Chapter Fifty-One
Fifty-One
I squinted and looked again.
Weren’t nothing written down on its square today.
I knelt back over the kitchen floor and scrubbed the last patch of dull linoleum, then stopped to stretch before knee-walking over to the bucket, my bones tender and burning.
Jackson would always fuss and point to the cotton string mop that had hung untouched in our kitchen corner for years.
But the city dirt always found its way back inside, wormed itself into cat-eyed cracks that a factory mop couldn’t swipe away.
Same as Troublesome’s coal dust I used to sweep out as a child.
“Angeline. Cussy, Cussy Mary!” he hollered from outside.
Dropping the rag into the pail of water, I pulled myself up and arched my back, a question braided across my brow.
Jackson flung open the door, a newspaper in one hand and a small bouquet of flowers in the other.
“Leave your wet boots on the mat, I’ve just mopped. What’s all this? Why are you home at this hour?”
Jackson’s eyes glinted with a mixture of playfulness and something bold I couldn’t put my finger on. He waved the newspaper then tossed it and the flowers onto the table.
I moved closer. “What’s got into you? Did I forget—”
He swept me up in his arms. Twirled us around with a might I hadn’t seen in years, almost losing his footing. Then his face pained when another hitch grabbed hold of his bad leg.
“Jackson!” I squealed. “Put me down ’fore you hurt your good leg.” He planted me firmly on my feet, and I playfully batted him away. “There’s nothing on my calendar today.” I smoothed down my rumpled duster.
“Mark it now to pack our suitcases; I’m taking my bride home.” He nudged his chin toward the newspaper.
Puzzled, I stepped over to the table and read the bolded headlines and inspected the photograph of an unusual-looking couple on the front page.
A breath collapsed in my chest, and I couldn’t pull my gaze away from the woman or the man who’d brazenly draped a protective arm around her neck.
The newsprint blurred as Jackson slipped up behind me and buried a sob against my neck.