Waking Up in Dixie

by Haywood Smith

  “He’s done the same with Liam. Charles has offered to help him with parole,” she said in disbelief. “Parole.”

  “Your brother’s been sober for a long time, Elizabeth,” Howe said quietly.

  She peered at him. “And how would you know that?”

  He shrugged. “In my past life, I made it my business to find out anything that might affect our family. I’ve been keeping tabs on Liam all along. I did the same with your father and Jacob, before they died.”

  “You mean drank themselves to death, at long last,” she corrected, the old bitterness surfacing.

  Howe drew her from the stool, pulling her into a protective hug. “They’re gone now. They can’t hurt you anymore.”

  She leaned against his chest. “Liam can. I don’t want Charles having anything to do with him. What if people found out?”

  After a weighty pause, Howe let out a long breath. “Charles and I had a lot of time to talk in Florida. We ironed out a lot of things. He’s a man, now, a good one, and nobody’s fool.” He chuckled. “He told me if I ever went back to being the way I was, he’d come for me, himself.”

  Howe sobered. “Whatever relationship he has with his uncle is up to him. It’s not up to us. I promise you, Lillibet, it will only make things worse if we try to intervene.”

  “But if Liam gets out . . . Even if he has been sober, facing the real world, especially as an ex-convict, who knows—”

  “If he gets out, we’ll deal with it. Together.” He drew back to lift her chin with his finger, meeting her fears with a calm, steady gaze. “I won’t let anybody hurt you, Lillibet. I promise.”

  A throb of heart-deep pain loosed her next thought without her conscious participation. “You let Patricia hurt me. And your mother. For a long time.” Lord! Where had that come from?

  He winced. “Ouch. I deserve that. But I mean to change it, Lizzie, I swear.”

  She didn’t even react to the name she hated. “I know. I know. I’m sorry. I’m just so worried about Patricia. It’s not your fault.”

  He stilled, drawing her close again. “It is my fault. I spoiled her, then came down too hard on her, and she bolted. Not a moment goes by that I don’t wish I could do it over. But we have to believe she’s okay.”

  If only she could. “I’ll call Charles and see if she’s contacted him. And her friends.”

  He patted her back, then released her. “You do that. With no credit cards, she’s bound to turn up before too long.”

  Howe went to the cabinet for some Advil, something he’d been doing more often lately. He headed for the refrigerator for a bottle of spring water. “I’ve got some things to catch up on in my study.”

  “You’ve been spending a lot of time in there,” Elizabeth ventured.

  Guilt flashed across his face. “It . . . I’ve been . . . reading.” She could see he wasn’t being truthful. “It helps distract me.”

  A dozen possibilities crossed her mind, none of them good. “You’re not . . . doing anything weird on the Internet in there, are you?”

  His features cleared, to her relief. “No. God, no. Really, I’ve been reading. Pretty heavy stuff, actually.”

  At least she could see that was true. But where had his initial guilt come from? “Okay.” Whatever it was, he would tell her eventually. He wasn’t good at keeping secrets anymore.

  He popped the Advil and washed them down.

  “Are you okay?” she asked, even though she knew he didn’t like to talk about it. “You’ve been having a lot of headaches lately.”

  He massaged his temples, then sighed. “I’m sure it’s just stress, but I guess I ought to tell Dr. Clare. I’ll call him.”

  “Good. And I’ll start calling Patricia’s girlfriends,” she said. “Though how I can do it without setting off the grapevine, I can’t imagine.”

  “Just tell them the truth,” he advised. “We had a fight over her grades, and she left.” He cocked a wry expression. “Like the good book says, the truth shall set you free.”

  The reference sent a random thought across her mind. “You’re not reading the Bible in there, are you?” she asked, embarrassed that it sounded like an accusation. “I mean, you’re not thinking about becoming a minister or anything?”

  Howe laughed for the first time since Patricia had run away. “Lord, no. Quite the contrary.”

  Whatever that meant.

  “Don’t worry about dinner,” he told her. “I’ll make a salad later and do some steaks.” Then he disappeared into his study.

