by Liz Talley
Sunny bit down on her frustration. “I understand, but I’m trying to finish the house, maybe get some carpet put down in the bedrooms. I’m working during the day and doing this at night, so—”
“Do you really think this is a good idea, Sunny? I mean, Mom isn’t the social type, and I’m pretty sure she’s not going to let you sell the house. It’s the only thing she’s got.”
Sunny tried not to be exasperated with her sister, but it was hard. Of course, if anyone knew how hard it was to live in a falling-down house, it was her younger sister. Somehow Eden had learned how to fix every major appliance, something Betty revealed every time something broke. Eden could fix it if she were here.
When Sunny had bolted for the East Coast and a new life at the ripe age of eighteen, she’d left behind a mother with a drug problem and a fifteen-year-old sister who wasn’t ready to handle the life she’d been given. But at that time, Betty had been capable of paying the rent, as long as she didn’t spend it all on booze or drugs, and Eden had Aunt Ruby Jean for stability. No one could have foreseen the overdose and resulting stroke that would debilitate their mother. Eden had been eighteen when Betty had her stroke, the same age Sunny had been when she’d left Morning Glory. Eden had put her plans on hold and taken the reins of holding everything together. Sunny had felt bad her sister got saddled with taking care of their mother, and she’d promised Eden she’d do her duty taking care of their mother one day. She just hadn’t expected it to take so long.
“Look, Eden, I understand what you’re saying, but this house is falling down, and I don’t want to spend the rest of my life in Morning Glory. I mean, are you coming back here after you get your degree?”
Sunny could feel the hesitation, and she knew the answer.
“Well, I’m not sure, but…” Eden’s voice fell away.
“No, you’re not. I know you’re not, and Betty can’t live alone even though she can do more for herself than she lets on. If I can get her into a place like the Arbor, then we can have a life and she can too. She’s lonely, though she would never admit it.”
“You think Mom’s lonely?”
“Yeah, I do.”
Silence sat on the line.
“E?”
“I’m here. I never thought she was lonely, but I guess you could be right. But selling the house? That seems so permanent.”
“Do you want the house?” Sunny asked, feeling like she was cajoling a toddler. Eden didn’t let go of things easily. Eden never ran away. She stayed and handled the crap flung at her. Sunny’s baby sister didn’t deserve to have to come home and care for their mother again. She deserved her own life. “I don’t think you do, and it’s falling apart. I’m making the necessary repairs to get it marketable, but it’s an old house.”
“I guess,” Eden said. In the background, Sunny could hear the chatter of many voices.
“Where are you?”
“My job. I’m doing some, uh, dancing in the evening hours. I’m nannying during the day. I told you about Sophie and taking care of her.”
Eden had moved down to New Orleans, and the job she’d originally procured had been nonexistent, leaving her younger sister to scramble to find employment. Ironically, Eden had found a job taking care of a special needs child. Sophie was school-aged, which allowed Eden to go to classes herself, but taking care of a child in a wheelchair was challenging.
“How are you going to do all that? And by dancing, you don’t mean—”
“No, it’s a speakeasy and more thematic. It’s called Gatsby’s, and actually, they just moved me up to headlining. Think the Haynes Sisters in White Christmas rather than Mama at Legz.”
“Whew,” Sunny breathed, relieved that her sister hadn’t taken something that… well, would haunt her for the rest of her life. Because Sunny was fairly certain that when Betty had taken the job at the airport strip club to make enough money to pay for nursing school, she’d cemented what her life would be like. Legz had been a gateway to bad choices. And Betty had run to them with both arms out. “I worried for a moment.”
“Don’t worry about me, Sunny. I learned well. Just take care of Mama. I don’t have much time off, but I’m hoping to come home for a visit soon. Maybe in a few weeks, I don’t know. I’ll send what money I can. I’m meeting with a talent agent tomorrow. He says he can get me more from the owners. We’ll see.”
