He promised that when he got home, they could sit down and divide their lives like adults. Whether it would actually work out that way, she had no idea. She knew Tyler too well. But she could hope.
When they hung up, the emptiness of the house and the revelation of how it would be now moved in on her like a hurricane making landfall. It beat her from every angle.
When she was finally able to rise from its aftermath, she picked up the phone again and called her mother. Her parents would be there in a few hours. Then she dialed Leo. He’d be there in thirty minutes.
Zach shifted his body and almost fell off the sofa. He cursed the pain in his back as he tried to stand. He had never realized in his past moments spent on that sofa how uncomfortable it could be for a full night’s sleep. Maybe he should have thought about that before he got himself here.
Here. He was here, wasn’t he? He was here in that place where somehow secretly he had wanted to be. Yet now that he’d arrived, it was the last place he ever thought he would be.
He put on his pants and moved to the window. He stared at the street. Saturday activities were already in full swing, the sidewalks teeming with people who had no idea his life was officially in the toilet. They were drinking Starbucks and walking their dogs and reading the Tennessean and talking about things that didn’t matter. And he was a grown man who’d been caught with his pants down. None of it felt like he’d thought it would.
He went to his desk and picked up his phone. There were no texts, no voice mails. That never happened. Elise usually texted him multiple times a day, and Caroline did too. Now even his phone was boycotting him. He tapped the small green box in the top right-hand corner. Up popped last night’s texts in the order they’d been received, including the final two that had changed his life forever.
He touched Elise’s name, and a box for him to type in his message opened. His finger hovered over the screen, but he didn’t know where to start. What did you say on a day like this? “How are you doing? Does your husband know yet? Has your world collapsed yet? Are you alive, or did Caroline come over and kill you?”
The last thought might not play out well in court should that be where this ended up. What a stupid thought. Caroline was his wife. There was no doubt where this would end up. It would play out in the very courthouse where he worked every week, but now he’d be one of the Craigs in Craig v. Craig. And what a versus that would be.
His finger began touching the keys. Do you need me to come talk to Tim? He pushed Send before he had the opportunity to change his mind. Then he stared at the tiny screen and waited—for what, he didn’t know. For an all-capitals comment? For a response from Tim himself? For a blank screen to still be staring back at him after he had aged another twenty-four hours and twenty-four lifetimes?
I told him last night. We can have no more contact.
And that was all there was. He didn’t know what he had expected. But it wasn’t this. He hadn’t really expected her to tell her husband, and he definitely hadn’t expected her response to be “no more contact.” If anything, she had acted like she would leave Tim tomorrow if she could. And now, when she could, she was cutting Zach off instead.
There was a stab in his chest. Anger followed. He set the phone down and paced around his desk. In that moment he wished he kept a change of clothes at the office because his wrinkled dress slacks weren’t exactly what he wanted to be wearing right now. He wanted running shorts and tennis shoes so he could take off and go who knows where. He just wanted to get away from these feelings and this sense of being trapped and this . . . this pain.
He walked to the sofa, sat, and put his head in his hands. He felt the cool metal of his wedding ring press against his forehead. And with that gentle yet real reminder of all that was now potentially irretrievably broken, Zach Craig wept. For the first time in years, he actually cried.
“I smell food,” Leo said as he stepped through Grace’s open front door.
“Of course you do. You are to food like a metal detector is to cheap jewelry.” Grace closed the door behind him and then led him into the kitchen.
“You look kinda rough.”
“Divorce will do that to you.”
He stopped in the middle of the front hall. “I’m so sorry.”
She tugged at his hand to keep him in forward motion. “Me too.”
She made him sit on a stool at the counter, then picked up a platter of apricot scones. She brought him Devonshire cream, a plate, and a napkin.
“Does this mean you’re not mad at me anymore?” His eyes held the same pleading as a puppy’s after the fifth accident of the day.
