The Lights of Sugarberry Cove

by Heather Webber

  “Hey,” Sadie protested.

  Giving her an I-tell-it-like-it-is look, he shrugged. “You might want to go give her a proper welcome.”

  I set the box down. “Thanks, Uncle Camp.”

  But before I even had a chance to stand back up, an older woman wearing a lightweight pale-yellow cardigan and matching capri pants appeared in the doorway. “Oh dear. I hope my early arrival didn’t throw everyone into a tizzy.”

  Sadie let out a small squeak of happiness. “Mrs. Teakes? What’re you doing here?”

  Chapter

  11

  Sadie

  “Of all the bed-and-breakfasts in all the world,” Mama said as she sat in an armchair in the living room, her body angled to face Mrs. Teakes.

  It had been a few hours since Mrs. Teakes arrived, and she sat on the sofa, an unopened book resting on her lap, a cup of hot tea in hand. She took a sip, then said, “While at my home in Wetumpka last week, Sadie mentioned Sugarberry Cove and I had the strangest feeling that I should visit again. I tried to ignore the impulse—I have no car. I hadn’t made reservations months ahead of time. It seemed a dubious quest at best. One that might have been better to postpone a year.” She waved a swirling, dismissive hand. “There were a million excuses to ignore my whim, but life is uncertain, is it not? One day you’re here, then you’re gone. You need to make the most out of life. Live it to its fullest. At my age, there might not be a next year, so I decided I’d find a way to make this trip work, even if I’m here only for this weekend. If I’m so lucky to be around next year, I’ll plan another trip to see the water lantern festival.”

  If I’m so lucky. It reminded me of what Uncle Camp had said earlier about how getting old wasn’t for the faint of heart—it was for the lucky. I rather wished he could’ve heard Mrs. Teakes, but he’d excused himself to work on taming the mountain laurel, and I could hear the drone of hedge trimmers coming from out front.

  Rarely was the cottage full of people in the middle of the day, but this weekend was proving anything but ordinary. Teddy and Bree had returned from their foray into town slightly pink-cheeked from the heat but smiling. They were now playing cards at the game table in the corner, while Nigel slept at Bree’s feet.

  Leala and I stood on separate steps of the staircase, both armed with a spray bottle full of watered-down fabric softener and a scraper. The scraping was going surprisingly easily. “How did you get here, Mrs. Teakes?” I asked, not realizing she hadn’t driven.

  “Rideshare.” She grinned. “A neighbor helped me figure out the app on my phone.”

  “A rideshare all the way from Wetumpka?” Mama picked up her glass of iced tea from the coffee table. “Shoo.”

  Mama’s energy had returned. She’d spent two hours in her room before reemerging for lunch and had hit it off with Mrs. Teakes right away. Of course, Mama seemed to hit it off with everyone. Her big personality didn’t know a stranger.

  “It was a pleasant drive,” Mrs. Teakes said. “My driver was a lovely young man, with perhaps a touch of a lead foot.” She took a sip of tea. “We arrived sooner than I expected.”

  Across the room, Teddy threw her cards on the table, then pushed a pile of poker chips toward Bree. “You’re a cardsharp wrapped up in a sweet, pretty package, Bree Bynum. If we were playing for money, I’d be flat broke. Flatter broke, anyway.”

  “It’s beginner’s luck.” Bree’s face flushed when we all looked her way. “Or a little of that lake magic all y’all are always talking about.”

  “‘All y’all’?” Leala repeated, smiling. “Did you hear that? One day in town and Bree’s already talking like a native. You’re a Southerner at heart, Bree. I can tell.”

  “We say ‘y’all’ in southern Indiana, too. But I do like it here in Sugarberry Cove,” she said simply as she stacked her winnings.

  I liked that she was talking more, opening up. She’d seemed so despondent last night that I’d been truly worried about her. But today she was chatting and smiling, and seeing it warmed my heart.

  “It’s a special place,” Mrs. Teakes said, and everyone nodded in agreement.

  It really was. It was why I’d had trouble finding a new hometown—nothing measured up.

  Mrs. Teakes added, “I’ll be going into town later on to purchase a lantern kit. Could I trouble one of you to set it afloat for me the night of the festival?”

