Sugar Daddy (Travis Family #1)(41)

I was truly sorry so much food was given to us at a time when I couldn't have felt less like eating. I pulled off the recipe cards and tucked them in a manila envelope for safekeeping, and took most of the food to the Cateses. For once I was grateful for Miss Judie's reserve—I knew that no matter how sympathetic she was, she wasn't going to discuss anything emotional.

It was difficult to see Hardy's family, when I wanted him so badly. I needed Hardy to come back and rescue me, and take care of me. I wanted him to hold me tight, and let me cry in his amis. But when I asked if Miss Judie had heard from him. she said not yet. he'd be too busy to write or call for a while.

The relief of tears came the second night after Mama had died, when I had crawled into bed next to Carrington's robust little body. She snuggled against me in her sleep, and let out a baby sigh, and that sound cracked the seal around my heart.

At two, Carrington had no understanding of death. The finality of it escaped her. She kept asking when Mama was coming back, and when I had tried to explain about heaven, she had listened without comprehension and interrupted me by asking for a Popsicle. I lay there holding her. worrying about what would happen to us. if some social worker would show up to take her away, or what I would do if Carrington became seriously ill and how to prepare her for life when I knew so damn little.

I had never paid a bill before. I didn't know where either of our Social Security cards were. And I worried if Carrington would remember Mama at all. Realizing there was no one for me to share my memories of my mother with, I felt tears begin to leak out of my eyes in a continuous stream. That went on for a while until I began to cry so hard that I finally went to the bathroom and filled the tub and sat upright like a child, crying into my bathwater until a great dull calmness had settled over me.

Do you need money?" my friend Lucy asked bluntly as she watched me dress for the funeral. She was going to look after Carrington until I came back from the service. "My family can loan you some. And Daddy says there's a part-time job available at the shop."

I couldn't have made it without Lucy in the days following Mama's accident. She had asked if there was anything she could do for me. and when I said no, she went ahead and did things anyway. She insisted on taking Carrington to her house for an afternoon so I could have some quiet time to make calls and clean the trailer.

Another day Lucy brought her mother, and the two of them packed away Mama's belongings in cardboard boxes. I couldn't have done it by myself. Mama's favorite jacket, her white wrap dress with the daisies, the blue blouse, the gauzy pink scarf she had tied around her hair, these and other things were littered with memories in every fold and pleat.

At night I had taken to wearing a T-shirt that hadn't been washed yet. It still held the smells of Mama's skin and Estee Lauder Youth Dew. I didn't know how to make the scent last. One day long after it was gone, I would wish for one more breath of mother-smell, and it would exist only in my memory.

Lucy and her mother carried the clothes off to a storage place, and gave me the key. The pawnshop would take care of the monthly fee. Mrs. Reyes said, and I could leave everything there indefinitely.

"You could work whenever you wanted," Lucy pressed.

I shook my head in answer to Lucy's mention of the part-time job. I was pretty certain they didn't need any help at the pawnshop, and they had made the offer out of sympathy. And although I appreciated their kindness more than they would ever know, it's a fact that friends last longer the less you use them.

"Tell your parents thank you," I said, "but I'll probably need something full-time. I haven't figured out what to do yet."

"I've always said you should go to beauty school. You would be such a great hairstylist. I can see you with your own shop someday." Lucy knew me too well—the idea of working in a salon, all aspects of it, appealed to me more than any other kind of job. But...

"It would take about nine months to a year, full-time, to get my license," I said regretfully. "And there's no way I could afford the tuition."

"You could borrow—"

"No." I pulled on a black sleeveless acrylic top and tucked it into the top of my skirt. "I can't start by borrowing, Luce, or I'll just keep going on that way. If I don't have the means for it, I'll have to wait until I've saved enough."

"You may never save enough." She regarded me with patent exasperation. "Girlfriend, if you're waiting for a fairy godmother to show up with a dress and a ride, you're not going to make it to the party."

I picked up a brush from my dresser and began to fix my hair in a low ponytail. "I'm not waiting for anyone. I can do it by myself."

"All I'm saying is, take help where you can get it. You don't have to do everything the hard way."

"I know that." Swallowing back the irritation, I managed to haul the corners of my mouth up into a smile. Lucy was a concerned friend, and knowing that made her bossiness a little easier to take. "And I'm not as stubborn as you make it sound—I let Mr. Ferguson upgrade the casket, didn't I?"

The day before the funeral, Mr. Ferguson had called and said he had a deal for me if I was interested. Seeming to choose his words carefully, he told me that the casket manufacturer had just put its art models on sale, and the Monet casket had been discounted. Since the starting price had been sixty-five hundred, I said I doubted I could afford it even on sale.