CHAPTER 19

“Maeve came to the bank after you returned from Europe. She asked me to come see you. To read to you. But you know all that, I’m sure.”

“I do know, yes. She told me.” Carlton picked up his glass and took a sip of frothy root beer. “If I remember correctly, you came over that first day.” He raised a brow. “Oh, let’s see . . . about the same time as Betty Jo came over.”

Alice-Ann pursed her lips. “Yes. Betty Jo.”

He raised a finger. “Betty Jo, who, from what I’ve heard, is dating —”

“Milton Hawkins,” they said together.

Carlton scratched at his neck. “The grammar school principal.”

“He’s a nice enough man,” she said, swallowing back her own displeasure at the thought.

He raised the straw in his glass to his lips. “Old enough to be her father.”

Alice-Ann shook her head and giggled. “Uncle, maybe.”

“It’s creepy.”

She rested her elbow on the table, her chin on the pad of her hand. “Jealous?”

He returned the glass to the table, where it thunked. “Not even remotely.” Carlton rested against the back of his seat. “I’m actually glad I found out what she was made of.” He shook his head. “She didn’t even stick around to see if I’d recover or not.”

No, she hadn’t, and the thought of the hurt Carlton must have felt pinched at her own feelings. “Well,” Alice-Ann said with a grin, “she was always flighty.”

His eyes met hers and held —something Alice-Ann found he seemed to be good at, especially since losing his sight and regaining it. As though he’d learned something while blind about studying people, about looking into their eyes to see the true meaning of their words, the depths of their emotions. Their true emotions.

“Thank you for that,” he said. Then, leaning in, he added, “Now, back to your —what shall we call it? —devotion to me.”

Devotion. Maybe she had been devoted to him. But then again, maybe he’d —“I really didn’t think about it much,” she said. “I mean, about the reading to you. About coming over. It seemed the right thing to do and so I —I did.” She sighed. “Then, when we heard about Mack, I —I didn’t want to come back.”

His brow furrowed. “Well, this is a fine how-do-you-do. Why ever not?”

Alice-Ann shrugged. “I don’t know. I guess I felt that . . . if Mack was dead, then what was the point? But then Nancy made me feel just awful about it.”

He shot her a half smile as if he wasn’t sure whether her words made him happy or concerned. “Good ole Nancy. So how’d she manage that? This guilt?”

“I . . . Remember the cottage I told you about? The one next door to where she and Harry live?”

“I do. You promised to take me there —which you haven’t, by the way —if I promised to work hard on learning to walk again —which I have, by the way.”

Alice-Ann waved a hand at him. “Stop changing the subject.” She sighed. “I said I would and I will —but I didn’t say when.”

Carlton laughed. “Oh. Good point. Continue on, then.”

She bit back a smile. “Well, Nancy said I cared more about —or had more compassion for —that old house than I did for a human being. That she couldn’t understand how the same person could be so concerned about one and ignore the other.” She shrugged again. “Or something like that.” Alice-Ann shoveled ice cream into her mouth as Carlton shook his head in mirth. “But the truth is, Carlton, when I went back to see you, when I filled my hours, really, with making sure you were doing well, and I wasn’t spending all my time lamenting over losing Mack, I —well, in many ways you did as much for me as I did for you.”

He reached across the table and took her hand. She thought to jerk it away —the last thing she needed was the folks in town thinking she and Carlton Hillis had a different kind of relationship than friendship. But she didn’t. She allowed his to rest over hers, protectively. “Thank you for that,” he said when he finally spoke.

“For what?”

“For telling me the truth. For trusting me with it.”

“You’ve —in many ways, Carlton, you’ve become my best friend.”

He sat back again, his face registering surprise. “Even more so than Maeve?”

“Well . . . I tell Maeve things I could never tell —I mean —”

“Me? There are things you could never tell me?”

“Of course.”

“Because I’m a man?”

She nodded.

“But lately,” she confided, “I find myself telling you things I’d never think to tell Maeve. Not because I can’t trust her, but more that I’m not sure she’d find any of it at all . . . interesting.”

“Like what?”

She finished off the float before she answered. “You know. About world events. Politics. The camp over in Bulloch and all that and how —even though I feel kinda bad for them —not being able to go home, you know —they sure have made our lives a lot easier.” She shuddered to think what might have happened had Adler not been at the farm the day Nelson and Irene’s baby had been born. “I can tell you that they’re not all bad, and you don’t judge me. You understand, I think, what they’ve come to mean to us.”

“I don’t think Maeve would understand,” Alice-Ann continued, “when I say that Aunt Bess really enjoys feeding them and that Papa likes hearing what the English-speaking ones have to say and that, during lunchtime sitting out under the pecan trees, they teach Irene lullabies from their country so she can sing them to the baby.”