  The kits came with a two-tiered piece of wood, rice paper paneling, tall dowels to hold up the rice paper, a tea light candle, a marker, and an invisible-ink pen.

  Mama said, “I’ll happily do it, Mrs. Teakes. It’s a shame you won’t be here next weekend, but we’re surely delighted to have you with us now.” She raised her glass in a toast toward me. “Thanks for the free advertising, Sadie honey.”

  “It wasn’t me, Mama.” I zigzagged my scraper along the wall, lifting slimy shreds of wallpaper backing that I then dropped into a brown bag on the step below me. Leala, I noticed, was scraping in perfectly straight vertical rows. “I never mentioned the bed-and-breakfast by name.”

  Mrs. Teakes took another sip of tea. “That’s true. I was just as surprised to see Sadie here as she was me.”

  “Then how did you find us?” Leala asked as she squirted another section of the wall.

  “When I tried to get a reservation for the lantern festival next weekend, everything was booked solid, so I did the next best thing and decided to spend this weekend up here. Yours was the only place around with a vacancy. What luck!”

  “Luck?” Mama laughed. “I think not. That’s lake magic at work, Mrs. Teakes. Mark my words.”

  “I agree,” Teddy said from her spot at the game table. “A sudden urge to visit, then a rare vacancy? Magic’s in the air. I said so this morning.”

  “That you did, Teddy. But if you ask me, magic is always in the air here on the lake.” Mama leaned in toward Mrs. Teakes. “Did Sadie happen to tell you about my near-death experience just last week? Had myself a heart attack,” she added before Mrs. Teakes could answer. “It’s just like you said—one day you’re here, then you’re gone. I’m fine, just fine, thank the good Lord above. But I could’ve been gone, just like that.” She snapped her fingers.

  “Oh Lord,” Leala whispered and scraped faster. She glanced over at me, eyebrows drawn low.

  Mama was forever oversharing. It was part of her charm … and also her worst trait.

  “Our Sadie Way died once, too, just off the dock back there.” Mama hooked a thumb over her shoulder toward the lake. “She drowned and the lady of the lake saved her.”

  “Mama.” I let out a long sigh.

  Mrs. Teakes turned wide eyes my way, but I didn’t see shock or pity in them, only warmth. I’d suspected she’d known the truth of my hair, and her reaction now only confirmed it.

  Mama waved a hand. “All I’m saying is that it’s a wonderment that we’ve had two near-death experiences in the family. That we’re still here is something to be celebrated.” She clapped her hands. “We should have a party.”

  “Two?” Bree chimed in. “You mean three. Three near deaths. Don’t forget about Leala. She almost died, too. When she gave birth to her little boy.”

  The room fell silent and every head turned toward Leala. And when I heard her swear under her breath, I almost fell down the steps for the second time today because I’d never heard Leala swear in my whole life.

  “What’s this now?” Mama asked.

  Leala spritzed the wall. “Just some issues in the operating room during my C-section. I lost a lot of blood and needed several transfusions.”

  She didn’t mention the hysterectomy, so I certainly wasn’t going to. I was curious how Bree had known all this, though, seeing as we had only met her last night.

  Mama looked between Leala and Bree, back and forth, back and forth. “Why am I just hearing about this now?”

  “Did I say something wrong?” Bree asked, her face screwed into a wince.

  “No, you didn’t,” Leala finally sa
id, giving her full attention to the room. “Not at all. It’s not a secret. I just don’t talk about it much. The nearly dying part, not the C-section part.”

  “Or at all, apparently,” Mama added tightly.

  “Sorry,” Bree apologized. “I just thought … She’s your mom … I told my mom everything.”

  My breath caught at the past tense. Told my mom. What had happened to her mother? I bit back a hundred questions and fought the urge to make her a cake and give her a big hug. We all looked at each other except for Mrs. Teakes, who stared into her tea. I felt terrible that she’d been dragged into our family drama.

  “Well,” Teddy finally said after an uncomfortable minute, “I haven’t had a near-death experience yet and don’t particularly care to have one, thank you very much. But did I ever tell y’all about the time I turned down a wedding proposal? It was the only one I ever had, too. Happened right here at this very bed-and-breakfast, out on the back lawn. I’m half-convinced I’ve been cursed in the love department since.”

