Sweet Caroline(19)

“Umm-hmm. Well, good luck with your decision.”

“Melba, what are you—”

The dial tone speaks to me. That comeya has hung up on me.

Saturday I sleep in, tired from a long and somewhat emotional week. Andy and Mercy Bea are opening the Café today while Russell and I take closing.

Saturday business is schizophrenic—mind-numbingly boring to hectic. We’ve been managing to keep all the balls in the air without Jones, but we miss his extra set of hands in the kitchen. If I keep the Café, I’m going to have to hire help.

In a half-dreamy state, I hear Dad banging down the hall with his suitcase. Oh, it’s wedding-trip day. I kick off the covers and swing open my bedroom door.

“Ready to go, Dad?” My shaggy hair slips over my eyes.

Dad looks back from the second stair down. “Sorry to wake you, Caroline.”

“Off to get Posey?”

“Yeah, and I’m late.”

I wrap my arms around my waist and lean against the banister, peering into the great room below. “Have a lovely wedding and a wonderful honeymoon.”

Dad grins sheepishly “I’m planning on it.” I do believe I’m blushing. “The hotel name and number is on the refrigerator door. Call if you need anything.” He starts down the stairs, then pauses. “If the Mustang breaks down, drive the truck. Keys are on the kitchen hook.”

I prop my chin in my hand. “Do you get tired of taking care of me?”

“Suppose I could ask the same of you.” He stares off and away, clearing his throat. “I can’t count the number of times you kept me this side of sane after your mama left. Those nights you watched TV with your old man instead of going out with friends . . .” Laughter gurgles from his chest. “Know what came to mind the other day? The summer you hired the lawn service. ‘The dang grass is cutting my calves.’”

The memory is a soft favorite. “It became apparent no one in the Sweeney household could fire up the mower.”

“Caroline, you all right? You don’t seem yourself lately. I heard Mitch is back in town . . .”

Daddy knows me well. Watched me ride the Mitch roller coaster a few times. “No, it’s not Mitch, Dad. Actually, I’m sort of dating J. D. Rand.”

“J. D.? Didn’t he have a crush on you in junior high?”

My sleepy eyes pop wide. “Where’d you hear that?”

“Careful around him, Caroline. I hear he’s a ladies’ man. He’s—”

“Treating me very nice, Daddy. Don’t worry. Go get married. I’m fine.”

Why tell him about the Café and Barcelona? It’ll only add to his load. And on his honeymoon. I can’t be responsible for that.

“Well, guess you’re grown. I’ll leave you to your business.” He takes the last of the stairs down, bumping his old suitcase the entire way. “See you in a week.”

Once he leaves, I decide to take advantage of the morning and ponder my options from high up in my live-oak sanctuary. It’s a lovely but warm June day, fragrant with the scent rising from the dewed ground.

Between the ages of eight and nine, I begged Daddy to take us to church. All the kids in my class went.

Daddy refused. “Caroline,” he’d say, pointing me to the front yard, “if you want to talk to some supreme being, climb the old tree. You’ve got more chance of communing with the Almighty out there than in some stuffy sanctuary.”

It was the beginning of the Mama Years. When she started slipping away from us.

So I climbed the tree. Especially when Mama went missing or acted out—screaming with Daddy about her horrendous life—and I didn’t want her to see me cry. The tree became my refuge. When I was fifteen Mama left us for good. I probably logged more hours in the tree than in school.

Now I sit here pondering how one man died and, in a way, changed my life.

If I refuse Jones’s inheritance, I’ll be the one responsible for the demise of the Frogmore Café. Reminiscing old-timers will shake their heads and click their tongues. “Remember the Frogmore Café? That Sweeney girl shut her down.”

Okay, so they might not remember me as the one. But I will.

If I keep the Café and give up Barcelona. I’ll forever be the one who passed up an incredible, amazing opportunity with Carlos Longoria. The envy of Hah-vard grads. Years from now, Carlos won’t remember.

But I will.

“I need an answer.”

Closing my eyes, I rest against the trunk and form a picture of the God Mitch claims slapped him with some reality. Oh, this Deity is frowning. I refuse to talk to someone who frowns.

I force the image in my head to smile—like Granddad Sweeney used to do when he’d tell me stories about growing up in the lowcountry, hunting quail on St. Helena Island. There, that’s better.

Now, where’s the peace I felt the other night when I decided to go for Barcelona? Maybe it’s because the sun is out instead of the stars.

God, if You’re real and can hear me, tell me what to do.

“We’re busy?” I rush past Mercy Bea into the dining room, tying on my apron. Every stool at the counter is occupied and almost a third of the booths and tables.

“You got eyes. What do you see?” The ice she’s frantically scooping clatters into four iced tea jars. “Russell came in early for a bite to eat and ended up clocking in. Did you see the paper?” She tips her head to the bottom counter shelf.