The Sisters Hemingway

by Annie England Noblin

  This time, the crowd erupted, and Martha’s grin widened. “Okay,” she said. “Here goes.”

  The music started, a slow, quiet stream against the buzz of the bar. For a moment, Pfeiffer wasn’t sure if her sister was going to sing at all. But then she began, and Pfeiffer couldn’t look away.

  I wish that you could see me now,

  Standin’ all alone against the crowd.

  It doesn’t make sense to be

  Older now, without you here with me.

  As the song wore on and Martha’s voice became stronger, Pfeiffer felt a small tear slide down her cheek, and she feverishly wiped it away. She wished Hadley were there, and at the same time she was glad she wasn’t, because she didn’t want to have to share this moment with anyone else. She didn’t want to have to admit that she still, even after all this time, felt so broken by her mother’s and sister’s deaths.

  She looked around the room, and found that she wasn’t the only person crying. Even Mama herself was taking the dishrag she usually reserved for wiping the counters to the corners of her eyes. For the first time in a long, long time, Pfeiffer felt the love she used to have for Cold River swelling inside of her. Everybody in that room knew her, knew Martha. They all knew what the sisters had been through, because they’d gone through it with them. She didn’t have to explain her grief to anyone, and it was a feeling only a town like Cold River, only a place like home, could give her.

  When the song was over and everyone in the bar was on their feet clapping, Martha mouthed a thank-you to Pfeiffer and then said out loud, “Now, how about I play something else? But before I do, I’d like to see if my friend Mandy would come on up here and play with me. Mandy, are you still out there?”

  From the back of the bar, a hand shot up, and Amanda was weaving her way through the crowd and back up to the stage, guitar in tow.

  “Now, most of you may not know this, but Mandy and I used to play together all the time as kids,” Martha said. “What should we play for them, Mandy?”

  Amanda pretended to think about it for a moment, but Pfeiffer already knew what they were going to play. There was just one song they’d ever perfected, and they’d played it constantly one summer. It got so irritating that Pfeiffer had taken to the shed to read her books because of their infernal racket.

  “How about ‘Strawberry Wine’ by the one and only Deana Carter?” Mandy asked.

  “You read my mind!” Martha replied, standing up beside her friend. “Sing along if you know the words.”

  Pfeiffer sat back in her chair, trying not to grimace as the music started up. It wasn’t a bad song, but it was probably the only one in the entire world about which she could say that if she never heard it again, it wouldn’t be too soon. That’s when she noticed someone sitting between Ava Dawn and Haiden, his arm thrown over the two of them—both of them looking annoyed.

  “That’s your sis up there, huh?” the man said to her.

  Pfeiffer nodded. “Yep.”

  “Pretty famous, I reckon.”

  “Yep.”

  “Can’t say I’ve heard much of her music, but she’s something to look at,” he commented.

  “I’ve heard that a time or two,” Pfeiffer replied, rolling her eyes and turning back around to face the stage.

  “The name’s Reese,” he said, calling her attention back to him.

  “Pfeiffer,” Pfeiffer said. “You look familiar. Did I used to babysit you?”

  Ava Dawn let out a laugh and said, “You’d for sure remember him if you babysat him. He was even worse then than he is now.”

  “Your aunt and my grandmama were best friends,” Reese replied.

  “Who is your grandmother?” Pfeiffer asked.

  “Anna Graham,” Reese replied. “Been best friends since they were kids. My grandmama was real broken up about her passing.”

  “She was very kind to us when we got into town,” Pfeiffer said. She was trying to warm to this Reese person, but the shit-eating grin threatening to overtake his face was making it difficult. “Please tell her how much my sisters and I appreciate it.”

  “I’ll tell her,” Reese said.

  “Thanks,” Pfeiffer replied. She meant to turn and focus her attention on Luke, who was making his way back over to their table, but then she remembered something. “Hey, Reese.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Your grandmother and my aunt . . . they were best friends since childhood?”

  “That’s what my grandmama always said.”

  “Do you think she would mind if I went to visit her sometime?” Pfeiffer asked.

