Chapter 2
“I wish that the tornado would have left the Callahans’ house standing and pulled up every tree in his orchards and tossed them into the Red River.
” Audrey growled as she slammed a cabinet door so hard that it rattled the salt and pepper shakers in the middle of the table.
“Maybe then, he would sell his place to me.”
Hettie made herself a whiskey sour and started across the room.
“I sure enough wish the same thing. I want the farms reunited before I die, but then I get to thinking about Walter. He’s getting old and talking about retiring.
You are working double time while he’s on his two-week vacation in Florida.
What would you do without him if he moved down there permanently? ”
“I don’t want to even think about that,” Audrey groaned. “Walter was around before the original farm was split, wasn’t he?”
Hettie turned around and nodded. “So was I, and we were both younger and stronger in those days.”
“I miss Walter, but he deserves a couple of weeks off to visit his family. I don’t even want to think about him not working for me. But now, let’s talk about your drinking. Isn’t that your second whiskey sour? That stuff is going to kill you.”
Hettie set her thin mouth in a firm line and narrowed her eyes.
“Everybody has to die for even a chance to get into heaven. I’m past ninety years old, girl.
My bones are bad, and my liver is already shot.
I’m not good for much other than cooking a pot of beans to put on the supper table.
Before my precious Amos went on to heaven, he and I always shared a little nip before bedtime.
He said that it made me spicier in the bedroom.
You and my whiskey and my friend Bitsy is all I’ve got left, so don’t gripe at me. ”
Audrey grabbed a beer from the refrigerator and followed Hettie outside.
She plopped down in one of the two rocking chairs on the front porch and used her foot to set it in motion.
“The family at the Paradise all rallied around them after the tornado passed. Brodie and his brothers are going to live there until they rebuild, and Bernie will probably have them all married off before they finish a new house. Once that’s done and they’ve put down roots, we’ll never get that land. ”
She didn’t tell her aunt about the encounter at the dollar store in Nocona or that every time she was around Brodie, she felt more alive than she had in her entire life.
Hettie clenched her teeth together. Her nose wrinkled up like she was smelling what a skunk left behind.
“I don’t like Bernie. I’m nice to her in church because Jesus wouldn’t like for me to speak my mind in a holy place, but if we both go to heaven, the good Lord better put a barbed-wire fence between us. ”
“Tell me again why just the mention of Bernie makes fire shoot out of your eyes,” Audrey said.
“She drove into town draggin’ that travel trailer behind her truck and lives behind the Paradise. Any place that starts out as a brothel still has bad juju in it,” Hettie said.
Audrey took a long drink of her beer and then argued, “It’s been way more than a hundred years since the Paradise was a brothel.”
“But it still has a name. If someone talks about this place,” she waved her free hand around to take in the whole farm, “they say the Walter Tucker place. But the Paradise sounds like anyone going there is getting a taste of heaven.”
“Maybe the men who visited that place thought they were,” Audrey chuckled. “But that can’t be the only reason you are crossways with Bernie.”
“Nope, it’s not,” Hettie said through clenched teeth.
“She owned a bar up in Oklahoma”—she snarled—“and then she comes down here and takes over everything she can in my church, even the jobs I’ve had for years.
She might have lived around these parts at one time years ago, but I’ve been here my whole life.
My precious Amos, four children, and more recently my last living brother, Ira, are all out at the Spanish Fort Cemetery,” Hettie snapped.
“If anyone should be the queen of Spanish Fort, it’s me, not Bernie!
Me and Walter are the oldest folks in town.
We should have the crowns, and people should be…
” she rambled on so long she lost her breath.
“She can’t think that she’s getting a ticket to heaven because she’s on the quilting committee and gets to bring the flowers for the foyer every month. ”
Audrey had heard enough and chose that moment to try to change the subject. “The way your brothers acted with each other makes me wonder how you could be friends with both of them and not take sides.”
Hettie took a sip of her whiskey. “There was just the three of us, and I was already married when that woman Clarice came into their lives. I told them how it was going to be and what would happen if they didn’t get their heads out of her butt, but would they listen?
Oh, hell no! To keep the family intact they both needed to give up Clarice.
