Chapter Eleven
The sound of light rain woke Clarissa the morning of Tammy Jo’s memorial service. Clarissa groaned, covered her head with a pillow and said a quick thanks to the fates that at least it wasn’t another tornado. A storm like that would’ve been more appropriate to who Tammy Jo had been.
The tornado that hit Stearns had done a lot of damage and hurt a lot of people. But now people were rebuilding, moving on. And they’d learned lessons about what was really important. Family, love. Not possessions, that was for sure.
Her mother’s bible and journal lay beside her in the bed, and Clarissa grabbed them, read what appeared to be another favorite verse. Psalm 23. She might not be a God fearing christian, but Clarissa knew the Psalm without looking at it. She only looked on the pages to see where Tammy Jo had underlined the words he refreshes my soul so many times. Out beside the verse she’d written the words he restoreth my soul with the word restoreth underlined.
She hoped her mother made peace with the demons of her past. She’d certainly been trying to.
Wincing she got out of the bed she thought of as her mother’s and walked barefoot down the stairs to the kitchen. She ate one of Susie’s homemade biscuits and watched the rain fall. Jed’s family’s house looked grand in the rain just like it did in the sun. The family had their fair shares of troubles, but God had certainly smiled on them.
She brushed away thoughts of the Dillon’s troubles, guilt at how when she left town it would hurt Mackenzie and Jed. At least she and Jed didn’t have the kind of relationship he’d had with his wife. That would be a catastrophe for all of them.
Over the past three days all of the Triple Eight hands had stopped by to tell her how much they enjoyed the short time they spent with her mother. Other than the few people Momma had met in church, the ranch hands were the only ones who’d met Tammy Jo locally. People from their past wouldn’t think so highly of her. But as the ranch hands talked, she learned something about her mother. Facing her demons and getting her life straight so close to the end had been a testimony of sorts.
Paul wanted to make sure she knew that.
“Your momma could have forgiven herself easily if she’d have hurt those people by herself, Clarissa. But bringing you into it was unforgivable in her eyes. I told her thank God that wasn’t the way forgiveness worked. That if God held all our faults against us, weighed them and decided whether or not we were good enough now to make up for our pasts, a lot of us out here on the Triple Eight were in a world of hurt. We still have consequences for our sin, but they’re life consequences, not God ordained.”
His words lingered with Clarissa now. The talk of forgiveness so foreign. She hadn’t been sure she wanted God to forgive Tammy Jo for what she’d put them through. Hadn’t been sure she liked the idea of a God who let past sins go without retribution. The child in her who had stolen from others, conned everyone from politicians to pastors, the one who’d attracted the eye of Tammy Jo’s boyfriend and then been dumped on her grandmother didn’t want to think that could be wiped away so easily.
In the distance she watched the back door of the house open and Mackenzie scamper out and open the fence wider. Then she saw Paul pushing Moo out of Susie’s flowers.
The sight made her laugh, made her thankful for this time she’d had with the Dillons. The only real family she’d ever known.
As if her words conjured it, the sun broke through the clouds and a rainbow formed over the Dillon house.
Clarissa finished her biscuit and turned to go get ready.
Jed drove the truck up to the bunkhouse and prayed God would give him the words and actions to help Clarissa through this day.
But then Clarissa opened the door and his prayers changed to asking God to give him the strength to make it through the day. Clarissa wore a simple black dress that fit her curves perfectly. Her blonde her flowed across her shoulders. Black high heeled sandals showed her toes. She looked like a goddess.
“Clarissa sure is pretty, isn’t she,” Mack called from the back seat of the truck.
Jed swallowed before answering.
“She sure is, sport. She sure is.”
Fight for her.
This time when Jed heard the answer to his prayer, he resolved to do just that.
Jumping out of the truck he opened the passenger door for Clarissa. She said thank you, stepped inside. In her hands she held a small black bible.
