Chapter 10
Chapter Ten
T here was a lot of activity when I pulled up to the overseer’s house. After parking my car next to a beat-up and rusted, red pickup truck, I got out and smiled. The house had been a one-bedroom, one-bath run-down shack that had undergone multiple renovations and additions during its century-long existence…none of them good. It had practically been a gut job with the addition of another bedroom and bathroom so Dixie could move in with me, although I was beginning to wonder if that was going to happen, since she was spending more and more time in Atlanta with Bill.
But now the house was painted in a bright white with black shutters and a robin’s-egg blue front door. A porch ran along the entire length of the front of the house, wide enough to set out rocking chairs. Luke had measured multiple times and had even carted one from his front porch to ensure Buddy had given me plenty of room.
The front door and windows were all open, and the sound of hammering and a saw drowned out the voices inside. I walked through the front door, pleased when I saw one of the workers installing baseboard over the re-stained wood floor. The walls were painted a robin’s-egg blue several shades lighter than the front door, and a wall had been removed to open the living room to the kitchen, which now sported white cabinets, stainless steel appliances, light gray quartz counters, and farmhouse-style pendant lights over the island. New, bigger windows had been installed in the living room and the kitchen, letting lots of light into the space.
I couldn’t wait to move in.
Since I’d sold all of my furniture in LA, I’d ordered new living room furniture, barstools for the island, and a small kitchen table and chairs for the small breakfast nook. The back door off the kitchen was open and I could see a contractor cutting subway tiles for the backsplash.
“Summer,” I heard a man call out from the new bathroom. “My favorite client!”
More like the only one dangling the TV appearance as a bribe, but I’d take it.
“Hey, Buddy,” I called out as I stepped over extension cords and a ladder lying on the floor, and made my way to him. “I see progress.”
“I think we’re gonna meet that deadline.” He stood straighter and sucked in his gut. “I’ve lost three pounds.”
“That’s great,” I said, glancing into the bathroom. A guy was standing in the shower slathering grout over the marble tiles, while Buddy was installing a towel rack. “The kitchen looks good.”
“It’s gonna be done, just like I promised. You can move in next Friday.” He held up his hand. “God as my witness.”
“You’re the best, Buddy. My bedroom furniture is supposed to be delivered that day.”
He turned back to drilling a bracket into the wall. “I told you I’d have it done, and I’m a man of my word.”
I did a quick walk-through of the rest of the house, pleased with the progress. I’d be lying if I denied that I was eager to rub it in Luke’s nose and tell him he was wrong.
After I drove back up to the house, I found Meemaw in the kitchen, kneading bread dough.
“What are you doin’ home?” she asked, glancing over at me as I entered through the back door.
“I was out checking on the house.”
She frowned. “Still makin’ a commotion.”
“They’ll be done next week. Then it’ll be quiet again.”
“Why are you so dangnab eager to get out of this house?” she asked with a sideways glance.
I pushed out a sigh and poured myself a cup of coffee, realizing I’d never gotten my latte at the coffee shop. I was feeling seriously caffeine deprived.
“It’s not that, Meemaw. It’s that I’m a grown woman who is used to living on my own. I just need some space. I’ll still be around. Plenty. No one cooks like you.” I held up my coffee cup. “And no one makes coffee like you.”
“You only like it because it’s free,” she grumped.
“That and it comes with your charming personality.”
She was quick to glower at me as she seemed to slap the dough harder than before, but the corners of her mouth tipped up slightly.
“Say, Meemaw,” I said as I took a seat at the kitchen table. “What do you remember about Lila Steele?”
“Who?” she asked with a frown.
“Magnolia Steele’s mother.”
She looked puzzled. Then her brow lifted. “You’re talkin’ about Lila Brewer.”
“Was that her maiden name?”
“Yep. She was Celia and Jim Bob’s girl. Took off right after high school, if I remember right.”
“That’s right,” I said. “Do you remember anything about her?”
“She was a quiet girl,” Meemaw said. “I hear that Celia’s granddaughter is around your age, but her mother was older than yours. Probably a decade or more ahead in school. I guess she was probably smack between your mother and me in school.” Which wasn’t a surprise since my mother had me when she was sixteen.
“Do you know if Lila Steele—I mean Brewer—ever had any trouble with anybody?”
She frowned. “What sort of trouble?”
“I don’t know,” I said, not wanting to give away too much. “Something that would make her want to leave town after she graduated and never come back.”
“Nope. I do know her dad was a snarly man, cantankerous as the day is long. Celia was a saint to put up with him.”
“He was mean?” I asked, my interest piqued.
She nodded. “At the end, and became a drunk to boot. After her younger sister died, I think.”
“Her sister died? Before or after Lila left?”
Pursing her lips, she looked out the back window. Then after a few seconds, she shook her head. “I don’t recall. I want to say around the same time, but I can’t be sure. My memory’s not what it used to be.”
