He looked up. “They’re talking about me out there, Darlene.”
She turned toward him, one hand on her hip. “Yes, they are. And they will continue to talk until something else happens. But trust me, something else always happens, so that’s going to blow over. And you can get all pitiful if you want, but that won’t get you anywhere. What you need to do is get started on the hunt for the Zach Craig you used to be.” She turned again, the package under her arm. “I will see you on Monday.”
And with that she walked out the door. He sat motionless, watching as it closed behind her. Her words clamored through him, seeming to bounce from one gaping hole in his soul to another.
That was what his prayer had been about, hadn’t it? Up or down? What to do? Had Darlene heard him? He didn’t think so.
He took another long swig from the water and swiped at his mouth. Heaven had listened. And it had sent him an angel.
A sixty-nine-year-old angel in high heels.
Scarlett Jo sat at a table by a window of the Franklin Mercantile Deli. The air-conditioning and shabby-chic atmosphere brought delight to this suffocating day in late July. Summer had brought with it a shift of routine for Scarlett Jo and given her the opportunity to do more one-on-one things with the boys. And summer was almost over. So this morning it was all about Rhett.
Of all the eating places in downtown Franklin, she loved this one the best. Besides the mismatched chairs and quaint atmosphere, it was the hash brown casserole that got her. Anything with cheese and potatoes came straight from the throne of God as far as she was concerned. So she had ordered the Mercantile breakfast with a double scoop of hash browns.
Rhett sat across from her, digging into his French toast.
“You do know we could have gotten a few more minutes of shut-eye, don’t you?” she told him. The child thought sunrise meant everyone in the house should be greeting the day. “That’s what summers are for. Children sleep in so their mommies and daddies can have the mornings to get done what they need to get done before you guys wake up and mess up the day.”
He stabbed his fork into the syrup-soaked bread, sending up small puffs of powdered sugar. “Mommy, you’re funny.”
She laughed. “I’m joking, buddy. Mommy was so looking forward to spending this morning with you.”
“I know. Me too.” Rhett put his fork down and took a long sip of orange juice. “Me and Forrest might be camping out tonight with Dad. And he said that if we do, we can pee outside.”
She nodded. “Of course he did.”
“Jack says that’s what men were created to do. Pee outside.”
“He said that, did he?”
He furrowed his brow and took another stab at his French toast. “Yeah. It’s what guys do. We sleep in tents and pee outside. And burp. And—”
“That’s enough, baby. I get the picture.”
She knew it was true. She had raised four boys before him and married one who considered all these things appropriate for boys. There were days when she was grateful no little girl had been forced to endure the sounds, smells, and sights that little boys could produce. “Sounds like a great adventure.”
“Yep, and we’re going to tell ghost stories,” he added, his speech slurred by the mass of egg-and-syrup-coated bread in his mouth. “I mean scary, scream-like-a-sissy-girl ghost stories.” He squinted his eyes as he relayed the message he’d obviously gotten from his older brothers.
Rhett could be scared more easily than any seven-year-old she knew. He’d be in her bed before it got good and dark. “Well,” she said, “y’all have fun with that. I’ll use it as a chance to catch up on my television shows and paint my toenails.”
He scrunched up his nose. “Ew . . . girl stuff.”
“I am a girl, buddy.”
He shook his head. “No, you’re not. You’re a mom.”
She laughed. He had her there. “Yes, I am. Yours. Now quit talking with your mouth—”
The bell on the restaurant door chimed, and Scarlett Jo looked up to see Caroline Craig enter the room. She hadn’t seen her or heard from her since Caroline stormed from her house that Saturday afternoon in June.
“Excuse Mommy for a minute.” She pulled the napkin from her canary-yellow lap, then stood and made a beeline for the door. “Caroline, honey, so good to see you. I haven’t seen you since that afternoon you left in such a rush. And you haven’t returned my calls, so I’d love to know how you’re doing.”
