Chapter 42 Hope
hope
I awoke to sunlight pouring through the window. I stretched like a cat, feeling warm and content, as if the sunshine were flowing through my veins. I’d had the most wonderful, vivid dream . . .
I opened my eyes and saw a heap of wet clothes on the floor. My heart quickened. Oh, dear Lord—it hadn’t been simply a dream. I had made love with Matt!
Well, sort of. We stopped shy of doing the actual deed, but it had been lovemaking all the same.
I sat up and ran my hand through my hair. I didn’t know how to feel about it. Part of me was thrilled and happy. Part of me feared I’d made a terrible mistake.
Okay. Calm down. Why would it be a terrible mistake?
The answer was less than reassuring: because I was so darned thrilled and happy.
I’d been very clear about not wanting to get emotionally entwined only to leave town.
Besides, what if Matt started behaving all avoidant and awkward, the way some guys do when they regret sleeping with a woman?
Regardless of what Matt had said last night, he might feel differently this morning.
Well. As Gran always said, you couldn’t uncrack an egg. What was done was done.
I hurried through the shower, threw on fresh shorts, and ran downstairs, where Gran was finishing her breakfast.
“How are you this morning?” I asked.
“A little tired,” she said. “I wonder sometimes if sleep isn’t more exhausting than being awake.”
“You must have a lively dream life.”
“Oh, my dear, you have no idea.” She took a sip of tea. “Today’s the day you and Matt will find that suitcase.”
“I hope so, Gran. We’ll do our best.” I debated whether to tell her anything about the visitors last night, then decided against it. It would serve no good purpose and was sure to upset her.
“I have a good feeling about it,” she said.
I heard a noise in the backyard, and saw Matt coming through the shrubbery opening, carrying the metal detector. He waved and strode toward the back porch. I opened the door, feeling anxious and self-conscious, not sure how to greet him.
He gave me a hug—one that was tighter, longer, and warmer than the standard-issue hello hug—then came into the kitchen and bent down to plant a peck on Gran’s cheek.
My heart danced. “Can I get you some coffee?”
“Sounds great.” His smile let me know he was definitely not having any regrets.
He turned to Gran, then angled his thumb toward the dining room. “Okay if I look at the dining room mural for a moment?”
“Of course,” Gran said. “Hope does beautiful work, doesn’t she?”
“Sure does,” Matt said from the other room.
He came back into the kitchen a moment later and sat down across from Gran. I placed a cup of coffee in front of him and sat down beside him.
“I have a question, Miss Addie.”
“Certainly. Ask away.”
“Well, you have a partially rotten stump in the backyard next to the shed. I think it’s the pecan tree that’s pictured in Hope’s mural in your dining room. When did you cut it down?”
“After Hurricane Katrina. More than half of the branches had broken off and it was leaning.”
“Was it planted after the suitcase was buried?”
Gran gazed thoughtfully out the window. “It might have been. One spring Charlie got a deal on a truckload of pecan trees. The store sold them. It was the first time they’d sold trees, and Charlie’s dad was miffed—said they were a lumberyard and hardware store, not a nursery.
Anyway, Charlie planted three of them here, as well as three at both of our parents’ houses.
” Gran looked at Matt, her eyes bright and excited.
“If someone wanted to make sure something remained buried, the best way to do it would be to plant a tree right on top of it, wouldn’t it? ”
Matt nodded. “Would it bother you if we dug up the tree trunk?”
Gran’s hand covered her chest.
“Are you okay?” I asked, immediately worried about her heart.
“Yes, honey. I’m just feeling . . . Oh, I’m so sure you’re right, Matt. And the fact Charlie planted trees on everyone’s property—well, that would have kept me from being suspicious.”
“If it’s okay with you, then, that’s where we’ll look.” He turned to me. “I’ll be back in an hour or so. I’m going to rent a stump grinder and a saw, and we’ll get to work.”
“Where are the girls?” I asked.
“At Sunday school. After church, Peggy, Griff, and Jillian are taking them to the zoo in New Orleans.” He briefly placed his hand on my back as he rose.
The simple touch warmed me to the core. I watched him pull his cell phone from his pocket as he walked out the back door, then turned to my grandmother. “Gran, are you sure you’re ready to deal with the consequences if we find that suitcase?”
“Yes, dear.”
“You know you’ll have to tell Eddie.”
“Oh, I know, honey.”
“We’ll have to call the police, as well. You could be in some kind of trouble for not reporting your suspicions.”
