The Lullaby Sky (2 page)

Sophie!

Hannah couldn’t wait to get home to her daughter. Aunt Birdie and Miss Rosie were watching her, just like they did every day during the school year while Hannah worked. But today was special. Today Sophie belonged exclusively to her, and Marty could never again threaten to take her away.

Mark it down. Write it on stone. This is the best of all the thirty-eight Christmases I’ve ever had all rolled into one. The first day of June will never pass again without a celebration.
She felt like skipping from the somber room and doing cartwheels down the courthouse hallway.

The euphoria ended abruptly, and she frowned. There should be at least one tear and a whole bucket full of guilt at ending a marriage. She’d cried when she had to shoot a poisonous snake, so where in the hell was the guilt for not being able to make her marriage work? Or the guilt over letting Marty prevent it from working?

Marty’s lawyer carried a whole stack of papers to Hannah’s lawyer. He handed her a pen and pointed to the places where she should sign. With a few signatures, it was done. The lawyers would still have to have it all recorded at the Cooke County Courthouse, but it was finished. She had a place to live, an old car, and a daughter that no one could ever again threaten to take away from her. She still had a job as a teacher’s aide when school started if she wanted it. She didn’t have a controlling, abusive husband who looked for reasons to slap her around or put her down. It seemed like a damn good trade-off to Hannah.

Her friends gathered around her and, acting like bodyguards, they ushered her out of the courtroom and outside.

“Whoa, that sun is bright,” Calvin said as they all stopped on the courthouse lawn to put on their sunglasses. “It reminds me of Cancún. I’m going to design a clothing line with bright island colors, darlin’ Hannah, and I want you to model them for me.”

“I’m not tall enough to pull off your wild designs. I’m barely five foot three, but thank you for trying to make me smile,” Hannah told him.

A loud pop off to their right stopped Hannah in her tracks. She rolled her shoulders forward and threw her hands over her eyes. Travis gently draped his arm around Hannah’s shoulders, and she tensed up even tighter.

“It’s all right. You have the right to a case of nerves today. Marty isn’t shootin’ at you. That was only a car backfiring,” Liz said softly.

“Calvin, sweetheart.” Darcy batted her chocolate-brown eyes up at him. “When you start designing clothes for size-sixteen women, I’ll gladly be your runway model.”

Calvin crooked his arm and tucked Hannah’s arm into it. “Darcy, I might just call upon you to do that. We could use a fan to blow your long hair back and give the illusion of you walking on the beaches and enjoying the cool ocean breezes.”

“Oh, so you like my hair long, do you?” Darcy asked.

“I love your hair long and in its natural brown color,” he answered.

“Hell, Calvin, the way you paint that picture, I’d model for you,” Travis drawled.

“You, my friend, would not look good in my designs.” Calvin laughed. “The limousine awaits, my sweethearts.” He led the way down the sidewalk. “And Hannah, please don’t let this whole ugly mess get you down. Looks like he’s been cheating on you for a very long time. That woman had to be six months pregnant, and I’d bet she’s not the first one he’s screwed around with. Poor thing has no idea what she’s getting herself into, and”—he lowered his deep voice—“black is not her color. Lord, honey, she looked like she was going to a funeral.”

Liz shivered in spite of the heat. “I hate funerals.”

It had been a funeral of sorts. A marriage had died, and as a result there should be a dark cloud somewhere. All she could see in the sky was a bank of pretty white clouds slowly moving northeast. Sophie would call it a lullaby sky. The vision of sitting on the porch swing singing lullabies to her dark-haired daughter put a smile on Hannah’s face. Sophie was a ball of fire unless Marty was home. Then she turned into a shy little girl who was afraid of her own shadow. That’s when she clung to Hannah and wanted to go outside.

