I noticed a black pickup truck roll up in front of my house. The front passenger door flew open and Alice hopped out. She bypassed the full recycling bin, grabbed the handle of my empty trash can, and rolled it up the driveway. She disappeared out of sight for a moment, and I imagined she was placing it in front of the garage door. A moment later, she was running back to the truck, her short hair flying out behind her as if trying to keep up. In a blink, the door closed and the truck drove off, past Glory’s house and around the cul-de-sac, heading out to the main road.

  Mama exhaled loudly. “All I’m saying, Cora Bee, is that you can’t be too careful. I ought to have a background check run on her. Yes. That’s exactly what I’ll do. It’ll set my mind at ease. Somewhat.”

  “That’s going overboard, don’t you think?”

  “Not at all. But I just realized it’s likely Chase has already run a report. I’ll check with him first.”

  I let out an exasperated sigh. “Do what you need to do but leave me out of it.” When I heard my father’s voice in the background I quickly asked to speak with him since the conversation with my mother felt like it was going nowhere fast.

  I spent a good fifteen minutes talking with my daddy, which set my worries about him at ease and lifted my sagging mood.

  When my mama came back on the line, her voice was soft and full of heart as she said, “Listen, Cora Bee, I didn’t mean to upset you earlier. I’m just trying to look out for our family. I hope you understand that. Glory is too smitten with Emme to see reason, and you’re naturally much too trusting.”

  “We don’t need to get into this again.”

  “I know, I know.” There was a beat of silence before she added, “But I simply can’t believe you let Emme move in with you. I’d have thought you’d have learned your lesson about trusting the wrong people in your house. As I recall, you thought Heidi was wonderful, too.”

  Pinpoints of pain and anger exploded behind my eyes. “I do not need to be reminded.”

  I lived with that knowledge every day. Sometimes every minute of every day.

  Mama’s voice rose again. “I think you do. Unless you want to get hurt again.”

  “I’m hanging up now,” I said.

  “Cora Bee, be sensible about this.”

  “I’m done talking about Emme. Done.”

  “Fine,” Mama said, the word hot and fiery.

  With that, the line went dead. I stared at my phone, disbelieving that my mother had hung up on me. My mother had never hung up on me. We rarely even fought. But if there was ever a time, this was it. How dare she be mad at me, when she was the one who brought up Heidi.

  Heidi Merrill. We’d met at the University of Florida when we’d been assigned as roommates our freshman year, and we soon became best friends. We’d stayed best friends right up until the day three and a half years ago when I found her in bed with my husband.

  The laughable part was that Heidi was the one who had initially warned me about dating Lucas when I was a college senior and he’d been a teaching assistant working on his master’s degree. She’d heard rumors of his flings, his graveyard of broken hearts, his cheating. I’d listened, I’d looked for clues. I studied the color around him, looking for any hints, but he emanated only confidence since, unfortunately, this all happened before I could fully see secondary emotions.

  Finally, I asked him flat-out about his reputation and he hadn’t denied it. Instead, he’d told me how he’d changed, because of me. Because he finally fell in love. True love. Till-death-do-us-part love. I’d fallen for every word. I’d fallen for him. And later, for his one-year-old son, Wiley.

  I hadn’t thought twice about inviting Heidi to stay with us while she was down on her luck, unable to make ends meet. We’d been like sisters. Her primary color was a beautiful magenta that spoke only of her ambitious nature, so I knew how hard it had been for her to ask for my help in the first place. She was supposed to have stayed with us for only a couple of months, just enough time for her to get back on her feet.

  Now she was living my old life.

  She was sleeping in my old bed.

  She was the one holding Wiley’s hand and making him peanut butter and potato chip sandwiches.

  Feeling like I wanted to scream, I shoved away from the desk, grabbed my crutches, and stood, cursing my foot, my mother, my ex-husband, and my ex–best friend.

  I made my way into the kitchen, fighting waves of pain from my headache, my broken foot, my broken heart. Using my hip, I balanced against the farmhouse sink and reached for the bottle of prescription painkillers on the windowsill.

