The Oleander Sisters

“Please, Sis! He’s going to be my husband!”

Sis went very still, collecting her rage the way the air collects turbulence right before a tornado rips through. If you didn’t know Sis, you’d tremble in your shoes; you’d expect her to tear into you any minute and try to straighten you out. But Emily saw with a sister’s heart. She watched Sis rein in her feelings and bury them so deep not a glimmer was left behind.

Sis dumped the ice cubes back into the sink, easy now in her movements and her posture.

“All right. I’ll behave.”

“Oh, Sis! I knew you would.”

“But that doesn’t mean I like it, Em.”

“I know.”

“I don’t like this man and I don’t like the idea of you marrying him. But we’ll get through the evening. Now I’m going to clean up and then warn Sweet Mama and Beulah.”

“Warn?”

“Tell. Is that better?”

“Much.”

“Em, I want you to think about the way Larry acted over something as simple as coming here for dinner. If he’s this controlling now, what will he be like after the wedding?”

“Sis, don’t start on Larry again.”

“I’m not starting on Larry. Just promise me you’ll think about it. That’s all I’m asking.”

“I promise.”

“Okay, then. I’ll see you in a little bit.”

Sis left the kitchen while the conversation with Larry burned through Emily. Not even the endearment he’d used to say goodbye could erase the sense that she’d headed out to pick a basketful of ripe strawberries and ended up in a tangle of briars. She bent over the sink to splash cool water on her hot face, then stood with water dripping down her chin, simply stood there staring into space.

Sis’s footsteps echoed on the wooden floors upstairs. She’d be going about her business, getting cleaned up for dinner. From the direction of the hall closet came sounds of Andy’s rambunctious search, probably for one of Sis’s old balls and her baseball bat. Out on the porch, her grandmother and Beulah would be drinking sweet tea from tall, cool glasses, blissfully unaware of the little storm that had swept through the kitchen.

After a little while, Emily shook herself like a woman coming out of a bad dream, then searched the pantry till she found an apron. She wasn’t going to let this little setback spoil the evening. It was going to be great, maybe even wonderful, that’s all. She wouldn’t have it any other way. Her brother needed wonderful, and right this minute, so did she.

* * *

Upstairs Sis washed the dirt off and changed into fresh slacks and a clean black T-shirt, but there was nothing she could do to erase the awful way Emily had looked during her phone conversation with Larry. He’d crushed her with the ease and carelessness of someone smashing a butterfly.

She thought about knocking on Jim’s door and relating the incident to him, but he might be getting dressed, and besides, he was too hurt from his own wounds to be burdened with Sis’s dark opinions.

She headed back downstairs to warn Sweet Mama and Beulah. They were both in rocking chairs on the porch, swaying gently to the ebb and flow of their conversation. Sis stood in the doorway a moment, the rhythm of their words running through her like a beloved song. No matter what was going on in the world around her, Sis could hear their voices and feel herself being tethered to this place she called home. She allowed herself the luxury of soaking up that comfort a moment longer, and then she pushed away and marched across the wooden porch.

“Guess who’s coming to dinner?” she said.

“If you fixing to tell me you bringing Sidney Poitier, I’m gonna get all gussied up.” Beulah chuckled, and after a heartbreaking lag, Sweet Mama joined her.

They both loved Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner. When it had first come out two years ago, they’d planned the theater outing as if they were going on an overnight trip to the Peabody Hotel in Memphis.

“I hate to disappoint you, Beulah. It’s not Sidney. It’s Larry Chastain.”

“Who?” Sweet Mama said, and Sis leaned down to put a hand on her shoulder.

“Emily’s fiancé. Remember?”

“Of course I do. What do you think I am? Senile?” Sweet Mama eased out of her rocker, one blue-veined hand clutching the armrest to steady herself. “Come on, Beulah. If company’s coming, we’re eating in the dining room and using the good silver.”

“I ain’t sure that man’s worth no good silver, Lucy.”

“I’ll be the judge of that.”

“Ain’t you always the judge?” Beulah winked at Sis, then took a hold of Sweet Mama’s arm and led her back into the house. Sis would have followed them, but she knew they’d shoo her out of the way. She was useless around crockery and cutlery. She always ended up breaking or spilling something, and in general making a big mess that had to be cleaned up. She knew her place, and it certainly wasn’t in the kitchen.

