The Fountain of Infinite Wishes (Dare River Book 5) (31 page)

“Oh,” she said, and Sadie could hear the shock in her voice. She’d never cut Mama off before. She knew everyone in her family saw her as the soft one, the biddable one. “All right, honey. But you’ll tell me if I have anything to worry about, won’t you? I’m just trying to do what’s best here. As your Mama.”

She could feel hot sweat break out across her skin, and for a moment, it was shocking to realize she wanted to throw her phone across the room and watch it break apart into little pieces—just like she was feeling inside.

“Mama, I won’t meddle in Shelby and Vander’s relationship,” she said definitively, no sweetness in her tone. “They’re happy and in love, and this puts a dark cloud over things.”

“Sadie!”

“Mama, I’m sorry, but this time you’re wrong. Goodbye.”

She hung up the phone and burst into tears. Her phone rang again, but she didn’t answer it this time. The pressure was too much. She dragged herself over to the couch, pulled one of her quilts over her, and bawled her eyes out.

Her head hurt, and her nose was stuffy when she finally quieted. She blew her nose as loudly as a goose squawking and didn’t even care how unladylike it sounded.

She sat in the quiet, her heart hurting, and prayed for guidance. The peace she normally felt while talking to God didn’t come. She prayed harder, but soon she was thinking, not praying, and she was all tied up in knots again.

Crossing to pick up her phone, she called J.P. He answered immediately.

“Hey,” she said, sniffling. “I didn’t know who else to call.”

“What’s wrong?” he asked, an edge in his voice.

“Mama called me to ask if Shelby had mentioned having Vander look into the past. J.P., I told Mama I wouldn’t inform on Shelby and pretty much hung up on her.”

“Oh, Sadie,” he said. “Mama is worried, is all.”

“I know, and I’m trying to understand.” She fell silent. “J.P., I’m suddenly so mad. I had a vision of throwing my phone across the room. Why won’t Mama talk about it? I’ve done lost my patience with her.”

“It’s okay to be mad, Sadie,” he said. “When Daddy left us, I threw a ball against the side of the house for hours every day after school. Mama never stopped me, but she never came out to talk to me either. I used to be mad about that.”

“I didn’t know,” she said, her heart hurting for him. “I wish I hadn’t been a baby. I would have talked to you.”

“Aren’t you the sweetest?” her brother said. “When Daddy ran this time, I found myself getting mad all over again. I was short-tempered with the dogs this weekend, and that’s not like me. We’re all stirred up. How could we not be?”

“Should we just tell Mama now and get it over with? I was praying before I called you—not well, mind—and it occurred to me that maybe we should just hold onto our backsides and jump.”

“Let me call Shelby and Susannah and see if they can pop over for lunch,” he said. “You don’t have to go in to the craft store until this afternoon, right? Since you have your quilting circle tonight.”

“Right.”

“Susannah hasn’t called me yet,” her brother continued, “but I expect Mama called her too.”

Yeah, that was likely. “I don’t like this, J.P.”

“Me either,” he said, “but we’ll weather it okay because we love each other. I’ll text you right back about lunch.”

Sure enough, he texted her back fifteen minutes later. He’d arranged for lunch to be at one o’clock at Shelby’s house, the earliest their middle sister could get away. Sadie offered to cook something, but J.P. said he’d pick up salad and sandwiches. He gave her some more encouraging words, which soothed her heart some.
 

Sadie arrived at Shelby’s five minutes early, only to discover she was the last to arrive.

 
“Hey,” Shelby said simply when she opened the door and hugged her.

Sadie held her tight. Her sister had been radio silent the night before—something that was becoming her new normal now that she and Vander spent so much time together. Since Shelby had been tied to her phone more than any of their siblings, that alone spoke volumes. Sadie was happy for her sister, but she missed her too—they’d always been almost as close as twins.

“Come on,” Shelby said. “Come on. Let’s get you inside.”

Susannah was pouring sweet tea while J.P. unpacked sandwiches from brown paper bags and put them on plates.
 

“Hi, Sadie,” Susannah said, crossing to hug her. “I had to sneak away from my decorating job to be here, so I can’t stay long.”

