12

ELLA BRUSHED AND BRAIDED Gran’s hair. “There—you look like a girl with your hair plaited.” Gran grimaced. Clearly she wasn’t buying the compliment.

They could finally take Gran home. After a week in the hospital, the doctors agreed that Gran’s gradual recovery might pick up if she were back in familiar surroundings.

“I still say we’re likely biting off more than we can chew. The hospital has a perfectly lovely rehabilitation floor where Mother can have the proper care instead of relying on people to come to the house. Honestly, we’re inconveniencing these professionals.” Sadie didn’t make eye contact with Gran as she spoke, just bustled about the room, checking in cupboards and drawers for any last personal items.

“I’ve been paying close attention when the therapists come in so I can help, too,” Ella said. She squeezed Gran’s hand and it was like she could feel Gran’s fear tickling her fingertips. “Gran just wants to go home. I honestly think she’ll do better there.”

“Well, I can only stay so long if I want to keep my job. I’m already pushing my supervisor’s patience to the limit.”

Ella smiled at her grandmother, who now looked frightened. “It’s okay. I plan to stay. I can do my work from anywhere.”

And that’s when Ella knew for certain that she would stay—at least for the time being. There wasn’t anything back in Craggy Mount pulling at her, and the thought of not running into Mark around town was a relief. Plus she felt really and truly useful, like she had a purpose.

Sadie harrumphed and marched out to the nurses’ station. She bustled back into the hospital room and plopped down in a chair with a puff of breath. “There’s no hurrying those doctors and nurses. No argument persuasive enough, no offer of assistance tempting enough. They will operate on their own schedule and that is that.”

Ella smiled at her aunt’s way of talking, feeling the earlier tension ease both in herself and Gran. She had a notion Sadie had spent so many years trying to sound educated in order to head off hillbilly stereotypes that her language had simply evolved into something from one of her dusty old novels.

“So long as we’re home before dark. Right, Gran?” Ella patted her grandmother’s hand and felt the fingers move in response. “Gran wants to see the sun setting over the pond before she goes to sleep tonight.”

Sadie huffed. “Why do you say such things? As if you could know what Mother wants.”

Ella shrugged a shoulder and smiled into Gran’s eyes. The gleam she saw there told her she was right about the sunset. Why argue with Sadie about it? Her aunt was unsettled enough.

“So the school’s going to let you have another month off?”

“They said they would. Goodness knows I’ve accumulated enough leave and have never taken a sabbatical before. But I don’t trust them not to try and leverage this into early retirement. I’ll be sixty soon and I’m sure they’d like to install a newer model.” Sadie’s mouth tightened as she looked out the window. “Perhaps one with fewer unknown health risks.”

A nurse clopped into the room in a pair of clogs, her scrubs covered with pictures of kittens. Ella wondered what had ever become of white uniforms and caps.

“We’re almost ready to transport you, Mrs. Phillips. Have you been practicing getting in and out of the wheelchair?”

Her voice was bright and chirpy. Ella saw annoyance flash across the side of Gran’s face that was still mobile. Gran hated being at the mercy of others, and while she could move with assistance she still had a long way to go before she’d be doing something as simple as walking across the room.

“She’s been doing really well,” Ella said. “But she still needs a little bit of help.” She flashed a grin at her grandmother. “Soon enough she’ll be on her hands and knees in the yard, dividing those lilies that are trying to take over.”

Sadie rolled her eyes, but Ella was pretty sure Gran couldn’t see her daughter. She just sent her gratitude to Ella through her unwavering gaze.

She would give almost anything to be able to sit up, swing her legs over the side of the bed, and walk out of here. If only to show Sadie she could. Perla clenched her left hand, but even that was a poor effort. Her return to the little gray house couldn’t come soon enough. It seemed that if she lingered much longer, Sadie would have her institutionalized.

The way these people pawed at her and fawned over her, as though her mind were as crippled as her body. Oh, she could think just fine and she’d done little else since waking up and realizing what had happened. But she couldn’t voice those thoughts. Not one bit.

Perla looked at her daughter. She’d heard her worries about losing her job and her frustration at being needed to help care for an invalid parent, and it wounded her very soul. If it had been Casewell lying here, Perla had a feeling Sadie would have sacrificed anything. She remembered the day she first peered into Sadie’s brown eyes and knew she could never give her up no matter how inconvenient a child out of wedlock might be. She still loved Sadie more than her own flesh, but somehow they’d lost that early connection.

Sometimes it was easier to love someone who wasn’t related by blood. Perla wondered if Sadie needed to know who her father was so she could forgive him, maybe forgive them both. She thought she saw some of Sonny in their daughter—laughing one moment, moody and dark the next. And so utterly committed once he made up his mind to fight for what he wanted.

Suddenly, Perla longed to blurt out his name, to give her daughter a way to look up her medical history, if nothing else. But now she had no idea how to share the name, much less the full story. Speaking was beyond her, and learning to write with her left hand might take months. Sadie needed to know now just as did Ella. Why had she waited so long? What if she had another stroke and died before she could tell them?

