Between, Georgia

by Joshilyn Jackson

  I took a sip of my coffee and set the cup back down. I knew from experience that Mama didn’t miss a trick when it came to knowing exactly who was having what sweetheart, but I had never seen this Bernese. I couldn’t quite fathom my pragmatic aunt in the role of Juliet. I tried to imagine her off at college, young, pretty, crazy in love, sporting a long, bouncing ponytail and running across campus to hold hands with Isaac Davids. I tried to imagine her having her heart broken.

  It was hard to believe that she hadn’t been able to stop going back to Isaac, even after forty years. I couldn’t wrap my head around it until I connected her behavior with my own on-again, off-again dance with Jonno. I had assumed my inability to cut things off came from some slutty Crabtree gene. But apparently, I’d learned it by osmosis from a Frett.

  It had been so hard in the car to lean back six inches and break with Jonno, even though our marriage was stone-cold dead. I tried to imagine how much harder it would have been if I’d still been at all in love with him. I probably wouldn’t have managed it. I said, “How did it happen? You were back home, married to Lou.”

  She dropped her eyes. “I thought Isaac was married, too. I’d seen his engagement announcement in the Atlanta paper the year after I graduated. Nice Jewish girl, old family, exactly what his folks wanted. He was in practice then at his father’s firm, and I needed a lawyer to look at a contract I’d been offered for your mama’s dolls. I didn’t know if it was fair or what half of it even meant.”

  Isaac reached out and took her hand. I hadn’t realized that it was trembling until he stilled it. She looked at him, but he nodded for her to continue.

  “So I went into town to see him. And I told myself it was because I knew that I could trust him, as a lawyer. Also, I thought if I saw him married, happy, I’d stop thinking about him all the time. But Nonny, he hadn’t married that girl. He’d shied off at the last second. He couldn’t forget me, either. And then that article came out in Life magazine, and Cordova offered us the big contract, and Isaac could afford to leave his father’s firm and open up his own practice.”

  “And he decided to open it here,” I said.

  Bernese tapped the fingers of her free hand against the table and firmed her jaw. “I want you to know, we haven’t gone on and on this way. We know it’s wrong. We’ve stopped a lot of times.

  We’re working on it.”

  I smiled in spite of myself, seeing Mama telling me I had to stop working on things. Saying that Fretts don’t waffle. Fretts choose. Fretts do.

  At last Isaac spoke. “Bernese and I would like, as a courtesy, to know what your course of action will be regarding Lou. Prefer-ably before you take it.”

  I took another sip of my coffee and then said, “I guess that depends on Bernese.”

  Bernese’s eyes narrowed, and her spine lengthened as she drew herself up. She took a quick breath, and she and Isaac exchanged a glance that spoke volumes in a language only they knew. They both realized that we were sitting at a negotiating table, probably the place Bernese and Isaac felt the most at home in all of life.

  “You want peace?” Bernese said. “I can get straight with Ona on those dogs. And I know she was part and parcel of that fire, but I won’t press that. I can even forgive her.” She said the word

  “forgive” as if it were made of dry ice, so cold it made her teeth ache. But she said it.

  I shook my head. “You’re offering something you can’t deliver.”

  I could see now that what Henry had said was true. Ona and Bernese were more alike than I ever would have realized, and they’d never be able to stomach each other. “I’ll make my own peace with Ona. I can’t imagine the two of you getting past loathing. On your side, I’ll settle for fake indifference, maybe even a show of good manners.”

  “Done.” Bernese leaned forward again. “What else are you after?” I sat quietly and waited her out until she sucked in her breath and said, “You’re taking Fisher.”

  I nodded. “I’m taking Fisher.”

  Isaac’s hand moved to her shoulder, and I wasn’t sure if he was placing it there to show support or to keep her from lunging across the table at my throat. Her nostrils flared, and her breath came faster and faster. She was almost panting. “But I love her,”

  she said.

  “I know you do, Bernese,” I said, and then I added, as gently as I could in the wake of the last few weeks, “But face it. You aren’t very good at it.”

  I could feel the huge excess of will she carried trying to rise up in her, but I sat and stared her down. And I broke her. Her shoulders sagged, and then her whole body followed in an avalanche of release. She nodded at me before she folded her arms in front of her and put her head down on the table. Isaac’s hand moved to her back, and his eyes in their webbing of crow’s-feet were gentle on her.

  “I’ll write it up,” he said to me. When I started to rise, he stopped me by adding, “But not because I’m afraid of the truth, Nonny. I’ll write it up because it’s what’s best for Fisher.”

