The Darling Dahlias and the Silver Dollar Bush

“I didn’t feel like coming over last night, after Grady told me,” Lizzy said, trying to keep her voice steady. “And I’m sorry Mrs. Bennett gloated. But there’s nothing we can do about it. It’s happened, and Grady’s getting married, and we have to be nice.”


“Be nice?” her mother cried angrily. “Be nice? Elizabeth Lacy, you stupid girl, how can you say that word! That evil, evil man has dragged your name in the dirt, besmirched your reputation—not to mention mine! And you want us to be nice to him?”

“You and I aren’t having a baby, Mama,” Lizzy said patiently but firmly. “None of this has anything to do with me or you. And Grady didn’t mean to do what he did. It was an accident, like the time you hit and killed Mr. Perkins’ cow and he threatened to sue.” That was a low blow and Lizzy knew it, but she was getting angry, too. “People make mistakes and get themselves in trouble and have to pay a price. But it doesn’t mean that they’re bad or evil or—”

“You always were a silly, sentimental fool,” Mrs. Lacy said bitterly. “Just like your father.” She turned over to face the wall. “You’ll have to see them every day, you know. They’ll be neighbors. See how kindly you feel about it then.”

Lizzy frowned. “See them every day? What are you talking about?”

Her mother flopped over to look at Lizzy. “Ouida Bennett says Grady is buying the old Harrison house, just a block away from here. Put that in your pipe and smoke it, Elizabeth.” She turned back over to face the wall.

The Harrison house? Lizzy swallowed. For some reason, she hadn’t thought beyond the wedding. It hurt to picture Grady buying a house and living in it with his wife—his wife!—and their new baby. She should probably take a different route to work.

“If that’s all, Mama,” she said dispiritedly, “I’ll go back home and let you rest.”

But her mother wasn’t through. “You’ve lost your only chance at getting married,” she said in a muffled voice. “I told you to take it when it was offered. And now you’ve been jilted, for a teenaged Mann!”

A teenaged Mann? Those two words struck Lizzy as funny and she giggled.

“Laugh!” Mrs. Lacy snapped. “You’ll be laughing out of the other side of your mouth when you’re old and wrinkled and fat and nobody wants you.” With a storm of weeping, she pulled the pillow over her head.

Lizzy stood for a moment, trying to think of something to say that might comfort her mother. But it was obvious that she didn’t want to be comforted. She preferred to be miserable and to make her daughter miserable, too. Lizzy quietly left the room, shutting the door behind her.

Back in the kitchen, Sally-Lou had brewed a pot of tea and put slices of fresh-baked pecan-and-sour-cream coffee cake—a longtime favorite of Lizzy’s—on two plates. “I’s sorry to hear ’bout Mr. Grady,” she said softly, pouring the tea. “Do beat all, what folks’ll get up to when they think nobody’s lookin’.” She patted Lizzy’s hand. “But you’ll come out all right in the end, Miz Lizzy-luv. I knows it. I knows it.”

Touched by Sally-Lou’s use of her childhood nickname, Lizzy covered one of the dark hands with her own. “I know it, too, Sally-Lou. It’s hard now, and I’m hurting, but it’ll get better. For Mama, too.”

“For your mama?” Sally-Lou chuckled as she sat down on the other side of the table. “I don’ think so. I think she’ll go on bein’ all sour inside for as long as she can. And ever’ time she sees Mr. Grady’s mama, she’ll cross over on the other side of the street and lift up her nose and pretend she don’ see her.”