That’s the point at which I started praying. What I said was, “Help! How the heck did I get myself in this mess?” I didn’t have a clue how to answer Marilee. What I wanted to do was shake her and Skye both until their teeth rattled.
I took a deep breath to make my voice as calm and wise as I could. I even leaned forward and placed one hand on her elegant arm. The silk was soft and expensive under my fingers. “I think you ought to let whatever you and Skye had stay between the two of you, honey. There’s nothing to be gained by telling people now. You’d ruin his reputation and your own. A lot of folks wouldn’t believe you, either, since Skye’s not here to back you up. You don’t want to be branded a liar, do you?”
“I’m not!” But the veneer of glamour she’d acquired slipped a little. All of us, deep down, have ugly, uncertain places. Marilee had been called enough names growing up in Hopemore not to relish the idea now. She began twisting her big hands back and forth, kneading her sordid little story into something she could admire and hold on to. “We were in love. We were going to get married.”
“I’m only telling you what people will say. Nobody’s going to believe you. You’ll just be causing yourself a lot of grief around here.”
In an instant, her face changed from unhappiness to a child’s naked fury. “We had everything. Then it all got ruined.” She jumped up and ran out the door.
I stayed a minute after she left, suspecting I’d given her more germs than sympathy. I doubted if I’d said any of the right things. I also wondered exactly when things got ruined. I remembered Marilee at Casa Mas Esperanza, trying to beckon Skye to her side. I also remembered how he’d dismissed her with a little wave and gone on his way. Silly me, I had thought he had disappointed her about the price of a car. Had he disappointed her even more cruelly? Had she gotten her revenge?
On our way home, I didn’t want to talk about the funeral, Nicole, or Marilee, so I admired Cindy’s suit and shoes. “I get almost everything at Phipp’s Plaza in Atlanta,” she told me. “Next time I go for a weekend, would you like to come? We could see the historical society gardens, too.” She sounded like she meant it.
“I’d love to,” I said, and I meant it, too. Don’t ask why it took us fourteen years to get to that place. Maybe, I had to admit, because I’d expected Cindy to be like Martha, with whom I canned fruits and vegetables and went out in Hopemore late at night to eat chocolate pie. For fourteen years, I hadn’t appreciated Cindy for the beautiful person she was. But at least now I was getting there.
When I saw how happy that made Walker look, I could have kicked myself for not trying to get there a whole lot sooner.
I’d left Clarinda a note to say we’d need dinner as usual. Joe Riddley wouldn’t be going to the buffet over at Gwen Ellen’s after the graveside service, but would come home to eat and change clothes before going to work. When I staggered in, she was by the stove.
“You want a tray up in your room?” she asked over her shoulder.
“No, I’ll just rest in the den until we eat.”
She turned, obviously relieved. Clarinda isn’t much younger than I am, and doesn’t need to carry any more trays upstairs than she has to. But instead of a simple “Thank you,” she said, “The way you look, you oughtta go to bed for a week.”
“Thanks. That makes me feel a whole lot better. We got any cold Co-colas?”
She frowned. I only call Cokes that when I’m too tired to remember it’s the twenty-first century.
She fetched one and popped the top for me before she went back to her stove. I tottered toward the recliner, hoping I’d live long enough to get there.
Clarinda set stuffed pork chops, baked sweet potatoes, and green beans in front of Joe Riddley, and a bowl of homemade chicken soup in front of me. As soon as she’d gone to claim the recliner for herself, I asked him, “What did the MacDonald women put in the casket?”
“I don’t know.” He held out a little piece of roll to Joe, who pecked it off his finger.
“What do you mean, you don’t know? You were right there on the end of the front pew.”
He picked up his pork chop and began to worry big bites off it. He was raised, like the rest of us, to use a fork on pork chops, but always claims they taste better gnawed off the bone. When I kept looking at him, waiting for an answer, he added, “I wasn’t watching.”
“You were, too. I saw you.”
He frowned. I couldn’t tell if he’d forgotten or was just using his occasional memory lapses as an excuse to be cantankerous. Finally, though, he said, “Yellow roses. Everybody put in a yellow rose except Laura. She put in a little blue car.” He finished his first pork chop and dropped the bone on the floor for Lulu, who had sat there grudging him every bite.
