“It’s just…well, it’s just going to be a little crazy for a while. I just have some hard thinking to do.”
“Right. Without interference.”
Harmony was glad to hear those last two words. “I’ve been thinking about making a list. You know, of things I need to do and things to decide. Maybe then I could figure them out faster. Check things off…”
Charlotte passed the plate of toast, and Harmony gladly took another piece. The bread was wonderful, and Charlotte had put real butter on it. She tried to remember the last time she’d had real butter on toast. Davis had insisted on olive oil spread because he wanted to live forever.
“What’s going to be at the top of the list?” Charlotte asked. “Have you gotten that far?”
“Finding a place to live.”
“Sounds like you have definite priorities.”
“That’s number one, for sure. I’ve still got to save up a little more, even if Jennifer and I get a place together. I’ve been working extra shifts, and I saved some money when I lived with Davis, but then I had car problems, and there was a month when Cuppa closed down while they finished the renovations.” Harmony wondered why she was telling Charlotte all this, and decided it was because Charlotte was listening. She couldn’t remember the last time anybody had really listened to her.
“I like the way you think,” Charlotte said. “You’ve got important decisions, but I’m guessing you want to be settled before you get too much further.”
“I need a better job, too. Something with regular hours and insurance. The baby deserves that. And once I have to pay for child care…” Harmony shook her head. “But one step at a time, right?”
“I imagine this is scary, isn’t it?”
“Sometimes.”
“May I tell you a story?”
As nice as it had been to have somebody listen to her, Harmony was glad to be out of the spotlight. “About you?”
“About me, yes. Because when it’s finished, I’m going to tell you that the guest room where you stayed last night, or any guest room in the house, is yours as long as you need time to figure things out.” Charlotte held up her hand to stave off Harmony’s protests. “Let me tell the story first, then we’ll get back to that. Okay?”
Harmony couldn’t say no. How could she refuse such a small thing, when in the past ten hours Charlotte Hale had made her feel like a whole person again?
* * *
Charlotte watched her houseguest’s expressions as she recounted the story of her grandmother’s funeral, the same one she’d written in her journal that morning before Harmony woke up. After finding Harmony in the car last night, that day had been very much on her mind, and sharing it with the young woman now seemed natural, although in her whole life she’d only told it to one other person.
Ethan.
“So you left home? You just drove away?” Harmony asked, after Charlotte finished.
Charlotte pulled herself back to the present and nodded gravely. “We just drove away.”
“You were terrified. I know you were.”
Charlotte decided not to take Harmony’s comment at face value. “I’m guessing something like that may have happened to you?”
Harmony bit her bottom lip. Then she nodded. “I left home, just like you. I…I couldn’t stay. My father didn’t drink, but he’s not a nice man.”
Charlotte sat quietly and waited, but Harmony didn’t go on, so she said, “A bad father should make us appreciate the good men in our lives when we find them, but we’re not always able to without practice.”
“Sometimes I still believe the things my father said about me.”
“If I had to guess, I’d say you’re reconsidering them.”
Harmony smiled a little. “What happened next? After you got to town?”
“It was pretty awful.” Charlotte glanced out the window at the expansive lawn stretching away from the house, at the dogwoods in bloom, the magnolias in bud. She hadn’t gotten this far in her journal, and it was hard to find the right words. It had been awful. She still felt a stab of fear when she thought about it, even though she had worked so hard in the intervening years to put that day behind her.
“I didn’t know anybody. I didn’t have any place to go.” She turned back to Harmony. “Was it that way for you when you arrived?”
“I had a friend from middle school who had moved here. That’s why I chose Asheville. Her family gave me a place to stay for the summer, but they’re gone now, living in California. Still, they helped me get on my feet, find a job and car, make some new friends….”
Charlotte didn’t point out that Harmony’s security net was still full of rips and tears. No one knew that better than the girl herself.
“I had a little money,” Charlotte said, “but not much. What the preacher gave me, the little my grandmother had been able to save. It was late by the time we got to town. Bill and Zettie took me to a cheap hotel, and they paid for a week, even though I hated that, because I knew they couldn’t afford it. They told me to call if I couldn’t find a job or a place to live, and they would come and get me. But I knew if they did, I’d never come down from the mountains again, that I’d never find a different path.”
“You must have found one,” Harmony said, looking around, because Charlotte’s house spoke for itself.
“It was the end of the week, and I had one more night at the hotel. I’d walked everywhere, talked to everybody. I bought a loaf of bread and a jar of peanut butter on sale, and that’s what I ate every day until it was gone, then I bought more. Nobody wanted me. Nobody needed me. I didn’t have any experience. I didn’t have the right kind of clothes. I was desperate, but what does that mean?” She looked at Harmony. “Call the preacher or the Johnstons and admit I’d failed? Rob a bank?”
The last got a smile out of Harmony. “It kind of looks like you did,” she said. “That would explain things.”
Charlotte was glad her story was helping, and telling it was easier than she’d expected. “I was sitting in a café, reading the paper, hoping I’d missed something, some job I could apply for, some lead, anything at all. Two women came in and sat next to me, and ordered breakfast. I’d ordered the day’s special. One egg, a slice of toast, a cup of coffee. Ninety-nine cents. Do you believe that price?”
“Where is that place?”
“Closed, I’m sorry to say. The women ordered these huge breakfasts. Bacon and sausage and French toast. I was so hungry I wanted to steal the food right off their plates.” She saw that Harmony understood, and she reached over and touched her hand again. “You know, I’ve never told anybody that part before.”
“Not everybody would get it.”
Charlotte patted her hand. “I was close to tears, so I started listening to them to keep my mind off my future. One of the women was in her thirties, and I realized she was complaining about how she needed a live-in babysitter for the summer, but nobody wanted a low-paying job like that. Her friend laughed and said that maybe the problem was they didn’t know what to do with two active boys. It would take somebody young and energetic. And stupid, the other woman said, and they both laughed.”
“Nothing like a hard sell, huh?” Harmony said.
“So I stood up and leaned over. And I said, ‘I’m not stupid, but I am looking for a job for the summer and a place to live.’ They looked me over like I’d just crawled out of a tunnel. I knew I had thirty seconds to sell myself. So I told them I had references, that