  Patricia called Charles first, not mentioning Liam or her mother, but he hadn’t heard anything. After that she started contacting every one of Patricia’s friends listed in her address book, without any luck.

  Assuming they’d tell her if Patricia had contacted them.

  She even scrounged up a sorority directory in Patricia’s room and started calling girls she didn’t know, but nobody she reached had heard anything. A few parents told her that a lot of the girls were vacationing, making Elizabeth wonder if Patricia had joined any of them, but there was no way to reach them if she had.

  By suppertime, Elizabeth had come up empty, and she and Howe shared a subdued meal.

  That night, she dreamed Patricia was calling for help, but she couldn’t find her. Frantic, she searched through more and more dire settings till she woke in a panic, drenched in sweat. Howe was sleeping soundly on his side of the bed, so she crept into the shower and cried under the cover of the noisy spray.

  When he came in and found her, she was too miserable to notice that she was naked in front of him. He just quietly shucked off his pajama pants, then climbed in to hold her as she sobbed, his presence communicating more than words ever could. When the hot water ran tepid, he turned it off, then helped her out and dried her. Back in bed, he held her close, her wet hair against his chest, till they both, at last, fell asleep.

  It was the closest she had felt to him since law school.

  But the sun dawned on yet another day without word of their daughter. And another.

  Meanwhile, Dr. Clare saw Howe and ran some tests, all of which came back normal, much to Elizabeth’s relief. And Howe hired a skip tracer the bank had used, saying the man was very discreet and would find Patti soon.

  But two more days passed, and the only calls Elizabeth got were from her friends—predicated on thinly veiled excuses, which proved the gossip mill was onto Patti’s disappearance—and a few from P.J. Elizabeth didn’t mention Patti to him at first, feeling it would be disloyal, somehow. But he found out anyway.

  Howe was in his study when her cell phone rang on the fifth morning since Patti had left. Seeing “unknown caller,” Elizabeth wondered if it was P.J. or Patti and said a breathless, “Hello?”

  “I just found out,” P.J. said. “Why didn’t you tell me? I could have hired a detective. Done something, anything, to help. I know you’re frantic.”

  “Hold on.” Elizabeth hurried to the side porch, safely out of earshot from Howe’s study and the workmen. “Howe has somebody looking for her,” she explained when she got there. “I just didn’t . . . I appreciate your concern, but I really don’t want to talk about it, if that’s okay. I get sick to my stomach when I do.”

  “I never got to have kids,” P.J. said. “Liza kept putting it off. Then my business went to hell, and she went with it, so no kids for me. I can’t begin to imagine how awful this must be for you.”

  So much for not talking about it. “We’ll be okay,” Elizabeth told him, using the plural without thinking. “Howe’s convinced she’ll show up eventually, when she runs out of money.”

  “He would think of money,” P.J. said, leveling the first direct criticism of Howe since he’d woken from his coma.

  “It’s not like that,” Elizabeth defended. “He’s not like that anymore. He’s as worried as I am.”

  “Sorry,” P.J. apologized. “I just can’t help . . . the man has everything, including you. I’m jealous. I admit it.”

&nb
sp; “Don’t be,” Elizabeth told him. “Once I make sure Patti’s okay, I might just strangle her. She’s so . . .” Anger and frustration threatened to set her tongue loose at both ends, but she managed to get a grip on herself. “Trust me, you don’t need to be jealous.”

  An uncomfortable silence lengthened between them. “What can I do to help?” he asked at last.

  “Give me space,” she said frankly. “I can’t handle . . . the whole us thing. Not till I know Patti’s safe. Maybe not even then. There’s still so much to work out with Howe.”

  “Okay,” he conceded. “But I’m here for you, Lillibet.” The pet name rankled, coming from him. “I’m not going away.”

  As much as she hated to admit it, she didn’t want him to, no matter how unrespectable that was. “I miss you,” she confessed. “Miss our talks.”

  “I miss you, too,” he said, his voice catching.

  She exhaled heavily. “I’ll call you when we find out anything.”

  “Okay.”