Her sister’s body was rigid with tension, and there was an edge to her voice.

“Did Mama call you?” she asked when they separated.

“Yes,” Susannah responded, crossing her arms. “I don’t like this. Not one bit.”

“No one does, Susannah,” J.P. said, arranging the plates around the kitchen table. “Come sit down, y’all. We’ll talk this through.”

When they all sat down, Sadie couldn’t help but notice the hard set of Shelby’s jaw and the rigid line of Susannah’s shoulders. “I cried when I got off the phone with Mama,” she admitted.

“Are you saying that to make me feel guilty?” Shelby asked. “Are you thinking it would be easier if I wasn’t seeing Vander at all? Then Mama wouldn’t be so riled up.”

The force of her anger and hurt washed over Sadie, and she could feel her chest fill up again with unshed tears. “Of course not, Shelby. I’m happy for you. I told Mama that I wouldn’t meddle. I practically hung up on her!”

“Well, good!” Shelby said, her eyes firing. “She’s completely out of line.”

“I told you looking for Daddy was only going to hurt us,” Susannah shot back. “In the end, we didn’t find out anything useful except that he’s still a coward and a horrible person.”

“That’s not true!” Sadie said, jumping into the fray. “We met Me-Mother and Shelby met Vander, and as I was praying this morning, those were the only two things I could think of to be grateful for in all this. Except that I was brave enough to do it in the first place.”

“It wasn’t brave,” Susannah said, ripping the white paper off her sandwich. “It was foolish. Look at all the hurt this is causing us. I’ve cried too, Sadie.”

That shut her up.

“We’ve all cried,” J.P. said softly, making everyone turn and look at him.

From his expression, Sadie could tell he meant it, and she extended her hand to him. He fitted his fingers around hers.

“Seems I wasn’t so at peace with the past, after all,” J.P. said. “God knows, my heart has been heavy. In my prayers, I’ve asked to be grateful that all these unhealed feelings are rising to the surface so they can be washed away.”

Sadie felt tears burn her eyes. “Mama still doesn’t want to talk about it. She told me as much again this morning. Part of me wants to shake her.”

“Me too,” Shelby said, rubbing her nose like she was fighting off a good cry. “And that breaks my heart. Vander and I both said ‘I love you’ for the first time yesterday, and instead of being joyous, I cried in his arms.”

Susannah looked down, visibly softening. “I’m sorry. I know what it’s like to fall in love and have a dark cloud over things. I wouldn’t wish that for you, Shelby.”

They reached their hands out to one another and fisted them together tight. Sadie was glad to be linked with them. She hated when her siblings fought.

“Honestly, I don’t know what to do about Mama,” J.P. said, pushing his sandwich away. “I’ve prayed on it and prayed on it, but I haven’t found an answer.”

“Maybe you should talk to her,” Susannah said to Shelby. “She’s talked to Vander and all of us about you, but she hasn’t talked
to
you.”

“I thought of that,” Shelby answered, rubbing her nose again, “but she wants me to assure her I won’t ask Vander to look for Daddy, and I can’t lie about that.”

“We’re already lying about not knowing Vander,” Susannah said. “Even Jake said it doesn’t sit well with him. And some of the extended family doesn’t know what’s going on. I don’t like that none either.”

“If we’d found Daddy, it would be different,” Sadie said. “But I keep reminding myself I’m grateful for Me-Mother and Vander.” They hadn’t had the full discussion of how to handle Me-Mother’s situation yet, but more than one of them had done research into various possibilities.

“It
wa
s good to meet Me-Mother, and I’m more committed than ever to helping her,” Susannah said, touching her arm. “I’m also glad we got to hear a little more about Daddy. And you’re right, Sadie, we’re blessed God brought Vander and Shelby together this way. I am happy for you, honey. For both of you.”

“We all are,” J.P. said. “Vander is a good man, and he’s more than welcome in this family.”

From J.P., that meant a lot. Heck, he was pretty much giving Shelby his blessing.