“Honestly, Joe Riddley, you’d think we lived in a barn. What did Marilee do when
she
reached into the casket?”
“I didn’t see.” He could tell from my expression I didn’t believe him, because he fumed, “I wasn’t watching the whole time, you know. Seeing Skye like that gave me the creeps. Don’t you dare have an open casket when I die.” He fed Joe a bite of sweet potato.
“Tell that to your next wife,” I advised, sipping my soup.
“I have every intention of going before you.”
Joe ducked his head several times. “Not to worry. Not to worry.”
I knew Joe Riddley wasn’t telling the truth. He hadn’t watched the casket the whole time, but he’d had his eyes glued on Marilee—like every other man in the church. But our strongest tractor wouldn’t pull that admission out of him. I recognized that tone of voice.
I sipped more soup, then asked, “You want to know what Nicole and her mother said after you left?”
“Not particularly.” He added a dollop of butter to the rest of his sweet potato and mashed it together. Joe watched greedily. I might as well tell Clarinda to start setting that bird a plate.
I waited until Joe Riddley had his potato mashed to his satisfaction, then said, trying to sound casual, “She’s Skye’s secret, the one you’re supposed to keep, isn’t she?”
He pointed toward the den, to remind me to keep my voice down. “I don’t remember. My memory’s not what it used to be, you know.”
I pulled myself up as high as I could in my chair and gave him what our boys used to call “Mama’s Killer Glare.” “Don’t you give me that. Your memory is almost well by now. You just can’t remember sometimes what you ate for breakfast.”
“Did we have breakfast? You’re right. I can’t remember.”
I leaned toward him and said in a soft but menacing voice, “If you don’t admit to me that you already knew Nicole Shandy was Skye MacDonald’s illegitimate daughter, you won’t live long enough to eat supper.”
He cupped one hand to his ears. “What’s that you say? Eh? I thought you had every intention of dying before me.”
“That was before I remembered how ornery you can be.” I heaved a real big sigh to show how disgusted I was. “Come on, honey. It’s not private any longer.” My voice wobbled. “And I thought he
loved
Gwen Ellen.”
Joe Riddley pushed back his chair. “Clarinda forgot to put salt on the table.” He didn’t need salt. He just didn’t want to have that conversation. But when he sat back down and found me sitting there with my lips trembling, he reached over and cupped my head in one large hand. “Skye did love Gwen Ellen. Loved her, respected her, thought she hung the moon. But—”
“But?”
“Yeah, but. The fool never learned you can’t have your cake and eat it, too. He thought he could please everybody all the time, including himself.”
“Tell me what he said in the letter he wrote you.”
First, to justify having gotten up, he shook salt all over everything on his plate. Finally he admitted sourly, “I guess it’s okay, with Nicole shouting it all over the place. Skye wrote the letter twenty years ago. He started out by reminding me that Gwen Ellen had just been real sick. Remember? He said he’d gotten involved with a young woman over in Augusta. He was real ashamed of it, but she was going to have his baby, and he wanted to make sure the child was decently cared for. He said he was opening a bank account and would deposit money for the baby as long as he lived, but he was taking out this policy in case anything happened to him. In that case he asked me to send a check each month until the child turned eighteen—”
“—which happened at least a year ago.”
“Yeah. And he said if he didn’t die until after that, he wanted me to deposit the policy benefit into the account for her to use as she saw fit. He begged me not to tell anybody what that policy was for—to make out that it was for a secret charity, if anybody found out about it.” Joe Riddley looked at me with eyes full of unhappiness. “I didn’t like not telling you, Little Bit, but what could I do?”
“And what would have happened if you’d died before Skye. He was a lot younger than you.”
Now he looked unhappier than ever. “The letter would have gone to Ridd.”
“Ridd? He’d have made Ridd carry that secret around all his life?”
Joe Riddley nodded and picked up his second pork chop.
I sat there furious with Skye, who thought he could pass his own burdens off to our family as easily as he passed us a good car deal—which, come to think of it, weren’t always any better than we could have gotten somewhere else. But seeing the pain in my husband’s eyes, I reached out and squeezed his arm. “I am so proud to know you, honey. Who else could anybody trust with that delicate a thing and believe they’d never mention it to anybody?”
Joe Riddley’s face lost some of its troubled look, and he started shoveling in sweet potato and green beans like he’d just come in from a day’s work in the fields.