“You look pretty in your dress, Clarissa,” Mack said. “Did you see the rainbow this morning? I bet it was your momma smiling down on us.”
“I bet you’re right Mackenzie,” Clarissa said, gripping the bible a little tighter.
“Now we both don’t got Momma’s,” Mack said matter-of-factly, and Jed’s heart constricted. Clarissa’s eyes cut to him, and he saw her worry.
“You’re right,” Clarissa said carefully, and he worried what Mack might say next. Before he could run interference and change the subject, his daughter powered on.
“You could be my next Momma, maybe. Then you could help me chase Moo outa Gram’s flower garden.”
For a heartbeat, silence filled the truck’s cabin. Maybe he and Mack needed to have a talk about appropriate types of conversation. If he lived through the mortification of this moment.
But then Clarissa smoothed everything over. “How about I help you chase Moo out of the garden regardless. At least until I move back to town.”
“You can’t move,” Mack said, and Jed wanted to add his approval to her words. “You might get glycema again. Or another tornado. And you’re my best friend.”
Clarissa wasn’t sure how to respond. She needed to say the right words. Words that wouldn’t give Mackenzie too much to hope for but wouldn’t hurt her either.
“I’ll still be your best friend when I move,” she said. “And I won’t have the hypoglycemia problem as long as I eat enough. And tornadoes are just part of living in Oklahoma.”
She tried not to look at Jed as she spoke. Looking at Jed made Mackenzie’s first words all too uncomfortable.
Fortunately, her answer seemed to appease the little girl.
“You doing okay?” Jed’s voice sounded deeper than normal, and she knew he’d been worried about where the conversation was headed.
She turned to him, tried not to think about being Mackenzie’s next momma. Not that Jed thought…“As well as I can be, I guess.”
“We’re here for you,” he said.
And she nodded because she didn’t want to say that was a serious problem.
When she walked into the church, Clarissa was stunned by the turnout for her mother’s memorial. Mrs. Norene and Lester Pyle, Miss Topkins, Doc Anson and his wife, Pete and Bev and Bev’s kids, The Rains family, José and the other ranch hands.
“There are so many people,” she said, surprised.
“This is Stearns, and you’re one of us,” Jed said.
At the front of the church a poster sized photo of Tammy Jo with Moo behind her stood next to an urn and several flowers, plants and wreaths. As she moved forward people offered hugs and handshakes, I’m sorries and we’re praying for you’s. The experience was surreal.
She sat in the front row and prepared herself for a funeral service of platitudes given by a man who didn’t really know Tammy Jo. Instead Pastor West stood and told an amazing story.
“I didn’t know Tammy Jo Dye until a short time ago when she made her way to Stearns upon seeing her daughter on the national news after our tornado. Some of you here might not know Miss Dye’s story, but if you do, you know she’d gone through a miraculous change recently. When she came to me to say she wanted to accept Christ, but she wasn’t sure she was worthy, I assured her none of us were, but he accepted us anyway.”
Someone said amen.
The preacher’s words surprised and soothed Clarissa. As the minister told stories about Tammy Jo that made people laugh, Clarissa couldn’t help but realize the people here had accepted her mother more than she had. But they didn’t know….Only, listening to the preacher it sounded like maybe some of them did know.
“Paul Dillon introduced Tammy Jo Dye to Jesus, just as he has so many other people in Stearns. He asked to speak a few words about her.”
Jed’s father walked up to the stage in jeans, a pressed white shirt. He held his cowboy hat in his hands.
He stood at the front of the church and cleared his throat before speaking.
“Tammy Jo Dye made no secret about her original reason for coming to Stearns. She came to swindle us if she could. Instead she fell in love with our city and the people in it. She loved her daughter, but she said she wasn’t very good at showing it. When I found her crying in a horse stall one morning, I thought maybe she’d had enough of the hard work, but that wasn’t it at all. She’d been mucking out a stall, and God convicted her fully. She knew she’d done wrong and wanted to make things better. For the last few days she’d struggled with forgiving herself, but she knew Jesus had paid the price and she was forgiven. I hope in her death others will come to know God. He changed Tammy Jo Dye, and He can change anyone if they’re willing to let him.”
