Odelle Pearl Simms, Dellie for short, is a writer. A good one, in fact. Then out of the blue her own life hits a nasty plot turn she never saw coming. With her recent marriage in ruins, Dellie finds herself alone, with no idea how to move on. So when her friends and family insist she get away from it all, she packs her bags for a month-long stay with her Grandpa. With Grammie gone, he too is facing up to a new life on his own…

Returning to a town that is a haven of childhood memories, surrounded by long-lost family and finding inspiring new friends, this could be a chance for Dellie to discover who she really is. As old secrets are revealed, this trip could be just the thing that could save her and bring her right back to where she was always meant to be.

Also by Liesel Schmidt

Coming Home to You

The Secrets of Us

Life Without You

Liesel Schmidt

Copyright

HQ

An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd.

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

First published in Great Britain by HQ in 2016

Copyright © Liesel Schmidt 2016

Liesel Schmidt asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

E-book Edition © June 2016 ISBN: 9781474055475

Version date: 2018-06-20

LIESEL SCHMIDT

lives in Pensacola, Florida, where she spends her time writing, drawing, and reading everything she can get her hands on. She is currently in the midst of concocting her next stories and spends most of her days as a busy freelance writer, trying to stay on top of deadlines and keeping the words straight! When she has a few free moments, Liesel plunks away at her blog, Finding Words (fyoword.blogspot.com), where she posts product reviews and offers her readers a peek at the inner musings of a writer finding creative ways to work through the inherent challenges of living a creative career.

Having harbored a passionate dread of writing assignments when she was in school, Liesel never imagined that she would ever make a living at putting words on paper, but life sometimes has a funny way of working out… When she’s not writing, reading, or drawing, Liesel likes to indulge her guilty pleasure of watching competition television shows like Top Chef, Chopped, and Project Runway. Follow her on Twitter at @laswrites

I can’t offer enough thanks to the family who has always shown me such love and support. Thank you for believing in me, for inspiring me, for teaching me the most important lessons I’ve learned in life. Thank you for the faith you instilled in me and for showing me how to live in that faith. Thank you for being my prayer warriors and my champions, and for always reminding me that fear is worth fighting. You all inspire me so much, and for all of you, I will never have enough words to say thank you.

To Ricki Lindstrom, whose life sweetened those of everyone she knew. You will always be missed.

Contents

Cover

Blurb

Book List

Title Page

Copyright

Author Bio

Acknowledgements

Dedication

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Epilogue

Endpages

About the Publisher

Prologue

I was scribbling down the name of a website when I saw it, like an invitation meant especially for me. Details for a contest that one of my favorite magazines was running, a shot at writing something that millions of other people would read, right there on the pages of one of the best-known glossies in publication. A shot at having five minutes of fame and a few other perks: an all-expense-paid trip to New York City to the magazine’s headquarters; audience with a panel of agents and editors who could be career and life-altering in their abilities to get a writer’s name known; and a cash prize of three thousand dollars.

Granted, it was a long shot; and I’d run across numerous contests similar to this one before, all without feeling that I would have any words that fit the bill. But this one? This one seemed as though it had been designed just for me. Especially since it would cross one more thing off my bucket list—a list that I had written months before as a way to get my life back on track when it had come so dangerously off the rails. A list that had, in a way, become part of my saving grace when so much had been lost.

Take a Long Shot.

Annual Writing Contest:

Inspiring Women and the Ways They’ve Changed Us

Readers! Do you have a story to tell? Email us and tell us about a woman or a group of women who have particularly inspired your life in some way. How has knowing them changed you? How have they changed the people around them?

Submission guidelines swam before my eyes, barely penetrating my brain as a thousand thoughts and emotions tumbled through me.

Inspiring women.

Did I know any of those?

Yes, I thought as I ran a finger over the surface of the pearl-covered pen in my hands, noticing the way the charm bracelet I wore seemed to dance happily as my arm moved. Yes, I certainly do…

More than any other piece I’d written so far, this was the story I was meant to tell; and in telling it, I hoped I would be able to send a message. That there was healing from grief; that there was love after loss; that there was strength and beauty in all of us, even when we felt at our weakest. I, like so many other women, had lived so long under the control of fear and let it overshadow me, let it reduce me to a point where I was nearly lost forever. It had taken the friendship of these women and the stories they had to tell to inspire me to reach for more, to take back the life I had been given and make it count.

Yes, I knew some very inspiring women. And I hoped that, in sharing their stories with others, I was passing on the gift that they had given me, speaking out to a world of readers who might need to hear that they, too, were strong, beautiful, and irreplaceable.

Chapter One

Six months earlier…

What do you write when your whole job is writing for a living, and you finally have time to do some creative writing? My brain seemed to be fried, firing on only three cylinders.

Maybe two.

Actually, if I was honest, it was probably more likely only one. One whole cylinder to call my own.

Impressive, no?

Which is why, three hours after I sat down with my laptop to write, the cursor on the page was still winking at me from a pristinely white document and my Internet browsing history jumped around with manic randomness on sites that varied from discounted deals on Birkenstocks to how to ace a first date.

Not that I was in the market for either of those things right now, but still. Things to file away for future use.

Yup, random.

And a total time suck.

If I’d been feeling a little more ambitious, I might have been trawling the Internet for ideas of articles to pitch some of my editors; but as I said, my brain was fried.

Maybe beyond fried.

And my ability to focus was decidedly absent.

Not that I didn’t love my work. I truly did, but there were moments of doubt when being a freelance writer in her early thirties seemed as nebulous a profession as being a quote-unquote consultant, and I felt like people thought my job was a joke and that I should grow up and do something more stable and responsible for a career.

So there I sat, staring silently at the screen as the cursed cursor blinked and winked at me, happily mocking my lack of both creativity and productivity.

I was a useless occupant of space, breathing air I had not earned, contributing nothing to the world around me.

The phone on the desk next to me started to vibrate and ring, scaring the absolute tar out of me. I hit the answer button and caught a glimpse of my sister’s name flashing across the screen.

“Yuh?” I said, my voice sounding out of practice and croaky. It had been a little too long since I’d actually put it to use by conversing with another human being.

“Nice greeting. You might want to work on the delivery,” came the reply, not missing a beat.

“And you might want to not be so judgy,” I shot back.

“I’m your sister. If I don’t tell you straight up how it is, who else will?”

“Mama would,” I said, not even having to waste a moment on thought.

A raspy bark of laughter came over the line. “Damn skippy,” she said.

I smiled.

I could picture her, my older sister, blonde and blue-eyed with high cheekbones and dewy skin that would make even the most-skilled dermatologist scratch his head in wonderment. I had no idea what her secret was, but it was definitely working for her.

“So what are you doing today?” Charlie asked, breaking into my random thought trajectory.

I frowned at my blank computer screen.

“Working,” I lied.

“Naturally,” she said flatly. “You’re always working, Dellie. You need a break,” Charlie insisted. “A real one.”

I could feel my eyebrows knitting together. A break? I didn’t have time for a break. I didn’t have money for a break. How the heck was I supposed to have a break?

“A break?” I repeated dumbly.

“Yes, a break. As in, a vacation.”

“And just how do you propose this so-called break might happen, Charlie? I have too many things to do and no money to fund any kind of vacation. You know that.” I could hear the frustration edging into my voice.

Yes, I wanted a break. I desperately wanted a break, but there were all those other ugly bits of reality to deal with. There were deadlines to meet, emails to send, bills to pay.

“Mike and I…” she started, but I interrupted.

“How is Mike, by the way?” I asked, hoping she might drop the issue.

“Fine,” she replied, sounding slightly puzzled and caught off guard. “Mike is just fine. But seriously, Dellie, we’re both worried about you. And I know that Mom and Dad are, too. After everything that happened last year—”

I felt tears start to sting my eyes. “Yeah, everything that happened last year,” I said quietly.

“Last year was a hell of a year, Dellie. And you need some time. You never got to take any time, and we worry about you.”

“I know,” I whispered, unsure that she could actually hear me on the other end.

“We worry about you a lot,” she said again, this time with more emphasis.

I worried, too. About more things than I could count.

I worried about them worrying about me.

I worried about work and whether I would have enough to cover the bills.

I even worried when I wasn’t worried.

When was I ever going to get a real break from worrying?

Maybe when you stop breathing, I heard a little voice in my head taunt.

“I know you do,” I repeated, wishing I could just flip a switch and change things. “I don’t mean to make any of you worry.”

“We only worry because we love you. You know that, right?”

I nodded. “Yes,” I said, knowing that the nodding wouldn’t exactly be effective over the phone. “And I love you, too.” I took a deep breath.

Time to talk about something else.

“So what’s new at the Jackson house today?” I asked, hoping she would take the bait this time.

“Not much. I have to go to the hardware store later to look at some paint samples for the dining room, but right now I’m doing laundry,” she said. “Lots and lots of laundry. The amount of laundry that little people generate boggles the mind. I literally run at least one load every day!” She laughed, and I could hear the breathlessness creep in, a sign that she was pushing it a bit too hard. “When it was just Mike and me, laundry happened every few days. But now? Every day.”

“And it’s just going to get worse, you know,” I teased her, thinking of my sister’s three children and a fourth one that was soon to follow. We were running into the final countdown on her due date.

“Don’t remind me,” she moaned in mock resignation. “Burp cloths, bibs, towels, and even more eensie weensie sets of clothes. With all this technology, you’d think we’d have robots to take care of all this stuff like they did on The Jetsons.”

“Be nice, wouldn’t it?” I asked with a smile, knowing that she didn’t really mind. Charlie was being a wife and a mother and raising a family that she adored. She was happy with her life, even if it did require copious amounts of laundry detergent sometimes.

“I did have a reason for my call, other than to discuss my laundry woes with you, you know.”

“I thought as much,” I replied, playing dumb, not sure I wanted to hear where she was going with this.

She sighed, loud and long. “Okay. We really, really think you need to take a vacation, Dellie. A real one, one that lasts more than a weekend. More like a month,” she said.

I got up from my chair, feeling the tense muscles in my legs protest slightly. I’d been sitting way too long, glued to my chair in hopes that some stray thought might jump-start an actual burst of legitimate productivity, afraid that if I got up and away from my computer that I would miss the golden window of opportunity, should one present itself.

Alas, so far, all doors and windows, golden or otherwise, had not been forthcoming. Now seemed as good a time as any to get up from my throne of idleness and move around a little.

I started to pace.

“And I know you say you can’t take time away from work and you can’t afford it, but hear me out,” she pleaded.

“Hearing,” I said dubiously.

I paused in my pacing to peek out my living room window through a slight break in the blinds. As per usual, the neighbor one unit down and to my left was giving the entire apartment complex a visual feast, sporting an ill-fitting white wife beater tank top stretched over his sizable beer gut to barely meet the top of faded madras shorts. Madras.

He’s dressed up today, I thought absurdly.

“Getting away for awhile, even just to be in a new place, would be good for you. It might even get you out of your creative funk. And don’t say you’re not having one—you told me last week when we talked that you felt like the stuff you were working on was…less than inspiring?” she said, obviously searching for a kinder word than I had used in our previous conversation.

I raised an eyebrow.

“So since you’re so convinced you can’t actually put work on hold for a bit, take it with you. That’s one of the nice things about your job, remember? You can take it anywhere you want to go,” she barreled on.

“Aren’t you forgetting about the money thing?” I asked, sure I was going to bring this idea crashing back to reality. “And what about interviews?”

“You do those over the phone most of the time, and you know it,” she retorted. She was determined to make me come around.

“Not always, Charlie. Sometimes I actually have to go to meet these people when I write an article. And besides, maybe I’m too busy with things to just pick up and pack up and go.”

There was a long silence on the other end of the line. I could tell she was trying to muster every ounce of patience she had in her. And, as the mother of three small children, she had patience in spades.

“I know you have a lot of jobs going, Dellie, and I’m really proud of you for that. We’re all really proud of you,” she said gently. “But you need some time away from here, some space. Some fresh air, if you want to put it that way. It would be good for you to get out of your routine for a bit.”

“I happen to like routine,” I said, far from convinced by her argument and wanting desperately to get off the phone.

Charlie sighed. Clearly, this was not going the way she wanted it to.

Tough cookies.

“I know you do. But you’re also a slave to it, Odelle Simms. It controls you, rather than the other way around. You realize that, don’t you, Dellie?”

I glared down at my toes in frustration, feeling misunderstood and wishing I could glare at her in person. We may have lived only forty-five minutes from one another, but it was at times like this that those forty-five minutes seemed like light-years.

“If nothing else, maybe you could find some more people to write for—new magazines that would like to work with you?” she suggested, forced pleasantness creeping into her voice.

She was tiring of this argument as much as I was.

My mouth clamped shut, biting back my protest. I hadn’t actually thought about that. New contacts, new markets to reach. It was starting to sound interesting. Maybe she was onto something with that one. Still, the whole idea of this was overwhelming; there were far too many factors to weigh in, complications that could potentially tangle me up into a bigger mess than I already felt like I was in.

