To Trust

by Carolyn Brown

  Etta, Molly, and Roxie—the three of them had shared their lives through almost fifty years. Molly was the first one with a bed and breakfast just outside the park, known then as Platt National Park. Brannon’s Inn. She had made more beds and served up more meals than anyone in Murray County, Oklahoma. Roxie had bought her business next, and Etta followed suit the next year when she and her late husband built Cahill Lodge. They’d all three swapped recipes, told stories, looked forward to some vacationers and dreaded others. Now Molly was gone, leaving Roxie and Etta.

  “Wonder what will happen to Brannon’s Inn?” Tally said.

  “She left it to Stella,” Roxie said.

  “Really? Not to her son or to be divided amongst all four grandchildren?” Dee asked.

  “She told me last month she’d redone her will. She was of the opinion her son didn’t deserve it. Those Brannon men were worthless. Molly’s husband ran off and left her when Wes was a little boy. She raised him in the inn, same as I did Mimosa. Then Wes married Lucy, had those three kids, bam, bam, bam, and started cheating on Lucy. She tried to save the marriage by having Stella, but it only worked for a little while. When Stella was a just a kid he left Lucy to marry his second wife, Sandy. They had Holly, who must be about eighteen now. Anyway, Molly left everything she had to Stella. Said she needed it worse than the rest of them.”

  “And she was hoping Stella would come home and run it, wasn’t she?” Dee asked.

  “Stella can’t sell it for five years,” Roxie said.

  Jack turned into the driveway. The red house stood out like a beacon in the gray day.

  “Why would she want to?” Bodine asked. “I wouldn’t ever sell our house.”

  “You aren’t going to grow up and marry a spoiled little boy who thinks he’s pretty.” Roxie patted her knee.

  “Why five years?” Dee asked as they all made haste to get inside out of the cold freezing rain.

  “Hopefully she’ll come to her senses by that time.” Roxie removed her coat just inside the door and handed it to Bodine. “Take all the coats back to the guest room. When the people arrive, you’re in charge of coats.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Bodine didn’t argue.

  The house filled up quickly the next thirty minutes, people gathering around the table to fill their plates, finding a place to sit, moving from one group to the next when they were finished. Remembering the times Molly had filled their lives with adages, humor, scoldings; regretting the days when they hadn’t come home often enough; not looking forward to the future without her.

  Toward dark, Dee was sitting midway up on the staircase. Food trays were still half full. Ice and drinks weren’t running low, so she watched the people in their little groups. Lucy, Wes, and Sandy were at least civil to one another. Dee wondered if she’d attended Ray’s aunt’s funeral if she and Angie would have been even that. Probably more like coldly formal. She was envisioning that scenario when Stella wedged in beside her.

  “I don’t know what’s more difficult, losing her or trying to fill her shoes,” she said.

  “I’m so sorry.” Dee patted her hand.

  “We haven’t done so well, have we Dee? Rosie’s not happy up there in Tulsa, even though she’s got the world by the tail. I’m miserable in California. Wondering from one day to the next if we’re going to make rent. Mitch is so mad he could chew up railroad spikes because this property is tied up for five years. When Granny Molly died, his first reaction was ‘How much do you get from the estate?’ Tally does seem more content than I’ve seen her in years. Maybe we just have to get six or seven years older.”

  “Tally is engaged as of last week. This professor she met in Tishomingo. He’s forty. Stable as they come. Loves Bodine. Roxie likes him.”

  “Wow! That says it all in three words . . . Roxie likes him. When’s the wedding?”

  “Right now the official date is June first. School will be out. Bodine won’t have to change schools in the middle of the year. He’s planning a long trip for the three of them in his motor home as a honeymoon. Grand Canyon, the Redwood Forest, the beach somewhere around Pensacola, Florida, Disney World in Orlando, up to New York for the educational end of it with the Statue of Liberty and all that, then back through the north to see Mount Rushmore.”

  “Was he the one sitting beside her at the funeral?”

