Jackson fell into line with them. Yolanda and Phil already sat in their Suburban along with Lionel and Muriel and all their kids. But at the last minute, as Elisabeth prepared to climb in the first limousine, Evelyn squeezed Kevin’s hand and broke away—and not to roll around in the muck. She darted through the rain to sit beside her mama. If she had to go, she wanted to ride as closely as she could to the two most important women in her life.
Granny B was finally going somewhere with her children.
Evelyn stared at the back of the hearse as they crawled past Mrs. Jeannie Boyd’s decrepit house, which seemed to have fallen into itself since the walk with Granny B. “The day you come here and find me with my feet up on a table takin’ one of them afternoon naps is the day you need to call the undertaker—’cause I won’t be sleepin’, I be dead.”
“What?” Mama leaned toward her.
Evelyn squeezed her mama’s right hand. “Nothing, Mama. Just daydreaming.”
They arrived at the redbrick edifice about ten minutes after the line of cars first pulled away from Granny B’s house. As they cruised around to the side of Shiloh Baptist Church, Evelyn leaned forward to peer through the tinted window, shocked at the number of cars already there. Their driver parked at the walkway that led to the church steps. The rest of the family stopped in succession. Doors opened and shut. One by one, they emerged. The driver of the hearse and his assistant opened the wide back door. Evelyn turned away from the cascade of white roses and freesias adorning the mahogany casket.
“Watch your step, Evelyn.” Kevin reappeared at her elbow. He grasped her right hand and her left hand clutched her mama’s. Together, with Jackson, they trooped toward the doors of the church.
Mary suggested they line up according to age, oldest to youngest, and proceed into the church. Lis objected. She didn’t want the grandchildren to walk in last because that meant she couldn’t sit with Lionel, Yolanda, Jackson, and Evelyn—and then of course, all of her grandchildren. Sissy agreed, which seemed to prompt Ruthena’s protestation. But then, at the last moment, Edmond, with Carolina in tow and flanked by his progeny, assumed his patriarchal role. He shushed them all, and Mary, pushing herself to the fore, pranced inside, her Chanel-scented black lace handkerchief placed just so to her nose. Watching them all file in, the hushed congregation probably read their angry, set faces as sobriety, their pained, put-out expressions as grief.
Granny B’s children, their children, and some of their children’s children shuffled into place on the hard wooden pews as the seven-person choir rose. While the family filled most of the left side of the small church, the three men and four women opened their mouths and crooned, “‘Steal away, steal away, steal away to Je-sus . . .’” Somewhere in the back, someone coughed. A baby wailed.
To Evelyn’s left, Jackson fiddled with the program. “‘. . . to sta-ay he-eerre.’” She stole another look at Jackson’s program as the choir sat down. By now, Granny B’s replicated face had more wrinkles than the real one. Jackson winked at his sister. Evelyn winked back as the minister rose from his purple-draped throne and approached the pulpit.
“Let us pray,” Reverend Farrow intoned. After the resounding “Amen,” he reflected, “I’ll never forget what Beatrice told me the day I asked her what brought her to Shiloh. She said, ‘I been lookin’ fo’ true love all my life. Never found it with no man. Well, one day, some women come by speakin’ ’bout a Man who was the best Lover they ever had—well, with them words, I just had to know ’bout Him! And they introduced me to Jesus.’
“Now, I don’t know exactly who introduced her to Jesus, but I know Beatrice Agnew introduced me to a whole new way of thinking about Him . . . Anybody out there looking for true love?”
“Amen!” the whole church chorused again.
Well, almost the whole church. Evelyn faked a cough to mask her hysteria. Kevin glanced at his wife and leaned in close enough that his words tickled her ear. “Are you all right?”
She nodded, giggling more, until her shoulders quivered.
“Look at Evelyn. She’s overcome, poor thing,” Sarah whispered.
Evelyn wanted to turn and reassure them that she was fine, but Lis leaned over Jackson and hissed, “Stop that laughing. What would Mama think?”
