by Becky Wade
Bo had left a note for him on the counter saying that he and Meg were staying the night in his guest bedroom and to wake them if he needed anything or if they could help him.
No, they could not help him.
Ty pushed the note into the trash and jerked open the drawers one by one, searching. Wait . . . he remembered now. It wasn’t in the drawers. He’d tossed it into the cabinet.
He opened the cabinet door. Over on the side, next to his spare change, rested a white paper sack with a receipt stapled to it. It had been there since before the first time Celia had dumped his pills. He tore away the sack and let it fall.
A prescription bottle of Vicodin.
He squinted down at it in his hand. His mouth watered, he wanted the pills so badly. Two or three wouldn’t hurt. They’d dull everything he was thinking and feeling.
“I don’t trust you not to break my heart again.” Celia’s words swam through his brain. “I can’t risk it. I can’t risk Addie having to live through that.”
Was she wrong? He wanted her to be wrong, wanted to be someone she and Addie could trust. Had he really changed?
Or was he as weak and as faithless as she claimed him to be?
Chapter Thirty-one
Celia woke before dawn the next morning, overcome with the need to bake something fattening. She did her best to squelch the urge and go back to sleep. Gloomy thoughts and depressing feelings prevented that from happening, so she forced herself from bed.
Striving for a healthy emotional outlet that didn’t involve sugar, she took herself to her front yard. She stood in the dewy grass in bare feet, watering her plants and pulling weeds while five a.m. darkness sank around her like an anchor. She noted with numb detachment that her caladiums were coming along nicely. Flourishing.
When she finally reentered her house, she faced many productive options. She could catch up with things online. Finalize ideas for an anniversary cake a local couple had ordered. Do laundry. Iron . . .
She marched into her kitchen and stirred together the most wicked oatmeal walnut chocolate-chunk cookies she could muster. As soon as she pulled them from the oven, she stood over the tray and scooped the most deformed one onto a napkin. Since nobody else would want this particular cookie, she’d do it a favor and eat it.
Hot, nutty dough filled her mouth. She chewed—stopped.
It didn’t taste right. In fact, it tasted wrong.
She spit the bite back into her napkin, then tossed the napkin in the trash and contemplated her batch. What had she done? As she went back over the steps she’d taken when making her dough, it hit her. She’d left out eggs.
Eggs! A bedrock ingredient. She’d been baking since middle school. Omitting eggs was a novice move. The sort of mistake a ten-year-old might make.
Today was not her day. Disgusted and devoid of the mental relief she usually found through baking, she dumped all the cookies in the trash.
After showering, she dressed in a peasant top and canary yellow shorts. She bypassed her boots and donned her trusty leather sandals. Then she sat in her living room watching early morning news coverage of weather, traffic, and DFW homicides while fiercely trying to think of anything except . . .
Him.
She delivered Addie to kindergarten, then parked her Prius back at the gingerbread house and covered the short distance to the square on foot.
American-made trucks passed by her, as did the cars the yuppies owned: SUVs, Volvos, a Lexus. Shade from wide-reaching pecan and elm trees graced both her and the stately Victorians. When she reached the now-familiar square, her gaze took in the hodgepodge of establishments. Each unique in color, brick, or awning, all equally sure of themselves after having survived so long. The courthouse stood in its central location like an elegantly dressed officer ready for duty. The light posts faithfully supported their baskets of blooms.
The word home came over her like a twang on a guitar string, reverberating physically. The girl who’d moved from state to state all her life had finally found home in a most unusual place. Not in the lushly green northwest. But here. In this funny little Texan town that didn’t have a farmers’ market and smelled like barbecued brisket.
She made her way toward Cream or Sugar, uncertain whether Holley felt like home because of the place itself or because he lived here. If he lived in Thailand, she might right at this moment be strolling through downtown Bangkok experiencing the very same mystifying sense of belonging.