  With this bit of gossip too juicy to ignore, Mama tore her irritated gaze away from Leala. “When was this? Was it to that man”—Mama snapped her fingers—“Rusty. No. Rudy?”

  Teddy nodded. “Rudy. This is some twenty-five years ago now—my first ever stay here at the cottage. Rudy and I had come to the cottage for a romantic getaway during the water lantern festival. All those lights were floating around, the stars were shining, and he got down on one knee … and it was all so perfect. Dreamlike, even. Yet for some reason I couldn’t say yes. He packed up all his things and left that very night. I stayed. I stayed for two whole weeks, and Susannah let me cry on her shoulder and assured me everything would be just fine in time.”

  That was not the woman Leala and I knew, but she’d always treated us differently from our guests, giving them endless attention and us hardly any.

  Mama was sitting on the edge of her seat. “I knew you two had broken up, but I thought you had a fight or something. I didn’t know about a proposal. Hot dang.”

  “Why couldn’t you say yes?” Bree asked.

  “I didn’t love him. I liked him. A lot. But it wasn’t enough. I wanted love. True love. You’d think the lady of the lake would take pity on me by now.” In an aside to Mrs. Teakes, she said, “I wish for love every darn year, and yet … nothing. But maybe that’s because I had true love back then but didn’t give it enough time. I let it walk away.”

  “Rudy wouldn’t have walked away if he were your true love.” Mama’s tone was firm. “Or at the very least, he would’ve come back. So take that thought straight out of your head.”

  We all nodded, even Mrs. Teakes, which amused me.

  “Well, I’m holding out hope this is my year. Mrs. Teakes, would you mind some company on your trip into town? I need to buy lantern kits for Bree and me, too. Maybe a few of them. Can’t hurt to set a few extra wishes afloat.” She grinned. “Do you have dinner plans? We can make a whole date of it.”

  “Please call me Iona. All of you.” Mrs. Teakes set her cup down on a coaster. “I’d love some company and dinner sounds lovely, simply lovely. Would anyone else care to join us?”

  Mama jumped up. “I would!”

  I didn’t bother trying to talk her out of it. Thankfully, Teddy would be there, keeping an eye on her and hopefully preventing an order of deep-fried anything.

  Leala and I both declined the offer to head into town, and a half hour later, the cottage had cleared out. Even Uncle Camp had been roped by Iona into going along, and I smiled as he took the time to dress up a bit in a button-down shirt and nice jeans. His beard had been freshly trimmed, and there was a smile on his face when he left the cottage walking side by side with Iona, the two of them talking about the honeysuckle, convincing me that maybe there was magic in the air after all. I’d never seen Uncle Camp dress up to impress anyone before, and a bright spot of hope spun through me that maybe after all this time, love would be part of his story.

  Mama, while getting ready to leave, had given Leala the cold shoulder, not so much as saying goodbye when she left. Leala had taken the snub in stride, and it made me wonder how many times in the past she’d shouldered Mama’s displeasure to be seemingly impervious to it now.

  Even if I had wanted to go—I didn’t, but even if—I couldn’t have. There was too much to do around here, beyond finishing the wall in preparation for painting tomorrow. There was laundry to fold and a breakfast to plan and editing to do. The video I had ready to upload was definitely going to have to wait until I checked into a hotel with Wi-Fi, but I had leeway where that was concerned. I posted weekly and always worked a week in advance, so I already had a video scheduled to go live on A Southern Hankerin’ this coming week. It had taken me years to develop a schedule that worked for me, and I was reaping the benefits of it now, because it had allowed this unplanned stop in Sugarberry Cove without causing too much anxiety.

  Leala sat on the landing, studying the job we’d done. “Please stop me from ever wallpapering anything.”

  The removal process was tedious but not difficult, and we were just about done with the task. “I like wallpaper. Modern stuff, at least. Done in moderation, it can be quite pretty.”

  She frowned.

  I laughed.

  “Can I borrow your phone again?” she asked, already holding out her hand.