Clarissa kept her eyes on the photo of her mother the whole time Paul spoke. But she couldn’t stop the tears from falling as he told the story that she’d read in her mother’s journal. She prayed her mother found the peace she’d searched for before her death.
One of the girls who’d worked at the church shelter with Clarissa stood to sing Amazing Grace and the pastor finished the service by reminding them all that if they wanted the Lord to be part of their lives all they had to do was believe.
Clarissa couldn’t help but wonder if it really was that easy.
After the service Jed picked up the urn and his parents told her they’d have all the plants delivered to the bunkhouse if she’d like or they’d keep them in their house. Susie Dillon gave her one of those digital photo frames with photos of her mother working around the Triple Eight. In all of them Tammy Jo looked happy. At peace. Her eyes looked tired, though. Like some part of her knew her body was shutting down.
These were the first pictures Clarissa’d ever owned of her mother, and she told Susie she’d treasure them for life. The anger she’d felt toward her mother might not be gone, but it seemed to be on hiatus.
Mackenzie went to Bev’s to stay the night, which left Clarissa awkwardly alone with Jed for the silent ride home.
He didn’t try to talk to her, and she was thankful for that as she watched the fields pass outside her window. When they got to the house, Jed didn’t give her a chance to walk down to the bunkhouse by herself. He drove straight to her drive and then stopped the truck.
The urn of her mother’s ashes wasn’t heavy, but Jed still carried it for her, placed it on the window sill above the kitchen sink facing the area the rainbow had been. Until she knew where to spread them, Clarissa figured that was as good a place as any.
She started to thank Jed, to say I appreciate you, but he beat her to the punch.
“Walk with me?” An unsureness she wasn’t used to from him sounded in the undertones of his voice.
She waited a moment, tried to hear the inner voice that led her but there was nothing. “I don’t know, Jed. It’s late and I’ve already taken up too much of your time….”
“Let me take you around to the places your momma worked. Let you see what she did. I know you tried to stay away. This can be a balm for your heart.”
An inner struggle played out in her mind. All the while she heard Mackenzie’s voice saying you could be my new Momma. She needed to get out of here before she hurt them all more.
But what Jed offered, the chance to connect with her mother now in this way…
“Okay,” she said kicking off her high heels and replacing them with boots before following him out the door.
Fight for Her.
Funny the voice in Jed’s head sounded a bit like Tammy Jo Dye.
Clarissa grabbed the stick by the front door. He’d obviously scared her with the snake comment earlier, which was a good thing, he figured, because in the heat the snakes were everywhere.
He held out his hand, and she hesitated before giving in. But she did give in, and that left him elated.
“You’ve been to the horse stalls, so you’ve seen the work she did out there.”
Clarissa nodded. “I still can’t get over the change in her. It’s like she became a new person.”
“She did become a new person,” he said, pushing the fence and letting her walk forward first.
Inside the stalls he pointed out the fresh paint and the signs Tammy Jo’d made for Blue and Flower. Blue’s sign was a plain blue board. Flower’s a painted sunflower. Mack’s handprint stained both. Mack had gotten a kick out of that for sure.
Next they walked past Moo’s pasture where Tammy helped fix fences. They kept walking after that, and Jed wondered if maybe he should’ve broken out the ATV.
“How far you taking me?” Clarissa asked, not worried, just curious.
“The arbor,” Jed said. “That’s where your momma helped us most.”
The sun was setting in the west, the direction they were headed.
“Hold up,” he said, and he helped her climb up to the top of a fence so they could watch.
Around them the sky turned brilliant shades of red, orange and pink. And then the sky went grey except for the barely visible tiny sliver of a moon, the two bright stars he thought were planets and the space station.
