14. Chapter Thirteen #2
She drew in a breath. “Accepting him and loving him are two very different things, sugar.”
“Okay,” I said gently, “then let’s start with the accepting part.”
Her eyes met mine, darker now, thoughtful. “Does he make you happy, Ella Lu?”
My eyes filled with tears. “Yes. Yes, he does. But I can’t stand the thought of disappointing you— of upsetting you again.”
She reached for my cheek with careful grace, mindful of her freshly painted nails.
“Oh, sugar,” she whispered, “I’ve never been disappointed in you.”
“Yes, you have. I remember that night in the pastor’s office—when you found out I’d been seeing Brady.”
Her gaze softened, the memory flickering in her eyes.
“Ella Lu, I wasn’t disappointed. I was worried. I saw myself in you that night. The way you looked at that Jackson boy—it was how I used to look at his daddy. And that boy looked and acted just like his father.”
I swallowed. “Aunt Lu . . . what happened between you two?”
She sighed. “It’s neither here nor there.”
“Please,” I pressed gently. “I need to know. I need to understand why the Jacksons hate me so much.”
“I’m tired, Ella Lu.”
I knew better than to push—especially while she was recovering. So, I kissed her forehead. “Okay,” I said. “I’ll curl your hair while you rest.”
She closed her eyes.
I plugged in the curlers Doris had brought and began brushing out her long hair.
It was still dyed auburn, though the gray roots were beginning to whisper through.
I didn’t say a word. With one comment, she’d be calling her stylist to the hospital.
And let’s be real—she wouldn’t care how many rules that broke.
I began sectioning off her hair, rolling and pinning each piece with practiced ease. She was quiet—but not asleep. I could tell by the way she breathed and sighed intermittently.
“Feel like sitting up some?” I asked gently. “I need to roll the back.”
She shifted slowly, then reached for my arm.
“Ella Lu . . . ”
Her grip startled me. “Are you okay?”
She nodded, but her eyes had gone somewhere deeper. “I’ve known Isaac Jackson my whole life. We were neighbors—I was literally the girl next door. Our families lived on Elm Street back then.”
I kept working, letting the rhythm of my hands keep her steady. I’d been waiting for this story. Waiting years.
“Isaac was two years older—friends with my big brother, your uncle Zack. ”She paused. “Zack, who died in Vietnam.”
Her voice held that soft reverence reserved for memories too heavy to touch too often.
“I was the annoying kid sister—until my freshman year. I don’t know what changed. Maybe the crown and sash.” She chuckled. “I won my first pageant that year. And the high school talent show. I sang ‘Crazy’ by Patsy Cline.”
She smiled at the memory, and I couldn’t help but smile, too.
“The night of the talent show, Isaac sat in the front row. I remember thinking I looked ridiculous in my blue taffeta dress. But afterward . . . he came up to me, leaned in, and whispered that I looked beautiful.”
That sounded so much like Brady it hurt.
She kept going, her voice soft and rich with memory. “He asked me to junior prom that year. But Daddy said I was too young to date—so Isaac didn’t go. Instead, we sat on my back porch, sipping sweet tea and playing checkers.”
I could picture it perfectly. It was so sweet, it felt like fiction.
Her lips curled slightly as she added, “That night, he gave me my first kiss.”
I could see the pain on her face as she spoke. Her eyes remained closed, but her expression gave her away.
“My daddy let me go the next year,” she began softly. “It was Isaac’s senior prom. He was crowned prom king, and we danced all night.”
She paused, lost in the memory.
“He left that fall for the University of Alabama. He loved that damn school.”
A faint smile tugged at her lips.
“He drove home on weekends just to watch me compete in my pageants. He never missed a single one. Then, on the day I graduated from high school . . . he asked me to marry him.”
I glanced up from her hair. “What did you say?”
She opened her eyes, regret flickering beneath the surface. “I said no. I was young and wanted to see where the pageant circuit would take me. I had a good shot at Miss Alabama the next year, and Isaac said he’d wait.”
She sighed. “So I went off to Auburn. We wrote letters and met on weekends when we could.”
I continued rolling her curls gently as if anchoring her in the memory.
“I won Miss Alabama the following summer, and Isaac asked me again. That time, I said yes. But I was obligated to compete in Miss America.”
Her voice cracked slightly. “Isaac said he’d wait again. I didn’t think we’d be waiting long—I didn’t believe I stood a chance. In truth, I hoped I’d lose. All I wanted was to become Mrs. Isaac Jackson. We had our whole life planned out.”
As her voice trembled, I unpinned the final curl and began brushing it out. My own eyes blurred with tears. I remembered doing the same with Brady—and the ache when our plans unraveled.
“I was even going to transfer to that school for him,” she whispered.
“Really?”
“That never leaves this room, Ella Lu.”
I smiled. “My lips are sealed.” I would’ve done the same for Brady .
She settled back into the pillows. “Everything was lined up for me to start there in the fall. But then, I won Miss America. Who would’ve thought a girl from Kaysville, Alabama, would wear that crown?”
Her voice softened.
