CHAPTER 30

He drove her home as expected, saying nothing as she occasionally wept in the seat beside him. She knew full well that she’d be questioned by Aunt Bess and perhaps even Papa when she walked in, her eyes puffy and red, her face blotchy, and her lips downturned. Still, she couldn’t stop the tears, gratefully devoid of sobs.

The dam, she reckoned, hadn’t yet burst, but a crack had formed in the structure. Trickles of water eased through, uncontrolled but not yet wild.

That one night after church —after the news had been repeated time and again and had caused such a stir in Bynum —she’d thought she would make her way to her room, crawl into bed, push her face into her pillow, and cry. Oddly enough, she had not. She told herself she’d been too stunned for tears quite yet. And while she forced herself to stay away from Mack’s letters so well-hidden in her closet, a headache formed and finally swayed her to close her eyes and find the respite provided by sleep.

Maybe, she told herself as Carlton’s car bounced along the driveway leading home, if she had cried then, if she’d made herself cry by pinching her skin until tears formed —she’d heard that those beautiful Hollywood actresses did this so as to cry on cue —maybe then, she wouldn’t be blubbering now.

No. Not so. Because in all honesty, Alice-Ann wasn’t completely sure if her heartache came from Mack’s return —complete with Carlton’s attitude about the whole thing (Father God, why wasn’t he at least happy to hear his best friend is alive?) —or because of her flagrant behavior with Carlton earlier. She’d never done anything like that before, obviously. Hardly knew what she was doing when she did it. She’d only wanted Carlton to know that she loved him.

She was sure of it.

Carlton parked the car yards from the front door, shoved the gearshift to park, and turned to her. She turned her wet face to his, wondering what she must look like. If the compassion she saw in his eyes was any indication, she looked a fright.

He reached over and fingered her hair with one hand. He removed the handkerchief from where he’d earlier stuffed it into his shirt pocket. “Shhh,” he cooed. “I didn’t mean to make you cry, sweetheart. I didn’t . . .”

She peered through wet lashes. “I do love you, Carlton. You.”

While his eyes had softened, the wit and humor she’d grown to expect still hadn’t returned. “I know you do. And I love you. We just —we just have to get through this, that’s all.”

“Carlton?”

“Hmm?”

“Can I ask you a question?”

“Anything. Anytime.”

“Are you —at least a little —happy that Mack is alive?”

“What?” he asked, the question coming out in a puff of air. His hand hovered near her cheek, now dry and pulled tight. “Of course I’m happy. He was one of my best friends.”

“Then what is it? Why does it seem like everything has changed?”

Carlton chewed on his lip and shook his head. For a moment, Alice-Ann thought she saw his own tears forming. But then, just as quickly, he blinked them away. “I loved him —love him —like a brother. I just —there’s just the —”

“What? Talk to me, Carlton. We were friends before we fell in love, remember?”

She waited, but he said nothing. He seemed to search for the answer. And not just any old answer either. She could see the determination in his eyes as they darted back and forth. He wanted the correct answer, for sure. Alice-Ann leaned her face against his hand, hoping he understood the gesture.

Take your time. I’ll wait.

He turned it, cupping her cheek, and his thumb brushed against it.

“I only want —I don’t want you to have any regrets, doodlebug,” he whispered.

“I won’t have any regrets, Carlton. I promise you that.”

He leaned over and kissed her tenderly on the lips.

The first . . . the last . . . the only.

Keeping her eyes closed, Alice-Ann shook her head to rid it of the thought, of anything that might remind her of its origins. She felt his stare and opened her eyes to find his. Compassion had been replaced with need, the same she’d felt earlier.

“I’d better go inside.” She opened the door before she impulsively begged him to put the car back in drive and to take her away from all of it. Bynum and everyone in it. Mack’s return. People wondering why Mack had called her but no one coming right out and demanding an answer. She considered pleading with him to take her away from the farmhouse, where a stack of letters stamped by censors and wrapped in a red ribbon lay hidden in her closet.

Take me somewhere . . . to a place where only you and I exist and this horrible war never happened, Carlton. . . .

“Aunt Bess will be out on the front porch in no time if I don’t hurry up.” She forced a smile to cover for the quiver in her words. “They hold supper until I get home. Not to mention, you know how she feels about men and women parked in cars.”

He grinned and she saw his wit and humor had returned. “No. Tell me.”

Alice-Ann swatted at him. “I’ll see you tomorrow,” she said, sliding out.

“Alice-Ann,” he called after her. She ducked her head to peer back inside, her hand resting on the frame of the door near the window. “If you want to go see him, I’ll understand.”

She did, but she didn’t. “Let’s cross that bridge when we come to it,” she said. “Right now, I need to get inside.” Alice-Ann blinked. “Can you tell I’ve been crying?”

Carlton pretended to study her. “Tell them you broke a fingernail on the wallpaper and it hurt.”