  If I took two, I could sleep away this pain. I could drift off in a haze of nothingness where I didn’t hurt. Didn’t feel. Emme wouldn’t be home for hours yet, my work could wait, and didn’t I need the sleep? It’d been so long since I slept through the night. Years. The relief would be so welcome. So very welcome.

  The amber bottle warmed in my hand as I pushed down on the white lid, twisted it, and popped it off. I stared inside, feeling tears welling in my eyes. I shook two small round pills into my palm. Then I added another for good measure. Through my tears, the tablets blurred, a dangerous yet lovely white cloud that would be a soft fall but a hard landing.

  Folding my fingers over the pills, I closed my eyes. I’d lost my way on this path before, after my car accident, and it had taken months to find my way back to myself. Or what was left of me. I’d made bad choices, desperate choices. Without Glory’s help and my will to heal, to fully heal, I don’t know where I’d be right now, what my life would look life.

  I’d sworn to myself I’d never lose my way again, yet here I was, staring at relief, blissful relief, in the palm of my hand, questioning why I couldn’t handle a couple of pills. Three pills were not going to do anything other than put me out of my current misery. I wasn’t going to relapse. I had more self-control than that.

  Didn’t I?

  Was it a risk I was willing to take?

  At the squeak of the porch door, my head snapped up. Footsteps followed the noise, then came a knock at the front door. My heart pounded with guilt, with shame, as I quickly dropped the pills back into the bottle, put the lid back on, and placed it on the windowsill.

  I wiped the tears from my eyes and crutched into the living room, where I found Jamie’s face looking in through the panes of glass on the front door.

  He smiled when he saw me, but it faltered when I pulled open the door.

  “Hey, are you okay?” In his arms, he held a cardboard box full of tools. “Rough morning? Is it your foot? I saw you using one crutch last night, and I was worried you’d pay for it today.”

  I breathed in deeply through my nose and tried to muster up a smile. I failed. “It’s a little of everything.”

  He studied me, and it was like those pale eyes of his could see right through me to what I needed most. “I only stopped by to drop off some supplies for Emme”—he lifted the box—“but if you have a little time, how about I take you out for some coffee?”

  The offer hung in the air, a silver-tipped arrow on a guidepost that swayed in the wind, swinging between my past and my future. I didn’t particularly want to have coffee with him—the two of us at a small table in a coffee shop would feel too personal, too much like friendship, if not something more. But if I stayed, I might make a choice I’d regret forever.

  Finally, I said, “Coffee sounds good.”

  A few minutes later, as I followed Jamie out the door, I glanced back toward the windowsill, to that amber bottle. Even though I knew I’d made the right choice by accepting his offer, I couldn’t deny that I still longed for the relief those little pills could bring me.

  * * *

  It wasn’t a small table in a crowded coffee shop where we sat, but rather a bench overlooking the bay. A surprisingly cool breeze coasted across the water, ruffling the feathers of a pelican perched on a pylon not too far away.

  “It was nice of Alice to bring up my trash can this morning, but she doesn’t need to do that.” My hands were wrapped around the to-go coffee cup, its heat sinking into my palms. Before I left the house, I’d swallowed two Tylenol to battle my aches and pains—at least the physical ones—and was feeling a little less on edge.

  “She likes to help,” he said simply. Whorls of beige floated through his iced coffee as he swirled the liquid in his clear plastic cup. “And she likes you.”

  My broken heart ached just a little bit more. “She’s a great kid.”

  “I’ve lucked out. I was a hellion. Every time I got into trouble, my mother said that one day she hoped I had a kid just like me.”

  “A hellion? Really?” I tipped my head. I couldn’t see it.

  Soft blue light filtered around him. In my world, that meant calm, stoic, salt of the earth. But there were a few wisps of juniper green floating around him, too, the same color I saw drifting around Emme. Jamie was keeping a guilty secret.