“Don’t put a limit on your dreams, Dellie,” Charlie said, breaking in to my rampant thoughts. “You got enough of that from your husband.”

The words felt like a slap in the face. A bucket of ice water.

My nose stung with looming tears.

“Don’t let him win this one,” she whispered. I could hear the tears in her voice, even with the phone line between us.

How did she do this to me? I wondered as water pooled in my eyes and trickled slowly down my cheeks.

“Charlie, I—” I sniffed, hearing my voice crack.

“Just think about it, please? Promise?”

I nodded into the phone, still staring down at my toes but no longer seeing them.

“Dellie?”

“I promise,” I squeaked back.

I knew, as I hung up, that this was one promise I would not easily break, as unsettling as the idea was for me. It was impetuous and adventurous, something I hadn’t allowed myself to be for a long time—even before I’d taken the walk down the aisle to start my short-lived failure of a marriage. This was one promise, one idea, that would haunt me for days, torturing my wakeful hours and whispering to me in my sleep.

Don’t limit your dreams, Dellie, I heard a voice whisper. Let go and dream them.

Chapter Two

“My sister thinks I need a vacation. A long one. Like, a month-long one,” I said to my friend Bette a week later over lunch.

She looked up from the plateful of fries she was attacking, one eyebrow arched.

“And this surprises you, why?” she asked around a mouthful.

I put down my sandwich to reach for a sweating glass of water, not thirsty but feeling a bit unsettled and trying to figure out as many ways as I could to stall. It was a mystery even to me why I had brought up the subject at this point. I had danced myself right in front of the firing squad, so I guess I deserved her pointed question. Not that it really was all that pointed or unreasonable.

In fact, it was more than logical.

For most people, it might have even been a simple question. But right then, I was so confused about what I wanted and how I felt about the whole thing that the most uncomplicated inquiry could send me off-kilter.

I left the glass where it sat, puddling moisture on the tabletop, and traced a finger down the side, keeping my focus fixed on it. Anything to avoid her green-eyed gaze.

I shrugged.

“Come on, Dellie. Really,” she said, exasperation thick in her voice. “How long have I been telling you the same thing? You work too much, and you don’t do anything with anyone anymore.”

My eyes shot up to her face, a protest ready to spring from my lips. “Yes, I—”

“No, you don’t,” she cut in, poking a fry in my direction and shaking it for emphasis. “You don’t. Every time I ask you to come do something with me, you tell me you have work to do.” She pouted, her lipstick still perfect even though she’d eaten her way through half a plate of fries. “I’m beginning to think you don’t like doing things with me.”

“No, Bette,” I said, shaking my head. “That’s not it at all, and you know it.”

She dunked the French fry in a pool of ketchup before popping it into her mouth.

“Well, then you’re going to have to show me. Otherwise, I will not be convinced,” she said, shaking her head. “In the meantime, back to the vacation thing. Your sister thinks it. I think it. And I know your parents think it.” She tilted her head to the side, her jewel-like eyes boring into me. “So why do you seem so…defensive about whole idea? Most people would just say, ‘Yes, I agree,’ or ‘No, go to hell,’ and move on.” She finished chewing and swallowed, pausing thoughtfully. “But you? You act like we’re telling you we think you need to move to Uganda or something.”

I shot her a look.

She shrugged again. “Okay, maybe not Uganda. But something risky or life-altering. We’re talking about a vacation,” she emphasized. “A break, you know? Something most people enjoy and recharge with.”

“Uh-huh, most people,” I shot back, picking up my fork to poke through the lettuce in my salad, in search of peppers. “And when was the last time my life resembled most people’s?”

“So maybe a vacation could be your reset button, and you could start having a somewhat normal life?” she posed.

I speared my salad, giving up on the peppers and shaking my head.

“A vacation isn’t a magical cure-all, Bette. And there are things that I can’t just leave here.”

“Oh?”

“Yes, many things.”

Bette ran a hand through her very thick, very raven hair to tuck it behind a heavily pierced ear.

“Name one.”

I opened my mouth, ready to start my verbal rundown.

“Besides work, Dellie.”

My mouth slammed shut as I thought.

Bette crossed her arms as she settled further into her chair, a smug look on her face.

I narrowed my eyes at her.

“For one thing, my apartment. I can’t just leave my apartment empty for that amount of time.” I shook my head, knowing that I probably sounded like I was grasping at straws. “Maybe it would be different if it was a house, and I had a neighbor I trusted to look after things. But in my apartment?” More headshaking. “Not really the best idea. Somebody might break in, and then what?”

“What am I, chopped liver?” she asked, looking slightly hurt.

“No,” I replied, puzzled. “But you’ve lost me. You live an hour away from my place, so it doesn’t really put you in the best position to keep an eye on things. And besides that, you’ve got work and Steve and—”

“And Steve could use a shake-up of his own,” she broke in, reaching again for her dwindling pile of French fries, now undoubtedly grown cold.

I watched her, a knot of apprehension growing in my gut. “What do you mean?”

She chose a fry and bit into it forcefully, funneling her aggression to the helpless spud.

“Let’s just say that Steve isn’t exactly keeping his priorities straight, and I think we could use some distance for awhile,” she replied. She swallowed. “Not forever, but…he needs to be reminded of some things.”

“Things being?”

“Things being that he has a wife who loves him and a marriage that he’s supposed to be committed to.” She sighed, looking sad.

I stared at her in dismay. “Is he cheating on you?”

Bette shook her head.

“No. Not yet. Not out-and-out cheating,” she said. “But there’s something going on with some woman he works with.” She blinked at the tears that I could see collecting in her eyes. “He just seems so distant all the time, like when he’s with me, he’s not really with me. And every time I try to talk to him about it, he pretty much just shuts down and changes the subject, says he’s got a lot going on at work and he doesn’t want to get into it. So I think a little time apart might do us some good,” she sniffed.

I plucked a paper napkin from the dispenser on the table and held it out to her. I’d never seen Bette get so emotional before, so this was new territory for me. Normally, she was the tough, show-no-fear type. The ball-crusher. And now she was showing a softer side that I wasn’t quite prepared for.

“So…?”

“I could stay at your place,” she said simply, regaining her composure as she dabbed the corners of her eyes with the napkin. “I’ll pay you a month’s worth of rent, and I promise to keep it spic and span.” She smiled. “No wild parties, I promise.”

I raised an eyebrow.

“Why does that phrase not reassure me?” I asked.

She spread her arms, shoulders raised toward her earlobes as she gave me a look of innocence. “I have no idea,” she replied. “Who on Earth do you think I would invite to a party?”

I narrowed my eyes.

“Aren’t you running for some new position in the League?”

She cocked her head sideways, still managing to appear angelic, somehow. Her eyes widened in a look of guiltless surprise as authentic as the color of her irises. And those babies were courtesy of 1-800-Contacts.

“Oh, that’s right. The vote’s coming up soon.” She shook her head. “You know, with everything else that’s been going on, I guess I forgot all about it.”

“Uh-huh. And your granny’s famous pecan pie is really a Sara Lee.”

“Don’t go dragging Granny into this, or you’ll regret it,” Bette growled. “Uh-uh, no ma’am,” she cautioned. “And especially don’t be insinuating that she buys her pies.” The last three words were whispered, eyes huge with the scandal of it all. “Uh-uh.”

For a minute, I thought she might actually genuflect and cross herself—even though Bette came from a family as un-Catholic as kosher wine.

Not that she was Jewish, either.

In fact, Bette’s family hadn’t stepped foot in a church of any kind since 1977, when the preacher at her parents’ church had railed against the evils of television from the pulpit. The man was positively off his rocker; but ever since then, the Martin family had eschewed Sunday morning service in favor of a soul-strengthening, artery-hardening Southern-style breakfast at the diner on the end of their street. At the time, Mr. Martin worked for the local ABC affiliate, so television kept a roof over his children’s heads and put food on the table. The negativity spewed from the lips of the preacher was unforgivable, and they’d never gotten over it. No matter that the man had long since retired or that there were any number of other churches in the area from which to choose. Mr. and Mrs. Martin had been soured on the church because of one pastor’s misplaced condemnation, and now they judged the institution as a whole by that measure. Sad and ironic, but true.

Even when Bette had come to her own decision as an adult to find and become active in a church, her parents had refused each and every invitation she had given them to join her for a service. But that was hardly the issue at hand.

I smiled at Bette, raising my hands in surrender.

“God forbid I ever do that,” I said, shaking my head. “I love your granny. And I know she’d sooner give up her prized collection of bake-off trophies than ever stoop so low as actually letting a store-bought pie pass through her doorway. Much less a Sara Lee.” I felt the smile slip a bit. “But you and I both know that you’re angling for a spot, and having a tea or mixer or whatever-the-heck y’all Junior League ladies do would help you along.” I shrugged. “You can admit it. I just don’t know that having it at my place would really be the best idea, in the end. It might actually hurt your chances.” I paused, looking for the best way to frame my argument without slamming my own living conditions or making her feel like I was judging her for whatever was happening between her and Steve.

“I’ve never had any issues with the neighbors on either side of me; but there’s a guy in the next building who likes to give everyone in the complex an eyeful, and the couple in the unit below mine has loud disagreements all the time. Much slamming of doors and hurling of Spanish expletives happening,” I said, deciding to lay it all out on the table and hoping it would be an effective deterrent.

“You speak about as much Spanish as an English bulldog, Dellie,” Bette replied, looking dubious. “How would you know what they’re saying, expletive or otherwise?”

I shrugged. “Educated guess.”

“Uh-huh. You’re just trying to talk me out of what you think I’m going to be doing while you’re gone. Which, for your information, my dear, is completely mistaken. I’m trying to be a good friend here, and you’re pooh-poohing it.” She clucked sadly.

Obviously, I wasn’t hiding my skepticism very well. “No, I’m just trying to help you see the bigger picture. My apartment isn’t exactly…Junior League material?”

“Honey, I wasn’t born yesterday,” Bette replied simply. Clearly, she had this all thought out. “I have no intention of letting my chances at the committee slip through my fingers just because Steve’s got his head up his rear and is thinking more with his weenie than with his brain.” She shook her head emphatically, looking smug. “He’s got some kind of corporate thing at work that day, so the man will be tied up and sadly unavailable to come in and ruin things. Or let the cat out of the bag that we’re having issues.” Bette’s eyes narrowed to slits. “That’s the last thing I need: one of the other women getting wind of the fact that Steve’s having trouble keeping his eyes on his own paper.”

“But what does that have to do with you being able to run for office?” I asked, already knowing the answer.

“Nothing,” she huffed, which sent her ample bosom heaving. Bette was nothing if not blessed with cleavage, and she knew how to work it. “But they like to gossip, and any inkling of scandal sets them off.” Her eyes rolled at the absurdity of it all. “Doesn’t matter that half of them have an entirely too intimate relationship with the wine bottle or that their own husbands are banging boots with the secretary. They look for any excuse to gossip.”

I snorted. “What year is this? And really, ‘banging boots?’ Since when do you say, ‘banging boots?’?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know. You want me to say something a little less ladylike?”

I shook my head emphatically. “No, no. I get the picture. Just call me curious. I’m a writer, remember? Comes with the territory.”

“Uh-huh. Back to the subject.”

“I think I’ve lost track of the subject,” I said honestly, wracking my brain to remember how we’d even gotten to this particular point.

Bette picked up the last French fry on her plate and pointed it at me. “You. Vacation. Your need for a break,” she enumerated.

How the woman remembered in the midst of all the verbal chaos was beyond me. In fact, I’d been holding on to a small sliver of hope that she really would forget this particular topic in favor of her own problems, but she was like a dog with a bone.

“But,” I started in protest.

“You’re not getting off that easy, lady.” Bette shot me a steely gaze. “I’ve known you way too long not to know your little tricks. You’d do well to remember that,” she warned.

I sighed. “I know. I guess I’m still afraid. You know how much I worry. And I can’t seem to stop doing it, either.”

Bette grinned. “My shrink would love you. Maybe she’d start to think I was normal!”

“Hey,” I said in mock insult. “I’m normal,” I insisted, trying—and failing—to convince both of us.

“Honey, you know I love you; but you’re far from normal.” Bette giggled. “That’s part of your charm.”

I arched an eyebrow. “You’re not winning any awards for normalcy, either.”

Bette grinned again. “Normal is overrated. What can I say?”

“Well, still,” I said, dropping my gaze to my hands in my lap. “Sometimes I think normal would be refreshing.”

Bette reached across the table to tap a finger lightly on my nose. “Hey, you. You’re tough, you’re beautiful, and you’re smarter than anyone knows what to do with.” Her eyes sparkled with emotion. “You’ve just had one hard run of it lately. But maybe this is just what you need. Like pressing ‘Control-Alt-Delete,’ if you want to geek out,” she concluded, echoing the words Charlie had spoken in our last conversation.