  I felt a twinge of Crabtree temper, but he stared at me with eyes that were dark and deliberate. Such distinctive eyes. How had I never noticed that funny down-tilt? All at once I wondered if perhaps Isaac Davids had more rights at this table than I had realized. I pushed the thought away; I knew too much already.

  I stood up, saying, “I want to be Fisher’s legal guardian as soon as possible, full physical custody, and get the paperwork started for a straight-up adoption. Don’t the two of you get your heads together and be cute with me. I’ll get a lawyer of my own to check everything.” I walked around the table and bent over to hug Bernese. “I love you so much. And you know we’ll be around. Fisher and I will come to town all the time, and you can be her grandma. That’s what you are, and that’s what you’re supposed to be. But you and I both know that baby needs a mother.

  And I’m it.”

  Bernese propped her head on her hand, clearly angry with me, but I could also see her relief. Fisher was a burden she never would have set down, but I thought she hadn’t realized what a weight it was until I lifted it.

  She rallied and said, “This has to stop here, though. You never say a word to Lou. No matter what. You can’t hold this over me every time I work your nerves.”

  I nodded. “Let’s get the paperwork done, and don’t you start anything new with Ona Crabtree. And I swear it will be like this day never happened.”

  “How do I know that?” said Bernese, looking more and more like herself every second. “How do I know you won’t use this on me every living minute?”

  “Because I am promising I won’t,” I said patiently. On impulse, I leaned down and kissed her cheek. “And because I love you, dumb-ass.”

  She put her hand to her cheek, surprised, and then said,

  “Watch that mouth.”

  “No, ma’am,” I said. “I heard you cuss like a navy boy today, and I will use that against you every day as long as we’re both living.”

  I turned and left her there, rubbing at her cheek and staring after me as if not quite sure what she was seeing. I felt her gaze on my long body. I was narrow-shouldered, tall, long-waisted, curvy at the hips, with my Crabtree red hair and freckles on every inch of my hide, yet I knew that her eyes were seeing something different. She thought she was looking at a Frett.

  But she was wrong. Henry had pegged it when he said Bernese and Ona were alike, but it was more than that. It was all of them.

  Every Frett and Crabtree with a breath in their body became dangerous, ruthless, would never bend or stop when they were protecting one of their own. This was the place where they connected, and that place was me.

  I walked home and got to work, packing Fisher and me for our weekend in Atlanta. We would leave as soon as Lou brought her home from kindergarten. I was a little giddy. I had gone to the negotiating table with Bernese, of all people, and had come away with almost everything I wanted.

  Almost.

  I wondered where Henry would be m
oving, and the giddiness ran out of me as if I had been punctured. I had no one to blame about Henry but myself. And hell, why not, maybe Jonno, too.

  But mostly me. I scrubbed angrily at my damp eyes and went down to the garage to clutch my mother and ask her to make me one of her cakes. She felt my moist fingers and reached up to touch my cheeks, wiping them the way she used to when I was five and had scraped myself to bits falling off my bike.

  She didn’t ask me what was wrong, just signed, Men can be so stupid. But cake is always good. Go pack. I’ll bake.

  The comforting smell of her orange pound cake filled the house as I loaded up my Mustang with our suitcases. Fisher came running in the front door at one, full of news about the class tur-tle and her latest art project. She sat at the kitchen table and we all had cake, me and Mama and Genny and Fisher. It was like a preview of what the Between half of my life would be like now.

  And it was good. It was very good. I could be like Mama and learn to live richly in it, Henry or no Henry.

  I helped Mama with the dishes, and then Fisher and I climbed into my Mustang. I backed out onto Grace Street.

  “In Atlanta, will we have a yard?” said Fisher.

  “I hope so,” I said.

  “Can we put a dog in it?”

  I glanced over my shoulder. She was so earnest and so innocent. “A small dog, maybe,” I said. “A tiny, tiny, pink-hearted, fluffy dog who is so gentle that squirrels can beat him up.”

  She giggled and then asked, “Can we put the top down?”

  “We’re already driving, Woolly-Worm. Next time ask before we take off.”

  We drove past the square. I saw the sheriff ’s car idling down near Isaac’s house, right at the corner. Thig had gotten out and left his door hanging open to write a ticket to some tourist who had parked on Philbert instead of pulling into the lot behind the church.

  I waved out the window to him, and as we looked ahead, I saw Henry out on the square, too, by the fountain. He lifted his hand, casual, and then let it drop. He must have thought I was waving at him. I felt my cheeks flush. I pulled my hand back in the car and kept on driving.

