While Valerie stood and shifted a stack of paint samples off her desk, Buddy set the two cardboard containers on top of the desk. She could smell tangy barbecue sauce and her mouth started watering.

“Is this Mama Robinson’s brisket?” she asked, setting the samples on the floor and grabbing one of the boxes.

“Surprised you had to ask. I wouldn’t get barbecue from anywhere else in Atlanta.” Buddy laughed.

“How’d you get it?”

“I was on that side of town this morning and placed my order an hour ahead of time.”

She opened the lid and put her nose close to the meat, breathing in through her nose and inhaling the spices. “Oh, heaven.”

“Speaking of,” Buddy said, holding out his hand.

Reluctantly, Valerie placed her fingers in his and bowed her head. As soon as he finished the declaration of thankfulness for the food and the company, he said, “Amen,” giving her the opening to pick up her plastic fork.

After taking a bite of creamy potato salad, she picked up a pepper packet and sprinkled black pepper over the potato salad and coleslaw. “I had dinner with the Dixons last night. I missed you there.”

“Rosaline invited me, but I had a working dinner with some people wanting us to build their house.”

Valerie raised an eyebrow. “Since when are you working residential?”

He pulled a bottle of hot sauce out of his backpack and sprinkled his beef liberally with it. “Oh, ‘bout a year now. Philip and I reworked a few things a couple years ago. I’m VP of residential now, directly under Ken. I pretty much handle the front part of the high-end houses.”

She dipped a slice of meat into the tangy barbecue sauce and took a bite. Her taste buds exploded in delight with the burst of flavor. After chewing and swallowing, she said, “Why? Are you okay?”

“Val, my lovely niece, I’m simply almost sixty-five years old. Your mama was my baby sister. I don’t want to be out there in the Georgia sun, breathing red clay and listening to the clutter of the jobsite. I want to sit in my air-conditioned office and appease millionaires who are building showcase homes.”

How did she not know this? As she pondered that thought for a minute, it occurred to her that she simply hadn’t asked. Looking at Buddy with narrowed eyes, she realized he wore khaki pants and a black golf shirt with the red Dixon Brothers logo emblazoned on the chest. Throughout her young life, he wore blue jeans and Dixon Brothers T-shirts. She hadn’t even noticed his clothing difference.

Now she examined him closely. He’d had salt-and-pepper gray hair for as long as she could remember but had white temples now. His chocolate skin looked smooth and healthy, but his fingers had a slight curve instead of straightening all the way, and his left hand had a faint tremor.

“I’ve not been a very doting niece, have I?” She picked up her drink and took a long pull of the syrupy sweet iced tea.

“Never have been. You was always closer to Rosaline. I think, looking back, taking you away from there for your high school years wasn’t the right decision.” He shoved meat into his mouth and chewed.

While he savored his meal, she thought about his words, knowing he spoke the truth but feeling like she needed to defend his actions at the time. When she opened her mouth, he held his hand up to stop her. “Ain’t no arguing it, girl. You knew it then, but I was so concerned about you growing up so sheltered and wanted you to have some diversity in your life. Putting you into a different school and taking you away from your family, no matter what color they were, that was wrong. But I think maybe I was a little jealous of your relationship with Rosaline. Decided to remove you from her so I could have that love and attention you gave her.”

Sharp tears stung her eyes. She reached out and gripped Buddy’s wrist. “I love you. I’m sorry if I didn’t properly show it. You’re my blood. She’s just….”

“… your Auntie Rose. I know. I know that now. Took me facing myself after what happened to you to realize what I’d done and why. Wasn’t nothing against them. Just was for me. Wrong decisions all around. God worked it out in me.”

They ate in silence for a few minutes before Valerie replied, “My last couple years of high school were great, and I made friends and had experiences I never would have had. Don’t feel like it was all wrong, even if you wish you’d done something different. We, uh, all make bad decisions.”

“We do, girl. Life is full of ‘em. Thank God there is redemption, or I’d be a hurting soul.”

She took a few more bites, trying to word what she wanted to say. “Uncle Buddy, I’m thankful for everything you’ve ever done for me. I feel like you gave up your life for me, and that is not anything I’ll ever forget.”

He barked a loud laugh. “Gave up my life? What are you talking about?”

“You never married. I don’t even remember you ever dating.”

“Bah, dating ain’t for me. Never was. Never met a woman I’d want to marry. I was content in my bachelorhood before I got you, and I’m content in it now.” He pointed at her with his fork. “What your mama and daddy did leaving you to me, that saved my life. You gave me a purpose, something to work for, someone to provide for. Who knows what would have happened without you. You didn’t make me give up my life; you gave me a life.”