She leaned against a porch column and shaded her eyes, looking for signs of her future brother-in-law. She wanted to be the first to see him, to talk to him before Emily came out all flushed, trying to act as if Larry hadn’t already spoiled her evening.

Sis flicked a speck of dust off the front of her shirt, harder than necessary, so hard in fact, that she ended up feeling the sting of her own slap.

His car came upon her suddenly, turning into the driveway before she had decided what she was going to say to him. Let him off the hook completely? Pretend she didn’t know he’d acted an ass about dinner? Emily would be pleased if she kept quiet, but Sis might just choke on her own bile.

“Sis! Don’t you look a vision?” Larry strode up the front steps with the confidence of a smooth-talking, handsome man used to turning heads. Before she knew what was happening, he was bent over her hand, kissing it, and she found herself staring at the too-straight part slicing through his black hair.

“A nightmare is more like it,” she said.

Larry didn’t respond to her self-deprecating comment. Instead, he let go of her hand, thank God, and looked out over the Gulf.

“You have a beautiful view. No wonder Emily loves this place.”

“She does, but then Emily loves almost everything and everybody.”

“Lucky me. I finally found a woman who could look beyond my flaws and see a hero.”

“Emily’s a sweet, trusting woman, Larry. And easily hurt.”

“She’s the woman of every man’s dreams.”

“Yes, she is. I’m glad you know how lucky you are to have her.”

“Luck had nothing to do with it.” Suddenly, Larry puffed up with such self-importance Sis thought he’d levitate right off the front porch. “A salesman learns to read people. When I saw your sister, I read her like a book.”

“And what did that book say?” If he noticed her sarcasm, he didn’t show a sign.

“‘I’m a woman you can keep barefoot, pregnant and in the kitchen.’”

He laughed at his own Dark Ages attitude, and Sis wanted to slap him off the porch. Emily saved him, rushing out pink-faced and smiling, the only sign of her nervousness showing in the way she wadded a corner of her blue gingham apron into a tight fist.

“Larry! I’m so glad you’re here.” She rushed over to hug him, and he winked over her shoulder at Sis.

Did that jackass dare to think they were coconspirators? Or was he so certain of his hold over her sister that he didn’t care how he flaunted his power?

Still steaming, she watched Larry lead her sister into the house. She had to stand on the porch deep breathing before she could follow. The evening couldn’t be over fast enough to suit Sis.

Five

THE DINING ROOM TABLE looked elegant with Sweet Mama’s china and silver gleaming in the candlelight. The candles had been Emily’s idea, a last-minute addition to make Larry feel special. She couldn’t help but take pride that dinner was turning out to be a great success.

Sis was playing hostess with such grace, Emily would never have guessed she’d pitched a hissy fit in the kitchen earlier. Sweet Mama and Beulah wore rhinestone brooches for the occasion, and Andy looked darling with his face scrubbed clean and his flyaway hair slicked back. It looked suspiciously shiny to Emily. Later, she’d have to find out what he used. Usually it was water, but his cowlick was too tame for that.

Even Jim had joined them. Emily was glad, though he hadn’t said a single word except hello.

Fortunately, Larry didn’t seem to notice. He was too busy fielding questions from Sweet Mama and Beulah.

“What brought you down here?” Sweet Mama said, and Larry acted as if she hadn’t already asked him the same question three times. Emily hoped Sis noticed.

“I applied for a transfer to this area because I love fishing.”

“It’s his favorite pastime,” Emily added, hoping Sweet Mama would remember a granddaughter better than she did a virtual stranger.

“Before I met our girl here, I spent all my time with a fishing pole in my hands.”

“Jim has a fishing boat and a convertible.” Emily glanced at her brother, hopeful, but he was moving his mashed potatoes around on his plate. “It would be great if the two of you would let the top down and go fishing together.”

When Jim’s hand tightened over his fork, Emily had the awful feeling that she was pushing her brother back instead of drawing him close. To make matters worse, Beulah scowled at her and Andy started kicking the table leg.

“Fish ain’t biting now or me and Jim would’a gone today.” Beulah closed her hand around Jim’s arm, and there it stayed, dark as sorghum molasses against his white shirt. “Ain’t no telling when they gonna bite again.”

Sis shot Emily a warning glance, but it was already too late to stop a conversation rolling toward disaster.

“Fish always bite for me.” Larry turned his attention to Jim, looking pointedly at the crutch leaning against his chair. “How about it, Jim? Go fishing with me and I’ll do all the driving. Thank God I avoided this senseless war and stayed in one piece.”

