'Til Grits Do Us Part (41 page)

I undid my messy ponytail and shook my wet hair loose then peeled off my filthy dress. Threw on a dry pair of jeans and striped T-shirt from one of the boxes. Layered on a soft gray cardigan. I stepped into socks and, since my Japanese house slippers were over at Faye's, a pair of cheap sneakers I'd picked up at Payless to replace the tennis shoes I'd practically ruined with cow poo that night in the pasture.

I made a cup of hot green tea, warming the chilly kitchen, and pushed the blinking answering machine button while I rinsed out the pot. Flipping past so many hang ups that my finger hurt as I deleted them.

Until I heard Ashley's voice. I paused, letting the message play.

“Shiloh? Hey. It's Ashley. Got some news for you! You probably won't like it, but just hear me out, okay?”

Her voice sounded too cheerful. Too shrill. I paused, water dripping off the pot in my hand.

“Well, there's this cute baby contest on the weekend of your wedding, and I think Carson can win. He's adorable, you know? So…sorry I won't be there. Oh, and the bridesmaids' dresses…uh…well, I've been busy getting Carson registered for the contest, so…maybe you should buy them somewhere else, okay? Sorry.”

I swatted the answering machine button off as the rain roared outside. Perfect. All I needed was Ashley bailing on me now—and leaving one of the groomsmen without a partner. And two bridesmaids without dresses. Those dresses were gone now from the catalog along with pretty much everything else we liked. The last catalog I saw showed winter fashions already—and how absurd would August bridesmaids look in long-sleeved velvet?

We'd have to start all over again.

I sighed and bent over the counter, rubbing my weary face in both hands.

But there was no time for fuming. Not with Jim Bob on the loose and all my hard evidence consisting of inaudible tape recordings of small talk and a fake license-plate number.

So I plopped down on the living room sofa with my cardboard box, Christie coiled in a damp, spike-haired heap around my feet.

I cut through the heavy packing tape, hoping that if nothing else he'd left a few fingerprints on my box that might match something on one of Odysseus's notes or photos, and I pulled the box flaps open. I sorted through packing peanuts, old AP forms and documents, reporter's notebooks, weird-smelling Kit Kats, and a random freeze-dried octopus Kyoko'd obviously tossed in there for fun.

And then I drew them out: three unopened envelopes addressed to my Tokyo apartment, lettered in Mom's familiar blue ink handwriting.

My heartbeat quickened as I spread the letters carefully on the sofa in order by date, savoring the moment as rain drummed on the porch and rattled in the gutter. A final word from Mom—and perhaps the last I'd ever hear this side of heaven. Thick mist huddled outside my darkened windows, making the yellow light of the room feel cozy and warm.

I opened the first envelope, withdrawing three sheets of blue lines. And I curled up against the soft curves of the sofa and began to read.

My green tea grew cold while I read, devouring each word like morsels of the last Japanese mochi rice cake I would ever taste—savoring its color and texture and flavor against my tongue. Mom's words. Her life. Her threads of sentences, weaving patterns of her memories and thoughts, by some miracle falling fresh on my heart more than a year after she'd gone Home.

I leaped up from the sofa and raced to the bedroom, where Mom's padded guitar case leaned, closed and zipped, against a pile of boxes. I felt around the black curves, looking for an opening of some kind. And sure enough, a subtle slit in the bottom seam.

I pushed my fingers through and felt paper. Thick paper, folded. And withdrew a handful of cards and letters sporting hand-drawn paintings and drawings. My multicolored eye. Japanese kanji characters. Fat envelopes addressed to “My angel love,” decorated with broken hearts and flattened from more than a year of being pressed against the rigid guitar case. And as I tipped the first one, out poured a cascade of dried, dark red rose petals.

My cell phone rang, startling me, and I dropped Mom's letter on the kitchen table. Still puzzling over her lines about the drawing she'd made.

I stepped over sleeping Christie for my cell phone. “Hello?”

“Shiloh Jacobs.” Adam's voice, loud and angry, rattled in the empty kitchen. “What on earth are you doing at your mom's house? I've been worried sick about you! The roads are a mess, and I couldn't get a cell signal to save my life until just now. I'm still in Stuarts Draft. Where have you been?”

“I've been here for the past two hours or so, Adam,” I answered a bit defensively. “I called as soon as I could get a connection.”

“You were supposed to go to the vet, the post office, and straight back to Faye's. Why didn't you do that?”

I opened my mouth to protest, hit by two emotions at the same time: (1) guilt that, no, I hadn't called Adam before my flight to Goshen and (2) indignation that he expected me to meekly hand over my schedule like an incompetent weakling.

“Jim Bob Townshend grabbed my box by mistake at the post office,” I sputtered, temper flaring. “And I wanted to see if I recognized him. I'm fine, okay? And I got my box back.”

“You what?” Adam hollered. “You went after him?”