  “I don’t see why not,” Reese replied. “What for?”

  “Oh, just to talk about my aunt,” Pfeiffer said. “I have some questions about their childhood that I think only she could answer.”

  Reese shrugged. “She’d probably love to talk about old times,” he said. “She tries to talk about them with me all the time, but I have to admit, I’m not much interested in history.”

  “Could we go tomorrow?” Pfeiffer asked hopefully.

  “I reckon,” Reese said. “I’ll give her a call in the morning.”

  “Thank you so much.”

  “Will your sister be going?” Reese asked, licking his lips slightly.

  Pfeiffer fought the urge to roll her eyes again. “No, it’ll just be me.”

  “That’ll be okay, too,” Reese said.

  “I’ll go, too,” Luke said from behind them. “I do like history.”

  “Oh, that’s okay,” Pfeiffer said. “I don’t want to bother you.”

  “It’s no bother,” he said. “I like Mrs. Graham. She’s a sweet lady.”

  “Great,” Reese replied, slightly less enthusiastic than he had been before.

  “Why don’t we meet outside my law office, say nine thirty a.m.?” Luke asked.

  “Will that be too early for your grandmother?” Pfeiffer asked Reese.

  “Naw, she gets up at the crack of dawn.” Reese chuckled. “Sometimes before.”

  “Okay,” Pfeiffer said. “And thanks again.”

  “No worries,” Reese replied, standing up. “Just put in a good word for me with your sister, and we’ll call it even.” He winked at her, and then he was gone, disappearing into the crowd and smoke.

  “I just saved you an entire morning of being hit on by Reese Graham,” Luke said, sitting back down in his chair. “You ought to thank me, you know.”

  “I can take care of myself,” Pfeiffer replied. “I lived in New York City for nearly two decades, and I took self-defense classes.”

  Luke laughed, and when he did so, a little dimple appeared in the corner of one of his cheeks. “Oh, he’s harmless, but he fancies himself a man about town.”

  “And he’s not?”

  “Why? Are you interested?”

  Luke was smiling at her, as if he was joking, but Pfeiffer couldn’t tell if it was a joke or if he was being serious. “He’s too young for me,” she said. “I’ll see you tomorrow morning.”

  She stood up and walked toward the stage, ready to find Martha and even more ready to go home. She needed to pore over her aunt’s journal before meeting with Anna tomorrow, to see if there were any clues that she might know something about the missing pages or about what happened with Aunt Bea’s boyfriend, Will. If they were truly best friends, surely she would know something. Pfeiffer just hoped she could figure out a way to ask the old woman questions that wouldn’t make her suspicious, as Old Crow had been when she approached him. Maybe it was her editor’s brain at work, but Pfeiffer knew there was an end to the story, and she had to find out what it was.

  She just had to.

  Chapter 29

  Hadley

  HADLEY PULLED OFF HER SOPPING CARDIGAN AND GLANCED down at Lafayette. The dog had been following her since she left the house, and she was grateful that she wasn’t alone. The rain was beating down on them and showed no signs of letting up, but Hadley soldiered on despite it, determined not to go back to the farm.
She knew if they kept walking, she’d eventually hit Brody’s property line, and hopefully the house wouldn’t be too far back.

  She froze when she heard a vehicle coming down the road, fighting the urge to jump into the bushes in case it was Mark coming to look for her. That wasn’t his style, though, going after her; it never had been, and when she turned around, she saw Brody’s beat-up Ford flying toward her, going entirely too fast for a wet gravel road.

  Had she not been so cold and tired, she might have smiled.

  Then he drove past her, flinging mud up onto her shoes and legs, and she started cursing and hollering so loudly that Lafayette stopped dead in her tracks. They both looked up as the truck stopped in the middle of the road and backed up toward them.

  “What are you doing out here?” Brody asked, rolling down the window.

  “Shut up and open the door,” she said, miserable.

  Brody complied, jumping out to pick a soaking-wet Lafayette up out of the mud and into the cab of the truck. “Are you okay?” he asked once they were all three safely inside.