She skirted behind Cream or Sugar and let herself in the back. Within minutes, she’d dressed, washed up, and busied herself frosting sheet cake alongside Jerry.
Celia studied him, the man with the Hulk exterior and the marshmallow interior. “What do you like best about being married to Donetta, Jerry?”
He considered the answer for a while. “She’s good in bed.”
On this particular day, Celia had not expected to smile. But she did smile at Jerry, and it felt like a sentimental gift. “I see.”
From the front room, Celia could hear Donetta calling out, “Ya’ll come back now!” then launching into a tirade aimed at a customer who’d had the bad judgment to voice the word Yankees.
“There’s something else,” Jerry said. “About Donetta.”
“Yes?”
“She interrupts, and she tells tall tales more than her share. But I know her heart. It’s a good heart. Donetta’s . . . my person. Do you know what I mean?”
“I’m not sure.” But deep down, she did know.
“We’ve shared a life, Donetta and me. We’ve got kids and grandkids. She’s the closest friend I have on this earth. I’ve been married to her for two-thirds of my life. And I only pray that the good Lord takes me first. Because I don’t want to live one day without her.”
“Oh, Jerry.” Emotion lifted within Celia. It was the longest speech she’d ever heard him make.
“I know what folks mean when they say their wife is their better half.”
“I think you’re the better half.”
“No, Celia. It’s Donetta. It’s always been her.”
As she’d requested, Ty did not return to Cream or Sugar. When she arrived at the gingerbread house to relieve him late in the afternoon, he looked hung over and like he hadn’t slept. However rotten he’d been feeling, though, he hadn’t let it stop him from taking care of Addie.
The same the next day, Friday. He looked like a wreck, but Addie had been able to count on him.
Each evening Celia spent long periods of time in prayer. It hadn’t occurred to her to distance herself from God or blame Him the way she’d done in the past. Her decision to renew her relationship with God was the one thing she knew for sure she’d gotten right. Plus, she simply needed Him too much. Her growing faith brought her the only sense of steadiness or peace she had left.
Without God, her life would go back to tasting like the ill-fated oatmeal chocolate-chunk cookies she’d made the other morning. She’d come to understand that God was the most integral ingredient to her life recipe; He was the egg.
Meg began to call and come by to check on Celia more frequently than before. Celia didn’t know what to tell her, so she told her nothing. Words seemed superfluous, anyway. She could see in Meg’s compassionate face that Meg knew exactly what was going on.
Celia slid the Give Peace a Chance charm off her key ring and let it fall from her fingers into the garbage for the final time.
The weekend came. Ty made it easy for her to avoid him. He didn’t text. Didn’t call. She kept checking her phone, half dreading and half desperate for contact from him. Her brain and her heart continued to face off like bitter enemies.
Addie asked a hundred times on Saturday when she’d next be able to see Daddy and ride Whitey. Celia knew that Ty would be glad to take Addie out riding. In order to set that up, though, Celia would have to communicate with him. The prospect made her turn chicken.
On Sunday Celia and Addie attended church, then spent the afternoon visiting Danny. He’d healed enough to return to his
own home, but he still couldn’t get around easily. Celia helped him maneuver from his walker to a dining room chair, then placed a slice of cinnamon-swirl coffee cake and a mug of freshly made coffee in front of him. “For you.”
He took a sip, his eyes rolling upward toward the ceiling. “It’s heaven, C.” He tucked into the cake. “And this! You have got to let me sell this online at my store. Like seriously.” He held a bite of coffee cake aloft on his fork. “If I could feed this to an eligible woman, she’d be putty in my hands.”
“The right woman for you will come along one day. I just know it.” Celia squeezed his shoulder. “Until then, and always, you’ll have Addie and me.”
“You’re the two best girls in the world.”
“Hardly. But at least we’re yours, Uncle Danny. And no matter what, we have each other.”
The entire time Celia sat across from him, listening to him plan his next dating move, thoughts of Ty suffocated her.