“Maybe you’re right,” I conceded. “Maybe you’re all right.” My nose burned with tears. “I’m just chickenshit sometimes.”

“Honey,” Bette laughed. “You’re the farthest thing from chickenshit. Don’t sell yourself short. You just gotta go out there and remember who you are,” she said simply, looking pleased with herself for offering such sage advice. “You’re a strong Southern woman who takes no nonsense,” she insisted. “Make this an adventure, Dellie. Don’t hide behind your computer.”

Chapter Three

I stared up at the ceiling, wondering, not for the first time, when I’d let my life get so out of balance. When I’d stopped seeking new adventures and started hiding from them.

Bette was right. I’d been allowing myself to hide behind my computer, and it was time to stop.

Could I afford a vacation, though?

Airfare, a place to stay, food…all of that would be hugely expensive, especially if I was to take everyone’s suggestion and go somewhere for a month.

And besides that, where would I go? After all, I lived in Florida, in a part of the state that people regularly flocked to for vacation, shelling out thousands and thousands of dollars to lie on the sugary white sand of our famous beaches. We walked the fine line of still being part of the Deep South, with some very traditional Southern ways of thinking and living, even while so many people heard the word Florida and immediately envisioned places like Miami or Ft. Lauderdale, where the glitterati ruled and the air of sophisticated living was tempered only by the high population of the retirement communities. Here, we had Southern culture, lived a more slow-paced life, ate the food steeped in the traditions of the South. We said Ma’am and Sir and respected our elders. We welcomed visitors with open arms, still very much accustomed to showing people Southern hospitality.

In short, I was trying to plan a vacation away from the very place that many people vacationed to.

As I lay there in the dark, my mind was devoid of ideas. Sure, there were all kinds of places I’d always dreamed of going, but I couldn’t afford any of them—not for a weekend, let alone a whole month.

I closed my eyes and shifted under the covers, savoring the feeling of being snuggled up in bed. With the odd hours I kept, I didn’t spend much time between the sheets, but when I was there, it was like heaven.

Think, Dellie, I ordered my brain. If you could go anywhere right now, where would you go?

To the bathroom.

The thought came so suddenly it almost made me giggle, which, given my current circumstances, would probably test my bladder far beyond its limits.

I tossed aside the bedsheet and blanket and shuffled down the hall to the bathroom, fighting back a grumble of frustration that was forming over my forced departure from the comfort of my bed, even if it was only a momentary one.

I flicked the light switch and blinked rapidly as my eyes tried to adjust to the harsh brightness. I tripped over my own feet as I blindly made my way further into the bathroom and somehow managed to knock over a small bottle of perfume I’d had resting on a narrow shelf above the towel bar. The stopper fell out; and perfume began to pour onto the shelf before I could set it upright again, releasing the heady scent of a fragrance that I’d never worn, one that my grandmother had loved while she was alive.

“No!” I howled, reaching for the upended bottle and trying to stop the spill before every drop was lost. I’d been foolish to place such a top-heavy bottle in such a precarious position on such a narrow shelf, but it was so pretty that I’d wanted to put it somewhere that I could see it and be reminded of my grandmother. My cramped little bathroom needed all the decorative help it could get, and the elegant, sparkling bottle had seemed the perfect way to spruce things up just a bit.

“No, no, no!” I moaned, seeing that there was only the smallest amount left. The liquid that had pooled onto the shelf began dripping onto the floor.

I was about to let out another whimper when a thought shot through my mind.

Grammie’s.

I wanted to go to Grammie’s.

Not that she was there anymore, but that was the way I would always think of the house in Hampton that she had shared for more than fifty years with my grandfather. I hadn’t been there in so long. Far too long. I’d missed the funeral earlier that year, explaining that I couldn’t take time away from work, that I didn’t have the money for the plane ticket.

Would Grandpa be welcome to the idea of me coming there to stay with him for a whole month?

But even if he was, there was still the issue of a plane ticket. And a car to use while I was there. And…

I shook my head, trying to shake away all the questions and quiet my mind. They would have to wait until tomorrow, when I could do some research and find out what plane tickets cost and I could call Grandpa to pose the question for myself. All the wondering in the world would get me nowhere if I never did that.

I finished in the bathroom, cleaning up the mess from the spill and doing what I’d come in to do in the first place, then toddled back to bed, trying to hush my overactive brain enough to let sleep come. Tomorrow was Saturday, one of the two days I allowed myself get the amount of sleep that a normal human being needed to function properly, and I savored those extra hours.

Once I was up, I’d start the quest for information.

And make a phone call that I should have made long ago…

My fate, it would seem, was literally in my hands as I stared at the flight itinerary that had been so thoughtfully sent to me by US Airways.

I was all booked on a flight out of Pensacola to Newport News, with a three-hour layover in Charlotte. It was real, set in stone—or whatever the Internet equivalent of stone might be. The flights were set and paid for, the seats that would anchor my overanxious ass preassigned and awaiting the arrival of my rump. The plane might have been ready, but I was not.

At least, not mentally.

My bags were hungrily awaiting their sartorial satisfaction, and every other bit of pre-trip preparation that needed to be taken care of had been thoroughly executed. Bette was happily counting down the minutes until she could take over her pied-à-terre, and my family was all quietly celebrating the victory of finally having convinced me that I really and truly did need some time away.

And so, less than a week after the initial proposition was made, cyberspace served up a bit of adventure and notified me that I could no longer keep the idea of a trip in that someday-maybe-I-should realm of unrealized musings.

Best to bite the bullet.

I clicked around awhile on my laptop, idly wondering what might be going on up in Virginia’s swingin’ city of Hampton during my month there, hoping I would find something to mitigate the overwhelming nervousness I felt.

I shook my head, wishing I could find that almost explosive sense of glee that I had always had as a child getting ready to go to my grandparents’ house. True, I wasn’t a child anymore, but Hampton was still Hampton. What had changed more than anything, I realized as I sightlessly wandered around the world in Wi-Fi, was the fact that Grammie was no longer there. The magic she had so unwittingly brought to her surroundings was now gone—residual, perhaps, in the memories—but no longer to be captured.

So was that what I was so afraid of? Facing that feeling of…loss?

Or was it that I was afraid to face myself, to push myself out of the hole I had created for myself and so deeply burrowed into?

It was safe there. It was secure.

It was controllable.

Nothing about this trip, if I was honest, was comfortable or truly controllable.

Which scared the absolute you-know-what out of me.

I picked up my phone and started punching out a text to Bette.

Wondering what to wear on flight to Virginia…and how many in-flight cocktails are allowed.

I plinked the words out, then hit Send.

I stared at the message of carefree bravado on the screen.

It sounded so que-sera-sera. So easy breezy.

So far removed from the roil of emotions that was actually running through me.

So very, very much braver than I felt. So very, very much the brave woman I wanted to be.

Fake it ’til you make it.

And I was determined to make it. Part of a new project I’d begun since booking my tickets was to make a bucket list of things I wanted to do: some were things that were completely new for me. Some were things that I’d once enjoyed but that had been cut from my life, once I’d let my fear start running the show. One of those bucket-list items was to take a trip, which I hadn’t done since before I’d gotten married, even. Once upon a time, I’d felt bold and adventurous and audacious in hitting the road or booking a flight all on my own. Anxiety had shut me off from that, had robbed me of the excitement I used to feel and replaced it with a sense of dread at being out of control, away from the zone of safety to which I’d confined myself. Taking this trip to Hampton was one way to combat that, to try to reclaim even the smallest sense of adventurousness that I used to have. I’d felt a thick mixture of fear and triumph as I’d crossed that one off my list, determined to go, even if I was in a cold sweat when departure time came.

Another one of those bucket-list items involved flirty panties, something I’d enjoyed buying once upon a time but had stopped wearing after I got married. Finally having someone to see my flirty panties should have been a win, but the man I’d married had been less than appreciative, shooting down my confidence and making me feel as though this small luxury was completely ludicrous and extremely frivolous. Which made Buy Flirty Panties shoot straight to the top of my newly constructed bucket list.

For anyone looking at my list, it would have seemed simple and mundane. They would likely raise an eyebrow at the normal-looking activities—those like Eat Somewhere Unsafe and Eat Cake might seem somewhat odd—but for me, a woman whose world was so ruled by the dictates of anxiety, these were things that took tremendous amounts of courage to complete. My food and restaurant choices had become driven by fear, confining me to only a limited number of meal options and places that felt safe to eat. It was part of dangerous self-denial that was a coping mechanism for the lack of control I had felt so strongly during a very vulnerable time in my life. Food was controllable—the rest of the world was not. These were steps to my own victory…

1. Buy Flirty Panties

2. Take a Trip

3. Eat Somewhere Unsafe

4. Get a Makeover: New clothes? Haircut? Make-up, etc.

5. Break from Routine

6. Reconnect with Family

7. Eat Cake

8. Go on a Date

9. Learn to Dance

10. Take a Long Shot

My eyes wandered to the clock at the top corner of my computer screen.

Time to get back to work. After all, I had a trip to finish preparing for.

Bags to pack and a bucket list to conquer.

And according to the calendar on my desk, not many days to do any of it in.

I decided to ignore the silence of my unanswered text to Bette and tried to shift my focus to the article I was currently tackling. “Mid-Year Makeover: How to Shake Things Up and Make the Most of the Next Six Months.”

I arched an eyebrow, as I did every time I caught a glimpse of the uninspired title.

Who came up with these things?

I couldn’t help but wonder, as no one with any ounce of imagination would dream up such a lackluster title. It was blah and a bit cliché, in my opinion, for a women’s magazine; but it was one more article to pay the bills.

One more article that would put my name out there.

One more article to add to my portfolio.

Who knows, I thought optimistically as my fingers found their rhythm on the keyboard, maybe I’ll learn something interesting.

After all, who couldn’t use advice on how to reinvent the rest of their year?

Or, really, the rest of their lives?

I certainly could.

Maybe this trip would help me do that.

Chapter Four

I could feel a full-on pout coming.

Sure, maybe it was unreasonable to expect nylon boots to last more than a decade without looking like crap; but when you’re living the high life on a freelance writer’s budget, you tend to hope for miracles everywhere you can find them. And this was one place that I was hoping to find miracles. After all, I needed some boots to wear in Hampton. The weather was starting to turn a little bit crisp, since summer seemed to be outward bound, and I was sorely lacking good fall shoes aside from my ten-year-old Doc Marten Mary Janes. I raised an eyebrow.

Sensing a theme here. It seemed that many items in my closet were actually old enough to be at the upper echelons of elementary school. Maybe not something to brag about. Especially not to Bette, who already thought I was a perfect candidate for Extreme Cheapskates. I was beginning to worry that I might come home one night to be accosted outside my apartment by a TLC film crew dead set on capturing a reel of my very mundane, very budgeted life as a writer, which involved trying to squeeze blood out of every penny I could find.

But I digress.

I stood at my closet in sad—and getting increasingly sadder—contemplation of the contents within. If I was going to start packing for a month away, I needed to face reality and figure out what was actually wearable in there. At first glance, it looked pretty good, but a more thorough investigation revealed a copious number of tops, dresses, and skirts that I wasn’t comfortable with anymore.

Not in my current state, anyway. With my naturally slight build, I’d never had a weight problem; but even my once-slim frame had been greatly reduced by small anxieties that had built up over time and become almost overwhelming. I found relief only when I channeled them all into one focus: food and my ability to control it. True, the weight loss had been unintentional, even subtle at first. But now it was undeniable. Startling, if I was being perfectly honest. My clothes hung limply on me, my light brown hair—the curls once so bouncy—was thin and dry, my once full cheeks left hollow. The only things that seemed not to have changed were my eyes. Those, at least, were still a shade of almost aqua blue that constantly caught people’s attention. This, I thought, seeing my reflection in the mirror mounted on my closet door, this is why I try to hide. This is why… I shook my head against the encroaching feelings of defeat, of anger at myself, of frustration at my own weaknesses. Now was not the time for this. Now was the time to get out of my own way, to pack my bags and try to find a new future.

I shifted my focus back to the numerous articles of clothing hanging so neatly in my closet and shook my head again. This was really getting me nowhere. What I needed—besides a total life makeover—was a wardrobe overhaul, a bigger budget, and some time with my sister. For some reason, staring into my closet was making me miss her like mad. I took a peek at my watch.

Half past noon.

Hmmmm. Probably not the ideal time to call her, since it was likely that she was elbow deep in lunchtime with the kids. After sandwich crumbs and applesauce smears were wiped up, she would have to get them down for naps, and then she’d have a little time to talk. I squinted up at the ceiling, mentally calculating. That put me at about an hour from now.

One. Whole. Hour.

Unfortunately for me, the prospect of an hour seemed almost endless, and I needed to talk to someone.

