I jumped up to show him my bracelet and he gave a nod of bittersweet recognition. “I remember the day you came back from Sue’s with that and put it in that drawer, Miss Ozella.”
I waited for him to elaborate as their eyes locked in wordless communication, but all he said was “That was a sad time all right, but this is supposed to be a happy one. Come on, ladies, shake a leg! Sallie’s expecting us.”
I put the little box with the sixpence beside the satin slippers I would wear next week and joined them downstairs to walk the half-block to Miss Sallie’s house.
Despite my missing groom, ten of us sat down to dinner—the Reverend Carlyle Yelvington, the minister of First Baptist and the man who was going to perform the ceremony Wednesday, had been pressed into service to balance the table. As expected, the others were Aunt Zell and Uncle Ash’s age, men and women who had known me since I was a scabby-kneed tomboy whose mother despaired of ever turning her into a proper young Stephenson lady.
“Not that your mother was much of one either,” Miss Sallie said tartly as her part-time cook and housekeeper brought in an elaborate crown roast of pork filled with a flavorful concoction of tender shrimp and creamy grits. “Marrying a scalawag like Kezzie Knott. Broke your grandmother’s heart when she announced their engagement. She cried for a week.”
“Broke more than just Catherine’s heart,” said David Smith, Uncle Ash’s brother and Portland’s father. “Half the boys in this county went into mourning, too.”
“Oh it was a seven-day wonder all right,” said Miss Abby Jernigan, who had given me her late husband’s robe when I was first elected. “Richard Stephenson’s granddaughter marrying a moonshiner with a houseful of motherless boys?”
I didn’t take offense. Their smiles were too indulgent and reminiscent of bygone youth and high romance. I’ve always loved hearing how people met and fell in love, and I made each of them tell me their stories, from the Smiths, who literally ran into each other when she was learning to roller-skate, to Bonnie and Ken Knowles, who met when they both signed up for flying lessons from the same instructor back in the late sixties. Even after all these years, there was wonder in their voices at the miracle of finding each other out of all the whole world over. I just wished Dwight could have been there to hear.
One of the benefits of dining with a bunch of very senior citizens is that everyone’s ready to go home to bed by nine-thirty. When I got to Dwight’s apartment, he was in bed himself, watching an old World War II comedy on television.
I dropped my clothes on the nearest chair and snuggled in beside him.
He noticed my new bracelet right away and was touched by the story that went with it. “You’re a lot like her, you know.”
“Am I?” I asked, pleased.
“Why do you think I fell in love with you?”
“Tell me,” I said.
CHAPTER 22
Florence Hartley,
Now that we were into single digits—seven days and counting—the next three days passed in a blur. Two luncheons and another dinner. Friday was my last day of court until after the Christmas break; and with the investigation of Tracy’s death and Don Whitley’s suicide winding down, Dwight, too, was finally able to give more attention to our wedding. It hurt him to know that one of his deputies had fallen to the same temptation of easy money that had overtaken one of my own colleagues, a temptation coupled with the rationalization that drug money, like insurance money, was there for the taking and therefore wasn’t quite like stealing.
Now Russell Moore was disbarred and sentenced to three years of hard time, and Don Whitley was dead by his own hand.
The only bright spot for the sheriff’s department was that the media, ignorant of any subtext, were treating Whitley’s acts as motivated solely by passion. Unfortunately, men killing their women and then themselves is so commonplace these days that the story barely made it through a full news cycle.
Dwight and Bo planned to reorganize the drug interdiction procedures after the first of the year, but for now, Bo had told Dwight to go act like a man who’s getting married.
Accordingly, Seth, Reese, and Andrew drove their pickups over to Dobbs Friday evening to finish moving him out to the farm—lock, stock, and nice leather furniture that would replace the ratty castoffs April had given me when I first moved into my new house.
I drove on ahead to clear space in the garage for his boxes. The temperature had dropped again and the house was like ice when I got there. I quickly pushed the thermostat up, built a fire in the living room, and sprinkled cinnamon, cloves, and nutmeg into a small pan of hot water, then turned the flame on low so that it would simmer and fill the house with a spicy aroma. Yeah, yeah, I know that’s cheating, but I wanted it to smell like home to Dwight and I really did plan to bake next week.
Honest.
Maidie and Miss Emily had both sent over enough casseroles to get us through these last few hectic days and I slid a chicken pot pie into the oven with silent gratitude. Wineglasses and matching towel sets and steak knives are all well and good, and I knew we would enjoy them for years, but a freezer full of casseroles when there’s no time to cook? Now that’s a truly inspired wedding gift.
We still hadn’t painted my old bedroom, but the paint was there in the empty room, the cans turned upside down so the color would stay mixed. I changed into jeans and a paint-speckled sweatshirt, spread out tarps to protect the carpet, and used a brush to cut in the corners and around the molding. The white paint on the ceiling still looked fresh and clean, and we’d agreed to finessse it till the next time. Midnight blue might be Cal’s idea of a cool color, but using it on four walls and the ceiling, too, would turn the room into a black hole. Or maybe that was the whole idea? Dwight keeps saying that Cal’s fine with the wedding. He was so young when Dwight and Jonna split that he really doesn’t remember when they were a family, but I still worry.
By the time the caravan pulled into the yard, I was almost ready to start rolling the walls. Seth and Andrew quickly unloaded their trucks, then reloaded them with the old couch and chairs for one of Robert’s grandsons, who was setting up his first apartment. They declined my invitation to supper, but Reese had no one waiting for him at