The smile that spread across Caroline’s face was about as real as the artificial daisy adorning Scarlett Jo’s headband. “Oh, I’m fine. The girls and I are just fine. Thank you. We’ve been traveling a lot this summer. You know how teenagers are. They don’t seem to want to stay put.”
“Did you get my calls?” No need to beat around the bush.
“Um, I’m not sure, Scarlett Jo. You know, with everything that has happened in the last couple of months I haven’t been able to keep track of things the way I usually do. Please forgive me that I haven’t gotten back with you.” Her shoulders slumped slightly as she spoke. A moment of vulnerability.
Scarlett Jo saw weariness in Caroline’s eyes, even though the Botox kept her brow from showing it. “Oh, honey, that’s okay,” she said. “I just wanted you to know that Jackson and I care about you. And Zach.”
Caroline’s expression shifted when she heard her husband’s name. Her plastic smile returned. “Thank you, but we’re fine. Really, everyone is doing exceptionally well, considering.”
“That’s good, because if my husband had cheated on me and I’d caught him red-handed, the last thing in the world I’d be is fine. What I’d be is out-of-my-mind mad. And trying to figure out who I was going to shoot with my 12-gauge. I’d have my kids in deep therapy, and I’d be there right along with them. So that you’re doing fine is amazing to me. You must be one strong woman, Caroline.”
Caroline didn’t hesitate. “I come from good stock.”
“Yes, you do. I’ve met your mother. She is always so put-together and gracious. Just a real Southern grace about her.”
Caroline looked at her phone as if willing it to ring. “Listen, I don’t mean to scoot, but I’ve got to grab some breakfast before I open the store this morning. So good to see you.”
“You too. I’ve got to scoot too. Please know you’re always welcome to call. You can use that phone right there.” Scarlett Jo let out a snorted laugh as she pointed at Caroline’s cell.
Caroline raised her phone and shook it slightly. “I’ll remember that. Thanks.” She moved quickly to place her order at the counter.
Scarlett Jo returned to find Rhett leaned back in his chair, plate empty, juice drained. He patted his belly as she passed. “That’ll get me through our adventure tonight, just in case we don’t get a kill we can cook on our campfire.” He giggled. “Dad says we can always grill us some cicadas.”
She grabbed him by the arm and tugged. “Ooh, I hate those things.” She shivered. “Now, come on, Daniel Boone. Let’s get you home so you can have the supreme joy of peeing in the woods. Goodness knows I wouldn’t want you to miss that. Might even join you.”
He looked at her as they walked down the street. “Mommy, that is just gross.”
She wrapped her arm around him and roughed the top of his head. “I know, baby. Mommy isn’t always known for her couth, is she?”
He nodded that she wasn’t, though she knew he had no idea what couth even meant.
“That’s it?” Grace clutched her damp wad of tissue and looked at Zach.
He nodded.
“Ten years of marriage, and now the world is going to pretend it never happened.”
He touched her arm. The soft fabric of her white linen jacket pressed against her skin. “I’m so sorry, Grace.”
Rachel put an arm around her friend, and her mom and dad pulled in close on the other side. Grace could sense their grief. Apparently Scarlett Jo could too because she threw an arm over Lydia’s shoulder.
“At leas
t you’re leaving with what you wanted.” Zach was obviously trying to encourage her. “You and Tyler worked things out without going to trial. And now you are free.”
“Free.” The word escaped her lips like something from another language. She batted her eyes to prevent more tears from falling. She had barely been able to answer the judge’s questions because of the knot lodged in her throat.
She reached out to shake his hand. “Thank you, Zach. Thank you for everything.”
“Thank you for trusting me.”
“I’ll see you around, I’m sure.”
“I have no doubt.”
Rachel took her by the arm and led her toward the staircase. They all walked down to the bottom floor of the Williamson County courthouse. Rain pelted them as they hurried between the big white columns toward the parking lot.
“What an appropriate conclusion,” Grace murmured, looking up. “Even heaven is crying.” But she was grateful for the early August rain that hid her tears and even more grateful that Tyler had honored her request and not shown up. That she could not have handled.