She stretched her fingers toward him. “That’s not even made up, sadly.” She straightened and started to shut the door, then thought better of it. “I know. I’ll tell them you smashed my thumb with a hammer.”

He laughed easily as he started the car. “My best to your folks, doodlebug.”

“And mine to yours,” she said, then slammed the door.

Alice-Ann entered the kitchen, fully prepared to answer any questions her family might have about her red-rimmed eyes. But instead of the entire family, she found only Irene and Aunt Bess, who balanced Little Mack on one hip. Both seemed intent on getting supper on the table, barely noticing Alice-Ann’s entrance.

“Where are Nelson and Papa?” she asked.

“Bella didn’t come home with the other cows,” Aunt Bess said, turning to her. “Grab that bowl of creamed corn, Alice, and put it on the table.”

Irene was clad in one of Aunt Bess’s bib aprons with its sash wrapped twice around her tiny waist. “What’s going on with you?” she asked.

Alice-Ann took the bowl of corn to the table. “Just tired.” She diverted her attention to Aunt Bess. “Do they think Bella is out in the fields giving birth?”

Aunt Bess placed Little Mack in his high chair, then stuffed small pillows around him to keep him upright. “There you go, little one,” she said. Then, to Alice-Ann, “Seems so.”

“Is she wearing her bell?” Alice-Ann asked, sitting. For as long as she could remember, her father had tied a large bell around the cows and heifers about to calve. That way, he said, when they went out in the fields during the day but didn’t return at dusk, he could find them.

“Far as I know,” Aunt Bess said, sitting in the chair next to Little Mack. She studied Alice-Ann for a moment. “Are you all right?”

“Just tired,” she repeated. “Shall I say grace in Papa’s absence?”

Aunt Bess nodded, her hand on the baby’s, who cooed in response. “Shush now,” Aunt Bess said to him, her voice warm and loving. “Time to thank the good Lord for his bounty.”

Alice-Ann repeated the prayer she’d heard her father pray since she was old enough to understand the act. “Give us thankful hearts for these and all our many blessings. In Christ’s name. Amen.”

“Amen,” Aunt Bess and Irene chimed; then they started the ritual of passing the food.

Alice-Ann glanced out the shadeless window. “Do you think I should change my clothes and see if I can find them?”

“I do not,” Aunt Bess answered.

“But a cow calving in the fields is never easy work,” Alice-Ann said. “They might need an extra hand.”

“Adler is with them,” Irene said as she extended a bowl of yellow crookneck squash toward her.

“Oh,” Alice-Ann said, taking the bowl. “He sure is going to be missed around here when the war is over, isn’t he?”

“If it ever is,” Irene mumbled.

“Nonsense,” Aunt Bess harrumphed. “They all come to an end eventually. Now then, Alice, I’m thinking that if you’re so tired you’ve been crying —and don’t tell me you haven’t —then maybe you and Carlton shouldn’t be working so hard on the house at the end of a long workday.”

“When would you suggest, Aunt Bess?” she asked, reaching for a platter of fried chicken. The aroma of grease and flour stirred her stomach, and it rumbled in anticipation. “Saturdays are out. We’re at harvest time now. Papa and Nelson are going to need me here, no matter how many Adlers we have. I can’t do any of it on Sundays. After work is really our only time.”

Aunt Bess and Irene exchanged glances. Somehow, Alice-Ann figured, during their hours together in the house, Aunt Bess had managed to domesticate the young Mrs. Branch. “I think we can do without you here on the farm, Alice-Ann,” Irene said. “After all, your life will soon be with Carlton. We may as well get used to that.”

Alice-Ann frowned as she picked up the chicken leg. She rested it between the fingers of both hands before taking a bite, the juices of it wetting her lips and dancing on her tongue. “Aunt Bess,” she said as she chewed and swallowed, “your fried chicken can make the worst day ever into the best day ever.” She shot Irene a look. “And I have no idea who you are.”

The three women laughed lightly and Little Mack stretched his chubby legs and kicked. “See?” Alice-Ann said. “Even Little Mack thinks this is too funny for words.”

When supper was over and the men still hadn’t returned from the fields, Alice-Ann insisted on walking out to see if she could find them.

“You’ll do no such thing,” Aunt Bess ordered. “You’re exhausted. Now march yourself up those stairs, get your bath, and go to bed.”

Irene pulled her son from his high chair. “I’ll put Little Mack in his playpen, Aunt Bess,” she said, “then come back in and help with the dishes.” She walked to Alice-Ann and placed her hand on her arm. “Get on,” she whispered. “I’ve got this.”

Alice-Ann blinked. “Thank you, Irene.”

“Pull the shades while you’re in there,” Aunt Bess called as the two younger women walked into the hallway and parted at the stairs.

“Thank you again,” Alice-Ann said, now nearly too tired to trudge up the stairs.

Irene looked at her knowingly. “I’ll check in on you in a little while,” she said.

Alice-Ann nodded, hoping she’d be asleep before Irene made it up the stairs.

