Volume Three: In Moonlight and Memories, #3

by Julie Ann Walker

  “Lordy, that man had guts,” she says. “He never ran from the hard stuff, but instead faced it head-on. And let me tell you, it was hard. Hard for us to be around Bea. Hard for us to be happy because her heart was broken.”

  She glances up, and despite the old hurt, her eyes are those of a woman who’s enjoyed her life and makes no excuses for it. The lines radiating out from the corners are more a product of days spent smiling than of advanced years.

  “It took Bea some time to get over it,” she admits. “But eventually, she saw how well Jack and I got on, how happy we were together. And she had the grace to forgive us.”

  Her voice is gentle when she continues, “Hearts break, but they also heal. That’s the beauty of them. And not too long after hers healed, she met her husband.”

  “Joseph Chatelain.” I picture the framed photos scattered around the house. Joseph was a tall, thin man with a thick mop of blond hair and a dashing mustache. He’s young and handsome in all of the pictures, since he never got the chance to grow old.

  “Despite what folks say about her marrying him for his money,” Auntie June tells me, “you can bet your bottom dollar it was a love match. I wish you could’ve seen them. Pretty as peaches, they were. The whole town would stop and stare when they walked down the sidewalk.”

  Her expression clouds, sadness dulling her eyes. “I think that’s why she never remarried. Joe was the love of her life. Period. End of story. There was no use looking for someone after him. She knew she’d never find anyone to measure up.”

  I shake my head. “I can’t believe this is the first time I’m hearing this.”

  “It’s all water under the bridge. So many years ago now that sometimes I think we both forget it happened. But the moral of the story stands the test of time. Look at Cash. Look at Luc. Then look at your future. Which one do you see there, honey? Which one suits?”

  “Cash has always been like the moon for me.” I can’t hide the anguish in my voice. “I’m caught in his gravitational pull, endlessly orbiting, unable to break free.”

  “And Luc?” she prods.

  “Luc is like…well, it’s like he has the ability to truly see me. More than that, he sees the world the same way I do. But does that mean we’re meant to be lovers or only friends?”

  “I suppose there’s only one way to find out. You have to give him a chance. The same chance you’ve given Cash. That way, you’re comparing apples to apples and—”

  Yard has treed a squirrel and starts barking his fool head off. Which sets off the other dogs in the neighborhood until it sounds like the hounds of hell have been let loose.

  “Yard! Hush!” I yell at him. But he’s gone deaf in his excitement.

  “Sorry, Auntie June.” I run and grab his collar, pulling him away from the tree and tempting him with the chew toy I keep tucked in my purse for such occasions. He takes the toy to a patch of early afternoon sunshine and lies down to gnaw on it.

  I get back to the swing at the same time the egg timer goes off. Helping Auntie June stand, I start to follow her into the house. But she says, “Pulling the cakes from the oven and setting them to cool is a one-woman job. Why don’t you stay out here and sit with your thoughts a spell?”

  “Are you sure?”

  “As sure as the dawn, honey.” She pats my cheek.

  I manage a weak smile, but the minute she disappears through the door, my smile dissolves into a frown. Flopping onto the porch swing, I grumble, “Why does love have to be so danged complicated?”

  I pose the question to the universe. Although, in my experience, the universe is downright stingy when it comes to answers.

  “That’s its nature.”

  I choke at the sound of Vee’s voice and swing around to find her rounding the side of the veranda. “How long have you been back there?”

  “Long enough.” Her footsteps crunch on the winter-dry grass, and then she climbs the steps, taking a seat beside me. For a long moment, she studies me. “I take it Luc finally got around to telling you how he really feels about you?” she asks, one eyebrow arched.

  Insert the sound of a record scratching here. “You knew?”

  She gives me a wide-eyed you gotta be kidding me look. “Oh my God, Maggie. Everyone knew. Lucien Dubois isn’t exactly Lady Gaga when it comes to his feelings for you. The man’s got zero poker face.”