  “No,” Hadley replied. “Can I come home with you?”

  Brody raised an eyebrow but drove on until they got to his house. Hadley almost gasped when she saw it. It was an old farmhouse, although not as old as the one on her farm, but it had been beautifully redone, complete with a screened-in wraparound porch.

  “Do you like it?” Brody asked.

  “This isn’t the original house,” Hadley said. “It can’t be. I’ve been to this farm before, long before you bought it. The original house was a one-story.”

  “It was condemned,” Brody said. “I had to tear down what was left.”

  “Where did this one come from?”

  “A farm over in Shannon County,” he said. “I bought the land and moved the house here.”

  “Why?” Hadley asked. “Why didn’t you just build a new one? It would have been cheaper, I’m sure.”

  “It wasn’t about that,” Brody said. He got out of the truck and went around to the passenger’s side to let Hadley out. “Look at the porch.”

  “It’s the first thing I noticed,” she said. “I’ve always wanted a porch like that.”

  “I know,” Brody replied. He put his hand around her waist. “Come on. Let’s get you inside.”

  Hadley allowed him to lead her into the house while Lafayette plopped down on the floor, exhausted by their excursion. The house was cozy, and not nearly as sparse as she would have expected from a bachelor. There were carpets over the hardwood floors and a couch sitting in front of a fireplace with a television set mounted above it. She saw a dog on the floor in front of the fireplace, snoring with his tongue hanging out, but saw no signs of Brody’s daughter.

  “Where’s Lucy?”

  “She’s spending the night with Ava,” Brody replied. “I’m pretty boring to her now. We’re both having a hard time admitting she’s getting ready to be a teenager.”

  “I can imagine.”

  “Let me get you a towel and a change of clothes,” Brody said. “I’m afraid you’ll have to contend with an old T-shirt and a pair of pajama pants.”

  “Thanks,” Hadley told him. “Anything is better than being soaking wet.”

  “And then you’re going to tell me what you were doing wandering around at dusk in the middle of a rainstorm with an old basset hound at your heels.”

  Hadley sighed. She truly didn’t know what she was doing. She knew that Mark wouldn’t have hurt her, but she also knew that she would have ended up going home with him if she’d stayed. He always had a way of persuading her to do things that she didn’t particularly want to do.

  “Will these do?” Brody held out a towel, a pair of sleep pants, and a gray T-shirt with the name of the family veterinary clinic across the front. “They’re clean.”

  “Thanks,” Hadley replied. “Where’s your bathroom?”

  “Around the corner,” Brody said, pointing.

  Hadley nodded and went into the bathroom to change. She could hear him talking to Lafayette as she pulled off her soggy shoes and pants. She was sure the dog was completely traumatized and that Pfeiffer would have a thing or two to say about it when she finally got home. That was when Hadley realized she’d run off without her cell phone. Instead of causing her to be upset, the thought relieved her, because she knew that meant Mark had no way of knowing where she was or getting into contact with her. She hoped he’d be gone by the time she got back home, although she doubted he would give up so easily.

  “Are you okay in there?” Brody asked, knocking lightly on the door. “Do you want a glass of water or something?”

  “Got anything stronger?” Hadley asked as she emerged from the bathroom.

  “I’ve got my good friend Jack in the cabinet,” Brody replied. “Will that work?”

  “Perfectly.”

  “You’ve never been much of a drinker,” Brody said as he pulled down a couple of glasses. “You must be pretty shook up.”

  “I’m okay now,” Hadley replied. “And really, it was nothing.”

  “What was nothing?”

  “Martha and Pfeiffer were going to that open-mic night at Mama’s,” she said. “And I was headed out with them until my husband showed up.”

  Brody paused in his pouring of the whiskey. “You didn’t know he was coming here?”

  “No,” Hadley said. “I had no idea.”

  “I’m guessing it didn’t go well.”

  Hadley sat down on one of the barstools at the kitchen island and said, “Our marriage is over.”

  “Oh?”

