The Sweet By and By (23 page)

Kendall stood tucked in the corner between the fridge and the door. The only sound was the whir of the mixer and beaters bumping against the bowl.

Jade waited. She wanted him to do something, drag her off to his room and explain. Tell her he was sorry, he'd lost his mind for a moment, then lock the door and lay her back on his bed.

“Well, well, there's another pretty girl in my kitchen. Must be my lucky night.”

Kendall waved from her chicken-liver hiding place. “Hey, Mr. C.”

“Carla, how about that cake?” Rowdy thumped the counter by Jade with his palms, grinning down at her.

“Hold your horses, it's coming. Rowdy, why don't you set up the TV for Dust? He and Kendall want to watch a movie.”

“When I come back, I want to see a big slice of cake right here.” He jabbed his finger on the granite, demonstrating where he expected to see a plate of cake, then elbowed Jade. “You're staying for the show too?”

“We spoke vows, Dustin.” The confession simply came, as if the words were destined to be said. Jade slipped off the stool, her chest rising and falling with each shallow breath.

The mixer went silent. Mrs. Colter's smile faded.

“You made a promise to me.” Jade fingered the claddagh ring in her pocket. Blood rushed through her ears again, white-capped with ire. “You promised forever.”

“Jade.” His voice was flat and firm. “You're making something out of nothing. It's a movie.”

“The make-out movie.”

“What in the world?” Mrs. Colter glanced from face to face. “Now look, Jade, I know it's hard when your ex-boyfriend moves on, but—”

“Husband. He's my
husband
, Mrs. Colter. Your son proposed to me, and I said yes. We're married.”

“Jade—”

“Tell her, Dustin.”

“That's impossible. You're underage.”

“We forged your signatures. Stu was our witness over the age of eighteen.”

“Oh my land.” Mrs. Colter fell against the counter, hand to her forehead. “Dustin, is it true?”

“Mom, listen—”

Mrs. Colter thrust her hand at him. “Give me your keys.”

“What for?” He scoffed. “You're taking my truck?”

“Dustin, hand them over.”

His cheeks reddened as he dug the keys from his pocket. “Mom, listen, let me—”

Mrs. Colter tore the keys from his hand and slapped them into Kendall's. “Go on home, Kendall. Give us a chance to smooth this out. And please, don't talk about this. It's a private, family matter.”

“Yes, ma'am.” Kendall was out the door without a backward glance.

Mrs. Colter faced Dustin and Jade with a hard-set jaw and fire in her eyes.

Jade couldn't stop the tears even if she wanted, nor the sense of dread gathering between her ribs. Her blunt confession had just cost her the home of her heart.

“I won't let you do this to your future, Dustin. If you don't take the scholarship, you won't be able to afford college.”

“We can make it together, Mrs. Colter.”
Jade, listen to yourself. Stop talking.
“We had a plan. He'll work until I graduate, then we'll go to school—”

“It's not that simple, Jade. To work, earn enough money. You'll get distracted, forget to go. Wrestling is here and now. It offers far more opportunity than just scholastics. What if you get pregnant? What if you walk out on him? Then what? Who will want to give him a wrestling scholarship then?”

Dustin had yet to move or speak. Except he stared at Jade with wet eyes. “Mom, I love Jade. I asked her to marry me.”

Jade exhaled, the pressure easing out of her spine. “We can make it, Dustin.”

“And waiting to go to school with her is the plan?” Mrs. Colter bubbled with indignation.

“Yeah, it is.” He walked over to Jade and kissed her. “I'm sorry. Guess I got lost for a second.”

She watered his sleeve with her tears. “It's okay.”

“Rowdy!” Mrs. Colter stormed to the basement door. “Rowdy, get up here. Your son has done an unbelievably stupid thing.”

Twenty

The last thing Judge Harlan Fitzgerald expected to do on his way home from an intense day in a Washington, D.C., court was detour by a church. But today's testimony had disturbed him.

White slavery. A mother selling her six-year-old daughter to the traffickers. For heroin.

The slimy explanation of the wasted, needled-pricked woman poisoned him. He felt physically ill, polluted, and debased. The idea of talking to God, or one of His representatives, was the only tonic that promised relief.