“Our boy drives just fine.” Beulah looked like a thundercloud that didn’t care who she rained on.

“Jim’s a hero.” Sweet Mama peered at Larry. “All the men in our family are heroes.”

“How come you didn’t go to war?” Beulah asked.

“I didn’t pass the draft. I was 4F.”

Larry’s face tightened and Emily wadded her napkin into a little ball. Did her future husband have some dire medical condition she didn’t know about?

“Why were you 4F, darling?”

“Flat feet,” he said.

Emily wanted to crawl under the table. Her daddy’s World War II medals were on prominent display in a shadow box in the entry hall and Jim’s Purple Heart would soon be there, as well.

Sweet Mama laid down her fork in that big, clattering way she had when she meant business.

“There’s nothing but patriotic men in this family,” she said, “and we’re proud of it.”

“Ain’t that the truth?” Beulah patted Jim’s arm. “In my day, we called them 4F-ers slackers.”

Larry’s face blazed and Emily’s felt hot. She’d explain to Larry later that Sweet Mama was slowly losing touch with reality, that Beulah would say just about anything if she thought one of her babies was under fire, but how would she explain to her family that she was going to marry a man they considered a coward?

And still, there was the rest of this awful evening to get through. She shot a desperate glance at Sis.

“We’re going to take dessert on the front porch,” Sis announced.

“Make sure it’s the good china.” Sweet Mama picked up her fork and smiled at Larry as if the conversation about heroes and slackers had never taken place. “I always serve company on china plates.”

Emily didn’t know what to do except sit there with her hand on Larry’s arm in the desperate hope that one small touch from the woman he loved would calm him down while Sis helped Sweet Mama from the table. Andy was already racing toward the front porch and, from the looks of things, Beulah and Jim were heading upstairs. She hoped so. She didn’t know how she could get through the rest of the evening if Beulah kept acting like a bear protecting her cub.

And poor Jim. She couldn’t endure thinking about him right now. If an intimate family dinner could render him speechless and wrecked, what would a public outing do?

When the dining room was clear of everybody except the two of them, she turned to Larry.

“I’m sorry, darling.”

“Let’s just eat dessert and get out of here,” he said. “I knew it would turn out this way.”

“Beulah and Sweet Mama didn’t mean any harm. Really. They’re just getting on in years and set in their ways.”

“Thank God I don’t have to contend with my family.”

Why not? Emily didn’t dare ask, not after Larry’s humiliation at the hands of her family.

“I’ll make it up to you later, Larry. I promise.”

She led him onto the front porch where Sweet Mama smiled up from her rocking chair, Andy looked like an angel and Sis served up Amen cobbler on china plates. The moon hung low over the water, casting silvery patches on the porch floor. It was the kind of clear summer night that made you think there was nothing bad in this world that couldn’t be fixed.

* * *

Late that night, Sis sat on the front porch in the dark alone, heavy with the feeling that something awful was happening to someone she loved. It couldn’t be Jim. He’d been in his room ever since he left the table tonight without dessert. But Sis doubted he was sleeping, and even if he were, his slumber was unlikely to be peaceful.

And it couldn’t be Sweet Mama or Beulah. She’d checked before she came onto the porch. If they were bothered about goading Larry because he’d shirked his military duty, you couldn’t tell by the way they rested on their backs with their snores rattling the windowpanes. Had their bluntness been deliberate or was it old age? Didn’t they know if you prodded a coiled snake it would strike back?

Sis jumped up from the swing, her sister suddenly so strongly on her mind she wanted to race inside and call her. Sis walked to a patch of moonlight on the porch and peered at her watch. It was after midnight, far too late to call Emily and say, Are you okay? Did Larry punish you for what happened at dinner? Sis had no doubt he would. A man who would reduce his fiancée to tears over a dinner invitation would use any excuse to exert his power over her.

Or would he do worse?

Sis paced the porch until she was so tired she thought she’d fall over. Easing through the front door, she tiptoed upstairs, got into pajamas and fell into bed. But her sleep was restless, broken by nightmares and the helpless feeling of being chased and unable to run.

When the morning light pinked her windowpanes, she sat up in bed with a headache so fierce she didn’t know how she’d begin her daily routine, much less get through it with a shred of compassion. Just this once she wished she could wake up in bed with a good man who would say, Honey, you rest. I’ll take care of everything.