I picked up his left hand and kissed his big gnarled fingers. “I do love you, Joe Riddley Yarbrough. And it may make you feel a little better to know that Nicole’s mama said Skye did send a check every month, and she bears him no grudge. She says they made a mistake, but she doesn’t regret having Nicole.”
He chewed thoughtfully. “I wonder if Skye had any inkling Nicole was his little girl.”
“Nicole claims he did, since four months ago. She came to town and told him. I think that’s why he hired her. She says he said he’d always wanted three kids, and Gwen Ellen couldn’t have but two. But she thought he’d take her home one day and introduce her around. I can’t see him ever doing that, can you?”
Joe Riddley gave a sound I can only describe as a moan. “I can’t say what Skye might or might not have done, now. I’d never have suspected him of tomcatting around. And I’m glad it’s the good Lord and not me who has to weigh the good and harm he did.” He held out a bean to Joe, who took it and greedily waited for more.
“Me, too. And speaking of weighing, if you keep feeding that parrot half your food, you’ll be skin and bones and he’s gonna be a little tub.”
“Back off,” Joe advised me. He squawked, flapping his wings. “Back off.”
I wasn’t finished with what I had to say, though. “Honey, if I ever find out you’ve been tomcatting around, as you so elegantly put it, you’d better take a deep, deep breath, because it will be your last.”
He nodded. “I know, Little Bit. That’s what’s kept me on the straight and narrow all my life.”
Suddenly his face creased into its craggy smile. He held out his arms, and we both leaned over to hold each other close. It was good to sit there warm and safe in each other’s arms.
Inside, though, I felt sick with far more than a cold. I wanted to crawl into a corner somewhere and stay until the world became a cleaner, healthier, saner place.
25
After Joe Riddley left, I hauled myself up to bed, wondering what Chief Muggins would do with the information that Skye MacDonald had an extra child. I soon found out.
The phone rang about four. I was dozing, but woke at once when I heard the voice on the other end. Laura sounded like she was trapped on the tracks in the glare of an oncoming train. “I know you’re sick—Clarinda told me. But we need you. Could you possibly come over here?”
I took a second to collect what few wits I had left. “What’s going on?”
“Chief Muggins has been here worrying Mama to death. He says Nicole claims to be Daddy’s daughter, and he insinuated that Mama found out and killed Daddy. Skell got so offensive I sent him to his own place. Now Mama’s having a conniption, and I can’t do a thing with her. I’m even scared to go to the bathroom, for fear she might hurt herself.”
“Where’s everybody else—your grandparents, your uncle, folks from the church?”
“They left right after they ate. Uncle Jack had to get back to Auburn, and Granddaddy has a four-hour drive and doesn’t like to drive after dark.”
“Isn’t Tansy there?”
“No, she stayed to clean up, but she’s been over here all week, and Mama told her to go on home until Monday. I know you don’t feel good, Mac, but if you could come for even a little while, I sure would appreciate it.” Laura’s voice was taut. “I think Mama’s going crazy.”
It was so rare for Laura to ask a favor that I already had my legs over the side of the bed. “I’ll be right there. Meanwhile, call her doctor. He might suggest she take something to calm her down.”
I won’t repeat the things I said in the privacy of my car as I drove over, but most of them were addressed to Charlie Muggins and dealt with what I thought of a man who would threaten Nicole and her mother as if they were lying, and then almost immediately threaten Gwen Ellen that Nicole was telling the truth.
I arrived to find Gwen Ellen huddled on the green silk couch with Laura, still in her funeral suit, hovering over her like a large peacock minus the tail. “I offered her a couple of aspirin, but she wouldn’t take them. I didn’t know what else to give her, and I can’t get the doctor.” Laura’s eyes were terrified. She could manage a motor company without getting in a flap, but coping with a hysterical mother was beyond her.
Gwen Ellen raised a haggard face to mine and said in a shaking voice, “I don’t need pills. I need a gun, so I can shoot Chief Muggins. You wouldn’t believe the lies he came over here telling, MacLaren. He claims Nicole, down at the motor company, is Skye’s daughter. Can you imagine? Doesn’t he realize I would have known if Skye was—” She cast a quick look at Laura and stopped without completing that sentence. “Of course I would have. Any wife would.”