Toddie slid the wedding band off her hand and held it up for Conley to see.
“I quit wearing this after my kids were grown. Put it away in my jewelry box. I told myself it was pathetic to hang on to a symbol of a marriage that had been over for decades. But my hand felt so naked without it! It was like my finger had atrophied where the wedding band was. So I put it on again. I wear it now to remind myself that those years mattered. That we had kids and a life together, and she doesn’t get to erase that.”
“Why did Symmes deed over the farm to you? That’s a pretty valuable piece of real estate.”
“I bet it’s driving Vanessa nuts, isn’t it?”
“She didn’t believe me when I asked her about it,” Conley said.
“Too bad, so sad,” Toddie said. “Oak Springs Farm has been in my family for nearly a hundred years. My granddaddy bought it during the Depression, when you couldn’t give away farmland around here. It was our family’s happy place. We’d get together with all the cousins and aunts and uncles there every holiday. But then, in the eighties, my dad had made some bad investments, and my mom got sick and he needed to sell it. I had to beg Symmes to buy it so we could keep it in the family.”
She reached down and pulled a bulging photo album from the grocery bag, flipping pages until she came to a faded photo of a young couple on the porch of a rustic cabin. Toddie’s hair was blond, and she wore a bikini top and cutoff jeans, and she stood on tiptoe, kissing an impossibly young Symmes, who sported sideburns and a wispy mustache, tight blue jeans, and an unbuttoned shirt. She tapped the picture with her fingernail. “That’s the summer we got engaged.”
There were many more photos—Symmes in military fatigues, Toddie and Symmes on their wedding day, Symmes and Toddie smiling into a camera as their young son blew out birthday candles, the family sitting on the edge of the cabin porch, dressed in plaid flannel shirts, Symmes and a preteen boy, posed together on the deck of a boat, holding a stringer of fish. Even one of Symmes being sworn in for his first term of office in the Florida Senate. Toddie tapped the photo with a finger. “I sewed him that suit,” she said. “Sewed the dress I wore that day too.”
“Could I borrow a couple of those photos for my story?” Conley asked. “Maybe the photo of you guys at the farm and the one of you and Symmes the summer of your engagement? I promise I’ll get them back to you.”
“You’d better,” Toddie said, handing over the album. As she did, another photo fluttered out. This one was printed on cheap white copy paper. Toddie held it up for Conley to see.
Symmes Robinette, hollow-eyed and unshaven, was seated on a rocking chair on the cabin porch. He stared into the camera, flanked on either side by his now-grown, middle-aged children. Rebecca sat on a chair pulled up to her father’s, his hand clasped in hers. Hank stood awkwardly on the other side, holding a shotgun.
Toddie let out a long sigh. “That’s the last photo we have of our whole family. The next-to-last one was taken about twenty-eight years ago.”
“Symmes came out to the farm?” Conley asked.
“Yeah.”
“When was this?”
She shrugged. “Maybe a month before the accident? Charlie was acting as the go-between. He called and asked if it would be okay. It was a Sunday morning, and I remember Charlie joked that ‘the warden’ was at some kind of out-of-town function. I assumed Charlie would drive him, but Symmes came alone. He looked like death warmed over.” She stared down at the photo, her palm resting lightly on it.
“It was strange, you know?” Toddie said. “Seeing him like that after so many years. He’d always been larger than life, and that day, he looked so diminished. Thin and sick. But he wanted to tour the farm and see the dogs and the old cabin. Hank drove him around on the ATV. I’d fixed lunch, but he didn’t eat much. He gave Hank that shotgun he’s holding in the picture. It’s some special edition with sterling mounts. Probably cost thousands. Symmes said he felt bad that he hadn’t been there when Hank got his first eight-point buck. He gave Rebecca a little diamond ring that had been his mother’s.”
“And what did he give you?” Conley asked.
“After the kids left, and it was just the two of us, I was kind of teasing, and I said, ‘Your son got a shotgun, and your daughter got a ring. Don’t you have a present for me?’ That’s when he told me that he intended to deed the farm over to me.”
“Were you shocked?”
“Flabbergasted,” Toddie said. “You have to understand, Symmes was never what you would call generous. It’s true he let me and the kids live there rent-free, but I was responsible for the property taxes and the maintenance. It had been a hobby farm when we were married, but after the divorce, I turned it into a working quail-hunting plantation, and Hank and I have worked our butts off making it a success. As soon as the farm started turning a profit, Symmes began charging us rent on the land. For years, I’d been after him to sell it to me, but he never would.” She scowled. “I guess maybe I can thank Vanessa for loosening up the old tightwad. He certainly did well by her, with all the jewelry and clothes, fancy cars, the house in Georgetown, and the oceanfront mansion.”
“Did he say why he was suddenly feeling so generous?” Conley asked.
“It was obvious. He felt guilty.”
There was a light knock, then the office door swung open, and Skelly poked his head inside. “Hate to interrupt, but Toddie, Mama’s aide just brought her over. I told her you’re here, and she really wants to see you.”
“It’s fine. We were just finishing up,” Conley said. “Thanks, Toddie.”
“Don’t forget to get those pictures back to me,” the older woman said as she hurried out through the stockroom.
Skelly lingered while Conley stood and stowed the photos in her backpack.
“Well?” He raised a questioning eyebrow. “Did you get what you need for your story?”
“More than enough. Toddie was amazingly frank. I have to admire her. Symmes Robinette walked off and left her with two teenagers to raise, for a woman twenty years younger. Typical of that time, he had all the money, so he had all the power when it came time for the settlement. And yet, she managed to take care of business despite all that.”
“Toddie Robinette was no shrinking Southern belle,” Skelly agreed. “She could be tough as nails when she had to be.”
Conley patted her backpack. “With the quotes I got and the old family photos, I’ve got stuff now that no other reporter has access to. She was a gold mine. Thanks again, Skelly.”
He shrugged. “It was her idea.” He turned to go, but she reached out and touched his wrist.
“Skelly? I hate this.”
“What?”
“This! This awkwardness. I wish we could just go back to the way things were before.”
“You mean before the other night, when we were on the beach, and you couldn’t keep your hands off me, and we had a great time, then you announced you were already over me?”
Stung, she took a step backward. “I never said I was over you.”
“You could have fooled me,” he said.