Chapter 28
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Summer
L uke and I pulled up to Meemaw’s house a few minutes before seven. Luke had showered and had changed into a short-sleeved button-down shirt and jeans, and I was wearing the same dress I had worn most of the day. Dixie and Bill were already there, based on the fact that Bill’s truck was parked in front of the house, but it was the second vehicle in the drive that had me worried.
“Holy shit,” Luke said. “Is that your mother’s car?”
“Oh my God,” I said, my blood pressure rising. “You back this truck up right now. We are not staying for dinner.”
“You’re really gonna tell your meemaw that you’re not stayin’ for dinner?” Luke said in disbelief.
“That’s right,” I said, motioning for him to back up. “Go on. Back this truck up right now. We’ll head back to town and we can eat dinner at Maybelline’s. Or I can cook something.”
“You’re going to cook something?” he said. “Now I know you’re desperate to get out of here.”
“Damn right. I have no desire to see my mother, and Meemaw can’t force the issue.” But I couldn’t help thinking back to my conversation with Meemaw yesterday, when we’d talked about how she and Pawpaw had considered adopting me and how I’d accused her of leaving me in hell with my mother. Was that what instigated this impromptu family dinner? Was this her way of trying to make me reconcile my mother? Because that was not up to me. That was up to my mother. And Beatrice Baumgardner was too narcissistic to ever care what I thought. She never had before. Why would she start now?
“What are you waiting for?” I demanded. “I said go.”
Luke stared at the house for a few moments, then turned off the engine. “No way. If you want to leave, you’re gonna have to leave on your own. I am not gonna let Meemaw find out that I was your getaway driver. I’ll never get to eat her fried chicken again.”
“Fine,” I said in a huff as I opened the car door. “Traitor.”
“I’m not a traitor,” he said after he got out, following me as I stomped up the porch steps. “But I do value breathin’ the air around me. Your Meemaw will kill me dead if she finds out that I was the reason you left.”
“You realize that’s redundant?” I grumbled.
“Yeah,” he said, “well, if it was possible, Meemaw would find a way to kill me, then bring me back to life, then kill me again. No way are we leavin’. You’re just gonna have to deal with this head-on.”
“Fine,” I said again, turning back to look at him. I gave him a sultry gaze and let my fingertip press against his lips, “but there will be no sex for you today or even in the foreseeable future.”
As a scowl washed over his face, I spun around and went inside the house, leaving him to follow.
I hadn’t seen my mother since our last family dinner, which had been recorded for Darling Investigations , season 2, episode 4. It had been a big hit, because family dinners where my mother was involved meant there was a lot of drama, which of course made for great reality TV. But there were no cameras tonight, which is why I’d never once suspected that Meemaw was inviting my mother to dinner. The two of them did not get along. So if my mother was here, whatever Meemaw had to say must be really important.
My mother was standing next to the table, fussing over the place settings as though the Queen of England were coming to dinner. She was wearing a light blue jacket and matching skirt with a white blouse. A shiny tiara sat on top of her head.
“You don’t have any dessert forks, Mama,” she called into the kitchen.
“What the hell do we need dessert forks for?” Meemaw called back. “This ain’t no fancy restaurant.”
“The cake I brought must be eaten with dessert forks,” my mother said as she spun on her heel. “I’ll just go grab them out of the silverware drawer in the buffet.”
“You keep your mitts out of the silverware drawer,” Meemaw shouted after her. “You’ve been eyeing my silverware for years, and you’re not about to get your hands on it now.”
“Still up to your same old tricks,” I said as I walked in.
My mother shifted her dark gaze from her mother to me. “Why, Summer. You’re here.” Then her eyes turned murderous as they landed on Luke. “Chief Montgomery.”
Luke released a small chuckle. “Hello, Beatrice. As always, it’s a pleasure to see you.”
“You’re a terrible liar,” she said to him slyly, then closed the distance to the buffet and opened the top drawer.