She eased out of bed, tiptoed to the bathroom, then downed two aspirins and waited. When the jackhammers in her head subsided, she went back into her bedroom and picked up the phone. Emily answered on the first ring.

“Em, you sound funny. Are you all right?”

“Just a little tired is all, Sis. Too much excitement.”

“I’m sorry about the way dinner turned out. Was Larry mad?”

“He was a little upset, that’s all. What man wouldn’t be? But after I talked to him, he was fine.”

“You’re sure?”

“Oh, for Pete’s sake, Sis. Let it alone. Andy’s downstairs dragging out more boxes and I’ve got to get to the café to put together an order list. I’m going to need more supplies for the wedding petit fours.”

Sis hung up, still hoping there wouldn’t be a wedding. But she had the sinking feeling that she was riding on a train that had already left the station. It didn’t matter how hard she yelled, Stop! Let’s all get off. They were going to end up listening to Emily pledge Till death do us part to a man they all considered a coward.

The aroma of coffee and bacon coming from the kitchen told Sis she’d better get moving. She dressed quickly, then went to Jim’s room and knocked.

“Come in.” He was sitting at his window wearing the white dress shirt she didn’t know if he’d slept in or worn during an all-night vigil with the moon or put on again this morning.

An unbearable tenderness came over Sis, and she sank into the only other chair in the room, the one at his desk where the encyclopedia was open at C for compass. Or was it compassion? Did the encyclopedia tell you that compassion was not something you searched for, but a feeling you carried in your heart whether you knew it or not, one so powerful it could render you speechless?

Sis studied the slump of her brother’s shoulders, the blond hair grown too long and straggling down the back of his neck, the hollow in his cheek as he tilted his head toward the view beyond the window.

“I thought you might want to go down to breakfast with me.”

“Yeah, Sis. The family dinner went so well.”

The flash of sarcasm gave Sis hope that the Jim of old was somewhere inside those baggy clothes.

“Did you see the look on his face when Beulah talked about 4F-ers?” she said.

“It would have been funny if Em weren’t fixing to marry him.”

“Well, she is, and there’s not a thing either of us can do about it except carry on.”

“You carry on, Sis.” He turned his back to her and stared out the window.

Sis sat there awhile, undecided, and then she went downstairs to brace herself with a cup of coffee. A day that had started off so badly was bound to get worse.

The scene in the kitchen stopped her cold. Sweet Mama was sitting at the kitchen table with her hat on. It wasn’t a garden hat, which might have made sense if she’d been working outside and just forgot to take it off. It was a wide-brimmed white Panama with a virtual flower garden on the brim, red and pink peonies the size of saucers with a big blue feather spouting out from the bouquet.

Beulah looked up from the coffeepot and lowered a look at Sis that said Don’t you say a word.

Sis hurried to the cabinet and turned her back to hide her dismay. She took her time selecting a mug from the array that had collected over the years. She selected one with Alabama the Beautiful from a long-ago trip to Natural Bridge. Then she stood there just holding on, wishing the grandmother wearing the flower garden hat was still the same strong woman who had loaded Beulah and her grandchildren into the car for a three-hundred-mile trip in spite of the fact that she’d had to fight for Beulah every step of the way.

When Sis had regained composure, she went to the pot and poured her coffee.

“We having a garden party in here.” Beulah smiled at her. “Where’s your hat?”

Sis grabbed her garden hat off the peg by the back door and sat down to have breakfast. Carrying on.

Still, wearing a hat at a battered old table for a nonexistent garden party would be mild compared to the facade she’d have to wear once she got to the café. How she would ever get through the petit fours and the cheese balls, not to mention the wedding madness that had overtaken the regulars, Sis didn’t know.

Sometimes she wished she could hole up in her room like her brother while Beulah trekked up the stairs with sweet tea and sympathy.

Six

EMILY DIDN’T KNOW WHAT was wrong with Sis. Ever since their talk about having her wedding in the garden, she’d been snappish and forgetful. It had gotten worse since that awful dinner with Larry, and that was more than a week ago.

Yesterday Sis forgot to order coffee with chicory, and she still hadn’t brought those polka-dot sunglasses she’d promised Andy last week.

Still, nothing could mar Emily’s happiness. The cheese balls for her reception were in the refrigerator, the petit fours decorated with pink icing were rapidly piling up in the chest freezer in the pantry and she was going to do one last campout with her son before the wedding.