Hannah didn’t like the horrible strain in the house on the weekends when Marty came home, so she’d take Sophie out to the porch swing and tell her stories about the clouds and sing lullabies to her. Now when Sophie got a boo-boo on her knee or couldn’t sleep she’d ask for “lullaby skies”—puffy clouds and “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star.” Those two things made everything in life all right again.

“What are you thinking about? You look like you are a million miles away,” Travis asked.

“The lullaby sky. It and Sophie,” she answered with honesty.

“Yes. We can talk about clouds or twinkle stars or anything but funerals,” Liz said. “I’m glad school is out. Playground duty in this kind of heat drains me. And besides, Hannah needs the summer to regroup and get settled into being a single mother. Are you really going to remodel your old big house into an inn? I’ll miss you at the school.”

“The principal, and I mean you, Liz, shouldn’t have playground duty. She should sit behind a desk in an air-conditioned office and be dressed like a . . .” Calvin paused and changed the subject. “An inn, huh? Well, now, I might be your first customer when you get it ready to rent out. And are you going to serve food?”

“I’ve got another idea for my house, but I need to think about it before I say a word,” Hannah said, glad for anything to get her mind off the whole courtroom scene.

Liz regained the conversation. “At any school I run, people pull the same duty no matter what the work title is.”

Calvin chuckled. “Looks like I kicked a hornet’s nest, but I got y’all to thinkin’ about something other than that ridiculous settlement.”

“It wasn’t ridiculous. I got more than what I wanted. I got my name back, and Sophie is now an O’Malley, too. That means more to me than money ever could. And now I can really do anything I want with that hangar and the house,” Hannah said.

Darcy kept in step with Hannah. “Why not make it into a wedding chapel? The living room and dining room are big enough to host maybe fifty people, and the bride could come down the stairs. There could even be a bride’s room in one of the four bedrooms up there and a groom’s room in another.”

The biological clock had been ticking very loudly in Darcy’s ears this past year. The closer she got to forty, the more everything was about wedding books, wedding cakes, and cute baby names with her. Hannah had told her repeatedly that settling was never better than singledom. Only in Hollywood was thirty-eight considered old.

“What if I thought the groom was another Marty and I talked the bride out of marrying him? Now that would be a fiasco, wouldn’t it?” Hannah said.

Single mother?
The two words bounced around in Hannah’s head.

She’d been that since the day Sophie was born. No, that wasn’t right. It went back to the day the ultrasound said Hannah was carrying a baby girl. Two months after the quick courthouse wedding so his parents wouldn’t know until it was over—that’s the day everything started downhill. Right after that his parents decided that maybe she should move into her grandmother’s old house in Crossing. It had been sitting empty for ten years, and after all, the baby would be better growing up in a rural community rather than a penthouse in downtown Dallas.

She’d thought it was wonderful at first, and then in a fit of anger just before Sophie was born, Marty told her that she wasn’t and never would be Ellis quality. The whole reason he’d agreed to let her live in her grandmother’s house was to keep his life with her and his real life in two separate boxes. She’d cried and told him that she would learn to be a better wife. That maybe it was her fault for having been single for so long. And when he’d thrown the next tantrum she’d cried again.

Looking back, she realized that making her cry was part of his plan. When his verbal abuse didn’t produce tears anymore, he’d started grabbing her arm and jerking her around while he whispered threats. When she jerked away from him, the fists came out. He’d reminded her that she could shed tears, but if she made a sound, he’d walk out of the house with Sophie.

In the beginning he came home a couple of nights a week and on weekends, but even before Sophie was born, she hadn’t looked forward to seeing those days arrive. Then it became only weekends and then only a couple of weekends a month, and she still didn’t miss him when he was gone. The past year, he’d been to Crossing exactly four times, and all four times he’d left her with bruises.

“You were off in la-la land again.” Darcy patted her hand and jerked her back to the present. “I’m starving. Call Aunt Birdie and tell her we’ll be there in twenty minutes.”

“Soon as we get into Calvin’s van.” Hannah headed around the corner of the courthouse to where Calvin’s bright-red rental van was parked.