I started to protest, but I’d seen a few signs of slippage myself over the past few months. Then it occurred to me that now was a good opportunity to bring up some questions I’d been wanting to ask since I’d come back to Sweet Briar. I’d never known who my father was. Nobody ever talked much about my baby and toddler years, and I had plenty of questions.
“Was Momma wild back in high school?”
Meemaw arched her back and rolled her eyes. “As wild as a cougar on a hot plate. She was born that way. Came out of the womb screamin’ and rarely stopped. Wanted the spotlight.”
“Is that why she put me in all those pageants when I was a baby?”
She gave me a sorrowful look. “She wanted to be in pageants when she was a girl, but I wasn’t havin’ any part of that. The hair and the dresses. It was a lot of pomp and circumstance, not to mention the frivolous expense. After she had you, she put you in a pageant before you could even walk.”
When I was nine months old. She’d used the pageants as a springboard to an acting career in Hollywood.
“Where’d she get the money?” I asked. “Did she have a job?”
“She worked at the Dairy Bar on the edge of town. It wasn’t like she was doin’ her homework after school, and she had little interest in you other than when she put you in a pageant. Your aunt Merilee and I mostly raised you until Bea married Burt when you were six. And then when your momma got tired of playin’ house with you, she’d dump you off, and you’d spend most of your days with your cousins.”
Meemaw shook her head as though she was remembering things she didn’t want to. “Bea graduated by the skin of her teeth, and your pawpaw had to fight her tooth and nail to get her to stick it out. Offered to give her five hundred dollars if she could show him a diploma, so she did. He always seemed to have a way with her I never had.” A soft look filled her eyes, an expression I wasn’t used to seeing on her face, which wasn’t surprising given that she’d faced a lot of hardship in her life. “But that was nothin’ compared to his relationship with you.”
A lump filled my throat. I had many fond memories of my grandfather. I’d never had a father in my life, but he’d filled the void and then some.
“I think your pawpaw thought she’d use the money for something practical, but she used it to buy you pageant dresses and makeup. I thought he was gonna snatch your momma bald. You were needing clothes and shoes, and your momma spent it on frivolous nonsense.” Her eyes tightened, her face strained. “Then your momma married Burt and we hoped she’d settle down and be a good mother to you.”
“Did she?”
“At first,” she said, putting all her weight into the dough. “Burt was a serious man, and he had a good job. He was slightly older than Bea and seemed to ground her. She even cooled it with the pageants, but then someone commented on how you’d stopped makin’ the pageant rounds and some other local girl was winnin’ ’em. Well, your momma couldn’t have that goin’ on in her backyard. So she hit the pageants full force, and you were miserable. You hated those things with a passion. Then your momma started droppin’ you off with us more and more, and your pawpaw told me he wanted to try to legally adopt you so we could be in charge of your life and put a stop to all that nonsense. He was certain she’d agree to it if we paid her enough money.”
My jaw dropped. This was the first I’d heard any of that. “She didn’t agree?”
My grandmother was silent for several long seconds before she released a long sigh. “I wouldn’t let him do it.”
Something strangled in my chest. My grandfather had tried to save me from my mother’s madness, and my grandmother had stopped him.
“I kept hopin’ Beatrice would have another baby, and that she’d settle down for good.”
“Because that seemed to work the first time,” I said sarcastically.
She turned her head to face me, her eyes full of regret. “Takin’ your daughter’s child isn’t a decision to be made lightly.”
I turned it around on her. “Things must have been pretty bad if Pawpaw wanted to do something so drastic.”
Pressing her lips together, she turned her attention back to the dough. “Mistakes were made. We all did the best we could.”
Did they though? I was my mother’s dress-up doll, and later her slave labor when she took me to LA. She’d ruined my life multiple times over, and I had yet to see my mother suffer any consequences for her actions, what with her living in her big house she’d named Tantara and raking it in coaching girls for pageant competitions. My mother had gotten away with whatever she wanted for the entirety of her life, and everyone just let her. Me included.
I bolted from my seat and headed for the door. “I’ve got to get back to town.”
“Ain’t you got questions about your daddy?” she called after me.
I stopped and turned to face her. “I don’t have a daddy. I obviously have a sperm donor, but definitely no daddy.”
She seemed taken aback by the venom dripping from my words, but then a sympathetic look softened her eyes. “True enough. Did your mother ever tell you who he was?”
“No.” And it wasn’t for lack of trying. “Do you know?”
“No,” she said, her mouth pinching. “I have no earthly idea.” She glanced up. “I regret it, you know. Not trying to take you from her. It’s one of my biggest regrets.”
I stared at her in shock, then rushed forward and pulled her into a hug. My grandmother wasn’t a soft and fluffy woman, so it made the rare times she was halfway nice even more special. “Thank you, Meemaw.”
She gave me an awkward hug, holding her doughy hands out to her sides. Then she nudged me with her shoulder. “Get out of here. I have work to do.”
I kissed her cheek, then turned and walked out the door. With any luck at all, I’d have a job to do too.