Gran’s chin tilted up. “I’d rather face the consequences here in this world than in the next.”
I swallowed.
“Ready for your bath, Miss Addie?” The aide stood in the doorway, a towel over her arm.
Gran turned and smiled. “Absolutely, Hannah. Wash me white as snow.”
· · ·
We’d been at it for about two and half hours—alternately using the stump grinder, shovels, a pickax, and the metal detector, working on the trunk itself and digging a trench around it, then stopping to see if we got any metallic readings.
The sun was hot, my shirt was sticking to my skin, and my stomach was growling.
I was about to suggest I go make sandwiches, when Matt stopped the grinder for about the zillionth time.
“Did you hear that?”
It was hard to hear anything over the roar and whine of the engine.
“Not really.”
“I think we hit metal.”
He lifted the metal detector and turned it on. Sure enough, it pinged.
Excited, we both climbed into the trench and looked. All I could see was dirt, sawdust, and tree root. “I’ll take the pickax to it,” Matt said.
He swung it like a miner. Amazing, how hard pecan wood can be. I wondered how long it took for wood to petrify. After picking and chipping for what seemed like an eternity, the corner of a something distinctly non-treelike emerged. It looked like the metal corner of a trunk.
My pulse raced. “Wow.”
Matt nodded, his mouth tight. “Let’s work this sucker free.”
It took another hour and two broken handsaw blades, but he managed to cut away the stump to reveal a suitcase. It was metal, with tattered remnants of dirty cloth still stuck to it in spots.
I went in to tell Gran. She was seated at the kitchen table as the relentlessly cheerful aide made lunch. “I need to talk to my grandmother alone for a moment.”
“I’m in the middle of making tuna salad.”
“That’s okay. I’ll take over.”
“Well—okey dokey.”
We waited until she left the room. I suspected she was listening at the door. This aide had been full of questions about what we were doing in the backyard.
“You found it?” Gran asked eagerly.
I nodded.
“Oh my goodness.” Gran’s face was pale, her voice breathless. “I knew you would. Is it—is it still closed?”
“Yes.”
She closed her eyes for a moment. When she opened them, she personified the term Steel Magnolia. “I want to be the one to open it. Tell Hannah to go on home.”
I went into the other room and delivered the news.
“Oh no—I can’t leave! I’ll be fired by the agency.”
“Well, then, we need you to go to the store. Gran needs . . .” I searched my mind for something difficult to find. “. . . powder toothpaste. The whitening kind for sensitive teeth.”
“I’ve never heard of such a thing!”
“Well, try to find it. And get her some hand lotion, too. The kind that’s scented like cucumbers and lime.”
“Where on earth will I find that?”
“They sell it at the bath shop at the mall in Hammond.”
“But that’s thirty miles away!”
“Take Gran’s car.”
I handed her the keys, walked to the front the door, and held it open.
She lifted her head and sniffed. “I know you’re just tryin’ to get rid of me.”
“I’m just asking you to do your job.”
She shot me a dirty look but gathered up her purse and left. I stood on the porch and watched until she pulled out of the driveway. “All clear,” I said, striding back into the kitchen.
As I helped Gran into a chair on the patio, Matt spread newspapers on the outdoor table. He carried over the rusted suitcase and set it down.
We all stared at it, as if it were a genie’s bottle. Gran slowly reached out her hand.
“It’s locked,” Matt gently said.
Her hand froze in midair, then fell into her lap. “Can you force it open?”
Matt pulled a screwdriver from his toolbox, wedged the flat edge against the lock with his left hand, then picked up a hammer. With a single loud bang, the lock gave way.
I watched Gran’s lips firm. “I want to be the one to lift the lid.”
“I’ll go get you some gloves,” I volunteered. I ran to the shed and grabbed a pair of cotton flowered gardening gloves. Gran’s hands shook as she pulled them on.
“It’s rusted,” Matt said. “I’ll need to pry it loose.” He worked with a crowbar until the suitcase lid creaked and started to give.
“All right, Miss Addie,” he said. “Put your hands beside mine, and we’ll open it together.”
Her face was pale, her skin so thin and translucent I could see the blue veins underneath. Her eyes held a combination of fear and determination that I can only call courage. Her lips disappeared as she pressed them tightly together.
Matt’s leather gloves pushed upward on the suitcase lid, Gran’s frail, flower-gloved hands pushing beside them. With a squawk that sounded like something from a horror movie, the lid abruptly swung upward.
Gran peered inside.
“Oh my God,” she whispered.