She pulled up a stool beside him. “No, I’m not mad at you. I was hurt. I was scared. And I was really mad at Tyler, at our life, at all that had gotten us to that moment. At me. But not you, Leo.”
He looked at her, then back at his plate. She smiled but didn’t have the energy to laugh. “You can eat now.”
A big grin wrapped around his face as he plucked two scones from the platter and moved them to his smaller plate. The two piles of cream he placed beside them would be considered more scoops than dollops. He crammed half a scone with cream into his mouth. “I’m so glad you’re not mad anymore.” The words came out as a jumbled mess, but she had spent the last ten years deciphering his words through his food. “Does this mean you’re coming back to work?”
She hadn’t really thought about work. For the past two weeks, she hadn’t thought about much of anything but surviving. She let the question settle on her for a moment. What else would she do? Broadcasting was what she knew. It was her source of income as well.
“Of course,” she told him. “But I think I might need another week.”
“Sure. Sure. You’ve got plenty of vacation time accumulated.” Small pieces of scone shot out when he said it. “You could take a year. Though for an on-air talent, I don’t think that would—”
The sound of the doorbell stopped him from finishing. Miss Daisy was already at the door, announcing her displeasure to the person on the other side of it. It took all of ten seconds to figure out who was there. The fuchsia reflection through the glass in the door gave it away. Grace had called her and Rachel after she called Leo.
She opened the door. “Hey, Scarlett Jo.”
Scarlett Jo scooted through quickly. “I need to get in here. I swear a cicada chased me the whole way.” She looked at Grace and wrapped her up in her thick arms. “How are you, sugar?”
“Alive.” That was the best she could do at the moment.
Scarlett Jo released her from the hug but still held her shoulders tightly. The woman could be a brute. Maybe that’s why God had given her boys.
“Tell me all about it,” Scarlett Jo commanded, pulling Grace into another bear hug.
Over Scarlett Jo’s shoulder, Grace caught sight of Rachel coming up the steps. “How about if I tell you both at the same time.”
Grace led them to the kitchen. Scarlett Jo spotted the scones before she spotted Leo. “Oh my, what are those?”
Leo stopped midchew and dropped his scone as if his hand were in the cookie jar. “Y’all ain’t ever hath Grathe’th thconth?” he asked.
Scarlett Jo squinted at him as if that would help her make out his words. Her entire body seemed to follow her nose toward the platter of goodies. “No. She makes scones?”
Rachel moved around Grace and opened a kitchen cabinet to pull out more plates. “Does she make scones? Grace Shepherd makes some of the most amazing scones you’ve ever eaten.”
Grace leaned against the counter and watched as the entire room forgot she existed. Leo’s brow furrowed and he curled his arm around his plate in case the additional guests got any ideas of snatching something.
Rachel patted his arm. “Leo, you can keep your scone. I promise we’re not going to take it from you.”
He took another large bite.
Rachel and Scarlett Jo each fixed themselves a plate and started lathering cream on their scones. T
hen they both looked at Grace as if they suddenly realized why they were here. She saw their torture over engaging her in conversation and having to wait to take the first bite. She motioned toward them. “Eat.”
They quickly returned to the food in front of them, and she smiled at their delight. She’d always loved watching people enjoy her food. It was one of the things she found dissatisfying about her job. She liked being a newscaster, especially working with Leo. But with television, it was just you and the camera. You couldn’t touch people. You only talked at them. It was so impersonal. You rarely got the gratification of seeing people respond to what you had done for them.
Grace jumped at the sound of Scarlett Jo’s hand slapping the countertop. She slapped it again as she chewed. “Oh, my side, that is the best thing I have ever put in my mouth.” Then she slapped Rachel.
“Ow. What was that for?”
“Because this stuff is slap-your-mama good. And since my mama is not here, you’ll have to do.”
Grace let out a soft laugh—and it hurt. Her eyes hurt. Her body hurt. Her head hurt. But that laugh felt good too. Watching her friends sit here and eat her scones felt good.
