The Wedding Tree (31 page)

At length, he kissed his way back up my belly, up my chest, up my neck, to my mouth. “You are so beautiful, so wonderful, so delicious,” he said. “That was such a turn-on.”

I could feel his erection pressed against my belly. “Your turn,” I murmured, unbuttoning his jeans. His manhood jutted out as I freed it from the zipper.

I pushed up his shirt. His pecs were firm mounds, topped with flat brown nipples, dusted with dark hair. His abs were flat and hard, banded with muscle. I kissed my way down a trail of dark hair below his belly button.

I touched his erection, and it jerked toward my hand. “I think he likes me.”

“Oh, Hope,” he groaned. “That feels . . .”

Words failed him. I loved that, loved making him speechless with pleasure. When I pushed him over the edge, I felt like Arch Woman of the Universe.

He pulled me into his arms afterward so that I lay on top of him, skin to skin. “Hope,” he whispered. He put his hands in my hair and turned my face so that his lips could reach mine. “You're . . .”

Something on the floor beside us crackled. I froze, thinking it was a mouse—and then, suddenly, over the rain thrumming on the roof, I heard a babbling sound, like a voice. Terror shot through me. “What's that?” I whispered.

“The baby monitor. Sophie sometimes talks in her sleep.”

“Oh.” I blew out a relieved sigh, then abruptly rolled off him. “That monitor—does it just work one way?” I asked.

“You mean, can they hear us?”

I nodded.

He grinned. “I know leaving the house and having sex in a neighbor's shed probably won't earn me the Father of the Year award, but trust me, I stopped short of broadcasting our little interlude into my daughters' room.”

Of course he had. Of course he'd thought of his girls. And then his actual words hit me. “Was that what it was? A ‘little interlude'?”

“Well, it wasn't a full concert, that's for sure. You had me so turned on that if we'd had protection, I'd be embarrassed at my lack of self-control.”

“That's not what I meant, and you know it.” I swallowed and looked down, feeling curiously close to tears. “‘Interlude' just sound so . . .” Small. Transient. Insignificant. I struggled to find a less needy-sounding word. “. . . seedy.”

His lip quirked in a grin. “Well, this
is
a potting shed.”

I elbowed him, but his humor had lightened my mood.

He cupped my face. “Hope, that's the best thing that's happened to me in a long, long time. I'm crazy about you.”

“Me, too.”

Emotion hummed between us, then Sophie murmured again through the monitor. I reached for my shorts and scrambled into them. “You'd better get back home before your girls wake up.”

“Yeah.” He kissed me on the nose, then pulled on his clothes
and folded the blanket. I closed the window while he put the blanket back on the shelf, then he ran out and retrieved the fireplace poker from the lawn. He handed it to me, ushered me out, then locked the door and put the key back on top of the shutter. “I'll wait until you're safely inside.”

I ran through the rain, aware of him watching me, and turned to wave once I opened the kitchen door. Lightning lit the sky, and I saw him move through the hedge.

I hurried upstairs, still clutching the poker. I didn't trust my hand to be steady enough to return it to the hearthside tool rack without waking Gran or the aide, and I didn't want to have to explain myself or my actions. How could I explain something I didn't really understand myself? Besides, all I wanted to do was get into bed and relive every thrilling moment.

adelaide

I
opened my eyes see a pair of overly cheerful morning aides standing by my bed.

“Top of the mornin' to you, dearie!”

“Good morning.” I rubbed my eyes, which temporarily reduced the number of aides by half.

“Do you need something? I thought I heard you talking.”

“Must have been talking in my sleep.” Seems easier to tell her that than to admit the truth: I see dead people.

Oh, I know that's not original—I know it's a line from a recent movie—although Hope would laugh if she heard me call it recent, because it's probably a dozen or more years old now.

The thing is, I saw Charlie. I think it was a dream, but it seemed as real as my encounters with Mother. It jarred me, because it never occurred to me that I'd have to deal with him again once I'm dead. I guess I hadn't figured we'd end up in the same place.

But then, it's also just recently occurring to me that I might have underestimated the mercy of God. That's a very scary concept, that. If God is as merciful and gracious as the dream suggested, he might have higher standards than my level of forgiveness.

I like to think that I forgave Charlie, but maybe I haven't, not entirely. If I haven't, I'd better get to work on that, because it's going to be harder if Hope unearths what I fear she will.

But then, it might be even worse if she doesn't. How am I supposed to forgive Charlie—fully and completely, the way I know I need to—if he's buried something so deeply that I can't fix my part in it?

Holy Moses, but this is a mess.

