He grinned. “Trust me, if I thought it was too short, I wouldn’t tell you.”
Merritt struggled to respond, then just turned her back on Gibbes and marched toward Loralee. Reaching for the glass that Loralee held, she said, “I’m going to go put this in the sink.”
Gibbes was still grinning as he watched Merritt walk away.
“Why do you do that?” Loralee asked softly.
Gibbes didn’t seem startled by her question. “Because I don’t believe anybody has made her feel beautiful or desirable in a very long time.”
“Is that the only reason?” she asked, the scent of the moist dirt stinging her nostrils.
The light sparked in his eyes again. “The more I scratch the surface to see what’s beneath that crusty exterior, the more I see the person I think she was before she met Cal. And there’s a lot there to like.”
Loralee beamed. “Y’all had a good time at the sandbar yesterday, I’m guessing.”
“We did. Especially the kids. But I learned a lot about Merritt, too.”
Loralee sat up straighter, even though it made her stomach hurt. “Like what?”
“Well, she doesn’t resent your marrying her father anymore—which I think we both agree is about time. And I learned that my brother wasn’t a very nice man.”
“I’m sorry,” Loralee said. “It’s not easy to find out that people aren’t who we thought they were, or who we wanted them to be.” She shifted on the bench, wondering whether there was a better position that wouldn’t hurt so much. “After Mama died, I tracked down my daddy, thinking he must’ve had a good reason to leave us when I was a baby, and that maybe he’d been trying to find me all those years.
“I found him in a bar in Birmingham, hustling people at the pool table, just living from drink to drink. He spit at me, then told me to go to hell.” Loralee pressed her hands against her abdomen, willing the nausea to go away. “That’s when I realized that his leaving me and Mama had nothing to do with us at all. He was just born with inner demons that were always stronger than he was. Even my mama’s love and a baby daughter weren’t enough ammunition to help him fight. I felt better when I left the bar, like I’d just been released from prison, and I finally found my own strength to forgive him.”
Gibbes’s eyes were full of shadows, like the creek beds at dusk. “You’re saying that I should forgive Cal for being a brute and terrorizing his wife?”
“I’m not telling you anything. But it seems to me that you and Merritt have been brought together because of Cal, and maybe in that you can find your own peace.”
Merritt came through the back door then, and Loralee was relieved, because she knew that Gibbes’s next question would have probably been to ask her whether she’d told Merritt how sick she really was. It was still too early, the cement between the blocks of their new relationship still too wet to withstand any pressure. Her pain level had risen to a seven, but it still wasn’t an eight, and to Loralee that meant she still had time.
Gibbes jumped into the shallow hole. “You ready?” he asked Merritt.
“Sure.” She knelt in the dirt and put her hands on her thighs. “Ready when you are.”
Loralee moved to stand behind Merritt and watched as Gibbes carefully guided the shovel around the suitcase, loosening the dirt to make it easier for him to lift it out. Then, using the shovel like a spatula, he carefully stuck it under one of the shorter ends and gently lifted it. With the shovel handle lying on the ground and the suitcase propped up, Gibbes reached down and grabbed it around the two exposed sides. With an impressive display of biceps, he lifted it to the lip of the hole while Merritt grabbed it and slid it until it was flat against the ground.
“It didn’t fall apart, which is a good thing, although it feels pretty soggy.” Gibbes stepped out of the hole and brushed his hands together.
The leather of the suitcase might have once been a light brown, but moisture and years of being buried had darkened it to a deep mahogany. There was a large dent in the bottom corner, as if it had fallen from a great height and hit something on its way down. Loralee spotted something beneath a dusting of soil by the handle and brushed the dirt away with her finger. It was a gold-embossed monogram: HPH.
Merritt made a strangled sound in the back of her throat. “Those are my grandfather’s initials,” she whispered, the words garbled as if spoken through dirt.
Gibbes touched her hand. “We’re doing this together, all right?”
Merritt gave him a grateful glance and nodded before the three of them returned their attention to the battered suitcase.