  But weren’t we all? That color probably drifted around me, too, not that I could see it. I couldn’t see colors around myself at all.

  “I mean, I didn’t get arrested or anything like that,” he said, “but I liked to try her patience, push my boundaries. When I was young, I wanted nothing more than to be a grown-up, make my own rules, live my own life.”

  “And now?”

  “Now I want to call my mother and apologize, but she passed away twelve years ago.”

  “I’m so sorry.” I ran my finger over the cup sleeve, suddenly swamped with guilt for fighting with my mother this morning. Not so much for the fight that had taken place but more that it had ended so badly. We shouldn’t have left things off with so much anger.

  “Yeah, me too.” He stared into his drink. “But luckily for Alice, she inherited her mother’s good nature.”

  Alice definitely had a good nature about her, but I’d seen some sassiness in her, too, and now I suspected that had come straight from Jamie. “You get along with your ex-wife, then? I mean, if she is an ex-wife?” Could be she had been a girlfriend or a one— “Oh Lord.” My cheeks burned. “Sorry; I’m being nosy.”

  With an understanding smile, he said, “It’s fine, really. I don’t mind talking about it. Autumn and I had dated for a couple of months and had already broken up by the time we learned about Alice. We knew we weren’t right for each other, but we both agreed to be the best co-parents we could be. There’ve been some challenges, but overall, we’ve all been happy. Autumn’s been married to Phil for a few years now. Nice guy.”

  Autumn and Alice. The cuteness almost did me in. My emotions were so raw this morning I wasn’t sure how I was going to get through the rest of the day. Once upon a time, I’d dreamed of having children of my own, of continuing the tradition that had started with Cain and me to use names that start with C. Carolina, Cody, Charlotte, Christopher. I’d had a whole list on my computer—a list that had since been deleted.

  But even though those dreams had been shattered, I could still feel them pulsing with life from deep within me, faint heartbeats destined to fade away.

  A flock of birds flew overhead, heading south toward the open waters of the Gulf, and for a moment I watched them, wishing I could fly along with them.

  He looked out over the bay, watching those same birds. “Glory mentioned you were divorced.”

  “Of course she did.”

  He laughed. “I haven’t known her very long, but for some reason she feels like family. A dear old aunt or godmother or something. That probably sounds strange.”

  “Not at all. Everyone loves Glory the instant they meet her. She’s…” I swallowed over a sudden lump in my throat. “Utterly loveable. Even when she’s oversharing.”

  Even though Aunt Glory had a tendency to reveal too much, I knew my deepest, darkest secrets were safe with her. “The divorce was…” I searched for the right word. Traumatic? Soul crushing? Excruciating? “Messy,” I finally said.

  “I’m real sorry about that. I can see from the look on your face that it still hurts.”

  I hated that he could read me so well. “It’s been a few years now, and healing has come in dribs and drabs. Certain aspects still hurt.”

  The betrayal was near the top of that list, but it was Wiley who took the top spot. However, I didn’t want to tell Jamie about him, mostly because I literally didn’t think I could. Emotion clogged my throat just thinking about the little boy. About how I loved him as if he were my own flesh and blood. How he’d been taken away from me. It was agonizing to mourn someone who was still very much alive. I haven’t yet been able to talk about him without sobbing.

  “Dribs and drabs is still progress.”

  I nodded as my phone dinged with a text message.

  “Sorry,” I said as I pulled it from my purse. “I should check this. My father had surgery last week, and the stuff with Bee, and Glory, and clients…”

  “It’s no problem, Cora Bee.”

  I shifted, uncomfortable with how my heart warmed when he said my name, like it glowed with pleasure.

  The message was from my mother.

  I love you, and I’m sorry. I’m right, but I’m still sorry. I shouldn’t have gotten so angry.

  It was just like her to apologize while still asserting her opinions. Part of me wanted to argue that she hadn’t really and truly apologized, but then I thought about Jamie and his mother and simply typed back I love you, too.

  My mother was opinionated, and I knew her concerns about Emme came from wanting to protect those she loved. But my goodness, she was stubborn.

