“This has been an ongoing discussion for some time. You can’t avoid the truth forever.”
“And what would that truth be, Gracie? That this family can’t stick together long enough to make this business work? When your daddy gets back—”
“He’s not coming back.” He was never going to set foot in Golden again and it was Grace’s fault.
“—things will be different.” Tears clouded her mother’s pretty green eyes. “Don’t go sayin’ things like that. He promised he’d come back to us.”
Yeah, well, he’d lied.
He’d never even made the trip to Golden to say goodbye once his prison sentence was up two years ago, leaving her mother in limbo. They weren’t divorced, and no matter how many times Grace assured her mother she could take care of the matter, her mother refused to file. Earl Harper had outright abandoned his wife. The coward walked away after his release from jail and never looked back. Grace was still picking up the pieces.
Knowing she would get nowhere with this tactic, she tried another. “Mama, Faith is always looking for some extra cash. Let her work a few hours a day at the office. She can bring the kids with her, just like you did when we were little.”
“I don’t know. She doesn’t want to fight with Lyle about it.”
Grace had a few choice words for Lyle, but voicing them was useless. The family business was less family and mostly Grace, no matter that she’d put steps in place before she left town to make running the company easier for all involved.
“Then let me talk to Nathan when he gets back. Impress upon him once again his importance in the business.”
“You know your brother. He’s a free spirit.”
An excuse for getting into hot water if ever there was one.
Her mother reached over and took Grace’s hand. “You’re the glue that holds this family together, Gracie. We can’t do it without you.”
Grace swallowed a groan. Fought back the frustrated tears stinging her eyes.
“I can’t, Mama.”
Sadness crossed her mother’s face and she deflated right in front of Grace.
“But I promised I would stay until you’re feeling better, and I will.”
Her mother nodded and rose, shuffling into the living room.
Muttering the words she’d reserved for Lyle under her breath, Grace stood and walked to the kitchen window. The trees had finally sprouted tender green leaves. The mulberry bush on the side of the yard showed signs of bright purple berries, while orange butterfly weed and wild blue indigo bloomed haphazardly in the scraggly backyard. The small three-bedroom house sat on the top of a hill, the backyard sloping down to a creek that ran through the property.
When Grace had pulled up earlier, she’d sat in her sedan, blinking away moisture as she viewed her childhood home. It appeared as run-down as the Put Your Feet Up office. The house needed a fresh coat of paint and the concrete steps—which had crumbled, causing her mother’s tumble and injury—needed replacing. After graduating law school, Grace had offered to have her mother move to Atlanta and live with her, especially when she landed a good-paying job. Her mother had balked, waiting for Daddy and all, so Grace moved out of the house and started a new life. Or at least she’d hoped to start a new life. Sometimes her family didn’t make it easy.
The phone rang and Grace heard her mother say, “Faith, how are the babies?”
While her mother chatted, Grace strolled down the hallway to the bedrooms. Poking her head into her mother’s room, she realized it hadn’t changed in nearly thirty years. Same furnishings, although the quilt on the bed was different. The same comforting scent of Shalimar lingered in the room. Daddy had given a bottle to Mama one year for Christmas and she’d worn only that perfume ever since. Just one more indication of her mother’s refusal to face the truth.
Backing out, she crossed the hall to her bedroom. Twin beds she and her sister had shared were now filled with Faith’s children’s toys. Grace stepped through the doorway, nearly tripping over a wooden block. With a smile, she bent to retrieve it, then tossed it in the toy chest that had been hers when they were all growing up. The waxy scent of crayons, reminding her how much she had enjoyed drawing, greeted her like an old friend. Not much had changed here either, except that the Harper children were grown adults with lives of their own.
Her mother’s soothing voice carried down the hallway. Grace lowered herself to her twin bed, running her fingers over the worn coverlet designed with large pink-and-purple geometric shapes over a white background. A bittersweet sigh escaped her. She’d thought it was so cool when she’d picked it out at fifteen, shortly before Daddy left. It had been a big deal, the first grown-up decision she’d ever made. Little did she know it wouldn’t be the last.
Spying a framed photo on the dresser, Grace rose and walked over to pick it up. The three of them, mugging for the camera. Grace with a tight smile, Faith all glammed up and Nathan grinning, an upper tooth missing.
“What happened to us?” she whispered.
They’d gotten along until the years after their father was incarcerated. Everyone blamed Grace but didn’t balk when she’d taken over as the adult of the family. Faith had acted out and Nathan, well, it took time, but he finally decided to follow in their father’s footsteps by engaging in questionable endeavors—not exactly illegal but definitely straddling the fence—hoping for a payout that never materialized. Lately, she dreaded coming home, always anxious about how her siblings would greet her. With a pang, Grace realized this was probably why Faith stayed away when Grace was in town.
“Gracie, come on in here,” her mother called.
Replacing the picture, Grace squared her shoulders. Her heels echoed on the wood floor as she joined her mother.
“Faith said hello,” her mother informed her as soon as she entered the room.
“I hope I get to see her while I’m here,” Grace said, truly meaning it. The sisterly bond had been strong until they were in their teens. Faith, willful even then, accused Grace of trying to mother her. Grace had heard “You’re not the boss of me” too many times to count.
It all came to a head one night when the girls were in high school. Grace had warned Faith about a party her sister wanted to attend. It was all over school that there would be alcohol. Their mother, in bed with the covers over her head, didn’t have any opinion one way or the other if Faith went, so Grace stepped in, and, after an argument, forbade Faith from leaving the house. Which went over like a lead balloon. They yelled at each other, Faith calling Grace bossy and uptight, saying that no one wanted to be her friend. Grace tried to explain she didn’t want Faith to get hurt. She recognized that the kids Faith had been hanging out with were nothing but trouble, but she couldn’t convince Faith.
Faith sneaked out anyway and proceeded to get drunk. The cops busted the party and hauled the kids to the police department, mostly to scare them straight. Grace came to get her sister, thankful no charges were filed, and even though she never said I told you so, things were never the same between them. The sad truth was, Grace wanted to be Faith’s sister, not her handler, but it hadn’t worked out that way.
“She said she’s—”
Grace held up a hand. “I know, busy.”
Her mother averted her eyes.
“So if you’re okay, I’m going to take off.” Grace swallowed the thickness in her throat, picking up her purse from the sofa cushion. “I need to stop by the grocery store before heading to the cabin.”
“I don’t know why you won’t stay here,” her mother fussed. “I have a perfectly good spare room.”
That was never going to happen.