“Let’s go home, Mama.”
We walked out through the courtyard.
Past the fountain.
It was still running.
Daniel fell into step on my other side without a word.
Tanner left the head table and followed us.
At the steps, he reached for my mother’s elbow.
“Mrs. Myrick, I’m sorry.”
He apologized to her.
Not to me.
It was the right choice.
My mother nodded once.
Marisol waited at the courtyard gate with an empty tray.
I started removing her cardigan.
“Keep it.”
I stopped.
“It looks better on you.”
“It has your name on it.”
She smiled.
“Then you’ll remember mine.”
Daniel’s Tacoma was parked beyond the valet area.
He opened the passenger door.
The hinge gave its familiar squeak.
He helped my mother in first.
She settled into the seat with both hands in her lap.
My car was still down by the valet stand.
I would come back for it later.
I had arrived alone because I thought strength meant walking in without anybody.
I left in somebody else’s truck beside my mother and my husband.
That mattered too.
I had almost reached the passenger side when my father called from the porch.
“Wav.”
I stopped.
He had followed us only as far as the top step.
The same place where he had taken his bow after pushing me into the fountain.
He did not come down.
“Ten minutes.”
His voice was smaller without the microphone.
“That’s all I’m asking.”
I looked at him.
“Ten minutes with Gerald.”
Behind him, guests moved through the courtyard while trying not to look.
“You can fix this.”
He still believed it.
He would probably believe it forever.
That every problem was waiting for the right person to be traded.
“Remember this moment,” I said.
Then I got into the truck.
Daniel closed my door.
It squeaked.
He walked around, climbed behind the wheel, and backed slowly down the gravel drive.
My mother reached across the console.
Her hand found mine.
Cold fingers.
A familiar squeeze.
But this time, she did it where anybody could see.
Six weeks later, the old feed store on Depot Street smelled like fresh lumber, rubbing alcohol, cardboard, and paint.
Daniel stood on a ladder in a T-shirt with a wrench in his back pocket, tightening the brackets on a new shelf.
My mother sat behind the register wearing reading glasses low on her nose while she learned the pharmacy software.
She had moved out after the wedding.
There had been no dramatic announcement.
No speech.
No revenge.
She simply did not go back with my father that night.
By the end of the week, she had started helping me pack ten years of my business into boxes.
Bottle by bottle.
Shelf by shelf.
We moved what could be moved.
We rebuilt what had to be rebuilt.
The old feed store had wide front windows and uneven wooden floors.
The first morning the sunlight came through the glass and hit the new counter, it looked nothing like 114 Main.
I was grateful for that.
Lorna Diggs came through the door at nine on a Saturday to collect her thyroid medication.
She stopped halfway across the floor.
“Well.”
I looked up.
“Well what?”
“You actually did it.”
“You sound surprised.”
“I’m sixty-eight. I’m surprised every morning.”
My mother almost smiled behind the register.
Lorna placed her purse on the counter.
“The bank started foreclosure on 114 Main Tuesday.”
I continued labeling her prescription.
“I heard.”
“He’s two payments behind on the lien.”
“I heard that too.”
“Losing fourteen hundred a month in rent didn’t help.”
“No.”
Lorna lowered her voice even though there was nobody else nearby.
“The Pruitts pulled out.”
“There wasn’t anything to pull out of.”
“That did not stop Gerald from making sure everybody knew he pulled out.”
That sounded like Gerald.
“He sent us fruit.”
Lorna blinked.
“Fruit?”
“Basket.”
“Why?”
I nodded toward the break room.
“It’s in there.”
“The card?”
“Trash.”
Lorna laughed.
Then she glanced toward my mother.
My mother looked over the top of her reading glasses.
“Cash or card, Lorna?”
Lorna straightened.
“Card.”
Daniel climbed down from the ladder.
He carried a clipboard.
“The landlord needs both signatures.”
He set it on the counter.
“Here and here.”
I looked down.
Five-year lease.
Both names.
Mine first.
Six weeks earlier, that would have frightened me.
I would have insisted the lease be mine alone.
The business mine alone.
The risk mine alone.
Anything shared would have felt like something that could someday be used against me.
Daniel tapped the paper.
“You sure?”
I looked at him.
“Needing you isn’t the same as being owned.”
One side of his mouth lifted.
“Took me a fountain to learn it.”
I signed.
Daniel signed beneath me.
My mother watched.
Popular Posts
→- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
Recently Viewed
Stories you read recently will appear here.