Shelby seemed to know it because she got up from the table and hugged him right where he was sitting. He patted her back, and when she let him go, she brushed away tears as she headed back to her chair. Susannah took hold of her hand again as soon as she sat.

Everyone fell silent.

“If you want me to assure Mama I will never look for Daddy, I will,” Shelby finally said, breaking the lull. “I can stretch the truth and tell her I won’t look for Daddy in the future because it’s true. That’s in the past.”

“It still doesn’t address all this hurt coming up,” J.P. said, giving her a pointed look.

Sadie took a breath and said, “Mama doesn’t want to get over the hurt, J.P., or she would bring everything into the light. I hate to say this, but she’s not walking the walk right now.”

“Now, wait just a moment,” J.P. said, holding up his hands. “We all know Mama’s heart. If she doesn’t want us to know why Daddy left, she has her reasons.”

“Besides, he already showed us the kind of man he is by running away from us a second time,” Susannah said. “I say he’s not worth our tears.”

Sadie mostly agreed, so she nodded.

“Whether or not he’s worth it doesn’t much matter,” J.P. said. “We all feel what we feel, and right now, we all feel pretty awful.”

“Yes, we do,” Shelby said. “And so does Vander. I want you to know that.”

They all nodded at their sister, and Sadie reached for her hand.

“Are we all agreed?” Shelby said with a huge exhale of breath. “I’ll tell Mama I’m not looking for Daddy and be done with it? I don’t see another way around this.”

Sadie thought about it, feeling like she was sitting in the middle of a see-saw being propelled by two different forces—the desire for a resolution and the wish to forget and move on.

“I agree,” Susannah said. “Thank you for being willing to talk to Mama, Shelby.”

Her sister’s mouth twisted, and Sadie knew how much she was looking forward to that exchange. Who could blame her?

“I agree for the moment,” J.P. said, “but if this doesn’t work, then we revisit it.”

“I just want this over with,” Shelby said. “Sadie, what do you say?”

J.P. gazed at her steadily, and she closed her eyes to listen to her heart. “All right, I agree. It’s not like Daddy’s going to up and appear or anything. We looked. He ran. It’s done.”

“Then it’s settled,” J.P. said, reaching for his sweet tea. “We should try and choke down a bite. Y’all need to get back to work, and I need to get on back to the house for a call later.”

Sadie was going to quilt her heart out when she wasn’t at work. “I’m glad we met today. I didn’t…think I could handle getting through the day after talking with Mama.”

Shelby bit her lip. “I’ll go see her after work. Then we’ll put all of this behind us.”

Sadie sure hoped so, but part of her worried Mama wasn’t going to let it go.

Chapter 29

Shelby decided to catch Mama at the church. That way, Mama wouldn’t feel obligated to invite her to stay for dinner. Besides, after the day she’d had, all she wanted to do was crawl into Vander’s lap and get some of that TLC he was so good at delivering.

Of course, Shelby’s plan hinged on getting to the church before Mama left for home, which was beginning to seem unlikely. She was at Gail’s house for a meeting, and her boss was chatting idly as if they had all day. While she normally enjoyed Gail’s stories, Shelby found herself chomping at the bit.

“What’s the matter with you, girl?” Gail finally asked, picking up the opera glasses she’d bought on a recent antique hunt and holding them quizzically to her nose. “You’ve been acting like you’re going to jump out of your skin for at least thirty minutes, and all my dithering isn’t doing a thing to distract you.”

Gail was trying to distract her? That explained her colorful monologue on her butler’s refusal to load the cannonball and add the gunpowder she’d managed to locate, something Shelby had interrupted only to remind Gail again she couldn’t do it. “I need to go to a meeting.”

While Shelby had told Gail about her daddy running away again, she hadn’t shared anything about the problem with her mama. Her boss’ reaction had been dramatic enough to the news about Daddy—she’d even offered to lend Shelby her dueling pistols if they ever found the blaggard. After that, Shelby had thought it prudent to let sleeping dogs lie. She still hadn’t told Gail about Vander, mostly because she was worried about how the woman would react. She was already in an emotional pressure cooker with Mama, and if her relationship with Gail suffered, she wasn’t sure she could take it.