Did Ty truly love her, the way he said that he did? He’d certainly looked earnest when he’d told her he wanted to be her husband. Had he been telling the truth when he’d said that Tawny had been the one to kiss him and that he’d pulled away? Would he start dating Tawny now that Celia had rejected him?
Addie asked Celia a hundred more times when she’d be able to see Daddy and ride Whitey.
That evening, after Celia had tucked Addie into bed, she walked the rooms of the house the same way she’d been walking them since the day she’d ended things with Ty—like a ghost. Aimless and miserable. Missing him.
Before they’d started kissing, she’d at least had him in her life. He’d been her friend and her supporter. He’d believed in her. She dearly wished she could go back to that. That she couldn’t left her with a nagging, unrelenting sense that she’d lost something irreplaceable.
Before he’d stopped coming to Cream or Sugar, she’d thought that the baking had been the best part of the job. Now she realized that it had been him. He’d been the best part.
Suddenly, all of it was gone. Not just the kissing, but all of it. She was left with a man whose only role in her life was to collect her daughter from school.
She regretted everything. Everything she’d lost, hurting him, breaking up with him. Yet she continued to stand by her reasons. As agonizing as it was, as much as she cried in the shower each morning and into her pillow each night, as much as she physically yearned for him, she still believed she’d made the right choice. In the end, even if Ty fancied himself in love with her, even if Tawny had been the one to kiss Ty, Celia couldn’t make herself believe that he was capable of staying true to her for a lifetime.
She pulled out a dining room chair, and sat at the table where she and Ty had eaten dinner and laughed and given each other heated looks when Addie wasn’t paying attention.
God? I feel like the most untrusting, unforgiving woman alive. I broke up with Ty to protect Addie and myself. Do you understand? I think I did the right thing. I think. Did I?
No sense of answer or direction.
You’re not really making yourself clear.
She laid her hands in her lap and looked down at them, listening. The point, she supposed, wasn’t whether God answered her question. The point was that He was the answer. To every question.
Hard circumstances taught a person valuable lessons. The current circumstance was teaching Celia that even in the center of grief and confusion, God was enough for her.
The burr returned. The one that rubbed against her painfully, convicting. God wanted her to forgive Ty yet again.
She scrunched shut her eyes. “I forgive Ty.” She concentrated on working through all the kinks and knots of her unforgiveness. Over and over she repeated it. I forgive Ty.
The word forgiveness sounded gentle and round-edged. If it had been a drawing, it might have been a sunrise. In Celia’s reality, though, achieving that sunrise required dark and dirty work. It meant removing an iron spike of bitterness that had lodged itself in the pit of her soul. The spike was sharp, painful, disinclined to move. With God’s help she’d managed to dislodge it once before. But it had come back and may well continue to come back.
One of the forgiveness verses twined through her memory. “How many times shall I forgive my brother or sister who sins against me? Up to seven times?”
Jesus answered, “I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times.”
For her, forgiveness had not been an easy one-time thing. It was a decision she had to make repeatedly. A process.
More dreary days slipped by.
A new Give Peace a Chance key ring did not appear.
Her exchange with Ty went even worse than usual when she arrived home from work on Thursday. She found him and Addie in the front room, playing checkers.
He had on a baseball cap backwards, jeans, his sterling watch. The storm of resentments between them made it difficult to look him in the face.
He said his good-byes to Addie. Celia held the front door open for him. When he passed through, she stepped onto the porch after him. “Ty—”
He stopped.
“I . . .”
The mask he wore around Addie had gone. He gazed at her with undiluted anger and pain. By the looks of it, he was still every bit as furious as he’d been the day she’d broken up with him.
Why had she thought talking to him might be a good idea? “How are you doing?” she asked.
“Not well.”
She felt her heart fracturing. I love you, she wanted to say. The words filled her. They swirled, pushing against her from the inside, demanding that she give them voice.