  I gulp, feeling like a lead weight has replaced my heart. “Somehow that makes what’s happening now feel so much worse. How could I not have known? Not have seen?”

  “Maybe you didn’t want to,” she suggests.

  I pick at the ragged edge of a hangnail, afraid she might be right.

  After a while, she ventures, “You know, I’ll always be grateful to him for the change in you.”

  “The change in me?” I frown. “What do you mean?”

  “Surely you remember how you were after Mom and Dad died. So fragile. So…” She shakes her head. “Closed off. I was terrified for you. Terrified of you, of touching you or talking to you. I worried that one wrong step, one wrong word would shatter you into a thousand pieces. And then Luc befriended you, and you started to smile again, to laugh again. All those cracks in your surface seemed to knit back together.”

  I stare down at my hands, fisting them when I see I’ve made the hangnail raw. “I thought you stopped talking to me and touching me because you blamed me for Mom’s and Dad’s deaths.”

  “No!” she cries, and my eyes jump to her face to catch her stricken expression. “Oh, Maggie, no. Never. Mom and Dad died because a hurricane blew through town and the levees broke. It’s as simple and as terrible as that. How could I ever blame you?”

  Some mysterious alchemy changes my lead heart back into one of flesh and blood. It pounds mercilessly. “They were there because I sent them.” My voice breaks on the boulder-sized lump in my throat.

  “Yeah.” She grabs my hand and I cling to her fingers. They’re thin but their grip is strong. I’m reminded of all the times we skipped hand in hand as girls. Of how safe I felt with my big sister by my side. “And they easily could’ve turned back once they found Eva and her granny were gone,” she says. “But they didn’t. Not because you sent them, but because they were wonderful people who couldn’t turn their backs on folks in trouble. I’ve always been proud of you for asking them to help. And I’ve always been proud of them for going.”

  “But you’ve been so cool to Eva. I thought…” I swallow and shake my head. “I guess I don’t know what I thought. Maybe that you blamed her too.”

  She winces and stares out at Yard, who is happily slobbering all over his chew toy.

  What must it be like to be so innocent? To live with no complications?

  If reincarnation is a thing, I want to come back as a dog. I’ll spend my days eating and napping and chasing a tennis ball. There’ll be no misunderstandings. No years of guilt and shame and remorse.

  “I’ve always been jealous of Eva.” Her cheeks are tinged a pretty shade of pink. “She was the one you talked to, the one you leaned on…afterward.”

  “She was my best friend,” I whisper.

  “And I was your sister, Maggie. We shared the same tragedy, the same loss, but you wouldn’t even look at me and—” She chokes on a sob.

  “Oh, Vee!” My arms go around her neck. It’s like the sun coming out after a bad storm when I feel her hug me back. “I couldn’t look at you. Every time I did, every time I saw the tears on your cheeks or the haunted look in your eyes, I was reminded that Mom and Dad were gone because of me.”

  “I swear I never blamed you.” Her voice is hoarse. I suspect her tears are wetting my hair, like mine are wetting hers. “I’m so sorry if I ever did anything to make you feel like I did.”

  “No. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry I didn’t share my grief with you, or let you share yours with me. I hate thinking of you crying by yourself.”

  “The aunts were there. But I…” She swallows noisily. “I would’ve preferred my sister.”<
br />
  Again, I sputter how sorry I am. Then, for a good, long stretch, we blubber in each other’s arms, sharing all those old hurts, all those old miseries like we should have done all along. Our tears wash away the years, the misunderstandings, leaving me wrung out and yet strangely refreshed.

  When we push back to stare at each other, I whisper, “I love you. I never stopped. Not even for one second.”

  “I love you too, Magpie.” She smiles tremulously and then laughs when the old nickname sends me into another bawl-a-thon.

  This time she doesn’t join me in the waterworks. She simply puts an arm around my shoulders and lets me cry it out as she keeps the porch swing swaying with repeated pushes of her toe. When I’ve finally dried up, she tilts her head against mine, like she used to do when we were kids.

