Buried somewhere near the bottom of the story was the announcement that Deputy Detective Silas Lee Jones would be retiring, effective January the first.
CHAPTER 27
Florence Hartley,
Doug’s press conference didn’t take place till the day after Christmas, four days after our wedding. Nevertheless, there was so much fallout from Monday that it made our wedding on Wednesday feel almost anticlimactic.
For a while, that was all anyone could talk about at Daddy’s Monday night, but the novelty of being together soon took over.
Most of our family dinners are big, sprawling, multigenerational affairs and Christmas dinner would certainly be that, but for Monday night, Daddy had asked that it be only his eleven sons and their wives, Dwight, and me. Any grandchild who wanted to come help Maidie would be welcomed, but they were to keep quiet while serving and otherwise stay in the kitchen until supper was over.
All the leaves were added to the big dining room table and the doors to the front parlor were folded back so that a second table could be added, yet even then it was a tight squeeze to get twenty-five of us seated.
It was the first time in years that all of us had sat down together under the same roof at the same time. Adam, Frank, Benjamin, and Jack and their families had flown in yesterday or today and were bedded down in spare rooms all around the farm. The deaths of people they didn’t know could not hold their attention long, and dinner soon turned into a rowdy retelling of old family stories.
“Hey, Frank, remember when you figured out how to coil a piece of copper tubing without crimping it?”
“Y’all remember the licking we got when we parachuted Deborah off the packhouse and tore a big hole in Mother’s brand-new umbrella?”
“What was the name of that sexy little cheerleader you and Haywood got in a fight over in high school?”
“Smokey Johnson’s a granddaddy now? You know not! He’s younger than me.”
“—and believe it or not, I’ve still got them antlers! Where are they, honey? She’s always putting my stuff out in the barn and I keep bringing it back in just like that cat we had, remember? Kept bringing Mama Sue lizards and mice, like we’d bring her birds and rabbits.”
“Hey, Ben? You recall the time you and Andrew and Robert tried to teach that last mule how to jump fences?”
“’Course you don’t remember, Deb’rah, but Mama Sue thought you won’t never gonna learn to walk because one of us was always toting you on our shoulders. For about six months there, every time she turned around, she’d say, ‘Put that child down and let her walk.’ Remember, Dwight?”
And Dwight was right there with us, laughing and remembering and not having to be brought up to speed because he knew the punch lines and the in-jokes and the subtexts.
“What I remember,” I said, “is how y’all used to tease me that Mother and Daddy were going to trade me in when my five-year warranty expired. That was you, Will! You and Adam told me not to say anything to them about it and maybe they’d forget. I couldn’t talk about turning five and going to kindergarten until Seth finally told me the truth because I was afraid they’d trade me in.”
Taking his prerogative as my oldest brother, Robert lifted his glass to propose the first toast. “And now you’re marrying ol’ Dwight. Here’s luck to you both, honey.”
All down the table, glasses were raised to our health and happiness.
“Speech! Speech!” they called.
I shook my head. “Dwight can make a speech if he wants to. All I can say is how much it’s meant to me to be a part of this family, to know that you were always here for me. And not just you brothers, but you sisters-in-law, too.”
“Your turn, Dwight,” they said.
“I’m not going to get sloppy,” he said. “But I do thank you for everything, especially for Deb’rah, and I promise that I’ll do my best to make her happy.”
“I gotta be honest with you, son,” Daddy said as a mischievous smile twitched his lips. “You marry her on Wednesday and it’s a ‘as is’ deal. She don’t come with no warranties this time around.”
“I’ll take my chances,” Dwight said. “I know the manufacturer.”
Tuesday was so busy for all of us that Dwight and I didn’t get to have the quiet time with Cal that we had planned. DNA tests confirmed that Whitley was the father of Tracy’s unborn child and Dwight had to go into work to check up on the details. Minnie called first thing to say that she had phoned a fabric shop in the edge of Cary and they were holding several bolts of white cheesecloth for me to pick up this morning. “And what about rice bags?”
I confessed that I had totally forgotten about them. I hadn’t realized that Nadine was on an extension till I heard her say, “Rice isn’t good for birds. People use birdseeds these days.”
“I thought rice was for fertility,” I said innocently. “What do you get with birdseeds, Nadine? Eggs?”
“You laugh, but Nadine’s right,” said Doris, who had found Minnie’s third extension. “People are going to want to throw something at you and Dwight when y’all leave. It’s traditional. Get some extra-fine netting and a few yards of narrow white ribbon and a five-pound bag of birdseeds. Cal and Mary Pat and Jake can help you tie them up in little pouches. I’ve got a big white wicker basket I’ll send over to put them in. It’ll be real pretty.”
The children thought that making rice bags would be fun so I took them with me to Cary, and after we dropped off the bolts of cheesecloth at April’s house, we went back to mine and started an assembly line. I cut the white netting into five-inch squares, and laid them out on the table. Using a measuring spoon, Jake carefully put a tablespoon of birdseeds in the center of each, Cal gathered up the edges and twisted it to make a little pouch, then Mary Pat tied them shut with a bow.
