Tomorrow's Sun (42 page)

Emily awoke on the cold square of gray linoleum. Rain beat hard on the roof. Wind rattled the window. It was nearly dark. She rose to hands and knees, arching her back out of habit, though nothing hurt. A month ago, lying on the hard floor would have stiffened her for days.

Rubbing her arms, she pulled the quilt from the pew and wrapped it around her. Her fingers skimmed a faded rose and stilled at the edge of a petal near two embroidered letters. She stood and moved the lamp.

HS
. “Hannah.” She breathed the name. Lifting the quilt as if it were made of tissue paper, she held it high, stretching her arms wide. She thought of Adam’s words, “The rose wreath is a symbol. It means someone died on the journey.” All this time, she’d imagined Nana Grace’s gnarled fingers making the tiny stitches. Had Hannah made it after her mother died or when the love of her life hadn’t returned home? Had her tears dampened the fabric as she traced leaves and petals, or had memories coaxed a smile as she worked?

Emily sat on the pew and draped the quilt over her knees.
Someone died on the journey
. Hannah’s grief produced a thing of beauty. Emily turned her eyes to the cross.
Lord, can You make something beautiful from mine?

E
mily sat beside Jake on her front step. She swatted a mosquito on her arm and missed then smashed one on his bare knee, leaving a bloody streak. It was the first time she’d seen him in shorts. Now she’d not only gawked at his tanned legs, she’d touched one. “You don’t think this is too mean?”

“It’s giving her a taste of her own medicine.” He smacked a mosquito on her forehead.

“You’re sure it won’t backfire?”

“Positive. I casually worked Heidi into a conversation with Adam the other day. I asked him what Lexi thought of her.” Jake’s eyes glinted with mischief in the glow of the light above the door.

“And?”

“Lexi told him Heidi looked like a freak from a wax museum, had the personality of the White Witch of Narnia, and hung on me like an octopus with a million tentacles.”

“I should have introduced myself to this old love of yours when I saw her at Chances.”

“She is not an old love. She is an old mistake.”

“So you’re no longer drawn to ice queens?”

“I’ve changed my criteria a bit.”

“You do realize that no one will be good enough in Lexi’s eyes.”

“Yeah. Could you explain that to me from a female point of view?”

“Women of all ages compete for men’s attention. Dawn Anne said she and Sierra started fighting over her husband when Sierra was only three months old.”

“That’s insane.”

“It should make you feel very special.” She clapped her hands, killing two bugs with one blow.

“It makes me feel like I will never, ever understand women.”

“That’s a given.”

Jake fingers grazed her cheek and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “I’d like to try understanding one of them. Maybe, with a little help.”

“If we wait too long she’ll be asleep.”

“Can we continue this conversation later? You’re leaving tomorrow for a whole week, you know.”

“Maybe. Go home, take a bath in bug spray, and wait”—she deepened her voice to her best imitation of Topher—“for me to call ya’, Cob.”

Jake’s face lost every trace of softness. “Yeah. Sure. Whatever, bro.”

With an eye roll and a wave, she walked into the house, watched the time on her phone morph from 10:14 to 10:15, and poured a glass of tea while she waited for 10:20. Jake hadn’t called her, so everything must be in place.

“Go back to bed. You’ll feel better in the morning.”

Lexi shook her head and folded both arms over her belly. “Feel my head, Grandma. Is it hot?” The heating pad under her pillow was another one of Naomi’s genius ideas.

Adam threw his backpack on the couch and shoved a book in it. “She’s faking it. She’s just trying to wreck all our plans.”

“I am not. I really want—” Grandma motioned for her to lean down to where she sat in the recliner so she could feel her head. Her expression changed from annoyed to concern. Yippee for heating pads.

“You do feel warm. Adam, get that bottle of ibuprofen out of the first-aid kit in the clothes basket in the kitchen.”

Lexi shot a told-you-so look at her brother as he stomped past her. She took the medicine Grandma gave her, hoping it wouldn’t hurt her if she really didn’t need it, and walked off to bed, moaning softly on her way. “I’ll try to sleep.”

She went to the bathroom first. Grandma wore a ton of makeup. There had to be something gray in her drawer. Sure enough, eye shadow just the right color for a nice shadow
under
her eyes. After an appropriately long time, she staggered out, leaving the fan on in the bathroom, and walked down the hall, touching the wall with one hand for support. She was beginning to convince herself she was sick.

Positioning her pillow to cover the heating pad, she lay on her back and turned the bedside lamp toward the wall. A little light was necessary to show off the circles under her eyes when Grandma came to check on her. Every few minutes, she put her hands under the pillow. When they were hot, she pressed them to her face.

