The Night the Lights Went Out

by Karen White

  So we got a sheet from the house and wrapped most of what was in the trunk and all the bloody rags and my nightgown with a bunch of rocks and sank it all in the lake. Willa Faye said she’d put the trunk someplace where it would be forgotten. I didn’t ask where and we never talked about it. Willa Faye was small, so I knew she couldn’t have moved it very far, but it didn’t matter. Nobody would be asking after Curtis Brown.

  I’ve kept the weeds off Curtis’s grave all these years because I think Mama would have wanted me to. But that’s all, because he doesn’t deserve any more than that. And I keep the secret still in honor of Mama’s memory.

  We never spoke of that night again. Even Mama. She retreated back into her world and didn’t speak another word until she died. But Willa Faye and me, not a word about it between us. It bonded us. Branded us as best friends. Because I will always remember that when I told her I needed help burying a body, the first thing she said was, “Let me go get my shovel.”

  Thirty-eight

  MERILEE

  “Mom! Come here!” Colin shouted from the front porch.

  Merilee quickly put down the pine boughs with red and green ribbons she’d been using to decorate the mantel—following specific directions from Sugar—grabbed her crutches, and moved as quickly as she could out onto Sugar’s front porch, expecting to see their arriving visitors. It was early, but if Sugar was involved, Merilee was prepared to see them get there up to an hour earlier than expected.

  She nearly collided with Lily, who was jumping up and down with excitement. “Hurry, Mom,” she said, helping Merilee down the steps and then around the side of the house. The ground was hard with the first frost, making it easier to hobble across the grass with crutches. She wondered if all the excitement was about Sugar’s sheep wearing the bright red bows that Wade had been threatening to dress them in for more than a week.

  Trying to catch her breath, she paused at the corner of the house and looked at the woods. She still wasn’t used to seeing the swath of red earth where trees had been just a month before, the scent of pine still thick. Sugar had given Wade permission to clear the felled trees, but that was all. At least for now. Lindi and a law school friend were helping her establish a trust that would forever preserve her woods and family cemetery and the farmhouse, barn, and cottage in perpetuity. To remind future Sweet Appletonians of what it had once been like long before roundabouts, SUVs, and coffee shops had taken over the landscape.

  Sugar seemed almost happy now, knowing it would all be taken care of after she was gone. Merilee wondered if the unburdening of her secret might have also been the cause of Sugar’s lighter spirits. Merilee felt happier, too. Maybe it was the mutual unburdening that had brought them closer together, but she suddenly felt full of possibilities. Like happiness was possible and even within her reach.

  “Mom, look!” Lily said, pointing to where Colin—without shoes or socks despite the December cold—sat in the grass with something white and fluffy on his lap, the ubiquitous binoculars around his neck.

  Merilee blinked. “Is that . . . ?”

  “It’s the white dog I kept seeing! See? I told you it was real! She just came out of the woods and ran right to me. Does this mean I can keep her?”

  Merilee came closer and saw that the furry white bundle in her son’s lap was indeed a dog. “Does she have a collar?” she asked hopefully.

  He shook his head. “Nope. So we can keep her?”

  “Well, we’ll have to put missing-dog posters up, and take her to a vet to see if she has a microchip . . .”

  “And if she doesn’t belong to anybody, can we keep her?”

  Merilee smelled the pine and thought of what Sugar had told her about her beloved dog, Dixie, and about a little white dog that had led her to Merilee the night of the storm. She thought of all the little bread crumbs in both of their lives that had led them down paths they hadn’t planned but had managed to navigate anyway.

  Merilee smiled. “Yes. We can keep her—as long as she doesn’t belong to anybody else, we can keep her.” Both children whooped with joy, and the little dog looked at her with round, dark eyes behind very dirty and matted fur, and Merilee was pretty sure the dog belonged to them now.

  “Mom?” Lily looked up with bright eyes, her brow smooth for the first time in a long while. “Can I invite Jenna over to see the dog?”

  Jenna was Lily’s new BFF, according to Lily. Merilee approved, knowing how important it was for her daughter to have someone like Jenna to share her secrets with. And to share something as lovely as the joy of welcoming a new dog.

  “Sure. Tell her she can spend the night, too. She can help finish decorating the tree with us, if she wants.”

  The sound of a car pulling up brought them back to the front of the house. Wade was helping Sugar out of the backseat before heading to the front passenger seat to assist his grandmother. He’d taken them both out to lunch, something he did frequently, since Willa Faye didn’t drive and Sugar hated spending the money.

  Willa Faye was tiny, about Lily’s size, with flaming red hair and dancing green eyes. She could see where Wade got a lot of his personality, just by looking in the face of this old woman.

  “Merilee,” Wade said, “I’d like you to meet . . .”

  Willa Faye held out her arms to Merilee. “She knows who I am, and, darlin’, I’m so happy to finally meet you. You’re just as pretty as Sugar said you were.”

  Sugar grunted as Merilee laughed and allowed herself to be embraced. “And you’re exactly as I pictured you.”