  “It’s been over for a long time,” Hadley said, waving him off. “Don’t feel bad about it.”

  “I don’t,” he said, handing her a glass.

  “I tried calling him the day we found . . . well, what we found, but he didn’t answer, because he never answers my phone calls,” she continued. “And there was a picture of you in one of the Nashville gossip blogs with Martha. You were pointing a gun or something.”

  “Martha said that would happen.”

  “Well, Mark flew here to scold me and demand I come back to Washington, D.C., with him right this very second, and when I told him no . . . well, things got pretty heated.”

  Brody set down his glass and stared intently at Hadley. “He didn’t hurt you, did he? Because I swear to God if he hurt you . . .”

  “He didn’t hurt me,” Hadley replied, feeling slightly warmed by the whiskey and Brody’s reaction to her fight with Mark. “But Lafayette didn’t like the yelling, and she got between us. That’s when I ran outside. I just wanted to clear my head, I swear. I meant to go back, but I just kept walking instead.”

  “Toward my house?”

  Hadley nodded. “Toward your house.”

  “You can stay here as long as you want to,” Brody said, pouring himself another drink.

  “I have to go back,” Hadley said. “And deal with him.”

  “I’ll go with you.”

  “No,” Hadley replied. “That wouldn’t be a good idea.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because you’re you.”

  “He knows about me?” Brody asked.

  “Of course he does,” Hadley replied.

  “And he doesn’t like it?”

  “What husband likes their wife’s old boyfriends?” Hadley asked.

  “I never cared much about Melissa’s,” Brody replied.

  “I never cared much about Mark’s girlfriends either,” Hadley said. “But I’ve never run for office.”

  “He sees me as a threat to his campaign?” Brody asked, pouring them both another glass. “How is that possible?”

  “He’s afraid someone will see us together and post a story about it,” Hadley replied. “Or worse, take a picture.”

  “And here you are, sitting in my house after dark, wearing my clothes,” Brody said.

  “I don’t care,” Hadley said.

  “That’s probably just the whiskey talking.”
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  “No,” she replied. “It’s me talking. I don’t care. Our marriage is over, and everyone knows it. We’re just putting on a face until the campaign is over, but I’m done doing that, too.”

  “I’m sorry,” Brody offered.

  “For what?”

  “All of it.”

  “It’s okay.”

  “We should have talked about things, you know?” Brody said. “We shouldn’t have ended things the way we did.”

  “It wasn’t we,” Hadley replied. “It was me.”

  “Do you ever wish it had been different?”

  Hadley drained her glass. “Every day.”

  Brody went to pour her another, and she put her hand over the top of her glass and shook her head. He replaced the cap on the Jack Daniel’s and said, “Do you remember why you always said you wanted to have a wraparound porch? When we were kids?”

  Hadley grinned. “So I could roller-skate all the way around it.”

  “Come on,” Brody said, taking her hand.

  “Where are we going?”

  Brody led her over to the hall closet and opened the door. After rummaging around for a few seconds, he pulled out a pair of Rollerblades. “These are Lucy’s, but I think they’ll fit.”

  Hadley’s eyes widened. “Oh, I don’t know. I’ve never used Rollerblades before. And I don’t know that I could stay upright now that I’ve had a couple of drinks.”

  “You might as well give it a try,” he said, handing them to her. “Nobody is going to see you. Not all the way out here.”

  Hadley took the Rollerblades and followed Brody out onto the porch. She sat down on the porch swing just outside the door and slipped the skates onto her feet. “I’m going to fall and break my neck,” she said.

  “I’ll be right here,” Brody assured her. “I won’t let you fall.”

  “Okay.” Hadley stood up on wobbly legs. “Does this work just like regular skating?”

  “Pretty much,” Brody said. “Lucy says it’s actually easier.”

  Hadley lurched forward, grabbing onto the side of the porch for support. “It doesn’t feel easier.”

  Brody took her hand and led her around the porch as she learned the feel of the blades and the wooden boards beneath them. After a few minutes, she was zipping around the porch with her hands in the air while Brody watched and laughed from the porch swing.