“Wow,” Clarissa said. “That was just wow.”
She sounded at peace.
“Wait until dark kicks in. You just think wow now.”
He jumped down and grabbed her waist to help her off the fence. Only he didn’t want to let go when her feet touched the ground. She looked up into his eyes and he saw the same longing there he felt himself.
She bit her lip, and he saw the question in her eyes. He wanted to pull her close, but while he came to the conclusion that a kiss was the answer they both were looking for, she stepped away and cleared her throat.
“So we’re going to the arbor?” she asked, her voice husky.
He took her hand in his and started up the small hill that would lead them to the area he wanted to show Clarissa.
“We’re going to the arbor’s edge,” he said. The arbor is huge. We’d definitely need ATV’s to get through.”
“Wait, you have ATV’s?” she said and stopped.
“Too late now,” he said, pulling her arm to keep her moving.
And then they were there. The 888 sign painted over the wrought iron fence a white washed gazebo with trumpet vine wrapped around the sides, a natural flower garden with new potting soil around the edges of gazebo.
Under the starlight he thought it might be even prettier than in daylight.
“My mother did this?” she whispered stepping forward, her hand to her mouth in shock.
“Your mother and José and some of the other hands. But yeah, mostly your momma.”
Clarissa’s heart broke. She’d thought…accused….
“I thought she was trying to turn your daddy into a philanderer. I thought…”
She reached the gate, pushed it open and sank to her knees beside the flowers. “I thought she was wicked and horrible, and I wanted her gone, Jed. I wanted her gone.”
And suddenly she couldn’t stop.
“I wanted her gone and now she is and it’s too late for me to tell her I see how she changed, how she was better, how she wanted to be different.”
She sobbed the words as her heart shattered and then Jed was kneeling beside her, pulling her into his arms.
“It’s okay, Clarissa. Your momma didn’t blame you. She knew what she’d done was too much. That it would take time. She knew, and she was determined to give you all the time you needed.”
She leaned into him, let him hold her her closer.
“You don’t understand. I hated her. You can’t imagine how much I hated her, Jed.”
“It doesn’t matter, Clarissa. She knew it would take time. That’s what she told us. That’s why she started working on this area. She thought it might take a decade to turn it into a place for weddings and such. She thought maybe by the end of a decade you’d be ready to forgive her.”
His words shocked her even more, made her feel even worse.
“I want to be ready, Jed. I want to forgive her now. I want to tell her I’m sorry, but I can’t. You have no idea. It’s killing me inside.”
And then she covered her face with her hands and sobbed because as much as she hated Tammy Jo for what she’d done to them, she loved her, too. Before it had been in spite of who she’d been. Now it was because. It was all too much.
Jed pulled her to his chest and whispered words of comfort.
“It’s okay, Clarissa. It’s okay.”
But she shook her head and looked up at him. “I’m not sure it will ever be okay again,” she said.
And then his lips were on hers in a kiss that stopped everything.
Once the kiss started, Clarissa wanted it to go on forever. She wanted to lose herself in its sweetness. Wanted to forget the pain of the last three days.
She wanted too much.
Jed set her away first, but the smile on his face spoke volumes.
“Clarissa, honey, we’ve got to stop.”
Instant mortification hit. “Oh my gosh, I’m so sorry,” she said, scooting away from him, but he stopped her with a hand on her knee, and she felt sparks all the way to the ends of her hair.
“No, don’t be sorry. I’m certainly not.” He sounded so offended at the idea she couldn’t help but laugh, which was quite the relief after the sorrow of the last few minutes.
“I guess we better head back,” she said and started to get up, but he stopped her again.
“Hold up. There’s one more thing,” he said.
And then he lay down on the ground and patted the space next to him. Indecision held her still for a moment before she realized this was Jed and he’d never do anything to hurt her.
She lay down on the ground in the crook of his arm and he pointed to the stars overhead.
And she realized once again that Jed Dillon was a good man. A good, good man.