Evelyn worked hard to restrain herself. Then suddenly, she really was overcome, and she sobbed. Kevin enveloped her and she leaned into him, drawing still closer. Her mama nodded, approving either her proper funeral behavior or Kevin’s response to it.
——————
Dear Evelyn Beatrice,
I know your mama use your full name when she got something important to tell you, so I best use it now too cause I need you listening with your ears, eyes, toes, head, your whole self.
I was sitting out here on my front step cause I didn’t want nothing tween me and the sky God made. Of course without that screen I had my fill of swatting bugs. But that’s okay cause being out here put me in the mind of you and watching you staring at them lightning bugs. And then I heard God tell me write that girl.
Evelyn, you ever with me. Even when you was little and you was playing hide-and-seek in them woods out back, I felt God had a call on you. I didn’t know what it was then and I don’t rightly know what His plans are for you now, but I can hear Him speaking just like tonight. I hope you listening, child. I didn’t always. Maybe He gon talk to you through that baby. He might use your work. He sure trying you in your marriage and with your mama. Just press toward the mark of that high calling.
Your Granny B loves you. And you know I don’t waste them words like blowing wishes on dandelions. Evelyn, I feel like you mine just like the troubles and pains I been bearing all these years. Yes, we got the same name, but these my own heartaches and blessings and nobody can feel them or share them like me. Now blessings a person tend to crow about. But that ache and pain gets kept close, deep in the heart. It might feel like they gon kill you but you get stronger in the end. You learn from it. Well, that’s you in my life. You make me stronger, girl. You build me up. You also get on my nerves but you done more good than harm. And I thank you for it.
I been seeking the Lord for you. I know you got your own pain and God knows what it is. I ain’t saying share it cause you got to let it go. God’s grace is sufficient—and that don’t mean it’s enough. His grace is more than enough for you and whoever you need to give some to and it’s full of love, forgiveness, and strength. The peace that come with it was a long time comin’ for me but I got it now. I wish I’d had it to give when my children was running round here. I was too busy feeling shamed and sorry and thinking that they stood for all the wrong that I done in my life. Specially Milton. That wan’t right. They was blessings God gave me when I didn’t have too many to speak of.
You got a blessing on the way, Evelyn. Share it. You also got pain coming. Hold it dear to your heart. I’ll be holding you a little while longer but be glad for God’s got you always.
Granny B
Evelyn looked away from the tearstained, well-read pages and rested her head against the sunbaked pane. She could almost say the words by heart. She’d read the letter almost every day since Granny B had slipped it into her hand outside the Skillet. Evelyn focused hard on the memory, so hard she could see her grandma’s reflection in the glass. “I’m talking ’bout grace, chile. Somethin’ I didn’t know how to accept or give, even to myself. But I’m learnin’.”
“I’m still learnin’, too, Granny B,” she murmured in the empty room.
Evelyn straightened her legs and stood. It was her last full day in Mount Laurel, and it was time to focus on the new life she was carrying rather than her past mistakes and miseries she’d buried with Granny B. She stepped into the hallway. Her mama’s genteel lilt and Kevin’s deep voice floated from downstairs. Within seconds, Evelyn placed a sneakered foot onto the hardwood kitchen floor.
“Good morning.”
Lis glanced quickly over her shoulder before turning her attention back to the
griddle. “Mornin’!” She awkwardly flipped an omelet. “I did it!”
“Good work, Mother.” Kevin winked at Evelyn and mouthed a kiss. “Hi, hon.”
She smiled at him as the baby kicked a greeting to Daddy. They both were still adjusting to life with Kevin—but her heart definitely felt more at home with him than without him.
“Kevin shared his secrets.” Lis beamed.
Evelyn took in the cheese, eggshells, empty sausage roll, peppers, onions, and other materials dotting the countertop and peeked over her shoulder. “And what does he know about cooking?” She listened to the quietness of the rest of the house. “Where’s everybody?”
“This is everybody. Jackson drove Yolanda’s kids to the store to pick up some things. As for Lionel and Muriel and Yolanda and Phil, they’re still sleeping.”