Sunny got off the phone with her sister and looked around the kitchen. She was pretty much done in this room, and it looked enormously better. If she squinted her eyes, it almost looked like something flipped on HGTV. Wasn’t perfect, but it was pretty cute. Now to get Betty out of the living area so Sunny could freshen the paint and put up new light fixtures. She’d love to sand and strip the old pine floors, but she wasn’t up to that task. And the porch needed fixing and fresh paint. Hanging a few plants from the overhang would give some curb appeal. Nothing like putting lipstick on a pig.
“Sunny,” Betty called from the living area. “When are we going to eat? I’m hungry.”
“I’m heating dinner now, Mama,” Sunny said, pressing the one-minute button on the microwave in order to reheat what she’d already reheated while talking to her sister. She poured her mother some sweet tea. Needed something good to soften the blow that she was moving the TV to the corner of the kitchen. Betty would have to set up base ops in the kitchen so Sunny could work in the living room.
Betty rolled into the kitchen. “About damn time. And that mutt of yours is whinin’ and drivin’ me batty.”
Sunny moved toward the doorway and heard Fancy crying. The little dog stayed in her kennel during the day. Sunny hated cooping her up, but she wasn’t certain the dog was house-trained and didn’t trust Betty not to smack the poor dog if she got in her mother’s way. “I’ll get her. We already went for a walk, but she needs some playtime.”
“When are you getting rid of her? You said two days. It’s been almost four.”
Sucking in a deep breath, Sunny closed her eyes and released the inhalation. “Mama, I’m trying. I called some rescues in Jackson, but no one can take her. I’m not putting Fancy out or taking her to the shelter. It’s a kill shelter.”
“So?”
“You mean-ass woman, your dinner is in the microwave. You get it,” Sunny muttered, walking out. Seconds later, Fancy emerged from her kennel, head lowered, tail tucked. She thumped her tail when Sunny talked sweet to her, but otherwise she remained mistrusting.
“Come on, Fancy Pants. Let’s take another walk. It’s cold out but better than hanging in the kitchen with Mean Betty.”
Fancy wagged her tail and looked at Sunny with eyes that could melt the Grinch’s heart. Hadn’t worked on Betty, of course. The Grinch had nothing on Sunny’s mother. Sunny hooked the leash onto the collar that Fancy tolerated, then tugged on her coat. She added a scarf because the sun had gone to bed, leaving nothing but the cold dark.
Most people wouldn’t be caught dead walking around Grover’s Park after nightfall, but Sunny wasn’t most people. Most everyone knew the Voorhees and didn’t mess with them. They were small in number now, but their family name still carried weight. Her great-grandfather had run moonshine out of the area back during Prohibition. Her grandfather had been a loan shark and had run a handyman repair shop three streets over. Sunny had no clue who her father was. She and Eden hadn’t shared the same one, which was fairly obvious when people looked at them. But Betty’s brother, her uncle Kev, had been big, burly, and as likely to hit you as look at you. He was doing twenty years in Parchman Farm, the state pen, for killing a guy in a bar fight outside Mobile. He wasn’t around to rough anyone up in the hood anymore, but people still steered clear of his people. And if they chose not to, Sunny knew how to handle herself.
Fancy squatted on a patch of weeds in the neighbor’s yard. The weak light from the lampposts seemed almost ominous in the haze of Sunny’s condensed breath. February’s cold fingers slid down her back, chilling her. She longed for the warmth of someone to snuggle
against.
Henry.
She squeezed her eyes shut and tried to stamp out the feel of his body against hers, the way he’d kissed her, like a man starving for air. For a moment she’d given in and taken a little piece of what she knew she shouldn’t have. He’d tasted so good. Like he always had.
Henry had always had a crazy-fast metabolism, which meant he always felt like an oven. When they’d been together, they’d snuggle on the couch watching a movie, and after thirty minutes next to him, she’d have to move away and fan herself. And he’d always chase her, grinning naughtily, when he was sweaty from lacrosse or the heat of the day. Either way, she loved that about him. In his arms, she found what she needed. And today she’d remembered.
God, had she remembered.