  I tossed it to her. She’d been using it to log into her email account. After a few seconds of pushing buttons, her frown deepened.

  “Still no email from Connor?”

  She glanced at the clock before handing the phone back to me. “No. I’m going to drive over there once we’re done with this. I’m actually starting to worry at this point.”

  “I’m sure everything is fine, Leala. Is it possible he hasn’t checked his email?”

  She bit her thumbnail. “He did say he wouldn’t check email, but I can’t remember the last time he truly unplugged.” She reached into a bucket to pick up a sponge. She wrung it out with more force than necessary, then went to work wiping down the wall, scrubbing off any last bits of wallpaper glue. “Work, work, work. It’s like he’s married to it and not me.”

  Ah, so it was his work that was coming between them. I didn’t know much about Connor’s job. Just that it was at a fancy law firm in Birmingham and that he must make a ton of money, considering their big house and fancy cars.

  “Where did Connor grow up?” I asked, at first to distract her but then I realized I truly wanted to know.

  “Down in Coffee County, poor as could be. His family had a small peanut farm that barely earned enough to put food on the table. It went bankrupt when Connor was in high school.”

  “Are his parents still around?”

  “No. His mom died when he was in grade school. And his daddy died in a tractor accident his senior year of high school. Seeing how hard his parents had worked on the farm only to fail really motivated him to focus on his education to succeed in life. Thankfully, he landed a scholarship to college. He’s worked incredibly hard to get where he is, for all he’s achieved.”

  I vaguely recalled that he was an only child, but I had known nothing of his parents. How did I not know what a tragic childhood he’d had? Why hadn’t I taken the time to get to know him better? If not before he and Leala married—since I’d still been angry that he was stealing her away from me—but after I realized how badly I’d behaved? I could blame it on not being around him much, twice a year, three times at most. But deep down, really deep, maybe I was still a little angry that he’d taken her away. Only … now I realized it hadn’t been him at all. It had been Leala who’d removed herself from the family, the same way I’d removed myself from Sugarberry Cove.

  To protect ourselves.

  “He’s truly the hardest worker I know,” she said. Then she sighed. “But success isn’t always measured by money, Sadie. He barely knows Tucker. He barely knows me anymore.”

  “Do you still love him?”

  She rolled a scrap of w
allpaper between her fingers. “Of course, but I don’t love that he’s a workaholic.”

  I gave her a small smile. “You just said how hard he’s worked to get where he is. So is he really the one who’s changed? Or is it you?”

  Her forehead furrowed as she took a moment to answer. “Maybe I have changed. But it’s more complicated than that, Sadie. We had plans, dreams—”

  She broke off when a knock sounded on the back porch door. Buzzy waved when he saw us looking his way, and I went to let him in. “Buzzy! It’s so good to see you.”

  It was, too, so much so that my eyes welled with tears. He kept a tight grip on the bowl he was holding and gave me a big hug. Immediately the scent of him, a mix of pine-scented shampoo and a hint of sage, brought me back to my younger years and all the times he sat with me at the farmhouse table, helping me with my homework, especially with my math, which had never been my forte. Seemed all those genes had gone to Leala.

  “Sadie Bear, I sure have missed you.”

  I smiled at the nickname. He’d given it to me after he caught me raiding his berry patch for the hundredth time. I finally let go of him and said, “Come on in. Would you like some sweet tea? Coffee?”

  “Sweet tea would be great, thank you.” As soon as he stepped inside, he set a bowl of raspberries onto the counter and pushed his glasses up his nose and looked at the entryway. “Whoa. What happened in here?”

  I hurried to the fridge for the pitcher of tea and then grabbed a mason jar from the shelf.

  “Hurricane Sadie,” Leala said with a wan smile.

  I filled the jar with ice cubes and poured the tea. “I’d say I’m more of a tropical storm. I’m only mildly destructive.” I handed him the glass.

  Buzzy laughed. “I sure have missed seeing you two together. Feels … right, if you know what I mean.”

  I glanced at Leala. I knew.

  Leala smiled at me before saying, “It’s been too long since you’ve come by, Buzzy, and I’m glad you’re here. But if you were looking to visit with Mother, she’s not home right now.”