Chapter Three
Melody looked around the church hall filled with what seemed to be half the town and let out a deep breath.
She was already exhausted, and the potluck had begun not but an hour ago.
She hadn’t expected so many people to come up and share their memories of her father.
Hadn’t they already done this enough at the funeral?
However, if she were honest, she hadn’t taken in much of what was said to her at the funeral, being in such a state of shock as she had been.
Louis Merriweather had quietly passed away on New Year’s Day, effectively sealing that day, at least for the Merriweathers, to forever be one of sadness rather than the one of hopeful resolve normally afforded that holiday.
The whole town had grieved the loss of one of their most stalwart residents, and despite the frigid temperatures that first week of January, hundreds had turned out for the wake and funeral.
So many had turned up at the luncheon afterward, in fact, that the Ladies Aid at St. Mary’s had run out of broasted chicken and had had to resort to turkey-and-dressing sandwiches.
“Never in my life did I see a more well-attended funeral, Melody,” Mrs. Dixon was saying now.
Melody hadn’t even noticed her approach.
“I told that to your mom at the time, I did. The only one that even comes close would’ve been little Jimmy Dalsing’s.
That was an awful tragedy, wasn’t it? How’s she doing, poor thing?
” Mrs. Dixon’s eyes traveled to where Leola Merriweather was sitting forlornly at a table with Bunny.
“She’s holding up,” Melody fibbed. In truth, her mother was not “holding up” very well at all.
She was lower than Melody had ever seen her.
She ate hardly anything these days, and Melody had frequently found her sitting alone in the front room for hours at a time, seemingly not aware that the room had grown dark around her.
Even Helenka’s frequent attempts to engage her in conversation failed.
And when Mums did speak, she tended to be irritable and short.
Melody was trying to be patient, but it was hard, as Mums seemed not to realize that Melody—and Bunny and Fred, too—were grieving as well.
“And what’s to happen with the Mercantile?” Mrs. Dixon asked, her tone shifting ever so slightly now from sympathy to what one might call gossipy interest. “Not gonna close, is it?”
“Not if I can help it!” Melody said cheerily but then instantly regretted it, as in truth, the Merriweathers were divided on the subject.
After the funeral, Mums had closed the Merc for a whole week out of respect.
In the weeks that followed, however, she had been reluctant to reopen and spoke of shuttering it permanently.
Alarmed, Melody had pleaded for it to remain open, saying that it was what Pops would have wanted.
Surprisingly, Fred had backed her up, saying that not only was it a Merriweather institution, but it had the potential to be even more profitable if managed properly.
And, since Pops had left behind a small life insurance policy, they were not quite as overstretched as they had been just before his death.
Mums had finally acquiesced, “for the time being,” but she remained uncertain, routinely blaming the Merc for Pops’s poor health, saying that it had sucked the life out of him, just as it had his father before him.
Melody was of the opinion that it had probably been the cigars and whiskey he consumed every day of his life that had sucked the life out of him, but she had refrained from saying this aloud.
“Well, I’m glad of that!” Mrs. Dixon exclaimed. “Heitman’s doesn’t hold a candle to the Merc!”
“Thanks, Mrs. Dixon.” Melody absently brushed her hair back.
“I’ll just go over and say hello to your poor mom,” the older woman said, patting Melody on the shoulder. “You let us know if you need anything, won’t you?”
Melody gave a little nod and decided she would go get some desperately needed lemonade no matter who came up next, but when she saw Mr. Van Dyke approach, she stopped herself.
“How are you holding up, Melody?” he asked in his gentle way, taking her hands in his.
Melody looked into the older man’s sad blue eyes and felt a wave of sadness herself.
She had been doing her best to put on a brave face, both at the Merc and here tonight—which was seeming more like a second memorial to her father than a typical potluck—but at the sight of Mr. Van Dyke, she crumbled a little.
This past Christmas, Mr. Van Dyke had taken up a collection amongst the other business owners and given it to Melody as a gift to help save the Merc.
She was deeply indebted to him, though he claimed that it was a repayment—a grossly inadequate one, he added—for a favor Louis had done him many years prior.