In my dream last night, he was dressed in a blue suit—bluer and brighter than men normally wear—but it looked wonderful on him. He was able to walk without even a trace of a limp, and he escorted me to a beautiful ornate door—one with carvings and leaded glass that shot rainbow-colored prisms like firecrackers when the light hit it. He held it open for me. I was about to walk inside, but all of a sudden, I realized I was just wearing a housecoat, and this looked like a grand hotel. I was afraid of embarrassing him. He just smiled and urged me in.

I walked through the door, and saw a giant white grand piano. It dawned on me that this was a performance hall, and I was at the edge of the stage. A large audience of fancy-dressed people filled the vast auditorium.

Well, I don't play piano, beyond a few simple hymns I can play one-handed, and half of “America the Beautiful,” which was a song I had to memorize for a recital when I was eight. I'm certainly no virtuoso. I realized I was about to be humiliated. Even worse, I was going to disappoint Charlie, who just stood there, beaming.

“I can't do this,” I whispered.

“Sure you can.” Charlie put his hand in the small of my back and urged me forward.

The crowd burst into applause. I skulked to the piano, my head down, and sat on the bench. The audience hushed to an expectant rustling.

I closed my eyes and tentatively began “Onward, Christian Soldiers” with my right hand. I knew only two chords to add with my left, but then, all of a sudden, I felt a surge of energy gather in my chest. It's as if the notes were floating in the air, and I inhaled them, and they were rushing through my veins, and my fingers were flying across the keys. Out of nowhere, I was able to effortlessly play beautiful, magnificent, heavenly music—every tune I've ever heard,
and other songs too beautiful to imagine, so beautiful that the roof floated off the auditorium. It was glorious and thrilling and freeing—like when I knew a photo was right, and my finger was just clicking away at the shutter, and I lost all sense of time. I was playing like that, just reveling in the music and the moment, so filled with joy that I was lighter than air.

Charlie smiled, his face just radiant, and said, “I'm so glad you're letting all that music out. I knew it was in you all the time.”

And then I thought,
How is this possible? I can't play piano
, and suddenly, I couldn't. The music stopped. I was back to pecking out a melody with my right hand, and I couldn't do even that. I hit sharps and flats. I felt so awful, so humiliated and embarrassed, like I'd let everyone down and made a total fool of myself. I ran off the stage and woke up in a sweat.

Well. It was so real. So real. So
real
!

“Mornin', Miss Addie! Let's start this beautiful day off with a dose of fiber,” said the aide, who disappeared into my bathroom and returned with a handful of pills and a glass of water. I think her name is Hazel—no, Hannah. I don't much care for her. She fills in on Nadine's days off, and she's too cheerful, too bossy, too hail-fellow-well-met and jolly, like a department store salesman who reeks slightly of gin. Not that Hazel or Hannah smells of gin. Might do her good to have a nip or two, though. Maybe then she wouldn't be so intensely smile-faced. But there's something about her, something that tells me she's not nearly as smugly cheerful as she seems. She's got a secret life. If not gin, then maybe sherry or a little sweet wine. Or maybe cigarettes. Or gambling. Or men.

That thought makes me smile, because she's got one of those no-fuss, short haircuts that does absolutely nothing for her appearance. No, not men. A woman doesn't wear her hair like that if she wants to be an object of desire.

One of the hidden joys of being old and having people think I'm half-addled is that I can say whatever I want and just wait and see what happens. “Have you ever had a grand romance, Hannah?”

“A what?”

“Have you ever been passionately, madly, swept-off-your-feet in love?”

“Why—why—why on earth would you-alls ask such a thing?”

“Just curious. There are so many things no one ever discusses. And I don't know why not, since those things are often the most interesting.”

She turned away. “I don' know what you're talking about.”

I waved my hand dismissively. “That's what I figured.”

She turned back around, her chin lifted, her mouth in a tight, miffed line. “Well, it so happens I
does
know a thing or two about romance.”

“Oh?”

“Yes. I done been married thirty-two years.”

“Marriage and romance aren't necessarily the same thing.”

“Well, course they are!” she exclaimed.

“Really?” Her certainty intrigued me. “How did you meet your husband?”

“I had a friend who fixed me up with her older brother. He had a stutter, an' he was too shy to ask me out himself, so she set it up for us to meet at the movie theater.”

“How interesting! What happened?”

“The very next day, I married him.”

“The next day!”

“He had a good job, and a place to live. And I couldn' take the beatings no more.”

My heart flopped like a fish. “The beatings?”

“Yes. My mama used to beat me for growing such large breasts.” She whispered the last word.

“Oh, dear Lord. How awful! That wasn't your fault.”

“I know, but it made my stepfather look at me.”

“Oh, my.” Oh, my, indeed. “Oh, you poor dear!” Well. That certainly made me see her in a new light. Isn't that always true, how a little fresh information can make everything seem different?