Grace beeped her car open, and she and Rachel and her mother piled in. She didn’t know why she’d insisted that Rachel ride with her this morning. Her friend was certainly capable of driving herself to the courthouse. But Grace had wanted to pick her up. And she had quit making apologies for the way she wanted to do this divorce.
The last two months had been filled with a strong sense of how things needed to be done, even when those things were incredibly hard. She kept the car radio tuned to a country station and refused to change it when a love song came on, even if she cried through the entire piece. She made herself spend Saturday mornings in bed with the paper and a glass of sweet tea, just as she used to with Tyler. And she made a point of still eating at Pancho’s after church on Sundays. Sometimes she’d only make it through five chips and half a soft drink before she had to leave. Other times she ate every last bite on her plate. But she did it. Giving up was not an option.
Her resolve grew out of a kind of righteous anger that struck the first week after she filed for divorce. She had allowed so many years of her life to be stolen. Tyler hadn’t taken them from her. She had given them up voluntarily. By her fear. By her avoidance. She had just handed over her heart as if it held no value.
But no longer. She woke up one morning determined that nothing else would be stolen from her. She had made a kind of pact with her own soul: You will go through. You won’t go around. You won’t go under. You won’t wish this away. You are going to walk through whatever horrible moment you have to, and you are going to get to the other side. And for the most part, in the last two months, she had done just that.
Her father drove behind them the few blocks home with Scarlett Jo in his passenger seat. Grace hadn’t wanted him to ride alone. Grace pulled into the driveway and turned off the wipers. Through the deluge, they could see Rachel’s husband, Jason, sitting in his car in front of the house, waiting to take her home.
Grace’s mother turned toward Rachel. “I’m so glad Jason’s here to drive you, sweetie. I’d hate for you to have to drive yourself home in this mess.”
Grace knew her mother’s words were spoken out of parental concern and care, but they settled on her like daggers ripping through flesh. She gripped the steering wheel with all her might. Rachel leaned up and gave her a kiss on the cheek, told her how proud she was of her and that she would call later that evening. Grace gave her a stiff nod. But once Rachel exited the car and closed the door behind her, the deluge that had been held back by metal and glass found its way inside to leather and chrome. And Grace didn’t try to hold it in.
The wails came from a deep place, a place so deep that once it released its pain, you weren’t sure you’d ever return to what you were. She wept in frantic, manic bursts. “He’ll never drive me anywhere again!” Her words shouted recognition of the finality and magnitude of this moment. “I’m going to drive myself everywhere!”
Her mother reached over the console and stroked Grace’s hair. “Baby, I’m so sorry. I wasn’t thinking.”
“It’s not your fault. It’s my reality. I’m going to drive myself everywhere. I’m going to be alone everywhere I go. People are going to look at me like I’m half of something. I hate this!” Her hands pounded the faux wood on the steering column. “I hate all of this. It shouldn’t be this way, Mom. It shouldn’t be this way.”
Now her mother was crying too. “I know. It shouldn’t. It should not be this way at all.”
Grace’s body heaved with racking sobs. This morning she had woken up just as alone, but it hadn’t been final. Not legal. Not forever. Now it was all of that. And it hurt. In the deepest places where hurt could settle and ache and gnaw, it was there. It was all in there. And she didn’t want to hurt like that. She so didn’t want to hurt.
Zach walked into his second-floor apartment and flicked on the light. Sparse living conditions greeted him each night. He had a sofa and a coffee table and a television in the living room, and the bedroom had a box spring and mattress on the floor. No pictures on the walls. No bric-a-brac, as he often called it. Absolute minimum of kitchen stuff.
It was a makeshift habitation, but it was his, and he’d even grown to like it. He dropped the brown paper bag from Bread & Company on the counter and held the phone against his ear as he pulled the key from the door. “I know, Caroline, but I want to see the kids this weekend. Our separation agreement clearly states when they are to be with me.”
