Authors: Mary Beth Lee
His Momma handed him a plate of biscuits covered in the sticky wrap he hated even though she called it a miracle because it stuck to everything. “Speaking of which, you should take these down to her now.”
Incredulous, Jed shook his head. “I think I’ll leave her be for now.” He didn’t want to intrude on her grief. Didn’t want to push her away.
Momma pushed a new jar of jelly toward him. “You aren’t going to catch the girl sitting up here stratigizing how to keep her in Stearns. Go down there and be her friend. If she doesn’t want you there, she’ll tell you.”
Relationship advice from his mother. Terrific. “I don’t know, Momma.”
“Then pray about it, son,” she said.
“But pray about it while you’re delivering biscuits,” Daddy said.
Susie and Paul Dillon watched their son walk down the gravel road to the bunkhouse.
“Without a miracle, she’ll be gone within a month, and we’ll be nursing heartbreak again,” Paul Dillon said.
“Our God works miracles every day,” Susie Dillon said.
“Amen,” Paul said, but he couldn’t help being worried.
Jed stood on the bunkhouse porch and listened as Mackenzie laughed and Clarissa called out “kitty, kitty, kitty.”
The sound of them playing together gave him hope. But hope was dangerous. It led to heartache. And God knew, his heart was definitely involved. Somehow he’d let himself fall in love with Clarissa. He’d put down all his guards and he’d fallen hard. Chances were she was leaving, and nothing he could do would stop her.
God, why her? Undoubtedly, God had led Clarissa into their lives.
Fight for her.
Whether it was God answering or his own subconscious didn’t really matter. The answer was the same.
He’d tried fighting before. It had ended in disaster.
Fight for her.
Jed didn’t know if he’d heed that advice or if he’d ignore it. For now, he decided, he’d do what his daddy suggested and be a friend.
Clarissa jumped at the knock on her door and then she laughed at her silliness.
When she opened it, Jed stood there looking rock steady, just like always. Her heart melted a little at his smile, at the dimple just above his left lip, and the hard edges of his face and the eyes that showed so much concern.
“Daddy,” Mackenzie flew into her father’s arm. He lifted her in a one armed hug while balancing a plate of something. So freaking perfect the move belonged in a Hallmark movie.
Clarissa grabbed the plate at the same time he said, “Momma made you some biscuits and sent you some jelly, too.”
“Thank her for me,” Clarissa’s stomach grumbled as she said the words.
Jed dropped Mackenzie to the floor and they stood there looking at each other in one of those horrible awkward pauses she hated.
Searching for anything she spied his phone, grabbed it, handed it to him. “Thanks for letting me use this last night. I…” she stopped not sure what to say.
He wrapped his hand around hers and held it. “You needed it. And you needed your time last night.”
She wanted him to hold her hand forever. To never let her go. To…
“Daddy, you should’ve brought Clarissa’s flowers,” Mackenzie said, and Clarissa pulled her hand from his.
Jed looked at her, and Clarissa could see the worry there in his eyes. “Pete sent you flowers. And he said take as long as you need. He tried calling you, but...”
“Oh my goodness, my phone.” Clarissa rushed to the table and took the phone out of her bag. Completely dead.
The thought brought tears to her eyes, which was totally stupid. Was the word dead going to cause problems forever? The two had nothing to do with each other.
She plugged it in and regrouped. Cleared her throat and tuned back to Jed and Mackenzie and now Kitty. Ties. Too many ties.
Mackenzie was explaining how kitty didn’t have a name yet and showing him how the cat liked to play with the twine they’d found in a cabinet. He’d squatted down to be closer to her, and the two looked like they belonged on the pages of a storybook.
“Come play, Clarissa. Kitty likes it better when you do it.”
Later. She’d think about leaving later.
Chapter Eleven
The sound of light rain woke Clarissa the morning of Tammy Jo’s memorial service. Clarissa groaned, covered her head with a pillow and said a quick thanks to the fates that at least it wasn’t another tornado. A storm like that would’ve been more appropriate to who Tammy Jo had been.
The tornado that hit Stearns had done a lot of damage and hurt a lot of people. But now people were rebuilding, moving on. And they’d learned lessons about what was really important. Family, love. Not possessions, that was for sure.