“Upsy daisy with your glass, ma'am. You need to drink all your water with that fiber.”

I drained the glass and handed it back to her. “Are you and your husband happy?”

“Oh, yes,” she said. “We suit each other just fine.”

Suit
. Such a sweet, old-fashioned term. Lovely, really—although lacking in passion.

Or maybe not. For all I know, she means they're well suited between the sheets.

For her sake, I hoped so.

But then, if he were her one and only, maybe she wouldn't know the difference. Not for the first time, I thought that was why women used to be so carefully chaperoned—to protect men from comparisons. If I'd never kissed Joe, would I have been ecstatically happy with Charlie?

No, I decided. Even as a virginal youth, I'd known there was something more.

hope

I
awoke to sunlight pouring through the window. I stretched like a cat, feeling warm and content, as if the sunshine were flowing through my veins. I'd had the most wonderful, vivid dream . . .

I opened my eyes and saw a heap of wet clothes on the floor. My heart quickened. Oh, dear Lord—it hadn't been simply a dream. I
had
made love with Matt!

Well, sort of. We stopped shy of doing the actual deed, but it had been lovemaking all the same.

I sat up and ran my hand through my hair. I didn't know how to feel about it. Part of me was thrilled and happy. Part of me feared I'd made a terrible mistake.

Okay. Calm down.
Why would it be a terrible mistake
?

The answer was less than reassuring:
because I
was
so darned thrilled and happy
. I'd been very clear about not wanting to get emotionally entwined only to leave town. Besides, what if Matt started behaving all avoidant and awkward, the way some guys do when they regret sleeping with a woman? Regardless of what Matt had said last night, he might feel differently this morning.

Well. As Gran always said, you couldn't uncrack an egg. What was done was done.

I hurried through the shower, threw on fresh shorts, and ran downstairs, where Gran was finishing her breakfast.

“How are you this morning?” I asked.

“A little tired,” she said. “I wonder sometimes if sleep isn't more exhausting than being awake.”

“You must have a lively dream life.”

“Oh, my dear, you have no idea.” She took a sip of tea. “Today's the day you and Matt will find that suitcase.”

“I hope so, Gran. We'll do our best.” I debated whether to tell her anything about the visitors last night, then decided against it. It would serve no good purpose and was sure to upset her.

“I have a good feeling about it,” she said.

I heard a noise in the backyard, and saw Matt coming through the shrubbery opening, carrying the metal detector. He waved and strode toward the back porch. I opened the door, feeling anxious and self-conscious, not sure how to greet him.

He gave me a hug—one that was tighter, longer, and warmer than the standard-issue hello hug—then came into the kitchen and bent down to plant a peck on Gran's cheek.

My heart danced. “Can I get you some coffee?”

“Sounds great.” His smile let me know he was definitely not having any regrets.

He turned to Gran, then angled his thumb toward the dining room. “Okay if I look at the dining room mural for a moment?”

“Of course,” Gran said. “Hope does beautiful work, doesn't she?”

“Sure does,” Matt said from the other room.

He came back into the kitchen a moment later and sat down across from Gran. I placed a cup of coffee in front of him and sat down beside him.

“I have a question, Miss Addie.”

“Certainly. Ask away.”

“Well, you have a partially rotten stump in the backyard next to the shed. I think it's the pecan tree that's pictured in Hope's mural in your dining room. When did you cut it down?”

“After Hurricane Katrina. More than half of the branches had broken off and it was leaning.”

“Was it planted after the suitcase was buried?”

Gran gazed thoughtfully out the window. “It might have been. One spring Charlie got a deal on a truckload of pecan trees. The store sold them. It was the first time they'd sold trees, and Charlie's dad was miffed—said they were a lumberyard and hardware store, not a nursery. Anyway, Charlie planted three of them here, as well as three at both of our parents' houses.” Gran looked at Matt, her eyes bright and excited. “If someone wanted to make sure something remained buried, the best way to do it would be to plant a tree right on top of it, wouldn't it?”

Matt nodded. “Would it bother you if we dug up the tree trunk?”

Gran's hand covered her chest.

“Are you okay?” I asked, immediately worried about her heart.

“Yes, honey. I'm just feeling . . . Oh, I'm so sure you're right, Matt. And the fact Charlie planted trees on everyone's property—well, that would have kept me from being suspicious.”

“If it's okay with you, then, that's where we'll look.” He turned to me. “I'll be back in an hour or so. I'm going to rent a stump grinder and a saw, and we'll get to work.”

“Where are the girls?” I asked.

“At Sunday school. After church, Peggy, Griff, and Jillian are taking them to the zoo in New Orleans.” He briefly placed his hand on my back as he rose.