Standing in the backyard of Sweet Mama’s Café, enjoying a cup of coffee before the breakfast crowd started getting too big for Sweet Mama to handle, Emily kicked off her shoes and smiled as Andy raced around the ship, his untamable hair flying every which way. She made a note to add a trip to the barber to her list of things to do before the wedding.

“Can we camp out here tonight?”

“No. We’re going to camp out at Sweet Mama’s house.”

“Can we take the rocket ship?”

“We’re going to sleep in a tent.”

“Why can’t we sleep in the rocket?”

“Because then there wouldn’t be enough room for Aunt Sis. You want her to join the campout, don’t you?”

“I can sleep on the roof. See?” Andy clambered on top and stretched out. When his feet hung over the side, he curled up in a little ball. “Just right,” he yelled.

“That’s not a good idea, Andy.”

“How come?”

Ordinarily, Emily reveled in these meandering conversations with Andy, but lately he’d been trying her patience. Deliberately, it seemed. Was it because he didn’t want to share her with Larry or was there some deeper motive?

It was a relief when her neighbors Tom and James Wilson came through the back door of the café. Still bachelors at fifty and some said set in their ways, they were nonetheless two of the sweetest guys Emily had ever met. Tom was carrying a toolbox and James was wagging a little stack of lumber.

“We’ve been seeing you and Andy toting stuff out of your house for his little project out here,” Tom said. “Hope you don’t mind some help.”

“Of course not!” Emily hugged them both and they got pink in the face.

Soon the sound of hammering blended with Andy’s laughter as they shored up the cardboard boxes with scrap lumber. Tom looked like a rumpled, friendly elf with his shirtsleeves rolled up and his white hair sticking out from an old fishing hat with the lures still attached to the band. James was just the opposite. Tall, reserved and elegant, even with a hammer in his hand, he was dressed in a summer suit of blue pin-striped seersucker.

“That ought to do it,” Tom said, pushing back his fishing hat and reaching over to ruffle Andy’s hair. “Now that little rocket ship is sound as a dollar, even if it rains.”

Emily hoped the little ship didn’t have to be put to the test. She was still planning on a garden wedding, in spite of Sis’s long lip. As much as the new rose hedge would benefit from a shower, she didn’t want anything to ruin her wedding.

“It just needs this one last thing.” James bent over his toolbox and pulled out a wooden box with a little red steering wheel attached. It was covered with dials that looked as if they’d come from old car parts. Inside he’d rigged a set of hair clippers that buzzed when Andy turned one of the dials.

Being part of her little boy’s quest for the moon might be the biggest event in their lives. Neither Tom nor James had ever been married, and they both still lived with an ancient cat and their even more ancient mother, who had taken to her bed when she was fifty for reasons nobody knew or would tell.

Emily teared up, but she didn’t know if she was crying because Andy didn’t like Larry, or because the Wilson brothers had to find joy in a little rocket ship made from cardboard boxes, or because her own sister could end up exactly like them, with nothing to show for her years except gray hair and an old cat.

As they loaded up their tools, Emily said, “I’m going to give you an Amen cobbler to take home. Your mother might enjoy it.”

“Mother eats like a bird,” Tom said, “but she’s still partial to Sweet Mama’s cooking.”

“Good, then. That’s settled.”

They trudged back to the café, turning in the doorway to wave just as Burt Larson came out.

“I had some old sheets of plastic up at the house,” Burt said. “I thought I’d help out with that little rocket ship, if you don’t mind.”

Andy squealed and hugged the postman around the legs. Emily wished he’d show half that much enthusiasm with the man who was going to be his daddy.

She thanked Burt and then left him in the backyard, helping Andy with the rocket ship while she hurried back to the café. A cloud of sugar and spice rose from the cobblers Sweet Mama had lined up on the counter.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if a big bowl of cobbler for dessert worked its magic on Andy? Wouldn’t it be great if the steam that rose around him softened her son so that viewing Larry as his daddy would be as simple as a hug?

They’d eat it tonight in Sweet Mama’s backyard, while the moon was high and the stars looked like a blanket of lights thrown across the sky. She was smiling as she got a big bowl to serve up Andy’s surprise cobbler, and a length of tinfoil to cover it.

Emily dug through the flaky crust and into a mixture of peaches and cherries so deep she could see her future. The sweetness of love long denied wafted around her, and the joy of having a real family of her own.

But as she dipped toward the bottom, she felt an overwhelming sadness, as if something waited for her in the dark with fangs bared.

