Chapter 7 Sabrina
Georgetown, South Carolina
Present Day
Room 310 at Georgetown General Hospital was small but comfortable enough. Kenni and I stopped along the road and picked a bunch of wildflowers and tied them with some craft string I kept in my junk box in the van. Then we went to the Dollar Find for a vase and a few bags of pistachios. They were Grandpa’s favorite nuts.
Grandpa reminded me of a much-aged version of my father. He had no hair on top, and his skin was the same tan as Daddy’s. His once-plump body was now paper thin over bone; the wrinkles in his hands and his shrunken frame showed his age. He looked so different than before, yet his eyes were still piercing—they said he was stronger than he seemed.
Kenni and I did exactly what I’d hoped we’d do—put a smile on his face. Grandma was there too, and she was more than happy to gather her hugs from us as well. We watched a few episodes of Family Feud, laughing at Steve Harvey while we guessed the winning answers to the questions. Grandpa struggled to eat his dinner. A sharp pang of fear over the thought of losing him added weight to every breath I took. Hospitals had a way of making everyone seem more mortal by the hour.
I hated this. I hated to see him sick.
He kept up conversation with Kenni, telling her a story he’d told me every summer as a child. But I could see he was growing weaker. The pauses between his sentences grew longer.
“You need rest, so we’re going to leave, Grandpa.” I stood, placed my drowsy daughter in the chair, and walked to the bed. I took his hand, and he clutched mine, his hand trembling uncontrollably and stealing my happiness.
“I want you to know. I’m proud of oona,” he said.
I kissed his forehead, taking in the familiar smell of patchouli and cocoa butter. I could see from the shine on his skin that he’d been rubbed down by someone, probably my grandmother. She wasn’t going to let her husband be ashy. “Tell me all about it when you’re out of here.”
“I’ma tell you now.” He released my hand. “Oona is strong, Beanie. Don’t let none of ’em tell you different.” He turned his head in Grandma’s direction and said, “She should read on the letters.”
Grandma nodded. “I planned on it.”
“What letters?” I asked.
Grandma stood and joined me at Grandpa’s side. “Letters Grandma Tabitha wrote.”
“We have letters from Great-Great Grandma Tabitha?” I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. “Why haven’t I seen them before?”
“You didn’t need them before. Now you do.” My grandmother enveloped me in a hug, and I was filled with an immense sense of warmth. Her scent was familiar: she’d been wearing the same perfume since I was a child. It added even more comfort to the embrace. She released me, letting her eyes sink into mine as she rubbed my arms just below my shoulders. “It’s the right time.”
Usually the idea of reading something old was unappealing, but letters from my great-great grandmother—that was exciting. I kissed Grandpa on the forehead again, gathered my sleepy daughter, and left them there with their fifty years of love.
***
I settled into my favorite guest bedroom and washed my daughter’s face and hands before changing her into a nightshirt. She barely stirred from her sleep. Poor little thing was exhausted from the trip. I was pretty worn out myself.
The smell of something good drew me back down the stairs. I removed the lid from the Crock-Pot and inhaled. I pulled a bag of frozen broccoli-cheese casserole out of the deep freezer. My grandparents always kept food they brought home from Tabby’s in the freezer. I defrosted it and then stuck it in the oven.
I’d missed a call from my father while my phone was off, so I FaceTimed him. After we caught up a bit, I told him about my visit with his father.
“Dad, you should come.” I made a slow trek down the foyer hallway to my grandmother’s parlor. “Grandpa looks weak.”
“I FaceTimed with him today. He doesn’t look weak. He looks what he is, and that’s old, honey.”
“I just remember him always being so solid,” I said, dropping onto a chaise.
“I know,” Dad said. “Aging is a part of life. Sometimes it happens overnight, and a stroke... baby, it speeds the process up.”
He was right, but I still made my plea. My father coming was not just for Grandpa; it was for me. “I still wish I could see you.”
“You are seeing me right now,” he replied, smiling.
I frowned. “You know what I mean.”
“How’s your sister?”
“Mean as a snake.”
My father didn’t even argue about that. He knew Mariah’s personality and temperament.
“One day you and Mariah will come to an understanding.”
“We’ve done that. We don’t like each other.”
“That’s not what I mean... That’s not what your mother would have wanted.”
“Tell her. She’s the one who turned us into enemies,” I said.
“Your grandmother told me she was expecting you two to work together.”
“I don’t know what Grandma has in mind, but Mariah’s not going to stay for more than a week. She has Clark’s. Then it’s going to fall on me. I don’t know anything about running a restaurant.”
My father was suspiciously quiet before he spoke. “You and your sister will come up with a plan.”
I sighed. He was surer than I was.
“How’s the baking?” he asked, changing the subject.
“Slow, but I did a great job yesterday.”
“Oh, yeah.” He smiled. “Tell me about it.”
“I’ll send you a picture.” I zipped the pictures I took to him and then told him about the client.
“Wow, baby, this is really something, and to think you taught yourself everything you know.”
“YouTube University.”
He chuckled. “You’re a natural. You got it honestly.” The light left his eyes for a moment, and my heart ached a bit. My mother baked. He’d probably thought about her.
“The job paid well too.”
“That customer is sure to tell someone else about you. That’s how the word gets out.”
“I know. It’s just, I don’t get more than two or three cakes a month. It’s not enough.”
“Things like that take time. It’s only been six months since you’ve been putting yourself out there. Did you put those business cards around town?”
“No.”
“Social media?”
“You know how I feel about that.”
I could see Dad’s chest rise and fall with a heavy sigh. “I know it’s a necessity for a business, so make an Instagram reel and a TikTok video and do what people your age do to get their things poppin’.”