  She hung up, flashing on the feel of his arms around her and the heat in his eyes when he looked at her. Her insides did a flip.

  Then she thought of Howe, holding her close as they both grieved their runaway daughter, and felt the old “bad girl” guilt she’d known as a child when her father had beaten her older brothers, yet never laid a hand on her.

  “Hey,” Howe said from behind her, sending Elizabeth half out of her skin. “I was looking for you. Dr. Clare said we could come in this afternoon to go over the test results.”

  “Good,” she said, pocketing her cell phone, heart pounding. “I’ll get my things.”

  Howe waggled his brows. “We can have lunch at the Varsity!”

  “You and the Varsity,” she said, grateful he hadn’t noticed her reaction.

  Dr. Clare showed them the MRIs and confirmed that nothing new was abnormal. Everything looked fine. Elizabeth was surprised by how elated she was to hear that Howe was all right. But her relief was tempered by growing dread about their missing daughter.

  When the sixth day came and Patti still hadn’t gotten in touch, Elizabeth broke down and called the police to report both their daughter and her car as missing.

  True to Howe’s prediction, the cops took the report, but didn’t seem concerned, especially after Elizabeth explained that they’d had a fight over the car.

  Less than fifteen minutes after she got off the phone, Augusta called and royally chewed her out for “parading their family differences before the police, of all people, and trying to make a criminal out of her own flesh and blood.”

  Then she demanded to speak to Howe and railed on him, swearing on his father’s grave that she’d never forgive them if anything happened to her granddaughter. After that, she gave them the silent treatment—a blessing, as far as Elizabeth was concerned.

  As the days went on, even Howe’s optimism flagged. He even begged off Rotary, saying he didn’t feel well—his first successful white lie since the stroke.

  Elizabeth didn’t know whether to consider that a good sign or a bad one.

  Worried and guilt-ridden, he retreated into himself and his study, reminding Elizabeth all too much of the way things had been before his illness.

  Every time the phone rang, Elizabeth’s heart leapt, hoping it would be their daughter. More than a week had passed without word when she answered yet another ring. “Hello?”

  “May I please speak with my son?” Augusta’s frosty voice asked.

  Disappointed, Elizabeth went to his closed study door and tapped it lightly. “Phone, Howe. It’s your mother.”

  “Thanks,” came back through the door. She heard him pick up the extension. “Hello?”

  She hadn’t intended to eavesdrop, but before she hit the kill button, she heard Augusta say the one thing that kept her from hanging up.

  “I have word of Patricia,” Howe’s mother told him.

  “Thank God. Is she okay?” he said. “Where is she?”

  “In jail, thanks to you, at Destin,” Augusta snapped. “For stealing her own car. She called, asking me to bail her out. I’ve already engaged a lawyer there to do so, but if you pursue this ridiculous stolen-car business, I shall cut you off without a penny, Howell, and I mean it!”

  “Of course we won’t charge her,” he said, ignoring the useless threat. “We just want her home.”

  “Thanks to you,” his mother shot back, “she doesn’t want to come home.”

  Elizabeth winced for Howe.

  “Well, we want her here,” he said, his tone firm. “She needs to learn that running away doesn’t solve anything. Tell the lawyer not to bail her out. I’ll take the first flight to Destin.”

  “Let me go, instead,” Augusta said. “She’s furious with you, and I don’t blame her. She can stay at my house till both of you come to your senses.”

  Elizabeth gripped the phone and bit back, No, no, no!

  “Mama,” Howe said, “I really appreciate your offer, and I know you mean well, but I need to be the one to get her. And I need to drive her and the car back. It’ll give me a chance to talk some sense into her.”

  After a bristling pause, Augusta said quietly, “Howell, though I suppose I can understand your recent efforts to provide more discipline in Patricia’s life, I must ask if you’ve considered the fact that nineteen years of indulgence can’t be undone in a matter of weeks, or even months.”

  “Yes, Mother,” he answered. “I’m all too aware of that. I can’t undo what happened, but she and I have to work this out between us. I wouldn’t dream of putting you in the middle of this mess.” That was one way of putting it. “I appreciate your concern, but helping her avoid this isn’t helping. She needs to learn that there are consequences to her actions.”