The crimes and sins he presided over today were not committed by him, but by his fellow man—or woman as the case may be—and Harlan accepted guilt by association.

He would repent for this mother and people like her. For himself. At sixty-four, he was starting to believe what he never thought possible.

Man was
not
basically good. There was reality called sin. The world needed redemption. He himself needed redemption. Perhaps Jesus
was
the only true escape.

In his twenty years in Washington, he'd seen what man could do. Dark, evil, selfish. Fed up, Harlan was curious to see what God could do.

He made good time as he drove down Constitutional. Most of the D.C. traffic was heading out of the city instead of in.

At four o'clock, the New York Avenue Presbyterian Church grounds were quiet. He slipped through the front doors, signing his name in the guest book, making a mental note for his wife, Diane, to send a contribution.

During the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln had worshipped in this sanctuary, and Peter Marshall had exhorted parishioners to hold fast during the Second World War.

Standing on the edge of the sanctuary, Harlan tried to absorb the exhortations of great men who now watched from beyond the veil. After a few minutes, and a modicum of release, he eased toward a pew in the back of the sanctuary.

With his eyes closed, he located the portion of his soul that believed. The image of the cross from the front of the sanctuary floated over the depths of his heart.

God, forgive me.
His prayer felt awkward and foreign. It'd been years since he'd attended church for anything other than a social function. But it was worth his pride to gain peace and some hint of restoration, of hope.

As Harlan sat in the silence, his meditations drifted from court to his latest Google search on his children. Aiden was doing well. Not surprising. He was a freelance photographer hopping the globe. The mental snapshot of Aiden wandering the Iowa farm with Harlan's Nikon around his neck was permanently framed and hung in a corridor of his soul where Harlan visited alone from time to time.

Since he'd started searching his kids' names a few years ago, he'd discovered his pride in them. Undeserved, but pride nonetheless.

Jade ran a vintage shop, and she was getting married in a couple of weeks. Today's testimony stirred his longing for her, his need to know she fared well growing up with Beryl.

He pressed his fist to his lips as his shoulders jerked forward with a burst of emotion. What kind of man left his children? What kind of man abandoned his beautiful, trusting little girl?

The picture of the blue-eyed, cherub-faced girl the prosecutor had displayed in court ripped his heart. So innocent, so trusting.

But really, was Harlan any better? No, he didn't deliver Jade to slavers, but he wasn't there to make sure she was safe. So caught in his pride and blind ambition, afraid of his own emotions, he never counted the cost of Washington prestige.

His daughter was getting married, and he would not have the honor of walking her down the aisle.

Harlan deserved to have his peace taken. Opening his eyes toward the ornate ceiling, he wondered what Diane would do if she found out her husband had children he'd never mentioned?

Ah, he was horrible with the emotional stuff. Always had been. Weak and self-serving.

Lord, I don't want anything for myself. But bless my girl, Jade. Please.

In the quiet, Harlan's river of peace started to rise as he beseeched God, not for himself, but for his girl.

“The contractor is going to refinish all the wood.”

Beryl followed Max's hand as he gestured toward the trim and molding, the inlaid bookshelves and the floors.

From the tenor of his descriptions, Beryl sensed Max's pleasure in the Begonia Valley Lane house.

“Jade said all the woodwork was handcrafted by an Italian carpenter,” Beryl said, feeling a bit like she was on a museum tour. But the house was Jade. Vintage and ripe with a sense of story.

“It was, so we want to preserve all of his work.”

Jade didn't move with the tour when Max headed around the upstairs corner. Willow followed, but Beryl slowed her pace, one eye on Jade, the other observing the skylights cut in the roof above the hall. The shadows of blowing tree limbs danced along the plaster walls.

“These rooftop eyes are my favorite parts of the house so far, Jade.” Beryl traced the light, streaming in from all angles and spreading like a feathered fan down the hall, spilling over the banister like a lucent waterfall and speckling caramel color on the foyer floor.

Below the open stairwell, Jade's dog, Roscoe, slept in the middle of the sun pool. Beryl liked the nearly all-black Shepherd. He was old and wounded, like she was, and a bit beat up by life.