“Whoa, Miss O’Malley . . .” He pointed at a white limousine sitting at the curb. “I arranged for this to be waiting for us after the hearing. The driver will take us to Crossing and bring me and Darcy back here when we finish dinner. We’ll show those sons a bitches that we are not poor white trash.”

“But we are,” Hannah disagreed. “You can put a hog in a satin ball gown, and it’s still a hog.”

“Some people don’t have the sense to appreciate a good country hog,” Calvin teased and then grew serious. “Or a good woman. You deserve a limo, and Marty deserves a bullet. It’s against the law for me to do one of those things.”

Hannah forced a smile as the driver of the limo opened the door, and Calvin stood to one side to let the ladies enter first. As she looked out the tinted window, she saw Marty Ellis with his parents on one side and his girlfriend on the other getting into a shiny black Caddy. Hannah would be willing to bet that the girlfriend didn’t know how to fold a napkin right but that the people she hired to do it for Marty—or James, as she called him—would do a damn fine job.

Travis covered Hannah’s eyes with his hands. “Don’t look at her.”

Liz laid a hand on her knee. “You’re better off without a lyin’, cheatin’ son of a bitch.”

And you should know, my friend,
Hannah thought.
You are living in the same kind of situation that I was before today. I pray every day that you finally wake up and realize that you need to get away from Wyatt before you have kids with him.

Calvin crawled into the limo and sat beside Darcy, right across from Hannah, Travis, and Liz. “I hope that woman puts a ring in his nose and leads him around by it. It’s okay, honey, it’ll come back around and bite him right on the ass. I only hope we all get to see him yelping with pain.”

“I’d just as soon never see him again,” Hannah said as the limo driver pulled away from the curb and headed out to the highway. She had no urge to look back at Marty, his parents, or his new woman. She wiped a tear of pure relief from her cheek.

“You okay? Please tell me those are tears of joy,” Liz said.

“Honest, y’all, I am fine. I’m glad you were with me today. I couldn’t have made it without you. And now you can all come to see me in my house, not just visit with me over at Aunt Birdie’s.”

“That’s what friends are for,” Calvin said. “But, honey, he will get tired of that hoity-toity redhead and he will go looking for another woman. And as far as coming to see you in your house, well . . .” He stammered.

“It was strange going in there. We were afraid we’d leave a mess and . . .” Liz inhaled deeply. “We knew he was OCD and it made you nervous. We didn’t want to add to it. But Cal is right. We’re here because we love you.”

“Hear, hear!” Darcy raised an imaginary glass.

“Hey, now.” Calvin pulled a bottle of expensive champagne from an icy bucket. “Let’s use the real stuff to celebrate this glorious day. I’ll pour if Darcy will hold the glasses.”

Darcy picked up the first flute. “With pleasure, but I have to work this afternoon, so I can only have a little bit.”

As Calvin poured, she passed the stemmed glasses to her friends. When he’d finished she held up her glass. “To happiness.”

Liz touched hers with Darcy’s. “To the beginning of something new and wonderful.”

Travis added his glass. “To a beautiful change.”

Calvin touched his to the other four. “What Travis said, only double.”

Hannah raised hers to clink with the rest of them. “To my amazing friends, who have helped me get through this day.”

“Hear, hear!” Darcy said a second time.

Hannah sipped the champagne, but she didn’t feel free—not yet—hopefully it would come after the dust settled, as Aunt Birdie said.

C
HAPTER
T
WO

H
annah crawled out of the limo and stepped onto the lush green grass on Aunt Birdie’s lawn. Thanks to Travis, the flower beds, the rose bushes, and everything else were kept in pristine condition. He’d also been working on the house. A little paint on the porch railings and repairs here and there—general maintenance, he called it.