Only a few minutes later, she emerged from the steamy bathroom, clad in her nightgown and her skin still glistening from the bath and Jergens she’d slathered on. Unsure if Irene was upstairs and hoping she was still with Aunt Bess in the kitchen —maybe enjoying a cup of coffee as they waited on Nelson and Papa —she tiptoed into her room, pulled the blackout shade, fumbled her way to the bedside table, and turned on the small lamp resting on top of one of Aunt Bess’s crocheted doilies. She pulled the pillow up to the headboard, then sat on the bed, pressing her back against the feathery down and feeling it flatten. She stretched her legs, crossing them at the ankles, and stared straight ahead at the closet door, shut tight and taunting. Inside, on the bottom shelf, tucked under one of her straw field hats and held together by a red ribbon, were Mack’s letters. She could read them, she knew, and try to remember those she’d sent back to him. Search for any clue as to what Mack had tried to say to her during their call a few days earlier.

“And I realized . . .”

Had the realization been that he’d fallen in love with her? Or maybe with the memory of her? She’d offered him nothing, really, except the promises written between lines of correspondence.

Alice-Ann’s eyes eased from the blankness of the closet door to the one separating her room from the rest of the house. There, hanging on a brass hook —Aunt Bess’s wedding gown. Her wedding gown. The one she’d wear on the day she pledged the rest of her life to Carlton.

Her left hand stretched without provocation and her right found it, the fingertips grabbing the ring, warm and cold at the same time against her flesh.

“If you want to go see him, I’ll understand.”

Perhaps she should. After all, she needed to be the one to tell him about her and Carlton. Certainly before —

She sucked in her breath. What if Mack said something to his parents about his realization? If, that was, it had to do with loving her. With wanting to build a life with her. What if they told him that she and Carlton were engaged? Would it affect his healing? Cause a medical upset? Could he —?

A light tap at the door startled her. Before she could respond, it opened and Irene stuck her head in. “Still awake?”

Alice-Ann nodded. What choice did she have?

Irene stepped in and shut the door behind her. She carried her Bible in one hand, raised it as she crossed the room, and hugged it to her chest. “Can I share something with you?”

“Sure.”

Her sister-in-law pointed to the side of the bed. “Do you mind?”

Alice-Ann scooted over a notch.

Irene sat with a foot tucked under the crook of her other leg. She placed the Bible on the bed, laid her hand on it like she was about to take an oath, and straightened her back. “Do you remember me telling you about the day Nelson took me to the movies and then to the soda shop and then fishing?”

“Of course I do.”

Irene took in a deep breath that she exhaled slowly through her nearly perfect lips. “Well, what I didn’t tell you is that I really struggled that night. After Nelson took me home.”

“In what way?”

Irene smiled, revealing perfect teeth. The kind Alice-Ann always hoped to have but never could. “Never mind the fishing that Nelson and me did. Boyd MacKay was the catch, don’t you know?”

Oh, she knew.

“I don’t know any girl in town who ever went out with him more than twice.”

“What about Annabeth Sowell?”

“Annabeth Sowell?” Irene’s nose crinkled the way it did when she ate a sour apple.

“He brought her to my twelfth birthday party.”

“Oh yeah. I remember that now. They did go out. I think your party was their last date. It was nothing serious.”

“But he kissed her,” Alice-Ann blurted, then felt the heat of how she’d come to such knowledge warm her chest. She blinked. “I followed them.”

“Mack loved to kiss. Any girl, Alice-Ann. Don’t fool yourself and don’t be foolish.”

Well, not any girl. He hadn’t kissed her. Then again, the last time they’d seen each other, he’d been an adult man and she’d been a fresh-faced sixteen-year-old. In her mind, all grown-up and ready. To him, a child. “He kissed you?”

Her sister-in-law raised her brow. “Well and often. Believe me. I thought I was special. After all, we’d gone out more than his proverbial two times.”

Alice-Ann uncrossed her ankles and shifted higher against the headboard. “Carlton didn’t kiss me until the day of Claudette’s wedding. The same day he asked me to marry him.”

“That’s because Carlton Hillis is a fine man, Alice-Ann.” She leaned closer. “A true and godly man. And don’t try to fool me. I know why you were crying. Nelson and I lay in the bed the other night talking about it for the longest time. He’s worried about you and so am I. We all know how you felt about Mack, but Mack —”

“That day when he called, before we got disconnected, Mack was trying to tell me that he realized —” she started, then stopped.

“Realized what? That he’s in love with you?” She asked the question with such ridicule, Alice-Ann knew Irene’s feelings on the subject.

How could she tell Irene that she wasn’t sure? If only she knew what he’d meant to say. That he loved her? Or that he realized he couldn’t take her —a still-innocent, young woman by his way of thinking —away from the farm, only to ruin her life? Or maybe had Mack come to realize the truth . . . about himself?

There really was only one way to find out.