Chapter Eleven
M ama was probably the second-strongest woman I knew, coming in just behind Aunt Gracie. She had always been one to grab the bull by the horns, spit in his eye, and dare him to charge her. So I wondered what on the great green earth could have happened that had upset her. I didn’t take time to blow-dry my hair or even slap on a little makeup to cover up my freckles. I just jerked on a pair of jeans and a T-shirt and hopped in my vehicle. It seemed like the five-minute drive from my house to hers took every second of an hour. All kinds of scenarios went through my mind. Maybe she had found out she had a disease—something wrong with her heart. Aunt Gracie had died peacefully in her sleep from a heart attack, so the gene could be in the family. My hamster mind jumped from that to wondering what it would be like to simply go to sleep and not wake up in the morning. Did God have a pair of wings ready, or was He going to have to keep those Pearly Gates closed just a little while longer?
I braked hard at the end of her driveway and slung gravel halfway to Poteet. I parked beside Annie’s vehicle, got out of my SUV, and jogged across the yard to where Annie and Mama were sitting on the porch. Neither of them looked deathly sick, but their expressions said they were worried.
“Are y’all okay?” I asked after a couple of short bursts of breath.
“We’re fine,” Annie called out from the porch swing.
“Then what’s this news that I needed to get over here for?” I waved at the gray gravel haze blowing across the porch. “After the day I’ve had, I feel like I’m spittin’ dust.”
“Oh. My. Goodness!” Annie giggled—a bit nervously, which concerned me. “You sound just like Gracie sometimes.”
Mama nodded and headed into the house. I had barely sat down on the top porch step when she returned with a longneck bottle and handed it to me. “This should settle anything you’ve breathed in. Annie and I have been talking, and ...” She took a deep breath and rubbed her forehead. “I’m so sorry, Lila.”
“For what?” I was getting pretty worried; not even a couple of drinks of icy-cold beer settled my nerves.
“We were taken up in the heat of the moment, and ...” Annie said, and then there was another pregnant moment of silence.
“Somebody tell me what’s going on before I have a heart attack,” I whispered.
“We don’t want to open a catering business,” Mama blurted out. “And I feel horrible that you quit your job.”
Had I heard her right? Was she teasing me? I was completely tongue-tied, and my chest tightened.
Everything happens for a reason.
Aunt Gracie had said that too many times to begin to count. I’d even said the same thing when she’d left me her property and I made the decision to move to Ditto.
I repeated the words in a whisper: “Everything happens for a reason.”
“What was that?” Annie asked.
“She said, ‘Everything happens for a reason,’” Mama told her. “Gracie said that all the time, and I believe it—but, Lila, what brought it to your mind at this moment?”
I took another long drink of the beer. “On the way over here that evening when y’all told me about the decision to start a catering business, I was having a little hissy fit about needing some excitement in my life. That gave me a reason to quit my job that had become so boring since everything shut down a few years ago. Now I will have time to find my true passion in life. I don’t know what it is, but I believe with my whole heart that it’s out there somewhere, just waiting for me to open my eyes.”
“Or stumble over it?” Annie asked.
I thought of the notes on the outfits in Gracie’s closet and of stubbing my toe on the small chest—both in the last few hours—and had to smile. “Most likely, that’s exactly what will happen.”
“You’re taking this better than I ever thought you would—and again, I’m so sorry to disrupt your life twice in only a few days,” Mama said.
“Aunt Gracie was right when she said that about things happening for a reason. We might not know what they are today, but it’ll all come out in the light.” I was amazed at myself for not being disappointed or even upset.
“Whew!” Annie wiped her forehead in a dramatic gesture. “We were both sitting here going over every which way about how we could tell you.”
I took a couple more sips of my beer. “What made you change your minds about catering?”
Mama’s eyes were filled with excitement. “We want some time to do what you just said. Find our passion, and it’s not really in the food business. When I slowed down, I realized I was diving into something out of desperation.”
“And a need for security,” Annie added with a nod. “Not financial but mental. Like your mother, I’ve worked since I was just a kid. I thought I had to be busy, or I would be ...” She struggled to find the word.
“Bored?” I finished for her.
Annie smiled and nodded. “That’s the word. Every minute has been accounted for most of my life, so the idea of having whole days in a row with nothing to do scared me.”
My chest tightened, and fear washed over me when I thought of the same thing. When Mama and Annie had suggested a new path for their lives, I had jumped right in without mulling it over for a while. But I’d had a new job and an exciting new adventure ahead. Now there was a void—no calling the lawyers to help me set up a corporation, no talking about a warehouse with a kitchen in it. I would have to find my own path, and that would be new territory for me. I closed my eyes, and the first thing that came to mind was snow cones. It was kind of silly, but maybe even that was a reason to set something else in motion.