“You know,” Luke said, hooking his thumbs in his jeans’ waistband, “the fact that I heard your mother say to keep your hands off the silver, and you’re now openin’ the drawer, about to remove pieces…” He shifted his weight. “Well, let’s just say that it’s looking like I could be observin’ a crime in progress, and possibly have to arrest you and take you down to the police station for booking. Now, we all know that Meemaw’s silver is one of her most prized possessions and worth a lot of money, so watch how much you take, as it wouldn’t take that many pieces to jack a misdemeanor charge up to the felony level.”
My mother was spitting mad. “You wouldn’t dare.”
Luke shrugged and didn’t respond, but it was answer enough, so she shut the drawer.
“Fine,” she spat out. “We’ll eat like heathens, just like we always have. Far be it from me to add a little class to this family.”
“Is that why you’re wearin’ your tiara?” Dixie asked, coming down the stairs with Bill in tow.
“I’m wearing my tiara because I was plannin’ to share my good news,” my mother said, giving Dixie a dark look. “But God forbid I want to share my success with my family.”
“Fine,” I said, holding my hands out, taking the bait. “Share your good news.”
“No,” she said with an upturned chin. “I’m plannin’ to share it at dinner.”
Was that why Meemaw had planned this shindig? Because she knew about my mother’s news and had wanted all of us to hear it?
“Where’s Burt?” Dixie asked as she and Bill moved closer to me and Luke.
“That’s Uncle Burt,” my mother said. “Show some respect to your kin.”
“Burt Morana is no kin of mine,” Dixie said with a cold look in her eye. “And I barely claim you.”
Jeez, this was going to be a long night. All the claws had already come out and we hadn’t even sat down to dinner yet.
“Burt is feeling under the weather,” my mother said with a nod. “Thank you very much for carin’ about his health.”
I couldn’t help noticing that Burt had been under the weather the last time we had a family dinner. I suspected the reason for Burt’s absences was because he struggled to stomach the drama that invariably unfolded when we all got together. How he handled everyday life with my mother was beyond me, because she courted trouble like it was a rich, single prince.
“I’m sorry if he’s feeling poorly,” I said, truly meaning it. “I hope he feels better soon.”
My mother looked only slightly placated.
I noticed that Teddy wasn’t around, and I could only imagine his reaction when he saw that my mother would be dining with us. I was already worrying about his reaction to Luke, since the two didn’t get along.
Meemaw brought out a large platter of fried chicken, and Luke rushed over. “Let me help you with that, Meemaw.”
“You keep your mitts off of it,” she said. “I know you’re just trying to get the first chicken leg off the platter.”
“Well now,” said Luke in a good-natured drawl. “If one accidentally fell off into my hand, what’s a man to do?”
Luke was too well-mannered to let such a thing happen, but it didn’t stop him from teasing my grandmother. And she loved every minute of it.
“You’ll get your turn,” she grumbled as she set the platter on the table. “You can come into the kitchen and grab the bowl of green beans. It’s the last of my jars from last summer,” she said, “so no more green beans until July.”
Luke and I helped carry the rest of the dishes out to the table, and it looked like Meemaw had planned to feed an army. In addition to a huge platter of fried chicken, there was okra, green beans, mashed potatoes and gravy, pickled beets, cooked carrots, and a plate of homemade bread-and-butter pickles.
We’d all sat down at the table, Teddy’s seat glaringly vacant, when I heard the screen door in the kitchen slam.
“Sorry I’m late,” Teddy called out. “Let me just wash up and then I’ll be in.” We heard the water running in the kitchen, and about ten seconds later, Teddy appeared in the doorway, his mouth dropping open. “Aw, hell no.”
He started to turn around and walk out, but my grandmother called out, “You stop right there in your tracks, boy, and come sit down.”
He spun around but stayed in the doorway, shooting dark looks to my mother. “Who invited Aunt Beatrice to dinner?”
“I did,” Meemaw barked. “So sit down, you’re late.”
Grumpily, he walked over to the table and pulled out his chair, sitting down next to me. “Where are the cameras? The only time Aunt Bea shows up is when she has an opportunity to expand her fifteen minutes of fame.”
