Chapter 9 #2
The strip mall sat beside the interstate exit, all the signs glowing in the dark. Cracker Barrel still had its porch lights on, so I pulled into the lot, cut the engine, and hurried inside.
The restaurant smelled of butter and coffee. I stood at the sign in front of the register waiting to be seated when I saw her.
Sheila Wiggins.
She sat in a corner booth, with her hair in a careful bun, and her usual pearls at her throat. When she spotted me, her smile came fast—bright, practiced, polite. A smile that made it impossible to pretend I hadn’t seen her.
I hesitated, every instinct telling me to turn around, grab a to-go order, and disappear. But that would look rude—worse, it would feel rude—and Lord knew what Daddy would say if he thought I’d slighted her. So I forced a smile of my own and walked over.
“Jimmy Tanner,” she said as I came closer. “Well, isn’t this a surprise?”
“Hey, Sheila.” I slid into the seat across from her. “Didn’t expect to see you here this late.”
“Couldn’t sleep.” She gestured at the half-empty cup of coffee. “Mama says caffeine’s the devil’s brew, but I think the devil’s doing just fine without me.”
It was meant as a joke, but something brittle edged her voice. For a moment we just stared at each other, and the air felt too still.
Then, without warning, she dropped her shoulders, exhaled hard, and said, “I’m so fucking sick of this shit.” The pearls at her throat glinted when she said it, like even they were shocked.
The words hit the table like a thunderclap, and my mouth fell open.
She laughed—a low, nervous giggle that built into something freer. “God, did I just say that out loud?” Her grin spread wide, recklessly. “I did. And it felt amazing.”
“Sheila—”
She waved me off, her smile turning wry and sharp.
“I’m sick of it, Jimmy. All the praying, the pretending, the playing perfect.
I’m tired of doing every damn thing my mama tells me like I’m still in pigtails.
You know she’s been talking about us again, right?
How ‘sweet’ we’d look together? How the Lord must be nudging us toward marriage?
” She gave a snort that was half laugh, half sob. “I want nothing to do with it.”
The words came out fiercely, but then she froze, her eyes darting around the room like the wallpaper might report her. “Please don’t tell anyone I said that,” she whispered. “Promise me. Mama would kill me. She’d drag me to your Daddy and make me pray on my knees until I believed it again.”
“I won’t say a word,” I blurted, and I meant it. I’d spent most of my life terrified someone would overhear the wrong thing and ruin me too.
She studied me for a moment, maybe weighing whether I was safe, and then something in her face loosened. Her voice dropped to almost a whisper. “I’m in love with someone.”
That knocked me still. “Who?”
“His name is Raj.” Her entire expression changed when she said his name—eyes bright, mouth soft.
“He’s a scientist down in Research Triangle Park.
We met on one of those dating apps Mama says are full of perverts and atheists.
She’s right about one thing—he’s not a Christian.
” She laughed lightly. “He believes in physics and kindness. He’s smart, Jimmy.
Smarter than anyone I’ve ever known. He really listens to me.
And he makes me feel…” She trailed off, searching. “Like I’m perfect the way I am.”
I couldn’t help it; I smiled. “Sounds like he loves you.”
“He does.” She bit her lip, blushing like a girl half her age. “He asked me to marry him.” Then, the color drained from her face. “If Mama ever found out—Lord. She’d say I’d doomed my soul for good.”
The irony twisted something in my chest. “Sheila, if he makes you happy, that’s what matters.”
She looked startled, as if she’d expected me to scold her. “You really think so?”
“I do.” I leaned in. “You’ve only got one life to live. Don’t spend it trying to make other people comfortable. You deserve to be happy, even if it means breaking every rule they wrote for you.”
Her eyes shone. “You sound like someone who needs to believe that himself.”
I swallowed. “Maybe I do.”
For a long moment we just sat there, two people from the same church, force fed the same script, realizing how much of it had been acting.
The fluorescent lights painted her face pale, but there was warmth behind it now, something alive and brave.
For the first time, I saw Sheila Wiggins—not Lorraine’s daughter, not the good girl from choir, but a woman trying to crawl out of her cage.
She reached across the table and squeezed my hand. “Thank you, Jimmy.”
“For what?”
“For not looking at me like I’m going to hell.”
I shook my head. “You’re not.”
Her smile was small, real this time. She slid out of the booth, smoothing her skirt down. “Then maybe there’s hope for both of us.”
I watched her walk out through the restaurant store, past the rocking chairs and into the night. Her reflection flashed in the window—head high, stride sure.
Around me, life went on: coffee poured, and an old country song drifted from the speakers in the ceiling
Sheila had found her courage in a man who loved her for who she was, not who she was supposed to be. She was choosing her own life, and I envied her more than I could say.
“Hey sugar,” a waitress walked up to the table and poured me a cup of coffee. “What can I get for ya?”
I’d forgotten all about food. Without looking at the menu, I ordered fried chicken with all the fixin’s. After she left the table, a question filled my head.
Where’s my courage?