  Dee nodded. “But to answer your question, no, we haven’t done so well, but I’m learning not to be bitter. That broken road I chose at least circled around and brought me back home where I belong.”

  “What did you say?” Roseanna joined them, sitting a couple of steps down and looking up.

  “I heard Rascal Flatts’ lead singer singing a song about blessing the broken road that led him back home and suddenly it was clear that that’s where I was in life. I’ve been down my own personal broken road and now I’m home. It’s not easy blessing that road and all I had to travel through, though.”

  “Hmmmm,” Roseanna pondered, the words of the song playing through her mind as she sat there.

  “Your husband with you?” Dee asked.

  “Oh, no, not Trey. Molly would have had to make an appointment to pass on at a certain time on a certain day six months in advance for Trey Fields to be here.”

  “I was surprised to hear you’d married someone from Tulsa. Last I heard there was a rumor you and Kyle Parsons would be tying the knot before long,” Dee said.

  “Would have but he got a stubborn streak one night and laid down the law about me singing in Jodie’s place out at the Arbuckle Ballroom. Trey’s limo broke down out on I-35 and he wound up coming in to call for help. Looking back, I wish the service station would have been open and he’d have never come inside the Ballroom.”

  “That bad, huh?” Stella asked.

  “No, not really. He’s a good man but . . .”

  “Right,” Dee nodded.

  “It’s those buts that get in the way isn’t it?” Stella said.

  “Granny Etta told me I wouldn’t be happy without the smell of cows, dirt, and sweat around me. But I figured I was smarter than she is.” Roseanna tried to giggle, but it almost came out a sob.

  “Those queens are never wrong, are they?” Dee said.

  “If they are, they hide their mistakes so well we’ll never find them,” Stella said.

  “So what are you going to do with the inn?” Roseanna asked.

  “I don’t rightly know. I fly back to California tomorrow morning. There’s about two thousand dollars left of the money she left that I can have right now. The rest is tied up in a fund only to be used to run the inn if I come home and do it. Mitch is so mad he won’t even take my calls.”

  “I’m sorry this is so tough,” Dee said.

  Stella shrugged. “I made the bed. I guess I’ll sleep in it. Let’s talk about something happier. What’s going on with you and Jack? Who’d have ever thought he’d be so darn good-looking when he was a teenager?”

  “I’m not sure anything is going on with me and Jack,” Dee said.

  “Don’t kid us. We aren’t blind. That man has never let you get out of his sight all day,” Roseanna said.

  “You know, being the grandkids of the old queens, I figured we’d never lose contact,” Dee said.

  “Let’s don’t do it again,” Stella said.

  “No, let’s don’t. Molly would have liked for us to be sitting here on the steps like this,” Dee said.

  Stella wiped away a tear. “Think we’ll ever be the queens of Murray County?”

  “God, I hope not,” Dee said. “I don’t think I’ll ever be wise enough to wear Roxie’s crown. It’s too big and important.”

  Later after everyone left, after Jack had dashed through the freezing rain to his trailer, she pulled back the drapes in her bedroom and watched the tree limbs bowing under the weight of the ice. Everything she saw or touched seemed symbolic and gave cause for profound meditation.

  She thought about living to be more than eighty years with no one, the way
Molly had. When Molly had thrown her husband out for his philandering ways and raised Wes alone, had there ever been a good friend in her life that she was terrified to trust?

  The questions would never be answered, but she pondered them anyway. She loved Jack and the physical attraction was almost unbearable. When his fingers grazed her arm as he helped her out of her coat, jolts shot through her heart. When he looked at her with those intense eyes, she wanted to drag him off to a cave and never let him out of her sight. Being just his friend was so hard.

  “Why do I have to be?” she said aloud.

  “Be what?” Bodine asked right behind her.

  “You are supposed to knock, lady,” Dee said.

  “I did, but you didn’t answer. Tell me one more time that I’m not dreaming and I’m really going to have a father and his name is Ken. I’m afraid I’ll do something wrong and ruin it.” She wrapped her arms around Dee and hugged her close.