“The house is much brighter and more open than I imagined from seeing the outside,” Beryl said, resting against the top rail next to her daughter. “I expected those big oaks to shade away all the sun.”

“It's an architectural marvel.” Jade glanced up at the skylights, then down at the marble floor. “Guess we'll have to keep the trees trimmed.”

Despite their years of distance, Beryl sensed when her girl was bothered. Willow referred to yesterday's blast from the past as Jade getting “T-boned.” Beryl had apologized, but her words landed on a parched, hard heart.

“Will you hire help to keep it clean?” Beryl asked.
Come on, Jade, open up
. “I'd think you would need—”

“Wouldn't that grate on you, Mama? Your daughter, one of the elite, with domestic help?”

Tenets of Beryl's past soapboxes about the working class and equality colored part of her daughter's makeup. “Is that how you see me? A reverse snob?”

Jade's laugh surprised her. “Isn't it how you see yourself?”

“Maybe, at one time.” Beryl ran her hand along the smooth surface of the banister. “But it's not how I feel about you. This home is lovely, and you deserve a place like this.”

If Beryl hadn't fought Harlan's success so hard, maybe, just maybe—

“We'll need a gardener or something.” Jade leaned with her arms on the banister. “I don't have Granny's gift with growing things.”

“She kept that one all to herself. Good thing she's not around to see her manicured lawn turned into an overgrown field of weeds.” Jade's shoulder was a few inches away. Beryl wanted to reach out to her, but touching was a hard barrier to cross.

Beryl searched her memory. The last time she remembered hugging Jade, the girl clung to her, crying, vomiting, confessing.

Max's phone rang, jolting Beryl's thoughts forward and into the present. His professional, deep, “Benson,” rumbled in her ears.

Willow appeared from a room down the upstairs hall and hopped on the banister for a ride to the bottom.
That girl could conquer the world if she ever got focused.

“I'm going to the little girls' room,” Willow said, jumping off the end of the banister before she toppled to the floor. “I think I saw TP in the bathroom off the kitchen.”

“Check the toilet for snakes,” Jade said, hanging her arms over the landing rail, laughing.

“Ha, ha, you're very funny, Jade.” Willow put extra wiggle into her narrow backside as she walked off. “I was only six.”

“She'll never forgive you and Aiden for that trick.”

“It didn't quite work out as we planned.”

“How'd that go again?” Sometimes Jade let her guard down when they reminisced. Sometimes. “You and Aiden put a fake snake in the toilet—”

“Aiden and I put a fake snake in the toilet, then waited in the living room, watching TV with Willow until she had to go potty. Meanwhile, rotten, mean Boon-Doggle—”

“At thirty, he's still mean.” His adventures with whisky were Prairie City legend. “Just like his dad.”

Jade exhaled. “Do you want to hear the snake story or not?”

“Go on.” Beryl focused on Roscoe, his paws twitching in his sleep.

“Boon-Doggle snuck in and replaced the fake snake with a real one. When Willow finally trotted to the potty and lifted the lid, the snake slithered over the seat, hissing.” Jade shook her head, standing away from the banister. “Willow screamed into next week.”

“She had nightmares for a month, and it set her back on sleeping without a light on for a time.” Beryl spoke with authority, but she'd been on the road most of that year, working or touring with her third husband, Gig. The relationship and experiences weren't worth the price her kids had to pay.

“If Granny could've taken a strap to him, she would've. She called his dad, and for once, he thought Boon-Doggle had done something funny and clever.”

“I thought Gig's band was going to make it that year.” Beryl walked to the window at the end of the hall. “So foolish . . . stayed too long on the road. Missed too much.”

“Mama, don't get old and come around apologizing for your life, what you did or didn't do. We've grown, moved on.” Jade slammed the reminiscing window shut.

Beryl figured it wouldn't stay open long. She walked around Jade and descended a couple of steps to sit, feeling light, as if she swam through air. She hung onto the banister and gathered her breath.

Max appeared and whispered to Jade. Beryl peeked at them from the corner of her eye. Jade had become good with her masks. Not that Beryl blamed her.