  “Weren’t you listening?” his mother scolded. “Regardless of your own change of mind and manners, Patricia is the same girl we both loved before your stroke.” She left Elizabeth out of the equation, of course. “You may have changed overnight, but it’s completely unreasonable to expect her to do so.”

  Ouch. Went for the jugular with that one.

  “Let us handle this, Mama,” Howe insisted. “Elizabeth and I are her parents, and we want what’s best for her. You’ll just have to trust us in this.”

  Yay, Howe, for including her.

  He went on with, “And I don’t want you bothering Elizabeth about any of this, either. In the future, if you have any criticism of me or my family, call me about it. Elizabeth has never done anything to justify the way you treat her, and I want it to stop, Mother. I mean it. I will not have you criticizing her anymore, tacitly or otherwise. If you do, I’ll . . .”

  Hardly believing her ears, Elizabeth held her breath, waiting for the rest.

  “I’ll tell everybody at Rotary that you wear a wig.”

  “You would not,” Augusta breathed, aghast.

  “Oh, yes I would. I even know where you buy them,” Howe said, to Elizabeth’s total surprise.

  She’d wondered why her mother-in-law drove an hour every week, each way, to have her hair done in Atlanta, when it never looked that good.

  “And we won’t even discuss the Depends,” Howe threatened further.

  “Now you’re sounding like your old self,” Augusta accused.

  Howe didn’t take the bait. “Whatever,” he said calmly. “But ease up on Elizabeth. And leave Patricia to me. I mean it. Call off the lawyer.”

  “If you insist,” she snapped. “You sound just like your father! Good-bye.” She hung up.

  “How was that?” Howe said over the dead air that followed.

  “You knew I was listening?” Elizabeth exclaimed.

  “I didn’t hear you click off, and I didn’t mind,” he confessed. “It was thirty years late in coming, but I’m glad you heard.”

  “So am I.”

  “Good.” She could almost hear him smile. “Can I take you out to lunch,” he asked, “on the way to the airport? Say, the Varsity?”

  “You
and your Varsity.”

  Two hours and three chili dogs later, Elizabeth dropped him off at the Atlanta airport and said a prayer for traveling mercies. And a change of heart in their daughter—which would take a Red Sea miracle.

  Chapter 14

  Howe and Patti arrived home late the next day. After a sullen hello and brief hug—clearly under duress—Patricia flew up to her room and slammed the door.

  “That went well,” Howe said dryly, “don’t you think?” He made straight for the Advil in the cabinet over the dishwasher, and this time, Elizabeth didn’t blame him.

  He inhaled deeply. “Wow. Fried chicken.”

  “Homemade,” she said, following him into the kitchen. “It helped to pass the time while y’all were on the road.” She’d fixed Patricia’s favorite supper: fried chicken, butter peas, rice and gravy, broccoli and hollandaise, deviled eggs, and sliced tomatoes from the garden. Elizabeth had cooked all day, glad for the distraction.

  The way things had been going, Elizabeth had feared a policeman would turn up at the door to tell her they’d been in an accident. She took a tall glass from the cabinet. “So, how’d it go with Patti?” she asked above the raucous jangle of ice from the dispenser in the refrigerator door, followed by the mechanical whoosh of filtered water. She handed the glass to Howe.

  “Could have been worse,” he told her. “She could have jumped from the speeding car on the Interstate.”

  “That bad, huh?” She handed him the glass.

  His brows rose. “I kept telling myself to stay calm, that she was just testing me.” He managed a wan smile. “You’d be proud of me. I didn’t pull over once, and I hardly cussed at all. Only cried three times.”

  “That’s an improvement,” she acknowledged. “Especially under the circumstances.”

  He downed the Advil, then gulped half the water. “Well, at least she got it all out into the open. Said she wants to move out.” He gulped the rest like a man who’d been lost in the desert. “Whew. Thirsty. Got any tea?”

  Like all his other appetites since he’d woken up, his thirst consumed him in the moment, to the exclusion of everything else.