“Isaac was proud. Even though it meant postponing the wedding for another year. We adjusted. He’d finish his senior year, and I’d travel the country.”
I finished styling her hair and sat beside her, folding her hand into mine. “So . . . what went wrong?”
She closed her eyes again. She didn’t speak for several minutes. I think she was trying to regain her composure. When she reopened her eyes, she looked straight at me.
“I’m not entirely sure where things went wrong,” she said, her voice low. “I was constantly traveling for Miss America, and communication wasn’t as easy back then. Mostly letters and postcards. Sometimes a phone call if we were lucky, but that was expensive and unreliable.”
“When I came home for Christmas that year, everything felt on track. We mapped out our wedding, right down to the honeymoon. Isaac was joyful, maybe even more than usual. We’d missed each other so much, and he never gave any hint that he had eyes for someone else—not Elizabeth, and certainly not anyone else.
If anything, he seemed irritated by her. ”
She paused, then added, “You know, she came back to Kaysville with me. Her home life wasn’t great, and we’d gotten close during the pageant season. I wanted to help her. Honestly, I was rooting for her to win Miss America. It meant more to her than it did to me.”
Her face tightened, the softness fading.
“When she didn’t win, she was devastated. She had nowhere else to go, so I helped her get a teller job at the bank Isaac’s daddy owned. She even lived with Momma and Daddy.”
I swallowed. “Did you have any sense of something happening between them?”
She shook her head. “No, not even a glimmer. And if it had started by then, they hid it well. Honestly, Isaac didn’t even seem to like her. I asked him once why, and all he could say was that something about her rubbed him the wrong way.”
She clenched her fists, her voice sharp now.
“Well, apparently she figured out how to rub him the right way.”
The color in her face deepened, and I worried she was getting too worked up. I gently rubbed her hand. “Maybe we should talk about this later.”
“No, sugar.” Her grip tightened. “This is a one-time-only discussion. I don’t ever want to speak about that woman or that man again after today.”
That might be hard if I marry their son.
“Isaac went back to school, and I resumed my tour—completely unaware of how different life would look when I came home in April.”
She shifted her gaze to the window, staring into a past I could feel weighing heavy on her chest.
“I was anxious to get back. I hadn’t heard from him in weeks. I figured he was busy with his last semester. He was never a great letter writer, but I kept mine coming every week.”
Her tone darkened.
“I was also writing to Elizabeth.” She said the name as if it burned her tongue. “I asked if she’d seen Isaac. Every time, she claimed no.”
She exhaled—long, slow, and bitter.
“As soon as my plane touched down in Birmingham, I had Daddy drive me straight to Tuscaloosa. I couldn’t wait to see Isaac. I wanted it to be a surprise.”
She paused. “But it was me who was surprised.”
Her gaze never left the window. I squeezed her hand, and she squeezed back.
“What happened?” I almost hated asking her, seeing how much pain it was causing her. But I knew this story wasn’t just hers. It was my story, too. And it might be the key to understanding everything.
She finally gained the courage to continue.
“When he opened the door to his apartment, I knew something was wrong. His eyes were cold. I tried to hug him, but he pushed me away. I begged him to tell me what was wrong, and all he said was, ‘You damn well know what’s wrong. Because of you, everything is ruined.’”
Her voice faltered. “He slammed the door in my face.”
She looked straight ahead, as though still seeing it.
“I don’t even know how long I pounded on that door, crying until I couldn’t breathe. But he never opened it. Instead, he sent back every letter and postcard I’d ever written him. No explanation. No goodbye. Just silence.”
Her voice began to crack, but she pushed through it.
“I didn’t know what I’d done. I went to his parents for answers—they were as heartbroken and confused as I was. They tried to get Isaac to speak to them, but he refused.”
Her expression paled.
“But then . . . we found out Elizabeth was pregnant. With Isaac’s child. There she was—living with my parents, sleeping with my fiancé, pretending to be happy when I came home. She had the gall to comfort me. Comfort me. While carrying his son.”
“I’m so sorry, Aunt Lu. What did you and your parents do?”
She gave me that infamous look of hers—hard-as-nails, and full of fire.
“Well, first? We sent the little tramp packing.”
She didn’t blink.
“She didn’t have to go far. Isaac’s parents took her in—not because they wanted to. They loved me. And I loved them, almost like my own.”
She paused, her voice quieter now.
“I couldn’t stay in Kaysville. I couldn’t breathe there. So I took speaking engagements I hadn’t planned on—anything to get away. I cursed the day I ever decided to run.”
She looked down.
“My parents told me Isaac and Elizabeth married quickly and privately. It devastated me,” she whispered.
We sat in silence for a moment, the air heavy with a history neither of us could rewrite.
“I don’t get it,” I said, perplexed. “Why was he so upset with you when he was clearly in the wrong?”
She shook her head slowly. “I don’t know. I’ve asked myself that a million times.”
She reached out and tipped my chin with her freshly manicured fingers, holding my gaze.
“Sugar . . . just watch yourself around his momma.”
Her words sent a chill through me.
She didn’t have to tell me twice.