It had taken longer than a blink. Getting her sister to leave Augusta had taken Latrice a month. And as thrilled as Dara was to have her mother’s company, it couldn’t have come at a more inconvenient time.
They’d finally finalized the contracts, gotten the required permits, had environmental tests completed, and received the long list of approvals from the city. With Zebulon and India’s assistance, they’d ripped through all of the red tape with fierceness. Ground breaking was this week, and Thelma had decided to visit.
But that wasn’t Dara’s biggest concern and the only reason why she wanted her mother to leave. No, needed her to leave.
It was eating Dara up inside. What kind of person could continue to act as if she was still bound by the limits of her normal paycheck when she knew she was a millionaire?
When Dara’s confession bubbled to the surface, she called India. As soon as it was time for the ribbon-cutting ceremony at Eagles Pointe, she’d let her parents know. She’d let them see the “good” being done with her riches.
But it still wasn’t time….
Thelma held the stems of the bundled spring flowers under the running waters in Dara’s kitchen sink. She diagonally cut each tip and placed them in a crystal vase on the countertop, arranging each flower with the skill of an expert florist. Thelma was a believer in fresh flowers in the kitchen. Dara believed it was because she was used to the smell from the floral wreaths at the funeral home.
“It feels good to be away from home,” her mother said. “Usually I’m the one taking care of everybody else, but this has been my kind of weekend.”
“You deserve it, Mama.” Dara took two of the flowers out of her mother’s hand and stuck them in the vase. “Consider it my gift to you for finally leaving the city limits of Augusta.”
“When your daddy sees that fondue set and those fancy baking dishes you bought me, I bet he’ll drop me off more often. I can’t wait to get home and try some recipes. You know I watch Paula Deen all the time. She’s got this baked French toast casserole that James printed off her Web site for me. I’ll probably try that this week.”
“Now that sounds good,” Dara said.
She’d tried to buy her mother more than cooking tools for her kitchen, but Thelma had refused, saying Dara needed to save her money so she’d have enough to pay the bills and then put some away for a rainy day. She didn’t know Dara had enough put away for a whole line of storms. The accountant, Charles, had advised both Dara and India on how to shelter and invest their money.
“Do you think you’ll be able to make it for me and your daddy’s anniversary? James had talked about getting a dinner catered for us.”
“I actually talked to James about that,” Dara said. “We’re going to work out the entire family coming to Atlanta because I have a gift here that I want to present to you.”
“What kind of gift? You can just bring it to Augusta.”
“If I told you it wouldn’t be a surprise,” Dara said. “And no matter how hard I try, I can’t bring it to Augusta.”
If everything went according to schedule, Dara hoped to be celebrating her parents’ anniversary and the ribbon-cutting ceremony for Eagles Pointe in two months. She’d already had a corner stone engraved in her parents’ honor that would sit at the subdivision entrance as a testament to her family’s legacy. That was her gift to her parents. She hadn’t taken on the family business, yet she’d still been able to serve others. She didn’t know whether they’d ever come to terms with her lottery win, but in this case maybe it wasn’t where the money came from, maybe it was more about what Dara was doing with it.
“Who’s going to run the funeral home if we’re all here?” Thelma asked, starting to worry already.
“We’ll worry about that later. Mark it on your calendar, and we’ll both work on getting Daddy to come. I promise you won’t be disappointed,” Dara said. Or at least she prayed not.
Thelma pulled back the glass door in the living room and walked out onto the balcony. For the past week, Dara noticed that her mother had been enjoying the area just as much as she did. Almost every morning, Dara found her sitting outside with her Bible and a cup of coffee
“I can’t believe India and Latrice are taking off to Africa,” her mother said. “I’ve never known India to go anywhere she couldn’t drive to. How long is the flight going to be?”
“I’m not sure, Ma. But India still has a few months to realize what she’s done,” Dara said. She’d ridden with India before on a three-hour flight to Los Angeles. It wasn’t pretty. “It might not hit her until it’s time to board the plane.”
“I’ll tell you one thing. She’s making some good money selling houses. One minute she was complaining about the slow housing market, and the next she’s booked a trip to fly to the other side of the world. God is good. There’s a special favor you walk in when you serve the Lord,” she said.
“I’ll be back, Ma,” Dara said. She went into her bedroom and closed the door. Dara flung herself across her bed, buried her head in her pillow, and screamed at the top of her lungs. “How am I going to last another two months?” she said to herself. She stood up and walked over to the full-length mirror hanging on her closet door. “I’m a liar. A big, fat liar.”
Dara picked up the phone on her nightstand and called India. She could hear trucks rumbling in the background and a voice that sounded like Zebulon’s yelling over them.
“I can’t do it anymore,” Dara said.
“What? What are you talking about?”
“This is too stressful. I’ve got millions in the bank, I’m trying to rebuild a community, and I don’t have the courage to be an adult with my own parents.”
“Hold on,” India said. “Let me go to my car so I can hear you.”
“Dara?”
She heard her mother’s voice ring out. Dara opened her bedroom door and stuck her head out. “Let me finish taking this phone call. I’ll be out in a minute.”
India was evidently in her car, because the construction bustle outside had been closed out. “All right. Now what’s going on?”
“I can’t do it anymore,” Dara whispered. “I’m about to bust.”
“Tell her.” India said it so easily. “What can they do? Make you give the money back?”
Dara sighed deeply. It was more complicated than that. She wanted to make sure they saw what she could accomplish first. She couldn’t risk their being disappointed in her again.
“Never mind. I’ll be okay,” Dara said. “I think I just had to get it off my chest.” Dara blew out a stream of air. “How are things going today?”
“The construction is moving along as planned. Zebulon runs a tight ship. But you’ve got some of your gangsta friends out here who’ve decided to bring their party to the sidewalk across from the construction. I’m the only one they try to verbally hassle, but you know I’m the queen at ignoring ignorance.”
“How long have they been there?”
“All week.”
“All week? And you’re just now telling me.”
“I didn’t want you to get all hysterical. Aunt Thelma never comes in town, and I wanted you to focus on her while she was here.”
“Maybe we should call the police.”
“Legally, they’re not doing anything. They’re not on the property, they’re across from the property. If you make a ruckus you’ll give them what they want. Attention.”
Dara had to do something about it. She knew it had to be Magnum who was the ring leader. If there was one thing she’d learned as a country girl, it was that the only way to kill a snake was to go destroy the head first. If not, it could regenerate another body. Magnum was the head, and without him, the others wouldn’t survive.
“How’s everybody else in the community?”
“Quite a few people came out to watch the workers. But again, that group of guys ran them back into the house after too long.”
“It’s ridiculous. Can you get the police over there?”
India huffed. “Dara, I’ve been here so much this week only to make sure things move forward. I’m not the security for the neighborhood watch program.”
“All right, all right.”
Thelma called out again from the living room. “Dara, how do you get this thing to come on? I want to watch Judge Joe Brown.”
Technology was not her mother’s friend.
“I need to go,” Dara told India. “But do me a favor. If I get a box of books to you, can you take them out to the site tomorrow? Have one of the workers drop them by the community center. I heard they didn’t even have anything for the kids to read in the after-school program.”
“Whatever you want, Dara. You’re the knight in pink armor and I’m your trusty sidekick,” she said. “But let me warn you, you can’t save all the dames and damsels in distress.”
“No. But I can do my part.” Dara hung up the phone. All she could do was what God asked of her. She only had to run and not get weary. She only had to mount up on eagles’ wings.