The Almost Sisters(78)
It was doing Birchie good to be out among friends again. Her little blue eyes were bright, and I kept hearing her ladylike trill of a laugh as we finished up. I could still see occasional movement in the curtains. Martina Mack could not be enjoying this now. The pleasure of watching us sweat and pick in her yard must be souring in her mouth. Good.
“They can work a crowd, though, can’t they?” Rachel whispered to me, and I nodded.
But it was more than that. My grandmother and Wattie had been a joint force in the lives of all these people. A force for good. They had brought handmade blankets to welcome new babies and warm pans of ham-and-potato casserole to countless funerals. Birchie owned the land their stores were on, and in lean years she’d helped them keep their businesses, in some cases their homes. Wattie’s husband had been the pastor at Redemption for decades, and Wattie had pastored right beside him, teaching Sunday school, counseling brides, sitting with the grieving.
The yard was filled, people spilling out into the road, and I realized I had never seen so many members of these two congregations intermingled. It looked like Birchie and Wattie were holding court under the puffball tree, seated side by side with lifted chins and crossed ankles. A steady stream of pilgrims brought them smiles and news and, in Lois Gainey’s case, a huge plate of muffins. Birchie and Wattie took all these offerings as their simple due, these little old ladies acting as the hinge between the two communities gathering in the yard. They were the human overlap.
Inside me I was growing a boy who belonged here in this yard. Today, in this unrepeated hour, the Mack lawn looked like his birthright.
A station wagon pulled up, packed to the brim with the enormous Ridley family. The kids spilled out of the back with gallon jugs of ice-cold lemonade and a Tupperware container full of homemade gingersnaps. They started pouring drinks and passing out the cookies.
Little Denise Ridley ran to me, braids bouncing, carrying a bathroom-size waxy Dixie Cup covered in flowers. She handed the tiny portion of lemonade to me with an equally tiny cookie.
“Thank you, hon,” I told her.
I put the cookie in my mouth. I drank the cup, all the while looking at a congregation my son belonged in, knowing that it existed only in this moment. I swallowed, and I felt like I was sharing in a spicy, tart communion, strange and rare. It was a taste of the world as I wanted it to be.
Inside the house the drapes twitched. The world as it actually was, present and watching. This peace, this beauty, was temporary. The world as it was—it was coming for us still.
18
Walking home, Rachel lagged behind in a way that felt purposeful, making significant eyebrows at me. All I could think was, What now? This morning had felt like a patch of sweet, clear air I’d stumbled into, untainted by my troubles. I wanted to stay there and go on breathing it. When Rachel plucked at my sleeve to keep me with her, an image popped into my head: a misty-blue-sky picture that kept showing up in my Facebook feed. That meme had a cloudy-white font, and it burbled something about how God never gave a person more than they could handle. I had a sudden, irrational urge to ask Rachel to excuse me for a sec. Just long enough for me to find every friend who had ever shared that thing and smack them right upside their smug heads.
I resigned myself to her pace, though, and Rachel slowed even more. She really had to work to drop back behind Birchie and Wattie. They walked arm in arm, pacing themselves as they toddled slowly home. Jake and Hugh were in front, their lead hampered because they were carrying Frank Darian’s long ladder at either end. Lav had gone ahead to walk at the very front with her dad, not even pretending to help carry the ladder, chatting Jake’s ear off.
I matched Rachel’s snail pace, and when we were so far back that we were definitely out of earshot, she finally spoke.
“Jake told us that you called him.” Her gaze was down, and her cheeks went faintly pink. “I wanted to say thank you.” It wasn’t what I’d expected. I had meddled, Rachel style, in her sacrosanct, closed life. I’d hoped Jake wouldn’t tell her and Lav, because I didn’t need Rachel’s flared nostrils and an icy invitation to step out of their business. “He wants us to go to counseling. So we’ll see. We’re going home tomorrow to start sorting through the paper part of the mess at least.” Not just a thank-you, but actual information about her life. The downside of her life. I’d always been first on her call list when Jake surprised her with a cruise or Lav made the honor roll, but she kept her sadness to herself. Maybe this was her good news, though, the best bright side she had available. Even so, the slow pace of our walk felt newly companionable. She snuck a peek at my face and said, “There’s already an offer on the house, so that’s good. Not surprising. It’s waterfront. We have to decide what to do next. You mentioned before that we could stay at your place for a little. . . .”
“Of course,” I said. “Just promise me you won’t reorganize my closets.”
Rachel chuckled and linked her arm with mine. “I’ll try not to.”
She was a head taller than me, and it pulled us both off balance. Still, I kept her arm as we made our way out of the neighborhood, walking back toward the square. For the first time in our long near sisterhood, we felt strangely even. Rachel wasn’t lofting her least-fucked-up trophy and smiling down at me, offering succor. I wasn’t holding it either. Neither of us was even making a grab for it.