Scarlett Jo threw her head back in sheer rapture as she chewed. The sounds she made caused Rachel to raise a manicured eyebrow. Scarlett Jo looked at her, and a huge smile swept over her pink cheeks. She threw her arm around Rachel.
Rachel twirled her finger at her temple. “She’s cuckoo,” she mouthed.
Then Scarlett Jo threw her other arm around Leo.
Leo just smiled and stuffed another scone in his mouth. Rachel extracted herself from Scarlett Jo’s grip and gave Grace a you-can’t-be-serious look.
“Grace.” Scarlett Jo wiped her mouth. “Seriously, honey, how long have you been baking like this?”
Leo shook his head and patted his bulging belly. He’d unbutton his khakis in a minute. “This woman has been cooking like this as long as I’ve known her. Ever tasted her cinnamon rolls? Her homemade pimento-cheese sandwiches?”
Scarlett Jo moved another scone from the platter to her plate. “Nope. Not yet, anyway.”
“Woman, then you have missed out. This girl makes the best stuff I’ve ever eaten.”
Rachel gently touched the corners of her mouth with a napkin. “She makes my kids’ birthday cakes too.”
Leo raised his hand. “Oh yes, FYI, do not forget my birthday is in two weeks.”
Scarlett Jo chewed with her hand over her mouth and nodded at the same time. “Shee’th dointh my nexth oneth.”
Grace took the container of Devonshire cream from the refrigerator and put two more big scoops in the bowl that sat by the now half-empty plate of scones. She watched her guests move quicker than paparazzi on a royal. When they had stuffed themselves, she told them about her conversation with Tyler.
It felt good to talk about it finally. But after a few tears, a few hugs, and a good dose of her sweet peach tea, Scarlett Jo stopped the conversation with one question.
“Grace, if you could do anything in this world, what would you do?”
The question sent her sifting through old memories but left her with no answer. She simply shrugged.
Scarlett Jo shifted her top as if all she had eaten had settled on her chest, then leaned on the counter. “So you’re telling me you have no idea what would make you the most happy.”
All she could do was shrug again.
“I’ll tell you when she’s the most happy.” Rachel leaned over and crossed her arms on the countertop as well. “It’s when she’s in the kitchen. This is where Grace Shepherd comes to life.”
And that was true. “I do feel alive when I’m baking. But I feel even more alive when I watch people eat what I’ve made.”
“Well, good.” Leo seemed to dislike where the conversation was going. “Then you should get tons of joy watching me eat your cooking every morning when you come to work. At your job. At the television station where you work. ’Cause Lord knows nobody’s going to enjoy it like I do.”
Scarlett Jo got up and pushed her barstool under the counter. “Well, I’m going to say this to you. Whatever makes you feel alive, whatever helps you rediscover that carefree childlike heart I know is in there somewhere—” she reached over and tapped Grace on the chest—“that is what you should be doing. Sugar, you act too old for your age, and you don’t have to. You’re young. You’re beautiful. It’s time for you to assume freedom and not let all those fears and restrictions hold you back. There is this amazing world out there waiting for you, sugar pie. But you’ve got to choose to live in it.”
Grace looked at her new friend and felt something in her shift. She had forgotten what it was to feel alive. Honestly, she wasn’t even sure what that meant. But one thing she did know. She had been dead for long enough.
Zach was a wreck. Caroline hadn’t talked to him since she stormed out last night. He had spent most of this beautiful Saturday holed up in his office, trying to figure out who he should call and what he should do.
He’d spent an hour on the phone with one of his attorney buddies who also handled divorces. His friend would set things into motion first thing Monday morning if he needed to. Zach hoped it wouldn’t come to that. But he’d been in the business long enough to know he couldn’t wait for Caroline to make all the moves. If he did, he could end up sleeping on the office sofa for the next year.
He didn’t have any other close friends to call because most of his friends were shared. Their wives were Caroline’s friends, and until he knew what she was going to do, he hated to bring someone else in on it. He was just glad he had a bathroom down the hall and enough restaurants around him that he wouldn’t starve.