I reached into the back pocket of my jeans for my phone and scrolled through to the speed dial button for my mother. Hopefully she would answer.

After an almost interminable few seconds of having to listen to it ring on the other end of the line, she finally picked up, sounding out of breath but perky.

Definitely a good sign, I thought, instantly feeling my mood lift a little.

“Hi, Mama,” I said.

“Oh, hi, Dellie, baby. How are you?” she asked.

“Fine.” I shrugged, even though I knew she couldn’t actually see it. “Just trying to figure out what to take. Not getting anywhere,” I sighed.

“No? Even with all of that stuff in your closet?” she marveled. I could just picture her, mouth agape, blue eyes wide with incredulity. As my mother and former cohabiter of anyplace I’d called home for most of my life, she had reason to be so amazed. She’d seen the size of my wardrobe while I was living with her and my dad before I was so unhappily wed, and she had helped me move from said house of mirth into my current apartment. Which most likely meant she also assumed that I still wore all of it.

Or, at least, most of it.

In all reality, though, I was wearing a steady rotation of about ten outfits, thrown on without thought beyond the fact that they were functional. My jeans were old enough to babysit for my shoes, and my one bra was almost old enough for pre-school.

If it wasn’t so sad, it might have been funny.

“Most of the stuff in my closet is destined for the consignment shop,” I said, wrinkling my nose.

“Why? You’ve got so many cute clothes.” Quite a reasonable observation. And very true, indeed. They were cute, and I really liked most of them. But most of the pieces felt like they belonged on someone else, with a different life. Someone who went out with friends and had spur-of-the-moment lunch dates. Someone who didn’t look just as hollowed out as she felt on the inside most of the time. Someone I missed.

I sighed, hoping she hadn’t heard it.

“Are you okay, honey? Are you sleeping okay?” she asked, concern creeping into her voice. “Are you eating okay?”

I couldn’t help the smile that tugged at my lips. No matter that I was now in my thirties or that we saw one another on a pretty regular basis, she was definitely still my mama. And I had to admit, there was a certain degree of comfort in that knowledge.

“Yes, ma’am,” I replied, a blanket answer to all three questions. It might not be the absolute God’s honest truth, but it was what came out. Much as I really wanted to lay everything out there right now, I didn’t want to worry her, either.

“I know you probably think I’m being nosy, but I’m your mother, and I only want the best for you. I want to see you happy, and healthy, and have everything good in life.”

I smiled. “I know, Mama, I know. I’ll get there. Things are just a little stressed right now.”

“I know that—which is why I’m glad you’re going to take this trip. I really think it’ll do you some good.” I heard a smile creeping into her voice. “And you can do a little bit of spying on your grandfather for me.”

“You bet. I’ll have daily updates for you, if you want,” I replied.

She laughed. It was a beautiful sound—one I couldn’t bear to think about never hearing again. How do you deal with the loss of your mother? I wondered silently.

“Mama?” I ventured. “I know you’re worried about me, and you’re worried about Grandpa…but how are you? How are you feeling these days? I know it’s been a few weeks since we had some time together, and I feel like I’m being a horrible daughter,” I said, adding one more item to my own guilt list. “Are you doing okay?”

There was a deafening silence on the other end.

“Mama?” I asked again.

“Mmm?”

“I love you.” My voice was thick with emotion.

“I love you back, baby. So much,” she whispered.

“So, so much,” I echoed.

“Now go pack,” she said, clearly having decided to regain her grip on her composure. “You only have three days until you leave.”

I rolled my eyes, letting my gaze fall on the itinerary I’d printed out. As if I could forget. Three days to pack. Three days to wrap my head around this whole thing. Only three days. I felt my gut tighten.

“Three days,” I repeated flatly.

“Suck it up, Buttercup,” Mama said, sounding gleeful.

“And put on my Big Girl Panties?”

“You got it. Just make sure they’re presentable.”

Chapter Five

“Ooh, can I go, too?” My sister was surprisingly excited over the thought of underwear shopping—especially for a pregnant woman. Maybe she was thinking ahead and looking forward to being able to see her toes…and other parts of herself when she looked down again. Or perhaps there was some kind of Panty Fever sweeping Pensacola and the rest of the Florida panhandle that I didn’t know about; but the last time I checked, we were hardly the lingerie capital of the world. People here were generally more focused on fishing lures and tackle boxes than fishnet stockings and bustiers.

“When are you going?” Charlie asked, breaking into my thoughts.

“Seriously? You want to go underwear shopping with me?”

“It’s not just underwear shopping, Dellie, remember? It’s part of your bucket list,” she said, reminding me of my new project. I’d told her about it in a text, and now I was wondering if maybe that had been a mistake. “We have to find you something really pretty. The sparklier, the better. No Granny Panties for you,” she declared.

“Why does it matter what they look like? No one’s going to see them, anyway,” I replied, feeling myself waver a bit.

“It matters because you see them,” Charlie said.

“So?”

“So that still matters. No one else sees them, true. But you’ll know they’re there. Think of them like a superhero cape.”

“Since when did I become Wonder Woman?” I snorted.

“Who says you can’t be?”

“What do your panties look like?” I asked, my curiosity suddenly piqued.

Charlie sighed wistfully from her end of the line.

“You don’t want to know,” she moaned. “I miss pretty panties. And pretty bras. I’d kill for a new bra.”

“Really?”

“Are you kidding? I haven’t had a new bra since the last time I was pregnant, and now I’m in this nursing bra that’s barely holding its own. I’ve got saggy boobies, so nothing looks like it fits right.”

I shook my head. “Charlie, you’re crazy,” I said. “I just don’t see it. You’ve got three kids and you look more put-together than I do. And I don’t even have the saggy booby thing going on. I’ve got the no booby thing, remember?”

“Believe it. This is the same nursing bra I used on the last go round, so it’s looking pretty sad.”

I smiled. “Well, your underwear might be sad, but I seriously doubt that Mike is,” I said wickedly.

“O-delle!” she scolded, sounding slightly scandalized. I could almost hear the blush in her voice. But there was also the slightest tinge of delight.

“It’s true, and you know it, Charlotte. Don’t try to be all sweet and innocent preacher’s wife with me.” I laughed. “I know better than that. I don’t care what the sorry state of your underwear might be, Mike can’t keep his hands off you. And why not? He’s a man of God, and you and I both know that God is a huge fan of sex. Remember that sermon Mike preached on Song of Solomon? Some racy stuff right there,” I sniggered oh-so-maturely. It seemed so easy to be silly when we were talking about something else other than me. “Plus, I happen to know for a fact that eighty percent of the women in your congregation would trade places with you in a heartbeat, and the other twenty percent are playing for the other team and just haven’t ’fessed up to it yet.”

“Stop it! You’re being terrible!” she managed through giggles.

“Mommy, is Daddy tickling you?” I heard from somewhere on the other end.

“Oh, is that what they’re calling it now?” I snickered.

“No, sweetie, Mama’s just talking on the phone with Aunt Dellie, and she told Mama a joke,” she called through the laughter.

“Aunt Dellie! Hi, Aunt Dellie! When can you come play?” I heard my niece screech in excitement.

“Yes, Aunt Dellie, when can you come play?” Charlie echoed.

“Oh, no you don’t,” I said. “Don’t bring your sweet little angels into this to throw me off topic,” I commanded.

“Never,” my sister agreed.

“I mean it, Charlie. You’re like the Proverbs 31 woman and Heidi Klum all in one. I think half the women on the planet hate you just on principle.”

“Yeah, right.”

“You do occasionally look in the mirror, right?”

“Only when I have to,” she sighed.

“No pity here, babe. Nu-uh. If I didn’t love you so much, I’d hate you. But you’re far too awesome for that. And that husband of yours is definitely not hard to look at.” I paused, feeling a little ding in my head go off. “Ooh, there’s gotta be an article there. ‘Below the Bible Belt: Hot Southern Preachers and the Women Who Stoke the Fires of their Pulpits.’” I tittered.

“Shame on you! Does Mama know you talk like that?”

“Where do you think I get it? You can add us both to your prayer list,” I teased. “Or tell that church gossip of yours MayBeth Andrews. She’ll have an email chain out faster than you can blink.”

“Now, now,” Charlie tsked. “MayBeth means well.”

“Of course she does, bless her heart,” I said sarcastically, invoking the phrase Miss MayBeth loved to insert into every possible moment of conversation. Now there was a drinking game in the making—MayBeth said, “Bless her heart!” Everybody drink!

“She does. I think it’s just misplaced good intentions. You know how her mother is, and that’s where I think she gets it. The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, as they say.”

“Uh-huh. Well, maybe MayBeth could use some new panties of her own,” I grumbled.

“Bless her heart,” Charlie said, dissolving into laughter.

The panties exploding in a riot of color from their various drawers at the lingerie store were nothing if not a bold statement in celebration of the right to decorate your derriere. And various other lady bits, of course. And since I hadn’t been to the lingerie store for more than a year, I felt a bit like a little kid in a candy store as I rifled through the multitudinous styles and fabrics that came in my size.

Throngs of thongs and billions of bikinis, heaps of hipsters… It made the eyes cross. If I was going to be honest, I wanted them all. I wanted to gorge myself on them and not have to choose. I wanted to lay claim to every pair that even hinted at impracticality and march my soon-to-be-spectacular butt up to the black-clad ladies behind the cashier’s counter and plunk down my pile of goodies.

Not so much for the panties themselves, but for what they represented. All through my mess of a marriage, my cache of fun, flirty panties had gone either unappreciated or scoffed at—a reaction that I had definitely not expected. Naive perhaps, but I had thought that the man I married would take one look at my lovely little lacies and light up with glee. Instead, I got raised eyebrows or shrugs, followed by a dismissive, “They’re a pointless waste of money.”

So I had done the logical thing, the economic thing.

The defeated thing.

I had taken stock of all of my brand-spanking-new-with tags but un-returnable pretties and posted them for sale on Craigslist and eBay, netting me far less money than they were worth, perhaps; but soothing my sense of having made an unnecessary and extremely unwise splurge on something so silly as panties.

Which, consequently, now left me with a huge hole in my underwear drawer—not only number-wise, but in regards to variety and style. Everything was either black, white, or nude. And now, after so many wears, all of it had seen far better days. Hence my mother’s concern at the TSA agents catching a glimpse of the sad state of affairs if they so happened to rifle my drawers. Not to mention Charlie’s support of my bucket list and her insistence that I make a concerted effort to replace the contents of my lingerie drawer with something a little more racy.

We were all, in a way, trying to resuscitate me, one pair of panties at a time.

One bucket-listed goal at a time.

“These are perfect, Dellie!” Charlie squealed, gleefully holding up a pair of extremely pink, extremely sparkly pair of bikinis that were covered in sequins.

They were loud.

They were proud.

They were the most impractical, most sparkly pair of panties I had ever seen.

And they were going to be mine.

“Oooh, Charlie,” I breathed, taking the substantially sequined slip of fabric in my hands, stroking the sparkles reverently. “They’re beautiful.”

“And you’re going to get them, even if I have to drag you to the register by your hair,” she insisted.

“They’re so pretty,” I said again, still not raising my voice above a whisper.

“And you’re getting them,” she repeated. “Right?”

I flicked the price tag. “Good God, they’re expensive. I can’t get these, Charlie. It’s ridiculous. They’re so far from practical it’s insane,” I said, feeling my desire for the panties and my resolve at working on my project slipping under the surface of my budget consciousness.

Charlie narrowed her blue eyes at me. “Odelle Pearl,” she said, her previously radiant glow of triumph now replaced by a glower. “Do they cover your ass?”

“You said ass,” I squeaked, eyeing my eighteen-month-old nephew as he peeked out from the baby backpack currently strapped to her back.

“Zeke’s not going to rat us out, so stop trying to distract me while you come up with excuses about why you really shouldn’t get them. You. Are. Getting. Them,” she growled.

“But they’re…they’re…” I stammered.

“They cover everything that needs to be covered, Dellie. They just do it in a spectacularly sparkly way, which makes them absolutely, insanely perfect. And therefore, they are necessary.”

I looked down at the panties in my hand. They were so pretty. I could imagine myself wearing them. Feeling pretty, feeling strong. Feeling special and confident, even though no one would know I was wearing them.

They more than simply panties. They were a symbol of freedom. A symbol of hope.

And therefore, just as my sister had so wisely declared—necessary.

Those last days flew by as I finished packing, still trying to kick myself into the proper headspace for this whole adventure.

That was how I was trying oh-so-determinedly to think of it.

An adventure. A search to find a new me…or even to reconnect with the self I had let myself lose. Once upon a time, people had told me I sparkled, and I wanted more than anything to be that girl—or rather, that woman—again. I wanted to be inspiring to people, to leave them basking in the afterimage brightness of my glow. I wanted to approach life with abandon and optimism, rather than fear.