Hard as she tried to keep her eyes open and her face warm, sleep was hard to fight. She’d almost given in when the sound of a hammer woke her. Right outside her window.

“Sorry, Topher. Just had to pound a piece of siding back into place before it rains again. Thanks for calling back.”

Lexi was wide awake now. Her uncle picked weird times to fix things.

“Yeah, I’m serious. Go figure, huh? All this time I figured she hated my guts, and then she sends this amazing letter.

“Read it? I don’t have to. I memorized it! ‘My sweet Jake,’ it starts. How cool is that? Yeah, I know. ‘I’m so happy you changed your mind about liking that Foster lady,’ she says. No, I didn’t really change my mind. I still really like her, but, hey, she’s moving to California, you know? If Heidi still loves me, man, I can’t take a chance on losing her again. She’s the best thing that ever happened to me. Do you realize how close we came to getting married? Yeah, I know, she’d be the perfect mother for the twins. She’s warm and funny and she just gets kids. Okay, here’s the rest of it—’I know we can only meet secretly until you finish her house. Because I know how much you love me, I will wait patiently for the day when we can be together always. All my love, Heidi.’”

A cramp gripped Lexi’s stomach like a hand crumpling a soda can.

“I’m not wasting any time, bro. This time I’m not going to let her get away. I’m calling her as soon as I hang up.” A loud sniff echoed through the window. Jake was
crying?
“I’m proposing to her tonight.”

Lexi broke into a cold sweat. She felt the blood leaving her head. The room swayed. She had to stop him. Now. Throwing off the covers, she flew out of bed, yanked open the door, ran down the hall and through the living room. She made it to the kitchen door before Grandma yelled.

“Lex! Stop!” Her recliner creaked as it snapped upright. “She must be delirious.”

“I doubt it,” Adam answered.

Lexi didn’t stop. “I’m fine. I’m all better.” It didn’t matter now if they knew she wasn’t sick.

A week with Emily would be a million times better than Jake marrying the White Witch.

Lexi swiped a tear as Grandma stomped back into the house. She hadn’t heard the end of this. She glared at Jake. “It’s not true?”

“Not a word of it.”

“Then why…?” A branch snapped. Emily walked through a space in the shrubs. Lexi’s skin suddenly felt like the worst sunburn anyone had ever gotten. Naomi and her stupid ideas.

Emily sat down in the empty chair on Jake’s left. Jake patted the chair on the other side. “You needed to see what it feels like.”

Lexi couldn’t look at either one of them, and she sure wasn’t going to sit down. Everything in her wanted to be mad, but it was all her own fault. “The letters were Naomi’s idea.”

Emily smiled. “They were very creative.” She didn’t say it nasty. It would be easier if she was nasty. “Very convincing.” Emily leaned forward. “Lexi, I understand why you wrote them.”

She did? “You do?”

“Of course. Your family is special to you. I went through something kind of similar when I was a little older than you. My sister brought her best friend along when my family went on a cruise. I’d been looking forward to it for months, and all of a sudden Dawn Anne, this girl I didn’t even know, who was ten years older than me, is barging in on our family time. I spent the whole nine days of the cruise watching grown-ups play shuffle board. Dawn Anne stole my sister from me and I hated her for it.”

Emily didn’t really look like the kind of person who would use the word
hate
. Lexi moved the chair a few feet back and sat down. “Really?”

“Really. So I understand why you wouldn’t want me around.”

“Did you do anything to that girl?”

Emily laughed. “I put a jellyfish in her bed.”

Jake’s eyes looked like great big marbles. “Those things sting!”

“It was dead.”

“Eeww.” Hard as she tried to hate Emily, it wasn’t working. She wasn’t a bad person. She just didn’t belong here. “What did she do?”

“She totally freaked. She and my sister didn’t go to bed until after midnight, and Dawn Anne’s screams woke the people in the state room next to us. It got really ugly.”

“Did they ever find out you did it?”

Emily shrugged. “They couldn’t prove it and I didn’t ‘fess up, so they couldn’t punish me. I was in my twenties before I told them the truth.”

“For real?” Not only did she not hate Emily, she just might become her new hero.

She still didn’t belong here.

But maybe it was better to let her think they were friends.

“That went well.”

“I thought so.” Emily ran her thumb along the ridged aluminum arm of the lawn chair angled to face Jake.

“You totally won her over when she found out what a nasty kid you were.” He leaned forward and took her hands. “I’m glad you grew up.”