“No cameras,” Meemaw grunted.
“So then what’s up with this family dinner?” he asked.
Our grandmother threw him an exasperated look. “We need to eat first. Talking about unpleasant things is bad for the digestion.”
Now I was really worried. “What kind of bad things are we talking about, Meemaw?”
Her hard gaze jerked up to mine. “If I was gonna tell you what it is, then we would discuss it now,” she barked. “It’s gonna have to wait.”
Her mouth pressed into a firm line, and I knew that there was no way that this woman would talk until she was damn well good and ready. The more I pestered, the longer she was going to wait just to spite me.
In the meantime, my mother apparently decided that her news was not unpleasant, and was meant to be shared.
“I have an announcement to make,” she said, delicately clanging her fork against her water glass. “My business is expandin’ and I’m going to be addin’ a boardin’ school to my property.”
Luke’s eyes bugged out. “Excuse me?”
“It’s a charm school,” she said. “A finishin’ school for girls.”
“What exactly do you plan to help them finish?” Teddy asked, scooping his fork into his mashed potatoes and lifting a huge hunk to his mouth. “Their homework?”
“I won’t help them finish anything,” my mother said in a condescending tone. “I’ll help prepare them to become civilized and well-mannered young ladies.”
“What the hell does Sweet Briar need a finishin’ school for?” Teddy asked. Then a grin lit up his eyes. “We need more uncivilized young ladies.”
Dixie rolled her eyes and groaned.
My mother frowned. “I’m goin’ to ignore that crass statement.” But then she answered his question by addressing the rest of us. “The young ladies won’t stay here in Sweet Briar once they complete their schoolin’, of course. But Sweet Briar will give them an opportunity to leave their distraction-filled lives behind and focus on becomin’ young ladies.”
“So it’s a reform school?” Luke asked as he scooped more okra onto his plate.
“It is not a reform school!” my mother shouted, then lowered her voice. “It’s a natural extension of my pageant school. Now girls can come and live with me and learn their finishin’ charms all while they’re learnin’ how to be pageant queens.”
“I’m presumin’ you have all the proper permits for that,” Luke said, giving her the side eye.
“Of course I do,” she said. “I’m doin’ everything by the book, Chief Montgomery.” She said his name as though it were a cuss word. “And besides, my property is outside of city limits, so it’s really no concern of yours.”
“Sounds like this will be an exciting change for you, Momma,” I said, trying to hide my bitterness. I wanted to say, let’s hope that you get along with your girls better than you got along with me , but I kept it to myself. Saying it out loud would only give my mother more power over me, and I was done giving away pieces of myself.
Reaching under the table, Luke grabbed my hand on my lap and squeezed. I squeezed back and gave him a grateful smile. He, of all people, knew my troubled history with my mother. I felt sorry for those girls who were going to be living with her, but then again, maybe my mother would be nicer to them. Maybe she’d learned something after her disastrous experience with me.
“It’s wonderful news,” I said. “I wish you the best of luck.”
Her eyes narrowed. “What exactly do you mean by that?”
Dixie laughed, but it was humorless. “Oh my word, Aunt Beatrice, can you not take someone’s well wishes without lookin’ for some devious motive?” She laughed again. “But then again, I’m sure you know firsthand all about devious motives, so no wonder you’re lookin’ for it in everyone else’s behavior. Personal experience and all.”
“There was nothing devious behind my well wishes,” I said with a sigh. “Momma, you just go live your life and I’ll live mine. And as long as we leave each other alone, we’ll both be happy.”
“Is that what you think?” my mother asked, resting her hand on the table, her hand fisted around her fork. “You think that I just want you to leave me alone?”
“Honestly, Momma,” I said, already exhausted by this conversation, “I have no idea what you want anymore, and I’m tired of trying to figure it out. I never made you happy when I was a girl because you and I didn’t want the same things. But you finally found some girls who want the pageant life and a shot at Hollywood.” I placed both hands on the table and leaned forward. “And you know what? If that makes you happy and that makes them happy, then I’m happy for all y’all.”