The simple touch warmed me to the core. I watched him pull his cell phone from his pocket as he walked out the back door, then turned to my grandmother. “Gran, are you sure you're ready to deal with the consequences if we find that suitcase?”

“Yes, dear.”

“You know you'll have to tell Eddie.”

“Oh, I know, honey.”

“We'll have to call the police, as well. You could be in some kind of trouble for not reporting your suspicions.”

Gran's chin tilted up. “I'd rather face the consequences here in this world than in the next.”

I swallowed.

“Ready for your bath, Miss Addie?” The aide stood in the doorway, a towel over her arm.

Gran turned and smiled. “Absolutely, Hannah. Wash me white as snow.”

•   •   •

We'd been at it for about two and half hours—alternately using the stump grinder, shovels, a pickax, and the metal detector, working on the trunk itself and digging a trench around it, then stopping to see if we got any metallic readings. The sun was hot, my shirt was sticking to my skin, and my stomach was growling. I was about to suggest I go make sandwiches, when Matt stopped the grinder for about the zillionth time.

“Did you hear that?”

It was hard to hear anything over the roar and whine of the engine.

“Not really.”

“I think we hit metal.”

He lifted the metal detector and turned it on. Sure enough, it pinged.

Excited, we both climbed into the trench and looked. All I could see was dirt, sawdust, and tree root. “I'll take the pickax to it,” Matt said.

He swung it like a miner. Amazing, how hard pecan wood can be. I wondered how long it took for wood to petrify. After picking and chipping for what seemed like an eternity, the corner of a something distinctly non-treelike emerged. It looked like the metal corner of a trunk.

My pulse raced. “Wow.”

Matt nodded, his mouth tight. “Let's work this sucker free.”

It took another hour and two broken handsaw blades, but he managed to cut away the stump to reveal a suitcase. It was metal, with tattered remnants of dirty cloth still stuck to it in spots.

I went in to tell Gran. She was seated at the kitchen table as the relentlessly cheerful aide made lunch. “I need to talk to my grandmother alone for a moment.”

“I'm in the middle of making tuna salad.”

“That's okay. I'll take over.”

“Well—okey dokey.”

We waited until she left the room. I suspected she was listening at the door. This aide had been full of questions about what we were doing in the backyard.

“You found it?” Gran asked eagerly.

I nodded.

“Oh my goodness.” Gran's face was pale, her voice breathless. “I knew you would. Is it—is it still closed?”

“Yes.”

She closed her eyes for a moment. When she opened them, she personified the term Steel Magnolia. “I want to be the one to open it. Tell Hannah to go on home.”

I went into the other room and delivered the news.

“Oh no—I can't leave! I'll be fired by the agency.”

“Well, then, we need you to go to the store. Gran needs . . .” I searched my mind for something difficult to find. “. . . powder toothpaste. The whitening kind for sensitive teeth.”

“I've never heard of such a thing!”

“Well, try to find it. And get her some hand lotion, too. The kind that's scented like cucumbers and lime.”

“Where on earth will I find that?”

“They sell it at the bath shop at the mall in Hammond.”

“But that's thirty miles away!”

“Take Gran's car.”

I handed her the keys, walked to the front the door, and held it open.

She lifted her head and sniffed. “I know you're just tryin' to get rid of me.”

“I'm just asking you to do your job.”

She shot me a dirty look but gathered up her purse and left. I stood on the porch and watched until she pulled out of the driveway. “All clear,” I said, striding back into the kitchen.

As I helped Gran into a chair on the patio, Matt spread newspapers on the outdoor table. He carried over the rusted suitcase and set it down.

We all stared at it, as if it were a genie's bottle. Gran slowly reached out her hand.

“It's locked,” Matt gently said.

Her hand froze in midair, then fell into her lap. “Can you force it open?”

Matt pulled a screwdriver from his toolbox, wedged the flat edge against the lock with his left hand, then picked up a hammer. With a single loud bang, the lock gave way.

I watched Gran's lips firm. “I want to be the one to lift the lid.”

“I'll go get you some gloves,” I volunteered. I ran to the shed and grabbed a pair of cotton flowered gardening gloves. Gran's hands shook as she pulled them on.

“It's rusted,” Matt said. “I'll need to pry it loose.” He worked with a crowbar until the suitcase lid creaked and started to give.

“All right, Miss Addie,” he said. “Put your hands beside mine, and we'll open it together.”

Her face was pale, her skin so thin and translucent I could see the blue veins underneath. Her eyes held a combination of fear and determination that I can only call courage. Her lips disappeared as she pressed them tightly together.

Matt's leather gloves pushed upward on the suitcase lid, Gran's frail, flower-gloved hands pushing beside them. With a squawk that sounded like something from a horror movie, the lid abruptly swung upward.

Gran peered inside.

“Oh my God,” she whispered.