Feeling overwhelmed with sentimental emotion, tears stung Valerie’s eyes—tears she would not let fall. She blinked them back and shut the lid on her empty container, her mouth still singing with spices and flavor, her stomach full of good barbecue. “Alright, then,” she laughed, “that’s enough seriousness for one lunch. You still got Braves season tickets?”

“Yup.” He shoveled potato salad into his mouth and talked around it. “Same seats I always had. Right next to Philip and Rosaline’s. You want to go to the opening game?”

Her eyes widened. “Of course!”

“Been too long since we sat in the stadium together. Will do us both good.” He tossed his fork into the empty container and shut the lid. “I enjoyed this, girl. Want to make it a habit?”

“More than you know.” She grinned as she gathered their food containers and put them into the bag in which he’d brought them. “I’ll toss these in the break room trash so the smell of barbecue doesn’t haunt me all day.”

They started out of her office, but Buddy stopped with his hand on the door. “By the way, Sweetwater Church is dedicating its new library building to your parents. The memorial service is next month. I expect you can come.”

Her stomach clenched in response, but she didn’t immediately tell him no. Instead, she smiled and leaned over and kissed his cheek. “Shoot me the information. I’ll look at my calendar.”

“Do that.” He stared at her for several seconds. “Opening game for the Braves is the last Thursday of next month.”

“I’ll check my schedule for that, too.” She opened the door and stepped out onto the main floor. “We doing this next Tuesday?”

“That’s a great idea.” He pulled his phone out of his pocket and swiped to his calendar. “It’s going in firmly. Tuesday lunches with Val. Perfect.” He put a hand on her upper arm. “I love you, girl. I’ve missed you for years. Glad you’re home.”

“I’ve missed you, too.” He left her to go in one direction, and she went in the other to throw the garbage away. After stopping in the restroom to wash her hands, she went back to her office. For several minutes after she returned to her desk, she stared at the empty screen of the Smartboard.

She had no desire to go to her parents’ church to let them dedicate a building in honor of their going on a mission trip and getting killed. She harbored a lot of anger at her parents for leaving her when she was just three years old. She felt like they should have waited a few more years before getting back into inner-city missions. But they just handed her to Buddy, a bachelor who had never had kids, and used their vacation to go on a mission trip in South Central Los Angeles, as if they couldn’t have found something charitable to do in the inner city of Atlanta. A gang shooting left both her parents dead on the street in California and left her and Buddy with just each other.

No, she would not go see them honored. They deserved no honor. They put an imaginary deity ahead of her well-being, and she would not let go of that.

The question remained, though, how to convey that to Buddy? All her life, he took her to church, prayed with her, prayed for her. He and Philip Dixon met weekly to discuss Bible studies over breakfast, and until the day she left for college, he required her regular attendance at youth group events. His relationship with his god consumed his entire life, as it had her parents’. Simply telling him she stopped believing in what he believed sometime during her college freshman Philosophy class would do no good. He wouldn’t hear it.

Taking a deep breath through her nose and slowly releasing it, she let it go. She’d just have to take one day at a time with Buddy and let him see her, really see her, so he understood.

Valerie stood in front of the Smartboard and rolled the remote control around in her hand while she looked at the interior of the main entrance of the proposed shopping mall. Several catalogs showing fountain designs lay open on the floor in front of her and swatches of fabric samples draped over every available surface. Frowning, she stepped forward and double-tapped the screen, allowing her to access the object on the screen so she could select a different color for the tile accent lining the fountain.

Not liking that one, either, she finally hit the button and turned off the board. She had reached the point of overthinking it. Time to step away for a few minutes.

She grabbed her empty water bottle and stepped out of her office. The hum of conversation and work-related noise from all the cubicles and open office doors made her thankful for good sound dampening in the design of the interior offices. She’d realized the first week here that with her door shut, she could forget anyone else even worked in the same building with her. In Savannah, she’d heard every telephone chirp, every text message notification and, unfortunately, most conversations. Here, though, she only heard other people when she had her door open. At first, she had a hard time concentrating in silence. But after a couple days, she realized how much better she could think and how much more efficiently she worked without constant interruptions.

She walked through the cubicles to the other side of the floor and into the break room. She saw Sami Jones sitting at one of the round tables with two women she recognized from the staff meeting Monday morning, a receptionist from the top floor, and a mechanical engineer.

Sami hopped up from the table. “Valerie! Just in time. We’re talking about our meeting that’s during lunch today. We’d love for you to join us.”

Valerie unscrewed the lid to her water bottle and leaned down over the water cooler to fill it. “Lunch today?”

The mechanical engineer spoke. Valerie recognized a slight northern tone to her voice. “National Association of Women in Construction. We meet the third Thursday of every month.”