Her mother’s bible and journal lay beside her in the bed, and Clarissa grabbed them, read what appeared to be another favorite verse. Psalm 23. She might not be a God fearing christian, but Clarissa knew the Psalm without looking at it. She only looked on the pages to see where Tammy Jo had underlined the words
he refreshes my soul
so many times. Out beside the verse she’d written the words
he restoreth my sou
l with the word
restoreth
underlined.
She hoped her mother made peace with the demons of her past. She’d certainly been trying to.
Wincing she got out of the bed she thought of as her mother’s and walked barefoot down the stairs to the kitchen. She ate one of Susie’s homemade biscuits and watched the rain fall. Jed’s family’s house looked grand in the rain just like it did in the sun. The family had their fair shares of troubles, but God had certainly smiled on them.
She brushed away thoughts of the Dillon’s troubles, guilt at how when she left town it would hurt Mackenzie and Jed. At least she and Jed didn’t have the kind of relationship he’d had with his wife. That would be a catastrophe for all of them.
Over the past three days all of the Triple Eight hands had stopped by to tell her how much they enjoyed the short time they spent with her mother. Other than the few people Momma had met in church, the ranch hands were the only ones who’d met Tammy Jo locally. People from their past wouldn’t think so highly of her. But as the ranch hands talked, she learned something about her mother. Facing her demons and getting her life straight so close to the end had been a testimony of sorts.
Paul wanted to make sure she knew that.
“Your momma could have forgiven herself easily if she’d have hurt those people by herself, Clarissa. But bringing you into it was unforgivable in her eyes. I told her thank God that wasn’t the way forgiveness worked. That if God held all our faults against us, weighed them and decided whether or not we were good enough now to make up for our pasts, a lot of us out here on the Triple Eight were in a world of hurt. We still have consequences for our sin, but they’re life consequences, not God ordained.”
His words lingered with Clarissa now. The talk of forgiveness so foreign. She hadn’t been sure she wanted God to forgive Tammy Jo for what she’d put them through. Hadn’t been sure she liked the idea of a God who let past sins go without retribution. The child in her who had stolen from others, conned everyone from politicians to pastors, the one who’d attracted the eye of Tammy Jo’s boyfriend and then been dumped on her grandmother didn’t want to think that could be wiped away so easily.
In the distance she watched the back door of the house open and Mackenzie scamper out and open the fence wider. Then she saw Paul pushing Moo out of Susie’s flowers.
The sight made her laugh, made her thankful for this time she’d had with the Dillons. The only real family she’d ever known.
As if her words conjured it, the sun broke through the clouds and a rainbow formed over the Dillon house.
Clarissa finished her biscuit and turned to go get ready.
Jed drove the truck up to the bunkhouse and prayed God would give him the words and actions to help Clarissa through this day.
But then Clarissa opened the door and his prayers changed to asking God to give
him
the strength to make it through the day. Clarissa wore a simple black dress that fit her curves perfectly. Her blonde her flowed across her shoulders. Black high heeled sandals showed her toes. She looked like a goddess.
“Clarissa sure is pretty, isn’t she,” Mack called from the back seat of the truck.
Jed swallowed before answering.
“She sure is, sport. She sure is.”
Fight for her.
This time when Jed heard the answer to his prayer, he resolved to do just that.
Jumping out of the truck he opened the passenger door for Clarissa. She said thank you, stepped inside. In her hands she held a small black bible.
“You look pretty in your dress, Clarissa,” Mack said. “Did you see the rainbow this morning? I bet it was your momma smiling down on us.”
“I bet you’re right Mackenzie,” Clarissa said, gripping the bible a little tighter.
“Now we both don’t got Momma’s,” Mack said matter-of-factly, and Jed’s heart constricted. Clarissa’s eyes cut to him, and he saw her worry.
“You’re right,” Clarissa said carefully, and he worried what Mack might say next. Before he could run interference and change the subject, his daughter powered on.
“You could be my next Momma, maybe. Then you could help me chase Moo outa Gram’s flower garden.”
For a heartbeat, silence filled the truck’s cabin. Maybe he and Mack needed to have a talk about appropriate types of conversation. If he lived through the mortification of this moment.