But she couldn’t let her mind or body travel down that path. Henry had hurt her, had set her on the road she now walked. She wasn’t ready to open herself up to something so intimate yet, especially not with Henry. Her life was in shambles, and the only way she could put it back together was to get her mother in a facility, sell the old house, and start a new life in sunny, warm, wonderful California. There on the beaches, she could find peace and maybe the stirrings of something more than being lonely. She and Alan’d had good times, but they’d not had what was necessary to truly build a life together. They fought too much, mistrusted too often, and never took comfort from each other. Oh, they tried. Alan hadn’t been a bad guy. He had his moments, times when they laughed, loved, and thought they could push past the knots of hurt they’d yanked into the cord that bound them. But Sunny had known, and somehow that made grieving for Alan even worse. Because she wasn’t just grieving his death, she was grieving what they’d never had.
Placing her hand on her abdomen, she blinked back sudden tears.
Grief for her unborn babies had fastened itself to her and sometimes caused such ripping pain she could hardly catch her breath.
Fancy barked, startling Sunny from her grim thoughts.
A small gray cat darted beneath the porch of a nearby house. Mrs. Shaffer fed feral cats, and it was likely one of hers.
“Oh no, Fancy girl. That cat would mess you up. Don’t tangle with Grover Park kitties. They are street tough. But then again, maybe you are too,” Sunny said, dropping to a crouch and rubbing Fancy behind her little bat ears. Fancy shied away at the touch of her hand but didn’t pull the leash. Eventually she sat and let Sunny pet her.
Progress.
“Back we go. It’s too cold out here to contemplate cats and the mistakes we’ve made.” Sunny stood and lightly tugged the leash, drawing the speckled dog back toward the house where Sunny had learned to walk, talk, and run from the things that were hard.
Betty met them at the front door, giving Fancy a scathing look. Well, as scathing as one can give with half an expression. “The microwave ain’t workin’.”
“What?”
Her mother shrugged one shoulder. “It just stopped. Smells like it’s burnin’.”
“Well, hell.”
“Ain’t my fault. You’re the one who plugged it into that outlet. I told you it was bad, but you don’t ever listen to me. If you did, you wouldn’t have a dead husband, no real job, and no life.”
“Well, thank you, Miss Merry Sunshine. I had forgotten that you’re the epitome of making good decisions and listening to common sense.”
Betty tried to twist her lips. “I ain’t said I was good everything. But I know one damn thing I wouldn’t have done—I wouldn’t have let the Delmar boy go. You should have sucked it up and stuck with him. But no, you had to be prideful and run off. Look what that got you.”
Sunny stopped midstride. Fancy cowered behind her, anticipating the strike of the snake. “Pride? You’re talking pride, Mama? That’s something you wouldn’t recognize if it slapped you in the face. You have none.”
Betty snorted. “Well, maybe so. I made lots of mistakes, so I damn sure know what that looks like. I’m an effing expert on mistakes.”
“Yeah, that you know,” Sunny said, tugging on Fancy’s leash. “Come on, girl. Let’s put you in your kennel. You wanna treat?”
Fancy’s ears pricked. Funny how a dog learned that word before all else.
“Let me see that dog,” Betty said.
Sunny frowned. “No way. I don’t trust you not to go all Cruella on her.”
“She does have a nice spotted coat,” her mother said, trying to smile. Sunny almost laughed because Betty had made a joke, but didn’t because she wasn’t so sure the woman wouldn’t try something with the pup. “Just hand me the leash. I ain’t going to hurt the dog. Lord, Sunny.”
Sunny eyed Fancy and then slowly extended the leash to Betty. Betty took it with her good hand. “Now go make sure the house ain’t going to burn down.”
Sunny reluctantly walked into the kitchen. The acrid smell of burned-up electronics met her nose. The microwave was toast. Another damn expense because a microwave was a necessity these days, at least for someone who now worked a day job. Even though she knew the thing was fried, she unplugged it and then replugged it. Nothing. She punched some buttons. Nothing.
“It’s done for,” she called to her mother.
Her mother didn’t answer.