The smile crossed her face before she could stop it. “NAWIC? Oh, my goodness, I used to be a member in Savannah.” Used to, meaning, until she started dating Tyrone and he took that away from her like everything else. How had she forgotten about it? The time spent with other women in her city who worked in the construction industry had, frequently, been the highlight of her week. She’d started to forge some close friendships; at least, until they went away. “I’d love to come. When and where?”

Sami clapped. “Awesome. Eleven-thirty today. I’ll email you an invite. It will have all the details.”

Valerie slipped her phone out of her pocket and checked her schedule. “I can do that. Thank you so much!”

As she walked back to her office, she rearranged her afternoon plans. She’d originally intended to have a quick sandwich at her desk. Now, she knew, she’d lose a couple hours in the middle of the day between driving to and from and the meeting itself.

Back in her office, she took an extra five minutes and pulled up the NAWIC website. Memories of friendships, dinners, and local meetings flooded her mind when she looked at the logo. Intentionally closing her browser, she opened her email. She sent Owen an update on the main lobby of the mall and the color schemes for the second and third-floor handrails and elevator frames. Putting that project to the side, she replied to emails for two other current projects and sent Ken the information for a new wallpaper supplier for a 6,000 square foot home he had contracted. Before she left her computer, she saw the email from Sami with the information for the meeting, along with an invite to ride with her. Shooting a reply telling her she’d meet her in the lobby in ten minutes, she cleaned up the fabric samples she’d had draped all over the office and filed them in the milk crate for that project.

She ran her hands down the side of her orange pantsuit. She’d worn a necklace with large yellow flowers with orange centers, a yellow belt, and yellow heels. Taking a few minutes to refresh her lipstick, make sure she had enough cash in her purse for lunch, and check email one more time, she walked out of her office.

After two weeks here, she had started to get to know people. She waved, smiled, and stopped briefly to say a thing or two to different people as she worked her way to the elevators. Somehow, despite the closeness to lunch, she had the elevator to herself and it went straight to the lobby. Glancing through the sparse crowd, she didn’t see Sami, so she wandered along the walls, looking at the different construction projects Dixon Contracting had built back to the days when the company was called Mason-Dixon Contracting. She stopped at a newspaper article with a photo of Philip Dixon and country music star Melody Mason Montgomery at the thirtieth anniversary of the company’s first groundbreaking. She read the caption:

Melody Mason Montgomery charmed the crowd at the thirtieth anniversary of the Mason-Dixon Contracting first groundbreaking, telling stories of her father’s passion for building in Atlanta.

Valerie thought back and tried to remember if she knew that the Mason who had once partnered with Philip Dixon was Melody Mason Montgomery’s father, but nothing about that sounded familiar.

“Valerie!”

Turning, she spotted a Dixon brother headed her way. Her eyes scanned his blue jeans and worn leather boots and she identified him. He must have gotten a haircut. “Hi, Ken.”

He laughed. “You are one of the few people in the world to do that consistently.”

She smiled. “You have tells.”

“Well, keep them to yourself. You’ll make me self-conscious.” He checked the time. “Do you have lunch plans? I wanted to talk about this new estate house we’re building. The owner is being super picky about colors and I just don’t trust her opinion.”

She shook her head and pulled her phone out of her pocket. “I do have lunch plans. I have a NAWIC meeting. Can we do something after work, maybe?”

“No.” He frowned. “Coffee in the morning?”

She smiled. “Perfect.” Waving at Sami, who had just stepped out of the elevator, she added coffee with Ken to the calendar on her phone. “Want to meet here or somewhere else?”

“Here’s good. Seven?”

“Perfect.”

Sami joined them. “Hi, Mr. Dixon,” she said.

“Ken,” he casually clarified, then stepped away from them. “Enjoy your meeting, ladies. Represent us well.”

As they walked toward the parking garage, Sami quietly said, “I can only ever tell Brad, because he wears a suit. I swear they should all have different facial hair or something.”

Valerie laughed. “I’ve always been able to tell them apart. I can see the differences in their faces and their walks.”

Sami glanced at her and shook her head. “That’s not normal. Must be the artist in you.”

“Maybe.” She followed Sami to her convertible VW Bug painted the brightest yellow Valerie had ever seen. She noticed the door was unlocked, so she slipped into the passenger’s side, automatically assessing the back seat. “I’ve also known them my entire life. Grew up with them. That probably helps.”

“True.” Sami started the car. The daisies on the dashboard danced with the vibration of the car engine.

“Jon has a chicken pox scar on his right temple,” Valerie said. “Of course, you have to be close enough to see it.”

Sami laughed and darted out of the parking garage. “I think I’ll just stick with Mr. Dixon.” Valerie held onto her seatbelt as Sami took a corner a little faster than comfort allowed. “Much safer that way.”

Trying not to react to Sami’s chaotic and aggressive driving, Valerie nodded and swallowed. “Safety first,” she whispered, then laughed.