As I strapped myself into my seat on my US Airways flight, a small smile crept across my lips. I may have been dressed in a pair of plain-Jane jeans that needed replacing and a well-cut but unremarkable white button-down, but underneath it all, there was a pair of panties with enough shine to guide a plane back to the runway.

Remember who you are, Dellie, I thought, settling in as the flight attendant instructed us on the finer points of surviving a crash landing. Remember who you are and let people see you sparkle.

Chapter Six

There had always been a can of White Rain hairspray in the cabinet, the kind with the shiny green cap and green writing on its silver surface. I remembered the smell of Noxzema, the mentholated white cream in the blue plastic jar, before they went all designer and started making everything from lotions to blackhead-zapping treatments and exfoliating scrubs. Back then, you had one choice: the no-nonsense blue jar with a screw-on lid. No pumps, no frills. Just that unmistakable blue jar. I would look for that jar on every visit, making sure that it was still there in the center cabinet of her tri-paneled medicine cabinet. Some part of me was always looking for reassurance that nothing had changed within the safe little realm of my grandparents’ home. That while we were getting older and everything else was different, there were certain things that were still sacred. So there, in Grammie’s mirrored medicine cabinet, was a thick balm of reassurance. It gave me endless pleasure to unscrew the lid and breathe in its familiar scent, a scent I smelled nowhere else but at my grandmother’s house, the scent of maturity and skin that was being pampered by a deeper clean than my own little face was used to getting. The smell of being a Big Girl, all grown up.

Depending on the time of day, there might be a set of partials soaking in a glass by the sink, the bright pink of artificial gums looking almost lurid as they waited for their next wearing. Multiple tubes of lipstick were always scattered in various locations—some on the faux marble counter to the left-hand side of the sink; some in the little medicine cabinet, on the shelves next to the Gold Bond powder. Again, those were the simpler days, before they branched out and explored all kinds of different formulations of their stock product. Gold Bond was Gold Bond, and it came in a harvest gold plastic canister with a red sifter top.

But back to the lipsticks. They were all invariably Revlon or Cover Girl or Avon, but all of them bore close resemblance to one another in shade—a mauvy rose shade that seemed to get pinker and pinker as time wore on and she got older. Grammie wore Cover Girl blush and pressed powder—another one of those smells that, for some reason, made a heady, heavy imprint on my brain. Lever 2000 or Tone were her soaps of choice, resting in the soap dish tile above the sink, settling with authority into a little suction-cupped soap-saver mat. Sometimes she had Pert Plus shampoo on the ledge of the fiberglass tub-and-shower combo, sometimes it was Pantene. And more often than not, there were foil packets of Alberto VO5 Hot Oil Treatment somewhere in that medicine cabinet, buried amidst all the other clutter along the white plastic shelves of its interior.

These were some of the sights and smells of Grammie’s bathroom, that special lair of lady-dom where us girls prepared every morning for the day and every evening for bed. This was the one with a high, handicapped toilet rather than the standard bowl, where you could peek out the shoulder-height window to see who was on the deck, who might be ringing the bell at the back door or was thomping away after letting the old screen door slam shut behind them. These were the sights and smells that were decidedly absent for me, as I stood staring and studying from the doorway. They made me feel her loss even more acutely, those personal little things that were no longer there.

Would the shock have been less if they’d still been there, unused and collecting the dust of time and neglect? I shook my head and tried to blink back the tears that I felt burning my eyes, my nose, my throat. She wasn’t coming back. I would never get to bury my head in the warm pillowy softness of her frame. She had always disparagingly called herself fat—but she wasn’t fat. She was Grammie, and grammies were supposed to be warm and powdery and soft. She was fluffy. She represented the safety of innocence and youth and fun summers of being carefree.

I looked around at the hollowness of the bathroom.

What was this place going to be like, now that she was no longer here?

I sighed, and it seemed to echo in the small room. I would have almost a month to find out.

Today was day one of my trip.

Today was day one of the Break from Routine listing on my bucket list.

Today was the beginning of my goal to Reconnect With Family, people like my grandfather, as well as the cousins and uncles and aunts who were part of the thread of my extended family—people I’d lost touch with somewhere along the way as my world shrank to be smaller and smaller.

Today was Day One, and I had a lot of work to do.

“Hey, Dellie,” Grandpa said half an hour later, looking up from the paper. He was ensconced in his recliner in the den, his pale bare feet propped up on the footrest, the lamp next to him casting a dim glow of light in the brown-ness of the den.

It was, undeniably, a very brown room. Brown plush carpeting, brown paneling on the walls, brown furniture. Brown, brown, brown. But it had always been that way, in various shades of the same hue, different forms and fabrics coming and going through the years, but always brown. It was a fact that was immutable, and one that comforted me beyond words.

“Hi,” I said, smiling at the familiar sight of him there, in that chair, paper in hand. “What are you watching?”

“The news for now. It should be over in a few minutes, though. Was there something you wanted to watch?” he asked, peering at me from behind the lenses of his glasses.

I shook my head silently, casting a quick glance at the television screen as I shuffled toward the blue recliner that bore pride of place in the room, on the other side of the coffee table from his own chair. It was Grammie’s chair. The more comfy chair, the one that all of us grandchildren made a beeline for. The one that held her scent and bore her imprint.

“This is WAVY TV 10,” said a voice as the newscasters reappeared on the screen.

“No. Nothing I want to watch. Just came to see what you were doing and if you wanted some company,” I murmured.

“I always want your company,” he boomed back at me with a smile. “You’s my gal.”

It was a familiar phrase from him, a simple string of words that I couldn’t hear enough. And now, they seemed to mean even more.

“Good.” My smile back wavered as I noticed how the walls almost echoed with absence.

“So, big things going on in the world?” I asked. Not that I really cared all that much what the news anchors were droning on about, but it seemed an appropriate thing to say at the moment.

“Government’s still the government,” he grumbled good-naturedly. “The race was good, though. My driver won.” His grin widened.

“Yay.”

“Too bad I’m not a betting man; I might have made some money,” he said.

I arched an eyebrow and smiled. “Right, but betting would’ve sucked all the fun out of it for you. I’m glad you’re not the betting type.”

“Why’s that?” he asked.

I shrugged. Something about the idea of my grandfather placing a bet, even if it was just among some of his friends, seemed vaguely unsettling. It seemed dishonest, somehow, and out of character for him. I would’ve had to readjust who I knew him to be. Hardworking, salt-of-the-earth, outspoken.

“Well, no worries. Betting’s for idiots,” he said simply.

“And you’re no idiot,” I returned, keeping my face as sober as possible, even though I felt a smile creeping its way in. Some things never changed, and those were things that were reassuring beyond expression.

“Nope. I’ll tell you who is, though,” he said, the wrinkles of his wizened face shifting as his expression became one of wide-eyed incredulity. “Walt. Old fart,” he panned, not even waiting for me to guess.

I felt my eyebrows shoot up in surprise. “Walt bet on the race?” I squeaked.

“Not on this race, maybe,” Grandpa said, shaking his head as he spoke. “He and Harry have started betting on them, though; and last week those two fools lost their shirts in a bet they had going with two of the boys down at the church.”

“Say what?” I knew I sounded stupefied, but truth be told, I was. There was really no other word for it.

Especially knowing Walt. And Harry. The two brothers had been in my grandparents’ circle of friends for more than fifty years, so I had no memories of a summer passing without them in it. In fact, for as long as I could remember, I’d always called them Uncle Walt and Uncle Harry. I’d gone through much of my childhood thinking they must have been blood relatives.

Silly, perhaps, since the two men were light-skinned African-Americans, but with a family tree as odd as mine, you never knew exactly where one branch might lead. And Lord, if there weren’t things buried deep in family histories that no one ever talked about. They just were. And, as inconceivable as they might have actually been, some things were just glossed over.

Like mom’s cousin Jean, who was three months “premature.” ’Cause goodness knows, her mama walked down that aisle a virgin, pure as the driven snow. It didn’t matter that Jean weighed a healthy eight pounds when she was born. Nope. That cute little butterball of blondness was born three months early.

Also a subject never raised at the dinner table was the fact that Great Uncle Billy was looking mighty chipper in the months before he died. No one ever talked about that one, no ma’am. His buxom twenty-five-year-old home healthcare worker wasn’t responsible for that in any way. It didn’t matter that no one had ever heard of the company she worked for, and that Uncle Billy’s buddies had knocked on his door one day with her in tow—looking mighty professional in thigh-high hooker boots and a skintight nurse’s uniform. The minute the bubble she’d just blown into her bright pink Bubble Yum bubblegum popped and Billy could see the face that went along with the bosoms, she was hired. She was his angel from heaven, bless her heart. She ministered to him in his last days and eased his passing.

Uh-huh.

And now, she was mourning his loss just like the rest of us. Only she was doing it from somewhere on a beach in St. Thomas.

But I digress.

“Since when do Harry and Walt bet on races? Or anything?” I demanded.

Grandpa shook his head, obviously aggrieved. “Since Evelyn died and took Walt’s sense with her. Now he and Harry are running around acting like idiots. Doing things neither one of ’em would’ve done when she was alive. Jackasses,” he spat.

“Grandpa!”

He shot me a look. “What? It’s true.”

“Still.” I paused, studying the ceiling. “Is there something to worry about with those two?” I asked quietly.

I saw him shaking his head out of the corner of my eye. “Worry? No. They’ll come to their senses after they lose enough times.”

“Let’s hope so.”

“She’s only been gone for a few months,” Grandpa said. “They’ll come to their senses,” he said again, a little more quietly this time.

“Don’t we all,” I whispered, not taking my eyes from the ceiling. “Don’t we all.”

I woke up drooling thirty minutes later, startled by a warm hand on my cheek. Grandpa’s hand, gnarled with age and peppered with liver spots. A Band-Aid was wrapped around the knuckle of his left index finger, covering a cut he’d gotten earlier in the week while he was replacing some rotting wood on the deck outside. The man was never idle, never really still. Even when he was outwardly still, there was the underlying hum of some pent-up energy just waiting to be released. It was an inherent part of him, and I wouldn’t have recognized him without it. No one would have.

I smiled sleepily at him. “Oops. I guess I was drooling, huh?” I sat up, uncurling my legs from where they’d been tucked up under me in the recliner. My eyebrows knotted together. “Please tell me I wasn’t snoring. Or talking in my sleep. I was, wasn’t I? I do that sometimes, I’m sorry,” I babbled.

“No, no. No snoring.” He smiled. “Or talking. Don’t worry.” He stopped and looked up at the clock on the mantel. The room had gotten darker without the glow of the TV, which now sat black and hulking from its corner perch on the entertainment center. “It’s just late, and I think we both might be ready for bed now, huh?”

I nodded, stretching as I rose from the chair.

“Bed. Good idea,” I agreed. “Very good idea. Good night, Grandpa.” I leaned forward on my toes to kiss him on the lips.

“Good night, Dellie,” he said, returning my kiss. He pulled me in for a hug, wrapping his warm, strong arms around me. It felt good, safe—familiar. And I breathed in the scent of him—an indefinable mix of soap from his shower earlier that evening and Grandpa.

“I love you,” I mumbled into his neck.

“I love you, too, Dellie. And I’m glad you’re here.”

I moved my head from the crook between his neck and shoulder to look into his eyes as they glittered in the darkened room. “Me, too,” I said on a whisper. A smile wavered across my lips, unsettled by feelings of fear that were encroaching, but I held on. “Very glad.”

And I was. Glad to be there. Glad to be looking into the eyes of my grandfather, hoping that he would still be there to smile back at me for many years to come.

Chapter Seven

It was, in some ways, I supposed, my grandfather’s way of laying claim to a long and bright future ahead, this newly acquired truck in a bold shade of candy-apple red. He had traded in his own truck, an earlier iteration of this one, without all the bells and whistles and info-tech gadgetry that came with the newer models. Ever the die-hard Dodge Ram man, Grandpa had been unwavering in his decision with what make and model he wanted to bring home, no doubt putting the salesmen on the floor at Tidewater Dodge through their paces to earn every single solitary cent of their commission.

What was missing now—leaving a noticeable hole in the old, detached garage—was a minivan. It wasn’t out on errands, traversing some stretch of Hampton between Food Lion or Walmart or Costco. It wasn’t on its way to church.

Or maybe it was.

Wherever it was headed, though, it was never coming back to reclaim its space within the walls of this aluminum-sided garage, such a familiar sight in its dated shade of what was once called avocado green during a heyday of decades long gone by. Someone new had claimed the minivan, moving the mirrors and shifting the seat, erasing her preset buttons on the radio. No key rings dangled a declaration of Mom’s Taxi from its ignition. No box of tissues claimed the space between the front seats and the console.

Instead, there was nothing but emptiness beside this shiny new specimen of steel. Nothing but emptiness and an old tube sock, stuffed and dangling on a string from the ceiling in anticipation of meeting the slight curve of a windshield, guiding it to a safe stop.