Miss Rosie, a short lady almost as round as she was tall, waved from a rocking chair on the front porch. In reality she was Travis’s grandmother, but everyone in town had referred to her as Miss Rosie since she was a young Sunday school teacher down at the church. Miss Rosie removed her big pink eyeglasses and cleaned them on the tail of her checkered gingham apron. “Did you get that in the settlement?”

“What?” Hannah asked.

Miss Rosie pointed. “That limo. Did it come in the settlement?”

“No, it did not. I got my twelve-year-old Chevy,” Hannah answered.

“Sophie?” she asked.

“Is mine and the judge says it’s irrevocable.” She smiled.

“Then all is good.” Miss Rosie nodded. “Birdie is around back with Sophie. She’ll be glad that you’re home safe and that it’s all over.”

Hannah bent and gave Miss Rosie a quick hug. “Me, too. I hope I never see him again.”

Miss Rosie wrapped her arms around Hannah and held on for an extra few seconds. “We promised your mama we’d watch out for you. We didn’t do such a good job. We should’ve shot that son of a bitch long ago.”

Hannah patted her on the back and straightened up. “Then you’d have been hauled off to jail. Neither Sophie nor I would have you here in Crossing.”

Miss Rosie stuck a finger up under her glasses and wiped away a tear. “Go on and let Birdie and Sophie know you’re home so we can have dinner.”

Hannah gave her a brief nod and headed down the steps and around the house. No one could remember when Birdie Wilson didn’t live in Crossing, Texas, or when Miss Rosie Johnson didn’t live in the little white frame house with a picket fence right beside her. They’d been best friends since they were babies, and the two of them were the very reason that Hannah’s mother, Patsy, felt comfortable moving away from the area ten years ago. Aunt Birdie—who was really Hannah’s great-aunt on her father’s side—and Miss Rosie would watch out for the house Patsy was leaving, and they’d take care of Hannah across the street.

“My backyard or this one?” Hannah asked.

“This one. That baby girl knows something isn’t right today, and she’s taken her old quilt out there to look at the sky. You know what that means. Sophie’s worried. Birdie is telling her stories about the clouds, and then they are going to sing the twinkle star song and everything will be all right.”

“Miss Rosie.” Calvin tipped his hat.

“Calvin. I’m glad you came back for this. Hannah needs her friends around her. Dirty sumbitch should be shot for what he’s caused her and that precious baby. Y’all come right on in and Hannah can go get Birdie and Sophie. Food is on the buffet.”

Hannah raced around the house. Aunt Birdie and Sophie were stretched out flat on their backs on an old patchwork quilt Hannah’s grandma had made years ago. Hannah leaned against the edge of the house and drank the scene in.

They were staring up at the pretty white clouds in the sky with a shotgun between them. Sophie’s dark hair made a halo around her delicate features. She’d always been small, like Hannah’s mother, Patsy, but her attitude came from Aunt Birdie.

Hannah had always wished she could be as strong and as outspoken as Aunt Birdie and Miss Rosie. History said that the town had been named Crossing because it had sprung up at a time when folks thought a bridge would be built across the Red River right there. But the people who made those decisions had decided to build the bridge on down the river near Gainesville. The old-timers in Crossing said that getting across the river had nothing to do with the town’s name—it had been given that name because everyone knew better than to cross a Wilson or a Johnson.

“Mama!” Sophie squealed when she saw Hannah. “Take off your boots and come lie on the quilt with us. It’s almost time to sing.”

Hannah sat down on the back porch, removed her boots and socks, and hurried across the grassy lawn. She stretched out beside Sophie and took her daughter’s little hand in hers. Tears dammed up behind her eyelids when Sophie squeezed her hand. “I love you, Mama. I missed you today.”

“I missed you, too, but I had to take care of some business,” Hannah said around the lump in her throat.

No child should have to endure the stress that Sophie had when Marty was home. Someday, somehow, Hannah was going to help other women who had lived in fear, but right now the time with her daughter was what was important and precious. She pointed to the clouds. “That one is an angel, right?”