She didn’t like either of them—not really. ”
“Then why was she—”
Hettie held up a palm. “She had always been what you kids today call a drama queen. She liked the attention, and she was almost past the marryin’ age. Back then women who were thirty…” she slid a judging look over at her great-niece.
“Hey, now!” Audrey held up a palm to protest. “Things are different today.”
“And not for the better,” Hettie said. “Anyway, Frank ended up with her and she made a miserable wife, as you well know since you spent so much time here. I told them I would not choose sides. I would visit with both of them, and I would leave if either started talking hateful about the other one.”
Audrey turned up her bottle of beer and drank about a fourth of it before coming up for air. “I guess I got my strength from you. Mama was wishy-washy, and Daddy was out with his long-distance driving more than he was ever home.”
“Yep, you did,” Hettie finished the last of her drink. “All this talk makes me dry. I might have to make another one.”
“Aunt Hettie!” Audrey scolded.
Her bony finger shot up and pointed straight at Audrey’s nose. “Don’t you scold me. I’m old, and I would have told Jesus to come get me years ago if I didn’t want to live long enough to see these two farms put back together before I step off this mortal earth.”
“Evidently, you are too sassy for heaven, and the devil don’t want you for fear you’ll take over his domain. You might live to be as old as Methuselah,” Audrey told her.
When she smiled, Hettie’s wrinkles deepened, and her eyes disappeared. “Be patient, my child. I’ve prayed for this to happen, and it will. Never underestimate God’s power, and when it happens, if there’s any life left in me, I’m going to the retirement village where Bitsy is. I miss her so much.”
“Did you ever ask God to send Bernie away?” Audrey asked.
The smile disappeared. “I did, but He said no, that she had been sent to Spanish Fort to test me.”
Audrey turned up her beer and took several gulps. “How is God testing you?”
“I’m still trying to figure that out, but if He expects me to learn to love her, it ain’t goin’ to happen. There’s some things I won’t do even for God.”
“Did you ever learn to love Grandma Clarice?” Audrey asked.
“That woman was always sick with something. That’s why you spent more time with me and Amos than you did with her,” Hettie answered.
“But your farm was right next door, so I ran back and forth,” Audrey reminded her.
“Yes, you did, and I’m tired of talking about those people.
While you went to town, I sat right here and enjoyed a lovely sunset and the fact that God sent that storm to take out the house next door.
That’s the first step in getting what we want.
” Hettie was quiet for a few seconds and then went on as if she hadn’t said she didn’t want to talk about her kinfolk anymore.
“I remember doing this with Ira and Frank when we were teenagers, back before they let a woman destroy their lives and relationship. The sun has gone down, but it’s a blessing that this place is untouched and we can still sit on the porch and visit after the afternoon we just had. It’s a sign, I’m telling you.”
“Yes, it is,” Audrey agreed. “Do you like Bernie even less than you did Clarice for tearing apart your family?”
“Twice as bad as I did that evil woman, or her worthless cousin that married Ira. My husband, your great-uncle Amos, was a wonderful man. Ira and Frank were both smart, kindhearted, and generous, but neither one of them had a lick of sense when he came to women,” Hettie answered with pure venom in her tone.
“Those two women caused my brothers to stay apart until the end of their lives. When Clarice died, Ira and Frank might have made up, but Maude kept them apart. Then Ira and Maude both died in the car wreck and the farm went to their granddaughter, Zelda, and you know what happened. We have to be patient. God will answer our prayers in due time.”
Audrey finished off her beer and set the empty bottle on the porch.
“I’m going in to make another whiskey sour, and I won’t be hearing a word from you. Do you want me to bring you another beer?”
“Yes, please,” Audrey answered.
Audrey was tall compared to the rest of her family, but she was still only five feet five inches.
Hettie didn’t reach five feet, and her two brothers, Ira and Frank, were only slightly taller than she was.
Her dark-brown eyes were the exact color as Audrey’s, and she wore her long gray hair in two braids that wrapped around her head like a crown.
“Patient, my butt,” Audrey muttered. “I want to dance around in the wet grass like a witch and call up another tornado to wipe out the rest of Brodie’s place.”
That’s what you are saying, but why do you really want him to leave Spanish Fort? the pesky voice in her head screamed.