Melody still wondered what it possibly could have been, but since Mr. Van Dyke did not elaborate, she did not feel like she should pry.
Her father, she was discovering, had done countless favors for people over the years, none of which he had ever felt the need to expound on.
A larger-than-life character, he had always been the heart and soul of any party, but Melody hadn’t known the depth of his charity and compassion.
Everyone, it seemed, had a story to tell, and while these tales were a comfort, in a way, they were also painful.
It made Melody realize that there was a part of her father she would never fully know.
And it made her feel ashamed of her own selfishness in the past. But, likewise, they inspired her to be a better person and pick up just where her father had left off.
“I’m fine, Mr. Van Dyke.” She gave him a sad smile. “Thanks for asking.”
“Anything I can do?”
“Not that I can think of.”
“You’ll let me know, though, right?” He patted her hand. “I’m just down the street.”
“I know. Thank you. I—”
“Ah! Young Melody Merriweather!” Mayor Hopkins boomed, coming up now. “How are things? Doing okay?” He patted his large middle.
Mr. Van Dyke dropped Melody’s hands and stepped aside, giving her a small wink.
“Still can’t believe ole Lou’s gone!” The mayor wagged his head back and forth.
“Sure isn’t the same here tonight without him, is it?
” Without waiting for her answer, he went on.
“Did I ever tell you about the time he and I snuck down an old mine shaft? The boarded-up one on the other side of Christmas Tree Hill? Think we were only about ten or eleven—”
Melody had, in fact, heard this one, and after a few minutes of polite attention, she surreptitiously let her eyes roam while the mayor yammered on.
Mums was still talking to Mrs. Dixon, or rather, Mrs. Dixon was talking to her.
Mums looked embarrassingly uninterested.
Bunny, of course, had disappeared. Melody glanced in the other direction and spotted Fred politely conversing with Mrs. Haufbrau.
Remembering she was supposed to be listening to the mayor, she turned her attention back and nodded accordingly at various parts of his story, smiling when necessary.
After a few minutes—the mayor still droning on—she looked out over the crowd again.
This time, she was surprised to see Cal Fraiser hovering near.
Her heart skipped a little beat, but she looked away, determined not to give him the satisfaction.
He had said he wasn’t coming tonight, and yet, here he was.
It was just like him to be so . . . so frustrating.
Ever since her father’s funeral, Cal had been acting differently. At first, she put his aloofness down to respect for her grief, or possibly his own grief, but as it continued week after week, she wondered if it was perhaps something else . . .
Though they had started as almost enemies, Cal critiquing her every move when she first took over the Merc, there had been a softening of sorts over time, especially after the fire and after she admitted that she had been wrong about Harriet and John.
So much so that she was sure he had been about to say something at their Christmas Eve party .
. . something perhaps intimate or flirtatious, maybe even committal.
It had all the makings of a romantic moment, if the fluttering of her own heart had been any indication, but said moment was lost when Douglas Novak had arrived on the doorstep and ruined everything.
Cal had promptly retreated to a corner, glaring at her intermittently until he had finally slipped out without even saying goodbye.
And then her father had died, further killing the precarious, coveted moment.
And now there seemed to be no chance of it resurrecting, despite the fact that she had purposefully put herself in Cal’s way so many times since that it was almost embarrassing—rearranging the cheese display to be alphabetical; counting the sheets of white butcher paper, supposedly for inventory purposes; sweeping the back entrance more times than she ever had before, which previously had been none; and various other meaningless tasks.
Was it because Fred was hanging around now that Cal had become so reticent?
If so, it was yet another reason to be irritated with her annoying older brother.
Fred had taken a leave of absence from Harvard following Pops’s death, and in the beginning, when their grief was still raw, it had been nice to have an extra pair of hands at the Merc, especially with Imogene gone to live in Frank and Julius’s restored mining cottage to serve as a sort of docent, or, more accurately, as a living prop.
But as time had ticked along, Melody and Fred were beginning to butt heads on the running of the family store.
It bothered her that Fred had just waltzed in and assumed that because he was older—and male—he was in charge. Why couldn’t he just go back to school?