At seven o’clock he called Caroline again. She didn’t answer. He hadn’t heard from the girls all day, and not knowing what was going on made him stir-crazy.
He ventured out to McCreary’s, the Irish pub up the street from his office. He sat down with some fish-and-chips and a cold beer and watched a little baseball, but he never took in any of it—not the food, not the chill of the beer, not even the cracking of the bat on the ball. All he could think about was where his life had evolved to in a mere twenty-four hours—and how he had gotten here.
The thing was, when you lived the kind of life he’d been living, you could develop a sense of invincibility. The feeling that you’re good at your game, that you’d never get caught. It was a fantasy, an escape. Yes, there was also the guilt of it, the lying. That awful sense of shame when the realization of what you were really doing settled over you and you were desperate to wash it off. But that just made you even more desperate to escape your reality. More susceptible to the fantasy.
It was a sad and twisted mess, and here he was in the middle of it, all alone. He had no idea where he would end up. For the first time in a long time, he had absolutely no idea what would happen with the rest of his life.
He picked up his cell phone, which sat by his plate of picked-at food. He dialed. The familiar voice came on the other end. It brought both a peace and a dread.
“Hey, Dad.”
“Hey, bud. How are you?”
Zach moved his fork across the crispy outer shell of the fried cod. “Not real good. In fact, I was wondering . . . any chance you could come to Franklin?”
His dad would be there in a few hours. And he had agreed with no questions asked.
Zach’s cell phone buzzed on the mattress in the Marriott Cool Springs hotel room he’d booked for him and his dad. He squinted at the display, trying to make out the name on the caller ID. It flashed in a blur. He wiped his eyes and squinted again. It looked like Caroline. He answered quickly.
“I want to meet at church.” His wife’s voice was flat but collected.
He sat up in the bed, his mind still not awake but his body shot through with adrenaline. Why church? His mind fumbled for answers, then realized it was Sunday. She wanted him to meet her at the church service. But why?
“Um . . . yeah,” he muttered. “A
re you sure? What about the girls? Are they okay? Have you told them anything?”
“They actually left to spend the week at my mother’s. It was planned before this.”
He had no recollection of that, but then he never knew what she was planning until it was time for him to know—which meant whenever she deemed it necessary.
“Oh. Well, sure, I’ll meet you. But I need a change of clothes. I didn’t have anything with me at the office.”
“I’m leaving in a few minutes to go to the store and pick up some things. So you can come by the house after that and get your stuff. Then we can talk after church.”
“Okay. Yeah, I guess. Have you talked to Jackson or Scarlett Jo about this? Do they know what’s going on?”
“I haven’t said anything to them. I did, however, speak to Elise’s husband.” She said this in a way that let him know she was very much in control. “He informed me that he and Elise are going away for a couple days and he’s not going to say anything until they get back in town. Now I’ve got to go. Just meet me there. We’ll talk later.”
He ran a hand back and forth through his thick brown hair, the fog still heavy in his mind. “I’ll meet you there.” He paused. “Thanks, Caroline. Thanks for talking to me.”
She hung up without another word.
His dad rolled over in the bed across from him. “What did Caroline have to say?”
Zach scooted down under the covers and laid his head on the pillow with his face toward his father. “She wants me to go to church with her. She said we could talk after that. I’m figuring she’s already been in touch with a lawyer. She’ll go for the big guns too. Adele will make sure of it.”
His dad sat up and took his glasses from the bedside table, where they lay atop his Bible. He had shared some things from it with Zach the night before as Zach unraveled what had been happening. Now he fluffed his pillow so he could lean against it. “Son, I don’t know what Caroline is going to do. But at this point it really isn’t about Caroline. It isn’t about your marriage. It’s about you. You can’t fix the two of you until you’ve first taken care of your own heart.”
Secrets over Sweet Tea Page 15