“No, Mama!” Sophie laughed. “That is Cinderella’s coach.”

“Is it all done?” Aunt Birdie whispered.

“Yes,” Hannah said.

“Good. I wasn’t lookin’ forward to jail, but I’m old and that sumbitch wasn’t takin’ Sophie,” Aunt Birdie said.

“So that thing is loaded?” Hannah gasped.

“You bet your sweet ass it is. Rosie’s got a pistol in her apron pocket, too. If that sorry scoundrel got past her, then I’d take him out with old Betsy here.” She patted the shotgun like it was a child. “Everyone in the house and ready for dinner?”

“Dinner!” Sophie was a blur as she went from lying on her back to standing in a flash. “Aunt Birdie made roast beef and she let me help her cook pies. I got to poke holes in the crusts. Where is Aunt Liz and Darcy and Calvin and Travis? We can sing another time. This is a good day, Mama.” She started off in a run, like most kids who are eager to get somewhere fast. Her pink shorts and tie-dyed T-shirt reminded Hannah of a rainbow as she disappeared around the house.

“You could go in the back door,” Hannah called after her, but it was too late.

“So?” Aunt Birdie rolled to one side and eased her way to a sitting position. A tiny, wiry woman, aptly named, she wouldn’t tip the scales at a hundred pounds with rocks in her pockets. Her short, kinky gray hair looked a lot like a poodle’s just before it went to the groomers.

“I signed the papers as they were. I didn’t fight him or ask for anything other than what he was willing to give.”

“For Sophie?” Her dark eyes narrowed amid a bed of wrinkles.

“I would have given up the property, the car, and the child support for him to let me have all rights to her, but he sat there like a king on a throne and thought he was taking everything from me. It’s all just stuff except for Sophie.”

Aunt Birdie picked up the gun. “Me and this could have made sure there were no rights to have. But I want to know how you are.”

Hannah stood and extended a hand to Aunt Birdie. “My insides are still in a jitter. I keep thinkin’ I’ll wake up from this dream and it will be a day when he’s coming home. I got my maiden name back and the right to give it to Sophie. Or keep it if I marry again.” Hannah shuddered. “Which I will never do, but if I did, the new husband could adopt her and Marty would have nothing to say or do about it. I can have her birth certificate amended to remove Marty’s name as soon as I get the finalized divorce papers in the mail next week.”

Aunt Birdie put her veined hand into Hannah’s and groaned on her way up. “Takes a lot to haul an eighty-year-old woman from ground to upright. Hannah, this was never Marty’s home. It was just a place he came once in a while because he had to. Leave this quilt. It’s not supposed to rain, and you know she’ll be back out here on it after we eat.”

Travis came out the back door and crossed the yard in long strides. “I’ve been sent by the royal princess to request that y’all come on to dinner. She refuses to eat until you arrive.”

Aunt Birdie laughed. “That’s my Sophie.”

“What the . . .” Travis picked up the shotgun and ejected both shells. “Aunt Birdie, you brought a loaded gun over here with that baby?”

“She’ll be six years old in a few weeks. And there ain’t a way in hell I can kill a man with an unloaded gun. I don’t have the strength to beat him to death with the butt,” Aunt Birdie fussed.

“Lord!” He rolled his eyes upward.

“
You
probably can’t kill him with an unloaded gun, either,” Aunt Birdie said.

“Raising two old women is worse than raising kids,” he murmured.

“Nothing wrong with my ears, and you ain’t never raised a kid. Clock’s tickin’ on that, too,” Aunt Birdie scolded.

“Mama, Mama!” Sophie bailed off the porch, hit the ground running, and threw herself into Hannah’s arms. “Did you see the princess car? Uncle Cal says I can ride in it later if it’s okay with you. Please, Mama, please!”