Perla had long ago laid down the weight of her sins, but now she felt a new weight pressing on her. It was the heaviness that came with a longing she feared might forever go unfulfilled.

Although Ella spent her nights with Mom and Dad, most of her days were committed to Gran. She’d taken over the kitchen table to work on her quilt pieces and spent a lot of time just sitting with Gran and rambling on about life. Gran seemed to be grateful for the conversation. Somehow it didn’t feel all that one-sided. It was like Ella could hear what her grandmother was thinking most of the time.

One night, after arriving at her parents’ house, Ella realized she’d left her cellphone at Gran’s. She jogged the short distance between the houses in the twilight and breezed through the front door. “Aunt Sadie, have you seen my phone?”

Sadie looked at Ella like a possum caught in the nighttime glow of the porch light. Her hand froze in the box of papers sitting on the kitchen table in front of her, and Ella thought she saw her swallow unnaturally.

“Where did you leave it?”

“Maybe with my quilting things.” Ella drifted through the kitchen and found her phone under a pile of blue-and-green scraps Sadie had pushed aside. “Whatcha doing?”

Sadie deflated. “Mining for secrets.”

Ella slid into an empty chair at the table and looked a question at her aunt.

“I want to know who my father is.” She pulled a stack of papers and cards out of the box and sifted through them. “I always told Mother it didn’t matter—insisted I didn’t want to know. No one could ask for a better father than Casewell Phillips.” A tear welled, which Sadie brushed at the way she would a fly. “But that doctor got me thinking when he asked about my father’s medical history.” She turned sad eyes on Ella. “What if I have a double dose of genetic predisposition towards heart disease and stroke? I haven’t taken care of myself the way I should. What if knowing who my father was could save my life?” She sighed and rubbed the bridge of her nose where her reading glasses pinched. “Or maybe it’s just that it looks less likely than ever that Mother will tell me. I thought I didn’t want to know, but now . . .”

“I can see why you’d be curious,” Ella said.

Sadie cocked her head to one side. “When Papa was alive, I hardly ever thought about my biological father. And then that January when he died, I swore I’d never betray Papa by trying to find another father.” She picked up the next item in her stack. “But I can’t help wonder whose brown eyes these are. Whose curls? Why do I struggle with my weight when Mother has been slim all her life? Do I have brothers and sisters, someone who looks like me? So many questions.”

Ella fished an old letter out of the box on the table. “So you’re looking for clues?”

“I am.”

“Any luck?”

Sadie leaned back in her chair. “No. As best I can tell from the boxes in the attic, Mother saved every scrap of paper anyone ever gave her. I’ve been going through them of an evening after Mother is asleep. But none of them mentions my father.”

“Do you know anything about him?”

“I assume he was from somewhere other than Wise or Comstock. Mother and I lived in Comstock with my grandparents for the first five or so years of my life. Then, as Mother says, when it became clear the town would never forgive her, we moved here to live with your great-aunt Delilah and her husband, Robert.” Sadie smiled. “Such good people.”

“Are either of them still alive?”

“Delilah is. She and Robert sold the store and moved to South Carolina to get away from the hard winters. I got a Christmas card from her last year. She’s living in some sort of retirement facility or nursing home now that Robert’s gone. Goodness, she must be well into her nineties now.”

“Maybe we should go talk to her. She might know something about your father.”

Sadie blinked at Ella. “That’s not a terrible idea. I suppose I could call.”

Ella tilted her head and smiled at Sadie. “People are so much more likely to talk about things in person. Plus I’ve never met Aunt Delilah and I’d love to.”

“Who will watch Mother?”

“Mom, Dad, Will, Laura—we’d only be gone a few days.” Ella leaned into the idea, getting excited. “We can say that coming so close to losing Gran has made us realize there’s not much time left to see Aunt Delilah. No need to tell them why we’re going . . . Mom can get uptight about things like this.”

Sadie let her shoulders drop and laughed. “Maybe you do know what people are thinking. Goodness knows you have my number right now. Yes. Let’s go. It’s exactly what I need.”

Dropping her stack of papers back in the box, she rubbed her hands over her face. “We’ll give Mother at least one more week at home and then we’ll go. I don’t want her to know what I’m doing. At least not yet.”

Ella started to ask why not, but remained silent. She guessed maybe she knew why not.

They thought she was sleeping, but instead she was lying here, heart splitting in two. Pride. Pride and vanity had kept her from telling Sadie about her father, insisting that she know her history. And now she couldn’t tell and ease the ache her daughter clearly carried. What kind of mother was she? The thing her child wanted most in the world was on the tip of Perla’s tongue, but she couldn’t make it go any farther. She felt hot tears trickle down onto her pillow. She could probably work up the strength to wipe them away with her left hand, but decided not to even try. She needed the anointing waters of forgiveness, and for now tears were as close as she’d get.

Perla closed her eyes and relaxed. The therapist told her meditation would be good for her mind, might heal the stroke-damaged parts that wouldn’t let her speak. Anointing waters . . . that was what she’d felt once upon a time.