  “Like a Hollywood movie star, right?” She winked at Merilee, then allowed Wade to help her up the steps while Colin escorted Sugar, having reluctantly relinquished his hold on the dog to Lily.

  They settled themselves in the front parlor while Merilee gave Lily instructions to bring out the Christmas cookies they’d made—using Sugar’s memorized recipes—and Wade excused himself to help bring in the teapot and cups.

  “Colin—please get a water bowl for the dog, and put some of the leftover chicken in another bowl to see if she’s hungry. And then give her a bath. Who knows what’s in that fur.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Colin said seriously. “You won’t ever have to ask me again to feed Dixie or fill her water bowl or bathe her. I just hope she doesn’t like to chase birds, because then that’ll be a problem.”

  “Dixie? Where’d you come up with that name?” Merilee asked, startled.

  He shrugged. “I don’t know. It just kinda fits.”

  Merilee met Sugar’s gaze for a brief moment. “Yeah. I guess it does.”

  The two old women sat together on the sofa, and Merilee had a glimpse of them in their youth, of their smooth skin and shiny hair. Their unlined hands cupped over delicate ears as they whispered secrets.

  Wade and Lily came in with trays of tea and cookies and set out everything on the coffee table. As Lily handed Merilee a plate, Wade said to her, “Did Sugar tell you that the DNA results came back from the lab? There’s no familial connection between Sugar and the person whose blood was on the shirt in the cellar. I guess we’ll never know the story behind it.”

  “I guess not,” Sugar said as she accepted a plate of cookies from Lily.

  He smiled as he handed his grandmother a cup and began to pour another for Sugar.

  “I understand you’re stepping out with my grandson,” Willa Faye said.

  Merilee choked on her cookie. “Stepping out?”

  “She means dating,” Wade said as he sat down next to her and took a cookie from the tray. “I told her we were dating.”

  “We are?”

  He nodded. “It’s not just anybody I will agree to cart around while their leg is in a cast. Or put up their Christmas tree and decorate their house.”

  “I guess we’re dating, then.”

  “Ew,” Lily said as she took another bite of her cooki
e, but Merilee knew she was happy about it. Michael and Tammy were getting married in a month, and Lily would be the flower girl, which was also good news. As had been the news that after the Christmas holidays, Lily and Colin would be returning to their old school and their old friends. It had ultimately been the children’s choice, since Merilee couldn’t decide whether the stigma of your mother being arrested and then exonerated for murder or your father impregnating your math teacher was worse.

  Wherever they went would be a challenge, but she knew Lily and Colin would eventually find their social group in school. The trick was in determining who your real friends were. Heather Blackford had taught her that lesson the hard way. But as Merilee watched Sugar and Willa Faye, she knew a person needed only one really good friend to get through all the hard stuff. And to help bury any bodies along the way.

  The things we do for those we love. Like protecting a secret. Or driving through a tornado. Or allowing your son to keep a dog. It was something she thought about frequently now, remembering how Sugar had saved her life and how Lindi had never doubted Merilee’s innocence. Her parents’ desertion had somehow lost its sting in recent months as Merilee had discovered these new and unexpected friendships and the love they contained.

  “So,” Wade said, sitting back on the sofa, his arm around Merilee’s shoulders. “I’ve had a question burning my tongue. When Sugar was in the hospital and Merilee sent me here to pick up a few things, I got a text from Merilee asking me not to go into the office on the first floor.”

  Willa Faye turned to her old friend. “You didn’t. He is my grandson, you know. That’s like a red flag to a bull.”

  Sugar pursed her lips. “I was under heavy pain medication, or else I would have thought twice about it.”

  “Anyway, I went inside the room, and you’ll never believe what I saw.”

  “A state-of-the-art computer and Internet router,” Merilee said.

  He sent Merilee a questioning look. “You knew?”

  She nodded. “Right after the third or fourth blog post, I believe, I was at your house with the children, learning how to make fried chicken and gravy. Apparently Sugar doesn’t believe I can survive as a woman in Georgia without knowing how to do that or fold a fitted sheet. I needed to use the powder room and opened the wrong door. I saw the computer and printer and a copy of one of the blog posts sitting on top. I remembered her saying that she once had a newspaper column a while back in the Atlanta Journal. She kept that Smith-Corona typewriter on the dining room table for show, which is exactly something Sugar would do. That’s when I figured out that Sugar was our anonymous blogger.”

  “And you never said anything.” Sugar sounded almost disappointed.

  Merilee grinned and took a sip of her tea. “I guess I can keep a secret, too.”

  THE PLAYING FIELDS BLOG

  Observations of Suburban Life from Sweet Apple, Georgia

  Written by: Your Neighbor

  Installment #11: Life Goes On and Other Myths

  As I’m sure you’re all aware, this has been a consternating month for us here in Sweet Apple. What with a murder, an attempted murder, and a tornado, it’s like the Tower of Terror, Times Square, and Armageddon all rolled into one. I know some of us are thinking that life will never be the same in our corner of the world.