  At the highway entrance, I turned west onto 78, heading toward Atlanta. I hadn’t gone two miles before Fisher asked how long it would be before we got there. I told her, and she said, “I wish you’d’ve put the top down,” in a grumpy voice.

  I hadn’t gone another mile before I saw the lights of a cop car flashing behind us. I checked my speedometer. I was my usual three miles over the limit. I waited for the cop to go around me, but he stayed doggedly right behind me, pacing me. Then the siren came on. Not a peep like a polite cough, either. The whole siren whined to life and built itself up in a rising wail usually reserved for the high-speed chases of ax murderers.

  I pulled over. As soon as I stopped and got a good look at the car, I realized this wasn’t some trooper. It was Thig Newell’s car. I felt a huge flash of irritation that Thig was pulling us over, followed by a moment of pure nerves. Maybe Bernese was calling my bluff and had sent Thig to snatch Fisher back.

  The flashing lights and the god-awful siren stayed on, and no one got out of the car. I was about to walk back and see if Thig was having a stroke when the door opened, and Henry Crabtree got out and came walking along the shoulder of the freeway toward me. My heart leaped up in my chest, and I scrambled out of my car, too.

  “Nonny?” Fisher said.

  “Just a sec, baby,” I said, and shut the door. “Can’t you turn that off ?” I called, waving at the blaring car with its lights and siren.

  “No,” Henry yelled back. “I mean, really, really no. I wish I could.”

  I started laughing. I couldn’t help myself. “You stole Thig’s car?”

  “I stole Thig’s car,” he said solemnly, nodding.

  “And broke the siren,” I said, still laughing.

  “Looks like.”

  “Why?” I said. “Why on earth?” But I thought I hoped I maybe knew.

  “You went west,” he said.

  “I know.”

  “Athens is east.”

  I grinned at him. “You stole a police car and broke the siren and pulled me over to tell me which way Athens is?”

  “No,” he said, “I didn’t. I pulled you over so you could tell me that you and Fisher there are moving to Atlanta.”

  “That’s correct,” I said.

  “You’re not going back to Athens at all.”

  “Correct again.”

  “See, that would have been good information to have,” Henry said, half laughing, half exasperated.

  “Henry, what are you doing?” But I knew what he was doing, and the blaring of the siren was like church bells and choir music.

  “I’m coming after you,” he said. “Not right this second. I have to return this car, obviously, and get a check from the insurance company and buy a table or something. You know, to put in the moving truck. But then I’m coming after you.”

  I laughed so hard I had to put one hand on my car to keep from falling over. When I could speak again, I said, “Henry, we’ll be back in two days. You could have told me this on Sunday.”

  “Nope. I couldn’t.” And then Henry Crabtree kissed me breathless while a car whizzed past us and Thig’s siren blared un-relentingly and the flashing lights went whirling round and round like a strobe.

  I felt a little hand tugging on my elbow and broke the kiss to look down at Fisher. She’d rolled down her window and stuck the top half of her body out to reach me.

  “That’s really loud,” she yelled.

  My knees were weak. Henry was holding me up. “I know,” I said.

  “Are you kissing Henry Crabtree?” Fisher asked.

  “You bet.”

  “Well, but the car’s stopped,” Fisher said. “Can’t we put the top down now?”

  “Why not,” I said. “Give me a hand, Henry?” He kissed me again and then reluctantly let me go. He walked around my car, and we put the top down. Henry secured the passenger’s side while I did the driver’s.

  “Buckle back in, Woolly-Worm. We have to get on the road,”

  I said to Fisher.

  Henry said, “I better return that car. Maybe Thig can shut it off.”

  I couldn’t stop grinning at him. “You are going to get arrested.”

  “Nah,” Henry said. “You know my girlfriend? Her aunt pretty much owns the sheriff in this town.”

  He walked away into the lights and got back in his screaming stolen car. He pulled onto 78, and the wailing grew fainter and then disappeared as he exited to circle back to Between.

  I got in my Mustang. Fisher was safely buckled up in back.

  “Ready?”

  “Go!” said Fisher, and the Frett in me checked carefully for traffic just before the Crabtree peeled out, spraying gravel to make Fisher giggle. I accelerated up to the speed limit. In my rearview mirror, I could see Fisher’s fists rising up against a background of blue sky. She unfolded her hands, opening them wide, her fingers spreading to catch the wind as we roared down the highway.

  “Nonny?” she called. “Nonny? It’s like we’re flying!”

  And it was.