I stared at the tube sock, then felt my gaze inextricably drawn to the scarred and stained concrete floor. Ghosts of puddles, faded reminders of the inner workings of so many minivans over so many decades.

It was like the vehicular version of the empty pillow on the empty side of the bed. Stark and lonely. Almost rude in its announcement that something—someone—was missing.

“How do you like my truck?” Grandpa asked, the suddenness of his voice almost jarring.

I blinked, forcing my brain back to the present, to the upcoming outing with my grandfather. I wasn’t going to wallow here, in this loss. Grammie would have stood for none of it.

“It’s some truck,” I said, stretching my lips into a smile. And it certainly was. It was some truck, perfect and shiny and red, such a difference from the steady succession of blue trucks he’d had over the course of my life. Maybe that’s what he had been hoping for. Something different. Some kind of visual reminder that there were still new things to be had, new memories to make, even if he had to do them on his own. His life wasn’t over, any more than mine was. Now it was up to us to decide whether those futures were dull and hopeless or shiny and bright with possibility—like a sweet candy apple just waiting to be bitten into.

“So where do you want to go?” he asked, eyebrows raised in interest.

I looked down at my hands, resting idly in my lap now that we were both encapsulated in the front seats of the truck’s sumptuous cab. This truly was one impressive piece of machinery, light-years away from anything I’m sure he could have ever envisioned as a young man with a family to raise.

“Honestly, Grandpa, I have no idea,” I replied, feeling a bit lost. “I haven’t been here in so long, and I know a lot of things have changed.” I paused, lifting my gaze and regarding him thoughtfully. “Do you have anywhere you like to go? Show me around a little.” I bit my lip. I hated sounding so indecisive, but I really wasn’t sure what was even here anymore. “Is that okay?”

“Sure, sure,” he said, sounding chipper. Give Grandpa a mission, and he was happy. I had just made him my unofficial tour guide, and I could see he was getting into the idea. “You’ve never been to Peninsula Town Center, have you?”

I wracked my brain, coming up short. The name didn’t sound familiar. “Um, no?” I said, shaking my head. “What is it?”

He smiled. “It’s a whole bunch of stores and shops and restaurants, kind of like a mall. Since they tore down Coliseum Mall, they had to do something with all that space, you know.” He turned the key in the ignition and the truck roared to life. “I think you’ll like it.”

“Well, it sounds like a plan, then.” I narrowed my eyes at him. “But really, are you sure you want to go shopping?”

“You’re a girl. I’m sure you probably like doing that, right?” He chuckled.

I shrugged. “Yes and no. It can be fun, if you’re in the right mood and with the right people,” I admitted.

“So. Am I the right people?” he asked with a smile. I peered closely at him, examining every inch of his timeworn face. The question was asked flippantly, but I saw the unexpected slight sheen of tears in his eyes. Even though he was playing the whole situation quite well, I could tell it was wearing on him—even if he didn’t want to admit it to himself or to anyone else.

“You’re definitely the right people,” I said, hoping he knew just how much I meant them. “Am I the right people?” I heard my voice break.

“You bet. I can’t think of anyone I’d rather go with. We can have lunch while we’re out there, too,” he replied, glancing at the glowing face of the clock on the space-age dashboard.

I followed his gaze. “Good Lord, there are a lot of lights and things on there,” I marveled, feeling my eyes widen. It made me feel overwhelmed, just looking at them. “How do you keep all of that straight?”

Grandpa’s grin broadened as he peeked in the rearview mirror and began to back out of the garage. “To tell you the truth, Dellie, I haven’t figured it all out yet. It’s got so many bells and whistles on there, I don’t think I’ll find them all before it’s time to trade it in for a new one!”

“Seriously,” I breathed. “I’d be afraid to start it, I think. Something might explode!” I giggled.

“It’s definitely something. What they don’t put in cars nowadays.” He shook his head, turning out onto the road to head toward our newly determined destination. Just the two of us, on an adventure together. I thought about that a minute, realizing I’d never actually gone anywhere with him on my own. Grammie had always been with us—and if she wasn’t there, there was always someone else there. It was odd, a foreign sensation, and the sudden realization made it seem all the more important to get things right.

“So have you been there many times before?” I asked, shifting the conversation back to our outing.

He shook his head. “No. I went there a few times before Christmas to get some gifts, a couple of times to pick up some birthday presents for the little ones,” he murmured. There was a melancholy to his voice, his words underscored by the unspoken acknowledgement that my grandmother would have been the one to make those trips. Instead, he was relearning the landscape on his own, no longer accompanied by the companion who had seen him through so many years. No longer was there a feminine hand to guide him, at the helm of the ship as it wended its way through the sometimes perilous seas of crowds at the mall or in the grocery store.

“I guess it’ll be some exploring for both of us, then,” I chirped, trying to lighten the mood a bit.

He nodded in silent contemplation as he scrolled through his own limited experience at the string of shops. “I know there’s the Penney’s, Macy’s—used to be Hecht’s, you know,” he enumerated. “Some big book store. I think it’s a Barnes and Nobles,” he continued, adding an extra “s” to the store’s name. “Target’s a little ways down, too. Some restaurants and a bunch of stores that I’ve never heard of before.” He paused. “Most of ’em I’ve never heard of before. But we’ll see what kind of trouble we can get into.” He took his eyes off the road long enough to give me a wink and a little smile. “You can be my date.”

I blushed, feeling an unexpected little lift at the idea. We could make this special, rather than sad. This time together, I thought with new determination, was going to be a gift to both of us. Something that we would be able to treasure and build on. A new time to forge a better relationship and learn new things about one another.

After all, I now realized, settling deeper into the supple leather of my seat, there were so very many facets of this man I had never seen. So many stories I’d never heard and so many memories that he had never shared with me. And I was hungry to hear every bit of it.

“Where should we go first?” he asked, pulling up to the impressive complex after a quick drive. Grandpa turned to look at me, his watery blue eyes showing their age and an undeniable bit of evidence that this whole ordeal really was taking its toll on him—despite his best efforts to seem unfazed.

I felt my eyebrows rise, and I shook my head. “I have no idea, Grandpa. This is going to be a little like the blind leading the blind,” I admitted. “And you’re really being a good sport and all, but I don’t want you to be bored out of your gourd, either.” I frowned thoughtfully. “Do they have any stores that you’d be interested in?”

He turned his eyes back to the big, busy maze of parking lots, bustling with activity despite the fact that it was only mid-morning on a weekday. “Since they don’t have any hardware stores, I guess maybe I’d have to say the bookstore?” he replied, sounding a bit unsure in his answer.

I nodded enthusiastically.

Good.

This was good. He was directing the ship, something I knew he was good at and would happily take on as a challenge. Maybe it would keep him busy and distracted enough that he really wouldn’t mind the fact that we didn’t really have a particular mission to fulfill. Grandpa wasn’t used to idleness. Most things that he did served a purpose. Most of his encounters with the retail world were driven and focused around a need, rather than simply enjoying the scenery and exploring. The man didn’t seem to understand the concept of a stroll, much less window-shopping.

I glanced over at him. Maybe it was time to teach him, I thought, feeling a tiny smile creep across my lips.

“Books, yes. That sounds great!” I replied, hoping I didn’t sound overly bright or phony.

It might have seemed like a trivial thing, but I knew this first outing—just him and me—was much more important than a simple jaunt to the store to kill some time. It was an opportunity for us to connect, to establish some groundwork in areas that had for so long been unaddressed. There had never been a need before, really. Grammie had always been somewhat of a buffer, a cushioning element to his potentially sharp edges. True, he had softened greatly since my childhood, but Grandpa was still Grandpa, and there was still a gruff nature that hadn’t fully been sanded down, even in the mellowing years.

He smiled at me, starting to look a little more relaxed. I wanted so much to say something, to tell him how much I loved him and wanted him to be okay. To have him understand how full my heart was of love for him. To tell him how much I missed Grammie.

So many things I wanted to say; but I kept silent, fearful that I might break the spell and ruin the light mood.

“What do you like to look at when you go to the bookstore?” I asked, genuinely interested. I hadn’t ever actually seen my grandfather read a book. In fact, I had no earthly idea what he might want to read, other than the morning paper.

He shrugged. “I like to look at some of the magazines, especially the car racing ones,” he replied simply, eyes searching for a parking spot near our stated destination.

“I could live in a bookstore.” I sighed. “I love books. I just wish they didn’t cost so much,” I lamented.

“Well, one of these days, you’ll have a book in there. Maybe lots of books,” he said, sounding confident rather than conciliatory.

“Oh, I hope so. I really, really hope so. Sometimes it feels like I work so hard to get somewhere, and it all ends up as nothing.” I shook my head, suddenly feeling heavy. “Sometimes I think I’m being a complete idiot, doing what I’m doing.”

“Who told you that?” he demanded, sounding blustery. “I’ve read your articles, Dellie. Your mama sends them to me sometimes, and they’re really good.” He reached over and rested a big, gnarled hand on my thigh, patting gently. “Don’t let anybody tell you any different. You’ve got something.” He stopped suddenly, and I heard a tiny crack in his voice. “You’ve got something special.”

I felt my throat swell and my nose prickle with the telltale sign of tears. I wasn’t used to this kind of praise from him, nor was I used to seeing much that bordered on vulnerability from someone usually so in control.

“Thanks, Grandpa,” I said quietly. “That really means a lot. More than you know.” I took his big hand in mine, feeling its rough warmth as I squeezed it.

“I mean it. I wouldn’t lie to you, just ask me,” he said with a grin, reciting words I had heard so often from his lips. That was one thing you could always count on Grandpa to deliver—a rotating list of his standby lines and jokes. They were almost comforting in their predictability. Some things would never change; and sometimes, that was exactly the reassurance you needed.

We meandered along the sidewalk, passing glass storefronts with well-placed displays and mannequins dressed to the hilt in tailored dresses and vertiginous heels. I took mental notes and drooled inwardly, wishing I had the budget to dress like these plaster-cast women, wondering if I would ever be able to afford any of it and still be a writer. There were days when I particularly felt the squeeze of my paltry income, and going shopping seemed more like a minefield than a joy. It was a reminder of what I didn’t—and couldn’t—have. Once upon a time, I had enjoyed window-shopping. Now, it often felt like a punishment, an inaccessible carrot dangling maliciously in front of me.

I must have sighed out loud without realizing it.

“Why so blue?” Grandpa asked, suddenly pulling me back to the present.

I shook my head, not wanting to tell him what I was thinking or feeling. The last thing I wanted was for him to think I was wallowing in self-pity or somehow angling for him to buy me something. We were out, two adults exploring a whole new world; and I didn’t want him to feel like that didn’t mean something to me.

“I can tell something’s bothering you, but I’m not going to make you talk.” He kept his eyes trained ahead, the bookstore in his line of vision. “You want to talk, you just say so. I’ll listen.”

“Thanks, Grandpa,” I said, mentally breathing a sigh of relief. I reached out and slipped my hand in his as I matched my stride to his to catch up a bit. “You too. Anytime you want to talk—about anything—I’m here. I have two good ears for listening.”

“Me, too,” he said, giving my hand a gentle squeeze before turning his face to me. “See?” he asked with a mischievous wink. He grinned, and I noticed the slight movement of his ears, back and forth, back and forth, in a subtle wiggle waggle that he had always delighted in showing off to all of his grandchildren as we watched in childish wonder. Part of the magic of Grandpa—an irreplaceable element of what made him different from everyone else’s grandpa.

Peter Samuelson had magical ears.

Chapter Eight

The morning passed in an easy melting of hours. We drifted along together, separating to make our solo voyages from corner to corner of the bookstore, each missionless in our missions. And that was truly the point. We had random points of rendezvous as we traversed the sales floor, checking occasionally with one another to decide if we wanted more time or if either of us was ready to leave. We made our way through a stream of stores this way, happily floating along in a comfortable bubble of silence, tossing in an observation here and there, a random thought or memory adding color to the landscape as we passed.

And then, there it was—rising up before us like a beacon.

The glittering storefront of Victoria’s Secret.

To say the magnetic pull was undeniable would have been an understatement. It was like being sucked into a vortex. My feet propelled me forward in a steady march, seemingly of their own accord.

“If you want to go in, I’ll go just down a bit to that sports store.”

I snapped my mouth shut, realizing I had stopped dead in front of the store’s big window, with its proud display of sleekly simple mannequins decked out in alluring lace underthings and satiny smooth slips—cheerfully thwarting the lines of modesty, even in their lack of detail.

Not only had I stopped there in my tracks, but I’d been staring, slack-jawed and transfixed like a bug with the zapper in its sights.

Dellie.

The mannequins seemed to whisper.

“What?” I said, not sure whether I was really talking to the mannequins or my grandfather, who now stood next to me on the sidewalk, his eyes boring into me as he waited for me to answer.

