At the final fade-out, there were yawns and stretches and a general movement toward the door with thanks for the pizza and hugs all around.
When the last car and truck had left the yard, I whistled for Bandit and began stacking the dishwasher with the glasses and mugs.
Dwight came home as I sat at the coffee table with my laptop to download the pictures Ruth had posted on one of the photo sites. He noted the cushions all over the floor and sniffed the air. “Popcorn and pizza? The kids must’ve been over again.”
“Hey, you should’ve been a detective,” I teased.
“Hope you saved me a slice.”
“Actually, there’s one with pepperoni and meatballs and one with pepper and onions,” I told him. “How it escaped A.K.’s notice is beyond me. That boy’s got hollow legs. How’d it go tonight?”
“Six arrests, several grams of crank, and we confiscated some unregistered guns and a van that’s got to be decontaminated. Guess how they sealed off the front seat from the fumes in the back of the van.”
“Duct tape?” I asked.
He laughed. “How’d you guess?”
“Oh come on, Dwight! You know perfectly well that my brothers would have to give up farming if they ever quit making duct tape. That and baling wire’s the only thing holding half their equipment together.”
I set my laptop on the dining table, then stuck the pizza in the toaster oven to reheat while he drew a glass of his homemade beer from the tap Daddy had given him last year so that he could keg his brew instead of bottling it.
“What’s that you’re looking at?” he asked, peering over my shoulder at the computer screen.
“Pictures that Ruth posted from Saturday. Awww. Look at Cal and Mary Pat!”
He pulled up a chair beside me to eat his supper and watched while I flipped through the thirty or so pictures from this year’s cookie-baking session. Dwight wanted to linger on the one of Cal and me that Ruth had mentioned. She had snapped the shutter at the exact moment that Cal was cracking an egg while I watched in amusement.
“Get her to make me a copy of that one, okay?” he said.
As I moved the cursor up to click off the album, he stayed my hand. “What’s that?”
“That?” I clicked to begin again in full-screen mode the slide show I had downloaded from Ruth’s site. “This was the other morning when the cheerleader team and some of Mallory’s friends went out to the crash site and put up their memorial to her.”
Ruth had documented every aspect of the morning: the cars parked along the shoulder, the plastic flowers and little wooden cross being taken out of the car trunks, and the girls as they arranged it all on the ditchbank where Mallory’s car had gouged out raw hunks of earth when it flipped. There was a picture of the short skid marks and then a long view of the whole scene from further back.
As everyone had commented, the road there was straight and level. Woods rose up on one side, the trees draped in dead kudzu vines. On the side where the car had flipped lay a fallow field.
“Why’d she take a picture of that stuff?” Dwight asked when we came to the one of some beer cans and a yellow Bojangles’ box.
I explained Ruth’s decision to clean up the litter and described how she had found a receipt that was time- stamped within a half hour or so of the wreck.
“Yeah? Too bad she didn’t bring it to me,” he said.
“That’s what I told her. And she almost did. The bag was still in the trunk of Jess’s car when they got here Saturday morning, but she threw it in one of our garbage cans.”
I closed the file and turned off my laptop.
Dwight carried his plate and glass back to the sink and went on into the bedroom. I picked up the cushions and a few stray pieces of popcorn, then switched off the lights and followed.
When I got there, Dwight was already in bed and he propped himself up on one elbow to watch as I slipped off my jeans. “I’m really sorry about tonight, Deb’rah. I wanted this to be special. Make you think you were right to marry me.”
“Oh, darling, do you really think a date on the calendar is going to make a difference in how I feel about you?”
“And I was too damn busy to stop in somewhere and get you a present.”
I shook my head at him. “We agreed we weren’t going to give each other anything, remember?”
“No,” he said. “You agreed. I didn’t. I guess you’ll just have to make do with that.”
He lifted my pillow and there sat a small flat velvet box.
“What’s that?” I asked.
“Happy anniversary, Mrs. Bryant.”
I lifted the lid. Nestled on a velvet bed was a narrow gold circlet etched in tiny leaves and flowers. As I lifted it out to slide it onto my wrist, I saw that it had been engraved inside with today’s date and the words
“Oh, Dwight, it’s beautiful!” I threw myself down beside him so that I could hug him properly.
“I thought it would go with the bracelet Miss Sue left you.”