At the sound of children’s voices, both Ty and Celia looked toward the noise. Neill and his two boys were walking toward the gingerbread house for a playdate.
Ty stiffened at the sight of them, his back muscles tightening. Then he strode toward his truck.
Neill lifted his hand to Celia as he approached. “Hey there!”
“Hey.” She tried for a smile.
Her attention cut back to Ty. He swung his head around and gave Neill a look so terrifying that it would have sent Neill into a dead faint if he’d seen it. He climbed into his truck and started the engine.
She invited Neill and his boys into the house. The kids dove into a new game of checkers. She and Neill watched their antics while Neill told her a story about one of the partners in his law firm.
She loved Ty. I love him, she kept thinking. She’d been circumventing it and trying to talk herself out of it in every possible way. All her efforts had done no good. She’d fallen in love with the same man three times in one lifetime.
Maybe she hadn’t. Made she’d only truly fallen in love with Ty Porter one time—the day he’d strolled into ceramics class, sat down beside her, and smiled at her for the very first time. When he’d left Texas after graduation and when he hadn’t loved her back in Vegas, she’d done her best to pound her love for him into oblivion. But it had proven stronger than the strongest metal ever created.
Neill kept talking.
Celia’s gaze rested fondly on Addie’s dark blond bob. Her life had been full of her daughter for so long that she hadn’t known whether she could love a man again. It came as something of a surprise to her, not just that she could love a man again, but how very, very much she could.
When Neill and the boys left, Celia got down on her knees in Addie’s room to help her pick up the toys.
“Mommy?”
“Yes?”
“Daddy’s sad.”
Celia pushed a curl behind her ear. “I know.”
“I gave him some chamomile tea today.” She straightened the dress of the Cinderella doll she held. “It didn’t make him feel better.”
“It didn’t?”
She shook her head. “I think he’s sad because you’re not wearing the boots he gave you anymore.”
Addie’s feet were still loyally encased by her pink boots, just as they had been since the day Ty had given them to her. “He’s nic
e and funny, Mom. I really like Daddy’s house. Whitey’s there.” Her small fingers smoothed Cinderella’s hair. “He has a motorcycle. His bedtime stories are good.”
Celia nodded.
“Cinderella’s happy now that she married Prince Charming. Daddy will be happy when you put on a white dress and a long”—she indicated a veil with her hands—“sheet on your head and marry him.”
Celia didn’t have the heart to launch into a talk about how much she and Ty respected each other or the vagaries of adult decisions or why mommies and daddies sometimes chose to live apart. “I love you, Addie,” she said simply and truthfully. “Ty loves you, too.”
“Oh, Mom. You really need to start wearing his boots.”
“Jerry and I have something we’d like to discuss with you,” Donetta said to Celia the next day.
“Oh?” Celia continued sweeping the front room of the bakery.
“It’s the kind of talk, Celia, that you’re going to want to sit down for.”
She glanced at Donetta, worry immediately rising. “What’s the matter?”
Donetta took the broom from her and indicated the table at the rear of the bakery. “Jerry!” she hollered.
Celia sank into a chair, uneasy.
Jerry emerged from the kitchen and the two of them took the seats across from her. “You know that Jerry and I have been wanting to retire for a while now.”
“Yes.”
“We were planning to work a few more years, then put the place on the market.”
Jerry regarded Celia steadily. The sympathy in his face sent a chill of foreboding through her.
“More than a week ago,” Donetta continued, “we got a call from a longtime friend. Out of the blue. He told us he wanted to buy Cream or Sugar.”
No, Celia thought. Please, God, no.
“It took us by surprise.” Donetta shrugged. “We didn’t know he had an interest in owning a donut shop. But then, you never can tell about people. He offered us a pretty penny for this place.”
A sliding sensation of fear moved through Celia’s abdomen. They were going to sell Cream or Sugar to a stranger.
