She’d often told stories again and again, but usually not this close together. I didn’t want to hurt her feelings by mentioning it. Maybe it was just this place, or being back in Texas, but the past drifted thick across her mind.
“I loved Flo so much,” she said after a few silent minutes. “I made her promise to never, ever leave me. I made her swear. I didn’t want to grow up and old without her. I told her I needed her all my life, but she must not have been listening.”
I reached over and took Nana’s hand. Her memories were like her life, a mixture of happy and sad. She could no more have one without the other than she could have lived in days without the nights.
Once home, Luke showed up to help me carry in all the groceries. He didn’t say anything, but I guessed he was waiting for an apology. I touched his shoulder once as he passed me with a load, but he didn’t stop. I felt the solid muscle beneath his shirt, but short of tackling him I didn’t know how to make him turn and give me time to say I was sorry.
When Nana offered him supper, he refused and disappeared without even glancing in my direction.
Before Nana’s stew was ready, I sat in the wingback chair in the corner of the kitchen and tried to figure out what I should charge for the goods that were stocked on our little store’s shelves.
The wind chime rattled, telling me that someone had opened the front door. I jumped, feeling like we had our first real customer. I’d dusted everything and turned the labels out. I was ready.
When I entered the store, an old woman in a wool coat a size too large nodded at me, then raised one eyebrow and looked me over.
I nodded back, feeling like a shoplifter in my own store.
She picked up a two-pound bag of flour and a box of Milano cookies, but made no effort to speak to me.
“I’m not sure what to charge,” I mumbled, embarrassed that I hadn’t figured it all out before putting the OPEN sign on the front door.
The woman straightened even more and leveled me with her stare. “I know how much they are.” She fished in her purse and pulled out three dollars and a quarter. “I’ll need two cents in change, Allie.”
I opened the cash register and handed her two pennies. “I’ll get you a bag.”
Running to the office, I found the sacks in the third box I tried. When I looked up, the old lady was gone.
I smiled all the way back to my seat in the kitchen. Once settled, I said simply, “I just met Mrs. Deals.”
“Was she nice?” Nana asked.
“Very.” I laughed. “And helpful.” I figured Mrs. Deals was about as nice as she gets, and I didn’t mind keeping the cookies in stock if there was any chance of sweetening her up.
“Willie said her son disappeared years ago. Most think he ran away from home.” Nana talked as she worked. “Mrs. Deals moved out here thinking that if he ever did come back, he’d come here where he was happy. Willie said she paid a fortune to get that line put in so he could call.”
“Willie knows a lot.”
Nana shrugged. “I had to ask him, then he said he only gives out the facts, no extras.”
I went back to my pricing and finished off the cup of coffee. Nana sat next to me without another word.
When I looked up, the shadows had stretched across the windows. Another day gone and I was still here.
I watched Nana’s old hands knead pastry to make more pies. She’d been old all my life, I thought. I could never remember her hands manicured or polished, but to me they’d always been beautiful-strong and solid.
She didn’t look up, but I could see her smiling. She loved to cook and she loved me. In her world, that was enough.
At dusk, she went up for her bath and I walked down to where the road turned onto Uncle Jefferson’s land. Funny, I was starting to think of him as Uncle Jefferson even in my mind-this man I’d never met.
When I reached the fence, I said, “Would you look at that, Uncle J, someone stole that ugly pig.”
Tacking a sign on the post that said OPEN FOR BUSINESS I wondered if there was anyone who ever came down this road who didn’t already know we’d moved in.
In the twilight, I saw Luke coming toward me. He had that slow, easy walk of a man who’d spent years knowing where he was going.
“You planning to light the fire? It looks like it might rain.”
He nodded.
“Mind if I help?”
He shook his head as we strolled back to the lake, gathering firewood as we walked.
“You know Willie Dowman?” I asked.
“Yes,” Luke answered.
I waited for more; then, frustrated, asked, “What do you know about him?”
“He’s been coming out here fishing for years.”
“Anything else?”
Luke was silent for so long I gave up on him answering. When he finally spoke, I jumped at the sound.
“I’ve heard he gives away most of the fish he catches.”
“He doesn’t take them home to his wife?”
Luke shook his head. “His wife died about ten years back.”
It was full dark by the time we’d dragged enough dead wood over to the pit. Luke struck a match. I sat on one of the rocks that had been pulled around the circle and watched the flames take.
“You learn this as a Boy Scout?” I asked just to break the silence.
“Something like that,” he said as he moved to the other side of the fire and propped against another rock.
“I’ve given up worrying about when you’re going to kill me,” I said, promising myself this was the last time I’d even bother to try to talk to him.
Laughing suddenly, I decided that if we’d been in a bar that was probably the worst pickup line ever. No wonder I hadn’t had a date in two years.
I could see his intelligent blue eyes tonight. He was studying me as if he were Jacques Cousteau encountering a new species of backward-swimming fish. “I’m glad you’re not afraid of me anymore,” he finally said and flashed a smile.
He took a minute, then added, “I light the fire because Jefferson did.” He looked out over the water. “Some nights he wanted to help late boats, but most of the time I think he was just trying to get rid of all the driftwood that piles up along this beach. Every time there’s a storm or a branch falls in the water it seems to circle around and land on this little stretch of beach.”
“He swam the lake, too? That’s why you do?”
Luke laughed again. “No. I’ve done that since I was a boy. I’m surprised you saw me. Maybe I should knock out that last dock light.”
I needed to talk, and it didn’t matter that he was one of the inmates in this nuthouse. “I’ve got other things to worry about besides you. I can’t sleep for worrying and that’s not like me. Usually I sleep like a rock. Nana said once I slept through a tornado in Kansas. On the farm, I used to fall asleep watching the stars at night. My grandpa probably carried me to bed until I was ten. Nana always said he didn’t want to wake me because if the last thing I saw was stars, I’d have good dreams.”
Luke stared across the fire at me and I knew he was probably reading “chatterbox” written on my forehead, but I didn’t care. There were things I needed to say and he seemed to be my unlucky victim. “Worries keep me up now. First, I think it must have been a mistake for me to inherit this place, but it’s growing on me and I haven’t seen Nana so happy since we left the farm. Every day we stay will make it harder for us to leave when that lawyer in Lubbock figures out he handed over the keys to the wrong Allie Daniels.”
Pressing the heels of my hands against my eyes, I swore I wouldn’t let myself cry, not in front of a stranger. “I don’t know where I belong, but this can’t be it. I’m just so tired of looking.” I wanted to add that I was so homesick for a place to belong, but he probably already thought I was crazy. Homesick for something I’d never had. Growing up, I’d been the poor tenant farmer’s grandchild whose mother didn’t want her. At college, I’d worked two part-time jobs and hadn’t had time for socials and sororities.
I straightened suddenly, hating myself for being so pathetic. I should do like that song Nana always sang and count my blessings. But when blessings include live bait in the cooler, deer heads on the fence, and a bum who