  But it will be—mostly. That’s a good thing. Life shouldn’t be an unbroken road of wonderful. It’s the curves in the road that build character and show us our mettle. Every path has its puddles, but that doesn’t mean we can’t or shouldn’t travel them. We just need to remember to wear our boots and bring along our friends and those who love us. They can lift us over some of the puddles, or pull us out when we fall in. And we can do the same for them. Life’s journey doesn’t mean much without friends who love you to come along for the ride.

  We’re very lucky to have emerged relatively unscathed from the tornado, unless you’re one of the pine trees that got put through the sawmill of that particular storm. It was nice seeing neighbors helping neighbors, and our Sweet Apple police and fire departments working extra hours to make sure we were all safe. It’s why I live in a small town, and even though I feel the outer limits of the city of Atlanta pressing on us like a bruise, I hope we never lose what’s special about living here.

  Before I move off the topic of our recent tragedy, allow me to share a few words of wisdom that I gleaned from all these goings-on. The first is a Latin proverb: Revenge is a confession of pain. We’ve all been hurt by something in our past. And those of us who may have been the cause of the hurt probably regret it deeply. We all carry our own burdens. Everybody. So before you try to get even for some slight, either real or imagined—even if that bicyclist is going half the speed limit in the middle of your lane—remember that. We’ve all experienced here a very good example of revenge gone very, very badly. And just in case your mama never taught you this, two wrongs will never make a right.

  And now on to a lighter note: Christmas decorations. There used to be a time when people put a wreath on their door and lights on their tree in the front room window and called it a day. Nowadays I hear of people you can actually hire to decorate your house for you, placing a different themed tree in each room and timing your three million tiny colored bulbs on the outside of your house to blink on and off to the loud sound system hidden in your front garden.

  I used to think that the blow-up Santas and snowmen were a little left of center on the tacky scale, but they were festive and showed good spirit, so I was happy to look the other way. The light show worthy of Disney World, though? I’m not so sure. I knew I’d seen enough when I spotted a Mercedes convertible with a large red nose on its front bumper and antlers sticking out the sides of its windows. The poor little dog in the backseat—in a car seat, mind you—wore a Santa hat and looked like he’d be happy to jump out of the car into traffic just to get away from the embarrassment.

  This is not LA, people. We shine instead of sparkle, we smile and bless their hearts instead of giving the finger. Like my mama taught me about wearing jewelry: Put on everything you want to wear, and then take one thing off. Same should go for Christmas decorations. You do not need a wreath in every window. The one on the front door looks special enough.

  This all brings me to today’s Southernism: “You can’t tell much about a chicken potpie ’til you cut through the crust.” Just because somebody’s beautiful on the outside, with the best clothes, perfect children, and a loving husband, doesn’t mean there’s nothing rotten on the inside. And you won’t know until you dig a little deeper. It’s like buying cantaloupe at Kroger—you can smell it and squeeze it and even thump it, but you’re really not going to know if it’s sweet until you cut it open and take a bite.

  In closing, I’d like to respond to a frequently asked question about this blog—namely, who’s the author. Let’s just say I’m your neighbor, somebody you probably see around town as you’re taking the children to school, having coffee at the local coffee shop, or getting your hair done. I’ve lived here for a while and seen a lot of changes—some of them good, some of them not so much. I will continue to apprise you of my observations of our little corner of the world, provide interesting Southernisms that may be defined for our growing number of newcomers, and sometimes even point out our absurdities.

  I will eventually retire one day, and pass the blog on to someone I already have in mind. Someone smart and wise, and who knows what surviving life’s storms is all about. But I won’t confess my identity. There are no secrets that time will not eventually reveal, yet for now, in this age of oversharing, I choose to hold on to this small thing, shared only with true friends. That’s the measure of friendship, isn’t it? Knowing people who will jar your secret and store it in a dark cellar forever. People who know it’s never about the secret itself, but the keeping of it. And that’s something to keep in mind the next time the lights go out.

  The Night th
e Lights Went Out

  KAREN WHITE

  Questions for Discussion

  1. A matriarch in a small town is a familiar character for many readers. How is the character of Sugar used to progress the story and provide the backbone for it?

  2. Female friendships, such as the unlikely bond between Sugar and Merilee and the friendship between Heather and Merilee, are the core of the story. Why do you think these friendships were struck up suddenly? What is it about human nature that causes people to gravitate toward finding friendship?

  3. Acceptance is a major topic in the story, with both Merilee and Heather having felt rejected as children and, as an adult, Merilee wanting to be accepted by the other mothers. What causes the need for acceptance? Is it society or our human nature?

  4. Family life is seen in many different ways in the novel, including what it means to be a mother—through the eyes of Sugar, Merilee, and Heather—and what it means to have a mother. In what ways do each woman’s experiences with her mother define her own ideas of motherhood and parenting?

  5. The identity of the gossip blogger is revealed at the end—were you surprised at who it was? Did you have other guesses? How did the blogger fit into the story of a small town and help to feed the rumor mill?

  6. Sugar’s life during the Depression in Sweet Apple provides a stark contrast to the way present-day inhabitants of Sweet Apple live, especially Heather. Do you know anyone who grew up during the Great Depression, and if so, does this person have an attitude toward money that is similar to Sugar’s?