And, to my surprise, I actually meant it.
Luke wrapped his arm around my back and tugged me to his side, kissing my forehead. “Same here, Bea,” he said, “we wish you the best of luck.”
Dixie stared at us like we’d both grown horns on our heads, and Teddy’s groan told me that he didn’t share our sentiments, but that was for them to work through. As far as I was concerned, live and let live. I was tired of resenting my mother and wallowing in it. It was time to let it go. She chose her path, and I chose mine, and I was all the happier for it.
Luke asked Teddy about his organic chickens and how his project was going, much to Meemaw’s chagrin. She hated any time those chickens were mentioned, saying the Baumgardner property had been a cotton farm for a hundred and fifty years, not a chicken farm, and that our grandfather and his ancestors would be rolling in their graves, but I knew better. Pawpaw would have been incredibly proud of Teddy, and he would have told Meemaw to hush.
After we finished, my mother presented a three-tiered white cake with cherries spread around the top. She convinced Meemaw to let her use the silver dessert forks and cake server, and once everyone had a slice in front of them—served on the good china—Meemaw said, “It’s time for my announcement.”
We all turned to her, waiting, and my stomach clenched in a knot. I would have known whatever she was about to tell us wouldn’t be good, even if she hadn’t mentioned it was unpleasant. Meemaw was acting too weird for it to have been good news.
“I always tried to do right by you kids,” she said. “Both my children, and their children.” Her gaze swung from my mother to me and then to my cousins. “Lord knows I made a mistake or two.”
Dixie’s mouth pressed into a thin line. I wasn’t sure she’d ever get over our grandmother’s betrayal, and truth be told, I wasn’t sure I would either.
“I’ve decided that it’s time for me to come clean about something,” she said, suddenly looking sad. But then her back straightened and a fire filled her eyes. “There’s no way to sugarcoat this, so I’m just gonna say it straight out. I’m dyin’.”
We all gawked at her, speechless, until finally I said, sounding harsher than I’d intended, “What are you talking about, Meemaw?”
“I’m dyin’,” she said bluntly. “I don’t know how to be any clearer than that. Dyin’ as in dead in the ground. Dead.”
I cringed at her coarseness, and Dixie continued to gape at her. Teddy had a dark look on his face.
“I understand the word dying,” I said. “I’m asking you how you know that you’re dying. We’re all gonna die someday, so what makes you think it’s gonna be sooner rather than later?”
“Because I’m sick,” she said, her face screwing up. “I got cancer, and I told ’em I wasn’t gonna have it operated on or have any of that chemo, and now it’s gettin’ close to the end. My doctor told me I had to tell you all so that you could make plans.”
“What the hell are you talkin’ about, Meemaw?” Teddy asked, his voice rising with an edge of panic. “You’ve haven’t been to the doctor in the last six months. How the hell can they know you’re dyin’?”
He was shouting now, and Dixie started to cry. My mother just continued to stare wordlessly at her own mother.
Meemaw pinned him with a defiant glare. “I’ve gone to the doctor. You just haven’t noticed.”
“Then we’ll find a specialist,” Teddy said. “We’ll find you a doctor that can fix this. What kind of cancer do you have?”
“I got breast cancer,” she said. “And they said I was gonna have to have my breast whacked off, and I said, ‘There ain’t no way I’m gonna do that. I came into this world with two breasts, and I’m going out with two breasts.’”
“Momma!” my mother shouted. “Have you lost your ever-lovin’ mind? Don’t be ridiculous. They have plastic surgeons to fix things like that! I have a great surgeon on speed dial who would’ve given you a new one!”
“Are you crazy?” Meemaw asked, looking her up and down. “You think they can give me a wrinkled breast to match my old one? Or am I just supposed to walk around with the perky breast of a twenty-year-old on one side and a saggy witch’s teat on the other?”
“Momma!” my mother protested.