  “We should’ve had a heart-to-heart a long time ago,” she says. “Just think of all we’ve missed.”

  “Folks fall into patterns,” I say unhappily. “They’re hard to break, especially if you throw confusion and hurt feelings into the mix.”

  “True,” she agrees. “And speaking of patterns, maybe it’s time you broke your pattern with Cash. Auntie June is right, you know. The only way you’ll be able to untangle your feelings for Luc and Cash is if you give Luc a chance to show you all he’s got to offer. He can’t compete with your memories of Cash unless you let him make some memories of his own.”

  “You’re saying that because you don’t like Cash.”

  “That’s not true.”

  When I dip my chin and give her a come on look, she sighs.

  “Okay, fine. From the beginning I knew he would break your heart. I tried to warn you. I told you he was no good. But you wouldn’t listen.”

  Yes. She did tell me. And yes. I didn’t listen. By that point, I’d already fallen in love. Young hearts are so eager, aren’t they?

  “How could you have known right from the start? He was the new kid at school. You didn’t know him well enough to be able to form an opinion. Unless…” I frown. “Maybe you looked at the black eye he was sporting that first day and judged a book by its cover?”

  She doesn’t answer me right away, instead frowning down at her no-chip manicure. It’s a pinkish red that reminds me of the strawberry wine Cash brought to the picnic we had in the park the week before he and Luc joined the army.

  It was Luc who took my glass away from me when I started to get drunk. He was also the one to buy me a cup of coffee and then sit with me while I sobered up. Dear, sweet Luc…always looking out for me.

  “I knew because he was supposed to meet me at the diner,” Vee eventually says. “I was the one who invited him there.”

  My heart plummets. I remember her being in the diner that day. She was sitting in the big booth at the back with all of her friends.

  “Oh my gosh, Vee.” My throat is too tight for anything more than a whisper. “I had no idea.”

  “I know you didn’t. How could you? But that’s how I knew he was a heartbreaker. And then, not even two years later, he went and proved me right, didn’t he?”

  I’m still reeling from her revelation, from the thought of Cash walking into that diner for her and then walking out with me. How awful that must have made her feel.

  Still, I can’t help defending Cash. “He had good reason to go, you know. In the end, I mean. His father was abusing him.”

  Her eyebrows arch. “Really?”

  “It was bad, Vee. Really bad. Still is. It was his dad who put him in the hospital this last time.”

  “Sweet Mother Mary,” she whispers. Then, “I guess that explains why he was in scraps all the time. He was practicing what his no-account daddy was preaching at home.”

  The thought of that makes my head hurt.

  “Still,” she goes on, “that excuses him for running off, but it does not excuse him for breaking all contact with you. I know you waited over a year to hear from him. It about killed me to see you walking around like an open wound when I’d come back from Tulane on weekends or breaks.”

  An open wound…

  A fair description.

  “He cut off all contact with me because he knew he wasn’t coming back, and he thought cutting off all contact would help me move on more quickly,” I explain. “And also because he thought it would help keep me safe from George Sullivan.”

  “So you’re saying he’s not as bad as I think he is?” She lets loose with a windy sigh and nods. “Yeah. I was beginning to suspect that myself.”

  “What the what?” I do an exaggerated double take. “What’s brought about this stunning change of heart?”

  Something passes across her face. Something…sad.

  “Vee?” I frown. “Did something happen between you two? Luc told me he saw y’all quarreling on New Year’s Eve.”

  With a wince, she confesses, “I was ripping Cash a new one for parading Scarlet around under your nose.”

  My jaw slings open.

  “Someone needed to point out that he was being a total asshole.” Her chin firms.

  A slow grin spreads across my face, and I nudge her shoulder. “I like the idea of my big sister standing up for me.”

  She chuckles. “Good. Because some habits are impossible to break.”

  “Out of curiosity, what did Cash say?”

  “The usual,” she’s quick to answer, although that something passes over her face again. “He told me to mind my own biscuits. But that brings me back to Luc.”

  “What does? Biscuits?”