“What about everybody else?” Evelyn nibbled on some cooked sausage.
“Well, after a lot of fussing and a lot more reminiscing, they drove to Spring Hope and stayed at Mama’s last night.”
“What? How did they fit in there?”
“The same as before.”
Evelyn shrugged and walked toward the mudroom.
“Where are you going?” Kevin pushed back his stool. Elisabeth, watching, slid the omelet onto a plate.
“To the graveyard.”
“Didn’t you just say yesterday how you hated it? And what about breakfast?”
“But I have something I need to do. I won’t be long.” Evelyn grabbed the keys from the wicker basket. She walked back to Kevin. She clasped his face between her hands and pressed her lips to his. “I love you, and I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
Once seated, she plugged the directions into the navigation system. Kevin was right. She’d said her good-bye to Granny B. Evelyn headed to the tiny town of Jasper, where Henton and Hewitt once lived, according to Granny B. And where the brothers were buried.
It took her all of thirty minutes to drive there. After stopping to ask for directions, Evelyn turned right off the main street and onto a bumpy dirt road. She angled her car between two others. The cemetery was old and not as well-kept as Hillcrest. Cracked headstones leaned this way and that or were missing altogether. Dead or dying flowers dotted the plots. Evelyn studied headstones and markers for about fifteen minutes before she found what she was looking for—as well as something she wasn’t.
“Uncle Milton?”
When the lean, square-jawed man faced her, Evelyn noticed that even though his hair had grayed, he looked very much like the baby boy in the picture on Granny B’s wall. His lips broke into a familiar smile, a smile so like her grandma’s it triggered a sudden painful ache in her heart.
“Evelyn.”
She stepped into his arms, and they embraced briefly, yet deeply, something they hadn’t done at their last meeting.
“I see you’re taking the plunge.”
“The plunge?”
“You’re having a baby.” It was obvious he hadn’t noticed during that emotional visit.
“Yes, Kevin and I can’t wait.” She paused. “I’m surprised to see you here.”
“You’re surprised? No more than I am. Why are you here anyway?”
Evelyn shrugged. “The same reason you are, I guess. So that’s where they’re buried?”
Uncle Milton’s brow furrowed. “They?”
“All the secrets,” Evelyn improvised.
Uncle Milton stared at his niece for a moment, but then he knelt at the grave, arranging the fresh flowers he must have placed there. “You’re probably wondering how I knew to come here.”
“Just a little bit.”
He fiddled with the flowers. “I talked to Mama the day before she died.”
Evelyn gasped.
“Actually, I visited her, and we talked a long time. It was probably the most I’d talked to her in . . . well, ever, I guess.” Uncle Milton finally stood and brushed off his knees. “She looked good and strong. She sounded healthy. Mama looked happier and more peaceful than I’d ever seen her. We talked about her condition . . . her dying. Thanks for writing me . . . and for bringing Mama to see me.”
She shrugged off his thanks.
He glanced back to the grave, which was simply marked by a nameplate pushed into the ground. Henton Agnew. “For some reason, I asked her where Daddy was buried. I don’t know why I did—I just wanted to know, and I had a feeling she knew. But what shocked me is she told me.”
He looked at Evelyn and smiled wryly. “You know Mama was good for keeping things to herself.”
Evelyn shook her head wistfully, secretly grateful.
“Anyway. When Lis called the next day and told me Mama had died, I just didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t come to her funeral. After all that time, I’d finally started to feel like I was getting a mother and a father, and then just like that . . .” He closed his eyes. “I wanted to remember her the way I’d last seen her.”
Evelyn pretended to study the grass at their feet. Instead, she peered at the nameplate on the grave to Henton’s left: H. A. Agnew. She quickly calculated that Hewitt had died the same year Uncle Milton was born. She didn’t point out the grave or her ironic discovery to Uncle Milton. After a while, he opened his eyes. “Ready?”
“Well, actually, not really. I’d like to stay for a moment longer. But don’t wait for me,” Evelyn offered quickly, “because we can catch up at the house. Where is Aunt Nancy?”
