Chapter Thirty-Four

“Ruth Ann, stop biting your nails.”

It was Monday, just after New Year’s, and I was stuck reading a novel in a booth at the diner while Momma rolled paper napkins around silverware.

That morning I had awakened to six inches of snow, raised the blinds to marvel at the whiteness, and discovered ice on my bedroom window. On the inside. Our old heater was on the blink again—which happened frequently—but we always managed to keep warm by the fire until Ansel could get over to repair it. This time things weren’t working out so well. As luck would have it, my uncle came down with the flu the same day we ran out of wood, forcing me to seek refuge at Dixie’s Diner.

I groaned inwardly as the Blaylocks’ black-and-gray pickup pulled to the curb, and Neil and the Mrs. stepped onto the sidewalk. Fawn followed behind them, and from the looks of it, she had the flu just like Ansel.

When the bell above the door jangled, Dixie called from the kitchen, “Hey there, Neil.”

“Dixie, you up to no good?” he teased.

They were related somehow. Cousins, maybe.

“As usual.” Dixie went back to her work, and Neil opened his menu. I wondered if the two of them ever spoke outside the diner.

Neil glanced around the room. Other than Old Man Guthrie sipping coffee on a stool by the counter, the Blaylocks were the only customers. Apparently people weren’t getting out in the snow.

I pretended to read, and Momma ignored them as long as possible before sidling up to their table. “Drinks?”

“Bottled water,” Mrs. Blaylock said. “And Fawn wants a Sprite.”

“I’ll have an iced tea. Sweet.” Neil leaned back in his chair. “With a couple of lemon slices on the side.”

“Coming right up.” Momma ambled behind the counter to assemble the drink order but soon put their glasses aside to brew a fresh pot of coffee for Mr. Guthrie. I couldn’t blame her for stalling. Lemon slices on the side? Dixie’s Diner didn’t rank as a lemon-slice establishment, and Neil knew it.

Out of sheer boredom, I studied the Blaylocks over the top of my book. As Momma took them their drinks, Neil was texting on his phone while his wife tweaked her lipstick in a compact mirror. Fawn looked as if she might pass out.

After Momma served them, she brought me a plate of chicken-fried steak, and I welcomed the distraction. Ever since the drama at the fund-raiser, Fawn had been on my mind, but the pity I initially felt had been replaced with skepticism. I’d glimpsed a side of her I hadn’t seen since we were young, and I speculated how she would handle the exposure. Truth be told, I puzzled over how to handle it myself.

I drenched my steak in peppery, white gravy, sopping the remainder with a dinner roll. Nothing hit the spot like comfort food, and I managed to ignore the Blaylocks while they ate their meals.

Soon Momma paused again at their table. “Dessert?”

“Not this time. The wife and I are stuffed. And daughters are impossible.” He motioned toward Fawn’s untouched plate, but then he leaned back in his chair, crossed his arms over his ample chest, and slowly let his head fall back until I thought his neck might snap. “By the way, Lynda, have you had a chance to meet the new preacher?”

My fingers tightened around my fork, and my gaze jerked toward Fawn, who immediately ducked her head.

The glare Momma leveled at Neil could have melted concrete, but he merely picked his teeth with his thumbnail.

“I’ll get your check,” she said.

Dread bubbled up from my core like the clay volcano JohnScott made in eighth grade. Why would Neil ask Momma about Dodd?

His wife and daughter made their way back to the truck, where they started the ignition to warm themselves, but evidently Neil was in no hurry. He sauntered toward the register, scraping his boots on the linoleum flooring like an arrogant cowboy in an old Western. He gazed at me with laughter in his eyes.

He knew.

Momma punched buttons on the calculator Dixie kept on the Formica counter. “Twenty-five dollars, eighteen cents.”

Neil leafed through his wallet and pulled out two bills, but when Momma reached for them, he tightened his grip and mumbled something I couldn’t hear. He held the money a foot above her hand, then let it flutter to the counter.

Momma clenched her teeth and scooped the bills into her fist, but Neil, after glancing out the window, leaned toward her. He rested one elbow on the counter and spoke directly into her ear, and when he walked away, his fingertips trailed across her whitened knuckles.

She opened the register and robotically made change, which she shoved into the pocket of her apron. When her eyes bored into mine, my stomach wadded itself into a panicked pile of anxiety, and I thought I might toss my lunch.

This was it. She would yell then scream then cry then shatter, and I could do nothing but brace myself against the cushion of the diner booth and wait for her storm to pass. And suffer through the silence and pain and withdrawal and despair that would surely grip her for months afterward.

She stomped around the counter, trembling from the rage she felt toward me.

I shouldn’t have done this. Shouldn’t have gone out with the preacher. Shouldn’t have pushed her so close to the edge. It wasn’t worth it. It wasn’t worth her lapsing back into herself.

I gripped the edge of my seat and held on tight.

“How can JohnScott associate with those people?” she asked.

I glanced out the window to the parking space, which recently held the Blaylocks’ truck. A small square of asphalt was visible where the snow had melted. “I don’t know, Momma.”

“They’re all the same. Can’t JohnScott see it?” She sighed a short puff of frustration—a muted explosion of air from her lungs, which seemed to release a stockpile of energy and tension—then she plopped down across from me.

My hands loosened their grip on the seat, but my fingers stuck to the vinyl as though they had recently been dipped in plaster that had already begun to set.

I slowly exhaled.

Apparently Dodd and I were still safe. I bowed my head, surprised to find my forgotten plate still sitting on the table in front of me. I touched the edge with my palm and pushed it six inches to the right as Momma mindlessly chewed her fingernails.

She scowled at the snow on the other side of the window, staring without seeing, but when the door jangled the entrance of a new customer, she rolled her eyes, shook her head, pulled herself wearily to her feet, and got on with life. Taking my messy plate with her as she went.

I opened my book again, but I couldn’t focus on the words for thinking about Momma.

If Neil hadn’t told her about Dodd and me, what had he said to make her so angry?