“Mama?” For a moment her heart leaped in her chest. She scurried back to the doorway, expecting to see her mother either transfixed by an old episode of Bones or quite possibly dead. But neither sight met Sunny when she paused in the threshold. Betty sat in her wheelchair, a look of intense concentration on her face as she stroked the fur between the ears of the dog sitting at her feet. Fancy sat as still as a puddle, eyes closed in rapture.
“Well, I’ll be damned,” Sunny whispered.
Henry didn’t want to pick Sunny up the next day. What had happened between them at his office the night before had made for an uncomfortable ride home. But today would be the last day he had to endure the awkward silence and polite speech that had become their habit. Deeter had left him a message on his cell, telling him the part he needed to repair the bike would be in that morning and he should have the bike out the door by the end of the day.
Even so, the thought of Sunny riding a motorcycle in such frigid weather bothered him. Hell, the idea of her riding a motorcycle in any kind of weather bothered him. A Harley-Davidson might make the rider look like a badass and deliver a feeling of freedom on the open road, but they were also dangerous, especially in a town with too many jacked-up pickup trucks with horrible blind spots ready to send Sunny to an early grave.
But maybe that was the point.
The Sunny who had kissed him yesterday wasn’t the same Sunny he’d fallen in love with in high school. The Sunny he’d once known had been overly cautious. He used to tease her when she obsessively washed her hands during flu season or refused to take off her life jacket when they went boating. He remembered her looking both ways one time before crossing a dirt path they’d taken to a fishing pond. He’d gotten such a kick out of joking about a stampeding herd of deer, but Sunny had just laughed and spouted off facts about how dangerous wildlife could be. This new Sunny didn’t seem to give much of a damn about anything other than getting out of Morning Glory, and if it took flirting with death to do it, so be it.
The promised cold front had swept through overnight, blanketing the tiny yards in Grover’s Park in crystalline lace. It should have made the late-February morning prettier, but instead it seemed to only emphasize the dingy surroundings, steeping the patched houses in tired gray. Perhaps March would finally deliver spring and cover the ugly with tender green and happy flowers.
When he pulled into the driveway, Sunny dropped her cigarette and ground it out with the toe of her boot. She wore all black today. Maybe it was a message.
“Good morning,” he managed as she slid into the truck. He hadn’t brought her coffee. Probably petty, but she’d not been very nice to him. He didn’t owe her anything anyway.
But as her eyes darted to the empty cupholder, a twinge of guilt
hit him. Pouring a cup of coffee was such a simple thing.
“Morning,” she said, clicking herself into the seat.
He smelled the remains of her cigarette and tried not to grimace. He hated that she smoked. Just another reminder that he didn’t really know her any longer. A good reason to stop trying to recreate what they once had. A good reason for not kissing her again.
Backing out of the drive, he spent the next few minutes about as comfortable as he’d be having a root canal without anesthesia. More than silence sat between them. The pain, the mistrust, the anger had built a wall, and neither of them seemed to know how to scale it or knock it down. And he wasn’t sure if either of them wanted to.
He should have gotten her a damned rental car. None of this would have happened in the first place. They could have danced around the things that needed saying and pretended that they were grownups who had gotten past, well, the past.
“Are you going to say anything?” she asked, looking again at the empty cupholder. “Am I being punished for what happened last night?”
“No.”
“Okay then.”
Another few seconds of silence.
“I should have brought you coffee. I, uh, didn’t have time to make a new pot before I left though.”
“You don’t owe me coffee. That’s not what I was talking about.”
“But it probably looked like I was being childish.” And he had been. Not that he was going to admit to it.
“Deeter called me last night and said the part came in. I should have my bike back today, so you don’t have to worry about coming to pick me up anymore. In fact, you don’t have to worry about me at all.” Her words sounded flat, but there was something in them. And that something he couldn’t put a name to made him hurt.
He couldn’t figure out why. It wasn’t as if he loved her anymore. Not really. Perhaps he still loved the concept of who she’d been—or rather who they’d been together—but this was a woman he didn’t know any longer. A faint trace of who she was remained, and that wasn’t enough to hold his heart hostage.