Hannah sank her face into Sophie’s wild mane of curly black hair and inhaled deeply. Her daughter smelled like hot summer, green apple shampoo, giggles, and innocence, all mixed together in a wiggly five-year-old little girl. Never again would she have to retreat into a clingy little girl filled with fear. She could always be that wild, rambunctious child who loved life. Maybe someday she wouldn’t even remember Marty or the angst he brought with him when he walked through the back door.

“Well? Can I go in the big car with Uncle Calvin?” Sophie asked.

“Of course you can.”

“Good.” Sophie giggled and wiggled free of her mother’s arms.

Hannah followed Sophie through the front door and into the living room. The little girl skipped across the room, through the arch, and into the dining room. She loved the swinging doors separating the dining room from the kitchen and made two trips back and forth through them before she slipped her small hand into Hannah’s and held on tightly.

“Is there someone still out there in that big car?” Aunt Birdie asked.

“The driver is waiting to take Cal and Darcy back to Gainesville,” Travis answered.

“Well, you go invite him in to dinner. It’s noon, and he’s got to be hungry,” Aunt Birdie said.

Calvin picked Sophie up and carried her to the dining room. “The driver brought his lunch. It’s against the limo policy for him to eat with us.”

“Why didn’t you drive the car, Uncle Cal?” Sophie asked.

“Did Cinderella drive her coach?”

“No, silly.” Sophie giggled.

“So you like my new car?” Cal asked.

“It’s ’tentious,” Sophie said seriously as she wiggled free from his arms and raced into the kitchen. “But to be a princess you got to be a little bit ’tentious.”

“Pretentious,” Aunt Birdie said. “That’s our word for today, and that policy should be changed. Come on now. The roast will be getting cold.” Travis held the door for the ladies, and Calvin stepped back to the side.

“And what does
pretentious
mean, Sophie?” Liz asked.

“It means ‘puttin’ on airs.’ Aunt Birdie told me all about that this mornin’,” Sophie said.

“That’s right,” Darcy said. “But today we needed to put on some airs. After we eat, the driver is taking Calvin and Darcy back to town, but not before he lets you ride around Crossing in it.”

“Why do we need to put on airs today? Is this a special day? I set the table all by myself.” Sophie pushed her way past everyone and was first in the kitchen. “Look, Mama, at the table. Aunt Birdie says I did it perfect.”

“Of course you did.” Calvin winked at Hannah.

A moment of panic struck Hannah. The napkins, straight from the roll of paper towels, were folded haphazardly. The knife blades weren’t facing the plate on a couple of settings, and all but one tea glass was on the wrong side. She took a deep breath and forced herself to relax. It was going to take a lot more than signing her name to a thick document to get Marty out of her life.

“It looks beautiful,” Hannah said.

Sophie beamed. “It’s my first time and I wanted it to be pretty for all y’all today.”

“I declare this table fit for a queen,” Darcy said.

“I love pot roast. There’s not a restaurant in New York that can make it like yours, Aunt Birdie,” Calvin said.

“It’s just dinner, but it’s gettin’ cold and there ain’t nothing in the world worse than cold carrots. Let me bless the food and y’all best get on to eatin’. Sophie has been starving nigh unto death for half an hour.” Birdie stopped talking to them, bowed her head, and started talking to God in the next instant. “Father, bless this food and thank you for this day. I know that you say that vengeance is yours and your time ain’t like our time, but I’d be much obliged if I could see a little of that vengeance before my last breath. If not, we’ll discuss it when I get there. Amen.”

“What is vengeance?” Sophie asked.

“That’s our word for another day. For now, let’s get into this dinner,” Aunt Birdie said.

Liz watched the clock during the meal, getting more jittery when it passed twelve thirty. Hannah recognized that scared-bunny look all too well and wished that Liz would open up to her about what was going on between her and her husband, Wyatt. Hannah knew everything that Liz would say and at least some of what she was likely going through, but until she admitted she had a problem, there was no way Hannah could help her.