“Do you want to go in?” he repeated, not unkindly.

My eyes widened in horror.

I was standing in front of a lingerie store. With my grandfather.

“Um,” I stuttered, not sure whether I wanted to admit to the fact that I really did want to go in. After all, what sane woman wants their grandpa to know that they wear Victoria’s Secret?

It was almost too much.

He chuckled. “It’s okay. Your Grammie used to like to go there for lotions. They smell nice, but I always let her go in by herself.”

I nodded enthusiastically, like a bobble head on a dashboard. “Yes, lotion. Very, very nice lotion,” I said quickly, not wanting to acknowledge the big pink panty-clad elephant in the room. Better not to let his mind wander that way, that his Dellie would ever consider wearing such scanty panties.

Noo. The only possible reason for me to ever go in there was for their signature line of body lotions and sprays. Heaven forbid I wear anything but Underoos or Fruit of the Loom.

“She wore the one that was purple,” he said now, his voice dropping to a sad hush.

“Love Spell,” I said.

“Hmm?”

“The purple lotion she wore. It was called Love Spell,” I said, smiling a small, wobbly smile at him. “It’s one of my favorites, too.” I paused, suddenly hearing words I’d heard her mutter to the sales consultants every single, solitary time I’d been in to a Victoria’s Secret with her. All those times, it had seemed an embarrassment—a crotchety, unnecessary observation that made her seem unpleasant and contrary. Two qualities that were far from the loving, giving woman that she actually was. “Victoria doesn’t have any secrets left,” I murmured.

A burst of laughter escaped Grandpa’s lips. “That’s what she said, isn’t it?” he boomed, shaking his head with a fond smile.

“Every time,” I agreed.

He reached in his pocket and pulled out his wallet, the leather well worn and bursting with bits of paper and cards shoved into every available space. “Here,” he said, flipping it open to pluck out a twenty. “Buy yourself some Love Spell and give them the message for your grammie.” The grin that spread across his face was one of boyish delight, one that broke my heart at the same time as it made it soar.

“For you, Grandpa, I’ll gladly tell them,” I said, smiling back at him as I gingerly took the extended bill from his fingers. “Stay out of trouble while I’m in there,” I added in mock sternness.

“I’m going to go over to that sports store and see if they have anything with my driver’s number on it. I’d like a new hat. You take your time,” he said, still smiling.

I leveled my gaze at him, more sober now. We’d gone to all the previous stores together, even if we hadn’t stayed glued to each other’s sides while we were there, and I felt a little like I was abandoning ship by not accompanying him. “You’re sure?” I asked, searching for reassurance.

He nodded without hesitation. “Most definitely. You go on in and find something, Dellie.”

Find something.

Though I knew their context, they were words that could have been taken so many ways.

Find something. In yourself. In your life. Find something to be proud of. Find something that makes you feel whole. Find something that makes you strong.

Find something.

“I will,” I said, taking a deep, determined breath. “I will.”

The warm glow of the store’s interior seemed something like a hug, and a welcoming waft of scented air greeted me as I entered the retail ode to lady-dom.

“Welcome to Victoria’s Secret,” a voice chirped as I passed a table of artfully arranged panties and bras, a colorful wash of neatly folded fabrics whispering suggestions of romance and self-confidence.

Honey, she doesn’t have any secrets left. The words tickled my tongue, begging to be let out to play.

“Hi,” I heard myself say instead, meekly glancing around the store as I got my bearings.

First things first, I needed to find the lotions. Then I would be free to explore and find what I really wanted in here: another pair of sparkly panties. They didn’t have to be pink, but I definitely wanted them to be sparkly. The pair I had found with Charlie had been perfect, and now I had my sights set on something equally special to add. I had a gift card from Bette and strict instructions to buy at least one more pair of pretties while I was here, and I was going to make the most of my unexpected trip to this palace of panties.

“Are you looking for something in particular?” The girl in front of me looked to be about twenty, dressed head to toe in the store’s strictly mandated black, though she wasn’t letting corporate dictates box her in—she wore a lacy black bustier top peeking out of a black blazer, a cropped specimen that hit her at hip level and showed off an hourglass figure and hiked her boobs up like a car on jacks. Leather leggings were capped off by patent black leather heels that appeared to add six inches to her height; and her bleached blonde hair had an unexpected shock of purple in it, cut into a pixie that displayed high cheekbones and bright green eyes. If she hadn’t seemed so friendly, I might have hated her.

“No, not really,” I said noncommittally, not wanting to be trailed around the store. “Just looking to see what’s in.”

“My name’s Erin. Just let me know if you need any help,” she bubbled.

“Great, thanks,” I bubbled back.

She toddled off, heels clacking over the floor’s slick tiles as she went.

When she was out of sight, I set about my wandering in earnest, scoping out each table and rack to search for something that fit the “sparkly” category.

It didn’t have to be pink.

Heck, it really didn’t even have to be sparkly; but I really wanted something sparkly.

Wear sparkles, feel sparkly, right?

And then, I saw it: a bright teal stretch satin and sequin thong that hung with glorious deliciousness from the clips on a hanger on a wall display, right below a coordinating bra with padded cups generous enough to fit my head.

True, I could never hope to wear a bra like that, but the panties were definitely in my wheelhouse.

They were decadent.

They were divine.

They were something that belonged nowhere in a sensible woman’s lingerie drawer.

They were the antithesis of the white granny panty.

And I had to have them.

“My George would have loved those,” a voice quipped behind me.

A guilty ripple of shock ran up my spine, and I snatched my hand away.

“George had a wicked streak, that’s for sure,” the voice continued. While the voice bore distinct traces of age and years of a cigarette habit, it was still melodic. There was feistiness and spunk, and I could imagine the speaker, even as I turned around.

I tried to arrange my face into a confident smile rather than a guilty, self-conscious grimace to face this person, this interrupter of my hunt for the perfect panty.

The face that greeted me bore no resemblance to the image I had conjured in my head.

I was expecting to see Shirley MacLaine but was greeted, instead, by someone whose features seemed a strange mash-up between Estelle Getty and Ellen Albertini Dow, that weird little old lady who played the rapping grandma in The Wedding Singer. Needless to say, I had to shift my gaze down to meet her eyes—so short was she.

Not that I’m all that tall, but still.

She was positively itty-bitty.

“And boy, could we make some trouble together,” she said, reaching up, up to stand on tiptoe and trace over the sequins. “George would have loved these,” she said again.

“George sounds like quite a guy,” I murmured, not quite sure how else to respond. I’d never met this woman before in my life, so the randomness of this encounter—while it certainly had all the components of an interesting story—was something I felt unprepared for. I don’t generally start up conversations with women who are obviously pushing ninety in the lingerie store, and the fact that I’d been fingering a pair of such racy underwear felt a bit…taboo?

“Oh, he was,” said the aged little woman who stood before me, her eyes crinkling in a smile. “We shocked everyone when we got married. It was quite the scandal,” she tittered.

By that point, I couldn’t help the smile that crept across my lips. There was no way around it. In the two minutes we’d been in one another’s company, I had no choice but to be absolutely fascinated by the impossibly impish little sprite in front of me, and the writer inside of me was dying to know more.

“Really? Why?”

“Because he was already engaged to someone else, and we ran off together and eloped!” she stage-whispered, leaning closer to me and widening bright green eyes that were positively vivacious.

“You stole him from his fiancée? How did you do that?” I marveled.

She simply smiled. “A lady has to have some secrets, now doesn’t she?”

“That’s what my grandmother always said; not that you’d have much to worry about if you told me. I’m not even from here—I’m here from Pensacola, visiting.”

“Oh, that’s nice,” she replied sweetly. “Do you have family here?”

I nodded. “My mom’s family is all here. My grandmother died about six months ago, so I thought I’d come and spend some time with my grandfather.” It was true, but it wasn’t the whole truth. Not that I owed her the whole story, but I still felt a little guilty at the spin I was putting on things: dutiful, loving granddaughter on a trip to comfort her grieving grandfather. Again, partially true, but to get into the details of my own need for the trip would have taken too long. And been a little too personal, really. Better to keep it all simple.

“That’s a shame,” she tutted, her previous smile replaced by a look of concern. “What was her name? I might have known her. When you’re as old as me and you stay in one place your whole life, you know everybody.”

“Meredith Samuelson. Everybody called her Merry, though.”

The sprite’s eyes grew wide. “You’re one of Merry Samuelson’s granddaughters? Oh, my dear.” She clucked. “Dear, dear, I’m so sorry,” she added, reaching up to rest a light hand on my arm, just the right mix of sorrow, sympathy, and social propriety. She may have had a thing for racy lingerie, but the lady also had class. No doubt this woman had been to many a cotillion in her youth. “You must miss her—she was such a sweet lady. And she certainly lived up to her name.” She paused. “Now, which one of the grandchildren are you?”

“I’m Odelle.”

“No,” she protested. “Dellie’s only a bitty little girl. You’re a young woman; you can’t be Dellie,” she said, looking square into my face. “Well.” Headshaking ensued as she searched my eyes. “Time does fly, doesn’t it, Dellie?”

I nodded.

“Your grandmama and I didn’t really run in the same circles, but I always thought she was lovely. And her cakes were to die for. She made every wedding cake, anniversary cake, and birthday cake I ever needed. If it wasn’t Merry’s cake, it wasn’t at one of my parties; and every lady in the League always called her, too,” said the tiny woman in front of me, whose name I had yet to discover.

“She did make some wonderful cakes,” I agreed solemnly. “You’re going to have to forgive me, though—I don’t remember ever meeting you. And it’s been a very long time since I last visited, I’m sorry to say,” I said, meaning every word to my core.

It really had been far too long since I’d made my last trip up there, and the changes I saw everywhere seemed to make it glaringly obvious. Now, it was too late. Grammie was gone, and I’d never again get to curl into her arms for a hug as she sat in her blue La-Z-Boy recliner or watch her whip butter into the sugar for her frosting, her generous frame moving about in the familiar process of mixing magic. She wore no chef’s jacket in her small kitchen, but the housecoats she always donned may as well have been her uniform as she worked, tunelessly singing the words to some old song from her youth.

I felt a swell of emotion run through me.

“Well, it’s good that you’re here now.” The white head nodded, then stopped abruptly as she remembered that she still hadn’t properly introduced herself. “But Lord, where are my manners?” she scolded herself.

Given our earlier conversation, I doubted that she was one to stand on ceremony and had a certain relish for thwarting the etiquette books to create a stir. Not that she hadn’t memorized every word on every page, but one got the distinct impression that she didn’t often heed the rules unless they served to her benefit.

“I’m Annabelle MacMillan,” she said at last, her face once again wreathed in a smile. “Like I said, your grandmama and I didn’t really socialize much; but I knew her well enough to know that many, many people loved her and will miss her.” Her hand remained on my forearm as she spoke.

I nodded in agreement. “So how did you find out about her and her cakes?” I asked, my curiosity sufficiently piqued.

Her smile turned mysterious, and it seemed to hold the barest hint of sadness.

I took a second to survey this tiny woman again, my imagination running wild with all the possible tales that were locked into her memory. No doubt she had some tales to tell—but was she willing to share? And really, how did she know my grandmother, aside from all the sheet cakes and buttercream-covered tiers? Something told me that there was more to the story than simple sugar.

“Merry and I knew each other when we were young ladies, actually,” she said. “Her mother worked for my family for awhile, coming over to the house to tend to some housekeeping that Mama needed done.”

I felt myself staring at her as I combed my memory. Grannie Rose had been a housekeeper? Had I known that? For some reason, I didn’t remember ever hearing of this aspect of the family history, but with as much glossing over as happened in the familial timeline, I wasn’t surprised. Domestic duties wouldn’t exactly have ranked high on my great-grandmother’s bragging list.

“Really? Wow, your family must have been well-off, then,” I said, studying her face for a reaction.

She frowned. “Dear, it’s impolite to discuss money,” she said, surprising me. “But yes, Daddy did well. And Mama couldn’t cook or clean to save her life, so she had hired help for that,” Annabelle said, shaking her head mournfully. “She was good at hosting a party and arranging a fundraiser, but she was never raised to know how to do anything that really required her to get her hands dirty.” Annabelle tutted.

“So Grannie Rose came and did laundry and cooked and cleaned?” I asked, just to clarify.

Annabelle answered with a short nod of her very white head. “Only for a few months, though. Our regular housekeeper retired, and your great-grandmama filled in for her while we looked for a new one,” she explained.

“Why didn’t your mama just keep her on, instead of hiring someone else?” I asked. Reasonable enough question, right?

“That wasn’t really something your great-grannie wanted to do full-time. She just had to earn some extra money for awhile, is what she said.” The tone of Annabelle’s voice hinted that she had other suspicions, but if she knew the real truth, she wasn’t letting on. Maybe she’d divulge later—if there ever was a later.