But then Clarissa smoothed everything over. “How about I help you chase Moo out of the garden regardless. At least until I move back to town.”
“You can’t move,” Mack said, and Jed wanted to add his approval to her words. “You might get glycema again. Or another tornado. And you’re my best friend.”
Clarissa wasn’t sure how to respond. She needed to say the right words. Words that wouldn’t give Mackenzie too much to hope for but wouldn’t hurt her either.
“I’ll still be your best friend when I move,” she said. “And I won’t have the hypoglycemia problem as long as I eat enough. And tornadoes are just part of living in Oklahoma.”
She tried not to look at Jed as she spoke. Looking at Jed made Mackenzie’s first words all too uncomfortable.
Fortunately, her answer seemed to appease the little girl.
“You doing okay?” Jed’s voice sounded deeper than normal, and she knew he’d been worried about where the conversation was headed.
She turned to him, tried not to think about being Mackenzie’s next momma. Not that Jed thought…“As well as I can be, I guess.”
“We’re here for you,” he said.
And she nodded because she didn’t want to say that was a serious problem.
When she walked into the church, Clarissa was stunned by the turnout for her mother’s memorial. Mrs. Norene and Lester Pyle, Miss Topkins, Doc Anson and his wife, Pete and Bev and Bev’s kids, The Rains family, José and the other ranch hands.
“There are so many people,” she said, surprised.
“This is Stearns, and you’re one of us,” Jed said.
At the front of the church a poster sized photo of Tammy Jo with Moo behind her stood next to an urn and several flowers, plants and wreaths. As she moved forward people offered hugs and handshakes, I’m sorries and we’re praying for you’s. The experience was surreal.
She sat in the front row and prepared herself for a funeral service of platitudes given by a man who didn’t really know Tammy Jo. Instead Pastor West stood and told an amazing story.
“I didn’t know Tammy Jo Dye until a short time ago when she made her way to Stearns upon seeing her daughter on the national news after our tornado. Some of you here might not know Miss Dye’s story, but if you do, you know she’d gone through a miraculous change recently. When she came to me to say she wanted to accept Christ, but she wasn’t sure she was worthy, I assured her none of us were, but he accepted us anyway.”
Someone said amen.
The preacher’s words surprised and soothed Clarissa. As the minister told stories about Tammy Jo that made people laugh, Clarissa couldn’t help but realize the people here had accepted her mother more than she had. But they didn’t know….Only, listening to the preacher it sounded like maybe some of them did know.
“Paul Dillon introduced Tammy Jo Dye to Jesus, just as he has so many other people in Stearns. He asked to speak a few words about her.”
Jed’s father walked up to the stage in jeans, a pressed white shirt. He held his cowboy hat in his hands.
He stood at the front of the church and cleared his throat before speaking.
“Tammy Jo Dye made no secret about her original reason for coming to Stearns. She came to swindle us if she could. Instead she fell in love with our city and the people in it. She loved her daughter, but she said she wasn’t very good at showing it. When I found her crying in a horse stall one morning, I thought maybe she’d had enough of the hard work, but that wasn’t it at all. She’d been mucking out a stall, and God convicted her fully. She knew she’d done wrong and wanted to make things better. For the last few days she’d struggled with forgiving herself, but she knew Jesus had paid the price and she was forgiven. I hope in her death others will come to know God. He changed Tammy Jo Dye, and He can change anyone if they’re willing to let him.”
Clarissa kept her eyes on the photo of her mother the whole time Paul spoke. But she couldn’t stop the tears from falling as he told the story that she’d read in her mother’s journal. She prayed her mother found the peace she’d searched for before her death.
One of the girls who’d worked at the church shelter with Clarissa stood to sing Amazing Grace and the pastor finished the service by reminding them all that if they wanted the Lord to be part of their lives all they had to do was believe.
Clarissa couldn’t help but wonder if it really was that easy.
After the service Jed picked up the urn and his parents told her they’d have all the plants delivered to the bunkhouse if she’d like or they’d keep them in their house. Susie Dillon gave her one of those digital photo frames with photos of her mother working around the Triple Eight. In all of them Tammy Jo looked happy. At peace. Her eyes looked tired, though. Like some part of her knew her body was shutting down.