The Magnolia Inn(45)

She’d sat in her empty room and cried the day she and her mom had moved from the house to the trailer. The closet in the new place was small, but she took all her clothing. Her bed wouldn’t fit in her new bedroom, so she wound up with the futon from the den. As she stared at Lucy’s pictures, the pain of that day came back. She tried to push it and the memories aside, but a picture surfaced of her sweet sixteen party. Elaine had insisted on having it at the country club. Boys had been invited, and Jolene danced with a few of them throughout the night even though she hardly knew them. They were sons of Elaine’s friends. The boy she’d been seeing wasn’t invited because her mother didn’t think he was good enough for her.

The emptiness of the whole evening came back to Jolene as she remembered. The only thing that was a positive memory was that her mother had been happy. But then, of course, she should have been. Jolene’s dad was still alive and was willing and able to give her anything she wanted, and she was at the country club, where she was the queen of the party.

“Are you all right?” Lucy laid a hand on her shoulder. “You look like you’ve just seen a ghost.”

“Your house brought back memories,” she answered honestly.

And the feelings that went along with them, she thought.

“I hope they were good.” Lucy led them on into the kitchen. “Now, Tucker, you can sit at the head of the table, but I will say grace. And you”—she pointed at Dotty—“don’t say a word. I still believe in God even if I have skipped out on church today.”

“Just don’t pray so long that the chicken gets cold,” Dotty said.

It was as if they had permanent seating arrangements wherever they went. Dotty and Lucy sat on one side of the table. Flossie and Jolene took up the other side, and Tucker got the king’s chair.

Jolene’s favorite meal was home-fried chicken with all the trimmings, yet she hadn’t had it since Aunt Sugar made it for her more than three years ago. Her mind went back to the few visits she’d had in Jefferson after her mother died. Working six nights a week and playing catch-up on her errands the other day didn’t leave much time to drive across the whole state of Texas for a fried chicken dinner. But she had been faithful about calling her aunt twice a week and had always looked forward to their talks.

“Amen,” Lucy said.

Jolene hadn’t heard a word of the prayer, but she said “Amen” right along with Tucker, Dotty, and Flossie. Her stomach growled as she looked over the table.

“It was three years ago at Christmas,” she said.

Dotty put a chicken leg and a wing on her plate. “What about three years ago?”

“The last time I came home to the Magnolia. Aunt Sugar made me a meal like this. There’s not a restaurant in the world that can touch this kind of dinner,” Jolene answered.

The last Christmas she spent with her father, they’d gone to a restaurant because her mother didn’t want to cook a big dinner for only three people. The last one she’d spent with her mother had been just another day. Elaine had spent the day drinking, and Jolene had worked a double shift at a twenty-four-hour truck stop. She’d taken supper home that night, but Elaine was already passed out on the sofa, so she’d eaten alone.

Even with friends surrounding her, and Tucker right beside her, a fresh wave of emptiness flooded over her—the same feeling she’d had those Christmas Days. She took a couple of big gulps of sweet tea to get the lump in her throat to go down.

“Speaking of good food.” Tucker put two huge spoons of mashed potatoes on his plate beside a crispy chicken breast. “If I keep eatin’ Sunday dinner with you ladies, I’m going to have to buy a bigger belt.”

“When was the last time you had homemade fried chicken?” Jolene passed the sawmill gravy to him.

“There’s been too many Saturday nights that fried too many brain cells for me to remember,” he admitted. “But whenever it was, it couldn’t have been this good. Is this fresh corn?”

Tucker hadn’t gotten drunk since that first weekend after he’d moved to the Magnolia. Maybe he was putting down roots and moving forward, even if it was just baby steps. Having dinner with the old gals was enough to convince Jolene that he was at least trying.

“Straight from my freezer,” Flossie answered. “I still have a little garden at my place. We’ll have dinner there next week.”

“Little garden,” Dotty almost snorted. “She’s got a quarter of an acre plowed up.”

“How do you find time to garden and run a store both?” Tucker asked.

“She doesn’t. She pays a guy to take care of it for her,” Lucy tattled.

“I do not!” Flossie argued. “I provide the seeds. He does the work and we share the bounty. He has lots of friends that he gives fresh vegetables to, just like I do. That’s not payin’ him. I’m helping him. His wife took sick, and they had to sell the farm to keep up with her medical bills. He’d go stir-crazy livin’ in town if he couldn’t play in the dirt.”

Jolene’s thoughts went back to her father’s flower beds. He’d spent hours out there every evening—watering, fertilizing, deadheading, and taking out every single hint of a weed. Had he really loved the work, or had it been an escape from her mother? They’d come from such different backgrounds. He’d been raised in Louisiana on a small farm, and she was a city girl from Amarillo. They’d met at a party given by mutual friends who worked at the bank with him. He’d been told when the company transferred him to Texas that it would only be for a couple of years. But when the opportunity came up to go back to Louisiana, he turned it down for Elaine. She liked living in the city. Jolene had never thought of it before, but maybe her father had been wishing he was back in his own world when he was out there in his flower beds.