“The answer won’t change in a week or in a year. We’re not interested in selling our land or our business,” Vicky said.
“We’ll see.” Carlton strutted across the floor with a wave over his shoulder. He passed Shane on the porch but didn’t even glance his way.
“Hey, did y’all know that m-man? I spoke to him and he didn’t even say a w-word. I bet the sweat from that fancy suit has m-messed up his hearin’.” Shane laughed at his own joke.
“He came to buy the diner, my house, and Nettie’s land,” Vicky said.
“Wh-what for?” Shane asked.
“Over a hundred thousand dollars,” Vicky answered.
“No, wh-what for as in wh-what’s he goin’ to do w-with it wh-when he gets it? Is he goin’ to start plantin’ strawberries?”
Vicky slapped the booth where Carlton had been sitting. “I didn’t even think to ask him that. It don’t matter, though. I’m not sellin’.”
“Phew!” Shane wiped his forehead with a laugh. “I’d sure miss this place if y’all sold it. W-wouldn’t never be the same without you and Nettie and Emily and—” He nodded toward Jancy. “And now Jancy.”
“And we’d miss seein’ all the folks around here.” Vicky clamped a hand on Shane’s shoulder as she passed him and went to wait on a couple who’d entered the café and were looking around to see where they should sit. “Jancy will take your order.”
“Just iced tea and a big order of fries, Jancy.” He raised his voice.
“Sweet?” Jancy asked.
“Yes, you are.” Shane grinned.
Jancy blushed, and Vicky smiled as she motioned for the couple to sit on her end of the diner and took their order.
“So you wantin’ to sell our little piece of heaven?” Vicky asked Nettie when she took the order to the kitchen rather than pinning it on the carousel.
“Last time someone came in here wantin’ to buy our place was the week before your mama passed away. Wasn’t interested then and time ain’t changed my mind,” Nettie said. “We’re goin’ to get hit hard here in a few minutes. Folks will be wantin’ to see the burned-up car and check out our new waitress. Your mama would tell us that fate brought her to us and that’s good luck.”
“I still hate summer,” Vicky said. “And it won’t even officially start for another month.”
“But we always get through it, don’t we?” Nettie winked.
Jancy turned around slowly in the middle of the bedroom. A four-poster bed took up a lot of space, though there was still room for a chest of drawers and a dresser with a big mirror above it, plus a dark-green velvet recliner in the corner. It even had a little table beside it and a lamp. She turned down the bed to find soft sheets and a fluffy blanket, all of which called out to her. But first she was going to have a real bath or a warm shower, whichever one was offered, because she had only had washups in gas station restrooms for a week.
She’d made forty dollars in tips that day. If the whole week was that good, she’d have enough to get her cell phone service back, and a week after that she could be on her way to see Minnette. Life was beginning to look up—at least a little bit.
She sighed as she set a small framed picture of her and her mother on the bedside table. It was the last one they’d had taken together. They’d been all dressed up for church on Sunday. Her father had griped about his job again all that hot morning. Her mother had held him off about moving that time until Jancy graduated, but it hadn’t been easy. He’d been drinking a lot more in those weeks up to the middle of May.
She’d felt so empty when they’d dumped her mother’s ashes from the crematorium’s wooden box. Her father had simply said, “She always wanted us to travel down this way so she could wade in the salt water. Well, now she’s happy.”
That was it. No poem. No hymn. No Bible verses. Elaine would have liked something scriptural said over her ashes, so Jancy had silently recited the twenty-third Psalm and added a few drops of salty tears to the water.
“Now let’s go look for jobs. We’ll have to sleep in the truck if we can’t get a motel that’ll let you do some cleaning to cover a room until we can get a paycheck,” her father had said that day.
She took her broken heart and the empty box with her to a cheap motel on the outskirts of Galveston and cried herself to sleep every night for the next week. When her father got his first paycheck, they moved into a trailer and she went to work at a fast-food place as a waitress. It was life, and there was no changing it back then.
Next she took out the stack of letters and cards tied with a faded pink ribbon. Those went into the drawer beside her bed except for the one marked with a small heart on the corner. She slumped down in the chair beside the window and opened it. Every first night in a new place she read that letter to remind her that her mother was with her no matter where the winds took her.
She carefully removed the lined paper from the envelope and held it to her heart before she unfolded it. Her lips moved as she read the all-too-familiar words.
My darling daughter,
If you are reading this, then I’m gone. When your father and I got married, I thought we’d settle down like most folks. He seemed to favor bigger cities and I didn’t care where we lived as long as we were happy. As you well know, he never could put down roots anywhere, but I’d vowed to stay with him through the bad as well as the good, and we did have some good times in our marriage. I loved him even if I didn’t love the nomadic way of life. But no matter where we lived, my mama wrote me a letter every week. When she died, the letters that she’d written to me over the years were such a comfort. Just seeing her handwriting and reading over her advice and feeling the love in her words have helped me so much. I want you to have that. There will be a letter for each major milestone in your life and a birthday card for a few years.
The happiest years of my life were those two that we lived in Pick, Texas. It was where I was raised and I got to spend that time with my mother. Even though your father is a wandering soul, I appreciate him staying there with me. Don’t fault him for what he does, Jancy. Some folks think the grass is greener on the other side of the fence. I hope that you don’t get too much of that in your grown-up life and, if you do, that you never get married. You and your loved ones will be miserable.
Please know that you are the biggest blessing God could ever give me. I chose this life. Maybe I was too young to make that decision at eighteen, but I made my bed and I’ll sleep in it—no matter how many times that bed has to change. But I want you to remember that choices have consequences and I’m sorry that you had to pay for mine.