  I looked at the time before I put my phone away. It was a little past nine. “I ought to be getting back. I need to call the doctor’s office, and I should probably get some work done.” Then my brow furrowed. “I’m not keeping you from work, am I?”

  He stood and lifted my crutches, then held out a hand to me. “I have a little leeway with start times,” he said with a smug grin, “since I’m the boss.”

  Suddenly that smug grin didn’t bother me as much as it had when I first met him. I now found it oddly charming.

  I slipped my hand in his, felt its warmth, its roughness. “What kind of work do you do?”

  “Construction management. I came to town to oversee a new project.”

  His hands were rough, calloused, so I had the feeling he had also done his fair share of trade labor at some point. Once I was standing, he didn’t let go of my hand right away. My heartbeat kicked up a notch and any follow-up questions drifted away as I lost myself in the touch of his skin on mine. The heat. The sudden fluttery feelings I thought had died long ago.

  Finally, he let my hand go, and I set the crutches under my arms and tried to tell myself that there hadn’t been anything to what had just happened. That there still wasn’t a trace of heat on my palm.

  “As soon as the project is done,” he said, his tone turning somber, “Alice and I will be moving back to Birmingham.”

  And with that, my hand chilled and my heart froze.

  For a moment there, I had thought … Well, it didn’t matter what I’d thought.

  They’d only been more impossible dreams, their heartbeats left to fade away.

  Chapter

  11

  February 10, 1964: She’s here! Lillian Elizabeth Gipson was born on February 6. She’s perfect. Absolutely perfect. I’m ecstatically tired and wishing Levi didn’t have to work such long hours so he could be as happy as I am right now. He’s been moodier than ever lately. When he’s not working late, he’s out somewhere socializing up a storm. My bees should be waking from their winter nap soon, and I’m looking forward to seeing them again. Sometimes it feels like they’re my only friends.

  Emme

  It had been a long day. An exhausting day. Not only for me, but it seemed it had been the same for Cora Bee. She’d been quiet for most of the afternoon, offering little in terms of conversation. She’d mentioned her foot hurting and having a headache, but I suspected there was more to the explanation of her mood. But whatever it was, she wasn’t saying.

  At her first appointment of the afternoon, with a client a few blocks away from Hickory Lane, she’d glanced in the car’s sun visor mirror and pasted a big smile on her face. “Fake it till you make it, right? How do I look?”

  “That smile’s terrifying. Are you trying to lose business?”

  At that, she gave me a real smile—a small one, but it still felt like some kind of victory. While she was meeting with her clients, I had stayed in the car with the windows down and tried to lose myself in a book, but my thoughts kept wandering to Glory and what was wrong with her.

  Now, Cora Bee and I were currently on our way back to Sweetgrass from her second appointment of the day, which had been in Fairhope, a quick ten-minute drive away. Traffic was relatively light, and the route kept revealing glimpses of the bay, undulating strips of silvery blue that glistened in the afternoon sunlight.

  The air conditioner blew coolness throughout the car and rustled the pages on a pad of paper Cora Bee was using to jot notes about her latest consultation. She yawned, covering her mouth with the back of her hand and murmured, “Whoa. Excuse me.”

  “How could I not when it’s my fault you were up half the night?”

  “You didn’t wake me—I was already up and heard you go out. I don’t sleep much. I’m lucky if I get a few hours a night.”

  “I don’t know how you’re not a zombie.”

  “You get used to it.”

  I was happy she was talking more, coming out of her funk. Her consultations seemed to have drained some of the tension from her shoulders, a sign that she truly loved her job.

  “This is such a pretty area,” I said, catching sight of the water once again.

  Cora Bee’s last appointment hadn’t been too far from a hardware store, so I’d shopped while she consulted, picking up some of the items I needed to paint the bookcase. By the time I’d collected and paid for my items, I didn’t have time for sightseeing, but I hoped to come back one day to window-shop at the boutiques and stroll along the pier.

 

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