“They’ve been good for the farmers, for sure. And you can bet we’re treating them better than the Nazis treat our boys.”

“I think you’re right. One of them told Papa they get paid fifty cents a day in credits, and with the credits they can buy things at the camp, like special treats and tobacco. And Papa also says they’re good workers. Not afraid to put in the hours.”

Carlton’s eyes scanned the restaurant before coming back to her. “I’d be willing to bet that before the war most of ’em were just hardworking boys like Nelson and me.”

“And Mack,” she blurted, somewhat surprised he hadn’t included his friend.

He laughed. “Oh, come on, Alice-Ann. Mack never worked a hard day in his life.”

Her skin prickled and she slid her hand out from under his. “What do you mean by that remark, Carlton Hillis?”

He glanced at where their hands had been, then pulled his back. “Look, I loved the boy like a brother. But he enjoyed being —I don’t know —Mack. He didn’t want to go to college, although I think he would have after the war, just to continue whatever party he thought might be happening there. He didn’t want to take over his father’s work at the pharmacy. If you asked him about his plans for the future, he usually made some off-the-wall comment about living in the present. Gee, Alice-Ann, I’m not even sure Mack knew what he wanted to do or be when or if he ever grew up.”

Alice-Ann’s heart tore in half, one part knowing that what Carlton said was truth; the other wanting to defend the dead. “He said —when he wrote —that he liked flying. Liked the way it made him feel. I kinda thought he would continue with that after the war. When he came home. Maybe.”

Carlton studied her for a long minute before asking, “Do you still think he’s alive?”

Alice-Ann shook her head before considering the question, which surprised her. “No. Not me, I don’t guess. It’s Janie Wren who thinks he’s still alive.”

“But she gave you hope, didn’t she?”

Janie had. Yes. But Carlton had just as quickly dashed it. “Maybe. For a minute. But then you said —well, you know what you said.”

“Yeah. I know.” He sighed, the air laced with regret. “I’m getting tired.”

“We’d better head back then. I don’t want to get on the wrong side of your mama.”

“No, ma’am, you do not.”

She started to slide out of the booth, but he reached for her hand again.

“Alice-Ann,” he said, his eyes gazing into hers in that way he had. “Thank you.”

“You’ve already thanked me, Carlton.”

“No. Thank you for saying I’m your best friend. That means a lot to me. Really.”

“Oh. Well. Okay.”

“I guess you’re my best friend, too, if grown men are allowed to be best friends with their kid sister’s girlfriend.”

“Even if she’s a clunky-looking girl like me?”

He shot her a half grin, this one full of tenderness. “Even if she’s a clunky-looking, beautiful young woman . . . like you.”

Alice-Ann glanced around, mainly for something to do other than to continue looking into Carlton’s eyes, which held something new now . . . something she’d never seen before, at least not aimed at her. She spotted Ernie, wiping down the counter in wide circular motions. Alice-Ann smiled, thinking of his asking Carlton before asking Mr. Hillis’s permission to propose marriage.

When she looked back at Carlton, she found him studying Ernie as well. “She’s not a kid anymore, Carlton,” she said with a smile, drawing his attention back to her. “She’s a grown woman. Ready for love and, apparently, marriage.”

“Yes, ma’am, she is,” he said, his voice soft and gracious. “Question is . . . what does that make you, doodlebug?”

What did that make her, indeed?

Her two best friends —Claudette and Maeve —both either heading down the aisle or about to become engaged. Nelson and Irene, new parents. Even Papa and Aunt Bess seemed to have found their places in life, in spite of the world’s circumstances. Papa clucked around the farm like a rooster in a henhouse all protective over his flock, and Aunt Bess practically glowed, what with having so many new mouths to feed.

“I tried out Mama’s pear salad on the prisoners,” she said one afternoon, as though she’d had Bynum’s finest ladies out for tea. “They really seemed to like it, especially that Adler. Boy, he sure can put some groceries away.”

Now, sitting across the bench seat from Nelson, Alice-Ann shook her head, pondering the question again.

“What does that make you, doodlebug?”

She sighed.

“Nelson?” Alice-Ann eyed her brother. His wrist rested against the top of the steering wheel, and with his wide-brimmed hat pulled low over his eyes, he looked every bit as handsome as Mr. Henry Fonda in The Grapes of Wrath.

“Hmm?” Nelson kept his watch on the road, never once breaking to look over at her.

“If I ask you a question, will you answer me honestly?”

With that, he looked, pursing his lips before turning back. “Whatcha got going on inside that head of yours, Alice-Ann?”

“Do you think I’m —you know —pretty?”

Nelson applied his foot to the brake as he shifted the truck into a lower gear, then turned the steering wheel hard to the left. “What in the world?”

Her shoulders slumped. “I know. I’m not.” A large insect flew into the cab —she had no idea what kind and didn’t bother to ask —and she batted it back out.