Right now, though, it was time to get a move on. I still had to hunt down the lotion and buy my panties—no way was I going to go back out to meet Grandpa empty-handed, not after having spent so long in the store. He was probably bored to death by now.

“Annabelle, it’s been such a pleasure to meet you, but I have to scoot,” I said, hoping the disappointment I felt in having to leave was clear in my voice. I really did want to know more, and I had no doubt she had more to tell. “Grandpa’s out there somewhere waiting on me, and I still haven’t picked up what I came in here for,” I said. “I’d love to talk more, though,” I ventured, hearing the words come out in a rush. “Is there a way I can reach you?”

“Oh, yes, of course!” She laughed, apparently finding my question a bit absurd. “I’ll give you my number…and I’m on Facebook,” she said, whipping out an iPhone encased in pink crystals. The woman may have been nearing the century mark on her life, but everything about her exuded youthful energy. “Do you Facebook?”

I knew my face registered the shock I was feeling, but I could only hope she was too preoccupied with her cell phone to see it.

“Um, yes,” I stammered, trying to recover quickly—and gracefully. “Yes, ma’am, I’m on Facebook.”

“Well, then, you can friend me on Facebook,” she replied, sounding gleeful. “I’m on Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest, too!” she added. “I like to keep up with things, you know how it is.”

Of course I did. Didn’t everybody?

I blinked once. Twice.

Who was this woman?

She slid a glance at me. “Well don’t look so shocked, honey.” She laughed again. “I may be in my eighties, but I’m far from kicking any buckets!”

“Clearly!” I said, feeling the blush rise in my cheeks.

Annabelle winked, quick as a flash. “I have a brand new pair of leopard-print Louboutins, and I have every intention of wearing them at my ninetieth birthday party,” she said hotly. “My George would have loved them.”

Something about Annabelle MacMillan told me that when she had her mind set to something, nothing would stop her.

I left the store a few minutes later, purchases in hand and now in possession of Annabelle’s number. I could hardly wait to hear more from this captivating little creature. And to find out more about George, their scandalous romance—and just how well she knew my family.

Chapter Nine

I couldn’t very well let on that I’d bought a pair of very flashy panties to my grandfather; so before I left the store, I’d made sure that they were safely tucked away in the bottom of the bag, hidden by the folds of fuchsia tissue paper and just under the bottle of lotion.

I tracked him down, sitting on a bench outside the sporting goods store.

I surveyed him from a distance, once again feeling amazed at how much he’d visibly aged since the last time I’d seen him. At eighty-four, he was still undeniably robust and extremely energetic, but the emotional strain of the past months had obviously taken their toll. Though he might never say it, all of those days at the hospital had stripped a few layers. And missing Grammie was harder on him than he would admit.

“Are you ready?” he asked when I finally sidled up next to him.

I nodded, wordlessly holding up the small striped pink bag. “All set.”

“Anywhere else you’d like to go while we’re here?”

I shook my head, feeling fully satisfied.

“Okay…how about some food. Are you hungry?”

I hadn’t noticed it before, but now, at the mention of hunger, my stomach suddenly seemed to awaken. Breakfast had been a long time ago. I stole a quick glance at my watch to see exactly what time it was.

“I wouldn’t argue at some lunch,” I replied tentatively, surprised to see that it was nearly two o’clock, yet afraid that whatever suggestion he made might be far out of my comfort zone. My bucket list flashed into my head: Eat Somewhere Unsafe. Was I prepared to tackle that challenge right then? I knew that this was going to be one of my biggest hurdles—one that I would have to face time and time again until Safe and Unsafe no longer existed. Was I ever really going to be ready? The truth was, I’d been allowing myself to back down, to retreat on the justification that I just wasn’t ready to be brave, that it seemed easier not to jump. Not to fight. Not to eat things that people ate everyday without thought or worry. I’d gotten so restricted by the boundaries my mind had created that a once healthy awareness of nutrition had become a dangerous disorder; and if I was ever going to get better, I was going to have to make changes, even when I didn’t feel ready.

“There’s a Chick-fil-A not far from here, if you’d like to go there,” he offered.

I felt a quick twinge of panic as I nodded in agreement. “Sure. I haven’t had their food in a long time.”

He smiled. “Most of the time, I just go there for a breakfast biscuit; but when I go there for lunch, I like their Chick-fil-A sandwich best. And those waffle fries are pretty tasty, too.” Grandpa rubbed his solid stomach as he spoke.

He may have been frequenting the fast food restaurants much more than he had while my grandmother was alive, but it certainly wasn’t adding to his waistline.

“It’s a plan, then,” I said, not really knowing what else to say and trying to feel a sense of empowerment at even this tiny test of the boundaries I’d set on my comfort level. “Have anything else in mind for the day, or should we just go on home after that?”

“I’ve been meaning to mow the grass, so I think we’ll just head back to the house, if you’re okay with that,” he answered.

“You’ve got it. And don’t worry, Grandpa,” I said, hoping the sincerity was evident in my voice as I spoke, “I don’t need to be entertained—that’s not why I came. Just because I’m here doesn’t mean I expect you to make major schedule changes or anything like that.” I reached out for his hand, grasping his big, gnarled fingers in mine. “I’m just glad to see you.”

“I’m glad to see you, too,” Grandpa said back, squeezing my hand as we walked, now hand-in-hand along the sidewalk back to the truck.

“I meant to tell you, I met somebody interesting in the lingerie store earlier,” I said a little while later when we’d settled into a booth at the restaurant with our food. “Someone you know, too—Annabelle MacMillan?” I popped the lid off of my bowl of chicken noodle soup, hoping I wouldn’t splash any of the hot liquid anywhere. It had been a compromise, I knew; but when I’d gotten in line to order, I’d parroted the words that screamed through my head, opting for something that felt safe to eat in this restaurant that had somehow become unsafe.

“She seems like a very nice lady. Said she used to come to Grammie for cakes anytime she threw a party,” I continued, trying to distract my own mind from the food—safe, unsafe, or otherwise.

Grandpa paused, his hand poised in mid-dip with waffle fry still immersed in his ketchup. Obviously, the name registered.

He nodded, then resumed his fry-to-mouth mission.

I watched him closely, trying to gauge his oddly noncommittal reaction. Clearly, the man had no intention of elaborating.

“Sounded like she’d known Grammie for a long time, too,” I continued, keeping a gimlet eye on his face. “She said her mama’d hired Grannie Rose to do her housekeeping for awhile.” I dipped a plastic spoon into my soup, hoping I sounded far more casual than I felt. Obviously, the suspicions I’d formed earlier weren’t totally off base. There was more to the story, and I was dying to hear it.

More nodding. “She did,” he said finally, having stalled long enough to finished chewing and swallowing his waffle fry. “Didn’t do it for very long, though.” He reached for his sandwich.

“I didn’t know Grannie Rose was ever anyone’s housekeeper,” I said, wondering if I was going to get much out of him. “I didn’t think she worked.”

“She didn’t, except for that little while when your Grammie was a teenager, right before we met.” He poked a thick finger in between his sandwich bun and the fried chicken breast, lifting it just enough to satisfy himself that no one had gypped him of his two pickles.

I raised an eyebrow. The man was not one for details. “Why did she work, then? Did she have to?”

“She was saving money for a wedding,” he said, seconds before he sank his teeth into his sandwich.

That certainly made sense, especially in those days. Lord knew my great-grandparents weren’t made of money. With ten mouths to feed, every penny was pinched within an inch of its life, so the idea of having enough to spare to pay for a wedding was a bit ludicrous.

“Who was getting married?” I asked, finally closing my mouth around my first spoonful of thick broth and noodles.

“Grammie.”

I choked on my soup.

Not, Grammie and me. Just, Grammie.

Which meant that Grammie had been getting ready to get married to someone else.

Who?

This was something I’d definitely never heard about.

“Should let your soup cool down a little before you start eating it,” he scolded, shaking his head.

I coughed some more, trying to catch my breath.

Seriously? He’d just dropped a bombshell like that, and he thought the reason I was choking on my soup was because it was hot?

“It’s fine,” I said, finally finished with my coughing fit. “The soup’s fine,” I added, shaking my head. “I was just surprised, is all. I didn’t know Grammie had ever been engaged to anyone but you.” I paused. Maybe I’d misunderstood. “That is what you meant, isn’t it? That Grannie Rose was saving up for Grammie to marry someone who was…not you?”

He nodded.

“Who?” I probed, feeling as though I was pulling teeth.

“George MacMillan.”

If I’d thought the statement about Grammie being engaged to someone before she met Grandpa had been a bombshell, this was a nuclear blast. I was definitely unprepared for that one.

I gaped at Grandpa, who was as placidly chewing his chicken sandwich as though we were in the middle of discussing the weather.

“George MacMillan?” I repeated, somewhat unnecessarily.

Grandpa nodded, still chewing.

“What happened?” I asked, every available cell in my brain actively working to try and piece together something plausible that would explain this revelation.

He shrugged. “Oh, he decided he had a thing for Annabelle, and that was it. He ran off with her, and next thing anybody knew, they came back married.”

I blinked and gaped some more.

He finally ventured a glance my way, probably wondering at my long silence.

“Is there something wrong with your soup? Do you need to take it back up there?” he asked, his tone implying that it was the most reasonable question in the world. Clearly, the fact that I had only managed to take one mouthful of my soup could have nothing to do with the information he’d so casually imparted only seconds ago.

I shook my head vigorously. “Soup’s fine, Grandpa. Why have I never heard this story? Does Mama know?”

He gave me a look that seemed just on this side of a scowl. Apparently, I was pressing for details that he wasn’t prepared to give.

“It’s not that important,” he said with yet another shrug. If he wasn’t careful, he was going to wear his shoulders out from all the shrugging.

“Not that important?” I asked incredulously. That was insane. Of course it was important—it was part of our family history. If Grammie had married George MacMillan, none of us would even be here.

“Not really,” he replied. “It happened, and everyone just had to accept it. Then she met me, and we got married.”

The End, Amen.

“Yes, but—” I stammered, not willing to let it drop so easily.

“But what? It’s not complicated. George was an idiot, simple as that.” He took another bite of his fries. “Finish your soup before it gets cold,” he prompted, ready to move on.

“That still doesn’t explain anything,” I countered, hoping he would give me more.

“Sure it does,” Grandpa insisted. “It explains why he left a smart, stable girl like your Grammie for someone as flighty as Annabelle was back then. He was an idiot,” he reiterated, his face showing his obvious boredom at this line of questioning.

“Wow. How long had he and Grammie been engaged? And you still haven’t told me—does Mama know all this?” I couldn’t help but assume she didn’t. I would have known about it, too, if she’d had any clue.

“No, your mama doesn’t know,” he replied, finally acknowledging the question. “Like I said, there wasn’t really any reason to know. It happened, life moved on.”

Obviously, he wasn’t going to give me anything more than that. At least, not now. But I was determined to find out more. And if I had to go straight to the source of the scandal, I would. After all, she seemed more than willing to share.

“Now eat up,” he said, sounding a bit gruff. “I want to mow the lawn before the rain comes.”

I leveled my gaze at him and obediently took another spoonful of my soup, ice cold by now. Those gray-blue eyes of his had turned as cloudy as the sky outside, which now seemed portentous of a looming rainstorm.

What wasn’t he telling me? Maybe there really wasn’t much more to the story than the rashness of youth, but this was a part of my grandmother’s life that I’d never known. She was gone now, and I would never be able to ask her how it had felt. How long had it taken her to give her heart fully, and had she loved my grandfather the same way that she had once loved George—or did he teach her to love more? These were all things that I wanted to know, needed to know, and wished so greatly that I could ask Grammie now. These were the things I’d never known to ask her, and now I would never have the chance.

Chapter Ten

“Charlie, did you know that Grammie was engaged to someone before she met Grandpa?” I asked my sister, hours later as I sat on the bed in my temporary quarters, tracing the outlines of the roses on the cream-colored comforter.

The silence on the other end of the line gave me all the answer I needed.

“Did I lose you?” I said.

“I’m here,” she replied. “I’m just processing, is all. It’s…a surprise.”

“Isn’t it? I almost choked to death on my soup when Grandpa told me.”

“I guess it kind of makes sense, though. I’m sure there’s a lot of stuff that happened when Grammie and Grandpa were young that we’ve never heard about. It’s probably just not something they even think anyone wants to know.” She paused. “You know how that generation can be. I don’t mean to generalize, but a lot of older people just aren’t big on information unless you ask them specific questions. It’s part of their past, and they just don’t think it’s anybody’s business.”

“But we’re not just anybody, we’re family. And this is stuff we should know,” I argued.

“I agree with you, Dellie; that’s not what I’m saying. I’m just trying to come up with a reason that we don’t know this already.”

“I wonder if Mama knows. Grandpa said she doesn’t, but maybe she does and she’s kept it a secret,” I said.

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