“At the hotel. I guess it’s time for me to pick her up and face the music with everybody.”
“Brace yourself. But don’t worry. It’s just like a bee sting. It hurts a lot but just for a moment.”
He laughed with Evelyn and hugged her again, even more tightly this time. He took a step away before he looked at her hand. “Hydrangeas?”
“Oh yeah!” Evelyn looked down in surprise, having forgotten the pot of flowers she had purchased. She crouched at Hewitt’s neglected spot.
“What are you doing?”
“Well, it looks so empty, and you’ve already taken care of your father’s.”
“Those will require some work, won’t they? They can grow to a pretty large size.”
Tenderly she set the container of flowers down and reached for a nearby stick. “I know, but I don’t mind.”
“Well . . . okay. I’ll see you then.”
For a moment, Evelyn watched Uncle Milton pick his way around the gravesites before she returned her attention to the two buried at her feet. She brushed away the crushed leaves and broken limbs covering H. A. Agnew and thought about what she would have said to him if she’d had the chance. Then she plucked the resealed, yellowed envelope from where she’d hidden it among the blooms and wondered at those words meant only for her grandmother, written long before Evelyn’s time. She sighed. There’d been enough said.
Kneeling, she used the stick and her bare hands to scoop out clumps of dirt. After she’d made room for the hydrangeas, she withdrew a miniature box she’d bought at the last minute and pushed it open.
Evelyn struck a match and held it to the corner of the rectangle. At first, the edge glowed bright red before turning black and fading to white. More smoke than flame, the heat crept over the paper until finally nothing but a fragment was left. She dropped it, but not before the tiny flame licked the tip of her thumb, a tender red blotch admonishing her for holding on a little too long. Rising slowly, Evelyn brushed off the ashes, leaves, and dirt that clung to her knees and hands and followed in the footsteps of Granny B’s baby boy.
A Note from the Author
IN THE WORDS OF MICHAEL CRICHTON, “This novel is fiction, except for the parts that aren’t.” Yes, there actually is a Spring Hope, North Carolina, but that’s where all similarities end and creativity begins. None of these folks walk and talk except in my mind and heart—and in yours now, too. Also, while I’m not sure if my mama adds green peppers and onions to her ham hocks, I add them to everything, so I wrote those in. There were no bugs killed in the writing of this
novel, though I tried.
Acknowledgments
TO SAY I ACKNOWLEDGE GOD may be stating the obvious, but this is my rooftop, and I’m shouting His name from it. He is my inspiration and the fulfillment of it.
I couldn’t have typed The End without my beginning, my dearest husband, Eddie, and my middle, our precious children. There’s nobody like my crew. God led me to “write the vision,” but they were the ones who helped me “run with it.” They filled my coffee cup; prayed with and for me; listened to me rant, rave, and read; kept the laundry flowing; loved on me and cheered for me; made me laugh; became amateur social media specialists, publicists, and personal assistants; and sat dusty in the corner while I holed myself away. I may have been responsible for homeschooling them, but they taught me more than any textbook or literature anthology. While I didn’t get it at first, they made the children’s book I’ll Love You Forever my over-the-top personal testimony. Eddie, thank you for being my safe place. Nick, Kate, Benjamin, Faith, Hillary Grace, Hallie, August . . . my quiver and my heart are full.
But this story wouldn’t have blossomed without strong roots to grow it and anchor it. My parents made sure my sisters and I spent lots of time with our grandmothers, who taught me to hold faith and family dear, no matter how hard it got. My parents always supported me as their daughter, and they never stopped believing in me, the writer, even when my hands were buried deep in a sink full of dirty dishes or cradling one sweet, sleepless baby after another. My sisters and I wouldn’t be who we are—to each other and to our own families—without them. Of course, I wouldn’t have my own peeps without my father- and mother-in-love who produced this amazing man I get to call my husband. They welcomed me as a second daughter and made our children theirs. These two are always there in a pinch and will even pinch us back if we need it. I love them all from the top of my head to the tips of my toes.
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