He amused me. “Poppin’?”
“Yes, poppin’. That’s what we used to call it. On and poppin’.”
I laughed. “I’ll do it. It’ll be fun to bake here. Grandma has the best kitchen.”
“You could make those sweet cakes to get started.” A momentary flash of sadness filled his eyes, and then it was gone. Sweet cakes, my mother’s cakes, reminded him of her. He cleared his throat. “The ones in mason jars.”
“I know what you mean, Dad.” I gave him a supportive nod.
“Make a few. See how they come out,” he said.
“I don’t have to do a trial run. I’m pro at those.”
“Okay, so be a professional at selling them too. Find some local stores or farmers markets.”
“I’ll think about it,” I said, lying, but not maliciously. I was already talking myself out of it because... budget. My father didn’t understand how broke I was. I was tired of borrowing from him.
“I need to jump on a video call with a client. Let me know if you need anything.”
“I will. Thanks.”
We ended the call just as the front door opened. I stood and greeted Grandma. I took her handbag from her and put it on the foyer table while she kicked off her shoes. “I see you’re in my favorite room.”
“It’s still my favorite too.” Grandma’s parlor was small but cozy. During my childhood, she and I spent many late evenings reading in this room. The walls were lined with built-in bookcases that held a large collection of novels and some Christian-living books. Grandpa’s collection of Bibles and various concordances took up three shelves. He even had the Gullah New Testament.
“I didn’t see your sister’s car outside.”
“That’s because she’s not here.”
Grandma grunted. “I’m going to give you the letters now. I’ll be rushing to bed and rushing in the morning.” She walked into the room to a painting that covered their wall safe. After turning the knob back and forth, the electronic lock released, and she pulled a metal box from the safe.
I joined her at the desk she placed the box on. Grandma opened the lid and removed the contents. The stack of old letters tied with a ribbon were an unexpected treat. “I can’t believe you have these.”
“I didn’t know about them until we cleaned out Mama’s things.”
“She didn’t share them with you?”
Weariness came down on Grandma, and I regretted asking the question. “You know Mama’s mind wasn’t good in the end, but I don’t know why she didn’t give them to me before that.”
“Are they going to make me sad?”
Grandma raised her hand to my hair and stroked it. “Heartache has a birdlike spirit. It soars, searching the earth looking for a place to land. It finds all of us at some point. It found Grandma Tabitha more than it should have, and she wrote about it.” She was quiet for a reflective moment, and I wondered if her thoughts had shifted from Grandma Tabitha to Grandpa. She sighed and looked back at me. “These are a family heirloom.”
“I’ll return them as soon as I’m finished.”
“No. Share them with your sister. I want her to know you’ve read them too.” She closed the box. “I need to eat so I can get some sleep. I have early morning prayer before I go to the hospital.”
Grandma walked around the desk and pulled a drawer open. She removed a key ring. “Leave your van here so you don’t have to drive that gas guzzler all over the place.”
“Grandpa’s truck is expensive.”
“Then don’t wreck it,” she said, pursing her lips. She kissed my forehead, leaving the imprint of her heart behind. “I’m going to get out of these germy hospital clothes.” She left the room.
“I’ll fix your plate,” I called behind her.
My phone pinged. I checked the message, and I had a cash deposit from my father with the message: Bake.
Tears wet my eyes. My dad knew me. He could probably see how broke I was right through the phone screen.
I started to call him, but then I remembered he had a meeting with a client, so I sent him a thank-you text. Dad had always been my champion. He encouraged me in all things baking for sure. He was right about me needing to use social media. If he was willing to invest in me, I needed to put forth better effort.
I dropped into the desk chair and opened my phone to Instagram. I’d deactivated my page over a year ago. I tapped until I came to Kendrick’s page. I looked at each of the pictures, reading the humorous captions he’d included. He hadn’t posted all the time, but when he did, it was mostly scenes from his day, meals, and things he saw—a dog, a cool pair of sneakers, an odd building, a hot car... me. Our pictures together were the best ones. I reminisced on all I could and then, finally, I went to the last picture he’d posted. It was a selfie. Him smiling with the caption: Things are about to change. I’m ready to wife my love.
And then it was the comments. Over a hundred of them.
We miss you, man.
RIP.
Sorry for you, Sabrina.
Dude, your daughter is beautiful.
I remembered Grandma’s words. “Heartache eventually finds us all.”
I disagreed. Heartache wasn’t birdlike. Not in my life. It set up camp in the nest of my heart on the day I was born, and it hadn’t flown away since. I closed Instagram and looked at the letters. I reached for the tissue holder, stuck my hand in for the last one, and wiped under my eyes. Careful not to transfer moisture to the old paper, I picked up the stack.
I’d been hearing stories about my courageous great-great grandmother my entire life. I untied the ribbon and pulled out one letter as the question about what I might have in common with Tabitha Cooper pressed into my mind. I placed the first envelope on my chest and said a little prayer to honor her; then I looked at it. It wasn’t addressed to anyone. It simply had a date written in the upper right-hand corner. May 1915.
My goodness. That was over a hundred years ago. I pulled the letter from the envelope. It was written on yellow parchment that though a little stiff had held up over the years. I read.
Dearest Mama,
I am writing with barely any expectation that anyone will read this, so I address it to you, hoping and praying that one day we will be reunited and these stories I am putting on paper will be stories I can tell you over tea and biscuits and some of your muscadine jam.
Although I was wrong, I still wish I could share these days with you because something wonderful has happened.
I’ve fallen in love.