“Can’t say as I would turn one down.”
I grabbed a couple of beers from the refrigerator and passed one to Walter, who took a seat at the kitchen table. I uncovered the plate of cookies and sat it in the middle. “Bet you can’t stop at one,” I said, and pointed at the plate.
Walter picked up a cookie and took a bite. “Good Lord! That’s one of the best things I’ve ever eaten.”
“Ally.”
“The girl’s got a gift. If she packaged these, I would sell out in a matter of minutes.”
I nodded and took a bite of a cookie. The sandwich could wait.
Walter took a sip of his beer and studied me with a pensive look. A look that said he wanted to say something but wasn’t sure that he should. Because I liked Walter and respected him, I actually didn’t mind hearing anything he had to say, so I decided to make it easy on him.
“Any other reason you made the delivery?” I asked. “You look like a man who has something on his mind.”
“Yeah, I guess I do. You’re a sharp one, Fortune. I knew it from the first moment I met you. When you took up with Ida Belle and Gertie, I thought, Lord help that poor pretty thing. She has no idea what she’s getting into.” He narrowed his eyes at me. “But nothing they dragged you into seemed to faze you, so then I thought, maybe the girl’s made of tougher stuff than her mother alluded to.”
“My mother?” I felt a bit of panic rise in me. The real Sandy-Sue’s mother had never lived in Sinful and had only visited a handful of times decades ago, and never after Sandy-Sue was born. That was one of the reasons Director Morrow had thought this plan would work. No one knew Sandy-Sue, therefore no one could insist I wasn’t her.
“Yep. Ophelia was a pushy woman, but then I don’t suppose I’m telling you anything you don’t already know.”
He stared at me, and once again, the huge feeling of unease spread throughout my body. “No. I guess not,” I said.
“Came here to visit Marge when she was twenty or so…before she met your father. I was the young local catch back then, much like my nephew is now.”
I smiled. “I can see that.”
“Yes, well, Ophelia took a liking to me and I took to avoiding her. I had no interest in the woman. She was pleasant, but we both know pleasant isn’t exactly what does it for me.”
He winked at me and I laughed. “No. The last word I’d use to describe Ida Belle is pleasant.”
“It’s that fire that gets me. Strength and intelligence. Those are the sexiest things a woman can wear, so to speak.”
He blushed when delivering the “sexiest” part of the statement and I was charmed by him all over again. What the hell was Ida Belle thinking not marrying him? One of these days, I was going to pin her down and make her explain it to me.
“Anyway,” Walter continued, “summer finally ended, and Ophelia headed back north to finish college and met the man she would marry.”
“So you were off the hook.”
“On paper, it would seem that way, but that wedding band didn’t stop her from trying a bit more. She’d send me a letter now and then, talking about how unhappy she was and how her husband wasn’t at all the person she’d thought he would be.”
“That’s sorta mean,” I said.
Walter nodded. “I figure she married him because he was going to be a good provider. Her parents had insisted on college, but I don’t think Ophelia was interested in being a career woman. I think she wanted to sit inside all day and figure out ways to control other people’s lives. Like her only child’s.”
“Sounds right,” I said. It was a logical guess that Sandy-Sue had been overrun by her domineering mother just as I had been overshadowed by my hyper-successful father.
“She used to send pictures,” Walter said. “Pictures of her at the beach or sitting on the back porch next to her rosebushes. Then you came along. She stopped sending pictures of herself and started sending pictures of you…I got the last one ten years ago.”
I felt the blood rush out of my face. “Oh.”
“The thing is, I hadn’t thought much about it, but when I saw how you reacted to the messes you got into with Ida Belle and Gertie, it just didn’t gel with Ophelia’s complaining about having to push her daughter to do things. I think the phrase she used was ‘shrinking violet.’ So a couple weeks ago, I dug up those old letters and took out the photos.”
I looked down at the table, unable to look him in the eyes. I knew what was coming, and I had no earthly idea what I was supposed to say.
“I know you’re not Sandy-Sue,” Walter said. “Known it for a while.”
I sighed and looked up at him.
“I’m not looking for confirmation,” he said, “and I damned sure don’t want an explanation.”