  Dee hugged back. “You can’t ruin it. Have you had a big fight with Ken yet?”

  “Yep, he beat me at Monopoly and I got mad and he said I’d get over it, not to be a poor sport. That’s the same thing Roxie says.”

  “Then he’s wise like Roxie and you shouldn’t get mad at him for that.”

  “Why are you standing here looking at Jack’s trailer?” She changed the subject abruptly.

  “I’m trying to figure out some things that aren’t easy to figure out.”

  “Like whether you’re going to marry him?”

  “You’ve got marriage on the brain since Tally is so happy these days. You’re probably thinking you’ll get two pretty dresses if you get to be bridesmaid in two weddings, right?”

  “Don’t treat me like a two-year-old. I’ll be in middle school next year.”

  “Things are simple when you are eleven,” Dee said.

  “Oh, yeah, well then I hope I never grow up. I’m going to my room to read. I love you, Dee.”

  “Thank you, Bodine. I love you too.”

  She shut the door softly and Dee went back to staring out the window. Soft yellow light flowed through his living room window out into the dreary evening, putting out warm rays across the freezing rain.

  Symbolism again . . . warmth gushes from Jack and it wraps itself around my icy heart. Out of the mouths of babes! I have made a mountain out of a mole hill. I can trust Jack.

  Suddenly she knew what she had to do or she’d spend another sleepless night tossing and turning. She just hoped it wasn’t too late. Like Roxie always said, ‘There’s a time when it’s too late to do what you should have been doing all along.’ Dee held her breath as she slipped out the back door and jogged to the trailer.

  When the cleanup was finished, Jack darted across the two lawns, flung open the door to his trailer, and rushed inside where it was warm. He and Ken had worked with the ladies putting leftovers away and picking up stray glasses to load into the dishwasher. If the weather kept up like this all night, he wouldn’t open the store the next day. Winter, and especially December, was like that. Even the most religious fishermen, those who did their worshipping at the Wal-Mart store in front of Zebco rods and reels, didn’t brave sleet in December.

  He put his long black coat in the closet just off the living room, picked up the remote, and turned on the television to an old rerun of Law and Order before he went to his bedroom to change into sweats and a T-shirt. He carefully hung up his black three-piece suit, tossed the white shirt in the laundry basket, went through the day’s mail he’d thrown on the dresser that morning, and put a CD of Mark Chesnutt into the player. The first song talked about a city girl and an old country boy. That was the way he’d thought about Dee. She was the city girl and he was just an old country boy. Some of the rest of the song didn’t apply to them, but it seemed that everything he touched made him think of her. The song mentioned that the city girl hadn’t been loved at all until old country came to town. In the depths of his heart, he didn’t think Dee had been loved, not like he loved her. But did he love her enough to wait indefinitely for her to figure things out? Enough to give her that much space while he ached to hold her, to kiss her, to start a life with her?

  “Yes, I do,” he said and turned off the music. “Yes, I do. She’s worth waiting on and fighting for.”

  When he came back out into the living room, Dee was curled up on the sofa.

  It had taken every bit of nerve she could muster up to make herself walk across those two lawns to say her peace. She was terrified but it had to be done. Since Thanksgiving she couldn’t sleep, had no appetite, was edgy, and even Roxie had asked several times if she was coming down with the flu.

  He sat on the far end of the sofa. “What’s the matter, Delylah Loretta?”

  “Why are you second-naming me? I didn’t do anything wrong.”

  “Did you come over here to pick a fight?”

  “No, I didn’t. Actually the furthest thing from my mind was arguing with you, Jack. I’ve been thinking . . .”

  He touched the scar on his face. “Oh, no! Don’t tell me that. The first time you said that—”

  “I remember. I didn’t come over here to talk about it either.”

  “The next time you said you’d been thinking it was to tell me you were leaving with Ray. It left a different kind of scar.”