I blew out an angry sigh, stiffening. “Listen, you don't have to worry about me, okay? I'm old enough to know what I'm doing. Older than you, actually. I'm not a kid you can't trust.”

“It's not you I don't trust, Shiloh! It's him!”

“Well, Jim Bob isn't going anywhere. His car's broken down. I'll drive back to Faye's as soon as the rain lets up and tell everything to the police.”

“What if the stalker's not Jim Bob? As a matter of fact, I don't think it's him. And if you'd asked me before you went after him, I'd have told you why.” Adam's voice heated.

“Of course it's him! He's got a perfect motive for hating Ray Floyd—and Amanda, too, for dumping him for Ray. Mom said herself in her letter that he asked about me years ago.”

“You're forgetting something.”

“I'm not forgetting anything!” I raised my voice, on the verge of tears. Less than a month before my wedding, and here I stood, arguing with my fiancé in the house where we'd sat outside in fragrant nightfall talking about life and family.

“Oh yes you are. Those paintings are meticulous. Detailed. Tiny. Jim Bob can change fan belts, but I don't believe he could paint like that with his left hand. And besides—you said the guy who mugged you had hair and used his right hand.”

“But…but…”

“The requests to the florist weren't mailed, Shiloh. They were dropped into the mailbox. Locally. Jim Bob doesn't live here. He just showed up in town over the past few weeks or so.”

“Right. When the roses started.”

“No. I think if you draw the timing out, you'll see that the roses came first.”

A sick sensation oozed into my stomach. I snatched up Mom's letter and reread the part about the sketch. The face that didn't match. I squeezed my eyes closed, trying to make some sense of it.

“But…it has to be Jim Bob! Or Dean, then, working as some sort of go-between. I don't know!” I ran both hands through my hair, feeling like pulling it out.

“That's exactly why we need to be working on this together!” Adam snapped into the phone, his tone hard and accusing. “I told you before—if we're going to be married, we have to share everything. No secrets.”

“Then you can't flip out when I have a different opinion than you.”

“I don't do that!”

“Yes you do! Once your mind is made up, there's no changing it. And that's really hard to work with, you know?”

I heard Adam spit out an angry breath, more furious than I'd ever heard him. But when he spoke again, his voice sounded choked. “Look, maybe I am a bit stubborn with my ideas.”

“A bit?” My throat swelled at the raw emotion in his words.

“I grew up that way, always having to put my foot down so I didn't get pushed in directions I didn't want to go. I can…you know. Work on that.” He blew out a violent sigh. “But I can't live with you keeping things from me. With you…”

“With me what?”

“Always going off on your own and doing things yourself. Your own way. You're a competent woman, Shiloh. Amazingly tenacious, and independent, and intelligent. Probably more than me. I admire that. But I can't compete with you.”

“Compete with me?” I yelped, hearing my cell phone bleep in my ear to indicate a low battery. Of course. While my charger sat plugged into the wall at Faye's. “Why would you think something like that?”

“Because that's what I feel like I have to do sometimes.” His voice quivered slightly. “Like you don't…need me. You can do just fine on your own.”

A stab of guilt pricked through my heart, all my emotions roiling together in one pounding mess, like the raging rain outside. Lightning flashed through my darkened windows.

And at that exact moment, my lights went out.

T
he fridge hum coughed to an eerie silence. The ceiling fan over the kitchen table spun squeaking as it shuddered to a stop.

Everything plunged into darkness. Thunder growled over the mountains, and rain lashed the side of the house. Wind howled around the porch eaves.

“The power's out, Adam. Stay with me, okay?”

I fumbled in the kitchen drawers for a flashlight, wishing I hadn't packed up so much stuff for the move. But with Uncle Bryce coming in just a few weeks, I was already behind. Now Adam and I would probably spend our wedding rehearsal hauling boxes to a moving truck. Good thing UPS gave him plenty of practice.

“Shiloh!” Adam yelled again. I pulled the phone away from my ear. “I'm fine, Adam! Just stay on the line. Please. The storm will pass.”

“You need to get out of there now.”

“I know, I know.” I jerked open another drawer and felt the cool cylinder of the flashlight. “Hold on. I've got light.” I pressed the button, and a warm glow spread across the kitchen, gleaming back from the shiny microwave door and metal lines of the stove. The beam made golden spots on the walls as I focused on the light switch, stepping over Christie to flip it on and off.

“I'm leaving. Right now.” I threw all the letters and things into my cardboard box from Japan then hustled Christie to the door. Keys in hand, rain sifting down outside in black sheets. “I'll call you the minute I get to Faye's. I promise.”

Christie whined at the door, pawing, while I unlocked it. I pushed open the screen door a crack, and before I could grab her, she'd nosed her way through. She took off like a shot through the rainy evening, leaving me standing there holding the door.

“Argh. The dog.” I rolled my head in my hand. “Now I'll have to wait until she comes back.”