“There’ll be talk if we stay here,” Nadine said.
“I don’t really give a damn.” Her parents were gone forever. She could never talk to them or see them again. What people said didn’t make a bit of difference to her. “Please stay with me.”
“Of course we will,” Lettie said.
“There’s goin’ to be so much to do these next few days. Lawyers and insurance and coroners and accident reports. Are you sure you don’t want me to call the Belles to help you get through it all?” Mabel asked.
“Not tonight. I’ll face it tomorrow. Tonight, I just need Nadine and Lettie and you, Mabel.”
“Okay, then, I’m going to the kitchen and make food for y’all. When my mama died, I cooked and cooked and then cooked some more. Folks thought I’d lost my mind, but it was the only thing that brought me any kind of peace. And right now I need to find that peace,” Mabel said.
“When Flora died, I made jam,” Nadine said. “I was so angry with her for letting the cancer get so far gone before she went to the doctor that I made jars and jars of plum jam.”
“She hated plum jam,” Lettie said.
“That’s why I made it, to punish her for dying.”
“I made bread-and-butter pickles.” Lettie nodded. “For the same reason. She loved them and could eat a pint a week, so I made them because she could never eat them again.”
Jennie Sue squeezed Rick’s hand. “You and Cricket can go, but please come back tomorrow morning.”
“We’ll be here,” Cricket said. “And if you change your mind and want us to spend the night, just call and we’ll be here in fifteen minutes.”
“Thank you,” she said.
The phone rang as they were leaving. Mabel answered it in the kitchen, took it to Jennie Sue, and whispered, “It’s the lawyer, Justin Rhodes. He just heard and would like to come by for a few minutes.”
“Tell him to come right now.” She was totally overwhelmed. There would have to be funeral arrangements tomorrow morning, and God only knew what else would require her attention as the only surviving child.
“We need to make a trip back into town for our overnight things,” Nadine said. “But we’ll be back within the hour.”
Jennie Sue nodded. She had to stiffen her spine. “Mabel will be here, and I’ll deal with the lawyer while you are gone.”
The two ladies were only gone a few minutes before the doorbell rang and Mabel ushered the lawyer into the room. He greeted her as he opened his briefcase and brought out a thick file.
“Jennifer, this is such a terrible shock to all of us. I can’t imagine how you must feel,” he said gently.
“Numb,” she said.
“You poor thing.” Justin patted her arm. “I could come back tomorrow, but these are important things that you should know before you see the coroner. However, if you aren’t able right now . . .” He paused.
“Let’s just get it over with,” she whispered.
“If you are sure,” he said.
She nodded.
“Okay, then. Your parents have an ironclad will. You inherit everything as the last surviving member of both the Baker and Wilshire families. It’s written in the will that they both want to be cremated and their ashes scattered wherever you think best. Your mother had something against her friends staring down at her in a casket.”
Jennie Sue didn’t doubt that for a single second. Charlotte wouldn’t have trusted anyone to do her makeup or pick out the appropriate outfit—not even Jennie Sue.
“Did they have funeral wishes?” she asked.
“Your dad said whether or not you had a memorial was up to you. As soon as the coroner finishes with their bodies . . .” He paused again.
She grabbed a tissue and wiped her eyes.
He took a deep breath and went on. “They are to be sent to Sweetwater to the crematorium. You should be able to pick up their ashes next week. And those will be in urns that they picked out when they updated their will,” he said.
“My beautiful mother.” She wept into Rick’s handkerchief.
Justin nodded slowly. “Will always be beautiful in your eyes. Remember her the way she was when you saw her last. The rest of this can wait a few days. Just call me when you’re ready to talk about the business, and I’ll deal with the insurance people and all the accident reports. That’s part of my job as the company lawyer.”
His suggestion made sense, but she wished that she’d insisted they spend the whole day together, not just an hour for lunch. And her dad, trying to help her with money and a car—she would have taken both just to make him feel better.
Chapter Seventeen
Rick and Cricket showed up right after breakfast the next morning. Jennie Sue answered the door and pulled him down beside her on the sofa.
“What day are you thinking about for the funeral?” Cricket asked as she sat down across from them.
“No funeral and no memorial. They left instructions to be cremated and for me to choose the spot where I want to scatter the ashes,” she said in a hollow-sounding voice.
Lettie and Nadine came in from the kitchen, where they’d been helping Mabel clean up after breakfast. They sat in the two chairs that completed the seating arrangement.
“I heard that you got the news when you and Rick were at the cemetery,” Lettie said. “That seems kind of strange.”
“It was surreal and still is even this morning. I was visiting my daughter’s grave,” Jennie Sue answered.
“Jennie Sue, are you okay?” Cricket asked.
“Why?”
“You don’t have a daughter, honey,” Lettie said gently.
“Yes, I do,” Jennie Sue said. “Emily Grace was stillborn a few months after Percy left me in New York. Mama wanted to keep it all a secret so if I got married again, it wouldn’t be an issue. My daughter is in the Bloom cemetery in the Baker plot. I guess there was one secret that no one in town knew about.”
“Sweet Lord!” Lettie laid a hand over her heart.
“He left you when you were pregnant? What a bastard!” Cricket snapped. “Did he come back and support you when the baby was born?”
“I didn’t even know where he was at that time. He left when he found out I was pregnant, and I haven’t heard from him since,” Jennie Sue answered.
“I’m so sorry. I didn’t know,” Cricket whispered. “I won’t tell anyone about the baby.”
“You can tell whoever you want. I will be putting up a tombstone as soon as I can arrange for one. I’m just glad that Percy let me take my maiden name back so I can have her stone engraved with Emily Grace Baker and she won’t have to have anything of him on her grave,” Jennie Sue said.
Jennie Sue went through the clothes that she’d left behind in her closet and found the simple blue dress her mother had reminded her she’d worn to her senior tea. She chose that one to wear to the coroner’s office that morning. He’d called and said that the bodies were ready to deliver to the crematorium, but she wanted to see them. Maybe it would bring some kind of closure. She slipped her feet into a pair of white sandals. Her mother would’ve preferred that she’d chosen a pair of white leather pumps with maybe a three-inch heel with the dress, but after Percy left, she’d sworn that she’d never wear heels again.
Nadine, Lettie, Rick, and Cricket were waiting in the living room by the time she made it downstairs. Rick wore a pair of jeans and his customary long-sleeve shirt with pearl snaps. Cricket was in the same outfit she’d been wearing when she twisted her ankle.
“You look lovely,” Rick said.
“You always look so put-together and classy,” Cricket said.
“Thank you both, but jeans and flip-flops are more my style. I guess I didn’t wallow around in the Wilshire gene pool nearly long enough,” she said. “Are we ready to do this?”