools.

Billy gave her a sketch of a bench that would fit beneath her window. “I drew it after you helped me with my schedule. I figured I'd make it for you when I had time.” He lifted his bandaged arm. “I had no idea I'd be taking a vacation so soon.”

Everyone laughed, releasing a little of the worry they'd held for him over the past two days. While they sat around the coffee table eating chips dipped in the sisters' special
hot-sauce mixture they'd made last summer and devouring Sloan's tamales he swore he bought from a roadside vender out by the interstate, Sidney related her theory of Rosa Lee having a baby.

Everyone liked the idea, but didn't quite buy into it. Her story seemed more a list of coincidences than facts pointing to ancestors. Sidney realized they all knew the vote was tomorrow, yet none mentioned the meeting. It was as if they didn't want the committee to disband.

She felt the same. Despite the trouble, they'd all hung together. She leaned back and watched the group. Sloan and Lora were arguing over the wine. She'd declared it the worst she'd ever tasted and he seemed to be trying to make the point that there was no such thing as good wine.

The preacher and Billy were looking over his sketch for the window bench and the Rogers sisters were thumbing through the gardening book. Sidney smiled. Maybe there was no such thing as a perfect fortieth birthday, but this one came close.

Sloan took her hand and she turned toward him.

“Thank you,” she whispered.

“You are welcome.” He smiled. “An hour ago, after having one hell of a day, I made it back here and remembered this was your birthday. I wasn't sure I could pull a party off.”

“Bad day?” She didn't want to outright ask, but he'd given her the opening.

“Until now.” He squeezed her fingers gently. “You've got icing on your face.”

“Where?” She touched her lips.

“Right here.” He leaned over and kissed her on the cheek.

Sidney blushed, but before she could see if anyone
watched them, Ada May screamed, “Oh, my goodness! Look at this.”

Everyone turned to where she was pointing in the gardening book. Sidney could see what they were looking at and she was thankful it wasn't her.

Ada May held the book up. “I can't believe it. I just can't believe it.”

“What?” Lora asked from too far away to see the book's pictures.

“Right here, under Portland Roses. There's one that grows as an upright shrub. A red blend.” She held the book toward Sidney and added, “It's called a Marbree.”

Beth Ann pulled the book so she could see better. “That's the one we saw growing all over Rosa Lee's garden.”

“Didn't you say your mother's name was Marbree Lee?” Lora asked as she looked from the book to Sidney.

Sidney straightened, trying to remember to breathe. Sloan's arm went round her shoulder as all the others stared at her.