Sonny jumped up from the porch step where Perla suspected he’d been sitting for a while. Two fishing poles leaned against the railing, and he had a wicker creel slung across his chest. His broad chest, Perla noted.

“It’s high time I took you fishing,” he said.

Perla glanced back over her shoulder. Chuck was snoring over a day-old newspaper while Imogene was laid out in the back bedroom with the shades pulled down. Now that it was late May, she was meant to be getting tomatoes and corn in the ground. She’d planted the beans, squash, and cucumbers with Sonny’s help the previous week, so he knew she didn’t have time to waste.

“The garden can wait. Shoot, it might even frost again, and you know Chuck’ll be glad for some fresh fish for supper.”

Perla smiled in spite of herself. “Tell me your real name and I’ll go fishing with you.”

“Puddintane, ask me again and I’ll tell you the same.”

Perla threw her head back and laughed. “Fine, let me get my shoes.”

She skipped back out of the house moments later, breathing in the spring air that tasted like sugar and smelled like green things pushing up through fresh soil. Sonny looked like she’d handed him a package tied up with a big bow.

“You look sweet as a spring lamb,” he said.

Perla felt her cheeks pink and raised a hand to hide behind. “Go on now. Let’s get to fishing before the sun climbs too high.”

They raced to Panther Fork, where Sonny seemed more interested in seeing her fish than wetting a line himself. After thirty minutes or so of not even a nibble, Sonny laced a worm onto his hook and threw it out. Almost immediately he pulled in a fine trout.

“Beginner’s luck,” he said, laying his catch on some moss in his creel. “You try again.”

While Perla was happy to enjoy the soft day, the warmth of the sun on her face and arms, and the purl of the water over stones, she kind of wished she could show off by catching a fish or two. Sonny reeled in a second fish while she pondered where to cast her line.

“How do you do that?” she asked.

He shrugged. “Guess I’ve been doing it awhile now.”

“Show me.”

Sonny’s eyes gleamed as he looked at her standing there on the bank. She felt stripped bare under his gaze, but chose to lift her chin when what she wanted to do was duck away from those piercing eyes.

“If you’re such a good fisherman, show me.”

“All right.” He laid his fishing rod down and stepped behind her, wrapping his arms around her waist to place his hands over hers on the reel.

Perla froze like a fawn left by its mother. She almost forgot to breathe. Sonny spoke near her ear, making a wisp of hair flutter against her cheek.

“See that spot right over there?”

She gave a jerky nod and tried to focus on the water.

“I’ve got a feeling there’s a trout right there wondering what he’s going to have for breakfast. If we can drop that hook directly in front of him, I don’t see how he’ll be able to resist.”

As Sonny spoke, Perla could almost see the fish, lazy in the pool, tail barely moving, waiting to see what might drop in for a meal. Sonny drew her arms back, and together they cast the line so that it dropped right where he said. After a moment, Perla felt a tug on the line, followed by a sharper pull.

“Set the hook,” Sonny whispered, releasing her.

His sudden absence took her so by surprise that Perla jerked the line, effectively setting the hook. She reeled in the best-looking trout she’d ever seen.

“There you go. Ain’t nothing to it.”

Perla let Sonny remove the fish and lay it beside his own. She kept her line in the water another twenty minutes without any results. Finally, Sonny tried again and after catching a fourth trout deemed it plenty for supper and flopped down on a grassy hummock under the tender blossoms of a multiflora rose. He leaned back and pulled his straw hat low over his eyes. Perla settled next to him, tucking her skirt around her knees.

“Do you miss home?” she asked.

He stilled. “Some things, I guess.”

“Will you go back soon? Chuck’s supposed to be out of his cast in another week or two.” Perla gathered fallen petals, one by one, into her skirt.

“I’m not sure.” He hesitated. “The thing is . . .”

“What? You can tell me.”

“I didn’t come here so much because Chuck and Imogene were in need of me. It was more because, well—” he raised up on one elbow and looked at her—“I’m married.”

Perla felt as if someone had sprayed her with creek water. “Married?” Her voice sounded like it was coming from the bottom of a barrel.

He sat up all the way and leaned his arms across his knees. “You might say we got hitched without the proper blessing—either from her folks or mine.” He rubbed a hand across his eyes. “I’m supposed to be forgetting about her, and she me.”

Perla was so taken aback she wasn’t sure how to respond. “Are you . . . ?”

“Am I what?”

“Forgetting about her?”

He ducked his head so that it was almost between his knees. His voice came back to her muffled. “I’ve tried. Might be she could do better than me. Her family sure thinks so.” He turned pleading eyes on her. “No. I haven’t forgotten.”

Perla’s stomach clenched. She hadn’t taken time to consider what she’d come to feel for Sonny—she still didn’t know his proper name, for goodness’ sake—but now that she knew he was married, she realized she’d been feeling something a great deal more than friendship.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered.

“Me too,” he said, and she had the notion he was sorry for more than being separated from his wife.