  She rolls her eyes. “You always told the corniest jokes.”

  “I like to think of it as one of my more charming God-given attributes.”

  She glances at the heavens and shakes a fist. “Why couldn’t you have bestowed upon her a couture fashion sense? We could have shared clothes!”

  “What? Ripped jeans and black T-shirts aren’t your thing?” I bat my eyelashes innocently.

  “If they looked as good on me as they do on you, then they would be.”

  “Please.” It’s my turn for an eye roll. “You’ve got a banging bod under all those fancy duds, and you know it.”

  “True.” She smiles a vixen’s smile. “And speaking of banging bods, back to Luc.”

  “See? Now that’s a segue.”

  “Thank you.” She does a little curtsy in her seat and I’m grinning ear to ear. It feels so natural to be sitting here talking to her like this that I have trouble remembering why we haven’t been doing it all along.

  “So you’ve noticed the…ahem…changes in him?” I give her the side-eye. “He’s grown into quite a piece of eye candy, hasn’t he?”

  “Yes,” she agrees with an adamant nod, “he certainly has.”

  “Maybe you shouldn’t be encouraging me to try things out with him,” I say. “Maybe I should be encouraging you.” Although, the thought makes my back teeth ache.

  “Oh, believe me, if he looked at me like he looks at you, I’d be all over him. Back in high school, the way his eyes followed you around a room was enough to make all the girls swoon. Nothing has changed.”

  I squirm in my seat, feeling like such a fool for not seeing what everyone else saw.

  “You…uh…you weren’t exactly his biggest cheerleader back in high school, if I recall. And you haven’t been all that welcoming to him since he came back,” I point out. “So what’s changed?”

  She makes a face of regret. “I wasn’t the most confident girl on the planet back then. I was always worried about what people thought of me. I suppose because I never really felt like I belonged at Braxton Academy. We didn’t have the family name or the pedigree that most everyone there had. We were public-school kids who only got in because our great-aunt knew the right folks and paid our way. I was young and stupid and scared that the scandal surrounding Luc would somehow rub off on you, which, in turn, would rub off on me. When I think back on it now, it’s ridiculous.”

  “But you seemed so at home there,” I declare. “You made friends so
quickly.”

  “I made friends because I was good at paying compliments and keeping my head down.”

  “And now?” I ask, bowled over by her revelations. Is nothing what I thought it was? Can we ever believe our own eyes and hearts and minds? I’m beginning to have my doubts. “Do you still worry what people think of you?”

  “Insomuch as I want to be respected for being a good person and doing good things,” she says. “But I stopped keeping my head down years ago. Luc was right when he said we get better with age. Smarter too.”

  She’s quiet for a couple of seconds, then she adds, “As for my lackluster enthusiasm since he came back? Let’s blame that on my not being sure he was here to stay. I didn’t trust him not to ditch you for Cash should Cash decide to up and split one more time. And I hated the thought of you being hurt again by either of them. But over the months, that concern has lessened. And the simple truth of it is, he’s a good man, Maggie. Brave, kind, loyal. And he’s been in love with you since he was sixteen years old. So now I’m firmly Team Luc. I think you should give him a chance. What have you got to lose?”

  “Oh, you know, only everything that’s great about the two of us if we try and it doesn’t work out. Only Cash’s friendship if he doesn’t approve.”

  “If this friendship y’all share is real, then nothing will end it,” she says with confidence. “True friends and true love are a lot alike. They both tend to stick.”

  Chapter Eighty

  ______________________________________

  Cash

  Life changes you.

  Thing is, you don’t notice when it’s happening. It’s only in retrospect that you see the difference between who you are now and who you were then.

  Not long ago, I would’ve celebrated Rick’s death the way New Orleanians celebrate Mardi Gras. With booze and lots of singing and dancing. But now? All I can do is look out over the dark bayou and think… What a waste. What a sad, senseless waste of a life.

  Richard Armstrong, my far-from-illustrious sperm donor, has shuffled off this mortal coil. Ding, dong, the bastard’s dead.