“Let’s go get snow cones. My treat, and y’all can ride with me.”
“Where did that come from?” Mama asked.
“I don’t know.” I shrugged. “But it sounds like a good idea.”
Annie stood up. “I agree.”
Mama pushed up out of her chair and started across the porch. “I’ll get my purse.”
I finished off the last of my beer and set the empty bottle on the porch. “You don’t need it. I’m paying today.”
Mama cocked her head to one side and almost grinned. “What if something happened and I needed to drive home? I don’t go anywhere with anyone without my driver’s license.”
“Suit yourself,” I said. “We’re going to San Antonio. There’s a little place up there that serves the best shaved-ice snow cones you’ll ever eat. Aunt Gracie took me there once when I was bawling and squalling about a boy calling me a beanpole.”
Mama went inside the house. “All the more reason for me to take my purse.”
“Mine is in the car,” Annie said. “We might even have time to check out a store or two if we are close to a mall.”
Three pickup trucks and one car passed us on the twenty-mile trip from Ditto to the southside of San Antonio, where the Lone Star Water Ice stand was located. Mama and Annie were so busy talking about the few times they’d actually carved out half a day to go to “the city” that they didn’t even notice what served as heavy traffic in our small town.
The little building sat on the back corner of a small shopping mall, so parking wasn’t a problem. I pulled into a spot, turned off the engine, and unfastened my seat belt.
“We aren’t going to get them at the drive-up window and eat them on the way home?” Annie asked.
“Nope,” I told her. “There are two windows: one for drive-up service, another around back. There are some picnic tables back there, so we can visit while we eat.”
“That building looks like an old hippie wagon from the sixties,” Mama giggled.
“How would you know anything about those?” I led the way around the building, which had not changed one bit since Aunt Gracie had brought me here all those years ago. Bright flowers the size of the hood of a car were painted all over it. Some of them overlapped others, but the Texas flag was somewhere in each one.
“I didn’t, but Aunt Gracie talked about buying one when you were a baby. She said that she dreamed about her and Jasper traveling around in it,” Mama answered.
“Well, would you look at this?” Annie said when we rounded the side of the place and she saw the wooden picnic benches scattered about under the massive oak trees. “This is lovely, and there’s a nice little breeze blowing.”
“Y’all don’t have plans for anything else today, do you?” I asked.
“Not a single one.”
“Good, because I thought after we get done here, we might go to the mall and walk off the calories we’re about to eat.”
“This is Sunday,” Annie reminded me.
“Yep, and the mall closes early, but we’ll have a couple of hours to shop, and we’ve got that extra hour of daylight, so we’ll be home by dark.”
“And not a one of us have a curfew, so if we aren’t home by midnight, we won’t get into trouble,” Annie declared.
“Aunt Gracie would want us home by dark,” I said and swallowed the lump in my throat that formed at the memory.
“Yes, she would,” Mama agreed. “She worried about us both.”
The wooden benches showed their age and had several initials carved into the seats. Annie pointed to the one closest to the window where we would order. “I thought I could read the sign if I was this close, but no such thing. I didn’t bring my reading glasses, so one of you will have to tell me what’s on that menu up there.”
“I didn’t bring mine, either,” Mama said, “but I usually get a rainbow with cherry, grape, and banana when we’re at the one in Poteet.”
“Okay, listen closely.” I slowly read off each flavor and then said, “I’m getting a pi?a colada.”
Annie squinted and frowned. “I can’t make up my mind between a pineapple or a coconut crème.”
“I want a pi?a colada, too,” Mama said. “Never had one of those, but I’m game for something new.”
I thought of what Jasper had told me about Aunt Gracie having regrets over never going anywhere. Had she, in that final breath she took, wished she would have sold the last twenty acres and her house and traveled the world? Her red pantsuit wasn’t her only act of rebellion, according to Jasper’s hints. He had said when she’d come out of her bedroom after whatever had happened when they were teenagers—maybe no more than fourteen—that she never again let anyone tell her what to do. And yet she had stayed right there in that house in Ditto and took care of things, even when her father had passed away.
“Make mine the same,” Annie decided. “That way I get coconut and pineapple flavors both.”
That antsy sensation when someone was either staring at me or was nearby swept over me. A prickling feeling that raised the hair on my neck was a dead giveaway that someone or something was near. I glanced over my shoulder to see a coyote peeking out from around a tree. When we made eye contact, the animal turned tail and ran, but the strange feeling didn’t disappear.
“Hey, Lila,” a very familiar deep voice floated through the air as Connor came around the building. “Fancy meeting you here.”
“Hey. I could say the same thing to you.” I could hear a bit of breathlessness in my own voice. “I didn’t expect to see you at a snow cone stand.”
“Grandpa brought me here when I was a little boy and ...” Connor stopped talking when the lady in the window asked us for our order.