Nelson increased speed, shifted the truck back into a higher gear, and shook his head. “Alice-Ann, what kind of fool question is that to ask your own brother?”

Alice-Ann shoved her arms across her middle. “I’m only asking for honesty. I’d think that of all the people in the world, you’d be honest with me.”

“Why don’t you ask questions like that to Aunt Bess or Pop?”

She shifted in the seat, felt the sweat along the backs of her thighs slide between her skin and the simple, A-shaped cotton skirt she’d so diligently picked out that morning. “Because Aunt Bess will remind me that folks say I look an awful lot like her —which may or may not be a compliment, I’m not sure —and Papa will tell me I’m the prettiest girl he knows, which we both know is a lie only a father could say to his daughter and get away with it.”

Nelson chuckled. “Yeah. You’re right about that.”

She waited. When he continued to stare out the bug- and dust-sprayed windshield, she cleared her throat. “Well?”

“Honestly?”

No, lie to me . . . like Carlton did earlier. Because surely he had. “Yes.”

“No, I wouldn’t call you pretty.”

She frowned. “I didn’t think so.”

He smiled at her to soften the blow. “You have a beautiful spirit, though.”

Alice-Ann cocked a brow. “You’re just saying that because you’re my brother.”

“No, I’m not. I mean it. Seriously. Irene’s even said so. And so has Aunt Bess and Papa —”

“And Carlton.”

Nelson’s smile became a grin. “He did, did he? Ole Carlton told you that?”

“Well, he said I’m beautiful —and I quote —‘in my own right.’ And today he said I was a beautiful, clunky-looking girl.” She looked out the windshield. Beyond them, across the horizon, a lightning show began —flashes of bright light she recalled her mama saying was God turning his porch lights off and on. Telling folks to come on inside.

Maybe, oh, maybe it would rain.

Nelson shifted the gears again to take the final turn up the long driveway. “Is Carlton sweet on you, Alice-Ann?”

“Sweet on me?” The very thought. “For pity’s sake, don’t go startin’ rumors.”

He laughed heartily. “Oh, good heavenly day. You and Carlton? I guess I’d better have a talk with the boy.”

Alice-Ann jabbed him with her index finger. “Oh no, you don’t. And he’s not sweet on me. We’re just good friends.”

“Uh-huh.”

This time, she punched him with her fist. “I mean it, Nelson.” Alice-Ann wondered if her face had turned pure scarlet or merely a nice pale shade of red. “I will kill you if you keep this up.” He laughed harder. “I will personally beat you black-and-blue.”

Nelson threw his head back. “Ha! With what army?”

She shoved her arms together again as their home came into view. “Hush.”

The truck bounded along the ruts until Nelson brought it to a stop, turned off the engine, and then turned to face her. “Listen to me, little sister.”

Alice-Ann kept her face straight ahead.

“Are you listening?”

“No.”

He chuckled. “I’m just giving you a hard time.” He grabbed a strand of her untamed hair and tugged. “Where’d all this come from? Seriously.”

Now she turned to face him. A mosquito buzzed around her ear and she swatted, then cranked the window up. “Claudette’s getting married and —don’t tell anyone, please —but Ernie is going to ask Maeve as soon as Claudette and Johnny tie the knot and . . .” A small lump formed in her throat. And Mack is dead, unless you listen to the likes of Janie Wren . . . and I don’t even know if he wrote to her in the same confidential way as he wrote to me and . . .

“And?”

“And well . . . I guess sometimes I wonder if there will ever be someone for a girl like me. Someone who obviously missed the formation line when God handed out good looks and grace and charm and all.”

“Ah, I see.” Nelson rolled up the driver’s window. “Alice-Ann, you’re still young. And when the war is over and the boys come back home . . . Well, don’t rush it. You know, because you think the pickings are slim or something.”

She tipped her chin toward her chest, felt the tears stinging the backs of her eyes, then raised her chin to look at her brother. “Is it awful of me to not want to end up like Aunt Bess? I mean, I love you, Nelson, and I adore that baby of yours, and Irene and I are getting along okay, but I don’t want to think I might end up one day being your housekeeper or something.”

He laughed again, low and easy. “I don’t think there’s much chance of that happening.” He pulled on the handle and popped the door with his shoulder to open it.

She did the same, then slid out of the cab, where the cooler —if only by two degrees —air wrapped around her like a wool blanket. They walked to the front of the truck, where he slung his arm across her shoulder and pulled her to himself, strong and protective. “Are you going to be okay? Really, now?”

Who knew? “Yeah.”

“Good to hear.” They took a few more steps, his arm still lying heavy on her shoulders. “Meanwhile, little sis,” he said, stepping away from her and smiling, “don’t rule out ole Carlton —”

“Nelson!”

“’Cause he ain’t a bad catch. You know, as far as city boys go.”