“Well, they don’t want to come over to your apartment. There’s nothing for them to do there. And they’ll be starting school next week. We’ve got stuff to do, school supplies to buy, clothes shopping. This is their last weekend to get all of that done.”
“They need to see their father. This isn’t convenient for any of us, but they need me, and I need to see them. I’m settled enough now that they can spend the night. It will be like a sleepover.”
He could envision her pacing. She always paced when she talked. “They’re about to start high school, Zach. The last thing they want is a sleepover with their father.”
“That may be, but we still need to be together. When can I get them?”
Her sigh came heavy through the phone, but they both knew she couldn’t keep him from his kids. That wouldn’t bode well for any future arrangement. “I’ll have them ready to go tomorrow at five. You can bring them back Sunday night.”
“Okay. I’ll be there at five.” He was about to say thank you when she spoke again.
“I saw Scarlett Jo Newberry the other day. I swear I’ve never met a woman with more gall—or less tact. And that hair, those clothes—the woman is just plain tacky. I don’t know how we lasted at that church so long. She’s hounding me to call her back, so you need to tell her husband to have her leave me alone.”
“Um, yeah . . . well, okay. But I haven’t talked to Jackson much either. Not since that day he said those things to you.”
“Well, they are both crazy, and I don’t want anything to do with them. You leave them out of our lives, do you hear me?”
“Yeah. Yeah, sure. I’ll see you tomorrow. I’ll call the girls and tell them good night.”
“Fine. And if you are keeping them this weekend, you can take them shopping for school supplies.” With that she hung up.
He held the phone in his hand and envisioned a weekend of shopping with his teenage daughters. Caroline wanted to torture him. It was evident.
He poured himself a glass of fruit tea, then picked up the bag from the counter and carried it to the coffee table. He pulled out his favorite sandwich, the Steeplechase—cranberry bread, pulled turkey, honey mustard, apples—and a bag of chips. He sat on the sofa, took a bite of his sandwich, and leaned his head back, savoring the quiet. Guiltily grateful that Caroline’s voice wouldn’t be pounding in his head all night.
Their phone conversation funneled through him, her words about Scarlett Jo Newberry. Caroline had always looked down on
Scarlett Jo. To be honest, Zach had too. And Scarlett Jo was out there; that was for sure. But now he wondered if his attitude had derived mostly from Caroline’s perception. Jackson Newberry clearly adored his wife, and despite their disagreement, Zach respected Jackson.
He let his mind ponder the past few months. The forced exit from his home. The legal separation Caroline had insisted on. Accusations flying through town from the stir Caroline was making. And the more time that passed with them living two separate lives, the more distance that time created in their hearts, until there were moments he couldn’t even remember why he had married her in the first place.
Then there was work, his cases. Grace Shepherd’s case had begun about the same time everything fell apart for Zach. Now it was done, while his situation was still unresolved. No divorce filing. No counseling. Just this bare apartment.
The summer had taken him on an odd and painful journey. And though this was in no way the life he was accustomed to, there were things about it that he craved. He liked the simplicity, the lack of motion, the quiet. Especially the quiet. Life with Caroline and the girls was one of perpetual motion. There was never any place for his heart to settle or his mind to rest, never a moment when they could just be. There was always noise. People. Activity. Stuff. Distraction.
He let that last thought linger awhile, and with it came revelation. Wasn’t that what he and Caroline had both been doing for the last few years—distracting themselves? Hers was a distraction of the heart with activity and illusive control. His was a distraction of the heart with self-gratification. They were both broken, weren’t they? Just like Jackson said.
He thought of Grace’s quiet poise today, of her compassion and her willingness to give him a second chance. Then he thought of Caroline. Tense and driven. Desperate to be right, to win no matter what, to feel superior to other people. Unable or unwilling to give without getting something in return.
And in that moment he realized Jackson Newberry was right. It’s not just me. Caroline shared the guilt he had claimed as solely his own. She had come into this marriage with her own stuff—her insecurity, her dependence on her mother, her perfectionism—and it had helped bring them to this place.
Secrets over Sweet Tea Page 20