“What are you ladies having?” she asked.
“Three pi?a coladas,” I answered.
“Make that four,” Connor said and handed her a bill. “I’ll treat today if I can sit with y’all while we eat them.”
“Thank you, and of course we will share our table with you.”
The lady took the money and made change. “Be right back.”
“Who introduced you to this place?” Connor asked.
There had to be at least a foot between us, but I had the same feeling I’d had when I took sandwiches out for lunch during strawberry-picking season. There was definitely chemistry between us, but that didn’t mean I had to give in to it.
“Aunt Gracie brought me here.”
“When you were a little girl?”
“No, when I was a teenager.” I remembered the day well. We had had snow cones before we went to the mall, and she bought me a new outfit for church on Easter Sunday.
“Was there an occasion?” he asked.
“Easter.” No way would I tell him that a boy had hurt my feelings and made me angry at the same time. “We went shopping after we sat at that bench where Mama and Annie are now.”
The lady came back with four disposable cups full of shaved ice and flavorings, along with spoons and napkins. “Enjoy,” she said.
“I’m sure we will,” Connor said.
We each carried two of the cups to the table, set them down, and then took a seat on the other side from Mama and Annie. Not even the freezing ice toned down the heat rushing through my body when his shoulder touched mine.
“Hello, ladies,” Connor said. “Lila gave me permission to sit with y’all. How’s the catering business coming along?”
“We put a pin in it for a while,” Annie said. “We aren’t sure that’s what we want to do for the next twenty years.”
“We’ve worked all our lives and never been anywhere or done anything else,” Mama added.
“You could do some traveling,” Connor suggested. “Try a road trip or a cruise.”
“I’ll drive you or go with you since I don’t have a job,” I offered.
Mama reached across the table and laid her hand on mine. “Darlin’ girl, I’m not even fifty. I believe I can drive myself. You are welcome to come with us on any of our adventures, but it won’t be to babysit us. And besides, who would take care of Jasper if you went with us?”
“Amen,” Annie agreed. “Connor has a good idea, Sarah. Let’s plan a road trip and leave the week after we are free from working. Maybe just a short one here at first. We’ll each make a bucket list when we get back to your house.”
“That would keep y’all from getting bored from not having a set schedule,” Connor said between bites. “Coming to Ditto was an adjustment for me after being on edge all the time. I’m still not completely in tune with my new norm.”
I’d wondered if he might not stick around once he got bored with growing strawberries and sitting in meetings. Losing him as a friend would be tough, but if we were to take it to the next level ... well, that would be a heartache waiting to happen.
Mama nodded. “A vacation sounds good. Got any suggestions, Connor?”
“Lots of them,” he answered. “How long do you want to be gone?”
“A week, maybe two to start with,” Annie replied.
“Are you country music fans?” he asked.
“Yes,” they said in unison.
“Well, then, you might try going to Nashville,” he suggested. “You could go to the Grand Ole Opry and the Ryman, and take in all the other sites like the Country Music Hall of Fame. And if you plan your route to include Montgomery, Alabama, you could visit the Hank Williams Museum.”
“Who knows, you might even get to see George Strait or Chris Stapleton while you are there,” I added.
“I like that idea,” Mama said.
Annie’s eyes widened. “Me too. Let’s do that, Sarah. Are you going, Lila?”
I shook my head. “Not this trip. Like Mama said, Jasper needs me to take him to church and be there if he gets sick. Aunt Gracie would haunt me the whole trip if I left him alone. He had a cough this morning that worries me.”
Mama chuckled. “What if we decide to stay in Nashville?”
“Then I’ll come visit you real often,” I replied and then added, “And I’ll miss you something awful.”
“You know a lot about that area, so evidently you’ve been, right, Connor?” Annie asked.
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Got any advice for us?” Mama asked.
“Stay in the hotel right on the strip and park your vehicle across the street instead of doing valet parking. You’ll save some money that way, and you’ll be within a block of the Ryman. You could easily spend several days going from one bar to the other, just listening to the music.”
“How far is the Grand Ole Opry from there?” Annie asked.
“Across town, and for that you might want to splurge on a taxi or Uber. Traffic can get messy at night in that area. You could also check out Blake Shelton’s venue,” Connor suggested as he stood up. “If you need any more ideas, just holler. I’ll be up here in San Antonio until the end of next week, but ...” He pulled a card from his pocket, wrote on the back, and handed it to me. “Here’s my cell phone number.”
“I guess you learned the strawberry business really good for Everett to already have business cards made up for you.”
“Yep, I guess so. All right if I call you later? I need to be getting back to the hotel.”
“I’ll be home thirty minutes after the mall closes,” I told him.
When he had cleared the area, I narrowed my eyes at my mother. “Have you changed your mind about him?”
“Not where you are concerned,” she declared in a no-nonsense tone.