  “I’m sorry for both. Now, can I talk without you interrupting?”

  “Only if you aren’t thinking of going somewhere far away.”

  “Well, I was thinking of moving out of Roxie’s house. It’s plenty big but I’ve found something I like better. Something cozier and smaller.”

  Jack’s heart turned into a solid chunk of ice and plummeted to the bottom of his soul. When had this happened? He’d thought they were making progress toward a lifetime together.

  “Where? Please tell me you aren’t going back east again.”

  “Actually, south.”

  “Florida?” He could sell the store and trailer.

  “Closer.”

  He hated Dallas but if that’s where she wanted to live he’d suck it up and manage. “Texas?”

  She put her fingers across his mouth. “Shhhh. Let me talk. I prepared this big long speech and most of it has already flown out the window, but I’ve got to say the words so you’ll understand. I figured out a lot on Thanksgiving and I’ve been fighting it for two weeks, but today when I looked at Molly in that casket I wondered why I was battling with my heart. It didn’t lie to me all those years ago. It just let me have my way.”

  Jack frowned. What was Dee trying to tell him? That she was tired of Buckhorn Corner and ready to do something big and wonderful? Perhaps seeing Tally getting an education and so much in love had encouraged her to make the decision to go to college. Then she’d meet someone like Ken. A lump grew in his throat.

  “Jack, I love you.”

  “Oh, no, please don’t say that. Every time you do, you follow it up with something about loving me like I’m your brother or favorite cousin.”

  She scooted across the sofa and wrapped her arms around his neck, looked deep into those worried eyes and pulled his lips down for a kiss. “No, I really love you. I mean as in ‘love you.’ I’m here to ask you to marry me.”

  Jack was stunned into silence.

  She leaned back to study his face. Maybe she should have only told him she was ready to date him, move in with him, something else other than proposing to him right there on the spot. But seeing Molly in that casket had reminded her that life was short and she had no guarantees of tomorrow. “Well?”

  “Are you sure?”

  “I’ve fought it ever since I came home, but these past two weeks have been horrible. I want you to hold me. I want to wake up in your arms. I want a yard full of kids and I want you to be their father. Jack, my heart is only half a heart without you.”

  “When?”

  “Oh, I hadn’t thought that far. Tonight?”

  “How about tomorrow? We can go to Dallas, call Roxie from the hotel and tell
her then? Or do you want to announce it in church tomorrow and have the traditional six-month engagement?”

  “How about next Friday night right over at Roxie’s house? That way it’ll give her something to take her mind off Molly being gone. We’ll only have the family. I’ll call Mimosa and see if she and Fred can come. Ken and Tally, of course, and Bodine, and the preacher.”

  He groaned. “A whole week. That’s eternity.”

  She kissed his eyelids and worked her way down to his lips. “It’ll go by fast, I promise, and then we can go on a honeymoon.”

  He wondered if he’d fallen asleep and this was another one of the dreams that had haunted his nights so often the past six months. If it was, he danged sure didn’t want to wake up. “Where do you want to go?”

  “A faraway island with white sand on the beach and no people. The time will pass quickly. I don’t know who I’m trying to convince. Me or you. We’ll just have a simple wedding, and honey, I don’t care if the honeymoon is right here in this trailer as long as you put a sign on the door that tells everyone to stay away.”

  “You’ll have your island, Dee. I know just the place. One little cabin on a very private island with white sand on the beach. Have to charter a plane to get in and out of the place. I’ll call tomorrow and take care of arrangements. How long of a honeymoon can we have?”

  “A week. Then we’ll be home for Christmas with Roxie and the family.” She tilted her face up to his. “Kiss me again. God, I’m glad you never kissed me in high school. We’d have six kids by now if you had.”

  He leaned forward. “I love you and you can trust me.”

  “I know that, Jack. Down deep, where it counts, I know.”

  “Welcome home, Delylah Loretta.”

  “Glad to be here,” she said just before the sparks began to fly.