Luke and Bill grimaced, while Teddy’s face turned white then a deep shade of red. “Meemaw, you can’t be talkin’ about things like that!”
“Why the hell not?” she demanded. “It’s the truth.”
My mother shook her head. “I’m sure they’d spruce up the other one. You know, like trim it to match. Like topiaries.”
“So they’d use pruning shears?” Dixie asked, feigning innocence.
“Well, no,” my mother said with a frown, though her forehead remained line-free. “I’m sure they’d use all their cuttin’ tools. A snip here. A slice there.”
“I ain’t gettin’ my breast trimmed like a shrub,” Meemaw groaned.
“Nobody wants you to!” Teddy said, his face looking a little green.
I put both of my hands on my cheeks and took a deep breath. “Okay, slow down, Meemaw. Start from the beginning. How did you find out you had cancer, when exactly did this happen, and what’s been done since?”
She told us that she’d gone to the doctor last fall and found out that she had a mass. They’d done a biopsy and informed her that it was cancer and that it looked like it had spread to her bones. When they told her that she only had five years to live if she agreed to chemo and a mastectomy, she decided that she wasn’t going to have any of it. She planned to let nature take its course, just like the good Lord had intended. She said she’d tried to tell us last summer, but the whole family dinner had devolved into chaos, and she’d been sitting on it ever since.
“And now,” she said, sounding more subdued and quieter than I’d ever heard her, “it’s startin’ to look really bad. It’s in my brain and my liver. It’s in more of my bones. They say the end is sooner rather than later, and I need to start makin’ plans.” She nodded, ever the pragmatist. “So it’s time. We need to plan my funeral and what’s gonna happen to the land after I’m gone.”
“Nobody wants to think about that right now, Meemaw,” Dixie said, wiping a tear from her cheek. “We’re still tryin’ to catch up.”
“Then you better start catchin’ up quick,” Meemaw barked, “because I’m only talkin’ about all this once.” She nodded to Teddy. “You’re the farmer of the group, so of course the land’s gonna go to you. But only if you agree to let your sister and your cousin still live here as long as they like. Summer made that overseer’s house all fancy, so I’d sure hate for you to kick her out.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” Teddy said, sounding grumpy as all get-out. “There’s no way in hell I’d kick Summer out. It’s our land, not mine. We’ll share it, the three of us.”
Dixie dabbed at the corner of her eye with a napkin.
“I wanna be buried out by your pawpaw,” Meemaw said, still looking grim as her gaze landed on Luke.
“I’ll make sure that happens,” Luke said.
There were all kinds of laws regulating the burial of people outside of cemeteries, but it was considered a family plot and my grandfather had been buried out there a decade ago. Still, I was relieved to know that Luke would make sure that all the proper forms had been filed to make sure it happened.
“How long?” Dixie finally asked. “How long do they think you have?”
Meemaw went silent for a moment. “A month, maybe two. It’s gonna get bad pretty soon. I won’t be able to stay here.” Her upper lip curled in disgust. “They say the only way I can stay here is to bring in a hospital bed. I ain’t having no hospital bed messing up my living room.”
“Meemaw,” I said in a stern voice, “you’ll do whatever it takes for you to stay in your house. Unless,” I added, “you want to go to the hospital.”
“I ain’t going to the hospital either,” she said. “I’ll just head over into the nursing home and die in a bed there.”
“Not if you don’t want to,” my mother said, softer than I’d heard her speak in years. “We can have hospice come in so you could stay in your house. Then you can stay with the things you love.”
Everybody was thinking and the people you love , but nobody said it, because I couldn’t remember one single time that my grandmother had told anyone I love you. Nevertheless, we all felt it. Even when she was being stern and gruff.
“We’ll do whatever it takes,” I said. “We’ll do whatever it takes to make sure you’re comfortable in your last days.”
Meemaw gave a stiff nod. “I appreciate that. Now, why isn’t anyone eatin’ this fancy cake?”
She’d just let us know that the matter was settled, and that we would not be discussing it again until it came time to do something. Then, because we all wanted to make her happy, we ate cake.