“Oh, I’m just being silly.” She quickly covered Andy’s bowl, then wrapped cobbler for Tom and James.

“What was that, dear?”

Miss Opal Clemson was standing behind Emily, a little blue hat perched on her gray hair, a black patent-leather purse tucked over her arm and a wide smile on her face. Emily made a mental note to pay her a visit. Miss Opal lived just around the corner from her, and she thought how lonely it must be to rattle around in a house all by yourself.

“My goodness. Miss Opal.” She smiled at the petite piano teacher who had tried her best to teach Emily the mysteries of the keyboard. It hadn’t worked. Emily didn’t have a musical bone in her body.

“I was thinking about your wedding music, dear. Have you thought about using a recording of ‘Clair de Lune’?”

Burt Larson, just coming from the backyard, chimed in with, “Seems to me like Emily’s Big Event ought to have music plain folks can understand.”

The regulars at the next table joined in, and soon the entire café was abuzz with plans for Emily’s Big Event, spoken as if each word were capitalized and ought to be posted out by the Gulf on the huge billboard that advertised Baricev’s Seafood Harbor.

As the customers continued to offer unsolicited advice about the wedding, Emily saw Sis materialize in the doorway of her office, then turn and walk back inside.

Excusing herself from Miss Opal, Emily handed Tom an Amen cobbler then stowed Andy’s in the kitchen and hurried after her sister.

She found her seated at a battered oak desk glancing at the clock as if she could cling to the march of time and soothe herself with the thought that two o’clock would eventually come and she could close up Sweet Mama’s.

As Emily sat in the other chair, an uncomfortable old thing with a slatted back and a cane bottom losing some of its canes, she was certain Sis chose it deliberately to discourage visits.

“How was Jim this morning?” Emily asked.

“The same. Hunkered down in the house like he’s in a foxhole.”

“Maybe my wedding will be just the thing to bring him around.”

“I wouldn’t hold out any high hopes, Em.”

Sis always looked on the gloomy side of life. Emily refused to let it sag her spirit.

“Did you bring those special astronaut glasses for Andy?”

“I forgot. Sorry, Em.”

Good grief! Forgetting was so unlike her sister, Emily wondered if Sis was getting a brain tumor.

“Just give them to him tonight at the campout, will you? He’s worrying me to death over those glasses.”

“I don’t know that camping out in the backyard is such a good idea.”

“Why not? We always camp out in Sweet Mama’s backyard.”

“It’s too hot to camp out.”

“It’s never too hot for a six-year-old. Besides, it’ll be fun. We can pitch the tent by the new hedge so we can smell the roses.”

“Not the rose hedge!”

“Good grief, Sis. What’s the matter with you?”

Sis just clamped her mouth shut and refused to say another word, which was fine with Emily. She had too much on her mind to continue this silly argument with her sister. If she didn’t hurry back to that growing café crowd, there was no telling what kind of mess Sweet Mama would make. She seemed to be having one of her good days, thank goodness, because Beulah had stayed home again to be with Jim, who seemed to be going backward instead of forward.

Still, something had to be done to help Sweet Mama, but Emily didn’t know what. After the wedding she’d ask Sis. But not until her sister got in a better mood.

“I’ve got to get back in there,” Emily said. “You didn’t forget that we’re looking at dresses for the wedding this afternoon, did you?”

Sis rolled her eyes and looked as if she’d been asked to stand before a firing squad. But Emily refused to be daunted, even when her sister glanced at the clock again as if it had suddenly become her enemy.

“How could I forget, Emily?”

“Good, then. We’ll leave at two.”

Emily could hardly contain her excitement. They’d drop Andy off to stay with Beulah, and then Emily could enter that sacred territory she’d fantasized about ever since she met Mark Jones—the bridal shop.

As she stepped back through the office door, she drew the sound of laughter and lazy chatter around her like a beloved shawl. But the Amen cobblers gave off such a scent of sorrow she wanted to weep.

Quickly she skirted around them, wishing it was already two o’clock.

* * *

The clock on the wall had become Sweet Mama’s enemy. Every loud ticktock meant she was roaring closer to the edge of a looming precipice. Sis was saying, “Sweet Mama, are you sure you can lock up?” and she didn’t have the faintest idea what this fierce granddaughter of hers wanted her to put under lock and key.

“Of course,” she said. “Go on and have fun. But don’t pick out a blue dress for me. If you do, I won’t wear it.”